Coldbrook(141)

‘What are you doing in Secondary?’

‘Trying to adapt the breach. Doesn’t matter – you need to protect Jayne, Vic. It’s all about her now, and Marc.’

‘Where’s he?’

‘Here with me. Drake’s here, too. He said Moira and others are going to take the kids through.’

She means through there, Vic thought, and his spine tingled at the thought. ‘Right. I can pick up Jayne and Sean on the way.’

Gunshots, and he wasn’t sure whether they were from outside the door or had sounded over the phone. Olivia and Lucy looked at the door, startled. Outside.

‘Holly, gotta go, see you in Control in three minutes.’

‘Wait!’

‘Holly—’

‘Loved you, Vic.’

‘I’m not going through without you,’ he said. ‘We’ll wait in Control.’

‘Okay. Now go.’

‘Holly . . .’ I loved you, he wanted to say. But he didn’t, because he still loved her, and to say that in front of Lucy would have been too much. Holly disconnected and he pocketed the phone.

‘They’re in,’ Lucy said.

‘Yeah. Okay, listen. We have to get through the breach.’

‘With Jayne,’ Lucy said. ‘She’s our hope.’

Vic grabbed his pistol; reloaded now, and with three spare magazines.

‘But won’t they follow us through?’

‘Holly’s doing something to the breach, I guess to prevent that. And we’ll be ready over there when it opens again. Defend it until we’re ready to come back through with a cure.’

‘And what’ll be left?’

Vic couldn’t answer that, so he didn’t try.

‘Ready, princess?’ he asked.

‘I’m scared,’ Olivia said.

‘You follow close to me, keep your eyes on my back, turn when I turn. Remember how you’d follow my steps in the snow?’ His beautiful daughter nodded. ‘Pretend we’re doing that now.’

He pulled on his boots and stood by the door. Last time I ran from here, I turned right.

Vic opened the door, paused at the corridor junction, checked both ways, and headed left.





7


‘We’ll take Marc with us,’ Drake said.

Holly nodded, her heart thumping, looking from Drake to Marc. I can’t say goodbye. It might slow them down.

‘I need everything,’ Marc said, picking up piles of printed material. He glanced at the laptop and satphone, frowned.

‘No use over there,’ Holly said. ‘You need to go.’

One of the screens showed the garage, block wall tumbled from the pressure of zombies massed in the high duct behind it, hundreds of them now pressing forward against the wall below the camera where the short corridor to the common room began. Earlier, Holly had caught a brief glimpse of Hitch’s slack face in the mass. The middle screen showed the common room. It was empty of kids now, and a tide of zombie bodies was flowing through the door like a slow wave. Several people – from Holly’s Earth, and from Gaia – were systematically shooting any new one that managed to force its way, through, adding to the pile of cadavers. Gunshots flashed, crossbows whispered, gun smoke hazed the air. It could not last.

The fourth screen showed hundreds more zombies gathered around the parked bus and open duct. If she watched long enough, Holly knew that she would see them drop out of view on one screen and appear again, eventually, in the garage.

‘Moira’s leading the kids,’ Drake said to Marc. ‘You need to come with us.’

Marc nodded, looking around the room as if he’d forgotten something important. He’s scared, Holly realised. She held his arms, catching his stare.

‘I’ll see you soon,’ she said. Marc offered a brief smile.

‘You’re not coming?’ Drake asked.

‘I need to close the breach for a while, until we’re . . .’ She trailed off, pointed at the screens. ‘Make sure Vic picks up Jayne on his way.’

Drake nodded, and behind him Moira stared at Holly. Smiled. Holly smiled back.

They left Secondary, and Holly closed the door behind them and locked it. Then she returned to the desk and sat back, placing her pistol beside her laptop. She tapped a few keys and brought up the program she needed. Deep down by the core, an electronic switch the size of her thumb waited to trip.

On the screens she saw more zombies forcing their way through into the common room, and the defenders had fallen back from the frenzied things. One corpse crawled, peppered with bullets and bolts, reaching beyond the camera’s view before staying still. Others rolled down the pile of bodies, stood, and stumbled out of sight.

Holly flicked the image to a corridor view, just in time to see Vic and his family disappearing around a corner towards Jonah’s room. She wanted to call Vic, tell him to get a f*cking move on, but that might distract him and slow him. So she switched cameras again, flipping through several before she saw Vic, Olivia and Lucy outside Jonah’s door.

Vic reached for the handle and pushed the door open.

On another screen, she saw zombies flooding into the common room.

Holly’s hand hovered over her laptop. She offered up a prayer, knowing that with a few keystrokes she would change this world. Marc will be safe soon, he has the knowledge, he has Mannan, and if I have to sacrifice Vic and his family and even Jayne . . . if I have to kill them . . .