Some theories
Vaccinations? CDC Clinic in the mall carpark on Day 0.
Danny from Rico's went for a shot before the outbreak, did not return.
Emergency personnel not responding. Perhaps they were amongst the first to go under?
Habit is everything...broken routines lead to extreme pack violence.
Crazy metabolism? The infected need to eat every hour or so. Some cannibalism observed.
Power and water intermittent, but still connected.

Burger-in-a-Bag
The teenaged staff performed quite well with no sleep. Things turned ugly when the sliced pickles ran out on day 3. The infected were not convinced that these cheeseburgers were authentic, and swarmed the shop en masse. Gustav had a revolver stashed behind the slushie machine and took out three eaters before they tore him apart

The shop was completely destroyed, and the mob nearly got through the rear entrance before we jammed it shut with a pallet of cooking oil. This was nearly a complete disaster, and we agreed that the rear walkway needs to remain barricaded at all times.

Rico’s
Lasted until day 5. Rico hid several razor blades and broken glass in his baked potatoes, but as his customers typically wandered away to eat their meals he remained undetected. An old man ate his food right at the counter, and his screams of pain coupled with the blood streaming down his chin brought the mob running. Rico vaulted the counter and tried to run for it, but he was brought down outside of Bannon’s Sportsware.

The shop was spared, and with the lights off we were able to carefully remove fresh ingredients. These were divided evenly between the remaining stalls.

Pasta Prince
Apart from running out of fresh cream for his fettucini carbonara, Lou did remarkably well. He stirred a fatal dose of rat poison into all of his dishes, and put more spices into the sauce to disguise the taste. Ironically this was his undoing, as an infected woman accused him of adding too much salt. He managed to kill her with a skillet but this attracted the attention of the other eaters.

We weren’t able to remove the barricade in time, and we heard them beating him to death against the back door. Shop completely destroyed on day 6.

East-N-Eatery
Mei attempted to inflict severe food poisoning on the infected. She dropped the temperature on all her food-warmers, and switched off the refrigerator on day 2. By day 4 all of her meat had started to turn, and some of the eaters were later observed with intestinal distress, several defecating openly in the atrium.

She came under attack by an infected with the wits to recall where he’d got the food from. He leapt over the counter, naked and covered in his own filth. Mei wriggled through the rear entrance and triggered the barricade (several heavy sacks of rice).

Mei has been helping as a runner, and she is light enough to travel through the air-ducts. We hope that she can help us to search for weapons, food, or an escape route. As the mall seems to be an epicentre for this outbreak, escape is highly unlikely.

Joseph Fuller,
Proprietor of Sandwich Kings,
Day 9.