F O U R

Phil stood in a cobbled square at the centre of Manchester, squinting his eyes against the flecks of ash, and slowly taking in their surroundings.

The place was scarred with riots and violence. Under his feet, most of the cobbles had been ripped up, teeth missing from a smile. Another memory smouldered through Phil's head, one he'd seen on his television screen; people black against smoke- flashes of light coming from the grenades the army threw- and then those people ripping up cobbles from the ground with their bare hands. Bringing them down again and again on the soldier's heads. Phil could remember seeing clumps of hair, splatters of blood flying up every time those big stones came down…

That battle had taken place here.

But another memory was behind that. He'd been here before, he knew it, but it was as if he was trying to remember a dream- the more he struggled, the more it slipped away from him.

On the curb, Dan was resting his legs, rubbing his calves.

Phil went to sit beside him.

And suddenly it came to him: `Albert Square,' he mumbled.

`You what?'

`I just realised, we're in Albert Square. They used to hold the Christmas markets here.'

A small smile played around Dan's mouth. `Yeah?'

`Yeah. They had stalls all over that way- and an ice rink there. Did you ever go?'

Dan shook his head. `Nah, lived in Woking. There were Christmas markets in London, though.' He looked around the square, taking a deep, sad breath. `You used to live here, didn't you?'

`Almost,' Phil said. `About an hour away, in Rawtenstall. I only came here on weekends with my friends. I shouldn't be sad about it at all.' He began fiddling with the hem of his shirt, the same way Dan did. It was comforting, rubbing the rough material between his finger and thumb. `Anyway, it's about ten, I reckon.'

Dan raised his eyebrows, eyes starting to dance. `Eight hours of looking before we stop?'

`Sounds good.' Phil had one last look around the square. The memories were getting all tangled up. Surely no one had been bleeding to death in front of the Moomin stall, or being machine-gunned as his mum won a teddy bear. `Let's go.'

Nothing was in the banks. They'd all been sealed up on Day One. The supermarkets were empty, too. Someone had lived there once, judging from all of the locks on the door and empty cans of food, but not anymore.

The optimist in Phil had really, really hoped they wouldn't get to the point of randomly searching in buildings- it took too long, they didn't know what else might be hiding there- but it didn't look like there was anything else to do.

Halfway down Marylebone Road, after looking through empty flats and a Polish food shop, his stomach began to cramp. Pain sizzled up and down his body.

Phil clenched his teeth together, unable to do anything but wait for the pain, the hunger to go.

And then a hand touched his shoulder-

`Are you okay?'-

A hand that was warm, that was living, that was human-

The zombie grabbed it, not caring what it was attached to, who it was attached to- it was jerking and twitching, trying to get out of his grasp- but they wouldn't, they wouldn't- he was too hungry to ever let them go-

Something smashed into his face, hard enough to send him collapsing to the ground.

A different kind of pain began to throb through him.

Phil touched his cheekbone. It had somehow caved in, and when he drew his hand away, his fingertips were streaked with tarry blood.

Above him, Dan was ashen, trembling and holding the shovel. Its sharp edge was splattered stickily black.

`I'm okay now,' Phil mumbled, his tongue heavy with shock. He went to stand up and Dan jerked back.

The world's worst cocktail of guilt and pain and anger flooded through him.

`I'm okay,' he snarled, `don't look at me like that. I won't lose it again.'

Dan's throat bobbed as he swallowed. His breath was flitting in and out of him. Phil could see his pulse going crazy. `You're sure?'

Please don't look at me like that, like I'm rabid. `Yeah, I'm sure. Just… maybe don't touch me again.' 'Cause I'm not, I won't hurt you, I won't. `Where do you want to look next?'

For a second, it looked like Dan was about to say something else; but then he let his arms drop, let the shovel fall to his side. He shrugged. `Office buildings? They'd have pretty good security.'

And then his eyes widened. Only slightly.

But enough to send queasy spasm through Phil. `What's the matter?'

Dan's face was dead still, blank as marble. `Dogs.' That one syllable held so much. `Behind you.'

Phil began trembling. Slowly, he stood up, and turned around.

Ten of them, maybe. All of the dogs were so thin, they looked like piles of sticks thrown together, held up with matted fur. A thin line of drool dripped from one's mouth, plopping to the road.

All of them had a look in their eyes Phil knew too well. They hadn't eaten for a long time.

And now two meals were laid out in front of them, one just about on a silver platter. Phil glanced at Dan's battered, cobbled-together crutch.

The lead dog, one that could have been a golden retriever, once, began to stalk forwards on legs thin as bamboo. A growl was coming deep from the back of its throat; its lips were drawn back from its teeth.

The others followed, two breaking off from each side. They were going to cut off any escape.

`Run into that building,' Dan said, his voice tight. `I'll come after you.'

`Dan-'

`Go.'

Phil's heart and stomach wrenched, but his head won out- he began to run towards the old Nationwide building, the one with a shattered window- he scrambled through, glass tearing at his legs with serrated teeth. Behind him, he heard the dogs howl and bark, heard the heavy, slow noise of Dan trying to run with his crutches.

Suddenly, Phil realised-

He'd left Dan with the shovel.

The shovel, that heavy thing weighing him down.

What use was a shovel against a pack of ten dogs?

Phil turned around, ready to scramble out of the window again and bloody well carry Dan out of the mess, when the gunshot cracked out.

Phil froze.

It bounced off the street like a thunderclap.

`Dan?' He whispered. His tongue was like lead. He couldn't say anything else. Why couldn't he say anything else? `Dan?'

And then there were footfalls outside, heavy army boots. Slowly, Phil went back to the window, and looked around the edge of the rotted frame.

One of the dogs lay in the street, twitching. It was the retriever; the spent bullet had torn through it's ribcage. Blood was spraying and leaking from the wound, getting weaker every second. Phil hoped it would stop whimpering soon.

About two metres away, Dan was on the ground, unmoving, his shovel and crutch sprawled beside him.

Someone was striding down the street, towards the dog. They held a gun. It looked like the ones they held on Call of Duty, right down to its telescopic sight. They were so swaddled in tattered clothes Phil couldn't tell if they were male or female, human or zombie.

They reached the whining animal, and stood over it. Even dying, it started growling, weakly trying to bite their ankles. Without hesitating, they cocked the gun, aimed, and shattered its head.

Phil looked away, trying to control his quivering gag reflex.

Then, they turned their attention to Dan, the unconscious human at their feet.

Panic flooded him. He was still frozen, his hands glued to the window frame.

Don't let them shoot him, he thought, not even sure who he was praying to. Please don't.

They swung their gun over their shoulder, knelt down and felt for a pulse. Then they started trying to pick him up off of the ground.

`No!' All the sense fell straight out of Phil's head and he clambered back through the window, pain shooting up his legs. `Don't, he's with me-'

They pulled their gun around again, cocked it and shot at the road, movements practiced, smooth as silk. Phil flinched away, and raised his hands above his head.

`Step any closer,' they said, `and the next one's going in your guts.'

A woman. Phil guessed a human, because the woman hadn't killed Dan yet. But Phil had heard of zombie colonies that captured people alive, and cut their arms and legs off bit by bit, cauterising the wounds to keep their food fresh.

That couldn't happen to Dan. It couldn't.

`Okay,' he said, trying to mimic the way Dan kept his voice level. As best as he could, anyway, with the way that pool of blood kept growing around Dan's motionless head.

They stared at each other, the tarmac like the strip of fighting ground in Mortal Kombat, ash falling and spiralling around them.

`What's your name?' Phil asked, hoping it'd act like an olive branch. The woman snorted through her nose like a horse. His hopes fell.

`What's it to you, zombie?'

Human. Definitely human. `Are you part of a colony?'

She shifted her gun slightly. `Maybe. Why?'

`We've been looking for colonies. Me and my friend down there.' Phil pointed helpfully. `His name's Dan. He's human.'

`Yeah, I can see that.'

Phil began to wonder if every human he was destined to meet would either be endlessly sarcastic, or too dead to say anything.

The hunger began to shiver through him again. Suddenly, he knew he didn't have much time, either. Any longer and he'd go for the woman.

`Can you take him somewhere safe?' Phil made sure he wouldn't attack her by clenching his fists together, and focusing on that.

She let out a harsh laugh. `I'll take him. I'm sure as hell not taking you.'

`That's fine,' Phil said calmly, even as a new kind of pain tore through him. He stopped clenching his hands and began scraping at his wrist with his fingernails. `Are there any zombie colonies here?' He asked, the desperation slipping through. The woman heard it, and latched on instantly.

`No,' she said, the word oozing satisfaction. `We got rid of them.'

It was like getting shot. The ground swayed under him, and black dots sparkled in the street- no, not the street- I'm seeing things…

As Phil descended into his panic, the woman pulled her gun over her back, heaved Dan over her shoulder and pulled an iron lamp and a lighter out of the bag on her hip.

`Light that,' she said, dropping both on the ground, and kicking it towards him. `When it gets dark. You might be a zombie, but I'm not leaving you to those things.'

The woman slid Dan's deadweight into her arms, all six feet of it, and began to walk away, past the emaciated, shattered body of the dog.

`One of my boys got killed yesterday,' she called over her shoulder, her voice getting quieter with every stride. `We dumped his body near the Eye. Should still be fresh enough for you to eat.'

`Thank you,' Phil managed to force out, feeling a drop of tarry blood trickle down his palm.

And Phil watched silently as his human bobbed out of sight in a stranger's arms.

Chances were he'd never see Dan again.

Phil sat on the curb, and pressed his head into his knees, squeezing his hands to his ears. Why wouldn't the numbness arrive? Why wouldn't it make the pain go away?

The hunger was so much more bearable.

Someone was carrying him.

A tiny part of him, the five year old part that never really left, revelled in it- the sense of being small enough to be carried, and the idea that if someone carried you, then they must really love you.

But there was pain, too. Radiating out from his forehead, throbbing whenever the person moved.

It got worse the more awake Dan became; finally, by the time his eyes were open, he was crying with it.

`Calm down,' an unfamiliar voice said. `You're almost there.'

`Phil?' He whispered, barely able to see who was above him.

`No. Don't close your eyes again, you won't wake up.'

Dan focused on his breathing instead. It distracted him from that awful, awful pain.

I remember tripping… when those dogs were there…

A dog leapt up at him, its teeth six centimetres long and it's eyes huge and bloodshot-

Dan screamed and twisted, fighting to be free of the arms.

`Sh sh sh, it's not real.' Then there was a glitch in his memory, a skipped cutscene in a video game.

`Who's this?'

`Someone called Dan- came in with a zombie.'

`Really?'

`Where's the vodka? I need to sew him up-'

Suddenly Dan was blinded by light. For one, insane second, he thought that he was seeing heaven. But then a head blocked it out and he realised it was a lamp, attached to a long wire.

Electricity?

A bottle pressed against his mouth. `Drink,' the voice ordered. Dan obeyed without thinking, gulping down the liquid that set his throat and stomach on fire.

And he finally let himself fall into that black space, yawning out from the centre of his head, and the pain began to fade.

0

Waking up was so slow and difficult, it was like crawling through a tunnel filled with glue.

Opening his eyes was so painful, Dan had to screw them up all over again. `Don't worry,' a soft, West Indies accent said, `your eyes'll adjust to the light soon.'

He nodded stiffly, and tried to sit up. It sent a stabbing pain through his head, but he carried on until he was upright.

When Dan opened his eyes again, everything swam into focus.

Someone had put up curtains taken from a hospital, giving him some privacy. But one side of it was drawn back, and Dan could see he was in a warehouse.

An enormous warehouse, with dirty light coming in through dirtier windows. It was filled with humans, at least thirty of them; sat on mattresses, talking, cooking, cleaning. There was even a group of children doing a jigsaw puzzle.

Tears sprung into Dan's eyes. He'd never seen anywhere so beautiful in his life.

`We had to perform an operation on your head,' the voice said.

Dan slowly turned towards it, trying not to jar his head, and saw a half-blind lady, knelt on the floor beside his mattress. She wore a grimy vest, showing the knots of muscle in her arms and army trousers. Her faded yellow headscarf was the only splash of colour.

`Blood clot,' she explained, guessing what his question was. `Right here.' She touched the side of his head, just shy of the jagged ridge of stitches. `I'm Sheree Green. I'm in charge of this colony. You're in Manchester, remember?'

His stomach lurched. `Where's Phil?' He began looking around the cubicle, expecting to see him curled up somewhere on his raincoat. Sheree lifted her hands slightly.

`Calm, yeah? He's fine. Neither of you got hurt by the dogs. From where I was standing, it looks like you tripped over your own feet. Got a right bang on the head.'

Dan snorted. `Sounds like me. You're sure he's okay? Is he with a zombie colony?'

She shifted slightly, crossing her legs rather than sitting on them. `I don't know. I had to leave him behind. He could have chosen to attack us, if I showed him where we are.'

`Phil wouldn't do that.'

Sheree looked at him sadly. `Are you sure? People surprise you with how far they go.'

Everything Dan had done through grief or desperation flashed through his mind.

But…

`Phil wouldn't.' Dan stood up, trying not to fall over as his stomach swooped with nausea. `Is my rucksack here?'

`You're not going out? You just had a head operation.'

It was tucked away in the cubicle corner. Dan opened it, checked everything was still there, and pulled it over his shoulder, ignoring the pain in his head and his aching ankle- and Dan walked two steps, his eyes wide. He hadn't walked on his ankle since the day he sprained it.

`Thank you for the help,' Dan said, meaning it. `And for fixing my head.'

`Don't go. Stay. It's safe here! Why are you going to find him? He's just a zombie.'

`No, he's my- he's my friend. I need to know he's okay.'

Sheree pressed her lips into a line. `We don't have any zombie colonies in Manchester. He's probably left you already.' She wasn't quite looking in his eyes.

In that split second, Dan made a decision, a very quick decision, but one he was certain was right.

`Are there zombie colonies in some other town? One he might have gone to? Tell me!'

Phil wasn't just any zombie. He was funny, he chose to be kind, he chose to protect others, and Dan wouldn't leave him, he wouldn't.

Then Dan realised the warehouse beyond the curtained cubicle had gone very, very quiet.

Oops. He might have said all that out loud.

And then Sheree Green did something very strange. Her eyes filled with tears, glittering like tiny diamonds. She was staring at Dan, almost desperate, like she was hanging off a cliff and Dan was the one clinging to her hands.

`You need to understand something,' she said. `I loved my husband-'

`What does that have to do with anything?'

`Hush. Let me finish. I loved him the same way you seem to love your friend.'

There was a beat, as Dan's muddled head tried to work through the past tense. `He died?' And Dan understood. `A zombie killed him.'

Sheree nodded, and took a long, shuddering breath. `Killed him slowly. And… I'm telling you this, because then you might understand. You might not blame me so much.'

He wasn't really sure what to say, except mumble, `huh?', like a dummy.

`There's a zombie colony in Grange-Over-Sands,' Sheree said. `One of the largest in the country.' She didn't say anything else, just looked at her lap. Dan understood that silence, too.

`You didn't tell him.' Fury spread through him, from his head, all the way to the tips of his twitching fingers. So much of him wanted to pound his fists into a wall, strangle her, scream- why did she punish Phil, make him a replacement for zombies who were probably long dead?

But that open, defiant, grieving look Sheree had on her face, God, he knew it so well. He took a long breath, waiting for the calm to settle before he said anything.

`I'll tell him,' he said, keeping his voice tight and low. `I won't come back, but thank you for everything.' And he still meant it. He didn't feel mad at Sheree. He could understand that harsh, rash urge for revenge.

And he walked past the staring humans, picking his shovel up on the way, an oil lamp, and a lighter.

This place was beautiful. He knew it. It had actual electricity, it had good protection, it had food. Somehow, they kept children alive here.

But the colonies in Grange-on-Sands might have those things, too. Even if they didn't, Dan wouldn't be apart from Phil. He wouldn't.

He walked out into the street, and squinted up into the sky. The Manchester Eye peeked up over the top of the buildings.

He wrapped his hoodie tight around him to keep the cold out, pushed the shovel through the straps of the rucksack.

Don't go anywhere, Phil. I'm coming.