Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? (20 page)

“fuuuuck youuuuuu!”
you scream. You punch the glass. You want to kill the thing. Rip it limb from limb. You pound the glass for what feels like an eternity, pouring all your anger and fear into the Plexiglas window.

Finally, you sink into the seat, out of breath. Out of energy. Out of options.

SCAG, BROWN SUGAR, BLACK TAR, WHITE LADY, DRAGON, DOPE, MEXICAN MUD

Are you out of your fucking mind? Who do you think you are—Hunter S. Thompson? You can't hang with the Angels. But OK, hey, it's your funeral…

“This is my first time,” you say. “I've never done anything like this before.”

“Everyone's got their first,” Louis says. He opens the cigar box. You catch a glimpse of a syringe, a spoon, what looks like a cotton ball, and a few other things you don't recognize. He fishes a small yellow balloon from his pocket, stretches it open, and pulls out a chunk of black stuff about the size of a marble—that's the heroin, you assume.

He places the chunk on a spoon, flips open a beat-up old Zippo, and lights it. He drops the cotton ball into the heated heroin and it puffs up like a sponge. You watch, fascinated, as he slides the tip of the syringe into the cotton and slowly pulls back the plunger.

“C'mere, gimme your arm,” he says, so drunk he can barely get out the words.

“Huh?”

“Your arm—stick it out—sleeve up. Ever been to the fucking doctor?”

You do as he says.

He rubs an alcohol swab over the bend of your arm, smacks you a few times until your vein comes to the surface, then not-so-gently slips the syringe inside.

Your heart races. Anxious, excited, scared to death, halfway giddy, all at the same time.

He pulls back the plunger. A red cloud of blood is drawn inside. Then he injects it back inside you.

Your heart rate slows. You relax some. The deed is done. Nothing you can do about it now. No stopping it. You stretch your feet out, lean back against the wall, and wait.

Suddenly a powerful, intense rush of pleasure. Pure euphoria. You feel like a young child—just out of the shower—wrapped in a warm blanket. The gentle heat hugs you tight. All thoughts of zombies and monsters and fear and death leave your mind. Just warmth.

For a good half hour, you say nothing. Neither does Louis. You watch him intently, fascinated by this strange, weather-beaten man getting high in front of you. Your eye is drawn to the Hells Angels tattoo on his upper arm.

“Shouldn't there be an apostrophe in there—like Hell's Angels?” you ask, your mouth forming the words with concerted effort.

His eyes flitter. “Uh?”

“An apostrophe. It says Hells. H-E-L-L-S. No apostrophe.”

“Apostrophe?”

“You know. A—c'mon, y'know—it's a comma, but not on the ground. A comma in the air.”

“In the air.”

“Yeah. In the air.”

From the look on his face, he's doing some very hard thinking. After a minute, he quietly says, “Yeah, yeah, I guess there should be a comma.”

“Apostrophe,” you say, and giggle like a schoolgirl. Then you both go quiet again. Your head sags, and you lose track of time. Minutes, hours, all a blur. For the first time in months you're not thinking about zombies. Not thinking about death. Ghouls. The walking undead.

It's a relief.

So around noon, when Louis asks you if you want to do more, you say, “Why the hell not?”

He injects you again. You get that same rush. Then a stronger rush. Picking up speed like a runaway train.

Bam. It hits you. Everything goes black.

And there on Louis's dirty, garbage-covered floor, you overdose, death the furthest thing from your mind.

IN A JAM

You flip the rifle over and eject the magazine. You can see the jammed bullet jutting out awkwardly. You dig your finger in to pop it free.

But it's too late.

You're knocked off your feet and carried to the ground. The shaggy hippie is on top of you. He digs his teeth into your shoulder. You howl.

You feel around for the samurai blade. You find it and rip it free from its sheath. You jam it up through the shaggy hippie's gut and cut up, spilling its insides all over you. You rip the blade up farther, into its jaw. That stops it.

You crawl to your knees, swinging the blade around wildly, trying to keep the other two at bay.

But the one beast—the middle-aged man—reaches out and grabs the blade. Squeezes it. Blood pours through its fingers, but it appears to feel nothing.

Fuck me
.

You're done for.

You recover the blade and point it at your stomach. Then, like a true samurai committing seppuku, you slam it into your abdomen.

You scream.

Still holding the blade, you slice your stomach open, moving the blade from left to right. Your intestines spill out onto the ground in front of you. Completely disemboweled.

You go into shock. Your vision is foggy. Hard to see. Lights tracing.

The last thing you make out is Chucky, battling his way over to you. Then firing. Into your face. Ending it. Ensuring you don't become one of them.

NIGHT FALLS, TIME PASSES

You've been sitting in the cab for hours—you've seen a few cops race by on motorcycles, and that's it.

Mostly you've watched the dead multiply. Watched their numbers grow.

You wait. The thing in the front never takes its eyes off you. Hours pass.

You're not alone—other people are stuck, similar position to you. A woman in a BMW next to you sobs for damn near two hours. Didn't know someone could cry for that long.

All day the thing continues to stare at you. Every movement you make, he twitches—ready to eat. You hate it more and more with every second that ticks by. You want it dead.
Truly
dead.

As the day turns to dusk and darkness begins to settle over the city, you begin to develop a plan. On the way over you passed a construction site. It's three blocks at the most, if you remember correctly. It's big—about one square block. They're building some sort of residential tower, it looked like. The framework was up. If you get to there, you can get up to the top, try to signal for help.

But first—you're killing that bastard in the front seat.

You need some sort of weapon. You pull down the removable section in the middle of the backseat. You can't see, but you can reach through. Your hand pats around, looking for anything useful.

Bingo.

Tire iron. You pull it through. OK—you have a weapon. Now what?

Night falls. It's darker than usual. The streetlights don't come on. Then, around eleven o'clock, everything goes out. Interior lights in buildings shut off. The bridge lights go. Everything. It appears as if the city, or at least this part of the grid, has completely lost power. It's eerie—you've never seen the city so dark. It looks abandoned, deserted. You can no longer see inside any other cars. Makes you feel even more alone—it's just you, the undead thing in the front seat, and the thousands of other beasts that fill the streets.

This is your chance, under the cover of darkness.

You sit against the rear passenger-side door, tire iron in one hand. Perfectly still. For an hour, you don't move. You lull the thing into complacency.

Then slowly, oh so goddamn slowly, you bring your hand up to the door handle. Then, fast as possible, you snap the door open and jump outside onto the sidewalk. You rip open the front passenger-side door and the thing launches itself at you like it was spring-loaded.

You catch it on the side of its head with the tire iron, midair, and it falls into you. You unleash a torrent of blows. You hear its skull crack. You hear it shatter. But still it keeps coming. If the movies have taught you anything, you need to get to the brain that sits inside that skull.

It gnashes its teeth at you. You backpedal, swinging. You get lucky and it stumbles over its feet trying to get to you. While it's down on all fours, you raise the tire iron high, aim for the back of the skull, and bring it down as hard as you can. You feel it break through. The thing collapses.

Panting, splattered with blood, barely able to catch your breath, you survey your work and smile.

Then you remember the countless other zombies in the vicinity. You look up. In the moonlight, you can see them—all of them—running for you.

You book it. Head up the avenue. One lunges for you. You swing the tire iron, knocking it back, never slowing. Two more blocks.

Just run. Run like you never have in your life.

You turn the corner and see the construction site up ahead. You're close. You don't turn around, but you can hear them.

You're closing in on the fence that surrounds the site.

Close.

The sound of feet behind you—so many feet, running after you.

Closer.

C'mon!

You launch yourself at the fence. One of the things grabs your foot. Pulls you. You scramble up, shaking your leg, trying to pull free. Finally, its grip breaks. You climb higher. The top of the fence is lined with barbed wire. Your hand wraps around it and you pull yourself up. Pain, unbelievable pain. It's like arm wrestling a steak knife. Blood streaks down your arm. But you continue to climb. The barbed wire tears at your entire body. You get to the top and drop to the other side.