Lieutenant Rosa Carlsson had been a soldier in the Federal Republican Australian Army. She’d watched one city after another fall to the zombie onslaught, the unstoppable disfigured, groaning, ravenous tide of blood, gore and bone. Central authority disintegrated as the Queensland front collapsed and the carnage spread out over the Eastern Coast.  The Prime Minister was found in his Canberra office, beside a smoking pistol, despite his earlier professed earnest Catholic opposition to suicide.

By some miracle, she’d survived the fall of Sydney, alone of all her unit. She tried to radio for instructions as the deadly locust swarm of revenants ploughed downward through New South Wales, westward and southward into South Australia and Victoria. For a while, she tried to raise Central HQ, but a lone, functioning distant telecommunication hub disavailed her of any forelorn heroic aspirations. Apparently, there was some last stand occurring down in Melbourne, and Tasmania was protected by the Bass Strait.

Rosa left civilisation behind her, with a backpack and supplies taken from a deserted wilderness supplies centre. It would have been theft, if there were anyone left to notice. But there wasn’t- apart from the Aboriginal communities in the desert. But then, their ancestors had survived there for more than eighty thousand years. However, the bitterness of occupation and invasion does not yield easily and she learnt to keep away from outlying camps and outposts.

More than the zombies, the horror was that of utter desolation and desertion. Foolishly, there had been calls for evacuation of sparsely populated population centres to the ‘safety’ of the cities, given that the latter were ‘indefensible.’

The wind was funereal and keening a dirge for the fall of that continent to the undead when she rounded the hill and saw the settlement spread out before her. She was down to her last rations and realised how dirty and parched she must look. Later, Bryony had told her that Rosa had been unable to make it the final three kays en route across the burning sandy plain and collapsed. From a gantry high above, Bryony Pearson had seen the incomer and strongarmed a rescue team out to the exhausted, dessicated servicewoman.

Pearson Hill had been a ranch. Bryony Pearson was its owner and now its feudal chatelaine. And, something more, as Rosa regained her figure and her health under the administration of the rough-hewn, bawdy, but compassionate woman. And then, one night, Bryony had shut the door behind her and started to undress. She’d read Rosa correctly, as the sinewy, tanned, naked body lay beside her and reached for her. She reached back, putting the memories of Toni back in Saint Kilda and the flat at the back of her mind.

It was an eden in the desert, but it came with an inbuilt snake, too. Little by little, Rosa came to notice oddities and irregularities, signs that the wilderness redoubt was not what it seemed. She caught sight of a well-thumbed copy of Mein Kampf in the library. Bryony shrugged when Rosa pointed it out, saying that her great-granddad had been a bit of a ratbag that way.

But as time wore on, there were other signs. She caught sight of swastika and iron cross tattoos on some of Bryony’s men and women, with some racist epithets and derisive terms directed toward the vanished world. Yeah, Bryony said over coffee and cigarettes after a passionate previous night, but these are mining folk and hardscrabble farmers, love.

So where was the rich cultural diversity that had characterised Australia before the fall?  And then, one night, she overheard one of the guardswomen refer to the “Arena” that evening.  Feigning a migraine and heavy period, she’d trailed a rowdy contingent of Pearson Hill inhabitants to a waterhole. And. And. And.

What she saw there sickened her to the stomach. There were zees there, a pit of them, but that wasn’t all. There was a mother there and her screaming children, clad in a Muslim hijab, calling on Allah the Merciful and Compassionate to save them, to have mercy. They were in a cage, being lowered into the grasping, howling and mindless creatures into the pit below. And worst of all, there was Bryony, laughing, sneering at the captives, sharing in the unknown betrayal, as she cut the rope suspending the woman and her children above the once-human piranhas swarming below. Rosa wanted to cry out, but then she realised what that would mean. She forced herself to keep silent, and watched on. There were others.

Her lover, her Bryony, was a butcher. She presided over an orgy of death and gore that evening, and all the victims were African, Asian, Arab or others who had the misfortune to be born to foreign born parents. Bryony’s face was filled with satanic abandonment and amusement, like a latter-day Ranavolana or Caligula. She stumbled away from the scene of depravity and carnage and was violently sick.

When she had disgorged the last of her stomach lining, she looked back at the sound of corrupt revelry and celebration, listening to the screams and cries for mercy that never came.

Rosa took steps over the next week or so. While she couldn’t bear to be in the cruel woman’s arms and barely tolerated her touch on her body, she masked it well. She debated inwardly whether or not she could do this. But little by little, her doubts eased. One evening, on lone sentry duty, “playing her part,” she eased acid into the lock and hinges of the gates and learned the programming sequence for the horn. On subsequent excursions into ruined Alice Springs thirty or so klicks away, she carefully noted the concentrations of zombies and fortuitously discovered a pack only twelve kilometres away in an abandoned mining outpost.

She took quiet and careful steps, never arousing suspicion, as she listened to the racist banter of the men and women in the settlement around her, which only fuelled her resolve. After a fortnight, she was ready.

Still, though, there was mourning and grieving for the woman that she had lost, even if she had never existed, other than in an idealized, romantic and erotic abstraction from the unspeakable reality.

And then, on the final night, it happened. Overcoming her nausea, Rosa and Bryony had made love one final time. And then, in the bed that they shared, Rosa took a stiletto knife and plunged it deep into the brain of the woman that she had loved. A minute later, she triggered the siren.

Klicks away, shambling and ravenous figures stumbled from their mineland territory, moving implacably toward the distant flashing lights and raucous noise. About that time, the first of the explosions hit the armoury and sentry towers. The gates of the settlement were blasted open and in the chaos, came the hammering on the door.

Rosa feigned heavy drunkenness on the part of their leader, which was habitual after a particularly successful salvage mission or anti-zombie incident. She promised that she’d get her sober and said she supposed that the headwoman would  trust her loyal lieutenants to take up the slack.

And then, she unscrewed the bottle of poison that she’d mixed. With the chaos of the bomb attacks, the wounded to tend to, and their obliviousness to risk, the outlying zombies staggered through the Pearson Hill gates into a settlement unable to resist them.

There were cries of alarm and panic as the willing participants in torture and brutality ran out of ammunition and serviceable guns, and then there was running and screaming.

In their room, Rosa knew that there was no way out for her, after what she had done. In fact, she had planned it that way. She was an honourable woman, and a loving one, and Bryony’s end had been quicker and cleaner than she had deserved, because, despite all that she had done, Rosa still loved the woman lying dead in the bed beside her.

She checked her watch and felt the last signs of the cumulative poison that she’d taken start to take effect. She staggered toward the bed, lay down opposite Bryony’s body, with a perverse halo of blood and gore around her impaled head, kissed her one last time, readied her service revolver, and with the last of her strength, put it to her head and squeezed the trigger.

There was only chaos and slaughter outside and then cries of despair and pain as the zombies overran Pearson Hill and massacred its inhabitants.

They had shown others no mercy and received none themselves. Except for their deceptively beautiful headwoman.

He lay perfectly still, listening as the collapsed building creaked and groaned around them as it warmed up. The hole they were in was barely big enough for the both of them and the entrance was a tight squeeze even for a couple of small children, but at least they were reasonably safe from the infected.

He opened one eye and watched as a dust mote danced in a thin beam of light, like a dancer on a stage. Molly stirred and moaned softly.

“Shhhh” he said stroking her hair. She seemed to settle down a little. He felt tears well up in his eyes; he needed to be brave like daddy said, but a single tear escaped and ran down his grimy cheek.

Billy sat up in the tiny cave rubbing sleep from his eyes and rummaged through their meager possessions. They had a quarter of a tin of dog food left, a little water and a tin of something. He didn’t know what it was, there was no label on its rusty exterior and he’d lost the can opener when they’d had to run from a swarm of the infected.

The dog food was going black and dry on top and didn’t smell very nice, but it was all there was for breakfast. He’d have to work out a way to open the other can soon.

He checked Molly for any new injuries, tearing of a bit more off his shirt and binding the cuts and abrasions from the previous day. Then after rinsing his mouth with some of the water to get the taste of the rancid dog food, he spat some onto a rag and tried to clean her grubby face as best he could.

“Hold still” he said as he wiped away some of the grime “Mummy said I had to look after you and she’d be mad if she saw how messy you were now.”

She stood as if in a daze, still hugging a battered dolly that was missing its head and one arm, but she didn’t seem to mind. She was in one of her unresponsive moods, but at least she’ll be quiet, thought Billy. He wrapped some rags around his feet and tied a couple of old plastic shopping bags over the top, it wouldn’t last long, but at least he’d have dry feet for a little while.

His filthy jacket was several sizes too big, but that was a blessing as it served as a crude sleeping bag for the both of them when they stopped for the night. It reeked of sweat, fear and urine. Sometimes their hiding place was very cramped and it was too dangerous to go outside and he often he was forced to lie sopping in his own piss.

After a while he didn’t care anymore, the painful rash caused by the uric acid on his upper legs and crotch soon melded with all the other discomforts and hurts.

He tied up the few things they had in an old flour sack and checked his father’s revolver the way he had been shown. It had just three rounds left, but the action was still smooth despite the early stages of rust.

Billy picked up the bag and slung it over his shoulder, the string he used as a strap digging into his bony shoulder.  “C’mon Molly, we have to go …  we need to find the good guys” he said softly before crawling through the hole. She hesitated for a second before scrambling after him on her hands and knees and out into the weak dawn light.

She tottered after him, the remains of her nappy sagging almost to her knees, arms outstretched toward Billy as he looked up and down the street checking for any signs of danger. It seemed clear.

He looked down at her and shook his head. “I’m sorry Molly, I can’t carry you, you’re too heavy now.” As he headed off down the street she gave a little sigh and followed him as fast as her little legs could carry her, her arms still outstretched hopefully.

The early morning dew sparkled as the sun came up and Billy paused to lick the moisture off the windscreen of a wrecked car, the driver glaring at him through empty eye sockets. It wasn’t much, but it eased his thirst a little.

Molly bumped into him and began tugging at his jacket.

“Stop that” he said irritably “Or I’ll tell mummy you’ve been a bad girl.”

She seemed to think about that for a few seconds, and then reached up for him again.

He felt the tears start again. “Molly, I know you miss mummy and daddy. I miss them too, but they can’t be here” he regarded his little sister sadly “You’re too young to understand.” Billy sighed and trudged tiredly down the road, followed closely by Molly.

They walked for a few hours until they reached a bus lying on its side. Billy crawled inside, but there was nothing worth taking. No food or water at any rate, just old sale receipts scattered around the wreck.

He felt faint and his hunger pangs were now a constant torment. A jagged piece of metal gave him an idea and Billy reached into his bag and took out the rusty can. It made a gentle sloshing noise as he hefted it in his hand. He aimed carefully and slammed it down onto the pointed edge.

All he’d succeeded in doing was to dent the can and leave a bright scar where the rust had been scraped off. He rubbed his wrist and gently pushed his sister away.

“Please Molly, I have to try to open this.”

He brought the can down again, harder this time and brown liquid squirted out over his hand. He licked his fingers and immediately spat on the ground.

“Paint”, he said in a barely audible voice and slumped against the wreck, this time letting the tears flow.

“It’s not fair … it’s just not fair,” he sobbed picking up the can and throwing it as hard as he could across the road. Molly looked up at him, clutching at his clothing.

“Go ‘way Molly” he said and roughly shoved her away. She fell flat on her bottom, sitting in the road for a few seconds before getting up and toddling back over to him holding her arms out.

Billy stroked her hair as she tried to climb onto his lap. “I’m sorry,” he said wiping his eyes with the back of his hand “I just wish mummy and daddy were here.”

He looked down the road as a movement caught his eye; there he saw two roughly dressed bearded men. One of them pointed and yelled.

“There, I tole ya I heard sumthin’”

Billy was on his feet in a second, scooping up Molly and running as fast as he could away from the men. He heard a shouted curse and the sound of boots pounding on the cracked roadway.

“Hey kid, stop. We ain’t gonna hurt ya,” one of them shouted.

Billy ran on even faster, Molly clinging to him, her face buried in his neck. He was tiring fast and the two men were gaining on him. He looked around desperately for a hiding place and as he rounded a corner, he saw a half burnt out house.

Billy scrambled over a collapsed wall, ignoring the pain as he cut his feet on the rubble and broken glass, some of the floorboards had been burnt away and sobbing with fear he squeezed into the hole, dragging Molly in after him.

There was only just enough room between the floor and ash-blacked ground for the two children and Billy lay flat on his stomach like a lizard in a crevice, desperately trying to control his panicked breathing.

He pointed the pistol at the opening. He had three bullets left, one for the first raider unlucky enough to discover them and one each for Molly and himself. He’d decided a while ago that he wouldn’t let them be taken alive.

For a minute he heard nothing, then there was the unmistakable sound of boots moving stealthily over the wooden boards.

“I’m sure the little fuckers came in here,” whispered a voice.

“Yeah, mebbe,” came another low voice.

Billy was shaking uncontrollably as he listened to the men talking as they searched for them. This wasn’t the first time he’d encountered raiders.

They’d almost been caught by some a few weeks back and he remembered the cold brutality in their faces and how they’d killed the dog that had befriended them. Both he and Molly had hidden in terror in the boot of a burnt out car, the group of men and women shouting to each other as they tried to find them.

They didn’t just kill the dog, they’d hurt it for the fun of it, laughing as it whined and yelped in pain, its eyes bright with fear and betrayal. Billy had put his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut until it was over.

And in a sudden flush of shame, he remembered how his mouth had watered as the smell of roasting meat had wafted over them in their hiding place as they had cooked the dog.

After a while one of the men grunted, “Fuck this shit, they ain’t here.”

He lay still, holding Molly close for a long time after they’d left. When he finally thought it was safe he crawled out. He walked a few steps before collapsing in pain from his injured feet.

Molly toddled up to him and plucked gently at his clothing.  He almost smiled. She was still wearing the remains of her ragged pink party dress, complete with the battered and bent fairy wings she’d resisted any attempt to remove. In the failing light, she almost looked like a grubby little angel.

He looked around and saw a cupboard in the remains of the kitchen, it was as good a place as any to hide and he wasn’t going to be able to walk very far anyway. He climbed inside and as Molly crawled in after him, he pulled the door closed.

He was so very tired, but Molly continued to fidget, tugging at his clothing and nuzzling his neck. In the end he pulled the stump of a candle from his pocket and lit it.

“You want me to read you a story?”

He pulled a damp damaged and dog-eared book from his bag and began to read. As he did Molly began to calm down and finally lay still.

The book was ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’

“By the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf. On a warm Sunday morning when the sun came up … pop! Out of the egg came a tiny and very hungry caterpillar

On Monday he ate through a whole apple but he was still hungry”

He paused as outside one of the infected howled in the night. He read on.

“On Saturday he ate through one piece of chocolate cake. One ice cream cone, one pickle, one slice of Swiss cheese …”

Billy stopped reading. He was so hungry. He finally fell asleep dreaming of chocolate cake.

In the morning, he strained some water from a puddle through a rag and called that breakfast. He was very weak, but he bandaged his feet as best he could and limped down the road, Molly toddled after him her arms outstretched as usual.

“I can’t carry you Molly,” he said looking back at her “And we have to find the good guys, like daddy said.”

The pistol was heavy, so he tied a bit of string to the trigger guard and hung it around his neck. A few hours later the last of the water was finished and Billy was beginning to feel dizzy and his vision began to blur.

“Are we there yet?” he mumbled to himself and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.

“You’re almost there sweetheart”.

“Mommy?”

“I’m very proud of you Billy, we both are.”

“I’m tired mommy and I’m really, really hungry.”

“I know sweetheart, but it’s not far now and you’ve looked after your little sister just like we asked.”

“Mommy?” he began to cry again “Please don’t leave us again.”

“I’m so sorry Billy, but you have to be brave just a little while longer.”

“Mommy … I can’t …” Billy staggered to a stop and as Molly bumped into him he looked up.  There was a wall with a large gate in front of them. He could make out the words ‘Flints Outpost’ crudely painted on the crossbar.

“Jesus Christ” said a voice and Billy came out of his daze. Several men and women were standing by the gate, a couple had weapons pointed at him and his sister.

Billy backed away a few steps, pushing Molly behind him and brought his fathers pistol up.

“He’s got a gun,” yelled one of them and the others brought their rifles to bear.

“Stand down,” boomed a voice and the guards reluctantly lowered their weapons, but remained wary.

Captain ‘Cannibal’ Körner strode forward and stopped a few yards from Billy.

“Where you headed soldier?” he said gently and then saluted.

Billy was completely taken aback and after a short pause, awkwardly saluted back. His eyes wide open in awe of the giant in front of him. He was nothing like the raiders; for one he was well dressed and radiated a calm friendliness.

“A-are you t-the good guys?” Billy stammered.

The big man grinned and rubbed his chin, “Yeah, we’re the good guys. And who’s this? He said nodding toward Molly.

“That’s my little sister, mommy said I had to look after her.”

“You’ve done a hell of a job soldier, I could use a man like you in my platoon” said Körner.

“Really?” Billy smiled for the first time in a long time.

“Max.”

“Sir?”  Replied one of the guards.

“Go get Sally the head nurse … on the double.”

“Yes sir.”

Körner turned back to Billy and saw that Molly was gently tugging at the boys clothing.  A minute later Sally ran up, her med bag bouncing against her hip.

“Hi Canni, What’s up?  Her hand flew up to her mouth when she saw the two children  “… Oh my.”

The young boy was almost skeletal, and bloody rags covered his feet. Starvation had left his skin almost translucent and his eyes and teeth looked too big for his skull.

“This is Billy,” said Körner gently “When he gets a bit bigger, he’s going to be a member of my squad… isn’t that right son?”

“Yes sir, “ said Billy giving the big guardsman another salute.

“Hello Billy” said Sally, tears pricking her eyes, “You’re safe now, and we’re going to look after you OK?”

“Kay, but my little sister is sick … I promised mommy I’d look after her.”

Sally looked at Molly. The remains of a bloody pink dress hung off her tiny body. Duct tape was wrapped around her head, covering her mouth and jaw and her dead white eyes seemed to see everything … and nothing.

“We’ll take care of you both sweetheart” said Sally her voice breaking and held out her hand to the young boy.

Molly let out a soft moan and reached her arms up toward Billy. He gave her one last hug, brushing her tangled hair from her face and then took Sally’s hand.

Sally nodded to a grim faced Captain Körner. He watched as she took the young boy into the compound and turned to the little girl.

“Max, your machete.”

“Jesus, I can’t kill her Captain, she’s just a kid.”

“I’m not asking you to … I’ll do it.”

Max drew the blade and handed it to Körner.

Molly looked up at the big guardsman and toddled toward him, her arms outstretched as if she wanted to be picked up. The machete came down with a crack and she lay still.

For a long minute Körner stood staring down at the little body, the fairy wings fluttering gently in the breeze. Then he threw the weapon as far as he could and stalked back into the outpost, the other guards parting as he walked though them. No one wanted to look into his eyes.

Sally picked Billy up and carried him toward the infirmary, dismayed at how little he weighed. He clung to her and she felt his hot tears on her neck.

“Is she with the angels now?” said Billy in a small voice.

“Yes baby,” whispered Sally choking back her own tears “She’s with the angels now.”

“Which way I fly is Hell; myself, I am Hell;”

Kelly,

If you are reading this, one of two things has happened. Either Sachs has had me killed, or, I have been locked in the Shed. Either way things have got so bad you/we need to get out of here. I’ve set as much up as I can but Sachs has had me watched, and followed, since the first meeting we had with him. I challenged him then while appearing to be submissive. I had hoped he was too dumb to notice. I was wrong, and that makes him extremely dangerous. Therefore, there has been a limit to how far I can go. It’s up to you guys to put the rest of the plan in place and execute. It had to be this way so he couldn’t guess what I was doing. If I am Dead then I should say ‘I Love You’, just so you know. If I’m not dead there is no point in me waxing on about how much I love you because we’ll both just be embarrassed when we meet again. Lets be positive and assume I’m in the Shed while he gloats and decides how to kill me. Whatever happens he’s now made enough enemies that you should be able to trust most of the civilians. Having said that, keep this plan quiet. Only tell those that are essential and swear them to secrecy until everyone needs to know. If you have a choice, pick the ones with Kids, they have the most to lose. Never show anyone this letter, memorise it and once you’ve done that. Burn it.

This is how it’s going to go down.

If I am in the Shed, Sachs won’t let me live long once he lets me out. If he lets me out. Once all the steps below are in place you need to come and get me out. How you do that is up to you, but under no circumstances try to get a message to me. It’s too risky. When Jim was in here it was permanently guarded. Take the guard out quietly at 3am (After shift change), and let me out. Bring the bag that’s stuffed down in the bottom of my sleeping bag, there is a list in there of other things I need. I’ll do the rest.

Martin had been in the shed for three weeks and two days according to the marks on the floor. He had used that time wisely. He had honed his anger into a shiv, and his body into a weapon. His shoulder had healed, as had the wounds from his beating, and The Shed had enough room for press ups, sit ups, some yoga exercises. For two weeks he had exercised every moment he wasn’t sleeping until his body cried out in pain. Then, when he hit three weeks he had calmed it down, letting the lactic acid settle. The downside of this was he had time to think. In his weak moments he thought as the previous prisoner had. Maybe the Dead had overrun the base and were stood just outside. It certainly sounded like it. Then, every morning, he heard the rumble of engines in the background. The raids were still going on. That gave him comfort. Even so he looked at his watch and trained himself to wake up at two thirty AM. He would stretch, limber up, and wait. For all this time three AM had passed, and he had gone back to sleep before the nagging doubts came back. However, just after three, he heard a whispered voice, and the agitation of the nearby Dead. He stood, stretched and waited silently in front of the door.

After a moment the padlock on the either side rattled. He was reminded of Schrodinger’s cat, at this moment either Sachs had come to kill him or Kelly had come to rescue him. Either way this existence in two states fired adrenaline through his system at a rate that made him dizzy. After a few seconds the door flew open.

It was Kelly.

“Hi.”She said, smiling thinly. He stepped towards her and she half went to hug him, but he tensed so she retracted. It was then he saw her face, dark bruises were healing around one eye.
“What happened to you?”
“They got me a few days after you came in here. Its got a lot worse. Work parties for food, rationing, rapes and they won’t give Jez the antibiotics he needs. Sachs is out of control.” She said, voice trembling. It was the most vulnerable Martin had ever seen her and he knew she just wanted to hug him, but it wasn’t the time. His mind was distracted and in the wrong place. He saw her harden in front of him. It was for the best.
“Is it all in place?” He asked. She slid the bag off her shoulder and passed it to him, It was a grey holdall with the word ‘metronidazol’ written on it in white marker.
“Yes.” She replied. He knew he had to give her something, some crumb of comfort from his cold and dark place.
“I’ll make sure Sachs pays.” He said softly, expecting her to smile or react in some positive way. She didn’t she just nodded and look down. He didn’t know what to say, and felt embarrassed.
“I’m sorry this happened to you. I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”
“Just get us out of here like you promised.” She said, holding his gaze, her eyes full of something Martin didn’t recognise in her.

The guard on the ground next to them groaned, coming round from where Kelly had kneed and punched him. Martin looked down at the prone soldier, holding himself on the foetal position.
“Go and make sure everyone is ready.”
“You coming as well?”
“No. I’ve got number 2 on the list to do first….and to deal with him.” He said pointing to the groaning form in the darkness.

She turned and walked away as she heard Martin knock the soldier out. She didn’t hear him take the knife from the bag, slit the soldiers arms, but not too deep, and she didn’t hear him roll the unconscious body over to the fence behind the shed, out of sight. This would attract as many Dead to his ‘bird feeder’ as possible. As he turned and walked away he already began to hear the long, low moan that they knew would attract others to the scene.

2. Jez needs to remove the extractor and filter assembly in the bunker vent I’ve marked with black marker pen, so I can get into the bunker. I’ve loosened the fan and its starting to make a squeaking noise. Jez needs to make sure he is the one to repair it so he can remove the fan and motor assembly and I can get inside. If I am dead skip this bit. Once I’m inside the bunker I can get what we need and meet you at the Fort.

Sachs felt a groggy pain in his head and tried to roll over, but was restricted. His temper flashed and he tried to roll over again, this time he recognised his hands and arms were tied, and he had something in his mouth. He awoke in confusion. He was secured to his bed in his room. Frantically he looked round, in anger to see who had done this. The room was illuminated only from the faint bedside lamp on the table providing a small circle of soothing amber light. It was then Sachs saw the glowing cigarette end and the tall grey haired figure, dressed in a black polo neck and black jeans. Around his torso Sachs could see a holster containing two pistols. It was only then he heard Martins voice.

“What you feel now is anger. Anger that someone has done this to you. With that there is a hope that one of your men will discover us and you will be free to make me pay.” Said Martin, coolly. Sachs shouted into the gag wrapped round his head, and strained against the restraint tying him to the bed, until his hands turned purple. Martin dragged on the cigarette while Sachs struggled. He took the small bag from the floor and put it on the table next to his seat, so Sachs could see what he was doing.
“In a moment that will turn to fear. Then I will tell you a story. Then you will feel more terror than you have ever felt in your entire life.” Martin said as he watched the eyes turn from anger to fear, as if a light had been switched.

“First I want to show you what’s in the bag. Do you want to see what’s in the bag?” He asked, patronisingly. Sachs shook his head frantically, cheeks puffing out as he hyperventilated into the gag.

“You do? Good. Well what’s the first item?” He reached into the bag, and pulled out two small pill boxes. He placed them reverently on the table.

“Those are for my…. friend… Jez. The one who cut his hand, the one who is benefiting from your decision not to give out medicine to the civs. He doesn’t deserve to die to prove a point. These are so he gets better.” Said Martin. Sachs seemed to be calming down. Good. He didn’t want the bastard passing out. He rifled in the bag again, and pulled out a small bloody knife.

“Ahh this is a surprise for later.” He said placing it on the table, next to the antibiotics. He picked a marker pen out of the bag.

“This I am going to use in a minute. I am going to write, above your head, that you are the man who killed Mohammed’s mother. If he ever finds his way here. That’s right. You are never going to leave this room again. But first I am going to tell you about the last item.” He placed the marker on the table, and went in the bag for a last time. He held his hand in the bag with the item.

“You see. I said earlier that i was going to turn your anger to fear. This is how I do it.” He said, pulling the syringe out of the bag.

“I do it by telling you that I found your garage. The one with all the corpses in it. Some of them were dead and some of them, like the Brigadier, you had killed. Then I took a sample of blood from one of the corpses and……well…..I’ve already given it to you.” Said Martin, languidly. Sachs eyes widened.

“The only unknown being just how long it’ll take you to turn. I have heard up to one hundred and twenty eight hours. That’s a long time to be strapped to a bed. I wonder how painful it will be?” Martin inspected the syringe, and frowned.

“There really wasn’t much in the syringe either, so I would imagine it will take a while.” He said, wistfully. The figure on the bed stretched and wriggled at its bonds. Martin watched it dispassionately.

“And that, Colonel Sachs, is the fear I spoke of.” Martin said sitting back and taking a long drag from the cigarette, its faint light illuminating Martin’s cruel facade.

“But don’t forget that before I leave there will be more fear, and more pain as well, and that’s what I want you to think about, while I write my message to the son of the woman you killed in cold blood. Her name was Binita.” Martin stood and picked up the marker pen. Casually, he walked over to the wall behind the bed, briefly stopping only to extinguish the cigarette on the figures ankle, which made it wriggle and twist all the more. The marker squeaked as he scrawled his message on the wall. It was brief but would leave Mo no doubt what had happened, and who had been responsible. It was unlikely Mo would ever read the message, but even so, Martin wouldn’t feel right if he didn’t write it. He looked down to see the man arch his back trying to read the text above its head. Once again its eyes widened in terror.

“Oh you can read upside down? Good, then you’ll know that as well as infecting you, i’m going to take your eyes. Mmmm. That’s what the little knife is for. First, I want you to know something.” Martin sat back down in the seat, and took another Marlboro from the packet, and lit it with relish.

“You’ll have to forgive the chain smoking. You really have been holding out on us haven’t you Colonel?” For a few moments Martin savoured the head rush after having not smoked for so long. The room was silent except for the figure’s laboured breathing and the drag of the cigarette.
“Now if I ask you a question. I want you to nod or shake your head. Yes or no. If I believe you, I may not take your eyes. Hell, I may not even have infected you. Who knows. Do you understand?” The man nodded slowly. Martin sat back, dragging on the cigarette, one leg crossed over the other, smoking hand sagged over his knee. Long moments passed before he spoke again.
“I’ve worked in some real shit hole countries you know. Places that aren’t even on a map because they come and go like the leaves in the wind, and do you know what I learned?” The figure shook its head.
“I learnt two things. First. There is no point in becoming friends with people. Ultimately they die, or lose interest, or hurt you. So to combat that you build this…….this barrier to keep yourself in. Its stops you getting hurt. I did it when my Father left and my Mum died, and I carried on doing it until….. Well, until just recently. I never got married, my best friend died in Somalia. Have you done a tour in Somalia?” The figure shook its head.
“Of course you haven’t.” He said taking the final drag of the cigarette. Casually, he leaned forward and stubbed it out on the figure’s ankle, close to the first mark. The creature squirmed and grunted, breathing heavily. Martin resumed his pose in the chair and waited for the him to relax.
“Turns out though, that’s cowardice. I spent my whole life being a fucking coward and never realised it. I was scared. Pretty pathetic really I suppose, but the point is I spoke more to those people I arrived with, in twenty four hours, than I had spoken to anyone in maybe two years. Now that really is pathetic isn’t it?” The figure remained static. Martin smiled.
“Consequently, they are very important to me, and you killed one in a fit of spite. Shot her through the head like a dog. Really its a good job you did, because I wouldn’t have been able to put the rest of the plan in motion without you finding out, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Thing is. It really fucking hurt me. She was a good woman. A good woman who had been through some shit herself, and she didn’t deserve to die like that, not to prove how big a man you are.”

“Then there’s the lad, Jez. There’s no reason not to give him the antibiotics he needed, other than you are just trying to control everyone here. He’s just a normal lad, bit of a scrote but weren’t we all at that age?”

“Then there is Kelly. Now I want to believe that you didn’t have her raped. I really want to believe that, but I just can’t. That was just to get one over on me, and that is pretty bloody pathetic too. Point is that you’ve done nothing but control the whole situation here since day one. I just don’t understand why that is?” Martin paused and leaned forward.
“If I was feeling generous I could say it’s because your scared. The whole world’s gone to shit and this is something you can control. That’s not right though is it. Truth is you did it because you could. You did it because it gave you power and wealth. I’ve seen all the stuff you’ve looted, I’ve seen the signs you took down if any other military came looking for you, seen how you’ve set yourself up in this bunker. Emperor of you’re own little land, like the King of England or some CEO of a multinational, tucked away in your little fortress, granting the serfs some occasional boon to stop them challenging you. Thing is, everywhere I’ve been, I’ve seen little dictators like you do the same thing. Promise a glorious shining Republic, or safety, or riches or anything to get you to the top. Then, when you get there, you are so terrified of the whole thing coming crashing down you use fear, propaganda, money and intimidation, or any tool you have available, against any threat that could appear. Problem is you are focusing on the wrong thing, because every time a little tosspot like you gets too big for his boots it’s not the revolutionaries at the door that are the problem, no matter what you hear on the News. Its the people in the street, going about their business, trying to scrape by, feeding their kids and keep a roof over their head. They’re the real problem for people like you. Do you want to know why?” The figure lay unmoving, eyes transfixed on Martin.

“It’s because, when the day comes that some unseen fucking force, some Dark Avenger or Black Ops team, with the right skills and tools arrives to take them down, none of the normal people, living their normal lives, will give one…..fucking….toss. They’ll all step aside and carry on, carrying on” Martin said, glancing at his watch.

“I could have told every civilian on this base what I was going to do to you tonight, and not one of them would stop me. Not when they are in fear for their kids lives and their bellies are empty, and that, you fucking stupid piece of shit, is why having friends and family are important. Just because they give a shit about you. That’s it. Its so simple I can’t believe I never saw it before. No matter how much pain they cause when they leave or die or whatever, it’s all worth it when you have someone who cares about you. Just who is top dog doesn’t matter one iota” The figure just stared at Martin with hatred in his eyes. Martin checked his watch again.
“Anyway. It’s been remarkably….cathartic, having this conversation, but I do believe your five minutes is up. So I would start being terrified just about now.” Martin gathered the items from the table one by one and put them all, bar one, back in the bag. Then, he stood up, rubbed his shoulders with his finger tips for a minute and stared at the bastard in front of him. He reached down and picked up the small knife.
“Oh and I lied about not taking your eyes and not infecting you. You are fucked..” He said, as the man started to thrash and hyperventilate before him. Martin leaned in and grabbed the figure by his chin, bring his face close as the knife shone in the dull light.
“Now…..Which one first.”

3. Look at the map I’ve drawn on the back of this letter. That point marked with an X is where we are going to get all the vehicles through. I’ve marked the same X on the fence posts where I’ve chopped through every third link, just to weaken it a bit. The map also shows how the vehicles need to be arranged on the parade ground. Jez can make out he’s doing maintenance and move them into position over a period of days. Get everyone ready in the fort and make sure all the vehicles are ready to go, and wait for me. If I’m dead you are going to need to get them out yourself when you hear the signal. I’ll come onto that in a bit. This is very important. Look at the location of the seven and a half tonner, HN52 UBB. That HAS to be in place before anything else happens.

Martin emerged from the vent and sat behind it for a moment before placing the automatics on the floor either side of him, pulling the two homemade silencers out of the bag. Weeks earlier he had welded a pipe fitting to each tube and stuffed the tubes with dense foam from an old car seat. They wouldn’t silence more than a couple of shots each but there were never more than a few guards patrolling at night. The full moon was high in the sky, obscured by wispy clouds, illuminating the base with a thin bright moonlight. He had just fitted one silencer when the Dark Eyed Soldier came round from one side of the vent and nearly stood on him. They stared at each other in surprise. The soldiers SA80 pointed at him.

“Sachs told me you would try something like this old man. I wondered why your little boy was dicking around here.”
“So are you going to kill me?”
“There’s nothing I would like more. Toss the gun over here.” The soldier scowled. Martin tossed the silenced pistol to the soldiers feet.
“Tell you what. Why don’t we put the guns aside and see who’s tougher? You can boast you kicked the shit out of someone who’s ex-SAS.” Said Martin. The soldier stood thinking for a moment. He relaxed and lowered the gun slightly. He grimaced at Martin.
“Yeah go on then. You know, that girl of yours was feisty. Well, she was until the guys and I roughed her up a bit.” The soldier lifted the strap of the rifle over his head, and tossed it away.
“Yeah she’s a tight little bitch..” Martin picked up the other automatic from the grass by his side and levelled it at the soldier just long enough to register, then pulled the trigger and shot the soldier in the crotch. The unsilenced shot rang out in the cool, quiet night. The soldier collapsed on the ground, clutching the wound, and Martin stood slowly, before walking over and collecting the silenced pistol. He quickly wound the silencer off again, it was pointless now. He looked down at the large prone figuring writhing in pain before him.
“I could shoot you now but I think I’ll let those things eat you.” The soldier didn’t seem to register the comment.

Suddenly a brace of shots peppered the grass around him, echoing round the base. Martin ducked and scanned the area. Behind one of the buildings he could see a crouched figure. From somewhere else he heard the electronic beep of a walkie talkie, followed by the Klaxon alarm ringing out. The sound of it haunted the base like a bomb, ringing in his ears.

“Shit!” He exclaimed. This wasn’t going as planned, but he had contingencies in place. He sprinted behind a building towards the Fort, grabbing the discarded rifle as he went. Safely in cover he looked back up the small hill towards the Shed. His tasty treat had worked and the fence bulged in as hundreds of Zombies pressed against it, the moonlight illuminating many more figures emerging from the distant trees. Behind him he could hear shouts, so he pressed on towards the Fort using the buildings as cover until he reached the parade ground.

He could see one of the soldiers on guard moving towards him but looking up at the bunker, so he shot one of them quickly, the soldier dropped like a puppet with its strings cut. Over at the Fort he could see the main door slightly ajar, and a head peeking through the gap. His heart leapt when he saw it was Kelly. He sprinted over the small patch of bare earth before the parade ground and dropped over the wall onto the tarmac as he heard gunfire behind. He spun and steadied the gun on the grassy ledge, using the wall as cover. He could see two soldiers edging around the buildings. He waited for a few seconds until they moved into view then shot one, changed the angle and shot the other before they could react. He looked quickly back at the buildings and couldn’t see anyone else.
“NOW KELLY!” He screamed at the Fort.

4. Make sure that anything anyone wants to take is loaded onto the vehicles without the soldiers seeing. They can’t take everything in case Sachs inspects the Fort. Make sure that everyone is ready to get in the vehicles and go. If Sachs has the keys to any, Jez will have to make sure that they are hot wired. The exit will be on the opposite side from where the Zombies come in, up the path over the stream. It’ll be tight on the little bridge but I’ve measured it and the widest one can get through. The vehicles must leave in the order on the diagram or everyone will get snared up. You’re in charge. Everyone needs to stay cool. Its down to you and Binita to make sure that happens. If I’m dead just go with the civilians as quickly and as quietly as you can. If I’m not, I’ll take it from there.

Good Luck.

M.

The Civilians poured out of the main door to the Fort running towards their respective vans, cars, and lorries. Martin moved towards the special seven and a half tonner, looking back out at the base as he went. The timing had been beautiful. He presumed most of the night guards had been disposed of, but the alarm had not been ringing long enough for the soldiers in the bunkers to get equipped and get out.

He kept scanning the distant buildings, but no more soldiers emerged. Then he heard a shout from behind.

“Alright there old man!” It was Jez, who looked thin and pale as he and Kelly approached. His skin had a waxy sheen and he looked more emaciated than the others.
“Good God mate you look rough.” Said Martin, reaching into the holdall for the two bottles of antibiotics.
“Thanks, I’ve been better.” Jez said, smiling thinly. Martin passed him the two pill bottles.
“These should help.”
“It’s probably a bit late for that.”
“Has Emma been looking after you?”
“Has she hell. She’s not come out the bunker since you got locked up.”

There was an enormous roar as all the vehicles around started up in unison. The lead vehicle, another seven and a half tonner moved forward slowly onto the small bridge that lead to the road and the weakened section of fence.

“Right, get in here you two.”
“Are we not going with them?” Said Kelly.
“Nope. We are going to make sure that no-one follows us or them.”

They all climbed up into the cab, Martin in the driving seat. He started the truck with a roar, while reaching under the seat. There was the sound of tape ripping, and he pulled out a metal bracket that resembled two H’s welded together, top to bottom.

“What’s that?” Said Kelly climbing into the middle seat beside him, as he handed her the bracket.
“You’ll see.” Jez joined them in the cab and shut the door.
Martin maneuvered the truck around to come up the road that lead to the front of the base.
“Sachs is gonna be well pissed off with you.” Said Jez.
“I think he’s got more on his mind at the moment.” Said Martin, cryptically.
“Look out!” Shouted Kelly as a soldier emerged around a small building on the right. He raised the gun and peppered the side of the truck with bullets as Martin swung it round slamming the side of it into the building, crushing the soldier with its massive weight. Martin got it back on the road as it swung left to right, threatening to topple over. The occupants bounced around in the cab. He floored it, trying to coax as much speed as possible out of it as it cleared the brow of the hill above the Fort. Ahead they could see the Shed and the bulging fence beyond. The fence was starting to buckle under the weight of the Zombies behind, their arms and fingers poking through at the the red stain that was all that remained of the soldier who had guarded the shed.

“Get ready to Jump!” He shouted. Jez opened the door next to him. Martin stood up and leaned on the pedals with a grunt. The ratchet he had fashioned on the accelerator clicked into position, locking the pedal to the floor. The truck was only in second but it lurched forward. Quickly he snatched the bracket from Kelly, and, checking the truck was aimed straight at the target, he jammed the bracket through the steering wheel. It locked in position against the steering column, preventing the wheel from turning.

“Right! Go!” He shouted opening his own door. Jez, then Kelly jumped out, followed by Martin. As they picked themselves up the truck rumbled inexorably up the hill towards the shed. They watched as it crashed through the corrugated metal structure and the fence beyond, snagging slightly as the fence broke. On it rumbled, engine screaming in a low gear until it hit a tree with a crash, engine running away with itself until it exploded with a crunch and a cloud of thick grey smoke.

The zombies, in various states of injury, and undress, stared at the hole in the fence as if contemplating its meaning. The were paper dry and luminous in the bright moonlight. One, which was a builder in its former life, opened and closed its mouth like it was struggling to find the words to describe a truck racing past it through a fence, and into a tree.

“What are they waiting for?” Said Kelly, picking herself up and brushing herself down. Martin shrugged his shoulders. Jez stepped forward and threw his arms out, and spread his legs.

“CAHM AHN!!” He shouted and the top of his lungs. The Zombies turned towards him as one, stumbling on through the fence.
“That’s done it.” Said Jez.
“Come on lets go before we get eaten.” Said Martin. In the distance they could hear the various trucks and cars moving away.
“How are we getting out of here? They’ll be gone by the time we get back to the Fort?” Asked Jez.
“Don’t worry about that. We need to get across the base, hopefully our dead friends will be enough of a distraction for any soldiers. Take this.” Martin handed Jez one of the automatics and the other to Kelly.
“You fired one of these before Kell?”
“I grew up in Brixton, what do you think?”
“Right lets go, stay low and move when I say. We can’t afford to get into firefight.”

They ducked quickly in between the buildings. Martin checked the direction of the gate as they moved. They could hear gunfire as soldiers left the bunker looking for the source of the commotion. They made it to the road that ran from the Fort to the front gate. Behind they could hear the staccato gunfire from the soldiers, and see the flashes reflect in the windows around them.
“Right go!” Martin said. They sprinted across the road, Jez wheezing heavily as he went. The infection slowing him down even though their systems were fired with adrenaline. They had made it half way across when they heard gunfire and the glass door of the stone clad building in front shatter. The group sprinted and dived behind the building, before moving to the other end. Martin poked his head out to check the way was clear and bullets peppered the wall by his head. Jez yelped in surprise but Martin ducked back in unflinchingly. He turned to the others.

“Fuck. If they pin us down, they’ll flank us, or we’ll get eaten. I need you two to move over there past the vent to that building there, and don’t stop. Got it?”
“Are you serious?” Said Kelly.
“You need to trust me.” Martin said. Kelly looked him in the eye and made her decision.
“Come on numpty let’s move.” She barked at Jez, grabbing him by the collar. They sprinted for the building and Martin ducked round to see the soldier aim from the far corner. Martin dropped him before he had time to fire and sprinted after the other two. Martin and Kelly reached the building as Martin felt the whistle of bullets pass him. He vaulted over the vent and sat behind it as the shooter hit the vent behind with the tanging sound of steel on steel. He waited for the pause of the shooter reloading. Ahead Kelly stuck her head round and he frantically waved her back.

Martin got himself in position and aimed the gun towards his assailants behind. He sprinted to Kelly and Jez’ position, blind firing a few shots as he went. He slid round the corner to join them, just as bullets riddled the ground by his feet. Kelly started to speak but he held his finger to his lips while he listened. Some of the soldiers had chosen not to fight, but were moving back towards the Fort in order to steal a vehicle of some sort. By now most of those that had left the bunker area were moving through the buildings to their position. There was no way Kelly and Jez could survive a firefight against trained soldiers which left him only one option.

“You two move up to the other end of the building. Every few seconds just blind fire a couple of shots around the corner. Don’t stick your head round whatever you do.” He whispered. They moved up and took turns doing as told. He tossed them a couple more magazines.

Martin stuck his head round the corner and could see figures crouched around corners looking for them. He managed to drop one that was at the wrong angle, and watched until he saw another soldier break cover, and try to flank them. Martin forced him back to where he started and waited. The other two were firing too fast. He indicated to them to slow it down. It was his intention not to take out his attackers, just to pin them down. After a couple of minutes he noticed they had stopped firing and were trying to break from their positions. Martin shot another as he ran. Then, he started to see the dead flow round the buildings like oil. He heard screams as the soldiers that were pinned in their positions were attacked from behind. Unfortunately this had also kept them pinned down too long. Once he was sure that the soldiers were preoccupied with their attackers from behind, he indicated for Jez and Kelly to move with him. They skirted round buildings until they saw the playing fields, and the squat helicopter ahead. Thin clouds obscured the full moon making the outline of the machine a silhouette. It was a hundred metres away, but looked tantalisingly close. They sprinted on towards salvation over the field.

“You three! Stop or I’ll shoot!” Said a voice. They all stopped and turned to see Emma standing beside the last two buildings before the playing field, holding a pistol at them. She was visibly shaking. Martin aimed the SA80 at her.

“I..I thought you would come for the helicopter. I knew you weren’t stupid. I didn’t think you would kill everyone to do it though.”
“Not everyone. I got the civilians out first.” Said Martin, coldly.
“But the soldiers?…….And what you did to Sachs.”
“They picked their sides, they deserved it. Sachs was a psycho.”
“And you’re not?”
“Its all a question of where you stand.” Martin said. His mouth the only part of his face that smiled.
“So you chose these two pieces of crap.”
“Oi.” Said Jez, affronted.
“Don’t complain, what have they ever done for society? I went to Uni for seven years to be a Doctor, I deserve to be saved, I’ve saved thousands of lives. What have they ever done except leech off society? What are you anyway, a filthy murderer, for money.”
“I am what I am, but these two have been true to their friends for a start. What did you do after Binita was killed?”
“Survived.”
“Yes. By leaving Jez here without the antibiotics he needed, when you could have snuck them out to him. You survived by going and holing up with Sachs.”
“They would have done the same.”
“But they didn’t did they? They knew right from wrong, and picked sides. They trusted me and put this whole plan in place. It was my idea but their execution. We’ve saved three hundred lives today. You only went with who had the most power. I would even trust this little scrote in a fight. You? I wouldn’t turn my back on you for an instant.”
“OI. Don’t you start as well.” Said Jez, indignantly. Emma lowered the pistol slightly.
“Please take me with you.” She said in a thin, weak voice. The others watched as the crowd of Zombies rounded the building behind her.
“No. I don’t trust you.” Said Martin.
“Me neither.” Said Kelly.
“Nor me.” Said Jez.

Their sentence given, the Dead closed around her before she noticed, and they dragged her to the ground with a series of wet crunching noises. A blood curdling scream left her, turning to a gurgle as she fell.

“Run!” Said Martin. They sprinted across the fields to the helicopter. Martin dived in and started flicking switches. Kelly jumped in beside Martin and Jez slid in the back looking pale from the exertion.

The engine started slowly with a whine, blades moving agonisingly slowly.
“Come on, come on. COME ON!” He screamed banging the console. A relentless tide of the dead consumed the buildings and spilled onto the field towards them. He had flown this type of helicopter before, he knew how long it would take to get up to speed, and he realised the delay with Emma and the soldiers had probably doomed them all.
“Fuck! I’m gonna have to distract them away from the helicopter. They will be here long before its up to speed.” Martin said, they stared at him in disbelief. They were so close.

“I don’t suppose you learnt how to fly a helicopter on your xbox did you?” He said to Jez, who looked at the bewildering array of dials switches and lights that were twinkling away in front of Martin.
“No chance mate.” Said Jez.
“Right Kell its up to you. This is the…..” Said Martin, checking the SA80 for ammo. She stared at him.
“Are you kidding me? You can’t teach me to fly a helicopter before they reach us.” She exclaimed.
“Well what else are we going to do!” He shouted back
“Oh for Christ sake. Gimme that.” Said Jez grabbing the pistol out of Kelly’s hand.
“What are you doing?” Said Martin.
“Well I can’t stand listening to you two fucking lovebirds having a tiff so I’ll bloody do it. You got any more ammo?” Said Jez.
“Are you sure?” Said Kelly.
“Well we can’t fly a helicopter, so I may as well go and save your asses. Anyway its obvious she loves you, and you love her, so I may as well do this before I have to watch you two snogging. Gimme that holster thingy.” Martin stripped the holster off his back and passed it to Jez who put it on quickly.
“Are you sure about this?” Said Martin.
“No. I’m gonna bloody get turned into a walking corpse but I don’t see another way. How many clips is there on this?”
“Five full ones. Take this as well.” Martin said, passing the SA80 to Jez who slung it over his shoulder.
“Safety is on and it’s there.” He continued pointing at the small switch on the side of the gun.
“Cool.” Said Jez.
“Stay low out of the helicopter.” Martin said, unsure of quite what else to say.
“Get yourself a high score out there.” He ventured, smiling. Jez looked at Kelly quizzically, nodding in Martin’s direction.
“A high score. He hasn’t got a fucking clue has he?”
“No he really hasn’t.” She said beaming back. Jez sat there for a second and let out a deep draw of breath, readying himself.
“Right.” He opened the door, wind rushed around the cabin from the accelerating blades. He looked at them both for a second.
“Look after yourselves.” He said affectionately, trying a fake smile out for size.
“Good luck.” They said in unison.

Jez jumped out and slammed the door behind him. He ducked low and ran straight towards the Zombies. Getting clear from the blades he stood up to his full height and, shouted something they couldn’t hear over the roar of the, still accelerating, blades. Then he shot a couple of the closer ones, now barely twenty feet from his position. The shots were good and the two Zombies crumpled to the floor. He started to run round, just out of range of the Zombies. The front ranks turned to track him. He took a wide arc around them, heading back towards the buildings, taking his time to shoot any that started to get too close to him.

“He actually looks pretty cool.” She said, surprised.
“He’d have made a good soldier. He’s a good shot.” Martin replied.
“Really?” Martin nodded and it occurred to him just how much Jez and Kelly had changed, since they had first met in Mo and Binita’s kitchen. They had grown up, and without the indoctrination that comes with the inner city culture they had even changed how they spoke and related to others. When Martin had met Jez he was a child. It was a man that left the helicopter. Martin wondered if he could change as well, and for the first time in his life, he wanted this more than anything.

Martin checked the gauges. The blades were still only spinning at half the speed required for take off. He looked back to see Jez disappear back behind the buildings, drawing a large crowd with him. However, they were still flowing round the base like water, and the ones behind still saw the helicopter as the object of their desire.

“I’m not sure its going to be enough Kell!” He shouted over the engine noise.
“Then kiss me! If they get us I want one kiss first!” She screamed back. Martin stared at her face in the console lights. The black bruise under one eye did its best but couldn’t hide her beauty. Not to him anyway. They leaned in and she held his face with her hand. They kissed passionately. Martins heart raced like a train and he took in her smell and taste like a drowning man gasping for air.

For a moment he didn’t care if the Zombies got them. He had had girlfriends and women before but none that he had truly loved, none that understood him the way Kelly had. He wished they had met before the apocalypse but knew if they had, they would have passed each other without thinking. Different worlds thrown together in adversity. He could feel the cold cloak of his assassin persona slip away after the tension of the night. Instinctively he knew that this was something more permanent, more solid than he had ever felt in his life. Through the kiss he hoped Kelly felt the same after her experiences of the last few weeks. In this embrace the horror slipped away, leaving only the two of them behind. He wondered if he could change, if he could learn, even at his age, to be something other than the lonely wraith he had slipped into through all these years. Then, he felt tugging from the helicopter joystick. It was trying to lift.

His heart nearly broke as he tore himself away from the kiss. The helicopter started to bounce slowly as the blades struggled to give them lift.

“Shit. They’re here.” Screamed Kelly. Martin looked out of the side window as Zombies raised their arms to bang on the glass, thumping as they tried to get at them. Their damaged, paper-dry faces full of hatred and longing. Then they slid out of view as the helicopter rose. Martin took it up over the tree tops and passed Kelly a set of headphones, indicating they should put them on. He heard her voice crackle through his own set as he wrestled them into place.

“Try and find Jez!”
“Ok!” He said, lifting up over the base.

The base was in chaos, the Zombies were still coalescing out of the trees, and the town of Dover beyond the front gate. The two breaches in either side of the base choked with the Dead as they tumbled after any survivors. They saw flashes of gunfire between buildings, and saw huddles of Zombies feasting on the people left behind. Martin flicked on a spotlight and maneuvered the helicopter around, looking for Jez, but they couldn’t find him. For long seconds they searched, in stunned silence, as the scene unfolded below.

Suddenly, Martin felt bullets hit the side of the helicopter as two soldiers, who were trapped on the roof of one of the far garages, took potshots at them.

“We are gonna have to go!” He shouted.
“OK.” Kelly said, quietly.

Martin took the helicopter up and away, over the Fort and the gap in the fence beyond. None of the civilians’ vehicles were left in the Parade Ground and Martin followed the road beyond for a minute. Ahead, they saw the lights of the convoy, and flew low over it as it moved on. The heavy seven and a half tonner in the lead knocking over the few Zombies in its path, just as Martin had laid out. He took the helicopter low so they could see the occupants. Mark, the grey haired hippy they met when they had first arrived, waved to them and a chorus of horns followed them as they rose and headed North.

They flew for a while in comfortable silence, surveying the ruins of Great Britain below. Everywhere they looked the dark forms of the dead wandered with impunity, dark silhouettes formed from the early morning slate grey sky, like iron filings standing with magnetism on a board. Occasionally, they saw signs on the tops of buildings and factories, from survivors asking for help but in every case they saw swarms of the dead, like ants over the landscape’s corpse, picking over the ruins. Motorways became graveyards, houses became tombs, where the restless dead had changed the landscape to a uniformity of decay and destruction at the worlds end. It was a static scene of unending stillness, lent change only through the great fires that burned through the heart of a moribund civilisation.

Eventually Kelly looked over at Martin.

“I don’t want you to tell me what you did to Sachs.” She said.
“OK.” He replied, without looking back.
“Never.” She emphasised.
“Ok.”
“It was the big dark eyed bastard that did this to me. Did you kill him?” She asked, touching the bruise on her face tenderly.
“No I didn’t, but he’s dead by now.” Martin replied, coldly.

She seemed satisfied with the answer and stared towards the lightening sky.

“Where are we gonna go?” She asked.
“North. Ever been to Scotland?”
“No. Never. I’ve never been out of London.”
“Its beautiful this time of year. Lots of small Islands off the West Coast. I thought we’d try that.”
“Lets not go to any Army bases. Yeah?”
“Deal.”
“Do you think there will be anyone left?”

Martin thought about it for a moment, before he realised that it was true. No man was an island, no matter how much you tried to cut yourself off from humanity. The way he had lived his life so far relied on society around him to punctuate his solitude, without that, there was nothing to live for, and ultimately the way humanity had thrived and become the dominant species on the planet was by striving together for food, or warmth, or safety. Now there was Kelly, and he realised that he was a social animal, just the same as everyone else.

“I hope so Kelly, I hope so.” He replied, mournfully. He looked around at her with a smile. She smiled back warmly, and they pressed on as the sky ran through shades of slate grey and deep blue above them in the pre-dawn light. Great columns of smoke still rose from the ruins of London to their left as the helicopter took its lonely path North along the coastline.

 XXX

Thanks to Pete Griffiths for editing this series.

My collection of short Zombie stories “All the Dead are here” is available on Lulu.com and Amazon as a paperback. It is also available on Amazon for the Kindle reader or app. The link is on the right hand side of this page.

I saw mah mah Molly’s mum.  She looked all sick and sad. She had eyes like bish the fish and I tried to be bah bah big and brave but but but I couldn’t. Daddy looked angry because I was crying but but but he said we should practice our smiling quietly.  He sah said we should play a hiding game from mah Molly’s mum and mah maybe should would think it was funny.

Mah mah Misty has gone with Muuuuumy.  Daddy said they are in a buh better place now and Misty dog won’t let any more mah mah monsters get Mummy.  Daddy is sad so I show him how big I can smile.  Daddy says when I smile I look like Muuuumy.  He says I am buh buh beautiful and hugs me a big one.

I saw Molly, Daddy tried to cover my eyes but but but I saw her. She was all dirty and her leg was all hurted. Mah mah Molly was at my school. Daddy said it was ok to hold hands with, with …..with her but I wouldn’t get girl germs. Daddy said but now she is very sick and we have to say good good, goodbye.

I’m a bit sad now buh because I want to do my my…..my smooth words with muuuumy.  Daddy says it’s ok to be, to be a bit bumpy but I want to do my smooth words with mummy.  If I do a lots of smooth words I get, I get to have a treat. I like lollypops. Coke ones.  Daddy says I can’t have real coke buh because it is too spicy but but but if I behave I can have a coke lollypop.

I don’t want to leave without Banilla teddy.  Daddy says he is the colour of ice cream. Banilla slice all cuddly and nice.  Muuuuumy said if I get all alone I can talk to Banilla. Mummy was so tah tired.  She was a bit sick and really, really hot. Mummy said I had to let her sleep for the longest time. I gave her a kiss on the nose and a cuddle for head, just like before bed.

I don’t like it when Daddy cries.  He has an ugly face when he cries.  He says I am buh beautiful and gives me lotsa cuddles.  We have to leave but because we do. Mummy might wake up soon and be a lot grumpy.  She is a lot sick now and we have to get her some, some medicine.

Daddy says I have to be in my buh buh batman costume. He says I need to be big and brave. Sometimes he is a bit silly. Sometimes he gives me hurted cuddles and smiles and cries.  I want him to mah make mummy a coffee.

We are going to Poppy from the bushes huh huh house. He lives the longest time away but but but he was an army man and he has medicine and he did marry a new lady. Daddy said she is a hore, a hore a horticulturist what can grow strawberries.  When muuuumy feels better she will come eat the biggest strawberries too, but but but I have to be on my best behaviours.

Daddy has a new car but I wanted a red one.  But but but because I’m a big boy now I can sit in the front.  Daddy’s smile is broken.  He turns his music up so loud, he doesn’t like the noise it muh makes when we go bump bump on the bad guys. Our car gets all messy like eating spaghetti and Daddy does some small bomits.  Yesterday the last time Daddy had a messy car his boss was very mad and I’m not supposed to eat ice cream anymore but but Daddy said he doesn’t give a shit and I smiled because Daddy said shit.  Daddy likes it when I smile a big one.

We drive for the longest time till it is dark.  Dad said he doesn’t want the lights on buh buh because the bad guys who are making everyone sick might see us. I’m a big boy but Daddy said it’s ok to do a wee in my pants and he won’t even get angry.  He says if I do a shit it will make the car smell much better and I laughed this buh buh big.

Daddy got so angry at the car buh buh because God didn’t put enough fuel in the car to get to Poppy’s house. Dad said God could eat a dick and he smacked the wheel twelveteen times.  I was a bit scared even though I was buh big and brave.  Mummy tells dad not to get angry at the car…… I wish mum was here because I miss her.

Stealth means you have to be quiet like a mah mah mouse.  Daddy said Batman is stealth all the time when he is hiding from the bad guys.  I tell Dad I am Bruce Wayne but but if I’m a good boy and do stealth in the car Daddy will bring me a juice when he has finished putting puh puh petrol in.  We make a good deal.

Daddy forgoted my juice buh buh……buh buh……because he hurted his arm.    He says I need to sleep now and he is suh suh sorry.  Because Daddy is crying I am crying but but but he says nothing bad will happen and if I fall asleep I will get to have two strawberries when we get to Poppy’s house.

Daddy cries for the longest time before I fall asleep for real.

Poppy from the bush was so happy to see us.  His cuddles hurted me but only a little.  He has a funny nose from where the doctors cut bit, bits out.  He had boogies come from his strawberry nose when he saw daddy’s sore arm.  He cried so much and gave me and Dad so many cuddles till I didn’t want to cuddle anymore.

Dad gave me a kiss on the nose and a cuddle for my head.  He said I needed to be like superman and batman together.  I cried because I didn’t want to be, to be like batman anymore and buh buh because I didn’t want him to go but but but Poppy had given him some special strawberries and he had to go give them to Mummy…..and mah Misty dog too.

Daddy sniffed my head and I practiced for him my big smile.

Poppy said Daddy is with Mummy and Misty dog now.

I hope we see them all soon buh buh because I miss them.

Poppy squeezes me and says he he he hopes he doesn’t.

Me? I still aint sure why it all happened.

The Old Testament, ‘Wrath of God’ shit seems a little far gone to me. I don’t remember Moses or Noah running into many zombies in the bible class my folks sent me to…

It may have been aliens, diseases, biological weapons or some other military shit. Take your pick. All I know is one day everything on Earth was the way it’d always been, the next it seemed to have fallen into Hell.

We had three months, Maddie and I. That’s how long we’d been married. She was smart with a career and prospects. She was beautiful and kind too – and for a reason I never understood, she loved me as much as I did her. Things had seemed to be on the up for us. I’d managed to hold down a job for more than a week. We’d bought our first house. Maddie had been elected president of this local charity group, helping the homeless and disabled, and she was starting to get noticed downtown.

And there it is – right there. That’s the problem I have with Jim’s ideas. Not everyone is an asshole. Not everyone deserves to burn. You’d think a God with the power to create it all might have the power to be selective. You’d think he’d have let her live.

Jim was some kind of priest – at least I came to think of him that way.

We met, him and me, just a few weeks after it happened. There was me, staggering through the corpses and waste, half-starved and halfway down that slippery slope to batshit. The Deadmeats were close – there was a quiet in the air. No birds singing. I’d seen three packs that day and one of them had picked up my scent. They don’t move quickly but they never stop, never tire, night or day. When you’re already dead, an empty stomach or blistered feet don’t really matter a damn.

But I was telling you about Jim.

I was passing the body of a man. I didn’t pay it much mind – after your first thousand the novelty kind of wears off. As I pass, this ‘corpse’ bolts to its feet and puts an arm around my throat. Christ you should have heard me scream – I reckon every Deadmeat in a mile radius thought it was dinner time. So I stand there and wait for the bite. It doesn’t come. And I start thinking how the arm isn’t cold and how he doesn’t smell so much of rotting shit as the others do.

“My mistake,” he says (real educated accent he had, English maybe) “I thought you were one of the Lost.”

“Christ,” I shout and I’m shaking like a nun in a whorehouse. “You… you scared the shit outta me!”

So this man turns me around by the shoulders. He’s this big, overweight, sweaty guy in some kind of jogging outfit with a grey beard like Gandalf and hair to his shoulders. He puts his nose right up to mine. “Don’t take His name in vain my boy. People cursing His name… blasphemy and godlessness…” he gestures around us, “… well why do you think all this occurred?”

I shrugged – tired of asking myself the same. “Just shit happening like it does?”

“Shit doesn’t just happen, son. Shit needs a big stinking arse to fall out of.”

So that was Jim.

It changed everything, meeting him. I don’t just mean the food and shelter he would share – I don’t even mean that I would probably have died that day with a dozen jaws sunk into my pecker.

What I mean is Jim changed my outlook on everything. Everything.

You see, he’d grabbed me thinking I was a Deadmeat. Deliberately. And when I asked him why a fella would do something so goddamned stupid he bashed me around the ears and said it all again – you know, cursing, blasphemy and that shit. It wasn’t stupid, he told me. It was God’s work.

And what he told me later is what changed it all.

I started searching for Maddie after that. Jim came along. So far as he was concerned, he could do ‘God’s work’ as well in one direction as the other. I headed back to the house we’d shared – only now it wasn’t a house so much as a shit hole. There were three stiffs on the front lawn. The lucky ones. One was my neighbour, Mrs Grey, who had grown her own fruit and veg. She used to stand there on her drive all weekend, trying to sell strawberries and carrots and rhubarb to folks as they travelled to the superstore in their four-by-fours. I used to buy her stuff from her just coz I felt sorry for her. Anyway, there she was on my front lawn, grass stained the colour of that rhubarb she sold – head caved in like a boiled egg and just one set of bites that I could see. Must have been killed just after she turned – maybe as she turned. Lucky – like I said. The other two stiffs I didn’t know.

And there was no sign of Maddie.

Can you understand this? My Maddie, my sugar, the woman I loved more than life itself – I wanted to find her dead. Wanted it. Coz I knew damn well she hadn’t gotten away like I had, and the alternative made death look like a party. I felt that way even before Jim told me what he did. After he told me, I thought it a hundred times over.

“It’s not just death, Richie my boy,” he said. (‘Richie’ being me, in case you’re wondering.) “It’s something worse than death. Worse than possession.”

It was that first night. He had led me to this secret bunker in the vaults of some abandoned warehouse. Man you should have seen the shit he had stored away down there. It was like he had known it was coming – known for months. That’s why I listened to him – coz it seemed like he knew all about it.

“What can be worse?” I said. “I mean they’re dead aint they?”

He waved a dismissive hand and broke wind loud enough to bring dust from the walls. (With Jim, cleanliness wasn’t all that close to godliness – truth is they barely shared a ball park. I reckon if the local pastor had farted that way when I was a kid I would have felt drawn to religion myself.)

“Yes, of course they’re dead. You can see the bodies are rotting. You can smell the putrescence.”

I had a terrible thought then. “You mean their brains are alive? Their minds? They’re still awake and shit?”

“No boy!” He handed me a piece of raisin toast. “The brain can’t survive if the body dies. It has no oxygen or blood supply.”

“Then what are you damn… darn well getting at? If they’re dead…”

He stood up and bellowed at me – scaring the shit outta me for the second time that first day of our acquaintance. What he said next went beyond fear. What he said… well like I said it changed me.

“Souls, boy, souls. The infestation, the possession, the conversion – whatever you want to call it. It brings unnatural death. The soul gets trapped.” He came in closer again, never one to miss the opportunity for a grandstand performance. “Every one of those things out there – the ones missing arms and legs and faces. The ones who want to feast on you and make you one of their number… each has the soul of the person they once were – trapped on some spiritual shackle. That shackle can be broken only one way – when you destroy the dead brain and free them. That’s why I grabbed you, son. I thought your soul was in need of liberation.” He sat back down and farted louder than before. “And that’s God’s work, young Richie. Liberation of those tormented souls is His divine will.”

So all I could think about was Maddie. I pictured her out there somewhere, a walking, drooling, festering joke of the sweet woman I had loved. I pictured her tattered flesh, her torn clothing (for some reason it was always the yellow dress, though I know it’s not what she was wearing when Hell came to town). I pictured this creature with the remains of her face and there, trailing above her on a shimmering strand of silk was her soul – like a kid’s party balloon on a string. I pictured it as this great silver bird, wings all tattered as it fought against that shackle in a hopeless dream of heaven.

I saw that image whenever I closed my eyes. I dreamt it. And that’s why the next day, and every day for weeks afterward, I trailed what used to be streets, of what used to be a town, looking for the Deadmeat she had become – looking so I could batter her skull to pieces and let my beloved Maddie find rest.

Yes, I questioned what Jim had said, but just maybe he was right and the maybe was enough. The thought of leaving her to that fate ended any idea I had of running or hiding. From that moment on I became a hunter and a ‘liberator of souls.’

After we drew a blank at the remains of the house I wanted to try her office building. Stupid fucking idea of course – like the first thing a person does when their meat cools is to head somewhere familiar. She was dead, Jim reminded me – body and brain dead. The Deadmeats travel in packs (Jim reckons so they can have the odd chunk out of each other) and there was no reason to think different of her.

Now Jim had style, I’ll give him that. Rather than a spade or twelve-bore he went about his business with a fucking great altar cross. Christ knows where he came by it – probably got it off ebay when such a thing was possible. This thing had to be two feet long and weigh around fifteen pounds – fifteen pounds of sculpted, galvanized brass. The first time I saw him use it I almost forgot to puke afterwards. This Deadmeat blind-sides us as we’re routing through an old school building and quick as lightning Jim brings that dirty great cross around in an arc and just about cleaves the fucking thing’s skull in half. This great slab of dark brown, addled brain just slides outta the hole he’s made and busted teeth shower us like we’re getting married. The thing drops like a prom queen’s panties and never moves another inch. I swear it.

And you can guess, if you’ve been paying attention, what ol’ Jim does next. He kneels down by that rotting heap of bones and says a prayer for it. I even saw his eyes follow something invisible across the room and outta the window frame. (Whether he really sees anything I don’t ask, and he doesn’t say.)

“Shit,” I said, staring at that cross with my mouth full of puke. “Shit I gotta get me one of those!”

“When I die, it’s yours.” (Back then I was tooled up with a pickaxe that I came to consider a personal friend. I called it ‘Axle.’)

Anyway, after that Jim teaches me how to hunt them. He teaches me how they may travel in packs but aint really pack creatures at all. At the first sign of blood it’s every Deadmeat fucker for itself. The big ones – ones that used to be adult men – generally outpace the others. If you can keep them chasing for long enough the pack gets all stretched out and the leaders isolated. Then you turn and crush a cranium or two. If you’re lucky you find a place to hide before you run out of wind (not that Jim ever runs out of that) and if you’re real lucky you don’t get outflanked by another pack that’s heard the noise. Plan it properly, Jim taught me, and you can take out (‘liberate’) a dozen fuckers at a time. With me helping he reckoned we could get nearer to twenty – when I learned to come up from behind and pick off stragglers.

I signed up to all this pretty easy. The way I saw it, eventually we’d stumble across what had once been Maddie. One way or another. Until that day, I’d be perfectly happy freeing the good souls of the former citizens of this shit hole. After all, thirty thousand people had once called this place home. That made for a whole universe of brain-bashing and there hadn’t been a whole lot to watch on the TV in recent weeks.

The first one I dropped had been a little girl once. She still had one pigtail in her moss-covered hair and these pretty little red shoes like Dorothy. I hesitated, I’ll admit it. Even with the goo running out of the flap of meat that had once been her ear and the missing fingers, I found myself thinking of this thing as a ‘she’ not an ‘it.’ Wasn’t until ‘she’ had gotten ‘her’ stinking yellow maw a few inches from my face that the survival instinct kicked in. I swung Axle so hard he went clean through her little skull and right out the other side. When she went down I had to put my foot on her face and pull like crap to get him back out again. Jim and I prayed together over that one – only I was praying for my own soul not hers, in case what I had just done was worthy of hell. Just in case. It got easier after that though. It’s amazing what you can get used to. Jim’s work, and God’s, started rolling along just fine.

There were two things we hadn’t figured on – one was that we would run into other survivors. The other was that those survivors might turn out to be worse than the ‘meats.

We were out of town the day it happened – picking off Deadmeat strays in the suburbs and enjoying the summer sunshine. Shit, we could have been two guys walking a round of golf that morning – him with his brass cross and me with Axle slung over my shoulder ready to drive, chip and putt some skull. It got to be almost routine putting those sorry bastards down – we even stopped for sandwiches between brains.

Jim hears this commotion and gets me to follow him. (I’d been too busy stuffing salami into my face to hear much other than chewing). We trail across what was once a kiddie’s playground and there is a basketball court on the far side behind a sports hall. Most of the link fencing around it is still standing. Jim and I get real low and peep around it. What we see is a dozen Deadmeats crowded around something. That’s what we think we see, anyhow. These guys are dirty enough and scraggy enough. But when we look closer we see they ain’t got no bite marks, no missing pieces and no rot in them.

Stupid fuck that I am, I get up all ready to meet and greet my survivor brothers. They’re the first we’ve seen since we hooked up. Jim near enough yanks my arm from its socket pulling me back down.

“Stay low, young Richie,” he says to me. “Stay low.” And there is something new in his voice. Fear.

Well I look back at them and start to understand for myself. These fellas are crowded around something and at first I can’t make out what the hell it is. But after a time the group shifts a little and what I see makes me moan out loud. On the floor of that court they have a Deadmeat – one that used to be a woman. There’s one of them on each of its arms and legs and a fifth guy has its head pinned to the concrete. They’ve pulled the rags off ‘her’ and what the sixth guy is doing I can hardly bring myself to remember, leave alone write here. The other seven or eight guys are crowded round cheering like he’s landed a fish – cheering and waiting their turn.

Jim looks at me. He doesn’t need to say what he says, but he does anyway. “Godlessness. Evil.”

And I can’t help but agree this time. I can’t explain why but what they’re doing is worse than just fucking depraved. It’s disrespectful. That thing was a woman once. Probably had kids. A husband. OK, so if we’d stumbled across it we’d have put a wedge of metal between its ears – but that would have been to honour who it’d once been. What these bastards were doing was just despicable.

“Her soul,” Jim mumbles to no one in particular. “Her poor soul.” And I get wind of what he means. I imagine this woman’s shackled spirit – hovering, shimmering on its cord and witness to this final hurt.

“Fuckers,” I say to him. “Sick, bastard fuckers.”

And he says again what he’d said before. “People like these… Godless people like these…” and he looks around us at the hell that’s replaced suburbia. There’s no need for him to finish the sentence. No need at all.

Well we sneaked away and left that Deadmeat to its fate. Perhaps they finished it off when they were done or perhaps they didn’t. Point is, there wasn’t a whole lot we could do about it. A Deadmeat horde of a dozen had become easy pickings for us. A group of survivors would be a whole other matter. If they saw us they were as likely to hunt us down as welcome us. For the first time in weeks I was scared for myself. I’d never stopped being scared for my Maddie but between Jim and Axle I’d figured my own ass was pretty well covered. Not anymore. Not after what I saw that day.

God’s work became a whole lot more circumspect after that. We had a new sack full of shit to consider. I was feeling dizzy with the number of shifts my outlook had taken. For weeks I’d dreamt of finding other survivors, hooking up with them and restarting humanity (preferably with me at the centre of a harem of sweet young ladies needing help to begin a new generation). Now we’d found some, all I wanted was to let Axle go to work. I even suggested it to Jim. You can guess what he said.

“God will punish them. It isn’t for us to decide the fate of the living.”

“Well maybe we are God’s punishment,” I said to him. “Maybe we’re the sharp end of His wrath.”

“They will burn in Hell forever,” Jim says, “and with no help from us.”

It’s probably just as well. If we’d started hunting survivors, people, I reckon I’d have started down that slippery slope of madness all over again. Heck knows what we’d have become. In any case, we’d have gotten ourselves killed sooner or later.

They couldn’t all be that way could they? Survivors? Surely some good people had made it?

Jim wanted to move on after that day. I wanted to stay. I figured Maddie’s soul was still out there in the ruins of this place and I couldn’t think of abandoning her, even now. (And in my mind’s eye I had a new image: a Deadmeat pinned to that ball court beside a pile of tattered, dirty yellow linen – pinned down by a bunch of animals while a pair of dirty pale buttocks rocks up and down between her legs in some Morse code communion with the sky.)

Jim spent a whole two days deciding if he’d stay with me. I was pretty darn sure he would move on – though how he intended to carry the zillion cans of food and shit he’d stashed was beyond me. In any case, when he finally sat me down he said this:

“All right Richie, my lad. A week. We’ll stay a week in honour of your love for this woman.  We’ll search for her in the few places left we haven’t looked. But after that time, if her soul doesn’t present itself, we are leaving. I’ll drag you by your ears if I must.”

I was flattered by that. I guess he’d come to see me as a son or something. He just wanted to protect me from myself. I prayed that we would find her in time – coz dragged by the ears or not, I was going nowhere ’til that happened.

Well like I say, hunting wasn’t a round of golf after that. I spent most of my time scared half to death of what we’d find or what would find us. Jim was scared too though he hardly showed it. I could tell – the way he gripped that cross of his, his knuckles whiter than I’d seen them before.

So what happened? Did we ever find her? How was she when we did?

There’s been nothing much I can truly be thankful for since it all happened – save for meeting Jim that day. Here’s how it was with Maddie:

We’re picking through a freeway RTA site, Jim and I. God knows there’s plenty of them – people who were at the wheel when Satan took control of the highways. We’d been to this one before. The Deadmeats like them you see – full of the flesh of people who’ve passed without ever having turned at all. Fresh food to them, even weeks later. So, we swing by to see who’s dropped in for dinner. Coz we come at a different angle to before, I see something I hadn’t seen last time. From under this station wagon that’s all turned over on its side I see this long, blonde hair – matted and dirty but unmistakable. And I’m running toward it without even a thought – not even checking the coast is clear first. Jim comes after me, shouting shit as usual, but I hardly hear him.

I know that hair – God knows I should.

She was lying on her face, most of the weight of that vehicle lying on top of her – crushing her into the black-top. Her left hand was stretched out like she’d been reaching for something before she died, and on the ring finger a glint of diamond – the biggest I could afford at the time, which hadn’t been much. The vehicle had protected her body and there was not a bite on her. In a way she was already buried too. Looked like she’d been running away, maybe crossing that road without paying it enough mind.

I sat crouched over Maddie’s body and cried until nothing came out of me but air. Cried for losing her, and for finding her. Cried that I’d been propping up a bar instead of at her side when she’d needed me. Cried in relief that she had never had time to suffer the way others suffered.

“A clean death, Richie boy.” Jim put a hand on my shoulder. “Clean and swift.” Then he knelt beside me and prayed out loud for her. I loved him for that.

“Tomorrow,” I said when he was done. “We’ll leave tomorrow.”

What is it they say about tomorrow never comes?

Later, heading for home, I ask him at last about the stash of food he’d had prepared – about how he’d known.

“A vision, Richie my boy. God spoke to me as to Moses in the desert and told me to prepare for the coming of Satan.”

Like I said before, take Jim at his word or leave it. I’m darned if I know to this day.

And so we’re almost home the day we found Maddie, almost back to the safety of our private bunker, when a bunch of Deadmeats is on us from nowhere. Looking back I reckon we started to leave too much of our scent around that entrance. It was like an ambush, but I don’t reckon they have the shit to spring something like that. Do they?

If it’s me leading, it’s me that gets bit. As it turns out, Jim is leading. This fat bastard Deadmeat with no nose gets a hold of Jim’s head and bites a chunk out of his cheek. Old Jim crushes its skull but the damage is done. He knows it as well as me. I’m busy with Axle, dropping the other fuckers closing in from the sides, when Jim starts staggering and jerking around the way they do at the Turn. He drops that cross of his and shouts the last living words I ever hear from him.

“Do it, Richie. Do it!”

But I can’t. Not to him. Not ol’ Jim.

I get my ass to that door and use the key he gave me to get inside. Had to take a couple of rotting arms off before I got it closed. Then I throw the bolts and just stand there in the dark, listening to the thumping and thinking about being alone again – perhaps forever this time.

Life goes on, as they say. Took me about three weeks to find somewhere safe to move on to and then to shift all of Jim’s stuff there. (I say safe - I guess I’m just hoping for safer.) Does the story end there? I thought it might, but the other day I’m out getting some air, keeping low, ready to let Axle handle anything dead that gets too close, and I see him.

Jim.

There he’s standing across the field, looking a whole lot less damaged that most of the Deadmeats you see and a whole lot thinner than before – his jogging suit fair hanging off him. At his shoulder are a dozen more of them. At his shoulder I say – like they’re waiting for his lead. And he’s looking at me, I swear it. He’s looking and he knows who I am. And there, slung across his chest is that dirty great slug of an altar cross, looking a little more messed up than he kept it when he was alive.

And it comes to me then why I let him turn that day ‘stead of putting him down. I had thought just maybe it would be different – that somehow the shit he knew or believed would preserve him.

Anyway, Jim raises that cross above his dead head and shouts something I can barely understand. Then he drops it where he’s standing, turns and leads them away – walking with a purpose like no Deadmeat I’ve ever seen.

God bless Jim. I’ll be screwed if he aint become God’s own punishment like we talked about. There’s a certain crew of messed up assholes better be vacating that ball court of theirs.

I still expect trouble from the ‘meats, but I don’t reckon my path will cross Jim’s again. I might be crazy, but what he shouted across to me sounded like, “Live.”

Axle’s retired now. I keep him stored behind the door for emergencies.

But man, this darn cross is heavy as hell.

Mother Martha Ignatius stared levelly at the figure below her. The gore, blood and grey matter masked the loss of a good woman. Since embarking on this holy duty, she was their latest casualty. Now they were down to three. Correction, make that two. She was increasingly doubtful about Sister Rachel’s loyalty to their  sacred cause. Still, despite her naivete and youth, Rachel did have her uses, and there was no denying that she had excellent pastoral skills when it came to dealing with their intellectually disabled charges.

Thank goodness for her right hand woman, Sister Naomi, who did what had to be done, Mother Martha thought to herself. Leaving Sister Rachel to tend to their charges, Sister Naomi grimaced with the weight of Sister Evangelina’s dead body, then reached for the shovel, while Mother Martha wrapped the dead holy sister’s body in one of the tarpaulins from their picnicking.

Fortunately for the surviving Sisters of Lazarus, the teenagers were now securely all back in the bus, masked from view by the desolate skeletal trees.  And the teenagers had  been fed the…special…lemonade to deter any awkward inquiries or behavioural problems from them. Fortunately, having made good progress, they’d be in Onehunga tomorrow, Mother Martha reflected. She wondered why there hadn’t been any air surveillance or helicopter interception of their journey. Still, at least that meant their information about the current condition of the armed forces was accurate.

Unseen by Sister Rachel, who was tucking in the other teenagers in the bus and kissing them goodnight after their meal, fifteen year-old Tilda Matthews dumped the lemonade that she’d been given to drink and replaced it with water from the cooler inside their bus, next to her. Tilda knew something strange was happening, but she couldn’t work out what. For one thing, Miss Davies back at Special School in Wellington had told the Newtown Downs Syndrome Orphanage teenagers and children that the town that they’d just passed, Hamilton, was one of the Lost Territories, not that far from the City of Auckland that had been taken over by the zombies. Even if it had been years and years ago, they shouldn’t be here. People weren’t supposed to go there unless there was army protection.

And another thing. Why did all these nuns wear red habits? And their bibles were bigger than usual.  Still, she kept quiet and then caught sight of Mother Martha Ignatius and Sister Zoe returning to the bus. Where was Sister Evangelina? She was the third one to go missing during this trip. And she knew the difference between what gunshot and thunder sounded like. That had definitely been gunshot that time, and all those times before that. She wondered how she could avoid drinking the ‘special’ lemonade and not give away what she was doing to the nuns.

Several miles away, Mary Travis, their pursuer and adversary, put down her binoculars and cursed her bad luck. Those bitches had made sure that their bus was positioned between her and her quarry and she wasn’t going to risk hitting any of the kids. She’d managed to shoot one of them in the head, another in the heart and another through her lungs, but there wasn’t going to be another easy chance like that. Unfortunately, there was a wide river gulf between her and the road and it was in flood. She’d have to spend valuable time finding a relatively intact bridge, which wasn’t easy in the Wildlands. And given their proximity to Hamilton, deserted and crawling with corpseheads, she’d have to be careful to avoid further zed nuisance at the same time.

Damn HQ anyway. They’d fucked up on a simple matter of surveillance and the Sisters of Lazarus had taken advantage of the SNAFU to pull a prompt evacuation from their Newtown orphanage. They had half a day on her. She’d gone ballistic and threatened and harangued command when her supervisor told her. Technically, that was insubordination, but Mary had her reasons for her fury and command respected those.  She kept an eye out for any further stenches, but so far, the corpseheads were keeping out of her way.

As she loaded her rifle with more ammunition, Mary felt a strong breeze at her side and caught sight of her treasured, faded and much-creased photograph of happier times flying away. She caught it in her hand, shoving it back in her pocket. For a moment, her intent was replaced with more tenderness than one would suspect from a hardened sniper and tracker like DRAPE’s “Icewoman.” But there was a reason that her protective ice had formed.  Ahead of Hamilton, the highway opened and according to satnav, most of it was still intact.  She texted the following DRAPE surveillance team and then caught sight of a vial in the grass. She bent over and unscrewed it. It said a simple word-  Onehunga. Auckland. Those bitches were heading up to the outskirts of Auckland.

Several hours later, Sister Rachel sat and read from her Revised Inclusive Version Bible, which incorporated the new Gospel of Lazarus. As ever, she prayed for understanding and an end to her nagging doubts. Was she wrong to feel like this? Were they right to pursue this holy task, this sacred obligation? And was she as sure about it as she was when she had taken holy orders? She wished she was as sure about herself as Mother Martha and Sister Naomi seemed. But she must be. She watched their charges in the van, wondering about dear Tilda. She was bright, that one, and had quickly established herself as Sister Rachel’s personnel favourite when the Sisters had won the contract for orphanage care.

She wondered if their pursuer was open to reason, or whether she or he was simply a psychopath, stray and loose in the Wildlands. No. She had to trust in the Lord and hope that she was doing the right thing. She had no way of knowing that she was being watched, as an almost imperceptible laser sight appeared just above her heart.

Through a telescopic lens, the other saw her writing and read what was in the letter that she jammed in a vial. She levelled her rifle and silently, it did its deadly work.

Sister Rachel collapsed, blood pumping through the hole in her heart. In death, her face was one of surprise and shock, but not as much as she expected. She had been right after all.

Thirty seconds later, Mother Martha and Sister Naomi came crashing through the undergrowth at the sound. Mother Martha carefully scanned the van to see if any of their Down’s Syndrome teenage charges were likely to have heard it. Fortunately, not. They were all sleeping soundly. Just as well, because they were running out of tarpaulins. Still, they would be at their destination by nightfall.

The lowering sky cracked like thunder, but several klicks back, Mary was bewildered. It had sounded like a gunshot. But her own rifle was soundly holstered on her back. She uncorked her flask of rare, precious whiskey and took a swig, then powered up her motorcycle. One solution presented itself to her about the gunshot and it wasn’t a particularly attractive one. It meant her ally was gone, which would make her task all that much harder. As they drew near the Auckland suburbs, she dispatched several overcurious zeds with her rifle, amidst the ruined charnel housing, the broken streets and the skeletons and desolate, howling wind. This was hell, no doubt about it.

But she would be damned herself if she let the Sisters plans come to fruition.

At evening, from the deserted and desolate outlying suburbs, Auckland’s ruins loomed like another time’s fantasy of what the fabled apocalypse would be like. Beneath the broken buildings, skeletal rusting steel and broken mirror glass howled a wind of desolation, across which a pack of zombies shambled, now eerily thin and almost “bewildered” at why there was no quarry for them to fall upon and consume. They were now far fewer in number than they had been, but all this was lost on them, for they lived only on instinct and ravenous hunger and the information gleaned by their sharpened but primal senses.

On the far shore, one of the zombies caught sight of something that might imply food. It grunted and indicated the distant flash of a car across the Auckland Harbour Bridge. The surrounding pack of animated grisly cadavers turned in its course and began to lurch and stagger across the rusting, groaning structure, which swayed as they inexorably moved toward the distant source of light and noise.

The pursuer had had a rare stroke of luck in her mission. She gunned her motorcycle and grinned beneath her black helmet, and her trusty steed leapt the narrow gap between the two halves of collapsed highway above the debris and shattered remnants of suburban housing. As she neared her target, she accelerated and gripped her rifle in her hand. There were more zombies now, which was ominous. This sort of concentration meant that the early intel had been right about these bitches. She’d soon put a stop to this.

Several kilometres away, the Sisters of Lazarus had finally arrived at their chosen site for the Holy Meal. Mother Martha Ignatius reflected that they had been indeed fortunate in their choice, selected from a hacked satnav scan of the area. Although this church was derelict and deserted, enough of its infrastructure remained intact. There was an almost intact and serviceable lectern and pews, even if the chancel entry and foyer were torn and ruined. As Sister Naomi fed their adolescent charges one last sip of lemonade, Mother Martha spread her bible and began to read from the ‘newly discovered’ Gospel of Lazarus. This was their raison d’etre and the reason for the Holy Meal that would soon ensue.

She cleared her throat and momentarily reflected on how sick and fallen society had become, to actually ban this holy scripture, this word of the Almighty, this good news of solidarity with what non-believers called the detested and despised:

“And as the Apostle John had also told, Jesus loved Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha. And when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he was determined that Lazarus should not perish from this illness that afflicted him. But his cares and duties were many, and this kept him from the sick one.

And despite this intention, Lazarus sickened further and passed from the first life and lay in his tomb. And he said to his disciples: “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I will raise him up.”

The disciples were bewildered at this, saying: “Lord, if he sleeps, will he not get better? Will you then heal him, as you have done so many others?”

So then he told them more bluntly: “Lazarus is gone from this first life and yet I will accomplish a miracle here. So be silent and watch.”
On his arrival, Lazarus had been dormant in his tomb for four days since.

When Martha heard he had come, she came to meet him. They embraced and she said: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But if this is God’s will, then so be it.”
Jesus said to her: “Lo, Martha, your brother will rise again.”

Faithful Martha said: “I know this Lord, for you are talking of the resurrection of all flesh at the end of time. Mary and I will see him again at the latter day.”

“Your faith is great, Martha, but I do not talk of this alone. Where have you laid your sleeping brother?” And Martha went with Jesus and the Disciples and showed him her brother’s tomb.
“Roll away the stone,” Jesus said,”and do not be surprised at what you will now see. Then, in a loud voice, he cried “Lazarus, come forth!”

And in the tomb, Lazarus arose from his pallet and stumbled out into the morning light, but the odour was offensive to some of the others assembled at the funeral party and they gasped at his demeanour, for some of his flesh had rotted and his skin had fallen from his bones and muscles.

And Lazarus cried aloud. And Mary sister of Martha said: “Lord, what means this? Our brother does walk but his reason is gone and he is disfigured. Yet I see he is our brother still and I will not disown him. What do you wish of us, Martha and I?”

And Jesus then said: “Lo, Lazarus is a person as you are. He may be different, as birds are from animals and no longer of the same flesh as you are. And lo, many wicked men and women will say this is not the case, call him an abomination and persecute him. But as you are his sisters, this holy task I charge you. Preserve him, and if I raise others like this, them also.”

And-
Mother Martha got no further. In a blinding instant, the hanging and fragile  church doors disintegrated altogether as a black motorcyle and its leather-clad rider rode into the church, and screeched to a halt. The rider levelled her rifle at Mother Martha Ignatius and Sister Naomi in cold fury, and barked:
“Enough of this sick bullshit.”

“Have you no sense of decency? This is a house of God and we are engaged in a sacred service of faith. Leave us at once.” Mother Martha said, imperceptibly signalling to Sister Naomi, who gave a hidden finger sign that she understood.

“Yeah, right,” said the newcomer. From her place in the pews, Tilda was surprised that it was a lady. She looked like she’d been suffering, but she was a lot like her mummy had been- blonde, with grey highlights in her hair and faint lines that indicated the onset of middle age, with blue eyes.

Unseen, the Sisters of Lazarus distracted and their attention focused on the intruder, Tilda tipped out the plastic cup of lemonade that Sister Naomi had handed to her, crept behind  the pews and listened as the drama unfolded.

“Persecutor! Murderer!” Sister Naomi snarled from the left hand of the lectern.

“Oh, that’s rich, lady. And please, don’t you dare call what you’re doing here anything even remotely godly. Since when do normal, decent, ordinary people of faith drug innocent teenagers with Down’s Syndrome and bring them out into the wilderness as human sacrifice for those corpsehead fuckers outside? Because you bitches are cultists. You’re not nuns, even in those fake red habits of yours. You believe they should be able to feed on those kids-” Mary snarled, tightening her finger on the trigger, itching to fire on the two predators before her if they dared resist her.

In her passion and determination, Mary had left her eyes off Sister Naomi for an almost fatal instant. The burly ersatz nun raised a pistol and fired at the soldier, but was herself felled as Mary fell to her knees, blood pumping from the wound in her shoulder, dropping her rifle as her hand spasmed. Sister Naomi was slammed across the hall and through a stained glass window, her face in a rictus of death and ungodly rage.

As they crossed the street several kilometres or so away, still shambling through the ruins of Central Auckland and its vanished gaudy shopfronts and derelict luxury stores for the rich and vacuous, one of the zombies growled as it saw the drama in the deserted, ruined church. It turned and then staggered in an alternate direction and soon, its pack companions followed in its course. The distant but spreading faint fragrance of blood and meat was savour to their undead nostrils.

In the church, a cold and snarling Mother Martha Ignatius stood with her own pistol, staring down hatefully at the intruder. Her immaculate facade made her words all the more chilling. As she loaded the bullets into her gun, she hissed:
“You will soon perish, unbeliever. This is a Holy Feast, a sacred task and great responsibility and I will not tolerate your sacreligious interference in it a moment longer. I will not spare you and allow you the dignity of participation in this great benediction for the Brothers and Sisters of Lazarus outside.”

Glaring up at her nemesis, despite the searing pain in her shoulder, Mary snapped:

“Bullshit euphemism for murder, much, lady? Hell, are you really that much of a psychopath? Where do you get off, doing this? You were entrusted with the responsibility of looking after those vulnerable kiddies and you’re betraying them, whatever scumball, twisted, self-justifying, self-righteous-sanctity-of-the-undead Person Zero cultist human sacrifice rhetoric you’re spouting.”

“Enough. Die-”

But when a moment later, a gunshot echoed through the church, it wasn’t the newcomer whose life was lost. In startled surprise, Mother Martha looked down at the wound, pumping blood, gore and shattered bone from her own stilled, blackened heart. From the pews, a teenage girl with red hair and the features of Down’s Syndrome stood, and held the still smoking pistol of her own, snatched up from the ground where it had been flung in Sister Naomi’s death throes.

Hesitantly, Tilda stepped closer to the newcomer, who smiled at her, despite the pain:
“Thank you, honey. You’re a smart girl to be able to know how to do that. You saved my life. Where’d you learn to shoot that well?”

“My mummy. Before the zombies ate her one night when she was out getting food for us. You’re hurt. I know how to use bandages and they had some. I’ll go and get them. I’m sorry. I don’t know how to get the bullet out. I’m Tilda.” Tilda liked this lady. She had come out here to save them and had not given up. She was so like her Mummy. And she was crying. But why? She had been so brave.

“I’m Mary. Do you know, Tilda, before the war and those corpsehead bastards came, I had a special little girl of my own. I lost her. But she was so much like you. Smart and brave and caring. Except she didn’t have your lovely red hair.”

And then, exhausted by the ordeal of the last few days and her own haunted past, Mary Travis, hardwoman, elite sniper, zombie assassin, hammer of the unjust and oppressive in this charnel house world, hero and saviour, wept. Tilda noticed a photograph in her pocket, flecked by her rescuer’s blood. She reached down and wiped some of it off.  The photograph showed what seemed to be a much younger Mary, in the good times before the Zombie War, hugging a little girl on a swing. She was laughing and happy and at peace with the world.

Lucy Travis had had Downs Syndrome too. When Mary had had her, her husband couldn’t take the effort and responsibility and care that their daughter needed. But Mary didn’t care. She was more than enough for her daughter and she bore the sacrifices, arduous responsibilities and cares gladly, for she loved her daughter more than life itself. Which made what happened all the more devastating when it did.

Lucy Travis had been five years old when her mother screeched her car to a halt in front of the Special School in Auckland’s Mangere. Around Mary, the chaos and fury of a disintegrating city escalated. By a cruel twist of fate that day, her little girl had sneaked her cell phone out of the house and was playing in the back, unwary of what was happening around her. Mary ran toward her daughter, screaming, as the zombie blocked her way. One of its companions tore out the oblivious child’s throat. At least she died instantly, but her tormented mother screamed the cry of the bereft and utterly desolate at what no parent should ever have to witness. Mary grabbed a loose pole and started to batter at the animated cadaver, and its brain, blood, gore and bone shattered under her onslaught. She grabbed a gun and started blazing away at the intruders in the schoolyard.

When the detachment of soldiers found her, she was still clutching Lucy’s lifeless body, sobbing in bitter grief and self-recrimination. After that, she had emotionally shut down, the only person in the world that she had cared for ripped from her grasp when she should have protected her, should have saved her.

Tilda held her and smoothed her hair and then spotted the DRAPE pursuit team as it finally arrived outside. She yelled: “In here. Mary’s hurt. Bad. Please, please help her.”

Later, the zeds finally arrived in the outlying suburb, but it was too late for them, for once. As the sounds of a firefight erupted outside, tearing fragments of dead skin, bone chips, ichor and gore away from the foolhardy oncoming zombies, Lieutenant Whetu Simmons, RNZAF nurse, looked through the debris of the shattered church door. Around her was the predictable scene of carnage and mayhem that she’d come to associate with her best mate and drinking partner, Mary Travis. Fortunately, the Downs Syndrome teenager- Tilda- had done her work well and managed to stop Mary bleeding out until she could get there and stabilise matters. That was no surprise- Whetu was always picking the younger woman out of one skirmish or another. But this was something altogether new. Her old mate was gently rocking backward and forward,  holding a young, redhaired girl with Down’s Syndrome in her arms.

And there was a first time for everything. Mary- “Icewoman”, stone cold huntress, deadly assassin, woman of steel and flint- was crying.

It came as no surprise half an hour later, as they were preparing to leave, and Tilda was laughing, happy and  playing hackysack with a group of soldiers, as the others were loaded into the car. Mary cleared her throat:

“I want to adopt Tilda, Whe. Can you help arrange the paperwork?”
“Are you sure about this, love? She’s not Lucy.”

Tenderly, with a gentleness and warmth that Mary had never displayed in the whole time they’d been in the services together, she looked at the happy, laughing teenage girl:
“I’ve never been more certain about anything else in my entire life, Whe. Except shooting corpseheads, course. Well?”

“We’ll be sorry to lose you. But I was wondering when Icewoman would melt. Go on. Tell her the good news.”

On crutches, Mary hobbled toward Tilda to tell her the good news. There was a scream of happiness from the redheaded teenager and she hugged Mary.

Once again, for the second time that day, tears fell from Mary Travis’ eyes.

And later, as they prepared to leave, she silently gripped her little gold crucifix and said a grateful prayer of thanks to the battered and smoke-blackened but otherwise intact statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

I pushed against the coffin lid, shit, for a corpse, I’m pretty strong. Dirt tumbled in but I didn’t need to breathe anymore and I swam up through it, burst through cemetery grass. All around me, other heads twisted and turned in a morbid ocean. Some of them had climbed all the way out and were staggering around the graveyard in tuxedos, pissing formaldehyde through satin gowns. A few more pushes, and I was up there with them.

I looked at my tombstone. Trisha Bell, Beloved Daughter. Yeah, right. Whip up the waterworks, Mom, center of attention, oh what a fucking tragedy.

First order of business: Find Sammy, who would be in here. Then Soraya, who would not. Not yet, anyway.

Sammy. My man. Perpetual cigarette in his heart-shaped mouth, slicking back his hair like a direct descendant of the T-Birds, the world’s most beautiful snarl. Mine all mine.

It happened on Soraya’s first night skating with the Rochdale Rollergirls. Our newest recruit, Number 33, ladies and gentlemen, give it up for DURGAAAAA DESTRUCTIOOOOOON! Soraya in the limelight, making fists and gliding around the rink to Slayer. Cheers from the home side, howls from the Danfield DevilDolls. I was three weeks away from turning eighteen and joining her, after a summer scraping our knees in her driveway, laughing and falling down, gradually streamlining our bodies into fierce, clean speed down her street. She was all business that night, gritting her teeth among her fellow blockers, crowding up the other team’s jammer while ours flew ahead, racking up lap after lap of points and delirious applause. Sammy and I were cruising to the victory afterparty in his Mustang. The top was down, the Black Widows were howling from the stereo as we recounted all the brawls. Life was good. Ahead of us, an SUV full of yahooing fratboys lost control and jerked all over the road. Ka-POW! That’s the last thing I remembered.

I looked down at myself. The first thing that had to go were the puffed sleeves at my shoulders, pure Cinderella, barf. Then, let’s shorten up that hem a bit, shall we? Clawed a hand inside a wad of fabric, ripped myself a nice tattered miniskirt, goth chic. Ran a hand through my hair. The clot that came away was dyed brown. So they’d taken away my skunk stripe, too. Damn them all.

Sammy and I had been to a few zombie proms in our lives, some club made over with spiderwebs and stage blood streaking down from everyone’s mouth. Tiny ice brains in the punchbowl and there was always raw meat floating around somewhere. Bands from the west coast whipping up the crowd with standup basses and bad attitude, moshpits full of reincarnated greasers, the stage slicked with globs of tobacco juice.

This: a full moon shining on the well-kept lawns of Rochdale Cemetery. Richly attired bodies shambling forward like drunks at a wedding reception, gaping mouths and twitching limbs. Fluids splattered along the flagstones along with castoff body parts. And there was an unholy amount of groaning. A blue-haired matron slammed her hands angrily against the ground, unable to pull herself up from her burial plot. Teenage girl in a dress just like mine (what, was some funeral fashion boutique having a fucking sale?), gunshot wound bloodying the back of her blonde head. Pretty white lace to cover it all up. And there were infants. Squirming like plump grubs along the earth, wailing for bottles of blood.

I looked up at the sky. Space accident? Chemical gas? We walked above the ground once more. Who fucking cared?

I tried not to trip over coffin lids sticking up from the grass, puddles of torn finery littering the paths, some bones too, people who’d been in here a lot longer than me. I smacked my parched mouth, wanted something alive and struggling in it. Scanned the landscape for any hint of my man.

And there: short blonde hair, pinstriped suit (they’d dressed him in a pinstriped suit? The fucking nerve…), even in death, that bad-boy strut. Oh! My heart would have jumped if it still beat. And as I tottered towards him, I could feel everything I was missing: strappy heels beneath my feet, the swing of silver rhinestone hoops against my cheeks. The weight of my bowling bag on my arm, little portable world of lipstick, gum, smokes, all my vices. Gone. We fell into each other, just like we’d done at hundreds of shows. Opened my mouth to speak but only moaning came out.

(Trish!)

Sammy!

(We live!)

We are zombies!

(Braaaaains!)

Fuck yeah, baby.

A squeal of rubber erupted across the road below. An Iroc-Z, trying not to hit the zombies who had wandered out of the cemetery gates and into the street. Firehouse red with the stereo jacked, AMERICA: LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT sticker plastered across the back bumper as it jumped the curb and crashed into a fence. A big burly guy in camo sweatpants and a mullet smacked the door open against a tree. Dance music spilled from the wreck of his car, honey just love me, honey just hold me, dance with me all niiiiiiiight…the kind of guy who had given me and Sammy crap on our walks home from the club, speeding by safe from any retaliation, hey skunk-girl, Halloween’s in October, haw haw haw!

Gym-sculpted monster chest all puffed up ready to kick some ass, “Alright! You in the road, who’s gonna pay for this? Who’s…oh my…God…”

He’d been so lost behind his tinted windows he hadn’t noticed the pedestrians were dead. He started backing away, into the car, like that was gonna help him now, backed himself into his little death trap and the entire graveyard ran over. The scent of live frightened meat in the air was irresistible, and I was surprised by how fast I could move when I wanted to. Rotting bodies swarmed the driver’s side, we pushed around the hood, trying to find a space, discovered motion in the passenger seat. A shake of frizzy curls, sparkling gold chains, her French manicure pressed to her cheeks as she screamed her head off. Twin sister to the big-haired rich bitches who tripped me and Soraya with hockey sticks during gym glass, who scrawled SKANK SKUNK on my locker, screaming out the car windows right along with their musclehead boyfriends. Smirks and giggles as noxious as their floral perfume. Floating on daddy’s money, safe in their cliques and their social-climbing and that wasn’t enough, they had to rip down whatever we had, too.

I smashed my hands through her window, glass like thin ice, and I pulled her out of the car by her throat, threw her against the ground. The kind of face that usually held disdain, now contorted with sheer terror, snobbery withered helpless and pathetic at my feet. A delicacy.

Sammy went for her head as I bit into her stomach. Skin that had spent months lying in tanning booths, no idea she’d been getting herself ready for us like gift wrapping. Joyous wash of hot blood against my face, boiling with fear, as I gnawed her belly open, cracked her ribs, caught her internal organs between my teeth. Her screams died out as others came, pulled her apart with crabbed hands, opened her torso into a gruesome buffet. Zombies too far away to get a taste moaned ravenously as we worked her down to a slop of gore and bones.

Honey just love me, honey just hold me, you’re all I’ll ever neeeeeeeeeeed…

Sammy raised his head, mouth stained crimson. Quick flash back to all the nights we’d painted our eyes hollow, danced in a rain of corn syrup while a guitar wailed on. Nothing left.

We wandered away from the crowd, through the fence, into someone’s field.

(Second chance.)

Life.

(Yeah.)

Sammy. Profane, opinionated, you can’t back down, baby, you have to stand up to those fuckers or they’ll never stop pushing you. We were gonna fly away in his ghost-white Mustang. He’d spent our junior year restoring it, grease-stained and grinning, we’ll get the fuck out of here, we’ll go to California. He would play guitar in a death-psycho-surf band, and I would ink the most amazing tattoos, and we would road-trip to whatever college Soraya ended up in.

Now, shambling around with our flesh falling off was the closest we’d get to happily ever after.

It was like we’d been sleeping for the past couple months or however long we’d been dead and we were getting a bonus round. It wouldn’t last long, I knew that. Already a couple more cars had crashed into the mess behind us.

Soraya.

(Soraya.)

Miss her.

(She’s not far.)

Let’s go.

#

A herd of cows up ahead, chewing grass and mooing softly in the dark. Didn’t hunger for them at all. I wanted to run my hands along their smooth backs, warm life, but they ran away from us, scattered. Can’t blame them. I would have scared me, too.

We went back, me and Soraya. The quiet girl in my Social Studies class, shyly asking to borrow my CD’s, swapping me Bollywood techno for Joan Jett. Keeping each other in a steady supply of kohl eyeliner, our arms accumulating a gradual friendship-bracelet fusion of jingling glass bangles and pleather studded cuffs. Sharing textbooks, lunches, dance moves. The same unfortunate luck to be born in Rochdale.

Enemies, too.

I knew what kinds of problems would be crawling out right now, I’d seen all the movies. Mass hysteria. Doomsday scenarios. Scapegoats, inevitable. The mob always had to have someone to blame, no matter how farfetched. I had Sammy by my side, now I had to find out if Soraya was doing alright in this mess.

We reached the woods at the end of the field. Nice and dark, good cover. There was a trail through the trees that connected everybody’s backyards and would get us to Soraya’s place unseen. Lights in windows as we walked on down, telltale blue flicker of TV sets. A large flat-screen up in someone’s bedroom was tuned to a talking head. A news graphic beside her face: UNDEAD?  No, our time up here wouldn’t last long at all. We hauled ass, pieces of rot flying off as we went.

CLICK-CLICK!

(Fuck.)

“Well if it ain’t the greasy greaser and his little skanky skunk. Ha, ha! Look at them now, real zombies!”

Eric and Doug. Bullies, smirking creeps, the worst kind of assholes – their swagger was a total pose, spoiled suburban lowlifes who treated hiphop like a brand new wing of the mall to shoplift from. Sitting on Eric’s back porch with the police scanner, laughing over the domestic violence reports, walking around the woods taking turns sticking Doug’s gun in their waistbands, their turf war never escalating farther than unlucky housepets.

Doug got on Soraya the first time she put colors in her hair. Blue streaks braided into all that long curling black, what, are you tryin’ to be punk rock now? muttered in the back of class, You think that makes you look cool? Doesn’t matter what you try to hide in, you’ll always be a terrorist pig, and I turned around, no wonder you’re flunking, you ignorant dumbfuck as I smashed him across the face. I got detention for a week but he never said shit to her again.

Doug pointed the gun at us.

“Bitch, I have been waiting for this day –”

I sprang at him, knocked the gun from his hand, pushed him to the ground. Savored the look of pants-pissing fear in his eyes before I tore out his throat, chewed down to the telltale voice that would rat us out. Oh, so fucking good. Wet heavenly red spattered my face, spiced with the acid sting of adrenaline. I drew muscle from bone, slaughterhouse sized for a serving of one, submerged my face in the gushing paradise of his spinal cord.

(No! Tri–)

Two gunshots in fast, frightened succession.

Chunks of flesh hit my cheek. I looked up.

Sammy lay across the trail, headless. Eric’s hands trembled around the gun as he swung it in my direction. I rose up above Doug’s cooling body, bared my teeth at the toady.

You killed my man.

Eric fired, but it hit my shoulder. Worthless sniveling scum, Sammy deserved better than to get taken down by a two-bit coward like you and I jumped him, threw my arms around his neck and smothered him with grave dirt, rotting skin, Doug’s innards, choked him on the pungent grime of my body. Down he went, yelling, heaving as I banged his head on the ground, shut up, shut up, shut your worthless shit-spewing mouth, years of rage streaming into my fists until one furious slam bashed his skull apart. His brains leaked out across the dirt like a hearty stew. A mind that hated me, now cracked open and beckoning me to the sweetest feast of my life. I bent down, as if to kiss his forehead, and buried myself in his cranium.

I was licking the blood from my hands, delicate as a cat, when I heard sirens, off in the street but not that far away. The crosshairs were drawing closer. I would not let myself get wasted by a cop or somebody stupid.

Get moving.

#

Still that giant flag on the side of Soraya’s house, fuck, it’s been there for years now, ever since the death threats.  We’re good Americans! Don’t hurt us! I remember my mom’s snotty pointed questions, well, how do you know they’re just Hindu? DIY panic rooms, duct tape, plastic sheeting. Rochdale protected itself from the axis of evil. Soraya’s family protected themselves from Rochdale.

I tripped up their back lawn, up to Soraya’s window set above the rose beds. We’d spent an afternoon helping her mom plant them, mango lemonade, Pat Benatar on the rock station, bronze lawn Ganesh presiding over our hard work. I stretched my hands up, come out Soraya, Sammy’s got the new Grave Babies CD, it’s a beautiful night for mischief, come out and play…

The memory shattered as I smacked my hands against the glass. Bulletproof, I remembered the workers installing it, no chance of breaking my way in.

The curtains parted like a little stage. Past my smeared handprints, everything looked just as I’d remembered it. Her room swathed in jewel toned fabrics, a nest of silk veils she sometimes conjured her clothes from. Books and CD’s thrown everyplace, as always. Beloved skates hanging over her closet door. She stepped into view.

I went wild. I wanted to hug her as badly as I wanted to bite her. Blood glowed in her face. Her eyes were wide, shocked, framed by fuschia curls. New colors. I was dying to know how her life had gone on, even as I hungered to snap her fingers off and eat them.

She backed up, wearing her ROLL OUT WITH YOUR HOLE OUT shirt that she hid from her folks. Which meant she was alone. Oh, how I wanted to leap up into her room, barricade ourselves in the house with shotguns and radios and endless strategizing. Call all our friends, all the greaserpunks and derbygirls, pool our food, stockpile ammo, survive.

But I was the monster now.

Distant shouting, more gunshots. Dogs barking. I was among the hunted tonight, on borrowed time that was fast running out.

And then I saw it. The helmet. It sat on her bed, Rochdale’s signature black with a huge silver star on the side. The jammer’s crown. You sure as hell don’t earn that little piece of equipment if you’re afraid of getting hurt, when your job is to break through sharp-elbowed packs of skating amazons. Soraya hung out with women who risked knocking their teeth out every time they practiced together. A new gang was getting her back.

I saw her chest heave with breath, tantalizing me with the circulation of her blood. And then my eyes stopped at the gun in her hand. Shit.

There had been rumors, amid the alarm systems, the self-defense classes. I’d never asked. Bullies that big, after Soraya’s family, it was their business how to handle them.

Still, the answer glinting in her hand, it broke my heart they’d been pushed that far.

She put one hand on the window, up against mine. Summer sunshine, uncontrollable laughter, our hands grasping together before our kneepads hit the driveway yet again, all of it just a flicker before cold concentration took over her eyes. The face set for the Erics and Dougs of the world. And for whatever else might come oozing up to her house tonight, survivalist assholes or gawping mouths of the undead. I was so glad to see the steel in her features. Even if it was me she had to point the gun at.

If she could kill me, she’d be OK.

And if anyone was going to kill me…

Goodbye, Trish, she whispered, and kissed her side of the glass. Lip prints. I dragged my hand across them.

Her thumb slid over the window’s lock, and she slammed the pane open, three shots bang bang bang straight into my skull. Final thought as my brains splattered all over the roses: it wasn’t some wannabe thug that aimed for my head, Soraya, I’m glad it was you.

It took a couple hours to get from my home down I-20 toward Saluda. I ended up on Old Batesburg Road where the houses looked worn and the yards were mostly unkempt. Occasionally I would stop and take out a couple of the dead, but for the most part Old Batesburg Road was abandoned, much like I guessed most of the world was.

That two-lane blacktop would lead me close to the Batesburg Armory. I hoped to find my baby brother and my son there. If not…

If not wasn’t something I wanted to think about.

I slowed down when I saw the vehicle up ahead–a truck that was bigger than mine–sitting in the middle of the road. I saw people, but I couldn’t make out if they were living or dead. One of them had to be alive. It looked like a struggle taking place and someone needed help.

‘What’s wrong?’ Humphrey asked.

“I’m not sure, but there’s something going on up there.”

‘Are we going to check it out?’

“That’s the plan.”

We drove forward until we were about thirty yards from the other truck. It was high off the ground, the wheels lifting it up taller than the top of the van. It was a rust bucket color and it definitely belonged to a couple of country boys. I put my window down enough so I could hear the commotion at the front of the vehicle.

Someone was laughing–it was a taunt if I’ve ever heard one. Someone else was speaking, his voice deep.

“You want some of this?” he said. “I know you do.”

The alarms went off in my head. They had a woman and they were going to rape her. That’s the only thing I could think. I couldn’t quite see them, but hearing was enough.

I grabbed my pistol, checked to make sure it was fully loaded, and then I stood from the truck.

‘Hank?’

“Stay here, Humphrey. This could be bad.”

She let out a low whine as I closed the door gently.

With their truck being high off the ground, I thought they would have seen me, or at least seen the van. They were too preoccupied with their taunting and teasing, and I could only imagine the poor woman they were terrorizing. I rounded the front end of the truck, pistol drawn. I aimed before I saw…

There were two men, one scrawny and dirty, his hair greasy and his clothes had seen better days. He held a rope in one hand and a knife in the other. The other end of his rope led to a woman’s neck. The second guy was bigger and taller. It looked like all the meals Scrawny missed, Fat Boy made up for. He held a rope as well, and like his buddy, the other end of it ran to the woman, this one at her waist.

The woman was dead. She had probably been very attractive when she was alive. A brunette, tall and petite. She had been someone’s wife–the ring on her left hand told me as much.

I stood, watching in disbelief as they tugged on their ropes each time she got close to one of them. If she grew close enough to bite Fat Boy, Scrawny yanked his end of the rope. If she were too close to Scrawny, Fat Boy gave a hearty tug on his end. They bounced her around as they reached for clothing. Fat Boy held a torn cloth in his hand. It was her skirt.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t lower my pistol or pull the trigger. I was in disbelief of what I was seeing. They were going to rape a dead woman.

Scrawny reached for her shirt, grabbed the front of it and pulled hard. The cloth stretched, then ripped part of the way down.

Fat Boy cheered and gave a yank of his end of the rope, knocking the woman off balanced and teetering backward.

I stepped from around the edge of the truck.

“What are you doing?” I asked. My voice surprisingly calm.

Both men looked at me, then back at each other. Fat Boy spoke up first. “None of your business, boy.”

He was wrong. It was every bit my business. The woman inside of the body was probably scared enough with the monster she had become. She was probably wishing herself dead again, this time for good–and that even before she had her little run in with those two punks. My mind whispered Jeanette’s name and it posted pictures on the bulletin board of my psyche, images of Jeanette terrified of two rednecks about to rape her, but not after she was dead, but while she was still alive. I could see the fear on her face, feel her heart’s steady thumping, hear her voice as she screamed for them to stop.

It was my business. It always had been, hadn’t it?

“Again, what are you doing?”

Fat Boy rubbed his scraggly beard. His eyes narrowed.

“I said, none of your business.”

In the before I had ran into several people like those two guys. There was no reasoning with them. They were going to do what they wanted and no one was going to stop them.

“Let her go,” I said.

They both laughed at me.

“Or what? Scrawny asked. “You gonna shoot us if we don’t?”

“Yes.”

They both grew quiet, exchanged looks again. Fat Boy tugged the woman back toward him when she got a little too close to his buddy. She stumbled and almost fell to the ground.

Jeanette entered my thoughts again. My jaw clenched. I felt the muscles flex several times

“You ain’t gonna shoot no one,” Scrawny said. “You ain’t noth–”

The bullet went through his forehead, blowing out the back of his skull. He fell, pulling the rope and the girl in his direction. Fat Boy jerked forward, stunned from what had just happened. He let go of the rope and put his hands in the air.

“Look, mister, we was just having some fun. That’s all.”

“You call that fun?”

“Where’s the harm in playing around with a zombie–they’re dead.”

“The body might be dead, but there’s a person still trapped inside of it.”

“That’s crap–there ain’t nothing in there. That’s a monster and–”

I pulled the trigger again. His right knee disappeared and he crumpled to the ground, releasing the rope and clutching his leg and screaming. Blood spilled onto the road.

“What’s wrong with you?” he screamed.

The female turned toward Fat Boy.

“Nothing,” I said and turned to leave.

“Wait. Wait. What are you doing? You can’t just leave me here like this.”

He was right.

I turned around, took several steps toward him. The female was drawing closer, her lips pulled back and a growl in her throat. I took aim at her head, but didn’t pull the trigger.

Again, my thoughts turned back to Jeanette. What if that woman had been my wife? What if she had been alive and these men had done that. They would have taken great joy with what they did to her. Who knows, they might have killed her when they were done. Probably just like they were going to do to the dead woman. Have some sick, disgusting fun and then crush her skull. All the while, that woman would be inside screaming and begging for them to stop.

I stepped on the rope and the woman stopped. Her hands stretched out, but she couldn’t quite reach him.

I pulled the trigger.

Fat Boy’s left shoulder exploded and dropped him from sitting up and backing away to on his side. His scream was louder.

“You better pray you’re right,” I said. “You better hope that when the dead come back, there’s nothing inside, that the body is just a husk.”

His eyes grew wide with recognition.

“Please,” he said. “Please, don’t do this.”

“I’m sure you’ve heard those words before, haven’t you?”

“No, no, no–I’ve never–”

“Don’t lie–you’ve done a lot worse. You don’t think I know what you and your buddy were going to do here?”

His jaw went slack. Understanding covered his face, the truth of what he meant to do and what he would have done if I hadn’t came upon them.

“You’re a sick person,” I said. “You deserve what you get.”

I lifted my foot off the rope. The woman fell forward, her arms still outstretched.

Fat Boy screamed as she sank her teeth into the gap where his knee used to be. She pulled her head from side to side, ripping off a piece of meat. Fat Boy punched the back of her head. When he did this, I stepped forward, shot him in the other arm. Again, he howled.

The woman worked her way up, found his stomach with her scabrous hands.

I turned away, walked back to my truck as Fat Boy screamed and cried and the woman ate. I crawled in, closed the door and put the window up. I don’t know how long I sat there. Two minutes or two hours. I don’t know.

‘Hank, what happened?’

“Nothing good, Humphrey. Nothing good at all.”

‘Are there any survivors?’

I thought on this a moment. There had been two. One of them was dead. The other one would be soon enough, if he wasn’t already.

“No.”

‘Are we going soon?’

“In a little bit.”

‘What are we waiting for?’

“I need to check out the truck.”

‘Oh.’

Another few minutes passed. I stood from the van, and closed the door quietly. From the back of it I pulled out a baseball bat and made my way back around Fat Boy’s vehicle. Flies buzzed around Scrawny’s head, landed for a taste of blood and then flew away.

The woman sat on the ground. She was no longer eating Fat Boy’s insides. She stared blankly at him.

“Miss,” I said.

She turned her head, but there was no hunger in those cataract white eyes. There was shame.

“It’s over,” I said and shot her. She slumped to the ground, hopefully at peace.

Fat Boy was dead. He was missing a couple of fingers on his right hand. I guess he tried to push her away and she just bit them off. She had taken more than a couple of bites at his stomach and chest and throat. Too bad she missed one vital area. He stared an empty stare to the sky, his eyes seeing nothing, his chest not moving.

It was an hour later when his hand twitched, then his bottom lip. His head moved and he lifted it off the ground with a groan that I like to believe was full with pain.

“Hey there, Fat Boy,” I said and knelt down a few feet from him, placing the bat’s head on the ground in front of me. “Are you in there?”

He tried to reach for me, but his arms wouldn’t lift too high up.

“Come on, Fat Boy. I asked you a question. Are you in there?”

He grunted and growled and his teeth gnashed at me, but he couldn’t get up. I had made sure of that earlier. Now it was time to see if he was right. I knew the answer, but Fat Boy didn’t.

I stood, nudged one of his shoes with one of my own. He didn’t seem to notice.

“Did you feel that?”

Nothing.

“No? Okay.”

A little closer and I straddled his legs. I lifted the bat over my head and brought it down as hard as I could on the kneecap that I hadn’t shot out. It cracked and popped and fat Boy groaned. It wasn’t as loud as his screams had been, but it was long.

“Hey Fat Boy. Still think there’s nothing inside? Still think they are just monsters?”

He snapped his mouth at me.

“You do? Okay.”

I smashed the leg again, and then stepped up to his side and brought the bat down on one of his hips. Like before, there was a sickening thud and crack and this time, Fat Boy’s groans were more like his screams from earlier.

“Did you feel that in there? Does it hurt?”

I brought the bat across his outstretched hand, striking it hard enough to slam it into his bloodied midsection. And Fat Boy moaned, his mouth open in a wide grimace. He wasn’t a hungry boy and if he was, there was no meal for him there. No, he was in pain. Pure pain. And somewhere in that newly rotting corpse was his soul, all black and stinking of the foulest crap.

“You need to answer me, Fat Boy. If you don’t, I’m going to keep hitting you. Does this hurt?” The bat struck his elbow. It popped and bent awkwardly in the wrong direction.

There was another scream.

I bent down, pulled the gun from my waistband and shoved the barrel in his mouth as far back as it would go, pinning his head to the ground.

“You have one chance to answer me. If you’re in there, I want you to try and lift your pointer finger on your left hand. If you don’t move that finger, I’m going to continue to beat you until I feel better about the last several months.”

I moved the gun, stood straight and backed away.

“Does this hurt?” I brought my boot down on his ankle. Another crack rang loud, but Fat Boy didn’t groan or growl or scream. A moment passed and I saw it. His pointer finger on his left hand moved. It wasn’t much, but it was enough.

“So, you’re in there, right?”

This time the movement of the finger was more defined.

I nodded.

“Good.”

The gun went back into my waistband and I picked my bat up from the ground. Then I turned and walked away. I climbed up into his truck. There were guns in the cab and all sorts of stuff in the bed. Water and cans of gas and canned foods and a couple of lanterns and knives and alcohol.

I did my best to unload as much of it into the van as I could. A lot of it went onto my mattress, but I didn’t care. Supplies were more important than the comforts of a pseudo-bed.

The sun was setting as I piled the last of the supplies into the van, except for a bottle of Jack Daniels. I got in, cranked the van up and put it into gear.

‘Are we leaving now?’ Humphrey asked. She sounded different. Scared, maybe.

“Yeah.”

‘Good.’

I said nothing as I uncorked the whiskey and took a big swallow. It was liquid fire going down my throat and settling in my stomach. It set my ears to buzzing.

I let off the brake and eased by Fat Boy’s truck and then by Fat Boy himself. He writhed on the ground, one leg and arm moving, his head jerking from side to side.

In the old world the crazies were everywhere. As we drove down Old Batesburg Road, I began to think maybe… just maybe I had become one of the crazies of the new world.

He checked his flamethrower, roasting a dessicated piece of meat and skeletal remains on a clear patch. Downing a canteen top full of water, he leapt, and his feet impacted on the retractable metal of his access ladder as he dangled momentarily above the deserted factories, carparks and cafes of Otahuhu.

A solitary zed growled its hunger far below, but it wasn’t a priority. Back when he worked for DRAPE, he would have abseiled down there, put the shitheap out of its misery and not given it any thought. But he was alone out here now, and needed to conserve his resources, and anyway, it was harmless. It lay sprawled impotently on a ramp, trailing intestines, legless, probably meagrely subsisting on birds and small animals that were foolish enough to venture near it. As if by chance, a strong wind blew a tottering chunk of masonry from a wall above down from the remains of the building above it and put the creature out of its wretched condition.

He rose above the jutting abutement, looking down across the ramp downward, into the desolate ruins of the approaches to Auckland. He drew out his pistol and checked it for precision and accuracy.

An hour later, he found his destination in the desolation that was Central Auckland’s Vulcan Lane. As the satnav had told him, Bridges was still intact, despite the ruins to either side of the former gay pub fixture. He’d loved the place when he was sowing his wild oats in his twenties before all this, bedding any bloke who caught his fancy, before…

Don.

Kevin drew to a halt as the figure lumbered out of the deserted pub, knocking over a rusted metal chair, and his throat constricted. It only wore tattered jeans now, but its body was well-preserved, despite the bloody wound in its side and the shards of bone from its arms poking out. But he knew what its body had been like once upon a time, he’d made love to it enough times.

Don. It was his husband, still well-preserved despite the fact that they were now on opposite sides of the mortality barrier. He’d thought that he’d lost him on Z Day, when the armed forces evacuated Central Auckland, running back to get something from the bar, unaware of the closing zed as it moved between him and the evac bus. Kevin had screamed and thrust his hand out, but it was far too late. The creature thrust itself forward and ripped into the flesh and bone of Don’s neck and he fell to his knees and then into unconsciousness. With a screech of burning rubber, the bus accelerated away, as Kevin sat watching the chaos as Central Auckland descended into anarchy.

He had shut down emotionally. He’d joined up, using his rural firearm skills as a hunter before coming out as a member of the Deep Reconnaissance Activity Patrol Echelon, the frontline army detachments that protected Wellington, Dunedin and rural outlier settlements in post-apocalyptic New Zealand from the ravages of zombie attack. As time went on, some of the other DRAPE elite found new reasons for living, new partners, surviving children or other family members, new orphaned offspring who touched their hearts. Not Kevin. And that worried the Republican New Zealand Army’s psychotherapists and counsellors, who’d seen it all too many times. Jigsaw Syndrome.

Sometimes, a soldier ‘went necro’. It meant that she or he caught sight of a former loved one amidst the zeds and abandoned their duties to go out and seek reunion with the undead ones across the mortality barrier. It usually meant that they either died, or were turned if they had the susceptibility to the thanatovirus within their genes and chromosomes. Kevin had thought it couldn’t happen to him, until one patrol brought back the evidence that Don’s postmortal body was still in existence, lurching around its Central Auckland confines.

“Kha…kha…” It called to him, and then its clumsy fingers tried to undo its jeans button. At length, they fell from his corpse-slender frame, leaving it oddly naked. Suddenly, Kevin realised what he had to do. Keeping his pistol ready for intrusions from any other zed elsewhere in the vicinity, he started to undress too, pulling off his kevlar vest, then shirt, unzipping his combat boots and pushing down his camo trousers, leaving him as naked as…

Don.

Finally, his former (?) lover began to move, lurching across the street, reached him and clumsily embraced him. Strands of ichor trailed down his face from his reddened bloodied eyes and despite the stench, Kevin quaked at the reconciliation. Then he leant his neck aside and whispered to the zombie:

“Do it, Don. Turn me.”

Don bit down, hard, and flesh, bone and muscle crunched beneath his onslaught. Kevin gritted his teeth as the pain surged and blood flowed over his naked shoulders and down his back and chest, dripping onto the ground. But as the minutes passed, a growing darkness obliterated Kevin’s former self, taking his name, much of his former identity, former loyalties and his humanity away from him. Five minutes passed as he became one of the nameless, interchangeable undead.

Not entirely, for many zombies still retain vestigial memories of what they had been. Don did, and so did Kevin. Don’s lips were full of Kevin’s succulent bodily juices as his questing mouth found the new-minted zombies. Then, together, they shambled back to the derelict ruins of the pub and consummated the passion that had led Kevin Burgess to abandon his mind and life in pursuit of what was now an inert and unbeating heart, but still vivid desire that had led him across the mortality barrier.