They trod warily through the rubble-strewn alleyway to their left, guns unholstered. Sam felt like a big fat target was pulsing on his back. In contrast, Jack looked like he didn’t have a care in the world. He trotted around, sniffing at all the interesting rubbish, tail whirring madly, just glad to be alive. His claws clacked against the cracked and crazed flagstones.

The alley widened the further they ventured down it, and buildings started to look a little more intact. Instead of burnt-out husks only knee-high, walls started growing to waist and then shoulder height. These were larger buildings, commercial buildings, once shops and offices, probably multi-storey when they were whole. Now the two travellers could see over the top of them. It seemed that the further to the east they went, the less damage had been done. But they found none with roofs, and long years of exposure and raiding had left the contents worse than useless.

The paths were frequently blocked, and they scrambled over refuse, bricks, stones, rusted metal shells of vehicles and piles of bones. Belt buckles and plastic shoes could be seen occasionally between the pitted, brown bones. Some were scattered as if torn apart by animal. Or, more likely, shriekers. Sam, hoisting Jack over a tricky obstacle when his three legs couldn’t quite make it, realised suddenly that there were no other animals around. No scavengers, no predators, no scurrying in the shadows.

“Have you noticed?” he asked Charlie. She nodded, shouldering her rifle as she stopped and took a sip from her flask of water. “Nothing living. No animals, no birds, not even a fly.” Yet again she had gone one step further in her observations. She was impressive. He wondered how long she had been testing her theory. “There are signs of life, though. Relatively recent. Someone’s been harvesting the fruit here, and there are scrape marks in the stone where something heavy’s been dragged. The mark is still quite white – it hasn’t seen much weather yet. Since there are no droppings anywhere, I’m going with human. There’s someone living near here. We need to be on our guard.”

He nodded his agreement at her observations. “We’ve also found nothing of use anywhere. Looks like everything’s been stripped. Our only recourse at this stage may be to contact the locals and see if we can offer a trade.”

Charlie stashed her bottle and squared her shoulders. “Alright, we’d better look for some signs of life then.”

After a frustrating few hours fighting their way through the former town, Jack suddenly came to a stop, a low growl sounding deep in his chest. His ruff began to rise, and his lips peeled back, showing his impressive teeth. Sam dropped a hand on his back in comfort and warning. Luckily, it seemed Jack was happy to stay in the safety of numbers, and merely stood, quivering under his hand. Quietly, weapons at the ready, they inched forward, keeping below wall height as they strained their ears for any sound.

A shriek of chains against concrete, a sudden inhuman scream and blur of movement to her right had Charlie rolling to her left, as rotting flesh reached for her face. The gaping mouth, eyeless face and came at her, the hands reaching for her stinking and sloughing, all fingers gone, just gangrenous stumps with shards of bone jutting out from ruined flesh. As Charlie screamed and scrabbled backwards, her gun forgotten in her terror, the shrieker’s forward motion was abruptly curtailed by the chain around its waist. It pulled against the taught links as it desperately tried to reach her, but all it did was sink the iron deeper into what was left of the flesh around its stomach, black viscous fluid staining the area, as though it had been pulling in vain many times before. Shots rang out from behind her, and the zombie’s head snapped back, its body following after, and it lay still. Sam had taken the top of its head off with his bullets. Finally remembering her gun, Charlie grabbed it and staggered to her feet, spinning wildly around to check their perimeter. Her heart was pounding, the aftershock of the bullet noise drowning out even her ragged breathing and pounding pulse.

A piercing whistle filled the street, and a voice boomed out from around the corner. “Lower your weapons, strangers. Live ones coming in on your two o clock.” Sam released his trigger finger and pushed at Charlie’s wildly waving barrel. “Heard and understood,” he yelled back.

A tall, cadaverously thin man stepped out from around the building, cradling his own weapon – what looked like a machine gun – and sauntered towards them. His long beard and hair covered most of his face, but as it was still mostly dark brown, Sam guessed he wasn’t much older than him. As he drew closer, a number of other locals, similarly armed, stepped out from shadowed doorways at the far end of the street.

“I see you met out burglar alarm there. Good old Bloodthirsty Betty. She used to be our commis chef before she got zombified. After that she was only good as a guard dog. Actually, she wasn’t much good as a chef before she died. At least she earnt her keep eventually!” He chuckled at his feeble joke and spat at her feet.

His cronies all laughed with him. Charlie and Sam did not laugh. The man stopped chuckling abruptly, and scowled at their lack of appreciation of his humour “So what’re you doing intruding on my kingdom?”

“We’re sorry to intrude, we’re on the hunt for some car parts to fix our truck so we can get to Reading” Sam answered, while silently thinking kingdom???

“Right. Car parts.” This was said flatly, and Sam had the distinct impression that he wasn’t being taken at his word. He decided to take a risk and stepped forwards with his hand out to shake. “Hi, my name is Sam, and this is Charlie, and Jake.” To his relief, his hand was taken, and shaken. “King Keith. And these are Slimy Steve, Tiny Tim and Banging Bob.” Each many stepped forward. Slimy Steve was extremely tall and clearly used to be fat. Now he had folds of skin hanging from his new scrawny frame, and a sweat problem. Tiny Tim was nearly seven feet tall and missing an arm. And Banging Bob actually had a half decent haircut and neatly trimmed beard. He stepped toward Charlie and shook her hand, catching it halfway through the movement and holding it up to his mouth, giving it a sloppy kiss, a lecherous leer on his face. Sam suddenly had an inkling about why he was called Banging. This group were clearly embracing the cliche alliterative naming scheme. “Come with us. You can meet the tribe, and we’ll figure out a way for you to make up for killing our guard dog.” Sam squared his shoulders as he followed, pretty sure that whatever that recompense was, he wasn’t going to like it.

They were led to an open courtyard filled with fire pits, wooden benches and a ragtag collection of humans. The space was huge, and Sam guessed that they’d cleared away quite a few of the ruins over the years to create this communal space. The smell of roasting meat drifted across on the breeze, and he noticed that quite a few of the pits were being used as roasting fires. The others were gathering places, as men, women and the occasional child kept warm. Sam was surprised to see half a dozen youngsters running around. This tribe obviously managed to scrounge enough food to feed a growing population. Perhaps Basingstoke wasn’t a dead town after all. It was rising, Phoenix-like from the ashes to start anew. He snorted; this cliche business was catching.

“Welcome to my kingdom” boomed King Keith, flinging his arms wide to encompass the domestic scene. “Let me show you around. As you can see, you’ve come on a feast day. The anniversary of me setting up this little principality. Tonight, we eat as much as we like. Tonight, we’ve got dog, cat and rat galore to fill everyone’s stomachs.” Sam pulled Jack closer at the mention of roast dog, and Keith chuckled. “Looks like your dog’s already been an appetiser. Get hungry one night did you? Joke, joke, don’t get riled up,” he added, as Sam took a threatening step forward. He led them through the groups of people surrounding each pit, and round a roped off square piece of ground to the buildings at the back of the courtyard. “What’s with the roped off area?” asked Sam.

“Oh, that’s for our entertainment later. I think you’ll enjoy it.” This was said with another greasy little chuckle. Again, Sam was pretty certain that the entertainment was something else he wouldn’t enjoy.

 The little party came up to the row of houses at the back, crudely repaired, and looking just about watertight. “These are where we raise our food. Come and have a look.” He stooped to make his way through the small doorway, pulling aside a gate blocking the entrance. They walked in after him warily, almost overwhelmed by the smell of musty animal and shit. In the dark, all they could see was a few dozen pairs of eyes staring at them, from different heights. Keith pulled a cord, and a lantern was exposed, casting a warm orange light on the space. Dogs and cats were lying and sitting on the floor, shelves, and furniture in the room. There were nursing kittens and puppies under the table, and older dogs prowling the perimeter of the room. “So many animals,” Sam said, trying to keep his revulsion under control at the sight of the mangy, scruffy, and diseased animals. Skin disease was clearly rampant, with many of the dogs sporting scaly skin rather than fur. Many had missing ears and eyes, from fighting amongst themselves. Not the place for an animal lover. “How do you feed so many?” he continued, mostly just for something to say so that he didn’t throw up and show weakness before this crazy self-appointed king. “Oh, you’ll see that later, too,” replied Keith, looking self-satisfied. “It’s genius. Come on, it’s time for the entertainment.”

Keith strode over to roped off area and ducked underneath. He gave another piercing whistle and the people immediately started drifting over to stand around the outside of the ropes. There was lots of jostling, swearing and outright violence as they jockeyed for the best view of whatever was going to happen. “Welcome to our anniversary. Five years ago, I brought order to this town, and provided you with food, shelter, and safety. And today, we are stronger than ever before. He paused, then stepped forward, raising his arms in front of him, a benevolent, kingly gesture. “Tonight we have a special treat – we have guests!” He gestured to Charlie and Sam, and people stared at them, unmoved. “Let’s show them what a good time means in Keithville!” At this the crowd whooped and cheered, and started clapping slowly, building up to a rhythmic beat, obviously waiting for something to happen. “Tonight’s first contender, step into the ring!” A huge man, stripped to the waist and rippling with muscle, ducked under the ropes. “Darren, you have been training for this night for the past six months, for the opportunity to become one of my trusted soldiers. Are you ready for the challenge?” The man roared and flexed his muscles, dancing from foot to foot and swinging his arms in some sort of warm-up. Sam assumed this was going to be some sort of boxing match, wondering who the man was going to have to fight. Hopefully not Tiny Tim. He didn’t think anyone would survive that fight. As the man danced around the ring, showing off with flurries of fast punches, a commotion from one of the houses at the back could be heard. An eerie shrieking noise grew louder and closer. Sam’s stomach curdled as he recognised the noise. A Shrieker. Thy guy was going to fight a zombie. With his bare hands. This was so going to end in tears. He glanced at Charlie, who had blanched white at the noise, the white of her eyes showing completely round the pupils, as they stretched open in terror. He could feel Jack vibrating next to him and pulled him closer. The crowd parted as the shrieker was herded to the ring, the chain around its neck and the cattle prods the guards were using directing its path. It used to be a man, a big man, and he wasn’t long dead. This wasn’t an original shrieker, this was a new, fresh zombie, the skin only just starting to atrophy. He could see a gaping wound in its side, which he guessed was the killing wound. He could feel vomit rising in his throat as the thing’s intestines pulsated at the wound, black and crawling with flies. As soon as the zombie was inside the ring, Keith (who had moved to the other side of the ropes) yelled “turn on the electricity!” At this, a generator sprang to life, and the ropes electrified, zinging into life. So at least the crowd was protected, Sam thought, in some relief. Not that that seemed to matter to Charlie. He could see that she was starting to hyperventilate, and he found himself wondering how bad it had got back in her service days to make her react this way to one contained zombie. And whether she was going to turn out to be a liability on this trip.

As soon as the chain was released, the zombie sprang into action, shrieking all the time as it tried to get a purchase on the man in the ring. He dodged and feinted, slipping away from its outstretched fingers, turning a feint into a roll to create some distance before springing into a crouch and readying himself for the next rush. Unfortunately, he didn’t finish his move quickly enough, and the zombie was on him, its teeth attached to his neck as it wrapped its arms and legs around him. He screamed, collapsing under its weight, and desperately scrabbling at its skin to get some purchase to push it away. But it was too late. Sam could see that it had already broken the skin. Its teeth were worrying at his neck and the ripping away strips of flesh. The screaming stopped abruptly as a single shot rang out, taking off the top of the man’s skull.

The crowd stopped cheering and screaming, and a deathly silence fell. All eyes turned towards their direction, and Sam looked to Charlie, seeing her standing with her revolver out, still, and steady, showing no sign of the terror that obviously still had her in its clutches.

“Charlie?” he said into the silence. She showed no sign of hearing him, and he slowly reached out, taking the hand with the gun in it, and slipping it out of her clutches. As he did so, he saw intelligence seep back into her eyes as she came back to herself. “You OK?” he asked, feeling the inadequacy of his words even as they left his mouth. A shiver ran through her and she sagged a little. He dropped Jack’s lead and caught her elbow, holding her up until she got her strength back and moved away slightly. It only took a moment for her to recover her composure and Sam was impressed with her strength.

The silence had given way to mutterings and whisperings, which grew louder and more hostile as the moments passed. Then King Keith let rip “How DARE you interfere with our entertainment? You’ve just destroyed a valuable potential guard dog. He was going to serve whether he was alive or dead, and you’ve just ruined that. Now you’re going to have to compensate us for him AND for Betty.” He gestured to the now inert body, where it lay being eaten by the shrieker. “One of you is going to have to take his place in the ring.”