Silence.

No rumble of traffic. No shouts. No screaming. Just the sound of her breathing. In and out. Inhale and exhale.

I'd laid by her side and watched her sleeping for a few hours now, tucked away in a new hideout at the back of a derelict, boarded-up building, close to the canal. The doorway had been bricked up, leaving barely much shelter overhead, but there was enough room for us, and, more importantly, it was deserted. I didn't care that it smelt of mould and decay and of the stinking waters that flowed sluggish and treacle-thick in the canal. I didn't care that my stomach was aching from hunger or that I hadn't slept. I just wanted to keep her safe. From Sniper. From everyone. I wanted us to slip into the cracks of the city and never resurface.

Since Sniper had fled and her mood had calmed, Alice had reverted to the almost catatonic state she'd been in after she'd finished with Gilly. She hadn't spoken or given me any indication that she understood what she had done to either of them. She could hear me, I knew she could, because when I asked her to take my hand so I could gather our things and find us somewhere else to hide, she did. When I took her into the public restroom to get her cleaned up, she'd let me undress her, wash her, dress her again. She'd stood in the corner, as I'd tried to rinse the blood and dirt out of the basin, the whole time looking down at her feet as I'd glanced in the cracked mirror to make sure she was okay.

To make sure she wasn't looking at me the way she'd looked at him.

I should have been glad she was asleep, she needed to rest after all, but her sleep didn't look anything close to restful to me. She moaned, fingers constantly twitching and legs jerking, as if somewhere in her dreams, she was running, fleeing some dark entity that was chasing her, tormenting her every step. I'd tried to soothe her by stroking her hair, caressing her face – all the things I used to do to try and help her sleep when we'd first arrived in the city and every sound had terrified her - but nothing worked. She didn't stop twitching, or groaning, but I suppose I had to thank heavens for small mercies. At least she wasn't awake and hungry. A least she wasn't thinking about where the next meal would come from, or who it might be.

The whistle cut through the silence, not because it was particularly loud, but because it was the only human sound I'd heard, other than Alice, for quite some time. I froze as Alice stilled in her sleep, only to exhale deeply a second later when she returned to whatever dream haunted her.

Getting up slowly, I made sure the sleeping bag was wrapped around her and made my way along the narrow walkway between the back of the old building and the canal edge. I whistled in response as I drew closer, only for Seamus to pop his dishevelled head around the corner. Wafts of cheap beer engulfed me as I reached him, and that ever-present stench of roll-ups and sweat. Seamus wasn't one for washing much, based on the fact he would just get dirty again sleeping rough and he wasn't trying to impress no lady, so what's the blasted point. His bloodshot, bleary eyes looked more alert than usual and he constantly glanced around as if expecting an ambush.

'Alright, lad?' he mumbled through his thick, wild grey bread that seemed to have claimed even more of his face since I'd last seen him, just two days before, close to the public restrooms where I'd taken Alice to wash.

'Thanks for coming, Seamus. Did you get anything?'

He scratched at his chin. 'Yeah, not much, mind you. I could only cadge a couple o' tins.' Reaching into his coat pocket – bearing in mind, Seamus always wore about three coats at once – he pulled out two tins of sardines which I took gratefully. Not able to wait any longer, I snagged the ring pull open on one and began to greedily shovel the fish into my mouth. They were oily and cold but I was past caring. Food was food, no matter how shit it tasted.

'Right, I'd better be getting off, lad,' Seamus said gruffly, turning to leave. 'Can't be hanging around.'

'Wait?' I grabbed his arm. 'What's the matter? You don't have to go straight away.'

The old man eyed the cloud-crowded skies overhead and glanced around again. 'I want to get to the shelter for when it opens. Gotta get my name down for a bed tonight.'

I raised a brow in question. Seamus never bedded down at the shelter. He reckoned night-time was more lucrative for begging - more dangerous too, considering he'd been dished out a fair few beatings in his time – so usually he opted for the best spots where he could make a few coins or a bottle or two if he was lucky.

'I thought you said the shelter was for sissies and kids.' I grinned wryly. 'Why do you want a bed for the night? The cold finally seeping into those old bones of yours?'

He stared at me, frowning, deep, dirty grooves appearing on his forehead. 'It's not safe, is it? There's no way I'm risking another night out here if I can help it.'

I'd expected a funny comeback, not doom and gloom. Seamus had always been great for banter, even when he was wasted, but this was a different Seamus – a muted, less colourful character, faded to grey like the rest of our surroundings. I could barely see him against the backdrop of the city.

'What the Hell are you talking about, Seamus? What's going on?'

'You mean you don't know? Where have you and the girl been hiding, eh? Bloody Narnia, or something?'

I turned to look towards the doorway. I could still see Alice's feet poking out from our makeshift shelter, she hadn't moved. 'We've been here, I told you. Alice...'

Alice ate a bloke and then decided to bite the face off Sniper.

'Alice isn't well.'

Seamus' eyes narrowed. 'Eh? Right, well, you might as well have been in Narnia if you really don't know what's happening out there.' He thumbed a gesture back towards the street. 'People have gone mad, son. Downright, blinking mad. There's reports of attacks all over the damn city now. It's chaos. Everyone's running scared. Of course, it ain't just the likes of us that are being bitten, it's the normal folks too.'

'What?' The fish turned to gristle in my mouth, jellified and inedible. I spat it out onto the ground, wiping my face with the back of my hand. 'What do you mean bitten?'

Alice was biting his face, teeth embedded in the flesh of his cheek as she shook her head like a rabid dog, refusing to let go.

Seamus leaned in closer, lowering his voice to a whisper. 'Saw it myself, I did. Some fella goes up to this other one and just bites him. Takes a chunk right out of his cheek, he did. I thought maybe they had an argument or something, you know how it is? But he just goes up to the fella, for no reason at all and bites him, rips the flesh clean from his face. And you know what he did then? He only went and bloody ate it. Chewed it up and swallowed it right down like he was eating prime steak or something. Let me tell you, lad, I've seen some fucked-up things out here, but I ain't never seen nothing like this. I ain't never seen no one eat someone before.'

'Was it Sniper that bit the guy?'

Seamus pulled his knitted hat from another pocket and rolled it down onto his head, hair sticking out from the sides like a mad professor. He sniffed, wrinkling his nose. 'Sniper? Ain't nobody seen that bastard for a couple of days. His mates were looking for him, but if you ask me, I reckon he's one of them now.'

'Them?'

'Them, lad! The biters.'

Biters?

'You mean there's not just one?'

I wanted to puke. Wanted to vomit up cold, jellied fish right onto the hard ground.

'One? Ain't you been listening to me, boy?' Seamus began to cough, phlegm crackling in his throat. 'This ain't just one bloke. It's all over the blasted city. One bites another and then that one bites someone else, it's a damn virus, they reckon, and it's spreading faster than Hellfire. It's happening in broad day-light too now. I've been hiding out all day, waiting for the shelter to open, but I don't even know if that's going to be enough. Not sure that even walls can stop them, but it's worth a try, it's got to be better than being out here in the open. It's too exposed on the streets. I'm telling you, boy, no one's safe out here no more.'

I stared at him, feeling the cold creeping up my spine. 'So, what are you saying? They're zombies or something?'

'Zombies!' Seamus practically spat the word out. 'These ain't no zombies, lad. This ain't Hollywood! Zombies are dead creatures and trust me when I say these biters ain't dead. They're very much alive alright, and they know what they're doing. Even as they're chewing your face off and swallowing you down, they know exactly what they're doing.'

The old man turned to go, worn boots shuffling against grit and stone. I stood watching him, not really seeing anything apart from the images flashing in my head. Images drenched in blood. Images that screamed and wailed. Images of teeth and clawed hands, stripping organs from chest cavities and flesh from bone.

'You want to get your girl somewhere safe, lad,' Seamus called out to me, the sound of his voice pulling me back. 'Don't trust a soul, you hear? They say you can't tell, you see. You don't know who's a biter and who isn't, unless of course, you see the bite marks on them first. That's how you know someone got to them already. They say they're just like you and me, they look normal - that is until the rage takes them and by then, well, it's too late.'

He disappeared out into the street, leaving behind the sting of sweat in my nostrils and a bitter taste in my mouth. I'd not felt this cold since Alice and I had arrived in the city. Not even that first night when we'd huddled together to try and keep warm, so used to duvets and pillows and central heating, and finding nothing on the streets but the icy, harsh reality of what we'd done. Big adventures and dreams of a happy-ever-after had dissolved into the gutter, running with the rainwater and city-shit straight into the drains. This wasn't how it was meant to be. None of this was how it was meant to be. We'd come to the city in search of a new life. We hadn't come here for death, blood and chaos. Biters? A virus? It was madness. It had to be.

'Kris?'

That voice. Her voice.

I turned and she was there. She was right there in front of me and it was her. Same dirty-blonde hair I loved to play with. Same perfect mouth I loved to kiss. Same beautiful, delicate fingers I loved to link with my own. She looked just like Alice. She looked normal.

'I'mhungry,' she said, fingers twitching by her sides. 'I'm really hungry.'