‘Really?’ Vic asked. ‘You’re doing okay?’
Chaney blinked a few times, but never looked away from Vic. ‘You got something heavy on your shoulders, man,’ he said.
‘Tell me about it.’ Vic smiled and held out his hand, and Chaney gripped and shook it.
Back in the station wagon, Marc was already working on his laptop again, and Sean was strapping on his seat belt. ‘Everyone belt up,’ he said. ‘Gonna be driving fast, and not stopping for anything.’
Vic breathed in the mountain air and heard that haunting call somewhere in the distance. They were about to drive through Danton Rock, where they would see people that he and his family knew.
He checked the M1911, then pulled the satphone from his pocket.
10
At the first scream Moira’s eyes widened and she darted past Holly, pulling free the crossbow slung around her shoulder, loading it as she ran. Holly had time to notice how gracefully she performed these actions. And as she burst through into the garage once again, Holly realised how foolish they had all been. She’d nodded to the door that the Hummer had been holding shut and had told Drake it needed guarding. But that had been wrong.
It had needed checking.
There were six zombies, three of them wearing the familiar dark blue outfits of Coldbrook’s surface security staff, two in army fatigues, the other one naked and burned. All of them were fast. By the time Holly had reached the garage doorway, two of them were down. One lay still, the other waved her hands in front of her face trying to grab the end of the arrow that stuck out from there. The female zombie kept striking the feathered flight, swinging her head left and right in the process, making no sound.
Drake was twenty feet from where Holly stood, close to the Hummer’s front end, reloading his crossbow. He glanced in her direction, then raised the weapon and fired at the burned fury. The bolt ricocheted from its shoulder and clattered against the wall, and the blackened thing darted for him.
Holly pulled her gun and aimed, but Drake was in her field of fire.
Moira ran, slid across the polished concrete floor, and tripped the running fury. She rolled aside before it could leap at her.
Holly pushed herself from the doorway, groaning at the pain of the slow fire in her side. She aimed at the fallen fury and was about to fire when another of Drake’s people shot it from across the garage. It rolled three times and then lay still, dark fluid leaking from its head.
‘Watch the doorway!’ Drake shouted. Holly paused, thinking he was talking to her, but he was waving at his people. ‘Don’t let any of them in. Don’t let them through!’
‘Over there!’ someone shouted. ‘Down. Get down!’ The thrum of a crossbow. The thud of a bolt’s impact. The impact of a body falling to the floor. All of this was at the other end of the garage beyond the Hummer and the 4x4s, and Holly stumbled sideways to get a clear view of what was happening, her pistol held in both hands. Behind her, three Gaians were guarding the doorway, one facing into the common room just in case any furies had slipped through without them noticing.
Good, Holly thought. More cautious now.
And then she saw a fury kneeling on a woman beside one of the 4x4s, darting his head to bite at her thrashing hands. She was not screaming. She bucked and tried to roll, knocking his face aside each time he snapped at her, trying to shake him but unable to do so. From somewhere out of sight an arrow embedded itself in his shoulder, but he barely paused.
The Gaians were used to furies worn down by forty years – deadly if they could get close enough but slow and withered. Not new furies like these, heavy and strong. Fast.