Gerald, the nightshift cashier looks like he’s been through too much for one lifetime.

As soon as you walk in, his eyes hold you. They’re wide, heavy with some dark knowledge that even you know you don't want to know. Gerald hasn’t said a word, but his look: that blank—I’m-about-to-witness-some-weird-shit—look tells you everything. He’s been here before, watching, waiting for something that he knows damn well is coming. And it’s **dank**. You can feel it too, crawling up your spine.

The air in here is thick. Like walking through a swamp made of sweat and static. It’s heavy. It clings to your skin like the inside of a wet tent, that dense, smothering charge in the air you get before lightning splits the sky open. In the silence, you perceive a kind of hum you hear in your bones, not your ears. As you move through the aisles, you sense a kind of presence that makes your hair stand up and reminds you that you’re not alone here. Something's watching, lurking beyond the flicker of the fluorescent lights, not hiding just unseen. Not making itself known, not yet, but there. Always there.

Now here you stand scanning the impulse-buy counter for bizarre snacks, perhaps leering at the requisite jar of pickled what's-its floating in flavor juice, today's is labeled “Zombie Power Shots”. You are just wondering if it's a good idea to give zombies extra shots of power when a shiver comes over you.

Those little rehydratable pet aliens with their flashing eyes—usually tiny lifeless bulbs—are now pulsing in sync with that invisible hum that’s moving through the room like a slow motion tidal wave of electric current.

You'd better fill up your basket, pay for your supplies and get back on the road as quickly as possible!

Fren, are you dank enough?