Them or Us

to follow him into the hotel. Curtis marches toward him. Fuck. What the hell’s he doing? He doesn’t even try talking to Warner. The bastard just lifts up a machete and takes a vicious swipe at the white-haired leader of Southwold. Warner tries to get out of the way, but he’s taken by surprise. Curtis chops down into his neck, hitting him with such violent force that he drops to his knees, the blade wedged deep into his flesh. Curtis grips the older man’s shoulder and yanks him up, then wrenches his machete free. Still holding him, he sinks the tip of the blade deep into Warner’s chest, then pulls it out again, swiping it through the air to get rid of the excess blood before pushing Warner away. He staggers back, his body soaked with glistening red, then his legs give way and he crumbles to the ground like a marionette with severed strings.
    There’s a brief moment of silent, stunned disbelief, then all hell breaks loose.
    The powerful pit digger from yesterday is the first person to react. He charges at Curtis but is killed as quickly and as easily as Warner. Another fighter comes up behind him and cracks him around the side of the head with a baseball bat, almost decapitating him. Perhaps it’s because I wasn’t expecting it, but even after all I’ve seen and done myself, this sudden brutal violence shocks me to such an extent that I can hardly move.
    “Round them up,” Curtis yells to the rest of the fighters. “Take anything worth having and burn the rest. Kill anyone who gets in the way.”
    Is this my fault? Even though I’m starting to think that Hinchcliffe sent me here just to find an excuse for him to demonstrate his obvious strength and superiority, I can’t help wondering if it could have been avoided if I’d handled him differently. If I’d told him everything was okay and that Warner was one hundred percent on his side, would he have let Southwold be? Who the hell am I kidding? The more I think about it, the more I realize that, yet again, I’ve been Hinchcliffe’s patsy and he’s played me like a pawn on a chessboard. Screw the fucking lot of them , I tell myself as I run downstairs and look for a way out of the bank. Not my problem .
    I head for the back of the bank, squeezing down a narrow corridor past the open door of an unlocked vault, and I curse myself for picking such an impregnable hiding place. It seemed sensible last night, and the security was welcome, but every window here is either barred or shuttered, and the only other exit is a solid-looking, metal-clad fire door that I’ll never be able to get open. I have no choice but to go back out onto the street.
    I slip out through the front door and press myself tight against the outside wall, doing all I can to fade into the background. The village square is in utter chaos now, the remaining population of Southwold scattering in panic as Hinchcliffe’s troops turn on them. I see Jill, the work party leader from yesterday, struggling to load and fire a rifle with trembling hands. She lifts it up, but before she can even get her finger on the trigger, a fighter chops into her side with an axe. Dumbstruck, I stand there like an idiot as Hinchcliffe’s men grapple the locals to the ground, then force those still alive into the trucks that will ferry them back to Lowestoft. Our inglorious leader has obviously decided that having people living here outside his direct jurisdiction is an unacceptable risk. But Christ, did he really need to react like this? A woman is hit with a riot baton when she won’t cooperate, winded first, then bludgeoned around the side of the head. Semiconscious, she’s left on the ground close to Warner’s body, blood pooling around her face, cheekbone shattered and skin split, her eyes moving but nothing else. She looks straight at me …
    Spencer, one of Hinchcliffe’s men, comes at me with a crowbar. I see him coming, but I’m stunned, too slow to move. A tall, sinewy black kid in his early twenties, the sick bastard grins with excitement as he sprints toward me, high on the thrill of the fight. He swings out wildly, and at the last possible second I manage to react. I lean over to one side and the crowbar misses me. I feel the rush of wind and hear it whoosh through the air as it whistles just inches past my ear. He lunges at me again, fired up with the adrenaline rush of battle, intoxicated by the sudden release of long-suppressed frustrations.
    “Wait!” I shout at him. “Spencer,