He was right, I knew. There was no way I was getting out of here by force. I had two choices. I either gave him the gold bracelet, my last memento of Clara, or I gave him the revolver. What a choice. The bracelet was the only thing of hers that I had, but the gun that could easily be the difference between living or dying.

The way I saw it, memories wouldn't do me much good in the grave, and I thought Clara would respect that. She wouldn't want me to lessen my survival chances just to keep hold of a piece of jewellery.

"Take the gold," I said.

"A pragmatic choice, and I can’t say it doesn’t fit you.” He stood up, rubbed the bracelet on his jumper and then stuffed it in his pocket. “There's a pretty girl in town. She’s got an ass you could eat your dinner off, but she costs a little too much. Maybe this will buy me a few hours with her." said Moe.

His words hit me in the gut. The last memory of my dead wife, and I’d cheapened it. I’d taken the slim chance of survival in this world over keeping the memory of her around, and now it was going to be used as currency to pay a whore.

Chapter 4

Moe was a piece of crap, and meeting him confirmed what I had known about Vasey all along. The idea of sticking around had some comfort to it - walls, warmth, and protection - but it came at a price I had no interesting in paying. If being around people was the cost of security, I'd rather take my chances outside. It just wasn't worth it. At least alone I could control what I did, and any mistakes I made would be my own. If you spent time without someone else, you were at the mercy of whatever dumb decision they made.

  I walked down the pothole-ridden road that led out of town. I looked to the side of me and saw a bunch of shops lining the high street, though none of them were used as businesses these days. What was once a bakery was packed with blue gas canisters, and a yellow-walled hair boutique with a "Village Supercuts" sign had the skins of various animals hanging up on the walls. It was a strange choice, really, because further down the road was a butcher shop, and surely that would have made a better choice to store animal hides. From another doorway a man watched me walk. He was topless and the curve of his stomach poked out above his jeans, the beginnings of a beer-belly that he had no business growing in this new world where food was rare and beer even rarer. He rested his arms on the doorframe and let a cigarette hang from the corner of his mouth. He never took his eyes off me as I walked past him and toward the gate that guarded the town exit.

The gate was twenty-feet high, black and made of steel. On either side were stone turrets, and in each turret stood a guard with a gun. Vasey, like many places in the North of England, was once home to a Norman stronghold, and the black gate was a remnant of its ancient defence. Now though, instead of protecting the townspeople against invading armies hungry for territory, it was protecting them against the living dead who were hungry for brains.

I walked up to the gates. The guard in the left turret twitched at every step I took, and when I stood in front of the bars he raised his gun at me. I looked up and saw that it was an air rifle. It wasn't exactly lethal, but I didn’t want to take a shot in the head from it. Still, there was no way I was going to let them keep me here. I took hold of two of the steel bars, which felt cold against my skin, and I shook them. They didn’t budge.

"Need you to step away from there," said the voice above me.

I looked for some sort of latch or bolt so I could get the gate open, but there didn't seem to be anything. On the side, where the gate joined the turret, I saw a chain which fed into a pulley system. That was why it wouldn't open, then. Although the gate was a relic from centuries past, at some point it had been mechanised, and now the gate would only open if someone operated it. I guessed the controls were in the turret.

Above me, the guard raised his rifle a little higher. "I won't ask again, back away from the bloody gate."

I needed a little diplomacy here. I had to persuade him to open the gate for me, and getting angry would earn me nothing but a pellet in my skull. I tried to breathe in and control my pulse, but the feeling of something being outside control made me feel trapped. I wanted to climb up the gate, jump in the turret and knock the guard out, but I wouldn’t get more than halfway up before I was peppered with shots from the other one.

I looked back toward the street. The man in the doorframe was still staring at me. He spat his cigarette onto the floor. Above me, both guards had their air rifles trained on my head. I felt my chest begin to tighten, and my palms were getting clammy. The gate loomed over me, unmovable, and I felt the hairs on my arms raise. Who the hell did they think they were to trap me here, to stop me from leaving?

Nobody did that to me - nobody. I was going to show them what happened when you did.

I took my bag off my shoulder and reached inside it. I knew what I was doing was stupid, but I couldn't stop myself. I felt around for my revolver and, with the handle in my grasp, I was ready to pull it out. I didn't have any bullets, but I wanted to see how cocky the guard was when I waved a real gun in his face instead of an air rifle. I looked up at him and slowly reached my hand out of my bag, knowing that as soon as they saw the gun they would shoot me.

Just as the silver of the chamber glinted in the sun, I heard a voice call out behind me.

"Kyle, wait."

I turned round. Justin was running toward me in a strange shuffle. He wore a thick coat on that was too long for him at the sleeves, and his body was unbalanced by a rucksack on his shoulder.

I looked up at the guard. "Get this open, now."

The guard acted like he hadn't heard me. Justin got closer, and he had a nervous grin on his face.

"Where are you going?" He asked.

"I’m leaving."

"But where?"

"You don't need to know."

He stood in front of me and dropped his bag to the ground, and there was the clang of something metal. There was a pause, and Justin seemed to be thinking of what to say to me. What could he possibly want?

"Take me with you," he said.

So that was it. That's what the coat and bag were for. I wondered what was in it the bag; probably provisions, but for all I knew it could be his toys or something. The kid had never set foot out of the town in his life, so I dreaded to think what he'd packed as necessities for his "trip".

I stopped just short of sneering at him. "The class trip’s not until next week."

Justin looked at me, puzzled. I realised that he had been born straight into this new world that even after fifteen years hadn’t stabilised itself enough to establish a ‘normal’ way of life for people.  Justin didn't have a clue what things had been like before. He didn't know what a class trip was, because he'd never been in school. I realised how alien the experience of the world was for kids like him, those who were born into it rather than adapting to it. He couldn't help how he was.

This time I spoke in a kinder tone. "You can't come with me." I nodded at what was beyond the gate. “There are no walls out there, Justin. There’s nothing separating you from them, and one wrong step will get you killed.”

He shook his head. "I've been out before. Not so far, just round town, but far enough. I know how to avoid them."

"You ever been out at night?" I asked.

He looked to the ground. "No."

"Then you don't know what's out there. Those pathetic bastards are nothing compared to what comes after it gets dark."