Chapter One

Monday Morning

Rain tapped softly against the kitchen window.
Not heavy rain. Not dramatic rain. Just the sort that seemed to permanently exist over Kent, turning everything outside faintly grey and miserable. The estate opposite looked soaked through already, rows of pebble-dashed houses sitting beneath a low sky like they’d given up expecting sunlight years ago.
Blake Turnsdale stood beside the toaster in his socks and work trousers, staring at the morning news while the kettle boiled behind him.
“Seventy-three quid,” he muttered.
Nobody answered.
He pointed vaguely toward the television.
“Seventy-three quid to fill a bloody van now. Country’s finished.”
Anna sat at the kitchen table, half-awake, helping Jenny plait her hair while scrolling through emails on her phone. She had the calm exhaustion of someone permanently carrying too many things in her head at once.
“You say that every week,” she said.
“Because every week it gets worse.”
“That’s usually how complaints work.”
Blake snorted quietly into his coffee.
Across the table, Jenny winced.
“Mum, you’re pulling.”
“I’m trying to save you from going to school looking electrocuted.”
“I liked it better before.”
“You looked like a scarecrow.”
Jenny grinned.
Jake stumbled into the kitchen wearing joggers and yesterday’s hoodie, moving with the tragic slow-motion of a sixteen-year-old dragged unwillingly into consciousness.
He opened the fridge.
Stared.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
“We’ve got no Coke.”
“We’ve got water,” Blake replied.
Jake looked at him blankly. “Right, because they’re exactly the same thing.”
“You’ll survive.”
“Debatable.”
Blake smirked despite himself.
These little moments barely registered at the time. Tiny family rhythms. Familiar jokes. The sort of ordinary noise people mistake for permanence.
The television droned in the background.
“…further reports of violent incidents overnight across parts of Greater Manchester and South London…”
A newsreader spoke with carefully rehearsed calm.
Nobody really listened.
Jenny swung her legs beneath the table.
“Dad?”
“Mm?”
“If zombies were real, would you save us?”
Jake groaned instantly. “Oh my God.”
“What?” Jenny protested.
“You ask weird stuff.”
“It’s not weird.”
“It’s breakfast.”
Blake crouched dramatically beside Jenny’s chair.
“If zombies came here,” he said quietly, “I’d punch every single one right in the face.”
Jenny burst into laughter.
Anna smiled faintly without looking up from her phone. “You’d pull your back out after the third zombie.”
“Second,” Jake corrected.
Blake pressed a hand against his chest. “The disrespect in this house.”
The lights flickered.
Just once.
A brief dimming of the kitchen before everything returned to normal.
Nobody thought much of it.
Outside, somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed.
Then another.
Jake frowned toward the window. “That sounds close.”
“Probably another crash on the motorway,” Blake said.
The kettle clicked off.
Anna finally looked properly at the television.
“…authorities are urging members of the public to avoid unnecessary travel while emergency services respond to multiple violent disturbances…”
The footage behind the presenter showed blurred mobile phone clips: people running, police shouting, someone bleeding heavily beside a bus stop.
The camera cut away quickly.
Too quickly.
Anna’s expression changed slightly.
“What’s that about?”
Blake shrugged. “Probably riots.”
“In Ashford?”
“People riot over football nowadays.”
Jenny slid off her chair. “Can I stay home today?”
“No,” Anna and Blake answered together.
Jake grabbed toast from the rack. “I’d rather risk zombies than double maths.”
“You failed double maths,” Blake said.
“I failed because numbers are oppressive.”
“That sentence alone should fail you.”
Jake grinned tiredly.
For a moment the world still felt ordinary.
Rain against glass. Warm kitchen. Burnt toast smell. Family bickering.
Then the television abruptly cut to static.
Everyone looked up.
The morning presenters vanished.
A woman appeared onscreen instead.
Government official.
Pale-faced. Sweating. Trying very hard not to panic.
“Authorities are currently responding to multiple incidents across the southeast..”
Behind her, somebody shouted off-camera.
The woman glanced sideways briefly before continuing.
“Citizens are advised to remain indoors and avoid contact with infected individuals until emergency services..”
The broadcast crackled violently.
A scream erupted somewhere behind the camera.
Then static swallowed the screen again.
Silence filled the kitchen.
Even Jake stopped joking.
Blake slowly lowered his coffee mug.
“What did she say?”
Anna stood up. “She said infected.”
Outside, a car horn suddenly blared.
One long uninterrupted sound.
Not honking.
Just constant.
Everyone turned toward the window.
At the end of the road, a small silver hatchback had mounted the pavement outside the chemist. Smoke drifted lazily from beneath the bonnet.
The horn continued screaming.
A crowd had started gathering nearby.
People shouting.
Pointing.
Then a man stumbled into the road.
At first Blake thought he was drunk.
His movements were wrong.
Jerking. Unbalanced.
Blood covered the front of his shirt.
The man collapsed against a parked car before suddenly lunging at a woman standing nearby.
Everything after that happened too fast.
The woman screamed as he grabbed her.
Not grabbed.
Bit.
He tore into her throat with his teeth.
Blood sprayed across the side of the car.
Someone nearby shouted in horror.
Another person ran forward to help and the man attacked them too, slamming them violently against the pavement.
Jenny screamed.
Jake stepped backwards. “What the fuck…”
The street erupted.
People running. Shouting. Car doors slamming.
A second man dropped to his knees near the chemist convulsing violently before scrambling back upright with blood running from his mouth.
The car horn outside finally stopped.
Blake realized why.
The driver had slumped across the steering wheel.
Dead.
Then the corpse twitched.
Its head lifted slowly.
The windscreen cracked as it smashed forward against the glass.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Trying to get out.
Jake’s face had gone pale. “What’s happening?”
Blake didn’t answer.
Because something cold and ancient had already taken hold inside him.
Instinct.
Not panic.
Protection.
He moved instantly toward the front door, locking it hard enough to shake the frame.
Then the back door.
Then the windows.
“Upstairs,” he said.
Nobody moved.
His voice sharpened.
“Now.”
That changed everything.
Anna grabbed Jenny immediately.
Jake still stared at the chaos outside.
A woman ran past the house covered in blood, screaming for help before two infected figures tackled her into a front garden.
Blake physically shoved Jake toward the stairs.
“Move.”
The boy stumbled upward finally.
Outside, the screaming grew louder.
Closer.
A violent pounding suddenly rattled the front door.
Jenny cried out.
Another bang followed.
Then scratching.
Wet.
Erratic.
Blake approached the frosted glass slowly.
His stomach tightened.
Mrs Hargreaves.
Their elderly neighbour.
Seventy-two years old. Always smelled faintly of lavender. Used to bring Jenny homemade shortbread every Christmas.
Half her face was missing.
One clouded eye stared directly through the glass.
Her jaw worked hungrily.
Then she slammed herself against the door hard enough to shake the hinges.
Jenny buried her face against Anna’s side.
Jake whispered: “Oh my God…”
Mrs Hargreaves struck the door again.
And again.
Blood smeared across the frosted pane.
Blake stood frozen for half a second.
Not because he was afraid of her.
Because deep down— beneath the confusion, beneath the panic, beneath the collapsing world—
he understood something terrible.
This wasn’t stopping.
Not tomorrow. Not next week.
Nowhere was coming to save them.
The world outside that door was already gone.