their aggression and strength: Chandra—the disfigured guard I saw outside Hinchcliffe’s hotel breeding center—and Swales, a cocky and aggressive young bastard I’ve had little to do with until today.
We’re in radio contact with Hinchcliffe, but communications with Lowestoft have been brief and infrequent. I’m not going to risk saying anything, but they surely must realize we’re never going to find that plane today. Christ, it could have come from anywhere. Overseas, even. No one knows for sure what’s happening in other countries (it’s hard enough finding out what’s going on here), but I’m guessing everywhere else must be in as dire and desperate a state as this place is. Regardless, the fact remains: Looking for the plane and its pilot is going to be like looking for a needle in a pile of a thousand massive haystacks. What if it came from somewhere on the other side of the huge radioactive scar that now stretches much of the length of the country? There’s no point trying to tell Llewellyn; he’s never going listen to me. Instead he’ll just concentrate on his impossible task and won’t question anything. If Hinchcliffe told these morons to kill themselves I think most of them probably would, but it’s more likely they’re going to kill me.
Llewellyn glances over his shoulder and makes eye contact with me, and my blood runs cold. This bastard seems to be enjoying himself. He can’t wait to be shot of me. The longer I’m around, the more he resents the fact that I’m useful to Hinchcliffe. Fighters can be replaced, but me … I’m unique (unfortunately), and Llewellyn doesn’t like it.
I peer out of the wire-mesh-covered window to my side and see that we’ve entered the outskirts of what used to be the city of Norwich. It’s an empty, lifeless place now, nothing more than a desolate shell. I don’t know what happened here during the war, but it obviously wasn’t a big enough concern to warrant being nuked. Over the last few months it’s been systematically stripped clean, first by Thacker, then Hinchcliffe. Too large and unwieldy a place to be governed effectively, and not as geographically well placed as the port of Lowestoft, it’s just been abandoned, left to decay.
A sudden sharp crackle of static comes from the radio. Llewellyn grabs it quickly and talks. I strain to hear what he’s saying, but it’s impossible. He turns around and glances back at me again, and his expression says more than a thousand words ever would. He looks on edge, nervous almost. Now I’m certain that he’s going to try to get rid of me—but why now? Why all the way out here?
I’m stuck in this van until we stop moving. Stick to the plan, I tell myself repeatedly. Wait until they let you out, then fight, keep fighting, and if and when you get the chance, run like fuck.
30
THE VAN GRINDS TO a sudden, shuddering halt alongside a ruined department store. Its front wall has collapsed, spilling rubble out onto the street and leaving every individual level of the building open to the elements. We’re parked up on the pavement, hidden by a mountain of fallen masonry, well out of sight. Across the way there’s a road sign pointing back toward Lowestoft, and for the first time ever I almost wish I was back there. Anywhere but here.
“Out,” Llewellyn orders from the front seat. Chandra grabs my arm. I panic and try to fight him off, but he’s stronger than me, and all my struggling does is encourage his buddy Swales to take hold of my other arm. Llewellyn runs around to the back of the van and yanks the door open, and between them they frog-march me out onto the street, picking me up as if I’m made of paper. Llewellyn has a pistol in his hand, and I don’t doubt for a second that he’ll use it. I force myself not to try to fight just yet, remembering how I used to be able to swallow down the Hate and remain in control even when I was neck deep in vile Unchanged. I did it yesterday, and I can do it now. The element of surprise is all I have left. I have to bide my time and catch these bastards off guard.
“Llewellyn, I just—”
“Don’t talk, just move,” he says, throwing my backpack at me, then shoving me hard between the shoulder blades. “We don’t have long. You’re an unnecessary complication, McCoyne.”
What the hell did he mean by that? I try to ask, but no one’s listening. With Llewellyn behind me, Healey in front, and the other two on either side, they’ve got me boxed in. I don’t understand why they needed to bring me all this distance just to put a bullet in my head. The four men march at a speed I find difficult to match, but Llewellyn keeps me moving, pushing me in the back whenever I slow down. I want to fight. For the first time in weeks, I want to attack and fight back, but all the anger and aggression I used to have, the fury and the rage that used to burn inside me, are gone now and there’s nothing left. Before today there was always a way out, but I can’t see one today. My only option now is to try to break free and run, and I know I probably don’t have either the strength or the speed to outrun one of these fighters, let alone all of them. It’s the four of them against me, and in my heart I know that this time I’m finally fucked.
We stop at a traffic island, and Healey consults a folded-up map, checking our location against what’s left of our surroundings. “Not far now,” he says, filling me with the same cloying sense of dread I remember feeling when I was being led blindfolded through the convent with Joseph Mallon. Now, just for a single dangerous second, I’m distracted thinking about him again. I almost envy him and the rest of the Unchanged, buried in their bunker beneath the farm, isolated from the alien world above them. Maybe some of what Peter Sutton said yesterday was right. They’re safe, I’m screwed. Who’s the most sensible?
“You nervous, McCoyne?” Llewellyn asks, breaking ranks and catching my eye. I try to play it cool but fail completely, and my terror must be obvious. His face remains passive and unemotional at first, but then he can’t help himself and breaks into a wide, sadistic smile. He’s actually enjoying this. Evil motherfucker. “Do you think we’re going to find any airplanes today?” he sneers. Chandra sniggers and tightens his grip on my arm when I try to react. This isn’t right. If they knew how sick I am, would they let me go? Maybe I can persuade them to free me because I’ll probably be dead soon anyway and no one will know any different. It’s not like I’m going to go back to Lowestoft and tell Hinchcliffe what they’ve done. Who the hell am I kidding? Do I really expect hard, emotionless fuckers like this to show any compassion? I don’t even bother trying to fight, saving my energy instead so I can make my final break for freedom when the moment comes. By the look of things, that’s not going to be long. We duck down through a hole in a chain-link fence, then cross a patch of scrubland. My nerves increase with every step. I can’t help myself …
“Whatever you’re going to do to me, just do it.”
Llewellyn looks at me, puzzled. “What makes you think we’re going to do anything to you? You’re paranoid, man.” He turns to the others. “This it?” he asks.
Healey nods. Chandra lets go of me and I try to run. They’re too damn fast for me. Llewellyn shoots out his arm, grabs me, and pulls me back into line.
“Don’t,” he warns ominously.
The area of town we’ve reached seems to have suffered slightly less damage than elsewhere, and most of the buildings around us are still largely intact. Following some predetermined plan, my four-fighter guard suddenly disperses. Healey and Swales go one way; Chandra stops walking and takes a radio out from his backpack. Llewellyn still has ahold of me, and he keeps me moving forward. I try to pry his fingers off my arm, but he’s having none of it. He tightens his grip.
“Just do it,” I beg pathetically, “please…”
“Pull yourself together, you miserable dick,” he says as he drags me toward a wide-fronted, Gothic-looking building. What the hell is this place? It’s too big to be a church. Was it some kind of school? A prison, city hall, or some other public office before the war? He opens the arch-shaped white wooden door, looks around, then pushes me inside. He shuts it behind us and finally lets me go. “Listen, I’m not going to kill you. I’ve got better things to do today.”
“Then why did you—”
“You shouldn’t even be here. Fucking Hinchcliffe. Don’t know why he sent you out with us.”
It takes my eyes a few seconds to become accustomed to the light indoors. We’re standing in the entrance hall of some kind of museum. It has the unmistakable air of the past about it; a bubble of the old, old world, trapped here in the rubble of the new.
“What are we doing here?”
“It’s funny how things work out sometimes,” Llewellyn says, although from where I’m standing there’s nothing funny about it at all. “You never know what you’re going to find around the corner these days.”
