Before his mother had tried to kill him and he’d been dragged screaming into the war he’d desperately tried to isolate himself from, Mark Tillotsen had sold insurance in a call center. He’d worked hard and had enjoyed (as much as anyone enjoyed selling insurance in a call center) the job. He’d liked the anonymity of the role, and he’d taken comfort from the safety of the daily routine, the procedures and regulations he hid behind, and the targets he worked toward. In his last development review, just a month or so before the Hate, his manager had told him he had a bright future ahead of him. Today, as he trudged slowly through the afternoon heat toward a convoy of three battered trucks bookended by heavily armed military vehicles, he wondered whether he, or anyone else for that matter, had any kind of future left to look forward to.
Mark hauled himself up into the cab of the middle truck and acknowledged the driver. His name was Marshall, and they’d traveled outside the city together several times in recent weeks. Marshall was a stereotypical trucker, more at home behind the wheel of his rig than anywhere else. His arms were like tree trunks, with fading tattoos hidden beneath a thick covering of gray hair. He gripped the steering wheel tight in his leather-gloved hands even though they weren’t moving. His head remained facing forward, his expression sullen and serious. To show no emotion at all was better than letting Mark see how nervous he really was. This wasn’t getting any easier.
“All right?”
“Fine,” Mark replied quickly. “You?”
Marshall nodded. “People today, not supplies.”
“How come?”
“Helicopter spotted them on infrared, about three miles outside the zone.”
“Many?”
“Don’t know till we get there.”
That was the end of their brief, staccato exchange. Nothing more needed to be said. Although it was widely believed that the Change was over and by now you’d know whether the person standing next to you was going to rip your fucking head off or not, conversations between strangers remained brief and uncomfortable and only happened when necessary. You constantly trod a fine line; to ignore someone was dangerous, to overreact was worse. You didn’t want to give anyone reason to believe you might be one of them. All that Mark knew about Marshall was his name, and that was how he wanted to keep it.
Time to move. Marshall started the engine of the truck, the sudden rattle, noise, and vibration making Mark feel even more nauseous and nervous than he already was. Remember why you’re doing this, he repeatedly told himself. Apart from the fact that going outside the so-called secure zone allowed him to escape the confines of the shitty, cramped hotel room where he, his girlfriend, and several other family members had been billeted, willing militia volunteers like him were paid with extra rations-a slender additional cut of whatever they brought back. More importantly, going out into the open and watching those evil bastards being hunted down and executed was as close to revenge as he was ever going to get. And Christ, he needed some kind of revenge or retribution. Through no fault of his own his life had been turned upside down and torn apart. Like just about everyone else, he’d lost almost everything and he wanted someone to pay for it.
The truck lurched forward, stopping just inches short of the back of the vehicle in front, then lurched forward again as the convoy began to move. Mark glanced back across the park as a helicopter gunship took off from its soccer-field landing pad before taking up position overhead, their escort and their eyes while they were outside the city.
A single strip of gray pavement weaved through the park from a central point, running through a large, rectangular parking lot (now filled with military vehicles), then continuing on as a half-mile-long access road with copses of trees on either side. As the track curved around, Mark shielded his eyes from the relentless afternoon sun and looked out across this bizarre militarized zone. How could it have come to this? He’d played here during school vacations as a kid; now look at it. The village of tents and trailers made it look more like a third-world slum than anything else. Or perhaps a badly organized humanitarian response to some devastating natural disaster-the aftermath of a hurricane, tsunami, earthquake, or drought?-although nothing like that ever happened here. He forced himself to look up from the never-ending crowd of refugees that seemed to cover every visible square yard of land, forced himself to shut out their constant cries and moans that were audible even over the rumble of the truck, and forced himself to ignore the foul, rancid smell that filled the air. He concentrated instead on the tops of the trees that swayed lightly in the lilting early summer breeze. That was the only part of the world that looked like it used to in the days before the Hate.
It was a relief when they reached the access road and Marshall followed the other vehicles around to the right. Even here, though, there were people everywhere, crowded in and around the trees, desperate to find shelter and shade. There were more of them here than when he’d last been out with Marshall. He focused on one particular woman who sat cross-legged on the grass, desperately trying to hold on to a hysterical, squirming, screaming child. Surrounded by her few remaining possessions gathered up in plastic bags, she gently rocked her terrified, inconsolable little girl. He found himself wondering what had happened to this woman to bring her here. Had she had a partner? Had they turned against her? Had there been more kids? She looked up and caught his eye, and he quickly looked away. He forgot her almost immediately, suddenly preoccupied with his own insurmountable problems instead. Mark’s girlfriend, Kate, was pregnant. Much as he tried to deny it, he wished she weren’t.
The convoy moved away from the densely occupied heart of the city and out through the exclusion zone. This was a bizarre and unsettling place. In the wake of the panic and terror caused by the onset of the Hate, under military orders the authorities in cities like this had pulled the remaining population inward, housing them temporarily in stores, office buildings, high-rises, and anywhere else that space could be found. The exclusion zone (which was generally between half a mile and two miles wide) was an area of dead space, a desolate strip of no- man’s-land wedged between the hordes of overcrowded refugees and the city border, which was patrolled from the sky. It was a place that had been abandoned rather than destroyed and that now stood like a vast and dilapidated museum exhibit. They drove past the front of a modern-looking school, its buildings empty when they should have been filled with students, the knee-high grass making its athletics track look more like a field of crops overdue for harvest. At the front of the convoy a military vehicle that had been fitted with a makeshift snowplow-like attachment cleared the road of a number of abandoned cars that had been stuck in a frozen, unmoving traffic jam for weeks.
The closer they got to the border, the worse Mark began to feel. Desperate not to let his anxiety show (for fear of Marshall misreading his reaction), he leaned against the window and forced himself to breathe in deeply, frantically trying to remember the relaxation and stress-control techniques he’d been taught in the “Dealing with Customer Complaints” workshop he’d been sent to last December. Christ, it didn’t matter how many times he did this, he still felt woefully underprepared. No amount of relaxation methods and calming techniques would prepare him for what he was about to face.
“Couple of miles,” Marshall said, startling Mark. He sat up straight and readied himself, his heart thumping ten times faster in his chest than it should have been. They were well outside the exclusion zone now, and even though there were no signposts, physical boundaries, or other warnings marking the Change, he suddenly felt a hundred times more vulnerable and exposed.
“Did you say we’re out here for people today?” Mark asked, remembering their brief conversation when he first got into the truck.
“Yep.”
“Great.”
A double pisser. Excursions outside the city were always more risky and unpredictable when civilians were involved. More importantly, if they weren’t out here collecting supplies, there’d be nothing for them to take a cut from when they got back.
“Look on the bright side,” Marshall said under his breath, sharing Mark’s disappointment and almost managing to smile. “Loads more of those cunts die when the public are involved.”
He was right. As soon as the first civilians took a step out of their hiding place, hordes of Haters would inevitably descend on them from every direction. Maybe that was the plan? Easy pickings for the helicopter and the forty or so armed soldiers traveling with them in this convoy. He wondered what kind of state the survivors they rescued would be in. Would they even be worth rescuing? He couldn’t imagine how they’d managed to last for so long out here. Christ, it had been hard enough trying to survive back in the city. If these people thought their situation was going to get better after they were rescued, they were very wrong.
The road they followed used to be a busy commuter route into town, permanently packed with traffic. In
