Them or Us

into the hierarchy today. I quickly come to the same conclusion I reach whenever I think about it: I don’t. Sometimes, I don’t know if I want to. Even before the war I felt out of step with everyone else. Now I struggle to believe we’re all part of the same species.
    I reach the cordon and hammer on the gate with my fist.
    “Who is it?” someone shouts.
    “Danny McCoyne,” I answer back. “Hinchcliffe wants to see me.”
    A narrow hatch is opened and a fighter stares out at me, checking I’m who I say I am. There’s never any delay when I mention the big man’s name. The hatch closes again; then the gate immediately starts to open, and I’m pulled through as soon as the gap’s wide enough. It’s slammed the moment I’m inside.
    I head up what used to be Lowestoft’s main shopping street toward the courthouse building, where Hinchcliffe bases himself, avoiding the foul-smelling piles of rubbish that are steadily encroaching on either side of the narrowing road. The atmosphere is different on this side of the barriers. Here there are fewer people out in the open, and those I can see are moving with more purpose than those stuck on the wrong side of the blockade. Here the Switchbacks compete to stay in favor with the fighters. They remind me of the little birds that used to risk their lives to clean crocodiles’ razor-sharp teeth or the parasitic fish that lived off sharks. This is a more symbiotic relationship, though, because they all need each other. The fighters are a uniformly foul breed—a mix of the physically strong, the instinctively aggressive, and those who are both. They’re a deadly combination of hard, experienced bastards who look like they’ve been fighting all their lives, and younger vigilantes on the cusp of adulthood, always ready for battle. They float like pond scum on top of everyone else, relying on the subservient Switchbacks to fix their cars, fetch their food, and do most other menial tasks in return for water and scraps of food. It all feels precariously balanced.
    I reach Hinchcliffe’s place too quickly for my liking. I should go straight inside, but I pace up and down the pavement for a couple of minutes to compose myself first, breathing in slowly to settle my nerves and trying to stop myself from coughing again. The hazy sun peeks unexpectedly through a gap in the heavy clouds, and I cover my eyes. It’s probably my imagination, but even the sun seems to have changed since the bombs. It’s never as clear as it used to be. The light looks and feels different, like a layer of color and strength has been stripped away. Then again, maybe it’s just my eyes.
    I feel sick, and the smell here’s not helping. Sanitation is pretty basic around town, and the stench is inescapable. People have taken to crapping in the gutters to get their waste into the drains and sewers. If we carry on at this rate it won’t be long before we’re slopping out again: people emptying buckets of shit into the street from upstairs windows.
    A sudden gust of wind clears the air momentarily, and I stop and breathe in the odd breeze. No one pays me any attention, and that’s the way I like it. I can see a crowd around the entrance to the small shopping mall that Hinchcliffe uses as a food store and, occasionally, a distribution point. The same thing’s happening again a couple of hundred yards away, where a street-corner hamburger stand is being used for a similar purpose. These lines never completely disappear. There are always more people than there is food, but no one dares to steal. Just a little way up the road is what’s left of Hook, the last thief Hinchcliffe caught. Once the bane of my life, his corpse now hangs from a lamppost by its feet like a grotesque piece of street decoration. When he found out what he’d been up to, Hinchcliffe strung him up and gutted him like a pig. The rumor was that someone else had been pulling his strings …
    The courthouse looks squat and small from street level, but its size is deceptive. Hinchcliffe has occupied a large part of the surrounding area, and most of the neighboring buildings have been taken by his small army of fighters. There’s usually power and water in this part of town. Huge fuel-fired generators thump away continually in the background like a monotonous, mechanical call to the faithful. Hinchcliffe is no fool. This place is a less than subtle symbol of his unquestioned authority here. He’s aligned himself with what used to