Coldbrook(65)

Moths fluttered in the light, creatures from elsewhere. Their presence took his breath away.

He’d thought seriously about going through, but not yet. He could not abandon his world while there still might be a chance for it. So he stood just inside the door and aimed the torch around the room, switching to wide beam so that shadows could not hide for too long. A few flies buzzed in the light. The moths spiralled in confusion, dusting the beam. The withered creature still lay where it had fallen.

And that was when the dark started talking at last.

‘It hurts when you pass through.’

Jonah gasped and pressed himself against the glass wall. He shone the torch this way and that, tracking its beam with the gun.

‘But pain purifies.’ The voice was low and wet. ‘It purges the old. Emphasises the new. The pain is necessary. There is so much more to come.’

Jonah swung left, and when he turned back the man stood in front of him, several paces away and different from before. He still held the pulsing red organ, its tendrils stirring as the light hit them, but his other hand had removed part of his mask to speak. His newly exposed lips were as pale as dead fish, the flesh around his mouth smooth and speckled with moisture. He pressed the mask back across his mouth and Jonah heard a pained inhalation. Steam hazed the air. Then the man removed it again to speak some more.

‘I am the Inquisitor, and you will be prepared and instructed.’ His teeth were rotted, black and cracked, and a faint mist seemed to issue from his throat.

Jonah raised the gun and aimed, but the man merely pressed his mask back against his mouth. He had yet to expose his eyes. Jonah flicked the torch this way and that, trying to get its light to penetrate the goggles. They glittered wet and dark.

Jonah lowered the gun, backed to the doorway and slipped through, never taking his gaze from the man. He followed.

‘This world is dead,’ the Inquisitor said. ‘You are honoured, because for you it is the beginning.’

‘This world is not dead!’ Jonah said, surprised at the forcefulness in his voice.

The intruder breathed in heavily once again, hissing softly as he exhaled.

Jonah flipped the torch around to check the corridor, and when he turned back the man had gone. A light mist hung in the air where he had been.

‘Where are you?’ Jonah whispered. ‘Inquisitor. Bastard.’ Control was silent, the corridor behind him whispering once again with scratching echoes of the dead.

Jonah stacked the chairs against the door, slid down the wall and nursed the torch. He remained there for some time, because that place was as safe as any.





5


The zombies surged by, and none of them had eyes for Holly. They were hideous. Many appeared unharmed and unchanged, apart from the blankness in their eyes and the sense of terrible purpose in their actions. Some had been wounded, and the injuries were many and varied – bullet holes, knife wounds, scrapes and gouges, burns, crush injuries, impact marks. Some were naked, some were in their nightclothes, others wore uniforms, suits, or casual clothing. The one thing that united them, other than the empty eyes, was the blood.

It was smeared across their mouths and jaws, their chins and throats and chests. These creatures had been biting, and they were seeking more.

Holly started backward, but Moira held her still.

‘Be calm,’ Moira said.

The zombies flickered from view, only to be replaced by more, and Holly realised that she was looking at a projection. The room was large and dim, the atmosphere heavy with moisture, and there were things in there that she could not comprehend.

The projection point of view shifted, turning to follow the path that the zombies were taking. The image splashed with something wet, and when it cleared she saw a long straight street, lined on each side with tall buildings. One of the buildings was on fire – people at the higher windows were shouting and waving. Their voices must have been desperate, but she could hear nothing. This was a vision only, and for that she was glad.

The street was jammed with zombies, and they were being cut down by gunfire from further along the street. Many of them stood up again and carried on running, or hobbling, or crawling if their legs or hips or spines had been destroyed. Many more – those shot in the head – stayed down.

The view suddenly shifted as whatever was observing this chaos climbed on top of an overturned car. And from higher up the sight was even more astounding.

The street was barricaded with a line of tanks parked side by side next to a Dunkin’ Donuts. Their big turret guns pointed along the street, but it was their machine guns that were doing the damage, raking left and right and making the air in front of them shimmer with heat and smoke. The silhouette of a helicopter gunship came quickly into view above them as it passed over the barricade and opened fire.

They were zombies, yet the devastation wrought upon their bodies was shocking. Holly wanted to turn away but found that she could not. She was riveted. She had the sense that she would have to see this eventually so she might as well go through with it now, see it all now.

The helicopter hovered over the street and its guns swivelled on their mountings. Glass shattered, raining down from the tall buildings, bodies were ripped apart, and then the helicopter turned towards her point of view, and Holly whined a little, trying to edge back.

‘It’s not happening here,’ Moira whispered in her ear.

The image flashed yellow, and then white, and then it became a pattern of falling snow on the air. Beyond the faded image, panting slightly where she lay on a clear fluid bed, a woman grasped at the air as if to hold the last drifting flakes.