I slowly manage to drag myself back up onto my feet, my legs heavy. I clear my throat, spit again, and take a few slow, painful steps.
“You need to understand that you’re not helping anybody by doing this. I’ve come to a conclusion, and I think you need to do the same. This world is dying. It’s sick to the core and there’s no hope left. You and me, we’ll grow old and die or we’ll get ourselves killed, and in the end there will only be people like Hinchcliffe, his fighters, and the worst of the children left. If you’d seen the things I’d seen, then you’d know that your grandson back there doesn’t stand a chance. None of the kids do, and without kids, there’s no future. You should just block the bunker door and bury the lot of them. Now get me back to Lowestoft.”
I start to walk away but stop again, sensing that he hasn’t followed. Every extra movement takes ten times the effort it should, but I slowly turn back around.
“I think you’re wrong,” he says.
“Well, I know I’m right.”
“Just answer one question for me, Danny. Why did you bother?”
“What?”
“Looking for your daughter and wife … why did you bother?”
“Because I didn’t know what Ellis had become. Because I had this fucking stupid idea in my head that she’d be just as I left her and we’d stay fighting side by side together until the war was over. I thought some kind of normality might eventually return, but it won’t. The world is dead.”
“Not yet it isn’t.”
“Jesus, Peter, my own daughter didn’t even recognize me.”
“You said you had other kids. What happened to them?”
“Ellis killed them.”
“How many?”
“Two boys.”
“Both Unchanged?”
“Yes.”
I go on walking back to the car. He goes on talking.
“So tell me,” he shouts after me, “knowing what you know now, if I’d taken you down into that bunker today and you’d seen that one of your Unchanged sons had survived, would you still be turning your back on them?”
26
SUTTON DROVE ME BACK to the house. True to his word, he left me there with barely any protest. He started to talk about ways I could find him again if I changed my mind, but I told him not to bother. I told him I didn’t want to see him again, and that if I did, I’d kill him. I told him I’d have to tell Hinchcliffe. He said it didn’t make any difference because the bunker’s secure. Unless Hinchcliffe’s got a few oxyacetylene burners or a tank lying around, he said, it doesn’t matter. No one’s getting in, and the Unchanged aren’t about to come out.
The house wasn’t where I needed to be, though. I waited there for a couple of hours longer and tried to pull myself together, hoping that the constant thumping in my head would stop and I’d start to feel better. I’d been telling myself it was just the aftereffects of the beer from last night, or the food I’d eaten yesterday, or the dog the day before that, or whatever I’d done the previous day or last week, but I knew it wasn’t.
This is serious. I can’t go on like this. I’m getting worse every day. I’m back inside the compound now, walking toward Hinchcliffe’s factory, about to do something I should have done a long time ago. I need help.
The snow’s stopped and it’s pissing down with rain now, adding to the misery. The late afternoon sky is filled with endless black clouds. The guard on the approach road recognizes me and lets me through. Other than him I see only one more guard. He’s standing just inside the entrance door at the end of the factory where the Unchanged kids are held, sheltering from the rain. I’m scared, and I lose my nerve before I get too close and walk straight past, heading instead toward the enormous, useless wind turbine that towers over everything. It’s a symbol of what this place once was and what it’ll never be again; the ultimate physical manifestation of all Hinchcliffe’s bullshit.
It’s no good. I can’t put this off any longer.
I walk back the other way, and this time the guard in the doorway sees me and yells at me to either “get over here or fuck off.” He’s wrapped up against the bitter cold, wearing so many layers that he looks grossly overweight. His mouth is hidden by a scarf and his upturned collar, and he has ski goggles covering his eyes. He has a rifle slung over his shoulder. I presume it’s there to stop escapees rather than to prevent anyone breaking in.
“What do you want?” he demands, his voice muffled.
“Rona Scott,” I answer. “I need to see her.”
“Says who?”
“Says Hinchcliffe.”
He lifts up his goggles and eyes me up and down, then pulls his scarf down a couple of inches, just enough to clear his mouth, making it easier to speak.
“I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?”
“Have you?”
“Yeah … ain’t you the one what finds the Unchanged?”
“That’s me,” I answer quickly, desperate to get out of the cold. It’s raining even harder now, the water bouncing back up off the pavement. “Look, is the doctor here? I need to see her.”
He stops to think again. This guy’s not the smartest, and that’s probably why he drew the short straw and ended up being posted out here on his own. I can’t tell whether he’s trying to psych me out with these long, silent pauses or if he’s just slow. I reach inside my coat, and he reacts to my sudden movement, swinging his rifle around.
“Don’t,” I tell him, raising my hands to show I don’t want any trouble. When he relaxes I take out a can of beer from my pocket, hoping to speed up this painfully drawn-out encounter with a little bribery. He halfheartedly tries to remain impassive and hard, but I can see a sudden glint in his eye. He’s like a kid looking in a toy store window.
“Inside,” he says as he takes the can from me. He glances from side to side before moving out of the way to let me pass. As if anyone else is going to have followed me out here. Fucking idiot.
The building is oppressively quiet save for a few muffled sounds in the distance, and it’s no warmer indoors than out. I’ve never made it this far in before. This end of the complex looks like it was mostly office space. I’m in an open-plan reception area, which has been turned into a checkpoint by Hinchcliffe’s guard, and it reminds me of the reception desk back at the housing project where I used to work. There are a couple of rooms filled with rubbish leading off from here, and a wide staircase that goes up to the second floor. There’s also another door into a corridor, long and straight and dark, which I presume leads into the rest of the factory. Curious, I walk toward it and try to peer in through a porthole-shaped safety glass window.
“Not that way,” the guard says, making me jump.
“Where, then?”
No response. He looks at me expectantly. I dig down into the pockets of my coat again and this time bring out a packet of sweets. I don’t know where they came from or why I’ve got them. I found them in the house before I came out and thought they might be useful.
“This is all I’ve got,” I tell him, talking to him like I used to talk to my children. “Where’s the doctor?”
He points up the stairs.
“Up there there’s a load of offices. She’s in one of them. Second or third floor, don’t know which.”
“Thanks for your help,” I say sarcastically as I chuck him his sweets.
Dripping wet and exhausted, I start to climb up the metal steps, my boots clanging and filling the building with noise. At the top of the first flight of stairs is an open door and, beyond it, another narrow corridor with three doors along one side and one at the far end. Fortunately there are long rectangular windows in each of the doors that allow me to see inside. Rona Scott is sitting in the first room, slouched in a chair, staring straight ahead. This must have been some kind of meeting room or training area once. There’s no other furniture now except for a long
