"These aren't mummies!"

The creatures coming up out of the ground weren't bandaged and desiccated like the ones they'd fought before. These were still fleshy, dressed in shrouds, men and women dead only months or weeks.

"Not every evil thing in the world is a mummy, Jonathan," Ardeth said, grabbing Jonathan's arm and pulling him away through the cemetery. "I have fought many creatures that I can only call the living dead."

"You need to stay home more." Jonathan gave a cry of fight, as a cold hand grasped his ankle. Ardeth's sword rose and fell and the hand still grasped, but left the rest of the arm behind.

"Get it off! Get it off!" Jonathan shook the vile thing away and stumbled on after Ardeth. Don't leave me behind, don't leave me, don't leave me.

"When you shoot them," Ardeth called. "Go for the head. Nothing else kills them."

"Shoot them?" Ah his gun. He hadn't even noticed that he'd drawn the revolver. They reached a fence, ornate wrought iron, and six feet high. Both men spun to see the mass of walking corpses coming at them, moaning, arms outstretched.

"There's too many to shoot!"

"Up!" Ardeth ordered, starting to climb the fence. The fancy scrollwork gave many hand and footholds. The problem came when they looked down the other side to see the fence protected the unwary from a drop into a road cut deep in the hillside. At least fifteen feet down. There was no going back the way they came; cold hands were already stretching up towards their feet.

"Look," Ardeth pointed out a bus coming up the road, a red double-decker, incongruous, so far from London.

"I hate buses," Jonathan said.

"I know. I was in the last one." Ardeth grabbed Jonathan's hand. "A leap of faith, my friend."

The two men launched themselves out into space.