Them or Us

felt strangely appropriate. Directly in front of them was a large, odd-shaped concrete building with a faux-rock fascia and a large sign hung across its frontage announcing simply THE MINE . Its door had been roughly boarded up, like the windows of the house in a zombie movie where survivors were hiding, gaps between the overlapping planks for undead arms to reach through. McCoyne couldn’t tell whether the boards were real or just there for effect.
    Llewellyn, wearing a face mask and with a rifle now slung over his shoulder, flanked by similarly masked fighters on either side, addressed the volunteers.
    “Hinchcliffe figures we’ll find good pickings here,” he announced, voice muffled. “Places like this have been overlooked, not looted over and over like the towns. If you don’t bring me back as much stuff as you can carry, then you will be officially designated as being fucking useless and I will leave you here to rot. Understand?” No response, but no arguments either. Llewellyn continued. “And the quicker you move, the less chance there is you’ll get sick. There’s probably all kinds of nasty shit still hanging around in the air here.”
    Llewellyn’s second comment got more of a reaction than the first. Even the vaguest mention of radiation and poisoning was enough to cause concern in the underclass ranks. McCoyne couldn’t understand it. Why were they so stupid? He knew from what he’d seen and heard that Hinchcliffe certainly was no fool, so would he really have sent them here to collect poisoned food from a poisoned place? It was just scare tactics, designed to increase the tightness of the stranglehold grip he already had on the rest of the population. Was Danny the only one who could see him for what he was? Maybe they all realized but, like him, had chosen to keep their mouths shut rather than risk incurring Llewellyn’s wrath?
    The group split up. McCoyne kept his distance from everyone else, deliberately keeping to himself. If he didn’t collect enough stuff today, he was a dead man.
    “One hour maximum,” Llewellyn shouted, his voice echoing eerily across the empty theme park. “Tear this place apart, then let’s get out of here.”
    *   *   *
    More than three-quarters of the allotted hour gone and McCoyne knew he was in trouble. His bag was only slightly less empty than when he’d started hunting. He’d wasted time mooching around an abandoned zoo, trying to work out what each of the various piles of odd-shaped, oversized bones and mangy scraps of fur had once been. For a place Hinchcliffe had assumed would have provided rich pickings, there was hardly anything here. He had been right in one respect; the theme park hadn’t been trashed and torn apart like everywhere else. It was as if the food and supplies here had simply disappeared.
    Use your brain, he told himself, trying to stay calm and not panic. Think logically. He walked under a dried-up log flume, heading for a long and narrow wooden hut that spanned the space between where people would have lined up to get on the ride and where they would have gotten off—the place they’d have been slowly channeled through to buy low-quality, overpriced souvenir photographs of themselves screaming, and presented in tacky cardboard frames or printed onto mouse mats, key rings, hats, and mugs. None of this was helping. Put yourself in their shoes , he thought. Try to remember what it used to be like. I’d have gotten off this ride and I’d have been cold and wet and hungry  … He looked around and noticed the side wall of another shack facing out onto a lake with dark green, almost black water, which, he presumed, would have supplied the flume. Was this a café or something similar? There was no one else scavenging around here. This was his last chance. Christ, he hoped he’d open the door and find a previously undiscovered stock of food in this hut. Anything would do. Just something for him to hand in to Llewellyn …
    McCoyne was about to force the door of the building when he stopped. He could smell something. It stank like raw sewage. Was it just the stagnant lake? He leaned over an ornamental wall and peered down. On the muddy bank below him he could see (and smell) a glistening heap of shit being slowly washed away by the lapping water. It made his sensitive stomach turn, but he managed to keep control and not throw up. This didn’t make any sense. It looked like human waste, and there was far too much of it to be