taken a beating from before now—is warding off several others with a pistol and a knife. He’s gesturing desperately toward the metal barrier, but his words are being drowned out by increasing levels of noise coming from the other side. He lashes out at the one-legged guard, who can’t get away, slashing a line across his chest with the tip of his blade. He then fires his pistol several times, killing two more, before throwing it into the crowd when he’s out of ammunition. The gunshots are enough to force the people to scatter momentarily, and the brief distraction gives him enough time to get the access door in the gate open and get out. I can’t see much—several other fighters race to the barrier and close it again within a few seconds—but I see enough, and so does much of the rest of the crowd. The young fighter runs down the road, arms held high in surrender. Coming toward him, coming toward the heart of Lowestoft, is one of Ankin’s tanks. Behind it, for as far as I can see, the road is filled with more people and vehicles. As the gate slams shut again the crowd on this side reacts with increased anger and fear, and another fight erupts, which spreads rapidly.
I need to find another way out of town. If Ankin’s this close and he has anything like the manpower he’s boasted of having, then the entire compound must surely have been surrounded by now. I double back, now running away from the ever-expanding riot and moving back toward Hinchcliffe and the courthouse again, seriously lacking anything resembling a coherent plan of action. In the space of just a few minutes the streets have begun to fill with even more chaos and confusion, wanton violence flooding the entire compound.
I’ve run out of options. All the major routes north and south are blocked now, and everything to the west will be impassable before long if the panic and rioting continue to increase. The beach is the only sensible route left to take. It’ll take me much longer to get away, but at least it should be clear. Providing the tides are kind and the violence here is contained to the half-mile square around Hinchcliffe’s base, I should be able to follow the shingle and sand until I’m level with the development, then get back up onto the roads again and reach the house.
I turn and head down toward the ocean, my body still fooled into thinking it’s healthy by the drugs. I know I can keep running at this speed if I don’t push too hard. The noise of the waves increases steadily as I approach the sea, but then I become aware of another, even louder noise. Ankin’s plane again? I look up and see a helicopter flying low and fast toward the town. For a second I stop dead in my tracks, transfixed as I watch the machine crawl along under the dark gray clouds, taillights blinking through the gloom. It’s been so long since I’ve seen anything like this … and now it’s directly over the center of Lowestoft, flying this way toward the ocean. My brain is screaming at me, trying to make me understand that whoever’s flying the chopper isn’t interested in me or even capable of attack, but common sense has gone out of the window and now I’m running like I think the pilot’s about to machine-gun me down. It seems that everyone else feels the same level of paranoia, because the arrival of the helicopter has whipped the crowds behind me into an unpredictable frenzy, herding many of them in this direction. Fuck, are we being rounded up? I’ve almost reached the beach now, but there are other people swarming nearby, and with the perceived threat of attacks from the air it suddenly seems a dangerously exposed place to be. I need an alternative. I look up again and then I see it: a place that’s out on a limb, isolated and alone; a place where I can shelter until the chaos dies down; a place where no fucker in their right mind would go.
I put my head down and start sprinting toward Hinchcliffe’s factory.
41
THE PLACE IS DESERTED. Hinchcliffe’s guards are gone, and there are no signs of life around the outside of this vast, ugly building. Everything looks featureless and black in the late morning gloom. I plan to head straight for the entrance I used to get inside when I saw Rona Scott, but I’m disoriented and I end up at the wrong end of the site, outside the metal industrial units Hinchcliffe bought me to before. The doors of several of the small buildings are open, and I panic and freeze, thinking I’m about to be surrounded by a pack of feral kids, working together like starving hyenas. The helicopter flies off toward the other end of the compound, and as the noise of its engine finally fades I realize this place is silent. The children are long gone, probably released by the kid-wrangler. There’s only one of them left here. It’s the older boy I saw previously. I see him sitting in the corner of his cell, covering his head.
“Get out of here,” I shout at him. “Run!”
He doesn’t move, doesn’t even react. The kid’s catatonic, and I know I can’t waste any more time here. I double back and head straight for the entrance I used to get to Rona Scott’s office previously, figuring that’s as good a place as any to shelter. The main door has been left unlocked, and I slip into the building unseen. I close it behind me, then lean up against it, panting hard and listening for sounds of movement, conscious that my noise is now filling this otherwise empty place.
The guard’s station in the reception area has been abandoned. The desk is empty, and behind it I find a dirty sleeping bag lying among crushed soda cans, food wrappers, and an empty liquor bottle. The scavenger in me takes over and I quickly check through the mess, but the only things I find of any value are a pathetically weak long- handled flashlight, some scraps of clothing, and half of the packet of candy I used to bribe the guard with the other day. Looks like he was rationing himself and he didn’t get to finish them before either duty called or he fled.
I shout out just in case I’m not alone.
“Hello. Is anybody there?”
I’m relieved when no one answers. The last thing I want is to be trapped here with Rona Scott or any of Hinchcliffe’s other cronies. I do hear something in another part of the building, and I remain still as I try to make it out. It’s a quiet, indistinct scurrying noise, and I lose track of it when Ankin’s helicopter returns and flies overhead again. It was probably just rats. Vermin have learned to hide in places like this where they’re away from the bulk of the population but still close enough to hunt for scraps. Back in the main part of town and the surrounding areas, rodents are often hunted out for food. It’s as if our places on the lower levels of the food chain have become interchangeable.
This place will have to do. With a little luck I can hide out here until the situation outside either blows over or comes to a head when Ankin’s army inevitably breaches the gates. I can bide my time, then get out of town along the beach as I’d originally planned.
I retrace my steps up to where I found Rona Scott when I was last here, back toward the room where she confirmed my death sentence a few days ago. Christ, is that all it’s been, a few days? So much has happened that it feels like a lifetime ago now. That thought makes each step I climb feel like it takes ten times the effort. How much closer am I to my inevitable end now than when I was last here? Is this what it’s going to be like from now on? Constantly wondering how long is left?
I check the room where I found Scott before. It’s dark, the blinds half drawn, and to my relief she’s not here. I go inside and look through the clutter on the table for food, pausing when I hear muffled shouting in the far distance, followed by gunfire and a high-pitched scream, sounding like a lynch mob catching up with its target. I turn around and jump with shock and surprise when I see the little girl I saw here previously. She’s still strapped to her seat, sitting bolt upright and staring at me in abject terror.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I tell her, and even though she probably doesn’t believe me, I mean it. She doesn’t react, too scared even to move. I approach her cautiously, not wanting her to panic or start screaming or do anything that might alert people to the fact I’m here. She doesn’t flinch as I kneel down in front of her. “You need to go. There are people outside who’ll hurt you. When you get out there, just run.”
I touch her wrist to undo the first of the bindings that hold her to the chair, and she doesn’t even move when I brush against her skin. She’s as cold as the room we’re in. I look into her face again. Her eyes are still focused on the same point in the distance. I shake her shoulder and wave my hand in front of her face, but it’s no use. By the looks of things she’s been dead for a while.
Upstairs, Rona Scott’s “clinic” is also empty. I have a quick, halfhearted search around for vials of drugs that look anything like the steroids Ankin’s doctor gave me, but I know I’m wasting my time. I find a two-thirds-full bottle of aspirin tablets and I shove them into my coat pocket. Maybe I’ll take a couple if the pain gets too bad. Then again, if the pain gets that bad maybe I’ll just take the whole damn lot.
The view from the window up here is unobstructed virtually all the way back into the very heart of Hinchcliffe’s compound. The helicopter buzzes overhead, and I think the south gate is open now. There’s a crowd on this side of the barrier trying to get out, and an army on the other side trying to get in, their numbers swollen by huge waves of underclass looking for food or vengeance or both. The same thing’s surely happening at the other
