The city was burning.

Plumes of thick, black smoke rose between skyscrapers, like huge thunderclouds ready to burst, darkening the skyline and turning day into dusk. An orange glow peeked over the top of nearby buildings, the crackle of flames telling me that it wouldn't be long before I saw the fire itself and felt its heat on my skin.

After Seamus had gone, I'd tried to appease Alice, soothe her, promise her anything I could to keep her here while I tried to work out what the Hell we should do. Out there – outside the bubble of our sanctuary – the streets were closing in on us, threatening to tear down the walls I'd created, threatening to burst our haven and suck out the air until I couldn't breathe. I was already suffocating. My throat burned. My chest felt tight. I needed to think straight, but the panic was crushing me.

In the end, Alice's hunger was the catalyst. She was becoming jittery and agitated, unable to keep still, particularly her fingers which now constantly twitched and twisted into bony claws. When she started grinding her teeth, lips peeling back from her gums in an alarming snarl, I knew we had to go.

Gathering our stuff together, I flung my backpack onto my shoulders and grabbed Alice's hand, pulling her close. She was pale again, eyes red-rimmed as if she'd been crying non-stop for hours.

'Everything's going to be okay,' I said, as I kissed her knuckles and brushed the hair back from her face. 'We'll get you something to eat and then we'll do what Seamus said. We'll go to the shelter or maybe find somewhere else, I promise you.'

'I'm hungry,' she said again. She'd said it so many times now, a robotic, monotone repetition, that it killed me a little more each time I heard it. I'd told her about the danger. I'd told her about the attacks, but the hunger was devouring everything. Tearing, chewing, swallowing it all down like it was nothing. Like braving streets full of biters was nothing.

'I know.' I squeezed out a smile and pressed my lips to her cheek. 'I know, and we're going now. It'll be fine, but look, whatever we do, we've got to do it quick. It's not safe out there, Alice, do you understand? I have to keep you safe.'

If she heard me, or understood any of what I'd said, I had no idea, but her brow wrinkled with that small little frown she often did, which I loved and hated in equal measure; loved because her pout was the sweetest thing and hated, because I wanted her to be happy – I wanted to make her happy. I needed to.

'Come on, it's time.'

Clutching her hand tight, I led her along the back of the building and down the side where I'd last seen Seamus, following the narrow path to the end of the walkway. The closer we got, the tighter I held onto her, not knowing what Hell we were about to walk into, not knowing how different the world would look from the one I remembered just a couple of days before. A dystopian-style Dante's Inferno maybe, dimly-recalled from high school English classes. Wrath and violence and a half-chewed pencil as I stared at Alice. Gluttony and greed and lust and just Alice, Alice, Alice as she stood behind her desk, reading aloud to the class, the pages of her textbook lightly trembling in her hands. It seemed fitting now, when the city was burning, that she would still be at the epicentre of the storm, because she always had been. Before and after. Then and now.

I could do this. I had to do this.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped out into the Nine Circles of Hell.

***

The Nine Circles of Hell were silent. Like an image captured in a photograph, quiet and forever frozen to remain like this. Flames crackled at the edges of the paper, blackening, curling, shrivelling the snapshot smaller and smaller, but there was no blood and flesh. No chaos, no fury and no death. Just stillness.

We waited there by the kerbside, Alice's twitching hand in mine.

This wasn't what I had expected, but it wasn't right either. It wasn't how it was meant to be. This city never slept. Never slowed down. Never stopped. The hair prickled on the back of my neck. Goosebumps flared. A bodiless scream, full of pain and terror, punctuated the silence and it was that which got me moving in the opposite direction, not knowing where we were going, just that we had to get as far away from that scream as possible. Another one cut us off, closer, louder, a gargled fluid-filled scream that stopped me in my tracks, with Alice bumping into my back as I came to a halt in the middle of the road.

Fuck. Which way? Which way?

I could see the flames from here, stretching out across rooftops, buildings already transformed into skeletal masks, with fire streaming from their windowless eyes and charred brick underneath, like smeared make-up running down their cheeks as they cried. Tugging on Alice's hand, I urged her across the road, turning into a side street and cutting along it, our footsteps sounding too loud and alien, each step like the shrill call of an alarm.

Reaching the end, I peered into the next street, spotting dark shapes moving at the far end, too far away to discern whether they were biters. Behind me, Alice was moaning pitifully, shuffling and swaying, unable to keep still. A flash of movement caught my attention, dragging my gaze away from the people at the end of the road and I flinched as someone ran past us, only to trip up the kerb and go sprawling onto the asphalt. A teen, probably barely older than us, head-shaved and now bleeding from the fall, wearing torn trackie bottoms and lurid orange trainers, scrambled to his feet, whirling around to look our way as he did so. I shrank back, stepping in front of Alice as if I could shield her from his stare, my heart hammering.

His eyes said it all. Wide and fearful, great pools of striking blue, he looked at us like we were the enemy, the monsters birthed straight from his nightmares, ripping everything into tatters as we tore into the world he once knew. He wasn't a biter. Not that I'd seen one yet, but there was too much terror there, too much palpable fear. If I'd reached out, I would have been able to touch it, hold it in my hands, feel the weight of it in my palms. He stared first at me, then at Alice who was now peering over my shoulder, fingers digging into my side.

With a whimper and an audible oh-my-fucking-god, he ran, legs shaky and unsteady as a new-born foal.

He was perfect and I saw it straight away. I knew Alice had seen it too, because she was making little keening noises in her throat, and so, like wolves, we followed our prey. Alice's prey. My temporary salvation.

New-born, he might have been, but the boy was fast – really fucking fast – and he took off down a street opposite, weaving his way through over-flowing bins left outside for the waste disposal vans that would never come. He glanced back, mouth open wide in a silent scream worthy of that Munch painting everyone talked about – not that anyone would talk about it anymore, now we would only talk of biters and blood and death – and he grabbed at the handle of the nearest bin and pulled it, sending an avalanche of stinking rubbish spewing across the street. He did it to the next one, and the next, a constant tide of rotting waste to hinder our hunt and slow us down. It worked, of course. I'd never been much of an athlete at school. Bigger than most of the other boys, I could throw a punch, but I couldn't move that fast. Alice was bobbing along beside me, her desperation for the boy meaning that she didn't look down as she ran, instead she kept her eyes on him and not on the rubbish bags that tangled and grabbed at her feet. She stumbled and I caught her before she hit the ground, but when I looked up again, the boy was out of sight. Nothing but footsteps echoing back at us through the deserted street.

Alice howled, a cry of yearning and hunger, a wild animal's call, lamenting the loss of the hunt and her hand tightened around mine, fingernails digging into my skin.

'Keep going,' I insisted, panic flaring.

We continued to run, jumping over rivers of maggot-infested chicken carcasses, blackened, mould-spotted fruit, empty water bottles and crushed beer cans, until we made it out into the next street and I saw him, not that far ahead, darting into an alleyway between two rows of terraced houses. Feeling the adrenalin rush firing up my veins, I grinned as I ran, vaguely knowing I must have looked like a mad person, running and grinning at the same time, but not caring, because the city was mad now, maybe even the world was, and finally, I fitted right in. We were going to catch this boy and I was going to kill him, for her, for Alice and she was going to be happy – truly happy – and she would know that I would always look after her. Even as the world crumbled down around our shoulders, even as the madness took over, conquering everything, it would always be me and her.

We would be more than a declaration of forever, scrawled a hundred times on a school notebook with a half-chewed pencil. More than a statement etched onto the tree in my back garden at home, drawing blood when the pen-knife slipped and sliced my thumb, smearing it on the bark as if that would magically seal the deal. More than a promise I would whisper to myself at night before I went to sleep, over and over, like counting sheep, only instead of sheep it was images of me and her I saw. Kris and Alice. Forever.

The grin was a celebratory prelude to the kill, the rush of adrenalin like a firework that spurred me on, and I pulled us into the alleyway, a bubble of laughter building in my throat that burst and died almost as quickly as it had grown.

Ahead of us, a man knelt on the ground, bent over another who lay on his back, the fallen person's head concealed by a filthy, unwanted mattress that had been dumped in the alley. Legs outstretched, the person twitched almost as if he was fitting, bright orange trainers scraping against the ground. It was him. Our boy. Our prey.

The man kneeling over him pulled, yanked, and I watched in horror as a snake of steaming intestines was tugged free from the boy's now-open stomach and the man proceeded to shove it greedily into his mouth. The boy – somehow still alive – emitted a pained cry and was instantly silenced, when the man raised his fist and reigned blow after blow down on the head I thankfully couldn't see. The legs grew still and the man went back to his feast, unaware that he had an audience.

We had to leave. Run. Flee.

I took a step to go, tugging on Alice's hand, but she wouldn't budge, instead she stood transfixed by the bloody scene, her head cocked to one side, her expression blank.

Leaning close to her ear, I whispered, 'Alice, come on, we have to go now.'

It was a whisper nothing more. Just a whisper. But the biter heard it anyway. Or maybe he'd just realised he wasn't alone out here, that all-too familiar feeling we get when we know somebody's watching us, because his head snapped in our direction and the world – the whole, mad crazy world - stopped turning.

Sniper.

Seamus had been right about Sniper, but of course, I'd already known that. Sniper was one of them. The first of them all. Born from something cooked up in a petri-dish in a military lab, paired with a voracious sickness for raw meat, Sniper was a perfect, awful combination of Gilly and Alice, all violence and infection and hunger. Together, they had brought the city to its knees.

Desperately trying to swallow my fear, I pushed Alice behind me.

Sniper stood up, the remaining part of the boy's intestine dangling listlessly from his grasp, his hands slick right up to the wrists, his mouth and chin glistening with blood. The wound on his cheek was puce and inflamed at the edges, pus oozing from the concave hole where Alice had taken a chunk out of his face. He was wearing the same clothes in which we'd last saw him, his coat now stained with dark, wet patches. His hair, which had always looked like it had all manner of creepies crawling in it, was sticking out at odd angles, and bald patches now covered his head, scabs encrusting his scalp.

The last of the intestine dropped to the ground with a wet splat.

'Well, well,' he said, amiably. 'Look who it is? My old mate Kristofferson.'

He'd always called me that since he'd found out my name. Reckoned my name-sake was some old actor who was in a film about a truck convoy. He would make jokes about it all the time, jokes that I didn't understand and could never work out whether he was just having a laugh, or poking fun at my expense. I always assumed the latter. He didn't like me, never had. I was just in the way of something he wanted. Alice.

'I was wondering if I'd see you again. Been looking for you, actually. Tried to get that smelly old bugger Seamus to tell me where you were, but he wouldn't fess up.' Sniper scratched at his head, the blood from the boy now streaking what little hair he had left. 'Funny, I never had him down as the tough type, but he never let on where you were hiding. Even when I tore out his eyeballs. You ever eaten an eyeball, Kristofferson? Makes a right fucking mess when you bite into them.'

He smiled, all bloodied teeth with bits of god-knows-what stuck to the plaque that covered them. Bits of the boy. Bits of others. Maybe even bits of Seamus.

I clenched my fists. 'You fucking bastard,' I hissed. 'I'm going to...'

'What?' he said, laughing. 'What you gonna do, schoolboy? You gonna kill me? Don't be fucking ridiculous. You're not one of us. Us biters are the top of the fucking food chain now and you, Kristofferson, well, you're just a dying breed.'

'I will kill you,' I insisted. The fear was still there, but the anger was too, strong and hot and full of hunger. I wanted him dead. More than anyone. More than Gilly, more than Alice's dad, more than her stupid pointless mates.

Sniper shook his head and licked his lips, winking at me. 'Nah, you won't. You ain't got it in you, know what I mean? But her...' His smiled widened as he gestured behind me. 'She's got it. She's the one.'

To my horror, Alice shifted and moved out from behind me, her face still a blank page, but her eyes fixed on Sniper. Sniper's face, however, changed instantly. Gone was the smirk, gone was the wicked smugness, gone was the hatred, and in its place, was something akin to awe. Adoration. His mouth dropped open, a small blissful sigh escaping his bloodied lips.

When Alice began to move towards him, I grabbed her wrist. 'Alice! No!'

She shook me off and took a few steps forward again.

No. This wasn't happening. It wasn't. She was mine. Not his. Mine.

But still, their gazes remained locked together, like they could see only each other. Like I wasn't even there. Like the flames from the burning buildings nearby had swallowed me up whole and burned me to ash, my entire existence drifting away in the smoke.

I moved to block her path, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her, until she blinked and was forced to see me again. 'Alice, please,' I cried. 'Don't do this. You don't have to do this. You're not one of them, I know you're not. You're different, yes, but you're not a biter. I'll look after you, I swear. I told you I would, didn't I? I promised you I would be the only one you would ever need. I'll do whatever I have to do to protect you, to make you happy. I love you, Alice. Please.'

Seconds. Silent, empty seconds of nothingness. That's all it took for her to chew up my heart and spit it out.

'K-Kris...'

My heart beat again. Sparks of hope igniting, flying, soaring. She still loved me. She still saw me. I knew she did.

'Kris,' she repeated, her voice flat. 'You should run now.'

With that, she shrugged me off and pushed past me, each step towards him like another bite, ripping me to pieces bit by bit, leaving me a bloodied mess on the ground.

I didn't run though. I couldn't. I just stood there, watching as she reached him, looking up into his face, him looking down at her, his eyes alight with a worshipful yearning. She reached up, with those beautiful, delicate fingers that I loved so much, and touched a hand to the uninjured side of his face and he gasped, a sound so full of pleasure it made me physically hurt to hear it.

I sobbed then, unable to stop it as he put his hands on her waist – as he put his hands on my Alice – and pulled her close, leaning his head down, his mouth finding hers. Their lips parted, his tongue moving into her mouth and my world was destroyed. Never mind that the city was burning. Never mind that people were dying. I was burning. I was dying. Because this, seeing this, was worse than everything. Worse than biters. Worse than having your stomach ripped open and guts yanked out. Worse than having your head caved in by a boy with a brick.

I stumbled back, my legs giving way, unable to hold me anymore as I watched her kissing him, just like she kissed me. Like she used to kiss me. His eyes were closed, enraptured by her, lost in the kiss. Her hands were behind his head, clutching her to him, tighter, tighter, and then suddenly, his eyes shot open, looking directly into Alice's, but no longer with adoration. He began to struggle, hands desperately grabbing at her – pushing at her – but still she held on tight, and he was screaming into her mouth, a muted pained scream held locked between them. When he finally broke away from the embrace, falling backwards with his hand clapped over his mouth, the scream didn't break free even then and I realised he hadn't been the one to put an end to it.

She had.

Holding Sniper's severed tongue in front of her face, Alice viewed it with a bemused interest, the now useless piece of flesh that she had bitten clean from his mouth. With a shrug, she tossed it aside and advanced on the fallen man. He saw her coming and began to shake his head violently, trying to scramble away from her, but he'd never seen the Alice I had seen. Delicately framed and frail-looking she might have been, but this Alice was a storm, a hurricane, a fire that could take down whole cities with her hunger. She leapt at him, on him, and there was nothing he could do. Clawed hands tore at his eyes, ripping them from his sockets. Teeth tore his lips from his face, took chunks from exposed flesh. She gouged and bit and slashed and shredded. And the whole time she feasted, I watched. In horror. In awe. In adoration.

When she was done, we both climbed to our feet at the same time, staring at each other. Blood dripped from her face and hands, but she was still beautiful. Still Alice.

'You didn't run,' she said, her chest heaving with exertion. 'Why didn't you run?'

'Because I love you.'

She frowned, little lines wrinkling her forehead, as if trying to recall something important, mouth forming a perfect pout. 'You should have run, Kris.'

I smiled, my heart swelling. All this time trying to keep her safe, looking out for her, protecting her and now she wanted to keep me safe. She had saved me and not because she had to, but because she wanted to.

'I couldn't have left you,' I said. 'I made a promise.'

Reaching out, I took her hand. 'Let's go, yeah?'

She didn't resist when I pulled her towards the far end of the alley, walking away from what was left of Sniper and stepping over the body of the boy along the way. I didn't know what lay beyond or what was left of the city, but I knew with Alice by my side, everything was going to be okay. I squeezed her hand. 

In the distance, sirens began to scream.