Coldbrook

Mannan came forward, a monster from the mind of Goya.

Holly looked at his erection and smiled. He chuckled back at her — and she kicked him between his legs as hard as she could. He gasped in shock, then screamed louder in agony, and for a crazy moment she wanted to stay and apologise. But he grabbed for her foot, and when she took one step away from him she found it easier to take another.

‘One more scar, fucker,’ she said. Then she ran.

9

‘I am the Inquisitor,’ the voice said, ‘and you will be the same.’

Jonah opened his eyes and looked around his room. Nothing.

‘See what we have done,’ the man said. Jonah tried to sit up, but there was a pressure on his shoulders, pushing him back down. That flailing red organ was pressing against his head once more. The Inquisitor was standing behind his bed, upside down in his vision and even more grotesque.

He sees people on a beach and drowning in the emerald sea, trying to escape the deadly tide from inland.

‘A living history of the greatest Inquisition,’ the man said, lifting the orb away momentarily. Jonah gasped as he was pulled from the dream, glimpsing once again that smudged tattoo on the Inquisitor’s arm. He felt around on the bed for his gun, his finger brushed cold metal, and-

He looks across the countryside at a farm, where cattle lie dead and bloated in untended fields and winged things swoop in to chew on them, carrion creatures almost the size of the cattle themselves, their auburn and white fur glimmering with wet blood.

‘And your world now needs you to write its final book.’ The Inquisitor was beside the bed now, sticky wet mask held inches from his face. He pressed forward with the thing in his other hand one more time. Jonah lifted the gun. The Inquisitor moved swiftly, knocking the weapon back onto the bed, and Jonah felt those tendrils kissing his temple again, wondering if he was already dead. .

Eight people rush across red sands, eight hundred follow, and it is the living who will lose this race. .

Men and women with pronounced brows, wide faces, and more hair than anyone he has ever seen pursue the uninfected past a high bamboo wall. .

Thousands of dead bob in the ocean, clawing at the hull of a ship drifting in their midst. .

Biting, screaming, dying, rising, he saw it all, realising that much of what he was seeing was not from this world but another.

And he had the dreadful sense of another mind existing alongside his own, believing that this all constituted a great cleansing.

When the Inquisitor finally left him and Jonah sat up, he raised the gun and lifted it towards his head, remembering his father’s face and the strength he had given his son. ‘I am being strong,’ he said, but something knocked the gun aside. He tried again, and it happened once more. There was nothing in the room with him. The muscles in his arm flexed, the skin was depressed as though squeezed by fingers, and for all the world he would have loved to believe it was Wendy insisting that he remain alive.

But he knew that was a lie.

10

It was three hours before Sean was able to use the phone. Jayne had watched him trying again and again, had seen the subdued fear behind his eyes, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to ask.

Outside the aircraft, fires raged in the airport terminal. The two of them kept away from the windows, afraid of being seen.

‘They’re aimless,’ Jayne had said, watching one man stagger crablike across the wide concrete runway. His head rested on his left shoulder, and one leg was turned so that the foot faced backwards.

‘Only when there’s no one to bite,’ Sean had replied.

Jayne tried not to think about what would happen if they were discovered. The door was securely closed, and the only other way up to the aircraft cabin was to climb the wheel structures. We’re an island, she thought, imagining them surrounded by a sea of quiet, patient zombies. Perhaps they would gather and wait, a hundred of them or a thousand, or ten thousand when everyone else had been infected. Their purpose would not be complete until everyone was like them, and they would stare up at the aircraft windows, looking for signs of movement there and at the plane’s doors, standing through darkness and light, rain and sun, until something happened.

‘We’re trapped here,’ she said.

Sean’s face lit up.

‘Reception!’ he said suddenly, walking away from Jayne as he tapped in a number, then standing with his back to her and the phone held against his ear. He dialled again, stood listening. And again.

‘Sean.’

‘Maybe she’s out,’ he said.

‘What time is it over there?’

Sean glanced at his watch. ‘Six hours ahead. Early morning.’

‘They’ll be in bed.’

‘She keeps her phone with her all the time. You know how girls are.’ He came back and sat beside her again, looking at the phone as if willing her to call back. But it remained silent.

‘Maybe her phone’s off.’ Jayne could think of nothing else to say. There could be a hundred reasons why his daughter was not answering, but only one that really mattered.

‘France?’ he said. ‘Could it really have reached France?’

‘I can’t see how.’

Sean stared at her for a long moment and neither of them spoke. Then he stood and went to a window again, careful not to get too close as he looked outside.

‘I’ve got to tell someone about you,’ he said.

‘What about that immunity register?’

Sean shook his head, held up his cellphone. ‘Online. I’m still a dinosaur, no smartphone for me. I can call and text people on this, that’s about it.’

‘How about. . what’s it called? Centers for Disease Control. I read about it in that Stephen King book.’

‘Never read him,’ Sean said, turning around. ‘I’m more of a thriller guy.’

‘Well. .’ Jayne said, no knowing what to say.

‘Wait a minute,’ Sean said. ‘There is someone I can call. Just hope I still have the damn number.’

‘Who is it?’

Sean sat beside her again and placed a hand on her leg. His palm was hot, his hand heavy, and Jayne closed her own hand around his.

‘Old school buddy,’ Sean said. ‘Moved to the UK, became a doctor. Always was a clever bastard.’ He searched for a moment, then gave a yelp of joy and put the phone to his ear.

‘Leigh? Sean. Yeah, man, I’m fine. Can you fuckin’ believe it?’ He paused, nodding, and Jayne heard the distant whisper of a voice she did not know. ‘Well, listen to this,’ Sean continued. ‘Got something else you’re never gonna believe, and I need your advice on how to handle it.’

And he told his old school buddy about Jayne.

Leigh Keene hung up the phone and sat up in bed.

‘What is it?’ his wife asked. She’d started awake when the phone rang, and already sounded sleepy again. He had no idea how she could sleep with all that was happening in America.