Them or Us

48

I CAN TASTE BLOOD in my mouth, and I’m dragging my right foot now more than walking on it, but I’m almost there. I followed the intermittent tire tracks left by the others for as long as I could, then took a shortcut across the fields I worked in when I was last here.

The ice-cold air seems to numb the pain. The falling snow reminds me of ash drifting down, and I feel a sense of déjà vu, remembering walking along the highway just after the bomb. I remember lying on my back on the warm, sticky asphalt, watching Ellis as she disappeared alone into the radioactive gloom. The memory of everything I lost that day is enough to keep me moving toward the center of Southwold. I might still be able to help the rest of the Unchanged get away. More than that, I don’t want to die out here on my own.

I stagger into the village, feeling myself fading with every slow step I take forward. Everything looks different here today, so much so that I’m not entirely sure this is Southwold at all. The dusting of snow makes everything look featureless and plain, but that’s not the real reason for my confusion. The tips of the wreckage of those buildings destroyed by Hinchcliffe’s fighters peek out through the ice, almost as if they’re ashamed to be seen, and the pointless devastation is incredible and heartbreaking. Parts of the village have been virtually demolished; all of it now appears uninhabitable. There are row after row of burned houses, almost every building ruined, and my disorientation continues to increase until, at last, the distinctive outline of the lighthouse appears up ahead of me. Perhaps one of the only buildings left undamaged, its outline is blurred by another flurry of snow. Using its tall, tapering shape as a marker, I head straight for it, alternately looking up at its unlit light, then down at the undisturbed snow lying all around me, desperate to find more tire tracks or footprints. They’ll be hiding inside. No Unchanged with any sense would risk being caught out in the open.

I cross the intersection and walk past the ruins of the hotel from where John Warner used to run this place. The building has been completely gutted by fire, as have many of the surrounding buildings. There’s a mound of charred, snow-covered corpses in the middle of the village square, blackened limbs entwined, burned faces staring into space. I force myself to look away, and I remember this place as it was when I was last here. John Warner had genuinely good intentions, but he was wasting his time, I realize that now. What’s left of my side of the human race is fucked: doomed to repeatedly beat itself into oblivion until there’s nothing left of it but ashes and a handful of empty, hollow men like me.

I take a wrong turn through the side streets and have to double back and follow my own footprints to get back on track again. Exhausted, I eventually reach the lighthouse and lean up against the curved outside wall of the building for support, slowly sliding around it until I find the door. I half step, half fall inside, relieved to finally be out of the biting wind. The building is silent like a tomb, and I catch my breath with surprise when I step back and trip over the outstretched arm of a corpse. I look down, and, bizarrely, I feel real relief that it’s someone like me and not one of the Unchanged. Judging from the stink and the discoloration of his skin, this guy’s been dead for a while. Probably one of Warner’s lookouts killed by Hinchcliffe’s men.

I stagger to the foot of the stairs that spiral up inside the lighthouse and listen hopefully, but I don’t hear anything other than my own labored, panting breaths. Maybe they’re hiding at the top of the tower?

“Joseph,” I shout, my voice echoing around the confined space. I wait for an answer, but none comes. “Joseph, it’s Danny.”

Still nothing.

I start to climb, knowing I have no choice but to check every inch of the building to be sure, and wishing we’d agreed on a meeting place with fewer stairs. I have to stop after every third or fourth step, and psych myself up to climb higher. I crane my neck upward, searching for movement in the shadows way above me. Where the hell are they? With each step I take, the more obvious it becomes that Joseph and the others never made it to Southwold. Anything could have happened to them once they’d left the bunker. Those tracks in the snow, they could have been made by anybody. With Lowestoft imploding and much of its surviving population leaving the town, this area might well have been crawling with people who would have killed the Unchanged in a heartbeat—massacred every last one of them before they’d even stopped to question why they were there or how they’d managed to survive for so long—and if the refugees didn’t get them, it was even more likely that Ankin’s troops would have. With hindsight, trying to get away from the bunker now seems the most stupid and sacrificial of moves. Even so, they had to try. They couldn’t just sit there and wait to die. I shout out a couple more times as I continue to climb, but each time the only audible reply comes from my own voice echoing back at me.

Finally, legs trembling with effort, virtually having to crawl the last few steps on my hands and knees, I reach the top of the lighthouse. I use a rail to haul myself upright, then push myself through the door and out onto the observation platform. The wind’s even stronger and colder up here, and I have to hold on tight just to stay standing. I lean back against the glass that surrounds the huge, useless lamp and stare out toward the sea, barely able to support my own weight any longer. I’m filled with an overwhelming, crushing sense of disappointment that they’re not here, and it’s all I can do to keep myself upright. Looking out into the nothingness of the gray clouds and falling snow, I find myself imagining how the Unchanged might have been caught. I picture Joseph trying hopelessly to reason with Hinchcliffe’s Neanderthal fuckers or Ankin’s troops, whichever found them first. I picture the little girl Chloe trying to run from them, bare feet crunching through the snow as she’s chased down by a pack of the foul bastards …

I’ve had enough.

The more effort I put in, the less I achieve. It’s time to stop. Maybe I should just go back inside, drag up a chair, then sit back and watch the sun rise as many more times as I can before I go. No one will disturb me up here. No one will know where I am. More to the point, no one will care.

Is this the moment where my life starts flashing before my eyes? Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen now? Just for a second I allow myself to drift back and remember things as they used to be before the war: the hellhole of an apartment I used to live in with Lizzie and the kids, doing a mindless job for a pittance pay, barely making ends meet, the endless arguing and struggling with the kids, all the grief I used to get from Harry … but I’d still rather be there than here today. Christ, I spent so much time focusing on the negatives that I completely missed the positives, which were there in abundance. The security, the relationships, being safe within the four walls of our home, the closeness I had with Lizzie and the children … It’s an old cliché, but it’s so true: You never realize what you’ve got until you lose it. I remember the war and all the killing—the joy and euphoria I used to feel whenever I ended an Unchanged life. To think, for a time I was thankful for the Hate and the freedom I thought it gave me. Now, even though I try hard not to, I find myself thinking about Ellis again, remembering what the Hate did to her and what she became. What it did to all of us …

It must be time now.

I lean back against the window and look out to sea, numb with cold, weak with effort, and hollow with disappointment. I’d go back inside, but I’m too tired to move. Everything’s too much effort. Maybe I’ll just sit here and—

Wait.

What’s that?

It’s probably just the snow or my eyes playing tricks on me, but I swear I just saw something moving down at street level. I lean forward over the edge of the lighthouse railings and look down, struggling to focus through the blizzard. Then I see it again … a brief flash of movement between two buildings, someone running from right to left. I shield my eyes from the white glare and look out along the seafront, but I can hardly see anything through the haze. I follow the line of the promenade from level with the center of the village all the way out toward the half-collapsed pier. What was it I saw? Scavengers? More refugees from Lowestoft? Or did I just imagine it? Am I going out of my mind and hallucinating now too? Maybe that’d be a good thing …

I look out toward the remains of the pier in the distance, then fix my eyes on a long strip of virtually empty parking lot that begins outside its dilapidated frontage and stretches away into the distance. I can see the shapes of several long-abandoned vehicles, and a couple nearer the entrance to the pier that aren’t covered in snow. Wait a second … could it be? I lean out over the edge of the lighthouse railings as far as I dare, knowing another few inches won’t make a scrap of difference but praying it will, desperately trying to make out more detail. It looks like a van and a truck. Through a momentary break in the snow I see the side of the truck. Although I can’t distinguish any real level of detail from back here, I’m sure I can make out the outline of the picture of the woman’s face I remember, staring at the truck parked in the cowshed before Peter Sutton showed me the bunker. That’s definitely the van I drove away from Hinchcliffe’s factory yesterday. Jesus Christ, they must have made it. Joseph and the others made it to Southwold! I quickly scan the length of the pier again, this time focusing on the collection of ramshackle wooden buildings on the walkways that stretch out over the ocean—and there, some sheltering from the blizzard in empty gift shops and cafés, others hanging out over the railings, waiting to catch sight of the boat that’s never going to come, I see them. The last of the Unchanged. I make myself move again. Got to get down there.

Heading down the tightly spiraling steps is infinitely easier than climbing up. I stumble down quickly and trip out of the door, then start moving toward the pier, wishing I could go faster but knowing I can’t. Not much energy left, now. Not much time left, either. I head directly for the ocean, moving in a straight line down through the ruins until I reach the promenade, then start the long walk up toward the pier, the bitter wind feeling like it’s knocking me two steps sideways for every step I manage to take forward. The snow is like a dense fog again now, and I’m walking blind, but eventually the building at the shore end of the pier looms large ahead of me, a once proud and grand facade that’s now as crumbling and worn as everything else.

“McCoyne,” a voice shouts at me, and I look around for whoever’s yelling. Can’t tell where it came from or who it was. Didn’t sound like Joseph. Was it Parker or one of the others? The noise of the wind and the waves just adds to the confusion, and I keep moving forward. I stop when I reach the van and the truck and look back. Someone’s walking toward me, following me from the town. Can’t make out who it is. He starts to speed up, but whoever it is, he’s clearly struggling. Is he injured? I take a couple of steps back toward him, then stop. Fuck, it’s Hinchcliffe. I try to get away, but despite his injuries he’s still too fast for me, his hate and anger driving him on, oblivious to his pain. He reaches out and grabs my shoulder, then spins me around and throws me back against the side of the van. The noise echoes through the air like a gunshot, and I bounce back off the metal toward him, straight into his fist. He catches me hard on the chin, and I slam back against the van again, then drop to the ground, face numb, head filled with blinding pain. He picks me up by the collar again, lifting me until our faces are just inches apart. My feet are off the ground, toes barely scraping the slush.

“Hinchcliffe, I—”

“What the hell are you trying to do? I should kill you right now.”

“That’s your answer to everything.”

He throws me back against the van again, and I drop to my knees. I watch him as he comes toward me, drenched with his own blood, fist raised ready to strike again and finish me off. I don’t have the strength to defend myself anymore. Just let it happen …

“I don’t understand,” he says. “Why, Danny? You could’ve had it all.”

“What, like you?” I manage to spit at him, my mouth filled with blood. “We’ve all lost everything, you stupid bastard, and it’s all thanks to people like you. The more you try to take, the more stuff slips through your fingers, didn’t you realize that? You started with a whole town and ended up barricaded into one corner of it. Even then you were a virtual prisoner in the courthouse. You’ve lost that now and there’s nothing left. It’s over. It’s all gone. Just leave me alone, Hinchcliffe.”

Still staring down at me and breathing hard, he takes a step back, then runs forward and punches his fist into the side of the van. I slowly pick myself up, dribbling red into the snow around my feet.

“Just kill me if you’re going to. Why don’t you just get it over with?”

“Because you’re still useful. Look around you, Danny. The fact you’re here at all just proves my point. There are people still fighting and dying in Lowestoft, but you’re safe. We’re safe. It’s like you’ve been observing the rest of us, only getting involved and getting your hands dirty when you absolutely have to.”

“Or when you forced me to.”

“Look what you achieved—”

“I’ve achieved nothing, Hinchcliffe. I’ve lost everything, same as you.”

“But you’re the man who walked free from a gas chamber. You told me stories about how you talked your way out of Unchanged traps. For Christ’s sake, you were almost right under one of the bombs but you managed to get away.”

“Right place, right time…”

“It’s more than that. It has to be.”

“Empty words, Hinchcliffe.”

“No, I swear. Listen to me, we can get out of this mess and start again. I know where we can find food, and there’s a place—”

“You’re out of your fucking mind. You just don’t get it, do you? All you know now is fighting. You won’t ever change. It doesn’t matter where you go or what you do, the end result will always be the same. You don’t need me to help you fuck things up.”

Hinchcliffe walks away, and I can see that he’s losing a lot of blood from his left leg. He’s limping badly. I push myself off the side of the van and try to slip past and get to the front of the pier entrance building, but I’ve barely taken a couple of steps before he sees me. He lunges for me, and I lose my already unsteady footing and hit the deck. I’m on my back looking up at him leaning down over me. He draws a holstered machete.

“Maybe you’re right—”

“Leave him alone, you bastard,” another voice shouts. I lean my head back and see that it’s Parker. He’s aiming a rifle directly at Hinchcliffe, and behind him Joseph Mallon is standing in an open doorway. Hinchcliffe stares at the Unchanged in disbelief, then dives at Parker, unable to suppress his instinctive hatred of the Unchanged. Scrambling back out of the way, Parker fires the rifle but misses as Hinchcliffe anticipates and drops to the ground. Seemingly oblivious to any pain he must be feeling, he immediately gets up again and flashes his blade at Parker. The Unchanged man’s rifle and his severed right arm fall into the snow just a short distance from where I’m lying. Hinchcliffe drags him down and drops onto his stomach, then plunges the machete down again and again into his flesh, totally consumed with Hate, everything else temporarily forgotten. I drag myself back up and push Joseph away.

“Get out of here,” I yell into his face as I shove him back through the door, then pull it shut again. I watch him as he watches me through the glass, then starts to back away because Hinchcliffe is close again. I catch a brief reflection of his movement and spin around to face him. I catch him as he throws himself at the door like a vicious, hunting animal. It takes all my remaining strength to hold him back.

“Unchanged,” he hisses, trying to fight his way past me. “We have to kill them!”

He tries to throw me to one side, but I’ve got hold of him and I won’t let go. We spin around through almost a full three hundred and sixty degrees together and he smashes me against the door again. I feel every bone in my body rattle, but I still won’t let go.

“Just leave them, Hinchcliffe,” I plead with him, our faces just inches apart.

“Leave them? Are you out of your fucking mind? Listen to yourself. You know this will never be over until they’re all dead and—”

“You know as well as I do that this is never going to end. If we’re not fighting Unchanged we’re fighting each other. It’s like you said, we’re on a downward spiral, and this is rock bottom.”

“You’re farther down than me,” he says, and he lifts up his knee and thuds it into my balls. A wave of nauseating pain shoots through me, and I let him go. Another Unchanged man bursts out through the door to the pier and tries to rush him. He hits Hinchcliffe at full speed, and the two of them smack into the side of the delivery truck. For a second it looks like he’s been overpowered, but Hinchcliffe’s aggression and rage are remarkable and unmatched. He pushes the malnourished Unchanged man away with barely any effort, then snatches up Parker’s rifle from the ground and, holding it by the barrel, smacks him around the head repeatedly with its wooden butt.

“Come on,” a desperate voice whispers in my ear. It’s Joseph. He puts his hands under my shoulders, lifts me back up, and drags me toward the pier door. Hinchcliffe doesn’t even notice. He’s totally focused on the kill, venting all his anger, hatred, and frustration on the poor blood-soaked bastard who lies dying at his feet.