[ PI ] You 're the lone survivor of a zombie apocalypse simply because zombies are n't interested in you .

I'm late to the party, like usual, but this prompt inspired me to re-write a story from years ago. The prompt fit in perfectly. 
 
 
 * 
 
 
 The shop was a pale, rectangular room, with a little hallway at the back to the stairs, closet and washroom. Roger cooked donuts in the basement kitchen and slept in the apartment upstairs. During the day, he mostly just mopped. Sometimes the internet would work for an hour. 
 
 Around noon, he rolled the yellow bucket out from the narrow closet and mopped the floor again. On the inside of the closet door the previous owner of the Jolly-Jam Donut Shop had put up one of those inspirational posters. `` Reach for the stars,'' it said each time Roger opened the door. The previous owner had been been enormous. Soft, flowing folds of fat wrapped in skin softer than babies. A miserable, haunted bitch, she let him know, repeatedly, what she thought about `` any kind of indians'' and the idea of him running the Jolly Jam. 
 
 As he mopped in the doorway Roger looked out into the street. About an hour ago, a woman in a yellow raincoat passed down the centre line with her possessions in a cart. He imagined her lugging it over the pile of rubble that had spilled from the bank down the street when the delivery van exploded. He used to get up to watch these people pass, wondering if they might come into the store for a donut. People in shaggy clothes or with kids, headed nowhere. Now there was no one in sight. He leaned the mop against a table and stepped into the sun, shielding his face against its heat. Some canadian geese were pecking at garbage in the grassy lawn beside the church. They bickered quietly with each other, sometimes shifting and stretching their wings. The view either way was still and spilled with rubble and glass from storefronts. The bank was mostly in an ejecta pattern across the pavement. The lady in the yellow coat must have made it past the rubble. Roger spit in the dust and went back inside to finish mopping. 
 
 Business was slow these days. The store wasn ’ t what it used to be. It didn ’ t used to be much, but when Roger bought it there weren ’ t any bars on the windows. He installed those himself. The neon sign was already cracked before a rock had gone through it and the brickwork was forty years old, at least. Roger bought the place for a song. He renovated and painted and took a loan to modernize the tiny kitchen. For a while he had even hired employees. The three of them were in school and went out for lunch at Tim ’ s because it was better. Now they were gone, maybe dead. Roger wasn ’ t exactly waiting for letters. 
 
 He went back to his stool and continued staring. The zone was cleared now and the army had blown up the Tim's during all the fighting. None of the people who passed by ever came in but, on the bright side, Roger now had a monopoly on donuts for blocks. If he could get any coffee, he would own that market too. 
 
 Sometimes, as he lounged in the lawnchair retreat he had arranged on the roof, he imagined a Roger with better luck. This Roger had the loyal customers who knew they could count on him. They always showed up and lingered to talk about the news from the uncleared zones or the weather. This Roger liked his customers and occasionally comped their orders—he could do that, as a successful entrepreneur. The real Roger talked to himself and left the gate on the door open most days now, letting any breezes find shelter from the heat. But he wasn ’ t bitter—Roger knew that he had it pretty good and should be thankful. There wasn ’ t much looting anymore. Maybe the gangs had killed each other off, maybe they were just too hot. Roger wondered if the raping and murdering had fallen off too. Maybe the neighbourhood was getting safer like the army said. He hadn ’ t been raped in all this time and, so far, hadn ’ t been murdered, but that was only one person ’ s opinion. 
 
 Roger cleared his throat and got up from his stool. He left the counter and went upstairs, unlocking the deadbolts from top to bottom. As he walked over to the liquor cabinet he hummed an old song his father had sung. The words were missing now but he could hum the droning melodies. He never had much interest in the old ways as a kid, living mostly with his mother in her nice, white subdivision. 
 
 “ You should be happy, ” he reminded himself. The banks stopped calling a long time ago. And the power stayed on, mostly—which was rare these days. As long as the lights were on it seemed like a building, like a place. Whenever a blackout rolled across the city, the Jolly Jam faded into the background; another jack o ’ lantern on November first. 
 
 He unscrewed a bottle of vodka and then took the cranberry juice from the fridge. He had been saving the juice but the expiry date was a week ago. He picked out a glass, and went up to the roof, humming that song again. He came back down for the bottles. 
 
 From beneath the parasol on his rooftop retreat, near the back, Roger could sit and stare off toward the lake, still guarded by the world ’ s tallest freestanding melted spike. It still made a great lightning rod. He had rigged some wire and a bell to warn him of customers while sitting up here. The glass began to sweat in the heat of the shade. 
 
 
 * 
 
 
 When he was little, Roger ’ s father warned him about Russians. The Russians will bomb us, he said from behind a glass of whiskey like amber. The whiskey was part of his father ’ s hand, somehow, but only in the evenings. His father warned him a lot about the dangers of alcohol, too. Roger asked why the Russians wanted to drop bombs and his father had told him that the Russians were communists and that meant they hated anyone with lots of money. We don ’ t have lots of money, though, he had piped up, maybe they won ’ t bomb us? Roger ’ s dad just laughed and finished the whiskey with the tinkle of ice. The Russians never did bomb anyone but his father never trusted them. Some people can ’ t be trusted, he said, it ’ s just how things work. 
 
 ( continued )
