Free The Zombie Combat Manual by Roger Ma Page A

before everyone else. I used to razz him about gunning for my job, and he’d just grunt at me. It was late afternoon when we received a message from corporate that we were going to be closing early. That was the first sign that something wasn’t right. Corporate never closed us early. Then we noticed the emergency broadcasts that started flashing on the plasmas in the electronics section.
    We started to direct shoppers out of the store so we could begin shutting down, but once people saw what was happening, they just refused to leave. They ran around stacking their carts with soda, canned fruit cocktail, and beef jerky, even though we had already closed all the registers. We finally gave up and just let whoever was in, stay in, and began locking down the gates. Al and a couple of others managed to get them closed, but through the metal slats we saw more and more people headed for our entrance. They were screaming, begging for us to open up. Behind them, I saw at least seven fire trucks and ambulances speed past. Al wanted us to open the gates, saying that we had plenty of room on the floor, but I nixed that idea quick. An hour passed, and the crowd outside just kept growing larger and more frantic. Some held up their babies, pleading for us to just take their children, if not them. That’s also when we started hearing the moans in the distance.
    The pounding on the gate became more frenzied as people tried desperately to get us to open up. I saw Al’s hands ball into fists. He screamed that we couldn’t just leave them out there. I shouted back that we couldn’t do it, that management ordered us not to open up, but I’m not sure if he could or wanted to hear me. The people already in the store started backing away from the entrance to get away from the screaming and crying outside. I went upstairs to the office to ring the district manager and ask what we should do when I glanced at the parking lot security cameras. From across the lot, what looked to be a large, heaving mass was moving slowly toward the crowd of people pressed up against the entrance. My call had just connected with the DM when I heard the whir of the gates rolling up.
    I dropped the phone and screamed to Al, but when I looked down toward the entrance, he was giving me the finger as he opened up the gates. His extended hand was the last I saw of him before he was trampled by the crowd. The desperate mob that scrambled in under the half-opened gates was so crazed, they made a Black Friday sale look like a quiet Sunday morning. A couple of assistant managers and I fought our way back toward the entrance and managed to bring the gates back down. That’s when I saw Al’s sad, broken body a few feet from the entrance. We got a picnic tablecloth and carried him back toward the storage area. I thought to myself, “Well, at least we’re all safe again.”
    That feeling lasted exactly ten minutes. Just as the crowd began to settle and things quieted down, a pair of high beams lit up the entrance. Seconds later, a yellow Suburban crashed through the gates and buried itself in a vitamin display. Behind it, the same gray mass I saw earlier on the security cam—now much clearer, and much more terrifying.
    Pandemonium erupted on the shopping floor. ShopMaxx is basically just one big warehouse space, with pallets of merchandise and scaffolding providing the only means of escape. I saw everything from the second-floor office. The image of a kid’s smashed ant farm flashed in my mind. I watched as the decisions people made in those few seconds determined if they stayed alive or were pulled apart by the dead. Whether you turned left or right, if you paused to pick up a purse or a child: These became grave choices.
    The most critical decision was the choice of elevation—some people chose sensibly and stationed themselves on solid, heavy merchandise. Others clearly didn’t give it as much thought. They positioned themselves on items that were more