‘Blew her head off,’ he muttered.
He steeled himself, then ran through the facility’s cameras one more time. Three out of twenty-three had ceased working, but on every other screen he saw only those mad people walking – he could tell by the blood, and their injuries, and their slack faces, and the way their arms failed to swing as they moved that they were not merely survivors – and a few motionless. He tried to zoom in on these, but the angles were wrong, and picture quality worsened the further in a camera zoomed. Only on one of the bodies did he see clear evidence of severe head trauma.
Jonah started to shake. Could they all be infected? Everyone? There were places to hide in Coldbrook’s three levels: cupboards and locked rooms, nooks and crannies, empty spaces left over from construction of the underground facility more than twenty years before. And those three closed doors in one of the accommodation corridors – maybe survivors were hiding in there. If so, he hoped they were people who had seen what those infected – those bitten – could do. Otherwise they might be tempted to open their doors.
He glanced at the reinforced viewing window in Secondary’s single door, but there was no face there looking in. I’ll have to leave sometime, he thought, and fear shivered through him. He breathed deeply and tried to pull himself together. Panic could help no one, least of all him. The news would be spreading beyond Coldbrook by now. His new aim must be only to stay alive and gather whatever information he could.
3
Vic heard gunshots. They were shooting at him! He flung himself into the ditch beside the road and felt cool slick mud closing around his arm and hand. The palmtop slipped from his pocket and splashed into the mud. He panicked, trying to prevent himself sinking deeper. The muck stank, but he welcomed the smell because it meant he was outside. Down in Coldbrook the air was sterile and clean, but to Vic it always smelled artificial. Real air was tainted by life, and he was glad to be free.
He rolled onto his back and sat up, his stomach muscles screaming. Really should have used that gym, he thought as he looked back down into the valley. Coldbrook sat further down the hillside, and now there were lights on in the buildings. He realised that the shooting had been distant, gunshots echoing from the slopes. No one was chasing him. His nerves had got the better of him. He tried to breathe calmly, but could not stop panting from exertion and fear. His heart fluttered like a trapped bird. He felt nauseous but it was nothing to do with the stinking ditch he had thrown himself into.
It was everything to do with those gunshots.
Something flashed down in the compound, though it was too far away to make out any detail, and seconds later more gunfire echoed up to him.
It’s out, Vic thought, and his chest and stomach felt heavy. I should have sealed that duct behind me, even the hatch, even if I’d spent a minute to screw that back properly instead of just propping it . . . But panic had gripped him, a mortal fear for Lucy and Olivia that had dulled his understanding and made his thoughts race: reach home, at all costs. The idea that the danger could be contained had not occurred to him. Never before had instinct taken him so completely, and as he climbed from that ditch he shivered at the idea.