So anyway, I’m not going to try and justify this next bit, because I know what we did next sounds weird. But basically, all I’m saying, is that sometimes, life can be confusing. And sometimes, you can have too many emotions and you’re not thinking properly. This is especially true when you’ve just been involved in a fight-to-the-death scenario which you’ve won, but that also involved you killing an evil monster, then close-up watching it die painfully and loudly.

So we went shopping.

In our defence, we hadn’t exactly planned to go shopping.

I think we’d just been trying to go as far away as possible from everything and to maybe get somewhere safe, but then the shops were just there. Don’t judge me, OK, but I was all about the looting, and also we wanted to look nice for when we met some other people – like those fighter people. I realize we were basically stealing. But I don’t think it matters quite so much when everyone who owned the shops is probably dead, and nobody else wants to go near the town at all and take anything in case they get eaten. So, yeah. We were all pretty excited.

‘I’m going to get some amazing things,’ said Lana. ‘I’m going to look gorgeous.’

‘You already do look gorgeous,’ said Kate.

‘Whatever.’

‘Some trainers would be nice,’ I said. ‘And maybe a dress. But we should probably get some really sensible stuff, I suppose.’

‘Like a flamethrower?’ said James.

‘No. Like a diamond tiara, or the perfect shade of lipstick,’ said Lana.

‘Some large knives, maybe?’ said James.

‘Maybe. But also some underwear, and a hairbrush.’

Kate smiled.

To be honest, the shops made everything better. There was a whole street of them too, and they mostly contained clothes and shoes. A whole street just of shops with clothes and shoes in them! There were shops full of just tiny, multicoloured baby clothes, and there were shops full of crazy, painted stilettoes and glittery ballet pumps. There were shops full of jumpers and coats and jeans and lovely, lovely dresses. Warm things and sensible things that would be the practical things to take, absolutely, but also the nicer things like silky T-shirts, make-up, toiletries and ball gowns.

‘Let’s split up,’ said Lana. ‘Let’s go and find some gorgeous clothes and then meet back here and show each other what we’ve got.’

‘Can’t we go together?’ said Kate. ‘I don’t want to be alone.’

‘You can come with me,’ said Lana. ‘But I don’t want you holding me back. I’ll have to leave you behind if you’re too slow.’

Kate nodded. Lana had always made it clear that that was her attitude towards life.

‘Well, we’re not going to be long, are we?’ said James. ‘We’ll be quickly in and out?’

Lana just looked at him.