“It’s winter, what do you expect? Anyway, it’s no better in here.”
I climb back into my sleeping bag, pull it up, and sit down again. He stands in front of me in the middle of the living room, flapping his arms around himself to try and get warm.
“You should light a fire or something,” he says, blowing into his hands.
“Can’t be bothered. Too much effort.”
“You need to start taking more care of yourself. You’re not looking so good.”
“Thanks.”
“You know what I mean.”
He shakes his head in despair, then picks my book up off the floor and starts flicking through the pages. He has to hold it right up to his face to be able to read anything. Poor bugger’s eyesight is bad. He was a voracious reader, but he’s been reduced to reading children’s editions because the print’s larger. He used to wear strong glasses, but the lenses got broken a few weeks back when he got caught up in the middle of a fight he had nothing to do with. Rufus doesn’t handle conflict well. Makes me wonder how he’s lasted this long. He has another fresh bruise on his face this morning. He’s probably pissed somebody off again. Doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.
“Don’t know how you can read this crap.”
“It’s simple, shallow, and predictable. Just what I need.”
“Yes, but there’s a whole load of literature out there, Dan. Read some classics. Broaden your horizons.”
“I don’t want to broaden my horizons. In fact, I want to start limiting my horizons to the four walls of this house, screw everything else.”
“Don’t be so narrow. Listen, have you read 1984? I managed to salvage a pile of postapocalyptic books from the library before Hinchcliffe’s morons burned them. You should read it. And Earth Abides, that’s another. It’s really interesting to see how people thought things were going to pan out. I mean, they were all miles off the mark, but don’t let that—”
“Rufus,” I interrupt, “what is it you want? You didn’t come here this early just to make reading recommendations.”
“Come on, Danny,” he sighs, dropping the book down again. “You know I only disturb you when I absolutely have to.”
I know he’s right, but I’m not going to make it easy for him. He always does exactly what he’s told (he’s too scared not to), and he wouldn’t be here at this hour if he had any choice. Rufus is an ex–civil servant, working as a gopher for Hinchcliffe and his cronies, running errands and carrying messages. His intelligence and natural ability to talk rings around everyone else elevate him above the rest of the underclass, but he’s not a natural fighter by any means, and every day is a struggle for him to survive. Rufus calls me his friend, although I think he needs me far more than I need him. I spit into my cup again and wipe my mouth on my sleeve.
“You really do need to start taking more care of yourself, Dan,” he says again, looking me up and down.
“I’m tired, that’s all. Spent the last few days hunting.”
“I heard. Most of the people in the compound heard. The beer was certainly flowing last night. They were toasting your success. Hate to think what’s going to happen when they run out of booze.”
“Whatever. So why exactly are you here? Is that all you came to tell me?”
Rufus doesn’t answer right away. He’s distracted by the picture on the cover of another of my trashy novels. I whistle at him to get his attention, and he finally looks up.
“He wants to see you. Says he’s got another job for you.”
My heart sinks. “He” is Hinchcliffe, and I don’t need any more detail. If he wants to see me, then I don’t have any choice but to go and find him. When I get there and he tells me what it is he wants me to do, I’ll have no choice but to do it.
“Christ, Rufus, what is it this time?”
“I’m just the messenger, Danny, you know he doesn’t tell me anything.”
“Shit. I swear, it’s like being back at work sometimes, the amount of stuff he has me doing. Is it more Unchanged or—”
“I told you, I don’t know. He’s not a happy bunny, though.”
“Great.”
Despite the fact that Hinchcliffe genuinely seems to value me (as much as anyone values anyone else these days), and the fact that whatever he asks me to do, I’ve probably already had to do much worse, I immediately feel nervous. I can try to hide it, and I can bullshit and make light of the situation until I’m blue in the face, but the fact remains: Hinchcliffe scares the shit out of me. Sometimes I think our collective fear of good old KC is the glue that holds this fragile place together.
5
RUFUS IS ON HIS pushbike, riding alongside me as I walk into town. Truth be told, I’m glad of the company, even though he never shuts up.
“Of course, I saw all this coming before the Hate.”
“All what coming?”
“This chaos. We’ve been on a slippery slope for years. We were overreliant on technology. There was an irony to that, wasn’t there? The easier it was for people to communicate, the worse at communicating they became.”
“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”
“Did you ever try phoning a teenager’s cell?”
“Not that often, why?”
“I did. Fuckers would never answer. I worked with a lot of students, and they always had their phones in their hands, so how come they never answered?”
“You tell me,” I mumble, knowing full well that he’s about to.
“Either they were being selective and only talking to who they wanted to, or they were too busy using the phones for something else. All that social networking and stuff. Antisocial networking, I used to call it.”
“I wouldn’t know about that. We didn’t even have a computer at home. Couldn’t afford the Internet.”
He gives me a sideways glance, then continues. “People started using technology instead of thinking, letting machines do all the work, and now where are we?”
“Lowestoft,” I answer glibly.
“You know what I mean,” he says. “I knew this lad once, he had one of those SAT NAVs, remember them? Fucking thing stopped working when he was driving up for a meeting, and you know what happened?”
“He got lost?”
“Worse than that. Fucking idiot just kept driving in a straight line until he got a signal again. Didn’t think to look at road signs or get himself a map, did he? Took him almost fifty miles to get back on track. There was another time I had a girl in tears because she couldn’t unlock her car because the battery had gone and the key wouldn’t work. For Christ’s sake! I had to march her down to the parking lot and put the key in the fucking door for her myself!”
Rufus continues to chatter tirelessly as we approach the center of town. I say little. I know this is his therapy: his chance to vent his many frustrations without fear of taking a beating. Me, I’m too nervous to give a damn.
“The other day I saw that Curtis fellow, and do you know what he was doing? He was kicking in the door of one of the buildings next to the courthouse and using it for firewood. Where’s the sense in that when there’s so much they could use outside the compound? They’re just too blinkered. They don’t look any further than—”
“Rufus, shut up.”
I stop walking, and he stops pedalling. We’re deep among the underclass now, and something’s happening up ahead. I gesture for him to hold back and we wait by the side of a partially collapsed garage. There are other people all around us, most of them doing the same, keeping their distance. There’s a truck waiting at the barricade, just back from a scavenging mission by the looks of things, and it’s surrounded. One of the fighters in the front gets out and starts swinging a bludgeon at the people who are closest, forcing them back, but the crowd is large and
