Tim Lebbon - Coldbrook

As they left Danton Rock he hoped the going would be easier, though it appeared that most of the town’s inhabitants were leaving as well. Some were following the road, but most of them seemed to be taking a more direct route, crossing the hillsides and passing through the wooded areas between the town and the Coldbrook valley. As though they were being called.

There was a blue Ford on its roof beside the road.

‘One of ours,’ Chaney said. A man and child stood beside the car and at their feet was a woman’s body, still half inside the broken door. Two zombies walked past the car, and Vic thought, They can smell their own . The little girl ran at the bus. Vic accelerated and did not look back.

From behind him came the steady crying of traumatised children, and the deeper sobs of adults. Mrs Joslin’s body had been wedged beneath two seats, but her blood on the floor was still wet. The two Unblessed had taken seats, one at the rear of the bus and one halfway down. They stared stoically ahead, neither of them catching Vic’s eye in the big rear-view mirror.

‘This the right you mentioned?’ Chaney said.

‘Yeah.’ Vic edged the bus as far to the left as he could, then started a gentle right turn. As he’d guessed, the bend was tighter than the bus could take and inevitably they would hit the bank rising from the road on the left. But where he’d remembered a sheer bank it was actually shallower. Too shallow to nudge them off.

‘So. .?’ Chaney said, holding onto the back of Vic’s seat.

‘Best sit down,’ Vic said.

A man stood on top of the bank, silhouetted against the sunlit sky. His tangled hair was a blood-soaked halo.

‘You’re sure this will-?’

‘I want to see my wife and daughter again,’ Vic said. ‘There’s no way that won’t happen. Make sure everyone’s holding on. Ten seconds.’

The bus’s left wheels left the road, rumbling across rough ground, and then they started climbing the slope.

Please don’t turn over, please don’t flip , Vic thought. But he didn’t know who or what he was asking.

The bus tilted to the right, and Vic turned as far in that direction as he could. The steering wheel thumped at his hands, the impact travelling up his arms and wrenching his shoulders, and the noise was tremendous. Rocks scraped against the chassis, kids cried out, the windscreen starred and shattered, and then the front end slipped down the slope and bounced back onto the road. Vic wrestled the wheel as the big vehicle rocked back to the left. He banged his head on the side window, cursing. Then they settled, still moving, and-

something’s wrong

— the bend eased ahead of them, and as the kids cheered and clapped Chaney slapped him on his painful shoulder. Then Vic saw hands across the bottom of the windscreen’s frame.

The man from the top of the bank reared up and came at him, pulling himself through the shattered window.

Vic pressed himself back into the driver’s seat, and then the man’s face exploded sideways. Vic’s ears rang, and Chaney reached past him to push the body back out, grabbing the wheel as the bus drove over him, struggling to keep them straight, his shotgun wedged across Vic’s lap where it had fallen.

Vic leaned forward and grabbed the wheel again, nudging Chaney aside with his shoulder. Vic was shouting — he could feel his mouth open and the pressures in his throat — but he could barely hear his own voice. He could feel a trickle of blood from his right ear.

Chaney laid one big hand over Vic’s and squeezed. The gesture was intimate and gentle, and welcome.

Coldbrook came into view a couple of minutes later. And any relief Vic had thought he might feel at seeing that place again evaporated.

The compound was crawling with the walking dead.

‘I see you coming down the road!’ Holly said as soon as she answered Vic’s call.

‘Lucy and Olivia?’

‘They’re fine. Down in Coldbrook.’

Vic sighed and closed his eyes. They’re safe!

‘Jayne’s here too, but she’s. . not well.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Her disease. She’s in and out of coma.’

‘But Coldbrook’s safe?’

‘For now. Drake and his people are helping us. I came up when Lucy told me what you’d done.’

‘Where are you now?’

‘Inside the duct housing, looking out. Vic. . there are hundreds of furies. Those biker guys and a few others are holding the perimeter. But for every one they shoot down, two more take its place.’

‘I see Chinooks. There are soldiers there?’

‘Yeah. Zombie soldiers.’

‘Shit,’ Vic said. ‘But their weapons?’

‘Mostly outside the boundary,’ Holly said.

Vic had flicked the satphone’s speaker on and Chaney was listening in. He’d calmed the kids down and told the adults to keep watch at the smashed windows. They could see more zombies converging on them from the hillsides and back along the road, but they needed a breather so that they could pause, plan.

‘So how do we get in?’ Vic said. ‘That fence and hedge isn’t much, is it? Amazed the bastard things haven’t just marched through it.’

‘Me too. But aim for the gate. It’s open, but blocked off with the two largest vehicles — a few of the fuckers squirmed underneath them but they were shot, and their bodies are blocking the way for others.’

‘Miss, my name’s Chaney,’ Chaney said over the satphone to Holly. ‘You know as soon as those trucks pull back there’ll be a flood of ’em. And though Vic here’s a mean driver, he won’t be able to run them all down.’

‘Hey, Chaney. Yeah. But it’s the only way. Vic, try and pull up against the duct housing, might be able to just step across.’

‘Won’t be long before they follow us down the duct.’

‘You’ll have to be quick. But we’re ready to block off Coldbrook’s garage as soon as we’re all inside.’

‘You won’t be in one of the trucks?’ Vic asked, because he could already see that whoever drove them from across the entrance would be in major trouble.

‘Can’t. Been stabbed.’

‘Stabbed?’

‘Long story. Vic. .’

‘Yeah?’

‘Just. .’ Everything unspoken between them for years remained unspoken, but its weight reached them both.

‘Jeez,’ Chaney said. ‘Be there soon, miss. Open the bar.’ He clapped Vic on the shoulder and turned to tell everyone what was happening.

‘Yeah,’ Vic said into the phone. ‘See you soon.’

Holly signed off.

He started driving again, slowly, heading for Coldbrook’s main gates as he had hundreds of times before. The closer he came, the more he saw of the desperate siege that the compound was under.

The two trucks were parked nose to tail across the gate. There was a man on each roof, shooting any zombie that managed to scramble up that high, and piled in front of the gates were a dozen bodies. He’d have to drive over them. More were sprawled around the perimeter fencing, and they formed a raised step from which others tried to launch themselves over the hedging. Most fell back with a bullet in the head. A few made it over to be shot inside the compound.

But how much ammunition could these bikers have been carrying?

‘Chaney!’ Vic shouted.

‘Here.’

‘I think once we’re through the gate I can swerve around, then back the bus against the duct housing. Rear emergency exit should be just the right height.’

‘Won’t that take too long?’

‘Few more seconds. Best bet.’

‘Sure.’ Chaney moved back down the bus. ‘Okay kids, and you guys, everyone to the back of the bus, hunker down, stay low. Anyone with ammunition left, watch those broken windows. Miss? The second we stop, you pull the emergency handle and pop open that back window. There’ll be someone there. You do as they say. Understand that, kiddies? Do as they say, and there’ll be candy and ice cream for tea.’