Diary of the Displaced by Glynn James Page A

it was too dark in there to get a proper look.
    “Hold up.”
    Rudy peered through the window.
    “Did you spot something?”
    “I don’t know, maybe just junk, but you never know, might be something in there.”
    I pulled the cart up alongside the door to the shop and grabbed the lantern. It only took a few seconds to light it. I was getting quite quick at it now. I grabbed the mace and used the sharp, nasty end to push the front door open.
    The door fell off.
    I’d barely touched it, the lightest prod, but it was enough to send the door off of its hinges and crashing down with a loud bang. Dust flew everywhere, a huge cloud of it bellowed up upwards, until it made a signal that would be visible for miles (if anything could see for miles).
    DogThing ran. He was fifty yards down the street before he stopped and sat down to watch me from a safe distance.
    “Crap. I didn’t want to do that.”
    “Hmm, no, maybe not,” said Rudy, from behind me.
    Big, deep sigh.
    “Well, that kind of settles it then. If there is anyone here, they now know we are.”
    “Or a thing. I’ll keep look out, out here,” said Rudy.
    I stepped over the collapsed door and shone the lantern into the shop. Most of the dust had gone outside, so I could still see clearly. Strewn across the floor were empty tin cans and ripped boxes. I picked up one of the boxes nearest me. It was torn and covered in dark, mouldy stains.
    Weetabix. Empty. Damn.
    It was the same along every row, counters full of ripped and damaged packaging that was either empty, or had contents that I wouldn’t have touched, even if I was starving.
    Then I reached the back of the shop.
    There, on what looked like the shop counter, right next to a smashed up cash till, was a cardboard box with cans of tinned food carefully stacked into it. I emptied it out onto the counter to see how big a find it was. Peaches, beans, stewed steak, mushy peas, there was a few of each type of can, all unopened and seemingly undamaged.
    “Bingo.”
    I packed the tins into the box again and walked around the back of the counter, all the time wondering who would leave a box of food tins lying around. Maybe someone had packed them and meant to take them away, but for some reason hadn’t been able to? Not a comforting thought.
    Then I found out why they were still there.
    There was a door at the back of the counter, this one also barely hanging off of its hinges. It was slightly open, a light coming from inside, and a noise that sounded like wasps swarming.
    Or flies.
    Masses of them buzzed around.
    The room was only small but the devastation was huge. Whatever had happened in there had happened quite recently, like within a few days, or a week at most. It was all disgustingly fresh. Blood was scrawled all over the walls and collected in little, congealed pools across the floor. Scattered here and there were the remnants of someone or something, chunks of bones and flesh, and other stuff that I couldn’t identify, didn’t want to identify. In the corner a small electric lamp lay on the floor, plugged into some kind of battery. It was still on.
    Then the smell hit me. I stepped out of the room and threw up all over the counter. I felt my heart rate screaming and panic about to take over.
    “Rudy… ”
    He was already there.
    “Oh, my god.”
    It took me a minute or so to regain control of my faculties, hanging off of the side of the shop counter with my head spinning, and my stomach lurching.
    “This was recent, wasn’t it?”
    I looked up. Rudy was standing in the doorway, staring at the mess.
    “Do you think it was… a person?”
    “Had to be… ”
    I turned away. I couldn’t look at it again. Zombie bits were one thing, but a real person I couldn’t handle.
    “Wait though. No.”
    Rudy had gone into the room.
    “This skin, it’s not human skin, it’s like lizard skin. It’s all scaly.”
    That brought me to my senses. It wasn’t a person.
     I walked back to the door and stepped