The hallway outside the kitchen smelled like a combination of copper pennies and the break room microwave after someone reheated fish. Kevin held the chef's knife in front of him like a divining rod, its blade catching the dim emergency lighting that still flickered along the baseboards.
"This is a terrible idea," he whispered.
"You've said that four times," Rachel whispered back, the fire extinguisher cradled against her chest like a steel infant.
"Because it keeps being true."
Behind them, the group shuffled forward in a ragged line. Priya walked second, her posture loose and balanced in a way that Kevin now recognized as someone who knew how to throw a punch. Marcus crept along the left wall, his phone held out like a flashlight, the screen casting pale blue shadows across his face.
"I feel like we're in a horror movie," Marcus said. "Like, the part where the audience is yelling at us not to go in."
"We're going in," Kevin said.
"Yeah, that's what they always say."
The main corridor of Evergreen Mountain Lodge stretched ahead of them, long and dim and absolutely still. The carpet -- a corporate burgundy that had probably looked respectable twelve hours ago -- was now streaked with dark stains. An overturned luggage cart lay on its side, one wheel still spinning with a lazy squeak. Motivational posters lined the walls, their inspirational messages now reading like epitaphs.
"REACH FOR THE STARS." Beneath it, a bloody handprint.
"EVERY DAY IS A NEW OPPORTUNITY." The glass cracked, a smear of something across the frame.
"BELIEVE IN YOURSELF." Untouched, which somehow made it worse.
Derek pressed close behind Karen, who was pressing close behind Carl, who was pressing close behind a woman named -- Kevin realized with a sick lurch that he still didn't know her name. She'd been with them since the kitchen. Brown hair, maybe late thirties, a lanyard with a conference badge he'd never gotten close enough to read. She'd barely spoken. He should have asked.
He should have asked a lot of things.
"Conference room is down this hall, left at the T-junction, then straight through the atrium," Priya whispered from behind him. She'd apparently memorized the building layout from the fire escape maps. Of course she had.
"Marcus, scout ahead to that corner. Peek around and report back."
Marcus gave a thumbs up and moved forward with the easy, low crouch of someone who'd played too many video games. But it worked. He was quiet, quick, and when he reached the corner, he pressed flat against the wall and slowly tilted his head to look.
Kevin waited. Ten seconds. Twenty. Felt like a lot more. Behind him, he could hear Carl's breathing -- ragged, too fast, the sound of a man one surprise away from a full breakdown. Karen took a sip from her flask with the practiced discretion of someone who'd been doing it at work for years.
Then Marcus tilted his head back and held up three fingers.
Three zombies.
Kevin crept forward until he was beside Marcus and looked for himself.
The T-junction was lit by a single emergency light that washed everything in a dim orange-red. Three figures stood in the hallway, swaying gently. Two were in khakis and company polos -- drone zombies, just regular employees who'd been in the wrong place. They moved with that familiar jerky shuffle, arms hanging, jaws working soundlessly.
The third one made Kevin's stomach drop.
It was wearing a "HELLO MY NAME IS" sticker on its chest. The handwriting was cheerful, looping, feminine. The name read *Denise.* Below it, in smaller letters: *She/Her, VP of Human Resources, Fun Fact: I collect vintage lunch boxes!*
The icebreaker. From yesterday morning. Kevin had stood in a circle with this woman and shared his name and a fun fact. His fun fact had been "I once ate an entire large pizza by myself," which Denise had called "a journey." She'd been so alive, so aggressively positive, and now she was dragging one foot through a puddle of something dark, her clipboard still clutched in one gray hand.
"That's Denise," Rachel breathed beside him. He hadn't heard her approach.
"I know."
"She still has the clipboard."
"I know."
Denise-zombie bumped into the wall, turned forty-five degrees with mechanical precision, and continued walking. Her mouth opened and closed in a pattern that might have been words. Kevin strained to listen.
"...team-building... synergy... mandatory fun..."
"Jesus Christ," Kevin muttered.
"She's still doing the icebreaker," Rachel said. There was no humor in her voice. Not yet. Give it a minute.
Kevin signaled the group forward. They'd have to get past the three zombies to reach the atrium. He pointed to the right-hand wall and mimed moving along it while the zombies faced the other direction. Everyone nodded.
They moved.
For twenty beautiful seconds, it worked. The group slid along the wall like shadows, feet barely whispering on the ruined carpet. Kevin kept his eyes on Denise, watching her shuffle pattern, timing their movement to her turns.
Then Kevin saw the atrium.
It had been a grand open space -- two stories tall, glass ceiling, a decorative waterfall feature that TechSolve had rented for the "ambiance." The waterfall was still running, its gentle burble now providing soundtrack to a scene from hell.
Bodies. Dozens of them. Some sprawled on the tile floor, truly dead, their limbs at angles that human joints don't allow. Others were upright, milling in loose groups. Kevin saw a cluster of five near the reception desk, all wearing matching blue blazers.
"Sales team," Priya whispered. She was right. Even in death, the sales department moved in a pack. They were circling the reception desk in a tight formation, bumping into each other, making aggressive gestures at nothing. One kept extending its hand as if reaching for a handshake that would never come.
"They're still doing the pitch," Marcus whispered, a note of awed horror in his voice. "They're literally still selling."
Kevin mapped a route through the atrium. Hug the left wall, past the water feature, through the double doors at the far end. The conference room was just beyond. Maybe sixty feet of open ground.
Sixty feet of zombies.
"Single file. Stay tight. Stay quiet." Kevin looked back at the group. Derek's face was the color of old paper. Carl was crying silently, which was actually an improvement -- at least it was silent. Karen had her flask in one hand and a meat tenderizer in the other, looking like the world's most terrifying bartender.
And the woman without a name -- she was shaking. Not just fear-shaking. Full-body tremors, the kind that start in the chest and radiate outward. Her eyes were too wide.
"Hey," Kevin whispered to her. "What's your name?"
"T-Tanya."
"Tanya. Stay close to me, okay? We're going to--"
"They're everywhere. Oh God, they're everywhere."
"Tanya, look at me. Just look at me and walk."
She nodded. She was not okay.
They entered the atrium.
Kevin led them along the left wall, stepping over a body that was definitely dead -- skull caved in, no movement. The waterfall masked their footsteps, which was the first kind thing the universe had done all day. The sales zombie pack was twenty feet to their right, still working the phantom client, still gesturing with empty hands.
Thirty feet to the doors. Twenty feet. Fifteen.
Kevin's shoe squeaked on something wet.
The sound was small. Tiny, even. But the nearest sales zombie's head snapped toward them with the speed of a striking snake. Its dead eyes found Kevin. Its mouth opened.
And it began to pitch.
"RRRRRR... COMPETITIVE... RRRATES..." The words came out gargled, broken, forced through a throat that wasn't fully functional. But the intent was unmistakable. It was giving its sales presentation. To Kevin. Right now.
The other sales zombies turned.
"Move," Kevin hissed. "NOW."
The group broke into a fast walk, then a jog. The sales pack surged forward, arms outstretched, mouths working, a chorus of fragmented pitches overlapping into a hellish drone: "...RRRETURN ON INVESTMENT... SSSCALABLE... LEVERAGE SYNERGIES..."
They were fast. Sales had always been aggressive, and death hadn't changed that.
Ten feet to the doors. Five.
Behind Kevin, Tanya screamed.
Not a small scream. Not a contained scream. A full-volume, from-the-diaphragm, this-is-how-I-die scream that bounced off the atrium's glass ceiling and came back twice as loud.
Every zombie in the room turned.
"TANYA, RUN!" Kevin grabbed for her arm, but she'd frozen. Fight, flight, or freeze -- and she'd landed on the worst possible option. She stood rooted to the tile, screaming, as the atrium came alive with movement.
The sales pack reached her first.
Kevin was three steps away. He could turn back. He could fight through them, grab her, pull her out. He could--
Priya's hand closed on his shoulder. Not gentle. Not a suggestion. A grip that said *no.*
"Kevin." Her voice was flat, calm, and terrible. "The group."
He looked back at Tanya. The sales zombies had surrounded her, reaching, grasping, their broken pitch becoming a feeding frenzy of handshakes and bites. She was still screaming but the sound was changing, becoming something else, something he knew he'd hear in his sleep for however long he had left.
"KEVIN, WE HAVE TO GO!" Rachel was pulling his other arm.
He went.
He went because Priya was right. He went because seven people were still alive and he could keep them that way. He went because the math was simple and horrible: one person or seven.
He went because he couldn't save her, and staying would just mean watching.
They burst through the double doors and slammed them shut. Marcus and Carl grabbed a heavy oak bench from the hallway and shoved it against the doors. The banging started immediately -- dozens of fists, hundreds of fingers, the muffled soundtrack of a sales pitch delivered by things that used to be people.
Kevin stood with his hands on his knees, breathing hard, the chef's knife hanging from fingers that wouldn't stop trembling. The screaming from the atrium had stopped. He told himself that was because the doors were thick.
He knew it wasn't.
"You couldn't have saved her," Priya said quietly, standing beside him.
"You don't know that."
"Yes, I do. I've assessed threat scenarios for a living, Kevin. If you'd gone back, we'd be having this conversation about two people instead of one."
"Great. That's great. Very HR of you."
"It's not HR. It's reality."
Rachel put her hand on his back. She didn't say anything. There wasn't anything to say.
"Her name was Tanya," Kevin said to no one. "I didn't even ask until five minutes ago."
The silence that followed was the loudest thing he'd ever heard.
Derek cleared his throat. "We should, uh. We should keep moving. The conference room--"
"I know where the conference room is, Derek."
"Right. Of course. I was just... facilitating."
Kevin straightened up, wiped his face with the back of his hand, and looked down the corridor. Thirty feet ahead, a pair of heavy wooden doors stood closed. A sign beside them read: *GRAND BALLROOM / CONFERENCE CENTER -- CAPACITY 200.*
"There," he said. "That's where we're going."
They walked the thirty feet in silence. No zombies here -- the corridor was empty, eerily quiet. When they reached the doors, Kevin grabbed the brass handle and pulled.
It didn't move.
He pulled harder. Nothing. The door was solid, immovable.
"Locked?" Rachel asked.
Kevin knelt down and looked at the gap beneath the doors. He could see shadows on the other side. But more than that -- he could see something wedged against the door from the inside. Chairs. Tables. A barricade.
Someone had done this deliberately.
"Not locked," Kevin said slowly. "Barricaded."
"From the inside?" Marcus's eyes went wide.
Kevin pressed his ear against the door. And through two inches of oak, he heard it: the unmistakable sound of another human being breathing.
Someone was already in there.
