Tim Lebbon - Coldbrook

How could he? After all this, after what they had done, how could he ever consider taking the easy way out?

Jonah stood and slipped the gun into his belt. He felt watched at every moment — turned quickly, saw shadows at the periphery of his vision, heard breathing identical to his own — but there was no reason to believe that the Inquisitor was always there. Jonah had to believe that he was not.

What the Inquisitor was, why he was here, what he wanted of him. . these were questions whose importance were secondary to Jonah’s survival. He could remain here and accept what this thing was doing to him, or he could leave. The choice was stark — and simple.

Jonah left his small room, carrying the heavy flashlight that illuminated the whole corridor ahead of him. He headed away from Control to begin with, slipping into the canteen area where the smell of food starting to rot was already evident. He could hear movement — scratching, shuffling, the gentle caress of material against metal — and he wondered how those creatures he’d locked in the walk-in refrigerator could know that he was here. Entering the huge pantry, he selected some dried food. Tins would be too heavy, and he’d be able to add water to the sachets.

Where am I going? he wondered, but though the voice was his own he tried to ignore it for now. One thing at a time. ‘Jesus, I could do with a shower before I go,’ he said aloud, and he actually giggled. It felt good — but it sounded desperate.

There were canvas bags beneath the canteen counter, used to collect plastic and tins for recycling on the surface. One would be enough. He dropped the sachets inside, added a few small bottles of water, then returned to the common room and lifted the small bar’s flap. He’d all but finished the Penderyn whisky and the next best thing was a bottle of Jameson’s. Sighing, unscrewing the top, taking a long swig. As it burned its way down he remembered that thing’s image.

‘Fuck off,’ Jonah said. ‘Just fuck off!’ The sounds of movement from the canteen became more frantic, as did their calling. If he left those afflicted in the walk-in fridge for ever, would they always move? The thought was horrific, but he had seen that wrinkled, shrivelled creature that had come through and killed Melinda, and he recognised its age. In ten years or a hundred, whether or not he remained down here, others might venture down to discover where it had all begun, and they might hear the movement of creatures trapped behind the doors he had locked. .

‘If there’s anyone left,’ he muttered. Since the power had gone out, he’d had no way of following what was happening on the surface. He was delaying what needed to be done, and he knew why — he faced a terrible dilemma.

He could go back through the garage, move the Hummer, and climb up through the ventilation shaft. Follow in Vic’s footsteps, retracing the route this terrible contagion had taken.

Or he could go through the breach.

Jonah smiled. He took another drink, then screwed the lid on and placed the bottle in the canvas bag. There was no decision to be made. He was a scientist, after all. And perhaps the next couple of hours would see him and Holly reunited, and the culmination of his lifetime’s dreams manifest around him.

Jonah knew that he could do nothing more here.

The Inquisitor was waiting for him twenty metres from Control. Jonah dropped the bag and heard the clunk of glass hitting concrete. Don’t break , he thought and fire throbbed in his head. He kept hold of the flashlight and shone it directly at the man who turned, beckoned him to follow, and then disappeared into a perpendicular corridor.

Picking up the bag, Jonah smelled the stench of spilled whisky. The bag leaked. Good Irish dripped across the floor, the sachets of dried food were swollen from the fluid, and Jonah felt a terrible sinking feeling in his gut when he realised how unprepared he really was.

‘Oh, bollocks to it all,’ he said. The gun heavy and useless in his belt, Jonah held on to the wall and swung around into the side corridor, home to a plant room and three storage rooms. It was barely twenty feet long, and at its end stood something that brought Jonah up short, winding him. He tried to breathe, but it was as though the air was gone from Coldbrook. He tried to rationalise what he was seeing, make sense of it, and though the true meaning was clear he could not yet accept it. It would take the Inquisitor and its deft touch to make him accept.

It would take surgery.

It was not a table, or a chair, but something in between. Hanging on hooks suspended from shadows were the elements of Jonah’s new face-to-be: bulbous eyes; a snout; a bristled film to cover his own scalp.

‘It is required that you accept,’ the Inquisitor said.

‘No,’ Jonah said.

‘You will never die.’

Jonah managed to laugh, because the Inquisitor spoke as if he was offering something attractive.

‘Fuck off !’ Jonah could not help looking at those other objects, wondering what they were. He guessed that they belonged inside him.

As Holly ran she thought of the horribly scarred man and what his presence might mean. And she wondered just what these people were, to experiment on their one true hope like that — having him bitten by a fury each year to confirm that his immunity persisted. It was monstrous and inhumane, and it chilled her to the core.

They’re the survivors , she thought, but even that was not quite right. Their parents had been the survivors, if their Fury plague really had been forty years ago. Drake and Moira were the survivors’ children, and this was the only world they knew. But that did not excuse them.

She followed the stairs back up to the room where she had been pretending to sleep, and inside she tipped a chair onto its side and heaved at one of the legs. She exerted an even pressure, wanting to break it slowly rather than smash it. She could not afford to be caught and making too much noise could attract unwelcome attention. The leg creaked, she strained harder, and finally it gave with a brief snap. About fifteen inches long, it was easy enough to carry.

The thought of striking anyone with it was horrible. But Holly took a few deep breaths and hefted the impromptu club in one hand. I need Vic , she thought. I need Jonah. I need home .

And, for the first time, the importance of Mannan’s immunity to her own world struck her like a bullet.

Someone was approaching.

Holly propped the damaged chair against the wall, fell onto the cot, and curled around the leg with her back to the door. She consciously regulated her breathing, all too aware of the thudding of her heart but unable to slow it. The footsteps paused and she heard the creak of unoiled hinges. She feigned a comfortable sigh. The person passed by and continued along the corridor. .

And the smell of food reached her.

They were taking more food down to Mannan.

She stood and moved to the door, and as soon as she heard the first footfall from the stairwell she dashed up the corridor. Fear drove her on and made silence impossible; her breathing was ragged, her footsteps clumsy and panicked.

She reached a place she recognised and saw the strange light emanating from the casting room’s side corridor. It hazed the air, flowing and ebbing as the images within played across those bizarre screens. She marched past the wide doorway, not slowing down, not risking a glance inside, trying to exude confidence and a sense that she belonged here. Once past the room she listened for raised voices but heard none. The casters were viewing her world’s apocalypse in stoic silence.

When voices mumbled from rooms, she passed them by. Reasoning that stealth and caution would make her more noticeable than brashness, she strode along corridors past other open doorways and found herself eventually in the upper caves where she had first woken in this Coldbrook.