Cold Open.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Michael asked his date. He was on his fifth date with Gina, and he had brought her out to a secluded spot just off the lake where they could sit by the water and look up at the stars.

He’d taken her to the little Italian restaurant in town for dinner earlier and this was the night he felt they were going to make things official.

“It is, but it’s a little spooky don’t you think?” Gina said wrapping her faux fur shawl around her neck a bit tighter.

“Spooky? Naaah, we’re fine, Gina. You’re fine. You’ve got me looking after you,” he said with a cheeky grin.

“But do you think there’ll be vampuras round here?”

“Err no. No I don’t.”

“What about the brain dead?”

“Gnashers? Naaah. Look we’re out in the middle of nowhere. There’s not going to be vampuras out hunting all this way. No vampuras, then no gnashers. No one’s here babe. Did you see anyone on our way in?” She shook her head. “No, exactly. So relax,” he said reassuringly putting his arm around her. She snuggled into it, feeling safe with her hunky date.

He opened the hamper the had bought with him and unfurled the rug, beckoning her to sit on it.

“It’s romantic, right?” he said.

“Yeah. Yeah, it is,” she said, smiling. “What do you have in that hamper then?”

“Do you fancy some shampagnay?”

“Ooooh, now we’re talking!” she said excitedly clapping her hands quickly. “What are these at the bottom? Towels?”

Michael started to laugh. “Well… Don’t laugh, but how do you feel about going for a dip later on?”

“In there?!” she shrieked in shock looking at the lake.

“Yeah. We could go for a moonlight dip?”

“With all the shit’s that in there?”

“There’s no shit in there!” he protested.

“Well not shit shit, probably, but shit, like crap that people throw away.”

“People go dipping all the time in natural water, like they do it all the time in the movies. I don’t think Tarmsworth St Jude has a dodgy lake. Come on.”

“Well I don’t have my swimming-” Michael sat back on his elbows looking flirty and suggestive. “Ah, you were thinking we’d go skinny dipping?”

“Yeah why not?”

“Because…”

Michael jumped to his feet and took off his merino knit jumper and started to unbutton his shirt as he kicked off his shoes.

“Oh fuck it,” Gina said. “Me mates are always telling me that I need to live a little more!”

“Hell yeah!” Michael cheered, pulling the shirt off. He started to unbuckle his trousers while Gina turned round, inviting him to unzip her dress.

They stripped the rest off and ran to the edge of the lake, both jumping in and screaming excitedly.

After half an hour of splashing around, Michael spotted movement on the bank hobbling around near their discarded picnic hamper.

“Oi!” Michael shouted, swimming to the grass. “Fuck off!”

“Michael, be careful!” Gina urged.

He climbed out of the lake with Gina closely behind. The figure seemed to be ignoring Michael’s attempts to get rid of him. “Fuck off out of here!”

The stumbling figure turned round and Gina screamed. It was a gnasher stumbling around.

Michael turned to Gina. “Get back in the water! You’ll be safer in there!” He turned back round to the zombie, and naked as the day he was born, he picked up the champagne bottle.

The zombie stumbled towards Michael, gnashing it’s jaws and groaning. Mark scuttled around to get behind it and smashed the bottle over it’s head. It did nothing but cause it to drop to it’s knees, but it did smash the bottle in half.

With the broken jagged half he was still holding, Michael jammed it into the skull of the zombie killing it dead. The zombie fell forward like a stack of bricks on to it’s face, the bottle still jutting out of it’s head.

“Oh my God!” Gina cried, exaggerating every word, looking very harassed as she scrambled for her clothes.

“Gina? Gina, it’s ok now. I got it! You don’t need to worry.”

“Oh I know, and I thank you for that,” she said, busying herself getting dressed again.

“So then let’s stay.”

“I’m sorry, but… I’ve just seen that you’re circumcised.”

“What?” Michael said, flabbergasted. He reached for a towel to cover himself, having gone very self-conscious in a matter of seconds. “Let me get this straight. Zombies, you’re ok with. But you draw a line at my medically altered willy…?”

Chapter Seventeen.

“Are you going to the funeral today, Henry?” his mother asked coming into the living room.

He looked up at her from the sofa bemused. “No mum, why would I?”

She sighed, rolled her eyes and sat down on the sofa, causing him to shuffle up or be sat on. “Because it’s the right thing to do,” she said.

“I didn’t even know her though.”

“Do you know how many people came to your brother’s funeral, who didn’t even know him?”

Henry looked thoughtfully at her. “No,” he admitted. “I didn’t really notice that.”

“Nor did I. Not until afterwards when Stanley was talking to me towards the end of the day. Said people had come from the other divisions. They didn’t know Mark, but they came because he was one of them.”

“So you think I should go?”

“I wouldn’t be telling you this if I didn’t,” she said. “I know it must be tough, to go to that funeral and not think about your brother and the funeral we just recently had for him, but people were there for you. It’s your turn to be there for others.”

Henry puffed. She was right, but it didn’t make the idea of going easier. At least this one wasn’t my fault, he supposed with a pang of guilt.

“Ok, sure. I’ll go.”

“Thanks sweetie. It’s the right thing to do.” She smiled at him and patted his leg. “What time is it starting?”

“It’s in a couple of hours.”

“Well then you better get showered and dressed. I can give you a lift if you want?”

“I’ll give Lana a call first, but if she can’t, would you be able to please?”

“Yeah. You better get a wiggle on then.”

***

Lana pulled up outside the house, blocking the road on the one way street, and turned down the house music that was playing loudly from within. Henry was waiting for her and dashed out with a quick ‘goodbye’ to his mum.

He could see the empty seat in the front but as he got closer he could see the back seats were occupied. By David. And Zoe.

Ah shit, he cried internally. That cow’s here too?! “Hi everyone!” he said, with a falsely positive vibe to compensate for the annoyance at seeing Zoe there.

“You’re upbeat for a funeral,” David remarked, looking squashed in the back.

Henry remembered himself and cursed at himself. He tried to recover himself, “Yeah, sorry. I’ve been trying to gee myself up for this. I must’ve over done it.”

“You’re good, it’s to be understood,” Lana said, pushing her seat into David directly behind her, her way of scolding him for being insensitive. “I’m glad you changed your mind.”

“Well my mum said there were people there for Mark’s from the Corp who didn’t know him. It feels like the right thing to do in return.”

“Yeah, it’s the least you can do,” Zoe said from behind him. He could sense the passive aggressive nature in the way she said it, but wondered if anyone else did, or if it was just him.

“Exactly,” Henry said agreeing with her. Play nice... “And how are you, Zoe?”

“Fine.”

What a cow. “Well that’s great,” he said, but the side eye that Lana gave him told him perhaps he was a little too sarcastic with his response.

***

The Pin Corner Division team occupied a couple of small round wooden tables in the pub that was hosting Miranda’s wake. There were a lot of people packed in to the pub, the name of which Henry couldn’t remember. ‘White Swan’, ‘Red Fox’, ‘Black Badger’, ‘Red Lion’… Something coloured animal or other, deep within a housing estate known for drunkard noise complaints and late night brawls. Not a classy establishment. If you stood too long in one place, your shoes would stick to the carpet.

But it was around these two tables as a playlist of Miranda’s favourite songs chosen by her kids were playing in the back ground, and no one was really in the mood for talking. The Nasscies across Tarmsworth St Jude had turned out in force for this. Henry wondered if there had been a similar turn out for his brother, but he hadn’t really been with it on the day to really notice.

“I need a piss,” David announced, breaking the group’s silence as a B*Witched song played.

“I’ll come,” Henry said, hurriedly getting up and following him.

“I can manage all by myself, you know?” David teased.

Henry let out a loud laugh, but the glare of a few mourners nearest him forced him to mouth an apology back. “No I know, but I just needed an excuse to not be at the table any more. God, it’s hard work. I’d hate to be at your Christmas parties.”

“They’re actually a lot of fun,” David said as they entered the men’s toilets. “On the account of less death mourning, of course.” The guys walked to the urinals and attended their business side by side. “How are you holding up? You’ve not been wanting to throw up have you?”

Henry shook himself off after his stream had finished. “No. No throw up today. It’s all a bit weird. I’m more conscious and aware at this funeral, and the pain and the grief, even though it’s not mine is quite strong.” The guilt, not so much.

“Yeah, I get that. I bet Mark’s funeral was a bit of a blur for ya.”

“Yeah, pretty much.” They moved over to the sinks and washed their hands, talking to each other through the mirrors. “I’m just counting down to the time we can go and just get out on shift.”

“You want to see if we’re allowed to go together again?” David asked.

“Hmmm, I think it’s been long enough, hasn’t it?” Henry agreed.

Since Henry and David had forced entry in to an illegal zombie auction in a warehouse on an industrial estate on another Division’s patch, they had been in a lot of trouble and were being punished with, among other things, not being able to be paired up together. Admittedly, the superiors were pleased that such an illegal racket had been busted, but they weren’t happy with the means in which they did, and the questions around who was to blame for the woman’s death at the jaws of the zombie still remained.

They dried their hands and Henry used his elbow to hook into the door handle to open it. “I hate how you have to touch a door handle on the way out of the toilets. You should just be able to push it and not touch your newly cleaned hands.”

“You wuss!” David joked following him back to their table. During the time they’d been in the loo, Alistair had disappeared somewhere round the other side of the bar and was returning himself. He looked frazzled.

“What’s up boss?” Nadheera asked, noticing his look.

“I’ve just been speakin’ with the other Captains from the other Divisions. It’s a bit crass to talk shop at a fellow Nasscie’s funeral, so I won’t.” He remained stood, like he wasn’t going to stay any longer. “I’ll tell you all about it later tonight at the briefing. I’m going to head off now and get ready. Does anyone need a lift?”

No one took him up on his offer, so he said goodbye.

“Sounds ominous. Any idea what it’s all about, Stan?” Nadheera asked.

“Mind your business,” Bridget said before Stanley could even think about answering for himself. “He said he’ll tell us later.”

“Ooooooh, ok,” Nadheera said, rolling her eyes like a reprimanded teenager.

“On that note, perhaps I should be going too,” Henry said.

“Same,” Lana agreed, getting up. “I’ll give you a lift back.”

***

“So lemme tell you about the conversation I had with the other Captains first earlier,” Alistair puffed.

It was a couple of hours later and the gang had swapped their black suits and ties for their leather protective neck corsets and leather jackets, reconvening at the pavilion for their pre shift briefing.

“The investigation into the zombie auctions has developed further,” he started.

Behind the scenes, the police had been conducting the investigations, but ultimately due to the vampura and zombie nature of things involved, any action that would be taken would be carried out by the brawn that were the Neighbourhood Ancillary Stakers Corp.

“Essentially, we’ve received word that a criminal network has been identified who have been imprisoning and farming vampuras for the sole purpose of creating and farming zombies. It is then those zombies that are being trafficked across the country for auctions like the one last week and money making opportunities.”

No one said anything, although their expressions of shock and slight awe from Alistair’s vantage point said it all.

He continued. “That’s the long and short of it. Tonight, all the divisions are joining forces to raid the farm that is housing this awful business and we hope to put a complete stop to it.”

Still no one said anything. They just seemed to look at each other, knowing that anything that required all divisions to team up was going to be something important, much like the battle at the blood bank was.

“Anyone wanting to say anything?” Alistair asked.

“Where are we going for it?” Callum asked.

“There’s a large farm south of here between here and the village of Barmwich,” Alistair said.

“What are the main objectives, Captain?” Bridget asked.

“Breach the site, locate the vampuras and the zombies, rescue any humans who are being imprisoned to be fed to the vampuras and then lastly, assist the perpetrators in this racket for the police to pick up after,” he said.

“And do we know who they are or what they look like?” Lana asked.

“No, not yet,” Alistair admitted.

“They’ll be the ones not chained up, I reckon,” David muttered. Lana flicked him the V’s and he flashed a cheeky smile back.

“Quite,” Alistair agreed. “But we don’t know exactly who I’m afraid. We do have authorisation from the police to physically engage with any humans who stand in our way, either to apprehend them or to defend ourselves.”

“Sweet,” David said under his breath. “We’ll really have a party on our hands then.”

“No staking them though,” Stanley said, hearing David. “Save that for the dead ones. Just a punch in the face or something should do the trick.”

Everyone nodded to show they understood.

“No pairings for tonight, we’re all going to meet on the edge of Tarmsworth in the Georgia Green patch before going en masse. We’re leaving in half an hour.”

***

The group opted to wait outside in the pavilion carpark. Sensing the severity of the task at hand, some had gone to make some phone calls, vaguely informing their nearest and dearest that they loved them, just in case it went tits up on the raid. Lana, Henry, Zoe and Nadheera were stood together while Alistair paced nearby on his phone.

“How are we feeling about this?” Nadheera asked, when Alistair was far enough away to not hear. “It’s all a bit quick isn’t it?”

“I suppose it had to be,” Lana said. The longer we knew about it, the greater the chance that someone blabbed and word got around. At least this way… bam, we just go in and do it, much to everyone’s surprise.”

“I hope so,” Nadheera said. She held hugged herself and jigged from foot to foot. “It’s no good. I need to wee again.”

“Me three,” Lana said. “Zoe? Wanna make it a ménage a trois?” She gave her a wink.

Zoe smiled. “No thanks, bladder of steel, me.” But Nadheera and Lana had darted off at, ‘no thanks’.

Henry awkwardly looked at Zoe and gave her an awkward smile, burying his hands in his pockets, rocking on the balls of his feet. She sort of smiled back, not engaging in any conversation or even any small talk.

Over and over in his head, Henry sang, fuck, this is awkward. This is awkward. This is awkward.

Henry gestured with a thumb in the direction of the pavilion doors, “I think I’ll-” Henry started to say.

“Yeah, please do,” Zoe said, turning away from him.

“What is your problem Zoe?” Henry snapped. He’d had enough. Why should he put up with this any longer?

“My problem?” she repeated.

“Yeah, you’ve literally been off with me since you transferred to our Division. Since Mark’s death. I know you liked him, but don’t take it out on me!”

“I’ll tell you why, you stupid twat. Because I know,” she spat.

“Know? What do you know?” Henry said.

“I know that you killed your brother, and I don’t trust or like you one bit.”

Henry felt the wind knocked out of him. He felt himself transcend out of his body, like he was looking at himself. Shit. How did she know?