Drink in case of Emergency

by Oliver, Carl

  Tyler’s had learned an elegant and beautifully simple solution to this in his Freshman year of college when he started drinking.

  His solution was “Be Miserable.”

  His head felt like it would explode, and his body ached as though he had the flu while running a marathon the previous day. He was miserable, and he would just deal with it. Sometimes he could be miserable while lying still in bed, but most of the time lying down just made him throw up. Those days, he had to be on his feet. Mobile, and miserable.

  This particular morning, was going to be a mobile and miserable day. This mobility began by getting himself seated upright, and then climbing from the reclining chair that had been his makeshift bed for the previous night. His socks made a rasping sound as he dragged them against the worn carpet and pushed himself to a standing position.

  As Tyler was accustomed to, this was the single worst moment of a hangover morning. The sudden blood rush away from the head had him seeing black spots in the corners of his vision, and his throat felt like it was on fire. Once the headache began pulsing to his heartbeat, ‘wub dub, wub dub, wub dub’, he knew he was at rock bottom. It got easier from here, it just took a few hours, and a late morning nap, but he would survive.

  After rising from the chair and wincing in pain at his headache, Tyler looked around to find Chris sleeping face down on the floor. Tyler assumed Justin was sleeping in his own bed, although he couldn’t fully remember much of what happened after Beth showed up last night. He remembered Justin screaming something about ‘Dr. Big Dick’, but couldn’t remember why.

  Awake, and very miserable, Tyler began cleaning up the mess they had made over the last twelve hours. Tyler had built a reputation for this during his college years. People would attempt to get him so intoxicated when he came to their party that he would be forced to crash on their couch. This way, by the time they woke up at 11:00am the next morning, much of their house would already be cleaned up from the party. Tyler honestly didn’t really mind. Cleaning a house while you feel like someone was pounding on the inside of his skull somehow ended up feeling therapeutic to him.

  If this is what rock bottom was, he could handle it.

  Tyler started by collecting all the empty and half empty beer cans, wine bottles, and liquor bottles and filling the garbage can with them. He vaguely remembered seeing a recycling bin outside, so he pulled the overflowing garbage outside and lugged it down the stairs. The recycling bin exactly where his foggy brain had remembered it.

  Tyler tipped the lid open, lifted the garbage can and winced as the crash of glass bottles and clatter of aluminum cans shattered the morning silence. After the clatter subsided, Tyler noticed the silence.

  The small suburban neighborhood was absolutely silent. No dogs barking, car radios blaring, or even the dull hum of cars driving on the highway a half mile away. The world was silent, and despite his body aches from the hangover, Tyler felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up as the silence surrounded him.

  Deja-vu.

  Where did they all go?

  Am I alone?

  No...not alone. Tyler could feel eyes watching him, following him, tracking him. Turning slowly, Tyler was relieved to see a woman in her mid forties standing in the neighbor’s lawn, about twenty yards away.

  Not alone.

  Tyler tried snapping his fingers up next to his ears. A little muffled. His sinuses always got stuffed up after heavy drinking. Maybe that explained the silence.

  “Good Morning.” Tyler croaked out while waving at the woman awkwardly. Tyler cleared his throat and continued, “Sorry...if we made too much noise last night, we got a little carried away.” The woman didn’t respond, and Tyler noticed her appearance.

  The woman was wearing a thick, off-white cotton floral nightgown that went down to her knees. Her brown hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail. She looked a little pale, but Tyler remembered that wearing white in bright lighting has a tendency to wash out your color. Just another great tip from television.

  What struck Tyler as strange was that she was barefoot. Last night was cold, It must be in the high forties now, and she’s walking around in wet grass barefoot. The idea of it make the bones in Tyler’s feet hurt. Tyler watched as her cold white feet shuffled clumsily through the dewy grass toward him. Tyler felt the hair on his neck stand up a little bit further as he stared mesmerized. It wasn’t until she was ten feet away that Tyler looked up from her feet to her face.

  It’s valuable to mention at this point in time that, like many young men brought up in today’s age, Tyler had thought a lot about the undead over the course of his life. He had seen at least a dozen related movies, and since he was a teenager he had an escape plan in place for every apartment, house, and building he lived or worked in, just in case of the such an apocalypse. He and his friends had discussions about what would be their weapon of choice, who they wanted in their survival group and what their plan would be.

  Each of these plans were completely dependent upon what “kind” of the undead they would encounter, of course. The machete you wanted against slow ones was not the same as the assault rifle you wanted against super fast, super strong ones. The escape plan and long term survival plan was also very different in each case.

  In either case, it was decided that a tank was an acceptable answer for weapon or escape plan.

  In spite of all of these hours of discussing and thinking about what he would do when he first faced one of the undead, Tyler reacted poorly.

  ****

  “Are...are you okay?” Tyler looked into the woman’s faded, dull eyes. He thought her eyes used to be brown, or maybe hazel, but the color was faded and hidden, as if her eyes were covered by a fog. She reminded Tyler of when he was growing up, and the family’s old black lab got cataracts. Foggy, white and blue eyes that gazed as if they were seeing another world. He tried to lock eyes with her to get her attention, and was unable to. He couldn’t actually make out her pupils. Tyler could feel the woman looking through him, instead of at him. While Tyler spent his time trying to lock eyes with her, she continued to shamble closer and closer.

  Step.

  Step.

  Step.

  It wasn’t until the woman was five feet away that Tyler was absolutely sure that something was wrong. “Hey, hey! Stay back!” He held up the now empty white plastic garbage can he had carried downstairs with him, holding it lengthwise between them as a lion tamer might hold a chair.

  The woman stumbled into the bottom of the garbage can, and Tyler felt her weight lean into it. She pushed her body against the can, but didn’t make a move to push it out of the way. She simply leaned into it, pushing Tyler back into the recycling bin he had just emptied his ‘shield’ into. Tyler was confused, a little startled, but not sure how to respond.

  “Ma’am....Ma’am you’re scaring me. Please stop that! Please...” Tyler could hear his voice shaking, as his mind began piecing together the ultimate conclusion of what he was witnessing. The woman’s arms reached out and forward, trying to touch him, to grab him. Her arms were pale, only a shade or two darker than the nightgown she wore.

  It’s true, white washes out your color.

  Tyler looked into her face, her expression was blank, the muscles of her face were slack, as if she were asleep. A low moan, just barely above a whisper escaped from her mouth, along with a dribble of drool. Tyler felt bad, but he knew what he had to do next.

  Rearing back, Tyler pushed his weight into his end of the small white plastic garbage can. The woman toppled back easily, falling into the wet grass. She fell so easily that Tyler nearly lost his footing and fell onto her.

  Lying on the ground, the woman made a wheezing sound, her mouth agape as she began to roll onto her side and push back to her feet. Tyler jumped to the side, towards the stairs the led up to Justin’s apartment. He moved slowly up them, backwards, never turning his back on the woman for fear that what he was seeing was real.

  The woman was now back on her
feet, although hunched over at the waist from pushing herself up with her hands. Her eyes locked on Tyler, moving slowly up the stairs. He took this as a sign that it was time to run.

  Tyler turned and ran now, taking the stairs two at a time, yanking the front door open and promptly slamming it behind him. The slam of the door woke Chris with a start on the floor. His head turned to face the source of the sound, Tyler at the front door.

  “...The fuck, dude?” Chris began rubbing his eyes as he moved to lay back down. “Too loud.” Chris had lain back down by the time Tyler could start talking.

  “I don’t want to make you panic. But I think something is going on outside.” Tyler’s voice was shaking. He could hear slow, ‘THUMP, THUMP, THUMP’ of footsteps coming up the stairs outside. He heard the familiar first squeak of wood that indicated the woman was a third of the way up.

  “I don’t panic very easily Tyler. Especially when my head feels like it’s a swollen pimple ready to pop. Did we drink Gin last night? This feels like a Gin hangover...” Tyler cut Chris off by shouting down the hallway.

  “Hey Justin,” Tyler shouted toward the back of the apartment, “does your neighbor have...like...diabetes or something?” Chris answered from the couch.

  “Dude...nobody knows that about their neighbors anymore. Was she outside trying to give you some sugar free candy or something?”

  “No...I think there’s something really wrong with her. She wouldn’t talk, and just kept trying to get to me.” Tyler continued leaning against the door, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, as the BUMP, BUMP, BUMP grew steadily closer.

  “‘Trying to get to you.’ What does that even mean?” Chris was still lying on his back, with his forearm covering his eyes to keep out the bright light of the morning.

  Tyler stared in Chris’s direction, but he was seeing the woman in his memory. “Like, she was stumbling toward me, and her eyes were all fucked over like in a movie or whatever.”

  “Weird.” Chris mumbled as he pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger while squeezing his eyes shut. “So should we call 911 or something? I mean, for an ambulance or whatever? I think Justin took an EMS class last year...” Chris trailed off as a loud THUMP reverberated through the living room. The sound wasn’t the outside stairs anymore, it was the door. Chris’s head tilted in confusion as Tyler spun, his hands shaking frantically as he clicked home the deadbolt.

  “What was that?” Chris asked, starting to sit up on the floor.

  “I think it’s her. I pushed her down but I think she followed me up the stairs.” Justin’s front door had a small window next to it. Tyler moved slowly, drawing the curtains back just far enough to look out. He saw what he expected. The woman from before, leaning into the front door with her face. Her hands began fumbling around and clumsily found the doorknob. Inside the apartment, Chris and Tyler both could see the doorknob erratically twisting back and forth. The deadbolt held firm, and the door didn’t budge.

  “Shit dude, open the damn door. What if she’s just having a stroke or something? You’re being a real dick.” Chris spoke as he rose from the floor, intent on moving to the door and opening it for the woman.

  “You didn’t see her eyes, dude. There was something missing from them. My grandpa had a few strokes and a full on case of alzheimers. His eyes never looked anything like that.” Tyler remembered again the fog that covered them, somehow making them look animal. “It’s something else, and it’s bad.” Chris continued towards the door, despite Tyler’s protest. As Chris passed by the small window next to the door, the doorknob stopped rattling. Chris stopped his advance and stood still, three feet from where Tyler still stood, leaning his back against the door. Both friends held their breath and all was silent for five long seconds. There was a loud crash as the small window next to the door shattered inward. A small white arm reached through the now open window.

  The arm thrashed around wildly, breaking away the lingering shards of glass that clung to the frame. Many of these shards stuck and tore into the pale flesh of the woman, who didn’t seem to react to the gashes in her flesh.The woman stuck her head through the now open window, and began falling into the apartment.

  ****

  Chris’s brain felt like it was being squeezed in a vice. Somewhere in his mind he knew that he had drank beer, liquor, and wine last night. He challenged all three horsemen, and so the fourth appeared. Mind splitting hangover. This pain was slightly dulled by the scene before him.

  Chris felt his feet back away in confusion, while the older woman began pushing herself back to her feet. Her right arm oozed pale purple gel from a dozen cuts and gashes, where red blood should have been freely flowing.

  Her vacant eyes didn’t move, but she turned her entire head to look back and forth between Tyler and Chris, who were backing away in different directions. Tyler was backing into the kitchen, Chris was backing away more quickly, down the hallway toward the rest of the tiny apartment. After looking back and forth one final time, the woman began lumbering slowly through the living room space and into the narrow hallway towards Chris.

  “Hey. Stop. Don’t come any closer!” Chris felt his voice squeak as he tried to shout the words. Chris felt confusion race through his mind as he thought of everything he knew about older women and diseases that might be able to explain what he was witnessing. The rational side of his brain could not come up with any reasonable explanation of why this woman was behaving this way, so the irrational part of his mind kicked in and threw out the word that Tyler had been thinking for the last minute and a half.

  Z...

  “Is this real?” Chris shouted, his voice filled with fear, and a dash of excitement.

  “That’s what I thought,” Tyler said. Now that the woman was no longer following him, he began following her down the hallway, keeping a safe four to five foot distance from her.

  Zombie.

  “Ummm...as excited as I am for this moment, I mean, a real zombie...I would like to survive so we can share the story later...any chance you could help somehow? Chris had only a couple feet left behind him, the hallway abruptly ended at the door to a small walk in closet. “How’d you get away from her before?”

  “Umm, I guess I pushed her down with the garbage bin and ran away.” Tyler was creeping forward at the same speed as the woman was. Chris had run out of room to back up any further. He felt the doorknob to the closet bump into the small of his back.

  “Don’t really have a lot of space to run. Any other ideas?”

  Chris’s back was pinned against the closet door now, and he had a choice to make. He could go right into the main bedroom, where Justin was facedown, snoring loudly on the bed. The door itself was missing from the frame, as they had removed it from the hinges the night before in order to have a table to play beer pong on. His other option was to go left, into the laundry nook area, where he had just as little chance of escape, but maybe he could find a hammer or something to fight her with, assuming Justin kept tools in that part of the apartment.

  Just as he was about to go left, Tyler shouted from down the hall, “Go into the bedroom,and open the closet door behind you!” Chris understood at once, or at least he thought he did. The closet door opened out into the hallway, and to the right. It would mostly cover the open doorway of the bedroom door, offering a barrier between him and the zombie. More importantly, it offered a place to deposit the zombie, assuming that Tyler was on the same page.

  Chris pulled open the closet door as he backed into the bedroom. He felt the weight of the zombie press into the door and he leaned into it, holding the handle firmly and keeping his shoulder against door, hoping he could hold strong until Tyler acted. The pressure against the door continued, and pale white fingers began to creep around the edge.

  “Any fuckin’ day, Tyler!” Chris shouted. A small arm began reaching around the edge of the closet door and brushed against his hand on the doorknob. He pulled his hand back in disgust as he heard a noi
se from behind him.

  “Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.” Justin moaned as he began rolling over. “My heart has been broken by the weight of Jeremy’s big dick, let me die from this hangover in peace.”

  “Any! Fuckin’! Day! Tyler!” Chris repeated himself slowly, shouting each word separately. It is at this point that both Chris and Justin heard what can best be described as a twenty five year old boy’s (not man’s) attempt at a battle cry. It was about fifty percent shout, fifty percent groan, and fifty percent squeal.

  “ARRRRRRGHGHGHGHGHHeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee”

  Along with this they heard footsteps pounding down the hallway, Chris felt the door jerk against him as a blur passed by his narrow line of sight into the hallway. Suddenly the weight leaning against the door was gone.

  Then came the crash.

  “Now! Close it!” Chris shoved hard and the door swung easily, closing home. Chris continued to lean into it, Tyler standing next to him holding one of the kitchen chairs. A small crashing sound came from within the closet, and Justin spoke up from the bed.

  “Ty...what’s with the screaming? And what are you doing with Beth’s chair?” Justin was still lying on the bed, but he had rolled onto his back, and with his head tilted to the side he was staring at the two friends in the hallway. “Break it if you want, it’s not like she’s going to need it. Stupid Jeremy’s dick probably has ergonomic chairs that optimize your breakfast enjoyment.” Justin sat up, hiding his face in his hands.

  From within the closet, all three friends began to hear a soft thumping sound. Chris could tell that the woman inside had found the door she was forced through. He continued to lean into it as he talked.

  “Justin, you know anything about your neighbor? She have any medical conditions? Or just a general lack of any sort of ability to communicate?” Chris leaned a little harder into the door as the thumping turned to pounding.