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yet he forced himself to keep moving and not make any sudden changes in direction. Even when it stumbled and then appeared to start coming toward him, he continued. To react in any way now would mark him out as different, and he didn’t know if he could keep fighting these damn things today. He watched as it staggered past but he didn’t flinch. He refused to react, even when his nostrils filled with its foul, decaying stench, even when it came close enough that he could hear its putrefied innards sloshing about inside its barrel-like gut. Driver didn’t know how much longer he could keep on going like this.
    After almost an hour—his progress painfully slow and frustratingly directionless—he reached the summit of a hill. It had been a deceptive, interminable slope to climb, and he’d resorted to using his golf-club weapon as a walking stick to help him get to the top. But once he was there, his mood had immediately changed for the better. On the other side of the slope there were three more bodies in the road, but that didn’t matter because, just beyond them, parked neatly at what appeared to be a scheduled stop, was a bus. It was only a small, single-level bus—par for the course in these rural parts and nothing like the big, inner-city double-deckers he used to love to drive—but that didn’t matter. Provided it had enough fuel and he could get it started, his fortune may well have just taken a turn for the better.
    One of the three corpses moved to intercept him as he cantered down the hill. It had a gaping hole in the side of its face where insects and rot had eaten away much of its right cheek, and he could see into its mouth, its yellow teeth grinding and its lolling tongue clacking tirelessly. He stepped back out of the way as it lurched at him. Off-balance, it dropped to its knees. Before it could pick itself up, he smashed in the back of its skull like an egg with his golf club, then immediately swung the club around and knocked another one of them completely off its feet. He didn’t even bother wasting any effort on the third, instead just shoving it out of the way as he climbed onto the bus.
    One of the trapped passengers was still mobile. When it saw Driver it hurtled down the narrow aisle between the two rows of seats, the lack of space appearing to make it move faster than it actually was. It clipped its hip on the back of one of the chairs before it could reach him, then hit the deck heavily. Driver planted one of his boots between its shoulder blades to keep it down, then grabbed it by the scruff of its neck, dragged it along the bus, and manhandled it out of the door.
    It was good to be back on a bus again, he thoughthe road,himself as he shifted several more dead (but thankfully immobile) passengers. One old crone was particularly difficult to budge from her seat. She’d been holding onto the handle of her shopping trolley when she’d died, and her wet decay had dried over time and welded her gnarled hands to the plastic grip like glue. He had to prise them apart to get her out.
    The dried-up, eviscerated remains of the driver of the bus were far less awkward to remove. He peeled the dead man off his seat, then used the jacket which had been draped over the back of his chair to wipe it clear. He dashed out through a gap in the steadily increasing activity outside, and respectfully placed the body in the undergrowth at the side of the road, feeling strangely honor-bound to take a little more care with a fellow driver than any of the others. He returned to the bus, pushed the doors shut and then, finally, he was alone.
    Driver walked the length of the long vehicle as he did at the beginning of every shift, picking up the odd discarded ticket and leaning across to open the high, vented windows and let the stale air circulate. Then, with an audience of eight corpses now watching him from outside, he took up his rightful position behind the wheel. It had only been a few days since he’d last