Dog Blood

IN A SITUATION WHERE everybody was either on one side or the other and there was no in-between, ascertaining who was who was a priority. A DNA-based “test of allegiance” had been developed early on, and from it the Central System had been born. It was little more than an electronic checklist-a massive summary of names cribbed from the electoral roll, voters’ roll, and births, deaths, and marriages records. The details held on each person were sparse: name, sex, date of birth, last known address, whether the person was dead or not, and, most importantly, whether he or she was Hater or Unchanged.

Many records-no one knew exactly how many-were incomplete or inaccurate. Up-to-date information was increasingly hard to find. Data gathering had been carried out at cull sites, evacuation camps, temporary mortuaries, military checkpoints, and anywhere else there was a controlled flow of civilians. Within the first two months of the crisis, however, that flow had been reduced to a trickle, then a drip. The thousands of bodies lying rotting in their homes, in overgrown fields, or on street corners remained unaccounted for, blank records returned should anyone inquire about their names.

The quality of data wasn’t the only problem with the system. Administration, backups, integrity, access rights, security… the speed and chaotic nature of the Change meant that these and so many other aspects of development were truncated, attempted halfheartedly, skimped, skipped over, or simply abandoned altogether. Nevertheless, the ever-decreasing number of people still using the system continued to do what they could, believing that, eventually, what they were doing would prove worthwhile.

Almost thirty-six hours since he’d been back to the hotel room. He’d managed to catch a few hours’ sleep in the back of one of the empty food trucks this afternoon, but Mark was still exhausted. Volunteers were becoming increasingly hard to find, and they weren’t about to let him go until they had to. He continued to do it because of the promises of extra rations (which had, so far, been fulfilled) and because he felt safer being on the side of the people who had the biggest guns. The city streets were increasingly ugly and unsafe places. Better to walk them with the protection of a little body armor and a weapon, he thought, than without.

All that aside, Mark decided, when I get back to the hotel this time, I’m not coming out again.

Over the past few days he’d begun to sense a change in the air-a difficult situation becoming impossible, a slight risk becoming almost a certainty. Things were deteriorating, and the rate of decline was accelerating. He hadn’t completely given up hope of some semblance of normality eventually being restored, but he knew things were going to get a lot worse before they got any better.

Processing. Of all the jobs they had him do, he hated processing the most. Maybe it was because, bizarrely, it reminded him of working in the call center? Perhaps it was just because it was so desperately sad. Those people who today still staggered into the military camp after months of trying to survive alone were little more than shells. Traumatized. Empty. Vegetative.

Heavy rain lashed down onto the roof of the tent, clattering against the taut canvas. A steady drip, drip, drip hit the corner of his unsteady desk, each splash just wide enough to reach the edge of his papers. Hot days and generally clear skies frequently meant cold nights, and even though it was cloudy tonight, it was still damn cold. He warmed his hands around the gas lamp while he waited. Wouldn’t be long. He’d just had word that a food patrol had found another few stragglers hiding in a warehouse storeroom, drowning in their own filth. Kate had worked here when they’d both first arrived in the city. Back then there’d been a steady stream of refugees coming through here 24/7. Now there were just a handful being processed every day.

“Should have seen him, Mark,” Gary Phillips said, sitting on the dry corner of the desk. “He went fucking wild when we found him.”

Phillips had been out in many of the same convoys as Mark over the weeks. This afternoon he’d won the toss and had taken the last available seat, leaving Mark to fill the desk job. Now he was back telling Mark in unnecessary detail how one of the survivors they’d found had gone crazy when they’d arrived at the warehouse. Mark wasn’t sure whether it was Phillips’s way of coping with what he’d experienced or whether he derived some sick pleasure from watching refugees suffer. Whatever the reason, Mark didn’t tell him to shut up or fuck off like he wanted to do. Instead he bit his lip and put up with Phillips’s pointless drivel. Better that than to show any kind of reaction that might be misconstrued.

“It was just unbelievable, I tell you,” Phillips continued, still pumped with adrenaline. “There were six of them shut in this fucking storeroom smaller than this tent. They’d used up just about every scrap of food they had, but on the other side of the door there was a warehouse still half full of stuff. Too fucking scared to put their heads out into the open.”

“Gets to us all in different ways, doesn’t it?” Mark said quietly, drawing lines on a piece of paper with the longest ruler he could find and writing out the questions he needed to ask. All the photocopied forms had been used up weeks ago.

“I know, but this was a bit fucking extreme by anyone’s standards. Anyway, the soldiers force the door open, not knowing what they’re gonna find in there, and this guy comes charging out, convinced they’re Haters. Fair play, they gave him a chance, which is more than I’d have done, but the dumb bastard wasn’t listening. He just kept coming at them.”

“So what happened?”

“What do you think happened? Fucker didn’t stand a chance. They put so many bullets in him I thought he was gonna… What’s the matter?”

Mark nodded toward the entrance to the tent. Phillips stopped talking and looked around. Behind him stood an elderly couple, who, if you looked past the emaciation, and their haunted, vacant stares, could have just stepped out of their house to go out shopping together. Their surprisingly smart clothes, albeit drenched with rain and streaked with dirt, looked several sizes too big for them. Phillips jumped off the desk, feet splashing in a puddle of mud, grabbed a chair, and placed it next to the one that was already opposite Mark.

“I’ll leave you to it,” he said. “See you around.”

With that he was gone. Mark gestured for the new arrivals to sit down. He hated doing this. It was hard. Damned hard. Too hard. He watched as the man sat his wife down, almost slipping in the greasy mud, then sat down next to her. Christ, after all they’d probably been through, he was still managing to be a bloody gentleman. He’d probably been looking after his wife for so long that he was hardwired to do it. She’d no doubt be the same, darning the holes in his clothes and checking he’d had enough to eat when both of them struggled to find any food and the world was falling apart around them. The couple huddled together for warmth, rainwater running off their clothes and dripping from the ends of their noses. The woman sobbed and shook, her shoulders jerking forward again and again. Her husband couldn’t help her or console her. He tried, of course, but she wouldn’t stop. He turned and faced Mark and stared at him, begging for help without saying a word, eyes filled with tears, mouth hanging open.

“Okay, what are your-?” he began to ask, stopping short when a low-flying jet tore through the air above the park, sounding like it was just yards above the roof of the tent. The gut-wrenching noise and blast of wind made the canvas walls shake and the woman wail and screw her eyes shut. Her husband took her hand in his and gripped it tight. Mark waited a few seconds for the jet to completely disappear before trying again.

“What are your names?”

Nothing.

“Do you have any identification papers with you?”

Nothing.

“Do you have any credit cards, letters… anything with your names on it, or an address?”

Nothing. Mark sighed and held his head in his hands, barely making any attempt to hide his frustration and fatigue. He looked up again, reached across the table, and gently shook the old man’s wet right arm. The man reacted to his touch, shaking his head slightly as if he’d just been woken from a trance.

“Can you tell me your name?”

“Graeme Reynolds,” he finally answered, his voice barely audible over the rain.

“Okay, Graeme,” Mark continued, looking down and scribbling the name at the top of the form he’d drawn up, “is this your wife?”

He nodded. Mark waited.

“What’s her name?” Mark asked finally.

Another pause, almost as if he were having to dredge his memory for the answer.

“Mary.”

“Your date of birth?”

No answer. Graeme seemed to be looking past Mark now, gazing into space. Waste of fucking time, Mark thought to himself. He’s gone again. What’s the point?

“Wait there,” he told him, although he knew the man wasn’t going anywhere. He got up from his chair and walked across the dark tent to another table, where he added the couple’s names to a register and entered the same names against the next available address in another file. He wrote out the details on a slip of paper and took it back, wondering if anyone was ever going to collect the files and update the Central System. When he and Kate had first started volunteering, the system had been updated religiously by a dedicated team tasked with keeping the information as accurate as was humanly possible. Now, whether it was because of a lack of functioning computers, a lack of trained operators, or any one of a hundred possible other reasons, the system seemed to be falling apart as quickly as everything else.

Mark handed the slip of paper to Graeme. He took it but didn’t look at it.

“Take that to the next tent,” Mark told him, unsure if there was anyone left working there tonight. “Those are your billet details. The people next door will give you ration papers. When you’re finished there, they’ll send you to the food store. They’ll give you something to eat if there’s anything left-”

He stopped speaking. Neither of them was listening. Poor bastards were barely even conscious. They didn’t know where they were, who he was, what he was doing, what he was trying to tell them… Graeme and Mary Reynolds didn’t move. He looked long and hard into their empty, vacant faces and wondered, as he now did with increasing and alarming regularity, why he was bothering. What was the point? When the fighting’s over, he thought, will we ever return to any kind of normality? Or have we gone too far for that? Is this as good as it’s ever going to get? All trust, hope, and faith gone forever… nothing left but fear and hate.

Mark stood up, took Graeme’s arm, waited for his wife, and then led them to the next tent. Without even stopping to see if there was anyone there, he grabbed his coat and the heavy wrench he always carried with him for self-defense and left. He went out into the rain and walked, determined not to stop again until he was back in the hotel room with Kate and the others.

13

I WAKE UP STRETCHED out on the threadbare living room carpet of the apartment we broke into last night. I ache like hell, but I slept pretty well considering. Our position midway up the high-rise has kept us out of sight, separated by height from the rest of town. The apartment is filled with dark shadows and the dull blue-gray light of early morning. It’s raining outside, and the rain clatters against the glass like someone’s throwing stones.

Paul’s asleep in an armchair in the corner of the room, looking up at the ceiling with closed eyes, his head lolling back on his shoulders. Carol’s curled up on the floor near his feet. I get up and stretch, looking around the dull room in daylight for the first time. The decor’s badly dated, and the entire apartment’s in a hell of a state as aresult of its owner’s self-imposed incarceration, but it still feels strangely complete and untouched-isolated to a surprising extent from everything that’s happened outside. I glance at my monochrome reflection in a long-silent TV, then pick up a framed photograph that still sits on top of the set. It’s a twenty- or thirty-year-old wedding day memory. The guy’s just about recognizable as the man from last night. His bride is the corpse next door.

I find Keith in the kitchen with a map spread out on a small Formica-topped table.

“All right?” he asks as I trudge toward him, eyes still full of sleep.

“Fine. You?”

He nods and returns his attention to the map.

“We’ll get moving in a while,” he announces. “It’s all quiet out there for now.”

I look down at the map with him and start trying to work out the best route to Lizzie’s sister’s house. The same two circles representing the edge of the enemy encampment and their exclusion zone have been drawn on this map as on the one Preston showed me yesterday. Except the lines are in slightly different positions on this map. According to this, Lizzie’s sister’s house is just inside enemy territory. I point to roughly where the house is and look across at Keith.

“That’s where we need to go.”

“That’s where you think you need to go,” he answers quickly. “That’s where we’re going to try to go, but I’m not promising anything. We’re out here to find recruits. If we get your kid it’s a bonus.”

“I know, but-”

“But nothing. We’ll head in that direction and see how far we get.”

“Is he still going on about that damn kid of his?” Carol says as she shuffles into the kitchen, bleary-eyed. She drags her feet across the sticky linoleum and lights up the first cigarette of the day.

“I’ve already told him,” Keith starts to say, trying (and failing) to stop her from getting involved.

“You’ve got to let her go,” she tells me, blowing smoke in my direction.

“No I don’t-”

“Yes you do. What’s the point of looking for her? What are you going to do if you find her?”

“I just want to know that she’s safe. I want her fighting alongside me.”

“And if you don’t find her?”

“Then I guess I’ll…”

“Assuming she’s still alive, what’ll happen if you don’t find her?”

“She’ll just carry on fighting wherever she is.”

“Exactly. So what difference does it make?”

“She needs me. She’s only five.”

“I reckon you need her more than she needs you.”

“Bullshit!”

“Not bullshit,” she says, shaking her head and flicking ash into a sink filled with dirty plates and cups. “I doubt she needs you at all.”

Stupid woman.

“Did you not hear me? She’s five years old. I don’t even know if she can fight-”

“Of course she can fight. We can all fight. It’s instinctive.”

“Okay, but what about food? What about keeping warm in the winter and dry in the rain? What if she gets hurt?”

“She’ll survive.”

“She’ll survive?! For Christ’s sake, Carol, she can’t even tie her own fucking shoelaces!”

Keith folds up his map and pushes his way between us, clearly fed up with being caught in the crossfire of our conversation. I shake my head in disbelief and follow him.

“You need to wake up and start living in the real world,” Carol shouts after me. There’s no point arguing, so I don’t.

We’re back in the van and ready to move within minutes of Paul waking up. The rain has eased, but the ground is still covered with puddles of dirty black rainwater that hide the potholes and debris and make it even more difficult to follow the roads than it was in the dark last night. Keith manages to avoid most of the obstructions, but when he oversteers to avoid an overturned trash can, one of the rear wheels clips something else. We go a few more yards, and then there’s a sudden bang and hiss of air as a tire blows out.

“Shit!” Keith curses, thumping the wheel in frustration.

“Got a spare?” I ask.

“No idea.”

He stops in the biggest patch of dry land we can find, and I get out. Paul follows me out and opens the back. He rummages around and manages to find the jack and other tools. The spare’s underneath. He starts to get it out. While I’m waiting I walk over to the other side of the road to where the contents of someone’s front room have been strewn across the pavement. Their flat-screen TV lies smashed in the gutter, and an expensive-looking rain-soaked sofa hangs precariously out of the broken bay window. Before all this happened we each lived in relative privacy in individual brick-built boxes, what we did and how we did it hidden from view of the rest of the world by our walls, doors, and windows. Strange how the physical worlds of so many people are now as dilapidated and ruined as their emotional state. There’s no privacy anymore, no boundaries. Everything we do is in full view and exposed. There’s no longer any-

“McCoyne!” Carol shouts at me from the van. “Get out of the fucking way!”

I spin around quickly, but it’s too late. Christ knows where he came from, but a powerful-looking man is running straight toward me. He’s six foot tall and just as wide, and I can tell from the focus and intent in his wild, staring eyes that he’s a Brute like those I saw back at the cull site. Does he not know we’re on the same side?

“Wait,” I try to say to him, “we’re-”

His bulk belies his remarkable speed, and before I can move he’s grabbed hold of my arm. He spins me around, then throws me over and slams me down onto my back. I’m already winded and gasping when he drops down onto my chest, his knees forcing the air from my lungs with a violent cough. I try to shout for help, but there’s no noise coming.

“Get off him, you fucking idiot,” I hear Paul say. I manage to turn my head to the side and watch as he starts hitting the Brute with part of the jack from the van. The Brute doesn’t react, barely even notices that he’s being hit. He bears down on me, a bizarre mix of terror and excitement on his face.

“Like you,” I manage to squeak. “I’m like you.”

Working together, Paul and Carol pull him away. They drag him back, drop him on his backside, then scatter like they’ve just lit the fuse on a stick of dynamite. I try to scramble away, moving back until I hit the wall of the house behind me. The Brute springs up with a low, guttural, warning growl and looks at each of us in turn. Then, painfully slowly, realization seems to dawn. He looks from Paul to Carol to me again. Paul moves toward him with the jack, ready to attack. Carol pulls him back.

“Don’t aggravate him,” she hisses. “Just drop it and walk away. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

Paul does as he’s told, dropping the heavy metal tool, which clatters loudly on the ground. Carol stands motionless as the Brute looks her up and down, her back pressed up against the van. Then he slowly turns and slopes away. He’s barely made ten yards when something else catches his eye and he breaks into a slow, loping run.

“What the hell was that all about?” I ask as I pick myself up.

“No fucking idea,” Paul answers as he returns his attention to changing the tire. I watch the Brute until he’s disappeared from view. Did he think I was one of them, or was I just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Did he see me and think I was Unchanged? Are the Brutes really like us, or was he reacting to a difference between us?

14

THE HEAT AND DAMP have combined to make the world stink more than ever this morning-the relentless, choking, suffocating stench of decay combined with overflowing drains and Christ knows what else. Other than the noise of this tired old van, everything is generally quiet, but the fragile silence is frequently interrupted by sudden bursts of noise: the Unchanged military moving and attacking, distant fighting, a scream as someone is hunted down and killed, the smashing of glass and the crumbling of collapsed buildings, the pained howl of a starving animal searching for food… The constant, smothering noise of the engine is unexpectedly welcome. It drowns out everything else.

I’m traveling in the front with Keith now, giving him directions. I’m trying to concentrate, but I’m distracted by the fact that a pub I used to occasionally drink in has disappeared-there’s now just an unexpected gap and a pile of blackened rubble on the street where it used to be-and for a second I don’t realize the significance of where we are. Then it dawns on me.

“Stop!”

“What’s the problem?” he says, slowing down but not stopping.

“No problem. Take a left here.”

He does as I say.

Carol leans forward from the back. “Trouble?”

“The kids’ school,” I explain. “They used to go to the school down here. My missus worked here, too.”

“So?”

“So if I was in Ellis’s shoes and I couldn’t go back home, school might be the next best option.”

“Worth a look since we’re here,” Keith reluctantly agrees, “but if there’s nothing here we move on quick, and so do you.”

The school is tucked away behind a church and a row of stores and offices. In the morning light everything looks a little more familiar than it did yesterday, but a little more mutated and alien, too. Windows are smashed, doors hang open, and there’s evidence of fighting almost everywhere I look. The road ahead is blocked by the rusting wreck of a car that has mounted the pavement and crashed into a bus shelter. Its heavily decayed Unchanged driver has been thrown-or dragged-through the shattered windshield. Looks like he was attacked as he tried to get away. His body is sprawled out over the crumpled hood of the car, his blue-tinged skin slashed and sliced by jagged shards of glass. His right shoulder is a gnarled stump of ripped flesh and protruding bone. The rest of his arm is missing. Keith mounts the curb and gently steers the van through a narrow gap, scraping against a wall with a vile, high-pitched grating noise. I look down as we drive over another, equally mutilated body. Whoever fought here was vicious. Probably more of those Brutes.

“Turn right down here. Down the alleyway next to the church.”

He does as I say, driving the van slowly down the narrow track that leads into the school grounds. I glance over the low stone wall to my left and see that there are several more bodies in the church graveyard, none of them in one piece. Some are badly decayed, others relatively fresh. I hold my favored knife tight in my hand, ready to attack or defend myself if the need arises. Even though I’m certain whoever did this was on our side, the brutality and savagery of these kills is remarkable. Keith drives through the empty teachers’ parking lot and stops outside the main school gate.

“Holy shit,” Paul says from the back. “What happened here?”

He jumps out and walks over to the wire-mesh fence that surrounds the small rectangular playground. I follow him and immediately see that the violence so apparent out on the streets has spread closer to the school, too. The enclosed asphalt play area is completely covered with a virtual patchwork quilt of body parts. I press my face against the tall fence, which bizarrely makes the playground look like some kind of caged gladiatorial arena. I look down at the ground, and in the few clear spaces between the dead I can still see brightly painted markings: hopscotch, snakes and ladders, oversized letters and numbers… I look up again and remember this place as it used to be, filled with a couple of hundred kids in their identical school uniforms, laughing and playing and-

“Brutes?” Keith shouts from the van, derailing my train of thought.

“Doubt it,” Paul answers quickly. “Why would they be here? More to the point, why would anyone still be here?”

“Unchanged hideout?” I suggest. “Think someone gate-crashed an evacuation?”

I crouch down to look closer at some of the nearest corpses. It’s impossible to be sure because of the extreme level of mutilation and deterioration, but all the dead faces I see here seem to be Unchanged.

I push open the gate, and we start walking down toward the entrance to the school, leaving Carol and Keith guarding the van. The ground’s much clearer here. In fact, it looks pretty much like it used to when we used to walk the kids down to class. Paul nudges me. I look up and see a sudden flash of frantic movement up ahead as a small figure darts along the side of the building, then jumps down off a low brick wall and disappears inside. I sprint down the path after it and shove the still swinging door open. I push my way inside, then stop suddenly, recoiling at the obnoxious stench that immediately hits me. I can smell human waste, rotting food, and other even worse odors.

I kick my way through the rubbish covering the floor of the small reception area. Directly in front of me is the door to the main assembly hall. To my left are what used to be the staff rooms and offices, and to my right a short flight of steps and a corridor that leads down to the classrooms. My eyes are slowly adjusting to the lack of light in here. What used to always be a bright place full of noise, energy, and life is now just as dark and dead as everywhere else, and it’s a stark contrast to what I remember. There’s a display on the wall with photographs of the teachers and kids, and I force myself not to look for Ellis’s, Edward’s, and Lizzie’s faces.

“There,” Paul whispers, pointing down toward the classrooms. There’s another shadowy blur of fleeting movement as something dashes from one room to another. I race down toward a classroom and push the door open, but I’m immediately sent flying back as something hurls itself at me with unexpected force and lightning speed. I slide across the floor on my backside and struggle to fight off a fast-moving attacker that grabs hold of my neck and starts to squeeze. Can’t tell if it’s claws or teeth I feel digging into my flesh. I try to lift my knife and fight, but before I can even raise my arm another one of them dives on top of me and bites my hand until I drop the weapon. I feel the sharp pinprick of another blade being forced up under my chin, almost breaking skin, then feel more small but savage hands grabbing both of my feet and my other arm and holding me down and then… and then they stop. One by one, Paul pulls them off me. My heart pounding, I scramble back across the floor, stopping only when I reach the wall and can’t go any farther back. I pick myself up and see there’s a crowd of seven children of various sizes and ages standing in front of me. They stare back, immediately losing interest when they realize we’re all on the same side. They slowly scatter and trudge back into the classroom. Paul and I follow them at a cautious distance.

“None of these your daughter?”

“Can’t see her,” I answer, still panting after the attack. I look around the room into a succession of pallid faces. Some of the children crawl away under desks, leaving only the biggest kids out in the open. They look like they’ve been here for some time, living in what used to be their classroom. Tables and chairs have been shoved to the sides of the room, the wood-tiled floor now covered in litter and discarded clothing. Random scraps of material have been used as bedding, and in the far corner wisps of smoke climb up from the ashes of a fire built from torn-up textbooks. The room is in a horrendous condition. It smells like a toilet and feels like a slum, but if I look past the dirt, the bruises, the blood, and the other stains and marks on the faces of these kids, they look completely fresh and alive. Their eyes are bright and full of life.

There’s a boy who looks about the same age as my son Edward, squatting on top of what used to be the teacher’s desk. If he came to this school they’d probably have been classmates, but I don’t recognize him. He’s digging into the wood with the tip of a fearsome-looking knife. I automatically go to tell him not to, but I stop myself-it doesn’t matter, and he’s not going to listen to me anyway. It’s already clear that these kids do what they like, when they like. That’s probably how they’ve managed to survive.

“I’m looking for my daughter.”

He shrugs but doesn’t say anything.

“Are there any other children here?”

Still no answer.

“This is a waste of time,” Paul whispers. “We should just get these kids into the van and get out of here.”

I’m not going anywhere until I’ve had some answers.

“Are there any adults here?”

The big kid sitting on the desk finally looks up. “There was.”

“But not now?”

He shakes his head.

“So what happened to them?” Paul asks.

“They went.”

“You didn’t go?”

“No point.”

“What about the war? The fighting?”

“What war?”

His answer surprises me. I take a step forward and accidentally kick an outstretched leg, which is immediately pulled back out of sight. I crouch down and see a small girl curled up under a desk on a bed of soiled cushions and pillows. She doesn’t react, but she watches me. She remains perfectly still, her eyes following my every move. These children, I think to myself, must have a strangely blinkered view of what’s left of the world. Like all kids, they’re only interested in themselves. I know they’d kill any Unchanged stupid enough to get too close, but do they feel the same compulsion to go outside and hunt them down as the rest of us do? As long as they’re warm and relatively comfortable and they’ve got a decent supply of food, what more could they want? They’re nesting here.

“I’m going to check the rest of the place out,” I tell Paul, eager to keep looking for Ellis. I leave the classroom and work my way back toward the main entrance, checking the other rooms as I pass them. They’re all empty.

“There’s no one else here,” a quiet voice says when I reach the top of the stairs. I turn around quickly, but I can’t see anyone. A little girl cautiously steps out of the shadows and looks up at me with huge, saucer-shaped eyes. I try to estimate her age, but it’s difficult. She appears completely innocent but at the same time strangely switched-on and knowing. She’s a pitiful sight-desperately thin, pale white skin, dirty and bedraggled with long, knotted hair. She’s wearing pajamas and has bare, muddy feet. Her clothing is bloodstained, and instinctively I’m about to ask her if she’s hurt herself. But then I realize the blood is more than likely from someone else, someone she more than likely killed. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. We both stand there awkwardly, staring at each other in silence, until something I see just over her shoulder catches my eye. It’s a line of metal coat hooks, hung on a long wooden rail about a yard and a half off the ground. The name on the peg directly behind her is Edward McCoyne. The girl suddenly becomes invisible as I reach out and lift a small cloth bag off my son’s peg.

“That’s just old stuff,” she says. “My bag’s down there. Want to see it?”

“No, it’s okay…”

I open the bag and take out Edward’s soccer shirt. His name’s on the label inside the collar, written in pen in Lizzie’s handwriting. I remember when we bought this for him. Christ, he nagged at us for months to get it because all the other kids had one like it. The team changed part of their uniform a couple of weeks later and the little shit stopped wearing it, complaining that he didn’t have the right one anymore and… and what the hell am I doing? Got to stop thinking like this and get a grip. That life is gone now.

The girl brushes past me and leans against the assembly hall door.

“What’s in there?” I ask, glad of the distraction.

“More stuff,” she answers nonchalantly, shrugging her shoulders. She pushes the door open, and I follow her inside. I stop immediately, rooted to the spot. The entire floor of the large, rectangular school hall is covered with bodies. Some of them are piled up, almost as if they’re being stored here. There are bloody handprints on the walls, some of them too big to have been made by kids. The girl tiptoes through the carnage without a care and disappears out through a gaping hole in the outside wall where a fire exit used to be. I follow at a distance, stepping over dismembered cadavers and swatting away buzzing flies. I’m distracted by an Unchanged woman’s half-naked corpse at my feet, only a few days dead. She’s facedown with her arms stretched out and fingers clawing the ground as if she died trying to get away. There are chunks missing out of the back of her naked thighs. Are those bite marks?

The overpowering stench in here is unbearable, and it’s making me gag. I follow the girl outside, desperate to get some fresher air. I find her at the edge of a murky, weed-filled pool. I don’t know whether it’s a deliberately dug pond or the crater left by a small explosion or other impact. Whatever, she’s lying on her belly in the mud, thirstily lapping up the dirty green water.

It’s a struggle to get the children rounded up and into the van. There were eight of them, but three managed to get away. Generally it’s the older kids who understand what we’re trying to do and why we want them to leave here. The promise of fighting and food is enough to persuade them to go.

“Good result,” Keith says. “Job done. We’ll get this bunch back to the others. Preston can’t complain about a catch like this.”

I knew that was coming. For the last half hour they’ve been making noises about getting back to the people we left at the slaughterhouse. As far as they’re concerned, it’s mission accomplished. I know I should go with them, but I can’t. Ellis is still out there somewhere…

“I’m not going.”

“You soft bastard,” Carol snaps angrily. “Don’t be so goddamn stupid.”

“We’ve got a van full of kids,” Keith argues.

“Yes, but we haven’t got my kid.”

“We don’t need your kid.”

“I do.”

“You don’t. All you need is-”

“I’ll find her and bring her back to the rest of you,” I shout over my shoulder as I start to walk away. “I won’t be far behind. Few hours at the most.”

I can hear them arguing, but it makes no difference.

“McCoyne, wait,” Paul shouts. I take a few more steps before, against my better judgment, stopping again and turning around. “He’s right,” I hear him say to Carol and Keith. “We’ve been told to find as many people to fight with us as we can, haven’t we? It makes sense to split up. You deliver this bunch, we’ll keep looking for more. Okay?”

Keith thinks for a minute and eventually nods his head. “Fair enough. Makes no difference to me.”

I start walking again, my backpack on my back and my axe held ready in my hand.

“I’ll go with him,” I hear Paul say. “Julia told me to keep an eye on him.”

I speed up, more determined than ever to find Ellis. Seeing the kids in the school has made me feel more confident that she’s survived, but at what cost? What condition is she in? If I don’t find her and look after her, will she end up like the children we’ve found here?

“Hold on,” Paul shouts, but I just keep walking. I don’t need him. I don’t need any of them.

15

IT SEEMS THAT EVERY couple of minutes, something I see catches me off guard. This time it’s a gas station, an innocuous, desolate shell of a building that I normally wouldn’t have given a second glance. I stop in the middle of the road and stare at it. Lights hang down from its high canopy. The tall and once brightly lit welcome sign lies on its side, blocking the way to the now lifeless fuel pumps. Metal grilles pointlessly protect long-since-smashed plate glass windows. Inside, the shelves and displays have been stripped of everything of value-

“Problem?” Paul asks.

“Nothing,” I lie. “Just thought I saw something.”

I take a couple of steps closer, wishing I were alone. There’s nothing here, and he knows it. I just wanted to stop for a second and look and remember. It feels like five minutes, but it was probably about five months since I was last here. Lizzie took her dad to the hospital, and I was left with the kids. I took them to see a film. We drove halfway across town and used half a tank of gas to get to the cheapest theater. They argued about what they wanted to see. Ed and I wanted to watch one thing, Ellis wanted to watch something else. Edward and I won the argument. Josh slept through the film, and Ellis whined all the way through it. We stopped here on the way back home to fill up the car, and I bought Ellis some candy just to shut her up. Then that started the other two moaning… If I half-close my eyes I can still see her in there. She took forever to choose her candy, dragging it out and trying to get as much out of me as she could.

It’s the contrast that’s taken me by surprise today. Everything was so trivial and unimportant back then. I walked into this shop with Ellis and I was just like any other dad, trying to pacify his whining kid. Now look at me. A killer. A soldier (apparently, although I don’t feel like one). Virtually unrecognizable as the man Iused to be. Living from day to day and hour to hour… and if the war’s had this much of an effect on me, what might it have done to Ellis? I wonder what the little girl who, on that day five months ago, had nothing more important to worry about other than what candy bar she wanted, is doing now?

“Any time today would be fine,” Paul moans. “Stop fucking daydreaming. It’s dangerous out here, you know.”

“I wasn’t daydreaming.”

“You were. For fuck’s sake, get a grip.”

“I’m fine,” I say as I march past him.

“You were away with the goddamn fairies again. You need to clear your head, man. Get some focus.”

This guy never gives up. He’s like a dog with a bone.

“I am focused,” I snap back at him.

“Focused on what? A fucking gas station? Face it, McCoyne, you’re drifting. You don’t even have a proper plan.”

“Yes I do.”

“What, walk halfway across an enemy-occupied city to get to a house where you think your kid might have been? You’re making it up as you go along, man. Just give up and move on. You’ve got to start putting the fight first and everything else second.”

“If it’s such a bad idea, why did you come with me?”

“Like I said, to find more volunteers. Besides, I wasn’t crazy about being shut in the back of that van with a load of feral kids.”

“Volunteers-is that what you’re calling them now?”

“Well, what would you call them?”

“Conscripts… lemmings…”

“So are you not bothered about this war anymore, then? Are you happy just to let the Unchanged carry on attacking us? You saw the gas chambers-you know what we’re up against.”

“Nothing’s changed, Paul. I still want to kill just as much as you do.”

“Start showing it, then. Listen, man,” he sighs, “I’m just trying to help you out. I understand what you’re going through.”

“Understand! How the hell can you understand? My five-year-old daughter is out there on her own somewhere!”

For the first time in an age he’s quiet.

“Do you really think you’re the only one who’s had it hard?” he finally says, his voice suddenly full of tension and previously suppressed emotion. “Think you’re the only one who’s been dealt a shitty hand by all of this?”

“No, I-”

“Because I’ll tell you, sunshine, you’re not. We’ve all had it hard. What’s happened has fucked everything up for every last one of us, and all we’re trying to do is put things straight.”

“I’m not saying that I-”

“You’ve never once asked me about my family, have you? About what happened to me? What brought me here? And do you know why? I’ll tell you, it’s because you don’t care, and you’re right not to. It doesn’t matter. It’s not important, none of it is. What’s done is done, and all that matters now is what we do from here on in.”

“I understand that, but if I can find Ellis, then I…”

I stop speaking because he’s stopped walking again. I carry on for a few more paces, then turn back to face him.

“It was a Wednesday night, about a quarter to ten, when it happened to me,” he says. “It was all so damn ordinary. I’d been watching soccer on TV. My girlfriend had just gone to bed, and I was on my own downstairs. I was just sitting there, staring at the walls, when everything clicked into place and started to make sense. It was like someone had switched a fucking light on, you know? Like I could suddenly see everything clearly for the first time in years.”

“What are you talking about?”

“So I sat there for a while,” he continues, ignoring me and wiping something away from the corner of his eye. “Then I went out to the garage and got myself a mallet and a saw, best things I could find. Then I went back inside, went upstairs, and killed Sharon. After I’d finished with her, I did the same to Dylan. He was awake in his crib when I went into his room. He was standing there, bouncing up and down on his mattress, grinning at me, but I did it just the same. I had to.”

“I’m sorry,” I mumble quietly, feeling like a total shit and not knowing what else to say. He shakes his head and walks on, trying unsuccessfully to hide his anger.

“Thing is, since I heard the things Preston ’s been saying, I can’t help wondering what would’ve happened if I’d left him. Could I have made him like us?”

“Do you believe all that?”

“I don’t know what I believe. All I know is that you’ve got no fucking right to question whether I understand what you’re going through. You’ve got a kid who’s probably still out there fighting somewhere, and these days that’s as much as anyone can hope for. Now shut up, wise up, and get a fucking grip. Forget about her.”

16

WE WORK OUR WAY along the outermost edge of the Unchanged exclusion zone, either just inside or just outside the boundary depending on whose map you’re looking at. It’s been uncomfortably quiet out here, and we’ve seen only a handful of other fighters since splitting from the others back at the school. Here, though, things suddenly feel different. Paul and I make our way quickly through the ruins of a sprawling college campus, moving away from the collapsing, battle-damaged buildings, then climbing up a number of terraced soccer fields, stacked like hugely oversized steps. From the farthest edge of the uppermost playing field we’re able to look out over a huge swathe of the exclusion zone. In the distance I can just about make out the area of town where Lizzie’s sister lived, and I can see all the way across the wide stretch of no-man’s-land to the heart of the enemy refugee camp, too. But it’s what’s directly below us that is of more immediate interest. We’re overlooking what’s left of St. James’s Hospital, and it’s crawling with activity. Our fighters are all over it like ants over forgotten food.

“What do you reckon?”

Paul shrugs his shoulders. “Got to be a reason for them being here,” he answers, and before I can speak again, he crawls through a hole in a section of chain-link fence and starts running down a steep, grassy slope toward the hospital.

I try to resist for a second and force myself to concentrate on finding Ellis, but then I think about the fact that there must be Unchanged close by, and the temptation becomes too strong to suppress. My mouth begins to water as I sprint down the hill after Paul, desperate to get down to the hospital and start killing. I hear gunfire as I start to run, a sure sign that the enemy is close. Suddenly all I can think about is satisfying my hunger and ending Unchanged lives.

The main hospital entrance has been partially demolished, the automatic doors stuck midway through opening, their metal frames buckled. As I catch up with Paul he’s looking for a way around what’s left of this part of the site. It sounds like most of the heavy fighting is concentrated around the parking lots and the other buildings at the far end of the complex.

“Cut straight through,” I suggest as I squeeze through the gap in the doors. He follows me as we head down a long corridor that has somehow remained surprisingly white and clean and that even now still has the faintest tang of antiseptic in the air. The building feels vast and empty, and our footsteps echo as we run along the hard marble floor toward the battle. A huge, dark, zigzagging crack in one of the walls makes me question my decision to come this way momentarily, but it’s too late now and it’s worth the risk. We’re nearing the fighting. We’re closing in on the enemy.

I burst through a set of swinging double doors, then stop at a staircase. Instinct tells me to head down, but the way through is blocked by fallen rubble from a collapsed wall. Paul doesn’t wait, deciding quickly to head up and work his way around whatever damage he finds up there. I follow him through more doors, then along another, much shorter corridor, which ends with a sharp right-hand turn. We instinctively slow down when we enter a ward filled with corpses. I start to wonder whether these well-decayed people were just abandoned and forgotten when the war began, but a closer look at their injuries quickly tells me that wasn’t the case. A skeletal woman has been skewered with the metal support that once held her intravenous drip, the stained and tattered threads of her flapping nightgown still wrapped around her shoulders. Sitting on the floor to my left, the withered husk of an old man is slumped with his legs apart. There’s a vertical scar in the middle of his badly discolored chest, running in almost a straight line down from just below the level of his sagging nipples. At the bottom of the scar, right where his navel would have been, the wound has been forced open and his innards pulled out. This guy’s been disemboweled by someone with their bare hands. The ingenuity and brutality of whoever did this is breathtaking. These bodies are old, though. Why are people still fighting here today?

A huge hole in the ceiling and a corresponding hole in the floor farther down the ward force me to concentrate again. I follow Paul as he edges cautiously around the narrow ledge that remains around the dark chasm. I glance down and see a mass of rubble, beds, and bodies directly below, then look up. There are more holes in each floor above us all the way up to what’s left of the roof.

At the end of the ward we reach another staircase. I look down through a large safety-glass window over a vast crowd of people battling outside. Our fighters are swarming around a collection of outbuildings right out on the farthest edge of the site. Standing separate from the main hospital campus, they look like they might have been storerooms or boiler rooms. There are enemy soldiers in every visible window and doorway and more on the roof, all of them now firing relentlessly and indiscriminately into the surging crowd. On the other side of the wrought-iron railings that surround the hospital grounds are their vehicles, ready for them to beat a hasty retreat if we get too close.

Paul’s halfway down the stairs, but I stay standing at the window. Something’s not right here.

“Come on!” he shouts.

“Wait…”

I watch as another surge comes from deep within the crowd of fighters. People are jostling for position, trying to get closer to the enemy, using each other as human shields by default. A pair of Brutes almost get close enough to strike before they’re driven back and brought down by another hail of bullets. Other fighters immediately clamor to take their places, trampling their fallen bodies. Apart from those few brave attempts, the enemy seems to be managing to keep the bulk of the crowd at bay.

“You fucking idiot!” Paul yells at me. “They’ll all be dead by the time you get down there.”

He disappears, but I don’t move. On the face of it this looks like any one of a hundred battles I’ve witnessed or been a part of before, but there’s a subtle difference, and alarm bells are ringing. I sprint after Paul to try to stop him.

“Paul,” I yell, just managing to catch sight of the back of his head before he disappears out through an open door. “Wait!”

“We’ll tear them apart,” he shouts, glancing back at me. “They’re sitting ducks.”

“No they’re not.”

“What?”

“They could get out of here at any time. I saw it from up there. They’re tight up against the perimeter, and they’ve got vehicles on the other side waiting to take them out. They’re playing us.”

“What?” he shouts again.

“It’s a fucking setup! Think about it… Their secure area’s just a mile or so from here, there’s no way they’ve been cut off from the others, and they don’t look like they’re out here for supplies…”

“I don’t care,” he says, thinking more about the kill than anything else, acting like a drug-starved junkie who’s desperate for a hit.

“They’re not waiting here to be evacuated,” I tell him. “They’re here to draw us out into the open.”

Paul shakes his head, then turns and runs, charging deep into the sprawling, ever-growing crowd of fighters, which now almost completely fills the entire space between the main part of the hospital and the Unchanged-occupied buildings. Bullets shatter windows in the wall high above, and jagged daggers of glass rain down around me. Forced to move, I follow him outside but stay right at the very back of the crowd, using the mass of surging figures as cover and trying to squirm around the edge of the building and head back in the direction from which we just came. Paul’s already disappeared-just another face in the swollen crowd of bloodthirsty fighters, all of them desperate to kill. I don’t know what’s more terrifying, the fact that I think we’re being set up or how singularly focused this huge mass of people has become. It’s like nothing else matters; the scent of blood is in the air, and they’re all behaving like Brutes, prepared to sacrifice anything for the thrill and satisfaction of the kill. The closeness of the enemy and their constant gunfire just seems to rile the hordes and make them even more aggressive. Maybe that’s what they want?

I feel like I’m fighting against everyone else here now, and a moment of indecision and distraction costs me dear. Too busy watching what the bulk of the crowd is doing, I don’t realize another group of fighters is approaching from behind until it’s too late. They push past me, shoving me out of the way and to the side, slamming me against a wall. Before I know what’s happening I’m on the ground, desperately trying to cover my head and scramble out of the way as people stampede all around me. The noise of the chaotic battle is muffled and distorted down here, increasing my disorientation. I try to follow the wall I just smacked into, still moving against the tide of people and hoping I’m heading in the right direction. I’m finally able to pull myself back up onto my feet, using a drainpipe for support. I haul myself up onto the top of a metal and glass smokers’ shelter outside a blocked entrance door and look back over the heads of the crowd. Almost all of the shooting has suddenly stopped, and I see that our fighters have finally reached the small buildings. They’re pouring inside, steamrolling anyone who gets in their way. I stand on the shelter and curse myself for overreacting. Maybe Paul was right. Did these stupid Unchanged bastards really just screw up and get themselves stranded out here?

I’m about to jump down when I hear something. The noise makes me stop and stare again. Then I see it-a line of armored trucks and jeeps heading away from the back of the buildings. A handful of fighters manage to make it over to the other side of the perimeter fence, but, judging by the number of vehicles now racing across this part of the exclusion zone at speed, it looks like most if not all of the Unchanged soldiers have got away. More people scramble through the buildings and chase after the Unchanged, but they give up quickly and slow down and watch the enemy escape through clouds of dust.

Wait.

The sound of engines is getting louder.

The vehicles are almost of out sight, but the noise is continuing to increase in volume. It becomes vague and directionless and seems to wash and fade before becoming stronger, louder, and more definite again. Then I realize that these engines are above us. I know what’s coming next. The enemy’s tactics are becoming all too easy to read.

I jump down off the shelter, going over on my ankle and accidentally taking out another couple of fighters in the process. There’s an uncomfortable malaise about this place now, with only a few people on the frayed edges of the crowd making any serious attempt to get away. Most of them just stand there, some with their faces pressed against the railings, still watching the Unchanged flee. I’d do something about it if I could be bothered, but all I’m interested in now is getting myself out of here before it’s too late.

I start running, pushing my way through crisscrossing bodies and trying to ignore the sharp, jabbing pain in my ankle. Above the roof of the hospital I catch a glimpse of a massive low-flying, slow-moving plane with an enormous wingspan, and I will myself to keep moving faster and faster as I hear the high-pitched whistle of the first bombs beginning to fall. I’m away from the bulk of the crowd but still nowhere near far enough to be safe. I keep trying to force my legs to work harder, but my muscles are burning with effort, and I think my ankle’s going to give way at any second. Can’t keep moving. I lean against a wall and half hop, half drag myself along, knowing that the building I’m holding on to is about to be obliterated. I can almost see the grassy hill Paul and I ran down now, but it’s still too far. I’ll never get there. The piercing whine of the fast-falling munitions keeps increasing in volume until it’s all I can hear. Then it stops.

Nothing.

A split second later and the air is filled with more noise than I can believe, the power of the blast forcing the air from my lungs. I drop down and cover my head, ready for the world around me to explode. The ground shakes violently, and I curl myself up into the smallest shape possible, waiting for the remains of the hospital building to start to crumble and fall. My guts churn with fear, and I brace myself for what’s coming next, knowing that the worst is yet to come…

The noise starts to fade.

Everything sounds muffled. Debris starts falling. In the distance people are yelling for help and screaming with pain.

Was that it?

I tell myself I’ll count to thirty, and if nothing’s happened I’ll try to move. I only get to seven when I feel people starting to get up around me. Did all the bombs explode? Did the Unchanged pilot fuck up?

I cautiously stand up and turn around, not knowing what I’m going to see behind me. The air is filled with spewing clouds of dust, like a thick, dirty, grainy fog that quickly settles and coats everything with gray. As it fades I realize I can still see the far end of the hospital building intact. The outbuildings that were the focus of the fighting have gone, but the main campus is in much the same condition as it was before the attack. The only other thing that’s missing is the crowd of fighters, and I realize that they were the target today, nothing else. Those Unchanged bastards have managed to wipe hundreds of us out and still leave their infrastructure relatively undamaged. I don’t know whether it’s the sight of the unscathed hospital building or the empty space where the crowds of fighters were standing that makes me hate them most.

As the haze settles, everything takes on a bizarrely calm, almost dreamlike state. Those who’ve escaped the full force of the blast begin to stagger past me, some soaked with blood, others looking like white-faced ghosts, covered in powder-fine debris. Behind those who can walk I see others who’ve suffered much worse injures. A woman, I think she may have been a Brute, tries to drag herself along the ground. Both of her legs have been blown off below the knee, and she leaves an uneven snail trail of glistening blood behind her. She manages to travel a couple of yards farther before she dies. I shake my head clear and try to force myself into action as a man stumbles closer, walking like a drunk, carrying the lower part of his left arm in his right hand. He’s asking me for help, I think, but I can’t hear him. Is there something wrong with his voice? I try to answer, but I can’t hear my own voice properly either. Everything sounds muffled and low, and I realize the problem’s with my ears. I nervously look from side to side, suddenly aware that if I can’t hear properly, I’m wide open to attack. I need to get away from here and find somewhere safe so I can get my head together, then get on with what I came back out here for. For half a second I wonder whether I should stop and look for Paul. It’s a stupid, pointless idea. He’s probably nothing more than a pile of blackened bone and ash at the bottom of the bomb crater now. He was no help anyway. Stupid fucker didn’t listen to a word I said.

Pull yourself together, I tell myself again as the shock and disorientation slowly start to fade and some clarity returns. I need to forget this place and get back on track and keep moving toward Lizzie’s sister’s house-and, I decide as I start to hobble away, my ankle still weak, I need to do it on my own. I have to keep away from everybody else because when we’re together we become an easy target for the Unchanged to pick out from the sky. Cowardly bastards. Face-to-face they know they don’t stand a chance. Long-distance battles are the only ones they can win.

I start to run, slowly at first until the pain in my ankle becomes slightly more bearable. I head back toward the entrance to the hospital I first came through, desperate to put some distance between me and everyone else. I reach the bottom of the grassy slope below the college playing fields, and this time I take a right, moving toward the ruins of a housing project, hoping that the closely packed row houses on either side of the road will provide me with some temporary cover. I tuck in tight against the buildings on my right, hiding in their shadows. As I move past a succession of grim, crumbling facades, I start to think I should maybe stay here for a while. The enemy has already hit this place; what would they gain from striking here again? And now that I’ve made the decision to only travel alone, would it be better to wait until dark? But then I think about Ellis and the kids at the school, and I know I have to keep moving.

Shit, there’s someone in the road up ahead. I crouch down behind a low stone wall in the front yard of one of the houses and watch. Don’t think he’s seen me, but he’s coming this way. He must be Unchanged, I can tell by the way he moves, from his slow, cautious movements and lack of confidence. So why the hell am I cowering like this? Stay calm and consider the options, I tell myself. He’s alone, and if he is one of them, I’ll just kill him. I must still be shook up from the bombing, because my heart’s pounding and I’m suddenly sweating like a pig. I need to face this fucker head-on, whoever and whatever he is. I try to focus on the euphoria I know I’ll feel when I end his miserable life.

I grab my axe, then stand up and run at him. When he sees me he immediately reaches for his belt, and I curse my stupidity, certain that he’s about to draw a gun and fire-but he doesn’t. He backs away, running from me faster than I’m moving toward him, screaming into a handheld radio. Now I’m sure he’s Unchanged, and I know I can’t let him live. He accelerates, moving with a frantic speed that I can’t match. It’s a struggle for me even to keep up, but I can’t let him go. Have to kill him…

He turns a blind corner. I follow, then stop dead in my tracks. There are three more of them racing down the road ahead toward me, one on a motorbike in full leathers. It’s four against one, and I’m fucked. But I can’t let it end like this. Do I go out fighting or…? The bike rider lifts what looks like a riot baton and accelerates, and my decision’s made. Like a fucking coward I turn and run, not even bothering to attack, the screaming sound of the bike’s engine ringing in my ears.

I run through the open door of the nearest house and slam itshut behind me. That should slow the bastards down. Rather than risk heading upstairs in this ruin I instead stay down, running through a ransacked living room and jumping over the outstretched legs of the corpse of a woman that’s leaning up against an empty fireplace, looking like she’s praying. The kitchen of the house is filled with rubble. There’s a gaping hole where a window used to be. I scramble up onto an unsteady counter and jump out through the gap, landing in a concrete yard on my injured ankle. I bite my lip hard, refusing to shout out, and breathe through the pain. In the brief moment of quiet I listen to the echoing sound of the motorbike as it fades and swirls and seems to move away. Then I hear the Unchanged enter the front of the house, and I force myself forward again. I run down a narrow path in the middle of a wild, overgrown lawn, heading toward a tall brick wall at the back of the garden. There’s a half-empty water barrel in the corner. I use it to climb up onto the top of the wall, then kick it over to stop anyone from following. Down the other side and I find myself standing in space in the middle of a block of six lockup garages, a row of three on either side. I can either hide here and wait to be found or make a break for it. Apart from going back over the wall there’s only one way out. I sprint forward but then stop when the bastard on the bike appears from nowhere and cuts me off, swerving the bike around so that it blocks the road. I manage to weave around his back tire and get past, but I’ve only taken a few steps farther when I hear him accelerate again. I look back over my shoulder as he rears up, riot baton held ready. I try to change direction again, try to wrong-foot him, but my ankle gives way and I stumble, barely managing to keep upright and keep moving. I feel sudden, searing pain as the baton cracks against the back of my legs, and I hit the asphalt hard and roll over in agony.

More of them are coming, their Unchanged faces hidden by motorcycle helmets, face masks, visors, and scarves. I try to stand up, but one of them slams me back down, pinning my arms to the ground. Another one holds my legs. I struggle, but they’re too strong. There are too many of them.

“Just do it,” I yell at them. “Fucking do it! Kill me now and get it over with.”

Yet another one appears, looming over me. I can see this one’s face. He looks me up and down, then pulls the plastic stopper off the tip of a hypodermic needle with his teeth and spits it out. I try to arch my back and get away, but I can’t do anything to stop the fucker from thumping the needle hard into my chest.