All Roads End Here

by David Moody

  “You never used to swear.”

  “I know. I live on the edge now.”

  She laughs again, and he pulls her closer still.

  “Seriously, making sure you’re safe and getting us both through this in one piece is my sole focus. It’s my reason for being. I hated every second of being away from you … and now I’m back I…”

  “What?”

  “Come on, Jen, I used to be an accountant. This stuff doesn’t come naturally to me.”

  “Just say what you’re thinking.”

  He clears his throat, feeling more nervous now than when he spent the night hiding on the edge of a Hater camp. “Being apart from you and having to fight to get back here has made me realize you mean even more to me than before. You’re everything, Jen. You’re my world.”

  She kisses him. “See, told you you’d changed. You never used to be romantic.”

  And for the first time in months, with the world outside their door falling apart, they make love.

  16

  He’s hardly slept. This morning what’s left of the city is as gray as Matt’s mood. A light summer drizzle has been falling for the last half hour, barely noticeable but still heavy enough to soak everything it touches. The road outside the house is marginally quieter, most people doing what they can to stay under cover.

  When they reach the end of East Kent Road, Jason goes one way and Matt goes the other. “Where do you think you’re going?” Jason asks.

  “None of your business. Keep walking. Get into your queue, get your food, and don’t say anything to anyone.”

  “I need to know what you’re up to.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “This is bullshit. I’ll go back in there and tell Jen you’re—”

  “You’ll tell her nothing,” Matt says. The calmness of his voice stops Jason in his tracks. “Do what you need to do, and I’ll explain later.”

  “But—”

  “Just do it,” he orders, and he turns his back on Jason and walks away.

  Head down, Matt makes his way through the hordes of refugees, going against the flow. He knows he could be on a hiding to nothing here, that he might be about to risk everything, but he also knows it’s a risk he has to take. He has to find out what Franklin and the others are up to. His life and, more importantly, Jen’s might depend on what he finds out.

  * * *

  He barely has time to catch his breath before Franklin pushes him toward the back of a battered Transit van. Before he’s sat down it races out of the Territorial Army compound at speed, following a snout-nosed military vehicle which aggressively pushes through the crowds.

  In the van, introductions are brief and perfunctory.

  Behind the wheel is a woman called Jayce. She reminds Matt of Natalie, the girl he knew briefly on Skek. She has the same uncomplicated athleticism and directness. She keeps her focus dead ahead, not making eye contact with him or anyone else.

  There are another two men in the back with Matt and Franklin. Chris Greatrex is short and unassuming and constantly chews the ends of his fingers. Matt thinks he looks as unprepared for whatever’s coming next as he himself feels. Graham Porter, on the other hand, is muscular and tooled up and seems as keen to face a Hater as Matt is not to.

  The uncomfortable silence in the van is a clear signal to Matt that he should keep his mouth shut. Observe, don’t ask. The grime on the windows makes it hard to see out, and what’s left of the city has changed so much that Matt struggles to work out where they are and in which direction they’re traveling. Being under military escort, they’re ushered through checkpoints without delay and are soon motoring out through No Man’s Land. Two jeeps from the last checkpoint they passed join the back of the convoy.

  Matt catches a glimpse of the stumplike remains of a partially collapsed tower block he recognizes. He knows roughly where he is now. He used to use this road regularly, but where there were buildings on either side, now there’s only rubble. The tarmac is a relatively clear gray scar cutting through masonry mountain ranges. This used to be a thriving commuter route, today it’s barely a route at all.

  “Nervous?” Franklin asks.

  Matt shrugs.

  “You should be.”

  “It’d help if you told me what we’re doing out here.”

  Franklin manages a wry grin, enjoying taunting him. “Okay, listen to me.”

  “You do know how dangerous it is out here?”

  “I said listen, don’t talk. And yes, I know exactly how dangerous this is. Interrupt me again and I’ll kick you out of the van and leave you to walk home, got it?”

  Matt thinks he’s probably not bluffing. “Got it.”

  The convoy slows as they approach the outer edge of No Man’s Land, the point where the deliberate ruination ends.

  “There’s a lot that people don’t understand about Haters. The vast majority are complete fucking monsters, but it’s like Estelle told you yesterday, some of them can’t compete.”

  “You reckon?”

  “I know. I’ve seen it, mate. It’s fate that’s pushed them over to one side and us to the other. For every Hater you see that’s a full-on psycho, you can bet there are others who are completely fucking lost. They’re all as dangerous as each other if they’re cornered, but some of them are as out of their depth as most of the poor fuckers stuck in the camp back there.”

  “So where are they all?”

  “Hiding.”

  “Hiding! Bullshit.”

  “Not bullshit. We’ve hunted out loads of them, hiding like cowards, just waiting for this all to blow over so they can pick up the pieces of what’s left of their lives. Thing is, as soon as they see people like us, they’re compelled to react, so all you’ll ever see is a crazed fucking Hater coming at you and you never get their backstory. We found this old guy a few days back, for example. He was hiding in the house where he used to live with his wife till he did her in. When we turned up, before he realized we weren’t like him, he was begging us to go. He was shouting at us to leave him ’cause he didn’t want to have to kill anyone.”

  “So what happened?”

  “We kicked his bloody door down and put him out of his misery, obviously. But you get what I’m saying, don’t you? So we’re mopping up. Getting rid of the stragglers. If we can keep the outskirts of the city clear, the CDF can start pushing outward again when things calm down. We’re reclaiming everything they’ve taken from us.”

  “You make it sound so easy.”

  Franklin shakes his head. “It’s anything but.”

  “So where do I come in?”

  “We’re low on numbers.”

  “No surprise.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, having you along for the ride wasn’t my idea. Estelle’s thinking is that if you really did get back here on your own cross-country, then you probably understand more about Hater behaviors than most.”

  “They kill. What else is there to understand?”

  Franklin ignores him. “She’s got it into her head that you might be able to help track them down.”

  “You’re saying you’re using me as bait.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it.”

  “And how big is this operation? What kind of backup do you have?”

  Franklin laughs. “As if.”

  “Fuck. There must be others?”

  “There used to be. Best not to ask.”

  “Fuck,” Matt says again.

  “Look, it’s simple. Find us a Hater, then hand over to Chris here.”

  Chris Greatrex doesn’t react in the slightest. He continues to look out of the virtually opaque window, impassive.

  “No offense, but he looks about as ready to fight as I am.”

  “Chris is a runner. Best in the business. Not that there is a business, mind. You get the Hater’s attention, then hand over to Chris. He’ll draw them out into the open and we’ll take care of everything else.” The van begins to slow down. Franklin clears a patch of
glass and presses his face up against the grubby window. “Right, we’re almost there. You ready?”

  Matt doesn’t think he’s ever felt less ready in his life.

  * * *

  He’s not sure if he’s been down this particular street before, but it feels eerily familiar. He could be anywhere: there were nondescript suburbs like this scattered all around the city. Matt’s walking between two rows of Victorian-era terraced houses. Most of the homes in this particular area were used as low-cost, multiroom student housing for the nearby university and medical school, and there are extra windows and doors and poorly designed extensions everywhere which add to the claustrophobia. This place is like a maze. There are no landmarks other than occasional gaps where buildings used to be and crater marks in the tarmac. He’ll use the damage as markers to find his way back to the van.

  But Christ, it feels wrong to be walking through these uncharted regions of Haterville like he doesn’t have a damn care in the world. He knows the others are watching, but that doesn’t make him feel a whole lot better. The standard-issue uniform they’ve given him doesn’t help. He’s wearing grubby black fatigues with a facemask that smells like someone just peeled it off the corpse of its previous owner. At least the mask should give him a few seconds’ head start if (when?) he comes face-to-face with a Hater. His body language will give him away, though. He’ll be running like his fucking life depends on it, because his fucking life will depend on it.

  What he’s doing goes against virtually every rule in the Matthew Dunne survival handbook, yet it has to be done. He’s putting his neck on the line, but it’s crucial to keep one step ahead of the game. Knowledge is power, he tells himself.

  It doesn’t take long to find obvious signs of recent activity. It must be Haters, he thinks, because who in their right mind would risk being out here like this (apart from him)? There’s a rain-soaked sofa dumped in a garden with what’s left of a body sprawled alongside it. It looks like they jumped for the seat from an upstairs window and missed. In other circumstances it might be vaguely comical, but Matt’s not laughing.

  If Franklin is to be believed, the Haters they’re looking for are deserters; conscripted fighters doing everything they can to avoid fighting. All they want is to be left alone to get on with what’s left of their miserable and broken, Hate-filled lives.

  Matt edges farther down the street, looking for further inconsistencies, more signs of recent life. There are a couple of houses on this long, straight road which show signs of having been recently occupied. If these Haters are smart—and despite everything, he can’t risk assuming they’re not—then they’ll likely be in hiding from the rest of the world. And if they’re planning on staying here long-term, then they’ll have covered their tracks. What better way to camouflage a hidden entry than by making the entrance itself appear impassable.

  Got it.

  Matt’s interest is piqued by a house with its downstairs windows blacked out. He hesitates, checking over his shoulder to make sure Franklin, Graham Porter, and Chris Greatrex are close. They’re holding back and waiting for his signal. Matt knows stealth is doubly important here. A straightforward, full-on group attack on a suspect building could be disastrous. As well as tipping off any hiding Haters, it would also alert any others in the vicinity. It’s a balancing act. Matt feels like he’s walking through a minefield on skis.

  Focus!

  He doesn’t want to commit to the house where he thinks there may be Haters hiding. Instead he reverses direction and slips through the open front door of another house a few doors down. He waits for a second before entering, smelling the staleness of the air and listening for any telltale noises first, making sure the building’s empty.

  Christ, no matter how many times it happens, things like this still catch him off guard. Apart from the damp and mold in the open hallway, the building he’s just entered is otherwise pristine. It’s like a museum piece—just as its owners left it and a million miles removed from the chaotic madness outside. He looks around the place and can’t help piecing together the stories of the people who lived here and their eventual fates. The wave of nostalgia makes him feel melancholy. He longs for a return to this kind of innocent normality, but he knows it’s gone forever.

  Downstairs, the house is a picture of suburban ordinariness. He looks up the staircase and begins to formulate a hypothesis. There are bloody handprints on the floral print wallpaper at the foot of the stairs. Their color is stale brown, not fresh red. Smeared by frantic downward movements, he notes, no other visible stains. From the lack of obvious damage down here, he thinks this was a relatively controlled exit, that this was more likely to be a Hater fleeing than one of their victims. One of them probably lived here and turned on their friends or family or lover upstairs. He’s tempted to go up to the bedrooms and see if he was right, but instead he keeps moving, reminding himself he’s got a job to do.

  Out through the narrow kitchen and into a long and once well-tended but now wildly overgrown garden which backs onto another row of houses behind. Matt catches his breath when something rushes through the knee-high grass, but it’s just an animal. A fox, feral dog, or cat or maybe even an engorged rat. All he sees is a flash of mange and dirty fur.

  The suspect house is three doors farther along. With no obvious shelter out here, he crawls on his hands and knees through the undergrowth and overgrowth, tucking in tight against the waist-high fence between this garden and the next. There’s a small wooden shed at the far end of the lawn. He uses it for cover so he can look back at the house he’s had his eye on.

  Christ, I’m good …

  Matt’s instincts are bang-on. There’s a lone Hater prowling the upstairs of the house, nervously moving from room to room, scanning the outside world through a pair of binoculars. The middle-aged man is so busy looking for the source of the engine noise and movement at the far end of the street that he fails to see Matt crouching right under his nose. Matt waits a while longer until he’s sure as he can be the Hater is alone.

  Job done, he retraces his steps and reports back to the others. He peels off his facemask. “Number thirty-seven,” he tells Franklin. “Just one bloke in there, as far as I can see.”

  “You ready?” Franklin asks Chris Greatrex.

  “Yep,” he answers, voice flat and monosyllabic. He neither looks nor sounds prepared.

  Franklin turns back to Matt. “Do it.”

  “You’re sure about this?”

  “Go rile that bastard up. All you have to do is get him out into the open, then let us take care of the rest. Just make sure you don’t get yourself killed.”

  “Easier said than done. You’ve got my back, right?”

  “Just do it,” Franklin orders, shoving him forward again.

  Matt runs back toward the Hater’s house with Chris close behind. What the hell am I doing? The door’s locked, but that’s not an issue because Graham Porter appears from out of nowhere, carrying a metal battering ram which he swings at the lock. The door flies open, hitting the inside wall and bouncing back again, shattering the silence. Matt takes a hesitant step into the house, waiting for the inevitable thunderous noise as the Hater comes pelting down the stairs toward him, screaming and salivating and all-consumed with bloodlust.

  There’s nothing. No reaction.

  In for a penny, in for a pound.

  He goes deeper into the house. Sounding far more composed than he feels, he clears his throat and shouts, taunting the hidden killer. “Show yourself, you pathetic bastard.”

  Still nothing.

  Matt stops when he hears floorboards creaking upstairs. The Hater’s on the move.

  “Come on, for Christ’s sake, what’s the matter with you?”

  Matt’s pulse is racing. He’s dicing with death here, risking everything.

  He sees shadows moving at the very top of the stairs. A hand on the wall. “Leave me alone,” the Hater pleads, his voice cracked and hoarse. “Just let me be.”

  It occurs
to Matt that the Hater probably hasn’t yet realized that the enemy is in his house. No Unchanged in their right mind would risk coming here like this, would they? It would be suicidal. Matt knows he’s going to have to spell it out to him. “Come on, you fucker, come and get me. I’m one of them!”

  The Hater sounds like he’s sobbing. Matt can see him now. He has his hands over his face, trying not to look, trying to delay the inevitable. “Just go … I don’t want this…”

  He knows the Hater doesn’t have any choice. His actions, once triggered, will be driven by an unstoppable instinct. There’s a pool of light halfway up the stairs spilling through a first-floor window, and Matt steps into it so the Hater can clearly see.

  Their eyes meet, and it’s like a switch has been flicked.

  The Hater can’t stop himself. The desire to kill Matt is overwhelming, the internal conflict tearing him apart. He’s not brave, not strong … until recently he was just an ordinary divorced father-of-three who worked on a production line by day and propped up bars by night. He never wanted this, never asked for any of this … but he has to do it. He roars with pained frustration and hurls himself down the stairs at Matt who half-runs, half-falls back down the hallway and out through the front door. He immediately presses himself back against the wall of the house as the Hater bursts out into the open. He instantly forgets about Matt because Chris Greatrex is standing in the middle of the street front and center, goading him.

  Chris waits a second or two longer, just enough to be certain that the Hater is entirely focused on him and committed, then he turns and runs like hell. Matt wants to follow in his wake, to watch the soldiers who accompanied them on this trip give the Hater the kind of vicious treatment he’s due, but Graham stops him. “We need to move.”

  “What about Chris?”

  “He’ll be fine, but we need to go. More of them will come. They always do.”

  “But surely the more we get rid of now, the better.”