Tim Lebbon - Coldbrook

The Gaians were used to furies worn down by forty years — deadly if they could get close enough but slow and withered. Not new furies like these, heavy and strong. Fast.

The dead soldier grabbed both of the woman’s hands and leaned down into her face.

‘No!’ Holly shouted, and she ran past the Hummer, joined by another Gaian nocking an arrow as he ran. As Holly neared the thrashing pair and aimed at the fury, the man’s arrow slammed into the Gaian woman’s head, slamming it to one side, spilling blood. The fury sat back and turned to Holly.

Holly gasped, looking at the woman’s legs kicking slowly as if she was swimming down into darkness.

‘Shoot it!’ the man said.

The fury stood and turned towards Holly, and she shot it in the face. It went down and she turned away, trying to see who or what was groaning in such a horrible fashion until she realised it was her.

Paloma dragged herself from beneath the Hummer and walked around the other side, towards where Holly had last seen Drake. There was blood staining the Gaian doctor’s neck and shoulders, and her scalp was shredded across the back of her head.

‘Drake!’ Holly shouted as she ran. Each step drove pain up into her side, and she thought of the Gaian leader’s wife tending the wound. ‘Drake!’

Two of the three people guarding the doorway into the rest of the facility were raising their weapons, but they were too far away and they would not be fast enough.

‘Paloma?’ Holly heard Drake’s voice as she rounded the Hummer’s rear end, her pistol raised.

Drake held his unloaded crossbow in his hand, and as Paloma staggered to within five steps of her husband his expression changed from relief to horror.

Holly took careful aim at the back of Paloma’s head and pulled the trigger.

The satphone was ringing. Holly could not answer. She could not look at the man whose wife she had shot. Wherever she looked, all she could see was the woman’s head blown apart and the shower of blood and brains that had obscured her view of Drake.

She tried to pluck the phone from her pocket, but her fingers refused to obey her commands. The ringing ceased.

‘Holly!’ Drake said again, and this time he grabbed her face between his hands and lifted it so he could look into her eyes. She wanted to close them. But knew that she would have to face him soon.

I’m sorry , she tried to say, but no words emerged. All she saw now was him, and he was drenched in red. Someone had given him a rag, but he had placed it over his shoulder, too concerned with Holly to wipe his own wife’s blood from his face and chest. I’m sorry .

‘Holly, you didn’t save me,’ Drake said. ‘You saved Paloma.’

‘The plant-room door,’ she whispered.

‘It’s being watched. No one’s gone up yet, but we’ll hear anyone coming down.’

‘Might be Vic.’

‘We’ll be careful.’ Drake eased himself back, kneeling in front of her. His expression was slack and he could not look at anything for more than a second before glancing somewhere else. He was in shock but didn’t realise it yet.

Moira stood behind him, a loaded crossbow slung from each shoulder. She nodded at Holly, and Holly nodded back, and that was all that was required between them.

‘Drake-’ Holly began, and the satphone rang again, startling them both. She pressed the connect button and then Vic was there, his voice low and fast, and filled with urgency.

‘Holly, I got you. Listen. We won’t be-’ The noise of gunshots drowned him out, and Holly winced and pulled the phone away from her ear.

‘Vic? What’s happening?’

‘Holly, we’ll-’ More gunshots. ‘-soon, just passing through Danton-’ Static, cries of alarm, the thud of a heavy impact. ‘-soon. Okay down there?’

Holly didn’t know where to begin. ‘Yes, all fine. Come in the same way you got out, but be careful of the duct.’

‘Say again?’ Someone close to Vic was crying, long ragged sobs.

‘I said the duct might not be clear, so you-’ A louder scream, another shocking impact, and then the connection was broken. ‘Vic? Vic?’

‘They’re close,’ Drake said.

‘Danton Rock. Maybe a mile.’

‘Then we need to make sure their way down here is clear.’ He helped Holly to her feet, and they stood facing each other awkwardly for a moment.

Holly opened her mouth to speak.

‘Thank you, Holly,’ Drake said. ‘You should go and find some clothes.’ He left her and shouted some orders, and two of his people started to collect the bodies of humans and furies alike.

The third zombie that their vehicle struck was thrown over the bonnet and smashed through the windscreen. Sean cried out and leaned back as its head struck him on the right shoulder, and the station wagon swerved but kept moving. Olivia shrieked, and as the zombie turned to face her Vic recognised Walt McCready, the friend whose house they had once partied in. Now he had no eyes.

They struck something else, and Vic was flung against the rear of Marc’s seat. He dropped the phone and it disappeared down by his feet. The vehicle skidded to a halt.

Jayne grabbed his shoulder and hauled him back, moaning with the pain it caused her. Lucy and Olivia were huddled back against the door — both of them had recognised the dead man. Lucy punched at his hand as he reached for Olivia.

Vic heard the snick of a door opening.

‘Don’t get out of the car!’ he shouted. He raised the M1911, pressed it against old Walt’s face, and pulled the trigger. His hearing was obliterated briefly but that didn’t stop him from seeing. Walt was blasted against the ceiling and bits of him were scattered throughout the car. Something sharp slashed across Vic’s cheek, and he wondered whether being cut by a fragment of a zombie’s skull could change him.

Soon find out.

‘Keep the fucking doors shut !’ he shouted. ‘Let’s go!’ His ears were still ringing from the gunshot as he looked around to make sure that everyone was okay. Lucy’s nose was bleeding from where she’d bounced off Sean’s seat. She dabbed at it, staring at Vic without expression. Rather she was screaming , he thought.

Someone grabbed his sleeve. Sean.

‘We hit one of the bikers!’ he shouted. The view through the windscreen had been obscured by the starring of the safety glass on impact, which had been held in place by its frame. Marc punched it out, and he and Sean heaved Walt’s dead-at-last corpse out onto the bonnet.

Ahead of them loomed Danton Rock’s first building, the small school and medical centre. Half of the school had burned down. Between them and Danton Rock was a confusion of cars and bikes, and the running dead.

Someone stood in front of the car and grabbed Walt, and for a second Vic thought it was a biker pulling the corpse away so that they could drive on. But then he saw the stained and torn summery dress, and Sean rested his rifle against the dashboard and shot the woman in the throat. She shook, her head flopping to one side where her spine had been shattered. But she did not fall.

Sean fired again. As the woman slumped back, a biker tried to stand, tugging to free his leg from beneath his crashed bike. He was bleeding from a terrible wound in his throat, the blood spurting across his chest and stomach with each heave on his trapped limb. He did not appear to be in pain.

‘Close your eyes,’ Sean said, but he didn’t wait for the others to heed his advice. It was far worse seeing a fresh one shot.

‘Give me the rifle,’ Vic said. ‘You’ve got to drive.’ Sean handed it back without a word and Vic leaned between the front seats, resting the rifle’s barrel on the dashboard.