Derek yawned as he meandered through the shop's aisles, wishing he was somewhere else. The yawn was brought on by boredom rather than lack of sleep, as the college student had been given the "graveyard shift," and hadn't seen a single customer in over an hour. He was getting paid overtime for it though, and he didn't have any classes the next day to make him regret it...more than he already was. "Tommy's Things that Go<em>Boom</em>!" was probably one of the largest, if not the largest, gun retailers in all of Washington, but to think that they'd see customers at 4:30 in the morning was just stupid. Tommy Broyovich, the store owner, was slumped over the counter at the back of the store, and looked as though he hadn't had the foresight to get some sleep before coming in. Derek simply sighed as he pulled a 180 and started walking down yet another aisle, wondering where the other 2 employees had gotten to.<br/><br/>A few minutes later, Derek was pulled away from his inspection of the "Mace and Sprays" section by the jingling of the bell on the store's entrance. Excitement welled up in him a bit, they never saw customers during the graveyard shift, and he hurried to the end of the aisle to try and find the customer. Derek made it out of the aisle in time to see the "customer," a middle aged woman with long brown hair and a panicked expression tearing through the store toward the back. Unsure of what the woman was doing, Derek started to move around to follow her, but the he heard the door open again. Hoping to catch the customer this time, Derek through on a broad grin and turned toward the door, only to find an ugly man with an apparently broken ankle, a lazy eye, and some horribly sickly looking skin, shambling toward him.<br/><br/>The man immediately focused on Derek and seemed to begin moving faster, but Derek just stared at him, uncertain as to what was going on. Derek thought that for all the world the guy looked like what a zombie should, but zombies weren’t real; to think that the dead could come back to life was ridiculous! Wasn’t it? Still uncertain, Derek began backing away from the man, toward the back of the store in the direction that the woman had run. Then Nate, one of the other employees working the graveyard shift, popped up from Derek’s left, with a big fake grin and a hand extended, walking toward the man. Derek and Nate usually had competitions to see who could make the most sales, but Nate was just an idiot.<br/><br/>Derek’s paranoia seemed to be sound though, as the would be customer suddenly grabbed Nate by the shoulders, and bit into his throat, blood immediately spraying out and down Nate’s body. Revolted, Derek turned and sprinted toward the back of the store, eyes as wide as a deer’s. When he reached the back counter, he found Tommy comforting the panicked woman, but knew they didn’t have time for that. Without a word, Derek vaulted over the counter and went through the door behind it into the storeroom. He tore through racks and packages before finding what he was looking for: an FP6 sawn-off shotgun. Returning to the counter, and ignoring Tommy’s look of utter confusion, Derek waited.<br/><br/>After only a few moments, the zombie came into view, shambling toward the counter with Nate’s dark red blood smeared across its mouth and chin. In the classic movie style, the creature’s hands were out in front of it, as if reaching for its next meal, and its mouth hung open. Before it came within ten feet of the counter though, Derek fired and took the thing’s head clean off, the body dropping back onto the floor, and remaining there. Immediately, Tommy began shooting off question after question, but Derek just ignored him.<em>A zombie? Does that mean it’s the fucking apocalypse? Holy shit…what am I gonna do? Fuck this man..fuck this!</em>The thought that he might die before it was actually<em>legal</em>for him to drink only served to concern and piss Derek off even more, so he moved around the counter, steering clear of the ‘dead’ zombie, and moved into the aisles, careful to keep his gun ready.<br/><br/>He started by grabbing a duffle bag off of a shelf and then moved around, stuffing various things into it. A Kevlar vest, Ka-Bar bowie knife, flares, a flashlight, machete, and any number of other paraphernalia were shoved into it as he wove through aisles. Derek ended up at the end of an aisle, toward the entrance, when he noticed Nate’ body lying on the ground. Knowing full well what became of people after a zombie attack, he slowly marched toward the corpse and then, steeling himself and looking away, pulled the trigger. When he looked back, no part of Nate’s face was recognizable. Derek suppressed a shudder and then moved back toward the counter. Tommy seemed to have figured out what was going on, or perhaps the woman had told him, because he too had a shotgun in his hands, and the woman was holding a pistol.<br/><br/>Derek didn’t say anything as he passed them; he simply moved back into the store room and began rooting through the shelves again. He found what he wanted pretty quickly, and added an MP5 submachine gun and a crowbar to the duffle bag. Setting the bag down, he pulled out waist holster and a larger, back holster. Fastening both of them on, Derek slid a Glock 35 semiautomatic pistol into the holster on his waist, and then, after reloading it, slid his FP6 into the larger one on his back. Then, he found as much ammunition as he could, and stuffed it all into the bag.<br/><br/>As he walked back out of the room, Derek didn’t even look at Tommy, who was aghast at being stolen from by his own employee, or the woman. They were on their own, as far as he was concerned. He moved through the back rooms toward the employee parking lot, wanting to get the fuck out of that place before getting trapped behind a counter with nowhere to go. It occurred to him that he hadn’t seen Garrett, the other employee for some time either, and then he heard Tommy scream… Derek tried to ignore it as he fished out his keys and opened the door of his Cadillac Escalade, throwing the duffle bag onto the passenger’s seat before getting into his own and starting the car, grateful to have a trust fund. Shifting the large SUV into drive, Derek locked the cars and pulled off onto the street, ready to play Zombie Smasher.