Them or Us Read online

  “He’s up with Wilson,” the guard answers. “He said you’d probably turn up.”

  The fact that Hinchcliffe’s with Wilson, his chief kid-wrangler, is a relief. That means he’s at the opposite end of the factory complex from where Rona Scott does whatever she does to the Unchanged kids. I can see a handful of flickering lights in the distance up ahead, and I wrap my coat around me even tighter as the wind whips up off the sea and blasts through the gaps between buildings. Eventually I reach a set of metal gates behind which the useful kids are kept. There’s another guard here—an irritating little shit who takes himself too seriously and blocks my way through. When I tell him I’m supposed to be meeting Hinchcliffe he disappears. He’s gone for a couple of minutes before eventually returning and begrudgingly letting me pass.

  I find Hinchcliffe waiting for me in a small courtyard, surrounded on three sides by a series of squat, metal-walled, box-shaped buildings which probably used to be industrial units, storage sheds or something similar. The roofs of the buildings are covered with curls of razor wire.

  “Forgot about you, Danny,” Hinchcliffe says, and that’s as good an apology as I’m going to get. “I was just checking the stock.”

  “The stock?”

  “The kids,” he explains. “I’ve been thinking more about what we were saying earlier.”

  “And?” I press hopefully.

  “And maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m not looking as far forward as I should be.”

  “So what’s that got to do with the kids?”

  “Everything, you dumb fuck! No kids, no future.”

  “That doesn’t bode well, does it? All the kids I’ve seen since the war started have either been Unchanged or are wild animals.”

  “You lost kids in the fighting, didn’t you?”

  “Three,” I answer.

  “One like us?”

  “My little girl.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Dead, I expect. Last time I saw her she was running toward the base of a fucking mushroom cloud, looking for an Unchanged to kill.”

  He thinks for a moment. “Look at this,” he says, gesturing to a narrow window in the front of the nearest metal building. I notice something’s been written in chalk on the door. It’s hard to make out, but I think it says BOY 5–7. Is that a serial number or an age range? I bend down to look through the window. It takes my eyes a couple of seconds to adjust to the negligible light levels inside. Can’t see anything …

  “What am I supposed to be looking at—”

  Something smashes against the glass. It’s a young boy, and he hits the strengthened window so hard that he bounces off and crashes back down onto the floor. He immediately picks himself up again and starts hammering on the window, scratching at it with his fingers, trying to claw his way out and get to me. He moves with the same speed and animal-like agility that Ellis had before I lost her. He’s feral. Wild. His blue eyes lock onto mine, and after a few seconds he stops struggling. As soon as he realizes I’m not Unchanged he slopes back into the corner, dejected. I keep watching him, unable to look away.

  Hinchcliffe shines a flashlight around. Christ, the room the kid’s being held in is like an animal’s cage. There are yellow-tinged puddles of piss on the floor, chunks of half-chewed food lying around, smears of shit like tire tracks …

  “This one like your daughter?”

  “Just the same.”

  “Thought so. Now come over here.”

  I follow him across the square patch of asphalt toward a similar-sized building, almost directly opposite the first. There’s writing on the door of this unit, too. It says BOY 10–12. I’m hesitant to get too close to the glass this time, but Hinchcliffe shoves me forward. I tense up, expecting another kid to hurl itself at me. When it doesn’t happen I start to relax. I can’t see any movement at all through the window.

  “Is there anything in here?”

  “Over there in the corner,” Hinchcliffe says, shining his flashlight toward the far end of the squalid rectangular space. Then I see it: a figure slumped up against the wall. It’s another boy, older than the first. He stands perfectly still, staring back at me but not reacting. “The older ones are starting to show more control,” Hinchcliffe explains. “Show them one of the Unchanged and they’ll still pull its fucking arms out of its sockets, but when they’re not fighting, they’re more lucid than they were. The older they get, the more control over their urges they seem to have.”

  “What point are you making?” I ask, not taking my eyes off the child.

  “That maybe the kids can be rehabilitated. That there might still be hope for them. Pure instinct made them fight the Unchanged with as much ferocity as they did. Now the Unchanged are gone, we might be able to straighten them out again.”

  “You think so?”

  He leads me away from the cells.

  “I’m convinced these kids are as wild as they are because they’ve just lived through the worst of the war. When things calm down again, so will they. We’ll teach them how to be human again, how to control themselves.”

  “Be human?” I laugh. “What, human like your fighters? Christ, Hinchcliffe, hardly the best role models for them. Anyway, these children have spent the last year killing. Do you really think you’re going to be able to make them stop?”

  “What use are they to us if we can’t?”

  “So what are you suggesting? Are you going to keep all newborns locked up until they’ve grown out of their viciousness?”

  I think he’s confused being controlled with being catatonic, but I don’t want to risk antagonizing him. It says something when his idea of progress is producing a kid that doesn’t immediately want to kill everything in the immediate vicinity. These children are hardwired to fight now. They’ve had a year of running wild, and their immature, prepubescent brains either don’t know or don’t want to know anything else.

  “It’s been less than twelve months,” he continues. “We’ll keep studying the ones we’ve got here. My guess is that newborns won’t be like this, because they won’t have lived through the fighting that these kids have. It might be that we end up with a missed generation or two, but there’s nothing anyone can do about that.”

  The guard lets us back out through the gate, and we walk on down the road.

  “So what about the other end of the factory?” I ask, stupidly prolonging a conversation I never actually wanted to have, realizing I still don’t know why Hinchcliffe wanted to see me.

  “What about it?”

  “What have you got going on there? Is it the reverse of all this? Have you got Rona Scott provoking Unchanged kids until they fight back?”

  “Something like that. It’s not so much about making them fight as it is getting them to be like us.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “They’ve got to be able to survive and hold their own.”

  Hinchcliffe increases his speed. Heading north, I follow him past the farthest end of the complex and then continue along a wide footpath which runs parallel with the seawall. The last light of day is beginning to fade. I don’t think I’ve been out here before. To my left is a sheer drop of several yards down onto another walkway, beyond it the remains of a long-since-abandoned RV park. There are numerous equally spaced rectangular slabs of concrete visible through the overgrowth and weeds where RVs used to stand, looking like oversized graves. It’s an eerie place, silent but for our footsteps and the sea battering the rocks on the other side of the wall to my right.

  “There’s so much I need to know the answers to, Danny,” he explains as I catch up with him, “things you probably haven’t even considered. For a start, what do we do if any of the women give birth to Unchanged kids? A kid’s just a kid, that’s got to be the position we get to. It’ll get easier over time.”

  “Will it?”

  “Rona Scott thinks so. She says when there’s absolutely nothing left but us, they won’t know any different. We still don’t know
why we are like we are, and we probably never will. We don’t know if what happened was because of some physical change or a virus or germ or just something we saw on TV. Thing is, kids who are inherently Unchanged are going to have to adapt and become like us to survive. Either that or they’ll be killed.”

  I deliberately don’t respond because this is something I’ve thought about already. I’ve thought about it too much, if anything. Months ago, back when I was looking for Ellis, I saw a pregnant woman. Since then I’ve often wondered what would happen to a newborn child. What if the kid’s born and its mother’s gut instinct—the same raw, undeniable gut instinct that made me kill hundreds of Unchanged—tells her to kill her own child? I’ve had nightmare visions of people crowding around the birth, trying to work out if the baby’s like us or like them, trying to decide whether they should keep it alive or drown it in the river. Or worse still, people fighting with each other to be the one who kills an Unchanged child. I’ve even imagined delivery rooms with a dividing line drawn down the middle—medical equipment on one side, weapons on the other.

  I try to bite my lip and stop myself, but I can’t help speaking out again. I wish I could ignore what’s happening and switch off, but the memory of what happened to all three of my own children keeps me asking questions and searching for answers I know I’ll probably never find.

  “It’s a paradox, isn’t it?”

  “What is?”

  “What you’re talking about. You’re saying we have to straighten out our kids and corrupt the Unchanged. Isn’t there a danger you’ll just end up breaking all of them? Aren’t you just going to end up with generation after generation of fuckups? Kids that can’t fight, can’t think, can’t even function?”

  Hinchcliffe just looks at me and grunts, and I think I’ve gone too far again.

  “Sorry,” I apologize quickly, remembering who I’m talking to. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “Yes you should,” he says, surprising me. “You should keep challenging like this. I told you, no one else has got the balls to do it. You see things differently than the rest of them.”

  “I’m not trying to be difficult, I’m just—”

  “You’re just saying what you think, and that’s a good thing. You might turn out to be right about everything, but for the record, I don’t think you are. Thing is, there’s no way of knowing yet. The world these kids will end up inheriting will be completely different from anything we’ve experienced, different from what we’re seeing now, even. Until then, the only thing we can do is explore every possibility and cover all eventualities.”

  “That’s a tall order. How are you planning to do that?” I ask. I’m really struggling to keep up with Hinchcliffe’s fast pace now and I’m relieved when he finally stops walking. He turns around and grins. It scares the shit out of me when he looks at me like that.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” he says. “It’s like everything else. It all boils down to supply and demand.”

  17

  MY EVENING WITH HINCHCLIFFE is clearly far from over. His speed increases again as we continue farther along the seawall. I’m left dragging behind, panting hard and drenched with sweat, and there’s absolutely no one else around. I look back the way we just came and see that we’ve traveled a surprising distance away from the center of town. The walk back to the house is going to take forever.

  “You’re far too tense, Danny,” he says, waiting for me to catch up again. “I know exactly what you need. Help you get rid of some of that pent-up frustration.”

  “All I need is some sleep. I’ll be okay in the morning.”

  “You’ve been saying that for weeks.”

  I notice there are several buildings up ahead, barely visible in the increasing darkness until now. Hinchcliffe pauses to light a cigarette. He blows out smoke, flicks the match over the wall, then moves on, leading me away from the ocean now and up a steep climb along a muddy pathway. As we get closer, I see that there are dull lights flickering in the windows of one of the buildings. It’s hard to make out much detail, but it looks like one of those dime-a-dozen seafront hotels you always used to find in places like this. We cross a road to get closer, and I see that its frontage is painted a grubby powdery blue. There’s a lopsided signpost at this end of the short front yard, two truncated lengths of chain hanging down where the building’s name would once have hung. There’s a guard standing just inside the door. I recognize him right away. It’s Joe Chandra, one of Hinchcliffe’s most prized fighters. He’s a distinctive, ugly-looking bastard. He looks like a comic-book villain with burns covering almost exactly half of his face. I haven’t seen him around in a while. Just assumed he was dead. So what’s Hinchcliffe got him posted all the way out here for? My heart’s pounding suddenly, and this time it’s not because of the effort of the walk.

  “What is this place, Hinchcliffe?”

  “The solution to a couple of problems,” he replies, giving little away.

  “What problems?”

  “Regardless of what they turn out to be, we need people to keep having kids. Also, people need food and they have a need to procreate. So here they can fuck and be fucked for food. Sounds like some kind of screwed-up charity drive, eh?”

  I’m so taken aback by what I’m hearing that I don’t realize I’ve followed him into the building until we’ve already passed Chandra at the door and gone right inside. The air indoors smells stale. It’s quiet, and Hinchcliffe’s voice echoes off the walls.

  “Like it or not, my friend, kids are going to become a valuable commodity. I’m just trying to cover all the bases and keep control of the stock. All that most people are interested in today is staying alive, and they’ll do whatever it takes to achieve that. The women I’ve got here are willing to get pregnant for food, the men are more than willing to try to get them pregnant.”

  “So which is it? A brothel or a sperm bank?”

  “Both, I suppose!” He laughs, filling the building with his noise. “It’s hardly the love boat, if that’s what you mean, but it does the trick.”

  “There are no lines at the door. You’d have thought—”

  “Times have changed, mate. We’ve changed. Romance and relationships have gone right out of fashion since we all started killing each other, but people still need to fuck.”

  “But where is everyone?”

  “I’m being selective. You didn’t know about this place until now, and I tell you more than I tell most people. You have to detach yourself from what used to matter now, Danny. These are business decisions. Doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy your work, though!”

  “How far have we fallen if sex has just become a business decision?” I ask as we climb a twisting staircase that smells damp. Thin curtains have been draped over the windows, and the faint yellow light comes from infrequently spaced oil lamps.

  “Oh come on, don’t get all soft on me,” he groans. “People have been selling sex since year one. You have to face facts, we all do. This is how things have to be for now, and that’s why I’ve been selective with the people I’ve allowed to get involved in this so far. Better that a woman gets pregnant by someone who can still fight than by one of the losers drifting around out there outside the compound. If I started advertising this place there’d be a line of underclass men outside the door twenty-four/seven, desperate to sow their pathetic seed for a quick thrill and a half-decent meal. It’s tough and it’s not fair, but for now this is how it has to be.”

  “I don’t think it’s right.”

  “To be honest, pal,” he says, stopping at the end of a gloomy landing, “I don’t care. I didn’t bring you here because I wanted your blessing.”

  “So why did you bring me?”

  “Christ, why do you think?”

  “I don’t know … I…”

  “You’re not the strongest, Danny, but you’ve got brains, and I know you can fight when you have to. You’ve already fathered one kid like us.”

  He grabs my arm and
pulls me farther down the corridor.

  “But I—”

  “You can come here anytime you want,” he tells me, pushing me toward an open door. Light spills across the landing. “The women leave their doors open when they’re ready. Everyone’s a winner here, you know. I give them double rations if they get pregnant, or I would if any of the useless cows had actually managed it.”

  My brain’s spinning, struggling to catch up with what’s happening, and my body is numb and unresponsive. I just stand there, staring into the hotel room, remembering the last time I was in a place like this. I remember looking for Lizzie, and I wish she was here today. The memory of her face fills me with pain. Despite everything that happened between us and what we both became, there’s a part of me that still clings to what we used to have and the family we made together. Hinchcliffe shoves me forward again, and I make a desperate, instinctive grab for either side of the door frame, not wanting to go through.

  “I’ll see you later, Danny,” he says, taking a few steps back, then standing and watching me. “Enjoy yourself, son.”

  I know I’ve got no choice but to do what he says, and I step into the light.

  18

  INSIDE THE ROOM THERE’S a woman sitting on a double bed with her back to me. I’m fucking terrified. I’d turn and run if it wasn’t for the fact Hinchcliffe’s bound to be waiting around outside. He’ll want to be sure I’ve done what he told me to do.

  I can’t do this. I can’t remember the last time I had a sexual thought or desire or felt anything even remotely erotic. I can’t remember masturbating since the war began, or even wanting to. Apart from the occasional, infrequent, involuntary early morning hard-on, the last time I had an erection was probably when I last shared a bed with Liz, just before the Change split us. Does everyone feel like this, or is it just me? I don’t want to share my body with anyone now, much less with someone I don’t know. I don’t want to do this …

  The woman on the bed wearily looks back over her shoulder. How many times has she already done this today? Am I the first or the twenty-first?