The Undeath Scriptures: Origins
Author: Ian Woodhead
Date: 2016-09-26 07:00:00+00:00
Description: Welcome to the the new world order. Welcome to our new Prime Minister's terrifying vision of Britain's future. The public made Isaac Maynard their Prime Minister and in return, he infected them with a deadly contagion. Within hours, most of the population were dead. The contagion changed the few who did not immediately die into blood fuelled raging monsters. A tiny percent found they were immune to the contagion's deadly caress. They thought they were the lucky ones – until the dead began to move. The survivors have to contend with both the dead and the killers in order to stay alive, not awar
Publisher: Arconos

The Undeath Scriptures

Origin

By Ian Woodhead

Six Months Before

This closet-sized room now held just three remaining delegates. Judging from the muffled retching noises seeping through the thin wood, the last man to stumble over Isaac’s long legs failed to make it to the toilet in time.

Two of the remaining three men shifted in their plastic seats, were they wishing to join in with the vomit party still being held in the corridor?

“Let he who wears their weakness as a badge be the one to know their sin is grave and marked forever,” murmured Isaac.

The official from the Ministry of the Interior would probably be the next fool to flee the room. His stony expression had not altered, the old goat was too proficient in political duplicity to allow his face to reflect his secret thoughts. Isaac had had made his prediction simply through observation, his complexion now matched the colours of the walls.

Isaac found it ironic and a little pitiable to witness the individuals who’d originally approved the funding of such unconventional weaponry was unable to stomach watching the practical implementation of the product they were initially so eager to develop.

The lights dimmed for the last time. This was it, the time for the remaining demonstration. Thoughts concerning the other delegate’s reactions were brushed aside along with all other irrelevances. One of the senior technicians had already hinted of the delights to be seen once the one-way mirror was revealed. He had probed, of course, but the technician refused to clarify. That young man’s destiny offered a brighter future to being sub-servant to a bunch of pasty-faced civil servants, ironic, considering the stuffed suits had no future. That thought made Isaac smile. They had no future but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t have a role in Isaac’s grant plans.

The surroundings took on a muted pale green as the light from the next room shone through the one-way mirror. Isaac leaned forward, he did not want to miss any detail. The interior resembled some typical teenage girl’s bedroom. Posters of movie stars, pop bands and cartoon characters adorned three of the four walls. He did not recognise any of them. This observation was inconsequential. As far as Isaac was concerned, anyone who lived in the world of make believe and fiction instead of facing up to reality did not deserve to exist.

He saw a space white dressing table and a soft blue chair beside the door. A profusion of cushions and soft toys fought for space on the single bed.

This room was the exact copy of the control subject’s own bedroom. The detailing was most impressive. They had even replicated a wallpaper tear at the bottom corner of the room. According to the sanitised report, the delegates had been given to read, Loopy, the family cat had done that several years ago.

Considering the amount of drugs they had pumped into the control subject’s body, Isaac doubted the girl would have noticed. In fact, they probably could have wheeled her into a bare white room and she wouldn’t have cared.

It made him quietly proud to witness his influence filtering down. Most of the scientists, orderlies and general assistants were members of the church. To have a strong work ethic and to perform above and beyond your duty were qualities engrained in every practitioner. It was the only way the church was going to rise above and defeat the unjust masses.

Isaac straightened his back. The facsimile door swung inwards and one of the orderlies pushed an occupied wheelchair into the middle of the room.  He nodded at his fellow church goer, then felt ridiculous for performing such a pointless motion. Isaac put his uncharacteristic lapse in concentration down to nerves and excitement.

While the orderly manoeuvred the dribbling girl into the soft chair, Isaac browsed through the digital information now scrolling down the side of the window.

Emma Brown had turned twenty-three last month, still living with her parents and… Isaac paused, a large smile spread across his face. The girl had just had a baby! Could this be the surprise that his source hinted at? She gave birth to a little girl three weeks ago.

This was going to be so thrilling, far more interesting than the previous two demonstrations.  While the orderly continued to make the girl more comfortable, Isaac carried to reading the text.

The girl was of average intelligence, left school with no qualifications and spent the last few years wandering from one unskilled job to another. It surprised him that this unjust specimen hadn’t started breeding at an earlier age. They usually follow the same pattern of spawning more parasites as some as they mature.

“And the Lord said unto him, lead the chosen to the promised land. For the unjust, the liars and the weak shall be the rain to scour the plains clean.”

Emma did not know the father of the child. There was no surprise there. This girl did not deserve the life that the Lord had given her and as his spokesman, Isaac deemed it only right that he should be the one to deny her what she did not warrant. Like her parents before her, she was sucking on the blood of society, a foul scrounger, a prime example of one of the unjust.

Isaac’s First Minister would call her ‘prime Jeremy Kyle Show fodder’

Another orderly brought in a small wriggling package, wrapped in a white shawl. They must have already infected the child. Why else would that frightened man be holding the baby by the ankle, treating it as though it was a giant rat or a live bomb?

Isaac’s man took the package from the other orderly who then spun around and raced out of the room. The orderly crouched and gently laid the wriggling package on the dark blue carpet, close to the mother’s feet before retreating from the room.

What was going to happen next? Going by Isaac’s previous observations, that girl was about to become her baby’s first solid meal.

Two ting pink arms pushed out from underneath the blanket, followed by her arms and her head.

“Move your feet, you daft bitch,” urged a voice behind Isaac.

Even if the clown had been shouting his warning directly into her ear, she wouldn’t have responded. The drugs still denied the girl consciousness. Isaac wished otherwise. It didn’t feel right that Emma wouldn’t be aware for her own demise.

The baby pulled her way out from under the blanket and used its hands to make her way towards her mother. Just the fact that this three week old child could move under her own power astonished Isaac. Although his knowledge of babies would probably fit onto the back of a postage stamp, even he knew that what he was witnessing just wasn’t possible.

The baby reached the girl’s ankle and, surprisingly, the creature didn’t fasten its jaws against her flesh. Instead, she continued to use those powerful fingers to climb up her knees and onto her mother’s lap.

The girl reacted to the baby’s presence by grabbing the hem of her nightdress and pulling the material up her body. She must be operating on some deep maternal instinct. If she had not been drugged up, Isaac was sure that Emma would have tried to tear that Godless thing off her skin and thrown it against the wall.

Was the interior minister behind Isaac wishing the same thing or was he now too busy staring at the girl’s large breasts to care the Emma was about to be eaten alive?

This bond between parent and child went both ways, it even transgressed the infection, although, Isaac believed what was to come was more insidious than simple mother and baby love. It reached the girl’s left breast and clamped its mouth over the nipple.

Emma’s eyes suddenly flashed open wide. She slammed the back of her head into the chair and arched her back. Her arms whipped out to the side, her fingers sprayed out wide. Isaac guessed the drugs must now be wearing off.

Bloodstained milk seeped out from the baby’s moving mouth. Judging from the look of utter terror now etched upon Emma’s face, she had now began to understand her situation. Yet, she still allowed this abomination to suckle from her. It was likely that the girl had accepted her fate already and had decided to let it do whatever it wanted. After all, she was one of the unjust, a weak-minded creature, with little instinct for elf preservation.

The baby’s fingers gripped and pulled at her skin, its tiny nails digging into the girl’s flesh, and yet she still didn’t remove it. She must be in a great deal of pain. Isaac so wished he could hear her cry out. Unfortunately, due to a previous plea from one of the other delegates, the orderly had muted the sound. Isaac sighed. He would just have to watch the suffering in silence.

He sneaked a glance behind him and discovered one more delegate had left the room. It took effort to keep calm. He found it obscene to watch these so-called men of power wilted at the sight of a little blood. Still, why should he be even surprised at their reaction? After all, to the church, these men were no more entitled than the unjust masses. Oh sure, unlike those worthless vermin, all the men who’d originally accompanied Isaac had achieved something in their live but none of that mattered. None of them belonged to the church, none of them were chosen. They all deserved the same fate as the unjust.

Isaac turned his attention back to what really mattered, to find the girl had finally got around to trying to pull the creature away from her. Her efforts were wasted though. The baby’s fingers had pushed all the way through her flesh. Judging from the angle, it had managed to curl its digits around a rib bone. All she managed to achieve was to pull its head away from her ruined breast for a moment but it didn’t matter for as soon as her blood-slicked finger lost purchase, the head sprang back, burying its tiny mouth into the raw open wound it had already created.

“and the flesh shall be consumed a the great devourer encircles the land.” Isaac stood up and approached the window. He placed the palms of his hands on the glass. “Its black wings will scrape the goodness from the meadow, forcing the unjust and the weak to prostrate themselves upon its mercy.”

“The chosen gather around its wings and rejoice.”

Isaac spun around. He hadn’t noticed the orderly entering the room. Also, all the other delegates had left the room.

“Brother Isaac,” uttered the orderly. “Please continue to observe. The demonstration has yet to finish.”

“I fail to see what more there is to learn from this.” He pressed his nose against the glass. The girl’s efforts were weakening. She didn’t have long left to live. Already, those baby’s teeth has chewed a sizable hole through her breast.

The orderly didn’t reply. He just stood beside Isaac and watched the carnage with him while recanting the death chant.

Isaac joined him in the chant. He felt at peace, as he always did when performing the Lord’s sacred duty.

The girl’s struggles had now all but ceased. She had passed on, killed by her own infant daughter yet the baby had no intention of stopping. Like a locust stripping leaf, those teeth continued chewing through flesh. Its bloated stomach looked ready to burst. Is that why the orderly wanted Isaac to continue watching? He turned to him. “How much meat will it be able to consume?”

The orderly smiled back. “Brother, please continue your observations.”

He shrugged and turned back to the scene, watching this creature feast upon the carcass of its mother. Isaac blinked. Wait, did he just see Emma’s left hand twitch? A muscle spasm surely!

“You have got to be kidding me,” he murmured. The dead girl slowly sat forward. Her arms lifted and her head tilted down. She rested her hands and the baby and the girl’s fingers tightened around its tiny arms. “How is this even possible?” He stared at the orderly. “That girl is dead.”

The orderly grinned back at Isaac. “For the unjust, the liars and the weak shall be the rain to scour the plains clean.” The man tapped on the glass. “Brother, the clouds will open and the rain shall cleanse the earth.”

The dead girl stood up, effortlessly tearing the feeding baby off her body and held it at arm’s length. Emma’s eyes moved up and down the baby’s little body before  she turned it upside down, holding it by the feet. The fact that what remained of her left breast hung down, the loose, torn flesh flapping against Emma’s chest didn’t seem to bother her.

For the first time since entering the institute, Isaac felt ice-cold fingers caressing his spine. He now had an inkling of the unease demonstrated by the other delegates today. Unlike those though, He embraced the disquiet. He managed to tear his gaze from the window. “This truly is the Lord’s doing.”

The orderly shook his head. “I’ll admit that his hands may have guided the research team, Brother Isaac, but it was us who put in the hours.” He smiled at Isaac. “Behold, the climax, brother!” He tapped his forefinger on the glass.

Isaac turned back, just in time to witness Emma smash the child’s head on the corner of the bed post before dropping the now still baby onto the carpet. The dead girl fell to her knees. She pushed her index finger hard against the top of the baby’s skull, pushing aside the already fractured bone. Emma then bent over and pushed in the rest of her fingers into the hole, using her strength to pull the broken skull away from the baby’s brain.

The lights in the room began to dim. Isaac’s last view was of the dead girl bringing the skull up to her open mouth. He so needed to sit down. The implications of what he had just seen now streaked through his mind. Each thought bringing up another ten similar concepts and ideas. This was just incredible. Isaac had originally believed that the Undeath virus would be powerful enough to incapacitate enough of the population for him to wrestle control from his enemies ion the government. This though, this – what was it, a side effect? This was the ultimate golden nectar. Once unleashed nothing would stand in path to rightful ascension.

“All the other delegates are now residing in the recovery room, Brother Isaac. Would you like to observe them?”

A sly glint appeared in the orderly’s eyes. Before Isaac could question him, the man turned away and marched towards the open door. He took one more look at the now darkened room before following the man. The mind was still spinning over what he had just witnessed. Whatever tiny cracks that had appeared in his faith were now firmly cemented over. It was such a good feeling.

The bland corridors flashed past as Isaac strode through the institute. He passed a number of employees. None were church members so he didn’t bother to acknowledge them.

The orderly was waiting for him when he reached the recovery room. “Brother, perhaps you would like refreshment?” he said when Isaac placed his hand on the door handle. “Please, follow me.”

Isaac tried the door, only to find it locked.  “Why is this locked?”

“It’s for your own protection, brother,” he replied. “Is you would like to follow me?”

The man disappeared around the corner. Isaac ran to catch him, eager to find out exactly what he the orderly was up to. The man reached another door and held it open for Isaac.

“Just climb the stairs, brother.”

Isaac did as he was asked. He found himself in a room similar to the one he left. Isaac wandered over to the large window at the far end of the room, and found himself looking down at the other delegates. They were all there. Two cabinet ministers, a couple of industrialists and three advisers to the defence department. Of course, the breast ogling minister of the interior was down there too, currently sipping water from a plastic cup.

“The unjust take on many forms.”

Isaac nodded in agreement. He took a coffee form the orderly’s proffered hand. “You have done very well here, brother. I will admit, it is not often that I am taken unawares but you have certainly done that today.”

“I’m glad you approve, brother.” He tapped on the glass causing three of the delegates to look up. The orderly then turned to Isaac. “and to finish the demonstration?” He smiled again.

The two doors in the recovery room opened. About half of the delegates turned towards the noise, Isaac guessed they were probably expecting him to walk through. They no doubt already had their speeches prepared, condemning the work done here at the institute. In fact, he knew that would be their response. The mood down there was a mixture of disgust and disbelief.

Isaac chuckled. The mood was soon to change. He had an idea of the fate that was to befall that group of mumbling sheep. He sighed in satisfaction as the infected creatures from the two earlier demonstration raced into the recovery room. three teenage males and an elderly male.

What made the experience all the more enjoyable was the sound hadn’t been muted. Isaac sipped his coffee while listening to the screams and shouting from the terrified delegates The minister of the Interior had somehow managed to dodge the rampaging creatures and had pushed a conference table against the wall. The gibbering man looked behind him, screaming in fear as the elderly man charged at him, luckily for the minister, one of the industrialists fell in between them. The infected pensioner fell on the industrialist, his teeth and fingernails shredding his flesh. The minister climbed onto the table and started to beat his fists on the glass.

Isaac grinned back at the minister before he turned to the orderly. “This coffee is most agreeable.” When he turned back to the one-way glass, two more infected had taken a leg each and had dragged the shrieking man back onto the floor.

Very quickly, the delegates ceased their shouts and screams. By the time Isaac had finished his drink, all that could be heard from the recovery room were the wet sounds of the infected feasting of their flesh.

“and so the cycle continues,” murmured the orderly.

“The idolaters and all the liars – they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulphur. This is the second death.”

“That isn’t from the Scriptures!”

Isaac nodded. “No, it’s from the book of their God. I think the quote is rather apt.” He passed the orderly his empty cup. “Come, brother. There is much work to be done.”

Chapter One

The bloated moon hung heavy, balanced upon the black landscape, its meagre light failing to compensate for the two smashed streetlights. The corner of Clark Terrace remained shrouded in long shadows.

Dominic Kilburn thrust his big hands deeper into his jacket pockets and stepped back into the darkness. He welcomed the absence of light. The young man took a deep breath allowing the cold night air to massage his burning lungs.

He was fully aware that stopping was a very bad idea, especially right here. Those four lads weren’t going to give up on him so easily. The little bastards had stuck to his trail like glue. It didn’t help matters that Brecken Gardens was their patch. They would know this damn maze like the backs of their grimy hands. It had been almost a decade since he’d had cause to venture into this part of town.

The sound of running footstep, getting louder told Dominic that the four kids were close by. He pushed himself against the brick wall. Maybe they’d run right past him? Why not? Who’d be dumb enough to stop here?

This was ridiculous. Why the hell was he cowering from a bunch of snot-nosed brats? Every one of them was half his age. More to the point, why was he even asking that question?

Dominic already knew the outcome of that potential confrontation. Unless the little shit were tooled up, he’d have dropped every one of them. It didn’t matter it there were four of them. They wouldn’t have stood a chance.

He breathed out, watching the vapour blend into the light mist. Better to let it go, he had no intention of being dragged through courts for assaulting minors, even if they did deserve a good kicking, and these four certainly did, after what they had done.

Like the rest of their generation, those kids obviously thought they were untouchable. None of them had shown any fear when he and his best mate Donny had rushed across the road to save that girl.

The Brecken Gardens shopping arcade hadn’t been empty, he had counted another eight other people within close proximity, yet none of them had been prepared to stop those kids from attacking that young woman. Knowing from what he’d observed from coming back home, they probably were all breathing a sigh of relief, thankful that they hadn’t being targeted.

Looking back to the fun and game just twenty minutes ago, it might have been a better idea to have stayed together and waited for the authorities to show up. Leading the kids away, being the hare, wasn’t one of his better ideas.

Two shadows appeared at the bottom of Clark terrace, followed by the sound of heavy breathing.

“He went this way, dude. I’m fucking sure of it.”

Dominic pressed his bode even hard against the wall as two of his pursuers slouched past his hiding place. These two hadn’t been the main instigators. They had hund back while their two mates pushed the girl about. They only joined in when it became clear that the girl wasn’t going ot fight back.

It felt so wrong to be hiding away like this. There was nothing stopping him from running over there, giving them a few slaps before melting back into the darkness. Apart from his temper that is. He knew that as soon as his blood was up, he wouldn’t be able to stop. Christ, he wished Donny was here. At least with him around, Dominic would at least be able to exercise some self-control.

Where were the other two tiny thugs? The boy with the shock of untidy blonde hair and the lad wearing the dark blue baseball cap were nowhere in sight.

“He’s not here. I bet the fucker’s either double-backed or ran off. Come on, this is boring now. Let’s go get some chips.”

The other boy turned in a circle, his eyes looking directly at the unlighted area where Dominic stood.

“Only if you’re buying.”

“Fuck off. I haven’t got that much money.”

“Give over. I know for a fact that Andy slipped you two twenties at dinner.”

“Doesn’t matter. I ain’t buying you shit. You still owe me for that pizza I got you when you said you were strapped.”

The bickering continued as the two boys made their way back the way they came. Dominic waited for another minute before stepping out of the shadows. The whole experience had drained him, making him feel like he needed to lie down in a darkened room for the next few days.

He felt angry. No, he was raging. Not just at those four arrogant thugs but at himself for being unable to diffuse the situation and allowing it to get out of control. Dominic looked down at his hands surprised to find eight crescent-shaped indentations across his palms.

“What a fuck up,” he whispered. “and to think, we only came out for a quiet pint. Right now, a pint or three sounded like the best medicine a man could have. It wasn’t too late either. Dominic could be back at the shopping centre in just over ten minutes.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket. Oh, what a surprise, three miscalls from Donny. Yeah well, he could wait a bit longer. He needed to think where to do for a drink. They’d have to find somewhere else. Dominic didn’t care of Donny’s choice of the Fox and Goose anymore. He didn’t care that it had the cheapest beers in the area. Any pub close to this shitty estate was bound to be bad news.

Dominic left the refuge and hurried in the opposite direction, heading for the edge of the estate. There used to be a cutting that opened out onto a patch of spare land. He remembered the council had tied to turn it into a recreational zone, complete with a duck pond, playground equipment and a football field.

This was long before he joined the forces, back when he was the same age as those four scrotes. It didn’t tale too long for the place to lose its sparkle. By the end of the first year, they’d had to fill in the duck pond, not that it need much filling in. The local kids had already done half the work with shopping trollies, bricks and bread baskets stolen from the off licence.

After another twenty years, Dominic doubted much would be left intact. Not that it mattered, as long as the footpath still wound through the area. That would take him straight to the back of the shops.

“What a way to finish my first day back,” he muttered.

Dominic turned the corner and shuddered to a halt. Directly in front of him, blocking his path, stood three of his pursuers. The two bickerers were now joined by Mr Baseball cap.

“You see!” cried the boy who had wanted chips. “Didn’t I tell you he was here?” His whining voice oozed contentment. “I knew it was him, I just knew it.”

“Shut your face, Darren,” snarled Baseball cap, I get it already.”

“Are you for real?” Dominic pulled his hands out of his pockets. “Tell you what, why don’t you do yourself a favour and put that down before you get hurt.,” he said, staring at the bicycle chain held in baseball cap’s hands.

The remaining boy stepped away from the side of one of the estate’s tower blocks. Like Baseball cap, this one had found a weapon. Blonde hair gripped a length of rough hewn wood. It even had a couple of nails sticking out of the side.

Dominic felt perfectly calm. His steady breathing was a direct contrast to how the state he was in a few minutes ago. This was what happened when choices were taken away from him. The option to flee no longer applied.

“You don’t put baby in the corner,” he snarled. Dominic spun to the side and charged Blonde Hair, ducking under the boy’s clumsy blow.  He grabbed the end of the weapon and wrenched it out of the boy’s grip. He spun it around and slammed the other edge into the boy’s solar plexus.

When the boy refused to drop like he was supposed to, Dominic followed through with a savage uppercut. “Stay where you are!” he shouted, when the boy crashed onto the pavement. He threw the stick into the middle of the road then turned to face the remaining three boys. His heart sank when he saw that none of them had ran away.

“I ain’t scared of you,” said Baseball Cap.

The kid’s hateful little eyes confirmed the boy’s statement. It wasn’t bluster. That little shit really did think he could take him on. The ease that Dominic had put down Blonde Hair obviously hadn’t registered. Dominic had taken out the wrong target first.

The kid sneered at him. “Come on then, big man. Let’s be having you, let’s see just what the fuck you’ve got!”

Baseball Cap wore the same contemptuous look when he and his mate pushed that girl over. Dominic growled. His self control buckled and his temper rose up like an active volcano. The red mist descended and he ran at the kid.

Surprise briefly flashed across the boy’s eyes, but unlike his Blonde mate, this one managed to prepare himself. Baseball Cap swung the chain, the tip slapping into Dominic’s side.

He gritted his teeth against the sudden pain. Dominic didn’t want to give the thug chance to hit him again. He smashed his fist into the boy’s face. The baseball cap flew off his head. Dominic grabbed the boy’s wrist and twisted it around, finding joy when the kid screamed out. He still held on to the chain though. Dominic twisted his arm further up his back and squeezed hard. Finally the chain dropped onto the grass.

“You’re not scared of me?” He lifted his head back then butted the boy in the face. “you should be, cos I’m a fucking monster!” He kicked the boy’s feet out from under him and followed him down, sitting on the kid’s chest. Dominic pounded his face. The blood streaming from his nose only enraged Dominic even further. “What’s wrong, shithead, don’t you like a taste of your own medicine?”

“Leave off him mister, you’re going to kill him.”

Dominic hit the boy again, his cheekbone cracked. “You’re going ot be next, if you don’t fuck off.”

“I’m going to call the police on you!”

Dominic stopped, his bloodied fist still risen above the groaning boy’s head. He slowly stood up and swung his upper body. The three boys stood together, they now look like three terrified little boys. Dominic looked down at the mess he’d made of the boy’s face and suddenly felt so ashamed of his actions. “I thought you were going to call the police?”

Behind the three boys, Dominic saw another figure walking towards them. At first, he thought it could be some bloke from the flats, coming over to see what was going on, until he stopped the man’s light coloured jacket.

He wiped the blood off his scraped knuckles onto the backs of his trouser and moved away from the boy, heading straight for the boy. They scattered like bowling pins when he approached.

“You need to get him to A&E, as soon as you can” he said when the boys rushed past him.

“Is everything okay, Dom?” His mate took a metal tin from out of the inside of his denim jacket and popped open the lid.

Dominic took the offered roll-up. “It’s all covered, I guess.”

Donny nodded, “Thought you’d be able to handle it.

He stood beside his mate and watched the three of them pick the boy off the floor. None of the boys said one word.

“So what’s the damage, Dom?”

“Broken nose, fat lip. I think I cracked his cheekbone as well.”

“Not the kid, you buffoon, I was talking about you.”

“Oh.” Dominic shrugged. “Not much. This blood isn’t mine.”

“You sure?” He bent down. “what about all that blood pissing out of your side?”

“Oh that. He got me with the chain. It’s nothing.”

All four kids had now disappeared. Dominic looked down at the dropped chain, then back at Donny. “I could have killed that kid. Hell, I could have ended the lot of the little shits.”

“You didn’t though.”

“That’s not the point.”

Donny laughed. “I think you’ll find that it is, guy. Ha, respect to me, I think. I knew you could control it.”

“Wait on, are you trying to tell me that you set all this up?”

“Don’t be so bloody daft, man How could I have done that? I just took advantage of the situation when it presented itself.” Donny lit up both roll-ups. “I told you that army head-doctor was talking out of his thick arse. You don’t have anger management issues at all.”

Dominic could be bothered going down this well trodden road again. He’d already explained over a dozen times what happened to him over there. The trouble with Donny was to him life was black and white, shades of grey just didn’t exist for him. His simple philosophy meant he thought he could solve a whole manner of problems, everything from world hunger all the way down to Dominic’s mental health. Donny could invariably come up with his own version of a solution.

“I think I need that drink now, Donny.”

His mate chuckled. “You sure about that, guy? Thing is, I do have a bit of a confession to make here. Remember my recommendation of the Fox and Goose?”

“Go on,” he replied, already believing where this conversation would be heading.

“Well, I only chose it cos it’s still the roughest pub in town and I figured that after you hade a few drinks down your neck, some clown was bound to take a dislike to you and…”

“You really are a fucker, Donny. For crying out loud, are you trying to get me locked up?”

His mate sighed, “Jesus, guy. Give it up with the anger issues already. I’m only trying to help you out. Anyway, we don’t need to go to any pub now.”

“For fuck’s sake, I’m not some mobile experiment, Donny. You’re right about not going to the pub. Fuck this, I’m going to go home.”

“No, you don’t understand.” Donny pulled a clear plastic bag from out of his tobacco tin. “I have something better than alcohol. A present from Julie.”

It took a moment to work out just who Julie was.

“Our damsel in distress wanted us to have this. Although between me and you, I think she gave it me in case the police searched her. Not that they turned up, the slack fuckers. Anyway, she said it’s strong enough to put us in orbit. I also got her telephone number but I’m not going to share that fucker.”

“I don’t know about this. I mean, I wanted to keep a clear head. I told you, I was hoping to meet up with Monique tomorrow.”

“Monique? Man, are you having a laugh? She dumped you for some poncy knobhead who works at the local bank.”

“It wasn’t like that and you know it.”

Donny peeled open the little bag and took a deep sniff. “Oh boy, this sure does smell like decent stuff. I bet it’s almost as divine as the gear you got me when you were over in Afghanistan. Come on, dom. Let’s go down to Hobson’s back and get smashed under the stars. Think of the money we’ll save on not having to buy any beer.”

He set off walking, still heading towards that cutting. Right now, Dominic didn’t know what he wanted. Beer, weed or sleep all sounded like good ideas to him. He turned around. “Did you say the police didn’t turn up?”

“Nope. I ended up walking Julie home.” He pointed to the flats they’d just passed. “Second floor, number eighteen. I would have stayed but then I noticed you. I couldn’t leave you, man.” He shook the bag. “Are we going to build up then or what?”

Dominic grinned. “Fair enough.”

They walked through the dark estate, Dominic’s thoughts strayed towards his ex-girlfriend. Although it was true that the girl was now seeing a guy who worked behind the counter of Wessex Bank, she hadn’t dumped him. In fact, it had been him who’d suggested that the pair of them should go their separate ways.

Back in that dark time though, Dominic had probably said and written a lot of things that he didn’t mean. He sighed to himself. Perhaps they could start again? From what he’d heard, it wasn’t exactly a serious relationship. Perhaps she’d take him back after he explained his reasons for the letter?

They both reached the entrance to the cutting. Donny slid past the metal railing, the council had erected to stop folk on motorbikes roaring up and down the snicket. He performed a mock bow when Dominic joined him.

“This is going to be a blast, man.”

Dominic stopped dead. He leaned over to Donny.

“Shit, man. What are to doing? I hope you ain’t trying to kiss me. I’m flattered and everything but you’re not my type.”

“You smell weird.”

“Come again? Wait, are you trying to tell me I need a fucking bath?”

Dom shook his head. “No, nothing like that. There’s this weird chemical smell coming off you. Like you’ve been drinking brake fluid or something.”

“Don’t you go weird on me, Dom.”

Christ, Donny stunk of this new smell and it was getting stronger. “Seriously, I think we ought to get home, this is too weird for…” Dominic jumped at the sound of an loud bang coming from the other side of the estate.

“Relax, man, it’s probably just some kid setting off fireworks.”

Dominic shook his head. “No, I know the difference. That was a fucking explosion.”

“Bollocks. It’s fireworks. I logged in way more gaming time on Call of the Duty than you.”

Oh Christ, Donny had to be right. What else could it be? He put it down to him still being all keyed up over what had just happened. “You know what, maybe you are right. A good spliff really is just what the doctor ordered.”

He hurried down the cutting, eager to get to the beck now. His nerves needed calming down as soon as possible. Dominic suddenly stopped. He groaned quietly at the sight of four figures at the end of the path. “This is unreal, those fuckers don’t know when to give up.”

“I wonder why they’re not moving.”

Yeah, that was a little weird. All four of them were stood as still as statues. They looked as smashed as what Donny wanted to get. Something else bothered Dominic, that weird chemical smell were coming from the kids too. “What is that?” He coughed. “Whatever it is, it might be best not to light up.”

He turned and cried out in shock when he saw Donny had frozen up as well. “Dude!” He waved his hand past Donny’s face, then clicked his faces. “Come on, man, stop arsing about.”

The four youths at the other end of the cutting all slowly turned their heads. An orchestrated groaning emerged from their mouths. He grabbed Donny’s shoulders and violently shook him. “Come on, you. Snap out of it!” Dominic was aware that the kids were now lurching towards the pair of them. He groaned himself and tried to pull Donny back over towards the metal railing. He had to let go when blonde Hair got close enough to lunge at Dominic. He easily dodged out of the way and pushed the kid forward.

“Get yourselves home,” he shouted. “The lot of you, before I really do kick your fucking arses!”

Blonde Hair merely turned back around and went for him again. Dominic fought down the panic when he saw the boy’s lifeless eyes. Whatever he had taken, reasonable threats weren’t going to work. Dominic launched his foot forward, his boot slamming into the boy’s testicles. It was like kicking a bag of potatoes. The boy just stood there, unaffected.

Panic gripped Dominic by the throat. He backed away from the approaching boys. Completely forgetting about Donny, until a lone voice of anguish caused him to spin around.

Donny was fitting on the ground. His back arching and his legs and feet drumming against the floor. Dominic dropped to his knees and placed his hands over Donny’s ears, while keeping a close watch on the four boys. He tried to keep his head still. “Come on, man. You need to snap out of this!”

The man suddenly stopped moving, he exhaled a cloud of vile noxious vapour before lying totally still. “What the fuck is this?” Dominic moaned. It was totally clear that Donny had just died. He had no pulse.

He moved back, still watching the four kids. At the back of his mind, the unthinkable was beginning to take form, that those four were no longer alive too. No matter how much he dismissed that notion as complete bullshit, the dreadful idea just clung on.

Dominic slowly got to his feet and backed away. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, intending to do exactly what one of the kids threatened to do earlier, to call the police.

His mate, Donny then turned his head towards Dominic. He got back onto his feet, the man’s doll-like eyes staring directly at him.

“Donny?” He approached his mate. “It’s me, man, it’s Dominic.”

The man suddenly dived at him, his outstretched fingers finding purchase on Dominic’s jacket. Before he was able to react, Donny’s mouth fastened over his upper arm. Dominic cried out in utter agony when the man’s teeth bit into his soft flesh.

He grabbed Donny’s hair and managed to pull his head away, the man’s bloodied jaw chewing on the lump of meat, he’d ripped out of Dominic’s arm. He pushed Donny into the other four and ran past them. His arm had already gone numb. He knew he was bleeding out, and if he didn’t get this sorted, Dominic would lost consciousness fast.

The five of them had picked themselves off the floor and were giving chase. His mind was having difficulty processing any coherent thoughts. All he could focus on was that he’d be dropping at any moment and if that happened. All of those things would fall on him and five sets of jaws would be ripping into his body.

Dominic went for the only options available to him. He jumped onto the fence next to him and threw his body over onto the other side. The last thing he heard before darkness claimed him was the howl of frustration from the creatures on the other side of that cutting.

Chapter Two

Shards of bright sunlight turned the insides of his eyelids bright red. He screwed up his closed eyes before turning away from the unwanted intrusion. Coming out from his deep sleep should have triggered enough warnings to push him straight into full alert but right now, all his muddled senses wanted to do was to listen to birdsong and to enjoy the heady scent of flowers drifting up his nose.

It was only when another smell burrowed through the flower aroma that pushed him further away from dreamland. It smelled a little like burning meat. That lingering smell refused to go away.

He snapped open his eyes and found his aching body lost in a vast sea of green. Dominic turned onto his back then sat up, resting the palms of his hands on the long grass behind him.

Recollections of the previous night refused to fully solidify. He got flashes of his fists striking flesh as well as Donny mentioning going out for a few drinks. Considering that his head currently felt like there was a German dancing around in there and he’d just woken up under this bright sun, Dominic concluded that the pair of them must have put away more than a few pints.

“Why are my feet wet?” He guessed that at some point, he and Donny must have gone and had a play in the beck, yet that little memory nugget stayed hidden away. He took his eyes off his soaking wet boots and scanned the horizon. Several columns of black smoke rose up into the sky. He frowned. Somewhere deep inside him, he knew that something really bad had happened. An event which certainly eclipsed waking up outside with wet feet. It didn’t matter how hard he tried though, Dominic couldn’t remember anything other than what his stubborn mind had already shown him.

Judging from all those columns of smoke in the distance, it looked as though half the next town was on fire. They’d been burning for some time as well, yet he saw no evidence of human activity over there. He should have heard the sirens from half the county’s fire engines rushing towards those fires.

He turned his head and softly moaned at the sight of a couple more columns of smoke close by. What the hell had happened? Dominic got onto his knees and slowly rose up, managing to stand without falling back down. He was weak. His stomach growled. It felt as though he hadn’t eaten for days.

It took most of his strength to struggle up the grassy slope and to reach the shoulder heath hedge. He ran his fingers along the wooden, hidden behind the greenery and considered his limited options. There was a narrow cutting on the other side of this barrier that would either take him up to the edge of the estate or he could go the other way and walk through the rough patch of spare land that was once a park. Dominic glanced down at his feet and decided to head for tarmac and buildings instead.

Why the hell was he down here I the first place? He couldn’t think of a single reason as to why he’d want to stray into the town’s most notorious housing estate. Brecken Gardens held nothing for him.

Did Donny somehow persuade him to visit a couple of the pubs around here? It sounded plausible, knowing his mate. How was he going to get over this damn hedge? Dominic lifted his arms, intending to push his hands through the bush and grab the top of the fence. He stopped moving when his eyes caught sight of a mass of dark bruises at the top of his arm.

“What the fuck?”

The bruises surrounded a crescent-shaped wound. What concerned him more than anything was it wasn’t recent. The skin was already growing back. Dominic didn’t bother lingering over how he’d received the wound, despite some inner voice suggesting that some fucker had taken a bite out of him.

He breathed in a lungful of air and stretched his arms. His weakness was gradually dissipating. His hunger didn’t seam to be as prominent either, the urging to tuck into a huge fried breakfast had just faded away. It’s as if his appetite saw the wound on his arm and suddenly decided to be somewhere else.

Dominic pushed away these unanswerable questions and focussed on getting over the hedge. He grabbed the top of the fence and hoisted himself over. His feet buckled and Dominic fell onto the hard-packed mud.

Perhaps his strength hadn’t fully returned after all. He sighed to himself and got up, brushing the dust from his trousers. He wished he could remember what the hell had happened to him. What he did remember made no sense, frankly, it was more than a little frustrating.

He reached the edge of the cutting and stopped dead, gaping in utter shock at the sight directly in front of him. He saw an untidy pile of chared human bodies in the middle of the road. His knees threatened to give out. Dominic grabbed the metal railing and turned away. His guts performed a slow tumble when the wind changed and he unwittingly swallowed a mouthful of air tainted with the heavy stench of burning meat.

“Oh my God, what the fuck has happened here? Dominic looked back, forcing himself to drink in this vile travesty and to try and come to terms with the fact that the limbs were still moving.

Missing pieces of recent memory now slotted into place. Dominic remembered the four boys lurching towards him. Their eyes like dead fish. He then recoiled at the recollection of Donny’s strong teeth clamping down on the top of his arm.

Dominic took a shaky breath, holding his nose to avoid that vile smell from assaulting his nostrils anymore.

Despite the unreal situation, despite the horror that he was seeing, this didn’t add up. These bodies had been here for longer then a single night and his arm wound was certainly older than a week, so if that was the case, where the fuck was his missing memories, more to the point, how could he still be alive? It’s pretty difficult to survive without eating and drinking for more than a few days.

Dominic’s body had all but given up telling his he was hungry. He dug out his phone and sighed when it would switch on. The battery was obviously as flat as a fart. “Come on, man, get your shit together.”

Whether he’d be out of it for a few hours, a week or a month, right now, stood here watching all those blacken limbs moving about like a mountain of dying spider legs, none of that mattered. What mattered more than anything was for him to get his priorities right.

He’d woken up in a different place and for the first time in weeks, Dominic missed the comforting weight of his sidearm. It was such a weird sensation and yet it was at least, a sensation that he could understand. This was no longer a tame land.

Dominic slowly walked towards the writhing bodies, their erratic movements were almost hypnotic. There must have been over two dozen bodies in that pile. A pair of thin arms pushed out from under a naked torso, the fingers walking down the bodies, until the fingernails found the tarmac.

He didn’t dare get too close to those limbs. The last thing he wanted was to get dragged into that pile. Dominic turned around, refusing to allow his head to linger over how those things could still be moving about. Instead he cast his gaze over the rest of his immediate vicinity, looking for any other clues as to what might have happened. There were two more plumes of black smoke close by. He guessed that they were close to the town centre.

He saw no other signs of movement, nor did he hear any signs of civilization, no shouts, no voices, not even car engines disturbed the silence. The feeling that he was the only person left standing was difficult to shift.

“No, that’s bollocks. There’s got to be others about.” Dominic looked past the bodies and examined the four houses in front of him. Whoever lived in two of the houses had left in a hurry. They hadn’t bothered shutting the front doors. He shifted to the side, trying to look inside the first house.

The walls were splattered with what could be dried blood. Dominic decided against checking it out. He needed to get home and check on his dad. Everything else would have to wait. He also didn’t really want to go into any potential danger zone without tooling himself up first. Checking on dad wasn’t his only reason for heading back home.

He had hidden a weapon under his bedroom floorboards. It wasn’t his sidearm, for some reason, the army wouldn’t let him take that home when they discharged him. That complication hadn’t been that much of an obstacle. He’d made friends with more than one guy in the forces that had contacts on the outside, and a quick trip to some seedy pub in the north of England, three weeks ago, reunited him with a weapon, complete with enough ammunition to fill a supermarket carrier bag.

He tried not to think about how a three decades old East German pistol would be able to protect him against people that refused to stay dead. He glanced down and spotted something very familiar. “Okay, so that’s weird,” he muttered.

Dominic bent down and picked up the bicycle chain. Was this dropped bt Mr Baseball Cap? If so, how on earth did it end up over here? He shrugged to himself, another question without an answer. Still, this was better than nothing. It would make do until he grabbed his gun.

Holding the chain did make Dominic make him feel a little safer. Safe enough to check out a couple of those houses over there? What harm would it be to take a shift peek to see if he could find out what had happened? A recent newspaper would see to that.

The way he saw it, there was about a mile between him and his home. How many buildings would he have to pass before he arrived at his destination, a hundred, two hundred? Who knew what potential dangers could be out there waiting to drag him down to hell.

Dominic walked around the moving bodies and made his way towards the first house. He pushed open the gate and slowly walked along the stone path, his eyes not moving from the house’s dark interior.

The closer he got, the more convinced he became about the mess on the two walls was blood. There was so much of it though. It looked like somebody had thrown several overflowing buckets of gore against the wallpaper. Dominic shivered, or somebody pulling the cord on a suicide vest. He knew from bitter experience that the aftermath he was seeing only hinted at the horrific violence and mayhem that must have happened sometime in the past few hours.

He found himself lifting his hand in readiness to knock on the door. Dominic suppressed an hysterical giggle before forcing his arm back down to his side. “Christ on a bike,” he said.

Dominic stepped over the threshold and gingerly tip-toed around the small lumps of wet, glistening flesh which littered the dark coloured carpet.

Had this been some kind of terror attack, or an outbreak of some new and virulent disease? Was it local, and if so, had the authorities contained it? He stopped next to the first closed door and pressed his ear against the wood. After about a minute of listening to nothing apart from his own breathing, Dominic quietly pushed open the door.

He found himself staring into the interior of a modern kitchen. By the looks of it, nobody had been in here for a while. A thin layer of dust covered every surface. Unlike the abattoir scenes in the hallway, the kitchen was untouched by violence.

Dominic placed the chain on the black tiled island, he took out a cook’s knife from the cutlery drawer and slid it under his belt. The way he saw, you couldn’t have too much protection.

He wandered over to the window, grabbing his bike chain as he passed. Nothing looked out of place in the occupant’s back garden, at least that was the case until Dominic noticed a severed hand lying in the bird bath in the middle of the lawn. “This is fucking crazy!”

With everything he’d seen since waking up, that hand, just lying there, in it’s own blood-stained water affected him the most, He had no idea why either. Dominic closed his eyes and leaned against the side of the fridge. It felt as though he was walking through someone’s nightmare, it couldn’t be his, how could it be? Dominic knew he was awake.

He opened the fridge door, staring into the darkness. He wrinkled his nose against the smell. Was he totally sure that this wasn’t his own private nightmare? After all, he’d already established that there’d been a significant gap on his memory, who’s to say that this wasn’t a waking dream? Who’s to say that it wasn’t drink that he’d thrown down his gob the night before? He knew for a fact that his mate had become quite the little drug addict since Donny was discharged two months before the fuckers threw him out on his heels.

A drug induced nightmare? He had to admit, the idea did comfort him, in the way that he could wake up at any moment to find everything make to normal. He picked out a tub of margarine. According to the date on the side, this ran out yesterday. If, that is, this was the day after he got back. “Fuck, this is making my headache return.” Apart from the margarine, every other food item was in Tupperware containers, making it impossible to work out the real date. He slammed the door and hurried out of the kitchen. He stepped through the mess and opened the next door. This one led him into the living room.

“At least,” he said, grinning, at the sight of a newspaper lying on the glass coffee table. It was dated a week after he blacked out. “Jesus.” He felt his legs go weak again. All the signs had already pointed to his prolonged sleep, but to see it in black and white felt as though someone had dunked his head into a bucket of ice-cold water.

So, here it was. That paper could answer so many questions. Dominic got to the brown leather chair and flopped into it, his shaking fingers gripped the edge of the paper and he pulled it towards him. Dominic read the screaming headline three times seriously wondering if he’d gone back in time. The biggest new item that they could find was of some member of parliament fiddling his taxes. “What the fuck is this?” He flicked through the rest of the pages, failing to find anything about any attacks, articles about mass deaths or anything about burning fucking bodies. “This is utter bollocks.” Dominic threw the paper back on the table. The end of the world had arrived and all this paper cared about was the antics of some minor government official.

He rested his hands on the cool leather arm rests and listened to the birds outside. His dad had a chair very similar to this one. He’d lost count of the times he’d fallen asleep in his dad’s chair. That had been before he’d joined up though, before the incident that sent his life into a downward spiral. The only difference being back home, he had the buzz of the fridge and the noise of the dad’s clock to lull him to sleep.

In here, he had nothing but the birds. Dominic so wanted this to be some drug induced fantasy, he so wanted to go to sleep and wake up in his dad’s chair, with the comforting home-like sounds he missed.

A floorboard creaked. Dominic tilted his head back. His heart hammered against his ribs. Fuck, he wasn’t alone after all! He leapt out of the chair and ran to the foot of the stairs. Looking down at him, he saw a young dark-haired woman. She gasped and spun around, disappearing around the corner.

“Oh God! Miss, please wait!” He raced up the steps, taking them two at a time. “Hold on, I don’t want to hurt you.” She ran into the furthest room. He followed her, crying out in frustration at the sight of the woman climbing out of the window. “For the love of Christ,” he muttered. “Come on, lady, I only want to talk to you.”

Dominic got to the open window and peered out, watching her clamber down the drainpipe. She moaned when he followed her out. He gripped the metal pipe tight and made his way down, fully aware that she had already reached the bottom. He turned his head, watching the woman run across the lawn and pushed her way through the hedge and the bottom of the garden.

He jumped the last few feet, rolling across the grass before jumping back onto his feet. There was no way he could afford to lose this woman, his need to find some answers now overrode every other desire. He leaped over the hedge, sighing with relief at the sight of the woman on the other side of the road. She turned her head before running towards a group of red brick buildings.

“Shit.” The woman was running straight for a sheltered housing complex. It was like a bloody maze in there. If the woman got in there, He’d never find her. Dominic put on a burst of speed, closing the gap between them.

“Please, miss. Will you slow down, I’m a friend. I only want a few answers!”

The young woman ignored his cries for help and speeded up. She swerved past another, smaller pile of blackened bodies, stacked against one of the walls and vanished into the maze.

“Fuck!” Dominic followed the woman and skidded to a complete halt at the sight of the woman backed into a corner. She had inadvertently run straight into a dead end. “Now can we talk?”

He’d never seen anyone looking so terrified in his life. It was as if she thought he was about to murder her. Dominic slowly crouched and laid the chain on the pavement. “Please, miss. Just tell me what’s happened. I’ve just woken up to this mess.” He paused, realising just how ridiculous that sounded. Nobody sleeps for a whole week. Judging from her unchanged expression, it made no difference. Dominic might as well have been speaking Swahili for all the good it did.

“Fuck this,” he muttered. He began to walk towards her, his hands held out in front of him with his palms facing her. If she did try to bolt past him, Dominic would just have to grab the bitch and hold her until she calmed down, however long that was.

She yelped once before she bent over and scoop up half a brick.

“Come on, miss, put that down. I’m not here to hurt you.”

She then growled at him before smashing the brick against the window beside her. Before he could even reach the woman, she was already halfway through. Dominic rushed up to her and grabbed the woman’s ankles. He received a sharp kick under his chin for his trouble.

The force threw him back, cracking his head on the wall. “You bitch! What the hell is wrong with you?”

Dominic ignored the shooting pains travelling from the base of his skull into his spine. He tentatively brushed his fingers across the back of his head. They came away wet with blood. Dominic launched himself forwards and grabbed her ankle with both hands.

The woman started to shriek. At first, he thought it was because his fingers were digging into her ankle until he spotted three moving shadows on the other side of the window.

Her cries cut off in mid scream and the woman’s body went completely limp. Dominic gaped in shock as three pairs of hands exploded from the dark interior. The fingers snagged her clothes and exposed flesh then tugged and pulled the body through the broken window.

He let go of her ankle and jumped back having a great deal of trouble coming to terms with what he was witnessing.  Her waist disappeared into the interior, followed by her long legs. A shard of broken glass still in the frame caught one of her shoe buckles. After a couple of sharp tugs, the shoes slipped off her foot and bounced along the floor, before coming to a rest beside the wall.

Three scarlet eyed faces competed for space in the narrow window. None of them seemed to notice that the remaining glass was slicing through their skin. Dominic couldn’t take his eyes away from the faces as he backed out of the dead-end, he had a feeling that his new visitors were not just going to be satisfied with the young woman. He would end up being their next victim if he didn’t get out of here.

He cried out in surprise when his feet tripped over something lying on the floor. “Fucking hell!” he snarled when he saw that the dropped chain had almost put him on his arse.

“Come on then,” he shouted. Dominic picked up the chain, just as the next one leaped onto the floor. He doubted that it understood a word he said. It’s as if every higher level of emotion had been stripped from its conscious, leaving behind a vicious, primal predator, that right now only had one thing on its mind, to rip him to pieces.

Somewhere under those dark bruises and shallow cuts covering most of the creature’s naked body was somebody who, not too long ago, probably had a family, worried about mortgage payments and no doubt had some boring job. Despite its fearsome appearance and obvious intentions, Dominic couldn’t help but to feel sorry for it. After all, it had changed through no fault of his own. Somebody or something had done this to him and the rest of them.

Dominic continued backing out of the dead end, aware that even tackling one of these creatures could end up with him on the losing side. It’s obvious that it was no way intimidated by the bicycle chain.

“Get back in the house!” he shouted. “Go on, fuck off.” Dominic smashed the chain down onto the ground. It gave him a small amount of satisfaction to see both creatures jump back. The relief didn’t last though as once he had started moving again, the pair of them began to creep towards him.

Another one pushed his head through the window but didn’t jump down to join its pals. Instead, it balanced its feet on the edge of the window frame. Dominic’s stomach rolled when he saw it carried a severed arm. Its eyes darted from its fellow creatures than at him, whilst casually ripping lumps of meat from the arm.

Dominic thought his head was going to explode when another crashing noise ripped through him. He took his eyes away from the approaching creatures to discover that the window behind him had been smashed as well. Another one of the creatures were slowly climbing out. He spun around and ran over to the window and pushed it back inside. When it growled at him and tried to climb out again, he smashed the chain into its face.

It howled in fury before vanishing back into the dark interior. His sudden act of violence hadn’t stopped the other two from approaching, if anything, they had speeded up. Dominic threw the chain at them before pelting out of the housing complex. His legs took him back the way he came.

More creatures burst through the windows in numerous buildings and chased after Dominic, screaming and howling. It took him just seconds to reach the fence. He risked a glance behind him before throwing his body over. There must have been two dozen of them now in pursuit. Some of the creatures were moving on all fours. A fw of them still wore the remains of tattered clothing.

Despite the terrifying situation, Dominic did notice one oddity. Every single creature gave that small pile of moving charred bodies a wide berth as they passed it.

He ran passed the drainpipe and jumped over the small wooden gate. They’d already reached the fence but none of them had thought to climb it. His thoughts that he’d outsmarted the creature were short-lived. The others behind the creatures already at the fences simply ran into the ones at the front. It wouldn’t be that long before the pressure of all those bodies splintered and finally broke the fence.

Dominic raced into the front garden and skidded to a halt. “Oh no!” There were several most of them running towards his position from the opposite direction. “What am I going to do now?”

The sound of the fence starting to give way reached his ears. He pulled his knife out from his belt and moaned. Like this would be able to protect him from that lot. He made his way towards the front gate then slowed down, watching the limbs in that pile move about. Would all those creatures give this pile a wide berth too? Then again, dare he get too close? He had no intention of finding himself getting dragged into the middle.

The sound of running feet coming from behind him told Dominic that the fuckers had broken through the fence. What other choice did he have? If he stayed here, He’d get turned into dog meat in seconds.

He approached the blackened pile, his heart speeding up when some of those arms moved towards him. Dominic took two more steps forward, staying just out of the reach of their grasping fingers. He turned around, watching the other creatures run past the side of the house. They took no notice of him, instead they split up into three groups and broke into the houses that he hadn’t checked out, none of them bothered with the door, instead they dived through the bottom floor windows.

Tears flowed down his cheeks at the sound of two separate shrieks reached him. Oh Christ, there had been more people hiding out in there, and he’d led those running nightmares straight here.

Sudden movement behind him caused Dominic to slowly turn around. He groaned in horror as one of the bodies managed to claw its way through the writhing collection of arms and legs.  Its burned flesh hung down from its face like melted cheese. The blackened thing dropped its jaw and let out a single mournful moan. Dominic backed away, crying out when it lurched forward, its left hand landing on his wrist.

“Get the fuck away from me,” he cried.

The dead thing continued to free itself body from the tangled mess, revealing more of its body. Dominic gazed down at its waist when something shiny caught the sun. It was a belt buckle. He recognised it immediately, as he had bought it over three years ago. Dominic looked down at the knife still gripped in his  hand. “I’m so sorry, buddy.” He then thrust the blade up into the dead thing’s lower jaw.

Donny let out another low moan before falling forward into the sea of moving arms. Dominic dropped to his knees and wept.

Chapter Three

There were two graves in the garden below him. At least, he assumed that’s what they’d started out as. Whoever they had buried in the black soil had clawed their way out of the two shallow holes. Two sets of footprints led from the open graves, the prints stopped at the edge of the driveway. Judging from the lake of thick blood pooling under the wheels of the green hatchback, either one of the dead people or their victim had met their end.

Dominic turned away from the bedroom window and walked back the smaller window on the other side of the room. From here, he saw that pile of bodies. Since he’d last crawled out from under it, they had now spread out across the road. He sat down on the edge of the bed and hugged himself to try to halt the shakes. He honestly thought he was going to die when the bodies toppled on him. Despite drinking a full carton of pure orange juice he had found downstairs, he could still taste that mixture of burnt flesh and congealed blood that fell into his mouth while he was trying to crawl his way out.

“Still think this is some drug induced fantasy?” he whispered. Dominic spat onto the carpet, then silently apologised to the previous owners. He wondered if the ripped bits of the people those creatures had pulled through the windows had originally lived here or had just taken shelter here. He also wanted to know who had put all those people there and set it on fire.

He apologised to the previous owners again, when he saw the mess he had made on the pale blue covers. To get from that pile to the house, Dominic had smeared some of that thick soot, ash and burnt flakes of flesh across his bare arms. It amazed him that he’d managed to stay calm enough to dip his fingers into all that mess in the first place.

Still, his brain wave had worked. Dominic was able to weave through the several creatures, all crouched on the floor, greedily pushing wet lumps of meat into their mouths. Not one of them had looked up from their meal.

His thoughts strayed to his best mate and tears welled up in his eyes. Christ, what a way to go. He’d lost mates before but never once had he had to put any of them out of their suffering. “Dead is not dead anymore,” he said, getting off the bed. Donny would have wanted release, that much he did know.

He was still none the wiser as to what the fuck happened here. He had no idea how he had survived, what Donny had turned into or what those rampaging human-like animals were. He did know that he hadn’t been the only one to live through this though. Whoever lived here, before they were eaten.

Before you got them killed.

The man or woman had not left this bedroom, not even to go to the toilet, unreal, considering it was only next door. Had they been that terrified? He cast his mind back to that blood splattered hallway in the first house he entered. That kinda answered his question.  He guessed that everyone who had lived through the incident had undergone a deep shock or trauma. After all, this was England, folk around here filled their lives with a thousand trivial things. Everything from what to get for tomorrow’s dinner all the way to wondering what their work mates were saying about them behind their back.

He had been exactly the same until he had joined up and experienced exactly some of the other populations went about their daily business. Getting upset over some random tweet or raging because Sainsbury’s no longer stocked chilli beans paled in comparison to having to dodge sniper fire or finding out your daughter had been wiped out by a roadside bomb. Dominic’s patrols took him down some of the most dangerous streets on the planet. The people living there had been through hell and back and yet some of them still managed to share a smile with him and his fellow soldiers.

Was this happening over there too? If this incident truly has spread across the globe, The people he left behind when he came back here would be coping with it far better than the people (The ones still human) he had so far encountered.

It looked as though this bedroom’s previous occupant had stayed alive by eating crisps, drinking bottled water and crapping in the corner of the room, for over eight days.

If the calendar pinned on the wall above the bed was correct. They had marked off the days using a black marker. Dominic looked at the empty crisp packets littering the carpet. Again, that dreaded feeling of displaced memory rose to the surface. Exactly how had he survived for so long? Even eight days didn’t feel right anymore.

He left the bedroom, closing the door on his way out. Dominic leaned over the banister, listening to the silence. Like the other house he had visited, this one had no power either. It felt strange and yet familiar to inhabit these empty shells,, devoid of life. The similarities to his previous life in the forces constantly battered his senses. He slowly made his way down the stairs, keeping to the edges. What surprised him more than anything was how much he’d missed the adrenalin coursing through his body and that feeling of his heart trying to hammer its way out of his ribs.

He walked into the kitchen and selected a knife to replace the one he had left in Donny, then entered the living room.  Dominic passed the edge of a brown fabric sofa and suddenly stopped. His heart beat increased. This time it wasn’t due to any imminent danger. Lying on the middle cushion was an old model mobile phone, complete with aerial and keyboard. What had caused his heart to race was the screensaver displayed on the monotone screen.

“Oh, thank you, Jesus and God,” he said, picking up the phone. There were only vapours of power left on it but there was enough to look through the menu. The date corresponded to the calendar upstairs. He wasn’t sure whether he should be confused or relieved over the revelation. He shrugged to himself, pushing it aside. He opened up the messages  there were over a dozen messages back and forth from the owner of this phone and his daughter.

He skimmed through all the messages, eager to gleam anything from their responses. There was nothing in any of the messages that gave him a single fucking clue as to what had happened. They spend most of their valuable time either reminiscing or reassuring each other. One thing did make him blink though. The pair of them were absolutely terrified of the things in the night. Unfortunately, neither of them gave any clue as to what that could be. The creatures that chased him obviously wasn’t consigned to night-time hours, so did that mean that there were further dangers to avoid once the sun went in?

He dropped the phone. There were just a couple of hours of daylight left. He needed to get back home, before that happened. He got the feeling that finding more human company and getting under cover before whatever did prowl the dark streets would be a very good idea.

“Goodbye, house,” he said, as Dominic opened the front door. “Stay safe and look after your next occupant.” He grimaced at the pools of blood congealing on the path. “If you ever do get another occupant.”

He stepped outside, squinting at the sight of the sun touching the house roofs on the other side of the street, There wasn’t much time left to get home. “I’ve wasted too much time here.”

Dominic hurried out of the garden and jogged away from the house and that pile of bodies without looking back. Something told him that he would be seeing more horrors before the end of the day.

He stayed in the middle of the road whilst moving through the deserted streets. His training screamed at him to get to the side, using the buildings for cover. Like that was going to happen. He’d already lived through one moment of long arms and clawed fingers wanting to pull his defenceless body into some dark building. No thanks, Dominic decided to stay where he was and screw his training. The army had never prepared him for this.

The streets wasn’t as deserted as he originally thought. Dominic did glance the occasional curtain twitch and the odd pair of eyes at an upper floor window. He kept going though, not wanting to draw attention to himself or the people hiding. Not after last time. It would take him a long time to get over the guilt he felt for getting those other people killed, it didn’t matter that it wasn’t really his fault. He still felt responsible for getting them killed.

He saw no evidence of that people-pack, thank God. He guessed that they were probably looking for somewhere else to hide.

Dominic reached the main road that signalled the edge of the housing estate and stopped. A few feet in front of him, someone had positioned a bunch of cars right around one of the blocks of flats. There were bodies everywhere. He slowly approached the nearest body, a young teenaged girl, wearing a pair of denim trousers and a pink top. The top of her head had been blown clean off. There was a middle-aged man lying across the bonnet of a ford Escort. He wore a shirt that may have once been grey, until his blood had stained the material a dark brown. Upon closer inspection, Dominic discovered that somebody had shot the man with a heavy calibre weapon.

He looked past the fallen bodies and cast his gaze across the numerous windows in that block of flats. Dominic didn’t see anybody but that didn’t mean nobody was keeping a close eye on his movements. It wasn’t hard to see that somebody had turned this building into a fortress. The how and why of the matter would have to wait for another time. Dominic had the feeling that if he got any closer, to use the shortcut that led to his street, there wouldn’t be another time for him.

Not that it made that much difference. He’d just have to go the front way, it only added about five minutes to his journey. He took a left into Windermere street, then ran up a narrow cobbled passageway. High brick walls on either side obscured much of the rows of terraced houses at either side of him. As far as he was concerned, not seeing the bodies was far more preferable. Dominic had seen enough death today to last him a lifetime.

He only slowed down when he saw one of the gates swing open. Dominic ran to the other side and crouched down; watching two of the creatures emerge from the garden. The pair of then shambled across the cobbles. Dominic frowned. They were both carrying a large hessian sack. He had no idea what it contained but from the way they were walking, it wasn’t exactly light. They laid it against a garden wall, a few feet from where he crouched before retreating behind the gate. He watched in fascination as the gate swung back and clicked shut.

Dominic stood up and walked over to the sack. He stooped and dragged the material down, to reveal one of their own, only difference, was that this one was dead. “What the fuck?” He shook his head and was about to pull the material back over its face when something else caught his attention. Dominic pulled the sacking further down its body. “Oh no,” he said, gazing at the sight of a semi-circular mark just below its right breast. Just like Dominic, this creature had suffered a bite sometime in the past few days. He pulled the material back over its body and hurried away, not wanting to think about what this could mean.

He literally ran the rest of the way, sprinting past another pile of burning bodies, an overturned pram, a car crash and a little boy hanging from a lamppost. He reached the end of his street, stopped and leaned over, holding his stomach.

When he looked up, the street looked as normal as ever. There were no sign of anything out of place. No burning piles, no people packs, even all the cars were parked where they should be. Dominic broke his rule and walked along the pavement, gazing into the windows as he passed them. He saw no sign of life. That wasn’t a bad sign as he saw no signs of disruption either.

He lived at the end of the street, where the road ended in a cul de sac. From where he was, Dominic could see his white door and his dad’s blue jeep parked outside the door. He then slowed down. There was something out of place after all. There was a bunch of washing lines leading from one upper floor window to the next. It reminded Dominic of netting from an eighteenth century sailing ship.

When Dominic reached the first house in the cul de sac, he noticed some more anomalies. There were metal spikes driven through the doors and wooden boards studded with large nails under every window.  The windows without protection were boarded up. He stopped walking when he finally saw a figure emerge from out of the rear of a blue transit van. He wore a police issue armoured jacket and held an armed crossbow in his hands. The man raised the weapon, pointing it straight at him. Dominic thrust his arms into the air and resisted the urge to jump into the garden next to him.

“Take one more step closer, you fucker and I’ll shoot. Whoever you are, bugger off, we don’t want you here.”

Dominic resisted the urge to laugh. “Mr Johnson, calm yourself down, man. It’s me, it’s Dominic, Giles’s lad.”

Two doors opened wide, and his step dad and Mrs Kendall rushed out of their respective houses. Dominic put his hands down and hurried over to greet his dad. He grinned at his neighbour. I had no idea you owned a crossbow, Mr Johnson.

The elderly man glared back at him. “There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me, son.”

Dominic ignored the grumpy old bastard’s jibe and ran over to his dad. “I’m so glad to see you’re still alive,” he said, embracing the man. “After what I’ve seen, I thought.” He fought to control his emotions. “I don’t know what I thought.”

“Where the bloody hell have you been, lad? Have you any idea how worried I’ve been?”

The woman gently peeled his father arm back. “Come on now, Giles. Will you let the lad breathe for crying out loud!.” She smiled up at Dominic. “I’m so glad to see you’re made it back to us, honey. Come on, let’s get you something to eat. What would you say to a nice cup of tea, or will you prefer a beer?”

“I would say yes please to both!”

“It is good to see you, Dom,” said his dad. The man grabbed both his arms. “Welcome back.”

Dominic smiled back at them, trying so much to stop his pent up emotions from overflowing. Up until seeing them, deep down, he truly believed he’d never see another friendly face, that his existence would consist of running from a bunch of carnivorous human-like fuck ups whilst seeking out anybody who wouldn’t fucking flee from him.

Giles’s big hands brushed down Dominic’s arms, rubbing off some of the ash. Not much but enough to expose his bite mark.

He saw the change in the woman immediately. She tensed up, her expression changing from pleasure to fear. She grabbed Giles and ripped him away from Dominic.

“I’m okay!” he said, raising his hands. “Please, I’m fine, I’m not one of those things, I’m as human as…”

Something smashed into the side of his head. He managed to turn and to bring his arm up in front of his face. Dominic’s wrist caught the next blow. He stumbled back from Mr Johnson. “For crying out loud, you crazy old bastard, I swear, you hit me again and I’ll fucking bury you! There’s nothing wrong with me.”

He never got the chance to speak again as what felt like a speeding truck smashed into the other side of Dominic’s head.

Chapter Four

For the second time, Dominic awoke with a splitting headache. This time though, at least he knew the reason. Either his dad or Mrs Kendall had tried to bash his brains out with something very hard. Dominic kept his eyes shut, aware that he wasn’t alone. One thing Dominic did realise, he was in the shit. While he had been out of it, the fuckers had tied him to what he guessed was a dining room chair.

They’d fastened his ankles to each chair leg and tied his hands behind the back. He felt like a trussed up oven-ready chicken. What got his goat more than anything was that his own fucking dad just stood there and let them do it1 It made him even madder to hear his old man’s voice just behind him.

The woman just called him a dirty Dayrunner, trying to argue that the only course of action would be to put him out of his misery. His dad told the old woman to shut her trap, telling her that she didn’t know shit.

He slowly tested his bonds. There was no way he was getting out of here on his own. Mrs Kendall was now crying, whilst explaining to his dad that if she’d put her own son down just after he’d been bitten then perhaps her husband would still be alive today. She asked him how Giles would live with himself if his son suddenly turned and slaughtered everybody in their group

Dominic opened his eyes and glared at the woman. “You just don’t get it, woman. I’m fucking fine!”

Mrs Kendall yelped. The woman was terrified of him, even tied up. He turned to find the old man’s crossbow pointing at him yet again.

“Go on, son, just give me one reason to pull the trigger.”

“You can’t go it, Frank!” shouted his dad. The man took a deep breath. “Let’s take him into the garden shed.” His gaze found Dominic’s eyes. “I’m so sorry, sorry. You jut don’t know what it’s been like. It’ll be quick, you won’t feel a thing.”

“You cunt!” he shouted. “You’re all a bunch of stupid, fucking, idiotic wankers.” He jerked backwards, struggling and bucking, trying everything to free his hands from the rope.

“Get hold of him, Frank before he does himself an injury.”

That did make him stop. “Do himself an injury?” he cried, you want to take me outside and fucking murder me, like I’m some rabid dog or something.”

“That’s not far from the truth,” muttered the woman.

“Shut the fuck up, you insane old bag.”

Both man managed to drag the chair through the house and down the path. Dominic just shut his eyes and focussed on trying to get rid of this headache. He didn’t think for one minute that his dad would stand by and watch this cockwomble shoot him in the head. No matter what had happened to this lot, nothing would turn his own dad into a cold blooded murderer. It just wasn’t in his blood.

The woman opened the door and the two men lifted the chair and carried him into the shed before setting him down. Mrs Kendall closed the door. She looked up and glared at Dominic’s dad. “There, he’s out of your house. Is that any better?”

“You’ve known me all my life, Mrs Kendall. Do you remember that time when tripped up outside your house?”

“Shut up.”

“and I was crying for my mum, and you sat me on your knee. You hugged me and comforted me. How old was I back than, five? Six?” He sighed loudly. “What have I done for you to treat me like this?” Dominic looked back at Mr Johnson. His aim hadn’t wavered one inch. “Am I that much of a threat to you?”

The woman approached him. “That little boy no longer exists. You’re nothing but a monster now. You want answers? You mean you don’t know what happened? How long have you been awake?”

He attempted to shrug. “I don’t know, a few hours.”

“A few hours?” she cried. “You’ve spent the last month running with those vile things, hunting us down and ripping us apart. Lie I said, you’re a fucking monster!”

He shook his head. “No way. You’re wrong!”

“You don’t know that,” replied his dad. Come, the pair of you. Look at the man. Does he look sick to you?

“You can shut up too, Giles. It seems you have conveniently forgotten about Mr Hussain. He was fine too, right up to the point where he killed David.” Mr Johnson smiled at Dominic. “Believe me, this is for the best. It’s nothing personal.”

His dad dived forward, his shoulders slamming into the man’s chest. The bolt thrummed inched past the side of Dominic’s head and buried into the shed wall.

“You traitor!” Mr Johnson snarled.

Giles grabbed the man’s wrist and pulled him off the floor. “No I’m not, I just don’t think we should make any hasty decisions.”

“You wouldn’t be putting all of us in this danger if he wasn’t your son,” replied the woman. She blinked, then spun around and ran over to the window. “Oh no! Look we have to do this now, they’re coming!”

“No, we’re not doing anything now but leaving him here.” Giles pushed them out of the shed. “It’s not like he’s going anywhere now is it?”

Dominic listened to his dad shut the shed door and padlock it. He leaned back and tried to loosen his bonds again. He couldn’t afford to be in here when they came back. They were all crazy.

Shouts and yells filtered in to the interior of the shed. He leaned to the side and tried to look through the dust covered window. All he could see was the roofs of the houses on the other end of the street. Dominic jumped when automatic gunfire drowned out every other noise. “What the fuck?”

Was that coming from the intruders or had this army of pensioners somehow managed to get their wrinkling hands on some serious hardware? He groaned in frustration and stopped struggling. Dominic was going nowhere. Whoever had tied him up had done a bloody good job. Despite his predicament, he so wanted to be out there. Fighting the intruders was exactly what he’d been trained for.

The gunfire came to a stop and all Dominic heard was the sound of distant shouting. After another minute, even that died down, leaving nothing but silence. He thought about what Mrs Kendall had said about his running with that people pack. He didn’t believe that for one minute, not based on what he had seen of them. For a start, Dominic had woken up in the clothes he went to sleep in and not one piece of his clothing was shredded, which was one thing that all the those creatures shared.

“Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”

Just like the hulk. The big green guy always had to thieve a shirt from someone’s washing line when he had changed back. No, he wasn’t one of those things, he couldn’t be. The mystery of these missing days had to be something else.

“Wait a minute,” he said. Dominic could hear footsteps outside the shed. “Mrs Kendall said a month.”

The door opened and his dad pushed his head around.

“Dad, how long as it been since this happened?”

The man ignored his request. He entered the shed and closed the door behinds him. Dominic then saw the man held a gun.

“I hope to fuck you’re not here to execute me.”

“Don’t be daft,” he replied.

“So they’ve come to their senses?”

“Not exactly, they’re just too busy to notice.” He crouched behind him and untied the bonds. His dad then handed him the gun.

“Wait, this isn’t mine.”

“No, yours is probably still where you left it.”

“Where did you get this one?” He blinked. “No, that doesn’t matter. Look, let’s get out of here!

“and go where exactly?”

“I want to see if Monique is still okay.”

“His dad shook his head. “Nobody is going anywhere just yet. You need your rest and you also need to prepare. Believe me, you won’t last five minutes out there.”

“I’ve done too bad so far, dad.”

“Wait until the sun goes down. Look no more arguments. Let’s get you back in to the house.”

He followed his dad out of the shed. There was no sign of anybody else and apart from a few spent casings on the grass, Dominic so no sign that they’d been any fighting either. “Dad, why on earth did you have them take me out to the shed?”

He stopped walking and spun around. “I was playing for time, son. All our nerves are shot to shit and, to be honest, that poor woman hasn’t been in the best of mental health for the past week.”

Giles opened the front door and ushered him inside. “Go get yourself sat down, lad. I’ll see if I can find you something to eat.”

Dominic nodded and made his way over to dad’s chair. The old man was right about him being tired. It felt as though he hadn’t slept for over a week. Dominic collapsed into the chair and found his eyelids getting heavy. He heard his dad open the kitchen door and then he heard no more.

Chapter Five

Monique brought him a pile of buns, each one covered in thick green icing. It was obvious that she’d baked these. He knew from history that her baking skills were about as developed as her driving skills. Even so, Dominic would have to eat at least one of them, just to keep her happy. He’d wait until she’d left the house before giving the rest to the dog.

She placed the plate on the edge of the table and backed away, her face then crumpled and thick tears ran down her cheeks. He wanted to ask her what was wrong with her but no matter how hard he tried, not one single worn emerged from his mouth. Monique’s shaking fingers then pointed at the plate of buns. Her mouth opened wide but just like Dominic, no words emerged.

Reluctantly, he looked back down at the buns. Thick red liquid leaked from every one of them. Unlike her, the sight of the fluid made him drool. The fluid was blood, human blood and all he wanted to do was to push his face into the pile of buns.

The woman spun around and ran out of the room. Dominic was able to follow her progress as all the walls and ceilings were no longer solid. He now occupied a glass house. He looked back at the desk, only to discover the plate was no longer there. Dominic wondered if the plate had been there at all.

His girlfriend was climbing the stairs, he guessed she’d be getting ready to go to work, which meant she’d be spending the next hour in the bathroom. He also noticed a human shaped shadow already in the bathroom. Deep down, Dominic knew it meant her harm and yet, all that concerned him was that he really wanted to eat those buns.

She finally found the shadow waiting for her. He found his voice. Dominic shrieked out her name. He rose from the chair and tried to run for the stairs, yet no matter how much he tried, Dominic couldn’t move fast, it was like swimming through treacle.

His eyes snapped open. He looked around, momentarily disorientated. It took a moment for him to realise that he was still in his dad’s armchair. Judging by the dozen lit candles throwing their weak yellow light across the living room, a few hours had passed since his arrival and the fun and games that followed. He had no crossbow bolt stuck in his body so he guessed that his dad must have called off the dogs.

Dominic saw he wasn’t alone. His dad sat on the chair, beside the window. He briefly wondered if it was the same chair that he’d tied him to. The man turned his head and smiled at him.

“Do you feel any better, son?”

“Well I’m not tied to a fucking chair, so that’s good news. Apart from some weird dream, I don’t feel too bad.”

“I’m afraid to say that there’s no more good news. Come here, and have a look at this. He opened the curtain a crack and ushered him across.

Dominic got up, stretched and joined him at the window. He sat in the chair opposite him. “So where did Laurel and Hardy bugger off to? Have they found some other poor innocent guy to threaten?

“Dominic don’t be too hard on them?”

“Are you taking the piss? That old bitch wanted him to put a bolt through my fucking head”

Giles sighed. “Yeah well, they won’t be bothering you for the rest of the night. They’ve both gone back to there respective homes. Believe me, they will not be leaving their houses until the sun comes back up.” He pulled the curtain a little wider. “Take a look, son. You’ll soon see why.”

“What exactly am I supposed to be looking for, dad?” He had to admit, seeing the street in darkness did spook him a little. Looking past the street, he did see a few orange lights scattered across the landscape but they were few and far between. It did help to answer his earlier question though. This wasn’t a local event. “Sorry, dad. I can’t see Jack shit out there.”

“The sun’s not been down long, give it a few more seconds.”

There was a white van, parked at the end of the road. Dominic knew for a fact that it wasn’t there before. He frowned, it blocked half the street. Somebody had filled the rest of the space with a sports car. He pressed his face against the glass; there was movement out there, just behind the two vehicles. It looked like a moving crowd of people. “Jesus.”

Now that his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he now saw exactly why nobody dare leave their houses at night. It also explained the texts he read on that mobile phone. The road at the end of the cul de sac was totally packed with people. He dare not even guess how many there were out there. It reminded him of watching a crowded, moving queue at a football match.

“Can you see the tape, Dom?”

He took his eyes off the sight and glanced up at the window frame. Dad had used duct tape to seal off the gaps between the windows.

“I had to do that. Believe me, the smell coming off all the dead things knocks you on your arse.”

“Wait, you mean, they’re all dead?”

Giles nodded. “As dead as can be. Except those things haven’t figured that out yet.”

“There’s so many of them.”

“and it’s like this every night. As soon as the sun goes down, out they come, flowing down every street for hours on end and woe betide any poor bastard who gets in their path. We’ve heard the screams, Dominic.” The old man shuddered. “Thankfully, I’ve not seen what they do but I know it’s quick.”

“What happened, dad? How the fuck did all this come about?”

“It started the same night you disappeared and continued right up to the next evening. We lost five from the street, son. The ones who went during the night just wondered off. You remember Darren Spivey?”

“Course I do. The bastard threatened to stick a knife in my new football back when I was a kid.”

“Oh yeah, I’d forgotten about that. Anyway, he was the last one to change. Darren was out on the street at the time, we all were. He suddenly arched his back let out a single gasp before collapsing onto the road. The whole street went into a panic, after what we’d seen in the past few hours, we all obviously feared the worst. I had to keep hold of his wife, to stop her from getting too close to him. While we watched, Darren rolled under the nearest car and stayed still.”

“Jesus.”

“Tell me about it. Anyway, his wife managed to slip out from my grasp. The dumb cow ran over to the car. She bent down and tried to coax him out. Darren took a bite out of her wrist for her trouble.”

His dad let the curtain go and stood up. “I’ll go put the kettle on.”

“Wait, what happened to the woman?”

“Do you really need to ask that question?”

No, he didn’t. Dominic could already picture her changing into one of those human maniacs. “Dad, I found a newspaper on my way over here. I said absolutely nothing about this.”

“No shock there. They cut off the internet the same night and the TV carried on like nothing was happening. It was mental. There were people out in the streets killing each other yet the news reports were full of some scientist in China cloning a fucking donkey.”

“That’s insane.”

His dad placed a cup of tea on the table next to him. Dominic almost asked his dad if he had any green buns to go with it.

“The only difference was it wasn’t the regular newsreaders coming out with these bullshit stories. After a couple more days, even that stopped. There were kid’s programmes on every single channel. I’m telling you, son, there’s nothing more frightening than watching strangers bludgeon each other with the theme from Thomas the Tank Engine playing in the background.” He walked back into the kitchen “It’ll be dawn soon, let’s eat. It’s only tinned stuff, I’m afraid. We managed to raid the local corner shops. You won’t believe how much we were able to bring back with us. I bet we can last out for at least a year.”

“What do you mean that they’re dead?” Dominic kept his own experiences with the body piles in himself for the moment. “I mean, how can the dead move about? It just isn’t possible.”

“Yeah well, I’ve had a few weeks to ponder over that and I do have a few ideas on here this could have happened.”

He just said it had been weeks. That insane old bag who had wanted to put a bolt through his head had said it had been over a month since the attacks. Exactly how many days were missing from his memory?

My best guess is that we were the victim of a chemical attack, either the Russians or the Chinese. It’ll explain why us common folk had no idea what had happened. They must have infiltrated all the media before they released the stuff. Makes sense really. I mean, this way, all our infrastructure stays intact. Give it a few more weeks and all those shambling corpses will all fall over and stay still.” He nodded. “There you go, instant invasion. I bet we’re not the only ones they’ve attacked either. What’s betting that the rest of Europe and the States have been taken out as well.”

He placed a bowl full of hog dogs in front of him. “Enough of that, here you go, tuck in. Sorry about the lack of bread. That’s one thing I don’t have. As you can imagine, fresh food is almost impossible to get now. Still, at least it’s hot.”

Dominic muttered a thanks before biting into the first hot dog. He tried to digest when his dad had just told him. He had to admit, his theory did sort of fit what Dominic had so far seen. “What do the others think?”

“About what’s happened? We’ve not discussed it. Well, apart from Mrs Kendall. She’s of the opinion that this is the work of God, that we’re in the middle of the Rapture or something.” He shrugged. “Horses for courses, I guess. I doubt we’ll ever find out what really happened.” He stood up. “I won’t be a minute.”

He waited for his dad to leave the room before opening the curtains again. The dead things were thinning out, leaving just a scattering of them wandering along the roads. Where did they all go? What happened when the dead thing and those dayrunners meet up? Somehow, he didn’t think they sat down and ate ice-cream together.

Dominic pushed another hotdog into his mouth while watching the dead things continue to disappear. He looked over at the house to his side and saw Mrs Kendall staring at him. Dominic resisted the urge to wave.

“Here you go,” said his dad. I reckon you’re going to need this. It’ll do you more good than me, it scares me half to death.

His dad placed another weapon on the table in front of his bowl, followed by a handful of magazines. Dominic stared in shock. “Where the hell did you get that?” He pushed the bowl to the side and carefully picked up the gun. It had been a while since he held a HK MP5 and even longer since he fired one. “Dad, seriously, where did you get it? This is some heavy duty hardware.”

“A copper dropped it,” he replied. “It does work, Dom. Like I said, if you’re leaving us, you’re going to need all the help you can get.”

Dominic stood up. He wrapped his fingers around the magazines while examining his dad’s expression. He’d never expected this, the daft old sod didn’t want to leave. “You want to stay here don’t you.”

“This is my house, son. Where else am I going to go? Besides, it’s fucking terrifying out there now. Trust me, this is the best place to be.”

“There’s nothing I can do to make you change your mind?”

“You go find your Monique, Dominic.”

Chapter Six

The souls of her boots echoed as she hurried across the polished wooden floor. Monique Happy made an effort to slow herself down. Clucking about like some panicking mother hen wasn’t going to do her or her group any good.

There was no getting away from the fact that they should have returned over an hour ago. Monique stopped at the two thick wooden doors that led out into the church hall car park. Dare she open the doors, just for a few seconds? Just to see if she could see then?

No, of course not, what the bloody hell was she thinking of? It would only take one of those things to get inside to destroy everything she’d built up. Monique silently counted to ten and then told herself to stop being such a worrywart. They would be back soon enough.

Her hand moved towards the door handle then stopped. She frowned. What the hell was that? She leaned closer to the wood. Oh, this was unreal. Somebody had drawn smiley faces on the head of every metal nail that Alan had driven into the door. The business ends protruded eight inches out of the other side. It gave the maniacs who inhabited the daylight world second thoughts from trying to get inside. She didn’t know whether to be annoying or amused. This had to be the work of the two girls in her group, Daisy and Jennifer. She could hear chuckling and laughter from somewhere above her.

The little monkeys were spying on her. She stepped back and lifted her head. Two faces grinned back at her from between the while railings of the balcony. No matter how much she wanted to berate the kids for playing so close to this door, the sight of their laughter extinguished all trace of her anger.

After all the trauma that lot of them had gone through these past few weeks, listening to the kids play games reminded her that no matter the circumstances, not everything was lost.

“Are you two going to promise me not to play near this door again?”

“It wasn’t my idea,” replied Daisy, her face scowling. “She made me do it.”

“You bloody liar. I didn’t do that, Mon. I swear.”

“It doesn’t matter. Look, you’re not in trouble. I just don’t want you to play near this door. It’s dangerous.”

“Sorry,” they both replied.

“It’s fine. Now go play. Oh, and try not to go near any of the windows either.”

“We won’t,” they chorused.

Alan had mentioned that he’d seen some of those daytime maniacs trying to scale the walls of a boarded up building society. The thought of just one of those things managing to get inside their church hall chilled her to the bone. Did this also mean that the monsters were beginning to adapt and learn? It made some kind of weird sense. She knew that their group wasn’t the only one to live through the initial chaos and just like them, they had tried to fortify the building they’d take refuge in. Just because they were infected, didn’t mean they couldn’t think.

Monique listened to the two girls play for a few seconds before she made her way over to one of the rooms adjoining the assembly hall.

If it came to it, Monique would get all the upper floor windows boarded up. The others would no doubt voice complaint, not that she’d blame them. They received most of their sunlight through the top windows. They’d have to live in some kind of semi permanent twilight world. They couldn’t afford to take any chances though.

How would they cope if the dead started to adapt as well? Monique shook her head. No, that was not going to happen. Those dead things couldn’t learn anything new. The only thing they were going to do was slowly rot away.

The two girls raced along the balcony and vanished into one of the many rooms that  the group used for storage. That was another area supposedly out of bounds but she saw no point in having another pop at them. Besides, it is not like there was anything in there that could potentially harm them.

It wasn’t just the daytime maniacs who were adapting. Their kids were doing the same. “Resilient little buggers,” she mumbled. The other child in the group, Harry, was on lookout duty, stationed on the roof. Alan had given the lad the other handgun for the first time, today. Not bad going for some thirteen year old boy who Alan had found hiding in a cellar three weeks ago.

The kid had been a right mess when he was brought in. He had borderline malnutrition, wouldn’t allow anyone to touch him and refused to speek.

“You wouldn’t have though it was the same boy now.”

“You look lost out there, love!”

Monique grinned back at Alice Bradshaw.

“Come over here, lass. Stop your dallying and join us for a game. You’re pacing like an expectant father.”

She politely declined her generous offer . right now, the last thing she wanted to do was to sit down with three other women and play dominoes for the next few hours.

Unlike the younger generation, the older ones were taking a bit longer to come to terms with their new nightmare world. Poor Alice was a prime example.

Despite her seemingly happy go lucky outlook, her ability to make the others smile and the woman’s infectious laugh, she had not adapted to her new situation at all. Then again, considering the hell she’d been through, Monique was surprised Alice was even able to function at all.

She lost her husband to the Death Plague on the first night. One moment, he was shaking the dice, telling their two boys that he was going to beat the pair of them at Monopoly, the next second, her darling Evan had dived over the dining table and bitten through two of their youngest son’s fingers.

Before Alice had time to even scream, Even had already had already gotten hold of Rowen’s ear and…

Monique closed her eyes, willing her tears back. Alice hadn’t told her what had happened the their fourteen year old son. She didn’t explain how her daughter, Paige, became infected either. Alice just told Monique that she spent three days locked in their tiny bathroom, listening to all four of them frantically scratching at the bathroom door.

Her bubbly appearance was obviously just surface emotion. Alice spent most of her nights in torment. When she first arrived, the woman looked after the two girls, and in return, they helped to keep Alice’s night terrors under control.

The younger, dark haired woman, sitting to Alice’s left slammed one of her dominoes down, a triumphant smile spreading across her face.

“I win again!”

Christine had lost her husband to the death plague as well. They were driving back from watching a play at the theatre when her husband changed. Their car slid across the road and smashed into a shop window. Luckily for Christine, her seat belt saved her from any serious injury. Her husband wasn’t so fortunate.

A metal shelving had sliced off the top of his head upon impact. Monique got the distinct impression that their marriage had been over years before and they only stayed together for the sake of her one kid.

Christine didn’t seem to be all that bothered about losing David in such a grotesque manner. She was certainly coping with her predicament a lot better than Alice was. Christine’s method of handling the end of the world was by never shutting up. The whole group knew the women’s life story, her opinions on what happened out there as well as what they all should be doing right now to ensure the human, the living, normal human population didn’t go extinct.

The other woman sitting opposite Alice sighed before pushing her collection of eight dominoes into the wooden box before standing up and walking over to the barred window.

Nobody knew much of anything about Michaela, apart from her name, that is. She was already living in the church hall when she and Alan found the place. The woman usually kept to herself, staying in the room that she’d made into her home. Michaela’s room was definitely the one place where the two kids would never dare go inside. On the surface, the young woman carried an air of tranquillity and calmness and an eerie ability to walk through the building without many people noticing her passing. All that composure vanished if anyone even dare go anywhere near her sanctuary. She turned into a woman possessed. It was terrifying to witness.

Monique reached her own room; she opened the door and wandered inside. Her mobile phone lay on her pillow. She picked it up. This time, when the tears came, Monique made no effort to hold them back.

What the hell was wrong with her? She hadn’t lost anyone. Her parents had passed away before all this shit dropped upon their heads. Monique had no brothers, sisters. Hell, apart from a couple of uncles who lived in Germany, Monique had nobody to lose. So why had her dead phone set her off again? She wiped her eyes then dropped the stupid thing back on the pillow.

It had to be Dominic. Her ex-boyfriend had been making an appearance in the back of her mind more frequently. She had even dreamt about him a couple of nights ago. None of it made much sense though. The pair of them had gone their separate ways, months before this had happened.

If this truly is a global phenomenon, as Alan suggested, then the chances are that her ex-boyfriend was now dead. Perhaps even changed into whatever the fuck those things were. Right now, Dominic could be wandering the desert, looking for more people to attack and eat.

“Meaning I should grow some balls and stop acting like a big frigging baby.” She burst into tears again. Where was Alan?

A single ear-piercing scream blasted through the silence. She leapt off her bed and raced out of her room, her rare pity party, completely forgotten. The other three women joined her in the assembly room.

“It came from above us!” gasped Alice.

Monique took the other handgun out from her holster and ran up the steps. Alice and Michaela were just behind her. It didn’t escape Monique’s attention that Christine had disappeared. The gun quickly went back in the holster when she saw the two girls at the end of the balcony.

“For crying out loud!” she shouted. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

Jennifer was sprawled on the floor while Daisy sat on her chest. She had one mouth over Jennifer’s mouth.

“Get off her.” Monique marched over to her and tugged the girl up. “Is it that much to ask for you two not to end up scrapping every day?”

Daisy got off the floor, hugged herself and quietly wept. “I didn’t take them, Jen. I swear down it wasn’t me.”

“Come on, tell me what is going on.”

“That little bitch had nicked my packet of Malteasers!”

“No I didn’t.”

“Did!”

“Will you two give it up for a second!” Monique stood between the pair of them. “Don’t you think we have better things to do with our time than to keep separating you two every ten minutes?”

Alice placed her hands on Daisy’s shoulders. “Come on, you. I’ll share my twix with you, as long as you join in on our game.”

“I don’t know how to play.”

Michaela smiled at her. “don’t worry about that, “the rules aren’t that difficult.”

The two women led the girl away, leaving Monique alone with Jennifer. The weeping girls looked up at the woman.

“I didn’t steal them, Mon, truly I didn’t.”

“It’s okay, honey. I know it wasn’t you.” Monique wrapped her arms around the young girl. She knew it wasn’t Jennifer because she notices Christine demolishing a bag earlier on. At the time, Monique thought they belonged to her. One of the men had taken a bit of a liking to Christine and was always bringing her back little presents. Did this also mean that she could have inadvertently discovered the reason why other foodstuff had been mysteriously disappearing?

The hatch, leading to the roof, at the far end of the balcony swung open. Monique watched the boy swing his legs through. He stood up, surveying the scene. He didn’t say a word.

Monique watched Harry lean over the balcony. She noticed the handgun was in his hand. There was something amiss with how he was acting. That excitable kid had all but vanished. In his place, she saw a pint-sized version of Alan, only more distant. He finally turned and gazed at Monique. His cold eyes moved from her face, pausing by her breasts before finally resting on the back of the girl’s head.

“It’s okay, Harry. It’s a false alarm. Everything is fine.”

“Do you really think that?” he enquired. “The others are back.” Having said his piece, the boy climbed back through the hatch and closed it.

“It’s okay, sweetie.” She gently pulled the girl away from her. Monique hurried over to the nearest window. He saw them straight away, running down the deserted road.

She gasped. Two of the men were carrying the third one in their arms. At this distance, Monique couldn’t see their faces. She could even remember what they were wearing when the three of them left the church hall this morning.

An indistinct shout reached her ears. It hadn’t come from the men though. It was Harry above her. There was another shape racing towards the men at high speed. Two heads turned back for a moment before they attempted to increase their speed.

“Oh fuck, they’re not going to make it!” She raced out of the room and down the balcony, shouting for Harry to join her. Monique took out her gun, while telling the others to stay where they were.

She reached the main door, unlocked it and ran out into the sunlight. The three men were closer, but so was their pursuer, it was one of the maniacs and there were a few more behind that one as well!

Alan and Geoff were carrying Danny in their arms. He was moving but the poor man didn’t look to be in a good way. Alan saw her and told Monique to get back inside. What was he thinking of? Didn’t he know the danger they were in?

She ran towards the three men then skidded to a halt at the sound of a single shot ringing out. The creature behind them dropped to the floor. Monique turned around to see Harry still on the roof. It had been him who’d fired. The men reached her.

“Help me get him inside,” said Alan. He coughed. “We are in big trouble. Really big trouble.”

Chapter Seven

The woman’s stress filled shouting blasted through the thick wooden front door. Dominic wanted to go back into the living room. He wanted to carry on packing. More than anything, he wanted her to shut her fucking gob.

Packing, that was a joke, like he had anything else to stuff into his rucksack. The truth of the matter was that Mrs Kendall and her gang of fascists refused to allow him to leave the house.

Two hours had passed since he had said his farewells to dad. Five minutes later, it became clear that Dominic wasn’t going anywhere. A moment after opening the front door, a bolt whizzed past the top of his head and stuck into the door. Another bolt took out a rose head. They’d also covered the back as well.

Was this her way of showing his dad who was really in charge of this little feudal kingdom? Judging from what he’d already heard in the last hour or so that crazy bitch so wanted him out of the way, meaning, in the ground. Why hadn’t his dad punched her already?

Dominic wandered back into the living room and stood behind one of the chairs in front of the window. That was one question that he did know the answer to. It was obvious. Dad still didn’t want to leave his house, despite, Mrs Fruitloop showing her true colours. He ran his fingers along the barrel of the assault rifle, wandering why he was even still here.

He could have left ages ago. A couple of civilians pretending to be snipers wouldn’t be a problem for him, it didn’t matter how good a shot they were. Dominic still outgunned them.

From the direction the conversation was heading, he believed that his time here was swiftly drawing to a close. That woman had wrapped dad around her little finger. What little resistance he had regarding Dominic’s fate was crumbling away.

“Fuck this,” he muttered, grabbing his gear. “I shouldn’t have come back here in the first place.” He picked up the chair, carried it into the hall and jammed the back under the door handle. That daft cow out there was making way too much voice noise to even notice. Once that was completed, Dominic hurried over to the back door and peered through the kitchen window. The pair of them were standing in full sight, both brandishing their crossbows. They weren’t making any effort to stay hidden. He ought to shoot the pair of them right here and now, just for being complete idiots.

He sighed aloud, then pushed open the back door. Within a couple of seconds, a couple of bolts bounced off the concrete path. Dominic fired his pistol through the open door, while still looking out of the window. Predictably, both the shooters jumped away from the window.

“Knobheads.”

The front door handle moved, then he heard someone banging on the living room window. Dominic fired blindly one more time when one of the shooters had recovered enough guts to look out of their window.

He ran down the garden path, jumped over the gate and paused to catch his breath behind an ancient oak tree. Those two hadn’t even noticed that he had left the house. Such amateurs. Dominic placed his rucksack on the floor and leapt up, his hands grabbing one of the thick branches. He climbed up into the canopy, making his way to where the trunk split three ways. It must have been a full decade since he climbed this tree, he smiled to himself, remembering how he used to hide up here after pissing off his dad. A task he used to relish on many occasion.

Back then though, dad actually possessed a fucking spine. He certainly wouldn’t have allowed some woman to walk all over him. He ground his teeth in frustration. Christ almighty, it came to a point when he couldn’t even trust his own family.

Dominic reached the bow and settled into it. He unslung his rifle and made himself comfortable. This brought back so many happy memories. Apart from hiding from dad, he used to use this spot to kill the rats that used to run under the hedges bordering the houses. Dominic learned his marksman skills with a Webley Stingray. It had even been blocked, just to give the beast that extra punch. Dad had no idea that he had it. Nor did dad know that he’d swapped his Christmas present for it either.  That memory made him smile. Dad would have blown his fucking top if he ever found out that James Morton was riding around on a brand new ten speed mountain bike.

“There you are,” he murmured, sighting up the first shooter. Dominic took aim and fired, grinning like a loon at the sight of his first round punching a hole through the guy’s left ear. “That’ll teach you to fuck with me.” What amazed him more than anything was the other guy’s reaction. Any normal person would have gotten the message and pissed off away from Dominic’s view. “You do know I was in the army, right?” He lined up his next shot and fired, leaving a nice bloodied trench in the second shooter’s leg.

He climbed back down, picked up his rucksack and grinned at the sight of one of the shooters running across the patio, his hand clamped against his bleeding ear. “If you had been the one pointing that crossbow at me earlier, my friend, you wouldn’t be running anywhere.”

That old mountain bike would have come in handy about now. Dominic had over three miles to go, which included going through the town centre. Back before this, the distance wouldn’t have been a problem. He could hardly call a taxi right now though. He tightened the buckles on the rucksack and jogged towards the dry-stone wall which separated his dad’s territory and a bank of trees. Prince’s farm bordered the woods on the other side. He intended to circumvent most of the urban area by running through the numerous fields. It did add another mile to his journey but it should mean he’d meet less opposition.

His fact finding mission will have to wait until he had hooked up with Monique. Dominic climbed onto the wall and balanced on the large stones while looking back at the house.

There was quite a bit of movement over there now but he was too far away to make out what was going on. Not that he gave a shit, as long as they didn’t try to follow him. None of them could be that stupid, could they? If they did, the buggers would soon turn back after another meeting with the friend on his back.

“I bet dad’s well pissed off for letting this out of his hands now.” Dominic jumped down and pushed his body through the waist high buddleia until he found the overgrown footpath.

“As far as I’m concerned, they can all go fuck themselves. I they all want to live in some semi-detached fortress well that’s fine by me.”

Was Monique barricaded behind a similar fortress? He found it a little odd that where she could be hadn’t really crossed his mind until now. Then again, perhaps it wasn’t so strange. If he started thinking about where she could be then it wasn’t a huge leap to think that she might already be dead, that he might have inadvertently seen her decomposing corpse along with the others when he looked out of the living room window.

Dominic tramped down the footpath, his eyes scanning the area ahead of him. It would be just his luck if Monique was holed up in that block of flats that he passed last night.

There was more noise behind him  but it wasn’t that which made him come to a complete stop. Dominic spotted movement coming from behind the trunk of a large tree, a few metres from his position. He took out his handgun before cautiously approaching this new addition to his world. The closer he got, the more obvious it became that there was somebody behind that tree. He slowed down and raised the gun.

“Move into the open right now or I shall shoot,” he said. Dominic stepped to the left, he kept moving until the figure was partially exposed. He lowered the weapon when he discovered the figure wouldn’t be able to move away from that tree no matter how hard she tried. Somebody had tied a twenty-something woman to the trunk.

“Miss, are you…” He clamped his jaw hut when the woman turned her head and a pair of scarlet eyes stared right at him. “Oh God, you’ve been infected!” Dominic’s palms itched. What was going on here? The woman opened her mouth then shut it again. He rubbed his hands up and down the side of his trousers, while watching her face crumple up. Was she trying to cry?

Dominic moved a another pace towards her, still expecting the woman to start growling. When she did nothing but pant and make a quiet sniffling sound, he took one more pace closer. She lifted her head and moaned.

This poor thing was absolutely terrified. He couldn’t help himself. Dominic lifted his arms and wrapped them around the infected woman. “It’s already,” he said. “Everything is alright now. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

Unlike every other infected individual he had encountered, this one still wore most of her clothes, yet they felt as though they were three sizes too big for her. This creature was nothing but skin and bones. He pulled back and gently lifted her head. “Who did this to you?” That was a stupid question, Dominic already knew the answer to that one. The question he should be asking was why had they tied her to this tree.

When he moved back, the woman’s movements grew more urgent. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m not going to leave you.” Dominic took another step away from her and looked over at the other trees. He saw them almost straight away. Wrapped around two more trunks, further away, were another two infected creatures. Unlike this one though, they were dead. “Oh Jesus,” he whispered, when he saw the extent of the damage. They hadn’t died from natural causes. Something had eaten them. Just the torso, legs and one arm remained from the nearest one, while all he saw from the one further out were a bundle of grey clothes floating upon a thick lake of lumpy blood.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.” He felt sick. “I’m so sorry about this,” said Dominic placing his arms on her shoulders. They were using these as bait. Drawing the dead away from the houses, it was the only explanation. Dominic was sure that this was the work of Mrs Kendall and her bunch of fawning loons, including his dad. He shook his head, having trouble believing that he would sink to doing something so monstrous.

The woman moaned quietly and tried to pull her arms out from under the ropes. He blinked. Dominic knew her. Oh fuck, he knew who this was. He saw this woman a couple of days before all this happened. Dominic unzipped her red jacket, revealing a Presto uniform, complete with plastic name tag pinned to her right breast.

“You sold me a fresh banana and a bottle of water the last time I was in there.” He tried to smile but couldn’t do it, watching this poor thing claw at the air whilst softly moaning was breaking his heart.

At least he had a heart to break. How could dad do this to her? The old man had been shopping at Presto since Dominic was knee high to a grasshopper. He even remained a loyal customer when they built that huge supermarket on the edge of town. Dad had passed conversation with Jennifer Butler for almost ten years, ever since she got the job at the grocery store back when she was seventeen. The girl was almost family.

“Well, I’m not going to let them keep you tied up here, honey,” he announced. “No way, that’s for God damn sure.” Dominic took one more step towards her, while thinking of how he’d been able to get that padlock off when she jerked her head to the side and a deep growl emerged from her throat. “Cut that out. Can’t you see that I’m trying help you here?”

He saw the real reason for her reaction when the sharp sound of a brittle twig snapping reached his ears. Shit, there was somebody behind him! Dominic spun around. He dropped into a crouch, raising the handgun.

His dad was at the end of the trees, walking towards Dominic with his hands already high above his head. It looked like the man was alone but that didn’t mean the others were lurking about. One or more could have taken up position behind that wall or hiding behind one of the many trees. He felt so exposed as well as stupid for not watching his back

“That’s far enough, dad,” he said. That word felt so vile in his mouth. “I don’t know who you are anymore.”

“I’m your dad,” he replied. “Despite what you might think, Dominic, I haven’t changed. I’m still the same bloke.” His dad lowered his arms, and carried on walking towards him.

“No way would my dad chain some poor girl to a tree!”

“That isn’t a person anymore!” he shouted back. “It’s a fucking monster.”

“You’re wrong, dad. They’re just like you and me. Only very sick that’s all. What you’ve done to them is fucking inhuman.”

“What we have done here is try to survive, son.”

Dominic holstered the weapon. He waited until the man was close enough before he lunged at him. Dominic slapped away the old man’s arms and thrust his hand into his dad’s trouser pocket, wrapping his fingers around what he hoped were a set of keys and pulled them out.

“No, son. For the love of god, don’t do this!”

He ignored the old man’s protests and grabbed the padlock that held the chains together.

“You’re going to kill every one of them back there.”

“What make you think I care anymore dad? Answer me this. Would you have allowed your buddies to chain me to this tree?”

His dad looked down at his feet.

“Oh, you have got to be joking! That’s why those fuckers tried to stop me from leaving the house.”

“It wasn’t my idea, Dom. You have got to believe me. I just wanted you to go.”

“For fuck’s sake. I ought to put a bullet in between your eyes.” His anger moved up a notch when he noticed a flash of red close to the boundary wall. “I should have known that you weren’t alone.” Dominic threw himself into the leaf litter, a moment before another bolt slammed into the tree trunk.

He scrambled into a kneeling position and fired a couple of shots toward where he thought his targets could be hiding. He noticed his dad on the floor with his hands over his head. Judging from how he was shaking, the man hadn’t expected to get caught up in a firefight.

Dominic rolled to the left, got behind another large tree and fired again. He paused, trying to work out where they could be, yet no matter how hard he looked, Dominic saw to sign of them.

“This is fucking ridiculous.” He ran back to the chained up woman, keeping close to the ground. The bastards obviously hadn’t learned from their painful lesson. He should have killed the pair of them and have done with it.

His dad had crawled over to the tree, he crouched behind it, seemingly oblivious to the infected woman inches away from his shoulder. He then saw why the old man’s earlier fear had vanished. One of the shooters had killed her.

He took a deep breath and stood up. Not caring about making himself into a painted target. Dominic stroked the back of her hand, trying not to glance at the bolt sticking through the roof of her mouth. “She was somebody’s daughter, you crazy bastards,” he yelled. Dominic dropped the pistol and pulled the rifle from behind his back. “Come on, you cowards! Here I am, take your best shot.”

“They’ve gone, son,” said his dad.

“What?”

The old man pointed to the bolt. “That was their last one.” He picked up the pistol and slowly got back on his feet. “It was meant for me, not you, or her.”

“Wait, what?”

“You didn’t give me enough time to explain. They banished me, threw me out of my own pissing house.” He gingerly touched the dead girl, “and now that their only defence is gone, I suspect they’ll all be finding whatever they can to use to barricade themselves up.”

Dominic snatched the pistol out of his hand then turned away and continued to march through the trees.

“Where are you going?”

“To look for Monique,” he snarled. “I want to find somebody who hasn’t lost all their humanity.”

Chapter Eight

She couldn’t take her eyes off the road. Alan had already given Monique some prior warning of what to expect once she left the safety of the church hall but to see the evidence with her own eyes, no amount of forewarning could have prepared her for this.

Both Alan and Geoff acted as though the debris stuck to the tarmac wasn’t affecting them. After having to walk through the stuff on every forage, she they must have  become desensitised by now.

Monique sat on concrete, previously warmed by the sun, in between the two men, doing her hardest not to burst into tears at the sight of all that human detritus on across the road.

Alan had already told her to prepare herself before reaching the outskirts of the supermarket carpark, telling her that they had to cross a main highway before reaching the carpark’s low wall. At first, she was unsure exactly what he meant.

“Are you okay?” Alan wrapped his thick fingers through hers.

She nodded. “I will be. Sorry, it’s just.”

“I know, it’s alright. We can wait here for a minute or so.”

All these buildings, the vehicles and the street furniture felt to Monique like a frozen monument to humankind’s achievements. Nature would eventually reclaim all of her territory but not for a few decades. What she saw scattered across that tarmac though would be gone in the next downpour.

Hundreds, probably thousands of feet tramped along that road every single night. They shed shoes, trainers, ripped up clothing, phones and all manner of discarded artefacts. Human fluid, leaking from those thousands of shambling corpses glued the stuff to the tarmac.

“It’s the smell that I can’t shift, you know.” Alan tilted his head back and rested it on the car side window. Even if you try not to think about where all that crap on the road had come from, the stink is always there to fucking remind you. It’s insidious, getting into your clothes, under your skin, even behind your eyeballs.”

Geoff grunted. He turned around and peered through the window. “You just have to hold your nose. Look are we going to do this or what? Only time is cracking on and.” He paused. “If we leave it any longer, it won’t be just the buggers in the supermarket we’ll have to deal with.”

Alan slowly got to his feet then helped Monique up. “Point taken. He lightly tapped the car bonnet. “Are you all ready to unleash the full arsenal of your seductive womanly ways?”

“With a bit of luck, it’ll be all full of men who hadn’t seen a female for weeks. “Geoff grinned at her. A human female, I mean.”

“Here you go,” aid Alan, handing her the binoculars. “Take a peek.”

She put the glasses to her eyes and focussed on the supermarket roof. She saw three men up there, all armed with crossbows.  None of them had guns, that had to be a good sign.

“Are you sure there is no other option?”

“None at all.” Alan took the binoculars. “Believe me, there’s no way I would have suggested this if there were. We’ve checked every house around this area and every one of them’s been picked clean.”

“It had to be them lot,” said Geoff. “It’s what we did back at the church.”

“Yeah, but how many people buy their groceries at a church, Geoff? I mean, why would they risk themselves if they’re already sitting on a enough food to last them for the next few years?”

Geoff shrugged. “Something to do?”

Monique smiled.

“No, I’m serious. Think about it. They’d have to find something to do, just to stop themselves from going stir crazy. I mean, apart from the obvious danger at night, there’s been little evidence of any infected around here.”

“Yeah, that is true,” said Alan. “I mean, there’s nearly always some evidence of their presence, but around here, I’ve seen nothing.” He looked at Geoff. “Not even any gnawed bones.”

“What?”

“Gnawed bones, Monique. The remains of the people they manage to catch. Believe it or now, the dead leave nothing behind.”

“Apart from their mobile phones and socks,” Geoff muttered, nodding over at the main road.

Monique moved away from the car they’d sheltered behind, she took the binoculars and walked up the side of a green van/ “How far were you when they shot David?”

“We’d gotten into the carpark.” Alan pointed at the nearest trolley bay. “Just past there. Thing is, they only fired once, despite both me and Geoff running up to him and carrying away. They could have easily taken all three of us out, Mon. That’s why I think we can talk to them.”

“What’s all this ‘we’ business?” she replied. “You do know that even if they are sitting on a huge food store, it’s still unlikely that they’re going to share with us. If I was in their place, I know I wouldn’t.”

Alan shook his head. “Don’t you think I’ve been through all these questions in my head already? We can’t go anywhere else. This is the last place, Monique.”

“He’s right,” said Geoff. “The town’s been picked cleaner than those bones Alan mentioned and there’s no chance of any of us reaching the next town before the sun goes down.”

“Then we drive,” she announced. “Hell, it’s only eight miles to Twinebury. I mean, it’s not like we’re going to get stuck in traffic. We could be there in ten minutes.”

Both men looked at each other.

“She doesn’t know?”

Alan shook his head. “No, I didn’t think she needed to, not yet anyway, didn’t want to worry her.”

“Wait, what are you talking about?”

“I’m sorry, Monique but using any kind of vehicle is out of the question. It’s even more dangerous than foot travel.” Alan opened the van door on the driver’s side. “Imagine sitting here, Mon, you’re travelling at a fair wack, like you said, the roads are clear, there’s nobody about and you’re making good time. Now imagine seeing something weird in your wing mirror. Something that you never thought you’d see again. There’s an army helicopter swooping down from Christ knows where.”

“It’s the last sight you’ll ever see,” finished Geoff. “We’ve seen it happen, a couple of times now.”

“I don’t believe I’m hearing this. You mean, some sort of authority still exists? Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

Geoff stared at her.

“Imagine if we all were marooned on a desert island, Monique. There’s shark infested water surrounding you. Most of the food is poisonous. Then you see a ship sailing close by. You’re fucking ecstatic, that’s only natural. After all, it’s our ticket out, and then it gets closer and you see that it’s a pirate ship.”

“Okay, I get it.”

“There might only be one pirate ship though,” said Geoff. “It might be only one metal patient who somehow managed to find a helicopter and make it fly.”

“Right, because that happens every day. Do you honestly think it’s that easy to fly one of those things? You wouldn’t be able to do it. Christ, I remember what you were like before this rain of shit fell on our heads. You had trouble just going to the shops in your car without destroying the clutch.”

“You don’t know the circumstances. He might have already been an army pilot who had fled during the outbreak.”

“It sounds plausible, but I keep telling you, man. There’s more than one of them out there.”

Monique listened to the pair of them carry on their conversation as if she wasn’t there. This was obviously familiar territory. She so wanted to slap Alan for keeping this from her, even if the bastard did think he was doing the right thing. Who was he to judge that? Granted, she couldn’t deny that this bombshell had shaken her but it’s not as if the news had reduced her to a puddle of stress induced tears. Monique looked at the dropped objects strewed along that main road. Seeing all that had already done the job before Alan opened his gob.

It also made her wonder what else the men had seen out here. What else were they keeping to themselves, more dreadful news that may destroy her delicate female sensibilities?

How would the others have reacted though? Her thoughts went straight to Alice, and her continuous reassurances that the government were already in the process of sorting this out and it was just a matter of waiting until they got to them. Alan’s patronising analogy would fit her reaction to the ground. It could even push her over the edge. Maybe even the boy as well. After what she’d witnessed before agreeing to this expedition, Harry didn’t seem to be adjusting to the situation as well as she believed.

Unless the boy’s apparent change had been down to something else, like something he’d seen whilst on that roof, like a helicopter for example.

“Why don’t we ask those three men up there?” she asked. “It makes sense that if anyone has noticed your so called helicopters then it’s going to be them. Exchanging information goes a long way towards building trust.” Monique glared at Alan. “You remember what that word means, don’t you? Besides, once we get to know them a little better, then we could perhaps ask them if they could help us out by donating a few extra tins of beans.”

“I can go with that.”

“Of course you can, Alan. After all, it’s not you who’s going to be talking to them.” She moved away from the two men and slowly walked closer to the road. Once Monique reached the kerb, she raised her arms before crossing. “Always remember the green cross code.” She sidestepped a pair of green panties and a top of the range mobile phone, while trying not to throw up. The stench coming form the surface was burning away the skin in her nostrils. Finally, Monique reached the over side and made her way over to the entrance to the carpark.

It did feel odd walking under the ‘Welcome to Lipton’s’ sign. The last time she had walked under that here, Dominic had been with her, holding her hand. She had thoughts of settling down, finding some house on the outskirts of town and raising a family. It wasn’t until the pair of them had finished shopping when Dominic told her that he was going to join the army.

What was it with the men in her life who had this fucking problem with keeping stuff tight against her chest? She stopped and turned around.

Geoff had the binoculars to his eyes. Alan waved. Not that Alan was the next man in her life but there had been moments back at the beginning when she did think she was developing feelings for him.

The lookouts on the roof had now noticed her approach. All three of them were standing on the edge, their weapons pointing at her. Monique wasn’t close enough to be in any danger, but it didn’t stop her from being frightened. She stopped by the trolley bay, watching another man joined the ones on the roof. This man wasn’t armed. He approached the edge then sat down, his feet dangling over the side.

“Hello down there, pretty lady!” I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure. My name’s Conner.”

“I’m Monique.”

“That’s nice. So now we know each other.” He snapped his fingers and one of the men moved out of sight. “Before we start, if you’ve come begging for food, don’t even bother. The supermarket’s closed.” He leaned forward. “Sunday opening, you see.”

The man appeared to be in his mid-thirties, wearing a tattered denim jacket and tight jeans. His long blonde hair hung down to his chest. Something told her that this Conner wasn’t a supermarket employee. She resisted the urge to demand to speak to the manager.

“I just want to talk.”

“That’s different. Okay, then talk. Just don’t take too long about it though, pretty lady. Match of the Day is on in a minute.”

She had a right little joker here. Alan would love this one. “Aren’t you going ot let me inside, Conner? Only it feels a little exposed out here.”

“I suppose you’ll want a cup of tea as well? Perhaps even a biscuit to go with it, maybe even a packet or two? Not going to happen. Just say your piece then bugger off and don’t come back.”

She smiled up at him, leaned back against the trolley bay and unfastened her blouse top button. “Are you sure there’s nothing that you men need?” The two men had lowered their crossbows and shuffled a little closer the edge of the roof. There were another three more buttons on her blouse left. Men were such simple creatures.

“Are there are more like you by any chance?”

“There could be, Conner. Are you sure you don’t want to invite me in? Only it is getting a bit chilly out here.” she fiddled with the next button.

The men grinned. “You’re good, I’ll give you that. This is almost as good as Match of the Day. Okay, pretty lady. I’m intrigued.  Why don’t you tell me what you’re really here for? As much as your seduction warms my cockles, somehow, I don’t think that you and I will be spending the night at some fancy restaurant, followed by a night in a hotel bedroom.”

“Look, all we want is to trade, Conner. I’m sure there’s something we have what you might want?”

“Apart from you? I don’t see what. We have enough supplies to last us for a month or two, thank you very much. Now, unless you’re thinking of continuing your striptease, you’d better be on your way before these two at either side of me get any ideas.”

“How about information then, Conner? It doesn’t look to me that you lot get out much. I’m sure there’s stuff we can learn from each other.”

Conner laughed. “I’ve got to admire you tenacity, girl. I tell you what. I’ve changed my mind about letting you inside. If you can show me a good time, them please my men, I’ll let you have a few tins of beans.”

“Why don’t you come down here, you fucking clown!” yelled Alan.

Monique jumped. Both of them were now behind her. She hadn’t even heard them approach. “What the bloody hell are you playing at?” She groaned at the sight of Conner standing up. “Oh good one, Alan. You’ve ruined it all.”

“What are you talking about? It’s obvious that the fucker wasn’t going to give us shit all he wants is to climb inside your knickers.”

“You need to get out of here!” shouted Conner.

What the hell was happening? The man on the roof sounded terrified.

“Just go, now! Hurry up before it’s too late!”

Monique grabbed Alan’s arm and pulled his back when the metal shutters started to roll up. “Come on, you!”

“What for?”

“Because the bloke up there isn’t the one in charge, that’s why!”

Alan shook her off. “Geoff, are they still on the roof?”

“There’s only blondie and he’s not armed. The others have gone back inside.”

“That’s good enough for me.” He pulled out his pistol. “You ready?”

Geoff nodded.

The pair raced towards the front of the building, they obviously thought that the fighters inside would lower their crossbows and give up once the two men killed a few of them. The shutters were raised high enough for Monique to spot movement. She saw four pairs of bare feet running up and down. The realisation of Conner’s warning hit her like a brick. “Get back here!” she screamed.

Her words went unaided. The two men only skidded to a halt when the shutters were high enough for the figures inside to run out. Four infected raced across the carpark, heading straight for Alan and Geoff.

Alan managed to fire off a single shot, hitting the first one in the face. It toppled to the floor, only to have another two run across its body in the eagerness to reach the man. Geoff fired as well but his round only struck the infected woman in the arm. It didn’t even slow her down. The woman leapt onto Geoff. Monique ran over, pulled out her handgun and shot the thing in the side of the head. She grabbed the infected woman’s clover and dragged her off the man.

Alan had taken out another but the two remaining had cornered the man. Both Geoff and Monique ran towards them. She shrieked at Alan to get on the floor, to give her a clear shot, but it was too late. The two infected sprang at Alan, both sinking their teeth into the screaming man’s body.

Geoff stopped and emptied his gun into their twitching bodies.

“We need to leave now,” she said.

He shook his head. “Not a fucking chance. Geoff continued to stare at his fallen companion. “I’m not going anywhere until every one of the bastards in there are dead.”

Monique kicked him. “Do as you’re fucking told! She growled. The woman booted him again when the man didn’t respond. “Look around you!”

He finally lifted his head, Geoff’s eyes went wide. “Oh shit. They must have heard the gunshots.”

“Or seen their captured friends escaping.”

Dozens of infected were climbing out of the houses surrounding the supermarket and all were converging on the carpark. Ten of them had already passed under the welcome sign.

“Still want to stay here? Only I don’t have enough rounds to stop that lot.” She looked behind them and groaned. The shutters were back down. Five infected had split off from the main group and were lurching towards Geoff and Monique. She fired, screaming in frustration when her shot only grazed one of them.

“Where’re going to die!”

“Shut up,” she muttered. Monique ran over to Alan’s body and scooped up his gun. It took effort not to allow Geoff’s panic to contaminate her, a difficult position when it now looked like there were hundreds of them closing in on the carpark. She ran back towards the sign, ignored the five infected in her way. She had no other choice but to go through them. Monique fired. This time, her shot ripped through her target’s mouth. “One down, four to go.” She passed Alan’s gun to Geoff before firing again. The one she’d been aiming for fell down, along with the infected man next to it. A crossbow bolt was stuck in its throat.

Monique turned to see a figure on the roof waving at her.

“Come on, Monique,” gasped Geoff. “While we still can. The other two have run away.”

The first batch of infected had reached the supermarket walls. Instead of stopping, they all leapt onto the shutters and began to climb.

The woman raced out of the carpark and across the main road. There wasn’t a single infected anywhere near her. Monique slowed down and turned around, it dawned on her that not one of them had crossed this road.”

“Oh my God, look at them all!”

The walls were covered with them. She watched Conner fire off a couple more shots before he disappeared. One, then two, then another five had reached the edge of the roof. “Come on, Geoff. It’s time to go.” She turned and run, hoping what she’d just witnessed wasn’t a precursor to what they were going to find at the church hall.

Chapter Nine

According to the chalkboard in front of the counter, today’s special was steak pie with mushy peas and a choice of either tea or coffee. Dominic looked at the bowl on the table in front of him and silently wished he could swap. His desire to change didn’t last all that long. Watching his dad tuck into the hot oats and jam in his own bowl put him off from eating anything, or was he just making excuses? Dominic hadn’t had much of an appetite ever since waking up in that field yesterday. He picked up his spoon and slowly spun it through the slop, changing the colour from white to a vile shade of pink.

Dad had pulled him into this café  not long back, saying that this place had just what he needed. It turned out to be a camping stove. Dominic didn’t bother asking him how dad knew about this.

He counted eight infected outside the café window, three females and five males, all various ages. Just like his dad had predicted, none of them paid them any attention. How his dad had managed to change Dominic’s mind about not taking the long route still puzzled him. Just because that chained up woman acted the way she did around Dominic didn’t mean all the other infected they encountered were going to behave in the same way.

Yet his old man was adamant that they would be safe cutting through town.  Weird considering it was dad who would be putting his life in danger. Dominic had the weapons. He did wonder how long the old man’s air of smugness would last if Dominic suddenly stood up and left him in here. He’d put real money on the table that all those creatures out there wouldn’t continue to ignore his dad.

“Are you not hungry, son?”

Dominic spooned some of the stuff into his mouth, not bothering to answer the man. Instead, he continued to study the creatures. Their movements had increased in the past five minutes, becoming more excitable. They reminded him of a pack of hounds just before the hunters allowed them to chase the fox.

“I thought I heard a helicopter while we were in the woods, dad.” He dropped the spoon into the bowl. “I find it hard to grasp that there’s no government left. There must be someone, somewhere, even if they’re hidden away in a bunker under Westminster. They’re too well organised to allow everything to fall apart so quickly.”

“I’ve already told you. It’s an invasion.”

“You don’t know that, dad.”

“Remember me telling you that I found your fancy new gun? Well, that’s not quite the truth. It happened exactly five days after what we all thought was the end of the world, at just after eleven.”

Dominic stared at him.

“Don’t look at me like that. Remember that I told you the TV died a couple of days after? Well, the radio, at least, the stations we could find, stayed broadcasting for a few more days. Granted, none of them were in English but we couldn’t have all the luck, I guess. Dillon put himself in charge of the radio, basically because he was the only one who knew a smattering of Spanish and German. After searching the airwaves for over two hours, he found one more station in Spanish. Dillon said they were broadcasting news of the outbreak over here in Britain, then we got this a single panicked sentence before like all the other stations, static took over.”

“What did it say?”

“Dillon said that it thought the broadcaster spurted out that the devils are here before the station died.”

He turned away from his dad, noticing that the number of infected had now infected by two. “So you think it reached Spain as well?”

“Who said anything about Spain? Most of South America speaks the language as well, you know.. As far as we knew, it could be from one of those places. We don’t have any clue as to how far this fucking pestilence has spread.”

“Okay fine, so it’s probably spread past our shores, meaning we’re more fucked than we thought we were. What’s this got to do with the gun?”

“Like I said, this was five days after. Things had settled down, as much as it could, I suppose. We had enough food, plenty of water and we’d even rigged up some simple defences to stop both the dead and the infected from attacking us. Oh, and you can thank Mrs Kendall for that. She’s the one who stayed level headed when everyone around her were running about like headless chickens. We hadn’t seen much human activity for a couple of days, Dominic. Oh, there had been signs of other survivors, but not what you could call official.”

His dad swallowed hard. He dropped the spoon on the table and leaned closer. “They appeared at the end of our street, a few minutes after that last radio transmission. It was Dillon who spotted them first. Three police officers kitted out in riot gear, toting some serious hardware.  Shame Mrs Kendall wasn’t with us at the time. She might have managed to save two more headless chickens. She wasn’t though; another matter had called her to the back of one of the houses. Of course Dillon and his wife both raced out of my house, both of them shouting for joy, believing that help had finally come. Can you guess what happened next?”

Dominic shook his head. He did have a feeling what events transpired but he preferred to hear it from the horse’s mouth. Perversely, it gave Dominic a small amount of pleasure to watch his dad squirm.

“The bastards stopped, aimed their guns and fired as soon as the pair of them got clear of the barricade. Don’t get me wrong here, son. They might have been running, but there was no mistaking Dillon and Alice for anything other than human. Two of them turned around and walked away, leaving the remaining police officer. He climbed over our barricade and approached my house. I shot him, Dominic. I put a bolt straight through his neck.”

“You’re still here so I’m guessing the other two officers didn’t come back?”

“Mrs Kendall said something similar, only with a few more swear words. Look, what I’m saying is those two should have known better. Considering.”

There’d been a subtle change in his dad’s tone. The man wasn’t sorry about the death of that copper. In fact, it sounded to him like Dad believed the copper got what he deserved. “I still don’t see the connection, dad. Why on earth do you think it’s an invasion? Just spell it out for me for crying out loud.”

His dad stood up and walked over to a poster, which showed some creepy dude in a black suit, wearing a false smile. Dominic had noticed the same image in other shops around town. The poster and the creepy dude announced the formation of some youth organisation to help with the spread of the New Way Forward party. He’d never heard of the party or the man. Then again, political stuff bored the crap out of him. Dominic never took much notice of any of them or what they did.

“From the look upon your face, I’m guessing you have no idea who this is.”

“You know me, dad. Never had any interest in that stuff.”

He shifted the bowls off the table and unrolled the poster, using the spoons to stop it from rolling up. “You’re looking at possibly the most important and influential man in the UK. Isaac Maynard was a nobody when you left the country. They say that before all this happened, he controlled half the cabinet and there were rumours that even the Prime Minister dare not even speak without that man’s express permission.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Impossible? Look out the bloody window and tell me again what’s impossible. A lot has happened while you were out of the country. You missed the Patriot Act and the new immigration laws, not to mention the race riots up in Bradford.” He pointed at the gun. “By the time those riots occurred, even the pretend policemen, the PCSO’s were armed and they were the ones who were sent in to crush the riots. Over thirty people were shot dead, another twenty injured. None of the shooters were ever charged.” His dad tapped the face on the picture. This man was obviously the foreign power’s stooge. Come on, you were in the military. It’s what they do.”

He did remember somebody mentioning all the shit that was going off at home. Looking back, perhaps Dominic should have paid a little more attention to the news? Then again it’s not like he had any power to stop any of this from happening. “So, according to you, the people now in charge are evil and seem to be hell-bent on wiping out us normal folk.”

His dad raised his eyebrows. “I don’t think you fit into the category of normal anymore, Dominic. In fact, I believe that if they found out you existed, those bastards would stop at nothing to capture you.”

“Are options are clear then.”

“They are?”

“Sure they are. You said it yourself just now, dad. There’s obviously something inside my body that prevents me from changing into a fully infected. Meaning I could hold the cure to help all the poor sick people.”

“Those poor sick people would rip me to bits if you weren’t here, son.”

So, the old man had taken that possible scenario into consideration as well. If Dominic had upped and left when he did think about it, his dad might have stood a chance, it would be a small one, but a chance still the same. Leaving right now would have surely sentenced him to death. There were almost twenty of them outside now. He stood up and walked over to the window.  Were they here because of him, or was it another reason?

“What we need is a doctor, dad, a person with a medical background. You know, somebody who could discover why I’m so different.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll just pop into the back and see if there’s a yellow pages lying about then.”

“There’s no need for sarcasm, dad. I’m being serious here.”

“No, you’re dreaming again. Jesus, don’t you remember what I used to say to you about having both feet firmly on the ground? This is one of those times. Take your head out of the clouds and think about this for a second. I bet this country’s population could now fit inside a football stadium, and you want to find a doctor? Wait, no, not a doctor, cos one of those ain’t going to be able to work out why you’re not running around naked and eating us normal folk. All they’re good for is handing out prescriptions. No, what you need is some medical scientist. Even before this happened, somebody like that would be as rare as hen’s teeth.”

“Okay, so you think we all should all roll over and give up?”

“No, all I’m saying is that you’d have a better chance finding Santa.”

Dominic refused to allow his dad’s negative tone get the better of him. Fuck his dad and the horse he rode in on. No, this was a brilliant idea and the more he thought about it, the more excited he became. He once had a mate in the medical corps. Those guys could work miracles on an injured soldier. Sure, the training they received was second to none but who’s to say that the civilian equivalents weren’t as equally experienced?

He wouldn’t know until he found one. They had to be somebody left alive who had medical training. The hospitals would be a good place to start, after he found Monique of course. Hooking up with her was still his first priority.

He walked over to the front door, fully aware that the number of infected outside had grown and was still rising. Perhaps his first priority should be getting himself and his dad out of here unharmed. What were they doing, surely they couldn’t be here for him, could they? Dominic looked back at his dad who was now pouring the contents of his discarded bowl into his own, unless the infected were here for his dad. Dominic had already discovered that those creatures weren’t as mindless as they suggested.

“Dad, I think you had better wait in here while I go see what they’re up to.” I’ll only be a few minutes. “Lock yourself in the toilets or something.” What if they had followed him and dad from the woods, with revenge in mind?

He pulled open the front door and walked out into the bright sunlight. Perhaps dad did have a point about him thinking too much. There were occasions when his overactive imagination wasn’t such an good thing.

Hot breath hitting the back of his neck told Dominic that his dad hadn’t taken him up on his advice. “I thought I told you to stay inside the café?”

“Ain’t happening. I’m safer next to you.”

“It’s your life.”

Apart from the four infected who were here when dad and Dominic first arrived, the rest of them stopped moving and stared at the pair. The notion that these creatures really were after dad’s blood refused to leave him, not helped by his dad’s urgent whisper of that this was a mistake and they were going to die out here.

“Shut your cakehole, dad, for crying out loud. Can you hear that noise?”

The sound hadn’t been evident at first, probably due to all their feet shuffling through the dead leaves scatted over the road. Now though, the noise of boots slapping the ground reached his ears. Dominic wasn’t the only one to notice it either. Every single infected creature unfroze and ran to the other side of the road. Some of them hid behind cars, others leapt into bushes and two more took refuge in the café alcove, next to them.

He glance at his dad who shrugged back. It’s only when the old man looked behind them and pointed at a small group of figures who’s just come into view when the truth really sank in. They weren’t after his dad at all. The bastards were about to ambush the approaching humans.

“Oh shit,” cried his dad. He pushed past Dominic. “Run!” he yelled. “Don’t come any closer. Turn back right now.”

He caught up with his father and sprinted towards the group, desperate to stop them from getting any closer. There were five of them altogether, three men, an old woman and a teenage girl bringing up the rear. “You have to be shitting me!” He grabbed his dad’s waist and flung him to the side of the road. His dad bounced off a Volvo door. Dominic pulled the man around the front of the car. “Keep your head down!”

A second after he issued his warning, a barrage of bullets smashed into the car. He pulled his old man round the side. “Why the fuck does everybody have guns? This is England not the Wild West!”

“Never mind about that, Dom. What are they playing at? We’re trying to save these daft sods.”

His dad tried to raise his head only for Dominic to push him back down again. Four of the infected galloped on all fours, streaking past the men, keeping their bodies close to the shop fronts. The four men had now dropped to their knees, switching their targets form Dominic and his dad to the approaching creatures.

Dominic looked behind him. All the other infected were staying out of sight. He then groaned when a dozen shadows passed overhead. The others weren’t hiding, the devious bastards were on the roofs and racing towards the other group. None of the idiots at the end of the street even thought to look up.

“I can’t stay here.” Dominic stood up, only to find himself sprawled on the floor when his dad pulled him back down.

“Leave them be, Dom,” snapped his dad. “If you go out there, the bastards will shoot you dead.”

He pushed the man away and scrambled onto his feet. Two of the other men had seen Dominic move from his hiding place. “You need to leave,” he yelled. He threw himself on the ground when one of them fired at him. “Give it up. I’m on your side!”

The shooting abruptly stopped when the main group of infected fell of the shrieking humans. The three shooters were the first to die. The four infected who had stayed on the ground plus another three from the roof attacked them. The men never stood a chance. The creatures ripped into them, stripping the men into bloodied bones in seconds.

The others scattered in every direction but it didn’t help them. The remaining infected simply chased them down. Dominic had to look away, unable to watch the slaughter. The wet sounds of tearing flesh and those chewing mouths soon replaced the panicked shouting and heart-wrenching shrieks.

His dad darted out form behind the car and ran over to Dominic. “Come on, lad! There’s still one alive.”

He spun around and saw three of the creatures on their bellies by the side of an ice-cream van, doing their utmost to reach under the vehicle.

“It’s the young girl.” His dad ran past Dominic then stopped dead as three of the creatures looked up from their meal. They all dropped the meat onto the road, stood up and lurched up to him.

“You fucking idiot,” said Dominic, running up to him. He wrapped his arms around the man’s chest. “He’s not yours!” He pushed the old man over to the van, now hearing the terrified sobs coming from under the vehicle.

Dominic pulled his dad down. “Get under there and grab her.” He wrapped his fingers around the ankle of the infected next to them and dragged the creature back, before gently booting the next one in the side of the ribs. The infected did edge away, not moving their scarlet eyes away from Dominic.

“Quickly, dad, get under there and grab the girl. I think we’ve seriously overstayed our welcome.” The two that he’d dragged out began to growl, baring their teeth and shaking. The three next to them did the same. Within a few seconds, every one of them were doing the same. The noise drilled right into Dominic’s brain. He clamped his hands hard against his ears, wanting the noise to cease and yet – the more the sound continued, the more something deep inside him welcomed it. They were challenging him, annoyed at his intervention, at taking food that was rightfully theirs.

His eyes and hands dropped to the floor. He saw a pair of legs shifting about next to his body. The fabric rolled up the ankle to reveal white flesh. The growling subtly shifted in tone. They were no longer angry at his intervention. The creatures, his companions urged him to take the next step, to join them, to shed the last of his human emotions and become a part of their tribe. All he had to do was to lunge forward and bite into that piece of meat.

Dominic looked up into the deep blue sky; he put his hands back over his ears and screamed, wanting his voice to block out their insidious chanting. Here was another voice, now two, shouting at Dominic, telling to move but he no longer had any control over his body. The change, that was interrupted all that time ago was about to re-commence.

Somebody took hold of his arm and his view of the sky altered. He saw two human faces looking down at him. He didn’t know either of them. Dominic arched his back as a bolt of agony shot through the length of his body, through his tear filled vision, he managed to focus on the man. He needed to tell him to leave him, to run as fast as he could, before it was too late, yet no matter how much he tried, only pain-filled groans left his mouth.

Chapter Ten

It didn’t surprise Monique to discover that their journey away from that supermarket had been uneventful. None of the infected followed them, obviously too interested to getting to the people inside the building. Her mind kept going back to when those shutters rolled up and those creatures came at them. Jesus, what had possessed them to keep those things in there, using them as a pack of fucking rabid dogs. Oh sure, she had to commend them on their ingenuity but what would have happened if one of those thing had managed to get loose?

She took a deep breath, not wanting to ponder on what she and Geoff had fled from. Yet no matter how much she wanted to focus on their immediate problems, her traitorous mind kept pulling her back to the events in that carpark.

“Are you okay, Mon?”

She allowed him to pull her over a low wall. Monique jumped down and followed the man through somebody’s neat garden, unlike Geoff who just walked through the flowers, she kept to the path. “I will be when we get back home.”

What would have happened to the three of them if Conner hadn’t played silly buggers and allowed them inside? Perhaps Alan would have still been with them. Then again, considering what the pair of them managed to escape by the skin of their teeth, it’s a likely possibility that they could all have been pulled apart once those monsters had gotten in that supermarket.

“Geoff, I think they came back for their own kind.”

“No, give over. That’s ridiculous, they’re mindless animals, they operate on instinct alone. Don’t start giving them feelings, Monique.”

“I don’t believe that.” She paused beside the garden gate. “Think about it, Geoff, just think about it. They could have taken us down at any time. The infected only showed their faces once the ones inside were in the carpark.”

“Monique, does it really fucking matter? Look, I’ve just lost my best mate, okay? All I want to do is to make sure Danny is healing okay before retiring to my bed and getting drunk. So if you don’t mind, please lets not have this conversation.”

She bit her bottom lip to stop her from retorting. If it hadn’t been for her quick actions, Mr, ‘I’ve just lost my best mate’ would still be with Alan and she would have made this trip back alone. Monique silently sighed and followed him across the street. Maybe pouring some wine down her throat wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all. Oh God, it now hit her that she had just seen the one man who she could have chosen to love, ripped into tiny pieces by a bunch of monsters. Maybe Geoff was right about them. All they deserved was death. It’s not like they gave them any pity.

“Monique!”

His urgent call pulled her out of her melancholy. She joined him at the street corner and groaned at the sight of the door to the church hall wide open. “No, not this as well!” She raced across the street, her frantic mind desperately trying to figure out exactly how many rounds she had left in the gun.

Geoff urged her to stay outside before he ran through the opening. She took no notice of the man, after checking to make sure there was no movement out here, she followed him through. Monique found herself standing in a pool of thick blood. He held her breath, not wanting to breathe in a foul metallic odour and gingerly lifted her foot, almost gagging as the congealing blood stuck to her boot like hot tar.

She jumped onto a clean patch of floor and quickly spun around, looking for signs of any survivors. All she saw was more blood and a furious Geoff glaring at her.

“I told you to stay outside. It’s not safe in here.”

“Shut up,” she snarled, grabbing hold of the edge of the door. How dare he tell her what to do after his actions back in that carpark. Monique slammed the door shut, then shrieked at the sight of one of the infected flat against the wall. She stumbled back, tripping up over her feet, Monique fell into the blood lake. The creature charged, she was just able to bring up the gun and fire off a single shot. It roared before collapsing, its still body falling across her chest, pinning Monique to the floor.

Its vile body odour filled her nostrils, overwhelming the stink of congealing blood. She turned her head, glaring at the man. “Don’t just stand there, get it off me.”

Geoff smiled down at her. “Now why would I do that?” He bent down and scooped up her fallen gun. “Told you not to follow me in here, Monique.”

“Give me that back, you shit!” After a few seconds of frantic struggling, she pulled one of her arms out from under the dead creature’s body. “I mean it, Geoff, you…” Another infected creature rushed out from inside one of the rooms adjacent to the hall and ran up the walls. It howled once before it dropped onto the balcony and vanished into one of the rooms on the second floor.

The man shook his head. “Not a chance in hell, dear. You stay where you are, out of my way.” He leapt across the woman and ran over to the room, shoving her gun down the back of his trousers and with his gun drawn.

She yelled out in utter frustration, fully aware that the bastard had left her helpless. Monique tried again to shift the dead weight but only succeeded in moving the body onto her guts. She screamed and yelled while pushing at the body with her one free arm. The body then moved a couple of inches to the left. Monique felt a little more give. At last, the damned thing was finally moving!

It was only when the creature opened one eye and raised its head when Monique realised it wasn’t quite as dead as she figured. It wasn’t her moving it after all. “You bastard, Geoff, you utter bastard!”

Instead of using those thick arms to hold her still while it used its teeth to tear out her throat, the creature savagely shook its head from side to side like a dog trying to dislodge a flea before trying to stand up.

Its left leg landed inches from Monique’s cheek, the splash spraying cold blood across her face. She grabbed the creature’s ankle with both hands then jerked them back and rolled out of the way.

Monique scrambled to her feet and raced towards the room, she could hear somebody whimpering. It wasn’t until she reached the door when Monique realised that the noise was coming from her.

Just like the entrance to the church hall, there was blood everywhere, it looked like someone had detonated a large tin of red paint in the middle of the room. She glanced behind her only to find that the creature wasn’t following her, she couldn’t see any sign of it. With luck the bastard had crawled into a corner to die.

“I’m so sorry, Mon. Everything happened so fast.”

Monique rushed into the room, bypassing Geoff, who was kneeling beside what remained of Christine. That dirty fucking creature had ripped open her stomach and pulled the woman’s steaming guts out of the ragged tear. He prayed that the poor woman’s death had been quick without much pain.

“Go find all the others,” she growled, retrieving her gun from Geoff’s belt. “There’s nothing you can do for this one, she’ already dead.”

“You don’t understand, I…”

“No, you don’t understand, the longer you dither about, the more chance our friends will end up like her.”

She dropped down besides Alice. Thick blood drenched her body but as far as she could tell, Alice hadn’t received any injuries. Alice sobbed once and wrapped her arms around her chest. “It’s okay, none of it’s mine,” she whispered.

“Oh Jesus.” Monique grabbed the crying woman and held her tight. “It’s okay, honey. You’re safe now.”

“No, we’re not,” she wailed. Alice pulled herself out of Monique’s embrace. “We’re not safe and never will be. The only one in here who’s safe is her. Christine’s out of this now.”

“Where is everybody else, Alice?”

Monique bit down on a retort. Why should she even be surprised that Geoff hadn’t moved from his spot?

Alice shrugged. “I have no idea where they all are.”

“What happened? How the fuck did my Christine end up like this?”

His question sounded like an accusation, like all this was Alice’s fault. Monique wanted to shoot the bastard.

It took Alice a few moments before replying. “Danny was fine up to a few minutes ago. He was sitting up next to Christine, sharing some private joke, and then,” Alice licked her lips. “And then he went wild and did that.”

Monique stood up. “I tell you what, why don’t you stay here, Geoff and keep Alice safe?”

The cowardly bastard didn’t even raise issue with that request.

“Monique, why do I feel so normal? I mean, shouldn’t my body be shaking my muscles off my bone by now?”

“Don’t you worry about it, honey. We’re all going to get through this. Just be ready to move when I shout.”

She left them and re-entered the main hall. That poor woman was obviously in deep shock and she believed that Alice would never get over what happened to her just now. It felt harsh to think this but that woman just wasn’t built for the apocalypse. Come to think of it, neither was Geoff. Those two deserved each other.

Christ, that was a horrible thought, who was he to say who would and wouldn’t survive through this? After all, those two had somehow managed to survive so far, an achievement denied to the untold millions who hadn’t lived.

Monique pushed away her thoughts and focussed on her immediate problem. She scanned the hallway, then ,looked up to the balcony, looking for any signs of human life. Common sense told her that the others should have run outside and found somewhere to hide. Why else would the door be wide open? If that was the case though, why were those two creatures still inside here? Also, how come Alice was still alive? Surely, the creature that used to be Danny would have pounced on the woman as well. It made no difference what she thought, Monique would still have to check every room until she found the others. “Please, I don’t want to find any more dead.”

She made her way towards the next door, keeping her body flat against the wall. What trouble her more than anything was why the hell did Danny change in the first place? The poor sod was shot, he wasn’t bitten. She reached the next door, swallowing hard when she saw it open. Monique carefully pushed the door a little wider and peered inside.

All she saw was the table full of dominoes, a glass of orange juice balanced on the edge and four chairs. There was no sign of the remaining survivors. She silently closed the door, listening to the mechanism click.

She hurried over to her room, still trying to understand the implication of what had transpired here. The obvious answer was that those evil bastards back at the supermarket had coated their bolts in infected blood. The other plausible answer was just too dreadful to even contemplate. If they all had this terrible disease swirling around in their bodies then they might as well just lie down and give up.

“That’s never going to happen,” she whispered. “Not on her watch. Monique pushed open her room door, wanting to cry at the trail of devastation in her own sanctum. This had happened on her watch and there’d been nothing she could have done to prevent it.

“What happened in here?” She slowly entered her room, stepping over her wrecked drawers which once contained all of her underwear. Monique crouched and picked up a pair of black frilly panties. Oh Christ, Dominic had bought her these. She remembered laughing like a drain when she’d ripped open the gift wrap covering the cellophane wrapper.

She knew it had been stupid to laugh like she did. The silly sod thought he’d done something wrong. It’s just that after all that time together, Dominic still had no idea what she really liked. He was such a typical bloke.

“and I so miss him,” she sobbed, angrily wiping away her hot tears.

Monique froze. Oh shit, there was one of those thing in here with her! She caught the reflection of bare skin in the mirror at the side of her bed. She spun around and fired. Tiny shards of splintered wood exploded from the door frame, showering little Harry. She yelped.

“Oh my God!” She ran to the boy and hugged him tight. “You silly little sod, I could have killed you!” Monique grabbed his shoulders and pushed him. “Why didn’t you say something?”

The boy just shrugged, apparently unfazed by his narrow brush with death. “The others are upstairs, Monique. We don’t have much time.”

Harry wriggled out of her grasp and ran our of the room, with Monique right behind him. They raced past the remaining doors and over to the stairs that led to the balcony. Already she could hear their cries as well as what sounded like somebody frantically scratching nails over wood.

Harry took the steps two at a time, reaching the top seconds before she did. The woman moaned at the sight of Danny lying on the floor, his clawed hands desperately trying to dig through the thin wood. The boy fired, his shot just winging the infected creature, but it was enough to make it stop. It jumped onto its feet and charged them. Monique screamed at it, and emptied her gun into its body.

“Mon, look.”

She turned away from the fallen creature and watched the other one at the end of the hallway. It howled once before it threw its body through a window. “Are there any more?”

Harry shook his head. “No.”

“You sound pretty sure.”

“That’s because I am sure, Monique.”

She squeezed past the infected body and stopped directly in front of the door. “It’s only me,” she shouted. It’s okay, you can come out now, there’s no more left.” She turned to watch Harry jump over the body. His flat expression had gone. What she saw there instead, made her blood run cold. The boy looked terrified. “Are you okay?” He shook his head and pointed a shaking finger at the broken window on the other side of the hall.

Three more infected creatures had crawled into the building, they dropped onto the floor and ran into the nearest room. “Oh no!” she gasped. “Monique sensed the door behind her starting to open. She bundled the boy inside. Another four had climbed in. They were making their way towards the stairs. She slammed the door shut and sank to the floor, listening to the muffled shrieks coming from the floor below.

The woman yelped when something heavy slammed into the door on the other side.

“We can’t stay in here,” said Harry. It’s not going to take them long to chew their way through the wood.” He checked ejected the magazine from the handle. “Don’t have many left.”

Monique took the two girl’s hands and moved them over to the corner of the room, listening to their excited grunts coming from the balcony. From what she had discovered so far today, she knew for a fact that those bastards were not going to suddenly forget about them and leave.

“How are you doing, Michaela?”

“I’m still alive.” The woman’s wide eyes darted from the door back to Monique. “However long that might be.”

Harry headed over to the hatch that led to the roof.

“What the hell are you playing at?” hissed Michaela. Leave that shut.” The boy ignored her and pulled the handle down. He gazed at Monique. “We don’t have any other choice.”

“He’s right, she replied. She ran over to the now open hatch. “Let me check if it’s clear, Michaela, then you and the girls follow me. Harry, can you guard the rear?”

He nodded.

“You’ve gone mad, there’ bound to be loads of those things up there.”

“Why would there be? As far as the infected are concerned, we are in here.” Monique pulled her way through the hatch and used the metal ladder bolted to the wall to climb up onto the roof. Despite her confident voice, she still expected to see at least one of those things skulking around. Thankfully, the roof was clear. Monique waved the others to join her.

As the girls climbed up, Monique suddenly realised exactly how fucked they would have been if one of the things were indeed up here. Oh sure, she had the firepower to put it down then surely then the noise of the gunshot would have attracted the rest of the bastards?

The other woman ran to the side of the building. “How the hell do we get down from here?”

“We don’t,” said Harry.

“I wasn’t talking to you. What do you know about anything?”

“Harry’s right, Michaela. We stay here until it get’s dark, then we go back inside. It’s okay, we only have to stay up here for another hour or so.” Monique carefully dropped the roof lid then put her arms around the two girls. “Are you two holding out?”

They both nodded.

Daisy looked at Jennifer. “What about Alice? Is she dead.”

Monique didn’t trust herself to answer that one, instead, she took the girls over to the head high brick column that stood in the middle of the roof and sat down. Those two would have still been alive if she hadn’t left them there.

Jennifer passed her a tissue. “Don’t cry.” The girl hugged her tight. “Thank you for not letting the monsters get me and Daisy.

Chapter Eleven

She remembered pressing the girl’s faces against her chest so they didn’t see that single infected creature running across the roof on the next building and then? Monique lifted her head. It must have been a couple of hours later when she opened her eyes to see the whole sky had taken on a subtle shade of red.

The two girls tried to calm her down because Monique was convinced she had let the clouds die, just like she had with everyone else.

Both Jennifer and Daisy were still sleeping, curled up together, a few feet away from her. There was no sign of Michaela. Harry turned away and smiled. She suppressed a yawn and smiled back. It was good to see the boy displaying one more facial expression. “Are you okay, Harry?”

“You might want to see this.”

She stretched her back then got onto her feet, grimacing at the multitude as her aching muscles loudly protested at this sudden movement. Her body might hate her now, but Monique’s mind certainly felt better for the long needed rest. Then the guilt of falling asleep kicked in. What the hell was she thinking of? How dare she shift responsibility to some eleven year old boy? Not after what had just happened. It should have been her who’d stayed awake and ensured their safety.

Monique joined Harry by the edge of the building, noticing Michaela by the side of the brick column, quietly making stone piles with the white gravel. Then again, maybe failing asleep had been the bet plan after all. Unlike her, Harry hadn’t gotten anyone killed.

“I can’t get over how many there are, Mon.”

The rotting dead filled every road, every one of them shambling in one direction. He had to admit, although this was such a terrifying sight, Monique couldn’t deny that the sight of so many turned her bones to water.

“The smell doesn’t seem to be so gross now. I don’t think they’re moving as fast either. Maybe they’re starting to seize up or something?” Harry idly played with the buckle on his belt. “I left you for a couple of extra hours. You looked as though you needed it.”

“What about you, honey. You must be exhausted.”

He shrugged. “I don’t sleep all that great nowadays. Besides, I did get my head down for a bit earlier. Don’t worry about me, Mon. I’ll be okay.” He took a step back from the edge. “So, you ready for a little recon?

“Okay. We might as we get this over with.”

“What about the others?”

They can stay on the roof. It’s the safest place for them.”

It no longer felt weird to treat Harry like an adult anymore. She reckoned that if the kids who’d survived this didn’t grow up fast, they wouldn’t grow up at all. The infected weren’t that fussy about the age of their meat.

“Mon?”

“Sorry, honey. I was just wool gathering?”

“You thinking about Geoff again?”

“What?”

“The guy was a complete dickhead. He thought he was some kind of hard man but in fact, he was a big pussy.”

Unreal, from the mouths of babes. “I take it you two didn’t get on? Wait, how did you know about what happened downstairs?”

“Watched it. Kinda knew something weird was going to happen on account of all those things gathering outside the hall, a few seconds before Danny went postal. Oh yeah, forgot to tell you. It was him who opened the door.”

Monique shook her head. This was just too much to take in. She asked Michaela to stay with the two sleeping girls then joined Harry at the lid. She gripped the underside. “Are you ready?”

Harry pointed his pistol at the opening then nodded.

She counted to three then pulled. Monique looked up at Harry who shook his head, not that she really expected any to be hiding in there. “Okay, this is going to be the tricky part?

“Do you want be to go first? I am smaller and quicker.”

“No, it’s okay, honey. I got this.”

If those remaining infected were likely to be anywhere then the bastards would be waiting for them in the next room, probably wondering how all those tasty humans vanished. Monique was hoping that they all scarpered as soon as the sun started to go down.

Monique reached the bottom of the ladder. There had always been one thing that had always troubled her regarding the dead and the infected. They were like sailing ships passing in the night. Just where did the buggers go when they weren’t either hunting down humans or shuffling along the deserted highways. They had to go somewhere did the dead pack their rotting bodies into the sewers when the sun came up? If that was the case, then where the hell did the infected go? She couldn’t picture each separate group calmly vacating their allocated sleeping spots to allow the other group to bed down. There was something none of them were seeing.

“Like ships passing in the night.”

She looked up at that starlit rectangle and gave Harry a reassuring smile. None of those things would be in there. Monique manoeuvred herself around, quietly turned the handle and pushed the door open a crack.. “Don’t be in there,” she pleaded. “Please don’t be in there.”

From her limited view, she saw a broken window, a lot of splinted wood but no creatures. Monique pushed the door open wider and found where all the bits of wood had come from, there was literally nothing left of the door. Monique carefully climbed out of the hatch and dropped to the floor and made her way over to the broken window, trying not to step on any of the wood.

The creatures must have thought, they escaped through the window. Whatever, as long as they weren’t in the church hall anymore. Monique went back to the hatch and waved the others down.

They had a lot of work ahead of them. First, they’d have to secure the building, properly too. Looking at what they did to that door suggested that nailing some plywood boards over the windows just wouldn’t do. They’d have to conduct some sort of service for the ones they had just lost as well. With luck it would help to give the little ones some kind of closure.

Harry, and the two girls joined Monique in the room. “Wait, what about Michaela?”

“She said she’s staying up there, until we sure it’s safe to come down.”

There really were no words to describe how Monique felt about that woman. So much for everybody pulling together. “Whatever. Okay, we all stick together, okay? Harry, there’s extra ammo in the next room. We should make that our next choice.”

“Agreed.” He stooped and picked up a splintered length of doorframe and tapped the point. He gave his gun to Jennifer. “Until we get some more ammo, you can keep hold of that.”

“Are you sure, Harry.”

“Hey, I’m a full year older than him, you know.”

Monique sighed, remembering her earlier thoughts. He was right. Who else was there now that the others had all gone? That woman still on that roof was going to be as much use as a chocolate teapot. “Harry, exactly what do you intend to do with that?” she asked.

“It’s silent but dead.” Harry replied. “A lot like one of Daisy’s farts.”

“That’s so not funny. I notice you didn’t say that to you, Jen.”

“Course not. I have his gun now. He ain’t that dumb.”

“For crying out loud.” This was going to take some getting used to. Despite everything her remaining companions had gone through in the past month and despite some of their apparent adult behaviour, they were still kids at heart.

“Look, ain’t it obvious, Mon? I can use this if one of those infected jump at us. Gunfire will only attract all the others.”

“Harry, we’re only going into the next room first, before all head off downstairs. Don’t get me wrong, it is a good idea but I’d still rather keep my gun if you don’t mind” Perhaps it might be best if she left these up here while she cleared up downstairs? Yeah, that made sense. Let them get some much needed sleep while she tried to make the place a little more habitable again. Monique could always wake up Harry when she needed help with blocking up all the windows.

Her future plans suddenly dried up when she saw the look on Harry’s face. “What is it?”

“I thought you knew about downstairs, Mon?”

“Knew what?”

He pushed past her, left the room and leaned over the balcony.

“Stay here,” she said to the girls and joined the boy. “Oh, you have got to be having a laugh!”

“I thought you knew,” he repeated.

The polished wooden tiles no longer existed. A living carpet of pink flesh now covered the floor. Twenty feet separated Monique and Harry from more infected she had ever seen. “Like ships passing in the night.” She staggered away from the metal railing, her back slapping against the green painted wall. Monique sank to the floor, her legs unable to support her weight.

“I don’t know what to do anymore,” she said to herself.

The boy joined her by the wall. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a plastic bottle and tapped the base against her shoulder. “Take a sip, Mon. Don’t worry, it’s only water.” He crouched in front of her. “This is going to sound dumb, considering what’s just happened but I broke into the vending machine to get this. Thing is, Michaela caught me and she threatened to tell.”

Monique unscrewed the top and took a small sip, glad of the water lubricating her throat, even if it was warm.

“I guess she expected me to fall to my knees and beg for mercy, or something.  The bitch didn’t expect me to ask her what she was doing in the kitchen in the middle of the night, holding a tin of ravioli.”

Harry looked like some post apocalyptic child soldier, with his sharpened stick clasped in his fist and his other hand resting over the pistol she gave him earlier., and thanks to his impromptu speech, At least one of her burning questions now had an answered. So it was Michaela who’d been helping herself to the group’s supplies, the girl who was currently still on the fucking roof, not giving a shit about anyone but herself.

Here she was, sat on this cold balcony, thinking that she’d totally failed in her task of keeping everyone safe, that, thanks to her stupid mistakes, only kids, some selfish woman and herself was all that remained of this group.

“Do you remember which cartridges you need to get for that pistol?”

“Of course I do. I’m not a total idiot.”

His tone suggested that Monique had somehow insulted the boy. That alone gave her some strength. “Good, then see if you can dig out another three boxes, then join me in the kitchen.”

She waited until he’d walked into the next room before getting back onto her feet. Monique moved a little closer to the edge of the balcony, watching all those monsters down there dream away the night. There were so many of them. These throwbacks from a forgotten time held the fate of humankinds’ future in their clawed hands. Monique and her fellow survivors had no future, they were an endangered species. Tonight had proved that.

Monique popped her head around the edge of the splintered doorframe and urged the two girls to come to her. She pressed a finger to her lips, pointing to the floor with her other arm.

Jennifer ran up to Monique, her eyes bulging at the sight of so many infected now occupying what was once the group’s sanctuary. She hugged Monique, her body shaking violently. She guessed that Harry hadn’t shared his observations with her either.

The other girl looked at the pair of them before she squeezed past Monique.

“Oh shit, she murmured. “That’s so not good.”

Daisy fingers intertwined with Monique’ fingers.

Did Daisy already know that this church hall no longer belonged to them? Had Harry already told her? She supposed it didn’t really matter. It wasn’t exactly a life or death scenario. She gave both the girls a reassuring smile, still silently wishing somebody was here to do the same for her, before turning her head to watch those monsters down there.

“Monique,” hissed Jennifer. “I think you had better taken the gun back.” She pulled it out from behind her blouse.

“Silent it is not.” Daisy leaned over. “You daft cow, the safety wasn’t even on. What would have happened if you’d suddenly fallen over and it had gone off?” The girl snatched the weapon out of Jennifer’s hand. “It would have sounded like a pissing bomb blast in here.” She flicked the safety on.”

Monique paled at the thought of that nightmare scenario. OH crap, that really was something she should have checked, instead of wondering if Harry had said anything to Daisy. None of them would have stood a chance in hell. She paused, apart from that Michaela.

“Well I wouldn’t have fallen down, I ain’t as clumsy as you.”

Monique got down to their level. “Girls, I have something very important to say. We need to get some supplies before we start to look for a new home.”

“Where are we going to go?”

“Don’t worry about that right now, Daisy. It’s not like we don’t have plenty of choices. First though, we really do need those supplies. Thing is, to get to them we have to…”

“I get it, We’ve got to sneak past those monsters down there.”

“Do you want to come with me or go back up onto the roof. Right now, that roof is the safest place in here.”

“I ain’t going back up there without you, Mon,” replied Jennifer. “That Michaela is a complete bitch. Nobody likes her.”

“Fair enough, but only if you’re sure. Now, you’ll both have to promise me not to utter a single word.”

They both nodded.

“Make sure you stay close to the wall. “Monique moved along the balcony, listening to a quiet medley of grunts and snores, with the sound of some of them changing position. She stopped twice, her hammering heart threatening to jump out of her mouth when Monique really did believe that one of those monsters had woken up and was watching their progress. In he mind’s eye, she saw one of that stood at the fair end of the hall, its long tongue running over its wet lips.

Monique managed to reach the top of the stairs. She turned around, and saw Daisy having trouble with this journey too. The girl was whimpering. It wasn’t loud but the noise was definitely audible. She pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. “You’re doing great, honey, we’re nearly there.” Monique took the girl’s hand.

“We’re all safe as long as we’re quiet.” She slowly took the girls down the stairs, becoming acutely aware of how close they now were to those creatures. The odour they generated made her eyes water, it was like a mixture of ammonia and wet soil.

“There’s so many of them.”

She couldn’t disagree with Daisy’s observation. Monique reached the first door and forced herself to stop and turn to face them. She had to get her overactive imagination under control, and prove to it that there wasn’t any of those bloody things staring at them.

Monique gently pulled the girls around her body. “I need you to go in there,” she whispered. “She if you can find a couple of rucksacks. Try looking in the cupboard in the corner of the room, I’m sure they’re in there.”

Both Daisy and Jennifer vanished into her old room while she continued to watch her enemy. It did seem like the height of irresponsibility to bring those two with her, down into the lion’s pit, but after the last time, she just couldn’t leave them in the hands of someone she didn’t completely trust, even if it was much safer up there.

She almost jumped out of her skin when something brushed against her shoulder. Monique spun around to find Jennifer standing beside her, holding the two rucksacks. She regained enough composure to smile back before motioning the girls to follow her over to the kitchens.

Oh Christ! The sheer size of the infected male just inches from Monique took away the remaining will to move. She clenched the sides of her blouse, unable to take her eyes away from this sleeping beast. He must have weighed way over 200 pounds and yet she saw no one ounce of fat on his body. It’s obvious that he once spent most of his life in the gym and lived on protein shakes. Back before this happened, Monique would have scoffed at some such individual so obsessed in pumping up their body. During her club period, for some reason, she attracted the muscle-bound freaks like moths to a frigging lightbulb.

Monique shivered. Had this monster been one of the prospective pissed up knobheads who’d tried their luck at trying to get into her knickers?

Jennifer tugged at her blouse sleeve. “Please don’t stop now,” she begged.

The terror in the girl’s voice was enough to unfreeze her muscles. Monique edged her way past the monster and literally ran into the kitchen, her chest heaving. It took so much effort not to fall to her knees and burst into tears.

“Are you alright, Mon?”

She nodded. “Sorry, for a moment, I thought I knew that one, took me a little by surprise, you know? Don’t worry about it.” She marched over to the first cupboard and opened both doors wide. “Okay, let’s get this done as quickly as we can, she said, passing Daisy a handful of packet soups.”

“Can we take the hotdogs?”

“Sorry, honey, just the dried stuff. We daren’t take anything that’s going to add too much to the weight.”

“Don’t you worry about that, Mon. I can carry them.”

“No, Daisy. We need to stick to dried stuff only. Look, as soon as we’ve found another place, somewhere safer, we’ll start to forage again. Don’t you worry, honey. I don’t think that is the last tin left around here.”

Daisy shook her head. “Don’t believe you.” She took the tin off the shelf and dropped it into her own rucksack.”

“For crying out loud, Daisy,” gasped Jennifer. “What is wrong with you?”

“Yeah, you take her side. You’re just as bad as the bitch, you are. If food’s that easy to find out there, then why are we risking our necks taking a few packets of shitty soup?”

“Jesus, stop it, the pair of you. Daisy, if you want to take the hot dogs, then do it. Just don’t start moaning at me cos it’s too heavy.” He reached into the cupboard and pulled out the last of the packets. Not that she blamed the girl for trying. After spending all these weeks on having to live off all of this rubbish, Monique would probably feel the same way if she was to be denied her favourite food. Unlike the girl though, Monique had been craving for ripe strawberries, freshly cooked bread but above all that, a cake big enough to sleep in.

Instead, they had to make do with instant mashed potato and pasta meals and all of this would be no good if they couldn’t find a source of fresh water. Monique dropped the lot into her rucksack, silently wandering exactly how much weight that last tin of pineapple chunks would add. He picked it off the shelf then stopped dead, the tin hovering a foot above the shelf. The kitchen had fallen completely silent, apart from the sound of deep breathing and it wasn’t coming from her.

Monique slowly turned her head only to discover that huge, muscle-bound monster blocking the doorway and staring at the two girls. It was grinning while clenching its huge fists. A scream rose from the put of her stomach, lodging tight in Monique’s throat. Her worst nightmare was about to come true and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.

“Shoot it!” hissed Daisy, grabbing the other girl and dragging her immobile body over to Monique. “Please, Mon, kill the thing!” Tears ran down the girl’s cheek. She looked up at her, those huge brown eyes pleading for Monique to make this thing go away.

The creature took one foot over the threshold, its eyes roaming from one girl to another, not even bothering with Monique. Oh no! It wasn’t vile beast wasn’t after food after all, at least not yet, not until it had fulfilled another desire.

What the fuck was she going to do? If Monique did shoot it, the noise would surely wake up every other one of these things. There’s no way they be able to reach the safety of the roof in time, even if they did get there, these bastards would know exactly where there had gone this time. She raised the pistol and pointed it at the advancing creature’s head, knowing she had no other choice.

A tin of hotdogs flew from Daisy’s hand, hitting the creature square in the nose. It grunted once, swatting the air around it. Monique didn’t hesitate and flung the pineapples too before pushing the two girls over to the door. “Run!” she urged.

They both pelted out of the kitchen with her right behind them, until Monique felt something grab her ankle. She crashed against the tiles, the side of her face smashing into the hard surface.

She cried out as she was forcibly turned onto her back. The snarling beast’s huge fingers dug into her flesh and effortlessly pulled her away from the open door. Monique kicked it in the face with her free leg but it didn’t relinquish its grip on her other ankle.

The creature then dropped to its knees and fastened its hand around Monique’s other ankle and forced her legs wide apart. The realisation of what it intended to do hit her suddenly hit her. He raised her head, gasping then howling in terror when she saw the size of its genitals.

It bared its teeth, thick drool hung from both sides of its mouth. She took her eyes away from that nauseating thing and swivelled her head form side to side, realising she must have dropped her gun in the struggle. It lay on the tiles, beside the table leg, just inches from her grasp.

The panting creature pulled her even closer, its fingers riding up her legs, reaching her knees. She cried out in agony as it pulled them further apart. Monique tried to sat up, she still had her hands free. Fuck this dirty, vile bastard. She wasn’t going to let it violate her. She growled deep, flinging her chest up, desperate to get close to that face. All he had to do was to push her thumbs deep into her eye sockets.

It suddenly stopped pulling looked up, into Monique’s face, before she could even react, it lamed its forehead into Monique’s mouth. She fell back against the tiles, unable to stop the tears course down her face. She stifled a cry when she felt its fingers push up between her inner thigh and her panties.

“Please don’t!”

A shadow appeared above her. Monique just knew that another of them had woken up. Oh Christ, the bastards were going to share her around! She felt its rough skin dig into her flesh. Monique bucked her body and kicked out, so trying to do some damage, to do anything to stop this. Another shadow blocked out what light came in form the hallway, before two figures rushed past her.

The creature’s fingers pushed hard into Monique’s flesh before they loosened and finally pulling away. Monique heard the wet sound of something hard smacking into skin and bone.

Both Jennifer and Daisy had returned! Daisy grabbed her hand, pulling Monique away from the creature while Jennifer swung the cricket bat one more time into the side of its head before dropping the weapon. The girl scooped up the dropped gun and passed it back to Monique.

“Come on!” she cried. I think the others are starting to wake up.”

Monique stared at the gun now in the palm of her hand, not exactly sure how it got there. Only the deep aching from that bastard’s fingers mattered. She took one step towards it, gratified to so much deep red blood streaming out from the ugly wound above its ear. It wasn’t quite dead yet though, the creature still managed to raise its head and glare at the woman, defiant right up to the end. He pointed the gun at its face. Two voices behind her begged her not to do it, but they, like how she got the gun, didn’t matter.

Monique squeezed the trigger twice. She would have fired until the she’d emptied the magazine if it hadn’t been for both the girls slapping the smoking weapon out of her hands before dragging her out of the kitchen.

All around her, she heard the noise of dozens of infected monsters beginning to stir. A few of them were already on their feet, jumping and climbing the creatures still not aware that human intruders were now among them.

Monique got enough wits back for her to realise exactly what she’d just done. She turned around and shrugged off their hands. “Get to the roof!” Two of them were within metre of them now. “Go on, run!”

She ran back down the steps, into the kitchen and picked up the gun and the closest rucksack. One of the infected had reached the door. She turned and fired, the round taking off the top of its head. Monique charged forward and fired again, taking down the other one.

Now that they saw the plight of their two comrades, the others weren’t so eager to run her down. “Just try it, you vile fuckers,” she snarled, making her way up the stairs. Once she reached the top, Monique raced towards the demolished door, aware that Harry was waiting for her and of the sudden eruption of howling threatening to burst her eardrums.

Harry pulled her into the room, his shots adding to the deafening noise. Monique grabbed the boy and pushed him towards the hatch. She fired at another infected, the back of its head spraying across its companions. As soon as that one collapsed, she fired again, this time only clipping one of the shoulders. She spun around and dived into the hatch, passing the rucksacks to Harry before heaving her body inside and closing the hatch behind her.

“That’s not going to hold them,” he said.

“Never mind that, just make sure the girls are okay.” She waited until he had reached the top before tearing a strip of material from her sleeve and wrapping it around the handle. She then wedged her knee under it.

There’s no way they were going to come through way, not a chance, those fuckers weren’t going to harm anyone in her protection ever again. The only other way to the roof was through the door and along the street and there wasn’t a hope of any of them living through that, not with all those dead thing out there.

She gritted her teeth when the handle jerked down. Monique didn’t think it would be long before one of them figured out where they went. The handle pressed against her knee. The pressure was slowly building up. Oh God, how long could she keep this up for?

Three faces appeared above her.

“Get up here, Monique!”

“I’m sorry, Harry. That’s not going to happen. If I move, there’ll all swarm up there. I’m not going to risk your lives. I’ll be okay.”

Harry tapped Daisy and they both pointed pistols at Monique.” Two guns and six boxes of bullets say otherwise.”

Jennifer climbed into the hatch. “Come on, move yourself or I’ll have to start tickling you.”

She looked past the three kids, into the starlit night, wondering exactly how long it was before the sun came up. Monique gritted her teeth as the handle dug into her knee. They weren’t going away, not this time and the pressure would only build up. If she didn’t move, her poor legs would last another five minutes never mind another five hours. She nodded then reached up at grabbed Jennifer’s hand.

“You will need to move quick, Mon,” said Harry. “They’re going to be right behind you.”

“Okay, pull!”

Monique cried out in pain, feeling her leg click as the girl hoisted her out of the hatch. The door slamming open drowned out her sound of the woman’s cries. Monique fastened her fingers on the edge and, with Jennifer’s help climbed onto the roof. Both Harry and Daisy fired. She looked back, watching the others pull their dead comrades out of the way before they scurried up the ladders. Another round of bullets took care of them but this time, the ones below didn’t clear away their dead.

Monique got to her feet, not believing what they were now doing.

Jennifer emptied her gun before gazing frantically at Harry. “What do we do now?”

“Reload!” he shouted. “Harry fired once, he then paused, watching the shield of bodies move steadily towards them. He fired again, this time the bodies fell back into the room below when his shot took one of the ones hiding under the dead, in the neck.

Monique took the other gun out of Jennifer’s shaking hand. “Go with Daisy. Find another way off this roof!”

“There isn’t one!”

“Just do as you’re fucking told!” Harry yelled. “There’s no way I’m dying on this roof.”

She gave the loaded gun to Harry and took his empty off him. They weren’t giving up on their assault, if anything, the bastards were speeding up. Monique held the other gun in both hands, her head ringing from the continuous firing. She waited until for a clean shot and fired. Her round took one of the living ones in the ankle. It didn’t kill the bastard but the creature did lose it grip.

“There’s just too many of them!” aid Harry, pissing his now empty gun back to the woman. “We can’t keep this up, we…” he then tapped Monique on the shoulder. “Oh crap, come on, look at that!” He scooped up one of the ammo boxes and ran over to the girls.

She fired twice before grabbing the remaining box and running after him.

Michaela was already three quarters of the way along a narrow wooden plank stretching from the church hall to the next building.

“I’ll take it all back,” Monique muttered. “She isn’t such a bitch after all.”

“Look out!”

She took Harry’s warning and turned around. Two of the infected were now climbing out of the hole. She got on one knee and shot them both dead. “You two, follow her across!”

Harry joined her. The boy killed the next one who poked its head out of the hole. Unlike the two she took out, this one fell back inside. Monique turned around and gasped. Michael had reached the other side and was stood on the edge, waving. Jennifer was already halfway across. Daisy had just started her slow crawl. The woman on the other side had her foot beside the edge of the plank. It was plain what the evil cow intended to do.

“No!” screamed Monique, “You can’t do that!”

The large grin spread across the woman’s face told a different story. Monique saw no other answer. She turned the gun on Michaela and squeezed the trigger only to find she must have emptied the magazine already. “Harry, shoot her!”

He was too busy to stop the approaching monsters to even hear Monique’s cry. She stood up and ran towards the plank only to see the hatch on the other building start to shift, she moaned in horror knowing the other building was infested too. Harry’s gun dry fired.

That’s it, they were all dead but at least she’d have the pleasure of knowing that traitorous bitch wouldn’t survive either. The other hatch fell onto the roof. Michael spun around in surprise. Harry ran up to Monique and snatched the other gun out of her hand fired twice before dropping it on the floor.

A single figure climbed out of the other hatch and ran towards the woman. She squealed and dropped to her knees, still determined to drop the plank into the dead mass below them. The figure reached Michaela, saw what she was trying to do and kicked her in the side, she rolled onto her back screaming. The figure then kicked her again, knocking her off the roof.

Harry took Monique’s hand, pulling the woman over to the plank. Events were moving way too fast for her to process. She saw Daisy and Jennifer get to the other building then heard more shots, only they wasn’t coming from Harry. It was the other figure shooting at the infected who were almost on top of Harry and Monique. The boy urged her to get on the plank. Then dropped to the floor himself, and reloaded.

By the time she was across, Harry had already begun his journey while their unknown rescuer took out any infected who got to close to that plank. It took the boy another couple of moments to reach safety. His last task before joining Monique was to kick away the plank.

Now that Harry was safely across, Monique turned around to find a very familiar figure grinning back at her. “Conner, but how?”

Chapter Twelve

In the hour or so since he had become aware of his surroundings, their new arrival gave him nothing but icy stares intermixed with the occasional glower. Not that he blamed the girl for her hostility. His dad believed the story that Dominic spun about his body suddenly failing due to the stress of the situation. Even to his ears his hasty excuse did sound rather lame.

He doubted that no matter how believable he had made the tale, that girl knew what almost happened to Dominic, He’d no idea how the girl had come by this information, perhaps he’d seen it in his eyes or might have seen something like this before. Only she knew and that girl sure as hell wasn’t spilling the beans.

It must have taken some guts, strength and well as a huge portion of ingenuity to move Dominic’s dead weight from off the road into the top floor of that tobacconist. How dad managed this seemingly impossible feat wasn’t his first thought when he opened his eyes, saw the stars framed in the metal window and smelled the toxic odour of the massed dead below him.

A young female voice asked a question to which his dad responded with a light chuckle. The girl joined in. The sound of laughter brought a smile to his face. It was so refreshing to hear something not related to agony or misery. Dominic couldn’t place the voice. He wanted it to be Monique yet that wish remained unfulfilled when his dad and a teenage girl walked back into the room.

The frivolity on her face quickly changed when the girl saw he had awoken. From that point, their new arrival didn’t speak another word.

This time, every thought and action from when he’d been under their influence burned deep into his mind. The girl might not have welcomed Dominic back into the land of the living but his dad certainly did.

His old man threw his arms around him, making it difficult to draw breath. That very act alone made him glad he hadn’t fully changed. Hell, his response almost made Dominic forgive the man for his earlier crimes. Almost.

How had the creatures done it? Dominic had been that close to completely disregarding his human existence and joining that tribe. Without his dad’s intervention, he would have changed. That much was certain. Thing is, Dominic wanted to change, at least at the end.

In his past, quite a few illicit substances had found their way into his body, yet none of them could compare to the high promised by the others once his transformation was complete.

Maybe they secreted some kind of chemical, a pheromone or something that reacted with whatever was in his body. Fuck, it could be mind control for all he knew or cared. The fact of the matter was if they could do it once, then it could quite easily happen again and the next time, Dominic might not be so lucky.

His dad reassured him they were all safe now. There’s no chance the dead would get in here, not with the metal shutters over the door and the shop windows. Of course, there was no food left. Looters had emptied the place weeks ago. They’d even taken the chewing gun. That sparkle in dad’s eyes suggested to Dominic that the old man might have had something to do with the clearing out.

It took some persuasion to convince dad that the dead weren’t the problem.

Dominic winkled his nose, watching the other two join him in the sewer, under the shop and wondered exactly how he’d even managed to convince the pair of them to join him down here.

He had no other choice though. The longer he spend in that tiny bedroom, listening to his dad go on about that the infected wouldn’t be able to get them in here, the more he wanted, he needed to tell the pair of them the dirty truth about their predicament.

Something else had happened to him while he’d been under their influence, it had taken a few minutes to solidify though. Dominic had picked up some of the primal and disjointed thoughts emanating from the minds of some of the infected.

The bastards had already created the beginnings of a primitive society, banding into groups, protecting their territory from other groups as well as slowly becoming more aware of their abilities, which included more efficient methods to hunt down the remaining humans. Needing to kill and consume the survivors took up most of their thoughts and this was shared throughout every single infected creature. They would not stop until every human was dead.

They already knew about the three of them currently sheltering in the shop and planned to finish what they started once the dead had gone back to whence they came. Come sun up, they would swarm into here. The shutters might stop them entering from the street level but there was still the upper floor windows as well as the chimney to take into account.

His dad grimaced when his shoe sunk a couple of inches into a shallow stone depression filled with brackish water. “Dominic, are you sure this is a good idea?”

He nodded. “Totally. I mean, you wanted safety, well; this is the safest place we could be, guaranteed. Who would be insane enough to follow us down here?” He saw plenty of evidence left from the massed dead. The narrow ledges at either side of the sewer tunnel were full of tattered remnants of clothes, footwear as well as enough coins, jewellery, phones and wallets to keep a pickpocket joyous for weeks.

Dominic had seen something similar up above, littering some of the bigger roads. “That’s weird,” he muttered.

“Son, you don’t half utter the obvious. The whole world went weird bloody months ago.”

“No, I mean, the smell down here.”

“It’s stinks of shit. It’s a rancid sewer; it’s how they’re supposed to smell.”

“This place is where the walking dead roost every fucking day, dad. So why doesn’t it stink of rotting flesh?” He sighed. “Doesn’t matter. Come on, we’d better get a move on.” He waited for the girl to catch up before hurrying along the ledge, being careful not to stand on any of these forgotten belongings. He’d told his dad that he believed the infected had formed themselves into tribes and had carved up the city. The girl had scoffed at this but his dad just nodded. Thankfully, the old man didn’t ask if this was just conjecture or Dominic was able to talk to the bastards now. He wanted it to stay that way too. He did not want his dad to know just how close he’d become to changing.

He still intended to seek out the Monique’s whereabouts. Dominic doubted the girl would be still at home, unless she’d done what dad had done and turned the place into a fortress. It that was the case then he needed to get her out of there. Fortified homes attracted the infected like bears to bees’ nests.

If she wasn’t there, hopefully, he might be able to pick up the girl’s trail. Hell, she might have even left a note. Dominic smiled at that thought. It would be so like her to do such a thing, Monique always used to think about other people’s needs before considering what she wanted.

A string of incoherent muttering reached his ears. He turned his head and received an icy glare for his efforts. It might be a wise idea to get his own house in order before meeting up with his ex-girlfriend. Monique wouldn’t be alone, that much he was sure about. A social butterfly like her wouldn’t last five minutes without a bunch of people to look after.

Wasn’t that the ultimate irony! Monique would have sorted out the beef this girl had with Dominic in seconds flat. The new arrival wouldn’t last five minutes under the gentle but sustained pressure from Monique’s powers of persuasion, but she wasn’t here, meaning he would have to sort this shit out.

He sighed to himself and played the torch beam along the sewer walls before he stopped again. “Will you at least tell me your name?”

“She’s called Jessica.”

Dominic grinned to himself, imagining the girl’s current friend list dropping from one to zero. “Well, that’s a good start, I guess, even if you didn’t directly answer me.” He turned around and smiled at the pair of them.

“Unless you did answer me, Jessica, and you have an unusually deep voice?” Did he see a flicker of a smile just then? It was difficult to tell in this dim light. He doubted it though. Her face looked like it wasn’t built for smiling. “I feel that perhaps we should have introduced ourselves earlier. You know, before we all ended up splashing through all this shitty water. Never mind. So then, Jessica. Why don’t you tell me what you miss most of the life before?” He paused. Unsure of how to call their lives before this happened. He looked at the old man.

“Before the world went dark,” replied his dad.

Dominic started to count in his head, promising that he’d treat himself to a can of coke if the girl talked before he reached thirty.

“Pizza.”

He’d reached eighteen before her soft voice echoed through the darkness. Dominic couldn’t deny it, that single word did give him some hope for the future of their embryonic group. A strange answer though. He expected her to say her mum or dad or something. Then again, considering how Dominic’s dad treated him once that woman, Mrs Kendall noticed the bite-mark on his arm, maybe it wasn’t such an odd answer. If somebody had asked him the same question back then, he might have said pizza too, or a hotdog. God, he’d kill for a bloody hotdog.

Dominic stopped dead. Fuck, it had to be the bite-mark. The girl must have seen that when he and dad pulled her out from under that vehicle. No bloody wonder she was ner ,. ,. ,. ,. ,. ,. ,. ,. ,.mvous around him.

“Any particular topping, Jessica, or just pizza in general?”

“Are you one of them?”

Dominic pushed up his jumper and ran the tips of his fingers across the wound. “You mean because of this?” he asked, showing her the mark.

The girl took a single step back and nodded while biting her bottom lip.

His dad gently took her hand. “Do you remember what I said to you earlier on, Jess?” The man gazed at Dominic before turning his attention back to the girl. “I take it you do recall our conversation?”

“Yeah, I guess,” she replied, sighing.

“Wait, what are you on about?”

His dad just shrugged. “Nothing to worry about, son.” He grabbed the girl and pushed her in front of him. “Now, let’s do this properly?”

She looked terrified.

“Come on, Jess. Remember what I said.”

The girl looked straight at Dominic then slowly raised her hand.

“Son, are you going to shake or stand there looking like a gormless dork?”

“Sorry,” he said. Dominic gently held the girl’s hand. “Hi. I’m Dominic,” he replied, shaking it.

“Jessica.” She snatched her hand out from his grasp and retreated behind his dad.

As second introductions went, Dominic decided that it could have gone much worse. He would have liked to know exactly what his dad had said to her while he’d been out for the count though. Not that he didn’t trust his dad, no, he didn’t trust him. Not anymore.

Was this the closest Dominic would get to putting his house in order? Well, the girl was talking to him, at was a start. “I prefer pepperoni. Oh, and mushrooms. My dad has this weird preference for Hawaiian pizza. I don’t know about you, Jess, but that’s just vile. It’s like putting Satsuma on a pizza or a banana.”

“Dominic?”

“Still, I guess it’s all horses for courses. I mean, it would be a boring place if we all liked the same thing.”

“Dominic, for crying out loud, son. Can you shut up for a second?”

He closed his mouth then turned around. “Oh, I’m sorry, Dad. Don’t you like people finding out that you have a weird taste for pizza?”

His dad placed his hand on the wall. “You’re about as funny as typhoid. Just shut your cakehole for one minute. I want you to shine that torch of yours on the wall.” He turned to the girl. “Take no notice of him, love. He’s just showing off.”

Dominic dropped the pretend levity in the bin. Christ, it sounded like dad was about to announce that he’d just found out he only had a few days to live. He moved the torch beam over to where dad had placed his hand, surprised to discover he’d just walked past a door, embedded into the brick wall. How the hell had he missed that? What shocked him even more was hadn’t been part of the original sewer system. This was recent. He played the beams across some kind of logo, embossed into the metal. “That looks kinda familiar,” he muttered. It was all very weird but for the life in him, Dominic couldn’t understand why this caused such an adverse reaction. “Dad, a reason for the melodramatics would be nice round about now.”

“You saw this in that café, Dom. I showed you it. This is the same logo that’s on that bloody poster. Oh fuck, this is bad, real bad. This isn’t an invasion at all?”

“Wait, what invasion?” asked Jessica. “More to the point, why all the fuss about the NWF Party’s logo. They did a shitload of good stuff in our neighbourhood. We got a new park from them and they stopped folk from getting mugged.”

“For fuck’s sake, dad. Will you start making sense?”

“How do the dead get out of the sewer?”

“I don’t know.”

“Christ,” he replied, exasperated. “What, you reckon the bastards climb the ladders while the others calmly wait in a line, like they’re queuing outside the cinema?”

“Don’t get funny, dad. I figured that they’d all leave from a sewer outlet. You know, one of the big tunnels which lead out onto the surface. Wait, are you suggesting that all those thousands of dead things all leave through this one door? That makes as much sense as the bastards climbing the ladders. Dad, it’s probably a maintenance door.”

“Dom’s right, Giles. The party was putting their logo on everything.”

“Dad you’re doing it again!”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know exactly what I mean. I’m on about you pulling all these conspiracy theories out of your arse. I think you’d better stick to your Chinese invasion theory. At least that one does have legs.”

“Fine, whatever. You go ahead and dismiss me, see if I care. Just don’t go crying to me when I’m proved right. I bet you won’t be so flippant then.”

Dominic tried his best not to sigh. Christ, this was almost like the old days when dad used to try to fill his head with everything from the Americans faking the moon landing to the Queen being an alien. He did sigh then. Almost like the old times, if you could forget about the nightmare they were living through, the smell of shit. Oh, and the lack of biscuits.

He stopped again when he realised the girl was now walking behind him and his dad had yet to move away from the door. “Come on, man. We don’t have all day.” Was he trying to open it? That wouldn’t surprise him. Once a crackpot idea slivered its way into dad’s braincracks, it was a bastard of a job to pry it back out again. “Are you staying down here?”

He left his dad to it and continued along the narrow edge. The old man wouldn’t stay there for much longer. He was only trying to prove some point, like it really mattered. Dominic walked a little further. He’d be catching him up any second now, where else would he go? Besides, Dominic had the torch.

Dominic finally stopped. So wanting to slap the old man, he still wasn’t with them. “Do you want to go get him?” he asked.

Jessica shook her head. She smiled up at him. “Have you not considered that he might be right?”

“You obviously don’t know my dad as well as I do.” Christ, the girl still had that smile plastered across her face. What was she playing at? Not that it mattered. He could now spot his head lurching towards them. Dominic wondered if the awkward bastard would apologise.

The girl caught Dominic’s arm. “Wait up, merry legs.” She made a fist and bashed it against the wall.

A metallic clanging echoed around the sewer. He shone his torch and found another door.

“I think I remember you saying something about pulling conspiracy theories out of your dad’s arse?”

Dominic saw no need to reply to the girl’s caustic remark. As he bent down and helped his dad to dig out the accumulated grime from a panel set into the door. He decided that he preferred the girl better when she only glared at him.

“Oh yes!” said his dad excitedly. “There’s a handle under all this shit. Wait, yes. I think it’s moving.”

“Wait, dad.” He pushed the man out of the way, took the gun out of his belt and wrapped his fingers around the Metal handle and pulled it down. The door smoothly swung open, revealing another tunnel. This one inclined suggesting that it led to the surface. “I don’t think this is part of the original sewer system. Dad, what do you think?” The harsh white glow the two rows of strip lighting, obliterated every shadow, giving the tunnel a cold, clinical feel to it. The old man stood next to him, shaking.

“You okay?”

His dad’s eyes followed the trail of detritus leading from where they stood, up the new tunnel. Dominic nodded to himself. “Unreal. Looks like you were right after all. Fuck.” He expected a smug grin back followed by a ‘I told you so’ but his dad kept mute, continuing to shake.

“Dad?”

The old man turned his head, his haunted eyes staring deep into his. “We are so fucked.”

“Like we wasn’t already?” Come on, dad. The fact that we’re still alive must account for something. I don’t see how this changes anything.”

“Are you from the future?” cried his dad. “It changes everything. It means that the people who are supposed to be looking after us have just tried to wipe us out! These are the same twisted fuckers who you swore allegiance to, Dominic. It means that the bastards who caused all of this are still out there.”

Now he saw what his dad meant. As if they didn’t have the dead and the infected to contend with, it meant there would be no help arriving. If anything, the authorities were more fucking dangerous than anything else that’s tried to kill them these past few days. Dominic moved away from the door. “Come on then, we’d better find the next set of ladders.”

The girl shook her head. “No, we need to follow this.”

His dad stepped in beside her.

“After everything we’ve learned? You two are aware we’re in the equivalent of an empty lions’ cage? Look, we don’t know where that even goes.”

“The surface,” said Jessica, where else would it go? Think about it, whoever designed this tunnel and the others aren’t going to make the journey difficult. It’s going to be a gentle gradient.”

Dominic attempted to say something, only to find the girl wasn’t finished with him just yet.

“What if we do get to the next set of ladders, only to find they’re corroded away, or we  them and they’re okay, only to discover that someone parked their car over the bloody grate.”

He held is hand up in mock surrender. “Fine, we follow this route, for crying out loud.” Dominic put his torch away, partially glad of the extra light. The semi darkness was starting to get to him anyway. Dominic had never been a fan of the dark.

“Wait a minute though. He took off his jacket and fed the sleeve under the bottom of the door, wedging it open. “Just in case.”

Within the space of a minute, the air began to subtly change. He smelled something other than the musky odour left by the movement of Christ knows how many dead bodies. “Does my nose detect fresh air?”

“Told you,” she said, smiling.

Dominic slowed down when he saw the tunnel split off into another three sections. “What is this shit?”

“It’s like the branches on a tree,” muttered his dad. “This way, the dead bastards are directed to different portions of our city. Fuck. I almost voted for that maniac when he first became known. I wonder how many did?”

Dominic chose the middle tunnel. “Most people, I guess. After all, he was placed in charge of the country.” He looked back at the girl. “What about you, did you vote for him?”

“What does that matter right now?” she snapped back.

“I’m betting she did, Dom. Young Jessica here looks like the sort of brain washed moron who’d vote for that slimy, baby-eating bastard.”

“Dad, how is this really helping?”

“Yeah well, the girl’s already admitted that her brother joined that crowd of goosestepping fucksticks. Don’t look at me like that. You were too busy dodging bullets in the Middle East. You didn’t see what it was like around here.”

The smell of the outside reached Dominic’s nostrils, along with another odour. A stench they were all familiar with. He gazed down at the ever present dropped mass strewn across the floor and hoped to God that this was where the foul stink of decay originated.

“Listen to you, Mr High and Mighty. God, and to think that I thought you were kinda okay. For your information, those so-called fucksticks saved countless lives in our street when the shit hit the fan. What did you do, old man? I bet you stayed inside your house and quietly shat your pants. I saw three of those dead bastards rip into my brother. They ate him alive!”

“Well, that escalated fast,” muttered Dominic. He turned away from the bickering couple and carried on making his way along the narrow ledge, shining the torch beam across the lichen encrusted walls. They were still at it but now, only the intent of their voices reached him. Dominic tuned that out, not wanting to listen to anymore of that crap. He had enough on his plate without having to act as referee for those two.

“No way!” He stopped dead. “This must be someone’s idea of a joke.” Dominic’s prior worries  joined their stupid arguments on some mental rubbish tip at the sight of a thick metal gate standing in the way of their freedom.

The harsh breathing on the back of his neck told Dominic that his companions had shut up long enough for them to realise that they were all in deep shit. “We need to go back.”

“Wait on, Dom. Let me look.” His dad pushed the man out of the way and ran his fingers down the side of the gate. “I thought so.” A hidden panel clicked open, revealing three digital numbers slowly counting backwards.” It’s on a time-lock. Once the three numbers reach zero, the gate will open.”

“How does he know all of this shit?

“I used to be an engineer.”

“You won’t believe some of the weird stuff, this old man built up in our shed.”

“Fun times,” replied his dad, smiling.

“Yeah, you remember that moment when you and our neighbours had me tied up in the shed, threatening to put a bolt through my head? That was a fun time.”

“So we just wait here until the numbers reach zero?” asked Jessica. “Seems easy enough.”

“We need to get out of here,” repeated Dominic. He grabbed both sides of his dad’s head and turned him towards the gate. “The pigeons are coming home to roost.” It was utterly terrified to be in full view of the shambling march of the dead. Even these steel bars offered no reassurance. How could they? The bastards were about to open!

“Run!” He raced back down the new tunnel, distantly wondering if the psychotic fuckers who’d instigated this apocalypse were monitoring. He hadn’t bothered looking for cameras.

Dominic raced past where the tunnel had split into three, groaning aloud when the exit appeared. Why was he not shocked to discover his jacket on the floor and the door was back in place? Locked from the outside too, no doubt. So much for their government overlords not keeping an eye on them.

“No point trying it, Dad,” he muttered, while the old man frantically tugged on the handle. He left the handgun where it was and reached for the rifle. The question as to why they hadn’t just killed them had, for a moment echoed around his head until he realised they didn’t need to kill them. The dead would do that for them. He held the gun tight and prepared himself, knowing that there’s no way he’d be able to kill all of them. He wasn’t going just lie down and accept his fate though, no fucking chance.

His dad pushed past him again. Dominic grabbed his sleeve. “Are you so eager for them to eat you?”

“There’s still two more tunnels to check.”

“They’re going to be the bloody same!”

The old man shook his head. “Course not, there’s going to be a delay to stop all those things from jamming. It’s what I’d do.”

The sound of the first gate rolling open reached Dominic’s ears followed by dozens of shuffling feet entering that tunnel. The other two ran towards the middle tunnel with him close behind. He just couldn’t understand his dad’s flawed logic. Even if this next gate wasn’t open just yet, it would still have a horde of the rotting things all ready to tear off their faces as soon as the gate did open.

His dad reached the closed gate before anyone else and got to work trying to get it open. The timer on this one gave them just under two minutes. Dominic pressed his back against the wall. “Here you go, Jess,” he said handing her the handgun. “you’d better take this.”

She shook her head. “No thanks. They’re too noisy.” The girl reached into her rucksack and pulled out a short metal stake. “Don’t worry about me. I can handle myself.”

The column of corpses shambled past the tunnel entrance. Dominic knew it wouldn’t be long before they double backed once the first of the dead reached that closed door. If dad didn’t get that gate open, all he’d done was to prolong the inevitable. Only this time, they’d have to defend themselves on two fronts.

“Shit, I can’t figure it.” His dad stood up,” I don’t know, maybe we can try the remaining tunnel?”

They had another thirty seconds before that gate opened and already a line of corpses were shuffling towards them from outside. “He shook his head.” No, we stay here.” Dominic passed the pistol to his dad.

“Are you mental? They’re no way we can kill all of them.”

“Sorry, dad, it’s too late now. This is where we make our stand.” He started to smile.

“Glad you find all of this amusing.”

“Just remember which end the bullets come out, dad.” The girl stood about a foot from the gate. She shook but remained where she was. There was so much he didn’t know about either of his companions, even though he’d lived with his dad for most of his life, these recent events proved that his step father Giles Bachelor was still an enigma. “I’m smiling, old man because there’s not as many of them out there.” He joined the girl, dropped to his knees and prepared himself. The last thing he did notice before that counter reached zero was Jessica’s stake wasn’t that clean. He doubted the dried substance coating the tip was strawberry jam.

The timer reached zero just as the first dead thing’s head touched the metal bars. He fired off a single shot, hitting it in the chest. Although its pulped heart flew out of its back, all it did was stagger backwards before righting itself and moving forward again.

“Don’t you know anything?” The girl ran up to the damaged creature and slammed her stake into its left eye. It fell onto the ground like a sack of potatoes. “Headshots or nothing, Dominic.”

He nodded and adjusted his position, trying to remind himself that as long as the bastards didn’t get too close, this would be like a standard target practice, nothing to be too excited about. Dominic fired twice, both rounds hitting their targets. Two dead things went down, only to have another four take their place.

Their pace had shifted. They weren’t so slow and awkward anymore. At least three of the bastards were almost running. The girl slammed her spike into the nearest runner. She yelped in surprise, her feet sliding in a small blood puddle. She fell onto one of her victims. The two other runners, obviously sensing easy prey went for her.

“Dad, help me!” Dominic charged over to her and launched his boot into the guts of one of the runners. His blow had no effect. It felt like he’d just kicked a rolled up carpet. He pushed the muzzle hard against it’s cheek and fired before slamming the but into the other one.

“Come on, you. This isn’t the time to go to sleep. Up you get.” He selected auto-fire. “Fuck this.” He gently squeezed the trigger, almost whooping as four dead things dropped to the ground missing most of their heads.

Two more shots rang out. He turned to see his dad stood a few feet from them, taking out any creature stupid enough to shamble up this tunnel. It didn’t escape his attention to see that his dad already knew about the ‘head only’ rule.

Dominic fired again, and again. His bullets cut a thick channel through the approaching mass but it still wasn’t enough. There were still way too many of the bastards to deal with. He fired one more time, only stopping once the magazine clicked empty. He took his only remaining magazine and clicked it in.

“We’re going to die here.”

“Probably,” he answered. Dominic took aim. “My drill sergeant always told us to fire in short controlled bursts. It wasn’t until months later I found out that the bastard was quoting from a movie.”

He fired, destroying the faces of two naked teenage girls and an old man who was moving faster then he would have when he lived. Jessica stuck her spike up, under the jaw of a man then spun around and stopped another man reaching for her hair. Dominic ran into forward, slamming the butt of the gun into the faces of any dead thing that tried to bite him. He jumped onto the chest of a fallen creature and groaned when he found he could not see an end to their numbers. He stayed where he was and fired again, then urged the other two to join him. Dominic fired until his gun was empty dropped it into the scarlet wet mess by his feet and took out his knife. This really was going to be their last stand after all.

They stood back to back. He took a deep breath, watching the doll-like eyes of a blond man lurch away from the main pack. He didn’t hesitate. His blade went into the thing’s neck. Dominic twisted then pulled it out before he stabbed another one, this time; the knife plunged into the creature’s ear.

He had no time to look behind him, the thrusting crowd gave him no breathing space. Dominic grabbed the hair of an old woman pulled her head back and slammed the blade up through her lower jaw. Low grunts and the sound of bodies hitting the ground told him the other two hadn’t been overrun just yet.

The sound of gunfire changed his mind about turning around. His first thought about his dad lying about running dry vanished at the sight of two more figures stood on the lip of the gully. One of them had a rifle, the other, an old man carried a shotgun. He raised the weapon and fired, blowing away another two dead things. The woman with the rifle got to her knees and threw something over the wall.

Dominic wanted to weep in relief. It was a rope ladder. He pushed the others over to the wall and turned around, managing to take out a man in a Zed Zeppelin top before it fingernails could claw deep furrows down his arm.

Two more dead things fell to rifle shots before he felt grasping hands pull him onto the ladder. He turned and climbed as fast as he could, only allowing his emotions to overcome his shattered psyche once he had reached the safety of the ledge. He looked up into the face of his two saviours and swallowed hard before finding enough saliva to form the words ‘thank you’.

Chapter Thirteen

Sleep did not want to make an appearance for Monique tonight. She moved the green cushion out from under her thighs and moved it up the wall before finally resting the back of her head on it. She sighed loudly before grabbing the thing and throwing it along the corridor. Why was she even bothering?

It didn’t make any sense. After all that stress and anxiety she put herself through today, not to mention all that adrenalin which surged through her body a couple of hours ago, Monique thought that she’d be out like a light by now. After all, everyone else who’d come through that fucking nightmare were sleeping.

Perhaps the shock had finally caught up with her? Perhaps it was her old friend, guilt. It must be at least a full day since that thorn in her side had paid Monique a visit. Yep, she couldn’t deny it, the guilt was there alright, privately reminding Monique that thanks to her poor decision making, almost everyone she knew since this nightmare started were now dead. Hell, she hadn’t even shed a single tear for the shift demise of Michaela!

Perhaps the shock had finally caught up with her? Perhaps her old friend, guilt, had decided to pay her a little visit. It must be at least one full day since that thorn in her side had paid Monique a visit. Yep, she couldn’t deny it, there was enough evidence lying about to support that theory. She could see it too, sitting on her shoulders, privately reminding Monique that thanks to her poor decisions, almost everyone in her cosy little group was now dead. Hell, she hadn’t even grieved for poor Michaela yet.

“Fuck Michaela,” she whispered. “I’m not going to shed a single tear for that one.”

The guilt wasn’t the reason for Monique’s refusal to go to sleep. After the events of the past few hours, she really did believe that her long standing association with that particular emotion was now as dead as the things roaming about outside this building.

Her so-called rescuer sat opposite her. Just like the others, Conner was fast on. At least, he gave the impression of being asleep. Monique had spent a long time studying the man, as he slouched against the wall, quietly snoring.

Monique had fired a barrage of questions at him once he’d led the survivors into the building. The man had deflected every one relating to his identity or his purpose for coming here. He’d ensured the three kids were comfortable and even managed to get them to drink a bit of warm soup.

Conner had reassured them all that her group would be safe in here, for a few hours, anyway. Apparently, he’d booby trapped any viable exit and entrance. That was the word he’d used too. Monique rolled the word around her tongue. “Viable,” she said, watching the man twitch.

Could he be military? All Conner had said to her was that her questions would be answered, all in good time. The man had then produced a smile that she knew would melt the hearts as well as moisten the panties of many a teenage girl. Oh, he’d got that particular facial expression down to a fine art, no doubt about that.

She guessed he’d be in his mid thirties, a nice strong jaw line, covered in a weeks worth of stubble. With that shoulder length black hair, coupled with his ripped jeans and pale green t-shirt, clinging to those hard muscles, this Conner looked like he’d just been plucked from one of those crappy actions movies that Dominic used to adore.

The guy probably used to love those movies too. To give Dominic some due, he never used to dress like any of those improbable heroes. Monique sighed loudly. God, she so missed Dominic. What she’d give right now to have him here, sitting exactly in Mr Action Hero’s spot. Oh, Monique would be able to sleep then. One of her regrets of still not being together was been able to lie down on his lap. It wouldn’t matter how tired she was. His gentle stroking always smoothed away those rough edges. That fact alone was a major miracle. She’d never been the calmest of individuals back in her early twenties.

Monique closed her eyes, bringing back the memories of Dominic dragging his fingers through her soft hair.

“Come on, sleepyhead,” hissed a male voice.

She snapped open her eyes, to find Conner leaning over her. He’d placed his hand over her mouth.

He gave Monique that famous smile and moved it. “Sorry, I didn’t want you to scream out,” whispered Conner. “I think we’ve overstayed our welcome. We have company.”

His eyes moved up. She followed them and saw particles of dust lazily drifting down from the ceiling. Someone or something was moving around on the floor above.

She slowly stood up, arching her back to relieve the muscle ache. So she did fall asleep after all, for the good it did her. The three kids were already up and looking a lot more alive than she felt.

“Best stay nice and quiet.” Conner nodded towards the door. “It looks like one of them has gotten through my traps.”

She jumped at the sound of glass shattering, coming from the room behind that door. Oh Jesus, this hell wasn’t going to end today. So much for him saying everything was going to be okay.

“Okay, maybe two. Still, it’s nothing too serious.” He pulled a long metal spike from out from behind him. “Are you are set, Junior?” he asked, looking other at Harry.

The grinning boy had a spike as well. Her mothering instinct kicked in when she realised what this idiot was about to do. Monique only held herself back at the last second when she saw Harry wasn’t going anywhere.

Both girls leaned forward and grabbed an arm each. Monique allowed them to pull her across. The atmosphere in the room grew tense when Conner grabbed the door handle. He nodded over to harry before twisting it.

Conner fell back as the door was almost pulled off its hinges. A young girl of about Jennifer’s age ran into the room, screaming. She dived at them. Harry pushed Daisy out of the way then swung his arm in a tight arc. The spike caught the girl in the temple. The tip didn’t penetrate but the impact knocked her to the floor. Jennifer pulled her arm our of Monique’s grasp, ran over to the girl and stamped on her upper arm. The crack of bone echoed around the room. Harry fell on the girl and pushed the spike through her neck.

Monique found herself shuddering at their brutality. She knew it had to be done, it still shocked the hell out of her. They fell on that little girl like a pair of rabid dogs, without hesitation or conscience.

“Are you okay, Mon?” asked Daisy. “Come on. Conner is already through the door.”

Monique nodded and dug out a wane smile for the girl, following the three kids out of the room. She never felt so disconnected from a group of people before, like she was a product from another world.

In many ways that’s exactly what she was, Earlier on, when Monique gazed at the three sleeping kiddies, all curled up together, looking so innocent and childlike, her mind dragged up images of babes lost in the woods, poor frightened children with big heart-string pulling eyes about to discover a house made of gingerbread. She sighed, this time with an extra Gretel.

They found Conner stood over the body of another infected man with his trademark grin firmly spread across his face. He and Harry exchanged high fives. Their new token hunk would made a great fucking woodsman. Then again, after what she’d just witnessed. That witch would stand a change against these kids.

“That’s the last of them,” he announced. “At least on this level anyway.” Conner turned around and opened one of the drawers under the kitchen counter. He placed a toasting fork on the top. “That’s perfect.”

Monique watched the activity through the window behind the grinning man. Two infected ran past the window, followed by three more. Every instinct screamed at her to get undercover, to find some small windowless room and wait until those things had gone away. Why the hell was Conner still standing so close to that glass, looking like he didn’t have a single care in the world, while he bent the prongs of that fork.

Her former charges, stood by Monique, watching him silently. Odd to see they didn’t seem all that bothered about the creatures running about outside either, considering what they all witnessed in that church hall.

“Okay, that should do it.,” he said. “Okay, people, let’s finish this.”

“Finish what?”

Conner tapped his modified toasting fork. “We’re going fishing.”

Monique reached into her rucksack and pulled out a handgun. “Okay, smiler. Let’s try this again. What the fuck are you playing at?” she growled. Both girls backed away from her. Harry stayed where he was, his hand clawing down to his own weapon. That disconnection was now complete. These kids, were no longer hers. They were Conner’s attack dogs.

“Well this escalated quickly,” he sais, still grinning. “What, so you’re going to shoot me now, Monique? Here I am, carrying a mutilated toasting fork, craving a bacon sandwich and, I’d like to add, saving all of your lives.”

“I just want some answers.”

“I guess if I say all in good time again, you’re going to blow my head off, knowing full well that if you do that, I won’t be the only one in here to die? Is that what you really want, honey?”

The man walked up to her. Conner winked at Harry before gently placing the palm of his hand on top of the handgun. Monique looked into his dark eyes, finding herself wanting to cry. “Please?”

He bent forwards and kissed her. “Sorry, Mon. My mum and dad always bollocked me about taking the joke a little too far. “I should have woken you at the same time as our younger friends and told you all at the same time. I’m a scout, Monique, for a settlement a fair way from here. Before I left two weeks ago, we had over four hundred people there. That number’s probably gone up by now. I’m not the only one out here searching for survivors.”

“But, the supermarket?”

Conner shrugged. “That was the first large group I found, None of them wanted to come with me though. He licked his lips. “I’ll tell you everything, let’s just finish this first?”

Monique lowered the gun. Harry’s dirty look hadn’t escaped her attention. She watched Conner play with the prongs on his new toy, while attempting to process all of this new information. “Are you the guys with the helicopters?”

He laughed and shook his head. “Fuck no. They’re the great enemy. The bastards who caused this in the first place.” Conner took her hand. “Can we go now please or are you still thinking of shooting me? Only, the runners out there are getting jittery.”

Without waiting for an answer, he pulled her through the kitchen only stopping once he’d reached a large hole in the middle of the floor.

“I nearly fell into this on my way in here. I did drop my bag though.” He looked up into her face. “I didn’t have enough time to retrieve it and save you lot as well.” The man dropped to the floor. He pushed his new toy into the hole. “There you are,” he said. Conner slowly got to his knees and lifted his arm out of the hole. The handle of a brown leather bag was caught in the curled prongs. “This, ladies and gentleman is our salvation, our ticket out of this place, without the runners twigging that the chickens have left the coop.”

“It’s a little small to hold a tank,” said Harry.

The two girls giggled.

Monique resisted the urge to smile, remembering how Jennifer and Harry took care of that infected kiddie.

Conner placed the bag on the floor and unzipped it. He brought out what looked like a folded pile of leather jackets, very similar to the one he wore. “Here you go,” he said passing out three of them. The others he put back in the bag. “Put these on. Believe me. The runners won’t go anywhere near us, at least, as long we try not to get too close to any large group.”

Monique rubbed the material between her fingers. It had a slight oily texture, she grimaced. It wasn’t at all pleasant.

“Is this leather?” asked Jennifer.

The man burst out laughing. “Oh, that’s a good one. I suppose you could call it that, if you want.” He leaned closer to the girl. “Only we don’t make them out of cows, you know, with all the cows now gone. We make these out of dead people. Well, the dead people who refuse to lie down and rot.”

“Are you having a laugh?”

“Nope, not at all, Junior. See, the runners are absolutely terrified of the dead. The masses that swarm through our streets at night don’t distinguish between the runners and us. To them, we’re all meat.”

Jennifer mumbled something about this being utterly gross but it didn’t stop her from putting the homemade waistcoat over her own clothes. Would there had been total acceptance if she had asked them all to wear these disgusting things?

“And they really work?” Harry stood up and put on his waistcoat before helping Daisy to don hers.

Conner nodded. “How else do you think I got here, Junior? I’m good but I can’t teleport.”

Harry giggled. “That would be so cool. Even better if you were equipped with power armour and a wide dispersal plasma cannon. Can you imagine the devastation?”

“I’m sorry, kid, you got me on that reference.”

Daisy shook her head. “Ignore him, Conner. He’s going on about stupid video games again. I swear down, that’s all he ever goes on about.” She grinned at the other girl. “Jen, isn’t it about now where you tell your boyfriend to shut his gob?”

“He’s not my boyfriend!”

“Oh?” Daisy paused. “I see it now.” She turned to Conner. “If think she fancies you now!”

Monique walked over to the front door. There were human-like shapes darting past the frosted window. She dare not go over to the window to see exactly how many of them were outside now.

How relaxed they all sounded around him, laughing and joking as if the nightmare happening around them no longer existed. Why shouldn’t they chill out? After all, thanks to Conner, they were all practically invisible to the infected. Complete acceptance again. Conner had said it so it must be true.

“These kids adore you, Monique.”

A pair of muscular arms slipped around her waist, stopping her from spinning around. Oh Christ. She hadn’t even heard him move! He lowered his head and kissed the back of her neck. A moment later, the man had released her and moved around and casually leaned against the front door.

She blinked. Feeling a little perturbed at the ease this man had made her feel so vulnerable.

“I saw the lack of trust in your eyes, Monique. I can still see it. I want us to be friends, I really do. Please, try not to see me as someone who’s trying to steal your thunder.”

Could this bastard read her mind as well?”

“What you have achieved is truly astonishing. I know you don’t really think so, that you’ve made decisions that have cost lives. You’ve also made decisions that have saved the lives of those three kiddies.”

“Look, I don’t want to have this conversation right now, Conner, if at all. I’m sorry.”

“I’m only a flash in the pan,” he replied. “The kids see me as a bright new toy, nothing more. Once this mission is done and you’re all safe, I’ll be gone again. It’s that simple.”

“Tell me where we’re going.”

He smiled. “Aren’t you the master of topic distracting? If I said all in good time, will you threaten to shoot me again?”

“Maybe.”

“How about a compromise then? All tell you everything you want as soon as we hit the road.” Conner called the kids over. “He kneeled in front of them. “Okay, I need you all to listen very carefully. We are all going to leave this house one by one.”

“No way!” Jennifer cried. “I can’t do that!”

“I’m sorry, petal, but yes you are. If we leave as one big group, they’ll notice us. It only takes one of them to raise the alarm.”

“But I don’t want to.”

He placed his hands on Jennifer’s cheeks. “Did you ever feed bread to ducks in the park or throw scraps to pigeons?” He nodded. “Sure you did!”

“That’s us then? We’re the bread?”

“Got it in one, petal. One at a time, they won’t see us. All together, they’ll swoop on us and tear us to pieces.” Conner swivelled his head and gazed up at Monique. “I want you to go first, petal.”

Jennifer’s cry of protest was right there, standing on the tip of her tongue, ready to do the swan dive. Oh God, they really were in the hands of an expert manipulator. Lack of trust in her eyes? Well, he’d just sorted that out once and for all. She attempted to give these kids a reassuring smile, only to find her facial muscles were frozen in place.

Monique stood in front of the door and grabbed the handle.

“They’ll be grouped around the window, Monique. Keep your eyes on the floor and walk to your left, keeping close to the wall. No matter what happens, don’t stop and do not run. There’s a pharmacy at the end of this street. I guess you know it?”

Of course she knew it. Both her and Alan tried to break through the metal shutters a few weeks back. Monique nodded.

“Good. When you reach it, just turn the corner and wait for the rest of us.”