by David Moody
“Are you threatening me?”
“Not yet.”
“Not yet!”
“You have to understand, this matters too much. We need to keep all our options open.”
“This is bullshit. You’re not getting away with it. I’m going to—”
But Darren’s not going to do anything. Not yet, at least. Because his words are interrupted by a now familiar cry that goes up from the CDF soldiers manning the guns and the lookouts along the front line.
“Incoming!”
* * *
This time, the enemy’s approach is scattershot. The strikes come from so many different directions at once that it’s virtually impossible to work out how many of them are attacking.
One of the main gunners adjusts his sights and zeroes in on a pack of Haters racing across the battlefield in a battered old Mercedes Estate. This feels so damn easy now, so natural … it’s almost like playing a video game. The gunner’s energy levels are artificially high, buoyed by adrenaline and the confidence of knowing that the balance has finally tipped in favor of the CDF. The thrill of the kill is astonishing. He’s enjoying this so much he reckons he could pass for a Hater himself.
He pulls the lanyard rope, covers his ears, and ducks as the howitzer fires. The shell whistles through the air but misses the Merc and hits the ground just short. The resulting detonation is still savage enough to flip the vehicle onto its roof. Three Hater fighters scramble out of the wreckage and are immediately picked off by CDF snipers from the roof of the hotel.
This is so fucking easy.
A group of attackers bursts out from the cover of a copse of trees. They sprint and stall and zigzag, but it has no effect because they’re running straight toward a length of trench lined with armed militia. Their standard-issue SA80 assault rifles are capable of emptying thirty shots from a clip in quick succession, but there’s no need for rapid fire here. These soldiers can afford to take their time, choose their targets carefully, and conserve their ammo. When another group of ten or so appears from the same wooded area, one of the CDF militia fires a grenade from the launcher attached to her rifle and takes the whole damn lot out with one shot.
* * *
Estelle and Chappell watch from the lookout. There’s a quiet confidence about Estelle today. Now that the enemy’s numbers have been ascertained and their abilities (or lack thereof) proved, her tactics have been validated. She knows exactly what she needs her troops to do.
“I think it’s time, Greg, don’t you?”
“You’re sure about this?”
“Completely.”
She turns away from the battlefield and beckons Moira over. Moira’s been waiting for this. She’s ready to disseminate the chief’s orders to the ranks.
“As we discussed,” Estelle says. “Maintain a strong defensive perimeter around the outpost, then send the tanks to Longstanton. I want them on the move within the hour. Wipe them all out. Every last fucking one of them.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
50
Longstanton
She’s no fool. She knows the approaching engine noise and marching footsteps can only mean one of two things: the Unchanged or Thacker. She’s on the concrete clearing with her back to him when she hears it. The bulk of Hinchcliffe’s convoy has been ordered to hold position a short distance from the village, though there’s still quite an entourage here with him, a couple of hundred at least. With the flooded wetlands on two sides, and the road to the clearing blocked by Hinchcliffe’s fighters, Johannson’s escape routes have been cut off.
“Boss,” Bryce says, calling out to Johannson but standing alongside Hinchcliffe. She doesn’t react. She has her generals and key lackeys all around her, planning their next move. Bryce clears his throat and tries again, shouting this time. “Boss! Someone here to speak to you.”
Johannson finally stops and stands up straight but doesn’t immediately turn around. She takes her time and composes herself. When she finally faces Hinchcliffe, she’s managed to summon up enough arrogance, swagger, and aggression to match him.
“Thought I told you to fuck off and not come back here.”
“You did. Sorry, Mrs. Johannson, I’m just not very good at doing what I’m told.”
If Johannson’s feeling any nervousness, she isn’t letting it show. She knows how this works. She’s rehearsed it in her head time and again since Thacker first made his intentions known and sent Hinchcliffe here. Distracted only by the discovery of Unchanged nearby, she’s been waiting for this inevitable meeting.
“Lovely to see you again and all that,” Hinchcliffe says, “but I think you know how this is going to pan out.”
From calm to chaos in a heartbeat, Johannson flies at him, unsheathing a machete from under her heavy outer coat and swinging it at his head.
Hinchcliffe’s a step ahead.
He has a riot baton, and as she comes at him, he ducks out of the way, sidesteps, then cracks the baton into her machete-wielding arm with such force that her humerus shatters and she drops the blade, which clatters to the concrete. The pain must be excruciating, but she doesn’t let it show. If anything, it just riles her up even more, and she goes for him again, right arm flapping uselessly at her side. Hinchcliffe again anticipates, this time dropping low and thumping the baton into her pelvis, then both kneecaps. Then, just for good measure, he shatters her right fibula. She’s left writhing on the ground.
Johannson’s generals, massively outnumbered, don’t react. Only Myndham, fiercely loyal, shows any sign of retaliation. A glare from Hinchcliffe and all thoughts of resistance are forgotten. “Think very carefully about your next move, my man. By all means, have a go if you think you’re hard enough, but do weigh up your options first. Full disclosure—I’ve brought about nine hundred and forty friends to the party.”
No more dissent.
An unnatural hush descends over what remains of Longstanton now, disturbed only by Johannson’s howls of pain and anger. Still writhing on the ground, she reaches out with her remaining good arm and grabs the toe of Hinchcliffe’s boot. He takes a step back, then stamps on her face. “Do shut up,” he says.
There are gasps and mumbled curses from the crowd. All these people have experienced extreme cruelty, brutality, and barbarism since the onset of the Hate, but nothing like this, and certainly not toward their own. Hinchcliffe takes hate to a new level.
He looks around at the people staring back at him. “And it really is as easy as that,” he announces, and he’s right. In the space of just a couple of minutes, he’s cut short Johannson’s previously unchallenged rule and has transferred leadership of her tribe to Thacker.
There’s absolute silence now. Deadly anticipation.
“As some of you may remember, I represent a gentleman by the name of Mr. Thacker. He’s my boss. As of now, he’s your boss, too, and I’m pleased to welcome you to his ever-growing family with open arms. We’re in the process of relocating to the east coast, and we’d love for you to come and join us. Now does anyone not want to come along?”
Silence.
“Perfect. Now before we all head off into the sunset together, there’s the small matter of getting rid of the group of Unchanged I’m told you’ve found.” He looks around for Bryce. “How many of them are there?”
“Between two and three hundred, we think.”
“And remind me again, why aren’t they dead?”
“Ask her,” Bryce says, gesturing dismissively at Johannson. She’s on her back looking up into the rain, blood- and mud-splattered, barely alive, groaning through a mouthful of broken teeth.
And yet still she tries to fight. The pain is unimaginable, but it’s surpassed by her inhuman levels of anger. Hinchcliffe is losing his patience. He picks up her machete and hands it to Bryce. “Kill her, will you?”
Bryce freezes. It’s only for a fraction of a second, but he thinks it’s long enough for Hinchcliffe to have picked up on his uncertainty. He immediately drops to the ground an
d chops the blade down on Johannson’s neck. “Sorry, boss,” he whispers before getting back up and wiping her blood from his hands.
“Good lad,” Hinchcliffe says. “Not the cleanest cut, but it’s shut her up, at least.” He walks around the clearing, circling the body, looking into the faces of the fighters who, until just now, fought for the dead warrior queen now lying dead on the ground in front of them. “Question to the group,” he says. “What exactly is stopping you finishing off those nasty Unchanged fuckers?”
“They’ve got tanks,” someone says, only brave enough to volunteer an answer because their position deep in the crowd gives them a chance of anonymity.
“I’ve got tanks, too,” Hinchcliffe quickly replies, looking in vain for the speaker. “Didn’t bring any with me, though. Didn’t think I’d need them. Thacker has plenty of tanks. Any other reason?”
Nothing.
Hinchcliffe answers his own question. He turns around to face Bryce again. “If what you’re telling me is correct and what I’m seeing is right, I’d say you’ve struggled because of numbers.”
“Yeah.”
“So I might have just tipped the balance, given that I brought nearly a thousand folks with me?”
“I’d say so, yes.”
“Excellent. What else can you tell me?”
Ullah steps forward and lays out a map. Bryce muscles in, keen to prove he knows more than the rest of them. He jabs his finger at the position of the base on the map, circled in pen. “There. There’s a trench around most of the perimeter, and I can show you where their big guns are. From what I can tell, they don’t have a lot of ammunition or supplies left. Looks like they’ve been there since before the bombs. Fuckers must be close to the breaking point.”
“Good,” Hinchcliffe says, and he picks up the map. He pushes Bryce aside, then gestures for one of his own people to come forward. He hands them the map. “Get the word out—I want a full perimeter put around their location. Block every road and track in a ten-mile radius. Keep back and stay out of sight until I give the order to advance.” He looks around for Ullah and Myndham. “You two get out there and let all your people who were loyal to Mrs. Johannson know they’re reporting to me now. They fall into line with my troops and my orders, or they’ll be killed. Understand?”
Ullah doesn’t hesitate. “I understand.”
“Excellent.”
“So what’s the plan?” Bryce asks, desperate to fill the hole in the chain of command left by the death of Johannson.
“Your plan is to do what I tell you,” Hinchcliffe tells him. “My plan is to strangle the Unchanged and cut off their air supply. I’m going to put those fuckers in a chokehold and keep tightening my grip until every last one of them is dead.”
51
East of the Outpost
Matt and Jason have been walking for hours but have only covered a fraction of the distance they’d hoped. They were both resigned to making slow progress cross-country anyway—it’s par for the course—but Matt’s struggling badly. His legs are like lead, and he has a raging temperature. It’s getting difficult putting one foot in front of the other, let alone doing that in silence with the prospect of having to hide or face the enemy at any moment. He keeps dropping back. Jason waits for him, feeling increasingly nervous every time they slow down. “Come on, Matt, we can do this,” he urges. They’re midway across an overgrown golf course, the farthest edge of which runs parallel with the A14. They’re wishing they’d taken a different route. There are patches of trees here, but also frequent wide swaths of sparse yellow grass that used to be fairways and greens. It’s stop-start. Feels like they’re having to cover all eighteen holes. They’ve estimated they could still have about ten miles to go, and that distance feels like forever today.
Matt pauses and wipes the sweat from his brow. Jason keeps going but stops when he realizes Matt’s not following. He’s leaning against a tree, his face pallid. He slumps, then drops to the ground. Jason rolls him over onto his back.
“I feel like shit,” Matt says.
“You look like shit.”
Since leaving the Travelodge, his condition has deteriorated markedly. He felt bad when he was there, but the extent of his sickness was masked by the fact he was flat out in bed, not having to move. The exertion is making everything feel worse.
“This isn’t good. I think it’s blood poisoning, something like that.”
“From your shoulder?”
“Guess so. We’ve been breathing in all kinds of shit since we stuck our heads above ground.” He pauses. Winces. “That can’t have helped.”
“What are your symptoms? What hurts?”
“Everything hurts.”
“Describe the pain.”
“Why? You a doctor?”
“Don’t be difficult.”
“Then don’t be an idiot. I’m freezing cold, weak as fuck, heart’s racing…”
“Do you think you can keep going?”
Matt rolls back over and uses the tree to get himself up. Breathless, he announces, “Don’t think I have any choice.”
He starts walking again.
The sounds of battle give a useful indication of where Matt and Jason are. By no means constant, the frequent noises are enough to confirm they’re still headed in the right direction: strained engines, the thunderous boom of heavy artillery being fired, unidentifiable voices screaming orders and instructions to each other, all caught on the wind. Matt’s beginning to wonder if there will be anything left of the outpost when they finally get there.
“Wait,” Jason says.
“No … have to keep moving,” Matt insists, breathless. “Need to stay ahead of them.”
“No, really, wait,” Jason says again, and when Matt looks up, he can tell from the expression on Jason’s face that this is more serious than he’d thought. “They’re coming.”
Another swell of engine noise can be heard like the rumble of a fast-approaching storm. “Fuck,” Matt says, and he spits to clear foul-tasting phlegm from his throat.
Up ahead, they can see the first vehicles approaching. Times past, the road would have been obscured by the trees, shielding the golf course, but the temperature, the dampness of the soil, and the toxicity of the air have combined to eat away at the greenery. Branches that would normally have been covered in leaves at this time of year are bare. Previously steadfast roots have lost their grip in the sodden earth, and a number of trees have been brought down by little more than their weight and the wind alone.
There’s another road that joins the A14 at an intersection a short way back from their current position. Matt and Jason crouch down behind an uprooted root ball, and Matt points with a trembling hand. “Roadblock. They’re sealing off the escape routes.”
“Shit. So that’s us fucked. We’ll never make it to the others in time.”
“I can’t go any faster,” Matt says, wheezing.
“I can see that.”
“But we might still do it.”
* * *
They crawl through the scrub and leaf litter toward the large group of Haters now swarming around this part of the A14. They’re blocking the road with vehicles—leaving them end to end and side by side so there’s little chance of anyone getting through.
“You sure this is going to work?” Jason whispers.
“Nope. Not even sure I’m going to be able to walk that far.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
Matt just looks at him, not that either can see the other’s face. They’re both wearing hoods and scarves now, with only the narrowest of gaps left for their eyes. It’s not much of a disguise, but it might buy them a few extra seconds.
“It’s like I’ve always said to you, Jason: watch what everyone else is doing, then do the opposite. The last thing they’re expecting is for anyone like you and me to be anywhere near here.”
“This is a really fucking bad idea.”
“It is, yes, but right now it’s the only idea we’ve got.�
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They pause, crouched in a muddy ditch with little more than an embankment, a handful of crisscrossing branches, and a few meters of clear space between them and the pack setting up the roadblock. Matt can hardly focus: nerves or sickness? It’s impossible to tell anymore.
“Don’t think I can do this,” Jason whispers, voice muffled by the scarf covering his face.
“No choice. Shut up.”
Matt watches as a beaten-up but not particularly old BMW weaves through the partially constructed roadblock. Its exhaust is knackered. It looks in relatively decent shape, but it sounds like a bloody tank. The driver—who’s alone—gets out to talk to another man. He leaves the engine running.
Matt elbows Jason in the ribs. “This is us.”
Before Jason can react, Matt’s already on his feet and is scrambling up the bank. Jason helps him up and pushes him toward the BMW. Their improvised disguises are working for now; they look as shitty as everyone else, and no one’s paying them any attention. Matt opens the rear passenger-side door and collapses into the back. Jason goes around the front of the car. He tries to walk and not draw attention to himself, but he loses his nerve and runs. He slams the door shut behind him, and Matt cringes at the noise. “I said try to act natural,” he hisses.
“What’s natural about this?” Jason screams at him, and he punches the accelerator.
* * *
The BMW driver looks around when he hears the distinctive roar of his motor. “What the fuck?”
Whoever’s behind the wheel, he can see they’re not used to driving a car as powerful as his, because they’re struggling to keep control. The back end fishtails all over the road before straightening up and racing away. But the fact his car’s been stolen is less of a concern than what he thinks he just saw. Because, just for a fraction of a second, he thought he saw something that filled him with such anger, such vitriol and hate, that he can barely bring himself to spit out the words.