This is my entry for the Wattpad fantasy anthology

Passengers by Ian Reeve.

Part 1

     I just stepped out for a moment, to take a leak. 

     Yes, I know it’s the zombie apocalypse. I know that the safe(ish), comfortable world we’d all taken for granted has been replaced by a never ending nightmare in which the living dead roam the world, feeding on the living, but there are some things one just does not do in front of your wife and fourteen year old daughter, and taking a leak is one of them. I stepped outside, therefore. Just for a moment. I would go behind a bush, do what I needed to do and get back in before they even knew I'd gone. When either of them needed to answer a call of nature I would go with them, standing guard with the gun while they did their business. I should have had Angela go with me, to cover me with the gun, but dammit I'm a man! A man should be able to take a leak without needing a woman to stand guard over him, and I would only be a minute! And so I went alone, and that's when the real nightmare began. 

     It's not like I didn't take precautions. I took the gun, I stood in the doorway for a couple of minutes looking and listening, making sure there were no creepy undead horrors in the vicinity. Turned out I didn't spend long enough looking and listening, because just as I was zipping myself up again the thing came out of nowhere. I'll never know how I missed the smell of the thing. As soon as it was upon me the reek was everywhere! The acrid reek of rotting flesh mixed in with something extra, some even fouler stench unlike anything else the world has ever known before, something unique to zombies. Something that reached in through the nostrils and down to the most basic, most primitive part of the brain to warn it that something unnatural had come, something that should not exist in any sane world. You smell it, and your body reacts instinctively. An urge to run, as fast as you can, to simply get as far away from the thing as you possibly can! 

     It takes a real effort of will to overcome that urge, but you have to because they can run faster than we can. They don't shuffle along, dragging one leg behind them like in the cheap horror movies. They can run, really fast! Faster than you can possibly believe! If you come across one, and you will, your only chance is to face it and fight it, and if there’s more than one, coming at you from different directions, then you've pretty much had it! 

     This time there was just the one, but it was right there, right on top of me before I knew it, and both my hands were busy, zipping myself up. I reached for the gun in my belt, but it had grabbed my arm and was biting me before I could do anything. The pain as its dirty, yellow teeth broke through my skin was unbelievable, but what was worse was the knowledge that I was infected now. Even if I fought it off and killed it, I would become one of them before the day was out. I fought like a madman even as I cursed myself for my stupidity. How many times had I told Angela and Julie to never go off alone, to always take someone with them to keep them safe! And then I go and ignore my own advice! Because I didn't want them to see me peeing! What an incredibly stupid reason to die! 

     The thing was dressed as a traffic cop. His uniform had been half torn off by whatever violence had killed him, a road traffic accident by the look of it. He’s probably tried to stop the wrong person, back when everything had just started going to hell, and he'd been run down by a man more concerned with getting his family to safety than with obeying the laws of a vanishing world. One arm was broken, but that barely handicapped him as he bore down on me, knocking me to the ground, his teeth gnawing at my arm and his good hand clamped hard on my right wrist. My last action as a living man was to reach for his belt, thinking that I could use his own gun against him, but his holster was empty. Then his teeth reached for my throat instead, tearing through skin and severing blood vessels, and I saw my own blood spraying out across his face. 

     I died then, but I didn't lose consciousness. By some unholy miracle I remained fully conscious and aware as the thing continued to feed on me. There wasn't enough meat on my neck for his liking, apparently, because it tore open my clothes and ripped my stomach open. The pain was dull this time, and continued to fade as by body continued to die, but the horror was far greater. My eyes were still open and I was able to watch as it pulled out long loops of intestine and pushed them into its mouth, chewing greedily. Is this what being dead is like? I wondered. No heaven or hell, just being trapped in your own rotting corpse for the rest of eternity. At the time I couldn’t think of anything worse, and I look back on that naive innocence with a terrible sense of loss. 

     The dead feed on the living, but I wasn't living any more. As my body cooled and the blood turned to jelly in my veins the zombie lost interest in me and wandered off in search of another victim. I thought of Angela, Julie and George and I desperately tried to rise to my feet so I could warn them, defend them, but my body remained where the traffic cop had left it. Out of the corner of my eyes, though, I saw the thing moving away into the surrounding countryside, away from the small caretaker’s lodge where we’d stopped for the night, and I felt a vast relief surging through me. It only lasted for a moment, though, as an awful possibility occurred to me, but I pushed it to the back of my mind and refused to think about it. Surely God couldn't be so cruel! 

     I lay there all night as the stars wheeled above me. The others must have missed me by then, and I dreaded the thought that they might go out into the night looking for me, where they might run into more zombies. Angela would have wanted to, but George must have stopped her and I blessed him for it. He’d probably already figured out what must have happened to me. They all would have, but my wife and daughter wouldn’t be allowing themselves to think about it. They would have been imagining me lying at the bottom of a mineshaft or something with a broken leg, waiting for Lassie to lead the rescue party to me. Only George, for whom I was nothing more than a new acquaintance, would allow himself to think that a zombie had gotten me, and he would make sure the girls stayed safely in the house until dawn. Thank God for him! Thank God we found him! 

     We’d met him on the third day after leaving Coventry. We'd found an abandoned farmhouse to shelter in for the night, but George had found it first. We crept into the house warily, in case the original residents were still there, and as I led the way into the kitchen I found myself face to face with an older man pointing a gun at me. I called out a warning, telling Angela and Julie to run, to get away, but Angela had been right behind me and she was in the room before I knew she was there, with Julie right behind her. The man had all three of us, had us cold! 

     I was convinced that he would kill me, then rape Angela, or perhaps he preferred fourteen year old girls. The old world, with its civilised rules and punishments, was gone. A man with a gun could do whatever he wanted. I opened my mouth to beg, to plead with him to spare my wife and daughter, but he was already raising his gun, pointing it at the ceiling, although remaining ready to bring it to bear again if we turned out to be dangerous. The presence of a young girl was probably what reassured him the most. I might have been a killer, it was even possible that Angela was a killer, although she looked nothing like one with her angelic blonde hair and slender frame, but the world would have had to have fallen a long, long way for a young child to be party to such brutal acts. Her torn clothes, grimy face and tangled hair would have added to the effect. It made her look like a victim, and anyone with even the smallest trace of decency would have found themselves driven to protect her. 

     He put up his gun, therefore, and introduced himself, perhaps thinking that we’d be less likely to harm him if we knew his name. He told us that he was the last survivor of a larger group of survivors that had run afoul of a roaming herd of zombies. There had been nothing he could do for them. If he'd tried to save them, he would only have drawn them to himself. We understood, we’d seen for ourselves what happened to brave people. One man against one zombie stood a chance, if he had the nerve to stand his ground. One against several just became one of them. We believed him, therefore, and we trusted him. If he'd wanted to harm us, he could have done so when he had all of us at gunpoint. We spent the next four days getting to know him, therefore, and trying to let him know that he could trust us. 

     We became good friends over those four days. He saved our lives a couple of times and we saved his. He told us that his group had been heading for Stambridge, where they'd heard there was a large community with guns and barbed wire enclosing a large enough area to grow food. A safe place where we could start again. It sounded too good to be true and we were sceptical, but we had to go somewhere. Why not Stambridge? If the rumour turned out to be false we’d be no worse off than we were already, and if it was true... We didn't dare ignore the possibility, and so we turned north, taking the Kranberry road to avoid Rochford. All cities, towns and villages were full of zombies by then. The open countryside was the only place where we stood any chance at all of surviving. 

     George and Julie became best friends almost from the start! He found a way to bring her back out of the almost catatonic state she'd fallen into. I had been close to desperation before that! To see our once bright, bubbly girl turn inwards on herself, to see the horror at the back of her eyes every time she looked at us, when we could bring her to look at us! Just getting her to acknowledge our existence had been hard back then! She walked as if sleepwalking, she barely ate. She hardly ever spoke! It was because of her first encounter with a zombie, of course. Encountering the full horror of our new reality all in one go, like jumping in at the deep end. 

     She’d been bright and chatty before that. Even when it finally sank in that what was happening was real, that it was the whole world and that it was forever, she seemed to take it in her stride, or perhaps it just didn't seem real to her. Perhaps she was in denial, thinking that one morning she would wake up to find that it had all been a dream, that she still had to go to school and attend lessons, that she could chat with her friends about boys and pop singers again and come home to a hot meal and homework. Whatever the reason, she seemed to be taking it well. She chatted with us about the beauty of the countryside as we drove away from the urban areas in our SUV, she sang along with the music coming from the CD player and she played I Spy games with Angela and me. She acted as if we were just going on holiday, as if we’d end up at a fancy hotel where we could book into rooms and plan our activities for the next few days. We told her that we were looking for a safe place, we wanted her to understand the reality of our new existence and she nodded as if she understood, but I don't think she really did. Not until we stopped at the gas station to refuel. 

     The pumps were dead, of course. The electricity had gone off, probably because a tree had come down across the power lines or something. The sort of thing that would have been fixed within a couple of days before the apocalypse. There was still power in the cities, we could see the lights shining when we crossed the Chilton Hills and saw the town of Ambridge spread out below us. A pretty place, but now full of deadly horrors. We sat there in the car for a few minutes, wondering what to do, before I remembered something a friend had told me once about an emergency access hatch that all gas stations had and that allowed access to the giant underground tank in which the fuel was stored. It took the three of us about an hour to find it, then another ten minutes to figure out how to get it open, and then it was just a matter of lowering a bucket on the end of a piece of rope like getting water from a well and pouring it into the car's fuel tank. 

     By the time we’d finished we were all feeling quite pleased with ourselves and our problem solving abilities. Angela and Julie were beaming all over their faces, looking beautiful despite the smudges of grease and tangled hair. We were getting ready to move on when Julie said she was hungry and asked whether we could grab something to eat while we were there. The gas station had a small store inside with snacks and car accessories for sale, and although we’d left home with plenty of food and still had plenty left we all decided to celebrate our success by grabbing a few chocolate bars or something. Whatever we could find. 

     We entered together, of course. We never split up, I'd made it clear from the start that that was the one rule we never broke, and although Julie sighed in exasperation at what she thought was an unnecessary, over the top imposition on her freedom, she agreed to abide by it. Once we were inside, though, Julie went down the right hand aisle while Angela and I took the left. I didn't see any danger. She was still only half a dozen feet from me. I could have reached out and touched her if the wall of shelves filled with loaves of stale bread and boxes of breakfast cereal hadn't been between us. It wasn't until I heard the piercing scream that I knew she was in trouble. 

     I raced back to the front of the small store, then almost fell, my feet slipping on the polished tiling, as I turned into the other aisle. How I kept my balance I'll never know, but I know that if I had fallen we would have lost our beautiful daughter there and then. She was in the grip of a zombie. Either the gas station owner or some other poor bastard who'd wandered in and gotten trapped when the door closed behind him. It was kneeling on Julie's chest, who was lying on the floor, still screaming as she pushed with her tiny hands on its chest, desperately trying to keep its face with its gnashing teeth away from her neck. Whatever other zombie had killed it had eaten half its face, and its whole jawline was exposed on one side, right up to the hinge of its jaw. An eye was also missing, along with its nose, leaving only a great hole in the middle of its face, and that face was mere inches away from Julie's, close enough that she could feel the heat of decomposition on her freckled skin and feel the putrid juices as they dripped onto her. Her eyes were wide and staring, drinking in the sight of that dead face, and as the sight entered her head I could almost see it pushing the sanity out to make room. She was no longer screaming in terror. She was screaming in madness! 

     In my terror I completely forgot the gun tucked into my belt. I just hurled myself onto the thing, uncaring of what it might do to me, only needing to get it off my daughter. I pulled at its shoulders, lifting it up and away from her, but it had a firm grip on her shirt and as I threw it away it tore off a long strip of flowery fabric exposing her small, frilly brassiere. Then I threw it away from me as hard as I could! It landed a few feet away, sprang back to its feet and launched itself back at me. 

     I almost turned and fled, pushing my daughter ahead of me in my desperation to get her to safety. Just in time, I remembered what I'd heard on the emergency radio broadcasts before the stations went off the air. Never run from them! Run, and you’re dead because they can run faster than you can. Your only chance is to stand and face it. I stood my ground, therefore. This time I remembered the gun, but there was no time to pull it from my belt before it was on me, reaching out with its long, dirty fingers with their cracked and broken nails, snarling into my face as I grabbed its wrists and tried to keep it at arms length. 

     It was amazingly strong! I couldn’t hold it back! It pushed me back until I was up against the wall with nowhere further to go, and then it pressed forward, lunging with its snapping, spitting teeth, the smell of it making me reek and gag. It would have been the end of me, but then Angela was there, her slender body straining with effort, her pretty face snarling with hatred and determination as she swung a fire extinguisher as hard as she could at its head. There was a meaty thud as it connected. A living man would probably have been killed. At the very least he would have been knocked unconscious with a fractured skull, but the zombie merely staggered to the side, then spun around and lunged at her instead. Before it could reach her, though, I'd pulled the gun from my belt and shot it through the head. A spray of blood splashed across the wall and my wife's face, and the thing collapsed at her feet. 

     I stared at it for a moment, almost expecting it to climb back to its feet and attack again, but it just lay there, genuinely dead at last. Then I remembered Julie and spun around to see how she was. She wasn't there. I ran desperately from the gas station to see her a hundred yards away, running as fast as she could across the field of cabbages on the other side of the road. It was clear she was going to run until she collapsed from exhaustion, and who knows what was out there, waiting for her? I ran after her, therefore, desperately trying to catch her while aware that she had all the energy of youth and that I would run out of breath long before she did. 

     For a moment I imagined running until exhaustion made it impossible to chase her any longer, and only being able to watch helplessly as she vanished in the distance, towards who knew what dangers. By some miracle, though, she tripped and fell, twisting her ankle in a foxhole, and although she was back on her feet before I'd closed half the distance the injury slowed her, and a few moments later I was able to grab her arm and pull her to a stop. She was panicked and hysterical, sobbing and gasping with terror. She tried to pull out of my grasp to carry on running, and I had to physically overpower her, throw her down and keep her pinned to the ground until her panic cleared and she finally stopped struggling. She wouldn’t speak, though. She seemed only capable of panting heavily as I led her back to the car, and her mad, staring eyes were everywhere, searching for more of the undead horrors. 

Finally she started crying, and clung hold of my arm as we walked back across the field to where Angela was running towards us, sobbing with relief to see that we were both safe. We met in the middle of the field and huddled tight, each of us holding onto the other two, and it was a long time before we were able to let go and return to the car. We climbed in, closed the doors and just sat there, finally feeling safe with the reassuring frame of the SUV around us. Me in the front, Angela and Julie in the back, holding each other while Julie continued to cry and shake as she tried to recover from her ordeal. 

     She was different after that. Quiet, withdrawn, nervous. Always looking around, her eyes darting in every direction as if there were zombies hiding behind every bush. Nothing we could do would bring her out of it. Physically, she was fine. Angela helped her remove her clothes so she could check her for bites and scratches, but she refused to put them back on and we had to wrap her in a blanket until we could find some clean clothes for her. They seemed to reassure her a little, but it wasn't until we met George that she finally began to come back to something like herself. 

     He just talked to her. The two of them sat in the back of the car together as we drove through the open farmland, past great flocks of rooks that were rapidly losing their fear of humanity and that rose into the sky in great black clouds as we passed them by, and he just talked to her, about anything. He commented on interesting things we were passing by and incidents in his past that they reminded him of, or he just rambled on about anything that happened to cross his mind. She just sat there, unresponsive, for a long time, staring straight ahead at Angela's headrest, giving no sign that she was even listening, but he just carried on talking anyway, perhaps hoping that if he carried on long enough some of it would eventually filter in, like soaking a badly dried out houseplant by sitting it in a bucket of water. He talked about his job (he used to be an architect. His most proud achievement was a covered shopping centre in the middle of Eastwood with a large, glass dome in the centre of the roof through which the sun would shine at any time of the day, illuminating the seating area outside the coffee shop) and he talked about his family. It turned out he was a grandfather, with one daughter at college in Hastings and another, older daughter who was married to a television executive in Aston where they were raising a three year old son. He hadn't spoken to them since the telephones had failed and was clearly sick with worry, although he kept saying that he was sure they were alright. 

     I think it was that worry that got through to Julie. The three of us were a complete family, all together. We had no other close family members, only a couple of distant cousins in Grantham that we’d long since lost touch with. There was no-one else we were close to, no-one else whose safety was of great concern to us. George, on the other hand, was desperately concerned for his daughters and grandson (his wife had died some years earlier, from natural causes). He’d been on his way to find them when he'd met up with a large group of survivors, the ones who'd told him about the fenced community, and since the place wasn't far from the direction he'd already been going in, he'd decided to go there first, check the place out and bring his family back to it if it was everything his new friends promised. I think it was that fear that Julie responded to. It resonated with the fear she was still feeling, perhaps. Whatever it was, after two days of it she finally began to respond, to our immense joy and relief. 

     As he talked about his daughters, about the antics they'd gotten up to as children and the trouble they'd had with their first boyfriends, Julie turned her head to look at him, and we could see that she was listening to him. The she started asking questions. Angela and I kept quiet, not wanting to interrupt whatever spell he was casting on her, not wanting to spoil the healing magic. She asked him how old they'd been when they first started having proper boyfriends, something that made my ears prick up. There was this boy she'd been seeing for a while, a curly haired classmate called Roger whom she called her study buddy. He would call around sometimes and they would do their homework together while the latest pop hits played on the stereo. I had no reason to think there was anything happening between them, but if you’re a father of a teenage daughter you'll know where my thoughts were going every time I saw them together. 

     Before long they were chatting as if they'd known each other all their lives, and when she laughed out loud as he recounted the antics of their pet dog Angela and I laughed along with them, just out of sheer joy that our daughter was coming out of the dark place she'd retreated to following the encounter with the zombie. I know she would probably have come out of it on her own in time, but I suspect that the longer it had taken, the more lasting harm she would have suffered. As it was, there was something different about her even after she seemed to have recovered fully. She was more serious and thoughtful, less prone to casual, trivial gossip, and she was less fussy about her appearance. Before, the slightest trace of grease or grime on her skin would have set her off to the nearest water to scrub it off, and she hadn't been able to tolerate the slightest crease or stain on her clothes. Now, though, she got her hands dirty without a care, trimmed her nails short, ignored the state of her hair and hardly seemed to care about the state of her clothes. When we came across a tree branch blocking the road she helped lift it along with the rest of us, not caring about the moss that stained her bare hands and that left green smudges on her jeans. She remained hyper vigilant, though, continually looking about for any zombies that might suddenly appear.2 I’ve heard that that's a symptom of PTSD, but in this new world we're living in it’s a symptom that might help her survive. 

     We saw more zombies, but so long as we were in a moving car they were no threat to us. Not even a zombie can keep up with a car, and if we saw one in the middle of the road we just ran it down. Julie gave a little shriek the first time it happened, but as we left its crushed body in the road behind us I looked back and saw a definite look of savage satisfaction on her face, and after that she took a savage delight at every zombie we ran down. 

     Two days after meeting George, though, we came across something we couldn’t, or rather didn't dare, get past, even in a car. The road we were on was going down a slope into a wide valley. It was a bright, sunny morning and the air was still, although there was a coolness and a dampness left over from the previous night that left a heavy dew on everything. As we descended the gentle slope, the road turned a corner and suddenly the whole valley was spread out before us. It was probably a beautiful sight normally, with fields and small cottages and a little brook running along a stony bed and under picturesque stone bridges, but what we saw ahead of us that day made me slam on the brakes in shock. We were all thrown forward against our seat belts and Angela, who'd been looking out the side window at a line of small shops we were passing, looked ahead to see what had spooked me. I heard a shocked intake of breath, echoed from behind me as George and Julie saw it as well. For a long time we could only sit there and stare, convinced that there must be a rational explanation to what we were seeing, but as we failed to find one our horror and fear only grew greater and greater. 

     The valley ahead was filled with a layer of mist. I’d seen such things before, and normally it was  beautiful. A sheet of white as smooth and placid as a pond on a still day, shining brightly in the sun. So dense that everything within it was completely hidden from view. Anyone entering it would soon be as soaked with water as if they'd walked through a shower of rain, but it was somehow a pleasant experience that left you feeling fresh and happy, as if the water had somehow washed all your cares away. What we saw ahead of us on that day, though, looked nothing like that. 

     The mist was rising up in half a dozen places, as if lifted by the slightest of breezes across its surface. I'd seen this before as well, and although it looked slightly eerie, there was a beauty to it that captivated me and made me watch until the growing heat of the day burned it away. This time, though, the rising wisps of fog were moving almost purposefully, as if they were animated by a kind of intelligence. They looked almost like people, although unnaturally tall and thin and with wispy limbs that moved in ways that the human skeleton would never allow. They made the same movements over and over again, lifting one wispy leg before turning slowly on the other with arms upraised and head thrown back. It looked almost like a dance, but slow, as slow as the passage of clouds across the sky, and the word dance was totally unsuitable to describe what I was seeing. They weren’t dancing, they were capering, like lunatics celebrating the sadistic murder of innocents, and the more I watched, the more I felt a helpless, sick horror rising inside me. Then one of them slowly turned its head towards us, as if it had just become aware that they were being spied on, and I swear that I clearly saw eyes in that foggy head. Eyes that burned with inhuman cruelty and malice. 

     “Go back!” said Julie in a terrified, trembling voice. “Go back! Go back! Go back!” I wanted to turn around to comfort her, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the dancing cloud figures. “Go back!” She repeated, louder. “Go back!” 

     “Sam!” said Angela, sounding equally scared. “Get us out of here! Please!” I was still paralysed by the scene in front of me, though, as helpless to move as a rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, and Angela had to shake me roughly by the shoulder before I snapped out of it. “Sam!” she repeated. “Get us out of here! Now!” 

     Ahead of us, the nearest cloud figure had finished turning its head towards us, and I saw murderous hatred in its eyes. It began to turn towards us, clearly intending to make its way in our direction. It was ridiculous to think it could actually harm us. For one thing, it was made out of mist, and for another, it was moving so slowly that a man could have outrun it at an easy walk, and yet the very sight of it filled me with such terror that the paralysis returned, and only George's voice yelling in my ear freed me from it. I put the car into reverse, turned it around so fast that I almost ran it into a ditch, and then sped away down the road with my foot as hard down on the accelerator as it would go. As soon as the mist creatures were out if sight the panic faded, but I carried on driving for nearly another mile before I stopped by the side of the road, my heart still hammering in my chest and with Julie still sobbing with fear behind me. 

     “What in the name of all that's holy...” I said at last. I twisted around in my seat to face Julie and reached out to take her hand. She was still shaking, her face pale with fear. She kept looking back the way we’d come as if afraid they might be following us. “You okay, Honey?” I asked. “They're gone now. They were probably harmless anyway...” 

     “There was nothing holy about those things!” said Andrea emphatically. “What were they?” 

     “I don't know,” said George, “but I’ve been expecting to see something like them for some time!” 

      I stared at him. “You’ve been expecting to see giant dancing fog monsters?” 

     “Well, not them in particular, but some kind of supernatural manifestations.” 

     “Why?” 

     “Well, the zombies are clearly supernatural in nature, wouldn’t you agree?” I just stared at him. “Of course they are!” he continued. “Scientifically, they’re impossible! They have no heartbeat, some have vital organs missing. I've seen some able to move their limbs normally even though their muscles were eaten down to the bone! Whatever allows them to walk around and chase people is clearly beyond any natural principles we know, which is how I define supernatural, and why should there be only one supernatural thing in the world? If there are suddenly zombies now, there should be other supernatural manifestations, so I wasn’t at all surprised to see those things! Horrified, scared, yes, but not surprised.” 

     “Can we drive while we talk?” asked Angela. “I don't like just sitting here.” She also looked back, but there was nothing behind us but trees and a clear blue sky. I gave Julie's hand one last squeeze, therefore, then turned back in my seat and put the car back into gear. “If we go back to Camelford we can take the road to Astin and then to Hanningfield, pass the whole valley to the north. That okay with everyone?” I saw George nodding in the rear view mirror. Finding his daughters and grandchild was still his priority, but they and the community of survivors were in the same direction, so I put my foot down and drove. 

     “You think we'll see more things like them, then?” I asked. 

     “It's certainly possible,” he replied. “This is a new world now, filled with wonders and horrors we've never seen before. There's no knowing what might be around the next corner!” 

     “So why is this happening now? All these centuries, dead people have just lain there and rotted. Why are they suddenly...” I was going to say ‘coming alive,’ but that didn't seem right. 

      “I can't say, but I remember reading an article some scientist had written a few years back in one of those lifestyle magazines. You know the kind. Most of the time they just contain articles about how to organise your kitchen or what kind of tupperware goes best with a faux wood veneer, but every so often they include something serious, just to fill the pages I suspect. Anyway, this chap was saying that the laws of nature might not be the same in every part of the universe. He referred to the fact that almost every civilisation more than five thousand years old has a tradition of gods walking among men and interfering in human affairs. He suggested that this might be more than just myths and legends. Maybe, back then, the Earth was passing through a region of space whose natural laws allowed gods to exist...” 

     “That's ridiculous!” I exclaimed. 

     “More ridiculous than zombies or dancing fog monsters?” I had no answer to that, so I just kept on driving. 

     “I have a simpler explanation,” said Angela. “God is dead and the devil's in charge now.” 

     “I thought you didn't believe in God,” I said. 

     “I don't, but I'm beginning to believe in the devil.” 

     In a way, it was those mist monsters that killed me, because we wouldn't have come across that caretaker's lodge if we hadn't been forced to make that detour. The outbuilding in the grounds of a large stately home with the undead traffic cop whom we’d somehow missed when we'd checked all around the building before trusting it to shelter us for the night. So there I was, dead, lying among the shrubs and flowers while my body continued to cool, wondering whether my soul would be lifted up to heaven at some point. I was worried about Angela and Julie, of course, but there was nothing I could do for them now. My body just lay there, ignoring my every command to move. At some point I assumed it would rise as a zombie. I only hoped George would know what to do when the time came. One bullet to the brain, that's all it would take. George would take care of them then. He was a good man. My wife and daughter would be safe with him. 

     I realised I could hear them, in the cabin. There was an argument going on. I could guess what it was about. Angela would be arguing that they had to go look for me, while George would be saying they had to wait until daylight. Keep them in there, I mentally begged him. Tie them up if that's what it takes. Do whatever it takes to keep them safe! 

     But then I heard the unmistakable sound of the door opening and closing and I quailed with fear. It was George! Angela must have persuaded him to look for me after all! She can be so persuasive when she wants to be! Most of the time she's happy to give in to whatever I want, but when she really wants something, really, really badly, she could convince anyone to do anything, and I had no doubt she'd put everything she had into persuading George! So George was coming, and it was dark and my body was hidden among the shrubs! But I hadn't risen yet! I didn't know how long it took for a zombie to rise. Maybe the others would be long gone before it happened! I'd never prayed before but I prayed then! Prayed that I would just continue to lie there while George searched around and either found me and put me down permanently or slept the rest of the night and took my family on their way in the morning. 

     But maybe God really was dead, maybe the Devil really was in charge now, because as his footsteps grew closer my body began to move. It began to sit up, slowly at first as if testing new muscles, easing a horrid new kind of life into the dead flesh, then faster as it grew in confidence. I tried to stop it. This is my body! I told myself. It obeys my commands! Not any longer, though, it seemed. My body climbed back to its feet, then walked towards the sound of George’s approaching footsteps. It walked silently, I realised. Like a tracker hunting its prey. It’s (My!) feet avoided sticks and gravel that would have crunched or snapped underfoot, almost as if there was some kind of new intelligence in charge, something cunning and resourceful but motivated only by hunger. The compelling, undeniable need to feed on the flesh of the living! 

     George never saw what killed him. In his last moments he would have known it was a zombie, of course, but I hoped he never knew that it had once been me. My body approached him from behind, cautiously, silently, one step at a time until it was close enough to pounce. Then it moved with appalling speed, leaping eight feet from a standing start onto his back. My teeth clamped down on the back of his neck and bit hard, crunching through muscle and bone, killing him instantly. I hoped his consciousness ended, or departed to an afterlife of some kind. I hoped he wasn't still trapped in there, like I was. A helpless observer, unable to control the actions of his body. 

     Feeding on him was awful! There was nothing I could do to stop myself as I rolled him onto his back, tore his clothes open to reveal his chest and stomach and then tore them open with my teeth. Zombies seemed to like the soft entrails, preferring them to hard muscle, sinews, tendons or even brains, which is what they’re traditionally supposed to like. As my mouth started chewing guts and organs and swallowing them down I tried to shut it out of my consciousness. I tried to stop! I tried so hard, but my body ignored me and continued to feed. It was as if I was nothing more than a passenger in my own body, unable to do anything more than watch what it did. 

    I fed on him for over half an hour, during which I wondered what Angela and Julie would do now. They were on their own now, with no-one to look after them. If they were smart they would get back in the car and continue on to the community of survivors, if it really existed. Angela would know better than to go looking for me, she was the only one left to look after Julie. If anything happened to her Julie would be all alone, a fourteen year old girl alone in a world full of zombies and wild, lawless survivors who might see her as nothing more than a few minutes of pleasure. When I thought about what might happen to her I tried more desperately the ever before to take back control of my body! She needed me to protect her! She needed her father! It was no use. My body just continued to feed until George's body grew cold, as mine had, and then I just left it there while I wandered off among the bushes. 

     Just keep going, I willed myself. Walk away from the cabin! Something else might get my wife and daughter, but at least it wouldn't be me! It wouldn’t be someone they loved and trusted, someone who would once have died to protect them. I remembered Julie's terror at being attacked by the zombie in the gas station. How much greater would the terror be if it was me who attacked her? Even if she fought me off and escaped, what permanent damage would have been done? She'll be fine, I tried to tell myself. This traitorous body is wandering off, soon it'll be too far away to be a danger to her... 

     There was a crash from inside the cabin, something falling over or falling down. I remembered a shelf mounted on the wall above the fireplace on which a number of small ornaments had been placed. I remember thinking, while looking around shortly after entering, that it didn’t look secure, that it would only take someone bumping against it to bring the thing crashing down. I imagined Angela, or perhaps Julie, wandering around in frantic worry, not paying proper attention to where she was walking, jumping in startled fear as she bumped a shoulder against it and the screws were knocked out of the crumbly brickwork... 

     My body reacted instantly, turning and hurrying back to the cabin as whatever rudimentary intelligence it possessed processed the fact that there was someone alive in there. I almost wept in fear and frustration as I tried yet again to take back control. I might as well have been trying to turn back the tide! There was a window in the wall facing me. As I passed it I saw Angela through it, holding Julie in her arms as she tried to calm and reassure the terrified girl. By some stroke of Ill fortune she chose exactly that moment to turn her head and she saw me. The injuries inflicted by the traffic cop were mainly to my lower body, where my entrails were still dangling around my feet, but that was too low to be seen from the other side of the window. She might have seen the damage to my throat if she hadn’t been so overjoyed and relieved by the sight of me. 

     “Stay here!” I heard her say to Julie, and then she ran to the door, threw it open and ran out into the night, all thought of zombies forgotten. It must be safe, she might have been thinking, if Sam's walking around so openly and unafraid. I wanted to scream, to warn her, but no sound came from my torn, ruined throat. My body just carried on walking towards its next meal, my beautiful, beloved wife! 

     The look of horror that appeared in her eyes when she saw me properly, when she saw my ruined, eviscerated body, will stay with me for however many eternities I'm doomed to spend wandering the earth trapped in this decaying flesh. She had time for one terrified yelp and then I was on her, my teeth reaching for her throat. She threw up her hands in an attempt to ward me off and my teeth closed on them instead. I bit down with all my strength, and a moment later fingers that had once caressed my face with gentle, tender love were slipping down my throat. “Sam!” she sobbed. “It's me Sam!” as if I wasn't already doing everything I could to stop myself! She backed away, tripped over something and I fell on top of her, ripping at her clothes. 

     What followed was an awful parody of our wedding night as I tore her dress and brassiere open, baring her breasts, but where she had been gasping with pleasure that time, this time she was screaming. It wasn't her breasts my body wanted, though, but her entrails, and my clawed hands continued to tear at her clothes until her flat, pale stomach was exposed. Her remaining hand had found a rock and she was beating me on the head with it, but her strength was pitifully inadequate to do me any real harm, or perhaps she just couldn’t bear to hit her husband with any real strength. My body knew no restraint, though, and my clawed fingers tore through her perfect skin as if it were cotton fabric. Intestines burst out like a nest of earthworms, together with an eruption of blood. She continued to scream as I began to feed, and I was screaming too, inside. A scream that no-one except God was able to hear. 

     How I managed to retain my sanity as my body fed on my beloved wife I'll never know. Maybe I didn't. If I was mad now, maybe I wouldn’t know it, and what difference would it have made anyway? I don't know when she died, but I hope it was quick. All I know is that, after a while, my body stopped feeding and stood again. I didn't want to look down, I didn't want to see what I'd done to her, but my body didn't care. My head just happened to look in that direction and I wasn't even able to close my eyes! I didn't even have that much control! I saw her. From the bottom of the ribcage upwards she might almost have been asleep. Her eyes were closed (Thank God for that! Such a small thing to be thankful for after all this horror, but I gave thanks nonetheless) and her breasts shone in the moonlight. Still perfect, untouched. Under the ribcage, though, was an empty red hole from which the half chewed ends of her entrails still hung. 

     Having seen her like that, once the sight was in my head with no way to get it out again, I wanted to keep looking at her, at her face, as if I could somehow apologise to her, beg her forgiveness by some impossible telepathy. My body just moved on, though. Dismissing her as though she were nothing more than a candy wrapper. It left it behind, walked away, forgot her while I grieved and mourned and cursed myself and the God that had allowed this to happen. 

     George had risen in the meantime. He was standing there, near the place where I'd killed him, staring around himself with blank, dead eyes. My body moved towards him and we stood together, wandering a few paces this way, then a few paces that way. Zombies seemed to like the company of other zombies, it seemed. They tended to keep together in a group, an instinctive behaviour rather than conscious planning, I think. I was certainly unaware of any conscious planning governing the behaviour of my own body. 

     I wondered whether his mind and consciousness was still in there, a helpless passenger in his body, just as I was in mine. Maybe I'm the only one, I tried to tell myself. Maybe I'm some kind of fluke, and George and Angela have gone to heaven together. Freed from this awful existence. There didn't seem to be any way to know. If George was still in there, there was no way he could communicate with me, or I with him, which may have been a blessing. It meant I could try to convince myself that it wasn’t true, that he and my wife were now in paradise. 

     Even that small comfort was soon to be denied me, though, because a few minutes later Angela's body rose. She made no attempt to cover her breasts as she stood, her body was unconcerned with such human trivialities as modesty. She just stood there, her clothes hanging in tatters around her waist, and came over to join us, wandering back and forth in front of the cabin with us. We didn’t look at each other, but then, just by chance, our heads turned to look towards each other and I saw her eyes. It would be incorrect to say that out eyes met, because we couldn’t even move our eyes in their sockets, but my eyes saw hers and hers saw mine and what I saw there... 

     She was still in there, I saw! All her love, her compassion, everything that made her who she was! Somehow, the love we had for each other, our deep knowledge of each other, enabled me to see it in her, and perhaps allowed her to see it in me! I saw something else as well, her horror at what she had become, a torment that went beyond words, that went beyond sane comprehension! I wanted to cry out in outrage! She didn't deserve this! If anyone had earned paradise, it was her! And not just her! If it had happened to the two of us, then it must have happened to all the other zombies as well! All the teeming millions of them! Saints, sinners, former vagrants and former millionaires, they must all now be trapped in their decomposing bodies, doomed to wander the earth until their very bones fell apart, and maybe doomed to remain even then, trapped in the very soil into which they rotted. God would never allow this! I thought. Angela must have been right, God must be dead, and the Devil was in charge now! There was no other explanation for this! 

     I thought of Julie, all alone now in the lodge. Angela had closed the door after exiting, I saw as my body shuffled past, and zombies lacked the ability to turn doorknobs. She was safe so long as she stayed inside, which she would. She was a sensible girl, and she must know what had happened to the rest of us. She knew that I'd gone out alone and hadn't come back. She'd seen George, and then her mother, go out and not come back. She knew that zombies tended not to stay in the same area for long, unless they were trapped by a closing door or something. All she had to do was stay inside, stay quiet, and eventually the three of us would go wandering off and she'd be free to continue on alone to the community of survivors. They'd take her in, look after her. She'd be raised by strangers, but at least she'd be spared what had happened to the rest of us. 

     She'll have to walk there! I suddenly realised. She didn't know how to drive, and even if she did the car keys were in my pocket! Most of the food was in the car. She could break a window to get it, but there was a limit to how much she could carry. She would have to travel about a hundred miles on foot (if George was right about the community's location), stopping at shops and houses to forage for food, running the risk of disturbing a zombie every time. The gas station all over again, but this time with no-one to rescue her. What were her chances? Could she possibly make it? 

     She would make it! I told myself. Somehow, she would make it! I would never know for certain because we'd be long gone, but I would believe! I would have faith! No matter what horrors Angela and I had to endure in the years to come, we would find comfort in the belief that our daughter was safe, somewhere, somehow... 

     “Mummy?” I heard, her voice muffled through the closed door, and my soul froze in a new terror compared to which every previous terror was as nothing! “Mummy? Daddy?” No, I screamed inside my head. Keep quiet! Please, Sweetie, keep quiet!” My body responded to the sound of her voice, though, moving towards the door, Angela beside me, and I knew that my wife was feeling the same desperate anxiety I was, even though her ravaged and chewed body showed no outward sign. We reached the door together and began pushing, but the door was strong and remained closed. 

     There was a small glass window in the door, and I saw her pale, frightened face through it. “I know that's not you out there,” I heard her say. “I know you're in heaven now. I want to be with you in heaven...” 

     No! Please, Sweetie, No! Don't do it! Please, God, please don’t let her do it! 

     “I'm going to come out,” said Julie. “I know what will happen, but it won't be long and then I'll be with you in heaven. I can't be all alone, I'm not strong enough! I need to be with you, wherever you are...” 

     I'll do anything! Anything! Please God! Or Satan, if you're in charge now! I’ll do anything! I'll worship you if that's what you want! I'll do anything you want! Just don't let her do it! Please! 

     “I'm coming out now. I'm not scared. Whatever you do to me, I know it’s not you. I'm coming, mummy! I'm coming!” 

     I could hear her crying! She was lying, she was scared! She was terrified, but she was going to do it anyway! The kind of courage that had to take... It meant that she was wrong about not being strong enough! She was easily strong enough to make it! If only I could speak, if only I could warn her! Please, God! Don't let her do it! I'll do anything! Anything! 

     There was a click as she turned the latch, and then Angela and I pushed the door open...