Coldbrook (Hammer)(71)

‘There seem to be some around here,’ Holly said.

‘Yes,’ Drake agreed. ‘But we’re special. Most people are living their days as best they can, others have embarked upon . . .’ He motioned her and the others through a door into a wide lobby area.

‘Upon what?’

‘There are extermination squads in Italy,’ Paloma said.

‘Well, that’s good!’ Holly said. ‘Surely wiping out the furies is best for everyone?’

‘They’re not exterminating furies,’ Moira said.

‘Oh.’

‘This way,’ Drake said, nodding towards a door set in the lobby’s far wall. There were more oil lamps here, and the ceiling had collapsed in one corner, letting in a landslide of heavy rock and soil.

‘So you never made a breach?’ Holly asked. And if that were true – and they had never found their way into the multiverse – then the Fury plague must have originated in this world somewhere. Another thought that led to a thousand more questions.

‘We did,’ Drake said. ‘But not like you. And that’s what I have to show you. It’ll answer so much more, but it won’t be pleasant.’

Paloma produced a small cloth pouch from her pocket and waved it towards Holly. ‘I have this if it all becomes too much.’

‘What is that?’

‘It’ll calm you.’

‘No, thank you,’ Holly said. She had no idea what they were going to show her but Paloma’s offer of some herbal drug troubled her.

‘I’ll take her from here,’ Drake said.

Paloma nodded and turned away, but Moira shifted from foot to foot.

‘Can I not stay? I took down the fury that nearly killed her. And she’s special.’

Drake seemed uncertain, but Holly nodded.

‘I don’t mind,’ she said. She hoped that Moira might be a little more open, if she had the chance to talk with her alone. The source of the plague was a mystery still, and the Inquisitor that Drake had mentioned, and . . .

And a million other things, she thought. Jonah should have been here, not me. She knew that he and Drake would have had so much to talk about.

‘One thing,’ Holly asked. ‘Are you the lead scientist in Coldbrook?’

‘I’m the one they look up to.’

‘They?’

‘There are about forty of us here, adults and a few children. Let me show you what I’m taking you to and then after that we can talk some more. But it will clear up questions that I really don’t feel qualified to answer.’

‘Your accent,’ she said.

‘My father came from Wales.’

She gasped. ‘Jonah Jones?’

Drake stared at her. ‘His name was Richard Slater. His middle name was Jonah.’

Holly frowned, trying to make sense of what this might mean, if anything. Drake’s similarity to Jonah had unnerved her. But perhaps it meant nothing.

‘There’s too much to understand,’ he said softly, squeezing her arm. She realised it was the first time he’d touched her, and she suddenly felt safer than she had before, more protected. There were still so many unknowns. This . . .’ He opened the door and indicated the short corridor beyond, a stairwell at its end. ‘This will help you begin to understand.’

Drake went first and Holly followed, with Moira behind her. They descended the staircase and passed through a series of doors. The bland interiors reminded her of a gloomy version of the Coldbrook she had known for so long. That thought brought no comfort. As Drake opened a door set in a smooth concrete-walled corridor, she saw what he wanted her to see.

But it was only as the mass of zombies came at her that real understanding began.





2


He follows Charlotte through downtown Boston, and from the beginning he knows that this dream is different. His troubled, dead sister arrives at their parents’ house and knocks at the door, and Vic senses the change as the door swings open. His mother is there with the family heirloom grasped in her grey hands, one of her eyes missing, and a swathe of her scalp ripped off. Charlotte thanks her, and their mother closes the door on her own blank expression.

The dream progresses. Vic tries to shout out to these dead fools who give gifts that will guarantee the death of his sister. But, as ever, he has no voice.

He can only follow.

Vic knows what is coming, and that just makes it more terrible. At last she reaches the large house. The toys in the garden are rusted now, the flower beds overgrown.