Friday Black

This story takes place in a world where an infection called Friday Black causes people to exhibit zombie-like behavior, characterized by a hunger for Black Friday deals. Unless they acquire the products they want, the infected remain aggressive and violent to those around them.

To incentivize the sales team to hit their goals, the Prominent Mall’s district manager, Richard, sets up a contest to give the best-performing salesperson any coat of their choice from the store. The unnamed narrator wants to win so he can give his mother an expensive branded parka. The narrator, having been bitten during a previous Black Friday, understands his customers’ fragmentary English, which usually reveals their motivations for buying new things. This makes him a strong performer and a natural mentor for Duo, a new salesman who gets bitten during today’s Black Friday.

After an initial rush of customers, the narrator takes a break. During his reprieve, he thinks about how his family skipped Thanksgiving that year, partly due to the loss of his mother’s job but also because of the family’s growing animosity toward each other. Thanksgiving also reminds him of his impulse to overperform at work, especially after one Black Friday when a competitive sales lead named Wendy sabotaged the sales team by feeding them poisoned pie.