by David Moody
“Hinchcliffe, you really need to listen,” Llewellyn says again.
“Do I? And why would that be, Llewellyn?”
His once-loyal fighter swallows hard and anxiously shifts his weight from foot to foot.
“There’s an army coming,” he says, quickly changing his story to try to dig himself out of the hell-sized abyss he’s suddenly gazing down into. “Look, there was nothing I could do. They found us and—”
I’d like to have heard the rest of his bullshit and lies, but Llewellyn isn’t even allowed to get to the end of his sentence, let alone finish his story. In a movement so sudden and unexpected that I don’t realize what’s happening until it’s done, Hinchcliffe drops his shoulder and charges into him, sending him flying over the edge of the roof. There’s a moment of complete silence—everything everywhere seems to stop suddenly—then I hear him hit the ground. There’s no need to look, but I don’t have any choice. Hinchcliffe puts one hand around my shoulder, grabs hold of my arm with his other hand, and pushes me toward the edge. Below us, Llewellyn’s body lies impaled on a spiked metal railing, dangling down by its legs, head cracked open on the concrete like an egg. “Nasty,” Hinchcliffe says. Bastard. Llewellyn was supposed to be getting me out of here, but at this moment in time I don’t give a shit about him, I’m more concerned about what Hinchcliffe’s going to do next. The tightness of his hold on me increases. I start to struggle, but he’s far stronger than I am and there’s nothing I can do. I try to dig my feet in, hoping I can get a grip and overbalance him, because if I’m going down, this fucker’s going with me. He moves a hand and grasps the back of my neck and pushes my head farther forward until I’m leaning right over.
“Hinchcliffe, I…,” I start, not knowing what I’m trying to say, fighting to keep my balance and not fall. He suddenly pulls me back, spins me around, pushes me away, and laughs at me.
“Just playing with you!”
“What? But I…” I stagger away from him, trying to quickly put maximum distance between us.
“Don’t worry, son,” he says, “I know the score.”
“Do you?” Fuck, I wish I did. I move away from the edge of the roof, still backing away, and he follows me toward the door that leads back down into the building.
“I knew that fucker was up to something,” he explains. “I’d had my suspicions for a while, but all that business with the plane really sealed it for me. Did he think I was stupid? Llewellyn was a hard bastard and he had his uses, but he wasn’t nearly as smart as he liked to think he was. Honestly, did he really think I’d buy all that bullshit about piling a few pals into a van and driving off to find that fucking airplane? Come on, give me some credit. That was one of the reasons I sent you along, too, to screw things up for him and complicate whatever it was he was actually trying to do.”
“One of the reasons?”
“Yeah, that and the fact I knew there was a good chance you’d end up back here again. I knew you’d help me fill in the blanks. Our pal Llewellyn and whoever he was working for, they’re not the only people who like to indulge in the odd spot of subterfuge and double-crossing. When I sent you all out the other day, I sent Curtis after you. He followed you into Norwich, stuck around long enough to see this so-called army that’s supposed to be coming, then came back and told me all about it.”
“What he saw was only part of the army. There are reinforcements coming. Thousands of them.”
“Do you believe that?”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because I’ve seen them, Danny. I’ve got people out there watching. They’ve told you thousands, but there are just a few hundred of them loitering at either end of town. Ask yourself, if they were as all-powerful and all-conquering as they’d have you believe, wouldn’t they have conquered already?”
“I suppose, but—”
“It’s all spin, trying to make themselves seem more impressive than they actually are. Who’s behind all this?”
“Remember Chris Ankin?”
“Chris who?”
“He used to be in the government.”
Hinchcliffe thinks for a second. “Ahh … I’ve got him. Works and Pensions minister before the war, wasn’t he? Just another mouthpiece in a gray pinstripe suit. All talk and no balls. Pathetic. Thing about people like that,” he continues, “is that you should never believe anything they tell you. There’s always a hidden agenda.”
“Ankin was the one who spread the messages, though, remember? The one who coordinated the attacks on the cities.”
“There you go, my point exactly. He’s got you completely suckered in. I thought you were smarter than that, Dan. Nobody really coordinated those attacks, they occurred naturally. What happened in the cities was inevitable, and only someone who had either something to prove or something to hide would try to take credit for them.”
“Does that really matter now? Fact is, they’re marching on Lowestoft.”
Hinchcliffe walks away, shaking his head. He sits down in his deckchair in the center of the roof and starts scanning the horizon through a pair of binoculars.
“So do you think I should be worried?”
“What kind of a question is that? Of course you should be worried. Haven’t you been listening to anything I said, there’s a fucking army marching on Lowestoft and they want you out. Doesn’t matter how big it is, it’s a fucking army!”
He continues to stare into the distance, looking back now in the direction from which Llewellyn and I approached a short while ago. Even from up here I can see signs of activity in the streets around the compound.
“Are they well armed?”
“They’ve got more than you have. Tanks and all sorts…”
“Probably haven’t got a lot of ammo, though.”
“So? A tank’s a tank. They’ll drive straight through the gates, Hinchcliffe.”
“And what’s been the reaction of the good folk of Lowestoft so far?”
“I’ve seen some trying to fight, some just keeping out of the way. Most seem to be doing whatever they’re told to do. You know the score, Hinchcliffe. It’s like Llewellyn used to say, always get in good with the person with the biggest gun.”
“So why here?”
“What?”
“That’s the thing I don’t understand. Why are they so interested in Lowestoft?” he asks. He genuinely has no idea. “Surely someone who’s as powerful as this Ankin guy claims to be could take their pick of anywhere. Why here? Are they just trying to prove a point?”
“They’re here because this place is all that’s left. Ankin figures this is pretty much the population center of the country now.”
For a few seconds Hinchcliffe is quiet. He has a bemused expression on his face, and I can see him trying to come to terms with what I’ve just told him.
“Fuck me…”
“That’s what I said when I found out—but I think it’s true, Hinchcliffe, everywhere else is dead.”
“So why did you come back here, Danny? It’s out of the frying pan, into the fire for you, isn’t it?”
“Because they made me” is my immediate answer. “When I refused, the bastards drugged me and chained me up inside a van. I didn’t have any choice. Believe me, I’d rather be anywhere but here.”
He looks puzzled. “Strange. Why go to all that effort?”
“Because I’m supposed to be a decoy. I was supposed to keep you busy while Llewellyn spread the word around town that you were under attack.”
“And he thought that was going to work? Jesus Christ, Llewellyn was more of an idiot than I thought. My fighters might be hard as nails, but they’ll run like everybody else if their necks are on the line.”
“I tried to tell him. I said you wouldn’t listen.”
He pauses to think again. I’m numb with cold and I want to get off this roof, but Hinchcliffe hasn’t finished with me yet.
“Tell me, Dan,” he continues, “what would you do? If you were standing in my shoes right now, what wo
uld you do?”
“For a start, I would never be in your shoes,” I answer quickly, deciding that there’s no point being anything other than honest with him. “I’m not like you. It’s stupid bastards like you who caused all this mess.”
“Now, now,” he says, remaining unsettlingly calm, “no need for name-calling.”
“I’m through with fighting, and I’m through with you, Hinchcliffe. I’d have turned my back on this place and all the grief that goes with it a long time ago, but if I really was in your position right now, I’d be seriously thinking about slipping out through the back door and letting Ankin get on with it.”
Hinchcliffe nods thoughtfully. “So you think I should give up control of Lowestoft just like that?”
“I don’t know. To be honest, I don’t care. The way I see it, the whole world has been destroyed by this war, Hinchcliffe. I don’t know whether this place is the beginning of something new or the very end of everything. Either way, it’s not looking good.”
I start moving toward the door. I’m freezing and tired of wasting my breath. Hinchcliffe won’t listen to anything I’ve got to say. I’m about to open it when he speaks again.
“You’ve met this Ankin,” he says, getting up and walking toward me. “Tell me, Danny, would things be any different if he was in charge here?”
“I can’t answer that. What does it matter, Hinchcliffe?”
I reach down for the handle again. He grabs my wrist and won’t let go.
“Don’t,” he says. “You’re staying with me, Danny. I still need you. You’re not going anywhere.”
39
THE LONGER HINCHCLIFFE WAITS and does nothing, the more likely it is that Ankin will be forced to make a move. Maybe that’s what he’s hoping?
Hinchcliffe’s tactics—if any of what’s happening now is actually planned—are strange, almost unreadable. Unable to get out of the building, I head up onto the roof of the courthouse again and use the binoculars he’s left up there to scan the streets below. They’re virtually deserted. Most of Hinchcliffe’s remaining fighters have been ordered to either congregate around this building or guard the gates and the food stores. There are about a hundred of them downstairs, armed with every last weapon they can lay their hands on. Is he really planning to defend his territory like this? Sticks and stones against tanks and guns?
There’s a quiet buzzing sound that steadily increases in volume. I can see Ankin’s plane in the distance now, approaching quickly from the general direction of Norwich, here to report back to Ankin and to whip the crowds around town into a nervous frenzy. There’s no doubt it’ll work. The noise coming from the fighters below me begins to grow louder and more fractious. These men want to fight, but what can they do when their perceived enemy is out of reach a couple of thousand feet above them?
I feel exposed up here. I go back inside through Hinchcliffe’s chamber, then look for him in the courtroom. I hear his voice echoing through the otherwise empty corridors as he barks orders at his fighters, suddenly sending groups of them off in different directions. I creep closer to the main entrance and peer outside, and there I see him, right out in front of the building, coordinating the chaos.
As I watch, a car screeches around the corner and pulls up in front of the courthouse. Curtis gets out.
“The whole fucking place is surrounded, Hinchcliffe,” he says. Hinchcliffe says nothing, but plenty of other questions come from elsewhere in the crowd.
“Surrounded by what? How many are there?”
“Someone said tanks. Have those fuckers got tanks?”
“Should have stuck with Llewellyn—”
“Defend the positions I’ve told you to defend,” Hinchcliffe says, his voice suddenly louder than the rest. “Food stocks, the gates, this building.”
“What’s the fucking point?” someone stupidly asks. “We’re outnumbered. There’s ten times as many people on the other side of the barrier, and that’s before—”
The fighter doesn’t finish making his point. I watch from around the side of the door as Curtis drags him out into the open and attacks him with his machete. Taken by surprise, the other fighter drops to the ground. He raises his arm to protect himself, but Curtis keeps chopping down regardless, slicing his flesh and virtually removing the man’s arm, then rams his boot down onto his chest and starts to hack at his head and neck. I step back into the shadows and disappear into a room off the main entrance corridor. There’s a street-level window, and I watch as a range of reactions spreads through the fighters with lightning speed. Someone jumps Curtis, smacking him across the back of the legs with a metal bar and dropping him to his knees. Someone else then attacks Curtis’s attacker. Then another fighter wades through the crowd to get to Curtis’s car. Someone else cuts him off and tries to take the car for himself. Others turn and run for cover—
I press myself flat against the wall as I see Hinchcliffe start to slowly slip back into the courthouse. As the chaos outside quickly increases in ferocity, spreading like a brush fire, he quietly reenters the building and shuts and bolts the door behind him. I hold my breath and stay perfectly still, listening to his footsteps moving along the corridor outside this room, waiting until I’m sure he’s gone.
Time to get out of here.
This is my last chance.
I need to get to the house, get whatever stuff I can, then leave here and never look back.
40
AT THE END OF another corridor, a broken sign hanging from the ceiling points toward a fire exit hidden behind an untidy stack of boxes and crates, most of them empty. I fight my way through the rubbish, then force the door open and get out of the building, desperate to disappear before Hinchcliffe comes looking for me or the sudden violence outside escalates further. I follow the metal railings around the side of the courthouse, passing Llewellyn’s impaled corpse, running through the massive puddle of blood that’s seeped out of his body and not giving the stupid fucker a second glance. I pause at the back of the building to check that no one’s around, then sprint away. Once again I’m thankful for the steroids that Ankin’s doctor pumped me full of earlier today. If I hadn’t been drugged up, I’d never have been able to run like this. No doubt I’ll pay for it eventually when the effects wear off, but right now it doesn’t matter.
I try to follow the main road down toward the south gate, keeping the ocean to my left, but another sudden swell of trouble in a side street forces me to change direction. I’m close to the redbrick shopping center, one of the sites where Hinchcliffe stockpiles food and supplies. It’s in the process of being ransacked. Fighters scramble through debris, desperate to get their hands on whatever they can before someone else takes it. Some of them are attacked as they fight their way back out into the open. A gang of Switchbacks corner one. He manages to batter one of them, but three more take him down, blades flashing in the early morning light, bludgeons pounding him into a pulp. Men still loyal to Hinchcliffe try for a while to stop the looting, but they’re soon overcome and are either battered into submission or forced to switch sides. I get a glimpse inside one of the food buildings through an open door as I run past. It’s virtually empty now. Has everything already been taken, or was there never anything there?
Lowestoft is falling apart around me—splintering and fragmenting as I watch. Until now the specter of Hinchcliffe has loomed large over this place, and everyone has been in his shadow, too afraid to do anything that might risk incurring his wrath. Today his dominance has been challenged without even a single shot being fired between the fighters in the compound and Ankin’s army outside the town, and everything is rapidly beginning to fall apart. The ease with which it’s happened is terrifying. It’s almost as if Ankin wanted it to be this way.
Another left turn leads me back toward the coast and the main road again. The streets are filling with activity, and word of what’s happening seems to have spread with lightning speed. The people I see are uniformly panicked and scared, unsure what they should do. Som
e are simply barricading themselves into the buildings where they live, blocking up those doors and windows that are still accessible from outside. Others are preparing to defend themselves. Most have resorted to the language of the moment: violence and hate. More small mobs have appeared on street corners armed with clubs and blades and whatever else they can find. Some of these groups of people merge; others turn on each other in sudden, desperate fights over territory and weapons.
I can finally see the south gate up ahead, but there’s already a large crowd there trying to get out. A couple of fighters still loyal to Hinchcliffe try to push the bulk of the people back into the compound, but several more of them are doing the exact opposite—frantically trying to get the gate open. A couple of smaller, more athletic-looking people are scrambling up the sides of the trucks that form the barrier and are throwing themselves over.
A fight breaks out in the middle of the crowd in front of the gate. One man—a young, aggressive bastard I’ve taken a beating from before now—is warding off several others with a pistol and a knife. He’s gesturing desperately toward the metal barrier, but his words are being drowned out by increasing levels of noise coming from the other side. He lashes out at the one-legged guard, who can’t get away, slashing a line across his chest with the tip of his blade. He then fires his pistol several times, killing two more, before throwing it into the crowd when he’s out of ammunition. The gunshots are enough to force the people to scatter momentarily, and the brief distraction gives him enough time to get the access door in the gate open and get out. I can’t see much—several other fighters race to the barrier and close it again within a few seconds—but I see enough, and so does much of the rest of the crowd. The young fighter runs down the road, arms held high in surrender. Coming toward him, coming toward the heart of Lowestoft, is one of Ankin’s tanks. Behind it, for as far as I can see, the road is filled with more people and vehicles. As the gate slams shut again the crowd on this side reacts with increased anger and fear, and another fight erupts, which spreads rapidly.