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might shoot us dead. We’d be fools to risk it.’
    ‘Fair enough,’ Coley sighs. Lowering his rifle, he pulls a handgun and aims it at my face.
    ‘What the hell!’ I roar, throwing myself to the ground.
    ‘Coley!’ Barnes yells.
    ‘What?’ he frowns. ‘She’s a zombie. It doesn’t matter whether she can talk or not. She’s one of them.’
    ‘One of the undead, definitely,’ Barnes agrees, ‘but partially one of the living too. I don’t know how she can respond, but she’s more than a walking corpse.’
    Coley laughs cynically. ‘Not much more. I say we kill her. One less zombie is always a good thing.’
    He takes aim again.
    ‘This is murder!’ I howl. ‘I can talk! I can think! I used to go to school!’
    I don’t know why I shouted that last line. It just popped out.
    ‘Hush now,’ Coley purrs. ‘One little bullet and all your worries will be behind you.’
    ‘Hold,’ Barnes barks. ‘We’re hunters, not killers. We mop up the dead, we don’t execute the living.’
    ‘She’s a zombie,’ Coley protests.
    ‘But unlike any other we’ve encountered. She can reason. She can plead for her life. We don’t have the right to kill someone who understands what we’re doing.’
    ‘Not a some one ,’ Coley sneers. ‘A some thing . And you might be going soft in your old age, but I’m not about to lose focus. These bastards killed the people I loved. I won’t stop as long as they’re active and I don’t give a damn if they can talk or not.’
    Coley cocks his gun. Tag and Essex gawp like children. Barnes goes on staring at me.
    ‘She said her name is Becky Smith,’ Barnes says softly.
    ‘I heard.’ Coley shrugs. ‘I don’t care.’
    ‘Have you ever killed something that could tell you its name?’ Barnes presses.
    ‘As it happens, yes,’ Coley says. ‘That didn’t stop me then and it sure as hell won’t stop me now. She’s a bloody zombie! They’re the bad guys, remember?’
    ‘I don’t know about good and I don’t know about bad,’ Barnes replies softly. ‘Until a few minutes ago all that mattered to me was the living and the undead. I thought the world had been divided neatly along those lines and I operated accordingly. Now I see it’s not so simple. I can’t kill this girl. Even though she’s missing a heart, she’s too much like a real person.’
    Coley stiffens. ‘Are you saying you’ll stop me if I try to shoot her?’
    Barnes considers that. I start to smile. Then he says, ‘No,’ and my smile fades away to nothing.
    Coley grins and takes final aim.
    ‘I don’t have the right to stop you shooting her,’ Barnes adds. ‘You’re a free agent, I’m not your boss, you’re not answerable to me. And maybe you’re right — maybe she is a monster, and we have every right to cull her like a rabid hound. But if you kill her, I’ll put a bullet through each of your kneecaps and leave you here for the other zombies to pick apart come night.’
    Coley does a double take. Barnes’s expression doesn’t change. If he’s bluffing, he’s got a first-rate poker face.
    ‘You’d do that to me?’ Coley asks softly. ‘After all we’ve been through these last six months?’
    ‘I’d have to,’ Barnes says. ‘In my view that would be the only appropriate response. If you feel you have to kill this girl, I won’t stop you. But be aware of the consequences.’
    ‘You’d choose a zombie over a friend?’ Coley snarls.
    ‘You’re no friend of mine, any more than I’m a friend of yours.’ Barnes smiles icily. ‘We’re just a couple of guys who hunt together.’
    Coley weighs up his options. I can tell he’d love to put a bullet through Barnes’s head almost as much as he wants to put one through mine. But the American has a lethal air about him. He’s not someone you go up against lightly.
    ‘Have it your way,’ Coley finally snarls, holstering his gun. He heads for the car, not looking at any of the others.
    ‘Head on back, boys,’ Barnes says,