It's been like this for the last six months. Everything smells the same. Death. Decay. The sickly sweetness of things that used to be alive. You push the door open with your shoulder—it's been jammed halfway for weeks now—and slip inside.

Shelves stripped clean. Glass littering the floor. A single fluorescent light flickers overhead, humming like a dying insect. The counter's been smashed in, the register gutted, and behind it, a body lies sprawled. Dead before the turn. You can tell by the color. Grey, but not that grey. Not the kind that gets up and keeps moving.

Your boots crunch over debris as you move deeper in. The back room. That's where the good stuff usually ends up. If there's any left. If someone else hasn't already picked it clean.

The door to the back is ajar. A sliver of darkness spills out into the dim light of the main shop. You freeze. Listen.

Silence. Heavy. Pressing against your ears.

Then a noise. Soft. Wet. Like something breathing through a mouthful of blood.