Them or Us

42

THE STREETS THAT I can see from this window are constantly filled with movement now, frantic and uncontrollable, and I wonder: Where in all that chaos out there is Hinchcliffe?

The overwhelming uncertainty consuming this place and my frustrating inability to be able to do anything are affecting my concept of time now. I don’t know whether I’ve been here for one hour or four. It’s ice cold in this building, and the rain outside has turned to sleet. Everything looks relentlessly gray out there. My head is pounding. Are the effects of the drugs already fading?

I’m leaning up against the glass, staring at a street fight in the distance, numb to the bloody violence, when there’s a series of sudden bright flashes around Hinchcliffe’s courthouse building. Were they explosions? Now there are flames in the windows, and from what I can see the police station barracks used by most of his fighters is also under attack. A flood of people—fighters and Switchbacks alike—run from the scene. They’ve barely made any progress when they collide with an equally large surge of people coming from the opposite direction. What the hell’s going on? I keep watching long enough to see several of Ankin’s tanks rolling slowly toward the burning courthouse, converging on it from different directions.

The center of Lowestoft is a damned war zone. There are an incalculable number of people in there now, far more than there were originally. It’s the cumulative effect of Ankin’s invading army and the hordes of underclass all descending on the place at the same time. There are other buildings on fire, too. Before long the whole town will be in flames.

I need to move. The fighting is still a distraction at the moment, drawing people into the dying center of town, but it’s only a matter of time before they come looking around here. I should act now, and take advantage of the effects of Ankin’s drugs before they completely wear off.

I have one last quick search around the doctor’s room, then head back down to the guard station. I’m about to leave, but I stop myself. This building is huge and relatively inaccessible. For the most part people were too scared to come here. Knowing that the population would probably stay away and there’d be plenty of secure space here, wouldn’t this have made a perfect store for Hinchcliffe? For the sake of a few more minutes, I decide to scout around a little more of the place. I need to try to eat now and cram my body full of as much nutrition as possible while I still can. It scares me to think about how I’m going to feel again when the drugs wear off. Feeling better has made me realize how ill I’ve really become.

Opposite the main door is the entrance to a long, dark corridor I remember seeing when I was here before. Grabbing the flashlight I found earlier (the light it gives off is poor, but at least it’s heavy enough to make a decent club), I start moving along it. I stop when I reach a second door at the far end of the corridor, and peer through a round porthole window. I’m looking out over a vast, mostly empty, hangarlike space. There are large clear panels in the high, corrugated metal ceiling that diffuse the light, and it’s hard to make out much detail. The door’s stiff and it sticks at first, but I shove it open and go through, then immediately stop and cover my mouth and try not to gag. The smell in here is appalling and instantly recognizable. The unmistakable stench of death.

There’s a raised metal gantry running around the edge of this cavernous room about a yard off the ground. I walk along it slowly, my footsteps echoing around the building. There’s a huge amount of industrial pipework hanging down that obscures much of my view, and for a second I wonder whether this was another of those gas chamber killing sites from the beginning of the war. I stop walking, and just for a second I think I can hear something in here with me. It’s a quiet, scrambling sound that comes from the far side of this large space and echoes off the walls—the vermin I heard when I first arrived here, perhaps? Thinking about it, the combination of the dead flesh I can smell and the fact that so few people ever came to this place would make this a prime site for a nest of rats or other scavenging creatures. It’s weird, in spite of everything that’s happened to me recently and all that’s going on less than a mile away in the center of Lowestoft, the idea of stumbling blind into a horde of starving rodents is more frightening than anything else. There’s more light the farther I go into the room, and I jog along the gantry to get out of the shadows.

Bizarre. At the far end of this open space the floor has been divided up with metal barriers into a number of pens, maybe as many as twenty altogether. It looks like a cattle market, but didn’t Hinchcliffe tell me this place was originally used to process seafood? Then I remember what he was using this factory for, and even though I don’t want to look, I climb down to check the nearest of the pens.

The metal divides have created spaces that are each approximately six feet square. The floor of the pen closest to me is covered with what looks like hay and scraps of clothing, but otherwise it’s empty. In the one next to it, however, there’s something else. It’s oddly shaped, and it’s hard to make out what it is. I lean down over the railings to reach it or at least get a better look, and I immediately wish I hadn’t. Lying slumped in the corner of the cage with its back to me, one arm stretched up and shackled by the wrist to the highest of the metal rungs, is the emaciated body of an Unchanged child. It’s so badly decayed and the light’s so dull that I can barely make out enough detail to estimate either its sex or its age. There are more of them, too. I start walking again, and I see that there are bodies in most of the pens. Most are little more than withered, bony husks now, while a few clearly died more recently and are less decayed.

There’s a yard-wide pathway that runs right through the middle of the pens, and I follow it, looking from side to side and struggling to come to terms with what I see around me. I’ve seen more horrific sights in the last year than I ever thought possible—images I still see when I close my eyes each night—but I’ve never come across anything like this before. Regardless of the fact that these children were, as far as I can tell, all Unchanged, the wanton cruelty and neglect that they’ve been subjected to in this place is unimaginable. For a second I think about Hinchcliffe again, and I hope the fucker is burning in his courthouse palace right now. To have tried to turn a couple of children and have failed is one thing. To just have killed them would have been understandable in the circumstances, but this? To have continued to repeatedly abuse child after child is another matter altogether. Hinchcliffe and Rona Scott must have derived some sick, sadistic pleasure from this appalling torture. Evil fuckers.

I crouch down and look between the metal rungs into another pen, where there’s a small boy about the age my youngest son was before he was killed. I shine the miserable light from my flashlight into his face and bang it against the railings to try to get a reaction from him. Nothing happens. I stare at the corpse a while longer and realize the boy was probably older than he looked. His limbs are long, but his body appears collapsed and shrunken by decay. He died lying flat on his back, his arms and legs unchained. Couldn’t he have at least tried to get away? Maybe he knew it would have been futile, or maybe he no longer had the strength or desire to escape. I shine the light around the pen and see that there are chains in here after all. Then I look at his withered right wrist and I realize his shrunken hand just slipped out from his shackles.

In every subsequent pen I pass, I see something horrific. I thought that nothing could hurt like this anymore, but I’m struggling to comprehend what I’m seeing. In one cage is the body of a girl—ten or eleven years old, perhaps—and her chains have been wrapped around her neck several times. Did someone do this to her, or did she do it to herself?

Is this the great victory we’ve been fighting for? Am I a part of this? Am I responsible for it? I helped bring many of these children here, so is what happened to them my fault? But what was the alternative? If they hadn’t died here, they’d have died somewhere else. A year ago people were flying around the world, sending probes out into space, eradicating diseases, firing atoms around underground tunnels to find out how the universe was created … and look at us now. If Lowestoft truly is the last best hope for this country, and if this kind of atrocity is at its very heart, then what hope do we have? Is this Hinchcliffe’s great plan for the future? Is Chris Ankin’s vision any different?

I stagger back across the pathway and collide with the barrier around another pen. The vile noise of metal on metal seems to take forever to fade away into silence. I know I should keep moving, but I’m lost again, staring into the cage I’ve just disturbed, unable to look away. Here there are two bodies, and for a moment I’m struggling to work out why they were being doubled up when there was clearly more than enough space here for them to be separated. They were chained by their necks to diagonally opposite corners, and even though they’re heavily discolored by rot, I can see that both of their small bodies are covered in scratches and marks. Had they been fighting each other? Fuck … had these kids been forced to fight each other to the death like caged dogs? Was Hinchcliffe using them for sport?

There’s another sudden noise, much closer this time, too loud for a rat. I spin around quickly, but I can’t see anything.

“Who’s there?”

I freeze, figuring that it’ll either be one of Hinchcliffe’s fighters or Ankin’s soldiers, and trying to work out my story for being here. No one answers. I keep walking, then stop when I hear the noise again, even closer now. I’m almost on top of it—a frantic shuffling and scurrying as something does its best not to be seen. Then there’s the faintest chink of metal on metal, like chains being rattled. I glance down into the nearest few pens, but I can’t see anything. Wait! There, just for a second, in the farthest corner of the cage behind the one I’m standing right in front of, I see something. I clumsily climb over the barriers to get closer, almost falling when one of my boots gets tangled up, and my sudden movements unleash a wave of panic in the shadows. Now I can see it. One of the children is still alive! An Unchanged boy tries to climb out of his pen and into another in desperation, but there’s a chain wrapped around his ankle. He’s weak and terrified and yanks at the chain to free himself but falls back and smashes down onto his face, yelping with pain when he hits the ground. I climb into his pen, and he continues to back away from me, pushing himself along the floor until he can go no farther back. About the same age as my son Edward was, he’s barely clothed and is blue with cold. He’s in worse physical condition than I am.

“Don’t fight,” I tell him. “I won’t hurt you.”

He just stares at me, too afraid even to blink, and I don’t know what to do. Every time I move he flinches. I climb back out of his pen and into another to put some space between us, hoping he’ll see that I’m not going to kill him.

“Are there any more of you?”

The boy doesn’t answer. His face looks familiar. He’s the lad from the last Unchanged nest I helped clear out, I’m sure he is. I lean forward and he spits at me, and now I know I’m right.

“Are there any more of you?” I ask again. I give him a few seconds to answer, but he remains silent. I wait a moment longer, but I know I have to go. I can’t afford to waste any more time here. I climb back over the barriers until I reach the walkway, then start walking. This catatonic kid is lost anyway. There’s nothing I can do for him.

“Wait,” a quiet and unexpectedly fragile voice says from behind me. I turn back around and see that he’s at the front of his cage now, leaning against the barrier. I keep walking, determined now to get away from Lowestoft and everyone and everything in it. “Please,” he says, “let us out.”

I keep moving but then stop and turn back again when he rattles his chains against the barrier in protest.

“Shh,” I say to him, “they’ll hear you if you—”

I shut up when I realize he’s not the one making the noise. It’s coming from another pen on the same side of the walkway, a little farther back. I can see another Unchanged face looking back at me now; small, round, and ghostly pale. It’s a little girl. Dressed only in a grubby ripped T-shirt several sizes too big, she’s standing on tiptoes to look at me over the top of the metal divide. When I take a step toward her she takes several panicked steps back, almost tripping over her own chained feet.

“You’re the one who told them where we were,” the boy says accusingly, his voice now stronger.

“What?”

“We were hiding and you told them where we were. It’s all your fault.”

“I had to do it,” I say without thinking. Then I curse myself—what the hell am I apologizing for? Why am I explaining myself to him? Why am I explaining myself to one of the Unchanged?

“No you didn’t. They wouldn’t have found us if you hadn’t told them. It’s your fault.”

Arrogant little bastard. The way he’s shouting now reminds me of the way I used to argue with Ed. I start walking again, and the girl starts to cry.

“Let us out,” the boy demands. I ignore him and keep going, then stop again because my head is suddenly full of stupid, dangerous thoughts. He’s right, isn’t he? It is my fault they’re here. But what else could I have done? It was them or me, and these days you have to look after yourself ’cause no other fucker’s going to help. Anyway, they’d have had to come out of their shelter eventually. All I did was make things happen faster than they would otherwise have. I’m saving them pain in the long run, or at least I would have if they hadn’t ended up in here.

“Please!” he shouts as I try to walk on, but this time I stop because I know I’m wrong. No matter how I try to dress it up and justify what I did, these kids are only in the position they are today because of me. It doesn’t matter what they are or what I am or what we’re supposed to do to each other, I can’t just leave them to die here. Lowestoft is burning around us, for Christ’s sake. Well, maybe I can leave them, but the point is, I realize, I don’t want to. The very least they deserve is a chance, no matter how slight. I can’t deny them that.

I walk back toward the little girl and check her chains, which are held in position with a padlock.

“Don’t hurt her,” the boy shouts as the girl squirms to get away. “I’ll get you if you hurt her.”

“I’m not going to hurt anyone,” I answer, testing the strength of the lock and the clasp around her bony ankle. “I’ll be back. I’ll see what I can do.”

The noise of battle outside is increasing in volume. Even through the walls of this huge place, I can hear occasional bangs and screams, the helicopter flying overhead, guns and shells being fired, and the constant noise of engines. I try to block it all from my mind as I look for something to free the children with. All I need to do, I tell myself, is let them go.

In the farthest corner of this dank, foul-smelling place, I find a bloodstained workbench that’s covered in lengths of chains, discarded locks, bits of bone, small teeth, and other, less easily identifiable things. There’s a huge bunch of keys hung on a metal hoop on the wall, but there are too many to go through and I can’t waste time checking each one of them. Instead I opt for a set of heavy, long-handled metal cutters I find leaning against the side of the bench. I head back to the pens, and the girl screams as I advance toward her with the cutters held high. Her helpless sobbing is heartbreaking.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I tell her, desperate for her to understand. “Look.”

I climb over to the boy. He continues to recoil from me. I pull him closer, dragging him back across the floor, then use the cutters to snap the loop of the padlock that holds his chains in place. He removes his shackles, then clambers out of the pen after me, his movements stilted and clumsy after being restricted for so long. This time when I approach the girl she’s a little quieter—still sobbing, but not screaming. I carefully ease the blade of the cutters over the loop of her padlock, then press down hard. It takes more effort this time (and I can feel my energy levels really starting to fade), but the lock eventually gives. I unravel her chains, and then, when she can’t get over the barrier, I reach down and lift her up. There’s nothing to her, absolutely no weight at all. She holds on to me, her tiny arms tight around my shoulders, her legs wrapped around my waist. I try to put her down, but I can’t. She won’t let go. This reminds me how it used to be when I held Ellis and the boys, feeling them close against you, hearing their breathing, reacting to their every movement …

Put the fucking kid down and get out of here.

I try to lower her, but she still won’t let go. When another loud explosion rocks the building, she grips me even tighter, her fingers digging into my back.

Put the fucking kid down!

This time I peel her off me, prying off her fingers and unraveling her legs, then putting her down and backing up to put some distance between us. She just stands there looking up at me, not saying anything but asking a thousand questions with those huge, innocent eyes.

“Where’s Charlie?”

“Who?”

“Charlie,” she says. “You know, Charlotte. She came here with us.”

She’s talking about the dead girl upstairs. I try to tell her the truth, but I can’t.

“She’s already gone,” I lie. “Now you need to do the same. Get out of here. There’s trouble coming.”

“Where?” the boy asks, shivering. He’s dressing himself in rags he’s stripped from another child’s corpse.

“What?”

“Where do we go?”

“How am I supposed to know? Just stay away from the town. Get onto the beach and follow it south as far as you can.”

“Which way’s south?”

“That way,” I tell him, pointing and backing away from them both again.

“But the people out there,” he continues, his voice unsure, “the Haters … they’ll find us, won’t they? They’ll kill us…”

The girl starts to cry again, and I struggle to shut the noise out. What do these children think I am? I spent a couple of days in their shelter with them, but surely they must know I’m not like them. Then again, they also know I’m not acting like any of the other people they’ve seen since they’ve been here.

“Can’t you take us back?” the girl asks, her voice barely audible. Her bottom lip quivers and tears roll down her cheeks.

“Back where?”

“Back to where we were before. With Sally and Mr. Greene. Where all those cones and traffic signs were.”

She’s talking about the storage depot where I found them. “You can’t go back there,” I answer quickly, not thinking about the effect my words will have on her. “That place is gone now, and all the people who were there are gone, too.”

She just nods, her tiny body shuddering as she sobs, her tear-streaked face filled with resignation.

“You got any food?” the boy asks. “Really hungry.”

I check my bag and my pockets. All I find is the half-finished packet of sweets, which I hand over.

“My daddy says—” the girl begins.

“That you shouldn’t take sweets from strangers,” I say, finishing her sentence for her, immediately slipping back into parent mode even after all this time. “Your daddy was right, but things are a bit different now, aren’t they?”

She doesn’t answer, too busy cramming several of the sweets into her mouth. Strings of sticky dribble are running down her chin. This is probably the first thing these kids have eaten in days. The roar of another engine outside snaps me out of my dangerous malaise. I jog toward the nearest door.

“You can’t leave us,” the boy shouts after me.

“Yes I can.”

“But they’ll kill us…”

“It’s probably for the best.”

I know I should just keep moving and not look back again, but I can’t. Standing behind me, their mouths full of sugar, faces streaked with dirt, are two kids. Two normal, rational kids behaving like normal, rational human beings, not like the hundreds of blood-crazed, mad bastards fighting to the death outside this place. Kids like the children in the family I used to be a part of before the Hate tore everything apart and left my world in ruins, not like the barely controlled, feral creatures Hinchcliffe held captive elsewhere on this site. This innocent, completely helpless boy and girl deserve better than this, but what else can I do? They’re dead already. The second they’re outside this place they’ll be torn to pieces … My head fills with images of them being attacked by a pack of people like me, being ripped apart just because they’re not like us. It’s inevitable—just the way the world is now—but the idea of them being hunted down and killed suddenly feels abhorrent.

There is an answer. It’s obvious, but I don’t want to accept it.

“Please,” the boy says, his eyes scanning my face, desperately searching for even the faintest flicker of hope, “just help us to get away.”

“Okay,” I say, cursing my stupidity as soon as I’ve spoken. “I’ll take you somewhere there are other people like you.”