Chokehold

by David Moody

  This place was a hive of activity when the enemy attacked last night, piles of bodies stacking up. They all look the same when they’re dead, and from where he’s standing, the lines are starting to blur with the living, too. It’s getting harder to differentiate between some of the CDF militia fighters and the Haters. Different shades of killer, that’s all, different motives. The CDF say they’re killing to end the war, but isn’t that what the other side is probably saying, too? It takes Joseph back to the conversations he’d had with those few Haters he’d thought he’d taught to hold the Hate all those months ago. That’s the biggest paradox of war, he thinks: everyone knows they’re right, and no one will ever admit they’re wrong.

  Now the sun’s up (for what it’s worth), the cleanup begins in earnest. Yet more of the dead are carried over and dumped near the pit, and Joseph’s glad of the distraction. It helps him ignore the nagging feeling he has that the tenuous normality of the last few weeks is about to come to an end. Going through the motions like this, the same old, same old, prolongs the illusion of safety for a short while longer. Peter Sutton’s been sent here again to help. Joseph wishes they’d send someone else.

  “Go through that pile of clothes,” he tells him when Peter asks what he should do. “Salvage anything that’s still got any wear left in it, dump the rest.”

  Peter dutifully gets to work, though he’s not sure any of this stuff is worth keeping. Stripped from corpses, it’s stained and soaked and ripped, torn and worn.

  There are two male corpses at Joseph’s feet, dropped like sacks of potatoes at the edge of the pit. He takes a deep breath and goes to haul the first of them over when the dead man opens his eyes. It’s one of the enemy, and the damn monster is somehow still alive! Joseph staggers back with surprise, looking for a weapon, and the Hater manages to flop himself over onto his belly and drag himself along, crawling through the mud. The Hate-fueled strength he still possesses is remarkable. Even though it’ll almost certainly be the last thing he ever does, he’s still driven to kill at all costs. He snarls and groans with pain and anger. “Kill … you…” he gasps, struggling to fill his collapsing lungs with air enough to function. The Hater is relentless, like something out of a nightmare. By all rights, he should be dead already, but still he keeps coming.

  “Watch yourself, Peter,” Joseph says, and he runs over to the back of a van where they’ve been storing scavenged weapons. He’s looking for a decent blade or club, cursing himself for not bringing one outside with him. He finds a carving knife that’ll do the trick, but when he stands up again and looks out through the windows in the side of the van, Joseph sees something he can’t understand.

  Peter’s approaching the Hater now, but the monster in the mud isn’t reacting. The killer has become calm—too calm—all the fight suddenly gone. Peter drops to his knees and lifts the broken man up in his arms, all his anger and hatred inexplicably neutralized. Peter covers the man’s mouth and nose and holds him tight in a headlock until he stops breathing, like he’s rocking him to sleep. When the deed is done, he rolls the body down the slope into the mass grave.

  Joseph approaches him with the knife gripped tight, still struggling to comprehend what he’s just witnessed. It’s not what Peter did to the Hater; it’s how the Hater reacted toward Peter. Passive. Calm. Accepting. Joseph’s paralyzed with fear now because he’s tried to unpick the actions and interactions between Haters and Unchanged more than most, and though he does everything he can to try to convince himself he’s wrong, in his heart he knows he’s right.

  Peter must be a Hater.

  “It’s okay, Joseph, he’s dead. I killed him.”

  Joseph’s mouth is dry, his pulse racing. He wants to run, but he can’t move, legs like lead. He has a million thoughts racing, but he can barely spit out the first word. “You’re … you’re one of them…”

  Peter almost laughs. “Come on, Joe. Seriously?”

  “I saw you. That kid … he stopped fighting. He let you hold him. He’d only have done that if…”

  Peter drops his head. “If what? Go on, say it.”

  “If you were a Hater.”

  It sounds impossible, vaguely ridiculous. Peter’s expression changes, but it’s hard to read. For a split second, he appears poised to make a denial, but then decides there’s no point.

  “And what would you do if I was? Tell the chiefs? I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”

  “You’ll kill us all.”

  “Believe me, Joseph, I won’t.”

  “Why should I believe you? You’ve been lying since you got here. I always knew there was something wrong with you.”

  “You should believe me because I haven’t hurt anyone so far. Not here, at least. I killed that boy just now because it had to be done. He was all but dead already.”

  “You’re a Hater,” Joseph says again, still struggling to process everything that’s happening.

  “Hater, Unchanged … I think we need to lose the labels. I thought you’d understand that better than anyone. I knew your name before I got here. I know about the work you were doing with people like me.”

  “I made a mistake before. I was wrong.”

  “You weren’t. You got it right, but they used you, manipulated you. I know exactly what happened, Joseph. I knew of your reputation from other people who were trying to do the same thing, Simon Penkridge and Selena. I’d been here for a while when you turned up, but I deliberately kept a low profile.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I thought you might expose me. I also figured you were probably the only one who could help me. You’d be the only one who’d listen.”

  “So why are you here? Are you going to turn on us? Kill us? Are you here like those bastards I tried to help before, back in the city? The ones who brought the whole place crashing down?”

  “I wasn’t there. Believe me, I know what you were trying to do, Joseph; you were trying to rehabilitate … to stop the fighting.”

  “And look what happened. Hundreds of thousands of people died, and it’s my fault. I accelerated the end.”

  “You really think that? And who said anything about this being the end? We’re still alive, aren’t we?”

  “Barely.”

  “We can get through this.”

  Joseph’s shaking his head. “This is bullshit. You’re just biding your time, waiting for the Haters to find this place. Did you bring them here? Are you the one who brought them here?”

  Peter shakes his head. “They’re nothing to do with me. Ask yourself, if I’d wanted to bring this place down, wouldn’t I have done it already? You’re right; I could destroy everything we’ve built here in minutes. I could go inside that building right now and start a riot that would leave everyone dead. I could finish this war at any moment.”

  “So why don’t you?”

  “I told you before, it’s not about me. I have family here. My grandson. The lad doesn’t know me, but I know him and I want to keep him safe. I want to keep him alive. He’s all I’ve got left.”

  “The rest of us have got nothing left thanks to your kind.”

  “You think I don’t know that? I’m clinging to the hope that there’s still a chance of some of us getting through this and coming out the other side in one piece.”

  “I lost that hope a long time ago.”

  “I know. I’ve known that from the moment I met you.”

  “You know nothing about me. No one here does. If people here knew what I’d done, they’d string me up. They’d call me a sympathizer. Use me as bait.”

  “You’re too hard on yourself. You were played.”

  “And I won’t let it happen again. Leave me alone, you bastard.”

  The two men stare at each other. Peter takes off his thick-lensed glasses and wipes the pissing rain from his face. Few people ever come near the death pit. They can’t be heard here, can’t be seen.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, Joe. I’m not going to hurt anyone.”

  Peter
moves toward him, and despite being armed, Joseph starts backing away. “Stay away from me. I’ll kill you.”

  “See what I’m saying? Hater, Unchanged … we’re all cut from the same cloth.”

  Joseph lunges at Peter with the knife. Peter sidesteps. “Don’t. Please. You and I both know something terrible is coming. Last night’s attack was just the beginning, and there’s only one way it’s going to end. I need to find a way out of this war, and I think you want out, too. We’re the same, you and me; we’re not fighters. We’re just cannon fodder.”

  But Joseph’s not listening. He’d shout and scream for help if he could, but he can’t risk the noise. Instead, he turns and runs, dodging in and out of vehicles, slipping and skidding in the mud and grime. He’s desperately out of shape, but he sprints like an athlete in his prime because he’s sure Peter Sutton’s on his shoulder. He pushes through the service station’s (non)revolving doors and runs straight into Moira Kay coming the other way.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  Joseph can barely breathe, let alone speak. “Hater…” he gasps. “There’s a Hater here.”

  Moira’s immediately at panic stations. She calls a couple of nearby CDF soldiers over. “Where?” she says to Joseph, though she thinks the location of the Hater will be obvious enough when the damn monster starts killing.

  “Outside. It … it’s one of our people.”

  She stops and pins him up against the wall, looking at him like he’s out of his mind. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “He can hold the Hate. He’s been here since the start.”

  “Who?”

  “Peter Sutton.”

  She bursts out laughing. “Peter Sutton! That drip! He’s no Hater.”

  “He is, I swear.”

  Aaron Rayner is close enough to overhear. “What’s going on?”

  “This joker reckons Peter Sutton is a Hater. Have you ever heard anything so fucking ridiculous?”

  “It’s not ridiculous, Moira,” Aaron says. “One of them hiding in the ranks is what undid us at Thornhill, remember?”

  “Yes, but Peter Sutton? Seriously?”

  “You want to take a chance on this? Since when have they conformed to type?” He turns to face Joseph. “What’s your name, mate?”

  “Joseph Mallon.”

  “I’ve heard Estelle talk about you,” Aaron says. He turns back to Moira. “We need to find this Sutton guy and suss him out. And we can’t afford to make any noise while we do it. If people get wind of this—whether it’s true or not—they’ll panic, and we’ll lose control of this place before the rest of the Haters get anywhere near.”

  Moira doesn’t argue. She orders half a dozen of her best men to search every inch of the outpost and bring the Hater to her.

  But Peter Sutton is long gone.

  38

  The Travelodge

  Matt wakes up slowly from a deep sleep. It’s alien—he feels properly rested, and his belly’s full. His wounded shoulder hurts marginally less than it did. And he’s free.

  He’s not herding other survivors for once, and his current location is so quiet and forgotten that he’s starting to believe it might actually be safe to stay here. The food left unclaimed in the vending machine and the dead Hater’s stocks indicates there’s been little footfall here in recent months. All things considered, he’s starting to think this could be the best place to stay shut away and wait for the rest of the world to pass him by. He could sit out the rest of the chaos here. Wait till it all blows over …

  He feels confident enough to get up and move around, though his energy levels remain desperately low. He rearranges his room, moving all his stuff out of sight into the bathroom and then, with considerable effort, shifting the bed so it’s right under the window, highlighting a substantial-looking bloodstain in the middle of the well-worn carpet. From outside looking in, it’ll look like the battle’s over and the room is bare. Nothing to see here.

  Jason hears the shoving and grunting coming from Matt’s room and appears in the doorway, concerned. “Everything okay?”

  “Getting settled in.”

  “Waste of time.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s time we left.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  “Come on, Matt. You can’t lock yourself away in here with the others just down the road.”

  “I can. I have.”

  “Well, I’m going.”

  “Like I said, good luck with that. I thought we’d been through this already. The more I think about it, the more I realize what a bad idea leaving here would be. We’ll be killed en route or shot at on the way in by Estelle and her merry band.”

  “Doesn’t change anything. I can’t stay here. I owe them. We owe them.”

  “We owe them nothing. They abandoned us, remember? Left us both for dead in Thornhill.”

  “It was my fault I got left behind. I already told you.”

  “Okay, but all I did was try to help them. Fact is, they left us both behind and didn’t look back.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I do, and if I’m honest, I don’t blame them. I’d have done the same. You and I were expendable. We’re all individually expendable, come to that. Fuck’s sake, Jason, they pumped me full of anesthetic and left me out cold. If I’d come around a couple of hours later, I’d have woken up surrounded by Haters.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No, thank Christ. Look, I’m sorry to be such an arsehole, but it’s time to face facts. We need to assume we’re on our own. If we cross paths with the others a little further down the line, then great. Until then, all we need to think about is ourselves and our own safety.”

  “Even if I agreed with you—which I don’t—we’d need to find a better place than this.”

  “You reckon? This shithole is perfect. The burned-out Starbucks and the fuel station are a bonus, because they divert attention from the Travelodge. We’re set back far enough from the road here to be invisible to traffic—not that there is any—and we’ve got plenty of exits. There’s just empty fields behind…”

  “We could still do better.”

  “Yes, we could, and I’ve been thinking about that, too. We can rig up a kind of early warning system like they used to in survival horror films—cans on lengths of string, that kind of thing.”

  “You think about this stuff too much.”

  “No, you don’t think about it enough. There are bolt-holes and crawl spaces here we can use if we have to, paper-thin walls we can knock through, bath panels we can hide behind…”

  Matt helps himself to a chocolate bar from Jason’s stash and walks around the room, flexing his injured shoulder. He’s starting to imagine a future here; a short and unfulfilling future, granted, but a future all the same.

  “That giving you trouble?”

  “What?”

  “Your shoulder,” Jason says. “I can smell the wound from here, and you keep wincing. Here, let me take a look.”

  “Looking won’t make any difference,” Matt grumbles as he shrugs off several layers, then lifts up his T-shirt. He angles himself around so that he can see his shoulder in the mirror. “Looks a bit inflamed.”

  “Jesus, that’s the understatement of the year,” Jason says, and he gently touches Matt’s wound. Matt flinches. “It’s red hot. That’s badly infected, mate.”

  “I’m not surprised. It’ll clear up in a few days. You said you had some more antibiotics, didn’t you?”

  “Somewhere around here … I thought they were—”

  Jason’s words are abruptly truncated by noise outside. Both men become silent, straining to listen. Whatever’s happening out there sounds like it’s a considerable distance away, but it’s localized, and it’s prolonged. And that, they decide, can only mean one thing.

  39

  Half a Mile from the CDF Outpost

  The weaponry available to Johannson’s horde is rudimentary, borderline me
dieval, yet it does the job magnificently. There’s little time for deep thought and strategic thinking in the massed Hater ranks, but every last one of them out on the battlefield today appreciates that the effectiveness of any weapon, no matter how basic, can be increased a hundredfold by the intent of the fighter who wields it. Take the cricket bat that woman’s swinging, for example; times past, it was just used for leisure and relaxation, but judging from the ingrained bloodstains and the gouges in the wood, it’s ended more than its fair share of lives since the war began. The crowbar and claw hammer carried by the sinewy man standing next to her: tools of his trade this time last year, tools of a very different trade today. And the humble automobile: taking the kids to school, driving to work or to the shops, visiting the family at the weekend … no longer.

  Five drivers rev the engines of their lined-up vehicles impatiently, gripping their steering wheels and staring at their target in the distance like they’re waiting for the lights to change at the start of a Formula One race. The quality, design, and speed of these four-wheeled weapons is unimportant. All that matters is the impact they’ll have when they hit.

  Most people, Hater or Unchanged, might be expected to show a little emotion at a moment like this, a hint of nervousness or even excitement. Not Johannson. She’s an imposing, hateful bitch, and she watches her troops with the same stoic scowl as always. Some of these people will die this morning, but that doesn’t matter. They’ll lose vehicles and weapons—not important. The toxic, ice-cold rain is torrential, but even that doesn’t faze her. She’s soaked to the skin and shivering with cold, but she ignores any discomfort, it barely even registers, because nothing is more important than what’s about to unfold here. Today changes everything. Clarifies everything. It will make indisputable her command over what’s left of the human race. She has no idea how many Unchanged are here, but she’ll keep fighting until the last one’s been killed. Johannson has hundreds of Haters under her command, and a single Hater is worth many Unchanged.