I've seen silver turn to dross
Seen the very best there ever was
And I'll tell you, it ain't worth what it costs
And I remember my father's house
What I wouldn't give right now
Just to see him and hear him tell me that he loves me so much
Rule 24: Beware of malls, department stores and especially department stores in malls.
Austin penciled in his latest rule as he crouched in the elevator of Penney's. As it came to a stop on the third floor, he lunged for the close button. He wasn't fast enough. The door opened, and six zombies were waiting for him. He fired low as the doors opened, felling two zombies with wounds to the leg. He killed a third with a point-blank head shot. The doors started to close, but a zombie was already reaching through. Before the elevator doors could touch its outstretched arms, he grabbed it by the wrist and pulled it inside. It slammed into the wall on momentum, and three blows of the stock finished it. He pushed floor 1, and then penciled something else in his notebook:
Rule 25: Beware of elevators.
Suddenly and prematurely, the elevator stopped. He frantically slapped a shell in his shotgun. He raised it instinctively, but barely held his fire when he found himself looking into the face of the female leper. "Are you sure you don't want our help?" she said.
"* no!" He pounded on the close button. The leper kept the doors open with a thrust of her cane.
"Then we shall help ourselves!" Her companions reached in and dragged out the body of the zombie. As far as Austin had been able to determine, no one knew, as a matter of personal observation, why the lepers killed zombies and collected the bodies, but one single explanation was known to all and questioned by none.
The doors opened on the ground floor and the face of a single, poorly fed zombie. He blasted it and ran over its carcass, lifting the suitcase over the carcass. Behind him, a leper leaned out and spoke to another. He assured himself that he had not heard the leper say, "Shame, we cudda fattened tha' un up."
At least ten zombies approached at the sound of the shot, the most well-fed managing a jog. He ran, circling the bottom of a shaft that ran through all three floors. He flinched in disgust when he brushed past a severed leg dangling on a string. He glimpsed one of the zombies that followed stop to sample the flesh, and be promptly hauled up. He reached the bottom of an escalator and ran up, realizing too late that it was a down escalator. He ran faster, then looked over his shoulder and laughed to see a logjam of zombies at the bottom, striving with minimal success to go up the down escalator. He decided on a new, admittedly specialized rule:
Rule 26: Zombies can be evaded by running up a down escalator.
As Austin reached the top, a very fat zombie lurched into his path. He pulled the trigger, but the gun clicked empty. Foam bubbled in the zombie's throat as it stepped onto the escalator, while he tried in vain to retreat. Then the zombie fell headlong, letting fly with a spew that arced over his head. With luggage lifted as high as possible, he scampered over the carcass to the top. Waiting there were the female leper and a companion wielding what looked like a sack with a bowling ball in it.