by Tim Lebbon
Elsewhere, all they heard was the sound of white noise.
4
Holly pressed her hand to her wound. She had never felt so hopeless. She sat in Secondary and scanned Coldbrook on the cameras that were still working; there was no sign that Moira was still there. And why should she have been? She’d stayed behind for long enough to put Holly out of action, then fled back through the breach to her own wretched world.
Holly had never found it in herself to trust Drake fully and at the time she’d put it down to the distance between their lives. Now she wished she had trusted herself. Because Jonah was dead, and she herself might well be dying. The dressing she’d found in Secondary’s first-aid box was already soaked through, and blood was pooling on the concave stool she was sitting on. Her behind was wet from it. Her vision was growing fuzzy. I’m losing too much, she thought, and decided to look at last.
Holly had always been terrible with blood, especially her own. Now she could smell it on the air. She groaned and the sound came from very far away.
But there was too much left to do for her to die. If she bled to death, Vic and the others might never make it inside alive. She had to make Coldbrook safe. Warn them, at least. Find out what route Vic had taken to escape, whether he’d left it open and if it was now a way for the furies to get in.
So she bit her lip and looked, dropping the sodden bandage and examining the wound. The knife had slid in just above her hip, perhaps skimming across her pelvic bone. She had no idea how deep it had gone, but the blood was still flowing freely. It was a neat incision.
‘Not too bad,’ she said, but she couldn’t know that for sure. She rummaged in the first-aid box and found another dressing. Pressing it hard against the wound, she tried to remember everything she knew about dealing with injuries like this. It all came down to one thing – she needed a hospital.
‘Shit outta luck,’ Holly whispered. On a wall screen in front of her a pale shape moved along a corridor.
She held her breath. Looked again. Two people she used to know were wandering aimlessly, covered in dried blood. On her way out, Moira had taken the time to open some doors.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Oh, you bitch.’ She glimpsed the satphone on the floor by the door. She’d thought it was safe in her pocket but it must have dropped out during her tussle with Moira. All she had to do now was reach it.
It took a couple of minutes to slip from the blood-drenched chair and move across to the phone. The wound hurt like fuckery, but Holly reached the door without fainting. She leaned against the wall and slid down it slowly, dropping to the floor and crying out as the wound flexed. Blood pulsed over her hand. Got to keep still for a while, let the bleeding ease.
She dialled Vic, suddenly desperate to hear his voice, to hear any voice. From the corner of her eye she glimpsed movement on the screens again, but this time she didn’t look. The idea of seeing this blasphemous mockery of death made her feel sick – she might be dead soon herself. But she had plenty of fight in her yet, and a powerful rage against Drake and Moira. And if Jonah—
‘Jonah!’ Vic’s voice said. ‘Jesus Christ, where the fuck have you been?’
‘Don’t blaspheme,’ Holly said, smiling despite herself.
‘Holly . . .’ Vic said. She could hear background noise, wondered how close they were. They should have arrived by now, surely?
‘They tell me Jonah’s dead,’ Holly said.
‘What?’
‘He went through with Drake. They left a woman with me to fix up Coldbrook. She’s called Moira. And she told me they’re using Jonah to hit back at the Inquisitors.’
‘The what? Holly, I don’t know what you’re—’
‘Moira left, and she let furies out on her way. It’s not safe down here any more, Vic. They’re loose in Coldbrook, and I’m not sure I can . . .’ She sobbed.
‘How many are there?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. Two, at least.’
‘We crashed,’ Vic said, lowering his voice. ‘Pilot died, but the rest of us are okay. We’ve picked up a car and we’re driving to you through the mountains.’
‘How far away?’
‘Hundred miles. Bit less.’
‘Right,’ Holly said. Right, a hundred miles, a few hours barring any hold-ups. ‘Okay. Can you get back into Coldbrook the same way you got out?’
‘I think that’s for you to tell me.’
‘You still have the immune girl, and Jonah’s friend?’ she asked.
‘Yeah,’ Vic said. ‘But he says it won’t be—’
‘Don’t tell me he can’t do it, Vic,’ Holly cut in. ‘We’ve got a chance to stop the infection, and that’s all that matters. You hear that? Close the breach, save the world. The girl and Marc, they’re all that matters. Now tell me how you got out, and I’ll do my best to get you back inside.’
‘What about the zombies that the woman let out down there?’
‘Yeah. Well.’ Holly looked at the open cabinet from which she’d grabbed the first-aid box. There was still a pistol and a shotgun in there. ‘You’ll have to leave that with me.’
They talked, and planned, then Holly stood and ripped off her loose Gaian dress. She tied it tightly around her waist. She used scissors from the first-aid kit to cut off one of her trouser legs, folded it, and packed it hard against her wound, tightening the dress some more. It was temporary, but she only needed it to last until she could find some proper clothing and a bigger bandage.
Then she’d get Vic and the others into Coldbrook, and whatever happened after that would not be in her hands.
5
Jonah stepped between worlds, and from the first moment it was clear that this breach was different. It felt stranger. The flood of memories assaulted him, and he’d been braced for them, but these memories were also different, though it took him a while to realise why. He saw Wendy sitting by a river reading a book, constantly brushing the hair from her eyes. Then she was walking through a small valley town in Wales, a few years older, her hair now gathered in a functional ponytail and her hands gripping heavy shopping bags. He smiled at her and she smiled back absent-mindedly, soon looking away. Then she was in a car, sitting at traffic lights and tapping one finger on the wheel. She stared into the distance, and she was in the car alone. When she glanced his way it was a quick look, something inconsequential, and Jonah wanted to reach for her . . . but these were not his memories. He was seeing the love of his life, but through strangers’ eyes.
The pull of Gaia grasped him as he walked forward, stretching his skin, tugging his hair, and he thought he was trapped in a particular moment, ripped apart and smudged across this veil between realities. And then he staggered forward into another Earth, and the first breath he took cleared every vision from his memory.
He’d emerged into a high-ceilinged, cathedral-like building. Bright moonlight came through a ragged hole in the roof high above him, reflected from what seemed to be broken hanging mirrors and chandeliers. The structure rose and curved inward to enclose him like a giant shell, its extravagantly painted ceiling faded with dust and time. The breach was resting within a circular stone wall. He climbed a small set of steps and mounted the wall, and the true size and grandness of the place struck him.
He’d been in some of the largest and most beautiful cathedrals in Britain – York Minster, Lincoln, St David’s – but this place was easily three times their size and it took his breath away. Birds flew in its upper reaches. Plants sprouted from ledges and cracks in the walls. Three-storey-high windows had been smashed, and where any glass remained it was heavily obscured by dust or mould. He was afraid to move, in case the echoes of his footsteps came back at him. He took in a breath, and let it out again in a slow, amazed exhalation.
Then he noticed the statues. They stood in alcoves at floor level all around the building. Many were hidden by shadow, but where moonlight touched some their features were evident. He had seen their likeness before, deep in Gaia’s Coldbrook where that wretched
creature was kept.
Jonah descended the steps from the breach’s containment wall, passing tangles of technology – round containers, wires, and a scatter of circuits spilled across the floor – and sensed movement in the distance. His heart thudded, and he pulled the pistol from his belt and flicked off the safety catch. He still felt vaguely foolish holding a gun.
After a pause he moved on – and then he saw the Inquisitor. It was standing among a spread of chairs and desks, apparently set around the breach at random. Many of them were broken now, or perhaps rotted down into disrepair, and the Inquisitor seemed unaware. It was concerned with nothing but him.
Jonah put his hand in his pocket and held the soft round object. Then he turned and ran.
He was surprised to find that the building’s door was made of heavy wood with metal crosspieces, just like a church door at home. For these people, perhaps their breach had been a god, encased in a building of devotion and worship.
‘It is required that you accept.’ The Inquisitor’s voice echoed, but Jonah didn’t even turn around.
‘Fuck you!’ he shouted. Outside, a shadow rose within a mass of brambles. Not the Inquisitor. Jonah paused, lifted his gun and fired. The shape fell out of sight.
Moonlight revealed the landscape to him. Low-lying buildings dotted the surroundings like stone igloos, their curved roofs reaching down to the ground, and tall poles rose high above them. They supported complex frameworks of wire and mesh, and he thought they must be aerials. They might have looked like Neanderthals, but the people who had lived here had been at least as advanced as him.
Jonah wanted to stay to discover more, explore the remnants of this Earth’s art and culture, their amazing architecture, the sad story of their demise. But another shadow was coming at him now, long-armed and heavy-shouldered, shambling, and he waited until it was close enough before putting a bullet through its forehead.
Something tugged him onward, and the building behind forced him away. His skin tingled. Perhaps the Inquisitor was exerting some repelling influence on him . . . but he thought not.
He thought it might be another breach.
Sad at everything he was missing here, Jonah started to run. ‘Not yet, you bastard!’ he shouted again, wondering how long it had been since words were last spoken here.
Other worlds beckoned.
6
The car stank of unwashed bodies – and fear. No one seemed to care. They wound the windows down and breathed in the fresh mountain air, and Vic didn’t understand how the views could still be so beautiful. Wasn’t the world stained now? Wasn’t it tainted? It took him a while to realise this was not the case at all. Humanity was stained and tainted. The world was doing just fine.
Jayne was sitting behind Sean, leaning against the door and groaning in pain. Whatever weird disease made her immune – and she’d shown him her bite, wet and infected but not deadly to her – he wasn’t sure it was anything better. She was a pretty girl aged by her disease, face drawn and eyes pale with the knowledge of pain. She’d told them about the boyfriend she’d lost.
They passed people both living and dead, most of them still walking. The living would be at the side of the road, waving them down for help, shouting, begging. But everyone in the car knew they could not stop. They had no more room in the vehicle. Many people carried guns, and several times Vic heard shots behind them when they passed by, and once something struck the vehicle’s wheel arch like a sledgehammer.
There were many dead wandering this part of the Appalachians. They sometimes saw them on the slopes, sad pale shapes moving aimlessly until they saw the car, even though sometimes they might be a mile away. Others had remained close to the road. Marc called a warning whenever the station wagon was about to hit someone, and usually there was time to cover Olivia’s eyes. Usually, but not always. His daughter had stopped crying, and Vic hated what that might mean.
An hour into the journey, and maybe halfway there, they saw a roadblock on top of a ridge. Marc stopped the vehicle.
‘No way to go overland,’ Marc said.
‘Sure it’s a roadblock?’ Sean asked.
‘The road’s blocked,’ Marc said, his words slow with sarcasm.
‘Yeah, but is it intentional?’ Vic said.
Marc tapped his fingers against the wheel. ‘Why bother blocking the road? Zombies don’t drive.’
‘We could go back,’ Lucy said. ‘Find another way around. Somewhere safer.’
‘Nowhere’s safe,’ Jayne said. Vic had thought she was asleep – her eyes were still closed.
As Marc edged them forward again Vic let go of Lucy’s hand and pulled the M1911 from his belt.
‘Let’s not look too threatening,’ Sean said. He lowered his window and leaned his arm outside, casual, cool. ‘Vic, keep your piece handy. But out of sight. Marc?’
‘I’m just the driver.’ In the mirror, Vic was amazed to see Jonah’s old friend smile.
They rolled to a stop fifty feet from the roadblock. A couple of big trucks had been parked nose-to-nose across the road, and whoever had done it had chosen the place carefully. Rocks on one side and a ditch on the other made passing impossible.
A man emerged from behind the truck on the left: short, long hair, a gun in his hand. There was movement in the ditch to their right, and Vic saw three faces peering up at them.
‘You got any food?’ the man called.
‘I’m hungry,’ Olivia said, reminded of her rumbling stomach.
‘Nothing,’ Sean shouted back. ‘What’re you doing hanging around—?’
‘My family’s hungry,’ the man said. ‘Can’t go to the towns. Can’t go to houses. They’re everywhere. And I can’t call anyone, the goddamn phones don’t work. And we’re starving. So . . .’ He lifted the gun and aimed it at the car. ‘So get out, hands up. And—’
‘We don’t have any food,’ Sean said.
‘Thomas!’ a woman said. Vic tried to see past Sean and Marc but he wasn’t sure where the voice had come from.
‘Thomas,’ the woman repeated. Sean opened his door and slipped out, lifting his gun and pointing it at Thomas’s face.
‘Oh Jesus,’ Lucy whispered.
Vic wanted to get out but he was trapped between his wife and daughter on one side and Jayne on the other. He reached past Jayne for the door handle, and Marc hissed like an animal.
‘Stay inside!’
The two men pointed guns at each other. In the ditch, the three faces stared, terrified.
‘We’re not infected,’ Sean said. ‘And we have someone very important with us. Someone who might be able to help stop all this. We’re going to somewhere in the mountains, an underground bunker called Coldbrook, where it’ll be safe. There’ll be food and water and shelter for you and your family.’
Thomas held the gun as if it was hot, and Vic thought he’d probably never fired it before. It took only a few seconds for him to lower it, and from somewhere behind the trucks the woman called out a third time, startled and scared: ‘Thomas?’
‘Good,’ Sean said. He kept his gun raised and stepped forward, and for a second Vic thought he was going to shoot the man in the face. Then he’d kill his wife and kids and steal whatever they had, because survival was the only law now.
But Sean paused again. ‘One of those yours?’ he asked, nodding at the trucks.
‘Both.’
Sean nodded and lowered his gun. ‘Bring the one with the most fuel. Follow us.’ He clapped the man on the shoulder, then returned to the station wagon.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Vic muttered as Sean slammed his door closed again.
‘Nope,’ Sean said, ‘just some dude who doesn’t know shit about safety catches.’
They headed off with Thomas and his family following on behind.
Marc got out next time and talked to the people they saw, a group of three teenaged boys walking along the road and, amazingly, still alive. They carried automatic weapons and when he returned to the station wagon Marc said tha
t the boys had been using them against the zombies. They joined Thomas and his family, sitting in the truck’s bed.
A car, eight bikers from a gang called Unblessed, a bus with several adults and twenty kids, more walkers. They found some of them stationary, parked on or just off the road and waiting for something that would never come – or fearing something that would. They passed others going in the opposite direction and flagged them down; some stopped, some stepped on the gas.
And Vic began to feel that this was something good. Once inside Coldbrook they’d be somewhere easy to defend, and from there Marc could start his development of a vaccine or cure. With luck the food and water would last.
As they advanced towards Coldbrook and the convoy grew they saw more and more movement in the hills. Several times they passed zombies stationary by the roadside, and with the vehicle’s windows down they could hear their haunting calls. They did not stop.
They moved south-west, parallel to Route 81 but sticking to minor roads. There was a general agreement that to hit the highways would be a bad idea. And, as the afternoon wore on, Vic gained a sense of their wider surroundings and the stories unfolding around them. The people they picked up either lived close by or had fled to the mountains from surrounding cities and towns, believing that the wilds might be safer. Most of them told tales that proved this was not the case. Many had lost family – brothers, parents, wives, children – and they wore the haunted, often hopeless expressions of refugees.
Vic knew that the zombies could not follow on foot, but the larger the convoy of survivors grew, the more he came to fear that news of their existence was being broadcast. The few times they stopped, he climbed from the car and heard a gentle hooting in the distance. It might have been a breeze in the hills.