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of clothes as they edged further into the store. The wet sound of raw meat being torn from bone met Kate’s ears and she put her free arm out to halt the others. She peered around the next row of clothing rails to see one of the Dead – what used to be a young woman in a smart grey dress, now torn and blood splattered. It was on its hands and knees, feasting on a woman lying on her back on the floor.
    The Dead had its back to Kate, so she slipped her ankle boots off and crept from behind the rail in her purple-stockinged feet, placing each one down slowly and carefully. She stopped right behind the Dead and raised the umbrella like a spear, the tip in line with the Dead’s head. The woman on the floor gasped, making Kate jump. She hadn’t realised she could still be alive, not with her stomach ripped out.
    The Dead turned and growled at Kate, before leaping at her, throwing her back. She landed heavily, knocking the wind from her, and she dropped the umbrella. Kate thrust her hands up and caught the Dead by the throat, managing to keep its snapping jaws at bay while it pinned her to the floor. Then, so fast she barely knew it had happened at first, the weight of the Dead lifted off her body as with one swing of his clothing pole, BG knocked the thing off her. Kate sprang to her feet to see BG using the pole to batter the Dead until there was nothing left of its head other than a jellied mush.
    ‘I think you got it,’ said Kate.
    BG looked up at her. His eyes were wide, his cheeks flushed. He looked down at the bloodied mess at his feet, and then to the pole in his hands – blood and brain dripping from its end – and back up to Kate, his mouth hung open as though it had only just dawned on him that he had done it.
    ‘Keep it together,’ said Kate. ‘We still need to get the front doors secure.’
    BG nodded. ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m good,’ he said and darted off to the front of the store.
    Kate glanced down at the woman on the ground. There was a large open wound in her stomach and the flesh from her jaw was missing, exposing her bottom teeth on her left side. Her eyes were closed but she wasn’t dead – her chest rose and fell in ragged breaths.
    ‘Oh my God – she’s alive,’ said Screamer as she drew up beside Kate.
    ‘I don’t know what to do,’ said Kate, her voice cracking.
    ‘Only thing we can do,’ said the old lady. ‘I worked on a farm as a young woman, and sometimes animals needed putting out of their misery.’ The old lady raised her metal pole.
    ‘You can’t!’ said Screamer. ‘You can’t!’
    Kate watched BG stride back towards them from the front of the store. He had removed his suit jacket and tie, and his blood spattered shirt had been loosened at the neck and rolled up at the sleeves. He looked more alive than Kate had ever seen him. Determined. Strong. Handsome, even. He nodded his agreement to Kate. ‘It’s the kindest–’
    At that moment a squeaking sound from behind the nearby sales counter halted everyone. With their make-shift weapons raised, the group of survivors edged their way towards the counter. Kate heard a muffled scraping sound – something scuffing over the lino. She reached the counter first and stopped at the corner. Craning her neck to see over the counter and to the other side, she could just make out a pair of black Converse boots. She edged her way around the counter a little way, just enough to see the bottoms of a pair of skinny jeans… skinny jeans attached to a pair of quivering legs…
    …attached to a quivering boy wedged in a gap beneath the cash register. Kate rounded the counter to see a hipster with tattoos and a beard that probably wasn’t as thick and bushy as he wanted it to be. The beard didn’t make him look any older, just made him look like a little boy with a stick on beard playing a wise man in the nativity play.
    ‘Don’t kill me! Please don’t kill me!’ he said, his eyes scrunched closed, his head turned in towards the wall