Blood on the Floor (Season 3)
Author: R R Haywood
Date: 2016-04-04 06:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror; Zombie Apocalypse
Publisher: 1899 Inc Ltd

RR Haywood

Blood on the Floor

An Undead Adventure

rrhaywood.com

Copyright © R. R. Haywood 2016

R. R. Haywood asserts his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

All Rights reserved.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All characters and events, unless those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead (or undead), is purely coincidental.

The inclusion within this story of the characters “Pea and Sam” are used as a prize in a competition and although to a degree they are based on the real persons they remain fictitious characters within a work of fiction and the author asserts his full rights to amend, delete or change those characters.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the copyright holder, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Design, Cover and Illustration by Eddyart.

One

A typical English street. A typical English back garden. A postage stamp once owned and cared for by the rose growing house owners who now lie as dead as everyone else.

The body lies on the ground surrounded by blood, guts, gore and filth. Corpses everywhere. Some shot down, others hacked apart by axes and knives. More lie inert with necks snapped by the animalistic strength of those who gave battle here. Hundreds of them that stretch away through the smashed down fence of the garden and out into the street. Thick wakes of blood drying in the hot night air. Limbs shorn off, entrails exposed.

It’s deathly quiet with a heavy silence that hangs over this sordid place. The birds flew away when the first shots were fired and now cling to the treetops to avoid the stench in the air.

The infection spread through the world twelve days ago. A virus transmitted by bodily fluids that ravaged the populaces of every country. Two minutes from bite to death. The heart stopped by the infection only to be brought back to the true state of being. The heart was re-animated to flood the system with cellular change that made the once human form just another host body with a singular purpose, to take more host bodies. Each host gained was pumped with chemicals that denied sensations of pain, hunger, thirst or fatigue. They knew only one thing and that was to bite and claw. Mouths filled with saliva ready to pass the disease. Hands became clawed like talons. Primary function to move was given but cognitive function was reduced. Only enough mind was left to move, to walk, to run and to chase and bite. To feast and spread the infection to take more hosts.

Some survived and found each other in a drawing of souls that soon gained the strength to fight back. Misfits turned into warriors who gave battle and refused to yield. A few who stood firm and started, ever so gradually, to show not all will run and hide.

It was here, in this place, that one of those battles was fought. Those few, led by Howie, came here and destroyed the hordes that gathered. With guns at first, then with axes and knives until they were back to back in a tight circle fighting for their lives.

The survivors won. They held the field of battle in victory and looked upon the fallen with the weary eyes of those who see and give death each day. The battles will continue. The valiant fight of a species desperately trying to survive against a foe that gains a greater collective conscious and intelligence every day. But not here and not tonight.

Here the battle is done and the slain lie in the pools of blood that glisten under the glow of the moon and stars. Death everywhere.

He lies on his back. His throat ripped apart. Bite marks on his legs and arms. On his stomach, chest and shoulders. They swarmed him at the end of the fight. He fought hard but the press of the attackers was too great and he went down. The others tried to save him but it was done. Two minutes from bite to death. The pain of the infection blossomed in his stomach first but he withstood that pain with the bloodlust of battle still surging through his veins. He ignored the sensations but knew he was done and he died quickly. His heart stopped and he ceased to be in human form.

When he came back it was for mere seconds. His heart started again. His blood began pumping. The wounds on his body already beginning the process to congeal and prevent further blood loss. The pulses of electricity ramping through his body sent spasms into his limbs that locked out.

Then she was on him. The dog that could smell the infection within. The dog that detected the tainted filthy blood and to the dog it mattered not that he fought with them just seconds before. He was dead and what came back was not him. So she bit down deep and hard into his throat. She ragged the skin side to side to end the creature that was coming back.

He died again. The shock and blood loss too great to withstand despite the infection inside doing all it could to cling to life. His heart stopped once more but she watched him closely, almost daring him to try and come back again.

It was over, the battle was done. The survivors left and the silence became heavier as the stench of death grew stronger.

The flies, now so abundant, soon find the spot and start to feast. Laying eggs that will birth maggots which in turn will start the decomposition of the corpses that will forever more lie here.

He was strong. His physical frame honed almost to perfection from rigorous exercise and a diet of wholesome, healthy, clean foods. He never smoked. Rarely drank alcohol. Fatty foods never passed his lips. He died. Came back and died again. His heart stopped to the extent the dog was satisfied he was done and without the heart beating, the tainted filthy blood couldn’t be pumped. Not then at least. Not until the dog was far enough away and that one remaining tiny spark of infection began to try and bring it back. It replicated again and again. It took the little it had and made more. The body was still hot. The blood still running from gravity alone and that was enough to force one beat into the main muscle to force the blood to pump that little distance. It worked furiously. Expending vital energy to replicate while scavenging on the already dying cells. Those it touched it turned. It was a knife-edge balance of microscopic proportions. Using vital resources to build more while all the while working to make a beat. It did. It pumped the heart again forcing that blood to circulate that little bit further. Like a mammal in hibernation, existing with bare function to keep alive until the spring thaw. Time passed. A third beat was given. The cells replicated further, growing in strength while depleting what energy and resources it could find. A fourth beat, enough to prevent instant decay and keep the core temperature high enough to stave off complete death.

A fifth. Time ticks. A sixth. The air is silent save for the insects that buzz and lay eggs. A seventh. The night is dark but hot and that heat aids the work to keep the body alive enough for the cells to keep replicating and keep beating that muscle.

Minutes tick by and every now and then the heart offers a flicker of a pump. Hovering somewhere between life and death. Weak and paltry, and blood flow is one thing but a body needs oxygen. Those infected cells take what they have and risk it all on one roll of the dice. Either it will work or the body will die. This expenditure of energy is the final chance. It goes for it. It surges silently to beat the heart with a small flurry of irregular fast beats that pump that blood enough to reach the lungs to contract the muscles to force the bellows to work.

The beats end. The heart becomes suddenly still. Life poised on this tipping point. It’s no good. This host is done.

The breath is snatched suddenly with a tiny explosion of force. A suction created by the muscles of the lungs contracting. Fresh oxygen flows in that enriches the cells so depleted. Those cells buzz with life, surging and whizzing through the system back into the heart that beats once again. Another flurry of beats, fast and not of any rhythm that can sustain life but sustaining is not the immediate goal. It doesn’t matter what the rhythm is. Just get it pumping and get more blood to the muscles of the lungs. A two-step process. A heart that fires like the cylinders of an old car to work the muscles that contract and relax with spasm-like effort. In out. In out. Air snatched. Weak and shallow. Keep it going. Just sustain the process. Heart. Lungs. Pump. Breathe. Get more oxygen. Enrich the blood flow and cells. Pump. Breathe.

The minutes become long. The lungs work. The heart beats. Oxygenated blood pumps through the body. The cellular change continues to grow and become stronger. Still the rhythm is out of whack and the breathing is spasmodic but it’s enough to get blood and air into the organs, brain and muscles.

Hours pass. The infection works through every vein, every cell and every injury. Assessing and diverting vital resources to the most severe wounds. The throat is the main one. The flesh bitten open by big canine teeth. Holes and lacerations that go from the outer layer of epidermis through to the soft tissue underneath. The cellular change is the greatest here and begins to knit and reform. To replicate and grow. The main arteries in the neck were not damaged. The windpipe is still intact. The voice box has suffered damage but that is not essential.

Food in the hosts gut is digested and used at a staggering metabolic rate. Broken down and processed to feed the work needed to be done as the body lies still, snatching breaths that slowly, as the night passes, become steadier and deeper. The heart settles, pumping stronger and with more confidence to sustain this host form. When the food is gone it starts attacking the fat cells, taking what it needs. This host does not have much fat but what little it can find is used. Nothing is wasted. Everything is used.

The night starts to lift with the first tendrils of the new dawn giving light to the sky. Insects feast on the corpses and the air is now thick with the stench of old death. The blood on the grass and road is congealed and sticky but still the birds don’t give song, not here, this place doesn’t deserve it.

Night shifts to day. The sun rushing forward forever chasing the moon. Light comes on. Slow at first but growing brighter and stronger with every passing minute. Shadows sink away until the first golden rays strike the ground and his eyes open. The red bloodshot eyes of the infected. The red bloodshot eyes of another host body that slowly sits up with the ever pressing urge pulsing through his mind to bite and claw and find more hosts.

Two

She reaches in gingerly, tongue poking from her mouth, eyes narrowed in concentration to avoid the nasty barbed thorns so intent on scratching her skin. A big one. Juicy and ripe. She plucks it from the stem, quickly checks for bugs and mouths the blackberry to savour the mini explosion of taste and goodness served by nature. Blackberries. Hundreds of them growing fat on the vine-like thorny stems of the bushes. The bird shit is already purple from the birds gorging on the fruits. She takes another and holds it for a few seconds before biting down.

‘So good,’ Heather mumbles, lost in the moment. Eyes closed with the heat from the sun bathing her face and arms. Another glorious summer day and the sense of freedom after being cooped up in the church for so long amplifies the feeling. She takes another, plucking it from the stem. She takes more, picking them one by one until her left hand is full at which point she pauses to assess the situation. Her hand holds several but not enough. She wants to take more but that would mean holding them in her right hand but that hand is needed for the picking. A solution is required. She takes the baseball cap from her head, turns it over and lets the picked fruit tumble into the bowl.

‘Perfect.’

She carries on. Her fingers dancing along the vines to select the biggest, fattest and juiciest of the fruit that get plucked and placed into the hat.

‘Five a day,’ she mumbles to herself wondering how many blackberries it will take to make up one portion of the five a day. She eats another one. Three go into the hat. One more into her mouth. Three for the hat.

Leaving the church has given mixed feelings. She couldn’t stand another day there. She felt isolated, confined and trapped at the same time as feeling safe and secure. She was amazed no one else tried to use it. The building was perfect. A thousand years old and made with thick walls, high windows and a solid wooden door. The grounds round the outside were open giving her an ample view of all sides. There was fresh running water and enough candles to last a lifetime but she knew she had to leave when she got so bored she started reading the bible. Yep, it was time to move on and find somewhere else to hide. That was her survival strategy. Hide. Find somewhere safe and hide. It had worked so far too. Twelve days today since it happened and she is still alive and unscathed. She’s lost a few pounds in body weight and been bored senseless by the long hours of self-imposed isolation but she is alive.

‘Day twelve in the big brother house,’ she mutters, moving slowly down the hedgerow adopting a quiet Geordie accent. ‘And Heather has found a blackberry bush…’ she snorts to herself. ‘Bush,’ she snorts again, chuckling at the sound of the word. ‘Nice bush,’ she tells the hedgerow. ‘Very bushy and bushlike.’

She strolls on. Cap in hand and eating blackberries. Her tongue turns purple which spreads the stain to her lips and teeth. Juice dribbles out that she wipes with the back of her hand, smearing it across a cheek. She doesn’t care. The fruit is divine. Beautifully wondrous in a way the bible in the church would surely approve of. ‘God’s food,’ she mutters. ‘And doth the Lord doth say to the woman with doth cap that she shall eat of the bushy bush and get a squity bum from the fruit.’

She walks on, tightening the straps on her backpack while her walking boots crunch a solid tread. Dark jeans and a dark top that she hates. She loves wearing bright colours but bright colours aren’t any good when you’re running and hiding. Nope. No good at all. She shrugs at the thought and eats another blackberry.

The world has ended. It’s over. The apocalypse has begun. Law and order vanished as the infection struck village to town to cities. All fell. Nothing could withstand the tide of violence.

Heather was in the gym on the Friday night it happened. A twenty-four hour gym that was monitored remotely by a centralised security company and accessed by a swipe card. She liked the gym late evening as she mostly had the place to herself. The young men did their training early evening to get pumped ready for their night out. The young ladies were even earlier than that. All honed and toned for the breeding selection of the local nightclub dancefloor. Heather liked to train hard. Really hard. She did circuits, combining resistance machines, the treadmill and cycles with free weights. One to the other with the least time as possible between, just enough to snatch air and regain some composure.

The huge flat screen television in front of the treadmills was on as usual. She switched from the music video to a twenty-four hour news site to read the scrolling bar at the bottom of the screen. That’s how she knew it was happening. The early reports from Europe of widespread rioting in places she had never heard of. Then it hit places she had heard of. Paris being one of them. Then it came north to the coast and finally the first reports of violence in the British Isles. By this time she was standing on the unmoving treadmill staring with mouth open at the news anchors clearly panicking on the screen. Top buttons had been loosened ages ago, ties pulled down and the way they spoke to each showed they had absolutely no clue as to what was happening.

She found her phone and tried calling people she knew. Friends first who she assumed would still be up at this hour but the signal on her mobile was gone. She switched it off and back on but the signal wouldn’t come back. She found the landline on the wall but it was pre-set to dial only the emergency services or the monitoring company. She tried the monitoring company but it was engaged. She hesitated with the emergency services because she wasn’t actually in danger.

Instead she kept trying her mobile. Switching it on and off and so absorbed was she in that task that she didn’t see the news anchors on the television running off set. By the time she looked back up the desk was empty and the scrolling feed at the bottom was gone. She switched channels, going first down then back up only to find emergency broadcast signals, error messages and apologies for service disruption.

Then the man ran into the window. Head on at full speed and with such impact his nose bust open spraying blood across the glass. She didn’t scream or panic but jolted on the spot, blinking at the sight of the man sliding down the plate glass. Others came. Men and women who dived onto the now unconscious man and bit into his flesh. Still she didn’t panic but slowly reached out to the panel of light switches on the wall. She clicked them one by one, plunging the room into a darkness only broken by the gleaming lights on the machines and the glow of the television.

That act of changing the light within the gym drew attention. Those outside came quickly to their feet to stare in through the glass. Heather remained stock still. Not daring to move. More came. Drawn by the actions of the first few and the stench of fresh blood. They too stared inside and moved on stiff legs round the gold fish bowl windows as though trying to find a way in. Still she didn’t move with a voice inside her head telling her motion leads to detection.

It took hours. Hours of unmoving and legs cramping from hard exertion to complete stillness without warming down. Hours of the sweat on her body drying in the air conditioned room. Hours of needing to urinate with a bladder sending more urgent signals to her already worried mind.

In the depths of the night something happened somewhere else. Something she couldn’t see or hear but it was enough to make the people gathered outside all turn and run stiffly away. It was during those hours she learned several things. They all had red bloodshot eyes. They all moved as though they couldn’t bend their knees or control their arms. Their heads lolled side to side and back and forth. They drooled constantly. They groaned, growled, hissed and moaned. They had injuries too. Horrific injuries to necks, faces and bodies and by right several of them should have been dead. One even had a knife stuck in her chest. A large bladed kitchen knife sunk down to the hilt but she moved the same as the others.

Lessons learned that kept her alive and by the time she got out, after pissing with relief in the bathroom, she knew to find somewhere and hide. Just that. Hide. Nothing more. Just hide.

Three

He walks down the road. Twelve days of evolution has changed from what they were on that first night. They no longer walk with stiff legs that don’t bend at the knees. Their heads don’t loll side to side or back and forth. They don’t drool either. Saliva is still produced that drips from lips but the infection has learnt that constantly producing drool causes a more rapid dehydration of the host body.

He doesn’t feel pain. He is not hungry or thirsty. He has no cognitive function other than an immense urge to bite into people. Bite or rake. Rake or claw. Anything to pass what is inside him to someone else.

A person with an active mind has spatial awareness and a notion of where they are in time and space. He does not have that. He doesn’t look at anything in particular but walks on as though completely devoid of all thought. Which he is. A vessel to carry the thing inside but otherwise empty. No emotions. No feelings. No thoughts. No sensations. No memories. Nameless. It’s those things that mark him for what he is. Not that he knows. He doesn’t know anything.

As he walks he heals. Visually he is still torn apart with horrific injuries to his neck and human bite marks on his limbs and torso but the blood no longer leaks. His face is slack. His mouth hanging open to breathe noisily and his arms hang limp from design rather than fault and thus avoid the expenditure of any unnecessary energy.

The healing is inside and the soft tissue of his neck is already knitting to scab and reform. If he had sensation he would be itchy as hell but that too, along with nearly everything else, is suppressed.

He is a host. One of many. One of billions. He is part of the hive mind of the infection but now largely forgotten and left to seek his own way. The infection is busy in a million other places and becoming increasingly focussed on a man called Howie who refuses to die the death he should be having.

Instead he has been brought back to be left to rot and find his own way in this brave new world. His scent receptors have been ramped and honed to seek the smell of blood, piss, shit and sweat. The smells of the living. The smells of fear. Anything that connects to potential new hosts. Go find them and take more hosts for that urging in your head is relentless and unceasing. It will never stop. Find hosts.

So he goes on. Searching without knowing what searching is or the concept of what that word means. He walks street after street unaware of the carnage and devastation all around him.

Doors to houses hanging from hinges or removed altogether. Windows smashed through to let the beasts gain entry. Some of those beasts ended their existence at that point. Lacerated from shards of glass slicing through veins and arteries that sprayed blood everywhere. Despite the signs of violence the bodies are fewer in number the greater distance from the epicentre of the battle he drifts. Cars left in streets. Some locked and left as they were. Others with doors open and thick blood smears across the panels. A child’s bicycle still propped against a garden wall where it was left on the afternoon before it began.

Smoke hangs in the air. A row of houses smouldering from the fierce blaze that swept unabated from one to the other until the materials were all burnt away. He walks past them. Heedless to the acrid stench of burnt chemicals.

It’s hot too. Hotter than it should be for southern England in summer time. The cessation of mankind has wrought global changes to weather patterns and humidity. The instant loss of gasses produced by people, cars, machines, factories, planes, ships and power plants. He doesn’t sweat. Sweating loses moisture and the infection inside knows his core temperature is stable enough. The host is not exerting to the extent it cannot function.

The host reaches a junction and passes straight on over and into the next residential street of more houses, more cars and more doors and windows broken open. More blood too but its old and dried out.

As the day passes on so his stride opens that little bit more with the first sign of renewed strength in his core. His balance regains. Any stiffness he had abates and eases and so he heals from the inside out at an astonishing rate that would simply be unbelievable to even the most advanced medical practitioners.

Miles pass. Miles of walking without thought or idea. One foot after the other with a nose drawing in air to process the scents for signs of potential hosts but here are none in this area that he can detect. Seek. Feast. Bite. Seek. Feast. Bite. The urge is relentless. A singular objective where nothing else matters save the calling to do what must be done.

The road he’s on leads naturally to a main artery that feeds into the local town. The houses get denser. More cars on driveways and at the sides of the road. Commercial premises start to break up the seemingly never ending flow of houses that he passes. A garage forecourt selling second hand motors. Dry Cleaners. More houses. A Kebab House. More houses. A block of flats. A convenience store. All looted and emptied of anything worthwhile. The apocalypse is still so new but already the land is becoming scavenged.

Smells everywhere. Blood but old. Shit but old. Sweat and piss but old. Noise stops him. Noise from an alley on his right side that leads to the back of a fish and chip shop. He waits. Head fixed and red bloodshot eyes staring as the woman walks out. They stare at each other for a mere second as though establishing if the other knows where the hosts are. She turns away first to fix her red bloodshot eyes on the street ahead and ambles off. He follows behind. Two of them now. Both nameless but driven by the same urge. That she is half-naked from the waist down holds no meaning to him. That she has shit down the back of her own legs is not relevant. She stinks. She hums so bad even the flies are concerned but that doesn’t register.

The two move down the road. The half-naked shit covered woman slightly in the lead. She didn’t make it to the battle last night. She was busy shitting on her own legs and the face of a crawler that bit her ankle when she squatted in an alley to relieve the urgent pressing of her bowels. The crawler didn’t make it. She broke his neck when she fell on him.

Another host waits further up the road. Inert yet watchful. Staring at the two coming. The woman gets there first. The child turns and the three walk on. The infection inside the woman knows the child is hers but it suppresses the neural pathways that would sizzle in recognition of one’s own kinfolk and family. Hormonal changes that would produce chemicals that give the mother the urge to protect and nurture, and the child the need for comfort are stopped. They are hosts bound to the infection within. Nothing more. Nothing less. Seek. Feast. Bite. There is only one objective and it is singular.

Without scent or noise to follow they meander aimless but perpetual. A man joins them. Maggots writhe in the wound caused by the chunk of flesh in his right shoulder being bitten away. White maggots that eat into the flesh and grow succulent from the never ending supply of food. The man is fat. Obese. His stomach hangs down covering his groin and wobbles with each step taken. He was insulin dependent until three days ago from self-induced diabetes brought on by an inability to stop gorging. He was sloth-like and almost sinisterly greedy. He lied to the doctors about his food intake and promised everyone around him that he was trying. It must be glandular. It must be a medical condition because I hardly eat anything. They came through his window. He lived on the ground floor in a specially converted flat paid for by the local council. He was ripe. Nine days without carers coming to wipe his arse for him and the stench of his form wafted into the street that drew the things. He couldn’t fight back. He was too fat. He threw the remote control at one of them then wailed in abject fear as he was bitten in the shoulder.

Now he doesn’t have diabetes and in the past three days he has lost over fifteen kilos of fat from his frame as the infection ramps his metabolism up to keep him moving.

More join them. People from all walks of life. Men, women and children. Elderly who couldn’t previously walk unassisted now walk unaided. Arthritis gone. Heart conditions fixed. Eyesight and hearing made sharp again. There are no irritable bowels. No depression. No stress or anxiety. There are no medical conditions. The infection has fixed it and taken all those things away.

They trickle feed into the small horde. Drawn by the smell and insular hive mind of the other hosts. The collective conscious of the infection doesn’t pay heed to them. They are too few to be of use. The battle here is done and finished. It doesn’t give specific instruction or task other than to fulfil the singular objective.

The man who woke in the garden walks with them. Drool coats his beard, shiny and wet. He doesn’t know any difference between being on his own and being with others, only that he must go with them. They each must go with the others. It is ordained and impossible to do anything else.

So they walk as one. A horde of undead all with red bloodshot eyes and mouths that hang open. From the periphery of the town towards the centre where the greater density of population will be. More humans lived in the centre. There is more chance of finding new hosts.

The man looks ahead as they all do. Something flashes in his mind but is instantly suppressed. A sensation akin to Déjà vu that rears again. Like recognition but before the eyes can sharpen in response to a thing seen chemicals are dumped to deaden the thoughts. A flash of memory that brings forth a fleeting image of running but the image is removed and the flow of chemicals are increased. Serotonin is released. The chemical that aids the feeling of well-being. A tiny amount but enough to quell the desire of a subconscious to seek cognitive recall.

He walks on. Part of the horde that traipses through streets almost forlorn in their endeavour. Left behind and seemingly not part of the great task underway. This place has been scoured already. Whatever potential hosts were here have been taken and turned into the true state of being. The collective consciousness of the hive mind is the mass of the hosts taken. Within that collective there are smaller groups given greater freedom and greater use of intellect and personality to accomplish goals as the infection evolves and learns. Other groups of infected are separate and not part of the overall cumulative. Mutations? Differences? These days are new and the infection still learns what it is but this horde play no such part in the greater mission. They cannot feel sadness or rejection but still, there is a disconsolate manner as they meander on.

Four

Smoke from a fire. A faint brown smudge in the distance. She sniffs the air as though able to detect the fire itself then snorts at herself in disdain. She might as well kneel and run the earth through her fingers while looking pensive and deep about the nature of the world and all the things that grow. She isn’t earthy and she can’t smell a fire from miles away either.

‘Idiot,’ she mutters, blasting air from her nose while stretching her back to ease the straps of the backpack chafing her shoulders. She needs a new bag. One with padded straps. This was ideal for that first night when she got home, grabbed a top, clean knickers and filled her gym bottle with fresh water before legging it out of town. Now it isn’t so good. Several bottles of water, snack food, high energy nutrition bars, a tin opener, multi-tools, a torch, batteries and all things you need to survive the zombie apocalypse soon add up to increase the weight.

She stares at the smudge of smoke in the far distance, trying to gauge distance. She knows there is a town in that direction and it’s towards the town she is heading. She needs supplies and new clothes. She’s starving for decent food and a wash too. A proper shower or even a bath.

‘Oh don’t,’ she chastises herself but the image is there. A bubble bath. A hot steamy bubble bath in a big white tub surrounded by candles. Actually, on reflection, you can keep the candles and the colour of the bath. It’s the bubbles that make the difference. The heat, the depth and the feeling of being truly clean. She’s coming on too which isn’t good as she didn’t think to pack any tampons. Hairbands!

‘Christ yes,’ she rolls her eyes. She cannot forget the hairbands. She started out with seven and is already down to two. Two hairbands in the apocalypse? Not enough. Never enough.

Mind you, washing your hair in the bath isn’t so good. The dream of a bath expands to include a hot shower before the bath. Big fluffy towels too and seeing as we’re now going all out on the fantasy thing we’ll bring back the candles and add a roaring log fire into the mix. Maybe a nice hunky man to stoke the fire, stir the bubbles and hold the fluffy towel. A mute hunky man. One that doesn’t yack on or try and poke his willy in her all the time. One with decency and decorum. The strong silent type but intelligent and capable. Like a builder but a soldier and a fireman and a chef all at the same time. Okay, so we’ve got a big white bath in the middle of a room with a fireman frowning at the many candles burning near the fluffy towels being held by a mute soldier while a chef stirs the bath with a ladle.

She chuckles again. Frowning at the image in her mind. The fireman, soldier, chef and builder all chatting away about football while she gets ignored and grows cold in the bath.

Oh god. Imagine eating a bacon sandwich in the bath. Or a plate of chips. Wow. She hasn’t eaten a bacon sandwich or a plate of chips in years but suddenly the denial to have the things she previously didn’t want or need makes her desire them even more. Music! She misses music and movies. Old movies. Like black and white ones or even the modern Hollywood things or a deep Scandinavian crime drama. Hot baths, showers, bacon butties, chips, music, movies and morose Swedish detectives moping about. Perfect.

‘Stop it Heather.’ These thoughts are no good. Pining for something you can’t have is no good for the soul.

Oh but the idea of it. A kitchen full of pans cooking and simmering with amazing smells. Fresh bread, cakes with cream, jam and a huge massive drawer full of hairbands. Like thousands of them. All different types and colours. And tampons too. Oh and don’t forget the fireman and builder, the chef and the soldier. Actually, they can sod off and wait outside. Or better still they’d be like robots in the cupboard that could be activated when needed. Yep, that’s it. That’s the perfect life right there. Books too. Lots of books. Old books and new books. Any books. Apart from the bible that is. The last few days appear to have extensively proven that God, if said God actually exists, is a bit of a selfish dick. So he can shove His book where the sun doesn’t shine and I’ll stick with my robotmen and drawer full of hairbands thank you very much.

She plods on with one foot after the other down a narrow country lane bordered by gloriously green fields dappled with sunlight and bobbing with daisies and wildflowers. Bees hum by, happy in their work. Butterflies dance on the warm thermals. Birds soar high to swoop and she spots the white button tails of rabbits frolicking in the meadows.

‘This,’ she announces to the world while turning slowly round, ‘is a bloody Disney set on steroids.’

It’s so cheesy, so trite and yet so beautiful all at the same time. The sheer wonderfulness of it makes her want to snarl with cynicism, except this is the real world. You’d think the ending of mankind as we knew it would be misery and abject filth but if anything this place looks positively glowing and abundant in wildlife.

Ah yes. That’s the thing to be cynical about. The vanity of humans. The assumption that the world was ours to do with as we pleased and there was no way it could go on without us. Gosh no. Everything would fall apart if we weren’t here to run things.

Look at it now. It seems perfectly okay. The air smells gorgeously clear without a trace of carbon monoxide or anything else and look at that butterfly. The selfish bastard should be withering and pining for humans to come back and make him happier but on it floats, doing butterfly things in a wholly butterfly way as though nothing happened.

You get born and then you die. You get born, eat some shit then you die. No hang on, you get born, eat some shit, do some shit and then you die. Women get born, get periods and painful tummies, go through childbirth and have men trying to poke their willies in them, they eat some shit, do some shit and then die. Men get born and waggle their dicks about and then die.

She grunts at the first hint of a cramp in her belly and adds painkillers to her ever growing list of things to get.

Rounding a corner she freezes, back-steps and runs to the side. Furious at her own lack of attention. She should have seen the house or at least the power lines overhead going to it. Maybe if she pulled her head from her arse she’d have seen the tiles on the roof or the chimney stack.

She holds still. Listening intently while running the image captured in that fleeting glimpse through her mind. It was a stone built cottage but quite big. Maybe two cottages together. She saw windows and a door but didn’t pay enough attention to see if they were intact or broken. She looks back down the lane at the direction she came from. High hedges on both sides but there was a gate further back. If anything happens she’ll run for the gate.

‘Okay,’ she whispers, biting her bottom lip. Got a plan now. An escape route. She edges on. Easing out one step at a time while leaning to peer and gain that first view. The building comes into sight. She freezes, listening then moving forward again. One detached cottage. She looks at the chimney stack to see if there is smoke then thinks herself a twat as who would light a fire on such a hot day? Small front garden. Gate in a low wall bordering the garden. Gate closed. She goes further, wincing when she spots the front door is open. That’s not good. Not good at all. She scans the windows, searching for sign of movement but seeing none. What’s that? She sniffs again. Crinkling the skin on her nose while inhaling. Like rotten meat or something. Oh. Of course. She purses her lips realising the smell is a corpse which is something she has smelled a few times now. It must be bad too if she can smell it from this distance.

She has to get past. The day is already too late to go back. She’d reach the church before night but that would just mean starting again. Suddenly the idea of the safe corpse free church doesn’t seem so bad. Well, not exactly corpse free given the graveyard outside but not corpses like this stinky one that must be here.

She focusses back to the now. Shaking her head to keep her mind clear. She’s not going back to the church. Besides, she just called God a dick so he probably wouldn’t let her back in.

She shuffles out, peering forward then going up on tiptoes while pulling a myriad of faces that reflect her inner turmoil.

‘Sod it,’ she hisses almost silently and takes a big brave step. Nothing happens. Hordes of zombies don’t come charging. She takes another step, forehead crumpling in worry. Still no swathes of beasts. No explosions. No gunshots. No werewolves or vampires either. Hang on, vampires don’t like daylight. Or is that werewolves?

Focus! She huffs at her own flitting mind and takes another step, half turning as though ready to flee back to the safety of the hedge. Completely unaware that she still holds the baseball cap full of blackberries in her hand.

She stops at the sight of the body lying across the doorway and the sadness of the world settles on her shoulders. Her hand lowers, spilling the fruit from the cap but she doesn’t notice. Instead she sighs heavy and long at the sight of the old lady lying dead in a pool of congealed blood. Her back bitten so deep the spinal column can be seen from here. Maggots writhe in the wounds. Fat and white. Flies hover to rise and fall over the corpse that must have been rotting away for several days.

Heather doesn’t move but stares without blinking. This must be her house. She deduces the woman opened the door then tried running back in as the things got her. It must have been horrific too. She imagines the life of the woman. The television signal going. The phones not working. The power ending after a few days. Confusion, fear and isolation then to be killed so brutally.

She has to force herself to keep moving. A literal summoning of energy to get her legs working again. The positive vibe of freedom now sapped and this is what the world is now. It’s gritty and brutal. Violent and balanced on a knife edge. One mistake and you’re done. Open the door and you’re dead. Simple. Don’t open the door. Keep it closed.

She goes on and doesn’t look back. There’s no point. She does consider going back to scavenge for food or even have a wash but the thought of using the woman’s house doesn’t seem right. Instead she keeps her head up this time and watches everything. The far distance, the near distance, the sides and the rear. She clocks the gates and paths leading away, noting them for escape routes. She notices farms setback off unmade roads and rushes to get clear of being seen. She doesn’t want to be seen. Hiding is her thing. Get what you need and hide.

Five

The horde pass a small cluster of bodies broken on the street. Several with injuries similar to those carried by the man. Throats bitten through. Necks shredded to lumps of useless flesh. Others have been run over and still hold the tyre marks over faces and midsections. Yet more have broken necks with heads lying at weird angles to bodies.

Flashes of something in his mind come forward again and again but the suppression is quicker than the ability to seize and retain them and on he walks. Unseeing and uncaring but still absorbing the sights around him.

More bodies are found. All of them are hosts that had been turned then killed. His arms twitch with a convulsion of electricity sent into his limbs that is suppressed. He doesn’t register that his own healing throat is as similarly damaged as those on the corpses he passes, punctured from long canine teeth.

A breadcrumb trail of action that the horde follows. Feet treading one after the other. Low moans and groans escape the horde. Heavy breathing from the obese man who wheezes to absorb enough oxygen to keep his mammoth frame moving. The half-naked shit covered woman growing more pungent by the hour from the heat that grows to intensify with staggering humidity.

On a quiet residential street the horde stop as one and snap their heads to the right almost as though in response to an eyes right order during a military march. Something there. A noise. A muffled thump then a muffled scream that shuts off as quickly as it starts. As one they move from static to charging towards the front door as the urge they all feel ramps harder through their minds. Seek. Bite. Feast.

The low groans become growling hisses and lips pull back to show teeth that ready for the bite. Jaws snap open and closed. Hands claw into talons and saliva is produced in readiness.

The man goes with them. He is unable to do anything other than abide the urge within. His own hands stiffen and become fixed weapons that will gouge and rake to tear flesh. His body tries to growl but the sound that comes is low and lost due to the injuries inflicted on his voice box. He feels only the need to be within that place closer to the noises so he can bite and rake and make more hosts.

The horde impact on the door. Not one of them tries the handle. Fine motor skills are gone. Cognitive reason is lost. They are hive mind within their small group. They drive forward, slamming into the wooden front door that rattles and bangs in the frame. A whimper is heard. The pitiful sound of a child in fear and that single noise increases the frenzied bloodlust of the horde. They drive without coherent motion but with sheer furious abandon of physical form against solid object. The combined weight of many that is focussed to a single point. More press in behind and the bulk of the obese man sends him through to the front where he can slam his immense weight into the door.

It creaks and groans. If it was modern UPVC it could flex and absorb some of the energy but the wood is solid and designed to remain intact. Instead the frame starts to give. The thinner fixed sections of wood being pushed out from the bricks they’re attached to. They drive harder. Venomously driven to get inside. They spill out towards the window of the front room, smelling the living inside. Not a second of hesitation before they start smashing their heads into the glass that fractures with spider web cracks spreading out.

The screams from inside come louder and more terrified. A male voice urgently hushing. A woman crying with wretched sobs. The horde become frenetic, flinging themselves at the door and windows. A head cracks the outer pane of the double glazed window with such force it would render a normal person unconscious. That head just keeps striking. Going back and forth until the flesh on the forehead starts to tear away, exposing the skull. Still it goes on, head-butting over and again to shatter the outer pane away. Others join in. Heads ramming. Arms flailing. Bodies flinging. The man is there amongst them. Driven by the same desire as the others. Wild with hunger.

The pressure builds and as strong as the door and frame are, they cannot withstand the combined weight of so many people throwing themselves into it. The frame gives. Simply coming away from the wall inside the house. The door falls in. The obese man falls with it. Landing in a shower of dust and debris. House bricks fall from the walls. Wood splinters and the frame gets dragged inwards by the rush of undead powering through howling like the animals they are. Screeching with design to be heard and so to induce a greater amount of fear that can be scented and found.

They pour into the house. Into the kitchen, the living room, the dining room and the even the downstairs toilet. The man mounts the steps on strong legs that carry him swiftly up to the landing with such maniacal craving he goes straight through the closed bathroom door at the top of the stairs. His broad shoulders, meaty arms and solid torso bursting through the internal door in a shower of splinters. More follow the man up and cram in behind him while others veer off into the other closed doors.

The survivors are found in the last bedroom. The father rushes out with a valiant last ditch effort to defend his family, screaming in fear and rage while swinging a cricket bat. He knocks one down and makes the mistake of trying to hit that same one again while his wife shields their children behind him. The father is ripped from his feet by the forward motion of the attack. As he goes down the top of his head is bitten with a wet tearing sound from a chunk of his scalp being torn away by saliva coated teeth that pass the virus into his bloodstream. While he screams in pain and fear the undead dive past him into his wife who is yanked away from her children. She doesn’t stand a chance. The attack is overwhelming in pure savage violence. A mouth finds her cheek, biting through to rip the skin away. She screams louder, blood spraying out that gets pulled down into her throat. Another one bites her shoulder, another on her stomach and more on her legs and arms. Fingers rake and gouge. Blood flies into the air to coat the faces of her children who shy away in abject shock. The children are taken the same. Bites given that open flesh. Fingers raking that tear skin. The four scream in pain and the beasts would keep going but the signal is passed. The job is done. Some bite on, gnashing and clawing until they too are pulled back by the unseen force within.

The man goes first. His stomach suddenly burning with such intense pain it makes him forget anything else exists. His wife does the same seconds behind him. Then their two children. All four curled up in balls on the ground, writhing from the searing agony spreading out from their guts to every inch of their bodies. A pain none of them thought possible.

Two minutes from bite to death. Two minutes of pure unbridled agony. The man convulses. Biting the tip of his tongue off as he gives a final scream then slumps inert and dead. The mother of the children falls quiet a second after him. Then the children. The house grows instantly quiet with just the ragged breathing of the undead staring intently at the corpses.

Their hearts are stopped then re-started. Cells become tainted and turned as the infection replicates over and again. Everything is checked and turned into the true state of being. The scalp wound on the fathers head that was bleeding heavily at the point of death now slows as the blood thickens to congeal and clot. A finger on the woman’s hand was bitten clean off during the frantic attack. The pain of that injury ends and that too starts to clot to prevent further blood loss. Lungs start working again. Breathing in and out. Limbs go into spasm with pulses of electricity sent into them as the infection gains the brain and starts working to take over the basic motor function. The bodies lock out, writhe then go still. Legs kick, arms lift quickly then drop.

In order of dying they open their eyes. Father, mother and two formerly beloved children. Four pairs of red bloodshot eyes. Four hosts that are no longer hungry or scared. A family that no longer hold allegiance to anything other than the urge building inside. They are hosts now and part of this horde. They sit up and rise to stand in the room as the horde starts to move back down the stairs.

The man was trapped in the bathroom. Too many other attackers prevented him from getting to the feast but the chemical dump was the same for all of them with the urge to bite driven by releases of testosterone and adrenalin. The second the objective was achieved so those hormones were ceased and a dump of calming chemicals was produced by glands. Instantly easing the demented thirst for flesh.

He felt it. Every host in the horde felt it. It was not to be denied or refused such is the purpose of a hive mind collective but something else happened too. As the action ramped so the flashes of memory came back faster. They were suppressed just as quickly but more of them came. Images that mean nothing swept through his mind. Feelings that died the instant they were formed. A minivan running over bodies and that sense of Déjà vu coming back only to be deadened and pushed away.

He files down with the others. His strong legs carrying him with ease down and out into the hot air of the street. His broad shoulders rubbing those around him and behind him traipse four fresh hosts that now look ahead and walk on without recognition of each other or knowledge of the emotions they had but seconds ago.

Six

Walking is therapy. Walking down a country lane on a gorgeously hot summer day is therapeutic. The placing of the feet, left, right, left and right. The steady tread that sways the body ever so slightly side to side. Looking left and right then ahead. Doing it again and again. Stepping, swaying slightly, looking left and right. It’s soothing in a rhythmic action that should settle the turmoil and inner angst from seeing the body of the old lady in the threshold of the door.

It doesn’t do any of those things. She gets irritated instead. More irritated by the second. She’s too hot. It must be over thirty degrees. Her top is soaked through and clinging to her body. Her jeans are too thick, too tight, too irritating. Her boots are heavy. Her feet are melting. Sweat runs down her face and her jaw feels as irritated as she does at constantly being wiped by the back of her arm.

Her lower back started hurting a little while ago and soon radiated out to a dull persistent nag. A headache is coming too. Her boobs feel swollen and tender. Just wearing a bra is bloody annoying. Her stomach, despite the lack of food, feels bloated and hard to the touch. She could cry and shout and scream and rage all at the same time. She wants chocolate and a duvet but they can both piss off and leave her alone. She wants nothing and everything without knowing what she wants. A black mood that settles and twists her emotions. She’s hungry too. Very hungry. Really very hungry. Pissed off, in pain, sweaty with sore boobs, bloated, cramping and hungry.

Every step brings the mood lower. Every step makes her seethe with the injustice of everything that has ever been done wrong. She wants to find whoever made this happen and snap their bloody necks for causing her this discomfort. Coming on and being forced to walk on a scorching hot day is just shit. Completely shit. It’s not on. Just really not on. She’ll find them and punch them in the nose then in the bollocks. She’ll stab them with forks. In the eyes. Yeah, stabbed in the eyes by sharp forks then she’ll pop those eyes out from the sockets and tread on them so they burst all gooey and horrible. Then she’ll put those eyes back in so they can see her punching them in the nose again. Then she’ll cry and eat chocolate.

Her woes increase with the greater frequency of houses dotted along the country lane giving an indication of nearing the town. Cottages mostly, detached and lovely and no doubt owned by toffee nosed rich bastards that killed foxes for pleasure. Bastards. The onset of the mood eases back the fear and hesitancy of hanging off to peer and be uber sure before rushing past. Instead she watches, listens and then runs while cursing foully at being forced to run.

Some of the cottage doors have been bust open. Windows smashed with signs of forced entry. Blood stains on a gate and up a path. A congealed mess of something gloopy and old outside one of them. None of them look intact or safe and the fact most have been entered means this immediate area isn’t safe either.

She presses on, venturing gradually from rural to town. The fields become smaller and more like pasture land for grazing horses. Stables here and there. Sheep and cows chewing content and silent.

The hedges are soon replaced with wire fences then wooden panels and finally by walls marking the boundary of edge-of-town houses. She spots roof tops, church spires, mobile phone masts and the tops of factories now in the near distance. A big town by the looks of it but if these houses have been looted or smashed in then the shops are probably all looted too. Probably by the greedy toffee nosed fox murdering wankers. Bastards.

Now is the time to switch on and despite the growing discomfort of pain, swelling, bloating, cramps, sweats, foul mood, hunger and being royally pissed off she forces herself to focus and look properly. This only happened twelve days ago. It seems longer because hiding with sod all to do every day makes the time stretch out but it’s still new enough to be wholly and inherently dangerous.

The lane ends at a junction to a wide main road with an instant transition from rural to urban. In both directions she can see rows of houses, shops further down, cars parked up or left abandoned. Silent with a foreboding air that hangs heavy and hot.

She holds still, easing the bag off her shoulders again and dropping to a squat that sends a fresh wave of cramps through her gut. She winces, growls and waits hoping it will pass but it doesn’t. Instead she moves faster, gripping the brown wooden stock of the sawn-off shotgun that she slides out and lays down on the road. Four cartridges are taken from the side pocket and put next to the shotgun. She doesn’t know what they are, or even if they’re any good but it was all she could find when she broke into the farm while running to find somewhere to hide. She nabbed a hacksaw at the same time and later cut the barrels down so the shotgun would fit it in her bag then taught herself how to open and close it. She opens it now and slides two of the cartridges into the holes, side by side. Two triggers so that must be one for each barrel. She hates it. The weight of it and the need to carry the thing but having it is far safer than being unarmed.

She pockets the other two shells, closes the shotgun, shoulders the bag and sets off over the road, aiming for the junction of another smaller street further down. She gets halfway across when she hears the engine. Diesel and throaty, like a van. The kind she used to hear every day when she lived in her town. Vans that made deliveries to shops and homes. She runs faster, opening her legs to sprint as she gains directional hearing to the engine coming from the right side.

She factors that hearing an engine means someone is driving and that means another survivor. Unless the zombies have started driving vans in the few days she’s been hiding in the church. She gets across and vaults a low wall then runs further into the garden to drop behind a hedge. Breathing hard from the explosion of energy required to sprint. Sweat covers her face but the stifling heat is for once ignored as a greater worry comes to the fore as the engine gets closer. She waits, breathing steadily and hoping the vehicle will keep going but today is the day of sod’s law and, in keeping with the shittiness of things so far, the van starts to slow. A deceleration that she detects from the noise alone.

It comes to a stop with the sound of braking and the engine growing less throaty until she hears the ratchetting of the handbrake going on. A door opens, the clunk of the handle releasing the lock. Another one after that. Two doors. Two people. She holds still, mouth open and staring up to the spot on the wall she vaulted over.

‘You sure, Vince?’

‘I’m bloody sure. I saw someone running across.’

Male voices. Older, deep and coarse. Accented with a southern almost London twang. Like builders or workmen. She twitches, eyes narrowing while she grips the shotgun that little bit harder.

‘Like a bird,’ the second voice says.

‘Bird?’ Vince asks.

‘Yeah bird…’

‘You lost me. What bird?’

‘Bird you fucking idiot. Like a woman. A chick. A fucking bird!’

‘Oh, right, yeah with you now, Derek.’

‘Fuck me,’ Vince mutters. ‘You been in the sun too long.’

‘The Doc don’t want women though. He wants kids…boys…’

‘I know what the Doc wants you twat. I’m just saying I saw a woman running across here. Look over that wall.’

She flinches, glaring hard. Her fingers finding the trigger guard.

‘Not here,’ Vince calls out, sounding slightly further away. ‘Maybe she went up that road.’

‘Yeah maybe,’ Derek says, snorting air through his nose. He sounds close, too close. She pushes back further into the base of the hedge, gripping the shotgun.

‘Derek, we’d best go, mate. This ain’t our section today.’

‘Fuck it,’ Derek spits. ‘Could have done with a fuck today.’

Anger starts to bubble, her eyes twitch while glaring but the voices recede, the doors thump closed, the engine starts and the van pulls away leaving a silence behind it as Heather shakes her head at the pure evilness of mankind.

She gets up slowly, peering over the wall to make sure they’re gone while a tiny bit of her almost wants them to come back so she can punch them in the nose and stab their eyes out with forks. Then she’ll eat chocolate and cry.

The van is gone. The area is clear. She gets over the wall and heads on to the junction of the side street she was originally aiming for and turns into it, feeling the change in environment from main road to side street. The gaps between the houses are narrower and the front gardens that bit smaller. Cheaper houses, crammed in but still sold as family homes ready to be made beige and cream with laminated floors and massive flat screen televisions.

At first it looks okay and some of the houses even have intact front doors. No bodies, no blood and only the barest signs of carnage. She keeps going to gain distance from the main road in case the van comes back while musing over what the two men said. Something about a doctor and children and this area not being their section. It doesn’t matter what they meant. Whatever they’re doing has nothing to do with her. She isn’t a part of it. Hiding is her thing.

It’s looking good here. Maybe a bit more distance and she can try and find a way into one of these houses. Get washed and changed, find some painkillers and duvet and some chocolate. It’s too hot to be under a duvet but having one near is essential. Maybe just to lie on and read a book while feeling like she’s bleeding to death from her vagina.

She stops, pauses and feels that sadness weighing down as it did before. A corpse in the road and it looks a bit fresher than the old lady she saw in the country lane. She holds still to detect movement or sound. Nothing. She goes on, clinging to the edge of the pavement to get past the body in the road. She spots the injuries to its neck. Like the throat has been ripped out by something sharp. She can’t see the eyes but the essence of the corpse makes her think it was one of the infected. The hands are still clawed, like frozen with rigor mortis and it’s filthy too. Covered in dried blood that looks older than the injuries to its neck.

She doesn’t hang around too long but rushes on quietly. Full of stealth and ready to flee. This street is no good for a hiding place now. She moves into the next street following a long curving bend that leads to more corpses that look the same as the first. Fresh but not immediately so. The blood they’ve spilled is dried. Throats have been ripped out again, some have been run over and a couple look like they’ve had their necks broken.

Heather waits at the side of the road, crouching against a wall. Assessing the route ahead while checking the sides and the rear. The cramping comes on harder, more urgent. Her back hurts like hell too. Everything hurts.

There really isn’t any choice now. She has to keep going. The church is too far away to be reached before dark so that leaves only one option which is to keep searching for a suitable hiding place.

The next street is the same. More corpses with the same types of injuries. Ones and twos, small groups and others that lie scattered or close together. Necks broken, tyre tracks over faces and stomachs. Legs and arms mangled and those same awful neck injuries. Something has been through this place killing them as they went. That thought settles and turns over in her mind. Maybe this entire area is cleansed and safer than it looks. A trickle of confidence grows and she pushes on in the energy sapping blazing heat while following a trail of broken bodies.

Every street takes her closer to the town centre. The houses densely packed on both sides and the odd convenience store here and there. She examines the outside of those closely but each has obviously been looted with smashed in windows and doors hanging off. It’s so quiet too. Deathly quiet. The church was silent but that was different. There is an expectation of quietness and silence from a rural church but this is jarring. This was a thriving town packed with dwellings and people. Silence here is weird and not right. It unsettles her and adds to the irritation she feels from the pain and mood flitting between foul and emotional.

The scene changes. She spots it instantly. A house that has very recently been accessed with wet blood smeared across the white frame of a smashed in ground floor window. The door has gone, the frame ripped off by something attacking the outside. This time she doesn’t hunker down in the street but scurries into a garden and hides behind another wall. Energy hangs in the air. Like the displacement of a violent episode. She peeks over the wall, staring at the house. Her eyes running from the door and down the path to the street. Red spots of blood form a trail that grow smaller and fainter as it goes up the street. Like someone was cut who stemmed the blood flow as they walked or ran away. The other bodies she saw looked older, like a day or so at least. Here looks very fresh. The blood shines with wetness.

She drops down to rest her back against the wall wishing she had never left the church. This is shit. Everything is shit. She needs supplies. Desperate for a decent wash. In pain. Too hot. Her water has run out now too and this bloody shotgun is too heavy and cumbersome.

Should she go back? Go back to what? The streets are full of corpses. The main road had that van on it and the country lane only goes to the cottages that have also been attacked.

A despairing dilemma of life and death where the slightest wrong decision can get her killed.

She winces again. The cramps coming harder and longer. More sustained. She’ll start bleeding soon and that’s no good. Not without tampons or at least towels. She hasn’t got either.

‘Sod it,’ she mouths, bashing the back of her head against the wall. Tears prick her eyes, not for fear or the sense of danger but a physical response to the hormones raging through her body all in response to the menstruation cycle of pure shittiness. She bites her bottom lip. Willing herself to pull it together. Telling herself that everywhere is dangerous now. Every street will have been affected. This place is no different. She thinks back to seeing them through the goldfish bowl windows of the gym on that first night. How fast they moved yet how they also waited until something else drew them away. That stops her thoughts and she lifts back up to peer over the wall. If there was something here they’d wait and mass. They do that. She’s seen it happen. The fact they’re not here means they had something else to go and find.

She nods with some resolve firming and finally stands back up to thread her way back through the gate and onto the street. Her stomach gurgles from lack of food. She wipes the sweat from her face and pushes on. Heading again towards the town centre while veering away from the blood spatters already drying out on the hot tarmac road.

Eyes up and watching. Her brow furrowed with focus, ignoring the pains coursing through her body. The sweat is constant, never ending. A relentless loss of fluids that chafe her arms and thighs. The straps of the rucksack dig in and rub. Thirsty now too, and hungry. Her mouth is dry. She wipes the sweat from her face and keeps going. The shotgun held tight across her body.

A realisation starts to hit home. That this was a mistake. Coming here is a mistake. She can’t go back though and if you can’t go back then you have to go forward. She wants the cool interior of the church and the quietness of the open ground surrounding it. This town is tainted. Filthy and broken. A sordid place where bad things happened. Where men, women and children died and came back then died again. Run over or had their necks broken or throats ripped out by god only knows what.

Closer now to the town centre and she passes the entrance to an industrial estate littered with more broken bodies. The houses give way to shops and the buildings become higher, taller and more imposing. Like they’re leaning in to trap her. She feels too confined and the escape routes become less the deeper she goes towards the centre. The smell gets worse too. Pungent stenches of death. Rotten meat left in the hot sun writhing with maggots laid by flies hovering in thick clouds. A truly post-apocalyptic scene of every worst nightmare coming true. Every window is smashed in. Every door hangs broken and ruined. Blood smeared on walls, across pavements and cars left abandoned with doors hanging open. This is post war Germany after the bombing raids. This is London during the blitz. This is the warzones of the Middle East but here in a small town in southern England.

She spots the first bullet shining in the road. The brass casing glinting the rays of the sun golden and clear. It looks big too. Like something the army would use. She spots another then another then loads of them littered amongst bodies shot to bits. Bodies of the infected who were gunned down.

The sight is offensive and crushes her soul. She saw the world fall. Anyone alive now knows the world has fallen and all the destruction that has brought but those long days in the isolated countryside deadened the actuality of what is happening. Every one of these bodies was a person. A real person like her. People who had jobs, families and the same worries and dreams as everyone else. She doesn’t want to be here. She wants to go. To be somewhere else but there isn’t somewhere else. There’s here and the reality of the situation.

It hardens her. It has to otherwise she’d crumple and weep for the loss and suffering so evident and real to her eyes. She ignores the cramps, swollen boobs, bloated tummy and backache. She pretends the headache isn’t there and holds the emotions back with every ounce of effort she can muster but it still hits deep. She feels the tug at the back of her throat and swallows the sob threatening to come up. Her eyes fill with tears making her blink furiously for fear of misting her vision. Don’t cry. Not here. Not now. Her lips tremble. Her heart sinks and breaks a thousand times again and again. The first tear falls to roll down her cheek, tracking a clean mark through the grime encrusted sweat. The second comes after until her cheeks become soaked. She doesn’t sob. She doesn’t make sound but cries silently in misery of everything she is seeing and smelling. The silence is the worst. Just the buzzing of the flies and the constant steady tread of her feet crunching along. Nothing else.

She can’t be here. She has to get away. Find somewhere. Anywhere. She looks for doors but they’re all beaten down or smashed through. Nowhere looks safe or secure. She goes on past betting shops, dry cleaners, charity shops and pet stores. Looking for signs of somewhere she can go. A door that isn’t ruined. One that can be locked and made safe that will give shelter and a place to hide. She looks up, sensing the day is growing late. The night will come soon. The hours of darkness that will perpetuate the fear of the monsters. They always howl when night comes. She’s heard it time and again. The second the sun drops they lift their heads and screech at the sky. The first time she heard it she ran and didn’t stop until she was puking then she ran some more. As the days wore on it kept happening. She even heard it in the church once. A single far off howling voice that made her blow the candles out and sit behind the locked door clutching the shotgun to her chest all night.

‘Fuck…come on…’ she mutters almost silently, a faint noise of words floating on her breath. The sense of urgency grows. The need to be off the streets and so the perfection of the refuge in need starts to drop off. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Just safe.

‘Please…’ anywhere, just somewhere. Somewhere safe out of sight that she can last the night then in the morning she can run and get back to the church.

Seven

Image. Suppressed. Memory. Suppressed. Déjà vu. Suppressed. The flashes don’t last long enough to have emotional connections but they keep coming.

He walks in the middle of the horde. Surrounded on all sides by fetid decaying and newly turned hosts. The stench is indescribable. Stale shit, sweat, rotting meat, unwashed forms, foul breath and rancid greasy hair all mixing with the metallic tang of blood.

The smells invoke a memory that is suppressed. He spots a body on the floor with a blur of an image that’s taken away as quickly as it forms.

They get towards the centre of the town. Restaurants, diners, bars and cafes all smashed and looted. The front door to an Italian bistro hanging open and the sight of the bright red carped inside brings the déjà vu on again. He falters, going slower than the horde around him who filter past bumping shoulders and hips. He gets knocked and pushed without malice but he’s a big man, tall and broad shouldered so his balance remains central to his core. He looks back at the Italian bistro. His red bloodshot eyes staring at the red carpet. The obese man wheezes past him, brushing against his arm. He lingers still as his mind whirls with memories that get shunted back and away from the frontal lobes of his brain.

He walks on behind the horde. A small distance now separating them. The urge to bite is still there as strong as ever. The need to find hosts to rake and tear flesh and pass the infection but behind those eyes there is something else going on. A split second of focus that recedes to nothingness so he becomes the slack jawed idiot again.

The horde pass a van. A minivan with a sliding door at the back. The flashes strobe harder and again he lingers, holding back without even the merest hint of understanding as to why.

The infection wins and on he goes. Dumb as a house brick. Stupid as the day is hot. He is a zombie. The undead. He died then came back. He is a host body for the true state of being. He is healing from the inside out. He has no pain. He is not human. Thoughts are for humans not hosts. Some infected can have thoughts but not you and not here. The battle here is done. We are here to seek any potential hosts left. We may be needed elsewhere in another of the millions of places the collective is in but not now.

He drools with saliva coating his beard. His mouth hangs open. He is hive mind. Not individual.

He stops dead. The horde keep moving. His head turns to the left. His body follows suit, rotating on the spot to stare at the deeply recessed doorway of the art deco building. Gorgeous brass handled doors wedged open to a vestibule of thick red carpets, display stands and sumptuous wallpaper. Huge posters adorn the walls of the recessed doorway. He stares, drooling and slack jawed but for a second his mouth closes and that flicker of intelligence shows in his eyes. He stares at the doors then at the posters. He lumbers forward. Stopping in front of one of the huge pictures. Seeing something that sets the flashes off in his head even faster. Every one of them is suppressed but they come so fast now. Flickering on and off. The poster holds his attention and he remains fixed to the spot. Red eyed, drooling undead staring at a movie poster of an action film with the lead actor bursting from an explosion of cars and helicopters in the background. The image is powerful and holds him rooted to the spot.

He jolts with a spasm forced through his body. The infection ordering him to move on. Still he resists without knowing he is doing so. He jolts, spasms and rocks on his heels but a spark holds him there. It comes harder. He resists but stares at the picture. Mesmerised without seeing, without knowing, without understanding. Pain floods his form. Pain in every limb that sears through his stomach and into his head. He sags, dropping back as though struck in the gut by a bullet but still he regains his feet and goes back to the picture. More pain comes. His throat is on fire. Chemicals dump into his system. The flashes are taken away as quickly as they come. His adrenal gland kicks in but without the infection ordering it to do so. It ceases the production and dumps more pain and sends signals into more nerves. Finally, whatever the spark that held him breaks and withers and he sinks down onto knees that slam into the tiled surface of the cinema entrance. The pain goes. The flashes end. His mouth drools and he sits up slack jawed and dumb as a house brick. The red bloodshot eyes of the undead stare out into the street as he gets to his feet and walks on after the horde without looking back.

He moves to follow the horde. Not increasing his speed but maintaining course in their wake. He is pulled to them. They are he and he is hive mind. A pull inside competes with the urge to bite and makes him want to turn and go back to stare at the poster on the wall but he doesn’t. The urge to bite and rake becomes the stronger force within him.

The horde stop at a precinct bordered by stores. They don’t know why they stop but only that they do. This is the centre of the town. The potential hosts will need supplies, food and clothing. They may come here to scavenge. The horde will wait. They have no concept of time or what waiting means. They do not comprehend impatience but only the urge within them.

The man reaches the horde and stands with them. Mute. Quiet. Saliva on his lips. His arms hang loose at his sides and he stares ahead without seeing or comprehension of what he sees.

The horde shift with settling motion. The obese man steps to the side, opening the view to the small mound of dog shit on the pavement. He sees it and the flashes come harder and faster than ever before, strobing through his mind. He flinches, recoiling with sharpness showing in his eyes. The pain is brought back and he spins round flailing an arm that knocks over the half-naked shit covered woman. He recovers, turns and stares again at the dog poo. A small meaningless mound of faecal matter left on the pavement that sends a claxon warbling through his mind as the infection within ramps the hormonal production to cease this cognitive behaviour. This place means something. The minivan means something. The cinema posters mean something. The dog shit means the most.

Survivors of drowning and near fatal accidents frequently report a feeling of calm descending as they face their own mortality. The human body is an amazing instrument and at times of severe peril, when fight or flight is no longer an option, it can dump chemicals to give an overwhelming sensation of peace and tranquillity to protect the mind against the horror faced. The man gets that now and is flooded with tranquillity. The pain the infection gave him didn’t work so it tries this tactic instead and it works. The man relaxes on the spot. His shoulders sagging. His head dropping as though fighting sleep. He smiles, wan and weak but a smile nonetheless. He is at peace with everything. This precinct means nothing. The posters, the minivan, the dog shit are all meaningless. He drools. He stands and drools and through his damaged voice box he emits a long gargled sigh of contentment.

Minutes go by. The day starts to fade. The horde shift and shuffle. Low groans are given. Heavy breathing and wheezing from the obese man. The half-naked shit covered woman gets back on her feet. The blue sky of daylight becomes darker and deeper as the earth spins at a thousand miles an hour with a force that can never be stopped.

The horde shift with a restless energy, sensing the daylight fading. Shadows grow longer. Evening turns to twilight and the sun dips the horizon. As one they lift heads and as one they howl. Lungs filling to expand so they can push air through windpipes that resonate with vibrations to make voice that’s animalistic and preternatural. A noise not of this world. A sound that belongs to the demons of hell that have transcended this plane of existence to be here, to cause misery and invoke fear.

That howling screech bounces to roll and echo down the high buildings. Waves of noise that sweep through street after street. Growing louder, longer and more unearthly with every second. The town is consumed with that noise of undead giving it everything they have got.

The man is there. His face turned up and screeching warbled and disjointed from a voice box damaged by the teeth of a dog that took a shit on the pavement not yards from where he stands. A dog that protected him. That fought for him and with him. A dog that remained at his side until he fell and became one of the infected that had to be slain. He howls with memories flashing and emotions desperately trying to be felt but that are denied.

Night is here. Darkness is upon the town and the monsters grow hungrier by the second.

Eight

Doubled over in pain. Breathing hard with her left hand rubbing her stomach as her right clutches the stock of the shotgun. This is hell. This place, this feeling. Everything about it is hell.

She forces herself to stand straight and keep moving. Her mouth is so dry but every door is still broken and unusable. She spots doors that are still closed but they’re locked tight. She tries handles, pushing and grunting while all the time worried about the noise she’s making.

It becomes frantic, running between doors. Ones that look half okay are checked but the blood stains inside soon have her pushing on. Others look clean enough but the locks are ruined. She breathes harder. Panting from the exertion of a long day walking in the super charged heat. The sweat doesn’t come so much now and she knows that’s the first danger sign of exposure or dehydration. Whichever. Whatever. Not sweating when you’re this hot is bad regardless of the reason. Her mind whirls. Thoughts pulsing through. Ideas that are negated as instantly as they form. She thinks to grab a car and drive the hell out of here but every car she spots doesn’t have keys. That would mean going into one of the open places and looking for them which is just another delay at finding somewhere safe.

Why did she leave the church? The church was safe. It was cool. There was water there and shade. The door was solid and the windows high. Boredom? She’s put her life in absolute direct peril for boredom? She hates herself for that. She hates who she is and the pains in her back, boobs and head. She hates the cramps and the sensation that she’ll start bleeding any second. She hates being a woman and being here in this place.

Then the sun drops and if she felt fear before it’s now magnified tenfold and more. The howls start. The awful screeches from voices straining to drive fear into anything that can hear them.

‘Too many,’ she whispers, her voice lost in the maelstrom of sound. There’s too many. There shouldn’t be that many. There’s bodies everywhere. Why are there so many left? She spins round on the spot. Desperately looking for the direction of the sound but it rolls and echoes, warping any hope of navigating the source. She grins in fear and runs to the closest locked door. She pushes, grunting and shouldering it. No good. Too solid. She runs on to find another. A communal entrance to flats above the shops. The handle turns but the door doesn’t yield. She shoulders it, pushes it, bangs on it and kicks it but it remains closed. She runs backwards, looking up at the windows while waving in the vain hope of seeing someone who can let her in. The windows are dark and empty. Not a curtain twitches or moves. Anyone in this area while be hiding from the howls ripping through the town.

She runs on. Trying door after door while that terrible noise fills her ears. It’ll never stop. She runs faster. Sprinting while searching left and right. Her bag bounces on her back, rubbing her already sore shoulders. Got to find somewhere. Anywhere. She spots a big van. She can hide in the back and survive the night. She goes for it and wants to shout in anger at finding the doors locked securely.

‘Fuck…fuck…’ every door is locked or bust wide with blood and bodies strewn about. She sprints wildly to find a place she can hide in before the howling ends. Her stride opens. Her arms pumping and her ponytail swishing left to right. Every ounce of energy is given to her muscles to run. Her lungs inflate, the muscles burning to pump more oxygen into her depleted body. A corner ahead. The junction is wide. She goes at full speed and it takes seconds, vital seconds for her eyes to send the images they see to her brain that processes them to give context and understanding. Vital seconds where her feet skim the road to propel her onwards. Vital seconds where she runs at them. Towards them.

Her mouth opens to scream as her legs finally get the signal to stop fucking running and she comes to a halt but metres from the back of the horde gathered in the precinct. Heads turned up and all facing away as they give that howl into the sky above.

Time freezes. The earth no longer spins but what must end will end and so they stop howling. One by one with voices that die out. Some keep going with bigger lungs and greater capacity to expend air. The screeches die out until singular voices drop down through octaves to plunge the area into deep silence. She doesn’t move. She doesn’t twitch. Her heart beats a drum, her chest heaves but she fights to breathe quietly, silently and with her mouth open. They stay turned away, almost fixed in the direction they face. She holds still, unable to move, unable to flee with the absolute knowledge that even a scrape of her boot on the road will be heard.

The silence grows. It becomes a thing, real and tangible. Like an additional sense to which her mind gains access. Nothing breaks that sound. A pure void. There’s no breeze to ruffle hair. Just thick hot air. She stares at the back of them. Seeing wounds and legs covered in shit. A grossly obese man naked with a huge gut hanging over his groin. Men and women, children too. All of them fetid and standing the same with arms hanging limp and loose and heads fixed to stare ahead.

A pin could be dropped and it would be heard. A rat swishing through a pipe would be detected. She can hear her own heart thundering with beats that hammer into her chest. Every sensation in her body is forgotten. Not the cramps in her stomach or the pain in her back or the spreading wetness in her groin from the blood that finally seeps out and into her already sweat soaked jeans that absorb what they can. That rate of absorption reaches the pinnacle of what the denim can cope with but still the blood keeps coming. It drips. Blood from her womb expunged from her body that soaks into and through her jeans to fall the distance to the ground where it lands with the tiniest of sound. Heads twitch. Her eyes grow wide. Another drip comes. Falling through the air to land with the first and she hears the beasts sniff the air. Slowly, ever so slowly she starts to move her head to look down at the same time as feeling the warm wetness in her groin. Another drip and the smell of her magnifies. Fresh blood leaking from her body that overcomes all the other pungent stenches to hit the noses of the undead who turn as one to fix red bloodshot eyes on the woman staring down at her own bloody crotch.

That second stretches forever and always. Heather staring down at the three drops of blood on the ground between her feet and flicking her eyes up to see the faces of the monsters fixing her in that evil gaze.

Three explosive forces take place all within two seconds. The first from the charge of the horde bursting to life as one. The second from the twitch of her finger on the trigger of the shotgun that ignites the charge in the cartridge of the left barrel that flames as it sends over four hundred pellets towards the oncoming mass. The shortened barrel length means the spread of pellets is increased over the shorter distance. The horde run. The pellets hit and several bodies are lacerated to be blown back by the impact. She plucks at the other trigger but it clicks dry and broken.

The third explosive force is generated by energy bunching in her muscles that detonate out to make her twist and commence running a split second after the other trigger fails to work. Three explosive forces within two seconds. They run. She fires and she runs.

In that wild panicked second she sees the gorgeous brass handles of the recessed doors in the art deco building. Doors that stand open to give entry to the thick red carpet within. Without looking back she launches across the road on legs given fresh energy from the fear in her heart. She gets through and into the vestibule without a flicker of a look at the posters on the walls and runs on, down the carpet towards the far end and risks a look back to see them reaching the doors behind her with a big man in the front. Tall with wide shoulders and thickly muscled arms who runs on strong legs with a wild look of pure hunger etched on his snarling face.

She screams in fury at being caught out so stupidly. She screams in frustration at having done so well to survive unharmed and the reckless stupid decision to venture into this town.

The space opens out on both sides. Ticket counters empty and useless on her left. On her right she passes the confectionary containers ready to be used to fill the tubs and bags. Popcorn machines filled with stale popcorn but still the smell of sugar and salt hangs in the air.

She runs faster. Gaining speed to increase the distance between them as she powers into the long corridor leading to the screens within the building. She passes them one by one. Sprinting faster than she has ever run before. Another glance behind and that big man is in the lead, easily outstripping the rest of the horde on his strong legs and in that glimpse she sees veins bulging from skin and a twisted snarling face contorted with wild rage.

She keeps going, past the doors to the few remaining screens and spots the service door at the far end marked staff only and the dull gleam of the emergency exit sign above it.

Another glance back and she spots the man is closing the distance. She can’t risk slowing or easing speed but takes the door at full pelt. Ramming into it with her body impacting on the security bar that makes the door yield and she bursts through into a concrete stairwell almost pitch black save for the dull fading emergency lights.

She grabs the handle of the first rail and uses it to pivot and leap the first two steps. A change of speed and the gears in her body grind to start driving her up the first flight of stairs. She uses the handrail to pivot again on the first landing to propel up the second flight and she gets almost to the top when she hears him bursting through the door behind her. Third flight and her legs pump furiously to keep lifting to ascend the flights that go up higher and higher.

Harsh breathing from both of them. The prey ahead and the predator behind. He was in the middle of the horde when they caught the scent of blood in the air. He turned with the others and saw the woman and he burst to life with the others when they started the charge. The shotgun blast removed two in front of him and the sprint across the road into the cinema gave him the room to outstrip the others. He reached the doors first and held the woman in sight as she ran down the red carpet. The stench of her blood driving him wild with urges to bite and rake but again, as he burst to action so the flashes in his mind started. Fast and frantic. The sight of the woman. The fear he could smell in her. The sight of her blood. The running. The chasing. The red carpet. The posters on the wall of the tall wide shouldered actor with the thickly muscles arms. Strobing images that pushed faster and deeper into his cerebral cortex to infiltrate the frontal lobes with the first hint of meaning.

Still the infection within deadens them. Sends them away and shuts down the neural pathways that keep sending more. He is a host. She is a potential host. He will take her. He will tear her flesh and bite into her skin. He will take the host. It will be done. It cannot be denied.

Pain in her thighs from lactic acid burning through the muscles but she goes faster. Gasping for air to ascend and vault the steps two at a time. She wants the stairs to end but never end. Ending means getting to the top where she will be trapped but not ending means she’ll slow down and he’ll catch up. They will catch up. Her mind works as fast as her legs. She has to get out of these jeans and her knickers are no good either. She has to ditch them and run. She has to stop the bleeding and hide. How? When? Where? Just keep going and keep praying.

While running, while thinking frantically she ditches the now useless shotgun and slides the bag from her shoulders. While running and while thinking frantically she rubs the bag into her groin, covering the sweat soaked back of it in her blood. She turns for the next flight and spots the door leading somewhere else but the stairs keep going up. Not a second to lose so she grabs the door handle and throws her bag through before running on and up the flight. The man doesn’t fall for the trick. The smell of her is too powerful. Too strong. He gets pumped with testosterone and adrenalin. He gets pumped full of rage inducing chemicals to overcome the images in his mind. He is wild, a beast and driven only to harm. He will tear her apart limb from limb and drink her blood to satisfy the craving.

She hears him rounding the landing and going past the door. This is it then. She knows the next flight will reach the top and then she’ll be caught, trapped and killed.

The horde following don’t have the same wake of scent the man has. They smell the blood and go through the doors to the bag. It takes seconds to realise the bag is not her and they charge into the projector rooms, the maintenance stores and staff rooms to hunt the potential host.

She reaches the top. The final door and she punches through into a long corridor with doors leading off on both sides. Offices for the managers, the finance and admin teams. In that split second she takes in the floor cleaner still plugged into the wall and lunges to wrench it free. A step back and she winds the cable through the door handles. Bashing her knuckles that split and bleed. Gasping for air, sweating buckets, red faced and desperate she winds and tightens while hearing his feet pounding the stairs.

He reaches the top on the other side and runs into the doors that hold closed from the cable tied round. She jumps away, screaming in fright but seeing a few seconds of time have been gained.

She turns, running further down and selecting a door at random on the right side. An open plan office illuminated by moonlight streaming through the big windows down one side. She rushes in and vaults over to drop behind a desk. Every action is instinct now. Every tiny decision has to be done on gut instinct alone. Her fingers grab at the laces of her boots, tugging them free. She can hear him battering into the doors. A solid thumping of body weight that will surely get through any second.

The first boot is tugged off, the other a second after that. She clambers to her feet and starts unbuttoning her jeans. They have to go. There is no choice. She peels them down over her legs and stamps on the spot to free her ankles and feet of the material. Her knickers get wrenched down next. Blood soaked and stinking with clots of goo from the first heavy bleed of her period. The doors in the corridor bang harder with more force generated. She pushes her hand between her legs that comes away covered in blood. Her bleed is heavier than normal. Brought on by stress, anxiety, fear and the sudden change of diet and lifestyle.

She launches the jeans at the door to the office then runs further down to throw her soiled panties behind the last desk. Clothing gone but now she has to worry about her own body. She spins, still frantic and spots the water cooler in the corner. The bang from outside comes hardest of all. A solid thumping and in her mind she imagines the doors slowly getting wider as the cable stretches.

Wash. Remove the smell. She crosses the office to the water cooler and presses the blue lever down. Water trickles out. A steady but painfully slow flow that she paws at to splash into her own groin that she thrusts towards the water machine. It’s not enough. She grabs a paper cup and waits while it fills. She washes. Fills another and washes again. Twisting her neck to look at the office door and the immense banging coming from the doors to the stairwell.

‘Come on,’ she wills the water to pour faster and fill the cup. ‘Sod it,’ she ditches the cup and wraps her arms round the blue plastic tub of water on the top. A grunt and she lifts, pushing through her legs to get the nozzle free from the hole. It pops out with a wet sucking sound and she staggers back under the sudden weight. Water cascades out down her front. She grunts to lift it higher while trying to get her groin forwards under the flow of water pouring out. Round and round in a tight circle, trying to keep her balance while emptying the water tub down her legs. As it gets lighter so she manages to hold it with one arm and uses the free hand to rub the inside tops of her thighs to sluice the blood and clots away.

The tub drops and she runs again. Past the bloodied jeans and out into the corridor. The impacts on the main doors are so much louder now and as she runs to the far end she glimpses back to see them slamming open a few inches as the cable starts to give.

Synchronicity of movement and as she reaches to get through the last door in the corridor so he gets through the main door from the stairwell. She goes in. He comes in. She closes the door as he breathes deep to catch that scent of blood and runs snarling to the office.

She slides down the door. Heaving for air with a hand clamped over her own mouth to stifle the ragged noises of her breathing. This room is darker. Blinds on the window half turned to let only slivers of light through that create bars of silver reflected on the desk and chairs.

She reaches up, feeling for the handle then down a bit groping for a lock. A small sliding bolt is found by her fingertips and she gives a prayer of thanks for small mercies. She slides it home. A tiny metal bar that will give easily but it’s something.

Soaking wet and half naked but also now half clean and she scurries on all fours away from the door. Her naked arse poking up to be bathed in the bars of moonlight. A big desk at one end. The room must be the general managers. A quick look round and she realises there is no other way out. No other doors. Not even a private bathroom for the manager to use.

She sags, sinking onto her bare bum on the carpet while staring at the door to the corridor. Her heart races, her legs burn, her backache is immense, her head is pounding and she now wishes she had drunk some of that water. That thought makes her look down at her own groin. She’ll still be bleeding and without something to stop the flow it will keep coming out. She has to stop it. Plug it. What with though? She looks round idly as though expecting to see a box of tampons on the desk. She rolls over again onto all fours and crawls round to the other side and opens the first drawer. The light is poor so she gropes in, finding the usual stationary items. A stapler and hole-punch. Boxes of staples, drawing pins, paper clips. Pens, pencils. Old notebooks and pads. She goes through the two drawers then navigates round the plush swivel chair to the other two drawers and opens the top one. She reaches in, feeling while leaning up to peer over the desk. Noises outside in the corridor tell her the lot of them are now up here. Bangs and snarls sound here and there.

Her hand grips something. A circular tub that she pulls out and stares at. A flip top lid that she pops open to see the first cleaning wipe poking out the top. It must be for computer screens or keyboards but it’ll do. She pulls one out then more. Plucking them one after the other until she clutches several that she bunches and starts to shape.

The noises in the corridor grow louder. Closer. She works quickly, flexing and forcing the wipes into something that resembles the shape of a tampon. With a grimace she plunges her hands between her legs, finds the opening and shoves them in. It feels awful and she chokes the sob for the sheer horror of the situation. She pushes deep, worrying for a second of going too far but the blood flow cannot come out. She cannot smell like she did a minute ago. She will survive this night whatever the cost.

With another grimace she levers herself up onto her feet and looks at the only viable exit from the room. She twists the lever of the blind to open the slats. The room is instantly bathed by moonlight. She yanks the cable next, drawing the blinds back on their runners until the frame is exposed. One handle for a small push out window of an old style metal frame in keeping with the art deco style. She pulls it up and pushes the window open then leans out to look down at the sheer drop to the road far below. Not a drainpipe in view. Nothing. No bedsheets to knot together. No ropes to dangle. No escape plan now and the whole frenzied desire to live comes crashing to a halt with the realisation there really is nowhere to go.

In the office he finds the jeans first. Soaked in blood and sweat. He goes deeper into the room. Striding in with hands clawed into talons. Lips pulled back to show teeth ready to snap shut and bite through flesh. He snarls, growls and hunts the smells. To the far end and behind the last desk he stares down at the soiled panties with a hundred images pulsing through his mind one after the other. Memories that try and take grip to hold fast to be seen before they are pushed away by the infection that pumps him up with more rage giving chemicals.

He knows only fury now. He is consumed with the hunt. He will seek the prey and take it. He will kill it and destroy it. It will be torn apart for the simple audacity of trying to get away from him.

He goes back down the room. His feet sloshing on the water soaked carpet. The horde get through the doors and surge into the corridor, following the scent of blood into the office. He barges through them. Heedless they are his own kin folk for he knows only rage now. He shoulders them aside with ease and they scurry round his form to find the jeans and soiled knickers.

In the corridor he starts walking towards the end. His head twisting side to side in a physiological response to the hormonal rampage underway in his system. Every muscle strains, bulging to push the veins out through his skin. The injuries to his throat look worse as his skin mottles with a mottled crimson flush brought on by his heart jack hammering in his chest.

The others pile out behind him to charge across the corridor into the other rooms as they start the search for the one they know must be here.

He goes down to the end. His eyes flickering with intelligence that gets suppressed but within those flashes of intelligence he sees the wet foot prints tracking down the middle of the tiled floor. He stops at the last door and inhales. She is in there. He knows this. The infection knows this. He is the predator. She is the prey. She is a host to be taken. He will take her.

It’s done. Over. His immense strength explodes the door in one single blow that sends it flying across the room to smash into the wall at the other end. He charges in as she turns from the window. A thought crosses her mind to throw herself out and thereby have the dignity of choosing her own demise but in that second she catches sight of him in the moonlight. The first clear view of the man and she freezes in complete shock, her mouth dropping open. That second is all he needs and he’s there, ripping her off her feet through the air to land heavy on the solid wooden desk. She feels the monstrous strength in him and the ease in which she is lifted so high only to be brought down so easily.

He rages and snarls. The victory is his. He tries to howl but the awful injuries to his throat make the sound come out warped and low. He smashes his fists down onto the desk either side of his head. She screams and covers her face, bringing her bare legs up to try and kick into his body but the man is solid muscle. She kicks harder and starts hitting. Refusing to go out without fighting for every second of her life. He rages, pumped too far, too much and too full of snarling fury.

Another one runs in behind him. The father of the two children taken just hours before. The man turns and sends him spinning away with one arm lashing out. Heather doesn’t see it but only the huge man blocking her from getting off the desk. She kicks into his groin, into his stomach and reaches up to grip the ragged flesh of his already damaged throat. He pays no heed but turns back to her with those awful red bloodshot eyes showing intelligence then wild animalistic hunger then back to intelligence. The images and memories pulse harder through his mind. The infection tries to rid them. To kill them and increase the chemical dump. He has the urge to bite. Bite then. He has the urge to rake and tear flesh. Do it. He sees a dog, a woman, a van a poster for a movie. He snarls and beats down with hard fists that fracture the wooden top of the desk. She screams louder, once more curling up in instinct to avoid the blows. Another one gains the office and runs in only to be hit so hard she staggers back into the window, her elbows and head smashing through the panes of glass.

The man goes back to his prey. He will kill her. He will take her. It will be done. You are hive mind. You are host. She is human. Take her. End her. Pass it into her bloodstream. His thick arms lift and come down to drive through the desk that breaks and splinters, sinking Heather down who drops the short distance to the floor to land amongst the broken shards. She screams again, cycling her feet to try and push him away but he sinks down with her. Snarling and shaking with pure unbridled rage that courses through his body.

‘NO,’ Heather screams, her voice cracking with fear and anger. She punches out, striking him in the face but he doesn’t flinch. She hits again, her lips pursing with determination to hurt this bastard before he bites her. She punches again and again, hurting her own fists. He stares down, seeing a woman. Seeing a person. Seeing a dog, a van, a poster, a young woman in pain who pleaded for her life for the men to stop. She hits his face. She hits his throat. His eyes flicker. The infection tries to give him pain but the rage inducing chemicals overpower everything else in his system apart from those images fleeting so quickly through his brain.

The obese man comes in. The obese man who can smell the woman and comes leading several from the horde. The obese man with the huge gut hanging down over his groin. The obese man who lunges greedily across the floor to join the feast underway to bite and rake and pass the thing inside.

The man turns, snarling as he runs into the obese man who is ripped up off his feet to be thrown bodily through the window frame that snaps from the impact of the heavy fleshy weight. The obese man sails down through shards of glass to explode on the hard road below. His head bursting apart like a melon.

Still Heather doesn’t see it. She sees only the violence erupting and the primeval fear of monsters that will kill her. She tries to rise to get up and run to jump through the window but the man dives at her. Driving her back down into the broken remains of the desk. She sinks screaming from his face baring teeth with lips pulled back but he twists away and runs at the next two members of the horde coming into the room.

This time she does see. She sees him hit the half-naked shit covered woman who is sent flying back out of the room with such force it knocks two more off their feet as they try and come in. The man turns back. He will kill her. He will take her. It will be done. She is human. Take her. He skulks forward, dropping to all fours and planting his hands either side of her head. In that second she stares up, into his eyes. Her nostrils flare in pure terror. Tears prick her eyes. It’s done. This is over. Her life will end.

‘Please,’ she whimpers and clamps her eyes closed. ‘Please…no….please…’

She doesn’t try and cover herself. She doesn’t fight now. She simply begs for forgiveness for any sins of this world to be left here when she passes to the next.

He looks. He stares. He rages and pulses and snarls but he hears the words. The infection drives harder. Forcing every cell in his body to do as bid.

Please. That word. The feminine voice. The way it’s said. The tone of it. The fear he can smell in her.

The rest come. The horde come. On mass they come to accomplish what the man refuses to do. They come snarling with rage and fury and lips pulling back to show teeth.

She feels him on her. That first touch and her gut twists. His hand grips the front of her top and clenches to bunch and grip. He stands, lifting her one handed from the floor and she goes up into the air held by a beast that turns his head to stare at the doorway now full of his own kind. His arm extends. Pushing her away from him. Off her feet and her own hands come up to grip his wrist. She stares wide eyed, staring at him, at his arm holding her off the ground without a tremor of exertion showing. She looks past him to the beasts converging to enter.

He stares. His eyes fixed on them and holding the thing they want away. His huge chest lifts and falls. His head fixed and that intelligence now holds. The images of the dog, of the van, of the poster now take root. His lips pull back. Their lips pull back. He snarls. They snarl. She stares, sensing something else is happening but too scared to realise what. She holds his wrist. Dangling from his grip like a ragdoll. His injuries look horrific, his neck all torn open. They come a step. Pushing into the room. She is lifted higher. His stance straightening. His back locking out. His head lifting higher and that snarl comes louder, defiant, daring them to come. A glimmer of hope shines in her heart. An instinct to live and survive no matter what. She reaches out, pushing her hands down his arm and instead of gripping hard she touches him gently.

‘Please…Paco….please…’ she whispers, her voice trembling with emotion of fear and terror and hope and a bad decision made that brought her here.

He feels it. He feels that touch on his arm. He hears that voice plaintive and terrified and a word that strikes the deepest of all. They hear it too and it sends them wild to charge in to take the host.

A jolt from his core that sweeps down his arm that opens his hand and sends her flying back over the desk into the wall. The second she impacts he turns fully to face the horde of his own brethren.

The first is taken down by an arm sent lashing out. A solid meaty impact that drops the elderly man instantly. The second is kicked back into the others then the man launches into them. A brutal explosion of violence of hands punching out that break jaws and noses. They charge in. Thick and fast with voices screeching in wild rage given hunger. One goes past him to be grabbed by the arm that’s snapped clean at the elbow joint and dragged back to be sent thrown into the others. Still they keep coming. They don’t have pain but he starts feeling it. The infection sends everything against him to stop his actions but the bloodlust is there. The urge to bite transmuted and turned into rage to fight his own kind. He is brutal. Pure strength and unrestrained violence that decimates them with ease. They don’t stand a chance. He sends another through the window to sink down with a wet splat next to the obese man. He strikes an old lady, snapping her head over so hard her spine is broken. One gets past and lunges to get to the woman at the back of the room. He gets grabbed by the hair as a child runs past. The child gets kicked into the side wall. A solid foot swinging from a solid leg that makes the child impact so hard the plaster and bricks falls off. Heather winces, grimacing and turning way at seeing the form of a child damaged so badly.

The one the man grabbed by the hair is flung aside as if made of nothing. Another one is grabbed, lifted and sent through the window. The second child taken today is sent the same way. Men, women and children with red bloodshot eyes and bared teeth get thrown through to build a pile of broken remains on the road below.

Those that remain turn on the man. They sink in to bite and rake at his flesh instead. The infection within him must be wrong. He must be turned again. He must be stopped. He fights harder, battering them aside as they lunge to bite and gouge at his flesh.

Heather would run but the doorway is blocked. She would do something but she sits cowering at the base of the wall seeing something immensely disturbing but in her heart, in her gut where that demand to survive lives she wants him to kill the others and then die himself. That man is Paco Maguire. The movie star. The Hollywood action man. His posters were on the walls downstairs. It’s him. Paco Maguire. She recognised him the second he ran into the room.

If any doubt remained she watches as he grabs a fully grown man, stamps down on the back of his knee then twists the head to break the neck with the same movement she, and half the world, has seen hundreds of times. The trademark Paco Maguire move. The one he did in every movie. Stamp the knee and break the neck. The vain prick even tried to copyright the move. It was in the magazines and on the websites. The womanising misogynistic overpaid wooden acting twat who played the same part in every single movie. The hero who saved everyone. The hero who always got the girl.

That prick fights now. Bleeding and torn with his body on fire from every nerve being set alight in his body. That twat suffers immense pain that makes his body want to die right there to end it. That vain man fights and refuses to give in and he kills his own kind for a reason he doesn’t know and cannot understand. He is hive mind. He is not human. He kills them anyway. He snaps necks and sends them out through the window. He slams them into the walls to break their bones and rips them off their feet to be sent back out into the corridor.

He staggers, reeling from the pain searing through his body. She sees him flagging but rallying to lash out and drop one rushing towards her.

‘LOOK,’ she screams without knowing she was going to scream, to shout the warning of the woman lunging to bite his neck while he breaks the one gripped in his arms. He turns as the woman sinks in. Her teeth latching onto his arm and he punches down, killing her instantly. She drops but tears a chunk of his flesh as she goes down. He kills two more with almost drunken movements. Lashing and hitting with wild aiming and staggering on his feet. That manner of movement becomes a wounded animal. Pitiful and tragic but still he stays up. Still he fights the last few until they are taken down until finally he stands bleeding and wracked with pain amongst the corpses of his horde.

He turns slowly. His red eyes searching for more to kill. He lumbers towards the door, feet snagging on the bodies. Tripping and falling but getting back to his feet to stagger out into the corridor. His shoulder hits the edge of the door frame that makes him spin round to drop in a crumpled heap.

The chance is here. The doorway is clear. She goes quickly dodging the bodies and the broken furniture. Paco groans, trying to rise. He gets to all fours then lifts up on his knees. She pauses, faltering, wanting to get past him but not wanting to get close. He shuffles round to look down the corridor, swaying and hurt. Bleeding and broken. His arms hanging limp and his head lolling from the pain being sent into every pore of his body.

She runs for it. Darting out and yelping when his head jerks round to watch her. She backs against the wall in the corridor. Staring at his red eyes, at his bleeding face, at the wounds on his neck. He makes sound in his throat. A low keening noise. The noise of an animal that did its best but now it hurts. It hurts lots. He jolts with a spasm. She flinches and tries to push back into the wall. She could get past him. Just run for it. Run and get out before more come.

He tries to rise but his legs give out and he sinks down. Still he levers himself up, pushing his upper body with his arms that now shake and tremble. He is hive mind. He is not hive mind. The infection hurts him. It gives pain in his body that sears and makes the tears fall from his eyes.

She slides along the wall. Eyes fixed on him. Blood everywhere. She feels exposed, vulnerable. She is half naked, without shoes and in pain. She gets clear and runs down the corridor. Free and ready to flee. She pays no thought to her jeans or knickers and thinks no thoughts to her bag or the shotgun. Just the need to be away from here. Just run and keep running.

She reaches the door at the end and stops at the sound coming from behind her. She turns to see him weak and broken trying to get up. She turns away and goes to move but stops and fights the urge to look back. He keens from the throat. In pain. Fuck him. He’s one of them.  He saved her. He chased her. He killed the others. He’s infected.

Don’t get involved. Hiding is your thing. What others do is down to them. Stay away, Stay hidden. Go. Run and don’t look back.

Hide.

She goes through the doors and down the stairs and she doesn’t look back.

Nine

Hide in plain sight. A random idea that pops in her mind as she runs down the stairs, through the door and down the red carpet of the cinema foyer. She reaches the brass handled doors and stops at the mound of broken bodies piled on the pavement from being thrown through the window.

She goes straight over. Weaving through the blood and gore to the first open door on the opposite side and plunging into near pitch blackness. She hunkers down, squatting to listen while hoping to hell the smell of the dead bodies in the street will cover her own scent trail.

Her eyes adjust to the gloom and she spots the letterboxes fixed to the wall just inside the broken front door. An old wooden staircase leads up that she takes quickly. Not hesitating or slowing to listen or watch. Find somewhere to hide. Stay quiet and wait for the sun to come up.

She goes up again on legs still burning. Her bare feet creaking the boards gently under her weight. The first landing leads to two flats. One on either side with both doors hanging open. She goes up to the next floor. Another two flats, one with the door ripped from the hinges the other only slightly ajar. She goes up to the top floor and rushes across the landing to the door on the left hanging open and gets through to close the door behind her. The lock is broken but it has deadbolts that she rams home and a feeble security chain that she fastens in place.

In the midst of still being gripped by panic she smells the stale musty air and the dust that’s been settling for twelve days. That single thing takes the immediate edge off the wild anxiety gripping her stomach. She walks down the corridor. Kitchen on the right. Bedroom on the left. Bathroom on the right. Living room on the left. A four room flat, basic yet still expensive for the town centre location. She checks each room in turn. Peering in before venturing across each threshold. The double bed is made. The living room looks clean and tidy save for the single half full wine glass and the bag of M&M’s on the coffee table in the centre. A single electric toothbrush in the bathroom and she instantly gains the impression of a single woman living alone. A fragrance of shampoo and perfume hangs delicate in the air. With her mind still frantic she gains a mental image of a woman showering and getting ready for a night in. Pouring herself a glass of wine and sitting down to eat munchies while seeing the world fall apart on the television. She could have been one of the infected that chased her tonight. She could be lying dead on the pavement outside having been thrown from a window by another infected.

Focus. She bites her bottom lip, thinking of what to do. There must be something she should be doing. The adrenalin still courses, urging her to be doing something, doing anything. She goes back into the lounge and over to the big sash window. The curtains are open and she guesses you don’t need nets this high up. She goes carefully, coming in from the side and using the hanging drapes to shield her body as she looks out. The cinema is directly opposite. The broken window of the office clearly visible. She shifts and looks down to the bodies on the pavement then to the sides and finally to the doors of the cinema. Nothing to be seen. She shifts again, gently creaking a floor board under foot that makes her realise how quiet it is. Another idea forms and she gently grips the wooden frame of the sash window and starts to apply pressure, easing it up. It goes smoothly with only the faintest rubbing noise of wood brushing wood.

After listening intently for long minutes she finally backs away and makes her way into the kitchen. Every move is done slowly. A cupboard door opened. A mug found. The kitchen tap twisted slowly. A bowl used to deaden the noise of the water pouring into the stainless steel bowl of the sink. She lets it run while wondering if it’s safe to drink. The water in the church was okay and it looks clear enough. She fills the mug, sniffing and poking her tongue in as though that will tell her anything.

After the need for air, water is the next essential thing needed by a living form. Hunger can be withstood for long periods but thirst will drive a person mad. It’s only been a few hours since she took fluids in but those few hours have been frantic and the urge to drink overcomes the risk of the water being contaminated.

She drinks. She drinks deep and long. One mug of water then another. Another after that and she feels the cool liquid cascading down her parched throat to slosh in her empty stomach. The effect is instant. An immediate easing of pressure as her body absorbs the vital fluids. The fourth mug is the one that gives her the sense of being full and she lowers the mug with a long sigh followed by a deep belch that startles even her.

Heather stares into nothing feeling almost drunk from taking so much water down in one go. Her whole body is exhausted and with the intake of water so the cramps come back harder making her move away to root through drawers and find the box of Nurofen that every woman keeps ready at hand. She swallows two, drinks water then shrugs and downs another two. Then she panics at the prospect of an overdose and worries about the damage of four pills on an empty stomach. She finds a multipack of crisps and eats the lot. She finds chocolate and eats it. She opens a tin of ravioli and eats it cold. Hunger abates. Pain eases so she hunts for tampons or sanitary towels in the consummate belief that every woman keeps a box handy. Every drawer is checked. Every cupboard but none are found, instead she finds an information pack on the implant that stops periods. The fight drains out of her. She looks for knickers and finds plenty but at least six sizes too big that won’t stay up. This is the day of sod’s law after all.

Exhaustion hits with a fatigue that makes her legs feel like they’re made of concrete. She shuffles into the lounge, grabs the cushions from the sofa and sits down next to the open window to stare into the gloom and deathly silence. Her mind tries to process everything that’s happened but it’s only minutes before the thoughts become jumbled and out of synch. Her head dips, her eyes closing to bat open with a start until she finally falls asleep with a last thought of wondering why Paco Maguire is on his period.

Ten

She wakes slowly at first. Grumbling softly and grinding her teeth. Something she has always done when she is worried. Her eyes start to open, fluttering gently as the first rays of light seep through to burn her retinas. She winces, closes her eyes and starts to doze again but that voice is there. The one that made her run last night and keep running. The one that told her to take off her jeans and knickers and throw them then hide somewhere else. That voice brings her awake and she does so instantly. Snapping with eyes wide and the sudden jarring sensation of not knowing where she is. Panic grips. The room is unfamiliar. Where is she? Who else is here?

It comes back in one long stream of memories. The infected people. The running and that actor man killing the other things. She doesn’t recognise the room because it was near on pitch dark when she got in here. Now it’s not dark. It’s daylight. Pure gorgeous wonderful light filled daylight.

She scoots to roll onto all fours and starts to rise to peer over the edge of the window. She can’t hear anything so that’s good and she knows the street will be empty, apart from the dead bodies that is. Otherwise it will be empty. It will be empty. It has to be empty.

It’s not empty. She drops, screws her eyes closed from the flare of pain at staring out into the bright light so soon after waking up and squeezes the windowsill tight while swallowing the surge of anger. When she looks again he’s still there. The bloody idiot is there. Paco Maguire in the middle of the road standing dumb and stupid.

Something snaps. The fear from the night before. The heat of the night and waking up all sweaty with a sore tummy and kitchen roll poking out between her legs. Anger rises. A flare of temper. A stupid dangerous thing given the circumstances but she stands, slams the window open fully and leans out.

‘FUCK OFF,’ she screams at Paco Maguire. ‘GO ON…JUST…JUST FUCK OFF…’

He starts to turn. His arms hanging limp at his sides. How the hell he is back on his feet after what happened to him is not a thought that enters her head. Nor the inherent danger of screaming at an infected man that is strong enough to throw an obese person through a window and snap bones like they’re dry twigs.

Instead she grabs a tartan scatter cushion and launches it with a grunt at his face now staring up. It hits and bounces off. She sends a second one down that bounces harmlessly off his head. The third hits his shoulder. The fourth misses which just makes her temper even more foul.

‘Just…just bloody wait,’ she tells him with a pointing finger and runs back into the room to grab more tartan scatter cushions that get carried over and thrown down.

Paco takes the missiles without complaint. Soft whumps that bounce off his head and shoulders to land softly on the road. She aims well, tongue poking out between her teeth while she unleashes the barrage of soft furnishings. The cushions are depleted so she goes for the heavier sofa seats. Lugging them to the window and using a two handed launching method to send them sailing down with the added bonus of gravity speeding the acceleration until they hit and actually make him take a step back.

She takes that victory in an explosion of temper and a black mood emboldened by the daylight and the fact he hasn’t tried to come up and eat her. She throws the other two seat cushions. Missing with both of them with an act that seems to light the touch-paper to the real inner demon that wants to come out.

She grabs a plant pot. A small ceramic thing with a spiky cactus poking out of the dried soil. The cactus was quite happy on the windowsill. It didn’t need much water and the weather has been lovely. Sitting all day in the sun and it was really quite content so to be sent flying down to bounce off the head of a big man was not on its list of things to be done.

‘Oh shit…sorry,’ she winces and stops at the sight of the man staggering back from the ceramic pot shattering on his skull. Blood pours down his face and he looks up with an expression of such abject pity that it ends her temper instantly. ‘You okay?’ She asks almost politely. Paco doesn’t answer. He just stares up at the woman. His eyes red and bloodshot and his face now covered in small rivers of blood leaking from the cut on his scalp.

‘FUCK OFF,’ she shouts again her temper half flaring then dying as instantly as it came. She festers and seethes then worries and feels bad. ‘I’m not coming out,’ she tells Paco, nodding emphatically. ‘And…and you can’t come up…’ she adds quickly. ‘Gun! I’ve got a gun,’ she ducks in, grabs the remote control for the television and waves it about quickly. ‘See…my gun…’ she tucks it behind her back and waits, staring down. He waits, staring up.

‘Go away,’ she says after a minute of silence.

Paco doesn’t go away. He stays staring up. His face covered in blood but the scalp wound is already clotting. His arms limp. His whole manner that of a dejected child or someone who doesn’t know what to do.

‘You’re Paco Maguire,’ she says. ‘So go away.’ That’ll do it. Telling him she knows who he is. That will make him go. ‘So…so I’ve got help coming and…and they’ve got guns. I mean more guns because I’ve got my gun and…so go away before they get here otherwise they’ll shoot you…’

Paco doesn’t go away.

‘Yes hello?’ She says quickly with a new idea forming as she puts the remote control to the side of her head. ‘Yes I’m in the top flat in er…in this town? Opposite the cinema! Yes. Yes I am here now. There is one outside. Paco Maguire. Yes the movie actor. Yes I know that’s very strange but he’s right there. He’s infected too. Like totally infected and you should shoot him when you get here. In the head. Shoot him in the head with your guns…’

She watches him while chatting away on the remote control. He doesn’t show any reaction but stares up. Forlorn and stationary.

‘…So okay then. Er…see you soon…about five minutes? Yep…bye then!’

She puts the remote control phone down and looks at Paco. ‘Five minutes. Yeah,’ she waggles the remote control phone gun at him then realises she’s waggling the remote control phone gun and pulls it behind her back. ‘They’re coming,’ she adds. ‘Five minutes. So…’ she purses her lips. ‘So…you’d better go then.’ She nods. ‘I’d run if I were you.’ She looks idly up and down the street. ‘Any minute now…’ She bites her bottom lip and sighs, blasting air out, waiting patiently for her friends. ‘Yep,’ she states. ‘Any minute now….with their big guns and…knives…and er…anyway. So thanks for not eating me last night but I’m like totally serious right now. You should go. Really. Bye. Go on….shoo….piss off…run away…’

Paco doesn’t shoo or piss off.

‘Seriously?’ She asks with an angry huff then adds another at the feeling of warm liquid dribbling down her legs. She looks down at the blood soaked end of the kitchen roll and the drip down her thigh. ‘I’m on my period,’ she tells Paco then immediately wonders why the hell she told him. ‘You’re movies are shit,’ she announces then runs across the lounge towards the bathroom. ‘REALLY SHIT,’ she shouts while yanking the kitchen roll out. ‘AND DON’T TRY AND COME UP EITHER.’ She twists the tap, runs the water and starts washing herself then panics and sprints back into the lounge to stare down at Paco staring up. ‘COCK,’ she tells him and runs back into the bathroom.

She cleans quickly before darting into the kitchen to grab the roll of kitchen paper and a mug of water then runs back into the lounge.

‘Why are you still there?’ She demands and rips several sheets of paper off the roll. ‘You can’t get in and I’m not coming out.’ She makes another ad-hoc tampon. ‘Got loads of food up here…tins and everything.’ She twists it into shape, bends forward and grunts while pushing it inside. ‘Don’t stare pervert.’

Paco continues to stare.

‘Fuck’s sake,’ she stands straight, grabs the mug and starts drinking the water. Her back hurts again and the cramps persist. She narrows her eyes over the rim of the mug, trying to assess what on earth is going on. She doesn’t say anything but acts suddenly nonchalant and disinterested, staring up into the sky then round at the street. She bursts away without warning. Running into the kitchen to grab tins from the cupboard, the tin opener, more water and the box of Nurofen before racing back into the lounge with her arms full. He’s still there. Staring up. Inert and silent. Still as dejected and forlorn as he was when she woke up.

‘See,’ she says, holding a tin up for him to see. ‘Got tins…’ she looks at the label and hides the distaste from her face. ‘Custard…yeah…nice custard,’ she scowls at him, giving him her best dirty look.

Heather opens the custard. She doesn’t like custard but taking the custard back now will be a show of defeat. She glances down to the thick gloopy yellow liquid. ‘Mmmm,’ she tells him, spooning the first mouthful up and into her gob. ‘So nice,’ she coughs at the texture and taste. ‘So good,’ she yacks but forces herself to swallow it. ‘Love custard,’ she informs Paco Maguire. She eats the next spoonful barely hiding the utter hatred for the vile evilness of it but she won’t back down, not when he’s watching her, like waiting to see her throw up or something. ‘S’nice,’ she gags and pauses at the tug in her throat that tells her she will puke if she puts another drop of that stuff in her mouth.

‘What else,’ she muses, covering the faux pas. ‘Look,’ she shows him. ‘Beans… and they’re Heinz and not supermarket ones…half the sugar and salt too.’

She eats the beans while making yummy noises and scowling at him at the same time as trying to ignore the need to piss. All that water last night. She crosses her legs, grunts and eats beans.

Paco stares up.

No good. She has to go. Like right now. She runs off again. Bursting away to sprint into the bathroom to sit on the toilet and release her bladder with a sudden sensation of relief. She wipes. Rinses her hands and runs back. He’s still there.

Heather pops the tablets from the pack and mouths two that get swallowed down with more water.

‘Yeah, your films are shit,’ she says spitefully, resuming the earlier conversation like it’s entirely natural. ‘Like you do the same thing in every film. Ooh look at me being all Paco Maguire beating everyone up in tight tops with my big arms and shagging all the women.’

Paco takes the critique without complaint.

‘And that serious one you did? That was shit. And that comedy action one with that English actor…that was shit too. I didn’t even watch them but everyone told me they were shit. Completely shit.’

She selects another tin, checks the label and starts winding the tin opener round the edge.

‘I prefer The Rock,’ she tells him. ‘And Vin Diesel…he’s way better than you. And…Statham is so much cooler than you are.’ The lid pops, she takes a fork and sticks it into the tuna. ‘Tom Cruise…awesome,’ she says with a mouthful of tuna in brine. ‘And Will Smith is like hot. Like so hot.’

Paco doesn’t show reaction to the comparison to his peers.

Heather puts the tin of tuna down. It’s too dry to eat without mayonnaise or at least some salad cream or some dressing. It’s stuck in her teeth too. She moves her tongue round her mouth trying to prise the bits of fish while staring down at the zombie in the street then at the bodies of the other zombies he threw out of the window. Why did he do that? Why didn’t he bite her or hurt her? He was with the others when she ran into them when they were howling.

‘So,’ she begins casually, as though making idle chit chat then stops herself from asking why he didn’t bite her. Even giving voice to that topic seems too dangerous and maybe it will spark him up. She pauses, desperate to fill the silence. ‘You’re in England then?’ She asks with an inward curse at the stupid question. ‘What for? Filming?’

Paco doesn’t explain his reasons for being in the country.

She leans out to look up and down the street. Listening intently. She stares across to the cinema then down to the shops opposite on the ground floor and the windows to the flats above them. An idea forms, a new one, a fresh one, a cunning one.

She looks round again, effecting the nonchalance then snaps her head to the block of flats directly opposite. She double takes, blinks, narrows her eyes and leans further out. She waves, hesitant at first then more exaggerated until her arm is pumping side to side.

‘HELLO!’ She shouts and casts a quick furtive look down. ‘HI! Over here…oh wow…other survivors.’

Paco doesn’t turn to look at the other survivors.

‘How many of you?’ Heather stage whispers so Paco can hear. ‘Five?’ She holds her hand up, splaying her fingers. ‘No six? Six yes? Six of you? Oh wow…six more survivors in that building opposite me. Hey….be careful because the front door is like wide open. I said WIDE OPEN…’

Paco doesn’t look at the wide open door.

Heather looks down at him and on thinking she’s caught his eye she nods up, discrete and casual. She does it again. Inclining her head to the building behind him. She points with a finger, jabbing the air several times while nodding more emphatically. She winks. Nods. Points. She pulls faces, urging him to look round at the building behind him. ‘Food,’ she whispers. ‘Fresh food…brains…breakfast…yummy…yummy for your tummy…right behind you…fuck’s sake.’ She huffs, sags and folds her arms. ‘This is stalking. You’re a stalker. Like harassment. If the world comes back I’ll tell everyone you did this.’

Paco doesn’t respond to being called a stalker.

This is like facing off against a spider that’s dangling in the doorway, trapping you in the room. You can’t go near it for fear of being savaged to death or even being touched by one of those eight spindly legs. You can’t kill it either as that’s not on. So you ponder and prevaricate and come with wild plans of unwinding wire coat hangers to stretch out and snag the web to move the creature somewhere else. Problem with that is the merest motion disturbs the air which makes the spider flinch or move which renders you once more frozen to the spot. Paco Maguire is a spider dangling in the doorway, but worse. He’s over six feet in height with shoulders like boulders and arms like Popeye who has already shown he can flick a big fat bastard out a window like it was nothing.

He’s stood right there. Right underneath her. Throw the telly down. Throw the coffee table and bash his head in. He’s infected, one of them. Heather bites her bottom lip, willing herself to do just that but he looks so bloody dejected and lost. Like a child almost. No, not a child as he’s a big man but that forlorn expression is like a puppy. That’s it. A puppy. Shit. Now she’s thought that she’ll never be able to throw the coffee table at his head. She thinks to last night when he lifted her off the floor one handed then held her out at arm’s length supporting her entire body weight. He’s big but even a very big man would struggle to do that. The infection must have done something to his strength. Why didn’t he bite her?

A fresh cramp hits her belly making her bend forward grunting in pain. She closes her eyes, waiting for the spasm to pass while rubbing her stomach and moaning softly. Why do periods hurt so much? Christ this is the worst day ever, well maybe not as bad as last night but still.

He’s moved. She’s sure of it. He’s closer. Maybe only a step and he looks different too with his head cocked at an angle. The sad puppy now curious, more alert. She straightens up, staring hard. Has he moved? He has moved. She’s sure of it. The cramp persists, grinding through her gut. She shifts, lifting one shoulder to stretch her stomach with a blast of air sent through her nose that makes his head tilt another inch. If he wasn’t an infected zombie in a war ravaged street full of dead bodies she’d think he looked almost concerned. Almost.

She hides the pain from her face. Forcing her body to stand straight but wanting only to curl up in a ball and cry. Emotion hits her. Raw and powerful that sweeps through her heart with a surge that makes her want to sob. She’s still half-naked in someone else’s flat with kitchen roll shoved in her vagina. The very thought makes her feel dirty, like every pore is clogged with grime. She longs to shower and rinse the sweat away and feel clean but instead she has to watch him. Why doesn’t he move? Attack or do something? What does he want?

‘Go away,’ she says it again but with real feeling this time. A real request that comes from the heart. ‘Please,’ she pleads, bending forward to hold her weight on the windowsill. The pain is horrible, stabbing and both dull and sharp at the same time. Her mind fills with memories of the church and the long days spent lounging about watching the dust particles hang in the rays of light coming through the stained glass windows. You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone and too late. Mistake after mistake. Mistakes compounded and made worse. Hiding in plain sight? She should have run and kept going but some bloody stupid spark of an idea made her run in here.

In the depths of misery she keeps an eye on the man below but he doesn’t move or do anything but stands staring with his arms hanging limp and his head cocked slightly to one side.

‘Fuck off,’ she gasps in teary frustration. ‘Please just fuck off…’ The thought of him watching her in this misery is too much so she backs away into the lounge but instantly worries he’ll do something while she’s not watching. When she looks again he’s still there in exactly the same place.

Yoyo emotions. Up and down. Angry. Upset. Pissed off. Tearful. Frustrated. Morbid. Stabbing pains that shift about her stomach that feels even more bloated now. She leans forward again, leaning on the sill while shoving her arse out in an attempt to find a position that doesn’t hurt.

She farts.

She farts without warning. A physical reaction to the food, the exercise, the heat, the period and a hundred other things that cause the gases inside to become trapped and by leaning forward and sticking her arse out so the gas finds the way clear and escapes from an orifice that vibrates as it passes.

It’s not even a quick fart but a long one. She tries to clamp it off but it keeps coming. A raspberry blown that sounds so clearly in the otherwise silent street. She blushes instantly and stares in horror at Paco Maguire as the fart ends and plunges them both back into a profound silence. She just farted. She did. She farted in front of another human being. Embarrassment hits and a wish for the ground to open up and if a horde attacked right now she’d go willingly and without complaint to avoid being here in this second.

Time passes. The opportunity to blame something else comes and goes. She could have pretended it was someone else in the flat. A dog or a man. She could have laughed it off and played it cool but none of those things can happen now. Instead she lifts her head up and arches an eyebrow with a pathetic attempt at clawing back some dignity.

‘I hate you.’ Venom drips from her tongue as she turns away to fold her arms and sob.

Eleven

A morning gone. A morning spent flitting between shouting angrily, crying, farting, running to the toilet and all the time staring at an infected former Hollywood actor staring up. One who doesn’t move, twitch say or do anything.

Now she sits on a wooden chair dragged to the window sill that has become a make-shift table to hold the tins, cups, cutlery, bags of crisps, snacks, chocolate bars and Nurofen. She actually feels much better in a post-explosion of temper and emotions kind of way. Like the relief that comes after having a big argument that clears the air when you’ve said all the things that have been building up for ages.

Heather sighs at the relief of having also had a poo. She felt the need coming on and did everything she could to hold it in but the body wants what the body wants. It was perhaps the quickest poo ever in the history of womankind. She sprinted. Sat. Voided. Wiped. Rinsed and sprinted back. That and having eaten, drank lots of water and taken more Nurofen all combine to bring a much needed sense of calm back to her troubled mind.

Paco stands in a similar status quo of gained equilibrium. Dumb as a house brick and as stupid as the day is hot.

It is hot too. Very hot. Hotter than yesterday and she sweats just sitting still. Mind you, the sun is pouring into the room. She thought about taking her top off but that would mean sitting in her bra. Which ain’t gonna happen. Not for all the tea in China or wherever tea comes from these days. Or where it used to come from. You know, before the whole zombie thing happened.

What to do? She’s checked the windows on the other side of the flat and they’re straight drops down. There is no back door. The only way out is through the door into the street. Plans come and go. The wire coater hanger to remove the spider is the sticking point that remains. If she moves she might prompt him to do the same.

‘That western with Clint Eastwood,’ she tells Paco. ‘The Good The Bad and The Ugly? Wasn’t that famous for a stand-off? Did you ever meet Clint Eastwood? He’s so cool. Loved everything he did.’

She rests her chin on her hands with her elbows propped on the sill. ‘I never really liked Burt Reynolds though. He was handsome but always came across like a dick, do you know what I mean? Who else do I like? Oh I used to love that bloke from Gladiator…Russel er…anyway but nah, I went right off him. Keanu Reeves. Now that is a good actor. Why couldn’t it be Keanu Reeves stalking me? I’d be down there like a shot. Hey Keanu you can bite my neck just here and then here and maybe here…’ She snorts at the image. ‘Oh oh…I know who I like. Dicaprio. He is just oh. My. God. Just…just…yeah I like him. Wolf of Wall Street? That is so funny and god, did you ever watch Titanic again? He looked so young! Mind you he was young wasn’t he?’ She stops to sip water that she swishes in her mouth before swallowing. The act of which makes her look down at Paco who has now been standing in the heat for several hours. Is he thirsty? Do they even get thirsty? What about hunger or needing a wee or a poo? His throat looks awful. Must hurt like hell and the other injuries look bad too. That bite on his arm from the woman last night in the office looks raw. He’s covered in cuts and bruises. Maybe he’ll keel over and just die in a minute. She huffs and drinks more water.

Motion catches her eye and she glances idly to look down the street to see the woman walking down the centre of the road. Long greasy hair matted and filthy. A torn dress covered in blood. Arms hanging limp but her head is fixed and staring ahead. Everything about her screams infected. She’s bare footed and her right calf has been bitten deep.

The sense of security vanishes in a heartbeat with an absolute belief that this is why he hasn’t attacked. He’s been waiting for back-up, for more to come and help while he kept her trapped.

Adrenalin starts to surge as plans form to fortify the front door. Drag the coffee table, the sofa and the heavy bedroom furniture to barricade and buy time. Knot the bed sheets and when they attack climb out and drop down. Why hasn’t she done that already? Why didn’t she barricade the door when she woke up? More mistakes made that she curses herself for as she stands straight to watch the woman coming. She goes to turn, to run and start doing what she should have done before but Paco’s movement catches her eye. His head turning. Just his head that swivels to stare down to the woman walking towards him. A single motion but the only one he has done and the way he does it changes his whole manner and bearing. He stands straighter, arms tensing, fists clenching and the puppy vanishes the second he pivots his body to face down the street.

Heather doesn’t move but remains rooted to the spot. Unable to drag her eyes from him and when the snarl comes it makes the hairs on the back of her neck prickle while a chill runs down her spine.

The infected woman keeps coming. Her red bloodshot eyes fixed on Paco as her hands go from floppy to clawed talons and her lips pull back to show brown teeth. She speeds up. A distinct acceleration of legs moving faster. From static to running and Paco surges down the street with a burst of power that makes Heather’s heart beat faster and harder.

‘Fuck,’ she whispers into the room as Paco slams into the infected woman with the sound of meat hitting meat. The woman is sent sprawling to roll and tumble from the impact but Paco presses on with one hand grabbing an ankle. A mighty twist and he back steps, yanking her up off the ground to be sent flying across the road into the side of the van Heather looked at last night. She hits with a sickening crunch of bones and slides down to a messy heap. Paco runs in, stamping again and again. Snapping bones that crack audibly. His feet pummelling and destroying until the woman becomes a worthless unrecognisable lump of bloodied meat. Still he goes on with a rage exploding that makes him pick the woman up bodily to be lifted overhead then slammed back down into the hard surface of the road.

The shock of it makes Heather cover her own mouth to stifle the scream. She saw him doing the same thing last night but that was in the middle of a life and death chase. This is after hours of peace and quiet. A brutal explosion of violence to be seen and heard in every awful detail.

The woman is dead. That much is without doubt but Paco stares down. His fists bunched. His arms locked and tensed. His stance wide and challenging. Seconds tick by. Seconds of him seemingly making sure the ruined woman cannot rise again and only then does he turn away and stalk back to the same place he was before. He resumes his position with his chest falling to rise with hard breathing. His head turning to stare down at the mangled corpse. His eyes alive with something, not intelligence but something else. A pure energy that seems to pour from his body. Like an aura that surrounds him and fills the street. A guard dog. A puppy one minute and a guard dog the next. The threat is negated now though. The intruder is dead and so finally he turns away to stare back up at the window and Heather staring down with eyes wide and her hand still covering her mouth,

The comparison screams in her mind. A puppy to a raging guard dog and back to a puppy. Even his look is yearning. Did I do good?

Oh Christ. Oh my. Oh…she sags down onto the chair and stares in horror, her eyes flicking from him to the woman with several strands of thought whirling through her mind at the same time. The ease in which he killed the woman. The absolute and utter strength in him was terrible yet spectacular at the same time. Lifting an adult woman over his head as though she weighed nothing at all and the way he stamped and kept going without any shred of being human. He did what a dog would do. He destroyed the threat and made it not be a threat anymore. No less and no more. Those thoughts race one after the other. Did he protect her or mark his territory. Is this his prey to be hunted or something else happening? For a second she gets an almost overwhelming urge to walk down and stand in front of him. Just to see for herself. She’ll either die or not. A tendril of organic understanding but a ridiculous notion that she pushes down and away. Don’t be stupid. Going down there is suicide. You saw what he just did. The speed he moved. The way he killed. You wouldn’t stand a chance. Why doesn’t he come up then? Even if she barricaded the door he’d be through in seconds. His strength would batter a path with ease.

She can’t speak or form a coherent thought. Her legs shake with unused adrenalin still coursing through her veins. She trembles from head to toe while breathing hard as if it were her that just killed the woman.

Then another one comes. A man this time. Big and heavy like a builder with meaty shoulders and thick limbs. He’s out of shape but not obese. The sort of man she used to see on building sites carrying heavy loads all day long. The sort of man in jeans and work boots with a yellow jacket and a hardhat. Now he wears boxer shorts. The same boxers he was wearing when the infected got into his house and bit into his chest. He’s been walking all morning. Drawn to the centre from the action that was taking place last night.

Paco’s head turns the same way it did before. Puppy to guard dog. Arms tensing, fists clenching. Power bunching to explode out as he sprints hard towards the builder who in turn holds course until the last few seconds before charging at Paco. A big man against a big man but the result was decreed before time began. Paco mows him down. Literally steamrolling over the builder who is knocked flat only to be grabbed, hefted up and have his neck broken at the same time as a foot comes down to snap his knee joint from the rear. The body falls. Broken and dead. The head at an unnatural angle.

An image of last night sweeps into Heather’s mind. Of Paco doing his trademark move in the half shadows of the cinema office but to see it now, in broad daylight with the crack of the spinal column clear in the silent street is something else.

‘There,’ she shouts the instant she spots the rangy man running from the opposite direction. Alarm in her voice that makes Paco snap his attention to her then down to the older thin limbed creature loping towards him. A snarl and he’s off. Running to strike the same as before with an immense impact that sends the other infected flying off. Paco presses the attack, booting the body along the street until it hits a plate glass window that shatters to fall in wicked shards that slice deep into flesh. Paco pulls the bleeding snarling beast out by the arm. Dragging him along the road in a thick wake of blood pumping from the severed artery in the man’s thigh. He drops the wrist, turns and stamps down with a vicious action that crushes the head, killing the thing outright.

Heather watches it. As awful as it is, as sickeningly violent as seeing the people being killed is she cannot turn away and in those few seconds she absorbs the way Paco moves. His whole manner that of an animal but using his feet, legs and hands like a human would do, like he’s something between them and her. But more them. So much more them.

He comes back to his spot and once he’s looked round at his latest kills he turns to face up. The puppy looking at his master. Did I do good?’

Now. It has to be now. An instinct that must be obeyed but still she denies it and refuses to go leave the perceived safety of her refuge.

More come. More that have the hive mind within urging them to the centre. More that have festering injuries that writhe with maggots. More with greasy lank hair and hands clawed into talons. More that have spent the night and the day walking step after step, first towards the promise of a prey scented and then to cease the actions of one that cannot be controlled. The tension before increases and magnifies. It ramps to an altogether new level of infected creatures coming in from both sides.

Two women from the left. Twin sisters who were born together, lived together and died together to be turned and stalk the area for fresh hosts together. Identical in every way save for the injuries adorning their bodies. A teenage boy from the right. Spotty skin and wisps of beard showing on his chin. His nose bitten off that leaves a gaping hole. An old woman behind the twins. A taxi driver still with his badge on a lanyard round his neck comes behind the teenager.

Paco turns to stare first left then to the right and back to the left. Assessing. Watching. Scanning. A decision made and he goes for the teenage boy and taxi driver first. Bursting to sprint to run and charge with a gargled snarl that sounds from a damaged voice box. As he runs, so the others do the same. The boy, the cabbie, the twins and the old woman who all give speed to legs that come alive with energy sent pumping from an infection controlling every cell within their bodies. Rage inducing hormones are dumped into bloodstreams. Chemical production is ramped to surge that make them snarl and screech.

Noise fills the street. Paco running with his feet pounding on the road. Heather looks to the twins. A jarring view of her eyes trying to process what the brain wants to perceive as the same person but doubled. They’re aiming for Paco and not the door on the street that leads to her.

Without thinking, without conscious thought she grabs the wooden chair, flings it through the window and flinches in horror as it knocks the old lady to the ground. A split second later Paco grabs the teenager and sends him flying back into the cabbie.

‘BEHIND Y….’

She tries to scream the warning but Paco is already turning to meet the twins head on. Literally running smack into the middle like a rugby player trying for a run between two opposing players. The women go down with a thud. Snarling and hissing as Paco anchors on and twists to go back.

Heather frantically looks round the flat as the old woman starts to get up and as Paco starts to deal with the cabbie, the teenager and the twins so she sends a barrage of missiles down at the old lady. Empty tin cans at first. Then the mug she used to drink water that strikes the woman in her shoulder. She darts in, grabs the coffee table and heaves it over. The glass of wine and M&M’s slide off to land on the carpet. The table is flipped over so the broad top rests on the sill. She grips the edge, aims and grunts to send it sailing down twisting in the air. A corner hits the old woman’s skull, exploding it instantly with a shower of brains and blood as she goes down dead and finished.

Paco finishes the other four with ease. Snapping two necks and stamping the twins under a flurry of hard feet attached to strong legs that pivot from strong hips held in balance by a strong core. He checks his kills, staring from one to the other before walking back to his spot. His manner consumed with rage. His lips snarling, chest heaving, arms bulging with muscles now spattered with the fresh blood of his kills. The whole of him an animal that has no hesitancy to kill and keep killing but he looks up with an expression that morphs as his head tilts. Did I do good? Innocence shows with a heart-breaking vulnerability.

The resolution is formed. In that instant and in that second. She runs from the window to the corridor and with shaking hands she draws the bolts, unfastens the feeble security chain and starts running down the stairs. Halfway down her common sense kicks in, screaming to go back. She falters, slows and thinks to turn back but the resolution of her decision stands firm. A decision born by many factors all processed within the blink of an eye. Millions are dead. Tens of millions. The whole world has probably been hit. She’s seen death now. So much death that it will forever taint her soul and mark her dreams. She’s alive now though. She’s survived twelve days unscathed apart from last night and even that she walked away from and those infected she saw killed were people just like her. She’s had twelve extra days of life and Paco isn’t going anywhere. He’s shown that. He could stand there until she starves. More could come. Too many for him to fight and anyway, he can come in the second he chooses. The power is already in his hands. She’s alive only for the fact that man has chosen, for whatever reason, not to kill and turn her. So she keeps going. She heads down the flights of stairs to an inhuman beast that can tear people apart with his bare hands. She runs down knowing this is the worst mistake of her life so far. This is worse than leaving the church, coming to this forsaken town or hiding in this flat and getting herself trapped. This is the worst most stupid mistake she could ever make. This she knows. This she believes but being human is to be flawed and go against those thoughts. It’s the striving to do the stupid thing just to see what happens. Do it. Provoke it. Face it. Have grace and strength and do it with dignity with your chin held high. Stare death in the face and hold your nerve.

On the last flight down her legs become rubber. Her gut twists and drops to sink and flip. Her vision narrows. Blood pounds through her skull. She walks down the hallway and out into the bright sun with her face warped by fear. Her legs want to give way. Her chest becomes tight. Breathing air is too hard. She feels light heated. Sick. Worried.

He looks up. His face staring at the window where she was before. His head cocked over. His arms no longer tensed and his fists no longer clenched. His eyes flicker left and right as though looking and he takes a small shuffle forward.

‘Here,’ the word comes out choked and hoarse. Her jaw clamps shut as his head turns from staring up to staring down and over to rest his awful red bloodshot eyes on her. Instantly he settles and although he doesn’t change he just seems to relax into his stance. She is metres from him. She doesn’t dare blink but locks on and swallows to get moisture into her suddenly dry mouth. She flinches involuntarily with a shudder that makes her stumble then freeze. He watches her. His eyes never leaving her face. She takes in the size of him. His height and the width of his shoulders and the thickly muscled arms now hanging limp. He doesn’t twitch or move. He doesn’t blink but stands watching her. A puppy.

He’s so famous and that fame makes him familiar. The injuries to his neck make him awful yet the most powerful of all senses entering her mind is of a vulnerability.

She steps towards him with naked soft feet that come down on a small pebble that digs into the soft arch of her right foot.

‘Shit,’ she yelps, hopping back from the stabbing pain. He flinches, his head jerking up with a small step taken towards her. She falls back, hopping and yelping again. Worried about him and worried about her foot. He flinches. She yelps. He flinches again and steps closer. She warbles a low scream and hops back into the wall that jars her elbow that makes her cry out again. He flinches, blinking hard, shuffling closer. She backs into the wall, her foot in agony that she lifts to bend and rub at the very second of realising she is still half-naked with kitchen roll poking out between her legs. She starts with a jolt that makes him flinch that makes her yelp that makes him shuffle. She stands straight, closing her legs tight together, blushing furiously. Suddenly he’s too close, looming at her. She shies away, trying to push through solid bricks while pushing a hand out into his chest. That hand hits him mid-centre, bringing him to a sudden stop. Her breath catches in her throat from the contact made and the fact he doesn’t rip her arm from the socket to beat her senseless with. She pulls her arm back quickly with a wince.

‘Sorry,’ she grimaces, smiling, worried and frowning all at the same time.

He doesn’t move. He doesn’t kill her. She knows this as she is still alive and her foot really bloody hurts.

Arse. She didn’t think this far into the plan. She’s backed against a wall with a zombified Paco Maguire looming over her. He stinks too. Like so bad. She gags and turns her head away with tears pricking her eyes.

‘Could you,’ she coughs and tries to draw clean air. ‘Could you step back please?’ She asks ever so politely.

Paco doesn’t move.

‘Erm…um…just a bit?’ She asks, struggling to hide the disgust from the smell and the close sight of his awful injuries.

Paco doesn’t move. He just stares. His eyes fixed on her face.

‘Oh shit,’ she reaches up, stretching out to place a hand on his solid chest. ‘Just a bit?’ she asks again still ever so politely.

Paco still doesn’t step back. He looks down at the hand on his chest instead as though wondering what it is.

‘Just a step?’ she asks, pushing ever so slightly while speaking ever so politely while trying ever so hard not to vomit. She pushes harder. Paco doesn’t move. She huffs and tries a bit harder while offering him a wan weak smile. ‘Bit close…just go back a bit…’ She pushes harder then stands straight to generate a bit more force that’s sent down her arm into her hand pressing against his chest. ‘Look, Pal, you’re too bloody close,’ she says with an edge to her voice. ‘Go back…’ she pushes again then gets her other hand onto his chest to strain and grunt in an effort to lock her arms out and get him back. ‘Go back…just go back… PACO GO BACK.’

Paco moves back as Heather becomes aware of the level of force she is using against him. Her hands drop, she smiles and nods while looking casually left and right. ‘Er thanks?’ She offers weakly and slides out to freedom.

Paco turns. Tracking her movements as she walks out into the road and backs away from him to gulp air and bend over as though ready to spew.

‘You really stink,’ she mutters, waving a hand at him. ‘Like so bad…no no…’ she waves again, speaking firmly. ‘Stay there…’ he stops shuffling and watches. ‘Christ. When did you last wash?’

Paco doesn’t tell her when he last washed.

She recovers her wits and takes stock of the current situation of complete shittiness. Dead bodies everywhere. She’s half-naked and on her period. She looks at Paco, watching him intently.

‘Are you going to eat me?’ She asks outright, wanting to know right now exactly what his intentions are. ‘I probably taste really awful…I wouldn’t eat me,’ she adds quickly when he doesn’t answer. ‘Okay…can I assume you are not going to eat me? No? Yes? Right so…if you say nothing, like if you stay quiet then I will take that as a solemn vow, like a contractual er…contract that you will not now, or at any point in the future, try and eat me…or hurt me…or kill me…or do anything to me. Agreed?’ She nods at him. ‘Agreed?’ She nods again. ‘Paco? Is that agreed?’ She nods harder. Her eyes fixed on his. He doesn’t reply. ‘Good,’ she claims the agreement anyway after giving due time for any objections to be raised and discussed. ‘Glad we er…got that sorted.’

She watches him watching her while wondering what the hell she is meant to do now. She came down here and confronted him but now what? Now? Now she needs to get out of this town as fast as humanly possible while drawing the least amount of attention to herself. She looks at the door to the flat with a half-forming intention to head back upstairs then remembers the flat isn’t hers and nothing in it is hers either. She looks at Paco again, round at the street and the dead bodies then over to the broken windows of the shops and finally down at her own bare legs with a list already being written in her head.

Clothes. Bag. Stuff to go in the bag. Get out.

Good.

Got a plan.

Twelve

She walks fast. Desperate to be away from this town and having given only the barest of thought as to direction or route.

The strangest thing was that she started to walk off and turned to see him still standing there. For a second she worried he wouldn’t follow her and that she had misread the entire situation. It was an absurd second of abject worry that gave her as much concern as coming down to confront him in the first place. What if he was waiting for someone else? Maybe he knew someone who lived in that block?

Then he twitched as though realising she was going and started trotting after her. Of course she tutted and rolled her eyes to show she wasn’t happy at being followed but the corners of her mouth did curl ever so slightly. Not that he saw. She’d turned away by that point.

Now she rushes on past the precinct while trying to tug the hem of her top down to cover her bare arse. Got to get clothes. Got to get a bag and some shoes. Got to get out of here. Which is most important? Which one takes priority? She can’t run about half nudey but this place is too full of infected to hang about browsing for new clobber.

She tugs harder, stretching the material that pings back to shape the second she lets go. Is he looking at her arse? She glances back but spots only the puppy look on his face. Christ, there’s bodies everywhere. This town has really suffered. Every window is smashed and every door is bust open. Maybe she should get into the smaller side streets and away from the main road? Is he looking at her arse? She checks again and frowns at his puppy face while tugging her top down. She huffs and puffs, sighs and scans the sides. The tarmac is so hot under her feet and the sweat is already pouring from her face from a crushing humidity.

Maybe she could grab some clothes now. Like really quickly. Grab some knickers, socks, a bag, water and whatever else she can find instantly. Shorts, trousers, jeans. Anything will do. She speeds up, wincing at the pain in her feet from the debris left on the road and the hot tarmac tenderising the soft skin of her soles. She glances back trying to catch him leering at her backside. He is Paco Maguire after all. He just stares dumb as a house brick and stupid as the day is hot.

Instantly recognisable signs for stores pass by. New Look. Topshop. Next. All looted and looking dangerously empty with blood stains on windows and doors. She passes Dorothy Perkins, River Island, John Lewis and Debenhams but they’re all the same. Keep going. Get out of the town and find clothes later.

She lasts another two minutes before her feet scream for her to stop and find shoes. The tarmac is too hot. The stones are too sharp and she’s at risk of cutting her skin on a road already covered in dried blood. That thought makes her come to a sudden stop with the concept of walking on infected blood without shoes and anyway, she’s sure he’s looking at her bum.

TK Maxx. That’ll do. The door is smashed in but the window is intact despite the thick smear of crimson going across the full width of the plate glass. She tries to listen but hears only Paco’s breathing so takes a step away to gain distance from him. He steps too. She recoils from the whiff and scans round before darting through the ruined doorway.

Instant relief comes from the shade inside and the linoleum floor is several degrees cooler than the super-heated tarmac. She sniffs as though trying to detect any foul smells of anything inside but smells only Paco shuffling in behind her. She looks at him again, at the injuries to his neck and the skin on his face covered in grime, filth and looking wrinkled like he’s sunburnt and very dehydrated. His lips are cracked. His teeth stained and filthy. His beard matted with dried saliva. Every inch of his skin is either cut, bruised, bitten or just plain dirty and his hands are encrusted with black dirt and dried blood.

She treads softly to walk down the width of the store to see down the aisles, making sure there is no one else here. The air is musty, like it was in the flat when she went in and she looks down to the layer of undisturbed dust on the floor then back to track hers and Paco’s footprints from the main door. That’s a good sign. Now move fast, get what you need and go.

She goes for shoes first. Searching for a pair of sturdy yet lightweight hiking shoes, walking shoes or trainers. Something that she can run in but that won’t let broken glass through to jab into her foot. A pair of grey and purple things are grabbed. She checks for size then rushes on towards the underwear section but veers off on seeing the bags hanging from hooks.

Christ, this is a dream come true. The place has hardly been touched. At any other time in her life this would be heaven. To peruse at one’s own pace and take whatever you want would be bliss. Now it’s an act of necessity pushed on by an urge to get out.

A rucksack is taken and unzipped. She goes for the underwear and takes a box marked with her size. It gets opened, the three pairs inside are pulled out as she realises she’s gone for thongs from force of habit. They get lobbed away and it takes seconds longer to find normal pants. Actual normal pants that have a backside. She finds them, gets the box open and pulls the garments free and only on bending over to pull a pair on does she stop and realise Paco is right there staring at her. She scowls at him and hops on the spot with one leg through to turn away and quickly yank them up. More multi-pack boxes of knickers are opened and pushed into the bag.

Trousers. She charges off with a glance at the door then remembers she needs bras and spins to go back but stops dead with her nose at his chest. She balks, back-steps and apologises before veering round him with a frantic look in case he’s decided to break the contract and eat her.

Paco just shuffles round and stares.

She looks for bras. Bras are important. They keep boobs in place. White shows the dirt too quickly so she looks for black but finds only lacy frilly things. She searches on then stops and spins away to look for sports bras and once again runs into Paco. She tuts, veers and goes round him while gagging from his stench to the other stand and the boxes of lycra sports bras. Perfect. She opens a box, tugs one out and goes to pull her top off with the mindset still in place of the obedient puppy. Something changes. The air charges. She turns while gripping the hem of her top ready to pull it up to see him staring at her hard with his eyes now sharp and the veins in his arms pushing through the skin on his tensed arms. She backs away with fear building in her face, ready to turn and flee but he moves faster. Exploding to a run with such speed she screams and drops to curl into a ball on the linoleum floor. His feet pound past her head so close she flinches and rolls to get under a rail of clothes. A second later she hears the impact of meat against meat followed by the crash of a wooden plinth going over. She gets on all fours, staring wildly through the gaps to see a pair of legs running at another pair of legs that suddenly aren’t there anymore. A grunt and the body is dumped on the floor to be followed by a foot coming down to stamp into a neck that breaks instantly.

On her feet and she spots the infected male writhing to get free of the smashed plinth that he was thrown into as Paco turns from the one he killed. Figures run past the window. Several of them that she hears at the point of seeing. Another rail goes over from a male sent flying by a solid arm smashing him in the face.

The door fills with more coming in. More snarling figures with lips pulling back and hands clawed into talons that charge at Paco who charges back with his own mangled growl.

She grabs the bag, the clothes and runs bent double through rails and down aisles. Her heart hammering to get away and hide. Hide. Find somewhere and hide. She spots a door and runs, skidding on the floor frantic and wild. She gets through and down a corridor bordered on both sides by three quarter length doors made of slatted wood. She crashes through, gets the door closed and flicks the hook over before dropping and shuffling back into the corner to draw her knees up and cry.

Without vision the sounds are magnified to be worse than ever before. Twisted inhuman voices that howl and screech. Thumps and bangs rip through the store that seem to vibrate the walls. The big window goes through with a crashing noise that makes her sob harder and draw her knees closer. Wood splinters. Rails ping metallic and dull. Bones broken with sickening crunches. Wet sounds are mixed in. The tearing of flesh and heads bursting open. Her mind runs wild, full of images of infected ripping flesh in a frenzy of rage. She covers her ears, pressing her hands into her skull to blot the noises. Rocking back and forth while thick tears course down her face but the noises get closer. Something crashes into the corridor. Something else comes after it that stamps and breaks it apart. Doors are smashed down. Bodies impacting on the floor. Feet running then stopping and all the time those awful voices hissing, snarling, growling and gargling as they drown in blood.

The silence that comes is sudden and with an absolute end that is all the more evil. Feet move outside. Feet walking that crunch down coming closer and closer. She scrabbles back, pushing to drive into the wall while staring at the gap at the bottom of the three quarter wooden slatted door.

The feet come into view. His feet. Paco’s feet. He stops and turns in and without being able to see him her imagination goes into overdrive. Her mind fills with the belief that he’s turned back to what he is. She hears his breathing that comes hard and fast. She sees the blood dripping that pools on the floor next to his feet. He shuffles forward to press his body into the door that creaks and starts to give. She stares up, terrified by what she cannot see. He pushes harder. Forcing pressure on the two tiny screws holding the hook in place. They give and the door slams open to smash into the wall. She flinches and stares in horror at the blood pouring down from the fresh bite on his scalp and the cuts on his arms, shoulders and legs. His fists unclench slowly and the arms relax that slacken the bulge of the muscles. Did I do good?

She sobs into her knees. Wishing to be anywhere but here. She can’t move but she has to get up. On shaking legs she rises to stand and look at him. Not a flicker of aggression shows on his face. Just softness and vulnerability.

‘Okay,’ she whispers, trying to firm her resolve. Get changed and get out. She strips in front of him. Shaking from head to toe, half aware of being naked and half not caring. There has been too much fright, too much adrenalin. She pulls her top off and turns round to unfasten her filthy bra that gets dropped to the floor. She tugs a sports bra on, a fresh top, jeans, socks and then finally the grey and purple rugged trainers that get laced and tightened. She fills the bag with hands that shake constantly and with arms that tremble. Finally she faces him, knowing she has to get past to get out.

‘Move back please,’ she asks hoarse and low, avoiding his eyes. ‘Paco, move back,’ she says firmer, louder. He doesn’t move. She waves for him to go back but still he doesn’t shift. She wants to sob again. She draws air and moves in, pushing her hand into his chest that instantly makes him walk back.

‘Thank you,’ she says curtly and falters for the merest of seconds at the broken bloodied bodies littering the corridor. She walks on. Stepping round the blood and out into the now devastated store. Every rail has gone over. Every plinth is smashed. The counter is destroyed. Blood spattered up the walls and blood on the floor that leaks from mangled corpses. She pays no heed but walks with her head down as her senses struggle to cope with the things she has seen and heard this last night and day.

Paco follows. His eyes forever stuck on her form as he passes unaware through the dozen people he just tore limb from limb.

Thirteen

She stares down at the pavement with her heart fracturing into a thousand pieces that crumble down into the void where her soul used to be. She becomes numb, deaf and blind and trying desperately not to believe this is a purgatory that will continue for ever more. A never ending walk through a town that runs thick with blood. Tears fall from her eyes but she doesn’t weep or wipe them away but waits until Paco follows her out of the shop to stand swaying in front of her. She looks up, seeing his chest heaving and the skin on his face looking drawn and tight. He mouths too, opening and closing his jaw. Not like he wants to speak but something else that she can’t understand. She doesn’t try either but stares at the blood pouring down his arms and hands. So much blood. She can’t tell what’s his and what’s from the kills.

A need to break the silence but shock renders her quiet. Instead she walks on in her new shoes with her new bag on her back. He trails behind. Stinking and breathing heavily. All that matters is leaving this town and getting out. Just that. A singular objective to be reached with a monster that clings to her wake to kill the other monsters.

She hooks her thumbs into the straps on her shoulders and drops her head to stare down at her new shoes that walk one step after the other.

They almost reach the end of the road before the next attack comes. Nine of them this time. Not as many as in the shop but these look different. Five adult males. Three adult females and one child walking shoulder to shoulder in one line across the road in a sight that is the most terrifyingly morbid thing Heather has ever seen. They have order and purpose which makes them seem so much more powerful and deadly and even the sight of the child doesn’t diminish the visual impact. If anything it makes it worse.

She feels Paco change without needing to look. Like in the shop it’s as though the air around him becomes charged with static. When she does glance he is staring past her with that sharpness back in his eyes flicking left to right to take them all in as though assessing the threat with his lips pulling back to show teeth stained with blood.

She waits for him. This is the order of things now. She doesn’t know why but only that to get out of this town she has to wait for this monster to kill the other monsters. He doesn’t move but watches and in that second it’s as though she can take in every detail of his form. The cuts and nicks to his face. The darker shades of bruises. The skin around his right eye all swollen and puffy. His lips are cracked and dry. His clothes torn and hanging like rags. Heather stares as numb as before but with the belief that Paco will kill them and keep going until she can finally get away and hide. All that matters is surviving and leaving this town. Just that.

The nine come on at a pace that seems to take forever until Paco strides past her with a motion that seems to provoke a reaction that makes them charge and they come fast. Incredibly fast with a speed that makes her heart miss a beat as she sinks back into the wall.

Their line collapses to flank and come in at Paco from all sides. Of the five men, two are big and strong. Workmen like the builder. One is old with mottled skin and wispy hair and by rights he should be in a care home feeding through a straw. Instead he moves as fast as the others. One of the women is big with a solid frame, meaty thighs and heavy breasts that swing side to side as she runs. The other two look like normal mothers. Early thirties with short hair and creased faces from the stresses of modern living. The child is ten. Gangly and thin but with something awful and terrible in the evilness projecting from his eyes. They rush to impact at the same time and as strong and seemingly indestructible as Paco appears, even he cannot withstand the surge and goes down in a savagely violent flailing of limbs. Nine mouths and eighteen hands find skin to bite and gouge with a determined effort to draw blood and weaken him. His hands find the throat of the old man sinking in to rip it free with the first kill given. The heavy naked woman dives forward to cover his body with hers as she tries to bite down. She is next to be killed when his mouth finds the side of her neck that he bites to open the artery. Two kills given in seconds but the others keep biting and writhing while the fat woman’s dying corpse pumps blood into his mouth. A foot boots the child away. He gets a hand gets free, whacking another woman to be sent sagging back. Mere seconds are gained before the child rushes to sink his teeth into Paco’s leg.

Heather watches and waits for Paco to get up and finish them. His feet will stamp and his arms will break necks. He’ll fling the men aside and make the street run with more blood. He doesn’t feel pain or fatigue. He is one of them. A monster. All that matters is getting out and finding somewhere to hide.

He had gained an equilibrium with the infection suppressing the memories and images while something in him suppressed the urge to bite and infect but that equilibrium now tilts and swings side to side with increasing speed. Images and memories surge in to ebb away. Depth of feeling then nothing. A rush of emotion then a void. He thrashes wildly to rid the weight pinning him down with a fresh surge of unrestrained strength pulsing through his body. In the midst of the frenzy he finds a head that gets wrenched with a dull crack that reaches Heather still frozen to the spot.

It shifts again. Flashes of memory come back. Feelings, sounds, smells and sights. A dog. A woman. Another shift and the hint of the man fades to be the beast.

He rallies. Fighting harder than even Heather has seen before. Pain means nothing to him. His feet batter and his fists hammer. His head smashes into soft bodies that sink back from the barrage. He gets on all fours then on his knees and rises up onto his feet in a sight that makes Heather’s heart thrill and whump in her chest. He stamps down to break a neck but one of the women is on his back biting into his shoulder. He pulls her overhead to be smashed down into the ground. Another one on his leg biting hard gets shaken loose and kicked away. A man running from the side is flung into a wall. He is winning again. He will kill them all and come back to drool and be a puppy.

He does win. He kills them one by one but for each kill so he is bit, cut, raked and gouged. In the intense heat of a street made worse by high buildings and lack of any breeze he fights and wins. The nine become corpses the same as all the others as Paco sways and mouths while gulping air into his lungs. His fists clench and loosen then clench again. His muscles bulging but covered in filth. Finally he turns and walks back to Heather. His feet dragging on the road. His head drooping but he comes back the puppy to stare and wait.

She looks past him to the bodies then up to the deep blue sky. It’s so hot. She’s sweating just standing still. She needs water. She walks on, going wide round the mess in the road to reach the other side. Paco follows. His breathing easing slowly. Becoming less ragged and more normal but he still stinks. He stinks so bad. Everything here stinks. This town stinks. She wishes she never came here.

The next attack comes seconds later. Two men and a woman that come pumped and charging to die as Heather sinks back into the wall to wait until it’s finished.

A few more steps. A small distance gained and they come again. Four males from ahead that Heather stares at emotionlessly as Paco stamps two of them to death while the others bite into his shoulders and rake his arms. He kills them the same as all the others. One with a neck twist that severs the spinal column and the other decapitated by a shard of glass from a plate glass window he is thrown through. Paco comes back. His head lolling side to side. His mouth yawing open and closed. His eyes blinking rapidly. She walks on.

She doesn’t stop walking when the next attack comes from behind but keeps on with her head down and only slows when it goes quiet and then only long enough for Paco to catch up.

So it goes. All the way down the street with ones and twos coming from the front and the back that get killed. All that matters is getting out of the town. Nothing else. She waits when she has to and keeps on when she can. Paco does the work. He is the monster.

Then it’s done and they reach the edge of the town centre to make a thankful transition into suburbia where the buildings are smaller and that feeling of being trapped starts to ease. Minutes go by without a snarling beast in sight, other than Paco that is and he doesn’t snarl now but shuffles with feet scuffing the ground while his arms hang limp. Heather scans ahead, the sides and the back and stays quiet. Listening intently. She knows this town isn’t big so it doesn’t matter which direction they go. Eventually they will reach the safer countryside.

The houses here look damaged the same as the rest and it takes a while for her to realise those signs of damage are increasing. Doors to houses broken and wide open. Windows smashed with the curtains hanging out. Bodies too that get more numerous with every street they enter.

Paco starts to react with that shifting equilibrium still struggling to gain an even keel. He whimpers and makes noises through a damaged voice box while his older injuries keep healing and his fresh ones clot the blood and start to scab. Not that Heather notices that rate of healing. She’s too focussed on passing from the risk of instant death that was the town centre to the doom laden air hanging over the suburban streets. She takes it all in with eyes that flicker from the shiny spent bullet casings to the pockmarks in the walls and houses. More bodies with every corner they reach. Bodies that have been gunned down and shot to bits. A dead man catches her eye and makes her look harder. The way he’s lying on his back with his throat so torn up. She edges closer, taking in the puncture wounds and bite marks then looks again at Paco’s neck. They’re the same injuries. She’s sure of it. For a second she forgets she’s staring at a corpse but takes in the pattern of teeth marks and the way the flesh has been torn. Like an animal has taken a grip with its mouth then ragged side to side. When she looks round she spots more of the same but with differing levels of results. Some have had their throats ripped out completely, leaving gaping and now festering wounds.

Whatever killed them attacked Paco. Her mind fills with an image of a wolf but this is England. We don’t have wolves here. We don’t have any wild animals other than foxes and badgers and they sure as shit don’t tear throats out. Badgers would if they could but they rather lack the height. She looks quickly round to check the ankles of the fallen in case they too are savaged and bitten with a sudden idea of an errant zombie fighting badger ripping infected off their feet to chew on necks. No. All the ankles look okay.

Bullets everywhere too. Piles of them that mark where the shooters stayed still then scattered trails as the people ran on.

She spots other injuries from looking so closely. Injuries that haven’t been done by guns or badgers or wolves. Dogs! Why didn’t she think of it before? The idea pings in her head with the realisation that a big dog could easily bite like that. Like a police dog or something. Yes. Now she thinks of it so it makes sense. Bullets and dogs. It must have been the army or the police, maybe both of them came through here. Paco was bitten by a police dog. She remembers she was looking at the other injuries of limbs that have been cut off and throats cut. Bladed weapons did that for sure. Who on earth would get that close to cut a throat? What about the limbs chopped off? You’d need swords for that, or machetes, or axes. Something big with a long blade. The police don’t use swords. They use batons and pepper spray and anyway, most of the police she ever saw were fat. The army don’t have swords. Who uses swords? Knights? We don’t have knights these days. They’d be fat knights who moaned about pay and conditions if we did have them. They’d have formed a union and refuse to work on Sundays.

So. Someone came through here shooting guns, using swords or big bladed weapons and they had dogs. Whoever it was killed a lot. Really a lot. Like lots and lots. The trail of bodies get thicker and she spots garden fences that have been pulled down or ran through with obvious lines of attack. What she doesn’t spot is Paco yawing his mouth and twitching with memories as he walks through the place he died in. Images and memories whirl in his mind. Feelings and emotions. The image of a dog. The essence of a dog. He can see the dog. He can smell her, feel her but only deep inside and not on any level that makes sense. He was here. He fought here. His legs drag more. His arms hang heavier and as time draws and the heat of the day builds so his head begins to droop.

She spots the centre of the battle. A garden where every fence is destroyed and the bodies lie thicker and denser in almost concentric circles. She stops to look as Paco twitches with spasms rocking his rapidly fatiguing body. It’s silent in this place. No birdsong. Not a breeze or gust of wind to disturb the morbidity. Flies everywhere hovering to drop and lay eggs. She doesn’t know she stares at the spot Paco went down to wake up in the true state of being. Paco doesn’t know either. Not on a conscious level. Inside, deep inside where the flashes strobe his mind there is a signal desperately trying to be understood. Instead he spasms, sways and finds his eyes growing heavier while his mouth yaws.

Heather shudders with distaste showing on her face as the smell of Paco and this place sink in. She blanches, pulling her head back then scowls and walks on.

Paco follows. His eyes flicking to the garden that means something that means nothing. Heather leads him down the street and away. Away from here. Away from a memory that keeps trying to take root.

‘Thirsty,’ Heather mutters with a need to make sound to drive the demons of this place back. ‘Need a drink.’ She won’t stop here. Not anywhere near this terrible place. She’d rather be thirsty than suffer another second here so she pushes on. Thumbs hooked into her bag straps while Paco staggers drunkenly behind.

Fourteen

If the transition from town centre to residential streets was profound, the move from urban to rural is more so. Markedly more so. The houses get bigger and the gaps between them increase until they are passing more hedge than brick.

So too the smell eases. The noises of nature return. Birds singing and things mooching about in undergrowth snuffling and freezing as they hear the footsteps of Heather’s new shoes and Paco’s dragging feet.

The human mind is an incredibly complex thing that constantly assesses the needs of the body and now the perception of immediate safety has been gained so she processes what she needs next. Water, food, shelter. Water and food can be taken from houses or farms. Whatever they pass. Now that she has Paco it should be safe enough to grab what’s needed. He’s just killed like hundreds of them so the odd infected farmer won’t be anything to worry about. What about shelter? She could head for the church but if truth be told she has no clue as to what direction that is. She went in the town one way and came out another. She never did have a good sense of direction and the overwhelming barrage to her senses since last night have robbed any idea of where she is in time and space.

She rules the church out and forms a loose decision to look for somewhere like the church. Somewhere quiet. Rural. Detached. A good view all round. Running water. Has to be strong. What about Paco? She thinks to the night ahead and the prospect of spending the hours of darkness in the same room as him. God no. That isn’t happening. For a start he stinks, he might also get hungry and decide to nibble on her leg or something and besides, everyone knows Paco Maguire is a womanising git. Just because he’s infected it might not stop him trying to poke his willy about. Where will he sleep? He needs to be close but not too close. Maybe like last night? He can stay outside while she sleeps inside, behind a locked door, with a knife. She flinches inwardly at the thought of using a weapon. The shotgun was bad enough and even that she ditched and chose to run instead. Thank god she did too. What if she had tried to reload and shot Paco? She’d now be in the digestive tract of several infected people and become zombie poo. Do they poo? Are they even alive? They’re zombies so they’re undead right? What determines life? A heart? She’s seen enough blood since last night to know they bleed. So in order to bleed they must have beating hearts. A beating heart means they are alive. What about their brains? Maybe they’re brain dead. Well obviously they’re brain dead but not completely brain dead. The brain controls everything. Without a brain there can’t be anything. Patients can be kept alive on life support machines but without brain activity they’re effectively a goner. You hear it all the time. People in vegetable states. Or is it vegetative states? States of vegetation? Anyway, the point is that without the brain you shouldn’t be able to move or do anything. The infected don’t have fine motor skills. Like they can’t eat with a knife and fork for a start but they can bloody well run about and compute sensory input like vision and hearing. Okay, so they aren’t brain dead or heart dead so they ain’t dead. Deadish. Like a bit dead. A bit brain dead. She fixes on the grand picture of life now and the unanswerable issues instead of facing with the harsh reality of what she just went through. That is too big, too recent and too damaging to hold in her mind. Instead she flits from one random subject to the next while walking down a new country lane bordered by high hedges and surrounded by rolling fields, meadows, thickets, copses and woods all wilting under a blistering sun that seems to be drawing moisture from every pore in her body.

She huffs, sighs and blows air out through her cheeks and makes another life affirming decision that she is going to stop at the next house and find water. Definitely. For sure. For real. This is fact.

She’s hit from behind. Not hard but enough to scare the wits out of her so much she yelps and bursts away with the absolute knowledge that she is about to be killed. After a few strides she risks a glance back at the attackers to see Paco stumbling across into the middle of the lane. He stops, looks up to find her then sets off with an adjustment of aim. There’s nothing else there. No other infected. While her heart tries to beat out of her sweat soaked chest she watches him closely and stays ready to flee. He looks different. He’s moving differently. Slower. His head is drooping and he veers off again into the middle of the lane before once more stopping to gain the proper direction. What’s with his legs? Why is he dragging his feet so much?

‘Come on,’ she urges softly. His head lifts at her voice and he seems to respond with an increase in speed while keeping his eyes locked on her. He must have tripped or snagged his foot on a stone. This she decides while ignoring the obvious fact that Paco is about to collapse. She sets off, still ignoring it. She walks on, blithely refusing to acknowledge that it must have been a couple of hours since she last turned to look at him and in that time he has deteriorated massively. He looks worse than ever. His eyes are swelling. His lips are cracked and dried. His skin has become tight to his skull making his eyes look sunken and deep. The cuts and bites look raw too. His throat is a mess and he stinks. He really stinks.

Heather bites her bottom lip and slows down to let him catch up. When he does catch up she sets off again but the pace is slow. Painfully slow and his breathing is getting more ragged by the minute. She glances again but looks away from the terrible sight and the even more sudden and terrible prospect of losing him. What if he drops? He’s too heavy to carry and there is no way she’s even touching him with all that blood and gore on his body. Plus he stinks. He really stinks. She wouldn’t even be able to drag him, not without tearing his skin to bits on the road and he must weight a ton. Far heavier than her anyway. What if they get attacked again? He can’t fight like this. What if she finds a house and it’s got an infected inside? What then? Will he ping back to the guard dog or just keel over?

Life was better in the church. She should have stayed there and let Paco be a zombie with his zombie friends. She glances to see he’s dropped back again. His head sagging down and his shoulders slumped.

‘Paco,’ she keeps her voice soft, watching as his head lifts and his eyes find hers. She even smiles. Weak and wan but again it gives him a fresh burst that brings the puppy dog expression back. He catches up and this time she stays at his side. Her thumbs hooked through the straps on her bag as she walks slowly while looking at him slumping again. He veers off into her path making her step away quickly for fear of being touched. ‘Paco,’ she calls his name and he responds. His head coming up and trying to walk straight.

The more she becomes aware of the state of him the more she believes he will drop any second. He’s lost a lot of blood. She saw that for herself. He was injured and hurt last night and went down in the cinema and he’s been standing out in the sun all day plus killing anything that came near them. ‘Paco.’ His head lifts, his feet step and on he goes. ‘Keep going,’ she says after another couple of minutes. Her tone soft but falsely so. He will drop any second. There’s no way he can keep going. Not like this.

‘Hey,’ she says sharply, darting back when he veers off course towards her. ‘You can’t touch me,’ she points out and falls into step with a greater distance between them. ‘Just keep going.’

He doesn’t drop. He veers constantly. Slows, sags and falls back but he keeps moving. She calls his name constantly, forcing her tone to be soft and ignoring the pressure building up to find somewhere before night comes. As she gets stressed so the pains her stomach come back with fresh cramps. In alarm she remembers the kitchen roll still inside her being used to soak the blood up. When did she last change it? It’s meant to be every four hours. It must have been in all day and it’s not even a tampon but flimsy paper that will disintegrate. The urgency grows and she checks the sky as often as she looks at Paco now walking with his right eye swollen closed.

She looks round for power lines or any sign of a house nearby. The thirst builds. The heat gets worse. Paco gets slower. She considers ditching him then remembers the worry of meeting infected without him. There’s too many in this area to risk that. Worst case scenario if they do attack is to run and let them eat Paco. She bites her lip again and winces at the cramp, or is it just hunger and stress? She can’t tell which but only that he needs to hurry the hell up and stop going off course.

‘Paco,’ she whispers sharply. He comes back but almost straight away he fades again. Slouching back ready to drop. It’s no good. She looks round for a stick or something to poke him along with. Like a branch but they’re all annoyingly attached to bushes and trees. ‘Paco, come on,’ she whispers again. He gargles a sound and tries to focus but flounders and staggers to the side. She rushes in then stops before she actually touches him. An idea comes to mind and she slides the bag off to pull one of the sports bras out. Perfect. She lets it hang from one strap and looks at the other loop then at his left wrist.

It takes valuable time. The muscles in his forearms are big and taper down to his wrists which makes the strap slide down. She tries to lasso his hand then aims for the crook of his elbow until she finally tells herself to stop pissing about and goes in close to gingerly place the strap while leaning back from the gag inducing smell.

‘Come on,’ she clicks her teeth, encouraging the stubborn dog to go for a walk. He comes forward and stays on course while she walks backwards to keep the tension on. ‘That’s it…keep coming…good zombie…’ she pulls harder feeling the weight of his arm that lifts from his side. Too much, she slackens off and uses it to guide rather than to drag and that tiny touch of pressure is enough to keep him focussed. For a few minutes anyway. After that even the brassiere-leash doesn’t do any good. He slouches, slumps and sags with eyes rolling in the sockets.

‘Paco,’ she urges. ‘Come on,’ the softness in her tone drops away. ‘Move…come on…just keep moving…’ she snaps and harries him verbally and he tries, he tries to focus and go forward but she can see his body is giving up. ‘Move,’ she demands, injecting force into her voice to order him in the vain hope a harder tone will work. It gains another few steps before he shuffles to a swaying stop.

She turns on the spot with hands to her head in desperation wondering why she ever stopped wearing a watch. What time is it? It’s got to be early evening. Maybe another two hours at the most before the sun drops. She stares again at him, at his filthy blood covered body and the many open wounds. Actually, they’re healing over already. So that’s good, at least he’s not actually bleeding now. Must have thick blood. There’s nothing for it. She drops her bag again and pulls out two simple vest tops and looks at them with reluctance of what needs to be done. They’re so new though and they’ve got that new clothes smell. She presses them to her face and inhales deeply.

‘So nice,’ she murmurs into the material then huffs as she wraps them round her hands. She checks them for gaps to make sure her skin is completely covered. Right. She gets the bag on, walks round behind him and stares at his broad back with an air of resignation. What has to be has to be.

She touches softly at first. Extending her hands out until they’re braced against his back. Arms stretched out. Head leaning away in an effort to breathe clean air. The first push is gentle, more to guide and usher and he responds. He shuffles forward on feet that drag and scuff the road. They start making progress with Heather subtly adjusting the increments of pressure to prevent him veering off. Distance is gained, slow and difficult but distance nonetheless. She tries speeding up after a few minutes but feels his body becoming unbalanced and eases off to keep a slow but steady pace. It doesn’t take long for her arms and shoulders to start hurting and as they do so she leans more into him so his form absorbs more of her weight. On they go. A woman pushing a zombie down a country lane while a sports bra dangles from his wrist. He’s so heavy. Just so bloody heavy and just…just heavy. Despite the wraps she can feel the solidity of his back. It gets harder with Paco slowing and Heather exerting more force to keep him going. If he didn’t smell so bad and wasn’t covered in gooey zombie blood she’d get her shoulder into him. Sweat pours down her face to drip annoyingly from the end of her nose. Shoulders burning and legs starting to ache from being used more to drive the heavy weight on. The cramps come back. Her lower back starts aching. Why didn’t she bring water and the Nurofen?

‘Oh my god,’ she wheezes behind him. ‘Use your legs…PACO! Use your bloody legs…’ she feels the surge of weak energy as he tries valiantly to walk properly but it’s like negotiating with a drunk bear. She snorts at the thought. That’s exactly what it is. Paco is a drunk bear. She’s trying to push an intoxicated bear home. The thought lodges with a nice mental image adding to the surrealness of the moment. The moment? The whole bloody day and last night too. All of it is surreal. Should have stayed in the church.

‘Christ, how much do you weigh?’ She gasps and digs in then snorts again when she remembers some of the gym instructors she’s met. ‘Dig in,’ she mimics in a deeper voice. ‘Dig deeper…’ Who was it that said that? ‘Dig deeper,’ she says again then remembers the Insanity workout with Shaun T or whatever his stupid bloody name was. ‘Shaun T says dig deeper,’ she grunts and pushes. ‘Embrace the pain….Shaun T says feel the burn…Shaun T says push the zombie harder…’

On they go. Heather muttering in a voice that slowly fills with more foul utterances until she decides Shaun T can fuck off. Is it Shaun or Sean? Why is there two ways of spelling it? Stupid people. Like Steven and Stephen. Wankers. Sarah and Sara. Bitches. Anyone with a name that can spelled another way is a tosser. Anyone ever in the world is a tosser.

‘YOU STINK,’ she shouts in a sudden tiny temper tantrum. ‘You really really stink,’ she growls and mutters. She tells Paco how bad he smells. She tells him she hates him and goes back to telling him how shit his films are. Or were. Whatever. Don’t be pedantic. Pedantic people are tossers too. She lists the actors she likes which is every actor she can think of apart from Paco. All other actors are good. Paco is shit. All other actors apart from ones with names that can be spelled two ways. Or pedantic actors. She hates all actors. All actors are wankers. They can go fist themselves with that cactus she threw at Paco. Heather has never actually told anyone to go fist themselves before but such is the anger fuelled anguish of the moment that she decides she really quite likes telling people to go fist themselves. The actual thought of it is gross. Like totally disgusting and she used to look away in disgust whenever she heard someone use that phrase. But right now? In this place? It fits. The insult fits perfectly. It’s like the C bomb. She’d never use the C bomb and could never envisage a situation that would warrant the use of said insult. However, there is an exception to every rule.

‘Cunt,’ she seethes then blinks at what is the first time she has ever actually uttered that word. She promptly decides she doesn’t in fact like it and goes back to the use of verbalised wishing that everyone can go fist themselves instead. Time moves on. Her energy levels deplete and it becomes sheer gruelling hard work. How the buggering hell is he still walking she doesn’t know but he is. That’s all that matters. Keep him going so he can eat the other zombies. Not eat. Beat up. No, kill. He kills the others zombies who try and beat him up and eat him. Oh that’s a good point. They were going for him and not her in the street. That’s interesting. Maybe they’re like a special club or something and don’t like it when people leave. Actually, it’s not interesting. It’s annoying. Everything is annoying.

She misses the junction. It’s only a narrow opening to an unmade road but she misses it anyway and ploughs on with her head down while giving prayers to the gods of gyms that she at least did exercise before all this happened. In that moment she catches sight of something at the edge of the unmade road but ignores it. She is consumed in the task at hand just to push this heavy stinking pissed bear down the lane. A claxon goes off in her head. She ignores it. Lights and sirens flash and warble. They too are ignored. Her brain tries frantically to get the message through until finally, she blinks and looks up.

‘What was that?’ She asks suspiciously and glances back over her shoulder to the opening of the unmade road dropping away and the drinking mug on its side. Why is there a mug in the road? She stops pushing and tries to stand upright with a big groan at the muscles in her back stretching out. Paco carries on. Momentum has been gained and the slight downhill gradient of this lane aids his movement.

‘Whoa,’ she lunges after him, grabbing his arm to pull him to a gentle stop then turns to look back at the mug and the narrow junction. A mug in the road. An actual drinking cup and right next to a junction too. Power cables! She spots them in the canopy of trees overhead. Distinctly thick black wires going over the road in the direction of the unmade road. Must be a farm up there. She walks back towards the junction, stretching her back with an audible wince. The mug is a normal plain ceramic thing like from any kitchen. She stares down then round at the thick hedges then up the unmade road. Nothing to be heard or seen. What’s that smell? She sniffs the air, crumpling her nose as she gains recognition. It smells like shit. Like human shit. She looks round and follows her nose to a dried mess of poo writhing with maggots left on the verge. People are weird but then if you’ve got to go then you’ve got to go.

Unmade road it is. She gets to Paco, turns him round then starts the push back up the gentle gradient that now feels like it’s a mountain trail. She gets him into the junction then starts the harder work of pushing him along a road made of divots, holes, stones, rocks and a hundred other things that snag his feet. What was gruelling hard work before turns into a torturous act of self-harm. Everything hurts. Her back, her stomach, shoulders, legs, boobs and her head pounds from thirst. Her mouth becomes dry and her throat is so parched it hurts to swallow. The gradient of the unmade road becomes steeper. The heat hotter. The hedges higher. There’s no air to breathe. She tells herself to ditch him and go on alone but then tells herself there might be infected so she needs him. If there are infected she’ll push him over and leg it. Survival is brutal but she will survive at any cost.

On they go. One foot after the other with Paco rapidly slowing to become increasingly sluggish. She takes more of his heavy weight on her arms that spreads more pain into her back. Several times he trips and she has to move fast to stop him going over while all the time avoiding any other part of her body touching him. That doesn’t last either and as he goes to topple she has no choice but to dart forward and get her shoulder into his arm to push him upright before rushing back behind him to keep him going on.

She starts to flag. She can’t go on. The pain and thirst is too much. Her head hurts more than anything else now. She goes to sink down to rest then stubbornly rises, twists and gets her back against his and pushes through her legs to keep going. The close contact means nothing now. The clothes she has on will have to be ditched and her new bag will be ruined. It doesn’t matter. Surviving is what matters and you do what it takes. The infected want Paco not her so by having him close it means she stands a greater prospect of living. Use him as bait, as a distraction, use him as a guard dog to kill other infected. Whatever. Just keep going. He stops walking. She strains and pushes through her legs, refusing to give in but he doesn’t move. She braces and heaves, grunting into the air with exertion. Veins in her neck bulge, her face flushes red but still he won’t go on. He’s reached the point of no return but she won’t give in. Not now and not for anyone. She strains and slides her feet over the loose screed underfoot to try and force him on. A metallic sound penetrates her brain that she puts down to things in her head popping from the exertion. It comes again. Dull and solid. She grunts and shouts into the air but still the heavy bastard won’t go on. He groans in his throat. A gargled weird sound accompanied by that dull thud again.

‘WHAT THE…?’ She pulls away to turn and scream at the idiot for refusing to go on and spots the five bar metal gate wedged against his chest and legs. The gate that’s closed. The gate that thuds dully from his weight pressing the metal hook against the clasp. The gate that leads to the cattle grid that leads down past fenced in fields to the farmhouse and outbuildings that look gloriously snug and homely. ‘I didn’t see it,’ she says quickly, seething, angry, tired and somewhat embarrassed. Paco groans. ‘Stop it, I said I didn’t see it,’ she snaps and pulls him back to get access to the lock then faces the next problem in this series of never ending problems.

A cattle grid. Smooth thick poles laid side by side with big gaps in between. Not a major issue for someone with motor skills but a big bloody problem to a stumbling half blind zombie.

The goal is right there. A farm means water. She needs water. Not far now. She braces, pushes and goes for it while hoping for the best. The result is a staggered half run with Paco slipping and sliding across the poles while Heather catches, props and heaves to keep him going until they stumble clear on the other side. Downhill now and she pushes him on, letting gravity aid his motion. Water. There will be water. A hose. A tap. A bucket. A cattle trough. Anything. A dirty puddle will do it. Just water.

Paco drops like a stone, simply unable to maintain any further motion. She doesn’t miss a beat but goes round him. Intent only on finding water from the urgent signals being sent into her mind. Drink or die. Find water or die.

She staggers to the farmhouse knowing she can’t go inside until she knows it’s safe. Farms need water outside. There will be a tap and a hose. Find it. She searches frantic and wild, not looking properly but turning round and casting about while running on round the farmhouse. Nothing here. There must be. She’ll have to go inside. She trips and curses as her foot snags the thick tube of the bright red hose on the ground. She drops to her knees as though expecting it to give her water right now. Find the end. She rises on weak legs to run staggered and stumbling as she stares down at the length of pipe. It goes on forever. Just forever then ends abruptly at a cattle trough on the other side of wire fence in a paddock. She pulls it clear and stares at the end that doesn’t have water coming from it. Find the other end. She drops the hose and starts back to track the never ending hose that goes on forever. Go back and get the end where the water comes from. She stops, turns and runs back to grab it then starts off again. The hose is the longest in the world. It must be. It snakes across the ground round the farmhouse and across a concrete area through some grass to an outbuilding and finally a tap. An actual tap that she twists and twists. She feels the hose grow rigid as the water gushes through it but that water has to navigate the hundred bloody miles of twisting pipe. Those final few seconds are the hardest. The knowledge that water is coming now makes the desperate signals in her mind come harder and faster.

When it does come she forces herself to wait to let it run for a few seconds and stares at the crystal clear liquid spraying from the end that quickly steams on the hot concrete yard. Let it run. It could have been stagnant for days. Rats might have pissed in it. Fuck it, she turns the hose on herself and revels in the glory of being saturated by cool liquid. Shivers run down her body and she drinks. She drinks water from a farm hose. She drinks and drinks and lets the glorious water cascade down to soothe her throat. It soaks her clothes, her top clings to her body. Her arms glisten and the material wrapped round her hands grows sodden. She drops the hose in panic to stare at the filthy rags on her hands. Did the water she drunk touch them? What if it did? No, she was holding the hose further down. It’s the spray making them wet. She takes greater care this time and holds the hose further down while aiming off to the side so she can lean in and drink from the flow.

The effect is amazing. An instant negation of an urge that was driving her mad. Her belly swells and the headache recedes to a dull thud. She lifts the flow and leans lower to let the spray go down the back of her neck and over her head. Chills run through her body. Water pours from her hair down her face and down her front and back. She stays there for minutes to cool down, to cleanse, to refresh and just for the simple pleasure of it.

On her knees in a farm yard she stays quiet and thankful and for once her mind is free of whirling thoughts and random topics. She gets drenched. Wonderfully drenched. She drinks more then goes back to letting it flow over her head. Drink. Rinse. Drink. Rinse. There is nothing else in the world save this moment.

There is something else. Paco. Her head lifts to stare back towards the access lane and the inert unmoving figure lying slumped on the ground. She gets up and starts walking with the hose in hand, spraying water as she goes. Across the yard, through the grass and over the concrete hardstanding to the other side of the farmhouse and up the lane she staggered down. She belches and sighs, her legs feel so heavy and drained. Exhaustion is right there. Fatigue and just plain old tiredness sapping her strength.

She locks her eyes on his mangled and filthy body trying to see if he’s still breathing but he’s sprawled face down.

‘Paco,’ her voice comes out hoarse and low. He doesn’t respond. ‘Paco,’ she says again. Firmer this time. Still he doesn’t respond. She drops the hose and goes forward to drop at his side. She gets her wrapped hands under his side and tries to heave him over but without him aiding it’s nigh on impossible. She lifts him an inch at a time and feels some small motion from him that tells her he still clings to whatever he calls life. She drops on her arse and turns to once again use her legs to drive him over onto his back. The exertion is crippling. It wasn’t so bad when she had to keep moving but that short rest has sapped any strength she had left. He rolls over, flopping onto his back to face up into a sky threatening to darken to become night.

Her legs refuse to help her stand up so she crawls to the hose and drinks again. She drinks deep and rinses her head before sinking down with her legs splayed out in front and the bag still on her back. She aims for his chest first, letting the water hit his torso before guiding it up his neck and into his face. She shuffles closer to aim better so as not to drown him and gets one wrapped hand over the end to make the flow become a spray that rains down.

He shows no reaction but remains quiet and unmoving. She stares and rains the water down. Devoid of thought or feeling but letting the water soak into his parched skin. A spurt from the spray is directed with micro-adjustments of aim to get on his lips and she holds still, knowing the water will be trickling in. His lips are awful. So cracked and dry. Everywhere on him is cracked and dry.

For a long time nothing happens, or at least it seems nothing happens. She can’t tell if he is swallowing due to the injuries to his neck. After a while his mouth twitches and opens wider. She aims better to get more into him then hears the water being taken down and swallowed.

She drank long but Paco drinks longer. He drinks and doesn’t stop. Like a machine that absorbs the liquid into his stomach with a rhythmic swallowing. She doesn’t know anything about the infected. Whether they need water or food or how they keep going despite the terrible injuries that can have. What she does know is that Paco is drinking so she lets him drink. She holds the hose steady as the sky darkens through hues of blue that herald the coming twilight. Still he drinks and the skin on his face begins to run clear from the filth being sluiced off.

He coughs, spraying water from his mouth and twitches his head to the side in an instantly recognised message that tells her he’s had enough. She adjusts her aim and lets the water hit his neck and chest. The wounds are filthy and if he was as hot as her then it will help cool him down.

The puddles form around his body to run in streams down the lane back towards the farmhouse. She feels sleepy. Instantly sleepy. The sound of the water is soothing. Paco’s breathing is regular and deep, also soothing. She’s soaked through but warm and the water in her belly makes her feel pleasantly full. Her eyes droop to close. She’ll give it a few minutes. Just a few. No. She snaps awake. Not here. Can’t sleep here. Not safe. Survive. Can’t stay outside at night.

She needs him up to check the farmhouse. He has to get up now. ‘Paco,’ she calls his name and spots the response but figures it’s from her voice and not recognition of his own name. Onto all fours and she crawls over to him, noticing the shadows growing longer and deeper.

‘Paco…get up…’ she speak softly, urging him to wake up. His eyelids flutter, his head twitches. She pokes his shoulder. ‘Oi…wakey wakey…’ He twitches again, an arm lifts an inch then drops. He swallows with a gargled noise emanating from his throat. She pokes harder, pushing into his shoulder and it’s not so bad now he’s been hosed off a bit. She gets onto her haunches and waddles closer to get her wrapped hands under his shoulders and tries to lift him into a sitting position. ‘Up…Paco come on…up up up….’ He groans and moans like a teenager refusing to wake up. She strains, calls his name, goading and badgering him until his red bloodshot eyes blink open. ‘That’s it…come on get up…up…Paco….PACO! Get up. Come on. Up.’

He rises slowly, almost painfully, groaning as he sits up. She gets round to his front, grabs the wrist with the bra hanging off it and starts heaving him to his feet. He complies with degrees of wakefulness coming back incrementally. She keeps pulling to get him onto his hands and knees then keeps tugging to pull him up onto his feet until finally he stands as big and as broad as ever. She beams proudly, grinning from ear to ear at the accomplishment with a second’s worth of an urge to hug him. The urge dies in her throat when she remembers what he is. He isn’t human. He isn’t a person. He’s a monster to kill the other monsters.

Despite that knowledge of what he is, the act of being forced to push him along for so many hours has taken away the horror of actually touching him. She grabs him now to turn him round, physically guiding him on the spot to face back down the lane towards the farmhouse. He turns easily, seemingly willing to do as bid and stands as the puppy once more.

‘Come on,’ she says, trying not to smile and remembering there is nothing to smile about. The plan still remains. If there are infected in that farmhouse then Paco can deal with them, if that means he gets killed then so be it. She’s had water now and can run if need be. Survival at any cost. No matter what the cost is.

Fifteen

Heavy net curtains on the windows that prevent a view being gained of within but the heavy wooden stable door in the middle stands open. She edges closer, Paco right behind her. Flagstones in the hallway and a wooden staircase leading up. The smell reaches her as she leans across the threshold. Pungent and offensive. The stench of decaying bodies. She swallows and backs out to get behind Paco and pushes gently into his back.

‘You go first,’ she whispers. It’s getting dark now, almost night time. They need to get in and check it before the light fades completely.

Paco goes first into the house. Not that he intentionally goes first but Heather pushing him from behind doesn’t give him much choice. Not that he has choice either. To have choice means to have a mind. Which he doesn’t have. Instead he has equilibrium once more gained that holds everything in check. His urge to bite has gone but so have the flashes of memories.

He goes forward into the hallway and shows no reaction. His fists don’t clench, his arms don’t tense and he doesn’t snarl or do any of the things he did before. A door on the left. Staircase ahead and another door on the right. She goes left, or rather she makes Paco go left and hides behind him. Peering round to glimpse through his arms at anything that might come charging. The smell is worse in this direction. The door is open slightly and gets pushed wider as Paco is guided through.

The smell comes from the bodies lying in the middle of the kitchen floor. A man and woman. The woman is obese and dressed in what was once a flowery dress but now her head is almost cut off and that dress is stained dark brown from old dried blood. The man looks like a farmer. Wellington boots and coveralls. They’ve been stacked neatly, one on top of the other and she notices the cut marks look eerily similar to some of the wounds she saw back in the town and done with almost surgical precision. There’s very little blood on the floor too which is strange until she realises they’ve been stacked to bleed out on each other in a remarkably clever way of dead body positioning.

Another door stands open across the kitchen and she risks darting out from behind her bodyguard to look through into a utility room. A big metal cabinet fixed to a wall at the far end has been smashed open and she spots the shotgun cartridges and rifle bags. Someone came in for the guns. The two bodies in the kitchen were turned though, both had red bloodshot eyes.

Back in the kitchen she guides Paco out and into the hallway then across to check the living and dining rooms. Both clear and free from bodies. She gets him to the stairs and pushes his back to get him going up. He goes willingly, rising on strong legs to creak the exposed wooden boards.

At the top she sees a long corridor with doors off on both sides. Every room is open. At the far end the bathroom door hangs open with blood smears scraped across the frame and down the walls of the hallway. A hairbrush on the floor matted with dark locks but otherwise it’s empty. She checks every room. Darting in to look while being ready to run back out to get behind Paco who follows happily in her wake.

The sigh of relief is deep and full of real meaning. Other than the two bodies in the kitchen the house is clear. What now? Food. She needs food and a wash, not a hosing down like she did outside but a proper wash. She heads downstairs and locks the front door while waiting for Paco to thump down noisily behind her.

In the kitchen, Paco waits in the moonlight streaming through the windows while she navigates the bodies to scrub her hands in anti-bacterial soap at the sink before rifling the cupboards. Tinned fruit, peaches and pear segments. Tuna, beans, macaroni cheese, peeled plum tomatoes. Multi-bags of crisps, chocolate bars, sweets, long life cakes sealed in boxes. Cans of coke and lemonade and her belly rumbles with each new find that gets loaded into her arms to be carried across the hallway into the lounge. She makes several trips, getting a tin opener, forks, spoons and anything else she thinks she might need.

The lounge is dated with an old leather sofa but with the door closed it just smells musty instead of dead bodies and Paco’s unique scent soon takes that over. He still stinks despite the hosing down outside. He needs a good scrub with a stiff brush if she’s going to keep him.

It’s too dark in here. The net curtains are too thick to let the light come in. She considers pulling them back then spots the open fireplace and thanks the heavens for farmers. Kindling stacked up, logs ready, paper scrunched and resting in a basket to one side. There’s even a box of matches on the mantelpiece. The paper goes in first to be piled with thin kindling. The match lights the paper that ignites and burns to set flame to the kindling, by which time she starts placing smaller dried logs. The very act of setting fire brings the tension down. She sits back to watch the flames grow and eat into the logs. The room fills with warm smells and the crackle of real fire that spills an orange glow to chase the shadows away.

She eats there. In front of the fire while Paco stands not a few feet away like a sentinel. Silent and watchful. Just one day but already she’s got used to him being there. She opens tins and eats fruit and beans. She eats fish, macaroni cheese and fills quickly. Days of sparse diet have shrunk her stomach lining. She still manages to force some Victoria Sponge cake into her mouth and washes it down with warm coke. The feeling is incredible. A hard day of fear, running, crying and then pushing Paco but now a full stomach after a big meal eaten in front of an open fire. Just the wash now and it could be a half-decent end to the worst day of her life. Maybe you have to have the shit to taste the good? Maybe. She considers that very idea while digesting sleepily and blinking slowly.

Does Paco need to eat? Do they eat? Other than people that is. She looks up at him for any signs that he’s hungry but he watches her and not the food littered about the room.

She turns back to the fire. Monsters don’t eat. They kill. Ah but hang on, he collapsed earlier then revived after having water and every living creature needs food. Without food the body will cannibalise and eat itself. Muscles and fat will be absorbed while internal organs are put at risk. She has no clue what changes have been made to his body from being infected but only that she needs him alive and strong. It takes strength to snap necks and throw people about. Paco needs that strength and she needs Paco. Survival at any cost.

She nods with a decision made and rises to grab a tin of baked beans. She gets the top off and finds a spoon then crosses over to stand in front of him. How the hell do you feed a zombie? What if he snaps and bites her? Ah get off, he would have done it by now if he was going to do that. She loads the spoon and drives it towards his mouth.

‘Open up,’ she tells him. His eyes focus at her voice, staring intently but otherwise no reaction. She opens her own mouth hoping he will copy her. He doesn’t. ‘Yum,’ she tells him, nodding at the beans that she sniffs at while making appreciative noises. When he doesn’t do anything she drives the spoon at his mouth and nods while pushing it into his lips. ‘Open,’ she says bluntly. His lips part she smiles. His lips part more and she smiles more. His eyes watch hers. She grins, he opens his mouth wider and that smile grows as she speaks in the nice soft voice. He gets a mouthful of beans that start falling out the second she pulls the spoon clear. ‘Eat,’ she urges in that wonderfully soft voice. She masticates on the spot. Chewing invisible food while smiling, nodding and urging him gently. His jaw moves and her face lights up. He does it again. She grins and nods, ‘come on…good boy,’ she uses the spoon to push a stray bean back in that was about to fall from his lip. ‘Be strong for Heather so you can kill all the other zombies…that’s right…big and strong and dumb as anything…you are aren’t you? Yes? Big and strong and dumb?’ The tone. It’s the tone. His eyes never leave hers as she reaches up to spoon beans into his mouth that get chewed robotically and the first swallow even brings that split second urge back to hug him. Not that she would. He still stinks and he’s still an infected monster.

She hand feeds him beans. Forcing him to chew and swallow. She forks fruit slices into his mouth then dry tuna. She doesn’t give him water as that would mean getting too close to his mouth.

Not much but he takes it down. It’s better than nothing anyway and he’s had fibre, carbs, protein and vitamins from the fruit.

She stands back proud as punch with herself and feeling strangely warm inside that she puts down to being full and at least a little bit safe now he’s back on his feet. She must remember to water him if they go anywhere. Maybe get him a sunhat too. He needs new clothes for sure. What he has on now is nothing more than torn up rags.

That thought leads to another which transmutes to her own desire to wash. There was a bathroom upstairs, maybe it has a shower? She goes out into the hallway and pauses to let her puppy catch up before climbing the stairs. He thumps up forever on her heels and follows her down to the bathroom at the end.

She pulls the curtains back to let the moonlight come in and finds the shower unit over the bath. Shelves filled with big towels and her heart soars at the sight of the box of tampons on the windowsill. She twists the shower valve and feels she could cry in happiness at the jet of cold water spraying instantly from the head.

She sits on the closed toilet to unlace her new shoes that get toed off and pushed away. Her new socks get pulled off and she stands to unfasten the button on her new jeans. She looks at Paco watching her and pauses for a second to see if she feels weird about getting naked in front of him. She watches him closely while undoing her jeans and pushing them down her legs. Nothing. She pulls her top off to stand in her bra and knickers. Still nothing. She tugs the sports bra off to stand topless. Nope, not a flicker. Finally she goes for the knickers, grimacing at the thought of the kitchen roll that needs to come out. The knickers are ruined. Stained with blood and sodden. She looks down at her groin and shifts round to get the moonlight. The end of the paper is still there. She takes it gently between thumb and finger and starts to ease it down but it falls apart instantly. She takes a firmer grip and tries to pull quicker but more just comes away. She huffs, sighs and starts trying to get the bloodied paper out from her vagina. It’s disgusting and it smells horrible. All clotted and thick. She knows the risk of infection at leaving any stuck up inside. Do it in the shower. She looks up about to get in then realises what’s she doing in front of Paco Maguire. The actual Paco Maguire is in the bathroom while she probed her own vagina. Shit. She shakes her head and blinks. No one would ever believe it. He even looks half decent in this light, like all shadowy and the injuries look less severe. He still stinks though. Like so bad. She blows air at him and climbs into the bath to yelp at the cold water hitting her body. Paco jolts forward, his eyes fixed as his fists start to clench.

‘Fine,’ she waves at him, spraying water on his face. ‘S’just cold,’ she shivers and shakes as he comes closer and looks about ready to climb in. ‘Just stop there thank you,’ she tells him with an instinctive hand going to his chest to stop him coming forward. ‘Oh now look,’ she groans and shows him the hand she just used to touch him. ‘All dirty again now.’

It is cold but exceptionally delightful and with Paco pressed into the edge of the bath she washes. She scrubs and shampoos her hair from the bottles on the side of the bath. She scrubs again and conditions her hair from the bottles on the side of the bath. She soaps, scrubs, uses shower gel then scrubs and washes again. The kitchen roll does come out, with the aid of the shower head pulled down to be aimed up that sluices dark bits of paper down into the white bath. Then she washes her hair and just for good measure she conditions it once more before scrubbing her body down just one more time to be sure she’s all clean.

‘Towel please,’ she says expectantly with a wry smile. He doesn’t move but it’s okay. She’s had food and a wash. An actual proper wash with shampoo and everything. ‘Move back…go on…’ she can’t touch him now after washing so she grabs a loafer and prods it into his chest. ‘Move back, there’s a good Paco.’

She gets past him to grab an enormous fluffy bath towel that is wrapped round her body then another that is magically made to adhere to her head in the way only women can do. She finds deodorant and uses it. She gets the box of tampons and uses one. She wees, wipes and rinses her hands then mooches through the drawers in the side unit to find hairbands that get looped on her wrist and all in the presence of her puppy who turns to track her every move.

‘Come on,’ she nods at him to follow while wishing she had a proper toothbrush instead of finger scrubbing her teeth like she just did. Ah well, can’t have everything in life.

‘Oh this is nice,’ she tells Paco as she leads him into the living room to see the blazing log fire all crackling away nicely. ‘Right, new clothes. Well I’ve lost one bra and two tops but I should have some more in here. Oh this bag stinks of you now, Paco. It really does.’ She winces and uses a sock to open the zips to pull the new clothes out. ‘New trousers, bra, knickers, socks and a nice new top. All good. Good good good. That shower was so nice. I can’t actually remember the last time I had a shower. Before the church anyway. Like maybe six, seven days ago? More than that actually. I was body washing but it’s not the same is it? And my hair, oh my god it’s so nice to use conditioner.’

She dries herself with the body towel while telling Paco how nice it is to be properly clean. ‘You need a good wash,’ she tells him with a serious nod and a waggling finger while standing nudey in the lounge with a towel on her head. She starts getting dressed, pulling clean knickers on then a normal non-sports bra on the basis that sleeping in a sports bra must be akin only to torture. She did consider finding a t shirt from one of the rooms upstairs to sleep in but then figured she needs to be ready to run in case anything happens.

‘Know what I could do with?’ She asks a non-responsive Paco. ‘Nice cup of tea. That would be bloody perfect. Fancy making me a cuppa? Yeah? Oh go on then, one sugar please and make it nice and milky for me.’

Paco doesn’t make the tea.

‘No? Fair enough. Can’t blame a lady for trying. Right, I’m dressed and ready for bed. Which is not something I ever thought I would hear myself saying but there you go. Now, Mr Maguire, what are we to do with you?’ She poses the question and waits with her hands on her hips.

Paco doesn’t know what they are to do with him.

‘Well you can’t stay in here,’ she informs him primly. ‘You smell.’ She no longer considers his willy poking a risk seeing as she just got naked, showered, pulled kitchen roll from her vagina and had a pee in front of him. She’d already decided on sleeping in the lounge for the simple reason that it’s the ground floor and easier to escape from.

‘Come on then, out you go,’ she waves her hands at him while walking towards the door. ‘You can sleep out there in the hallway. Do you sleep? Well, whatever you do at night, other than eat people that is, you can do it out there. Paco, come on….no, stop dithering and go out. Really? Have I got to push you everywhere? Fine.’ She huffs and grabs a clean spoon from the cutlery she brought in earlier that she uses to poke gently into his shoulder to turn him round. ‘Go on, that’s it,’ she prods him along through the door into the flagstone hallway. ‘Call me if anything happens,’ she smiles, nods and closes the door as he turns to come back in.

Instant guilt kicks in. The guilt you’d get from making your puppy sleep outside but he’s not a puppy. He’s an infected man.

She goes for the sofa as the door thuds, making her freeze mid-step. She waits, listening then when all is quiet she moves again. The door thuds.

‘Paco, you are not coming in,’ she tells him firmly but gently. He’s not a puppy. He’s an infected man.

She gets to the sofa and eases down as the door thuds once again. A solid thud too. The sort of thud you’d get from a big man walking forward into a closed wooden door. She scowls and ignores it. He’ll give up in a minute.

Paco doesn’t give up. Paco tries to walk forward with increasing levels of force used to make the door not be there anymore until it’s shaking the frame with small chunks of plaster coming away.

‘Fine!’ She wrenches the door open to glare at him. He looks back and shuffles in to stand content and close. She tuts, scowls and slinks back to the sofa that she flops down on with another big huff. He shuffles closer to keep whatever distance is set in his head between them. Which is close. Like really close. She rolls onto her back then rolls her eyes while shaking her head.

‘This is weird,’ she tells him outright as he stands looming over the sofa staring down at her. ‘I can’t sleep with you right there.’

If he wasn’t so filthy he could sit at one end. The sofa is big enough and she’d put her legs over him. No! What on earth. He’s an infected monster. She huffs again at herself this time and sits up. She spots the armchair, looks at Paco and tries to assess how difficult it will be to make him sit in it.

It is difficult. Very difficult. She prods, cajoles and pushes him until he finally sinks down with a whump. She nods, claiming the victory then goes back to her sofa as he gets up and follows.

‘Oh my god what now?’ She snaps at him. The armchair is too far away. Of course it is. I mean it’s like at least ten feet. God forbid he’s more than ten feet from me. She pushes the armchair closer, then a bit closer, then a bit more and gives up and pushes it to the side of sofa so the arms are touching. After that is the rigmarole of making him sit again.

‘There,’ she stands back to fold her arms and stare down at him. ‘Happy now? Yes? Right well just stay there.’

She flumps back on the sofa and quickly peers up to check he’s happy where he is. He seems to be. He doesn’t try and get up anyway. She sighs, yawns and rolls on her side to watch the flames dancing yellow and orange. What a day. What a truly awful terrible horrendous day. She snuggles a deeper groove into the sofa then lifts her head again to check Paco who seems content where he is. It should feel weird being stared at all the time and she cannot believe she showered naked in front of him like that, but at the time it felt normal, like it was okay. If he was going to hurt her he would have done it. He could do it at any time. The strength in him is just absurd, freakishly absurd yet he’s so gentle the way he looks at her. She breathes out long and heavy and chooses to carry on ignoring what it all means. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. He is what he is and the situation is what it is. Why question it? Not everything has reason, not reason like a purpose. Sometimes things just happen. Right now she is going to sleep in the living room of a farmhouse with two dead bodies in the kitchen while an infected former Hollywood star watches her every move. Nothing weird about that. As she thinks that so she faces up to the question of trust. To become naked in front of him and to now lie down to sleep would suggest she does trust him. She shouldn’t trust him. He’s killed so many people. Ripped them apart with bare hands. He’s lethal, deranged, a maniac, something from a nightmare and whatever is keeping him in check could end in a heartbeat. He is a dangerous monster.

She frowns and blinks heavily. Her mind growing slower as she starts the descent into sleep. He is a dangerous monster.

That is without doubt, but the last thought before she drops into sleep is that Paco is her dangerous monster.

Sixteen

‘Ha! Look…’ she shows him the find. ‘See these? Yeah?’

Paco watches but doesn’t reply that he does, in fact, see them.

She pulls her head out of the under sink cupboard and stands up to nod firmly with the air of someone who has purpose and now the tools to fulfil that purpose. She switches her gaze from him to the yellow rubber gloves. He’s a big man and they aren’t very big at all. Not for the job she has in mind.

This is a farm. They must have some bigger ones somewhere. Mind you, they’ll do for now. She pulls them on to waggle yellow fingers at Paco. ‘All safe,’ she tells him. ‘Come on.’

She woke up gagging on the stench that had built up in the enclosed room. The fire, the air temperature, the doors and windows closed and two of them breathing in and out only served to make the fetid rotten smell so bad she woke up almost puking. She’d dreamt of being trapped in a sewer with people covered in shit, piss, vomit and stale sweat. It was when they started throwing rotten eggs at her face that her mind decided she needed to wake up and get fresh air.

After peeing, rinsing her hands and face and changing her tampon all under the watchful eyes of Paco, she formed the purpose that this morning he was going to get a bloody good wash.

Now armed with yellow marigolds she marches round the bodies and feels safe enough to man handle him out of the way so she can search the utility room. She finds a bucket which is filled with rags, brushes and a big bottle of anti-bacterial hand wash then spots the big green first aid box on the wall. That too is commandeered. So is the bottle of antiseptic from the kitchen and the pan cleaning brush, more soap, cloths, scouring pads and anything that even hints of having a cleaning ability.

‘Come on,’ she says brightly with that air of a person with purpose. As she marches across the yard she spots the body lying slumped on one side against the base of the nearest outbuilding. She slows down, peering for signs of life then spotting the back of his head is splattered across several boards of the wall. Spent casings on the ground catch her eye. Brass bullets and red shotgun cartridges. Someone stood here and shot that man, probably the same people that got in and killed the two in the kitchen.

It brings home the reality of this new world and makes her realise she’s already becoming desensitised to the sight of corpses. Whatever happened here was quite a few days ago judging by the state of decomposition. Whatever, she’s safe with Paco, who still needs a bloody good wash.

She finds the tap connected to the hose and starts pulling it back in. The end comes into view with water still pouring out after she forgot to switch it off last night. She turns the tap off, gets the hose back and assesses the job that needs to be done. Hands on hips, frowning slightly, eyes narrowing and taking in his broad shoulders, thick limbs and solid mid-centre. All of which is encrusted with filth and grime. Will he even let her wash him? Dogs don’t like it. He’s not a dog. He’s an infected man. Yes but he’s a very smelly infected man and if she’s keeping him then he needs to be cleaned.

She does find a small set of step ladders though and a long handled brush that she uses to whack the ladders about the yard until all the spiders have dropped off.

Right. Here it is. She sizes him up again while biting her bottom lip and wondering where to start. Top. Got to be that t shirt, or what’s left of it.

‘Arms up,’ she says with a big smile and clocks the softness coming into his eyes. After taking a breath she goes in to grab his wrists that get lifted up and pushed at the elbows until he’s arms are both up above his head. ‘Stay there,’ she grunts, not wishing to breathe in. She grabs the hem of his t shirt and starts tugging it up. Still holding her breath she gets the top to his chest then confronts the next dilemma of not being tall enough to push any further up.

‘Bend down,’ she whispers.

He doesn’t bend down.

‘Paco…bend over…’

Paco stays where he is with his arms up in surrender. It’s no good. She needs to breathe in. She turns, snatches air and comes back into the fray. Sod it, she darts off to grab the step-ladder, opens them out, locks the safety bar in place and gets them positioned in front of him. Paco remains as placed. His arms straight up above his head while his eyes track her every movement. She climbs up to tug and prise the filthy garment over his head.

‘One down,’ she drops from the ladders, kicks them back and goes for his jeans which are even more encrusted and stiff than the top. The button is undone, the zipper pulled down then the material is once more prised from his skin to be pushed and pulled down his thighs. ‘Good lord,’ she recoils at the sight of the muscles in his legs and glances up to see his arms are still in the air. ‘You can put your arms down now,’ she tells him. ‘Paco…arms down…arms down…oh never mind…my god you stink so bad,’ she turns to gulp air and comes back to get his jeans down to his ankles. ‘Boots,’ she tells him and starts unlacing. ‘Leg up old chap,’ she grabs a leg to lift that remains fixed where it is. ‘Paco…lift it up…lift your bloody leg…’ he gets the gist of the movement and leans over to lift one foot an inch off the ground. ‘No…bend it, bend your knee a bit. Here, like this, see…that’s it!’ She starts working on the boot, tugging it free from his foot as a fresh whiff of oh so cheesy feet hits her nose. She recoils sharply, yacking and gagging on the spot.

Paco stands with both arms up, leaning over with one leg bent and his jeans wrapped round his ankle while Heather pushes his leg to get it back down. He watches her closely. His red bloodshot eyes never leaving her form. Docile and content to do as told and bid.

‘Other one,’ she tugs at his ankle which rises instantly to bend at the knee. ‘Well done,’ she beams up while bent over, her face red from the exertion and the smile genuine. He doesn’t react but his eyes show something. She works the laces, grunting to get the boot off then the sock until she finally staggers back with a light sweat already forming on her face.

‘Yay,’ she shows him the last sock which gets lobbed away then looks admiringly at her handiwork as two things start to dawn. The first being that he is still standing on one leg with his arms in the air. The second being that despite the fact he is infected, filthy and covered in wounds, he does have a tremendous body. Really tremendous. There’s no other word for it. Look at his stomach. All ribbed and bulging and the way it tapers down from his chest. She cocks her head over without knowing she is cocking her head over. His waist is really quite small too but then sweeps out at his thighs and my god, those thighs. I mean, just…and back up to his stomach that’s so defined. What does it feel like? She goes forward without invite and without thought. A hand reaches, gloved and protected but she feels the ridges nonetheless. They’re so dense, like so hard. She pokes one, marvelling at how pliable yet firm it is. Good lord look at his chest. That’s a big chest. You can see all the striations and everything and those shoulders. Yeah, that’s why he was a famous actor. Just that. That’s enough right there. Indeed. Yep. Tremendous.

‘Right,’ she blinks and grins awkwardly at him staring at her staring at him. ‘You can put your leg down now, and your arms…’ he doesn’t put his leg or arms down. She does it for him. Pushing first his leg then going back for the step-ladder to climb up to reach his arms.

‘Ah,’ she pulls a face on noticing he still has his boxers on. Tight white ones too. Or at least they were white once. They aren’t white now that’s for sure. ‘Gotta come off I’m afraid,’ she tells him apologetically. ‘Now let’s not be shy. We’re all boys together. Well, you’re a boy and I’m a girl but that doesn’t matter holy shit, Paco….’

She walks quickly away to stand facing the other direction blinking furiously and blowing air out through her cheeks. It’s just a penis. Just a willy. Every man has one. She turns to go back then stops and spins back round. Just a penis. It’s Paco Maguire’s penis and it’s…I mean it’s…she peers over her shoulder with a flinch. Jesus. Don’t even look at it.

She doesn’t look at it. Instead she gets the bucket of soapy water and stares at the ground, at her gloved hands, at the brushes and anything but his penis. He’s infected anyway. Yeah but it’s Paco Maguire’s dongle and it’s so...stop it, he’s like a puppy. That ain’t a puppy. Puppies don’t look like that. Yes but he is a puppy. He’s dumb as anything and standing naked because you undressed him. The thought is instantly sobering. She imagines the situation being reversed. The indignity of it. What if she was stripped naked to stand docile while some strange bloke groped her tits? Shame creeps up her face, burning hard with deep blushes spreading through her cheeks. Any thoughts of his physical form vanish in a second. He watched her showering last night and had zero reaction. Be a decent human being, Heather.

‘Right come on, let’s get you washed eh?’ She smiles sadly at him with the sting of her own chastisement still smarting. Her own eyes now soft with creases in the corners that speak more of sadness than laughter.

She imagined she would scrub him with a thick brush but within the first few seconds of the water running black she realises a stiff brush will only pull the scabs off and open his wounds again. Instead she opts for soft cloths and sponges. Soaping softly over the wounds and bruises. Not that he flinches. He doesn’t move a muscle or show any reaction other than constantly tracking her movements. It becomes absorbing too. A task that she finds herself relishing for the simple fact of having purpose and objective. The long days in the self-imposed exile of the church kept her alive but the lack of stimulation became something worse than injury. It sapped her mind, her motivation and brought a depressive fug down that made her stare for hours at the distant treeline. Now she has something to do and a reason for doing it. Paco will keep her alive and in turn, she will keep him alive. She soaps his arms, legs and back. She washes his stomach and chest, across his shoulders and uses the ladder to ever so gently clean his neck, picking bits of grit out from the wounds with her gloved fingers. She gets close as she works, her face sometimes an inch from different parts of his body. The heat is incredible and grows as the morning goes on with a blazing sun baking the yard and humidity that draws the sweat from her body.

After changing the water she climbs up the ladder and lifts an eyebrow while staring at his face. She works delicately round his jaw, scrubbing at the strands of his beard to make sure the filth is washed away. She works his cheeks, his nose and laughs when he sprays soap bubbles from his mouth and goes even more gently when she cleans the area around his eyes.

Every inch of him is cleaned. Well, apart from several inches that are ignored until she finishes and has to accept the inevitable. She replaces the soapy water and goes behind him to do his backside first. Not looking but going quickly to wipe and clean. It has to be done. Dirt causes infection and the human body in this heat will be a breeding ground for bacteria. She rinses the cloth and heads round the front with a big sigh. Again she doesn’t look but gets the soapy cloth and lifts his penis to clean underneath. She smiles at him, showing this is being done through necessity and not for any other reason.

‘Got to be clean,’ she murmurs. Testicles done. Now the big one. No, not the big one, don’t say big one.

‘I didn’t say big one,’ she tells him quickly. She grips and starts cleaning, not too hard but hard enough to rid the filth and grime. She could see he isn’t circumcised and knows that means she has to pull the skin back to clean the head of the penis. Right. Hold the shaft and slide the skin back then clean the head. Okay, she grips the shaft in one hand and uses the other to ease the skin back to expose the head. She doesn’t look but goes by touch alone and feels the ridge of the head in her gloved fingers then guides the cloth to start rubbing gently.

It becomes a moment of meaning. Not of sexual intent or any hint of desire. Not of physical admiration or yearning of any description but a hint of tenderness to do something you don’t wish to do to keep the other safe. He kept her safe yesterday. He killed for her. Nearly every one of these bites and marks were made by him killing to keep her alive. So for that she will do this.

She steps back and smiles warmly from the eyes, ‘all clean,’ she says. ‘You look so much better, really you do. Right, hold on there. Got a few more bits to do.’

The antiseptic comes next. She knows he doesn’t feel pain but she goes gently anyway. It feels right to go gently. She holds the previous feeling in her mind, of what he did for her. She wouldn’t be alive now if not for him. Every cut is cleaned with antiseptic and even though she has no idea if it does any good she guesses it can’t do any harm.

At his neck she moves with something close to tenderness. Dabbing softly to get the liquid into every laceration. As she works she notices those wounds are meshing together and the puncture marks are already closing up.

She dabs his face, his ears and cheeks. His right eye where it was swollen yesterday and any part that looks bruised, cut or bit. After that she opens the first aid box and unwraps a sterile white bandage that she uses to wrap round his neck. Securing the end with a tie off. The deep bite on his arm is dressed, one on leg and the nasty scratches round his stomach too. He gets plastered and bandaged with medical tape and gauze.

‘Oh my gosh,’ she says proudly, stepping back once more to admire her work. With his neck covered he looks like Paco Maguire. The Paco Maguire. ‘Wow, look at you,’ she adds with an approving nod. A warm feeling spreads inside and she frowns while smiling then laughs gently at the utter surrealness of it all. She just washed and bandaged a big time movie actor. Bloody hell.

‘Clothes,’ she says after a fashion. ‘You need clothes, come on,’ she heads off back to the farmhouse with a naked but bandaged Paco following dutifully behind.

In the bedrooms upstairs she goes through drawers and wardrobes, pulling out jeans and trousers that would fit his leg length but that are about ten waist sizes too big. She finds boxers and gets him covered. Clean socks go on his feet. A t shirt is tugged down over his head and she guesses he would approve at the way his arms bulge from the sleeves. Still no bottoms though. Everything is way too big and even a belt wouldn’t work with a size difference that great.

The only thing she finds that could work is a pair of blue thick cotton dungaree coveralls with two straps that hook over the shoulders. The waist is quite big but at least they stay up. From there she leads him down to the bathroom and still with her marigold rubber gloves on she uses one of the toothbrushes to clean his teeth. Pushing the bristles into his mouth while leaning away to avoid any spray. He stays as docile as ever, even when she reaches down his dungarees and gets a hand up his t shirt to spray deodorant into his armpits.

She can’t help but smile while leading him back downstairs and outside to find his boots. They too get cleaned and scrubbed then left to dry in the sun. That warm feeling stays and grows as Paco follows her everywhere she goes. Never complaining, never nagging or doing anything but always watching and always scanning.

In the kitchen she moves round the bodies that smell so much worse now Paco is clean and puts a pan of water on the gas stove that thankfully hisses to life. She finds dried pasta and whacks a load in then adds another pan of water to make tea. She goes outside while it heats to clear her nose and stands listening to the birdsong and up at the beautiful open sky. Funny how little things can change a day. It’s still the end of the world. There are dead bodies in the kitchen and another one over there by that building but she’s alive. She smiles at Paco who stares back. He’s not drooling now. She watches him closely, noticing that his head seems to hold a bit higher now and his eyes look sharper, more focussed. She dismisses it with a sigh, putting it down to him being cleaned and dressed. She inhales deeply and catches the scents of toothpaste and fragrance then looks at him for several long seconds in the silence of a morning stretching away.

She eats pasta and tuna mixed with peeled plum tomatoes and drinks hot black tea with sugar. It tastes divine. Paco is fed too but this time he seems to remember what happened last night and takes the food in without issue. He chews too and swallows. She even gets a big glass of water down him without any being spat out.

Suddenly she is done. Paco is washed and clean. Both are fed and watered. She stands in the living room wondering what on earth they should do now. She’s been so busy but it’s been great having something to do. She doesn’t want to stop. She wants more tasks and objectives. She wants to keep washing and fiddling with his clothes and bandages. For a second she considers shaving his jaw but figures the razor will take the scabs off his face.

She could do anything. They probably have some books here. She could make more tea and crash out on the sofa reading something. She could doze, put her feet up and relax but she’s had days of doing that and it’s the last thing she wants. The room becomes too silent, too gloomy and musty and the smells of the bodies seem stronger now. She needs to go outside and do something, go somewhere. Like a new sense of freedom and courage have been found. She has Paco. Paco can kill anything. She saw it yesterday. Not one of them got past him and he’s strong again now. Don’t be absurd. It’s safe here. She looks round the living room that suddenly looks old and belonging to someone else. The carpet is threadbare and worn through. The wallpaper peeling at the corners. Thick dust on every surface and cheap furniture that looks ready to fall apart. She knows in that second she cannot stay here. Besides, other people have been here before her. What if they come back or some other survivors take refuge here. No, she can’t stay here. As an escape it was perfect, as a bolthole it’s great but there’s two corpses in the kitchen and another one outside. Staying here would mean moving them and the idea of that is too disgusting to contemplate. They’ve got what they need so it’s time to go

‘Toothbrush!’ she announces the idea the second it pops in her head. ‘I need a toothbrush,’ she winces as she says it, knowing how ridiculous it sounds. ‘So er…we’ll go get one yeah?’

Seventeen

New shoes on her feet. New bag, now cleaned and stuffed with water on her back. She walks with him up the lane to the cattle grid that he crosses with ease. Which is another thing she notices in his development of motor skills.

The unmade road is shorter today too. She had to push him up it yesterday and it felt like miles but now, striding along with a bounce in her step it only takes a few minutes to reach the end and once more into the country road.

‘This heat,’ she says with a glance across at him. ‘Never felt anything like it. Got to be something to do with this all happening,’ she trails off to think. ‘You know, think of all the planes and cars that were pumping fumes and like gases out.’ She thinks again. ‘Factories, houses…schools…well everything really. They’ve all stopped haven’t they so it must have messed with the weather. Changed it. Having said that, it was bloody hot before this even happened but I’m sure the weather forecast said it was a mini-heatwave which suggests it wasn’t due to keep going.’

They fall into a quietness of feet treading on tarmac and birds singing in the canopy of trees overhead that seem to sag from the oppressive temperature.

‘Want to hear something funny?’ She asks him, glancing across then realising he’s walking at her side instead of behind. Well sort of at her side. At her side but back a bit so he can still see her. Maybe he was just tired yesterday which made him keep falling back. Yeah, that was it.

‘So anyway,’ she says, smiling then looking ahead. ‘I had the chance to train to be a doctor. I didn’t though. Then I thought I would be a blood scientist but changed my mind and thought about being a barrister. Point is, if I had trained to be a blood scientist I might have understood what the disease is or the infection or whatever it is. I don’t think doctors would have much of a clue. Not like GP’s anyway, or like most of the doctors in hospitals to be honest. They’re experts alright but in their field and not with stuff like this, you know, like what’s inside you. Mind you, if I did become a blood scientist then I probably wouldn’t have been in the gym on that Friday it happened and would have most likely been eaten by now. Hmmm, which kind of makes it a moot point.’

They walk on with her thumbs hooked in the straps of her bag. Her legs should be stiff and sore from yesterday but instead she feels strangely full of energy. Those long days in the church have done something and made her suddenly hungry to keep moving.

‘Did you always want to be an actor?’ She asks.

Paco doesn’t tell her what his childhood ambitions were.

‘I say actor but it’s hardly acting is it? Not like…er…like De Niro or someone like that. Like Tom Hanks. He’s a proper actor but…no I mean, you know, you’re like a huge Hollywood star and all that and got millions in the bank and…but…still, you were good at what you did I guess. Like snapping peoples necks with the foot thing on the knees. I can’t believe you can do it in real life.’

‘God, the amount of things I wanted be when I was young. It changed like ten times a day. I’d want to be a florist in the morning but by lunch I knew I’d be an astronaut and by bedtime I had my future mapped out as a nurse…always fancied the police, the army was always an option…’

‘I just never settled,’ she admits ruefully. ‘It was like everyone else always knew what they wanted to be but I just figured the answer would one day just pop in my head or just happen. I had good grades and did A Levels but university was so hard. Not hard as in like intellectually challenging but hard to study one thing when my head was like flitting to a hundred different things at once. I changed in the first year too and stopped doing English to study History but then changed to Politics when I realised I was destined to be the Prime Minister but by the next day I was into law and asked to change again. In the end this really nice professor lady gave me a right old lecture and told me to grow up. She was cool though.’

‘Did English in the end,’ she adds after a long silence.

‘Figured I’d be a writer or a journalist,’ she adds after another long silence.

‘Tried writing a book once. Got the first three chapters done then knew I was going to be a war correspondent.’

‘I didn’t become a war correspondent.’

‘I was in foster care,’ she says after a time, with just the slightest drop in tone. ‘I was only young when…I was three. I’ve got this vague memory of her but…nothing happened in foster care, like nothing bad but there was a lot of them. You know, most of them did it for the money and…they thought I’d get adopted but it er…well I didn’t so…’

‘Ha! God I’m waffling on aren’t I.’

‘So like, always moving round and things. New schools and new homes, you know, so I just didn’t settle and then…God you must be so bored listening to me going on.’

‘Never told anyone that before.’

‘Gosh it’s hot isn’t it. Do you want some water? I think I will have some…urgh my back’s all sweaty from the bag. Which one are you using? Er…right you have this blue bottle and we’ll keep it in the plastic bag. I’ve got some anti-bac wipes from the kitchen but let me get the glove on…right open up…that’s it, well done. You’re getting better at drinking…more? You must be thirsty, gosh you’re glugging away like a good ‘un there, Paco. Had enough? Sure? No? Okay, feel better now? You do look better. Right your bottle goes in the bag and mine is here. Ah it’s still quite cool. Right, we’d better keep going. Do you want to carry the bag now? Give me your hand and…right make a fist and hold the strap, close your fingers like this…there, you okay with that? Ah that’s so much better. Just say if you want me to take it.’

‘My mum had a sister but they lost contact when I was born so…I think they tried to trace her but they told me they couldn’t find her. I think they did find her but she said she wasn’t interested. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now does it? Whole world has gone pop and boom so…’

‘My mum was a prostitute.’

‘Bad isn’t it? Being a prostitute I mean. She er, she got into Heroin and…things. I’m not judging her though.’

‘They told me she died from a medical condition when I was young but…well, they told me when I was sixteen what happened. I went to the doctors to go on the pill and the doc had these notes about me being born addicted to Heroin and how I had to be weaned off. I didn’t know anything about it. The doctor was so angry that no one had told me anything. He was the one who got hold of social services and made them release their records to me.’

‘He was a nice man that doctor.’

‘He was gay. I used to see him a lot. Like he’d check on me and make sure I was okay. I think him being gay made me less wary. Like you know, some of the other boys in foster care got a bit touchy gropey sometimes and…’

‘He had a beard and this deep voice. He was quite big too. Not big like you but you know, like corpulent. Doctor Stone. Heathcliff Stone. He said I could call him Cliff.’

‘So yeah. Born addicted to heroin eh? Cor that’s a shit start haha! Still, it’s better than a lot of other people. You know, like people born into famine or poverty and things. Like someone born now. That would be bad. Being born now. Mind you they wouldn’t know any difference would they? We’d remember what the world was like but they’d grow up thinking it was normal.’

‘Is that bag getting heavy? Want me to take it? No? Okay then.’

‘Should get you a sunhat.’

‘Are you hungry? I didn’t bring any food. We’ll find somewhere and get something. Ooh, remind me I need to get a toothbrush. We could do with some more wipes too and some more gloves in case those split. What else? Water definitely. Maybe something sugary like an energy drink? What do you think?’

Paco doesn’t think. He doesn’t understand a word of what she is saying but he listens anyway. He takes in the tone, the softness of it and the way she smiles and looks at him. He doesn’t mind carrying the bag and something in him likes it when she touches him. Her voice, her manner, her touch and just her shifts the gained equilibrium. The urge to bite that was held in check is pushed further away. The memories and flashes of images come back but slower and they stay longer. They’re still too distant to mean anything. He has no conscious thought but conscious thought is only the uppermost layer of the mind.

So she talks. She tells him things she has never told another human being. She laughs at herself and changes subject as her mind flits to jump and grasp new topics and they walk side by side through the country lanes, sweating and red faced they stop frequently to drink water.

She tells him about being in the gym when it happened and what she saw on the news. She explains she loves going to the gym and exercise has probably been the only thing she has ever really stayed committed with. Heather tells him about the church and the awful long days of hiding and how bored she got. It was torture for someone like her to be without mental stimulation, she tells him that too. She tells him everything and the more she tells the more comes out. She doesn’t even flinch when she veers slightly and brushes against his side and during one lengthy explanation she reaches out with her bare hand to touch his arm in emphasis of a point. She tuts when she realises but carries on chatting while taking a wipe from the bag in his hand.

They walk miles, both without realising and both for very different reasons. Past fields that roll away with the undulation of the ground. Past hedges bursting with life. Past old stone walls and over old stone bridges that have gurgling streams underneath. Past trees that tower with canopies that give blessed shade and past entrances to farms set back on unmade roads that get ignored.

The first house on the side of the road they pass is still done so with caution, but less than before. She watches closely and listens but keeps going while edging nearer to the reassuring bulk of Paco striding at her side. She would have taken his hand if it wasn’t such a wholly stupid idea that made her blush for even thinking it. Once past she grins ruefully at Paco and crinkles her nose as if to say what was that about?

Eighteen

The heat becomes worse and grows to bear down with crushing weight that makes even talking hard work. Another mistake made. She should have stayed at the farm. She should have stayed in the church. She should have done many things but these are new times and you deal with what’s in front of you.

They’ve been walking for hours. In her mind she assumed they’d find a quaint little village and forage for toothbrushes and the other things on the list created in her head. Instead they carried on along endless country lanes and roads that weaved a route through more fields than ever knew existed.

Despite the heat, despite the sweat pouring from her body, despite the humidity and the end of the world and despite anything else she still has a weird feeling of contentment and in truth, she wouldn’t go back to the farm or the church. They drink water to stay hydrated and more that gets poured down over faces to sluice the sweat away. That Paco is now sweating is something she noticed with another smile and a pat on his arm as though he did something he should be proud of.

Instead of the quaint little village she had in mind they reach the edge of a town. Not a big one or anything like the size of the one she met Paco in. On the crest of a hill she stares down at rooftops that grow thicker in number and closer together towards the middle. She spots the wide main road then more buildings that stretch out to meet fields and open farmland.

‘Looks okay,’ she whispers to Paco who doesn’t reply or give any form of opinion on the perceived level of safety of the town ahead. ‘Yeah, yeah we’ll go for it,’ she adds while nodding. Shade is needed. Not the shade they’ve got now from the oak tree they’re under but proper indoors shade. A house or something. She tells herself they’ll go quietly and run at the first sight of trouble or indeed the first sight of anything like yesterday.

Down the hill they go, losing the overview of the town as they descend. She stops at the corner of the first proper residential street and scans every inch of ground she can see. No bodies. No blood either. She looks to the houses and spots a few with doors hanging open but otherwise no signs of damage.

Her hand reaches out to feel Paco is still there. She brushes across his front then gently gropes until she finds the hanging material of his side pocket that she hooks her thumb into. She tugs for them to move and debates whether to stick to the side of the pavement or go in the middle of the road. It feels natural to want to stay at the side but the middle means you can see both sides equally. She opts for the middle and guides Paco out to follow the broken white lines up the road. She keeps her hand hooked on the material of his pocket, eyes flicking left and right and turning every few steps to check behind. All quiet. All good. No bodies. No blood. She risks a quick grin at Paco and again crumples her nose, so far so good eh?

His presence makes all the difference and she feels far less fear than walking into that other town after leaving the church. She glances at him again. He doesn’t even look like an infected person now. Apart from the eyes and you’d have to be close to see those. He’s walking normally and he’s a big bloke too so hopefully anyone looking will see a big man walking with a woman. It even feels okay, this town I mean. She nods at Paco as though affirming her thoughts to him. The heat is the only big issue. It must be well over thirty degrees and the only time she’s felt heat like this was on a Greek Island a few years back during the height of the summer. It’s like walking through an oven. Even the tarmac is bubbling in places and there’s now a permanent heat shimmer that could never be reached hanging over the road ahead.

They can find the centre, or a shop on the way and get what they need then find somewhere to get rest and shade. They can spend the night or find a vehicle and drive somewhere else. Paco has given her choices and options. She smiles again and pushes her hand hooked onto his pocket into his side with a fleeting touch of affection.

They turn into the last road that feeds into the town centre and walk steadily between the houses. Still no bodies. Still no blood. She wipes the sweat from her forehead with her arm and blasts air out through her cheeks. Then she hears the bang and stops. A loud percussive noise of something heavy being thrown against something solid.

She tugs at Paco’s pocket to draw him back and looks quickly to his arms that aren’t tensed. His hands still open as normal and his face is as passive as ever. She bites her lip then hears another bang, the same as before too. Something heavy against something solid. On a T junction and she can see the road running left and right runs behind the shops. Behind them is the road they came up. She thinks to go back then spots the gate to a high walled yard hanging open. She tugs him again and sets off while nodding at the gate. Paco goes with her, still not showing any signs of concern.

She stops him by the gate, darts in to check then ushers him through before following and easing the gate closed that’s secured by a single bolt in the middle. Another bang sounds clear in the air, closer now too and coming from the other side of the building she’s at the rear of. She squints and thinks, it must be the town centre. It has to be. Is it? The sound of a window going through makes her jolt. Paco steps closer but stares at her and not at anything else. His hands still open and his arms relaxed.

Okay, find cover and hide. Wait it out. She creeps across the yard to the back of the building and spots the rear door ajar. She stops, sniffs and checks Paco for reaction again. Still nothing. Another bang comes from the front of the building but a bit further away, like someone is going down the street smashing things.

She pushes the door open and peers through into what looks like a staff room. Mismatched chairs set round a table. A kitchen unit on one side with a stainless steel sink. A health and safety at work notice pinned to a notice board along with printed pie charts, graphs and memos addressed to all staff. Thick dust on the floor. Undisturbed and the air smells musty but clear of decomposing bodies or shit or piss or stale sweat. Another glance at Paco who remains as relaxed as before.

She closes the back door, smiling with a grimace as she twists the handle to push the door closed. A key in the lock that she turns over and leaves in place ready for a swift exit if needed.

The next bang is further down the street again and accompanied by a male voice shouting angrily. Human though. Definitely human, as opposed to zombie. Zombies snarl and hiss, they growl and can howl and even roar but they don’t generally shout. She doesn’t think so anyway. Into a store room filled with railings of clothes. She nods at Paco, ‘clothes shop,’ she mouths. Paco doesn’t reply or acknowledge her awesome detective skills.

A door leads to set of stairs going up to what must be either the owners or managers flat or more storage space. She closes that one as quietly as possible and eases the other one open to peer out into the main store and through rails of clothes to a big plate glass window.

Options presented and weighed. She closes the door to the shop and opens the other one to the stairs. She gets Paco in front and pushes him gently from behind to get him going up while she clings to the back of his dungarees. Another door at the top. She pushes her hand through the gap between Paco’s arm and his body to twist the handle then pushes the door open before darting back to hide behind him. Nothing happens. No one comes snarling out. She pushes into his back, indicating him to go forward.

They go into another store room stacked with boxes and railings of clothes. Again the dust on the floor tells her the room has been undisturbed. The next bang sounds out but further away again. She guides Paco deeper into the room then creeps over the window to look carefully down at a military vehicle left abandoned on the side of the road with the driver’s door open. It’s definitely an army truck. Like armoured and the wheels are huge. It’s covered in blood and gore too like it’s been used to mow people down. She stares for a while not seeing movement or motion. The next thud comes from her left. She eases forward to gain a view of the street and spots a huge man wrenching a bench from the ground that he throws through the window of a shop clearly in temper. Her mouth drops open in surprise and she quickly checks the street but can’t see anyone else. When she looks back up the man is throwing a litter bin into the side of a car that he then attacks with his feet. He’s huge. Far bigger than Paco and with a bald head that glistens with sweat in the sunshine. He grabs anything he can to throw and smash with a rage that makes his face all flushed and red.

She thought Paco was strong but this guy is off the chart. He pulls a bench off the ground which in itself is impressive considering it’s wrought iron but it’s also concreted into the pavement. She can see the chunks falling off as it gets pulled up and held overhead to be lobbed across the road into parked van. He goes on after that too. Litter bins and street signs get thrown and used to beat windows, cars, trucks and anything in his path.

He stops suddenly. A cessation of anger that ends as his huge shoulders sag down and his chest heaves for air. He turns and looks down to the military vehicle then rubs his chin as though thinking what to do. He says something to himself and sets off towards a van parked further up. He looks through the windows as though looking for keys as she begins to understand that the army vehicle is his. It must have broken down judging by the angle he’s left it in. That might explain the temper tantrum, if you can call a giant throwing metal benches through shop windows a temper tantrum.

The man goes out of sight for a minute then comes back holding something in his hands that he uses to get into the van. Keys. He’s just got keys from a house or a shop. He gets into the driver’s seat, fumbles about, wipes his head then pulls away to drive back down the road. Heather eases back out of view and listens as the van stops and a door opens.

Footsteps then grunts come clear and audible. She risks another glance to see the man taking things from the military vehicle to put into the van. Machine guns, ammunitions boxes and other things she doesn’t recognise. He works fast despite the heat and now that he’s closer she gets the distinct impression of a soldier. He looks worried and uses the back of his hairy arm to wipe the sweat from his face. He disappears inside the army truck then reappears in a hole in the roof she didn’t previously notice and the even bigger machine gun fixed there that he works on to get it off and down. That goes into the van with everything else and a bare few minutes later he’s driving off with the engine revving loud and solid with speed gained.

What the hell was all that about? She stays still, watching and scanning for anyone else. That man looked like a soldier and the truck is obviously an army one. Are the army functioning? He had machine guns and things like the army have. Wow. If the army are going then it might mean they have safe places. Having said that he was also throwing benches through windows and smashing cars up. That doesn’t sound safe. Not with people like that. But then it is hot and breaking down can set anyone off. Maybe he’s just having a bad day. Or a bad lots of days. How many days is it now since it happened? It’s two weeks today. Crumbs, only fourteen days since it started? Feels like months.

Her mind whirls with thoughts of armies and people in control. She doesn’t trust anyone. Apart from Paco and he’s a mutated zombie. Being with people now just feels wrong but then if they do have the army working then it could be a good place to be. Wherever they are.

Okay. Wait and see if they come back for their army truck and make a decision then. She nods to herself and eases back from the window.

‘Toothbrush…got to get a toothbrush.’

Nineteen

‘It’s a bit messy,’ she remarks quietly, standing at the back of the army truck and peering inside to the discarded chocolate bar wrappers and empty drinks bottles lying everywhere. T shirts that look like they were folded neatly now lie on the floor and her awesome detective skills deduce they were knocked down when the big man was rushing to unload it. She spots a pair of boxers left on the floor and tilts her neck to read the words written across the backside in black marker pen Cookey’s big boy pants. She blinks and huffs figuring it must be squaddie humour. Either that or they are indeed Cookey’s big boy pants.

‘Well it carries people,’ she tells Paco, pointing to the bench seats down the sides and then up ahead to the front seats. ‘Must be a personnel carrier,’ she decides, nodding at the vehicle then at Paco as if that solves the whole of the riddle.

It’s been an hour since the big bald soldier left in the van and it’s taken that long to monitor the street before finally deciding it was safe enough to venture out. Now the street looks empty and devoid of life. The trail of destruction the man left is impressive as she views the spots where the benches and bins used to be. At least he opened some of the shops for them by graciously removing the windows.

The supermarket is the first choice and she leads Paco over then drops behind him with her hands on his hips to guide him through the smashed in door first. It’s already been looted but then she was expecting as much. The metal shutter hiding the cigarettes lie hang down from being prised open and she spots produce and things strewn all over the floor. It smells bad too but the smell of rotten food rather than dead bodies. She stays behind Paco but edges in closer to his body to put her hands on his elbows as though to feel if he tenses up. He stays relaxed and for a second she holds still, listening to him breathing and feeling the warmth coming from his body.

‘Clear?’ she whispers? He doesn’t reply but she swears there’s a slight motion in his body, like the preparation of taking a forward step. ‘Okay,’ she adds and applies the gentlest of pressure to his elbows with her hands. He goes forward immediately, almost as though he was waiting for the instruction.

The booze is all gone, which is no surprise. What is surprising is all the junk food has been looted but half the healthy tinned stuff is left behind. Same with the bottled water and cartons of juice and long life milk. People are idiots.

‘I think people are idiots,’ she whispers, giving voice to the thought. They go along the inside of the checkouts to see up each aisle before she decides the shop is clear and seemingly safe. She was hoping it would be cooler in here but if anything it’s even more stifling and the sweet rancid stench of fouled food soon makes her want to rush.

She leads him to the toiletries section first and grabs several new toothbrushes, paste, tampons, wipes and foot powders. Bandages, plasters, antiseptic creams and sprays, sun lotions and creams, moisturisers, Nurofen, lip balm, mascara, hair bands, more hair bands, a new hair brush and some more hair bands. Scrunchies and clips and she goes back for more tampons and even picks up a box of condoms before realising what they are then blushing as she drops them on the floor to be kicked away while she checks to see if he saw.

The bag fills quickly, too quickly. It’s not greed but opportunity and she’s making the most of it. She rushes back down to the checkouts and grabs a few of the big bags for life before going back in to load up with bottles of water, cartons of juice, cans of energy drinks, tinned fruit, rice pudding, muesli bars and more hair bands.

Paco becomes a mule. The loaded rucksack on his back and his hands clutching several bulging bags as she leads him out the shop, across the road, down the alley, into the yard and into the staff room where everything gets deposited on the floor. Well she deposits it on the floor while he watches.

‘Ready?’ she asks him. They go back out the staff room, through the yard, down the alley and across the road but this time to a clothing shop before she stops and remembers she just came from a clothes shop. She huffs and lifts an eyebrow at him before shrugging and walking him back out into the main road. ‘Perfect,’ she grins and sets off striding with him dutifully following after her. An outdoor retail shop with a big bin smashed through the window and the door already kindly opened by someone else. It’s been looted by the same standards as the supermarket with odd stuff taken instead of the serious things. She grabs a new bigger rucksack and loads it anything she thinks might be useful.

Back in the staff room she stands sweating profusely. The air is so close now, like it’s become thick. They’re both sweating tons and she feels a dull headache coming up. She locks the back door and starts carrying everything up the stairs to the store room that has now become their base of operations. Paco follows her up empty handed then back down as she huffs and tuts at him. He doesn’t go up empty handed the next time but carries everything she can hook on his arms, hands and over his shoulders before sending the poor sod up ahead of her.

Finally she sinks down on the bare wooden floors panting for breath and melting into a puddle of sweat.

‘Sugar…need sugar,’ she heaves up onto her backside and reaches up to grab Paco’s wrists. ‘Come down,’ she urges, tugging him to lower down. He bends first that her makes her giggle. ‘No your bum…sit down on your bum…’ the concept is difficult but by tugging on his arms and knees she finally conveys what she wants and he lowers to sit down cross legged next to her, which just makes her giggle again. ‘Come here,’ she crawls over him to stretch his legs out so he doesn’t look like a naughty schoolboy. ‘See? Like this…sitting,’ she tells him, pronouncing the word slowly. ‘Sitting…this is sitting…got it? Oh my god I’m so hot. Are you hot? You look hot.’

She can’t physically get up and walk anywhere ever again so instead she crawls about mooching through bags to come back with two can of Red Bull. She opens both before finding her marigolds that get pulled on so she can lift one of the cans to his mouth with her fingers gently holding his chin.

He gulps noisily. Swallowing it down in one long action until the can is empty. She smiles and wipes a dribble from his lip as he belches noisily.

‘Greedy pig,’ she crinkles her nose at him and grabs her own can that gets glugged down with equal gusto and adds her own belch to match his.

The sugar, caffeine and synthetically produced taurine get into her system quickly, raising her heart rate.

The sugar, caffeine and synthetically produced taurine get into his system quickly, raising his heart rate.

Energy thrums through her body that makes her eyes go slightly larger from the pleasurable feeling.

Energy thrums though his body that makes his eyes go like dishpan lids from his already near perfectly primed cells going bananas from the fresh intake of new ingredients that get processed, broken down and sent round body from a heart going like the clappers.

She sinks down feeling hot, sweaty and grimy but strangely energised and looks round in wonder at the bags of new things. These are strange days. Strange days indeed and to question it would drive you mad, so she doesn’t. Instead she looks at Paco and blinks in surprise. ‘Are you okay?’

Paco doesn’t say whether he is okay or not. Instead his head nods really quickly. Up and down with small movements while his eyelids stretch wide open.

‘What the hell?’

He grins manically. His mouth turning up to show teeth in what can only be a smile. She bursts out laughing at the sight of him nodding like crazy while grinning from ear to ear.

‘Paco?’

His hands lift to fall that thump on the floorboards, like a spasm or a twitch that makes Heather cover her mouth with the back of her forearm to stifle the laugh.

His shoulders join in with a single shrug then another and another until he’s shrugging, grinning, nodding and lifting his hands an inch off the floor to drop them down again.

She can’t help laughing. The way he’s sat there with his legs stretching out and his hands resting on the floor either side of his body, like he’s dancing on the spot and the sight of him grinning like that is too much. Really too much. The laugh grows, tears come into her eyes and she gasps for air while trying to turn away to stop looking at him. When she looks back he’s still going and it sets her off again so hard she bends double while kneeling and clutching her stomach. When she looks again she sees his arms lifting out from the sides and going back down like he’s trying to fly. It’s too much. The tears roll quickly down her cheeks as the poor chap tries to process the strong energy drink coursing through his body. She crawls closer, laughing hard and tries to grab his arms to stop him flying. He doesn’t resist or force against her and she can feel the tremble running through his body but the expression on his face is what keeps her laughing. His eyes tracking her while nodding and grinning like he’s desperately agreeing to whatever she just said. There’s no pain in his eyes, no sadness or worry but an expression of gleeful abandon from a grown man doing something so silly.

‘Oh you poor baby,’ she chuckles and laughs at him, gently clasping his cheeks in her gloved hands. ‘It’s just the sugar…’

He nods harder with an action that brings the giggles back into her body. He likes the sound of her laughing. He likes her hands touching him and the tone of her voice. He doesn’t know he likes it but he grins wider. Stretching his mouth more that sets her off again with her hands still cupping his cheeks.

‘Stop,’ she gasps the words out between laughs, leaning closer towards him while holding his head. ‘Stop…Paco…oh god,’ the giggles come again from the deep slow blink he gives. His eyes squeezing together then popping wide. Her head drops from laughing so much, her forehead almost touching his. He can see the tears on her cheeks and feels the shake in her body from the laughs that sound so nice. His eyes watch her face all the time. Learning the nuances and subtle changes that accompany her voice and body language. She slowly gets her breathing under control and tries to draw a deep steadying lungful while risking another look at him. As soon as she does so he squeezes his eyes and pops them open while grinning wider. She’s gone again. Fresh tears course down her cheeks and her body trembles while leaning harder into him. Her legs over his thighs. She gets lost in the moment, caught up in the giggles that grip and don’t let go. While laughing, while giggling and feeling the pain in her sides and gasping for air she wraps her arms round his head and pulls him close to her chest while she sags forward over him. There is no danger here, of that there is no doubt. She pays no heed to his saliva going on her top or the sweat from his body touching her bare skin. She pays no heed to his mouth being so close he could nip gently and draw blood. She feels only his form and the purity of joy that laughing brings and the closeness to another body that she knows won’t ever try and hurt her. Not ever. Never ever. She hugs him close, laughing and giggling while he becomes engulfed in the feeling of a warm body pressing into his head. It’s hot and hard to get a full breath but he shows no reaction and somewhere deep inside that equilibrium is pushed yet further away.

The sound of the diesel engine comes fast and it takes seconds for the new noise to register in her brain. She lifts up, still smiling and turns to face the window. The engine noise gets closer then the sound of brakes and the vehicle slows to a stop. Doors open and a deep voice calls out.

‘You two move out and keep watch.’

She instantly matches it to the big man she saw earlier. It’s exactly how she imagined he would sound.

Another voice speaks, younger and sounding worried. ‘Wow man…that’s like, you know, a proper big army thing yeah?’

‘It is, now fix it,’ the deep voice growls.

‘Man, you don’t understand that like, you know, I gotta see what’s wrong with it before I fix it. What happened, did it like you know, make noise or what man?’

‘The power went…no noises or bangs, just went,’ the deep voice says.

‘Slow or fast?’

‘Quick. Just died.’

‘Man that sounds like a fuel problem, maybe a fuel line or something like, you know?’

‘Know what?’

‘Was there like, you know, diesel on the road or…?’

‘No,’ the deep voice snaps. ‘Nothing.’

‘Well okay man, that’s helpful you know? I’ll go take a look then.’

‘You do that. If you get it working then I might not shoot you.’

She flinches at the words, still hugging Paco’s head then drops down to whisper into his ear, telling him to shush and stay quiet. She pulls away to turn fully towards the window, one hand now resting on his shoulder.

‘Lads,’ the deep voice calls out but the tone is ever so slightly different, with a natural authority underlined with a hint of humour. ‘If he doesn't anything you don’t like, runs off, shouts out, whatever… shoot him.’

‘You got it, hench man,’ a young prematurely deep voice of a teenage man replies. Something in the way the words are said tell Heather the big man didn’t mean it but he wanted to make the other man work fast.

She stays silent, glancing at Paco who also stays silent as they listen to bangs and clunks of someone doing things to the vehicle. Low voices come drifting up on the hot air. Two teenage males speaking quietly and the mechanic man trying to convince them he is working as fast as he can.

She wants to look down but can’t risk being seen and any thoughts of going out to meet them are gone instantly. Paco is infected. If they’re army they’ll shoot him for sure. If she weighed it up and had time to think it through she’d see the sheer folly of her reasoning but she reacts on instinct, and her instinct, as ever, tells her to be quiet and hide. People are dangerous. Stay away from people.

The two teenage sounding males sound like they’re from a council estate. Like the inner city accents she hears on television and films. They berate the mechanic constantly, keeping the pressure on him to work.

‘Done man, like you know I fixed it and like, it ain't gonna break again man, like a proper fix that is for sure.’ Finally the mechanic calls out with a voice of relief.

‘Well done that man,’ the deep voice booms so loud it makes her flinch which makes Paco sit up straight with a hard glare. She soothes him quickly, rubbing his arm and pulling soft faces until he relaxes and his eyes lose the look that everyone else is about to get killed.

The noises carry on outside. Doors being opened and people moving about. The sky darkens with a noticeable suddenness. It’s too early for night. The pressure of the close air becomes thicker, like it’s harder to breathe. Static everywhere that makes her stretch her mouth as though her ears are blocked. A bigger deeper engine starts, throaty and roaring to life. Must be the army vehicle. A few seconds later and after more doors have been slammed shut the engine pulls away to power fast down the road plunging the room into a gloomy, heavy hot silence.

Only then does she risk crawling over to the window to look down on a deserted street. The hairs on her neck prickle. Dark broiling clouds roll low overhead but the people and the army truck are gone. She exhales slow and steady with a release of tension but stays waiting and watching for long minutes. She needs air. It’s so stifling in here. She cracks the sash window open an inch then pushes it wider. It has no effect whatsoever so she waits, watching and staring intently in case they come back.

The heat gets worse in the finality of atmospheric pressure building in the last minutes of calm before the storm. The air gets so heavy it becomes flat and robs the volume from her voice.

‘Hungry?’ she asks Paco, the word sounding weirdly hollow and lifeless. Eating in this heat is the last thing she wants to do but they’ve walked miles today again and she’s learning to eat when you can.

Twenty

Winter coats left in the store room for the seasonal change in products to be sold in the shop make comfy seats. Stacked and laid at the base of a wall with Paco leaning back after being fussed over, moved, made to sit then get back up so she could put more woollen coats down and then back up again in case he wanted some lower back support.

‘Right, we’re going to try something,’ she says breathlessly. Just moving in this pressured air is hard work. Holding a tin of low fat rice pudding she drops at his side with her marigolds still firmly on her hands. ‘Are you right handed or left?’

Paco doesn’t know if he is right or left handed and therefore does not reply to impart this information. That and he has no clue what she just said.

‘We’ll go for the right…but then I heard artistic people are mostly left handed. Hmmm, saying that you’re not exactly artistic are you. I mean, you know, like action films aren’t art like oh I don’t know, you know what I mean. We’ll go for the right hand okay? Hold this, that’s it, put your hand here and hold the tin. No don’t squeeze too hard. That’s it. Just hold it there. Now use your left hand to take the spoon. Oh hold on…no you need to hold the tin in your left hand and use your right to hold the spoon. Swap over. Left hand here and hold the tin, got it? Now the right hand holds the spoon like this. I’ll put it here and push your fingers together. So, we go down, load the spoon and then lift it up…no it goes towards your mouth. God your arms are huge, Paco…they weigh a ton. Shift your elbow a bit, I can’t see. No that way…no don’t move the spoon. Right hang on, I’ll sit over your legs. Is that okay? I’m not too heavy am I? Right put the spoon back in and get it loaded, not too much now. Yeah that’s fine now up…up to the mouth…open up…and in it goes! Hey well done.’

She grins as he eats. Sat astride his thighs again with the tin held in his hand between them and her gloved hand guiding the spoon away from his mouth.

‘And down again, into the tin…load it up and…let that bit drip off and there we go, up and up and open wide and yay! Look at you eating away. Ooh watch that bit in the corner…get the spoon here and just push it back in. Fancy another go? Is it nice? It’s low fat so I figured that’s what you would like. Okay, down and tilt the spoon, get some on and up…go on up up and yay! You did it again. Oh shit,’ she flinches and ducks from the thunder clap booming so hard it shakes the windows in the frames. Paco sits up, sensing her fear and the way she ducked into him. The tin starts to buckle from his grip closing in. His eyes fixed and his arms bulging with muscles tensing.

‘Easy, just thunder…it’s okay it just made me jump…Christ that was loud…’ she forces a soft tone and rubs his shoulder while glancing round at the window. ‘Come on, try again. What have you done to that tin? It’s all bent in now. No come on, just relax. I said I was fine. I just jumped from the thunder. Relax and sit back, go on…okay? Right the spoon goes in and up into the mouth and…that was so good. You’re doing it. Okay, try again…down and no that’s too much, it’ll spill everywhere. No, Paco it’s too much….okay you want to try it anyway…it’s gonna fall off though…almost there…now see, what did I say? It’s all down your top. Just…come here, we’ll scrape it off. Fuck!’

He tenses instantly at her fright, glaring and ready as the can is crushed in his hand that makes the rice pudding ooze out over her legs. The thunder clap was louder, harder, deeper and closer. The walls vibrating and the air charging with static that lifts the hairs on the back of her neck.

‘Easy easy….’ She soothes him back down, swallowing from the pressure and glancing again at the windows to the dark sky outside. ‘Oh look at that,’ she tuts and slides the spoon out from his fingers to scrape the gooey pudding off her legs that gets fed into his mouth. He doesn’t relax and his eyes stay hard and glaring as he detects the tremble in her body and the way she keeps looking at the windows.

‘I’m fine…honestly,’ she says nodding and glancing over her shoulder again. He learns. He hears the soft voice but detects the fear nonetheless. ‘Right…er…well the rice pudding is fuck,’ she mutters, ducks and squeezes her eyes closed as he tries to rise from the next explosion in the sky overhead that rolls and rolls on and never ends with echoes and claps that come again and again. She wants to soothe him but she can’t speak and he rises with her on his lap, lifting her up on strong legs that rise despite her clinging on to his neck.

Heather’s astraphobia started at the same time as her agoraphobia. An abject fear of storms that made her as scared as the thought of being in a crowded place. She could never drink in a busy pub or get a train from a packed platform. Shopping on a Saturday afternoon was ruled out and so was eating in any restaurant or café. That’s why she trained in the gym late at night when it was empty and she hid under the duvet with earphones blasting rock music whenever a storm hit outside.

There are no duvets here and no headphones either and this thunder is unlike anything she has ever heard. It’s the power of it. The force of something she cannot control that drives fear deep into her heart. She could never fly or be a passenger in a fast car. She couldn’t do anything that meant putting her life in the hands or someone or something else and a storm is like a primeval force of things happening that can never be controlled or made to go away.

She clings to Paco, her eyes squeezed shut while his body grows rigid with tension. Pressed so close into him she can feel the growl coming from his throat and his body locking out ready to fight and kill.

It ends and the silence that follows is filled by him and him alone. His voice rumbling deep and threatening like a dog. She finally breathes and realises where she is, hanging off his neck with her legs round his waist. Shame hits and she slides off with her heart thudding fast. Her legs feel rubbery and weak. She goes to say something but stops. She can’t speak. She knows the thunder will come again and worse, the lightning will hit and the wind will grow stronger.

There’s nowhere to go now. No place to hide. She could bury herself under the winter coats and push her fingers in her ears but Paco is here and there’s no knowing what he will do. Instead she does nothing and stands in front of him while staring at the windows.

The rain comes but not hard like she expected it to be. It doesn’t pelt but comes fast and soft. Pattering against the glass that quickly becomes filled with thousands of drops that start sliding down. She feels an urge to stand in the window to feel the rain on her face but the thunder and lightning will come.

It does come. It comes from every direction at once with a bass filled roar of monstrous gods clashing in the heavens where they wage a war of vengeance. The air fractures, charging and breaking with static shock that makes her hair frizz and her skin prickle. The whole of the sky detonates with a force that instantly makes her feel like she is nothing. She is a speck of life that holds no value. Her bones shake in her body, fear grips her mind. She steps back into Paco. It grows louder like it’s lowering to get her. Just her. It’s coming for her and only her. Nothing else can be heard, all other senses are blotted out. Just this.

Night becomes day with the first forked strobe crackling down that give her a split second vision of twisted clouds hanging low and deadly. She sees every rooftop, every chimney stack, every detail of every thing and in less time than it takes to blink. More come to join with ragged dancing forks of pure white energy strobing one after the other. The thunder goes on. The lightning flashes. It’s pure and evil yet beautiful in a way nothing else ever can be.

She backs harder into him, forcing her body against his. Her back pressing into his chest. Flinching and crying real tears now that spill from eyes that know there is nothing she can do to get away. Every fear of being out of control comes surging back. Every memory of being moved from home to home and school to school until her childhood is a flood of new faces and new places. The thunder keeps coming. A cacophony of noise of a million giants hammering into a million drums while those warring gods throw forks of lightning at the tiny planet beneath them.

This is greater than anything the mind of man could conjure. This is beyond anything the special effects people in Paco’s films could make.

She can’t hide. There is no hiding from this and if you can’t hide then you run. You run away from the crowds and hide from the faces that see you. You hide away and pretend they aren’t there. You run and run and never look back and seek solace in your own solitude because people will just hurt you and use you and take what they can.

She runs. Heather runs. From the store room and down the stairs while the roof above her threatens to cave in from the thunder and lightning coming down. She runs without seeing through the staff room with hands that grasp and slide and slip on the key while the panic grows until she’s screaming with tears coursing that blur her vision. She sinks down to her knees to die as the door is taken away by a man ready to kill anything that makes her feel that way.

She runs again. She runs behind Paco who destroys the gate in the same way so she can run and he can fight and destroy the bad thing that comes. She screams into the alley, running because she can and because that’s all she can do now and all she has ever done. She sprints into the rain that saturates her clothes in seconds and a sky tearing itself apart with bursts of energy that drive the panic in her mind.

Paco becomes the thing he was before. Wild and unrestrained, wanting to kill and stamp. His arms huge, his lungs drawing air that floods his body with oxygen. His eyes stare red and bloodshot. Nothing will hurt her. No harm will befall her. He will kill everything. He will fight the thunder and kill the gods and take the lightning in his chest while breaking necks to feel her hands on his face and hear that laughter come again. Except there is nothing to fight. There’s no bad thing here but still she runs, sobbing and crying out with every clap that booms in the sky. He gives chase, staying on her heels with rain driving into his face. Forks split the air, crackling with energy and noise and that static charge grows to become a whole new dimension of feeling.

Those forks come faster, growing in size and number with a wind that howls down the street streaming her hair out behind her. Still she goes. Unable to stop because stopping means they can hurt you. They see you when you stop. They talk to you and ask how you are and you say I’m fine when you’re not fine because you’re dead inside from the things done of a childhood taken away because your mum was a prostitute and you were born addicted to heroin. You run so they don’t see that so they don’t know that and if they don’t know then they can’t judge you. You run because the men put their hands on you when you were too young and because they told you they loved you. You run because if you stop they’ll touch you again like they did to your mum who took money so they could touch her and she died from that. It killed her. Don’t die. Run and don’t die. If you stop you’ll die. If people know who you are you will die so run and never stop because you are alone in this life without anyone to ever give you clean love.

The biggest one yet comes. A booming detonation of power that shakes the ground under her feet so hard she staggers. Forks strobe, giving day to night to day over and again. Ragged forks hit chimney stacks blowing them asunder with bricks raining down into the street. Forks strobe that rake rooftops to send slates spinning out that smash into windows. Forks grow and scorch across the road gouging tarmac as they pulse and roar silently. Wood is hit and charged to such instant temperature it gives flame. Fires start, fuelled by winds that scream into her face so hard it makes her unable to run now. She bends forward, fighting against the tide sent into her body. Bricks rain down. Slates slam into cars and buildings. Explosions of sparks cascade down from lightning hitting satellite dishes and oversized television aerials.

The fear drives her mad. She screams and fights to stay on her feet to run and never look back. Buildings crumble all around her. Roofs are lifted and taken away to be swirled and played with and all the time the rain lashes with such torrential unceasing power the road becomes a stream of water. Eddies form that twirl and suck at her feet. Litter is picked up and carried and the wind gets under her skin with a power that grows. Aye, this is power. This is a show of strength to the filth caused by her species. This is an act of revenge to clean the muck from the surface of the planet and rid the diseased humans that made it bad. She can’t run now. There’s no running from this. She can’t hide now. There’s no hiding from this. There is only acceptance of what will be. She ran her whole life. She hid too. She avoided and backed down and looked away and turned to go in the other direction but now she can’t so she comes to a sudden stop to take what’s coming because there is no love in this world anymore and no one can ever make it better.

He stops behind her. His chest heaving and his arms fixed ready to fight and follow her into the depths of hell so she will touch his face again and feed him rice pudding. She is loved. She is loved by a thing that doesn’t know what love is which is the purest love of all. He stands watching and will forever until she laughs and smiles while his mind whirls with images of a dog and a life he had that means nothing now.

She sobs there in the street with misery and grief and loss all coming out in this place at this time. It can’t be held back now. There was always time. She always knew there would be time to find her family and see, just see if they wanted to know her too. The time is gone now. It’s all gone and it’ll never come back. Left too late and it can’t be taken back. She sobs with thunder terrifying her heart and lightning that makes her flinch and twitch as bricks and slates slam about her and the wind threatens to knock her off her feet. She sobs without knowing a big man stands at her back using his bulk to hold her upright and shield her from those bricks and slates that slam into his body. He doesn’t flinch or show fear. He feels no pain. He feels nothing but everything for her and so he waits. The equilibrium becomes the pendulum that swings with feelings and emotions of memories he once had that meant something. He knew love. Just once. He felt loved. Just once. He gave that love back. Just once and without knowing it he would forever search to give that love again. The equilibrium shifts further, swinging wider away. He knows nothing. He is one of them. He is a man that only knows to take and hurt. He is a monster. A dangerous monster but he is her dangerous monster. She sobs louder, breaking and falling apart, knowing she will die tonight without ever knowing if she could have found them and told them of her life and what it was like. It doesn’t matter now. None of it matters now. None of it mattered before so why would it mean anything now? Go and die. Die lonely and forgotten.

She feels his arms that lift to shield her from the bricks and slates and from the lightning that he would fight if he could. He pushes into her, shielding her, drawing her close so his arms can wrap round to give protection and the sobs come louder and harder as she sinks back to feel his body taking the impacts of the missiles thrown by the gods that mock and taunt her. He pushes down, his body forcing her to drop to her knees so he can cover her with his own form. She goes too. She goes because it doesn’t matter. She goes down to die and screams from the pain inside and he holds tighter. His arms wrap harder. His body covers her and he doesn’t flinch when a brick slams into his head that opens his skin so the blood can be washed instantly away by the rain. He doesn’t cry out but holds her close while her body heaves and fights to be free so she can try and run again. He won’t let her go. He’ll never let her go in this. It’s bad out there. Stay here. Let me cover you. She doesn’t want to be held or covered. She doesn’t want anyone ever doing anything for her. She can do it alone on her own so the risk of hurt is taken away. He’s too big, too heavy, too strong, too determined and his arms hold her in place while his body bleeds and shields her. She hits out. She’s trapped and he’s a dangerous monster and he’s a man and all men do is hurt. She drives her elbows into his stomach and rains punches into his arms. She slams the back of her head into his shoulders while screaming to tell him to fuck off and never touch her. He’ll touch her and tell her he loves her and it’s okay and this is what people do when they love each other but just don’t tell anyone. She snarls and lets the fear become anger that surges to make her frenzied. She batters him hard, thrashing until she’s on her back underneath him but he lowers more, his arms planted either side while his legs hold her down and his broad back takes the hits from the gods while his stomach and face take the hits she gives. She gives them too. She gives them raging for every bad thing ever done. She slams into his chest and arms and shoulders and lifts her knees into his thighs but he won’t give in. He can’t. There’s bad things here that can hurt her so she has to stay until the bad things go away because he can’t fight and kill these bad things.

‘GET OFF ME GET OFF ME GET OFF ME…’

He stares down, his eyes locked on her face that twists and morphs with nuances of pain and fury but he can still sense the fear. Still the rage comes and it grows as the thunder grows and it becomes wild as the lightning comes that snakes across the ground mere feet away.

‘GET OFF ME GET OFF ME GET OFF ME,’ words screamed over and again in a loop of memories of pain and abandonment with loss the greatest of all that bubbles the sadness that twists into more anger that drives out to punch and hit and snarl at his face. He’s a man and all man wants to do is take and hurt and take her mum away. There it is. That. She screams again the most animal of sounds of pure pain. Men took her mum away for money. She screams harder, demented by the thought of it and the visceral images created by the demons dancing behind her eyes. Men did it for money. Men took her. Men killed her. The break comes. The utter breaking of a heart fracturing that gives voice to the thing she had never allowed in her head before.

‘They took her,’ she cries out and searches the heavens above Paco for a sign of why that happened. ‘They took my mum…’ her eyes search but find nothing but find something when she looks again and sees him staring down with those terrible red eyes showing only pain. ‘They took my mum,’ her lips goes, trembling as her eyes fill again. ‘They hurt my mum…they…they hurt me….’ She weeps with a hurt so deep inside she knows it will never end. ‘They…they…’ she feels his arms under her hands. Solid and unmoving. She sees the blood coming from his head that’s washed away by the rain pouring down his face that hangs over her. ‘They hurt me, Paco….they did…did….bad things…’ she reaches up to touch his face. So gently, so softly. Fingertips that brush down his cheeks as though daring to feel he is there. ‘You’d kill them for me wouldn’t you….’ she nods hard, she wants him to go back and kill them for her. Go back and make them not do that. ‘You’d stop them hurting my mum…you’d…I…don’t hurt me…please….please, Paco…’

He’d never hurt her. Not now. Not ever. He can’t say that. He can’t convey that. He can’t even think that but his eyes hold steady and his back takes the brick that rips across his skin without a flicker of pain because she is all that matters and for her he will stay here forever.

Anguish plays out. Anguish exhausts and robs the body of energy faster than anything else and after such anguish the mind needs to shut down to heal and recover. In the flood of warm waters streaming round her, in the howling wind and the thunder and lightning that continue to vent she cries and weeps and clings to him until that exhaustion of mind pulls her down to a sleep so deep she hears nothing.

Still he stays. Still he watches. Impervious to pain or fatigue. Impervious to everything but that she be safe. So he holds and covers her until the bricks don’t fall anymore and the wind loses strength enough to make things fly that could harm her. The rain still comes and the thunder roars but it goes to another place to show them its power instead of here. An equilibrium inside that swung and shifted and by degrees so it goes further away again. He can see her sleeping. Her face looks okay now. Not angry. Serene. Calm. No fear. Within the depths of mind a message is formed that lodges and conveys signals to his arms that reach underneath to lift her up as he rises to stand. He pauses. Unsure. He moves. Walking down a road now littered with debris and bathed orange from fires raging in buildings set on fire.

He carries her past anything that could hurt her. He carries her sleeping and silent to an alley to a yard to a staff room to a set of stairs to a bed of winter coats that she is laid down upon.

Sitting. See? Like this…sitting…this is sitting…got it? He sits, waits and watches with an understanding that begins very slowly to form.

Twenty One

She wakes slowly, pleasantly. Warm, dry and snug with softness beneath her. She rises through the layers of sleep until she feels the warmth coming from the thing she holds. She murmurs softly, nestling in closer. Her arms going over whatever it is to draw it closer. She drifts down back to sleep then a few minutes later she begins the rise again. Pressure on her back but it’s nice, heavy and nice, warm and comforting. She feels safe. She sighs and mumbles and slowly blinks to bring her eyes to a new day and a new dawn and a face full of Paco’s right leg.

For a second she considers the fact she is trying to spoon his leg and even thinks that perhaps she should not be doing such a thing. It’s warm though, like with the warmth that can only come from another living being. So she stays and thinks bollocks to the world in all its judgement because this feels nice. Later, when her mind comes yet more to the fore of rational thought so her ace detective skills deduce that the weight on her back must be his arm. Those clues are extrapolated until she reaches the conclusion that she is lying on her side cuddling his leg while he is sitting up with his arm on her back. Which is fine by her. Totally fine. Like so fine because it’s warm and nice and she feels safe. So she dozes and thinks to worry about it later.

Later she wakes properly and groans the groan that comes from a deep sleep after a venting of pure emotion. It comes back at that point. The storm. She ran outside and down the street. What happened? The thunder was so loud and the lightning was so bright. There was fire and the road was flooding. Did Paco go with her? He did. He pushed her down into the ground. She blinks and focusses. He didn’t pin her down but like covered her. She was angry and upset. No, more than upset. She cried and hit him. Crumbs, she was beating him like mad but he stayed right there. She doesn’t remember coming back here though. The last memory is of crying and falling asleep on the road with Paco covering her while thinking she’ll get up in a minute.

She’s here though. In the store room above the shop. She sits up slowly to blink sleepily at Paco who watches her the same as always. His arms slides off her back and she feels the loss of warmth that came from his leg.

Sunlight streams through the windows. Particles of dust hang in the air glinting golden and drifting slowly down. She looks round, blinking and trying to remember coming back here. A memory of a sensation of a dream of being carried. Christ. She looks at him harder. He carried her back? No way. He must have done. She felt it. She felt being carried up the stairs and lowered onto the woollen coats.

‘Oh,’ she says simply, nodding slowly while still blinking heavily. ‘Gosh,’ she adds when no other thoughts form in her mind. ‘Well,’ she tells Paco. She does what she does best and ignores the main issues in her mind to instead focus on something else. ‘Sorry for hitting you,’ she says with a pained smile. ‘Did I hurt you? Let me have a look.’ He carried her back. That’s nuts. And he didn’t moan or try and say anything stupid when she was crying and shouting and hitting him. She moves over him to lower down into a squat. ‘Let me see,’ she takes his face in her hands to gently move his head side to side then up and down while examining his skin closely. He looks better again. The bruises are fading quickly and he’s got colour back in his cheeks. ‘New cut there,’ she says, noticing the cut where the brick hit him. ‘Your face looks okay though,’ she says after tilting his head back up. ‘Anywhere else? Let me see your arms,’ she checks them in turn, noticing with grimaces at the new bruises and grazes. ‘Okay, let me see your back.’ She unfastens the shoulder straps on his dungarees that get pulled down so she can tug his t shirt up. ‘Arms up,’ she says, still sat over his legs. His arms go up instantly, she pauses, smiling to herself in acknowledgment of his apparent ability to learn. ‘Well, your chest looks okay, no marks or anything,’ she heaves off to the side. ‘Stand up, come on…up you come.’ He rises to his feet and gets turned so she can see his back. ‘Oh Paco, this looks nasty,’ she tuts at the welts on his back but it looks mostly bruised instead of cut. She pulls his top down then eases him back round to face her as the realisation strikes that she just did all of that without wearing her marigolds. She checks her hands instantly, searching for open cuts or spots of blood. Where are her gloves? She can’t remember if she had them on when she went out last night. Bloody hell, she slept against him. Her face was pressed into his leg. He could have dribbled on her or anything. A spot of blood could…it didn’t though. She blinks at her hands then up at him. Luck? Something else? An image pushes into her mind of him leaning over her last night with blood coming from that cut on his head. She was underneath him, it could have dripped down. Switch on, Heather. He’s still an infected.

She finds the tube of anti-bacterial gel from the bags to soak her hands. Where are her gloves? She looks round spotting them in the mass of winter coats that formed their bed. Their bed? Not their bed. They didn’t sleep together. Not like together together, not like that.

A smell gets into her nose. Distinct and instantly recognisable. She sniffs, frowning harder with alarm bells ringing in her head. Smoke. Fire. The lightning. She darts to the window and recoils from the bank of white smoke rolling so thick she can’t see the ground.

‘Fire,’ she mumbles. ‘Fire…we’ve got to go…’ she bursts away to grab the big rucksack and starts filling it with the goods taken yesterday. Paco moves closer to her, detecting the worry in her face and movements. ‘Got to get out,’ she tells him and sniffs again. Definitely fire. It’s dirty smoke too and not the pleasant musky scent of wood burning but chemicals, paint and metals. She’s bursting for a wee and thirsty. She feels grimy from sleeping in her clothes with hair sticking up in all directions but at least that awful crushing heat has gone.

‘Bugger,’ she mutters at seeing his dungarees sagging round his knees. ‘Come here,’ she grabs to pull them up, working fast to fasten the shoulder straps. ‘All done. You okay?’ She asks as though expecting an answer and turns then freezes and looks back with a hard glare. ‘Did you just nod?’ she demands then realises the harshness of her panicked tone. ‘Paco, did you just nod at me?’ she forces softness into her voice but his head stays fixed with his eyes locked on hers. Good lord, this is too much again. ‘We’ve got to go,’ she hefts the bag, grunting at the unexpected weight as it sinks down on her back. ‘Go…come on…’ she ushers to the door, pausing to grab her marigolds and cursing for touching him again without them.

Down the stairs and into the staff room. The smell of smoke hanging clear and distinct but not choking. She pushes him ahead with her hands on his hips guiding him through the demolished back door into the yard thick with white smoke. ‘Stop,’ she grabs his clothes to pull him back. They’ll have to go out the front. She can barely see the gate from here, or where the gate was considering it’s now smashed to smithereens. The fire must be next door. She looks round to try and see flames to gain a sense of direction and distance but the smoke is too thick. Seemingly hanging in the air. She can’t see further than a few metres. Guiding him back she grabs his wrist and leads him into the staff room, yet again chastising herself for still not having the gloves on. ‘Whoa,’ she stops suddenly with Paco bumping gently into her back. ‘That’s not smoke,’ she peers round him to the door and the yard outside. ‘That’s fog…’

She goes back, squeezing round him to reach the door and watches the thick cloud of white smoke that isn’t smoke. Smoke isn’t white. Not like this is white. It’s fog. ‘It’s fog,’ she tells Paco who doesn’t reply because he doesn’t know what fog is and still has no idea what she just said.

‘It is,’ she says as though trying to convince herself. ‘It’s fog….like….foggy.’ She goes out, staring up and round and now the connection is made she instantly recognises it for what it is. Thick fog. Really thick wet fog. She goes further out, staring in wonder. She’s never seen fog like it. Not like this.

Reaching the gate she watches the cloud rolling by. Shapes and hints of silhouettes glimpsed then gone again. She turns to smile at Paco, feeling silly for making them rush out but then remembering she smelled it before she saw it. She sniffs again, detecting the unmistakable tang of burning chemicals in the air. Fire and fog. Brilliant. Where’s the fire? There’s no way of telling. It could be in any direction. It could be from all the directions. Either way they need to leave and find somewhere else.

‘Come on,’ she grabs his wrist again for fear of losing him in the dense mist and leads out into the street. Just a few paces robs the view of the yard. She knows she must be in the middle of the junction but she can’t see anything now. No walls or houses, no kerbs or cars. Nothing. Which way do they go? She looks down at her feet and the ground. The road will have white lines in the middle. Find the lines. Follow the lines.

Holding Paco firmly in her hand she starts side stepping left but sees nothing. It’s so confusing and disorientating. She goes back to the right, staring at the ground and trying to remember how many paces left she went. She finds a kerb, stops and works out where the pavement is. They go back into the road, Paco staring at Heather who studies the ground at her feet.

‘Got it,’ she breathes a sigh of relief and gives Paco a big smile who instantly softens in expression. ‘We’re okay,’ she blows air out through her cheeks, rubbing his forearm gently. ‘We’ll follow the lines. Right, stay close and don’t wander off. Actually, I’ll keep hold of you. Where’s my gloves? Got them. I’ll put these on and…okay so give me your hand and I’ll go on this side but we can’t lose sight of the white lines. Ready?’

They walk hand in gloved hand. Fingers interlocked while she stares down to follow the broken white lines. It’s weird watching the ground instead of ahead. Anything could be there. There could be like loads of infected just standing there waiting. She shudders and moves closer into his side. Her left hand in his, her right hand crossing her body to hold his arm that she rubs without any knowledge of doing so.

‘I need a wee,’ she whispers up at him after a few minutes. It feels right to whisper. Paco doesn’t reply. She squeezes his hand while biting her bottom lip. ‘Paco, I really need a wee.’ She looks round while knowing there is perhaps is a four metre circumference of view but it’s the thought of weeing in the road. Mind you, she did wash her bits from an office water drinking machine a couple of days ago after throwing her bloodied knickers behind a desk. Fair one. She stops to ease the bag down which is propped against Paco’s legs before pulling her trousers and knickers down to squat in the road while being careful not to piss on her new shoes. ‘Ah that’s so nice,’ she sighs as the urine tinkles down. Her bare backside poking out behind. ‘Good job I don’t need a poo,’ she looks up to see his eyes, for once, are not staring at her face. ‘Paco,’ she says sharply, bringing his gaze back to her. ‘Were you looking at my bum?’ she asks with an eyebrow lifting. Paco doesn’t reply. ‘Hmmm, don’t be getting any funny ideas buster,’ she tells him while weeing on the road. ‘Need to change my tampon,’ she waddles to the bag and roots through to find the box. The old one comes out and is discarded after being checked. The blood flow is reducing. She uses a wipe to clean and puts a new one in while glancing up at Paco as though to catch him looking. He doesn’t. His eyes stay fixed and watchful.

‘Done,’ she stands to pull her knickers and trousers up and sniffs the air. The smoke is still there but no stronger or no weaker than before. She drinks water, staring round at the constantly shifting cloud that equally looks ready to retreat or close in more. ‘Here,’ she takes his bottle from the plastic bag and feeds the water into his mouth. He drinks thirstily, his head going back as he gulps and swallows with an action that draws her eyes to his bandaged neck. He’ll need to be washed and re-bandaged again at some point. ‘Done?’ She asks him when his head pulls back from the bottle. Did he do that yesterday? She thinks back but can’t remember. He’s definitely learning, or maybe not learning but changing. No, it is learning. He was almost feeding himself yesterday with the rice pudding and he did carry her back last night. She looks at him again, searching his eyes for signs of intelligence but just seeing the puppy staring back.

‘Hungry?’ she asks. They eat on the go. She chomps a muesli bar then leans over to feed him the same. Smiling and laughing softly at the way he tries to eat the bar without biting a bit off first. She breaks it into pieces to feed him chunks that get mouthed in and he’s so gentle when her hand touches his mouth. She can hardly believe this is the same man who threw her down on the desk or the same man that killed a dozen people in TK Maxx. But he is. He is that man. Don’t forget that. She has to remind herself constantly and force herself to rub anti-bac into her gloved hands for fear of forgetting and touching her own mouth.

Muesli bars are eaten as they slowly follow the white lines without any clue as to direction. They could be veering left, right or round in circles for all she knows. Distance becomes impossible to calculate. The smell of smoke grows thicker, drawing her focus up from the road to look round but still unable to see anything through the white cloud rolling on all sides. They walk on, the smell becoming stronger with fumes hanging distinct. Sounds soon come. A dull crackling noise that is surreal and distant yet could be within metres. Flames without doubt. Fire eating away into something and that noise grows louder as the smoke gets harsher. She coughs and covers her mouth with the back of her arm then worries about Paco breathing in harmful fumes so rushes on to follow the white lines at a greater speed.

An orange glow begins to show on the right. A reflection that glows distorted and weird on the particles of water that form the bank of fog. It’s eerie as anything she’s observed so far. Something so dangerous and so close yet unseen with only hints of orange showing. Heat comes next which tells her they are close and she tries to work out why the heat hasn’t burnt the fog away. Does that happen? Isn’t fog formed from frozen water particles or something but then this fog isn’t cold at all. It’s still warm like summer. A confusing new world and one she doesn’t know the rules for.

That fire passes but there are more. The storm was vast and violent with bolts scorching many a building. Some are close, as close as the one they passed first. Others are further away but all remain unseen. A landscape of noise and smells with sometimes faint orange glows but she holds his hand with her fingers interlocked through his and walks on.

They become trapped in a bubble but despite the weirdness of it, despite the weirdness of everything these last few days, she still feels strangely content and safe. Holding onto Paco and stopping every now and then to get food from the bag. She likes feeding him too. The act of it and the fact that he eats it. Whether he enjoys it or not is beyond her. The morning passes and they walk on, following lines in the road until Paco comes to a sudden stop.

‘What’s wrong?’ she whispers, alert now and glaring ahead. He grunts but his arms remain untensed and there’s no sign of his hands holding hers trying to form a fist. She stares round, straining to listen but hearing nothing other than him grunting a couple of times. She looks up, seeing his face slightly flushed. ‘You okay? What’s wrong, Paco?’ She moves in front to examine him for injury or illness, and instantly worries at the unfocussed look in his eyes. ‘Paco,’ she cups his face, tilting him down to get eye contact. ‘What’s wrong?’ He grunts, flushes then refocuses on her eyes with what can only be described as an expression of relief. ‘What on earth was that?’ she asks, puzzled at his behaviour. He seems fine. Back to normal. She shrugs and sighs. He stares down, his eyes holding with his expression the same as ever before.

In the end she walks on but she does keep glancing at him, leaning forward to look up at his face. She settles after a few minutes and sighs heavy and long with an exhalation of air that means a big breath is taken back in.

‘Oh you,’ she stops to stare aghast at him. At the smell hitting her nose. ‘Did you poo yourself?’ she reels back, gagging from the stench of faeces coming from the general area of his backside. ‘You bloody did! You had a poo. Oh Paco, that’s disgusting. No don’t come closer…stay back there you dirty sod…oh no…stop that…’ she cries out at the dark patch spreading across his groin.

Paco may be in the true state of being but the super-charged cells in his body have taken the nutrients to aid the healing process and have made greater use of the food and fluids than a normal body would but it still produces waste. Waste that has to be expunged. He’s had a shit and now takes a piss while staring at Heather glaring daggers at him while pinching her nose.

She sags on the spot knowing what must be done. The bag is slipped off and opened, wipes laid out ready, new boxers, new trousers and a new t shirt just in case he’s got shit on that too.

‘Right, come on then,’ she starts undressing him, squinting in disgust at the smell. Boots off, socks off, dungarees unfastened and dropped to his ankles. Legs out one at a time until he’s standing in his shit stained soaking wet underpants. They too come down and get thrown quickly away while she yacks and groans. ‘Turn round, go on…Paco turn round.’

He does. He turns round but the sight of his toned backside covered in poo robs the thought of him learning verbal commands. ‘Bugger,’ she sags again, arms herself with wipes and goes on. It comes away easy enough. She wipes and cleans, pushing the wipes between his buttocks to make sure it’s all gone. More wipes are used to clean his front, between his legs and his groin. Paco doesn’t mind. Heather’s touching him anywhere is fine by him. The wipes get flung away to lie forever in the road and once clean she stands back to let him dry out while choosing which pair of new boxers he should wear. Definitely the black ones. She gets him dressed, pulling his pants up then getting him in new trousers, clean socks and his boots finish his lower body.

‘Top off,’ she says, absorbed in her work again. Might as well get him done now. ‘Arms up.’

He lifts his arms and even bends over when told as she pulls his t shirt over his head and cleans his body down with more wipes. In the middle of a road in a place she has no clue of being in she takes his bandages off, checks and cleans his wounds and decides which ones can be left uncovered. He is healing fast. Like super-fast. Way faster than a normal person should heal.

The biggest surprise comes from his throat when she unwinds the long bandage that gets cast aside. It’s still a mess of ragged skin but so much better than it was. She fingers the wounds, inspecting closely at the way the flesh is knotting back together. It’s remarkable. Truly astounding. She cleans and applies antiseptic with a sneaking suspicion that he would heal regardless of her doing so. She does it anyway and applies a new bandage before getting a new top over his head.

His face is wiped. His ears cleaned. A toothbrush is loaded with paste and made wet from bottled water. His teeth are brushed. The brush is then anti-bacced and put safely away in a plastic bag. Her gloves are anti-bacced. Everything is anti-bacced and there, standing before her, is the brand new clean and dressed former Hollywood movie star Paco Maguire looking distinctly content with life. Not that he knows what life is.

The morning passes in a bubble of dense impenetrable fog but they walk on in degrees of silence and one-sided conversation of Heather imparting her views on any and all subjects that flit into her head.

The ground begins to rise, slowly at first but steeper as time passes. She gets the feeling of leaving the town but cannot say how or why. The lines end at a junction and ahead lies plain empty tarmac that must be another country lane. She presses on simply because the alternative is to either go back or wait where they are.

It’s still hot, very hot and she gains an understanding of just how dense this fog is if the heat of the sun can’t burn it away.

She senses rather than sees the change when it comes. A greater spatial awareness begins to develop and it takes several minutes to realise the fog is shifting. She tugs on his hand, bringing him to a stop to watch the bank receding and becoming thinner, wispier, less dense. It’s fast too. Like suddenly being dissolved. She sees the hedge at the side of the lane then the field the other side that rolls down the hill they’re climbing. All around the view opens up and above their heads too giving her a remarkable sense of freedom, like stepping out from a locked room. It’s an incredible thing to see. Fog shifting so fast and rolling back to evaporate and simply cease to be in form and life.

‘Wow,’ she mutters as the edge of the town comes into view. The fog dissipates, showing more and more that her eyes struggle to take in. A whole town laid out beneath her. A whole town destroyed with so many fires raging away. Whole streets ablaze with thick black smoke drifting up into the sky. Roofs torn off leaving gaping holes. The top of a church tower has snapped off and lies embedded in the church roof below. Carnage and destruction everywhere but on a far greater scale than anything done by humankind since the world fell. The landscape is changed too. Whole rows of hedges gone. Trees uprooted with more trees lying smashed into houses. It looks truly apocalyptic but as she studies the view so she begins to see the normalcy between the spots of destruction. Streets that look undamaged. Houses intact and solid. It’s not that bad actually. It just looks bad because of the fires and smoke.

After a few minutes she puts her back to the town and presses on to walk up the hill with her hand still holding his.

Twenty Two

The bubble the fog created seems to stay. A bubble of a quasi-reality within the actual reality. There’s something about walking that is healing in a way nothing else is. It soothes the mind and creates a natural portal for the worries and thoughts held inside to come out.

So they walk and Heather talks. She tells him everything which comes out in a topic leaping confusing flow of information. Not that Paco minds or indeed understands but her tone stays soft, if somewhat unceasing and relentless. It’s as though the years of self-imposed exile that began before the days of self-imposed exile within the church can now be processed and discussed. A one sided discussion it may be but Paco proves that what he misses in conversant ability he more than makes up for with his ability to listen. He is a good listener.

Heather tells him of the many jobs she had and how each ended the same as the others until her CV looked more like the menu from a pizzeria than a document of work history. She worked in a pizza place too but not for long. She left there to work in the cinema next door but that got boring. She was only young back then but that flitting way of life was something that stayed with her. When she finished university so she was offered better positions but it was the same as the pizza place and the cinema. Fine at first but then stifling until it became panic inducing.

‘It was always like, Hey Heather, what you doing at the weekend? Come out with us. Hey Heather, you coming to the staff party. Hey Heather, you haven’t put your name down for secret Santa. Have you got family? Where do your family live? Where did you grow up? What school did you go to? Where’s your mum and your dad and…and I just couldn’t deal with it. I’d get all worked up on a day off at the thought of going back in and people asking what I did on my day off.’

The day moves on. They stop for water and snack food and wipes are used to refresh hot faces. It’s nice just walking with no direction or place to reach. Just following the country lanes that meander through the fields and meadows. Through forests and heath land and all the while under a gorgeous blue sky. The heat remains but nothing like the absurd temperature of yesterday.

‘So then I changed to this accountancy training course that I thought would be cool but my god that was the most boring job ever and being stuck in an office with the same people five days a week was just torture. I met Colin though. He was nice. He was really gentle and patient and said he fancied me and asked me on a date but I said no and the look on his face made me feel so bad I ended up saying yes. So…you know…we kind of dated a bit but…I’d already sex and…I’m not a virgin or anything like that but…well it was like I knew they wanted sex so I thought I had to do it or they would get it from someone else. I hated it though. Not the sex but someone touching me like that. Always made me think of my mum. Colin was a bit different because he was like so patient and understanding. I thought he was patient and understanding anyway. Turns out he wasn’t that patient and understanding. Well no, I mean he was nice but he was a man and all men want to do is poke their willies in you and I could tell he was like frustrated so I gave in and we did it but it wasn’t nice. I’ve only had sex with three people and that was one time each with the first two and then I think twice with Colin so that’s like four times. I bet you’ve had hundreds, probably a thousand. I read somewhere that you were like a sex addict or something and you’d cheated on every girl you’d ever been with…which is disgusting. Like totally disgusting. How could you do that? Didn’t you care for them? What if they fell in love with you? That’s so bad. I can’t believe you were like that. No, I’m not holding hands now you’ve just wound me up. I said no. No don’t try and hold hands. I’m not holding hands with a man who slept with like two thousand women. I’m surprised your willy didn’t fall off. I bet you never used condoms with them either. Oh that’s disgusting, Paco. Like three thousand women and all without a condom. No! I’m not holding hands with a misogynist. This is a misogynist free zone. See this space round me, like round here…this is my safe place where womanisers can’t go and, get off…get your hand away…Just don’t talk to me. No. Not talking to you. I’m so disappointed in you, Paco. Like four thousand women? Seriously? Urgh I cleaned that willy, Paco. I’m not actually even surprised you caught zombie,’

She walks on with her arms folded while casting accusing glances at Paco who doesn’t understand anything but somehow implies the expression that he has done something wrong without knowing what. His hand goes out towards her and gets slapped away. He liked it when her hand with in his. He tries again and gets slapped. He tries again and gets slapped. He waits, tries again and gets slapped. He pauses, waits, tries again and this time she laughs when she slaps his hand.

‘Such an idiot,’ she tells him, half with an evil eye and half with a big grin. ‘My feet are hot. Hang on,’ she stops to slide the bag off, groaning with relief. ‘You carry this for a bit,’ she closes his hand round the handle at the top and smiles evilly while poking the tip of her tongue out between her teeth. ‘Turn round,’ she laughs at her own idea. He turns away and waits. ‘Piggy back,’ she gets her hands on his shoulders, braces, bunches power and jumps up to wrap her gloved hands round his head while wiggling to get her legs round his waist. ‘You can carry me for sleeping with like five thousand women,’ she tells him. ‘Go on…gee up…’

Childish, stupid and ill-considered but she laughs all the more in delight for the actuality of being carried like this. He walks on as though heedless to the weight, without complaint and without a flicker of annoyance. His eyes can’t see her but it’s okay. He can feel her. He knows where she is. She is safe.

She thought she would only stay up for a minute on a spur of the moment idea but as the laugh eases so she stays. Her legs squeezing in to keep in place while her arms go round his shoulders. She sinks down a bit without a single care that he is infected. She hears his breathing and feels his heart through his back. She feels the heat coming from his body and the motion as he walks. She feels his beard on her arms and the muscles of his shoulders under his shirt and in that second she has never felt so safe and secure. She turns to rest a cheek on the top of his head and watches the hedges glide by and the rabbits running free in the grass on the other side.

Childish but hers was taken away. Stupid but then life is stupid and meaningless and she spent her whole existence shying away and now she doesn’t want to. He might be infected but he’ll never hurt her and as for being ill-considered? Who gives a fig at ill-considered. She had years of everything being too considered, she deserves a bit of the other side now.

People hurt and people take. People cannot be trusted. Paco isn’t people but then he isn’t one of them either. She doesn’t know what he is but she wishes she could kiss the top of his head in a gesture of affection but even she knows that’s a step too far. Like hand feeing a lion. You can get close but you can never be sure.

Paco would walk forever with her on his back. The heat doesn’t bother him. You need a conscious mind to be bothered by such things and his primed body works to adjust any changes in core temperature.

All things have an end and eventually she slides off, especially when her thighs start hurting from squeezing to stay on. She smiles and takes the bag from him that gets put on her own back to share the burden. That’s what friends do. They share the burden.

In the late afternoon they stop at the edge of a village to rest under the shade of an oak tree with an enormous canopy bursting with green leaves. She drops the bag and stretches her back thinking how to teach Paco to massage her lower lumber region.

‘We’ll rest for a few minutes…come on, sit down with me…’ she blinks as he lowers down with her, not expecting him to do it so quickly. Water is poured over faces and fed into mouths to slake their thirst.

The village isn’t big. One main road through the middle with parking bays on one side outside the local mini-market. She spots the ubiquitous hair salon next to the equally ubiquitous mock Tudor pub complete with thatched roof. All of which lie opposite a small green which of course has the ubiquitous benches, duck pond, memorial and tea gardens. A picture postcard snapshot of village life in southern England but all so contrived and false. The hairdressers in the salon would have been complete gossiping bitches. The mini-market was probably owned by some conglomerate corporation that had offshore tax avoidance schemes in place. The pub is no doubt owned by a brewery who wished they had a normal slate roof for combined costs of heating and insurance. The grass area will have a sign telling children to fuck off and play somewhere else and the tea gardens would have sold overpriced commercially produced clotted cream served on defrosted scones served with tea that came from cheap as shit catering sized boxes the size of a coffin. All of which faces a memorial that honours young men sent off to kill and get killed by other young men who were equally sent off to die in the name of good and evil. She snorts in humour at her own thoughts then instantly feels guilty for the last internal comment. Those young men served their country and died defending freedom. All the memorials in these places are from the world wars and those were wars that faced down oppression and tyranny. It was brave people doing the right thing.

The rest of it stands though. Especially the hair salon with the gossiping bitches. She twists round to stretch her legs out and gently lowers until the back of her head rests on his leg. This is bliss. Perfect bliss. Hot but shaded and her legs feel all tingly again from walking so far.

She shifts position and reaches back to hook his wrist to bring it over. ‘Ooh hello,’ she chuckles when his arm comes down across her shoulder with his hand resting on the swell of her right breast. ‘Going for five thousand and one yeah?’ she looks up grinning and gently moves his hand a few inches to rest in the middle. Is this right? A sudden unsettling thought springs to mind. What if he wouldn’t want to put his arm over her. He’s not a toy to be played with or a blow up doll to give mock affection. No, but he does have a clean arse after shitting himself so for that he can just leave his arm where it is thank you very much. She nods in affirmation at telling herself off and sighs heavy and languorous. Her eyes close, not for sleep but because it’s nice. If this is her life now then it’s fine. She’ll take it. No refunds, no exchanges.

Her head slams down as he wrenches up with a speed that belies his size. ‘Ow,’ she yelps in pain at her skull hitting a stone poking through the earth but Paco is already gone. She sits up, eyes wide and heart hammering at the three charging towards him. She didn’t see where they came off but they’re moving fast. Two men and a woman and she’s back in the town where she first met Paco. Back there with the threat of death and the realisation that this new world is very dangerous. There’s an exception now though and that’s the big man charging to meet them with his fists clenched and his arms tensed. His head held steady and he runs faster than they do. He runs harder on a body given fuel and rest and with a mind that has something to protect.

On her feet and she goes for the bag, hefting it up as Paco slams the first man down into the road and brings a foot down to crunch the bones of his ribcage back into his body to puncture lungs and pierce his heart. The second man runs in to be swatted aside with a snarling growl and is sent spinning into the plate glass window of the ubiquitous hair salon that smashes to rain down in a cascade of glittering glass. The woman is next. Lithe and young with long dark hair streaming out and hands clawed in talons and with a mouth drooling saliva down her filthy blood encrusted chin. She slams into Paco, her mouth going for the bite as he wraps his arms round her, lifts and snaps her spine with a brutal ease that makes Heather flinch. He drops the woman and looks round, his arms wide and ready. His whole body bigger and pumped. The man smashed into the window crawls on bleeding hands through the broken shards towards Paco who strides, picks him and slams him down headfirst into the pavement. His skull implodes from the force, spraying blood, brains and goo all over the ground.

He checks his kills. His red bloodshot eyes glaring and hard. His head snaps to see Heather running towards him while hefting the rucksack up onto her back.

‘Are you okay?’ she rushes in, ignoring the bodies and feeling only the adrenalin spiking and coursing through her veins. Her gloved shaking hands reach for his face to check he’s okay but he pulls away sharply with an arm that comes up to sweep her round behind him.

‘Shit,’ she didn’t see them. Five, six…no seven. Seven coming from the other side of the duck pond. They’ll hurt him again. They should run. ‘Run…’ she grabs his wrist to start pulling him but he refuses to budge. He won’t go. She knows it. He won’t run and even if they do run those things will chase and never grow tired. This is why she has him isn’t it? For this? Remember what he did in TK Maxx. Remember what he is. She bites her lip, scared witless and wanting only to flee and hide but his snarl sounds deep and clear. His head lifts, his stance wide. His arms tensed. Staring down seven that come for them.

‘Okay,’ she pants, nodding, ‘get ‘em then…’ she nods again, forcing confidence in her voice. ‘Get ‘em, Paco…’

He goes. He goes suddenly without warning to meet them before they get to the road. He barrels into seven without fear or worry or doubt that he will win. This time she doesn’t turn away or hide or cry but stares with abject worry that something will happen to him. Her own hands balling at her sides. Her legs trembling and urging to run away.

That gentle creature that had his arm over her breast but seconds ago becomes the thing she saw in that town. Unstoppable, unrelenting, an explosion of pure rage fuelled violence that is staggering to see. He seems stronger than he was, faster and more vicious. The first one is met head on and sent flying back to knock two more off their feet. Another is grabbed, turned and the neck broken with the body dumped to be left where it is as he spins for the next. His arm lashes out, a hard fist slamming to bust the nose and dislocate the jaw on a face that will never be able to bite again. That one drops from the sheer ferocity of the punch and finds a solid foot coming down to crush her skull.

He needs stronger boots. She nods frantic and terrified while thinking she will get him some steel toe cap boots as a plume of water goes up into the air from the heavy body being thrown in the duck pond.

Paco snaps another neck with a dull crack that sounds out. She catches a glimpse of a man biting into Paco’s arm as a piercing scream comes from the tea gardens behind the fight taking place. Heather flinches, staring past the melee as though unsure she heard it.

‘MUMMY….’

Christ. Her heart hammers. A child screaming out. She blinks and strains to see as Paco slams another one down into the ground than staggers back from the onslaught of three more ramming into him.

‘BEN…STAY QUIET…’

A woman screams the words out behind her. A window above the shop. She spins to see a face frantic with worry waving across the road and the grass.

‘MUMMY…’ the child screams louder with terror clear in his voice.

‘BEN…STAY QUIET BABY,’ the woman sounds as frantic as the child. Heather spins on the spot to look over at the tea gardens. Just wait. Wait there. Paco will kill them.

‘NO BEN,’

Heather looks up to the window then over at the tea gardens seeing movement at the top of the fence next to the locked gates.

‘BEN GET DOWN…GO BACK…GO BACK BEN…’

Oh Christ. No. Don’t do it. Ben climbs and stares across the green to his flat and his mum waving at him. He came for food, running fast and silent to climb the fence but they saw him and ran from the shop under the flat to chase him. He stayed in the tea gardens crying all through the storm as the infected rammed into the solid fence and gate to get at him while his mother wept in panic with her younger daughters crying in hunger and fear.

‘Go back,’ Heather mutters, her eyes fixed on the child poised at the top of the fence. ‘Go back…’ Paco will kill them. You can get out…not now…shit!

The child drops, an instinct to run for home to his mum. His little body sprawling in the grass from the fall but recovering shakily to start running.

She scans the battle and Paco fighting three or four while the one thrown in the duck pond crawls out unseen by the child.

‘GO BACK,’ she screams, taking a step forward. Paco’s head snaps to her, hearing her shouting out but seeing her unharmed.

The mother screams in the flat over the shop. Her daughters scream. Paco fights, bodies get hit and fall but come back and Ben screams while running. Noise everywhere. An explosion of things happening after the tranquillity of the morning. She sees the infected get free from the pond and rise to stagger at the child.

‘NO,’ she pulls her shoulders back to let the bag slide off and bursts away running flat out with her eyes fixed on the child screaming in fear at the soaking wet infected running at him. ‘PACO…’ Heather bellows as Paco kills another one then turns to see the infected running at the child and Heather running at the infected. He slams a fist into the one coming at him and wrenches free as the remaining attackers lunge on his heels.

There’s only instinct now. Only a gut reaction. The child veers away but doesn’t have the sense to turn back. The infected runs at him, his hands clawed and ready as Heather locks eyes and pushes more power into her run, closing the distance on him as he closes the distance on the child as Paco closes the distance on her while his attackers give chase.

The mother weeps, her hand covering her mouth while her daughters cling to her legs. She had no idea what happened and why they turned on each other like that. She sees the woman running at the one going for Ben. A normal woman. Not one of the infected things.

Heather grits her teeth, willing her legs to be faster as she powers over the ground with her eyes fixed on the back of the thing. The child screams out again. The beast is almost upon him and ready to kill to feed the urge to take another host and pass the thing inside. The beast lunges, his mouth open. Heather cries out, ramming into the back of him to send him flying a hair’s width from the boy who falls in fear. She sprawls, tumbling from the impact. The thing she hit recovers fast, rising and close enough to dive and get the child. Paco lands on his back, his knees driving down as his fists hammer the back of the infected man’s head. Heather runs, scooping the boy up to run but seeing the rest coming at her. Instead she drops as Paco dropped last night and forces the boy underneath her own body to shield him from the bad things that come. She covers him as she was covered. She protects him as she was protected and holds him down as Paco runs in from the side to remove the two that were about to touch her. She holds still, breathing hard. ‘It’ll be okay, it’ll be okay,’ she whispers the words again and again knowing Paco won’t let them touch her and by proxy they won’t touch the boy.

They don’t touch her. They don’t get close. Paco does not allow it. Instead she listens to the snapping of bones and the thump of bodies lifted overhead to be slammed down broken and dead. She listens to the stamps now knowing what they mean. She listens to her dangerous monster killing everything in sight while holding the child in her arms under her body.

It falls quiet. The way it fell quiet in the town before. She waits, knowing he’ll be checking his kills. She waits knowing he will come for her.

He comes. He comes to stand by her protecting her back while she protects the child. He comes to stand breathing hard with arms tensed and fists clenched and his head held high as he looks upon his field of battle then down to Heather.

‘Okay,’ she stands, lifting the child as she goes and pushing his face into her shoulder. ‘Don’t look, stay there,’ she whispers and starts walking with Paco striding behind her. ‘Don’t look, Ben…stay there….good boy…mummy is right here…’

She goes into the shop, heedless of the bodies on the floor and through the store room to the locked door that she kicks hard. ‘Take your son,’ she calls out, holding Ben firm in her arms.

Bolts and locks unfasten and clunk. The door swings in as the mother rushes out with red eyes streaming with tears down her cheeks to pluck her son from Heather’s arms while Paco stands at her back.

‘Oh my god oh my god,’ the mother breaks to sob and hold him close. His little arms go round her neck, his own body heaving with sobs as Heather stands watching with her chest rising to fall.

‘Let’s go,’ she tells Paco, turning to push him gently back into the store.

‘No wait,’ the mother cries out, rushing out then stopping in fear. ‘I…but…I don’t…’

‘It’s okay,’ Heather says simply, ‘they didn’t get him…your son I mean.’

‘Thank you…I oh my god thank you…he was…we were all so hungry but…’

‘It’s okay,’ Heather says again. ‘They’re dead. Get food…the shop’s clear now. Come on,’ she goes to leave, guiding Paco towards the exit door.

‘Don’t go,’ the woman stammers, tentatively creeping further into the shop and balking at the sight of the bodies. ‘I mean…you can stay and…I…that’s my husband,’ she says simply, suddenly, staring down at the remains of a body. Heather looks down then back up at the woman.

‘Sorry,’ she whispers, not knowing what else to say. ‘We have to go.’

‘Go where?’

‘Just…somewhere…we have to leave now.’

‘We’ll come with you…give me ten minutes to get…’

‘No!’ Heather cuts her off, her hand on Paco’s shoulder preventing him from turning to face the woman. ‘We have to go. Sorry…’

She leaves. She goes quickly, pushing Paco ahead to grab her bag and marching down the road as the woman rushes out from the shop for the first time in over two weeks. ‘Where? We’ll come…please…just stay and…PLEASE!’

Heather walks on. Staring ahead with eyes welling with tears that blink to fall down her cheeks while her gloved hand holds Paco’s blood covered fingers.

Twenty Three

‘So,’ she says, holding the tin out for Paco to hold. ‘You had like nine but I got one,’ she grins as she looks down at the cold beans in the can. ‘And that one was like the worst one,’ she adds, glancing back at Paco. ‘Did you see me? Did you? I actually knocked him over…he was big too, like huge and…yeah yeah, I know. You killed nine but my one was still good. Come on then, hold the spoon. Got it, and up we go…yay for Paco feeding himself. So but anyway. Did you see it? Was it good? I ran so hard. Like faster than anything I ever did on the treadmill. Okay, another one? Urgh how can you eat cold beans. Don’t poo yourself later…and up we go, open wide and yay for Paco again! No but seriously, did you see me taking that man down? Was it good? I hope that woman is okay. She must have been in there for like two weeks. I’d have gone mad by now. I was going crazy in the church. You missed a bit…on your lip…there, got it. It felt so good though, knocking him down. Not at the time cos I was like terrified but then I wasn’t? Does that make sense? I was scared but then I think the adrenalin or whatever just took over. You were amazing though, like better than before and you didn’t try and eat that woman or her children which is good. Paco, we’ve talked about this…no that’s too many. Slow down! Oh now look, you’ve got bean juice in your beard.’

She wipes his face, tutting good naturedly as the flames from the small fire bathe the old barn in orange light. They walked fast after the village. Fast to make sure the woman couldn’t try and catch up and fast to be clear of the area and it was more than an hour before she finally stopped to clean the blood off Paco. Now he sits in his boxers while his clothes dry from being jet washed under a hose and scrubbed with anti-bac. She did consider dressing him again but he’s only got one clean set of clothes left and it’s warm enough to dry his clothes quickly. She did wring them out as best she could then tried to get Paco to do it, which ended in farce with her spending half an hour trying to show him how to strangle a t shirt. He got the hang of it in the end and just about squeezed every last drop of moisture out.

‘Okay, now try again and…too much, Paco. Stop being greedy. Take less and get more, that’s my new motto by the way. Do you like it? Take more and get less, no shit. I meant the other way round. Oh it’s on my leg now,’ she tuts again at the cold sticky bean juice dripping on her bare knee. Sitting in her knickers and vest top while her own clothes dry out from being jet washed, anti-bacced and strangled to death. There is no sense of shame. No worry about the flaws of her body being on show. She’s showered in front of him. Urinated, changed her tampon and cleaned the poo from his bum. Where would the shame be after that?

The barn was a good find. Miles from anywhere and glimpsed at the far end of a field that was navigated to get into. Running water connected and a lighter found with a packet of cigarettes inside was used to make the fire.

‘Well I still think mine was the best,’ she goes back to her earlier conversation. ‘I mean did you actually see me? I as like pow and he was like whammo and I was like ha! Kung fu and he was like nooooo and I was like pow pow and he was like…what? Don’t look at me like that. That happened. It did. In my head it did anyway. Oh sod off, you’ve killed like hundreds and I knocked one fat bloke over. Hmmm, so if you could talk what advice would you give me? About how I attacked that man I mean. You’d be all well ma’am, gee that’s a way to go but,’ she puts on her best deep American voice while trying to look serious. ‘might I recommend that you let the menfolk do the fighting and leave the little lady at the back…which is so sexist but then you are a womaniser that’s slept with like six thousand women.’

If Paco could talk, and if he had conscious thought and if he could understand and translate his instincts at what happened today, he would indeed tell her to never ever do that again. But he can’t. So he doesn’t. Instead he tries, with Heather’s help, to load the spoon with beans.

‘Anyway, I hope that woman is okay. That was her husband in the shop on the floor. Do you think we should have stayed? But then she’d have seen your eyes and I left the sunglasses in that clothes shop. I do feel bad…have they all gone? Already? Okay, what do you fancy next? Um…peach slices? Yeah?’ She peels the lid back to reveal the fat glistening segments inside. She looks at him, at his mouth then at his big fingers while concluding that as gentle as he is, there is no way he’ll hook a slice out and get it to his mouth. She tries the spoon first, guiding his hand to the tin but he scoops in like he’s trying to get rice pudding or beans and just sloshes the juice over the edge to join the bean juice on her knee. ‘That’s not going to work,’ she tells him while he carries on jabbing the spoon down into the tin. ‘Really not going to work…but carry on anyway.’ She knows he’d keep trying all night so gently pulls his hand away and uses her gloved fingers to grip a segment that gets pulled out. ‘See?’ she opens his hand to place the segment in his palm. He stares at it, absorbed and fascinated then looks up at her with an expression of what now so clear in his eyes. ‘Up…open wide and how did you miss? How on earth did you miss your own mouth? Right I’ve got it, try again…in your hand and up…open wide and…you did that on purpose didn’t you. Now look, no let me do it. Okay just don’t bite me…in it goes,’ she pops the peach segment in his mouth while the thought of hand feeding the lion pops back in her mind.

They need more food, more water and more bandages. His cuts are healing, his bruises fading quickly and the fresh bites he took today are already scabbing. In her mind she sees them walking, finding things they need and walking more. She brings the memory of lying under the oak tree to mind and smiles softly at the feeling it gives her.

She hand feeds him peach slices, smiling and chuckling at the mess they both make with juice dripping down his beard onto his chest that gets wiped away by a gentle hand. The world is over. Millions have perished and there can’t be a person on the planet that hasn’t been affected in some way or another. This is only fifteen days old and humanity is already on its knees. What will be like in another two weeks, or two months from now? What about a year? How long do the infected stay alive for? Is there a cure somewhere? What about those men she saw yesterday with the army truck? There could be so many things going on that she has no clue about but she carries on feeding him peach slices in the glow of a fire in a barn on a warm summer night. These are the darkest of times, the worst of times and they can only get worse but for the first time in her life she feels a connection to another being. An understanding. A bond even. She’ll look after him and he, in return, will never hurt her.

She loses herself in the tiny details. Talking all the time about what she is doing and the thoughts in her head. She guides him to eat and notices that he gets better. She holds the bottle for him to drink and feels the way he is mastering that same thing and the way his lips now form a seal over the mouth of the bottle. The likeness to a child is negated instantly for the sheer remembrance of what he is, what he was and what he can do. He isn’t a child. He is nothing like a child and in that she gives dignity to her care for him.

The clothes are checked and found to be dry. She doesn’t want to sleep in her clothes but she knows they have to. If the things come they’ll need to move fast and he can’t stamp in bare feet.

‘Stand up,’ she speaks softly without inclining her head and he rises swiftly using the power of his legs alone. She dresses him, trousers, socks, boots and his t shirt. She dresses herself and speaks softly to get him to sit and slide down with his body nestled in soft straw and his head supported by an old rug. She re-packs the bag, checks the fire and eases the sliding door closed to prevent the light of the fire spilling out. Everything is done. What now? She looks over, frowning and hesitant, biting her bottom lip. Is this a step too far? Is she pushing it? All she knows is that it feels okay, more than okay.

She walks to him and lowers down at his side, hesitating again as though suddenly there is a fear of rejection of forcing him to be affectionate. ‘I want to sleep there,’ she places a hand on his side, searching his eyes for acceptance. He stares back as ever before. She frowns again, biting her lip with her hand still resting on his chest. He’s warm. He’s soft but firm and she wants to lie next to him like she did this morning. She wants that feeling again.

‘Sod it, budge up a bit,’ she grabs his arm and lifts it up at the same time as sinking down into his side with a deep sigh while wrapping his arm over her. She snuggles into him, pushing her head against his chest, her upper leg going over his. She sighs again, deep and content, hearing him breathe, feeling his heart beating. Warm and safe. She murmurs and shifts to gain that extra millimetre closer and in that second she dips her head to kiss his chest knowing the top he wears is clean. Just a peck. A fleeting touch of her lips and if it infects her then so be it. You take the risk and accept the consequences of your actions and while the world falls apart she falls asleep the happiest she has ever been.

Twenty Four

He stares at her, his awful red bloodshot eyes seemingly imploring but she hardens her resolve to the puppy dog expression and shakes her head.

The night was the best sleep she has ever had. He radiated heat which in turn made her roll away to cool down but it was the going back that was the best bit. The sleepy shuffling to find his form so her head could wedge into his arm, his shoulder, on his chest, on his stomach. She fidgeted with bliss, grooving to snuggle in and at one point woke to find herself lying across him.

Now he stares and she stares back with a battle of wills underway. A pitting of minds, of determination and fortitude. She narrows her eyes to show she means business. The puppy dog expression comes on more that threatens to melt her heart but she refuses to be weakened.

‘We’re not going anywhere until you’ve done it.’

Paco doesn’t know what it is he needs to do. The battle continues. He tries to reach out but she pushes his hand down. ‘No holding hands until you’ve done it.’

He looks forlorn, dejected and lost. She weakens and tries to rally her resolve. They’ve been here for ten minutes and he still hasn’t had a poo. It took ages to get him squatting. He understands sitting and standing, he can turn around, bend over, lift his arms, drink, hold a spoon, hold hands, come closer, stay still but squatting was a difficult one. It was neither sitting nor standing but somewhere in between. She finally got him there and then waited with his bare backside hovering above the ground and his trousers pushed down round his ankles.

‘Fine,’ she gives in with a big sigh. ‘Stand up then.’ He rises quickly, his eyes searching her face for the nuances that tell him she is not angry. ‘Try and have a wee instead…right so, you need to hold it in your hand….no I’m not doing it for you. Bring your hand down and hold your willy. Okay…got it? Good, now have a wee.’

She stands back folding her arms while staring at Paco Maguire holding his dick in a field while staring at with an altogether new expression of what the fuck? She’s starting to read those expressions and can see the confusion. ‘Ooh I know,’ she darts off to grab the hose from the side of the barn. The tap is twisted then checked to make sure the flow is just a trickle then she goes back to stand at his side while getting the end of the hose between her legs to hold like a penis. ‘Ah that’s better,’ she wees like a man with a wide stance, one hand on her hip while the other holds her willy that sprays water on the grass. ‘Yep…just having a wee,’ she tells the world. ‘Me and my willy…having a wee…’ she swings side to side a bit and groans in pleasure. She looks round slowly and acts surprised to see Paco. ‘Morning,’ she says with a manful nod. ‘You here for a wee too? I am. I’m just weeing away in this field…’

Paco holds his penis and stares at Heather holding a hose that is now being sprayed in an ever increasing arc from side to side.

‘Weeing,’ she tells him, ‘having a pee, a piddle, urinating er…pissing, slashing, having a slash and draining the main vein to er…hold the one eyed snake? Is that what men say? Just have a pee, Paco. Paco, have a wee. Paco, have a wee. Wee. Wee. Wee. Look…I’m weeing you wee. I wee you wee. We wee. We wee with the pee pee.’

He pees. A physiological response to the noise of the water trickling from the hose and the requirement of his bladder to release waste fluids that would otherwise cause toxic harm to his body. It has nothing to do with Heather holding the hose while listing all the words she can think of urinating. Nothing at all. Maybe.

‘Oh my god,’ she grins in delight watching a fully grown man weeing in a field. ‘That’s so good, well done…why is it spraying like that?’ She drops the hose to peer closer at the end of his penis at the urine spraying instead of jetting. ‘Is it the foreskin? I think it is. Maybe you should pull it back a bit…it’s definitely the foreskin over the little hole in the end. Here, just…let me…just back a bit and there, see? It’s not spraying everywhere now. No you need to hold it…oh right, I’ll do it then shall I?’

‘Gosh that’s a big wee, Paco.’

Don’t say big.

‘I never said big.’

‘Still going?’

‘Finished? Oh no we’re going again.’

‘It’s slowing…it’s definitely slowing…you’re going to get that last bit out then? No no, it’s fine. I’ll just hold your penis while you get that last trickle out. There we go, all done. Now er…shake it about a bit. Do men wipe their willies? No? Right pants up, trousers up…what was that? You’ve gone red…do you need a…SQUAT! Get down now and…SQUAT, PACO…no don’t sit down, get up a bit…just a bit oh it’s coming out. No that’s fine. Christ that stinks. What did you eat? Urgh men are so gross. Finished? Shuffle forward a bit and I’ll grab the wipes. Right, hold this and…no don’t scrunch it up like that. Give it back, Paco give me that wipe back. Hold it like this and reach round to…no we’re not holding hands. Paco that wipe is not for eating. Look just let me do it. All gone? Yep, okay…stand up and we’ll get your boxers up and no let go of your willy. We’ve finished weeing, Paco. Let go. Just leave it alone…I think you’ve played with that thing enough in your life so just let it go. Really, I’m surprised you’ve still got a big one attached to your body.’

‘I never said big.’

‘We’re going.’

They leave the field and commence the walk. The healing process of one foot in front of the other with a morning so gorgeous she wants to take bites out of it. She carries the bag and hooks her thumbs through the straps to stare about like she has never seen the world before. Everything is so vibrant and fresh. The storm has given life, the winds have shaken the plants and trees and the rain has soaked down with the golden sun prompting new growth. The hedges seem so thick, so tall and so full of life. Insects everywhere, bees, butterflies, rabbits in the fields and birds soaring overhead.

She wants to walk forever. Just her and Paco in their bubble of existence. Walk all day and find places to sleep at night. Avoid the towns unless they need supplies but otherwise stay in the countryside. Go north or east or west. Go anywhere. She feels free. Free of her own mind that kept her trapped in a pattern of behaviour that dogged her life. That’s what they’ll do today. Find a town or a village, get supplies and walk until they find a place for the night. Somewhere rural and isolated again. The fire was lovely last night, the whole ambience was just perfect. She’d never spent the night with another man before. The thought of cuddling up made her insides feel weird with the threat of a panic attack. In her mind they would try and grope her or ask questions and pry. Now, in the space of a mere few days she longs for the evening and the chance to have that fire and lie down next to him. He cuddled her too. She felt his arm on her whenever she woke up hot and needing to move. She remembers kissing his chest as she fell asleep and smiles wryly to herself. The thought of her lips touching another person was abhorrent but with him it’s okay. Everything is okay. Even wiping his arse is okay.

The infection in him is mutated and continues to mutate. What’s inside of him becomes different to the thing inside of the other host bodies. The infection knows this is very rare but not unique. Most it can take. Most can be controlled but not all. Paco is one of those. His body has changed, it heals faster and his speed and strength are greater. His muscles become denser, thicker and without a conscious mind casting doubt and reason he can make use of that strength. He is unencumbered by the voice in the heads of people telling them they can’t do something and what he is now is not what he was when he woke in the garden of the town surrounded by corpses. There are new days in a new world but he knows nothing of this and so walks because that is what they do. They walk. They walk past cottages and lanes to farms and show no reaction but only to keep walking.

‘Hand,’ she says holding their interlocking hands up. ‘fingers…this is a hand, these are fingers. Okay, so if I let go and we walk on…now hand, give me your hand.’ She lifts his hand up to show then lets it drop back down. ‘Paco, give me your hand,’ she holds hers out ready to take. His comes up instantly to gain her touch. She grins widely. ‘Try again, let go and put it down and…hand, yay! Try again…hand. Okay try this,’ she speeds up to get in front of him and turns to walk backwards. ‘Both hands,’ she holds her hands out ready to take. His right comes up towards hers that she takes while she wiggles the fingers of other hand. ‘This one…hand…’ she reaches in while walking in reverse to lift his other hand. ‘Okay, put them down and…ready….hands,’ she pronounces the plural. His right comes up as before. She chuckles and grins at him. ‘Other hand…that one,’ she points at it. ‘Hand…give me that hand…’ she flicks between his hand and his eyes, reading the subtle changes of expression. ‘Hand…come on…hand…’ she reaches forward to lift it again and goes through the practise again. ‘Hand,’ his right lifts, she points at the left, ‘hand…yay!’ it comes up to be taken as she beams at him, her face alive with delight and joy. She keeps hold of him, marvelling at the size difference and wishing she didn’t have to wear the gloves all the time. She trips from the lack of attention, her foot snagging on the undulation of the poorly maintained surface of the road. Her heart misses a beat to telegraph the urgent message to her body that she is falling. She staggers back with a look of alarm so instantly in her face that he stops to draw his arms in to prevent her backwards motion. Her eyes go wide at the sensation of falling then being lifted to come forward again. ‘Oh wow,’ she looks at him in awe of such a simple thing done but one that he did so quickly and from instinct. A moment captured in time that will stay with her forever. That moment right there. Standing in front so close to him with his hands holding hers, looking up at red eyes that she no longer sees as red eyes. His mouth stays closed. His head held right. His whole being that of a man not of a beast. The humour fades from her face, the smile dropping away as something else takes over. An urge, a need, a yearning. Her own instinct takes over to make things happen that she has never been aware of before. She blinks slow and heavy, showing her lashes. Her head inclines to reveal how slender her neck is. Her lips part and the tip of her tongue adds the slightest touch of moisture in invite. A flush starts to bring colour into her cheeks. She isn’t aware of any of these things taking place. They are physical reactions of her species preparing to draw attention from the opposite sex.

‘Oh my god,’ she pulls away quickly, gulping and blasting air out as she turns to face another direction. ‘What the…no no no…silly, Heather. Silly silly. Oh gosh,’ she waves air at her face, her eyes widening from the heat of the flush in her cheeks. ‘Having a moment, just a weird moment. Too hot…it’s just the heat…er…we should…I think…water! We should have some water. Would you like some water?’

Her hands tremble as she opens the flap on the bag to pull a bottle out. ‘Er…so…you first…’ she blinks, swallows and shakes her head while holding the mouth of the bottle to his lips that form the seal that kisses the edge of the plastic that she watches so closely before blinking and shaking her head again. ‘Jesus, Heather. Get a grip,’ she waits as he drinks, refusing to look at his face until she feels his head pull away. ‘Finished?’ She asks, her mind whirling with so many thoughts while the flush in her cheeks grows deeper and hotter. Christ, why is it so hot? Why is she trembling? What on earth was that about? She drinks the water, gulping it down her suddenly dry throat. What the hell? He’s infected. He’s not a man, Heather. He is a man. He isn’t a man. He is. He isn’t. No. Just no. No way. She drinks again, taking another long glug to buy time to cool down and compose herself.

‘Shit,’ she launches the bottle away, reeling from shock. He drank from that. She gave him her bottle. He touched it. She touched it. They drank from the same bottle. Fear grips her mind. She glares round, frantic and terrified. Oh no, no no. She wipes her mouth quickly, rubbing at her lips then shouting more when she realises she still has the gloves on. They get ripped off in a fit of panic as Paco comes closer, his eyes fixed and worried as she thrashes to pull the yellow gloves off. ‘Shit…shit…’ they drank from the same bottle. His mouth then her mouth. His saliva went in her mouth. Oh god. Okay…okay…get a grip. If it…oh no…if it happens then it happens. Endorphins flood her brain to ease the panic and bring rationale thought. If it happens then it happens. The lack of control terrifies her. The thought of being one of them. Will Paco turn on her? Will she try and hurt him or god forbid hurt someone else. No, that can’t happen. It just can’t. She wishes she had the shotgun to be ready in case she starts to turn. She hasn’t got anything. Not a knife, not anything.

She grabs his hands and brings them to her throat, pushing them hard into her flesh. ‘Wring,’ she says quickly. ‘T shirt remember…then the clothes? Wring…’

His hands pull away quickly, refusing to comply with the command he learnt last night when she taught him how to squeeze the water from the clothes.

‘No, give me your hands,’ she grabs to force them back to her neck. ‘If I turn then wring…you have to….’

He tries to pull back but she clamps on. He tries harder but still gently for his strength that could throw her away with ease. She grips and pulls to keep his hands on her throat. Her eyes glaring at his. ‘Wring,’ she shouts. He goes backwards to get free but she goes with him, her hands clamped on his wrists. ‘Wring…Paco wring…’ she can’t turn. She can’t be one of them. ‘Wring my neck…WRING…’

He tries to twist and yanks but she grips too hard. He can’t hurt her. He’ll never hurt her. She yells out, going with him as he turns and pulls. ‘WRING MY NECK…WRING MY BLOODY NECK…’

He goes to pull, she senses it and throws herself forward to go with him but he stops at the last second and tries turning away instead. Her legs hit his, her feet tripping as she loses balance while trying to make him strangle her. ‘Just wring my bloody neck,’ she grunts, falling to be lifted as he rises. She fights him round and round with the poor man desperate to get his hands off her neck but not wishing to use any force to do so. ‘Oh my god just wring it…wring it…WRING IT…’

‘Ere, what’s all that?’

‘What?’ Heather freezes, half lowered to the ground while fighting with Paco to make him wring her out.

‘Just sod off up the road a bit…’

‘Eh?’ Heather blinks, trying to see between Paco’s legs to the voice coming from further down.

‘All that bloody racket…go on…sod off…’

‘What?’ Heather says again, twitching to get a view of an old man waving a walking stick over his head.

‘Them things’ll come if you carry on like that…bugger off the pair of ya…go on…’

‘Er…’

‘He obviously don’t wanna wring it does he…leave the poor bugger alone and sod off…bloody women screeching the place down bringin’ all them things ‘ere.’

‘Er…’ Heather falters, still half lowered with her hands gripping Paco’s wrists, too caught up in the refusal of Paco to wring her neck to realise she hasn’t turned. ‘Er…sorry,’ she winces, pulling a face at Paco. ‘Up Paco, stand up,’ she whispers. He lifts to stand, bringing her up onto her feet.

‘Never heard such a noise I ain’t. Never in my years have I. Bloody screeching and yellin’ like a lunatic and that poor bloke not sayin’ a word and you goin’ on…’

‘Yeah sorry,’ she says again, lifting a hand in apology to wave falteringly as she spots the stone cottage further down the lane behind him.

‘Just sod off,’ the old man shouts, poking his stick towards them.

‘Going,’ she calls out. Backing up the lane then lunging to grab Paco to stop him turning round. ‘Come on er….dear…we were just playing…’

‘Sod off.’

‘Weren’t we my er…my dear…it’s a game we…’

‘Don’t care. Sod off you weirdo.’

‘Yep, going now. Sorry.’

‘Stop YELLIN AND SOD OFF.’

‘You’re yelling now.’

‘Oh fack off,’ the old man turns to waddle back towards his cottage, chuntering and muttering in his thick country accent.

‘I’m not a weirdo,’ she tells Paco once a suitable distance has been gained. ‘Why did he say that? Did you hear him? He called me a weirdo. I’m not. I’m really not. I thought I was going to be infected so was trying to make you kill me. How is that weird? That’s not weird. Do you think that’s weird?’

‘Er, thanks for not wringing my neck though. That could have been embarrassing seeing as I didn’t actually get infected. Hey maybe I am. Are my eyes red?’ She looks at him, turning her eyes left to right to show him the white bits. ‘Are they red? I don’t feel like a zombie. Is that what they are? I can’t believe we drank from the same bottle but your saliva definitely would have been on it and it went in my mouth…what does that mean? Must be luck…no I was rubbing my mouth with my gloves and I’ve been touching you all morning with those gloves. I did anti-bac them a lot, urgh, thank God I anti-bacced them after you had a wee. Imagine that? Maybe you’re not infected anymore or…or maybe just your blood is bad now or something. Maybe it needs more than a bit of saliva or even the spit might need to go into my blood. I’m not a weirdo. Am I? Are you hungry? We’ll find some food in a bit. I can’t believe he said I was a weirdo.’

Twenty Five

‘Crumbs,’ she hesitates, holding Paco’s hand staring ahead down the street at the bodies. Lots of bodies. More than she has seen for a while. They look old and decomposing which is a good sign. Whatever happened was a while ago.

‘Come on,’ she whispers to press on. They need supplies. Clothes for both of them and food. It’s taken most of the day to reach this place. She was hoping for a village or small town but this looks more like a county market town, bigger and more urbanised. They’ll be quick. Get what they need and get out to find a place for the night.

She walks down the middle of the residential road that looks like it feeds into the town centre. Houses on both sides behind tiny front gardens and nearly every door lies open and every window is smashed. It’s silent too with the quietness that she now recognises is brought by lots of death.

Heather looks round, seeing the action seems to have been centred near a house up on the left. She can see the upstairs windows wide open and something hanging down. What is that? She stares harder until the connection is made. Knotted sheets hanging from a window. Someone trying to escape. She takes in the outside area that’s littered with just about every household object a person could possess. Television, cups and saucepans, plates, cutlery and bottles of spirits made into flaming Molotov cocktails that shattered and left scorch marks on the grass and bodies. They go past silent and watchful. Her hand held tight in his as she peers round him to keep watch on the house. The bodies get fewer as they move further along the street but it stays silent and foreboding.

The road does feed into the town centre and ends at a junction with the High Street where she stops to stare with her mouth hanging open. A moped lies on its side further down the street. In the opposite direction is an armoured cash in transit van with the doors wide open that looks like it crashed into the front of a building running over and crushing loads of infected at the same time. She can see the right leads out of town and away from the shops. She goes left, reluctant but confident they can go quickly. Besides, whatever happened here was a while ago. It must have stunk to high heaven before the storm and a rancid stench still hangs thick and sweet.

The further they go the more bodies they see. Small groups at first then tens of them. A beaten up old Nissan Micra left with its doors open and the metal sides smeared with blood. The windscreen smashed in. More bodies lead away towards the precinct where loads of corpses lie from being crushed by something heavy ramming them into the solid barrier. More stretch off across the ground so thick in number. The tens become hundreds. Literally hundreds of corpses forming a rotting carpet. She gains an idea that something big hit the barrier to the precinct crushing loads of infected then whoever was in that vehicle got out and fought back. There must have been loads of them. Like that army truck. People like that. Hard people that know what they’re doing. She looks for bullet casings but finds none. That makes her take in the details on the bodies. None of them have been bitten like Paco’s throat and most have had their throats slit in the same way she saw before. She spots a pair of lump hammers bloodied and dropped on the ground. A sledgehammer a bit further away then a chainsaw and other hand tools in a route all leading to the front of a smashed in DIY store.

She frowns at the sight, feeling somewhat proud that someone had a go at fighting back. Whoever it was got loads. There is a whole world still at play with things happening she has no knowledge of and doesn’t want to know about. It isn’t her concern. None of this is her concern.

‘Come on,’ she leads him into the precinct where thankfully the bodies becomes fewer. This town was certainly hit hard. Every shop window is smashed through, every door hangs off hinges or lies broken. The insides of those shops have been ransacked too. Clothes strewn everywhere. Travel brochures from travel agents, once glossy and promising far flung adventures but now a gloopy mess after being saturated by the storm. Debris lies everywhere. Chairs from an outside eatery overturned amongst stainless steel tables and big outside gas heaters. Glasses, cups and plates from the bars and restaurants broken and smashed. This is the apocalypse right here. This is the fall of humanity in all the grot and shit. It’s offensive. She is offended by the sight of it. By the smell and by the cheapness of life and what it was before it all came crashing down.

She shows that distaste too in a scowl that forms to stay. There’s nothing usable here and even if there was she wouldn’t want it. Not from this place. It’s tainted and dirty with corruption that would forever mark them. She moves closer to Paco, to feel his presence and he in turn detects her unease and stands straighter, taller with his head higher. She loops her arm through his, holding him tight. She doesn’t want any of this to touch them. What they have is beyond this. There is no connection, no relativity. Keep moving and get out. She’d rather forage in houses than scavenge like a rat in this filth.

Through that centre they pass to reach the side streets of commercial buildings. Garages, car sales, engineering workshops, carpet and furniture retailers. It’s still tainted. It belongs to this place and not to them. She could take a car and drive away but even that thought is repellent. Walking is their thing. That’s what they do now. They walk.

‘Tesco,’ she whispers at the huge sign standing clear across the vast empty car park. Residential streets at their back and the town centre only a few minutes away and it’s no surprise to find one of the supermarket warehouses situated on the edge. It’s huge too. A monstrosity of glass, metal and shiny white plastic surrounded by a concrete wasteland that disgorged the greed of the masses to take what they could without regard of where it came from.

They need supplies though. She guesses the food will be gone judging by the level of looting in the town but it might still have bandages and other things they need. Paco needs more clothes too. They both do and supermarkets this size normally have a clothing department.

There’s no noise. No signs of life. No sounds of anything. She checks Paco again who stares down at her. His eyes somehow conveying worry. ‘I’m okay,’ she smiles weakly but gives his arm a squeeze. ‘Come on, in and out yeah?’

The journey across the openness of the car park begins. Early evening and the sky overhead is still blue and deep. The air is still warm but it’s not pleasant. Not here. Not now. Her eyes scan the sides. She turns to check behind them. All empty. All quiet. The doors are reached without incident but the smell coming from within stops her dead. The smell is beyond anything she ever thought possible. A richly sweet stench of decaying meat mixed with blood, faeces and God only knows what else. From the entrance she spots the thick lines of blood lying like wakes across the once highly polished floor. Drag lines clear and obvious.

She holds still, edging forward with an attempt to withstand the smell but it repels her back like an invisible wall. She can taste it on her tongue.

‘God,’ she backs away covering her mouth with the back of her arm. She goes to turn away, to leave and forget this town ever existed but her eyes clock goods still on shelves. She moves out down the front to peer through the windows seeing aisles of shelves still filled with things. There’s been looting here but nothing on the scale there was in the town. It’s that smell. It would drive anyone away. She hesitates, thinking hard. They can get loads from here. Enough to last days.

She slides the bag off, opens the flap and pulls out a clean top that she wraps round the lower half of her face and tucks into her t shirt. Sod it. The shop has what they need. In and out.

‘Come on…’ she takes his hand to lead him inside then stops, goes back and takes another of her tops that she wraps round his face. Both of them become bandits. Robbers intent on mischief and at any other time she’d find the humour and laugh but not now and not here.

The smell gets through the material and makes her eyes water within a few steps. She tries breathing through her mouth instead but it makes no difference. The customer service counter lies ahead with a row of knives left on the top. Butchers knives, meat slicers, carving blades from big to small. Macabre and sinister. She clings to Paco, pushing into his side to feel his warmth with her hand unknowingly kneading his bicep. She aims up the first wider access aisle, past the newspaper and magazine stands still filled with smiling faces of perfect white teeth. She spots Paco. His broad handsome face so tanned and alive on the cover of some glossy magazine promoting a new workout to get arms like Paco Maguire and make women swoon! She tuts and shoots him a dark look. She’d say something about women swooning and his absurdly high numbers that’s got to be like six thousand at least, but she doesn’t say anything. Speaking means breathing which isn’t going to happen unless she’s desperate.

A noise reaches her ears. A weird solid buzzing like an electric machine but far off that’s rising and dropping in pitch and tone. She recognises it but can’t place it. No other noises though. The further down the aisle they go the louder the buzzing becomes. Like one of those new drones but, no…more than one. It sounds organic, like natural. The blood trails go this way too. Up this aisle to the middle section that runs the width of the store. They reach the corner and see. They see it all in one glimpse of a sight that can never now be taken away. Her heart jack hammers as her stomach heaves to drop and twist. The back of her throat tugs as the precursor to vomiting. At least she knows where the buzzing is coming from now.

Flies. Thousands, hundreds of thousands that rise in clouds to drop and feast on the mound of bodies stacked in the middle aisle like a wall. Human beings and each with their throats slit so they bled out as they were dragged up to be taken round the corner and stacked. Arms hang down, legs poke out between the bricks of human cadavers. Heads hanging down from necks cut open. Red bloodshot eyes dead and lifeless. Pale bodies drained of blood. The ones at the bottom are just meat. Squished and sunken from the weight bearing down. Those on the top and sides writhe with maggots. Thousands upon thousands of fat little maggots that make the whole thing seem alive. The first thing she notices is the neatness of it which instantly makes her think of the farmhouse and the two bodies in the kitchen. The way they’re stacked on top like bricks but overlapping so the mass supports the weight. A mop and bucket at the side on a patch of floor that was cleaned but now has bloodied footprints going through it. She can see the spreading pool of goo being pushed out the bottom of the mound will soon cover the entire width of the aisle.

In the horror of the view she spots the cut necks, the same as she’s seen time and again now. The knives on the customer service desk. Lots of knives. Lots of slit throats but all of them are infected. This is days old though. More than that. This was done at the start. The decay is clear even to her untrained eyes.

Okay. You’ve seen it now. Move on. Get what you need and leave. She looks at Paco who stares at the mound but shows no signs of alarm or aggression. Where first? Bandages and medical supplies. She leads him back to the use another narrower aisle to circumvent the mound to reach the health and beauty aisles. She gets the bag open and starts loading with dressings, antiseptic creams and sprays, bottles of anti-bac, she grabs multivitamins and anything she thinks might be of use. Razors too. Her legs and armpits have never been so hairy. One aisle leads to another in the genius but sickening design perfected by years of money grabbing corporations desperate to prise the last bit of money from your dying hands. She loads as she goes, tinned food, packet food, high energy, protein bars, nuts and muesli. She spots signs of looting and empty wrappers lying strewn across the floor as though someone was in here eating as they browsed. A big packet of dried pasta. Tins of tomatoes and loads of tuna. The stench is nauseating. Her head swims and she has to blink to clear the mist in her eyes. On they go, side by side with Heather filling the bag.

‘Ssshhhh…’

‘FUCK,’ she drops the bag to spin with fright. Her eyes wide and strobing every direction. ‘Did you hear that?’ she demands to Paco. ‘What…who was that…’

Snatched words hushed and quiet. A rustle of fabric, feet running then silence until that small voice comes again. ‘Ssshhhh.’

Heather swallows, her hand reaching for Paco to pull him close. ‘WHO IS THAT?’ She yells out, her voice cracking with fear. Paco tenses, detecting her fear which makes her heart hammer even more.

The voices come again. Quiet and hushed then feet running fast and light on a hard surface. She spins to look down to the end of the aisle then to other. One of voices was that way but the running was the other end. ‘WE’RE LEAVING,’ Heather calls out. ‘WE’LL GO…’

‘Say something…’

‘No! Be quiet.’

‘It’s a woman and a man…say some…’

‘Ssshhhh.’

Children. It’s children. A boy and a girl. Heather grabs the bag, closes the flap and hefts it up onto her back. ‘WE’RE GOING…WE JUST NEEDED FOOD…’

‘Say something, Subi.’ she hears the boy whispering urgently.

‘Er…’ the girl calls out, fear and uncertainty in her voice. ‘You can help yourself,’ she adds politely.

Heather starts walking. Her hand holding Paco to keep him close. ‘THANKS…WE’RE GOING NOW…’

‘Is it mummy?’

Heather stops in her tracks at the third much younger voice.

‘No. I told you, mummy’s dead. Ssshhh,’ the girl says.

Don’t do it. Keep going. She starts off again going faster with her hand tightly grasping Paco’s.

‘Ask her about the fort,’ the boy urges.

‘They just wanted food…they’re going now,’ the girl replies.

‘Ask them about the fort…’

‘Maybe mummy has come back now.’

Oh God no. Keep going. Don’t stop. They reach the clothing section they so desperately needed and keep going to get past until Heather glimpses a bright pink pop up tent between the rails. Chocolate wrappers all over the floor. Biscuits, crisps and snack food. Empty soda cans, bottles of coke, cherryade and lemonade. Don’t do it. Not your problem.

‘Er…’ the girl speaks out, her voice floating from a location unseen but definitely coming from somewhere within the rails of clothes. ‘Do you know where the fort is?’

‘No,’ Heather’s reply is instant, almost brutal. Other people are not your problem.

‘See, I asked her,’ the girl’s whispering voice comes clear.

‘Okay,’ the boy replies, dejected and quiet with a tone that makes Heather wince and scowl and hate herself and the whole bloody pissing world and all that’s in it. She stops. Furious with herself and wanting only to leave.

‘Is mummy at the thought?’

Heather stares daggers at the ceiling, her fingers tightening to squeeze Paco’s hand who looks down at it in surprise.

‘Fort and no, mummy is dead. I told you now stop asking…’

‘Fuck it,’ Heather mutters, ‘where are your parents?’ She calls out without knowing she was going to call and instantly chastises herself. The girl already said their mother is dead.

‘Mum died,’ the girl calls back which just makes Heather hate herself even for more for the girl clearly trying to sound grown up and use the word mum instead of mummy.

‘Your dad?’ Heather asks, her tone still hard.

‘He killed mummy...’

Oh you had to ask. You had to bloody ask. Just leave. Go. Walk on. Walk out.

‘Why are you here?’ She asks instead, refusing to turn and look but staring at the route ahead as though wishing she could just run down it and be away from here.

‘They don’t come here,’ the girl calls back. ‘The things…they…they can’t smell us in here…’

‘Okay,’ Heather snaps. See, they’re fine. The things don’t come here. They’re safe. Plenty of food here, plenty to drink. Nice and dry too. She closes her eyes, willing herself to go and leave with Paco so they can find a barn and have a fire and she can feed him tuna and wipe the brine from his beard. ‘Where are you?’ she asks.

‘Don’t tell her,’ the boy urges. The girl hesitates, about to speak then stopping.

‘It’s okay,’ Heather forces a softer tone to her voice. ‘I won’t hurt you.’

‘In here,’ the girl replies instantly. ‘In the clothes section.’

‘Don’t tell her that!’ The boy whispers frantically with terror in his voice.

‘I’m coming in…don’t run off,’ Heather turns and walks in, snatching a pair of mirrored sunglasses from a stand that she shoves on Paco who flinches and tries to pull away. ‘Leave them on,’ she whispers, pushing his hand away. ‘I said no, leave them on…stop it…oh don’t act blind they’re only sunglasses. Right give me your hands. Hands. Both hands…good, now leave them on.’

She walks him on with one hand holding both of his to stop him plucking the sunglasses off that he tries to shake free instead. She aims for the pink pop up tent, tracking a route through rails of clothes that have been moved about to form an inner circle.

‘Christ,’ she mutters at the mess, staring down at a sea of food wrappers and drink containers. ‘Where are you?’

The flap on the pop up tent lifts to reveal a young female face blinking out in wide eyed fear at the sight of the two bandits. One of whom is wearing sunglasses while swinging his head side to side. A boy appears next to the girl, his own face scared witless with tears welling in his eyes.

‘Why are you crying?’ Heather asks bluntly, she follows the direction of their gazes to Paco with his face covered by the t shirt and his glasses now dislodged as he tries to rave on the spot. ‘Stop,’ Heather tuts, pulling him straight to adjust his glasses. She tugs his bandit mask down too. ‘You are scaring the children now stop it. You’re fine. They’re just glasses….oh come on now,’ she reaches up to smooth his face with her yellow gloved hands. Stroking his cheeks gently as he calms and relaxes on the spot. ‘See, just glasses,’ she says gently. She turns back to the children. ‘You can’t stay here,’ she adds bluntly then remembers her own bandit mask is still up. She pulls it down and blanches at the smell. ‘Phew that stinks…you can’t stay here.’

The girl waves her hand to swat the flies buzzing her face as hundreds more crawl over the surface of the tent and more still feast on the remnants of food on the floor amongst the maggots. The girl hesitates, her eyes darting from the man to the woman, her matted hair hangs down to her shoulders leaving grease marks on her once pink top. Her hands filthy but not as bad as the boy who looks like he just crawled from a sewer. Heather takes it all in with a sense of creeping horror that children have been left to live like this. Surviving in a supermarket filled with rotting corpses. ‘You have to leave,’ she says, pursing her lips at the smell now wafting stronger for the lack of cover on her face.

‘But…’ the girl shows panic, snatching a glance at her brother then over her shoulder to look deeper in the tent. She says something quiet and low.

‘Someone else in there?’ Heather asks, she heard three voices. The third must be behind the girl and boy. ‘Let me see,’ she goes forward too fast. The boy and girl shy back afraid and fearful. ‘It’s okay,’ Heather says, slowing her motion. ‘Who’s in there?’

They don’t reply but back up as Heather leans down to peer through the flap to an interior filthier than the outside. The stench of faeces is overwhelming. Urine and sweat, greasy hair, unwashed bodies and stale breath. A little girl at the back staring wide eyed and silent. A mop of black hair matted and greasy. Her face covered in food and orange streaks from the bag of cheese balls in her lap. A sight of abject misery in a pink princess dress torn and ripped, bright red shoes on her feet that look so vibrant against the squalor and filth of her skin and the dirt encrusted on her hands.

‘Right out, come on,’ Heather motions at the little girl at the back. ‘You can’t stay here, come on…all of you…we’re going…come on…’

‘But…’ the older girl starts to protest, backing away further into the tent as though to protect her sister.

‘No, you’re leaving with us. You can’t stay here, you’ll die…look at you. Oh my…no no…’

‘But the things can’t smell us,’ the boy blurts.

‘I bloody can,’ Heather fires back. ‘We’re leaving right now…come on. You can’t stay another second.’

‘Are we going to the fort?’ The boy asks.

‘Is mummy at the fort,’ the cheese ball covered girl at the back asks.

‘Mummy’s dead,’ the older girl tells her in a tone rising in panic. ‘We can’t go…the things don’t come here. It’s not safe. It’s…where…we don’t want to go.’

‘We’ll find somewhere else for you…some other survivors or something but you can’t stay here. Not like this, come on…quickly…’ Heather waves her arm at the older girl and boy, beckoning them to come out.’

‘It’s not safe,’ the older girl blurts. ‘They can’t smell us and…’

‘You are not staying here now come on, get out,’ Heather says, the stench overwhelming her senses, the sheer depravity and squalor of it making her speak faster and harder than she intends. The children shy back, retreating into the safety of their flimsy home.

‘You have to leave,’ Heather says, feeling the frustration of scaring them while trying to deal with the smell and the heat and the desperate need to get out.

‘Go away,’ the older girl scuttles back to shield her sister while pulling her brother behind her. Her lips tremble, her whole body shaking with fear.

‘You can’t live like this…it’s…’ she casts about scowling with distaste, ‘it’s disgusting and dangerous…’

‘Those things will…’

‘They won’t do anything…come on.’

‘But,’ the girl stammers, edging further back in the pop up tent.

‘Look,’ Heather stops in the opening seeing the fear pouring off the children. Well, the older girl and boy while the youngest one at the back eats another cheese ball while watching the proceedings with interest. ‘Okay…er…Heather, I’m Heather. What’s your name? Look, you can’t stay here. It’s filthy and…there’s flies everywhere and maggots. Oh my God look…there are maggots in here. Stop her eating those crisps…right get out, right now. Out. I’m not playing now. She’ll get diseases. I won’t hurt you, come on. No I said out. I promise I won’t hurt you but you are not staying in here. All of you get out…grab your sister…Oh my God she is filthy…look at you all. Right, just stand there and…Paco, take the bag. What’s your name?’

The older girl stares in abject amazement at being shifted and moved so quickly from the safety of the tent. ‘Subi,’ she says meekly.

‘Subi?’

Subi nods, her head bobbing up and down as she stares at Heather. All three do the same. Standing in a line staring in wonder.

‘You can’t have those,’ Heather plucks the bag of cheese balls from the youngest girl’s hands and flings them aside with a tut. ‘Oh look at your hands, no don’t touch your face. Subi, stop your sister touching her face. What’s your name?’

‘Rajesh. Are we going to the fort?’

‘I don’t know anything about a fort. Find some clothes…Subi, help your brother and grab clothes. No, actually they’ll stink. I can wash them…get clothes. We need a bag. Rajesh, do you know where the bags are? Get a rucksack. Subi, you get the clothes…oh my…oh dear, the state of her. What’s her name?’

‘Amna.’

‘Amna?’

‘Yes,’ Subi says politely, still scared as she edges to the clothes rails while watching Heather warily.

‘Amna, don’t touch your face…Rajesh? Where’s that bag? Subi, get some clothes. We’re not staying here for a second longer than…what’s that?’

‘Bag,’ Rajesh says holding out the Batman rucksack.

‘I’ll grab a bag. Wait here…’ She darts off further into the clothes section, rushing frantic and sick from the smell and the sight. Flies buzz in front of her face, crawling on every surface. She spots the bags and moves down the line to the adult walking bags and grabs a dark green Berghaus. ‘Get the clothes in here. Amna, stop touching your face. Rajesh, what size are you?’

‘Um….’

‘He’s six to seven,’ Subi says, her tone still polite and formal.

‘Six to seven…right, pants, socks…t shirts…trousers…you’ll need shoes. Subi? What size is Amna?’

‘She’s four.’

‘Okay, three to four or four to five?’ Heather barks the question, peering at the labels on the hangers.

‘Er, she is…’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Heather starts grabbing clothes that get thrust into the bag that stinks as bad as anything here. All of it is tainted. ‘Subi? What size…’

‘I have mine.’

Heather turns to see Subi clutching a pile of clothes held over her arms. ‘Put them in the bag…good, right we’re going right now.’

‘But…’

‘Subi, you cannot stay here. You’re coming with us. Paco, you carry that bag and I’ll take this one…no. You might need your hands free. Er…I’ll take the big bag, Subi, you take this bag. Got it?’

She stands back, taking in the three filthy bedraggled children and Paco standing as still as ever with sunglasses covering his eyes. ‘Okay,’ Heather says, biting her lip. ‘We’re going…’

She leads them off, pausing to let Paco fall in at her side while checking the children are staying behind them. The children stay quiet. Too stunned to think of words but they cling close to each other with Subi holding her sisters hand who looks so awful in the princess dress.

The walk out is nearly as bad as the walk in. The smell, the heat, the closeness of the air and the flies buzzing furiously at being disturbed. Whole clouds of them that rise and swoosh around their heads. At the door she notices the pause of the children who slow down and stare terrified at the open world outside with hands covering eyes to shield from the glare of natural sunlight.

‘Come on,’ Heather urges them along, ushering them into the car park as she aims for the far side in a direction going away from the town centre. She gulps the fresh air, breathing deeply but still tasting and smelling the inside of the store. The three children look even worse outside now they’re away from the squalid conditions inside. The contrast to the relatively unmarked road surface is stark. Greasy hair, filthy skin, clothes torn and encrusted with grime and food stains. They’re as bad as Paco before she washed him.

What now? She needs to find other people to take the children but the evening is wearing on. It’ll be dark in a couple of hours and being out after dark is not an option, not in a town anyway. They’ll have to find somewhere tonight and start searching for people tomorrow.

‘Where’s the fort?’ She asks as suddenly as the thought pops in her head. She turns to look at the children. ‘This fort? Where is it?’

They don’t reply but look down at the ground and at each other. Shock and terror evident in their faces and movements. ‘You said about a fort,’ she prompts, not understanding why they’ve gone so quiet. ‘Subi?’

Subi looks up, a glance of eye contact then away again. ‘Some people came in…’ she trails off.

‘And?’

Subi shrugs, her thin shoulders rising to fall. ‘We hid but…we heard them.’

‘What? Heard what?’

‘About the fort.’

‘Yes. What about the fort? What fort?’

‘The man said they were going to it…to the fort…’ Subi explains.

‘Said they had army there,’ Rajesh cuts in. ‘People and…doctors…I heard them. I was hiding…’

‘Well where is it?’ Heather asks but the children stay silent. Nervously glancing up to her then over to Paco who walks on and only looks at Heather. ‘Did they say where it is?’

Subi shakes her head. Rajesh drops his eyes while Amna picks her nose.

‘Stop her doing that,’ Heather says quickly. ‘Why didn’t you talk to them?’

‘Scared,’ Subi says quietly.

A fort. What fort? What people? Christ they need to be away from this town before the night comes. ‘Walk faster,’ she says, giving voice to the thoughts in her head. ‘It’ll be night soon. Paco? What’s up? Oh you want my hand, okay…you okay? Let me take the top off your neck now. God it smells of that place. You do too,’ she sniffs him close and shows a look of yuck. ‘Are you hungry? We’ll get some food soon.’

Subi glances at her brother then back to the huge man that stays silent as the woman fusses and talks softly to him. They hold hands but she’s got rubber gloves on. She looks away when Heather scans the area, dropping her gaze and wishing they could go back to the supermarket. It stank but it was safe and she did her best but the maggots kept coming. She threw them out every night before they went to sleep but there was always more in the morning. Rajesh scratches the itch in his scalp then the itches on his legs and arms. Subi knocks his hand away, squinting her eyes at him to stop it.

They walk in silence, rushed and hurried along at Heather constantly telling them to speed up. Amna walks steadily at first, staring round in interest at a world she hasn’t seen for so many days but her legs grow tired from being unused for too long. She starts dropping back, tugging on Subi’s hand to slow down.

‘Keep walking,’ Subi urges her, pulling her gently to catch up.

‘What’s wrong?’ Heather asks, turning to stare back.

‘She’s tired,’ Subi says, polite and formal.

‘We need to go faster,’ Heather says, frustrated at the lack of pace and the ever growing need to leave the streets and town behind. She checks the sky, seeing the deeper shades of blue.

‘She can’t,’ Subi says.

‘Carry her then,’ Heather says, breaking her contact with Paco to turn a full circle.

Subi hefts her sister up and walks on. Her own legs are tired too. She feels drained, weak and exhausted. Fear and worry add to the problems but she goes on without complaint. Leaning slightly to the side to compensate for the bulk of her sister held tight to her hip.

This is no good. They’re not going fast enough and it’s later than she thought too. The sky is darkening far sooner than she expected. The urgency grows. The need to move and find shelter. She looks back with irritation at Subi struggling to carry Amna and Rajesh running to catch up. They look exhausted but they need to go faster.

‘Can he carry Amna?’

‘No,’ Heather’s tone is fast, too fast and it brings an instant sting to Subi’s cheeks. ‘No he can’t,’ Heather adds, her tone softer. ‘Give her to me, now come on, we have to be quick.’ She takes the girl in her arms, recoiling at the stench and feel of her greasy clothes. She pushes on with fast strides as the shadows start to lengthen and grow. Down a residential street full of houses and not one of them looks safe. Broken windows and doors. Bodies in the streets. Blood stains everywhere. They turn a corner into another one with half the row burnt to the ground from being hit by the lightning in the storm. Trees uprooted and blown through more slate roofs that sag to crumble inwards. Debris everywhere and the smells of burnt chemicals add to the already offensive stenches wafting up her nose.

‘Tired,’ Rajesh stumbles. His big sister takes his hand to pull him on, running to catch Heather and Paco striding ahead. Why can’t the big man carry Rajesh? They could go faster.

The next street is no better and they rush down the middle breathing hard with sweat shining on filthy faces. Rajesh and Subi gasp and feel their legs hurting from the pace but they keep on, rushing to close the gap that extends when they drop back too far.

‘Christ,’ Heather mutters, her eyes glaring at the sky and the inky blackness starting to show. Keep going. Find the edge of the town and get into the countryside. She spots the man before Paco. A shift in movement ahead of something flitting in the lee of a house.

‘Paco there,’ she snaps, her tone telegraphing the need for him to tense and lift his head. He spots the infected running out and bursts away with a snarl to charge down the road.

‘You two, up against that wall…quickly…stay behind me and don’t move…’ she pushes Amna’s head into her neck, turning the girl away from seeing. ‘Don’t look…you two don’t look. Come here,’ she reaches down to draw Rajesh in to her legs then twists to get Subi’s head turned. ‘Don’t watch.’

Subi does watch. She stares round Heather’s legs to the big man running at the infected who charges towards them with his hands clawed and ready to bite. She sees his eyes and the way he moves and knows they should have stayed in the supermarket. She’s seen them kill. One bite, one drop of blood and you die. That’s all it takes.

Paco slams him down as easily as the others he’s killed. A solid charge into the infected that takes him off his feet to drop and get stamped only to be lifted and put back down again but harder. His skull pops, his neck breaks and it’s done. Over in a few seconds.

‘PACO!’ Heather screams at the woman raging down the path of a house halfway between Heather and Paco who spins, locks on and goes from static to sprinting in the blink of an eye. Heather forces the children back, clutching Amna tight as the woman comes on. Her eyes flick from the infected to Paco who closes the distance to snatch a hand out which grips the infected woman’s head and sends her lurching back into his arms that twist and snap as his foot drives down into her knees.

Done. Two killed. Paco stands tall, his arms wide and his stance held ready. He looks down to the first one killed then to the woman. He stares round, daring anything else to come before turning and walking back to Heather. Subi watches his manner change. The wildness of him morphing as his arms relax, his fists unclench and his eyes soften as he stares fixed at Heather.

‘You okay?’ Heather asks, moving out to meet him. ‘Did they get you? No…I can’t see anything…show me your hands. Both hands. Good, well done,’ she smiles at him. Not a smile but a wide grin so full of life and warmth. Her hand goes out to touch his cheek, the back of her fingers brushing down to rest on his shoulder. ‘We’ll get some food soon I promise…and you kept your sunglasses on,’ she adds in a chuckle.

Subi takes her brothers hand who finally opens his eyes after being told not to look. He sees the two new bodies and feels Subi pull him as Heather and the big man start walking away. Subi doesn’t say a word but stares between them. The way that man moved. So fast. He was so fast and he killed them. She saw it. She saw it happen. They pass the body of the woman and she looks down seeing the open red but now lifeless eyes staring up from a neck twisted to be broken. ‘Come on,’ she pulls her brother’s arm to catch up.

Twenty Six

They found the edge of the town but that wasn’t enough. They got onto a country lane but that still wasn’t enough. They walked and walked as the sky grew darker but that wasn’t enough.

Subi knew they couldn’t go on any further. It was getting harder and harder to find the strength to pull her brother along. She was exhausted, drained and feeling sick. Her brother moaned then went quiet which worried her all the more.

‘Perfect,’ she hears Heather mumbling quietly from ahead and rushes once again to catch up.

‘In here,’ Heather pushes the five bar gate open, ushering Subi and Rajesh through while trying to lift Amna higher in her arms. The girl weighs a ton and is hot too. Her body warmth making Heather grow uncomfortably hot and sweaty. She closes the gate and leads them across the paddock to the stable block on the far side. She spotted the end barn from the road and the hose reel on the side told her there was running water.

She finally lowers Amna down at the barn and sags with relief as the bag slides off her back. Her own legs tingle from work and her back aches from the weight she’s carried. She groans inwardly on seeing the clasp and padlock on the barn door and wastes more time finding a length of metal to wedge down to try and prise the clasp off. Subi watches that too, wondering why she doesn’t ask the man to do it. His muscles are huge. He could it easily.

‘Paco,’ Heather gives up, waving for him to go closer. She guides his hands onto the length of metal in a way that makes Subi think maybe Paco is blind, but then he got those two things in the street. ‘Hold here, now pull, got it? Pull down…hard…like this…’ Heather strains to pull at the lever. ‘Pull…pull, Paco…go on now…hard…like this,’ she shows him again, straining to pull on the metal. ‘Pull…pull….hard…’

Paco pulls with ease. The clasp pops to fall off as Heather beams and rubs his arm. ‘Well done,’ she says, grinning widely at him.

Paco has learning difficulties. Subi can see it now. Her mother said people with learning difficulties need lots of patience and kindness.

‘He’s Paco Maguire,’ Rajesh announces, making Heather spin round to face him.

‘He isn’t,’ Heather say quickly.

Subi blinks. Paco Maguire. That’s Paco Maguire. From the movies. She goes closer, staring up at the man standing so relaxed with his arms hanging loose at his sides. She’d seen the bandage on his neck and arms but knew there was a familiarity about him.

‘It is,’ Rajesh persists. ‘He was in the movie and…’

‘It’s not…it isn’t,’ Heather says.

Rajesh goes closer to stare up, ‘you’re Paco Maguire…’

‘He is not,’ Heather snaps. ‘Move away, don’t touch him…you mustn’t touch him…don’t go near him…’

‘But…’

‘No. Don’t touch him. Don’t go near him. Don’t speak to him.’

‘But he’s…’

‘I said no. Do not touch him. Do not go near him. Do you understand?’

‘Rajesh,’ Subi pulls her brother away, alarmed at the tone of the woman standing in front of Paco.

‘Right,’ Heather says with the determined air of someone who has purpose and objective. She pulls the barn door open to look inside. ‘That’ll do…nice and dry…loads of straw…Rajesh, can you use that brush and clear the straw away from the floor here so I can make a fire.’ She drops down to open her bag, drawing two bottles of water out. ‘Subi, make sure Amna drinks water, Rajesh, you get some water too. Subi, make sure you have some. Paco, you have this one. Hands up…now remember what I said. Hold it carefully…no don’t squeeze. That’s it…up to your mouth and…okay? Got it?’ She turns away to start pulling the contents of her bag onto the hardstanding in front of the barn. Subi, give me your bag. Did Amna drink some water?’

‘Yes.’

‘Make sure Rajesh has some…that’s enough Rajesh, come and get some water. I’ll get the hose out and see if it’s…’ she trails off as she searches for the tap that is found, twisted and thanked when it releases a flow of water from the end of the hose. She turns the flow and starts pulling end of the hose to lie at the edge of the grass in front of the barn. ‘Finished?’ She spots Paco holding the bottle in front of his mouth but no longer drinking. ‘Okay, had enough? Want some more? No…okay. Subi, did you drink some water?’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay, we need a fire, we need to get you three washed and your new clothes need to be hosed and washed….everything needs to be washed. We’ve got food and…’ she pauses to drink water while thinking of what needs to be done first. ‘Ah that was nice,’ she feels the water going down into her tummy and turns round while wondering where to wash the children and Paco. ‘Shit,’ she curses on the spot. ‘I’ve done it again…’ she stares at the bottle then back at Paco. ‘I drank from your bottle again,’ she tells him then smiles in memory of the old man telling them off. ‘Go on, sod off,’ she mimics to herself. Ah well. It’s done now and she didn’t turn the last time. She puts the bottle back in his hands. ‘Do not touch this bottle…see it…’ She makes a point of showing it to Rajesh, Subi and Amna. ‘Do not touch it. Do not touch Paco. Do not go near him. Do not touch anything he touches. Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ Subi nods quickly.

‘Rajesh?’

‘Yes.’

‘Amna? Subi, make sure your sister doesn’t go near Paco.’

‘Yes, Heather.’

‘Good. Right, er….fire first. We’ll get that going then clean Amna. Paco you might as well sit down. Paco, sit down…sitting...good, now you stay there.’

She finds the lighter, straw and gets the flames going just inside the door of the barn. Lopped and chopped branches found stacked at the back are carried round and snapped to build it up enough to give light. She checks the view to the gate knowing someone would have to actually come into the field to see the barn.

Packs of wipes are pulled out and made ready. She gets a bottle of shower gel ready with bandages, sprays, anti-bac and antiseptic. With the fire going she gets the children to sit down while she takes the new clothes from the Berghaus bag which get jet sprayed, hosed, scrubbed with shower gel and anti-bac then spun round.

‘Wring,’ Heather hands the first garment over that is taken and squeezed to death by Paco now happy to do as told seeing as his hands are not on her neck. She washes, he wrings. The clothes are spread out to dry. The weather is still warm so it won’t take long.

‘Okay, Amna, you come with me…’ the silent girl gets attacked with wipes first. Her hands and face scrubbed and rubbed with wipe after wipe being cast aside filthy and black. ‘We’ve got to wash your hair…it’s so matted and greasy…it’ll be cold but, now bend forward and let it hang down. Subi? Will your sister be okay? Do you want to help?’

Amna doesn’t moan once. The water is cold but it’s nice and she stands quietly, falling asleep on her feet as Heather and Subi hose her head off then work their fingers through the strands with shampoo taken from a travel bottle.

‘We’ve got to get that dress off,’ Heather says quietly. ‘Is that okay, Subi?’

‘Yes,’ Subi says as meek and as politely formal as ever. Heather glances at her, pondering the good manners.

‘You do it,’ Heather says after that moment of thought. It’s one thing stripping to clean Paco but children are different. ‘Wash her body with the soap…okay?’

‘Yes, Heather,’ Subi nods. Her eyes wide and watchful.

‘Rajesh, you come here and we’ll start with the wipes while your sister cleans Amna. Subi, can you wash Rajesh after or can he do it himself?’

‘I can do it,’ Subi replies.

‘Do it myself,’ Rajesh cuts in.

‘Good, now stand still. My word you are so filthy. Look at this wipe…it’s black…actually black. You’re worse than Paco when I had to wash him…’

‘Is he Paco Maguire?’ Rajesh asks, turning his head from the wipe scrubbing his skin.

Heather freezes, biting her lip for a second. ‘No…no it’s not Paco Maguire. His name is Paco but er…’

‘He looks like Paco Maguire,’ Rajesh says, his big dark eyes staring at Heather.

‘Stunt double,’ Heather makes it up on the spot. ‘He was Paco Maguire’s stunt double…’

‘But he’s called…’

‘And he has the same name,’ Heather announces.

‘Does he have learning difficulties?’ Subi asks, midway through washing her still uncomplaining sister who hasn’t been cleaned or washed for almost two weeks.

‘Er…kind of,’ Heather says, continuing to destroy the layers of grime on Rajesh. Change the subject. Think of something. ‘Where are you from?’

‘Boroughfare,’ Subi replies.

‘Boroughfare? Where’s that? Oh you mean where I found you? Was that Boroughfare?’

‘Yes, Heather.’

‘Oh…I meant…you know, that was a bad question. I didn’t mean where you are from,’ she talks while working, discarding wipes as fast as she can pluck them out and wipe. ‘I meant…well your names and…

‘We’re Indian,’ Subi says.

‘Ah,’ Heather replies. ‘I see.’

‘Dad said we’re British,’ Rajesh says, sputtering as the wipe goes in his mouth.

‘We are British but we’re from India,’ Subi says.

‘I’m from here,’ Rajesh says.

‘We’re both,’ Subi says.

‘Subi? Amna all done? Good, see if her clothes are dry…if not then get her sitting by the fire, she’ll be warm enough for…’

‘Dad said we’re British,’ Rajesh cuts in.

‘You are British,’ Heather says.

‘But Subi said we’re Indian but Dad said we’re British and…’

‘You’re both,’ Heather shrugs. ‘Everyone is from somewhere. It doesn’t matter…right, you strip off and Subi will wash you. Are the clothes dry yet?’

‘Almost dry, Heather.’

‘I’ve got a top Amna can wrap round.’

She checks the fire, checks Amna and wraps a top over her back and smiles grimly at the little girl falling asleep next to the fire. She checks Paco. Squatting down in front of him to see if he wants water or not. She frets and worries. She wanted this night to just be them and the fire.

‘It’s cold,’ Rajesh complains, shivering audibly.

‘Amna didn’t complain,’ Subi points out.

‘Yeah but…’

‘Rajesh, you need to be washed,’ Heather moves away from Paco to check the clothes and moves them closer to the fire.

‘He’s done, Heather,’ Subi calls out as Rajesh stands with his hands covering his groin.

‘Go sit by the fire, put this round you,’ she hands the boy the last top from her bag. ‘Subi, you get washed and we’ll have some food.’

‘Er…’

‘What?’ Heather asks, seeing the girl freeze with the hose in her hand. She looks at Heather then at Paco, her whole manner showing how worried she is. ‘What?’ Heather asks again.

‘But,’ Subi winces, frowning deeply.

‘What?’ Heather asks, turning to look at Paco then back to the girl. ‘Oh…oh I see…you don’t want to…okay, well just go round the corner then. But make sure you wash properly…and wash your hair…’ She sees the look of relief on Subi’s face. An older girl with a sense of shame at being naked. Wise girl.

By the time Subi is finished the clothes are dry and ready to be put on. Amna sleeps on as she’s dressed by her sister until the three sit quietly next to the firelight watching Heather and Paco outside. They watch as Heather makes him stand, lift his arms and pulls his top off to clean his upper body with wipes before removing his bandages and checking each wound with soft gentle fingers. Gels and sprays are applied. She tuts and fusses all the time, speaking softly with hands that linger on his skin. Rajesh flinches at the sight of his neck reflected by the moon and the glow from the fire. The ragged flesh torn and hanging that is healing so fast. They see as Heather checks it, cooing and marvelling softly as he watches her every move. He is Paco Maguire. Rajesh knows he is. The muscles, the height, the way he stands. He is Paco Maguire. Subi watches Heather, the kindness and almost maternal love she shows for him. How she dresses his wounds and leads him round the corner to the running water and Heather chuckling as she cleans him and leads him back by the hand. Finally she brings him in and gets him to sit on the other side of the fire with his back leaning against a bale of straw.

It’s clean here. Subi inhales deeply, smelling the wood smoke and the warm currents of air that come into the barn. The smell of the straw and the shower gel on her skin. She pulls a strand of raven black hair round to smell, marvelling at the way it feels and the scents within the strands. Heather is strange, she speaks bluntly but they’re safe here and away from the supermarket. There’s no maggots or flies either.

Rajesh just watches Paco Maguire in awe. It is Paco Maguire. He knows it is. He used to watch the movies with his dad while Subi and his mother tutted at their love of action films.

Amna just sleeps, fidgeting and shifting to lean harder against her sister while breathing clean air in a warm barn.

‘Food,’ Heather sighs her hundredth sigh and starts bringing tins into the barn that get opened and handed round. Fruit, rice pudding, tuna, plum tomatoes, ravioli and macaroni cheese. ‘Come on, eat up,’ she says simply, placing tins down in front of the children with spoons handed out. ‘Subi, you feed Amna.’

‘She’s asleep, Heather.’

Heather pauses to stare at the little girl fast asleep, wondering if she needs to be woken to be fed. How often do kids eat? Is it better to let her sleep or get food inside? In the end she does nothing and ignores the issue to let the children feed themselves. She grabs a tin and eats. Wolfing the rice pudding down hungrily while being watched by Paco. ‘Minute,’ she says with a mouthful. ‘I’m starving…’ She finishes the tin and grabs another to ease down with her backside on his thighs. ‘Hand up…take the spoon and…oh going right in are you. No that’s fine but…and up to the mouth. Hey that was the best one yet.’

Subi and Rajesh watch intently, both holding open tins as Heather helps Paco feed himself the way their mother used to feed Amna.

‘Oh you smell so good now,’ Heather says, grinning at Paco. ‘All clean and nice…come on keep eating. All in the mouth and, get that bit from your chin. Your motor skills are getting better…you haven’t crushed that tin at all. What next? Ooh this could be messy, macaroni cheese. Fancy it? Go on then. Just don’t load the spoon up so much…okay in we go and…gently now…up and in…is it nice? Do you like it? Yeah? Nice? Going for more... okay keep going…your neck is healing so well and you didn’t poo in your pants today which was good. Oh that man was funny, all yelling out in his farmers voice…me trying to get you to wring me out…finished it?’ She stands up to turn and freezes at the two faces watching her intently who quickly look down to their tins.

‘Finished?’ She asks the children, ignoring the awkward silence.

‘Yes, Heather,’ Subi replies as Rajesh delves into the bottom of his tin then decides it’s empty.

‘Okay,’ Heather says, ‘er…time for sleep then…you er…I don’t know where you should sleep but…look we’ll split this bale and you can…I mean it’s soft and clean so…’

‘That’s fine, thank you,’ Subi says, carrying her sister over. ‘Rajesh, come to sleep.’

‘Huh?’ Rajesh stops while reaching for another tin. ‘But…’

‘Sleep, Raj,’ Subi says, making eyes while Heather works to adjust Paco and get more soft straw under his body then more under his head for a pillow.

‘Oh but…fine,’ Rajesh huffs and follows his sister to the split bale. Subi lowers Amna and nestles in to her sister’s side while indicating for Rajesh to come to her other side. He does as told. Mummy always said Subi was in charge if she wasn’t there. They get settled, still quiet and silent from the shock at being round strangers after so long of hiding in the supermarket but as interested as they are in Heather and Paco the exercise and fresh air bring their eyes down to droop.

What a day. Not what she expected at all. She looks over to the children to see them asleep. Looks safe enough now. She drops down to ease his sunglasses off, smiling at seeing his eyes that can now never look awful to her. His hand lifts to find hers that comes forward without gloves to entwine her fingers through his. That smile stays as she shuffles to get into his side so she can nestle down to shift and fidget to gain that extra millimetre. Subi watches, her eyes heavy and closing but seeing everything. She sees as Heather rests her head on Paco’s chest and holds still with her arm draped over him. She sees as Heather rises to lean over with her head lowering to kiss his forehead with lips that hold so long and so tender and she sees when she pulls away and the look of delight on Heather’s face when Paco smiles. That Paco has never smiled before is not something Subi knows.

Twenty Seven

‘What the…’ on her feet, wild and frantic at the scream ripping through the air. Paco surging up, his system flooding with aggression to kill and stamp and keep her safe. It’s too dark. Who is screaming? She flails in the dark, staggering to the door with the belief the infected are inside. The scream goes on, piercing and shrill. Paco bursts past her ramming the door open that fills the barn with the early dawn rays. Rajesh sits bolt upright his eyes wide in fear and Subi shaking from head to toe while grabbing her sister screaming from the nightmare of the beasts in the supermarket all coming alive to eat her.

Heather gasps, her heart hammering from the panic inducing seconds of bursting from sleep to full on wide awake. Adrenalin coursing her veins, making her shake and tremble as she rubs her face. ‘Oh my…jesus…’

‘Ssshhh, Amna ssshhh, it’s okay…’ Subi soothes and rubs her sister who inhales to scream wildly again with a blast of sound that will be heard for miles in every direction.

‘Make her stop,’ Heather says, rushing towards the children to stand impotent at being faced with a screaming child.

‘Just a dream, just a dream,’ Subi holds her sister, rocking back and forth to try and settle the girl who just keeps screaming. ‘Amna…stop now….just a dream…’

‘She’s got to be quiet,’ Heather says, frantic with worry at the noise. ‘Make her be quiet…wake her up.’

‘She is awake,’ Subi says, the fear and panic extending to make her own tears start to form.

‘Shush…ssshhh,’ Heather waves her hands at the girl. ‘Amna, shush now…stop screaming…Subi, do something…’

‘She’s scared,’ Subi tries harder, rocking faster with hands rubbing down her sisters face ‘Amna, shush now…it was just a dream.’

‘Christ, does she need food?’ Heather asks, ‘Amna…are you hungry?’

Amna screams. She screams because the monsters were alive and coming for her. She screams because the beasts were crawling broken and bloodied through the piles of maggots to eat her flesh. Amna screams because she is scared witless of being in a strange place with strange voices. She screams because she saw her mummy being killed by her daddy and she screams because they had to run and hide in the supermarket where the dead monsters are.

‘Make her stop…’

‘I can’t’ Subi cries because her sister is scared and Heather is angry and because the big man is looming behind her.

‘Amna,’ Heather goes closer, grasping the girl’s arms. ‘Stop it…you have to stop it…’ The girl thrashes, pulling away to shake and scream with a voice that will let every infected know where they are. ‘Stop,’ Heather begs, pleading. She grabs the girl, heaving her up and into her own body that she rocks side to side while rubbing the girl’s back. ‘Shush…stop…you have to stop screaming.’ It takes time but Amna eases down from a scream to wail then a sob as her arms going round Heathers neck to cling tight. ‘It’s okay, easy….take it easy,’ Heather rocks side to side, swinging her hips as the girl falls into a fitful silence of broken sobs. ‘Go back to sleep,’ Heather tells the other two. Walking round the barn to soothe the child in her arms. ‘Ssshhhh now, ssshhhh, go to sleep…’

‘I’m scared,’ Rajesh whimpers, the barn is too dark. It smells unfamiliar and he just woke up with his sister screaming.

‘Shush, Rajesh,’ Heather says, ‘go back to sleep…’

‘I want my mummy,’ Rajesh starts crying, his sobs joining Amna’s as Subi tries to be older and stronger and fight the tears pouring her cheeks.

‘Mummy’s dead,’ Subi sobs, her voice cracking with emotion.

‘Oh God no…no no no…just go back to sleep.’

‘I want…I want my daddy…’

‘Rajesh, shush now…you’ll wake Amna…’

‘Daddy killed mummy,’ Subi opens the flood gates as Heather winces and stares out the doors too ill-equipped to deal with this. ‘Daddy….daddy killed mummy…’

‘I want my daddy…’

‘Christ, please just go to sleep. Look, Paco is right here…they can’t get in. Everyone is okay…everyone is safe and…’

‘I…I want…my…’ Rajesh sobs, tears falling down his face that screws with his body wracking from the grief and loss surging up.

‘Subi, comfort your brother…’

‘Daddy killed her…’ Subi mouths to speak more but the words come out a broken whisper of raw emotion that Heather doesn’t want or need. What the hell does she do? They’ve got to stop crying. She soothes Amna, rocking her over to the split bale while staring down at two more children sobbing their hearts out.

‘Daddy,’ Rajesh sobs harder, breathing in gulps of air.

‘Rajesh,’ Heather says quickly, ‘you were right, Paco is Paco Maguire…you hear that? Yeah? He is Paco Maguire…’

‘My daddy,’ Rajesh carries on.

‘Oh shit,’ Heather groans and rocks. She sinks down to lower Amna into the straw and reaches out to touch Rajesh. ‘Hey…come on…stop that…Subi, you stop crying too.’

‘Daddy killed…’

‘Enough,’ Heather says firmly, ‘stop it. Both of you…pack it in and stop crying.’

Subi heaves for air to fight the sobs, her cheeks stinging again at the hard tone coming from Heather.

‘Now pack it in, stop it…Rajesh, stop that…’

‘I want my…’

‘Rajesh,’ Heather snaps.

‘Raj,’ Subi reaches out to hold her brother, her eyes darting quick and fearfully at Heather. ‘Shush, Raj…come here, shush…’

‘Okay,’ Heather sinks back at the sudden quietness descending the barn. ‘Thank fu…I mean thank God…thank someone anyway. Just…just go back to sleep,’ she gets up to walk outside to stand with her hands on her head cursing herself for going in the supermarket. Paco follows her out. She feels his presence behind her and moves back to press her body into his and brings his arms up to wrap round her chest. What the hell? Three crying children. Did she ever cry that much? She can’t ever remember crying. Not like that. They have to find people to take them, or work out where this fort is and take the kids there. She doesn’t know anything about any forts and searches her memory for anything to do with a fort. They don’t have forts these days. The sun’s coming up already. She sags into Paco, feeling his body take her weight leaning back. Find survivors. Give them the children and keep walking. That’s the plan. She pulls his arm up to kiss his skin, feeling the bristles of his arm hair on her lips. Is he safe? She kissed him on the head earlier and they’ve shared a bottle twice now. She doesn’t care anyway. It feels nice. His arm hair brushing against her lips. She feels him pushing forward gently into her back and murmurs softly. Pressure on her head. His chin resting on her skull. She freezes at the significance. He smiled at her last night. She kissed him, he smiled, he’s holding her, his head is resting on hers…

‘Need a poo.’

‘Ssshhh, Amna. Go back to sleep.’

‘Need a poo.’

‘I’m hungry.’

‘Raj, be quiet.’

‘I NEED A POO,’ Amna announces, now wide awake.

‘Right,’ Heather sighs to herself, patting his arm. The quicker they get up the quicker they get moving and the quicker she can find someone else to take them.

The morning started bad. It becomes worse. Far worse. Three children addicted to sugar and salt now withdrawing from being unable to consume chocolate and soda for breakfast. Headaches, short tempers, lack of attention span, inability to focus, weepy, crying, scared and in a strange place with a strange woman becoming increasingly snappy.

‘Don’t want it.’

‘You need to eat.’

‘No.’

‘Amna, you need to eat.’

‘Choclit.’

‘No chocolate, eat this…it’s fruit…it has sugar in it.’

‘No.’

‘Eat it.’

‘No.’

‘Please.’

‘No.’

‘You’ll get hungry later.’

‘Want choclit.’

‘Fine, go hungry then…Rajesh! What did I say? Leave Paco alone. Come away.’

‘But…’

‘I said no. Did you eat your breakfast?’

‘Not hungry.’

‘Oh for…Subi? Have you eaten?’

‘My tummy hurts.’

‘Hurts? Where?’

‘Want choclit.’

‘Leave Paco alone, Rajesh! Subi, eat the fruit…’

‘Need a poo.’

‘You just had one, Amna.’

‘Need a poo.’

‘Fine. Go and poo then.’

‘Take me.’

‘No, go yourself.’

‘Take me.’

‘Amna, no…Rajesh! Leave Paco alone.’

‘TAKE ME.’

‘Don’t shout at me. Subi, take your sister for a poo.’

‘Does Paco poo?’

‘Eh? What?’

‘Does Paco poo?’

‘Yes of course he does…’

‘Want choclit.’

‘Oh my God…look, we are going in five minutes so…’

‘I WANT A POO.’

‘Have a poo then. Go outside and…’

‘And choclit…please can I have some choc…’

‘I don’t have any! Amna. We do not have any chocli…sod it! Chocolate, we don’t have…’

‘Does Paco like chocolate?’

‘Huh? We’re going in five minutes. Poo. Eat. Do what you want but…Rajesh!’

‘What?’

‘Do not give Paco food…I said not to touch him…’

‘You fed him last night.’

‘Yes but…just…’

‘I can put the gloves on and…’

‘No! Come away now. Subi, get your brother away from…oh my God, Amna! What are you doing?’

‘Pooing.’

‘Not in here, go outside…’

‘Heather?’

‘What?’

‘Can I have the gloves please?’

‘No…Paco, leave those sunglasses on.’

‘But…’

‘No, Rajesh! We are leaving right now. Everyone up. Paco, get up. Subi…’

‘My tummy hurts.’

‘I had a poo.’

‘Out. Everyone get out. We are going. No. Do not…out. Subi will you, oh my…Rajesh leave those bloody gloves alone. Amna, clean your bum. Subi, clean Amna’s bum. Out. Come on…’

‘Want my shoes.’

‘What?’ Heather asks, exasperated.

‘Shoes,’ Amna says stubbornly.

‘You’ve got your shoes on.’

‘My shoes.’

‘You’ve got your…’

‘Red shoes.’

‘Red shoes? They were filthy. You’ve got new shoes.’

‘Want my shoes.’

‘No. They’re disgusting.’

‘Want my shoes. Red shoes.’

‘I said no. You’ve got shoes. We’re going…’

‘MYSHOESREDSHOESMYSHOESREDSHOES…’

‘Okay okay, I’ll get them…look, they’re right here. Now come on.’

‘MYSHOESMYREDSHOES…’

‘I’ve got them!’

‘Want them on.’

‘Right. Fine. You want them on. Of course you do. Okay, we’ll take these nice new shoes off and put these filthy things back on. Happy now? Can we go? We are going. Right now. NO! Enough. GET OUT.’

They go quickly from the mini explosion erupting from Heather. Three children falling instantly to sulking which prompts a stab of guilt in Heather who hefts her bag now much lighter after most of their food has been eaten. The other bag is left. The children have what they walk in and that’s it. She leads them across the field to the gate and through to the road, all in silence. Then the sugar withdrawal makes itself known again with constant gripes. Feet hurt. Legs hurt. Stomachs hurt. Rajesh drops back to walk next to Paco and has to be told to go ahead with his sisters. Amna stops and refuses to move. Folding her arms and stamping a red shoe down demanding choclit. Subi cries. Rajesh tries to touch Paco’s leg. Subi needs a wee. Amna shouts and all within sight of the gate they just walked from.

How do mothers cope? How does anyone cope with children? She used to hear people going on about how rewarding it is to have children and how loved they feel. This is not rewarding or loving. It’s a mess. They’re just moaning non-stop, nagging, whining, crying and trying to poke Paco. She gets a stress headache and her belly starts cramping that reminds her she’s still on her period. Why wasn’t it hurting before? It’s too hot. They’re going too slowly. Amna keeps stopping but doesn’t want to be carried. Now she does want to be carried but it’s too hot and she’s too heavy. Can Paco carry her? No! He is infected. She kissed him. That doesn’t matter. That’s your risk and not the life of a child. She kissed him though. They shared a bottle. Stop it. That is complacency from familiarity. His wounds are dressed, he isn’t bleeding and he doesn’t dribble at all now. No. He cannot carry Amna. Why won’t Rajesh leave him alone and why is Subi being so sulky. She was helpful and nice yesterday. Oh god, she can still see the barn. They’re not making any progress at all.

Twenty Eight

‘Don’t touch his mouth. If you touch his mouth you will walk. DO NOT TOUCH HIS MOUTH.’

Amna nods. Her big brown eyes gloriously happy at being held by Paco. Rajesh glares. His bottom lip poking out at the way Amna always gets what she wants.

‘Hands there. Do not move your hands.’

‘Okay,’ Amna nods again.

They walk on. Paco’s hands soaked and rubbed in anti-bac. His arms the same. His beard, his chin, his face and then his hands again. It took an hour just to go far enough to be out of sight of the barn. It was shit. Really shit. Like totally completely shit. They walk on with Amna sitting in his arms facing forward, her legs dangling with her red shoes swinging happily with Heather watching her like a hawk. He didn’t flinch at Amna being placed in his arms and even adjusted his stance and position to make sure she couldn’t fall. Heather noticed that and looked into his eyes again until Rajesh announced that he too, was in fact, also very tired.

‘Paco is not carrying you too.

‘But my legs hurt.’

‘They do not. Just walk.’

‘My feet hurt.’

‘Walk.’

‘I can go on his back.’

‘No. Walk.’

‘Can I hold his hand?’

‘No.’

‘You were holding his hand.’

‘I had the gloves…no…’

‘I can put the gloves on.’

‘No, Rajesh. No.’

‘Can I put my hand on his pocket?’

‘What!?’

‘You had your hand on his pocket. I want to put my hand on his…’

‘No! For the love of God no. Just walk.’

‘Raj, stop being a baby.’

‘I’m not a baby.’

‘Baby.’

‘I’m not a baby.’

‘Baby…’

‘Enough. Subi, stop it.’

‘He is a baby. Paco doesn’t want your hand on his pocket.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Fine! Put your bloody hand on his pocket then but that’s it. Don’t moan. Walk.’

‘Okay, Heather.’

‘…’

‘Heather?’

‘Yes, Subi?’

‘Can I put my…’

‘Yes.’

‘Thanks, Heather.’

Paco walks with a child in his arms and one on each side hooking thumbs into his pockets. Heather walks further away so the steam coming from her ears doesn’t burn anyone. She pulls the gloves off in a huff and tucks them in her back pocket but checks all three constantly, just to be sure. What on earth is the attraction? He doesn’t speak or do anything? Why are they drawn to him like that? They could hold her pockets but oh no, they want his pockets. He’s big and famous, that’s why. What? What difference does that make? He’s familiar to them. They recognise him plus he’s massive so he makes them feel safe. Yeah well. It’s still shit.

‘Heather?’

‘Yes, Subi?’

‘Why are Paco’s eyes red?’

‘Eh? Amna! Take those sunglasses off. Why…how did you…’

‘Why are his eyes red?’ Subi asks, leaning forward to stare up as Rajesh leans forward to stare up.

‘His eyes are red,’ Rajesh points out.

‘I just said that,’ Subi says.

‘I saw it first.’

‘Did not. I said to Heather…I asked her why his…’

‘I saw it first.’

‘Did not. Heather, tell Rajesh I saw…’

‘Amna, I said don’t touch his face…’

‘You said don’t touch his mouth.’

‘Yes, thank you, Subi. How did you even reach them?’

‘He gave them to me.’

‘He did not.’

‘Did so.’

‘He did not. You are sat on his hands. How would he…’

‘He did. Promise.’

‘Give them back.’

‘No.’

‘Amna. Give Paco his…give me the glasses…’

‘Paco said I could have them.’

‘He did not. Right, you can get down and walk.’

‘NOOOOOOO.’

‘Shush!’

‘NOOOOOO.’

‘Oh my…bloody hell be quiet. Right fine, stay there just shut up.’

‘You shouldn’t give in to her.’

‘Yes thank you, Subi.’

‘Why are his eyes red, Heather?’ Rajesh asks.

‘Conjunctivitis.’

‘Nanna had that. Her eyes had yellow gunk. Paco doesn’t have any yellow gunk.’

‘Thank you, Subi. It’s er…it’s like conjunctivitis.’

‘Is he one of the things?’ Rajesh asks.

‘No.’

‘But Nanna had yellow gunk and her eyes were only a bit red but Paco’s eyes are all red and…’

‘Subi!’

‘And they were itchy and Paco isn’t rubbing his eyes at all and he has bite marks on his…’

‘He doesn’t.’

‘He does. I saw them. Under his bandages.’

‘Er…be quiet.’

‘But…’

‘No talking now.’

‘But…’

‘Heather? Is Paco one of the things?’

‘No, Rajesh.’

‘Oh.’

‘Rajesh shush, Heather said we have to be quiet now.’

‘I was being quiet.’

‘You are talking now.’

‘So are you.’

‘Stop it. Enough. No talking. No. Shush. Not a word.’

‘…’

‘I need a wee.’

‘Oh for fuck’s sake.’

Stressed, harassed, drained, sweating and with a temper tantrum threating to spill over at any second they finally reach a village. A small one. One shop. One pub. One road through. Tiny really. Heather sighs, biting her lip and wishing it was a big stonking town that she could nail up signs in and use a loudhailer to announce she has three orphans that need a home.

‘Okay, come with me,’ she plucks a protesting Amna from Paco’s arms to hold against her hip. ‘Rajesh, this side. Subi, on this side…both put your hands on my pockets and don’t let go…’

‘Why?’

‘Because I said so, Rajesh. Paco needs to keep his hands free now. Subi, take a bottle of water from my bag. Rajesh, put your hand back on my pocket. Okay, Amna, go down for a minute. Stop whining! Just for a minute. Paco, have some water. Everyone stay quiet now. I need to listen. Subi, pass me the plastic bag. Okay, don’t touch this bottle in the plastic bag. Paco, you okay? Not too hot? Right, Amna come here. You two at my side and do not move. If anything happens stay with me. Do not run off and do not scream. Whatever happens do not scream.’

‘HEATHER!’

‘Shit…PACO…get behind me…behind me…Amna don’t look.’

‘I wanna look.’

‘No. Turn your head.’

‘Get orf, I wanna look…what’s Paco doing?’

‘Oh so cool.’

‘Rajesh, close your eyes. Don’t look.’

‘Why is Paco carrying that man?’

‘So cool.’

‘It isn’t cool, Rajesh. Amna, stop looking.’

‘But…oh he dropped him. Will he carry him again?’

‘I said don’t look,’ Heather grunts, forcing Amna to turn her head while trying to shield Rajesh and Subi peering out round and through her legs. Three of them from the pub. All males. All big. All get killed with a ruthless viciousness that surprises even Heather. He’s getting stronger and faster. His motor skills are improving every day. He uses his hands to hold one still while he kicks another one away then pivots that same one round to block the path of the next one. Intelligence mixed with brutality in a man that checks his kills and walks back as Rajesh rushes out from behind Heather’s legs.

‘RAJESH NO,’ Heather bellows with a force that brings the boy to a sudden stop. She rushes after him, grabbing his arm to drag him back.

‘That hurts,’ Rajesh tries to pull away, his face contorting in fear and pain.

‘DO NOT TOUCH HIM,’ the veins in her neck bulge. ‘Subi, hold you brother. NOW, SUBI. Keep Amna with you.’ She drops the bag to pull the wipes, anti-bac and sprays out. ‘Paco, stop,’ she calls out, knowing he will walk to be at her side. She runs to him instead, pulling her gloves on to wipe his hands, arms and face. She checks his t-shirt, spraying him all over with detergent. She turns constantly to make sure the children don’t come closer, her movements frantic and hard with pressure applied that she hasn’t done before. Paco watches her. Sensing and seeing the worry and fear. His own mind settles from the images that flooded in when he killed the three infected males. The equilibrium shifting to start that swing back and forth. He still sees the dog in his mind and feels the emotional connection but the grip of that memory is too weak to hold and stay.

‘Okay, all done…let me look,’ Heather moves back to walk round him, taking a fresh wipe to do his hands for the third time then checks his feet again and sprays more detergent on his boots. ‘Good, you’re good…are you thirsty?’ She looks into his eyes, holding his gaze with her own look so worried and troubled. ‘Subi…no, actually I’ll get it.’

‘Do you want the water in the plastic bag?’

‘Don’t touch it,’ she snaps, running to get to the bag first and water bottle before Subi can reach it. She goes back to give Paco the bottle. ‘You did three,’ she says softly, her hand reaching out to touch his face while he drinks. ‘Amna, you can walk now. You two stay with me from now on.’

‘But…’

‘No, Rajesh. Stop arguing.’

‘I wanna go…’

‘Amna, no. Did you see what he just did? Did you see it?’

‘So cool,’ Rajesh says again, nodding earnestly.

‘No,’ Heather says, showing her revulsion at his reaction. ‘He killed those…’

Subi shrugs with a movement that catches Heather’s words in her throat. ‘We had loads in the supermarket.’

Christ they did. She forgot the mound of bodies. Death isn’t new to these children. She gets the bag on her back without another word. This is too much. Everything is too weird. She spies the shop knowing they need more food, more water, more wipes and more everything. The pressure builds. The lives now depending on her when it should just be her and Paco walking and lying under oak trees. She gets to the door, holding still to listen and peer through into the store. Blood on the floor but then when isn’t there blood on the floor now? That’s all this world is. Blood on the floor. Flies on the floor. Maggots on the floor. Dead bodies on the floor.

She goes in without waiting for Paco, pushing through to stare round. He comes in quickly, almost with a sense of worry at her going ahead. She opens the flap on the bag and starts filling as the children file in. She spots them looking at the chocolate bars and junk food strewn on the ground. ‘No,’ she says the word brutally, leaving no room for argument. Two of them are old enough to understand but Amna chooses not to and grabs one anyway.

‘I said no,’ Heather plucks it from her grip to throw it across the shop. The last thing she needs is more sugar in them.

‘I WANT IT.’

‘No.’

‘I WANT IT.’

‘I SAID NO.’

A stand-off ensues. Staring eyes against staring eyes. Amna folds her arms. Heather stands straighter. Amna purses her lips. Heather narrows her eyes. Amna’s foot lifts. Heather’s eyebrow lifts. The foot comes down. Heather shakes her head.

‘I WANT…’

‘Oh shut up,’ Heather turns away in disdain leaving Amna staring in shock but the girl is a veteran of such battles and hardens to rally more energy.

‘I WANT CHOCLIT.’

‘Fruit,’ Heather shows her the tin. ‘Beans…’

‘CHOCLIT.’

‘Macaroni cheese.’

‘CHOCLIT.’

‘Mixed vegetables.’

‘CHOCLIT CHOCLIT CHOCLIT….’

‘Blah blah blah,’ Heather grabs the tins, showing the pictures on the front to Amna exploding in temper and rage that makes her little face contort and flush red.

‘I WANT CHEESE BALLS…’

‘What?’

‘CHEESE BALLS.’

‘Stop shouting.’

‘Can I have some cheese balls please, Heather?’

‘No.’

‘IWANTCHEESEBALLSANDANDANDCHOCLIT.’

‘Water,’ Heather shows her the bottle that gets thrust into the bag.

‘COKACOLA.’

‘Water,’ Heather shows the next that goes into the bag.

‘LEMONADEANDCHOCLIT.’

‘More water.’

‘CHERRY…’

‘More water and more water. What else have we got here? Oh yes, more water. Oh and look. Wipes. We need wipes and anti-bacterial gel and detergent. Now out. Go on. Out.’

‘I. Want. Choclit,’ Amna growls, her eyes furious at being denied.

‘Out.’

‘No.’

‘Amna. Get out.’

‘NO.’

‘Fine, stay here then.’

‘I will.’

‘You bloody won’t,’ Heather grabs the stunned girl up to swing her up into Paco’s hands. ‘Hold her…now out. Everyone out.’

‘I WANT CHOCLIT….GET ORF ME…GET ORF…GETORFGETORFGETORF.’ Amna thrashes and bucks and kicks with pure fury but Paco holds her nonplussed, holding his hands out from his body as she flails out. She told him to hold her. He will hold her.

A determined Heather leaves the shop followed by a quiet Rajesh who stares in awe at Paco Maguire carrying his little sister who is going crazy. Subi comes next, sullen and tearful.

Heather stomps on. The bag heavy on her back as the sweat trickles down her face. She stomps with Paco at her side holding Amna out in front who screams and wails with relentless energy. It takes time for the girl to fall quiet and go still to be drawn in and held closer to sleep nestled in his arms with Heather checking she’s nowhere near his mouth. She spots the sheen on Paco’s head then worries his sweat could infect Amna. Without thinking, without thought, without hesitation she wipes a finger across his forehead and shoves it in her mouth.

‘Urgh that’s gross,’ Rajesh recoils in horror.

‘Shut up,’ Heather snaps, feeling instantly stupid at both the idea of what she just did and being caught doing it. The sweat is salty and disgusting and her stomach heaves but it’s done. She doesn’t turn or become infected. His sweat is safe. Subi saw it too and blinks in confusion.

‘Is Paco one of them?’

‘No.’

‘But…’

‘No more questions.’

They walk on, leaving the village behind and once more venturing into the heartland of rural England where the lanes are long and bordered by high sided hedges. Gates lead to fields. Unmade roads lead to farms but they walk with Heather longing for the first time since it started to meet other survivors.

They put miles under their feet with a trudge that goes on and on. Rajesh and Subi both enjoying the fresh air and freedom of being outside. The sugar withdrawing headaches ease off as they flood their bodies with clean water. Colour grows in their cheeks and Amna sleeps, exhausted after her temper tantrum. Snuggled curled in the arms of a man that will never grow tired and who will always walk to stay by the side of the woman who carries the heavy bag.

‘How old are you?’ Rajesh breaks the silence, his face showing his mind whirling with thoughts and questions. Heather winces inwardly from a natural reaction to any question asked about herself. If she answers this they will ask more. Where are you from? Do you have any family? Where’s your mum?

‘Heather, how old are you?’

‘No questions.’

‘But…’

‘Raj, Heather said no questions,’ Subi says, shooting a dark look at Heather.

‘I’m bored,’ Rajesh announces after another thirty seconds of silent walking. He looks round, expecting someone to immediately alleviate his boredom but they don’t. They just walk instead. ‘Play I spy?’ He asks with a surge of hope. ‘I spy with my little eye something beginning with…Aich.’

‘Heather,’ Subi says immediately.

‘Oh,’ Rajesh pouts at his first go being guessed straight away.

‘I spy with my little eye something beginning with…Aich.’

‘Heather!’

‘No. You had Heather.’

‘You can have Heather.’

‘It’s not Heather.’

‘Oh. I give up.’

‘Guess.’

‘S’too hard,’ Rajesh whines. ‘I give up.’

‘You’re just giving up so you can have your go.’

‘I’ve tried, Rajesh says. ‘S’too hard.’

‘Guess.’

‘Can’t.’

‘Guess.’

‘Can’t.’

‘Can’t take your go then.’

‘No! I said…you said…’

‘Hedge,’ Heather says, rolling her eyes.

‘Heather got it,’ Subi says with a smug smile at her brother. ‘Your go, Heather.’

‘No.’

‘But you guesseded it,’ Rajesh says as though stunned why someone wouldn’t want to take their go.

‘Guessed not guesseded and no,’ Heather says.

‘Can I have your go?’

‘If you want.’

‘Yes! I spy with…’

‘That’s not fair,’ Subi cuts in.

‘Heather said I could. I spy with my little…’

‘Not playing,’ Subi says.

‘But it’s my go.’

‘It was Heather’s go.’

‘She said I could go.’

‘Enough.’

Silence reigns as it rains. Drizzle light and warm bringing instant delight for being so unexpected. Heather stares up at the sky, amazed at not seeing the clouds gathering as her face soaks from the fine downpour. She closes her eyes and feels the heat in her cheeks easing. Subi and Rajesh do the same, staring up but with eyes open to marvel at the sensation. It gets heavier, becoming a shower of water drenching hair and clothes but still glorious in the feeling it brings.

The shower becomes rain. Proper rain that comes down harder every few seconds until the lane becomes an orchestra of noise with a myriad of drum beats sounding from drops hitting leaves, bushes, trees and the road surface. Rajesh laughs in delight, skipping ahead with his arms held out at his side. Subi grins, opening her mouth to drink pure rainfall. Heather sighs heavy and long as her hair starts plastering to her scalp. Paco shows no reaction, Amna still asleep in his arms with the water soaking her face.

It’s beautiful. The air is warm and the rain brings a sultry feel of exoticness but still it gets harder, growing from the drizzle to a shower to a hard rain lashing down in waves as Rajesh whoops and spins runs round with his arms held out. Subi laughs at the sight. Her own heart thrilling at the sensations and noise.

Still harder it comes. Lashing with a hardness that creates noise so loud it deadens the fall of their feet. Heather gasps and does the same as Subi by tilting her head back to drink it down. It sheets down, lashing the road and fields. Straight rain with no wind that comes vertically. They’re drenched in seconds. Soaked through with t shirts clinging to frames and faces running with hundreds of tiny rivers that drip from strands of hair. The view becomes a blur of grey as they are cleansed and rinsed to smile and laugh in delight and wonder but still the deluge comes harder and heavier. The noise of it becomes a thing. A real thing of sound. A wall of water with a soundtrack blended to give depth and context. Rajesh shouts out, his voice high-pitched as he stamps down through the puddles already forming.

‘Down now,’ Amna looks round at the new world, waking to feel soaked but grinning at the sight. She lunges to drop, expecting Paco to lower her down as Heather darts in to ease her down. The little girl runs ahead to join her brother. Laughing and giggling in the grey squall to jump through deep water. Everything comes alive with motion. Sploshes from fat drops that strike at a pace that cannot be seen for the speed they drop. Millions of drops in every direction that move the bushes and trees. Water runs from the verge to pour down the lane in streams and rivers that are run through and kicked to be sprayed up. Even Subi goes forward to play. She tried to hold decorum to show maturity but the feeling is just too great so she jumps and runs to splash Raj and Amna.

Like the fog a few days ago they become encapsulated in a cocoon of grey air. Visibility reduced but still the children play and run. Heather lets them. Hopefully they’ll tire themselves out and stop talking so much. She takes the opportunity to loop her arms through Paco’s and smiles while looking up at him. He doesn’t smile back but she’s learning the expressions in his eyes that makes her grin wider.

That rain keeps coming and Heather is right. The children tire and trudge back with flushed faces to gulp air and resume their walking through a windless monsoon. The initial pleasure fades to a sense of contentment that lasts for a time until their clothes start getting heavy from being water logged. Their shoes too become soaked from walking through ever deepening puddles that form in the dips and valleys. It becomes hard work. Amna starts moaning and gets lifted to be carried by Paco. Rajesh falls quiet. Subi pensive and drenched. Heather keeps them going. They have to reach a town to find survivors. They have to find survivors. They must.

The town comes out of the grey. Houses spied at the side of the road adding to the cacophony of sounds with the water pouring from drains to pour like open taps on the hard ground. Rainfall on window panes and slate tiles. Heather blinks and shakes her head to keep her eyes clear. Her jeans are chafing her thighs. Her t shirt clings uncomfortably. She spots houses they could use for shelter and wait for the rain to end but that won’t find survivors so she keeps them moving. Heading down streets and roads bordered by houses. Past the entrance to a nice estate of detached executive houses. Past cars and play parks. Past pubs and more houses but no signs of life anywhere. No infected either. They see bodies here and there but the rain blots the view and any blood on the floor is lost under the deepening surface water.

She starts to get a sinking feeling that she’ll be stuck with them for another night. It’s getting late and even she knows they can’t stay out in this rain without getting cold and drained. They’re bodies will be weak already from the lack of decent food and the thought of being around sick children with snotty noses sends a fresh wave of worry through her mind. That means more new clothes too, she groans at the thought of needing more stuff, more bags, more tantrums from Amna and it all comes back to finding the town centre to find the shops. She could search the houses but that thought sends terror into her heart with no idea of what or who is inside. This rain will give them protection anyway. The noise muffles their own movements and the constant flow coming down will remove any smell they leave in the air.

She follows the wider roads and signboards towards the High Street. Trudging on with feet kicking up sprays of water. She rolls her shoulders with a grunt to ease the straps of the bag rubbing on the bunched up wet material of her t shirt.

‘Cold,’ Amna says, shivering as she tries to push harder into Paco.

They’ll have to find somewhere. Shit. Another night of squabbles and tantrums. Finding clothes. Cleaning and feeding them. Heather decides, there and then in the sodden greyness of a torrential downpour that she does not like children.

‘Chris! You put that hood back up right now…’

‘Aw mum…’

‘I said put it up. You’ll catch your death in this…everyone here?’

Heather freezes, her hand shooting out to stop Paco. She presses a finger to her mouth, showing the children to stay quiet. Voices ahead, muted low and unseen. The instinct to run and hide as strong as ever. People are bad. Stay away from people.

‘Cor, s’raining cats an’ dogs ain’t it. Mind you, washes that blood away,’ a man’s voice, older and rasping but friendly. ‘Eh you lot? Bit of rain never ‘urt no one. I bet that mister ‘owie and his lot don’t let the rain stop ‘em eh? You fink the living army get bothered by a bit of rain? They’s don’t mind it. It’s warm though. Nice and warm.’

‘How far now?’

‘Tommy,’ the female voice groans but the tone is good natured. ‘You keep asking and I keep saying I don’t know. We’ll get there when we get there.’

‘Is the fort big?’ Tommy asks, his whispered voice drifting down.

‘How does she know that?’ The older male voice asks with a chuckle. ‘Becky ain’t been there…’

The words strike Heather’s brain. Mum. Fort. Children’s voices. Older male voices. The instinct to hide is strong but…

‘Where’s his sunglasses? Amna…’

‘I put them in your bag,’ Subi says, whispering to match Heather’s tone while frowning at the direction of the voices.

She drops the bag to get the flap open, rooting through the tins and wipes to find the glasses now all scratched and bent. She straightens them out, glancing up to the grey wall of water as the voices drift closer. She gets them on Paco’s face, wedging the loops behind his ears.

‘Stop,’ the female voice hisses, making Heather snatch a glimpse round to see figures obscured by the rain. ‘Go back…’ the voice whispers, urgent and worried.

‘It’s okay,’ Heather calls out softly, ‘we’re survivors…’

‘Survivors?’ The woman calls ahead.

‘Yes, down here…it’s okay…’ Heather adds, casting another quick glance at Paco.

They come down warily. Emerging from the rain with eyes fixed and staring. A large group that makes Heather feel instantly nervous. Adults in front and at the sides forming a crude circle to keep the children in the middle. She spots the knives, sticks and bats clutched in hands that were holding them low but now they rise ready to be used. They’re all in lightweight waterproof coats too with hoods up. Stout walking shoes on every pair of feet. Sensible clothes of muted colours and every person has a full rucksack. The contrast between the two groups is stark. Three wringing wet children one of whom still wears bright red shoes and a big man covered in bandages wearing sunglasses in the rain. She winces at how they must look and the guarded looks of suspicion and wariness coming back from furtive eyes staring out under those hoods

‘How many?’ The woman in the lead brings her group to a stop, staring through the squall. She holds the meat cleaver out to her side. A huge thing that is held in a hand that doesn’t tremble or shake.

‘Er…five,’ Heather calls back. ‘I’ve got three children and…’

‘You armed?’

‘Pardon?’

‘I said are you armed? We are. We’re armed to the fucking teeth. You fuck about and you’ll get it…’

‘No! No we’re not armed…I promise. I’ve got three children and…’

‘Yeah well just stay there till we get closer,’ the woman leads her pack closer but slowly. Eyes fixed and watchful with distrust evident on her face.

‘Oh thank god,’ Heather takes them in with a sweep of her eyes. Normal people. Adults with children of all ages.

‘Okay,’ the woman stops a few feet away, her eyes equally as probing as she takes in Heather and Paco then the three soaking wet bedraggled children. She frowns with confusion, her eyes going back to Heather. ‘They your kids are they?’ She asks in a tone that says she knows they aren’t but she wants to see what Heather will say.

‘God no,’ Heather says, shaking her head. ‘No no no…I…we found them in a supermarket in…er…Subi, what was that town?’

‘Boroughfare,’ Subi says, polite and formal again now in front of strangers. Rajesh retreats a step behind Paco. His eyes wide and staring. Amna just stares from her lofty perch in Paco’s arms.

‘Ah yeah,’ the woman says with a nod while keeping her eyes fixed on Heather. ‘That the big Sainsbury’s is it?’

‘Sainsbury? No…no it was Tesco but…’

The woman nods again, her manner relaxing. ‘Got hit bad didn’t it? Boroughfare I mean. We met a fella who said he went through it on the first night. Had one of them armoured money vans…said he ran out of fuel in the town centre. Hundreds he said. How did you get through?’

‘We saw the van,’ Heather says. ‘And the bodies…’

‘All dead?’ The woman asks with a frown.

‘Looked that way,’ Heather says, remembering the crushed bodies against the barrier and the DIY tools. ‘We were looking for food…got into that Tesco and Jesus…just bodies everywhere…all piled up and…we found these three in a tent.’

‘Oh,’ the woman says, her eyes showing that there is nothing in this world that can shock her. Confidence oozes from the way she stares openly but without confrontation and the way she half smiles while visually scanning the children. ‘When you find ‘em then?’

‘Yesterday,’ Heather says, realising it’s only been a day. It feels like a week. ‘Er they er…their mother was killed and…’

‘Daddy killed mummy,’ Amna says, repeating words she doesn’t really understand.

The woman tuts in the way only a mother can, she reaches up to pull her hood back showing a head of frizzy ginger hair. She looks tired but her eyes show deep intelligence with laughter lines in the corners that hint at an underlying humour. ‘Poor sods…you got no rain coats for ‘em? What do you need? I’m Becky. We’ve got food and,’ she turns away to face her group. ‘John, get some raincoats out, we’ve got those plastic poncho’s somewhere. Sarah, find a towel to dry ‘em off a bit. You heading for the fort?’ She asks, turning back to Heather with another quick glance at Paco still holding Amna.

‘Rajesh said about a fort…what fort?’ Heather asks.

‘Eh? You not heard about it?’ Becky asks in mild surprise. ‘Sarah, you go on and dry their hair off…John, you found ‘em?’

‘I’s got ‘em here me love,’ the older friendly rasping voice comes forward holding three small clear bags holding disposable poncho’s. ‘We’s get you all dry in a mo we will,’ he says to the children with a big toothy smile.

‘You not heard of the fort then?’ Becky asks again.

‘No. Nothing…Rajesh, you said someone came in the shop or…was that right?’

Rajesh nods, silent and watchful as the old man squats down with a groan to start opening the bags as the woman with the towel starts drying Amna off.

‘On the south coast, old Victorian thing.’ Becky says. ‘You er…you not heard of Mr Howie then?’

‘Who?’

‘Mr Howie? Dave? The Living Army? Nothing?’

Heather shakes her head, ‘no idea…sorry,’ she shrugs, lifting her hands to show she’s genuine.

‘Bloody hell, where you been hiding?’ Becky asks.

‘Er…well, in a church actually and…I...so this fort? The army are there or…’

‘S’man called Mr ‘owie,’ the old man says, tugging a see through poncho over Rajesh. ‘Him and a fella called Dave are fighting back…got this fort they have. Got it all safe and secure…loads of people heading south to get there.’

‘South,’ Heather repeats the word with no idea which way south is. Her mind reeling at the information.

‘We heard they’re from the army,’ Becky adds, moving closer to Heather now the apparent acceptance has been gained. ‘Got an army truck they go round in. We’ve only heard snatched rumours…wild stories probably but…we heard names and things. Got a few lads with ‘em and a big bloke with a bald…’

‘Bald head,’ Heather says quickly, earning sharp glance from the woman and everyone else.

‘What you heard?’ The old man asks, pausing as he opens the next poncho.

‘Nothing…I saw an army truck in er…I don’t even know where it was…some town. Had a big man with it…like really big, bigger than him,’ she thumbs at Paco, ‘and he was bald. I think the truck had broken down. He took loads of guns from it into a van but…’

‘See?’ The old man calls out with a grin as he turns kneeling back to his group.

‘Shush, John, let her finish,’ Becky says.

‘Er, well that’s it. He went off but came back with some others and fixed the army truck then left.’

The group swarm in. Desperate to hear the information. Faces peering under hoods staring eagerly. Heather blinks and steps back subtly, her hand reaching out to Paco with the sudden discomfort of having so many people showing attention to her.

‘Did you speak to them?’

‘No.’

‘Did you hear what they said?’

‘Er…not really…’

‘Did you see the dog?’

‘What dog?’

‘They got a dog, big dog…like an Alsatian or…yeah an Alsatian.’

‘No I…’

‘Was Mr Howie with them?’

‘I don’t know. You said they had a dog?’

‘What names did you hear?’

‘Names?’

‘Yeah, did they call each other by name? Did you hear them?’

‘No…I can’t…I don’t know. About this dog…’

‘German Shepherd ain’t it? Did you see it, was it big?’

‘No I didn’t see any dog but I saw the bite marks and…’

‘Where? What bite marks? She saw the dog biting someone…’

‘No! I saw dead bodies with bite marks and…’

‘Yeah yeah, that’s the dog. She saw the bodies the dog got…did you see the ones with cut throats?’

‘Well yes but…’

‘What names did you hear?’

‘I didn’t…I mean I can’t remember but…no hang on, in the back of the army truck there was…’

‘You was in it?’

‘She was in the army truck with them.’

‘No! Listen. When the big man went off I looked in…there was a name on some clothes but…’

‘What name?’

‘Which one?’

‘What did it say?’

‘Er…Cook or Cookey or…’

‘Cookey! He’s one of ‘em he is. She saw Cookey’s name.’

‘Blowers and Mo? Did you see them names?’

‘Mo! Yes one of them outside was called Mo, or…I mean…’

‘Oh my god!’

‘Shush,’ Becky asserts her voice of the clamouring group gathering closer round Heather. ‘Go on.’

‘I just heard one of them being called Mo or…Mo Mo? Yeah it was…I really can’t remember.’

‘What about Paula?’

‘Paula? I…’

‘Was the dog there?’

‘I’m sorry that’s all I know…’

‘What did the big man say?’

‘The dog’s immune and…’

‘What did you say?’ Heather asks but the questions keep coming.

‘What about Mo? Did he say anything?’

‘Where were they going?’

‘What town was it?’

‘I’m sorry, please…can you…’

‘How big was the truck?’

‘Please can you move back a…’ Heather tries backing up but they keep edging closer, pressing for answers with the same questions repeated over and over by terrified people desperate for any ray of hope. Snatched conversations and whispered rumours of a group fighting back against the infected. A small army led by a man called Mr Howie. Other names heard and they have a dog who is immune. A panic attack starts to make itself known. Too many people are looking at her. Too many people asking questions. She can’t cope with it. She backs up again, stepping into Paco and reaching back to feel his hands. ‘Stop…please just…I can’t speak to all…I don’t know…please…STOP ASKING ME,’ she snaps with fear and anger as Paco moves forward in one fluid motion that makes everyone else step back. He stands tall. His head held high, his arms hanging but his fists starting to clench as he telegraphs his intent. ‘No…it’s okay,’ she grabs his wrist to guide him back. ‘Just stop crowding me,’ Heather says to the alarmed faces wilting back.

‘Alright love,’ Becky says almost casually while eyeing Paco with fresh suspicion. ‘He’s a big lad…what’s your name, mate?’

‘He doesn’t…’

‘It’s Paco Maguire,’ Rajesh announces proudly.

‘It’s not…it’s not,’ Heather calls out but again the fresh news spreads fast to the people blinking with mouths dropping open. ‘He just looks like…’

‘And he killed three of the things and his eyes are red but Heather said Paco has conjun…conjinx…with his eyes…’

‘What?’ Becky snaps, gripping the meat cleaver tighter. ‘Get them kids away from him.’

‘He’s fine,’ Subi says, her voice rising in the panic. ‘He’s got conjunctivitis…my Nanna had it and…’

‘Let me see,’ Becky says, pointing the meat cleaver towards Paco who doesn’t move. ‘Mate, let me see your eyes.’

‘He’s…he doesn’t speak,’ Heather blurts, taking her turn to shield him. ‘He’s fine…I promise you. He’s not infected or contagious or…’

‘Contagious? Was he infected?’ Becky rears up, her eyes hardening instantly.

‘No! I said he’s not infected…’

‘Heather kissed him and she’s not,’ Subi adds.

‘If he’s infected he’s fucking getting it…’ Becky says.

‘He isn’t. I promise. If he was infected then I would be and…he can’t speak because his throat was injured and his eyes are bad but he’s not…’

‘Is he Paco Maguire?’ Someone calls out.

‘No. He looks like him…he isn’t…he used to get that all the time and…I call him Paco because it was a joke but it stuck and now I always call him Paco…all his mates called him Paco but if you’d heard him speak you’d know he wasn’t….’

‘Show me his fucking eyes,’ Becky shouts.

‘He is not contagious.’

‘Then show me his bloody eyes.’

‘If he was infected he would have attacked you wouldn’t he? He carried Amna all day…and he carried me when I was hurt. He isn’t infected. I kissed him and I’m not infected.’

Panic builds. Every adult has seen too much, been too close to death and suffered too hard to get here. They form a mob with a pack mentality, closing in to keep the children shielded at the back. Knives are brandished, wicked things with long blades. Heavy sticks are gripped double handed by people teetering on the edge of sanity and reason. She can’t take his glasses off. If they see his eyes he’s done for. Even Subi knew it wasn’t conjunctivitis and she’s a child. Paco can’t speak, he can’t communicate, he can’t reason or explain but he tenses as her fear grows which feeds the panic in the people who see his reaction.

‘You show me his eyes right now,’ Becky demands, a normal rational person, the mother of three who will do anything to protect her children. She spots the big man standing straighter and his arm muscles bulging as he tenses. His fists clench, his whole bearing stiffens with aggression.

‘I promise you. I swear he is not contagious,’ Heather pleads in a situation rapidly spinning out of control.

‘Charlie, you got that crossbow loaded?’

‘Crossbow? You don’t need a crossbow,’ Heather shouts.

‘Here,’ A man steps out from the group holding a metal framed crossbow with a vicious bolt ready and loaded aimed at Paco.

‘God no…’ Heather goes in front, her arms splaying to protect him. ‘He is not…he hasn’t attacked you…he is not one of them…’

‘Move out the way,’ Becky says.

‘Subi…tell them…’

‘Leave the kid alone…show me his eyes or move…Charlie, you fire that thing if that fucker so much as twitches.’

Heather feels the growl rumbling in Paco’s chest as he readies to fight, she senses the power bunching with a pre-cursor to exploding out. She stares round wildly, begging with words that are unheeded. Children were easy to fool but these are adults. They can see it instantly. He isn’t a man. He’s one of them. A dangerous monster. They know. They’ll try and kill him but he will see it as a threat to her and fight back. They’ll cut him, stab him, shoot him with bolts and hit him with sticks but he doesn’t feel pain. He’ll tear them apart. He is a dangerous monster that is not to be trusted. No. Just no. He saved her. He carried her. He protected her in the storm and killed for her.

‘CHARLIE…SHOOT HIM…’

‘NO!’ Heather screams, shielding Paco as she runs backwards. ‘Please…we’ll go…’

‘Heather,’ Subi’s voice adds to those already shouting as the man with the crossbow moves out wider from the group.

‘We’ll go…don’t shoot,’ Heather cries out, forcing Paco back. He resists against her, detecting the fear in her voice and body.

Chaos erupts with Subi screaming at Heather not to go and Rajesh shouting for Paco to come back. Becky’s voice adding to the noise as she shouts to the other adults to pull the kids back. Heather backs away, going faster as she propels Paco down the road.

‘Don’t go with him you daft cow,’ Becky says, striding from her group with the meat cleaver looking wicked in her hand.

‘The woman’s in the way,’ Charlie calls out, his eyes fixed on Heather and Paco.

‘HEATHER…DON’T GO…’

‘Love don’t be stupid…come back…’

‘PACO!’

‘We’ll go,’ Heather calls out over and over, forcing him down the street until the rain blurs the image of the group brandishing weapons and holding the children back from running after her. ‘Go,’ she grabs his wrist, physically forcing him to turn then pushing him to run. ‘Go…just go…’

‘COME BACK,’ Becky calls out, sprinting from her group through the rain. ‘Heather…just…hey hang on a…’

‘Don’t hurt him.’

‘Just bloody wait.’

‘Becky? Get back here.’

‘I said we’ll go,’ Heather shouts, pushing Paco to keep him moving.

‘Heather just…please bloody stop running.’

‘Leave us alone. We’re going…’

Becky slows in the rain, watching as Heather and Paco get faster to disappear into the gloom. ‘They’ve got doctors…’ she calls out as loudly as she dares, nervously glancing round for fear of her voice drawing attention. ‘At the fort…’ she falls silent to stare at the grey wall of water hoping the woman heard.

Twenty Nine

She wakes with a surge up through the layers of conscious thought that bring her eyes blinking to stare out a view of rain. The sound comes a second after. The pattering of water striking hard surfaces that forms rivers and streams that gush and pour from overflowing drains. She snuggles closer into his side relishing the quietness. Subi, Rajesh and Amna are with people who know how to look after them. Her responsibility is now back to herself and Paco. She sighs and closes her eyes, intending to doze off but the hundreds of sounds of water flowing make her need a wee.

She sits up with a groan, rubbing her eyes and stretching while looking at his face that is becoming remarkably more expressive by the day. He smiles at her again. She grins back and lays a hand on his chest.

‘Feel alright?’ she mumbles, her voice deep and husky from sleep.

He doesn’t reply but smiles again. She catches the intelligence in his eyes that seem to be trying to grasp and hold onto something. It’ll come. She knows it will. He is healing.

‘Need a wee,’ she says, heaving herself up. ‘Come on…’ she takes his hand under the guise of helping him up while knowing he can rise easily on the power of his legs alone.

The warehouse sits on the far end of an industrial estate on the edge of the town. It’s not a wooden barn with a creaky door but it was warm, dry and tucked away. Besides, using a proper toilet was nice and the place smells of new carpet from the shelving units rammed full of rolled material ready for shipping. Why it was open she doesn’t know and doesn’t care. This is the apocalypse but she’s starting to feel like she did before in the normal world. A fort. People fighting back. Some weirdo called Mr Howie and his band of merry men running about. An immune dog. The same dog that probably bit Paco. He’s not contagious and she’s already considered if it was the immune dog biting him that changed the infection. It might not even be that dog but any old stray mongrel that bit him. She doesn’t know anything. She feels like she should know but tries to shrug it off like she did in the old life. Why is there an expectation that she should be involved or doing something? It’s nothing to do with her. None of this is her business.

She sits on the toilet in a carpet warehouse to tinkle into the bowel while Paco stands watching her. She looks up at him, rolling her eyes at the annoying thoughts that have come back into her head so soon after waking up. It feels different now, the way he watches her all the time. He’s more man and less…less thing or beast or whatever he was when she first met him. She stands to wipe, watching his eyes to see them flicker down at the movement of her hand. She hopes it’s that anyway and not him trying to grab a sneaky view. Mind you, does she care if he does? She rinses her hands and moves past him. ‘Have a wee,’ she says. He doesn’t respond. ‘Paco, have a wee.’

He had one last night when she said to have a wee. She did take his penis out for him and made him hold it then turned the tap on to send the right signals. It worked too. He had a wee.

‘Have a wee,’ she repeats but he stands inert with a hint of humour in his eyes that makes her put her hands on her hips and glare. ‘Paco? Are you being rude?’

He doesn’t tell her if he is being rude or if he simply doesn’t understand what is being asked.

‘Hmmm,’ she eyes him suspiciously, ‘turn around then…oh you can do that alright can’t you,’ she chuckles looping her arms round his body to unbuckle his trousers that get tugged down. ‘Right go on then…’ she stands back but he waits. ‘Paco, I know what you’re doing,’ she tries to sound grumpy but chuckles again halfway through. ‘Fine, you dirty sod…I’ll take your penis out for you shall I? There…got it? No you hold it…Paco I am not holding your willy while you…It’s going everywhere! Aim down…into the bowl…right now you take over. Paco, hold your willy…what the hell?’ She bursts out laughing when his hands rise up from his body as though purposefully not holding his own appendage. ‘You mucky bugger…’ he half turns to grin with humour in his eyes at the way she laughs while he wees and she aims. ‘Good job it’s big enough to aim…I never said big…I didn’t…right, I’m going. No, you hold it…don’t look at me like that you…oh for the love of God. Fine, shake it and put it away. Paco, put it away. Wash your hands now. Under here, that’s it. That’s the soap, push that and rub the gel in. Like me? See? Okay, now use the towel to dry your hands.’

She heads back into the warehouse glancing over her shoulder with a grin as he rushes to catch up. She stops dead on purpose, bracing as he walks into her. His arms going round her stomach as he tries to keep walking. She bursts out laughing again while pushing back to try and stop him. That he can do these things is not lost on her. He has a sense of play and a range of emotional reactions that seem to be improving all the time. She turns in his arms, staring up.

‘Hang on,’ she says as he tries walking forward again. ‘Try again…Heather…go on…Heather…’ she sounds her own name out slowly, pronouncing the two sections clearly. His eyes watch her mouth and she knows in her gut he wants to try. She did this last night while sat on his lap watching him eat. She changes tack, ‘Paco…Paco…your name…Paco…’

She can see he wants to try. His lips twitch and his eyes flicker to narrow and widen with concentration. ‘Ah, you’ll get there,’ she stops after a few minutes, smiling warmly with his arms still wrapped round her waist.

The morning passes in varying stages of abject bliss mixed with a large dollop of perfection. A small fire on the concrete ground by the door, a wooden chair smashed to kindling to burn steadily. The rain falling outside. The carpets rolled and stacked around them giving a nice soft enclosed feeling. Every now and then she gets a stab of guilt for ditching Subi, Raj and Amna so brutally but then remembers the weapons and threats. She thinks of the things Becky said, about the fort and there being people doing something to try and make it all better. They’re fighting back. That’s what Becky said. Or that old bloke John. Fighting back? Good. Let them. Got a fort? Great. Good for them. Got guns and an army truck. Brilliant. Hope you are all very happy.

That nagging voice doesn’t go away, no matter how hard she tries to ignore it. The nagging sensation that she should be involved. That anyone alive and functioning now should be doing something decent to help others. She did help. She took those kids from that awful shop and got them somewhere safe. People are bad anyway, and people now have weapons and behave like idiot villagers waving pitchforks at the sight of the monster. The problem is that she heard Becky’s last comment. The fort has doctors. Paco is something different. He is special in the sense of the infection within him. That he might have been savaged by an immune dog might have something to do with it. Should she present him there? Turn up and say oh hi, I found this movie star and thought I’d bring him down. No way. They’ll shoot him or lock him up and then shoot him. Or do tests on him. Or something horrible anyway.

She’s never had this before. This feeling of comfortability at being with someone else. At wanting to share and spend time with another human being. He doesn’t judge her. He doesn’t paw at her breasts or poke his erection in her hip. He doesn’t ask stupid questions either. He’s strong, dependable and cuddly as hell. Christ, she can’t stop hugging him. It’s like she’s catching up on all the years of isolation by being in constant physical contact with him. Not that he minds. He doesn’t mind one bit. She shifts the equilibrium further and further. He feels loved. He feels peace. He heals from her touch and that soft voice that laughs and plays. He learns too. He feeds himself. Drinks water. He opens the tins. He snaps the wood for the fire. His mind is opening and strengthening as fast as his wounds on the outside are healing.

Mid-morning and the rain stops with a sudden cessation of noise that makes her instantly stop trying to make him say her name and run to the door. He goes after her to stand and stare out at a world changing in front of them. Colours come flooding back with the sun’s rays beaming down. The view opens showing a concrete hardstanding that feeds into a road bordered by fields submerged under newly formed lakes that glint and glitter in reflection of the light. It’s breath-taking, stunning and sends a thrill through her body with a need to be outside and walking again.

‘Come on,’ she rushes back in to get ready. Packing the bag and using a bottle of water to douse the fire. It takes mere seconds before she’s back at the door grinning from ear to ear at the wide open deep blue sky now without a cloud in sight.

They walk through deep puddles already steaming in the heat. Through streets washed clean with surfaces of standing water that reflect the light so strong she has to squint. It becomes tropical with a stifling muggy air that makes her want to strip off and find a cool river to bathe in.

Whole roads are submerged under water. Gleaming lakes everywhere. Birds swoop, crying out. Seagulls land and bob in the new rivers or stand on the flotsam and jetsam floating on the surface. She has no idea where they are or what direction they take. Only that they can walk again. Walk all day. Find somewhere tonight. Walk tomorrow. Walk and heal. Sleep somewhere different and wake up to a new view every morning then walk again. She holds his hand without gloves and walks along in the steaming world of water rapidly evaporating. It’s a rebirth. A new start. A fresh beginning of a new era and one that she can see as she walks through it. Storms, floods, hot sun and mundane places made exotic. Eighteen days since this began and already the landscape has changed to become a new land.

Shouting from somewhere. Raised voices. She pauses, slows and listens with a glance at Paco who shows no aggression. The words distort but she catches next town in the air.

‘GOOD IDEA MR HOWIE…THERE ARE NO…THINGS HERE FOR US TO KILL…’ a huge booming voice.

The gunshot shatters the peace. A sharp retort that makes her flinch as it echoes to roll through the streets bouncing from buildings and seemingly amplified by the sheer volume of water. She comes to a stop. Sudden and frightened with that fragile perception of safety shattered in an instant. It came from ahead. From the same direction of the shouting. Her hand tightens the grip on his fingers with a flood of anger pulsing through that the things of the old world still push into the new one.

Engines. Big and diesel. Two of them starting up one after the other. With a burst of power she pushes him hard across the road through the gate to a walled garden to squat and hide as the engines sing out. She hears the plumes of water spraying as the vehicles come closer with that echo once again distorting the direction and source. She risks a peek, craning her neck to snatch a view of the army truck she saw a few days ago powering through the street sending waves of water out to the sides. A glimpse of a man with dark curly hair and a woman sitting in the front next to him. It goes past, building speed with a throaty roar that makes her bones vibrate. Another vehicle right behind the army truck. A cash in transit van driven by another man peering out the windscreen and another woman smiling at him as they swoosh past.

An urge to stand up and shout out. To run into the street waving to be seen and shouting to be heard. She doesn’t. She stays hidden and quiet until it’s too late and the sounds of the engines are fading in the distance. Only then does she run out and stare after them, biting her bottom lip and cursing her own cowardice. It was the army truck. She’s sure of it. The same one. The one the big bald man had in that town. That was his voice too booming out too. The words he said were mocking as though taunting something. Like over-stated or even silly. She turns back to Paco with a start at the expression on his face and the closest yet to a completely human look in his eyes as he stares after the trucks. His head high, his arms out from his sides but not in aggression. His chest rises quickly and she can almost hear his heart beating from the distance between them. The equilibrium within him shifts, the pendulum swings. Images of the dog swarm his mind. Images and feelings, emotions and an urge that he can’t voice or understand.

Things happening. People are organising and taking action, doing things. This world is not the old one. In the old world every road would be full of cars full of faceless people that meant nothing to her. Every street and every house would be full of humans she had no connection with. Now it’s different. Other people have become rare and to see the same vehicle twice sends that weird sensation that she should be involved and doing something. Helping them. Banding together to fight back or…she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know what but only that this time it was wrong to hide.

It’s done though and the streets become once again silent save for the water lapping from being displaced by the vehicles going through. She walks on, heading in the direction the vehicles came from.

They reach a street full of shops that is jarring for the recognition of the brand names that now mean nothing. Spar. Santander. Boots the Chemist. Pet shops. Travel agents. Betting shops. Bakeries and book shops. It’s so familiar but now irrelevant. She spots a set of gates beaten down and a row of parked cash in transit vans in a once secure compound of a bank. She recognises the same make and model as the one that drove behind the army truck. They go on further into a High Street flooded with oily waters filled with litter floating to gather at points of drainage. She pushes on as though searching for something. As though needing to see why they were here. An urge to be a part of her own species fighting back. Like the people yesterday braving the journey to find the fort. They could hide anywhere. Find places to make defensible and strong. Find shotguns and weapons, hide, stay quiet, forage and survive but they don’t. They walk and journey to be with their own for the snatched rumour of some idiots fighting back but she felt it. She felt the thrill of the army vehicle driving past. The sight of it and hearing the name Mr Howie. It meant something. It stands for something.

The town centre means nothing. Bunting lies draped and broken from a bandstand in the centre made from scaffold poles and planks that speak of a festival or town fete taking place when the outbreak hit. She spots a body lying bobbing face down in the water with the back of the head blown apart and knows instantly without question that was from the gunshot she heard. This is where the big man shouted. He shouted at this infected before they shot him. Next town. There are no things here for us to kill. Why say that? Why do that? Why tell it like they were goading or taunting.

The next town. Which way is that? She stares the way the vehicle went with that urge growing to become a thing that cannot be denied. She bites her lip, trying to resist and keep to her plan. Walk and sleep. Be with Paco and nothing else but that isn’t right. Not right at all.

‘Come on,’ she tells herself they can go slowly and see what happens. Maybe find the next town, maybe see what they’re doing. It goes against every instinct she has but she does it anyway. She has to.

Thirty

They go fast. Days of fresh air and constant walking seem to have given her energy and strength she never knew she had. Stamina too that remains high despite the heat. She’s learnt to drink often and replace fluids lost from sweating. They walk side by side, sharing a bottle that gets passed back and forth to slurp and guzzle. Water is poured over faces to refresh skin but they keep on and it’s as though he feels the same pressure in him to keep going. Like they have purpose and objective again. She keeps glancing at Paco, seeing the determination in his eyes and how human he now looks.

An hour of solid tread on a main road flooded on both sides with standing water dazzling with reflection. She wishes she had sunglasses but squints and suffers the headache instead.

They go uphill on a long road rising with the land to a crest that heralds the descent down to the next town. She breathes hard, sweating heavily but going on to try and catch up to something that means nothing to her. Gunshots again. Distinct and sustained single shots then a few seconds later automatic fire drifts from the town. The staccato drum like noise drifting on thermals of hot air rising with the moisture heavy air. She speeds up, walking briskly then into a jog with the bag bouncing on her back. They’re in the town ahead of them that looks like something from the cover of a fantasy novel. A town built in a lake of standing water that glistens and gleams. A flood plain wide and far that has filled with rain water but from that place comes those gunshots so loud and clear. She runs now. Running hard for the first time in her life to be near other people, not just people but people with guns. Paco stays at her side. His long legs covering the ground with ease. She knows he can run two or three times her speed but he doesn’t. He stays at her side as watchful as ever. Always watching. Always scanning.

It takes too long. She can’t run fast enough from the rural to the urban to navigate the streets to get closer as the guns end and once again she hears diesel engines starting, driving and fading away.

Still she runs. Still she goes to feed an urge she has no understanding of. When they reach the centre they stop and gasp while seeing the results of a massacre. Hundreds of bodies lay slain across a wide plaza. Hundreds of infected shot down. In a sight of awesome power that makes the rumours true. Bullet casings litter the floor in a solid line showing where the shooters were standing. She can even see the distance between them that speak of uniform spacing and discipline held as they were faced by hundreds charging at them. She sees bite marks in necks too. The same injuries that Paco had but worse. Throats ripped out completely with gaping holes left. Arrows shafts stuck in corpses here and there. The whole sight should be sickening and it is but the weird sensation of a thrill at her own kind fighting back is the greater of the two emotions. She glares hard without realising she does. She breathes hard while trying to understand why she feels like this. What did Becky call them? The Living Army or something. Stupid name. It’s a stupid name for a bunch of stupid people that think by shooting a couple of hundred they are fighting back. She finds his hand to hold, seeking comfort in his physical size in this place of death. He takes her hand. His own heart thudding with images and emotions still surging to flit as they try and take root in a mind that is not his own. She feels his fingers tighten and gains the true sense of his awesome strength. He could crush her hand with ease.

‘You okay?’ She asks, looking from his hand up to his face. He looks down. His eyes blazing with intelligence that has yet to make the full connection. She looks round, at the bullets, at the arrows, at the throats bitten away then back at him. His red eyes stay on hers. ‘We’ll find them,’ she says without knowing she was going to say it but she means it. She means it more than anything in her life before. ‘We will,’ she reaches up to kiss his cheek, her finger tips brushing softly down his face. His own hands reach her face, cupping to hold in a motion that makes her freeze in surprise. Like he wants to speak, like he’s trying to find something but that confusion comes back, pain too. ‘Hey, we’ll be okay…I promise…come on, we’ll keep going.’ She pecks his lips. An act done from instinct but to show she means what she says. They’ve been sharing a bottle all morning and sharing lives for days. It’s safe. She knows it is but the feeling that comes is still really very nice. She smiles at him, surprised at herself. He smiles back. His whole bearing lighting up at the fleeting touch. ‘Feeling fit?’ She asks with a laugh.

On they go. Following the main road out of town at a pace that would bring grimaces to the faces of most soldiers.

Thirty One

The bag irritates her. The way it bounces and rubs her shoulders. She finds the chest and waist straps that are buckled and cinched tight. She drinks water on the move. Passing the bottle to Paco who drinks on the move.

Southern England has become a jungle with a humidity off the chart that makes every pore of her body leak water. The sheer volume of rain that came down now steams to go back up. It’s stifling. She gasps for air. Her face drips. Her hair plastered to her scalp but they push on to keep going.

She woke this morning with a plan to do sod all. She woke to a faith that neither she nor Paco had any connection to anything else in the world. What everyone else was doing had no relevance to her. They were going to walk leisurely. Sleep and wake to a new view each morning. That was the plan and it was a good plan and had no reason to change, but changed it has and all because she heard a voice shouting a name and an army truck driving past.

The inner voice that tells her to hide and run away screams to be heard but gets pushed further back to be ignored for the first time in her life. Paco is connected to them. She can see it in him. She can feel it in herself. A pressure that grows and refuses to let her stop and rest. This is too slow. She wants to take a car and drive but is too fearful of missing something. She wouldn’t be able to hear inside a car. She’d miss the small details and something tells her that’s important.

Uphill again. A long slogging bastard incline that makes her grit her teeth and push on past hedgerows bursting with life. Her airways widen to draw more air. Her sense of smell comes stronger. The town was fetid and stank of dirty water and decay but the countryside is clean with fragrance of earth, flowers and grass. It’s intoxicating and heady. More water is taken in. More fluids are sweated out. Muscles start to thrum but her pace quickens with an energy flowing that seems to bring new strength. Paco doesn’t falter but stays at her side. His eyes no longer just fixed on her but staring round, ahead and then to her. His eyes show emotion but the confusion within his gaze brings a sadness that makes her go faster still.

The top of the hill is gained with a small sense of victory and a wry glance back to the see the long lane stretching down and away. Movement in her peripheral vision. She stops to stare, seeing figures in the distance on the top of another hill across the valley running in the same direction. Thick lines of people moving with uniformity and pace that speaks of infected. They’re too far away to see details but she knows what they are and they’re going in the same direction in response to the urge she is feeling. They’re being pulled but to what? Why? So many of them too. Hundreds. She eyes the trailing line trying to guess the numbers but gives up with shake of her head.

‘Water,’ she says, handing him the bottle. He turns from the view to take the bottle that gets pressed to his lips in a way a man would do. She watches him then back across the valley to the long lines. None of this is her business. Run. Hide. Go the other direction. ‘Had enough?’ She asks when he hands the bottle back. He doesn’t reply but his lips twitch to form to speak but no sound comes. She holds perfectly still, fearful of causing any distraction. His eyes focus on hers, narrowing with emotion that plays across his features then it’s gone. Fading as quickly as it came to be replaced by hurt and vulnerability. She smiles at him, her eyes forever glued to his. Her hand on his arm, touching gently that soothes the troubled expression. For the first time since she met him he breaks the eye contact first to turn and stare across the valley to the hill on the far side. She blinks, stepping back with the realisation that there are bigger things happening than her right now. She is not the centre of the universe. This world is not revolving around her. Shame creeps up her cheeks. Shame that she kept him to herself to fix her own paltry issues.

‘Come on,’ she sets off to speed down the hill in parallel to an army of infected running the same direction.

They disappear from sight within a few minutes. The hedgerows obscuring the view until she can no longer see them anywhere. They veered off another direction but she can’t tell where or why. She keeps on the lane that feeds to a main road that runs straight. She keeps her eyes open and her head up, watching the sides and the rear but seeing nothing other than puddles, lakes, exposed roads and surfaces with fields, houses and the objects of life left as they were.

Late morning and they find it. A twee village where every available roof has been thatched. Houses, tea gardens, the bus shelter, alcoves, porches and even a shed. With cheeks flushed bright red they walk down the main road seeing bodies ahead that lie dead from being shot down. Bullet casings lie glinting. Doors smashed in show entry gained to shops but no sign or noise of anyone or anything. The bodies are fewer in number than she expected too and all old or weak looking. They saw hundreds on the other hill but there’s less than twenty here. She bends over to rest her hands on her knees, breathing hard and deep with sweat dripping from the strands of hair hanging down.

They were here. In this town. She stands straight to draw a deep lungful of air and catches the scent of cigarettes hanging in the air. She sniffs again, turning and walking to find trace of the smell. It gets stronger nearer a tea gardens set to one side of the road. A once lush garden of flowers and borders with chairs and tables laid out for patrons to enjoy cream teas.

She follows her nose to a veranda adjacent to the building. Several tables pushed together. Empty cans of drink litter the table. Cigarettes butts crushed on the floor. Snack bar wrappers and signs of recent life. That thrill comes on again. The sensation at knowing there are people doing something. They came here, killed the things then stopped for a break. She imagines them sitting round talking and planning. The big man with the bald head and the others she saw in the front of the vehicles. She counts a dozen chairs. Twelve of them. Her eyes absorb tiny details as though trying to learn and understand. The inner voice screams loud at that second. Her own base instinct asserting itself to get the hell out and go the other way. None of this is her business. If twelve idiots want to fight back then let them. She can’t fight. She can’t do anything other than find good hiding places. Paco can though. Paco can fight. No. People are bad. Paco can fight. The things can’t hurt him. Paco is connected to them.

She turns away to carry the argument in her mind then spots the water bucket on the ground in the shadow of the building. A water bowl for a dog. It’s obvious. They have to go on. How far behind them are they? This could be hours old. Which way? To where? For what? Run away and hide. They need a car.

They get back into the main road and start walking up past the bodies. The businesses are here but there will be houses nearby with cars parked outside. Find a car. Catch them up. See what happens. A plan without a plan that sends a wave of fresh nervous fear that has to be pushed back.

A whimper sounds out. A rushed panicked noise coming from somewhere on the left. She spins round, searching for the source as the sound of running feet reaches her ears. Fast footsteps gaining closer. Paco tenses, his fists clenching as he steps ahead at the same second as a figure bursts from the leafy entrance to a footpath to run helter skelter into the road. Arms and legs flailing everywhere. Wild and uncoordinated. The man glances over his shoulder, panic on his face. Paco reaches the entrance as the first infected comes barrelling out to be smashed down by the momentum Paco carried forward. Others come. More that charge out to be swatted and battered aside in an explosion of violence so unexpected in the stillness of the village. Paco rages. Grabbing a woman off her feet so her can snap her neck and use her already dead body to batter two more down.

‘HERE,’ Heather calls to the man tripping and staggering at the awful sight behind him. He tries to watch the attack, see Heather and look ahead at the same time with a myriad of movements that send him sprawling out. The second he hits the floor he tries crawling. Whimpering and crying with a keening noise. She starts running towards him, snatching a view of Paco landing a hard fist into a face that seems to explode in a shower of blood from a busted nose.

‘Wait,’ she grunts, grabbing his shoulder to heave him up. He screams out, blind to her but only seeing infected and believing they’re grabbing him. She grips harder, forcing him up onto his feet. ‘Move,’ she propels him towards a garden wall, looking round to see Paco stamping down on a neck that snaps like a dry twig. He lashes out at another, grabbing a fistful of hair to wrench the beast of its feet and back to be grabbed, hefted, snapped and dropped with a grunt of exertion. ‘Wait here,’ Heather pushes into him, using her body to hold him still while watching Paco finish the last one off by smashing his head into a metal railing so hard she sees teeth flying across the road. ‘Hang on,’ she says, pushing into the man. ‘Almost done…Paco, that one’s moving…’ the big guy turns to see her pointing and sets off towards the crawler, bringing a hard foot down onto an elbow that breaks and crushes underfoot. His next step lifts high to drop down to stamp and it’s done. Finished. She checks each body, flicking her eyes from one to the next as Paco moves from kill to kill. ‘Okay, it’s over. You okay? Come on, stand up. Stand up…take a breath…slowly, breathe slowly.’

The man cries hard, snotting over his chin and mouth with tears streaming from his eyes as he hyperventilates with fear. His eyes strobe wildly, still unseeing. Gripped by panic and terror.

She drops the bag to get a fresh bottle of water that she drinks from first. ‘Paco,’ she calls his name, holding the bottle out. He walks over, his whole manner charged and hard. She gets another bottle, pushes the man into the wall gently and tells him to take a sip. He tries gulping but she pulls the bottle away. ‘Slowly…sip…’ he nods deep and fast, still gasping for breath. She guides him to sip, pulling the bottle back. He starts to settle with focus coming back into his eyes and manner. His movements not so rushed and wild. He takes another drink, deeper this time to get more down. She watches, waiting for him to compose himself. Finally he comes back to a person in control of his own mind and looks over to the corpses and up to Paco standing behind Heather. His face changes, his features morphing with fear and something else. ‘Heather…’ he says, blurting her name out as he looks at her.

‘Eh?’

‘Heather,’ he nods as though to himself. ‘It’s you…I…in the…’

‘Slow down,’ she says staring hard at a face she has never seen before. ‘Who are you?’

‘Pete…I er…in the street yeah? I…when you….fuck me he killed them all.’

‘Pete? What street?’ she asks.

He gulps more water then gasps a few times to frown and look round, ‘it was raining, remember?’

‘What? Who are you? When…oh…oh the rain. With Becky?’

‘Yeah yeah…you ran off,’ he nods again, he keeps nodding with a mind whirling to process everything.

‘But…you were going south.’

‘This is south, I mean…this was…the way we…it is south.’

‘Subi! Where are they?’

‘Oh fuck,’ he whispers. ‘It was bad…they…so many of them and…’

‘Pete, where are they?’

‘I ran. We all ran…they just had so many…never seen that many…just fucking…it was so bad…’

‘Where are they?’

‘I don’t know! I just ran. I…I didn’t even see I just legged it and…’

‘You have to calm down. Where are they? Did they hurt Subi or Rajesh or…’

‘I don’t know,’ he wails, panic building again. ‘I just ran. Everyone was running…Becky was screaming at everyone and she said to run…’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t fucking know!’

‘Think,’ she says, growling the word out. ‘How far back? How far did you run? How long were you running? Which way did you come? Can you find the way back?’

‘Please stop…I don’t know, I just…oh fuck…there were so many. Like came out of nowhere and fuck me…they’re ramped too, like off the fucking…’

‘Shut up,’ she snaps with such ferocity it makes him flinch and move back. She goes with him, forcing him into the wall. ‘How far did you run?’

‘I,’ he swallows and mouths words that don’t form sounds. ‘I…’ the tears come again, spilling out from his eyes as his lip starts trembling. His legs weaken, the blood drains from his face as he sags and looks ready to faint.

‘Pete,’ she forces a softer tone. ‘How far? Was it up that footpath or further away? Just tell me where to go.’

‘So many…so many…’ he gets stuck in a loop of twisted faces snarling with lips pulled back. ‘So many…so man…’

‘I am so sorry,’ she whispers then hits him open handed and hard with a stinging blow that snaps his head over. ‘Answer the fucking question,’ she pushes into him, dominating his space. ‘How far and which way?’

‘Few miles,’ he whimpers, sinking down with his hands coming up to shield his face.

‘Which way?’ she grips his neck, hating herself for doing it but doing it all the same. She pushes him up, bracing with her legs to pin him hard to the wall. ‘Answer me…which way?’

‘Back the…the footpath! Don’t hurt me…I just ran and…’

‘Show me,’ she pulls back, he sags on the spot, whimpering in absolute terror to sink down with his knees bent into his chest. ‘No, up,’ she grabs his arm to pull him up but he lashes out with a scream, flailing hard with a hand that knocks her back. Paco is there. His hands gripping to lift Pete from the floor to be pinned into the wall with a face showing pure aggression.

‘It’s okay,’ Heather says, pulling Paco back. ‘Let him go…Pete, you have to show us.’

‘I can’t I can’t I can’t…’

‘Pete, I am sorry but you’re showing us. Now. Move now… I SAID MOVE NOW.’

She forces him off the wall, pushing and dragging the poor sod across the road. He drops screaming to crab away. She grips his collar, lifting him up to scoot him on. ‘Children…there are children, Pete…’

‘Too late, it’s too late…they’ll be…’

It’s no good. She drops him to cry on the road with a look of pity and disgust crossing her face. ‘That footpath? Where after that? Pete…Pete…Just tell me and we’ll go…’ she drops to his side, speaking urgently but softly. ‘Which way? Please…up the footpath then where?’

‘I can’t….I just…so many and…Becky was…’

A footpath could branch off in any direction and lead to other footpaths. She won’t know the way and she doubts even he knew the way he ran in the state he’s in now. She looks round, seeing the bodies. At least five of them. Six, she spots one in the undergrowth. Six of them chasing this bloke. Eighteen days of foliage growing undisturbed. She only needs direction, the distance she can make up by moving quickly.

‘We’re going,’ she says quickly, rising to her feet. ‘What’s the name of the fort? Pete? The name of the fort? What’s the fort called….MAN UP,’ she bellows, grabbing a fistful of hair to wrench his head back. ‘Fort? What’s it called?’

‘Spitbank,’ he blurts.

‘Thank you,’ she lets him go and is off, heading into the shade of the footpath with the bag once more strapped to her back.

Thirty Two

Heather spent a life in denial and fear, hiding from people and commitment. A childhood taken away by a system that was meant to protect. She knows her failings, her weaknesses but she also knows she is intelligent once she focusses and fixes one subject in her mind.

She does that now. She does it with a sense of urgency that has been growing all day. First to catch up with the people in the army truck and now to find Subi, Raj and Amna. She learns to read the ground, seeing where the tread of feet have crumpled the grass and damaged the stems of plants. She spots the weave as they went through bends and got carried wide by the momentum of their running to trample the longer grass on the verges. She goes fast too. All she needed was direction and once that was gained it was just about closing the distance.

Despite his screaming panic attack she gains a grudging respect for Pete at the distance he travelled. She didn’t trust him when he said it was a few miles but the footpath is long and weaving as it borders fields and forests. They go fast with a mix of jogging and marching when she needs to slow down to get more air and drink water.

A few seconds are lost at the first junction of three footpaths meeting but she soon spots the trampled verges and chooses course with Paco forever at her side. The heat gets worse with an air seemingly heated and trapped by the dense foliage of trees and bushes. The sweat coming from them is immense. Tops are sodden. Faces drip flushed and hot.

Another junction. Several directions leading away and it takes longer to go further into each opening to find tell-tale signs of recent passage. Her mind fills with images of Subi, Raj and Amna running in fear. That fear pushes her to run and ignore the pain in her legs and chest. Pete said there were so many too. He said more than he’s seen before and they were ramped. Why are they coming here into this area? What for? It has to be something to do with the people in the army truck. That the infected people could be coordinated enough is a terrifying concept. Massing and moving together for a single objective. She knows they chase prey together but this is different.

The footpath ends abruptly. A mirage created by a dense thicket of trees across the road that made it look like it kept going but suddenly there is space around her and tarmac underfoot. She looks left and right, trying to work out which direction to take. Searching for signs but the road is wide. They could have run six abreast and not touched the verges. Which way? Left or right? She goes left, searching the ground but finding nothing. She goes right, the same again. Time being wasted. Time ticking away. Pressure growing that builds.

‘Thank God,’ she mutters when the snarling women comes running flat out towards them with half a head of hair streaming behind her. The other half is a mess of wounds and blood that drips down her body. She’s fresh. Clean clothes in muted colours and sensible shoes for walking. Heather doesn’t flinch or wait but sets off running behind Paco who charges the woman down. As he hits her so Heather veers to run past to close the distance now direction has once more been gained.

He catches her up with ease. Sprinting hard to fall in at her side. She glances, offers him a grim smile and keeps going. A signboard ahead. Large and white with a welcoming message emblazoned across it, Welcome to Hydehill, please drive carefully. The main road through is wide and straight. Shops and stores on both sides with parking spaces out the front.  Post office, a church and a junction to a side road that runs behind the shops. Puddles everywhere, steaming in the heat. Bodies everywhere, steaming in the heat. Bullet casings everywhere, shining in the sun.

She runs in trying to make sense of it. A fight took place. The people in the army truck were here but Pete came from here too. She comes to a stop, her hands pushing her slick hair back down her head that comes away dripping wet.

Hundreds of bodies. So many. Pete said there had been many but he didn’t mention guns or people firing. She gulps and blinks, shaking her head to clear her mind. Think, Heather.

The infected woman that charged at them was from Becky’s group. Her head was cut open. She’d been slashed with a knife or something with a blade, like the meat cleaver Becky had but all of these bodies have been shot. She looks closer, flicking from body to body that stretch back to the buildings at the sides of the road. More in the junction in a long trail. The piles of bullets show the rough circle in the road where the shooters stood and a few more placed in the junction.

‘I think I’ve got it,’ she tells Paco, drawing his attention to look at her. ‘They heard the gunshots and came this way…so the…the people in the army truck were here first and shot these and Becky’s lot came after. Yeah, yeah think about it. They heard the gunshots, came towards the noise but got here too late and ran into more of the things…’

There’s too much blood on the floor to see trails or pick routes out. The whole scene is carnage and filled with the stench of metallic blood, shit and innards hanging out of stomachs torn open by bullets.

‘Pete ran that way,’ she points off back the way they came in. ‘He was chased by six…that woman came later so…so maybe she got turned then cut down by Becky or someone and decided to go after Pete. This way then,’ she points off in the other direction going further through the town. ‘You ready?’

She doesn’t wait for the answer but sets off at a brisk walk that builds to a jog. She gets through the bodies and keeps going a hundred metres before spotting a mangled torn hunk of meat lying slumped at the side of the road. She goes closer, realising it’s a body but so torn apart it’s barely recognisable as once human. Teeth marks all over it. Deep bites from a big jaw that held long teeth. Spots of blood lie in a patch a few feet away, bandages and an empty crumpled packet of cigarettes. She sniffs the air, detecting the tang of tobacco. Strange sights that mean nothing to her. Strange smells that indicate they were here and not too long ago either.

She goes faster. Running past shops and side roads. Another body further up. She can see the red glistening blood still wet and warm. Cut marks on the neck, messy and deep. The body is fresher than the ones that were shot further back. Blood spatters everywhere. Footprints too that ran through pools of blood to lead a trail that she follows as fast as her already tired legs will carry her.

A bloodied patch lies not far up the road. Someone was taken down and turned. She can see it in her mind. More bloody footprints too and this world has suddenly become very small indeed. The army truck is going through towns slaying anything that moves without heed to what they leave behind. Becky’s group heard it and ran in to seek help only to meet more. This whole area must be crawling with them. Why didn’t the army people stop and see if there were any survivors here?

Another body. This one bitten too deep in the neck that opened an artery. The pool of blood is huge. Litres of crimson liquid lying wet and slick on the road. She spots the sensible shoes, the muted colours and the rucksack still on the back of the corpse. A teenage boy. Fat and unable to run fast enough to get away. Too many video games, too many pizzas and junk food. The world is culling itself. The fast and the strong survive. Subi isn’t fat. Neither is Raj or Amna. They had good parents who fed them good food. They’ll be able to keep running. They had days of junk food in the supermarket though. Days of bad diet and no exercise. They’ll tire easily and she knows Amna can’t run for long, same with Rajesh. They’re both too small with little legs. That image chokes a sob in her throat. The thought of Amna and Raj struggling to run and being left behind. She knows Subi would drop back to stay with them. God no. Please no. I’m begging you. Not them. She goes faster. Turning the grief into anger to drive energy into her limbs and muscles. Paco should go ahead. He’s fast and strong. He doesn’t get tired. He could catch them up. She glances at him knowing the concept is one too complex to explain.

‘Go,’ she tries anyway, motioning with her hand for him to run. ‘Find Subi…Subi….find Subi…’

He isn’t a dog and just speaking those few words knock her breathing out of whack. He stays at her side in what must be a gentle jog for him.

Car. Get a car. Foolish woman. Why didn’t she think of it before? She casts about, searching for anything that she can grab quickly but every car is locked up with no indication of which house the owner lived in. She runs faster, gritting her teeth to reach the bigger houses with driveways. The first one has a Volvo outside. Modern and big. She veers off sharply, aiming for the front door of the house but finds it locked. She starts kicking it, slamming first the toe of her shoes then stepping back to get her whole foot into it. The door is UPVC and flexes in the frame, bouncing and banging but holding firm. Then it’s gone. Ripped from the frame by the full weight of a big man running at it and one who doesn’t hold back for fear of hurting himself. She doesn’t hesitate but follows him into the hallway to be greeted by a rotten stench of decaying meat that she’s come to know only too well.

Blood on the floor. Blood on the walls. Entry gained to the house by an infected who turned those inside while the self-locking door closed behind, sealing them in. Five of them. Two adult males, one adult female, two children. All snarling. All decaying. All ramped to feast and bite with an urge to get out and join the hive mind going after the people in the army truck. Now that urge changes. There is a potential host and the one that turned but is longer hive mind. A single act saves Heather’s live. Five people rushing from the lounge into the hallway and trying to fit through one doorway at the same time, getting wedged by their own mass. That hesitation buys her the time to step back and for Paco to step in and while he goes to work she searches for the keys. While bones get snapped she opens drawers that get thrown onto the floor. While more blood is spilled on the floor she runs into the kitchen to search the sides and the breakfast bar. Five on one in a confined space. The woman gets past him into the hallway to charge down towards the kitchen with a snarl that makes Heather spin and grab a knife from the metallic strip on the wall. She holds the point out, screaming as the woman impales herself with a force that drives Heather back into the side units. She braces and leans back while sawing with the knife that cuts the stomach open. Things start falling out. Long wet gloopy innards that hang with blood spurting thick and foul. A second later and she’s gone. Ripped from her feet to be lifted and smashed down into the breakfast bar that disintegrates with Paco dropping to tear her apart for daring to touch Heather.

No time to lose. Adrenalin is coursing. Focus is maintained. Find the keys. She carries on opening drawers with hands that smear blood over surfaces and cupboard fronts. Finally she sees it. A row of hooks hanging from a metallic strip on the front of the fridge. Keys hanging from the hooks and the big Volvo fob so distinctive. As she reaches so she sees her own hands covered in blood. She gets to the sink, turns the tap and starts scrubbing with a scouring pad used to wash dishes almost three weeks ago. Dollops of washing up liquid get used. Anti-bacterial washing up liquid. Everything is anti-bacterial these days. An obsession with germs made worse by advertisers telling everyone they will die if they don’t sanitise everything. Hands scrubbed and rubbed pink she grabs the keys and weaves to vault over the bodies to get outside. She presses the button, hearing the satisfying clunk of central locking. Door open. Bag off and thrown in the back. She goes for the driver door then stops to guide Paco round to the front passenger seat. He understands and goes with her. His logic and reasoning skills improving with every hour.

In the driver’s seat she stares at the keys realising there are no keys but a single plastic fob. How do you start it? She’s heard of these. Keyless ignitions. She searches the dashboard and finds a hole the same shape as the fob. It goes in. Lights come on the display but the engine doesn’t start. She searches frantic and rushed, flicking her eyes everywhere with a panic building at the time being wasted. A simple round button marked start stop. She jabs her finger and both hears and feels the engine come to life. No clutch. Automatic. She tries selecting D for drive but the shift won’t move. She presses the button on the side and curses foully. Her foot hits the brake, the gear stick moves but goes too far. She forces calmness into her movements to get it into D and pushes the accelerator down. The engine bites but the car doesn’t move.

‘WHAT NOW,’ she screams in frustration at a world that got too complicated and too bloody stupid at the same time. A plastic lever on the dashboard that she yanks to release the handbrake, or what used to be the handbrake when they still had handbrakes before they started making stupid things to annoy everyone. Stop it. Focus. Keep the focus. Now the car moves. She twists the steering wheel too hard, slamming the front wing into the post on the garden wall that scrapes down the side with a metallic screeching. Into the road and she bites her lip while building speed while telling herself not to go fast while remembering it’s been a while since she last drive while all the time being terrified from the image of Raj and Amna falling back and Subi choosing to stay with them.

That does it. Sod the speed. The engine roars to change up through the gears as the big car eats the tarmac under wheels that grip from a design perfected over decades. Four wheel drive, solid chassis and it gives a feeling of strength, like the people in the army truck. This is her army truck and Paco is her army.

Paco tenses in his seat. His arms bulging with fists curling to hard balls. ‘Yeah I see him,’ Heather says with a vicious sneer. She lines up and lets the vehicle do the rest. A man running with hands clawed. A man running with the fury of the infected giving chase. A man running who is hit from behind by the solid front end of a car that snaps his thigh bones as he pivots down to smash into the road. A thump of wheels and it’s done. One dead without blinking or missing a beat. She checks the rear view mirror, seeing the mangled corpse lying still and dead. ‘Perfect,’ she mutters, shifting in her seat. She reaches back to open the flap of the bag. ‘Drink,’ she hands him the bottle. He drinks. ‘Another one,’ she nods ahead, altering course to hit the woman square in the back of her legs. This one rides up across the bonnet and up to fly over the top to land hard in the road behind. ‘Two,’ Heather says, showing Paco two fingers. He hands the bottle back. She drinks then holds the bottle away to twitch the steering to hit the next one that is sent spinning across road into the side of van. ‘Three,’ she says quietly and drinks the water.

She slows to navigate a sharp bend and spots more ahead as the road opens out. Several groups all running staggered and drawn out but she can’t see ahead of them. They must be close. There’s no way Raj and Amna could run much further than this. Fast movement ahead. Something flashing in the sun. She guns the engine, building speed with a hand coming down hard on the horn that blasts out loud and angry. The infected turn with a synchronicity that is frightening to behold. All of them acting as one. Turning as one. Seeing as one. She sees it. She sees the hive mind at work as the closest half run at the car while the rest keep going. A decision made and executed with a precision that is terrifying. In the chaos of that moment she spots two infected kneeling in the road biting down into a woman that screams for the pain given. As the view opens she sees more of the same. More people torn from their feet to be bitten and raked. A flash of metal glinting in the sun far ahead. Fast movements of people fighting. Everything taken in with a blink of an eye and a beat of her heart.

She aims, pushes the pedal and runs the first one down. More come to vault over the bonnet to slam heads into the windscreen snarling and howling, impervious to pain. She doesn’t flinch. Not this time. She steers and weaves to hit more as they keep coming to thump into the sides and front. She aims the car to the two biting the woman and kills all three with a violent jolt of the wheels spinning to gain traction and crush the soft bodies. Carnage ensues. A chaos of noises and bodies slamming into the car. The rear passenger window smashes with a head coming through that drops out from the burst of speed applied. There is no time for thought but only to react from instinct and be guided by each new threat and sight. She fishtails the steering, slewing round with hard braking and even harder acceleration to clear the street. Those on the floor being bitten are run over with death given to infected and human alike.

There it is. The last stand being taken with Becky swinging her meat cleaver to slice through a lunging face with a bare few adults still on their feet fighting to protect the children behind.

‘RUN,’ Becky’s voice roaring in the noise of a war taking place. ‘FUCKING RUN…’ she turns to shove the children, bellowing with kicks to arses to get them moving. A vicious backhand from lightning reactions fells a big man coming in. Another adult goes down under a flurry of bodies lunging to dive and bite. Blood sprays in the air. Some of the children star burst from the sight. Some too scared to move get killed where they are. A pair of red shoes showing through the bodies fighting. A pair of red shoes on little legs that can’t run much further. Rajesh hefts her up, crying out to carry his little sister while his big sister shields both of them from the beasts.

Aye. That does it. That sends a pulsing rage surging up through Heather who aims to run the things down. She goes fast, braking at the last second with a hard turn of the wheel to fishtail the back end round that slams into several running at Becky. Door open and she’s out running flat for Subi, Raj and Amna. Paco behind her lunging into the fray to swat the things aside as they dive for Heather running through the battle. She powers on legs given speed by the sight of a big infected male running at the three children. She powers on with her eyes fixed and knowing she took one down before. She powers on knowing a dangerous monster covers her back so she only has to worry about the front.

‘DOWN DOWN DOWN,’ she screams with the last bit of air in her lungs to make Subi lift her head with eyes that go wide at the sight of Heather running towards them. ‘GET DOWN…’ A mothers tone. A tone that expects compliance. Compliance is given. Subi grabs Raj who holds Amna and drops down, taking her brother with her. The three land in a heap as the big man goes to lunge. Heather grunts and explodes forward to land on his back, her arms round his neck drawing in to wrench his head back with an impact that sends him off to the side away from the children. She hangs on for dear life, squeezing with every ounce of strength, feeling bones breaking in his throat. She feels it stagger round but holds on as Paco clears the ground around her, swatting and hitting to floor creatures that fly past. She roars with pain and determination. She grips harder, pulling tighter with veins in her neck and head bulging as the beast drops to his knees from the lack of air being taken in. She goes with him, forcing him down to the ground to jump up and stamp a foot on his skull. She kicks hard, driving feet into its face smashing the nose and jaw, fracturing eye sockets while heedless to the pain in her toes. The beast rears. The damage to his face is nothing to him. He will bite and rake all the same. He rises fast with a fresh lungful of air giving oxygen to muscles. She tries punching the side of his head but he shows no reaction and comes up with blood dripping down his ruined face. The meat cleaver swung by Becky takes him through the throat, severing his neck with such brutal strength his head falls to roll across the ground. Still no time for thought but only to react.

She runs back to find Subi and the other two but gets hit from the side by a body lunging in to take her down. She hits the ground hard, whumping the air from her lungs as the weight is suddenly taken away by Paco lifting the man overhead to be thrown like a ragdoll into more coming. She rolls, scrabbles and crabs on hands and knees through blood spraying and bodies falling. A woman lands in front of her, screaming with terror and pain from the beast sinking its teeth into her shoulder. A machete falls from her hand that cannot now tense and grip due to the tendon being bitten through. Heather grabs it and swings wildly, cleaving into the infected. She hacks harder, strength gaining with a weapon in her hand. She slams it into the back and shoulders slicing deep through flesh. On her feet, she boots the body away and without a thought in her mind she brings that machete down into the throat of the woman bitten in the shoulder. On she goes, staggering to her feet to see Amna’s red shoes underneath her brother being pinned down by Subi. Movement to her right, she spins and lashes with the blade swiping across a head that peels apart. She slices again, hacking to get it away. Sensation behind her. Paco leans past to stop a man lunging in to bite her. His fist gripping hair to yank and pull the man in so his neck can be broken.

‘SUBI…CAR….’ She grunts the words while dancing back to hack out at a hand coming to rake. Several fingers are taken off to fall like litter on the ground. ‘SUBI…CAR…NOW SUBI…’

She reaches back to grab Subi’s arm, lifting her up as Paco fights to keep her clear. ‘UP…RAJ GET UP…CAR NOW…’

She fight to cover them as Paco fights to cover her. A battle of filth and blood and snarling voices. Screams of pain score the air. The whole of it is sordid and terrifying but within that chaos she gets them through. Slashing anything that comes close. Digging that blade into a thigh then through an arm then higher into a neck as her hands and arms get drenched in blood.

‘BECKY…CAR…’ she catches sight of wild ginger hair atop a face as snarling and vicious as the infected. A woman, a mother, a wife who will fight until the last drop of blood in her body is gone. She snatches round to see Heather, calm in her eyes despite the battle lust etched on her face. A curt nod and she’s off to grab children who get propelled to run through the bodies to the car.

Those three hold them back. Becky with a meat cleaver. Heather with a machete taken from a woman’s hand who she just killed and Paco raging to destroy them with the ease of his virtue and right from having their blood in his veins. He doesn’t tire. He doesn’t get scared or feel fatigue and like them he feels no pain but tears human form apart to make the streets run red with blood. Becky sees it. In the utter depravity of that awful minute of frenetic motion she sees it and gives a prayer for his presence. He gets worse too. Faster. Harder. He breaks and stamps and punches with a strength that isn’t right to see.

Children are thrown into the back seats, wedged and pushed to make room for more that get shoved and screamed at by Becky and Heather. ‘IN…’ Heather yells at Becky, pushing her to get in the back. ‘PACO…’ she screams his name while going for the driver door to get in and start the car but the big man doesn’t run away. He stands and fights. Running away is not in his mind right now. ‘PACO GET IN,’ Heather roars the words but knows he won’t listen or pay heed. Go. Drive away. Get the children away from here. Now. Do it now.

‘Becky you drive,’ she’s out and running to join her man to fight and keep them back. She runs to swing the machete into the back of an old woman who goes down with a spray of blood. She hears doors closing, the engine starting and gains perception of the car moving through the battle to mow more down that get thumped and knocked aside.

‘GET IN,’ Becky slows to scream from the car.

‘GO,’ Heather turns, lashing out with the machete. ‘GO NOW…’

Becky nods frantically, knowing the children must be protected at any cost. She goes, pushing her foot down to give speed to get them away as Heather slashes and screams to stay by the man who saved her while he kills the last few infected.

Thirty Three

In silence she stands. The machete held low at her side dripping blood from the blade. Her hands sticky, her arms coated, her t shirt covered in gore. Sweat covers her face. Her hair slicked back against her scalp. She spits to the side and snorts to clear her nose.

They won. They remain standing while everyone else lays dead. She looks round with eyes now used to seeing such sights and checks for movement where there is none to be seen. Paco at her back, his arms out from his body, his stance wide. His face glistens wet, his hands drip blood like the blade on her weapon.

She goes to speak but her mouth is too dry. She sighs instead, heavy, deep and weary to the bone. Her bag is in the car. No water bottles. No anti-bac or detergent spray. No matter. Plenty of houses here and the fear of finding something inside is suddenly not so great. This is a new world where you take what you need.

She moves off, threading a careful course through the slain. She looks round to spot the nearest house with a busted in door and heads for that. She pauses at the threshold, head cocked and listening. She steps inside and inhales. No noise. No smell. Her feet leave a trail of bloodied shoeprints down the laminated hallway to the kitchen where the tap gets turned and left to run while she roots through the under sink cupboard to pull out the cleaning materials.

They wash before drinking with hands held under the flow of water while she uses a scouring pad and detergent to scrub the gore away. She takes his top off and throws it to the side. Hers is next, discarded to stand in just her bra to use cold water to rinse the sweat from their skin. His wounds are cleaned and dried but left open from lack of dressings.

Only then do they drink and slake their thirst from rinsed mugs with deep greedy gulps and eyes locked on each other with a bond that grows stronger by the hour. They keep going, refilling to drink and replace lost fluids. The bandage on his neck is filthy and stained with blood. She finds scissors and cuts it away to let it fall and cleans his throat. It still looks awful but it’s meshing back together as though his body is absorbing the folds of skin back into his flesh. They drink again. Filling mugs with water as their body temperatures ease down from hours of gruelling labour in an already blisteringly hot day.

She finds clean tops from the drawers in the bedroom of the house that once belonged to someone else but you take what you can and keep going. A few minutes later and without a word spoken they emerge to walk back into a death filled street of humidity. The machete in her hand gripped and held low at her side. Skin pink and scrubbed. Shoes and trousers sprayed with detergent. On they go.

People died here. Children. Mothers. Fathers. Strangers. They died and turned to come back and be killed again. She knows it but doesn’t feel it. Instead there is something else. An intrinsic knowledge that they did what had to be done. The woman who dropped the machete was alive when Heather brought the blade down into her neck but that woman already had tainted blood and would have come back. That’s the brutality of this world now. If you hesitate they get you. If you fail to react they will get you. Move fast. Be brutal. Be like Paco.

The machete held in her right hand down at her side. Her left hand entwined in his that she lifts to scratch her head, his hand lifts with hers. Organic and natural. His gait adjusts to allow for hers as does she for his longer stride. Done without thought. Without thinking. Without the need to think. She huffs from the heat and glances at him. He smiles. She smiles back and on they go through the world that is changing at a pace unknown in history.

‘Car,’ she nods to the driveway on the side and the big four wheel drive. A Toyota. Nice and sturdy with big wheels and she shows the lessons learnt by ignoring the hatchbacks and executive cars they’ve already passed. She gets to the door of the house and tries the handle. Locked. She knocks and steps back, rolling her shoulders with the machete gripped tight. ‘No one home,’ she says with a look at him. There it is. The understanding in his eyes. She turns to face him fully, her eyes searching his for something she knows is there. He holds still, expressive with a yearning and a confusion that hints of pain and loss and trying, always trying. ‘It’ll come,’ she says softly. She reaches up to kiss his cheek, her hand resting on his shoulder. He lowers to take the kiss in a way that makes her smile warmly. ‘Open the door big guy.’

She steps back and nods at the door. He looks at it then back at her. So close to grasping it. She could tap with her foot or kick it to show what she wants but holds off, knowing he can do it. She nods at it, smiling and urging with expression alone.

He explodes so fast she jumps back. A foot launching up to slam into the lock that blasts the door inwards with a shower of plaster and bricks raining down.

‘You are bloody awesome,’ she chuckles at the absurdity of life as it is now and waits for the sound of running feet or the stench of death to come out. Neither comes. She goes in behind him and finds the keys in a bowl on a small pine unit in the hallway. Smells reach her nose. She stops and listens, sniffing the air that isn’t stale or musty.

‘We need your car,’ she calls out and hears a faint scrape in the room above her. ‘Go south…Fort Spitbank. A man called Mr Howie is fighting back. Go there. You’re not safe here.’

She walks down the hallway as a door creaks open and soft footfalls treading across the landing carpet.

‘Where?’ A man asks, his voice timid and fearful. She looks up to see him standing at the top of the stairs. Pale and drawn, bags under his eyes. His hands tremble as he motions to someone else to stay back.

‘Place called Fort Spitbank. South. Go there…’ she turns to go and stops. ‘Sorry about your car but…it’s a four wheel drive…’ she looks out the door to the Toyota. ‘It’s good for running them over with,’ she adds as though the explanation helps.

‘Who…that name?’

‘Mr Howie,’ she shrugs, ‘never met him…I think I saw him earlier in an army truck but…’ she shrugs and sighs. ‘Maybe…go now though. There’s plenty of others cars to take. Don’t wait. Take what you need and move fast. If you see survivors you tell them the same thing…Fort Spitbank, Mr Howie…got it?’

‘Yeah,’ he whispers and goes to say something else but stops. She smiles at him, at the sadness of it all. ‘You’ll be okay,’ she says softly, ‘people are fighting back now…just move fast.’

The solid clunk of central locking and thankfully this starts with a proper key pushed into a proper ignition and she smiles at the manual gear stick in the middle. She watches Paco hesitate and glance at the passenger door and again holds off. He looks at her, she nods. He moves round as she leans over to open the door. ‘Hey,’ she says as he gets in. ‘Close the door…the door…close it…close it…good.’

She backs out into the street, selects first and moves off to follow the route Becky took in the Volvo that holds Subi, Rajesh and Amna who will reach that fort no matter what it takes.

Thirty Four

Motorways tend to run straight with good signage that tells you where you are and where you are heading. Motorways are, to modern times, what Roman Roads were to old times. The quickest route from point A to point B.

Country roads are not motorways. Country roads follow the contours of the land and have evolved over thousands of years to weave round fields and lakes, up hills and through villages and farms. Country roads are not resplendent with good signage as the general consensus in the highway departments of councils was that drivers were either local or had a satnav. Heather is not local and she doesn’t have a satnav. There is a satnav in the Toyota but seeing as it’s the end of the world and there is no one to press the buttons and turn the dials in the satnav office then the bloody satnav doesn’t want to work.

Heather is lost. Hopelessly lost and that adds another pressure which translates through her body to her foot pressing harder to drive faster. The hedges are too big. The fields too wide. The lanes too narrow. The junctions feed into other roads that all look the same. The clock in the Toyota says it’s late afternoon. The sun is going in that direction so that must be west as the sun sets in the west. So if that’s west then that way must be south but the road doesn’t go that way. None of the bloody roads go that way. How the hell did anyone ever get anywhere in this world?

‘Seriously, how?’ she asks Paco again who looks back with what she takes to be a sympathetic expression. ‘Oh look…another junction. Are there any signs? Oh yes! Yes we have a sign to a bloody town that means absolutely nothing to anyone unless THEY BLOODY LIVED HERE…sorry for shouting but Brookley? Where the hell is Brookley in relation to everywhere else? Sod it. Looks like we’re going to Brookley then seeing as the other direction is unnamed therefore we can only assume it disappears into a pit of boiling larva or a hedonistic cult of sheepskin wearing farmers.’

She huffs, sighs, grips the wheel and shifts position while leaning closer to the air blower that is turned on to waft more warm air about. ‘And the bloody air con isn’t working,’ she tells him again while jabbing at the air con button that isn’t working. ‘No air con, no road signs, no idea of where the hell we are and I just killed people…’ she blinks at the words being voiced that she didn’t know were coming out until it was too late. ‘We’ll ignore that for now and focus on the air con not working and there being no road signs and…’

She hits Brookley village green at a speed too great to react. A rough jolt from the wheels hitting the kerb. The Toyota powers deep into the churned grass with an instant loss of traction on the tyres. She brakes and steers hard to the left with her view ahead filled by the Volvo wedged in the mud with the doors left open. The anti-lock braking system kicks in, the four wheel drive system tries to give power to spinning wheels but it’s like a stone thrown across an ice rink. The Toyota sliding across the mud while spinning round and round. The back end hits the Volvo with a bone jarring impact. Windows implode. Metal buckles and airbags explode out to meet faces coming in towards the dashboard. The Toyota snatches round from the collision, the driver side wheels hitting a rut that dip the vehicle to down to start the roll. It goes over once. From wheels to roof to wheels then over again, still sliding and spinning. Side impact airbags go next. Noise everywhere.

Four seconds after hitting the green it’s over. The Toyota comes to rest on its roof amidst a sea of churned mud. The engine cuts out. Liquids drip from damaged containers. Fuel and oil. Lubricants and coolants. Lights flicker then die. Clunks sound from things shifting as her mind blacks out.

She wakes. Pain everywhere. In her head, her neck, her legs and arms. Smells seep into her noise. Death and engine liquids. Everything is wrong. Her senses struggle to compute and gain location in time and space. Why is the seat above her? She grips something to pull up and feels it turning in her hand. She gropes in confusion then recognises the feel of the steering wheel but it’s up there instead of being…being where? Where should it be? What just happened? Where’s Paco? She tries to speak to call out but finds her chest constricted by her knees pushing into them. Panic starts building. She’s trapped. She can’t breathe. Her mind races wildly. Someone will call the fire service and an ambulance. Just wait. No. They won’t come. Nobody will come. Got to get out. What about spinal injuries? They say to remain still in case of spinal damage. There is nobody coming. Nausea rises. Her head reacting to the sickening motion of spinning and rolling. She wants to vomit but she can’t draw enough air in. What if she chokes on her sick and dies here. She’ll die in the apocalypse from a car accident and drowning on her own spew. She starts hyperventilating, snatching rapid breaths that aid the panic growing. Adrenalin kicks in. Fight or flight. Stay here and you will die. Get out. Find Paco. Find Subi. Find the children. She’s upside down wedged in the footwell of the car with its crumpled roof just inches from the top of the seats.

She gives strength to her legs to try and move out but she’s trapped on all sides, crumpled in a ball. Get out. She has to get out.

‘Paco?’ she grunts the word and hears a shift of motion within the car that creaks the chassis. ‘Paco?’ she fights the panic, forcing calmness that doesn’t want to come. Motion again. A grunt. He’s in here. He’s alive. She can’t see him. ‘Paco?’ Another grunt but he sounds different. He starts thrashing with hard movements that vibrate the car. His voice grunting with effort. Her heart rate goes back up, hammering hard at listening and feeling him trying to get free. He goes harder. Ramming into something that rocks the car side to side on the roof. A wrench of metal being buckled and torn. Loud impacts. Grunts of his voice straining as she hears things being shorn from fittings then a ping as his seat breaks from the joint. More light floods in. She catches glimpse of his legs and body writhing to kick at the door. Glass smashes. The car bounces and lurches. Mud slides in through her open window that splashes on her face wet and deliciously cool. An arm above her, heavily muscled with veins bulging as he grips the steering wheel and starts straining to pull it free. He twists and writhes again, getting his other arm into the work. A grunt and a dull crack as the steering wheel is snapped off to be flung away. Hands reach to find her. Groping her head and shoulders until they find her face. She sobs at the touch of his calloused hands and her sound makes him shift to push beneath her, his red bloodshot eyes full of worry. His scalp cut, blood on his forehead and down the bridge of his nose.

Still she can’t move. She can’t budge or do anything but the sight of him gives a surge of confidence that make her start trying to thrash and gain motion. She goes side to side but something sharp digs in her back. She feels her skin being cut open, gouged and the feel of hot blood running down her ribs.

She gasps in pain and panic. His fingertips stroke her cheeks, pushing the stray strands of hair away with such tenderness it makes the tears fall down through the space between them to land on his bloodied head. She closes her eyes, knowing she can’t move but knowing it’s okay because he is there. He will always be there. He will never leave her. If the car sets on flame and burns her alive she knows he will stay and hold her head to the last breath. An acceptance of death comes over her. An acceptance of what is. Calmness spreads, relaxing her tensed limbs. She breathes deeply, turning her head to push her cheek into his hand.

‘HEATHER…’

Her eyes snap open. Subi’s voice.

‘GET IN THE HOUSE…MOVE…’ Becky’s voice roaring. A snarl in the air. A howl. She hears a door banging shut in the distance. Screams and shouts.

‘Get me out,’ she growls the words in the confines of being trapped. Finding his eyes, locking on, expressing her will through her look and the tone she brings. ‘GET ME OUT…’ she starts rocking again side to side, ignoring the pain in her back and the blood pissing out. She thrashes, grunting as his hands leave her face. ‘GET ME OUT…LEAVE THEM ALONE…DOWN HERE…COME DOWN HERE…’ she screams to draw them. She heard the snarls and howls. ‘GET ‘EM PACO…PACO GET THEM…’ She draws what air she can muster and screams until her face turns red and her chest hurts. She sucks air in and does it again. She screams to draw them away from Subi and the others. She screams to bring them while thrashing and hammering to free her body.

The sound and the sight do something. The realisation that she is in pain, frightened but angry all at the same time. Paco watches her. The equilibrium swings on the pendulum. Images come back strong and fast. A life lived. He had a life. Concepts and understanding of details and situations. Social awareness comes and goes. Emotions flood with knowledge attached but flee soon after. She screams again. The noise of it, the sight of it, the meaning of it drive into his mind. She isn’t screaming because of the pain. She isn’t screaming because of the fear but it is fear. Not fear for her. Fear for what? Fear but for something else. She screams to bring them here. Concepts. Visualisations. Neural connections sizzle in his brain. ‘PACO…PACO…PACO…’ she says his name while screaming words he can’t understand. That’s his name. He is Paco. She says other words but he knows that one. He gains self. An awareness of being. He remembers a dog. He remembers being frightened and running. He remembers places and things that mean something that don’t mean anything. He looks down at her. His eyes wide with that struggle to grasp the concept of cognitive thought. To connect single things to form the realisation of the situation. To go beyond instinct and have an idea. She can’t get out. She wants to get out. His eyes flick to the chair that holds in her place. The chair needs to go. He makes the chair go. He explodes out to ram a shoulder into the soft material of the backrest while his feet find purchase to lock his legs out that drive forward to make the chair not be there. It snaps on the fittings and flies back. Space is given and she drops down to land on his body that is already turning to receive her. Strong arms soften her landing, pulling gently to slide her out to guide up and over his body now lying against the inside of the roof. She gasps and sucks air, wincing at the pain while her hands find his face in a frantic moment of life and death. Blood everywhere. Smeared down her face and arms. On his face and on his hands that pull her up. They wriggle and writhe to clamber through the ruined interior to the back windscreen that gives light where everything else is crumpled and squashed.

They struggle together with limbs entwining like lovers, gasping as though the same thing is happening and degrees of emotion that give the tiny separation between the extremes of joy and peril surge through her. Heads touch. Pressure builds. They’re out there. The infected are out there. Subi, Raj and Amna are out there. Got to get out. Got to fight. That instinct makes her stop to search for the machete to grasp the handle that is taken with them. The ripped off front seats get in the way. The space to crawl through becomes tighter. They go closer together to wiggle through. Hard breaths blast each other’s faces. Sweat mixes. Blood mixes. Everything they have and are mixes to be one entity that refuses to take death and instead inches towards life.

They reach the rear windscreen in such a tight space there is no room to gain swing to lash out and break out. She scrabbles with her feet to find grip, pushing her toes into something hard that holds her weight so she can power the top of her head into the glass. She grunts and does it again. Exploding up a few inches to crack the glass with her skull. She feels him writhe to gain traction under foot to lower and do the same. His head hits the glass that holds in place. ‘Together,’ she whispers, pain everywhere, pain in every part of her body but pain is just a sense like all the others. It can be ignored and used to fuel the rage to keep going. She lowers the few inches. He drops with her. She nods, ‘now.’ They surge up to slam skulls into the glass that fractures but holds. They drop, hold and punch up. It cracks and flexes but holds. Down again and up. Up harder with eyes locked on each other to smash through the screen that shatters into thousands of shiny crumbs that cascade gently down past their eyes. Freedom seen but not yet gained. They go together. Inching and wriggling with legs pushing and bodies twisting to get free. They slide from the car into the mud that coats their faces. They slide further out to get free and draw clean air. Legs still inside the vehicle, torsos twisting side to side to get arms free. Her machete dropped for fear of slicing him or herself. Drumming sounds out. They’re coming. She can hear them. Good. Let them come. Let Becky get the children away. ‘COME ON,’ she roars her challenge, telling them she is alive and here to be taken. She hears them running and slipping through the wet mud while they wriggle and gasp to get out while fighting to gain traction through the mud.

The first one comes. Diving in with a mouth open and teeth ready but a hand shoots up to grip his throat and send him on into the hard back end of the car. Paco rears up, hammering the head into the metal body until the bones crunch and the blood pours. With a last big effort she gets her legs out to pivot round and reaches back in to grasp the machete handle. She gets it out and pointed up as the female infected drops to bite. The blade takes her through the throat with an act of pure chance instead of aim or calculation. Her tainted blood pumps hard to spray as Heather twists to keep her face clear. Paco lets go of the one he was ramming into the car to lash out with a hard punch that sends the dying infected woman sprawling off to the side.

No time to wait. No time to process the panic or pain but only to move or die. Together they scrabble in the mud. Feet sink down and slip out. They rise and fall to trip and sink. Holding onto each other to gain feet to hold firm. The third one charges in. They lean back to let it sail between them. Heather bringing the machete down onto its back as Paco drops to land to grip the head that is wrenched to break the neck.

On they go. Falling and sliding. Like animals they grunt and fight their way free and away from the Toyota. A life-force between them that refuses to stop or rest. Two more come. Two more that come sliding and covered in slick mud to be hacked with a blade and swatted aside.

A second gained of standing upright with wet strands of hair hanging down her face and the machete gripped tight to view the world about them. A large green now churned into a sea of mud. Four thick wakes mark the passage of vehicles that went across. Two from the Volvo and Toyota and two more from bigger wider and heavier vehicles that reached further into the green. Bodies everywhere. Hundreds of them. Bullet casings in the mud. In those few seconds she works the conclusion of the army truck and the van coming into the green and getting bogged down. She can see the way the bodies lie dead of how they charged from the houses that border both sides of the field. The people in the vehicles got out and fought right here. She sees wooden doors laid end on end forming a path with tyre marks showing where the vehicles drove across them then over the bodies to reach the upper road. Her eyes find the houses on that upper road and the infected running to join the few already at the door of the house that Becky must be in. A few more peel away to come across the green over the bodies of their brethren already slain by men with guns that laid waste and moved on without thought or heed to what they leave behind.

They go to meet them. Wading through the mud that splashes up their legs and sticks to their shoes making their feet heavier but the same thing happens to the infected. They wade and slip and get sucked into holes of wet mud. They still come fast with snarling faces all torn and bloodied. Her mind opens. She sees them differently. She sees them healing and looking more cohesive in movement and manner like they’re changing. Not human and not getting better but more deadly, more organised. The look in their eyes, the way they hold their heads and the way they run using arms to aid balance and poise.

They still die the same. They still get cut open by her blade digging into their throats and her fist punching them hard to send them away. They still get necks broken and thrown aside by a dangerous monster that pisses all over their speed and strength. The bond grows. The courage expands as she learns to hold the weapon and swing it with better aim to cut them down. She learns to use their charging momentum against them and side step to cut as they go past. Paco takes the impact full on with a greater mass and weight. Big men get snapped. Women get snapped.

She reaches the carpet of bodies at the side of the road and starts another treacherous journey to reach the house. Still the infected come. Charging to launch at her. She swipes the blade furiously. Swinging left and right to bury the blade into flesh. Two come in fast. She braces at the last second trying to be like Paco and take the impact but she lacks the body weight to hold her ground and is sent back to sink down into corpses already cut open. She lands hard with hands sinking down into stomachs and through ruined faces. Her fingers get coated in slime and blood. Bones poking through shattered limbs snag her clothes. The two infected woman dive in ready to bite. She rolls to the side, going over and over to avoid the flailing hands intent on raking her skin. A back swipe cuts the machete through one face that peels open but the beast lunges in. She scrabbles back, levering herself one handed while slashing the blade and kicking with her feet. She sinks further into the bodies, rolling and crawling to gain space to fight and hold them off. Paco runs to dive to take both women under his body. Heather rallies in that split second to reverse her direction and slide over the corpses to fight with him. Her hand finds a throat that is gripped and choked. A foot hits her hard, knocking the machete from her hand. She lets it go and drives her thumb down into the eye socket of the one she grips by the neck. The eye pops, goo sprays out but she drives in trying to reach the brain. She goes for the other eye while Paco rolls at her side fighting the other woman and more coming that lunge in. Mouths snapping in all directions. A hand grips her ankle, she kicks out breaking a nose and wrenches her leg free. A head in front of her, she rises to grip it and falls back down. She latches on, strangling from behind while kicking more away. Paco rages and stamps. He rises to drop and lashes out with hard fists that send them flying. He grabs a head, pulls it in and twists. He grabs another while being bitten on the arm. Teeth find his leg. Teeth find his shoulders and hands and he spills blood but he fights and breaks to stamp and kill.

A dirty nasty sordid fight of pain and filth but inch by inch they crawl to gain the road and find feet to run at the door. Snarling with utter rage at doing a thing that must be done. They hit together. Two against many. They hit the back of them and use that momentum to condense their mass so Paco can go to work. He lifts one that gets smashed down into the concrete path then another is wrenched by a grip to the ankle and vicious pull to fling the body up and round to knock more over. Heather rakes with her nails, she gouges eyes and screams with the glory of fighting back. She strangles, kicks and fights like a bastard as the door opens to Becky rushing out with the cleaver swishing to glint in the sun. Ginger hair sodden and plastered down. She screams with rage. She screams and kills with Heather at her side no longer holding a weapon but using bare hands to batter and kill. Paco destroys, killing many for each one they fend off. He does the work. He carries the fight but without them he would be swarmed and taken down. When the infected latch onto him the two women grab legs to heave and use the meat cleaver to fight and saw through limbs. They break fingers, stamp faces and kick skulls in. There is no dirtier a thing to be done than as they do now but they do it anyway and as the last one falls they stand with eyes blazing for the lust of the battle. Becky staggers, dropping to lower her stance to fight on. Heather rages with energy coursing through her body. Paco stands tall, his skin torn and opened in so many places. Bruises on all of them. Blood thick and dripping.

Heather looks at her hands seeing them empty then over to the meat cleaver held by Becky. She sets off, spitting and snorting to clear her nose. Sweat pouring down her face. So many bodies again. She walks over them to the machete then looks over the mud to the Volvo. Her bag is in there. She needs it. Paco has been injured. She wades through the mud, slipping but determined. She finds the bag, hefts it on her back and starts back as Paco climbs over the bodies to get to her. She waves at him to wait, too tired to say anything. He doesn’t wait. He comes to her side as always and walks back with her to Becky waiting by the door.

‘Here?’ Becky asks.

Heather shakes her head, ‘somewhere else…not safe…’

Becky nods, knocking on the door that opens to a teenage boy with ginger hair holding a big knife. His face pale and drawn. More children behind him. Subi, Raj and Amna there amongst them with wide eyes.

‘Come on,’ Heather says, motioning with her head. ‘Don’t touch the bodies…we need to walk.’

‘Out now,’ Becky says. ‘Tommy, you keep them away from us…till we’ve had a clean up.’

‘Yes, mum,’ the ginger haired lad nods quickly, peering round at the blood and gore outside the house.

‘And put that knife down before you stick it in someone.’

‘But…’

‘Now, Tommy.’

‘Yes, mum.’

Thirty Five

No time to wait. No time to delay. If you hesitate they get you. If you fail to react they will get you. Move fast. Be brutal. Be like Paco.

‘Run,’ Heather’s voice gives no room for argument. ‘Stay together. Subi, keep Amna and Raj with you. No talking. Keep moving.’

They get the children onto the road and moving up alongside the green now turned to a battlefield of mud and gore. Seven children herded together to be kept between Heather on one side, Becky on the other and Paco ahead. That he even goes ahead on his own is another step in his ever changing behaviour noticed by Heather but left unvoiced. Now is not the time to ponder and think. Now is the time to move and keep moving.

‘Heather…’

‘Not now, Subi,’ Heather cuts the girl off with a grim smile. She wanted to drop to her knees and hold all three but she’s covered in blood and they can’t delay.

‘What’s going on?’ Becky asks, panting from the exertion of running in such high heat.

‘Dunno,’ Heather replies. ‘They’re going from town to town…’

‘Who is?’

‘The army truck and an armoured van...they’re…’ she stops to gulp breath and check behind, ‘they’re killing them as they go…town to town…’

‘You spoke to them?’ Becky snaps the words out between her own ragged breaths.

She shakes her head, ‘no…just saw them…heard the guns…this is the third or fourth town we’ve seen…’

‘Fuck,’ Becky whispers.

‘Killing hundreds…we saw more running this way…on a hill, hundreds again…’

‘We saw loads,’ Becky says. ‘That town where they got us…more than hundreds…thousand at least. We hid then tried to get out but a few at the back saw us…’

‘A few?’ Heather asks, staring hard at the other woman. ‘Why didn’t they all go back for you?’

‘No idea…’ Becky says grimly. ‘The rest kept going…running…’

‘They were running?’

‘Like soldiers…’

‘What?’

‘Running like soldiers…in time with each other. Like marching…thousand at least.’

‘Christ,’ Heather mutters. The idea of the infected moving in time is sickening. She saw the difference in them today. The cohesion of their movements. She looks at Paco, watching the way he runs now. The fluidity of his motions, his poise and gait. She thought he was healing and becoming less them and more a person but what if he is just changing like they are changing? He seems on the brink of grasping something. She can see it in his eyes and expression. The connection of thoughts and ideas. Even now he is staying ahead and keeping pace with everyone else. He’s even glancing round to check them and not just looking at Heather either.

‘He one of them?’ Becky asks, seeing Heather watching him.

‘No,’ she says quickly, forcefully. She runs on, frowning and pursing her lips. ‘He was…I mean…when I found him he was but…but he saved me and…’ the words die out. ‘He’s getting better…’ she adds in a rush of words.

‘Better?’

She nods, saving air for running. ‘Healing…wounds heal quick…the bites don’t hurt him…nothing…nothing hurts him but…but…’

‘He’s gentle,’ Subi speaks out, running in hand in hand with Rajesh and Amna. ‘He carried Amna and let Raj poke him in the face and…’

‘What?’ Heather blurts. ‘When?’

‘When you went outside to the toilet in the barn. Raj poked him in the face.’

‘Rajesh! I told you not to touch him.’

‘Yeah but…but he didn’t do nuffin,’ Raj gasps.

‘Didn’t do anything,’ Heather corrects. ‘And I told you not to touch him…’

‘Want choclit,’ Amna announces on hearing normal voices and not caring one bit for the bodies everywhere or the fact they’re all running.

‘Not now.’

‘Choclit…’

‘Later, Amna. I promise. I will give you as much choclit as you can eat but not now.’

‘Promise?’

‘I promise,’ Heather says. ‘No talking now. Amna, I said no talking. Raj, hold your sisters hand. We need to get out of here. Do you know where we are?’ She asks Becky.

‘No idea, never been here…’

‘Shit…shit and shit and shit…’

‘Shit.’

‘Amna! That’s a rude word.’

‘Shit.’

‘Oh whatever. Say it as much as you want…’

‘Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit…shit…’

‘Finished?’

‘Shit.’

‘Done?’

‘Yes, Heather.’

‘Good girl. We need to get out of here…but we can’t go back the way we came in case they’re still coming in…but we don’t know what’s ahead or what direction to take…’

‘Shit.’

‘Good girl. We’ll find a lane and get into the countryside. Find a farm or something remote…’

‘Take a car.’

‘No,’ Heather says. ‘Noise…we stay quiet and move as fast as we can on foot…’

‘Car’s faster…’

‘They’ll hear the engine. You saw a thousand. We saw hundreds…they’re here for something. Let them do it while we hide and…’

‘Are you being serious? We’ll take a car and drive to the fort…’

‘Do you know where it is? What direction? What roads do we take? What if we drive into them? We can’t hear them in a car. We can’t drive through a thousand. We stay on foot. Look for a lane off the main road. Kids, look for a lane or a footpath.’

‘Shit.’

‘Okay, Amna.’

‘Fuck.’

‘Amna!’

‘Fuck fuck fuck…’

‘Stop that right now or no choclit later.’

‘Aw but…’

‘DOWN NOW…EVERYONE DOWN DOWN DOWN…’ her voice roars at the infected male running from the corner towards Paco. Heather runs out, sprinting to stay behind Paco who aims straight at the infected male then side steps at the last second to clothes line the beast as Heather runs in swinging her machete down into its neck. She dances back, turning to face the corner. ‘Wait there…’ she runs on with Paco to gain the view. ‘Clear…come on…run now…faster…’

‘They’re too small to run fast,’ Becky says, urging the kids to run without being able to touch them and get them going.

‘They have to,’ Heather says urgently. ‘Get the biggest carrying the smallest….you, what’s your name?’

‘Tommy.’

‘Carry Amna…you, carry that boy…up…now move…faster…run.’

Hard work. Gruelling hard work. Sweat pours to sting eyes. Faces flush red. Legs burn and grow weak. Chests heave for air. Fatigue kicks in. Long days of hiding and now running relentlessly with Heather and Becky snapping at heels, snarling and cursing to keep them going.

More come. Stragglers left behind from the main horde heading to a fight somewhere else. Stragglers that hear the feet and the ragged gasps for air. Stragglers who turn back to run with an urge to bite and pass the infection to take more hosts to fight in the battle that will happen somewhere else. They die from one of their own that leads the front to protect those behind.

No lanes. No footpaths. Just street after street of houses that offer the false sanctuary of a hiding place but Heather is too experienced to fall for that trap now. Staying here in this area is not an option but they’re moving too slowly. She knows they have to get out and leave. Whatever is happening is bad. Those people in the army truck and van are drawing them for a scrap without heed to anyone else. She hates them for that. She detests them with a passion that burns brighter for the red faces of the children made to run in agony and pain.

A flash of yellow in the corner of her eye. She blinks, snaps her head over and calls out. ‘Stop…with me…everyone with me…’ She runs to the side of the house on seeing the bright yellow hose reel that gets yanked and pulled out. The tap is twisted to turn the flow that trickles then thunders from the end. ‘Stand still…’ she sprays them down. A garden hose spraying water on children to clear the sweat and bring temperatures down. Everything frantic and rushed. ‘Paco…come here…’ she drops her bag from her shoulders, kicking it away with her foot. ‘Subi…anti-bac and detergent…’

Subi runs to drop at the bag. She opens the flap and pulls the anti-bac gel and spray detergent out while Heather power hoses Paco. ‘Good girl, take this…spray Becky…Paco, get this into your hands and rub…rub together…good…’ she grabs the detergent to spray over his arms and clothes. ‘Close your eyes,’ she covers his mouth and nose with her hand and sprays his face, his ears, the back of his neck and his shoulders.

‘Heather,’ she turns to see Subi ready with the hose.

‘Go on,’ Heather nods and takes the blast of cooling water jetting into her body. She scrubs the worse of the filth off that comes away easily from a body already slick with sweat.

Nothing is said that isn’t needed to be said. Curt words spoken bluntly. The children gasp air and cool down for a blessed few seconds.

‘Tommy, you take the bag now. Subi, you be ready to get the detergent if we need it. Amna, on my back,’ Heather says, squatting as Amna runs to fling her arms round Heather’s neck. ‘Becky, you take that boy…Amna, listen to me. If I have to fight I will put you down. Go straight to Subi. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, Heather.’

‘Good girl.’

‘Can I have choclit now?’

‘Not now…’

‘Can we play with the hose again?’

‘Not now.’

‘Fuck.’

‘Don’t say that word.’

‘Shit?’

‘All day long…ready? We’re going…’

They go faster. The two smallest children now carried on the backs of the women that clutch weapons. Subi cinches the straps on the bag to tighten it on Tommy’s shoulders, fastening the chest and waist strap to hold it steady. Everyone runs. They run hard and get hotter than they were before. Heather could puke. Pain in her head from the car crash. Her neck and shoulders ache like hell. Everything aches like hell. Amna is hot and heavy. Her arms hold too tight but she pushes on and refuses to give an inch. She can see they’re desperate for rest but there is none to be taken. If you want life you pay the cost. If you want to survive you do what it takes. You run. You take the pain because you have to be alive to feel it. You dig inside to whatever spark of something that keeps you going and you turn it into fuel.

‘Lane…’ Subi spots it first and calls out, pointing ahead to the opening of a junction.

‘Good girl…take Paco ahead…check it…’

‘How?’

‘Hand…take his hand…’

‘Is that safe?’ Becky gasps.

‘Anti-bacced…’ Heather heaves for air, shifting to lift Amna higher on her back. Subi runs ahead, reaching for the big man’s hand. Paco glances back to Heather with the most human expression yet and goes with Subi, running ahead hand in hand to reach the lane first.

Gunshots in the air. Warped and echoing from a distance unknown. A few at first. Then more join in. Solid drumming noises of automatic weapons.

‘Go…run…’ Heather urges them on, giving power to her legs to speed up. ‘Subi? Is it clear?’

‘Clear,’ Subi calls out, reaching the junction with Paco.

‘Wait there…good, back with the others…oh shit,’ she winces at the sight of the incline in the road.

‘Shit,’ Amna says into her ear.

‘It is shit,’ Heather says, staring evilly at the hill but taking in the high hedges and the rural appearance. ‘Come on…’ she goes for it. Striding to build up into a jog as the gunshots in the distance keep going. She hates the people firing the weapons but in that agonising state of mind she knows every bullet could be one less infected. Her mind divides. Half of her wanting them to keep going and never stop until they’re all dead while the other half detests them on a molecular level for the sheer arrogance of leaving people in the places they’ve been through.

Uphill they go. Rising steadily to climb a hill that feels like it becomes a mountain that is growing higher with every step they take. The town drops away behind them. Internal gears change to accommodate the rise underfoot and at first it’s almost a relief to have that change. Then thighs start burning from lactic acid building up. Stomachs churn. Hearts thunder and faces grow deeper shades. Still Heather drives them on. Her voice urging them to push and walk faster. When the hedge line breaks she catches glimpses of wide open fields dropping away to a town in the distance where the firing must have come from. She looks ahead to the contour of the lane and land knowing they’ll at least skirt that place by at least a mile. The further they can get the better. Keep going. Find somewhere to hide. This is still too close.

Energy levels, already dangerously low, start to ebb away with fatigue kicking in. The pace eases off. The exertion takes its toll. Breathing comes harder. Mouths opening wider to get more air into lungs. The pain is indescribable and with no sign of stopping. Tommy starts to sag, his head drooping. Subi drops behind him, opening the flap to find water bottles forgotten by Heather. She carries one forward to douse Tommy’s face, sluicing the sweat off him like she saw Heather do for Paco. He revives, smiling in relief at the bottle being pressed to his lips. She finds Raj next. Giving her brother a drink before moving round the children.

‘Good girl,’ Heather whispers, hoarse and dry as the bottle is handed to her. She drinks deep. Guzzling to get fluids in. ‘Paco…share mine…’ he takes the bottle. His hand reaching out with a grim smile plucking at the corners of his mouth. She edges closer to him, bumping him with her shoulder that makes Amna giggle. He smiles again and drinks deep from the bottle. ‘You’re a man again,’ she rasps, trying to nod at him. ‘Man again…’

The water is drunk. The bag becomes lighter and that refreshment buys them time from a weak surge of energy and the break in monotony caused by sheer pain and relentless heat. Still they rise, following a meandering lane that clings to the side of a sweeping hill. Hedges bursting with life. Trees overhead giving a few seconds of blessed shade as they pass under. Birds sing. Insects buzz but they become ignorant of all else save for the anguish they face.

Her heart sinks when she catches glimpses of the town she saw and the realisation of the tiny distances they are making from it. It’s like being on a giant hamster wheel. Walking and walking but not getting anywhere. The unchanging scenery doesn’t help the effect either. Just hedges and trees. The grey surface of the lane underfoot. They become trapped in a time warped bubble that saps morale that weakens the little energy they have left.

‘Shit I can’t…’ Becky gasps. Heather turns, hating even that small movement. Amna’s hot breath on her neck. Sweat pouring down her face and arms.

‘Keep going,’ Heather says, swallowing to get moisture into her throat.

‘I’m…I’m forty three!’ Becky exclaims as though that explains everything. The look of surprise and abject puzzlement on her face makes Heather snort involuntarily. ‘Look at me….do I look like I work-out?’

Heather snorts again. Smiling at the way the woman says it despite the agony seeping into her bones. She drops back to hold a hand out to the woman. ‘Come on…’ she nods, smiling and panting all at the same time. Becky takes the hand. Her eyes glassy but with humour twinkling in that gaze. Heather pulls her on. Grunting with the effort. She drives her feet to grip the road and leans forward to brace the weight of Amna. ‘Come on…’ she grunts harder, barring teeth to pull Becky. ‘Paco…’ she reaches her hand out, waggling her fingers. Paco drops back, his hand finding hers to grip and hold and pull on.

‘Subi…Tommy…everyone…come on…grab hands and pull…come on…pull…’

On Paco they form. Subi takes his other hand and reaches back to pull Tommy who holds Raj’s hand. More children grip on, forming a chain of hands holding to drive each other on with a big man in the lead who doesn’t falter but shares his strength. A closeness forms. Names of each other unknown, strangers from strange lives but they grip and hang from each other, pulling and planting feet to keep going and keep rising.

It’s no good. Becky stumbles to be caught by Heather who feels her own feet becoming heavier. They have to stop but they’re too close. Hesitate and you die. Stop and they get you. You have to keep going. Her eyes blink heavier and heavier. She doesn’t need to see now but hold onto Paco to let him lead.

His hand leaves hers. A sensation of lift given as Amna is taken from her back. She looks up to gawp as Paco lifts the girl to plant on his shoulders. Heather looks down, seeing Subi’s hand in hers. Paco drops back and reaches to take the small boy from Becky. He moves on to gain the front, shifting the boy into the crook of his right elbow then reaching to find Heather’s and Subi’s hands that he grips to pull on.

She weeps then. She weeps for the meaning of it. Tears spill from eyes without words coming. She weeps silent for the thing he just did. Becky comes in close with tears on her cheeks. Subi’s face wet.

‘Fuck!’

Heather snorts through her tears at the little voice riding high on Paco’s shoulders.

‘Fuck!’

She snorts again, stifling the laugh that comes with a sob.

‘Choclit fuck!’

Becky giggles. The sadness of it, the pain, the heat, the sheer unrelenting nature of the thing they do.

‘Choclit cheese balls fuck!’

Becky lets go. Tears of sadness mixed with tears of laughter. Her stomach cramps but the giggles come to grip and stay. Heather glances at her, seeing the expression on the older woman’s face that sets her off too. She starts chuckling. Giggling and snorting with noises that make Becky laugh harder.

‘Cheesey balls shit…’

Subi starts laughing. Her little sister stringing words together that she has no understanding of but taking pleasure from the sounds made.

More time is bought and paid for with the expenditure in energy required to laugh being offset against the boost to moral. They will do this. They will keep going. Pain is just pain.

The ground finally levels out as the reach the top of the newly formed largest mountain in the world. Still the hedges remain high and thick, offering no view of the surrounding area. They see no farm tracks, no houses, no cottages. Just a never ending lane that goes on forever and always.

The afternoon passes. Thirst builds but the water is all gone. Mouths get dry. Faces burn from the sunshine glaring down. The passage of time is marked by feet treading. Amna slumps to fall asleep with her head resting on the top of Paco’s skull. The boy in his arms dozes. Everyone else falls silent to keep energy for walking. Seconds, minutes and hours become meaningless. There is just here. Just this lane.

None of them notice the descent at first. So absorbed in their own trance-like state of walking.

‘Downhill,’ Subi gives voice first. Her keen eyes still alert and watchful.

Heather notices it and reaches out to touch Becky. ‘Downhill…’

Becky nods but stays quiet. Another change in gear. Gravity aiding them this time. Pulling them into the earth. Less effort is needed. Muscles ease the taxation. It’s still more gruelling than anything any of them has ever done but that tiniest relief keeps them going.

The lane twists and turns constantly, hard left and right to weave a route down the hillside. High hedges keep the view hidden. It offers refuge and sanctuary. The lane will end. They will be somewhere different and new. Somewhere they can hide, find water, rest and wait until tomorrow to make for the fort.

As her mind fills with the plan so her ears strain to sift through the organic sounds around them and detect something different. It takes time for that message to be sent to her tired brain to be processed and given meaning and context before being admitted to her mind to be made aware of.

She lifts her head. Frowning at the noise. Like rain. She looks up seeing a clear sky that’s already showing signs of darkening. ‘What’s that?’ She asks.

Becky looks up from her own deep thoughts to blink and stare for a few seconds until her own brain filters the sound. ‘Dunno, rain?’ She too looks up then frowns at the clear sky. ‘Waterfall maybe?’

Heather shrugs. It’s like drumming. Like lots of things hitting the ground all at once. Like stones rolling down a hill. She turns to look back at the lane as though expecting an avalanche but it’s all clear. The children look round, heads lifting to try and gain focus and direction. She feels Paco hand tightening on hers and looks round again. ‘Everyone stay quiet,’ she whispers but keeps them moving.

The noise goes with them. Unseen but now clear and distinct. She knows that sound but she can’t put a name to it or make a connection. Paco tenses, stiffening to stand more upright. His face finds hers, telegraphing concern. ‘Give me Amna…Becky, take the boy…everyone stay very quiet.’

She lifts a sleeping Amna onto her own back. The girl wakes to grumble and hold on then dozes back down to slumber. They huddle together, seeking comfort in their tiny numbers with Paco a clear head above all of them.

Heather studies the hedges on both sides. Searching for a break to see through to gain some idea of where they are while all the time the noise carries on. A sharp bend to the right and old damage from a car carrying straight on through the hedge shows with gaps through the thorny bushes. Heather and Becky go close to peer through like nosey neighbours.

The second they see it the connection is made. Feet. Running feet. Infected pouring down the hillside running in uniformity. Hundreds of them. Men, women and children. Both sides of the lane are bordered by fields thick with infected charging down. Her blood runs cold. Her heart whumps and booms. Legs go rubbery and weak. She crosses the lane with Becky to gently ease the brambles and bushes aside to catch glimpses of figures running. The women stare at each other. Processing the horror of what they just saw.

‘Back up?’ Becky mouths.

Heather shakes her head. To go back up means going in the direction they’re coming from. They might be on the lane behind them. They have to go down and quickly too. They have to move fast and find somewhere to hide. Instinct pure and real. Hesitate and they get you.

She moves out to usher the children together. Forming them up with a finger pressing into her lips and a hard glare enforcing the message to stay silent. Fresh energy comes into them, born from fear and adrenalin. They start moving again at a new frantic pace where speed counts but no sound can be made. Heather winces at the sound of their feet on the road, even at the noise of their breathing. She stays close to Paco too. Her hand holding his but to make sure he doesn’t run off to fight several hundred on his own.

The drumming keeps coming. Infected pouring down to whatever is there. Pressure builds. Fear grows. She grips the machete and doesn’t feel the weight of Amna now, only to rush on.

As the lane alters course to weave the route down so the noises come perilously close only to fade as they detour round and away. Nerves get frayed. Tension mounts and creeps into eyes that stare wide with tight grimaces. The urge to turn back is almost overwhelming but she knows the folly of such a decision and has to force herself to keep moving in the same direction as so many infected.

‘They’re not here for us,’ she whispers at her group. That one thought keeps her pressing on. The army truck and van is drawing them. She’s stumbling from town to town following their route and getting continually sucked back into something that is no concern of hers. Only it is her concern. There are people down there fighting back with guns. People who are doing something terrifying against numbers that boggle the mind.

‘You see that?’ Becky whispers. Heather nods, cursing inwardly at the sight of the hedge thinning out on both sides. They’ll be exposed but again there is no choice but to keep going. She gets closer to Paco, holding his hand while pulling him down. ‘Bend over…’ she whispers into his ear. He sinks down to run in a crouch with a movement that catches her attention. She asked him to bend not to crouch. He’s taken the concept of the problem and worked a logical conclusion. He looks at her with a fleeting glance that conveys a myriad of subtle nuances. His brows drop to frown, his eyes narrow. His mouth forms a tight line. His eyes go from her to the children to Becky to Subi and back to her. His mouth twitches to speak, to form words but none come. The struggle is there in his eyes but there’s no time to stop and give comfort to keep trying.

‘Everyone down, stay low…not a sound…’ they run ducking in one solid mass. Heather watches the hedge on the right, the way the bushes are less dense with foliage showing gaps through to the other side. Flitting glimpses of figures running in the fields but none too close. The other side is the same. Patches of leaves and brambles interspersed with gaps that leave them exposed to be seen. They’re running a gauntlet heading into the same place the infected are going but with no choice.

A change in tempo, pitch and volume from behind. Feet on tarmac. That steady drumming but more solid and coming towards them. She grimaces, tensing with a glance to the heavens in anger at the Gods that mock them.

‘Faster,’ she whispers, speeding up to push and guide the children. They start breathing harder again which in turn becomes louder. Ragged snatches of air. Feet scuffing the ground. Every sound they make is a curse but to go faster means to be noisier. She can hear them coming down the lane. They’re trapped on three sides and being forced to keep moving ahead. She shares a glance with Becky who now looks pale instead of flushed. Her skin looking waxen and sick. The thirst is incredible. The fatigue is staggering. The sheer effort coupled with pure terror forms a nightmare. Memories of the days in the church flood her mind. The long quiet days of doing nothing but staring at the dust particles glinting in the rays of the sun. The musty dry smell of the place. The pews, the font and alter. The candles she lit at night. It seems so long ago now. She thinks to the night she met Paco then the next morning when she was throwing things at him from the window. Those days were special. Just her and him. She remembers the farm and washing him for the first time. Now she’s here with the lives of other people in her hands. Doubt kicks in, stripping her confidence away in a heartbeat. She was wrong to take the lane. She was wrong to take Subi, Raj and Amna from the supermarket. She was wrong to make them keep running. She should have stayed in the last village by the green. Her intelligence counters the self-doubt while her eyes scan the hedges, the view ahead, the children, Becky and Paco.

Time takes on another dimension. Going both faster than it should but slower than ever. Everything is so fast. The frantic running no longer crouched or bent over but upright with arms pumping to aid momentum. They cannot sustain this pace. The children cry out in pain to be hushed and pushed on. Muscles sear with lactic acid. Chests become tight. Hearts fit to burst from pumping so hard but the drumming feet behind comes closer.

The plan is already formed. She will stop with Paco to hold them off while Becky runs on with the children. She knows Paco can fight many but also knows there are too many this time. The first action will bring the others in from the sides. They’ll be flanked and overwhelmed but they can make noise and buy time. She gets ready to give the order, her eyes lingering on Subi then to Raj and up to Amna.

‘Take them and hide,’ she gasps the words out. Subi’s looks round with fresh fear etched on her face.

‘No…’ Becky’s voice almost incoherent for the pain she’s in.

‘Hide…wait till you can….can get out…’

‘No,’ Subi whispers with tears pricking to fall down her cheeks.

Heather nods. Firm and resolute. ‘Stay with Becky…hide, Subi…’ She looks to Paco, ready to summon the words as the end of the lane comes into view. The white lines across the road gleaming so bright and clear. A fallen tree on the left, a huge thing that crashed down during the storm smashing through the power lines overhead, bringing telephone poles down. It gives obstruction to the view. On the right the main road bends sharply away. Ahead are the first houses at the edge of town. They can make it.

‘Run,’ Heather growls the word out, the plan changing as fluid as the new sights are processed. The view of the houses gives them a finishing line. New energy dragged from the depths of guts to be forced into legs that run and arms that pump. They can make it. They can get there. Find one of the houses, get inside, hide.

Past the fallen tree they go. Infected behind them. Infected on both sides but hidden from view.

That promise of refuge grows closer. It becomes a beautiful thing of brick walls and windows covered in net curtains with water pipes feeding taps inside. They will get there. They will hide.

The first house is sealed tight. The doors and windows locked. To break in will make noise. They go to the next. Locked and sealed. They go on, running further down the street past cars and vans, past motorbikes and trees uprooted. Past decaying bodies and debris swept along by the rains that surged through here. The doors are locked. The windows intact. The promise fades. Hearts sink. The noises of the infected grow closer on all sides. Feet running on roads. Fences being smashed down. A howl sounds from somewhere followed by the piercing scream of a woman being taken down. Glass smashes. Doors being hit hard. Noises that grow louder. A man shouting. Children crying. They keep running seeing nothing that can aid their plight.

They reach the end of the first street and run into a crossroads. Left and right thick with infected streaming across at the far ends. Someone running screaming from a house only to be taken down by two that peel away from the horde. They run on, staggering and gasping for air into the street ahead. More houses. More doors locked and sealed. On and on. Running and running. Raj trips and sprawls face down. He cries from the shock and impact but gets pulled up and held under one arm by Heather refusing to give a seconds worth of pausing.

Another junction. Infected ahead down the end of the street. They go right, veering sharply with every movement a reaction to the environment. The screams that shred the air tell them there were survivors here. Windows smashing over and over. Bangs and thuds and all the time that awful rhythmic drumming of an army marching.

An alley mouth. They take it to avoid the horde attacking a house further down the street. They run flanked by high fences to gardens. The alley twists and weaves. Narrowing and widening with dog shit everywhere. It ends on a side road feeding the town centre. Smaller commercial shops on both sides of the road. Dry cleaners, shoe repairs and charity shops. They go left in response to the sounds of screaming coming from the right.

There. In the distance. A secure yard accessed by a gate hanging open. High brick walls topped with razor wire. A small road next to it. The yard to a store that fronts the town centre. She sees it. She spots the refuge. That is the end game. That is the objective that can be reached.

Pure aggression takes over. Aggression that grows to surge and fuel her muscles to ignore the utter agony searing within her. She forces Raj to go faster. She snarls at Subi and Tommy. She harries them, badgers and harasses. She becomes worse than the infected for the ferocity she gives to make them go and never stop until they reach that gate.

She looks back to the bend in the road seeing infected that disappear from view as she propels past the curvature of the road. They have to reach the gate before the infected reach that bend.

Becky sees it. The gate, the bend in the road behind them and the distance they need to cover. She sees Paco running with Oliver in his arms. She swallows the fear and flicks her eyes to Tommy running with the bag on his back. Her sons. Tommy and Ollie. Her boys. They have to survive. She is older and calculates the distance with a more experienced eye and knows they won’t make it to the gate before the infected reach the bend. She looks to Paco, at the size of him and the ferocious loyalty he has to Heather and finally she looks at Heather. A woman unknown to her but one that projects an aura of utter ruthlessness to do what must be done. That’s what this world needs now. It needs people to fight back and withstand the pain. It needs that which Heather has. Becky has it too. She knows she does, but she also knows she has lived and loved and now is the time to pay that back.

She stops suddenly and watches them run. She stops unseen to watch her boys being taken to safety. She stops to swallow and spit to the side while her heart soars to break with a rush of pure emotion. She stands straight. Her chest rising fast to breathe. Her red hair plastered down her face and neck. The meat cleaver gripped and held at her side. Don’t turn and see me. Run. Keep going. Every step they take is closer to the gate. Her sons will live. Her sons will grow to become strong and fight back to protect others that cannot defend themselves. They’ll grow around people like Heather and learn the brutality of survival.

Heather watches Paco burst through into the yard with Subi and Tommy close behind him. The other children get through as she turns to check behind and sees Becky standing further down the road. Her stomach heaves to twist and drop. A scream threatens to fall from her lips but that instinct for survival keeps her silent. She takes it in. The meaning of it. The sacrifice of it. Becky turns and twitches the meat cleaver in her hand, go now. Heather takes a step out, gripping her machete to stand with the other woman. No. Becky shakes her head. Eyes imploring. Protect them. Go. A surge of energy floods Heather with every instinct straining to run and fight and stand with Becky but if she goes then Paco will come and the children will be left alone in a town full of infected. Instead she nods. Once and firm with an action that lifts Becky’s head.

Heather steps back through the gate that she closes firmly with cold emotion showing on her face. Tommy rushes forward to call out but finds his mouth clamped by a hard hand and a pair of eyes glaring deep into his soul. Heather wills him to be quiet and silent with a power in her gaze that terrifies him to the core. He falls silent. Unmoving and unblinking. She leans in close to his ear, ‘not a word.’

Becky watches the gate close, sealing her in the street. She turns back to face the infected without fear or regret. It is what it is. Mothers do what it takes. She watches them come, smiling at their stupidity of a trick played and a point already scored. The end of her nose itches. She rubs it. Her legs ache from running so much. She grimaces and shrugs. Her back hurts. Her head hurts. Everything hurts. Fuck it. She lets the first one come with a message conveyed that she will be taken without a fight. Then she lashes the meat cleaver out and takes the head off with a vicious smile and the yell of a woman full of life and laughter. She takes the next one down with a hard swing into the guts. She steps out, moving back with a speed that defies the fatigue in her legs. Another one slashed open to fall bleeding and broken. She gets another through the neck before seeing the dense horde coming closer. At that point she runs. She runs as a mother to draw the hunters away from her cubs. She is the fox chased by the hounds and given fresh speed for the blessed thing she does. She runs hard down the small road next to the yard with a hundred or more infected snarling behind her. She sprints with everything she has to draw them away knowing she doesn’t have to preserve energy now. She cries and laughs as she runs. She sobs tears and prays for Heather to live so her children will live. She runs from the road into the central square of the town to greet the thousands of infected waiting there. She sees them in all their massed glory. Tens of thousands. Thick lines and hordes and faces mottled with greying skin. Thousands of red bloodshot eyes. Greasy hair hanging down. Open wounds on some that fester with maggots. Others look clean and healthy with strength bunching in muscles. She drops the meat cleaver and runs with everything she has. They react with a growl rippling through them. She dodges one, weaves another and makes gains. She dances and spins to duck and veer through them reacting from instinct only.

He takes her from the front while she glances to the side. A heavy built male slamming so hard she’s sent sagging back with the wind driven from her lungs. They close in from all sides. Swarming to engulf in a frenzied mass of mouths biting and nails raking to open skin to pass the infected. Her senses become overwhelmed. Pain erupts in her body. Her blood runs as she looks up to see a drone passing by in the sky above their heads. She watches it almost idly, her body shunted and knocked left to right as they feast and rip the organs from her body. She watches it glide and the lens on the camera rotate to watch her as it goes overhead. It brings peace into her mind. The pain eases. Her body is not hers now. The drone becomes an angel watching down that brings peace to her soul. There are others out there. Others that will come here and fight back. She knows they will win without knowing the reasons for that belief. Only that they will. The Living Army will come here. Her children will live.

Thirty Six

She doesn’t wait for Paco this time but rams the door with her shoulder the second Becky gives voice to yell in the street outside the yard. The door yields, shunting open with the lock snapped. Pain explodes in her shoulder but it just joins all the other sensations of agony in her body.

‘In…get in,’ she ushers them through into the hallway at the bottom of a wooden flight of stairs fitted with a threadbare carpet. They cram inside. Tommy weeping silently with Subi staying close to him. Heather pushes the door closed, cursing that she can’t now lock it.

‘Up…not a sound,’ she hisses the whisper, terrifying the children to comply. She pushes in front to lead the way, not waiting for Paco to take the lead. In the frenzy of the moment she doesn’t notice him holding back to protect the rear.

She goes fast to the first landing. Two doors to flats. She tries the handles. Both locked. Up again to the second floor. Two doors. Both locked. Up to the last floor, two more doors, both locked. She drops to a squat to open the letterboxes to sniff the air. The one on the right stinks of death. The one on the left smells musty. She tries the handle again, pushing into the door knowing it will have to be forced in as a thought strikes her whirling mind. She snaps over to look at the other door.

A hard kick slams the door open, busting the lock that pings from the frame to scatter down the laminated hallway. She charges in at full speed ready to kill anything in here. Kitchen clear. Bathroom clear. Lounge clear. Into the bedroom she goes, snarling to cut and slice and kill. The corpse lies in the bed, one hand still clutching the bottle of pills that were taken in suicide to avoid the horror of a world imploding. Flies everywhere. Maggots writhing in the liquids that voided from the body as death came. She closes the door and heads down and back out. Emotionless. Hardened. She doesn’t hesitate but shoulders into the door with a grunt. It holds. She does it again, bunching to slam the door in while gripping the handle to prevent it whacking into the wall like the last one did. She goes in first. Machete gripped. Standing to sniff and listen. Dust on the floor thick and undisturbed.

‘In,’ she whispers the command, standing back to get them through to manipulate the damaged lock on the frame enough to close the door. Bolts on the top and bottom are rammed home. A five room flat. Kitchen, bathroom and one bedroom at the back. Lounge and the other bedroom overlooking the front. ‘Wait,’ the utter coldness in her voice makes them hold still. All eyes on her. Chests heaving, faces flushed but no longer sweating for the lack of fluids in their bodies.

She checks each room, working out a mother and child lived here from the female clothing and the child’s bedroom. She closes the doors to the rooms facing the front and makes the seven children crowd into the kitchen. She stays low, ducking at the sink while her mind processes the fact they are on the third floor. Any water going into the plug will feed into the wastepipe that drops three stories to the ground floor into a drain and that will make noise. She puts the plug into the hole in the sink then the washing up bowl to catch any overflow. Glasses and cups are taken from cupboards to be filled and passed round.

The noises outside are terrible but indistinct. Thousands of people in one place, shuffling feet, walking, running, breathing, hissing and growling. She can hear them and hopes their noise will cover any made in the flat but she stays aggressively careful. Glaring at the children if they speak or make a sound. To survive is to be brutal. To survive against any odds is to match the violence of the threat and surpass it with extreme aggression.

The children drink. They drink until their bellies fill and the pain in their heads starts to ease. Colour slowly comes back to cheeks. Sweat starts to come again, shining and dripping down faces. She keeps going, giving them as much as they want.

She finds a cloth, soaks it with cold water and starts wiping faces to bring temperatures down. She wipes the grime and sweat away. She rinses and cleans necks, squeezing the cloth to let it run down backs.

‘Anti-bac,’ she whispers the words to Subi who slides the bag from Tommy’s back to get the gel out that’s squeezed and rubbed into hands and arms. ‘Do them,’ Heather gives it to Subi to take over while she sprays her machete with detergent then goes to clean Paco only to see him holding his hands out to Subi for her to squeeze the gel on him.

Instead she goes through cupboards, finding multi-packs of chocolate bars and snack food that gets dumped on the side. The children need energy. Glucose is energy. Sugar is energy. It’s a quick fix but it will be needed if they have to run again.

‘Subi…make sure everyone eats something…’

‘Okay,’ Subi nods, terrified but coping with every instruction barked at her. Heather pushes through them to the door. ‘I’m going to look….not a sound…hear me? Not a sound from any of you…’

She stops in the doorway to the lounge, staring at the windows while listening to the noises coming up from the street below. Sensation behind her. She knows it’s him and slides back to press her body into his. Arms come round, wrapping tight round her waist. For a second she closes her eyes and stops the flow of aggression. Fear surges into her heart. The hopelessness of it all. The sheer odds stacked against them. Every turn taken has brought them close to the danger she’s been trying to avoid. He senses her disquiet and pulls in with his arms to embrace and hold. She exhales slowly, wishing they were back in the barn. Remembering the perfect days of just being with him and nothing else. Her hands come up to his fingers. She lifts his arm to rub her cheek along the hair, feeling it the way she did before, remembering it the way she did before. A moment captured in time. Death and danger surround them. Two thin bolts protect them from the horrors outside. She kisses his arm to feel the bristles on her lips. She can feel his heart beating through her back. She can feel his strength in his arms and the heat from his body. The tears threaten to come but the resolve comes in faster. She stiffens, opens her eyes and pulls from his embrace with the image of Becky standing in the street holding in her mind.

‘Stay there,’ she whispers at him, motioning for him to stay put before ducking to approach the windows. She stays low, going wide to come in from the side using the hanging curtain as cover. The sky is hinting at night outside. Thuds and bangs start to come clear through the clamouring noise. Individual sounds that mean nothing without a view being gained. She rises to gently ease the curtain aside until she can see down into a square that stills her beating heart.

She almost laughs at the sight. A rush of ridiculous humour at believing it couldn’t get any worse. What she sees isn’t hundreds or even thousands but tens of thousands. The whole of the big square is thick with infected. Men, women and children of all ages and all states of decay. A dense crowd packed in like an audience at a music festival. So many. So so many. She scans without seeing. Eyes flickering to try and absorb what shouldn’t be seen. The square is the town centre. Bordered on all sides by shops with flats over the top. A road leads out on the northern side. She tries to see if there is a road coming in but the ground is lost from view for the density of the horde. As her brain processes so she starts to make sense of the details and the difference in the infected. Some are like they have always been. Mottled dying skin. Straggly hair and sunken cheeks with hollowed eye sockets and skin tight against skulls. Hands clawed and looking monstrous for how inhuman they are in appearance. Others look normal. Less dehydrated with skin retaining some hues of colour and they’re the ones that look more dangerous than the rest. Activity everywhere. Bursts of running as her eyes spot a man running from a doorway aiming to run down the front of the buildings. He’s taken down in seconds and ripped limb from limb in an action that makes her realise these infected are not here to take hosts but to kill. They’re ramped and charged up. She can see it in their stance and the way they move. The lips all pulled back showing teeth. Faces contorting with intense rage. Her brain still works to process and understand, to give context and focus. She spots most of them are facing towards the buildings opposite. She looks up to the windows of the apartments above the shops, seeing people inside and faces coming close to look down. She sees people running inside the rooms, adults clutching children, men shouting at each other. Two old men with grey hair trying to calm a group of people in the lounge through one bay window. Movement catches her attention. Something flitting along from the right to the left. What is that? She squints to see. A white plastic thing like a robot gliding along at window level. A drone. That’s a drone. She watches it hover, rise and drop as it sweeps along to the edge of the building line then it rises fast to go over the rooftops out of view.

That sensation comes again. That feeling of things happening that she has no knowledge off. Town after town has been laid to waste and now the infected are massing here, waiting for whatever is coming. It was one army truck and one van. There are tens of thousands here. They can’t fight this many. They must see that. If they’re using that drone they must know how many are here. They won’t come. They can’t come here. Only a bloody idiot would come here.

They do come. Five minutes later she hears the roar of an engine and risks moving further to see down to the right side. The roar grows louder, throaty and full of bass. A blink of an eye and the army truck is there, ramming into the edge of the horde. She gasps at the sight of bodies bursting open as the hard metal front of the truck smashes into them. It keeps going too. Ploughing deep through the square to rake down the edge of the building line clearing them from the doorways at ground level. As it hits to drive in so a man pops up through the hole in the middle of the roof. A small man that grips the big machine gun fixed to the edge of the hole that he starts firing with strafes left right and ahead. The sound is immense. A solid thrumming beat of a heavy machine gun filling the air. The control the man shows is incredible. Burst firing with precision that slews bullets into the hordes ripping bodies apart and sending more flying back.

‘Oh my god,’ she mouths in shock, her blood running cold in her veins. She grips the window frame to keep her balance and watch the truck score a path from one side to the other.

The whole of the horde react as one. Surging in to attack and fling themselves at the vehicle. They dive for the wheels, the sides and the front. They try and vault the bonnet but slide off or get shot by the machine gun on the top. The huge wheels bounce and jolt but keep turning to spray blood from bodies squashed to pop open like ripe fruit. The wake behind them is a slick mess of broken bodies that is filled within a second by more infected rushing forward. The truck goes long to turn and drive through the crowds, killing tens at a time. It turns wide to aim back to gain the front. Too many things to see. Too many sights to understand. Pink mists keep hanging in the air like small fireworks exploding at head height. She can’t make sense of it. Her eyes flick from the truck to the man on the top and the muzzle flash of the machine gun then down to the infected being run over or shot down. Then she spots it. A head bursts apart to leave a pink mist hanging for a second. The man on the truck. The one firing the machine gun. He’s shooting into their heads from the top of a truck weaving and jolting through a whole square of people. The connection is made. She looks ahead to where the man will aim next and sees the heads go poof one after the other. Whole lines of heads that burst like melons. Staggering. Beyond comprehension but utterly devastating in effect. It’s not possible. What she is seeing is not real. A truck cannot do that. A man cannot fire a gun like that.

The infected react again. Screeching with such primeval noise it makes her skin crawl and the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Tens of thousands all giving voice at the same time amidst the roar of the engine and the machine gun firing. The infected charge harder, flinging themselves at the wheels to try and jam the forward momentum.

She can see they’re impacting on the steerage of the vehicle now from the way the truck slews and slides. Losing grip for a second before going hard the other direction. It powers on heading back the way it came. She looks over to see more infected people pouring in from alleys and side streets. Coming and coming with seemingly never ending numbers. The army truck reaches the edge. They can’t risk another run through. She can see it. The infected are reacting too fast. They’ll get bogged down like in the mud on that green. It does though. It turns to face into the square and starts the charge. She shakes her head, cursing them for the folly of what they do. It comes in hard, faster than before. Charging to batter them aside. Ahead she can see the infected compressing to prevent it getting through.

It comes to a slewing stop with brakes applied that anchor on as the rear doors burst open to men and women jumping out with machine guns already firing. Again the infected react and surge in with a message passed that the people in the truck are ready to be taken. She can’t see how many get out from the vehicle. Maybe a dozen. With a thrill she spots the huge bald man jumping clear of the back doors with the machine gun taken from the top of the vehicle now in his hands firing from the waist that shudders his body with the recoil. She sees young men firing quickly without panic. A blond lad, two with dark hair. Another smaller one with dark skin. Women too. Several of them. All working together to form a small line that gets beaten back towards the building line.

‘D…’

She flinches, startled and turning to stare at Paco now at her side. His face contorting with expressions that flood across his features. His head lunging forward in tiny motions as he tries to form words. ‘D…D…’

She can’t take it all in. She stares at him then back to the square.

‘D…’

A sound formed. She grabs his arm to pull him back but he refuses to go. His whole body tensed and rigid. His muscles bulging, his eyes fixed on the view through the window. He says it again. Forcefully with a stammer that he can’t overcome. She can see it in his eyes. The desperate struggle to grip the thoughts that spin through his mind. ‘D…D…’

She looks back out the window. A man with dark curly hair now in the middle of the line. The same man she saw driving the army truck earlier. The sight of him brings a wave of pure aggression rising up inside her gut. She grips Paco’s arm, squeezing hard with eyes glaring. He leads them. She can see it. He shouts something. The small man that was firing the machine gun from the truck runs out deep into the infected to be gone from view. Bodies fall that mark his route but she can’t see how he is killing them. A few seconds later the first explosion comes. A dull thud that flings a handful of bodies into the air. In the gap left she sees the small man running while biting the pin from a grenade that he drops before running on. He does it again and again. Running through them without heed or fear, dropping grenades that blow holes in the lines that ease the compression against the line of people fighting with their backs to a doorway.

‘D…D…’ Paco seethes with air rushing out. His voice choked and rough. He keeps trying. The pendulum inside swings harder and deeper. He can see it. The image that came into his mind is out there now. He can grasp it, he can speak it, his mind whirls and tries to grip the word.

Heather sees it. A German Shepherd but big with paws like a lion. A huge shaggy haired thing that barks with a sound that punches through the rest of the noise. Black hair and big white teeth showing in the mouth that opens to bark. It stays between the legs of one man firing a gun. That man says something and it goes off like a rocket. Surging away from the line to attack the infected. It lifts with a high leap to lock teeth on a throat. The dog rags its head once and the throat is gone, ripped out. As the body falls it’s already onto the next with a blur of speed. Heather watches it with creeping horror then turns her head slowly to see the injuries on Paco’s throat.

‘D…D…’ he gets angry the way he says it, frustration showing from his inability to say the thing in his mind.

‘Dog,’ she breathes the word in a gasp. His head snaps to stare, sending chills down her spine.

‘Dog,’ his voice. Paco’s voice. Gravely, damaged and rasping but his voice. ‘Dog,’ he says it again. ‘D…D…dog…G…G…’ he nods at her, his eyes imploring her to say it. She shakes her head at him. Glancing to the window at the chaos outside while seven children hide in the kitchen. ‘G…G…’ he spits the word, glaring balefully at her for not saying it.

‘What?’ She can’t think fast enough to keep up.

‘Ger…Ger…’

A solid G. Golf. Gown. Not a soft G for German. She blinks and frowns then looks outside to the incredible sight of so many charging at so few yet being held back. The ground between them is already thick with bodies. She spots the tactic. The simple brilliance of it. The infected are impeded to get over their own kind already killed. It buys a second or two at the most but enough for more bullets, more grenades and more throats to be bitten out.

‘Ger…’

‘Heather?’

Her eyes flick to Subi in the doorway, the young girl flinching with each bang coming from outside.

‘Girl,’ Heather says, looking straight back at Paco.

‘Gerl,’ the word comes out snarled and wrong but distinct in the meaning. ‘Dog…ger…ger…Gerl…’

‘Wh…I…what…’

‘Gerl…dog…’ Paco growls, his voice broken from the injuries to his throat. The image of the dog in his mind. The dog he knew. The dog that saved him. The dog is a girl.

‘Heather?’

‘Go back in the kitchen,’ Heather snaps, rushing the words out.

‘Amna needs the toilet…’

‘In a minute. Go back in the kitchen and stay quiet…Paco? What? The dog? A girl?’

‘Gerl gerl gerl….’ His eyes come alive. Searching hers with yearning.

‘Okay,’ she says for lack of anything else. ‘Okay…’

He looks back out through the window, his eyes locked on the dog that savages them one after the other. Heather hears a shout. An order given. A door behind the men and women opens and they rush back to get inside, slamming the door closed as the infected close in fast.

‘BUT I NEED A POO…’

‘Christ,’ Heather runs from the window through to the kitchen to see Subi and Raj desperately trying to placate Amna now stamping her foot with her arms folded and chocolate smeared across her angry face.

‘NEED A POO…’ she gets lifted on the last word, rising up through the air in Heather’s hands to be carried into the bathroom and plonked down next to the toilet.

‘Do not flush it.’

Amna nods, happy now her wishes have been complied with. She does her business with Heather standing close, wrinkling her nose at the smell. She would move away but she can’t risk the child flushing the cistern that will send water cascading down the waste pipe.

‘Anyone else?’ She asks, taking Amna back into the kitchen. There starts a steady rotation of child to the loo, wait with the child, stop the child flushing, take the child back and get another child. Outside the gunshots keep coming. The snarls and howls rip through the air. Glass breaking. Loud bangs and snatches of people shouting but there are seven children that need her focus. She wipes faces and hands to get rid of the chocolate smears and checks on Tommy staring with glassy eyes.

‘I’ll stay with him,’ Subi says as Heather looks at him.

‘Good girl.’

It grows dark. Night comes. The sounds from outside keep coming. Paco stays at the window, refusing to move away or come back to kitchen. He seems more human than ever before now. Whoever those people are they mean something to him. She can see it. She thinks back to the time she met him and the town that was thick with bodies. Bullets on the ground. He was with them when he died and turned. That much is obvious. What’s also obvious is the people that came in the army truck are now trapped in those buildings the same way Heather and her group are trapped in theirs.

She goes through cupboards to find what tins she can and while the world goes to hell outside so she struggles to get food into seven exhausted terrified children. They might have to run so they need strength and energy. She forces more water into them, making them drink it down. They grow sleepy despite the noises. Bodies need rest. Minds can only take so much before they shut down regardless of what’s going on. She finds bedding and drags it into the kitchen to lay on the floor to keep them in one room. Pillows and cushions are brought in, duvets and blankets. The kids drop to sleep where they land. Subi stays close to Tommy. Raj with Oliver. Amna just sleeps flat on her back starfishing without a care in the world with the complete belief that the adults will make everything better.

Finally she goes back into the lounge to Paco still staring out the window. She joins him and finds her heart hammering again at the sight. Mounds of infected have been built like pyramids underneath the windows to form climbing frames for more to climb up. She can see through the windows that the people have worked their way through walls to get further down the buildings. She spots the people from the army truck firing guns from the windows. A bottle with a flame goes sailing out to smash and burst on the ground. More follow. Missiles get sent down. Deaths are taken and the scores mount up but still they keep coming. They’re brave. She gives them that.

‘Come away,’ she takes his hand to pull him back. The risk of him being seen is too great. He has to move. ‘Paco…come away…’

‘Gerl,’ he growls softly.

‘I know, come away now…’

He stiffens, resisting. Not a monster or a puppy but a man. Energy pours off him. A restless vibe that clenches his fists. His chest inflates with deep lungful’s of air sucked in to be blasted out in the first show of a mood other than anger directed at the infected. She knows he wants to go out to join the fight. His hatred for the infected becomes palpable, his lips forming a snarl, his arms twitching and trembling from the buckets of testosterone and adrenalin flooding his system. She watches him closely, every now and then trying to turn him back but it’s like trying to push a tree. The man is too solid. She sees the battle centred on one window with the infected pouring up over their own kind to breach and burst through. Again she thinks it’s over. There is no way they can withstand such a thing. She hears snatches of a deep voice booming orders but the distance is too great and the other noises make the words indistinct.

A weird feeling descends on her. The battle taking place is important but it’s not her fight. She can’t control anything about it, what they do or why they do it. Her job is to keep her group safe by keeping them hidden and quiet. She grows detached from it. A viewer watching it play out while subconsciously distancing herself from an end she knows is inevitable. It’s been over an hour already and the square is still thick. The heat is immense. The humidity is exhausting just standing still. To fight with so few against so many in this is brave beyond reason and she roots for the fighters with everything she has but they’re dead already. Paco has to stay here. If he goes out there he will die like them and he doesn’t deserve that. Not for everything he has done. No. He deserves life and she needs him. The children need him.

‘Move back,’ she says flatly with a tone that makes him turn to look at her. She stares back without emotion. ‘Now…’

This time he yields to her touch to turn and move away. She gets him halfway across the lounge before he stops to go back. She holds him fast. A status quo reached. A stand-off gained.

Things happen outside that she has no concept off. Lights flashing. The sound of water being sprayed. Shouts and the thudding of bodies falling to the ground. Still it means nothing to her. That fight is not theirs. It is not his. This is their battle ground where they will stay until they can run. The children need to sleep and recover to be ready for tomorrow.

Time becomes meaningless. Whatever is happening out there is another world. She listens to him breathing, sensing the violence rippling under his surface that grows until the very air becomes charged with static.

The silence comes sudden. A cessation of noise that makes her frown and stare at the window with a creeping horror that something very bad is about to happen. A sense of impending doom that makes her want to not be here. The silence breaks with a single shattering scream of a child. High pitched and agonised. Her eyes widen, her mouth opens, her stomach tightens to a ball that twists and heaves. Paco growls. His whole body trembling. His jaw clenched so tight she can see the muscles in his cheeks flexing. The child screams on into the night. So forlorn and pitiful it makes every sadness of her life seem paltry. He goes towards window and not a thing she can do will stop him. His strength is incredible. His steps sweep her along until they see the square full of silent infected staring up at one set of windows within which she can the people from the army truck breaking down to weep and cry. The fact it’s a taunt sickens her to the core. The scream comes from the next window along from the building the fighters are in. She clenches her own jaw, biting down with gasps of air at the sound that keeps coming. The child screams for her mummy and daddy. Tears fall from Heather’s eyes. Spilling down her cheeks. Another noise joins in. The dog howling long and mournful that makes her sob for the meaning of it. Paco shakes with a pulsing energy. Heather feels it. A sensation like warm electricity flowing into her. She finds her head lifting to stare with eyes growing cold and hard.

An explosion of force erupts. A thing so powerful it feels like she’s lifted from her feet. In that second she sees the fighters in the flat rising to their feet and running as one to come bursting through the door at ground level. Paco bursts away to go with them as though captured by whatever instinct propels them. In that second she too erupts but with the single thought that he will die if goes out there. She rams into him with every ounce of strength, taking him off his feet into the wall. As he rallies to rise she clambers to block him. Her face snarling with the pressure of the rage threatening to burst her apart. It isn’t their fight. This is their ground. They stay here. He stays here. He tries to rise again as the scream outside ends abruptly. Still she forces him down. Ramming her hands into his shoulders to pin him against the wall. He could snap her in half. He could fling her aside with ease. One arm of his could throw her out the window but he doesn’t. He is a dangerous monster that snarls and growls and rages but she holds him there to honour the unspoken vow given to Becky.

The battle outside starts again but a hundred times worse than before. A detonation of unbridled wanton fury. Noises charge the air. Single gunshots. Shouts from hoarse voices. The wet sound of bodies being torn and shredded but still she holds him, refusing to let him move an inch. His back slides down the wall. His legs splay out in surrender of the moment. She sinks down with him, sitting over his lap with that pulsing energy still thrumming inside both of them. Her hands find his face to cup and tilt up.

‘We can’t,’ she whispers the words on a breath that quavers and trembles. ‘We have to stay here…we can’t go…not our fight…not ours…we stay here…’ she nods to give force to her words. She swallows the tension that continues to grow. Tears form to fall and spill down her cheeks, venting the pressure inside. ‘Not our fight,’ she whispers soft and gentle, full of emotion. ‘Not our fight…not our fight…’ she keeps nodding, crying and weeping for the sound of the child screaming out and the righteous glory of the battle those outside give. ‘Stay here yeah…we’ll stay here…stay here…yeah?’ a command becomes a question. A need to be vouched and agreed with. Too much pressure. Too much emotion. Too much rage and fear. Too many days of relentless feelings that surge up and down. Too much running. Too much hope gained then lost to be found again only to be dashed. She feels his cheeks become wet and sees the tears coming from his eyes. She sobs harder for that single thing. The sobs break out from her chest. His arms come up to wrap and hold. She sinks lower. Her head pressing into his. It’s too much. All of it is too much. Every reaction done on instinct and gut feeling from the thing that happens the second before. Her heart swells to break over and over.

In the pure desperation of that moment her head lowers for her lips to gently brush against his cheek mere millimetres from the corner of his mouth. She holds still, forever frozen in that moment with everything inside breaking apart. He twitches as though to meet her lips but the contact remains unmade. They can’t kiss. What he has could kill her, turn her, make her one of those beasts outside. They’ve shared a water bottle but a kiss is a risk is too great. The emotional need for comfort in the anguish of the night brings a temptation almost too great to resist.

Outside the battle wages on and slowly recedes to a distance that speaks of survivors running with infected chasing. She hopes the people survive. She wills them to survive but she stays there, holding her lips so close to his in a position that holds them both still.

Time passes. An explosion comes. A fireball sent scorching high into the heavens that gives light to the room from the flames searing the sky. The shock wave comes next. A pressure that builds and pops as the walls shake and the floor beneath them vibrates. The moisture in the air is taken away, absorbed by the heat of a fire they know nothing about but still they hold.

The seven children sleep to rest and recover to be ready to run so for now they stay locked in yearning for a kiss that cannot be taken.

Thirty Seven

It was the only way to get through it. She knows that. It was the culmination of all the things that happened yesterday that brought them to remain almost kissing. They stayed like that for hours. Absorbed entirely in a thing that could not be had but it worked. It got them through the urge to go outside and fight.

Now the daylight comes and the mystery of the night seems to vanish as the sun lifts to reveal a scene of utter carnage.

They slept. She knows they did. At some point they went into the kitchen and bedded down against the closed door. He slept too. She saw it when she woke. His eyes were closed and his breathing was that of a man asleep. Her motion brought him awake. The movement as she lifted from resting at his side to sit up and look around at the sleeping bodies.

Now she stares out the window at the square while the children drink water and eat whatever food is left. The stench in the bathroom is awful. Piss and shit that can’t be flushed for fear of the noise it will make. They’ll be gone soon though. There’s no need to stay here. Everything is dead.

Tens of thousands of bodies torn, ripped and left to rot. The flies have already come to hover and rest to lay eggs to hatch maggots that will writhe and speed the decay. It doesn’t offend her now. It is what it is. The scale is bigger than anything before but death is death. There’s only so much shock you can feel before something in the mind shuts off.

She spots the trail of bodies stretching to the road on the north side and away out of sight to a plume of thick black smoke drifting into the air from whatever blew up last night. The army truck is gone. How she doesn’t know. Why or when either. Only that it isn’t here now. All the doors to the flats on the other side are open and it’s silent outside. She looks again to the road then up to the smoke rising in the air. It’s almost like the army people led them in that direction on purpose. They can’t still be alive. Not after that. No way. An internal voice disagrees and counters her opinion by inviting her to look again at the bodies below. How did so few kill so many? How did Paco kill a dozen with his bare hands in TK Maxx then walk out like nothing happened. Maybe the people in the army truck are like him. Christ, imagine that? A dozen Paco’s able to do what he does. She blinks and holds that thought that suddenly isn’t so far-fetched. She thinks back to the times she saw Paco kill. The village with that lad running by the duck pond. The others in the town she first met him. She thinks back to the first night and how he seemed almost weak in comparison to what he is now. She turns to look at him standing in the doorway staring at her. His eyes shining with intelligence. His poise and countenance dignified. A dozen of him would be devastating. He doesn’t feel pain. He doesn’t get tired like normal people. He needs less water and food. Even now he looks healthy despite the wounds and injuries, and even those are healing at a rate that just isn’t right.

She looks outside again with a self-reflection that despite the day yesterday she too feels healthy and well. Her muscles don’t ache like they should after running so far for so long. She had maybe two hours sleep? She should be exhausted, drained and ready to sleep forever. She tenses her thighs, testing the level of pain she feels. They do hurt a bit but nothing like they should. She rolls her head side to side. Her neck doesn’t hurt either. She was in a car crash yesterday but that pain is all gone.

‘Subi…’ she turns to stride across the lounge as the young girl comes running from the kitchen. She was about to ask if her eyes are red and bloodshot but stops the question coming out. Instead she rushes into the stench filled bathroom to the mirror above the sink and checks her reflection with her heart hammering in her chest.

‘What?’ Subi asks, following her to the doorway.

‘Nothing,’ Heather says. Her eyes are normal. No, not normal. She looks healthy. Too healthy. She doesn’t have bags under her eyes. Her cheeks have colour. ‘How do you feel?’ she turns to Subi, nodding for the girl to answer.

‘Tired,’ Subi says, staring strangely at Heather.

‘Tired how?’

‘I’m tired.’

‘Do your legs hurt?’

‘They ache from running yester…’

‘Yeah mine too,’ Heather says quickly. Subi looks exhausted. Bags under her eyes. She looks ready to drop despite just waking up. ‘Is everyone ready?’

‘Ready? Are we going?’

‘We are. To the fort…’

‘But…’

‘They’re all dead,’ Heather cuts her off. She walks into the kitchen to stare round at the faces of the children all looking wan and drained. ‘Drink more water,’ she says while trying to ignore the panicky feeling rising inside. She felt them last night. She felt the people after that child screamed. She felt the energy surging up and the absolute need to be with them. A dozen Paco’s with his strength and ability to heal all from an infection that was in his blood. That is still in his blood. ‘Everyone ready? We have to go and…Amna, what are you doing?’

‘Carry,’ Amna says lifting her arms to Paco with an expectation of immediate compliance.

‘No. You can walk but everyone needs to…okay then,’ she stops in surprise at Paco bending to lift Amna up into his arms before the pair of them look over for her to continue. ‘Right well, you’re not staying there all day, Amna.’

‘Am.’

‘You are not, you can walk and…’

‘Am.’

‘Whatever, everyone just stay quiet. Like yesterday. No noise. Not a word…’

‘Shit.’

‘Amna, I said no speaking. No noise.’

‘Shit shit shit.’

She looks again at Amna, at the glowing complexion of health. Mind you she was carried all of yesterday. But still, is she? No. She can’t be.

‘Amna, are you tired?’

‘Yep,’ Amna says with a look of alarm at the prospect of being made to walk.

‘Really? Are you? You don’t have to walk but I want to know…I give up actually. Come on. Tommy, you okay?’

The lad nods but doesn’t speak. He hasn’t spoken all morning. Heather feels she should say something but what do you say to someone like this?

‘Let’s go,’ she hefts the bag on her back and leads off down the hallway, machete in hand. She’d sharpen the blade if she knew how. She’d carry a flame thrower too if she had one and drive a tank but she doesn’t. So instead she grips the machete and opens the door to a landing that looks the same as yesterday.

Down the stairs. Into the yard. Through the gate and into the street that is the same as yesterday save for the corpses of the infected Becky cut down. Which way? The fort is south. She looks up to the sky. It’s early. The sun is still rising so that means that direction is east. It’s not precise but for want of anything else she guesses south and starts moving.

Silence hangs over the ruined town. A silence that presses down. Empty streets. Empty roads. Corpses scattered everywhere. Blood on the floor, on the walls, smeared on cars and across windows. It needs to be burnt down and removed from existence. If she had the flame thrower she’d start it off and walk away without a glance back. This town is the future of a life to come. Ruins of places that will become like the Roman buildings that still stand and speak of a civilisation that tore itself apart. The only difference is there won’t be a future people to understand where these ruins came from. Everyone will be dead. It’s been nineteen days since it began and if this is what the world looks like now then give it a month or a year. There won’t be anything other than empty towns and decaying corpses. One thought leads to another until she’s back wondering who the hell the people in the army truck are and why they don’t stop for survivors in the towns they fight and kill the infected in. Isn’t that what they’re doing? An ethnic cleansing of a new species. It’s genocide. There’s no other word for it. That’s it the right thing to be doing is without doubt but it’s still genocide. Why don’t they stop and take the survivors from the towns to their fort or arm the people or give them some instructions at the very least. Tell the people to fortify their towns. Find weapons. Gather food. Stay together with strength in numbers. It doesn’t make sense.

That bleakness keeps them quiet. Words spoken here are not right. She follows the road that leads south and away from the town. The first country lane they come to facing the right direction is taken. If it means a longer trek then so be it. A lesson learnt and one cemented in her mind. Towns are bad. The countryside is safer.

It’s still hot. The water they took from the flat is consumed. Again she notices the difference from the children to her and Paco, and possibly Amna too. They three don’t complain about the fatigue from yesterday. They look healthier. They walk stronger. Well, Amna doesn’t walk but lounges languid and content in Paco’s arms before being hoisted to ride on his shoulders. Why is Amna like that and not any of the others? She looks round at the children. Three of them she doesn’t know. Two boys and a girl. The youngest boy is Tommy’s brother. The girl blond haired, maybe seven years old and hasn’t said a word all morning but she looks as exhausted as the others, walking with heavy feet and empty eyes cast at the ground.

She thinks about taking a car again but something quells that notion with an instinct she is learning to trust. Walking is better. You can see further ahead and hear the environment. You can smell the air and the feel of the place you are in. A car is fast but you can’t see what’s coming until you are there. A car also needs to go on roads whereas she can cross fields and meadows and go through places a car can’t go. As long as she keeps heading south they will find the coast then work it out from there. That’s what she does. She takes them through fields, across motorways, across roads and round anything that looks like a village or a town. They climb hills and descend valley sides to walk through crops that will never be harvested. Fields of wheat, corn and rapeseed. The morning passes. Afternoon comes. They stop at an empty farmhouse just long enough to drink water and refill water bottles and set off again. The pace is not fast but just unrelenting. The children stay quiet. Their spirits crushed from everything seen and done. Heather doesn’t give kind words as this is not a time for softness but for the brutality of survival. She made a vow to Becky who sacrificed herself so Heather can keep the children alive and get them to the fort, and they are alive, they’re hot, tired, quiet and exhausted but they’re alive.

Late afternoon and they trudge up yet another hill with faces wet from perspiration and clothes clinging to frames. Everyone breathing hard. Faces flushed and red. The sun is already starting to drift down towards the far horizon. Amna sleeps. Her head resting on the top of Paco’s. Becky’s youngest son in his arms also asleep. Heather doesn’t know his name.

‘What?’ Heather looks up to see Subi standing at the top of the hill staring away to the distance. ‘See something? Get back…’

‘It’s fine,’ Subi says, not turning round.

Heather sighs and keeps going to join the girl at the top to swallow and stare out at the view stretching over miles of rolling countryside to the blue expanse of sea glittering in the distance. The view is breath-taking. Gorgeous and filled with so many hues of greens that she can’t help but feel a lift of spirits that this tainted filthy world can still show such a thing.

‘The sea,’ Subi says, quietly, as though to herself. The rest of the children reach the top to stand in a line looking out. Paco stops next to Heather. His face glistening with sweat.

‘Where’s the fort?’ Rajesh asks, looking up at Heather.

‘Don’t know. We’ll find it. Ready?’

She sets off down the hill, leading them towards the distant promise of the sea. She has no idea how far it is or how long it will take to reach but she can tell the evening is approaching. Another few hours and it will be dark. Irritation rises. She wants to keep going to get them out of harms away but they can’t walk in the darkness. That means finding somewhere again. They need food too so she rules out the prospect of a barn this time. Unless they find food first then look for a barn but that means less time walking to close the distance.

Rooftops in the distance. Clusters of houses grouped together. Houses are dangerous. Villages are dangerous. Everywhere is dangerous and what happens when they reach the sea? Which way then? Left or right? She needs a map to go with the food and the place to sleep. Needs wants and desires. The essentials you need to survive. The things you want for comfort and the things you desire. She looks at Paco knowing what she desires the most. Him. Just him. To be alone with him walking at their own pace. She wants what they had before. She wants to sit across his lap and feed him, even if he can speak and feed himself she still wants to do it. She wants him to heal and get better. What she needs though is food and a place for the night suitable for seven children.

She aims for a building glimpsed from the hillside hoping it will be a single property stocked with enough food for all of them. Her mind keeps going back to last night. To all the things that happened. It’s like a dream now. Almost like it never happened. The battle didn’t take place. She didn’t feel that pulse of energy. She didn’t almost kiss Paco. It wasn’t real.

By the time they reach the road the day is almost gone with a darkness creeping into the sky. She leads them on the road towards the house glimpsed from the hillside, cursing that they’ve lost the ability to gain more distance. The light is fading fast. The green hues of the landscape grow deeper, darker. Shadows are forming. The heat of the day finally starts to wane as the house comes into view. A single detached brick built cottage with old sash windows covered in peeling flaky paint. It will have to do. The children are exhausted, they need rest and food.

They approach with only the tread of their feet making noise. Heather watches carefully, scanning the windows for signs of life and seeing none. The house is set back behind a jungle of an overgrown front garden. Thick weeds sprouting through the long grass covering the broken path leading to the old wooden door. The whole house looks decrepit and unlived in. The chances of finding food here will be slim. If nothing else they’ll have water and shelter for the night and it’s only dark for a few hours this time of year. They can be up and moving again by dawn.

She leads them down the path to the front door and again stops to listen before trying the handle and giving a little groan at another door to break in. She looks to Paco with a grim smile. He comes forward, lowering the yawning boy from his arms. That yawn makes Heather yawn which makes Subi yawn. Rajesh and Tommy go next. Amna is already fast asleep but the other two children complete the chain reaction of mouths stretching wide with low groans from tired bodies. Paco looks at the door. The others look at him and realise they’re in the way so shuffle back and away.

Paco reaches up to hold Amna’s legs dangling down his chest. She gurgles at the touch but stays asleep. He gets to the door, braces and explodes out with a foot that kicks into the mid-section which splinters the frame and snaps the lock. The door slams open. The shotgun fires. The range is close. The pellets don’t spread but fly tight together. Frank found the house yesterday. It was a lucky find. The old woman that lived here was turned and gone in the first few days of the outbreak. He stayed quiet with his double-barrelled shotgun but heard the tread of the feet coming up the road. He didn’t dare twitch a curtain for fear of being seen. So instead he stayed behind the door shaking from head to toe at the groans and moans coming from the children and Heather yawning. He heard the feet shuffling and heard one of the infected gurgling. They do that. They gurgle and moan. They shuffle and don’t walk like proper people do. Frank knows. He’s seen enough of them. As the door burst open he saw a big man with two heads and a glimpse of red eyes and plucked the trigger while a jet of hot piss soaked his groin.

The children scream at the huge boom of the gun. Hot liquid sprays on their faces. Heather moves fast, diving with her arms held wide to scoop the children to the side. ‘DON’T SHOOT….SURVIVORS…DON’T SHOOT…’

Frank gibbers. His finger pressing on the second trigger of the double barrelled shotgun as the voice screams words that sink into his brain which cause the hesitation that gives Paco time to grab the gun and boot the man away. The force of the kick slams the back of Frank’s head into the corner of the side unit, fracturing his skull with shards of bone plunging into his brain. Paco stands over him. Checking his kill with one hand still holding Amna’s feet who gurgles in her sleep at the sounds around her.

‘DON’T SHOOT…SURVIVORS…’ Heather screams the words again. Her arms spread wide over the children beneath her.

‘Dead,’ a gurgled voice, rasping and broken.

‘DON’T SHOOT,’ Heather shouts back, ‘CHILDREN…’

‘Dead,’ the rasping tone says again. She’s up instantly. Knowing that voice. Knowing that broken tone. ‘Paco?’

‘Dead…’

She leans round the door in a fast darting motion, in and out but grabbing enough of a view to see Paco standing over a body. ‘Stay there,’ she tells the children and rushes into the house. Adrenalin has been dumped into her body. Her vision becomes sharper. Her senses heightened. Her heart booming. She can’t form coherent thoughts but can see Paco holding a shotgun by the barrel with a dead man at his feet. Blood coming from the back of the dead man’s skull that seeps down over the floor. His eyes open and glassy, reflecting the light of the moon shining through the door.

‘Dead,’ Paco says again. She looks at him, staring wide eyed at hearing his voice again.

‘HEATHER!’

‘What?’ Heather is away, running back out at Subi’s scream. She sees the body on the path. The body of the little girl now dead from being struck by hundreds of pellets from a shotgun fired at close range. The little blond haired girl who was too exhausted, too sleepy and too slow to move when the rest shuffled to let Paco get through. ‘No…no….move, Subi move…’ Heather drops down, her hands grabbing the girl now covered in blood. Blood everywhere. Wounds in the girl’s chest and stomach. ‘Oh god no…please no…’ she paws at the wounds, pushing hard as though to stop the blood coming out but there’s so much. So much blood. She gasps hard, her mind frantic with panic. She lowers the girl to try and find a pulse. Her shaking hands pushing into the girl’s neck. No pulse. She grabs a thin wrist and tries again. No pulse. She lowers her head to the girl’s injured chest, smearing blood down her face. No heartbeat.

‘Okay…okay…’ Heather swallows and moves onto her knees at the girl’s side. First aid. CPR. Mouth to mouth. She tilts the head back, opens the girl’s mouth with bloodied fingers then clasps her hands together to begin compressions. One. Two. Three. Four. Five…how many? She can’t remember. Fifteen. Fifteen compressions to two breaths. How many has she done? She doesn’t know. She drops to form a seal on the girl’s mouth and breathes hard. They said in the first aid class you have to see the chest rising. She looks as she exhales but it’s too dark to see if the girl’s chest lifts. She blows again, harder and feeling resistance as the smaller lungs of the girl inflate. Compressions. One. Two. Three.

‘…four, five, six, seven,’ she counts out loud into the silence of the overgrown front garden. ‘Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen,’ her hands pushing down. She feels ribs crack but remembers that’s normal. They said that in the first aid class. Two breaths. She forms the seal and exhales. She does it again.

‘One, two, three,’ compressions on a body that shunts with the force of the movement. Sweat pours down her face that mingle with the tears streaming down her cheeks. The children watch, rendered silent by the horror.

She forms the seal and exhales. She does it again.

‘One, two, three, four… COME ON…six, seven, eight…WAKE UP…ten, eleven, twelve…’

She forms the seal and exhales. She does it again.

‘One, two, three…’

‘Dead.’

‘FUCK OFF,’ Heather rages at him, her face contorting with emotion. Veins bulge from her forehead and neck. Blood on her hands and arms, across her face and mouth. ‘Eight, nine, ten…’

‘Dead.’

That awful voice. That terrible broken voice. She forms the seal and exhales. She does it again.

‘Dead.’

‘No,’ she whispers and starts the compressions. She won’t let it happen. She made a vow. She’ll get them to fort. She’ll keep them alive. She won’t fail. ‘Eight, nine, ten…’ the sob comes as she counts.

‘Dead.’

She weeps but keeps going. They said that in the first aid class. They said keep going and don’t stop until the ambulance gets to you. She forms the seal and exhales. She does it again.

‘Dead,’ firmer this time, broken and awful, rasping and deep but a message being passed.

‘NO,’ she starts the compressions. She made a vow. The children will live. She counts and sobs with tears that fall onto the girl whose name she doesn’t know. That breaks her. That single realisation crushes her spirit. She weeps harder but carries on. She doesn’t know her name. Keep going until the ambulance gets to you. She doesn’t know her name. There are no ambulances.

The hand closes over her shoulder. Big and solid but gentle, so gentle. ‘Dead,’ a whisper of a word from a throat torn and ruined.

‘I…I don’t…’ she keeps pumping her hands, refusing to stop because to stop will be to accept it. She won’t accept it. ‘I don’t…I don’t know her name…’

He drops to her side. Amna taken and held by Subi. His hand stays on her shoulder as she pumps and works the chest. She loses count and goes to move to form the seal and exhale but the hand on her shoulder won’t let her move. She sobs out and goes back to the compressions. Her vision blurred by the hot tears pouring out.

‘Keep going…keep going…I didn’t know…keep going…I don’t know her name…’ She made them walk all day and she didn’t know her name.

‘Lisa.’

‘What?’ Heather gasps, turning to stare at Subi.

‘Lisa…her name is Lisa.’

Heather takes them in. Six children and Paco staring at her in silence. Paco’s hand on her shoulder. Her own hands frozen on the girl’s chest while her composure crumbles into a void. A tidal wave of self-loathing rises from her own selfish actions that she wanted Paco and nothing more and never took the time to ask their names. She can’t do this. She can’t. It’s too much. She’s failed and a little girl called Lisa now lies dead because of her failure and her vile disgusting selfish actions.

They come then. They come when the anguish is greatest. They come because they can and this is a world of pain and hurt that keeps serving the suffering for the sheer fun of it. They come drawn to the noise of a gunshot and the screams of the frightened. They come with bare feet slapping the road in a noise the group has come to recognise all too well. They come at the breaking point when the consideration to give up is the strongest from a loss that strikes deep to render limbs useless and a mind inert. They come when they are weakest and already beaten. They come when the grief and shock is the highest and the fatigue is already sapping at their bodies.

Her mind opens. The panic vanishes. The emotions drop away to leave an icy hand squeezing her heart to cease the panic. On her feet, hands covered in blood. She takes the shotgun from the floor and breaks it open the way she taught herself so many days ago. Shells. The dead man must have more shells. She runs into the house, jumping over the warm corpse to find a green rucksack open on the table next to a plastic box of shotgun cartridges that she grabs and takes back outside to hand to Subi.

‘Hold these, give them to me when I ask. Do not drop them. Everyone out on the road. Do it now. Tommy, carry your brother, what’s his name?

‘Oliver…I mean Ollie…’

‘Rajesh and you…what’s your name?’

‘Christian.’

‘Christian, help Rajesh carry Amna. Stay together. Subi stay close to me.’

The temptation to hide inside the house is strong but it’s a death-trap. She saw that last night. The infected will surround it and pound the doors and windows then rush in as one. She loads the shotgun, snaps it shut and drops to kneel next to the body of the girl whose name she didn’t know. ‘Forgive me,’ she whispers, kissing the girl’s forehead before rising to grab the machete that’s pushed into Paco’s hand.

They go fast. Tommy leading. His brother in his arms. Rajesh and Christian carrying Amna. Subi next staying close to Heather who carries the shotgun held tight across her chest.

Make distance, stay quiet and hope for the best. That’s all there is. They’re all covered in Lisa’s blood. That blood will be scented and followed. If it was just her she’d stop and lead them off. She’d honour that vow to Becky with her own life and tell Subi to run and never stop running, but it isn’t just her with blood on her body.

Breathing becomes hard within minutes. Exhausted bodies once again pushed to keep going with nothing inside except fear driving them on. They run in a direction they don’t know without a plan to do anything except this.

The feet come louder. Gaining closer. Many of them. Howls behind from infected giving sound to others in the area that respond with terrifying inhuman screeches.

The iciness in Heather grows. It hardens to become a separate entity within her. Paco at her side. The children in front. The howls keep coming, every direction is doomed. ‘Go in front,’ she tells Paco. He hesitates with an expression on his face. His eyes searching hers that flick down to the shotgun then to the children. He looks at the machete in his hand then turns to glance behind them. He’s unsure. She can sense it. ‘Want me to go in front?’

His head snaps to glare. His eyes focussed with such intensity she can see the affirmation of the reply.

‘Ess…’ a sound comes from his mouth, almost lost in the rasp.

‘Yes?’

‘Ess…’ A hiss of a noise but given quickly in response.

‘Okay, you stay at the back?’

‘Ess…’

She goes wide to run round the children, ‘Subi…with me, stay close…’ Another quick glance back at Paco. He can speak. He’s healing. He needs time to get better but time is a thing they are fast running out of.

The first one comes from the back. A female with a body already honed from years of marathon running. She outstrips the others in her horde to fly over the road towards the smell of blood and fear hanging in the air. Her body runs with poise. Her arms pumping to keep traction and balance. Her knees lifting in the way she was trained. The hive mind within her learns from the collective conscious to evolve and seek greater harmony with the gross motor skills of the host body. She is in the true state of being. The lactic acid in her muscles don’t hurt her. Her heart works in synch with her lungs to propel forward and gain the objective. She closes the distance. Head fixed and eyes locked on Paco’s broad back. Her lips pull back. Her hands claw. She is ready to draw blood and pass the infection. She snarls at the last second with a sound that keeps coming as her head falls from her body from a machete swung by a strong arm that cleaves the blade through the vertebrae in her spine. Paco glances at the machete and keeps running. An understanding forming in his mind of the concept of a weapon to be used.

At the front Heather scans ahead. Listening and trying to sort through the noises of the children behind her. She hears the snarl of the infected woman and casts a quick look to see Paco slicing through her neck and the head falling with a thump as the body runs another step from sheer momentum gained. Other noises in the air. Howls and screeches. A way of communicating to say where the infected are. Movement. There. A flash of the moon reflecting from a pale torso. She lifts, aims and fires. The sound of branches breaking from a heavy body crashing into the hedgerow. ‘Shell,’ she pants the word, breaking the shotgun open to eject the used cartridge. The new one goes in, the gun snaps closed.

‘Heather!’

Subi gives the warning, her keen eyes spotting the two running straight at them. Heather lifts, aims down the barrel and plucks the first trigger. The spread of pellets hits both, sending them reeling back. The one on the left sprawls out. The one on the right gains balance and keeps coming with blood pissing out from the wounds inflicted on his chest and stomach. Heather fires again, blowing him back off his feet. ‘Shells,’ she opens the gun, pulls the two used ones out and takes two more handed from Subi’s shaking hands. A glance back. Paco is right there. More howls rip through the air in response to the new shots fired. Direction of the potential hosts has been gained.

‘Can’t…’ Christian cries out. His arms burning in the sockets from the weight of Amna.

‘Put her down, Amna you have to run...’

‘Carry me…’

‘I SAID RUN,’ Heather bellows the words out, making five children flinch and one little girl lift an eyebrow with an expression of mild distaste etched on her face. ‘Fine,’ a change of tactic, ‘stay here then…’

She runs on, noticing the shock on Amna’s face who immediately starts running, her little legs working furiously to keep up with the others. Rajesh grabs her hand, forcing her to keep pace.

‘There,’ Subi shouts again. Heather fires from the waist. Both barrels one after the other. Three drop but more are coming.

‘Stop…shells,’ she brings them to a halt, dropping to a knee to break the shotgun and load two more shells. She lifts, aims and fires. More drop but more are coming. She breaks the gun, reloads, lifts and fires. The sound is immense. The recoil slams her shoulder until she learns to brace. She reloads and fires. Sending hundreds of shots down the lane that lacerate, wound and kill the infected.

‘Okay…move…’ she aims and fires into the head of a crawler, exploding the skull that blows apart sending a shower of sticky grey matter over the bushes behind. Bodies on the floor. Blood on the floor. Blood and gore everywhere. They weave through the corpses. Heather fires into another crawler, wasting valuable shells. Over half a dozen shot down but more are coming.

A grunt from behind. Paco slams the machete into the neck of one while lashing a hand out to grip the hair of another trying to run past him. He twists hard, flinging the body down to the floor before stamping on the face with such force the bones are driven in.

Shots from the front. Another one gunned down. Three from behind. One of them aiming for Paco while the other two aim for the children with a cohesion of effort. Heather turns, aims and blasts one apart. Paco swats aside the one coming at him and runs to intercept the other. Heather goes wide, shooting into the head of the one Paco felled with the swat.

On they go. Bodies left to bleed behind them. Chests heaving. Legs burning. The minds of the children grow dim from the sustained peril and shock. Another bubble forms around them. A bubble of noise and gore but they keep going. The running eases. They cannot keep the pace up despite Heather bellowing at them. Amna is too little. Tommy is struggling to carry Oliver and puts him down. They walk fast instead at a pace that Heather finds crippling.

‘Shells…’ she slides them in and snaps the shotgun closed, turning to see Paco walking backwards with the machete held out to one side. That he’s using the weapon is not lost on her.

The lane bends and snakes between high hedges. Moonlight bathes the land giving shape to silhouettes that loom in the distance. Farmhouses, barns and stables blocks. They pass five bar gates and junctions to other lanes and footpaths. She takes lefts and rights, desperate to lose the infected but knowing that each shot fired is akin to a flare sent in the sky we are here, come find us.

She saw the number on the side when she picked the case up. Fifty shotgun cartridges would be enough for any sport shooter. Fifty shells would last a farmer a long time. Fifty tonight go fast. Two at a time fired at shadows flitting to burst from hedges. When they come hard she stops to kneel to speed the reload and fire at anything making noise or giving sight of movement. The children stop flinching at the sound but use those breaks to gasp air and claw back what energy they can. Ten cartridges are used within the space of a few minutes until she snaps the order to move on.

Into the night they go. At times their noise is the only sound to be heard bringing false hope that they will be able to find somewhere to hide but then more come and the shotgun fires again that sends the signal flare to the others.

Paco is kept just as busy and with only the machete it means they get closer before he can intervene to kill them. Ones and twos are easy. Three do not pose a problem. He is fast, strong and vicious beyond compare. He is a dangerous monster given to snapping necks with one arm while slashing the machete with the other. Four can be handled but five become a problem. Two charge directly at him, demented at a level just below biting their own flesh. Three more just behind them aiming for the children.

‘ETHER,’ his strangled voice gives the shout, unable to say her name. She snaps the shotgun closed while turning and lifting to aim and shoots one down. A twitch of aim and she fires again killing another one. Three infected left. Two of them attacking Paco with a wild rage that makes them impervious to the wounds of the machete hacking them apart. The last one runs past to charge at the children. Time slows. Heather can see it coming and knows there isn’t time to reload. Paco has already taken one arm off and slashed so deep the innards of the other attacking him fall out but still they bite and rake into him.

‘PACO,’ she screams in warning while running with the shotgun held in two hands but gets slammed back by the power of the infected man who lunges to bite with wild snaps that make her dodge left and right while trying to brace the shotgun against him. She can’t run backwards fast enough and goes down hard, driven into the ground with a whump that drives the wind from her lungs. Stars in her eyes. Her senses overwhelmed. The head comes down to bite. A sensation of another impact. Rajesh lands on the man’s back, wrapping his small arms round the head to try and prise it back. She screams for him to get back but forming words in the midst of such a thing isn’t possible. An arm lashes out knocking Rajesh off to send him flying across the ground. Heather rallies, bucking and writhing to get the shotgun up. She gets the barrel into his mouth like a stick for him to bite. She heaves and pushes, forcing his head back as he bites on the metal so hard his teeth fall from his mouth. Her knees start cycling, slamming into his groin and arse then he’s gone. Ripped back one handed by a man who shows what pure rage is for the temerity to touch that which he loves the most. The man flies up high with a surge of strength pulsing through Paco. Down into the ground, bones breaking. Paco stamps hard. Snapping the neck. His hands comes down, grips Heather’s top and lifts her bodily up onto her feet. She rises stunned and frozen, her eyes wide at the look on his face. Another comes in from behind. Paco pivots from the waist, slamming his elbow into a throat that gets crushed and broken. The thing drops, trying to suck air that can no longer be drawn. He strides off to pick Rajesh up and back onto his feet.

‘Run,’ the broken voice comes but the word is clear.

They run. They go on shaky legs tight together. Subi handing the shells to Heather who fires into the night while Paco gets faster, stronger, angrier. He shreds them with ease. The weapon becomes an extension to his body. He swings that blade with power behind it that forces it through bone and sinew.

Heather covers the front while they blunder through lanes, roads and footpaths. At times the canopy of the trees blocks the moonlight plunging them into near on pitch darkness. They hold hands and keep going. Never staying still other than to fight out of a melee and then only long enough for the last body to fall. The case of shells in Subi’s hands grows lighter as the valuable rounds are expended time and again. Break the shotgun, load, snap closed, fire once, fire twice and on it goes, unceasing, unrelenting. Mouths become dry, throats parched, legs so heavy the children trip and fall continuously. Heather’s eyes become sore from straining to see in the darkness. She starts second guessing herself and fires at a signpost that ricochets the pellets with loud metallic pings.

That small group claw their way through a twisting nightmare of a night where everything is sent against them. Headaches bloom in the back of skulls from dehydration. Eyes become dry but still they go. Still the shotgun fires and still Paco lifts to slam bodies and break necks.

There is no concept of time or direction. There is no concept of anything other than absolute hell. Ollie goes down, simply unable to keep walking. His mind shuts off and he slumps unconscious. Heather grabs his arms and heaves him up onto her back.

‘Hold on,’ she hisses at him, trying to get his arms to wrap round her shoulder but he stays limp. She tries shouting but the effect of her voice was lost hours ago. She eases him down, turns and hefts him across one shoulder then rises to keep going. Within a few minutes pain blossoms in her side from having to walk leaning over. She grits her teeth, snarling through the agony that grows.

Paco’s voice. They come to a sudden stop. She drops to one knee to breathe and ease the pain while lifting the shotgun ready to aim and fire. Noises behind. Hissing breaths that come closer and closer as they charge faster and harder. The machete’s blade loses the edge and becomes a thing to bludgeon and break bones with instead of being used to cut and slice.

‘Run…’

Up she goes, growling with the effort of carrying Ollie. Movement ahead. She fires from the waist trying to brace and absorb the recoil in her own body to negate the boy being thrown from her shoulder.

She breaks the shotgun but can’t hold the boy and get the shells out at the same time. ‘Subi…’ the girl gets the cartridges out, puts new ones in and helps close the weapon. Tommy comes forward, reaching up to hold his brother on Heather’s shoulder while she fires.

‘Raj, help Tommy,’ Subi says, her voice lost in the boom of the shotgun. Raj and Christian cluster to Heathers side with small hands reaching to keep the boy in place.

‘Shells,’ Heather grunts the word, breaking the shotgun with Subi’s help to eject and reload.

‘Ether…’

A glance back. Several running in towards Paco already fending two off.

‘Done,’ Subi says, ducking as Heather swings the barrel over her head to aim down the lane. The two boys rotate round with her movement. Tommy holding his brothers legs, Raj holding his arms. Heather plucks the first trigger and watches as several are blasted back.

‘Front,’ Subi says.

Heather turns, the boys going with her. She fires the second barrel into the woman charging at them.

‘Run,’ Paco’s broken voice urging them on. They start going forward again, clustered together. Silence comes. This will never end. They will run out of shotgun cartridges. The machete will break. They’ll be engulfed from the front and back at the same time. Determination exerts stronger than the fear trying to rise in Heather’s gut.

The children cannot keep going. Days of being cooped up hiding in houses and then made to walk for miles in search of a place that gave hope for the security of living in safety. Constant fear, sustained peril. Families killed. Walking all day in heat that sucks the moisture from their bodies. It cannot be sustained but sustain they must. Heather refuses to give in. Her mind narrows to a pinprick of focus to do this one thing. To keep moving and keep the children alive. To keep going when every bone in your body is begging you to stop. To fortify against the exhaustion, to hold nerve and withstand the pain. Paco is vicious but Heather is ruthless. Emotion evaporates. This will be done. They will prevail. The inner core running through her soul refuses any other option. So she loads, fires and loads again. She carries Ollie over her shoulder and feels Amna’s hand clinging to the material of her trousers. She listens to Paco and turns when he needs help then keeps going to keep moving to claw their way out of this mess. The night cannot last. The sun will rise. Whether it will bring any refuge is another matter but it’s all she can hope for now. Hope for the sun to rise and hope for something to give that breaks this situation.

Rajesh goes next. Staggering almost drunk from fatigue. He tries to keep going but his body is small and the lack of nutrition from the long days in the supermarket have made his body weak. Heather doesn’t falter. She doesn’t speak but drops to get him across her other shoulder and rises once again to plough on. The pain in her sides and back is indescribable. Muscles cramping from lack of water and the pressure of the two children bearing down. She fires from the waist, leaning ever so slightly forward to stop the children sliding down her back. Tommy and Christian doing what they can to help. Amna still clinging to her pocket. Subi breaking the gun to load and pass it back and all the time Paco walks behind them taking punishment from a never ending onslaught of infected charging at him.

He bleeds from his arms. He bleeds from his shoulders. His t shirt hangs in rags from being torn and raked by jagged finger nails. His face slashed with a myriad of cuts and bites. His thighs ooze blood but he clots fast. The mutated cells within his form still work to keep his body in the true state of being but his mind works freer with every passing hour. Memories, emotions, knowledge, fact, concepts, understanding all surge back in. Some ebb away leaving a trace of a thing that still cannot be fully grasped but others linger to fill the void that has become his mind. He remembers being on set filming. He remembers his trailer and the women that would come willingly to be used and forgotten. He remembers the constant physical training to keep his body honed and perfect. He never drank alcohol. He never smoked or used drugs. He ate healthy organic foods. He led a paradoxical life of debauched narcissism coupled with purity of living that would shame monks and he was trained to fight too. For the realism of it to be captured by the camera. The close quarters fight scenes that so many actors fudged with angles and tricks were done properly by Paco. He insisted on it.

He darts out to wrap an arm round the neck of a woman that bites into his forearm as he lifts her from her feet to dangle and kick at his legs. The machete drives down into a skull sending shards of bones down into the brain. A grunt, a tense of his arm and he snaps the woman’s neck to let her drop dead and broken and back he goes. Pacing with the children and Heather firing the shotgun from the front.

He remembers when the world fell. He was on set filming a zombie movie and thought it was a joke. It wasn’t a joke. It was real and for all his size, strength and ability to fight he became frozen with fear and ran to hide. He spent days cowering, using the courage of others to stay alive. A dog found him. The dog he saw in the square. She kept him alive. He stood by her when they came. He remembers it. He remembers the pain in his gut from being bitten by them then nothing else but a patchwork series of flashes that strobe through his mind. Those memories stay for longer and longer before ebbing away. Now he doesn’t know what he is. He isn’t what he was before but he isn’t one of them either.

Despite the mutated cells giving him greater energy and strength even he cannot sustain such an expenditure of energy without there being a pay-off and the first hints of fatigue start to show. He counters with increased focus and wills his body to work without knowing he is doing it but the speed slackens, the blows lose the overwhelming power he had before. He doesn’t falter but the slowdown begins.

The darkest hour is just before the dawn. When the night seems to cling to an ethereal blanket of shadow. When spirits are gone and the will to hold on crumbles away.

All conscious thought vanishes. It hurts to walk. It hurts to lift the shotgun. It hurts to carry the children but those things she does because to not do them is unthinkable. Without hope, without reprieve, without mercy and without there ever being an end she walks them on. Christian clings to her waistband, stumbling half asleep on his feet. Tommy reels side to side. Subi fights the urge to just stop and fall. Paco grunts louder to slay them as they come.

They are beaten. Down to four shells in the case now. There is nothing left to give. She has tried. She knows this. She has done what she can and has left the trail of broken bodies in their wake as proof of the effort to honour the vow.

She breaks the gun and even that costs energy that she no longer has. Trembling fingers claw the used shells out. Her voice whispers, not a woman, not a person but a growling sound of dryness and pain. ‘Subi…shells…’ the girl blinks awake from nearly falling unconscious while she walks. Her fingers scrabble at the empty slots in the case. She can’t focus or feel properly. Heather reaches out, guiding Subi to find them. Two more get slid into the barrel and with a flick of her arm the gun is snapped closed. Four shots left. Not even enough to kill themselves with. She tries to swallow but has nothing to swallow with. The image of Becky in the street holding the meat cleaver swims into her mind. She rallies with a tiny surge of energy that helps lift the gun to her waist and make ready for whatever comes next.

Shapes change in the view ahead. Mirages that come and go. Signposts become people again. Trees seem alive. The hedgerow moves in to suffocate them, the ground undulates as though writhing underfoot. Purple colours bloom from staring so hard. She stumbles, regains her feet and goes on. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot. Two children on her shoulders. More clinging to her clothes. Subi veers into her, nearly asleep again. She turns as though in treacle to look back and see Paco torn and broken still holding the rear. In that glance she can see his strength is waning.

They come again. They come from the front and from behind as though sensing the night is almost gone and these hosts must be taken before the dawn comes. She hears the feet pounding the road and even before sight of them is gained she knows this is it. The last stand. The one that will get them. She tilts her head to discern the sounds coming from both directions. The hedges are too thick and high to get through. They are trapped to die here in this lane. She glances up seeing the edge of the sky starting to lift. Dawn is almost here. They almost made it to a new day. She would cry but there is nothing left to cry with. She’d scream at the unfairness of it. She’d beg for the children to go free and for them to take her and Paco but she doesn’t. She lowers down to one knee and rests the shotgun on the floor to reach up and gently lower first Oliver then Rajesh down into the base of the hedge. She stretches out, drawing Amna, Tommy, Christian and Subi in close, pulling them into a wordless embrace. When she lets go it’s as if they know and they sink down to rest exhausted and beaten. Only Subi stays on her feet. Subi with her large eyes and jet black hair plastered to her face. Heather cups the girl’s face and smiles. ‘It’s okay,’ her voice is low and hoarse. Subi nods. Tears prick her eyes. Heather leans in to kiss the girl’s forehead. ‘It’s okay,’ she says again. ‘It’ll be quick, I promise…stay with your brother and sister…’

‘Will,’ Subi chokes the word out.

‘…if you see a gap you take it….hear me? Good girl…’ She kisses her again then takes the last two shells from the case before rising to her feet with the shotgun grasped firm and ready. She moves out, lifts and aims down the lane to the coming horde that she can hear but can’t see. She fires once, fires twice and breaks the gun for the last time. The used shells are dropped to clatter on the road. The last two are loaded. She turns to face the other way, lifts, aims and fires once, fires twice and lowers the gun.

This is it. No more shells. No more time. No place to run and even if there was the children wouldn’t make it. A sensation at her side. She looks up into his face and feels the shotgun taken from her hands to be held by the end of the barrel in his bloodied grip. He offers the machete. She takes it without words. Feeling the warmth of the handle from his hand that’s sticky with blood. Blood everywhere. Blood on the floor. There will be more too. By God she will make this lane run with it before they get their filthy hands on those children. She’ll hurt them. She’ll punish them for what they’ve done. Now she sees it. Now she understands why that army truck goes on and always on and never stops to see what comes after the battle. It’s because of this feeling to fight back. To hurt them. To punish them and kill and slaughter for what they’ve done. Sense comes where there was none before. An understanding of the need to fight back, and she will, she broke one vow but not for lack of trying and if she stands before God in judgement she’ll spit in His eye for what he’s done then walk willingly into the fires of hell.

The pulsing rage she felt watching them fight in the square comes back. Her body stiffens with raw energy flowing into her limbs. Her head lifts, eyes glaring and seeing the folly of the world and all the badness within it while knowing there is goodness too. Her life was lived in fear of people and being hurt but redemption has come from a man that can’t speak and suddenly she has to know. She has to know right now before they die. To know this and nothing else then meet that death with the knowledge gained of a thing that has healed them both.

She turns without hesitation, pushing into his body with a hand reaching up to grip his neck and pull him down so her lips can find his. She kisses him there in the early dawn of a lane that will run with blood from the hordes coming from both sides. She kisses him for staying with her, for never judging her, for giving her peace when she never felt it before. She pushes into his lips to feel what it’s like to kiss him and because this is all she has thought about for days. She does it because she has to know right now if his love is that of a puppy or a man.

At that second the greatest fear forms that he will not kiss her back. That he will be kissed and remain cold and emotionless. That fear grows and becomes a real thing as he remains inert and not a man. Her body freezes, her lips become still and she knows in that heartbeat she was wrong. He is not what she thought. He is a puppy that becomes a guard dog but nothing more. Her eyes close in rejection of belief and faith in goodness and dreams and a self-hatred of humiliation at being wrong. Her heart breaks to fall and shatter in a thousand pieces. She pulls away to take her lips from his, to withdraw and accept what comes. She pulls away to accept the consequences of her actions now knowing he is not what she hoped he was. Instant shame grows. The shame of rejection and of believing in something that was never what she believed it could be. No matter. The belief in the dream was worth it. It gave hope where there was none. It gave light in her darkest of days. For that she is thankful and smiles sadly with her lips pulling from his. She’ll take the coming death without regret simply for having been in a world with this man who covered her with his back and never judged her flaws. She withdraws to face the onslaught to kill what she can before they take her. She drops down and away to hold the machete one last time with a prayer of forgiveness to Becky for the failure of a broken vow.

As she moves so his hand comes up to cup her face. She hesitates at his touch. Unaware of the shotgun falling but only seeing the need in his eyes. She goes back quickly, hungrily. He moves to meet her to hold and never let go. Not now. Not ever. The equilibrium shifts the furthest yet. He is a monster but the man inside in him finds her head to grip and hold with the gentle power of a beast thrumming through his arms and heart. He doesn’t let her go. He will never let her go. He will stand through time to be here now with her lips on his that makes his heart soar with pure emotion surging through his body. He kisses her with the gentle touch of a lover but with the hunger of a thing that felt love once and gave love once and now gives that love again. He knows they will die here today and he will take that second death without complaint for the honour of knowing her, for the grace of her laugh, for the beauty of her heart that gave him sanctuary. For cleaning him. For feeding him. For the care and the love. For the gentle touch and the soft voice and the words she said that he never understood. He will follow and stand behind her when she spits in His eye then walk at her side into the fires of hell. He’d take every pain from her body if he could. He’d tell her to run while he held the line except there is nowhere left to run.

It lasts for eternity, for always, forever. It should never end because love is endless but all things must end and by force of the situation they part. The world starts turning and the second unfreezes to bring back the reality of the infected charging from both sides. She opens her eyes. Her pupils dilated, unfocussed. She breathes open mouthed, stunned to the core of what a real kiss feels like, of what a man feels like. A real man. A dangerous monster. Her dangerous monster.

They are coming. They’re closer now. He bends to lift the shotgun. She grips the machete. Ragged breathing fills the air. Feet pounding. They come into view. Their rage is staggering, projecting a hunger that is designed to give fear so the host bodies can be tracked and found. On they come so full of hatred that it warps their beings from once being human to something else. Something dark and corrupt. Something tainted and broken that doesn’t have the right to live in this world.

They go to meet them. Paco charging out with the shotgun held like a club. Heather snarling her own fury with the machete held out and ready. They go to make the lane run with blood to buy a few more seconds of life for the children that cower exhausted and beaten on the ground.

Paco hits first. His legs longer, his stride greater, his strength and speed more honed to run and fight. He slams into them, swinging the heavy shotgun round, sweeping the front ranks off their feet and back into those behind. He goes to work, fuelled with a kiss that gave energy that gives strength back to his body that’s mutated and made different. He slams the shotgun, knocking them back with dull thuds that hammer into skulls.

Heather hits a second after him. Pure unbridled glory surging through her veins. The machete rams into the neck of one that drops. She spins and takes another one down. Kicks and fells a third. She stamps and moves, ducks and slices with a blade made dull. She hammers and fights with a scream that fills the lane. They come harder, pushing into her. A hand lashes out snapping her head over. She head-butts out, driving it back enough to get her foot up into the belly that makes it bend double so the machete can come down on the skull. She lashes left and right, cutting flesh and felling them with a strength she never thought possible. Pain in her leg. She jumps back seeing a flash of a mouth snapping to bite her again. She hammers down with the hilt dropping the creature. Two minutes now. She knows it in the depths of her mind. She is bitten. The blood will be in her, changing her cells, making her one of them. Now she goes wild. Fighting with a frenzied rage unleashed. She drives fingertips into eyes and now without the worry of being infected she bites down into soft necks to tear arteries open with her teeth.

Paco snaps one then grabs another that is hefted and thrown into more. His right hand grips the hair of a woman that is ripped off her feet and sent flying back into the horde. Nothing will pass him. He refuses it. He denies it. He stamps and swings the shotgun to batter into faces that burst apart. He hits so hard the shotgun breaks in two. He drops it to revert to hands the way he did before. Punching and hitting. Swatting and snapping necks. He stamps and throws them back and the lane runs with blood.

How long now? She doesn’t know. She knows only that the pain will come so she gives what she can while she still has life. She drinks tainted blood from the arteries bitten out. Her chin runs thick and crimson. Her fingers gouge and tear flesh. She’s beaten back but the infected pay for every inch given with their own blood. She wills greater strength. She wills to be faster to hurt more to fight back. She gains it too. She gains that which she wishes and rallies with a surge of power that make her eyes wide and crazed. There is just this. Just to destroy them and give the children a chance to breathe another breath.

Subi covers the others. Her body pressing into them, her arms wide to hold them behind her. She will be the first to go when they break through and she will go screaming and hitting to protect her family. She sees Heather bleeding. She sees Heather spitting a chunk of flesh from her mouth and biting deep into the throat of another while gripping two with her hands to stop them getting past. She sees Heather taking punishment and giving her life. Her head twitches to see Paco and the greater number of bodies felled by him. He rages with something that isn’t human but isn’t them either. That gap closes. They get beaten back. The space around Subi grows smaller. She closes her eyes to summon the faces of her mother and father. She prays for them that their rebirth will be soon and perhaps one day they will meet again. She prays that Amna will come back as she is. Strong and defiant. She prays that Rajesh will laugh in his new life as much as did in this one. She prays they will find peace and the world will follow the path it has been set. All things have purpose. All things have reason. Life doesn’t end at death but keeps going for always. Truth is eternal. Love is forever. She gives love for her kin and holds them behind her with the truest courage of all.

Teeth on Heather’s arm. Teeth on her shoulder. She wrenches to break free and scythes the weapon round to fend them back. The blade strikes flesh but the edge is gone. It is but a club to beat them with. She screams out again and swings harder. She punches into a nose making it burst apart with a hot shower of blood. She stamps down breaking toes. She kicks shins and legs out.

Subi watches them. Her eyes opening from the prayer but seeing a thing that isn’t possible. Seeing two holding back many. Two people taking punishment that should be killing them but they don’t die. Instead they fight and keep going, getting faster and stronger, getting nastier and more vicious. She sees the infected fall to the ground to bleed as the night sky fades to a dawn. Paco kills two more. Heather bites one and grabs the hair of another trying to get past. Paco kills another two. Heather kicks into the knees of a female. More killed by Paco. More flung up to be smashed down into the ground. More necks snapped and suddenly there are gaps between the infected.

‘Up,’ Subi sees the gap and struggles to her feet. ‘Raj, get up…Tommy, we can go…get up. Amna, we can go…’

‘GO SUBI…’ Heather screams the words seeing the gaps in the ranks as the infected aim for Heather.

‘We have to go,’ Subi pulls her brother up, pulls Tommy to his feet. Grabs Christian and grunts with the effort of doing what Heather did to make them rise and keep going. The children are beat. There is nothing left within them. Oliver is unconscious. Rajesh can barely open his eyes. ‘Please…get up…Rajesh, you must get up…Tommy help me…’ she tries and fights to lift them with glances at the furious fighting taking place but metres away. She drags Rajesh to his feet and slaps his face, waking him startled and scared. She heaves Ollie up and squats down like Heather did to get the boy over her thin shoulders. Up she goes, grimacing at the effort needed. Amna slaps Christian then slaps Rajesh who blinks at being slapped again. Amna slaps Tommy then slaps Christian again.

‘SUBI GO…’ Heather roars, snatching a glimpse of the children slowly getting up.

Amna slaps Subi then slaps Tommy then Ollie over Subi’s shoulder and carries on slapping until Subi tells her to stop slapping everyone. It does the trick though. Those small hands sting cheeks that make eyes come open.

Paco’s mind also opens. He turns round while swatting one down to see the children getting to their feet but the gaps are not enough. The children will be taken within a second of going in that direction. They can’t come his way either. The dawn is here. Light starts filling the lane giving details to what before were just shapes and silhouettes. The hedge is high and thick, the branches twist and snake round each other forming a tightly woven wall of thorns that will tear the children’s skin apart. Concepts and understanding. Visualisations of ideas from taking an abstract notion through to fulfilment of execution. He spins round and pulls hard with an explosive effort to grab a body that gets lifted and thrown into the hedge. Branches break, a dent is made but not enough. The body he threw was too light and small boned. It needs to be bigger. A woman lunging past him is kicked hard to be sent crashing into the same spot. More get sent that way. Thrown, kicked and hefted. A big man rushes in. Meaty legs, big arms and a solid gut. His neck is broken within a second then lifted spun and sent crashing into the hedge with a splinter of branches and a hole formed.

‘GO,’ his voice. Paco’s voice. American, broken but clear.

‘GO SUBI,’ Heather spots the break in the hedge. Her mouth spraying blood as she screams for them to get away. ‘PACO…COVER ME,’ she sprints hard to grab Amna who is thrown through the gap to land sprawling in the mud on the other side. Rajesh follows, hoisted and thrown. Paco drops back to stand behind Heather, buying seconds for the children to get chucked through. Ollie is ripped from Subi’s shoulders and launched. Tommy is pushed up and through. Christian is grabbed and sails clear to land on Rajesh still trying to roll away. Heather grabs Subi, hefts the girl and plants another kiss on the side of her head. ‘Run and don’t stop…’ she’s thrown hard with a scream of effort from Heather who is taken from her feet by an infected man launching into her. ‘RUN SUBI…’ She bites into the head coming down, tearing an ear off that’s spat aside. Her fingers scrabbling to pop the eyes as Paco’s right foot kicks him away. A flash of movement. Paco’s hand on her top lifting her up once again and sending her through the hedge to land sprawling in the mud. The big man turns with a split second pause to cover the gap with a smile of bloodied teeth and fists clenching at the end of arms that bulge with muscles.

‘RUN…RUN…’ Heather’s on her feet, grabbing the children who cry out from the shock and terror. She hefts Subi up and turns the girl to face across the field. ‘Straight across…go…don’t stop….find the fort…Rajesh, go now…Tommy, get your brother…Amna stop slapping…’

A crash behind her. Paco being rammed into the hedge so hard his head pokes through the gap. A rush of infected trying to crawl over him to get through to the children and Heather. She reacts quickly, striding to slam her foot into a face that breaks the nose. She boots again and again. Forcing them back as pain explodes in her toes from the impact.

Subi gets them going. Fear propels them. They start moving in a cluster across the field away from the hedge that shakes from the impact as the remaining infected aim for the hole to bust through. Paco fights on his back, the thorns and splintered wood raking his skin as much as the fingernails slicing deep. Heather kicks and kicks. Grunting wild and frenzied. Blood covers her body but the battle lust to kill and destroy is there. She spots a gap in the hedge above Paco and dives in to plug it with her body. Going head first to scrabble and writhe. Screaming out at the infected biting her arms. ‘PUSH ME…’ Paco’s hands find her body to send her shooting through with a mighty push that sends her flying into them.

Space is formed. Space enough for her to get on her feet and back into them. Space enough for Paco to come roaring up with his arms spread open to drive them back as two fend off many and hold the line to give the children a chance for life. Side by side they give everything they are. Side by side they make the lane run with blood. Side by side they stay as the infected keep coming.

Thirty Eight

Lessons learnt. Subi is intelligent and now the leader. The torch has been passed and she works hard to keep them together, to keep them quiet and to keep them moving. Across the field they go. Feet snagging on ploughed ground furrowed and pitted. Staggering in pain with exhaustion clear on their faces. The sounds of the fight follow them. She glances back seeing Heather launching herself back through the hedge. When she looks again the field is clear and empty, just the snatch of figures moving seen through the hole.

They reach the far side hedge and along to the break at the end that lets the tractor gain access. On again into a new field, following the hedgerow up to a gate. Shaky hands find the clasp and get it open. They get through. Gasping for air but willed on by a young girl who takes the mantle from Heather and carries the responsibility on her shoulders.

She spots the stable block and aims for it. She finds the hose and pulls it out. She finds the tap and turns it to spray the cooling waters the way Heather did. She soaks her group to cool their skin and wet their parched mouths. They drink from the end without knowing if the water is fit for consumption but glugging thirsty and deep. Bellies fill. Skin cools. Grime is sluiced away.

‘Look,’ Tommy nudges her side. Subi looks to the wheelbarrow propped against the side of the stable block and nods at Tommy.

Tommy rushes off, grabbing the barrow to wheel it back. His brother is laid in. Amna goes next. A handle each, Subi and Tommy push the barrow over the paddock to the gate and through onto another tarmacked country lane. The water has bought them time. Time enough to make distance. They push the barrow together. Not a word spoken unless it’s needed to be said. Rajesh falters and starts staggering. Subi guides him into the barrow, adding to the weight she and Tommy need to push but they do. They push and make distance. A simple device. A wheelbarrow fitted with one wheel but it makes the world of difference with the weight shared between two.

They reach the end of the lane and turn into a wider road. Minutes pass. Time goes by. The wheelbarrow is pushed. An engine behind them. They stop and turn to see a white van slowing down to stop a few metres back. A woman gets out the passenger side. Pulled back curly hair atop a friendly face that shows worry at the sight of the children. A man gets out the driver side. Older with greying temples and deep worry lines at the corners of his eyes. The rear sliding door runs back. Another woman comes out. Her eyes fixing on the children and the wheelbarrow.

‘You alone?’ The woman by the sliding door asks, her voice soft.

Subi stares back. Hardened now. She looks at Tommy who shows no expression. Christian at his side. The other three asleep in the barrow. She looks back past the van then off to the direction she came. Listening as though waiting to hear something, listening as though wanting to hear something.

The woman comes closer, slowly and carefully. She can see the exhaustion on the children. The blood stains on their clothes that have been soaked and now cling to their bodies. Bags under sunken eyes. Her heart breaks at the sight. She smiles the way a mother smiles. She slows to speak the way a mother speaks.

‘We’re going to the fort…it’s not far…we can,’ she pauses to look back at the driver who nods quickly. ‘We can take you…’

Subi stares and waits. She listens and waits but knows. There were too many of them. She blinks and looks at Tommy. ‘Please,’ Subi whispers.

‘Okay,’ the woman says, nodding while moving slowly towards them. ‘It’s okay…’ she comes close as though to drop and hug the children but holds back for fear of scaring them. ‘Phil, Sarah…give us a hand?’

‘Sure,’ the driver moves out, smiling sad and warm, his voice deep and re-assuring. Subi stays quiet. Tommy the same. The youngest are lifted sleeping to be carried into the van to be laid gently down. Subi, Tommy and Christian go with them. Wordless, expressionless. They stay close. Holding hands for the comfort of each other as the doors close and the van starts driving to the fort from a vow that was not broken.

Thirty Nine

The field is hard going. Ploughed and furrowed. Pitted and uneven. He stumbles but stays upright. He has to stop. Fatigue pulls him down into the earth to sleep the eternal sleep but he fights and blinks and walks on. Blood oozes from every inch of his body. His clothes hang in shreds. There is no moisture in his mouth. Even the true state of being cannot bring water where there is none to be brought.

He staggers on. Faltering, weak and broken. He reaches the hedge on the far side and down to the gap that lets the tractor gain access. He follows the hedgerow up to the gate that stands open. His eyes close. His mind becomes a black void. He starts to fall but snaps awake at the last second and plants a foot into the earth to stay upright. He sways drunken and ruined but forces himself to keep moving.

He spots the stable block and aims for it. It’s what Heather would have done. She’d know there would be water there. It takes an age to reach. Each step is paid for with real pain that he feels for the first time since he woke in the true state of being. Even his mutated cells cannot keep the agony away. He spots the hose stretched out still trickling water and knows they came through here. They had water. Water would have kept them going. He looks round to the open gate to the lane. They got out. Heather kept them alive. She did it. The vow was honoured.

Heather. Pain in his heart. Heather kept him alive. Heather cleaned him. Fed him. Gave him water. Cared for him. She gave him love when he deserved nothing save a bullet to his head. Heather kept the children alive. Her willpower gave them the strength to keep going. Pain in his heart again. A deep searing agony at what she gave and the cost. The true cost.

He looks down to the form cradled in his arms. Her face now still and unmoving. Her arms hanging limp. Blood everywhere. His blood that drips on her. Her blood that drips on him. Wounds deep and serious in her body. He stands staring, mesmerised at the woman he holds then finally he lowers her like she is made of glass onto the ground and reaches for the hose. He will clean her the way she did for him. He will wash the tainted blood from her skin and rinse the filth from her hair.

The ground runs red. His gentle hand runs over her soft face. The water pours soft through her hair and cascades down over her forehead and down her cheeks to reach her tender lips that gave him his mind back. He holds her with one arm on one knee, cradled and safe. He runs the water over her body and lets it pour to the ground to form crimson puddles. He holds her now and he will hold her forever. Tears in his eyes that fall to score tracks through the grime on his skin. Tears that fall to land on her. She gave him life. She straddled his lap and fed him from tins. He carried her on his back. She slept next to him. They shared life and healed each other. A dangerous monster. Her dangerous monster. Always her dangerous monster. He bends to press his lips so gently against hers. His heart breaking with a pain that will never heal.

He holds still and in that second the greatest fear of all is that she will be kissed and remain still. That fear grows and becomes a real thing when she remains inert and lifeless. His eyes close in rejection of belief and faith in goodness and dreams. His heart breaks to fall and shatter in a thousand pieces and he holds still with a sadness he never believed possible but to know her was worth all the sadness of the world. He knew love. Just once. He felt loved. Just once. Now he knows it again and he gives that love back. She gave light in his darkest of days. She gave hope where there was none to be had. His eyes close from fatigue, from hope being lost, from the tendril of joy at knowing the children got away, from a mind that came back enough for him to feel this loss.

Next to a stable in a paddock a dozen miles from the fort he cradles her body with his lips holding against hers, not wanting to pull away because to pull away will be to accept a thing that is too hard to accept. The water pours through her hair. Her body bleeds but clots faster than a normal person’s would. The water goes into her mouth easing the dryness in her throat. Her lips move. A twitch that stills his heart. She moves again. A hand comes up. Reaching for his neck. She presses in, her lips parting to kiss and hold on for she will never let him go. Not now. Not ever.

He is her dangerous monster.

She is his.

Dear reader,

Thank you for reading Blood on the Floor. I truly hope you have enjoyed the story.

Blood on the Floor is the first standalone book within the world of The Undead. If you are new to this world you will have seen Heather and Paco journey through a land dominated by a man called Mr Howie. The story of Mr Howie is told through the main series in an episodic format commencing with The Undead Day One.

The Undead has become the UK’s best-selling zombie horror and post-apocalyptic series. It is entirely self-published but has gained over 1500 top reviews on Amazon. I am immensely proud of these books and plan to continue both in the main series and in telling stories from within this world.

There will be another Undead Adventure published in the summer (2016). However, if you want to read more of how this world comes to be then please read on. The Undead Day One is at the end of this book.

I love getting feedback from readers. Reviews are essential to Indie authors but you can also find me on Facebook – RR Haywood. I read every message that comes through and try my best to reply.

There is a Living Army Facebook group too, where you can meet other readers, win prizes and share your love of the zombie genre.

Thanks again for reading,

Take care

RR Haywood

April 2016

The Undead

Day One

RR Haywood

rrhaywood.com

Copyright © R. R. Haywood 2012

R. R. Haywood asserts his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

All Rights reserved.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All characters and events, unless those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead (or undead), is purely coincidental.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the copyright holder, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Design, Cover and Illustration by Eddyart.

My name is Howie. I was named after my father Howard, but it became too confusing to have two Howards, so I became Howie.

I am twenty-seven years old and I work as a night manager in a supermarket.

This is my account.

Day One

Friday

One

‘The unseasonably hot weather has caught us all out, not just our store but stores right across the region. Head Office are working round the clock to get the summer seasonal stock out to us. In the meantime, if we get customer enquiries then please, please and I say it again, please direct the customer to our online services and assist them with instore ordering. Also, try to remind them they can purchase online and collect in store…’

My god this is boring. I’m hot and uncomfortable. Being the night manager means most of this doesn't apply to me as I can’t see our usual quota of taxi drivers, drunks and whatever other poor sods coming into the store at night asking why we don’t have our Bermuda shorts on offer yet or why have we only got ten different sun creams instead of over bloody thirty of them.

‘…Onto other news. The morning managers have reported a definite improvement on the readiness of the store for the daily trade. That, in my opinion is down to the appointment of the new nights manager…’

Shit that’s me. This is like being in school when the teacher is droning on and then suddenly stops and looks at you, then everyone else looks at you and you get that fluttery panicked feeling of missing the question.

‘Er…’ I sit up properly instead of slouching back with my legs stretched out. Looking round I can see the other managers are all smiling at me, apart from Paul that is.

‘We have seen an increase in trade during the hours of darkness too,’ the general manager continues, ‘a drop in staff sickness and absence,’ he peers down at a sheet of paper in front of him, ‘wastage has been reduced by over twenty percent and,’ he looks up at me with that genial smile, ‘unbelievably, we have seen an actual increase in sales of our promotional offers during nights which, ladies and gentlemen,’ he casts his eyes round the room, ‘is unheard of for a twenty-four seven store, not only within our chain, but all the major chains.’

I hate that fucking phrase. Twentyfourseven. It’s just so, so…

‘So, Howie, the floor is yours,’ the general manager looks to me, ‘please impart how you have achieved this within three months of being appointed.’

Paul is glaring. Can’t blame him really. He was the night’s manager for twelve months and sat in these meetings every two weeks moaning about how it was all so different at night and “you don’t understand the pressures we’re under.”

Different? Pressure? The only difference is that it’s dark outside and as for pressure, the bloody store hardly has any sodding customers cluttering the place up and making a mess.

‘Ha!’ I start off with a blurt of laughter then inwardly curse at myself for doing it. Yeah great start Howie, really great. ‘Um, well we kind of er…just worked a bit harder?’ I offer while feeling a spreading blush creeping up my cheeks.

‘Specifics Howie,’ the manager asks, urging me share my excellent managerial skills, ‘Head Office are interested and want to know what is being done differently.’

Ooh, that causes a ripple through the shark pool. These career hungry bastards have just heard the words Head Office and interested in the same sentence. To have Head Office interested is either the pre-cursor to a death sentence or something glittery and gold.

Paul isn’t glaring now, the poor sod has dropped his head and looks beat, completely beat, like he’s ready to start making a noose for himself.

‘Specifics,’ I say slowly while rubbing my jaw to try and look all clever and serious, ‘well, er…staff absence is down because er…’ What do I say? The night staff have been the night staff since time began. They are a collection of misfits and folk who, for many reasons, just don’t like working in the day. Be that because they have a general hatred of humanity or an almost vampire like existence, where the sight of the sun would burn them to death, no one knows. I can’t tell the general manager it’s down to the quick poker session we have during the lunch break can I? Shit, that’s really not allowed, like really not allowed.

‘I think it’s only too easy to see the staff simply as resources and not as humans with feelings and emotions,’ Oh shit, stop Howie, ‘so in order to maximise the efficiency of the night staff, I simply make the working environment a nice place to be,’ Howie stop, really stop now, ‘we all get on with each other and er…well I may have bent the odd rule, not broken I hasten to add.’ Jesus, Tesco rules are carved in stone and carry a sentence of death by firing squad.

‘What rules?’ The general manager barks, suddenly losing his enthusiastic persona.

‘Er well, the spreading of breaks is the main one really. I know during the day you have to make sure the break times are staggered but on nights we go down to a skeleton crew which is rotated, and we take our breaks together which helps build a feeling of camaraderie.’

‘Right,’ the general manager nods slowly as though he’s just been told the secret to immortality, ‘wastage?’

‘Wastage?’ I shift again. The reduction in wastage is down to getting barred from the poker game if you break anything, ‘er, just being like, really careful,’ I nod.

‘The increase in promotional sales?’ The general manager prompts. Everyone is staring at me now, apart from Paul who is almost weeping into his mug of tea.

Yeah, the promotional sales. Whoever gets the most gets the first hand for free in the following nights poker game. ‘Promotional sales? Well that’s just down to er, an increase in promotional awareness and outlining the benefits of maximising sales and how those benefits cascade down to everyone.’

‘Good,’ the general manager nods with interest, ‘very good. A rising star in our midst ladies and gentlemen, and someone to watch out for,’ he beams round the room, happy again. Cheers for that, I’ll be testing my tea for poison now and watching out for trip wires next to the big, waste crushing machines. ‘Keep it up Howie and you’ll be back on days before you know it.’

Finally, he turns his attention to someone else as his eyes shift to the produce manager for an update on why sales of turnips have gone down. Thank fuck that’s over.

I hate these meetings but the good thing is that they earn me an extra night off. I work in the day so I can attend the meeting and am allowed to finish early. It’s Friday night so I’ll stick around until my lot start at 9pm then be off home for junk food, sofa and maybe even a couple of beers.

Eventually the meeting ends and suddenly I’ve got a whole bunch of new friends. Even the gorgeous cashier manager gives me a smile which just makes me blush and walk into the back of a chair.

‘Well done Howie,’ Steve the home deliveries manager pats me on the back.

‘Head Office eh?’ Someone else nods meaningfully at me. Duty managers, shift managers, staff managers, more managers than you can shake a stick at but Tesco work to a formula and as much as we all moan about corporate greed, they are bloody good at it.

The only problem with being alternated to work a late shift instead of a night to attend the meeting, is that all the managers are required to be at work at the same time, which translates to no spare office space, no free computers to work from and not even a spare desk to sit at while the rest of them polish their name badges and slick their hair down.

Instead, I stroll about the store and smile at people while carrying some bits of paper. Always works that does.

Five o’ clock and the mass exodus of office people are running out the store to start doing whatever normal people do on Friday nights. I get some office space and a computer and get my shit together as the evening rolls on while listening to my small FM radio broken out of my drawer now the other tie wearing bastards have all gone home. By Nine O’clock I’m pretty much finished and stretching back.

‘…reports from Reuters suggest the riot was sparked by one assailant biting into several members of the public within the shopping centre…’

Did he just say biting? Bloody hell. Grabbing the radio I twist the volume knob and focus on the news report.

‘Details are still sketchy but we do know the area is being flooded with police in an effort to bring order…’

‘Evening Howie,’ glancing up I miss the rest of the report as Bert walks smartly into the office.

‘Bert, how are you?’ I greet the older man with a smile as I start rolling my sleeves up properly.

He gives me a look as he stares at the sleeves half rolled up my forearms and my hasty efforts to correct them.

‘Smartness makes the man,’ he smiles amiably. He’s grey haired and well into his sixties but Bert screams ex-army. His shoes gleam from being relentlessly bulled, his trousers have razor sharp creases running down the front and his sleeves are either down and fastened properly or rolled up above the elbow with exact precision, something he likes to remind me about when he sees me wondering about with mine all over the place. ‘Meeting okay was it?’ He asks, taking a radio from the charging unit.

‘Fine, profits up, wastage down, sickness down…they’re very happy.’

‘Didn’t mention the poker games then?’ He chuckles.

‘Funny that, no I didn’t,’ I laugh as he adjusts his black tie. He is one of the night security guards and holds the coveted position of CCTV controller, staying within the secure room to watch the millions of live feeds from the millions of cameras dotted about the store.

‘Oh well, what they don’t know won’t hurt them. You’re off tonight aren’t you?’

‘Oh yes,’ I grin, locking my fingers together behind my head I stretch out, ‘pizza, beer and my sofa.’

‘Young man like you,’ he tuts, ‘should be out finding yourself a nice woman. Or a bad one,’ he adds with a wink.’

‘Yeah one day… I’m still holding out for the cashier manager, she actually smiled at me today.’

‘Did she now?’ he chuckles, ‘you’d best go buy a ring then.’

‘Yeah alright,’ I laugh, ‘here, have you heard the news? Something about a riot and someone biting…’

‘Caught the tail end of it as I was leaving home, er…somewhere in Europe I think…’

‘Oh, not here then?’

‘God no,’ he shakes his head, storm in a tea cup somewhere.’

‘Oh.’ Losing interest I put my radio down and start getting ready to go. In the corridor I can hear the night staff gradually filing in and there is a definite difference in them. Three months ago and they were sullen, withdrawn and stayed in horrible little cliques. Now though, I can hear them laughing and sharing jokes, all of them avoiding mentioning the poker game for fear of the late shift staff hearing them.

That was it; it was something we have the others don’t. A secret thing that we can all enjoy with a sense of doing it together. The poker games were only ever for a couple of quid and the biggest the pot ever went up to was something like a fiver.

‘Evening.’ Stepping out the office I call down to the men and women gathered by the lockers, getting a chorus of replies in return. Happy people smiling and joking, and it almost makes me want to stay at work. Almost.

‘Mr Howie,’ turning round I see Dave, one of the night shelf-stackers standing there.

‘Dave, how are you?’ I don’t bother trying to correct him calling me Mr Howie, I’ve said it to him loads of times but he still does it.

‘Fine thank you Mr Howie,’ he nods briefly then walks past towards his locker.

‘Dave, we had a meeting today, performance is up, wastage and everything bad is down so er…’ he stares at me with a completely blank face, ‘well the offer is still there if you want to move onto working days.’

‘No thank you,’ he replies dully. A hard working man, exceptionally quiet and reserved he never joined in with the banter, the jokes or anything. He worked and he worked hard. His breaks were kept to a minimum and even during his hour long meal break he’d take enough time to eat and then go back to work. Mind you, no one ever took the piss out of him either. He was small but something about him just discouraged any stupid comments.

‘Okay, well let me know if you change your mind.’

‘Okay Mr Howie.’

‘I’m off tonight.’ He stares at me without expression, ‘so er…have a good night,’ I smile.

He nods and walks off. No personal belongings to put in his locker, no change of clothes and he’s out onto the shop floor to start work.

Wishing them a pleasant evening and getting some mild well-meaning abuse for having a night off, I make my way out and start the walk home.

It’s a beautiful warm night, sultry even, and it feels more like somewhere in Spain than the south of England.

Boroughfare is a nice enough town, close to the sea but inland enough to avoid being classed as a resort town. Mid-size and it’s the same as anywhere else with lots of houses surrounding a town centre.

My place is just off the centre. Noisy, but cheap, and I have the top half of a house with a young couple living underneath me. A residential side street with brick built houses and slate roofs. Average as average can be.

The quickest route is through the side streets but it shaves a minute off the journey at most and tonight is so warm I walk back through the High Street watching the crowds of people moving from pub to pub.

It’s packed, really busy. I guess with the universities on holiday and the hot weather, it’s drawing everyone into the centre. People laughing and singing noisily makes me think of my sister living in London. Sarah is a PA for one of the big investment banks or something like that. She moved there a few years ago and has told me about the Friday and Saturday night networking parties.

Having a rare night off, I kind of feel like I want to join in and be out with the crowds drinking and having fun. It’s not really my scene, I’m not fashion conscious or stylish and I don’t go in for whatever the latest fad is.

Twenty-seven and still shy as hell round pretty girls, and it’s only been the last few years that my hair has started looking even remotely decent. Dark, curly, too long and permanently messy. I don’t work out or do anything other work and piss about at home. I am the average man.

Pausing at the door of the pizza place I spot fat-bloke inside. I’ve never learnt what his name is but I know he likes drinking. He comes into the supermarket most weekends tanked up and swaying while he buys loads of junk food, crisps, chocolate, pies and frozen chips.

I feel bad calling him fat-bloke as he’s a nice man, always polite and jovial, willing to share a joke and never aggressive like some of the drunks are. Looks professional too from the nice suit he’s always got on. It’s just one of those things, time rolls on and you end up meeting people time and again until suddenly it’s too late to be asking their name.

‘Hello mate,’ I grin, joining him at the counter.

‘Hi,’ he grins and even holds a hand out, ‘supermarket man, yeah hi! How are you?’ He’s sober but still really friendly and this early in the evening I can see his tie is done up properly and he looks sharp and switched on.

‘Fine,’ I nod back amiably, ‘night off.’

‘Good for you, having a pizza eh? Don’t blame you, they’re nice here. Have you tried the meat feast?’

‘Oh yes,’ I give him a knowing grin.

‘You enjoy it then? Working at Tesco I mean, I heard they look after their managers quite well.’

‘Yeah it’s not bad,’ I shrug, ‘lucky to have a job these days.’

‘True,’ he sighs, ‘so you out then or off home?’

‘Pizza and home for me.’

‘Really? Young bloke like you on a Friday night? Come and have a beer with me if you like,’ he means it too, not a fake, polite offer but a genuine one.

‘Nah, thanks anyway.’ As much as I’m sure it would be nice, the town centre at weekends really isn’t my scene. Too many pumped up lads wearing tee-shirts two sizes too small for them and women screaming into mobiles phones.

We make small talk until the pizzas are handed over in their lovely warm cardboard boxes. Exchanging polite farewells, I make my way through the town to the side street and down to my flat.

I’m on the first floor so the windows have been left open, but there’s no breeze to speak of.

Television on, quick change of clothes, couple of cold ones from the fridge and within seven minutes of walking in, I’m sat on the sofa eating the first slice of thick crust meat feast while flicking through the channels.

Naturally, being a Friday and off work for the night, I check the movies out first but they’re all old ones I’ve seen many times. Next I check for something funny, but again it’s all repeats, dramas; repeats, documentaries; repeats.

Out of sheer desperation I flick higher through the numbers until I start hitting the news channels and see footage of the riots they mentioned earlier on the radio.

Some of the footage is awful and I mean awful; it’s poor quality and obviously snatched by low resolution cameras in poor light.

Some of it, however, isn’t awful. Some is high definition and taken by someone using a modern phone who at least knows how to hold their hand still. Full colour, full audio and utterly shocking. People with obvious injuries run by, wounds to their faces and necks, bleeding with noses or ears ripped away. Police officers fire handguns into crowds of bystanders, then more police officers using shotguns and assault rifles.

Swat teams and riot police are deployed and it strikes me that in this modern age the police look the same the world over.

What was obvious was that it was spreading and even I started to recognise some of the places they were talking about. Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany from Eastern Europe into central and the southern countries. Reports from further afield grew as Russian news agencies start reporting mass civil uprisings.

The news anchors were in heaven. You could see it in their faces and I bet the notes they were making on the bits of paper in front of them were in preparation for whatever awards news agencies give each other. Fingers pushed into ears as the anchors listened to producers.

When the main news channels show disasters, they seize on one or two bits of footage and loop it over and over while going through their lists of experts to either phone up or get them into the studio.

With this event it was different. They were swamped with footage and after the first hour or so I don’t think I saw the same bit twice.

As the night wore on all the news channels stuck to that one story and I listened with interest as they talked about civil uprising and how the recession had led to millions of people becoming dissatisfied with the austerity measures imposed by corrupt politicians.

The funny thing is that I was quite calm at first, thinking all these places were a billion light years away and just weird, crazy European cultures having a squabble that would never, could never, affect this country.

England, however, has a long history with rioters and it wasn’t long before I was starting to think maybe all those council estate kids in London might flare up again and starting looting JD Sports and Argos.

The one thing that did scream out was the reports of the amount of people biting each other. As those details started to come through, you could tell the news anchors were starting to worry.

That worry increased as the violence spread out into Western Europe, hitting countries like Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium and France.

France? Bloody hell. That’s only a few hours away from where I live. Yeah fair enough you’ve got to get a ferry or a train under the channel…The Channel Tunnel. The tunnel that connects France to England.

Shit. The realisation seemed to hit across the board. News anchors were loosening ties, unbuttoning top buttons of shirts, sleeves were getting rolled up. This is getting serious.

There’s no mistaking the next bit of footage, the bloody Eiffel Tower is in the background with masses of people running and screaming. More gunshots; pistols first then the sustained firing of automatic weapons.

Suddenly the reasons given for it change. The anchors start talking about pandemics, contagions and a fast acting virus spread by airborne particles or transferred by bodily fluids. Time and again witness reports were stating people were being bitten to death, only they didn’t stay dead, they got back up and started biting other people.

My pizza is half eaten, the first can of beer only half way through. This isn’t the Friday night I expected to be having, slouched back with my feet on the coffee table.

Instead I’m on the very edge of my sofa staring with wide eyes for I have never seen anything like this. Censorship has been thrown out of the window and the raw footage of people being killed is sickening.

I can’t help myself flick up and down the channels trying to see the difference between the news reports but it’s all the same. When the first channel starts to transmit the technical error message I don’t really pay too much attention but flick past it in a hurry to see the developments.

Then Euronews goes down, the screen just blank for a few minutes until the technical error message appears.

Sky News reports they are losing contact with outside agencies, BBC News loses satellite connections. Things start breaking, phone calls drop out and for the first time in what is probably television history, the news anchors start to panic.

With a shock I realise it’s gone one o’clock in the morning, I’ve been glued to the television for hours then it dawns on me just how fast this thing is spreading.

‘…still we have received no government updates. This is a live request for any government official with knowledge or advice to be given to the people of the United Kingdom to make contact with either our news department or any of the main broadcast news agencies…’

Fuck me. They’re asking for the government to get in touch, literally asking if anybody is watching to phone them.

Flicking through the channels, the same request is being made live by multiple news anchors as they beg for someone to tell them what to do.

My stomach is churning, I feel sick with worry. Sarah, my sister, is in central London and on a night like this she’ll be out in some swanky wine bar. Paris is only about an hour train ride from London.

Got to call her. Tell her to get home and lock the doors.

No signal on my phone. The circle with the bar through it is in the corner indicating no network coverage. I live right by the town, the coverage here is excellent. I turn it off and back on hoping it’s my phone playing up.

It isn’t. Still no signal. Landline then. I dust the thing off and have to use my mobile phone to find Sarah’s number. I’m halfway through pushing the numbers before I realise there is no dial tone. Nothing, just an empty faint hiss.

I press the clicker down several times but that makes no difference. Tracing the cable, it’s still connected in the wall.

Several times I try the mobile and the landline, dialling numbers but both are inactive. Even 999 doesn't work.

Pacing about my small lounge, I glance back at the television. What I see stops me in my tracks. Sky News, BBC News, ITV News, all of them are gone. Just blank screens from one channel to the next. Flicking through, there are no channels broadcasting now, just blank screen after blank screen. Even the technical error messages are gone.

What do I do? No mobile, no landline. No contact with anyone. My parents live in the next town along, just a few miles away but at this time of night they’ll be tucked up in bed.

With the television off and just standing there thinking frantically, I hear the noise from outside quite clearly. Footsteps, heavy and going fast. Someone running.

At my lounge window I peer right then left until I see someone running down the street coming away from the town centre.

A big man by the looks of it but he’s still shifting quickly despite his size. As he gets closer, I spot him giving fast furtive glances behind him. The closer he gets the clearer I see those glances are panicked and worried, like someone is chasing him.

Fat-bloke! Definitely him. Running down my street in his smart suit. The tie is pulled down now and several of the top buttons of his shirt are undone.

I catch movement back in the shadows further up the street. Leaning out I can see several more people running in the same direction, only they are going much faster than he is and gaining quickly.

It seems to be them he’s running away from because as they get closer he gets more panicked. Even in the street lights I can see his face is flushed bright red and he’s breathing very hard. Poor bastard will have a heart attack if he doesn't slow down.

Coming into the light and the groups dynamics scream out. The way they’re running all stiff legged and weird with no clear cohesion to their movements. The same manner of movement I saw on that footage. But this is Boroughfare, a small market town in the middle of bloody nowhere. How the hell can this get affected?

Fat-bloke is muttering in panic now, whimpering as he senses the group are gaining.

‘HERE,’ I yell out, waving my arms to draw his attention. He hears me and stares round in shock so I have to keep shouting until he can get the direction.

My front door is locked, he won’t be able to get through. A couple of quick steps and I’m out my lounge and into my tiny hallway opening my flat door. Down the stairs, pass the door to the downstairs flat and I get to the main front door, wrenching it open to step outside.

He’s still a little way off and clearly struggling to maintain speed. With my front door ajar I run down the garden path and into the street, waving my arms for him and shouting for him to keep going.

They’re bloody close to him now, maybe five or six of them, men and women and all of them dressed like they’ve just come from the town.

The next few seconds are a blur. Fat-bloke seems to realise he’s done for and has no more running left in him. Coming to a quick stop, he turns to lash out but the way they all dive into him takes him off his feet within the blink of an eye.

Not a rugby tackle or something from the sports field, but full on hurtling headfirst into his body, the whole lot of them doing it at the same time.

Fat-bloke screams, a high pitched wail full of pain that freezes the blood in my veins. I start moving towards him but even from this distance I can see the people are tearing at his flesh with their teeth. Fucking hell, they’re actually biting him, ripping him apart with their mouths, tearing into his face, neck and arms. His clothes are bloodied and stained within seconds. Blood is everywhere as it soaks into the ground and sprays on the attackers in powerful pumps.

‘WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?’ An old man in his pyjama’s is striding out of his front door, angry and shouting that he’s going to call the police, ‘I’M BLOODY SICK OF YOU LOT COMING FROM THE TOWN AND BLOODY FIGHTING EVERY NIGHT.’

The speed they move from fat-bloke to old man is frightening, like a pack of animals that suddenly wants the fresh meat instead of the carcass on the ground. Up they burst and into him with the same frenzied manner.

He screams out in rage at first, then fear which quickly becomes the same wails of pain that the fat-bloke gave off.

I’ve got to do something. I feel compelled to help but there’s nothing I can do. Starting to step backwards towards my front garden, I get the overwhelming sensation to go slowly in case they see me.

Lights come on a few doors away from the group and a thick set man comes flying the front door in his boxer shorts while brandishing a baseball bat. He doesn't hesitate but goes straight at them, whacking left and right as he tries to bat them off the old boy. Wincing from the sound of wood striking skulls, I watch as they get hit hard, stagger away but quickly recover and switch their attention from the old man they were just eating to this new one.

He hits out and gets some good shots, really good shots. The sort of shots that would see the average man going to hospital with a fractured skull, but they don’t flinch and within seconds he’s off his feet and on the ground too. I didn’t see his wife come out but there she is, phone in hand while she screams at them to leave him alone. She even tries grabbing the long hair of a female attacker to pull her away but just gets lunged at instead. The female attacker launches up to bite straight into the woman’s face. She holds her ground and for a second the pair of them stagger around while thrashing violently. Screams and howls fill the air, more people rushing from homes, lights coming on and shouts of alarm, people yelling that they’re calling the police.

Back at my gate now and I’m steadily creeping back to my front door. The attacking group have moved further into the street and seem to lunge from person to person as quickly as they come running out of their homes.

Glancing right, I see fat-bloke going from prone to sitting up in what must be his first sit-up in fifteen years. Slowly, he gets to his feet and I stop creeping back, thinking maybe if he gets up he can still get inside my house before they see him again.

On his feet now and he staggers round, legs heavy and awkward. Blood streams down his face, down his front and all over his ripped suit.

Waving silently, I try to get his attention without calling out. As he turns towards me I get the creeping realisation of how utterly stupid I am. Having watched hours of footage and hearing over and over again how people are getting bitten to death and then getting back up and here I am, having watched someone getting bitten to death and now he’s got back up and I’m waving at him like a bloody lunatic.

His head is lolling in a random jerky manner, arms hanging loosely and like the others, he walks with stiff legs that don’t seem to bend at the knees. It’s like he’s got no control over his fine motor skills. The most striking thing is the eyes, the red, bloodshot eyes that catch the light from the sodium lights overhead.

Out in the quiet residential street in front of my building and I realise coming out here was a stupid thing to do. I sprint for my front door as I see Simon, my downstairs neighbour, coming out of his flat.

‘What’s going on?’ He looks half asleep, dressed in tracksuit bottoms with no top on.

‘Get back inside,’ reaching the front door I try to push him back and close it, he recoils at the contact to stare at me with distaste.

‘What’s up with you?’ He asks, ‘what’s going on?’

‘Get the door shut and keep your voice down.’

‘Don’t tell me what to do,’ he sneers. I’ve not had much contact with my neighbours Simon and Laura, but what little I’ve had has left me thinking the bloke is a bit of a prick.

‘Mate, seriously, close the fucking door,’ I glance back while Simon keeps a firm grip on the handle, refusing to let me shut it, ‘Simon, everyone is biting each other and...’

‘What?’ He scowls, ‘you pissed up?’

‘No! Close the fucking door,’ I try pulling it from his grasp.

‘Simon, I’m trying to sleep,’ Laura appears in the doorway of their flat in her bra and knickers.

‘Howie’s pissed,’ Simon says as though it explains everything.

‘No I’m not,’ I reply, still trying ineffectually to get the door closed. Thing is, being an average English bloke, I don’t want to physically push him away. Making bodily contact with someone else like that is heavily frowned upon. I know he wants to push me away too but is holding back, so we end up playing tug of war with the front door.

‘Well I’m telling the landlord tomorrow,’ Laura shouts, ‘I’ve had enough of this…’

‘Shut up!’ I say, turning to see fat-bloke now shuffling through the garden gate towards us.

‘Don’t you fucking tell my bird to shut up.’

‘I’m not your bird,’ Laura says pointedly.

‘Oh fuck…Please…Get this door shut, he’s coming…’

‘Who?’ Simon looks past me to the garden path, ‘what him? What’s he gonna do? Sit on ya?’

‘Oh Christ mate, just shut the door…please…’

‘Who’s he on about?’ Laura steps out to join Simon looking down the path. ‘He’s covered in blood. ‘Ere mate, you alright? Simon, ask him if he’s alright.’

‘You alright mate?’ Simon calls out, ‘you been hurt?’

‘Oh god,’ I murmur backing away from the door.

‘Fucking pussy,’ stepping out, Simon walks slowly towards fat-bloke, ‘Christ mate, what happened? You get beaten up?’

‘Did he get beaten up?’ Laura asks, ‘Simon, ask him if he got beaten up.’

‘I did!’

‘I’ll call an ambulance,’ she disappears inside her flat, coming back with her mobile held in front as she jabs her thumb at the screen.

‘Simon, get back inside,’ I plead.

‘Oh man up,’ Laura snaps while staring in frustration at the phone, ‘bloody network,’ shaking her head she disappears back into their flat.

‘SIMON,’ I scream in warning but it’s too late. Fat-bloke, as slow and as waddling as he was, bursts to life and charges with incredible speed for the last couple of metres giving Simon no time to react. Head first he barrels into my neighbour and is already sinking his teeth into his neck as they fall to the floor.

This time I react with instinct and run towards them, grabbing at fat-bloke in an effort to pull him off but his sheer weight prevents me doing anything. In desperation I start beating down on his head as he bites deeper into Simon’s neck.

‘GO BACK,’ I shout as Laura comes running out screaming in panic, she goes straight for the man attacking Simon, grabbing at his arms in a vain effort to pull him away.

Growling behind me, like the sound of a dog. Turning, I see more of them charging across the street heading towards us.

‘Laura, now…go now,’ I try pulling her arm but she lashes out, striking me in the face. Trying again I grab and pull but she’s determined to keep attacking fat-bloke. Simon has gone quiet and already I can see his face has gone pale. Blood everywhere, all over me and Laura and coating fat-bloke to the point it drips out from his mouth and down his chin.

The ones that attacked fat-bloke come charging through the gate. With no other choice I run back to the front door feeling like a complete coward for leaving Laura on her own. But I know what’s coming and there was no way on earth I was going to shift her.

Slamming the front door shut, I just catch a glimpse as Laura screams at the people for help. In her panic she doesn't see the blood or the injuries they carry.

Reaching my flat door on the first floor, I get inside to slam it closed before moving into the lounge to stare down out the window. The sight is incredible and the noise will stay with me forever.

Laura is on her back, wearing just bra and knickers with a huge group of already bloodied people pushing their heads into her body, lips pulled back revealing teeth like a wolf would do. Those mouths bite down into any part of her flesh they can access; legs, arms, neck, torso. One even bites deep into the top of her breast, tearing a chunk of flesh away.

She screams and thrashes her legs and arms before being pinned by the body weight of those attacking her.

Scanning the street, it looks like a war zone, like a huge movie set. More lights in houses are on now, bodies all over the place and people running about screaming and being chased by single people or groups. Several get taken down as more of the attackers start charging into front doors. The screams and wails of women and children mix with the deeper, harsher tones of men.

The worst sound, the very worst sound, is when Laura goes quiet. The life blood within her system drains to the point she either dies or passes out and with her voice gone I can hear the flesh being ripped from her bones, a squelching biting noise that reminds me of listening to a dog eating.

The first heave comes without warning. The sight of so many dead and torn up bodies is too much to handle and the vomit propels from my mouth out the window and onto the ground below, hitting with a wet splat. Half-digested pizza, beer and bile all mixed in, burning my throat and making my eyes water.

Hearing how much noise I just made, I jolt back to duck down but the damage is done. After heaving the rest of my gut onto my lounge carpet, I kneel up and peer down to see blood-soaked, torn and ragged faces staring up at me. Fat bloke wasn’t the only one to have the red, bloodshot eyes.

They all have them

Two

So here I am. Having puked my pizza onto the ground below my window, and then some more over my carpet, I am tucked down and hiding from the…from the things outside.

Breathing hard, I risk another glance and immediately drop back down. They’re still there and I can hear them now as well. Animalistic growling and hissing, all mixed in with pain filled groans.

‘Bollocks,’ I mutter in a voice at the sight of the horde gathering down there. What do I do? Shit. Shit shit shit.

Grabbing a coffee mug from the low table behind me, I go back to the window and pull my arm back, causing the cold remains of my coffee to splash in my face, making me spit and stagger around. I launch the mug hard at Old Pyjama Man. Good shot, I congratulate myself. It hits him straight in the face and he gets knocked back onto his arse.

Turning around, I look for something else to throw. The remote control for the television is the closest object so that gets launched out too and smacks Laura on the shoulder but she doesn't flinch.

Anything within reach is grabbed; books, DVD cases, even an empty vase gets launched hard and hits a woman on the head, shattering into fragments. She goes down and I watch in horror as more of them walk over the vase’s broken glass, the shards lacerating their feet, but they don’t stop moving.

Missiles get launched one after the other which does nothing to stop them but makes me feel a whole lot better.

Movement ripples through them as they start pushing into the communal hallway, having got through the main front door.

I run back to my flat door … still closed and locked. I look for items to barricade it, but my hallway is small, with no furniture.

Running into my bedroom, I grab my bedside drawers and carry it back, putting it behind the front door. I stand back and proudly view my barricade. One small chest of drawers, which cost me about fifteen quid from my mum’s catalogue, defends me from a horde of blood thirsty undead . I need more.

In the lounge, I sweep the flat screen television off the solid, wooden cabinet and start to drag it towards the door, but the DVD player and satellite box are still in the cabinet, plugged into the wall. The cabinet refuses to budge, the wires taut and holding. I open the glass doors and yank them out, forcing the leads to break while I swear foully under my breath. The cabinet is stacked behind the door and I spend the next few seconds trying to position the chest of drawers on top of it before realising that one cabinet and one chest of drawers won’t be stopping anyone.

Next, the low coffee table is added to my barricade. I keep going, dragging or carrying whatever I can find until I get my heavy double mattress and stuff that into the pile. It’s not great, but it will slow them down.  My stomach plummets as I step back and hear the first thumps and bangs coming from the other side of the door. Running back into the lounge I check out the window.

Beneath me is a large crowd of them that can’t get into the front door as the hallway is crammed. They are still trying to move forward though, pressing into each other with groans and weird animal noises.

There must be dozens of them, crowding towards the front of the building, with more coming from across the street.

Nothing else for it but back to Howie’s missile launching. I look around and see the DVD player on the floor, pick it up, raise it high, then slam it down into the middle of the crowd as hard as I can. It smashes into the head of one of them, amid the heart of the throng. I can’t tell if it was a man or woman, but I see it go down and its space is quickly filled as they all push forward again.

Then I do the same again with the satellite receiver box, smashing it down into the middle of the crowd. I don’t wait to see the damage, but instead I run around the flat, grabbing anything small enough to throw.

In the kitchen, I spot the kettle. It is an electric, stainless steel one, nice and heavy. I grab it and start back to the lounge, stopping after a few steps to turn back to the kitchen where I quickly fill the kettle with water and switch it on.

I grab everything I can: pans, plates, cups, bowls, the sugar and coffee pots and the bread bin. They are all carried into the lounge and dumped by the window before I scurry back for more missiles.

The kitchen is filled with steam when I go back in for more items and I realise I’d forgotten to put the lid on when I filled the kettle. Grabbing at it too hard, I splash hot water onto my hands, scalding my skin and which just makes me swear even more.

Back at the window and I slowly pour the hot water down onto the upturned faces, watching as the water sizzles onto bare skin, sending small clouds of steam up, which has absolutely no effect, other than washing some of the blood from them.

Boiling hot water, straight onto them, and no effect … maybe it cools by a few degrees as it falls, but still, it would have scalded them badly.

In desperation, I raise the kettle above my head and throw it down as hard as I can. It strikes with a loud whack and another body drops out of sight.

Yeah, that’s better, much better. Blunt trauma beats hot water.

I take a heavy ceramic pot from the pile and throw it down hard. It strikes a shoulder and the impact is enough to make the body stumble. The press of bodies causes it to lose its footing and it’s gone from view, trampled underfoot as the space is quickly filled.

A frying pan is next and I launch it down; it hits one on the head but bounces off with a metallic dong; no damage.

I grab items quickly and take my shots; it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. I have never been in a fight, never caused physical injury to another person before in my life, but I am now. I’m slamming everything I can find down and watching as they impact on the heads of the undead beneath me.

Some shots are good. The toaster was great, nice and heavy and straight onto the bald head of a man – he goes straight down but, again, the space is quickly filled.

I keep going, fury and anger driving me to scream abuse at the ragged faces.

Within minutes, my pile is diminished and I’m breathing hard from the exertion. The front of the house is littered with household objects and I can see some bodies lying about, but there is still a large crowd of them pushing forward.

There are more loud bangs coming from my front door, sporadic and not aimed, but determined. It won’t take long before the door is forced by the sheer press of bodies; the barricade will slow them down, but only for a short time.

My bedroom looks out over the front; the kitchen and bathroom are at the back, they’ve both got windows but both are far too small to climb through.

I search for anything left to throw. My gaze falls onto the gas hobs and I think about the hot water. Then I remember reading books about medieval times when they poured hot oil from castles onto the invaders.

Finding a bottle of vegetable oil in the cupboard gives me a small sense of victory before I realise all my saucepans are now in the front garden. I have nothing left to use to heat the oil. My microwave is still there, but I have no pots or bowls.

I think of throwing the microwave, but I know its useless now. It might drop two at best, but that still leaves lots more.

A sense of doom comes over me as I head back into the lounge and over to the window. My lighter is still in the corner of the sill, taunting me. I gave up smoking a few weeks ago as I was getting hard looks from the senior managers every time I popped out for a smoke. Jesus, I could do with a smoke right now.

I might not have any cigarettes but I have got alcohol, and maybe that will lessen the horror of what’s to come. Strolling slowly into the kitchen, I reach up for the bottle of brandy on top of the fridge and give thanks that I didn’t think to grab it in my hunt for missiles.

I take the bottle back to the lounge window, watching the undead beneath me as I raise the bottle to my lips.

Brandy is flammable … right?

So I could use it like a Molotov cocktail … it might burn the house down but I’m pretty much dead already – it’s only a matter of time before they get in.

I dash into the bedroom and tear some strips from my pillowcase, stuffing them into the brandy bottle to soak the amber liquid up, then pulling them out. I’ve seen this done in movies and feel confident of how to do it – you light the end and throw the bottle, what could be harder?

At the lounge window, I hold the bottle with the brandy-soaked strips of material dangling limply from its mouth.

‘Have some brandy, fuckers …’

My cool and witty one-liner quickly becomes a yelp as the wick flares instantly and bursts into flames. In my panic, I throw the bottle down into the crowd; it hits one on the head and bounces down to roll about unbroken, cushioned by the stupid fat-head that it struck on the way down.

That’s it. My last good idea cocked up. But within a few seconds, I see smoke coming up from the crowd, then a whooshing noise with flames licking up between the bodies.

It’s only in a small, confined space, but I can see the black smoke and watch as the flames cause them all to start moving about. The groaning gets louder too but the press of bodies is so tight they can’t move away. A couple of them are on fire now, the flames dancing up as clothing catches alight.

This is disgusting. I thought it would be good to watch them burn, but it’s still a human form on fire and it makes me feel sick. The smell is awful, a mixture of alcohol and burning flesh.

I start to gag and move away from the window as thick, black smoke billows up into the lounge. I’m coughing and retching, bent over, puking up bile and wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

A faint noise penetrates the sound of my coughing. As it grows stronger I try and stay still to listen. A car horn, and coming closer by the sound of it. Lurching to the window I try and look out but the smoke is too much, so I go into the bedroom and pull the curtains down to see an armoured security van in the middle of the road.

The van is stationary but as I open the window I hear the engine ticking over. The horn sounds out again, loud and clear in the still night air. The bodies jerk round and immediately start staggering towards the van.

‘HERE, OVER HERE,’ I lean out the window screaming and waving at the van in the road.

They continue to break away, charging at the vehicle, which rolls forward a short distance while sounding the horn. The undead move faster, stumbling and jerking after the van.

The crowd is thinning. There are a couple of bodies on fire on the ground, and one undead has just caught alight but is still moving away towards the van, which sounds the horn repeatedly and keeps rolling forward.

There is a massive crowd of them coming up the road following the security vehicle, and the numbers quickly swell as the things from my house stagger over to join them.

The van waits for them to get close, then rolls forward a few more feet. The undead crowd get close, then the reverse lights come on and the van goes backwards at speed, slamming into the dense crowd, causing a backwards ripple effect into the horde as the front of the crowd loses its forward momentum. Then the van shoots forward again and continues with the horn.

The bodies left mangled on the ground from the van slamming into them are simply trampled by the horde chasing after the van.

They are pouring out of my front door and into the road. The van slowly moves away, still sounding the horn – like the pied piper of the undead.

I watch as more and more undead file past my house in the wake of the van. The fat man and Laura are with them but Simon’s corpse is left on the path in front of my house. Within minutes the street has cleared.

Three

I wait at the window, listening to the noise from the van ebbing away. Stunned and silent, the after effects of the excitement and adrenaline have left me shaken; my hands tremble as I rub my face, reeling from all that has happened.

I can’t stay here, it isn’t safe. They have gone for now, but they could come back.

My parents live about a fifteen-minute drive away. I live in Boroughfare, a small coastal town. Brighton is not too far away and London is a two hour drive – that’s where my sister is. She took a job as a PA for a banking company a few years ago.

My parents have a detached house in a nice, quiet area. They always go to bed early and I know they lock the doors, so maybe they’re okay.

My mind is made up … I’ll head across town to my parents’ house.

I look at my watch. It’s almost 4.30 a.m. Being mid-July, the sun will be up in half an hour or so. I need to get moving while I’ve got a chance. I don’t own a car, so unless I can find something to drive, I will have to walk.

In the hallway I stand staring at the barricade; I don’t know if any of them are left out there. I think about removing the barricade, but I’m too scared of what I might find.

I go into my bedroom and pull the sheet from the bed, then another sheet from the airing cupboard, then tie them together with a duvet cover. I go to the window and look outside to make sure it’s still clear.

The lounge window overlooks the main door, so if I climb out the lounge window I won’t be able to see if they are in the communal hallway. The bedroom window is a few feet away and will give me a chance to run if they come out of the front door.

I tie the bed sheet onto the leg of my double bed and drop the sheets down. They reach to a couple of feet above the ground.

Weapon, I need a weapon if I’m going out there. In the kitchen I root through the drawers to find my biggest carving knife with a nice sharp pointed blade.

I put this into my belt, with the blade resting against my leg. Then an image of me lying on my back with the knife sticking in my leg fills my mind. I need a sheath, but kitchen knives don’t have sheaths. I find the small rucksack that I use for work and put the knife into the main compartment, leaving the top open, and I try to wedge the knife into the top zip so that the handle is left out, with the blade in the bag.

I put the bag on my back, but it hangs down too low – I can’t reach the handle. I tighten the straps and raise the bag further up my back so I can reach back with my hand and grasp the handle.

In the kitchen drawer there is a claw hammer and I put this into my belt; at least I have something that I can use. I think back to the man in boxer shorts hitting them with a baseball bat. He hit them hard and they got knocked away, but they came back. So I know that hitting them won’t kill them, but maybe it will buy me a few seconds to run.

I go back to the bedroom window and start to climb over the sill, grasping the bed sheets with both hands. I wait, sitting astride the window ledge, listening and looking up and down; no noise and no movement. The night’s veil is just starting to lift. Only a few minutes until sun up. I don’t know if that is a good thing or not.

I need to go but I’m bloody terrified.

The final act of leaving the safety of my home is almost too much for me to contemplate. Then I look down at the still smouldering remains of the undead; blood and carnage everywhere. A few bodies are lying still. They must have been the ones I knocked down when the crowd was pushing forward – they have been trampled to death, but then they were already dead, so they have been trampled to death again … what do you call that? How can they be killed twice?

I guess that maybe the injuries were too much for the bodies to keep functioning. The spine? It must be that the spine was broken as they went down. Maybe their necks were snapped by all of the undead feet driving down on them.

I have to go, staying here isn’t an option. Hesitancy steals over me again. The news said this was everywhere.

Shaking my head, I clamber over the ledge until my feet are hanging down, then I start to lower myself with my hands.

I feel extremely vulnerable now with my legs dangling beneath me, and I keep looking around as I lower myself, imagining that one of them will come out of the door and bite my ankle to drag me down to my death.

As soon as my feet touch the ground, I move away from the building into the road, the hammer out of my waistband and in my hand.

At ground level, I get a close-up view of the frenzied attacks. Blood stains are everywhere and a white car is parked just a few feet away with bloody handprints smeared across the bonnet.

A crash occurs behind me and I see one of the undead stagger out from my front door, slipping on the wet blood, but coming straight at me. That’s enough for me, I’m off giving it billy big legs. I glance behind me to see that he’s dropping away. As unfit as I am, I am outrunning him as his jerky, uncoordinated motion means he cannot keep up. I keep sprinting until I feel my lungs will burst and my legs are hurting. I slow down and look back, but he is gone from sight.

I keep walking fast, sticking to the middle of the road, looking left and right, my ears straining for any noise. The quickest route is straight through town and down the High Street, then off onto the main road.

A few minutes later I reach a side street that feeds into the town centre. I edge forward slowly until I reach the building line. The sun is almost up now, as the night sky gradually ebbs away.

Birds are singing and seagulls are flying overhead. I move cautiously, one step at a time as the High Street comes more into view.

To the right is clear, but the left isn’t, and my heart sinks as I see an enormous crowd of them gathered around the armoured security van that had led them away from my house.

The van is in the middle of the road, but I can’t see why it stopped – it doesn’t look like it crashed. The van is surrounded now; maybe there were just too many bodies to drive through.

I watch as a roof hatch opens and a man climbs out. He stands on the roof of the vehicle looking down at the crowd of undead as they swarm around him, some raising their arms up like fans at a rock concert.

He looks over to me and I stand still, unsure of what to do.

‘RUN,’ he shouts at me.

I take a step forward and he shakes his head. ‘NO, RUN … RUN NOW.’

I don’t know what to do. He saved my life but he is trapped now and I can’t get to him. I can’t just leave him to his death.

The man is still shouting at me to run and his voice is loud but calm, his movements steady and controlled.

How can he be so calm? Looking around, I’m frantically trying to see something that will give me inspiration. Maybe I could get a vehicle and do the same as he did – lure them away with the sound of a horn.

I look back at the van and can see that there are hundreds of the things surrounding him, spread out in a wide circle, all pushing forward. The man is high up on the top. If the undead at the front get trampled down, that will give height to the next row as they push forward. I must hurry.

There are a few vehicles parked up nearby and I move towards them, keeping to the building line, my movements slow and guarded.

I get to the closest car, but it’s locked and secure. This is the town centre and no one in their right mind would leave a car unlocked here. I check other cars nearby, but they are all locked too.

The sky is now much lighter; the sun is almost up. Another few minutes and it will be daylight. With a jolt, I see the pizza restaurant further up the road and remember the conversation I had with fat-bloke just a few hours ago.

He was right there, chatting to me like normal as we ordered food. Dressed in his smart suit and getting ready for a few drinks. The images of his torn flesh flood through my mind, of the blood loss, the arteries opened up, of the horrific noises they made.

I just watched people being killed right in front of me, hell I probably just killed a few myself with that bottle of brandy.

The pizza delivery moped is lying on its side outside the building, the distinctive white delivery box on the back. Before I know what I’m doing, I’m running over and wrenching the thing upright, wincing at the sticky blood on the handles.

With the moped up I turn it around to face the undead crowd. This is an old style twist and go moped. It has no gears to keep it simple for the students and teenagers who use it to earn a few extra quid. Thank fuck the key is still in the ignition.

The bike is wheeled out into the road. The van is a few hundred metres away and I wave at the man standing on the top. I try to point at the moped and gesture that I’ll drive away and try to get them to follow me. He shouts back and waves, maybe trying to tell me something but the distance is too great to hear the words.

I get on the moped and turn the keys to the off position and then back on. Pressing the start button, the moped splutters noisily to life. The loud noise from the exhaust is so familiar to me from all of the times I have had take-away delivered and heard the moped come up the street.

As the sun rises and daylight fills the street, I look back to the things, expecting them to be already coming for me. My hand is on the rubber grip, ready to twist and pull away.

Something is different;  the outer ring of undead have turned and have started towards me, but they are moving slower, much slower; shambling and dragging their feet in an awkward shuffle, barely at a walking pace.

They were fast before, not quite at running speed but they moved quickly and with purpose – like predators after prey – relentless and sustained.

Now they are stumbling, as if they are walking through deep water, each step a struggle. I look all about, fearing some kind of trap, but they are all the same. Some are turning and heading my way, others remain standing round the van. Whereas before they had a menacing aura and an evil fast motion that was fuelled by a hunger for human flesh, now they are a stumbling mess. The steps they take are thudding with straight legs and arms hanging limp with heads lolling about. They keep knocking into each other, bumping away and going off course, seemingly unable to follow a straight path.

The man is still standing on top of the van. I raise my arm to him, palm up, the international signal for ‘… what the fuck?’

He raises two arms, palms up, the international signal for ‘… fuck knows,’ then starts doing something else, waving and gesturing but I can’t get what he means. The things aren’t growling like they were but they’re still groaning like a deep rumbling noise that still fills the air.

I step off the moped and push the stand down with my foot, leaning the bike over to rest in situ, engine still running and ready to go.

Taking a couple of tentative steps towards the mass crowd of undead, I watch them move and shuffle. What’s happened? Why have they changed? Just a few moments ago they were frenzied and savage.

The crowd is still too thick to attempt a rescue; there are hundreds of them. About half are now turned in my direction, the rest are still surrounding the van.

I go back to the moped and press the horn. A feeble warble sounds out, but I keep my finger pressed down on the button. This appears to focus the direction of their stumbling and I notice more of the crowd turn away from the van towards my direction.

I keep pressing the horn and twist the accelerator grip, thinking that I will rev the engine, forgetting the bloody thing is twist and go.

The moped shoots forward, pulling me along. In my panic I twist the grip more and the moped pulls away faster with me still hanging on. The kick stand bangs into the road surface, propelling the moped off to the right. I slip and fall over; the moped veers off for a short distance before crashing into a parked car with a loud bang. I hear the tinkling of glass as the headlamp is smashed. The moped clunks down to the ground, engine spluttering for a few seconds before it dies out. Still on my arse, I twist around to see the horde is still shuffling slowly.

The man on the van is standing with one hand covering his face, and even from this distance I can see him shaking his head.

‘I’m okay,’ I call out while grinning like a bloody fool; I hope he can’t see my face burning with embarrassment.

I run over to the moped and lift it up again. It starts first time and I wheel it back into the road, pressing the horn and waiting until they get closer.

There is one undead out front, maybe twenty years old, still in his designer jeans with his t-shirt muscles bulging from his tight top and his all hair gelled up in the middle in that messy-on-purpose style that I hate. At least his face has improved with a massive, ragged hole where his pouty sneer would have been.

A torn ragged wound in his cheek flaps open to show rows of teeth and there is dark red blood all over the front of his once white t-shirt and down his arms. There is also a dark stain across the crotch of his blue jeans, but it doesn’t look like blood. He must have pissed himself when they got him – which makes me feel better. I was terrified, but at least I didn’t wet myself.

I’m not much older than him, but I’ve always hated the weekend town centre crowds. Preening, strutting fuckwits. My hair is curly and always messy, without the need for gels and sprays.

I think back to the times when I had been out in the town at weekends, getting barged into by idiots like this who flared up with their arms puffed out while shouting: ‘… wot? D’yawantsomedoya …’ while texting away on Facebook.

I’ve always worked. Maybe it isn’t the best job, but I’ve held it down and made duty manager and I know that if I do the hated night shifts there will be a chance for promotion.

No, there was a chance for promotion, but that’s gone now; it’s all gone … everything has gone.

A deep sense of sadness fills me. I’m breathing hard as I think of all my work mates. Most of them were no-hopers but they were an okay bunch. We had a laugh and got on well, shared jokes and wildly exaggerated accounts of women we’d been with, or not, as the real case was.

I can feel anger building up, with the thought of my mates being savaged by monstrous, preening, pretty boys like this. They were always coming into the supermarket at night, especially after the clubs had kicked out, throwing stuff about and taking the piss out of the staff. I think about fat-bloke and the life he must have led. Maybe he was deeply sad at his obesity, a reject from society like the rest of us but he was polite and friendly, always willing to stop and exchange a few pleasantries and he never looked down his nose at us either.

I look up and watch the undead pretty boy come towards me and the anger is consuming me, anger like I have never known before. I can feel my breathing becoming deeper and harder, my heart hammering in my chest. He is only a few feet away now and I watch as he shuffles and groans. He is looking at me and I can see the whites of his eyes are completely red and bloodshot. His skin is very pale and his mouth hangs open, with drool dripping down onto his chest. Something in me snaps, a feeling descends with such ferocity it drives my actions without conscious thought and before I know it I’ve drawn the hammer from my waistband and stepped forward.

My arm extends out to the side then sweeps round to slam the hard metal into the side of his head. He goes down and I am on him instantly, repeatedly pounding the hammer into his head, shattering his face and crushing his skull.

My arm is a piston, driving the blunt-ended weapon into his head. Blood and brain matter spray up and coat my arms. My hands become slick and glistening, terror and rage mixing into a deadly cocktail, and all reason is gone.

I stop suddenly, becoming alert to my actions. What is left at my feet is not recognisable. The head is pulped, gone … destroyed.

I destroyed it. I killed it. I killed the undead.  My chest heaves as I struggle for air and stagger backwards.

A sudden movement to my right, an undead is there, lunging at me. In reflex, I lash the hammer out in a backswing and connect to the face as it leans in with teeth bared. The force drives the undead off to the side, spinning into a female zombie: a young woman wearing a nice, blue dress. She is full-figured with a heaving cleavage and long brown hair, but her face is slack and her eyes are filled with blood. Spittle hangs down from her once pretty mouth.

She staggers toward me, leaning forward from the waist, head straining from the neck, lips now pulled back – ready for the bite. I feel repulsed and step backwards, the mantra in my head: ‘You never hit a woman’.

I move further away and keep staring at the woman. She appears uninjured, no bite marks or blood on her – until I see the blood stains down her bare legs; a chunk of muscle in her right thigh has been gnawed away.

To my left, another young male is coming at me. This one has black tribal tattoos all over his arms and on his neck. I lash out, smacking the hammer into the side of his face, and he goes down. He keeps moving though, and rolls onto his back before sitting up. As he does so I strike him again, harder, and I see his head snap to one side as he is flung over.

Within seconds, he is on his back and again sitting up. I spin the hammer round so that the claw end is now the weapon. Stepping forward I drive it down into the top of his skull, cleaving through the bone. The force I use pushes the claw into his skull too hard and it sticks. I try pulling it out, but all I do is pull him towards me.

I put my foot onto his chest and pull harder, and the strength of my pull forces his body into my foot. I stagger backwards and fall down with the hammer left sticking out the top of his head.

I get to my feet and realise how close the crowd is now; another minute or so and I will be overwhelmed, trying to glance through them to the van but they’re too close now.

Leaving the hammer stuck in that blokes head I stagger backwards and remember the bag on my back. I reach my hand down behind my head, groping about, but I can’t feel the knife handle that I left there. I pull the bag from my shoulders as I keep moving in reverse.

Every one of them is staring directly at me, hundreds of pairs of red, bloodshot eyes watching my every move.  The still air is filled with the sound of their shuffling feet.

The sight of fat-bloke snatches my breath away. He’s right there, waddling along with the rest of them as he staggers towards me. Pretty boy is on the ground right in front of him yet fat-bloke goes straight over him, trudging his big feet into the corpse. Fast, conflicting emotions course through me. Just seconds ago I felt an overwhelming sense of shame and guilt at the anger which drove me to kill that thing yet here he is one of us, one of the rejects and he wants to do the same as the others and kill me.

My fingers are scrabbling for the zip to the bag’s main compartment. I get my hand in and feel the plastic handle and pull the long kitchen knife out.

Still moving backwards, I look at the shiny blade, then at the mass of undead, then back to the blade. It looks puny and feeble now.

‘Fuck this,’ I mutter.

I’m off, running away as I throw the knife off to one side, then regret the action immediately. I stop and go back, grab the knife and start running again.

Towards the end of the street I slow down. I’ve gained a couple of hundred metres from the horde.

The road has inclined very slightly and I step onto a bench to look over the crowd. I can see the top of the armoured van is empty. The man has gone.

I scan about for a few seconds, but I can’t see him; there is just a mass of undead on a slow march like a zombie protest through the town.

I keep moving and, after a few minutes, I see a mountain bike propped up against a wall with no lock. I grab the bike and start pedalling like crazy down the High Street and onto the main road, leaving the crowd of undead far behind.

Four

I know it’s still very early in the morning, but there would normally be delivery trucks, milkmen, commuters, all slowly emerging as the day wakes up. Now there is nothing. It’s so quiet. One of the pedals starts to squeaks with each rotation of the cog and it’s that single noise that keeps me company on the quiet road.

I haven’t cycled in a long time and it doesn’t take long before my thigh muscles are hurting.

Exercise was neglected for too long. My life had consisted of working all night then sleeping in the day, eating crappy food and drinking too many beers in front of the television. I’m paying for it now as I feel exhausted and drained.

My parents’ house is a fifteen-minute drive away from mine. As I don’t have a car, my dad would pick me up or I would get the bus.

How long will it take to cycle to them?

I try to work it out: a car going at about thirty mph would take fifteen minutes, so if I cycle at fifteen mph it would take me half an hour.

I have no idea what speed I am doing, but it must be at least fifteen mph.

I try to remember what speed normal walking pace is.

I’m sure it was on TV once … I think it was four or five mph, and I reckon I am going much faster than walking pace.

My arse hurts and my legs are on fire, feeling weird and pumped up. I think ahead, trying to choose the route I should take. One takes me through the side streets, residential roads with houses, and the other would take me on the motorway. Cycles are not allowed on motorways so I would be breaking the law, whereas the alternative would take me via the houses and all the undead lurking about. I think I’ll risk being arrested, in fact, being arrested would be the best thing in the world right now. A nice safe cell in a locked police station. The squeaking pedal and I cycle down the junction and onto the motorway.

It’s still early but hot as hell and the sweat is pouring from my face. I hold the bike steady with one hand while I pull the bottom of my t-shirt up and start wiping the stinging sweat from my eyes and face.

A noise from behind; a car engine, loud and fast. I drop my hand to look back over my shoulder, and see a red car coming up behind me, the engine screaming out into the quiet air. I immediately put my hand up and start waving.

I’m in the outside lane closest to the middle section, which is the same as the car and it’s coming bloody quickly so I start to move over, towards the middle. The car does the same so I start swerving back to the outside lane, but again, it changes course. For a second it feels like the car is aiming for me but at the last second it swerves to the side and goes stonking past at such a high speed the slipstream causes me to wobble.

As the vehicle goes past I catch a glimpse of a woman driving. Then as it pulls ahead I see someone in the back seat, but it looks weird, like the passenger is lurching forward to speak to the driver.

The car suddenly veers off and strikes the safety barrier with a loud crash. A split second action but the whole thing plays out right in front of me. The speed is so great and the angle of impact so hard it immediately flips the back end up and out, causing the vehicle to roll over and over in the air. The noise is incredible, the first impact is a thudding awful boom followed by near on silence as the vehicle sails for long seconds before crashing back down to earth. Rolling with terrible, wrenching metallic screams, glass imploding and a whole wheel is shorn off to go bouncing down the road. Debris flies far and wide and the vehicle scores a long deep gouge in the tarmac before it comes to rest on its roof

All is instantly quiet again, apart from the squeaking of my pedal as I cycle faster towards the wreck.

The car was going so fast that it covered a lot of ground in those few seconds, and it takes me a while to reach it, cycling as hard as I can with the wind blowing into my face and flapping the sleeves of my t-shirt.

The car is utterly destroyed. The front end is crumpled in and the remaining front wheel looks buckled. The windows have shattered into thousands of tiny pieces that are now glittering on the road.

There is a foul odour of burning rubber mixed with chemicals in the air, and I can smell petrol too. There are liquids coming out of the front of the car and pooling on the ground.

As I give a final burst of speed with my arse off the saddle, I hear a loud crunch and feel a sudden loss of pressure from the pedals. The chain snaps audibly and twangs off to snarl into the rear wheel which causes me to lose control

I am only a few feet away and heading straight towards the car. I apply the brakes and steer to the right to avoid a collision but the bike hits some of the liquid and the back tire loses grip, causing me to fall off and slide along the debris strewn road.

How is that possible? How is it possible that on an empty motorway I fall off my bike to smash into the only pissing car here?

Noises coming from the car snap me back to reality and I’m up, scrambling to my feet.

The vehicle is upside down, with the windows low against the ground and the doors buckled. I drop to my knees and crawl towards the driver’s window as a slender arm drops out, the fingers clenching into a fist.

‘Fuck,’ the movement makes me jump back, fearing one of those undead things is about to come flying out at me.

‘Help.’ The voice is low and weak but the word is clearly heard and I’m down on my stomach snaking over the broken glass. A woman with blonde hair is upside down being held in place by the seatbelt and I can see deflated airbags surrounding her. Despite the almighty state of the vehicle, the modern safety devices have done their job and left her intact and alive from what I can see.

Gently I take hold of her hand, ‘are you hurt?’

The touch and sound of my voice snap her head at me and I can see a normal face, no bloodshot eyes or drooling spittle.

Thinking back to my First Aid training I try and remember what should be done now. She could have a neck or spinal injury so should stay still until the emergency services get here. Only there aren’t any emergency services now, no firemen to cut the roof off and no paramedics to get her onto a spinal board.

Fluids are still leaking from the car, chemicals and the pungent stench of fuel. Can it explode like they do in the movies?

‘I’m going to pull you out,’ I say it as gently as I can but there really isn’t any choice. She has to get out of the vehicle.

‘Okay,’ she replies in a weak, strained voice.

Grasping her hand I start applying pressure, but out of fear of hurting her I don’t pull hard enough. Shit, the seatbelt is still on.

‘The seatbelt, can you undo it?’ She looks at me then slowly turns her head to grope for the clasp. ‘Not yet,’ I yelp as I shuffle in closer fearing she will unclasp it now and fall on her head. Trying to get in as close as I can, I lie flat on my back and push my hands up against her shoulders.

‘Okay, do it now,’ I gasp and hear the click as she pushes the button down. Her face is pale, eyes dazed with shock and her movement are slow and sluggish, until she drops from the seat onto my head that is.

‘Hmmmmp.’ I’m fully aware she might be badly injured, but I’m also now in a great deal of pain myself from her weight forcing my back into the poky out bits of the damaged car. Slowly, I manage to ease myself out while manoeuvring her at the same time.

With my body free of the wreck and her pressing weight, I twist round onto my front and start pulling her out by her arms. Just having her head out of the vehicle seems to revive her a bit.

‘Just, a bit, further,’ I say as she slowly comes out of the mangled window.

‘Okay…keep going…’ she replies, her voice a little stronger now.

‘Does your back hurt?’

‘No…I think I’m okay.’

‘Thank god for that, what about the other person?’ I ask tentatively, thinking the person in the back might not have survived.

‘Gordon!’ She gasps as her upper body is pulled free. She stares up at me with wild eyes and freezes for a second before letting go with an ear piercing scream. Panicking, I lower her down to the ground as she starts thrashing about violently. ‘MY LEG,’ are the only words I can make out in amongst her screams.

Dropping down, I edge closer thinking a shard of metal must be gouging into her skin, ‘hold still, please just try and be still.’

‘MY LEG….MY FUCKING LEG.’

Wiggling closer I try and get a view of the inside, then spot the back of a man’s head that is resting in the gap between the seats. He must be alive as the head is moving, rolling left and right with small precise movements.

‘I think he’s alive,’ I shout, my words trailing off as I realise the man’s head is resting on her ankle which must have slid up when I tried pulling her out of the partially crushed car. Sick realisation hits at the same time as he lifts his head up to show his mouth dripping with blood from the hole he has bitten into her flesh.

With a growl he tries to wriggle towards me, before giving up and sinking his teeth back into her ankle, causing a fresh burst of screams.

‘Fuck!’ Pushing myself out of the vehicle I get free and grab her wrists to heave her away, ‘hold on,’ I say through gritted teeth. She screams in complete agony but slides free from the car. With her leg shifted, the man immediately starts writhing towards the gap left by her exit.

A quick glimpse shows me that one of his arms has been removed at the shoulder joint, shorn clean off with thick blood pumping out. Even in the midst of such carnage, I can’t help but notice the blood flow is nowhere near what I would expect. It falls out in thick globules rather than pulsing out in a stream.

‘My leg … fuck … it hurts … oh … fuck … it hurts …’ she screams in agony.

I look down at her leg. The blood is pouring out from the wound. It looks deep. The bite must be down to the bone. Her legs are very slender and the muscle is well defined. I need to stop the bleeding, but I don’t have any bandages. I take the belt off of my jeans and start to wrap it round her thigh.

‘We’ve got to stop the bleeding,’ I say quickly.

‘Okay,’ she gasps. Glancing up, I figure that the man inside the car is moving slowly enough to give us time.

Wrapping the belt round her thigh, I thread it back through the loop and start cinching it tight as she stares down at the wound and the blood still coming out.

‘I’m bleeding out,’ she hisses, ‘pull it.’

I wrench back on the belt trying to form a tourniquet but the muscles in her thighs are too hard.

‘Shit, I’m so sorry,’ dropping down again, I loosen the belt and push it further up her thigh, feeling very awkward at seeing her smooth expanse of skin and her knickers, ‘god I’m so sorry, so sorry.’

‘It’s okay…’ she gasps and hitches her skirt up higher, ‘do it, just fucking do it.’

Wrapping the belt round again, I pull on the free end and gradually apply more pressure. I stare down at the pulsing wound but there is no change.

‘Fucking pull it then,’ she growls. With a deep breath I heave with all my strength as she screams out, her hands reaching up to grab at my arms and clawing at me.

Harder and harder I pull the belt, and I even get my foot onto her thigh for leverage as I cinch it tighter into her flesh.

‘Almost,’ I pant and keep going, determined to get enough pressure so the blood stops coming out. If I can stop the blood flow, I can dress the wound and try releasing the tourniquet a bit; maybe it will clot on its own. Fuck it, I should have signed up for the advanced First Aid course.

I am still pulling to keep the belt from loosening, and it takes a while to slowly work the material under to keep it tight.

She has gone quiet and I think she must be gritting her teeth. I slowly ease my grip and the belt holds in place. She is still bleeding but it has slowed considerably.

‘I’ve done it,’ I say hoarsely.

No response. I twist round to see she has gone quiet, like she’s asleep. Her hands no longer grip my arms but lay out to the sides.

‘Hey…hey…wake up,’ I gently move her head but get no response. Tapping the side of her face, I try and wake her. Still no response. I lower my head so that my ear is next to her mouth and I can feel very soft breath on my cheek.

A groan sounds behind me; the undead male is trying to crawl out of the car. His head is out and he is wriggling along, stretching his remaining arm out towards us. It takes me a couple of steps and I am at the car. I drive my right foot down onto his head. It feels solid and the jolt goes up through my leg. My left hand is holding the car for balance and I am stamping down harder and harder. I aim for the neck and feel a crack under my foot.

Hobbling back to the woman, I drop down to rest my ear against her mouth. There’s no breath this time.

‘Wake up, come on, please wake up,’ I plead. I put my fingers to her throat, feeling for a pulse, but there is nothing.

I try her wrist … no sign of life. I lift her eyelids; I don’t know what I am looking for, but they always do this in the movies … it must be the pupils, to see if they dilate. There is no movement, just blank eyes.

In desperation, I lower the side of my head to her chest, trying to hear a heartbeat. I stay for a few seconds, attempting to calm my breathing so that I can listen properly.

Her hands suddenly reach round and grab me, pulling my head into her chest. Her breasts are squished into the side of my face. She is gripping so tight and I can feel her trying to rise up while trying to pull me down, the equal force preventing her from lifting herself.

I try to pull away but her grip is so strong, her hand on the back of my head and nails digging into my scalp, clawing at me. I can’t get leverage; my left arm is now underneath her, my right arm beating at her. I use my right hand to try and prise her fingers from the back of my head, but they are so strong I can’t move them.

I can hardly breathe as her breasts push into my mouth and cover my nose; she has rolled onto her side and is trying to curl round.

I use my left hand and grope about until I feel her hair. I take a handful and jerk her head back. I pull so hard that her head is snapped back and she instantly straightens and arches her back. I manage to pull back and extract my head from under her vice-like grip. I get my head free and look at her. Her eyes are open and completely bloodshot, the whites replaced with red. Her lips are pulled back and her perfect white teeth are exposed. She rolls over towards me and I jerk backwards, trying to keep out of her reach.

‘Fucking bitch … you fucking bitch!’ I shout out in sudden anger and fear.

I get to my feet and kick her in the face. She is still writhing and I do it again, pulling back like a footballer, ramming my foot into her nose. I feel the bone crunch and her head snaps back. Terror grips me; I’m in shock from seeing her die and come back, but what came back wasn’t the same as the woman that died. My foot slams into her face again and again. She takes a remarkable amount of blows before she finally lays still, blood gushing from her broken nose and soaking her blouse.

I stagger away with my hands to my head, deeply in shock. My vision blurs as hot tears sting my eyes. The shorn-off wheel on the ground, the buckled vehicle upside down amongst the glittering shards of glass, and the pooling liquids mixing with the blood from the two dead bodies. The two bodies I killed. That woman was alive in my arms, pleading for me to save her life. She spoke to me and we shared something, maybe only a few seconds in time but we shared a connection; two living people.

We have hundreds, sometimes thousands, of interactions every day; we speak to people without thinking anything of it. But after everything that’s happened since last night and seeing the undead kill people and watching them turn, then seeing the car crash and getting to her while she was alive … I feel incredibly guilty. She was another human being that needed help. She was alive and spoke to me and I failed, I failed to save her.

If I hadn’t fallen off that bike, if I had got up quicker and moved faster. If I had pulled hard enough the first time, I might have saved her, but I didn’t do those things and she died.

It’s my fault. She looked at me, spoke to me, we made eye contact and I told her that I would help her.

The sickening action of kicking her replays in my mind – the image of my foot connecting with her face. This is awful, the most awful thing I have ever done.

Every previous sin can be forgotten. Every previous bad act I have perpetrated is erased. Nothing will ever be the same again from this point on.

I tried to save her and I failed, but then she came back and was attacking me; the strength in her hands and arms was incredible. She turned and became undead, and I had to stop her … didn’t I?

My mind whirls as I try to make sense of what’s happening, justifying the actions to myself, reasoning and rationalising … if I didn’t kill her, she could have got me or someone else. But we’re in the middle of a motorway with no one else nearby. Who could she have hurt? Did I kill her through defence or was it murder, an act of vengeance carried out through fear and rage?

I have to change this thought process. She was not a she when I kicked her, she was an undead.

They are all undead.

The woman from earlier on was not a young lady out for the evening, getting excited about wearing her new low-cut, blue dress. She was not a she. It was an undead.

They all are.

The quicker I get that into my head, the safer I will be, and the greater chance for survival I will have.

They are all undead.

I lower my hands from my head, resolute, changed and hardened. I have killed to survive and I will do it again – if I have to.

I admit there was a part of me that enjoyed the first kill with the hammer. No, not enjoyed, that isn’t right, something else. Something primeval. An instinct buried and softened by modern society; this sickens me but, at the same time, it provides comfort and I walk away without looking back.

Five

After half an hour I am still on the motorway, the fields and trees off to both sides slowly giving way as I pass a village.

I haven’t seen or heard anyone and with the adrenalin wearing off I feel totally and utterly drained.

At walking pace it will take me ages to reach my parents’ house. There is nothing on the motorway that I can use; I should go into the village and find a vehicle but I can’t see a junction anywhere or a turn off. I’m sure that the next junction is miles up the road, near my parent’s village.

I walk over to the side of the road and clamber over the crash barrier, down a ditch and across into a field. There is a barbed wire fence in a bad state of repair held in place by wooden posts. A few kicks at one of the posts brings it down, the wire sagging low enough so I can step over.

After the smooth surface of the motorway, the field is uneven and hard going. It looks to be pasture; I think that’s what they call it … the type of land that animals graze on. I realise that I have no idea what different types of land there are, or what different crops look like, or even if they can be eaten or not. I work in a supermarket, selling produce all day. We get training on certain things so that we can sound convincing to the customer and increase sales, but I can’t remember anything useful.

The field borders a lane, which I follow into the village. The first few houses are detached and large, but gradually they get closer together until a pavement starts running down both sides.

I reach a junction and realise this is the village centre. I have been here a few times before, when the motorway has been closed off, or my Dad wanted to take the scenic route. I remember there is a garage workshop at the end of the main road, so there might be cars there in for repair.

Moving off, I keep to the middle of the road, looking all around me as I walk. I can see some of the houses have open front doors, which is very creepy.

I am looking left and right and fail to see the massive blood stains on the pavement and road until I am walking through it. The road surface is dark, which makes it harder to see the wet and sticky blood.

There is a large stain, like someone was brought down here and bled out. There is too much blood to have just been from one person, but then again the human body has something like eight pints of blood in it. I try to imagine what eight pints poured onto the floor would look like, probably like that woman back on the motorway.

There was action here and recently too. The blood is hardly dry. A white UPVC door has bright red hand prints up high, smearing down into a large blood stain at the bottom of the doorway.

This was a mistake. I should have stayed on the motorway.

Up ahead and off to my right is a small selection of shops. I know there is a café here that used to serve really nice cream cakes, and there was a newsagent too.

The shops on the right are opposite a small village square where we used to park to visit the cake shop.

I can’t see the square yet, but as I get closer I get a feeling of impending doom, and, as the row of houses on the left end give way to the square, I start to see people standing about.

As I get closer, I correct myself. They are not people. They are the undead things. Lots of them too.

I stand completely still. There must be thirty or forty of them dressed in differing styles of night wear: pyjamas, nighties, pants, knickers and bras – some are naked. All of them are covered in blood.

I can’t understand why they are all here, standing in the village square. Maybe they’re gathering here from some remaining spark of intelligence drawing them to the heart of the village.

I slowly back away, one step at a time, watching for any sign that they’ve seen me.

Behind me, I hear glass bottles being knocked over and shattering. I spin round to see an undead male shuffling out of a doorway, kicking the milk bottles with his feet, making them spin them off to shatter on the road. This one is only a few doors down from me. If I move quickly I could get past him, but another of the undead comes out of the house opposite, staggering into the road, heading my way.

They are on equal sides of the pavement now, almost like they had planned the ambush. The village square undead have sparked up from hearing the glass shatter and are starting to turn my way.

‘Shit, shit,’ I murmur quietly. They are still slow moving, shambling with their stiff-legged walk with no sign of the fast things from the night-time.

I turn and start back, thinking that I can still make it through the middle of the two behind me, but there are more now, emerging from houses further down the road, blocking my escape route. I turn back to the road ahead but the village square horde are spilling into the road, coming at me.

The newsagent’s is just a bit further up. I start running for it, praying that it’s open. As I run past the cake shop and the butchers, a quick thought enters my mind of the massive knives and cleavers they would have, but the door is locked and too solid to force quickly. I run on towards the newsagent’s.

The horde is across the road ahead of me, coming from my left, slow moving, and I pass them by a few metres as I reach the shop and bounce off the door. I slam at it again, glancing back to the encroaching horde getting closer by the second. My fists rain blows on the door, pounding away as the panic builds.

‘Shit, come on …’ I wail at the door.

Looking down, I see the word ‘PULL’ marked clearly on the door in big letters. I yank the door and thankfully it opens; I stumble through and pull it shut behind me. Slamming the lock in place, I look for bolts but there are none. Instead, there are two metal hooks meant to hold a bar – but I can’t see the bar anywhere.

I move away from the door as the undead get to the other side, banging into the glass pane of the door with loud groans. Their twisted, gruesome faces press against the glass, smearing blood and saliva across the pane. Backing away with my eyes fixed on them, I stumble into a shelf full of chocolate bars and sweets, sending some of them to the floor. The sight of them makes me realise how hungry and thirsty I am. I grab a can of Red Bull from the chiller cabinet and start drinking, guzzling the syrupy sweet liquid down quickly before finishing off with a loud belch.

Chocolate bars, junk food and bottles of water get stuffed into the bag. The knife is still there and I take it out; it still looks small and puny but it makes me feel better by holding it.

Behind the counter is the cigarette display – all of the supermarkets have been fitted with sliding metal doors now, in a vain attempt by the government to hide cigarettes away. Smaller shops are not covered by the same laws and can still show their wares.

I did give up smoking but hey, I’m surrounded by the undead in a strange shop; my home is destroyed and civilisation has fallen. Fuck it, time for a smoke.

I take some tobacco and rolling papers. Tailor-made cigarettes are too expensive, so I switched to tobacco some time ago; there was nearly always someone selling duty free tobacco from their holidays. After smoking roll ups for so long, I couldn’t go back to normal smokes; the taste is disgusting.

I open the packet and roll a smoke with my hands shaking a little, but it’s quickly done and I use a lighter from a display pack on the counter.

I inhale deeply and feel the nicotine receptors having a party in my brain. The tobacco and the effects of the energy drink kick in quickly, making me feel lightheaded. Swaying a little, I put my hand to the counter and lower my head down until my forehead is resting on the cool counter top.

The dizzy spell eases, leaving me with a pleasant buzz. As I open my eyes I spot a baseball bat wedged under the counter.

‘Thanks very much,’ I say into the quietness of the shop.

I pull the bat out and hold it in both hands. These shops open early and could be easy targets, especially in the dark, winter mornings.

The smoke from the cigarette in my mouth curls up into my eyes, stinging them. I clench my eyes shut and wait for a few seconds before opening them gently and blinking the tears away.

As I focus again, I see an undead standing at the back of the shop behind a bead curtain that separates the shop from the private area. It’s a heavily bloke with his fat gut straining against the material of his short sleeve shirt, covered in blood from a ragged bite wound in his neck.

The undead moves slowly forward through the bead curtain, which rattles loudly. Drool is hanging down from its mouth and his evil-looking red eyes stare straight at me.

I look about for an avenue of escape, but there is none. The front door is the only other way out, and I can see a mass of the undead things standing outside the door and windows.

The shopkeeper shuffles forwards, his bulk filling the aisle as he heads towards the counter. I stand still and spit the cigarette away to the side, not taking my eyes off him.

As he gets closer, I watch his head lolling back and forth and to the sides but all the time the red, bloodshot eyes stay fixed on me. Then his head hangs down with his chin to his chest and he looks up at me, menacing and very scary.

He walks straight to the counter and I grasp the baseball bat at the base with two hands and slowly twist my upper body off to the right, raising the bat behind me, ready to strike.

We stare into each other’s eyes, fixed, unmoving, neither of us blinking, and long seconds go by. His lips peel back to show yellow, uneven teeth. He can just feel the bite, he can visualise sinking his dirty yellow teeth into my flesh.

‘Piss off!’ I shout and swing hard, slamming the bat into the side of his head. An almighty swing and he goes flying off to the side, colliding with the shelving unit. His body crashes into the metal frame, driving it backwards, spilling chocolate bars and sweets all over the floor. The follow-through from my swing brings the bat straight into the side of the till with a thunk.

I put the bat down on the counter and pick the heavy till up, yanking it hard to pull the cables free before I raise it above my head and slam it down on the squirming thing as it wrestles with the shelving on the floor. The till smashes into his head, driving in the bones of his cheeks before bouncing off.

I move out from the counter with the bat in my hands and step over the now dead undead, moving carefully towards the beaded curtain.

Stepping through with my bat raised, I see a small stock room and a flight of stairs going up. To the back of the stock room is a door – barred and bolted. I move over to the door and stand listening. There is a dirty, old, wired-glass pane. All I can see is a small backyard and a wall a few feet away. There is no movement outside.

I pull the bolts back, tug the door open, and peer out into the yard. It has a high brick wall and a wooden gate. I go over to the gate, raise the latch and lean out to see a small clear road.

Going left will take me towards the garage I was originally heading for, but an idea forms in my mind and I quickly turn back.

I close the gate quietly, head into the stock room and shut the back door, pushing the bolt into place.

With the bat raised and ready, I climb the stairs to the flat above the shop and check the rooms.

Once I’m sure it’s all clear I go back down into the shop. I see four cans of lighter fluid on display behind the counter. I take them out into the stock room where I find another six cans and a large box of matches.

Back upstairs. The windows are old sash and already open in this sultry summer weather.

Below me are about fifty of the zombies, all gathered at the front of the shop. I have flashbacks to last night when I was trapped and my ham-fisted attempt at making a Molotov cocktail resulted in me puking up. I don’t intend to stick around and watch this time.

I pull the little plastic spout on the first one, up-end the can and squeeze a jet of liquid out onto the crowd below – I try to aim at their faces. They seem excited by the liquid being sprayed on them. They’re still very slow moving, but I can hear more groans and noises coming from them.

It takes quite a long time to empty each can, leaning out and bending over to prevent any spraying on me or the windowsill.

I open the box of matches and pause for a second, hardly believing what I am about to do … mass murder at any other time. I strike a match and flick it out, but it expires before it falls a few feet. I try another and the same thing happens. The third time I lean out and brace my feet, ready to pull back in quickly. I extend my arms, strike a match and quickly shove it into the open box, pushing it into the dark heads of the little sticks. The box flares instantly: a bright light and stench of sulphur. I drop the box and pull myself in, ducking down below the window.

I hear a whooshing noise as the lighter fluid ignites. I peer out, just a glimpse, before I run.

The flames are spreading quickly, leaping from body to body. I remember the sickening smell of burning flesh from last night and I race down through the building and out into the road. I turn left and start running, bat in hand.

Reaching the end of the street I turn left again, which takes me out onto the main road. I look back down to the shop and see thick, black smoke and flames licking at the side of the building.

Bodies on fire … they are still standing there, like they haven’t the sense or intelligence to move away. Even the ones standing on the outside aren’t moving away. They wait at the point they last saw me, ever hopeful to find one more piece of living flesh to bite into.

The building has caught light now. Flames are shooting up the side, and more smoke plumes into the air. There is an undead female moving across the square, heading towards the flames, and another undead behind her.

Further on, past the fire, I can see the undead moving up the street, heading towards the blaze.

They are like insects at night, drawn to light. I don’t know if it’s the action, the movement, the fire, or just the crowd of other undead that draws them.

I move away and head towards the garage, thinking about how they seem to follow each other. Last night I watched as they massed at the front of my house and behind my front door. But I was screaming abuse at them from my window, alerting them to my presence. Then the armoured van went past, the horn sounding repeatedly. Was it the noise of the horn that pulled them away, or the already huge stream of undead in its wake?

The thoughts give me hope. Maybe I can carry something that will distract them with movement or noise, something I can throw if I get cornered or trapped. There are plenty of children’s toys that bounce about with loud noises and flashing lights. I should have kept a can of lighter fluid and matches … I could set one of them on fire, which will draw others to it while I get away. The thought process makes me realise how much I need supplies and weapons. The bat is good; it’s longer than the hammer and means I can keep them away from me. A gun would be perfect, but I have no idea where to find one. The only guns in Britain are shotguns. Even a double-barrelled shotgun only gives two shots at a time, but a shotgun is also long and heavy – like a bat.

I think of the movies and news reports, of robbers using sawed-off shotguns. That would make them smaller and lighter to carry, but reduces their secondary use as a blunt instrument or a ranged weapon.

The police have guns. You see them quite a lot these days, armed police with pistols on their belts. They keep the bigger guns locked in armoured boxes in the car. I guess there must be armouries in the police stations.

That gives me another thought … maybe the police are holed up in their stations? If they have weapons and strong buildings they could remain safely inside. Boroughfare has a police station in the town centre; maybe I should have gone there first.

Ridiculously, I wonder if they would arrest me if I was armed with a gun.

Six

The garage is detached, a sprawling collection of buildings, workshops and lock ups.

To either side of it is wasteland with old wrecks and pieces of machinery rusting in the scrub. Big, double wooden doors face out onto a hardstanding, oil stains on the ground. There is a single fuel pump in the middle, hardly used as the price is always so much cheaper at the supermarkets.

There are two cars on the front: an old Vauxhall Cavalier on a jack with the driver’s side wheel missing, the other one a silver Nissan Micra.

I move slowly over to the Micra, the bat held in my right hand and out to the side. The car is locked so I head over to the reception door, which is also locked. Looking through the window, there is no sign of movement and the lights are off. I start walking around the edge of the building, looking for an easy entry point.

I hope the Micra is in for a service and not a repair. There might be other cars inside that I can use.

Round the back there are more doors, old wooden ones with no windows. The few glass panes are filthy and barely offer a glimpse inside.

I could force one of the doors open, but I worry about the noise it’ll make.

At the front again, I check the double doors, but they are flush together and well secured. The reception door is the best option, as the top half is a large glass pane.

I stand listening for a few seconds. I will have to be quick – smash the glass, get inside and find the keys – then get out and go. I pull the bat back and swing at the glass pane in the door. The glass is toughened and fractures, but stays in place. Another swing and the bat smashes a hole in the glass, but the pane remains in place.

The glass is designed to withstand impact and not shatter into pieces. I keep hitting the glass, smashing holes and forcing the bat around to create a hole big enough to climb through. The noise is too much and it’s taking ages to clear the glass, but I keep going, hitting and moving the bat around in circles.

The hole is big enough to lean my head through, and I check to see if I can unlock the door from the inside. No good. I look about to check for movement. I can see thick, black smoke in the sky above the village – the fire must have caught on the buildings.

I keep smacking the glass away until I have cleared a hole big enough to get through.

I slip my bag off and put it through the hole, then I push the bat through. I climb in, which is harder than I thought it would be, as the bottom ledge is too high to step over and I don’t want to enter head first. I have to hop my leg in and straddle the bottom of the frame, then shift my weight over to draw my remaining leg in. Within seconds, a loud alarm is sounding, and, looking up, I see a motion sensor attached to the wall.

I grab my bag and the bat, look about, and see a small sales counter for fuel payment; packaged wiper blades, oils, and lubricants are on display.

I go behind the counter but there are no keys. I check drawers and cupboards – again, nothing.

A door leads into the workshop area and I go through. It’s very dark as the grimy windows are not letting much light in.

I notice light switches on the wall and flick all of them, watching expectantly as fluorescent strips blink on slowly.

There are three clear work bays: one has a car jacked up high enough to walk under, the other two are clear. Tool drawers and various machinery are positioned around the outside. There are shiny red sets of sliding metal trays with cool logos on them – everything seems to have a ‘Snap-on’ sticker on it.

There is a small, metal key cupboard on the wall, but the door is locked.

I search and find a large, flat-headed screwdriver. Taking this back, I force the end into the gap between the metal door and the frame, levering hard to prise the door open.

Inside are a few rows of hooks, with various keys hanging down and two sets of car keys on fobs. One of them has the Nissan logo on a metal clasp. I take the keys and head back into reception. The ceaseless, wailing alarm feels like it’s penetrating my skull.

An adult female undead is leaning through the door, groaning and still trying to walk forward while leaning her head and shoulders through the hole.

I use the bat and strike downwards on her head. The impact bends her over the frame and I quickly swing upwards, smashing her back out of the door.

I peer out to see her lying with her feet by the door and her body stretching away with her head at an unnatural angle, the neck broken with either the force of the blow or the impact from hitting the ground.

I start to clamber through but my rucksack gets caught, so I go back in and take the rucksack off, throw it out and try again. I step down on the leg of the undead, which makes it easier to get out. I move away quickly in case she gets back up.

The Micra keys don’t have a clicker; it’s an old car and I have to put the key in the door. I put my bag on the passenger seat and turn the keys in the ignition. The car shoots forward with a jolt and cuts out.

Shows how long it’s been since I last drove a car.

I try again, keeping my foot down on the clutch this time.

The car starts and I pull away. The seat is too far forward and I feel for the handle underneath me and push it back.

I drive away from the village, heading in the direction of my parents’ house. In the rear view mirror, I can see plumes of black smoke billowing up into the sky.

The fire will spread quickly in the warm dry weather, and I think of all the damage being caused. No fire engines will come racing to the rescue. There is no one to put the blaze out. No police will cordon off the area. No ambulances will ever arrive to treat the wounded and hurt.

It will just burn and burn until there is nothing left.

I have an uneventful drive to my parents’ village. The car radio has buttons for preset radio stations. I press through all of them but hear nothing – only silence and the odd burst of static. Don’t they have emergency broadcasts telling people to stay in their homes or wait for further instruction?

Using the manual tuner, I twist my way through the frequencies until I start to hear the faint hiss and crackle of a transmission.  After a few more seconds the car is filled with the sound of a man speaking a message over and over in calm and measured tones:

‘There are survivors, you are not alone.

Do not come to London, we are completely infested.

I repeat, DO NOT COME TO LONDON.

If you are in the South then we advise you head to the Victorian Forts on the South Coast.

Take whatever supplies you can carry: water, food, medicine and clothing.

Stay out of the cities and towns. Head to the Forts on the coast.’

I keep listening to the deep voice which I find calming and reassuring. There is no sign of panic or distress in the clipped English accent. I try to picture the man recording the message and my mind creates an image of a kempt older man; groomed and sophisticated, with a beard, definitely a beard.

I think of the Forts on the south; they are known as Palmerston’s Follies.

They were constructed in the 1800’s to fight off a French invasion that never happened. There are many of them along the coast: old-style batteries that were used for huge cannon and mortar placements. They were positioned to repel ships but also built to withstand land forces. Some of them have fallen to ruin, but most have been preserved by historical societies. They are all surrounded by high walls and have underground rooms connected by tunnels. I have seen them many times but never paid much attention; they are just a part of the landscape, a forgotten history.

The most famous are the three or four big, round bastions in The Solent, the stretch of water that separates the mainland from the Isle of Wight. They are amazing feats of engineering – used now as private hotels or left to decay.

I start to form a plan in my head.

If I can get to my parents’ I could send them to the Forts and then try to find my sister. She lives in a posh apartment block, with secure entry. It was Friday evening, yesterday, when it started, so she would most likely be out at a wine bar or social function – networking, as she calls it.

The message on the radio said that London was infested and not to go there, but I’m not leaving her. If there is a chance that she is holed up at home, then I have to try.

Seven

There is a small gathering of the undead outside the shop near my parents’ house.

Unlike the previous village, this shop is on the main through-road and it’s a modern, large convenience store, more like a mini-supermarket.

I slow down as I drive past, scared that I will see my dad amongst them. As I go past, I see movement from within the shop. The windows have posters and signs up and I can’t see them clearly, but someone is waving at me and I catch a glimpse of another person standing with them.

My dad could be inside. He might have gone there for his morning newspaper and become trapped with some other survivors.

I think about going straight to their house, but if he is inside I could be too late if I have to come back. I slow the car and look back at the things. Five of them, three males and two female.

One of them looks like a delivery driver, wearing matching blue trousers and jacket, another is very old – even from here I can see his hunched-over thin frame and wispy grey hair. He is only wearing baggy shorts and a white vest; the shorts are pulled up high and the vest is tucked in.

The two women are both late middle-aged and both dressed in sensible trousers, sensible trousers and sleeveless jackets with pastel-coloured shirts. Dog walkers: early to bed and early to rise, clean living with dogs that were always perfectly behaved and expertly trained. Fortunately no zombie dogs that I can see anywhere. The last undead is a young male dressed in jeans and a t-shirt.

I watch them move, slow and shuffling, facing into the shop. They are trying to walk ahead, pressing their bodies against the door and windows, banging into each other.

I look about, but I can’t see any more undead anywhere. If I am going to do this I have to be quick, the noise and movement might attract more and I don’t want to end up trapped inside too.

I leave the car in the road with the engine running and the door open. I take the bat and leave my bag. Then I go back and close the door as I imagine coming back to an undead sitting in the backseat, waiting for me. Too many movies.

As I slam the door, the old male undead turns round to start shuffling towards me straight away. Within seconds, they are all turned and moving towards me – like an unspoken message has passed between them.

For a second I think about getting back in the car and leaving the people inside the shop to their fate, but I would never forgive myself if I did that.

The undead are still moving slowly and again I think about last night and how different they are now with their arms hanging down limp at their sides, heads lolling about, walking with straight legs – which accentuates the movement of their upper bodies.

I need to separate them as they are too close together for me to risk attacking them. Even with the range of the baseball bat, it would only take one of them to lunge quickly and I could get bitten.

I look at the area … the pavement has obstacles: a bike rack, litter bins and a post box. There is a high step down from the pavement to the road. These are things which will impede my movements and could cause me to trip or fall. But the road is wide and clear, with no obstructions.

Moving off to my right, I lure them into clear ground. I’m choosing my battleground, selecting where to fight, and it feels strange. There is almost a sense of excitement, a weird feeling, like just before the roller coaster moves off. I am scared, yet exhilarated.

The old man is nearest; he saw me first and has the head start. I thought his old age would make him slower and the others would go past him, but they move at roughly the same speed. It appears the undead are not hampered by age or infirmity.

Watching the old man come towards me makes me uneasy – he looks very old and frail and there is a large wound on the top of his right shoulder where the flesh has been bitten away. There is blood all down his front, smeared up his neck and on the side of his face.

I’m getting the same feeling as I had when the undead girl in the blue dress was in front of me. Attacking a woman or the elderly seems wrong. Then I remember how I felt after the motorway, when that undead woman tried to bite me – I had tried to help her, but she didn’t care.

They are undead.

They are all undead.

Get that through your head Howie, learn it and move on.

I raise the bat up, poised and ready – and wait for him to come.

He is a few metres in front of the others, red bloodshot eyes glaring at me and saliva hanging down from his mouth.

I look again and can see that he has no teeth, just gums. He is pulling his lips back and baring his gummy mouth. I almost laugh out loud … how can he bite anyone? Will he just suck on them … like a love bite? He should be carrying a blender to make flesh soup. I almost feel sorry for him and then I see his long fingernails. His old hands look like claws, the strength of that woman at the car was incredible and he probably has the same strength too. His fingernails look like they could rip flesh open. The infection could still be passed.

The humour is gone.

Fuck him.

I step forward and swing the bat hard into the side of his head and he goes spinning off to my left.

I move to the right, going round the side of the small group of undead as they all turn to follow me. I move back to the left and they all turn again. I move right and, again, they all move as one; synchronised zombies.

Slowly walking backwards, I lead them into the middle of the road before I run round the back of them. They shuffle round to follow me but they are too uncoordinated and bump into each other.

The delivery driver is on the outside so I dart forward and strike him on his shoulder, sending him spinning into the two dog-walking women, knocking them away and creating space between them.

The delivery driver goes down with one of the women and both of them groan audibly as they start trying to get back up but hamper their own efforts by constantly pushing each other back down.

The old man is still down and the young lad is closest now.

I step out so that I am facing his left side and smash the bat into his face. His nose explodes with a sickening crunch of bones that I can hear above the impact of the bat. He stumbles backwards and falls onto his arse. I hit again and he goes down onto the ground, but stills moves and is instantly trying to rise up. I go behind him so that his head is just in front of me. I then bend over and strike to the side of his head like a golf swing; the impact is hard and his whole body is jerked round with the force.

The delivery driver and the woman are separated and are trying to get up. The other dog-walking woman is coming at me, lips pulled back, showing her already yellowing teeth.

I aim an uppercut swing to her chin, but miss and fall into her. I drop my shoulder to force her backwards, and, straight away, her arms come up to grab at me. She grips my left arm with vice like fingers that squeeze and lock on.

I use the end of the bat to hit the side of her head, but we are too close and I cannot generate enough force. Small hard jabs and her nose breaks, her cheeks fracture, skin splits and bleeds but still she won’t bloody let go.

Whacking the hell out of her face to prevent her from getting her teeth into me and I try to pull my arm away but she is gripping too hard. I move backwards, forcing her to stumble after me.

Her grip is so strong. I try to wrench my arm away, but she holds it tight. I keep smacking the bat into the side of her head and my feet hit the old man on the ground. I step away and force the woman to walk into him, tripping her up. She stumbles forward and goes down, but the force of her grip pulls me down too.

The delivery driver is at my right; I swing out and strike at his chest. I’m half bent down and having to swing up and out to the right. The blow knocks him back, but he stays on his feet and comes back at me. I hit down again at the woman and drive her back to the ground and still she won’t fucking let go of my arm.

I swing out and, once more, knock the delivery driver backwards. I shuffle the bat out, so that I am holding the end, then pull back and swing down as hard as I can into the back of her head, then I put my foot onto her arm and pull myself free.

Moving away quickly, I smash the delivery driver in the face and he goes down. I hit him again and again, driving the bat into his skull beating his head in.

The tripped woman who gripped my arm is getting back up again like some bloody cyborg machine that just refuses to be stopped. This time I go at her, striking hard with multiple whacks until her skull caves in and I can see bits of her brain spilling out.

There is only the one dog-walking woman left now. I am breathing hard, but I am focussed and ready. I look up just as a young Asian man comes up behind the woman and hits her in the head with a cricket bat, knocking her forward, towards me, and I quickly swing out and send her back at him. He is ready and hits her from behind and again she staggers forward.

‘Just fucking die,’ I yell out in frustration at how bloody tough these women are.

We both step in and strike at her and she goes down from our repeated blows.

Her head is destroyed, the skull imploding under the blows, brain matter, blood and tissue bursting out over our feet.

I stop hitting and step back, checking that they are all down. Then I look at the young man still hitting at her with the cricket bat.

‘I … I think she is finished, mate,’ I say to him, ‘mate, she’s definitely finished… or just carry on,’ I add as he unleashes a barrage of blows on the extremely dead zombie.

Eventually he stops and steps backwards, holding the bat with both hands down at his front, blood all over his shiny, white trainers. He looks young, no more than fifteen years old; he is dark-skinned with black, gelled hair; Indian or Pakistani, maybe Sri Lankan but his eyes are blazing from the kill.

Behind him, the shop door opens and an older woman comes running out, angrily yelling at the boy.

‘What did you do that for? I told you to stay inside.’

The boy just stares down at the mangled body beneath him. He doesn’t react as his mother stands next to him, shouting. She gets no sign that he is listening and tries to pull the bat away from him. Feeling that motion, he becomes alert and steps away from her, pulling the bat from her grasp.

‘He was trying to help us, we couldn’t just leave him on his own, he could have been killed!’ His tone is angered but squeaky and high-pitched, showing his age.

‘No, you could have been killed, you foolish boy, and don’t talk back to me … don’t you ever talk back to me!’ she shouts back at him.

She switches into a language that I cannot understand, speaking quicker to the boy. He finally hangs his head with a look of shame and starts back towards the shop. The woman stays and looks at me, and when she speaks, her tone is polite.

‘Thank you for what you did. I am sorry for my son, he is young and foolish.’

She looks about at the bodies, the blood stains on the road, the woman’s brains beaten out of her head – but she shows no emotion or reaction.

‘You don’t have to be sorry … he was just trying to help, he was very brave to do that – you really shouldn’t be angry at him,’ I say to her.

‘Please do not tell me what I should or should not do with my son,’ she snaps back.

‘Okay, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. I can’t believe what’s happened…what’s happening, this is … just so …’ My voice trails off.

‘Have you seen more of them? We tried calling the police but we cannot get through. 999 is not working. We cannot get hold of anyone.’

‘They’re everywhere. I’m from Boroughfare and the whole town is gone. I went through Littleton on the way here, that’s gone too.’

‘Oh … oh, my.’ She puts her hand to her cheek.

‘I was watching the news on television last night, it’s all over Europe,’ I say, gently.

Her mouth hangs open; the shock is visible on her face. She stays silent.

‘I’m err … looking for my dad, Howard. He comes down every morning for a newspaper, have you seen him?’

She stays silent for a few seconds.

‘I’m sorry, what … what did you say?’ She looks back at me with a confused expression.

‘My dad … Howard? He comes down every morning for a newspaper, have you seen him today?’ I repeat.

‘Oh, Howard. Yes, we know Howard, always so polite. No, we have not seen him, there is just my family – my son and daughter and me, of course.’

‘Is your husband not with you?’

‘No, he is visiting family at home.’ Her voice becomes very soft.

‘I’m sure he is okay, maybe it is just Europe that’s affected. If he is somewhere else he might be safe,’ I try to reassure her.

‘He is in India.’

‘Look, why don’t you go inside, it’s not safe out here in the open.’

‘Yes … do you want to come in?’

‘No, thank you, I have to go to my parents’ house, they live on the estate. Listen, I heard a broadcast on the radio, it said that people should go to the Forts.’

‘What Forts?’

‘The old ones, the Palmerston Forts, there’s quite a few of them all along the coast. The radio said London was infested and people should head over to the Forts and take food, water and medicine.’

‘Oh, I think we should stay here and wait for help. We have enough food, thank you.’

‘I don’t think it will be safe here, those things are everywhere,’ I point at the bodies on the ground.

‘And other people might want to take your food, maybe you should take what you can carry and go to the Forts? Do you have a vehicle?’

‘We have a van – my husband uses it for the Cash and Carry.’

‘Take your van, load it up with as much as you can take and then leave,’ I urge her.

‘What about my husband? What if he comes back and cannot find us?’

‘Leave a note for him and … also one that tells other people where you have gone so they can go there too – but do it quickly.’ She glances back at the shop, clearly unsure of what to do. I can see her dilemma; the shop looks strong and secure, a safe place.

‘I saw these things last night. They were different, they weren’t slow like these were, they were fast. If they change again they won’t stop until they have got you … and your family.’

She stares back at me. The suggestion of a threat to her family has sharpened her instincts for survival.

‘Where are these Forts?’

‘Check the Internet, if it’s still working. If not, look at local maps, they are tourist attractions and will be marked … do you sell maps?’

‘Yes … yes, we have maps.’

‘Check them and find the nearest Fort, then load up and go – please don’t stay here – it’s not safe.’

‘Okay, okay we will go. Food, water, and medicine,’ she repeats back to me.

‘Take what you can get into the van quickly: water, tinned food, any medicine … Aspirin, Paracetamol … anything, take clothing too, but please be quick.’

She goes to move away, then hesitates.

‘Will you come? We could travel together …’ she asks me.

‘I can’t, I’m sorry … I have to find my family. I will try and get my parents to follow you. I’ll ask them to come here first and see if you are still here, but don’t wait for them, load up and get going.’

She nods and walks back to the shop, still in shock. I’m worried that she’s not taken it in and will try to wait it out. Her son comes out of the door, walking towards his mother; a teenage girl comes out behind him and stands back holding the door open.

‘Hey, thanks for your help again, mate. I just said to your mother that people are going to the Forts on the coast, she said you had a van. I really think you should load up with food and water and go there as soon as possible. Take anything you can carry.’

‘Are you going there too?’

His mother interrupts before I can answer.

‘No, he has to find his family, go back inside please.’

I turn and walk to the car. The bottom of my bat is covered in blood and bits of gore that smears across the seat as I get in.

My parents moved here a few years ago; the old house was the family home. This is their new house and it feels different, still homely and welcoming, but not the same.

My dad retired two years ago. He was an engineer for a telecoms company and had a good retirement package, but he quickly got bored of playing golf and went back as a part-timer.

My sister and I bought him a new set of clubs for his 60th birthday. Well, I say we bought them – my sister paid most of it as she earns a fortune. I paid what I could, but still, it’s the thought that counts.

Their new house is detached and modern, but the large driveway is empty. Dad bought a new Toyota when he retired and always leaves it on the driveway, proudly cleaning it at every opportunity.

I leave the Micra on the street, engine off, but keys in the ignition, ready to go. I walk towards the house; the front door is closed, and all the windows are shut. There is a gate to the rear garden but it’s locked and too high to climb.

The front door has been left unlocked and I enter, pausing for a minute in the hallway, eyeing the stairs ahead of me. The hallway leads to the kitchen; to the left is the lounge with the door open. The dining room is to my right. There is no sound and I close the front door gently behind me.

I want to call out but don’t want to risk alerting any undead that I am here. I go into the lounge and then the dining room and finally the kitchen; there are two half-drunk mugs of coffee on the side, both are cold.

I go upstairs with my bat raised, but find nothing in the two guest rooms. The bathroom is clear.

My parents’ bedroom is also vacant; the drawers are empty and thrown around and the wardrobe is open – there are clothes lying about. It looks like they were in a rush. So they must be aware of what’s happening. I go back downstairs and check the rooms again. There is an open notepad on the dining-room table with a handwritten note in my mother’s writing:

Howie,

Dad got a phone call last night from an old colleague working in France, they said what was happening, awful things. Dad spoke to your sister. Sarah is safe at home, locked in and secure. The phone line went down when we were talking to her. We kept trying to call you but all the numbers were engaged. We are going to come and get you, but I suppose if you are reading this, then we have missed each other.

Stay here Howie, we will try your place and come back here before we get Sarah. We left the front door unlocked, in case you left your key behind. You can lock the door though, we both have our keys.

Please stay here Howie, we will be back soon.

Love, Mum and Dad.

I read the note over a few times … Sarah is safe, thank God. The relief is massive.

I know they will come back here before they do anything. I feel so weary now, hungry and exhausted. In the kitchen I find a Cornish pasty in the fridge and wolf it down within seconds – followed by another. I make a mug of tea, as the electricity and gas are still on.

I try the home phone but find it dead – there is not even a dial tone. I check the router: lights flashing red, no Internet and no phone line.

After locking the front door I go upstairs into the bathroom. I am filthy and covered in blood, gore, and dirt.

My hands are blood-stained, with black crusty grime under the nails. I strip off and have a hot shower, wondering how long it will be before the power goes off … might as well take the opportunity now.

I soak and scrub myself. The water runs red at first, and I keep scrubbing until the filth is washed away.

My clothes are too dirty to put back on, but my dad is a much bigger build than me and I know that his clothes won’t fit. These clothes need to be thrown away; the blood could be infectious, but then I would have nothing to wear.

I remember that there are some old clothes of mine in bin liners in the loft. I’d left them at the old house and Mum kept nagging me to go and sort them out, which I never did.

I wrap a towel around my waist and find the long stick to open the loft hatch in my parents’ room; the hatch opens downwards and a folding metal ladder extends down. I climb into the loft and turn the light on. The loft is boarded out and I can see a pile of black bags with white sticky labels marked ‘Howie’ on them.

I find an old pair of faded blue jeans; I used to live in these years ago. At first I grab a plain, white t-shirt, then I figure out that the white colour won’t blend in too well, and so I keep looking through the bag until I find an old, black, v-neck jumper. I check that the jeans still fit; they are a little tight around the waist, but they will have to do.

Finally, with nothing left to do but wait, I go into the lounge and lay down on the sofa, thinking through all that has happened.

Within seconds, my eyes are heavy and my breathing has slowed. I jerk awake a couple of times, my body twitching, but eventually, I drift off to sleep.

Table of Contents

- Blood on the Floor An Undead Adventure
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty One
- Twenty Two
- Twenty Three
- Twenty Four
- Twenty Five
- Twenty Six
- Twenty Seven
- Twenty Eight
- Twenty Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty One
- Thirty Two
- Thirty Three
- Thirty Four
- Thirty Five
- Thirty Six
- Thirty Seven
- Thirty Eight
- Thirty Nine
- The Undead Day One
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven