The warehouse was the smallest in the company, or so the manager claimed. At least you think it was the manager... it's been so long since you've seen another person that it could have been anyone. All you know for certain is that at least eight days have passed (judging by the way the clouded plastic skylight has turned from pale grey to pitch black and back to pale grey again) and you still don't feel tired, hungry or thirsty.
Before you were sent into the warehouse for something you can't quite remember and possibly haven't found yet, all anyone could talk about was this new flu strain that had been circulating the country. Some said it was from Europe, others said it had been dug up in an Arctic exploration but they all agreed that nobody really recovered from it.
There was something not right about those who survived the initial outbreak, something crooked and jagged in the way they move as if they were amateur marionettes. The medical reason was fever-induced nerve damage but it still didn't make the public any happier at the personality change that went alongside it.
You felt the first pangs of fever-ache when you woke up and by the time you'd arrived at work you were hot and cold at the same time, your bones felt like they were rattling inside a suit made of jelly and your vision pulsed steadily in time with your heartbeat.
Maybe that's why you were sent to the warehouse, so you couldn't infect the rest of the store and potentially shut them down for as long as the flu persisted. Strangely enough you started feeling fine around aisle K4 out of Z26.
That's when you decided to turn back, when you realised that you were well again (carefully ignoring how long you've been wandering, how you don't feel hungry or tired etcetera). All you had to do was follow the footsteps you'd made in the thick dust on the floor and eventually you'd be back in the store.
What you didn't consider was just how quickly the flu had spread and how the elderly didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of surviving it. Their bodies had been stacked neatly by the rear counter, piled up like purescent jenga bricks.
This was your fault.
Still you survived for a reason and as you headed for the front door you saw what that reason was.
Over half the glass front had been bricked up,the wall left unfinished, presumably due to the flu. As a glance over the top you could see how most of the town had already succumb to these... preventative measured and just how quiet it was as a result.
There was a chance for you to escape, to seek out other survivors and join their ranks, if they even existed. Perhaps the rest of the world was carrying on as usual and ignoring the former flu-infested areas in favour of bulking up the healthy zones?
No matter, all you had to do was break the glass and climb over the wall and you'd be fre- a noise came from the back of the store. At a glance you spotted nothing back there before you realised that's where the bodies had been. They were all gone and the faint sounds of wet flesh slapping against concrete grew louder and louder.
Night was coming and you wouldn't live to see it again.
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