Dog Blood - By David Moody Page 0,1

between 2:1 and 3:1. In spite of their enemy’s ferocity and apparently insatiable bloodlust, their greater numbers and preexistence gave the Unchanged an early advantage that was quickly squandered. With no time or inclination to look for a cure (could the condition even be reversed?), separation and eradication soon became the only viable option for survival. Conveniently ignoring lessons learned through history and any moral arguments, a halfhearted attempt to cull the Haters failed dramatically. Almost overnight the Unchanged plan of attack was forced to become a plan of defense, and their first priority was to make their people defendable. Civilians were herded together, major city centers quickly becoming swollen, overcrowded, undersupplied, understaffed refugee camps. Once they’d successfully separated “us” from “them,” the Unchanged theory went, they’d head back out into the wastelands and hunt the fuckers out.

Less than four months ago, when the last frosts of winter had finally thawed and the first green buds of the year’s new growth had tentatively started to appear, this public park had been a frequently empty and underused oasis of lush greenery buried deep within the drab gray concrete heart of the city. It was a place office workers used to escape to during lunch breaks or take a shortcut through on their way to or from work. A place where kids playing hooky from school would hide and drink stolen alcohol and smoke cigarettes and carve their names on wooden benches and tree trunks. A place where elderly shoppers with too much time and too many memories would sit and talk to anyone who’d listen about how the country had gone to ruin and how things used to be so much better back in their day … and it had to be said, they were right.

Tucked away in the long shadows of office buildings, shopping malls, convention centers, and multiplex cinemas, what used to be a vast and open expanse of grass was now covered in cramped rows of ragged, refugee-filled tents. Two soccer fields had become helicopter landing pads, constantly in use. The patch of soft asphalt where children’s swings, merry-go-rounds, and slides used to be had been commandeered to house heavily guarded and rapidly dwindling stockpiles of military equipment and supplies. The changing rooms on the far side of the park were now a hopelessly inadequate field hospital. Next to the small, square redbrick building, a tall wooden fence had been erected all the way around the park’s four concrete tennis courts. They had, until three weeks ago, been used as a makeshift morgue, but by then the number of stacked-up corpses awaiting removal had reached such a level that the cordoned-off area had become a permanently lit funeral pyre. There was no longer any other way of hygienically disposing of the dead.

Before his mother had tried to kill him and he’d been dragged screaming into the war he’d desperately tried to isolate himself from, Mark Tillotsen had sold insurance in a call center. He’d worked hard and had enjoyed (as much as anyone enjoyed selling insurance in a call center) the job. He’d liked the anonymity of the role, and he’d taken comfort from the safety of the daily routine, the procedures and regulations he hid behind, and the targets he worked toward. In his last development review, just a month or so before the Hate, his manager had told him he had a bright future ahead of him. Today, as he trudged slowly through the afternoon heat toward a convoy of three battered trucks bookended by heavily armed military vehicles, he wondered whether he, or anyone else for that matter, had any kind of future left to look forward to.

Mark hauled himself up into the cab of the middle truck and acknowledged the driver. His name was Marshall, and they’d traveled outside the city together several times in recent weeks. Marshall was a stereotypical trucker, more at home behind the wheel of his rig than anywhere else. His arms were like tree trunks, with fading tattoos hidden beneath a thick covering of gray hair. He gripped the steering wheel tight in his leather-gloved hands even though they weren’t moving. His head remained facing forward, his expression sullen and serious. To show no emotion at all was better than letting Mark see how nervous he really was. This wasn’t getting any easier.

“All right?”

“Fine,” Mark replied quickly. “You?”

Marshall nodded. “People today, not supplies.”

“How come?”

“Helicopter spotted them on infrared, about three miles outside the zone.”

“Many?”

“Don’t know till we get there.”

That