Them or Us

don’t. I’m on your side. Hinchcliffe sent me here.”
    He doesn’t recognize me, probably doesn’t even hear me, and he swings the crowbar through the air again, this time catching me hard on my right shoulder. My padded backpack strap absorbs some of the impact, and I drop to my knees, landing close to the dismembered remains of yet another dead Southwold resident. I scramble back up and run for cover, the fighter still in close pursuit. I weave around the hood of a reversing truck with him gaining fast. I break right, desperate to shake him but knowing I can’t keep this speed up for long, then run straight into another one of them who blocks my path. Now I’m really fucked. I drop to the ground and cover my head, anticipating a barrage of strikes.
    “Not this one,” a familiar voice says. I cautiously look up, still expecting to be clubbed, and see that it’s Llewellyn. He reaches down and pulls me up onto my feet like I’m a half-stuffed rag doll.
    “What’s going on?” I ask him, gasping for breath and desperately trying not to start coughing again.
    “What do you think’s going on? Just carrying out the boss’s orders,” he answers abruptly.
    “But this is fucking madness.”
    “You tell him,” Llewellyn says, looking me straight in the eye. “I’m just doing what I’m told,” he says again. “Now get in the truck or I’ll personally beat seven shades of shit out of you.”
    Relieved, I start to do as he says but then stop.
    “Wait, Hinchcliffe’s car. I left it just outside town. He’ll want it back.”
    Llewellyn looks at me for a second, then nods his head. “Go and get it, then get yourself straight back to Lowestoft. Any fucking around and you’ll have me to answer to. Right?”
    I don’t need to be told twice. I start running, though I’m not sure which direction I need to take, just desperate to get away. I glance back as I run and see that the center of Southwold has quickly degenerated into a depressingly familiar sight. Broken bodies are scattered across the pavement, the dead and dying side by side, and there are people fighting and running in all directions like a scene from any one of a hundred battles I’ve seen before. Except this battle is different because there are no Unchanged here. It makes me feel ashamed, responsible almost. I’m ashamed because of my connection with the man behind this bloodshed, and equally ashamed because all they’re doing is the same thing I’ve done countless times before. A different class of target, that’s all.
    I hear the smashing of glass and see a sudden flash of flame, brilliant yellow lighting up the early morning gloom. It’s the hotel. Hinchcliffe’s men are firebombing it. So that’s his tactic this morning—eliminate the figurehead in charge of Southwold, take anything and anyone of value, then do enough damage to render the village uninhabitable. That will leave the survivors of the massacre with only one remaining option: It’s Lowestoft or nothing.

 
    15
    I MOVE QUIETLY THROUGH the courthouse, determined to get in and out quick and without being seen. Hardly anyone’s here. There’s an unexpected but very welcome lack of fighters in the building. Most of them are still in Southwold, I guess, reveling in the chaos. I can picture them all in the middle of the carnage like a fucking lower-league rugby team on tour; drunk on violence, smashing the place up, stealing food and weapons, bragging to each other about their best kills … fucking morons.
    I leave the radio on a desk in the courtroom. It should be okay there. Anderson’s bound to be around here somewhere, and he’ll know what to do with it. I’ve left radios here before and—
    “You okay, Danny?”
    Startled, I turn around and see Hinchcliffe standing right behind me. My heart sinks with disappointment and my stomach knots with nerves. I was hoping I’d gotten away with it, but this sly bastard never misses a trick. This was the exact situation I was hoping to avoid—me alone with Hinchcliffe. Much as I want to bolt for the door and disappear, I know I can’t. He beckons me through to his room, and I have no choice but to follow.
    “You did good in Southwold,” he says as we walk.
    “Thanks,” I answer, not sure what else I’m supposed to say. It didn’t feel good.
    “We need to keep showing these people who’s in charge, you know?”
    “If you say so.”
    I don’t want to risk disagreeing with Hinchcliffe, but what happened in