Coldbrook

10

Vic could hear the zombies banging and hooting, and he could smell them, their curious dead stench filling Coldbrook and promising a similar fate for him.

His chest burned as he ran, and a deep sense of shame burned inside him.

He passed the staircase they’d just descended and the doors bowed out, creaking. As he raced around the core towards Secondary’s staircase, he held the guns — his M1911 and the one he’d taken from Sean — in both hands, ready to aim them the instant he saw shadows coming at him.

Holly switched off the alarm. Just me and her left, Vic thought, and he ran harder.

The staircase was clear, though the zombies were pressing against the doors on the middle level. Dead eyes followed him as he dashed past, eyes belonging to people he had perhaps once known, and he looked away.

The corridor above was also clear, and moments later he was at Secondary’s door. He tried the handle — locked.

‘Holly!’

The lock snicked open and he shoved at the door, falling into the room, seeing the zombies on the screens, and Control was still clear.

‘Holly, we haven’t got a fucking second so we’ve-’

‘I’m not leaving, Vic.’ She was sitting at the desk again, gaze flickering across the screens, back to Vic, screens again.

‘What?’

Holly was crying. Smiling. ‘You came back for me.’

‘To help. Are you done? Come on, let’s get the fuck-’

‘I lied,’ she said. ‘You never did understand the core. I could adapt it, but that’s a long process, takes days. So I’ve bypassed a load of shit, rigged the containment to shut down instead. And that’s manual.’

‘No,’ Vic breathed.

‘One code away, Vic. Core exposure. And you know what that means.’

‘It means no one ever comes back,’ he said.

‘Back to what?’ Holly nodded at the screens. She could barely look at him.

‘But the cure,’ he said. ‘Everything we’ve been fighting for.’

‘There are other worlds to save.’

No, Vic thought. No, no, this isn’t why I came back, this can’t be-

But when Holly said, ‘You should go back to your family,’ Vic knew that it was. He had come back for a reason, and perhaps there was still time.

He walked to Holly and put his arms around her. She sighed, pressing her face against his. Then he lifted her from the chair and carried her towards the door.

‘Vic!’

He shoved her through, kicking aside her leg as she braced her foot against the frame. She sprawled on the floor, and Vic stood for a moment listening, watching. He could hear them far away, but they weren’t yet in the staircase.

‘Don’t you fucking dare!’ Holly screamed.

Vic lobbed both guns at her as she stood, and as she winced and knocked them aside he stepped back in and closed the door.

Locked it.

Holly was on the other side, crying and raging. ‘You saved your family!’ she shouted. ‘Stupid bastard, saved them and then threw your own life away. What good is that?’

‘But I killed everyone else,’ he said, raising his voice so that she could hear him.

‘Self-fucking-pity?’ Holly looked past him at the screens. Control was still clear.

‘You might still have time!’ he shouted.

‘Let me in.’

‘Not happening, Holly. Tell me what to do.’

She stared at him. She knew he was a stubborn bastard, single-minded. She knew that this door was never opening again.

‘Damn you, Vic.’

‘Too late for that.’

‘Your name.’ Holly stooped out of sight and picked up the pistols. ‘Then press enter.’

‘How did you-’

‘I don’t even know if it’ll work!’ she said, laughing and crying at the same time. Then she backed away towards the staircase.

Vic watched her go, hand on the door handle, heart thumping. As she pressed through the doors into the stairwell her expression did not change at all. But she watched him for every last moment she had.

He turned from the door and sat on the chair. It was still warm from Holly. Vic closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, smelling her. I love two women, he thought, but the image that screamed at him was his little girl, shrieking for him to come with her.

Olivia was through the breach now. A whole world away, and in a place he had never seen.

‘Hope you’ve done well, Jonah,’ he said. There was a box on the laptop screen, cursor flashing, and he tapped in his name: Vic Pearson. Holly’s choice of code, the last words she’d thought she would ever see. The name glared at him, bright, accusing.

Two minutes later, on the big wall screens, Holly appeared in Control. She’ll stop and look at the camera, call me on the satphone, one last-

But she ran through the breach without once looking back

Vic had never felt so alone.

‘I’ve lost them,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve lost them all.’

A moment later the zombies flooded into Control, pursuing Holly, darkening that place like fluid from a foul, ruptured wound. The first of them was ten steps from the breach as Vic rested his finger on the enter key.

He relaxed, pressed down.

And then there was light.