by Tim Lebbon
‘No school,’ he said.
‘How long for?’
Vic glanced at Lucy, and something in his eyes must have struck her for the first time. She leaned gently against the kitchen worktop for support.
‘Only a few days,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’
Vic wanted to leave in ten minutes, but it was almost twenty before they were sitting in their RAV4, Olivia strapped into her seat in the back with a Nintendo DS open on her lap, Lucy clicking her seat belt and sitting back, staring straight ahead. When he’d stretched to push several large water bottles behind the front seats, she’d caught sight of the pistol in his belt. She’d hardly said anything since and it was time to tell her what he knew.
‘Lucy, everything I’m doing is for—’
‘Should I call my mother?’ Lucy asked. There was a quiver of fear in her voice. ‘Or Richard? He and Rhian are in Seattle, should I—’
‘Don’t call anyone!’ Vic said, more sharply than he’d intended.
Lucy blinked and stared at him wide-eyed.
He sighed, started the car, and sat back in his seat for a moment, eyes closed, trying to remember everything they had packed. Should have brought more food, he thought. And water. Only ten litres of water. Lucy had thrown a load of clothes into a suitcase and a kitbag, and Vic had added some heavy walking boots, coats and gloves, even though it was still only September. Toys and books for Olivia, a mobile charger for his phone, the spare five hundred dollars he kept in an envelope in his desk drawer. When he’d casually loaded a compact tent and camping stove into the car, Lucy’s glare had been thunderous. But he’d ignored it and walked away, because there was so much left to do.
‘Where are we going?’ Olivia asked, breaking the awkward silence. Vic looked at her in the rear-view mirror, hunched down over the DS and immersed in her child’s world.
‘North,’ he said. ‘Somewhere nice. It’s a surprise.’
‘You’ve no idea, have you?’ Lucy whispered.
Vic glanced across at her, then squeezed her leg, hoping she’d place her hand on top of his. She remained stiff and upright in her seat, nursing her mobile phone and staring through the windscreen at their house. It was a big family home, double-fronted, small pool out back, hot tub, and entirely the product of Vic’s work at Coldbrook. The facility paid their mortgage, and there was the promise of complete ownership of the property upon project completion. They’ll have the house from me, he thought, and he barked a short, bitter laugh as fear flushed coldly through his veins.
‘Shouldn’t we be going?’ Lucy asked coldly.
‘Yeah,’ Vic said. He backed away from the house and drove off. As he headed towards the centre of town he looked in the mirror again, but this time not at Olivia. He watched behind them, not sure what he was expecting to see. But he saw nothing.
They drove around the town square where he and Lucy had once sat, Olivia in her pushchair, and talked about having a second child. That had not happened yet, but Vic kept telling Lucy that they had plenty of time. The world is our lobster, he’d say, smiling and hugging her tight. The bench where they’d sat had a plaque dedicating it to the memory of a young girl called Alice Klein, the daughter of friends of theirs. She had died three years before at the age of fifteen from brain cancer. She’d been a popular girl, and as she had deteriorated she’d raised many thousands of dollars for the small town hospital where she’d spent her last days. She had been quite a character in town, pushed around in her wheelchair by her older brother, flaunting her baldness and the scars of unsuccessful surgery, demanding men’s shoes – just one from a pair – and holding them to ransom for charity. She’d taken Vic’s three times, and the last time it had cost him a hundred bucks to get it back. He’d had to collect it from her house, because she’d taken a sudden turn for the worse by then, dying five days later. He still visited her parents every time he was up in town. Her father worked for Coldbrook, though not in the facility – he was one of several accountants of theirs, responsible for dealing with their foreign investors. A good man, a friend to the Pearsons, he had changed since his daughter’s death, taking his work more seriously. There had also been rumours that he’d tried to take his own life, though no one wished to explore them too deeply.
I should tell David, Vic thought. He stopped the car to let a postman cross, raising a finger on the wheel in acknowledgement when he nodded his thanks. I should tell him, because they don’t deserve any more heartbreak. He drove on, and the atmosphere in the car was thick with tension. Even Olivia seemed to have noticed it; she’d closed her DS and sat staring out of the window, frowning into the sun.
They left the square and passed McCready’s, where Vic and his family had spent last New Year’s Eve. Old Walt McCready threw a big party every year, charging everyone ten bucks and laying on food, drink and entertainment until the early hours. Adults and kids alike remembered the party for months afterwards, for the quality of the home-catered food and the variety of drinks he’d ordered in for the evening. Vic remembered it most for the ten minutes he’d sat and watched Lucy dancing with some of her friends from town. He’d been gently drunk by then, and he’d realised that he loved his wife more than he ever had before. He’d even muttered a foolish New Year’s resolution to himself: Be better to her this year than you ever have. As they drove by he realised that he had now broken that resolution. He remembered their friends dancing and eating and laughing with them that night, and knew that he should warn them all.
Olivia sniffed behind him, and Vic realised his daughter was crying.
‘So?’ Lucy asked beside him, so cold, so afraid.
His guilt scoured deep into him. Before he could change his mind he brought the Rav4 to a halt and pulled out the satphone.
‘Honey, I just need to see how bad it is,’ he said, pressing Jonah’s speed-dial number as he spoke. By the time Lucy began to protest the call was answered, and the old bastard’s Welsh accent cut through the static.
4
‘Vic, you stupid bastard Yank, do you have any idea what you’ve done?’ The phone’s ringing had startled Jonah – he was standing at the viewing panel in the door, looking out at the deserted, silent corridor beyond – and his shouted response was partly in reaction to that shock. But it was also provoked by the words that had appeared on the little screen: Vic calling.
‘Jonah—’
‘Today I’ve seen people dying. Melina. Uri. And Estelle, she had her head . . . it was . . . because of you.’ He drew a breath, leaning against the door with one hand.
‘Jonah, where are you? How bad is it?’
‘Ah, fuck off, Vic,’ Jonah said, and he disconnected. His head was spinning, heart galloping, and he sat down gingerly on the edge of the desk. The palpitations made him cough, and for a moment he was sure the dizziness would increase and he’d hit the floor. Break a hip, he thought, and wouldn’t that be just fine? Survive all that and then break a damn hip? Wendy would have laughed at the irony in that, but then she always did have a skewed view of life. Bill Coldbrook had once said, The more we think we know, the more humble we should become, and how right he had been. Had Jonah’s own pride and arrogance caused this catastrophe? Perhaps.
Jonah dialled Vic back and the call was answered after the first ring.
‘Vic, don’t talk,’ Jonah said. ‘I’m not sure I want to hear your cowardly bastard voice right now, but you need to hear mine, and what I have to say. You need to know. Are you listening?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Good. I’ve seen people attacked and killed down here, and then get up again to go and attack others. I believe I might be the only one left who’s not either dead or infected. I’ve made some calls, sounded the alarm. And I’m alone in Secondary.’ He stared at the door for a moment, sure he’d seen movement beyond. But his view of the corridor outside stayed clear. Just shadows on my mind. ‘Whatever the contagion is, it’s spread by bites. It kills and infects its victims within a minute. I’ve seen people shot five
times and still walking, unless they’re shot in the head. You have to shoot them in the head.’
Vic snorted, and it might have been a laugh.
‘Funny?’ Jonah asked softly. ‘You’re finding something amusing?’
‘No, it’s just—’
‘I said I didn’t want to hear your bastard voice, Vic. There’s nothing funny here. Nothing! I saw Estelle have her face bitten off. She fell and bled out, died. And then stood again, and attacked the only guard I believe was left alive. He . . . he blew her head off. That time, she stayed down.’
‘You’re talking about zombies, Jonah.’
‘The notion’s make-believe. But what it implies fits.’
Vic laughed again, but there was desperation there, a hint of hysteria. And Jonah did not like that.
‘Pull yourself together, boy! Think of your family.’
‘I am thinking of my family. They’re here with me now. We’re on our way out of Danton Rock, but . . . I heard shooting when I left the compound.’ Vic fell silent for a moment, and now Jonah did see movement through the door’s glass panel.
A face appeared there, so ruined that he could not possibly identify it, could not even tell its owner’s sex. It stared in at him with one good eye, pressed against the strengthened glass and smearing blood. It did not blink. He heard nails drawn across the metal door.
‘There’s one watching me,’ Jonah said, backing away from the door, and the truth of what he saw hit him hard. Don’t give up on me now, he thought as his heart lurched in his chest, and he closed his eyes to try and calm his body. The thing scratched some more.
‘One what?’ Vic asked.
‘One of them. If you could only see. I’m turning away, but listen to me. This is beyond fault or guilt now – that all comes later, and damn me if I won’t punch your lights out when I see you again. But I’m trapped down here. And there’s something I need to do, and something you must do, too. You’ve got to warn people. Visit the station there, speak to Sheriff Blanks. Tell him what happened, tell him everything I’ve told you. And tell him to shoot them in the head.’
‘Can’t you tell him—’
‘No, Vic! You’re the one who ran, and you’re out there now, boy. So that’s down to you, face to face. I’ve got to stop any more of these bastards getting out.’
‘And how the hell are you going to do that?’
‘Do you care?’ Jonah shouted. ‘Just do your part.’
‘Jonah. Everyone else?’
I don’t have to tell him, Jonah thought, but such cruelty was beyond him. ‘Holly escaped through the breach,’ he said. Then he disconnected, turned the satphone off, and went back to the window.
The face from hell was still there, pressed against the glass, staring at him: jaw moving slightly, tongue squashed, wounds not bleeding. ‘Because it’s dead,’ Jonah said, and he no longer found the idea ridiculous. You’re talking about zombies, Jonah. Yeah, well. What you see, you see, Wendy used to say when Jonah tried to impress upon her the question of scientific proof versus spiritual nonsense and he’d held her comment close to his heart. What you see, you see.
‘Right, then,’ he said, looking at the door window but talking to himself. ‘Let’s see how I can get out of this one.’ He returned to the desk and turned his back on the door, tilting the laptop screen so that he could not see its reflection, and accessed two programs. Some of the afflicted had escaped – Alex the guard captain, at least – but the more he could keep down here with him, the better. They’d be contained, and when the time came to start testing antidotes there’d be a supply of captive subjects.
‘When that time comes,’ Jonah muttered, feeling a chill at the prospect. This was a condition seeded in the other Earth. How would anyone here have a clue how to combat it? And if it spread . . .
After his calls, help would be on its way. But there was no saying what form that help might take.
The scratching at the door became more agitated and Jonah glanced back. There was another face pressed against the glass panel now. Uri. He seemed undamaged, but his eyes had changed. No more laughter or jokes in there. He stared in at Jonah, and Jonah wondered what he saw.
‘Damn it!’ He turned away again and checked to see if he could do what he had planned. It had been a passing thought but, the more he considered his options, the more likely it seemed to be the only possibility. Better than staying trapped in here, at least. Secondary had always been considered a backup location for control of Coldbrook, not an emergency one, and it was as basic as that consideration warranted. There was access to all systems, air conditioning in case of lockdown, and a small cupboard with dried foods and water to last eight people for two days. There was a small bathroom, but nowhere to sleep.
It also had a gun cabinet. Only in America, Jonah had commented to Bill Coldbrook several times during the construction of the facility. They don’t have gun cabinets at CERN.
Don’t they? Bill had replied, and a raised eyebrow had silenced Jonah.
The guns had always been the part of Coldbrook that troubled Jonah most. The argument for them was solid enough, but that didn’t mean he had to like them. If and when they did eventually succeed in their experiment, then through and beyond the breach chamber would be another Earth, perhaps with its own geography, flora and fauna. And perhaps with people. There was no guarantee that anything through there would be friendly, but no certainties otherwise, either. He hated the feel, sight, and smell of guns, but he also grudgingly saw the logic behind their presence here. Should’ve built this thing in the Welsh mountains. Safer, and would’ve brought some money to the valleys, he’d once said to Bill, and Bill had countered with, And you really think the British government wouldn’t station an SAS platoon there?
Jonah left his desk and went to the gun cabinet, entering his ID code into the electronic lock. The door popped open with a gentle click. Inside, two pistols hung on clips, and a shotgun was strapped in one corner. There were two boxes of shotgun shells, and a dozen loaded magazines for the pistols. He had not fired a weapon for seven years, when Vic had taken him to a range a mile outside Danton Rock. After an hour of shooting Vic had declared, If I asked you to shoot at the sky I’d lay good odds that you’d miss. Jonah had taken it as a compliment.
He plucked a pistol from its clips and, after a few moments pressing and prodding, the magazine slipped out. It was fully loaded, so he pushed it back in until it clicked into place. The pistol had a safety built into the grip, he remembered, so he’d have to squeeze tight when he was shooting, and he had to make sure he aimed for—
‘What the bloody hell am I doing, Wendy?’ It had been a long time since Jonah had spoken to his dead wife aloud. Hearing her name startled him, and he felt a weight in his chest as he thought of her easy smile and intelligent eyes. He laughed out loud, looking at the cool alien object in his hand, thinking how ridiculous this all was. ‘Hey, Wendy . . . Jonah Jones, action hero. Think I’ll be the next Richard Burton?’ His voice sounded loud and flat in the large room, and he glanced back at the door to remind himself where and when he was.
The two faces stared back, and he was sure the scratching sound got louder when he looked at them.
The longer Jonah stayed here, the more difficult his next step would be. He had to go. Now.
‘Got to stick to my guns,’ he said, but all humour had left him. Can I really shoot someone? He thought of everything he had seen and decided that yes, he could. He had to. ‘You’re already dead.’ The faces held no expression, and he wondered if they could hear him when he spoke, or would feel anything when he shot them.
Jonah sat down and took several deep breaths. He scanned the viewing screens, checking his route from Secondary down to the next level, then past the offices to the garage area. He remotely locked several corridor doors, watching on the screens as their door closers operated. On the staircase that he’d have to descend there was a body, lying on its front and with its head pointing away from him, and he could see no
movement. It was a woman, her nightgown pulled up around her chest and soaked in red. He was glad he could not make out who it was.
He’d have to be cautious there, just in case, though from what he had seen of the afflicted—
Not dead, I can’t call them the dead, and calling them zombies . . .
– he didn’t think they could scheme or plan. They could not play dead.
Jonah went into the bathroom and urinated, leaning against the wall, supporting himself with one hand and staring into the mirror above the toilet. An old man stared back, and he felt shocked at the image. Seventy-six was the count of his years, but his mind was as vivid and sharp as it had ever been, his heart and soul immersed in Coldbrook and the wonders he was determined it would one day reveal. Ageing was for people who spent mornings at bridge clubs, afternoons strolling in the park with walking groups, and evenings fussing over dinner and deciding what to watch on TV. The fact of his approaching death crept up on him sometimes, surprising him with how close it had come, but he was so involved with his work that mortality seemed to be for everyone else. But now he looked into the face of someone who had seen terrible things, and who had seen death in unreal forms. He had always felt at ease with the prospect of his own demise, but Coldbrook had become a travesty of its original purpose. And a deadly one at that.
Back in Secondary’s main room he unplugged the laptop, checking that it still had its wi-fi connection, then moved to the door. With his other hand he held the gun down by his side, safety catch off, hand clasping the grip, finger on the trigger.
In the head, he thought, and this close up the faces looked less human than ever. Realising he had both hands full he put the laptop down, shaking his head to clear his thoughts. Got to think clearer than that. He rested his hand on the door lock, took a few deep breaths, then clicked it open.
They seemed to hear the sound of the lock disengaging. The scratching became more frantic, and they called to each other softly, a haunting hum. Jonah watched for a moment, to see if they remembered how to open a door. The handle flicked down, but they did not depress it fully. Gun ready, Jonah pressed the handle down and opened the door.
