There’s a brief moment of silent, stunned disbelief, then all hell breaks loose.
The powerful pit digger from yesterday is the first person to react. He charges at Curtis but is killed as quickly and as easily as Warner. Another fighter comes up behind him and cracks him around the side of the head with a baseball bat, almost decapitating him. Perhaps it’s because I wasn’t expecting it, but even after all I’ve seen and done myself, this sudden brutal violence shocks me to such an extent that I can hardly move.
“Round them up,” Curtis yells to the rest of the fighters. “Take anything worth having and burn the rest. Kill anyone who gets in the way.”
Is this my fault? Even though I’m starting to think that Hinchcliffe sent me here just to find an excuse for him to demonstrate his obvious strength and superiority, I can’t help wondering if it could have been avoided if I’d handled him differently. If I’d told him everything was okay and that Warner was one hundred percent on his side, would he have let Southwold be? Who the hell am I kidding? The more I think about it, the more I realize that, yet again, I’ve been Hinchcliffe’s patsy and he’s played me like a pawn on a chessboard. Screw the fucking lot of them, I tell myself as I run downstairs and look for a way out of the bank. Not my problem.
I head for the back of the bank, squeezing down a narrow corridor past the open door of an unlocked vault, and I curse myself for picking such an impregnable hiding place. It seemed sensible last night, and the security was welcome, but every window here is either barred or shuttered, and the only other exit is a solid-looking, metal-clad fire door that I’ll never be able to get open. I have no choice but to go back out onto the street.
I slip out through the front door and press myself tight against the outside wall, doing all I can to fade into the background. The village square is in utter chaos now, the remaining population of Southwold scattering in panic as Hinchcliffe’s troops turn on them. I see Jill, the work party leader from yesterday, struggling to load and fire a rifle with trembling hands. She lifts it up, but before she can even get her finger on the trigger, a fighter chops into her side with an axe. Dumbstruck, I stand there like an idiot as Hinchcliffe’s men grapple the locals to the ground, then force those still alive into the trucks that will ferry them back to Lowestoft. Our inglorious leader has obviously decided that having people living here outside his direct jurisdiction is an unacceptable risk. But Christ, did he really need to react like this? A woman is hit with a riot baton when she won’t cooperate, winded first, then bludgeoned around the side of the head. Semiconscious, she’s left on the ground close to Warner’s body, blood pooling around her face, cheekbone shattered and skin split, her eyes moving but nothing else. She looks straight at me …
Spencer, one of Hinchcliffe’s men, comes at me with a crowbar. I see him coming, but I’m stunned, too slow to move. A tall, sinewy black kid in his early twenties, the sick bastard grins with excitement as he sprints toward me, high on the thrill of the fight. He swings out wildly, and at the last possible second I manage to react. I lean over to one side and the crowbar misses me. I feel the rush of wind and hear it whoosh through the air as it whistles just inches past my ear. He lunges at me again, fired up with the adrenaline rush of battle, intoxicated by the sudden release of long-suppressed frustrations.
“Wait!” I shout at him. “Spencer, don’t. I’m on your side. Hinchcliffe sent me here.”
He doesn’t recognize me, probably doesn’t even hear me, and he swings the crowbar through the air again, this time catching me hard on my right shoulder. My padded backpack strap absorbs some of the impact, and I drop to my knees, landing close to the dismembered remains of yet another dead Southwold resident. I scramble back up and run for cover, the fighter still in close pursuit. I weave around the hood of a reversing truck with him gaining fast. I break right, desperate to shake him but knowing I can’t keep this speed up for long, then run straight into another one of them who blocks my path. Now I’m really fucked. I drop to the ground and cover my head, anticipating a barrage of strikes.
“Not this one,” a familiar voice says. I cautiously look up, still expecting to be clubbed, and see that it’s Llewellyn. He reaches down and pulls me up onto my feet like I’m a half-stuffed rag doll.
“What’s going on?” I ask him, gasping for breath and desperately trying not to start coughing again.
“What do you think’s going on? Just carrying out the boss’s orders,” he answers abruptly.
“But this is fucking madness.”
“You tell him,” Llewellyn says, looking me straight in the eye. “I’m just doing what I’m told,” he says again. “Now get in the truck or I’ll personally beat seven shades of shit out of you.”
Relieved, I start to do as he says but then stop.
“Wait, Hinchcliffe’s car. I left it just outside town. He’ll want it back.”
Llewellyn looks at me for a second, then nods his head. “Go and get it, then get yourself straight back to Lowestoft. Any fucking around and you’ll have me to answer to. Right?”
I don’t need to be told twice. I start running, though I’m not sure which direction I need to take, just desperate to get away. I glance back as I run and see that the center of Southwold has quickly degenerated into a depressingly familiar sight. Broken bodies are scattered across the pavement, the dead and dying side by side, and there are people fighting and running in all directions like a scene from any one of a hundred battles I’ve seen before. Except this battle is different because there are no Unchanged here. It makes me feel ashamed, responsible almost. I’m ashamed because of my connection with the man behind this bloodshed, and equally ashamed because all they’re doing is the same thing I’ve done countless times before. A different class of target, that’s all.
I hear the smashing of glass and see a sudden flash of flame, brilliant yellow lighting up the early morning gloom. It’s the hotel. Hinchcliffe’s men are firebombing it. So that’s his tactic this morning—eliminate the figurehead in charge of Southwold, take anything and anyone of value, then do enough damage to render the village uninhabitable. That will leave the survivors of the massacre with only one remaining option: It’s Lowestoft or nothing.
15
I MOVE QUIETLY THROUGH the courthouse, determined to get in and out quick and without being seen. Hardly anyone’s here. There’s an unexpected but very welcome lack of fighters in the building. Most of them are still in Southwold, I guess, reveling in the chaos. I can picture them all in the middle of the carnage like a fucking lower-league rugby team on tour; drunk on violence, smashing the place up, stealing food and weapons, bragging to each other about their best kills … fucking morons.
I leave the radio on a desk in the courtroom. It should be okay there. Anderson’s bound to be around here somewhere, and he’ll know what to do with it. I’ve left radios here before and—
“You okay, Danny?”
Startled, I turn around and see Hinchcliffe standing right behind me. My heart sinks with disappointment and my stomach knots with nerves. I was hoping I’d gotten away with it, but this sly bastard never misses a trick. This was the exact situation I was hoping to avoid—me alone with Hinchcliffe. Much as I want to bolt for the door and disappear, I know I can’t. He beckons me through to his room, and I have no choice but to follow.
“You did good in Southwold,” he says as we walk.