Colony Z: The Complete Collection (Vols. 1-4) by Luke Shephard Read Free Book Online

was cast. He seemed cold, calculated, and was followed by the others. Though he had no complex thought processes, he knew what it was he wanted from the humans inside. The Lennie of the group could not even hope to know this want.
                 
    Regardless, the zombie cast in the part of the slow and thick Lennie was both slow and thick himself. He was also the largest zombie any of the surviving humans would ever see. Standing at over 6 feet and two-hundred and fifty pounds of sheer steel muscle, there was no other walking dead like him.
                 
    The two companions reached the gate in anticipation of their new cadaver. Lennie let out a war bellow that, to a human, would have sounded a thousand times worse than the most horrible thing they had ever heard. It was the sound of change, the sound of war, and, to the survivors, the sound of death.
                 
    They were coming.
     
                 

It was Michael who heard the demonic yell from the dead plotting outside the gate. The three year-old boy awoke with a scream, but could not tell his wondering mother why he was so upset.
                 
    It was Judith Marie who really began the fear when she awoke across the room with more than just a yell, but a shriek of pure terror. Hannah could not calm her.
                 
    “Owen,” Hannah begged, shaking her husband awake. “Get up. Please get up. Something’s wrong.”
                 
    Owen had always been a light sleeper, and tonight was no different. He shuddered awake from one of his recurring nightmares and sat up quickly.
                 
    “What’s wrong?”
                 
    “There’s something out there, Owen.”
                 
    “There’s always something out there, Hannah,” Owen consoled her, taking the sobbing Judith Marie into his arms. But, for once, she would not quiet. “They can’t get in.”
                 
    But Owen didn’t quite sound like he believed it tonight.
                 
    “Please, Owen. Did you do the perimeter tonight?”
                 
    “Of course I did. What makes you think…”
                 
    A scream came from a floor down. Phillip and his wife slept directly below them, and the poor woman sounded terrified. It was in this moment that Owen realized the truth behind his toddler’s tears.
                 
    “Owen!” Hannah yelled at him expectantly.
                 
    “Take the children and get to the safe room.”
                 
    “But, Owen…”
                 
    “NOW!”
                 
    Hannah, with tears in her own eyes now, took Judith Marie in one arm and snatched the half-asleep Michael in another. She tried to calm them, but her own sense of panic was overpowering her ability to comfort anyone else. She was scared not only for her own life, but for her senseless husband and her children. If anything were to happen to them, her own point of living was completely gone. She needed them.
                 
    The safe room was basically a metal box with about twenty steel locks that the school used to use as a freezer. Owen had made some basic adjustments, but all of the members of the colony could fit inside. It didn’t occur to her until she began running down the quiet hallway that no one else knew. What right did she have to leave them to their fate?
                 
    But her children were more important. Hannah’s arms were close to failing her. She set her son on the floor and begged him to awaken himself enough to run with her. He tried his best. They trampled down the stairs toward the cafeteria. Still no one else awakened.
                 
    “Please, God, please,” Hannah begged as she ran. “We’ve come so far now.”
                 
    So far, no walking dead approached