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I sat down on the bed. This was not happening. It can't be. It's not possible. It's just in the movies. I closed my eyes, opened them again—the screen still said the same thing: The Dead Walk. A million thoughts ran through my head. Part of me wanted to scream; another voice in my head told me to hide in the cupboard.

I took a deep breath. I had seen loads of zombie films, read a million books—The Zombie Survival Guide, World War Z, Day by Day Armageddon—and listened to We're Alive. Only one difference: they had guns. I had a mop stick.

I went into Ty's room, yelled at him to get up and watch the news in my room. After a bit of grumbling and me putting my foot up his arse, he got moving. I went downstairs to wake up Jon.

"Baldy, wake up."

He groaned and told me to piss off.

I turned on his TV and told him bailiffs were trying to get in. This got him up.

Ty came down the stairs, and the three of us just sat there, watching the news. The aerial view had pulled away from the hospital now, and you could see the things making their way to the junction where I had seen the policeman. There were a couple of dozen or so in a ragtag group, lumbering up the road. The reporter was in hysterics as a policeman made his way toward the group, his pepper spray in hand. You could see him shouting at them to stop. He pulled the trigger, and the spray hit the thing straight in the face—not that it seemed to take any notice of this.

The officer tackled the man to the floor. Another two officers joined him, forcing it to the ground. They jumped on its back and attempted to handcuff the thing. Again, they hit it with the spray. The officer moved closer—this time, the thing squirmed under the two officers. The officer moved closer still; it looked like he was trying to negotiate with it. It lurched out suddenly and caught his hand. The other two officers pulled it away and managed to cuff it. The bitten officer stumbled back behind the makeshift barricade of police cars.

There were a good couple of thousand people working in the hospital, not to mention patients, visitors, and people only in for quick appointments. If they were having so much trouble with one, how were they going to deal with thousands?

The news did a fairly good job of convincing Ty and Jon that my story was true. If they needed any further convincing, I showed them my coat—covered in that foul smell and glass shards—and the pole, covered in blood.

We sat there and watched the news for another 20 minutes or so. The police had moved the barricade further back, and the number of monsters was swelling—at least a hundred now. If they kept up this direction, they would be coming our way. No one said anything; we just sat there.

Jon was the first to speak.

"What are we going to do?"

"Shopping," I said.

The other two looked at me like I had gone mad. It was time for our monthly shop anyway. Our cupboards were empty apart from a few beers, half a loaf of bread, a tin of tuna, and more assorted bottles of alcohol. No way to ride out the end of the world on that.

We quickly drew up a plan. Jon and I would head to the supermarket. Ty would stay home, lock the doors, cover the windows, turn off the lights, and keep an eye on the news, making sure the things didn't decide to put on a massive burst of speed and catch us out in the open.

Ty had no credit on his phone. Jon handed him his. I made sure I had mine on me—I rarely take my phone with me. I don't know why, and even when I do, I rarely answer it. That wouldn't be happening today.

I headed upstairs to quickly change. I thought about the things—zombies—and tried to see a positive. At least they seemed stupid and slow. The first one I met couldn't work out a pull door, and they only seemed to stumble around the place. At least they weren't 28 Days Later zombies. That was something.

Clio the cat was on my bed when I came in, giving me a grumpy look, showing her disdain that I had dared to interrupt her peace and quiet. I pulled a face at her and pulled on a pair of black jeans and red trainers.

Now for a shirt. I looked to the side and smiled—a grey t-shirt with a white first-aid cross on it. It read: Zombie Apocalypse Rescue Team. I pulled it on and a hoodie I got from my Resident Evil 6 collector's edition—seeing as my coat was stinking.

As we left, I told Ty to take all the dirty clothes he could find in the house and put them in the wash. If I wasn't overreacting, this could be the last wash for a while. I also told him to fill up the bath, sink, all cups, and bottles with water.

Jon and I headed out the door, making sure it was locked behind us. We walked into the town center. I'm not sure what I expected to see—mass panic, stores being looted, cars overturned, bins on fire—but none of that was happening. People were still carrying on as normal.

Humanity's arrogance and blindness to the truth. They could be marching towards extinction, and the only thing they could care about was getting in that last bit of shopping.

Jon and I didn't talk much. We mainly just smoked. We walked past the train station and entered the supermarket. Everything was so normal again—no panic buying, no fights over the last roll of toilet paper. We grabbed a trolley and headed in, making straight for the tinned section.

Normally, we get frozen items, but this time, it was tin after tin of food. I didn't even know what half of it was, but the expiry date was in three years, so it was thrown into the trolley. We also got sixty 2-liter bottles of water, a lot of dried food, sixty cans of cat food for Clio—I hope we don't get desperate enough to eat it or the cat—and one or two things that would expire quickly but made life a bit more pleasant. Bread, eggs, milk—need to make a note to eat those first.

We got a few odd looks as we walked around and a few comments about how 2012 had not happened. Little did they know, their end could be right around the corner.

I rang Ty to find out what was happening. The monsters had made it past the Tesco at the hospital. The police were constantly falling back, and their ranks had swelled to at least a thousand. Apparently, military vehicles had arrived, but there had been no shooting… yet.

Jon waved at me. I nodded, and he got a kilo of tobacco.

"If the world is going to end, I want to at least enjoy one more smoke."

The old lady at the till gave an exasperated look as we piled everything onto the counter. We started putting things into boxes a member of staff fetched for us. It took me, Jon, and three others to pack everything up—and me having to run off to grab a tin opener. That would have been embarrassing in a survival situation.

I made sure to tip the people who helped us pack and offered them another fiver each to carry it out to the taxi for us.

The driver was a nice fellow—a jolly Indian man. He asked why we had so much food. Jon lied and told him we were going for a world record attempt—the biggest picture ever done with food items. This seemed to satisfy the driver, although he told us we were completely mad.

He mentioned what had happened at the hospital. We feigned ignorance of the matter.

I rang Ty and asked him if the house was okay. He said it was. The things had not made much progress; they had stopped to terrorize the occupants of nearby houses, and the group had split into different directions, but a large number were still heading our way.

We had done all we could.

Let them come.