“Then I guess I’ll…”
“Assuming she’s still alive, what’ll happen if you don’t find her?”
“She’ll just carry on fighting wherever she is.”
“Exactly. So what difference does it make?”
“She needs me. She’s only five.”
“I reckon you need her more than she needs you.”
“Bullshit!”
“Not bullshit,” she says, shaking her head and flicking ash into a sink filled with dirty plates and cups. “I doubt she needs you at all.”
Stupid woman.
“Did you not hear me? She’s five years old. I don’t even know if she can fight-”
“Of course she can fight. We can all fight. It’s instinctive.”
“Okay, but what about food? What about keeping warm in the winter and dry in the rain? What if she gets hurt?”
“She’ll survive.”
“She’ll survive?! For Christ’s sake, Carol, she can’t even tie her own fucking shoelaces!”
Keith folds up his map and pushes his way between us, clearly fed up with being caught in the crossfire of our conversation. I shake my head in disbelief and follow him.
“You need to wake up and start living in the real world,” Carol shouts after me. There’s no point arguing, so I don’t.
We’re back in the van and ready to move within minutes of Paul waking up. The rain has eased, but the ground is still covered with puddles of dirty black rainwater that hide the potholes and debris and make it even more difficult to follow the roads than it was in the dark last night. Keith manages to avoid most of the obstructions, but when he oversteers to avoid an overturned trash can, one of the rear wheels clips something else. We go a few more yards, and then there’s a sudden bang and hiss of air as a tire blows out.
“Shit!” Keith curses, thumping the wheel in frustration.
“Got a spare?” I ask.
“No idea.”
He stops in the biggest patch of dry land we can find, and I get out. Paul follows me out and opens the back. He rummages around and manages to find the jack and other tools. The spare’s underneath. He starts to get it out. While I’m waiting I walk over to the other side of the road to where the contents of someone’s front room have been strewn across the pavement. Their flat-screen TV lies smashed in the gutter, and an expensive-looking rain- soaked sofa hangs precariously out of the broken bay window. Before all this happened we each lived in relative privacy in individual brick-built boxes, what we did and how we did it hidden from view of the rest of the world by our walls, doors, and windows. Strange how the physical worlds of so many people are now as dilapidated and ruined as their emotional state. There’s no privacy anymore, no boundaries. Everything we do is in full view and exposed. There’s no longer any-
“McCoyne!” Carol shouts at me from the van. “Get out of the fucking way!”
I spin around quickly, but it’s too late. Christ knows where he came from, but a powerful-looking man is running straight toward me. He’s six foot tall and just as wide, and I can tell from the focus and intent in his wild, staring eyes that he’s a Brute like those I saw back at the cull site. Does he not know we’re on the same side?
“Wait,” I try to say to him, “we’re-”
His bulk belies his remarkable speed, and before I can move he’s grabbed hold of my arm. He spins me around, then throws me over and slams me down onto my back. I’m already winded and gasping when he drops down onto my chest, his knees forcing the air from my lungs with a violent cough. I try to shout for help, but there’s no noise coming.
“Get off him, you fucking idiot,” I hear Paul say. I manage to turn my head to the side and watch as he starts hitting the Brute with part of the jack from the van. The Brute doesn’t react, barely even notices that he’s being hit. He bears down on me, a bizarre mix of terror and excitement on his face.
“Like you,” I manage to squeak. “I’m like you.”
Working together, Paul and Carol pull him away. They drag him back, drop him on his backside, then scatter like they’ve just lit the fuse on a stick of dynamite. I try to scramble away, moving back until I hit the wall of the house behind me. The Brute springs up with a low, guttural, warning growl and looks at each of us in turn. Then, painfully slowly, realization seems to dawn. He looks from Paul to Carol to me again. Paul moves toward him with the jack, ready to attack. Carol pulls him back.
“Don’t aggravate him,” she hisses. “Just drop it and walk away. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
Paul does as he’s told, dropping the heavy metal tool, which clatters loudly on the ground. Carol stands motionless as the Brute looks her up and down, her back pressed up against the van. Then he slowly turns and slopes away. He’s barely made ten yards when something else catches his eye and he breaks into a slow, loping run.
“What the hell was that all about?” I ask as I pick myself up.
“No fucking idea,” Paul answers as he returns his attention to changing the tire. I watch the Brute until he’s disappeared from view. Did he think I was one of them, or was I just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Did he see me and think I was Unchanged? Are the Brutes really like us, or was he reacting to a difference between us?
14
THE HEAT AND DAMP have combined to make the world stink more than ever this morning-the relentless, choking, suffocating stench of decay combined with overflowing drains and Christ knows what else. Other than the noise of this tired old van, everything is generally quiet, but the fragile silence is frequently interrupted by sudden bursts of noise: the Unchanged military moving and attacking, distant fighting, a scream as someone is hunted down and killed, the smashing of glass and the crumbling of collapsed buildings, the pained howl of a starving animal searching for food… The constant, smothering noise of the engine is unexpectedly welcome. It drowns out everything else.
I’m traveling in the front with Keith now, giving him directions. I’m trying to concentrate, but I’m distracted by the fact that a pub I used to occasionally drink in has disappeared-there’s now just an unexpected gap and a pile of blackened rubble on the street where it used to be-and for a second I don’t realize the significance of where we are. Then it dawns on me.
“Stop!”
“What’s the problem?” he says, slowing down but not stopping.
“No problem. Take a left here.”
He does as I say.
Carol leans forward from the back. “Trouble?”
“The kids’ school,” I explain. “They used to go to the school down here. My missus worked here, too.”
“So?”
“So if I was in Ellis’s shoes and I couldn’t go back home, school might be the next best option.”
“Worth a look since we’re here,” Keith reluctantly agrees, “but if there’s nothing here we move on quick, and so do you.”
The school is tucked away behind a church and a row of stores and offices. In the morning light everything looks a little more familiar than it did yesterday, but a little more mutated and alien, too. Windows are smashed, doors hang open, and there’s evidence of fighting almost everywhere I look. The road ahead is blocked by the rusting wreck of a car that has mounted the pavement and crashed into a bus shelter. Its heavily decayed Unchanged driver has been thrown-or dragged-through the shattered windshield. Looks like he was attacked as he
