David Moody - Them or Us

Bizarre. At the far end of this open space the floor has been divided up with metal barriers into a number of pens, maybe as many as twenty altogether. It looks like a cattle market, but didn’t Hinchcliffe tell me this place was originally used to process seafood? Then I remember what he was using this factory for, and even though I don’t want to look, I climb down to check the nearest of the pens.

The metal divides have created spaces that are each approximately six feet square. The floor of the pen closest to me is covered with what looks like hay and scraps of clothing, but otherwise it’s empty. In the one next to it, however, there’s something else. It’s oddly shaped, and it’s hard to make out what it is. I lean down over the railings to reach it or at least get a better look, and I immediately wish I hadn’t. Lying slumped in the corner of the cage with its back to me, one arm stretched up and shackled by the wrist to the highest of the metal rungs, is the emaciated body of an Unchanged child. It’s so badly decayed and the light’s so dull that I can barely make out enough detail to estimate either its sex or its age. There are more of them, too. I start walking again, and I see that there are bodies in most of the pens. Most are little more than withered, bony husks now, while a few clearly died more recently and are less decayed.

There’s a yard-wide pathway that runs right through the middle of the pens, and I follow it, looking from side to side and struggling to come to terms with what I see around me. I’ve seen more horrific sights in the last year than I ever thought possible—images I still see when I close my eyes each night—but I’ve never come across anything like this before. Regardless of the fact that these children were, as far as I can tell, all Unchanged, the wanton cruelty and neglect that they’ve been subjected to in this place is unimaginable. For a second I think about Hinchcliffe again, and I hope the fucker is burning in his courthouse palace right now. To have tried to turn a couple of children and have failed is one thing. To just have killed them would have been understandable in the circumstances, but this? To have continued to repeatedly abuse child after child is another matter altogether. Hinchcliffe and Rona Scott must have derived some sick, sadistic pleasure from this appalling torture. Evil fuckers.

I crouch down and look between the metal rungs into another pen, where there’s a small boy about the age my youngest son was before he was killed. I shine the miserable light from my flashlight into his face and bang it against the railings to try to get a reaction from him. Nothing happens. I stare at the corpse a while longer and realize the boy was probably older than he looked. His limbs are long, but his body appears collapsed and shrunken by decay. He died lying flat on his back, his arms and legs unchained. Couldn’t he have at least tried to get away? Maybe he knew it would have been futile, or maybe he no longer had the strength or desire to escape. I shine the light around the pen and see that there are chains in here after all. Then I look at his withered right wrist and I realize his shrunken hand just slipped out from his shackles.

In every subsequent pen I pass, I see something horrific. I thought that nothing could hurt like this anymore, but I’m struggling to comprehend what I’m seeing. In one cage is the body of a girl—ten or eleven years old, perhaps—and her chains have been wrapped around her neck several times. Did someone do this to her, or did she do it to herself?

Is this the great victory we’ve been fighting for? Am I a part of this? Am I responsible for it? I helped bring many of these children here, so is what happened to them my fault? But what was the alternative? If they hadn’t died here, they’d have died somewhere else. A year ago people were flying around the world, sending probes out into space, eradicating diseases, firing atoms around underground tunnels to find out how the universe was created … and look at us now. If Lowestoft truly is the last best hope for this country, and if this kind of atrocity is at its very heart, then what hope do we have? Is this Hinchcliffe’s great plan for the future? Is Chris Ankin’s vision any different?

I stagger back across the pathway and collide with the barrier around another pen. The vile noise of metal on metal seems to take forever to fade away into silence. I know I should keep moving, but I’m lost again, staring into the cage I’ve just disturbed, unable to look away. Here there are two bodies, and for a moment I’m struggling to work out why they were being doubled up when there was clearly more than enough space here for them to be separated. They were chained by their necks to diagonally opposite corners, and even though they’re heavily discolored by rot, I can see that both of their small bodies are covered in scratches and marks. Had they been fighting each other? Fuck … had these kids been forced to fight each other to the death like caged dogs? Was Hinchcliffe using them for sport?

There’s another sudden noise, much closer this time, too loud for a rat. I spin around quickly, but I can’t see anything.

“Who’s there?”

I freeze, figuring that it’ll either be one of Hinchcliffe’s fighters or Ankin’s soldiers, and trying to work out my story for being here. No one answers. I keep walking, then stop when I hear the noise again, even closer now. I’m almost on top of it—a frantic shuffling and scurrying as something does its best not to be seen. Then there’s the faintest chink of metal on metal, like chains being rattled. I glance down into the nearest few pens, but I can’t see anything. Wait! There, just for a second, in the farthest corner of the cage behind the one I’m standing right in front of, I see something. I clumsily climb over the barriers to get closer, almost falling when one of my boots gets tangled up, and my sudden movements unleash a wave of panic in the shadows. Now I can see it. One of the children is still alive! An Unchanged boy tries to climb out of his pen and into another in desperation, but there’s a chain wrapped around his ankle. He’s weak and terrified and yanks at the chain to free himself but falls back and smashes down onto his face, yelping with pain when he hits the ground. I climb into his pen, and he continues to back away from me, pushing himself along the floor until he can go no farther back. About the same age as my son Edward was, he’s barely clothed and is blue with cold. He’s in worse physical condition than I am.

“Don’t fight,” I tell him. “I won’t hurt you.”

He just stares at me, too afraid even to blink, and I don’t know what to do. Every time I move he flinches. I climb back out of his pen and into another to put some space between us, hoping he’ll see that I’m not going to kill him.

“Are there any more of you?”

The boy doesn’t answer. His face looks familiar. He’s the lad from the last Unchanged nest I helped clear out, I’m sure he is. I lean forward and he spits at me, and now I know I’m right.

“Are there any more of you?” I ask again. I give him a few seconds to answer, but he remains silent. I wait a moment longer, but I know I have to go. I can’t afford to waste any more time here. I climb back over the barriers until I reach the walkway, then start walking. This catatonic kid is lost anyway. There’s nothing I can do for him.

“Wait,” a quiet and unexpectedly fragile voice says from behind me. I turn back around and see that he’s at the front of his cage now, leaning against the barrier. I keep walking, determined now to get away from Lowestoft and everyone and everything in it. “Please,” he says, “let us out.”

I keep moving but then stop and turn back again when he rattles his chains against the barrier in protest.