His first successful recruitment had been in Phoenix Park. The recruit was a middle-aged man out for a stroll. Scapegrace had waited until there was no one else around and then slipped out from his hiding place. He leaped on the man and dragged him into the bushes, where he bit him. The man tried struggling, but the infection was surprisingly fast acting, and within sixty seconds, the man was dead. After a few moments, however, his eyes opened again and he was looking up at Scapegrace.

“Am I in heaven?” he had asked.

“Don’t be stupid,” Scapegrace snapped.

“Sorry,” the man said and got up.

Scapegrace had looked at his first recruit. A shabby specimen if ever there was one, who seemed to wear a permanently dazed expression on his face.

“What’s your name?” Scapegrace asked.

“Gerald,” said the man.

Scapegrace pondered. Gerald the zombie just didn’t have that fear-inducing ring to it. “I’m going to call you Thrasher,” he said.

Thrasher blinked. “All right,” he said uncertainly.

Scapegrace nodded. Thrasher was a good name. Thrasher would be his right-hand man in the new zombie army he was building for his Master.

“Come with me, Thrasher,” Scapegrace said, leading the way and liking the sound of it.

He had done a lot more recruiting that afternoon. In Phoenix Park alone he recruited Slasher, Crasher, Dasher and Basher, then they all took Crasher’s van and he recruited Slicer, Dicer, Wrecker and Boiler. Boiler signified the end of Scapegrace’s new name strategy, and from then on he just called them Zombie One and Zombie Two, things like that. He had more on his mind than thinking up stupid names for his zombies.

He had brought them back to his Master’s castle, and the first problem to arise was that none of the other zombies seemed to respect Thrasher’s authority. It was too late to demote him now though. Such an act would be seen as weak leadership. The recruits needed to see Scapegrace as infallible, much like a pope or a politician. Scapegrace couldn’t admit that appointing Thrasher as his second-in-command had been a mistake, and instead hoped that Thrasher’s head would fall off or something.

The second problem was that Scapegrace was starting to smell, but he was confident that new plans he had set in motion would take care of it. There might even be a cream out there that would help. He had taken to wearing car fresheners around his neck, tucked beneath his shirt.

Scapegrace walked the stone corridors, heading for the room which housed his new zombie army. He put on a fierce expression, opened the door and walked in.

They were chatting among themselves, telling jokes and laughing. Thrasher was standing at the edge, trying to laugh along with them, but seemed unsettlingly happy to see Scapegrace when he walked in. He went up to him and stood to attention.