We were led deeper into the island by Zach and Tulip, weaving through trees and passing through more and more blight circles. Seriously, we'd passed like fifty in ten minutes. There was something weird going on with this place as the constant lingering scent of rot filled the air like the gents in any Underground station (Yes, even the posh ones). Luckily for us Zach was all too happy to fill us in on why Anglesey was slowly rotting away.

"It started about six months ago," he explained as we passed another circle of death. "People started to disappear, night patrols wouldn't come back, kids would go to play in the woods and never come back out again, that sort of stuff."

"That's happening back home too," the newspaper headlines flashed in my head.

"Yeah but that's just the people getting reported, the elementals living out there in the human world. In our settlements the number peaked at around five hundred in Anglesey alone. I mean take our town of Truespear Hollow, just a few nights ago five people vanished into thin air from that campsite you were at. That's why were a little jumpy when we saw you."

"Jumpy wasn't the word I would use," I said glancing at Tulip.

Zach looked sadly up at his friend. "Her girlfriend was one of the ones who vanished. She's not taking it well."

I looked up at Tulip and then my pocket. I darted forwards until I was standing in front of her, the gold necklace sitting in the palm of my hand. "I've been meaning to ask if this is yours. I presume it is, well its got your name on it so that's a bit of a giveaway, so I just wanted to know if you wanted it back."

Wordlessly she took the necklace and ran her finger over the names. Jasmine, that had to be her girlfriends name. She looked up with tears in her eyes and smiled sadly, "thank you. And I'm sorry for you know, attacking you."

"Don't worry about it. We're cool."

At this point Shadow decided to put in an excellent point. "That's all well and good but those blight circles are a sure sign of necromancy, death power. What have they got to do with the people vanishing?"

"Nothing and everything," Tulip said with a shrug. "They started showing up just before the first guy vanished, it was around the nineteenth of February. There's obviously some correlation as whenever one shows up someone else disappears, but we don't know what they have to do with it."

"Nothing and everything," Sheira muttered.

"Exactly. Now hurry up, we're nearly there and these woods creep me out."

Now that she said that every snap of a twig, every rustle in the undergrowth freaked me out even more so I was incredibly happy when the trees gave way to a quaint little village. Truespear Hollow, as Zach had referred to it, couldn't have been larger than fifty houses with a handful of stores and a church thrown in for good measure. It looked like a holiday village. Everything was made out of wood, except for the small church, its spire barely cresting the trees, which looked as old as the ground it was standing on. Everything looked at least one hundred years old except for one little detail. Surrounding the village like a ring was a stone wall that would have put Game of Thrones to shame.

It must have been at least fifty feet high but its jagged tooth like towers that dotted the length of the battlements must have increased it to seventy feet at most. The stone blocks were monstrously big, it looked like they'd just been ripped out of the mountains and forced in place with some giant hand. Steel cables as thick as Crash held it firm to the ground and a pair of massive bronze coloured doors, fortified by the biggest lock I had ever seen in my life, stood open and menacing like a pair of jaws.

I stared in awe at it, "what the hell are you trying to keep out?"

Zach sighed, "that's the other half of the story. The thing is, after the blight circles started popping up we realised that our gravesites had gone empty."

"What do you mean empty?"

"I mean empty. Every grave was open, and the bodies were gone. Thousands of them."

"Any chance some psycho just nicked them to study them?" Sheira asked.

"Or someone was into some kinky stuff?" I suggested

"When we looked at the coffins they hadn't been broken into, they'd been-"

"Don't say it," I begged.

"Broken out of," Tulip finished.

"We thought that we wouldn't see them again, until we did the night afterwards, and the night after that and so on for the last six months. Every sunset without fail they all come back, hence the wall," Zach gestured to the construction that no longer seemed like overkill.

"So, let me get this straight," I said as we walked into the gates, "every night you get a zombie hoard shambling up to your front doorstep, bearing in mind this has gone on for six months, and you still haven't figured out why you're experiencing Night of the Living Dead? And no one's helped you?"

"Who would believe us?" Zach said.

I scoffed, "look mate, I've just been told that gods exist, at this point I'm willing to believe anything."

"Yet everything continues to surprise you," Sheira said.

"Because this world is Bedlam level crazy! In the last week I've been attacked by giant robots, ice powered cats, Shadow the psychopath-"

"I heard that."

"And I've figured out that I'm a walking flamethrower. I should have lost my marbles back in London and yet this world continues to surprise me, meaning that I would without a shadow of a doubt believe that the Walking Dead was shambling around inside the woods."

"You'd be the first then," Tulip muttered as she wandered up to a small building where a man signed them back in.

From the inside, minus the giant wall, Truespear Hollow just seemed like a normal little village. People wandered through the streets minding their own business, kids hung around in little groups peering into shop windows in a way that crushed my heart like it was in a vice. Dogs barked, birds sang, the church clock chimed in the distance, noise filled the air and yet my gut was telling me that it was way too quiet. The high street should have been buzzing with people and yet there couldn't have been more than ten, huddled together in groups and keeping their heads down. There wasn't the smell of baking bread or fresh fish or cooking meat from the shops we walked by as most of them were shut up, abandoned or locked up by their owners. There was, however, a strange odour that I couldn't quite put my finger on. It was Greencoast and Ashwood Dale all over again which led me to think, are all places like this?

I didn't ask because I think I already knew the answer.

Tulip and Zach lead us into one of the only brick buildings in the whole village. It was a thin but squat two storey building beside the church. Its curtains were drawn, some of the window panes were empty or had been smashed in with the shards of jagged glass still jutting from their frame like no one could be bothered to clean up and its white letters were in the process of falling off.

T-WN - -LL.

Town Hall but for some reason I thought that Twnll was much more fun to say. I was busy rearranging the letters in my head, adding a tune or two, as our two new friends led us through the dark, no doubt mould infested hallways, up a set of stairs that would have failed every building code on the planet, and finally up to a door that was a bit larger and more elegantly crafted than the rest.

Tulip knocked loudly and called out, "Mum? We're back, and we've got visitors."

Mum? Oh, joyous joy I'm about to meet the mother of the girl I set fire too. This could go badly. The door swung open, not by a human but by the biggest bat I'd ever seen in my life. It was easily the size of my little brother and its wingspan must have been bigger than I was. Its wings were giant black petals and its fur was lined with red flowers. Buzzing straight past us a blur of colour flew forwards to greet the bat, its wings nothing but a smudge of bright blue and pink against the hummingbirds tiny body. Tulips beast, it had to be, which begged the question, how long had it been following us?

That didn't matter however as we were presented to a tall blonde woman who could have only been described as Tulip's mother. Her strawberry blonde hair was cut short and military like, her piercing green eyes were the same shade as her daughters and the stern disapproving expression was the same, until a slight smile, laced with just a hint of sadness, broke her cold demeanour. The bat hopped up onto a perch and watched us all with careful eyes (Upside-down of course).

"Usually I'd be very happy to see visitors," the woman began, "but this isn't a very good time for us right now."

"I think we picked that up," Sheira said gesturing to the wall that dominated the view from all of the windows.

"Yes it is quite obvious isn't it? But no matter, you don't come all this way for no reason so if you need anything we'll do our best. My name is Lillian Coultard and I'm the mayor round here. You've met my daughter Tulip and of course Zach and last but not least this lovely lady is Nightshade."

"The pleasure is mine," the bat said in a deep, elegant voice.

The name Coultard sounded vaguely familiar, why did it sound familiar? "Well I'm Nick, that's Sheira, he's Shadow, the leopard's Ice and we've got a rhino downstairs called Crash who couldn't get in the front door."

As she was looking out of her window to see that, yes there really was a rhino sat in the middle of the street, Sheira seemed to be stuck on the same puzzle as I was as she'd got a lot paler than usual and was muttering the word under her breath. "Coultard...Coultard? Wait, as in Rose?"

That was it! I'd seen the name on the newspaper back when I thought I was just your average poor schmuck. "Do you know Rose Coultard?"

Lillian turned around at the mention of the name, still keeping a cool visage while her daughter walked up to me and slammed her hands down onto my biceps and gripped so hard it would probably leave a bruise. "Did you? Did you know her? Do you know what happened to her?"

"First of all, ouch. And second of all no, I didn't, I just lived near where she vanished. Sheira knew her better then just a headline and a crime scene."

"She was one of my friends," Sheira explained, "I'd know her for years. Are you guys related?"

"She was my niece," Lillian said. "My stupid big brother dragged them all out to London two years ago and this has happened. He's not doing well, none of us are."

I traced a grain in the floor with my boot. "If it makes you feel any better she put up one hell of a fight." The six in the room, that includes the deer (Who was apparently called Redwood), the hummingbird and Nightshade, who didn't know what the heck I was on about just looked at me like I'd just walked into the room and announced that we were all going to be overthrown by dolphins. "I have these weird vision things. I saw it all go down in a dream," I explained quickly.

"What happened to her? Is she okay?" Tulip asked urgently.

"Err...Well not really. She was attacked at her school, managed to escape, crash landed by my estate and then Molly showed up and then shoved this needle into her neck."

"It might not have been that bad," Zach said.

I kept my head down, an ocean of guilt washing over me and the tight feeling in my chest returned. I shook my head, "you didn't hear her screaming. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

"Couldn't you have done anything?" Nightshade asked, more gently than the others.

"My visions only show me what's already happened, or what going on right at that moment, or a little bit into the future. I don't really know how they work but I know that what happened to Rose had already happened, if you get what I mean. I don't know how they work myself, if I'm being honest with you. I'm so sorry."

Tulip leaned back against the wall looking crestfallen and Zach draped a friendly arm around her shoulders. Lillian sat back in her chair, pinching the bridge of her nose and exhaling deeply. Why did I always have to be the bringer of bad news? I was always the one who had to tell people when things were going wrong, whether it be out here on this mad journey or back home when the bills hadn't been paid, or we didn't have any food in the house. I mean for god's sake I had to be the one to tell my little brother and sister that they didn't have a father anymore. None of this was helping my anxiety.

Lillian composed herself and sat forwards, her elbows leaning against the desk. "Its alright. In the meantime, what are you guys doing out here? It's a long way to come when you don't know anyone."

We watched her eyes widen as Sheira and I recounted the tale of everything that had happened to us from me waking up on that fateful morning to blowing up the train. Saying it out loud made me realise how far we'd all come, and it was actually a journey I was quite proud of to be honest. Not too bad for a city boy.

"And the we came to the island because he told us you could help us, then we saw that campsite, then we ran into those two, I beat her-"

"Bull."

"And then we came here."

"Six months ago, I wouldn't have believed you. Now I'll believe anything," Lillian said. She tapped a pencil on the edge of the desk, four beats at a time like Doctor Who. "But you came here looking for help and help we can give, well as much as we can spare, what do you need?"

"Nothing from here." Shadow's voice sounded almost unfamiliar. He'd gone completely silent as soon as we'd walked into Truespear Hollow, Crash had even had to nudge him in as it almost seemed like he didn't want to go near the town.

One of Tulip's sculpted eyebrows arched upwards, "he speaks."

Lillian almost copied the same expression as her daughter. "Bold words from the man who was leading the way."

"And from the guy that asked me to bring them here," Zach looked as confused as I felt about this sudden three-sixty shift.

"What I meant was is that we need boats and you obviously don't have any," he snapped. "So, you can't help us, and it would be better for us to leave."

"You're partially correct. Yes, we don't have any boats, but we can still help you. I can talk to the other towns, get you transport to Scotland did you say?"

"Just over the border," Sheira confirmed.

"Then that can be easily arranged. You can stay here overnight, we sadly have several empty houses due to recent events, we can get you fed, and you can head out first thing tomorrow morning towards Port Alderman, that would be your best bet for transport."

Tomorrow? Don't get me wrong as good as a goods night sleep and a slap-up feed sounded I couldn't help but feel slightly apprehensive. From sparing a look with Sheira, I could tell she was thinking the same thing. I was about to explain why we had developed trust issues over the last few days when Shadow decided he was going to be a bit blunter.

"How do we know you're not going to kill us in our sleep?"

Shadow, gentle as a brick.

Zach frowned, "last I checked you're more likely to do that mate." He actually had a point.

"Why wait till tomorrow? Why don't we just make a beeline for this town now and leave these people in peace."

Why are you so desperate to leave?

Lillian glanced over at the wall, then back at Shadow and sighed. She stood up, Nightshade swooping up into the air beside her. "I think I should show you something."

We all followed her out of the building, watched her jump as Crash somehow managed to sneak up behind her (He's twelve feet tall and sounds like an earthquake when he walks, I can't figure out how he keeps doing it), and then made our way to the edge of the wall. Up close it was even more impressive as it seemed to vanish into the sky, towering forever upwards to the early afternoon sun, kind of like the Shard back home. But as you looked closer you could tell that this wasn't just for decoration. Sheets of metal and tightly packed stones had been desperately, and somewhat haphazardly, shoved over gaps and cracks in the wall. Scratch marks lined the fractured stones and guards armed with crossbows, bows and a few shotguns and rifles stood vigil besides some of the biggest gaps, ready to open fire.

Granted just getting to the top of the thing would probably kill you. Whoever had built this thing probably had a fascination with stairs or there had been some sort of sale on, buy one hundred get another set free and all that jazz. It was like Whitby, or Mont Saint Michel, beautiful places, too many steps. I was only just managing to not gasp for breath by the time we reached the top. The view was pretty damn nice though. The top of the forest spread out like a vast green carpet that shifted to a soft blue veil as it tumbled down to reach the sea. Off in the distance I could just about make out the top of Bangor and the occasional column of smoke that drifted up from other settlements around the island. Yeah it was pretty and all, but I could tell that Lillian hadn't just brought us up here to see the view, and what the hell was she looking at-

Sweet mother of god.

As I peered down over the edge of the wall to follow her gaze I felt my stomach dive bomb into my feet and my heart fizzle out with a pathetic puff. Hundreds of bodies, lined out in neat rows, their decayed faces screaming soundlessly into the open air. More of them were missing limbs, some lower bodies, others had parts of their heads torn off, all of them just lying there. It was a weird site because these people had been long dead, buried six feet under, and yet here they were, stumbling around on the surface as shells of their former selves. It was sad actually.

"How many are there?" Sheira asked. If her voice was any indicator then the same emotions that were running through my head were also going through hers. I reached out and took her hand and squeezed it gently.

Lillian examined the corpses with a tear in the corner of her eye. "We don't know," she said eventually, "we lost count at the first thousand. Its all our fault though, we made this problem, we made it on this scale."

"What makes you say that?" I asked.

"We bury our dead," Tulip said bitterly. "We've always done it, its our way of returning them back to the earth where we all came from. Every death, every year for a thousand years."

"The dead outnumber the living," Sheira gripped my hand a little harder.

These were people's families, their ancestors. Their mothers, fathers, grandparents, siblings, maybe even their kids because even though I couldn't see their faces I knew there were children down there. It made me feel sick.

"How in the name of Hell are you going to fix this though?" Shadow asked. "Forget this town, on this entire island there's got to be hundreds of thousands of dead bodies. They outnumber you ten to one, you don't have a chance so how the hell do you make sure that the dead stay dead?"

Before any of the locals could respond the answer flicked into my mind like a lightbulb. "You burn them," I said quietly, "you burn them all. Cremate them, turn them to ash, destroy everything at once and make sure they can't get back up. That's what we did with the Great Fire of London, right Crash?"

Now was also a good time to mention that Crash hadn't been able to follow us up the stairs without tearing half the wall down so in order to make sure that their primary line of defence wasn't bulldozered, a very uncomfortable looking rhino had been winched into the air so he could just about peer over the edge. It was a very odd sight to see this twelve-foot-high monstrosity suspended in mid air by a very rickety platform that really, really, shouldn't be supporting his weight. Rhinos are not meant to be this high up and the look of pure terror on Crash's face confirmed that.

"Yep. You either burn them to a crisp, slice and dice them until they're nothing more than sushi- SOMETHING JUST CRACKED! Oh, dear god...or you destroy the source of their resurrection."

"What's the source?" Zach asked.

"Oh, I don't know. It could be a stone, a piece of jewellery or maybe a book."

"Like the Necronomicon," I said.

"Yeah whatever, now can someone please put me down!"

As Crash was slowly winched down to more solid ground, cursing loudly whenever the platform he was on swayed even so slightly in the afternoon breeze, Lillian looked down at the sea of the dead. A queen surveying her kingdom of rot and despair as one by one the bodies of long-gone family members were tossed onto the pyre. "We've never burned them before," she said with a quiet anger, "we don't see the point in it. We're Natures. We live our lives in harmony with the world around us. We come from the earth, take all we need and when we die we give our bodies back so the cycle may start again. For us that cycle is our entire existence. And someone, some sick bastard is messing around with our traditions, our honour, our pride, our memories. I saw my father the other day. Do you know what that was like? I saw him just over the wall, standing in the same suit we buried him in. I can't get that image out of my head anymore, I can't forget it, it's ruined him for me and for so many others. I just want to know why, I want to know what's the point, then I'll burn them alive and see how they like it."

For a few moments the only sound I could here was the faint chorus of voices, the whistle of the wind and the crackle of the funeral pyre as another human log was thrown on. None of this was fair, but seriously what was the point in all of this? Whoever had done this by re-enacting the start of the Evil Dead had done this for a reason, and although I really didn't want to be around when the shambling horde decided to get back to their feet, I couldn't help but be ever so slightly intrigued. Oh well, curiosity killed the cat and all that nonsense.

"We'll help you," I announced.

"We will?" Shadow's eyes widened in surprise and shot me a look that said have you completely lost your mind? The answer to that is yes, I think I left my sanity back in London.

However, right before he could try and throttle some sense into me, Sheira stepped forwards to back me up. "Yeah, count it as payment for what you're going to do for us. We owe you this at least, even if it's just one night."

"Did you two miss the part when she said, 'Army of the undead?'"

Lillian and her daughter studied us, trying to work out if we really were telling the truth. "Are you sure? We'd be happy for you just to stay the night and be out in the morning."

"Or we could just leave right now. That would work just fine."

"It'll take a few hours for you to reach Port Alderman and by then the doors will be locked up and you'll be on your own, out there, when the dead start walking. Tell me wise guy does that sound like a good time to you?"

"I could handle it."

"Well you're outnumbered matey two to one, so suck it up, were staying here. You don't have to help but we are and that's final," I said firmly and surprisingly he didn't respond. He started to but didn't get much further than opening his mouth. He scowled at the ground and kept quiet.

"It'll be difficult," Zach said. "It's a constant onslaught and you've got to rip them apart to kill them."

I smiled and focused the bubbling, burning stream of energy that was now my constant companion and pushed the heat into the palm of my hand with a little bit of difficulty. The flame bounced and twisted in the wind and I watched as a slight smile spread over the faces of the locals. "Well its lucky for you that I've got a little bit of firepower on my side."

"We've also got some firestones that we can mount up to your cannons as well," Sheira pointed out, stepping up eagerly, "we might just be able to give you the edge tonight!"

"I cannot believe this is happening," Shadow sulked.

"Shut up!" we said in unison and his sulking went into maximum overdrive.

Lillian stepped forwards and placed a gentle hand on our arms. "Are you sure about this? You can just stay here tonight, get some rest, you can leave first thing tomorrow."

"Forgive me and I'm not sure if I can speak for the group here, but I'm not sure how comfortable I am sleeping with the literal apocalypse just outside those walls," I said.

"Ditto to that," Sheira agreed. "Anyway, we're not about to walk away from someone that needs help."

Lillian looked like she was about to cry while her daughter and Zach looked extremely guilty that they'd tried to kill us upon meeting us, but hey what else was new? "Thank you, all of you. If you're really sure about this then get some rest, it'll be one of the longest nights of your life."

"I've had longer," I said, a memory of unending tears filling my head and sending a shiver down my spine.

"And somehow I believe that. Eat, sleep, prepare for everything and be ready for sunset. Keep your energy up because it'll be none stop, no rest, no peace, no break, you'll be fighting for your life and everyone within these walls. This isn't a movie, this is the real world, with real stakes and real prices to pay if shit hits the fan. But so long as you keep our little mantra in mind you should be alright."

"Which is?"

"Burn them all and don't die."

I smirked. "Trust me, after the week we've had I think that's a motto I can live by."