Hater

    'Had to get him first?' she interrupts, finishing my sentence for me. My eyes are getting used to the darkness in the house now. I can see Nancy nodding and I immediately know that she completely understands what I had to do and why I had to do it, even if I'm still not sure myself. 'Everything will start to make more sense soon,' she tells me. 'I was just the same when it happened to me. Hated myself for doing it but I didn't have any choice. I'd been with John for almost thirty years and we'd hardly spent a day apart in all that time. It was just like someone had flicked a switch. I knew I had to do it.'

    This is in danger of turning into a comedy of errors. Have they all killed? I ask the question without realising I'm speaking out loud.

    'Suppose it just depends where you are when it happens,' Patrick says. 'Craig hasn't killed anyone yet, which is a surprise when you look at the size of the bugger!'

    Nancy takes up Craig's story.

    'Tried though, didn't you, love,' she sighs. In the circle of torchlight I see him nod. 'Bunch of them had you cornered at work, didn't they?'

    'I was picking orders in the warehouse with four of them,' the giant of a man explains in a surprisingly soft voice. 'Didn't know what was happening. I started on one of them but there were too many. They shut me in one of the offices but I managed to get out of a window. All I could do was run.'

    This conversation is bizarre and uncomfortably surreal. It only becomes believable again when I remember the fact that I've killed twice today. How could that be? Christ, until this morning I hadn't even hit anyone in temper, let alone killed them. Patrick passes me a bottle of water which I drink from thirstily.

    'What about you?' I ask him.

    'I killed,' he answers. 'Don't know who the guy was, I just had to do it like the rest of you. He was just stood there staring at me as I was getting into the car…'

    '…and?''

    'And I mowed him down. Started the engine, chased him down the street and I mowed him down. Pretty much wrote the car off too. Just kept driving along with him under the wheels. I didn't know what else to do. Tried to go back home but when I got there I saw that my girl was just like the rest of them and…'

    '…and you know the rest of the story,' Craig grumbles. 'You just have to do it, don't you?'

    'It feels like second nature,' Patrick says quietly. 'It's instinctive. It's animal instinct.'

    The room falls silent.

    'So what happens now?' I ask.

    'Who knows,' Nancy answers. 'My guess is we'll just keep killing each other until either we're all gone or they are. Crazy, isn't it?'

    It's hard to get my head round the fact that this woman (who looks like any other average wife / mother / daughter / sister / aunt) is talking so matter-of-factly about killing. In the days since she's changed she seems to have relinquished every aspect of her former life and is now prepared to kill to stay alive herself. At moments like this it all seems beyond belief. Nancy looks more likely to bake you a cake than kill you. I shake my head in bewilderment as Craig gets up and drags a wooden board across the open doorway, blocking out the last shards of light coming in from outside.

35

    'So how much of it have you worked out then?' Patrick asks. We're both upstairs in what was probably destined to be the master bedroom of the half-finished house, sitting with our backs to the recently plastered wall. The sky has cleared now and the moon is providing limited but welcome illumination through the grille over the window. I'm tired and I don't want to talk but I can't avoid answering his question.

    'Haven't got a bloody clue what's going on,' I answer honestly. 'This is as close as I've managed to get,' I say as I take the folded-up booklet from my bag and pass it to him. He scans the pages by the light of his torch and smiles wryly to himself.

    'Good stuff, this!' he laughs sarcastically.

    'Took it from a house I hid in,' I tell him. 'Doesn't say much.'

    'When did you last get anything from the government that did?'

    He shuts the booklet and throws it down onto the bare floorboards.

    'It's not like there's anyone you can ask about it, is there?' I say. 'I still don't know if anyone really knows what's happening.'

    'Someone knows,' he mutters, 'they must do. You can bet that from the second the first person changed, some government department somewhere has been analysing us and cutting up people like you and me and…'

    'Cutting up people?'

    'I'm exaggerating,' he continues, 'but you know what I'm saying, don't you? They'll have had a team of top scientists sitting in some lab somewhere working out what's happened to us. They'll be working on a cure.'

    'You reckon?'

    He shrugs his shoulders.

    'Maybe. Whatever happens they'll be trying to find a way of stopping us doing what we do.'

    I know he's right. We're a threat to them. Far more of a threat than any enemy they might have battled with previously.

    'I don't want to be cured,' I say, surprising even myself with my admission. 'I want to stay like this. I don't want to go back to being one of them.'

    Patrick nods and switches off his torch. In the darkness I find myself thinking about Ellis again. I know that it's only a matter of time before she changes if she hasn't already. I've tried to convince myself that she'll be all right but I know that as long as she's with the others she's in danger. The hardest thing to come to terms with today - harder even than everything I've lost - is the fact that Lizzie, the person who carried my little girl and who has provided her with more safety and security than anyone else, is now the one who poses the biggest threat to her. The pain I feel when I think about Ellis tonight is indescribable. Maybe I should try and get to her now. Poor little thing doesn't know what's going to happen. She hasn't got a clue…

    'Don't say a lot, do you?' Patrick pushes. He's beginning to get on my nerves but I sense that he has a need to talk. He's as nervous, scared and confused as I am so I don't retaliate.

    'Not much to say, is there?' I grunt back.

    'So who are you thinking about?'

    Very perceptive. I pause but then decide to answer him. Maybe it will help.

    'My little girl. She's like us.'

    'Why isn't she with you?'

    'Because of her mother. I was in the house with the whole family when it happened. I knew that Ellis was like me and I tried to get her but…'

    'But what?'

    'Lizzie got to her before me. Smacked me around the face with a bloody metal pipe. Next thing I knew she'd gone and taken all the kids with her.'

    Patrick shakes his head.

    'Too bad,' he mumbles. 'Hurts when you lose them, doesn't it?'

    I nod, but I don't know if he notices my response.

    'What about you?' I ask. 'You said something earlier about your partner…'

    He doesn't answer for a few long seconds.

    'Like I said, I managed to get back home after it happened. You know almost before you see them that they haven't changed, don't you? I did what I had to do.'

    I don't know what he means by that. Did he kill her? I quickly decide that it's probably not a good idea to ask. For a moment I think that's the end of the conversation but then Patrick speaks again.

    'Got it all wrong, didn't they?' he says.

    'What?'

    'The papers and the TV and all that,' he explains, 'made us out to be the villains of the piece, didn't they?'

    'To them we are.'