The Restless Dead: A Zombie Novel by Jenny Thomson Page B

shows. Jeremy Kyle is her favourite. That day, apart from the birds chirping away behind me, there was barely a sound. That was bad news.
    As dread crawled down my back like the hands of a groping pervert on a Glasgow bus, I tried to kid myself that Fiona’s asleep, and that’s why she wasn't in her usual place in the living room. I led Scott through the kitchen, treading lightly on the wooden floor, Louisville slugger reared back, ready to bash anything that jumped out at me.
    The air smelled of burnt toast. Breakfast things were abandoned on the table as though she'd been in the middle of eating when she left. I don’t want to think she might have been dragged away. Flies buzzed around a half-drunk mug of milky tea and there was a marmalade jar minus its lid lying open beside a slice of toast that was as hard as a board. Fiona didn’t usually leave a mess like that, not with the OCD that complicated her agoraphobia.
    Something was wrong. I felt it in my gut as soon as we got here.
    Scott cast a baffled glance in my direction. He wasn't used to Fiona leaving things in disarray. He’s been known to joke about how he ended up with the messy sister.
    She wasn't in the living room. Another mug sat on the usually pristine coffee table. Next to it lay a half-eaten packet of chocolate chip cookies surrounded by crumbs.
    It’s almost as if someone else had been living there and not my sister.
    Then I saw the gash across the plasma TV.
    Scott pointed down at the likely culprit, the brass monkey my parents got Fiona for her 21st birthday that was lying on its side.
    Scott inspected the damage. “Why would she do that?”
    I shook my head because I couldn’t believe that Fiona would smash up her state-of-the-art telly. She’d paid for it with a bonus at work, back when she was brimming with confidence and not hiding away in her house. That television was her lifeline to the outside world, a world she now feared. At one time, she was fearless. Whilst I drifted from job to job, she had a career in advertising that she was great at.
    The bathroom door was open; she wasn't in there. “Fiona,” I called out softly. The bedroom door was closed. With Scott following behind me, I nudged it open. “Fiona.”
    There was no answer from the shadowy room. The bed lay unmade, the curtains were closed, and my sister was nowhere to be seen.
    When she was little, she used to have nightmares and hide under the bed, so I checked there. No Fiona. My heart feels fit to burst.
    I slump down on her unmade bed, telling myself that maybe she'd left, although I know there’s not much chance of that. She couldn't summon up the courage to pick up parcels the postman had left right outside her door. All it would take is a few steps outside, but it might as well have been miles for someone with Fiona’s phobias.
    My stomach tightens as I accept the truth. She’s gone.
    “Where is she?” My voice is a shriek.
    Scott, a silhouette in the doorway, didn’t respond. Maybe like me, he was unnerved by the stillness. He doesn’t fully understand Fiona’s strange ways, but he’s always been fond of her. She was so emotionally fragile, every day she teetered on the edge of reality; that’s what comes of living in a self-imposed bubble.
    Scott steps to the wardrobe, axe at his side. “Maybe some friends came and got her.” There’s forced hope in his voice. He doesn’t actually believe that. She doesn’t have any friends; they all deserted her when she got ill. I’m all she’s got.
    I want to scream at him that my sister’s dead. We got here too late.
    He opened the wardrobe.
    I heard a tiny gasp.
    Scott set down the axe and extended a hand to the closet. Another hand appeared, dainty, almost child-like and reached for his hand. I have my bat raised, but when I realised it was Fiona, I dropped the bat on the floor.
    Relief washes over me like a hot shower on a cold day.
    “Fiona,” I whispered.
    Slowly, she emerged from the wardrobe, so unsteady