David Moody - Them or Us

It’s no good. I can’t put this off any longer.

I walk back the other way, and this time the guard in the doorway sees me and yells at me to either “get over here or fuck off.” He’s wrapped up against the bitter cold, wearing so many layers that he looks grossly overweight. His mouth is hidden by a scarf and his upturned collar, and he has ski goggles covering his eyes. He has a rifle slung over his shoulder. I presume it’s there to stop escapees rather than to prevent anyone breaking in.

“What do you want?” he demands, his voice muffled.

“Rona Scott,” I answer. “I need to see her.”

“Says who?”

“Says Hinchcliffe.”

He lifts up his goggles and eyes me up and down, then pulls his scarf down a couple of inches, just enough to clear his mouth, making it easier to speak.

“I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?”

“Have you?”

“Yeah … ain’t you the one what finds the Unchanged?”

“That’s me,” I answer quickly, desperate to get out of the cold. It’s raining even harder now, the water bouncing back up off the pavement. “Look, is the doctor here? I need to see her.”

He stops to think again. This guy’s not the smartest, and that’s probably why he drew the short straw and ended up being posted out here on his own. I can’t tell whether he’s trying to psych me out with these long, silent pauses or if he’s just slow. I reach inside my coat, and he reacts to my sudden movement, swinging his rifle around.

“Don’t,” I tell him, raising my hands to show I don’t want any trouble. When he relaxes I take out a can of beer from my pocket, hoping to speed up this painfully drawn-out encounter with a little bribery. He halfheartedly tries to remain impassive and hard, but I can see a sudden glint in his eye. He’s like a kid looking in a toy store window.

“Inside,” he says as he takes the can from me. He glances from side to side before moving out of the way to let me pass. As if anyone else is going to have followed me out here. Fucking idiot.

The building is oppressively quiet save for a few muffled sounds in the distance, and it’s no warmer indoors than out. I’ve never made it this far in before. This end of the complex looks like it was mostly office space. I’m in an open-plan reception area, which has been turned into a checkpoint by Hinchcliffe’s guard, and it reminds me of the reception desk back at the housing project where I used to work. There are a couple of rooms filled with rubbish leading off from here, and a wide staircase that goes up to the second floor. There’s also another door into a corridor, long and straight and dark, which I presume leads into the rest of the factory. Curious, I walk toward it and try to peer in through a porthole-shaped safety glass window.

“Not that way,” the guard says, making me jump.

“Where, then?”

No response. He looks at me expectantly. I dig down into the pockets of my coat again and this time bring out a packet of sweets. I don’t know where they came from or why I’ve got them. I found them in the house before I came out and thought they might be useful.

“This is all I’ve got,” I tell him, talking to him like I used to talk to my children. “Where’s the doctor?”

He points up the stairs.

“Up there there’s a load of offices. She’s in one of them. Second or third floor, don’t know which.”

“Thanks for your help,” I say sarcastically as I chuck him his sweets.

Dripping wet and exhausted, I start to climb up the metal steps, my boots clanging and filling the building with noise. At the top of the first flight of stairs is an open door and, beyond it, another narrow corridor with three doors along one side and one at the far end. Fortunately there are long rectangular windows in each of the doors that allow me to see inside. Rona Scott is sitting in the first room, slouched in a chair, staring straight ahead. This must have been some kind of meeting room or training area once. There’s no other furniture now except for a long gray desk beside her that’s covered with rubbish and clutter. I pause before trying to attract her attention, feeling undeniably nervous. Wait. She’s talking. Is someone in there with her?

Scott looks exhausted. Her face is flustered, her cheeks bloodred, and she’s smoking a cigarette, flicking ash onto the dirty terra-cotta-colored carpet. I’ve spoken to her (rather, she’s spoken at me) on a few occasions before today, and I don’t relish the prospect of having to talk to her again. She’s a foul-tempered woman at the best of times, and I’m tempted just to turn around now and go back to the house rather than face her. She suddenly gets up, moving unexpectedly quickly, and I step back to stay in the shadows, keeping out of sight but still able to see her through the glass. From my new position I can see that the room is actually double length, and the far end is in almost total darkness. There’s a concertina-like folding wall across the middle, which has been left half open. Scott strides purposefully through the gap and disappears out of view.

“Do something, you useless little prick!” she yells at someone unseen, her bellowing voice muffled but still clearly audible even through the closed door. “For god’s sake, come on!”

The hostility in her voice is unnerving, and I actually start to edge back toward the stairs before telling myself to get a grip. She reappears again and mooches through the clutter on the table. She picks something up—looks like an open glass jar—then moves back into the shadows.

“You know you want it,” I hear her shout. “Come on, react! Don’t just sit there, you pathetic piece of shit.”

She walks back this way, the jar held out in front of her; then she looks around. Damn, she’s seen me. I try to get out of the way but it’s too late. No backing out now. She angrily yanks the door open.

“What the fuck do you want?”

“Sorry,” I stammer, immediately on the wrong foot. “I didn’t mean to disturb you—”

“Yes you did,” she bawls at me. “No one ever comes here unless they don’t have any choice. You didn’t come here by accident, so you did mean to disturb me.”

“Hinchcliffe said I should—”

“You McCoyne?”

“Yes, I—”

“He said you’d probably turn up at some point. Give me a couple of minutes and I’ll be with you.”

When she stops talking I become aware of a faint whimpering noise coming from elsewhere in the room. Scott moves away from the door, and I follow her inside. At the far end, strapped to a chair by ropes tied across her tiny torso and around her ankles and wrists, is an Unchanged child. It’s one of the kids from the council depot nest we cleared out earlier this week, I’m sure it is. When she sees that someone else is in the room, she starts moaning in fear, tugging at her restraints to try to get free. The effort’s too much, though, and she gives up and slumps forward sobbing, letting her bonds take her weight, her long, greasy hair hanging down and covering her dirty face. Poor little shit. What the hell has Scott been doing to her?

“Interesting,” Scott says, watching both the girl and me, her eyes flicking between us.

“What is?”

“The way she reacted when you appeared,” she says.

“She recognizes me, that’s all. I helped catch her.”

“I just need one of these little cunts to show a bit of backbone and start fighting. Get Hinchcliffe off my back for a while. It wasn’t so bad when Thacker was in charge. Hinchcliffe’s got no patience. He wants results or he wants them dead.”

The little girl, shaking with cold, cries out again. In a sudden fit of rage that takes both me and the child by surprise, the doctor spins around and hurls the glass jar at her. It hits the wall just above her head and explodes, showering her with sharp shards of glass and sticky globules of food.