Dog Blood Part 6

"What's her name?" Mark asked finally.

Another pause, almost as if he were having to dredge his memory for the answer.

"Mary."

"Your date of birth?"

No answer. Graeme seemed to be looking past Mark now, gazing into s.p.a.ce. Waste of f.u.c.king time Waste of f.u.c.king time, Mark thought to himself. He's gone again. What's the point? He's gone again. What's the point?

"Wait there," he told him, although he knew the man wasn't going anywhere. He got up from his chair and walked across the dark tent to another table, where he added the couple's names to a register and entered the same names against the next available address in another file. He wrote out the details on a slip of paper and took it back, wondering if anyone was ever going to collect the files and update the Central System. When he and Kate had first started volunteering, the system had been updated religiously by a dedicated team tasked with keeping the information as accurate as was humanly possible. Now, whether it was because of a lack of functioning computers, a lack of trained operators, or any one of a hundred possible other reasons, the system seemed to be falling apart as quickly as everything else.

Mark handed the slip of paper to Graeme. He took it but didn't look at it.

"Take that to the next tent," Mark told him, unsure if there was anyone left working there tonight. "Those are your billet details. The people next door will give you ration papers. When you're finished there, they'll send you to the food store. They'll give you something to eat if there's anything left-"

He stopped speaking. Neither of them was listening. Poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds were barely even conscious. They didn't know where they were, who he was, what he was doing, what he was trying to tell them ... Graeme and Mary Reynolds didn't move. He looked long and hard into their empty, vacant faces and wondered, as he now did with increasing and alarming regularity, why he was bothering. What was the point? When the fighting's over When the fighting's over, he thought, will we ever return to any kind of normality? Or have we gone too far for that? Is this as good as it's ever going to get? All trust, hope, and faith gone forever ... nothing left but fear and hate will we ever return to any kind of normality? Or have we gone too far for that? Is this as good as it's ever going to get? All trust, hope, and faith gone forever ... nothing left but fear and hate.

Mark stood up, took Graeme's arm, waited for his wife, and then led them to the next tent. Without even stopping to see if there was anyone there, he grabbed his coat and the heavy wrench he always carried with him for self-defense and left. He went out into the rain and walked, determined not to stop again until he was back in the hotel room with Kate and the others.

13.

I WAKE UP STRETCHED out on the threadbare living room carpet of the apartment we broke into last night. I ache like h.e.l.l, but I slept pretty well considering. Our position midway up the high-rise has kept us out of sight, separated by height from the rest of town. The apartment is filled with dark shadows and the dull blue-gray light of early morning. It's raining outside, and the rain clatters against the gla.s.s like someone's throwing stones. out on the threadbare living room carpet of the apartment we broke into last night. I ache like h.e.l.l, but I slept pretty well considering. Our position midway up the high-rise has kept us out of sight, separated by height from the rest of town. The apartment is filled with dark shadows and the dull blue-gray light of early morning. It's raining outside, and the rain clatters against the gla.s.s like someone's throwing stones.

Paul's asleep in an armchair in the corner of the room, looking up at the ceiling with closed eyes, his head lolling back on his shoulders. Carol's curled up on the floor near his feet. I get up and stretch, looking around the dull room in daylight for the first time. The decor's badly dated, and the entire apartment's in a h.e.l.l of a state as aresult of its owner's self-imposed incarceration, but it still feels strangely complete and untouched-isolated to a surprising extent from everything that's happened outside. I glance at my monochrome reflection in a long-silent TV, then pick up a framed photograph that still sits on top of the set. It's a twenty- or thirty-year-old wedding day memory. The guy's just about recognizable as the man from last night. His bride is the corpse next door.

I find Keith in the kitchen with a map spread out on a small Formica-topped table.

"All right?" he asks as I trudge toward him, eyes still full of sleep.

"Fine. You?"

He nods and returns his attention to the map.

"We'll get moving in a while," he announces. "It's all quiet out there for now."

I look down at the map with him and start trying to work out the best route to Lizzie's sister's house. The same two circles representing the edge of the enemy encampment and their exclusion zone have been drawn on this map as on the one Preston showed me yesterday. Except the lines are in slightly different positions on this map. According to this, Lizzie's sister's house is just inside enemy territory. I point to roughly where the house is and look across at Keith.

"That's where we need to go."

"That's where you think you need to go," he answers quickly. "That's where we're going to try to go, but I'm not promising anything. We're out here to find recruits. If we get your kid it's a bonus."

"I know, but-"

"But nothing. We'll head in that direction and see how far we get."

"Is he still going on about that d.a.m.n kid of his?" Carol says as she shuffles into the kitchen, bleary-eyed. She drags her feet across the sticky linoleum and lights up the first cigarette of the day.

"I've already told him," Keith starts to say, trying (and failing) to stop her from getting involved.

"You've got to let her go," she tells me, blowing smoke in my direction.

"No I don't-"

"Yes you do. What's the point of looking for her? What are you going to do if you find her?"

"I just want to know that she's safe. I want her fighting alongside me."

"And if you don't find her?"

"Then I guess I'll..."

"a.s.suming she's still alive, what'll happen if you don't find her?"

"She'll just carry on fighting wherever she is."

"Exactly. So what difference does it make?"

"She needs me. She's only five."

"I reckon you need her more than she needs you."

"Bulls.h.i.+t!"

"Not bulls.h.i.+t," she says, shaking her head and flicking ash into a sink filled with dirty plates and cups. "I doubt she needs you at all."

Stupid woman.

"Did you not hear me? She's five years old. I don't even know if she can fight-"

"Of course she can fight. We can all fight. It's instinctive."

"Okay, but what about food? What about keeping warm in the winter and dry in the rain? What if she gets hurt?"

"She'll survive."

"She'll survive?! For Christ's sake, Carol, she can't even tie her own f.u.c.king shoelaces!"

Keith folds up his map and pushes his way between us, clearly fed up with being caught in the crossfire of our conversation. I shake my head in disbelief and follow him.

"You need to wake up and start living in the real world," Carol shouts after me. There's no point arguing, so I don't.

We're back in the van and ready to move within minutes of Paul waking up. The rain has eased, but the ground is still covered with puddles of dirty black rainwater that hide the potholes and debris and make it even more difficult to follow the roads than it was in the dark last night. Keith manages to avoid most of the obstructions, but when he oversteers to avoid an overturned trash can, one of the rear wheels clips something else. We go a few more yards, and then there's a sudden bang and hiss of air as a tire blows out.

"s.h.i.+t!" Keith curses, thumping the wheel in frustration.

"Got a spare?" I ask.

"No idea."

He stops in the biggest patch of dry land we can find, and I get out. Paul follows me out and opens the back. He rummages around and manages to find the jack and other tools. The spare's underneath. He starts to get it out. While I'm waiting I walk over to the other side of the road to where the contents of someone's front room have been strewn across the pavement. Their flat-screen TV lies smashed in the gutter, and an expensive-looking rain-soaked sofa hangs precariously out of the broken bay window. Before all this happened we each lived in relative privacy in individual brick-built boxes, what we did and how we did it hidden from view of the rest of the world by our walls, doors, and windows. Strange how the physical worlds of so many people are now as dilapidated and ruined as their emotional state. There's no privacy anymore, no boundaries. Everything we do is in full view and exposed. There's no longer any- "McCoyne!" Carol shouts at me from the van. "Get out of the f.u.c.king way!"

I spin around quickly, but it's too late. Christ knows where he came from, but a powerful-looking man is running straight toward me. He's six foot tall and just as wide, and I can tell from the focus and intent in his wild, staring eyes that he's a Brute like those I saw back at the cull site. Does he not know we're on the same side?

"Wait," I try to say to him, "we're-"

His bulk belies his remarkable speed, and before I can move he's grabbed hold of my arm. He spins me around, then throws me over and slams me down onto my back. I'm already winded and gasping when he drops down onto my chest, his knees forcing the air from my lungs with a violent cough. I try to shout for help, but there's no noise coming.

"Get off him, you f.u.c.king idiot," I hear Paul say. I manage to turn my head to the side and watch as he starts. .h.i.tting the Brute with part of the jack from the van. The Brute doesn't react, barely even notices that he's being hit. He bears down on me, a bizarre mix of terror and excitement on his face.

"Like you," I manage to squeak. "I'm like you."

Working together, Paul and Carol pull him away. They drag him back, drop him on his backside, then scatter like they've just lit the fuse on a stick of dynamite. I try to scramble away, moving back until I hit the wall of the house behind me. The Brute springs up with a low, guttural, warning growl and looks at each of us in turn. Then, painfully slowly, realization seems to dawn. He looks from Paul to Carol to me again. Paul moves toward him with the jack, ready to attack. Carol pulls him back.

"Don't aggravate him," she hisses. "Just drop it and walk away. He doesn't know what he's doing."

Paul does as he's told, dropping the heavy metal tool, which clatters loudly on the ground. Carol stands motionless as the Brute looks her up and down, her back pressed up against the van. Then he slowly turns and slopes away. He's barely made ten yards when something else catches his eye and he breaks into a slow, loping run.

"What the h.e.l.l was that all about?" I ask as I pick myself up.

"No f.u.c.king idea," Paul answers as he returns his attention to changing the tire. I watch the Brute until he's disappeared from view. Did he think I was one of them, or was I just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Did he see me and think I was Unchanged? Are the Brutes really like us, or was he reacting to a difference between us?

14.

THE HEAT AND DAMP have combined to make the world stink more than ever this morning-the relentless, choking, suffocating stench of decay combined with overflowing drains and Christ knows what else. Other than the noise of this tired old van, everything is generally quiet, but the fragile silence is frequently interrupted by sudden bursts of noise: the Unchanged military moving and attacking, distant fighting, a scream as someone is hunted down and killed, the smas.h.i.+ng of gla.s.s and the crumbling of collapsed buildings, the pained howl of a starving animal searching for food ... The constant, smothering noise of the engine is unexpectedly welcome. It drowns out everything else. have combined to make the world stink more than ever this morning-the relentless, choking, suffocating stench of decay combined with overflowing drains and Christ knows what else. Other than the noise of this tired old van, everything is generally quiet, but the fragile silence is frequently interrupted by sudden bursts of noise: the Unchanged military moving and attacking, distant fighting, a scream as someone is hunted down and killed, the smas.h.i.+ng of gla.s.s and the crumbling of collapsed buildings, the pained howl of a starving animal searching for food ... The constant, smothering noise of the engine is unexpectedly welcome. It drowns out everything else.

I'm traveling in the front with Keith now, giving him directions. I'm trying to concentrate, but I'm distracted by the fact that a pub I used to occasionally drink in has disappeared-there's now just an unexpected gap and a pile of blackened rubble on the street where it used to be-and for a second I don't realize the significance of where we are. Then it dawns on me.

"Stop!"

"What's the problem?" he says, slowing down but not stopping.

"No problem. Take a left here."

He does as I say.

Carol leans forward from the back. "Trouble?"

"The kids' school," I explain. "They used to go to the school down here. My missus worked here, too."

"So?"

"So if I was in Ellis's shoes and I couldn't go back home, school might be the next best option."

"Worth a look since we're here," Keith reluctantly agrees, "but if there's nothing here we move on quick, and so do you."

The school is tucked away behind a church and a row of stores and offices. In the morning light everything looks a little more familiar than it did yesterday, but a little more mutated and alien, too. Windows are smashed, doors hang open, and there's evidence of fighting almost everywhere I look. The road ahead is blocked by the rusting wreck of a car that has mounted the pavement and crashed into a bus shelter. Its heavily decayed Unchanged driver has been thrown-or dragged-through the shattered winds.h.i.+eld. Looks like he was attacked as he tried to get away. His body is sprawled out over the crumpled hood of the car, his blue-tinged skin slashed and sliced by jagged shards of gla.s.s. His right shoulder is a gnarled stump of ripped flesh and protruding bone. The rest of his arm is missing. Keith mounts the curb and gently steers the van through a narrow gap, sc.r.a.ping against a wall with a vile, high-pitched grating noise. I look down as we drive over another, equally mutilated body. Whoever fought here was vicious. Probably more of those Brutes.

"Turn right down here. Down the alleyway next to the church."

He does as I say, driving the van slowly down the narrow track that leads into the school grounds. I glance over the low stone wall to my left and see that there are several more bodies in the church graveyard, none of them in one piece. Some are badly decayed, others relatively fresh. I hold my favored knife tight in my hand, ready to attack or defend myself if the need arises. Even though I'm certain whoever did this was on our side, the brutality and savagery of these kills is remarkable. Keith drives through the empty teachers' parking lot and stops outside the main school gate.

"Holy s.h.i.+t," Paul says from the back. "What happened here?"

He jumps out and walks over to the wire-mesh fence that surrounds the small rectangular playground. I follow him and immediately see that the violence so apparent out on the streets has spread closer to the school, too. The enclosed asphalt play area is completely covered with a virtual patchwork quilt of body parts. I press my face against the tall fence, which bizarrely makes the playground look like some kind of caged gladiatorial arena. I look down at the ground, and in the few clear s.p.a.ces between the dead I can still see brightly painted markings: hopscotch, snakes and ladders, oversized letters and numbers ... I look up again and remember this place as it used to be, filled with a couple of hundred kids in their identical school uniforms, laughing and playing and- "Brutes?" Keith shouts from the van, derailing my train of thought.

"Doubt it," Paul answers quickly. "Why would they be here? More to the point, why would anyone still be here?"

"Unchanged hideout?" I suggest. "Think someone gate-crashed an evacuation?"

I crouch down to look closer at some of the nearest corpses. It's impossible to be sure because of the extreme level of mutilation and deterioration, but all the dead faces I see here seem to be Unchanged.

I push open the gate, and we start walking down toward the entrance to the school, leaving Carol and Keith guarding the van. The ground's much clearer here. In fact, it looks pretty much like it used to when we used to walk the kids down to cla.s.s. Paul nudges me. I look up and see a sudden flash of frantic movement up ahead as a small figure darts along the side of the building, then jumps down off a low brick wall and disappears inside. I sprint down the path after it and shove the still swinging door open. I push my way inside, then stop suddenly, recoiling at the obnoxious stench that immediately hits me. I can smell human waste, rotting food, and other even worse odors.

I kick my way through the rubbish covering the floor of the small reception area. Directly in front of me is the door to the main a.s.sembly hall. To my left are what used to be the staff rooms and offices, and to my right a short flight of steps and a corridor that leads down to the cla.s.srooms. My eyes are slowly adjusting to the lack of light in here. What used to always be a bright place full of noise, energy, and life is now just as dark and dead as everywhere else, and it's a stark contrast to what I remember. There's a display on the wall with photographs of the teachers and kids, and I force myself not to look for Ellis's, Edward's, and Lizzie's faces.

"There," Paul whispers, pointing down toward the cla.s.srooms. There's another shadowy blur of fleeting movement as something dashes from one room to another. I race down toward a cla.s.sroom and push the door open, but I'm immediately sent flying back as something hurls itself at me with unexpected force and lightning speed. I slide across the floor on my backside and struggle to fight off a fast-moving attacker that grabs hold of my neck and starts to squeeze. Can't tell if it's claws or teeth I feel digging into my flesh. I try to lift my knife and fight, but before I can even raise my arm another one of them dives on top of me and bites my hand until I drop the weapon. I feel the sharp pinp.r.i.c.k of another blade being forced up under my chin, almost breaking skin, then feel more small but savage hands grabbing both of my feet and my other arm and holding me down and then ... and then they stop. One by one, Paul pulls them off me. My heart pounding, I scramble back across the floor, stopping only when I reach the wall and can't go any farther back. I pick myself up and see there's a crowd of seven children of various sizes and ages standing in front of me. They stare back, immediately losing interest when they realize we're all on the same side. They slowly scatter and trudge back into the cla.s.sroom. Paul and I follow them at a cautious distance.

"None of these your daughter?"

"Can't see her," I answer, still panting after the attack. I look around the room into a succession of pallid faces. Some of the children crawl away under desks, leaving only the biggest kids out in the open. They look like they've been here for some time, living in what used to be their cla.s.sroom. Tables and chairs have been shoved to the sides of the room, the wood-tiled floor now covered in litter and discarded clothing. Random sc.r.a.ps of material have been used as bedding, and in the far corner wisps of smoke climb up from the ashes of a fire built from torn-up textbooks. The room is in a horrendous condition. It smells like a toilet and feels like a slum, but if I look past the dirt, the bruises, the blood, and the other stains and marks on the faces of these kids, they look completely fresh and alive. Their eyes are bright and full of life.

There's a boy who looks about the same age as my son Edward, squatting on top of what used to be the teacher's desk. If he came to this school they'd probably have been cla.s.smates, but I don't recognize him. He's digging into the wood with the tip of a fearsome-looking knife. I automatically go to tell him not to, but I stop myself-it doesn't matter, and he's not going to listen to me anyway. It's already clear that these kids do what they like, when they like. That's probably how they've managed to survive.

"I'm looking for my daughter."

He shrugs but doesn't say anything.

"Are there any other children here?"

Still no answer.

"This is a waste of time," Paul whispers. "We should just get these kids into the van and get out of here."

I'm not going anywhere until I've had some answers.