His hand came away red.
The store manager pushed through the crowd. “Everyone, calm down! We’ve got?—”
The bitten woman lunged at him. Her teeth sank into his shoulder.
For a second, no one moved.
Then the entire store erupted.
People screamed and ran for the front doors.
The automatic doors slid open and shut as bodies slammed into them from both sides. Carts overturned. Someone fell and disappeared beneath a rush of feet.
The man who’d been bitten in the aisle stood slowly.
His head tilted at an unnatural angle.
Gray film slid across his eyes.
He grabbed the nearest customer and tore into his neck.
Blood sprayed across the shelves.
Derek stumbled backward into the pharmacy display. “Oh my God,” he whispered.
All around him, people were changing.
The coughing man collapsed and started convulsing.
A woman near the vitamins began clawing at her own throat before throwing herself at another shopper.
The screaming grew louder.
Then the fire alarm started.
The shrill wail echoed through the building as someone must have pulled the handle near the front doors.
Red emergency lights flashed.
The store turned into a nightmare.
A mother shoved her child under a cart and ran.
A man swung a metal shopping basket like a weapon.
Someone tried to climb over the checkout counters and began feasting on the employee at the register, joined soon by two more bitten people.
The infected were everywhere now.
They moved through the crowd like wolves.
Biting.
Eating.
Derek turned and ran for the back hallway.
The stockroom door slammed open as employees rushed out.
