The old man I saw stripping corpses is hobbling toward me, a look of absolute fear plastered across his weathered face. He runs straight at me, yelling for help, too terrified to realize I’m going to kill him.

“Get out of here,” he tries to warn me, barely able to breathe. “They’ll-”

I end his sentence before he has a chance to. I grab his shock of white hair, yank his head back, and punch him hard in the throat. He collapses at my feet, choking. I snatch a knife from my backpack and finish him off. Suddenly feeling fired up and alive, I sprint down toward the battle that’s raging at the front of the building, desperate to kill again.

By the time I get there it’s over, the suddenly one-sided fight ended with incredible speed, force, and brutality by seven other people like Adam and me. None of them questions me. There’s an immediate, unspoken trust between us, and within minutes I’m helping them dump the bodies of the Unchanged with the thousands of others already here.

THESE PEOPLE ARE SURPRISINGLY well coordinated. There are seventeen of us here now including me and Adam, another group having just arrived on foot through the trees to the east of the cull site. I’ve stumbled into the middle of a preplanned rendezvous, and I’m going to take advantage of it while it lasts. They won’t be here long. Sticking together in large numbers is dangerous. It leaves us exposed.

They work quickly, hiding their vehicles in the shadows of the building and stripping the site of weapons and anything else of value. Guards patrol the perimeter constantly; others watch from the roof. The two most aggressive fighters are positioned one at either end of the building. As I walk toward the chemical storeroom with a short, stocky man, I notice that the fighter out back is shackled. She has a heavy-duty chain padlocked around her waist that’s anchored to a metal stake driven deep into the ground.

“What’s all that about?” I ask quietly, not wanting her to hear. He takes off his glasses and cleans the one remaining lens on the bottom corner of his shirt.

“You’ve not come across Brutes before?”

“Brutes?”

“That’s what we call them.”

“Them? You make it sound like they’re different from us.”

“Not really,” he sighs, like it’s an effort having to explain. “They’re the same as us, but extreme.”

“Extreme?”

“Are you the guy who was hiding here?”

“I wasn’t hiding, I just-”

“Why didn’t you attack?”

“What?”

“When those thieving bastards first turned up this morning, why didn’t you attack them?”

“Because I didn’t know how many of them there were. I didn’t know what weapons they had and-”

“Exactly,” he interrupts, replacing his glasses. “You knew there was a good chance you’d have been killed if you’d tried anything.”

“It wasn’t worth the risk.”

“Don’t blame you,” he says, leaning up against the side of the chemical storeroom and shielding his eyes from the climbing sun. “I’d probably have done the same.”

“So what’s your point?”

“The point is a Brute wouldn’t have held back. They can’t. They catch a scent of Unchanged and they’ll hunt them down and attack, no matter what the odds are.”

“Bloody hell…”

“Useful, though. They make good guard dogs! Always on the lookout. Just look at her.”

He nods over in the direction of the woman tied up at the back of the killing chamber. She’s almost constantly straining against her shackles, trying to break free and go after the enemy she knows is still out there somewhere. I’m transfixed by her face, flushed red and full of rage, and yet, in a different light, she doesn’t look like a killer at all. When she relaxes, her features are surprisingly soft, gentle, and feminine.

“She could just be someone’s mother.”

“She was. Her name’s Pat. She had someone with her when we first found her, someone who knew her before the change. She was a teacher in an elementary school. Hard to believe, isn’t it? A well-respected pillar of society, cornerstone of the community, great with kids, wouldn’t hurt anyone… you get the picture.”

“Incredible…”

“My brother was a Brute,” he continues. “From sheet metal worker to a killer like that overnight.”

“What happened to him?”

“We lost him.”

“Sorry, I…”

“Oh, he’s not dead, I don’t think. When I say we lost him, I mean we lost him. Clever bastard slipped his chains and got away. Christ knows where he is now. Don’t suppose it matters as long as he’s still killing. Your friend in here, is he?”

He slaps the wall of the chemical storeroom.

“What?” I mumble, still thinking about this guy’s missing brother and forgetting what we came out here for. “Yeah, sorry. He’s in the back.”

By the time we clear the doorway and are ready to move him out, Adam’s just about regained consciousness. He’s still in a bad way-pale, clammy, and barely able to move. We fashion a stretcher from wood stripped from the walls of the main building, and between us we carry him back to the others.

MY NAME’S PRESTON,” A disarmingly confident, oily man says, grabbing my hand and shaking it vigorously. I already know I don’t like him. He’s too loud and in-your-face. He reminds me of the senior managers I used to despise at work; the higher up the corporate ladder they managed to climb, the more arrogant, obnoxious, and smarmy they became. He’s wearing a bizarre combination of military garb and civvies. His clothes make him look like someone’s dad going to a costume party as a World War II general.

“Danny McCoyne.”

“Good to meet you, Danny. You had some food?”

“Yes, I-”

“Excellent. Have you been introduced to anyone?”

“I’ve met a few people. I don’t know if-”

“Great,” he says, interrupting me again. Irritating little shit. Apparently he’s the self-appointed leader of this cell and I’ve been granted a personal audience (as, I’ve learned, are all new “recruits”). We’re sitting in the back of a beaten-up van, just him and me. The heat is suffocating. He’s propped the doors open.

“Look, I-” I start to say.

“So what have you been up to, Danny?” he asks, his hat trick of interruptions complete.

“What?”

“Since the war started. What have you been doing with yourself?”

Is this a trick question? What does he think I’ve been doing? I’ve fought whenever I’ve been able, done all I can to get rid of the maximum number of Unchanged. Does this guy think I’m just some lazy shyster, hiding out here in the middle of nowhere, waiting for the war to end?

“Fighting.”

“Good. On your own?”

“Generally traveling on my own, fighting with others whenever I’ve had the chance. Look, what’s all this about?”

“You killed many?”

Now he’s beginning to annoy me. Idiot. I’ve a good mind just to leave. His questions make me feel uneasy, inadequate almost. I don’t think I could have fought any harder, but how does that stack up against everyone else? For the first time it occurs to me that I don’t know how “good” a fighter I actually am. Is my tally of victims higher or lower than average? Does it matter? As long as we’re all killing, does anyone care how quickly, enthusiastically, or effectively we do it? I suddenly feel like I’m in one of those pointless personal progress review meetings I used to have at work. Have I hit my agreed Unchanged corpse target for this month?

“Plenty,” I answer, “but I haven’t been keeping count.”

“Too many to keep track of, eh?” He grins. Patronizing bastard.

“Something like that.”

“Have you noticed their numbers are dropping off? That there’s fewer of them around to kill?”

“Yes.”

“And do you know why that is?”

I shrug my shoulders. “Could be any one of a number of reasons,” I reply, suddenly feeling like a little kid put on the spot in class. I’m being deliberately vague, not wanting to give this joker an opportunity to make me look stupid, playing cat-and-mouse games with the truth like I used to with my supervisor and managers back at the council. “I know it’s not because we’ve killed them all.”