Thomas Humbolt jumped, startled from sleep by something he couldn’t yet see.

A sound that closely resembled a distressed cat began to escape his lips but was stopped in its tracks by a bony hand pressed firm across his mouth.

The slender, undernourished frame of Cal knelt alongside him, his face pressed close to Thomas’s own. The stale scent of cheesy puff crisps drifted strong into Thomas’s nostrils and he pulled back, still dazed from his slumber in the patterned, pissy chair.

‘Wake up, we’ve got trouble!’ said Cal with a hushed urgency that instantly blew the sleep from Thomas’s eyes.

Pushing Cal’s skeletal palm from his mouth, Thomas responded with matched urgency, ‘What trouble?’ instantly straightening in the chair.

‘Tasker. Silly old sod has gone walkabout again. Said he needed air and mooched off into the pissing rain like he was off for a stroll in the park.’

‘So?’ replied Thomas, knowing full well that Tasker, or Albert Tasker if you will, wasn’t averse to stretching his legs once in a while, heading off for some him-time, regardless of weather and the other, issues.

‘So,’ Cal replied, ‘his flare has gone up! Lit up the whole shitting place a few seconds ago!’ Cal’s eyes moved to the darkness outside as he spoke.

Bolting from his seat, Thomas moved swiftly to the shattered window before him.

It was still night. Still raining hard. In the near distance, the now soft orange glow of a flare hung in the sky. He looked at the dark streets below their second storey perch within the old crumbling hospital building, misty through the rainfall. He strained, staring through the incessant falling water, afraid of what he might see. And then he saw it. Something was moving down there. Amongst the rubble and the abandoned cars, and the grime of the new world, something was definitely moving. The chilled fingers of dread poked at his spine and a shiver rocked his shoulders.

‘Shit, this is bad, this is really, really bad.’

Then turning to Cal, his voice urgent but hushed, ‘Any idea where he was going?’ already knowing the answer.

‘Didn’t say, and I didn’t think to ask’ replied Cal, ‘You know what he’s like, once he gets an idea, he’s a stubborn old bastard. Just said he was going to stretch his legs, couldn’t sleep. Are we going after him?’

Thomas gazed out at the flare, the solitary glowing beacon of his old friend’s distress hanging like a lonely star in a desolate night sky and nodded.

‘Of course. Albert needs us.’