Them or Us

more distinct. Is that Joseph Mallon?
    “Joseph?”
    “Lie still, Danny,” he says, his face distressingly haggard and hollow but his voice immediately recognizable. He gently rests his hand on my shoulder. “Tracey’s done what she could for you.”
    “Tracey?”
    “Our doctor. She’s cleaned your wounds as best she can, but you’re in a bad way.”
    I try to get up again, this time managing to prop myself up on my elbows. I slowly shuffle my broken body around and lean back against a wall. I lift my hands to my swollen face and pick dry blood from my eyes. I don’t know whether it’s the beating I’ve just taken, the drugs finally wearing off, or a combination of both, but I feel bad. Really bad. Worse than ever. There’s a woman watching me. Tracey, I presume. She storms out of the room.
    “If the stupid bastard won’t listen, there’s nothing I can do to help him.”
    Joseph acknowledges her, but I ignore her.
    “What happened?” I ask him, having to concentrate hard to make each word.
    “Peter knew something was going on out there. He heard all the engines and the planes and helicopters and saw the fighting in the distance. He’d been staying aboveground in the old farmhouse since yesterday, keeping a lookout. Then you showed up here, and all hell broke loose.”
    “The children. I had two kids with me…”
    “They’re safe in the back rooms with the others. Where did you find them, Danny? Are there more?”
    “It’s a long story that you really don’t want to hear,” I answer, catching my breath as a wave of pain washes over me. “And no, they’re the last.”
    “Well, maybe I would like to hear that story one day, but not today. Today we have problems to solve first. Really big problems.”
    “Where’s Peter?”
    Joseph moves to one side. Lying on the floor on the opposite side of the room is a body under a bloodstained sheet.
    “Shit.”
    “Poor bastard got caught in all that shooting. They got him before Dean could get them.”
    Mallon passes me a bottle of water. I swill some around in my mouth, then spit it out to clear the blood. I drink a little, and its icy temperature seems to wake my body and makes me feel slightly more alive. I try to focus on my surroundings. The boy Jake is standing in the doorway watching me, hiding behind Parker.
    “What’s happening out there, Danny?” Mallon asks.
    I look straight at him. “I didn’t tell anyone about you, if that’s what you think.”
    “I didn’t say that.”
    “It’s nothing you haven’t heard before,” I tell him. “Just the same old same old.”
    “What?”
    “You were right, you know, back then at the convent. All those things you used to say about not fighting and making a stand and trying to break the cycle. I thought you were a fucking crank at the time, but you were right.”
    “I don’t follow. What’s that got to do with today?”
    “We’re imploding. What’s left of the human race is tearing itself apart up there, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it. The last army in the country is marching on the last town in the country, and there’s probably very little of either of them left by now. It’s like you said, every man for himself. The thing is, the less there is left to fight for, the higher the stakes seem to get.”
    “That still doesn’t explain what you’re doing out here, or how you came to have these children with you.”
    “I made a decision a while back, before I knew you were here in this place, in fact. I decided I’d had enough of fighting, had enough of everything. I was trying to get away. The kids were just a complication.”
    “I don’t believe that.”
    “Believe what you like. I couldn’t leave them out there on their own, so I was just delivering them to you before I fucked off for good. That’s what I’m still planning to do.”
    “Well, that might not be so easy now.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because of our position. They know where we are now, Danny. They’ve seen us here. We’re up shit creek without a paddle, and we need your help.”
    Why can’t everybody just leave me be?
    “I’m past helping. I’m tired of being used. It just gets me deeper and deeper into the mire and doesn’t do anyone any good. I’m sick and I’m dying, Joseph, and I just want to be left alone. There are enough of you here to be able to look after yourselves.”
    “You know that’s not true. We can’t do it without help, and it’s up to you now that Peter’s gone.