Ahtu wiped a glistening bead of sweat from his forehead with the back of his thick, warm mittens and added a chunk to the rapidly growing wall of snow around the tiny village. He smoothened out the lump and compressed it to the wall. He watched as the Heikki family defended a section of the wall they were building. Markus drove a kitchen knife through an undead’s neck, a viscous grey liquid pouring from the wound. It collapsed, paralysed, to the freezing snow, twitching slightly as if it were a dead insect. Ahtu could make out Markus pulling the thing towards the centre of the village to be burned.

[3 weeks earlier]

Ahtu switched on his cheap radio and tuned to the local news station. He was just in time for the 8 ‘o’ clock news, and listened keenly to what was going on around the world. Nothing interesting, pretty much same as yesterday. He was about to switch it off, when he heard something that caught his attention. News of spreading cannibalism in African and Asian countries, of the African government shooting civilians. He called his wife in to listen. 

“Ainikki! Come here quick!”

“What?” She demanded.

“Listen.”

She listened to the news and gasped in horror.

“I can’t believe this”, she gasped, “Have you told Markus yet?”