Hater h-1 Page 20

  There are two soldiers firing now. One of them has climbed a metal ladder up onto a galley in the rafters of the building and is picking people out at will. Over the terrified confusion and carnage I can hear another sound now and I look up at the ceiling in terror. It's the chugging of machinery and the hissing of gas. Hanging in the four corners of the room are huge metal boxes with vented fronts which look like air conditioning units. The air in front of each one of the machines is distorted like a heat-haze and I know that it has begun. I throw the corpse off me and start to look around the floor for the mask I tore off its face seconds earlier. The floor in here is awash with blood and bodies and…

  The world around me explodes.

  I drop to the ground and cover my head as the entire far end of the room we're trapped in is ripped apart by a massive blast which sends shrapnel and dead flesh flying in every conceivable direction. Everything becomes black. The noise of the explosion begins to fade and is replaced by yells and screams of pain and fear and by the sounds of a full-scale conflict.

  'Run!' a muffled voice yells over the madness and hysteria.

  Instinct takes over. I clamber to my feet, tripping and stumbling over rubble and the remains of bodies, and then push my way forward through the clouds of dust and crowds of terrified figures. There is gunfire and confusion all around me. A woman immediately in front of me is shot. For a split second I see blood, flesh and bone explode from her shoulder and she falls to the ground like a limp rag doll. I can't do anything but run straight over her corpse. There's a tide of desperate people moving behind me and I can't stop, I have no option but to keep moving along with the wave of bodies. I look up and see that we're running towards more soldiers with their guns raised. But these soldiers aren't wearing masks. Their faces and eyes are unprotected and I know immediately that they're on our side. Thank God, these people are on our side.

  Still we continue to stumble through the carnage, the ground beneath our feet becoming more uneven and littered with debris. The remains of people like me mix freely with the remains of enemy soldiers. In this grotesque bloodbath they are impossible to separate. No explosion can differentiate between us and them. All around me I can see severed arms and legs, shattered bones and twisted pieces of razor sharp metal.

  'Keep moving,' another voice yells. I feel rain on my face and I realise that I'm outside again, although there are still low mounds of rubble on either side of me which used to be walls. Others have stopped but I keep moving. Another deafening noise distracts me and I look up to see a helicopter roaring low overhead. It unleashes a missile into a long line of trucks which stand idly alongside what's left of the now burning building I've just escaped from. Christ, this is a fucking full-scale war. I sprint across an area of uneven wasteland and throw myself to the ground as more munitions explode nearby. There's a brilliant flash of light to my left and I feel my body being shunted along the ground by the immense force of yet another blast. I'm deafened in one ear and I struggle to regain my balance as I pick myself up and try to move forward again. All around me are the bodies of those who have fallen. A young man's face has taken the full force of the explosion. His lifeless eyes stare up at me helplessly. The bottom of his face, everything below his top lip, has gone. At my feet is the body of a woman, face down in the rubble. Its back is blackened and charred and much of its clothing has been burned away. It could be Karin, the girl from the queue. For a fraction of a second I think about turning her over to see but I know that it's pointless. It doesn't matter.

  In the sky directly above me a second helicopter swoops down and fires into the building I've just escaped from, killing scores of unprotected people who continue to pick their way through the rubble. I manage to take a few more staggering steps away before throwing myself back down again as the first helicopter turns and opens fire on the second. A precisely-placed missile hits the middle of its tail boom, taking the rotor clean off and sending the aircraft spiralling down to the ground where it explodes, filling the night with more fire. There is mayhem all around me now, the deafening noise and hysteria of an all-out battle to the death. But who is fighting?

  'Get out of here,' a soldier yells, picking people like me up off the ground and pushing them on. I follow the crowd, heading towards an open gate in what's left of the chain-link fence which surrounded this place. Almost as one we run along a gravel track which snakes away into the darkness. Now that we're free we move like a pack, hunting together. The enemy here are few and far between. When we discover them we swarm over them and rip them apart. Behind me the burning building is bathed in light. I look back at it long enough to see hundreds of figures running away from it in every direction.

  More soldiers usher us along a track which climbs up into the darkness as another helicopter swoops low overhead. Friend or foe? It's impossible to tell until it launches a volley of missiles into the crowds on the ground. As another ball of flame stretches high up into the sky behind me the sudden increase in light enables me to properly see my surroundings for the first time. The ground below us is littered with an incredible number of bodies. Many of them are victims of the battle now raging but it's clear from their location that many more corpses are those of people like me who have been executed by the others. Their cadavers have been stacked up, ready for disposal. Here alone hundreds of people have been killed. How many other places like this are there, and how many more would have died here tonight? How many of us have been murdered by these bastards, and who are the Haters now?

  The top of this low hill now looms ahead of me. I dig in and keep running, my feet slipping and sliding in the greasy mud. I can hear more fighting up ahead and I run towards it, now desperate to be a part of the battle and wanting to take revenge for all the death and destruction I've seen. A few more breathless seconds and I've finally reached the top of the climb. Another huge explosion once again bathes the world in light and I can see a wave of enemy soldiers advancing towards us. Unprotected and without any fear of the consequences I sprint at them. I glance from side to side and see that there are hundreds of people like me moving forward as one. We must destroy them before they can destroy any more of us.

  The first of the enemy I reach is firing into the crowd. She has her back to me. Without pausing for thought I leap up onto her back and wrap my arms around her neck. I grab her chin and the back of her head and twist as hard as I can, feeling massive satisfaction as her neck snaps and she crumbles to the ground. In seconds I'm up again, already looking for the next kill. One of them has their weapon aimed directly at me. Before they can fire I run straight at them and charge them down. I move with a speed and power I have never felt before and I feel alive. Faced with death I actually feel more alive! I wrestle the soldier's rifle from his pathetically weak grip and shove its barrel round and hard into his mouth. I fire and watch the top of his head explode into the mud. All around me this animal instinct is taking over and we are killing to keep ourselves alive. This is what I was born to do.

  Now another. I rip off a trooper's battle helmet and turn the pathetic creature around to face me. Those eyes. Those fucking eyes glare at me and they are filled with utter hate. I push my thumbs into the sockets and gouge the damn things out, leaving the soldier screaming and writhing on the ground.

  All of the confusion and uncertainty has gone. The pain has disappeared. Without fear we fight with unparalleled strength and ferocity. I snap bones and tear flesh and end lives again and again and again.

  In the flashes of light and fire which still fill the skies all around here I am able to see the full extent of this battle. It now stretches across a huge expanse of land. It is brutal and relentless, basic and almost medieval. Weapons have been cast aside. This fight is hand-to-hand - one-on-one - and our enemy has no answer to our strength and determination. They may have numbers but we have more than that. We have the desire to destroy them and to protect ourselves and others like us. Every one of us will fight with the last breath in our bodies.

 
Another helicopter rises up in the sky in front of me. I look up and watch as four snaking trails of fire whip across the darkness over my head accompanied by an ear-piercing whistle and a sudden gust of red-hot air. I look back just long enough to see missiles strike the battered and now virtually empty remains of the building we escaped from. There is a momentary pause - like the shortest possible gap between lighting and thunder - followed by the loudest explosion I've yet heard as the hellish place is blasted into a million burning pieces. Even from this distance I can feel the heat of the fire on my skin.

  A knife flashes at me from out of nowhere and slices my arm. The adrenaline disguises the pain I feel and I immediately turn on my attacker. He swipes his blade at me again. Somehow I am able to catch his hand midway through its arc. I twist his fist back in on itself and then force the knife round into his own gut. He falls next to the burning shell of an overturned vehicle. Where did I learn to do this? Where did this strength and speed come from? This is instinctive and unstoppable.

  'Move out,' a voice screams, barely audible over the confusion. I look up and see that the battle on the hillside is petering out. Although the fighting around what remains of the building below us is continuing, up here on the ridge we have destroyed the enemy. 'Keep moving forward,' the voice instructs. I follow the rest of the crowd as we begin to scramble through the darkness.

  43

  It's late and out here the world is silent. The noise of battle has long since faded away to nothing. Still surrounded by hordes of others we move quickly through the empty countryside. Armed scouts guide us through the darkness. I don't know where we're going, but I know that I can trust these people and I follow on regardless. I have a feeling in the pit of my stomach which tells me that before long I might finally start getting answers to some of the thousands of questions I've been desperate to ask.

  We've marched for more than an hour now and have seen and heard no-one else. Our route has avoided all roads and buildings and virtually all other signs of civilisation. Now we're moving along the base of a deep valley, shielded from view by trees and bushes.

  We stop.

  'In here,' one of our guides says, ushering us towards a large copse. Without question we move into the trees, stopping only when we've reached the densest part of the woods. The light in here is almost non-existent. One of the scouts kicks around in the undergrowth, seeming to be looking for something. Her foot strikes a small mound in the leaf-covered ground. She bends down and grabs the strap of a bag which one of them must have hidden there previously. She pulls the strap and drags up a large rucksack. Leaves and dirt fall from it as she stands it up and brushes it down. She opens the pack and starts to empty it out.

  'Sit down and rest,' one of the other scouts says as his colleague throws packets of food and bottles of water to us. 'Get your strength back,' he continues, 'then listen to the message and leave.'

  The message? What message? What's he talking about? I decide that I'll find out later. Right now eating my first food in more than a day is more important than anything else.

  I'm sitting with three other people. In the middle of us is a mobile phone, set up ready to play the message. This message, our guides inform us, is as close to the truth as we'll get tonight. It has been distributed as a file by people like us and has spread around the country like a computer virus. It now sits on hundreds of thousands of phones, computers, media players and other devices, too widespread to be deleted.

  'Chris who?' a man sitting next to me asks.

  'Chris Ankin,' one of the guides replies.

  'Who the hell's he?'

  'He was a politician,' he explains. 'Used to be fairly high-ranking in Defence. He was an adviser to the government when it began. He got to hear a hell of a lot of information before he changed.'

  'So where is he now?'

  'Rumour has it he's dead.'

  'Great.'

  'Doesn't matter. He did what he wanted to do before they got him.'

  'What was that?'

  'He wanted to let us know what was happening. He wanted to warn us. He wanted to try and coordinate us.'

  'Coordinate us?'

  'Make sure we all know what we have to do.'

  'And what's that?'

  'Why don't you just play the fucking message?'

  The man leans forward and picks up the phone. He struggles with the controls for a second but soon manages to locate the file and starts it playing. At first the words are hard to make out. He adjusts the volume and lifts up the phone so that we can all hear what's being said.

  'If you're listening to this,' Ankin's weary voice says, sounding tinny and distorted, 'chances are you don't have a clue what's happened to you or what's happened to the rest of the country. You won't know why you feel the way you do or why your life has just been turned upside down. I'll give you some information but I won't be able to answer all of your questions. I'll tell you what I know but that's not what's important now. Ultimately it doesn't matter why this has happened or what caused it, what matters is how we deal with it. Because of the unprecedented nature of the change and its effects on our society we need to act now and we need to act quickly. There will be time enough to look for reasons when the fight is over.'

  I shuffle on the ground and glance at the other faces gathered around the telephone. They stare at the small handset with bewildered expressions. I'm not sure if anyone believes what they're hearing.

  'Put simply,' Ankin's voice continues, 'there is a fundamental genetic difference between us and them. A fundamental and basic difference which, until now, has remained dormant. I can't yet tell you why, but something has happened to trigger a change, and that change has created the hate. If you're hoping for me to give you a more scientific explanation, I can't. If you're waiting for me to explain why we can no longer exist alongside the people we loved, lived with and worked with just a couple of weeks ago, I can't. One day we'll understand, but today we don't have the luxury of having either the time or resources to find out.

  'Initially it was presumed that the change was limited to just a small minority of people. Before it happened to me, while I was still in office, I saw figures which indicated that our numbers are much greater than was first thought. It's likely that as many as three people in every ten are like us. That's around thirty percent of the population. That's enough to take the fight to them and stand a chance.

  'The change strips away some of the restraint we used to have. In very basic terms it makes us less susceptible to bullshit and more likely to take action. The change seems almost to amplify our instincts. We immediately know who is like us and we know who isn't. We know who poses a threat to us and who is on our side. Many of the layers of conditioning and control imposed upon us by society have been stripped away by the change and no longer apply. Now you fight when you need to fight and you destroy the enemy because you know that they will destroy you if you give them half a chance.

  'Until now we've discriminated against each other according to race, religion, age, gender and just about every other differentiation imaginable. Look around you tonight and you'll see that those differences are gone. Now, to put things as simplistically as possible, there is just 'us' and 'them', and it is impossible for us to coexist. We have no alternative but to fight, and we must keep fighting until we have wiped them out.

  'The change has spread across the world with an incredible speed. No corner of the planet has been left untouched. We are everywhere. You must remember that we are not the underdogs. Their advantage over us is in physical numbers only. We have served at every level and among us we have experts in every profession. Among us we have every skill imaginable. We have everything we need to fight them and destroy them.

  'Forget your past. Forget your families and friends and who you used to be. In time some kind of normality will be restored. Until then we have no alternative but to fight.'

  The message ends and I look at the phone in disbelief. Is this a joke? Can any of this really be
true? For a moment I'm overloaded, unable to take it all in. Then my mind begins to fill with memories of the events of the last week and particularly of the last day - the killings, the battles, the bloodshed, the emotions - and I know that every word I've just heard is true. I remember the feelings of strength and power I felt as I killed the enemy soldiers with my hands just a few hours ago and I know that it's all real. Impossible and unproven but real.

  SUNDAY

  44

  The dead politician's words still rattle round my head as I wake up. I've slept for little more than an hour but I feel as refreshed as if I've slept all night. I look up at the canopy of leaves and twisted branches above my head. A familiar face stares back at me.

  'Thought it was you,' says Patrick. 'You managed to get away then.'

  I sit up quickly. He reaches out his hand and I shake it. I look around and see that many more people have arrived here while I've been asleep.

  'You okay,' I ask as I stand up and stretch.

  'Absolutely bloody brilliant,' he replies, grinning from ear to ear. 'You?'

  I think before answering. In less than twenty-four hours I've lost everything that used to matter to me. I should feel battered, devastated and empty but I don't. I echo Patrick's sentiment. I feel incredible. I feel alive. My body is full of energy and strength. My mind is clear. I'm ready to do what I have to do.

  'Never felt like this before,' I tell him. 'I've never felt this good.'

  It isn't long before we move on. The scouts who brought us to this place tell us that there's a small town on the other side of this valley. We'll start there. I know exactly what I have to do. I'm ready now to go into the streets and destroy as many of them as I can find. This battle is only just beginning.