Tim Lebbon - Coldbrook

Sean checked the aircraft three more times before declaring it clear.

They sat together, drinking orange juice and eating cold chicken curry, and then Jayne raided the First Class kitchen and found the drinks store. They cracked open a bottle of wine. They said little, because they could still hear the sounds of chaos from outside. Looking across to the aircraft they had abandoned, they saw that both starboard doors had been closed, and now and then they could make out vague movement inside. ‘Survivors,’ Sean said, but Jayne could only imagine the alternative — that they’d somehow locked all the doors without realising that the contagion was inside, and now it was an aircraft filled with zombies.

Sean tried his cellphone constantly but he could find no signal.

Their aircraft had been stocked and prepped for flight. The seats were neat and tidy, kitchen lockers filled with ready-meals waiting to be warmed, and Sean said the fuel tanks were probably full.

‘Don’t suppose you know how to fly a 757?’ he asked.

They’d finished one bottle of wine and started on a second before Jayne asked him to finish his story.

Sean looked at the gun on the small folding table he’d brought out of his seat. He rubbed his glass back and forth across his lip, then drained the red wine in one swig.

‘Does it matter any more?’ he asked.

‘Sure. You saved me. It matters to me.’

‘But why’d you want to know?’

Jayne shrugged, because there was no clear answer to that. ‘My granny told me never to trust a man with scars.’

Sean touched his cheek. ‘I was a cop in New York,’ he said at last. ‘I saw the towers come down, felt pretty hopeless. I’d put my years in, so I handed in my notice to become a sky marshal. Felt like that was taking action. Stupid, maybe.’

‘Not stupid,’ Jayne said. ‘So is that how you got. .?’ She touched her own cheek.

Sean snorted softly. ‘Last week on the job, some drunk in a Greenwich Village bar took a swing at me. Still holding his glass.’

Jayne couldn’t think of anything to say to that. Shitty luck, pure and simple.

Sean glanced around for the wine bottle, poured some more, and then paused. In the distance an aircraft’s jets roared.

All the time they’d been hidden away no other aircraft had landed. Last one out of Knoxville, last one back to Hell , Jayne had quipped. They had seen fires in the distance, watched blood-covered people rushing across the airfield, and there had been a series of explosions from the main terminal.

Now came a sound more familiar to airports.

‘Jesus!’ Sean said, darting to the window. ‘Pilot must have survived.’

It was the aircraft they’d come in on. It taxied away from them, one emergency chute still hanging deflated from a rear door. Its big wheels passed over one of the prone shapes beneath it.

‘Maybe he locked himself in the cockpit,’ Jayne said.

‘Or the survivors have had a vote. Not much to stay here for.’

‘Didn’t the stewardess say they were flying on fuel fumes?’

‘Yeah,’ Sean said.

They watched, standing side by side. Five minutes after firing up its engines, the plane powered along the runway and lifted off. It climbed quickly, tilting its wings and catching the rays of the sinking sun as it headed north.

‘Canada?’ Jayne said.

‘Maybe.’

They moved to the other side of their aircraft to see the escaping one climb away. It was little more than a diamond in the sky, reflecting the tired yellow of late-afternoon sunlight, while Sean went to find another drink.

And Jayne could not breathe as she watched the aircraft die, a falling star, barely visible as it plummeted into the hazy distance. She did not see the impact, and she turned away as Sean returned and asked her what was wrong. She told him.

‘Fumes,’ he said.

They opened another bottle of wine.

Every minute I’ve been out of it , Holly thought as she came around. Every minute, every second, it’s getting worse . The scenes that she had seen in the casting room flashed before her again and again, and before she opened her eyes she saw a parade of dead children and bloodied, blank faces.

Drake Slater was sitting beside her as she surfaced. The fainting fit pulled away quickly, her senses returned, and she realised that she’d received a far lower dose of whatever had knocked her out than she had last time.

‘Nice way of greeting a visitor,’ she muttered.

‘Sorry,’ Drake said, not sounding like he meant it. ‘We’ve grown used to looking after each other.’

‘And you drugged me because I was losing my temper?’ Holly sat up on a cot bed. The room around her was sparse and functional She ran a hand through her knotted hair, wishing for a brush, some shampoo. She was beginning to understand why the people here wore their hair short or in tight braids.

‘Moira heard you say “God”.’

‘Oh?’ She’d already clocked their aversion to the G-word.

‘We’re people of science. But that doesn’t mean we don’t fear the Inquisitor.’

Holly remained silent, hoping that he would continue. And he did.

‘I’m as convinced as I’ll ever be that you’re telling the truth, so. . I suppose that now it’s safe to tell you. There are those who believe that because some of us survived, the Inquisitor will return one day.’ He smiled, with little humour in his expression. ‘It’s the opposite of the old Jesus legend.’

‘This Inquisitor — it’s a legend?’

Drake shrugged. He seemed suddenly nervous again, evasive. So Holly tried another tack.

‘You cast God aside so easily?’

‘Easily?’ Drake asked. ‘Not easily at all, as far as I’m aware. When I was a child God was a comfort to many, though not all. Much like in your world, I suspect. My father was a true believer but, since the Furies, God has been down there with them. And any mention now is an offence.’ He shrugged, at the same time trying to smile.

‘Just because this happened doesn’t mean that He doesn’t exist,’ Holly said.

‘Perhaps in your world. But keep it to yourself. There are people here who’d attack you if they heard that, and some who might even kill you.’

‘I don’t understand.’ Holly shivered.

‘We believe the End was God’s fault,’ Drake said. Holly snorted, but he continued. ‘That’s what most of us believe. It’s what the Coldbrook journals tell us — that the Inquisitor was a servant of God, and it came through to ensure that the Fury plague took our whole world. It oversaw our demise, and then took Coldbrook’s chief with it. To another new world. A new Inquisitor to continue spreading the disease.’

‘The Inquisitor sounds like a ghost.’

‘Most people believe in it.’

‘And what do you think?’

‘I think God was as much to blame for the Furies as he was for a hundred wars through history.’

‘But that was forty years ago. You’re maybe forty yourself? I haven’t seen anyone here old enough to remember.’

‘There are a few. But blame is handed down through the generations. And there is proof.’

Holly leaned back against the wall, saddened, and convinced more than ever that Drake was only telling her parts of the story.

‘I’d like to know. .’ Drake said, but he trailed off as if he was unsure.

‘Know what?’

‘Where we parted,’ he said. ‘Where our Earths became different possibilities.’

Holly smiled. ‘You’re talking Jonah’s language now.’

‘We seemed to be far ahead of you,’ Drake mused. ‘Our technology a long way further on than yours. Perhaps that’s why the Furies hit us first.’