Them or Us

from just one person, so was this from an emptied-out slop bucket? Judging by the height it had been dropped from and the splatter pattern, that was the only logical explanation. Would one person have repeatedly used the same bucket? Wouldn’t they have just come here to shit and saved themselves the hassle? So, he decided, unless Llewellyn has passed around a communal bucket for everyone to crap in while I’ve been out here alone, this is probably from another group of people—and if they’re hiding in a place like this, then there’s every chance they’re Unchanged.
    “Ten minutes,” Llewellyn bellowed from the courtyard. McCoyne had to move fast.
    “Found anything?” a voice asked, startling him. He turned around and saw it was the stooping man he’d spoken to earlier.
    “Nothing,” he answered.
    “Anything in there?” the man asked, gesturing at the shack McCoyne had been about to investigate.
    “Empty,” he answered quickly, lying to protect his potential find. “Look, do me a favor, will you. Go tell Llewellyn that I think there have been Unchanged here.”
    “Unchanged? Are you out of your fucking mind? Don’t you think we’d have found them by now?”
    “Don’t bother, then. Suit yourself.”
    The other man turned his back on McCoyne and walked away, shaking his head and mumbling under his breath. “Fucking idiot…”
    Whether he told Llewellyn or not wasn’t important. As soon as he’d gone, McCoyne opened the door of the small wooden building and disappeared inside. He’d been right: It was some sort of café, as empty as everywhere else. It had been stripped clean. A deep-fat fryer in the small kitchen was filled with rancid, congealed oil, but the cooler cabinets and vending machines were empty. Even the packets of sauce and other condiments had been taken. He found one small packet of mustard, which he ripped open and sucked clean while he continued to investigate. There was another door at the back of the kitchen. It opened outward six inches, but no farther. It was chained shut from the other side. He quickly took off his pack, then dropped to his hands and knees, lay on his side, and squeezed through the gap. It was tight, but he was desperately thin now, and once his shoulders were through, the rest of him followed easily. On the other side he pulled his backpack through, then picked himself up and looked around. He was in a triangular-shaped patch of open space with the shack behind him and another similar-sized building adjacent. On the third side was a wire-mesh fence and, beyond that, another part of the forest they’d walked through to get here. He headed for the other hut but paused before going inside, sure he could hear movement. Probably another one of the scavengers, he told himself. He lifted his hand to pull the door but then staggered back with surprise as it was kicked open from the other side. An emaciated man came at him with a knife. Similar in height and age to McCoyne, clothes flapping around his wiry frame, McCoyne knew immediately that he was Unchanged. He felt himself tensing up inside and reached for the knife in his belt but then stopped at the last possible second. Hold the Hate , he silently ordered himself, there might be more of them . He lifted his hands in mock surrender. The Unchanged man, obviously terrified, took a couple of steps back. It occurred to McCoyne that the longer this unexpected standoff continued, the less obvious it would be that he was going to rip the fucker’s head from his shoulders any second now. He could almost see the man’s mind working behind his frightened, constantly moving eyes. If he hasn’t killed me yet, he was thinking, then he can’t be one of them.
    Turn this around , McCoyne told himself. Play the victim .
    “Help me,” he said quietly. “They’re here. If we don’t get out of sight they’ll kill us.”
    “Who are you?” the man croaked, his voice barely audible. “How did you get here?”
    McCoyne was struggling to come up with a plausible response when he heard Llewellyn shouting again, calling them back to the trucks. He didn’t have long.
    “They’re coming,” he said. “Loads of them. Two trucks full. They followed me here. We need to get under cover.”
    The man stood his ground for what felt like an eternity, eyeing McCoyne up and down and trying to make sense of the situation. McCoyne forced himself to stay still and not react, all the time knowing that he should finish this