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Meeting – and running down – Carrie has confirmed Johnson’s theory that the only people left are the ones in detention. It can’t be a coincidence and we have decided that
we have to track down the others. I’m not sure what good it will ultimately do – they’ll be just as scared and shaken as we are – but someone, somewhere will know why this
has happened. So the more people we find, the more chance we have of finding an answer. I hope.

‘You could’ve killed me!’ Carrie says for what must be the hundredth time.

‘There’s still time,’ offers the Ape, which makes me laugh to myself. He sees this and under the low glow of the half-moon our eyes meet, and for that split second we somehow
connect with each other. Just a mutual something or other, but for one single split second I am glad of him and he seems glad of me.

‘I bet you told him to run me over, Reva, because that’s exactly what you’re like. You’re evil and a bitch.’ Carrie still won’t get off my case, but no one is
listening to her. It’s not as if her hating me is all that important any more. Although if there are only a few people left in the world it would be nice if one of them rose above their petty
vendettas.

Billie is carrying the Ape’s weapon and she keeps scanning the dark evening because I know deep down she still believes there are monsters out there.

‘Where were you going?’ Johnson asks Carrie. He has salvaged as much of the supplies from the boot of the Fiat as he could manage. His long sinewy arms are laden with plastic
bags.

‘To the next village.’

‘Same idea we had.’

‘Aren’t you the smart one.’

The world might have disappeared, but apparently Carrie isn’t going to let that soften her or turn her into a better person.

‘Any idea what’s happened to everyone?’ Johnson asks.

‘Why would I know any better than you?’

‘You’ve been crying,’ I tell her, the dark tracks on her face obvious. ‘Maybe you learned something that upset you.’

‘I haven’t been crying,’ she denies.

‘Your mascara says otherwise,’ Billie says, backing me up.

Carrie looks away as the Ape strides on with her clinging on to his back. Even a queen bitch with no heart or soul is going to struggle when she suddenly finds herself alone in a completely
empty world.

Johnson draws alongside me and lowers his voice so no one else can hear. ‘What do you really think has happened?’

I’m caught off guard by the fact that he wants to talk intimately with me. I stammer a little. ‘Well, uh, well – I just don’t know. How about you?’

Johnson takes a moment to weigh up his answer. ‘Still working on it.’ I know he won’t show it but he’s as scared as I am. ‘But I’ve got a feeling it’s
not going to be good.’

We walk past a row of silent empty houses that stand on the edge of town. On the street opposite is a half-built block of retirement flats. All they ever do in this town is
build blocks of retirement flats. I think they’re banking on old people living longer and longer. Which doesn’t look like the case now.

The Ape scans the rooftops, eyes piercing the gloom.

‘What are you looking for?’ I ask him.

‘Vampires like heights,’ he says as if he’s an expert.

‘I don’t think there’ll be vampires,’ I tell him.

‘You didn’t think there would be zombies.’

‘Yeah and we
didn’t
find one.’

‘We almost did,’ he says simply.

I watch Johnson walking ahead of me, carrying the heavy bags of supplies. He moves easily and even though he’s stick thin there’s a roll to his gait that defines the term snake
hips.

Billie joins me. She’s still carrying the Ape’s weapon. ‘I almost didn’t go to detention,’ she says. I glance at her, surprised. ‘Was seriously thinking of
giving it a miss.’ The gravity behind her words is evident.

‘Well, I’m glad you did because I wouldn’t want to be going through this without you. We can be scared to death together.’ We share a smile.

‘You hungry?’

‘Starving.’ I didn’t feel much like eating until Billie brought it up, but it’s close on ten o’ clock now and I don’t think I’ve eaten anything since
lunchtime

‘Can we stop and break out some of that food?’ Billie asks Johnson.

‘Someone mention chicken?’ The Ape stops and casually lets Carrie drop to the ground with a thud.

‘What the hell?’ wails Carrie. ‘How can anyone be hungry? People have disappeared. We’ve lost our friends, our family, everyone.’ Carrie is incredulous.

The Ape shrugs. ‘So what? It’s good no one’s around.’

‘You’re sick,’ Carrie snorts. ‘Only the stupidest oaf in the world would be enjoying this. Oh hang on. That
is
you.’

I want to tell the Ape not to listen to Carrie, that she is like this with everyone, but I also can’t help but silently agree with her. The real problem is the Ape just doesn’t fit.
He never has really. Not at school and not now. The situation is already stressful enough without his oafishness adding to it. Johnson seems to know how to handle him though. At least for now.

‘We’re tired, we’re hungry, let’s find somewhere to sit and eat,’ Johnson says.

‘Oh goody, we’re having a picnic now,’ sneers Carrie.

Johnson ignores her and I go back to watching his snake hips when a toe-curling scream erupts into the night. It’s coming from a tall block of nineteen-fifties flats sitting directly
across the road from us. As ever the Ape is the first to react.

‘Weapon! Now!’ he yells at Billie, but she’s too shocked by the noise to react so he yanks it from her hand.

Johnson instinctively gets in front of Billie and me. ‘Stay behind me,’ he says and I don’t know whether to swoon or panic and sort of get stuck between the two as Billie yanks
Carrie to her feet.

‘Get up!’

‘Careful!’ Carrie moans.

The Ape holds up a giant meaty paw to tell us to be quiet as he scans the block of flats. Someone or some
thing
is racing down the stairway inside. It’s moving quickly and we see
it flashing past the lit stairwell windows that line every floor.

‘Told you. Vampire.’

‘Did you have to say that?’ Carrie whimpers.

The Ape glances at Johnson. ‘Get ready.’

‘Born ready.’ Johnson tries to sound relaxed but I see him tense and grow a little stiffer, knowing for certain that something is about to explode from the entrance door to the
flats.

The footsteps reach the bottom landing and hurtle towards the main entrance.

I glance at Billie and she looks worried and dry-mouthed. Carrie has finally shut up and I can see that despite her attitude to the Ape, she has moved herself into a favourable position behind
his giant back.

The door is flung open.

Here it comes
, I think,
here it comes
.

The Ape doesn’t hesitate and starts charging at the figure that emerges from the door. Everyone else is holding back, but his gut instinct is to take the fight to whatever is coming for
us.

‘Let’s have it!’ he yells.

But as the Ape charges into the dark we hear another scream, and this one is even louder than the first. But it’s a scream of holy terror as the figure slides to the ground, sinking to its
knees, ducking as fast as it can.

‘It’s me! GG!’

The Ape swings mightily and his homemade weapon whooshes a couple of inches above GG’s head and chops the top of his blond quiff off.

‘Ape! No!’ I yell, as I see him swinging again.

‘Stop, you silly brute!’ GG whimpers.

Incredibly the Ape stops three inches from ruining GG’s blemish-free face by taking his head off.

GG is all heaving breath and trembling limbs as he gets to his feet and staggers towards us, like a man finding an oasis after a day in the desert. He opens his arms wide to us. ‘I’m
not alone,’ he wails. ‘I’m not alone.’ He collapses into Johnson’s arms and hugs him as tight as he can. ‘I’ve been staring out of that window for hours.
Oh, poor GG. Stranded. Abandoned. Cast adrift from humanity.’

Johnson holds the overwrought wreck. ‘It’s OK, we’re here.’

GG raises his head and takes in the rest of us. ‘My saviours.’ He goes to me first and hugs me tight. I have to fight back the pain as he squeezes my burns. My eyes water and I try
and ease away from him.

‘People! At last.’ He looks like he doesn’t know whether to cry or laugh.

He grabs Billie and hugs her as well. ‘When I saw you I just screamed. I didn’t know what else to do.’

He turns his focus on Carrie but she quickly puts up a hand to ward him off.

‘Don’t touch me, I’m bruised all over,’ she says.

GG turns to the Ape.

‘No, homo,’ the Ape says simply.

GG can’t stop babbling. ‘Where is everyone else? I mean this is the weirdest day of my life. I trot through town, thinking: do I really like this yellow on my nails? I get home and I
think: yes, yes I do like it. But then no one else comes home. I start phoning round—’

‘D’you have Lucas’s number?’ Johnson cuts in.

‘Lucas? Oh, I wish. How cute is that boy? But really – do any of you know what’s happened?’ GG looks at us, hoping for an answer.

‘No one has a clue, GG,’ I say with a heavy intent.

Apart from the Ape, this is scaring us big time. Finding GG has made everything seem even weirder, not better. Is Johnson right? Have we all been selected? Chosen? And if so, for what?

Carrie lowers herself gingerly to the kerbside. ‘I’m exhausted. Everything aches and I’m not taking another step.’

‘You didn’t take any, anyway. The Ape was carrying you,’ Billie reminds her.

‘I’m not moving. All right?’

‘OK, see you around.’ Billie makes to walk off.

But Johnson catches Billie’s arm, gently stopping her in her tracks. ‘GG, can we go up to your place?’ he asks.

‘Come up, come up. Chez GG awaits you.’

‘We should take some time out.’ Johnson studies us and knows that we are at breaking point. ‘It’s getting late and we’re all strung out, but we need to work out how
to find the others.’

‘There’s others?’ GG asks hopefully.

‘Lucas and the Moth. Least we’re pretty sure of it.’

‘Let me go up first – have a quick tidy round.’

‘That doesn’t really matter.’

‘It always matters,’ GG says as he hurries back towards the block of flats. ‘Flat ninety-eight,’ he calls back. ‘Wipe your feet on the mat.’

Carrie is taking up the entire sofa by lying stretched out across it. She is looking at her twisted ankle which it turns out isn’t at all twisted. The Ape is flicking
through television channels but there is only static.

‘Nope,’ he says. ‘Not that one either. Nope. Nope. Nope.’

GG’s flat is immaculate and I have no idea why he thought it needed tidying. There are three bedrooms. His parents’ room, his twin sisters’ room where there are bunk beds, and
then there’s GG’s room. He has a dressing table with a huge mirror and, sitting on it in neat little rows, is more make-up than Billie and I own put together.

He has a double bed and a great little sound system plugged into his Mac. His wardrobe is bursting with clothes and right now he is busy searching through it.

‘I’m going for that end-of-the-world look,’ he jokes.

‘It’s not the end of the world,’ Billie says.

‘It will be if I don’t find the right jacket.’

He grins, then finds a combat jacket, which I would never have thought he’d have owned in a million years, but when he turns it round I can see that it’s fur lined and there are
large golden glittering letters on the back.

WAR(M)
it states.

‘Sergeant GG reporting for duty.’

I turn and Johnson is leaning in the doorway. His eyes flit to mine even though he’s talking to GG.

‘Got a telephone directory?’

‘FOR GOD’S SAKES, STOP DOING THAT!!’ For a brittle person, Carrie can make a lot of noise when she wants to.

Johnson and I head back into the lounge and find that the Ape is still steadily flicking through a hundred channels of static.

‘Nope. Not that one. Nope.’

The sound is up loud on the television and Carrie leaps up and snatches the remote out of his giant paw and hurls it across the room.

‘Get the picture, there is no picture!’ she yells at him, and I realise that she can move pretty well for someone with a sprained this and a broken that.

The television’s static continues to fizz and I hate the noise so much that I go over and pull the plug on the television.

The Ape sits back in a big leather chair with his weapon lying across his knees. He is totally unfazed by Carrie. ‘You have issues.’

GG and Billie walk through with a barely used telephone directory. GG holds it up as if it’s a relic from a bygone age.

‘It’s a little passé but we can only try.’

‘We going to find them right now?’ Carrie seems reluctant.

‘We have to,’ says GG. ‘I was a quivering mess thinking it was just me that was left.’

‘Wuss,’ the Ape says.

‘Yeah, that’s me. Mr Wuss. But you know what? We can pretend we’re calm and that we can deal with this. But my little guess is we can’t. There. I’ve said it.
It’s out there now. We should all be scared. Amen.’