Tim Lebbon - Coldbrook

‘Come on ,’ Sean said again. The cruiser’s blue lights flashed a few times, and he reached up and flicked two reading lights off and on.

‘They won’t see that,’ Jayne said, but then she grinned. They had seen it, because they’d been watching for it. And now they were powering across the airport, skirting around the burning main building, and as the police car veered around a staggering figure she closed her eyes just before the truck ran it down.

‘Jesus Christ,’ she breathed, and Sean squeezed her hand.

‘Come on. Back door on the starboard side.’

‘I’m scared,’ she said, thinking of a car journey through what was happening out there. Here they had drunk wine and talked, and she had slept. Out there, carnage and chaos ruled.

‘We could never have stayed here for long,’ Sean said. He looked older than he had before, his eyes heavier and darker because of his fear for his daughter. France? he’d said, amazed, and Jayne still could not believe that the infection had travelled so far so quickly.

‘I know.’ She nodded, and started rubbing her shoulders with both hands.

‘I’ll open the door.’ He walked slowly, glancing back as she followed. Jayne felt protected, but she also knew that she was providing Sean with a distraction, and a cause.

The blast of warm air when Sean opened the door was shocking. He stood back slightly, gun raised, then edged forward slowly.

‘They there?’ Jayne asked. She had to raise her voice against the roaring fires, and she realised how close they were. And the fact that they were in an aircraft that probably contained tens of thousands of gallons of fuel hit home.

Sean waved her over with one hand, then shoved the gun in his belt and held out his other hand palm out.

Jayne joined him at the door, wincing against the incredible wave of heat radiating from the conflagration. It stretched her skin and dried her eyes, and when she gasped her lungs burned.

The police cruiser was parked thirty feet away. The truck stopped thirty feet behind that, its bodywork, scratched and bumped. There was a swathe of dried blood across one wing and up the door. Its windows were darkened, and she felt someone — something — staring at her.

The cruiser was similarly battered, and the driver’s window had been smashed. Even before the door opened she saw the size of the man in there, and as he got out of the car and looked up at them, Jayne felt an unaccountable rush of optimism. The cop must have been six and a half feet tall. With someone like him coming for her. .

She closed her eyes and sighed, wondering how she could be so foolish. Maybe because she had always needed someone to help her look after herself. Was that a weakness? She hoped not.

‘You the girl got bit?’ the big man shouted up at them. He disregarded Sean and stared right at her.

Jayne raised her arm and pulled up her sleeve, displaying the bandage.

The man leaned back into the cruiser and grabbed a shotgun. He held it casually, as if he was used to it. He was sweating visibly through his uniform.

‘Who’re you?’ Sean asked.

‘Sergeant Waits, Baltimore PD. You?’

‘Sean Nott. I’m a sky marshal.’

‘Right.’ Waits glanced around every few seconds.

‘There are lots of them round,’ Sean went on, ‘so be careful.’

‘Careful. Right.’ Waits looked back at the blacked-out truck behind them, and Jayne wondered what might be inside.

‘Did Leigh call you?’ Sean asked.

‘Leigh?’ The big man shifted the shotgun to the other hand, moving forward and leaning against the truck’s damaged hood. The blood did not seem to concern him.

‘About us.’ Sean touched Jayne’s shoulder, and she could feel his hand shaking. ‘About Jayne.’

‘Don’t know no Leigh. Just know a girl’s got bit, hasn’t turned. Been plenty of claims on the register, but none confirmed so far.’

‘Where will you take us?’ Jayne asked.

‘Back to the station.’ Waits looked around again, and gave a vague signal to the truck. ‘From there, don’t know yet. How long you been up there?’

‘Several hours,’ Sean said.

‘It’s fucked as hell out here,’ Waits said. ‘We been through some stuff. But the station’s tight, and it’ll be a damn sight safer than-’

They all heard the sound at the same time — the thumping of feet against metal. Jayne knew instantly what it was, and even as Sean gasped and Waits turned she shouted, ‘Bus!’

The vehicle was between the fire and the aircraft, where it had stood silent and unthreatening since they had closed the aircraft doors. Now she could see movement inside, silhouetted against the flames.

A man appeared on the bottom step wearing a bus driver’s hat, and when he stepped forward it was like releasing a stopper from a bottle. They flowed out behind him, rushing towards the police vehicles as fast as their various injuries would allow. For many of them, their wounds did not slow them at all.

Waits rested his elbows on the cruiser’s roof, aimed the shotgun, and fired. The resulting mayhem was so sudden that Jayne did not even see if anyone fell, and then Sean was grabbing her arm and pulling her inside the aircraft, reaching for the door handle and tugging it closed.

Something struck the aircraft with a loud, hollow thunk! and she realised that the shooting had begun in earnest.

‘The window!’ Sean said, pulling the door closed and engaging the locking lever.

‘Window?’

‘We might need to move fast, so we have to know what’s happening.’

Jayne tried to move quickly, but her joints screamed and the churu threw grit into her eyes, clouding her vision and disturbing her balance. She staggered along the aisle and fell sideways across a row of seats. She could hear gunfire outside, the pop pop of individual shots and a heavier, more sustained burst of machine-gun fire. She bit her lip and her vision cleared, and she felt a terrible, unreasonable shame at being such a burden.

‘It’s okay,’ Sean said softly. He was beside her on the seat, helping her upright and then leaning across her to look outside.

‘I don’t believe this,’ Jayne said. Tears burned in her eyes.

‘It’s not over yet,’ Sean said. But she could tell that the words belied his belief. So she pushed him away, and leaned forward to see from the window herself.

And it was all over, because Waits was already down and smothered with raging, thrashing people, and the cruiser’s other door was open and a uniformed woman was being dragged out, and she was shooting people in the head — three, four — before a young boy bit into her arm and she dropped the gun. And as automatic gunfire raked the cruiser from the truck’s lowered windows the monsters turned that way, rushing forward and being cut down, walking across those who fell to press themselves against the truck’s side, forcing those inside to withdraw their weapons and close the windows. The zombies — there must have been fifty by then, perhaps more, and others were rushing from all directions to join in — swarmed around and over the truck, punching and stamping and head-butting until windows smashed and gunfire erupted again.

As Jayne saw Waits standing, different from how he had been before, she pulled back from the window.

‘He saw me,’ she gasped.

The gunfire ceased. Someone screamed, the sound distant and muffled.

‘They can’t get in,’ Sean said. He was passing the gun from one hand to the other, as if he was trying to find a way to hold it without his nervous sweat making it slick.

‘But he knows we’re here,’ Jayne said.

Sean blinked at her and shrugged. But there was nothing he could say.