Them or Us

2

NONE OF THE BASTARDS I’m out here with today trust me, and the feeling’s entirely mutual. Typically, the only space left in the convoy of vehicles returning to town is in the back of the van with the captured Unchanged kids. There are three of them being held in a padlocked wire-mesh cage that’s bolted to the inside wall of the van, and the only other thing in here with them is me. They cower away from me even though there’s an ocean of space and the metal barrier between us. They huddle together in the farthest corner of the cage, backs pressed against the wall, a lad in front and two younger girls behind him. He watches my every move, flinching whenever I change position, occasionally spitting and swearing at me when I get too close, too scared to look away. One of the girls is completely motionless, staring vacantly into space over the boy’s shoulder. I do all I can not to look at any of them, partly because I don’t know what Hinchcliffe’s planning to do with them, but also because looking at the children makes me remember the things I try hardest to forget.

The van driver treats me with as much contempt as he does the children. I’m literally stuck in the middle here, not belonging on either side, and at times like this I can’t help wondering what’s going to happen to me when the Unchanged have finally been eradicated and I’ve served my purpose. Until we found the group we just killed, there hadn’t been any sightings in weeks. For all I know these kids might well be the last three left alive and my “talent” for holding the Hate could soon be worthless. I’ve no doubt Hinchcliffe will chuck me back onto the underclass scrap heap just as quickly as he plucked me from it.

The van slows unexpectedly, the engine sounding like it’s on its last legs, and I’m immediately on guard. I get up fast, and my sudden movements are met with another volley of spit and swear words from the boy in the cage. I look out of the windows but I can’t see anything. The days are short and the nights long now, and the light’s fading rapidly. I’m guessing we’re well into January by now, but the days, weeks, and months seem to have all melted into one another and become a single dragging blur. No one even mentioned Christmas or New Year. I didn’t think about them until long after they’d gone.

The tired engine threatens to stall, but, with much cursing, the driver just about manages to keep it ticking over. He overaccelerates and steers up the curb, and I brace myself as the van lurches from side to side. There’s a body in the middle of the road behind us. Looks like it was a Brute. Haven’t seen any of them in a while. They’re a dying breed. The war was all they had, and they hunted for kills at all costs. My guess is most of them ended up back in and around the irradiated remains of the refugee camps, and those that survived are now just roaming what’s left of the countryside, looking for Unchanged that are long gone. This guy I know, Rufus, says the Brutes are a warning, that there’s a lesson to be learned from what’s happened to them. For what it’s worth, I think he’s right. I’m not sure what the lesson is though.

We’ve almost made it back to Lowestoft. It’s an almost bearable place to live (in comparison to everywhere else), but conditions have steadily worsened. I’m sure there are other places like this around the country, and I often wonder if I’d be better off elsewhere. I can’t bring myself to call this a community, because that word conjures up all kinds of nostalgic, old-fashioned images of people actually getting along and working together for a common good. Lowestoft is just a place where people with nowhere else to go have drifted together. The most aggressive fighters rule the roost now like some kind of prehistoric elite, propped up by the subservient underclasses who live off the scraps they discard. Lowestoft limps along from day to day for now, but the bottom line remains; those who can hit the hardest are the ones who benefit most, and these days no one has bigger fists than Hinchcliffe.

There’s definitely a problem with this van. No doubt it’ll be dumped as soon as we get back to town. The rest of the convoy has long since left us behind, and the driver constantly curses and overrevs the engine to keep it from dying. We swerve again, weaving between the wreck of a car and a pile of crumbling masonry from a battle-damaged building like we’re on a racetrack chicane. The Unchanged kids are safe in their cage, but I’m thrown around the back with every sudden change of direction. Eventually I wedge myself into position between the side of the van and the cage and stare out of the window, trying to stay focused on the barely visible glow of the moon behind the dense cloud layer. My guts feel like someone’s mixing them in a blender. If I don’t get out of here soon we’ll all be seeing more of the dog I ate earlier.

* * *

We reach the gate across the bridge spanning the A12 at the bottom end of town, little more than a pair of tall metal doors removed from a building, their hinges welded to the back of two trucks parked facing away from each other. These gates don’t need to be particularly strong—there are enough guards around to prevent anyone getting inside Hinchcliffe’s compound. Pity the poor fuckers who are stationed out here in the cold. Having visible guards positioned at these key points helps the population to remember who’s in charge here, and the underclass maintain a cautious distance. Even if any of them did get inside, they wouldn’t last long.

We have a delivery of Unchanged kids to make. We’re through the gate now, and I can see the drop-off point looming up ahead. Silhouetted against the purple-black sky is the distinctive angular outline of a group of industrial buildings that Hinchcliffe simply refers to as “the factory.” It’s an ugly, sprawling mess of a place—a redundant relic of the past. Protected from the ocean on one side by a strong seawall, this used to be a seafood processing plant and was probably a major local employer churning out tons of food every day to be shipped around the world. Even now after it’s lain dormant and useless for the best part of a year, the stench of rotting fish still hangs over it like a poisonous cloud.

I’ve heard rumors about what happens here. This is where Unchanged kids like the ones in the back of this van end up. I don’t know what they do to them, and I don’t want to know, either. A long time back I heard that they could be “turned” to be like us, but I don’t know if that’s true. More to the point, does it even matter, now the Unchanged are all but extinct? I look at the children in the cage—still cowering, still crying—and I wonder whether I should do them a favor and kill them now. Put them out of our misery. I must be getting soft. I don’t think I’d be able to do it.

We come to an abrupt halt in the middle of the road that runs parallel with the seawall, well short of the factory. The wind is fierce tonight, and immense waves batter against the sides of the wall, sending huge plumes of spray shooting up into the air, then crashing back down again. The noise and the water and the constant rocking of the van in the swirling breeze make me feel like I’m trapped in the eye of a hurricane, the full might of which is, for some reason, focused on me alone.

“Out,” the driver shouts, and it takes a couple of seconds before I realize he’s talking to me. I get up and move toward the back of the van. The kids panic again because they think I’m coming for them, but I’m the least of their problems tonight.

I jump out of the van and land hard on my weak right leg. My feet have barely touched the ground before the driver accelerates away again, the back door still swinging open. He swerves around to the right onto a narrow access road, then disappears away into the bowels of the factory complex.

Suddenly I’m alone: soaking wet and freezing cold, just me and the sea and no one else. I haul my backpack up onto my shoulders and start walking along the seawall back out of town, welcoming the isolation.

An enormous, motionless wind turbine towers above everything in this part of Lowestoft, and I gaze up at it as I pass. Hinchcliffe thinks he’s going to get it operational again one day soon, so the town will have a steady power supply rather than having to rely on generators and the like. I hope he’s right. For now it just stands here useless: one of its massive blades broken, its internal mechanics and wiring no doubt completely fucked. It’s a huge white elephant: a constant reminder of what this place used to be.

I pull my coat tight around me, put my head down, and walk. The house is still more than a mile away. I could live with the chosen few in Hinchcliffe’s compound if I wanted to, but I’d rather not. I prefer to remain at a cautious distance on the very outskirts of town, well away from everyone else. Out there I’m close enough to Lowestoft to be able to get in and take what I need, but still far enough away to stay out of sight and out of mind of everyone else.