THE STORY

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The hand is modelling pink nail varnish, embellished with little diamanté appliqués. Blood is coated around the jewels, all over the hand in fact. It looks overdressed for an evening chasing brains on the towpath.
‘Holy shit,’ the blonde mutters. ‘It’s Christine.’
‘What?’
She crouches down next to me and peers through the cat flap, her expression indecipherable. In contrast, the face on the other side of the plastic is very decipherable: contorted and vitriolic, mascara and blood running into the desperate creases around its eyes.
‘You know her?’
She nods. ‘A friend. Well, sort of. Let’s just say that zombieism isn’t the end I’d have chosen for her, but I’ll take it.’
I decide I definitely don’t want to be friends with the blonde. Or enemies. I’d like to be a brief acquaintance who parts company with her in the very near future.
We both stand, hands on hips, looking down at the hand as it writhes around the knife pinning it to the floor. Blood is gradually pooling beneath it, and the flesh is starting to look... off.
‘So,’ I ask in my bravest, not-freaked-out voice, ‘what now?’
She shrugs. ‘Can’t be long till dawn. I vote we wait and see what happens.’
‘They’re zombies, not vampires. She’s not going to explode in a puff of smoke. Vampires aren’t real,’ I laugh.
She doesn’t look at me, her gaze fixed on the wriggling fingers. Her silence makes me nervous.
‘Right?’ I ask.
‘Get some sleep,’ she says.
I return to the den, wrap myself in a blanket and stare at the door until morning.