“Oi, Danny!”
Who the hell was that? My heart sinks when I look back and see Adam hopping after me with his ski-pole walking stick, his useless, misshapen, badly broken left foot swinging. I found this poor bastard trapped in his parents’ house a few days back, and I haven’t been able to shake him yet. He can hardly walk, so I could leave him if I wanted to, but I stupidly keep letting my conscience get the better of me. I tell myself that if I get him away from here he’ll be able to kill again, and anyone who’s going to get rid of even one more of the Unchanged has got to be worth saving. I run back, put my arm around his waist, and start dragging him away from the building.
“Thanks, man,” he starts to say. “I thought I-”
“Shut the fuck up and move.”
“Oh, that’s nice. What did I ever-”
“Listen,” I tell him, interrupting him midflow. “They’re coming back.”
I pull him deep into the undergrowth behind the office building. Even over my hurried, rustling footsteps and although the canopy of leaves above us muffles and distorts the sound, I can definitely hear another aircraft approaching. Whatever’s coming this time is larger, louder, and no doubt deadlier than the helicopter that was here before.
Adam yelps as his broken ankle thumps against a low tree stump. I ignore him and keep moving. His leg’s already fucked; a little more damage won’t matter.
“Sounds big,” he says through clenched teeth, trying to distract himself from the pain. I don’t respond, concentrating instead on putting the maximum possible distance between me and the office. Other people run through the trees on either side of me, illuminated by shafts of sunlight that pour through the odd-shaped gaps between leaves, all of them passing us. The noise is increasing, so loud now that I can feel it through the ground. It must be a jet. Christ, what did I do wrong to end up saddled with a cripple at a time like this? Maybe I should just leave him here and let him take his chances? I look up, and through a gap in the trees I catch the briefest glimpse of the plane streaking across the sky at incredible speed, so fast that the noise it makes seems to lag way behind it.
“Keep moving,” I tell him. “Not far enough yet-”
I stop and hit the deck as soon as I hear it: the signature whoosh and roar of missiles being launched. Adam screams in agony as I pull him down, but we’ll be safer on the ground. There’s a moment of silence-less than a second, but it feels like forever-and then the building behind us is destroyed in an immense blast of heat, light, and noise. A gust of hot wind blows through the trees, and then dust and small chunks of decimated masonry begin to fall from the sky, bouncing off the leaves and branches above us, then hitting the ground like hard rain. The thick canopy of green takes the sting out of the granite hailstones. The shower of debris is over as quickly as it began, and now all I can hear is the plane disappearing into the distance and both Adam’s and my own labored breathing. He sits up, struggling with his injuries. Crazy bastard is grinning like an idiot.
“Fuck me,” he says, “that was impressive.”
“Impressive? I could think of other ways to describe it. If you’d been any slower we’d have had it.”
“Whatever.”
He leans back against a tree, still panting heavily. We should keep moving, but the idea of resting is appealing. The Unchanged won’t come back here for a while. Even here in the shade the afternoon heat is stifling, and now that I’ve stopped, I don’t want to start walking again. I give in to temptation and lie back on the ground next to Adam and close my eyes, replaying the memory of today’s kills over and over again.
2
WE KEEP WALKING AS the daylight slowly fades, the darkness finally bringing some respite from the heat.
“What time is it?” Adam asks.
“No idea.”
“What day is it?”
“Don’t know that either.”
“Don’t suppose it matters,” he grumbles as we limp slowly down a long dirt track that curves around the edge of a deserted farm. He’s right-the time, day, date, temperature, position of the moon… none of it really matters anymore. Life is no longer about order and routine, it’s about the hunt and the kill and just getting through each day unscathed. When the war began, killing was all that mattered, but things feel like they’re changing now.
I would never tell him, but I’ve enjoyed traveling with Adam. Having someone like him to talk to has proved unexpectedly beneficial. Maybe that’s why I went back for him earlier, and why I’ve put up with him for the last few days. Without even realizing it, he’s helping me make sense of what’s happened to me since the onset of the Hate. Before I killed them, Adam’s parents had him locked in their garage, chained to the wall like a dog. He’d spent months there in total isolation. I’ve had to explain everything that happened to the rest of the world while he’d been locked away. Going over it all again has helped me to understand.
Adam’s first direct experience of the Hate was similar to mine, but in some ways the poor bastard had it even tougher than me. He was caught off guard when he realized what he was and what he had to do. He tried to kill his family, but, filled with the same fear and disorientation that I remembered feeling after I’d killed my father-in-law, his father managed to fight back and smashed his right hand and left ankle with a small sledge hammer. Rather than finish him off or turn him over to the authorities, though, Adam’s parents locked him up and locked themselves down. They didn’t have the strength to kill him, even though they knew he’d kill both of them in a heartbeat. I understand why they did it. It’s like the tied-up kid I found earlier today. The Unchanged just can’t let go. They hold on to the people that used to matter to them in the vain and pointless hope they’ll somehow be cured or change again. But how can we be cured? We’re not the ones who are sick. Adam’s parents had the whole thing planned out. They starved the poor fucker for days, then fed him drugged food to keep him subdued and under control. Finding him was like something out of a fucked-up Stephen King book. Wonder if Stephen King’s like us or like them…?
“Can we stop soon?”
“Suppose.”
“You got any idea where we are?” Adam asks. His voice is weak. I glance across at him. His face is white and his skin clammy.
“Roughly,” I answer. Truth is I’m not exactly sure, but for the first time in ages I actually do have a fair idea of where I am. For weeks I’ve traveled everywhere on foot. Like most people I’ve shunned cars and other similar means of transport-they make me feel conspicuous when all I want to do is disappear, and anyway, most roads are blocked and impassable now. I knew we were getting close, but it was yesterday afternoon, after we’d spent almost an hour waiting on the outskirts of a vicious battle for a kill that never came, when I caught sight of the Beeches on the horizon-a distinctively shaped clump of ancient trees perched on top of an otherwise barren and exposed hill. The trees are a natural landmark I used to pass on the highway traveling back home from rare day trips out with Lizzie and the kids. My best guess was that we were three or four miles short of them, and from memory they were another five miles or so from the edge of town.