The zombies lost interest on day three and slumped off, grunting and dripping, to find somebody else to prey on. Occasionally, one would appear at the row of glass doors and stare at their own swaying reflection for an hour or two, before getting a whiff of some blood on the wind and shuffling away with a scrape-thump-scrape-thump of disordered footsteps. Dan was safe, it seemed, and grateful to have found the sanctuary of a DFS megastore during the undead apocalypse. It was vast, spread over two floors, with a wide, central staircase surrounded by heavily discounted and never to be bought furniture. It was never his intention to find refuge here, but his looting of supplies in the Asda next door had been cut short by a grunting, sniffling horde, and the furniture store was the first place that looked remotely safe. He had managed to stuff enough tins of beans and beef jerky into his rucksack before scurrying through the front door of the sofa store - between the rows of billowing, red SALE signs - and wedging the automatic doors closed (they beeped angrily for a few hours but a battery must have expired and given up the alerting of an obstruction).
After regaining some composure, Dan had searched the building from back to front. There was a small coffee stand for caffeinating potential customers, a toilet, and an obscene amount of beds and sofas. The showroom was pleasantly sparse, but the warehouse was chocked full of the things, as though it might burst at any moment. There was one door, locked to the central store, marked STAFF ONLY. I’ll try to bust that open at some point, Dan mused, before continuing to scout his new home for anything that might preserve his state of living.
Once the perceived outside threat had faded from his mind, he tried to find a way to pass the time. There would surely - hopefully - be help arriving soon, so he just needed to make time move at pace. The first thing he did was see if he could move from one end of the store to the other without touching the floor: launching himself from sofa to bed to sofa, until he fell, or gave up, or tumbled onto the thick red carpet/lava. It took much of the day but he found a suitable route (leveraging a misplaced poof and a bright pink chaise longue to complete the journey) and ended up sleeping for several hours - sweaty and exhausted - in the sofa bed that marked the finish line.
It was the next day that he found the hidden television. It was an accident that occurred during his earnest testing of every mattress to decide which was truly the most comfortable. As he lay on one of the more gaudy, oversized beds, he accidentally laid on a remote which caused a hatch to open at the foot of the bed and a 32 inch HD screen to emerge from its innards. Not only that but it was still logged into a Netflix account belonging to Geoff, who he surmised was the - probably now dead - office manager. Dan barely moved from the bed for the next three days, but to relieve himself in the distant corner of the warehouse, or to refill a DFS branded water bottle at the coffee station. He caught up on Breaking Bad, House of Cards, Dark, The US Office, and every blood-chilling true crime documentary (which now just seemed daft in comparison to an actual zombie invasion). He had been too busy to see all the shows that he had added to his wishlist over the preceding decade. Now was his chance to absorb every moment, to catch up with the culture that was seemingly always on the periphery, that was now stuck in grunting, blood-thirsty rage. There was a pleasant relief in there being no urgency to consume all the content, before the next stuff arrived: the past had been crystallised, and he had the rest of his life to chew through it at leisure.
The STAFF ONLY door clicked open just as he was about to inform Netflix that he was indeed still watching Death Row Confessions. His reaction was odd: it started as fear, but the way in which the door had been unlocked and then the handle slowly, with composure, twisted down to allow it to swing steadily open, assured him that it was certainly not a zombie, and therefore not a genuine threat to his life. A female face emerged and her eyes, wide and fearful, scanned the showroom for threats before landing on Dan’s.
“Who on Earth are you?” She said, shaking her head a little, as though to disturb some sense to life.
“Dan.” He said plainly, his hand still holding out the remote at the screen.
“Why?”
“I came in to hide. It’s safe here.” He answered, assuming her question to not be existential.
“Anyone else?” She scanned the room again, a flicker of hope in her eyes.
“No, sorry.” He said honestly, feeling guilt at being the only person here. At being a stranger, a male stranger. Suddenly he was self-conscious at what he was wearing, aware that he might appear a little incel-ish with his greasy, unwashed hair and dirty hoodie. “I’m okay.” He said pathetically and immediately rolled his eyes at the empty words.
She smiled. “Okay, Dan.” She eased herself out of the door and squinted a little at the brightness. “I’m okay too. I’m Grace.”
“Good.” Dan said as he exhaled his relief at not having scared her back into the STAFF ONLY abyss. “You work here?”
“I did.” Grace tapped the logo on the chest of her polo shirt. “Not sure it’s a going concern anymore.”
“Sale’s finally over.”
Grace looked at him with a half smile on her face and let out a single breath of laughter. But then her eyes filled with tears and her chin trembled. “I guess you’re right.”
“Oh I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s fine.” She took a deep breath to compose herself and smiled again, “this is just a lot.”
“Yeah.” Dan finally lowered the remote and slid off the bed, standing up and scratching his head, trying to look as non-threatening as possible.
“I assume this place is secure?” She asked, rising onto the balls of her feet to peer over the balcony to the glass doors below.
“I think so. How long were you in there?” He pointed to the staff room.
She glanced at the door and hesitated for a moment, as though gathering her memories, making sure they were present and correct. “Three days.” She hesitated, embarrassed. “I ate everything in the staff fridge and just watched what was happening on the TV.”
“Sensible.”
“I was so scared, for a long time. But then I just got bored, I guess. Bored of hiding. And hungry, I guess.” She flashed a glance at the bed and its immediate surrounds for any sign of food.
“I get that. You hungry?” He held out two strips of beef jerky and her eyes widened. After a brief hesitation, she took a handful of steps required to reach them, but then retreated, nibbling hungrily. She shoved one of the strips into her pocket. The conversation dissipated into silence and they stood awkwardly apart from one another, eyes flicking about the place to try to gather together some data that could be bundled up into some semblance of a conversation starter. There was a bang from within the staff room and they both locked wide, shocked eyes. “What was that?” Dan asked, gulping back the fear that he had managed to keep on the periphery up to this point.
Grace’s shock was quickly replaced by a confused frown. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“Is someone else in there?” Dan could feel anger and fear rising in equal measure.
“No.” The lie was transparent.
“You’re lying.”
“Who are you to call me a liar?”
“The only person on the planet that matters right now!”
“That’s pretty arrogant, don’t you think?”
“You know what I mean.”
A new quiet filled the space between them, only to be broken by another bang from deep within the staff room.
“Give me the key.” Dan said, surprised by his own forthright determination as he rounded the bed. He held out his hand and Grace took a step back. It was instinctive, reactive, and it pained Dan. He didn’t want to scare her, but he was two feet taller, and about the same wider, so her reaction was natural. He showed her his palms and retreated. “Sorry. Can you just tell me who’s back there?”
“My boyfriend, Jack.” She said with a wince.
“Okay, why won’t he come out?”
“Does he need to?”
“Yeah, I think so!” Dan said, with incredulity. “Three people are better than two; we need to come up with a plan for getting out of…” His voice trailed as he realised the implication of what was being said.
“Yeah.”
“He’s a-”
“-zombie? Yeah.”
“Fuck.”
“Tell me about it.”
“How were you both in there?”
“He’s tied up pretty tight.”
“You’ve just been chilling with a zombie for three days?”
“I guess I have, yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because I love him.” Tears filled her eyes again and she looked at Dan like he was mad for considering any other course of action.
“That’s insane.”
“What would you have done?”
“Ran away, and not looked back. Not chilled out and shared my snacks with it.”
“He only had interest in the Peperami’s…”
“…oh my god this is nuts.”
“Forget it, you won’t understand, you’ve never known true love, I’m going back to Jack.” She turned and quickly slotted the key into the lock and pulled the door open before Dan could reach it and stop her. In a flash she was gone. Dan managed to catch the door before it slammed. He watched her run down a short corridor and then disappear at a right turn at the end. He panted, unsure what to do next, hoping that some semblance of rationality would come to him and provide a sensible next step. He had to try to talk her round, try to convince her that this was absurd, and dangerous, that the zombie that used to be her boyfriend was not the same person anymore, and they had to leave him here. He grit his teeth and winced at the conclusion he had come to and began his walk down the corridor.
The staff room was a mess. Snack wrappers covered every surface and in the corner of the floor was one large pile of clothing (where Grace had been sleeping, he deduced). Grace stood in the centre of the room with her arms outstretched: protective and defiant, and in the corner was Jack. The man was a mess. His eyes were bloodshot and bulging, his lips bulbous and half-chewed, his clothes were torn and bloodied, and the area that surrounded him was splattered with yellow-red gore. He growled as Dan entered and squeezed himself harder against the ropes that were wrapped and bound around him. The ropes wheezed with the exertion of keeping him bound and Dan’s stomach rolled with the thought of the zombie breaking free.
“Don’t. Do. Anything.” Grace said, her eyes wide and fixed.
“I just came to talk to you.”
“I don’t want to listen. I want you to leave us.”
“But this is a mistake! He’s not Jack anymore.”
“Yes he is!” She shouted and then bent over double as she emitted a thick, wet cough.
“Are you okay?” Dan asked, taking a half-step back.
“Yep.” She wiped her mouth and flashed a smile. Jack growled at her back.
“If you come with me,” Dan pressed on, “then we can try to find help, there might be a cure!”
“I will not-” another horrible cough, another wipe of her mouth “-leave him.” Her eyes were glazed and she wobbled where she stood for a moment.
“What’s wrong?” Dan asked frowning, increasingly claustrophobic and not a little nauseous at the stench of half-death in the room.
A sick smile filled Grace’s face and she raised her other hand to reveal a deep bite mark across the palm. “You convinced me, in your closed-mindedness… chroll… to make new plans… haughk… and now I think they’re all falling… eurght!.. into place.” Blood ran down her face from a tear duct and to her chin. Dan had been backing away as she spoke, edging closer and closer to the corridor that offered a suggestion of escape. “Where are you going, Dan?” Her voice sounded like a carcass being dragged: flesh and cartilage grinding pathetically. “Like you said… whough… three people are better than… lyeck!.. two.” She spat an ungodly concoction on the floor and turned to Jack. Dan’s feet wouldn’t move at the speed he needed them to, his eyes unable to leave the madness of the scene before him. Grace cut the rope with a short knife and fell to the floor, convulsing and wheezing into her new form. Jack stood upright and watched her wistfully for a moment, thoughtful and perhaps a little lovingly. And then his eyes found Dan. The tiled floor was slippery and Dan’s feet skidded every-which-way as he tried to gain some traction in turning and sprinting away from the horror. He made it three steps down the corridor before Jack’s hands were on him. He heard the growl become a roar right in his ear and he ducked his head to avoid the teeth that clattered and gripped at the thin air beside his head. He pumped his feet to move across the floor with the zombie hanging off his back, but it was no use: he just remained stationary. Dan flexed every muscle in his body, turned, and slammed Jack back against the wall. The stench of decay that filled his face as Jack’s breath left his lungs would never leave him, but the strength of the zombie’s grip waned just enough for him to break free and sprint the last few steps alone.
The key clicked the lock closed with the undead creatures on the other side and Dan fell to the floor in a weeping, panting mess. Jack’s thumping on the door was persistent and violent, but it held firm. Even when another pair of fists joined the drumming - slightly less percussive, but no less determined - the heavy door only trembled. Dan kept an eye on the vibrating STAFF ONLY sign while he packed his things, half expecting it to burst open at any moment. Even as he released the automatic doors at the front of the DFS, he strained his ears for a guttural growl of rage and the thunderous feet of a hungry couple, but none came. He departed into the retail park with the sun high and welcoming. He allowed himself a deep breath of fresh air as it warmed his face, and then scurried away, into the new world, full of the rarest of commodities: life.