Them or Us

dead.”
    “Which part of this don’t you understand, you fucking moron?” Tracey asks. “If we don’t kill him, he’ll kill us.”
    Farther down the pier, Hinchcliffe is checking each of the wooden buildings in turn, kicking down doors and hunting for the Unchanged.
    “The first person I killed,” I tell all of them, shouting to make myself heard over their nervous voices and the sound of the wind battering this exposed shack, “was my father-in-law. And do you know why I did it? You want to know what made me kill Harry and the hundreds of other people I went on to kill after him? I killed them all because I thought that if I didn’t, they’d kill me. Do you understand that? People like me killed people like you because we thought we had to do it before you killed us. Does that make any sense? It doesn’t to me. Almost a year further on and I still don’t understand why. But does it sound familiar? It should, because you’re saying exactly the same thing now. Kill him before he kills us. It doesn’t have to be this way. You can put an end to it today.”
    The door at the other end of this narrow building flies open, and Gary, the badly scarred man, rushes outside, armed with a length of metal tubing. He runs back toward Hinchcliffe to try to head him off, but the poor naive bastard is still shackled with the uncertainty of being Unchanged. Instead of immediately attacking, he stops short and wildly swings at Hinchcliffe, who deflects one glancing blow, then catches the end of the pipe as it comes toward him again. Even injured he has more strength than this single, malnourished Unchanged. With each of them holding on to one end of the metal tubing, Hinchcliffe uses his weight and power advantage to swing Gary around into the railings along the edge of the pier. His body visibly rattles, and he screams with agony, then drops to his knees. Before anyone else can react, Hinchcliffe lays into him, beating him to a bloody pulp with ferocious speed, then lifting up his battered frame and pushing it over the side of the pier, down into the freezing waves below.
    “Get them out of here, Joseph,” I yell as panic spreads quickly through the group. He does as I say, herding the rest of the Unchanged as a single mass out through the door at the far end of this narrow space, then trying to usher them back down along the other side of the wooden buildings. I instinctively check that the children are safe. A woman is carrying Peter Sutton’s grandson, and someone else has got Chloe on his back. I see the boy Jake’s head deep in the middle of the throng.
    “Keep moving and keep safe,” I yell after them. They’re all that’s left now.
    I exit through the other door. Hinchcliffe’s staggering toward this building. I block his way forward, hoping to buy the others a little time. He stops and rocks back on his heels, panting hard.
    “Just let them go, Hinchcliffe,” I tell him, knowing my words will probably have little effect. “What difference does it make to you whether they live or die? There are so few of them left. There are so few of us left. Just let them go.”
    “You know I can’t do that,” he says, lurching closer. “You shouldn’t be able to, either.”
    He clumsily tries to sidestep me, but I move, too, and he just slumps against me, exhausted, his sudden weight almost knocking me over. He tries to push past, but I won’t let go.
    “Are you scared of them? Do you think a few starved Unchanged are that much of a threat to you? Christ, Hinchcliffe, some of them are just kids.”
    “It makes no difference.”
    “Just walk away. I’ll come with you. We’ll go wherever you want. Start again somewhere like you said. Let’s just end this today.”
    “I’ll end it, Danny, and I don’t need your help anymore.”
    “But can’t you see? The fighting is the cause of all of this, not the solution.”
    Hinchcliffe grabs at my collar and flips me over, slamming me down onto my back and winding me. I can hardly breathe. He starts to move away, and I roll over and reach out to try to catch him but I’m too slow and I watch helplessly as he strides farther down the pier. I crawl over to the handrail and pull myself back up onto my feet. Up ahead, Hinchcliffe takes my pistol from his pocket and starts firing indiscriminately at the Unchanged. Two shots go nowhere; the third hits one of them in the leg. A woman collapses in agony. Suddenly inspired, he surges toward her without mercy. She’s