when he heard scurrying footsteps running up fast behind him. He tried to back out and turn around but couldn’t move quickly enough in the confined space. He heard someone give a grunt of effort, then felt sudden, intense pain as he was cracked across the back with a plank of wood. He screamed out in agony and managed to roll over in time to see a scrawny figure sprinting out through the bedroom door.
“Up here!” he yelled, hoping that someone outside would hear him and help. “Unchanged!”
He limped out of the room, legs weak and back throbbing, then staggered downstairs. By the time he got outside, Hook and another fighter had already caught and killed the Unchanged man. His body was spread around the front of the restaurant, bright bloodred splashes of dribbling color among the dust-covered gray. Hook was standing on the sidewalk, the euphoria on his face clear even from a distance.
“Bastard was hiding,” McCoyne said, groaning and stretching for effect. “Came up behind me and—”
Hook grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and threw him against the side of the van. McCoyne, stunned, couldn’t move.
“You’re fucking useless, McCoyne,” Hook sneered. “Couldn’t even kill one starving Unchanged. You need to watch yourself, pal. Fuck up like that again on my watch and you’ll be the next one I kill.”
“I won’t,” McCoyne tried to say, his strangled voice barely audible.
“That Unchanged,” Hook continued, pointing at the man’s remains smeared up the window, “he had more backbone than you, you prick. At least he made an effort. You, you’re just a waste of oxygen. Completely fucking useless.”
Seven Weeks Ago
MCCOYNE STOOD OUTSIDE THE recently built cordon that had been erected around the very center of Lowestoft, jostling for position in the middle of a crowd of some fifty others. None of them wanted to be there, but had to. They kept themselves to themselves and barely spoke or acknowledged each other, but, given the unseasonably low temperature and biting wind, the shelter and warmth provided by having other people in close proximity was welcome.
In the days immediately after the bombs, if anyone had asked McCoyne if he thought things could possibly get any harder, he’d have said no. How could life get any worse? But that was before he’d reached Lowestoft. Sick and malnourished, he’d spent every day since then hunting and scavenging for little return, only to have the scraps he did manage to find immediately taken and added to Thacker’s “central store.” That was then, and Thacker was no more now. He’d been usurped and disposed of in a very public manner by one of his prize fighters, an evil fucker by the name of Hinchcliffe. The people on the streets called him KC. King Cunt. McCoyne had always harbored doubts that Thacker, and before him Johannson, had been bloody-minded and ruthless enough to cling to power in this screwed-up new world disorder. There were no such questions over Hinchcliffe’s suitability for the role. In the short time since he’d assumed power, Lowestoft had been transformed and McCoyne’s position (like that of every other nonfighter) had deteriorated rapidly. Now used to attacking first and talking second, those with the most strength ruled the place with their fists. The strongest fighters had, by default, assumed positions of authority, which they weren’t about to give up.
Hinchcliffe’s first move had been to blockade an area around the very heart of town where he and his army of several hundred fighters based themselves. Just half a mile square in size, it was more than large enough to house Hinchcliffe, his people, and all the supplies, vehicles, and everything else of any value that had been scavenged since Thacker and the others had first moved in. On one side was the ocean and on the other the main A12 road, which ran through the center of Lowestoft and was barricaded at either end of the compound. Two large metal gates had been erected across both the A12 and the A1144 at the northern edge of the town, with a single blockade-cum-checkpoint positioned across the full width of the road bridge that spanned the narrow channel of water at the mouth of Lake Lothing to the south. All other access points were sealed with row upon row of empty houses being boarded up along the remaining edges of the compound, and every minor road rendered impassable with piles of rubble, abandoned cars, and the like. The area was completely sealed off from the rest of the town, and no one came in or out without the KC’s approval. Many of the so-called Switchbacks were allowed inside if they were useful or could fulfill a particular function, but the rest of them could go to hell as far as Hinchcliffe was concerned. McCoyne, with no discernible talent or incentive, had become one of a thousand-strong underclass, living in the ruins.
The outskirts of Lowestoft had come to resemble a shanty town. Many of the underclass occupied abandoned houses; many more camped out on the streets or in the gaps between buildings in makeshift shelters, reminding McCoyne of what he’d seen in the squalid Unchanged refugee camps before they’d been nuked. The people here were different, but many of the problems they experienced were the same. Disease was increasingly becoming an issue, and violence frequently erupted in the outlying regions. Food was in desperately short measure, with Hinchcliffe occasionally deigning to provide essential rations to a fortunate few. A briefly burgeoning black market collapsed quickly. The commodities became the currency, and there was never going to be a good enough supply to satisfy the population’s constant demands.
Those who were in the best position outside Hinchcliffe’s compound were those who continued to volunteer to scavenge the wastelands. They were paid for their efforts with a meager cut of whatever they found. The terms were grossly unfair, but that was tough. For the most part, with nowhere else to go (and no means of going anyway), the ever-growing underclass population remained in and around the town, building up on street corners like drifting snow. Hinchcliffe tolerated them and used them when it suited him. He controlled the food supplies (carefully coordinating storage across numerous sites so that he was the only one who knew where everything was), and he controlled the fighters. Far more than his predecessor, Hinchcliffe had wormed himself into an apparently unassailable position. His foot soldiers were rewarded for their loyalty with a life that was more comfortable than many would have ever thought possible again when the war had been at its bloody peak. On the right side of the compound wall there was a supply of fairly clean water, enough food for all, and, occasionally, heat and power. On the other side: nothing.
The crowd McCoyne had joined this morning was gathered in front of the larger of the two gates at the northern edge of the compound. Word had spread that a scavenging party was heading out west today into an area that had, until now, remained relatively untouched. Over the last couple of months it had been established that at least six cities (more precisely, six refugee camps) had been destroyed by the nuclear strikes last summer: London to the south, Edinburgh to the north, and several others, including Manchester and Birmingham. Without the means to measure pollution and radiation levels, it had been assumed that the bottom third of the country and a wide strip running the length of the land from the south coast right up into Scotland was most probably uninhabitable. Now, however, almost six months after the bombs, necessity had forced the foragers to start looking farther afield for supplies. A Switchback who’d once been a high school science teacher had done some basic research for Hinchcliffe in what was left of the Lowestoft library. She’d used reference works and other, less scientifically accurate books documenting what had happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and had eventually come to the unsupported conclusion that although the bomb sites were nowhere near completely safe, the risks involved in scavenging a little closer to them had probably reduced enough by now to be worthwhile. Hinchcliffe didn’t care. He wasn’t the one going out there.
The metal gate across the road was pushed open. Two trucks drove out of the compound, the nose of the first gently nudging through the crowd, which quickly parted. Once they’d driven out and the gate had been closed behind them, the trucks stopped again. A shaven-headed fighter jumped down from the cab of the second truck. People scurried out of his way, leaving a bubble of empty space around him, their sudden distance a mark of fear, not respect. This nasty bastard was Llewellyn, and he was one of the few fighters known by name to virtually everyone left in and around Lowestoft. With a military background and undoubted strength and aggression, he was Hinchcliffe’s right-hand man. His reputation was second only to that of his boss. He was older and quieter, but no less deadly.
“I’m looking for about fifteen of you,” he said. McCoyne squirmed forward, trying to squeeze through a gap that wasn’t there. The person on his right reacted and pushed him back the other way. He tripped over someone’s boot and landed on all fours at Llewellyn’s feet. Llewellyn grabbed his collar and pulled him up.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
