This time Grey made sure that there wasn't any other zombie lurking around and gathered all the bodies in one place. It was a bit gross, but he made sure they were all stripped of anything useful and tied up. He wasn't sure if whatever zombification process simply failed on them for some reason, or they would turn later.

Better safe than sorry after all.

So far he managed to swipe a little short of 1000$ in cash, some credit cards, a packet of cigarettes, a lighter, a couple of bucks in loose change and a pocket knife. All in all, not a bad haul. Depending on whether society completely collapses later the money might or might not be completely useless, but maybe he could probably use it to bribe some idiots.

He wasn't sure what the hell was going on, but he was going to survive and meet up with the gang. Whatever could possibly be useful he'll take it, even if it was bolted down. For now, all that is certain was that it wasn't safe in the mall and he had to get out. This called for a check to scope out the situation.

The Macy was located on the second floor with the back entrance leading out to a built-in parking lot, there was nobody there in sight. He sneaked through the many mannequins and tables and saw that the front entrance leading into the mall had a small number of zombies, just one shy of a dozen.

"Shit," While Grey was pretty good at fighting if he was to say so himself and beating such clumsy creatures would've been a walk in the park even on his worst days, but factor in the numerical advantage, the fact that they had no self-preservation nor pain receptors, and the fact that all they needed was one glancing hit to potentially do him in and even he wasn't that stupid enough to charge in.

"How many of those things are there? Were there other survivors besides me?"

He couldn't do this blind. This required more info. Setting up a facetime call between two of the stolen phones, the young boy placed hid one on a table between two stacks of T-shirts before crawling back to the back entrance. Looking through the staff room he managed to pilfer a PB&J and a bottle of Gatorade. There was other food in the mini fridge, but he wasn't sure how long they've been there and would rather not risk getting cramps during the apocalypse. At least that's what he told himself, it had nothing to do with the fact that he hated pickles. and tomatoes. And olives. Ok, so he was a picky eater, bite him. Besides, there was a food court 5 minutes away that he was planning to raid and go through anyway.

"Know thy enemies... I really hope you're right on this Sun Tzu, cuz I really can't afford to lose even once." Grey muttered as he carefully watched the movements of the zombies on his phone while eating lunch. He had made sure to only grab what was sealed and also use hand sanitizer. It took 30 minutes for him to finish resting and compiling what he saw.

1. Zombies have no sense of touch.

He learned this first hand from the initial encounter. None of them so much as flinched even as he systematically broke their body. From broken arms and legs to fractured ribs and toes, nothing phrased them if not head blows.

2. Zombies have no sense of spatial awareness.

One of the idiots walked right off the second floor. Nuff said.

3. Zombies are undead.

The last one might have sounded redundant or even idiotic, but it was very important to confirm. Watching a woman with missing legs groan and drag her bloodied torso around mindless was disturbing, to say the least. This wasn't induced by mind control or some strange fungus taking over the brain such as the zombie-ant fungus. In those cases killing the host even if they ignored injuries would still stop them and they would still need food or rest. Undead won't ever stop.

4. Zombies don't convert the already dead.

If a zombie finds a corpse it merely eats it, and the leftovers, if there even was any, of the meals don't become reanimated. Of course, this is just a hypothesis, perhaps it simply needed more than the hour spent so far, or there are some other unknown factors at play. He didn't think that was so, but it needed more observation, for now, he shall make a note to be careful and to confirm it after getting out.

Tossing his trash carefully in the bin, because the end of the world is no excuse to leave his trash hanging around or litter, he took a deep calming breath before getting up to do he has been putting off this entire time. The store was quiet as he was the only person in the store, however, as he walked further in there came a low guttural growl. Step by step he slowly approached the source of the sound, walking pass an escalator which he had blocked off with a heavy wooden table. Barely a meter away from the escalator was a zombie, except unlike the ones shambling outside, this one was tied up and dangling over the balcony by a piece of rope.

"Yo! How's it hanging?"

Evidently not too well if the roar in response was any indication. The sight might've been humorous, a man being hogtied and dangling as if a fishing tackle. That is if he wasn't covered in blood and missing a pulse.

"Yeah, I know, that was bad."

Grey walked closer to the undead as he stared at it carefully in consideration.

"Don't worry old man, I'll put you out of your misery soon, I just need you to help me get some answers first.” He was almost thankful he was seemingly all alone in this hell hole so that nobody could see the atrocity that was about to be committed here.

After all, even by his standards of moral ambiguity, this was going to be pretty inhumane.

As he approached the creature he pulled out a lighter from his shirt pocket, bright blue eyes gained a hint of steel. For a moment he simply watched as the flames danced between them, watched as the monster didn’t so much as blink with the sudden change in light and heat. Even as he brought it ever closer until he could practically smell the nauseating scent of roasted meat, there was only unseeing glassy orbs staring back at him. He made a mental note in his Zombie Survival Guide 101- Zombies can not track through thermal fluctuations. Thank god for small mercies. 

He placed the lighter away and slowly pulled out the pocket knife next.

He admired how the iridescent blade gleamed beautifully under the fluorescent lights. That was until he decided to give it a fresh crimson coating. 3 inch of cold steel sank into unholy flesh without so much as a hint of resistance. It seems the creatures didn’t become more durable after coming back from the grave. Not that he had stabbed many people to be able to fully compare, but he had plenty of "volunteers" to chose from nearby after all so it wasn’t an issue to double check later. Somewhere along the way it became aware of his presence, the thrashing was only mildly annoying as it couldn’t very well move while tied up, but it was mostly the screaming that bothered him. Along with the flying spittle, talk about gross and rude much? 

“Say it, don’t spray it asshole.”

Ignoring the mindless gurgling coming from the zombie he proceeded with his experiment. Two neat slices just below the rib cage and a final one down the navel and just pass the belly button and he had a very good view of the inner workings of the freshly resurrected.

Dead men may tell no tales, but he had ways to make this little birdy sing.