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repeats.
    ‘What?’ I ask.
    ‘
Call of Duty 4.
’ He grabs a bottle of brandy and starts unscrewing it. ‘I’m going to Molotov it.’
    He sounds pretty sure of himself, even if we have no idea what he’s talking about. He goes quickly to the nearest clothing aisle, grabs a shirt, then comes back to us and tears off a strip
of material; he feeds half of the fabric into the brandy and gets ready to light it.
    ‘Stay back,’ he instructs, ushering us back even further. The thing is almost upon us and I can’t believe how much I love the Ape right now. It’s like having a big,
stupid, vicious dog to protect you.
    Billie pulls her top over her nose and mouth to try and combat the stench as the Ape lets out a roar and lights the Molotov cocktail.
    ‘Come on then!’ he yells, and charges out from our hiding place. He hurls the Molotov.
    And misses. Completely. He dives back into our hiding place.
    ‘I missed!’
    And I hate him. I hate him like you hate a big, stupid, vicious dog that’s just bitten you.
    ‘Could you tell what it is?’ Billie asks breathlessly.
    ‘I dunno, didn’t look!’ he says, while he makes another Molotov.
    ‘Let me have that,’ I say.
    ‘My plan, my Molotov.’
    ‘Give me it!’ I snap at him.
    The squelching is louder than ever and the thing totally knows where we are thanks to the Ape and his ludicrous aim. And it’s coming quicker now. Much faster. I grab the Molotov.
    ‘Make more, as many as you can!’ I yell at him, then leap out, rag burning in the brandy, and I see it, the thing, the foul smelling, lurching creature. It’s like nothing
I’ve ever set eyes on before – it’s not human, it’s not an animal, it’s just a black burned thing.
    I am ready to hurl the Molotov, but when I look closer I swear the thing actually
is
human – or was. It’s a person. God alone knows what happened, but it’s a man,
I’m sure of it. The arms are almost shredded completely to the bone, little more than blistered charcoal; the stench we’ve been smelling is burned skin and flesh. Its mouth is opening
and closing. It wants to speak.
He
wants to speak.
    I stand in silence, my heart thudding in my chest, with the Molotov cocktail ready to blow any second if I don’t take the burning rag out.
    ‘What happened?’ is all I can think to ask. ‘What happened? Where did everyone go?’
    The man, the thing, the burned human, stares at me and I think he’s probably blind because he has no pupils left. He opens his mouth and his tongue is black and prune-like. I want to
scream but I also want him to sense that I care, so I do the best I can to stifle my fear. There’s something about him, some sort of presence or aura that draws me in. It’s almost as if
I know him.
    I manage to yank the burning cloth from the Molotov and even though I burn my fingers doing so I know that my pain is nothing compared to what this poor man is enduring.
    He tries to speak, but words won’t ever come out of a mouth like that.
    The Ape’s first Molotov cocktail has set fire to the magazine aisle and suddenly the rising smoke causes the automatic sprinklers to turn on. It’s weird but I like the wetness, and
it soothes the burned man, like an ointment on his blackened, blistered skin. I watch him and he almost smiles – maybe it’s just an agonised grimace, I don’t know, but the rain
makes his skin steam. I can’t help but wonder why the sprinklers didn’t go off before if he was on fire? And then I wonder how far he must have crawled in this state. How far did he
come and how much did it take for him to seek out help. Because I’m sure that’s why he’s here, he wants someone to save him.
    His ears must be working, because he could hear us moving around the shop, so I squat down beside him.
    ‘What do you want me to do?’ I ask.
    I’m sure that he’s beyond saving and it breaks my heart. Soaking wet, I reach out and touch what I think might have been a hand once. I try to squeeze it