“That’s stupid,” said Benny.

“That’s people,” said the supervisor.

That afternoon Benny and Chong walked what they were sure were a million miles, had been peed on by a horse, stalked by a horde of zoms-Benny couldn’t see anything at all in their dusty eyes-and yelled at by nearly everyone.

At the end of the day, as they shambled home on aching feet, Chong said, “That was about as much fun as getting beaten up.” He thought about it for a moment. “No… getting beaten up is more fun.”

Benny didn’t have the energy to argue.

There was only one opening for the next job-“carpet coat salesman”-which was okay because Chong wanted to stay home and rest his feet. Chong hated walking. So Benny showed up, neatly dressed in his best jeans and a clean T-shirt, and with his hair as combed as it would ever get without glue.

There wasn’t much danger in selling carpet coats, but Benny wasn’t slick enough to get the patter down. Benny was surprised they’d be hard to sell, because everybody had a carpet coat or two. Best thing in the world to have on if some zoms were around and feeling bitey. What he discovered, though, was that everyone who could thread a needle was selling them, so the competition was fierce, and sales were few and far between. The door-to-door guys worked on straight commission, too.

The lead salesman, a greasy joker named Chick, would have Benny wear a long-sleeved carpet coat-low knap for summer, shag for winter-and then use a device on him that was supposed to simulate the full-strength bite of an adult male zom.