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roadblock.
    Alex stopped his bike and flipped up his visor. “I’m getting a strong sense of déjà vu,” he said, looking around.
    Sure enough, four men appeared from out of a house at one end of the pileup of cars.
    “Let’s just go around them,” Micah said.
    Alex flexed his hands, remembering his wounds from their first time here. “Not this time.” Lifting the helmet from his head, he got off his bike and placed it on the seat.
    “Hey,” one of the men said, “I know you two.” He turned to the other men. “He’s the one who took my sword.”
    Micah heaved a sigh and dismounted, removing his helmet. The man Alex remembered as the leader of the vigilante group walked forward.
    “So you survived,” he said. “Pity. It is still the case that everything with white eyes has to be put down.”
    “Where’s my sword?” the first man said. “We can’t kill him until he tells me where my sword is.”
    He strode forward, raising the knife he held. Finely tuned anger zipped through Alex. He was done with running. Walking forward to meet the man, he dodged a knife thrust and grabbed his wrist, twisting. The man cried out and dropped his weapon.
    Still holding his wrist with one hand, Alex used the other to punch him. Hard. The man concertinaed onto the road.
    Next, Alex went for the leader, grabbed the knife he was fumbling to pull from his belt and hurled it over the top of a nearby two storey house, hearing it clatter onto the roof. Grasping the front of the man’s jacket, Alex lifted him up and slammed his back into a nearby van, pinning him in place, his dangling feet scrabbling for purchase against the door. One of his hands wrapped around the man’s throat, not tight enough to block his airway, but enough that it would be uncomfortable.
    “Let’s get one thing clear,” Alex growled, “this little power game you’ve got going on here is going to stop. I don’t know how you’ve managed to survive the past two weeks, but the only way you will stay alive from now on is to stay out of the way of me and every other Survivor in the city. You think with the law gone it’s all about who’s strongest? You’re right. But that isn’t you. Not even close.” He lifted him higher, constricting his grip slightly. The man’s eyes bugged. “Do you understand?”
    He tried to nod, but Alex’s hand allowed no movement of his head. “Yes,” he rasped instead.
    “Good.”
    Alex let go and he fell to the ground, rubbing his neck and trying to hide the dark stain on the crotch of his trousers. The gazes of the two other men were flicking nervously between Alex and Micah.
    Micah was leaning against his bike, arms crossed, affecting disinterest.
    The man with Alex scrambled to his feet and stumbled away, disappearing around a corner. The remaining two men turned to follow.
    “Hey,” Micah said, pointing at the man Alex had punched, “take him with you.”
    Casting fearful glances back at Alex, they grasped their unconscious friend beneath his armpits and dragged him away.
    Alex walked back to his bike.
    “Feel better?” Micah said.
    Alex pulled on his helmet. “It helped.”
     

4
     
     
     
     
    “Wake up. It’s getting late.”
    Micah looked blearily up at Alex from the sofa. An arm snaked from beneath the blanket and he peered at his watch. “It’s six thirty!”
    “Now you know how it feels. Go. Shower. I’ll make breakfast.”
    The sausages were halfway done when the red light on the electric hob went off. Moments later there was a yell from the direction of the bathroom. Alex sliced the sausages in half and pressed the cut edges onto the frying pan, attempting to get them to cook on the heat left in the metal. Then he tried the light switch. Nothing happened. A couple of minutes later, the electricity turned on again.
    Alex couldn’t help wondering if the breakdown of the country’s infrastructure was beginning. He knew he should be more worried, but right now the anxiety portion of his