Originally published in 'THE UNDEAD'

Steninger is less than two hours away from home. He hasn't been this close for over a month. He hasn't been this close since it happened. Twenty-eight days ago - four weeks to the day - millions died as the world fell apart around him.

    I've been here hundreds of times before but it's never looked like this. Georgie and I used to drive up here at weekends to walk the dog over the hills. We'd let him off the lead and then walk and talk and watch him play for hours. That was long before the events which have since kept us apart. It all feels like a lifetime ago. Today the green, rolling landscape I remember is washed out and grey and everything is cold, lifeless and dead. I am alone and the world is decaying around me. It's early in the morning, perhaps an hour before sunrise, and there's a layer of light mist clinging to the ground. I can see them moving all around me. They're everywhere. Shuffling. Staggering. Hundreds of the fucking things.
    One last push and I'll be home. I'm beginning to feel scared now. For days I've struggled to get back here but, now that I'm this close, I don't know if I can go through with it. Seeing what's left of Georgie and our home will hurt. It's been so long and so much has happened since we were together. I don't know if I'll have the strength to walk through the front door. I don't know if I'll be able to stand the pain of remembering everything that's gone and all that I've lost.
    I'm as nervous and scared now as I was when this nightmare began. I remember it as if it was only hours ago, not weeks. I was in a breakfast meeting with my lawyer and one of his staff when it started. Jackson, the solicitor, was explaining some legal jargon to me when he stopped speaking mid-sentence. He suddenly screwed up his face with pain. I asked him what was wrong but he couldn't answer. His breathing became shallow and short and he started to rasp and cough and splutter. He was choking but I couldn't see why and I was concentrating so hard on what was happening to him that I didn't notice it had got the other man too. As Jackson's face paled and he began to scratch and claw at his throat his colleague lurched forward and tried to grab hold of me. Eyes bulging, he retched and showered me with blood and spittle. I recoiled and pushed my chair back away from the table. Too scared to move, I stood with my back pressed against the wall and watched the two men as they choked to death. It was over and the room was silent in less than a couple of minutes.
    When I eventually plucked up the courage to get out and get help I found the receptionist who had greeted me less than an hour earlier face down on her desk in a pool of sticky red-brown blood. The security man on the door was dead too, as was everyone else I could see. It was the same when I finally dared step out into the open - an endless layer of twisted human remains covered the ground in every direction I looked. What had happened was inexplicable and its scale incomprehensible. In the space of just a few minutes something - a germ, virus or biological attack perhaps - had destroyed my world. Nothing moved. The silence was deafening.
    My first instinct had been to stay where I was, to keep my head down and wait for something - anything - to happen. I slowly walked back to the hotel as it was the only nearby place I knew well, picking my way through the bodies which carpeted the streets, staring at each of them in turn and looking deep into their grotesque, twisted faces. Each face was frozen in an expression of sudden, searing agony and gut-wrenching fear.
    When I got back the hotel was as silent and cold as everywhere else. I locked myself in my room and waited there for hours until the solitude and claustrophobic fear finally became too much to stand. I needed explanations but there was no-one else left alive to ask for help. The television was dead, as was the radio and the telephone. Within hours the power had died too. Desperate and terrified I packed my few belongings, took a car from the carpark and made a break for home. But I soon found that the hushed roads were impassable, blocked by the twisted and tangled wreckage of incalculable numbers of crashed vehicles and the mangled, bloody remains of their dead drivers and passengers. With my wife and my home still more than eighty miles away I stopped the car and gave up.
    It was early on the first Thursday, the third day, when the situation deteriorated again to the point where I began to question my sanity. I had been resting in the front bedroom of an empty terraced house when I looked out of the window and saw the first one of them staggering down the road. All the fear and nervousness I had previously felt instantly disappeared and was forgotten as I watched the lone figure walk awkwardly down the street. It was another survivor, I thought, it had to be. At last, someone else who might be able to tell me what had happened and who could answer some of the thousands of impossible questions I desperately needed to ask. I yelled out to the figure and banged on the window but it didn't respond. I sprinted out of the house and ran down the road after it. I grabbed hold of its arm and turned it round to face me. As unbelievable as it seemed, I knew instantly that the thing in front of me was dead. Its eyes were clouded and covered with a milky-white film and its skin was pock-marked and bloodied. And it was cold to the touch… I held its left wrist in my hand and felt for a pulse. Nothing. The creature's skin felt unnaturally clammy and leathery and I let it go in disgust. The moment I released my grip the damn thing shuffled slowly away, this time moving back in the direction from which it had just come. It couldn't see me. It didn't even seem to know I was there.
    Out of the corner of my eye I became aware of more movement. I turned and saw another body, then another and then another. I walked to the end of the road and stared in disbelief at what was happening all around me. The dead were rising. Many were already staggering around on clumsy, unsteady feet whilst still more were slowly dragging themselves up from where they'd fallen and died days earlier.
    A frantic search for food and water and somewhere safe to shelter and hide led me back deeper into town. Avoiding the clumsy, mannequin-like bodies which roamed the streets I barricaded myself in a large pub which stood proudly on the corner of two once busy roads. I cleared eight corpses out of the building (I herded them into the bar before forcing them out of the front door) and then locked myself in an upstairs function room where I started to drink. Although it didn't make me drunk like it used to, the alcohol made me feel warm and took the very slightest edge off my fear.
    I thought constantly about Georgie and home but I was too afraid to move. I knew that I should try to get to her but for days I just sat there and waited like a useless, chicken-shit coward. Every morning I tried to force myself to move but the thought of going back outside into what remained of the world was unbearable. I didn't know what I'd find out there. Instead I sat in isolation and watched the world decay.

    As the days passed the bodies themselves changed. Initially stiff, awkward and staccato, their movements slowly became more definite, purposeful and controlled. After four days I observed that their senses were beginning to return. They were starting to respond to what was happening around them. Late one afternoon in a fit of frightened frustration and temper I hurled an empty beer bottle across the room. I missed the wall and smashed a window. Out of curiosity I looked down into the street below and saw that huge numbers of the corpses had turned in response to the sudden noise and were beginning to walk towards the pub. Attracted by the clattering sound (which seemed louder than it actually was in the otherwise all-consuming silence) they began to shuffle relentlessly closer and closer. During the hours which followed I tried to keep quiet and out of sight but my every movement seemed to make more of them aware of my presence. From every direction they came and all that I could do was watch as a crowd of hundreds upon hundreds of the fucking things surrounded me. They followed each other like animals and soon their lumbering, decomposing shapes filled the streets for as far as I could see.
    A week went by, and the ferocity of the creatures outside increased. They began to fight with each other and they fought to get to me. They clawed and banged at the doors but didn't yet have the strength to get inside. My options were hopelessly limited but I knew that I had to do something. I could stay where I was and hope that I could drink enough so that I didn't care when the bodies eventually broke through, or I could make a break for freedom and take my chances outside. I had nothing to lose. I thought about home and I thought about Georgie and I knew that I had to try and get back to her.
    It wasn't much of a plan but it was all that I had. I packed all of the meagre supplies and provisions I found lying around the pub into a rucksack and got myself ready to leave. I made crates of crude bombs from the liquor bottles I found behind the bar and down in the cellar and storeroom. As the light began to fade at the end of the tenth day I leant out of the broken window at the front of the building, lit the booze-soaked rag fuses which I had stuffed down the necks of the bottles, and then began to hurl them down into the rotting crowds below me. In minutes I'd created more devastation and confusion than I ever would have imagined possible. There had been little rain for days. Tinder dry and packed tightly together, the repugnant bodies caught light almost instantly. Ignorant to the flames which quickly consumed them, the damn things continued to move about for as long as they were physically able, their every staggering step spreading the fire still further and destroying more and more of them. And the dancing orange light of the sudden inferno and the crackling and popping of burning flesh drew even more of the desperate cadavers closer to the scene.
    I crept downstairs and waited by the back door. The building itself was soon alight. Doubled-up with hunger pains (the world outside had suddenly become filled with the smell of roast meat) I crouched down in the darkness and waited until the temperature in the building had become too much to stand. When the flames began to lick at the final door which separated me from the rest of the pub I pushed my way out into the night and ran through the bodies. Their reactions were dull and slow and my speed and strength and the surprise of my sudden appearance meant that they offered virtually no resistance. In the silent, monochrome world the confusion that I'd left behind offered enough of a distraction to camouflage my movements and render me temporarily invisible.

    Since I've been on the move I've learned to live like a shadow. My difficult journey home has so far been painfully long and slow. I move only at night under cover of darkness. If the bodies see or hear me they will come for me and, as I've found to my cost on more than one occasion, once one of them has my scent then countless others will follow. I have avoided them as much as possible but their numbers are vast and some contact has been inevitable. I'm getting better at dealing with them. The initial disgust and trepidation I felt has now given way to hate and anger. Through necessity I have become a cold and effective killer, although I'm not sure whether that's an accurate description of my new found skill. I have to keep reminding myself that these bloody things are already dead.
    Apart from the mass of bodies I managed to obliterate during my escape from the pub, the first corpse I intentionally disposed of had once been a priest. I came across the rancid, emaciated creature when I took shelter at dawn one morning in a small village church. It had appeared empty at first until I pushed my way into a narrow, shadowy storeroom at the far end of the grey-stone building. The only way in or out of the room had been blocked by a rack of mops, brushes and brooms which had fallen across the doorway. I forced my way inside and was immediately aware of shuffling movement ahead of me. A small window high on the wall to my left let a limited amount of light spill into the storeroom, allowing me to see the outline of the body of the priest as it lunged and tripped towards me. The cadaver was weak and uncoordinated and I instinctively grabbed hold of it and threw it back across the room. It smashed into a shelf piled high with prayer and hymn books and then crumbled to the ground, bringing the books crashing down on top of it. Moving its leaden arms and legs incessantly it struggled to pull itself back up onto its unsteady feet. I stared into its vacant, hollowed face as it dragged itself into the light again. The first body I had seen up close for several days, it was a fucking mess. Just a shadow of the man it had once been, the creature's skin appeared taut and translucent and it had an unnatural green-grey hue. Its cheeks and eye sockets were dark and sunken and its mouth and chin were speckled with dribbles of dried blood. Its dog-collar hung loose around its scrawny neck.
    For a moment I was distracted by the thing's sickening appearance and it caught me by surprise when it charged at me again. I was knocked off-balance momentarily before managing to grab hold of it by the throat and straightening my arm to keep it at a safe distance. Its limbs flailed around me as I looked deep into its cloudy, emotionless eyes. I used my free hand to feel around for something to use as a weapon. My outstretched fingers wrapped around a heavy and ornate candleholder which was behind me and to my right. I gripped it tightly and lifted it high above my head before bringing the base of it crashing down on the dead priest's exposed skull. Stunned but undeterred, the body tripped and stumbled back before coming for me again. I lifted the candleholder and smashed it down again and again until there was little left of the head of the corpse other than a dark, unrecognisable mass of blood, brain and shattered bone. I stood over the twitching remains of the cleric until it finally lay still.
    I hid in the bell tower of the church and waited for the night to come.

    It didn't take long to work out the rules.
    Although they have become increasingly violent as time has gone on, these creatures are simple and predictable. I think that they are driven purely by instinct. What remains of their brains seem to operate on a very basic, primitive level and each one is little more than a fading memory of what it used to be. I quickly learnt that this reality is nothing like the trash horror movies I used to watch or the books I used to read. These things don't want to kill me so that they can feast on my flesh. In fact I don't actually think they have any physical needs or desires - they don't eat, drink, sleep or even breathe as far as I can see. So why do they attack me and why do I have to creep through the shadows in fear of them? It's a paradox but the longer I think about it, the more convinced I am that they attack me because of the threat I pose to them. I'm different and stronger and I think they know that I could destroy them. I think they try to attack me before I have chance to attack them.
    Over the last few days and weeks I have watched them steadily disintegrate and decay. Another bizarre irony - as their bodies have continued to weaken and become more fragile, so their mental control seems to have returned. They seem to want to continue to exist at all costs and will respond violently to any perceived threat. Sometimes they fight between themselves and I have hidden in the darkness and watched them tear at each other until almost all of their rotten flesh has been stripped from their bones.
    I know beyond doubt now that the brain remains the centre of control. My second, third and fourth kills confirmed that. I had forced my way into an isolated house in search of food and fresh clothes when I found myself face to face with the rotting remains of what appeared to have once been a fairly typical family. I quickly disposed of the father with a short wooden fence post that I had been carrying with me to use as a makeshift weapon. I smacked the repulsive creature around the side of the head again and again until it had almost been decapitated. The next body - the dead wife of the first corpse I presumed - had proved to be more troublesome. I pushed my way through a ground floor doorway and entered a large, square dining room. The body of the woman hurled itself at me from across the room with sudden, unexpected speed. I held the picket out in front of me and skewered the fucking thing through the chest. Its withered torso and parchment skin offered next to no resistance as the wood plunged deep into its abdomen and straight out the other side. I retched and struggled to keep control of my stomach as the remains of its putrefied internal organs slid out of the hole I had made in its back and slopped down onto the dusty cream-coloured carpet in a greasy crimson-black heap. I pushed the body away expecting it to collapse and crumble like the last one had but it didn't. Instead it staggered after me, still impaled and struggling to move as I had obviously caused a massive amount of damage to its spine with the fence picket. I panicked as it lurched closer. I turned and ran to the kitchen and grabbed the largest knife I could find before returning to the body. It had managed to take a few more steps forward but stopped immediately when I plunged the knife through its right temple into the core of what remained of its brain. It was as if someone had flicked a switch. The body slumped and slid off the knife and dropped to the ground like a bloodied rag-doll. In the silence which followed I could hear the third body thumping around upstairs. To prove my theory I ran up the stairs and disposed of a dead teenager in the same way as its mother with a single stab of the blade to the head.
    It is wrong and unsettling but I have to admit that I've grown to enjoy the kill. The reality is that this is the only pleasure which remains to me. It is the only time I have complete control. I haven't ever gone looking for sport, but I haven't avoided it either. I've kept a tally of kills along the way and I have begun to pride myself on finding quicker, quieter and more effective ways to destroy the dead. I took a gun from a police station a week or so ago but quickly got rid of it. A shot to the head will immediately take out a single body, but I've found to my cost that the resultant noise inevitably makes thousands more of the damn things aware of my location. Weapons now need to be silent and swift. I've tried to use clubs and axes and whilst they've often been effective, real sustained effort is usually needed to get results. Fire is too visible and unpredictable and so blades have become my weapons of choice. I now carry seventeen in all - buck knifes, sheath knives, Bowie knifes, scalpels and even pen knives. I carry two butcher's meat cleavers holstered like pistols and I hold a machete drawn and ready at all times.

    I've made steady progress so far today. I know this stretch of footpath well. It twists and turns and it's not the most direct route home but it's my best option this morning. Dawn is beginning to break. The light is getting stronger now and I'm starting to feel exposed and uncomfortable. I've not been out in daylight for weeks now. I've become used to the dark and the protection and shelter it gives me.
    This short stretch of path runs alongside a golf course. There seems to be an unusually high number of bodies around here. I think this was the seventh hole - a short but tough hole with a raised tee and an undulating fairway from what I remember. Many of the corpses seem to have become trapped in the natural dip of the land here and the once well-tended grass has been churned to mud beneath their clumsy, barely coordinated feet. They can't get away. Stupid fucking things are stuck. Sometimes I almost feel privileged to have the opportunity to rid the world of a few of these pointless creatures. All that separates me from them is a strip of chain-link fence and tangled, patchy hedgerow. I keep quiet and take each step with care for fear of making any unnecessary noise which might alert them to my presence here. I could deal with them, but it will be easier if I don't have to.
    The path arcs away to the left. There are two bodies up ahead of me now and I know I have no choice but to get rid of them. The second seems to be following the first and I wonder whether there are any more behind. However many of them there are, I know that I'll have to deal with them quickly. It will take too long to try going around them and any sudden movement will alert any others that might be moving through the shadows nearby. The safest and easiest option is to go straight at them and cut them both down.
    Here's the first. It's seen me. It makes a sudden, lurching change in direction which reveals its intent. With its dull, misted eyes fixed on me it starts to come my way. Bloody hell, it's badly decayed - one of the worst I've seen. I can't even tell whether it used to be male or female. Most of its face has been eaten away and its mottled, pock-marked skull is dotted with clumps of long, lank and greasy grey-blonde hair. It's dragging one foot behind it. In fact, now that it's closer I can see that it only has one foot! Its right ankle ends unexpectedly with a dirty stump which it drags awkwardly through the mud, grass and gravel. The rags wrapped around the corpse look like they might once have been a uniform of sorts. Was this a police officer? A traffic warden perhaps? Whatever it used to be, it's time is now up.
    I've developed a two-cut technique for getting rid of corpses. It's safer than running headlong at them swinging a blade through the air like a madman. A little bit of control makes all the difference. The bodies are usually already unsteady (this one certainly is) so I tend to use the first cut to try and stop them moving. The body is close enough now. I crouch down and swing the machete from right to left, severing both of its legs at knee level with a single swipe. With the corpse now flat on what's left of its stomach I reverse the movement and, backhanded, slam the blade down through its neck before it has time to move. Easy. Kill number one hundred and thirty-eight. Number one hundred and thirty-nine proves to be slightly harder. I slip and bury the blade in the creature's pelvis when I was aiming lower. No problem - with the corpse brought down to its knees by the force of my first strike I lift the machete again and bring it down on the top of its head. The skull splits easily like an egg. It's harder pulling the blade out than it was getting it in.
    I never think of the bodies as people anymore. There's no point. Whatever caused all of this has wiped out every trace of individuality and character from the rotting masses. Generally they all now behave and act the same - age, race, sex, class, religion and all other previously notable social differences are gone. There are no distinctions, there are only the dead; a single massive decaying population. Kill number twenty-six brought it home to me. Obviously the body of a very young child, it had attacked me with as much force and intent as the countless other 'adult' creatures I had come across. I had hesitated for a split-second before the kill but then did it just the same. I knew that what it used to be was of no importance now - it was dead flesh and it needed to be destroyed. I took its head clean off its shoulders with a hand-axe and hardly gave it another moment's thought.

     Distances which should take minutes to cover are now taking me hours. I'm working my way along a wide footpath which leads down into the heart of Stonemorton. I can see bodies everywhere I look. The earlier mist has lifted and I can now see their slow stumbling shapes moving between houses and dragging themselves along otherwise empty streets. My already slow speed seems to have reduced still further now that it's getting light. Maybe I'm slowing down on purpose? The closer I get to home, the more nervous and unsure I feel. I try to concentrate and focus my thoughts on Georgie. All I want is to see her and be with her again, what's happened to the rest of the world is of no interest. I'm realistic about what I'm going to find - I haven't seen another living soul for four weeks and I don't think for a second that I'll find her alive, but I've survived, haven't I? There is still some slight hope. My worst fear is that the house will be empty. I'll have to keep looking for her if she's not there. I won't rest until we're together again.
    Damn. Suddenly there are at least another four bodies up ahead of me. The closer I get to the streets, the more of them there are. I can't be completely sure how many there are here as their awkward, gangly shapes seem to merge and disappear into the background of gnarled, twisted trees. I'm not too worried about four. In fact I'm pretty confident dealing with anything up to ten. All I have to do is take my time, keep calm and try not to make more noise than I have to. The last thing I want to do is let any more of them know where I am.
    The nearest body has locked onto me and is lining itself up to be kill number one hundred and forty. Bloody hell, this is the tallest corpse I've seen. Even though its back is twisted into an uncomfortable stoop it's still taller than me. I need to lower it to get a good shot at the brain. I swing the machete up between its legs and practically split it in two. It slumps at my feet and I swipe its head clean off its shoulders before it's even hit the mud. One hundred and forty-one. This one is more lively than most. I've come across a few like this from time to time. For some reason bodies like this one are not as decayed as the majority of the dead and for a split second I start to wonder whether this might actually be a survivor. When it lunges at me with sudden, clumsy force I know immediately that it is already dead. I lift up my blade and put it in the way of the creature's head. Still moving forward it impales itself and falls limp as the machete slices through the centre of its rotting brain.
    My weapon is stuck, wedged tight in the skull of this fucking monstrosity and I can't pull it free. The next body is close now. As I tug at the machete with my right hand I yank one of the meat cleavers out of its holster with my left and swing it wildly at the shape which is now stumbling towards me. I make some contact but it's not enough. I've sliced diagonally across the width of its torso but it doesn't even seem to notice the damage. I let go of the machete (I'll go back for it when I'm done) and, using both cleavers now, I attack the third body again. The blow I strike with my left hand wedges the first blade deep into its shoulder, cutting through the collar bone and forcing the body down. I aim the second cut at the base of the neck and smash through the spinal cord. I push the cadaver down into the gravel and stamp on its expressionless face until my boot does enough damage to permanently stop the bloody thing moving. For a second I feel like a fucking Kung-fu master.
    With the first cleaver still buried in the shoulder of the last body I'm now two weapons down with potential kill number one hundred and forty-three less than two meters away. This one is slower and it's got less fight in it than the last few. Breathing heavily I clench my fist and punch it square in the face. It wobbles for a second before dropping to the ground. I enjoy kills like that. My hand stings and is covered in all kinds of foul-smelling mess now but the sudden feeling of satisfaction, strength and superiority I have is immense.
    I retrieve my two blades, clean them on a patch of grass and carry on my way.

     In the distance I can see the first few houses on the estate. I'm almost there now and I'm beginning to wish that I wasn't. I've spent days on the move trying to get here - long, dark, lonely days filled with uncertainty and fear. Now that I'm here there's a part of me that wants to turn round and go back. But I know that there's nowhere else to go and I know I have to do this. I have to see it through.
    I'm down at street level now and I'm more exposed than ever. Christ, everything looks so different to how I remember. It's only been a month or so since I was last here but in that time the world has been left to rot and disintegrate along with its dead population. The smell of death is everywhere, choking, smothering and suffocating everything. The once clear grey pavements are overgrown with green-brown moss and weeds. Everything is crumbling around me. I've walked down plenty of city streets like this since it happened but this one feels different. I know this place, and it's the memories and familiarity which suddenly makes everything a hundred times harder to handle.
    This is Huntingden Street. I used to drive this way to work. Almost all of this side of the road has been burnt to the ground and where there used to be a long, meandering row of between thirty and forty houses, now there are just empty, wasted shells. The destruction seems to have altered the whole landscape and from where I'm standing I now have a clear view all the way over to the red-brick wall which runs along the edge of the estate where Georgie and I used to live. It's so close now. I've been rehearsing this part of the journey in my mind for days. I'm going to work my way back home by cutting through the back gardens of the houses along the way. I'm thinking that the back of each house should be pretty much secure and enclosed and I'll be able to take my time. There will probably be bodies along the way, but they should be fewer in number than those roaming the main roads.
    I'm crouching down behind a low wall in front of what remains of one of the burnt out houses. I need to get across the road and into the garden at the back of one of the houses opposite. The easiest way will be to go straight through - in through the front door and out through the back. Everything looks clear. I can't see any bodies. Apart from my knives I'll leave everything here. I won't need any of it. I'm almost home now.

     Slow going. Getting into the first garden was simple enough but it's not going as easy as I thought trying to move between properties. I'm having to climb over fences that are nowhere near strong enough to support my weight. I could just break them down but I can't afford to make too much noise. I don't want to start taking unnecessary chances now.
    Garden number three. I can see the dead owner of this house trapped inside its property. It's leaning against the patio window and it starts hammering pointlessly against the glass when it sees me. From my position mid-way down the lawn the figure at the window looks painfully thin and skeletal. I can see another body shuffling through the shadows behind it.
    Garden number four. Fucking hell, the owner of this house is outside. It's moving towards me before I've even made it over the fence and the expression on what's left of its face is fucking terrifying. My heart's beating like it's going to explode as I jump down and steady myself and ready my machete. A few seconds wait that feels like forever and then a single flash of the blade and it's done. The residual speed of the cadaver keeps it moving further down the lawn until it stumbles and falls. Its severed head lies at my feet, face down on the dew-soaked grass like a piece of rotten fruit. One hundred and forty-four.
    Garden number five is clear, as is garden number six. I've now made it as far as the penultimate house. I sprint across the grass, scale the fence and then jump down and run across the final strip of lawn until I reach another brick wall. On the other side of this wall is Partridge Road. The turning into my estate is another hundred meters or so down to my right.
    I throw myself over the top of the wall and land heavily on the pavement below. Sudden searing pains shoot up my legs and I trip forward and fall into the road. There are bodies here. A quick look up and down the road and I can see seven or eight of them already. They've all seen me. This isn't good. No time for technique now - I have to get rid of them as quickly as possible. I take the first two out almost instantly with the machete. I start to run towards the road into the estate and I decapitate the third corpse at speed as I pass it. I push another one out of the way (no time to go back and finish it off) and then chop violently at the next one which staggers into my path. I manage a single, brutal cut just above its waist which is deep enough to hack through the spinal cord. It falls to the ground behind me, still moving but going nowhere. I count it as a kill. One hundred and forty-eight.
    I can see the entrance to the estate clearly now. The rusted wrecks of two crashed cars have almost completely blocked the mouth of the road. Good. The blockage here means that there shouldn't be too many bodies on the other side. Damn, there are still more coming for me on this side though. Christ, there are loads of the bloody things. Where the hell are they coming from? I look up and down the road again and all I can see is a mass of twisted, stumbling corpses coming at me from every direction. My arrival here must have created more of a disturbance than I thought. There are too many of them for me to risk trying to deal with. Some are quicker than others and the first few are already getting close. Too close. I sprint towards the crashed cars as fast as I can. I drop my shoulder and barge several cadavers out of the way, my speed and weight easily smashing them to the ground. I jump up onto the crumpled bonnet of the first car and then climb up onto its roof. I'm still only a few feet away from the hordes of rabid dead but I'm safer here. They haven't got the strength or coordination to be able to climb up after me. And even if they could, I'd just kick the fucking things back down again. I stand still for a few long seconds and catch my breath. I stare down into the growing sea of decomposing faces below me. Their facial muscles are withered and decayed and they are incapable of controlled expression. Nevertheless, something about the way they are looking up at me reveals a cold and savage intent. They hate me. I want them to know that the feeling is mutual. If I had the time and energy I'd jump back down into the crowd and rip every last one of the fuckers apart.
    Still standing on the roof of the car, I slowly turn around.
    Home.
    Torrington Road stretches out ahead of me now, wild and overgrown but still reassuringly familiar. Just ahead and to my right is the entrance to Harlour Grove. Our road. Our house is at the end of the cul-de-sac. I'd stay here for a while and try to compose myself if it wasn't for the bodies snapping and scratching at my feet. I jump down from the car and take a few steps forward. I then turn back for a second - something's caught my eye. Now that I'm down I recognise the car I've just been standing on. I glance at the licence plate at the back. It's cracked and smashed but I can still make out the last three letters 'HAL'. This is Stan Isherwood's car. He lived four doors down from Georgie and I. And fucking hell, that thing in the front seat is what's left of Stan. I can see what remains of the retired bank manager slamming itself from side to side, trying desperately to get out of its seat and get to me. It's held in place by its safety belt. Stupid bloody thing can't release the catch. Without thinking I crouch down and peer in through the grubby glass. My decomposing neighbour stops moving for a fraction of a second and looks straight back at me. Jesus Christ, there's not much left of him but I can still see that it's Stan. He's wearing one of his trademark golf jumpers. The pastel colours of the fabric are mottled and dark, covered with dribbles of crusted blood and other bodily secretions which have seeped out of the decomposing corpse over the last four weeks. I walk away from it. It doesn't pose any threat to me and I can't bring myself to kill Stan just for the sake of it.
    I jog forward again. A body emerges from the shadows of a nearby house, the front door of which hangs open. It's back to business as usual as I tighten the grip on the machete in my hand and wait to strike. The corpse lurches for me. I don't recognise it as being anyone that I knew. That makes it easier. I swing at its head and make contact. The blade sinks three quarters of the way into the skull, just above the cheek bone. Kill one hundred and forty-nine drops to the ground and I yank out my weapon and clean it on the back of my jeans.
    I turn the corner and I'm in Harlour Grove. I stop when I see our house and I am filled with sudden emotion. Bloody hell, if I half-close my eyes I can almost imagine that everything is normal and none of this ever happened. My heart is racing with nervous anticipation and fear as I move towards our home. I can't wait to see her again. It's been too long.
    A sudden noise in the street behind me makes me spin around. There are another eight or nine bodies coming at me from several directions. At least six of them are behind me, staggering after me at a pathetically slow pace, and another two are ahead, one closing in from the right and the other coming from the general direction of the house next to ours. The adrenaline is really pumping now that I'm this close. I'll be back with Georgie in the next few minutes and nothing is going to stop me. I don't even waste time with the machete now - I raise my fist and smash the nearest corpse in the face, rearranging what's left of its already mutilated features. It drops to the ground, bringing up my one hundred and fiftieth kill. I'm about to do the same to the next body when I realise that I know her. This is what's left of Judith Landers, the lady who lived next-door but one. Her husband was a narrow-minded prick but I always got on with Judith. Her face is bloated and discoloured and she's lost an eye but I can still see that it's her. She's still wearing the ragged remains of the uniform she wore for work. She used to work part-time on the checkout at the hardware store down the road on the way to Shenstone. Poor bitch. She reaches out for me and I instinctively raise the machete. But then I look into her face and all I can see is what she used to be. She tries to grab hold of me but one of her arms is broken and it flaps uselessly at her side. I push her away in the hope that she'll just turn round and disappear in the other direction but she doesn't. She grabs at me again and, again, I push her away. This time her heavy legs give way and she falls. Her face smashes into the pavement, leaving a greasy, bloody stain behind. Undeterred she drags herself up and comes at me for a third time. I know I don't have a choice and I also know that there are now eleven more corpses around me, closing in fast. Judith was a short woman. I flash the blade level with my shoulders and take off the top third of her head. She drops to her knees and then falls forward, allowing the heavily decomposed contents of her skull to spill out onto my overgrown lawn.
    I have carried the key to our house on a chain round my neck since the first day. With my hands numb and tingling with nerves I pull it out from underneath my shirt and shove it quickly into the lock. I can hear dragging footsteps just a couple of meters behind me now. The lock is stiff and I have to use all my strength to turn the key. Finally it moves. The latch clicks and I push the door open. I fall into the house and slam the door shut just as the closest body crashes into the other side.
    I'm almost too afraid to speak.
    'Georgie?' I shout, and the sound of my voice echoes around the silent house. I haven't dared to speak out loud for weeks and the noise seems strange. It makes me feel uncomfortable and exposed. 'Georgie?'
    Nothing. I take a couple of steps further down the hallway. Where is she? I need to know what happened here so that I can… wait, what's that? Just inside the dining room I can see Rufus, our dog. He's lying on his back and it looks like he's been dead for some time. Poor bugger, he probably starved to death. I take another step forward but then stop and look away. Something has attacked the dog. He's been torn apart. There's dried blood and pieces of him all over the place. 'Georgie?' I call out for a third time. I'm about to shout again when I hear it. Something's moving in the kitchen and I pray that it's her.
    I look up and see a shadow shifting at the far end of the hallway. It has to be Georgie. She's shuffling towards me and I know that I'll be able to see her any second. I want to run to meet her but I can't, my feet are frozen to the spot with nerves. The shadow lurches forward again and she finally comes into view. The end of the hallway is dark and for a moment I can only see her silhouette. There's no question that it's her - I recognise her height and the overall proportions of her body. She slowly turns towards me, pivoting around awkwardly on her clumsy, cold feet, and begins to trip down the hall in my direction. Every step she takes brings her closer to the light which comes from the small window next to the front door and reveals her in more detail. I can see now that she's naked and I find myself wondering what happened to make her lose her clothes. Another step and I can see that her once strong and beautiful hair is now lank and sparse. Another step and I can see that her usually flawless, perfect skin has been eaten away by decay. Another step forward and I can clearly see what's left of her face. Those sparkling eyes that I gazed into a thousand times are now cold and dry and look at me without the slightest hint or flicker of recognition or emotion. I clear my throat and try to speak…
    'Georgie,' I stammer, 'are you…?' I stop when she launches herself at me. Rather than recoil and fight I instead try to catch her and pull her closer to me. It feels good to hold her again. She's weak and can offer no resistance when I wrap my arms around her and hold her tight. I press my face next to hers and try my best to ignore the repugnant smell coming from her decaying body. I try not to overreact when she moves and I carefully tighten my grip. I can feel her greasy, rotting flesh coming away from her bones and dripping through my fingers. I don't want to let her go. This was how I wanted it to be. It's better this way. I had known all along that she would be dead. If she'd survived she would probably have left the house and I would never have been able to find her. I would never have stopped looking for her. We were meant to be together, Georgie and me. That's what I kept telling her, even when she stopped wanting to listen.

     I've been back at home for a couple of hours now. Apart from the dust and mildew and mould the place looks pretty much the same as it always did. She didn't change much after I left. We're in the living room together now. I haven't been in here for almost a year. Since we split up she didn't like me coming round. She never let me get any further than the hall, even when I came to collect my things. Said she'd call the police if she had to but I always knew she wouldn't.
    I've dragged the coffee table across the door now so that Georgie can't get out and I've nailed a few planks of wood across it too just to be sure. She's stopped attacking me now and it's almost as if she's got used to having me around again. I tried to put a bathrobe around her to keep her warm but she wouldn't keep still long enough to let me. Even now she's still moving around, walking round the edge of the room, tripping over and crashing into things. Silly girl! And with our neighbours watching too! Seems like most of the corpses from around the estate have dragged themselves over here to see what's going on. I've counted more than twenty dead faces pressed against the window.
    It was a shame that we couldn't have worked things out before she died. I know that I spent too much time at work, but I did it all for her. I did it all for us. She said that we'd grown apart and that I didn't excite her anymore. She said I was boring and dull. She said she wanted more adventure and spontaneity. Said that was what Matthew gave her. I tried to make her see that he was too young for her and that he was just stringing her along but she didn't want to listen. So where is he now? Where is he with his fucking designer clothes, his city centre apartment and his fucking flash car? I know exactly where he is - he's out there on the streets rotting with the rest of the fucking masses. And where am I? I'm home. I'm back sitting in my armchair drinking my whiskey in my living room. I'm at home with my wife and this is where I'm going to stay. I'm going to die here and when I've gone Georgie and I will rot together. We'll be here together until the very end of everything.
    I know it's what she would have wanted.

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