Them or Us (19 page)

25

THE COLD AIR OUTSIDE
hits my chest like a hammer blow, but I keep moving. I run back toward the farm, but I’ve scarcely made it to the top of the rise before I’m doubled over with pain, coughing so violently I can hardly breathe, making so much foul noise that the solitary cow bolts and runs for cover again. I make it back to the buildings, stumbling down the slope. In a momentary gap between painful convulsions I manage to suck in a lungful of air and spit a lump of sticky, dribbling phlegm against a wall. I watch it as it slowly drips down to the ground. My spit is red-brown and streaked with blood, and there’s a foul metallic aftertaste in my mouth. Fuck. What’s happening to me? I’m falling apart, physically and mentally. I slump back against the wall of the burned-out farmhouse, too weak to stay standing, sobbing with the pain. Christ, it hurts.

Peter Sutton slowly approaches. I wish he’d fuck off and leave me alone, but I’m too tired to fight or argue.

“I’m sorry,” he says pathetically. “There was no other way.”

“You should never have brought me here,” I tell him again, still wheezing badly.

“I didn’t know what else to do. I’m desperate, Danny. I didn’t have any choice. When I saw you in Southwold and realized you were like me…”

I slide farther down the wall and land hard on my backside on the ice-cold dirt.

“You
did
have a choice. You still do. You can just walk away from this place right now and not look back. Just forget about them.”

“Is that what you’re going to do?”

“That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” I tell him, pausing midsentence to clutch my chest as another wave of cramping pain takes hold. It’s snowing hard now, and I can feel my face and hands starting to freeze.

“You know I can’t do that,” he says, standing over me and looking down. He helps me sit up straight again.

“Why not? What’s stopping you? Why not just leave them down there to starve to death? It’ll be easier on them in the long run. Better than being forced out into the open and killed, and that’s what’s going to happen eventually. They can’t stay down there forever.”

“Those people down there are more human than most of what’s up here.”

“Then maybe it’s time to redefine ‘human.’”

He shakes his head and crouches down in front of me. I gasp for breath as the painful cramps return yet again. I’m shivering now. Shaking. Freezing cold. Sutton continues to watch me, but I can’t read his expression. Can barely even focus on his face through the snow.

“You’re in a bad way. Listen, there’s a doctor here. One of the women back there, Tracey, she used to be a GP. She might be able to do something to help you.”

“You think I’m going to let one of the Unchanged touch me? Jesus Christ—”

“Come on, rise above this, Danny. I really need your help.”

“The best way I can help is to bring Hinchcliffe here and finish this today.”

“You won’t do that, I know you won’t. I understand why you’re feeling this way, and I’ve listened to everything you said, but you know as well as I do that I can’t just abandon these people. I can’t give up on my own flesh and blood.”

I have to tell him. Have to try to make him see.

“After I met Mallon,” I explain, speaking slowly, trying to conserve energy, “I went into one of their refugee camps. We were sent there to kill, but I was looking for my family. I needed to find out what had happened to my daughter ’cause I knew she was like us.”

He looks confused.

“But if she was like us…?”

“I knew her mother would have done everything she could to try to keep the kids together. I managed to track her down, and I was right. She had Ellis drugged and locked up.”

There’s an awkward silence. He’s knows there’s no happy ending to my story because of the comment I made to Mallon earlier, and because there are no happy endings anymore.

“I tried to take her with me and get out of the city, but it was impossible. She wasn’t my little girl anymore. There was nothing left of her but Hate. Christ, Peter, you should have seen her. She didn’t even know me. I had to fight with her just to try to get her to safety. The city was tearing itself apart all around us, but all she wanted to do was keep killing. I managed to get us just out of range of the bomb blast, but even then, even after what had happened and what we’d been through, she still kept on fighting. Her Hate wasn’t like the Hate that made you and me fight, it was a thousand times worse than that. It had poisoned her to the core.”

“So where is she now?”

“Dead, probably.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

I slowly manage to drag myself back up onto my feet, my legs heavy. I clear my throat, spit again, and take a few slow, painful steps.

“You need to understand that you’re not helping anybody by doing this. I’ve come to a conclusion, and I think you need to do the same. This world is dying. It’s sick to the core and there’s no hope left. You and me, we’ll grow old and die or we’ll get ourselves killed, and in the end there will only be people like Hinchcliffe, his fighters, and the worst of the children left. If you’d seen the things I’d seen, then you’d know that your grandson back there doesn’t stand a chance. None of the kids do, and without kids, there’s no future. You should just block the bunker door and bury the lot of them. Now get me back to Lowestoft.”

I start to walk away but stop again, sensing that he hasn’t followed. Every extra movement takes ten times the effort it should, but I slowly turn back around.

“I think you’re wrong,” he says.

“Well, I know I’m right.”

“Just answer one question for me, Danny. Why did you bother?”

“What?”

“Looking for your daughter and wife … why did you bother?”

“Because I didn’t know what Ellis had become. Because I had this fucking stupid idea in my head that she’d be just as I left her and we’d stay fighting side by side together until the war was over. I thought some kind of normality might eventually return, but it won’t. The world is dead.”

“Not yet it isn’t.”

“Jesus, Peter, my own daughter didn’t even recognize me.”

“You said you had other kids. What happened to them?”

“Ellis killed them.”

“How many?”

“Two boys.”

“Both Unchanged?”

“Yes.”

I go on walking back to the car. He goes on talking.

“So tell me,” he shouts after me, “knowing what you know now, if I’d taken you down into that bunker today and you’d seen that one of your Unchanged sons had survived, would you still be turning your back on them?”

26

SUTTON DROVE ME BACK
to the house. True to his word, he left me there with barely any protest. He started to talk about ways I could find him again if I changed my mind, but I told him not to bother. I told him I didn’t want to see him again, and that if I did, I’d kill him. I told him I’d have to tell Hinchcliffe. He said it didn’t make any difference because the bunker’s secure. Unless Hinchcliffe’s got a few oxyacetylene burners or a tank lying around, he said, it doesn’t matter. No one’s getting in, and the Unchanged aren’t about to come out.

The house wasn’t where I needed to be, though. I waited there for a couple of hours longer and tried to pull myself together, hoping that the constant thumping in my head would stop and I’d start to feel better. I’d been telling myself it was just the aftereffects of the beer from last night, or the food I’d eaten yesterday, or the dog the day before that, or whatever I’d done the previous day or last week, but I knew it wasn’t.

This is serious. I can’t go on like this. I’m getting worse every day. I’m back inside the compound now, walking toward Hinchcliffe’s factory, about to do something I should have done a long time ago. I need help.

The snow’s stopped and it’s pissing down with rain now, adding to the misery. The late afternoon sky is filled with endless black clouds. The guard on the approach road recognizes me and lets me through. Other than him I see only one more guard. He’s standing just inside the entrance door at the end of the factory where the Unchanged kids are held, sheltering from the rain. I’m scared, and I lose my nerve before I get too close and walk straight past, heading instead toward the enormous, useless wind turbine that towers over everything. It’s a symbol of what this place once was and what it’ll never be again; the ultimate physical manifestation of all Hinchcliffe’s bullshit.

It’s no good. I can’t put this off any longer.

I walk back the other way, and this time the guard in the doorway sees me and yells at me to either “get over here or fuck off.” He’s wrapped up against the bitter cold, wearing so many layers that he looks grossly overweight. His mouth is hidden by a scarf and his upturned collar, and he has ski goggles covering his eyes. He has a rifle slung over his shoulder. I presume it’s there to stop escapees rather than to prevent anyone breaking in.

“What do you want?” he demands, his voice muffled.

“Rona Scott,” I answer. “I need to see her.”

“Says who?”

“Says Hinchcliffe.”

He lifts up his goggles and eyes me up and down, then pulls his scarf down a couple of inches, just enough to clear his mouth, making it easier to speak.

“I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?”

“Have you?”

“Yeah … ain’t you the one what finds the Unchanged?”

“That’s me,” I answer quickly, desperate to get out of the cold. It’s raining even harder now, the water bouncing back up off the pavement. “Look, is the doctor here? I need to see her.”

He stops to think again. This guy’s not the smartest, and that’s probably why he drew the short straw and ended up being posted out here on his own. I can’t tell whether he’s trying to psych me out with these long, silent pauses or if he’s just slow. I reach inside my coat, and he reacts to my sudden movement, swinging his rifle around.

“Don’t,” I tell him, raising my hands to show I don’t want any trouble. When he relaxes I take out a can of beer from my pocket, hoping to speed up this painfully drawn-out encounter with a little bribery. He halfheartedly tries to remain impassive and hard, but I can see a sudden glint in his eye. He’s like a kid looking in a toy store window.

“Inside,” he says as he takes the can from me. He glances from side to side before moving out of the way to let me pass. As if anyone else is going to have followed me out here. Fucking idiot.

The building is oppressively quiet save for a few muffled sounds in the distance, and it’s no warmer indoors than out. I’ve never made it this far in before. This end of the complex looks like it was mostly office space. I’m in an open-plan reception area, which has been turned into a checkpoint by Hinchcliffe’s guard, and it reminds me of the reception desk back at the housing project where I used to work. There are a couple of rooms filled with rubbish leading off from here, and a wide staircase that goes up to the second floor. There’s also another door into a corridor, long and straight and dark, which I presume leads into the rest of the factory. Curious, I walk toward it and try to peer in through a porthole-shaped safety glass window.

“Not that way,” the guard says, making me jump.

“Where, then?”

No response. He looks at me expectantly. I dig down into the pockets of my coat again and this time bring out a packet of sweets. I don’t know where they came from or why I’ve got them. I found them in the house before I came out and thought they might be useful.

“This is all I’ve got,” I tell him, talking to him like I used to talk to my children. “Where’s the doctor?”

He points up the stairs.

“Up there there’s a load of offices. She’s in one of them. Second or third floor, don’t know which.”

“Thanks for your help,” I say sarcastically as I chuck him his sweets.

Dripping wet and exhausted, I start to climb up the metal steps, my boots clanging and filling the building with noise. At the top of the first flight of stairs is an open door and, beyond it, another narrow corridor with three doors along one side and one at the far end. Fortunately there are long rectangular windows in each of the doors that allow me to see inside. Rona Scott is sitting in the first room, slouched in a chair, staring straight ahead. This must have been some kind of meeting room or training area once. There’s no other furniture now except for a long gray desk beside her that’s covered with rubbish and clutter. I pause before trying to attract her attention, feeling undeniably nervous. Wait. She’s talking. Is someone in there with her?

Scott looks exhausted. Her face is flustered, her cheeks bloodred, and she’s smoking a cigarette, flicking ash onto the dirty terra-cotta-colored carpet. I’ve spoken to her (rather, she’s spoken
at
me) on a few occasions before today, and I don’t relish the prospect of having to talk to her again. She’s a foul-tempered woman at the best of times, and I’m tempted just to turn around now and go back to the house rather than face her. She suddenly gets up, moving unexpectedly quickly, and I step back to stay in the shadows, keeping out of sight but still able to see her through the glass. From my new position I can see that the room is actually double length, and the far end is in almost total darkness. There’s a concertina-like folding wall across the middle, which has been left half open. Scott strides purposefully through the gap and disappears out of view.

“Do something, you useless little prick!” she yells at someone unseen, her bellowing voice muffled but still clearly audible even through the closed door. “For god’s sake, come on!”

The hostility in her voice is unnerving, and I actually start to edge back toward the stairs before telling myself to get a grip. She reappears again and mooches through the clutter on the table. She picks something up—looks like an open glass jar—then moves back into the shadows.

“You know you want it,” I hear her shout. “Come on, react! Don’t just sit there, you pathetic piece of shit.”

She walks back this way, the jar held out in front of her; then she looks around. Damn, she’s seen me. I try to get out of the way but it’s too late. No backing out now. She angrily yanks the door open.

“What the fuck do you want?”

“Sorry,” I stammer, immediately on the wrong foot. “I didn’t mean to disturb you—”

“Yes you did,” she bawls at me. “No one ever comes here unless they don’t have any choice. You didn’t come here by accident, so you
did
mean to disturb me.”

“Hinchcliffe said I should—”

“You McCoyne?”

“Yes, I—”

“He said you’d probably turn up at some point. Give me a couple of minutes and I’ll be with you.”

When she stops talking I become aware of a faint whimpering noise coming from elsewhere in the room. Scott moves away from the door, and I follow her inside. At the far end, strapped to a chair by ropes tied across her tiny torso and around her ankles and wrists, is an Unchanged child. It’s one of the kids from the council depot nest we cleared out earlier this week, I’m sure it is. When she sees that someone else is in the room, she starts moaning in fear, tugging at her restraints to try to get free. The effort’s too much, though, and she gives up and slumps forward sobbing, letting her bonds take her weight, her long, greasy hair hanging down and covering her dirty face. Poor little shit. What the hell has Scott been doing to her?

“Interesting,” Scott says, watching both the girl and me, her eyes flicking between us.

“What is?”

“The way she reacted when you appeared,” she says.

“She recognizes me, that’s all. I helped catch her.”

“I just need one of these little cunts to show a bit of backbone and start fighting. Get Hinchcliffe off my back for a while. It wasn’t so bad when Thacker was in charge. Hinchcliffe’s got no patience. He wants results or he wants them dead.”

The little girl, shaking with cold, cries out again. In a sudden fit of rage that takes both me and the child by surprise, the doctor spins around and hurls the glass jar at her. It hits the wall just above her head and explodes, showering her with sharp shards of glass and sticky globules of food.

“Jesus, what the fuck are you doing?” I shout, forgetting myself.

Rona Scott leans back and looks at me disapprovingly. “Looks like someone’s been spending too much time around these things.”

“It’s not that. I just—”

Scott’s not interested. She runs toward the girl again, grabs her shoulders, and yells into her face. The child screams back at the top of her voice, tied tight but still straining to get away. “That’s better,” Scott says, taunting the kid, slapping her cheek. “Now that’s more like it.” She turns her back on the still-screaming child and looks at me. “Right this way.”

She shoves me out of the room and locks the door, muffling the little girl’s cries but not blocking them out completely. She stops in the middle of the corridor, preventing me from going any farther, waiting expectantly. I realize what she’s waiting for and reach into my inside pocket and pull out a half-full packet of cigarettes I’ve been holding on to for a while. She studies the packet for a moment, checks how many smokes are inside, then grunts her approval and heads for the staircase.

We climb another flight of steps up to the third floor, which looks identical in layout to the second. She takes me into the room at the far end of the corridor, double the size of the others. There’s a wide window on one wall that gives Scott a virtually uninterrupted view out across Hinchcliffe’s compound. On the opposite wall, a smaller window overlooks the sea. Driving rain clatters constantly against the glass. There’s more light in here than in any other part of the building I’ve been in so far, but that’s not a good thing. This is Rona Scott’s clinic–cum–living-quarters, and I’d have preferred not to be able to see anything.

“Over there,” she grunts at me, pointing across the room. I walk across the cluttered space, picking my way through the rubbish that covers the floor. There are unpleasant stains and used swabs and dressings everywhere, crusted hard and brown. Discarded strips of bandage lie around the place like gruesome, blood-soaked paper-chain decorations. This place makes me realize just how much the role of a doctor (if Rona Scott ever really was a doctor) has changed. No longer concerned with the ongoing well-being and general health of their patients, they’re now here just to patch people up and keep them fighting as hard as possible for as long as they can. As with any war, countless numbers of people have suffered horrific injuries over the last year. Fortunately for them, most died quickly on the battlefield or later as a result of radiation sickness, infection, or malnutrition. Doctors like Rona Scott are rarely bothered by people like me, and it shows. This room, although still having the faintest smell of antiseptic, now has all the dignity and class of a back-street vehicle repair shop.

Scott walks over to where I’m standing, drops her cigarette, and stubs it out on the carpet. I’ve never been this close to her before, and I pray I never am again. She looks even worse than I do, as if she’s been personally collecting samples of all the diseases and conditions she might still have to treat. Her breath is foul. The bottom of one of her earlobes is missing and has been patched up with adhesive tape that’s covered with blood. I hope that little girl downstairs did it.

“Okay, make it quick. What’s wrong with you?”

“Where do I start?”

“What hurts most?”

“Everything hurts,” I answer honestly. “No appetite, lost a load of weight, fucking awful cough, sometimes there’s blood when I piss…”

“You look bad.”

“Thanks.”

She picks up a flashlight and shines it into my eyes, sighing with effort every time she moves. I don’t know whether she’s as unfit as I feel or whether she just resents every second of time she’s wasting on me. Is she like this with everyone? Is it because I’m not a battle-scarred soldier or one of Hinchcliffe’s precious fighters?

“Strip to the waist,” she orders, and I immediately do as I’m told, starting to shiver even before I’m done. I catch a brief glimpse of myself in a full-length mirror in the corner, and I have to look twice to be sure it’s really me. I stare at my skeletal reflection. Christ, I can see every individual rib. I’m hollow chested. My chest goes in instead of out like it used to …

“Stand still,” she says but I can’t stop shaking. She peels off her grubby fingerless woolen gloves and starts touching me. I recoil from her unforgiving, icelike fingers. She roughly pushes and prods at my skin, working her way around my kidneys and belly with the bedside manner of a butcher working in an abattoir. I wince when she jabs her fingers into me, just below my rib cage, then wince again when she pinches my gut. Is she actually doing anything or just using me for stress relief? Finally she unearths a stethoscope from under a pile of papers and used dressings on a window ledge and presses it against various different parts of my back and front. Examination over, she tells me to get dressed.