Colony by Benjamin Cross (best way to read books .TXT) 📕

Slowly, Peterson yanked the top half of his wetsuit down, struggling against the skin-tight material. A heavily blood-stained bandage was wrapped around his waist.

As he lifted the dressing, Ava gasped and held her hands to her mouth.

The bullet hole itself was purple, black and oozing, and the whole of his mid-section had turned a deep burgundy, as if somebody had punched him repeatedly in the stomach.

“It’s infected,” Peterson said. “Truth be told, it’s a miracle I’m still breathing.”

“Dan, this must be so painful,” Darya said, dropping to his side.

He waved his hand weakly. “Can’t really feel it anymore. Whole body’s pretty numb.”

Ava knelt next to Darya and began trying to tend the wound. “You told us it was nothing!”

“It is nothing,” he replied. “You’re gonna be safe. That’s all that matters.” He grabbed her hands in his. “There’s nothing more you can do.”

She ripped her hands away and kept going, wiping at the crust of dried blood around his stomach with her sleeve. Patiently, Peterson took her hands again and held them tightly. “Like I said, I don’t want sympathy or forgiveness, Ava. I’ve done wrong and now I’m gonna pay the price. This is the right thing.”

“What if we take both vehicles?” she said, ignoring him and looking to Callum once more. “We can use the submarine to navigate and follow on in the hovercraft.” She pushed a hand through Peterson’s hair. “We can take you with us. You can get treated—”

“I wish it was that simple,” he said. “Thing is, the only doctors can help me are on the mainland, over a thousand miles away. Besides which, Nagurskoye’s about two hundred miles west, and that’s if you don’t have to dodge any ice floes along the way.”

“So?”

“So,” he motioned towards the hovercraft, “I doubt whether you’ll get any more than forty knots out of that thing, that’s forty-six miles per hour, give or take. And that means that if we left now and made full speed the whole time, it would still take us what? Four hours?”

“So what’s wrong with that?” Ava said. “Let’s stop talking about it and do it!”

Callum couldn’t take it any longer. He stepped forward and placed his hand gently on Ava’s shoulder. “Ava, Dan doesn’t have four hours. Even if he did, there’s nothing the medics at Nagurskoye could do for him.”

There was silence as the truth of his words sank in.

“What then?” she shouted. “We’re gonna just leave him here and save our own skins? You may hate him, Doctor Ross, but he saved us, remember? He got the three of us off that ship before it blew. He’s sorry for what he did, okay? We need to help him! Doctor Ross? Doctor Lebedev?”

“I started this whole thing,” Peterson told her. “No matter what monsters live in this place, Harmsworth is my creation. Doctor Ross is right. Everything you’ve suffered here is down to me. I need to see this one through.”

As if in response, a loud screech emanated from inland. Darya and Ava jumped to their feet as a chorus rang out in reply, and all four of the survivors stared back towards the top of the low bluffs around the cove.

“They sound far away.”

Another, louder chorus went up.

“Not anymore,” Callum said. “They’re getting closer. They must have our scent.”

Peterson: “You need to leave, now.”

“Dan!” Ava screamed, latching on to his hand.

He pulled her towards him and kissed her. Their lips lingered together, before another even closer bellow tore them apart.

“Ava, please, you’ve got to go.”

“We’re not leaving you!”

Darya took her arm. “Ava—”

“No!” She shrugged her off.

“Ava…”

“Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, Nam Myoho Renge Ky—”

There was a loud cracking sound.

5

Ava screamed and stumbled backwards. Her eyes wide with shock, she held her hands to her face. At her feet, Peterson went into spasm. His whole body tensed and shook violently. His jaw clenched and his eyes bulged. His hands were clamped tightly around the discharged harpoon gun, still aimed up under his chin.

When the sight finally registered, Callum could see that the bolt had pierced straight through the arc of flesh beneath Peterson’s jaw. It had travelled up through his tongue, through the thin stretch of bone forming the roof of his mouth and into his brain.

His paroxysm continued. The last of his blood coursed from the wound, spreading out over his chest in thick lobes; it trickled from the corners of his mouth as his body stole a last few breaths. Then he was still.

Ava screamed and threw herself down onto his body. The bottom of the harpoon still projected from beneath his chin, and in desperation she tugged at it. But it was lodged firmly, right where he had intended it, deep inside his skull.

Ava dry retched. Then she placed her head on his chest and wept.

“Ava, we’ve got to go,” Callum said. “I’m sorry, but we’ve got to leave him.”

When she still didn’t move, he had no option but to reach down and drag her up onto her feet. She screamed and struggled, elbowing him in the ribs. But he held on to her.

“Ava!”

She stopped fighting at last and looked around at him.

“Don’t let it be for nothing.”

Gradually, Callum loosened his grip on her, until she stood next to him, shaking but unaided. Then he bent down, removed Dan’s glasses and placed them on his chest, before gently sliding his eyelids shut.

6

There was no time to dwell on Peterson’s suicide. His sacrifice had been for them and now they needed to make the most of it. With the baying of the creatures in their ears once more, the survivors hurried out along the narrow spit of rock and clambered over into the submarine.

Callum slipped into the operator’s chair and quickly took stock of the controls. The console looked ten times more daunting than that of the hovercraft: a chaos of switches, dials, gauges, lights and levers, all centred on an angular steering wheel, like that of a race car. With