"Ok," said Dave. "I think that I got it. Let's get out of here."
Eric nodded his agreement and they both walked out of the storeroom. Dave found a chair that was probably used for fitting shoes and sat in it. Dave pulled on a pair of his new socks before pulling on the new sneakers. After tying up the laces, Dave stood up and walked over to the rack where he returned the display sneaker that he had carried around.
"Swish," said Eric.
"These are much better than the office-wear that I had on before. They absorb impacts much better. I'm never going back to my old shoes."
Dave looked into his bag. "Looks like I've got all that I wanted. What about yourself?"
Eric held up a bag. "I got a nice jumper. It's a bit cool sleeping up on the roof."
"And it's not even winter. Securing this shopping centre is really important."
"Yeah."
"And you reminded me. I need a jumper as well. Show me where you got yours."
Eric led Dave to the display table with the jumpers. Dave wasn't too picky and grabbed a jumper that was notably bigger than he normally would wear.
"Okay then," said Dave. "I think that this covers this store. Let's quickly go a newsagent."
"There's one just near here."
"Then lead the way."
Eric walked out of the clothing store and walked past a few stores before entering a newsagent. Dave followed Eric and immediately spotted an inclined display rack for batteries. Dave picked out a few that he needed before dropping them into the shopping bag that he had his new spare clothes in.
Dave spent a moment looking through the aisles of the newsagent. "There's probably more stuff that I need but I just can't think exactly what it is that I want. I had also hoped to find a few more particular items but I guess this store is too small or maybe it's the wrong place altogether for them. Might as well end our shopping trip for today."
"That's good timing. It's probably still not even dusk yet."
"Well then," said Dave. "Let's go upstairs and figure out what we can do before night fall."
Eric grinned his agreement. Together they started walking back to the shopping centre's rooftop.
* * *
When they exited the stairwell and came out onto the shopping centre's roof, Dave and Eric met Justin. There was a bit of excitement going on. It wasn't an over the top level of excitement, but compared to how it was before when Dave had first arrived it was still an incredible change.
"What's the deal?" asked Dave.
"People just appreciate all the food that you brought up earlier," said Justin.
"I'll be blunt," said Dave. "When I was up here before the people up here didn't really seem to have much energy. I'm impressed that a full stomach can improve someone's outlook so quickly."
Justin looked away from Dave and placed one of his hands behind his head. "I get where you're coming from. But you have to understand. We've all gone through some rough times. Most people here have gone through more roughness than others - I think that you can guess what I mean. I'd love it if everyone here was the pinnacle of productivity, but I think people just need some time to heal. I think the main problem is that we don't really know what is going on."
"I'm totally on board with that," said Dave as he walked over to his backpack that he left near the stairwell exit. Dave opened the backpack and pulled out his notepad and a pen.
Justin and Eric looked curiously at Dave as he walked back to the pair while holding up his notepad.
"It's not much," said Dave, "but I've been trying to write down any observations that I can."
"What sort of observations?" ask Justin.
Dave opened up the notepad. "Take how this thing spreads. So far I've only seen it spread by being bitten."
"When you say 'spread' you mean like a disease?"
"I can't really think what else it could be. Is it bacteria? Is it a virus? Is it a parasite? I don't know. All that I have is that it looks like a strange new disease that seems transmitted by direct contact, but that's the only theory that I've got so far."
"Why strange?"
"The way people are killed and then latter stand up is the obvious oddity. Put simply the dead shouldn't walk."
"I get the feeling that you mean more than that."
Dave looked serious. "You see it after the red eyed and grey skin dead attack living people. The attacks are really vicious. Flesh ripped open and even limbs torn off. The dead seem way more stronger than their original living counterpart could be. But the key point here is that living people who are attacked are torn to pieces."
"Weird," said Justin looking thoughtful. "I only remember seeing the dead walking about and looking unharmed. I don't remember seeing any with missing arms or legs, or even patches of skin torn away."
"Yeah. This is where the strange bit comes in. I'm guessing that the disease takes a bit to settle in, and there's an impossible penultimate step. Before standing up the torn up body reassembles itself."
"What?" said Justin.
"I think I've seen that," said a really pale Eric.
Dave nodded at Eric. "It really disturbing to see. Say a person had their arm ripped off. At this stage you'd see the arm sliding
