Them or Us

fuckers make me feel physically sick.
    “I don’t understand,” I say to Sutton, keeping my voice deliberately low, still conscious of the rifle aimed at my back. “Why? Why risk so much for a handful of Unchanged? Why risk so much for any Unchanged? You should have killed them.”
    We reach the end of the corridor, just me and Sutton now. I glance back and see that Dean and Parker have stopped following, but they’re still watching closely. A lamp hanging on the wall illuminates another metal door. Sutton sighs and takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes.
    “Sometimes you just don’t have any choice. Sometimes decisions are made for you. Things happen, and you just have to deal with them as best you can. The right option isn’t always the easiest one to take.”
    I’m still trying to decipher his bullshit when he leans forward and opens the next door. He gently pushes it and it swings open wide, revealing a much larger space that’s filled with light. For a few blissfully ignorant seconds I’m distracted trying to work out why there’s such a vast construction as this buried deep under a farmer’s field in Suffolk, and the full enormity of what I’m seeing doesn’t immediately hit home.
    Then it does, and I can hardly stand.
    This place is full of people. I can see their faces and hear their voices and smell them and … and Christ, there must be more than twenty Unchanged in here.

 
    23
    SUTTON LEADS ME DEEPER into the large room, and I’m struggling to cope with what I’m seeing. For a couple of seconds all I can make out is an unholy mass of people filling the space in front of me. I’ve only managed to take a few steps forward when my dazed and confused brain switches back into gear and the full implication of what’s around us hits home. I take hold of Sutton’s arm, spin him around, and slam him back against the nearest wall. I focus all my attention on him, but I’m aware of terrified Unchanged scattering all around us, fleeing like cockroaches about to be crushed under a boot. Do they know what I am? They’re all watching me, desperately trying not to let me catch them staring. With frightening ease Sutton shifts his balance and reverses our positions, and now I’m the one up against the wall. I feel my strength drain away as a wave of sickness washes over me. Sutton pushes me through another doorway, grabbing a lamp as we disappear into the darkness.
    Disoriented, I lose my footing and stumble. Sutton shuts the door and I look up and suddenly I’m aware of figures all around me. I lunge for the nearest one and it simply collapses under my weight. It’s a bloody mannequin. We’re in a room full of fucking store window dummies. None of this makes any sense. I slump down to the floor, pulse pounding, sweat pouring off me, trying to work out how I’m going to get back out and kill those fuckers on the other side of the door.
    “What the fuck’s going on, Sutton?” I demand, panting.
    He stands over me, looking down. Behind the thick lenses of his glasses, his eyes dart anxiously around my face. “You’re really not well, are you?”
    “Don’t change the subject. What’s going on?” I ask again.
    “It’s okay.”
    “Okay? How can it be okay?”
    He stares at me again, trying to work out what I’m thinking. Truth is, even I don’t know what I’m thinking right now. Finding so many Unchanged like this has left me with a gut-full of bitter, conflicting emotions. I know I should have already killed them, but I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t know if I have the strength, and there are too many of them. I wish someone else had found them and could do it for me. They need to be killed because, as I’ve been telling myself for months, the sooner the last Unchanged has been wiped off the face of the planet, the sooner this pointless, bloody war will finally be over. I was starting to think it already was.
    “Sorry about the bullshit about Southwold’s supplies, you’d never have come if I’d told you,” Sutton says, his voice echoing around the room.
    “Damn right I wouldn’t have come. For crying out loud, what were you thinking?”
    “I said you were like me, didn’t I? I know you won’t hurt these people. I knew the moment I saw you.”
    “Being with these people will bring you nothing but grief. You should get rid of them now. If you can’t do that, you should just get away and not come back.”
    “I can’t do that,” he says, “and I think you’re