oblivious to his pain. He reaches out and grabs my shoulder, then spins me around and throws me back against the side of the van. The noise echoes through the air like a gunshot, and I bounce back off the metal toward him, straight into his fist. He catches me hard on the chin, and I slam back against the van again, then drop to the ground, face numb, head filled with blinding pain. He picks me up by the collar again, lifting me until our faces are just inches apart. My feet are off the ground, toes barely scraping the slush.
“Hinchcliffe, I—”
“What the hell are you trying to do? I should kill you right now.”
“That’s your answer to everything.”
He throws me back against the van again, and I drop to my knees. I watch him as he comes toward me, drenched with his own blood, fist raised ready to strike again and finish me off. I don’t have the strength to defend myself anymore. Just let it happen …
“I don’t understand,” he says. “Why, Danny? You could’ve had it all.”
“What, like you?” I manage to spit at him, my mouth filled with blood. “We’ve all lost everything, you stupid bastard, and it’s all thanks to people like you. The more you try to take, the more stuff slips through your fingers, didn’t you realize that? You started with a whole town and ended up barricaded into one corner of it. Even then you were a virtual prisoner in the courthouse. You’ve lost that now and there’s nothing left. It’s over. It’s all gone. Just leave me alone, Hinchcliffe.”
Still staring down at me and breathing hard, he takes a step back, then runs forward and punches his fist into the side of the van. I slowly pick myself up, dribbling red into the snow around my feet.
“Just kill me if you’re going to. Why don’t you just get it over with?”
“Because you’re still useful. Look around you, Danny. The fact you’re here at all just proves my point. There are people still fighting and dying in Lowestoft, but you’re safe. We’re safe. It’s like you’ve been observing the rest of us, only getting involved and getting your hands dirty when you absolutely have to.”
“Or when you forced me to.”
“Look what you achieved—”
“I’ve achieved nothing, Hinchcliffe. I’ve lost everything, same as you.”
“But you’re the man who walked free from a gas chamber. You told me stories about how you talked your way out of Unchanged traps. For Christ’s sake, you were almost right under one of the bombs but you managed to get away.”
“Right place, right time…”
“It’s more than that. It has to be.”
“Empty words, Hinchcliffe.”
“No, I swear. Listen to me, we can get out of this mess and start again. I know where we can find food, and there’s a place—”
“You’re out of your fucking mind. You just don’t get it, do you? All you know now is fighting. You won’t ever change. It doesn’t matter where you go or what you do, the end result will always be the same. You don’t need me to help you fuck things up.”
Hinchcliffe walks away, and I can see that he’s losing a lot of blood from his left leg. He’s limping badly. I push myself off the side of the van and try to slip past and get to the front of the pier entrance building, but I’ve barely taken a couple of steps before he sees me. He lunges for me, and I lose my already unsteady footing and hit the deck. I’m on my back looking up at him leaning down over me. He draws a holstered machete.
“Maybe you’re right—”
“Leave him alone, you bastard,” another voice shouts. I lean my head back and see that it’s Parker. He’s aiming a rifle directly at Hinchcliffe, and behind him Joseph Mallon is standing in an open doorway. Hinchcliffe stares at the Unchanged in disbelief, then dives at Parker, unable to suppress his instinctive hatred of the Unchanged. Scrambling back out of the way, Parker fires the rifle but misses as Hinchcliffe anticipates and drops to the ground. Seemingly oblivious to any pain he must be feeling, he immediately gets up again and flashes his blade at Parker. The Unchanged man’s rifle and his severed right arm fall into the snow just a short distance from where I’m lying. Hinchcliffe drags him down and drops onto his stomach, then plunges the machete down again and again into his flesh, totally consumed with Hate, everything else temporarily forgotten. I drag myself back up and push Joseph away.
“Get out of here,” I yell into his face as I shove him back through the door, then pull it shut again. I watch him as he watches me through the glass, then starts to back away because Hinchcliffe is close again. I catch a brief reflection of his movement and spin around to face him. I catch him as he throws himself at the door like a vicious, hunting animal. It takes all my remaining strength to hold him back.
“Unchanged,” he hisses, trying to fight his way past me. “We have to kill them!”
He tries to throw me to one side, but I’ve got hold of him and I won’t let go. We spin around through almost a full three hundred and sixty degrees together and he smashes me against the door again. I feel every bone in my body rattle, but I still won’t let go.
“Just leave them, Hinchcliffe,” I plead with him, our faces just inches apart.
“Leave them? Are you out of your fucking mind? Listen to yourself. You know this will never be over until they’re all dead and—”
“You know as well as I do that this is never going to end. If we’re not fighting Unchanged we’re fighting each other. It’s like you said, we’re on a downward spiral, and this is rock bottom.”
“You’re farther down than me,” he says, and he lifts up his knee and thuds it into my balls. A wave of nauseating pain shoots through me, and I let him go. Another Unchanged man bursts out through the door to the pier and tries to rush him. He hits Hinchcliffe at full speed, and the two of them smack into the side of the delivery truck. For a second it looks like he’s been overpowered, but Hinchcliffe’s aggression and rage are remarkable and unmatched. He pushes the malnourished Unchanged man away with barely any effort, then snatches up Parker’s rifle from the ground and, holding it by the barrel, smacks him around the head repeatedly with its wooden butt.
“Come on,” a desperate voice whispers in my ear. It’s Joseph. He puts his hands under my shoulders, lifts me back up, and drags me toward the pier door. Hinchcliffe doesn’t even notice. He’s totally focused on the kill, venting all his anger, hatred, and frustration on the poor blood-soaked bastard who lies dying at his feet.
49
WE MOVE QUICKLY THROUGH a musty amusement arcade, Joseph having to support me as we stagger along the gaps between rows of silent gaming machines. He ducks and weaves around one-armed bandits and video-game cabinets with smashed screens, trying to keep us moving at a speed I can barely match. He heads for another open door at the far end of this large, high-ceilinged room and I follow him through, out onto the pier. The wind out here over the sea is ferocious. The slatted wooden walkways are slippery as grease, the snow and ice turned to slush by the salt spray from the water below. There are several narrow buildings up ahead, stretching up along the center of the pier. A door at the front of the third one along is being held open.
“Get inside,” Joseph says, shoving me into what used to be a gift shop. There are still rows of dust-covered souvenirs on shelves on the walls. The Unchanged are cowering in every available space. Wherever I look I see their frightened faces staring back at me, most of them desperate for help and reassurance. I’m in no position to provide either. Others of them are armed and ready to fight.
“Where are Parker and Charlie?” a man crouching down next to me asks. Joseph shakes his head.
“They didn’t stand a chance,” I tell him. “None of you do.”
“What the hell happened, Danny?” Joseph asks. “What about Todd and Dean? The boat?”
“We never made it as far as the boatyard,” I explain. “He was waiting for me back at the house when we got there. He waited until they’d loaded up the jeep, then killed them both while I was out of the way. I didn’t know he was going to be there, Joseph, I swear. Fucker was on to me.”
“Who is he?” someone else asks.
“Hinchcliffe.”
“Peter told me about him,” Joseph says. “Said he was the worst of the worst.”
