Chokehold

by David Moody

  Back over onto the customer side of the counter, and he’s on his way out to call Jason over when a vending machine tucked behind the entrance piques his interest. He has to look twice, because at first he thinks his eyes must be deceiving him. It’s still half-full of food, the sight of which makes him realize just how bloody hungry he actually is.

  He starts trying to prize the door open, then remembers the keys he’d just picked up and tries each of them in turn, but none fit. Then he grabs the top of the cabinet and rocks it back and forth, hoping to dislodge an out-of-date chocolate bar or stale packet of potato chips. He has to get it open. This is too valuable a haul to leave. There’s enough food in here to keep him and Jason going for days. He kicks the machine in anger, then picks up a fire extinguisher and uses it to try to smash the glass. A spiderweb of splintering cracks spread out from the point of impact, but it doesn’t smash. Matt hits the door again, remembering the long-forgotten taste of chocolate …

  A disheveled Hater woman sprints down the corridor and crashes into reception, the sound of her skittering footsteps hidden by the noise Matt’s making.

  He looks up just as she hurls herself at him.

  The reception area is a tight space, and the closed-in confines make it difficult to move with Matt and the Hater both getting in each other’s way and blocking all exits. The woman’s in an awful state physically, and that, combined with her excitement and over-keenness to kill, means her initial attack is nowhere near as coordinated as it might otherwise have been. As she lunges at him, Matt tries to crawl under her on his hands and knees. He’s almost away when she catches his ankle and pulls him back, dragging him into range again. He kicks and squirms, but even in her awful, wasted state, the danger from the Hater is undiminished. She grabs hold of his collar, then smashes his face against the vending machine glass. He tries to fight back, but he’s stunned and full of pain. She thumps his face into the machine again, and he feels himself blacking out, only fear dragging him back from the brick of unconsciousness.

  Someone else here.

  Jason.

  Through flickering eyes, Matt sees him in the doorway. He’s aware of a blur of red movement as Jason smashes the fire extinguisher down on the back of the Hater’s skull. She collapses on top of Matt, and he pushes himself out from underneath her. He drags himself upright, but before he can make for the exit, the Hater’s on her feet again. She lunges, and this time, his only escape route takes him deeper into the building.

  Matt doesn’t have a damn clue where he’s heading now.

  It’s a long, narrow corridor with rooms on either side. The doors are all shut, and he doesn’t dare try any of them because they’re likely locked and he’ll waste precious seconds—or, just as likely, there will be more Haters ready to join the fray. Instead, he just keeps running, crashing through a fire exit at the end of the hallway and finding himself back outside in the parking lot. Even nature seems to be conspiring against him now, because it’s considerably lighter than when he first entered the building. The shadows are evaporating. Nowhere left to hide.

  He glances back and he sees the Hater woman barreling along the corridor after him, all arms and legs and rags and wild hair, looking like something out of a nightmare. Matt’s legs are heavy, his feet barely coordinated, and there’s nothing left in the tank. He breaks right, stumbling around and between the long-stationary vehicle wrecks littering the fuel station forecourt, then climbs onto the hood of a midsize van that’s collided with the corner of a car wash and been abandoned. From there, he scrambles up onto the top of the car wash itself, then he keeps climbing, jumping the meter gap onto the flat roof of the small payment kiosk and store. And still he keeps running, because it’s that or give up.

  He drags himself up onto the canopy that covers the entire forecourt, then runs out of options because it’s too high to jump down and the way back is blocked. The Hater woman has followed him all the way. Matt’s standing on the farthest edge of the canopy now: a blood-crazed killer in front, and a sheer drop behind.

  The briefest of standoffs.

  He’s barely gotten his breath when the woman races toward him again. He stands his ground, tensed up and ready for impact. At the last possible second, he simply steps out of the way. She just about manages to stop herself from going over, teetering on the brink, but he helps her on her way with a shove to the backside.

  Hater or no Hater, the thud and crunch when she hits the deck is sickening. Matt drops to all fours, panting like a dog, and peers over. She’s still alive down there, but she won’t be for long. She’s not going anywhere. Her legs are badly broken, and her right arm is useless and limp, twisted behind her head at an unnatural angle, snapped at the elbow. When she sees him looking down at her, she still tries to move. Matt relaxes. He knows he’s safe.

  The woman has dropped into the gap between the edge of the forecourt canopy and the Travelodge. Jason’s waiting in the hotel doorway. Matt climbs down and walks toward him, but as much as he wants to get out of sight and stay there, he’s distracted. He takes an unexpected interest in the Hater woman’s suffering, almost a perverse pleasure. Despite the fact her bones are protruding through her flesh in several places, grinding and cutting every time she moves even a fraction, she just can’t stop herself reacting. She’s driven to want to kill Matt, no matter what the cost. He remains just out of reach, deliberately taunting her, then shuffles farther back when she stretches out her remaining good arm and her fingertips almost touch the toes of his boots. “Fucker,” she growls.

  “Bitch,” he says back, crouching down so she can hear him.

  “You won’t … last long…”

  “I’ve done okay so far. Better than you, anyway.”

  “Won’t … last…”

  “Who were you?” Matt asks. He’s thinking out loud, not meaning to converse, not wanting to engage. But now he’s sown the seed, he’s curious. “Who did you used to be before all this?”

  “Used to be nothing…”

  “What, and now you think you’re something? Look at you. Christ, is this what we’ve been reduced to? Is this all that’s left? Pretty fucking pathetic, if you ask me.”

  “Fuck you…” she spits, and she exhales hard through gritted teeth, which are speckled with blood. The hatred in her voice is undiminished, but her strength is failing. The life’s leaking out of her, crimson blood pooling against the monochrome gray of everything else.

  Matt’s still crouched. He’s no longer afraid and is instead bizarrely curious. “What just happened to you,” he says, “is a perfect metaphor for what’ll happen to the rest of your kind. You shout, you fight, you attack. You make a lot of noise, then you die. It’s all so pointless. Just look at you … bleeding out on your own outside a fuel station in the middle of nowhere. If we hadn’t been here to watch, no one would even have noticed. Pathetic.”

  “You know nothing…” she wheezes. Fading fast. Not long left.

  “I know a damn sight more than you think.”

  With her last ounce of energy, she lashes out at him again with her good arm. Matt trips back and falls, smacking hard against the side of a dust-covered Alfa Romeo. He feels a sudden sharp pain in his left shoulder and screams out, voice echoing around the empty buildings, taking forever to fade. There’s something sticking into his skin. It’s gone in deep. Really deep.

  Jason’s here now, and from the look on his face, Matt knows this isn’t good.

  “Shit, mate.”

  “What is it?”

  “Take it easy,” Jason tells him, and he takes Matt’s arm and carefully pulls him forward. The pain in his back increases. Finally free, Matt shuffles around and sees a jagged shard of metal sticking out from the car’s crumpled metal bodywork, and the last three inches of it is vivid red with his blood.

  “Fuck,” he says, thinking he might be about to pass out. Jason helps him to his feet.

  “We need to get inside.”

  “Fuck,” Matt says again, dripping w
ith sweat, struggling to walk, struggling to stay standing.

  They step over the Hater corpse. Bitch has died with a smile on her face.

  Matt can feel blood running down his back. He stretches his right hand over to touch his left shoulder, and when he brings it back around, it’s soaked with red. His legs threaten to buckle, but Jason has his weight and keeps him moving. It’s only a few meters, but it feels like a marathon. Eventually, they make it into reception, and Matt leans against the wall, but his legs give way and he collapses. Jason peels off his blood-soaked jacket and shirt, then lowers him down so he’s lying on his belly on the muck-covered cord carpet.

  “Gonna try to stop the bleeding,” he says, but Matt’s head is spinning and he can’t respond.

  What if there are more of them here?

  What if more of them are coming?

  Am I going to bleed to death?

  What if…?

  He’s gone. Out cold.

  33

  The Travelodge

  When Matt next opens his eyes, he thinks he must be dreaming. Hallucinating. It doesn’t feel right to be lying on a bed—an actual, proper, comfortable bed—with his head on a pillow. He tries to roll over but stops when he feels the burning pain in his shoulder. He’s glued to the sheets with dried blood. To his credit, Jason must have managed to stem the blood loss, but Matt’s under no illusions; with the air filled with Christ knows what and every surface covered with a layer of grime so thick you could write your name in it, he knows a wound like this could be the death of him.

  “You’re still alive, then.”

  He looks up and sees Jason sitting in a chair opposite, his feet up on a table. There are thin curtains at the window, which let in enough light for him to see his surroundings, and there’s an unexpected familiarity that catches him off guard, making him feel both nostalgic and, for the moment, safe. The minimalist decoration. The functional furniture. The cheap artwork hanging on the walls. The TV, remote, jug kettle, and drinks-making facilities. This could be any room in any hotel anywhere in the country.

  He tries to lift himself up onto his elbows, but the pain’s too much, and he crashes back down.

  “My shoulder…”

  “Really nasty wound, mate. I cleaned it up as best I could. Couldn’t face doing stitches, so I superglued it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Water?”

  Jason has amassed a decent collection of supplies. He opens a fresh bottle and hands it to Matt, who knocks it back in several large gulps.

  “Before you start having a go at me,” Jason says, “I’ve checked every inch of this place, and we’re clear. I found the room keys you had in your pocket. A few of the rooms are like this one, haven’t been opened since before the fighting started. That woman you pushed off the roof was the only Hater around.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “I managed to get the food out of the vending machine in reception. This lot,” he continues, gesturing at a pile of stash, “belonged to our dead friend out there. Proper little hoard she had. Her room stank to high heaven, but all the stuff I brought in here was sealed.”

  “Where are we?”

  “What?”

  “In the building? Whereabouts are we?”

  “Give me some credit, Matt. We’re not in room number one next to reception, if that’s what you’re worried about. I did think about this. This room is facing the back. There are three locked and empty rooms on one side, two on the other, and four opposite. It’s the least conspicuous room from the back of the hotel.”

  “What about the corpse outside?”

  “I left her where she was. Seemed sensible. Looks like she was up on the roof and lost her footing—which I guess she kind of did. I could have moved her, but I thought a trail of blood leading away from here might have been a bit of a giveaway.”

  “Good. How long have I been out of it?”

  “You’ve been drifting in and out for hours. The Hater had some boxes of pills, so I shoved a few down your throat. Not entirely sure what they were, but you’ve come around, so they can’t have done you any harm. There was some antiseptic in the first aid kit in reception, and the last person to use one of the other rooms left a bottle of antibiotics in the bathroom. I gave you a swig of that, too.”

  “Thanks.”

  Jason glares at him. “See. Not quite as fucking useless as you keep telling everyone I am, eh?”

  “Sorry.”

  “I got us safe and patched you up.”

  “Thanks.”

  “So I reckon it’s about time you got off my case.”

  “Now’s really not the time.”

  “I know, but you need to hear this. I need you to understand that what happened to Jen wasn’t my fault. Believe me, it tears me apart every day thinking about it.”

  “You could have—”

  “No, you could have been there for her. I tried, I really did. She wasn’t going anywhere without you. I tried to get her to where you’d told us to meet you, but she wouldn’t leave. I tried to tell you and get you to go back to the house, but…”

  “Kara told me.”

  “Shame about Kara. I could do with having her here. She was the only one who could keep you in check.”

  “Yeah…”

  “Look, I don’t like being around you as much as you don’t like being around me, but that’s just how it goes. So let’s get some rest, get you sorted, then get to that bloody outpost.”

  34

  The CDF Outpost

  There are spotters up in the trees around the base, camouflaged and all but invisible, wrapped tight in the grip of clawlike branches. This is Andrew Ryman’s first shift in several days. He’d rather be in the trenches or even guarding the death pit. It’s the exposure out here, up here, that gets to him. He’s watching for enemy movement, but what if they spot him? He knows he’d be completely alone. He’s had nightmares about being stuck up this damn tree with a pack of wild Haters prowling like wolves below, waiting for him to come down. Can’t stay up there forever …

  It’s hard to stay focused. His mind wanders. He’s thinking about the life he used to lead before all of this. Thinking about what his future (if he has one) might hold. Thinking about the cramp in his leg. Thinking about how he’s soaked through with foul-tasting rain (again). Thinking about how his face is frozen, and how there’s water stinging his eyes, and how he has an itch he wants to scratch but how he doesn’t dare move because knowing his luck, the moment he does will be the moment a Hater wanders past and looks up.

  He’s harnessed to the trunk of the tree, and he pulls the strapping tight. It hurts his belly, but the discomfort’s better than the fall. He’s lost so much weight over the last few months that a single belt is enough to keep him secure. There’s not an ounce of fat on him. The nylon digs into his skin, and he tries to scratch but his fingers are numb with cold. One day, they’ll find him dead up here, he thinks. He doubts anyone would notice. He could be up here for weeks before anyone realized he was missing.

  His eyes are heavy, and he’s just starting to fall asleep when he hears it. The world’s so quiet these days that sounds like this are alien and difficult to locate. Thunder? An engine? A distant building collapsing in on itself? It’s hard to make anything out through the squall.

  And then he sees it.

  A single motorbike is tearing along the A14 at a furious speed, its driver skillfully swerving to avoid the floodwater and debris. Andrew fumbles for his binoculars but only manages to catch a fleeting glimpse as the bike races past.

  Andrew has to let the chiefs know what he’s just seen. All unusual activity has to be reported and recorded, even if it’s just a random Hater passing through. He hangs the binoculars around his neck, then fumbles with the clips and carabiners and disentangles himself from the safety harness before shimmying back down to ground level. He drops down into the nearest trench and races through the mazelike network of passages to find Chappell.

  * *
*

  Nina Young cruises through the countryside on the kind of bike she always dreamed of owning but never thought she would. It’s damn powerful, almost too much, and the thrill of the barely contained engine force she’s straddling combines with the openness of the empty world and the prospect of hunting Unchanged to leave her feeling giddy with excitement, struggling to focus. She stops in a rest area several miles farther down the A14, marks her position on the map, then turns the bike around and rides back the way she just came, twice as fast.

  Result.

  This time when she looks up, the figure in the tree is gone.

  Nina knows these roads well, and it’s no time at all before she’s on the final approach back into the ruins of the university. The bike’s nowhere near as quick as email or phones used to be, but it moves at lightning speed in comparison to everything else, and these days it’s the fastest way of getting information from point A to point B.

  She can’t help but feel a swell of pride when she drives up toward Johannson’s building and the crowd parts to let her through. Myndham is in the ornate college doorway before she’s even dismounted, gesturing for her to follow him inside.