Coldbrook

that the biker had shot had formed a barrier on both sides.

‘Go!’ Vic shouted. The biker ducked down and stepped through the duct hatch, then turned and reached for the next kid.

A burning man climbed the pile of corpses and reached for the window. Vic shot him in the top of the head. On the back of his leather vest was the word Unblessed.

‘How many more?’ the biker asked.

Vic looked around, and for the first time he was staring into the kids’ terrified faces. He managed a smile, and one of the little girls smiled back.

‘Six,’ he said. ‘Chaney?’

Chaney plucked up a girl and launched her through the window. The others soon followed.

Vic leaned from the window and shot a woman from Danton Rock. She bore no visible wounds, but her eyes were dead. She fell and rose again, because his aim was off. When he went to shoot her again, his gun clicked on empty.

She climbed the corpses, planted a foot on the dead burning man, and leaped.

Vic ducked inside the bus and the woman smashed against the window frame, tearing her face. Her arms came through and she kicked against the metal, trying to get a hold.

‘Chaney!’ Vic shouted.

‘Eyes and ears,’ Chaney said, and Vic closed his eyes and covered his ears. The sound of the gunshot was still deafening.

‘Our turn,’ Chaney shouted. ‘After you.’

Vic wasn’t going to argue. He stepped across the gap into the duct housing. The others were already descending the ladder, and he could just make out Holly’s head in the erratic torchlight.

Chaney came across, grunting when he had to bend almost double to get through the hatch.

‘We only lost one,’ Vic said.

‘One too many.’ Chaney turned and aimed his gun at the hatch. They could see through the length of the bus, across the compound to where the two trucks were now burning ferociously. And as they watched, figures lifted themselves into the bus through broken windows, scrambling towards the back.

‘There might still be guys outside,’ Vic said quietly.

‘Yeah.’ Chaney chewed his lip, his heavy beard moving back and forth. He blinked a few times, then turned and looked below them. They could hear the echoing sound of people descending, crying, and an occasional gasp as hands or feet slipped. A torch’s beam lit the upper part of the duct, but lower down Vic could see the flicker of flames. Drake’s people, Holly had said. He was glad she’d gone back down.

‘Chaney! Chaney!’ Shouting.

‘Jesus. That’s Hitch!’ Chaney said, recognising a friend’s voice.

‘On top of the bus! Me and a woman, don’t think there’s anyone else, don’t think there can be, there’re fucking hundreds of them.’

‘Got ammo?’ Chaney shouted. He fired as a zombie leaped across from the bus, pumped the Remington, clicked on empty.

‘Some,’ Hitch said.

‘Then shoot your damn way in here!’ Chaney pulled Vic back from the open hatch.

Shooting. Vic heard cries of alarm from below as the explosions echoed down the metal duct. Then a woman dropped down from the bus’s roof, feet propped on the bus’s emergency window frame, and as she crouched and stepped across hands grabbed her legs and pulled. Her eyes went wide and she screamed, falling forward, her face striking the duct’s edge with a sickening crunch. She went slack and the zombies pulled her into the bus, and as they started biting Vic shouted, ‘Hitch, now!’

Hitch dropped down between the bus and the duct, then sprang up into the opening, a heavy pistol clasped in his left hand. Vic grabbed one arm and Chaney the other, and they hauled him inside. His jeans seemed to catch on something and they pulled harder. Then two zombies rose in front of the opening, holding on to his legs.

‘Gun?’ Vic said. He took Hitch’s gun and leaned over his back, shooting first one and then the other zombie in the face. He didn’t register who they might have been, not even their sex. They fell away and Hitch scrambled inside. It was then that Vic realised they had another problem.

He glanced down the five-feet-wide shaft. The nearest kid was maybe twenty feet down, with another twenty to go before they reached the first damper across the duct. Those lower down had already worked their way around that structure, descending the same way he’d ascended less than a week ago.

And the duct access cover was outside, buried beneath twenty bodies.

‘Go,’ Chaney said.

‘But-’

‘Go. Your family.’ He snatched the gun from Vic’s hand and pushed him, grasping his belt so that he didn’t tumble from the small platform.

‘No time to argue,’ Hitch panted. He smelled of fuel and sweat, and there was vomit and blood plastered across the front of his leather jacket. Unblessed indeed.

Vic knew that every moment counted. So he grabbed the ladder and started down. Hitch came after him, and for a few seconds Vic heard Chaney grunting and cursing. The weak daylight from above flickered. Vic looked up as he climbed down, and past Hitch he could see Chaney struggling on the small platform.

‘Chaney!’

‘Coming.’

‘Now.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ More shots, and the light seemed weaker now. Killing them as they come in, Vic thought.

A child cried out and Vic looked down. He’d trodden on a kid’s fingers. ‘Go on. Quick!’ Three children huddled on the damper blocking the duct, one of them clasping an electric torch, waiting for their turn to worm through to the next part.

‘Shit!’ Chaney shouted above them. ‘Shit!’ The gun fired twice more before it ran out of ammunition. ‘Okay, coming down, better get your asses in gear.’

‘Move!’ Vic said to the kids. He jumped down next to them, trying to stand on the struts across the damper. If he put his foot through it he’d be trapped.

Two kids climbed through, and as the third went Vic grabbed the torch from his hand. He was barely eight years old. ‘Candy and ice cream?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, buddy.’

The boy nodded and climbed down, guided by someone from below.

Hitch reached the opening and twisted through. Chaney was descending. And then the duct grew lighter again, and Vic knew what was happening without even looking.

‘Chaney, hug the ladder!’ he shouted, pressing himself against the duct. Chaney grunted, and three bodies crashed down behind Vic, thumping against his legs. He turned quickly, but they were motionless, their heads ruined.

‘Hoped that’d hold them longer,’ Chaney said, looking up.

Sounds came from above, and Vic looked up past Chaney to see another shape launch itself into the duct. It struck the sides and started spinning, and it hit the fallen bodies head first. It slumped against the duct, then started thrashing.

Vic brought the torch’s heavy end down on the zombie’s head, again and again. Each time he struck it jerked and hooted, and he was terrified he’d get its stuff on him, brains or blood or spit, that would work its way into scratches on his hands or arms.

‘Feet,’ Chaney said. Vic stood and stamped down. It was keening softly, a high-pitched noise that seemed to fill the duct, and when the skull broke it rose into a cry.

‘Dude, that’s not a person,’ Chaney said, dropping down beside him.

‘Yeah.’

‘Go. Torch.’ The big man snatched the torch from Vic and pushed him towards the opening.

Vic dropped onto his hands and knees and backed through, swinging his legs until he felt someone beneath the damper grab his feet and guide him down. He was at eye level with the corpses, and the one he’d crushed