the undead? in MY pharmacy?

I'm just going to come out and say it: I am deeply paranoid about zombies. Most people wouldn't know it just to look at me, but I'm extremely nerdy. Somehow this progressed from an interest in 'fantasy' and my never-dying love of science-fiction to science-fact mixed with mad science, and boom - zombies. I'm not a fan of horror films as a whole (Saw, Hostel, things like that - no thanks) but for some reason I'm just entranced by zombies. What started as a fun hobby has turned into fear and paranoia. I have a very active imagination, so it's easy for me to imagine that it's possible for some catalyst (black magic, alien radiation rays, evil scientists) to make the dead come back to life and want to eat my face.

Everywhere I go, I look around at my surroundings and make a quick plan as to what I would do if a zombie were to come lurching onto the scene. We're often told (especially women) to be aware of our environment and of anyone or anything that seems out of place, but I think they want us to look out for like, muggers, and not the undead, necessarily.

Working at a pharmacy, especially one in a large 'big box' store known for its low prices and even lower-class clientele, me and my co-workers are pretty much boned in case of zombie attack. Where do people go when they're sick? THE PHARMACY. Either they don't want to a) stay home, or b) spend the money to go to the doctor, so they come to the pharmacy to ask the pharmacy to diagnose them (can't do it!) and try OTC meds. Or, they did go to the doctor and bring their sick selves to the pharmacy with their prescription and then mill around the OTC area for half an hour. I can easily someone keeling over in the waiting area, then moments later rising and shambling to the counter, dirty hands extended and hungry mouth full of rotten, snaggled teeth agape. Actually this is how most of our customers approach the counter anyway, so it might be harder to tell than I think. I get a chill down my spine whenever I'm on the opening shift and walk into the pharmacy in the morning, and the crowd that has been there since 8:30 or earlier (you know, an hour before we open) looks at me with those soulless, hungry eyes. I dread opening my metal gate thingie.

So, I know it's just a bunch of hype, but the swine flu thing freaked me OUT. And I in turn slowly got my co-workers freaked out. "You know what the final stage of H1N1 is? You BECOME A ZOMBIE." It was mostly in fun, but we had a customer yesterday who genuinely made us afraid. He looked rough. Like, really really rough. His eyes were deep set with dark circles, slack-jawed with poor dental hygiene, stringy uncared-for hair. He didn't walk, he shambled. He looked like he could barely stand. He swayed, and leaned heavily on the counter, while breathing heavily and MOANING. I know I should have felt bad for him as he appeared to be in a lot of pain, but honestly? He looked like he was already on quite a few drugs, of varying stages of legality, and was here to get more. Also, he looked like he was ABOUT TO TURN INTO A ZOMBIE. He looked like he was pretty well into the transformation, actually.

Everyone, especially those who must frequently deal with the public/sick people, should have a zombie plan.