and relatives would be calling each other in the dead of the night after seeing the news flash on their pyjamas. The traffic was already nearly at the level and direction of 5.30pm on a Friday; drivers were furiously honking their horns at pedestrians taking over the road as they were forced to drive at the same walking pace.
One particular vehicle, a black Google sports-car about eighty metres ahead of Zan, stopped dead and its emergency flashing beacon and siren started. That could only mean one thing, Zan thought, a heartbeat inside the car had stopped. The noise was deafening; some in the crowd banged on the roof in frustration. Three minutes later Zan reached the side of the vehicle. He shuffled with the crowd past the bonnet then both car doors swung open behind him, pushing people aside.
Zan stopped walking and turned round to see who came out, his heartbeat rising as fast as his sense of dread. Two teenage boys slowly stumbled out covered in blood. They looked like twins; same dark hair, slender height and slacker clothes. Both had the same fixed unblinking stare and cloudy grey eyes. Their faces and necks were mottled grey as if covered in patches of dampness. As they walked round their open doors he could see their injuries. Others noticed too and screamed and hurriedly scattered in all directions. The boy at the front had a massive, still bleeding bite mark on his ear and neck whereas his twin had a deep gouge in his belly where his innards had slipped out and draped nearly to the ground in front of his shuffling feet. Watch out or you’ll slip on those! Zan thought madly.
Everyone in the crowd around the seemingly living dead twins had fled in howls and screams. What they had seen on their walls or ceilings at home had now appeared right in their midst. Zan stayed right where he was; his stomach was doing backflips and he could barely breathe. His morbid curiosity to see something up close that he’d only ever seen in movies was temporarily more powerful than his survival instinct.
The boy with his ear practically torn off was now just three metres away from Zan. The bedlam around him subsided as everyone had run into gardens or down both directions of the street. No-one stayed to fight. Zan was still rooted to the spot by the sight of this … dead … person shuffling towards him, right arm now outstretched. He finally caught his breath and stepped back, turned and fled, imagining for a chilling second the cold fingers touching his neck …
As he ran through the darkness, people around him crying, panting for breath and shouting each other’s names, he realised something deeply unsettling about what he had just witnessed. Zan had his cross-bow in his backpack and didn't even think to use it. Being up close to something so mind-bendingly awful, had stalled all rational thought. He felt star-struck by the zombie’s presence and incapable of calmly using motor skills to defend himself. The courage he thought he’d have folded completely in the face of such unaccustomed horror. Zan dimly wondered how his friends and family were doing … and felt heavy with a new fear for the future, and the survival of everyone.
Chapter 7: Closing Down Sale
Later that morning in Bromley, SE London, Claire Mills went slowly down the stairs to start preparing the family grocery store. It was the agreement with their parents that she and her sister Molly manage the store and in return live upstairs rent-free while Claire worked on the write-up of her PhD thesis and Molly studied for her first year exams.
“C’mon Molly wake up for chrissake, it’s past seven already.” Claire shouted up the stairs as she descended into the darkness of the ground floor shop.
“Don’t shout at me! You’re always stressing me out for nothing!” Molly shouted back downstairs from her bedroom. Claire groaned. Why am I still fucking babysitting my nineteen year old sister? It’s bad enough having to carry her weight when I'm looking after the shop. I can’t finish my research while I re-stock the soft drinks that she couldn't be bothered doing herself. She’s the one doing a cushy media studies degree but somehow needs twice the time as I do to study. I bet if she wasn’t such an incapable ditz she wouldn’t get favourable treatment from Dad.
Claire stormed down the row of fresh produce, the scent of ripening cauliflower and artichokes filling her nostrils. She liked the fresh aroma of the shop; the one small pleasure she could indulge in every morning. Still mostly in darkness, she looked towards the metal shutters at the front of the store. There were small holes dotted across the joins which let in tiny shafts of daylight. These were intermittently occluded by people walking past the shop outside. It was past 7.10am and workers were already on their way into Central London on their daily commute. Claire tutted to herself in exasperation as she realised the family was already losing potential customers. When her parents managed the shop they opened at 7am sharp.
“Molly, will you bloody get a move on and help me get the shop ready, it’s almost quarter past seven!” Claire shouted even louder upstairs.
“Leave! Me! ALONE!” Molly yelled back even louder. Emergency vehicle sirens sounded outside as if to underline her point.
Just then, someone passing by had chosen to approach the shutters, standing still right in front of the small holes, blocking the shafts of daylight. Claire looked directly at the holes, trying to get a feel for what the person was doing. She couldn’t let the customer in now, the place was still untidy and the till was not connected to the Internet. Claire stood still, thinking. The person had clearly heard the shouting and might just want something simple like water or a cereal bar. We stopped selling the morning newspaper this year since everyone started getting the news on their clothes, so it can’t be that. Claire looked down at her arm. It looked like some sort of news alert but the picture was fuzzy and kept jumping. Probably another update on The Caliphate or the Mediterranean invasion or the battle for the former Argentina. The carnage overseas is perpetual - why can’t people just get on? she thought wearily.
Her sleep-filled eyes struggled to take in the disrupted signal so she looked up to the front of the shop again. The tiny shutter holes were still blocked by the same person. He or she was not even attempting to approach the front door, but just standing in front of the shutters. How annoying! A car alarm sounded outside and just as quickly switched off. Another blare of a distant fire engine pierced the morning quiet. Then she heard a scream and some shouting but it just as quickly stopped. London!
Claire was about to investigate but just then Molly appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Her face looked pale, her hair dishevelled and she was still partially dressed. Claire looked away again with a barely disguised contempt.
“Sorry, Claire, you know how I get in the morning, I was up late last night watching protestors riot in—”
“Ssh Molly.” Claire interrupted with a finger at her mouth. “There’s noise in the street and someone just standing right outside the shop.”
“So what! For god sake, probably just waiting to meet someone. What was the big worry to open the shop if you’re just going to stand there getting spooked by shadows?”
Claire didn't respond and just tried to listen. She thought she heard someone groaning.
“Oh for god sake Claire, I’ll just ask him if he has exact change for whatever he wants. I take it you haven’t set-up the till.” Molly strode forwards to the door. A couple of police car sirens roared past outside.
The last throwaway remark jolted Claire out of her scrutiny of the person outside. She now stared in disbelief at the back of Molly’s head as Molly opened the inner door that lead to the front entrance of the shop.
“Self-entitled bitch,” Claire cursed under her breath. She immediately regretted saying it but she was seething. Molly had again tried to turn the situation to her advantage by acting as if Claire hadn't been pulling her weight. She ground her teeth and strode in the darkness towards the till at the back of the shop. On the way she stubbed
