“We’re still bestest friends,” said Dave. “But we need you. That’s why I’ve brought you back.”

“I don’t want to be needed. Please do away with me.”

“I thought you’d be pleased,” said Dave.

“Pleased to be a zombie? Who would be pleased to be a zombie?” I glanced at Sandra and Sandra wasn’t smiling. “Quite so,” I said. “I’m sorry, Sandra. But it really wasn’t me who did that to you.”

“No matter who,” said Sandra. “Gary back now. Gary get Sandra new body. This one not good any more.”

“It is getting somewhat manky,” said Dave. “I’ve got her all wrapped up in clingfilm under her clothes. She does need a new body.”

“Oh no,” I said, shaking my head violently. “I’m not doing that. I’m not killing anyone. I don’t do that any more.”

“Gary do what Gary told to do,” said Sandra.

“No, please,” I said. “I spent half my life being told what to do, without even knowing it. I do know it now. Please don’t do this to me.”

“Need new body,” said Sandra. “Dave not want to play with this one any more.”

“Then, let Dave get you a new body.”

“No way,” said Dave. “I’m a thief, not a murderer.”

“Yes, but you don’t have to be a thief, Dave. You could fight the alien who controls your thoughts.”

“Oh, him,” said Dave. “You mean old Barundi Fandango the Jovian Cracksman. He’s out of the picture now.”

“What?” I sat on the floor and stared up at Dave. “Your thoughts are entirely your own? Are you sure of this?”

“Sure as sure,” said Dave, helping me up to my feet. “I sorted it.”

“But how?” I was very wobbly; my knees went knock, knock, knock.

“When you walked into that trap at Mornington Crescent. That door marked WHITE COAT AND LIGHT BULB STORE. I thought you were dead, so I legged it. But I didn’t leg it far. All sorts of alarms went off and I hid and I saw them haul you out. You looked as if you were drunk or drugged or something. Some kind of nerve gas, I don’t know. But I watched and I listened and I saw Mr Boothy and his dogs and he did one of those routines that the supervillains always do when they have the hero captured.”

“I don’t remember,” I said.

“No, he said that you wouldn’t. But he told you the lot and I overheard it. You heard some of it at your trial, but not all. A few important details were missing.”

“Go on,” I said, trying to remain upright.

“He thought you were a saboteur. You see, there are people, human beings, with no aliens controlling their actions, who know about FLATLINE, who’ve infiltrated it.”

“The ones with no true names,” I said. “Eric the barlord, he knew about them. He told me about them. It got a passing mention at my trial.”

“Eric was a referee,” said Dave. “Of this particular quadrant. The aliens have Earth divided up amongst themselves, so they can play out their games. They’re not omnipotent: they don’t know everything. Most of them don’t know who’s who, whether a human is being controlled or not. It keeps it all sporting. They fight their wars here, Gary. They do it by controlling some of us. Those who can be controlled. Those of us who have basic flaws in our character. Those of us who are weak. Who don’t really know who they are. People like you and me. They play with us. They make us kill one another. The people you killed, you ‘randomly’ killed: there was nothing random about it. The being who controlled you knew who controlled them. Every killing had a purpose. It was all part of their game, their sport.”

“But they don’t die. When they kill one of us, the being that is controlling the person who gets killed, that being doesn’t die, right?”

“Right,” said Dave. “Because they can’t die.”

“They’re immortal?”

“No, Gary. They’re already dead.”

“What?” I said. “I don’t understand this at all.”

“All the aliens,” said Dave, “the whole lot of them, they’re all dead. They blasted one another out of existence. Earth is now the last inhabited planet in the universe. When Operation Orpheus opened up communications with the dead it wasn’t to just the human dead. Sometime in the late nineteen fifties, all the alien dead all over the universe tuned into Earth. Because the scientists discovered the radio frequency of the dead. But not just the human brain frequency: it’s a universal frequency of all the dead, human or not. And once they’d turned on their tuned-in apparatus, it was a great big radio beacon and all the alien dead from all over the galaxies tuned right into it. And they found us. And they found that they could beam their thoughts directly into our brains. They didn’t waste a lot of time doing it.”

“This is doing my head in,” I said. “This is all too much.”

“Think of it as devil possession,” said Dave. “Except that there aren’t any devils. The devils are dead aliens messing about with living humans. It’s about as feasible as anything else. The aliens may be dead, but they still hate one another. Alien racists are still fighting wars beyond the grave. They wouldn’t be able to do it to us if we hadn’t given them the opportunity.”

“So it can be stopped?” I asked.

“I thought you’d never ask,” said Dave.

“Well, can it?”

“I don’t know,” said Dave. “What do you think?”

“I think I want to go back to the graveyard. In fact, I know I want to go back to the graveyard. I belong dead.”

“Don’t be a quitter,” said Dave. “This is a chance for you to redeem yourself. You don’t want to be remembered as a murdering scumbag, do you? Wouldn’t you rather be remembered as the man who freed humankind from the menace of the dead aliens?”

“And you seriously think that any newspaper would print that?”

“The Weekly World News definitely would,” said Dave. “And I think it would be a noble cause.”

“Oh yes,” I said. “You think. You said that you’d sorted the alien who manipulated you. How did you do that?”

“Easy,” said Dave. “I told him to sling his hook. I knew his name: Eric had told me. I knew he was in my head. I knew that from listening to Mr Boothy talking to you. So I said, ‘Out of my head, mate. I know you’re in there. Go and screw up someone else.’”

“And it was as easy as that?”

“Not quite,” said Dave. “There was a bit of a fuss. I found myself thinking that I should give myself up to Mr Boothy, and lots of other dodgy things. I almost caved in, almost went mad. But I hung on.”

“Because Sandra save him,” said Sandra. “Sandra know ’cos Sandra dead. Sandra stop Dave, save Dave.”

“Sandra thinks you should atone for all your bad behaviour,” said Dave. “Even if it wasn’t exactly your fault. Which is why she is going to despatch you to Mornington Crescent to destroy the receiving station.”

“The receiving station?” I said. “This is new. What is the receiving station?”

“It’s the line of communication between the dead aliens and us. You know about FLATLINE – it required technology. You can’t just talk to the dead.”

“You’re doing it now,” I said.

“You know what I mean,” said Dave. “To a soul, if you like. I overheard Mr Boothy. The alien dead communicate to the living humans, control them, through the receiving station at Mornington Crescent. The one built for Operation Orpheus. Blow that up and you cut the line of communication.”

“So you do it,” I said. “You’re sneaky; you could do it.”

“It’s dangerous in there,” said Dave. “I might get killed.”

“Oh, I see,” I said, because I did. “You’ve brought me back from the dead so I can get Sandra a new body and then go and risk, what? nothing, because I’m already dead, by blowing up Mornington Crescent and destroying the communications station that allows the dead aliens to control living human beings?”

“Nicely put,” said Dave. “It’s all so simple when you put it that way.”

I punched Dave right in the face. Which probably hurt me more than it hurt him. Which made me aware of just how much pain Sandra must go through, being a zombie. Yes, it was a lot of pain that I felt then. And also afterwards, when Sandra made me do certain things to atone for hitting Dave, which were so humiliating and degrading that I have no intention of mentioning them here.