Divine Sea Salt Incorporated held a meeting which had all the head honchos attending. All expenses paid as their new Milestone was just hours away.

Johanna Zellberg smiled as she saw her staff standing around the Crowne Plaza Hotel, built on the beachfront, and only ten kilometers from their desalination planet. The heat-treated water could effortlessly separate the desired salts from the brine.

While the operation was pricey, advancements, and the patents, paved a way for their gold standard products. Divine Sea Salt from the Dead Sea. Treated, and combined with their secret sauce, made headway into the elites of the elites.

Which trickled down to the masses.

It was funny how advertising worked. You tell people what was good, they would shrug. You tell people that anything beyond their 33.33% Dead Salt mixture was bad, and they listened. Have a celebrity tell them, and they obeyed.

Johanna smiled as their starlets arrived. The best influences in the world. The established highway to easy success. Well, easy if you had the proper credentials and capital.

Hotel staff handed everyone a glass of Piper-Heidsieck non-vintage Brut Cuvee. Expensive but artfully perfect and it was flowing freely. The bubbly drink was a great appetizer to what was coming for both the evening and for the rest of the year. The attendees were all cheerful as they drank and chatted.

She checked her wristwatch. The simple, and elegant, timepiece showed it was 7:55 pm. Showtime.

The fashion-conscious woman tapped at her glass, quickly quieting the room. Her ability to remember faces made it easy to hold a grudge, and everyone knew it.

“Ladies, gentlemen. I am happy to announce that, as of 8 pm, we will have liberated our 10th billion tonnes of salts. With this, we have become twice as prominent as even the second-largest producer. From beauty products to household goods, we are Divine to support the people,” Johanna spoke loud, clear, and slow. She smirked at her joke but didn’t expect anyone outside of the company to understand.

She knew some in the room were on the dull side. A tragedy of prioritizing only one’s beauty, instead of cultivating brains, brawn, and a fashion sense. Some starlets were straight-up tacky.

“As we have now become indispensable to the world, I raise a toast. To Us. Who have sacrificed so much to ensure our ship remained steady, despite the rocky waters when we launched the company,” Johanna smiled as she raised her glass, and eyed the real mover and shakers. Her executive arm.

The people raised their glasses. Words of praise, cheer, and the occasional whistle filled the room.

Johanna Zellberg smiled and took a long sip. It was good to drink, but bad to have too much. A single photo of drunk dullard had ended careers before.

[Thunk!]

Johanna turned to the sound. A man was tapping at the window. Most likely homeless and drunk. Two things she disliked in other people.

It was fine to be homeless. Everyone fell on hard times. To fall and drown your sorrows in alcohol? That was a sign of surrender. To give up. The man even looked bloated. From his failing liver, no doubt.

Johanna Zellberg was no quitter.

She brushed aside her annoyance. Hotel security would remove the man soon enough. Ugly as he may be. Then she would have a private word with the manager.

[Thunk!]

The man tried again.

The president of Divine Sea Salts Inc took in a breath and smiled. She was about to say more when she realized she had lost the crowd. Everyone was staring at the glass now. Even those who knew better than to get distracted.

[Thunk!] [Thunk!] [Thunk!]

She turned in irritation. She would get the manager and inform him of his derelict of duties.

[Crash!] [Aaaaahh!]

The sound of shattering glass filled the room. As did the screams of the guests.

Johanna stood in shock as the dozens of bloated forms waddled in. Their bodies hardened with gypsum. Hydrated calcium sulphate, her mind supplied. How? What was this?

A man tried to be brave and ran at the first bloated one with a chair.

Foolish, her mind supplied. These were unknown things, and that was enough for caution.

The bloated man broke, his head and arm shattered as the chair struck, and then stuck. The other arm reached and grabbed at the young man. It held him there as the nearest one reached him.

They drowned his screams as the guests panicked. They ran for the doors or the far side of the room. The sound of gunfire filled the distance. There were guards on the premise. To ensure the guest’s safety.

Which meant that this wasn’t a local problem. This was a much larger problem.

Johanna’s mind watched as they slowly filled the room. She was ushering people out as she made her way to the back doors. Some bloaties were wearing green armor. Copper? Brass? Potentially patina. The tarnish via oxidation.

More worry some were the swords and spears they still held. That was much denser than gypsum. It could cut open human flesh without issues, and chairs were poor shields.

“Leave as soon as possible, and either go to the rooms or head out towards the town. If you are anxious, Neve Zohar is to the south!” Johanna said as she broke away from the group. Her purse slapped against her hips as she power-walked away.

“You! Go to your room and stay there,” She shooed away those frozen in the corner. They immediately ran away as she pointed to the back door.

She wouldn’t go to her room. Her bet was to head to the larger town. Neve Zohar would be further inland and by the major highway. Which lead to Arad, a major city.

The military would have a response in hours. Which means everyone was relatively safe.

The hallway was full of sounds. Emergency fire alarm. People screaming. Echoes of panic. She ignored them as she took a right and exited through the emergency exit. It was a direct connection to the parking lot.

She shoved open the door, and as she had predicted, no bloaties. Though people were scrambling to get into their cars.

She walked to her rented car. The Aventador SVJ greeted her with a gleam of its steel blue finish. She smiled as she fished out her keys. Two presses on the unlock and the butterfly doors slid out and up.

The parking lot was becoming crowded. The bloaties as a group was reaching around the building.

It was a horde. She concluded. Hundreds, if not thousands were easy to see. They walked out of the Dead Sea as if they were leaving a tent.

Her mind raced as she struggled to understand how this was possible.

Wait.

Didn’t that man visit her a year ago? Dark. Mysterious. Leered at her. He spoke only to her low cut top, and she doubted he realized she had eyes. At least until he left. His gaze was intense. She recalled having security escort him out, but he had already left.

“The salt is a seal,” she muttered. That was all she could recall.

The business card was on her app, but that required a safe space to look through. She had a ton of those. She chuckled as she wondered if there were enough cards for each bloatie here.

One was meters away.

Johanna looked around and noted that she was one of the few left in the lot. The rest had either gotten into the cars or had already left.

No time to play hero then.

She slid into the seat. The leather seat was warm to the touch. The smell of flowers greeted her as she pushed the start button. The car rumbled to life, and Johanna touched a flower in the passenger seat. One of several bouquets.

Gifts for her big celebration. A milestone for the company.

Johanna snorted as she shifted from park to drive. The engine purred as she pulled out of the parking log and onto the exit to the highway.

This was a milestone alright.

Tragically, it was to be less about Divine Sea Salts Inc, and more about this zombie invasion.