Coldbrook

9

‘It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong,’ Lucy said. ‘Maybe she’s just busy.’

‘Yeah.’ Vic had been trying to contact Holly and the phone rang and rang. Every time he blinked he saw Holly as one of those things, only now she was grinning with his dead sister’s grin.

‘What’s wrong, Daddy?’ Olivia asked.

‘Nothing,’ he said, smiling at his daughter. ‘You and Mommy are here, so everything’s fine.’ Lucy half-smiled and looked away, out of her side window at the wild mountainsides passing by.

Sean had taken over the driving, and Marc sat in the passenger seat with his laptop open. On the dashboard in front of him was the notebook with the handwritten list of names. There were at least eight people crossed off. Others had ticks beside them, and a few more had yet to be contacted.

‘Those names you’ve crossed off-’ Vic began, but Marc did not let him finish.

‘Dead.’

The silence in the vehicle was sombre. Beside Vic, Jayne shifted, groaning softly.

‘Just because you can’t contact them-’

‘This one,’ Marc said, voice loud and firm. ‘Radomyr Golovnya. Lives in Kiev. The Russians have used some unknown weapon along their western borders, and Ukraine and Belarus have been affected. So Radomyr, a brilliant physician, a man I once argued with for six hours about the common cold, is dead.’

He struck the pad with his pen, indicating another name. ‘Rob Nichols. Quiet guy, too humble for my liking — I mean, he was a fucking genius. He lived in Wales, he and Jonah went to the same school but at different times. And I can’t reach him, and I know he’s dead, because I’ve seen what’s become of Cardiff.’

‘Phone lines and networks-’ Vic began, but Marc cut him off again, needing to name his dead friends to vent his rage and grief.

‘Kagiso, she told me that her name means “peace”. Johannesburg. It’s just. . gone. They nuked it. Kagiso was the best paediatric-disease researcher I’ve ever met. Beautiful woman.’ He shook his head and touched another crossed-out name. ‘Caspian Morhaim, microbiologist. Kicked out of seven universities, four ex-wives, seven kids at the last count. Completely fucking insane. Knows more about hot viruses than anyone. He once told me, “Ebola is my bitch.” Spends half his life in BSL-4 labs, then for kicks he bungee jumps and free-dives, just to clear his head. He worked in Galveston, University of Texas. And Texas is fucked.’

Marc touched other names and shook his head again. The car remained silent for a while, all of them waiting for him to go on. But now the silence became a respectful goodbye to the dead they all knew.

He’s thinking of them still walking, Vic thought. He closed his eyes and could only picture Holly.

‘But there are others? You’ll get the help you need?’ Sean asked. They were climbing the side of a mountain, the road zigzagging through a heavily forested area. The truck and school bus followed, along with several more vehicles that had joined the column. Some of the Unblessed gang had taken to roaring ahead to clear the way, and often they’d leave a corpse or four by the roadside. Other times, the rest of the survivors would catch up to find the bikers shooting at shapes that were pushing their way through the undergrowth. No one thought that target practice was a bad idea.

One of the bikers was a huge man with incredible facial hair. Each time Olivia stared at him from the station wagon window he performed a clumsy dance for her that ended in a pirouette. Vic treasured the sound of his daughter’s chuckling and realised that he had not made her laugh since this nightmare had begun.

‘Help,’ Marc said. He turned in his seat to look at Vic and his family, and at Jayne leaning against the door. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I’ve got help. Some people are emailing me as much data as they can. A few are on the move like us, trying to survive. But they’ve said that they’ll send me information, opinions, theories, guesswork as long as they can. They’re making it their prime aim.’ He shook his head. ‘Some I believe, some I don’t. Prime aim. . that’s got to be family, hasn’t it?’ He glanced at Vic. ‘Hasn’t it?’

Vic nodded.

‘But do any of you have any idea what I have to do?’ Marc asked. ‘Any concept of how difficult it is to analyse a new disease and create a vaccine? Give me ten years and I might have an idea of what we’re dealing with here.’

‘Are you saying you can’t do it?’ Lucy asked. ‘Because we’ve come all this way with you, back to where we started.’

‘We came because Jonah told us to,’ Marc said, ‘and now Jonah’s gone.’

They rounded a bend and the road levelled out across the mountain’s wide summit. To their left, nestled in a valley, glinted a gorgeous lake, surrounded by wooded slopes and seeming peaceful and calm.

‘I’ll need volunteers,’ Marc said. ‘Eventually, if I think I can pin down why Jayne’s immune, and create some sort of vaccine, I’ll have to test it on someone. They’ll have to allow me to infect them. I’ll make mistakes.’

They soon reached a crossroads and Vic directed Sean to make a left turn, taking them down around the lake and up the other side of the valley. Over the next ridge lay Danton Rock, and in the valley beyond that was Coldbrook.

‘We should stop when we find somewhere clear,’ Vic said to Sean.

‘Sure thing.’

‘Good,’ Jayne said. ‘I need to stretch my legs before Mister Cheerful here starts cutting me up.’

Marc laughed. Jayne grinned. And Vic felt excluded from their contact, an outsider in a car filled with fellow survivors. He thought of trying to call Holly again but Lucy was sitting beside him, warm and quiet. He’d done everything to get his family back — and he would do anything to keep them.

The huge biker’s name was Chaney. He came from San Francisco, claimed to be descended from Jack London, and said he was a lawyer. He and the rest of his Unblessed were bike enthusiasts from all kinds of backgrounds and jobs, weekend warriors rather than a hardcore gang. They’d been up here touring the Appalachians when the outbreak began. There had been almost twenty of them back then.

‘Why didn’t you try for home?’ Vic asked Chaney.

‘’Cos I’m clever,’ Chaney said. ‘Decided to wait it out where there aren’t many people.’

Vic didn’t ask where a casual gang of bikers had found and learned to use so many weapons.

They got everyone together, and Vic told them that Coldbrook was a government seed vault, a storage facility buried deep in the mountains and designed to withstand catastrophes ranging from nuclear war to climate change to meteor strike.

‘And there’s room for all of us down there?’ Chaney asked. There were over fifty survivors in the convoy now, in a collection of cars, trucks and motorbikes, as well as the bus filled with kids. Vic thought of Coldbrook jammed with all these people.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘For a while. There are labs and admin offices down there, and sleeping quarters. There’s an air vent leading to the surface — easy way in, in case it’s locked down.’

‘And what’re you?’ Chaney asked. The big man was smiling, Vic thought, though the extravagant beard all but hid his mouth.

‘Plant scientist,’ Vic said. ‘Er. . fungi.’

‘Pomologist,’ Chaney said.

‘Yeah. That’s me.’

Chaney nodded. ‘So we get down into your Coldbrook seed vault, then find a cure for a disease that turns everyone into zombies.’

‘That’s it,’ Vic said. He nodded at Marc. ‘Marc and I were at. . university together. He’s an expert in epidemics.’ He stared at Chaney. ‘A phorologist. And he’s in contact with a lot of his associates around the world. And with Jayne he thinks we might have a chance.’

‘Shouldn’t this all be. . I dunno, the government?’

‘What government?’ Sean asked.

‘The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta is gone,’ Marc said. ‘And the fact is that Jayne’s here with us, not anywhere else. How that got to be is a story for when we’re tucked away safe and sound, but-’

Five gunshots rang out.

‘Three of ’em were coming up through the trees!’ a man shouted from the edge of the clearing.

‘Keep your eyes peeled!’ Chaney called. From away in the distance came that low calling.

‘Vic,’ Sean prompted.

So Vic told them all about Danton Rock, and how the only road to Coldbrook passed through that town. Never for a moment did it feel as though he was talking about his home.

‘So let’s roll,’ Marc said.

They returned to their vehicles, and as Vic and Lucy helped Olivia back into the car, Vic felt someone standing behind him.

‘Ma’am, could I speak with your husband?’ Chaney asked.

‘Only if you promise to dance for my daughter again,’ she said, smiling.

‘Well, now,’ Chaney said, and Vic was amazed to see a blush on his cheeks, ‘I’m afraid true art can’t be produced to order. But I’ll see what I can rustle up later.’

Chaney walked a few steps to the side and Vic followed him.

‘Okay, so it’s not a seed vault,’ Vic said.

‘No fuckin’ shit. I don’t give a damn what it is, so long as what you told us is true. First, that it’s safe. And second, that your guy there might be able to come up with a cure.’

‘Both true,’ Vic said.

‘’Cos me and my guys have done okay staying in the hills away from other people.’

‘Really?’ Vic asked. ‘You’re doing okay?’

Chaney blinked a few times, but never looked away from Vic. ‘You got something heavy on your shoulders, man,’ he said.

‘Tell me about it.’ Vic smiled and held out his hand, and Chaney gripped and shook it.

Back in the station wagon, Marc was already working on his laptop again, and Sean was strapping on his seat belt. ‘Everyone belt up,’ he said. ‘Gonna be driving fast, and not stopping for anything.’

Vic breathed in the mountain air and heard that haunting call somewhere in the distance. They were about to drive through Danton Rock, where they would see people that he and his family knew.

He checked the M1911, then pulled the satphone from his pocket.