Coldbrook

10

At the first scream Moira’s eyes widened and she darted past Holly, pulling free the crossbow slung around her shoulder, loading it as she ran. Holly had time to notice how gracefully she performed these actions. And as she burst through into the garage once again, Holly realised how foolish they had all been. She’d nodded to the door that the Hummer had been holding shut and had told Drake it needed guarding. But that had been wrong.

It had needed checking.

There were six zombies, three of them wearing the familiar dark blue outfits of Coldbrook’s surface security staff, two in army fatigues, the other one naked and burned. All of them were fast. By the time Holly had reached the garage doorway, two of them were down. One lay still, the other waved her hands in front of her face trying to grab the end of the arrow that stuck out from there. The female zombie kept striking the feathered flight, swinging her head left and right in the process, making no sound.

Drake was twenty feet from where Holly stood, close to the Hummer’s front end, reloading his crossbow. He glanced in her direction, then raised the weapon and fired at the burned fury. The bolt ricocheted from its shoulder and clattered against the wall, and the blackened thing darted for him.

Holly pulled her gun and aimed, but Drake was in her field of fire.

Moira ran, slid across the polished concrete floor, and tripped the running fury. She rolled aside before it could leap at her.

Holly pushed herself from the doorway, groaning at the pain of the slow fire in her side. She aimed at the fallen fury and was about to fire when another of Drake’s people shot it from across the garage. It rolled three times and then lay still, dark fluid leaking from its head.

‘Watch the doorway!’ Drake shouted. Holly paused, thinking he was talking to her, but he was waving at his people. ‘Don’t let any of them in. Don’t let them through!’

‘Over there!’ someone shouted. ‘Down. Get down!’ The thrum of a crossbow. The thud of a bolt’s impact. The impact of a body falling to the floor. All of this was at the other end of the garage beyond the Hummer and the 4x4s, and Holly stumbled sideways to get a clear view of what was happening, her pistol held in both hands. Behind her, three Gaians were guarding the doorway, one facing into the common room just in case any furies had slipped through without them noticing.

Good, Holly thought. More cautious now.

And then she saw a fury kneeling on a woman beside one of the 4x4s, darting his head to bite at her thrashing hands. She was not screaming. She bucked and tried to roll, knocking his face aside each time he snapped at her, trying to shake him but unable to do so. From somewhere out of sight an arrow embedded itself in his shoulder, but he barely paused.

The Gaians were used to furies worn down by forty years — deadly if they could get close enough but slow and withered. Not new furies like these, heavy and strong. Fast.

The dead soldier grabbed both of the woman’s hands and leaned down into her face.

‘No!’ Holly shouted, and she ran past the Hummer, joined by another Gaian nocking an arrow as he ran. As Holly neared the thrashing pair and aimed at the fury, the man’s arrow slammed into the Gaian woman’s head, slamming it to one side, spilling blood. The fury sat back and turned to Holly.

Holly gasped, looking at the woman’s legs kicking slowly as if she was swimming down into darkness.

‘Shoot it!’ the man said.

The fury stood and turned towards Holly, and she shot it in the face. It went down and she turned away, trying to see who or what was groaning in such a horrible fashion until she realised it was her.

Paloma dragged herself from beneath the Hummer and walked around the other side, towards where Holly had last seen Drake. There was blood staining the Gaian doctor’s neck and shoulders, and her scalp was shredded across the back of her head.

‘Drake!’ Holly shouted as she ran. Each step drove pain up into her side, and she thought of the Gaian leader’s wife tending the wound. ‘Drake!’

Two of the three people guarding the doorway into the rest of the facility were raising their weapons, but they were too far away and they would not be fast enough.

‘Paloma?’ Holly heard Drake’s voice as she rounded the Hummer’s rear end, her pistol raised.

Drake held his unloaded crossbow in his hand, and as Paloma staggered to within five steps of her husband his expression changed from relief to horror.

Holly took careful aim at the back of Paloma’s head and pulled the trigger.

The satphone was ringing. Holly could not answer. She could not look at the man whose wife she had shot. Wherever she looked, all she could see was the woman’s head blown apart and the shower of blood and brains that had obscured her view of Drake.

She tried to pluck the phone from her pocket, but her fingers refused to obey her commands. The ringing ceased.

‘Holly!’ Drake said again, and this time he grabbed her face between his hands and lifted it so he could look into her eyes. She wanted to close them. But knew that she would have to face him soon.

I’m sorry, she tried to say, but no words emerged. All she saw now was him, and he was drenched in red. Someone had given him a rag, but he had placed it over his shoulder, too concerned with Holly to wipe his own wife’s blood from his face and chest. I’m sorry.

‘Holly, you didn’t save me,’ Drake said. ‘You saved Paloma.’

‘The plant-room door,’ she whispered.

‘It’s being watched. No one’s gone up yet, but we’ll hear anyone coming down.’

‘Might be Vic.’

‘We’ll be careful.’ Drake eased himself back, kneeling in front of her. His expression was slack and he could not look at anything for more than a second before glancing somewhere else. He was in shock but didn’t realise it yet.

Moira stood behind him, a loaded crossbow slung from each shoulder. She nodded at Holly, and Holly nodded back, and that was all that was required between them.

‘Drake-’ Holly began, and the satphone rang again, startling them both. She pressed the connect button and then Vic was there, his voice low and fast, and filled with urgency.

‘Holly, I got you. Listen. We won’t be-’ The noise of gunshots drowned him out, and Holly winced and pulled the phone away from her ear.

‘Vic? What’s happening?’

‘Holly, we’ll-’ More gunshots. ‘-soon, just passing through Danton-’ Static, cries of alarm, the thud of a heavy impact. ‘-soon. Okay down there?’

Holly didn’t know where to begin. ‘Yes, all fine. Come in the same way you got out, but be careful of the duct.’

‘Say again?’ Someone close to Vic was crying, long ragged sobs.

‘I said the duct might not be clear, so you-’ A louder scream, another shocking impact, and then the connection was broken. ‘Vic? Vic?’

‘They’re close,’ Drake said.

‘Danton Rock. Maybe a mile.’

‘Then we need to make sure their way down here is clear.’ He helped Holly to her feet, and they stood facing each other awkwardly for a moment.

Holly opened her mouth to speak.

‘Thank you, Holly,’ Drake said. ‘You should go and find some clothes.’ He left her and shouted some orders, and two of his people started to collect the bodies of humans and furies alike.