dead, too. Do what she says and you’ll get to kill. Fuck with Johannson and she’ll break you in two.
Johannson stood up and revealed herself just a few yards ahead of the farthest forward Unchanged, who, unable to stop in time, ran into her suddenly outstretched arm at full speed. It caught him across the windpipe and he dropped hard onto his back, too stunned to react.
“Kill ’em!” she screamed, her deep, hoarse voice echoing through the trees.
There were eight Unchanged in view now and still more following, all of them splitting off in random directions like a herd of panicked deer. They were attacked from all sides as fighters emerged from their various hiding places, dragging their enemy down and tearing each one of them apart, anything between three and ten focusing on each individual Unchanged.
As usual, McCoyne lagged behind. In spite of the sudden frenzy of the ambush and the chaos all around, his reticence hadn’t gone unnoticed. There were others with worse injuries who moved faster.
“You don’t kill, you don’t eat,” a ruthless and far stronger fighter called Bennett said as he shoved McCoyne out of the way to get to another Unchanged. It was a young woman, directly up ahead now, creeping back through the trees, thinking she hadn’t been noticed and trying to get away again before it was too late. McCoyne forced himself to follow, legs heavy as lead, body aching, head pounding. Then, before Bennett had got anywhere near the lone woman, a Brute appeared, charging through the undergrowth. McCoyne pressed himself back up against a tree to get out of the way, terrified as the powerful, barely human killer approached. He shot a quick glance at the Unchanged the three of them were converging upon. Christ, she looked bad: so pitifully weak he knew that even in his own miserable state he’d have no problem killing her. Badly burned in the bombings, her skin was blackened, her face a haunted mask of scar tissue with the whites of her eyes the only remaining visible features. She dragged herself along, aware of the danger ahead now but resigned to her fate and unable to do anything about it. She glanced back over her shoulder—every additional movement requiring massive effort—then seemed to shrug and falter. McCoyne could see more killers approaching now, at least another three.
Before any of the fighters could react, the Brute struck. It leaped through the air with a grace that belied its stature, its powerful body naked and lean, still manlike in appearance but its movements more animal than human now. The creature covered the girl’s entire face with one large hand, then slammed her head against a rock, caving in the back of her skull. With a flash of awe-inspiring violence and speed, it stamped on her chest, crushing her ribs, then yanked her right arm from its socket with a single powerful tug. It ran deeper into the woods, carrying the spindly, blood-soaked limb like a trophy and leaving its dying enemy spurting blood into the leaf litter. One of the fighters booted the woman’s disfigured face. Then the rest of the fighters moved on, each of them desperate to be the one who made the next kill.
McCoyne stopped and waited for them to disappear. Johannson was close; he could see her beginning to move toward him as she finished killing another. She stumbled momentarily, tripping over the trailing legs of her victim, then steadied herself as she crashed through a brittle-branched bush into the clearing where McCoyne was hiding. He quickly grabbed the collar of the Brute-kill, lifted the woman’s head inches off the ground, then punched her jaw and dropped her back down, making sure the leader had seen him, hoping to give the impression that he was the one who’d struck the killer blow. Johannson made momentary eye contact with him, and he relaxed, relieved that the boss had seen him at work, satisfied that she’d fallen for his pathetic, improvised deception.
“Keep fighting,” she grunted. “More coming.”
She grabbed his shoulder, hauled him up onto his feet, and dragged him back into battle.
* * *
Many hours later, in an empty warehouse on a hillside near a long-deserted factory, the group took shelter from the heavy, polluted rain that had been driving down all day and all night. It was cold, more like February than August. Some heat and light came from a pyre of Unchanged corpses, but ringside seats were reserved for Johannson and her most prized fighters. McCoyne and the rest of the hangers-on—the weak, the injured, the old, the indifferent—sat on the edges and took what they could, begging scraps and trading anything they’d managed to scavenge during the course of the day for a few meager mouthfuls of food.
Soaked through, shivering with cold, and unable to sleep, McCoyne stared into the darkness outside. Another endless night. The fear of being attacked kept him awake, but when he did manage to lose consciousness, nightmares would inevitably wake him again. He dreamed about the bombs every night, remembering the heat and the light and the impossibly huge mushroom cloud of smoke and ash rising up over the vaporized city; horrific images forever burned into his mind. For a few days immediately after the attack, the bombs had given him a misplaced sense of relief, comfort almost. He’d sought solace in the fact that such unspeakable horror had been unleashed and he’d survived. The bombs were the ultimate symbol of the Hate—how could things possibly get any worse?
As the night dragged on, McCoyne remembered a conversation he’d had many weeks ago with a friend. They’d talked about vampires and werewolves and other fictional creatures from the past, and had come to the conclusion that although they were still alive, the monsters he and the rest of his kind had come to resemble most of all were zombies. Back then he’d tried to imagine what would happen to the undead once the last of their prey had been hunted down and destroyed. Today he decided he’d found the answer. This was all that remained: this constant, never-ending purgatory. Dragging themselves through what was left of their world until their physical bodies finally failed them, all of them desperate to satisfy an insatiable craving that would never be silenced. Nothing else mattered anymore. Their lives were empty but for the hunt and the kill. It was an inescapable paradox: By destroying their enemy they were also removing their own reason to live.
He curled up in the darkness on the outside edge of the group and tried to rest, knowing that he somehow had to build up his strength for tomorrow. The hunting and fighting would begin again at daybreak. Who I used to be and everything I’ve done before today counts for nothing, he thought to himself as he tried to shut out the noise of the animals around the fire. If I don’t kill tomorrow, I’m dead.
Three Months, Three Weeks Ago
JOHANNSON WAS GONE, KILLED in a battle over hunting grounds several weeks back. In the days preceding her death, her growing army had slowly drifted east toward the coast, ultimately reaching the edge of territory controlled by a man called Thacker. Although nowhere near as ruthless a warrior as Johannson, Thacker had other qualities that inspired hordes of fighters to follow him, and their numbers ultimately gave him a crucial edge. In contrast to much of the now nomadic population, he ran his operations from an established and easily defendable location that provided shelter and a place to store food, weapons, and other supplies. When Johannson had challenged him, her own people had turned against her, realizing they’d be better off with this new lord and master. Thacker was different. As well as being aware of the importance of finding the next Unchanged to kill, he was already thinking about what might happen tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. Unlike just about everyone else, he had started to plan ahead.
Thacker, his fighters, and an ever-increasing horde of accompanying scavengers had occupied the coastal town of Lowestoft. The most easterly point on the map, before the war it had been a curious mix of industrial port and seaside resort, and its relative remoteness seemed to have shielded it from the worst of the fighting. Sure, it was a mere shadow of the place it had once been and it had been stripped of pretty much everything of value, but unlike most of the rest of the country’s towns and cities, it remained remarkably intact. Unbroken windows, secure doors, and the like were still few and far between, but most buildings remained standing, and its basic physical infrastructure was sound.
A sensible man (in his prewar life he’d been national operations manager for a large and successful chain of hotels), Thacker immediately recognized the potential value of a place like Lowestoft in this new, postwar world. Its coastal location was important and easy to defend. Furthermore, its size was ideal: large and established enough to cope with a decent-sized population, but sufficiently compact to be managed effectively by him and his small army.
* * *
First light.
McCoyne reported for duty and joined the back of the line of volunteers as he did every morning. The hunting parties he’d been forced to be a part of since being picked up off the road after the bombs exploded had begun to
