David Moody - Them or Us

“I don’t understand,” I say to Sutton, keeping my voice deliberately low, still conscious of the rifle aimed at my back. “Why? Why risk so much for a handful of Unchanged? Why risk so much for any Unchanged? You should have killed them.”

We reach the end of the corridor, just me and Sutton now. I glance back and see that Dean and Parker have stopped following, but they’re still watching closely. A lamp hanging on the wall illuminates another metal door. Sutton sighs and takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes.

“Sometimes you just don’t have any choice. Sometimes decisions are made for you. Things happen, and you just have to deal with them as best you can. The right option isn’t always the easiest one to take.”

I’m still trying to decipher his bullshit when he leans forward and opens the next door. He gently pushes it and it swings open wide, revealing a much larger space that’s filled with light. For a few blissfully ignorant seconds I’m distracted trying to work out why there’s such a vast construction as this buried deep under a farmer’s field in Suffolk, and the full enormity of what I’m seeing doesn’t immediately hit home.

Then it does, and I can hardly stand.

This place is full of people. I can see their faces and hear their voices and smell them and … and Christ, there must be more than twenty Unchanged in here.

23

SUTTON LEADS ME DEEPER into the large room, and I’m struggling to cope with what I’m seeing. For a couple of seconds all I can make out is an unholy mass of people filling the space in front of me. I’ve only managed to take a few steps forward when my dazed and confused brain switches back into gear and the full implication of what’s around us hits home. I take hold of Sutton’s arm, spin him around, and slam him back against the nearest wall. I focus all my attention on him, but I’m aware of terrified Unchanged scattering all around us, fleeing like cockroaches about to be crushed under a boot. Do they know what I am? They’re all watching me, desperately trying not to let me catch them staring. With frightening ease Sutton shifts his balance and reverses our positions, and now I’m the one up against the wall. I feel my strength drain away as a wave of sickness washes over me. Sutton pushes me through another doorway, grabbing a lamp as we disappear into the darkness.

Disoriented, I lose my footing and stumble. Sutton shuts the door and I look up and suddenly I’m aware of figures all around me. I lunge for the nearest one and it simply collapses under my weight. It’s a bloody mannequin. We’re in a room full of fucking store window dummies. None of this makes any sense. I slump down to the floor, pulse pounding, sweat pouring off me, trying to work out how I’m going to get back out and kill those fuckers on the other side of the door.

“What the fuck’s going on, Sutton?” I demand, panting.

He stands over me, looking down. Behind the thick lenses of his glasses, his eyes dart anxiously around my face. “You’re really not well, are you?”

“Don’t change the subject. What’s going on?” I ask again.

“It’s okay.”

“Okay? How can it be okay?”

He stares at me again, trying to work out what I’m thinking. Truth is, even I don’t know what I’m thinking right now. Finding so many Unchanged like this has left me with a gut-full of bitter, conflicting emotions. I know I should have already killed them, but I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t know if I have the strength, and there are too many of them. I wish someone else had found them and could do it for me. They need to be killed because, as I’ve been telling myself for months, the sooner the last Unchanged has been wiped off the face of the planet, the sooner this pointless, bloody war will finally be over. I was starting to think it already was.

“Sorry about the bullshit about Southwold’s supplies, you’d never have come if I’d told you,” Sutton says, his voice echoing around the room.

“Damn right I wouldn’t have come. For crying out loud, what were you thinking?”

“I said you were like me, didn’t I? I know you won’t hurt these people. I knew the moment I saw you.”

“Being with these people will bring you nothing but grief. You should get rid of them now. If you can’t do that, you should just get away and not come back.”

“I can’t do that,” he says, “and I think you’re wrong. Just let me explain—”

“There’s nothing to explain.”

“It’s not what you think.”

I try to stand but I can’t get up, another crippling wave of nausea making it almost impossible for me to move. It’s a combination of nerves and the airless, sweaty stench of this badly ventilated and overcrowded hideout. My head’s thumping. Sutton helps me to my feet, and I lean back against the wall.

“What is this place?” I ask him, looking around at the emotionless painted faces of the mannequins that surround us. Some of them are dressed in old-fashioned army uniforms.

“A nuclear bunker,” he announces. “It was operational until the end of the Cold War. Then they decommissioned it and turned it into a tourist attraction. Hence the dummies.”

His words just bounce off me, barely sinking in. I should probably ask him a load of other questions, but my brain is still struggling to make sense of any of this. Stupidly, all I can think right now is how much I hate Hinchcliffe. If it hadn’t been for him then I wouldn’t have gone to Southwold and if I hadn’t been in Southwold, I wouldn’t have met Peter Sutton, and if I hadn’t met Sutton I wouldn’t know anything about this damn place or the Unchanged hiding down here. Thinking about Hinchcliffe makes me remember what he forced me to do with that woman yesterday afternoon … and then part of me starts wondering whether I should just stay down here in the dark and never put my head above ground again. Nothing makes sense any more. Whenever I think I’m starting to come to terms with the way this dysfunctional new world works, something always happens that leaves me feeling as confused and disoriented as I did when I killed Lizzie’s dad, Harry. Right back to square one again. Life feels like a game of Snakes and Ladders, but without any ladders.

Sutton waits, then cautiously edges nearer. “I told you this place changes everything.”

“And I told you you were an overdramatic prick. This changes nothing.”

“Well, it’s changed everything for me,” he says. “Before I found these people I was lost.”

“You’ve lost your fucking mind, that’s about all.”

“I knew you’d feel this way at first, but just stop and think for a minute, Danny.”

“Think about what? About the fact that you’re a traitor? About what Hinchcliffe’s going to do to you when he finds out about this place?”

“No, I want you to think about yourself. Think about what you’ve had to do over the last year. Think about how much you’ve lost.”

“And how much I’ve gained.”

“Have you gained anything?”

“My freedom. This time last year I was at a dead end.”

“Things are better for you today because…?” He waits for me to answer, and the silence is deafening. “You’re alone, your health’s deteriorating, you’re living by yourself in a freezing-cold house in an otherwise empty housing development—doesn’t look so great to me.”

“Are things any better for you?”

“Not really,” he answers. “Truth be told, life’s shit for all of us now. You, me, these Unchanged. Killing them won’t make any difference.”

“That’s not the point.”

“There’s something else I want you to see,” he says, supporting my weight and gently leading me back toward the door. More Unchanged scatter when it opens, their wiry limbs and sudden movements making them appear unnervingly insectlike. We go back out into the main area of this part of the bunker. Some sections of the odd-shaped space are dimly illuminated by dull lamps; other corners remain shrouded in darkness. The walls that I can see are covered in old photographs, maps, and other paraphernalia, making the room appear smaller than it actually is.