by David Moody
I hurl myself toward Lizzie again, knowing that I have to kill her before she can hurt me and before she can harm Ellis. She shouts at the children to move and they run down the hallway toward the living room. Edward pulls Josh’s stroller across the hall and I trip over it, ending up on my hands and knees. Before I can get up and get to the living room they slam the door shut. I hear the bolt click across.
What the hell do I do now? How did this happen? How could my family turn against me so quickly? I have to forget about them and get to Ellis. She hasn’t changed and I know that she needs me. I pick myself up and run at the door. I smash my shoulder into it but it doesn’t move. I run back and charge it again and again and, the fifth time I hit it, I feel the bolt give way. I try to force the door open but it only moves a couple of inches. They’ve pushed furniture against it to stop me from getting inside. Why are they doing this to me?
I hammer my fists against the door.
“Ellis,” I shout. “Ellis!”
I can hear her. She’s trapped in there. I can hear her screaming back at me. She’s like me, not them, and she needs to be with me. She’s not safe in there. I’m desperate. I can’t leave her. I throw myself at the door again and the force of the impact shakes my whole body to the core.
“Ellis!” I yell again. I can still just about hear her muffled reply.
There has to be another way to get to her. The window. I’ll get in through the living room window. I turn and run back down the hallway, past the body in the kitchen, and out into the lobby. I push the front door open and burst out into the cold, rain-soaked world outside. Now that I’m out in the open I’m aware of noise all around me. I can hear the helicopters, the military trucks, gunshots, and the sounds of people like me fighting to survive. It’s like being in the middle of a war zone. But this isn’t the noise of one war being fought, it’s hundreds of separate clashes. Hundreds, probably thousands of battles fought by people like me who’ve been turned on and betrayed.
I’m at the living room window. I look inside. Lizzie is still piling furniture against the door. Edward spots me almost immediately and Lizzie shoves the children into the corner of the room. Ellis is trapped behind Edward and Josh but I can still see her. I can still see her face. She’s crying and mouthing my name.
I look around for something to use to smash the glass. There’s a broken paving slab halfway down the path to the front door. I pick it up and manage to throw it through the window. The glass shatters and the noise is uncomfortably loud. I can hear their voices again now. I can hear Lizzie screaming at them to keep back and keep away from me. I drag myself up and climb through the window frame, feeling shards of glass digging into me and slicing my skin. The pain doesn’t matter.
I force my body through the window head first and collapse onto the carpet. I quickly get up but my footing is unsteady and I’m off balance. Lizzie is running toward me. She has something in her hands—it’s the metal tube from the vacuum cleaner. She swings it at me. I try to duck out of the way but I’m too slow and she hits me.
A sudden burning, searing pain across my face.
Blood pouring from my nose and into my mouth.
Face down on the carpet. I can’t . . .
31
THE LIVING ROOM IS cold and silent. I slowly prize open my eyes. I don’t think there’s anyone else here. The pile of furniture has been moved and the door is open. Rain is blowing in through the smashed window and the backs of my legs are wet. I try to sit up but the pain is too much and I let myself fall back down again.
How long have I been lying here?
I start to remember what happened. I work my way backward. I remember Lizzie hitting me. I remember the look of hatred on her face, matched only by the similar expressions on Edward and Josh’s faces. I close my eyes and try to pull myself together. Watching my partner and children run from me and knowing that they have such hate for me hurts more than the physical pain I’m now feeling. I feel empty, betrayed, and scared. I can’t explain anything that’s happened. I don’t know why I killed Harry, I just know that I had to do it. I can’t explain why almost my entire family turned against me so quickly and so completely. I can’t explain why Ellis didn’t turn either. Christ, I have to find her.
I force myself to get up. My body hurts and every movement is difficult. Very slowly, using the arm of the sofa for support, I manage to stand. I catch sight of myself in the mirror that hangs over the gas fire. My right eye is black and swollen. One of my front teeth is loose and I can taste blood at the back of my throat. When I see the state of my face I start to really feel the pain. I drag myself into the kitchen and step over the body on the floor to get myself some water.
That’s better.
The water is ice cold and refreshing and it helps clear some of the dullness from my spinning head. I stand over the sink and wash my mouth out, spitting blood into the bowl. I stare into the pinky-red water and try not to look at Harry lying dead at my feet. What the hell happened? The kitchen floor is covered with his dark crimson blood. His lifeless eyes stare up toward the ceiling and I can feel them burning into me. I don’t regret what I did—I had to kill him before he killed me—I just need to understand why . . .
I turn off the tap and, apart from the occasional drip of water, the apartment is otherwise silent. Could Lizzie have taken the children and hidden upstairs in one of the other apartments? I slowly walk toward the kitchen door, listening carefully. I know in my heart they’ve gone.
Fuck.
A sudden realization hits me like a punch to the guts, more painful even than the physical and emotional blows I’ve already taken. Thinking about the apartments upstairs has made me remember the body on the landing and the Hater’s words to me when he lay there dying. “Be ready for them,” he said to me, “it’s them, not us. You see everything clearly when it happens to you.” Jesus Christ, he looked at me and saw another Hater. I’m one of them. It’s the only logical explanation. How could Harry, Lizzie, Edward, and Josh all change at the same time? It stands to reason that I’m the only one who is any different. I can’t explain how or why, but when I looked into their eyes I knew immediately that the others weren’t like me and that they were a threat. I sensed revulsion coming off them. I looked at my family and I feared them and that explains why I did what I did and why so many others have killed before me. I had to attack them before they attacked me. All except Ellis . . .
Keep calm, I try to tell myself as I run down the hallway and go out into the lobby. I look out through the front door. Damn, my car has gone. Bloody hell, they’ve taken the car and now they could be anywhere. I’m struggling to think straight and my panic-induced nausea has returned. Keep calm, I say to myself again. Think logically. Where would they have gone? Their options are limited. They could have gone to Harry’s house but that’s unlikely with him lying dead on the kitchen floor. Most probably Lizzie will have taken them to her sister’s place. I’ll look for them there.
I’m cold. My clothes are wet and are soiled with both Harry’s blood and my own. I’ll get changed, get some things together, and then go and find Ellis. I don’t know where we’ll go once I get her back. We can’t come back here. This place isn’t safe anymore.
32
I’M WASHED AND CHANGED and ready to go but I can’t bring myself to leave. The reality of what has happened is finally hitting home. The adrenaline and nervous fear have disappeared and now I’m left feeling empty, confused, and scared.
I’ve realized I’ve lost everything.
I’m standing in Edward and Josh’s bedroom now just looking around. It’s too painful . . . I can’t put into words how this is making me feel. I know that my boys are within touching distance but somehow I also know that they’re gone and I’ll never be with them again. I pick up a toy—a piece of nothing, just a cheap plastic hamburger-meal giveaway gift—and it fills me with pain. Josh got this about three weeks ago. Harry gave us some money. We were out late and we filled the kids up with fast
food. It was the first time Josh had had a meal to himself. He was so proud of it. He spent more time playing with this bloody toy than he did eating his burger.
I have to let them go.
I go through to the bedroom that Lizzie and I shared and I pick the bag I’ve packed up off the bed. The wardrobe door is open. I look along Lizzie’s clothes rail and all the different outfits I see remind me of so many times. It fills me with a gut-wrenching sadness. All the memories I have—every second of the life I’ve led since I first met her—suddenly mean nothing.
It would have been easier if they’d died. I know what I am now, and I know that Lizzie, Edward, and Josh are different. I don’t understand the differences between us, but I know beyond any doubt that they are insurmountable. I know that I’ll never be with my partner and children again. As for Ellis . . . she’s like me and I’ll fight with my last breath to get her back.
I’m trying to shift the body in the kitchen. In spite of the hate I saw in Harry’s eyes I don’t want to leave him like this—half-dressed and twisted and slumped in the corner of the room. I pull his feet to try and straighten him out but his limbs are stiff and unresponsive. I fetch a duvet from the bedroom and drape it over the corpse.
While I’m trying to move the body there’s a noise. I get up and run to the living room to look out of the broken window. Two army trucks have pulled into the road and I know that I have to get out of here quickly. I don’t know for sure anymore whether these soldiers will help me or turn against me but I can’t take any chances. What about the woman I saw shot dead in the street earlier this morning? Was she like me or like the others? Was she a Hater too?
Move. Get moving now and don’t stop. But where do I go? The trucks are getting closer. I swing my bag up onto my shoulder and run out of the apartment and into the lobby. Where now? Will they check the apartments upstairs? Could I risk hiding there? I know I have to get myself away from here and I sprint toward the rear exit. I try to open the fire door but it’s padlocked shut. Christ, how long has it been like that? What would have happened to Lizzie and the kids if there’d been a fire? Doesn’t matter now. I look back and I can see movement right outside the apartment block. They’re coming. Keep moving. Just keep moving.
The door to the other ground-floor apartment is open. I’m inside it now and it stinks. No one’s lived here officially for the last six months but it’s been used regularly by tramps, junkies, dossers, and God knows who and what else. Its layout is a mirror image of my apartment. I run through to the kitchen and force the window above the sink open. I can hear soldiers inside the building now. I can hear their heavy-booted footsteps in the lobby. I scramble through the window and jump down into the overgrown communal back garden. I’m out. Without thinking I run through the long grass to the end of the garden then quickly scramble up the muddy bank which separates our block from the gardens of the privately owned houses which back onto us. I run along the ends of the gardens until I reach a tall wooden fence. I have to try and climb over it. I drag myself up, the muscles in my arms burning with effort, and manage to swing one leg over the top of the fence. I flick myself over and fall onto the pavement on the other side, landing painfully among the dog shit, litter, and weeds. I stand up, brush myself down, and run on.
33
THE SAFEST PLACE TO hide, I decide as I sprint, is somewhere I know the soldiers have already been. I double back on myself and head down the road which runs parallel with Calder Grove before cutting across a couple more streets and finally reaching Marsh Way. This is the area where I saw the soldiers patrolling when I watched from the top-floor window this morning.
The road is empty. There’s no sign of the military presence I saw here earlier. I stand in the shadows under a tree at the end of the street and look up and down. There’s no sign of any kind of presence at all. Everything is completely still. Nothing’s moving here now. Nothing except me.
I notice that the front door of one of the houses on the other side of the road has just opened slightly. I run toward it and push my way inside. I meet the owner of the house dragging a bag of garbage down the hall, about to throw it out. He looks up and I know immediately that he’s not like me. I have to kill him.
“Who the hell are you . . . ?” he starts to say. I throw myself at him, grabbing him by the scruff of his neck and pushing him farther back into the house. I keep moving, feeling strong and in control but not knowing where I’m going or what I’m doing. We trip into a filthy kitchen and I slam him against a wall cupboard. His body rocks back with the impact. He struggles and tries to fight me off but I know I can kill him. I have strength, speed, and surprise on my side. I put my hand over his face, grip tight, and smash his head back against the cupboard door. He’s still fighting. I pull his head forward and smash it back again, harder this time. And again. Once more and still harder, so hard now that I feel something crack—not sure if it’s the door or his skull. Again and he stops fighting. Again and he slumps down. Again and it’s done.
I drag the body across the floor and leave it lying out of the way in the corner of the kitchen. Then I close and lock the door and finally stop to catch my breath and plan my next move.
I’ve never felt like this before. Part of me still feels devastated and empty because of what’s happened to me today. Part of me suddenly feels stronger and more alive than I ever have before. The way I killed the owner of this house was so out of character and yet it felt right and it felt good. I feel like I could take on a hundred thousand of them if I have to.
I am a Hater.
Sitting here in one of the bedrooms of this untidy and squalid little house I’ve finally managed to fully accept that I am a Hater. The title seems so wrong now but I can understand why it was originally given. To those on the outside—those who haven’t felt what I’m feeling now—our actions could easily be misinterpreted as being driven by hate. But they’re not. Everything I have done today has been in self-defense. I have killed to prevent myself from being killed. Those people, those “normal” people, are the ones who create the hate. I can’t explain it. I can see it in their eyes and I can almost taste it in the air around them. It’s like a sixth sense, an instinct. I sensed it coming off Harry and that was why I killed him. It was the same with the man downstairs and it’ll be the same with the next one I meet. I’ll keep going and I’ll keep killing for as long as I have to.
And now I finally begin to see where this is going. At last I’m starting to understand why this whole crisis has seemed so endless and directionless from the outset. It’s us against them. There’s not going to be a tie or a ceasefire or any political negotiations to resolve this. There won’t be an end to this fighting until one side has prevailed and the enemy lies dead at their feet.
It’s kill or be killed.
Hate or be hated.
The light is beginning to fade and I’m ready to move. I’ve waited until now hoping I’ll gain a little cover and protection from the darkness. I take some food from the kitchen (there’s hardly anything worth salvaging) and am ready to head back out into the open.
In the short time I’ve spent in this house my mood and emotions have been swinging and changing constantly. Half of me feels excited and alive because of what I have become. Part of me feels free and unrestrained for the first time in as long as I can remember and I’m relieved to have finally walked away from the parts of my life I detested. I feel physically strong, determined, and full of energy and yet all of this counts for nothing in the moments that I find myself thinking about the past. Lizzie and I would have been together for ten years next year. We’ve brought our children up together and, although we’ve had our moments, we’ve always been close. All of that has gone now and it hurts. I may be a Hater, but I still feel pain. I wish that Liz, Edward, and Josh could have changed too. I have to stop thinking about them. I’m struggling to make sense of my emotions. I still love them but at the same time I know that if I had to I’d kill them in an instant.
A
s I walk through the house something catches my eye.
In the living room, on a small round table next to a dirty, threadbare, and obviously well-used armchair, is a booklet. A government-produced booklet. It looks clean and new and yet it’s strangely familiar. I pick it up and start to leaf through its pages. I remember receiving something similar through the door a few months back when there was some terrorist threat or other. The booklet is pretty generic, telling the public what action to take in the event of an emergency. It covers bomb threats and natural disasters, that kind of thing. It tells people to stay in their homes and tune in to the radio or TV for updates. It’s also got information about administering basic first aid, what supplies to maintain, and emergency contact details. At the back are several pages full of propaganda and junk—how the country is prepared for all eventualities and how the emergency services will spring into action at the drop of a hat, that kind of garbage. There are some loose pages that have been added to the guide, and when I look at them I realize that this booklet was most probably given to the owner of this house by the military after their visit / inspection / cleanup operation today. The absence of any real facts is unsurprising and it immediately smells like more political bullshit. Still, it’s interesting to read what they’re finally telling the rest of the population about people like me.
The pages talk about what’s happened to us as being an illness. It implies that this is some kind of infection or disease that causes a form of dementia but it skirts around the issue and doesn’t use such direct language or present any hard facts. It says that a small proportion of the population—they suggest no more than one in a hundred people—are susceptible to “the condition.” It talks about symptoms, saying that people who are affected will become delirious and will, at random, attack people violently and irrationally. Fucking idiots. There’s nothing random or irrational about what I’ve done today.