by Max Brallier
IT’S ELECTRIC, BOOGIE WOOGIE WOOGIE
Desperate, you tug at the power cord on the back of some big thing with red lights on it. With three strong jerks, it rips loose. Sparks fly.
The beast launches itself over the side of the booth and onto you. Mouth open wide, saliva dripping, it goes in for the kill.
You jam the cord into its mouth and the bitch shakes violently. Almost jerks loose of it. You push it farther down its throat. The bitch’s eyes light up.
But still it keeps coming. Teeth inching closer. One last chance before you’re dead. You rip the cord from its mouth and jam the sparking, spitting end into its eyeball. It sizzles. You push farther, deeper into the eye socket.
Then, a split second before its teeth have a chance to sink into you, the cord pushes through to the brain. The monster shakes harder. Faster. Head jerking back and forth. Vomits all over your chest—bile and chunks of red. Then, finally, it goes limp and collapses on you.
You lie there for a moment, happy to be alive. Then the smell hits you. Burnt eyeball. Charred brain. Vomit. It’s not nice. You push the thing off you and stand.
Click here.
BUCCOS
After a long moment, you manage to squeak out “Um, I’m a Pirates fan, actually.”
He laughs—then lowers the shotgun. “Pirates fan? Don’t think I’ve ever met a Pirates fan.”
“Well, there aren’t a whole lot of us.”
“As long as you ain’t a Yankees fan, we’re cool. Can’t stand a Yankees fan.”
Jesus—are you really talking baseball while a dead cop lies at your feet? A dead, headless zombie cop, at that.
“All you parking garage guys carry shotguns?” you ask.
Chucky hops on the hood of the SUV and takes a seat. He lights a cigarette and lazily bounces his feet off the headlight. “Nope. It was up front of the cruiser. Grabbed it out the other side of the car soon as the cop fell out.”
You nod and look around. It’s dark—he’s got all the lights off, except for the one in the office, by the gate. The office light flickers, goes out for a second, then comes back. “Hey, there’s a power line down outside,” you say. “Does this place have a generator or anything? Emergency power?”
He looks at you like you just asked him the metric weight of Mars. “I just park the cars, man. I don’t know about a damn power grid or whatever.”
Gunshots outside. Then an explosion. The sounds echo down the ramp and through the garage.
You’re sure as hell glad you’re not out there—but how long will you be safe in here? You spend a moment sizing up your surroundings. Eye the entrance. “Can we lower that security gate?” you ask.
“I was about to do that when that cop came barreling down here. Then you showed up.”
“So let’s do it now.”
Chucky hops down off the SUV and you follow him to the office. It’s tiny and cluttered. There’s a desk, a computer, two chairs, papers everywhere. Chucky opens a metal box on the wall and pulls a switch. There’s a loud grinding noise. Through the window, you watch the metal gate slowly lower, shutting you off from the outside world.
You walk to the gate and lean against it, tired. You replay the morning’s events. Started off pretty regular: woke up late, crowded subway ride, morning meeting—that’s when things went a little haywire. Zombies, crazy cab ride, dead cop, general chaos and horror—
“Smoke?”
You jump. Chucky’s standing beside you, holding out a cigarette.
“Shit. You scared me. Uh, yeah, sure.” You take one. You’re not much of a smoker, but if there was ever an occasion, this was it. You take the lighter. On the third try you get it. You wrap your fingers through the metal fence and rest against it, exhaustion tugging at your body.
Together, you smoke in silence. He finishes his. Flicks it through the metal gate. Lights another. A moment later you finish yours. You don’t ask for a second, and he doesn’t offer.
“Shh, shh,” he says, hushing you, even though you weren’t making a damn sound anyway. “Look.”
A zombie staggers down the ramp. It’s an old man in a short-sleeve button-down, splashed with blood. Wisps of white hair. Horn-rimmed glasses, one lens cracked. It trips over its feet, regains its balance, and continues to shuffle along. Its shoulder scrapes against the ramp wall as it stumbles forward. A streak of blood tags the wall.
More follow behind it. A dozen, you guess. You watch, aware that you’re safe behind the gate, but still scared shitless. You want to run—retreat into the temporary safety of the garage. But you don’t. You watch. Just a short time ago they were regular people—now they’re actual living dead monsters. Their faces—almost familiar looking, despite the gashes and the gore. The same people you passed every day on the street, stood behind in line at the movies, worked with, drank with.
“C’mon,” Chucky whispers, touching your shoulder.
You snap out of it and step back.
“Stay in the dark,” he says. You nod and park yourself behind a large support beam. Chucky jogs over to the office. Through the window, you see him open a box on the wall full of keys. He flips through a few, turns around to look back at the garage, then flips through a few more. Finally, he takes a set of keys, shuts the box, and jogs back across the garage floor.
You follow him to a black two-door Mercedes that sits directly opposite the gate, allowing you a clear view of the entire garage. He unlocks the doors and climbs into the driver’s seat. You hesitate a moment, then get in the passenger’s side.
You watch the things gather at the gate. Some claw at it. Others pay it no attention and just sort of stumble about. After a while, it’s simply too much to look at—you can no longer process what you’re seeing. You recline the seat and before you know it, you’re asleep.
You wake up confused—not sure how much time has passed. You smell something in the air—pot? No, couldn’t be. Wait—yep. Next to you, Chucky is puffing on a blunt.
“Wakey-wakey,” he says, grinning and waving it in your face. “You want?”
Uh-uh. You were part of the DARE generation. You know the dope on dope. Click here.
What the hell, this day can’t get any weirder, right? Click here.
AN AX TO GRIND
“I want the ax,” you say.
“Why should I give you the ax? This is my bar.”
“You own it?”
“No, but I’m in charge right now.”
You beg with your eyes.
“Fine, take it,” he says. “You getting killed don’t help me any.”
He takes the pool cue in his meaty paws.
You lift the fire ax from the table. Shit, it’s heavy. Real heavy. Not what you expected. You carry it in front of you with both hands, by your waist. You’re scared now—unsure. You don’t think you can wield an ax like this. Especially not in the middle of any sort of battle.
Anthony unlocks the door. “You first,” he says, grinning.
Son of a bitch.
Gently, you use the ax to poke open the door. It’s barely halfway open when the beasts attack. You raise the ax high into the air. It nearly pulls you off your feet. You struggle to hold it.
Then, with everything you’ve got, you swing it. It catches the first beast in the waist. You yank it out, bringing a string of gore with it. The thing continues to come at you. You raise the ax above your head and bring it down. Thing is heavy—no accuracy. You aim for the head but instead bury it into the zombie’s shoulder.
It’s a sickening feeling—this weapon you’re wielding, going a foot deep into this being’s flesh. You struggle to jerk the ax free from the zombie’s muscular shoulder. But you’re too slow. The next beast lunges at you. Puts its cold, clammy hands around your neck.
You scream. The ax falls from your hands. Pain shoots through your foot. You look down, horrified—the ax is stuck in the floor, and your foot is in two pieces. You lift your leg, leaving most of your foot on the floor. You take a step, pain shoo
ting up your leg, and stumble back. Three more jump on you, gnawing on your face and body, and together you crash to the ground. You feel your own hot blood pooling around you. One of the things tears at your ear—there’s an awful sound as it rips off. God. God help me, you think.
“Anthony,” you manage to get out. “Anthony.”
He kicks one beast off you. Breaks the pool cue over another one’s face, sending a chunk of wood spinning down the hall. Then he reaches down, grabs the thing by its ears, and rips it up. Slams it into the wall, then tosses it down the hall, knocking the rest of the beasts back.
“Anthony, please,” you beg.
He raises the pool cue. His face, unsure, goes blurry as you focus on the chalky tip of the stick. It lowers, slowly. He squeezes his hands around it, flips it over. Now you stare up at the splintered end. Blood drips off it—a drop falls into your eye and it waters up. The cue lowers, getting larger as it closes in on your eye. Just an inch from your eyeball.
Then, at once, he forces it down, ripping through your eye, blasting through your skull, and destroying your brain.
AN END
FIREWORKS
A pair of bullets whips past. A woman’s pained scream erupts behind you.
You pull at the door of the Honda Civic next to you. The driver, a middle-aged man, heavy wrinkles across his face, a Titleist ball cap covering his eyes, shakes his head no. You pull. He slams his hand down on the lock.
More bullets. More screams.
You drop to the ground and bury your head in your arms. After a moment, the heavy sounds of gunfire slow. You raise your head.
A stampede of people, coming right for you. Now you know what it feels like to be a kick returner, staring down an entire special teams unit. They run, frantic, a huge group, two or three people wide.
You roll to your right, underneath the Civic.
Feet scramble past you. An elderly woman falls. She shuts her eyes. You reach out, try to help her, but there’s nothing you can do. She’s trampled. A hundred feet run over her. A heavy boot lands on the back of her head, pushing her face into the cement. Blood seeps from her nose. A crack as a huge man steps on her ankle, snapping it. A few horrific minutes later and the stampeding crowd has thinned. The woman is dead.
You roll out from the other side of the car, closer to the middle of the bridge. A large gap, maybe ten feet wide, runs down the center of the bridge, separating inbound and outbound traffic. Steel girders connect the two sides.
Across the gap a police officer is standing in the middle of a crowd firing into the air. His cruiser sits behind him, door open. Possible safety, you think. The cruiser is bulletproof. Probably has a shotgun inside. A radio!
You peer down the gap at the bridge’s lower deck. No people. No army. Just the dead. The monsters have completely taken it over.
You climb up on the closest girder, the metal warm against your palms. You begin to inch your way across. The moans of the dead rise up.
There’s a huge blast as the car ahead of you explodes. Instinctively, you reel back, trying to shield yourself. In the process you lose your balance. Your foot slips off the girder. Then your leg. Suddenly you’re clinging to the edge, hanging on for dear life.
Don’t look down. Don’t look down. Don’t look down.
You look down.
Fucking idiot. Why’d you look down?
Gnarled hands reach up—a moaning throng of the dead, begging for you.
You struggle to pull yourself up. You kick your feet—but there’s just air.
Their moans get louder as the beasts sense your impending fall.
You block out everything—the angry sound of gunfire, the deathly moans, the agonizing screams. You concentrate only on making it back up. Feel your muscles tighten. Your hands grip the steel. Finally, using everything you have, you pull yourself back up onto the girder.
You stare ahead. Not going to fall again. Not going to die. You move forward—slowly, steadily.
Finally, you make it to the other side. You pass the burning car and beeline it for the cruiser. Hop the hood of a taxi, slide off like Starsky. Jump across the next car.
You dive into the cruiser and slam the door shut behind you. It’s a mess inside. Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cups on the floor. Empty food bags—KFC, McDonald’s, more Dunkin’ Donuts. A pack of True cigarettes nestled between the dashboard and the front window.
WHAP WHAP WHAP!!!
The bulletproof glass spiderwebs. Your heart leaps up your throat as you realize the cop is shooting at you.
The officer frowns, frustrated.
You wave—mouthing “What the fuck?” You’re not locking him out. He can get in the car, too. You’re just looking for cover.
He pushes a citizen aside and marches toward the car.
What the fuck is this nut job doing?
He fires twice more. You lunge across the car and lock the door. The cop shakes his head and pulls the keys from his belt. Waves them at you and smiles.
Then, out of nowhere, three of the beasts tackle him. He’s gone—just like that.
More zombies run past, headed toward Brooklyn. They pay no attention to you. Up ahead, you can see the Army stepping back.
Then the artillery starts. The big guns. Tanks? You’re not sure. Something loud as fuck. Ahead of you a truck explodes. A giant, fiery blast. Then another. Bodies fly through the air. A man is launched wildly off the side of the bridge.
You watch, eyes wide, as the bridge lights up like the Fourth of July.
If you want to get out of the car and run, click here.
If you’d rather hang tight and pray the firing subsides, click here.
WHERE THE HEART IS
Home, you think. That’s the best bet—has to be. Familiar. Safe. Secure.
You alternate between walking and jogging through streets quickly turning explosive. It’s a miserable thirty-block hike to your apartment. You keep your eye open for a cab. Nothing, all full.
You get to your building a half-hour later, soaked in sweat. Up the five flights of stairs to your apartment. Through the door. Slam it shut and collapse against it, exhausted. God, it feels good not to be moving. Sweat bleeds through the back of your shirt and the fabric sticks to the door.
You close your eyes. Breathe slowly—in through your mouth, out through your nostrils. Calming.
You open your eyes. Your apartment looks strange, feels just slightly off—something about being home at a time when you weren’t expecting to be. Like a stranger in your own space.
A mouse skitters across the floor. Sonofabitch—so that’s what goes on while you’re at work? Yeah, well, that’s what you get for leaving the Ray’s Famous box out with half a slice of pepperoni-and-sausage left.
You stand up and flip on the local news. A bunch of images of random chaos. No real reporting—just people blabbering, clueless. No one has any real idea what’s happening, but they’re paid to talk.
People loot a corner store in the West Village. Shit, you should stock up. You’ve got about five edible things in your apartment right now, and that’s including a month-past-the-date carton of eggs and a half bottle of Black Velvet—Jack Daniel’s cheaper, shittier cousin. You look over again at the half slice of pepperoni-and-sausage and quickly throw it in the fridge.
You grab your keys and head for the corner bodega.
It’s packed. You realize suddenly that you’re in survival mode. You have a vague sense of what to do from watching a lot of bad disaster movies. You navigate the narrow aisles, grabbing the essentials. Batteries. Frozen pizzas. A glass candle with a smiling, open-armed Jesus on the front. Ramen. Beer. Lots of beer.
It’s getting ugly. People shoving. Grabbing for what they need, even if someone else already happens to be holding it. The Korean guy who runs the bodega threatens to close the doors unless the customers “form one motherfucking line!”
You grab all you can carry, pay, and leave. Outside it’s only getting nastier. People rushing about. Like
a great storm is on the way and everyone is racing to get to shelter.
Hands full, you take the stairs up to your apartment as quickly as you can. Your building is usually empty—more often than not you come and go without seeing anyone. Not today. People in the hallways. Some coming, most going—all moving quickly, with a frantic yet steady purpose.
You lock your apartment door behind you. Both locks.
Your phone’s ringing. The Speed theme—DUN DUN DUH DUH DAH DAH. You walk in just in time to hear the triumphant bass finale.
You look at the display. See your mom’s big smiling face. Great…
If you want to ignore the call and start pounding beers, click here.
If you want to answer Mom’s phone call, click here.
SLEEPOVER
“You can stay here if you want. You, uh, you shouldn’t be alone.”
You shouldn’t be alone. You idiot. Who do you think you are? Could you be any more obvious?
“Yeah? I’d love to—I’m going crazy over there. And I keep hearing things—probably just my imagination—but it’s scaring the fuck out of me.”
“I can imagine. So, great, you’ll stay here.” good work!
You’re beaming. Heart swelling. Thank the Lord for this massive zombie takeover.
She walks through the foyer and into the kitchen, looking around. “I haven’t been in this house in years.”
“Yep, been a long time.”
She turns and smiles. “It’s good to see you again.”
Your face feels a little flush, so you quickly turn and look around the house like some idiot prospective buyer. You don’t want to embarrass yourself.
You find some still edible food in the kitchen. You make the best meal you can—peanut butter and jelly on Ritz crackers with orange soda. You apologize, and explain that most everything else seems to have gone bad.
You talk some, about what you’ve been doing, how she’s been. She doesn’t work at the flower shop anymore; she’s a cashier at the local Target now.