driver accelerates away again, the back door still swinging open. He swerves around to the right onto a narrow access road, then disappears away into the bowels of the factory complex.
Suddenly I’m alone: soaking wet and freezing cold, just me and the sea and no one else. I haul my backpack up onto my shoulders and start walking along the seawall back out of town, welcoming the isolation.
An enormous, motionless wind turbine towers above everything in this part of Lowestoft, and I gaze up at it as I pass. Hinchcliffe thinks he’s going to get it operational again one day soon, so the town will have a steady power supply rather than having to rely on generators and the like. I hope he’s right. For now it just stands here useless: one of its massive blades broken, its internal mechanics and wiring no doubt completely fucked. It’s a huge white elephant: a constant reminder of what this place used to be.
I pull my coat tight around me, put my head down, and walk. The house is still more than a mile away. I could live with the chosen few in Hinchcliffe’s compound if I wanted to, but I’d rather not. I prefer to remain at a cautious distance on the very outskirts of town, well away from everyone else. Out there I’m close enough to Lowestoft to be able to get in and take what I need, but still far enough away to stay out of sight and out of mind of everyone else.
3
OUT OF HABIT I follow the same route each day, using the footbridge to cross the empty road from town and get into the housing development. I’m out of shape. The steep steps are always that much steeper than I remember, and I have to stop halfway across to catch my breath.
The world is dark tonight—no streetlamps, house lights, or lines of traffic producing the ambient glow of old —and the center of Lowestoft behind me is easy to make out. In the midst of the darkness of everything else is a clutch of blinking lights and burning fires, their brightness concentrated around Hinchcliffe’s compound. It’s hard to believe that this is what passes for a major center of population now. The same thing has no doubt happened around the country: minor towns becoming major towns by default because they’re the only habitable places left. It reminds me of a medieval settlement. I remember watching TV documentaries when I was a kid about social experiments where people stepped back in time and tried to live in anything from Iron Age settlements to Tudor houses. This place feels like that but in reverse. Today it’s as if people from the past have moved in and taken over the ruins of the present. Hard to believe that all those towns and cities I remember are gone, either abandoned or destroyed. All those places I used to know … London, Birmingham, Manchester, Cardiff … all reduced to piles of toxic ash. I only have hearsay, unsubstantiated rumor, and common sense to go on, but if what I’m hearing is true and all those places really are dead, then out here on the east coast is probably as safe a place as any to be. I’m guessing that it’s only areas like Wales, Scotland, Cornwall, and here—the extremities of this small, odd-shaped island—that are still livable.
Down off the bridge again and within a couple of minutes I’ve been swallowed up by the darkness of the deserted housing development where I’ve based myself this last month or so. This place feels like a shadow-filled tomb at the best of times, little more than a maze of twisting, interconnecting roads, avenues, and cul-de-sacs. It was probably a perfectly decent, comfortable, relatively affluent, middle-class area before the shit hit the fan and everything went to hell last year, the kind of place Lizzie said she always wanted us to end up in. Now it’s just like everywhere else, and the ruins are welcome camouflage.
I use landmarks to guide myself through to the very center of the development, things that no one else would give a second glance. I walk across a deserted children’s playground, catching my breath when the wind rattles the chains of an empty swing, turn left at the road where three of the houses have collapsed on each other like dominoes, then turn right and right again to reach the roadblock. I often wonder who built this. Whoever it was, they were obviously determined to defend themselves. There are four cars wedged across the full width of the mouth of a cul-de-sac, nose to tail, almost like they were picked up and dropped into place. When I’m on foot like this I have to climb over the cars to get through, and I always cringe at the noise I make even though there’s never anyone else here. Was this the site of a group of Unchanged survivors’ desperate last stand? A family like the one I used to be a part of, perhaps? Were they cowering here together in terror like the Unchanged I helped drive out of their hideout today, doomed to inevitable failure but unable to do anything else but keep trying to survive? I’ve freaked myself out before now, convincing myself that they might still be here, watching me from an upstairs window just like I watched the military advancing ever closer toward my home all those months ago.
At the other end of the cul-de-sac I slip through a narrow alleyway between two large, empty houses. I cross another road, go through the side gate of yet another house, straight down a well-worn path I’ve trampled along the full length of its overgrown garden, then duck down through a hole in the back fence and I’m there. Home sweet fucking home.
I check around, making sure I haven’t been followed or seen. I could have gone for something bigger and more secure, but I deliberately chose the smallest, most inconspicuous house I could find so I wouldn’t draw attention to myself.
It hasn’t always worked. Something’s not right tonight.
I can see from here that the side door of the house is open slightly. I draw my favorite knife from its sheath and creep across the road. It’s bound to be scavengers again. Thieving bastards. I really can’t be bothered with this. I feel sick and I just want to sleep. I hope they’ve already gone. I’m not in the mood to fight, but I don’t have any choice.
It’s hard keeping the house secure without blatantly advertising the fact I’ve got stuff inside worth taking, so I keep most of my things hidden and locked away. I need to take my time and be careful here. If the thieves are still here and they’ve found anything worth having, then I need to try to deal with them before they can get out with any of my stuff. I can afford to lose the house, but not what’s in it.
Keeping low, I limp across the driveway, then press myself up against the wall beside the partially open side door. The lock’s been forced, but it’s nothing I can’t fix. Someone’s moving around in the kitchen. There are no voices, so there’s probably only one of them, and chances are they’re only looking for food. I peer through the gap and see a single squat figure trying to pry open a cupboard door with a bent bread knife. Whoever it is, they’re so desperate and preoccupied that they don’t notice me creeping up behind them. I can see that it’s a woman now, small and unimposing, wrapped up in so many layers of grubby clothing to keep warm that her movements are restricted. When I’m close enough I reach out, wrap my arm around her neck, hold my blade up to her face where she can see it, and drag her back. She drops her knife with surprise and I spin her around and slam her back, feeling every bone in her ancient body rattle as she thumps against the wall. She tries to fight me off but gives up quickly, knowing that even in my miserable condition I still have the weight and strength advantage.
“Don’t hurt me,” she begs, her voice a pathetic, strangled moan. I pull her forward, then slam her back again. Her skull cracks, and she whimpers with pain. Lowestoft is full of useless fuckers like this: definitely not Unchanged, but nowhere near strong enough to fight or be of any use to anyone. People like this are only one step up from our defeated enemy. There are far too many of them out there … old, crippled, unskilled, those who are naturally just shysters and cowards … people who would previously have been protected and propped up by the welfare state. They’ll take the place of the Unchanged if they’re not careful. I think I’ve seen this particular one hanging around here before, and she’ll probably come back again if I don’t do something to deter her. I push the blade of my knife into her wrinkled cheek, deep enough to prick her skin and draw blood. She starts sobbing with fear. Her neck is scrawny and turkeylike, and she must be in her late sixties if she’s a day. Just a little old lady. She reminds me of an old bird who used to live down the road from me and Lizzie. She yelps, and for a fraction of a second I almost pity her. She’s not Unchanged, just desperate.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing here?”
“Need some food. Starving…”
“Nothing here for you. Fuck off back to town.”
“But I—”
She starts struggling again. Bitch should count herself lucky she chose my house to break into; anyone else would have killed her by now. I should hurt her, but I can’t bring myself to do it. She doesn’t need to know that. I lift the tip of my knife up until it’s just a fraction of an inch from her right eye, and she freezes with fear.
“If I see you back here again I’ll kill you, understand?”
