Hunger dragged David back to his feet like a cruel puppeteer. The energy he'd burned processing dead chefs and zombie transformations had left him lightheaded and shaking. His stomach gnawed at itself with increasing desperation.

  "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

  His father's old pep talk felt absurd in the current circumstances, but it worked. David forced himself upright. He was alive. That made him stronger than everyone else he'd encountered so far.

  New objective: find out what happened to his family. That meant fixing his phone. Or more accurately, charging his dead phone after two days of apocalypse-induced unconsciousness.

  CVS would have charging cables. CVS would have food. CVS might even have answers.

  The walk to the intersection proved mercifully uneventful. Too quiet, but uneventful. David kept his head on a swivel, newly aware that zombies definitely qualified as the "increasing danger" his quest had warned about.

  The CVS sat dark and silent at the corner. No neon signs. No humming freezers. No automatic doors cycling open and shut for nonexistent customers.

  But also no chaos. No smashed windows or overturned cars. No signs of panic or looting or mass exodus. The parking lot held the usual scattering of vehicles, parked neatly between the lines like their owners might return any moment.

  It was like the world had simply... paused.

  Traffic lights hung dead at the intersection. Several vehicles were visible on the main road. Looking like they had come to a halt after someone just stopped pressing on the gas pedal and they coasted into whatever a low speed. No engines running, no noise, no open doors.

  David ignored the cars for now and approached the CVS entrance with growing unease. The automatic doors didn't react to his presence. He tried the manual accessibility door beside them.

  It opened smoothly.

  The interior hit him with a wave of stale air and the distinct smell of a place without climate control. Dim emergency lighting cast everything in sickly yellow tones, but the store looked... normal.

  Shelves fully stocked. Displays undisturbed. Register drawer closed and locked. Even the impulse-buy candy racks remained perfectly organized.

  The only thing out of place was the CVS employee slumped behind the counter.

  David froze, studying the figure. Red vest, name tag, keys still clipped to a belt loop. The employee had simply collapsed where they stood, like someone had flipped their off switch.

  Then he caught the smell. Grass clippings and rot, faint but unmistakable. Dark stains spread across the red vest in slowly expanding patches.

  The transformation had begun.

  David backed away from the counter, scanning the aisles. How many others were in here? How many ticking time bombs wrapped in human skin?

  Hunger made the decision for him. His stomach cramped so hard he nearly doubled over. Whatever danger this situation presented, it would have to wait until he could think clearly. just don’t go near them, or into corners...

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  He grabbed the first bag of chips he saw and tore it open.

  Salt, fat, and processed carbohydrates exploded across his taste buds like a revelation. David had never been so grateful for junk food in his life. He stuffed handfuls of chips into his mouth while juggling an armload of energy drinks, jerky, and whatever else he could carry.

  The warm soda was flat. The energy drink tasted way better cold than warm but he didn’t care. He'd never experienced anything more delicious.

  Only after the edge came off his hunger did David remember he wasn't alone in the store.

  A systematic sweep revealed three other occupants.

  The first lay sprawled in front of the pain medication, transformed beyond easy recognition. Green-black slime had hardened into a cocoon around the body, forming a chitinous shell with clothes and jewelry embedded in the surface like insects in amber. No smell. No movement. Just a person-shaped chrysalis waiting for something to hatch.

  The second figure sat in the beauty section, slumped against a display of shampoo bottles. A woman, middle-aged, still recognizably human. No visible transformation yet, but David could smell the beginning stages. Sweet and cloying, like fruit on the edge of rot.

  The third occupied the candy aisle, close enough that David had walked right past him. Male, young, wearing a college sweatshirt. Fresh slime oozed from his pores in thick droplets, and his body twitched rhythmically like a broken marionette.

  David kept his distance from all of them. Whatever they were becoming, he didn't want to find out through direct contact.

  The moral implications of looting hit him as he stuffed supplies into his laptop bag. His mother's voice echoed in his head, full of disappointment at his sticky fingers.

  Then logic reasserted itself. The world had ended. The staff were either dead or transforming. The register was locked and the power was out anyway.

  He'd leave cash if it made him feel better, but taking supplies wasn't stealing. It was survival.

  David worked quickly, loading up on essentials. Energy drinks for caffeine. Water for hydration. Jerky and nuts for protein. A phone charger from the electronics section. Medical supplies from the pharmacy aisles.

  The figure in the candy aisle twitched more violently as David moved around the store, as if reacting to his presence. David gave him a wide berth and grabbed chocolate from the opposite end cap instead.

  His ex-girlfriend had introduced him to the expensive Swiss stuff. Overpriced pretentious nonsense, he'd called it. Now it might be one of his last tastes of the old world.

  The painkillers presented a problem. They sat directly across from the hardening cocoon that used to be a person. David needed them more than almost anything else he'd collected, but approaching meant getting within arm's reach of something that might not be as dormant as it appeared.

  He studied the chitinous shell, looking for signs of movement or awareness. Nothing. The transformation seemed to have reached some kind of stasis point.

  David crept forward, eyes locked on the cocoon, and snatched the first bottle of ibuprofen his fingers found. He scurried backward without taking his gaze off the motionless figure.

  No reaction. Whatever was inside that shell wasn't ready to emerge yet.

  He added rubbing alcohol and bandages to his haul, then grabbed extra plastic bags from the checkout area. His laptop bag bulged at the seams, the strap cutting into his shoulder under the weight.

  Sixteen dollars. That's all the cash in his wallet. David left it on the counter next to the register, a pathetic gesture toward maintaining some semblance of civilization.

  The employee behind the counter had begun to smell stronger. The stains on their vest had spread and darkened. David estimated he had maybe hours before this place became actively dangerous.

  He shouldered his overstuffed bag and headed for the exit, pausing only to grab two more candy bars. If these were his last meals from the before times, he might as well make them count.

  The automatic doors remained stubbornly closed, forcing him to use the manual exit again. As he stepped back into the morning sun, David allowed himself a moment of dark satisfaction.

  He'd survived another encounter. He had supplies. He had a plan.

  Most importantly, he'd learned something crucial about this new world: the apocalypse was polite. It waited for you to fall unconscious before transforming you. It left the infrastructure intact. It even kept the stores fully stocked.

  How considerate.

  Now he just had to figure out where everyone else had gone and why he seemed to be the only one who'd woken up normal.

  The pillar of light beckoned from downtown, promising answers he wasn't sure he wanted to hear.