NOW...
Zombies, my arse! I've got a real problem on my hands. Dad's been drinking and I can tell by his beady eyes that he's close to tipping over the edge.
We've been watching the news, a report about the alleged zombie attack in Ireland. Dad takes a swig of beer, then snorts and switches channels.
"I was watching that," Mum complains.
"You're not anymore," Dad grunts.
"But it's important," Mum presses. "They might attack here. We need to know what to do, Todd."
"B knows what to do, don't you?" Dad says, winking at me, and it's a relief to see he's still at the stage where he can crack a joke.
"Of course," I grin. "Put my head between my legs and kiss my arse good-bye!"
We crack up laughing. Mum tuts and makes a face. She doesn't like it when we swear. She thinks foul language is a sign of ill breeding. I don't know how she ended up with Dad - he could swear for a living.
"Don't be silly, Daisy," Dad says. "It's all a con. Zombies? The dead returning to life to feast on the living? Give me a break."
"But it's on the news," Mum says. "They showed pictures."
"They can do anything with computers these days," Dad says. "I bet B could knock up something just as realistic on our laptop. Am I right, B?"
"Dead on," I nod. "With a few apps, I could out-zombie George Romero."
"Who's that?" Mum frowns.
"The president of South Africa," Dad says seriously and we both howl at her bewildered expression.
"It's all very well for the pair of you to laugh like hyenas," Mum snaps, face reddening. "But what happens if zombies attack us here? You won't be laughing if they kill me and B."
"I'll happily chuck you to them if you keep on moaning," Dad says, and there's an edge to his voice now, one I'm all too familiar with.
Dad stares at Mum, his eyes hard. I tense, waiting for him to roar, or maybe just throw a punch at her without warning. If he does, I'll hurl myself at him, the way I have countless times in the past. I love him, but I love Mum too, and I can never stand by and let him lay into her. The trouble is, there's not much I can do to stop him. We could both be in for some serious battering tonight.
But instead, after a dangerous pause, Dad smirks and switches back to the news. That's Dad all over - unpredictable as the weather.
I scratch the back of my head - I had it shaved tight over the weekend and it's always itchy for a few days when I do that - and watch the footage from Ireland. It's a helicopter shot. They're flying over Pallaskenry, the small village where zombies apparently ran wild on Sunday.
The village is in ruins. Buildings are being burned to the ground by soldiers with cool-looking flamethrowers. Corpses all over the place. At least they look like corpses. Dad reckons they're dummies. "That's a waste of good ketchup," he said when Mum challenged him about the blood.
"I mean," Dad says as we watch, "if it had happened in London, fair enough, I might believe it. But bloody Ireland? It's one of their Paddy jokes. There was an Englishman, an Irishman and a zombie..."
"But they've shown dead people," Mum persists. "They've interviewed some of the survivors who got out."
"Never heard of actors?" Dad says witheringly, then turns to me. "You don't buy any of this, do you?"
"Not a word." I point at the TV. They're showing a clip that's already passed into legend on YouTube. One of the zombies is biting into a woman's head. He's a guy in pajamas. His eyes are crazy and he's covered in blood, but apart from that you wouldn't look at him twice in a crowd. The woman screams as he chews off a chunk of her skull and digs his fingers into her brain. As he pulls out a handful and stuffs it into his mouth, the camera pans away and, if you listen closely, you can hear the cameraman vomiting.
The clip had gone viral on the Web by Monday morning, but they first showed it on TV that evening. There was an uproar the next day, papers saying it shouldn't have been aired, people getting their knickers in a right old twist. It gave me a fright when I first saw it. Dad too, even if he won't admit it. Now it's just a bit of fun. Like when you see a horror film more than once - scary the first time, but the more you watch it, the lamer it gets.
"He should have dipped that bit of brain in curry sauce," I joke.
"B!" Mum gasps. "Don't joke about it!"
"Why not?" I retort. "None of it's real. I reckon it's a trailer for a new movie. You wait, another few days and they'll admit it was a publicity stunt. Anyone who fell for it will look a right idiot, won't they?"