Hater 1: Hater (23 page)

    'Lizzie got to her before me. Smacked me around the face with a bloody metal pipe. Next thing I knew she'd gone and taken all the kids with her.'

    Patrick shakes his head.

    'Too bad,' he mumbles. 'Hurts when you lose them, doesn't it?'

    I nod, but I don't know if he notices my response.

    'What about you?' I ask. 'You said something earlier about your partner…'

    He doesn't answer for a few long seconds.

    'Like I said, I managed to get back home after it happened. You know almost before you see them that they haven't changed, don't you? I did what I had to do.'

    I don't know what he means by that. Did he kill her? I quickly decide that it's probably not a good idea to ask. For a moment I think that's the end of the conversation but then Patrick speaks again.

    'Got it all wrong, didn't they?' he says.

    'What?'

    'The papers and the TV and all that,' he explains, 'made us out to be the villains of the piece, didn't they?'

    'To them we are.'

    'Made it out to be us that hated them…'

    'I never hated anyone,' I tell him, 'at least not like they said on the news.'

    In the moonlight I watch as Patrick nods knowingly. He's not stupid. He's spent the last three days thinking about what I've only had a few hours to try and understand.

    'Know what I think?'

    'What?' I reply, yawning.

    'They called us the Haters, because from their perspective all we're doing is attacking and killing. That's how it looked to me before I changed. You agree?'

    'Suppose.'

    'But the fact of the matter is that everybody hates. They're just as bad as we are. They want us dead as much as we want to get rid of them. You can feel the hate coming off them, can't you? Even if they're not capable of showing it like we are or dealing with it like we do, they want us dead. So all we're doing is protecting ourselves. You just know that you have to do it, don't you? You have to kill them before they get to you.'

    'We're as bad as each other then,' I suggest.

    'Maybe. Like I said everybody hates, we're just better at dealing with it than they are. We have to look after ourselves and if it means destroying them, then that's what we have to do.'

    'Problem is they feel exactly the same…'

    'I know. But they're not as physical or aggressive as we are and that's where we have the advantage. They don't move quickly enough. They'll pay the price eventually.'

    'So what is it that's changed?' I ask. 'And why now? Why has this happened to some of us and not others? Why has it happened at all?'

    'Now that's the big question, isn't it? That's the one I can't work out the answer to, and you can bet we won't find any clues in your bloody government brochure either.'

    'But what do you think's caused it?'

    'Don't know. I've come up with about a hundred possible explanations so far,' he chuckles, 'but they're all bullshit!'

    'Is it a disease? Have we caught something?'

    He shakes his head.

    'Maybe we have. The way I look at it there's two possible explanations. Either it is a virus or something like that, or maybe something has happened to everyone. People like you and me have been affected by it, the rest of them haven't changed at all.'

    'Something like what?'

    'I don't know… maybe someone put something in the water? Perhaps the planet's drifted through a cloud of bloody space gas or something! Maybe it's just evolution? Nature taking its course…'

    Patrick chuckles to himself again. The room then becomes silent and the quiet gives me chance to consider what he's just said. He could be right. If this was a virus or disease, surely more people would have been directly affected? Everything is so screwed up tonight that all of his disjointed and unsubstantiated theories sound plausible.

    'So how many people like us do you think there are?' I ask, knowing that he can't do anything other than guess at the answer.

    'No idea,' he replies. 'Last thing I remember hearing they were talking about a small minority of people, and that's what it says in your booklet here. But I think it's bigger than anyone's letting on. Chances are no-one knows how big it is.'

    'And how widespread? Surely this can't just be happening here?'

    'It spread up and down the country quickly enough, didn't it? So if one country's been affected…'

    '…then why not everywhere else?'

    'Exactly.'

    'So where does it end?'

    More silence.

    'Don't know. Don't even know if I want to think about it. We have to keep fighting to stay alive, and you can bet they're going to be doing exactly the same thing. So we can only keep running and keep killing,' he replies, 'because if we don't get them, they'll get us.'

    Patrick has finally shut up. I lie on the cold floor and try to sleep and rest my brain and my body. I can't stop thinking about Ellis. In the morning, I decide, I'll carry on towards Liz's sister's house and look for her there. I just pray that nothing happens before I reach her.

    In the morning I might risk taking a car for speed. I feel strong and calm and I'm prepared to walk the rest of the way but I'll be quicker driving, albeit much more exposed and vulnerable. It doesn't seem to matter now. What I'm doing feels so right. The life I've left behind seems more alien and unnatural with each passing minute. I wouldn't go back to it now, even if I had the choice. I just wish that Lizzie, Edward and Josh could be like Ellis and me.

    There's more noise outside. It's early in the morning - two or three o'clock I think - and there's a constant stream of sound coming from the middle of town. I can hear more trucks and helicopters. More patrols flushing people out. Whatever happens tomorrow I know I'll have to leave here. I don't want to stay in one place for too long. I'll keep moving until I find Ellis and then, when I've got her back, we'll run together. We'll find somewhere safe where there are more people like us, well away from those that hate us. And if we can't find anywhere safe then we'll kill and destroy as many of them as we have to. It's like the man said, we have to kill them before they kill us.

    I'll sleep now and make my move at first light.

    'Get out!' a terrified voice screams over a god-awful noise. 'For Christ's sake, get out of here!'

    I sit up quickly. My body aches from sleeping on the bare floorboards. The half-built house is filled with a deafening thumping sound. I run to the window and push my face against the grey metal grille, desperate to see outside. There's a helicopter hovering nearby. It's not directly over the building site but it's close enough and I know that it's people like us they're looking for. I look around and see that I'm alone. Patrick's gone but his stuff is still here.

    Shit. There's a truck at the end of the gravel track and soldiers are already piling out of the back of it and running towards these houses. I have to move. I grab my bag and head for the door. I can hear a loudhailer outside, someone shouting a warning about standing still and not moving and… gun fire. I run back to the window and look down again and now I can see Craig face down in a puddle of mud, a rifle-wielding soldier standing over his fallen bulk with his still smoking gun aimed at the back of his head. I can see Patrick and Nancy too, both trying to get away. More troops swarm around them quickly, cutting off their escape route as another truck arrives.

    I have to get away from here. Maybe I could get up into the loft space and hide or should I just try and make a run for it? Is it too high to jump down from one of the windows up here? I can't allow myself to get caught. I have to get out of here and get Ellis. Now I can hear footsteps downstairs. Loud, heavy, clunking footsteps. Christ, they probably already know I'm up here. I run towards one of the smaller back rooms and meet a masked soldier coming the other way. I try to push past him but the fucker punches me in the face and before I can react I'm flat on my back looking up at the ceiling. I try to stand up but rough hands grab my arms and I'm dragged downstairs. There's no point fighting I think as I try not to panic. My only option now is to wait until I'm outside and then try to run. But then I think of that poor bastard Craig, face down, riddled with bullets. Co-operate with them I decide, despite the fact that every single nerve, sinew and fibre of my body wants to fight these animals and destroy them.

    I'm dragged through the hallway and kitchen and then out of the building. They shove me towards the truck where Nancy and Patrick stand trembling. I trip and fall to my knees in the mud close to Patrick's feet.

    'Get up!' one of the soldiers screams in my ear and a hand grabs me by the scruff of my neck and pulls me up. Patrick looks at me. I see desperation, terror and frustration in his frightened eyes.

    What now, I think to myself? Come on, if you're going to kill me just do it. Let's get it over with. There are guns pointed at us, but surely they'd have shot us by now if they were going to? I look up at the nearest soldier. A dark visor obscures his eyes but I can sense the hate coming off him like the stench of decay. Two more uniformed figures emerge from the front of the first truck and walk towards us. One of them is carrying one of the flat computers I've seen them using before. The other has a smaller electronic device held in one hand. I can't see what it is. They move quickly. One of them shoves me back against the side of the truck while the other holds the small device up to my throat. There's a split-second hiss of air then I feel a sudden, stinging pain in the side of my neck like an insect bite. They let me go and turn their attention to Patrick then Nancy, doing exactly the same to both of them. Bizarrely they then use the machine on Craig's dead body.

    We stand in a line at the side of the truck, silent and not daring to move. The soldiers connect the handheld device to their computer and study the screen.

    'Well?' asks one of the other troops from a short distance away.

    'All of them,' the computer operator replies.

    'Any IDs?'

    'Just one, Patrick Crilley,' he says, pointing at him. Patrick looks anxiously from side to side. 'Can't match the others.'

    The first soldier turns away and makes a dismissive hand signal to the other troops who still surround us with their guns raised. I bite my lip and force myself not to react as one of them grabs my shoulder and pushes me towards the back of the truck.

    'In,' he grunts. I stand my ground and stare into his visor. Two more of them come at me from the side and, grabbing a leg each, they lift me up and shove me through a grubby tarpaulin cover and into the truck. I land flat on my face in the darkness and, before I can move, Patrick and Nancy land heavily on top of me. My face is pressed hard against the dirty floor and I'm shoved further down as the other two struggle to disentangle themselves from each other.

    'You're all right,' a voice that I don't recognise whispers from close to where I've fallen. 'You're with friends here.'

    Whoever's on top of me manages to drag themselves up onto their feet and I'm finally able to get up myself. I try and stand but the engine of the truck is started and the sudden lurching movement as it pulls away causes me to fall again. Someone helps me up and, for the first time, I'm able to look around. I count the dark shapes of seventeen other people in here including Patrick and Nancy. The light is poor but I know immediately that they're all like me. Seventeen men, women and children just like me.

    We've been driving for what feels like hours but I know it hasn't been anywhere near that long. We paused another five (might have been six) times to pick up more people but it's been a while since we last stopped. There are now twenty-eight of us in here I think. It's a relief to be with so many people like me but space is limited and it's hot and bloody uncomfortable in here. I assume the truck is full now, so where the hell are they taking us? My home and family and everything else that's gone seems a million miles away. I know that the distance between me and Ellis is increasing with every minute I spend trapped in this bloody truck.