Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse?

by Max Brallier

  You step inside—take in the heavy smell of beer and spilt liquor. With the TV crowd gone, the majority of those left are the serious drinkers, the lifers. The guys who spend early Monday afternoons in a bar, alone. There’s about a dozen of them—most at the bar, a few at the tables in the back.

  The bouncer, a large, mostly fat, black guy in a Joe Namath jersey types on his BlackBerry.

  “What’s the news?” you ask him.

  Paying you as little attention as possible, he nods to the TV hanging above the door: two talking heads at the news desk. Trying to look professional, but mostly just looking confused.

  The broadcast cuts away from the studio to helicopter shots of the city. Different locations. Lincoln Center. Washington Square. Columbus Circle. Everywhere the same—zombies swarming, attacking, feasting.

  Christ. This can’t be real.

  The broadcast switches locations again. A mass of the beasts gathering around Battery Park. Jesus—that’s the southern tip of Manhattan—miles from the hospital! How the hell did they get everywhere so goddamn quickly? Then the broadcast cuts again—this time zombies milling around a deserted subway station. Your stomach turns as you realize that if just one infected person gets on a subway or on a bus or in a cab—shit, they could get anywhere. God, these things could be on a plane and off to Antigua or Timbuktu or who-knows-the-fuck-where.

  You’re having trouble breathing now. Chest tight.

  You catch your reflection in the mirror behind the bar. You look like you just caught a sucker punch from Mike Tyson. Everyone else wears a similar look—like maybe Mike Tyson ran around the bar real quick and sucker-punched everybody. Even the old vets, the seen-everything-and-drank-their-way-through-it-all guys—just stunned looks on their rough, withered faces. Staring at the mirror, you start to zone out—hypnotizing yourself almost. Anything to not have to look at that TV or hear the news or think about what’s happening outside or imagine the nightmares the future holds.

  Someone bumps into you and brushes you aside, snapping you out of your trance. A bony, thin guy, late twenties, in a slick suit with slicker hair. Wall Street, all the way. You wonder what he’s doing up here during work hours, everything financial is below Fifty-ninth—maybe his doorman caught him on his way out of his fancy, prewar apartment building, told him something was going down. Or maybe his coke dealer’s in the neighborhood and he’s chasing a Monday morning high.

  He pushes past you and edges up to the bar. Raises a wad of cash in the air. “Hey—honey!” he calls, waving the cash at the bartender.

  You notice the bartender for the first time. She’s a knockout. Petite—five feet at the most. Natural blond hair. Tiny Derek Jeter shirt hugs a pair of gotta-be-fake tits. She walks the length of the bar and eyes Wall Street, unimpressed. “Yeah?”

  He drops two crisp hundred-dollar bills onto the bar, flashes her a toothy smile, then announces loudly: “World’s ending. Drinks are on me, kiddies.”

  If you want to stay at the bar and take Wall Street up on his offer of free drinks, click here.

  If you’d rather forget the bar and try to figure out a way out of the city, click here.

  LONG-ASS CAB RIDE

  You turn your back on the bar—if it’s good news, you’ll find out about it later. And if it’s bad, you don’t want to know.

  After a half hour, a cab slows to a stop at the corner of Eighty-fifth and Broadway and an older woman gets out. You hear her on her phone: “Of course I heard—I’m going upstairs right now and locking the door.”

  You run for the cab. Three others do the same. You get there first, though, and you don’t give in. Everyone argues. You tell the other three guys to take a hike and you get inside. “Brooklyn Bridge. And step on it,” you say, like you’ve turned into some badass. But there’s nowhere to go just yet, so the cab just sits there. And the three guys are right outside your window, glaring at you from the sidewalk. You flip open your phone and pretend to talk on it.

  You’ve got a friend in Brooklyn—it’s the best plan you can think of at the moment. You check your phone for his address and yell it out to the cabbie. He pulls out into a gap in the traffic—blabbing on his Bluetooth in a language that definitely wasn’t available for study in high school.

  “Can you put the radio on please?” you ask him.

  He doesn’t. Either doesn’t give a damn or can’t hear you over his stupid Bluetooth. You wonder if he has any idea what’s happening right now in the city.

  “Hey! Radio!” you shout, annoyed.

  He shoots you a look through the rearview mirror, lets it linger for a second, then reaches down and turns the radio on. Top 40 stuff. Lady Gaga, you think.

  “Thanks, but can you put the news on?” you ask.

  Nothing.

  “News station?”

  He ignores you. You ask twice more, then give up. Oh well—probably better off not knowing anyway. You look out the window. Seconds later you’re biting your lower lip and bobbing your head to the music. What? It’s a good song.

  Back to your phone. You try to send a few texts, but the connection keeps timing out. You agree to resend in digital, whatever the hell that means.

  Half an hour later, you’ve gone maybe ten blocks. Streets are absolutely packed—unlike any other Monday, 11:30 AM you’ve ever seen in the city. It’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade status. You could walk faster than this.

  You try to call your friend in Brooklyn.

  Ring.

  Ring.

  Ring.

  Then an automated voice, “I’m sorry, due to unusually high call volume we are unable to connect your call at the moment. Please try again later.”

  Goddamn it—fucking AT&T.

  Traffic’s still not moving. Anxious, you pick at the stickers on the back of the driver’s seat. Watch the news on the little TV. It’s the same cheesy clip playing over and over: Regis and Kelly talking about the wonders of New York City. All sorts of shots of landmarks and multicultural crowds and all that good shit. Just begging for tourist money.

  Outside, it’s nothing like that. Not the iconic city that never sleeps. Not the Manhattan from Manhattan. No—it’s a powder keg—a city on the verge of exploding.

  Finally, after an hour and a half of stop-and-stop-some-more traffic and a forty-three-dollar cab fare, you can see the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge. And it’s just what you had feared. Absolute gridlock—on the street and on the bridge. Police try to direct traffic, but it’s useless.

  Thousands of people are crossing the bridge on foot. A mass exodus. A guy on a ninja bike drives past you, weaves in and out of the traffic, past the police, and up onto the on-ramp. Bastard. Guys on motorcycles have all the luck.

  You sit, anxious. An hour goes by. You move maybe ten feet. A cop directs traffic. Finally, he waves his hands in the air and gives up. He walks through the maze of cars, hops on his police bike, hits the siren, and drives up onto the bridge.

  Again, pricks with motorcycles.

  You’re about to give up, pay the fare, and join the pedestrians when you hear it. The sound. You can just barely make it out over the din of horns, sirens, and angry New Yorkers. Shouting. Screaming. It’s the sound of panic.

  Out the window, to your left, you see it. People running. Stampeding. Behind them, the zombies. Hundreds. Thousands, maybe. A thick mass of the dead—stretching all the way across First Avenue. A goddamned army of the things, headed right for you…

  Lock the door and hold tight? Click here.

  Get the hell out and run for it? Click here.

  THE HAMMER AND THE DRILL

  You take the hammer and the drill from the table. Hold one in each hand. Feel their weight. Two weapons are better than one, you think—even if they are close range. This gives you freedom of movement—you can wield them like twin Glocks on some John Woo shit, no prob. You forget about the Big Buck Hunter gun and follow Anthony out of the office. He carries the fire ax.

  Standing at the door to the ha
ll you listen to the moans. They’re louder now. Anthony unlocks the door slowly. You can almost hear the click of the pins.

  You breathe in, pause, breathe out. No point in waiting.

  “Let’s do it.”

  He kicks open the door and sends the two closest zombies flying back.

  In front of you is a regular-looking guy—type of guy you might see around the office. You swing the hammer, catching him in the side of the head. He stumbles to the side. You follow the hammer blow with the drill, squeezing the trigger and burying it into the thing’s ear and into its brain. After a second, you pull it free, blood and brain spraying off the still-spinning, squealing drill bit. The thing drops.

  The next one leaps at you. You duck. Awkwardly, it falls onto your back. Before it can attack you, you stand and flip it over onto the floor. You go in with the drill—but Anthony’s there first, burying the ax into its face.

  You give him a thankful nod and turn your attention to the others. Behind you, you hear Anthony take care of the two on the floor.

  Four down. Seven to go.

  You push the drill up through the chin of the next one. Not deep enough. It thrashes at you. You kick it back and let loose with the hammer. Finally, it falls.

  The next one, an old woman, lunges at you. You raise the drill to block the attack. The drill bit pierces the thing’s hand. You yank it out, swing it around, and ram it through a busted pair of old-lady shades and into its eye. You swirl the drill around, scrambling its brains, while pounding its head with the hammer, and it finally goes limp.

  Anthony steps ahead of you now. He swings the ax wildly and misses—the blade sticks into the wall. He tugs. It’s stuck. That split second is all it takes. Two are on him.

  You ram the drill into the back of the head of the closest one. After a moment, its grip on Anthony loosens, and it falls.

  But it’s too late. The other one has its mouth around Anthony’s face. Blood pouring down both of them.

  Anthony’s bit. Done for.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. What now? Panicked, you turn to run back into the bar—but it’s blocked. The two that Anthony had handled—he had put the ax through their chests, not their brains—it didn’t do anything except leave them in a bad mood. Have to kill them all over again…

  But then you stop—

  You sense Anthony rising behind you, and you slowly turn back. He’s gigantic. He fills the entire width of the hallway. His face—moments ago normal—has changed. Amazingly, just a minute after his death, the blood has clotted, dried. He rocks back and forth on his thick, trunklike legs. Stares you down—Christ, almost like he recognizes you.

  Fuck that noise—peace—time to run. Click here.

  Stay and fight? Click here.

  ANGELS

  Jones walks past you.

  You snap out of it and work your way down, following the Angels. Weapons over their shoulders. Heads down. The job is done, but there’s little rejoicing.

  You board the bus. Lean over the front edge, exhausted, ready to get back into the dead man’s bed.

  You see it out of the corner of your eye. A flash of iron in the moonlight. A tank. U.S. military.

  And too late, you realize. They were never going to give you anything. No pardons. No pats on the back. No job well done. No nothing. Just do their dirty work, and that was that.

  The tank aims at the bus. You brace for death.

  BOOM!!!

  AN END

  SOMEBODY’S IN HERE!

  You stare right back at him. You should help. But your body won’t move. Something down in your balls won’t let you. Fear. Feels like leaning over the side of a roof twenty floors up. Like Anthony’s asking you to jump. You can’t.

  The feeling in your balls jumps to your gut and then volcanoes up your throat—puke.

  You turn away and run to the back of the bar and into the bathroom. You jiggle the handle. Vomit seeps out the side of your mouth. You ram your shoulder into the door and it opens. That’s as close as you get—puke splashes the floor. Last night’s pizza.

  You don’t feel any better—just more frightened, more incapable.

  You slam the door shut behind you. Search for a lock. None. You put the toilet seat down and take a seat. Drop your head into your hands—cold and clammy. Icy sweat drips from your forehead. Your mind fades out—black spots fill your vision.

  After a long, scary moment, the world comes back to you. You can hear faint screams coming from the bar—or maybe that’s the street. You hope street.

  You pull out your phone, hit Safari, and check the Web. Nothing will load. The whole country—hell the whole world, maybe—is online right now, checking the news, trying to figure out what’s going on.

  Just then, you hear a scream. A man’s scream. Then more. “Oh Lord!” someone shouts.

  A rush of noises from beyond the door. Bar stools hitting the floor. Glasses shattering. Chaos.

  You tiptoe toward the door. You need to block it, or else you’re next. You look around for something—anything.

  There’s a loud slamming sound from just outside the door. The hinges buck. You back into the corner, terror rushing through your body.

  Banging on the door. The wood splinters. The door’s top hinge pops off and it falls open, awkwardly, still attached at the bottom. It lands on the sink and cracks apart.

  A rotund redheaded man collapses on top of the door, blood pumping steadily from an open wound in his back.

  Standing behind him, staring directly at you, is one of them. One of those things. On TV you believed it, but you didn’t understand. But now—right in front of you—it’s real. A zombie. The walking dead. A beast in a business suit. Blood is spattered across its yellow power tie and the pink shirt beneath it.

  Sonofabitch. It’s Wall Street.

  Its face is deathly white. A hole is torn in its cheek—you can see the inner workings of its mouth and jaw. It jerks forward. Fills the door.

  You make a move for the bathroom stall. But it’s too late. It leaps. You stick your hands out, try to toss it aside. No luck. Its teeth get a hold of your hand. It rips you forward and sinks its teeth into the bridge of your nose.

  Your body goes into shock. You lose all sense of time. Minutes later, hours maybe, you regain some vague semblance of your senses. And then some. You smell flesh. Want it. Need it.

  You’re one of them now. And you’ve got a driving urge to devour that pretty young bartender…

  AN END

  IS THERE A DOCTOR IN THE CAR?

  His eyes stare up at the ceiling, glossy and devoid of life. Then they roll back into his head—a slot machine, both wheels coming up death.

  “Hey,” you say, quietly, to no one in particular. You’ve never had to yell for a doctor and to be honest, you’re feeling awkward as hell about it, despite the circumstances. “Um.… is anyone here a doctor?”

  A thirtyish woman, straight off the set of Sex and the City, turns and looks at you like you asked her if she wanted to swap underwear.

  “Is anyone here a doctor?” you ask, louder now. “This man needs help!”

  You look back down at him. He’s no longer shivering. Definitely not breathing. Jesus…

  “Is anyone in here a doctor?” you yell.

  A tall, handsome woman with dark, mid-length, curly hair pushes her way over and announces herself as a neurologist.

  You talk fast, stuttering. “I don’t think this guy’s breathing—and—and—and his eyes just rolled back in his head. And he’s all bloody there—by the arm.”

  You half expect her to throw a stethoscope over her neck, pull out a little black bag, and play small town doctor making a house call. Instead she leans over and lifts open his left eyelid. Then his right. Nothing looking back but creamy white.

  She orders the onlookers to get back. There’s little room and they complain loudly—but manage to squeeze to the side and clear a small space on the bench. She lays him down and opens his coat. You see the severity of his woun
d now. His shirt is torn, like it’s been clawed by a wolf, and there’s a huge gash on his chest. Despite the size of the wound, there’s no blood leaking. Dried, black blood around the gash and on his jacket—but nothing wet. The doc looks puzzled. Not a good sign.

  She shoves her finger into his open mouth and clears out his throat. Gross. Then she pinches his nose and puts her lips onto his. Really gross. She performs mouth-to-mouth, then presses down repeatedly on his chest.

  For a good two or three minutes, he doesn’t move. She continues to perform CPR. Then you notice his left foot. It’s twitching slightly. More. Jerking. After some chest compressions, she blows more air into his mouth.

  “Hey, doc—“

  Suddenly she lets out a blood-curdling scream and pulls back, blood pouring from her mouth and his. The man’s hands shoot up like a pair of catapults and latch on to the back of her skull and pull her close. Blood pours down her face and onto her chest. The thing is devouring her face. Screams echo through the car. The passengers try to run—but there’s nowhere to go. Finally, the doctor flies back, half of her face gone. Blood splashes your shirt and sprays the wall.

  Panicked, you push your way to the rear of the car and slide open the door. You step onto the shaky walkway that hangs between your car and the next. Screams chase you.

  Your hands grip the metal chains that link the cars and you walk across. You pound the door of the opposite car.

  Through the window a man, eyes wide, shakes his head and holds the door shut. You tug. Nothing. A crowd gathers at the window—staring at you and, with horror, staring at the carnage behind you.

  “Please!” you shout.

  More passengers follow you, pushing you from behind, desperate to escape. They push.

  “Open the fucking door!” a young woman shouts.

  More people. Slamming you into the door. Your chest feels like it’s going to collapse. The train takes a hard turn and you feel your feet begin to slip. The momentum of the turn tosses you to the side—only the chain railing keeps you from being thrown to the tracks below. People continue to push from behind. A man wedges beside you and tugs at the door. Nothing. There’s not enough room for both of you. Your waist presses against the chain.