Them or Us

3

OUT OF HABIT I follow the same route each day, using the footbridge to cross the empty road from town and get into the housing development. I’m out of shape. The steep steps are always that much steeper than I remember, and I have to stop halfway across to catch my breath.

The world is dark tonight—no streetlamps, house lights, or lines of traffic producing the ambient glow of old—and the center of Lowestoft behind me is easy to make out. In the midst of the darkness of everything else is a clutch of blinking lights and burning fires, their brightness concentrated around Hinchcliffe’s compound. It’s hard to believe that this is what passes for a major center of population now. The same thing has no doubt happened around the country: minor towns becoming major towns by default because they’re the only habitable places left. It reminds me of a medieval settlement. I remember watching TV documentaries when I was a kid about social experiments where people stepped back in time and tried to live in anything from Iron Age settlements to Tudor houses. This place feels like that but in reverse. Today it’s as if people from the past have moved in and taken over the ruins of the present. Hard to believe that all those towns and cities I remember are gone, either abandoned or destroyed. All those places I used to know … London, Birmingham, Manchester, Cardiff … all reduced to piles of toxic ash. I only have hearsay, unsubstantiated rumor, and common sense to go on, but if what I’m hearing is true and all those places really are dead, then out here on the east coast is probably as safe a place as any to be. I’m guessing that it’s only areas like Wales, Scotland, Cornwall, and here—the extremities of this small, odd-shaped island—that are still livable.

Down off the bridge again and within a couple of minutes I’ve been swallowed up by the darkness of the deserted housing development where I’ve based myself this last month or so. This place feels like a shadow-filled tomb at the best of times, little more than a maze of twisting, interconnecting roads, avenues, and cul-de-sacs. It was probably a perfectly decent, comfortable, relatively affluent, middle-class area before the shit hit the fan and everything went to hell last year, the kind of place Lizzie said she always wanted us to end up in. Now it’s just like everywhere else, and the ruins are welcome camouflage.

I use landmarks to guide myself through to the very center of the development, things that no one else would give a second glance. I walk across a deserted children’s playground, catching my breath when the wind rattles the chains of an empty swing, turn left at the road where three of the houses have collapsed on each other like dominoes, then turn right and right again to reach the roadblock. I often wonder who built this. Whoever it was, they were obviously determined to defend themselves. There are four cars wedged across the full width of the mouth of a cul-de-sac, nose to tail, almost like they were picked up and dropped into place. When I’m on foot like this I have to climb over the cars to get through, and I always cringe at the noise I make even though there’s never anyone else here. Was this the site of a group of Unchanged survivors’ desperate last stand? A family like the one I used to be a part of, perhaps? Were they cowering here together in terror like the Unchanged I helped drive out of their hideout today, doomed to inevitable failure but unable to do anything else but keep trying to survive? I’ve freaked myself out before now, convincing myself that they might still be here, watching me from an upstairs window just like I watched the military advancing ever closer toward my home all those months ago.

At the other end of the cul-de-sac I slip through a narrow alleyway between two large, empty houses. I cross another road, go through the side gate of yet another house, straight down a well-worn path I’ve trampled along the full length of its overgrown garden, then duck down through a hole in the back fence and I’m there. Home sweet fucking home.

I check around, making sure I haven’t been followed or seen. I could have gone for something bigger and more secure, but I deliberately chose the smallest, most inconspicuous house I could find so I wouldn’t draw attention to myself.

It hasn’t always worked. Something’s not right tonight.

I can see from here that the side door of the house is open slightly. I draw my favorite knife from its sheath and creep across the road. It’s bound to be scavengers again. Thieving bastards. I really can’t be bothered with this. I feel sick and I just want to sleep. I hope they’ve already gone. I’m not in the mood to fight, but I don’t have any choice.

It’s hard keeping the house secure without blatantly advertising the fact I’ve got stuff inside worth taking, so I keep most of my things hidden and locked away. I need to take my time and be careful here. If the thieves are still here and they’ve found anything worth having, then I need to try to deal with them before they can get out with any of my stuff. I can afford to lose the house, but not what’s in it.

Keeping low, I limp across the driveway, then press myself up against the wall beside the partially open side door. The lock’s been forced, but it’s nothing I can’t fix. Someone’s moving around in the kitchen. There are no voices, so there’s probably only one of them, and chances are they’re only looking for food. I peer through the gap and see a single squat figure trying to pry open a cupboard door with a bent bread knife. Whoever it is, they’re so desperate and preoccupied that they don’t notice me creeping up behind them. I can see that it’s a woman now, small and unimposing, wrapped up in so many layers of grubby clothing to keep warm that her movements are restricted. When I’m close enough I reach out, wrap my arm around her neck, hold my blade up to her face where she can see it, and drag her back. She drops her knife with surprise and I spin her around and slam her back, feeling every bone in her ancient body rattle as she thumps against the wall. She tries to fight me off but gives up quickly, knowing that even in my miserable condition I still have the weight and strength advantage.

“Don’t hurt me,” she begs, her voice a pathetic, strangled moan. I pull her forward, then slam her back again. Her skull cracks, and she whimpers with pain. Lowestoft is full of useless fuckers like this: definitely not Unchanged, but nowhere near strong enough to fight or be of any use to anyone. People like this are only one step up from our defeated enemy. There are far too many of them out there … old, crippled, unskilled, those who are naturally just shysters and cowards … people who would previously have been protected and propped up by the welfare state. They’ll take the place of the Unchanged if they’re not careful. I think I’ve seen this particular one hanging around here before, and she’ll probably come back again if I don’t do something to deter her. I push the blade of my knife into her wrinkled cheek, deep enough to prick her skin and draw blood. She starts sobbing with fear. Her neck is scrawny and turkeylike, and she must be in her late sixties if she’s a day. Just a little old lady. She reminds me of an old bird who used to live down the road from me and Lizzie. She yelps, and for a fraction of a second I almost pity her. She’s not Unchanged, just desperate.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing here?”

“Need some food. Starving…”

“Nothing here for you. Fuck off back to town.”

“But I—”

She starts struggling again. Bitch should count herself lucky she chose my house to break into; anyone else would have killed her by now. I should hurt her, but I can’t bring myself to do it. She doesn’t need to know that. I lift the tip of my knife up until it’s just a fraction of an inch from her right eye, and she freezes with fear.

“If I see you back here again I’ll kill you, understand?”

She nods and mumbles something indistinct. I throw her out of the door and she collapses in a heap on the drive. I take a single step forward and she backs away from me, then gets up and runs, slowing down after just a few steps because her body’s too weak to keep moving with any speed. I keep watching her until I’m sure she’s gone.

I bolt and bar the damaged door, using a padlock and chain to replace the broken lock for now. Once the house is secure I take my bunch of keys from my pocket and unlock the cupboard the woman was trying to break into. She’d have been disappointed if she’d managed to get the door open. All I keep in here is my gas burner, no food. It’s tedious having to be so careful with everything, but it’s important. The value of pretty much everything has changed immeasurably in the last year. I could leave a fucking Rolex watch in the middle of the street and it would probably still be there days later. Drop a scrap of food, though, and there’ll be a crowd fighting for it before the fastest of the few remaining seagulls have had a chance to swoop.

I double-check that the vagrant woman really has gone before unlocking another cupboard and getting out my kettle, a mug, and a spoon. Then I peel back the linoleum in the corner of the kitchen and lift up one of the loose floorboards underneath. Using a torch, I look around for a jar of coffee powder. I know I’ve got at least two down here somewhere … Christ, there’s enough food stored under my kitchen floorboards to feed half of Lowestoft. I’ve been stashing small amounts away for as long as I’ve been working for Hinchcliffe. I hold on to every scrap I’m given and I’m not eating much, so my stocks are building up. I could open a store and make a fortune selling everything I’ve got hoarded away in here, except there’s no one left who could afford my prices, and food’s probably the only viable currency left now, so there’d be no point. Even if I don’t eat it or sell it, I figure I’ll be able to bargain with some of it if I need to. There’s a cruel irony about many aspects of life these days. All that woman wanted was a little bit of food. I’ve got all this and I don’t want any of it. There’s nothing I can do about the situation, though, and, ultimately, it’s not my problem. If I’d fed her, then she’d only be back again tomorrow, begging for more and bringing others like her to my door. Things don’t work like they used to anymore. You have to be ruthless if you want to survive. There’s no room for compassion here.

I fetch water from the bathtub upstairs (I collect it in buckets, pots, and jars out back), then block the window to hide the light from the flame and start it boiling on the little stove. The constant hiss of the burning gas is welcome, taking the faintest edge off the otherwise all-consuming silence. I try to warm my hands around the light blue flame, but it doesn’t have any effect tonight.

The kettle boils, and I make my coffee. I’m about to start locking everything away again when I have to stop, my stomach suddenly cramping and my mouth watering. I unlock the door again, struggling to free the chains and get it open in time, then run outside, lean over next-door’s low fence, and finally say good-bye to a gut-full of the semicooked dog from earlier. Vomit splatters noisily over the drive of the house next to mine and steam rises from the puddle. For a couple of minutes I just stand still and breathe the ice-cold air in deeply. Soaked with sweat and feeling worryingly unsteady on my feet, I wipe my mouth on my sleeve and stagger back indoors.

My coffee’s gone cold by the time I’ve pulled myself together again and locked everything away, but it’s still strong and bitter enough to disguise the bilious aftertaste of puke. I take my drink through to the living room, put it on the little table I use, and then, still standing up, I zip myself into my sleeping bag. I jump and shuffle around to get to my chair, then collapse into it, pathetically out of breath.

I keep a pile of books by the side of the chair, taller than the table my coffee’s resting on. Books are one of the few things that can still be found relatively easily, although they’re used to fuel fires more than to fuel minds these days. I have a light on an elastic headband like a miner’s lamp (I found it on a body in an Unchanged shelter a while back). I switch it on and pick up the book on top of the pile. I study the cover, and I can’t help laughing to myself when I think how my tastes have changed. I’d never have read anything like this in the days before the war—not that I ever used to read much anyway, but this … this is the kind of book bored pensioners used to read, the kind of book that used to sell by the bucketload and appealed to lonely, dowdy, middle-aged spinsters, dreaming of the moment they knew would probably never come, when their knight in shining armor would arrive to whisk them away from their dull, mundane, and loveless lives. It’s a trashy thriller-cum-romance novel, probably written by a machine that just slotted character names and other variables into a predefined template, but I don’t care. As clichéd and far-fetched as it seems, these books have become something of a release. Reading them is all I want to do when I’m alone like this. It’s how I escape from the pressures of this increasingly fucked-up world. These books help me to forget where I am and who I am and what I have to deal with each day. They help me forget the things I’ve done. They almost make me feel human again. I revel in the insignificant details. The far-fetched action set pieces leave me cold. It’s little things that get to me: descriptions of people eating, talking, traveling … living together. Those fleeting moments of normality we never used to think about. Those banal moments of calm during which we caught our breath as our lives lurched from one trivial problem to the next pointless crisis.

I start reading from where I got to last night, pausing only to look again at the beautiful woman on the painted front cover. Something about the shape of her face reminds me of the Unchanged woman I killed in the shelter earlier today. She was my first kill in weeks. I didn’t want to do it, didn’t have the same burning desire I used to, but I knew I didn’t have any choice, either. It was for the best. She’d have suffered more if I’d let her live.

I’ve just got to the part in the book where the female lead first meets the guy who’ll no doubt go on to change her life forever on his way to saving the world. Christ, what’s wrong with me? I can already feel myself welling up. By the time they inevitably end up in bed together, I’ll be crying like a fucking baby.