It wasn't that they had faded. It was just that they were further away, in some strange di- rection that had nothing much to do with the normal three.

Wobbler and the other two were still staring at him.

'Johnny? You all right?' said Wobbler.

Johnny remembered a piece about over popu- lation in a school Geography book. For everyone who was alive today, it said, there were twenty historical people, all the way back to when people had only just become people.

Or, to put it another way, behind every living person were twenty dead ones.

Quite a lot of them were behind Wobbler. Johnny didn't feel it would be a good idea to point this out, though.

'It's gone all cold,' said Bigmac.

'We ought to be getting back,' said Wobbler, his voice shaking. 'I ought to be doing my homework.'

Which showed he was frightened. It'd take zom- bies to make Wobbler prefer to do homework.

'You can't see them, can you,' said Johnny. 'They're all around us, but you can't see them.'

'The living can't generally see the dead,' said Mr Vicenti. 'It's for their own good, I expect.'

The three boys had drawn closer together.

'Come on, stop mucking about,' said Bigmac.

'Huh,' said Wobbler. 'He's just trying to spook us. Huh. Like Dead Man's Hand at parties. Huh. Well, it's not working. I'm off home. Come on, you lot.'

He turned and walked a few steps.

'Hang on,' said Yo-less. 'There's something odd—'

He looked around at the empty cemetery. The rook had flown away, unless it was a crow.

'Something odd,' he mumbled.

'Look,' said Johnny. 'They're here! They're all around us!'

Til tell my mum of you!' said Wobbler. 'This is practising bein' satanic again!'

'John Maxwell!' boomed the Alderman. 'We must talk to you!'

'That's right!' shouted William Stickers. 'This is important!'