Tales of the Unrestful Dead

Dawn washes the rooftop in gray as Maya rises behind a crumbling parapet. Below, a pharmacy’s shattered entrance gapes while a dozen zombies drift through the surrounding streets.

A slight teenage girl crouches beside an old rifle, wearing a red hooded jacket and black jeans. Her pale face is tight with exhaustion, but her eyes keep shifting between the pharmacy and the western road.

Something crashes inside the pharmacy. The teenage lookout flinches, then peers through a broken skylight toward the dark aisles where her loved one is searching for medicine.

Nora grips the rifle without raising it. Between the pharmacy and the road, the zombies tighten their loose circle, sealing the obvious exits.

A shadow moves between the pharmacy shelves. Eli keeps low, clutching the medicine bottle, while the zombies crowd through the rear doorway behind him.

He reaches the broken opening and presses himself beneath the jagged frame. Gray dawn spills across his face as hands scrape and stumble through the aisles below.

Nora swings the rifle toward the pharmacy roofline, then checks the western road again. The zombies funnel toward Eli’s position, drawn by his movement.

Maya slips along the rooftop edge and sends a loose metal vent clattering into the pharmacy’s front awning. The noise snaps several zombies toward her, but the rest keep pressing beneath the skylight.

Eli hauls himself higher. One zombie reaches through the broken frame, forcing him sideways, while the diverted cluster crowds around the awning below Maya.

Nora raises her rifle and fires toward the pharmacy entrance, driving the nearest zombies back from the skylight. The shot leaves the western stairwell briefly clear.

Maya catches Nora’s eye and slices two fingers toward the western stairwell, then points at the zombies below. The signal is clear: cover her escape.

Nora fires again toward the pharmacy entrance. The report pulls the nearest zombies beneath the awning, opening a clean line to the stairwell.

Maya crosses the exposed roof at a run, boots striking cracked concrete. Behind her, Eli swings a leg over the skylight frame and drops onto the roof.

Maya reaches the stairwell and descends into the dim building without a stumble. Nora keeps firing controlled shots while Eli follows, clutching the antibiotics.

At the bottom, Maya slips through a service corridor and emerges behind the pharmacy, safely away from the rooftop. Nora and Eli reach the exit moments later.