Them or Us

4

SOME FUCKER’S BANGING ON the door. I keep my eyes screwed shut, nowhere near ready to start another day just yet. If I stay still long enough and don’t react, maybe whoever it is will give up and go away. I half open one eye and look around. It’s light outside, not long after dawn. My book’s on the floor. My tired body aches more than it did when I went to sleep.

The hammering on the door continues. I know who it is now. He lifts the flap of the mail slot and shouts at me, but I don’t react. I know he’s not going anywhere, but I can’t be bothered to move. I make him wait a little longer.

“Come on, Danny, I know you’re in there.”

“Piss off, Rufus.”

He starts knocking on the window, rapping on the glass with his knuckles, and the sound hurts my head. I’ll go and see what he wants, then get rid of him. Rufus has an annoying habit of coming here when he’s got nowhere else to go, wanting to talk for hours about nothing in particular. Sometimes I can tolerate him, but I don’t feel so good this morning and I’m not in the mood. Sometimes he stays all day and we play cards together and put the world to rights (although that particular problem’s bigger than both of us), but not today. Most of the time I’ve forgotten everything he’s said by the time I’ve managed to push him back out the door.

He’s not going anywhere. Admitting defeat, I start to get up but then fall back down again when the morning cough hits me. I’ve probably smoked less than a handful of cigarettes in my whole life, but these days I sound like a chain-smoker who’s had a fifty a day habit for the last twenty years. The cough comes in wrenching waves, and I know there’s nothing I can do to fight it. I manage to stand up and steady myself on the back of the chair as another hacking burst overtakes me. My sleeping bag drops down around my feet like a used condom, leaving me freezing cold and exposed. One more painful, tearing retch, strong enough to make me feel like I’m being turned inside out, and the coughing finally starts to subside. I spit out a lump of sticky red-green phlegm into my empty coffee cup, step out of the sleeping bag, and stagger over to open the door.

“What?”

“You took your time,” he says, not impressed.

“What do you want?”

Rufus glares up at me (he’s a good few inches shorter than I am), then ducks under my outstretched arm and pushes his way into the house.

“You’re a pain in the backside, Danny. Why didn’t you just let me in?”

“I’m a pain in the backside? You’re the one banging on the window like a goddamn idiot.”

“Didn’t you hear me knocking? Fucking hell, I’ve been out there for ages. It’s freezing outside.”

“It’s winter, what do you expect? Anyway, it’s no better in here.”

I climb back into my sleeping bag, pull it up, and sit down again. He stands in front of me in the middle of the living room, flapping his arms around himself to try and get warm.

“You should light a fire or something,” he says, blowing into his hands.

“Can’t be bothered. Too much effort.”

“You need to start taking more care of yourself. You’re not looking so good.”

“Thanks.”

“You know what I mean.”

He shakes his head in despair, then picks my book up off the floor and starts flicking through the pages. He has to hold it right up to his face to be able to read anything. Poor bugger’s eyesight is bad. He was a voracious reader, but he’s been reduced to reading children’s editions because the print’s larger. He used to wear strong glasses, but the lenses got broken a few weeks back when he got caught up in the middle of a fight he had nothing to do with. Rufus doesn’t handle conflict well. Makes me wonder how he’s lasted this long. He has another fresh bruise on his face this morning. He’s probably pissed somebody off again. Doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.

“Don’t know how you can read this crap.”

“It’s simple, shallow, and predictable. Just what I need.”

“Yes, but there’s a whole load of literature out there, Dan. Read some classics. Broaden your horizons.”

“I don’t want to broaden my horizons. In fact, I want to start limiting my horizons to the four walls of this house, screw everything else.”

“Don’t be so narrow. Listen, have you read 1984? I managed to salvage a pile of postapocalyptic books from the library before Hinchcliffe’s morons burned them. You should read it. And Earth Abides, that’s another. It’s really interesting to see how people thought things were going to pan out. I mean, they were all miles off the mark, but don’t let that—”

“Rufus,” I interrupt, “what is it you want? You didn’t come here this early just to make reading recommendations.”

“Come on, Danny,” he sighs, dropping the book down again. “You know I only disturb you when I absolutely have to.”

I know he’s right, but I’m not going to make it easy for him. He always does exactly what he’s told (he’s too scared not to), and he wouldn’t be here at this hour if he had any choice. Rufus is an ex–civil servant, working as a gopher for Hinchcliffe and his cronies, running errands and carrying messages. His intelligence and natural ability to talk rings around everyone else elevate him above the rest of the underclass, but he’s not a natural fighter by any means, and every day is a struggle for him to survive. Rufus calls me his friend, although I think he needs me far more than I need him. I spit into my cup again and wipe my mouth on my sleeve.

“You really do need to start taking more care of yourself, Dan,” he says again, looking me up and down.

“I’m tired, that’s all. Spent the last few days hunting.”

“I heard. Most of the people in the compound heard. The beer was certainly flowing last night. They were toasting your success. Hate to think what’s going to happen when they run out of booze.”

“Whatever. So why exactly are you here? Is that all you came to tell me?”

Rufus doesn’t answer right away. He’s distracted by the picture on the cover of another of my trashy novels. I whistle at him to get his attention, and he finally looks up.

“He wants to see you. Says he’s got another job for you.”

My heart sinks. “He” is Hinchcliffe, and I don’t need any more detail. If he wants to see me, then I don’t have any choice but to go and find him. When I get there and he tells me what it is he wants me to do, I’ll have no choice but to do it.

“Christ, Rufus, what is it this time?”

“I’m just the messenger, Danny, you know he doesn’t tell me anything.”

“Shit. I swear, it’s like being back at work sometimes, the amount of stuff he has me doing. Is it more Unchanged or—”

“I told you, I don’t know. He’s not a happy bunny, though.”

“Great.”

Despite the fact that Hinchcliffe genuinely seems to value me (as much as anyone values anyone else these days), and the fact that whatever he asks me to do, I’ve probably already had to do much worse, I immediately feel nervous. I can try to hide it, and I can bullshit and make light of the situation until I’m blue in the face, but the fact remains: Hinchcliffe scares the shit out of me. Sometimes I think our collective fear of good old KC is the glue that holds this fragile place together.