by David Moody
Not waiting for acknowledgment, she just scoops up a rifle and a couple of grenades, then gets out of her seat and runs.
Someone behind Matt goes to move. “Wait. Stay still,” he orders. “No one goes anywhere until I say.”
He waits a moment longer, listening intently, then slowly lifts his head until his eyes are just above the bottom edge of the window. Where the hell are they? He naively expected them to have stopped right outside the printing house, and though he thinks they can’t be far, safety still feels an immeasurable distance away. There’s not any of the immediate chaos he was expecting to see outside, but there’s no question the danger’s close. He can see Jayce in the distance, a couple more Haters chasing after her. Even in the half-light she cuts a distinctive-looking figure: hair whipping in the wind behind her as she sprints away, disappearing around a bend in the road.
“This it?” Darren asks.
“Almost,” Matt replies, and he crawls over the others on his hands and knees to look out the other side of the van. This is slightly more promising. It’s the back of a warehouselike building: a long, corrugated metal wall which seems to go on forever in either direction. He’s confident they’ve reached the industrial estate, at least.
There’s a door in the wall they’re facing. It’s open, but Matt has no idea what they’ll find on the other side. He massages his temples and thinks, considering his limited options. His train of thought is derailed almost immediately by a loud detonation in the near distance. He looks back and sees a burst of orange flame bright against the graying sky, belching black smoke billowing up over the tree line.
“That’s either Jayce attacking someone or someone attacking Jayce,” Matt tells the others. “Whatever it is, it’s our cue to move.”
He climbs out the back of the van and ushers the group out. He starts herding them toward the door in the anonymous-looking building they’re parked up alongside. “Is this the place?” a terrified-looking woman protests, not going in until she’s sure. Matt pushes her through.
“Just get under cover, for fuck’s sake. We can’t risk being out here.”
The seven of them bunch up in a tangled mass as they run through the innards of a long-empty building. Some kind of production line, maybe a workshop, its stillness is sarcophagus-like. The refugees weave through the frozen chaos of the shop floor, untouched since the moment the Hate first showed its face here. There are several corpses, badly decayed. The remnants of one of the workers turning on their colleagues mid-shift, no doubt.
“Wait here until I tell you to move,” Matt orders when they reach the other side of the building. “Keep out of sight.”
He goes back outside and, to his relief, no one follows. There’s another building dead ahead, with an enclosed, straight-up metal fire escape ladder bolted to one side. He checks there’s no movement around then runs for all he’s worth, feeling like he’s permanently caught in a sniper’s sights out here. When he reaches the bottom of the ladder he scales it as fast as his tired, nerve-heavy limbs will allow. He’s soon up on the roof on his hands and knees, panting for air and crawling through puddles on the asphalt, cold and wet and uncomfortable but momentarily safe. He stays low and keeps moving until he’s looking over the opposite edge, and though the encroaching darkness keeps the detail hidden, at last he’s able to orient himself to his surroundings. Directly ahead is the massive distribution center Jayce talked about, and in its shadow is the printing house, dwarfed by its supersize neighbor. Most importantly, he can’t see any movement. No other vehicles, no sign of other Haters. The only noises come from the activity around the area where Jayce detonated her grenade and, beyond that, the airport in the distance. It’s easy to pick out from up here—a flood of illumination in an unnaturally lightless world. Planes and helicopters climb into the darkening sky. All taking off, Matt observes, none of them landing.
Back down to the others. He moves so fast that he almost loses his footing at the top of the fire escape ladder. Slow down, he warns himself. Don’t make any mistakes now. No second chances. You can’t afford to fuck this up.
When he gets back to the others, they’re not where he left them. On Darren’s word they slowly reemerge from hastily found hiding places in the shadows. “It’s not far,” Matt tells them, breathless. “Couple of hundred meters at most. You follow me and once we’re out there you don’t stop moving. Whatever happens, whatever you see, you don’t stop. Got it?”
Terrified expressions. Numb realization that there’s no choice. They look to Darren, who nods agreement.
Matt knows the longer they wait, the worse it’ll get. He leads them back out and points to a narrow gap between two buildings opposite. “Down there,” he says, and Darren takes the lead and starts to run. Matt brings up the rear. A strangled scream from somewhere in the near distance followed by a round of automatic gunfire make a woman whose name Matt doesn’t know freeze dead in her tracks. He runs into her but doesn’t stop, half-shoving, half-carrying her forward. She reacts badly to his manhandling and lashes out at him. He takes the beating, soaks up every punch and kick, still keeping her moving because he knows that at any moment they might be seen. “If they catch us we’re dead, understand?” he hisses at her between attacks. She either can’t hear him or doesn’t want to listen and she continues to fight. It’s all he can do to wrap his arms around her and drag her into the alleyway. He pins her up against the nearest wall. “Do you want to die today?” Now she’s listening. She shakes her head, eyes wide with terror. “Nor me, so stop fucking about and do as I say. We’re almost there. Don’t fuck up now.” She stops attacking, and Matt thinks he’s got through. The immediate shock of being exposed out in Hater-controlled territory is beginning to fade, and the reality of their situation is starting to sink in. “This isn’t impossible. We can do this.”
When the woman’s sufficiently calm, Matt pushes his way along the line. Darren’s up front, but he’s as clueless as the rest of them. “Which way?” he asks.
“Blue-walled building over there. See it?”
“I see it.”
“Good. Keep everyone together and follow me, okay?”
“Okay.”
This last dash is all that separates this group from relative safety. If they can do it, then it makes him think he and Jayce might actually be able to bring Jen and the truckful of refugees back here later. And a life spent underground with the woman he loves in squalid, cramped confines is a better option than anything else right now.
Do it.
He runs for the printing house building. His focus is getting inside, but he’s distracted by the things he senses on the periphery. Jayce has done a good job of keeping the Haters at bay until now, but whatever’s been holding their attention elsewhere is clearly less effective than it was. He can see flashes of movement through the gaps between other buildings, figures edging back toward the industrial estate. It’s a relief when he reaches the door which he, Franklin, and Jayce used previously and it’s still open. Thankfully this place feels as cold and unused as when he was last here. His eyes adjust quickly to the gloom, only marginally darker inside than out now, and he’s able to make out the shape of the truck where they left it by the loading bay doors. Everything appears untouched.
The others push their way inside, racing with each other to be the first through the door. There’s a piercing scream from the woman Matt had trouble with a moment earlier, and he spins around to see she’s stuck in the doorway with a Hater kid hanging on to her back, spiderlike. The child is clawing at her face, ripping at her skin. Darren’s there first, and though he’s not had anywhere near as much experience of being this close to the enemy as Matt, he does what he can to separate the woman and the kid. He’s shocked by the child’s relative strength and fury—daunted, even—and he’s initially brushed aside. He comes back again and this time manages to force an arm between the woman and her attacker. With a grunt and a sudden burst of strength he peels the child off her and leaves the despicab
le little fucker writhing furious on the ground at his feet. He can’t see if it’s a girl or a boy through the blood and dirt and fury. He plants a boot on its chest to stop it getting up, then pulls a pistol out from inside his jacket.
“Wait, don’t!” Matt screams at him but it’s too late. Darren shoots the child at point-blank range. Darren stands over what’s left of the corpse, panting hard, more satisfied than he should be. Matt glares at him. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
He pushes Darren indoors, then goes back out for the dead kid. “What are you doing? Leave that thing out there,” the sobbing, pain-in-the-ass woman screams at him, blocking his way back inside. He barges past her.
“Don’t you get it? Your friend here has just let every one of them for miles around know there’s fighting going on in this place, and if they know there’s fighting then they know there are going to be people like us here.”
“Yes, but—”
“Leaving a Hater kid that’s been shot in the face on the doorstep will give them a pretty good idea where we’re hiding, don’t you reckon?” Matt dumps the body out of sight, then ushers the group of refugees toward the steps leading down into the darkness underground. There are protests and more questions but he’s having none of it. “If you want to stay alive, just fucking move!”
He feels his way through the bowels of the printing house. They inch slowly through the unfamiliar shadows of the computer server room, then stop, backed up against each other, heel to toe.
“What now?” someone asks.
“The door’s padlocked,” Darren answers.
“And who’s got the key?”
“Jayce,” Matt tells them.
“And what if she doesn’t come back?”
“Then you’d better hope she does. Otherwise we’re all dead.”
42
It’s been several hours. There have been Haters moving in and around the building above them, Matt’s sure of it, but he thinks they’ve come and gone. He says nothing to the others, because to do so would mean he’d have to deal with even more unnecessary panic and noise, and right now that’s something he could well do without. As it is he’s already wondering what hope there is for these people. The whispered conversations he’s been a party to have been pitiful. “If we’re underground, what about sanitation?” His answer to that: You get used to the smell of shit. “How long will we be down here? When will I get to see the sun again?” His response: Think yourself lucky that there’s still a chance you might actually see the sun again, no matter how long you have to wait. There’s plenty of people who’d give anything to trade places.
But for now the people down below are playing ball and are deathly silent because someone—something—is turfing through the offices at the other end of the staircase they descended to get down here. One careless noise and all their planning and effort will have been for nothing. And if things go wrong at this stage, he knows Jen’s already slim chances of getting out of the city will be slashed to zero.
The noise upstairs is increasing. Christ, it sounds like a frigging stampede, like there’s a whole pack of Haters riding roughshod over what’s left of the printing house. What if they take the truck? Matt thinks. What if they slash its tires or cut the brakes? Absolutely everything feels like it’s balanced on the most precarious of knife-edges.
It’s getting louder. Thumping footsteps everywhere. Muffled cries and shouted orders. Distant rumblings. Gunshots and detonations. The occasional belly-shaking roar of helicopters and jets racing away from the airport.
“You still got that pistol?” Matt whispers to Darren.
“Yep.”
“Many bullets?”
“Not as many as I need. It’s academic, anyway. I’d never have enough.”
There’s another crash from the shop floor above which silences him. He pulls the rest of the group closer. “If they get down here, just attack. Kick, punch, scratch, bite … whatever you need to do. Darren, only use the gun if you don’t have any other choice.”
More movement. Top of the steps. In the offices now.
“Are we going to make it?” Darren asks. Matt refuses to answer because he thinks if he doesn’t admit that they’re fucked, maybe there’s the slightest chance they’ll survive.
They’re on the other side of the door, about to break through. Matt braces himself. Until now he’s stayed alive by distancing himself from trouble and letting someone else take the heat, but how can he run when they’re at a dead end with nowhere left to go?
“Ready?” he says to Darren, but before Darren can answer the door at the top of the steps flies open.
“Don’t attack!”
Matt falls back against the wall with relief. It’s Jayce. “Thank Christ,” he says as she feels her way down. “Thought you were never coming back.”
Jayce gestures for Matt shut the door behind her. Once they’re sealed in, she produces a flashlight from inside her jacket and switches it on, filling the small space with light and taking the faintest edge off the refugees’ collective fear. She fishes in her pockets for a set of keys and, with a little effort, manages to open the padlocks which are keeping the second door secured. She throws it open, and a blast of stale air hits the gathered Unchanged like the seal has been broken on some long-forgotten tomb.
All nerves and complaints are immediately silenced when the new arrivals finally get inside their bunker. Jayce issues a couple of them with lamps. Matt goes to follow but she stops him, putting an arm across his chest. “Not you, sunshine. We’ve still got work to do.”
* * *
Jayce removes the clamps and gets behind the wheel of the truck. It’s pitch black outside now but the dark is a help, not a hindrance. Jayce flashes a light in the window: Matt’s signal to move. He gets up from where he’s been crouching behind a spool of paper the height of a car, then races across to the loading bay door which he opens with a manual hoist, Jayce having already prepped it.
Jayce starts the engine as soon as Matt’s on board and revs it hard. He gets down into the front passenger seat footwell and covers himself with a long coat, safe from prying Hater eyes. He wedges himself into position with his head against the door as the truck swerves out of the printing house and onto the road. He folds back a corner of the coat and watches Jayce. Her eyes are fixed dead ahead. She seems preoccupied. Distant. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. Shut up and let me concentrate.”
There are flashes of light which illuminate her face for split seconds at a time. Matt knows that trying to plow through the chaos of this industrial estate and the battle-scarred world beyond in an unfamiliar vehicle of this size is harder than it looks. They’re unmarked and unknown: a target for everyone and no one.
Jayce grips the wheel tight. A jet takes off from the airport then races across the sky, directly crossing her line of vision. Matt can’t see it, but there’s no mistaking the noise. For a few seconds the deafening din consumes everything. When it’s faded away sufficiently, Jayce speaks. “There’s something you need to know.”
Matt feels his gut constricting with nerves. “What?”
“Things are bad. Far worse than they were.”
“But we’ve only been out here a few hours.”
“It’s a domino effect. Everything’s falling apart. I think whatever that cell we saw earlier were being primed to do, chances are they’re going to be executing their orders now if they haven’t already. We’ll be okay getting back into the city, I think, but getting out again is going to be a nightmare.”
“It always was. We knew this was going to happen.”
“Yes, but the plan was always to get in and out before the camp completely collapsed.”
Another whoosh of noise seems to take Jayce’s breath away. It sounds impossibly close. She follows the arc of a missile, then turns away at the moment of detonation. “There are thousands of fighters surrounding the city now and more keep coming. They’re more coordinated than we thought. They’ve got a
chokehold on all the main approaches and they’re tightening their grip. I knew there was some level of organization, but nothing on this scale.”
“In and out. We can do this, Jayce.”
43
After all the waiting and inactivity of the preceding weeks and months, the chaos-strewn roads out here are now alive with enemy traffic. The balance has shifted. A little coordination was all that it took: once the first of the Hater forces began to advance and tighten their grip, the rest followed. A chain reaction has spread through the thousands upon thousands of them gathered in their unruly ranks. None needed any encouragement; they are desperate to kill and have been left waiting interminably in the wilderness for this final battle to begin in earnest. The Hater-instigated trouble in the city has acted like the starting gun setting off the deadliest of races, and now the Unchanged exodus has begun. It is unstoppable, and the wave of hate surrounding the city is impenetrable. This battle is all or nothing. There is no turning back for either side.
From his supine position on the floor of the truck, Matt can’t see any of what’s happening, but he can hear it and feel it and somehow that makes it a thousand times worse. The cumbersome vehicle swerves and weaves continually, rocking and shaking with nearby detonations and impacts as the ferocity of the fighting increases. Jayce brakes hard and swerves around the back of a wreck, then accelerates again. She wrenches the steering wheel, turning the truck with such force that, for Matt down at her feet, it feels like the vehicle’s up on two wheels and is about to tip over. “Jesus Christ,” he shouts involuntarily, but Jayce doesn’t take her eyes off what’s left of the road, barely even reacts.
“You could always walk, see how long you last,” she grunts at him.
“I thought you said we’d be all right heading into town.”
“Yeah, I thought we would.”
“So who’s firing at who?”
“Everyone’s shooting at everyone else as far as I can see. I’m trying not to think about it. The military are firing at us because we’re driving in with the attack, but if this lot get a sniff of you being out here, we’ll be in their sights, too. We can’t win.”