Drink in case of Emergency

by Oliver, Carl

  The first few had been challenging, as he hadn’t come up with a solid method of delivering the souls to heaven. He couldn’t risk his own body yet, as he knew he had more work to do, and that the Lord could claim him personally when it was time. The first two were thankfully both women, so he was able to overpower them, overpowering them and pushing them into the creatures that were the gateway to heaven.

  His third was the hardest one yet, it was a man in his early twenties, bigger and stronger than the Father himself, so instead of physically delivering him through the gateway, he had run the young man down with his car, leaving him broken, but not dead.

  The creatures were the way into the kingdom of heaven. Father O’Connell was sure of this. He couldn’t take any lives himself, or they may not make it, if they weren’t true believers. The creatures were capable of changing people though, freeing their souls into heaven.

  After the third one, Father O’Connell found a small pistol that he could use to hobble any survivors his found, making them easy prey for the creatures. Once he devised this method, it was fast work, sending souls into heaven. A round or two in a leg, and a few minutes later the nasty business was done and that lucky soul was dining with the lord.

  The first day alone, he was able to set eighteen souls free.

  “Remember, you want to jab, don’t just come in with the haymakers.”

  “Don’t let him eat you!”

  “Make sure to kick a lot, zombies hate kickers.”

  “Remember how you felt right before you texted me, channel that fury.”

  “I completely disagree with Scott, you want to sweep the leg and bring the haymakers.”

  The suggestions were coming so fast that Tyler wasn’t able to process them. The four shots of tequila he had taken in preparation for this fight may have also been impeding his ability to process all the boxing tips. Tyler imagined this sport catching on among the other survivors. Zombie boxing. It was boxing, after all, as he was wearing thick black boxing gloves and a mouthguard. He wasn’t sure if the mouthguard was going to help at all, but it was absolutely necessary, for safety, at least that’s what Chris had said after Scott insisted on the boxing gloves in the first place.

  Tyler had initially imagined a gritty scene, as if from “Fight Club.” He would be Brad Pitt, and Charlie would be his usual pudgy self. Tyler knew he didn’t look anything like the movie star, but the third shot of tequila had convinced him otherwise. He would knock Charlie to the ground in a few wild punches, and then use some wrestling moves he remember from watching the WWF as a child.

  For a patently dangerous idea, his friends had all kinds of suggestions for how to make the situation slightly safer. Once they were back at MegaLowMart to grab some big, soft boxing gloves, everyone else began throwing out safety suggestions. Amy had joked that he might want to wear a cup, in case Charlie gets handsy in the fight. Chris suggested the mouthguard, because all boxers wear mouthguards, and then it seemed like people were just throwing equipment at him from whatever was available in the sporting goods department. Justin’s only contribution to Tyler’s outfit was the matching sweatshirt and sweatpants that he claimed made him look like Rocky.

  So now he stood in front of Charlie’s house. A small ranch style home in one of the older sub-developments around Middleton. The house itself was an off-white color, almost a light tan with brown shutters, to act as an accent color. It was top of the line in style in 1971. It sat on a quarter acre lot, with faded white picket fences blocking off the yards on either side of it. Tyler vaguely recalled that Charlie had moved out here when he got divorced. Something about it was the house his parents moved into when they retired, but after they passed away he just couldn’t sell the place. Not that he had an emotional attachment to it, it was just not the type of house that any person would want to buy.

  The party of six sat outside the house in the large white Escalade SUV that Jessica and Scott had gone out and stolen earlier that morning. Tyler had argued at first, but when Justin pointed out that they weren’t going to fit all six people in the Stratus, he relented. After five minutes in the plush leather interior, Tyler forgot why he was so attached to his stratus in the first place.

  “So...are you going to fight him inside...or...how do we make him come out?” Jessica asked from the front passenger seat.

  “I don’t think you should fight him inside, just in case he bites you, it’d be harder to get you out of the situation.” Scott said from the drivers seat. Tyler felt the tequila dancing across his brain.

  “We’ll lure him out.” Tyler’s voice slurred from his spot in between Amy and Justin in the middle seats.

  “And how are we going to do that?” Scott looked up and down the street as he asked the question, keeping an eye out for stray zombies moving toward them.

  “Like this.” With surprising speed, Tyler lunged forward into the front seat and leaned his boxing gloved hand into steering wheel, letting out a loud, long, BEEEEP that pierced the silence of the neighborhood.

  “What the fuck?” Chris shouted from his spot in the third row of seats. Justin and Amy pulled Tyler back into the middle row, and everyone began looking out the windows, panicking.

  “You couldn’t have just, I don’t know, knocked on the door or something?” Scott shouted from the front seat. “You know, instead of announcing our presence to the entire neighborhood?”

  “Oh...I hadn’t thought of that.” Tyler’s face flushed, although he wasn’t sure if it was from shame or from the tequila.

  Tyler’s poorly planned action ended up being successful, as only a few seconds later the door to 1143 Johnson road crept open, and Charlie Westin stepped out. His pale bowling pin body was nearly naked, except for a pair of gray boxer brief underwear that looked as though they had been soiled in both the front and back.

  “It’s go time!” Tyler shouted as he struggled to climb over Justin and exit the Escalade. A moment later everyone was spilling from the vehicle. Chris also pulled out a blue plastic cooler and began passing out mimosas that he had mixed in the backseat on the drive over here.

  Tyler felt incredibly sirene for a moment. Charlie stumbled down the single concrete step and almost fell flat on his face. His pale gray body looked as though it had a wet sheen of some kind of slime or sweat. His bare feet dragged across the concrete sidewalk, catching on a crack and stumbling his massive body into the grass. Tyler thought for a moment about how the ergonomic ball didn’t really do much to help his balance, now that he was a zombie.

  The lumbering, bloated body of Charlie Westin was only ten feet away now, climbing back to his feet, and raising his head towards the six warm bodies in front of him. Tyler thought there might have been a glint of recognition behind the film that seemed to fog Charlie’s eyes. Thankfully he would never find out if that glint was due to recognizing him as a former colleague, or as a meal. Charlie was now only five feet away, and still coming. He raised his arms, and Tyler couldn’t get this thought out of his head that Charlie really just wanted a hug right now.

  As it turns out, had Charlie not been a zombie at that exact moment, that is exactly what he would have wanted right them. He was ‘celebrating’ what would have been he and his wife’s fifttenth wedding anniversary on Thursday evening. Due to financial strain of alimony and raising a spoiled fifteen year old daughter, Charlie’s festivities included a glass of sparkling grape juice (he had given up drinking after Mara left him) and a Hungry Man TV dinner. He had been sticking to the Lean Cuisine dinners, but he figured it was a special occasion. He ate his meal, cried a little, masturbated and fell asleep. Had he not been a zombie at this exact moment, he really could have used a hug this week.

  “Fuckin’ hit him!” Justin’s shouting finally pulled Tyler from his ponderings of whether or not Charlie was any good at hugs. Charlie was now only three feet away, and Tyler got a strong wiff of the mess that was inside Charlie’s underwear. He would have gagged, had he not already been hurling his left fist toward Cha
rlie’s face in a wild roundhouse punch. The blow landed with a satisfying slap, like raw meat being dropped on a flat surface. The punch landed on the left side of Charlie’s face, knocking him slightly off balance, but his feet continued to carry him toward his prey.

  Tyler felt panic as Charlie’s arms began to close around him, wrapping him in the hug that he imagined only a moment earlier. The panic made his stomach drop and his mind go blank. He tried to step back, but he tripped over another crack in the sidewalk, and fell backward, his head cracking softly against the unforgiving concrete.

  ****

  Tyler found himself back on the train at dusk. The dream started further along this time. He was already in the engine room, with the young woman ahead of him, still facing away. Tyler had a nagging feeling that there was something really important he should be doing, something about Fight Club? He couldn’t remember. He had the overwhelming need to see the conductor’s face.

  Tyler could see the cliff looming in the distance. The track they were on went over the edge, but there was another track, one he hadn’t noticed before. It turned ninety degrees to the south, and ran along the edge of the cliff, without going over it, at least not yet.

  “Excuse me, miss?” Tyler said meekly. “Aren’t you going to change the track? The edge is coming up.” Tyler waited for a response, but heard none. He took a few unsure steps forward, and put his hand on the shoulder of the woman.

  She spun around in her chair and slapped him, hard. Tyler felt the sting on his cheek before he even registered that she had moved.

  “You want to drive this thing? Then drive.” The woman rose from her chair and stepped back. Tyler rubbed his cheek as he looked down at the controls in front of him. There were hundreds of switches, levers and gauges, none of them labeled in any way.

  “You’re in charge now.” Tyler saw for the first time that the woman scolding him wasn’t actually a woman, but a teenage girl. He also got a closer look at the levers, dials, and various controls in front of him, so many buttons, so many options.

  “I can’t drive this thing. I don’t know how.” Tyler tried to explain.

  Do you want to drive, or not?” Tyler knew he recognized the girl, but he wasn’t sure where from.

  She had familiar braces...

  “But the train is about to crash. You can’t put me in charge right now. We might die.”

  “I gave you exactly what you wanted. Stop being such a little bitch and start appreciating it.” With that, the girl kicked out with her foot and hit a long lever. There was an ear splitting grinding noise and the train jerked to the side, turning 90 degrees left, jumping on the southbound track.

  Tyler locked eyes with the girl and felt his vision tunneling, as this world began to fade away. “You’re the conductor now. Start driving.” Her eyes were filled with tears, and Tyler saw them begin to fall as the world faded to black.

  ****

  Tyler felt his body hit the ground hard, and when his head snapped against the concrete he bit his tongue. The jolt of pain brought him back from his dream world.

  This is exactly what I wanted. Stop being a little bitch and start appreciating it. Tyler felt a wry grin creep from the corners of his mouth. His vision came back and he saw Charlie’s body falling onto him. Tyler was able to pull his legs against his chest and keep his feet between him and Charlie. With his knees against his chest and his back against the ground, he heaved with his legs and threw Charlie backward toward the house.

  Tyler jumped back to his feet and thought he heard Scott shouting something, but he couldn’t be bothered with listening right now, he was busy getting what he wanted. He was going to really savor this moment. Charlie was climbing back to a standing position as well, more slowly than Tyler, and was on his knees when the hard slap of Tyler’s right gloved fist caught him in the right eye. The punch took him down to his hands and knees. Tyler lashed out a hard kick, catching Charlie’s bulbous stomach. The sneaker bounced off, and Tyler had a brief moment of imagining what it would be like to kick an elephant.

  Stepping back, Tyler noticed that Charlie seemed to be bleeding, or oozing from a small cut below his eye, where Tyler had connected with his punch. A strand of the purple goo had fallen and held between Charlie’s face and the ground. It reminded Tyler of when he was 10, holding down his sister and spitting a loogie slowly onto her face. Charlie slowly rose back to his feet, when his face got to waist height, the strand broke from his face and fell to the pool it was forming on the ground.

  Tyler waited until Charlie was completely upright, and then lunged at him with a flurry of punches and kicks, each connecting with some point in Charlie’s dull, unresponsive body. Each punch pushed him back a little, but he kept moving towards his assailant. After a couple of minutes, Charlie’s teeth had almost all been knocked out. His mouth was a gaping maw of the purple blood that ran down his chin and mixed with his matted chest hair.

  This all went on for almost five full minutes. Tyler was sweating now from the constant punching and dodging backwards. Panting, he finally began to notice his surroundings again. Chris and Justin were cheering him on. Scott was looking on with a disgusted look on his face. Jessica was hiding her face in Justin’s chest, and Amy was smiling and smoking a cigar. This struck Tyler as odd for some reason, and he was about to ask where she got a cigar when Charlie’s hands finally found their way to Tyler’s face. Tyler swung a gloved fist up to knock them away, but not before Charlie’s manicured fingernails dug into his cheek.

  Tyler felt a twinge of panic, and wound up all his remaining strength into a single punch. The fist landed squarely in the middle of Charlie’s now broken face, and Tyler felt Charlie’s head snap back quickly. Then Charlie collapsed into a mess on the grass.

  Tyler’s heart was still racing with the panic of the gash on his cheek. He turned to face his friends. Amy’s smile had broken, and she now had a concerned look on her face, but otherwise the group was mostly smiles. Chris gave him a small wink, which actually put Tyler at ease. He had just been scratched after all, Chris had been bitten. Tyler made a mental note to himself that he would have to ask Chris about the injury later on.

  “And the winner, and undisputed champion of the world federation of zombie boxing issss....” Chris thumped his hands against the side of the escalade to simulate a drumroll. “The two hundred punch trashing machine, Tyler McGovernnnnnnnnn.” Justin cupped his hand over his mouth and made the roar of a crowd.

  “Didn’t you hear me? I asked if you wanted us to help you.” Scott shouted. “And you should have taken that more seriously. You scared the women. You could have died.” Tyler, noticed a twinge of anger fly across Amy’s face at the ‘women’ comment, but she said nothing in response.

  Tyler pulled his boxing gloves off and rubbed gingerly at the gash on his cheek. Amy walked up close and brought her face within inches of his own. She glared closely at the gash, slapping his hand away when he reached up to stop the blood flow.

  “Maybe you don’t turn when you get scratched, just when you’re bit.” Amy said thoughtfully. She pulled out another cigar and offered it to Tyler. “You fight like a bitch.”

  “Thanks...I mean, for the cigar, not the criticism.” Amy rolled her eyes at the comment, and gestured back towards Charlie’s house.

  “Do you want to burn that thing down, just for good measure?”

  “No? I didn’t have anything against the house...just the guy who lived in it.” Tyler bit into the cigar. “Besides, I need to take a shower, I’m filthy.”

  An hour later, the escalade was pulling out of the old subdivision that Charlie Westin called home. The beginning of the ride occurred in relative silence, as everyone was finishing drying off from the quick showers they had each taken. It was Justin who finally broke the silence.

  “So how was it?” The question was directed at Tyler, but he didn’t reply at first. The silence dragged on until everyone in the car had turned to face him. Scott stopped the car in the middle of the s
treet and turned to listen as well.

  Justin’s question seemed innocent and straightforward, but beneath the question was the deeper meaning. Tyler was the first of them to really break the rules. He was the first of the group to do something outlandish, something they had never imagined themselves doing. It was essentially the question of whether what he had just done would be worthwhile, if it was worthwhile to follow their wild fantasies into the future, or if they would be better served to just focus on survival.

  “It was...” Tyler trailed off, looked around uncomfortably at the car full of eyes on him. “It was, hands down, one of the top moments of my life.” He took another deep breath before continuing. “I haven’t felt that kind of control, ever! It was like I was completely in control. I knew exactly what I wanted and I took it. I felt so...so manly.”

  “Just what I always wanted.” Amy replied sarcastically.

  “You’d love it.” Tyler said genuinely. “It feels like nothing you could ever imagine. It’s like, it’s like actually being in charge for once.”

  “For once? you’ve never been in charge before?” Jessica looked surprised.

  “Are you kidding?” Tyler let out a huff of laughter. “I’m a twenty something male. I’ve never been in charge of anything in my entire life. First it was my parents, and when they’re not around it was my older brother. Then I got my first girlfriend and she was in charge of everything my parents weren’t in charge of. After that, I was in college and I had an RA and professors that told me everything I had to do. Since then, my boss was in charge whenever I was at work.”

  “What about the other 16 hours per day?” Jessica was intrigued now.

  “I had spent the last two dozen years not being the boss of anything, you think I had any idea how to take care of myself? How to do what I want in my own time? I’ve never even really known what I wanted before.” Tyler had tears forming in the corner of his eyes. “You really have no idea what this feels like.” He let out a long slow breath and Scott began driving the car down the street again.