Oh mah lawd zombehz are scurreh! – A short story by Conrad Clarke.

Jeffie Bagels woke up on the cold hard linoleum floor of the mall bathroom in a cold sweat. The vague smell of urine lingered from the shut stall door next to his head. His cell phone was beeping next to him, alerting him of new messages or missed calls or something. His priority was more about figuring out why he got there then what he had done on his phone the night before though. His head was ringing with pain as he pulled himself up off the floor and walked over to the sinks. He looked straight down and splashed some water on his face, before looking up into the mirror. He shook his head violently to knock off some of the water from his face. He walked over to the hot-air hand dryer machine, and put his face directly under it. The hot air was a change of pace from the cold hard floor of the mall. He went back and picked up his phone, pressing the small black button on the top of it to turn it on. He had already tapped in his password onto the smooth touch screen, smeared with too many un-wiped fingerprints, before realizing the screen had a large crack, going down the front before splitting off in two different directions, like the peace sign so often seen at nuclear protests. He cursed under his breath, checking that the time was indeed just past noon before shoving the shattered phone into the side pocket of his wet black jeans. He didn’t know what time the past night he had ended up in this bathroom. He couldn’t remember anything about last night for that matter. Perhaps he had a concussion he thought to himself, but his head felt fine so he didn’t think he had hit it off anything, although he must have ended up on the floor somehow. He heard the phone beep again, and then cut off. He pulled it out to find that the beeping was the cause of a low battery, now completely drained, rather than a message or call. He put it back in his pocket and walked over to the door to leave the bathroom, to find it was locked. He dropped onto his side and lucked under the door, only to see a key-ring just out of his reach on the floor outside. He wasn’t sure if it would open the bathroom door, but it was certainly worth a shot. But how could he get it? He sat for a moment, thinking of how to get it. He considered using his shirt, hesitating to get it dirty before realizing it was already covered in sweat. He could feel some bills in his pocket; maybe he could just buy a new shirt. He pulled the shirt off over his head and flattened it out on the floor. He squeezed it just under the door jam, and lifted it into the air and back down over the key ring, before pulling it back. He did this several times before finally getting it close enough to the door that he could squeeze out his index finger and pull it back and under the door. He got the key-ring, put back on his dirty, damp shirt with a slight cringe and started trying keys with the lock. On the sixth try he got the right key, and slowly turned it in the lock, suddenly becoming self-conscious of how much noise he was making. Maybe the stores were closed down for some odd reason, although he couldn’t think of why a mall would be closed at noon on a Saturday. Maybe there had been some kind of disaster, an earthquake or something. He stopped letting his imagination wander about such things, and pulled the key out of the lock, stepping out into the bright fluorescent lights squinting to adjust his eyes. A man in a white shirt and dark blue pants was crawling towards him. He saw a large cut on the mans face, and quickly realized he was wearing a uniform, and that he was mall security. He nearly vomited on sight of how much gore was splattered on the back of the mans torn up uniform shirt, especially with the cut on his face.