Coldbrook(111)

Jonah was amazed once more at the fury’s decayed state. It was over forty years dead, yet it had still had the ability to move and the will to spread its disease. He experienced a moment of panic that made his heart flutter and caused him to lean against the passage wall.

They walked on and soon passed through a final doorway in a thick stone wall. The wooden door had been pulled to one side, its top hinge pulled away from the crumbling rock.

‘I’ll reset them all on the way back out,’ Drake said.

‘I know,’ Jonah said. And I’ll be committed to this. But he hadn’t for a second thought about turning around. This might have been forced upon him, but, though he could never believe in fate or destiny, his mind was set.

‘This is it,’ Drake said, and for the first time Jonah heard a weakness in his voice. Awe did that, perhaps. And maybe fear.

The breach was in front of them, set into the original hillside like a black diamond. Light did not escape it: it neither shone nor glowed. It was simply a blackness in the shadows thrown by Drake’s torch.

Jonah held out his hand to Drake, and they shook.

‘They’ll write poems about you,’ Drake said.

‘Poems? Christ. I’m Welsh. Give me a good song any day.’

Drake laughed sadly, not quite understanding. ‘Good luck, Jonah.’

Without another word Jonah passed through, and his greatest journey began.





2


Jayne surfaced slowly from the churu coma, her senses coming alive as her pain grew. She felt as if she’d been torn apart and thrust back together again. The roar of the helicopter’s motor had stopped, replaced now with screaming and other, more terrible sounds. Something dripped. Someone cried, and it sounded like a little girl.

Jayne opened her eyes, and even that hurt. Groaning out loud, she lifted her hands and checked her body for wounds.

There was blood on the back of her head, but she didn’t think that it was hers.

‘Sean?’ she said, glancing to her left. Sean was gone. His safety straps were cut, and his absence seemed unnatural.

She closed her eyes, trying to process what she’d seen just across from her. Then she looked again.

The guy, Vic, was dead. Head flung back, from the chest up he was red. His mouth hung open, and blood dripped from between his teeth. His little girl was standing with her back to him, less than three feet from Jayne, tugging at her mother’s safety straps.

‘Hey,’ Jayne said.

The girl staggered a little, kicking something on the floor, letting out a wretched cry.

Someone screamed again, and the wrecked helicopter seemed to shake.

The woman – Lucy, Jayne remembered, the name coming to her even though she wasn’t sure they’d even been introduced – was whimpering as she wrestled with her straps.

‘Hey,’ Jayne said again. The woman looked up, her eyes wide. Her face was misted with blood, but it didn’t seem to be her own. She blinked a few times, glanced above and behind Jayne, and started moaning.

The little girl stood back and kicked the thing on the floor again. She froze, crying, and then a sharp metal snap signalled Lucy’s freedom. She snatched up her daughter and pressed her face against her chest before jumping through the hole where the cabin door had previously hung.

Jayne looked down at the thing on the floor and realised it was a head. Not Sean, not Sean, she realised, because this dead person was white. The head was smashed and the only reason Jayne managed to keep from screaming was that it was looking away from her. At least he’s safe now, she thought, and then she did scream.

The dead man opposite her lifted his head and looked at her.

‘No!’ she shouted. ‘No, he’s one of them, no, help me, help me!’

From somewhere behind her came more anguished screaming, and then she recognised Marc’s voice calling Gary’s name again and again.

Sean appeared in the doorway, streaks of vomit across his chin and down his chest. He climbed in, shielding Vic from Jayne’s view, and—


‘Get your gun out!’ she shrieked. He held her, leaning in and ignoring the vomit as he pressed close, whispering into her ear that it was all right, she was alive, alive!

‘He’s not one of them,’ he said. He half turned. ‘Vic! Vic!’

‘Yeah,’ Vic said somehow. Jayne struggled against her straps, pushing against Sean to move him aside so she could see. She’d heard Vic talking, but she had to see.

Vic’s eyes were a startling white against the blood and other stuff coating his face. He spat, retched.

‘No more puke,’ Sean said. He put one hand on Vic’s chest and brought a knife around, and for a moment Jayne thought he was going to put the man out of his misery.

Sean sawed and hacked at the restraining straps.

‘Your family,’ he said, and Jayne saw Vic stumble from the wrecked aircraft and fall to the ground outside.

‘Sean? I saw his head. I saw Gary’s head.’

Sean glanced down and then came for her, putting himself between her and what she didn’t want to see again. Behind her, Marc’s shouting had ceased, and now she could hear him whispering. She didn’t want to hear what he was saying.

‘Got to cut you out,’ he said. ‘I’ll carry you as best I can, but you can’t—’