Tim parks the car at the side of the road and crushes grass growing long from the field. Neil leans forward from the back seat and points to Wistman’s Drive, just ahead on their left.

“That way,” he says.

“I’m going nowhere,” Tim replies.

Neil stares at him, then at Steph beside Tim. Steph faces straight ahead. Her hands sit in her lap, linked. Maybe so they don’t shake. Beside Neil, Pam lets go of her baseball bat and tries to hold his hand. He doesn’t let go of his cricket bat.

“What?” Neil says.

“I’m staying right here. If you want to get out, that’s up to you, but we’re not coming with you.”

Neil tries to think. The horror of the last two hours makes rational thought close to impossible. All he can think is the screaming and the thick, meaty sounds of tearing flesh.

“Tim, please—”

“Up to you, Neil. But you better decide now.”

“The house is a mile away. Just straight up the road.”

“I’m going nowhere,” Tim screams and Steph flinches. Saliva flies from Tim’s lips and hits the windscreen. On the outside of the glass, a few smears of blood run as drops of rain hit them. Tim clenches a fist and sucks his knuckles.

“Look at that road,” he says quietly and Neil does, even though he knows the road well. “We can get down there no problem, but what about reversing? What about turning around — fast, if we have to? There’s not enough room.”

Neil knows Tim is right. The road is designed for one line of traffic. There are a few places to pull over if a car is coming the other way but if they’re halfway between one and another and they need to turn around, they won’t be able to.

Neil unwinds his window a few inches and peers outside. The silence doesn’t seem right, not after the noise of just a couple of miles away. He listens for anything and can only hear the wind. It’s like a constant breath against his ear.

“What about the pub?” Pam whispers and Neil winds up his window. He glances across to the other side of the road to the pub Steph is pointing at. The Fox and Hounds. Not the busiest place Tim has ever been in, but what can be expected for this place? A pub, a few houses beside it, the village High Street snaking away behind the road. And the road to their left: Wistman’s Drive. One road, a mile long, three houses. The first, fifty yards from where they sit; the second, half a mile further. And the last.

The last.

The last right at the end.

“Looks like everyone’s gone,” Tim says. “Either that or they’re inside and we’ve got no chance of getting in.”

“What about the houses?” Steph says.

“Same as the pub,” Tim says, impatience creeping into his voice. He turns, straining against his seat belt. “Are you going to the house?”

Neil swallows and wants to tell Tim he has no choice; it’s his sister’s house; it’s family. He wants to say these things but can’t. And why would Tim care? He’s a neighbour, not a friend. He’s done enough to come this far.

“I have to,” Neil says.

Tim nods and his face softens. If it wasn’t for the splashes of blood on his cheeks and in the grooves of his knuckles, the ease of his tight muscles would have made him look friendly.

“How many...” He stops and tries again. “How many are there?”

“My sister and her two kids. Her husband is away.” Neil studies the grass at the edge of the road, the fields and the road Tim won’t take. “Chris won’t take up much space. He’s only two.”

Steph lets out a sob, but doesn’t speak.

“And Lisa is pretty small for her age, so it won’t be that tight in here.” Nobody replies and he whispers: “She’s thirteen.”

“I’ll come with you,” Pam says.

“No chance.”

“Neil, I want to.”

“Doesn’t matter.” He looks at her for the first time since they got into the car and takes hold of her. She’s cold, despite the heaters having been on for the last twenty minutes. “Stay here and wait for me.”

She looks at her bat and the blood on her hands and he realises she didn’t want to go with him. He can’t blame her. Since the events back in the city and what they did to get this far, he can’t blame her for anything.

“I’ll make some space,” Tim says and unbuckles his belt. Free to move, he turns and offers Neil his cricket bat.

“No, thanks. I’ve still got my own.”

He doesn’t want to say Tim should keep the bat because he might need it. He doesn’t even want to think about that.

Neil zips his jacket and gazes again at the grass. The afternoon is still bright but he knows it won’t be long before shadows cover the grass, before dusk, then darkness.

“What time is it?” he says, not looking at them.

“Almost half four,” Steph says.

“Will you wait?” Neil says, eyes still on the fields.

Tim hesitates before replying. His words make Neil’s hope shrink almost to nothing.

“Twenty minutes.”

“Twenty minutes?” Steph shouts. “God, Tim. He said it’s a mile to the house—”

“I know what he said. Twenty minutes.” Tim faces Neil and licks his lips a few times before he can speak. “I’m sorry, but that’s all I can give you. We need to get moving; it’ll be dark soon. We won’t be able to see where we’re going. And they’ll be around here, eventually.”

Neil thinks the word he’s heard in many horror films but doesn’t say it.

“Twenty-five?” he says. “I’ll run as fast as I can.”

Tim looks at the bloody bat in Neil’s hands. He nods once.

Steph turns and gazes at Tim. He notes dimly her lips are bleeding. She’s chewed them, he realises.

“Your sister’s house. Big?” she says.

“Yeah. Five or six bedrooms, I think. It’s a farmhouse. Her husband has been working on it for a while.”

He can feel time slipping by, just as he can feel his terror rising from his stomach. Steph looks at Tim and he shakes his head.

“No way. We need to get away from houses, from people.” He tries to smile and it makes his face look like a mannequin’s. “Besides, I’ve seen the films. They always get into the big houses, eventually. They—”

He realises what he’s said and his mouth closes with a snap.

Neil kisses Pam. Her lips are almost completely unresponsive. They’re as cold as her hands.

“Twenty-five minutes,” Neil says, squeezes his fingers around his bat and opens the door. Cold air smacks him in the face. “Wait for us.”

He steps out of the car and closes the door. Pam’s staring at him; he tries to smile. Tim is looking ahead, hands gripping the wheel, and Neil is certain that when he makes it a few steps from the car, Tim will speed away without looking back.

Again, his mind tries to whisper the word from dozens, maybe hundreds of films. He doesn’t let it. The wind blows at him straight off the fields and, not for the first time, he wonders what it’s like to live here with the miles of grass, turf fields and hedges and uninterrupted views in all directions.

I bet it’s nice in the pub on a cold night, he thinks and tries not to think of the interior of the pub now. Barricaded windows, maybe. Blocked off doors. Smashed bottles at the bar. And maybe bodies beside the fruit machine. Maybe dead people in the cellar.

His feet take him from the car. He jogs at the side of the road, reaches Wistman’s Drive and forces himself to not look back. The Drive runs ahead for about fifty yards before turning to the right. Once he hits that point, he knows the car will be out of sight for probably half a mile.

“What are you waiting for?” he whispers and starts running.

The slap of his trainers on the road sounds flat, unreal. He concentrates on the thud of each step, takes the curve to the right and makes sure he stays on the left side of the road as he draws close to the first house. As much as he wants to pretend it’s not there, he can’t look away from the building, from the smashed windows and the caved in door. There are no signs of life, no splashes of blood, and that can only be a good thing.

Maybe everyone was out when it happened.

A moan comes from the side of the house as Neil passes it. Terror swallows him and his jog becomes a sprint. The cricket bat smacks against his thigh and he can’t feel the pain. The moan comes again and Neil wheezes a sound somewhere between a scream and his own moan.

He stops at the next curve of the road and looks behind, gasping.

The woman from the house hasn’t reached the road yet. She’s still on her drive, stumbling on the stones. He watches her lift a hand to her mouth and chew on something. Even with the distance between them, he can tell it’s a foot.

It’s still inside the school shoe.

“Jesus Christ,” he says, voice high like a child’s.

The dead woman moans again. She’s seen him, but doesn’t advance. Maybe she knows he’s too far away for her to catch.

They can’t think.

Maybe not. But the dead woman still doesn’t advance. She chews on the foot and sways in the wind.

“Fall over,” Neil whispers. “Fall over and break your head open.”

Get moving. You haven’t got time to stop.

Neil runs again. He passes stables; horses hear him and neigh. He wonders if they’re scared or if they know they’re safe from the dead people. The bizarre thought makes him laugh, even though nothing’s funny.

The road turns to the left sharply and a long straight line marches ahead. Neil skids through a muddy puddle and does his best to ignore the developing pain in his side. There’s another half a mile to go. He can only think about that, about the house at the end of the road. He covers the next sixty yards and draws close to the second house. As much as he doesn’t want to, he can’t help but stare at it.

At some point since events began a few hours ago, the house caught fire. It’s not burning now, which probably doesn’t make much difference. Nothing about it is secure. Each window is a gaping hole, the front door is a blackened pile of wood and a large section of the roof has caved in.

It could have been a gas explosion, he thinks. A quick burst of fire, pressure knocking out windows, people inside flattened by falling roof.

At least they went quickly.

There’s no way of knowing, of course. Only imagination. Only fear.

The stitch in his side has grown stronger and he’s slowing. With the house not yet in sight, he’s barely running at a jog. Ten minutes have easily passed since he left the car; he has yet to reach the house, search it if need be and get back to the car.

He tells himself to ignore those thoughts and it doesn’t help.

“Just keep going,” he says, panting, and hears a chorus of moans come from the left.

Neil whips his head around, eyes bulging.

Three men are crawling from the grass, trying to stand. One hasn’t got any legs, but is still attempting to rise. The other two are covered in burned flesh. One snarls. It’s a sound from a caged animal in a zoo. Neil doesn’t have enough air in his lungs to scream. All he can do is increase his speed. Pain sings from his side and each thud of his feet on the road jars his body. He keeps running, hits the last curve of the road and the house is way ahead. It’s impossible to see if the doors and windows are whole. Neil keeps running. He passes farm buildings; more dead people appear. They shuffle out of the buildings, some missing arms, some only able to crawl. Each of them aims for the road, for the running flesh.

I’m their dinner, Neil thinks and whoops out a mad laugh.

He forces his legs into a sprint, knowing he has only moments of energy left. Even with death coming from the fields, he won’t be able to keep up this pace for long. Ahead, a young girl crawls from the grass. Neil veers to the other side of the road, sees the girl’s missing foot, sees the terror in her eyes, and realises she’s not dead.

She’s screaming as he passes her; he’s trying to scream and cursing himself for not stopping, cursing himself for being grateful for the diversion that the girl is. It’s not long before her screams are buried under grunts and snarls. Neil doesn’t look back. He’s crying, but he doesn’t look back.

The house is a quarter of a mile away. The car is still in the driveway, parked at an odd angle. Unable to look at anything other than the house, Neil sprints along the last section of the road. Turf fields line both sides of the Drive. He can smell the grass and the suggestion of rain coming in the dusk.

Let them be OK. Let them be in the house, safe, OK?

Neil reaches the driveway and runs to the car, whooping in a great breath of cool air. Pebbles fly from his feet. He skids and stops beside the car. The reason why it’s parked at an odd angle is in the driver’s seat.

Jane is in the driver’s seat.

What’s left of her is in the driver’s seat.

Neil screams. It burns in his throat, but he keeps screaming. It doesn’t make anything better, but he keeps screaming.

Eventually, he runs out of breath and can only hiss his screams at the sight of his dead sister. While he hisses, the voice of survival whispers to him.

There’s nobody else in the car. She’d come back to the house. She wasn’t driving away yet. Get into the house. Christopher. Lisa.

Neil jerks away from the car as if something inside it might be contagious. He runs to the front door; it’s locked. He hammers on it.

“Lisa,” he screams.

There’s no answer. Not even moans or snarls from the dead people back on the road. Neil hits the door again, cutting his hands, and runs to the kitchen windows. They’re whole. So is the little window to the downstairs toilet. He runs to the side of the house, jumps over scattered garden chairs and enters the back garden. More chairs lie overturned on the patio. The garden table has been smacked into the three trees that make the garden’s border with the field beside it. There’s no blood anywhere. The patio doors are shut and the heavy curtains are drawn.

“She’s in there,” Neil whispers, utterly sure he’s right. He yanks on the patio door; it doesn’t budge. He calls her name again and smacks the glass. It shakes and makes his reflection wobble. Before his reflection has stopped moving, he sees the man behind him.

Neil turns and ducks at the same time. The man’s momentum tips him over and the branch in his hands drops to the patio. Screaming, Neil jerks back, pulls his foot and kicks the man in the face. The man tries to bite Neil’s foot. He’s snarling, blood from his hands is staining the patio. Neil kicks him again and brings his bat down on the man’s head.

Blood flies. Flesh coats the bat. Neil hits the dead man again and he stops moving. Neil hits him again and a chunk of his skull collapses as if it’s deflated. Gasping, Neil runs from the body to the centre of the garden and screams Lisa’s name.

Curtains move in an upstairs room.

“Lisa.”

The curtains don’t move again. For the first time, Neil is aware of how much he’s sweating. It coats his face, neck and back. Now that’s he stopped running, the sweat is drying in the cool air. He shivers and tries to think how long he’s been away from the car. Thirteen minutes? Surely no more than fifteen?

“Lisa. It’s me. Uncle Neil.”

The curtains part a fraction and he sees her face, tiny, terrified.

“Let me in,” he shouts.

She disappears. Neil runs back to the patio doors. At the same time, he hears shuffling steps coming from somewhere close.

“Shit,” he whispers and tries to steady his grip on his bat. He readies himself, hoping only one dead person will come around the corner of the house, knowing he’s dead if it’s more than one.

The curtains in the living room part and Lisa is there, seemingly smaller than ever, hands pulling at the handle.

“It’s locked,” Neil screams. The shuffling is very close. She’s screaming at him and it’s with a flat resignation he realises she doesn’t have a key to the doors.

The bat in his hands suddenly feels heavier.

“Get back,” he shouts to her. She runs to the other end of the room and crouches beside the sofa.

Neil hits the glass as hard as he can. It cracks. He hits it again and again and a dead woman appears at the side of the house. She reaches for him, groaning. Her mouth is bloody. Something stringy hangs from her teeth and Neil’s stomach clenches.

“Fuck off,” he shouts and hits the glass again. A chunk caves in. He kicks at it and a larger chunk falls to the carpet. Furiously, he hammers at the glass and most of the door falls inwards. The noise is horrendous but still doesn’t cover the groans coming from right beside him.

Neil throws himself inside, crunches on the glass and runs to Lisa. She’s standing, crying and wiping snot from her upper lip. He grabs her and lunges through the doorway to the hall. Lisa smacks into the opposite wall; Neil drops his bat and shoves a bookcase against the living room door. Books scatter at his feet. He kicks them away, barely aware of his desperate prayers and swearing. He slides a cabinet beside the bookcase and grabs Lisa. They run to the dining room, Neil slams the door and holds his niece. Dripping sweat blinds him for a moment.

“Are you OK?” he says. His throat hurts from the screaming and his legs are threatening to give way.

She nods but doesn’t speak.

“We’re going, OK?”

She nods again.

“Lisa. Your mum...”

She looks away and Neil shoves away the thought of Jane in the car.

“Where’s Christopher, Lisa?”

“Kitchen,” she whispers.

Neil stares at the kitchen door. It’s half open and he wonders if he can be grateful the door isn’t open all the way.

Blood coats the kitchen floor in streaks. The streaks finish in front of the fridge. The white of the bottom half of the fridge is obscured by red and a faraway voice asks Neil if he’s surprised there is so much blood inside a two year old boy.

His head. Jesus. His little head. He managed to crawl. His head. His head.

Neil squeezes his eyes shut and swallows until he feels like he has a grip on the situation. He doesn’t at all, but all he can do is pretend.

“We’re going, all right?” he tells Lisa and opens his eyes.

“OK,” she whispers.

“I have some friends in a car at the end of the road. Near the pub.” He has to swallow again. “All we have to do is run as fast as we can. Can you do that?”

“We can stay here,” she says and looks at him for the first time. The expression on her face hurts him in a way the fear and the violence hasn’t. “My room’s safe,” she says. “I’ve got the door blocked. I got Dad’s binoculars, as well. I can see for miles.”

Before he can stop it, a mental picture of the upstairs of the house fills Neil’s head. Lisa’s bedroom is at the top of the house, the loft converted to a spacious room, two skylights and a large window giving views of the surrounding fields.

And what happens when they get in and find the stairs? Are you going to climb on to the roof and just sit there, looking through binoculars as they get closer?

“We have to go,” he says. “Trust me. It’ll be all right.”

That’s the biggest lie he’s ever said and he knows it. Nothing is all right, nothing will be again.

He opens the door to the hall a few inches. The bookcase against the living room is shaking, but they haven’t managed to open the door yet.

“Quick,” he whispers.

They run down the hall, trainers skidding over the carpet, and stop at the door to the side of the house. Neil can’t see anything moving through the frosted glass. With a bit of luck, any of the dead people are at the back of the house, attracted by the noise of the breaking glass.

“When we’re out, keep hold of my hand, OK? We’ll run over the grass and get on to the road as soon as we can.”

Lisa gazes at the stairs and he knows she’s thinking of her bedroom, her private safety. The banging on the living room door increases. More of them are in there. It’s only a matter of time before they get through the feeble barrier of cabinet and bookcase.

They always get inside in the films, he thinks and wonders if he should laugh or if anything will be funny again.

The door chain is cold on his fingers. He squeezes the handle of the cricket bat as if for luck and slides the chain out of the lock.

“Ready?” he whispers.

“Yeah.”

The banging coming from the living room reminds him of drumming. Except with drumming, you don’t get the ghastly sound of dead people trying to chew through a door.

Neil undoes the lock, yanks the door open and grabs Lisa’s hand. Cold air flows inside.

They step out to the side of the house.

* * * * *