Them or Us

by David Moody

I freeze, figuring that it’ll either be one of Hinchcliffe’s fighters or Ankin’s soldiers, and trying to work out my story for being here. No one answers. I keep walking, then stop when I hear the noise again, even closer now. I’m almost on top of it—a frantic shuffling and scurrying as something does its best not to be seen. Then there’s the faintest chink of metal on metal, like chains being rattled. I glance down into the nearest few pens, but I can’t see anything. Wait! There, just for a second, in the farthest corner of the cage behind the one I’m standing right in front of, I see something. I clumsily climb over the barriers to get closer, almost falling when one of my boots gets tangled up, and my sudden movements unleash a wave of panic in the shadows. Now I can see it. One of the children is still alive! An Unchanged boy tries to climb out of his pen and into another in desperation, but there’s a chain wrapped around his ankle. He’s weak and terrified and yanks at the chain to free himself but falls back and smashes down onto his face, yelping with pain when he hits the ground. I climb into his pen, and he continues to back away from me, pushing himself along the floor until he can go no farther back. About the same age as my son Edward was, he’s barely clothed and is blue with cold. He’s in worse physical condition than I am.

  “Don’t fight,” I tell him. “I won’t hurt you.”

  He just stares at me, too afraid even to blink, and I don’t know what to do. Every time I move he flinches. I climb back out of his pen and into another to put some space between us, hoping he’ll see that I’m not going to kill him.

  “Are there any more of you?”

  The boy doesn’t answer. His face looks familiar. He’s the lad from the last Unchanged nest I helped clear out, I’m sure he is. I lean forward and he spits at me, and now I know I’m right.

  “Are there any more of you?” I ask again. I give him a few seconds to answer, but he remains silent. I wait a moment longer, but I know I have to go. I can’t afford to waste any more time here. I climb back over the barriers until I reach the walkway, then start walking. This catatonic kid is lost anyway. There’s nothing I can do for him.

  “Wait,” a quiet and unexpectedly fragile voice says from behind me. I turn back around and see that he’s at the front of his cage now, leaning against the barrier. I keep walking, determined now to get away from Lowestoft and everyone and everything in it. “Please,” he says, “let us out.”

  I keep moving but then stop and turn back again when he rattles his chains against the barrier in protest.

  “Shh,” I say to him, “they’ll hear you if you—”

  I shut up when I realize he’s not the one making the noise. It’s coming from another pen on the same side of the walkway, a little farther back. I can see another Unchanged face looking back at me now; small, round, and ghostly pale. It’s a little girl. Dressed only in a grubby ripped T-shirt several sizes too big, she’s standing on tiptoes to look at me over the top of the metal divide. When I take a step toward her she takes several panicked steps back, almost tripping over her own chained feet.

  “You’re the one who told them where we were,” the boy says accusingly, his voice now stronger.

  “What?”

  “We were hiding and you told them where we were. It’s all your fault.”

  “I had to do it,” I say without thinking. Then I curse myself—what the hell am I apologizing for? Why am I explaining myself to him? Why am I explaining myself to one of the Unchanged?

  “No you didn’t. They wouldn’t have found us if you hadn’t told them. It’s your fault.”

  Arrogant little bastard. The way he’s shouting now reminds me of the way I used to argue with Ed. I start walking again, and the girl starts to cry.

  “Let us out,” the boy demands. I ignore him and keep going, then stop again because my head is suddenly full of stupid, dangerous thoughts. He’s right, isn’t he? It is my fault they’re here. But what else could I have done? It was them or me, and these days you have to look after yourself ’cause no other fucker’s going to help. Anyway, they’d have had to come out of their shelter eventually. All I did was make things happen faster than they would otherwise have. I’m saving them pain in the long run, or at least I would have if they hadn’t ended up in here.

  “Please!” he shouts as I try to walk on, but this time I stop because I know I’m wrong. No matter how I try to dress it up and justify what I did, these kids are only in the position they are today because of me. It doesn’t matter what they are or what I am or what we’re supposed to do to each other, I can’t just leave them to die here. Lowestoft is burning around us, for Christ’s sake. Well, maybe I can leave them, but the point is, I realize, I don’t want to. The very least they deserve is a chance, no matter how slight. I can’t deny them that.

  I walk back toward the little girl and check her chains, which are held in position with a padlock.

  “Don’t hurt her,” the boy shouts as the girl squirms to get away. “I’ll get you if you hurt her.”

  “I’m not going to hurt anyone,” I answer, testing the strength of the lock and the clasp around her bony ankle. “I’ll be back. I’ll see what I can do.”

  The noise of battle outside is increasing in volume. Even through the walls of this huge place, I can hear occasional bangs and screams, the helicopter flying overhead, guns and shells being fired, and the constant noise of engines. I try to block it all from my mind as I look for something to free the children with. All I need to do, I tell myself, is let them go.

  In the farthest corner of this dank, foul-smelling place, I find a bloodstained workbench that’s covered in lengths of chains, discarded locks, bits of bone, small teeth, and other, less easily identifiable things. There’s a huge bunch of keys hung on a metal hoop on the wall, but there are too many to go through and I can’t waste time checking each one of them. Instead I opt for a set of heavy, long-handled metal cutters I find leaning against the side of the bench. I head back to the pens, and the girl screams as I advance toward her with the cutters held high. Her helpless sobbing is heartbreaking.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” I tell her, desperate for her to understand. “Look.”

  I climb over to the boy. He continues to recoil from me. I pull him closer, dragging him back across the floor, then use the cutters to snap the loop of the padlock that holds his chains in place. He removes his shackles, then clambers out of the pen after me, his movements stilted and clumsy after being restricted for so long. This time when I approach the girl she’s a little quieter—still sobbing, but not screaming. I carefully ease the blade of the cutters over the loop of her padlock, then press down hard. It takes more effort this time (and I can feel my energy levels really starting to fade), but the lock eventually gives. I unravel her chains, and then, when she can’t get over the barrier, I reach down and lift her up. There’s nothing to her, absolutely no weight at all. She holds on to me, her tiny arms tight around my shoulders, her legs wrapped around my waist. I try to put her down, but I can’t. She won’t let go. This reminds me how it used to be when I held Ellis and the boys, feeling them close against you, hearing their breathing, reacting to their every movement …

  Put the fucking kid down and get out of here.

  I try to lower her, but she still won’t let go. When another loud explosion rocks the building, she grips me even tighter, her fingers digging into my back.

  Put the fucking kid down!

  This time I peel her off me, prying off her fingers and unraveling her legs, then putting her down and backing up to put some distance between us. She just stands there looking up at me, not saying anything but asking a thousand questions with those huge, innocent eyes.

  “Where’s Charlie?”

  “Who?”

  “Charlie,” she says. “You know, Charlotte. She came here with us.”

  She’s talking about the dead girl upstairs. I try to tell her the truth, but I can’t.

  “She’s already gone,” I lie. “Now you need to do the same. Get out of here. T
here’s trouble coming.”

  “Where?” the boy asks, shivering. He’s dressing himself in rags he’s stripped from another child’s corpse.

  “What?”

  “Where do we go?”

  “How am I supposed to know? Just stay away from the town. Get onto the beach and follow it south as far as you can.”

  “Which way’s south?”

  “That way,” I tell him, pointing and backing away from them both again.

  “But the people out there,” he continues, his voice unsure, “the Haters … they’ll find us, won’t they? They’ll kill us…”

  The girl starts to cry again, and I struggle to shut the noise out. What do these children think I am? I spent a couple of days in their shelter with them, but surely they must know I’m not like them. Then again, they also know I’m not acting like any of the other people they’ve seen since they’ve been here.

  “Can’t you take us back?” the girl asks, her voice barely audible. Her bottom lip quivers and tears roll down her cheeks.

  “Back where?”

  “Back to where we were before. With Sally and Mr. Greene. Where all those cones and traffic signs were.”

  She’s talking about the storage depot where I found them. “You can’t go back there,” I answer quickly, not thinking about the effect my words will have on her. “That place is gone now, and all the people who were there are gone, too.”

  She just nods, her tiny body shuddering as she sobs, her tear-streaked face filled with resignation.

  “You got any food?” the boy asks. “Really hungry.”

  I check my bag and my pockets. All I find is the half-finished packet of sweets, which I hand over.

  “My daddy says—” the girl begins.

  “That you shouldn’t take sweets from strangers,” I say, finishing her sentence for her, immediately slipping back into parent mode even after all this time. “Your daddy was right, but things are a bit different now, aren’t they?”

  She doesn’t answer, too busy cramming several of the sweets into her mouth. Strings of sticky dribble are running down her chin. This is probably the first thing these kids have eaten in days. The roar of another engine outside snaps me out of my dangerous malaise. I jog toward the nearest door.

  “You can’t leave us,” the boy shouts after me.

  “Yes I can.”

  “But they’ll kill us…”

  “It’s probably for the best.”

  I know I should just keep moving and not look back again, but I can’t. Standing behind me, their mouths full of sugar, faces streaked with dirt, are two kids. Two normal, rational kids behaving like normal, rational human beings, not like the hundreds of blood-crazed, mad bastards fighting to the death outside this place. Kids like the children in the family I used to be a part of before the Hate tore everything apart and left my world in ruins, not like the barely controlled, feral creatures Hinchcliffe held captive elsewhere on this site. This innocent, completely helpless boy and girl deserve better than this, but what else can I do? They’re dead already. The second they’re outside this place they’ll be torn to pieces … My head fills with images of them being attacked by a pack of people like me, being ripped apart just because they’re not like us. It’s inevitable—just the way the world is now—but the idea of them being hunted down and killed suddenly feels abhorrent.

  There is an answer. It’s obvious, but I don’t want to accept it.

  “Please,” the boy says, his eyes scanning my face, desperately searching for even the faintest flicker of hope, “just help us to get away.”

  “Okay,” I say, cursing my stupidity as soon as I’ve spoken. “I’ll take you somewhere there are other people like you.”

  43

  THIS IS THE VAN they used to bring me and these kids back here after the nest had been cleared out. I find it parked in another part of the factory, left abandoned in an area of open space next to a roller-shutter door, the keys still in the ignition. I open up the back and try to get the kids inside, but neither of them will move. They stare at the metal cage bolted to the wall, no doubt remembering the last time.

  “Get in,” I tell them, gently pushing the girl forward. She doesn’t move. The boy holds her hand. “What’s your name, son?”

  “Jake.”

  “And what about you?”

  “Chloe.”

  “Listen, we don’t have a lot of time. There’s a lot of fighting going on outside, so we need to move fast. I know you’re scared, but if you don’t get into the van, you’re not going to make it. You don’t have to get into the cage, just get into the damn van.”

  Chloe looks at Jake. He scowls, thinks for a second longer, then nods. I help them up, shut the door, then head over toward the roller-shutter. It won’t move. Another fucking padlock. I fetch the metal cutters and try to get it open. It eventually gives, but not without an unexpected amount of effort. I’m soaked with sweat now, and I can feel the sickness returning.

  The engine starts on the third try. I watch the fuel gauge climb. I will it to keep moving, but it barely manages to reach a quarter full. That should be enough to get us out of Lowestoft and clear of the fighting; then it’s just a question of finding Peter Sutton and the Unchanged bunker, dumping these kids, and disappearing. I try to visualize the route to the bunker, remembering how long and featureless the roads around here are. One wrong turn and I could end up back in the center of Lowestoft before I’ve even realized I’ve gone the wrong way.

  “Hold on,” I shout to the kids as I turn the van around and pull away. I watch them in the rearview mirror, huddled together in the corner, freezing cold and terrified but relieved to be free. “Keep your heads down. Don’t let anyone see you, okay?”

  “Where are we going?” Jake asks as I steer through the open door and onto the road, out into the gray light of day.

  “There’s a place I know. Someone showed it to me a few days ago. There are people like you there.”

  “Like the old place?” Chloe asks.

  “Better than that,” I tell her.

  The engine splutters and almost dies, and I remember how unreliable this heap of a van is. I drive away from the factory, accelerating hard, then stop.

  “What’s the matter?” Jake asks, his voice suddenly sounding nervous again.

  “Nothing. Just trying to decide which way’s best.”

  Fuck. I didn’t think this through. Truth is, there is no best way out of here. Heading north around the top of the compound would probably be easiest, but that’s going in completely the wrong direction, and I’d have to drive a huge loop around to get anywhere near the bunker. The best—the only—option is to try to head south and get out over the bridge. For a fraction of a second I consider either dumping the kids altogether or trying to run with them along the beach, but I know both those choices are useless, too. All I can do is start driving and hope for the best.

  I accelerate again, and for the first few yards it’s easy. The roads are still swarming with people, but they’re more interested in surviving now than in anything I’m doing. All I need to do is get over the bridge, I keep telling myself. Once I’m on the other side of the water everything will be easier.

  The people here are herding along the streets like sheep, some moving toward the fires still burning around the courthouse, others heading out of town. The massive column of people and vehicles I saw coming through the gate across the bridge earlier seems now to have reduced to a slow trickle. The air is filled with drifting smoke, and the figures on the road move to either side as I drive toward them. It’s less than half a mile to the gate. A couple of minutes and we’ll be out of here. I swerve around a fight that spills out of a building, and when I look back in my mirror I see that Jake has his face pressed against the glass.

  “Get your fucking head down!” I scream at him. He does as I say, but it’s too late, he’s been seen. Perhaps because no one’s able to process the bizarre reality of the appearance of an Unchanged child in
the middle of the crumbling chaos of Lowestoft, there’s the slightest delay before I’m aware of any real reaction. But then, when I brake hard to avoid a collision with some kind of armored truck coming the other way, a horde of people begin throwing themselves at the sides of the van. The engine almost dies, and they hammer against the glass and try to grab at the doors. The children sink down and cover their heads in terror, and I accelerate again, barely managing to keep the van on the road.

  I follow the bend in the road around to the left, and I can see the bridge ahead of me now. The gates are open, but there’s still a heavy military presence here. Ankin’s troops are blocking the way in and out of town, doing all they can to keep the trouble contained. I can already see several of them moving toward me, weapons raised.

  “Stay down!” I yell again at the kids. I jam my foot down on the accelerator pedal, sink back into my seat, and grip the steering wheel tight as we race toward the blockade. Over the top of the dashboard I see sudden, frantic movement as we hurtle toward the troops and they dive away in either direction as I smash through them. Shots ring out and bullets thud into the side of the van. The back windows shatter, showering Jake and Chloe with glass.

  “Who’s shooting?” Jake asks. He crawls along the length of the van, then gets up and hangs over the seat next to me, blocking my view behind.

  “Get out of the way,” I yell at him, trying to push him away and still keep control. He fights to stay where he is, but I manage to shove him hard out of the way, and in the suddenly clear rearview mirror I see headlights behind us. The fuckers are following.

  “Someone’s coming,” Chloe wails, looking out through a bullet hole. “I can see motorbikes.”

  I look up again. There are two bikes and a jeep in pursuit now. We’re on the A12, and although littered with debris, the road is virtually clear of other traffic. Sticking to the main road is the safest option. If I try to find an alternative route I could end up driving down a road that’s blocked or doubling back and going the wrong way. I need to keep going until we reach Wrentham. Once we’re there I’ll know we’re not far from the bunker. Just got to keep moving …