Coldbrook (Hammer)(144)

‘Kagiso, she told me that her name means “peace”. Johannesburg. It’s just . . . gone. They nuked it. Kagiso was the best paediatric-disease researcher I’ve ever met. Beautiful woman.’ He shook his head and touched another crossed-out name. ‘Caspian Morhaim, microbiologist. Kicked out of seven universities, four ex-wives, seven kids at the last count. Completely f*cking insane. Knows more about hot viruses than anyone. He once told me, “Ebola is my bitch.” Spends half his life in BSL-4 labs, then for kicks he bungee jumps and free-dives, just to clear his head. He worked in Galveston, University of Texas. And Texas is f*cked.’

Marc touched other names and shook his head again. The car remained silent for a while, all of them waiting for him to go on. But now the silence became a respectful goodbye to the dead they all knew.

He’s thinking of them still walking, Vic thought. He closed his eyes and could only picture Holly.

‘But there are others? You’ll get the help you need?’ Sean asked. They were climbing the side of a mountain, the road zigzagging through a heavily forested area. The truck and school bus followed, along with several more vehicles that had joined the column. Some of the Unblessed gang had taken to roaring ahead to clear the way, and often they’d leave a corpse or four by the roadside. Other times, the rest of the survivors would catch up to find the bikers shooting at shapes that were pushing their way through the undergrowth. No one thought that target practice was a bad idea.

One of the bikers was a huge man with incredible facial hair. Each time Olivia stared at him from the station wagon window he performed a clumsy dance for her that ended in a pirouette. Vic treasured the sound of his daughter’s chuckling and realised that he had not made her laugh since this nightmare had begun.

‘Help,’ Marc said. He turned in his seat to look at Vic and his family, and at Jayne leaning against the door. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I’ve got help. Some people are emailing me as much data as they can. A few are on the move like us, trying to survive. But they’ve said that they’ll send me information, opinions, theories, guesswork as long as they can. They’re making it their prime aim.’ He shook his head. ‘Some I believe, some I don’t. Prime aim . . . that’s got to be family, hasn’t it?’ He glanced at Vic. ‘Hasn’t it?’

Vic nodded.

‘But do any of you have any idea what I have to do?’ Marc asked. ‘Any concept of how difficult it is to analyse a new disease and create a vaccine? Give me ten years and I might have an idea of what we’re dealing with here.’

‘Are you saying you can’t do it?’ Lucy asked. ‘Because we’ve come all this way with you, back to where we started.’

‘We came because Jonah told us to,’ Marc said, ‘and now Jonah’s gone.’

They rounded a bend and the road levelled out across the mountain’s wide summit. To their left, nestled in a valley, glinted a gorgeous lake, surrounded by wooded slopes and seeming peaceful and calm.

‘I’ll need volunteers,’ Marc said. ‘Eventually, if I think I can pin down why Jayne’s immune, and create some sort of vaccine, I’ll have to test it on someone. They’ll have to allow me to infect them. I’ll make mistakes.’

They soon reached a crossroads and Vic directed Sean to make a left turn, taking them down around the lake and up the other side of the valley. Over the next ridge lay Danton Rock, and in the valley beyond that was Coldbrook.

‘We should stop when we find somewhere clear,’ Vic said to Sean.

‘Sure thing.’

‘Good,’ Jayne said. ‘I need to stretch my legs before Mister Cheerful here starts cutting me up.’

Marc laughed. Jayne grinned. And Vic felt excluded from their contact, an outsider in a car filled with fellow survivors. He thought of trying to call Holly again but Lucy was sitting beside him, warm and quiet. He’d done everything to get his family back – and he would do anything to keep them.

The huge biker’s name was Chaney. He came from San Francisco, claimed to be descended from Jack London, and said he was a lawyer. He and the rest of his Unblessed were bike enthusiasts from all kinds of backgrounds and jobs, weekend warriors rather than a hardcore gang. They’d been up here touring the Appalachians when the outbreak began. There had been almost twenty of them back then.

‘Why didn’t you try for home?’ Vic asked Chaney.

‘’Cos I’m clever,’ Chaney said. ‘Decided to wait it out where there aren’t many people.’