Colony by Benjamin Cross (ready player one ebook .TXT) 📗

wrapped around Ava Lee as she rocked back and forth, the same look of silent hysteria on her face that she’d had back in the emergency shelter.

“Lungkaju! Ava!” Callum flew across the room and threw his arms around them both. Lungkaju responded with his free arm, while Ava continued her rocking. “I didn’t think you’d make it… not before the mist…”

“We did not,” Lungkaju replied. “We were only half-way down the ridge when it came.”

“He carried me,” Ava piped up suddenly. Her voice was manic, her eyes fixed on middle distance. “He carried me,” she repeated. “Carried me…” She went silent once again and continued rocking.

“She is in shock,” Lungkaju said.

Callum knelt beside her and placed a hand on hers. She was in a bad way. Her face was smeared with grime. Her once neat, brown hair was now matted, dark with sweat, and her eyes were swollen with exhaustion and fear. Every one of the survivors was in the same boat. But he identified most with Ava. Like him, her life was one of middle-class comfort: hot showers at the end of a day in the field, financial security and intellectual gratification. Her greatest challenges were deciding between Claret and Beaujolais of an evening, deciding which journal to publish her latest paper in. Now here they were at war.

He squeezed her hand and spoke softly. “Ava?”

No reply.

“Ava, they display just like birds.”

For a while she carried on rocking, knees drawn up tightly to her chest, lips trembling. Then her eyes stumbled around to meet his. “They… they do?”

He nodded. “It’s beautiful. They mimic each other’s colouring.”

The faintest of smiles flickered across her lips. “You saw it?”

“First-hand.”

There was a sudden commotion at the other end of the bunker, and Starshyna Koikov marched over and threw open the door. A soldier, his body steaming, his face flushed red with exertion, fell through it into his arms. Koikov steadied him, and the two men engaged in an intense exchange.

“What’s going on?” Callum asked Lungkaju.

“That is Sergeant Marchenko. He says that the rescue helicopter will be here in half an hour.”

Callum let out a huge sigh of relief. “Thank Christ for that!”

“Thank the sergeant,” Lungkaju replied with a grin. “Without him we would not make contact.”

Callum reached out and stroked Darya’s cheek. Her skin felt freezing, so he removed his scarf and tucked it around her neck. “Did you hear that?” he whispered. “They’re coming for us. We’re going home.”

She made no response.

Through in Chamber 1, Starshyna Koikov brought his conversation with Marchenko to an end. He slapped the exhausted-looking sergeant on the back, almost sending him over. Then he turned and bellowed out an order. His words immediately upset what little routine had been established. All three chambers buzzed with renewed energy as the troopers began raking their equipment together.

Callum looked to Lungkaju. His hood drawn tightly around his chin, he appeared composed, still maintaining his vigil over Ava. She had now stopped rocking and her head rested on his shoulder. “We must get ready to leave,” Lungkaju said. “I will take care of Doctor Lee. You must take care of Doctor Lebedev. Can you do this?”

“Of course,” Callum replied. In fact, it was the only thing he was still certain of. Until they were dead or rescued, he would not be leaving Darya’s side. “Where’s the helicopter landing?”

“There is high ground to the west.”

“How far to the west?”

“A kilometre, no more.”

“A kilometre? But what about the creatures?”

“There is no choice, my friend. It is the safest place for the helicopter to land. We must trust Starshyna Koikov.”

Callum said nothing, just watched as Lungkaju removed his vodka canteen from his jacket and took a swig. His gaze traced the line of the brown, gently curving leather rectangle that he had first encountered in the Kamov on the journey from the mainland. The memory of the liquid’s burn at the back of his throat rushed back to him. He held his hand out. “May I?”

Lungkaju did not offer it up. Instead he slowly turned it upside down.

Nothing came out. Not a single droplet. Lungkaju looked slowly from the empty, upturned canteen to Callum. With a mournful look in his eyes he said, “I am sorry, my friend. There has been nothing for days. It is only…” He searched for the right word.

“Habit,” Callum said.

“Yes, but there is another word also.”

“Comfort?”

Lungkaju seemed to think about it. Then he closed his eyes and nodded.

Inside his pocket, Callum’s hand tightened around the quartz pebble. He went to speak, when a sudden hail of gunfire erupted through in Chamber 3, and both men rushed to the doorway.

One of the creatures had snaked its head through the east-facing rifle slit and seized onto a soldier’s arm. The man’s rifle had fallen to the floor and he was flailing his free arm against the creature’s face, screaming in pain.

“We’ve got to help him!” Callum shouted. He went to rush forward, but Lungkaju grabbed his shoulder.

“No, my friend. We will only be in the way.”

As he spoke, two other soldiers rushed to his aid. Seizing the creature around the neck, one of them stabbed his knife into the side of its skull, while the other pounded the bridge of its snout with his rifle butt.

Then another creature speared its head into the chamber and clamped its jaws around the knife-wielder’s throat. In one quick motion, it ripped its head back, tearing away the entire front half of his neck. Eyes wide with shock, the soldier slumped to his knees, jets of blood drenching his killer’s face.

The first creature still had a hold, and the second now tossed the lump of throat flesh aside and lunged for the captive soldier’s other arm. Working together, the two pulled backwards, attempting to drag him outside.

Koikov barged past Callum into the room, an inhuman rage twisting his features. Running straight past the carnage, he rammed a flamethrower out through the rifle slit. Seconds later the bunker’s interior was thrown into blinding relief as a