Coldbrook

12

‘He’ll be fine,’ Jayne said. She spoke through a haze of pain and the threat of unconsciousness, the simple act of talking sending vibrations into her chest that set her bones on fire and shivers along her limbs that seemed to crush her hands.

‘You can’t say that,’ Lucy said as if she was disgusted.

‘She can, Mommy. She knows.’ Olivia had sat up as soon as her father had left and was staring from the back window, even as they left the town uphill behind them.

‘She can’t,’ Lucy said, softer this time. ‘It’s just something that people say.’

Jayne gave the woman and her kid a smile, even though to smile hurt her cheeks. It was worse. Much worse. The churu had never been this bad.

Lucy was staring at her daughter and Jayne wondered what they’d been through already. There were billions of stories of pain and anguish on the planet today, but fewer every second. Zombies didn’t have stories — no past, no future. They were as far from human as you could get.

‘He’s a brave guy,’ Jayne said. The wind was roaring through the smashed windscreen, and now and then she thought she could hear those hooting calls.

‘I’m not sure what brave is,’ Lucy said. ‘He’s got guilt. He loves his family. And sometimes he loves someone else.’

Jayne opened her eyes a little wider and thought, Holly. She’d heard the way Vic had spoken to her over the phone, seen Lucy’s reaction, but back then she hadn’t put two and two together.

The little girl didn’t know anything about all that. Her Daddy had gone to help the kids, and Jayne had told her that he’d be back. That seemed to be enough for her, but there was no saying what she was thinking on the inside. Never was with kids.

‘Well. .’ Jayne said, not knowing how to respond. She shifted and bit her lip, breathing heavily against the churu coma that she felt rising. They need me on my feet. They need me able to-

Sean slammed on the brakes.

‘What?’ Marc snapped.

‘Bike.’ He looked back at Jayne and saw her pain. She grinned, breathing heavily through it. ‘Won’t be long,’ he said.

A motorbike roared uphill and skidded to a stop on the driver’s side.

‘Found the place,’ the biker said. ‘Looked from a distance — been a hell of a fight there. Dead soldiers all around, three Chinooks outside the compound, one burned out.’ He spat. ‘Still got the stink in my nose.’

‘How dead?’ Sean asked.

‘Very dead. Didn’t see any walkers. Where’s the bus?’ Several other vehicles had stopped behind them, and more bikes. ‘And where the fuck’s Chaney?’

‘Bus crashed in the town. Chaney, Vic and a couple of others stopped to help it,’ Sean said. ‘So the compound looks clear?’

‘Think so,’ the biker said, staring uphill, back the way they’d come. He scanned the rear of the car, eyes lingering on Jayne and her twisted limbs. She was curled up in pain and she hated feeling different, despised the way he was looking at her. But then she realised that perhaps he saw a saviour, not a cripple.

‘We’ll follow you down,’ Sean said.

‘Got you covered,’ Marc said. He’d set aside his laptop and picked up the rifle.

‘I think I saw the vent you were on about,’ the Unblessed guy said. ‘Cover’s off. We’ll park as close to there as we can, and one of us’ll go down, check it out. Anyone got flashlights?’

‘Dunno,’ Sean said. ‘Maybe we should worry about that when we get there.’ He pointed away from the road and across a sparsely wooded field. There was a dead horse, its corpse swollen, flies blurring the air around it, but that wasn’t what he’d seen. Beyond the field were the remains of several farm buildings, one of them a charred ruin, one partially collapsed as if something had crashed through it. And from the farm, half a dozen shapes had emerged.

The zombies spoke to the dead air and started to run.

‘Yeah,’ the biker said, but he wasn’t looking at the farm. He was pointing behind them.

‘What is it?’ Jayne asked, because she couldn’t bring herself to turn.

‘Lots of people,’ Olivia said, kneeling on the back seat. ‘Those people.’

The biker pulled away, and Sean drove off fast. He angled the mirror so he could look at Jayne, then shifted it again so that he could see behind them.

‘The others?’ Jayne asked.

‘Following. But still no sign of the bus.’

Jayne felt the churu coma circling her again. She tried to defy it, emitting a low, quiet moan as she struggled against the dark.

Someone took her hand, surprising her so much that she opened her eyes and sat up straighter. Pain roared through her, but she was used to it. She had lived with it for ever. She let it flood through her eyes and thud in her ears, and Olivia’s hand around hers, her smile, suddenly made things easier.

They passed around a low outcropping in the hillside. The road curved down into the valley, and there was the small compound that might be their new home. Its area was perhaps two acres and it had a few buildings, some informal gardens, parking areas, and a low level of security — fence planted with hedging to disguise it, single guardhouse at the gate. From this distance the bodies that the biker had mentioned were specks, the Chinooks toys.

‘That’s it?’ Jayne asked.

‘Iceberg,’ Lucy said. ‘Lots more below than above. Main entrance is that big grey concrete building, and a road circles down from there into the garage area. But we’re heading for one of the ventilation ducts.’

‘Why?’

‘Only way in. When it hit, Jonah locked down the whole place.’

‘Okay back there?’ Sean asked as he drove.

‘Yeah,’ Jayne said. ‘For now. But I’m not sure I’ll be able to walk.’

‘I could carry you,’ Olivia said. ‘Daddy says I’m the strongest girl in the world.’

‘He might well be right, kid.’ Jayne grinned, feeling herself pressed into the darkness. ‘Oh,’ she said, and her voice sounded very far away. Even the gunshot she heard could have been in another world. And then everything fell silent, still.

. . carry her. .

The voice was incredibly distant, echoed with the soft snap of gunshots.

. . go down first, I’ll follow, have to tie her on in case. .

Jayne raged against the churu and opened her eyes. She was sitting on the station wagon’s hood, Sean standing close to her with his back turned, and he was looking back over his shoulder.

‘Hey, Jayne,’ he said softly. ‘Marc is tying you to me, and I’ll carry you down.’

‘We’re here?’ She looked around at Coldbrook’s compound, and saw that close-up there were many more signs of everything that had gone wrong. Bullet holes pocked the buildings, windows had been blown out, and she could see three bodies. They were horribly mutilated, and wild animals had been at them. One of them had been torn open and its innards spread around. At least they didn’t move.

Past a low building, a length of the boundary fence and hedging was scorched and twisted, and beyond lay the gutted remains of a Chinook, its rotors slumped and its fuselage burned away.

Jayne leaned against Sean and rested her head on his shoulder, looking back the way they had come. Two of the trucks had been parked side by side across the gateway. She frowned.

‘Wasn’t there a Ford?’

‘That one didn’t make it.’

Zombies were running along the road that curved down the hillside and was obscured here and there by trees. The first few had already reached the low, hedged fence, and the Unblessed guys were walking calmly back and forth, shooting them as they started to climb. But there were many, many more.

‘The bus. .’ Jayne said, and then darkness took her again. She threw her arms around Sean’s chest and sobbed again when she felt his hands close around hers.

‘Back with us?’ Sean asked. His voice sounded different: echoing, yet deadened. ‘Don’t struggle. I’m climbing down the duct with you, but the ladder’s narrow. It’s dark. Only two torches. So just trust me, and-’

‘Of course I trust you,’ Jayne said. Rope rubbed the skin of her back raw, but it was a different pain from that of the churu and she clung to it. It was the pain of damage, not the agony she had lived with for so long. And when she felt a dribble of blood running down her side, she traced its journey, fascinated.

From above came the muffled sound of gunshots.

‘How long. .?’ she asked, her voice slurred.

‘We have to be quick,’ Sean said.

They descended further, and then there were more gunshots, this time from below. Sean stopped and leaned slightly out from the ladder, aiming a torch downward, and when Jayne looked she saw a deep, dark metallic throat maybe five feet across. The torch’s beam shook, and she could feel Sean’s sweat soaking through to her.

A head appeared below them, and she gasped. It’ll look up and see me, and know me, and then it’ll hoot and they’ll know where we are, and-

‘Is it clear?’ Sean asked.

‘Is now,’ the man said, looking up. It was Thomas, the guy they’d picked up at the roadblock.

‘You sure?’

‘Yeah. One of them, hanging on to the ladder. And. .’

‘And?’ Sean asked. ‘For fuck’s sake, and?’

‘And there are people down here with bows and arrows.’

Bows and arrows, Jayne thought. She closed her eyes and rested her head against Sean’s damp back.

‘We’re not out of the woods yet.’ He started climbing down again, and she could feel him shaking.