Uri’s face changed as his mouth fell open, lips and cheeks wrinkling into a silent growl, and it was the silence that threw Jonah. On the viewing screens he had seen carnage and shooting and blood, and he had played his own imaginary soundtrack to those sights. He had been wrong. These things were not ravenous slavering animals, not growling roaring things, but something else entirely.
He lifted the gun quickly, its barrel striking Uri’s chin, causing is head to flip up, Jonah tucked in his elbow and raised the gun higher – it was only inches from his own face when he fired. The explosion was deafening. His hearing faded instantly, driving all his senses inward for what seemed like minutes but must have been only seconds. When he opened his eyes again there was dust drifting from the ceiling and Uri was slumped against the open door, slowly sliding down to the floor, his head a ruin. And the woman was coming for Jonah again, her mutilated face stretching horribly as her jaw seemed to unhinge, teeth glaring in the wet red mask. The shot’s recoil had jarred Jonah’s shoulder, but he brought the gun up again and held it in a two-handed grip at arm’s length this time, closing his eyes as the woman’s forehead struck the barrel. He pulled the trigger, then squinted through the smoke at her thrashing on the floor. He shot her again and again. The gunshots sounded distant, though the recoil forced him against the desk. His ears started ringing as his hearing returned, though beyond the ringing there was only silence and his own panting and groaning, and the gasps as he tried to spit gun smoke from his mouth.
The woman was motionless. Her head was shattered, spilling out a mess of gore. Blood seeped, and Jonah gagged, but he had to look again. It did not gush. No working heart to pump it, he thought. Uri was slumped against the open door, chin on his chest, displaying the exit wound on the back of his head just above the neck. Blood and brain matter ran down beneath his collar, but again there was no excessive bleeding.
I shot two people, Jonah thought, but he found himself feeling surprisingly calm. Although his ears were still ringing the stillness seemed a comfort to him. I gave them peace. I helped them. He nodded as he knelt, holding on to that thought. The woman’s leg was stretched out and her shoe hung off. He touched the top arch of her foot, blew on his hand and touched her skin again. She was cooler than she should have been, her skin paler. She was someone from the kitchen. He had eaten food that she had cooked, and had thanked her for it. Now she was dead.
‘Bloody hell.’
He moved backwards until the desk stopped his progress again. He stared, chilled by the bodies’ presence. But he had opened the door for a reason. He had to move on. There would be dangers, and part of his scheme relied on pure luck. But it meant taking action. Standing here returning cold dead stares was not meaningful activity.
Jonah dragged the corpses outside, wanting to keep Secondary clear. As he grabbed the laptop and closed and locked the door, he did not take his eyes from the two motionless cadavers. And even as he turned a corner to reach the staircase, he kept glancing back. Though they did not follow him, he knew they would pursue him in his dreams.