Read Online Coldbrook (Hammer) by Tim Lebbon - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Tim Lebbon
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climbed, he tried to ignore the fact that he was leaving an open route behind him. He shoved the mechanisms back into the openings he’d crawled through, though he could not secure them again from above.
Jonah will lock it all down
, he kept thinking, a mantra to persuade himself that security would be maintained. And he willingly let panic conceal the illogicality of that idea. What was ahead mattered more.
Reaching the head of the duct, he squatted on the small maintenance platform and started immediately to undo the access hatch that led outside, working quietly in case the compound guards were nearby. His nostrils stung with the acrid stink of melted metal and plastics, his hands shook from exertion, and for the last fifty rungs of the ladder he’d been desperate to breathe in the airoutside the duct, a desperation that had grown the higher he climbed. He tried to calm himself, but as he scrambled out of the hatch and dropped into the cool night he sobbed.
The grass was damp and cool, the fresh air a gentle caress across his sweat-soaked clothing. Above Vic a thousand stars speckled the sky, all of them ancient history. To the east a smudge of light smeared the summits of the mountains as dawn began to break. The compound was quiet, motionless. He quickly flicked off his head torch, cursing his clumsiness, and ran crouching to the corner of a low supply building.
Does anyone up here even know what’s happening?
he wondered. The only reason that they would not know was if Jonah was too busy to have informed them. Or if he was . . .
For a second Vic thought again of calling Jonah. But not yet. He wasn’t away
yet
. When he reached home and saw Lucy and Olivia, then he would allow himself that call.
Right now he had to run.
9
As Holly fled into the breach she thought of the man who had come through, and wondered whether he had been like her when he’d stepped past the threshold. Shecould see through – the dark valley, shadows of plants and boulders across the hillside, the red sky brightening as the sun slowly rose – but that didn’t mean it was as close as it seemed. Distance and direction were concepts that lost meaning in the science of the breach.
It’s exactly where we are and a trillion light years away
, Jonah had whispered once as they’d sat drinking and musing upon their efforts. Maybe now, she would be walking for ever.
And then she felt the breach’s clasp.
Holly would have gasped, had she still been breathing. Her legs moved and her arms swung by her sides, but it felt like the processes of her body were frozen in the moment. Her skin chilled, as if it had been exposed to an open freezer. Thoughts jumped and scattered, formed and shattered: perhaps this was how everyone felt at the moment of death.
A slew of random memories erupted all at once, each of them richer in tone and sense than memory should normally allow. Holly at four years old, making mud pies in the back garden with her brother Angus, parents looking on with indulgent smiles, the wet soil warm between her fingers, the smell of dirt. The time in school when she had told her friends that she was seeing Ashley, the boy who’d been the object of her desires for months; their jealousy, and her certainty that the relationship would be short and precious. Her drunken eighteenth birthday when her mother had cleaned up her vomit andgently chided her, then sat on her bed and reminisced about her own youth for an hour while Holly sobbed herself to sleep, the acid smell, of puke tingeing the air. A long afternoon in college when the sun shone and she was filled with an unaccountable sense of joy; the death of her mother, withered and faded yet still smiling; one mealtime at Coldbrook when Vic had smiled at her and she’d truly noticed him for the first time, burning her finger with the coffee she’d spilled.
And many more memories came and went, each of them so intense that she relived them all again, crying and laughing, smelling and
Jonah will lock it all down
, he kept thinking, a mantra to persuade himself that security would be maintained. And he willingly let panic conceal the illogicality of that idea. What was ahead mattered more.
Reaching the head of the duct, he squatted on the small maintenance platform and started immediately to undo the access hatch that led outside, working quietly in case the compound guards were nearby. His nostrils stung with the acrid stink of melted metal and plastics, his hands shook from exertion, and for the last fifty rungs of the ladder he’d been desperate to breathe in the airoutside the duct, a desperation that had grown the higher he climbed. He tried to calm himself, but as he scrambled out of the hatch and dropped into the cool night he sobbed.
The grass was damp and cool, the fresh air a gentle caress across his sweat-soaked clothing. Above Vic a thousand stars speckled the sky, all of them ancient history. To the east a smudge of light smeared the summits of the mountains as dawn began to break. The compound was quiet, motionless. He quickly flicked off his head torch, cursing his clumsiness, and ran crouching to the corner of a low supply building.
Does anyone up here even know what’s happening?
he wondered. The only reason that they would not know was if Jonah was too busy to have informed them. Or if he was . . .
For a second Vic thought again of calling Jonah. But not yet. He wasn’t away
yet
. When he reached home and saw Lucy and Olivia, then he would allow himself that call.
Right now he had to run.
9
As Holly fled into the breach she thought of the man who had come through, and wondered whether he had been like her when he’d stepped past the threshold. Shecould see through – the dark valley, shadows of plants and boulders across the hillside, the red sky brightening as the sun slowly rose – but that didn’t mean it was as close as it seemed. Distance and direction were concepts that lost meaning in the science of the breach.
It’s exactly where we are and a trillion light years away
, Jonah had whispered once as they’d sat drinking and musing upon their efforts. Maybe now, she would be walking for ever.
And then she felt the breach’s clasp.
Holly would have gasped, had she still been breathing. Her legs moved and her arms swung by her sides, but it felt like the processes of her body were frozen in the moment. Her skin chilled, as if it had been exposed to an open freezer. Thoughts jumped and scattered, formed and shattered: perhaps this was how everyone felt at the moment of death.
A slew of random memories erupted all at once, each of them richer in tone and sense than memory should normally allow. Holly at four years old, making mud pies in the back garden with her brother Angus, parents looking on with indulgent smiles, the wet soil warm between her fingers, the smell of dirt. The time in school when she had told her friends that she was seeing Ashley, the boy who’d been the object of her desires for months; their jealousy, and her certainty that the relationship would be short and precious. Her drunken eighteenth birthday when her mother had cleaned up her vomit andgently chided her, then sat on her bed and reminisced about her own youth for an hour while Holly sobbed herself to sleep, the acid smell, of puke tingeing the air. A long afternoon in college when the sun shone and she was filled with an unaccountable sense of joy; the death of her mother, withered and faded yet still smiling; one mealtime at Coldbrook when Vic had smiled at her and she’d truly noticed him for the first time, burning her finger with the coffee she’d spilled.
And many more memories came and went, each of them so intense that she relived them all again, crying and laughing, smelling and
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