Tim Lebbon - Coldbrook

There was a slight change in the light beyond her eyelids. Someone was squatting beside the stretcher, she sensed them there, and when she looked a woman was kneeling beside her. She was maybe thirty, black, short and muscled, attractive in a wild sort of way, and Holly’s first thought was a surprising Vic would love her . That made her smile. . and the woman smiled back.

‘Wh-?’ Holly began. But the woman moved quickly, pressing two fingers to Holly’s lips and shaking her head.

Holly nodded her understanding and the woman took her hand away. She made several simple hand signals, one eyebrow raised. Holly shrugged and shook her head. The movement set the pain roaring once again. She cringed. The woman, appearing confused, pointed to the stretcher and to Holly. Then she stood.

Four of them lifted the stretcher and carried Holly across the top of the hill.

For the first time she was able to take in her surroundings. The tumbled building with Exit carved on one stone was gone, but it was possible that she was now further along the same ridge. She remained propped on both elbows, and they seemed unconcerned at what she saw, only what she said. Maybe they’re mute , Holly thought. Haven’t ever heard anyone speaking . It seemed likely, and that produced a feeling of disappointment that she could not shake. Had they really breached into a primeval world where language had barely advanced beyond a few hand signals? But she thought about the way the man had been shaping his hands again, the fingers splayed and clicking, and it seemed easily as advanced as sign language back on her own Earth. The stretcher was rough but serviceable, and their weapons had proved their effectiveness. Surely they were as developed as her.

Holly looked beyond the people to the landscape they were travelling across. The sun was fully up now, and if seasons matched between the worlds she judged it to be early afternoon. There was a light cloud cover that smudged the sun into a yellowed pastel shade, and streaks of colour hung low to the horizon like a forgotten sunset. They were beautiful, but disquieting.

On a hillside far across the valley, picked out by diffuse sunlight, she saw more ruins.

Holly squinted and shielded her eyes, her right eye throbbing with pain. She tried to work out exactly what she was seeing. It could have been an exotic rock formation, limestone corroded by wind and rain into elaborate and misleading shapes. But she thought not. There was an intimation of regularity, though some of the higher structures had obviously fallen, the remains of their walls pointing skyward and piles of broken masonry at their bases. It looked like a collection of structures that had been smudged by a giant hand, their sharp edges blurred and order destroyed.

Close to one wall sat the skeleton of what might once have been a car.

Holly wished she could go closer, but the people were heading down from the ridge into the heavily wooded next valley, and soon the ruin was hidden from view. Was that a car? she wanted to ask, because the possibility meant so much. One fallen building with an ‘Exit’ sign was puzzling enough but two fallen buildings, the rusted remains of a vehicle, bows and arrows, and shrivelled people rising from beneath undergrowth. .

She looked at the people, smiling as the short woman who had tended her glanced at her. The woman smiled back distractedly, scanning all around as they walked. The others seemed alert as well, including the two people walking on ahead who had to concentrate on their route. Apart from the four carrying her stretcher, everyone else constantly looked left and right, sometimes turning and walking backwards for a few steps as if expecting to be ambushed at any moment.

Holly didn’t know what this meant, but none of it seemed good.

She was amazed at just how silently they were able to move across the ground, and how quickly. Their feet were clad in leather, tied tight so that no loose flaps struck at the ground. They picked their way instinctively, avoiding loose rocks or fallen branches or twigs, and when they traversed a steep slope there was only the slightest whisper of undergrowth. Birds sang all around them, crickets scratched messages from their hiding places in tall ferns, something whistled low and continuously far away, and once Holly heard the patter of small, fast footsteps as an unseen creature fled the party. It was almost as if the land hardly knew that they were there.

The jacket worn by the man holding the stretcher’s front right handle had some sort of design on the back. It was a rough garment, its edges frayed and its seams held together by heavy stitching. Whatever was drawn on or sewn into the material had blended into it due to grime and time. Holly narrowed her eyes, squinting as a pulse of pain thrummed through her head once more, then looked away. She could not make it out.

The group paused abruptly and lowered the stretcher to the ground. Her carriers each unslung their primitive weapons — a bow and arrow, a crossbow, a short spear, a heavy spiked mace on a chain — and the several others arrayed around them hid behind trees or ducked into the waist-high ferns. The woman looked over her shoulder at Holly and held her hand out flat, pressing it down.

They waited like that for some time, motionless and silent. When Holly started feeling pressure on her bladder she closed her eyes and tried to will it away. She needed to pee but the feeling wouldn’t become urgent for a while.

A bird landed nearby, the size of a blackbird but with a dull orange chest and speckled white wings. One much like this had been killed by the eradicator and stored in the breach containment area, and Holly thought of Melinda and what had become of her. She’d been passionate about her work, and sometimes when they’d shared a drink and a chat together in the common room or each other’s quarters Melinda had been almost unable to contain her excitement about what they were doing.

She held out her hand, hoping that the bird might hop across to her. But it flew away.

One of the two men further ahead stood and ran, crouching, into the forest, disappearing in moments. No one reacted, or moved. The woman looked at Holly again and pressed her fingers to her lips.

Holly nodded, suddenly afraid. I want to be back in Coldbrook , she thought. And then a shape appeared through the trees higher up the hillside and slightly ahead of them. It might have been a ghost, a human figure standing motionless while the breeze made waves of its tattered clothing and hair. The hair was long and clotted with mud and leaves. Holly held her breath, and the moment stretched into a painful stillness.

The pressure on her bladder increased and she shifted position, her clothes scraping across the stretcher’s rough canvas. Her pulse thumped in her head and lit up the pain there again — and then she saw the shape’s head turn, as if sniffing the air. Then it started moving, slowly passing between the trees and swishing through the heavy green ferns, coming right at her.

A whisper in the distance, and then the shape fell with something protruding from its head. The man who had run into the forest minutes before emerged behind the fallen creature. When he reached where it had fallen he pulled a machete from his belt and hacked down once, hard. Then he came back down to them, following the same route that the shambling creature had been taking. When he was closer he held up one thumb — an amazingly human gesture, which produced a shocked gasp of surprise from Holly — and they set off once more.

I want Jonah , Holly thought, shivering even though the day was growing warmer. I want Vic . The pain in her head was growing into the worst headache she could remember, and she wondered whether the blow to her skull had damaged her more than she knew.