Them or Us

done anything wrong.”
    “They were still breathing, that’s wrong in my book.”
    “Then maybe you need a new book.”
    He gets up fast and charges across the room, slamming into me before I have a chance to react, shoving me hard against the wall, his hand wrapped around my throat.
    “Don’t push me,” he hisses in my face, tightening his grip. “I’m really not in the mood. I’ve had a bad couple of days.”
    “It didn’t have to be like this.”
    “Like what?”
    “You could have talked to Ankin. You could have tried to find some common ground.”
    “I didn’t get the chance. Anyway, the Unchanged are our common ground, or at least they were. Now it’s just every man for himself. It wouldn’t have mattered if I’d talked to Ankin for six fucking months and agreed with him on everything, the end result would have been the same.”
    “No it wouldn’t. There was no need for what you did.”
    He lets me go and takes a step back.
    “What I did? You fuckwit, Danny, I didn’t do anything. For the record, neither did Ankin. Lowestoft is dead today because Ankin’s appearance gave people a choice.”
    “What?”
    “I watched the whole thing from up on the roof once it kicked off. I always knew there was a chance it was going to happen. That was why I came down so hard on John Warner in Southwold last week. People always think the grass is greener on the other side, but it’s not. You have to take away the temptation. Everywhere you look now, everything is fucked. Word got around that Ankin had surrounded the town. Half the people panicked and tried to fight them off because they thought they were coming in to raid Lowestoft like we’ve raided everywhere else. The other half were throwing themselves at their mercy, thinking these assholes in their fucking uniforms with their fucking tanks were bringing them some kind of salvation. The people destroyed Lowestoft, not me and not Ankin. Granted, it would have been better if the stupid fucker hadn’t turned up like that, but that’s how it goes.”
    “I don’t understand. You just walked away from it all?”
    “From what? From a few hundred fighters who couldn’t take a shit without checking with me first? From a couple of thousand underclass who could barely function? Do you think any of that actually mattered?”
    “What about your breeding plan? The stuff that was going on at the factory? All the food you’d been storing?”
    “The storerooms were almost empty, and the factory was just a remnant from Thacker’s day, something to keep Rona Scott entertained and out of my hair. As for the hotel … that was just a way to keep people quiet and keep them occupied. You know, all that stuff you said after you came back from Southwold that time, you were absolutely right. The world is well and truly fucked, and the only thing that matters now is looking after number one. No amount of farming, fucking, or fighting is going to change anything, I’ve come to realize that. I stayed in Lowestoft because it was my best option until now, but it was never anything worth fighting for. I knew it wouldn’t last.”
    “What about your fighters?”
    “What about them? They can make their own choices. They’ve got brains—some of them, anyway. Those who haven’t will just go the way of the Brutes.”
    “What about you? What do you do now?”
    “Well, that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? And it depends on you. Like I said, I always knew something like this was probably going to happen sooner or later. Didn’t think it would be quite so fast, though.”
    “Wait, wait … what do you mean, it depends on me? What have I got to do with anything?”
    “You’ve got a plan, haven’t you? You weren’t just showing those foul fuckers downstairs around your house, were you? You must have had a damn good reason to risk bringing them here.”
    “I was giving them the food. I don’t need it.”
    “Bullshit. Where were they going to take it?”
    “How am I supposed to know?”
    He shoots out his arm and slams me back against the wall again, winding me.
    “Pissing me off is not a good idea, McCoyne. Tell me what you were planning.”
    “I’m not telling you anything. Listen, just kill me if it’ll make you feel better. I’ll be dead soon anyway.”
    He screws up his fist and pulls it back, and for a moment I brace myself, but he doesn’t hit me. In frustration, he turns around and kicks the abandoned board game across the