Zombies get a lousy press in movies, horror novels and comic books, but I’ve always found them pretty easy to get on with. Ghosts, now they can be bad news. A poltergeist is a ghost that’s made of nothing but pent and pissed-off feelings, and they can do real harm unless you bring in someone like me to cut the feelings off at the source. But the poor bastards who come back in the flesh have put all their fortunes in a sinking ship, and with a few notable exceptions they’re as docile as lambs. Who wants trouble when your body’s falling apart anyway and can’t repair itself from damage? It’s better to sit tight: to think good and hard about that last shallow ledge you’re about to fall off, and what you’re going to do when it gets too narrow to hold on to.

These guys didn’t look like they were going to be any trouble. There were around a dozen or so, and I’m using ‘guys’ in the inclusive sense: it was a mixed gathering. In the hot, humid air they smelled like a fridge on the third day after a power cut, but that was the only offence they were capable of giving.

‘Spare a quid, guvnor?’ one of the women said, holding up her hand as I passed.

If I’d had one I would have flicked it over my shoulder and kept on going. But the cab had taken the last of my liquid funds, so I was denied that easy out.

‘Sorry, love,’ I said, slowing involuntarily. ‘I’m boracic.’

She stared at me with one eye, the other socket being full of some milky-white goo that I was trying not to examine too closely. ‘All right, sweetheart,’ she said, resignedly. ‘Have a good night.’ She looked down and away suddenly, as though staring at my face hurt too much.

One of the other walking dead took up the slack, favouring me with a truly hideous grin. ‘What about plastic, mate? We take everything except American Express.’ A hollow snicker went through the ranks of the undead, like a breeze through dry grass.

I turned out my pockets theatrically. ‘Only thing between me and you lot is a pulse,’ I said. ‘But I come through this way a lot. When I’m in funds, I’ll stop by again.’

‘Course you will,’ one of the zombies agreed sardonically.

I’d stopped walking now, which in purely social terms was a mistake: once you’ve stopped, how do you start again without looking like a selfish, blood-warm bastard who thinks of the dead in the way racists think of people with a different skin colour, as belonging to an alien species?

‘What do you spend the money on?’ I asked, by way of small talk. The walking dead can’t eat or drink: they don’t have any stomach enzymes to break food down, or any blood to carry the disassembled feast through the lightless chambers of their bodies.