Hater

by David Moody

  The quiet which follows the sudden mayhem is a thousand times worse than the flames and the screams. I’m standing here waiting to hear sirens as the police, fire department, or anyone who can help reaches the scene but there’s nothing, just a cold and empty silence. I know that the response would be the same if anything happened here. We’re completely on our own.

  I turn around. The room is still filled with dull light from the fire and I can see that Lizzie’s crying. I sit down next to her leaving Harry at the window watching the inferno in the near distance. I put my arm around her and pull her closer.

  “Come on,” I say uselessly. She doesn’t react. I reach out and hold her hand but it just sits limply in mine.

  “It should never have got to this stage,” Harry mutters with his back to us, standing at the window like a general surveying the battlefield. “They should never have let it come to this.”

  He turns around and stares at us both, seeming to be almost demanding a response. Liz stares back at him, her face streaked with tears.

  “Leave it, Harry,” I warn him. “This isn’t the time . . .”

  “When is the time then?” he snaps. “When do you want to start talking about it? When the trouble reaches your front door?”

  “There’s a body in the street about ten meters away. I’d say it’s reached the front door already,” I snap back angrily.

  “So what are we going to do about it?” he demands. There’s an uncomfortable hint of panic and desperation in his raised voice. “Are we just going to sit here? Are we just going to . . . ?”

  “What can we do?” I interrupt, holding Lizzie’s hand a little tighter. “What are the options, Harry? Should we sit here and keep ourselves and the children safe, or do you want us to go out there and join in the fighting?”

  “That’s what caused the problems in the first place,” he argues.

  “Exactly, so what else are we supposed to do?”

  Harry is pointing his finger at me now and his voice is getting louder. He’s not making any sense and I’m biting my lip, trying not to panic. Once again I find myself wondering if he’s about to turn.

  “This is just what people have been waiting for,” he continues at an uncomfortable volume, “an excuse to fight. Not that they’ve needed much of an excuse before, but now it doesn’t matter. People can do what the bloody hell they like without fear of any repercussions. It’s a chance for the scum around here to show their true colors and . . .”

  “Shut up,” Lizzie yells angrily. “Just shut up, Dad. You’re not helping.”

  “These people need a firm hand,” he rants, oblivious. He points accusingly at the TV. “And if the idiots running the television stations hadn’t sensationalized things by showing more and more violence then maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess. If there had just been some respect for authority maybe we’d all be . . .”

  “There is no authority any more,” I shout back. “I saw a policeman shooting people in cold blood yesterday and then I watched other officers turn their weapons on him and gun him down. The authorities are as screwed as the rest of us.”

  “But if people would just stop . . .”

  “For Christ’s sake, shut up!” Liz screams again. She snatches her hand from mine and storms out of the room. I watch her disappear down the hallway and almost immediately the paranoia begins. Harry is quiet now—is it Liz who’s turning? Is she heading for the kids’ rooms? Is she going to hurt them? I get up and run after her. I’m relieved when I find that she’s shut herself in the bathroom and I feel stupid and guilty for thinking she could have been doing anything else. I slowly trudge back to the living room where Harry finally seems to be calming down.

  “She all right?” he grunts.

  I nod but I can’t bring myself to speak to him. He turns his back on me again and continues to watch the smoke rising from the building burning on Colville Way.

  FRIDAY

  27

  NOT SURE WHAT TIME I finally went to sleep. I lay on the bed for hours trying (and failing) to make sense of everything that’s happening. I must have looked at the alarm clock a hundred times or more in the night. I watched every hour tick by . . .

  “Dad.”

  I’m still half asleep but Ed wakes me up. I sit up quickly. What’s wrong? What’s happened? I rub my eyes and try to focus on my son’s face. The room’s dark but I think he’s okay. I look down and see that Lizzie’s still sleeping next to me in bed. She seems okay too.

  “Dad,” he says again, annoyed that I haven’t answered.

  “What’s the matter?” I mumble. “Are the others all right?”

  He nods. What he wants to tell me has obviously got nothing to do with Ellis or Josh.

  “The TV’s bust,” he grunts.

  I slump back on my pillow, relieved. Is that all? Thank God for that.

  “What’s the matter with it?” I ask, struggling to sound interested.

  “Can’t get a picture.”

  “Is it plugged in?”

  “Yes,” he groans, “I’m not stupid.”

  I’m too tired to get on his case for being rude.

  “Have you checked the cables at the back?”

  “I haven’t touched them. It was working yesterday, wasn’t it?”

  “What about the TV in your bedroom?”

  “Can’t get the channel I want on my telly. Come on Dad, get up.”

  “I’ll come and have a look in a couple of minutes,” I yawn. “Let me stay here for a bit longer . . .”

  “But my program’s on now,” he protests. “Please, Dad.”

  I close my eyes for a few seconds longer but it’s obvious that I’m not going to get any peace until Ed’s got the TV fixed. Cursing under my breath I get up and stumble across the cold bedroom floor and down the hallway, sidestepping Harry as I meet him by the kitchen door. Ed follows then pushes past me as we reach the living room. He picks up the remote control and switches on the TV.

  “See . . .” he says, flicking through the channels.

  I sit and stare at the screen.

  “What’s the matter?” Harry asks, as he wearily drags himself into the room after us.

  “Telly’s broke,” Ed tells him.

  “It’s not broken,” I say as I flick through the channels.

  “Have you checked the aerial?” Harry suggests.

  “There’s nothing wrong with it,” I tell them both, “look.”

  Harry moves around so that he can see the screen. And now he can see why I’ve been staring. It’s the same thing on every channel. A black screen with stark white text.

  REMAIN CALM

  DO NOT PANIC

  TAKE SHELTER

  WAIT FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS

  THE SITUATION IS UNDER CONTROL

  28

  IT’S ELEVEN O’CLOCK AND Lizzie, Harry, and the kids are sitting in the living room. There’s something happening outside. The others haven’t noticed yet. I don’t want the children and Liz getting upset again so I haven’t said anything to anyone. It started about half an hour ago. I’ve heard heavy vehicles moving in the distance and the occasional scream or shout. I’ve also heard gunfire.

  I’ve tried looking through every window in the apartment but I can’t see what’s going on out there. I have to know. I make sure the others are all distracted then creep out of the apartment. I stop halfway across the lobby. Everything looks just as it did when I was out here yesterday but today the building feels different because of what’s upstairs. I stop at the bottom of the staircase and, just for a second, I think about turning around and going back into the apartment again. I’ll get a better view from the apartments on the other floors but I’m worried about going upstairs. I don’t think there’s anyone else up there—the car belonging to the people on the top floor is still missing and I can’t hear anything. But what about the body? I know the man on the landing is dead but have I got the balls to pass his corpse? My head is suddenly filled with stupid nightmare images of his
lifeless hands reaching out to grab me. The sound of another gunshot in the distance spurs me into action. I take a deep breath and run up the stairs, not stopping until I’ve reached the apartment on the top floor. I peer in through the half-open door to make sure it’s still empty then step inside.

  There are only two floors between our apartment and this one but the view from up here is completely different. Those extra few feet of height make all the difference and from here I can see for miles around. I can see almost all of our development and I can see the city center in the distance. This morning the world looks like the TV footage that gets sent home by war correspondents. The skyline is dark and gray. Dirty, thick smoke is climbing from the blackened shells of burned-out buildings. There’s nothing much left of the medical center on Colville Way. The streets are deserted.

  How am I supposed to protect my family from this? I can sense the danger increasing almost by the second and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I think of the kids downstairs and I feel terrified and helpless. They’re depending on me and I don’t know what I can do to keep them safe.

  I can see movement in the distance now. Can’t see exactly what it is from here. I turn around and grab the video camera I saw when I was up here yesterday. Christ knows what the men who lived here used it for. I’ve got no interest in finding out. I take the camera over to the window and switch it on. There’s hardly any battery power left. I find the zoom lens control and set it so that it’s focused as far as possible into the distance. It takes me a few seconds to aim the camera in the right direction and to relocate the movement I’ve just seen.

  I think I’m looking at the area around Marsh Way but I’m not sure. Whatever the name of the road I’m watching is, there are two large green-gray trucks driving along it. On either side of the trucks are lines of uniformed figures. Bloody hell, they’re armed soldiers wearing what looks like full battle gear. They have masks or visors obscuring their faces. The trucks stop midway along the street and the guards which surround them split into smaller groups. Some remain close to the back of the vehicles while others move toward the houses on either side of the road. From here I can only see one group of figures clearly but I guess they’re all doing the same thing. It looks like a house-to-house inspection.

  The trooper at the front of the group hammers his fist on the door. Christ, they’re not waiting to be invited inside. Four of the soldiers in the group of five force their way into the house as soon as the door is opened. The fifth uniformed figure follows them inside carrying something. It’s difficult to keep the camera focused from this distance and I can’t tell whether it’s a clipboard or one of those notebook computer things he’s holding. They all disappear into the building and I wait for them to reemerge. And I wait. And I wait.

  Elsewhere along the street the same thing is happening. Groups of soldiers are splintering away from the trucks and are checking each house in turn. I look up from the video camera viewfinder screen for a second and catch sight of more movement in another road nearby. Same thing’s happening again. I squint as the sun breaks through the heavy cloud for the first time today and I can see at least two more clusters of trucks and soldiers working their way along other streets, all within a few hundred meters radius of each other. I focus back on the house I was originally watching in Marsh Way as the five soldiers march back out and immediately turn their attention to the building next door, leaving a dazed and bewildered middle-aged couple to timidly close their front door behind them.

  There are helicopters flying over the town. Strange. Maybe they’re coordinating the movements of the troops on the ground?

  The soldiers I’ve been watching have forced their way into another house now. They reappear in less than a minute, this time dragging someone behind them. I can’t make out whether it’s a man or a woman but they’re kicking and punching and doing all they can to get away. I can see that it’s a woman now. She’s only half dressed. They’ve turned her around and they’re marching her toward the nearest truck. She’s still fighting. As they push her toward the back of the vehicle she somehow manages to free herself from the soldiers’ hold. She starts to run down the road and . . . and now I can’t believe what I’m seeing. One of the soldiers steps forward and raises his rifle. Instead of chasing after her he simply shoots her in the back. Two of them pick up the fallen body and throw it unceremoniously into the back of one of the trucks.

  They must finally be flushing out the Haters. Thank God for that.

  It’s about time. I hope the bastards get everything they deserve.

  29

  IT’S A RELIEF KNOWING that someone finally appears to be taking control of the situation. The soldiers on the streets are the first indication we’ve had that the authorities are at last doing something to help us. I’m glad, but I’ll be happier when they’ve been and gone from here. I don’t say anything to the others. I don’t want the kids and Lizzie getting upset again.

  My head is spinning. I’m finding it harder and harder to cope with being trapped inside the safe room with the rest of the family. This intense claustrophobia is killing me. We’ve been sitting together for hours and hardly anyone has spoken apart from the children who fight and bicker constantly. I know they can’t help it but they’re really beginning to piss me off. Lizzie and Harry don’t seem bothered by them. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’s the thought of the soldiers outside. I’m getting increasingly anxious sitting here waiting for the inevitable knock at the door.

  I use going to the toilet as an excuse to get up and get out of the room. I close the living room door behind me and lean up against it, relieved. The atmosphere in there was oppressive and the air out here is much cooler and fresher. I stumble down the hallway and pause at the front door. Should I go upstairs and check the streets again? What if the army is here already? How would it look if I opened the door and ran headfirst into one of those patrols? They might think I was a Hater. Would they give me any chance to explain before aiming their rifles at me?

  I use the toilet then traipse toward Ed and Josh’s room. I climb up onto Ed’s bed like I did yesterday and stare out of the window for a while. I can’t see anything. If I ignore the bodies then everything looks quiet, still, and relatively normal out there. It’s deceptive. Under the surface the whole world is tearing itself apart.

  My head hurts. I’m tired of thinking constantly about everything that’s happening. I just want to switch off for a while.

  I roll over onto my back, close my eyes, and wait for the knock at the door.

  30

  I HEAR MOVEMENT INSIDE the apartment, away from the safe room. Don’t know how long I’ve been lying here on my own. Must have fallen asleep. I feel sick. I need to get a drink. I sit up, swing my legs out over the side of the bunk, and climb down. My body aches as I stretch and stumble down the hallway.

  Someone’s in the kitchen. I move closer and see through the open door that it’s Harry. He’s standing at the sink with his back to me, making a drink or washing up or something. I take a step through the door and into the room with him and then stop. Don’t know why. Something’s not right. I don’t want to go any closer. I can taste something in the air and it makes me feel uneasy. No, it’s more than that, it makes me feel unsafe. Harry stops what he’s doing. Does he know I’m here? For what feels like forever neither of us moves. Then he slowly turns around. Is he . . . ?

  Jesus Christ. I stare deep into the old man’s eyes and I am frozen to the spot with fear. Can this be the same man? He glares back at me with cold, steely eyes filled with an inexplicable hate and disgust. I can sense his revulsion of me coming off him like a stench and I know that for some inexplicable but undeniable reason he wants me dead. He wants to destroy me. My legs become weak with nerves as I realize that the hate has finally arrived in my home.

  Harry moves suddenly and I react at speed. He takes just a single step forward but it’s enough and I know that my life is in danger unless I act now. An overwhelming instinctive
desire for self-preservation takes over as I move away from him. I look over to my right. On the worktop is our wooden knife block. I grab the black-handled bread knife and pull it from the block like I’m unsheathing a sword. In a single movement I charge toward Harry and plunge it deep into his flesh, just above his waist. I put my other arm around him and pull him closer to me, forcing the blade deeper and deeper into his gut, twisting it around as I push it forward. I feel its serrated edge slice through his skin and cut through muscles, veins, and arteries and I shove it deeper into him until the entire length of the knife has disappeared. I feel a sudden flow of hot blood as it gushes out over my hand and I let go of the knife and push Harry away. He trips back. His legs buckle beneath him and he collapses to the floor, smacking the back of his head against the oven door as he falls. I stand over him. He’s still breathing but he won’t last long now. I have to be sure that he’s dead.

  There’s a scream from the doorway—a shrill, ear-piercing yell—and I turn around and see Lizzie and the children. She looks at me with the same cold expression as her father and I sense the hate again. I pull the knife out from the dying man’s gut and lunge toward her, knowing that she has to die too. She backs away, dragging the children out of the room with her. Edward and Josh stare angrily at me with as much hate as their mother.

  “Daddy!” Ellis screams. I look deep into my little girl’s face and I know instantly that she’s not like the others. She’s like me. She hasn’t changed. I run around the edge of the kitchen table and reach out for her but I’m too late. Her mother has already grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and has pulled her out of reach. Her tiny, tear-streaked face is filled with fear and shock and her eyes bulge wide as Liz yanks on her clothing, hauling her away from me. Ed glares at me. Even Josh despises me. My sons despise me and I know that I have to destroy them too.