Chokehold Read online

  Children next, then the remaining adults. Next one through. And the next and the next. And a few sodden bags and boxes, for what it’s worth. Then more people, and now those who are left are competing with each other to be the next in line. Darren’s bringing up the rear, barking out orders. He convinces himself he’s trying to help everyone else and get them up, but the reality is he doesn’t want to be the one who doesn’t make it. The water’s up to his chin now, so cold he’s numb. He knows you’re supposed to stay calm in cold water and not thrash around, but he thinks if he stays calm now, he’ll die in here. The flood is pouring over the top of the broken door. He reaches for the top edge to haul himself up and over but loses his grip and is sucked below the surface. He’s kicking and fighting, swallowing more and more of the foul-tasting mire. His eyes are open, but he sees nothing but black, and he’s only vaguely aware when a couple of hands manage to grab hold of his flailing limbs and pull him out.

  Darren’s dumped on the ground in a layer of mud several inches thick. He bucks and flaps like a fish on dry land, eyes screwed shut in the brightness after months of almost complete dark. When he finally opens them, he sees there’s nothing left of the printing house and the industrial estate. Thirty-two soaked survivors stand bunched up together on a vast, featureless plateau of gray-brown mud, just a few piles of salvaged gear between them. The occasional heaps and mounds in the oily muck are the only indications there was ever anything here. Otherwise, there’s nothing. Absolutely nothing.

  Right now, the state of the dead world into which they’ve emerged is more frightening than the prospect of imminent enemy attack. Jason realizes the danger and scans their surroundings, looking for signs of them. He’s sure they must be here. Fuckers are everywhere, so how could they not be? His eyes are stinging through a combination of dirt and the sudden brightness, running with bitter tears. He freezes when he hears someone whistle from way over to their left. He spins around and slips, almost losing his footing, ready for the inevitable Hater attack. He struggles to focus. Wait … that’s no Hater.

  Kara pushes past him, sliding in the mire, shivering with cold. “It’s Matt,” she says.

  They might have tried to keep their distance from him in the bunker, but right now there’s not a single man or woman who’s not delighted to see Matthew Dunne standing a hundred or so meters away, beckoning them over.

  At first, it looks like he’s found a building to shelter in, but as Kara approaches, she realizes it’s what’s left of the truck he’d used to drive them to the printing house all those weeks ago. It’s been picked up and thrown around like everything else and has landed at an awkward angle in a furrow, wheels sticking up. Were it not for the open roller shutter, they’d probably have never seen it. It’s completely covered in the same ash- and mud-covered gloop as everything else.

  There’s a piercing wind whipping across this alien-looking tundra, colder than the water that drenched them. They trudge over to where Matt’s waiting, and he helps them into the back of the truck. “How did you know we were out?” Kara asks, teeth chattering. He reaches down and pulls her inside.

  “Jesus, you were making enough noise to wake the dead.”

  * * *

  Thirty-three of them in total. They wonder if they’re all that’s left of the human race.

  It’s dark again now, and colder than ever, but they’ve wedged the roller door at the back of the truck shut, and inside it’s relatively dry. They’ve some salvaged supplies, and they know this is as good as it’s going to get tonight. Tracy Barnish, an ex-GP, is checking people over by flashlight, assessing cuts and bruises as best she can and trying to prevent them dying of hypothermia.

  Matt managed to piece together what happened here. He explained that the landslide they’d heard a couple of days back must have brought down the remnants of the already partially collapsed distribution center next door to the printing house and that its exposed foundations had filled with water. The constant rain had swollen the artificial lake until it broke its banks and flooded the remains of the building adjacent. He’d seen it coming, he tells them.

  “And you didn’t think to warn us?” someone yells back at him from the darkness.

  “Would you have let me back in if I’d tried? Would you have even opened the door?”

  “Then why did you bother staying? Why not just disappear?”

  “I told Darren I thought you’d all end up out here sooner or later.”

  “And you thought you’d wait here to come to the rescue?” Jason says, sarcastic.

  “Yes. Look, if it weren’t for me, you’d probably still be walking through the mud, looking for somewhere to hide.”

  “So what now?” Kara asks. “We’ve got hardly any food and no way of cooking it or even getting the tins open. We’re soaked, but there’s no water fit to drink, and we’ve got nothing to burn and no way of lighting a fire.”

  “We’ll survive,” Darren says, loud enough for everyone to hear. “There’s got to be somewhere. We’ll start looking in the morning.”

  Hollow words fall on deaf ears.

  “You’re not even convincing yourself, mate,” Kara says, but Darren ignores her and continues.

  “There can’t have been many people who’ve survived like we have. Who else is going to be in such good shape?”

  “Good shape?” Kara says. “Get a grip, Darren. We’re freezing cold and starving. I don’t reckon I’m ever going to dry out.” There’s plenty more she could say, but she stops herself because she knows it won’t help anyone, and in the gaps where her words would be, all they can hear instead is more driving rain. There’s a growl of thunder in the distance, loud enough to make the sides of the upturned truck rattle and shake. Ominous. Seems to go on forever.

  Darren changes tack. “Remember all the things we talked about while we were waiting to leave the city and all the stuff we’ve talked about since? We don’t have any choice; we have to keep going. We have to survive because we might be all that’s left now. We’re the future of the human race.”

  It takes all his self-control, but Matt manages to keep his mouth shut. He thinks Darren’s full of shit, but right now his vague words and empty promises are all any of them have left to cling to.

  6

  The Hunt

  Johannson’s fighters have been on the road for several days now. In twos and threes, others in packs, some alone, some on foot, others behind the wheel, they’ve spread out from Cambridge across the flooded countryside in a semi-coordinated wave, armed with the arrogance that comes from knowing they’re completely fucking untouchable. Even the weakest of them believe they’ll be stronger and better equipped than anyone else they find alive out here.

  A supermarket delivery van has been repurposed as a makeshift troop transporter. Jordan Keller is leading this particularly shabby group, and this truck is his lucky ride. There’s something about the way it looks that disarms people, he’s discovered. The colorful supermarket livery and the once-familiar logos and slogans are distracting. Folks see the innocuous-looking vehicle coming toward them and feel a fuzzy nostalgia, not the sheer terror they should. Back in the early days, Keller used to play dumb. He’d just park and sit in the back, wait for no-good Unchanged stragglers to turn up and start sniffing around for scraps of food. They’d find the truck and open it up, and the last thing they’d expect was for him to come flying out at them with his blades and his clubs. The deception could only have been any more perfect if Keller had been driving an ice cream van.

  He has another six fighters with him today. There’s a trio—two women and a man who had a vague association before the war and who’ve, more through chance than design, stuck together so far. They’re good. They work hard and fight hard, and Keller couldn’t ask for more right now. There’s also an impossibly tall Asian guy, and two more blokes who are decent enough, run-of-the-mill fighters and who, most importantly, do what he tells them.

  The group is working its way on foot along a desolate r
esidential street at one end of a ghost village when another vehicle arrives, making a hell of a noise. It’s the kind of car that used to be a boy racer’s dream: a bright red Subaru Impreza. The driver parks nose to nose with the supermarket truck and gets out.

  “Looking for something, Bryce?” Keller asks.

  “Ullah sent me this way.”

  “Then you can go back and tell Ullah we’ve got this place covered.”

  “Tell him yourself.”

  Another man gets out of the Subaru and starts mooching through a pile of debris at the side of the road. “Can’t you just get on and work together?” he asks, sounding tired and hopelessly naïve. Annoyed, Keller goes for him, but Bryce gets there first. He shoves McCoyne backward into the waste he was just inspecting.

  “You should learn to keep your damn mouth shut.”

  McCoyne stands up and brushes himself down. He takes a couple of steps back to make sure he’s out of range, then clears his throat. “There’s no one here. This place isn’t worth arguing about.”

  “And how would you know?” Keller demands.

  He shrugs. “I can just tell.”

  “Who is this prick?” Keller asks Bryce.

  “He’s nobody. Just here to make up the numbers.”

  McCoyne ignores them both and keeps talking. “You’re not going to find anyone around here. We’ve hardly seen any Unchanged in weeks. And when we do find them, they’re never in places like this, are they? It’s places like this where they know we’ll be looking.”

  Bryce and Keller both just stare at him. He has a point.

  “So why are we here?” McCoyne asks. Now he’s the one asking the questions.

  “Because this is where Johannson told us to be,” Keller immediately answers.

  “Yes, but why here?”

  “Because this was the next point on the map that the boss and her generals wanted checking out.”

  “You still don’t get it, do you? Look around you. You can see this place has been turned over time and time again. There’s nothing and no one left here, but you’ve both been sent in again regardless. The boss may be many things, but she’s not stupid. There has to be a reason.”

  Bryce is also flummoxed. Is he missing something? “You heard Johannson the other night. She’s expanding her empire. Pushing out from the center. Taking more ground.”

  “Yeah, you’re right, I suppose,” McCoyne says, though he doesn’t sound convinced.

  “You don’t believe her?” Keller asks.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “So what are you thinking?”

  “Nothing.”

  Bryce corners McCoyne against the side of the supermarket truck. “Tell us what you’re thinking or I’ll snap your scrawny neck.”

  He probably could, too.

  “Look, all I’m saying is there are better ways to build an empire, and I think Johannson knows that. I don’t think we’re out here spreading the word, I think she’s using us to suss out who else is left.”

  “Same thing, ain’t it?” Keller says, confused.

  “No, I don’t think so. She’s not interested in who we bring back; I think the only thing she’s watching is who comes back at all.”

  7

  Exposed

  They can tell from the grubby light seeping in under the door of the truck that it’s morning. There’s been little rest since the panicked exodus from the flooded shelter. Adrenaline and fear kept the group awake long into the night, but exhaustion eventually overtook all of them. Kara shuffles down toward the door, concerned because it wasn’t open before. “Who’s missing?” she asks.

  “Matthew Dunne,” someone answers. “Who d’you think?”

  Kara opens the roller a little farther and sticks her head out. “Get back inside,” Darren orders. “We’re a group, remember? We need to work together. Stick together.”

  “Whatever,” she says, and with that, she lowers herself down into the mud.

  Matt’s a short distance away from the truck, standing up to his ankles in sludge at the foot of a low, slime-covered hill. He hears her squelching footsteps approaching. “You could never creep up on anyone in this shit,” he says, glancing back to see who it is.

  “What are you doing?”

  He stands with his hands on his hips and takes his time answering, scanning their alien-like surroundings. There’s a brief intermission in the rain, and the sun is just about visible through a layer of insipid, almost ghostly clouds.

  “I’m thinking we need to move. It’s relatively safe at the moment, but it won’t last. That landslide or whatever it was did us a favor and got rid of anyone near, but it’s only going to be temporary. Others will come.”

  “I agree. But where do we go? You’re probably the only one who knows this area.”

  “Hardly. I drove here a couple of times, that’s all. And besides, it looks nothing like it used to. We could be anywhere.”

  He starts to climb the hill, every step taking ten times the effort it should. He feels like he’s halfway up the incline, but when he looks back he’s barely moved. He sees Kara looking up at him and, beyond her, a few more brave souls have ventured outside. The only other distinguishing feature is the sinkhole that marks the entrance to their abandoned underground shelter, little more than a dimple on the surface of the mud flats now.

  Because some of the group has moved, the rest follow like sheep. Carrying the few supplies they’ve managed to keep hold of, they trudge toward Matt. He watches Darren, who looks around their unearthly surroundings like a wide-eyed child, hopelessly out of his depth. And behind him is a motley collection of thirty or so equally unprepared individuals. “This is going to be interesting,” he says under his breath.

  “What is?” Kara asks.

  “This lot,” he replies, gesturing at the approaching bunch.

  “Ease up on them, will you?”

  “I’m just concerned, that’s all. You were all sheltered from the worst of everything that’s happened since the war began. You had weeks in the camp followed by weeks underground. I just don’t know how some of these people are going to cope.”

  “What are you thinking?” Darren asks when he reaches him, struggling to keep his balance.

  “We have to move. Can’t stay here,” Matt tells him, and for once, Darren doesn’t argue.

  “So where do we go?”

  “Back toward the city.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Think about it. You’d have to be insane to head back toward the center of the bomb blast. Everyone will have spent weeks trying to go the other way. We don’t need to get that close. Maybe just as far as the suburbs.”

  “You sound like you’ve got it all thought out.”

  “Maybe I have. You should have planned for it, too. We all knew something like this was probably going to happen sooner or later. Shit always happens.”

  Matt decides there’s no point prolonging the conversation and continues up the hill.

  “I think he’s right,” Kara says to the others. “It makes sense. The city’s a dead place. There’s no reason anyone would try to go back there.”

  “But what about radioactivity?” Jason asks.

  Tracy Barnish is listening closely. “I don’t think it’s going to make much difference now.”

  “What, you suddenly a nuclear physicist, Trace?”

  “No, but I was GP, remember? I got involved in occasional civil defense exercises as it happens. This is just common sense.”

  “Go on,” Darren says.

  “We’re, what, about twenty miles from the city?” She gestures as the vast, empty space around them. “Fallout is carried by the wind and rain, and there’s no shelter whatever direction we go in. We’re exposed whatever we do. Besides, from what I remember, the radiation is at its worst in the first few weeks. We’ve been underground for months. It’ll likely be down to relatively safe levels by now.”

  “Relatively safe?”

  “Yes, and that’s
the best we can hope for right now. I agree with Kara. Matt’s got the right idea. We don’t know how many bombs there were or where they hit. Might have just been the one, might have been a hundred, but there’s nothing we can do about it. Seriously, I’m more concerned about being caught out here in the open by Haters.”

  “We’ll see them coming.”

  “And they’ll see us. They might already be watching. When we first got out of the bunker, I thought it might be an advantage being surrounded by all this space, but it’s not. It leaves us exposed.”

  * * *

  It takes an age for them to reach the top of the hill. Matt feels the ground beneath his feet beginning to level out at long last. It’s a hell of a walk back to the city from here, but it’ll be a hell of a walk anywhere today. He glances back at the rest of the group. They’re still following, though the line is stretching. Some are struggling to keep up. Others are slowed down looking after the handful of children to have made it this far.

  “You okay, Matt?” Kara asks.

  “Yep. You?”

  She just nods, panting hard with effort.

  “See anything?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  When Kara reaches the top, she stops, too. There are no words to fully describe what lies ahead of them. The dead world stretches away into the mist in all its hopeless glory. Even after everything they’ve already seen, the scale of the devastation is hard to comprehend. It’s endless, absolutely endless. There’s not a sign of life anywhere, not a single bird in the sky. The only movement is the low cloud that races overhead at a furious pace, driven by an icy wind. There are no leaves on the trees. No grass.

  “Fuck me,” Kara says, numb with shock.

  The longer Matt’s staring, the more he’s gradually able to make out. He can see what looks like the remains of the battle through which he’d driven to get to the printing house: a freeze-frame convoy of heat-charred vehicle shells. He thought he’d seen it all, but this … this is beyond compare.