I sniffed at my armpits.

And the really terrible pong.

And I did sorrowful groanings at this, for this was so unfair.

Another ten years of my life all ticked and locked away. Ten years. Bad for me! Very bad for me!

But what of this world? Was everyone now just walking dead? Had the Homunculus raised his status to World Leader?

Was the Homunculus the Antichrist?

I did shudderings now.

And anger rose in me once more. And once more this anger was directed towards Mr Ishmael. He had told me that Begrem lay beneath New York. It was his fault that ten years were missing from my life and I looked like Father Christmas and smelled like the milkman’s horse.

And I began to sob.

Well, I’d had enough, hadn’t I? I really truly had. There was me getting all enthusiastic about my Army of the Underworld. And I was still quite enthusiastic about that, even though there were so few of them. It was still some sort of army. But this! Now this! It wasn’t fair. It really wasn’t fair. Was there no justice in this world?

Was this world just a dirty, stinking, unfair toilet of a place?

‘Why, I’ll-’ And I really was angry now. ‘I’ll join the baddies,’ I cried. ‘I will sell out to the Dark Side of the Force. I will, I really will.’

And I just thought that I would. Well, damn it, I had had enough.

‘Will you be wanting your pizzas, then?’ asked a feisty voice.

And I looked up to see the pizza lady.

‘What?’ I asked her. ‘Sorry?’ I said.

‘We put you out here to give you some fresh air while I made your pizzas. I’ve done you a selection, enough for thirty people. And thrown in drinks and garlic bread for free. Oh, and here’s your change. I took the money from your pocket while you had your little sleep.’

‘Can you manage all the pizzas yourself,’ asked the wino, ‘or would you like me to help carry them for you?’

‘Or I could give you a lift in my car,’ said the Jewish-looking fellow.

And I just burst into tears. And the feisty lady comforted me, but from a distance, because I did smell awful. And I was pathetically grateful and did not go over to the Dark Side of the Force. So that was a bit of a happy-ever-after, in a small way, really.

And I accepted the Jewish-looking fellow’s offer of a lift. And he gave me one, although he did insist that we drove with all the windows open.

‘Having a party, are you?’ he asked as we drove along.

‘Not as such,’ I told him. ‘It’s more a sort of council of war kind of thing. But I wouldn’t want to bore you with the details.’

‘No worries there,’ said the fellow. ‘We live ones have to look after each other as best we can. I’m sure you agree.’

‘I don’t know exactly what you mean,’ I said.

‘Ah,’ said the fellow. ‘Perhaps I have spoken out of turn. Perhaps you accept the official explanation.’

‘I never accept those,’ I said, ‘as a matter of principle.’

‘Splendid. It’s a ludicrous explanation anyway.’

‘Please tell me all about it,’ I said. ‘I have been out of circulation for a while and I’m not exactly in tune with what is going on at the present time.’

‘But you know about the undead?’

‘I know all about them, yes. But does everyone else know?’

‘Not the kind of secret you can keep for ever. A man dies in a car accident. The coroner’s report says that he’s been dead for five years. A murderer is executed. He gets up out of the electric chair and walks away. It’s funny how much of it came to light because of crime. A wife murders her husband in the night, but he’s down for breakfast the next day. Because he was actually dead for years before. People are alive. Then people are dead. But they’re still alive, although clinically they are dead. A great mystery, eh? The greatest mystery, you would think. And the greatest threat to the future of Mankind. So what is the official explanation?’

‘Enlighten me,’ I said.

‘Mass hysteria,’ said the fellow, ‘symptomatic of the increasingly stressful times that we live in. Word on the street, as it were, is that the CIA controls all the media now and composes all the news items. And it was the CIA that passed the Panic Law.’

‘Tell me about the Panic Law,’ I said.

‘It is a brand-new law designed to “enforce common sense and right thinking and stop the spread of panic, dead”. To whit, and I also quote, “Anyone propagating the myth of the walking dead in any manner, way, shape or form will be subject to arrest without trial and immediate execution.” ’

‘Nasty,’ I said. ‘Although I do see a bit of a flaw in this law, walking-dead-wise. ’

‘Immediate execution by complete incineration,’ said the fellow. ‘They don’t come wandering back after that like they used to after they had been secretly interrogated, saying that they’d changed their minds and it was all a mistake.’

‘You mean after they had been secretly killed in custody? Is that what you’re saying?’

‘That is what I’m saying. So now everyone lives in a state of total fear, afraid to voice concerns to their closest friend in case that friend might be either dead, or an informer.’

‘Surely you’re taking a chance speaking to me of these matters,’ I said. ‘I might be dead, or an informer.’

‘Fella,’ said my driver, ‘I think you’re safe enough. Even the dead don’t smell as bad as you. And informers always wear suits.’

‘Yes they do, don’t they,’ I said. ‘I wonder why that is?’

‘I think they just like the suits. But then again, who doesn’t?’

‘You’re wearing a suit,’ I observed. ‘And a black one – are you Jewish?’

‘No,’ said the fellow. ‘A tree fell on me.’

And oh how we laughed.

Together.

‘Are we nearly there yet?’ I asked.

And we laughed again.

Such jollity.

For no good reason whatsoever.

But perhaps to lighten the tension.

And tension there certainly was. And when we reached Mornington Crescent East (discontinued usage), I sat in the car for a bit longer, chatting with the fellow, with all the windows open. And I let the fellow choose one of the pizzas and we shared it.

‘I hate all this stuff,’ said the fellow.

‘I think it tastes rather interesting,’ I said. ‘Cheese and chocolate and chitlings and chips, an alliterative combination.’

‘I didn’t mean the pizza,’ said the fellow. ‘I too am enjoying the pizza. I mean this stuff. I mean, I suppose, life. I never expected that the whole world would fall all to pieces like this. Nuclear war, perhaps. I imagined that when I was young. And later there was AIDS, and everyone thought we’d all die of that. Then it went all ecological and we were all going to die because of global warming and climate change. But this stuff, this undead stuff – I wasn’t expecting this. No one was expecting this.’

‘Some were,’ I said. ‘Some were planning it. One at least.’

‘Ah,’ said the fellow. ‘I’ve heard that theory, too – that this is all the work of a single criminal mastermind, an insane evil fiend of the Moriarty or Count Otto Black persuasion.’

‘I think he tops both of those,’ I said.

‘But surely Count Otto Black was the most evil man who ever lived?’

‘This fellow’s worse,’ I said. ‘Far worse. And that theory is true. The fellow exists – I have met him.’

My driver stuffed further pizza into his mouth. ‘If you really know who he is,’ he said, between munchings, ‘then you should kill him. You know that? You should, you really should.’

‘And I will,’ I said. ‘It is my reason for being alive. He and another man have blighted my existence. I will have my revenge upon at least one of them.’

‘You’re surely not thinking to go at it alone?’

‘I have, shall we say, a taskforce. Hence the pizzas. And as I have already mentioned to them that an army marches on its stomach, I must deliver my pizzas to them before they all grow cold.’

‘Is this your home?’ asked the fellow, gazing about.