by David Moody
“Only because—” I start to explain. He holds up his hand to stop me talking and washes out his mouth with water from my bottle. One of us must have kicked it across the room in the fight. He spits red-tinged water out onto the dirty carpet.
“Doesn’t matter why,” he says, “fact is you did it. Takes a person of intelligence to do that. Someone who can look beyond all this hatred and fighting and see what’s really important.”
Patronizing bastard.
“I made a mistake and you got lucky.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”
“I do.”
“No,” he says, his voice suddenly more serious, “you’re wrong. This is what happened—I gave you an opportunity to kill me, which you instinctively tried to take. But, before you could do it, you stopped and weighed up the pros and cons. And you realized your choice was pretty stark: kill me and rot here, or let me go and survive.”
Bastard. He’s right.
“What’s important,” he continues, “is the fact that you overruled your instincts. Like I said, you held the Hate.”
I can’t argue. I want to, but I can’t. I sit down opposite him. I should have killed him, but I didn’t. What does that make me? I feel strangely dirty and defiled, as if I’ve just made the most embarrassing, basic mistake, like a teenaged boy caught jerking off by his mom. In the distance I can hear the muffled thump and bangs of explosions. Elsewhere the fighting continues. It should have continued in here, too. I should reach across, grab hold of him, and kill him now. But I don’t.
“So how did it happen to you?” he asks, mouth still bleeding. “I’ve told you my story, Danny, what your people did to my family. Now you tell me yours.”
I say nothing.
“Come on … what have you got to lose by talking to me? Face facts. I could have had you killed when you first arrived here, but I didn’t. I could have done it myself, but instead I’ve fed you, watered you, I haven’t tortured you … You don’t have any information I want, no top secret plans of attack … There’s no need for you not to speak now. You’ve already done the hard part; now finish the job. Break the cycle. Talk to me like the rational human being I know you really are. It’s up to you.”
I can see the frustration in his face. Truth is, I’m not trying to be defiant now. I’m thinking about what he said. Either he’s right and I’ve got nothing left to lose, or it’s too late and I’ve already lost it all. Or is my sudden pathetic weakness just a result of the physical and emotional stress of captivity? Have I just lost the ability to think straight?
“Back in your room yesterday,” he continues, “you flinched when I mentioned your family. Those things I found in your bag, the doll and the clothes … Do you want to start there? Are they trophies or reminders?”
I try hard to hide it, but my reaction when he mentions my family is disappointingly obvious. He immediately picks up on it.
“So what happened? Were you with them when you changed? Are you carrying around some kind of guilt because you killed the people you used to love?”
Can’t help myself. He’s hit a nerve. “My only guilt is that I didn’t kill them.” My voice sounds loud and overamplified, alien and strange.
“Tell me more…”
“I was confused, disoriented,” I tell him, my words sounding angry, strangled by emotion. “Should have killed them, but I didn’t. They caught me off guard.”
“Partner?”
I nod my head.
“Kids?”
“Three. One like me, two like you.”
He looks confused. “One like you?”
“Ellis, my daughter.”
“What happened to her?”
I’m about to tell him, but I stop myself, suddenly remembering that I’m talking to one of the Unchanged. Don’t want him to know she’s the reason I came back to the city.
“Her mother took her,” I answer, spitting out the words. He nods slowly, trying to make it look like he understands.
“Must be hard to deal with,” he says. “I mean, I thought I’d had it bad, but at least I know what happened to my family. I know they’re both dead and I’ve had closure, but you, you don’t have a clue where any of them are or even if they’re still alive.”
“I should have killed them,” I say again.
“I can’t begin to imagine what you’ve been through. The realization you were a killer must have been hard enough. How did they get away?”
“I was disoriented. I’d kill them in a heartbeat if they were here now.”
“You didn’t kill me.”
“No, but I—”
“You’re from around here, right?” he interrupts.
“Depends where here is.”
“What about the other two kids?”
“Two boys. One older, one younger than my girl.”
“Really tough,” he says quietly, shaking his head and rinsing his bloody mouth out again. “So how have you coped?”
Is he mocking me now?
“I’ve killed as many of you fuckers as I’ve been able to find,” I answer, feeling my body start to tense up again.
“Except me.”
“There’s still time…”
“Okay,” he says quickly, leaning back and looking up at the ceiling, “but has it actually helped? Has it got you any closer to getting your daughter back? I presume that’s what you were heading back to the city for?”
Christ, I have to give him his due, he’s good. That one came from out of nowhere.
“I’ll find her if it’s the last thing I do.”
“That’s good.”
“Is it?”
He nods his head vigorously. “Of course it is. It shows there’s more to you than just wanting to fight and kill all the time. You still give a damn about your daughter, and that means you’ve still got a chance. Honestly, Danny, most of the people like you who come through here are complete no-hopers, only interested in killing. You, you’re different. You’re thinking further ahead than the next battle.”
“Doesn’t mean I won’t fight. Doesn’t mean I won’t still kill you.”
“Of course not, but from where I’m sitting, killing me would be the worst thing you could do. How would it help? Like I said earlier, you’d just be fighting fire with fire. Just stop for a second and work your way back, Danny. Think about everything that’s happened to you to bring you to this point. The Hate has taken everything you ever had. It’s stripped you of your soul and your identity. It’s stopped you functioning as a human being.”
“It hasn’t. I know exactly—”
“You’ve lost everything because of it … your family, your home, your daughter. If it wasn’t for the Hate you might still be with her now. Christ, man, it’s even cost you your dignity and your freedom. You’ve spent the last two days lying in a bed of your own piss, tied up and caged like an animal. And at this precise moment in time, you’re close to losing control of your future, too. If I wanted to I could walk out of here right now and not look back. I could leave you here alone to starve and die. You don’t know where you are, how many other people are here, what’s on the other side of the door to this room … Face it, Danny, right now all you have is me.”
He stops talking and waits for me to respond, but I can’t. All I can do is stare back at his barely human face. Is he right? He shuffles forward until he’s just within reach. Is he taunting me? Testing me?
“People tell me I’m wasting my time with your type. They tell me you’re no better than animals, that you’ve got dog blood running through your veins and you should be rounded up and shot.”
“I don’t care what they—”
“You know what I tell them? I tell them they’re wrong. But you’re the only one who can really decide who’s right. If the boot was on the other foot and I was your prisoner, Danny, what would you do now?”
“I’d—”
“Stupid question. We’d have never got to this stage. You’d already have killed me. You could do it now
if you want to, but I think you’re better than that.”
He moves forward again. I move to scratch the stabbing itch by my right knee, which has just returned, and he flinches. He’s trembling. Is this just part of the act, or is his fear genuine?
“Cooperate with me and prove the rest of them wrong. Show me you can control your emotions and I’ll help you. I can get access to records. I could try to find out what happened to your daughter.”
That doesn’t ring true at all. It smacks of desperation, and he knows it.
“Bullshit.”
He shrugs his shoulders. “It might be, but what have I got to gain? More to the point, what have you got to lose?”
Head’s spinning. Can’t take all this in. Can’t think straight. My heart says kill, but something’s telling me to wait because he’s right, fighting has got me nowhere. And if there’s even the slightest chance he’ll be able to help me, should I take it? He leans back and picks up the keys. He takes one of the keys off the ring and throws it over to me.
“For the chains around your wrists,” he says. “Take them off and finish getting dressed.”
I do as he says, stretching my arms and flexing my muscles. The freedom feels good after endless hours of being wrapped in chains. I walk back across the room to the pile of clothes. All the time, Joseph stays seated on the floor. He’s within the reach of the chains around my waist. We both know I could kill him if I wanted to. He’s terrified, I can see it in his eyes, and that gives me strength to hold my nerve. I hold the Hate.
Maybe I’ll give him a chance. If he lets me down, I’ll kill him.
v
THE TORRENTIAL RAINS WERE unexpected, weather forecasts a long-forgotten luxury. The flash floods wreaked unprecedented destruction on the city center refugee camp and its densely packed population. Those living out on the streets bore the brunt of the pain as almost a month’s worth of rain fell in less than two hours, literally washing away scores of people and their few remaining belongings. Blocked and broken drains stopped the water from draining away, transforming many streets and pavements into stagnant lakes. The basements and ground floors of countless buildings flooded. Almost half of the military base in the municipal park was washed away, with a huge number of refugee-occupied tents being lost. Then, to add insult to injury, as quickly as the rains came, they disappeared. Thankfully the sun remained hidden behind a layer of heavy cloud for most of the day, but the summer heat and a few sharp bursts of sunlight were enough to dry out and bake the bedraggled world below. Every outdoor surface was caked in a layer of foul-smelling mud, a grubby tidemark on building walls a grim reminder of how high the floodwaters had climbed. Huge mountains of rain-soaked garbage and waste began to ferment, the insect population feeding on them seeming to multiply by the hour.
Constant helicopter patrols continued to police the border and the exclusion zone. All scheduled missions outside the city were temporarily abandoned as, for once, the already severely depleted military forces turned their attention to the thousands of people supposedly in their care. Their orders were simple: Get as many people off the streets as possible (living or dead), then clear the major routes through town.
Ahead of the motley collection of vehicles that crawled slowly along Arley Road, groups of soldiers on foot moved from building to building through the early evening darkness. One of the snowplow-fitted trucks was used to clear a route through, pushing tons of sodden waste toward the gutter and leaving a noxious, three-foot-high drift of garbage in its wake. Hazmat-suited soldiers followed it along the freshly scraped pavement, pulling corpses from the mire and loading them into the backs of the yellow refuse and recycling trucks that had been recently commandeered from the now-dissolved city council.
A group of three soldiers emerged from a building that had once been a large house but in more recent years had been converted into office space. By flashlight, one of them spray-painted a simple message onto the brick wall beside the door, a message for those who followed.
37 INSIDE
6 DEAD
20 MORE
Ignoring the countless frightened questions and the grabbing hands of the refugees who surrounded them, the soldiers moved on to the next building. Thirty-seven survivors, six bodies to remove, space for twenty more inside.
There was a sudden loud thump on the door of room 33. Mark jumped up from the space on the damp floor where he’d been trying to sleep and ran to the door, tripping over Kate’s father’s leg, which hung out of the bed. He pressed his eye against the spyhole.
“Who is it?” Kate asked, standing close behind him.
“Soldiers.”
“Don’t let them in.”
“I have to.”
The lead soldier thumped the door again and yelled for them to open up.
“Don’t,” Kate pleaded.
“If I don’t open it they’ll batter the damn thing down.”
Before she could protest he pulled the door open. Three soldiers barged through, pushing him to the side. They stood in the middle of the room, each of them shining a flashlight around, exposing every corner of the small, cramped space.
“What’s going on?” Mark asked, positioning himself directly in one of the beams of light.
“Assessing space,” the soldier replied, looking around, his voice devoid of interest or emotion. “How many you got here?”
“Five of us. And five’s more than enough. There’s barely enough room as it is. We can’t fit anyone else in—”
“Who?”
“What?”
“Who’s here?”
“Me, my girlfriend, her parents, and my cousin’s wife. And my girlfriend’s pregnant. Like I said, there’s no room for anyone else.”
One of the other soldiers made a note on a clipboard. The others continued to look around. Kate forced her way between them, stopping one of them from getting around the side of the double bed. She stood in front of him, thrusting out her pregnant belly for maximum effect.
“He told you. There’s no more space here.”
The soldier ignored her, moving her out of the way, then ducking down and glancing under the bed. He shined his flashlight onto the bed’s occupants, the two wizened, starving, elderly refugees shaking in fear under the sheets like characters from a Roald Dahl story.
“Your parents?”
She nodded. He spun around. Lizzie sat on a chair in front of the bathroom door, her legs drawn up beneath her, nervously chewing on her nails. She kept her eyes down, refusing to look up. Mark tried diplomatically to coax the soldiers back out.
“My cousin’s partner,” he explained, keeping his voice low so she couldn’t hear him. “He was, you know … one of them? She lost her kids, and it’s really fucked her up. Honestly, man, it’s not a good idea to put anyone else in here with us. What with the baby coming and—”
“Not my decision, pal,” the soldier said.
“But I’ve been a volunteer,” he protested. “I’ve been outside the city with you. I’ve been—”
“Not my decision,” he said again. With that the soldiers left the room. Mark slammed the door shut and leaned against it, staying there until he was sure he’d heard the door to the next room opening. He started to walk back to the others, but Kate stopped him.
“We can’t go on like this,” she whispered. “We should find somewhere else for her. It’s not safe here.”
“And where exactly is safe these days?” He sighed, leaning back against the door again.
“But she’s—”
“She’s family. They all are. Your family, my family … our family. We stick together, and that’s all there is to it.”
“But Mark—”
“Would I ask you to throw your parents out?”
“That’s different—”
“Is it? I’m not talking about this again, Kate. It’s a pointless conversation. She’s family and she stays. No one’s going anywhere.”
24
BACK IN THE CELL. I coopera
ted and let them bring me back here. Thought the silence and darkness would help me work things out. My head was covered along the short walk back.
The longer I’ve been left, the more uncertain I’ve become again. Don’t know who or what I believe anymore. I can’t understand why I didn’t kill Mallon when I had the chance, but at the same time I know that while I’m here, he really is my best and only hope. He hasn’t screwed me over so far. But if he does, now he thinks I trust him, I’ll kill him before he even realizes I’ve turned.
I’m still chained to the bed, but now the shackles are only loosely anchored to the metal bed frame, and I’m able to move around. I’ve been able to move the board and look outside for the first time, but the view is disappointingly limited. All I can see from this window are the redbrick walls of other parts of this building and the gray slate roof of another section below. I can see a few other windows, and I’ve been watching them, hoping to catch sight of other people like me. I haven’t seen anyone else yet. It’s dark now. Maybe I’ll see more tomorrow.
My head is spinning. Still can’t think straight and work this out. The lines between what I feel and what I know are blurring to the point where I can’t make sense of anything anymore. I keep swinging between feeling anger and frustration that I didn’t kill Mallon, then wanting him to come back again so we can talk some more. I want him to tell me what he knows about Ellis, but at the same time I know he won’t have found anything out. I don’t even think he has the means to find out, but I can’t rule out the fact that he might. Maybe I’ll just kill him when he next comes into this room and put an end to all this pointless screwing around.
I sit back on the bed (I’ve turned the mattress, but it’s still damp) and look up at the ceiling, tracing the familiar patterns in the yellowed paint again. If I killed Mallon (and I know I could), what would it achieve? I still don’t know where I am. For all I know I could be surrounded by hundreds of Unchanged, all of them armed to the teeth. I could be dead before Mallon’s body is cold. No, as hard as it is to swallow, right now he’s all I’ve got.
