 
DOWNDRAFT

Book 2 of The Sky's Alight Trilogy

Published by Tam Sturgeon at Smashwords

Copyright Tam Sturgeon 2018

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed within it are

the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to

actual persons, living or deceased, or any events

mentioned is entirely coincidental.

Tam Sturgeon asserts the moral right to

be identified as the author of this work.

Cover imagery courtesy of the author.

Cover design by Tam Sturgeon.

Copyright Tam Sturgeon 2018

~

Downdraft

Infected: Infection is the process of bacteria, or viruses, invading the body or making someone ill or diseased. Taken from: yourdictionary.com/infected

Affected: To influence or cause someone or something to change. Taken from: dictionary.cambridge.org

Part 1

Without Warning

Spring: 1984: Home counties: England.

'... Hello, hello ... Does anyone copy? ... Hello ... My name's Avril, Avril Lurton, I found this radio in a police car ... I hope it's working and that someone can actually hear me ... I'm not sure where I am, somewhere south of Staines, I think ... My advice, go underground or run while you still can ... Don't go into built up areas, and don't go near any cities or towns either, they're just as bad, if not worse ... I've noticed lots of us attract lots of them, so don't travel in big groups, and try to keep your kids quiet, they're too noisy sometimes, and those things follow the sound ... What else? Oh, don't stay in one place too long, and never sleep outdoors, unless you're up somewhere high, out of reach, otherwise they will get you ... I have to go, it's getting dark, they move quick at night so I have to cover more ground ... Anyway, stay alert, because they are coming, believe me ... Be safe and good luck ... Over and out ...'

Trying to stay ahead of the droning or screaming masses left an ache that could force you through flames, the depth of despair a bottomless pit. Getting away at speed was the only way to survive what was to follow. There was no stopping to take note or to pass the time of day, for the hour was indeed upon them, and time and tide, as we well know, waits for no man.

For some, time stood still. As anarchy rippled from the cities into the suburbs, it rearranged life into something new, something ugly and decaying, to leave but a shadow of what it was before. Families held together, went below, found a way to beat the infection and, for some, there was a chance, if merely a small one.

The young lady trying to warn others, she had a secret, a big secret, and eventually it would become one she would not want strangers to be aware of. It was inside her, as part of her being, and with that knowledge, she had to face the world and her greatest of fears in order to stay alive. To begin with, before the sweep-clean, she was just an ordinary person with an ordinary life, but things changed, drastically, as they did for one and all, but for this young lady, what she was about to face was beyond imaginable.

Amazingly, when her pretty London suburb was reduced to rubble, after the wall of raging fire ran its course, her sister and she narrowly missed death because the house collapsed on top of them. By chance, they were down in the cellar at the time, sorting through boxes of old junk. This was a punishment for baby sister, who had broken her latest curfew by about four hours. So, it was done, the sorting, but with much moaning and plenty of attitude.

And so it started, the devastation of what remained and the annihilation of the human race, as they were picked off, area by area. If you could run then you would live. You needed to find shelter in those first few hours though, or you were dead by sundown, plus you had to be fast, and you had to be ready. Sadly, no one was ready.

They made it as far as Staines, on roads that crawled with hordes of people who all had that same thought in mind. Then it just stopped, their journey taking them no further. Traffic was backed up for miles, and those far ahead were the first to be taken. The infection spread, car to car, every man, woman and child, regardless of age. Once the blood supply was compromised by the gene altering bacteria, all hell let lose. The screams travelled on a tide, vehicle after vehicle, louder and louder.

Out, as fast as possible, and that way, over the field, towards the unknown town. So that was what they did, they started running, and they dared not stop. When they hit the next roundabout their goal was in sight. Off to the left ran a street of shops, their silent windows dark as the evening descended. Sprinting towards the line of properties, they were about to see just how quiet it really was.

A decaying horde turned to the sound of running feet. Standing in the fading light, making that soulless drone, their net slowly closed around the two girls, the end seeming almost upon them.

'... HEY ... Over here ... HURRY ...'

A man's voice shouted to them from a door in an alleyway. Just beyond a chain-link fence, he stood, waving at them.

Grabbing her younger sister's hand, they ran for the voice, not forty feet away. Never look back, so they did not, they charged forward, desperate to make that door.

Three appeared in the moment the girls hit the other side of the road, as out from behind a double-decker bus they groaned. Pushing and kicking, whilst trying to stay hand-in-hand, was harder than it sounds. Forcing those things over was no hard task, but as soon as one went down, another was there to replace it.

Charging through the gate, and into the building, they were welcomed by several others who were all in the same boat. The two uniformed men, one of whom called them over, worked in the shop out front of the storage area they stood in. A woman and small boy sat to one side, on a large pallet of sacked potatoes, and then over from them was a young man, sat alone. An elderly couple were quietly talking to a small group of teenagers, who all looked petrified, along with everyone else.

The girls took the bottled water that was offered with a smile of thanks, their appreciation for the rescue added at the end. Getting their breath, they joined those sat further into the room, where they perched themselves in a corner, glad to be safe. Food was offered, taken, and consumed, as the light faded, and the noise outside droned off into the distance.

'Avvy, what are those things? Did you see their faces, and their eyes? Some had bits of them missing ... They should be dead, so how come they're still walking?'

Her sister spoke as she finished her mouthful. Looking around her first, her glance travelled back to her younger sibling.

'I don't know, Nicky, and I don't care ... Christ, it's all turned to hell in a handbag ... Did you see that little kid, half his jaw was gone? ... And that smell, and noise ... Whatever it is they have, I don't want it,' she almost whispered, trying to keep her voice down.

From the first floor office and the roof they were unable to see much in the dark. Moving front to back, there was no way of telling what lingered out there. It was decided, stay the night, then face the fight tomorrow, because it could only get better, surely.

There was no sleeping. Not with the small boy's nightmares, for they alone were enough to rip everyone from any possible slumber. Nerves sat as fibres so incredibly thin that with one tweak they were done for. It was uncomfortable too, on their makeshift beds, using old mats as mattresses, and found curtains for covers.

With the dawn came another surprise. Baby sister was running a fever so high she could hardly move. Sweat pooled as her temperature soared, her immune system taking a hit it was not prepared for. There was a point when everything slid away and the truth was there, right before them all. Checking her limbs for bites or scratches, a small rancid wound was located, which hid on the inside her left arm.

Once seen, everyone moved back, as far away as possible, because they all knew what that meant. If she was infected she would soon become the affected, and that was very, very bad.

Into The Darkness

Somehow the young lady managed to remove herself from the worse hit areas. Steering clear of the more troubled streets helped keep her alive too. The non-affected moved as a band of crying misfits, walking nowhere, taking what they could carry. That was when crowds of affected would come. They would hear and follow, feel the vibration of life and the living. It would be a whisper on the wind, 'This way, this way ... All you can eat buffet ... Hurry, hurry ...'

Learning quickly and moving quickly were two very important skills. With those at hand, she hacked and chopped her way into being a new woman. There were things she did that she's not proud of, but when she checked out certain places for supplies, she had to be prepared for anything. As she would say, always think the worst, anything above that is a bonus. As her time alone turned day by day, it became her number one code to live by.

Only one small group was joined on her travels. They were mainly men, a few women and kids, plus an elderly couple. Two different families had met up on the road, both trying to escape the devastation spreading across the south. They all had their own stories and ideas, the kids too. One young lad thought maybe something nasty had crash landed from space and was eating them all. Another speculated about nukes going off, maybe the North Koreans were behind it. Another suggested it could be Mother Nature's way of bumping off the majority of the world's expanding population.

The quiet new girl kept most of her thoughts to herself, her story too, but it did not stop her from listening to them all talking around the fire-pit, with that big ole full moon above.

One of the older gentlemen, Clive, was sat with his quiet daughter, Jenny, and he was telling his grandson, Dylan, about the good old days of years gone by. He was animated as he recited his stories from a misty childhood. Nearly gone, they were, but not quite.

'... Course, when it happened before, after the second war, it woulda been just like this, the city burning at night, the running and hiding ... My old Dad said it glowed bright orange against the low clouds ... Families were all bunkered down together, in the tunnels and in their shelters ... It didn't stop them living their lives then though, and it bloody well won't stop us now ... Whatever it is, we'll fight back, we always do, we always will ...'

'Oh, get a grip, will ya, this ain't like before, mate, didn't you get the memo? ... I saw what he did, that army bloke with the gun, the one wearing the gas mask ... He shot that injured kid, in, the, face, as he raised his hands in fear of being accidently killed by a stray bullet ... That's not them protecting us, that's them killing us ...'

The butting in had been done by an agitated older man sat alone, his hands fidgeting. He was chubby and pallid, his hazel eyes red and tired, his hand shaking as it lifted another lit cigarette to his lips. That was Bruce Mendel living life on the edge.

'Bloody hell, you moron, the kid had already been shot how many times? He wasn't trying to surrender, he trying to eat him. My, God, hadn't you worked that out? Anyway, we made it, didn't we? We're here, and we're alive, so be thankful for that, if nothing else ... No one was going to stay after seeing what we all saw, but we have to make whatever this is work ... Now, can we, please, keep it together for the sake of the children ... They're petrified as it is, look at them, so can we stop bloody talking about it?' the tall woman, Ellie, softy insisted, her face awash with a need for calm.

Lifting from her spot, she took the younger kids into the barn behind, acting as a shelter. They'd all been distant neighbours in their former lives. Suddenly they shared a hay strewn floor at night, along with a bunch of other people.

'They don't stay down, the affected, that's our main problem ... You can't let them near you ... There's only one way to stop them permanently, but you won't like it ... Sadly, it's the only way.'

The young lady looked around the small group of adults, her voice dropping in volume.

'It's nasty, I know, but it's how you have to do it ... Use anything sharp, and make sure it's got a long handle, like a spike or an axe, but always to the skull, no point attacking anywhere else, they'll just get back up again ... But don't stop till they drop ... It's the only way to be sure ...'

Jenny looked towards the fire, her face softening in the low light of the embers.

'You've dealt with them already, haven't you? I can see it in your face, hear it in your voice ... I'd heard silly rumours, but thought it was just rubbish, scare tactics or something, a way to keep us off the streets ... What do you know?'

Eyes etched with wisdom lifted from the stick that was being whittled into a long spear. The pointed end was rammed into the fire until it caught, the small flame jumping for the dry wood quickly.

In a sad way she smiled, 'Yeah, I've dealt with them already ... And you'll meet them soon enough ... They're coming, Jenny ... It's just a case of when ...'

James, one of the younger men in the group, chirped in with, 'Sounds like that bloody series that was on TV, and there were several films too, but that's just telly and pretend, right? ... There's no such thing as Zeds, is there? They're not real ... They can't be ...'

When he finished speaking he wasn't smiling anymore. His whole demeanour had changed. He was suddenly alert, his eyes darting away into the darkness, his senses already standing to attention.

Clive had to ask. 'Sorry, but what's a Zed?'

James looked over at the older man, sat to his left, the fire fanning a sway of golden light across his face as he turned.

'A Zed is a mobile cadaver, Clive, a walking dead person, otherwise affectionately known as, a Zombie ... But they're not real, that's just in films ... They can't exist, can they?' he gingerly asked, slowly looking over at the pretty young girl.

'I call them Affected, not Zeds or Zombies, but they're still really real ... It's life, Jim, but not as we know it,' was smirked, the reference not understood by most but James and a couple of the others smiled. 'That's how I see it anyway ... They seem to be affected by something else as they reach a certain point of infection ... Watching them change, they evolve into another version of themselves ... Them, but not them, it's hard to explain ... You have to see it to understand,' she replied, her face turning in James's direction.

Glancing around the few still sat by the lowering embers, cold eyes swung from face to face as she asked the most obvious of questions.

'Have any of you dealt with one yet? ... I'm guessing not, from the looks on your faces ... Okay, well, so far, you've all been really lucky, but it takes a bit more than luck, it takes risks, strength, courage, and a crap load of quick moves and quick thinking ... Maybe, together, we can weather this out ... It can't last forever, it can't ...'

'Sorry, but all the same,' Clive smiled, throwing a small chunk of wood into the low fire, 'I'd rather not meet one on a dark night, thank you very much ...'

Those eyes on flint turned away from Clive. They dropped to the stick in her hands once more, the end flame being extinguished in the dust at her feet.

'I'm sorry, too, Clive, because sooner or later, you are gonna meet one ... And I really hope it's not on a dark night too ... You wouldn't stand a chance against one, never mind four ...'

The truth was hard, life was hard, they changed, they learnt, they adapted, and fought for everything they found. There was going to be losses, on a massive scale, time and again. If they were unable to keep ahead, they were finished. They could all hide, but they would have to come out in the end, if they did not want to go insane from the dehydration. No one had made a plan and no one seemed to be making one. It was as if their sentence had ended at the edge of the city. They had no story to write after that point, they simply ceased to be.

Foolishly, they thought they were safe. They took it for granted even, big mistake. The storm swept in on them when no one was looking. God was off playing golf maybe, no one knows but, whatever, it was not a good outcome. It left the group cut down to nothing, the kids and elders gone in a screaming tide.

Leaving it all behind and going below ground was easy. She could never fight it, not with empty hands and no one to back her up. She knew all the arguments about who lived and who died. She was one of those making them, but she was not about putting random people to death. They were trying to avoid that, weren't they? That was where her motivation to stay alive lay. Were they not all struggling to survive?

When the full moon rose, communication with the outside world was cut, and the last of the mass violence erupted. That was what drove her under, after losing her sister and the group, and it saved her life in those early months. The further into the countryside she travelled the more devastation she saw. Even the villages and small market towns had been ravished in just the same way as the cities.

It was a decimation of the population. The country was full one day, a hollow ghost the next. Body pit after body pit would be passed, the rough mound in a field indicating turned earth, the silence a note she became sick of. Life had been replaced by a different game. It was not her old routine anymore. It was not her old life anymore. There were no bridges to the other side, there was no other side, and what remained was but an empty bowl, the fruit having all been eaten. The new game had new rules, and you had to learn quickly or get left behind. It was up to you really.

Back above ground, standing alone against an empty landscape, watching it being taken back to nothing, it striped away her sense of belonging. The last time she looked north London still burnt. With that to her back she walked away from everything. She had to find her own salvation, and loneliness would be her saving grace.

And So It Begins

There wasn't a plan after the world stopped being what the world had always been. Those that were left formed small pockets of survivors, as was excepted, as others tried to carry on with life as usual, but the end of our civilisation, as they knew it, wasn't going to let life just carry on. Everything changed, it had to.

They remember, before, the movies and the books, all gone now, how they told their version of life after the event. Some were miles off the reality of it, but a few came pretty close. The news broadcasts ground to a halt with the loss of power. Instead of informing the population on how to prepare themselves for the starving months ahead, they somehow caused widespread pandemonium. Whilst a few areas managed to retain the moral fabric of a civilised race, others were forced into a darker side, eventually becoming part of the affected themselves.

Starvation was rife when the last of the crops where gone and all the meat had been slaughtered. Most that survived in the beginning went underground. If the danger was up there, they didn't stay up there. Going below to hide, into their cellars, the tube tunnels, the network of drainage water viaducts that run beneath their feet, was the only way they stood a chance. No one ever thought those silly spaces would eventually save lives but, in the end, they did.

The fear of cannibalism came down from the north. As traveller met traveller the horrors became apparent. There were stories of grand manor houses becoming halls of evil feasting, the first course's screams carrying over a half mile or more. People went missing in the woods, never to be seen again. You suddenly never went out after dark, or took unnecessary shortcuts through areas you didn't know, and you never risked a journey you couldn't do without a map.

The looting, and the widespread waves of violence, died down as those involved filled their homes with electrical appliances they would never be able to use. Banks were cleaned out of money that no one would ever spend, and a numbed silence fell over all the cities of this land.

After a random guess of thirty months below a supermarket warehouse, she dreamt of heading to the country. When she'd finally located the perfect property for her, she was going to hang up her knives and move at her own pace, looking after number one and just being happy. Fresh water would be useful, maybe an area to plant the random packets of found seeds she still had. With the sky above, and fresh air in her lungs, she was there. She would keep herself safe and rebuild some of what had been lost. If that was all it took, that was good enough for her.

Sadly, there was a long way to go before she reached a place where she could rest her sad young soul. Every day brought a new challenge, her own fears becoming her new routine. The black rain left skin speckled with ash, the grittiness a nightmare to remove with water alone. It would smudge, leaving an inky trail, the residue only removed when scrubbed with soap. It took her some time to work it out. A city was burning and the debris, of building and body, was to be carried on the wind, and then fall as if water from the skies above. It was just another small reminder that they would all become dust in the end.

No more planes were seen, carving white lines across the bright blue dome above, there were no travellers and there was no blue dome. Trains were no longer running late, no one was there to be delayed. Traffic jams and gridlocked streets sat in a line of silence, abandoned four wheel boxes crammed with crap. There were no queues for the Post Office, for the bank, for a lottery ticket. The silence was enough to make you think you heard things, crazy things, things you wouldn't normally hear.

There was a Military Curfew when the policing system collapsed. By the end of the first year London was under the control of the Army, and most central parts had been Swept Clean as they called it. As an area fell, they purged it, burnt it, then pulled in down on itself. In this way they hoped to contain it. It didn't work. After another year of trying they were near extinct themselves. When she moved on, a few months later, over half the city and a majority of the surrounding area had already fallen in flames.

Valley of Death

Scavenging for what food she could find she turned over shops and vacated houses, the risks taken thought of as quite stupid afterwards. Anything in tins, packets, foods she could store as if a lonesome squirrel, as much as she could carry. Jumping from squat to squat, a place was found with views all round, making sure she always had more than one means of escape. Time was spent practising to defend herself, she found better, longer, knives, and learnt to use them effectively, and made herself aware of her surroundings, eventually seeing a weapon in every room.

The reason she did it, the reason she trained with those big, sharp blades, is because she was a woman, a young woman, and suddenly she was worth something, more than clean water in some parts. Suddenly, she became a rare commodity, and that fact alone was about to make her life a little harder than usual.

When it happened, she was sick afterwards, her own wounds open and burning, her blood mingling with his. After, she sat and cried for the stranger she'd just killed in self-defence. She wasn't going to, and she did warn him, three times, yet he still wanted what she had in her pants, but she wasn't going to let him just take it. He tried, he really did, but her flexible frame squirmed and bucked and brought about his end. Her knee to his nuts was his downfall, followed by her thumbs into his eye sockets as a parting gift.

Into her hands she sobbed, after rolling his corpse away, sat in the dust of a street far from home. No one was there to care and nothing was to follow, no siren, no helping hand, no warming words of sympathy. There was nothing, just a dead body starfish in the road, and a live one sat crying clean streaks down her filthy face. No one came.

Another town, further south, brought more changes with a spell of peace and solitude. Away from the screaming masses was becoming her only hope of getting through what could only be described as Panic in Progress. People turned on each other, as they ripped each other apart, and then, when finished, they respectfully set the remains alight. People were lost in a country that was slowly dying, and they were fighting and eating themselves as it crash landed. What they had taken for granted for so long was no longer at their fingertips. The world was doing some spring cleaning, and it didn't need so many humans anymore.

There was no concept of time, she operated when it was light and she slept when it was dark, simple. Illumination came from the abundant camping equipment found throughout the south of Britain. Stoves and lamps were stockpiled for the darker months to follow, always room for a few more cans of gas.

A fishing shop was found and raided along the way, rucksacks galore were filled, and all the wet weather gear ever needed was added to her consignment. Hunting knives were smashed from a display case, a hunting slingshot and walking boots were taken, anything of use.

The area seemed safe enough so she stayed a while. Nicely designed houses edged more silent streets without lighting, the repeated emptiness almost boring after a while. So, the choice was limitless, any size, three beds or four. Mansions stood alone in plots that were far too big, cars gone, cases gone, doors wide open. Opting for the church, as being surrounded by the dead seemed to be the norm all of a sudden, she was happy with the thought that at least those ones would stay down.

Anything could be taken, and was, but it just couldn't share with anyone. Rolling tobacco was looted from a small untouched shop out in the sticks, all that was left, taken, along with enough papers and filters too. Sitting in her belfry, she looked out over the silent village, out over the silent land, off towards the coast. Was it just her? Was she all there was? Was the last person left alive in England her and her alone? It might well have been.

Sitting, she wondered about all the others, those beyond her shores. So much had already been lost, was the rest of the world feeling that loss too? Was her humanity all that remained of a whole nation? There was no sense to any of it. It came, it was, and it did what it did, trying to kill them all. Its hands were felt around her throat every day. It came with the constant changes, the ones that morphed and ebbed. Not noticed much, but still there, still happening.

Trying to hold onto the person she used to be before it began, elements of her old self still remained, but they weren't so obvious after her time of roaming. Things like that also changed attitudes and outlooks, and they gently distort reality and make a sheer mockery of once sacred values. Morals were tested, as were strengths, both mental and physical. It became a survival of the quickest not necessarily the fittest. It was a battle no one was prepared for.

Everything became grey, the day, the rain, the sky, the trees, the roads walked. Instinct told her to keep moving with the white disc, seen through layered cloud, to her left in the morning. Things blurred in her vision, as did the things in her head. Memories from the past had little impact on the moment at hand. It all seemed a dream, the old life. It might have been read once in a novel, its lines engrossing the reader, the end never changing.

There was one killing house found, and purely by accident. Small, it was, tucked away in the vale. Trees curved three sides, a shield against what resided within those ugly brick walls. There was a smell. It seared up the nose, it chewed at the senses, and then she saw the fresh blood and old tissue on block and bench, the red alive against the monotone world.

You can't help but retract to the edge. Stepping with no sound, in case they hear you passing, snapping a twig, setting a tripwire off. It's all bad, the smell, the trenches out back, the festering remains, the rotting. They don't see that though, they cast it all aside and left it to the other monsters in the dark. Out of sight, out of mind, the heads too.

Those heads were found, face to face, as she fell into the trench in the dark. Slime pooled over their corpses, their gore and guts thick gravy over all their carved up chunks. Dead silent they were, as dead as the heads of their lost children and just as forgotten. There lay yet another slaughter of defenceless victims, some more offerings to Mother Nature, another devilish deed being done. Twenty-three heads of different ages were seen and counted, all in a wavering line, thrown into that open grave. Ignoring the guilt she inwardly sighed with relief, moderately happy in the knowledge she didn't know any of them.

Whilst trying to claw her way free of the blackening gloop she floated in, those who savoured two legged meat, the monsters that made the mess, they brought more. A barrowful, it was, of parts not connected, not a whole, not anymore, not like she was. They ran a river of crimson off-cuts down into that putrid place. Over and around her it splashed, into her ears, across her eyes. His feet stood only inches from her head. Haunted eyes had looked up into the face of a monster maker. Dead he was, as dead as those around her and just as revolting.

Frozen, she lay, unable to breathe or dare twitch a lash, a live crouton semi-sunk in a sticky dead soup. One movement seen would have been her doomed ending, carved and served, with marrowfat peas on the side probably. Held it in she did, that need to scream and retch, to offload and unload. Forced back down, it was, and nailed shut. With an iron band to reinforce it, weakness no longer wafted through. There was no room for failure, and it was not a good time to seem alive. Sinking in a stew of death, you had to be dead, just like them.

The sun came up to the sound of music playing. Thinking it a dream, that floating sound was beautiful and classical. It was coming from the house that never slept, and it came with screaming. Time had been wasted, passed out in the pit of nameless heads, hours lost to the sleep that she never happened to find. A stark reality splashed at her face with every cold man-cry heard. It was enough to make her move from that open sewer.

Finding fresh water was the biggest problem everywhere she went. Streams were choked with debris from fires, or contaminated by things you wished you'd never seen floating in water, not up close anyway. It was taken when she could, where she could. If looked for long enough it would be there, somewhere. When located, the grime of the pit was scrubbed away from face and limbs, her clothes replaced from the pack she carried.

There was no weapon of mass destruction, no invasion, nothing came from the space beyond the stars, and nothing attacked from inside. If terrorists didn't do it, or the Government, or the Yanks, or the North Koreans, then whose hell had it come from?

Me Casa, Su Casa

One bright edge to her sad existence, as she trundled towards the coast, was coming across her one and only, best ever, travelling companion. He was standing on the roof of a Mini Clubman trying to save himself, but not doing a very good job of it. Being cornered by four affected, as they snap at your ankles, is not the best way to spend your morning, but things could be worse, you could wake up and be one.

Still on track, skirting Guildford, then Godalming, in smoke and flames, her miles had increased for the detour. The medium sized town wandered into was trashed, inside and out. The usual cars and houses stood empty, the shops rifled, and the Police Station torched, as predicted. Taking her chances where it felt safe to roam, she helped herself to what she found along the way. It was a nice day so she ambled, looking around, eating the last wrapped chocolate bar found back on the floor in the garage.

His screaming, and the drone from the freaks, reached her before she reached them. Appearing around the corner, to see him striking out with a cricket bat, his swing was at full strength, his aim not bad. The girl winced, hearing the sickening crack as it connected with the woman's temple. Tumbling sideways onto the road, the usual spasm followed, than all was quiet with her.

Another replaced her, a man, older, in his sixties possibly, the old boy eager in his movements, as up he stretched, reaching for his quarry. He stopped. He needed another. A younger man joined him. Together they could renew their energy, just like a battery, but with a lot more blood.

Launching the knives as she ran, they entered the two dead heads in timed precision, the sound horrible.

'RUN ... NOW,' she shouted, going for the last one standing.

Her remaining knife sliced the young boy open, at the midriff, when he turned to the noise maker. Carving upwards, as he stepped towards her, more brown mucus was revealed. It was the consistency of near set brown jelly, and it was mainly where his internals should have been.

Bolting for the street opposite, she heard the screamer's footsteps on her heels. Around the corner, hoping no more of those walking remains awaited their approach, and down a side street they sprinted on high alert, eventually turning into an alleyway on the right. Through that and across the playing field she pelted, only stopping when she couldn't feel her lungs anymore.

When her hands hit her knees, she turned to see him just coming to a running stop behind her. Initially he stayed back a little, taking his time and having some space, then letting her have some too. He was young, but older than her by a few years, and not bad looking either, with his surf dude mousy hair and pretty blue eyes.

Wandering over to an abandoned swing, she sat, her rucksack dumped beside her. Wiping her hand across her face she looked at the bloke pacing and checking around him. Even when they'd come so close they still stayed alert, as he was being, standing guard. He didn't know her but he knew she could take care of herself. It's always the same though, you're only as weak as your weakest link, and they both knew that too.

'Hey, look, thanks for that ... I can do one or two, but four are like a damn plague ... Thank God they don't move in squads,' he said in his American accent.

He swung his bat from side to side as he spoke, catching the heads of the tufting grass. There was something boyish about his actions. The smile he offered held a sad underlying edge, much the same as her's, as it always seemed to on days such as that. Staying where he was, he didn't overstep, there was no crowding, just guarding. Some would say he seemed understandably nervous. He wasn't nervous. He was ready for what might be coming next.

'My name's ...'

He paused, looked over at her, and then started again.

'... My name's Rob, Rob Lester ... I was over here, working... We were cornered at the airport, there was nowhere to run ... I smashed through a glass wall to get away, they were all over the damn place ...'

There was more to it than that, plenty more, but he couldn't say it, not then. A look of despair challenged his features for a second, but it was beaten back by a loud cough and shake of his upper limbs.

'Look, you gotta get going ... Being out here, like this, it's not good this time of day ... You don't wanna be out...'

'When the sun goes down ... Yeah, I know,' she finished for him.

It was her first full sentence after her shouted command.

'... And you're welcome, by the way, with the saving thing ...'

There was a glint of a smile before he turned to walk away. The sinking feeling started as she watched him depart. She had to stop it.

'I have nowhere to go ... I do nothing but fight for my life ... And I can't remember my own name ... I'm not having a good year ...'

He stopped, turned, then looked passed her into the darkening trees beyond. A hand lifted to scratch his head. He was eager to be gone.

'Hey, I don't do saving the lost and lonely, I don't have a camp or crowd of people either ... I survive better alone, groups seem to attract the freaks, the more of you, the more of them ... I can offer you shelter for one night, that's all, but I'll be gone soon myself. I've stayed too long already ... You can't have a routine anymore, they catch on, as I've come to learn ... If you're coming, follow, if not, you need to get off this pitch, they'll be back round soon enough ... They see best at night ...'

Tagging along behind, she followed Rob back through the small housing estate and onto the High Street. Taking a set of steps, next to the phone shop, they dropped down to a heavy metal door. He took out a key and released the huge padlock. A rusty bar was dragged across and the leaver dropped. Once this was done the door slid open. He entered first and hit a switch. Low lighting illuminated the cavernous basement.

'All the power comes from the emergency generator I found out back ... It gives me enough for lighting, that's all I need.'

The door was slid shut, another iron bar dragged across to reinforce it, and then the padlock hooked in place, just to be on the safe side.

'At the far end is all the shelving with my food storage, dry goods, cans, water, whatever I could find in and around the place. Everybody had gone, the whole town was empty. I've collected everything of use too, supplies wise, even turned over the hardware store for tools and weapons ... I found the cricket bat in the shopping mall ... They have a big one on the edge of town ... I found all sorts of great stuff in there ...'

As he spoke he walked to a large water container. The bubbles glugged to the top as the level dropped in the massive holder. When he stopped pouring he held the plastic beaker towards her.

'Go on, take it, it's fine, I promise ... There's a storage room full of bottles on the second floor ... I just go and get another one when I need it ... Don't you trust me? ... Look!'

His hand retreated as it lifted the cup to his lips. Four swallows rendered it empty.

'See, I'm not gagging for my final breath, am I?'

Conceding, a drink was accepted and taken with her as she had a snoop around. Every cranny was checked out in the place. No windows, good, only two doors to worry about, one each end, excellent. It was well laid out, sleeping area that side, food at the back, a living area with a sofa and armchairs, and a food preparation area, which had a chopping block and two camping gas rings. He managed okay. In fact, she thought he managed just fine.

She tried to settle, to not pace, to not hear noises in the night, to not be aware of her surroundings. The lights stayed on, candles burnt in the shadows, no corner sat in darkness, it wasn't allowed. Once you'd faced them in the day, you never wanted to face them in half gloom. Nightmares come from the darkest of places, places you don't want to be caught in without a big knife and a bright torch.

Rob didn't rest easy either. Maybe it was her presence, or maybe it had something to do with the on-going sounds from above. They could hear those things shuffling around, their feet on the wooden floorboards, pacing and waiting, pacing and waiting. He slumbered and snored for an hour, his dreams enough to shake him awake. He took two pills from a foil packet and shook them down with some water. Sleep came to him again, a noisy sleep, one that had him calling names and kicking off his blanket. After waking in a mild sweat he didn't attempt it again. They sat and talked instead, it helped a little.

'So, you can't remember your name, huh! That must be a real bitch ... Can you recall what happened? Was it like, there one second, gone the next?' he asked, cracking open a warm beer, as he landed on the couch opposite. He passed it to over to her with a smile.

Taking it, she chuckled, 'Yeah, something along those lines, but it's gone, you know, the basic stuff, like my name and where I'm from ... I've been so traumatised my mind decided to erase it ... I recall bits in dreams, most nights, so I don't sleep much, as you can see ... One minute I'm below ground somewhere with my little sister, with the house crashing down around us, the next, I'm surrounded by really ugly, half-dead people who have large portions of them missing. How sick is that? Something happened, something surreal and unthinkable, and I hate to say it, but it was something to do with my sister, hence why I'm alone now ... I've been injured too, there's pain, still, in my head ... The memory, it's there, haunting me, but it's deliberately hiding ... I know it's there, I hear it, but it won't let me remember it ...'

The more she tried to think, the more it wouldn't come forward to be seen. Forcing it wasn't going to help either, it caused a headache, the discomfort not worth it. It hovered behind a collection of other events, the things that slotted together to make a wall behind which she hide all the misery she cared not to recall. Being left there, where she couldn't stumble upon them by mistake, was probably the smallest of God sends.

'I don't understand any of this, the world's gone crazy ... I'm just a girl, an ordinary girl ...'

She hadn't realised it had started, not until Rob leapt from his seat when he looked over in her direction. With a towel in his hand, he almost rushed at her.

'Jesus, you're nose, it's bleeding ... Didn't you know?'

He landed next to her, his face ashen from the sight of so much blood.

But it wasn't right, and it didn't look new. It was old, as if it should have been shed an hour before. As she looked down, so did he, their minds racing with the thought it clearly wasn't every day.

They both moved at the same time, him to his bat, her for her carving knife. It was a photo finish, both in attack stance, and both in the same second. Her knife was at his bare neck, as his bat came to rest against the side of her head.

'What the fuck are you? ... Are you one of them? ... Did they send you to get me?' he demanded, her countdown nearly at zero.

'No, I'm not one of them ... I bleed like everyone else, it's just weird at the moment because I haven't been drinking enough clean water ... Maybe I'm dehydrated or something, I don't know,' she replied, as her own mortality waved a white flag before a strangers eyes.

'That's not normal ... Blood shouldn't be that colour, it should be red, like a chilli, like roses, like blood ... It doesn't look like that ... That's not right, you're not right ... Who are you?'

He was scared, she was scared, there was noise above, and there was a blank silence in the gap between them. Once smiling features faced her with a different look, they froze behind a mask of fear, held back under a layer of calm, but ready to strike when the moment arose.

She dropped her knife wielding hand and ambled back to her seat. Dropping into it she opened up for the first time. Sadness sat on the edge of her tale, a sadness everyone would come to know.

'All I can tell you is the dream ... I'm back with that group of travellers ... A few of the London lot, adults mainly, are standing outside the barn, talking ... My smoke is finished and I turn towards the hayloft ladder, looking back, over my shoulder ... And this is where it gets a bit weird ... The people, the ones talking ... They're not real anymore, they've changed, they have blurred faces and dead, staring eyes ... That's when I wake up, as I go to scream ... So, really, I know what happened, but I just can't accept it yet ...'

Rob watched as her eyes dropped to her fiddling fingers, deflated and tired of being tired. When her words started to roll, he walked to an old filing cabinet and pulled the second drawer down open. His hand slid in and retrieved the bottle of bourbon that was hidden away for those long nights when the overhead shuffling never stopped. It was his way of retreating into himself. Add to that the random medication he'd found, and he might just lose himself once in a while, that worked sometimes too.

Finding a dusty glass, he blew into it, the worst removed with the hem of his red check shirt. Pouring in three fingers worth, he came to stand before her, his offer there, his face resorting back to the kinder one she'd rescued.

'... I've lost people, precious people, everyone has, you too, I'm guessing,' she continued, excepting it with a nod before resuming. 'We do the best we can with what we have, then we spend the rest of our time trying to forget what happened before ... I hate living for the now, it really sucks, but in the end that's all there is ... Living for the now ...'

Her talking stopped to take a rather large sip of her drink. As it sank down it caught her breath, but her cough held back, her eyes watering a little.

'Yes, that's it ... They came at dawn ... It sounds like a crappy nineteen-fifty's horror film, doesn't it?' she half smiled, half croaked.

Rob sat in the armchair next to her, not opposite, but nearer, so he could listen and take on board what she was saying, the things she was revealing about herself. His laden glass swung, lazily, between his thumb and middle finger of his right hand, before it lifted to his lips, the gulp swilled before swallowed.

She followed suit, a large mouthful relished then consumed. When her eyes stopped watering, she continued.

'... This is good, sitting here, talking to you... I've been drifting for so long I'd almost lost the art of conversation ... I've seen strange things, horrible things, things that shouldn't been seen by a girl my age ... But it's out there, now, happening in the dark ...'

Another swallow slid down. Her mouth watered from such a timeless taste. Before resuming she took one last sip, her tongue loosening with every second savoured.

'... Anyway ... Life is for the living, and I'm still here and you're still here, so, two for starters ain't bad ... Every day I spend on earth I'm made wiser ... Tomorrow, I'll become wiser still, even though it'll be exactly the same as today ...'

The talking stopped again, the memory suddenly there as if a repeated programme, the internal hurt as raw as it ever was.

'... I found and killed as many of those things as I could, but they'd already taken a majority of the group, the rest fighting alongside me ... First they eliminated the night-watch, which wasn't that hard, then they stealthily picked off all those that slept ... It's rather brilliant when you think about it ... They didn't barge in, and it was strategic to the point of simple ... They caught us in our weakest moment, appearing out of the cold night air, unleashing complete hell, and all before breakfast ... Amazing ...'

Her words dried up, as the flash of the moment hung right before her eyes once more. It lifted again, that choking feeling, to push a fire around inside her chest. Those sad survivors were there once more, reaching out, holding on, and all calling for help.

Another sip was taken.

'I wished there had been an army of me ... So few of them reduced our number from fifteen down to five, including me, in less than half an hour ... The kids were all lost ... I think they were the first to go ...'

Rob rested back into his chair with his drink in one hand, his other raised to his lips, his fingers fiddling as he bit his thumbnail. Up until then he hadn't made a move to speak, he preferred to listen, he was good at that. When he did eventually say something he asked the questions she was expecting.

'So, how come you survived? Who saved you?'

Her face swung round to look at him, saying, 'Actually, the hayloft saved me, after that I saved me again, like I always have, like I always do, because there's never anyone else who can ... Looking around, there was just me and the dying ... What could they do? They couldn't do anything, could they? No, and why? Because they were being eaten alive before my very eyes, so, yeah, I was the last one standing, again ... Not much of a victory, aye!'

The rest of her drink was slammed back, the empty glass then thrust towards her silent listener for a refill. As requested she received, and to the top, no messing.

'There was a point when the voices stopped and the drone took over, which was really eerie. In the end it was just me and the droners, with them droning away, their lives nearly over ...'

A large mouthful next, the drink helping her to remember things she thought she'd rubbed from her disturbed history. The burn came in slowly, a hot feeling, making her ears hum a little and her tongue tingle, same as when you eat an ice cube then drink a hot coffee.

'I was making a run for it when I tripped and fell flat on my face. I hit my head against the big rocks that edged the fire pit ... When I finally came round, everything was quiet ... I might have been out for hours, it could have been days, I don't know ... Anyway, there was blood oozing from a painful lump in my hair, which was the size of a small planet, and I couldn't stand up due to a wounded leg ... Something was different ... Something was very different ...'

Rob looked at her, his expression changing along with her's. The temperature change was obvious. It dropped a degree, letting a cold line sit through the centre of the room. It hung there, silently, shooting the breeze, keeping it real.

'... And ... There's clearly something that follows on from what you were going to say there, what was it? Go on, you can tell me, I won't bite,' Rob chuckled, as his eyes studied her pretty face.

He stopped smiling as she giggled. There was a way her eyes wrinkled when she did it, as though there was a hidden joke in there somewhere.

'... I hobbled away from the barn, found a secret room under a small supermarket, and spent a while down there ... It was safe enough and rarely raided ... For a while I felt crap, I was drained, I ached for ages, but I bounced back, using what I found in the pharmacy section of the shop above ... And that's when I noticed this ...'

Easing herself forward in her seat, she hiked her right trouser leg up. There, five inches higher than her ankle, was a perfect bite mark with teeth impressions and everything.

'It healed like a dream, no infection, no mouldy bits, no flaking or festering. A little scab appeared, for each break in the skin, but they only lasted two days ... The lump on my head took the longest, that hurt for bloody weeks ...'

Grey eyes slowly looked up to check Rob's shocked expression. Was he going to grab his bat and put her out of his misery? Low light laid a dark strip across his features, the shadow's black band masking the upper half of his face. All she could focus on was the way he smiled in that fake way. There was no sincerity in it by then.

'What you gonna do, kill me? ... Well, go on then, if you're gonna, do it ... Looking at it from here, I can't imagine it's any worse than this,' was smirked over at him, her inner spark holding back the fiery blood that ran through her cold system.

She felt it blaze, that fire within, and it wanted to be noisy, but she rammed it down, making it stay.

Rob flashed from his seat towards her, his intention of doing so suddenly seen in the actions he was taking. Grabbing his bat, he swung as hard as he could, down and towards her head. He had the means to forge her demise in a split second, his intentions there to be seen and felt.

It never touched her. Before it was within an inch of her head, she leant back into her seat, so the solid ash whistled passed the tip of her nose.

Before he could right himself, she was there upon him. With him twisted away, she found he'd given her all the space she needed. Manoeuvring over the coffee table, his back was all her's. On passing, her ten inch blade was flipped up and into her palm, her precision, that of an expert.

He saw it glinting as it came to rest against the warm flesh between his collar and left ear, the chill of a sharp blade enough to remind him she was very good with one, not only two.

'Okay, this is a bit mental, boy moves on girl, girl strikes back ... I know you probably fancy me a bit, what with there not being many girls around, I get that ... But, really, you'll get never get a date with me if you treat me like this ...'

There was a way she said her words, as the steel sliced in a little, her face all sweetness and light. In there, hiding beyond her dark-side, coated in that petite exterior, was one unstable character. Changes were happening, and strengths were being found in the nastiest of places.

'Rob, please, we shouldn't be fighting each other, we should be fighting them, out there and upstairs ... Am I one of them? No ... Have I grown two heads? No ... Get a grip, will ya, I'm on your side.'

Before her words ended she was taking a step back from him. Once at a safe distance her hand pulled slowly away to drop, the knife with it.

Rob didn't move. He was frozen there, arm across his body, the bat hanging from his trembling hands above his head. He looked over at her and expelled air in a loud sigh. Dropping into the chair beside him, the bat came to rest against his foot.

'So, you're infected, but not affected!?'

He found that funny and quietly laughed to himself, the words running around in his head again.

'Yeah,' she replied, 'exactly that ... I carry all the bad genes that kill most but, somehow, something in me fights it off ... Don't ask me how, it just does ...'

Silence ran rings around them. There wasn't much you could say to that, but on a lighter note.

'Well, I won't be kissing you any time soon then,' he grinned. 'And before you ask ... A quick twenty in the sack is definitely outta the question ...'

There he was, old Rob was back, for the moment anyway. Maybe later he would kill her when she was sleeping, in her weakest moment. His face changed to being serious, all trace of joviality gone, as he waved at her to sit back down.

'That means you could also be the cure ... You hold the key, don't you? Your weird blood is what's gonna stop this ... You, and your stupid brown stuff ... I'm gonna call you Lucy, yeah, Lucky Lucy ... That's it, that's what you are, damn lucky ...'

'No, I'm not, not really,' she said, sitting as waved. 'I can think of lots of ways for luck to run in my favour, this isn't one of them ... As I see it, I have two choices ... I die, trying to do good, or I disappear, alone, and try to stay alive ... It's the lesser of two evils, I know, I've done the adding up ... All it takes is some rotten sod to get hold of me and start some weird experiments ... There has to be somewhere safe for me, a farmhouse hidden away in a valley by the sea ... I think it's probably where I was heading after I left London, maybe that's what I'm searching for ...'

Rob sat in silence as she talked, his drink slowly disappearing. He was calm once more, his energy sapped and his day done. Fighting had come easy to him, he'd grown up in a rough neighbourhood, he'd taken the blows, he'd felt the welts, and he'd held ice to those black eyes enough times. The one thing he couldn't cope with was the lack of guns. If he needed anything to survive the chaos beyond that solid iron door, it was always going to be lots of lovely guns.

'We were all done, packed, and ready to fly home ... It hit the airport as we were waiting to board. The screams could be heard up in the VIP lounge ... Within minutes we were outta there, in the UPS truck we stole, and gone before another security sector was breached ... After leaving Heathrow we headed south. When I say we, I mean my older brother, Mikey, and me ... Whatever it is had been contained within central London ... I wonder what changed ...'

Rob's glass lifted to be drained.

'We made it to Chertsey but then the traffic just stopped. It was gridlock on the M25, both ways. We drove the hard shoulder and managed to get off, heading for Woking ... We didn't get far, the journey not easy in a massive box on wheels. We left one crawl only to be faced with another exactly the same ... Man, the whole country was one huge tailback ...'

The bottle was taken from the table, both glasses had more added, the silence not as painful as it may have seemed. At least the pacing above had stopped. That alone was enough to make any Saint become a sinner.

'Do you think he made it?' she asked, her eyes lifting to look over at him.

She'd heard his story before, they all told the same one.

'Yeah, no, probably, maybe, I don't know ... We became separated after the crash. I'd just managed to clamber out when those things appeared. Mikey turned and ran, he had to. There was nothing else he could do, they became a sea between us, it went on and on ... That's the last time I saw him ... We drove straight into it. It was fine one second, the next ... Taking the slow bend in the road, we couldn't miss the carnage ... We'd not seen them up close before, only pictures on screen or in the press ... Wow, did that open our stupid American eyes.'

It was sympathised, it was remembered. A valid lesson was learnt the first time you come face to face with one, or two, or twenty. They're alive, but they're not. It's not them in there anymore. There's something else manipulating the brain and body, something not right, and you're not sure how to take them. Initially they look a little lost, half asleep, maybe bewildered by some horrific event. You might try to help them, try to get them to safety, especially the children.

Don't, don't go near them or touch them, don't let them foam or drool on you, and don't ever let their filthy nails or infected mouths anywhere near you. Stay away, from the old, the young, those trapped, and those burning. Run for it, if you can, and don't look back, you should never look back. That's how they get you. They play a game with the gullible that catch their hook almost every time. Some escape, Rob and her for instance, but most are affected in the end. Sometimes, for some, there's just no way out.

'This country doesn't have any guns. There aren't any guns, anywhere. Why aren't there any guns anywhere, Lucky Lucy? ... As it gets worse, and more people become freaks, we'll needed guns, lots of guns, we'll need them to stay alive ... I managed to get away using a tyre iron and small fire axe ... I chopped like I was a mad man, heads, arms, anything ... They came from everywhere, groups at a time, families, kids included, little kids ... They were from the cars that were burning a mile ahead ... It was a bloodbath ...'

There was no healing, no words, no apologises to receive, nothing could wipe that part of your slate clean. Rob's eyes wandered the room, lifted to the ceiling, then dropped to the bottle on the table before them. It had been a long night, and not over as yet.

Silence can be a comfort. The company they held was enough to take the edge off another sleepless night. They were slowly learning about each other, so, maybe having a friend wasn't such a bad thing, especially under their circumstances.

'Hey, I vaguely remember, as a kid, camping on Hayling Island ... It's on the south coast, not that far from here ... Maybe we should head that way ... There used to be a lot of military activity in those parts, and Portsmouth is on its doorstep ... Would it be worth trying down there for your guns?' she chirped, the silence being too long and too heavy to continue.

Rob's look suddenly changed for those two words, your guns. His tongue touched his lip as he thought a moment.

Blue eyes shone as he smiled, 'Show me ...'

Her brows knitted together as she went to speak. She stopped. Rob was already up and moving away from her, heading for his old filing cabinet again. From the top drawer he pulled a bundle of folded maps, along with a large British roadmap. Opening it up, he walked back and put it on the coffee table. With its pages folded back on itself, showing a portion of the English south coast, his finger lifted to land on it.

'We're sitting around this area somewhere ... I can't tell ya where, most of the signs were gone when I got here, but, if I took a general guess, I'd say it's most probably Witley or maybe Wormley ... The town over there, the big one still burning, I'm sure that's Guildford, but don't quote me on that, okay,' he smiled, suddenly alight with a purpose.

Boy, he was eager to get those beloved guns of his.

Her dirty finger pointed to a coastal region, it tapped the bulges of land into the sea.

'There's Portsmouth and there's Hayling Island ... If there's anyone left, they'll have some sense and go there. If it all goes tits up, I can nick a boat and head for Hayling or the Isle of Wight ...'

'Okay, Portsmouth it is ... We'll pack and go tomorrow, or is that later today?'

His face turned towards her as he spoke his last few words. There was a smile appearing, she saw it start and had to ask.

'You're coming with me? Even though I'm infected! You'll take the risk?'

'Yeah, okay, I'll come with you, if you insist ... No way you're going alone, Lucky Lucy, not that far on foot ... Do you have a foldout car in your rucksack I don't know about, or can you sprout wings at will?' he grinned, his eyes looking slightly pinkish for the plonk. 'No! I didn't think so ...'

'Ha, ha, Mister Comedy Man, let's all laugh at the infected kid,' was quipped back at him, her eyes a perfect match to his.

'Oh, very good, very good ... Ya know, I'm getting to like you, so ... We'll take my truck ... This one's on the house, cuz you haven't got a little car tucked away in your little bag there ... But, just so you know, you're paying for all the gas,' he winked.

PART 2

Beyond The Grey Wall

Rob was right. As they left the dead town behind there was a sign thanking them for driving carefully, the place had once been Witley. They drove the back roads, cutting through to Brook, and then took the A286 down to skirt Haslemere, also ablaze, before jumping onto the A34 southbound. Metallica pumped from the speakers, the stereo holding a fine collection of random tunes.

A stunted landscape sailed by their windows as they watched it change colour in what light there was. Another grey day brought a grey horizon, more roamers in the distance, and the nothingness that came with displacement. What little colour remained was only ever seen in the tatty looking vegetation that had attempted to sprout up. Everything around them seemed dreary and dull, a dying world with no light or life.

The wheels sped them along their almost empty road, the banter coming easy, he sang as she listened. Clusters of cars would be seen ahead, the occupants missing, their belongings strewn across the carriageway. Where blood had pooled on the tarmac, a drag trail would lead away from the patch, the remains left in a heap where it had been fought over. They would either drive around them, or Rob would push the stray vehicles out of the way with his truck, anything to be on their way again.

They didn't stop to check for signs of life, and they didn't take a look around for anything of use, unless they needed to siphon more fuel. Everything was left as found, untouched, no more searching through peoples stuff, no more wanting to see the forgotten toys and bloody baby clothes. When you'd seen it once, you came to realise you'd see it a million times, over and over, the same repulsion just on a different road.

When the sign for Portsmouth appeared you could almost hear their internal sigh of relief. Both hoped that, at the end of their journey, they would be able to rest easy for a few days, before offering the Military an opportunity to save the world. She knew she'd have to be a bit cagey at first, until they knew what reception they might get, after that, anything seemed possible.

The changes happening inside, she felt them. They started off slowly, then, over a matter of months, they became a more intense feeling, as if a strange power were building up, readying itself to be released. First came the tightening of her sinews, then the muscle spasms at night. Next was the way her skin seemed too tight, shortly after that her periods stopped altogether. Nothing dropped off or out, her eyesight got better in fact, and she was sure she was able to see better at night. Rob didn't know about any of it, in fear he might not understand. The last thing she wanted was him becoming the one to sell her out.

Jumping onto the A2030, it soon ended abruptly on the A27. A huge wall sat before them, solid concrete, some fifty feet high and looking about eight feet thick in places. Slowing down on their approach, they leaned forward in their seats, looking up to the top, their eyes scanning for any signs of life.

There seemed to be plenty of dead about, but at least they weren't the moving kind. They were scattered in the usual small groups they appeared in, dropped on sight by someone on the wall. Looking closer, as they nudged their way through, it became apparent they'd been there for a while. Pulling to a standstill, a good distance from the barricade, they were finally there, after all that, and facing a massive wall.

Rob turned the engine off and they climbed out. More silence, no birds, no traffic, no voices. Sound travels in a world without routine. When everything was switched off, like the truck, it all fell into a deathly nothingness of noise. Only their feet on the tarmac could be heard, no speaking, just simple hand gestures. One step at a time was taken, whilst looking, turning and waiting. That smell was the same, those dead behind, they ended up as just that, a pile of stench, one you walked around, one whose crust you tried not to break.

Remembering the changes she referred to earlier, another was how her hearing could target a particular pitch. Exterior noise, such as the breeze across her ears or her own breathing, was wiped from her audio so one single sound was picked out from the rest. As her head slowly turned, her eyes travelled that unmanned grey expanse, side to side, top to bottom.

Rob was a few steps over to her left, his bag hanging to his front as though he walked with a guitar at hand, the strap resting over one shoulder. When she started to look up he looked over.

'Lucky Lucy, what ya see? ... What's up there, girl?' he asked quietly, taking his binoculars from his bag and lifting them to focus aloft.

'Nah, not what I see, Robby, it's what I hear,' was replied, her eyes still looking for her prize.

He spun on the spot, his serious face on, his senses all over it.

'Dead or living?' he asked, his eyes flicking around, as they do, when he could feel it at his back.

'There,' she pointed, 'up there ... Can you see it? I heard it move. It turned, I know it did ... It's by the top of that support pillar, go down a bit, you can hardly see it ... The cheeky...'

'Yeah, I see it ... What shall we do?' he asked.

'Don't know ... Let's take a moment.'

'If it moves again, do we start screaming and shouting, maybe jump up and down, waving our arms, or something?'

'If it moves, then someone's moving it,' she smiled over at him, her eyes flicking to his face then back to the top of the wall. 'Well, watch that, not me ... If it moves again, tell me. I'll roll us a smoke each ... Give it five minutes and we'll know if we're in the right place ... If anything nasty appears I'll get it for you.'

Rob's eyes moved back to the eyepieces.

'Yeah, you'll get it for me,' he repeated, his smile creating the only sunlight seen. 'Did you really hear that thing turn from here?' he asked her. 'Only, I couldn't see it up there without these ... How the hell did you hear it before seeing it?'

For a second his face turned her way, but then he was back to his watching.

Finishing the two rollups, she walked over and stood next to him. Taking his with a thank you, it was propped between his perfect teeth, the end slowly glowing. He waited for her to reply, his attention going back to the well hidden surveillance camera, way up above them, the sneaky little military types.

'I don't know ... Gran always said I had hearing like a shit house rat, maybe that's what she meant?' she lied, hoping it was enough so cure him of his curiosity.

It sort of worked. His eyes bounced towards her and then away again, as though he were checking her face for signs of fraud. The rollup was withdrawn between finger and thumb, the ash to be flicked, the smoke to go back to his mouth.

'Bet your eyesight is much the same then ... You saw it without anything, honey ... It took you two seconds to point out what it took me minutes to find with a pair of these.'

The binoculars bounced in his hands as he spoke over his shoulder.

'Yeah, well, I've always eaten all my vegetables, carrots especially ... Maybe that's why I can see better in the dark than most ... What can I say?' was grinned in a flash, there then gone.

Rob chuckled as he said, 'Jeez, girl, there's some strange stuff about you, you seem to grow to a new level every day ... And, no, it hasn't moved yet,' he ended, his left hand dropping, the smoke being finished.

As they stood gazing around them, awaiting any sort of action, she looked over at the dead piled by the car.

Turning to Rob she smiled, 'Hey, can I borrow your knife?

'What? Why'd you want mine, you got two of your own?' he replied, looking at her sideways, his weight falling onto one hip, cocky like.

'Well, I need to borrow another knife, a different knife to mine ... May I borrow your knife, please?' she then insisted, not really in the mood to explain herself.

He pulled it from its place on his hip and then went to hand it over, handle first. She almost had it.

'Hey, you ain't that good with a blade ... You won't hit that, from here, with this ... Your eyesight will have to be bionic to pull that one off,' he sniggered.

The young woman almost laughed with him.

He was a little surprised to see her turn away, in a flash, and take out the three tatty looking specimens that hurried from the incline, out from the undergrowth and towards them in a matter of paces. All three hit the deck, one eye, one mouth, and one forehead, all filled with blinding metal.

Lifting her gun shaped hand to her mouth she blew across her fingertips. Smiling as she turned, she looked at her rather quiet companion.

'... A, B, C ... It'seasy as 1, 2, 3...'

As she sang the tune she pulled a few quick dance moves, not thinking whether the wall-mounted camera was still rolling. The look on his face didn't change. Even if Rob wasn't, she was rather impressed with her shots.

'... And that's by The Jackson Five,' she smiled, as the last of her disco moves were fulfilled. 'I love that track ...'

After standing very quiet for a few seconds, his hands lifted and he started to clap. The laugh slowly erupted as the clapping died away. He crossed the small gap between them to give her a one armed hug, speaking as he looked down at her.

'Girl, I don't know what's going on with you, but you're not the little brat who followed me home that night ... And by the way, I think your plan worked beautifully... Good call,' he smiled.

At first she wasn't sure what he meant. When he turned them back to the wall, a whole line of masked soldiers looked down from their platform in the sky. They resembled little toy figurines placed there by some big kid who was trying to scare them. How small they were, the same size as her thumb when held up in comparison.

'Oh, yeah, look at that. That wasn't part of the plan ... I liked your taking a pot-shot at the camera better ... But this works too,' was half smiled, her face not sure if them appearing was a good or a bad thing.

If she'd had access to the Hindsight Tree, well, a lot of things would have been different. Sadly, that's an easy thing to say, after the event.

Lost and Found

There was a procedure to go through to gain access to the world beyond the grey wall. A male voice, from on high, shouted down to lay starfish, face in the dust on the road, hands behind their heads. From nowhere six soldiers appeared from the grass banks. They wore a uniform with a lawn attached to the back of it, tufts even, helmets included. She was impressed that they lay there, that long, and didn't make a sound, not a fart or a sneeze. Had they twitched a muscle, she would have caught the vibration one way or another.

It was felt, someone approaching her from behind, his tread enough to make her inner ear vibrate a little. Turning her face towards him, her head was already his target.

'... Avvy ... Is that you?' asked the male voice.

It was one she instantly recognised.

'How the hell ...? Where's Nicky, love? Did you girls get separated ...?'

The man in uniform rushed at her across the space between them, his urgency alive to hold his eldest daughter in his arms again.

She couldn't let him touch her. She couldn't risk him kissing her. Rolling away from him, she clambered to her feet.

'DAD ...' she shouted, 'Stay away from me, don't touch me ... Please, Dad ... I was bitten ...'

Her hands rose to act as a feeble barrier, her face not able to hide the truth of her serious state. There was also other movement, she felt it. Turning her head, she clocked the big girly soldier behind her, stood over near Rob, her gloved hand lifting as she spoke to herself, or so it seemed. Something about one female, one male, coming in, one infected, one exposed, but neither showing signs of disfiguration or discolouration.

As the her radio voice died away, across that walled road junction on the edge of Portsmouth, every gun loaded into action, the collection of clicks enough to hurt any ear.

Rob's face spun, his eyes on her first, his chest still to the dirty tarmac, then to every other bugger that stood around them.

It was heard by her before anyone else, it was a heavy vehicle, and it was rolling their way.

'Avvy,' Dad purred, 'where's Nicky, love? Where's your baby sister? Is she with Mum?' he asked, his face expecting good news.

'I couldn't save her, Dad ... I'm sorry, I'm so sorry,' she replied, her fingers lifting to her lips, her eyes filling with tears for reliving the moment. 'We didn't stand a chance, not the two of us on our own ... And I haven't seen Mum since she went to go shopping that morning ... She never came back, Dad, just like you never came back ...'

A feeble smile was tried at the end of her sentence, but it was a little watery, same as her eyes.

'I did come back, love, only home wasn't where I'd left it ... I was saved by an underground car park. It took us, as a group of eight, three days to dig ourselves out ... When I got home, it wasn't there, and neither were any of you ...'

Dropping his gun to his side, he looked over at the sole surviving member of his little family. He remembered the girl he'd left at home, one sunny day, doing the washing. Suddenly she'd bloomed into the seasoned survivor stood before him. He'd missed her so much.

'I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you, love ... I'm sorry I wasn't there for Mum, and I'm sorry I wasn't there for Nicky ... Things turned on their heads in a second ... Everything changed, everything ...'

That desperate look sat on his face as he spoke. He watched her, studied her. He'd missed her as much as she'd missed him.

'... I thought you were all dead,' he sobbed into the space between them, 'and I need to hug the life out of you right now ... But, I heard what you said, so I won't approach you without a hazard suit, just in case,' he smiled, his tears hanging on his jawline. 'Avvy, I love you so much, look at you, you're a woman ... And who's that over there, your boyfriend?'

He was talking about Rob, still flat out on the floor, starfish style.

'That's Rob ... And, no, Dad, he's not my boyfriend,' she nearly blushed. 'But he is a friend that's a boy ... We're not, you know, romantically involved or anything, for obvious reasons ...'

Dad saw him watching. Moving around his daughter he looked down at the bearded bloke still on the floor.

'Get up, son, you don't have to stay down there, we'll be away in a minute, get up and dust yourself down ... If my Avvy likes you, I'll take the chance ... And thank you for saving my daughter, you can't imagine ...'

'Urh, Sir, sorry to interrupt,' Rob butted in, standing to brush himself down, 'but I didn't save your daughter, she saved me ... She's the hot-shot, I just tag along for the safety ...'

Rob's eyes then moved to look to the girl, his smile there straight away.

'... And your name's Avvy? ... What's that short for, Avalon?

Her Dad answered for her with, 'No, it's short for Avril, but we call her Avvy ... Her Mother chose it, I chose Nicola ... Lovely names for lively people ... I think they grew into them nicely,' he grinned.

'Okay ... So, Avvy what, may I ask?'

Rob's arms crossed before him as he looked around the guards, one by one. Even though the guys looked kind of mean, the women were definitely scarier.

'Lurton ...'

They said it in unison, dad and daughter, as though she'd never forgotten it in the first place. When it was spoken, there was a note of pride in her tone, and a big smile wrinkled her eyes as she looked over at the man she'd thought dead all that time.

Rob repeated the whole name aloud to himself, the words almost sung as two notes.

'Avvy Lurton ... I like it ... Sounds better than Lucky Lucy, huh!' he smiled at the pair of them and their mile wide gap. 'And, Sir,' he said, looking over at the older man, 'you can hug her, you won't get it ... I've been alongside her a while now and, well, look at me ... I'm not suffering from any decomposition, apart from the beard, but that can be cured with a decent shave.'

He scratched at his chin, his smile sitting there in hope of hot water and a new razor.

'Son, my name's Clay, no need for Sir ... And Lucky Lucy? What's that all about?'

He looked at Avvy, the question there as he smiled.

'Long story,' was replied with a smile to match. 'It's what he named me when I followed him home, after I saved his arse ... I couldn't remember mine so Rob gave me a new one ... I kind of liked it ...'

'You couldn't remember your name?' her dad then asked.

Well, she saw that one coming.

'That's what I mean, Dad ... It's a long story ... Look, we'll talk about it later, the lorry's nearly here ... We have plenty of time to catch up ... You can tell me yours, I can tell you mine ... It's all good, Dad ... We're here, and we're together, that's all that matters, isn't it?'

Their sad grin was exchanged, as he inched his way towards her, and those words were quietly repeated with tears in her eyes.

'... That's all that really matters ...'

He moved as she did. Maybe he didn't care or maybe he just wanted to believe Rob. If he'd not caught it, then Clay would risk it too. Turning her face away on his shoulder, they collided in a noisy reunion, his underlings watching with their weapons. Staying that way, they cried and held, until that lorry appeared and rumbled to a stop, ten yards out.

Being piled into the back of a canvas covered personnel carrier, their journey saw them heading west for a while, before turning onto the M275, heading south. Rob and Clay seemed to get on okay. Clay explained how he suddenly became an Officer in the services. Rob sadly recalled how he came to be separated from his brother. Avvy, she gabbed about her trials and tribulations, laughed about the bite, showed her dad the scar, and then cried as she lost her sister, Nicky, all over again. It was the hardest bit, explaining that.

'If we hadn't headed for the city we would have been okay ... We nearly made it as far as Staines, but we couldn't get through, they were everywhere, all up the street, everywhere we turned ... Then I saw the open door and heard someone shout. I grabbed Nicky's hand and ran for it ... I didn't look back ... We just ran, Dad, we ran really fast ... I hadn't noticed she'd been injured, she didn't say anything, like she hadn't even felt it ... The fever came on in the night, and when she looked at me that way, we both knew ... I stopped her pain, I took it all away and made it stop, like I promised her near the end ... She didn't know it was me ... It wasn't her anymore anyway, it wasn't our Nicky ... She was gone, Dad ...'

They slowed as they reached the allotted destination, their time of hugging and holding hands over. Tears were wiped away, their distances always a thing to be respected. Sat apart to weep and dry their eyes, no leakage was allowed to be transferred. Their silence was the outcome of their stories, all distant, sat in the back of that lorry, miles away from the lives they once loved. For just one day, one minute, one second, they would have tolerated their boring old routine, just to be with their families once more, and never to complain about it, not ever again.

A Small World

They never saw the actual town. Avvy knew when they hit the slip road, there were a couple of roundabouts too, and then a left turn before stopping. They couldn't see anything, and she wasn't going to get all nosy, not with those nasty looking bastards sitting by the only exit. She heard the gate open and close, even if nobody else did. Then she felt the others too, those who were waiting. For them both, or just her, she couldn't tell.

Clay moved first, his words popping out as he moved for the rear of the truck.

'... We're at Quarantine ... This'll be interesting ...'

Stopping, he turned to look down at his daughter's pretty face. His serious voice dropped in volume a little, his features turning frosty.

'Don't say anything, let me do all the talking, that goes for the pair of you.'

His eyes bounced to Rob then back to the girl again.

'... You're the first we've met, to be bitten and not change ... Things might get difficult ... Both of you, stay behind me ...'

They clambered out and stood together to be greeted by the few she knew were there. They weren't all suited up, as with Forensics, but still kept well back, although close enough to drop them if they had to. The space was wide open, with several larger storage buildings, the size of a hanger maybe. People, or soldiers, scurried about their duties, some in training here, some stacking crates over there. It was all action, no idle hands to be seen.

After everyone knew who everyone was, they were ushered towards Unit 1, Decontamination. The escort, under Clay's command, didn't stray until they reached the rear doors of the guarded entrance.

'It's okay, boys,' he said, removing his gloves and helmet, 'I'll take it from here ... You go get some lunch, it's been a long morning.'

He saluted his dismissal, the same was snapped back. They wandered off to the mess, towards the smell of food cooking on the light sea breeze.

After being cleared through the first security sector, they then went through the glass doors, straight into Reception. There, they waited. Man, what a shithole, and what a God awful smell. Bloody hell, even Avvy found bleach in her raided supermarket.

In the days of panic, no one took the cleaning products. No one was thinking about cleaning, they were thinking about how many huge TVs and fancy stereos they could hall out of there. That's what they lined their boarded up houses with, not stupid cleaning products.

'Christ, Dad, doesn't anyone ever swill round after, you know, one goes?' she smirked, as her hand lifted to clamp her nose shut.

She noticed Rob did the same.

He looked over at her and smiled, 'Honey, looking at this, we'll take the roof ...'

'Yeah, sure thing .... That's what I was thinking ... Might be a good idea ... You'll get sick just breathing this crap in ... Is this as good at it gets?' she asked her dad, looking at Rob, then looking around her, her disgust heard and seen.

Eventually a nurse type bloke ambled from an office. Clay and he spoke at a mumble, briefly. The situation was explained along with the biting incident, then more mumbling. Third floor, turn left, keep walking, room at the end, they were expected.

No sooner had they taken the wad of paperwork each, and started to walk in the direction of the stairs, all hell let loose. An explosion rocked the building, floating dust from the panelled lighting above, as the walls shook and the floor trembled. Clay scooped them up and rushed them towards a door on the left whilst checking over his shoulder. More running feet were heard, before they came crashing through the doors to the right. Radios blared as shouts and screams came from above and around them, the commands a barrage of demands.

'Stay in here, lock it from the inside, here's the key ... Don't open it for anyone but me ... I'll be back in a moment ... Promise ...'

Clay pushed the young couple into the stuffy storage room, no lights working, just Rob's torch. At least they hadn't taken that when they relieved them of everything else. The torch was the one thing they did let him keep. If it had been a heavy duty one, which could have been used as some form of weapon, it would have gone too. As it happens, it was a kid's plastic one which had Spiderman on it. No harm there then.

Through the vent, seated above the door, they listened as the world did mad things again. Pulling a high stool over, Avvy climbed up. There wasn't much to see, it was too high. At first, all she got was lots of shouting and moving shadows. Suddenly climbing down, she looked over at Rob.

'Move back ... Someone, or something, is coming ... I can't work out if it's a few or one really big one but, whatever, it's coming our way, now,' she quietly remarked into the space that sat between them.

Rob didn't speak. His feet inched him away from the door, further into the gloom, his torch flicking off. Then they waited, not long, but they waited.

Bang, bang, bang, hammered the fist on the outside of the door.

'Miss Lurton, Miss Lurton ... Are you in there?' came the voice through the wood, as the pounding continued. 'Miss Lurton, I'm Doctor Peel ... I've come to get you ... Your Dad ... He's been injured ... Please come with me ... It's quite serious, we have to hurry ... Miss Lurton ...'

The door was being yanked opened by rushed hands as his words eliminated all other sounds that her ears didn't care to acknowledge. Those ones, the ones he'd said, Dad and injured, they were the ones.

'Injured, how?' she barked, rushing at the small crowd beyond the door, most with big guns, two in scrubs and one in a white coat, leaving the rest in uniform, ribbons and all.

'This way, Miss Lurton ... This way,' the young unarmed Doctor directed, along the corridor, through another door, across a chaotic yard, then into another prefabricated building, and on it went.

Two guards awaited their arrival, one moved to the door handle, turning it to push it open. The escort was suddenly down to five squaddies, two doctors and an official or two. They didn't take on board any names. Thinking about it, they can't recall any being used, except the young guy's who'd been so eager for her to follow him. He was a proper Doctor, he was young Doctor Peel.

The room was a weird set up, until she figured it out. They were stood in an observation tank, looking out over a stark white room. It wasn't well lit, due to everything running on crappy old diesel generators, so the main lighting was kept for the lab area below. Two desks sat in the large dark room, under the main window, which had several chairs alongside, plus a gap to stand and observe. Avvy remembered the layout from films. It was just like that.

Rob moved to stand beside her, as the quiet talking continued in a dark corner. Two guards stood by the door, doing what they did best, guns up and ready, nothing in or out. Looking around them, there was little to suggest what was coming next. Avvy had only one question. It was asked across the patch of light and into the gloom, where the uniforms all stood, mumbling to each other.

'You said my Dad had been injured ... Where is he?'

A few of them turned, but Doctor Peel was the one to walk over and actually have a conversation. Suddenly it was as if the two stragglers weren't there anymore. The threat had been contained, so, as you were.

His glasses were taken off, folded up and placed in his top pocket, a move they'd seen a million times on telly. It was usually followed by very bad news. Then the facemask lifted into place before he took another step closer.

'Miss Lurton ...'

'Call me Avvy ...'

'Okay, Avvy ... Yes, your Dad has been very seriously injured ... We've amputated the infected area and, so far, it's all looking good ... We've isolated him, for now, as we do with all of them and, yes, the survival rate is very high ... We caught it very early, quick thinking on a young soldier's part, he took it off at the elbow when it happened ... We did the rest of the arm in surgery a while back, he hasn't been long in recovery, that's down there.'

A thumb rose to his left shoulder, indicating the window and the white room beyond.

'He'll be okay ... Just a little sore for a while, but he'll be right as rain soon enough ... Trust me,' he smiled, 'I'm a Doctor ...'

Walking to the window he'd pointed at, they looked down at her dad in his oxygen tent, strapped down all over. His vital signs beat a steady pulse line across the monitor screen, the green flash a rapid run, there then gone, over and over.

Rob's hand gently rested on her forearm, turning her into him, his arms there to comfort. The room was silent but for the continued mumbling from the gloom. They took little notice as they watched that line jump, its effect hypnotic after a while.

'Your dad's safe, they'll take good care of him here, he's one of them ... Us, I'm not so sure about,' was whispered into her ear, as his hug became a little tighter. 'Just be careful, okay ... There's something about this that isn't right ...'

Clinging to him, her tear streaked face was awash with fear and salty water. In the hands of the Devil, they lay, with no exit, no weapon, and no one on their side. A tide of defeat rinsed its cold fingers through her life. They stayed there a moment, as they reminded her that one person's existence is relatively fleeting, just as a weekend was when work was a miserable five day slog.

Something changed. There was a turn in the current of the air. Avvy felt it. Her eyes came round to look down into the space below. Rob's followed, his curious face looking at her first, wondering why the sudden head movement. She wasn't relaxed anymore, she was tensing up, she was turning, waiting, her senses all focused on that clinically white room.

'What is it?' he whispered into her ear. 'What you got going on, Avvy?'

He didn't move, frozen the same as she, his mood cooling the same as her's.

Caught in a daze, she watched as the alarms started, then the red lights, then the computerised female voice, then all the noise and all the action. They tried to move them away, so Tally punched and kicked to stand her ground. When Rob warned them back, his voice overly loud, he made oaths none there would dare challenge. The uniforms moved away, giving them space enough, knowing what was happening below could only mean one thing.

Her poor old Dad had crashed through that hideous first stage, infection, and was slipping, helplessly, into the second, transmutation. His lifeline was barely bouncing, his pulse so weak it hardly made a sound. Sadly, if the current changes were the result of being mutilated by one of those things, as they all knew, he would soon become one himself.

From nowhere a small troop of white encapsulated soldiers appeared. They edged his room, awaiting their next set of orders. They knew the drill, had done it a thousand times before, and not one of them didn't understand the proper regulations. There were rules behind the grey wall, and you followed them to stay alive.

One of them moved towards a small glass booth to one side. The flashing lights and deafening alarms ended as he brought the facility back under control. Mumbled conversations were heard through a crackly earpiece, the moments tripping away with the end of Clay's life. Two moved forwards, their cohorts close behind. Though he was strapped down, the third stage was yet to follow, and it was that stage, entering the change, which no one wanted to get up close and personal with.

Rob and Avvy, they knew what was to come.

As expected, the jumping line picked up again, pinging for its life, his heartbeat racing. They all watched and waited, the seconds flicking by, the inevitable about to happen. The soldiers closed in a little, filling the gaps, almost elbow to elbow around the bed, guns raised.

Tensions grew as their silence droned up and towards those above. Expecting them all to fire at once, the couple awaited the bloodbath from their place through the window. It was still in place, the transparent tent, offering them a slightly blurred version of Clay, seen naked from the waist up. His right arm was all but the shortest of stumps, the wad of bandage adding a good few inches of cushioning around the wound.

Within five minutes there was little of him left to recognise. When the inside of his tent became a mess of brown liquid, the signs were all there. Clay had become the one thing they either avoided or killed. As witnessed in previous cases, when the manic heart rate eventually slowed, that was when you needed to run.

Strapped to his gurney, it wasn't long before the rapid shakes started. Each second another spasm jolted him higher, clean off the bed. With every movement he tested the strength of that stretched webbing around his limbs and waist. As they became more violent, the soldiers in white all took a step backwards, the order a mumble across the airwaves. When the monitor finally slowed once more, it was a sign of the final stage, full transformation was about to begin.

Avvy clung to Rob as her dad thrashed and bucked. No longer able to watch, she turned herself away, her face seeking the darkness for once.

'Please, shoot him or something, but make it stop ... Make it stop ... Please ...'

Shooting him was never an order. They wanted him, alive, to study, to take samples, or maybe even starve him, just to see how long it took him to die, whatever was needed. With a live test subject, there, at their fingertips, anything was possible. Having Clay and his infected daughter in their grasp, a cure could well be on the verge of conception, the answer resting in the palm of the Military's ruthless hand. If she was a carrier, she could be the cause and, with that as a good enough reason, the world would be thankful for her being detained.

Rob's sudden movement made Tally look up into his face, the chaos below moving to another level. Her grey eyes followed his line of sight, back into the room beyond the toughened glass. Within a second of her doing so, the straps on the gurney broke, and Clay flew upright, straight as you like.

That's when the panicked screaming started. The two boy soldiers, nearest him, fell over trailing leads trying to back away. Their guns were dropped, left were they fell, as they scrambled on hands and knees for the door. All the others, with the exception of one, were through that decontamination shower and safety door before you could shout aim and fire.

The last to stand his ground hadn't moved an inch. He was the one who had switched off the alarms. He looked up towards the window, where the two new arrivals were standing with the uniforms and the Doctor, as if he were waiting for something.

In all that time Clay hadn't really moved. He swayed a bit, looking dazed, then he glanced around the room, to the last man there, and then up to those in the window, about ten feet above. There was something there, Avvy felt it, it was a thread, and it pulled her closer.

Without knowing it, she was moving. She came to a standstill, her hands on the glass, her face a river of tears. He hardly looked like her dad at all, his face seeming bruised, as though the dead blood had settled beneath his skin already. In his new form he didn't remember there should have been two arms. Maybe he didn't miss something the new him never had.

His sad eyes never left her's, those two, staring helplessly at each other, the thread becoming a rope, becoming a lifelong chain with an anchor on the end. That was her dad, and she loved him and wanted to protect him. There were only a few feet between them, she could have blasted out the window and rescued him, maybe then they could have made a run for it. She could have done it, but she didn't.

It was a strange thing that happened. Avvy wasn't sure if it was in an instant, or whether it took an hour. At some point there was shift in him. Maybe it was the same as the ones in her, when she felt the power first rise, the brown taking over.

Watching in horror, the next few minutes were to end so much, and so quickly. Clay turned on the last one in white, his face a mashed up version of itself, broken and ready to feed. As he loomed forward, there was a mumbled order from behind Avvy, and the white suit lifted the pistol from his side and fired, twice, straight into his forehead. It sent a spray up and across the window, the larger pieces of matter to turn and slide, the trail a sticky mix of red and brown.

Avvy couldn't move as the retching pain fed a blinding flash of agony through every inch of her soul. Crumbling under the impact of watching her dad blasted before her, she curled, to her waist, to her core, then to her knees. The howl started in her chest, which then ripped through the darkness, forcing her brown to blaze a path through an angrily formed implosion. When the sound came from her, they winced, they all winced. Made by animal or demon, it punched from her mouth, harsh and high, her own ears not hearing it at all. The power of it lifted her to her feet again, her anger on the verge of ripping that room apart.

Turning on the stunned soldier beside her, she moved without thinking. The lightening fist lashed out and crumpled the side of his head, his eye socket crushed under the power of her pounding blow. Blood spurted from his nose and mouth, the eye dropping free to swing. Grabbing at his head, she smashed it into the plate-glass, his face a shredded mess, unrecognisable to his own mother.

Rob stopped what hadn't quite started. Throwing his arms around her torso, he clamped her arms down whilst her elevated legs kicked and twisted in frustration. The remaining soldiers in their little office were still there, still awaiting the order to shoot, but she was Lucky Lucy, so they didn't.

'LET ME GO ... I'll kill them all ... I'll kill the sodding lot of them ... One gun, JUST ONE ...'

'I can't let ya do that right now, Avvy, not if you wanna see twenty-five,' he prattled into her ear as her head bounced around, backwards and forwards.

When she found it harder to breathe she quit with her little carry on. Rob calmly placed her feet back onto solid ground, but didn't drop his arms straight away. If it was going to happen, it would. Sadly, if she had, they wouldn't have survived the ordeal.

Silence spread a numbing blanket out from their space and into those blackened corners, yet, her sadness wasn't over. Clawing back her angry tears, she would not let them see her weakness. Holding it all inside wasn't as easy as she thought, but somehow she managed it. Later it would tumble out, when she was alone, and away from those bloody pompous pricks.

Her hand lifted to point at the newcomer to the room, the one in the white blood-spattered suit.

'YOU ... I'm gonna kill you first, you piece of...'

Rob was there again, stopping that which hadn't yet started, her arms clamped to her sides, shouting and swearing the same as before.

He, over there, who took off the helmet with her dad dotted across the face plate, he was the one she wanted, him, their bloody CEO.

Avvy's young face snapped round as the voice and words tumbled from a different young uniform's mouth. She watched the way they all stayed alert, awaiting her next move.

'Your name is Avril Lurton ... Your father was Clay Lurton, your mother, Sandra, both deceased. You had a sister, Nicola, younger, also deceased ... You've been travelling with this man, Robert Anthony Charles, an American Citizen, for the last two days, so we are led to believe ... And you were bitten, but haven't been affected, by that attack, which occurred over three years ago.'

The drone continued.

'Miss Lurton, we want to know what makes you so special ... Why haven't you become one of them? ... Whatever it is that makes you different from anyone else, is what will save everyone else ... You are the cure ... That makes you very important, in many ways, right now.'

She hung in Rob's crushing hold, the numbness a comfort somehow.

'That's crap and you know it ... The only thing that makes me important is what's rushing round my system ... So I reckon you won't shoot me if I kill that waste of space over there, wearing my Dad ...'

Once more, the animated struggling started.

Doctor Peel just had to have his say.

'Avvy, please, you're more important than you think you are, more important than me, your Dad, him even,' nodding at Rob, 'and everyone here ... You hold the answers to all the questions us boffins have been asking for nearly four years ... Inside you is the end of all this death and decay ... That has to mean something to you, so, please, just think about it, you'd be a hero ...'

'You've got to be kidding me, a bloody hero! I'll give you hero ... And not after what that bloke just did, the murdering bast'd ... He just shot my Dad, in the face, twice, right there, before my very eyes ... I'll eat the bitch, I will ... I'll rip his skanky head off and stomp on his stupid brain ...'

'He became mobile after the incubation period ... The order is immediate termination ... Be lucky you saw him before ... Not everyone has the luxury of being reunited with family anymore,' said the one sporting Clay's remains down the front of him, as if it were dropped dinner.

'Stand down, Collins,' the official looking uniform said from the shadows. 'On the contrary, Miss Lurton, we're in a position where we have to be, very, serious ...'

He stepped into the light, his big frame enough to fill any standard doorway. They'd not seen him there, lurking in the dark.

'... As we see it, you, with the help of your little friend here, hold the key, a key that opens the lock ... And it's time that lock was opened ...'

'Major,' Peel angrily grinned, 'please, I can handle this ... We can work something out ... Give me some space, that's all I ask ...'

'Well, screw you lot and your fascist regime ... I don't give a crap, not now, not after that ...'

Avvy's eyes turned to the window, the blood smeared across the glass, her dad's blood, all runny and real. Looking around the room, she clocked those blank faces, all except Rob's. Within a twitch he was ready for the great escape, she felt it and twitched back, her anger already stoking the fire within. What were their chances against so many with loaded weapons? But they knew they had to try, they had to.

From one side two young uniforms moved in on Rob, as Peel, and the other bloke in a white coat, stepped forward to grab her. It wasn't the day they was expecting, or a very nice welcome, come to think of it. Avvy's first instinct was to lash out, so she did, catching Peel in the crotch with her booted foot, then the other in the face with her fisted hand. Swinging back round, she waited on the next attack. It didn't appear.

There's no mistaking the sound of a gun being cocked. Metal sliding against well maintained metal is a cold sound, there's no warmth, and only usually comes with one thing, projectile bullets.

Avvy slowly turned, on the spot, to see the end of the barrel kissing up against her friend's right temple. The Major stood beside him, as if his best friend, with his free arm around Rob's shoulders. There was a self-satisfied smile on his face as his diamond cut eyes stayed glued to her's.

'Okay, Miss Lurton, now you know I'm serious ... Sorry, but you leave me no choice, and after I asked you so nicely ... You, young lady, as I've already said, hold the key ... You started this, so now you have to finish it ... What's the ending here? Will he live, or will he die? ... Or, you can both live, if you cooperate, like the good little heroes I know you really are ... And I promise ... It won't hurt a bit,' he lied, grinning as if he'd already won the war.

Next

Avvy heard shots, she was sure she did. They echoed away into a place she can't remember now. The brown stuff inside her, it was fighting what they'd injected her with. She felt it dissolving, felt the bubbles making her head spin. Behind her fluttering eyes jumped a parade of bright lights and a green blur. Her ears rang with a collection of corridor chaos, felt as if shouted into her passing face. The straps, on her arms and around her ankles, padded to stop the burn, blistered her were they touched, her temperature rising beneath her outer layer.

'Bite victim, coming through ... Bite victim ... Coming ... Get out the bloody way, will ya ... Wow, cheers, mate ...'

Young Doctor Peel barked his words at the stray soldiers in the hallway, obstructing his gurney, as usual. Some were still drunk from the night before, and those he hated more than their prick of a Major.

Avvy was stripped and doused in a nasty white milky substance. It was rubbed all over her before they scrubbed and rinsed, scrubbed and rinsed. Two tough looking middle-aged women had the joy of that job. In their encapsulating suits they looked like life-size marshmallow people, their faces seen through a small clear plate sitting at eyelevel. Once that was finished, she was manhandled into some form of white robe that tied at the back. Whilst recovering from that harrowing experience, one of the dicey bitches jabbed her with something evil again.

Once more she was whisked away with another nasty cocktail coursing around her system. It felt as if she had crushed ice in her veins, it left her core cooling, her skin shrinking. Hovering above everybody else, she looked down to see Rob's body. Had he lived or had he died? Was it a bullet, or a rifle butt, that hit the back of his head to make him drop in a heap like that? Those shouted commands, the arguing. It was fading, fading away, no more noise, just peace and quiet, fading, fading.

The fight was over, a whole new world was about to consume her. If she thought she'd seen hell already, she clearly hadn't lived.

And Then

'Look ... I'm not going any deeper, I'm already too close as it is ... If I do any more I could render her paralysed for good, or kill her, either way, it doesn't help me or what I'm trying to do here ... I can't do it ... I won't,' Peel protested, speaking to the man watching from above.

He hated him so much. Give the good Doctor a gun and one bullet, please.

The Major rocked slowly, backwards then forwards, his fingers linked behind his back. Standing, in his spot of power, he looked down at the waste of space below. Peel was a pain in the arse, one he was losing patience with.

'Fine ... Then I'll get someone else who will,' he snapped, looking through the observation window, his face holding that perpetual air of pretentious power.

Peel looked up into the eyes of the man he hated more than anyone else alive.

'No, she's mine, I'll do it ... But she needs a day to regenerate ... If we operate little but often we can take twice as much, but she'll need time to grow more ... If we pump her full of hormones tonight, by this time tomorrow we could double what we've already harvested ...'

He smiled slowly as he looked up, hoping the Major would enjoy hearing his final few words. He had.

'Now that's better, Peel, I like the way you're thinking, about time you grew some balls ... There's hope for you yet, lad ... Another few days of this and you'll be doing your Boss's job ... Then you can throw together whatever chemical high it is you young kids do these days ... Course, when I was your age, it was all about growing decent pot,' he smiled.

Staying where he was, the Major's gaze travelled to the young girl, her eyes half open, half closed. She was spread over that awful contraption which leant her forward, whilst keeping her upright, so as to give excellent access to her bony back. She was there but not there, lights on, lights off.

'Take her away then, stick to the plan ... But she doesn't get twenty-four though, she only gets twelve ... That is all ...'

As the Major turned and took leave of the room above, Peel closed the gaping wound down the open spine before him, his fine line the best he could do with those trembling hands. The girl was given the injection, the one discussed, as she lay exposed, hardly alive. It wasn't a course of hormones icing its way through her system. It was something else, something from the other end of the spectrum.

4-13

The face that slowly came into Avvy's wavering vision was Rob's. Blood was streaked down his cheeks as his eyes darted all over the place, his head turning this way and that. Screaming could be heard, lots of it, which followed a huge explosion somewhere on the base. Then there was a voice, a well-spoken male voice. It was the young Doctor's.

'... Sorry, it's the best I could do, take it, just in case ... The pair of you have to get out of here, right now ... They'll notice I'm gone from the lab ... I should be there, waiting for the Major ...'

'Thank you,' Rob replied, 'you've done more than you should ... What way to the exit?'

'I'll show you down, help you with her ... It's on the ground floor, my car is parked in bay four-thirteen, four, thirteen, got it? The electronic pass on the dash will open the gates to the rear of the building ... Make sure you turn right when you leave the hanger ... If you turn left you'll find yourselves at the main gates, and that's a hassle we can all do without ... Oh, I had to give Avvy a jab, there's something you should know about it ...'

As the voices spoke around her she drifted as she was lifted and shifted, then swung round here and passed through there. The journey wafted horrid smells under her nose, chemical, acrid, eye watering. Internally she could hear and feel, but her body couldn't register it in the correct order. Twinges gripped her spine, a line of fire hanging there, almost pinned in place, the dart holes leaving tiny singe marks beneath her skin. They stopped at a door.

'What about the Major?'

'Leave him to me, I'll sort that wanker out, don't you worry ... Hurry, you have to go, now ... Good luck and, see, we're not all arsehole and some of us are on your side ...'

Biting Back

They covered some space, after they'd physically dragged her down a million flights of stairs. Her skin was on fire, she was on fire. Fearing she may not make the exit, she dreamt of making the car that was promised. That was the start of it, getting to that car.

They nearly did it, but not quite. Scurrying around the edges was fine, easy even, but the bay wasn't where you'd hope it would be. Peel's parking spot was four rows over, and one row back from the fortified rear gates. Even though most of their base was ablaze, some soldier boys still did their duty and held their post.

Rob lay Avvy down on the ground, her weight enough to make his arms ache. Against a wall, hidden under the front of a huge lorry, it was all the cover they needed.

'Lay me flat, please, on my back, I can't feel my arms or legs and I want to see the sky ...'

Rob did as she asked, gently turning her, her moans kept inside by biting her lips shut with her teeth. Slowly the pain drained away, it leaked and withered, her frame almost sinking into the cold concrete beneath her. Where her back had been abused it left a solid coil of stitched tissue, the scar twelve inches long.

'I'm in clothes ...'

'Yeah,' Rob replied, his eyes still scanning, his breath slowly returning. 'I stuffed you in what I could find at the time ... Hey, once we get the hell outta here I'll treat you to a new wardrobe, how about that?' he winked down to her, his eyes holding all the starry nights she needed.

'Yeah, I like that idea, it's a deal ... Now all we have to do is, as you say, get the hell outta here ... Just one problem, they've manned the unmanned rear gates because some lunatic blew up their stupid base ... I wonder who that was!' she chuckled, returning his wink, her's with a cheeky grin.

When his scanning eyes looked away from her, he was still smiling.

'I don't know,' he babbled with a light laugh in his voice, 'but I hope they get them, the crazy bast'ds ... You can't have folk like that running round, blowing stuff up ... That's how people get hurt ... It's about time we made tracks then, little lady ... No point in staying where we ain't wanted ... Now, what we need is the keys to this truck ... This should get us through those big gates ...'

Leaving where they hid, an index finger lifted to his lips to ask that she stay quiet. He moved away from their secret spot, nestled away under the front end of the lorry, heading for the driver's door. Checking there was no one coming, he snaked up to see if the keys were available. As the world collided around them, Rob worked at his search with surprising speed. Eventually he appeared before her again.

'They're not up there and I don't know how to hot wire this thing. What are the chances of it having any fuel in it if we do get it started? Peel's car is a runner, but we won't get to it from here, not with them at the gate.'

Silence between them, but not beyond. Around them was mayhem, the noise of lost control, sectors pleading for help across their radios, brother biting brother, the base going into meltdown, burning, exploding.

It was all happening beyond the building behind them, and in the offices and rooms above. It was thrown from windows, it came raining down, body after body, all kinds, sick and well. Some jumped to escape, some jumped to follow. Crashing onto the vehicles around them, bodies formed imprints on roofs and bonnets. They sprayed the wall, brown on red, two at a time.

Eventually it stopped, when the rooms were cleared by the white suited squads. Rob lifted himself from covering Avvy's face and body, protecting her from the ugly rain. His head popped out to check if the coast was clear. No downpour from above, the deluge had passed over.

'You stay here, I'll go back to the security room, see if they have the keys ... They'll be there or in that Supervisors office on the ground floor ... Don't move, I know you're here, you'll be safe if you stay put ... I won't be long ... I'll see what else I find, bring back some food and water ... You hungry?' he asked, his eyes still as active as ever.

'Yeah, starving ... I'm so hungry I could eat you,' she chuckled, looking up at him from her dusty spot. 'Nah, you're safe ... I like mine with a bit more meat on, thanks ...'

He didn't say anything, his eyebrows rose as he shook his head, a sign he was inwardly amused, if anything. Then he was gone, leaving her to recoup slowly, her wounds hurting in a way hurt can't be described.

Whether she passed out or simply fell asleep, she's not sure. It was all good until she felt something prodding her foot. Slowly opening her left eye, she was gutted to see a fresh faced kid standing there, his rifle's barrel tapping her boot. He was in a faded uniform with body armour that showed all the signs of front line action, and he looked about the same age as her sister, probably nineteen.

'GET UP, NOW, before I shoot you where you lay ... MOVE IT, MOVE IT,' was screeched down at her, his face all screwed up, his tone mimicking his Major's.

The girl did as ordered. She had to, without Rob there beside her she was too hurt to put up a fight. One nudge in the wrong place and she would have gone down. Promising no more pain, there was a part of her that wanted to give up, and it crawled around inside her making her weak and tired.

'Ere, that's old Lurton's daughter ... Her and that American bloke were picked up a week ago, just before the old man croaked it ... Stay away boys, she was bitten but hasn't turned ... I heard the Major talking about her.'

The young cocky kid speaking had been stood by a jeep and had clocked her looking at him. He ambled over, his face as mean as the rest of them.

'Well, well, well ... Not bad looking, must say ... Was a sister too, but she's gone, like they all are beyond the wall ... So, love, what brings you here? Looking for a way out, are we? Hoping to nip over the fence with your boyfriend, were ya? ... Well, little girl, it isn't going to happen ... We have you now, and you're not going anywhere...'

He reached Avvy, looking her up and down, how the oversized trousers and vest sort of hung from her, the blood smudged across her skin, the dirt, the scars, even the worry lines. It all made her, and inside, she was just waiting on him making a stupid move. It didn't take long either. Lifting his hand, he went to grab her upper arm.

Looking at him sideways, she grinned, 'Really, you don't want to do that ...'

'Why?' he asked. 'What's a little girl like you gonna do to bunch of big boys like us? ... You gonna attack us all with your little nail file, are ya?' he chuckled, his face turning to his mates as he sauntered around, trying to look the big man he clearly wasn't.

'No ... But you'll get hurt and die ... And then you'll get back up again,' she smiled sweetly.

He stepped closer, his face in her face, as her internal alarms blared behind her eyes.

'Then what happens?' he was dopey enough to ask, as he came to a halt right before her, right where she needed him.

Avvy already knew he'd do something stupid, and he did. He lifted that hand once more, going in for the final grab.

'... Then ... I kill you,' she replied, acidly, with all her teeth on show, manic almost.

To top it off, she winked at him as she invaded the few inches that had saved his life till then. His hand was whisked away as his wrist was snapped back on itself quick as that. Grabbing hold of him, she spun him round to use him as a shield against his mates as they shot at her.

'Told ya,' she smiled, dropping him.

For his time taken, she popped him one in the forehead, with his own gun, just to shut him the hell up. His buddy, capped at the knees, then round to the last, trying to surrender. It was too late, one in the back for running away. Avvy never held a gun in her life, or shot one but, wow, did that feel fantastic.

Ripping her way through every stinking soldier boy that came near her, they were doomed the moment that assault rifle came into her possession. She didn't shoot to kill, oh, no, she shot to drop, putting them down, allowing them to feel the agony of red hot metal entering their body while they were still lucid. That, she wanted to share, that, she wanted them all to know about.

Those she slaughtered came apart in her teeth. Slit and torn, she rent a river of destruction across that blank canvas. Filling with a new energy, and the feeling of being unstoppable, the sensation rose as she took it all back, for her dad, her mum, her sister, and everybody else. Wallowing in the freedom of the act itself, it was wanton enjoyment, spraying them across their own quarters.

By her feet, she spat in the faces of some and let them change amongst their comrades, their new life being awoken as those around begged for help. Walking through it, she stood with her own kind in the making. Thinking, if she created them, as she'd been told, then surely they must be her offspring. Standing beside a changeling, its features not those of the face there before, it didn't even see her, it stumbled right by, it didn't even look her way, the sum of what she was.

Smiling slowly, she turned back to those that would have drained her dry, one way or another. The touching was done by that one there, so she ripped his face off with her hands, he screamed, she smiled more. That one there, he was the one who smacked Rob over the back of the head. It was done to him, with her fist smashing his cheek into the dust beneath him, only stopping when the red puddle spread and his time over.

The CEO was the real shit in the litter. He was the one who'd pulled the trigger, twice, and his moment was upon him. As he came around the corner, she caught him by the scruff of his jacket, his collar tight in her left hand. He nearly lifted off his feet as he bent backwards, his balance gone as he recoiled under the strength of her strangle hold. He tried to scream something, his words a gurgled mess as her right hand squeezed around his windpipe.

Avvy watched as his eyes bulged in a grotesque but entertaining way. She'd never been so free to do so much damage. She was starting to enjoy the rush. His ending was his windpipe in her hand for him to see. Taking her fill of him as he became affected, she broke both his legs for him, so he couldn't stand, just drag. Seemed only right, such justice.

Then she saw the one she really wanted, scampering out through the rear exit, his white coat a beacon in the gloom. Almost smelling the awful soap he washed with, even over the carnage happening across the expanse of yard, he was soon caught in her sights. He seemed unarmed but, just in case, she picked up another rifle and checked its magazine. As she rammed it back into place, she turned to see him stalking around the big bins. At first he didn't react. When the gun lifted he saw her, oh, boy, did he see her.

Three to the chest, pap, pap, pap, his face amazed as the smoke rose from his coat. He stood gazing over at her. Avvy walked towards him, casual like, no rushing. She wanted to watch and observe, as they had. Sticking the index finger of her left hand into one if the holes, she moved it around a little, one side to the other. Oh, yes, he was all red on the inside, just like the others, all full of red stuff, not brown like her.

Moving quickly, she snapped his bones as his screams were released, before she bore down on him, kicking him to the floor. He made funny gurgling noises as a handful of his hair rendered him bent backwards, his throat offered to her, warm and inviting.

In a heap, with both his arms broken, she sank her incisors in and tore a mouthful of flesh from his soft, pink neck. Spitting it onto the ground before him, his head fell forward, his torso crash-landing into a muddy patch.

In that second it was as if she needed to take back some of that which he'd taken from her. The dented, or affected genes, the ones responsible for the change in her chemical composition, they shifted a little more, twisted round slightly, created something new for the world to feast its eyes on. It silently wreaked havoc through a stimulated system, its power gaining as the smell of iron circulated in the air around her. She couldn't help the outcome of the next six minutes. There was no way of stopping it by then, it had already started, and she hadn't even noticed.

The Killing Yard

Rob walked from the front office and around the corner, two guns blazing. Three were down, that left two. They were dropped with a shot each. His time spent at his Uncle's farm having paid off, he was better than he remembered. As with most things in life, the more of them he shot, the better he got. With the fire raging in the garages and adjacent buildings, on the other side of the compound, the shouts for help and general chaos continued beyond the double doors. He shot the glass out as he approached, the action also killing the three bags of puss staggering around outside.

The wooden huts had taken in an instant, the untreated wood just awaiting a generous sprinkling of diesel and a packet of matches. As the flames caught hold, the garages followed. Their walls were ablaze, the trucks blistering and exploding. It was all very loud, and did the trick perfectly.

He hadn't found any truck keys anywhere, and he'd looked, high and low. Along the way he did happen to collect two holdalls full of rather tasty weapons. He was happy, and Avvy was right, they had lots of guns. Handheld to automatic rifles, he packed them all. Grabbing another canvas bag, he crammed it with ammunition, a box of flares, a few flash bangs, and an array of explosive ways to assassinate a target. He left hoping the bullets matched the guns he toted. He also left the empty storage room door as he found it, wide open.

He'd been gone a while, the day aging the same as him. Thinking of Avvy, tucked away under her safe front bumper, he realised time had flown since starting the fires and crashing into the water tower with the jeep. After Doctor Peel released him from his grotty cell he had to create a diversion, it was the only way they could hope to escape alive.

When he took the last turn after the parade ground, he stopped in his tracks. Carnage lay across the space to the rear gates, the ones they couldn't get through. His eyes scanned the bodies, the heads, the arms, a torso here and a leg over there. The people were in pieces, literally. Only one moved, only one made a noise. It was her.

His right hand slid around the gun's butt, his finger on the trigger, as his left lifted to roll the barrel of the revolver. Making sure all chambers were occupied, he slowly walked, step by quiet step, towards her crouched position, her back towards him. The gun rose to point down at her. He would have pulled the trigger if she hadn't spoken.

'No, Rob ... It's me ... I'm still me ...'

Lifting from her knees, and turning on the spot, her hands came up level with her shoulders. There was little of her to be seen that wasn't covered in the young Doctors blood. It was everywhere, over her face, her neck, hands and legs.

Rob looked down to what was left of Peel's chest, the ribs exposed, the heart missing. There were some other remains heaped out onto the ground beside him. Rob nearly retched.

'Yeah, I ate him, and I liked it ... And he felt it too, I made sure he did, every bloody bite ... I'll give him tamper with my innards with a sharp knife, while I'm awake ... The bloody psycho ...'

'Christ almighty ... He helped us get away, gave me his gun, gave us his car, he gave you a jab to save your damned life, that's why you're still alive ... Hell, you didn't have to eat him, Avvy, that wasn't part of the plan, eating people ...'

'Hey,' she retorted, 'he deserved it, all of them deserved it ... Killing Dad, trying to kill me and then you ... They took parts of me away, they almost killed me ... That stuff hurt, Robby ... I didn't say they could have it, they took it ... So what if I take something back ... Maybe his punishment should match his crime, they're all dead anyway ...'

The blood was starting to dry on her face, it was getting itchy under all that mess.

'Look, shoot me now or let's get the hell out of here ... It's getting dark and I don't want to be faced with what's to come in the next ten minutes, do you?' she asked him.

With the gun still pointed in her direction, he tried to remember the features of the person below that red filth. He shook his head, as if it would help to jog the memory back into being there.

'Avvy, I don't know what to do with you ...'

'Can we argue about this in the car, please, now the gates are clear? We can do this on the road ... I have a plan, we're going east, my boy ... Come on, load up, and you can drive ... I'm too tired ...'

Walking away from a quiet Rob seemed strange in a way. Avvy was waiting for the gunfire, the searing point in the back of her head, or the massive hole through her chest. She even thought he might go for a quiet resolve, a knife into the base of her skull, or pushed in through her ear, either would have worked. Reaching the passenger door, she pulled it open.

'Get a shake on, that ten is now five ... And they won't be the same as when they were shooting at us ... That I can promise ...'

'Answer me one question, before we go?' he asked, standing there, with his bags of guns and ammo, looking like some crazy mercenary, his blood streaked face, jeans and shirt ripped, jacket sleeve missing.

'What? Ask away,' Avvy smiled, with a line of white teeth through a face of caked gore.

She scratched at it as she spoke, flakes of it falling away as she did so.

'... Are you gonna wash that crap off and get some other clothes? ... Otherwise, you ride in the back with the windows open ... That's gonna smell something awful when it starts to get a bit warm, and it's right under your nose ... Had you thought about that?'

There was a glimmer of a smile as he walked towards the car talking.

'... Look ... There was a ladies dress shop back on the ...'

Avvy butted in with, 'Really! ... Was that what you wanted to ask me, whether I was going to have a wash and change before I got into the car?'

One of her eyebrows lifted as she spoke, she felt her crud crack a little, but he clearly couldn't see that, as the dusk slowly crept towards them.

'No, it wasn't ... Get in, we're outta here ...'

Rob secured the bags in the boot of the black car then climbed into the driver's seat, still looking over at her. The window slowly lowered when it was finally started.

'Okay, you get the back seat, or you're walking out of here, alone,' he slowly grinned.

Retreating, she took the two steps required. After slamming the front door shut she reluctantly took the back bench.

'Okay, but if you have a gun, I want a gun ... Not that I'll use it, I promise ... Maybe I should, just for emergencies ...'

Avvy caught Rob's eye in the rear view mirror and smiled. She must have looked a right rabid disaster, some face, mostly icky red crustiness.

Without saying anything, his hand lifted to his lower back and a small pistol was revealed, tucked away for safe keeping. As he went to hand it over he pulled it back a little, his face turning serious.

'It's only for emergencies, no shooting off all crazy assed in the car ... If you hit me, anywhere, I will kill ya ... Got it?'

As it passed from his hand to her's, she nodded quickly, her confirmation of hearing and understanding what he'd just said.

'Okay ... Only for emergencies, and no shooting off, crazy arsed, near you ... Got it ...'

'The safety's on, and there's only three bullets left in it ... Make them count, Avvy ...'

He sounded all professional, after killing a bunch of homicidal pretend army blokes with their own guns. Suddenly Rob was in control.

As they pulled away they watched the first of the fallen emerge from the shadows of the broken buildings. They turned on their own injured, those calling for help and not quite dead. Butchered where they lay, to be stored or eaten as a picnic, they were about to be put on the menu, along with their CEO and several Lab Techs.

As Avvy once said, their dented moral was, if they can't defeat it, they eat it, and that's exactly what the affected were attempting.

Fernie Farm

Leaving the killing yard behind, they drove through the gates and off into the night with no idea as to where they take shelter. They didn't know the area so wouldn't chance it by sleeping in the car. Deciding on heading along the south coast road, going east, until they needed more fuel, was a starting point. So, Dover was to be their next hope, and maybe their last.

'The question I was going to ask you, back there, before we left,' Rob said, watching the road but speaking over at Avvy. 'Well, I was wondering, does it help mend you in some way, eating people?' he finally asked, his eyes darting over then back to the windscreen.

Avvy was gazing out at the empty landscape that sulked passed, its distant break of land to sky almost lost to the shadows of night. To all intents and purposes, England's forever green and pleasant land should have started to become just that. Roughly worked out, the timeline said there should have been daffodils, crocus and snowdrops raising their heads to the light. Where had all the flowers gone?

No more changing colours to the seasons. It wasn't there, or maybe it was just missing for a while, who could tell. There were no lambs to gamble and play. There were no foals or calves in the fields, no chicks or baby rabbits, and no Mad March Hare. It was all gone. The fields and meadows were empty, and sat somewhere between half-light and half-life. Nothing stirred, not even a bird.

'Yeah, I think it does. The scars aren't burning as much as they were, and I can feel my toes again, whereas before I couldn't even feel my legs. I think my skin is sealing itself which, in itself, is a sensation that's hard to explain,' she replied through the core of her fisted hand, her words distorted slightly.

Sitting forward, her eyes up front the same as his, she noticed how it was getting darker by the minute.

'I definitely feel better for it, and perkier, which could be the result of the jab Doc Peel gave me, of course ... I watched the change in him, after I shot him several times in the chest ... It fascinated me how his lights went out before I drank him dry ... When he went floppy I dropped him ... You walked around the corner just as I ended his thought pattern with a knife ... If he still had one after me eating him like that,' was almost chuckled to herself.

Rob went to say something when a shape caught her eye. It flashed passed and was gone. Her head tried to keep her sight on it, but the location faded into the distance. It wasn't easy. Rob was concentrating on his driving, his focus lying entirely on the tarmac ahead.

'... Stop, Rob, back up ... I think I saw a crash-pad ... Let's go check it out ... Time we got off the road anyway ...'

Avvy was watching his reaction, waiting for him to decide.

He stopped the car and returned the way they'd come, taking the opening she pointed at, the one hardly seen through the dense trees. Parking a distance away, they walked the bumpy track that led them to a one storey property, tatty but intact. There was a small patch of untidy yard, just big enough to park two cars comfortably. It had a rotting picket fence around it, which clung to its posts out of sheer determination. Its green paint had all but flacked off, the jagged curls brittle and dry.

When they looked closer, it was obvious it was two mobile homes tacked together, in a nice way, to produce one larger unit. Apart from that, there were two sheds and a greenhouse with no glass left in it. They did notice one thing. All the windows, and the doors, had roll down silver shutters padlocked on the outside.

Rob kicked at one with his boot, his gun bags swaying near his ankles.

'Are they to keep us out, or someone in?' he smiled feebly, his eyes scanning the exterior of the abandoned shack.

Avvy walked to the large plastic container, it held rainwater. She spoke at she washed the dried gore from her hands and face.

'We need to get on the roof, see if it has any skylights ... There has to be a way in without making too much noise ...'

Okay, so she didn't have all the answers, but she thought that was a good start. Walking towards Rob again, she looked up as she dried off using a rag she'd found.

Rob scanned the immediate vicinity, found an empty oil barrel and rolled it to the end of the unit. Climbing up, with the bags slung across his back, he crawled onto the roof of the shack, his legs disappearing along with the rest of him.

'Hey,' Avvy quietly voiced, 'can ya see anything? ... Rob ... Rob ...'

She waited, the seconds fading away along with the light.

He suddenly reappeared, his hand reaching down to help pull her onto the roof.

'Quickly, I heard something ... Lay low and keep quiet,' he ordered in a whispered voice.

Huddled, chest down, side by side, they froze, their hearing alerted to the movements around them. As the last of the light drifted beyond the horizon, they held their breaths and closed their eyes, knowing it may well be their exposed camping ground for the night.

'Well, you can't stay up there ... What ya gonna do if it rains in the night?' a voiced asked from the darkness.

Both their heads lifted, their eyes popping open to look at each other. They shifted round to see where the words had come from. Behind them, across the flat roof, about ten feet away, was a lifted skylight and an elderly gentleman holding a low light.

He spoke again as he dropped down into the opening.

'Hurry up, you're letting all the warmth out ... Maude, put the kettle on, there's a dear ... We have guests ...'

Rob moved first, in low, steady steps, Avvy behind, her right hand already resting on the blade handle at her waist. Looking into the hole showed a spiral stairway down into the structure on whose roof they stood in the dark. A face appeared. It was a lady's.

'Hello, I'm Maude ... Come on, we won't eat you, we have plenty of tinned meats, you'll be happy to hear,' she smiled up at them. Then she was gone, calling, 'Tea or coffee, we have both ... And sugar and milk ... Biscuits too ... Homemade biscuits ...'

Avvy was through that hatch and down, before Rob had a chance to make a decision, with, 'Coffee, please, milk with one sugar ... And you said you have homemade biscuits, are they dunkable?'

Following along behind, Rob was still on high alert, as he pulled down the hatch and locked it shut behind him. He couldn't help it, and although Avvy seemed to be completely at ease, she wasn't as relaxed as her outer casing might have suggested. Fearing a trap ahead, he stopped and grabbed her arm when the woman vanished from sight. Waiting, they both expected a cage to drop, or a net, or a large chain and hook.

'Hi, my name's Kim, I'm Maude's daughter ... Sorry, come this way, she was stolen by Harry, my brother ... He's trying to make bread but, so far, all he's done is make a massive mess ...'

The young woman stepped from a doorway, her long dark hair scooped up, piled on her head. She looked from Rob to Avvy, her smile broadening as her eyes twinkled in the low candle light. Standing quite tall, her left hand lifted to show the way. It had two rings glinting on it, suggesting she was old enough to be married.

'Okay, there's a few of us here, ten in total, we've been expanding this place for months ... It was started as a family commune, years ago, my Grandparents were behind it ... Mum said it was the best thing they ever did ... Anyway, when the change came, everybody dug in ... These cabins are only the front door and storage ... The real living space is in the basement and extended rooms below ... Please, follow me, I'll show you down, we have lots more space down there ...'

Kim turned and walked through the doorway before them, her shape melting into the twilight beyond. Looking at Rob, Avvy sniffed the air, he did the same, and then they both pulled faces. It didn't smell of anything dead, there was no stink or stench, no stain or taint. It was a clean space, right through to the stairs leading down, the ones barricaded by the foot thick steel door.

More light down there, brighter, with voices and laughter. It went quiet, and then whispers were heard. Chairs were moved, the legs scrapping on the floor, footsteps came next, towards where they stood at the top of the stairs.

'Mum's in the kitchen making Harry clean up his own blooming mess ... Hi, my name's Nigel, I'm Kim's other half, nice to meet you ...'

They stepped down into the room to be confronted by a very large open space, probably not far off the size of a small warehouse. They had been busy, all of them, tucked away, burrowing. It was all reinforced with the proper joists, plaster boarded throughout, painted nicely, with proper partitioning to give some privacy away from the living areas.

Avvy and Rob were told the showers recycled brown water through a filter system, the rain saved in huge tanks above ground. Two big old generators supplied a majority of power, but most of the heat was supplied from the double range which ran on solid fuel. The flu, carrying the smoke away, was cleverly redirected up and through the chimney of some old shack above. Not the one they'd entered, but another one, sat the other side.

A voice came through the kitchen door, one they recognised.

'... And, Harry, if you waste flour like that again, I'll make you lick it all up, you dopey ...'

The burly man stopped talking when he saw his guests stood, watching him. He finished wiping his hands on the towel, one extending forward to be taken.

'Sorry, my name's Samuel Fernie, Sam to my family and friends ... Welcome to our little den ... It's not much but, so far, it's saved our bums,' he grinned.

The girl took his hand and shook it.

'Avvy, Avvy Lurton ... This is Rob ... We met on the road ... Thank you for taking us in, it's very kind of you, you didn't have to.'

Sam laughed, 'We heard you on the roof, well, Maude did actually ... She was up there getting stuff from one of the store rooms ... You weren't very quiet about it ... That's how we knew you weren't them ...'

Rob apologised for that one.

'Yeah, sorry about that, she can be a little loud sometimes, I've noticed that.'

As he spoke he looked at Avvy, his face showing no sign of a smile, serious as usual.

'Oh, no,' Sam retorted, walking to the long bench at the table, 'it wasn't her Maude heard, it was you ... Throwing those bags up and stomping around above her head ...' Sitting, he said, 'Looking for a way in, she guessed ... She brought me up to check it out.'

Spinning the wedding ring on his hand, he smiled, 'I only looked because she said you'd gone quiet, thought you'd fallen off the roof maybe, and was injured ... Not that we'd go out in the dark, that's suicide, but we would have checked out front in the morning ... Save you or kill you, whichever was needed ...'

Samuel Fernie was a good man, a kind man, a strong and faithful man, and he made Avvy smile, sat there in his red Hawaiian shirt and green cargo shorts, with those red tartan slippers on his feet.

'I keep my family safe, that's all that really matters. I do it in any way I can, with anything I can use, and nobody is going to hurt, or injury, those around me ...'

When he looked over at the young woman, he asked her directly. '... Who have you lost?'

There it was again, that question strangers always ask one another. Avvy walked over to sit with him on the bench, her hot, steaming, beverage awaiting her attention. Looking down at it, it didn't seem real. Was it really there, for her?

'One sugar and milk as requested,' Sam confirmed. He looked over at Rob. '... Maude made you a coffee too, no milk or sugar, but they're here if you want them ...' His head nodded at the milk jug and sugar bowl in the centre of the old pine table.

'Thank you,' Rob nodded at Sam.

'You're welcome,' Sam replied, looking back at Avvy as if still awaiting her reply.

The look on her face probably gave him his answer. One word was said.

'... Everybody ...'

'Recently ...?' Sam then asked.

'I lost my Mum the day they napalmed Virginia Water, my sister a few days later, when we met those things for the first time ... My Dad, a week ago, after seeing him for the first time in years ... But that's a long story ...'

Rob watched as she let a little of her truth out, not all of it, just a bit. Saying it made it real again, not saying it made it be almost a dream. Disconnecting from the situation was the only way she could look at it and still feel human.

'What about you?' she asked. 'Have you lost anyone, or have you been lucky in that respect?'

Sam quickly smiled, it was seen in his eyes, but it had a tinge of sadness to it. 'Yeah, we, as a family, we've lost a couple ... Tony, my brother-in-law, lost him out on a run, got separated from the rest, taken in a second ... Then there was Clare, my niece, only sixteen at the time. Started with a scratch from one of them, just a tiny scratch ... Well, all in the past now, we have to move forward, not be lost back there.' He then looked over at Rob. 'What about you? How many have you lost?'

Thinking about it, Rob's hands lifted to sink into his back pockets.

'I'm the same as Avvy, probably ... My family are all back home, and your guess is as good as mine where the States is concerned ... I was separated from my brother, Mikey, months ago ...'

He was watching the fish in the tank as he spoke. The four golden shapes flicked and shifted in small circles, turned, then swam back the way they'd come.

With that, Sam changed the subject. 'All our fresh water comes through a cavern into our underground well. The hand pump pulls it up, that's through there, in the kitchen. We also have a larder stocked to the roof. The lads go and have a look around every seven days, see what's about. They bring back anything of worth ...'

Rob ambled over to join them, taking the carver chair at the end, acting as head of the table.

'When you say lads, who do you mean?' he asked Sam, his face not showing anything but curiosity.

'There's my youngest son, Harry, then Kim's husband, Nigel, Peter, my youngest brother-in-law, my eldest son, Richard, and his boy, Ben, usually. They take the risks and go on foraging runs, food mainly, but anything that might be of use is always worth grabbing. They're all in there at the moment, trying to make bread, so I'm told ... But then, having had a look, I'd say making more of a mess than the five promised loaves.'

'Is there some reason why you don't go with them?' Rob asked.

'I always stay here and look after the girls and my wife, that's my job, this is my place ... I would never leave the ladies without a man at hand ... Do you have a problem with that, son?' Sam then bounced back at him.

'No, I've no problem with that, I was just wondering was all,' Rob smiled, his eyes actually meaning it. 'Well, Sam, you've got a nice little place here, I like it.'

Sam smiled in return, his aging face still rather handsome for the five day growth covering his cheeks and chin. He scratched at it, the rustling sound quite loud.

'Thank you, Rob, it's not bad, is it, anyway, it does the job for now... And, may I ask, which part of the States are you from?'

In the time Avvy had spent with Rob she'd only squeezed a certain amount of information from him. It was offered up in very small portions, and would have been missed in the conversation, had you not been listening at the time. There was some stuff she knew, but there was a whole lot more she didn't. Everybody had their secrets, and Rob was just the same as everyone else.

'I was born in England, Henley-on-Thames I'm told. When I was seven we moved to California for Dad's work ... I'm a Brit with a Yank history ... And here I am, back home again ... Hey, the weather hasn't changed much. I remember it being this rubbish all those years ago,' he chuckled, his face slowly relaxing. He was finally able to, after all those months alone.

As the two men talked between themselves, Avvy offered to take the empty mugs back to the kitchen area, mainly so she could have a little nose around. The living area was large, about twenty feet square, there were cosy couches, deep comfy chairs, and a few units along the walls, displaying photos and trinkets. Two long pine tables, pushed end to end, sat outside the kitchen area, various forms of seating surrounded it, and the floor was a collection of rugs and cuts of carpet, a mosaic that ran the whole space.

Ambling into the area where most of the family were, she smiled at the thought of all the best parties starting in the kitchen. As she was introduced to everyone she looked from face to face, their smiles retuned with a word of welcome. Kim wanted to take their mugs to wash them. Avvy almost panicked with the thought of her saliva anywhere near such decent people.

'No, I'll do them, I insist, it's the least I can do for the great hospitality you've already shown us, really, I don't mind ...'

Slowly she edged towards the sink as she spoke, her determination seeing her there. Smiling, as she pumped water to rinse her mug first, Rob's was put to one side, as all her attention fell on the one in hand.

Maude inched towards her with eyes watching every move the younger woman made. Her tea towel was placed on the counter as it became obvious she was working something out. The look she gave Avvy suggested she was at that point of realisation. Her words came in a lowered tone, meant in a gentle way, not demanding or angry, but said as if concerned.

'You've been bitten, haven't you?'

Sadness sat in her eyes as Avvy looked over at her. 'Yes, Maude, I was bitten,' she replied, her expression just as sorrowful.

'SAM', Maude called, 'we have a problem, love ...'

Dying On The Inside

Her sorrow was still evident as she spoke, recalling her first traumatic day alone after the horror of losing her younger sister, Nicky, being taken by the Military, and then the agony of losing her dad all over again. It sounded like some crazy cartoon. Tears hovered as she relived what they did to her. As Avvy recited her tale, those that listened stayed very quiet, their sad faces turned down, not able to look at her as she explained the procedures they did while she was lucid. Trying to describe the searing pain down her spine was the hardest part, as if red hot steel rods were lying just below the surface of her skin.

'They said, I started it without knowing ... They said, my screwed up gene mixed with those of someone normal, who wasn't even aware they could be a carrier ... From there it was taken home, spreading to their families, their friends, work colleagues, everybody they came into contact with. In its original form, it did nothing, it floated around our systems, and we didn't even know it was there ... Then, one day, it evolved into a mutated version of itself and turned on us, the plague to spread across the country in months, the world within five years ...'

Avvy stopped talking. She looked over at Rob, his eyes focused on his hands, how his hair flopped forward.

'... And that's why I can't stay here with you. Anything could happen, and I can't let it.'

More silence. Rob was the only one to take any action. He rose from his seat and walked over to her. It was the first time he'd seen her on the verge of breaking open, and in front of so many strangers. Leaning forward he took her hand and scooped her up. In front of them all, he pulled her into a bear hug, one that squeezed a few more tears out. He slowly pulled away, turning with her still under one arm.

'I'm sorry we've intruded, and Avvy has that last part wrong. She meant to say that's why we can't stay. We travel as a pair, if she goes, I go,' he grinned, looking down at her.

Sam stood, after a quick sweep of his kin's faces. 'Stay tonight, we can't turf you out now, it's already raining and those things will be nosing around again ... Get some rest, you could both use it, then set off fresh tomorrow ... We can give you some supplies, they should keep you going for a while ... I'm sorry we don't have a spare motor, we only have the one, and it's more important to us right now.'

'No, what you've done is great, thank you, and we have a car, we just need some gas, if you can spare it?' Rob asked. He could see she'd done with talking. 'I think we should crash-out now, if you guys don't mind. We can get an early start and, by the looks of it, my little travelling companion here has reached the end of today's road.'

As Sam and Rob arranged a can of fuel, Avvy's eyes became a little more tired and puffy from the fatigue and tears. She stayed huddled to Rob's side, in no rush to let go. It was felt for the first time in a long time, that feeling of being in a safe place, with a safe person. Holding tighter was a way to hold onto life, if nothing else. As least she knew Rob was alive, and not like her, dying on the inside.

The remaining hours of their rain filled night were spent in a box room that stored the spare bed frames and mattresses. They removed all but two, splitting the mattresses between them. It was enough for a few hours. With a sleeping bag over the top, and a cushion for their heads, they couldn't ask for more.

It was a shallow sleep, transported back to the start, when everything changed, when everything was ablaze. They survived, Nicky and she, they even made it out of the burning house. There was nothing there. There was nothing left, no house, no tree with a swing, no ivy over the extension, and no extension. The whole area was a disfigured collection of rubble that said homes were once there. Everybody, and everything, had been vaporised as the fires raged and the gas supplies exploded. Every building, everybody, everywhere, had simply gone or been melted to the spot, along with the pushbikes, the strollers, and the toys on the lawn.

Nicky was there with her then, and Nicky was her main priority, until they saw Mum and Dad again she was. Avvy prayed they'd appear over the remains of the house, calling their names, walking back to find them. They never did. She had to get them both to safety. All their nightmares had just begun. Things were coming at night, things were coming in the day, and when she had her tenth encounter with them, Avvy knew it was time she went below.

'Avvy, it's okay, it's just a dream ... It's just a dream, shush ... Come one, it's just a dream ...'

Rob was there as her eyes flicked open, his arms lifting her gently to rock her slowly. She didn't resist, she didn't fight herself away. She stayed, to be soothed and held, to make a connection, and to keep it there for as long as possible.

They left early the next morning, after checking the surrounding area was clear and safe. The vehicle they arrived in was left a fair distance away, not seen from the shack. When they reached it everything of use had been stripped from it. There would be more tools and more knives found along the way, plus they had guns and ammo enough to last a little while. On the bright side, they hadn't taken the car itself. Rob, in his infinite wisdom, had disconnected something in the engine to stop it firing up. It still had a little fuel too, not much, but plenty when the small drum they'd been given by Sam was added.

Avvy sat and studied the map as Rob topped up the tank. He was whistling as he did it, his eyes darting all over the place. The ample supplies sat in boxes on the back seat, along with enough fresh water to keep them going for about a month. They were on the road again, trekking to where the sun rose in the morning, going east, to the sea, east, in search of sanctuary.

Spice Up Ya Life

It was while they were bombing along a B-road they saw a pub come looming into view. It was set back a little, out in the sticks, with its car park running down the left hand side. They slowed as they neared, checking for signs of roamers, or life, both sometimes being as bad as each other. Going beyond and turning in, they couldn't see the pub's name, the sign not where it should be. Taking it as being closed down before the world went crazy; they pulled to a halt in the empty area near the side entrance.

'Fancy a quick drink? They must be open now,' Rob smiled, his eyes not leaving the deserted space around them.

Sometimes he looked a little vague, but he was usually thinking in that head of his, he never switched off in that respect, unless he was drunk of course.

Getting in was easy. There was a huge hole in the extension roof which led straight into the kitchen area. Avvy looked over at Rob, her instincts telling her to leave it alone, to not go in, to walk away, briskly, whilst whistling, and get into the car to drive off, in that direction, really fast, leaving a dust trail behind. The daydream flashed through her head, a movie of her waving goodbye to herself, the hand saluting from the driver's window.

'This feels all wrong, Robbo ... There's something not right here ... Someone's been here already ... That hole was a vent once, you can see through here, look, the place has been stripped ...'

When Avvy saw the shift in the shadow, a movement in the hall beyond, she stepped back from the boarded glass, straight into Rob behind her.

'What? What was it?' he asked, his high alert suddenly ringing its bell, his adrenalin already starting to take over.

'There's someone, or something, in there ... Do you really want a drink that badly?'

He thought a moment, breathing quietly and glancing around him. He was ready for anything, on the ball, awaiting the command.

Avvy heard his loud swallow, it sounded very dry.

'Hell, yeah ... We've come this far, it'd be rude not to, I reckon ...'

So, up they climbed with their bags on their backs, guns loaded, ready for the charge. Into the hole they dropped, torches taped to their found caps, as quietly as they could, landing on the stainless steel work surface.

'If they're dead, can I eat them? ... I promise I won't eat the live ones, just the freaks ... If I don't make a mess everywhere, can I?'

Well, it was lunchtime and she was hungry.

Rob skipped down first, sweeping their immediate vicinity and then checking into the hall. A door had once been a barrier there, taken to be used as internal reinforcements someplace else.

'Why, when we're in a situation like this, do you always have to think about food? I know you're hungry, I am too, but you don't always have to feast when I'm suffering a damn famine ... Now, can we please move forward?'

Turning slowly where she stood above him, her precision had been honed with their time together. Rob had taught her well. She handled a gun with confidence, was always aware of her surroundings, and had become hugely proficient in the art of killing stuff.

Following close behind, her ears were alive to any sound but theirs, her noise catching something new in the air. It wasn't a dead smell, it was sweet, heady, and reminded her of her days at college.

Hand signals took them beyond the dark room. He saw it as she did. There was a change in the shadow, again, as they turned towards the Saloon Bar.

'Well, slap me twice, I don't believe it ... Can you smell that? I've not smelt that in years,' Rob whispered, his smile slowly becoming a beam of teeth. 'Jesus, someone's smoking a joint ...'

He forged forward, through the glass door, and into the room beyond, his gun going back into its holster. Avvy was right behind him, well aware of what he was babbling about.

'We come in peace,' Rob grinned, walking into the room lit only by candles. 'Jeez, dudes, I love what you've done with the place ... May we join you?' he asked the two guys and three girls, flaked out on the floor, all looking very happy with themselves.

The room resembled a boudoir in the Middle East. A fug hung above them all, as did drapes from the walls, covering plaster and windows, keeping the light in and the cold out. Massive cushions scattered the floor, lanterns and candles glinted and glowed, and the smell and atmosphere was definitely hitting Rob's pleasure button, wherever that was.

'Hey, nice of you to drop in,' the grey haired guy chuckled, as he waved from his pile of red covered sponginess. 'Yeah, I know you ain't freaks, freaks can't climb, so you're good, and we're all cool ... Have a cushion, take a load off ... Have a smoke, a drink and chill ... My name's Jake, my friend here is Sonny, and the girls are, Kirsten, Nat and Bella ... We found this place, and what was in the rooms upstairs, months ago ... All cleared now, we burnt them out in the back field ... Workmen, by the looks of it, but all messed up ... Anyway, let's talk about stuff to come, not stuff we can't change ... Grab a bottle, grab a seat, and let's be somewhere else for a while ...'

Having never had a joint before, it was all new to Avvy. Rob rolled, and she smoked as many as he passed. They had their own to use, a box placed before them, papers, tobacco, everything.

'Wow, this is good pot, where the hell did you get it?' Rob asked, as his smoke ring lifted.

Sonny answered in his deep Polish accent.

'We found it in a warehouse, a thousand plants at least ... Dried and ready to smoke ... We all bagged as much as we could carry ... We've still got a sack or two left ... It should keep us going for a while,' he grinned, his joint slowly being rendered down to the roach.

The minutes rolled towards the afternoon, and Avvy could see them staying in that one place. It had been nice, but they had a plan to stick to, or so she thought. She took her bottle of Jack Daniel's, as Rob instructed, while he took his Cuervo, and smiled in thanks. He started his, she didn't open her's. It was slid into her rucksack for later, when they had nothing else.

'So, you guys not bunkered down like most have, are you on the road all the time? Must be pretty crap out there now ... We were lucky finding this place. It was due to open, the cellar was stocked to the gills, huge tins of everything for the new kitchen ...'

Jake stopped talking as he took another mouthful of his gin and tonic, his fifth since they'd arrived.

Rob answered for them both, because he was the eldest and wiser in many ways.

'We're heading for Dover ... Kinda hoping there might be some none crazy people left there, people that don't want to kill or eat you, you know the kind ... Nice people, like in the old days.'

'Yeah, well, good luck with that ... We came out of Canterbury, it was mental all around Maidstone and Sevenoaks ... Those we saw running were coming up from down there ... The roads were insane ... We dumped the motorway and diverted to small roads ... Our first place wasn't so good, we got caught in the tail fires ... After that, we loaded up and headed south the best we could ... Finding this place was awesome,' said Nat, the one not drinking.

She looked about Avvy's age and was sat with the blonde girl, Bella, her younger sister.

Rob's turn again. 'Well, we gotta try ... We have to see, so we know for sure ...'

Nat then asked, 'So, what's next when there's nothing there? Where you gonna...?'

'Then, we'll go where we need to go, and we'll keep on going until we do find someone ... I have to, I have no choice,' was pitched in by Avril over the other girl.

'Oh, God ... Don't tell me you're stupid enough to get yourself pregnant,' Nat snidely replied.

'I'm not pregnant, actually ... I'm infected,' Avvy snapped back, her patience with them depleting with every second spent in their company.

Nat's stoned eyes, half open, were as red as the cushion she sat on. They flicked over in the new girl's direction, her look enough to drop her in her seat.

Even after smoking all those joints, Avvy wasn't like the rest of them in the room. She didn't look like them either, all that happened was she became hotter by the second, as though her clothes were ablaze against her skin.

Their reaction was just waiting to happen. From under cushions came loaded guns, the faces of the holders not as friendly, or as stoned, as they had seemed ten seconds before.

'See,' Avvy smiled over at Rob, 'you should have let me eat them ...'

They didn't have a chance. As she looked back at Jake, his gun lifted. When Rob looked over, he watched as Avvy popped a line of heads open, their eyes wide from the shock of it all.

'What the ...?' Rob exploded, as the noise echoed away and the smoke dissipated.

'They were all infected anyway, I could smell them from here ... Guess smoking that crap really does screw you up, you're getting sloppy, Rob ... Grab your gear and take your booze ... Jake was a dork anyway ... Who in their right mind keeps girls stoned so they don't wander off? What a weirdo, well, he got his, didn't he? ... And right between the eyes, the dick ... Now, if you don't mind, I'm hungry, and there had to be a bonus to this predictable outcome ...'

Avril turned away from Rob as he approached the exit to leave. He wasn't happy, his face a collision of bad taste and unfunny jokes. Before he left, she had one more thing to add to that.

'Well, you better get out while you still can, when I start it's not a pretty sight ... I'll see you outside in the car, after cleaning up and swapping clothes, of course ... Her's will fit, she looks about my size ... Oh, and grab that dope too, if you're gonna ... You might as well, he doesn't need it anymore, and he did say they have two sacks left,' she chuckled.

Flower in the Attic

Rob had to stop driving in the end, his eyes were nearly closed, and he'd complained about a headache over the last twenty miles or so. When the sun started its decline in the sky, a safe haven was the thing they both worried about finding. As usual, they stopped at the next building they saw, the end house of a terrace, out in the middle of nowhere, with no signs of life, no movement, and no roaming rag-bags.

After breaking in and checking the place out, they brought their stuff in from the car. Within ten minutes, they were enjoying a hot coffee with a drop of the Jack from the pub. Then they chilled on the couches for a bit, feet up, eyes half open, taking a breather.

Avvy soon got bored of doing that. Lifting from her spot, she ambled around the room, amazed at how some people catalogued their lives on tidy shelves full of memories.

'I need to get away from people, for obvious reasons, but they are starting to piss me off anyway,' she bitched, picking up a porcelain figurine from the dusty mantelpiece. 'I didn't really like strangers before but, now, after all this, well,' she dropped it onto the tiled hearth by her feet, it smashed into a hundred pieces, 'they can just go blow my ...'

'Did you hear that? It came from upstairs,' Rob almost whispered.

'Are you sure?' she asked, trying to hear more. 'Was it upstairs or out in the back?'

The sound came again. Avvy looked at Rob. It was definitely upstairs. He led the way, his gun being taken from his side and made ready. They slinked their way through into the hall and towards the stairs, just a few paces away. Avvy moved up beside him, her words barely heard.

'If there's one up there, I'm killing and eating it ... Just so you know, I'm not waiting for you, not like at the pub ... When I kick the door shut behind me, get away, sharpish ... I'll find you when the rush stops ...'

She looked at him for confirmation. His nod was all she needed.

'What if they're just infected and not gone all the way?' he quietly asked, his gun coming up level with the side of his face.

'If they're infected, shoot them, then I'll eat them as they turn ... They're dead anyway.'

Moving ahead of her, she took the stairs at their edges, away from the creaky centres. They led up and into a patch of light on the bend. The noise again, growing louder as they climbed, her hand to the wall, keeping her in line. Suddenly the first door was just that few steps away.

Stopping, a hand signalled to Rob, indicating him to the other side of the doorframe, facing her. Lifting her right hand, she leant over and placed it on the door handle. Slowly it turned, the ease of it a little unnerving, and its creak kept to a lowly squeak. As it pushed open, Rob stepped forward, gun up and ready for use. It was the bathroom and there was nothing, no open window, no infected, zilch.

Again, the hand signal, off to the next room, then the same actions repeated. The door swung open, no one. It was a little girl's room, toys scattered the floor and pale pink adorned the walls. Dusty fairies hung from the ceiling, faded shoes sat in a tidy row along the wall, and the old doll's house took her back fifteen years or more.

The next they checked was a boy's room, two shades of blue with a band of grey. Model cars and a pile of forgotten video games were retired to a filthy shelf. A neglected bunk bed sat alone, the bottom berth stacked with mixed clothing, trainers in a heap, and ripped comics on the side.

'Where then ...?' Rob mouthed.

The noise came again. He looked up. It was in the attic.

As with most British homes, the loft hatch is found on the upstairs landing. They usually drop down, and make one hell of a noise in the process. There isn't a quiet way to bring down the aluminium ladder either, and there's no masking the noise as it starts its grinding downward slide. Metal against metal is bad at most times, but when you're trying to be reasonably quiet, it doesn't help at all.

She winced as it finally came to rest, the lowest rung near their ankles. Rob offered her his gun, which was taken and wedged in the back of her jeans waistband the same as he always did. It was there if she needed it and, if anything, it helped Rob feel better about her vanishing into the darkness above. That was the next thing, a torch. It was passed over as the first rung took her weight. Signing a little too loudly, Avvy started up towards the unknown, her senses on alert, her ears and eyes checking for any movements or sound.

Lifting up into the opening, she noticed a light switch to her right. It was flicked up, though nothing was expected to happen, and nothing did. That's when Avvy saw her, huddled in a corner, a dirty toy rabbit pulled to her chest, the fear of death etched into her young face.

'Hey, Avvy, what's going on up there? Do you need me to come up?' Rob asked with concern evident in his tone.

'Urh, no, Rob, not just yet, stay there for a moment though, I might need you in a bit,' she softly said over her shoulder, her eyes not leaving the grubby little blonde girl across from her.

He went to speak again.

'No, Rob, please, not now ... Just give me just a second here ... I'm fine, we're all good, nothing to worry about, I promise ...'

Avvy may have been speaking to Rob, but the words were meant for the child in her midst also. Turning, to look back down through the opening behind her, her voice remained calm and gentle.

'Rob, could you do me a favour and go get those chocolate buttons we found the other day, please. Remember, I put them in the side pocket of your rucksack. Have you eaten them yet?' she smiled down at him.

He had that vague look on his face for a moment. 'Urh, no, not yet I haven't.'

She suddenly nodded in a vague direction as she mouthed the word child down to him. His eyebrows rose as he turned away. He turned back and looked up at her.

'... Stage 1 or 2 ...?'

She replied, in a lowered voice, 'I don't know, but seeing as there's no bite-fest yet, I'd say she's definitely not Stage 2 ... But that's why I need the chocolate buttons ... If she doesn't want them, she's probably infected.'

Finally he walked off, down the stairs, whistling as he went.

The little girl looked around her shielding box, the sound reminding her of someone maybe. She pulled in when it started to get louder again. He was coming back.

The buttons were thrown up, through the loft hatch, and caught first try. Crawling a little further into the space, Avvy called down to Rob from her sitting position.

'Hey, Rob, put the kettle on, will ya, please ... I could do with a hot chocolate to go with these here buttons, what do you reckon? And can you make it with the tinned milk and water? ... It goes really chocolaty when you make it like that ...'

In reply she heard, 'Yeah, that's sounds like a great idea, I'll add a shot of the Jack to ours ... And I'll bring in everything we need for the night, sounds like we might be staying ...'

His voice faded as he headed down to do as he was asked. If anything was going to help mend a scared little girl's heart, it was going to be chocolate buttons and a hot chocolate before bed.

Avvy spoke in a gentle tone across the quiet space, not wanting to frighten the child any more than they already had.

'Hey, my name's Avvy, and him down there, making the best hot chocolate ever, that's Rob ... And, wow, these buttons are so good, I can't eat them all, you want some? Look, I'll take what I want, then you can have the rest of the packet, then it's up to you whether you eat them now or save them for later ... The choice is all yours ...'

No face around the box, no words of denial, no shouting or screaming. Avvy tried again. Tearing the corner from the packet, she rustled a few into her hand, making as much noise as she could. Popping one into her mouth, a big deal was made about how good they really were.

'Mmm, you have to try these, they are amazing ... If you stick one to the roof of your mouth it melts really slowly ... Yummy ... Would you like some to try it with?' she asked, tossing the rest of the packet as near to the kid as she could.

Then she waited, as another was popped into her mouth to melt slowly with the same noises made as before.

From below she heard the travel kettle start to whistle its boiling point. Her head turned as the sound died away, her attention only gone for a second. When Avvy turned back, the buttons were gone.

'So, now you've taken the opportunity to savour that one small delight, would you like to join us for a nice, hot, chocolaty beverage downstairs?'

Avvy still couldn't see her, she was in no rush to come out, but then she'd survived alone, like that, for how long, she wondered. She was one tough little munchkin, that was obvious, but she also hated the thought of someone so young being left behind, up there, in the dark.

'Well, I'm going down ... Maybe you'll join us, maybe you won't, either way, we'll be down there if you change your mind ... We won't hurt you, we have no reason to ... I had a little sister like you once, she used to love the basement, not the attic ... It made her feel safe too.'

She wriggled round and dropped her feet out onto the ladder. Slipping down, one rung at a time, she watched for any sign of movement from the gloomy corner. When the big box was gone from sight, Avvy took the stairs to the ground floor and to Rob, waiting with their last hot drink of the day.

'I've had a scout around the house. There's a basement we can crash in. I found some useful stuff, just medical supplies and a few boxes of dry matches, nothing exciting, but we'll take them anyway,' Rob said, as she sat at the table, the last of the light fading through the boarded windows.

'What shall we do if she hasn't come down by the time it's dark out there?' Avvy asked, her hands cupping her warming mug.

He thought about it for a few seconds before replying.

'I think the best thing is, close the hatch, leave her up there ... It's kept her safe so far, being up there ... She's getting food and water from somewhere too, so it isn't all bad, is it?'

Really, in the grand scheme of things, the kid had survived quite well, fighting for herself. Who were they to walk in and decided she was too young, or weak, to keep it up. If she'd managed it for that long, there was no reason to think she couldn't keep winning from her spot in the dark.

They were taking bags down for the night when Rob caught a movement out of the corner of his eyes. Catching Avvy's attention with a half whistle, she looked up and towards him. It was then she saw her, hiding on the lower stairs, looking round the newel post at the bottom.

As dirty as a street urchin, that was as far as her little nerves would let her get. Those few feet must have seemed a mile to one so young. In one way she was lucky not to be a part of the world outside. Staying away from the great outdoors was a good way to survive. Maybe they could all take a leaf from that little girl's book, one way or another.

Standing straight, Avvy looked at the display unit beside her, the one laden with ornaments and framed family photos. On the top shelf, set in the centre, a proud family stood with The Golden Gate Bridge in the background, all smiling, all happy. There she was, in the middle at the front, seven years old if she was a day. Yeah, she looked like Nicky when she was that age, all long limbs and wide-eyed the same as a puppy, only she didn't piddle on the kitchen floor or bark to go out.

Looking over at the wall she saw three drawings of cats, all clearly done by a child's hand. She stepped closer to get a better look at the name. They were all drawn in middle school, by Katie Miller, age 8. That seemed about right. With the years that had passed since, that would make her eleven or so. At least they had a name at last.

As the majority of their gear disappeared below ground, Rob returned to get the last of the packs and the water.

'Hey, Lurton, we gotta go down, they can see in but we can't see out ... It's time.'

His eyes flicked from her to the stairs and back again. Avvy was there in thought, he was right in saying it out loud.

'Yeah, I know ... You grab that stuff there, I'll bring this and our mugs ... You finished with your Chocolate? I see Katie's is still sat here, getting cold ... I hope she doesn't forget it, along with the biscuits on the plate ...'

She didn't turn to look, Avvy knew she was watching. That little face had popped around the bottom of the stairs as her name was said aloud. It wasn't done to score points. Avvy was just trying to let her see they weren't a threat to her, not in any way.

'Rob,' she called, watching him vanish off towards the basement door for the last time, 'I'll have to leave that bag ... I can't carry it all ...'

As her sentence finished, the one said to his fading shadow, she picked up the biggest holdall, their empty tin mugs, plus the smaller bedroll, and walked in the direction Rob had just taken.

Reaching the kitchen doorway, she turned, but still didn't look at her little watcher straight on. It was a painting of a couple on a beach, waking their dog, her eyes strayed to. The sun was shining on them, as they ambled across the sand, and the sky was a halo of beautiful Mediterranean blue above, vast and cloudless.

'Hey,' she said over her shoulder, 'you have five minutes to drink your chocolate and decide whether you go up or come down, then we'll be locking and boarding the basement door ... Like I said before, your choice, only, I wouldn't want you to waste lots of time thinking about either ... The baddies will be out soon, and I wouldn't want them to find you up here all alone ...'

She left it at that. As with upstairs, Katie would decide her next best move, though Avvy did hope she had her drink, it was very good. Rob always made it the best, way better than she ever could.

He took the bag from her at the bottom of the stairs, his work below paying off. All the lower windows were boarded up, with black plastic taped over them to keep any light from passing through. There were a few short planks to one side, he'd found them somewhere. They were for the door when it was finally locked from the inside. As he ambled towards them with his hammer, her hand lifted to catch his wrist, stopping him beside her.

'I said we'd give her five minutes, that's all, and then we're boarding the door shut for the night. If she doesn't make it down here, she has her attic ... We can't do any more than that.'

The hand dropped as she walked to the stool on one side. Sitting down, she watched Rob as he looked, longingly, up those stairs, almost praying that small face would appear around the top doorframe, peeking down to where he stood. He decided, when he went up to lock it in three minutes, he would have a quick look to see if she was any nearer to making her decision.

Rob faffed with setting up a bed for the night. Though he vowed he'd never touch Avvy, he was never far away from her either. Through their darkest times he was never out of reach. Back to back they would rest their tired bones, inches between them, close enough to hear the other breathe.

Hearing it at the same time, they knew that sound, the front door was being forced. They flew up those stairs, him with the hammer, her carrying two short planks, before you could finish saying shit the bed. His look was a sharpish flash around the edge of the doorframe, a second to scan, and then back inside. When his face reappeared, his sad expression was enough to say Katie wasn't there.

The door was pulled too and locked as quietly as possible, the pair of them regretting not acting sooner. They couldn't board it over either, that being far too loud. Rob lifted his gun, and then indicated the hammer in his belt with a slow downward eye movement, his way of indicating he was tooled up. Avvy checked the planks in her hands and chuckled quietly. As it went, they were better than nothing.

Shortly after that the shuffles started, then came the stair climbing. They were searching, and the slushy sound of something attempting to breathe as it moved slowly became louder. It ground to a halt at the kitchen door. The floor creaked beneath its weight, as its repulsive smell slowly crept through the cracks, enough to make them both gag.

Your most basic of instincts tells you to back away, retreat as fast as you can, to escape, whatever it takes. There was no way either of them could move. One sound, just one, and that thing would have been there, along with its friend, ripping at some feeble door that meant nothing to the diseased dead, but everything to those hiding behind it.

Avvy focused on Rob, the way his beard had grown, the way his eyes changed colour depending on the light, but they were still a pretty blue underneath. He had an ear pressed to the door, listening. Faces were pulled as noises were heard. Still his hand stayed welded to that door handle, holding it there, hoping it wouldn't turn in his palm.

The shuffling started again, but it moved away, away from the door, away from the kitchen. It was following the other one upstairs. They could hear each tread giving a little as it climbed, the sound growing faint as it reached the landing, and suddenly they saw their worst case scenario.

'Oh, God,' Avvy whispered, '... Katie ...'

'Yes!' was said from the bottom of the stairs.

Turning together, their amazed faces became frozen in an open mouthed sort of way.

'... That's me,' she smiled up to them, 'but everyone calls me Cat ... I took a short cut, the baddies are too big to follow ... Quickly, come this way, before they come back down ... There's another way out, it's secret,' she grinned up at them. Then she vanished away, heading for the far end of the darkened cellar.

They both sprinted for it at the same time, taking the last three steps as a leap onto solid ground. Heading away from the lit area they heard Katie call over to her.

'... This way, Avvy, behind the wooden crates ... Down here ...'

Grabbing their gear, they squeezed round and into a small hole in the wall. It was pretty cramped but they were doing okay. Once through, a big metal plate was replaced and turned, as if locking it shut, then came their sudden silence.

Cat clambered over Rob with an apology. Another plate was turned and removed, and what was revealed was something else. Scrambling into the light showed them how a little girl survived when all those around her seemed dead. The fact of the matter was they weren't. They were all down there and waiting for her to get back.

All she'd wanted was her old toy bunny. She'd ducked out before anyone had noticed her gone. Both her parents were down there, at their wits end, along with her older brother, who was stood with them, almost hiding behind his dad. Avvy recognised them all from the photos. She also noticed the Grandparents were there, plus a few of the cousins, and old Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

In the hours they spent down there, talking, they realised their story was much the same as the last family's, and just the same as a thousand others, all trying to survive. They'd bunkered down too, expanded their underground living space, took to below, as so many had. It was the best way to do it, go subterranean. Building a secret room, off the main basement, was an ingenious idea, and with two means of escape it all worked out nicely.

No one died that night, there was no shuffling above, no sounds to disturb their gentle slumber. It was all quiet in the bunker beneath the lawn, and warm too, which was an added bonus on a rainy night such as that.

Part 3

A Cottage by the Sea

'Oh, my, God, Robby ... Look!' Her eyes didn't turn from the horizon line in the distance. 'Is that Dover?' she almost wept, her face showing her disappointment before it was heard.

Rob pulled to a stop, his face reflecting her's.

The smoke was lifting as far wide as they could see high. It was black smoke, it was blazing, and it was taking all of Dover port with it. They sunk, their stomachs, they'd done it again, followed another stupid dream only to find another load of stinking nothing. The town was down along with its entire coastal region.

Their silence made the front seat feel cold against her back. She had to get out, she had to move and do something. Sitting there didn't work for her. Time she stretched her legs and had a stretch. Climbing from the car, she stood and rolled them both a smoke.

Rob stayed where he was, his slightly tanned arms crossed over the top of the steering wheel, his forehead resting against his wrist. His smoke was dropped onto the passenger seat. He heard it land and picked it up.

'So, what's the plan, Stan? Time's ticking on, we have to think about settling somewhere soon,' he mumbled, as he lit up and took a long pull. Closing his eyes, he rested back in his seat. 'Should we go back or go forward? Your choice, honey ...'

'... Bollocks, bums, tits and arse ... WHAT THE ...'

She freaked out in the middle of the road, her frustration almost blowing her last fuse. Her arms swung, flapped and punched the air as she stamped her feet and kicked at nothing. If Avvy could have found a live dead one to kill, she would have killed it all over again, twice.

'We'll go back,' Rob said, calm as you like. 'We'll find another random house, stop for a break, get some rest for a couple of days, maybe ... Then we can make another plan if we have to ...'

She wiped her face and looked at the broken smoke between her fingers. Stuffing it into her pocket, she turned to the car again, the anger finally expelled from her body.

'Yes, you're right, let's do that, that sounds like a wonderful idea ... So, let's not go that way, let's go that way ... To another random house it is then ...'

Climbing back in, she looked over at him and his smiling face. Avvy liked the way his eyes sparkled in what sunlight there was. Shaking her head, her smile hung there too. She put her seatbelt on and readied herself for the return journey.

'You make me laugh,' he grinned over at her, starting the engine. 'No other cars on the road and you still wear your seatbelt ... Don't you trust my driving or something?'

'It's not that at all ... It's just something I've always done, instilled into me by my Dad ... I think they call it Learnt Behaviour or something,' she replied, opening her window a little to let some air in.

They u-turned and headed back alone Dymchurch Road, back past the Martello Tower near Hythe, and all the back along the A259, only this time with the sea forever to their left, not right. Joining the A27, just outside Pevensey Bay, they looted extra fuel from a mass of motionless vehicles sat silent in the road. Nothing else around, just that bunch of silent cars, doors all open, with no birds singing, no radios blaring, no noise at all. It was always so eerie, and that side of it never changed.

Skirting Polegate, they slid effortlessly passed Lewes, and then did the same round Brighton and Hove. They came across a few sadly affected cases wandering aimlessly across the lanes. Rob put most of them out of their misery, striking them head-on, the bull bars deflecting them ten feet or more. As they landed, they bowling balled a few more to the ground, the event leaving the pair of them howling with laughter. The game grew from there, the bodies bouncing well until their path became empty once more.

Where smoke had been seen before they suddenly saw flames. In the time it'd taken them to get to Folkestone and back, Worthing had erupted into the regular inferno. It would die down eventually, on the outskirts of the area, Salvington maybe, East Kingston hopefully.

Shadows tumbled across the land as the day headed for night. A mist hung low over the ground, swirling and turning, changing the light, changing the darkness beyond. Burpham is where they headed, because it was a turning and Rob liked the name.

Touchdown

'Look ... Just over there, beyond those trees, what's that?' he nodded, his face looking off across a meadow. 'That would do for tonight ... We'll clear the place, check the yard and outbuildings, then we're good to go ... It's bound to have a basement, pads in the outback always do ... I wonder who we'll find this time ... Another family hiding, d'ya think?'

Avvy looked over at him briefly, her eyes to swivel back to the property in question. 'From here it feels okay ... Let's get a little nearer, take a closer look first ... Go to the rear, see what else lurks around the back.'

Rob pulled into the driveway that was a side access, the speed low, the engine hardly ticking over. A silent approach was always a good idea, until you knew the lay of the land anyway. As quietly as they could, they inched onwards, their eyes scanning the front parking area for any signs of life, or death. There was nothing and there was no one. On they went, so the truck was parked up, out of sight from the road.

Stopping, some twenty feet from the rear entrance to the boarded-up cottage, they sat in silence, held their breaths, and waited a few moments. Avvy was the first to get out, after checking her pistol was fully loaded. Her eyes darted from Rob to the back door, her fingers marking her unannounced approach. They moved as a team, without a creek or crunch, the soles of their well-worn boots almost feather light upon the ground in the fading light.

Reaching the three steps, Avvy paused with Rob on the other side of the doorframe, facing her. His go at trying the door handle, she did it last time. He turned it and pushed it open. It wasn't locked, surprisingly. Then Avvy did the rest.

'Hello, Avon calling ... Can I interest you in the new spring shades, they're very refreshing? ... Hello ... Anyone home?' She looked at Rob. 'No one in then ... Fancy a Jack flavoured coffee?'

After clearly every room, and being happy with the outbuildings, their vehicle was emptied and rendered immobile. Avvy made them a drink each, black, with a big dash. It was hot and not just manky water from a bottle that had travelled as far as she had. It was a lovely break for their poor taste buds too, what with the large shot added.

Rob was right. There was a cellar, as he knew there would be. They moved down into it, with the last of the daylight. No windows to worry about, the door nailed shut with four chunks of wood found in a box. He didn't pace after his chores were done, not like he used to. After throwing together a makeshift bed for the pair of them, he sat quietly, flicking through an old magazine he'd found. He was at peace, so she left him there.

As she lay in bed, with Rob reading by a low light, Avvy thought about those old days, when everything came easy and she was surrounded by those she loved. When they aren't part of your world anymore a little of your history is lost. Who would tell her story after she was gone?

The dawn arrived as soon as she closed her eyes. Recalling days of having to go to school on a wintery morning in January, it seemed no sooner had she closed her eyes the night before, she was being buzzed awake again, the trudge in rain and snow another of those hated routines.

Rob rose early the next morning, the planks removed, and the water boiled for brews. Avvy stayed put, stretching out her limbs, her body not quite ready to face another grey day. She decided she would have a look around upstairs, see what was in the bedrooms, the wardrobes, maybe nothing, maybe something. There'd been no change of clothes since the pub from hell, her stolen outfit not made to measure.

'... Avvy ... Avvy ... Come quick ... AVVY ...'

It was Rob as he hurried through the kitchen to the door at the top of the stairs. Again he shouted down for her attention.

'... Avvy ... QUICK ... You have to see this ...'

Then he and his footsteps turned and ran back the way they'd come to disappear again.

'What now?' she sighed loudly, pulling on her rank jeans.

Stinky socks and army boots next, a size too big, and they rubbed in all the wrong places. Lastly was the skanky t-shirt that smelt a little like a butcher's apron. It hung from her, a small dress just not as fetching, and all courtesy of the bird in the bar.

She followed the hallway to the backdoor and exited as Rob had. He was stood out near the garage, his face all happy and full of a new look. Was that excitement?

'Come here and wait ... Be quiet though, or you might scare them away,' he almost whispered, his arm coming to rest around her neck as he pointed towards the side of an old shed.

'... Watch ...'

'Oh, wow ... How many are there? ... Look at that, that's amazing ... Arh, there's four ... And there's mummy fox ... Aren't they gorgeous, and so fat?' she quietly chuckled, watching their little miracles play not far from them.

Avvy moved away taking Rob with her.

'And, if they're fat ... That means there's meat to be found around here ... Rabbit, d'ya reckon?'

'Well, if no rabbit, we can eat those chubby critters ... And the size of her ... I can see the spit turning already, the fat dripping, and I can smell that meat roasting ...'

He started to smile as he spoke, his eyes turning back to the cute cubs playing and rolling around.

'Arh, let them be, they were here first,' she laughed, playfully slapping his forearm. 'You can't eat the baby or mummy foxes, I won't let you ... But I can show you how to set traps to get us some of them there wabbits,' she grinned.

They turned and slowly walked back to the little cottage, talking. Taking a seat on the back steps, with a coffee each, the thought of freshly roasted meat was watering mouths already. It was a lovely day, for a change, there was a little sunlight getting through and the temperature had definitely risen. It would have been the perfect day for a barbeque in the garden.

'Hey, I'm gonna check around upstairs, see if I can locate something new to wear, this crap is starting to stink ... You coming?'

Her eyes dropped to her attire as her hand swept down to indicate the rigid jeans and crusty top.

'Yeah, I'll come with ya,' he replied, with a slow smile. 'I can see how looking like that might be a problem for ya ... That isn't the best set of day clothes I've ever seen, or smelt ... Plus, it's not your colour, girl ... Not at all ...'

Bolting the door behind them, they climbed to the next floor to check through the rooms above, one big room, one box room and a bathroom. The little door, with its rising stairs, could only take them to one place. Her memories of Katie flooded back, the little flower in the attic. Avvy wondered how she faired. Not much up there though, some storage boxes crammed with crap, no toys, no suitcases, nothing of interest.

The larger of the two rooms at least had a big wardrobe and a run of chest of drawers. What remained of a man's clothes were still there, and he was a big man at that. Jeans were found in a bottom drawer, they were held up against her for sizing, just out of interest. They were no good to her. She could nearly get herself into one leg.

'Avvy, what's this in here?'

Rob had wandered off to the box room at the back of the house.

'These look more your size ... Try these on ...'

She followed his voice. He was stood in the gloom, his torch shining onto some items he'd put on the bed. Avvy checked them over, they were almost new.

'Looks like his boy's stuff ... Maybe he was a weekend Dad ... Life was like that for me when I was a kid ... My parents divorced when I was eleven ... Spent the next few summers flitting between Mom's, in California, and his place in New York ... I had a full wardrobe in both locations, just like this kid ... There's even some high-tops in here ... What size feet are you again?' he asked, reaching into the bottom of the little wardrobe.

'... Size six, depending on the width ... What size are they?' she replied, as she lifted the garments up to hold against her.

The jeans were great, fitted in the leg length, but were a little loose at the waist, but okay with the belt she pulled from the back of the door. The red hoodie caught her eye, as did the two tie-dye t-shirts, so she grabbed those straight away. She smelt them. There were fine and cleaner than what she wore. Looking at them made her feel even more grubby than usual.

'Yeah, they'll fit ya ... Take those too.'

He passed another pair of boots out, walking boots, and a better fit than the rank army issue she'd endured for long enough. He stood up, his hands coming to rest on his hips as he looked at the stuff she was holding in a pile before her.

'Okay, anything else?'

'Maybe some boxers and socks would be cool ...'

Rob found those in the top drawer, plus a vest to go under the sweatshirt, and another shirt too, to go over. For future use, Rob also took the kids holdall and stuffed some extra kit into it, just in case either of them required it at some point.

'Okay ... Anything else?'

Her itchy, dirty face smiled feebly at him in the half torchlight, half gloom. 'Yeah, I could really do with a decent wash ... I don't want to put nice clean clothes on a body that vaguely smells like a sweaty swamp ... Getting this grime off and cleaning my teeth would make my month ... And sooner the better.'

Two Shades Lighter

The bath taps were tried. The hot water tank hadn't been emptied. Putting the plug in, she ran it dry. Regardless of its lack of warmth, it was still wet, and she would deal with the cold when it happened. Rob had suggested putting the gas rings under it. Great idea, but it wasn't a metal tub. There was no way around it. Her bath would be a cold one.

Well, that's what Avvy thought, until she stripped naked and climbed into it. She thought it would be freezing, the shock snatching her breath, the temperature enough to make her wear clean clothes on her stinking frame. You can imagine her amazement when she was pleasantly surprised. Maybe, sitting up there, under the roof, it had somehow taken the edge off it. It was fine for her, quite nice and relaxing, as cold baths went.

She scrubbed and cleaned, then scrubbed and rinsed, and did the same to her teeth as she'd done to her whole body. In the medicine cupboard were nails clippers and razors. Arm pits, then legs, the smoothness not felt for so long. The water was the same colour as the world around her, mostly grey. There was a line of grit left, sat on the bottom. It trailed a little as the water drained away.

Closing the mirrored door, she looked at the person who was once a carefree daughter, the one with a baby sister who drove her crazy. There wasn't much of that girl left inside or out. She'd been ditched in the road a million miles ago. She'd aged. She saw them, the lines, beside each eye, the shadow that lingered there. Her hair was long, too long. She didn't like it, and hadn't really noticed the length it had gotten to. No, there was no sign of that other girl, the old Avvy Lurton, not anymore.

The scissors rose as she scooped half her hair into her left hand. As a bunch, over her shoulder, she gauged it to her collarbone and, with the use of the mirror, chopped through the long locks, chunk at a time. As it came free, it was dropped into the bin, the straggly clumps gone for good. The other side followed, after which she pulled two of the side strands down to see how level it was. It was near enough for her. Lastly, she cut her fringe straight across, at the length she always had it, just below her eyebrows. Smiling at her tidy reflection before leaving, the scissors were returned to their rightful shelf, right next to the toothpaste.

Rob was on the back step as she reappeared, all clean and presentable, her hair nicely hacked off and her skin finally glowing. Avvy felt the cleanest she'd ever been, the water stripping away everything that had come before. It was good to take her time, wallow, wash her hair, and be a girl. He looked up as she took the step he sat on.

'Wow, look at you ... Clipped, clean, and looking mean ... Yeah, they fit just fine, don't they? And they suit you too, in a boyish girly kinda way,' he grinned up at her, his hand lifting to shield his eyes from the glare. 'Like the hair ... Nice change ... Very you.'

'Thank you ... All compliments gratefully received ... And the hair, well, if nothing else, it feels loads better ... I hate it when it gets long. I can't do anything with it and it has a life of its own, always getting in the way.'

Rob chuckled, he totally understood, his had gone mad, turning into ringlets where it hit his shoulders.

'Would you get the scissors and do mine too, please ... I'll wet my hair down and we'll sit out here ... It's a nice day, and quiet ... Will it take long?'

Avvy turned to face him from the door with, 'I can do it now if you want, and it won't take long. Back in a few minutes ...'

And, with that, she was gone, off into the little cottage, the one that was starting to feel a little bit like home.

Mad Myles

'You can't give up ... Okay, Dover was another dead end, and a really hard kick in the nuts, but we've been there before ... Every day, when we get up, we face another kick in the nuts at some point, it's a given, we both know that ... But giving up! ... Come on, have a little faith ... If you give up what's it all been for, huh! ... Did you think going hard-core killer would be a real kick in the nuts for your parents? ... Well, newsflash, honey,' he almost laughed, 'they're dead ...'

'Hey, don't bring my dead family into this, they are not what this is about, neither are my beliefs ... This is about us, this is about staying safe and not dying anytime soon. You helped me remember stuff that slipped my mind, like the biting episode, it all reappeared after drinking copious amounts of liquor that first night we met ... I blame you ... It was you who helped me remember everything ... It's all your fault, all of it ...'

Avril turned in the warm sunlight, then paused a moment, her voice lowering in volume as her eyes dropped to her interlinked fingers.

'That's when I remembered you ... I know all about your band, Mad Myles ... My sister was crazy for you lot, had all your albums, the posters on her wall, the t-shirt too ... Anyway, I don't care about any of that anymore, I'm tired,' she concluded, her patience wearing thinner by the second. 'I want somewhere to stop, no more running, no more big fat let-downs ... I'm sick of them, I want it to stop, Rob, I just want it all to stop.'

'Okay,' he slowly smiled, 'so we stop running ... We stay here, make it safe, build a life ... We've seen no local loonies, no rampant crazies ... We shore it up, properly, get settled and maybe start again ...'

'Start again, what, here? And how, Rob, when I haven't had a period in over five months? Come on, we're not safe anywhere, and I can't be near other people, they'll kill us as soon as they realise I'm not normal ... Who really wants to be around me anyway? I'm a bloody liability,' she whined at him across the near empty room, the night falling fast.

Avvy heard him mumble something, but she didn't hear it properly.

'What did you say?' she asked.

His shaven face turned towards her.

'I said, yeah, start again, here ... I want to be around you, and we will survive, we will ... This is a safe place, as good as an island, warmer than the mountains ... We can make it work here, we can, you just have to believe me, Avvy ...'

'Well, Mister, know it all, Rock and Roll man, there's no starting again for me, is there, I'm sick, remember! ... So, starting again isn't an option for me, really, is it? Which I thought was bloody obvious ... Don't stand there and look at me like that, either, Rob, because you still can't have me.'

'Ya don't get it, do ya? ... It's not about what was and what is, it's about what could be ... And it's about you, Avvy, about you and who you are and who you could be ... It's that package I want ... Jesus, I'd follow you anywhere, and I'd take you in a damn second if I could ... Just because I can't have you, it doesn't mean I don't want you ... Sweetheart, you're getting me all wrong ... See, it's like this ... I'm not going anywhere, so, shut up with ya moaning, you're stuck with me,' he smiled, and it was a new smile, as if he'd just remembered something sweet from his old life.

Calm Waters

'You can open your eyes now ... Look,' he chuckled, 'isn't it amazing, the biggest tub ever ... Last one in's a sweaty jockstrap ...'

Rob was across the small sandy space and naked in two moves and seconds flat.

The spot was beautiful. A large lake stretched into the distance, the water calm, inviting, and very clean. Oaks and chestnuts lined the banks in places, a small copse settled shade where cattle would once have waited out a scorcher of a day. They also had shadows for a change, as the watery sunlight filtered through the branches onto the looking glass lake.

He was in with a, 'WAHOOOOO,' and swimming for the small boat that bobbed a few yards out. Climbing into it, he called back to the shallows were Avvy stood, knee deep.

'Hey, it's fine, no leaks, nothing, rainwater mostly, I think ... And there's a pair of oars ... I'll row it back, we could see if any anything survived in here ... If we get lucky we might find a huge one, then it's mutant fish burgers tonight, baby ...'

If there was a dream to be dreamt, Rob was your man. He did as he said, rowed it ashore then jumped out.

'All we need now is a line and hook, then we're there ... If the rabbit thing doesn't work, this could be an alternative ... Do you like eating fish?' he asked, coming to stand with Avvy wading around in warmish water.

She glanced over at him saying, 'I love fish, always have ... Seafood in general, actually.' The thought of fresh fish did sound amazing. 'But, yeah, we need a net or some fishing tackle first ...'

It was heard before it was seen, then it became them, and then they became more. Through the trees they stumbled, along the bank, down and towards them in the water, with Rob stood naked.

Avvy watched in horror as two moved towards him. Grabbing his gun from the beach, he shot one in the head, the exit wound taking the back of her skull out, the debris scattered in all directions. He was turning away as the other dropped to its knees beside him. His left hand clamped to her throat as his gun lifted to her mouth. The teeth snapped at him, her empty face open and hanging, a tattered cheek here, a dripping jowl there. One pull of the trigger, crack, and she was done.

As he dealt with his priorities, Avvy spun and jabbed, slid and stabbed. Across to the other two which appeared from the left side of the lake. After those came another three, then another, and then another four. They closed in from all sides to form a net, catching their dinner as the swimmers had planned to catch theirs. Edging towards him, Avvy grabbed at Rob with her searching hand behind her back. Forcing him further away from her, she pushed him out into the deeper water. It was the only way she could keep him safe.

'Avvy, don't do it, please, don't fight ... Not here, they'll drown us both ... They've come to drink, look.'

As they waded further out they watched the butchered come to the shallows, cup their mutilated hands, and then scoop water into almost missing mouths. Some liquid went in, most didn't.

'Out, now,' she whispered over her shoulder, 'they're contaminating the water ... Let's move, before they smell you on the breeze ... Swim that way, over towards that low bank ...'

Moving quietly towards the small cove, and away from the beach area, they slunk into the waters behind. Neither of them made a sound, drifting into the deep, from their top lip to the top of their head only, just enough to breathe.

Boy, they ran, all the way back to the car, and then they raced back to their little piece of quiet heaven, never to return to those calm waters again. Avvy thanked Rob anyway, for such a nice thought and for treating her to a lovely surprise, blindfolded too, it was worth it. He didn't have to, but he did. Shame about the fishing though, they were looking forward to that simplistically small pleasure, the taste of fish lost before it was reaped.

Sunnyside Down

The rabbit traps worked and for the first time in years they spit roasted fresh meat and ate like kings. Two each, they consumed, in one sitting, straight off the bone, and they used their fingers to eat, those juices running down their wrists, the smell divine. Sadly there's just one issue with that. In a world where there is no colour, no taste, no warmth, and never a bloody break, it travels on the breeze, idling along, to be carried in all directions, probably for miles. Well, it did travel for miles, the smell. That's all it took to be found, and it led the others straight to them, straight to their door.

In the place where they thought they'd be safe, they almost lost their lives. Half dozing, whilst full of all that lovely nosh, she heard vehicles. The first stopped on the track, another pulled up behind the house. Moving to dim the lights, she kicked Rob's foot to wake him.

'Heads up, we've got company in both directions,' was all she said in a low voice.

Rob moved with a reason, mainly to stay alive, as their guests didn't look like the sort that wanted to be friendly and camp in the yard. They all carried a sharpened weapon, a blade or axe, and were the type of men that don't usually possess manners. Rob knew their sort, saw the biggest problem before it arose, and moved with the wind up his butt.

'We're not stopping to entertain them, honey, grab your stuff and let's get the hell outta here.'

They were heading for the kitchen when the backdoor crashed sideways against the sink unit, then fell, front down, onto the floor. They had a battering-ram which took it off its hinges, ripping the screwed planking from the plaster wall. Noise and dust filled the space before them.

They turned in the cover of the cloud, running for the laundry room with their gear. As the door closed, voices entered the house.

'Derek, I'm telling ya, mate, if there was anyone here, we would have seen movement by now, we've been watching it for hours ... Baz, you and Dan check upstairs, if anything moves, kill it ... Where the hell did Mattie go? Has he got the squits again?' the gruff Cockney accent laughed.

Avvy and Rob stood behind another door, in a different place, doing the same thing as before. Guess that was the latest routine, hiding from monsters. It was bad enough being on the lookout for those that hunted them at night. Avvy feared the day monsters the most. They were the worst kind, a walking, talking human on the outside, but a cannibalistic murdering psychopath on the inside. If you were really lucky, they'd kill you before they ate you. Sometimes they just carved you up while you watched, taking a leg maybe, or an arm, bit by bit, till there was nothing left, just your dead head for the dead pit.

Then they caught another male voice, this time speaking from the front room.

'... Hey, Taffy, what did ya put in that crappy stew last night, prunes? That's the third time you've cooked and I've had the shits ... Don't you ever wash your filthy hands, ya dirty bast'd?'

'Up yours, Mattie ... You do the cooking if you can't stand mine ... No one else is suffering, just you ... Maybe it has something to do with all the out of date beer you drank the other night ... I told you not to ...'

'Okay, shut up now, you're making me want to kill you,' was laughed over the words of the other.

With their ears against the high gloss finish, they listened as the feet shuffled away and the voices faded a little. Looking around the room they were stood in, it was obvious their only exit was the tiny laundry room window. Rob wouldn't fit through that, and Avvy would be more than surprised if she did, looking up at it.

It was there again, that feeling. It made her nose twitch inside. Grey eyes moved back to the door to see the handle slowly turning. Moving sideways, she clamped a hand over Rob's mouth and pushed him into the storage cupboard. Pulling the louvre door closed, just in time, they watched through the slats as the intruder stepped into the room, a massive machete in his hand. He glanced around slowly, seeing nothing of interest, and then retreated back to the others, the door closing behind him.

Avvy whispered it before Rob was able to, her hand slowly dropping from his mouth. 'They're from a killing house ... I can smell him from here ... That stench never changes.' The look she gave him said everything, her next question more of a bright idea than anything. 'Do you still have those timed grenade things in your ammo bag?'

It was swung round from his back, opened, and raked through. 'What? ... These?' he grinned, pulling it open and nodding towards the contents.

'How many you got?'

'Enough!'

'Good, I was hoping you'd say that ... Follow me, I've an idea ...'

Listening for a second before moving, she pushed the door open and stepped back into the room, Rob close behind her.

'Look,' Avvy whispered, as her index finger pointed upwards to the ceiling.

His head slowly tilted back till his chin pointed towards her. Jeez, he had a nice neck. That she could kiss without causing any issues, right then, like that.

'What ya talking about, that little hatchway? Okay, which crazy pill did ya take this time, girl? As I see it, you'd fit but I won't ... My shoulders are twice as wide as that,' he moaned in a lowered voice, hardly heard by a normal person but a perfect pitch for her.

'No, you dufus, not fit through ... Blow through ... Okay, I need some steps,' she mumbled, and off she went, returning with the ones from the cupboard, which she then climbed up.

Lifting the small square of glossed MDF, whilst holding the little torch in her front teeth, she popped her head up into the loft area above the laundry room. A large wedge of space spread over and joined the house were the stairs ran the other side of the wall. The extension had stood for about ten years, the drying room an added bonus. Managing to get her arms through, there was just the right amount of space to plant three timed devices where the joists met the brick line. Avvy climbed back down.

'Okay, I need three of those suckers, all set five seconds apart, sixty, fifty-five, and fifty seconds on the clock ... As you set them, pass them to me ... I'll put them in place in the right order ... Then I need another one, set for forty seconds, to go on that window ledge ...'

'Then what ...?' Rob asked, his face a collision of concern for what she was suggesting she do up there. 'Are you hoping to bring the roof down on us? ... That's what'll happen, you crazy bitch ... And then you'll kill us both in the damn rubble ...'

Her hand was back on his mouth, her index finger to her lips. Nodding to the door, her face greyed slightly at the prospect of any unwanted agro. They froze to the floor, only their eyes moving as the odd breath was taken.

'... Yeah, okay, we'll stop here tonight ... If they come back in the morning we won't be leaving empty handed ... Double the bonus if Taffy reckons one's a girl,' was laughed from the backdoor, its owner exiting the kitchen as his last words were said.

Rob's eyes grew huge. He could cope with everything else, losing a limb, shooting a kid, fighting the dead, but the thought of sexually driven cannibals was his worse fear and slowly becoming a reality. He knew, and she knew, if they got hold of Avvy any remaining sanity would be annihilated in a matter of seconds. She wouldn't have stood a chance if they had found her and killed Rob first. Her battered body was to be consumed anyway, after they'd raped her to death.

'They want this place, they can have it,' she whispered, 'but they don't get me.'

Suddenly her stupid idea didn't sound so stupid. They had to do something. It was her way or what? Rob said fight their way out, guns blazing, take them all down. Too risky, too noisy, too much wasted ammo they couldn't replace, as she reminded him. Shaking her head, she took the steps again, her upper torso popping up into the space above.

They were set and passed, as she'd asked, her spacing as precise as she could get. Moving quickly, she wedged the steps against the door handle, restricting any further access to the room. Lastly was the one by the window, which was set to be the first to blow.

'Pull in ya guts and hold onto yours nuts, this is gonna bring the damn house down, baby,' Rob grunted, pushing her into the far corner, away from the window and away from the hatchway. All he saw was them being crushed to death, not eaten alive. He wondered which would be worse.

The next twenty seconds were pretty earth shattering to say the least. Rob was right. Avvy's initial plan didn't work at all, and it nearly killed them both in the process. They were buried under the laundry room wall, the glass obliterated upon detonation. When the ones against the house went, the ground beneath them swelled and bulged, as did the walls around them.

As one section imploded in on those in the front room, the next was to render the staircase on the other side of the house, in pieces, and lots of them. The final payload hit the upper landing with such force it blew out the window and ripped the bathroom door off. Those upstairs were then peppered in shards of glass and ravished by the fire, as the heat ripped down the hallway, catching the carpet, the woodwork and anything dusty and dry.

Both of them suffered harsh injuries, but no breaks, just gashes and grazes mostly, nothing they couldn't superglue shut. Moving out through the gaping hole that didn't resemble a window anymore, they staggered away, bleeding and bruised. The biggest blow was their motor's engine, trashed with the cables gone, bonnet still up, showing them the tidy job done. Change of plan, time to take the pickup left on the back drive. It belonged to the one with the big mouth and diarrhoea, he was really stupid. He'd left the keys in it for them, how kind of him.

They watched as the two storey building collapsed down to become a bungalow, one end of the roof ablaze, the flames jumping from the attic window and running a line down the black plastic guttering. Again they were fighting and running. That was their new routine, fighting and running from the monsters they used to say didn't exist.

Oh, they were real, very real, and as the first of many came stumbling out from the treeline, some crazy bastard stepped through a burning window, a machete hanging at his side. A carcass walked close to him, its skull was chopped off at its jawbone, the motion no effort at all. As Rob tried to start the truck, the blood covered brute gained ground, the distance growing less by the second.

'Oh, shit, it's him from the killing house ... Start the truck ... START THE FUCKING TRUCK,' Avvy screamed, as her hand locked the door, though the act seemed pointless, seeing as his fist was full of razor sharp tempered steel.

Another wandered into his path. This time the blade came straight down into the middle of her head, splitting it in half, her brain moosh falling to the ground as if servings of cold porridge. Eventually she followed, onto her knees and then forward, onto her chest. As he stepped over her, he resumed his stroll towards Rob and Avvy.

She climbed into the back to sit behind Rob. Her hand was already in that bag, grabbing at a loaded gun as old slime ball grew nearer.

'Rob, screw the motor ... We'll have to run for it ... Trust me, it'll work ... Anyway, he did what you do, that's why he didn't take the keys ... He didn't need to, it won't start ...'

Looking over his shoulder, at the crazy bloke carving up carcasses, his shirt sleeve still smouldering a bit, she gritted her teeth and took a deep breath.

'... Come on, we're outta here ... Grab your crap, let's go ...'

All around, and off into the fading light, forms could be seen, moving together, in pairs, in groups, big and small, old and young. They came with that evil smell and that dreadful drone, a lowly note, as if disappointed with their day so far. It hung across the backyard as they closed in on the burning building. Avvy felt it rumble in her chest as it vibrated her ribs a little, making her look at them, her eyes studying them all.

Rob checked his pistol and just had to ask 'What about the freaks? Are we shooting or just running?'

'On my mark we run ... Just follow me and don't look back ... We'll be okay, honest.'

As she moved to open the door, Rob threw her that look he gets when he has another question on the horizon.

'What the hell makes you think that?' He shook his head after speaking.

'We always are, no matter how many ... He's on the move again, that's the sixth he's taken down ... I don't like him ...'

Her door opened and she moved to climb out. Rob followed, standing between her and butcher boy. In a low voice Avvy spoke to Rob's back, watching their stalker around his arm.

'Wait a moment ... Let him get level with the end of the path by the gate ... When he steps beyond that, run like hell away from the car and along the track leading back to the road ... Be brave, Rob, you're about to charge through a squad of them, but keep moving, as long as you don't let go of my hand you'll be okay ... Got it?'

The pistol stayed clamped in her right hand, her left sliding round the car door to take Rob's wrist.

'Put that away, you won't need it now ... Concentrate on your feet and breathing ... It'll be fine, trust me.'

She smiled the best smile she could, when he looked over his shoulder at her. Squeezing his hand, she nodded in the maniac's direction. He had almost reached his mark.

In the moment he touched the boundary, they scarpered away along the lane. As he edged the car, around the crooked picket fence, they bled from the trees, a cascade of lost souls, all looking for that one diamond in the rough, an uninfected supper. He turned to find more behind, their numbers growing as he circled on the spot.

As Avvy dragged Rob in the direction of the main road they heard the cries, they knew what those screams meant too. They closed their ears to the drowning sound, the one that precedes a horrible death. Pounding feet on a dust track in the dark, that's all she remembers, the sound it made, and the shock waves that ran up her legs. Barging her way through upright crustiness, whilst holding tight to a hand that held the answer to it all, she willed her way to the end.

He didn't shout or scream and there was no panic, no protest. He followed behind as he was asked, his eyes straight ahead, his pace just right for her. There was five hundred yards to go, just five hundred yards. It seemed such a short distance looking at it, with the light fading beneath the canopy of touching boughs above. He was so good, no bother at all really, his fingers tight round her's, her grip turning his digits white.

The drone note changed. She heard it in the gloom. It ran down the line, from far away to right up close. Eerie and cold, it hung in all of their throats, all of those that had throats anyway. They were so close to the end, to the escape of a lifetime. Avvy's plan nearly worked but, as they neared the bend to freedom, a mass appeared and converged into a crowd, the likes of which they could never tackle. All the ammo they had wasn't enough, they needed a tank for that one.

In the second she saw them changing direction, heading for Rob, she knew they were screwed. She moved them away, him behind her, her eyes adjusting to the altered light. There was only one chance, and she had to take it, right or wrong. No more thinking as she spun round and grabbed Rob by his arms, to pushed him backwards into the hedgerow behind. Disappearing into the brambles and hawthorn was their only option, so that's what she did. Avvy literally pushed him through a hedge backwards, and it saved his life.

Them or Dead

There was a moment where time almost stood still. She was moving so fast the world of whacky faces blurred and jumped at every angle. It came to a point where nothing made sense. The world spun and gnashed, it swiped and swung. They were a foaming frenzy, alive and dead all at the same time. They clambered and clawed through, the smell so pungent it stung the eyes.

After she'd dropped six or so in a manic pattern, turning this way and that, her arms started to burn from the weight of her own weapon. Avvy was running low on bullets, but then they moved too close for her to reload and use it anyway. All she had was hacking and hoping. She picked a direction and hacked towards it. That's all there was. Then she hoped she reached it, with that one good man to her back, the one who never went down, not ever.

They made it across the open street, into a building, out of the shadows. Through it they pelted, out the back door, along the alley, over the fence, cutting around abandoned cars, and away from the mess in the town they'd called Arundel.

For all that effort little had been found. They'd put their selves at risk for little more than party snacks and a few bottles of dusty plonk. No clean water had been located, bottled or other, and they'd exhausted themselves in the process. There was nothing of them, in their looted clothes and body armour. They thought maybe the castle would be a good place to set up. No, that was a bad idea too, those that had taken solace there were the affected that had attacked them. The place was just another dead end, to the full meaning of those two words.

Avvy stopped running when Rob overtook her to slow her down. She'd hammered away from him at one point, as if part greyhound, her stride enough to match one. His hand caught her arm, trying to rein her in, his voice as calming as his actions.

'Whoa, there ... Slow down, slow down ... That's it ... Half your stride and take less steps, that's it, that's it ...'

They'd left town legging it down the river path, heading for the coast. Blinkered she was, afraid for the first time in a long time, afraid of letting go and joining them. It was there, just below her skin. She had to get away, she had to run and run and not look back, and then she had to hold it down, not letting it take over. The fight was getting harder, everything was getting harder. They were lost on an island that wanted to eat them, dead or alive. Suddenly things were becoming jumbled, thoughts weren't making sense. She wasn't finding a reason anymore.

Those seconds had been counted, before she saw that little girl cough up her spray of blood as she dropped in the road. Then she counted the seconds before she saw the body go rigid, then floppy. There was something about her that reminded her of Katie, maybe it was her curly blonde hair, or maybe it was the toy rabbit but, whatever, her heart still sank a little. She'd lifted from the ground as the red foam oozed and seeped from her face again, her features a hundred years older than the ones that had once been so young.

One bullet through her forehead paid respect to her loving memory, a prayer for her said under their breath. She was still someone's daughter, sister, niece, little monster, bestest friend. Looking at her dress and shoes, Avvy would have said she was about eight years old at most. A satchel had hung across her front, a name tag dangling from it. There was a picture of Winnie the Pooh on the side, the Disney version, not the original.

All those people, all those good, decent, respectful families, all of them, gone, dead or left to die and rot. Avvy wanted to burn it down the way Dover had burnt. Maybe someone, like her, had seen Dover as they had just seen Arundel. Maybe they torched it because of the affected overload. There was no way they could shoot every one of them. They found they didn't have enough rounds of ammo and what they did have they had to save. Close combat isn't good with a swarm. They surround and cascade onto you and you just can't kill them that quickly. As one goes down another is there to replace it, and on it goes until you run for your life, and run fast, which she did.

'Christ, it's all fucked ... All of it ... FUCKED,' was her way of releasing some of the confused emotions that wrestled around her very nervous system. 'Let's end it here, now ... One bullet, before they get here, it's one, just one each, that's all ... I'll do you first and then I'll do me ...'

Rob shook her by holding her upper arms gently in his hands.

'Avvy, Avvy, stop, snap out of it, you ain't shooting me here ... We gotta go, now ... Come on,' he ordered, his face serious, his voice almost at shouting level but not quite there.

She pulled away from him, her features almost frozen in place. He walked off, heading for the coast, leaving her stood on the bank, her back to the town behind them.

'You go ... I'll stay here and hold them off for as long as I can ... Go ... Find shelter, be safe ... If you stay here with me, you'll die here with me,' she almost sobbed, her chest still heaving from all the running and having to talk at the same time.

There were about twenty paces between then when he turned to face her. He looked mortified, as though she'd struck the harshest of blows, enough to make his blue eyes water a little. They moved from her to the town beyond, his hands playing with his rifle strap.

'Avvy, give me a break, please, don't do this ... We've come so far ... We can't stop now,' he smiled, his face not changing.

'There's nowhere left to go, Rob ... They're all dead, all of them, everywhere we go, they're all dead ... Or like them back there ... That's all there is now ... There's them or dead ... That's the choice ... Me! I choose dead over them ... Same as Nicky, same as my Dad, so, please, you give me a break ... Enough is enough ...'

Looking passed her he smiled, 'I nearly did this a hundred times but thought I had something to lose ... Me! I choose this ...'

His rifle dropped to the ground as he walked those paces back to her. His hands lifted, as he grabbed her by the upper arms, just as before.

'Trust me, I'm not a Doctor' he grinned, as he leant in and kissed her, full on the lips, stood on the path.

Avvy pushed him away, the back of her hand wiping across her mouth. 'You crazy bastard, what the hell are you thinking? ... Do you realise what you just did? ... Quick, rinse your face and don't swallow,' she panicked, as he watched from his spot at the top.

Down to the riverside, her shirt from her back, into the murk and wrung out a little, then back to him she dashed.

'Here, wash it off or you'll die, then you'll be like them ... Then I'll have to shoot you in the...'

'Avvy, stop ...'

In one way it was rather romantic. The look on his face softened, his eyes of sky blue, slightly wrinkled at the outer edges, and then she noticed the way his cheeks dimpled when he smiled. In another way it wasn't. She saw the first few shapes stumble into view. They could hear them but just couldn't see them. Faces tilted upwards in hope of sniffing them out instead.

She couldn't help it, her words fell out. 'No, you don't understand ... You have to wash it off, Rob ... You have to wash it off now ...'

The look on his face didn't change, only his eyes reacted, they swept away from her, down to his boots. Turning, his fingers dabbed at his lips.

'What are you doing? ... Rob ...?'

'No, it's you that doesn't understand, so stop, Avvy, please ... Just don't ...'

He walked off, not far, than faced her again. Musician's fingers slid into front pockets as he rested onto one hip. Laughing, he licked his lips.

'... Sorry, but this is one you can't make better ...'

Confusion hesitated at the threshold, it paused, and then it replayed his statement, the one that didn't make sense.

Avvy said her thoughts aloud. 'I can't make it better? Make what better? Oh, Christ, have you been bitten or scratched? Rob, have you? Tell me ... Have you?' she barked at him.

Strong arms lifted to fold before him, as his head shook side to side.

'No, I haven't, not either of them ...'

He looked away for a second, then back to her, his face almost sad on reflection.

'Rob, what don't I understand? What are you trying to say? ... Spit it out, you're making me nervous.'

Her wet shirt landed in a soggy pile on the grass by her feet, her agitation growing by the second.

She spoke through her teeth. '... I'm getting cold and it's getting late ... I'm tired and hungry ... Life's shit and you're not making it any easier right now ...'

Finally he said something.

'Okay ... You didn't suffer any the effects from the bite because you were infected right at the start, when your sister fell ill, but you just didn't know it ... For some reason, and at some strange molecular level, you become immune upon contact with the virus ... In other words, your own weirdly twisted genes are what make you a carrier, but not a sufferer ... Doc Peel told me ...'

Looking over at her, he tried to smile, though his eyes didn't quite reflect it.

'Haven't you wondered why I've not had a problem with being around you, Avvy? ... Isn't it strange that, even though you have it, I've still not had any symptoms, not one? ... Could that have anything to do with why I travelled alone until I met you?'

Her eyebrows knitted together as she looked over at him standing his few paces away. His ashen face glanced towards the town they had just escaped, as his body slowly swayed and his fingers slowly tapped.

'Now you're not making any sense at all ... Say it ... Before I push you in the bloody river,' she ranted, her patience as depleted as her energy, her eyes as tired as ever, still watching those wanderers, and still aware of their open position.

Again he looked to the ground by his feet, again with the soft voice. '... I'm the one the Major was looking for ... When he found us he automatically thought you were the primary target because you weren't affected after the bite ...'

The look on her face slowly slid into disbelief. Why was he saying such crap? He was clearly delusional after their last insane encounter. The crowd at the castle, they surged at them, a whole horde of dying. They should never have opened those gates, not ever.

Rob's sad expression was still there as he continued with, 'Four years ago my life changed when it came to a sudden halt. The first of the infected were those who revived me. Doctor Peel remembered my name from several odd reports, prior to the sweep-clean. Why? Because he was a fan, so my name stayed welded in the back of his head ...'

He shifted, in an uncomfortable way, suggesting what was to come next wasn't going to be easy listening either.

'... When he saw me, and then my blood results, he knew ... Thankfully, he was on our side, seeing as he was the same as you, a carrier, not a sufferer ... He couldn't risk the Major finding out, the bastard would've had all three of us shot ... That's why he helped us escape, to keep his secret quiet, it was him who suggested trying Dover ... I capped the Major when I went in search of the truck keys ... I didn't found them, but I sure found him ...'

Something inside her snapped, her words bursting from her.

'WHAT? ... You knew it was you and you never told me, even when I spilled my guts about my bite, even when we were at that bloody base ... Have you infected everyone we've met then, have I? Is that why you let me stay, because I was never a threat to you and vice versa? ... You might have killed me quicker ... No wonder you kept your bloody distance ...'

'Would you have stayed if you'd known sooner?' he asked, with a sorrow nearly as deep as Avvy's.

She flew at him across that gap, her fists hammering any part of him she could reach. She hit him for killing her sister, her Dad, her Mum, Katie, Sam and their families too, probably, and then she hit him for not telling her at the start. Shouting it at him, as she swung some more, Avvy didn't care if she pulled a whole crowd of dead onlookers, so what, who really cared anyway?

Grabbing her wrists, he finally brought her under control, her arms crossed over her front with him stood behind. They looked over the river before them, the field beyond and the stretch of land all the way to the coast. Calm was restored in the end, but it took some time and lots of slow breathing.

'... I'm so sorry, Avvy ... Please, I'm so ...'

'... I hate you ... You don't know what you've done,' she said in a low voice, her energy even less than before. 'You've killed us all, every one of us ... All this time I've been fighting, fighting the rising tide in inside, and fighting them but, really, I'm as dead as they are, internally I am ... There's nothing between me and them now ... You and I, we are them ... Creeping carcasses ...'

Pulling out of his arms, she walked away a little, stopping further up the bank. She swiped a long grass into her hand, looked at it for a second, and then used it as a spear to throw into the passing water. Avvy watched it bob into the distance, but then it was gone, off to see what lay around another bend.

'We are not them,' he quietly replied, 'we feel pain, we feel sorrow ... And I feel love, Avvy, love for you ... I'm so sorry, I'm sorry for everything ... I wish I'd stayed dead and they hadn't brought me back ... If they had just let me go none of this would have happened ... Don't you think I'd change that if I could? ... In a second, Avvy, in a second I would ... But I can't ...'

'Shut up, please,' she snapped, 'you're only making me hate you more ... There's no fight left anyway ... Now I know we are them we don't need to fight, there's no point, is there? You've seen to that ...'

He looked devastated, as they both did, because they both were.

'It wasn't my plan, this wasn't my doing, not really ... I tried to tell people after the first few appeared, but they wouldn't listen ... Eventually I passed it to everyone around me, except my brother ... I hoped he was the same as you, maybe the same as me, I don't know ... He was in that town, back there, I saw him, Avvy, I saw him for the last time ... At first I wasn't sure ... Then I was.'

'That's why you froze ... Oh, God, the bloke I shot ... The one near the castle gates ...'

'Yeah, the one near the gates ... He was wearing my red jacket, the one from our last tour ... He wasn't going to kill me, he was no threat at all ... But you didn't know that and I'm sorry for that too ... You're right, I should have told you sooner, then you might have let him live ... He was only infected, Avvy, he wasn't one of them ...'

There was something about the way defeat washed an ice cold rinse through the very core of her. Everyone fears the thought of dying alone, maybe in a hospital bed with no one to hold as the last breath is taken. Her ending seemed bleaker by the second, her future not worth the clothes it was being faced in. All had been lost, so the rinse swirled around and around, taking the last of her hopes with it.

'What killed you? Were you a rock star overdose?' she enquired as her pale face turned towards him.

Avvy wanted to know. She was as curious about him as the dead were. Maybe she wasn't so far off them after all. She'd felt the flutter as it floated in. The transition had happened so slowly she'd hardly even noticed it. Walking the space to join her on the bank, his face showed some signs of colour again.

'No,' he almost chuckled, 'not a rock star overdose, as you call it ... I had a massive, near fatal, vapour lock, on stage, and dropped like a stone in front of fifteen thousand people, at the O2 Arena, live ... But not televised, thank the Holy Ghost ...'

Avvy was amazed. 'You had a heart attacked, on stage? How the hell ...?' She almost joined him in his feeble laugh. 'So, okay, was that caused by your rock and roll lifestyle then?'

He grinned at her, just a quick one, a flash of the teeth then gone.

'I was twenty-four years old, I'd never married, I was worth about fifty-five million, and I worked every day of my adult life ... What can I say? I lived it fast, like I played, because we only get one, sister, so balls or bust ... Get it while you can, that was my motto ...'

There was a pause. She looked away, her eyes scanning the horizon. Rob's followed.

'Hey ... Did you see that?'

'What?' Rob asked, watching her face.

'There it is again ... Wait ...' she repeated, softly.

So he did, stood on the bank of the river, just them, nothing else around, not even any affected. Well, there were a few, but they were still wandering along, aimlessly, in the distance, trying to work out where the voices were coming from.

It came again, the little sound, fleeting, fluttering, and very faint, as if carried on the wind from far away.

'That wasn't a helicopter ... I don't know what it was, but it wasn't a helicopter ... I'm hearing things because I've finally gone nuts like everyone else,' Avvy grinned over at him.

Looking up, at the pretty blue sky above, that last important question fell from her lips.

'... Rob ... What if it was a helicopter and there are other survivors out there, somewhere ...?'

He wasn't listening. He was terrified by the thought of there being others, and maybe more military at that.

'We have to go, and we have to go now ... Hey, why bother with them anyway, we'll only kill them all in the end ... So, what's it gonna be, honey, you in or you out?'

In a flash her decision was set and ready to implement. Avvy sort of knew what might be coming, from the faint sound that flitted through the sky above, and the fact it didn't come back their way.

'... Okay ... I'm out ...'

Her hand dropped to the pistol in her belt as she spoke. When her sentence ended, she lifted it to her right temple and pulled the trigger, click!

No one will ever know who was more annoyed, him or her. He went orbital, losing his rag and swearing as he ranted in a small circle. She looked down at the weapon in her hand, disgusted by the lack of explosion.

'BOLLOCKS ... I can't even shoot myself because my last bullet went into the head of a walking carcass ... What's wrong with me?' Avvy almost screamed at Rob, the river, and those miserable wandering rag-bags.

He nearly slapped her. The look on his face, when he spun round, might well have done the trick itself, but then he moved in that purposeful way. He stomped back to her, looking wounded all of a sudden, as if she had been the one to strike him.

'What the hell were you thinking? Is that what you want, you want it to end like that, snap and you're out?' As he spoke he clicked his fingers to illustrate his meaning of speed. He pulled his gun and held it level with her forehead. '... Just say the word, Avvy, and your wish is my command, if this is what you really want ... Like ya say, always think the worst, anything above that's a bonus ... Hell, I have enough bonuses for the both of us, I'm game ... Are you?'

He fell silent as the gun clicked into action, his face setting into a plate of grey contempt.

Avvy could only see one angle to take really. She stepped forward and rested the centre of her eyebrows against the end of the cold barrel. Smiling slowly, she looked up at him.

'Never bullshit a bullshitter ... Game on,' she smirked, with her misty eyes still fixed on his.

Silence, as her right hand lifted to his finger on the trigger. Then she closed her eyes.

The End

About the Writer:

Tam Sturgeon

Tam Sturgeon doesn't actually live anywhere, preferring to be a Nomad for life. Born in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire (England), she has spent a majority of her years moving from one place to another looking for the perfect home. Married and divorced, twice, she roams and then settles wherever she sets down her cowboy hats and bipolar condition. She has sculptured words for over thirty years and has written eight novels (4 x love story, 3 x zomiefest, and 1 x sci-fi) in the last ten. Words are her first love, (after her son, of course), which are then closely followed by music, art and Jack Daniel's. She is currently still based in England ... But that could change anytime soon.
