Them or Us

14

THE SOUND OF ENGINES wakes me up. The top floor of the bank is icy cold as I scramble across the room to the window and look down onto the square. All around the edges of the large triangle-shaped area, people are emerging from buildings and spilling out onto the street. Several of them dive for cover as a fleet of vehicles powers into the center of Southwold, filling the air with black fumes and noise. I recognize some of these trucks and vans, they’re from Lowestoft. Hinchcliffe’s obviously thought about our conversation last night and has decided to flex his muscles and remind everyone who’s boss. So much for diplomacy and negotiation, not that I ever expected anything different from him.

The convoy stops, filling almost the entire square now. An army of fighters flood out into the open and begin rounding people up. For the most part they do exactly what they’re told, shuffling toward the center of the square. One woman refuses and runs the other way, but she’s chased down by one of Hinchcliffe’s thugs and clubbed to the ground. She lies on the asphalt screaming, blood pouring down her face, everyone else too scared to help. The fighter drags her over to the others. Christ, I need to get out of here.

The arrival of Hinchcliffe’s troops means my time here is up. I quickly gather my stuff and pack everything into my backpack, but I start coughing as soon as I stand upright, and for a few seconds it’s like I’ve lost control of my body. I try to drink from a bottle of stale water, but the first gulp I take ends up sprayed across the floor before I can swallow it down. Eventually the coughs subside. Panting with effort, I spit a lump of sticky, foul-tasting muck into the corner of the room, then lean against the window.

Down on the street below, directly outside the hotel, there’s an uncomfortable-looking standoff taking place. Several of Hinchcliffe’s vehicles have been parked in an arc around the entrance to the building, and his fighters are advancing. I recognize a couple of the more notorious faces. Patterson is moving closer, and Llewellyn is loitering ominously toward the back of the assembled troops, no doubt there to coordinate them and to keep Hinchcliffe updated. Getting out of the lead truck now is his protégé, Curtis, wearing his usual uniform of full body armor. He’s a vile, nasty bastard, not known for his negotiation skills. These discussions won’t last long.

I finish collecting my gear, then swing my pack onto my shoulders, eager to get out of Southwold fast. I glance out of the window again and see that John Warner has emerged from the hotel now. Barely dressed, he’s walking toward Curtis with arms outstretched to demonstrate that he’s unarmed and ready to talk, gesturing for him to follow him into the hotel. Curtis marches toward him. Fuck. What the hell’s he doing? He doesn’t even try talking to Warner. The bastard just lifts up a machete and takes a vicious swipe at the white-haired leader of Southwold. Warner tries to get out of the way, but he’s taken by surprise. Curtis chops down into his neck, hitting him with such violent force that he drops to his knees, the blade wedged deep into his flesh. Curtis grips the older man’s shoulder and yanks him up, then wrenches his machete free. Still holding him, he sinks the tip of the blade deep into Warner’s chest, then pulls it out again, swiping it through the air to get rid of the excess blood before pushing Warner away. He staggers back, his body soaked with glistening red, then his legs give way and he crumbles to the ground like a marionette with severed strings.

There’s a brief moment of silent, stunned disbelief, then all hell breaks loose.

The powerful pit digger from yesterday is the first person to react. He charges at Curtis but is killed as quickly and as easily as Warner. Another fighter comes up behind him and cracks him around the side of the head with a baseball bat, almost decapitating him. Perhaps it’s because I wasn’t expecting it, but even after all I’ve seen and done myself, this sudden brutal violence shocks me to such an extent that I can hardly move.

“Round them up,” Curtis yells to the rest of the fighters. “Take anything worth having and burn the rest. Kill anyone who gets in the way.”

Is this my fault? Even though I’m starting to think that Hinchcliffe sent me here just to find an excuse for him to demonstrate his obvious strength and superiority, I can’t help wondering if it could have been avoided if I’d handled him differently. If I’d told him everything was okay and that Warner was one hundred percent on his side, would he have let Southwold be? Who the hell am I kidding? The more I think about it, the more I realize that, yet again, I’ve been Hinchcliffe’s patsy and he’s played me like a pawn on a chessboard. Screw the fucking lot of them, I tell myself as I run downstairs and look for a way out of the bank. Not my problem.

I head for the back of the bank, squeezing down a narrow corridor past the open door of an unlocked vault, and I curse myself for picking such an impregnable hiding place. It seemed sensible last night, and the security was welcome, but every window here is either barred or shuttered, and the only other exit is a solid-looking, metal-clad fire door that I’ll never be able to get open. I have no choice but to go back out onto the street.

I slip out through the front door and press myself tight against the outside wall, doing all I can to fade into the background. The village square is in utter chaos now, the remaining population of Southwold scattering in panic as Hinchcliffe’s troops turn on them. I see Jill, the work party leader from yesterday, struggling to load and fire a rifle with trembling hands. She lifts it up, but before she can even get her finger on the trigger, a fighter chops into her side with an axe. Dumbstruck, I stand there like an idiot as Hinchcliffe’s men grapple the locals to the ground, then force those still alive into the trucks that will ferry them back to Lowestoft. Our inglorious leader has obviously decided that having people living here outside his direct jurisdiction is an unacceptable risk. But Christ, did he really need to react like this? A woman is hit with a riot baton when she won’t cooperate, winded first, then bludgeoned around the side of the head. Semiconscious, she’s left on the ground close to Warner’s body, blood pooling around her face, cheekbone shattered and skin split, her eyes moving but nothing else. She looks straight at me …

Spencer, one of Hinchcliffe’s men, comes at me with a crowbar. I see him coming, but I’m stunned, too slow to move. A tall, sinewy black kid in his early twenties, the sick bastard grins with excitement as he sprints toward me, high on the thrill of the fight. He swings out wildly, and at the last possible second I manage to react. I lean over to one side and the crowbar misses me. I feel the rush of wind and hear it whoosh through the air as it whistles just inches past my ear. He lunges at me again, fired up with the adrenaline rush of battle, intoxicated by the sudden release of long-suppressed frustrations.

“Wait!” I shout at him. “Spencer, don’t. I’m on your side. Hinchcliffe sent me here.”

He doesn’t recognize me, probably doesn’t even hear me, and he swings the crowbar through the air again, this time catching me hard on my right shoulder. My padded backpack strap absorbs some of the impact, and I drop to my knees, landing close to the dismembered remains of yet another dead Southwold resident. I scramble back up and run for cover, the fighter still in close pursuit. I weave around the hood of a reversing truck with him gaining fast. I break right, desperate to shake him but knowing I can’t keep this speed up for long, then run straight into another one of them who blocks my path. Now I’m really fucked. I drop to the ground and cover my head, anticipating a barrage of strikes.

“Not this one,” a familiar voice says. I cautiously look up, still expecting to be clubbed, and see that it’s Llewellyn. He reaches down and pulls me up onto my feet like I’m a half-stuffed rag doll.

“What’s going on?” I ask him, gasping for breath and desperately trying not to start coughing again.

“What do you think’s going on? Just carrying out the boss’s orders,” he answers abruptly.

“But this is fucking madness.”

“You tell him,” Llewellyn says, looking me straight in the eye. “I’m just doing what I’m told,” he says again. “Now get in the truck or I’ll personally beat seven shades of shit out of you.”

Relieved, I start to do as he says but then stop.

“Wait, Hinchcliffe’s car. I left it just outside town. He’ll want it back.”

Llewellyn looks at me for a second, then nods his head. “Go and get it, then get yourself straight back to Lowestoft. Any fucking around and you’ll have me to answer to. Right?”

I don’t need to be told twice. I start running, though I’m not sure which direction I need to take, just desperate to get away. I glance back as I run and see that the center of Southwold has quickly degenerated into a depressingly familiar sight. Broken bodies are scattered across the pavement, the dead and dying side by side, and there are people fighting and running in all directions like a scene from any one of a hundred battles I’ve seen before. Except this battle is different because there are no Unchanged here. It makes me feel ashamed, responsible almost. I’m ashamed because of my connection with the man behind this bloodshed, and equally ashamed because all they’re doing is the same thing I’ve done countless times before. A different class of target, that’s all.

I hear the smashing of glass and see a sudden flash of flame, brilliant yellow lighting up the early morning gloom. It’s the hotel. Hinchcliffe’s men are firebombing it. So that’s his tactic this morning—eliminate the figurehead in charge of Southwold, take anything and anyone of value, then do enough damage to render the village uninhabitable. That will leave the survivors of the massacre with only one remaining option: It’s Lowestoft or nothing.