David Moody - Them or Us

“I already told you, asleep upstairs.”

“No, earlier. I sent Rufus to find you and you weren’t here.”

“When?” I ask, deliberately acting dumb, hoping he’ll give me some details to help flesh out my story. “I’m not well. I had a few drinks and I took some stuff to help me sleep…”

Hinchcliffe glares at me, the shadows and darkness making his face look uncomfortably angular and fierce, accentuating his anger. “What time was that?”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“I don’t know, honest. I don’t wear a watch. It was dark and—”

“What about earlier? Where were you this afternoon?”

“I went to see Rona Scott.”

“I know about that, she told me. I’m talking about before then.”

I can’t risk telling him anything. “I don’t know. Look, Hinchcliffe, I’m sorry if I wasn’t around. Did Scott tell you what she told me? Thing is, I’m dying. I’ve just been walking around, trying to get my head together so I could—”

“We’re all dying,” he interrupts. “Now stop pissing around and tell me where you were when the plane flew over.”

“Plane? What plane?”

What the hell is he talking about now? The skies are empty, have been for months. Even the birds are dying out. The last thing I saw flying was the missile carrying the warhead that destroyed my hometown. I don’t feel any less nervous now, but suddenly the pressure is fractionally reduced. Is this the reason he’s come out here? Unless he thinks I was flying this plane (which would be impossible), then maybe I’m not the real focus of his fury tonight.

“Just before midday,” he explains slowly, virtually spitting each word at me, “a plane flew over the town.”

“And you think I’ve got something to do with it?”

“Don’t be so fucking stupid,” he snaps (confirming my suspicions), “of course I don’t think that. I don’t know what you do out here on your own, but I know you’re not flying fucking airplanes.”

“What, then?”

Frustrated, Hinchcliffe turns his back on me and kicks what’s left of the door shut. Rufus flinches at the noise, then shuffles farther away, trying to move deeper into the house and hoping neither of us will notice. I start to feel marginally more confident, as it seems I’m not the problem here. Someone else has pissed him off.

“I run this place,” he says, turning around and advancing toward me menacingly, pointing his finger into my face. I take a step back to get out of his way and trip and fall back onto the stairs again. I’ve never seen him like this before. He’s incensed, barely able to keep his anger suppressed. I need to watch my step here and choose my next words carefully. Don’t want to do anything that’s going to push him over the edge.

“I know you run Lowestoft. Everyone here knows it.”

“Yes, but those fuckers up there don’t,” he yells, jabbing his finger skyward.

“Yes, but—”

“But nothing. I need to keep control here. I need to know exactly what’s going on. I can’t have people doing things that I can’t control, you understand?”

I’m not sure I do.

“So did they just fly over? Just happen to come across the town by chance?”

He shakes his head and massages his temples. “No, they flew circuits. Put on a proper fucking show. They might have found us by chance, but they definitely checked everything out properly before they left.”

“So what type of plane was it?”

“What?” he asks, confused.

“What type of plane? Military? A jet or bomber?”

He shakes his head again. “No, nothing like that.”

“What, then?”

“Just a little plane. Two- or four-seater, something like that.”

“So what’s the problem? Someone probably just got lucky and managed to get a plane up and—”

“What’s the problem?!” he screams at me, storming forward again, now so close that I can feel his hot, booze-tinged breath on my face. “What’s the problem? The problem is that they’re doing something I can’t. I can’t allow anyone to have that kind of advantage over me.”

“A little plane? Is that really such an advantage?”

“Well, if you’d been here like you should have been, McCoyne, you’d have seen the effect it had. That’s what I’m talking about. When that plane flew over, every single fucker in Lowestoft stopped what they were doing and looked up at it. My fighters, the underclass—all of them.”

“Yes, but a two-seater plane … Come on, what are they going to do?”

“Nothing right now, but it’s what they could do that’s important. They’ve got one plane today, they could have two tomorrow. They could train pilots and have a whole goddamn fleet up in the air before we know it. Now they know we’re here they’ll be back. They could drop bombs on us and there’d be nothing we could do.”

“That’s not likely to happen, is it? Like I said, it’s probably just someone who got lucky.”

“I know that and you know that, McCoyne, but the hundreds of dumb bastards lining the streets of this town don’t.”

“So hunt them out. Try to get whoever it was on the team.”

For a moment he’s quiet. He leans back against the wall and runs his fingers through his hair, then massages his temples. I’m sure he’s already thought of that. He’s probably already sent his fighters out there hunting the plane and its pilot—and if and when he finds them, I know he’ll leave them with no choice but to work with him.

“Thing is,” he says, sounding marginally calmer again, “seeing people flying around affects what the people here think about me. They know I don’t have any planes, so they automatically assume those bastards up there are superior. This is eroding my authority and putting unnecessary strain on the control I’ve got here. I can’t let that happen, you understand?”

“Yes, but—”

He holds up his hand and stops me talking.

“There’s also the very real possibility that they might attack from the skies. What would I do then? Have people standing on rooftops chucking stones back at them if they fly low enough?”

“The chances of them attacking are remote—”

“How do you know that? Anyway, a chance is a chance. It gives them a tactical advantage, and we have to do something about it.”

“We?” I say stupidly. Hinchcliffe glares at me again, then starts pacing around the living room. Rufus scuttles out of the way as he moves toward him. Hinchcliffe spots the wrench I leave lying around for self-defense. He picks it up and starts swinging it, passing it from hand to hand and feeling its weight.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he announces. “I’m sending Llewellyn and a few others out at first light to find those bastards. Llewellyn thinks he’s worked out where they’re likely to have come from. He’ll find them and either bring them back to me or get rid of them. And you’re going with them.”

“Me? Why?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t fucking know. Same reason I always send you. You’re so fucking insignificant that no one gives you a second glance. You can assess the situation better than most, and if you can’t assess it, you can at least spy on the fuckers and tell me what’s going on.”

“But I’m sick.”

“So? I’m not asking you to run a fucking marathon.”

I try to think of a valid reason that’ll make him change his mind, but I can’t.

“Okay,” I say, desperate to pacify him but already trying to think of ways to get away from this mess once and for all. I’m relieved when he starts walking back toward the door. Rufus hesitates, then follows in his footsteps, unsure what to do next. Clumsy bastard knocks another stack of books over, then walks into Hinchcliffe when he stops suddenly.