Them or Us

30

THE VAN GRINDS TO a sudden, shuddering halt alongside a ruined department store. Its front wall has collapsed, spilling rubble out onto the street and leaving every individual level of the building open to the elements. We’re parked up on the pavement, hidden by a mountain of fallen masonry, well out of sight. Across the way there’s a road sign pointing back toward Lowestoft, and for the first time ever I almost wish I was back there. Anywhere but here.

“Out,” Llewellyn orders from the front seat. Chandra grabs my arm. I panic and try to fight him off, but he’s stronger than me, and all my struggling does is encourage his buddy Swales to take hold of my other arm. Llewellyn runs around to the back of the van and yanks the door open, and between them they frog-march me out onto the street, picking me up as if I’m made of paper. Llewellyn has a pistol in his hand, and I don’t doubt for a second that he’ll use it. I force myself not to try to fight just yet, remembering how I used to be able to swallow down the Hate and remain in control even when I was neck deep in vile Unchanged. I did it yesterday, and I can do it now. The element of surprise is all I have left. I have to bide my time and catch these bastards off guard.

“Llewellyn, I just—”

“Don’t talk, just move,” he says, throwing my backpack at me, then shoving me hard between the shoulder blades. “We don’t have long. You’re an unnecessary complication, McCoyne.”

What the hell did he mean by that? I try to ask, but no one’s listening. With Llewellyn behind me, Healey in front, and the other two on either side, they’ve got me boxed in. I don’t understand why they needed to bring me all this distance just to put a bullet in my head. The four men march at a speed I find difficult to match, but Llewellyn keeps me moving, pushing me in the back whenever I slow down. I want to fight. For the first time in weeks, I want to attack and fight back, but all the anger and aggression I used to have, the fury and the rage that used to burn inside me, are gone now and there’s nothing left. Before today there was always a way out, but I can’t see one today. My only option now is to try to break free and run, and I know I probably don’t have either the strength or the speed to outrun one of these fighters, let alone all of them. It’s the four of them against me, and in my heart I know that this time I’m finally fucked.

We stop at a traffic island, and Healey consults a folded-up map, checking our location against what’s left of our surroundings. “Not far now,” he says, filling me with the same cloying sense of dread I remember feeling when I was being led blindfolded through the convent with Joseph Mallon. Now, just for a single dangerous second, I’m distracted thinking about him again. I almost envy him and the rest of the Unchanged, buried in their bunker beneath the farm, isolated from the alien world above them. Maybe some of what Peter Sutton said yesterday was right. They’re safe, I’m screwed. Who’s the most sensible?

“You nervous, McCoyne?” Llewellyn asks, breaking ranks and catching my eye. I try to play it cool but fail completely, and my terror must be obvious. His face remains passive and unemotional at first, but then he can’t help himself and breaks into a wide, sadistic smile. He’s actually enjoying this. Evil motherfucker. “Do you think we’re going to find any airplanes today?” he sneers. Chandra sniggers and tightens his grip on my arm when I try to react. This isn’t right. If they knew how sick I am, would they let me go? Maybe I can persuade them to free me because I’ll probably be dead soon anyway and no one will know any different. It’s not like I’m going to go back to Lowestoft and tell Hinchcliffe what they’ve done. Who the hell am I kidding? Do I really expect hard, emotionless fuckers like this to show any compassion? I don’t even bother trying to fight, saving my energy instead so I can make my final break for freedom when the moment comes. By the look of things, that’s not going to be long. We duck down through a hole in a chain-link fence, then cross a patch of scrubland. My nerves increase with every step. I can’t help myself …

“Whatever you’re going to do to me, just do it.”

Llewellyn looks at me, puzzled. “What makes you think we’re going to do anything to you? You’re paranoid, man.” He turns to the others. “This it?” he asks.

Healey nods. Chandra lets go of me and I try to run. They’re too damn fast for me. Llewellyn shoots out his arm, grabs me, and pulls me back into line.

“Don’t,” he warns ominously.

The area of town we’ve reached seems to have suffered slightly less damage than elsewhere, and most of the buildings around us are still largely intact. Following some predetermined plan, my four-fighter guard suddenly disperses. Healey and Swales go one way; Chandra stops walking and takes a radio out from his backpack. Llewellyn still has ahold of me, and he keeps me moving forward. I try to pry his fingers off my arm, but he’s having none of it. He tightens his grip.

“Just do it,” I beg pathetically, “please…”

“Pull yourself together, you miserable dick,” he says as he drags me toward a wide-fronted, Gothic-looking building. What the hell is this place? It’s too big to be a church. Was it some kind of school? A prison, city hall, or some other public office before the war? He opens the arch-shaped white wooden door, looks around, then pushes me inside. He shuts it behind us and finally lets me go. “Listen, I’m not going to kill you. I’ve got better things to do today.”

“Then why did you—”

“You shouldn’t even be here. Fucking Hinchcliffe. Don’t know why he sent you out with us.”

It takes my eyes a few seconds to become accustomed to the light indoors. We’re standing in the entrance hall of some kind of museum. It has the unmistakable air of the past about it; a bubble of the old, old world, trapped here in the rubble of the new.

“What are we doing here?”

“It’s funny how things work out sometimes,” Llewellyn says, although from where I’m standing there’s nothing funny about it at all. “You never know what you’re going to find around the corner these days.”

I follow him up several flights of a wide marble staircase, legs weak with effort and relief, to the third floor of the building. We pass glass cabinets filled with remnants of long-dead people and long-lost things. This place is remarkably ornate and well preserved, and I find myself remembering a time when there was more to life than just hunting and killing and fighting to stay alive. There’s some damage here (there’s some damage everywhere), but many of the paintings, statues, and displays remain virtually untouched. None of this is important now. What’s happened to us all has made who we used to be completely irrelevant. No one’s interested in art, nor in any other aspect of the world before the war. It’s strange to think that you could be the owner of an original Picasso, Rembrandt, or Van Gogh but it wouldn’t matter a damn if no one would trade it with you for food. It’s bizarre to think that all the paint-covered canvases around the world that used to command obscene, almost unimaginable prices are worth less in real terms now than a single can of beans.

I’m allowing myself to become distracted by my surroundings, and I can’t afford to be. Llewellyn’s radio crackles again, and he holds it up to his ear, taking a few steps away from me as he does so. A tinny voice bursts from the speaker, but I can’t make out what it’s saying. Llewellyn seems to understand perfectly.

“We’re ready out here. Healey’s on the ground for you. We’ll be waiting in the museum.”

“What’s this all about, Llewellyn? Why are we here?”

“You’ll see,” he says, enjoying making me squirm. “You’ve got about fifteen minutes to wait. Have a wander around, but don’t try and get out, ’cause Healey’s guarding the door downstairs and I’ve told him to break your legs if you try anything.” He laughs. “Relax and enjoy the exhibits! Soak up the atmosphere.”

* * *

Fifteen minutes feels like fifteen hours. Llewellyn watches me continually. Eventually something distracts him outside and his expression immediately changes and becomes more serious. He beckons me over and I stand next to him in front of a tall, floor-to-ceiling window and look down over the patch of sloping, overgrown grassland we walked across to get here.

“Your friend Hinchcliffe,” he finally says, “isn’t quite as smart and all-powerful as he thinks he is.”

“He’s not my friend” is my immediate reaction.

“Figure of speech. You know what I mean.” He seems about to tell me more when there’s another ugly burst of noise from the radio. “Got it,” he says after listening to another indecipherable transmission. He calls down to Healey, who I can see on the ground below us. Healey looks up, radio in hand. “They’re here,” Llewellyn tells him.

“Who’s here?” I ask, confused.

“I fucking hate Hinchcliffe,” Llewellyn says. “I know it’s not about who you like or don’t like anymore, but I fucking hate him with his stupid long hair and his fucking attitude.”

“So why have you stuck by him?”

“Same reason you have. Like it or not, the bastard has influence and he’s hard as nails. It’s better to have him on your side than end up fighting against him.”

“So is that what you’re planning? Some kind of rebellion? An uprising in Lowestoft?”

“It’s not about what I’m planning, but you’re not a million miles off the mark.”

“What, then?”

Llewellyn looks as if he’s about to answer, but then he stops. He stares out of the window into the distance again, then presses his ear against it. He lifts his head from the glass, then taps it with his finger. For a few seconds I hear nothing, and I’m starting to wonder if my hearing is as screwed as the rest of my worn-out body, but then I gradually become aware of a deep, low rumbling noise. It quickly gets louder, and it’s soon so deep and so loud that the window starts to rattle and shake in its frame. Then I see a tank appear. Belching black exhaust fumes into the air, it bulldozes its way across the grassland, caterpillar tracks churning the ground, and stops directly below us. There’s a crudely painted red and white circular insignia on its front and its side. I’ve seen those markings before … I look up again and see that the tank was just the first of several vehicles now moving toward the museum in convoy. Christ, what is this? Most of the advancing machines are clearly military (although there are several civilian cars and bikes here, too, bulked up with improvised armor plating and other defenses), and all of them are decorated with the same red and white concentric circles as the trucks I saw in Southwold. Nestled right in the middle of it all are two heavily armored troop carriers. Where the hell did this bunch come from? The traffic fans out, leaving a space for the first troop carrier to drive closer to the museum. It stops a short distance from the entrance, brakes hissing.

“Bang on time.”

“Llewellyn, what is this?”

“You ever heard that expression, keep your friends close and your enemies closer?”

“Yes, but—”

“Well, get ready to meet your friends. Word to the wise, McCoyne: Doesn’t matter who you are or what you can do, these days all that matters is staying on the team with the fuckers who’ve got the most muscle and the biggest guns, and that’s this crowd. This is just the advance party.”

The door of the troop carrier slides open, and somewhere between ten and fifteen figures quickly emerge, all of them wearing similarly colored clothing—a very basic, improvised uniform of sorts. The troops form a loose protective guard of two roughly parallel lines that stretch from the vehicle right up to the door of the museum. A number of other people follow them out of the transport and walk through the gap that’s opened up between them. I see two men, then a woman, then a small, white-haired man who walks with a stick …

“Who are they?” I ask.

“See the old guy?” Llewellyn says, with something approximating pride and genuine emotion in his voice. “That’s Chris Ankin.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing.

“Chris Ankin? The Chris Ankin?”

“Mind your p’s and q’s,” he says as he tugs my arm and leads me back down the stairs. “Prime Minister, President, Commander in Chief, Sir, Your Highness—call him what you like, he’s the Boss Man now.”