Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? (28 page)

“No, no—c'mon, what do I look like here? Top shelf,” Wall Street says.

She shoots you a look. You smile and shrug—get a nice little warm feeling inside, goes well with the rising hell outside.

She grabs a bottle of Patrón Silver from high up on the shelf behind her, asks Wall Street if it's good enough for him, then makes her way down the bar, pouring the liquor. The drunks are quite pleased. They take their shots and knock 'em back. Some turn their attention back to the TV, others stare ahead, a few trade war stories.

You take yours. It burns. You want a lime wedge but are too afraid to ask for one. When was the last time you took a shot at noon? Well, actually, not all that long ago.

“Anthony?” the cute bartender says to the bouncer, nodding to the bottle. He lets out a low rumble that could, technically, be considered a sigh. Strides over to the bar.

“Why not,” he says.

She smiles. “That's my guy.”

She pours a shot for herself and a shot for him. You watch, not hiding your interest. “You?” she says, looking you in the eyes.

You stumble. “Huh?”

“Another, jackass? You want another?”

“Oh, sure, yeah.”

She pours you a second shot.

“Me too, hon,” Wall Street says, leaning over you, trying to push you out of the picture. You put your elbows on the bar and edge forward.

She pours him one.

“To the apocalypse,” he says and takes his shot. You, the bartender, and the bouncer wait—then take yours a beat later, leaving him to drink alone. He's too caught up in himself to notice.

The liquor burns a hole in your gut. You bring your gaze back up to the TV.

The images on the television are horrific. And these are all places you know. Places you've been. And it's pure carnage. War. Police fighting, firing, sometimes seeming to win the battle, other times being overwhelmed.

The drunk to your left, huge guy, comb-over, gasps as the broadcast cuts to a horde of the beasts outside the big Gristedes supermarket on Eighty-third. “Fuck me, that's six blocks from here…”

You hear the chopping sound of a helicopter overhead—the same helicopter broadcasting on the TV, you realize. Yes, these things are close.

A woman's scream cuts through the air. From the street. The bouncer, Anthony, darts outside, moving quick for a big man. A minute later he returns and slams the door behind him.

“Hey, what are you—” someone says.

“Shut up,” he says. “Listen! Those things are outside and they're headed this way. Anyone wants out, go now, 'cause I'm locking it up.”

Before anyone answers, there's a banging noise at the door behind him. Anthony throws his back against it. Even if you wanted to leave now, you couldn't. A wall of people
has gathered outside, pounding the door, screaming to be let inside.

You watch Anthony intently. He breathes heavily in and out, appears to be thinking hard. Finally, he takes his weight off the door and it flies open, sending half a dozen people spilling inside. Immediately others in the street rush for the door and the safety of the bar.

Anthony slams the door shut in the face of twenty screaming, begging voices. One, an elderly woman, pleading. He throws all his weight into the door, shuts his eyes, and pushes.

“Let them inside!” a woman behind you cries. More people gather at the window outside, tugging on the bars that cover it.

But there's no time—the creatures are now upon them. Devouring them. Teeth ripping through flesh. Hands pulling and tearing.

A drunk behind you drops his glass.

You want to move. Do something. Anything. But you don't—you just watch.

One poor bastard's face is pressed against the door's rectangular, microwave-sized window. He and Anthony make eye contact—the man beseeching him to help. Then the glass gives and the man's upper half bursts through. Shards of glass tear him to pieces. Shredded skin hangs from his face and arms. He whimpers. Then, after a long, horrific moment, he goes silent.

Anthony steps away from the door and brings his arm crashing down upon the hinged wooden divider that keeps the drunks from going behind the bar and pouring their own whiskey sours. It splinters at the hinges. He twists it off.

“Rachel, behind the bar, the toolbox!” he shouts. The pretty bartender, Rachel apparently, does as she is told. Most everyone else has moved to the back of the bar. You remain frozen in the middle.

Anthony throws his shoulder into the door and wedges his foot against the corner of the bar. The door shakes, but it
holds. More creatures come. Dead hands reach through the window. One grabs his arm, tears the flesh. Anthony howls. The door bucks and bends. It won't hold for long.

He picks up the two-inch-thick piece of wood, grabs a hammer and some nails from the toolbox, and turns to work on the door.

Blocking his progress is the chunk of messy gore that was once a man. Anthony grabs the dead man by the hair, lifts him up by the head, and tries to push him back onto the sidewalk.

Suddenly the dead man's face jerks to life. His eyes light up like headlights in a graveyard. Anthony jumps back as the man, his head and shoulders trapped in the tight frame of the window, snaps his teeth. His veins pop. His eyes bulge. The blood stops dripping—it turns a dark reddish black.

It's a horrific scene. This snapping, bloodthirsty face the centerpiece—an entire street full of undead beasts the backdrop.

Anthony brings the hammer down hard upon the thing's head. No beauty to it, no precision, just heavy whacks to the thing's skull. Blow after blow after blow. Chunks of skin and skull and brain splash the wall and the floor. The head bobs, wounded, broken. Anthony raises the hammer high, pauses, then brings it down with all his might. The thing's skull shatters and it goes limp.

Anthony twirls the hammer in his hand, hooks the dead thing's nostrils with the nail claw, and lifts it up and out of the window. But there's no rest. Behind it, more of the walking dead approach.

Quickly, Anthony throws up the wood, puts two nails into the top, and begins hammering. After a few more nails, the small window is covered. But the door continues to throb and creak as the beasts press.

“Someone, get over here!” he shouts. “This ain't gonna hold for long!”

No one moves. No one says a fucking thing. Inside the bar,
all is quiet, except for the howl of Merle Haggard on the jukebox.

Anthony points at you with the hammer. “Now!”

WHEELMAN

Last time you fired a gun was at overnight camp in eighth grade. Last time you drove a car was Thanksgiving, at your folks' house. You'll go with the years.

“I'll drive,” you say.

Chucky tosses you the keys. You don't catch them cleanly and they clatter on the floor. Good start.

You climb into the driver's seat of the old GMC. It's a ragged old bench seat, cigarette burns and tears patched up with about ten pounds of duct tape. It's a vehicle with personality—a veteran. It's been around, you think, but it's never been on a ride like this next one.

Chucky hops into the bed of the truck and parks himself just behind the GMC's glass partition. He slides the window open, puts his elbows on the metal, and rests his head in his open hands.

“Now what?” you ask him.

“We wait for that chain to snap. If we're lucky, it never does.”

“Yeah—and we just starve to death in here.”

“Don't worry. I got Pringles in the office.”

The mechanical
clank, clank, clank
of the struggling gate echoes through the garage, along with the moans of the hungry hoard that waits beyond it.

You fiddle with the radio but get nothing.

The little bike lock's time is almost up, you think. The clanging is growing louder and you can see the metal straining. The moans of the beasts grow louder with it, like they know what's
coming. The sound sends shivers down your spine. You look at your hands on the wheel—they're shaking.

“Hey, Chucky—you got any more of that booze?” you say, not turning around, just staring at the opposition. The Gatorade bottle appears suddenly in your field of vision. You grab it. Four heavy swigs. Need all the courage you can get.

“And a cigarette,” you tell him. He hands you one.

You turn the key in the ignition. The truck jumps to life. It's loud, shakes and shudders beneath you. Not a healthy automobile. You pat the dashboard like you're trying to calm a spooked horse.

You light your cigarette. Watch the chain. Focus in on it. Any moment now…

It snaps. The gate begins its climb. You smoke the butt, trying to enjoy every last minute before the gate rises.

You pull a large knob to your right and the headlights flash on. They flood the garage, and for the first time you can clearly see what it is you're up against. A hundred of the things, at least. A thick mass of the undead, blocking the garage's only exit.

Twisted, disfigured faces. Skin bubbling. Women in summer dresses, their strappy sandals long discarded. Kids in overalls and cute little dresses. Men in business suits. Some torn and ripped, some still ironed and pressed from this morning—a morning that now feels like it was a lifetime ago.

You pump the gas and the engine growls. You'd hoped it might scare them off. It didn't.

The gate lifts up and passes over the zombies' heads. They begin marching forward.

A large lever sticks up from behind the gearshift. You jerk it down, then to the right. With a loud mechanical churning sound, the truck's plow lowers to the ground. A few seconds later it settles against the cement.

You glance in the rearview mirror. Chucky raises the shotgun and nods.

You nod back and flick the cigarette out the window. Hands tight on the wheel. Looking straight ahead.

You hit the gas.

They charge.

There are fifty or sixty feet between you and the cavalcade of walking dead. Just enough time to pick up speed. You bear down, knuckles white on the wheel, and brace yourself as they close in.

The plow pushes through the first wave, knocking them aside like stray cows caught on an Old West train track. Some get scooped up. Others spun aside.

They shriek and howl. You're hurting them, you think. But then you realize the cries are not coming from the ones you're killing. It's the others. It's a battle cry.

You give it more gas. Bodies crunch beneath the wheels. The truck keeps moving.

You keep on the gas. Resistance. You push harder, but the truck continues to slow. Finally, the horde becomes too much for the plow. Bodies slip underneath. The wheels spin in place, turning on a pile of fleshy death.

The stopped truck makes an easy target now. One beast—an Asian teenager in a private school uniform—climbs up the side of the truck. She scratches and claws at the window. More climb onto the hood.

You pump the gas. Nothing. Hydroplaning on a bloody mess of guts and gore.

A gunshot explodes behind you. Then another. Your eyes dart up to the rearview. The beasts are scaling the back and Chucky is doing everything he can to keep them at bay.

Fuck—this ain't working.

You take your foot off the gas. The truck settles, then begins rocking and swaying on the hill of bodies.

You drop it into neutral and floor it, the engine roaring—then, after a long moment, with beasts climbing all over the truck, you drop it back into second.

It works. The truck jerks forward over the hill of bodies. The beasts clinging to the hood drop to the ground. More shotgun blasts—Chucky does his job.

The plow sweeps the next batch of beasts off their feet and you're able to steer the truck out of the garage, up the ramp, and out onto the street.

The Chambers Street you're on now is a world away from the one you escaped hours ago. The beasts are scattered in bunches. Small groups.

But the people—normal, living, everyday people—are gone. Their cars are still there. Mostly empty. Some with shattered windows, filled with living-dead drivers and passengers, now rendered too stupid to work the seat belt or door so they can leave.

A young woman on Rollerblades, her shirt ripped, face torn, rolls around. Struggles to stand—then her foot goes out from under. Turning into a zombie with a pair of Rollerblades strapped to your feet is clearly not the way to do it.

The sound of horrific carnage is gone—but the city is not quite silent. Car alarms and gunshots float over from blocks away. It's like standing outside Yankee Stadium halfway through a game—you can hear it, know something big is happening, but you're not quite a part of it.

You turn to Chucky. “You alright?”

“I'm good,” he says as he reloads the shotgun.

“Good. Where to?”