Dead Drunk: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse... One Beer at a Time (10 page)

Chapter
20

All Along the
Watchtower

Marquell held aloft the severed head of the hated prison
guard, Steve, and addressed those before him. Thick, coagulated blood dribbled
from dangling veins with each gesture the maniac made. “Now that I have your
motherfuckin’ attention, I’m gonna get right down to business. It’s simple. I’m
the man, and anyone who doesn’t toe my motherfuckin’ line is gonna get a dome
shot.”

There were uneasy grumbles among the prisoners, but nobody
stepped up to challenge the proclamation. “As of now, the guards, the workers
and their families are off limits. Everyone else will keep their old prison
job. Motherfuckers on laundry detail are still motherfuckers on laundry detail,
and so on.”

Juan Garza, a mid-ranking member of the 13
^th
Street Crew, stepped forward nervously while pointing to the guards.
“Respectfully, um… why are these
pendejos
getting a free pass? They
always treated us like shit.”

“I heard that,” an armed robber named Dantel agreed loudly.
“Their bitches should be up for grabs, right? I mean, a lot of the homies got a
piece and I gotta get mine, you feel me? I’ve been behind bars for five years.”

“No. That shit’s done,” Marquell replied calmly.

“Fuck that! Daddy Longlegs needs some play.” Dantel strutted
towards the line of cowering and bloodied women.

Marquell merely pointed, and the man’s head exploded into a
cloud of red mist and gray matter.
Pop, pop, pop
. The rest of the
prisoners hit the ground as several more shots sailed harmlessly overhead.

“There’s that dome shot I was talkin’ about.” Marquell waved
at the watchtower. “I think y’all know Gus, the crack-shot cracker with an
itchy trigger finger? He works for me now. Y’all work for me now.” He rolled
Steve’s severed head like a bowling ball towards the fresh corpse. “Clean this
mess up. Shit’s ruining my ambiance.”

Marquell approached Juan and picked up the discussion
without missing a beat. “Now back to your question. Do you know how to run
power generators?”

“No
ese
,” Juan replied hesitantly.

“What about surgery, or setting a broken leg? No, I didn’t
think so.” The leader turned to the rest of the men. “You see, the only things
y’all know how to do is kill and steal. Without me, this place would burn down
in a month.” He pointed to the electric fence and the dozen or so smoldering
zombies stuck to it. “But don’t worry, you’ll get a chance to do plenty of
that. Only it’s gonna be on the outside of those walls.”

* * *

Warden McCabe’s eyes opened as his head bounced roughly on
the concrete floor. He was being dragged feet first down a corridor in the
prison basement, and he couldn’t recall how he’d gotten there. A hazy flashback
of an ambush on the toilet slowly materialized, and the warden cursed his luck
and his taco salad. They stopped.

“This is it,
vato
. Wait here for the boss,” one of
his former inmates said to another as they dropped the warden’s legs to the
ground.

“Goddamn!” A crippling pain shot from Jack McCabe’s knees to
the rest of his body. They had been shattered by repeated blows from a steel
pipe.

Footsteps approached, and now it was his turn to wait in
fear. He prayed the end would come quickly, but knew better as he recognized
the newcomer’s voice.

“Get up, you sack of shit.” Marquell Washington gave a swift
kick to the warden’s ribcage. “You said that after you had that animal Steve
beat my ass the day I got here, remember? Unfortunately, Steve’s no longer with
us.”

“It was nothing personal, Marquell. I… I had to show the
prisoners who was in charge.”

“I know that, Jack. I was taking notes the whole time.”

The warden had manipulated people his entire life and he
wondered if there was an angle to use with his captor. It was doubtful the
psycho would listen, but he had to try.

“I actually learned a lot from watching you, Jack, and some
of that’s gonna help me run this place. For starters, I’ll be gettin’
acquainted with your wife tonight.”

“Please, don’t kill her. She hasn’t done anything to—”

“Kill her?” Marquell looked bemused at the thought. “She’s
the hottest piece of ass in the prison, maybe now the entire world. I’m
planning to do plenty of things to her, and trust me, killing ain’t one of
‘em.”

The warden continued to brainstorm, believing there was
wiggle room for survival if he could only keep the dialogue open. “Don’t be
rash. I can help you.”

“Oh, really?
You
can help
me
?”

“I can tell you where the gold is hidden, and—”

“I don’t give a fuck about no gold. I’m not opening a bank.”
Marquell looked at his newly acquired watch, the warden’s shiny Vacheron
Constantin. “We’re done here, I’ve got places to be.” He pointed to his
lackeys. “Toss him in.”

The giggling idiots heaved the warden into a dimly lit cell.
Jack screamed upon impact and fought the urge to black out. He rolled over to
see what was so damned funny.

A severely wounded man wriggled across the floor towards
him, almost slithering. The former deliveryman’s tendons had been cleanly cut,
but his hunger remained quite intact. Panicked, Jack clawed at the ground and
dragged himself away as the zombie closed in.

“I hope you like your roommate.”

“No, you can’t do this. Please, please!”

Marquell chuckled. “Who’s the hamster now, bitch?”

Jack stopped dead in his tracks, not wanting to give
Marquell the satisfaction of seeing him struggle any further.

The slow chase ended as the wheezing zombie methodically
used its clammy hands to climb up the warden’s back. Jack shut his eyes and
tried to clear his mind, but there was no happy place to be found when the
clumsy attack came. A blind man with a rusty spoon would have done better work.

Marquell’s men stopped laughing after witnessing the frenzy
of gnashing teeth and squirting veins. A painful reality dawned on them as they
viewed the macabre scene; this was the fate of their parents, their girlfriends
and their children.

Keeping to his tight schedule, Marquell had them torch the
cell and left for his next engagement. Moments later, he arrived outside the
private dining room.

Waiting there nervously was one Heather McCabe, a gorgeous
blonde with long legs, a year round tan and a sense of entitlement. She’d been
“asked” to come to the dinner dressed to the nines. The men wielding shotguns
were quite persuasive, and having lost contact with her husband after the riot,
Heather was in no position to argue.

Marquell leered at her for a full thirty seconds, and then
led the knockout by her manicured hands into the room. The floor shifted
slightly as they entered, and Heather looked down to see rough plywood had been
placed over the mahogany floor.

They sat at a long table as several of the prison “sisters” placed
silverware and filled glasses of water. Heather swore she heard a strange
whispering noise every time the flamboyant men returned.

Marquell made awkward small talk while picking at overcooked
smokey-links and undercooked mashed potatoes. Unfortunately, his vision of
high-class women stemmed from watching one episode of
Desperate Housewives
,
and Heather was too preoccupied with survival to humor him.

This woman made Marquell feel like a stuttering schoolboy,
which was something he’d never experienced during his countless conquests of
hookers, prostitutes and crack-heads. Though the psychopath could literally do
with Heather as he pleased, he savored this newfound emotion and desperately
wanted her to like him. He pointed downward. “Try the green tomato soup, it
goes great with the cornbread I made with my special recipe. I use cayenne
pepper to spice it up a notch.”

The candlelight glinted off Marquell’s shiny watch and
Heather immediately recognized that it was her husband’s. Her head began to
spin and her heart raced. “What have you done with Jack?”

Marquell played with his soup. “This needs to be heated up.”
One of his fawning attendants spirited the bowls away. Again, the strange
noise.

“Please, you need to tell me where my husband is,” she
pleaded once more, only quieter this time.

Marquell fixed the lovely blonde with a soulless gaze. “He’s
gone. But I think you already knew that.” Her lower lip trembled, and he made
his move while she was at her most vulnerable. “Look, I’ll tell ya’ straight
up. You got a choice, are you gonna be my girl, or…”

Heather steadied herself, batted her eyelashes seductively
and asked, “Is that wine I see?”

“Sure is, I made it myself,” Marquell said while beaming
with pride. “Don’t worry, it’s made with raisins, oranges and sugar, and I
didn’t make it in the shitter. I mean toilet,” he added hastily.

The former Miss Illinois runner-up poured two glasses of
prison hooch and sprouted the fakest smile she could muster under the
circumstances. If cozying up to the scumbag meant she’d live another day, the
decision was made. Besides, she’d been cheating on her husband with everyone
from the UPS guy to her Pilates instructor. In fact, no one would miss Jack
McCabe.

Marquell smiled handsomely and clinked his own glass
forcefully against Heather’s, splashing wine onto the fine tablecloth. Two more
servants walked into the room, napkins in hand, and this time an audible groan
came from beneath the plywood floor.

Unlike Heather, the surviving gang leaders had refused
Marquell’s ultimatums. Carlos “The Spider” Huerta, Max “Dime-bag” Dixon and
Javonte Taylor found themselves crammed underneath the makeshift floor, bound
and gagged. These unlucky dinner guests now suffered a fate Marquell dreamed up
while poring over
The History of Attila the Hun.

The floor compressed further as each extra pound came into
the room, pushing air from lungs, cracking ribs and squeezing organs. Heavy
tables and chairs, the diners, the food and the servants all added up until the
bound men’s eyes burst from the pressure. The whispering noises had been
fruitless gasps for air and the final death rattles of Marquell’s foes. They
should have toed his motherfuckin’ line after all.

Chapter
21

Sausage-Fest

Big Rob pinned the deadish, snarling beast down and rubbed its
face into the gravel. “He doesn’t like Left-Nut.”

“It’s a good thing that I
pulled Cliff’s teeth or he would’ve gobbled his last nut down like a chicken
nugget,” Trent added and pointed his pistol at the back of the thing’s head.
“But this fuckstick’s done for. We can’t have Left-Nut shitting his pants every
week. Even I think that’s messed up.”

Mike intervened. “Hold off. We’re learning too much from
him.”

“Like what, that he wants
to eat us? Sorry, but that’s pretty much Zombie 101, and I don’t think we need
to keep Cliff around for that type of brilliant insight,” Trent replied.

“He’s dropping weight.”

“So? We’re all starving,” Bruce said and chuckled, still
buzzing from the weed.

“Watch.” Mike grabbed a chunk of cat food from an opened can
and dropped it under Cliff’s slobbering mouth. The zombie completely ignored
it.

Trent shrugged. “I don’t want to eat that crap either.”

“This shows they only
want human flesh, and there’s not much of that left in the city,” Mike said.
“If he starves to death, we’ll know how long the others can last without food.”

“That’s all fine and good, except we’re gonna starve right
along with them,” Blake said. “Our stash might last a few more weeks, then
what?”

“Then we get more,” Mike replied.

Trent holstered his gun. “Okay, so the shit-bag gets a
reprieve. Now what are you gonna do with him?”

Mike walked to the side of the roof facing the fenced-in
alleyway and pointed downwards. Seconds later, Cliff bounced off of the garbage
cans and then rose, seemingly unscathed by the thirty-foot drop.

Russ peered over the
edge. “That dude’s like a cockroach.”

Mike rubbed imaginary dirt from his hands. “Problem solved.
Now we can safely study him.”

Left-Nut was having none of it. “This is bullshit. That’s the
second time he tried to eat me.”

“It is bullshit,” Charlie said while holding back a smile.
“He should’ve gotten you the first time.”

The excitement over and the group completely out of weed,
everyone turned in for another sleepless night. Meanwhile, unaware of his
freshly shattered ankle and broken nose, Cliff stared aimlessly at the alley
gate like a dog waiting to go outside.

* * *

The next day began uneventfully. There were angry complaints
of hunger, Rob stunk up the place by dropping a ridiculously large dump and the
gang turned to self-medication of the alcoholic variety.

“I’m starting to feel like Anne Frank up in here,” Blake
said as he paced from the living room to the kitchen. For a guy who’d always
been on the move, being cooped up was pure torture. It didn’t help that
chugging whiskey straight from the bottle while watching season ten of
The
Golden Girls
was the only entertainment available.

“Not to mention this is a never ending sausage-fest,”
Left-Nut added, then looked at Mike. “And I bet you’re loving it.” Mike rolled
his eyes and Left-Nut waved his finger. “See? You’re eye-fucking me right now.”

“And
Golden Girls
?” Blake said. “I can’t believe you
took the time to grab
that
when you were supposed to be looking for food
and medicine downstairs.”

“Rue McClanahan has always given me wood for some reason. I
think it’s because my grandma was sassy and—”

“Shush, I hear something outside,” Charlie said. Sure
enough, a faint buzzing noise approached from the west. It was a running
engine, and the first they’d heard in days. The group raced to the roof with
the fragile hope of rescue taking hold.

Blake peered down the street with the binoculars. “It’s a
school bus, and it’s hauling ass.”

Charlie grinned at the only good news they’d had. “I subbed
at a school about four blocks away that used to be an armory. I bet they were
holed up there.”

The newcomers weren’t alone however, and a large mob of the
infected streamed behind the bus pied-piper style. Those in the path of the
speeding bus became instant steaming piles of road kill.

The guys cheered them on, reveling with each zombie
explosion. “Go! Go! Go!” they shouted in unison. But a loud grinding noise rang
out as the fleeing vehicle reached the nearest intersection.

Russ, a truck driver of fifteen years, said one word, and
their exhilaration turned to dread. “Transmission.”

The bus jerked to a stop and the ravenous crowd was upon it,
punching and tearing at the doors and windows. Those inside were trapped like
divers in a shark cage, and there was nobody to pull them to safety.

Jim spoke first. “We need to do something, this ain’t
right.” He got no response. “What if those were your kids?”

“Let’s go.” Big Rob cracked his neck while hoisting a
softball bat. Nobody else stood up.

The numbers on the ground swelled to at least a hundred with
more arriving by the second. Someone fired a small caliber pistol through the
window several times, but like the Alamo, every attacker knocked down had two
more spring up in its place.

Charlie grabbed Jim’s shoulder roughly. “You’ll get torn to
pieces down there.”

He yanked away. “So? You call this living?”

The infected throng breached the rear door of the bus and
clamored in. Soon, fretful yelling and thrashing gave way to nothing but cold,
painful silence. The men on the roof could only imagine what horrors were
happening mere yards away.

Big Rob threw his bat at the crowd and then slumped to the
ground, sobbing uncontrollably. Jim simply glared at Charlie. “I can’t believe
I used to look up to you. You’re nothing but a coward.”

The words stung because Charlie knew they were true and had
been for years. Only now his wavering did more than ruin his career and dating
life, it cost actual lives. Even worse, they were children.

Surprisingly, the bus door opened and a short man with a
beer belly sprinted out while firing a gun. The forty-year veteran gym teacher
was instantly gang-tackled to the ground. But the ruse worked as intended, and
as countless zombies feasted upon the organs of the unsung hero, a small child
snuck off the bus, unnoticed for the moment.

Rob threw the ladder over the side while the others shouted
directions.

“Over here!”

“Yo kid, run this way!”

“No, this way, dumbass!”

But the small boy hesitated, and the mob closed in on all
sides. The men couldn’t bear to watch and averted their gazes as the child
screamed. And screamed. And screamed.

Russ’s drunken eyes widened as he snuck a peek. “The little
bugger got up in a tree.” Indeed, the boy had jumped from a fire hydrant to a
low hanging limb, and from there scaled up to the top.

After devouring the old man, the zombies next clawed
unproductively at the base of the tree. This caused the kid to scream bloody
murder and drew even more cannibals to the scene. If a rescue attempt was
suicidal before, a move now would be plain idiotic.

Mike stepped in front of his massive friend. “Don’t even
think about it. Charlie’s right, there’s too many and they’re too fast. We need
to wait till the crowd goes away. Then we can see about helping the kid.”

Still blubbering, Rob pulled the ladder up while Jim gave
Mike a few choice words and then retreated into the apartment to sulk.

“Why can’t the zombies be like the ones in the movies?”
Bruce said. “You know, the ones that move so slow you can do your taxes while
fighting them.”

“Because these aren’t undead zombies that are sluggish and
corpse-like, they’re sick people,” Smokey said, still considering himself the
ultimate word on the issue due to his vast knowledge of B-rated horror movies.
“How many times do I have to tell you that? They’ve got the ZIV, Zombie
Immunodeficiency Virus or something.”

Trent rolled his eyes. “Like I said, it’s fucking Zombie 101
up here. Where do I drop the class?”

Smokey continued to ruminate about the more delicate points
of zombie lore while Charlie’s shoulders sagged. Disgusted, he wished he had
some kind of brain bleach to rid himself of the day’s nightmarish images.
Charlie grabbed the ever-present bottle of rotgut from Russ’s grubby hand, and
amid protests, took a long, deep pull. It would have to do.