He lead them down the first aisle, knocking handfuls of crisps into the basket with the end of his bat. He did the same for the biscuits next to them. Gabriel tutted but said nothing, just followed wordlessly. Sandwich spreads came next, peanut-butter, chocolate hazelnut, jams and pastes. Seamus swept them all into the basket. They moved onto the other side and continued. He could smell something now. Iron and copper. And rot.

Sauces on this side. Followed by tinned goods. Seamus bypassed the sauces and went straight to the beans, the fish, the vegetables. Gabriel knocked them off the shelf with his cricket bat and Seamus caught them in his basket. By the end of this aisle, his arm was starting to ache with the weight and he was out of space. He deposited the goods by the side of the door, grabbed another basket, and came back for more.

In his brief absence, Gabriel had started to fill his own basket. His tastes remained-as ever-far more discerning. Even now he wouldn't pick up the cheap crap.

As they drew closer and closer to the back, the buzzing grew louder and the stench even fouler. The freezers could be seen over the top of the final aisle, and next to them stood three chillers with cans and bottles lining the shelves. There was no reason whatsoever to turn that final corner; everything in those freezers and chillers was soiled or flat and warm. Nevertheless, Seamus rounded that final corner. Gabriel did not follow.

There were two bodies. A man and a woman, their bloated, peeling hands linked at their sides, their skin the colour of cigarette ash. Half the woman's face was gone, just a red, wet hole. The man's head was more intact, the bullet through his skull much cleaner. The blood splashing up the wall looked like the blade of a knife. It was dark, thick, old. Seamus looked for the gun before he looked at the couple's dying message written beneath that bloodstain.

He found it in the woman's left hand. The cloud of flies buzzed around him angrily, disturbed from the gaping red chasm of her skull at his approach. Her fingers were rigid around the firearm, they cracked like firewood when he prized them apart, stubborn in death. At last, he managed to work it free of her grip.

It was heavier than he'd imagined a gun would be. Having never held one, he'd imagined them lighter than this. He fumbled with it for a bit, discovered it was empty, then tossed it back to the floor. Useless.

Finally, he turned to the message. Thankfully the couple hadn't been so melodramatic as to write it in their dying blood. No, it was written instead in black marker.

If anyone comes here after us, stay away from the mall and the travel tavern. They're crawling with those things, they got us and they'll get you too if you get greedy. DON'T get greedy.

P.S. We let our dog go. His name's Benji, if you find him, please look after him. He's a good boy.

Seamus looked back at the young couple. They couldn't have been more than twenty years old. He wondered where they'd ultimately been heading, and if it had been worth all of this. He thought in life they must have been strong, and determined, and so head over heels for each they'd chosen to die together. He was glad they'd gone out on their own terms, that they'd been fortunate enough to have that option available to them. Though he wondered if-had they come back-they'd have been as in love in death as they were in life.

“Are we finished?” asked Gabriel from the other side of the aisle. His voice was weak and wet, like he was on the verge of tears again. No doubt he was thinking of Jermaine, picturing his corpse lying on the floor around the corner. Seamus turned away and rejoined him.

“We're finished.”

They left the minimart with eleven baskets full of food and drinks. Most of it fit into the boot of the Cortina, but a few things had to be stored on the backseat. Gabriel insisted they be placed on the left side, so that he could remain in his usual spot. He didn't ask what Seamus had seen around that final corner of the minimart, and Seamus didn't tell him.

As they were packing away the last of their things, thunder rumbled furiously in the distance and the clouds grew dark. Dangerously dark. The rain came hesitantly at first, then it was coming down in sheets, thick and cold and wet, it bounced loudly against the roof of the garage and the distant mall and travel tavern. It awoke the things resting in those buildings, over the deluge Seamus heard them stirring, calling to each other in their high, shrill voices. He started to unload the empty water bottles they'd collected, and made for the brightly coloured bowls Gabriel had littered across the footpaths.

Within mere seconds of coming out from under the Shell roof, Seamus was soaked to the bone. It was a good storm indeed. As he came up over the embankment, he spotted the bowls ahead, already they were filled to the brim, pooling out over the sides in violent waves. He kneeled by a large pink fruit bowl and started to pour it into one of the many empty bottles he'd brought.

“I'll start on some of the others.” shouted Gabriel over the storm. He was still standing by the Cortina, collecting the few empty bottles Seamus had missed. He also had the good sense to grab the funnel. Seamus acknowledged him with a nod, then returned to the task at hand. He was becoming increasingly wary of this place and how dark it had become. His hands trembled as he attempted to funnel the water from the bowls into the narrow opening of his bottles, and more than once he upended a large splash against the ground.

He could hear them growing louder, more awake. And under that, sounding almost, almost like thunder, their hands and bodies pounding eagerly against glass and wood and metal, desperate to be free. They couldn't possibly be aware of Seamus and Gabriel, who had kept far out of sight of the mall and the travel tavern, but some dark, hopeless part of Seamus was convinced that the creatures could taste their fear in the air, like the taste of ozone before the first strike of lightning.

Thunder rolled closer now, and far in the distance, over the fields where the earth seemed to just stop entirely, the sky turned violet, then white, then faded back to grey. Lightning struck a second time and the sky roared. Seamus moved onto the next bowl.

Gabriel appeared now, going to his knees with a grimace. He set to work collecting the rest of the gathered water further up the footpath. He flinched at every rumble of thunder and every strike of violet-white lightning. But Seamus thought that maybe-like himself-it was the things Gabriel could hear underneath the storm that were truly terrifying him.