Them or Us

through.
    “I’ll see you later, Danny,” he says, taking a few steps back, then standing and watching me. “Enjoy yourself, son.”
    I know I’ve got no choice but to do what he says, and I step into the light.

 
    18
    INSIDE THE ROOM THERE’S a woman sitting on a double bed with her back to me. I’m fucking terrified. I’d turn and run if it wasn’t for the fact Hinchcliffe’s bound to be waiting around outside. He’ll want to be sure I’ve done what he told me to do.
    I can’t do this. I can’t remember the last time I had a sexual thought or desire or felt anything even remotely erotic. I can’t remember masturbating since the war began, or even wanting to. Apart from the occasional, infrequent, involuntary early morning hard-on, the last time I had an erection was probably when I last shared a bed with Liz, just before the Change split us. Does everyone feel like this, or is it just me? I don’t want to share my body with anyone now, much less with someone I don’t know. I don’t want to do this …
    The woman on the bed wearily looks back over her shoulder. How many times has she already done this today? Am I the first or the twenty-first?
    “You coming in?” she grunts, her voice flat and unemotional. I take another hesitant step forward. “Shut the frigging door, then.”
    “Sorry,” I mumble as I turn and push it closed. I lean my head against the door and try to relax or at least hide my nerves. When I finally turn back around I see that the woman has stood up. What does she look like? It’s just an unexpected, instinctive thought. Does it matter? The light’s behind her and I can’t actually see her face from here, can’t make out any details at all, and maybe that’s for the best. I sense her looking me up and down. What’s she thinking? Is she deciding whether or not I’m good enough stock? I start hoping she’s going to reject me, suddenly acutely aware of how I must look to her. Like most people, I rarely wash anymore. I hack at my hair and my beard with scissors and blunt razor blades when I have to. Can’t remember the last time I brushed my teeth … No matter, this isn’t a mating ritual. Like Hinchcliffe said, this is purely functional, and how I look and feel is unimportant—but I still don’t know if I can go through with it …
    This horrible, silent standoff continues for what feels like forever, and I’m on the brink of backing out and running when she finally speaks.
    “You healthy?”
    “Pretty much.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    What should I tell her? That I cough my guts up first thing every morning? That the skin on my back and neck is burned from the bombs? That sometimes there’s blood when I piss? I want to go into graphic detail and do all I can to put her off me, but I don’t.
    “I’m okay.”
    “You had kids before?”
    “Three. You?”
    “This isn’t a date. Your kids, what were they?”
    “Two boys and a girl.”
    “No, what were they?”
    “My girl was like us,” I answer, realizing what she was actually asking and forcing myself to block out the faces of my dead children. “The boys were Unchanged.”
    She nods and thinks carefully about what I’ve just told her, as if it’s going to make a difference. Then, with a weary sigh of resignation, she undoes the zipper of her baggy trousers and lets them drop down to her ankles in an incredibly unfeminine and asexual movement. She kicks them away, then lies back down on the bed, psyching herself up. The fine detail of her face is still hidden by the shadows, but I can see her a little more clearly now. She seems strangely expressionless, and it’s hard to place her age. Her limbs are bony and long, her muscles taut. Her skin is covered in scratches, cuts, and bruises, and I think for a second about how long Liz used to spend pampering herself each day to look good—using countless creams and lotions, waxing her legs, hunting down every rogue hair with tweezers, razors, or wax … My eyes are involuntarily drawn to the top of this woman’s legs and her unkempt bush of wiry pubic hair. Since everything changed, everybody—male and female, young and old—has become strangely sexless. How we look is unimportant; keeping warm and staying alive is all that matters. Everything’s different now. Back then, before all of this happened, men and women had frustratingly different sexual drives and desires that rarely coincided. Now no one’s bothered. I sense this is