Hater (Hater #1)

'So how much of it have you worked out then?' Patrick asks. We're both upstairs in what was probably destined to be the master bedroom of the half-finished house, sitting with our backs to the recently plastered wall. The sky has cleared now and the moon is providing limited but welcome illumination through the grille over the window. I'm tired and I don't want to talk but I can't avoid answering his question.

'Haven't got a bloody clue what's going on,' I answer honestly. 'This is as close as I've managed to get,' I say as I take the folded-up booklet from my bag and pass it to him. He scans the pages by the light of his torch and smiles wryly to himself.

'Good stuff, this!' he laughs sarcastically.

'Took it from a house I hid in,' I tell him. 'Doesn't say much.'

'When did you last get anything from the government that did?'

He shuts the booklet and throws it down onto the bare floorboards.

'It's not like there's anyone you can ask about it, is there?' I say. 'I still don't know if anyone really knows what's happening.'

'Someone knows,' he mutters, 'they must do. You can bet that from the second the first person changed, some government department somewhere has been analysing us and cutting up people like you and me and...'

'Cutting up people?'

'I'm exaggerating,' he continues, 'but you know what I'm saying, don't you? They'll have had a team of top scientists sitting in some lab somewhere working out what's happened to us. They'll be working on a cure.'

'You reckon?'

He shrugs his shoulders.

'Maybe. Whatever happens they'll be trying to find a way of stopping us doing what we do.'

I know he's right. We're a threat to them. Far more of a threat than any enemy they might have battled with previously.

'I don't want to be cured,' I say, surprising even myself with my admission. 'I want to stay like this. I don't want to go back to being one of them.'

Patrick nods and switches off his torch. In the darkness I find myself thinking about Ellis again. I know that it's only a matter of time before she changes if she hasn't already. I've tried to convince myself that she'll be all right but I know that as long as she's with the others she's in danger. The hardest thing to come to terms with today - harder even than everything I've lost - is the fact that Lizzie, the person who carried my little girl and who has provided her with more safety and security than anyone else, is now the one who poses the biggest threat to her. The pain I feel when I think about Ellis tonight is indescribable. Maybe I should try and get to her now. Poor little thing doesn't know what's going to happen. She hasn't got a clue...

'Don't say a lot, do you?' Patrick pushes. He's beginning to get on my nerves but I sense that he has a need to talk. He's as nervous, scared and confused as I am so I don't retaliate.

'Not much to say, is there?' I grunt back.

'So who are you thinking about?'

Very perceptive. I pause but then decide to answer him. Maybe it will help.

'My little girl. She's like us.'

'Why isn't she with you?'

'Because of her mother. I was in the house with the whole family when it happened. I knew that Ellis was like me and I tried to get her but...'

'But what?'

'Lizzie got to her before me. Smacked me around the face with a bloody metal pipe. Next thing I knew she'd gone and taken all the kids with her.'

Patrick shakes his head.

'Too bad,' he mumbles. 'Hurts when you lose them, doesn't it?'

I nod, but I don't know if he notices my response.

'What about you?' I ask. 'You said something earlier about your partner...'

He doesn't answer for a few long seconds.

'Like I said, I managed to get back home after it happened. You know almost before you see them that they haven't changed, don't you? I did what I had to do.'

I don't know what he means by that. Did he kill her? I quickly decide that it's probably not a good idea to ask. For a moment I think that's the end of the conversation but then Patrick speaks again.

'Got it all wrong, didn't they?' he says.

'What?'

'The papers and the TV and all that,' he explains, 'made us out to be the villains of the piece, didn't they?'

'To them we are.'

'Made it out to be us that hated them...'

'I never hated anyone,' I tell him, 'at least not like they said on the news.'

In the moonlight I watch as Patrick nods knowingly. He's not stupid. He's spent the last three days thinking about what I've only had a few hours to try and understand.

'Know what I think?'

'What?' I reply, yawning.

'They called us the Haters, because from their perspective all we're doing is attacking and killing. That's how it looked to me before I changed. You agree?'

'Suppose.'

'But the fact of the matter is that everybody hates. They're just as bad as we are. They want us dead as much as we want to get rid of them. You can feel the hate coming off them, can't you? Even if they're not capable of showing it like we are or dealing with it like we do, they want us dead. So all we're doing is protecting ourselves. You just know that you have to do it, don't you? You have to kill them before they get to you.'

'We're as bad as each other then,' I suggest.

'Maybe. Like I said everybody hates, we're just better at dealing with it than they are. We have to look after ourselves and if it means destroying them, then that's what we have to do.'

'Problem is they feel exactly the same...'

'I know. But they're not as physical or aggressive as we are and that's where we have the advantage. They don't move quickly enough. They'll pay the price eventually.'

'So what is it that's changed?' I ask. 'And why now? Why has this happened to some of us and not others? Why has it happened at all?'

'Now that's the big question, isn't it? That's the one I can't work out the answer to, and you can bet we won't find any clues in your bloody government brochure either.'

'But what do you think's caused it?'

'Don't know. I've come up with about a hundred possible explanations so far,' he chuckles, 'but they're all bullshit!'

'Is it a disease? Have we caught something?'

He shakes his head.

'Maybe we have. The way I look at it there's two possible explanations. Either it is a virus or something like that, or maybe something has happened to everyone. People like you and me have been affected by it, the rest of them haven't changed at all.'

'Something like what?'

'I don't know... maybe someone put something in the water? Perhaps the planet's drifted through a cloud of bloody space gas or something! Maybe it's just evolution? Nature taking its course...'

Patrick chuckles to himself again. The room then becomes silent and the quiet gives me chance to consider what he's just said. He could be right. If this was a virus or disease, surely more people would have been directly affected? Everything is so screwed up tonight that all of his disjointed and unsubstantiated theories sound plausible.

'So how many people like us do you think there are?' I ask, knowing that he can't do anything other than guess at the answer.

'No idea,' he replies. 'Last thing I remember hearing they were talking about a small minority of people, and that's what it says in your booklet here. But I think it's bigger than anyone's letting on. Chances are no-one knows how big it is.'

'And how widespread? Surely this can't just be happening here?'

'It spread up and down the country quickly enough, didn't it? So if one country's been affected...'

'...then why not everywhere else?'

'Exactly.'

'So where does it end?'

More silence.

'Don't know. Don't even know if I want to think about it. We have to keep fighting to stay alive, and you can bet they're going to be doing exactly the same thing. So we can only keep running and keep killing,' he replies, 'because if we don't get them, they'll get us.'