David Moody - Them or Us

“Shh,” I say to him, “they’ll hear you if you—”

I shut up when I realize he’s not the one making the noise. It’s coming from another pen on the same side of the walkway, a little farther back. I can see another Unchanged face looking back at me now; small, round, and ghostly pale. It’s a little girl. Dressed only in a grubby ripped T-shirt several sizes too big, she’s standing on tiptoes to look at me over the top of the metal divide. When I take a step toward her she takes several panicked steps back, almost tripping over her own chained feet.

“You’re the one who told them where we were,” the boy says accusingly, his voice now stronger.

“What?”

“We were hiding and you told them where we were. It’s all your fault.”

“I had to do it,” I say without thinking. Then I curse myself—what the hell am I apologizing for? Why am I explaining myself to him? Why am I explaining myself to one of the Unchanged?

“No you didn’t. They wouldn’t have found us if you hadn’t told them. It’s your fault.”

Arrogant little bastard. The way he’s shouting now reminds me of the way I used to argue with Ed. I start walking again, and the girl starts to cry.

“Let us out,” the boy demands. I ignore him and keep going, then stop again because my head is suddenly full of stupid, dangerous thoughts. He’s right, isn’t he? It is my fault they’re here. But what else could I have done? It was them or me, and these days you have to look after yourself ’cause no other fucker’s going to help. Anyway, they’d have had to come out of their shelter eventually. All I did was make things happen faster than they would otherwise have. I’m saving them pain in the long run, or at least I would have if they hadn’t ended up in here.

“Please!” he shouts as I try to walk on, but this time I stop because I know I’m wrong. No matter how I try to dress it up and justify what I did, these kids are only in the position they are today because of me. It doesn’t matter what they are or what I am or what we’re supposed to do to each other, I can’t just leave them to die here. Lowestoft is burning around us, for Christ’s sake. Well, maybe I can leave them, but the point is, I realize, I don’t want to. The very least they deserve is a chance, no matter how slight. I can’t deny them that.

I walk back toward the little girl and check her chains, which are held in position with a padlock.

“Don’t hurt her,” the boy shouts as the girl squirms to get away. “I’ll get you if you hurt her.”

“I’m not going to hurt anyone,” I answer, testing the strength of the lock and the clasp around her bony ankle. “I’ll be back. I’ll see what I can do.”

The noise of battle outside is increasing in volume. Even through the walls of this huge place, I can hear occasional bangs and screams, the helicopter flying overhead, guns and shells being fired, and the constant noise of engines. I try to block it all from my mind as I look for something to free the children with. All I need to do, I tell myself, is let them go.

In the farthest corner of this dank, foul-smelling place, I find a bloodstained workbench that’s covered in lengths of chains, discarded locks, bits of bone, small teeth, and other, less easily identifiable things. There’s a huge bunch of keys hung on a metal hoop on the wall, but there are too many to go through and I can’t waste time checking each one of them. Instead I opt for a set of heavy, long-handled metal cutters I find leaning against the side of the bench. I head back to the pens, and the girl screams as I advance toward her with the cutters held high. Her helpless sobbing is heartbreaking.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I tell her, desperate for her to understand. “Look.”

I climb over to the boy. He continues to recoil from me. I pull him closer, dragging him back across the floor, then use the cutters to snap the loop of the padlock that holds his chains in place. He removes his shackles, then clambers out of the pen after me, his movements stilted and clumsy after being restricted for so long. This time when I approach the girl she’s a little quieter—still sobbing, but not screaming. I carefully ease the blade of the cutters over the loop of her padlock, then press down hard. It takes more effort this time (and I can feel my energy levels really starting to fade), but the lock eventually gives. I unravel her chains, and then, when she can’t get over the barrier, I reach down and lift her up. There’s nothing to her, absolutely no weight at all. She holds on to me, her tiny arms tight around my shoulders, her legs wrapped around my waist. I try to put her down, but I can’t. She won’t let go. This reminds me how it used to be when I held Ellis and the boys, feeling them close against you, hearing their breathing, reacting to their every movement …

Put the fucking kid down and get out of here.

I try to lower her, but she still won’t let go. When another loud explosion rocks the building, she grips me even tighter, her fingers digging into my back.

Put the fucking kid down!

This time I peel her off me, prying off her fingers and unraveling her legs, then putting her down and backing up to put some distance between us. She just stands there looking up at me, not saying anything but asking a thousand questions with those huge, innocent eyes.

“Where’s Charlie?”

“Who?”

“Charlie,” she says. “You know, Charlotte. She came here with us.”

She’s talking about the dead girl upstairs. I try to tell her the truth, but I can’t.

“She’s already gone,” I lie. “Now you need to do the same. Get out of here. There’s trouble coming.”

“Where?” the boy asks, shivering. He’s dressing himself in rags he’s stripped from another child’s corpse.

“What?”

“Where do we go?”

“How am I supposed to know? Just stay away from the town. Get onto the beach and follow it south as far as you can.”

“Which way’s south?”

“That way,” I tell him, pointing and backing away from them both again.

“But the people out there,” he continues, his voice unsure, “the Haters … they’ll find us, won’t they? They’ll kill us…”

The girl starts to cry again, and I struggle to shut the noise out. What do these children think I am? I spent a couple of days in their shelter with them, but surely they must know I’m not like them. Then again, they also know I’m not acting like any of the other people they’ve seen since they’ve been here.

“Can’t you take us back?” the girl asks, her voice barely audible. Her bottom lip quivers and tears roll down her cheeks.

“Back where?”

“Back to where we were before. With Sally and Mr. Greene. Where all those cones and traffic signs were.”

She’s talking about the storage depot where I found them. “You can’t go back there,” I answer quickly, not thinking about the effect my words will have on her. “That place is gone now, and all the people who were there are gone, too.”

She just nods, her tiny body shuddering as she sobs, her tear-streaked face filled with resignation.

“You got any food?” the boy asks. “Really hungry.”

I check my bag and my pockets. All I find is the half-finished packet of sweets, which I hand over.

“My daddy says—” the girl begins.

“That you shouldn’t take sweets from strangers,” I say, finishing her sentence for her, immediately slipping back into parent mode even after all this time. “Your daddy was right, but things are a bit different now, aren’t they?”

She doesn’t answer, too busy cramming several of the sweets into her mouth. Strings of sticky dribble are running down her chin. This is probably the first thing these kids have eaten in days. The roar of another engine outside snaps me out of my dangerous malaise. I jog toward the nearest door.