Free Collapse by Richard Stephenson Page A

attitude quickly changed. Chester gave them permission to take bicycles so they could ride back to their homes and check on things. Every employee returned to report their homes and apartment complexes had been obliterated.
     
    The destruction of their homes was not the most troubling thing they had to report. Carnage filled street after street. The stench was overpowering. In the rubble laid twisted and mangled corpses. They were able to identify some men, women, and children, but the majority of the corpses had no discernible gender. Ants and maggots had each taken their turn on the decaying flesh.
     
    Much of the staff came back to the store like shell-shocked soldiers returning from the battlefield. The others returned thinking that they could simply replenish what they had lost. The Wal-Mart workers were even bold enough to grab a few shopping carts and fought and squabbled with each other over merchandise like it was Black Friday. Chester tried and failed to stop them; some even spat on their boss. Chester wiped the spit from his face, pulled out his notepad and wrote down their names. They had ended their careers with Wal-Mart. He would personally see that the traitors lost their jobs and were prosecuted for theft.
     
    Eventually, rage began to replace shock - rage over the fact that absolutely no one was coming to rescue them. It had been over a month and not one plane dotted the sky; no rescue teams could be seen on the horizon. They were alone, living in a third world country that didn’t care whether they lived or died. Surely the American government had learned its lesson with Hurricane Katrina. Surely rescue would come.
     
    Chester began to worry when the front doors to the south entrance began to shake. The door quickly fell, but the ingenious barricade he had constructed held firm. The General Manager himself went up to the roof and peeked over the edge to get a look at the parking lot. A makeshift camp had been erected there. Camped out in front of the store were around a hundred people. They were patiently waiting as if the front doors would simply slide open so they could come inside and buy all the groceries that their hearts desired, gladly paying cash and smiling at the kind door greeter on their way out.
     
    Chester was confident that all he had to do was keep the citizens of the makeshift camp at bay for just a little bit longer. He just knew that rescue had to be coming. If he could just manage to hold on for one more night they would be saved, and he would be moving to Bentonville to live the good life.
     
    Chester knew he had little time left when a few tired, broken and hungry souls figured out that they could go around to the back of the store. The boys with BB guns did manage to scare them off. Some creative citizens of the makeshift camp returned with garbage can lids to deflect the BBs. When the first one of them had his foot blown off from a shotgun blast they quickly retreated. Chester knew he had a day at best before they regrouped and tried to attack the store with different tactics. He was wrong. He didn’t have a day, he had less than six hours.
     
    Chester never dreamed that it would come to this. He had exhausted every good idea he had in fortifying the store. His first mistake was that he didn’t camouflage the pedestrian entrance to the loading docks. The second mistake he made was failing to secure the hatch leading up to the roof. The third and final mistake was underestimating the primal and unrelenting will to survive at all costs - the same drive that kept his species alive.
     
    Chester had no idea he had even committed these crucial errors. He was still quite confident that his fortress would repel any attack. He knew without question that he would be greatly rewarded for his efforts when this was finally over. When the end came, Chester would not be rewarded, he would not be promoted. The new boat he had picked out would not be purchased. He definitely would not be