Troy Palomar had worked at Gateway for nine weeks, and he was sure he'd be running it by twelve.

  At first, he was just an ambitious young go-getter whose main flaw was showing you memes on his phone when you were trying to eat. The problems started when a customer mistook him for a new manager, because his glasses and neat black hair made him look smart.

  Honestly, it was my fault. Nobody wanted to call Jerry for help if we could avoid it—he once accepted a return on a bag of banana peels—so when customers thought Troy was in charge, I just sort of let them. Somehow, this absolute non-power had gone to Troy's head.

  The prick had spent the last month pretending to be a supervisor, hoping to gaslight the boss into making it official. The act mostly involved standing around and giving us orders instead of doing his job.

  While we were in the break room, he'd commandeered the customer service desk and jumped on the microphone. By the time I got there, he was already wrapping up an inspirational speech.

  "...and as Acting Manager, I promise we'll get through this. Together."

  I sighed. "What are you doing, Troy?"

  "Oh, so good of you to join us," Absolutely-Not-A-Manager Palomar scoffed. "And where have you been, hmm?"

  "Opening the crates we got for fighting off enemies," I said.

  Kara raised her spear. "Now we're gonna fight more of them."

  "You probably missed it because you were hiding under a regist—" Chaz began.

  "Anyway," Troy said loudly into the mic, "you're going to fight? Out there? Seriously?"

  I shrugged. "The back exits are sealed. The only way we're getting out of here is by fighting our way out."

  The survivors murmured. Not everyone was into the idea, but some had clearly been thinking about it already. The vibe seemed positive. Troy picked up on that and pivoted like a champion.

  "Yes, well, as I was saying, let's give it a try. See what's out there. Get some fun crates, or whatever."

  Another survivor, a high school student with a blonde bob cut who dressed like a delinquent, raised her hand. "We're in, if you got more weapons. We only unboxed cans..."

  I turned and looked around the aisles. It was obvious, now that I'd had time to think.

  "...Idea."

  Gateway sold some household goods: kitchenware, medicine, gardening, cleaning supplies, diapers, even a few hand tools. And of course, we had our own tools in the back. Our greatest asset of all: I had imagined hitting customers with so many products that I had a good idea of which would work.

  The trick was to think of shoplins as children whose parents let them rampage through the store. I grabbed brooms, mops, rakes—anything with a long handle. Reach weapons could push them, trip them, smack them around, and they wouldn't get close enough to do anything.

  For those who wanted to risk getting closer, or had totally normal thoughts about customers who showed up right before closing time wanting "just one thing", we had other options: frying pans, hammers, knives.

  Gateway didn't really sell ranged weapons, but it did sell plenty of goods with enough heft to stop someone trying to unload their packed trolley in a checkout lane I'd obviously just closed. We went with cans of pet food.

  Kara and Chaz helped me load a trolley with weapons and take it to the other survivors.

  "Alright, everyone, listen up," I said to the crowd. "We're going to rescue anyone we can and clear a path to the exit. Any volunteers?"

  I didn't get a great response. A few people stepped up, but most of them tried to hide in the crowd.

  One cheeky bastard took a weapon and then backed off. "Oh, I'm just guarding the store while you're gone, heheh..."

  "Oh, good idea," someone else said. Now the crowd descended on the trolley. I rolled my eyes and let them have at it.

  Kara patted my shoulder. "It's fine. We'll get more volunteers when we prove we can do it."

  "We're in too," someone called out.

  The delinquent teen was back. She'd brought friends with her: a tanned, athletic guy with a buzz cut who greeted us in sign language, a quiet dark-haired one who covered most of their face with a scarf designed to break facial recognition tech, and a reedy redhead in glasses who looked like she would blow away if we opened the door fast enough to make a breeze. All were holding makeshift weapons with determination.

  "Call me Val," she said. "This is Joe, Baz, and Red. We're all in. Let's fuck 'em up!"

  Recruiting high schoolers was a little worrying—or it would have been, if I were in charge. Since I wasn't, it wasn't my problem.

  "Thanks," I said. "You all understand the risks, right?"

  "Yeah, we're good," Val said.

  "Cool." Due diligence: Done.

  Chaz finally returned from his own sojourn. "I'm ready!"

  He had equipped his personal backpack—a big, sturdy number covered in anime pins—and changed into a pair of emergency cargo shorts from his locker that reached past his knees. The pockets of both were absolutely packed with things swiped from the shelves: a lunch box, water bottles, first aid supplies, stationery, wet wipes, and more. A coiled rope and flashlight hung from the bag straps.

  I took it all in. "Ready for what, Mad Max?"

  "Better safe than sorry," Chaz said. "I grabbed everything that might be useful. Even took a few knives off the shoplins."

  Kara peeked inside an open pocket. "Spare underwear?"

  "You never know."

  "So what's the plan?" I asked.

  "Well, you can take the lead," Kara said.

  "I said I don't want to be responsible for—"

  "Not like that!" Kara reached up to pat my head. "What I mean is, you have a shield, so you go first. I can take the lead lead."

  "...I can do that," I said.

  "But before we go," Kara continued casually, "we should make a plan. Any suggestions?"

  I looked at the entrance. Opening a shutter was a risky move, considering how much space it created and noise it made. The staff door was sturdy glass, and we could at least look through it first. I stepped towards it and took a peek.

  The shoplin horde had largely returned to the stores from whence they came. A few packs were roaming around, banging on closed stores and re-stabbing the corpses, but nobody took an interest in us. Were they waiting us out?

  I checked out the plaza, then stepped back to give Kara my honest opinion.

  "There's a few groups out there, but I think we could take them. If you want to check for survivors we should probably start on the left and go shop-by-shop until they're cleared out. There's a pharmacy that way. Oh, and we need to cover up those corpses because that's gross."

  Kara smiled and shrugged. "As the leader, I agree."

  "Sounds good to me, bro," Chaz said.

  Val banged her fist into her hand. "Let's fuckin' go!"

  I gripped my shield and readied a mop.

  Click! "Have a wonderful day!"

  First test: a group of five shoplins. They'd abandoned their original store in favour of rearranging the dead to spell the word "ASS" in the middle of the plaza, and they were very proud of themselves. They rushed around the escalators to get at us as soon as we stepped out, probably to protect their masterpiece.

  I stepped forward, shield at the ready.

  "Kreee! Kree—HORF"

  The first shoplin took a plastic mop to the face. It didn't do much damage—okay, I hit him with the floppy end, it did basically nothing—but I was able to pin him to the ground.

  "MPH!"

  The rest of the squad swarmed around me, hoping to get my allies while I was occupied. "KREE!"

  The others stepped up. Kara dove in first since she had an actual weapon, and managed to pierce one. Chaz missed his first swing and paid for it with a slashed leg.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "Aah!"

  My shoplin squeezed out while I was distracted and leapt, closing the distance with his knife before I could recover.

  Crap! I dropped the mop and held out my shield. It felt awkward to use, but it kept him at bay for a few moments.

  Some of Val's friends were having trouble doing damage with their improvised weapons, but they made up for it by being reckless as hell. As another shoplin was swept to the ground, Val leapt on top of him and went to town on his face with a frying pan. Joe tackled Chaz's shoplin and held him down long enough for Chaz to use his sword properly. Blood sprayed through the air.

  I decided to be a little reckless too, and lowered my shield to give the shoplin a kick. As he stumbled, I raised my arm and bashed him in the head with my shield.

  BAM!

  That didn't finish him, so I just pinned him down and kept going until he stopped moving.

  The others ganged up on the last one. He didn't last long.

  [ You have defeated five Shoplins! ]

  I panted and shook my shield arm. It was going to be sore later.

  "You okay? We can go slower," Chaz said.

  "You're the one bleeding!" I replied. "And there's more coming. Get ready!"

  One of the other shoplin packs had heard us, and they clearly didn't intend to let us catch our breath.

  Our height gave us the weight and reach advantage though, and we were clearly getting into a rhythm. This time Kara took the lead, and I moved in front of the injured Chaz.

  "I got you!"

  As the shoplin hit my shield, Chaz stepped up and slashed at him. "Thanks, bro!"

  We probably looked silly flailing at the shoplins, but it worked.

  [ You have defeated six Shoplins! ]

  Kara leaned forward and panted. "One almost got me..."

  "I got got," Val said, looking at the blood oozing down her leg. "I think it's just a scratch, but... ow."

  I looked around. I could hear rattling in a far corner of the plaza. "Can you keep fighting?"

  "I think so, but a break would be... oh, son of a—"

  The final pack of shoplins had raided a janitor's closet, and a cleaning cart was barreling around the escalators towards us.

  Four shoplins were pushing it from the back and sides, getting surprisingly good speed. At the front of the cart, another shoplin stood wielding a mop and a Wet Floor sign like a knight on horseback. A final shoplin stood on top, dual-wielding bottles of fluid and cackling.

  [ SHOPLIN CLEANUP CREW, Lvl. 2 ]

  I stood my ground and braced myself behind the shield. "Just knock it down!"

  They looked intimidating, and frankly my shield arm was killing me, but they were still a bunch of store-brand goblins on a glorified plastic shelf. If I stopped their—

  "Move!" Kara screamed. I felt a hand grab my arm and pull me to the right. "They've got chemicals!"

  I panicked and leapt out of the cart's path. The mop-wielding shoplin scythed at my legs as the cart zoomed past, sending me stumbling into Chaz.

  "Oof! What the hell?"

  Val's group went left. The top shoplin sprayed and swung liquid to the sides as he blew past.

  Kara spoke quickly, still pulling us away. "If you mix the right cleaners, you get toxic gas. Don't breathe it!"

  We spread out. If I was willing to accept polo-clad fantasy creatures riding a cleaning cart like a battle wagon, I could accept that maybe they had a working knowledge of chemistry.

  The cart took a while to turn, and by the time it did we'd all moved away in different directions. The shoplins grinned and decided to charge Val, who was waving a frying pan and shouting at them.

  "Come at me, dorks!"

  "KREE—"

  A can of dog food arced through the air and beaned the top shoplin right in the forehead. He managed to avoid stumbling off the cart, but couldn't avoid dropping a bottle.

  "KREEEE!"

  I looked in the direction it came from. Troy was outside the staff door, a mop in the doorway to hold it open.

  "Troy!"

  "I'm holding the door!" he called out.

  "Don't!" Kara shouted. "There's chemicals!"

  Screw it. I let him be and lifted my mop.

  "Everyone throw something!" I yelled, as I tried to throw it like a javelin.

  It was a terrible throw. Have you ever tried to hit someone from a distance with a shitty plastic mop? It doesn't do jack.

  I threw it anyway and charged.

  Cans, mops, and even stolen shoplin knives flew through the air. The barrage didn't do much damage, but dodging and weaving forced the shoplins to lose their momentum.

  The cart slowed.

  Gotcha.

  I raised my shield, held my breath just in case, and slammed into it.

  WHAM!

  The cart toppled. The shield shoplin leapt off in time, but one shoplin's health bar dipped as the cart landed on him and the rest went flying.

  Kara stabbed the spraying shoplin before he could get up. One down.

  Val's frying pan caved in another shoplin face. That was two.

  The shield shoplin turned to face me and swung his mop at my legs. I faced him, dropped the shield low...

  And another shoplin stabbed me in the leg.

  "ARGH!"

  I dropped to a knee. The shield shoplin in front of me grinned, threw his gear aside, and drew a knife. He leapt on my shield, using the trolley-metal grid as a grip.

  The one that stabbed me stepped back and reached for another knife. I couldn't stop both.

  Crap. Am I screwed?

  "Will!" Kara cried. She swung wildly at the shoplin, pressing him back.

  I trusted her to handle it and waved my arm in the air, hoping to shake off the one on my shield. He just grinned, braced himself, and tried to stab my arm through the shield. I needed a finishing move.

  Chaz finished off shoplin four and ran towards me. "I'm coming, bro!"

  There we go. I grinned back at the shoplin and flopped forward. The air didn't work, so how about the ground?

  "KREE!"

  Smash! I crushed the shoplin into the floor and rolled off, just as Chaz swung his blade down.

  Stab!

  The final shoplin untangled from the cleaning cart, crawled out, and looked up to find himself surrounded by teens.

  Val raised her foot. "Hey."

  Crunch!

  [ You have defeated a Shoplin Cleanup Crew! ]

  [ Shoplin Spree!

  Defeat 10 Shoplins.

  Reward: +$50

  Cleanup On Aisle Four

  Defeat a Shoplin Cleanup Crew.

  Reward: +1 WARCRIMES Bronze Sponsor Crate ]

  [ Funbucks: $250 [+220!] ]

  I sat up and rubbed my arms. I'd lost a chunk of my health bar, but I was fine. I really needed to stop using the shield as a bludgeon though. Val and the others had finished the rest off, at least.

  "You're welcome," Troy said.

  "Go inside, Troy!"

  Chaz stood over his last kill and tried to sheathe his blade dramatically. It would have worked much better if his piece of shit mall sword hadn't broken in half already.

  "Looks like we're the only ones left to clean up the me— oh no!"

  Kara dusted herself off and looked around, then down at me. "We're in a big space and our exposure is low, so we should be okay. Troy, can you make sure nobody comes out through the staff door until we clean up?"

  Troy lit up at her offering of minor power and headed back inside. "Sure!"

  I gave her a thumbs-up and pulled myself onto a nearby bench. Blood was soaking the leg of my slacks. "Agh, son of a..."

  "You'll be fine, you baby. Here, try this."

  Kara passed me her Slurp Nurse can. Like the laundry pods, the letters on the can didn't match any Earth language I knew of—but I could still read "Refreshing Healing!".

  I sat up and cracked the tab. "Thanks. How do you know so much about chemicals, by the way?"

  Kara sat beside me. "Oh, that's how my cousin died. He tried some toilet cleaning hack from the Internet and mixed bleach with acid. Made a crapload of chlorine gas."

  "Oh. ...Sorry."

  "It's fine, he sucked. Drink up."

  I drank deep. My leg tingled. My health bar refilled.

  I reached down and rolled my slacks up—the gash was healing right before my eyes.

  "Holy shit, this stuff's great," I said.

  "Should we get more?" Chaz asked. "I can open a couple crates now."

  "Us too," Val said.

  "Then do it," I said. "We could use weapons— urp..."

  "You okay?" Kara asked, as I belched and doubled over.

  I burped again. My insides started aching. A burning sensation crept up my leg.

  "I don't— urp— what's happening... argh... urp... gaah!"

  A new window popped up.

  [ DISCLAIMER: Slurp Nurse: Refreshing Healing is not calibrated for consumption by every species. Healing effects may be reduced if Slurp Nurse: Refreshing Healing must also heal the side-effects of drinking Slurp Nurse: Refreshing Healing. Your reaction to Slurp Nurse: Refreshing Healing may be recorded for quality assurance or entertainment purposes. ]

  Kara slapped my back a few times as I groaned into my lap. It didn't help.

  While she made sure I wasn't about to cough my lungs out of my mouth, the others summoned their new Warcrimes crates. Chaz received a baseball and stickered bat with vaguely occult designs, while Val got a neon purple ribbon with a shoplin icon on one end.

  [ Rare! Chaz Cruso has received a Mister Sportsball Blazeball Kit (a WARCRIMES collab)! Hit one out of the park with this ultra-durable neo-aluminum bat, made to official specifications as defined by the Great Blazeball Peace Treaties. Attacks made by striking a projectile with the bat gain +4 Accuracy and +20% Damage. ]

  [ Rare! Berry Valentine has received a WARCRIMES Shoplin Glamthing! The hunted becomes the hunter with this stylish accessory. This Glamthing glows if Shoplins are near at hand. ]

  Chaz frowned. "I'm not really a baseball guy..."

  Val held out the ribbon. "You a ribbon guy?"

  "I am now!" Chaz accepted the trade and tied the ribbon to his wrist.

  Val's pals Baz, Joe, and Red unboxed more weapons with sporty designs: another spear, a staff with weighted ends, and an archery bow with a quiver of arrows. As they waved their new toys around, my burning feeling subsided.

  [ Slurp Hurts

  Drink an uncalibrated Slurp Nurse.

  Reward: +1 Slurp Nurse Legally Required Apology Crate ]

  [ A Slurp Nurse Legally Required Apology Crate! To apologise for the inconvenience, please enjoy this higher-quality crate. By accepting this crate you waive all rights to pursue legal action or get mad at us. ]

  "I'm okay... I think. ... Let's just go."

  My leg was fine now. I actually felt better than I did before I chugged carbonated pain. My accumulated aches and pains had been burned away—even my fatigue from working almost an entire shift today wasn't so bad.

  Wasn't planning to open my new Slurp Nurse crate, though. With our new weapons, we hopefully wouldn't have to.