The Zombie Evolution by Rowan Burke

took a shine to Ashley, my now long-time girlfriend, but she was relatively new to the scene at the time. He talked to her all night, which is fine, I’m not the jealous type and she can talk to whoever she wants, but he began to get very hands-on with her which she really didn’t like. Having told me, I subsequently made him aware of my dissatisfaction, telling him to back the fuck off in quite an aggressive and very public way. However, with the calming, peace-making words of Jon, Derek and Phil, I let it go and continued with the night.
    The night moved on and was good fun; Mark seemed to have got the message and left Ashley alone, and made the sensible choice to stay at the other end of the table from me too. We all laughed, we joked, we drank, and we enjoyed ourselves. At around 1am, Ashley said she was going to walk to the nearby Subway to pick up something to eat, then come back and grab me so we could get a taxi home to conclude and eventful but generally enjoyable night, bar the earlier hiccup. I should never have let her walk on her own, but it being a five minute walk down a well-lit high street on a busy night I thought nothing of it, kissing her with an expectance to see her again very shortly. Ten minutes later, I got preemptive food envy and I realised I was hungry too, so said my goodbyes before heading in her direction to join her and pick up some food. On my travels, humming to myself cheerily, doing nothing to submerse my intoxicated state, I happened to peer down a shadowed side alley just off the high street, a couple of buildings before my fast food destination. I had to adjust my eyes to the light but stopped dead as I saw Mark, who had somehow skipped out of the bar undetected presumably to follow Ash as she headed out, where he had pulled her against her will into this alley and was holding her captive. He hadn’t actually done anything, yet anyway, but had his hand over her mouth to stop her shouting and was using his best moves to try and get her to reciprocate his feelings of sexual magnetism, persistently repeating “kiss me, no-one needs to know, just kiss me”.
    I don’t lose it too often, and it takes a lot, but my switch was well and truly flicked when I saw them, darting down the alley and taking no thought in beating the fucking shit out of him. He pleaded and cried and swiped at me in attempt to get a lucky punch or two in, but I had seen red and there was nothing he could do to get me to let up. Ashley, not being one to condone violence, made an attempt to pull me away, but I didn’t stop for quite some time and eventually ended my brawl after I had managed to break his nose, his jaw, and cracked two of his ribs. 
    A consequential court case for GBH was raised by Mark, but was fortunately dropped before conviction which I suspect had a lot to do with Phil, Jon and Derek. Although the boys made every attempt to make sure I knew they recognized what he did was completely wrong, they put it down to a drunken mistake of which we have all had many, and assumedly had worked hard on minimalizing the damage control of the aftermath. Unfortunately for me, or for him, whichever way you look at it, the bad blood was so thick that its sheer density stopped any potential water running under the bridge, resulting in a lot tension and hatred between us. Unsurprisingly, this meant we never, ever hung out again. If he was out, I wasn’t, and vice versa. I had no qualms with the boys seeing him as appreciated that they couldn’t throw away all their years of friendship for one, really stupid drunken mistake, but that mistake was too much for me and I fucking hated the cunt.
     
     
    Derek, with the cat now well and truly out of the bag, turned to Jon and I, sheepishly bounding over as he rummaged his front pocket before pulling out his phone.
     
    “What the fuck, didn’t we all throw our phones away?”
    I pointlessly asked, clearly being aware this not to be the case.
     
    Apparently, Mark had