Chokehold Page 12

  “Good.”

  “Just do me a favor and keep your opinions to yourself. I need to keep these people onside and motivated, and you’re not helping.”

  “I thought your responsibility was to keep them alive?” he says.

  She pauses. It unnerves him.

  “Wait … is there something you’re not telling me, Estelle? More to the point, is there something you’re not telling them?”

  “I have to give them something to hold on to; otherwise, there’s no point. I need them.”

  “What for? As foot soldiers?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far, but only the naïvest person would think they’re going to be able to avoid all kinds of confrontation from now on. If I’m being completely honest, yes, I think most of them will inevitably be involved in some kind of military action.”

  “That’s not being completely honest; that’s being partially honest. If you were being completely honest, you’d be telling me why you’re planning on sending every man, woman, and child to the front line.”

  “It’s not the front line—”

  “It’s as good as.”

  “It’s a command outpost, and it’s our next staging point. You’re absolutely right when you say we’re facing a constant battle to stay alive. There’s only one way that’s ever going to change, and that’s by us totally eradicating every last Hater.”

  “Well, that’s a war you’re never going to win. No one here will survive the kind of fighting you’re talking about.”

  “Says the man who survived a nuclear strike. Remember Einstein’s quote?”

  “Seriously? You’re going to start quoting at me now?”

  She ignores him and continues, “‘I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.’”

  “Come on, Estelle.”

  “Our enemy may have been reduced to savages, but we haven’t. Not yet. I’ve got enough firepower under my control still to wipe out tens of thousands of them.”

  “And you think that’s the solution?”

  “It might be the only solution. If you can give me an alternative, then I’m all ears. We tried reconditioning them, remember? Look how that turned out. They double-bluffed us. They were pulling the strings all along.”

  “And they probably still are.”

  “Somewhere, maybe, yes, but not here. Not out in the field. If they still have generals and commanders, they’ll be long gone, tucked away in bunkers and hideouts like you were, I expect. No, Matthew, my experience tells me this is a very different scenario we’re facing now.”

  “Your experience? No one has any experience of this.”

  “Not here, no, but look elsewhere. Cast your mind back. Remember all those wars in Africa and the Middle East, all that religious bullshit that idiots were always scrapping over? The longer those wars continued, the more tribal they became. Order quickly collapsed. Their communications were disrupted or had never been there in the first place. Their societies crumbled, and now ours has, too. The Haters are barbaric, and the strongest, most brutal of them are the ones who’ve survived so far. They’re dumbing down. Replacing thinking with fighting.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  She ignores him. “I believe they also think we’re dead and buried. They think they’ve won, and that means their focus is going to shift to jockeying for position in their new world disorder.”

  “I think you’re massively oversimplifying things.”

  “And I think you’re wrong. I know you are. Eventually, we’re going to need to take decisive action. We’re not going to stay hidden forever. We can turn this around, make the hunters the hunted.”

  Matt just looks at her. “You’re out of your fucking mind. I’m having nothing to do with any of this.”

  “And ultimately that’s your prerogative, but understand this: if you’re not prepared to support us, then you get nothing from us. No food, no water, nothing. You can stay here by all means, but you’ll be completely on your own. From what I know of you, Matthew, I think that’s probably how you want it.”

  22

  Matt finds himself a quiet space away from everyone else to make a den. This used to be the control room of RAF Thornhill. It’s a squat, square brick of a building, taller than the rest, perched adjacent to the main hub of the base and overlooking the runway. The windows have been blacked out from the inside with a thick layer of paint-like mud. He scratches a little section clear so he can keep an eye on what’s going on out there. It’s midafternoon by his reckoning, the sun approaching its peak, but the day is as dull as ever. From outside, the windows look opaque, and that leaves him feeling sufficiently hidden from the rest of the world.

  He looks around the shadows of the room. There are desks he can sleep on or under, and more than one exit so he can get out fast if he needs to. The place looks relatively untouched, obviously a little too prominent for the rest of the group’s liking. It doesn’t bother him, though. He’s slept in the shadows of Haters before and survived.

  This building’s ideal, he thinks. He can imagine himself staying here long after the rest of them have gone. That won’t be too long. Estelle seemed keen to ship everyone out. The sooner the better. He’s looking forward to being alone again. He could leave the base and try to find somewhere else, but there doesn’t seem much point when this entire area will be vacant soon enough.

  Matt absentmindedly looks through drawers and cupboards. He finds a couple of coats hanging up and a pair of boots (a half size too small, but still more comfortable than the shoes he’s currently wearing). As he’s getting dressed, he also finds a pair of binoculars, a rucksack, a lighter, and some waterproof over-trousers. Very useful, he thinks at first, but no sooner has he put them on than they’re off again. The swooshing sound the stiff, water-resistant material makes as his thighs brush together sounds disproportionately loud. Jesus, even his choice of clothing might affect his survival chances these days. There’s no way he’ll be able to hide from Haters wearing these pants.

  He takes the binoculars over to the window and spots movement near the perimeter fence. He freezes, fearing an imminent enemy attack, but then relaxes because the behaviors he’s seeing out there are measured and controlled, not frantic or aggressive. When he adjusts the focus of the field glasses, he sees faces he recognizes among the twenty or so figures outside. There’s Tracy Barnish and several other members of the group he arrived here with, and at the front is Aaron Rayner. This must be the party setting out for the Cambridge outpost. If Estelle had had her way, he’d have been out there with them.

  23

  The CDF Outpost Near Cambridge

  It takes them hours to get anywhere near the Cambridge outpost. Although it lies just off one of the main roads into the city, Aaron can’t risk taking a direct route. The course they instead follow is necessarily convoluted to minimize the risk of them being tracked by the enemy. It’s left unsaid, but the implications are clear to all involved: the twenty-three people currently making their way through open countryside are expendable. Right now, the integrity of the outpost is the only thing that matters. There’s far more at stake than these few lives.

  After slipping through the border fence at RAF Thornhill, they skirted the edge of the lake, then walked a mile through the forest to where another truck had been secreted in the ruins of a school. From there, a frantic drive east took them to a derelict farmers’ market and garden center outside a waterlogged village. There they waited in a dark stockroom for more than two hours until Aaron was certain they’d not been followed. Then the final trek across open countryside began.

  Tracy Barnish is terrified. She remembers hearing something about how Matt walked alone for weeks to get back to the city, and she doesn’t know how he did it. They’ve barely been outside for any length of time, and she’s struggling to keep calm. They could be attacked at any second. She’s replayed countless nightmare scenarios as they’ve trudged across the land.
Tracy’s always been wary of Debbie Green, the girl ahead of her in the line. She’s highly strung, and Tracy’s always been worried that she’ll panic and lose control at the least opportune moment. She remembers her screaming when they were attacked at the leisure center, and she imagines the effect that kind of outburst would have out here … she pictures Haters homing in on them from miles around, then imagines the noise as they attack, then imagines how that noise would increase if Aaron were to start firing that rifle he’s carrying … Jesus Christ, everything’s so fragile and delicately poised. Catastrophe feels almost inevitable.

  And now they’ve stopped.

  They bunch up around Aaron in the corner of a field, up to their ankles in mud at the intersection of two hedgerows. There’s a gap, but he pauses before leading them through. “This is us,” he whispers. “Do as I do. Follow my footsteps, and not a bloody sound, right?”

  Tracy peers through the overgrown hedge. “This is it?”

  “What did you expect, neon signs? It’s supposed to look like it isn’t there, remember.”

  The CDF outpost is all but invisible. All Tracy can make out from here are a couple of dark mounds in the near distance, but they could be anything—hills, clumps of trees, enemy encampments …

  They take it in turns to clamber through the hedge, Tracy making sure she’s about two-thirds of the way down the line: far enough back so she’s not waiting on the other side for too long, but not so far that she’s left behind on her own like the final girl in a bad horror movie.

  When they’re all through and have crossed a wide strip of road, they find themselves at the top of an embankment overlooking an immense construction site and works depot. There are hundreds of vehicles here—most of them connected to the roadworks, it looks like: diggers and shifters and scrapers of all shapes and sizes. In the low light, the lack of detail makes their outlines hard to discern. Their shapes combine to make monsters. Dinosaur-like.

  Aaron leads the others down the steep slope, following zigzag tracks that have been trodden into the mud over time. Tracy loses her footing and goes head over heels, falling over and over until she comes to a rough and very sudden stop at the bottom of the embankment, her head thudding against the ground. It hurts like hell, and though she wants to scream out, she manages to keep the pain swallowed down. Debbie gives her a hand and helps her up, but there’s not a sound. Not a word passes between them.

  They’re all down now, but there’s someone else coming, following them. There’s a collective catch of breath, because there’s no doubt from the way this person is moving that it’s one of them. Aaron pushes his way back through the group, knife held ready. This was a teenage girl once, but now it’s a barely human cyclone, all arms and legs and Hate. She can’t believe her eyes when she realizes she’s stumbled on a group of Unchanged out here in the open, and she throws herself at the pack with only a rock for a weapon. She swings at Debbie, who trips over her own feet trying to get out of the way.

  “Come on, love, let’s have you,” Aaron says quietly, taunting the Hater.

  And she obliges.

  She flies at Aaron with impossible levels of fury. He catches her arm, twists it around, then stabs her just above her right kidney. The Hater staggers back, only managing three or four steps before her legs buckle and she collapses. The others look on in useless disbelief. “You’re gonna have to do better now you’re here,” Aaron tells them. He stands over the Hater who’s still alive, then grabs a handful of her hair, pulls her head back, and slits her throat. She bleeds out like a slaughtered pig. Aaron gestures for two of the others to carry the corpse, then drags his boots through the puddle of blood he just spilled, mixing it with the mud. Leave no trace.

  There’s a trench dug around virtually the entire perimeter of the service station outpost, and it’s invisible until they’re almost on top of it. Aaron leads the group over a narrow pontoon bridge and into the mazelike compound of works vehicles. There’s a foul stench here, carried on the wind. “Leave the body here,” he whispers to the Hater’s impromptu pallbearers. “We’ll take care of it later.”

  In silence, they follow a lackadaisical route up toward the main part of the service station. There are tanks and field guns parked alongside civilian vehicles. A helicopter is sitting in a bubble of space, its rotor blades tied down and weighted. The group soon reaches what looks like a dead end, but it’s a misdirection; a pathway that leads to a concealed door. Aaron turns to the others and explains, but he’s jumped before he can utter even a single hushed word. Tracy sees the glint of a long, machete-like blade and fears the worst, but before she or any of the others can react, the confrontation is over. Recognition. Friends. All good. The group is hurriedly ushered inside and then locked in the empty storeroom of a retail outlet. Decontamination, they’re told. Make sure you’re all like us.

  Only Aaron enters the outpost proper. He walks through the shelf-stripped remains of the retail outlet, stepping over and around countless people, and is met by Moira Kay. “What are you doing here?” she asks. “Trouble?”

  “No trouble. New arrivals. I need to see Chappell. Got a message for him from Estelle.”

  “He’s next door.”

  There’s a sheltered walkway that connects the main part of the service station to the chain hotel next door. It connects the kitchen of a fast-food joint to a fire door around the back of the hotel reception and is completely hidden from view. Aaron finds Chappell and two other CDF fighters poring over a map they’ve spread out on a low coffee table.

  Chappell looks up. “Aaron. I didn’t expect to see you. Everything all right?”

  He collapses onto the sofa opposite, exhausted. “Everything’s fine. I’m chaperoning. Estelle wants me to stay here now.”

  “We shipping out from Thornhill?”

  “Not yet.”

  “So what’s the story?”

  “We’re running out of space back at base. Had a load of new arrivals. Around thirty of them. Brought the first twenty with me.”

  “That’s a big number.”

  “Buried underground until a landslide forced them out of their shelter. We picked them up near the airport.”

  “And you’re sure they’re clean?”

  “Checked them myself. Pretty unremarkable bunch. Dyed-in-the-wool civvies. There’s a GP in the group I brought with me, but other than that, they’re just gophers.”

  Chappell gets up from his seat. “Let me see them.”

  * * *

  The group is ushered out of their storeroom holding cell into the main part of the building. It’s a sobering experience, nothing like they were expecting. The roughly circular, high-ceilinged hub of the service station is chock-full of people and equipment, with barely any available space. But for most, it’s not the people that distracts them, it’s their surroundings. Parts of the building have been perfectly preserved, untouched by the CDF. Wide eyes look from one unlit neon sign to the next, remembering tastes, smells, sensations, emotions, and experiences they’d either forgotten or forced themselves to keep bottled up. The bright colors are astonishingly vivid against the shadows and the memory of the muted gray world outside: Costa Coffee … all the usual fast-food brands … an American diner … WHSmith … Marks & Spencer …

  There’s an air of positivity among the group, bordering on excitement. They’ve hidden, meandered, and drifted since the war began, and for the first time, they now feel like they’re part of something with a purpose. Aaron shows them up the steps to a mezzanine-level business lounge with views over the land surrounding the outpost. There’s no time for pleasantries, and Chappell’s abruptness takes them by surprise. “Are any of you useful?”

  Exchanged glances. Uncertainty. They stand in a huddle, dumbstruck.

  “She’s the doctor,” Aaron says, pointing at Tracy.

  Chappell nods. “Anyone have military experience?”

  Nothing.

  “Law enforcement?”

  Still silence.


  He shakes his head. “I’ll be blunt, there’s no room for hangers-on here. You all need to pull your weight. Your role will be to support my troops. They come first, understand?”

  Mumbled acknowledgments.

  “You do what you’re told, and whatever you’re told to do, you do it quietly. There may be a time in a few weeks, months, or years from now when the war will be over and we can be ourselves again; until then, I expect everyone either to fight or to support those of us who’ll be putting our necks on the block.”

  Chappell walks up and down the line.

  “At all times, you will remain inside this building unless you have specific orders to the contrary,” he continues. “Our troops are billeted in the hotel next door. That area is strictly off-limits to all noncombatants. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Perfectly,” Tracy says, speaking on behalf of the group. “Look, we’re just glad to be alive. We don’t want any trouble. We’ll do whatever we’re asked.”

  “Whatever you’re told. You won’t be asked.”

  She nods.

  “I’m sure Estelle has given you one of her pep talks, and I’m sure you’ve seen enough of what’s happened out there to realize we’re at a crossroads. We are, as far as we are aware, the largest remaining active CDF contingent, possibly the largest remaining human contingent in the country. The importance of what we’re doing here cannot be overstated. Disobedience will not be tolerated. If you do anything that could be construed as posing a risk to this operation, you will face the consequences. And those consequences, as I’m sure you can imagine, will be stark.”

  24

  RAF Thornhill

  Matt has slept well in his new digs. He wakes with a vague sense of optimism—could it be that this place is as good as he dares dream? There’s a tattered map of the local area on the wall, and he consults the details by flashlight. Cambridge and Norwich are the nearest cities (that haven’t been completely annihilated), and it looks like there are enough small villages and towns scattered around that he should be able to loot from when the time comes and he’s left alone here.