Coldbrook

8

Holly brought the screwdriver down again and again, each impact juddering through her hand and wrist and arm. In the wild torchlight bits spattered across her thighs and stomach, and she screamed to rid herself of the sickening noise, and retched to purge the terrible slick taste of the dead flesh. Now that it moved, it was easier to discern which body part was dead and which was not within this merged mass, because the fury had not begun to rot.

It fell away from her, its burned hands slipping down her body. The face was shattered from twenty impacts from the screwdriver, thirty, more. She kept striking until all movement ceased.

‘Jonah,’ she croaked, unable to shout. ‘Jonah.’ But she no longer needed Jonah. She stopped stabbing. The screwdriver felt like an extension of her hand, and she was unsure she’d ever be able to rid herself of its feel.

Holly turned away from what she had done.

‘Few switches blown,’ she said. Her hoarse voice was surprisingly loud in the dark space. She kept the torch beam on the tangled bodies, and now neither of them moved. Each time she breathed she tasted death. ‘I can take them from other boards. Clean it down. Make sure there’s no. . stuff still causing shorts.’

Talking to herself made it easier. She set to work again, slipping the screwdriver into her pocket first and wiping her hands on her trousers.

She cleaned the damaged board, bypassing a melted area, replacing wires with temporary cold-set solder, moving switches, cannibalising the distribution board that served the entertainment system.

Holly closed her eyes after a few minutes and took a deep breath, then carried on.

When she’d finished she stepped back, looking down at the corpses.

I got it all over my hands.

She flicked a lever switch on the board and heard the hum of power.

Under my nails, in the creases of my skin, and maybe I cut myself with the screwdriver.

From the plant room she saw a faint glow of light, and knew that her repair had worked, for now.

Jonah should be shouting but he’s not there, or if he is he’s waiting for me with his mouth open, his eyes empty.

‘Jonah?’ she said. She made her way back through to the plant room.

Jonah was not waiting there.

Outside, the corridor lights were on again, and she heard that low background hum of Coldbrook that until now she hadn’t realised had been absent. The hum of life, she thought, and she had never welcomed the thudding of her heart so much.

If she became a fury, would it cease?

Next to the plant room was a small closet-type door, and behind it she found stacks of cleaning equipment and products. The bleach was in a large industrial bottle, unbranded and strong, and Holly poured it over her hands, rubbing them together and crying as the fumes got into her eyes. She gagged, pouring more bleach because maybe the first splash hadn’t got right down into her nails, or into those wounds she could not see. It burned. It hurt.

When arms closed around her from behind she almost screamed, but then she smelled Jonah’s familiar breath and allowed herself to collapse against him.

‘Hey, hey,’ he said, taking the screwdriver from her hand. She hadn’t even realised that she’d drawn it from her pocket.

‘Jonah,’ she gasped.

‘You did it.’

‘There was one of those. . one of them. .’

‘Come on,’ he said, and he was as strong as ever. ‘Hurry.’

‘What?’

‘I think your friends are coming to find you.’

‘Drake?’

‘I’m a little disappointed, truth be told. It means I don’t get to go through and find him.’

With Coldbrook lit up and alive around them once more, Jonah led her towards Control.

As they reached the window, Holly saw Drake and the people he had brought through the breach with him. Most of them were gathered by the doorway. They were all heavily armed, and several of them patrolled the room, stabbing fallen furies through the head.

Drake and Jonah gazed at each other, and Holly knew that this was the true meeting of worlds.