After all your years as a shopper, hounded by overly-helpful clerks in spotless settings, it's a little creepy being in a trashed, empty store. The air feels as though something is lingering, but it's just the stench of the undead corpses in the room. Chuck works through a pile of smashed and scattered snack cakes to get behind the clerk's counter. Cake sprays the room as he makes a big deal about kicking the ruined snacks out of his way. As a crumbled Hostess cupcake soars across the room, you feel your heart break a bit.

"Canned soup," Sally says, holding up two dented cans. "They're dinged up, but still have nutritional value."

"Put them in here," Chuck says, tossing a bag he retrieved from behind the counter to Sally. He tosses a few to you and some to Louis. "Put everything you can fit in there. We gotta get out of here."

He's right. The store's large window is cracked and the door is stuck ajar. From the look of this place, you don't give it long before some more undead wonder in for some of that frozen meat or worse - you. So you load up. Sally and Louis are getting food. Chuck is savaging other necessities, flashlights, batteries, toilet paper. You grab a few first aid kits, then wander through the next aisle. Chips. You reach out for a bag of your favorite, but another hand beats you there, snatching them right from under your fingers.

"Hey, what gives?" you say, fully expecting the small hand to belong to Sally.

It isn't Sally. A tall brunette is staring daggers at you. "You can't have our food," she says angrily. "Been waiting in that back room for those creepers to clear out, but here you all come, spreading their zombie guts around. What they didn't destroy, you've splattered with their infection!"

"Easy, gal," a man says from your right. He's also tall, and favors the girl a great deal, with chestnut hair and murky green eyes. "Gotta excuse Hazel. She's a bit territorial, is all."

"Who the flying frig are you?" Chuck demands, walking straight up to the newcomer to size up.

The man doesn't seem intimidated. "Got a little spot of blood, just there," he tells Chuck, wiping a smudge on his cheek - Chuck jerks his head away. "I'm Lincoln, Link actually. This here's my sister Hazel, and I do believe we were here first, so if you don't mind-"

"Oh, we do mind," Chuck says.

"We cleared it out," you say justifiably.

"Please, we just want some supplies to hold us over," Sally says.

Suddenly gunshots ring out.

Steps two and three cont. - SKIP TO CHAPTER 43