The mid-afternoon sun beat down on the asphalt while several men in yellow vests worked at a thankless task. Recently, these city workers had been tasked with repairing a sunken area of road near the Archers department store.

While the road was blocked off and separated from the main highway by an additional barrier. The man tasked with slowing any traffic that was not deterred by the signs stepped forward. A car was approaching at high speed.

He showed the stop side of his slow and stop sign. The car’s driver did not care. If anything, the car sped up.

“Hey! Stop!” shouted the city worker.

The car whipped through the area without concern for the workers. Thankfully the driver was able to swerve around the work trucks well enough to avoid an accident, but it was close.

“Asshole!” snarled the city worker.

“The hell just happened?” asked another worker from the pit nearby. The area of road that had caved in was attached to the sewer system. As things stood, there was no need to use the nearby manhole as there was a gentle slope that they could walk down to enter the sewer due to the cave-in.

“Some jackass came flying through here without stopping,” said the sign wielder.

“Shit! What happened to the barricade up ahead?” asked the man.

Two more cars, and a truck, suddenly appeared. They were also driving at a break-neck speed.

“Shit!” The sewer worked waved the sign holder back when it became apparent that they would not stop either.

“What do we do?” asked the sign holder.

“What can we do? Let them through and have the safety cam get their info so we can show it to the cops,” replied the other man.

Another worker popped up out of the hole. “What’s going on?”

“People driving like their asses are on fire,” replied the second man.

The men discussed the situation for a moment. Once or twice in a day was too much. It usually took a few weeks between the times when people ran the sign and kept going. Curious to see if anything was happening in that direction, they put one of the men up in the bucket of their boom truck. It did not take long for him to see the trouble.

“It’s the fog!” called the man over the sound of the truck engine.

“Shit!” snapped the second man. “How far?”

“We could probably pack up and leave now. Just beat it…” said Bucket Man.

Standing orders as they were, it was impossible to work when the fog rolled in. The second man, the foreman of the crew, told everyone to shut down and get ready to go. They tidied the barricade around the hole, then finished up and headed back to the office.

Soon, the fog rolled across the area. Hours passed. The early afternoon soon became late afternoon.

In the back room of Archers, the mildly dynamic duo of Dad and Other Dad, were busy tidying the place up. They could have been done over an hour ago, but with the fog going strong they were stuck in the store. If they couldn’t leave, they might as well earn a little more money. Right?

Tyrone, or dad in this instance, yawned then lightly flexed his muscles. “Man. This is some bullshit. Shoulda been off a while ago.”

“Ain’t that right, Other Scott?” he asked his heterosexual life mate.

Other Scott, also known as Other Dad, gave him the look. “Don’t you start with that…”

“Not my fault your mother named you after that one guy everyone here knows,” said Tyrone.

His pale friend muttered to himself a little then waved his hand. “Hey. You know my true name now. Just use that.”

“Hell no. I don’t care what you call yourself in the dream. My grandma would make me cut a switch If I started calling you Beelzebub273…” Tyrone snorted at him. “Kinda shit is that? Were you lonely as a child or something?”

“It was randomly chosen! I couldn’t think of a name. I was too busy crapping my pants. You were too, and you know it,” said Other Scott.

“Couldn’t even get the name first. Like two hundred seventy other dudes ahead of you calling themselves that,” said Tyrone.

“It was random!” asserted Other Scott.

“Whatever, fam.” Tyrone rubbed his chin for a moment while he pretended to think about something profound. Finally, he declared a ruling, “You shall be known as Bee. Happy now?”

“Better than Other Scott,” said Bee. He then eyed his better half. “At least I have a different name…”

“Whatever! Tyrone is a powerful ass name! Why change it?” asked Tyrone.

“Say what you want. You know you’re one of those dudes who plays a game and changes the main character’s name to your name,” said Bee.

Tyrone put his hands on his hips and swayed his head from side to side in a sassy manner. “There ain’t nothing wrong with that!”

“Says the guy who had a spiky haired Tyrone take Barret on a date at the Gold Saucer,” countered Bee.

“I heard a rumor that if you did that, you could save Aeris! You know she’s my girl,” said Tyrone.

“Aerith, and she’s Zack’s girl,” said Bee.

“Aeris!” exclaimed Tyrone. He puffed up his chest and flexed his pecs.

Bee tried to flex his bird chest, but he looked like he was attempting to lay an egg. So, he stopped. “Aerith!”

“I ain’t got a damn lisp! It’s Aeris!” retorted Tyrone.

“It was just a bad translation,” countered Bee.

“So’s your mama, fam!” exclaimed Tyrone with wild eyes and an exaggerated sway of his head.

Bee took a step back, threw up his hands and gasped in apparent shock. He began to speak in a hurt sounding tone that was obviously fake while he used his hands for emphasis. “Oh? Oh... We bringing mamas into this? Alright…”

“Wait,” said Tyrone. A bead of sweat formed on his forehead then slowly began to slide down. “Now, there’s no need to go there…”

Their inevitable battle of the mama jokes was halted by a terrified shriek nearby. They stopped cold, looked at each other, then ran off toward the loading bay.

Karen, an older woman who worked in soft lines stood atop the conveyor belt with badly damaged vacuum cleaner in her hands. The ugliest dog either of the men had ever seen kept trying to jump up to get her, but each time she swung her vacuum at it and smacked it back down. However, the thing did not seem to be hurt at all.

“Shit! Does it have rabies?” asked Tyrone.

Bee looked around quickly for something to use to fight the thing off. Tyrone ran in to help her out while shouting for someone to call animal control.

“No! No!” screamed Karen while she flailed wildly at the beast with her busted vacuum cleaner. Blood poured from her arms and legs in the places where the creature had managed to get a taste of her already.

“Ty!” shouted Bee, just as his bro had hopped up onto the conveyor belt.

Tyrone looked back and saw Bee throw something toward him. His aim was a little off, but Tyrone managed to catch it anyway.

He grinned like a fool and swung the plastic handled sledgehammer that he’d been gifted by his partner. Karen barely noticed them. The creature attacking her was relentless. It snapped and leapt at her with every opportunity presented.

“Karen! Get back!” shouted Tyrone. She finally noticed him, but not until the dog managed to snap its teeth around the cord of her vacuum. It nearly yanked her off the conveyor belt, but she let go of it in time.

It tried for her again, but this time Tyrone’s hammer cracked it across the head. It fell to the ground with a yelp but did not seem to be particularly hurt. Thankfully, Bee appeared with a thick plastic tarp.

Bee tackled the dog while using the tarp to restrict its movements. Tyrone hopped from the conveyor belt and went to work with his hammer. It took far longer than either of them would have guessed, but eventually the hideous critter stopped moving.

“The hell was with this thing?” asked Tyrone.

“Monster,” mumbled Karen fretfully. She tried to stop the bite on her arm from bleeding, but it was clear she would need more than her hands.

“Yeah, sure acted like one. Hope it isn’t rabid,” said Bee.

“No.” Karen looked at them like they were stupid. “Didn’t you see? It had a name and level.”

“What?” asked Bee.

“You sure?” asked Tyrone.

“Yeah. Scarvulf level three,” said Karen.

They were going to question her more, but they were distracted by a low moan that came from nearby. At the open backdoor there stood a man. His long black hair was plastered against his face, so they could not even get a good look at him. He seemed to be dressed in rags and it also seemed as though he had fallen into a pool or something. He was soaked head to toe.

Karen back-peddled slightly. Tyrone saw her do it but thought nothing of it. The stench coming off the guy was ridiculous. Even he wanted to just turn around and go nowhere near the dude. “Hey! Sorry man. You gotta go. You can’t be back here.”

The man slowly turned toward Tyrone. His hair fell back slightly to reveal a withered face. One side of his mouth had been torn open, and his eyes were glossed over like the eyes of a corpse.

“Holy shit,” said Bee, his mouth agape. He pointed at the man and shouted, “Zombie!”

Tyrone rolled his eyes. “You always seein’ zombies, fam…”

The zombie moaned again then began to stagger towards them. Bee was a little closer to the man than Tyrone, but once it stepped forward, he too saw that they faced a level ten zombie.

The stench was real. It was as though the thing had crawled out of the sewer instead of its grave!