Clickers vs Zombies by Brian Keene, J.F. Gonzalez Read Free Book Online

equally non-descript office park in Fountain Valley, California, a small suburban community in Orange County just south of Los Angeles. Jim Sunn was the owner and Chief Operating Officer of Sunn Advertising, a small ad agency that handled print, web, and all forms of broadcast media advertising. Cathy was employed as a database analyst. Melissa was her boss—exactly what Melissa’s title was, Cathy wasn’t sure. She was even more unsure of why Melissa was even at the company.
    “Okay, we’re on the other side of the island now,” Melissa said. She was standing on a rocky outcrop and turned to Cathy. Wendy Snow, her co-worker and chief confidant, was standing beside her. Both women had been put on Melissa’s team in what was obviously a concerted effort by Jim to foster a stronger team unity among the three women. All the other teams had been broken up with different employees from different departments. It must be really obvious that we don’t work well together , Cathy thought.
    “Yes, we’re on the other side of the island,” Wendy said. She glanced at Cathy and shrugged.
    “So now what?” Melissa asked.
    “We join hands and sing kumbaya?” Cathy suggested.
    Melissa frowned. Her brown hair blew in her face from the offshore wind. They had hiked down to this section of the island per the consultant’s directions and diagram on the chart he’d provided to them. He’d divided all twenty employees of Sunn Advertising into groups and scattered them in all directions on the island with the instructions that once they reached their destination they were to observe their surroundings, take stock of the people they were with, assess the situation and act accordingly. “It doesn’t matter what it is,” he’d said, strolling before them in the park on Lime Street where they’d started their day. The consultant was a man in his mid-thirties with an open, sunny disposition, brown hair, blue eyes, giving Cathy the impression he was a typical Southern California native. He’d introduced himself as John. “Some of you may end up at the strand. There might be a lot of kids playing, there might be an ice cream stand, a hot dog vendor, people throwing Frisbees with their dogs. What will you do as a group? Have a picnic in the park? Get ice cream? Start your own game of Frisbee? You will need to make this decision as a team. Another group of you may end up outside a shopping mall with a food court. Do you decide to go shopping? Do you get lunch? If there’s a jogging path near the mall, do you decide to go jogging? Again, you must make a decision on one activity based on your surroundings and you must come to this decision as a team.”
    And on and on it had went. John had tossed out half a dozen other possible scenarios based on the environment they might wind up in. As a group, they were supposed to decide what to do and arrive at that conclusion by working together with minimal arguments. He’d held a football in his hands. “After all,” John had said, “this exercise is all about how you react naturally to the things around you. This isn’t about ladder climbing or jockeying for position to attain another notch in your belt. This is about working together toward a common goal.” Then with a smooth, practiced move, he’d tossed the football at one of the half dozen groups he’d paired off. One of the graphic artists, Andy Saunders, caught the ball, but barely.
    “Why’d you catch that ball, Andy?” John had asked.
    “Because you threw it toward me,” Andy responded.
    “Is there another reason why you caught it?”
    Andy had shrugged. “Well, yeah…if I hadn’t caught it, it would’ve hit me.”
    “True. It might have bounced off you and hit somebody else in your group, too. Correct?”
    There’d been a small chuckle of amusement from Andy’s group. Andy grinned sheepishly as he regarded his team mates. “Yeah, I guess so.”
    “By reacting instinctively to that situation, you not only