Scene: 3rd shift convenience store, round 3am
Me: Your plucky hero
Zombie Man: Out of luck
Our store makes us lock the doors after midnight, and serve customers through a little pass through window. This means I have to fetch items, make their coffee, and bathrooms are off limits. Usually not bad, since we have very few customers overnight anyway.
As I'm doing my thing inside the store, I hear a rat-rat-rattling upon my door. Not weird, people are great at missing the sign I have taped to the door, explaining they have to use the window just to their left. I walk past the door on my way behind the counter, and gesture to the person to come to the window.
The man continues rattling the door, and occasionally peers in through the glass at the dimly-lit shopping floor. Eventually I return to the door, and shout through it to use the window to their left. This gets a breif pause in the rattling, as if he was slowly comprehending what was going on here. Somewhere in the rotten quagmire of his brain, however, my message came to a screetching halt, as he resumed trying to shake the locked door open. No gesturing, pointing, or verbal commands were diverting him from his quest to come in through the door.
So, despite corporate "rules" to the contrary, I unlocked and opened the door, thinking maybe there was some logical explaination for their fevered desire to enter. Accident, drug overdose, medical emergency, etc. As soon as the barricade in front of him opened, he made a purposeful lunge forward to clear the threshold. Tragically, this only resulted in him meeting me chest to chest. His path still barred.
Now I am not a small person, taking up six feet and 290 pounds of "nope". Yet somehow his much smaller, much lighter, much weaker frame insisted that it could make the dream of entry a reality.
Me: Can I help you?
ZM: *mumble*
Me: Im sorry, you cant come inside.
ZM: *mumble groan mumble*
At this point, I brought my hand between us, and placed it firmly on his chest. Something must have still held a pulse, deep in his rotted, fetid brain, for he stopped trying to push past me. However, he did not retreat, merely stood his ground, shoulder planted in my chest. It was like his last three functioning brain cells were giving their last sparks of life to fire off a warning of what was about to happen. To my amazement, they must have gotten through, communicated by his eyes getting wide as my fingers grasped a handful of his shirt.
After several minutes of "forward, forward, damn the torpedos, full steam ahead!", he organized a retreat. Too late, sadly, as I now had a good grip of him, and quickly turned his backwards stumbling into a full stop, lifting up on his shirt so it was just under his chin.
Me: What do you want?
ZM: Uh...I gotta use the bathroom.
Me: We're closed. If you're not out of my parking lot in two minutes, the [local municipality] Police will be here in less than one. Goodbye.
I let go, swung the door shut, and locked it. Quickly retreating into the store, I watched him from my ninja-squirrel hiding place, where I couldnt be seen by him. He shambled his way out of the parking lot, and off into the misty night, to be someone elses undead problem.
Me: Your plucky hero
Zombie Man: Out of luck
Our store makes us lock the doors after midnight, and serve customers through a little pass through window. This means I have to fetch items, make their coffee, and bathrooms are off limits. Usually not bad, since we have very few customers overnight anyway.
As I'm doing my thing inside the store, I hear a rat-rat-rattling upon my door. Not weird, people are great at missing the sign I have taped to the door, explaining they have to use the window just to their left. I walk past the door on my way behind the counter, and gesture to the person to come to the window.
The man continues rattling the door, and occasionally peers in through the glass at the dimly-lit shopping floor. Eventually I return to the door, and shout through it to use the window to their left. This gets a breif pause in the rattling, as if he was slowly comprehending what was going on here. Somewhere in the rotten quagmire of his brain, however, my message came to a screetching halt, as he resumed trying to shake the locked door open. No gesturing, pointing, or verbal commands were diverting him from his quest to come in through the door.
So, despite corporate "rules" to the contrary, I unlocked and opened the door, thinking maybe there was some logical explaination for their fevered desire to enter. Accident, drug overdose, medical emergency, etc. As soon as the barricade in front of him opened, he made a purposeful lunge forward to clear the threshold. Tragically, this only resulted in him meeting me chest to chest. His path still barred.
Now I am not a small person, taking up six feet and 290 pounds of "nope". Yet somehow his much smaller, much lighter, much weaker frame insisted that it could make the dream of entry a reality.
Me: Can I help you?
ZM: *mumble*
Me: Im sorry, you cant come inside.
ZM: *mumble groan mumble*
At this point, I brought my hand between us, and placed it firmly on his chest. Something must have still held a pulse, deep in his rotted, fetid brain, for he stopped trying to push past me. However, he did not retreat, merely stood his ground, shoulder planted in my chest. It was like his last three functioning brain cells were giving their last sparks of life to fire off a warning of what was about to happen. To my amazement, they must have gotten through, communicated by his eyes getting wide as my fingers grasped a handful of his shirt.
After several minutes of "forward, forward, damn the torpedos, full steam ahead!", he organized a retreat. Too late, sadly, as I now had a good grip of him, and quickly turned his backwards stumbling into a full stop, lifting up on his shirt so it was just under his chin.
Me: What do you want?
ZM: Uh...I gotta use the bathroom.
Me: We're closed. If you're not out of my parking lot in two minutes, the [local municipality] Police will be here in less than one. Goodbye.
I let go, swung the door shut, and locked it. Quickly retreating into the store, I watched him from my ninja-squirrel hiding place, where I couldnt be seen by him. He shambled his way out of the parking lot, and off into the misty night, to be someone elses undead problem.
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