Hater

    Footsteps in the darkness. Sudden movement.

    I try to move back but before I can react a figure is on top of me. My legs are kicked out from under me and I'm sent flying back across the hard concrete floor. I can't see anything. I try to kick and punch myself free and stand up but before I can move I'm knocked back down again. I can feel someone pressing down on my ankles and someone else has their hands on my shoulders, keeping me flat on the ground. There's a third person in here. I can see their shadow moving past the doorway.

    'Think he's safe?' someone asks. They switch on a torch and the unexpected brightness burns my eyes.

    'Turn it off,' I hear another one of them say in a loud, relieved whisper. 'He's all right.'

    As quickly as the hands grabbed hold of me they now let go. I shuffle back across the floor, putting as much distance as I can between me and whoever else is in here. The light in the half-finished house is limited and I'm struggling to see anything. Someone's moving just ahead of me. I know there are at least three people in here but are there any more? The torch is switched on again.

    'Take it easy, mate,' one of them says. 'We're not going to hurt you.'

    I don't know if I believe him. I don't know if I believe anyone anymore.

    The figure holding the torch shines the light into their own face. It's a man, perhaps mid-to-late twenties. I know instantly that he's like me and that I'm safe with him. And if this man is no threat then the people who are with him are no threat either.

    'What's your name?' he asks.

    'Danny,' I tell him, 'Danny McCoyne.'

    'Been like this for long, love?' asks a woman's voice.

    'What?' I mumble back.

    'Been long since it happened?' she asks, rephrasing her question. I assume she's talking about what happened at home when I killed Harry and lost my family.

    'Few hours,' I mumble, my throat dry. 'Not sure…'

    'I'm Patrick,' the man holding the torch says, holding out his hand. I'm not sure whether he wants me to shake it or whether he's going to pull me up. I reach out and he helps me to stand. 'Happened to me three days ago,' he continues. 'Same for Nancy here. That's Craig,' he says, pointing the torch at the third person across the room. 'Yesterday afternoon, wasn't it, Craig?'

    'Just after dinner,' Craig answers. Patrick shines the torch at him but it only illuminates a small part of a huge expanse of belly. Craig is immense.

    'So what happened?' Nancy asks. 'Anyone close?'

    'My partner's dad,' I explain, feeling some sadness but no remorse or guilt over what I've done. 'He just turned on me. Thought he was going to kill me so I…'

    'Had to get him first?' she interrupts, finishing my sentence for me. My eyes are getting used to the darkness in the house now. I can see Nancy nodding and I immediately know that she completely understands what I had to do and why I had to do it, even if I'm still not sure myself. 'Everything will start to make more sense soon,' she tells me. 'I was just the same when it happened to me. Hated myself for doing it but I didn't have any choice. I'd been with John for almost thirty years and we'd hardly spent a day apart in all that time. It was just like someone had flicked a switch. I knew I had to do it.'

    This is in danger of turning into a comedy of errors. Have they all killed? I ask the question without realising I'm speaking out loud.

    'Suppose it just depends where you are when it happens,' Patrick says. 'Craig hasn't killed anyone yet, which is a surprise when you look at the size of the bugger!'

    Nancy takes up Craig's story.

    'Tried though, didn't you, love,' she sighs. In the circle of torchlight I see him nod. 'Bunch of them had you cornered at work, didn't they?'

    'I was picking orders in the warehouse with four of them,' the giant of a man explains in a surprisingly soft voice. 'Didn't know what was happening. I started on one of them but there were too many. They shut me in one of the offices but I managed to get out of a window. All I could do was run.'

    This conversation is bizarre and uncomfortably surreal. It only becomes believable again when I remember the fact that I've killed twice today. How could that be? Christ, until this morning I hadn't even hit anyone in temper, let alone killed them. Patrick passes me a bottle of water which I drink from thirstily.

    'What about you?' I ask him.

    'I killed,' he answers. 'Don't know who the guy was, I just had to do it like the rest of you. He was just stood there staring at me as I was getting into the car…'

    '…and?''

    'And I mowed him down. Started the engine, chased him down the street and I mowed him down. Pretty much wrote the car off too. Just kept driving along with him under the wheels. I didn't know what else to do. Tried to go back home but when I got there I saw that my girl was just like the rest of them and…'

    '…and you know the rest of the story,' Craig grumbles. 'You just have to do it, don't you?'

    'It feels like second nature,' Patrick says quietly. 'It's instinctive. It's animal instinct.'

    The room falls silent.

    'So what happens now?' I ask.

    'Who knows,' Nancy answers. 'My guess is we'll just keep killing each other until either we're all gone or they are. Crazy, isn't it?'

    It's hard to get my head round the fact that this woman (who looks like any other average wife / mother / daughter / sister / aunt) is talking so matter-of-factly about killing. In the days since she's changed she seems to have relinquished every aspect of her former life and is now prepared to kill to stay alive herself. At moments like this it all seems beyond belief. Nancy looks more likely to bake you a cake than kill you. I shake my head in bewilderment as Craig gets up and drags a wooden board across the open doorway, blocking out the last shards of light coming in from outside.

35

    'So how much of it have you worked out then?' Patrick asks. We're both upstairs in what was probably destined to be the master bedroom of the half-finished house, sitting with our backs to the recently plastered wall. The sky has cleared now and the moon is providing limited but welcome illumination through the grille over the window. I'm tired and I don't want to talk but I can't avoid answering his question.

    'Haven't got a bloody clue what's going on,' I answer honestly. 'This is as close as I've managed to get,' I say as I take the folded-up booklet from my bag and pass it to him. He scans the pages by the light of his torch and smiles wryly to himself.

    'Good stuff, this!' he laughs sarcastically.

    'Took it from a house I hid in,' I tell him. 'Doesn't say much.'

    'When did you last get anything from the government that did?'

    He shuts the booklet and throws it down onto the bare floorboards.

    'It's not like there's anyone you can ask about it, is there?' I say. 'I still don't know if anyone really knows what's happening.'

    'Someone knows,' he mutters, 'they must do. You can bet that from the second the first person changed, some government department somewhere has been analysing us and cutting up people like you and me and…'

    'Cutting up people?'

    'I'm exaggerating,' he continues, 'but you know what I'm saying, don't you? They'll have had a team of top scientists sitting in some lab somewhere working out what's happened to us. They'll be working on a cure.'