"Shhhhhhhh!" the father interrupted, suddenly looking very alert. The room became deadly silent apart from the periodic crackling of the small fire. After a few seconds of silence the mother lent slowly towards her husband and whispered, "What is it?"

"Shhhh!" he repeated again abruptly.

Almost instinctively the young boy threw a large blanket over the fire killing it instantly. The silence continued and the children began to look scared. Months of running and hiding from the monsters on the streets below had hardened them, but just sitting there not knowing what was happening made them uneasy.

A strange clanging came from somewhere outside, barely audible at first, but getting louder. The two adults moved slowly and quietly towards the window and peered through the crack to try and find the source of the sound. Eight floors below them lay the remnants of what had once been a busy town street. Now only a pair of lifeless shambling figures could be seen slowly moving between the debris and abandoned vehicles that once constituted civilisation.

Looking out of the window was risky. As long as they kept quiet and weren't spotted they were relatively safe. But if one of the things on the street saw them it could mean trouble. Making no noise meant that they had only been able to board up the ground floor of the apartment block superficially. A concerted effort at a window or door by one of those things could be enough for it to get in, and usually where there was one of those monsters there were more. Abandoning this block to go elsewhere would be inviting trouble. They'd seen other unfortunate soles running for cover on the streets below, driven out of their hiding places for some unknown reason, their gunshots and cries attracting more and more of the ghouls. If they had got away or not they didn't know. All they did know was that they hadn't seen or heard another living sole for a long time.

The clanging was getting louder. The father's eyes widened as he recognised the sound.

At the end of the street, walking around a corner, a lone figure appeared. "Quick David, get my binoculars," the father whispered. The young boy dashed to a nearby bag and handed a pair of binoculars to his father. Opening the window a bit wider he put the binoculars to his eyes and focused on the new figure walking towards them down the middle of the street. He could just make out the young man, a bag on his back and a large bell in his right hand which he swung gently backwards and forwards. Apart from making so much noise and walking openly in the street, something else wasn't right. It took a few seconds of staring through the binoculars for the man to realise that the stranger didn't seem to be armed: No rifle slung over his shoulder, no pistol around his waist. Maybe he's lost it... finally cracked after being stuck in some dark basement for months and just wants to end it all... just want's to let those things get him and be done with it.

He watched intently as the young man steadily got closer and closer. As he walked by an abandoned car he stopped ringing the bell. One of the two shambling monsters the father had spotted earlier re-appeared slowly from behind an abandoned van less than a dozen yards to the right of the man, probably out of his field of view, and started staggering towards the stranger.

The young man put the bell on the roof of the car next to him and reached behind him to release his backpack, all the time the monster getting closer. Placing the pack along side the bell he reached in. With almost a sigh of relief the father watched as the man felt around inside the bag: Thank God, he's looking for a weapon... He's seen that approaching monstrosity after all...

The young mans hand re-appeared out of his bag. "No," the father whispered under his breath. In the man's hand was a bottle, which he began to drink from. The monster was almost upon him now and the father could not bring himself to move a muscle as he watched the unfolding travesty.