Coldbrook(15)

‘I think it was a man,’ he said. ‘And he killed Melinda. And then Melinda bit Alex Maxwell on the face.’

‘She . . .?’ Uri said. ‘You said it killed her.’


‘Melinda?’ Estelle gasped. They had been good friends.

‘I ran,’ Jonah said, remembering the last terrible thing he had seen as he’d torn himself away from the glass wall. Part of him had wanted to stay, hoping that the situation would be resolved and that things would be safe again. But he had already been locked out of Control, and Secondary was the only place for him to go. And even if they did manage to restore calm to the chaotic situation, everything had gone too far. He was aware of the selfishness of his thought, now as he had been then, but he couldn’t help it. This place was his life. From the glimpse he’d had down at the breach, it was close to ending.

‘But what do you mean—’ and then the three of them were talking at once.

‘Can we have some order, please!’ Jonah said coldly. ‘Bring up Control on screens one to three, and the corridor outside the main doors on four.’ He glanced at the guard. ‘Anyone else coming?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I thought I heard a scream.’ Jonah had often wondered how many of the ex-military guards they employed had killed. He’d never really wanted to know, but now he did. The guard’s face was pale, but he was not panicking. Not yet.

‘A scream?’ Uri whispered.

‘Oh my God!’ Estelle gasped, because the screens had flickered into life. And it was worse than Jonah could ever have imagined.

Control was smeared and splashed with blood, but he could see only one body: the intruder that had come through the breach. He lay motionless in a wide pool of Melinda’s blood just outside the breach boundary. On screen four, a guard lay dead outside the open door to Control.

‘Someone’s opened the bastard door,’ Jonah said softly, his heart pounding. ‘Someone’s . . .’

‘There!’ Estelle said. ‘Movement, screen three. Look! Can’t you zoom in, or . . .?’

Uri worked his control desk expertly and the image on screen three grew. Holly was cowering behind her desk, and Melinda was advancing towards her. She dragged one leg, and it looked loose. Her head and back were a mess, and Jonah shivered, glad that he could not see her face and the damage that the thing had done. A guard was standing behind her, swaying slightly as if he’d been knocked over the head.

‘Melinda’s not dead,’ Uri said. ‘But . . .’ But, Jonah thought. But indeed. She trailed a slick of blood behind her, and the back of her lab smock was torn with what appeared to be bullet holes and knife slashes.

‘Where’s everyone else?’ Estelle asked. Jonah could see that she was staring at screen one, where the intruder from beyond the breach could be seen most clearly.

‘Who else was down there?’ Uri asked.

‘Satpal,’ Jonah said. ‘The standard four guards, including Alex.’

‘He’s alive!’ Estelle said.

On screen four, another guard was getting to his feet, inching slowly up the glass wall until he stood upright. Blood had sprayed the opposite wall and, though it was unclear on the image, Jonah thought he could see a dark mess at the guard’s throat. That’s arterial, he thought. The guard stood with his hands by his sides, not pressed to his wounds. Then he turned and started walking along the corridor towards the camera.

‘Fucking hell,’ Estelle said.

‘His face!’ Uri said.

The wounded man passed below the camera, and he was not wearing the expression of someone in pain or close to passing out. Instead, his teeth were bared and his pupils completely dilated. He looked predatory, sharklike. He was barely out of his teens, and the most frightening thing Jonah had ever seen.

‘Holly,’ Jonah breathed. She stood slowly from behind her desk and looked up at a camera, drew her hand across her throat – and then the last guard remaining in Control ran at her. His uniform was splashed black and torn in several places. He had dropped his gun, and his hands were held out, clawed, in front of him, ready to rip and tear. He leaped onto a desk and jumped over Melinda’s head onto another work surface. Holly slammed her hand down onto a button and ran.

Directly at the breach.

‘No!’ Estelle gasped.

Jonah caught his breath, heart thudding. Her disappearance into the breach was such a simple thing, so soundless and fast, that he was not sure he’d seen it at all. One moment she was there, the next she was gone, and he sat back in his chair and took a deep breath. Where are you now? he thought, and though he was not a believer he prayed to something, anything, that she was still alive. Then at least something might be saved from this disaster.

‘She’ll see it all,’ he said. His powerful sob surprised him.

The pursuing guard hit the floor where Holly had crouched moments before and stared after her. He swayed left to right, apelike, as if searching into darkness. Then he tilted his head to one side as though he’d heard something, and ran from Control, a fleeting shadow across screen four as he too disappeared into Coldbrook.

‘She’s gone through,’ Uri said. ‘I can’t . . . can’t access all of Control’s sensors to see if . . .’

‘I know,’ Jonah said. ‘But it doesn’t matter. She’s on her way to another Earth.’ He watched Melinda pause in front of the breach, her head raised slightly as if sniffing the air, and then turn away and stagger towards Control’s open door. He sighed in relief, glad that she had not followed Holly. Perhaps she had sensed closer prey.