Zombies!

Enter your name here! (For narrative purposes only)

You are starting in a new job far away from home. After a dreadful time going through postings and viewings, you have finally found a decent house share close enough to your office, and you’ll be sharing it with three people you know nothing about. As you are moving in, somebody shows up in the kitchen, a dark-haired girl with some tattoos, and a piercing on the side of her nose. She tells you her name is Ana. How do you respond?

‘Must be a stressful day for you, moving all that stuff from so far away to live with a bunch of strangers! Or how does it feel?’ she asks. How do you respond?

She screams ‘Joe! Get over here!’ and over comes a guy similarly tattooed and pierced. Turns out they are a couple and share a room as well as a job as rock band managers. ‘We sleep together, we work together, we commute together, we do everything together’, he says with an awkward smirk. ‘Yet I’m still not as close to him as Tom is’, she adds teasingly, ‘Hey, maybe we should all get together for the newbie?’ How do you feel about this?

They drag you to meet Tom at a nearby pub where he is having a drink by himself. He is a peculiar-seeming fellow, looking more clean-cut and vanilla than the others, though his hair is pointing to the skies like a bushfire. He is very intense in the way talks and looks at you, though often seems to lose concentration. It is decided you’ll have dinner there. What sort of approach do you take to getting to know them?

What do you try to make conversation about?

They fail to get interested in talking about this, and the dinner is not going particularly well for you. Much of the conversation is about events to which you are not privy, and you find it hard to participate. Turns out everyone in the house has known each other for years, having met in the music business -- Tom is a guitar player -- and have lived in the house for about one of them. ‘We might be a hard group to break into’, Ana says, ‘You can’t just replace Ava’, she adds, referring to the previous housemate. How does this make you feel?

They mention that they are planning to go on a tour to South America in a few months. Would you be interested in joining them?

Tom tells you, in all seriousness, to go get a round of drinks for everyone. As the new one, you're paying, obviously. How do you respond?

You take the bus home together. They are a bit worried about walking in the neighbourhood, as recently around here there have been a lot of

Luckily you don’t see any tonight, and you make it home safely. You all go to the kitchen. Tom starts going through the cupboards. ‘Ah, here it is. Want some?’ he asks you as he pours a drink. How do you respond?

‘Well there you go!’ he says and throws the drink at your face, and you get all wet and dirty. How do you respond?

By the morning, everything is forgotten. As you are leaving the house, you hear talking in the kitchen. ‘Do you think it will go ok? If it doesn’t, I might as well be dead’, Tom says, sounding nervous. ‘Calm down, nobody’s after you’, Joe responds. ‘What do you think she’d say if she knew?’ Tom asks. Then you can't tell what they're saying, and you leave, closing the door quietly. What are your thoughts on this?

At work, you feel like you are not given much to do. Do you

Your new job is turning out to be nowhere near as exciting as they made it seem. Once you got the hang of it, it's quite simple and repetitive. How do you feel about this?

At home in the evening, you plan to do some cooking, but someone else seems to be in the kitchen. What do you do?

They happen to leave straight away, and you get started. There are no clear cleaning arrangements for the kitchen, and it is a mess. Dirty dishes everywhere. The bin overstuffed with newspapers, each of them with bits of it torn off. All surfaces more or less dirty. As you’ve been cooking, some of it is because of you, but some not. How much should you clean?

Shortly after, it crosses your mind that maybe there should be a cleaning rota for the kitchen. Do you think you should push the others into agreeing into one?

At night, as you’re sleeping, you’re woken up by bright light. You open your eyes and see that your door is cracked. Tom has opened it and is watching you. He asks you how you’re sleeping. How do you respond?

You see Ana after work. She agrees that Tom has been acting oddly, which must have been stressful. Just how much has Tom’s odd behaviour influenced you?

She tells you you’re not the only one affected; he also

You have to be understanding about him, she says; he’s been unwell. ‘The thing is, Tom hasn’t been taking his meds. And we can’t really just talk to him about it, as he doesn’t tend to respond to pressure well, but gets aggressive. We tried to get him sectioned once, but they wouldn't take him, and he got furious at us. I think the only thing we can do is slip his medication into his food, or drinks. We did it once before, and it helped with his behaviour. So we'll start doing it again. But we are going on a work trip next week and won’t be able to do it for a few days, so we’d need you to do it.’ How much thought do you need to put into this?

A few days later, you See Tom in the living room, playing a guitar, drinking whisky and watching football. He tells you to join him. As he goes to the toilet, you'd have the perfect opportunity to slip his meds in his drink. Do you do it?

He finishes his drink, and after a few minutes, you decide to leave. Later, as you walk past, you find that he is

You ignore Ana’s request on the following days as well, and Tom is getting erratic again. Then you don’t see him much until one evening, as you walk past the living room, you see that Tom is there, and

All is well, you think, until a few days later you hear somebody shrieking in the house. It turns out to be Tom's mother, packing up his things. She tells you that he has been hospitalised with a mental breakdown. She doesn’t seem particularly stable herself. Why didn't you do anything to help him, she is screaming. As you’re in his room, you notice the newspaper articles that had been ripped off. They're all about

As he seems to be getting only worse, you call an ambulance for him, and he is taken away. You get told nothing more than that, until the next day when you hear somebody shrieking in the house. It turns out to be Tom's mother, picking up some of his things. She tells you that he has been hospitalised after mixing his medication with alcohol. She doesn’t seem particularly stable herself. How could you let this happen, she is screaming. As you’re in his room, you notice the newspaper articles that had been ripped off. They're all about

You call an ambulance for him, and he is taken away. You get told nothing more than that, until a few days later you hear somebody shrieking in the house. It turns out to be Tom's mother, packing up his things. She tells you that he is dead after mixing his medication with alcohol. She is very distraught. How could you let this happen, she is screaming. As you’re in his room, you notice the newspaper articles that had been ripped off. They're all about

She takes a few items and leaves, and you go back into the room to take a look at the articles. They’re all about a pop singer who is quickly turning world-famous. Suddenly you realise where you’ve seen her – she was the previous housemate. You had never realised, but she appears everywhere in Tom’s photos, together with him, until suddenly she doesn’t, around the same time she started to hit the news. And, on his desk, there is an unopened package from her, with a card saying ‘I’m sorry – Ava’.