Coldbrook (Hammer)(40)

6


Holly rose from her nightmare –

God help me, where did that come from? That thing, Melinda, the blood and screaming . . . Jonah’s hopeless gaze through the window. And the breach—

– and for a moment before she opened her eyes she believed that Vic was lying beside her. The narrow bed moved as he stirred, and she reached out to touch him, wondering why she couldn’t feel his warm naked body pressed close to hers. They were all given single beds in their quarters, and sharing had always been a cramped, sweaty affair. But she had liked it. Waking to Vic, sometimes she believed they could be together.

Her hand closed around something cool and gnarled, and when she opened her eyes she saw a wooden pole slipped through the stretcher’s canvas hoops, and remembered where she was.

The realisation struck her with a jolt, unreality flooding in as she struggled to find sleep again. Back to sleep, escape this nightmare, and Vic’s waiting for me if I can only close my eyes and get back to sleep!

The stretcher shook as those carrying it negotiated uneven terrain, and Holly opened her eyes once again. A thud of pain throbbed through her head. She tried to sit up. Something clicked nearby—

Their fingers, that’s how they communicate, I saw that just after—

—and the stretcher was lowered to the ground. She felt the rough ridges and contours of this place pressing through the canvas, spiking her buttocks and hips, and her elbow where she propped herself up. Memory flooded in as she looked around at the people who had saved her.

The arrow had struck the crawling woman just below the left eye, the impact sounding like wood striking wood, flipping her head back and to the side. She’d slumped down on the ruin, and suddenly people were all around Holly. She had not seen them moments before, and wondered whether they had been hiding or had been tracking her since she’d emerged from the breach. She’d barely had her wits about her then, after the violence she had seen. None of this is real, she’d thought.

But then a man and woman had approached her, and behind them were six more. They’d all carried weapons: bows and arrows, and crossbows. Most wore their hair braided tight to their scalps, and their clothes were loose and rough and all but colourless. They were utterly silent. Holly heard no breathing, no rustle of leather-bound feet through the long grass, no clink of metal on metal as they moved. And they seemed to communicate entirely by sign language, an incomprehensible twisting, clicking and flexing of fingers, shifting of hands, and facial expressions that might have been a background to whatever they ‘said’.

She’d looked at the dead woman, now nothing more than a dried husk, and wondered whether there were more. One on its own might have been bad luck, she’d thought, but two means there must be more.

The man had lifted his crossbow and aimed it at Holly’s face, two fingers held to his lips. He and his female colleague walked slowly around her, looking her up and down, making her feel distinctly uncomfortable. The others stood back, at least two more aiming their weapons in her direction.

And then she’d realised what this was – the first meeting between different universes. This might be a version of Earth, but she was here from somewhere else. Jonah had said It’s exactly where we are and a trillion light years away. Holly had felt the muscles in her legs turning to water.

‘Thank God,’ she’d said. ‘Thank you. My name is Holly Wright and—’ She’d seen the look passing between the man and woman – shock, surprise, fear – and then . . . a faint whistling, like something sweeping quickly through the air. Then nothing else.

As if inspired by the memory, another wave of pain passed through her head. She groaned, lifted her hand and touched the tender bump just above her right ear. It was like setting a burning brand against her scalp. She winced and shivered as the pain lanced into her back and right shoulder. Closing her eyes, she wished it away. Hit me over the head, she thought, and she wondered how indifferent they were to hurting or killing her. Here I am in another world, and—

There was a slight change in the light beyond her eyelids. Someone was squatting beside the stretcher, she sensed them there, and when she looked a woman was kneeling beside her. She was maybe thirty, black, short and muscled, attractive in a wild sort of way, and Holly’s first thought was a surprising Vic would love her. That made her smile . . . and the woman smiled back.

‘Wh—?’ Holly began. But the woman moved quickly, pressing two fingers to Holly’s lips and shaking her head.