Дэвид Муди - Hater

Now another. I rip off a trooper’s battle helmet and turn the pathetic creature around to face me. Those eyes. Those fucking eyes glare at me and they are filled with utter hate. I push my thumbs into the sockets and gouge the damn things out, leaving the soldier screaming and writhing on the ground.

All of the confusion and uncertainty has gone. The pain has disappeared. Without fear we fight with unparalleled strength and ferocity. I snap bones and tear flesh and end lives again and again and again.

In the flashes of light and fire which still fill the skies all around here I am able to see the full extent of this battle. It now stretches across a huge expanse of land. It is brutal and relentless, basic and almost medieval. Weapons have been cast aside. This fight is hand-to-hand — one-on-one — and our enemy has no answer to our strength and determination. They may have numbers but we have more than that. We have the desire to destroy them and to protect ourselves and others like us. Every one of us will fight with the last breath in our bodies.

Another helicopter rises up in the sky in front of me. I look up and watch as four snaking trails of fire whip across the darkness over my head accompanied by an ear-piercing whistle and a sudden gust of red-hot air. I look back just long enough to see missiles strike the battered and now virtually empty remains of the building we escaped from. There is a momentary pause — like the shortest possible gap between lighting and thunder — followed by the loudest explosion I’ve yet heard as the hellish place is blasted into a million burning pieces. Even from this distance I can feel the heat of the fire on my skin.

A knife flashes at me from out of nowhere and slices my arm. The adrenaline disguises the pain I feel and I immediately turn on my attacker. He swipes his blade at me again. Somehow I am able to catch his hand midway through its arc. I twist his fist back in on itself and then force the knife round into his own gut. He falls next to the burning shell of an overturned vehicle. Where did I learn to do this? Where did this strength and speed come from? This is instinctive and unstoppable.

‘Move out,’ a voice screams, barely audible over the confusion. I look up and see that the battle on the hillside is petering out. Although the fighting around what remains of the building below us is continuing, up here on the ridge we have destroyed the enemy. ‘Keep moving forward,’ the voice instructs. I follow the rest of the crowd as we begin to scramble through the darkness.

43

It’s late and out here the world is silent. The noise of battle has long since faded away to nothing. Still surrounded by hordes of others we move quickly through the empty countryside. Armed scouts guide us through the darkness. I don’t know where we’re going, but I know that I can trust these people and I follow on regardless. I have a feeling in the pit of my stomach which tells me that before long I might finally start getting answers to some of the thousands of questions I’ve been desperate to ask.

We’ve marched for more than an hour now and have seen and heard no-one else. Our route has avoided all roads and buildings and virtually all other signs of civilisation. Now we’re moving along the base of a deep valley, shielded from view by trees and bushes.

We stop.

‘In here,’ one of our guides says, ushering us towards a large copse. Without question we move into the trees, stopping only when we’ve reached the densest part of the woods. The light in here is almost non-existent. One of the scouts kicks around in the undergrowth, seeming to be looking for something. Her foot strikes a small mound in the leaf-covered ground. She bends down and grabs the strap of a bag which one of them must have hidden there previously. She pulls the strap and drags up a large rucksack. Leaves and dirt fall from it as she stands it up and brushes it down. She opens the pack and starts to empty it out.

‘Sit down and rest,’ one of the other scouts says as his colleague throws packets of food and bottles of water to us. ‘Get your strength back,’ he continues, ‘then listen to the message and leave.’

The message? What message? What’s he talking about? I decide that I’ll find out later. Right now eating my first food in more than a day is more important than anything else.

I’m sitting with three other people. In the middle of us is a mobile phone, set up ready to play the message. This message, our guides inform us, is as close to the truth as we’ll get tonight. It has been distributed as a file by people like us and has spread around the country like a computer virus. It now sits on hundreds of thousands of phones, computers, media players and other devices, too widespread to be deleted.

‘Chris who?’ a man sitting next to me asks.

‘Chris Ankin,’ one of the guides replies.

‘Who the hell’s he?’

‘He was a politician,’ he explains. ‘Used to be fairly high-ranking in Defence. He was an adviser to the government when it began. He got to hear a hell of a lot of information before he changed.’

‘So where is he now?’

‘Rumour has it he’s dead.’

‘Great.’

‘Doesn’t matter. He did what he wanted to do before they got him.’

‘What was that?’

‘He wanted to let us know what was happening. He wanted to warn us. He wanted to try and coordinate us.’

‘Coordinate us?’

‘Make sure we all know what we have to do.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘Why don’t you just play the fucking message?’

The man leans forward and picks up the phone. He struggles with the controls for a second but soon manages to locate the file and starts it playing. At first the words are hard to make out. He adjusts the volume and lifts up the phone so that we can all hear what’s being said.

‘If you’re listening to this,’ Ankin’s weary voice says, sounding tinny and distorted, ‘chances are you don’t have a clue what’s happened to you or what’s happened to the rest of the country. You won’t know why you feel the way you do or why your life has just been turned upside down. I’ll give you some information but I won’t be able to answer all of your questions. I’ll tell you what I know but that’s not what’s important now. Ultimately it doesn’t matter why this has happened or what caused it, what matters is how we deal with it. Because of the unprecedented nature of the change and its effects on our society we need to act now and we need to act quickly. There will be time enough to look for reasons when the fight is over.’

I shuffle on the ground and glance at the other faces gathered around the telephone. They stare at the small handset with bewildered expressions. I’m not sure if anyone believes what they’re hearing.

‘Put simply,’ Ankin’s voice continues, ‘there is a fundamental genetic difference between us and them. A fundamental and basic difference which, until now, has remained dormant. I can’t yet tell you why, but something has happened to trigger a change, and that change has created the hate. If you’re hoping for me to give you a more scientific explanation, I can’t. If you’re waiting for me to explain why we can no longer exist alongside the people we loved, lived with and worked with just a couple of weeks ago, I can’t. One day we’ll understand, but today we don’t have the luxury of having either the time or resources to find out.

‘Initially it was presumed that the change was limited to just a small minority of people. Before it happened to me, while I was still in office, I saw figures which indicated that our numbers are much greater than was first thought. It’s likely that as many as three people in every ten are like us. That’s around thirty percent of the population. That’s enough to take the fight to them and stand a chance.