Dead Drunk II: Dawn of the Deadbeats (Dead Drunk: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse... One Beer at a Time Book 2) (19 page)

Charlie could
ignore Left-Nut’s diatribe except for the last part. The truth was he didn’t
know Brooke all that well. If she had used him, she got exactly what she
wanted: a one way ticket out of shithole Chicago. But there was a flicker of
hope still alive for Charlie, and for the rest of them. And he was going to
seize it.

An ominous
rumbling was suddenly heard far away in the distance, accompanied by the
telltale sounds of gunfire. It was coming from tanks. Lots and lots of them.
And now they knew why the base had been evacuated.

“You got
something better to do?” Charlie asked, arching an eyebrow.

“No,”
Left-Nut replied.

“That’s what
I thought.”

Russ had
remained quiet for a full thirty minutes as the president piloted the aircraft
in similar silence. Ahead were dark skies and darker thoughts.

Finally, the
truck driver could take it no longer. “Time for some Columbian marching
powder,” he said and pulled the kilo of cocaine out from underneath his seat.
Next he cut a small hole in the plastic with his pocket knife. The knife went
to his nose and Russ snorted long and hard. “Yikes. That’s some good shit.”

“I hardly
think that’s what we need at the—”

“It’s gonna
keep me from eating you in the near future,” Russ said. “Plus, I like to party
yo.”

“I suppose we
can’t have that,” the president said, his eyes lingering on the contraband.

Russ
instinctively lined the gentleman up with his own bump and President Childers
took it like a champ. “That is good shit,” he said and refocused on flying. But
the drug had already loosened his tongue, and soon the reserved politician was
spilling his guts. He told Russ about the war, how big of a prick the former
president had been, and even about his childhood.

Amped up on
weasel dust, Russ was a surprisingly good listener. But he had topics he wanted
to discuss as well.

“You know all
the insider info right?”

“You could
say I was privy to top-secret information, both before and after the outbreak. What
are you getting at?”

“Conspiracies
and stuff,” Russ said. “Come on, you gotta tell me some of ‘em. Was the moon
landing real? What about Bigfoot?”

The new
president sighed. “Okay, just one. Have you seen those cash for gold stores? It
turns out the government was secretly behind them. We sold all the gold in Fort
Knox years ago when prices were high. But we wasted the money and then we had
to scrape together new bars when Germany wanted their own ones back from the
federal vaults. It was a huge—”

“No, man. I’m
talking about aliens, Bermuda Triangle, stuff like that,” Russ said, not
bashful in the least bit about cutting the leader of the free world off
midsentence.

“Fine. NASA
detected distant alien life in 2010 and the government was planning to give full
disclosure in 2020. Not anymore…”

“Ha, I knew
it,” Russ said. “If there are zombies, there might as well be aliens too.
Reminds me of the time I was hauling chickens through Kentucky and saw a flying
saucer shoot right over my rig. Was hoping I’d get beamed up to wang-bang some
green hotties or something. Of course, I was blitzed off trucker speed, some
ludes, and a sixer of Old Mil. So it might have been a crop duster for all I
know.”

“Yes,
indeed,” President Childers said and chuckled to himself about his white lie.
Due to the chemicals coursing through his veins he was definitely feeling
better than he had for a long while. “This would be a great time for a selfie.”

“Selfie? Is
that when you try to blow yourself? Never could master the skill. Not that I
didn’t try.”

“No, Russell.
It’s when you take a picture of yourself and then post it online for others to
look at. I just thought it would be interesting to see the president of the
United States flying with a zombie co-pilot while high on cocaine. Forget I
mentioned it.”

And so the
discussion went on like that for quite a while, but there was a method to the
president’s madness. He was enjoying the conversation with the country bumpkin
but was also mentally evaluating his new companion at the same time. The
results were not spectacular. However, desperate times called for desperate
measures. There was a lot of that going on lately.

Having
sufficiently gauged Russ’ mental acuities, President Childers tried to relax
and let his exquisite mind wander. This created an awkward lull in the
conversation for about thirty seconds, and Russ would not stand for it.

“Man, I loved
hauling freight. The freedom of the wide open road, the God-given beauty of
America’s wilderness. The hookers.”

“Sounds
lovely.”

“Speaking of
hauling,” Russ said while digging into the white bag once more. “Any chance I
could get my driver’s license back? With like a get out of jail free card? You
are the president.”

“A pardon?”

“Did you
fart?” Russ asked.

“No, not
pardon me, a
pardon
. It’s like you said, a get out of jail card.”

“Sure,
whatever you want to call it. I just wanna drive again when this whole thing
blows over. Best time of my life was on the road.”

“Russell,
I’ll be frank with you. An alcoholic zombie has no business behind the wheel of
any vehicle, much less a forty-ton truck possibly hauling hazardous or
explosive material. So no, you won’t be getting your license back.”

“Dang.”

 “But it
doesn’t matter, because this trip we’re going on… it’s one way for both of us.”

Russ’s creepy
green eyes narrowed. “How so?”

“I said I
didn’t know why we got invaded, but that wasn’t entirely accurate. You see,
China was gripped by famine as its fields dried up and blew away. It made the
Dust Bowl look like nothing. Their land, once sacred to them, became worthless,
and the rest of the world shrugged.”

“I’m
listening,” Russ said and did another bump. For safety precautions, of course.

“Which leads
me to the opinion that they didn’t come here for the love of conquest or
retribution. They came here to eat.”

“Like a bear
coming into a campsite?” Russ said.

“Exactly.
Take away the food, i.e. the breadbasket of the U.S., and the bear goes
elsewhere. So that’s what we’re going to do, more or less. They have no supply
line whatsoever, so we’re talking a Napoleon in Russia scenario here.”

President
Childers pointed to an inconspicuous satchel in the corner of the plane. He had
sawed it off the former president’s hand right before they left. “That’s a
backpack bomb. An Atomic Demolition Munition to be precise. We’re going to take
it inside an observation tunnel heading into the Yellowstone caldera.” Russ
looked confused and the president clarified. “It’s a giant super volcano. We
set it off and it covers half the country in ten feet of radioactive ash. That’s
why I had you tell your friends not to cross the Mississippi. It’s called the
Sampson Option, and it will end the war.”

“Jesus. But
we’ll wreck half the country, won’t we?”

“Do you have
a better idea, Russell?”

“Of course not.
Kind of a man of action over here.”

The president
softened his tone. “Look, the super volcano is going to blow up sooner or later
anyway. Maybe next year, maybe next decade. We already paid Brazil billions to
build temporary housing as a contingency plan. It doesn’t look like we’ll need
it, though.”

Russ’s
ever-present grin had disappeared as he set the cocaine down and tipped his
bottle of rapidly disappearing whiskey. Even the drink could not tame the goose
bumps on his hairy arms.

“It’s not all
bad, though. You might end up saving the world. What will be left of it,
anyway.”

The patented
grin returned. “Hah, and some of my ex-wives said I’d never amount to shit.”

“What did the
other ones say?” the president asked.

“Who knows?
They had restraining orders out on me.”

It was the
president’s turn to grin. “They were wrong about you, Russell. Dead wrong.”

The
conversation was over and the two very different men pondered what tribulations
were ahead. Dawn broke soon after, and the skies turned a beautiful pink while
the small plane soared over the fallow fields below, carrying one president,
one knucklehead, and one last chance for humanity.

Richard Johnson (sort of) grew up in small-town Galesburg,
Illinois during the 80s. He currently lives with his thriving family in a small
town outside of Chicago, where he is a full-time parent and part-time yorkie
wrangler/duck whisperer.

Richard is a self-acclaimed expert of the zombie genre and
is the author of the wildly popular Dead Drunk series, with titles including
“Dead Drunk: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse… One Beer at a Time,” “Dead Drunk
II: Dawn of the Deadbeats,” and “Weekend At Vidu’s… a Dead Drunk Short.”

Richard is a good friend, a bad cook, and a terrible dancer.
If there is ever a real zombie apocalypse (fingers crossed), seek him out for
advice and comic relief. But bring plenty of beer.

Vidu, a used car dealer and d-bag extraordinaire, had been
aimlessly wandering the streets of Chicago with only one thing on his mind… and
that was before he got turned into a zombie.

Just when you thought you had seen the last of him, now you
can find out what happened to Vidu after he left his friends behind during the
pandemonium of “Dead Drunk: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse… One Beer at a
Time.” Humor, action, zombies, hangovers, gratuitous insults, and more Vidu!

This short story can be read as bonus material for fans of
the Dead Drunk series, or as an introduction to the Dead Drunk world, where the
only thing with more bite than the zombies are the jokes.

I would like to thank all of the people who have helped me
finish this latest project as well as those who have given me encouragement
along the way. I never in my wildest dreams believed I would have actual fans,
and now I have messages coming in from places like New Zealand, Great Britain,
India, and Mexico. The support truly has been phenomenal.

I’d like to once more thank Derek Murphy of Creativindie
Covers for creating another fantastic cover design, and the editors at
Manuscript Magic for their excellent editing work.

Thank you to my friends and family for believing in me,
thank you to my lovely wife, Kristin, and my boys, Kevin and Ryan, for keeping
life interesting, and thank you to my parents for allowing me to watch gory
zombie movies at an inappropriately young age.

Most importantly, thank you for taking an interest in my
books. If you keep reading them, I’ll keep writing them, and that’s a promise.

Richard Johnson