Free Breaking News: An Autozombiography by N. J. Hallard

a bit poofy. Look, what you’ve just described is a zombie, like it or not. If they’re dead, even better, I mean even more so. In Return of the Living Dead a military canister of green gas turned people into zombies. It’s not unexplored territory, even if that was a comedy. But we’re arguing at crossed purposes here, the fine detail’s not as pressing as the fact that there’s one of them next to you in the back seat.’ I jabbed a finger towards Susie who promptly heaved a Queen’s pint of black sludge down her top. Her head fell back and she gargled.
    ‘ Aah, is that on my seat?’ Al slammed his foot on the brake then got out of the car. I clung onto Dmitri’s collar as he made for the open driver’s door, but he’s a strong dog and I got hoiked out onto the road after him, spilling radios around me. The water bottle started to run down the hill so I followed it at a sprint, jumping on it like it was a runaway pig when I finally caught up with it. It didn’t take much to get a sweat going, and I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand as I looked back up the road to the car, to Lou kneeling with Susie by the side of the road, holding her up and trying to pull her soiled top over her head.
    Al opened his boot, put the radios in and took out a rag for the back seats. Floyd seized the moment and bounced out. I muttered about putting Floyd on a lead as I watched him lick all the things he’d been desperate to lick since Crawley: Lou’s face; Al’s shoes; car tyres; Susie’s top; and finally – at last – he got to lick the bit between the pavement and the road. Sated, he trotted down the road towards me, weaving, searching the tarmac with his nose as his white-tipped tail whipped the air. He ducked my head-rub with bonus ear-tug and turned instead to scratch his chin, facing the others with his tongue beating. I picked myself up, put the water over my shoulder and jumped as Floyd howled, front end down and backside in the air. Three silhouettes were shuffling from the shadows toward Lou and Susie. The ambling gait of the undead was unmistakeable, and one was almost upon them.
    ‘ Lou!’
    Dmitri - who’d been cleaning up the back seats with Al - ran up to the three and began howling too, his arse in the air like Floyd but bouncing in a circle around them. Lou turned and shrieked, pulling Susie to her feet. There were five now, wandering toward my wife and my friend. One opened her mouth and rasped. I was a good thirty feet away, but the freaks were just five feet from the car. As I started back up the steep hill with the water under my arm a stench filled my nostrils, like eggs and piss - you don’t get the stink from the movies, I thought. Floyd tore past me and up to the freaks which were spread out and moving at different paces towards the fresh meat. Al looked at me.
    ‘ Little help? Don’t cut your hands on their teeth!’ he yelled, taking Susie’s arm and bundling her into the back seat after Lou. He turned and desperately waved the black rag in the closest one’s face, then began towel-whipping at his legs. He was clearly running out of ideas.
    ‘ Get the fuck back, Freakboy!’
    Al dodged his bared teeth, but one of the others had got a grip on his T-shirt. I ran up and brought the water bottle down over my head onto grey upturned features. He released his grasp and crumpled, but Freakboy was getting closer to Al’s face with every lunge. Dmitri took the plunge and jumped - higher than I’d ever seen him do for a stick in the park - biting into a clump of matted hair and pulling Freakboy headfirst onto the road with a hearty crack. He turned to the others and snarled, his hackles raised. Floyd was soon at his side but barking at me, unsure of what to do.
    I remembered the old man in my street and Floyd’s reaction when I clicked my fingers, so I did it again and to my excitement it worked - the dogs each took a trouser leg of the nearest one and simultaneously pulled in separate