Дэвид Муди - Hater

The traffic has slowed down again to almost a complete standstill. It’s stop-start all the way.

‘Don’t know what’s going on here,’ I mumble.

The road we’re crawling along runs past the front of a row of houses before swinging up and left over a bridge which spans the motorway below. As we follow the arc of the road the reason for the delay becomes apparent. There’s a steady stream of cars leaving the motorway and rejoining the town traffic. We grind to a halt again mid-way over the bridge.

‘What’s the hold-up?’ Harry asks, looking around curiously.

‘No idea. Must have been an accident or something…’

‘That’s not an accident,’ he says, peering out of his window and tapping his finger on the glass. I sit up in my seat and lean across him to try and see whatever it is he’s looking at. There’s a blockade of some kind stretching right across the motorway. There are dark green military juggernauts straddling both sides of the road. Armed guards are manning red and white-striped barrier gates while other soldiers direct the queues of approaching traffic. What the hell are they doing? Unless I’m mistaken, the cars trying to leave the city are being stopped. They’re not even being searched. They’re either being marshalled up the slip-road and straight off the motorway or they’re being sent round through a hole that’s been cut in the central barrier and forced back the way they came. The traffic is being channelled back into town.

‘Don’t want us to go far, do they?’ Harry says, watching the cars below us as we begin to shunt forward again.

‘Thought they said they were getting things under control.’

‘What?’

‘I was watching something on the TV just before I came out to get you. They said the situation is being brought under control.’

‘Well this is probably part of that control, isn’t it? They need to know where everyone is…’

‘Do they?’

‘How can the authorities protect us if they don’t know where we are?’

I don’t bother answering him. The fact that I’ve just seen a substantial military presence out on the streets doesn’t inspire me or fill me with confidence. If anything it makes me feel worse.

As we move away from the motorway the traffic begins to thin out again. I put my foot down and continue towards home.

My nervousness and paranoia is increasing by the second. I need to be back with my family.

The streets we’re driving through now are uncomfortably silent and still. It all looks and feels perverse. The country seems to be tearing itself apart with unprecedented levels of violence, so why is everywhere so quiet? The normal human reaction to a threat like the Haters would be to stand and fight but today we can’t. These people are sick. They’re driven by a desire to kill and destroy and, from what I’ve seen, they won’t stop until those desires have been satisfied. To stand and fight against them would mean displaying the same emotions as they do. It would be self-destructive. To fight back is to risk being called a Hater too. All we can do is keep ourselves to ourselves and not retaliate. The population is withdrawing from each other in fear. Fear of everyone else and fear of themselves.

We finally pull up outside the apartment block and I get Harry inside. I’m about to go back out to get his bag from the car when I spot a solitary figure walking down the street. Instinctively I wait in the shadows until I’m sure they’ve disappeared before setting foot out in the open again. Christ, I’m too scared to risk even being seen by anyone I don’t know.

24

‘Dad,’ Ed says.

‘What?’ I grunt, annoyed that I’ve been interrupted. I’ve been reading through a pile of music magazines I found under the bed. I thought I’d thrown these out years ago. They’ve helped me get through the uneasy boredom of this never-ending afternoon.

‘What’s he doing?’

‘What’s who doing?’ I ask, not lifting my head.

‘That man from the house down the road. What’s he doing?’

‘What man?’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Lizzie screams as she walks into the room. The panic in her voice makes me drop my magazine and look up. Fucking hell, the man who lives in one of the houses adjacent to our apartment block is dragging his wife out of their house and into the middle of the street. She’s a huge woman with a wide backside and flabby arms which are thrashing about wildly. The man — I think his name is Woods — is pulling her along by her feet and I can hear her screaming from here. He drags her down the kerb and her head cracks back against the road. He’s carrying something else with him. I can’t see what it is…

‘What’s he doing?’ Ed asks again.

‘Don’t look,’ Liz yells at him. She rushes across the room and tries to turn Ed around and push him towards the door. Josh is in the way. He’s standing in the doorway eating a biscuit and Lizzie can’t get past.

‘Don’t look at what?’ Ellis asks. I didn’t see her come in. She’s behind me, standing on tiptoes and looking out of the window.

‘Do what Mum says,’ I say as I try to pull her away. She clings onto the windowsill and won’t let go. The children have been going stir crazy trapped in the house. They’re desperate for any distraction.

Outside Woods has stopped moving now. His wife is still lying on the ground and he’s standing on her neck. Bloody hell, he’s put his boot and his full weight on her throat. Her face is blood red and she’s thrashing about more than ever but he’s managing to keep her down even though he’s half her size.

‘Ellis, let go,’ I shout as I finally manage to prise her away from the window. Ed is still watching and I can’t help staring either. I can’t look away. It was a bottle that Woods was carrying. He’s unscrewed the lid now and he’s emptying the contents all over his wife. What the hell is he doing?

‘What’s happening?’ Harry asks. Now we’re all in the living room. He’s between me and the door and I have to move round him to get Ellis out. I try to close the curtains again but I can’t reach from here. Harry’s in the way.

‘Get the children out of here,’ Lizzie screams.

‘Will you move, Harry?’ I snap. ‘I can’t get through…’

I look out of the window again as Woods sets fire to his wife. Christ knows what he just doused her in but she’s gone up in a huge ball of flames and the fire has caught him too. She’s still moving. Bloody hell. I put my hands over Ellis’ eyes but I’m slow to react and she’s already seen too much. Woods trips away from the burning body, his trouser legs on fire. He staggers down Calder Grove but only makes it halfway down the road before he’s consumed by the flames.

Between us we push the kids out into the hall. I go back to the living room.

Outside no-one does anything. No-one moves. There’s no activity out on the street, not even when the fire from Woods’ wife’s burning body spreads and sets light to a pile of plastic sacks filled with rubbish which have been sat at the side of the road for more than a week. Thick black smoke billows up from the bags and from the corpses in the road, filling the air with dirty fumes.

Sobbing, Lizzie pulls the curtains shut.

The man on the landing at the top of the stairs is dead. I crept out of the flat a few minutes ago and went up to check. What a fucking horrible way to go — ending your days slowly bleeding to death on your own at the top of a dark, concrete staircase. Could I have done anything for him? Possibly. Should I have done anything for him? Definitely not. He was a Hater, and its scum like him that have caused all of this. They’re the reason everything is falling apart. They’re the reason I’ve had to lock myself and my family in the flat. They’re the reason we’re all fucking terrified.