Free The Colony: Descent by Michaelbrent Collings Page B

33
     
     
    Maggie did scream.  She saw the fingers, she must have.  Either that or the wall of bags
that Christopher had made, rippling like it was possessed.
    Only possession was
simple.  Just ghosts.  A little holy water, a stern-eyed priest with a heart of
gold and you were fine, right?
    This was something
far worse than mere demons.  Far more evil than anything the Devil might
conjure forth.
    Christopher
stumbled toward the moving luggage.  It wasn’t far to go in the confined space,
but it seemed to take forever for him to lurch up the slanting cargo hold.  He
wedged his foot against some bent metal, then pressed his back into the bags
the undead were pushing against.  His nose was swollen and crooked where Ken
had punched him earlier after being hit with one too many shots of adrenaline. 
His lips and chin and shirt were stained with blood.  He looked almost as bad
as some of the things that were trying to get to them.
    Only his eyes
betrayed his full humanity.  The zombies – undead or alive – didn’t have the
capacity for the kind of fear Ken saw in Christopher’s gaze.
    “Find a way out,”
said Christopher.  He grunted and grit his teeth as something bore down on him
from behind.  Luggage started to fall down into the hollow space around the
survivors like a slow-motion avalanche.
    Christopher threw
his arms out.  Trying to provide as much coverage as possible.
    One of his arms
went near the questing hands that had already broken through.  The fingers
grabbed his arm.  Clawed and raked at him.  Christopher cried out as the hands
pulled and pushed and scratched.  Ken heard tearing as the young man’s
shirtsleeve ripped.
    Blood started
dripping off Christopher’s arm.  But he didn’t move away.  Just let the things
dig into the meat of his body as though he was not only willing but absolutely
determined to serve as the hors d’oeuvre in the things’ upcoming feast.
    Ken heard the
others moving frantically.  Maggie and Aaron and Buck tossing suitcases left
and right, all stealth discarded in favor of speed as they searched for a way
out.
    Ken couldn’t move. 
He just watched Christopher.  Picked apart a single cell at a time.  He
remembered the things pulling apart the zombie that Aaron had pinned in their
way.  Wondered how long it would take Christopher to suffer the same fate.  And
saw in the other man’s eyes that he was wondering the same thing.
    But there was more,
too.  There was determination.  Christopher wasn’t going to move.  He would
remain there until he died, until blood loss forced him to fall.
    Another person
sacrificing a future for people he had never really gotten to know.  Like
Dorcas.
    And just as with
Dorcas, Ken could do nothing.  Nothing but watch.
    Then he felt hands
grabbing him.  Yanking him.
    He wanted to
scream.  Knowing the things must have found another way in.  But he had exhausted
the last bit of his energy calling out to warn the others.
    He had nothing
left.  No voice.  No strength.
    He saw
Christopher’s eyes.  Open wide and knowing what was coming.  Seeing the future
clearly.
    And not unhappy.

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    The fingers wrapped
around Ken’s stomach, his arm.
    He waited for the
bite.
    It didn’t come.
    Instead, the
fingers tightened around him and then pulled him away from the things he had
been laying on.  He saw that the thing that had jabbed into his back had been a
guitar case.
    For some reason
that seemed terribly important.
    Then the hands spun
him around and he was facing Buck.  The gray-faced older man was panting with
the effort of pulling Ken’s dead weight.  His eyes flicked over Ken’s
shoulders.
    “Go,” said
Christopher, and Ken could no longer hear the guy but could hear the strain in
his voice.  How many of the things was he holding back?  How long could he hold
out?
    Buck seemed to have
the same questions on his mind.  The big man hesitated, then began to put Ken
down.
    “Don’t!”