Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse?

by Max Brallier

  The one in the front of the car is different, his body twitching, jerking. He’s finishing up with the driver. A large coil of intestine hangs from his mouth.

  You look away. Double-check both rear locks. You’re safe for now, but you’re surrounded. Confident that the one up front won’t get you through the Plexiglas, you turn, kneel on the seat, and survey the scene behind the car.

  Chaos. Absolute bedlam.

  Thousands of people fleeing for the bridge. The lucky ones, those already on the bridge, kick it into high gear. Worse off are the people who were still on the street when the things appeared—the ones who hadn’t yet made it to the bridge. They run for shelter in stores and buildings. A few make it, but nearly every store is already on lockdown. Others see doors slammed shut in their faces. Down the block, a mother and her young son bang on the door of a bodega. A cluster of the zombies moves toward them. The mother and son flee into an alleyway. The things follow. The two have no chance.

  Hundreds of the living stay in their cars, like you, afraid to leave. Not sure what the hell to do.

  One of the things—what used to be a black teenager in a dirty Allen Iverson 76ers jersey and a pair of hand-me-down Jordans—feeds on a fake-tanned white guy in a slick black convertible.

  Should have gone with the hardtop, asshole.

  All around you, the beasts feast. Hordes of them. Killing and eating. On the sidewalks. On the streets, between cars. A fire hydrant, pierced by a crashed moving truck, sprays water high into the air. Beneath it one of the beasts, in a brown trench coat, devours an old woman. Her blood mixes with the water and a light pink liquid makes a path along the curb and down the gutter.

  A man lies on the hood of the car behind you, fighting off three of the things. He loses. His chest is torn open and the three zombies gorge themselves. The poor bastard’s entrails spill out onto the hood and onto the cement.

  You see firsthand how everyone killed comes back to life and becomes another mindless killing thing. Some jerk to life almost immediately—others take some time and rise later.

  It’s then that the true horror sinks in. Each one kills two, those two kill four, those four kill eight, and on and on and on. It’s like the cheesy AIDS video you had to watch in health class in middle school—only scarier. Yep, scarier than AIDS. That’s scary.

  It all becomes quite clear that this nightmare won’t be ending anytime soon.

  You dial 911. Can’t connect. Fuck. Everybody in New York City is on the phone, of course. You hang up and try again. Nothing.

  Again.

  Again.

  Again.

  Nothing.

  Goddamn it! The fear dissipates, replaced with fury and frustration.

  “Motherfucker!!!” You punch the ceiling. Kick the back of the seats.

  The beast in the front seat jumps. Takes a break from dining on the cabdriver to slap at the glass with bloody palms.

  “fuuuuck youuuuuu!” you scream. You punch the glass. You want to kill the thing. Rip it limb from limb. You pound the glass for what feels like an eternity, pouring all your anger and fear into the Plexiglas window.

  Finally, you sink into the seat, out of breath. Out of energy. Out of options.

  Click here.

  SCAG, BROWN SUGAR, BLACK TAR, WHITE LADY, DRAGON, DOPE, MEXICAN MUD

  Are you out of your fucking mind? Who do you think you are—Hunter S. Thompson? You can’t hang with the Angels. But OK, hey, it’s your funeral…

  “This is my first time,” you say. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”

  “Everyone’s got their first,” Louis says. He opens the cigar box. You catch a glimpse of a syringe, a spoon, what looks like a cotton ball, and a few other things you don’t recognize. He fishes a small yellow balloon from his pocket, stretches it open, and pulls out a chunk of black stuff about the size of a marble—that’s the heroin, you assume.

  He places the chunk on a spoon, flips open a beat-up old Zippo, and lights it. He drops the cotton ball into the heated heroin and it puffs up like a sponge. You watch, fascinated, as he slides the tip of the syringe into the cotton and slowly pulls back the plunger.

  “C’mere, gimme your arm,” he says, so drunk he can barely get out the words.

  “Huh?”

  “Your arm—stick it out—sleeve up. Ever been to the fucking doctor?”

  You do as he says.

  He rubs an alcohol swab over the bend of your arm, smacks you a few times until your vein comes to the surface, then not-so-gently slips the syringe inside.

  Your heart races. Anxious, excited, scared to death, halfway giddy, all at the same time.

  He pulls back the plunger. A red cloud of blood is drawn inside. Then he injects it back inside you.

  Your heart rate slows. You relax some. The deed is done. Nothing you can do about it now. No stopping it. You stretch your feet out, lean back against the wall, and wait.

  Suddenly a powerful, intense rush of pleasure. Pure euphoria. You feel like a young child—just out of the shower—wrapped in a warm blanket. The gentle heat hugs you tight. All thoughts of zombies and monsters and fear and death leave your mind. Just warmth.

  For a good half hour, you say nothing. Neither does Louis. You watch him intently, fascinated by this strange, weather-beaten man getting high in front of you. Your eye is drawn to the Hells Angels tattoo on his upper arm.

  “Shouldn’t there be an apostrophe in there—like Hell’s Angels?” you ask, your mouth forming the words with concerted effort.

  His eyes flitter. “Uh?”

  “An apostrophe. It says Hells. H-E-L-L-S. No apostrophe.”

  “Apostrophe?”

  “You know. A—c’mon, y’know—it’s a comma, but not on the ground. A comma in the air.”

  “In the air.”

  “Yeah. In the air.”

  From the look on his face, he’s doing some very hard thinking. After a minute, he quietly says, “Yeah, yeah, I guess there should be a comma.”

  “Apostrophe,” you say, and giggle like a schoolgirl. Then you both go quiet again. Your head sags, and you lose track of time. Minutes, hours, all a blur. For the first time in months you’re not thinking about zombies. Not thinking about death. Ghouls. The walking undead.

  It’s a relief.

  So around noon, when Louis asks you if you want to do more, you say, “Why the hell not?”

  He injects you again. You get that same rush. Then a stronger rush. Picking up speed like a runaway train.

  Bam. It hits you. Everything goes black.

  And there on Louis’s dirty, garbage-covered floor, you overdose, death the furthest thing from your mind.

  AN END

  IN A JAM

  You flip the rifle over and eject the magazine. You can see the jammed bullet jutting out awkwardly. You dig your finger in to pop it free.

  But it’s too late.

  You’re knocked off your feet and carried to the ground. The shaggy hippie is on top of you. He digs his teeth into your shoulder. You howl.

  You feel around for the samurai blade. You find it and rip it free from its sheath. You jam it up through the shaggy hippie’s gut and cut up, spilling its insides all over you. You rip the blade up farther, into its jaw. That stops it.

  You crawl to your knees, swinging the blade around wildly, trying to keep the other two at bay.

  But the one beast—the middle-aged man—reaches out and grabs the blade. Squeezes it. Blood pours through its fingers, but it appears to feel nothing.

  Fuck me.

  You’re done for.

  You recover the blade and point it at your stomach. Then, like a true samurai committing seppuku, you slam it into your abdomen.

  You scream.

  Still holding the blade, you slice your stomach open, moving the blade from left to right. Your intestines spill out onto the ground in front of you. Completely disemboweled.

  You go into shock. Your vision is foggy. Hard to see. Lights tracing.
<
br />   The last thing you make out is Chucky, battling his way over to you. Then firing. Into your face. Ending it. Ensuring you don’t become one of them.

  AN END

  NIGHT FALLS, TIME PASSES

  You’ve been sitting in the cab for hours—you’ve seen a few cops race by on motorcycles, and that’s it.

  Mostly you’ve watched the dead multiply. Watched their numbers grow.

  You wait. The thing in the front never takes its eyes off you. Hours pass.

  You’re not alone—other people are stuck, similar position to you. A woman in a BMW next to you sobs for damn near two hours. Didn’t know someone could cry for that long.

  All day the thing continues to stare at you. Every movement you make, he twitches—ready to eat. You hate it more and more with every second that ticks by. You want it dead. Truly dead.

  As the day turns to dusk and darkness begins to settle over the city, you begin to develop a plan. On the way over you passed a construction site. It’s three blocks at the most, if you remember correctly. It’s big—about one square block. They’re building some sort of residential tower, it looked like. The framework was up. If you get to there, you can get up to the top, try to signal for help.

  But first—you’re killing that bastard in the front seat.

  You need some sort of weapon. You pull down the removable section in the middle of the backseat. You can’t see, but you can reach through. Your hand pats around, looking for anything useful.

  Bingo.

  Tire iron. You pull it through. OK—you have a weapon. Now what?

  Night falls. It’s darker than usual. The streetlights don’t come on. Then, around eleven o’clock, everything goes out. Interior lights in buildings shut off. The bridge lights go. Everything. It appears as if the city, or at least this part of the grid, has completely lost power. It’s eerie—you’ve never seen the city so dark. It looks abandoned, deserted. You can no longer see inside any other cars. Makes you feel even more alone—it’s just you, the undead thing in the front seat, and the thousands of other beasts that fill the streets.

  This is your chance, under the cover of darkness.

  You sit against the rear passenger-side door, tire iron in one hand. Perfectly still. For an hour, you don’t move. You lull the thing into complacency.

  Then slowly, oh so goddamn slowly, you bring your hand up to the door handle. Then, fast as possible, you snap the door open and jump outside onto the sidewalk. You rip open the front passenger-side door and the thing launches itself at you like it was spring-loaded.

  You catch it on the side of its head with the tire iron, midair, and it falls into you. You unleash a torrent of blows. You hear its skull crack. You hear it shatter. But still it keeps coming. If the movies have taught you anything, you need to get to the brain that sits inside that skull.

  It gnashes its teeth at you. You backpedal, swinging. You get lucky and it stumbles over its feet trying to get to you. While it’s down on all fours, you raise the tire iron high, aim for the back of the skull, and bring it down as hard as you can. You feel it break through. The thing collapses.

  Panting, splattered with blood, barely able to catch your breath, you survey your work and smile.

  Then you remember the countless other zombies in the vicinity. You look up. In the moonlight, you can see them—all of them—running for you.

  You book it. Head up the avenue. One lunges for you. You swing the tire iron, knocking it back, never slowing. Two more blocks.

  Just run. Run like you never have in your life.

  You turn the corner and see the construction site up ahead. You’re close. You don’t turn around, but you can hear them.

  You’re closing in on the fence that surrounds the site.

  Close.

  The sound of feet behind you—so many feet, running after you.

  Closer.

  C’mon!

  You launch yourself at the fence. One of the things grabs your foot. Pulls you. You scramble up, shaking your leg, trying to pull free. Finally, its grip breaks. You climb higher. The top of the fence is lined with barbed wire. Your hand wraps around it and you pull yourself up. Pain, unbelievable pain. It’s like arm wrestling a steak knife. Blood streaks down your arm. But you continue to climb. The barbed wire tears at your entire body. You get to the top and drop to the other side.

  You hit the ground. The pain is immense, but you don’t care. You smile. There’re a thousand of the fucking things out there. And you just outran them all.

  You lie there for a good ten minutes, catching your breath, happy to be alive. Then you stand. The construction site is a giant sort of pit, with slight hills sloping inward from every side. At the bottom is the building’s foundation. And huge machines. Steamrollers. Wrecking balls. Cranes. Dump trucks. Massive things.

  In the center, trailers. There’s a light on in the nearest one. You can hear the rumble of a generator. Half dead, you stumble down the hill. You make it to the trailer, open the door, fall inside. You collapse onto the floor. Blood pouring out. You can taste it.

  And then you hear something you very much don’t want to hear.

  “Its one of them! Get it!” a voice shouts.

  “No, no,” you manage to get out, “I’m not. The blood—from the fence.”

  “Bullshit. Kill him.”

  “Big Al, we gotta help him.”

  You can’t see anything. Head on the floor. Too much pain. Too exhausted to lift it. Too exhausted to even open your eyes. You feel hands on you. Moving you. They tie off some of your more severe cuts.

  “Thanks,” you manage—then pass out.

  You come to in a chair. Three men sit across from you. Construction workers.

  You try to get up. You can’t—you’re restrained. Duct tape all around your arms and legs. The fuck?

  “What is this? Why am I duct-taped to a chair?”

  The one sitting in the middle—the calm-looking one—talks.

  “We’re waiting to see if you turn.”

  “Turn?”

  “Into one of those things.”

  “Well I’m not going to. So untie me now please. Or untape me, whatever.”

  The big one walks over and points a ruler in your face. “Buddy, you’re lucky you’re not dead right now.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  “What I mean is,” he says, getting down and in your face until you can smell the pastrami on his breath, “you’re lucky we haven’t killed you.”

  The calm-looking one: “Big Al. Go for a smoke, huh?”

  “I’m fine right here, brother,” he says. He takes two steps back, leans against a counter along the wall.

  “Why’s everyone want to kill me? And who are you?”

  “I’m Sully,” says the calm “OK, Sully—why do you, Big Al, and this third guy here want to kill me?”

  The third guy speaks. He has a quiet, almost timid voice. Fits his small stature. “The guys call me Fish. ’Cause they say I look like a fish.”

  “Yeah, you do.”

  Fish frowns.

  Sully continues. “The reason Big Al is so eager to kill you is because we were fine here—then you showed up—and now we got this.”

  “Got what?”

  Sully pulls the curtain aside. Through the large window you can see most of the empty construction site. And at the fence, the zombies. Clawing. Chewing on the metal. The bigger ones pound at it.

  Big Al steps forward, pointing the ruler at you. “Look, fuck-head. You brought those things here. I say we give you back to them.”

  If you want to apologize profusely, click here.

  OK, enough of this shit—tell Big Al exactly where he can stick it. Click here.

  STORMING THE GARDEN

  The Harley engines echo through Manhattan, the heavy roar bouncing off abandoned skyscrapers and deserted storefronts. In the sidecar, it feels like you’re about two inches off the ground. The street is a blur.

  Tommy follows Joe Camel. Camel
rides a camo Harley with an empty sidecar. That’s how you’ll be taking the woman out.

  Buildings flash by you. Tommy drives like a madman. Your stomach jumps with every 40-mph turn. Finally, you close your eyes, trust Tommy not to kill you, and think about the job ahead of you.

  You’ll ride straight into MSG, clear out the ground floor, and then you and Tommy will head to the concourse, up to the top, grab the girl from the suite, she’ll squeeze in the sidecar with you, then you head back to the ground floor where you hand her off to Joe Camel and together you all ride back to the club.

  You’re heading for the most famous arena in the world. And it’s going to be packed to the rafters with the walking dead. And it’s your job—your job—to go inside and rescue someone. You clutch the MP5 submachine gun against your chest.

  You open your eyes. White lines flash beneath you as Tommy cruises up Fifth Avenue. You come to a stop at Thirty-fourth Street, across from Penn Station and Madison Square Garden. Husks shuffle about in the moonlight, covering the stairs to the Garden entrance.

  “Now what?” you whisper to Tommy.

  “We wait. Colonel said they’d restore power to this grid at midnight.”

  Just as Tommy finishes his sentence, the building lights up and the street is bathed in white light. The large digital screen outside reads KNICKS VS CELTICS—TONIGHT, 7 PM.

  The monsters turn, surprised by the light. You can see them full on now—a few dozen in the street, maybe a hundred on the ramp leading up and into the garden. You don’t even want to know how many more inside.

  “Ready?” Camel asks.

  Tommy nods.

  Camel reaches into his sidecar and hands you each a forty-ounce bottle of Olde English, filled with gasoline and dish soap. The dish soap, Tommy told you, works as a thickening agent—it’ll turn the Molotov cocktails into a sort of miniature napalm bomb.

  You light a match. Hold the flame to the wick. Count to five, like Tommy said. Then you let it rip.

  The bombs fly through the air, across Sixth Avenue, and smack against the side of the Garden entrance, showering the stairs with fire. Yours falls short, hitting the ground, and exploding at the beasts’ feet. The dish soap causes the fire to let off a thick cloud of smoke, and the beasts stumble around, smoke pouring off them.