Coldbrook

10

It was three hours before Sean was able to use the phone. Jayne had watched him trying again and again, had seen the subdued fear behind his eyes, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to ask.

Outside the aircraft, fires raged in the airport terminal. The two of them kept away from the windows, afraid of being seen.

‘They’re aimless,’ Jayne had said, watching one man stagger crablike across the wide concrete runway. His head rested on his left shoulder, and one leg was turned so that the foot faced backwards.

‘Only when there’s no one to bite,’ Sean had replied.

Jayne tried not to think about what would happen if they were discovered. The door was securely closed, and the only other way up to the aircraft cabin was to climb the wheel structures. We’re an island, she thought, imagining them surrounded by a sea of quiet, patient zombies. Perhaps they would gather and wait, a hundred of them or a thousand, or ten thousand when everyone else had been infected. Their purpose would not be complete until everyone was like them, and they would stare up at the aircraft windows, looking for signs of movement there and at the plane’s doors, standing through darkness and light, rain and sun, until something happened.

‘We’re trapped here,’ she said.

Sean’s face lit up.

‘Reception!’ he said suddenly, walking away from Jayne as he tapped in a number, then standing with his back to her and the phone held against his ear. He dialled again, stood listening. And again.

‘Sean.’

‘Maybe she’s out,’ he said.

‘What time is it over there?’

Sean glanced at his watch. ‘Six hours ahead. Early morning.’

‘They’ll be in bed.’

‘She keeps her phone with her all the time. You know how girls are.’ He came back and sat beside her again, looking at the phone as if willing her to call back. But it remained silent.

‘Maybe her phone’s off.’ Jayne could think of nothing else to say. There could be a hundred reasons why his daughter was not answering, but only one that really mattered.

‘France?’ he said. ‘Could it really have reached France?’

‘I can’t see how.’

Sean stared at her for a long moment and neither of them spoke. Then he stood and went to a window again, careful not to get too close as he looked outside.

‘I’ve got to tell someone about you,’ he said.

‘What about that immunity register?’

Sean shook his head, held up his cellphone. ‘Online. I’m still a dinosaur, no smartphone for me. I can call and text people on this, that’s about it.’

‘How about. . what’s it called? Centers for Disease Control. I read about it in that Stephen King book.’

‘Never read him,’ Sean said, turning around. ‘I’m more of a thriller guy.’

‘Well. .’ Jayne said, no knowing what to say.

‘Wait a minute,’ Sean said. ‘There is someone I can call. Just hope I still have the damn number.’

‘Who is it?’

Sean sat beside her again and placed a hand on her leg. His palm was hot, his hand heavy, and Jayne closed her own hand around his.

‘Old school buddy,’ Sean said. ‘Moved to the UK, became a doctor. Always was a clever bastard.’ He searched for a moment, then gave a yelp of joy and put the phone to his ear.

‘Leigh? Sean. Yeah, man, I’m fine. Can you fuckin’ believe it?’ He paused, nodding, and Jayne heard the distant whisper of a voice she did not know. ‘Well, listen to this,’ Sean continued. ‘Got something else you’re never gonna believe, and I need your advice on how to handle it.’

And he told his old school buddy about Jayne.

Leigh Keene hung up the phone and sat up in bed.

‘What is it?’ his wife asked. She’d started awake when the phone rang, and already sounded sleepy again. He had no idea how she could sleep with all that was happening in America.

‘Old school friend in the States,’ Leigh said. ‘I’ve got to go downstairs.’

‘’kay,’ she said. She sighed softly, already asleep. I hope you can stay so peaceful, Leigh thought, and his heart ached with worry for her and their baby son who was asleep in the next room. Leigh was a paediatric consultant at a big London hospital — loved kids, always had — and he could barely breathe because of his fear of what was happening.

Downstairs, he sat at his desk and flicked on the wall-mounted TV. He blinked in shock. ‘Jesus. South America.’ He tapped the desktop nervously, then dialled a number on his BlackBerry.

Four thousand miles away in Toronto, a woman dabbed at her mouth and excused herself from the table. She walked outside the restaurant as she answered her phone, pulling a cigarette from her pocket at the same time. It had been a weird night, marked with an almost manic need to indulge. It had reminded her of a movie she’d seen about what everyone did for their last night on Earth. It was fucking terrifying, but the atmosphere dragged her on.

She paused as she saw the name on the display. Pressed connect. ‘Leigh?’

‘Emma! Emma, thank Christ, I thought you weren’t going to pick up.’

‘I’m at a restaurant.’ It was raining. She stood under a canopy with other banished smokers and lit up.

‘Good,’ Leigh said. ‘Good. I thought. . I don’t know what.’

‘I’m not munching on brains yet,’ she said, and a couple of her smoking companions glanced her way. Emma glared back; she’d never been shy.

‘I know this is out of the blue, and we haven’t spoken for a long time, but-’

‘It’s been four years,’ she said.

‘Yeah. Sometimes feels like yesterday. Listen, are you safe? Do you have a plan?’

‘I’m fine,’ Emma said. ‘Leigh, I’d love to think this is all because you’re concerned about me, but I can’t believe that.’

‘I’ve always cared,’ he said.

She wondered where he was now, where his new wife and child were, and she was jealous all over again. ‘Yeah,’ she said.

‘Emma. . I have some information about someone important. And you’re the only person I could think of who might know what to do.’

Emma closed her eyes.

Emma called her cousin — Tim Love, a cop — and told him about the immune girl in burning Baltimore. Before he headed out with his unit to Bethleham, where he would have his infected brains blown out by a bullet from Lieutenant Susco’s pistol, Love called a friend of his in the Baltimore PD. His friend called four people and ordered that they prepare for a rescue mission to Baltimore Airport, and one of those people — a corrupt Sergeant called Waits who was buried up to his ass in the city’s main drugs-distribution ring — called his mistress in New York to say goodbye. And he told her where he was going, and why.

The mistress was married to Nathan King, a writer and boozer. A troubled man, King had many acquaintances but only a handful of true friends. And one of those friends was an eccentric gay scientist the size of a grizzly bear, called Marc Dubois.

King called Marc, and told him what his wife had heard.