Brandon was sitting on the floor, his back against the wooden door. The creature outside beat and raged against the wood and Brandon just rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah.” He mumbled quietly. “I hear you, ya fuckhead.”

Brandon took the chance of leaning up slightly to reach for his knife again, but the door almost flew open. He jammed his back against the door again, slamming the wooden door back into place. He had to make a choice. He either had to grab the knife and risk the Deader getting at him while he scrambled around, or stay there and die without water.

He took a deep breath and lunged for the knife. The swinging door to the bathroom opened up and the reanimated produce department worker fell into the door. Brandon grabbed the knife and got it into his hand. He plunged it into the creature’s head, which had the consistency of a half rotted melon.

The creature stopped struggling and Brandon pushed it away. He stood and began to grab handfuls of papertowels, wiping the gunk off of his skin. He threw them on the floor and checked the taps. After a few moments, water chugged out of the faucet and into the basin. He used more papertowels and the water to try and scrub what was left of the creature’s gunk off of his skin. He checked the soap dispensers and nearly cried when the foamy bubbles came out. 

***

After a cold sink shower, he came out of the bathroom at the back of the grocery store with his wet hair slicked back. He smelled like mass market bathroom handsoap, but it was better than he had smelled in a very long time. He grabbed his hastily abandoned shopping cart and began putting the cans and dry goods into it. He thought about the meals he was going to be able to make with all of the things he found. Evaporated milk, macaroni and cheese, tinned meats… He felt like he was in heaven. He wouldn’t run out of the good foods for a good while at this rate. His family would have the best meals the apocalypse could offer and they would never go hungry again.