by Max Brallier
You cut across the famous White House Rose Garden. The roses are thick and wild—a small jungle, shredded beneath your tires as you swoop around.
The supercharged Porsche barks behind, fast as hell. Playing possum like this could get you dead. With the rear of the El Camino damaged, you may need to take a risk to finish off Lucy . . .
Take a risk and leave the car? Click here.
Never leave the El Camino! Click here.
STEPPING INTO THE RING
You stand in the torch-lit arena, Ring beside you, shouting to the crowd.
“Hope you enjoyed your appetizer,” he yells. “Now the real show begins! A new gladiator! A man, paid by Boss Tanner”—at that, the crowd hisses and boos; apparently word of his particular brand of awfulness has gotten around—“to drive cross-country. But I’ve intercepted him, and he will now fight for your amusement!”
You turn, eyeing the bloodthirsty spectators. They whoop. Bottles clink together.
Louis walks over and drops two weapons to the ground: a meat cleaver and a long, wooden spear.
You want to take the spear and run it through Ring. He sees it in your eyes. The anger. They all do. His men step closer to the edge of the cattle ring, guns up, aimed at your chest.
You look down at the weapons.
The meat cleaver you can wield with deadly skill.
But the spear can attack from a distance, allow you to keep the monsters away.
“Louis,” Ring says. “Send in the clowns!”
Louis crosses to the train. The big cattle-car door rumbles open, he steps up, and a moment later he’s leading out five undead circus clowns. One long chain, wrapped around their throats, connects them all.
They’re smothered in paint and blood. Faces half-gone. Flaps of skin hanging over big red bow ties. One missing an arm. Louis leads them into the cattle ring, then unlocks the chain. It clatters to the ground.
“Good luck, Jimmy El Camino,” Ring says as he slams the gate shut.
Again, the crowd roars. The monsters shuffle forward, moaning. You eye the weapons at your feet.
If you choose the spear, click here.
Are you a meat cleaver fan? Then click here.
GOOD-BYE, IGOR
“You know what,” you say, pulling the gun and firing, “I’ll handle this without you.”
Both barrels are emptied into Igor’s chest. He’s lifted off his feet and propelled backward. His body lands in a heap, at the feet of zombie [REDACTED, LEGAL].
You watch it eat as you reload the gun.
“C’mon, Iris,” you say, carrying her through an Employees Only door and down stairs. There’s a large industrial freezer there, for storing the wax.
Carefully, you lay Iris down. You pull the sawed-off, twist the handle on the freezer, and then—
They’re on you! As the door opens, two dozen zombies rush forward. You squeeze off a shot, hitting some obnoxious B-list celebrity in the face. Another shot hits a very old James Bond.
More of Igor’s celebrities. You can make out the faces of some. Faces you recognize, through the decayed skin. And then it’s [REDACTED, LEGAL], delivering the final bite—teeth at your throat, tearing the flesh.
AN END
WINE COUNTRY
Suddenly, a plan. A terrible plan. But when death is this close, a terrible plan is better than no plan.
You rip your shirt off, jam the Smith & Wesson into your waist around your back. You grab a handful of shriveled, rotten grapes from the ground, squash them on your face and chest, creating the illusion of gory, blood-soaked skin.
You begin shuffling through the field—moving like one of the monsters. Zombies surround you, but none approach, yet.
The Lincoln rolls into the clearing, first snapping the stalks, then creeping through the tall grass. Mr. King is searching for you.
You—battered, broken, lean from years in that damn cell, with one arm hanging from its socket, and covered in your own blood and chunks of grape—look nearly as horrific as the monsters.
Mr. King rolls toward you. You slowly shuffle to the side.
You look up, carefully.
The long Lincoln begins to roll past you.
This is your moment.
The cracked driver’s-side window passing you.
You pull the Smith & Wesson from behind your back.
You tap the butt of the gun against the glass. You smile as he turns. His mouth opens, just slightly, and you thrust the barrel through the cracked window and fire two rounds. The glass shatters first, and Mr. King’s head shatters next. At point-blank range, from the Smith & Wesson, there’s nearly nothing left. Smoke and gore fill the car.
“Gotcha . . .” you say softly.
And then they’re on you. Zombies, stumbling toward you, smelling the rich scent of blood. You race through the fields, darting down the long rows, scooping up Iris’s body with your good arm, passing the smoldering El Camino, never slowing.
You scramble up the hill, back out onto the highway. San Francisco’s skyline towers off in the distance.
You begin walking.
Coming to the San Francisco airport, you’re close to the point of exhaustion. Sore, dehydrated, sharp pain all through you.
You’re greeted by a great barricade, forty feet high, stretching the length of the entire city. It’s built of rusted vehicles, steel beams, and anything else they could dredge up. Men with rifles stand atop the barricade, like medieval soldiers at parapets.
“Hold it!” a soldier calls down.
“I’m Jimmy El Camino,” you say, tired.
“That supposed to mean something?” the soldier barks.
Pride, suddenly—a foreign feeling—as it hits you that you’re really here. You look up and say, “You’re damn right it means something. Call your boss. He knows I’m coming.”
“Guy, this is an open city. But we get a little nervous when a man shows up carrying a woman with no legs.”
“Just get your boss on the line.”
Before the soldier can argue further, there’s a rumbling, and a section of the barricade ahead of you opens. A car rolls forward and out steps a man in full military regalia. He’s bald, with a thin, precise mustache.
“Jimmy El Camino,” he says.
You nod.
“Come with me.”
You shake your head. “The antidote. Not going anywhere until I see it. And you better hurry—the girl gets any warmer, this’ll all have been for nothing.”
He seems to have forgotten. “Yes,” he says, raising an arm and snapping his fingers. Out rushes a man in a white lab coat. He hands you three small pills. You swallow them.
You look up at the guard, give him a fuck-you smile, and follow the military man through the door and into the city to a waiting Humvee.
“So that’s Iris?” he asks.
“What’s left of her.” Sliding into the rear of the Humvee, you say, “Need to move quick. Eigle said if I kept her cool, there was still a chance.”
The Humvee races through the streets. You sit in the back with Iris’s head in your lap. Her face is shriveled and lifeless. Her hair feels like straw.
You look away from Iris’s dead eyes, out the window. It’s a real city. Not like New York. San Francisco is bustling. Full of people, full of energy. It’s certainly not what it was before, but it’s civilization.
The base of operations is Fisherman’s Wharf—buildings there turned into laboratories.
When you step out of the Humvee, a soldier tries to take Iris. “No,” you say. “I’ll deliver her.”
You follow them, moving quickly, carrying her warming body into the bowels of a building that was once part of City College.
You come to a room full of scientists. Zombies in cages line the wall. Others lie on tables, cut open. Monitors glow dimly.
The lead scientist, a long-haired man in a lab coat, steps forward. He looks at her body and frowns. “What happened?”
“A lot.”
“I
’ll see what we can do . . .”
Click here.
WELCOME TO LOUISIANA
Not long after you see the WELCOME TO LOUISIANA sign, you pull into a gas station and cut the engine. You wait for a moment—listening, watching for monsters or highwaymen—then step from the car.
There’s an old phone booth at the edge of the station. Inside, you find what you’re looking for: the yellow pages.
You flip to the Ts. Taxidermy. There are a number of entries, all with awful names: Big Billy’s Beaver Work; Reedville Taxidermy, Liquor, Cheese, and Flowers; Aunt Jude’s Famous Turkey Stuffing.
Not what you’re looking for.
Any real business will be long since abandoned. But a small place, out of the way, work done out of the home—some backwoods survivor just might still be living there.
It’s a long shot, but when it’s your only shot, it’s the shot you take . . .
One looks promising: Dewey’s Taxidermy and Freeze-Dry Preservation—Call for Appointment. 87 Broken Pelican Drive.
Freeze-drying preservation—a process that eliminates decaying and leaves the tissue unaltered.
Back inside the El Camino, you scan a map of local Louisiana. Dewey’s Taxidermy is forty miles from your current location. You throw on your sunglasses and hit the gas.
An hour later, just past an old video rental store, you find Broken Pelican Drive. Two huge trees bridge the entrance, and as you take the turn, it feels like you’re driving into some different, dark world.
Broken Pelican Drive is a long, twisting road that runs south, into swampland. Narrow and thick with shadow. Cypresses and massive oaks loom overhead and overgrown bushes crowd the dirt road. No Trespassing signs are nailed to trees.
You drive slowly, checking addresses on mailboxes. The few houses you spot are two- and three-room shacks set back in the woods.
Roughly a half mile down the road, you spot the tin sign nailed to the side of a thick oak: Dewey’s Taxidermy. No entrance without appointment. Trespassers will be shot on site. You assume he means “shot on sight”—but both apply, you suppose.
You turn down the muddy path. At the end of a quarter-mile trail, backing up to the swamp, you find Dewey’s Taxidermy.
It is a tumbledown backwoods place. A chain-link fence in front vaguely delineates something of a yard. Inside the fence, between the drive and the porch, is an impressive collection of junk. Toilets and refrigerators. Old car parts. Moonshine bottles and street signs and mattresses. Stuffed animals are posed out front: muskrats, coyotes, red foxes, and armadillos. Perched on the roof is a plastic Santa Claus and a few overturned reindeer. A wind chime jingles away, adding an eerie sort of sound track to the scene.
You turn to Iris’s dead body in the passenger seat. Her mouth hangs open and her eyes stare forward. “Well,” you say, giving her a friendly slap on the knee, “we’re here.”
You step out of the car, carrying the sawed-off. A sign on the fence gate says, in scrawled letters, Holler for Dewey.
If you want to “holler for Dewey,” click here.
If you’d rather go around back and try to get the jump on the man, click here.
WHEELMAN
“If you’ve got something else for me, give it to me now—why this charade?”
“You need to prove you’ve still got it in you,” Eigle says. “Live through the Death Derby. Don’t make a fool out of yourself. Get some kills.”
“And then?”
“And then one job. One mission, and you get your freedom. Unconditionally.”
You grit your teeth. “All right.”
A sly, thin smile from Eigle. “Boss Tanner!” he calls. “My man will drive.”
Boss Tanner strolls over. He grabs your cuffs, rattles them. “I suspect you’ll die very shortly. I will enjoy that.”
Major Eigle pulls you away. Descending the stairs, you hear the announcer say, “Hold on just one minute, folks! It appears we have a late addition to today’s derby card. That means you’ve got a few extra moments to get your bets in! Place ’em, place ’em, place ’em!”
Thin One and Boxy move quickly now with Eigle, hurrying you downstairs.
You tell Eigle, “It’s taking everything I have not to slam your head into this wall right now. And snuff out your two boys here.”
“I know that, Jimmy. I know that.”
At the ground floor, you’re led out a back entrance. The street is empty. Papers whip across the ground. Rats dart. Eigle marches quickly down Forty-Fifth Street, to the east, toward Broadway.
The soldiers are behind you, hurrying you along. Graffiti on building walls—REPENT NOW! and, scrawled in blood, I FOR ONE WELCOME OUR NEW ZOMBIE OVERLORDS!
The whole city smells of rotting meat.
You’re now three blocks north and two avenues east of Times Square. You’re halfway between streets, past abandoned drugstores and a Starbucks and a McDonald’s.
You see it on the corner.
A black Jeep Wrangler—heavily armored, heavily armed.
Speakers screech, kicking feedback, and the announcer barks: “Five minutes! Drivers, take your positions! Gamblers, final bets! Everyone else, get ready for electric entertainment!”
Eigle uncuffs you, gives you the spiel. “Jeep’s heavily modified. In the back, everything you need if shit gets hairy on the ground. But I’ll say it now—shit should not get hairy on the ground because you should never be on the ground because you should never leave the car. Now, inside . . .”
Eigle opens the door. The interior looks like something from a low-budget seventies sci-fi flick.
“On the shifter, you’ve got the machine guns. Those are located on the front of the car there, as you can see. Fifty-cal. Triggers for sidewinder missiles on the dash. In the back, frag grenades here, a fire ax, and a sawed-off Remington—”
“My favorites.”
“I know.”
The announcer’s voice echoes off the buildings: “Two minutes!”
You slide into the car and settle in behind the wheel. Pull the rearview mirror down. Check yourself out.
You look good.
You look alive.
Good enough and alive enough to kill a whole mess of undead monsters and maybe twist some metal, too.
Eigle looks down at you—stern, like the whole world depends on you. “Want to reiterate: the rules are simple. Ten points for every zombie you kill solo, twenty-five points for combo deaths—that’s killing more than one at once. Fifty points for knocking a driver out of the race, and one hundred for killing another driver outright. The whole thing lasts ten minutes. You don’t have to win—just don’t get dead. I can’t explain the mission yet. But just—please don’t get dead.”
You nod.
Eigle hands you a fifth of whiskey. You take a swig, tuck it between your thighs. You don’t say anything. You only glare at the man who held you in a cage as he marches away, back to the tower to watch you fight for your life.
You put it in gear, steer the Jeep toward the Times Square starting line.
The announcer: “And here we have him! Our stunning surprise, our newest racer, our late addition! Mr. Jimmy El Camino, driving a 1999 Jeep Wrangler!”
The crowd erupts. Some cheers, some boos, some bottles thrown.
“This is Jimmy El Camino’s first official race, and we have absolutely no idea what he’s capable of behind the wheel. But we’ll find out soon enough . . .”
You tune out the chatterbox as you bring the Jeep to a stop at Forty-Eighth and Seventh, the tip of the Wrangler just poking over the crosswalk.
Across from you is Mr. King: Boss Tanner’s handpicked man. The reigning champion, in the 1965 Lincoln Continental.
“And here we go, folks. Hang on to your seats and your hats and your drinks and your betting stubs, because we’re about to begin!”
You watch the numbers count down on the big Times Square screen:
Five . . .
You take a gulp from the bottle.
&nb
sp; Four . . .
You twist your left hand around the wheel.
Three . . .
You take one last glance down at the strange controls. Missile launchers and machine guns at your fingertips . . .
Two . . .
You rock the gearshift side to side, eyes focused ahead.
One . . .
Click here.
CHICAGO TYPEWRITER
You step out of the house, tommy gun leveled at your side, bucking as it fires, you feeling like an old bootlegger. You unload from your waist, laying down hard, heavy fire that blows sections of the approaching army to pieces.
You’ve killed a dozen of the rotting bigots when a moan comes from your right. One is at the fence, coming over, half-falling, half-leaping. The monster tackles you.
As it lowers its head to bite, you get the gun up, jabbing it beneath the white hood, into its mouth, teeth cracking as you force it inside. And then you fire. Everything shakes as you pump the monster’s head full of two dozen rounds. The close fire sets the hood aflame, and the thing’s head burns as you continue firing slug after slug and blood and brain and charred, flaming flesh splash over you.
And then you’re up, firing again at the approaching horde, but the gun just clicks.
Empty.
Click here.
THE HELL OUTTA DODGE
You feel it in your gut. There’s more to this circus than just animals and games. There’s something cruel here. Something macabre and grim.
“We’re leaving,” you say, pulling Iris along.
She yanks her hand away. More strength than you expected. “The hell? We just bartered to get in here—now we leave?”