Colony Z: The Complete Collection (Vols. 1-4) (24 page)

“And why not? She’s destroying you, don’t you get it? You could’ve had a football scholarship, full ride to college, everything you ever wanted. And you threw it away. Practices, games, team events…you do the bare minimum and you’re happy to do it cause of this
girl.
What would your
father
have said…”

“Don’t talk about my father and don’t talk about her!”

The room was completely silent for a full twenty seconds after this. Hannah was close to tears, Owen’s fists were clenched, and Coach was breathing heavily on the other end of the line. Finally, someone said something.

“You better just not show up to that draft pick tomorrow, if you know what’s good for you, kid.”

“I didn’t even know the draft pick w
as
tomorrow.”

“How could you not know? All of the boys playing next year know exactly…”

“Who said I was ever intending on playing next year? Did I say that?”

Silence.

“…your father would have been so disappointed in you.”

“Yeah well, I hate to break it to you, Rusty, but my dad was a prick. And I plan to value my wife and my child more than he did. And obviously, more than you do.”

With that, Owen hung up the phone and stared into space for a while. He didn’t much care that Hannah was looking at him like he was an alien, and he didn’t care that all he could see was red and black. In fact, he didn’t really care that he only had one number left on his list of people to call for help. Owen didn’t really care about anything in that moment.

“Sweetheart…” Hannah whispered, stepping forward to touch Owen’s shoulder. “When were you going to tell me?”

“When the draft was over.” Owen replied, his voice strong but his head weak and spinning. “I figured I was making a statement enough by not showing up.”

“But why? Owen…why don’t you want to play anymore? I don’t want you to drop things that you love because of me…you know that…”

“I’m not doing it just because of you, babe. I’m doing it because I’m sick of the coaches, I’m sick of the game, and I never really liked it in the first place. I was playing for my dad, and that was about it. And, since I recently discovered that my dad is a raging idiot, I’ve decided to live my life the way I want to. And, Hannah, that doesn’t involve a bunch of football fans. That involves you.”

“…I love you so much, Owen.” Hannah said, before falling into his arms. She ran her hands through his short, blonde hair, and tried to comfort him. She could feel him shaking. Owen wasn’t generally an angry person…but when he got there, it wasn’t a place your particularly wanted to be.

Owen calmed himself for what seemed the billionth time that night and hugged Hannah close to him. He released her and saw the rain still pouring outside. Restored to his determination to get them out of there, Owen checked off the failures. His sister was sleeping, Coach was obviously out…

That left Owen with only one choice, and it was his most reluctant option. Henry, one of the football players at the school, was awake at all hours of the night, and would probably come to help simply for the joy of poking fun at the star football player. Even though he’d never really tell anyone, he’d probably hold it over Owen’s head for about the next ten years. Still, he was running low on choices, and Henry was his last real hope. 

Finally, someone picked up the phone.

“…hello?” The muffled voice came through the phone half-dead, and Owen knew he’d caught Henry in the middle of sleeping. He only felt bad for a brief second or two.

“Henry? Hey, listen Henry, I need a favor.”

“…Owen? Owen, is that you?” He could hear movement on the other end of the line, and he knew Henry was moving around, waking himself up.

“Yeah, man. Listen, I need you to come get me. I’m stuck out in the rain, and my car’s back at the fairground.”

“What the hell you doin’ at the fair at two in the morning?” Henry asked, his voice finally getting back to the way it usually was.

“Just…Henry, can you help me or not?”

“Is it
you
I’m helping…or is it someone
else?”
Henry took on a kind of knowing tone of voice, and Owen groaned out loud.

“Henry, yes or not?”

“Sure, man, I’m always here to help a brother out.”

“When can you get here?”

“Well, where are you?”

“City morgue.”

“Damn,
kid, what the hell you doin’ there?”

“Henry, don’t, okay? We got caught in the rain and…”

“We?
Man, I gotta see this. I’ll be there. But I’m gonna hafta wait for this storm to die down just a little before I can drive in it. Probably half an hour.”

“Okay…thanks, Henry.”

“Yeah, man.”

And the call ended there. Hannah looked at Owen, confused.

“Is he coming?”

“Yeah…he’ll be here in half an hour….look, he’s probably gonna ask a bunch of stupid questions and make you nervous. Don’t worry about him. He isn’t gonna say anything to anybody he’s just…he likes to tease people. He’s a good kid at heart, so don’t worry about him, okay?”

Hannah nodded slowly.

“We’re going to be stuck out here for half an hour, Owen. I want to know what’s been bothering you. And I want to know now. Because if this place worries you that much, we can go wait outside.”

“No, babe, no. It’s not that.” Owen said quickly. “It’s just that…”

Owen sighed, really not wanting to answer the question. He didn’t want Hannah to freak out and think that he didn’t know what he was doing, because he really did. He didn’t want her to think that he wasn’t brave or that he was stupid for coming in here…but he didn’t want to lie to her either. That was never a good thing to do to Hannah.

“Alright, fine.” He said, thinking hard before he spoke. “This place is usually full this time of night. Night is the best time for everyone in here to work because there aren’t any bodies coming in and they can work on filing and organizing what they got during the day. Most workers work the night shift…in fact, I’ve never seen this place empty like this. Not ever.”

“Well…it’s been a long time since you’ve been here,” Hannah said, trying to reassure herself as much as she was trying to reassure him. “I’m sure things have changed.”

“…maybe, Hannah. But I have a really bad feeling about this. The sooner we get out of this place the better.”

And Hannah couldn’t dispute the fact that she had a bad feeling too. It was quiet in this place, almost too quiet for comfort. And she believed him when he said that they worked at night. The best thing she could tell herself to keep calm was that they just didn’t have much work left to do and they all went home for the night. Honestly, what else could it have been? It wasn’t like they’d just left the place open on purpose for people to hide in. No, it was fine. Everything was going to be fine.

Again, it was silent for a while after that. Neither of them really knew what else to say. And each was scared that they would make the other more nervous by talking. So they didn’t.

Until the sounds came up from the basement. The banging and the crashing.
Then
they talked. In fact, Hannah screamed.

“What the
hell was that?”
She yelled when the sounds ceased. She jumped behind Owen, hiding herself from God only knew what.

“I don’t know, babe.” Owen said, holding Hannah behind him as he looked around the room. “It came from the basement.”

And then the sounds came again. Banging and kicking, and maybe there was even a scream in the madness. Owen had never dealt with anything like this in the morgue before. Whatever it was, it was loud. And it was trying to get out. It was like something out of a nightmare.

This wasn’t what was supposed to happen.

“Owen, let’s get out of here.
Please.
” Hannah whispered, almost crying. This was not how Owen wanted this night to end. Not even close.

But they were always taught, even as temps, that in emergency situations they had a certain protocol to follow. There was a reason they kept workers here at night. That way, if anyone ‘woke up’ from death, someone would be here to deal with it. There were always those stories about people who weren’t really dead, even when you couldn’t detect a pulse. Sometimes it was just so faint that they would be pronounced dead and brought here, only to wake up just hours later. These people could be dangerous, mostly because they were terrified out of their minds at the thought of being buried alive.

“Hannah…Hannah, what if there’s someone down there? What if someone is trapped down there?”

“Yeah, and what if there’s
something
trapped down there?” Hannah was shaking, and she couldn’t believe Owen was choosing now, of all times, to play Mr. Hero. “Owen, I really think we should leave.”

But he didn’t. No, Owen determined the best thing to do would be to run down to that room and make sure no one was hurt. It was in his nature to act as a leader and save someone if they needed it. Even when it hurt more than it did any good.

“Hannah, I’m going to go see if there’s someone trapped down there. You can come with me, or you can stay here and hide. I don’t mind if you do, but I would rather you be brave and come with me. What if we do save someone? Imagine what we could tell our kids then.”

“But what if we
die
down there? Imagine what we
couldn’t
tell our kids then.”

“Hannah…please.”

Owen look straight into his girlfriend’s eyes, and she knew this was the moment she was going to beat herself up over if she didn’t play it out Owen’s way. He would never quite forgive her if she stayed, and a small part of her wanted to be adventurous and go see for herself what was making all the noise. It was actually taking his hand and going that was the hard part. If something happened to her, the last thought running through her parents’ minds about her would be that she was a sneaky little liar, who snuck out when she wasn’t supposed to and didn’t listen to their advice. They would think it was Owen’s fault if she got killed.

But if anything happened to Owen and she wasn’t there…well, she didn’t think she could even deal with that and stay sane.

“…fine, Owen. But if something bad happens, I’m never going to forgive you.”

He might not have taken this seriously, but she meant it when she said that. She meant it very, very much. Because, if anything happened to them, they would never be able to tell anyone the truth about how they got there.

Owen reached out a hand, Hannah took it, and together they traveled through the shadows of the room to where Owen knew the door to the basement stood. He turned the knob, but it wouldn’t go. The door was locked from the inside.

Something crashed into the door, and it shook on its hinges. Hannah screamed and even Owen jumped. But he held his stance, and hid Hannah behind him.