Hater 1: Hater (17 page)

    'Thanks, mate,' he gasps, propping himself up onto his elbows. 'I've been stuck here for hours. I heard someone come in a while back and I was trying to get…' He stops speaking and collapses and lies flat on his back again. The effort is too much. His voice gurgles and rasps. There must be blood in his throat. What am I supposed to do? Christ, I haven't got a clue how to try and help him.

    'Do you want me to try and get you back upstairs?' I ask uselessly. He shakes his head and swallows to clear his throat.

    'No point,' he groans as he tries to prop himself up again. I put my hand on his shoulder to keep him still. 'I want a drink,' he says. 'Can you go up to the flat and get me a beer?'

    His eyes flutter for a second and I wonder if he's about to go. I get up quickly and climb the stairs to the top floor flat he shares with the other man. I follow a snail trail of dry blood along the hallway and into the living room of the flat which is otherwise surprisingly clean and well-kept. Don't know why I expected anything else really. There's an upturned table in the middle of the room and next to it a smashed lamp. There's a video camera on a tripod next to a computer and a wide-screen TV. Looks like they enjoyed filming themselves here. There's an expensive looking leather sofa and… and I realise that I'm standing here checking out the flat while one of its occupants lies dying at the bottom of the stairs. Forcing myself to move I go to the kitchen and grab a bottle of beer from the well-stocked fridge. I open it and run back down to the man on the first floor landing.

    'Here you go,' I say as I hold the bottle up to his mouth. I'm not sure how much he manages to swallow. Most of it seems to run down his chin. When I move the bottle away I see that its neck is covered in blood from his lips. What am I supposed to do now? I try to move him but it's no good. He moans with pain whenever I touch him. This poor bastard is dying as I'm watching and there's absolutely nothing I can do to help him. There's no point asking who did this to him or if there's anyone I can try and contact - the sudden exit of his lover / friend / business partner early this morning was a clear enough admission of guilt. I feel terrible as I stand next to him, trying to think of an excuse to leave as he lies dying at my feet. But what else can I do?

    'I'll go and get help,' I say quietly, crouching down closer to him again, taking care not to get any of his blood on me. 'I'll go and find someone who'll be able to help you.'

    He licks his blood-stained lips, swallows and shakes his head.

    'Too late now,' he wheezes. Every move this poor sod makes is taking masses of effort and causing him huge amounts of pain. I wish he'd just shut up and lie still but he won't. He has something more to say. Exhausted, he turns his head towards me again and stares straight into my face.

    'Just keep still and…' I start to say.

    'I tried to get him,' he says breathlessly. 'Fucker had a knife on him just in case. He got me first.'

    'What?'

    'I tried to get him but he was ready for me…'

    'What are you saying? Did he attack you? Was he a Hater?'

    He shakes his head.

    'You see everything so clearly when it happens to you. I had to kill him. It was him or me. I had to kill him before…'

    I stand up and start to move away. Jesus Christ, is this the Hater? He's the one who started the trouble we heard last night. He's the one who lost control. Christ, I'm stood here wasting my time on a fucking Hater.

    He licks his bloody lips again and swallows once more.

    'It's them mate,' he mumbles, 'not us. They're the ones who hate. Get yourself ready…'

    I don't know what the hell he's talking about now and I don't want to hear any more. I need to get away from this sick piece of filth. I turn my back on him and run downstairs, safe in the knowledge that there's no way he'll be able to reach my family in the condition he's in. I think about finishing him off but that would make me as bad as them and I doubt whether I'd even be able to do it. I glance back and take one last look at the scum on the landing. He hasn't got long left. He'll be dead by the time I get back and it won't be a moment too soon.

    I run out to the car and start the engine.

    I can usually get from the flat to Harry's house in around fifteen minutes but it took almost an hour to get here today. There's still not a huge amount of traffic about but some roads are inaccessible. Some are backed-up with slow moving queues, others have just been blocked off.

    Harry's pretty shaken up like the rest of us although he won't admit it. He's subdued and much quieter than usual. Liz phoned him and told him I was coming to get him but he hasn't got anything ready. I'm upstairs with him now, helping him pack an overnight bag. He seems lost and helpless like a little kid. He keeps asking me questions he knows I can't answer. How long will I be away? What do I need to take? Will we be safe at your place?

    Harry's house is quiet and dark. It's rare that I ever go upstairs. The place is small but it's still far too big for him alone. The rooms that Liz and her sister used to sleep in have been left untouched since they moved out and one side of Harry's bedroom is a shrine to Sheila, his late wife. She's been dead for three years but there are still more of her things in the bedroom than Harry's. The whole house is full of clutter. Old sod never throws anything out. He just can't let go.

    I wanted to be in and out of here in minutes but Harry's delaying things again. I need to get back to Lizzie and the kids but I'm stood here watching him checking everything's switched off and then checking that he's checked everything. I want to tell him that I don't think it matters anymore but that's only going to make things worse so I just humour him and try to hurry him along. My head is spinning. I really need to talk about what's happening but Harry's not the person I want to talk to. I don't know who is. I need to talk about the half-dead man on the landing and about what I saw in the convenience store this morning. I can't get the image of the kid beating her mother out of my head. Could one of our kids attack Lizzie like that? Could that be happening right now while I'm stood here wasting my time with this stupid old man? I bite my lip and try and stay calm. I can't show any emotion. I don't want Harry thinking I'm a Hater.

    'Come on,' I say, interrupting him as he walks around the ground floor of his house, checking the windows and doors are locked for the third time, 'we need to get moving.'

    I expect a sneering reply because that's what I usually get from Harry. He's a loud and opinionated old bugger who doesn't think much of me. He assumes he knows more than me about everything and he never takes kindly to being hurried or told what to do. I'm surprised when he just nods, picks up his bag and slowly walks towards the front door. I take the bag from him and put it in the car, leaving him to lock up his home.

    'Quiet, isn't it?' he says as we drive back towards the flat. He immediately regrets his words as we pull onto a main road which is solid with traffic. We join the back of the queue. It's slow but it's still moving and I can't think of a better route home. I decide to sit tight.

    'You okay, Harry?' I ask.

    'Fine,' he mumbles. 'Bit tired, that's all.'

    'Trouble sleeping?'

    He nods his head.

    'Something happened around the back of the house last night,' he explains, his voice quiet. 'There was a fight or an accident or something… lots of screaming, lots of noise...'

    The traffic has slowed down again to almost a complete standstill. It's stop-start all the way.

    'Don't know what's going on here,' I mumble.

    The road we're crawling along runs past the front of a row of houses before swinging up and left over a bridge which spans the motorway below. As we follow the arc of the road the reason for the delay becomes apparent. There's a steady stream of cars leaving the motorway and rejoining the town traffic. We grind to a halt again mid-way over the bridge.

    'What's the hold-up?' Harry asks, looking around curiously.

    'No idea. Must have been an accident or something…'

    'That's not an accident,' he says, peering out of his window and tapping his finger on the glass. I sit up in my seat and lean across him to try and see whatever it is he's looking at. There's a blockade of some kind stretching right across the motorway. There are dark green military juggernauts straddling both sides of the road. Armed guards are manning red and white-striped barrier gates while other soldiers direct the queues of approaching traffic. What the hell are they doing? Unless I'm mistaken, the cars trying to leave the city are being stopped. They're not even being searched. They're either being marshalled up the slip-road and straight off the motorway or they're being sent round through a hole that's been cut in the central barrier and forced back the way they came. The traffic is being channelled back into town.

    'Don't want us to go far, do they?' Harry says, watching the cars below us as we begin to shunt forward again.

    'Thought they said they were getting things under control.'

    'What?'

    'I was watching something on the TV just before I came out to get you. They said the situation is being brought under control.'

    'Well this is probably part of that control, isn't it? They need to know where everyone is…'

    'Do they?'

    'How can the authorities protect us if they don't know where we are?'

    I don't bother answering him. The fact that I've just seen a substantial military presence out on the streets doesn't inspire me or fill me with confidence. If anything it makes me feel worse.

    As we move away from the motorway the traffic begins to thin out again. I put my foot down and continue towards home.

    My nervousness and paranoia is increasing by the second. I need to be back with my family.

    The streets we're driving through now are uncomfortably silent and still. It all looks and feels perverse. The country seems to be tearing itself apart with unprecedented levels of violence, so why is everywhere so quiet? The normal human reaction to a threat like the Haters would be to stand and fight but today we can't. These people are sick. They're driven by a desire to kill and destroy and, from what I've seen, they won't stop until those desires have been satisfied. To stand and fight against them would mean displaying the same emotions as they do. It would be self-destructive. To fight back is to risk being called a Hater too. All we can do is keep ourselves to ourselves and not retaliate. The population is withdrawing from each other in fear. Fear of everyone else and fear of themselves.

    We finally pull up outside the apartment block and I get Harry inside. I'm about to go back out to get his bag from the car when I spot a solitary figure walking down the street. Instinctively I wait in the shadows until I'm sure they've disappeared before setting foot out in the open again. Christ, I'm too scared to risk even being seen by anyone I don't know.

    'Dad,' Ed says.

    'What?' I grunt, annoyed that I've been interrupted. I've been reading through a pile of music magazines I found under the bed. I thought I'd thrown these out years ago. They've helped me get through the uneasy boredom of this never-ending afternoon.

    'What's he doing?'

    'What's who doing?' I ask, not lifting my head.

    'That man from the house down the road. What's he doing?'

    'What man?'

    'Jesus Christ,' Lizzie screams as she walks into the room. The panic in her voice makes me drop my magazine and look up. Fucking hell, the man who lives in one of the houses adjacent to our apartment block is dragging his wife out of their house and into the middle of the street. She's a huge woman with a wide backside and flabby arms which are thrashing about wildly. The man - I think his name is Woods - is pulling her along by her feet and I can hear her screaming from here. He drags her down the kerb and her head cracks back against the road. He's carrying something else with him. I can't see what it is…

    'What's he doing?' Ed asks again.

    'Don't look,' Liz yells at him. She rushes across the room and tries to turn Ed around and push him towards the door. Josh is in the way. He's standing in the doorway eating a biscuit and Lizzie can't get past.

    'Don't look at what?' Ellis asks. I didn't see her come in. She's behind me, standing on tiptoes and looking out of the window.