Coldbrook (Hammer) (51 page)

‘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.’

‘I don’t want candy,’ a kid said, ‘I want my mommy.’

‘Yeah, well. Me too,’ said Chaney.

Vic ran down four adults and two children, and then the trucks across the gate drove apart and the bus bounced over the piled corpses, landing heavily. Inside the compound, he turned sharply to the left, the bus shuddering, steering wheel vibrating, and felt the back end skid around on the grass.
Yes!
he thought, because that gave him the angle he needed.

Vic glanced across at the gate he’d just come through. The trucks crashed together again, crushing several zombies between them, but the attackers had swarmed. A dozen were inside and running for the bus, several falling as the men on the truck’s roofs opened fire, others reaching the vehicle as he slammed it in reverse and pulled the wheel hard to the right. Even with the hampered turning ability, he was lined up just right. He floored the gas pedal. Back past the guard building – windows smashed, door off its hinges – more gunfire erupted. An explosion. Someone screaming, and—

They don’t scream!

Vic glanced forward – and wished he hadn’t. One of
the trucks’ gas tanks must have been punctured by a stray bullet, and now the spilled fuel had ignited and the truck was ablaze. A guy had dropped from the driver’s side and was running across the compound, his clothes and hair aflame, zombies grabbing for him as he ran, tripping him, falling on him and biting even as the flames flared in their hair and transferred to their own clothing.

Vic turned away just as the second truck caught fire.

Something was scraping across the ground beneath the bus. It thudded against the chassis. He slammed the brakes and stopped them just right, tail end facing the duct housing with a two-foot gap to open the rear emergency window. Perfect.

The banging continued.

‘That was some pretty fucking shit-hot driving, Sandra Bullock,’ Chaney said. ‘Now let’s get that candy and ice cream.’ He waited until Vic was up and moving down the bus, bringing up the rear. His shotgun boomed again, and Vic’s ears rang.

‘How many cartridges do you have?’

‘At a guess, three more up the pipe.’

Vic pulled his M1911. He had no idea how many bullets remained, if any.

The rear emergency window fell away when it was opened, and the kids were helped over into the duct housing as quickly as possible. Huddled on the small
platform inside, shaded from the sun, Vic could see Holly helping them.

Will the ladder inside hold us all?
he thought.
What if someone falls? What if one of those things gets in before
—

Screams, shooting, and he saw a child snatched down from the back of the bus. The kids still inside the vehicle surged back, and one of the bikers – standing with one foot on the rear window frame, one propped against the duct housing building – fired down between his feet.

Kids were now screaming, crying, panicking, and Vic’s heart broke for every one of them.
I hope he killed her before they bit her
, he thought as he and Chaney exchanged a quick, loaded glance.

They didn’t have long. And there was nowhere else to go.

The second truck’s fuel tank went up and its door smashed through the front of the bus, scything into the upright supports ten feet from Chaney and Vic. Vic felt a wave of heat and saw people burning, smelled cooking flesh. His mouth watered involuntarily, then he retched.

‘Pussy,’ Chaney said, one arm around him as they moved closer to the rear window. The second biker was lifting the kids and throwing them across the narrow gap. The adults had gone over, and they grabbed the kids and hauled them in, set them on the ladder, reached out for more.
The guy straddling the gap fired again and again, and then he shouted as his gun’s firing pin clicked on empty.

Vic pushed past the few remaining kids and leaned out the window. He looked down between the back of the bus and the duct housing and saw bodies left and right. They were crowding to get into the gap, but the zombies that the biker had shot had formed a barrier on both sides.

‘Go!’ Vic shouted. The biker ducked down and stepped through the duct hatch, then turned and reached for the next kid.

A burning man climbed the pile of corpses and reached for the window. Vic shot him in the top of the head. On the back of his leather vest was the word
Unblessed
.

‘How many more?’ the biker asked.

Vic looked around, and for the first time he was staring into the kids’ terrified faces. He managed a smile, and one of the little girls smiled back.

‘Six,’ he said. ‘Chaney?’

Chaney plucked up a girl and launched her through the window. The others soon followed.

Vic leaned from the window and shot a woman from Danton Rock. She bore no visible wounds, but her eyes were dead. She fell and rose again, because his aim was off. When he went to shoot her again, his gun clicked on empty.

She climbed the corpses, planted a foot on the dead burning man, and leaped.

Vic ducked inside the bus and the woman smashed against the window frame, tearing her face. Her arms came through and she kicked against the metal, trying to get a hold.

‘Chaney!’ Vic shouted.

‘Eyes and ears,’ Chaney said, and Vic closed his eyes and covered his ears. The sound of the gunshot was still deafening.

‘Our turn,’ Chaney shouted. ‘After you.’

Vic wasn’t going to argue. He stepped across the gap into the duct housing. The others were already descending the ladder, and he could just make out Holly’s head in the erratic torchlight.

Chaney came across, grunting when he had to bend almost double to get through the hatch.

‘We only lost one,’ Vic said.

‘One too many.’ Chaney turned and aimed his gun at the hatch. They could see through the length of the bus, across the compound to where the two trucks were now burning ferociously. And as they watched, figures lifted themselves into the bus through broken windows, scrambling towards the back.

‘There might still be guys outside,’ Vic said quietly.

‘Yeah.’ Chaney chewed his lip, his heavy beard moving back and forth. He blinked a few times, then turned and looked below them. They could hear the echoing sound of people descending, crying, and an occasional gasp as
hands or feet slipped. A torch’s beam lit the upper part of the duct, but lower down Vic could see the flicker of flames. Drake’s people, Holly had said. He was glad she’d gone back down.

‘Chaney! Chaney!’ Shouting.

‘Jesus. That’s Hitch!’ Chaney said, recognising a friend’s voice.

‘On top of the bus! Me and a woman, don’t think there’s anyone else, don’t think there can be, there’re fucking
hundreds
of them.’

‘Got ammo?’ Chaney shouted. He fired as a zombie leaped across from the bus, pumped the Remington, clicked on empty.

‘Some,’ Hitch said.

‘Then shoot your damn way in here!’ Chaney pulled Vic back from the open hatch.

Shooting. Vic heard cries of alarm from below as the explosions echoed down the metal duct. Then a woman dropped down from the bus’s roof, feet propped on the bus’s emergency window frame, and as she crouched and stepped across hands grabbed her legs and pulled. Her eyes went wide and she screamed, falling forward, her face striking the duct’s edge with a sickening crunch. She went slack and the zombies pulled her into the bus, and as they started biting Vic shouted, ‘Hitch,
now
!’

Hitch dropped down between the bus and the duct, then sprang up into the opening, a heavy pistol clasped in
his left hand. Vic grabbed one arm and Chaney the other, and they hauled him inside. His jeans seemed to catch on something and they pulled harder. Then two zombies rose in front of the opening, holding on to his legs.

‘Gun?’ Vic said. He took Hitch’s gun and leaned over his back, shooting first one and then the other zombie in the face. He didn’t register who they might have been, not even their sex. They fell away and Hitch scrambled inside. It was then that Vic realised they had another problem.

He glanced down the five-feet-wide shaft. The nearest kid was maybe twenty feet down, with another twenty to go before they reached the first damper across the duct. Those lower down had already worked their way around that structure, descending the same way he’d ascended less than a week ago.

And the duct access cover was outside, buried beneath twenty bodies.

‘Go,’ Chaney said.

‘But—’

‘Go. Your family.’ He snatched the gun from Vic’s hand and pushed him, grasping his belt so that he didn’t tumble from the small platform.

‘No time to argue,’ Hitch panted. He smelled of fuel and sweat, and there was vomit and blood plastered across the front of his leather jacket. Unblessed indeed.

Vic knew that every moment counted. So he grabbed the ladder and started down. Hitch came after him, and for
a few seconds Vic heard Chaney grunting and cursing. The weak daylight from above flickered. Vic looked up as he climbed down, and past Hitch he could see Chaney struggling on the small platform.

‘Chaney!’

‘Coming.’

‘Now.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ More shots, and the light seemed weaker now.
Killing them as they come in
, Vic thought.

A child cried out and Vic looked down. He’d trodden on a kid’s fingers. ‘Go on. Quick!’ Three children huddled on the damper blocking the duct, one of them clasping an electric torch, waiting for their turn to worm through to the next part.

‘Shit!’ Chaney shouted above them. ‘Shit!’ The gun fired twice more before it ran out of ammunition. ‘Okay, coming down, better get your asses in gear.’

‘Move!’ Vic said to the kids. He jumped down next to them, trying to stand on the struts across the damper. If he put his foot through it he’d be trapped.

Two kids climbed through, and as the third went Vic grabbed the torch from his hand. He was barely eight years old. ‘Candy and ice cream?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, buddy.’

The boy nodded and climbed down, guided by someone from below.

Hitch reached the opening and twisted through. Chaney
was descending. And then the duct grew lighter again, and Vic knew what was happening without even looking.

‘Chaney, hug the ladder!’ he shouted, pressing himself against the duct. Chaney grunted, and three bodies crashed down behind Vic, thumping against his legs. He turned quickly, but they were motionless, their heads ruined.