Coldbrook (Hammer) (52 page)

‘Hoped that’d hold them longer,’ Chaney said, looking up.

Sounds came from above, and Vic looked up past Chaney to see another shape launch itself into the duct. It struck the sides and started spinning, and it hit the fallen bodies head first. It slumped against the duct, then started thrashing.

Vic brought the torch’s heavy end down on the zombie’s head, again and again. Each time he struck it jerked and hooted, and he was terrified he’d get its stuff on him, brains or blood or spit, that would work its way into scratches on his hands or arms.

‘Feet,’ Chaney said. Vic stood and stamped down. It was keening softly, a high-pitched noise that seemed to fill the duct, and when the skull broke it rose into a cry.

‘Dude, that’s not a person,’ Chaney said, dropping down beside him.

‘Yeah.’

‘Go. Torch.’ The big man snatched the torch from Vic and pushed him towards the opening.

Vic dropped onto his hands and knees and backed through, swinging his legs until he felt someone beneath the damper grab his feet and guide him down. He was at eye level with the corpses, and the one he’d crushed looked at him wetly. It was a man, and he’d loved and been loved, kissed with those bloodstained lips, dreamed with that glistening, pulped brain.

‘Chaney, come on!’ Vic shouted, but then he saw the truth. Chaney could not come. And he knew it.

Three more zombies dropped from the platform. One landed on Chaney and pushed him down, and the big biker lashed out with the torch, catching it across the chin and shoving it against the wall.

‘You stay to watch and I’ll bite you myself!’ he roared, and Vic knew that the only way to help Chaney was to go.

He slipped down into the next section of duct and clung on to the ladder. Hitch was lower down, looking up at the opening with his eyebrows raised. Vic shook his head.

‘Fuck,’ Hitch said. ‘I’ve never seen that man lose a fight.’

‘He hasn’t lost,’ Vic said. ‘He’s winning. Move it.’

They slid down the section of ladder, the duct lit by a torch shone from below. Another biker was standing on the next damper, lighting their way.

‘Chaney?’ he asked when they reached the damper.

‘If he’d survived he’d be—’ Vic began, and then the
biker’s face broke into a grin. Forty feet above them, a pair of legs clad in stained, torn jeans worked their way through the gap. The legs kicked as the big man struggled, then one of his feet found the ladder.

‘Told you he’s never lost,’ Hitch said.

‘We should go,’ Vic said.

‘But Chaney,’ Hitch said.

Vic looked at him, then at the other biker. ‘You
know
we should go.’

‘It’s okay,’ the guy said. ‘He’s—’

Chaney was through. Clinging to the ladder. Blood spattered Vic’s face as he looked up, and he jerked back against the wall, spitting.

‘Go!’ Vic shouted, shoving Hitch at the gap. Hitch fell to his knees and went through, and the other biker followed, handing Vic his torch.
I should have gone first
, Vic thought, shining the light up.

‘Chaney?’

The man did not look down. He clung to the ladder, and his blood speckled the duct’s wall.

‘Chaney?’ Vic asked again. He looked at the narrow gap he had to go through, saw the Unblessed disappearing out of sight . . . and then something made him look up once more. A sense of silent motion, a feeling of change.

Chaney filled his field of vision and Vic jumped back, striking the duct wall so hard that he saw stars. The man
landed hard and his feet punched through the damper, trapping him there, buried to his knees. He leaned forward – and Chaney was gone, scoured away by this fucking plague. Such a big man, destroyed completely.

And now he wanted Vic.

Vic kicked out at Chaney, knocking aside one grasping hand. Chaney hooted. It was an absurd sound coming from him, a man Vic had only known for a matter of hours but who was already large in his memory, and he looked so pathetic trapped here. Vic dodged left, and realised there was no way he could make it down into the gap without Chaney grabbing him.

He heard the noises from above and knew that none of them could hope to survive down here. The zombies were coming through, and in moments they’d fall upon him, and then he would become one of them.

If only he had a gun, he would take that pain away from Lucy and Olivia.

Chaney jerked forward, then grew still. Something sharp and wet projected from his left eye.

Vic shone the torch into the narrow gap leading around the damper. He thought it might be the first time he had ever seen a crossbow for real.

‘Lucy.’

His wife was shaking, but her strength was clear to see. ‘Hurry,’ she said, and as she struggled back out of sight and the next body came down Vic followed her.

They worked their way quickly to the ground and went through the main duct into the plant room. There was no time to seal it from there: they could already hear the thuds of falling bodies. In the garage Holly was already revving the Hummer. Vic slammed the door and waved, and she reversed the big vehicle against the door, blocking it shut.

She pulled hard on the parking brake. They all heard it creak. So much depended on that.

Olivia ran to them, and Vic hugged Lucy and her as though he’d been away for ever. He heard children crying and talking, and one or two of them even laughed at something Vic couldn’t see. Their voices were music to his ears.

Now what?
someone said. Jayne wasn’t sure who. There were new voices here, and she wasn’t sure she recognised them. Or perhaps her pain was distorting the voices of those who had saved her, and making them strangers.

Now we find a cure.

Or try
, Marc said, and there was an emptiness in his tone that Jayne could hear clearly, even with sight taken from her. She wondered if she would ever see again. The churu was playing with her, and each game was a fresh agony.

She’s really immune
, a new voice said, full of wonder.
It had a strange accent that she could not place, which gave it a sense of distance.

Just like your Mannan
.

‘Who’s Mannan?’ Jayne whispered. She recognised her own voice – even felt her jaw and mouth and tongue moving as she spoke – but the words came from a very long way off.

‘Jayne?’ Sean said. ‘You’re awake. Can you move? Can you open your eyes?’

‘Nnnn,’ she said, because she could do nothing. It had her in its grasp.

‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘A disease,’ Sean said. ‘Churu. It affects her joints and bones. She can usually massage it away, but—’

‘Does Mannan have the same disease?’ Marc asked.

‘No,’ said the stranger. ‘But this looks like chero-blight. My wife would have known for sure.’

An awkward silence. Jayne breathed deeply, felt hands on her that she knew were Sean’s. They gently massaged her shoulders and neck. She opened her eyes to find that, mercifully, her vision had cleared.

‘It was a common disease in our world,’ the man said. ‘Paloma would have known how to cure it. But we have books, a medical room, herbs, chemicals. We make do.’

‘Then Mannan’s immune for another reason!’ Marc said, and he sounded alive for the first time since Gary’s crash.

Jayne gazed around the room. It was quite large,
functional, with tables and chairs and a handful of comfortable sofas. One sofa was bloodstained, and some of the tables and chairs had been overturned. Air conditioning hummed. She felt the weight of the rock and soil around and above them. But she did not feel safe.

The people she had come to know during the past few days were assembled around her – dear Sean, Vic and his family, Marc looking thoughtful – and there were also some whom she did not recognise. One was a pale woman, leaning against a chair and pressing a hand to her side. Then there was the tall man dressed in strange clothes, a strong-looking black woman standing beside him, and several others. Beyond her field of vision she could hear adults and children talking, and smell cooking food, rich wine.

Jayne looked up at Sean, and his smile warmed her. ‘What did I miss?’ she asked.

Jonah had been too amazed at what he was seeing to consider what he
might
see. And from the moment when he had voiced his acceptance to the Inquisitor he had placed himself in that strange being’s hands, and in his own hand lay the certainty of the Inquisitor’s demise. Warm and flexible, the small trigger sat in Jonah’s palm. When he rolled it, he felt a linked sensation in his chest,
a twisting knot against his heart that took his breath away. There was such potential there. But not yet.

‘Time to leave these unclean worlds,’ the Inquisitor said, and held out his hand. Jonah looked close, and was shocked to see the clearly defined lifeline on his palm, hairs on his arm, and dirt ground into his creased fingertips. It looked far too human.

‘How do you speak English?’ Jonah asked. ‘How do you
know
so much?’ But the Inquisitor did not answer. Jonah took the proffered hand and saw the smudged tattoo on the inner arm again, its shape ambiguous, its edges bled and faded. And then he recognised it, and the shock struck him numb.

HMS
Cardiff
, Jonah thought. The circle of rope encircling a castle turret: the
Cardiff
’s crest. He had seen it before when he was younger, when he had briefly considered a career in the navy. Perhaps, in another world, his decision had been different.

‘Who are you?’ he asked. But the Inquisitor had turned and had started walking, expecting Jonah to follow and showing no emotion. Whether he had seen Jonah’s shock or not, he was way beyond such Earthly concerns now.

The Inquisitor left that world, and then they were travelling. There was no slow transition: one moment Jonah smelled blue flowers and ferns, and felt the breeze in his hair; the next, they were
in between
. There was no sense of movement, nor of time passing, and yet
worlds were being passed by. Whole oceans of possibilities, countless realities, all flitted past, and Jonah could only sense the magnitude of what was beyond, and the nothing of where they were. The breach that Coldbrook had formed through from one Earth to another had taken account of time and space, but the route they now travelled was timeless, and without space. In the breaches there had been memories, but here there was nothing.
Where are we?
Jonah thought, but even ‘where’ held no significance here.

In that non-place there was nothing around him but the Inquisitor, and he was the one thing that Jonah had no wish to see, or smell, or sense through body warmth. He tried to close off his senses, but they were not his own. He was a prisoner already.

The instant ended, and a bright light seemed to fill him and then bleed away.
I’ve come so far
, he thought. He had to watch; had to be aware. He could not ruin this.

Jonah opened his eyes.

The room felt painfully familiar – buried, windowless, with the weight of the world all around. But that was where any familiarity ended. He and the Inquisitor stood in the centre of the room on a smooth circular stone, worn down through the ages by generations of footsteps. Surrounding the stone were seven smooth metal uprights, waist-high and three inches thick. They glowed faintly, and
Jonah could hear a subtle ringing in his ears, as if the uprights were still vibrating with some mysterious echo.

Beyond them, the blend of modern and archaic confused his senses. Three desks buzzed and hummed, while the three people standing behind them were dressed in fine robes, inlaid with gold designs and glittering across the chests with flickering lights. They wore headpieces with microphones and earpieces, one wore heavy-framed glasses, and all three focused intently on their desks. Jonah could not see what they were doing, but their concentration was evident as the washed-out white light of reflected computer screens played across their faces.

Behind them, a tapestry covered one wall, a creation of obvious antiquity that showed Jesus lying in the Virgin Mary’s arms, dead and not yet risen again. Another wall held a simple wooden cross, and the others were home to a collection of religious artefacts – crosses, artwork, carvings, parchments.

Jonah breathed in and smelled something vaguely spiced, an unpleasant aroma that reminded him of age and neglect. The Inquisitor removed the mask across his nose and mouth and inhaled, sighing deeply.

A woman behind one of the desks glanced up at Jonah and the Inquisitor.

‘
Deus nobiscum sacri itineris
,’ the Inquisitor said. The woman flicked a switch on her desktop, and the metal
poles surrounding the smooth stone slid soundlessly into the floor.

‘
Deus in nobis
,’ she said. ‘Please move along, Revered One. Busy day.’

Busy day
, Jonah thought, wondering what she meant. ‘Who are you people?’ he asked, but it was as if no one had heard him. The poorly lit room thrummed with power. It was a nauseating feeling.

The Inquisitor took his arm and steered him across the room towards a door. It was set in an ornate archway, a beautiful structure that sickened Jonah with its intricacy and the care that must have been taken in creating and maintaining it.
They find time for beauty while doing their best to destroy
, he thought. He pulled free of the Inquisitor’s grip and turned to face the three robed people, hating them for their casual manner, shaking with anger. The trigger in his pocket seemed to call to him, urging him to explode the disease through his heart and set himself to bite.

But the Inquisitor grasped his shoulder and pulled him on, and as Jonah reached one hand into his pocket the room lit up.

Again Jonah shrugged the Inquisitor’s hand from his shoulder and turned around. The smooth circular stone glowed briefly and brightly, and the metal rods rose swiftly from the floor, accompanied by a gush of silver steam. As the glow died down, two shapes appeared within the metal circle, forming on the stone.

How many feet to wear that stone down so much?
Jonah wondered. But then the shapes manifested some more, and all conscious thought was ripped away by shock.