Dead Drunk: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse... One Beer at a Time (12 page)

Chapter
24

Grocery List

Richard Daley Prison was running smoothly after the initial
bloodletting, mostly because everyone was scared shitless of what Marquell
would do next. They had ample reason to be.

“Fore!” The new dictator drove a golf ball two hundred yards
off his homemade tee, an inmate buried to his neck. “You’re lucky you got an
afro, brother,” he said to the man who’d carelessly stepped on Marquell’s
shoes. The previous tee, a food hoarder, hadn’t been so lucky in the fluffy
hair department, and Marquell had broken two drivers off the bald man’s head.

A few swings later and Marquell had ruined another driver,
made a mess of those same white shoes and run out of balls. He’d made his
point, though, and left the yard for the daily boardroom meeting.

Various lieutenants and lackeys packed the room while hoping
to melt into the background. Marquell did a roll call then spent an hour going
over various administrative tasks, including food preparation, burial detail
and setting up a basketball league complete with lady-boy cheerleaders and a
playoff system. After stacking his own team with two former NBA players, he
dismissed the bulk of the group and waved those remaining to come forward.

The pack of scoundrels glanced around nervously while
Marquell whispered to his new second in command, a Columbian hitman by the name
of Fausto. The Medellin Cartel
sicario
sported a chest tattoo that had
often been confused for the Virgin Mary, but actually depicted Maria
Anuxilatra, Virgin of the Assassins and patron saint of murderers. He’d earned
the ink a hundred times over.

Marquell addressed his men with a deep baritone voice. “All
right, y’all, I’m gonna keep it one-hundred with you, and I ain’t gonna play.
Shit’s gonna be dangerous. You’re gonna smash and grab and bring me back what I
want. And think — no cops to worry about.”

“Yeah, we have to worry about the devils instead,” a
prisoner said quietly.

Marquell pointed to the swarthy-looking Fausto. “I’d be more
worried about the
loco hombre
right here if you screw up. You feel me?
There’s a Costco warehouse five miles out where you’ll load up one of the buses
with supplies. Canned goods, batteries, medicine… and I can’t motherfuckin’
stress this enough, dog food.” He winked at his newfound love interest. “What
kind you need again, girl?”

Heather rubbed her teacup
yorkie’s tiny head and spoke as if she were addressing a child. “Toby’s a
special little boy, so no generic stuff. He won’t touch it if it’s not
organic.”

“You heard her, Toby gets the good shit. Now don’t fuck this
up or you’ll be headed right back out. Remember, this ain’t vacation, so don’t
be getting high or drunk. Oh, and if someone gets bit, blast ‘em. Now roll
out.”

Marquell looked to his dangerous protégé as the ragtag band
of rapists, thieves and murderers shuffled out of the room to an uncertain
fate. “Think they’ll make it back?”

“I doubt it. They seem dumber than the first ones.”

Marquell nodded. “Less mouths to feed.” He looked at Heather
and added hastily, “But if they don’t come back, I’ll get the food myself, baby
girl.” He smiled widely. “The things we niggas do for white women.”

Heather rolled her eyes while Fausto chuckled. “
Si
.”

“But back to earlier, I still don’t know about half of these
guards. I don’t want to get blindsided.” Marquell’s blanket amnesty had held up
so far, but friction between the jailors and inmates was growing by the day.
Several assaults on guards’ wives had gone unsolved and unpunished, and their
complaints had grown louder.

“They’ll do as they’re told. We have favorite saying in
Colombia.
Plata o plomo
. It means you can take the silver or take the
lead.”

Marquell nodded. “True that. But I think we should bring
girls in after we get supplies tightened up. Otherwise this shit’s gonna get
worse. Nothin’ more dangerous than a brother with a hard-on. Speaking of,” he
said and grabbed Heather’s well-formed backside. She smacked him hard across
the face in response. Marquell grinned. “That’s how I like it.”

Chapter
25

Pillow Talk

Charlie crept into the bedroom and found Jim sprawled on a
dirty mattress, covered with Star Wars bed sheets and a wet rag. Two coat
hangers and the ever-ubiquitous duct tape held his head stable to avoid any
further damage — not that it mattered.

Jim’s papery skin was practically translucent and an
overpowering stench of the dying filled the room. Charlie mustered a brave face
as every instinct told him to turn and run out. “Hey, bud,” he said casually.

“Hey, Charlie,” Jim answered, slowly and with effort.

“How’re you feeling?”

“Dizzy… and I can’t move.”

Charlie grabbed Jim’s worthless hand. It was cold and clammy
and made him want to puke, but he held it tightly just the same. “Are you in
much pain?”

“No, I can’t really feel anything. Smokey said I made a mess
of my legs?”

“You busted ‘em up good. But let’s not talk about that.
Let’s relax and talk about something a little more… nice.”

Jim nodded. “Here’s something nobody’s mentioned in a while,
but do you remember that time Vidu kicked a girl?”

“I’m the one that yanked her off him. He was screaming, ‘I
kill you bitch! I kill you bitch!’ And the girl was waving a handful of his
hair around like she’d scalped him.”

“God, his English was horrible back then,” Jim said and
cracked a smile.

“It didn’t get much better. Vidu never could remember what
to call nachos. Dumbass kept calling them Cheetos for some reason. And of
course, that wasn’t the last beat-down he got from a girl,” Charlie said,
recalling the bachelor party prank that seemed to have happened in a different
lifetime.

“He had trouble adjusting over here… but we did make his
life better, I think, even if we always busted his balls.”

Vidu was probably wandering the streets of Chicago at that
very moment, much like Jim’s wife had been, so Charlie moved on. “Hey, how
about that time my mom caught Left-Nut jerking off into the campfire on the
Fourth of July? What a creeper.”

“Hah, that was awesome.” Jim paused to cough, and bloody
foam trickled down his gaunt chin. “Those pool parties were great, weren’t
they?”

“Ice-cold kegs, a badminton court complete with dog-crap
obstacles, a fire-pit, topless hour and teenage girls, yeah, they were
legendary.” They’d also been Charlie’s high water mark, and everything had gone
downhill since.

“If you couldn’t get laid there, you just couldn’t get
laid,” Jim said wistfully.

Charlie didn’t remember Jim landing anyone at the parties,
but let it slide under the circumstances. He was about to kill the poor guy
after all. “I wish that summer never ended. We were like kings or demi-gods or
something. Not to sound gay, but it was magical.”

“It had its time and place, but you can’t live in your mom’s
basement forever. We all had to grow up. We all
should
have grown up,”
Jim added pointedly.

Charlie nodded, knowing his Peter-Pan Syndrome had made him
miserable for the last decade. “I don’t know why, but I just couldn’t move
forward.”

Jim’s mood darkened. “I guess now it doesn’t matter who was
successful or important. Who was happy…”

“That’s not true. You had something special going with Cindy
that most people never had, and that counts for something. I sure as hell
didn’t have it. Trust me, we were all jealous.”

Jim made a face. “What’s that smell anyways?”

“I think Rob’s stinking up the place again,” Charlie said.
“You know how he normally is, and now he’s eating cat food twice a day.”

“The big oaf really saved me?”

“He went over the roof like a banshee in a blender. I
haven’t ever seen him move that fast when food or beer wasn’t involved.”

“He’s always been a good guy. You need to take care of him
for me.”

“You can help me when you get better. It’s just gonna take
some time for your bones to heal up. Mike has a rehab plan in place and we’re
gonna have you kicking a soccer ball by the end of the year.” The white lies
were getting ridiculous but Charlie didn’t know how to stop at this point. He
made eye contact. “Jim, you were always my ace in the hole when I needed you,
I’ll never forget what you did for me all these years.”

Jim looked uneasy. “No, I was a pretty big scumbag at times.
You should know I wasn’t always loyal.”

Curious, Charlie leaned forward. “Okay, fill me in.” Jim had
always been fairly milquetoast, so he assumed a bland tale of stolen beer was
coming his way. He was wrong.

“Do you remember that Halloween party sophomore year? We
served hundreds of Jell-O shots to the sororities while that crappy cover band
played.”

“I remember some of it. Everything got hazy after I bonged a
pitcher of rum and coke and snorted a bunch of Vivarin. I could have died that
night.”

“Carrie Evans and I took care of you after you streaked
through the party and passed out in the shower,” Jim said.

“I vaguely remember that.”

“We kept you on your side and made sure you puked in the
trash can all night.”

Charlie wasn’t following him. “I had the hangover of the
century after that. But how does taking care of me make you a bad friend?”

“Look, despite how shitty you treated her, everyone knew you
loved Carrie.”

“True,” Charlie replied,
arching an eyebrow. His complex relationship with the stunning girl had gone
from drunk-dialing booty-calls to genuine feelings, but it eventually fizzled
out due to Charlie’s fear of commitment. The two never reached closure, and
Charlie still regretted how things merely faded away after graduation.

“The thing is… she was dressed like a slutty racecar driver
that night.”

“I remember that outfit.” Charlie wondered if maybe Jim
wasn’t so milquetoast after all. “Go on.”

“We were both totally bombed and it got late, you know, and,
and…”

“And?”

“I banged her,” Jim said quickly. “You slept right through
the whole thing.” He looked like a dog that had been kicked by its owner.

Charlie gazed at his paralyzed friend for a few awkward
seconds. Jim had betrayed him and the revelation stung. He cleared his throat
and then chuckled softly. “You randy little turd.” Had the information come a
few days earlier, Charlie would have taken him to the woodshed and not felt a
bit sorry for it. As things were, he could only laugh it off.

“You mean… you’re not mad?”

“I’m trying to picture you two going at it with me lying in
my own puke. How romantic.” Charlie knew Jim didn’t fully believe him, probably
because it was bullshit. Still, he put up a good front. “Look, I wasn’t going
out with her and that was my fault. I had years to ask her out and didn’t. I
wanted the cake and some pie on the side. It’s the story of my life, I can’t
step up.”

“True, but I shouldn’t have done what I did. It was a tool
move and—”

“No you shouldn’t have, but at this point who really gives a
shit? I know I don’t, and I know you shouldn’t. It’s water under the bridge
Kemo Sabe, and besides, I need to come clean too. It isn’t quite the same kind
of bombshell, but do you remember how your room always smelled horrible senior
year?”

It was Jim’s turn to look puzzled. “Yeah, I had some
maintenance workers there every week trying to figure out why. They thought
maybe a dead mouse was in the walls.”

“It wasn’t a mouse. I’d sneak in there and piss down the
radiator vents when I was drunk. Sorry, I didn’t really have a reason. Just
thought it was funny.”

“I always thought it smelled like piss. Anyways, I’m glad I
got that off my chest. Now on to the serious stuff. Will you pray for me?”

“I’m not a religious man, and especially not after the past
few months,” Charlie said.

“It doesn’t matter. You know I was an altar boy right?”

“Yeah.”

“But did you know I got molested?” Jim asked.

“Oh man, I’m sorry to hear—”

“Nah, I’m messin’ with you.” Jim laughed, and dark, thick
blood ran out of his nose. Charlie wiped it off and Jim continued. “But
seriously, I’m scared about going to hell. Suicide’s a mortal sin after all.”

“If there’s a hell, you’re not going there. Even if you did
nail Carrie Evans behind my back, you sneaky son of a bitch.” He squeezed Jim’s
dead hand. “Besides, you didn’t kill yourself and you’re gonna be fine.”

The two talked for hours until Jim’s voice grew soft and he
wasn’t making much sense. Charlie had delayed the inevitable, but the charade
was over. “I think it’s time you get some rest.” He grabbed the deadly
cocktail. “This’ll help you doze off.” The twenty ground-up Triazolam tabs were
enough to put a rhino to sleep.

He poured the solution down Jim’s throat and was careful not
to spill a drop. Still, after several minutes of sleep, Jim’s body shuddered
and he puked most of it up. There were no more pills, and Charlie hoped it had
been enough. Jim’s pulse slowed and his breathing drew shallow as the end
seemed near. Then he snored. Loudly.

“You gotta be shitting me,” Charlie said and grabbed a
pillow. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and applied firm pressure to his
friend’s motionless face. He held it there for a minute and then slumped to the
floor amidst dirty socks and dust bunnies.

Jim was finally at peace with his eyes closed, a relaxed
jaw, and the faint hint of a smile on his resting face. “Phonebook!” he shouted
out and gasped for air.

Charlie panicked and pressed the pillow down so hard his
arms trembled and cramped, and there would be no waking up this time. His tears
saturated the Superman pillow as he used it to kill his best friend.
Heartbroken, Charlie closed Jim’s vacant eyes and covered him with a sheet.
Then he opened his dresser drawer and pulled out two items he’d hidden away for
years.