All Roads End Here

by David Moody

  “Get used to it,” Jason tells him.

  The view from here is familiar. They’re close to the school building where Matt previously found work. He’s tempted to head back over there now. There might be something he can do that’s less physical, something that’ll play to his prewar clerical skills. As dull as it sounds, that place is the administrative hub of the camp, and that’ll make it as good a place as any for getting a handle on the scale of the problems they’re facing here. He remembers when getting his tie caught in the confidential waste shredder was the biggest physical threat he faced, but he knows those days are gone now. He’s no longer the quiet office-jockey he used to be.

  “How long have we been here?” he asks.

  “About three hours.”

  “And how long do you usually have to wait?”

  “All day.”

  “And has it always been like this?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Have you seen where they bring the food in?”

  “No.”

  “Do they drive it in, air drop it in…?”

  “How the hell am I supposed to know? Fuck’s sake, what’s with all the questions?”

  “Just trying to understand.”

  “What’s to understand? There’s a war going on and food’s in short supply. We take what we’re given, and we have to wait in line for it.”

  “Yeah, but how long are the lines? How many lines are there? How much food’s coming in and where’s it going? How much ends up in that school over there for the top dogs and how much—”

  “Do me a favor and shut the fuck up, Matt,” Jason interrupts. “You’re doing my head in.”

  “I just don’t know how you can stand there and not ask all these questions.”

  “Who says I haven’t been asking questions? Has it occurred to you we just might not be able to find the answers?”

  “That’s crap. You just need to—”

  Matt stops talking. His sudden silence unnerves Jason. “What’s the matter?”

  “Shh…”

  He hears it and feels it before he sees it. There’s a change in the air, a sudden shift. He looks around but all he sees is people in every direction.

  And then it begins. A swell of movement. It emanates from somewhere way behind them and ripples out through the crowd, reactions increasing in strength as more and more people become affected. Matt’s pulse is racing. He knows that even if whatever what’s happening proves to be relatively minor, the implications in this fractious, tinder-dry environment are potentially vast.

  “We need to get out of here,” he says to Jason.

  “We can’t. We’ll lose our place in line.”

  “We might lose a lot more than that yet…”

  Jason grabs his arm. “Pull yourself together. Shit like this happens all the time. Walk away now and you’ll never get any food today.”

  Matt wrestles himself free and starts to cut across the queues, moving toward the school building. More people are beginning to realize that there’s a disturbance and are reacting now, and a sudden shift in the crowd allows him to slip through a slender strip of space which opens up between one group of people and the next. This part of the crowd has gone from well-ordered to frantic and chaotic in a frighteningly short space of time. Matt reaches the low brick wall which separates the school grounds from everything else and he vaults over it into a car park, then immediately crouches down for cover. Huge numbers of CDF fighters are beginning to pour out of the building in response to the crowd disturbance and are pushing their way through the masses toward the back of the food queues.

  People are panicking. Others are doing everything they can not to panic, standing their ground and refusing to give up their places in line. Matt, on the other hand, isn’t yet ready to react. He doesn’t know enough about what’s happening. Instead he looks for a better vantage point and as more people begin running for cover in response to the soldiers’ arrival, Matt uses the back of a CDF truck to climb up into the low-hanging branches of a large pine tree. What he sees is fucking terrifying. It’s also completely fucking impossible.

  There’s a solitary Hater, on the fringes of the food queues but right in the heart of the Unchanged camp.

  For a moment Matt thinks it might just be a regular person who’s lost control, but the unbridled savagery of the man he’s now watching leaves him in no doubt that he’s one of the enemy. All around him people scatter and run for cover, tripping over one another to get away. The Hater grabs straggler after straggler, killing like his own life depends on it.

  This makes no fucking sense. How could this Hater have made it so deep into Unchanged territory? Surely he wouldn’t have been able to make it past even one refugee before striking out? The Hate which drives him and his kind is instinctive and guttural. Haters lose all control when they’re near to the Unchanged … they can’t stop themselves. Matt looks for the telltale trail of devastation marking the route he took here, but there’s nothing there. It’s like this bastard has been dropped into the refugee camp from nowhere.

  The killer is of average build, but what he lacks in physical presence he more than compensates for in sheer ferocity. Matt watches helpless as he grabs a young woman by her hair and viciously beats her. It’s a sign of the crowd’s collective fear of the Hater that despite their massive numerical advantage, they keep their distance. There’s an ever-growing bubble of blood-spattered space around him. People frantically back away but can only get so far before they’re bunched up against others trying to escape. They jostle for position, each of them doing everything they can to ensure they’re not the Hater’s next kill at the expense of whoever’s around them. Bizarrely oblivious to everything, the monster continues to fight like nothing else matters.

  The soldiers and militia fighters are closing in now—an arrowhead of black and gray uniforms slicing through the masses, and then a tank—a fucking tank!—trundles out of the shadows from behind the school building.

  The Hater keeps battling like his life depends on it. He lunges for a teenage kid who’s fallen in the confusion, dragging him back across the ground by his left boot, then drops on him like a pro wrestler before forcing a shiv up into the nape of his neck.

  Matt doesn’t want to look away, doesn’t want to let the vile creature below out of his sight for even a second, but he forces himself to do so because he knows he surely can’t be working alone, can he? Matt fears this must inevitably be the beginning of a coordinated attack, something of a magnitude which will dwarf the recent border battles.

  Before the CDF fighters are close enough to open fire, the Hater is brought down by a single shot to the back of the head. It comes from the opposite direction to the advancing militia. A sniper? Matt immediately switches focus, desperately searching for the source of the shot, but it’s hard because there’s pandemonium down at ground level now, people scattering as the soldiers surge with renewed speed.

  He sees something. It’s the kind of behavior that sticks out a mile when you’ve spent weeks living on your nerves out in Hater territory and you’re as mistrusting as he now is. You learn to not follow the herd, and the man he’s spotted is doing exactly that. He moves with a definite purpose and appears deceptively calm as he heads toward the dead Hater, not away from him. There’s no panic as he weaves in and around the fleeing crowds. He’s in uniform—definitely military but equally definitely not part of the CDF faction based here. Is he Special Forces (if such a thing still exists)? A lone-wolf vigilante? Matt has no doubt that he’s the one who fired the killer shot. He reaches the dead man’s corpse, checking his job’s done and at the same time confirming Matt’s suspicions, then turns tail. Now he pushes people out of the way with mix of arrogance and aggression.

  If one Hater can find a way in, who’s to say there aren’t others close behind? Matt has to know what this assassin is planning next.

  He jumps down from the tree and follows his target at a cautious distance: close enough to keep him in
sight, yet far enough back not to arouse suspicion. The soldier’s easy to follow, because his movements are at odds with everyone else’s. To the untrained eye he’s just another face in the crowd, but Matt sees straight through him. He’s trying too hard to go unnoticed. Occasionally he stops and feigns interest in something, or goes to change direction, then doubles back and goes the other way. He’s using all the tricks in Matt’s self-taught guide to staying alive.

  A garbage truck crosses the road immediately in front of Matt, halting his progress temporarily. He slips around the back of the vehicle then pushes his way through a throng of people coming the other way. When he’s finally in open space again he sees that the solitary soldier has gone. He runs toward a pile of discarded scrap which he scales like a parkour champ. He jumps across onto the roof of a car which, judging from the state of its four flat tires, hasn’t moved in months, and gets a torrent of shouted abuse from a grimy-looking old woman who’d been asleep on the backseat. He ignores her tirade and concentrates on trying to find the missing soldier but it’s no use. Nothing. He’s long gone.

  Matt continues farther down the road. He hasn’t passed any turnings, so the soldier must have gone this way. Matt knows this part of town, but it looks very different to how he remembers, as if someone’s taken a picture of the old world and processed it through a particularly shitty filter. There’s a row of shops that were boarded up even before the fighting started, and a children’s playground and small park filled with the obligatory mass of tents and cardboard shelters.

  The soldier steps out in front of Matt, grabs him by the collar, and drags him into a dark corner around the side of the vacant shops, out of sight of just about everyone and everything else. There are a couple of kids lurking in the shadows but they scuttle away like beetles when they’re disturbed. Matt’s furious with himself. If this fucker had been a Hater, Matt would be a dead man now.

  The man’s face is inches from Matt’s. “Why are you following me?”

  “I wasn’t…”

  “Bullshit. Don’t treat me like an idiot.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The soldier slams Matt back against the wall and his whole body rattles with pain.

  “Cut the crap. I clocked you when you were up your fucking tree. You might think you’re smart, but you’re an amateur, mate. Fucking clueless.”

  “So what if I was following you?”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere. Why me?”

  “Because you shot a Hater in the back of the head just now.”

  He laughs. “A Hater? Get a grip.”

  “The CDF were way back. You took that fucker out.”

  “Did you fall out of that tree and hit your head?”

  “Fuck you. There was a Hater attack right outside the school just now, and I think you know something about it. Most people ran away, you moved toward it.”

  “What exactly are you saying? You think I keep a pet killer and it got off its leash and escaped into the middle of the camp?”

  “You and I both know that unless it crawled up through the sewers or was parachuted in, that bastard could never have got so deep into town without help.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I think you do. I know what I saw.”

  The soldier’s had enough. He tightens his grip on Matt’s collar again and drags him back out into the open. Matt’s at a massive physical disadvantage. He’s skinny as a rake, but the militiaman is stocky and strong, clearly well-fed. He’s in far better condition that the majority of the other refugees in the camp. The perks of position? Whatever the reason, Matt knows the odds are stacked against him. He’d shout for help if he wasn’t being choked, but he doubts anyone would risk getting involved. His best option is to play ball. He stops fighting and is marched along the street toward a black metal gate in a long and high, redbrick wall.

  The soldier kicks the bottom of the gate with his boot and shouts to be admitted. “It’s Franklin. Let me in.”

  14

  Matt’s hauled into an enclosed compound and dropped to the ground. There’s movement all around him and by the time he’s picked himself up he’s surrounded by three more armed CDF fighters. Matt looks back over his shoulder, thinking he might still have a chance if he makes a run for the gate, but all he can do is watch as another militiaman slides it shut. A fifth man is blocking his way through.

  “Look, I’m sorry…” he starts to say, figuring that aggression’s not an option and that to resort to meekness is probably his best bet. “I don’t want any trouble. Just let me go and I’ll disappear. You won’t hear anything else from me.”

  “What’s up with this runt, Franklin?” one of the other soldiers asks.

  “Nosy fucker, this one.”

  Matt tries to look past the weapons pointing at him and assess his surroundings. It’s become second nature to look for another way out, an instinct born from nine weeks spent trying to stay alive. But all he can see right now is rifles, soldiers, and brick walls. Apart from the locked gate there are no obvious exits. A plaque on a nearby wall proudly proclaims “Steply Territorial Army Center.”

  A door opens with a creak and clatter on the far side of the courtyard. A woman dressed in full fatigues appears and marches over. She doesn’t look at Matt; instead, the focus of her ire is Franklin. “What the hell’s going on?” she demands. Matt risks looking and sees that she’s older than he thought. Mid-fifties, perhaps. Her soft features don’t match the brusqueness of her voice. “How did it happen?”

  “I told them this was going to happen sooner or later,” Franklin answers. “You know what they’re like. They don’t listen.”

  “You get back up there as soon as we’re done here and you tell them no more fuckups, got it? I’ll put a stop to the whole damn program if I have to. Understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The female officer is breathing hard, clearly furious. She takes a single step back and pulls on the hem of her tunic to straighten it. Matt watches the ill-tempered conversation as a spectator until she turns to him. He immediately looks down, withering under her glare. “Who’s this?”

  “A complication, ma’am,” Franklin explains. “Tried to follow me back from the site of the incident just now.”

  “So why’s he here?”

  “Didn’t want him making a nuisance of himself and fucking things up, ma’am.”

  Matt clears his throat. “Look, I don’t know who any of you people are, but—”

  Matt’s badly timed interruption is brutally truncated by another soldier who threatens him with the butt of his rifle. “Speak when you’re spoken to, prick.”

  “Manners, Mr. Henderson,” the officer says. She gestures and Henderson stands down. Matt faces the boss lady. She’s a good few inches shorter than he is, yet she seems to tower over him. Her authority is unquestionable. “My name’s Estelle Bisseker, and I’m in charge here,” she says, fixing him with ice-gray eyes. She pauses, studying his face intently. “Now who exactly are you?”

  “I’m nobody.”

  “I know that much. What’s your name and why are you here?”

  “I’m Matthew Dunne, and I’m here because there was a Hater attack in the middle of town just now, and I think your man Franklin was involved.”

  “And why should that concern you?”

  “Which bit of what I just said did you not hear? There was a Hater attack in the middle of town.”

  “I know.”

  “And that’s all you’ve got to say?”

  “That’s all I’ve got to say to you, yes.”

  Matt’s temporarily forgotten about the mess he’s in and the guns pointing at him, because he knows the potential threat from just one Hater far exceeds the combined threat of all the Unchanged soldiers here and more besides. “Listen, I understand enough about Hater behavior to know it should never have happened. That thing must have had help getting into the camp, and if you or your
people are helping the Haters, then you should be rounded up and shot along with them.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Not that it matters, because if you are helping them, you won’t last long anyway.”

  Estelle laughs. “Helping the Haters! Are you out of your tiny mind?”

  “Possibly,” he says, disarming her momentarily. Her expression changes.

  “I can assure you we’re absolutely not helping them. Quite the opposite, actually.”

  “And you expect me to believe that?”

  “I don’t expect anything. You can believe whatever you want to believe, I’m not particularly interested either way.”

  “So let me go.”

  “What, and risk you going back out into the camp and causing all kinds of panic?”

  “I’ll only do that if I don’t get any answers. So are you going to tell me why the Hater was here?”

  She pauses again, enjoying playing with Matt and making him work. “Put your guns down, boys and girls,” she eventually says to her troops. “It’s really not good for us all to be pointing weapons at each other.”

  “The weapons were only pointing in one direction,” Matt reminds her. “I’m unarmed.”

  “Whatever, Matthew. The point is, we both have better things to be aiming at.”

  “What, like crazed killers let loose in the middle of this camp?”

  “Yes, exactly like that. So tell me, why are you so interested? The Hater was neutralized before he’d done too much damage. Isn’t that all that’s important?”

  “No, it’s not. Wherever there are Haters, death follows. I’ve seen what they’re capable of firsthand. Why was that thing in the city in the first place and are there more of them? That’s what important.”

  Estelle’s expression changes slightly. It’s subtle, but Matt’s becoming increasingly astute at picking up on people’s facial expressions and reading their body language. She knows more than she’s letting on, he’s sure of it. He also knows she’s not going to give up her secrets without a fight.

  “I’m interested in you, Matthew. What’s your background?”