by David Moody
“Who is it?” I ask. He doesn’t answer. “Sutton, who’s in there?”
I hear another series of sounds now: metal scraping on metal, bolts and latches being undone. Then, with a groan and the high-pitched squeak of stiff hinges, the door slowly opens inward. There’s light in there. Faint, artificial light, visible only because everything else is so dark.
Before going through, Sutton stops and positions himself directly between me and the door. His face is slightly illuminated now and I can see his eyes behind the lenses of his glasses, searching my face and trying to gauge my reaction. He seems suddenly anxious again, like he was when he arrived at the house first thing this morning. Christ alone knows what he’s got himself mixed up with here. He looks over his shoulder, then back at me again. I try to push past him, but he’s fast and he blocks me.
“Just be calm and be patient,” he whispers ominously. “Like I said, this changes everything.”
“Spare me the bullshit, you overdramatic prick.”
Sick of all the waiting, I push forward again, and this time he stands aside to let me through. I find myself in the middle of a room no more than a couple of yards square, much more solid and secure looking than the rest of this place, whatever this place actually is. There is a load of empty boxes and crates scattered around, and the light comes from a single dull lamp resting on a wooden trestle table on the other side of the room. From the very little I can see, this looks like a bunker of some kind. A remnant from World War II, perhaps? A forgotten relic of the Cold War, from those times when paranoid government departments and local councils drew up pointless plans and contingencies for running the charred remains of the country from numerous ill-equipped underground sites like this one, out in the middle of nowhere. For a moment I’m gone, transfixed by my bizarre surroundings, staring at the pale gray walls mottled with mildew and remembering a time when it was countries and superpowers that fought each other, not individuals …
The door we came through slams shut behind me and I spin around quickly. Then I see him. There’s an Unchanged man holding a rifle, aiming it straight into my face. In spite of everything that’s happened, the unexpected sight of one of them is too much to stand. I draw my knife and run toward him with an instinctive speed and ferocity that surprises even me, knocking the barrel of the gun away and lunging at him, focusing on the thought of smashing his head in and leaving him lying dead at my feet.
“McCoyne, don’t!”
Sutton throws himself at me, slamming me against the side wall. I slide down to the floor and immediately try to scramble back onto my feet. The Unchanged man stands over me, his rifle pointing down into my face, ready to fire.
“Thought you said he was okay,” he says to Sutton, his voice filled with nervous anger.
“He is okay,” Sutton says, helping me up but still keeping me at a distance. I try to lunge for the Unchanged again, but Sutton anticipates my movements and pushes me back against the wall. “Control yourself,” he warns.
“Unchanged, Sutton? What the fuck are you doing?”
Before he can answer, another door opens, opposite to the one we came in through. Another Unchanged man appears. Both of them are desperately thin, their tired faces drawn and hollow, skin pale and covered with sores, eyes black and wide. How long have they been hiding down here?
“Who the hell’s this?” the second Unchanged asks.
“It’s okay, Parker,” Sutton tells him. “He’s with me.”
“Fucker went for me,” the first one sneers, rifle still just inches from my face.
“That was my fault. I didn’t tell him about you. I didn’t want to risk it until I’d got him down here.”
Sutton’s still pushing me back. I start to relax slightly, and I feel him loosen his grip. The initial shock’s fading, and my self-control is beginning to return. Don’t lose your head, I tell myself. I need to stay calm, stay in control, then get the fuck back to Lowestoft and tell Hinchcliffe about this place.
“What’s going on?” I ask. Sutton takes a cautious step away from me, and the first Unchanged man panics again. He pushes me back, jabbing the barrel of the gun hard into my chest. I raise my hands.
“Don’t,” Sutton says, trying to move the Unchanged away. “If he was going to kill you he’d have done it by now, believe me. Like I said, it was just the shock of seeing you. He had no idea.”
“So why is he here?” the one called Parker asks, not taking his eyes off me. The other Unchanged stands his ground, refusing to lower his weapon.
“You know why,” Sutton answers. “I told you I needed help. I can’t do this on my own anymore. McCoyne was my only option. Without him we’re all screwed.”
“You should have warned us.”
“You should have warned me,” I say, wincing as the rifle roughly probes my delicate gut.
“I knew,” the gunman tells Parker, clearly enjoying the discomfort he’s causing me.
“I had to keep it quiet in case things didn’t work out,” Sutton continues. “Dean needed to know because I knew it’d be him who opened the door and I didn’t want him panicking and shooting us both. It was the only way. I didn’t want the others to get concerned.”
“Others?” I interrupt, feeling my skin prickling with unease. “There are others?”
Sutton finally manages to get the armed man to lower his rifle. I’m still thinking constantly about killing these evil bastards, but my control is continuing to return. Like Sutton said, it was the shock of finding myself face-to-face with these people that made me react so immediately, so viciously. I’d be stupid to try anything. I’m outnumbered and they’re armed, and at this moment in time I don’t know whether Sutton would fight with me or against me.
“Get rid of him,” Parker says. “You shouldn’t have brought him here, Pete.”
Sutton stands in the very center of the room, separating me from the Unchanged like a referee at a boxing match.
“I had to bring him, you know I did. We talked about this.”
“What the hell are you doing?” I demand, ignoring their inconsequential conversation. “If Hinchcliffe or anyone else finds out what’s down here, they’ll kill you as well as these two.”
“If it wasn’t for Pete we’d be dead anyway,” Dean, the gunman, says. I don’t react. It’s one thing finding myself shut underground with two Unchanged scum; acknowledging either of them is another matter altogether.
“Do you really think I’m that stupid?” Sutton sighs. “Do you think I’d let any of them know about this place?”
“You told me.”
“Yes, but you’re different from the rest of them, I keep telling you. You’re like me. You can help these people. I can’t do this on my own anymore.”
“Do what? I don’t understand. I’m not going to help Unchanged, and neither should you. Just kill them and walk away.”
“I can’t.”
“But they’re just Unchanged, Sutton, probably the last of their kind. Things are hard enough up there without all of this.”
“Looks like he’s going to be a real help,” Parker sighs sarcastically, leaning back against the wall and staring straight at me. “Bad move bringing him here. We should kill him.”
“You couldn’t do it,” I spit at him. “And that’s why you’re down here and I’m up there.”
“I’ll do it,” Dean says menacingly, raising the rifle and taking a step forward. I lunge forward to defend myself, but Sutton blocks me, wedging himself between us again. He now has me on one side and the barrel of the rifle on the other. With surprising calm and self-assurance, he pushes us both away to our respective corners.
“And how will that help anyone?” he asks, his voice terse, clearly not impressed. “It’s that kind of bullshit that got us all into this mess. Like I said, Dean, I didn’t have any choice. You know how hard this is getting. I can’t do everything on my own anymore, and if I can’t do it, we’re all history.”
I grab Sutton’s shoulder and turn
him around to face me. “Will you just tell me what’s going on?”
He gestures for Parker to open the door opposite the entrance we came through. Parker’s still hesitant.
“Don’t,” Dean says, the rifle still raised.
“It’s okay,” Sutton calmly replies. “Like I said, Dean, he’d have killed you by now if he was going to. He’s like me. Just give him a little time to get used to the situation.”
“Keep him under control, then,” he orders nervously, “because I’ll shoot you both if I have to.”
Parker rests his hands on the door, then pauses again.
“You’re completely sure about this, Pete?”
Sutton nods again. “We don’t have any choice.”
Parker opens the door. It’s heavy like a safe door, and he needs to use all his weight to push it fully open. He blocks my way forward, still unsure, and I recoil when I accidentally brush against him. Sutton squeezes between us, and Parker reluctantly moves to one side to let him through. I feel the barrel of the rifle resting between my shoulder blades.
“Keep yourself under control, Danny,” Sutton whispers as I follow him. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
We enter another room. The lighting’s marginally better in here, but the shape of the space is very different and I’m still not able to see much. I can just about make out enough of the walls and ceiling to see that this looks like some kind of long, sloping access corridor. Sutton slows and grabs my arm again, obviously expecting me to react. As my eyes become used to the light levels I see that there are more Unchanged in here at the farthest end of the corridor. I count another four of them sitting on the floor, leaning up against the walls. I stare at each one of them as I pass. They look like famine victims from old TV news reports, limbs like sticks. Two of them are too weak to even lift their heads. One glares at me, a mix of hate and horror on her face. The fourth scuttles away along the floor, hurriedly moving back in the direction from which we’ve just come to get out of the way. They are broken, empty people. Do they know what I am? I know I should be killing them or at least finding a way to get someone here to do it for me. The fact I’m doing neither is adding to the nausea I’m already feeling. These pathetic fuckers make me feel physically sick.
“I don’t understand,” I say to Sutton, keeping my voice deliberately low, still conscious of the rifle aimed at my back. “Why? Why risk so much for a handful of Unchanged? Why risk so much for any Unchanged? You should have killed them.”
We reach the end of the corridor, just me and Sutton now. I glance back and see that Dean and Parker have stopped following, but they’re still watching closely. A lamp hanging on the wall illuminates another metal door. Sutton sighs and takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes.
“Sometimes you just don’t have any choice. Sometimes decisions are made for you. Things happen, and you just have to deal with them as best you can. The right option isn’t always the easiest one to take.”
I’m still trying to decipher his bullshit when he leans forward and opens the next door. He gently pushes it and it swings open wide, revealing a much larger space that’s filled with light. For a few blissfully ignorant seconds I’m distracted trying to work out why there’s such a vast construction as this buried deep under a farmer’s field in Suffolk, and the full enormity of what I’m seeing doesn’t immediately hit home.
Then it does, and I can hardly stand.
This place is full of people. I can see their faces and hear their voices and smell them and … and Christ, there must be more than twenty Unchanged in here.
23
SUTTON LEADS ME DEEPER into the large room, and I’m struggling to cope with what I’m seeing. For a couple of seconds all I can make out is an unholy mass of people filling the space in front of me. I’ve only managed to take a few steps forward when my dazed and confused brain switches back into gear and the full implication of what’s around us hits home. I take hold of Sutton’s arm, spin him around, and slam him back against the nearest wall. I focus all my attention on him, but I’m aware of terrified Unchanged scattering all around us, fleeing like cockroaches about to be crushed under a boot. Do they know what I am? They’re all watching me, desperately trying not to let me catch them staring. With frightening ease Sutton shifts his balance and reverses our positions, and now I’m the one up against the wall. I feel my strength drain away as a wave of sickness washes over me. Sutton pushes me through another doorway, grabbing a lamp as we disappear into the darkness.
Disoriented, I lose my footing and stumble. Sutton shuts the door and I look up and suddenly I’m aware of figures all around me. I lunge for the nearest one and it simply collapses under my weight. It’s a bloody mannequin. We’re in a room full of fucking store window dummies. None of this makes any sense. I slump down to the floor, pulse pounding, sweat pouring off me, trying to work out how I’m going to get back out and kill those fuckers on the other side of the door.
“What the fuck’s going on, Sutton?” I demand, panting.
He stands over me, looking down. Behind the thick lenses of his glasses, his eyes dart anxiously around my face. “You’re really not well, are you?”
“Don’t change the subject. What’s going on?” I ask again.
“It’s okay.”
“Okay? How can it be okay?”
He stares at me again, trying to work out what I’m thinking. Truth is, even I don’t know what I’m thinking right now. Finding so many Unchanged like this has left me with a gut-full of bitter, conflicting emotions. I know I should have already killed them, but I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t know if I have the strength, and there are too many of them. I wish someone else had found them and could do it for me. They need to be killed because, as I’ve been telling myself for months, the sooner the last Unchanged has been wiped off the face of the planet, the sooner this pointless, bloody war will finally be over. I was starting to think it already was.
“Sorry about the bullshit about Southwold’s supplies, you’d never have come if I’d told you,” Sutton says, his voice echoing around the room.
“Damn right I wouldn’t have come. For crying out loud, what were you thinking?”
“I said you were like me, didn’t I? I know you won’t hurt these people. I knew the moment I saw you.”
“Being with these people will bring you nothing but grief. You should get rid of them now. If you can’t do that, you should just get away and not come back.”
“I can’t do that,” he says, “and I think you’re wrong. Just let me explain—”
“There’s nothing to explain.”
“It’s not what you think.”
I try to stand but I can’t get up, another crippling wave of nausea making it almost impossible for me to move. It’s a combination of nerves and the airless, sweaty stench of this badly ventilated and overcrowded hideout. My head’s thumping. Sutton helps me to my feet, and I lean back against the wall.
“What is this place?” I ask him, looking around at the emotionless painted faces of the mannequins that surround us. Some of them are dressed in old-fashioned army uniforms.
“A nuclear bunker,” he announces. “It was operational until the end of the Cold War. Then they decommissioned it and turned it into a tourist attraction. Hence the dummies.”
His words just bounce off me, barely sinking in. I should probably ask him a load of other questions, but my brain is still struggling to make sense of any of this. Stupidly, all I can think right now is how much I hate Hinchcliffe. If it hadn’t been for him then I wouldn’t have gone to Southwold and if I hadn’t been in Southwold, I wouldn’t have met Peter Sutton, and if I hadn’t met Sutton I wouldn’t know anything about this damn place or the Unchanged hiding down here. Thinking about Hinchcliffe makes me remember what he forced me to do with that woman yesterday afternoon … and then part of me starts wondering whether I should just stay down here in the dark and never put my head above ground again. Nothing makes sense any more. Whenever I t
hink I’m starting to come to terms with the way this dysfunctional new world works, something always happens that leaves me feeling as confused and disoriented as I did when I killed Lizzie’s dad, Harry. Right back to square one again. Life feels like a game of Snakes and Ladders, but without any ladders.
Sutton waits, then cautiously edges nearer. “I told you this place changes everything.”
“And I told you you were an overdramatic prick. This changes nothing.”
“Well, it’s changed everything for me,” he says. “Before I found these people I was lost.”
“You’ve lost your fucking mind, that’s about all.”
“I knew you’d feel this way at first, but just stop and think for a minute, Danny.”
“Think about what? About the fact that you’re a traitor? About what Hinchcliffe’s going to do to you when he finds out about this place?”
“No, I want you to think about yourself. Think about what you’ve had to do over the last year. Think about how much you’ve lost.”
“And how much I’ve gained.”
“Have you gained anything?”
“My freedom. This time last year I was at a dead end.”
“Things are better for you today because…?” He waits for me to answer, and the silence is deafening. “You’re alone, your health’s deteriorating, you’re living by yourself in a freezing-cold house in an otherwise empty housing development—doesn’t look so great to me.”
“Are things any better for you?”
“Not really,” he answers. “Truth be told, life’s shit for all of us now. You, me, these Unchanged. Killing them won’t make any difference.”
“That’s not the point.”
“There’s something else I want you to see,” he says, supporting my weight and gently leading me back toward the door. More Unchanged scatter when it opens, their wiry limbs and sudden movements making them appear unnervingly insectlike. We go back out into the main area of this part of the bunker. Some sections of the odd-shaped space are dimly illuminated by dull lamps; other corners remain shrouded in darkness. The walls that I can see are covered in old photographs, maps, and other paraphernalia, making the room appear smaller than it actually is.