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off Colin and reach us before it opens. We have no idea how many there are. Could be two, three, a dozen; a mob. The only way we’ll know for sure is if we stay here, and we’re sure as hell not doing that.
    When the door finally swings open, we run like hell out into the snow.
    Kenny’s choking back sobs as he sprints behind us. He’s saying, “Fuck, fuck,” over and over again.
    When we get some distance between us and the shop and are convinced we’re not being followed, we stop to lean against a wall until our breathing returns to normal. My teeth are rattling about in my head from the exertion, but Mustafa hasn’t even broken a sweat.
    Kenny’s panting away. “You...weren’t...lying.”
    I doubt he gets to do much exercise watching videos all day long. I’m about to chastise him for that when Mustafa charges off down the street.
    Scott shouts, “Wait,” but when he doesn’t stop, Scott runs after him, and not wanting to be left behind, Kenny and I follow, trudging through the snow.
    On the pavement up ahead, I see a girl with long blonde hair being pinned down by three dead bastards who are picking away at her flesh with their fingers as if she’s an all-you-can-eat rotisserie buffet. She’s not making a sound. I hope to God she's dead.
    Scott slaps a hand on his Mustafa’s shoulder to stop him from getting any closer. “It’s too late, Muzz.”
    Mustafa’s eyes are closed as though he’s praying. “It’s Jessica. She works in the shop sometimes. She’s nice.”
    I bite back the temptation to say, so was Marie and she tried to eat you.
    They’re too busy jabbering away to notice a hand reach out from a pile of snow at their feet. It grabs Mustafa’s ankle and pulls him towards it. Tam the Bam, our local bum who always reeks of booze, a stench so pungent it could knock us out if we got within ten feet of him, rises Carrie-style out of the snow mound.
    There is no way we could have seen that coming.
    Mustafa wildly bats away at the hand as it drags him towards the pile of snow, but old Tam, or whatever he is now, holds on as Mustafa shrieks and kicks. Whatever the virus infection does it gives the dead superhuman strength because Mustafa does two hundred bench presses a day (he’s always boasting about it) is losing to a man who weighs about the same as a bundle of bones.
    Scott arches the axe upward but stops mid-swing. With Tam holding onto Mustafa’s ankle, Scott has to be careful not to hit him with the axe, especially when the only part of Tam that’s visible now is the hand (I recognise the Royal Navy tattoo) because he’s scooted back into the snow, probably anticipating a nice meal in the privacy of his makeshift igloo.
    I don’t know what comes over me, but before I’m conscious of what I’m doing, I’m launching myself at the lump in the snow, battering the hell out of the spot where I believe Tam’s head is with my bat, so lost in my murderous rage I only stop when Scott shouts, “Enough,” and points to the bloody carcass.
    Even as chunks of flesh rain down, I tell myself I was forced to do it to survive.
    Kenny marches over. “Did you get the brain?”
    I’ve forgotten that he was even there because he’d been standing around like a spare part whilst I sprang into action.
    I eye the bloody mush that used to be Tam’s brain, and then I burst out laughing at the stupidity of his question. “Aye, it’s fair to say I got the brain. I brained him.”
    “Good job,” Kenny says, polishing his glasses.
    Poor soul. He might have accidentally got a few splashes of blood on his specs as he stood back and marvelled at the live entertainment.
    Mustafa sits in the snow, rubbing his ankle, and then he gives Kenny the death stare. “Where the hell were you, mate?”
    “Oh,” Kenny says, “I’m here mainly in an advisory role.”
    “Well,” says Mustafa, eyeballing him, “you’d better learn to get into a killer role. We won’t survive if one of us is just a