Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse?

by Max Brallier

  If you want to investigate the bar and the hopefully good news on TV, click here.

  If you’d rather wait around and try to get that cab, click here.

  FUN AT THE SUBWAY STATION

  Traffic is horrific—it’s rush hour times twenty. No way you’ll get a cab. The subway, that has to be your best bet. So you kick your feet and begin running.

  The streets are buzzing, alive with the spreading news of some bizarre, unknown threat. You were a teen then, still in the burbs—but you imagine this was what the city was like on 9/11. You’re separated from the immediate threat by Central Park, but there’s a feeling in the air that things might never be the same again.

  You catch bits and pieces of conversations as you dart your way through the crowded sidewalk—hopping onto the street to avoid one throng of people, around a car, back onto the sidewalk. You hear the emotion in the people’s voices—disbelief, fear, confusion, excitement:

  “Burn victims, gotta be—”

  “Gay kid at American Apparel said dead people were coming back to life…”

  “Let’s get back to Hoboken—”

  “Girl said she saw Army trucks on the FDR—”

  Rounding Seventy-third Street onto Broadway you see the mess waiting for you: a thick line of pissed-off New Yorkers stretches up and out of the station.

  Fuck.

  You catch your breath, wipe the sweat out of your eyes, and get in line. You run your hand through your hair, tap your feet, sigh, anxious. A minute later and thirty people have filed in behind you. You feel slightly better—never good to be the last guy in line.

  The metal grates below your feet rumble as a train pulls into the stop—then, after a longer than usual wait, the grates rumble again as it pulls away. The crowd flexes and the line moves some. Fifteen minutes later you’ve reached the stairs. Another ten and you’re halfway down. The stairs stink like garbage, but you’re happy to be out of the sun. A lone man, small and bookish, struggles to escape from the station, pushing his way up the stairs, fighting the tide.

  You finally reach the bottom. The station is filled to the brim—it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before. You’re no good at ballparking numbers of large groups of people, never have been (at a carnival, as a kid, you once guessed that an average bag of peanut M&Ms contained three hundred M&Ms. When told that was too high, you readjusted your number to seven.) But you guess there are about two hundred people in the area at the bottom of the stairs. Two hundred people, shoulder to shoulder, waiting to swipe their cards, go through the turnstiles, and get out onto the just-as-crowded platform and then board a sardine can of a train.

  At the turnstile in front of you a pretty young black woman in a bright yellow, flowered dress is arguing with a business type in front of her, yelling “you stole my swipe!” He ignores her, so she squeezes into the turnstile with him. He turns, roars, and shoves her back into the crowd. No one does a damn thing but mumble.

  The sound of an approaching train echoes through the station. People push harder. Little progress is made. Finally, a collective “Fuck this” echoes through the anxious crowd and damn near everyone—a mother and a son, a businesswoman, an elderly Asian man—begins jumping the turnstile, desperate to get on the train. You follow suit, then allow yourself a slight smile and mentally check off “hop turnstile” on the list of things you’ve wanted to do as a New Yorker.

  People continue to pour down the stairs from the street, continue to force their way in, desperate to escape the city. How many people can this place hold? You can’t move forward or back. The crowd keeps coming, pushing, fighting. You wiggle your toes, trying to stay relaxed. But you can feel the claustrophobia building inside you.

  You wedge yourself between two strangers, stand on the tips of your toes, and try to grab a peek of the arriving train.

  Goddamn it.

  It’s the 1 train—headed to South Ferry. You need the 2 or the 3 train if you want to get to Brooklyn.

  The train slows to a stop. The doors slide open and the crowd pitches forward. You’re almost knocked off your feet. Your face smacks into the shoulder of a big guy in a blue hoodie beside you. He jerks, pushes you back. You crash into a woman who screams at the woman next to her like it was her fault. Anger builds. Small shoving matches break out.

  You can’t breathe. Panic building in your chest. Heat pouring over your body in waves. For the moment, you forget about getting to Brooklyn. Just need to get out. On anything, going anywhere. You don’t care if it’s a train or a great glass elevator that takes you to the moon—just need to get the hell out of this goddamn madhouse. Then you can collect yourself, calm down, do some thinking, and figure out what the hell to do.

  But you’re twenty feet from the train car, at least. And you know it’ll be a nightmare on there, no better than here on the platform. And the 2 or 3 train to Brooklyn could be just a minute away…

  If you want to stay put and wait for the train to Brooklyn, click here.

  If you’re going to force your way onto that subway car and come up with a plan later, click here.

  ALRIGHT, ZOMBIES, I’M COMING

  Classic rock and a hard place—the rock the United States military machine, and the approaching army of the dead just about the hardest place on earth.

  Bullets rip apart a woman one lane over. She jerks as the lead tears through her, then she falls back onto the hood. Uh-uh. I’m not going out like that, you think. You turn and run back for the city. About half the mass does the same. Others continue to press forward, not believing that their own military would fire on them.

  Bullets scream past you. Bodies drop.

  The zombies are a hundred yards ahead, moving nearly as fast as the thick crowd that runs with you. You’re quite literally on a collision course with death.

  You cut between two cars and scramble up the hood of an idling taxi. The cabbie, still inside, confused, scared like everyone else, shouts at you. In a second, you’re up and over the cab and leaping to the next car. You continue like this—jumping from car to car—making more progress than the rest of them.

  But the farther you get from the bullets, the closer you get to those monsters. Everyone knows it. Before anyone has time to think, prepare, or do anything—the army of the dead runs headlong into the running crowd. It’s terror. Chaos. Bodies ripped apart. Men throw useless fists.

  You continue over the cars. Dead hands swipe at you.

  Then, as you leap from the roof of an SUV to an old sedan, it all goes bad. The driver of the SUV hits the gas. Your jump is thrown off—you slip and fall hard onto the concrete. You land right in the middle of a pack of zombies. You rush to your feet, try desperately to get onto the hood of the sedan.

  Something pulls at your shirt. You swipe at it, feel the cold, dead arm of one of the beasts. It’s an awful-looking thing—a homeless man, at one point, before he joined the ranks of the dead. Another one grabs at you. A young kid. And then another. You tug, pull, fight with everything you’ve got. But there’s nowhere to go. You’re surrounded.

  Teeth dig into your skin. Pain in your shoulder. Your back. Everywhere. The kid claws at your thigh, tearing the flesh open.

  You’re dead. You’re done for. You know it. You pray for shock to set in. Beg for God to end it.

  But it never happens. Instead you feel heat all over you—a burning inside, pumping through your blood.

  You swat at the beasts. They back off.

  You can feel your mind going. Thoughts and emotions disappearing. You try to grab them, hang on. Things go in chunks—your name, your identity.

  You have no idea how much just time has past. You’re left with just the hunger. Simple, dumb bloodlust.

  Something moves out of the corner of your eye. Smells good. Fresh. Your body goes that way.

  AN END

  GETTING A HAND ON THINGS

  Your fear of the beasts is paralyzing. As the crowd continues to push and the zombies continue to feast, you slip your hands dee
per into the wooden slats of the bench.

  The train roars, just seconds away.

  The zombies tear through the crowd. You don’t see the cop anymore. Bodies lie bruised, battered, and bloodied across the station. Limbs strewn about like yesterday’s garbage.

  You see that a few lucky people are able to roll underneath an overhanging section of the platform to avoid the train. Others run for the opposite side of the tracks—some successful, some not. The nots fry on the third rail.

  The boy in the Mets cap stands frozen in the middle of the tracks. You give him one last look and close your eyes.

  VSHOOOM!!!

  The train never even slows down. Roars past, fades down the tunnel.

  You don’t want to, but you look. The track below you is sickening. In its wake the train has left a grisly mass grave. The tracks are slick and crimson.

  The beasts have managed to negotiate the turnstiles. They’ll be upon you in seconds.

  You need to leave. now. Onto the tracks it is, before the next train comes. You pull your hand from the bench and—

  No…

  You tug.

  God no. No, no, no.

  Your hand is stuck.

  C’mon!

  The lower knuckle on your middle finger refuses to come free—the bench like a ring that won’t come off.

  The ghouls approach. Five, six, maybe more. They’re rising up all around you.

  You push your leg against the bench and pull with everything you got.

  Nothing.

  The beasts come closer. You pull harder—fuck it, right now you’ll lose the finger if you have to. Just want loose.

  The beasts surround you. Grab at you. You squeeze your eyes shut.

  You’re not a religious man, but…

  “Hail Mary, full of grace—”

  AN END

  WHAT’S ONE DRINK?

  Wall Street slides the two crisp hundred-dollar bills across the bar and tells the bartender to bring everyone a shot of tequila. Judging by the look on her face, the bartender finds this guy to be just about as charming as you do—but she takes the money. She pulls a bottle of Two Fingers tequila from beneath the bar.

  “No, no—c’mon, what do I look like here? Top shelf,” Wall Street says.

  She shoots you a look. You smile and shrug—get a nice little warm feeling inside, goes well with the rising hell outside.

  She grabs a bottle of Patrón Silver from high up on the shelf behind her, asks Wall Street if it’s good enough for him, then makes her way down the bar, pouring the liquor. The drunks are quite pleased. They take their shots and knock ’em back. Some turn their attention back to the TV, others stare ahead, a few trade war stories.

  You take yours. It burns. You want a lime wedge but are too afraid to ask for one. When was the last time you took a shot at noon? Well, actually, not all that long ago.

  “Anthony?” the cute bartender says to the bouncer, nodding to the bottle. He lets out a low rumble that could, technically, be considered a sigh. Strides over to the bar.

  “Why not,” he says.

  She smiles. “That’s my guy.”

  She pours a shot for herself and a shot for him. You watch, not hiding your interest. “You?” she says, looking you in the eyes.

  You stumble. “Huh?”

  “Another, jackass? You want another?”

  “Oh, sure, yeah.”

  She pours you a second shot.

  “Me too, hon,” Wall Street says, leaning over you, trying to push you out of the picture. You put your elbows on the bar and edge forward.

  She pours him one.

  “To the apocalypse,” he says and takes his shot. You, the bartender, and the bouncer wait—then take yours a beat later, leaving him to drink alone. He’s too caught up in himself to notice.

  The liquor burns a hole in your gut. You bring your gaze back up to the TV.

  The images on the television are horrific. And these are all places you know. Places you’ve been. And it’s pure carnage. War. Police fighting, firing, sometimes seeming to win the battle, other times being overwhelmed.

  The drunk to your left, huge guy, comb-over, gasps as the broadcast cuts to a horde of the beasts outside the big Gristedes supermarket on Eighty-third. “Fuck me, that’s six blocks from here…”

  You hear the chopping sound of a helicopter overhead—the same helicopter broadcasting on the TV, you realize. Yes, these things are close.

  A woman’s scream cuts through the air. From the street. The bouncer, Anthony, darts outside, moving quick for a big man. A minute later he returns and slams the door behind him.

  “Hey, what are you—” someone says.

  “Shut up,” he says. “Listen! Those things are outside and they’re headed this way. Anyone wants out, go now, ’cause I’m locking it up.”

  Before anyone answers, there’s a banging noise at the door behind him. Anthony throws his back against it. Even if you wanted to leave now, you couldn’t. A wall of people has gathered outside, pounding the door, screaming to be let inside.

  You watch Anthony intently. He breathes heavily in and out, appears to be thinking hard. Finally, he takes his weight off the door and it flies open, sending half a dozen people spilling inside. Immediately others in the street rush for the door and the safety of the bar.

  Anthony slams the door shut in the face of twenty screaming, begging voices. One, an elderly woman, pleading. He throws all his weight into the door, shuts his eyes, and pushes.

  “Let them inside!” a woman behind you cries. More people gather at the window outside, tugging on the bars that cover it.

  But there’s no time—the creatures are now upon them. Devouring them. Teeth ripping through flesh. Hands pulling and tearing.

  A drunk behind you drops his glass.

  You want to move. Do something. Anything. But you don’t—you just watch.

  One poor bastard’s face is pressed against the door’s rectangular, microwave-sized window. He and Anthony make eye contact—the man beseeching him to help. Then the glass gives and the man’s upper half bursts through. Shards of glass tear him to pieces. Shredded skin hangs from his face and arms. He whimpers. Then, after a long, horrific moment, he goes silent.

  Anthony steps away from the door and brings his arm crashing down upon the hinged wooden divider that keeps the drunks from going behind the bar and pouring their own whiskey sours. It splinters at the hinges. He twists it off.

  “Rachel, behind the bar, the toolbox!” he shouts. The pretty bartender, Rachel apparently, does as she is told. Most everyone else has moved to the back of the bar. You remain frozen in the middle.

  Anthony throws his shoulder into the door and wedges his foot against the corner of the bar. The door shakes, but it holds. More creatures come. Dead hands reach through the window. One grabs his arm, tears the flesh. Anthony howls. The door bucks and bends. It won’t hold for long.

  He picks up the two-inch-thick piece of wood, grabs a hammer and some nails from the toolbox, and turns to work on the door.

  Blocking his progress is the chunk of messy gore that was once a man. Anthony grabs the dead man by the hair, lifts him up by the head, and tries to push him back onto the sidewalk.

  Suddenly the dead man’s face jerks to life. His eyes light up like headlights in a graveyard. Anthony jumps back as the man, his head and shoulders trapped in the tight frame of the window, snaps his teeth. His veins pop. His eyes bulge. The blood stops dripping—it turns a dark reddish black.

  It’s a horrific scene. This snapping, bloodthirsty face the centerpiece—an entire street full of undead beasts the backdrop.

  Anthony brings the hammer down hard upon the thing’s head. No beauty to it, no precision, just heavy whacks to the thing’s skull. Blow after blow after blow. Chunks of skin and skull and brain splash the wall and the floor. The head bobs, wounded, broken. Anthony raises the hammer high, pauses, then brings it down with all his might. The thing’s skull shatters and it goes limp.


  Anthony twirls the hammer in his hand, hooks the dead thing’s nostrils with the nail claw, and lifts it up and out of the window. But there’s no rest. Behind it, more of the walking dead approach.

  Quickly, Anthony throws up the wood, puts two nails into the top, and begins hammering. After a few more nails, the small window is covered. But the door continues to throb and creak as the beasts press.

  “Someone, get over here!” he shouts. “This ain’t gonna hold for long!”

  No one moves. No one says a fucking thing. Inside the bar, all is quiet, except for the howl of Merle Haggard on the jukebox.

  Anthony points at you with the hammer. “Now!”

  Man up and help the bouncer barricade the door? Click here.

  Run for the bathroom, lock yourself in, and pray to God that everything will be OK? Click here.

  WHEELMAN

  Last time you fired a gun was at overnight camp in eighth grade. Last time you drove a car was Thanksgiving, at your folks’ house. You’ll go with the years.

  “I’ll drive,” you say.

  Chucky tosses you the keys. You don’t catch them cleanly and they clatter on the floor. Good start.

  You climb into the driver’s seat of the old GMC. It’s a ragged old bench seat, cigarette burns and tears patched up with about ten pounds of duct tape. It’s a vehicle with personality—a veteran. It’s been around, you think, but it’s never been on a ride like this next one.

  Chucky hops into the bed of the truck and parks himself just behind the GMC’s glass partition. He slides the window open, puts his elbows on the metal, and rests his head in his open hands.

  “Now what?” you ask him.

  “We wait for that chain to snap. If we’re lucky, it never does.”

  “Yeah—and we just starve to death in here.”

  “Don’t worry. I got Pringles in the office.”

  The mechanical clank, clank, clank of the struggling gate echoes through the garage, along with the moans of the hungry hoard that waits beyond it.