But as one of the reborn dead she quite simply excelled.

  Her attacks, when they came, were without mercy, without thought, fuelled purely by primal instinct. She craved warm flesh and blood (though it offered no sustenance) but no matter how often she killed or how much she fed, the intense hunger remained.

  Following her husband, the next victim was an old woman who fought back with every fibre of her being right up until her dying breath. Then came a teenage girl struck dumb with fear (easily dispatched) and a fat man incapacitated by a broken leg. All screamed away their final moments, pleading to the rabid, blood-crazed monster as if she still held the capacity for mercy. Unbeknown to them, that frailty had departed the very moment her heart had beat its last.

  As the hours ticked by ‘Jenny’ stumbled on in search of more prey only to be joined by other dead (including her reanimated husband) and their mindless group steadily expanded. Twenty became thirty - then forty – then fifty - as the rotten legion swelled like a pulsing tumour with her at its core. Individually she had decayed further too, with putrid liquid oozing from every orifice of her grotesquely bloated body. Her skin had turned the colour of rancid porridge and even her eyes, once green and sparkling, were now cloudy and sticky with gunge.

  One day on from her ‘rebirth’ and with their number now hundreds strong, the horde shambled across Chipstead Common and down into the village of Riverhead. Some survivors saw them and dared to run although most tried to hide, seeking shelter within the crumbling walls of their former homes. For many this was a decision that doomed them. Even the slightest sound - a muffled shout or whimpered cry – was enough to bring snarling dead things crashing through their buckled doorways. And once hunter sensed prey - that was that.

  Here, opposite a once picturesque church, the thing formerly known as Jenny Shiplea caught sight of a potential female victim disappearing up a side road. Growling, she shuffled off in lone pursuit as her colleagues sought out noisier quarry nearby.

  Despite her lumbering gait ‘Jenny’ kept her victim in close contact, following her to the broken door of a crumbling building and stumbling clumsily over the debris-strewn threshold. Staggering into the narrow hallway she was met by a flashing kitchen knife as the panicked woman flew at her, jabbing and stabbing repeatedly. With a fifth thrust the blade sank into the bloated flesh of ‘Jenny’s’ chest, scraping past her breastbone and piercing her cold, unbeating heart.

  To Vicky Hudson’s whirling mind that should have been enough.

  She backed away, her fingers slipping from the handle of the stuck knife. Dealt such a blow, surely now the thing would fall...

  No.

  To her stunned disbelief the monster gave a dry groan and continued to advance. Vicky froze, rooted to the spot, unable to comprehend what was happening.

  It was a hesitation that proved to be fatal.

  Clawing hands lunged, digging into her shoulder and making her shriek in agony. Before she could pull away chomping teeth found the side of her face, sinking into the meat of her cheek, ripping away a chunk of flesh and spritzing the walls with red.

  This time Vicky’s ear-splitting scream died on her lips and her unconscious body folded in on itself like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Oblivious to the blade lodged within its heart and still driven by a raging hunger, the monster fell upon her with unrestrained ferocity.

  A day after her death and for the fifth time since turning, ‘Jenny Shiplea’ fed. With raking fingers and chomping jaws she tore into the woman’s fleshy belly, turning it into a bloody mess in seconds. Warm stringy entrails wriggled in her hands and she gorged upon them before moving onto the liver and gallbladder. The narrow hallway echoed with liquid smacking sounds as she feasted on loops of intestine, swallowing each rubbery mouthful with equal enthusiasm. For a whole ten minutes she devoured Vicky Hudson’s body, consuming her heart and lungs and countless chunks of flesh.

  And then something made her stop.

  Once more the meat was beginning to spoil, but that wasn’t it. It was a new sound, coming from somewhere else within the gloomy house.

  A very different sound.

  The sound of something helpless.

  The sound of more prey.

  ‘Jenny’ raised her head and clambered to her feet before shuffling toward the foot of the stairs. She stood there for a moment, swaying slightly, head tilted dog-like until the sound came again. Then, drooling blood and bile onto the floor, she climbed the creaking staircase one clumsy step at a time.

  Once at the top she turned left and crossed the landing, stumbling over chunks of fallen plaster to arrive at a partially open door. Drawn like a fox to the squawk of a wounded bird, she gave a gurgling snarl and lurched into the room.

  To the rotting monster that used to be Jenny Shiplea the small helpless creature in the cot was just more food, something else to be devoured but never to stem her hunger. She fell upon it instantly, tearing into the soft flesh, silencing its cries almost immediately, sinking her jaws into its tiny ribcage and bathing in its blood. The baby, Leah Alice Hudson, had been just three months old.

  When she had devoured the entire body, leaving just a blood-soaked cradle, ‘Jenny’ shambled across the room to the large bedroom window. This time sounds from outside had caught her attention; groans of the massed dead punctuated with the terrified screams of their victims. Through clouded eyes she could see more prey running through the street below. One after another they were caught by their attackers; one after another they were brought down and torn apart.

  ‘Jenny’ gave another breathless growl. The symphony of carnage and promise of more flesh was irresistible. She pressed against the window, smearing the glass with bloody mucus, oblivious to the weakened frame as it began to buckle.

  Then, suddenly, it gave way.

  Amid splintering wood and shards of glass her bloated body dropped, plummeting twenty-five feet into the yard below. At the same time the already damaged roof above began to break apart, throwing large pieces of slate and huge chunks of masonry down onto the prone figure. For one full minute debris continued to fall, forming a billowing, seething cloud of grey dust...

  Buried beneath a huge pile of detritus, the ‘woman-thing’ did not feel the pain of three broken ribs or a dislocated shoulder. She was unaware of a cracked thighbone, broken wrist and fractured cheekbone. Mindless but still cursed with an inherent desire to feed, she struggled to free herself.

  And almost an entire day later, on a sunny Wednesday morning, she finally succeeded.

  Clear from the pile of rubble for just a few minutes she shuffled along an upward sloping road, stumbling past one abandoned car after another, ignoring the many splinters of gnawed bone scattered along the kerbside. Her dead comrades had moved on but now something else was in the air; something that was now unmistakeable.

  The spoor of more prey.

  Obvious and irresistible, she could smell their sweat and taste their breath. Somewhere there was another victim. Somewhere close.

  Her primal instincts kicked into overdrive. Despite her injuries she began to lumber forward at a faster pace, growling and gurgling as her head jerked left and right in search of the source. Then, at the apex of the slope she stopped, swaying slightly on the spot while opening her mouth to groan.

  -crunch!-

  Her head (now just a bloated ball of decayed flesh) pitched to one side on an instantly broken neck. The blow had come from behind, catching her just below the cranium. Putrid fluid leaked free from her cracked skull as she somehow stayed on her feet but only to shuffle and swivel directly into another upward swinging strike. This one caught her below the jaw, tearing her head clean from her body and jettisoning it into the air amid a shower of dark blood and pus. Hands waving wildly, her headless corpse remained upright for a full two seconds before collapsing under its own weight. The spinning head landed with a dull squelch ten feet away, dropping from the sky like a punctured football.

  With a loud gasp her unknown attacker sank to his knees, a dented cricket bat slipping from his fingers. Utterly exhausted, he fell onto one side and rolled over, lying with his head against the kerb. Battered and bruised and with his jeans and T-shirt drenched in sweat and muck and blood, he looked more dead than alive.

  The man only knew that he had passed out when muttering voices stirred him some time later. He fumbled blindly for the cricket bat, quickly realising that it wasn’t where he had dropped it.

  ‘Hey, you okay?’ asked a shaky female voice, and the man looked up into a shadowed group of figures looming over him. Disoriented, he was only dimly aware that the sun had moved further across the sky and that it was now afternoon.

  ‘Don’t get too close’ said another of the voices, male with a strong Scottish accent. Even though his eyes were still adjusting the man on the ground could tell that a weapon, something like a spear, was being pointed at him.

  ‘You can see he’s not one of them’ said the female voice, quickly turning her attention back to the stranger. ‘Are you hurt?’ she asked. ‘Have you been bitten?’

  The man drew his legs up into a sitting position and quickly counted the shapes around him. There were six. Blinking, he shook his head at none of them in particular.

  ‘There’s blood on him’ said the Scotsman, making the stranger shake his head more vociferously.

  ‘N-no. I’m not bit’ he mumbled.

  The silhouettes looked at each other and then one of them alerted the group to the decapitated head of a woman lying face up about ten feet away. Despite a dented skull the dislocated jaws of the thing were still moving; the broken, rotten teeth still clacking, still trying to bite.

  ‘Jesus’ said the Scotsman, stepping in front of the gruesome object and blocking the man’s view. With a grunt he brought a heavy boot down on the skull, crushing it with a liquid squelch while the others gave a chorus of disgusted groans.

  The man’s lip trembled and the female snapped her fingers, bringing his interest immediately back to her. Slowly she lowered herself into a crouch and leaned closer. It was only then that the stranger realised that she was much younger than he had first thought, probably only in her early twenties. On another day, with his mind functioning normally, he would have paid more attention to her short dark hair and large green eyes.

  ‘What’s your name’ she asked soothingly.

  The man paused and licked his dry lips, almost as if he himself had forgotten. ‘M-Matt’ he eventually croaked. ‘Matt Reilly.’

  ~ 2 ~

  Ben Reilly gazed wearily at the door at the top of the stairs and wondered how much longer they would be able to last. This was their third night in the basement and the foul, stale air was now almost unbearable.

  But it wasn’t just that.

  He was also worried that they were growing too weak, less able to fight back if the door became breached. True, it had been a while since they had heard anything from above (up until two hours ago the shuffling noises had been taunting them for days) but the uneasy feeling of lurking danger remained.

  Rubbing the now thick stubble on his chin he glanced at his watch in the flickering candlelight. It was 11.37pm. Tomorrow, he thought. If there’s no more noise until the morning, we’ll have to make our move then.

  ‘I’ll keep an eye on the door tonight, lad’ Reg Herbert mumbled from behind him. ‘You should try and get some sleep.’

  Ben cast a look around the basement. Sarah and Chris were lying together on a padded lounger cover in the corner, half-asleep with a conspicuous gap between them. Pepper lay spread out on a dustsheet nearby and a few feet away Katie was on another cover, lying on her side while facing the wall. Finally, on a lounger behind Reg was the pensioner’s wife, lying face up with her eyes creased shut, her entire body shuddering with fever.

  ‘What about you?’ Ben whispered to the old man. ‘You need some rest too...’

  Reg glanced across at Maureen and lowered his eyes. ‘I’m not sleeping anyway, no matter what. So there’s no sense both of us being awake if we don’t have to be...’

  Ben gave a silent yawn and nodded. He climbed stiffly to his feet and stretched, arching his back before patting the old man on the shoulder. Then, shuffling across the basement, he quietly lowered himself onto the padded cover beside Katie. As he exhaled she rolled over to face him and their eyes met. She turned away again but allowed him to drape an arm over her body and pull her close. It was then, as he nuzzled into the back of her neck that he became aware of a familiar noise, a steady ambient sound that had probably been going on for much longer than he had realised.

  ‘What is it?’ whispered Katie, sensing that he had sat up again.

  Ben tilted his head to one side. ‘Not sure. But I think it’s raining.’

  Katie gulped. Was it normal rain, or the other kind..?

  As Ben listened to the rhythmic sound his eyes wandered across the basement and once more found the hunched figure of Reg. The old man was kneeling beside his shivering wife, holding her hand while staring at the door at the top of the stairwell. Overcome with tiredness, Ben lowered his head back down and rested it against his Katie’s back.

  ‘Try to get some sleep’ she whispered.

  ‘I will. You too...’

  Try they did, but despite their extreme exhaustion both Reillys could only manage odd snatches of slumber among another night full of tumbling, troubled thoughts. Haunted by the unknown fates of their loved ones, they were still unable to comprehend what was actually happening out there in the wider world.

  Tormented by the same concerns, Chris and Sarah fared little better. In fact, of them all Pepper slept the most peacefully. Lying on her side, her legs twitched as she presumably dreamed of one day running again through green meadows...

  ’She’s gone...’

  Ben sat bolt upright at the sound of a voice, the dry whisper jerking him awake. Standing over him was Reg, a freshly-lit candle in his hand, smeared glasses doing little to mask a moist redness in his eyes.

  Ben blinked twice. ‘What do you m-‘

  ‘She’s gone. She’s dead.’

  ‘But-‘

  Ben’s words faded away as a weary Katie sat up alongside him. ‘What..?’ she blurted, clumsily brushing tendrils of hair away from her face.

  ‘She’s dead...’ the old man repeated. This time there was a chill bluntness to his Geordie tone, one that none of the others had heard before.

  A few feet away Sarah and Chris had also begun to stir. They sat up slowly, rubbing life back into their tired faces as Pepper’s dark eyes flickered open nearby.

  Ben rose dizzily from the floor, wincing at the ache in his limbs as he took Katie’s hand and pulled her up. On the lounger where Maureen had lain, now covered by another sheet, was the still but unmistakeable form of a body. Katie gasped as she took it in, clamping her hand over her mouth in horror.

  ‘Oh, no. No...’

  ‘It killed her’ muttered Reg. ‘That bite killed her...’

  Katie’s eyes were heavy with tears as she moved toward the old man. ‘Oh Reg, I’m so sorry! I tried so hard...’

  ‘I know you did’ he mumbled, holding up a hand to halt her intended embrace. Then he gulped and backed away, flopping into a seat nearest to the covered body. Putting the flickering candle into a bowl by his side, he slowly removed his glasses and buried his head in his hands. Then, shoulders sagging, the former serviceman began to sob.

  By now Sarah and Chris had also risen from the floor and were staring at Reg. The old man seemed broken to them now, defeated; nothing like the bold senior citizen that had led them through danger-filled lanes a few days ago armed with just a pitchfork.

  Katie reached out for Ben’s hand and gripped it. Chris moved alongside them and turned back to his former girlfriend, also offering his hand.

  ‘Sarah...?’ he whispered, trying to get her attention, but the girl didn’t answer. She was staring blankly into space with eyes as big as saucers. The old woman’s passing had hit her like a thunderbolt and now a grim realisation had dawned. These people were not equipped to protect her. They were all going to die.

  Suddenly, Chris’ heart skipped a beat as something brushed against his leg. He looked down, breathing a sigh of relief as Pepper appeared by his side. But the dog was acting strangely, standing completely alert, tail out straight, hackles up, a low growl escaping her twitching muzzle.

  And she was staring at Reg.

  Reaching down, Chris quickly grabbed her collar but Pepper’s stare remained on the hunched old man. Her growl increased, becoming a snarl.

  And then Chris noticed something else.

  Pepper wasn’t staring at Reg; she was looking behind him at the body covered by the dustsheet - at the sheet that had begun to move...

  Chris’s mouth fell open. ‘Oh God...!’

  From that exact moment, lasting ninety-eight seconds, a storm of white-hot terror hit them...

  The teenage boy was the first to react, reaching for Sarah’s arm with his free hand, yanking her toward him and shocking her from her trance. At the same time Ben noticed what was happening and leaped forward to haul Reg from his seat. Before the old man could protest he was dragged back and spun around so that he could witness what they were all seeing.

  The body beneath the sheet had risen into a sitting position, the covered head twitching this way and that while cold fingers clawed at the material from within. Slightly off balance, the writhing figure began to tip slowly forward, gradually pulling free of the clinging sheet. As the body fell, hitting the floor with a sickening crunch, Pepper’s snarl became a bark.

  Chris instantly dropped to his knees and wrapped his hands around the dog’s muzzle. She wriggled in his grasp as Sarah stooped to help by taking hold of her collar. Between the two of them they just about managed to restrain the animal, hauling her back into the shadows behind the stairwell. As for Ben, Katie and Reg, their eyes were on the swaying figure that had staggered to its feet on the other side of the basement.

 

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