Coldbrook (Hammer)

by Tim Lebbon

Neil screamed. Alex was biting him, his head thrashing. The other two guards were shouting at each other and at their captain, but still neither of them fired.

  Holly glanced at the breach and the darkness beyond.

  ‘I can get us out,’ Satpal said again. Holly frowned. He snorted, then ran up towards the main doors.

  ‘We’re in lockdown!’ Holly shouted, and someone started shooting. She ducked down beside her desk, not sure where the gunfire was coming from or whether the workstation would shield her or not. The sound was horrendous, smothering the alarm, and she pressed her hands to her ears and cried out. When the shooting ended she looked up the terraced room at Satpal. He was doing something with the door control, sweat patches spreading from beneath his arms and across his back, and she thought, No, Satpal, we can’t let them out. He glanced back, caught her eye and then looked beyond and behind her. His eyes opened wide.

  Holly raised herself and looked across the top of the control panel. Her computer screen had been shattered by a bullet. Past that she saw Melinda, bloody red Melinda, clawing at a guard’s face and chest even as he backed away from her, pulling her with him. He must have dropped his gun because he was now stabbing at her with a short knife, plunging the blade into her back again and again. It had no effect. Holly saw the terror in his eyes, and then the pain as her nails opened him up and her face pressed in to gnaw at the wounds.

  Alex was standing again, and another shape was pulling itself up the front of a solid desk beside him – Neil, the guard he’d attacked, hat knocked off, a smear of blood across one cheek, red patch spreading across his shoulder and down his chest. He held himself still against the desk, the fear gone from his face, and it was that more than anything that told Holly how little time she had left. The guard was no longer afraid. His mouth opened and his eyes grew dark as all expression left them.

  The last guard had climbed several steps and was making his way around Control to the main doors – and Satpal.

  ‘You can’t open that door!’ Holly shouted. ‘It’s a disease, something, and you can’t!’

  Satpal glanced back at her, and the guard paused behind a bank of desks to look as well. He was terribly young, perhaps no more than twenty, and his fear was that of a child. Of course, he’s seen stuff that shouldn’t be, and that’s just the reason why Satpal must not open—

  She heard the hiss as the door’s hydraulics engaged. Satpal took one last look back at her and then left Control, and the last that Holly saw of him was as he ran past the glass-block wall. They can get out now, she thought. She looked up at one of the cameras mounted high on the ceiling and wondered how many people were watching this. Jonah, almost certainly. Some of the others.

  Vic? Maybe.

  The guard tripped as he ran for the door. Alex and the other guard, changed now, were going for him, scrambling across desktops and leaping the spaces in between, both of them emitting that strange hooting sound.

  The alarm ceased, and in the sudden silence everything that Holly could hear was terrible.

  Melinda was advancing on her, dragging one leg because Alex’s bullets had shattered her hip.

  Oh sweet Jesus, Holly thought, because she suddenly knew what she had to do. She looked up at the camera again and drew her hand across her throat, hoping that whoever was watching would understand. And she hoped also that they would have the courage to do what needed to be done. Satpal had betrayed himself. It was understandable, but it didn’t make things any easier. If it weren’t for him . . . she thought. If it weren’t for him, they could have sealed Control and gone about closing down the breach remotely from Secondary.

  But now that Satpal had somehow managed to open the door – through sabotage, or prior agreement with some of the maintenance engineers working here – they were all finished.

  Unless.

  Holly closed her eyes and breathed deeply, wondering if she could really—

  The young guard screamed, the sound suddenly becoming muffled as he slipped through the doors and out into the corridor. She looked just in time to see Alex grab him, press him against the glass wall and bite into his throat.

  Oh God, don’t let me go like that, not like that, not eaten.

  Melinda was close now, and the other guard also came for Holly, taking away any chance she might have had to consider more fully the threat she faced. In that instant her survival instinct took over. Instinct, and her scientist’s mind, because fascination still bubbled below the surface.

  She slapped her hand on the eradicator power button on her desk and sprinted for the breach. As Holly ran she had time to think, What will it be like, walking in another Earth?

  Then she entered the space between.

  7

  Secondary was on Coldbrook’s level one, the highest level, still well over a hundred feet below ground. Jonah had rushed along corridors and climbed stairs from level three in Control. And he was almost an old man. Sometimes he forgot that, but not today.

  He arrived just as three other people reached Secondary. He was sweating, gasping, and clamping a hand to his chest. He didn’t know the guard’s name, but the other two arrivals were Uri, their communications technician, and Estelle, the brilliant anthropologist from France. He nodded at them, and once inside Secondary the guard closed the door. As it clicked shut Jonah glanced through the reinforced viewing glass at the empty corridor beyond, his breath misting the window.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Uri asked. He’d obviously been asleep and was still shaken at being woken by the alarm.

  ‘Kill the alarm first,’ Jonah said. ‘Then wind up the cameras.’

  Secondary was a much-compacted version of Control, with one long desk holding an array of computer monitors, keyboards, switches and levers, and four large screens on the facing wall through which could be accessed any remote-viewing camera in Coldbrook. The rear wall was home to a schematic of the facility. It showed the circular central core, a hundred feet across and rising the full depth of Coldbrook, and the three main levels that were set around the core. There were digital indicators at doorways, change of levels and access points to the surface, and it worked as a security map, as well as an indicator of system functionality. Right now it was unlit. Also along the back wall were two rows of chairs. At present they were folded and stacked, and Jonah nodded at them and looked at the guard.

  ‘Can you—?’

  ‘Sure.’ The young guard went about opening the chairs, and Jonah took some small comfort from the sub-machine gun slung across his shoulder. There would, with luck, be others here soon, and they’d all need somewhere to sit.

  Estelle switched off the alarm, and Jonah sighed in relief.

  ‘Please keep an eye on the door when you’ve done that,’ he said to the guard. ‘Don’t let anyone in if they don’t seem . . .’

  ‘Don’t seem what?’ the guard said, still placing chairs.

  ‘Just . . . normal.’ Uri and Estelle were both looking at Jonah, and he pulled across a chair and sat between them. He was still shaking and breathless from rushing here. The alarm had chased him all the way, and the fear of what was happening, and the certainty that he was to blame. There are safeguards, he’d used to think whenever anyone expressed doubts about what they were doing. But safeguards were only as effective as the minds that created them.

  ‘What’s happened, Jonah?’ Estelle asked.

  ‘Something came through the breach. Holly called me. By the time I got there the alarm was sounding and Control was locked down.’ There was so much more to say, but he didn’t know where to begin.

  ‘What something? What about the eradicator?’

  ‘A person. And it didn’t work.’

  ‘So . . .?’ Estelle asked, her professional interest piqued. Jonah glanced at her. They’d known each other for ten years, and she knew without him saying anything that there was worse to come. But her eyes were wide with excitement. He’d been aware of her growing disappointment that there were no obvious signs of human habitation or
influence beyond the breach, and now . . .

  ‘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.

  ‘Holly’s on her own through there. And we have to commence lockdown.’

  Secondary fell silent as his words sunk in. None of them spoke, all thinking their own thoughts. When no one objected Jonah sobbed again, quieter this time, because of everything they had done.

  ‘Still no one approaching,’ the guard said.

  From the distance, gunshots. And screams.

  ‘Jonah, this doesn’t mean we were wrong,’ Estelle said.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, and he had never meant the words so sincerely. ‘Now, Uri, if you’d prepare the lockdown orders, I think I should initiate it myself, and I’ll remain here to ensure it’s worked. You all go and find somewhere safer. I’ll see you on the screens.’ He nodded up at the view of Control, free of all movement now apart from Melinda’s shuffling figure. ‘I’ll join you later.’

  Uri nodded and started tapping some keys.

  ‘Sir, you don’t have to stay on your own,’ the guard said.

  ‘I appreciate that,’ Jonah said. ‘But that’s what I’d rather. And these two will need you to protect them. Secondary was never designed to be a refuge. I have to lock down and tell the surface what’s happening. We need to let people know. And then . . .’

  ‘And then?’ Estelle asked.

  Jonah shrugged. And then? He didn’t know. Their absolute priority was to stop any danger reaching the surface. Beyond that, he could not yet think.

  He closed his eyes. He was old, and that was fine, and he had lived a life. But others in this place had people up there, many of them living in the nearest town, Danton Rock: wives, husbands, kids.

  Like Vic Pearson. A family.

  And then Jonah wondered where the hell Vic Pearson had gone.

  ‘Uri, quickly,’ he said. ‘Quickly!’

  Uri worked fast, and half a minute later he slid the wireless keyboard across to Jonah. ‘Hit enter to initiate automatic lockdown. You can monitor all lockdown procedures – or switch it to manual – on the schematic behind you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Jonah said. But he didn’t look up as they left, and was glad that none of them offered a final comment. As they closed the door he pressed enter, and Coldbrook began closing itself off from the only world any of them knew.

  8

  As Vic entered the vehicle garage he heard a distant shout, and then a noise like doves cooing. He paused, pressed flat against the wall with his head tilted to one side. Had he really heard that?
Birds, underground? He couldn’t be sure – there wasn’t even an echo now. He released his held breath, the sigh making the garage’s silence seem even more eerie.

  There were three vehicles in the large garage area – two SUVs and a military Hummer – and the smell of fuel and spilled oil hung in the air. For a moment the idea of taking an SUV crossed his mind, but he knew that the wide door at the far end of the garage was always kept electronically locked, and that on the slowly curving ramp that rose two hundred feet to the surface there were three other security doors.

  He had criticised several times Coldbrook’s design, suggesting that there should be at least two independent escape routes to the surface in case of an accident. To begin with, Jonah had reasoned with him – nothing would go wrong, they were cautious when they built it, there was no risk. But after a while he had simply chosen to respond with the stark truth: if the core was ever breached, none of them would have to worry about escape.

  Vic could open the doors on the vehicle ramp but it would take time. And, of the escape routes he’d considered as he made his way here, it was the most observed and the least likely to be successful.

  He had somewhere quicker in mind.

  ‘So long as they don’t go for complete lockdown,’ he whispered to himself, listening again for more voices, and deciding it must have been his own guilt calling after him. He looked around the garage, checking for movement or the dark blue of a guard’s uniform. He was sure that he was alone, and since the alarm had switched off he’d started to wonder just how serious the situation was. If they had it contained in Control, it wasn’t certain that Jonah would seek to lock down the whole facility, because if he did—

  Vic . . . something came through.

  ‘Shit.’ Vic shook his head and checked his palmtop. The camera view of Control showed no activity now. He switched back to the thumbnail views and saw a flash of movement in one of the accommodation corridors. The image was too small to make out any detail, and by the time he enlarged it whatever had moved was gone. But . . .