Them or Us Page 18

  “Just look at them, Danny,” he says, shuffling me around and gesturing over to where a group of them are sitting at a mess table, watching us nervously. “These people didn’t do anything wrong. They didn’t deserve any of what happened to them.”

  “Neither did I. Neither did you. This war wasn’t anyone’s fault, it just happened.”

  “But the fact the war’s dragged on is our fault. We have to stop the fighting.”

  “The fighting will end when all the Unchanged are gone.”

  “Do you really still believe that?”

  “Yes,” I answer quickly, even though I don’t. It’s an instinctive reaction. Sometimes I think I say these things just because I’m used to saying them, like I’ve been conditioned to react. “You know as well as I do that we were all forced into this, forced to take sides and fight.”

  “Maybe that’s where we’re still going wrong,” he says, starting to sound suspiciously like people I heard talking way back in the summer, just before I lost my daughter forever and half the country disappeared in a white-hot nuclear haze. “Look at what happened in Southwold,” he continues unnecessarily.

  “This isn’t right, though. You shouldn’t be doing this.”

  “Not helping these people wouldn’t be right either.”

  One of the Unchanged closest to me shuffles his legs suddenly, and I almost overreact at the completely innocent movement.

  “But you’re not helping them, are you? Can’t you see that? All you’re doing is delaying the inevitable. They’ll have to leave here eventually, and the second they do, they’ll be killed. Christ alone knows how you’ve managed to keep them alive down here for so long anyway.”

  He gestures for me to keep my voice down, but I’m past caring.

  “I did it because I had to,” he says. “Come on, Danny, these people have got nothing to do with the fighting. They’re just like you and me. You’ve got more in common with them than with Hinchcliffe and his fighters.”

  There’s no point arguing, this deluded idiot isn’t going to listen. I look around this dank, claustrophobic bunker in disbelief. I’ve risked and lost everything to help wipe these bastards out, and all the time Peter fucking Sutton was sheltering them. Protecting them. I’m filled with anger, and all I want to do is kill the lot of them, Sutton included—but I know I won’t. I don’t even know if I can. I’ve killed hundreds of refugees like this, but I’m outnumbered now and in no state to fight today. Or am I just making excuses? I watch an Unchanged man sitting on the edge of a thin mattress on the floor, comforting a woman and holding her close. Despite the fact they both look skeletal and close to death, the way they are together reminds me how I used to hold Lizzie before all of this began.

  Don’t be such a fucking idiot. You’re nothing like them and you had no choice. You did what you had to do. They are the enemy.

  Is that really true? Did I have a choice?

  “Just tell me why?” I ask, surprising myself by asking the question I’d been thinking out loud. I’m hoping Sutton will say something profound that will help make sense of this sudden madness.

  “I’ll show you,” he answers, beckoning me to follow him deeper into the bunker. He gently pushes past an elderly Unchanged woman, acknowledging her by name as if she matters, then takes me down another short corridor and into a large L-shaped space. We have to step over and around even more people to get through. One man is badly burned, his face heavily scarred, but his wounds are clean and have been obviously been treated. “See that?”

  “See what?”

  “The kids. Right over on the far side, there’s a couple of kids playing.”

  I follow the line of his gaze and quickly spot the children. For a few seconds I’m transfixed. They’re playing. These are the first kids I’ve seen since the start of the war who aren’t fighting or screaming, or throwing themselves at me and attacking, or standing swaying in a dark corner in a catatonic haze … these children are actually playing. They’re laughing and talking and interacting with each other. They’re pushing each other around and picking themselves back up and … and it’s hard to come to terms with what I’m seeing. This behavior—so normal and innocent—now seems strange and unnatural. It’s hard to believe that even now, even after being buried underground in this cold, damp, dark armpit of a place for who knows how long, they’re still managing to find something positive in their dire and hopeless situation. For the briefest of moments I almost feel a sense of regret. How many people like this have I killed?

  FOCUS!

  “What about them?” I ask.

  “See the older girl with the boy on her knee? Sitting just over from the others?”

  I immediately see who he’s talking about. Separated slightly from the rest of the young group and sitting in the soft circle of light coming from another lamp, a girl is holding a toddler. She looks like an underage mom, probably in her late teens, and he’s no older than two years old, three at the most. He sits on her knee and she holds him tight, arms wrapped around him, gently bouncing him up and down. She probably doesn’t even realize she’s doing it. It’s an instinctive, settling, protecting movement.

  “That boy,” he says, his voice suddenly lower and the tone noticeably different, “is my grandson.”

  “Your grandson? But how…?”

  He moves me away, turning me around so I’m not staring. I can’t help looking back.

  “Please … they don’t know. None of them know.”

  “I don’t understand. How?”

  “I don’t know what it was like for you, Danny, but I had my doubts about the war from the very beginning. I kept fighting because I thought I had to, because I thought I had to choose a side and if I didn’t kill them they’d kill me, but I didn’t get swept up on the wave of it all like everybody else did. I started to wonder whether there really was a difference between us at all, or whether the Hate and the Change were just the results of some massive, manufactured social paranoia.”

  “You think? After all that’s happened?”

  “Why not? How many people did you know who were religious? There used to be thousands of religions with barely a shred of evidence between the lot of them, all of them the product of overactive imaginations, superstitions, and fear. People used to kill each other because they believed in different versions of stories that could never be proved or disproved, used to let themselves die because some book said they shouldn’t have blood transfusions, used to cut their hair a certain way or grow their hair or cut off their foreskins or abstain from sex … None of the divisions between them were a million miles from what happened with the Hate, were they? Intangible. Inexplicable. Pointless.”

  I don’t bother to reply. This isn’t the time for theological debate. If there ever was a God, he’s long since packed his bags and moved on.

  “After a few weeks,” he continues, rant over, “I ended up back around the area where I used to live and where what was left of my family still were. That was where I fell in with Simon Penkridge and Selena, and they helped me learn how to hold the Hate. It was a logical progression. It felt natural and right.”

  “But you didn’t get sent into the cities?”

  “Like I said, I didn’t buy into the fighting like everyone else. I got out before it was too late. I don’t know, maybe people like you and me have got some predetermined setting that’s different from the rest. I think more people could have learned to hold the Hate if they’d stopped fighting long enough to be shown how. Maybe not the worst of the fighters, but the rest of them.”

  “The underclass?”

  “Yes. The people who only fight when they absolutely have to, not because they want to. Problem is, most people like that have been crushed or killed and all we’re left with now are dumb feral bastards like this guy Hinchcliffe and his crew. You and me, Danny, we can see beyond the battle and look toward other things, bigger things…”

  I agree with him to an extent, but right now all I’m trying to do is look
beyond being trapped in this bunker. Regardless of anything Sutton might say (and he hasn’t actually said a lot so far), I still want out of here. I don’t need any of this. It’s another dangerous and unnecessary complication I could do without. I’ve only been here a few minutes and already I feel like I’m caught between Sutton trying to pull me in one direction and Hinchcliffe the other. If I don’t do something about it fast I’ll be torn in half: ripped straight down the middle.

  “I found an Unchanged camp and I was scavenging food from them,” Sutton continues. “I watched them from a distance for days, scared to get too close. I didn’t trust myself, didn’t know what I’d do. All I knew was that there were faces there I recognized … friends, people I used to see in the street … and then I saw Jodie with little Andrew.”

  “Andrew?”

  He nods back across the shelter again.

  “My grandson. Jodie was my daughter-in-law. My son was already long gone, either dead or lost fighting somewhere, but those two were both Unchanged. Eventually they were picked up by the military. They were being evacuated to one of the refugee camps when the convoy they were traveling in was attacked. I’d been following them because I didn’t know what else to do. Jodie was killed, but some of the others managed to get away, and they took Andrew with them. I waited until I was completely sure of myself, until I knew I could definitely control myself and not attack, then I helped them and hid them. Only Parker and Dean and a couple of others really know what I am.”

  “What about the rest of them?”

  “They think I’m like them. They think I’m one of the Unchanged who can fake the Hate.”

  “And what about me?”

  “They’ll assume you’re the same.”

  Even now, after all this time, the very notion of being thought of as Unchanged still stirs up some deep-rooted emotion inside me. It’s an uncomfortable, disproportionate reaction that’s hard to keep swallowed down. It’s even more difficult to suppress my feelings when I start to wonder if they might be right. Could that be what we both really are?

  “So how did you end up here?” I ask, suddenly desperate for a distraction.

  “Long story … maybe I’ll have time to tell you one day. Believe it or not, I figure this is probably the safest part of the country, geographically, that is. And when I found this bunker…”

  “How did you find it?”

  “I had a friend who used to visit decommissioned bunkers. A weird hobby, I know, but there you go. I remembered him telling me about a few places down in this neck of the woods.”

  “Very convenient.”

  He shrugs his shoulders. “Well, that’s how it is.”

  “So if it’s your grandson you’re worried about,” I ask, “why not just get him out of here and leave the rest of this bunch behind?”

  He shakes his head and leads me back to a slightly quieter part of the room.

  “You’re the only person who knows about Andrew. I didn’t used to see him that often. He was barely a year old when the war started. He hardly even knew me.”

  “But you haven’t answered my question.”

  “Apart from the fact he’ll never survive anywhere else, I don’t think I’d be any good for him. I’m not getting any younger, and I was a crap parent anyway. My son didn’t want anything to do with me.”

  “Are these people going to be any better?”

  “Take a look around you, Danny. Just look at them. Look at how they talk to each other and how they interact. Listen to them. It’s a million miles removed from what we’re seeing in places like Lowestoft. This is how the world used to be. This is what we really lost because of the fighting.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Is it? You saw what happened in Southwold. That’s as good as it’s going to get up there. Do you think it’s ever going to stop? Look at what’s happening. The human race is regressing. It’s like some kind of de-evolution. Take the Brutes, for example—you saw that poor bitch by the farm. They’re incapable of functioning anymore. Kids are the same. Have you seen how wild they’ve become?”

  I don’t bother telling him about the things I’ve seen.

  “And the fighters,” he continues, “for Christ’s sake, they’re in charge now. People have stopped thinking. Violence has taken the place of discussions and negotiations. Day by day what’s left of civilization is becoming less and less civilized. Where’s it going to end? Those stupid fuckers ruling the roost are never going to relinquish the power they’ve suddenly been given, are they? Things will get far, far worse before they get any better.”

  “So? There’s nothing anyone can do about it. How is keeping a bunker full of Unchanged alive going to make any difference?”

  “Don’t you see? These people are constant. They’re normal, and we’re the freaks. This was all about keeping Andrew safe to begin with, but I’ve come to realize now that these people are all that’s left of the human race. We’ve just got to hope there comes a time when they’ll be able to go back aboveground and start again.”

  Fuck. Sutton has truly lost his mind.

  “Are you out of your fucking mind? You’ve got to face facts, these people are history and all we’ve got left now is cunts like Hinchcliffe and places like Lowestoft.”

  “You’re wrong,” he protests. “Help me keep them safe, Danny. All’s not yet lost.”

  I’m not listening to any more of this bullshit. “All is lost,” I tell him as I shove him out of the way and try to find my way back to the exit. I can’t take any more of this today. Has Sutton been driven crazy by months of fighting? Whatever’s behind this madness, it’s not my problem. I’m going to do what I promised myself I’d do last night—leave Lowestoft and get away from everything and everybody. I sidestep the man and woman I watched earlier, now lying together, their bodies still locked in an embrace, and all I can think about suddenly is being shut in that damn hotel room yesterday and that rough, loveless sex and how empty and vile it made me feel … The only person I want to be with now is me. I don’t need anyone else. Maybe I’ll go tell Hinchcliffe about this place, then leave them all to fight out their futures between them.

  Desperate to get out, I turn to go through the door into the corridor and walk straight into Joseph Mallon coming the other way.

  24

  “DANNY?” HE SAYS, HIS voice trembling with uncertainty and surprise. “Danny McCoyne, is that really you?”

  “Joseph?”

  Is it him, or have I finally lost my mind? Am I so sick I’ve started hallucinating now? His voice is unmistakable, but he looks literally half the man he used to be. His face, broad and beaming when he held me captive in the convent, is now distressingly gaunt. His cheeks are sunken and hollow, the whites of his eyes as yellow as his teeth. He wears a grubby woolen sweater that hangs off him like it’s several sizes too big.

  “I thought you were dead.”

  “I thought you were dead,” I answer, slumping back against the wall in disbelief. This can’t be happening. I feel like I’m about to pass out, my hands and feet suddenly numb and heavy, fingertips tingling, eyes not focusing properly … I must be hallucinating.

  “You two know each other?” Sutton asks, chasing after me, sounding as shocked as I am. Mallon nods his head vigorously and stares at me, his rasping breathing sounding uncomfortably erratic. He’s in worse shape than me. He grabs my hand and shakes it furiously, grinning like a madman.

  “Did you know about this?” I ask Sutton. I look straight at him, demanding an explanation, but he doesn’t answer. I can’t tell whether he’s genuinely shocked or if he orchestrated this whole situation just to try to keep me down here.

  “I had no idea…”

  “What happened to you, Danny?” Mallon says as he looks me up and down. “You look like shit, man.” I don’t have a chance to respond before he speaks again, turning to talk to Sutton this time. “Danny was one of the ones I told you about, back in the city with Sahota.”

  “But how did you�
�?”

  I’m unable to finish my question, not even sure what it is I’m trying to ask. He might look like a shadow of the man he was, but Mallon still manages to seem infinitely more composed than I feel. He’s acting like he’s found a long-lost friend, not someone he kept locked in a cell for days on end, chained to a piss-soaked bed—someone who wanted to kill him. I focus on that thought for a second. There’s a part of me that still thinks I should do it.

  “Back at the convent,” he begins, in that instantly familiar, rich accent, “there was a lot of bullshit flying about.” He looks at Sutton. “I told you about Sahota … the guy pulling the strings there? I figured out what he was, what he was all about, and how he was training up people like Danny here for some crazy last crusade. I knew he was bad news, but I didn’t let on. I acted dumb and played along with it ’cause I didn’t have any choice—I knew he’d kill me if I stepped out of line. He gave me food and he kept me safe from all the chaos outside, so I put up with it, but I knew it wouldn’t last, and I was ready. The moment he packed up and disappeared, I knew something bad was coming.”

  “Wait,” I interrupt, “he disappeared?”

  “It was like someone flicked a switch, Danny. One minute he’s sitting in his office, giving out his orders, the next he’s loading up a car, clearing out the supplies, getting his people together, and getting the hell out of there. They killed the rest of us before they left, but I was one step ahead of the game. Locked myself in your old room, as it happens. Hid under the bed and waited there until I was sure they’d all gone.”

  “But the bomb … how did you get away?”

  “A combination of good luck and common sense,” he answers. “The area around the convent was empty, not a single person left there but me. Then, next day, crack of dawn, everything goes crazy. I hear fighting, then there’s this unbelievable noise and the army starts racing away from the middle of town. Didn’t take a genius to work out that the shit was about to hit the fan big-time. Sahota’s people had left a couple of cars behind. I had one of them ready, and I joined the convoy out of the city. I saw the explosion in the distance, but I was far enough away by then. I dug in with the military until they were attacked. Me and a couple of others managed to get away, and that was when we ran into Peter here and his people. ’Cause he’s like you he was able to keep up all the bullshit and pretense and keep us hidden. Now here we are, several months and several stops farther down the line. And here you are, too. Jesus Christ, Danny McCoyne, it’s good to see you! I can’t believe it’s you!”