Riding The Apocalypse
Frank Ignagni III
This book is dedicated to the memory of my mother, Nadine Ignagni, who passed in 2008. I can still see her sitting on the couch, with a book in one hand and a cup of tea in the other.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
“Enough of this.”
Chapter 2
“I have no idea what the hell to do right now.”
Chapter 3
“That’s your decision; if you reconsider, call me.”
Chapter 4
“No worries, Rem, loud pipes save lives, man.”
Chapter 5
“This is not going to do, we need a plan.”
Chapter 6
“There’s the blood.”
Chapter 7
“What the hell are we gonna do with those?”
Chapter 8
“We got company.”
Chapter 9
“Let there be light!”
Chapter 10
“No problem, I’ll get the popcorn too.”
Chapter 11
“No, I am going to do it.”
Chapter 12
Present Day
Chapter 13
“I’ll be on the roof.”
Chapter 14
Present Day
Chapter 15
“They are more trouble than they are worth, but not really.”
Chapter 16
“I certainly hope so, for all our sakes.”
Chapter 17
“It walked right out of the water.”
Chapter 18
“Hell yeah, that guy owes us one!”
Chapter 19
“Serendipity.”
Chapter 20
“I bet she still starts right up."
Chapter 21
“Fuck!”
Chapter 22
Present Day
Chapter 23
Present Day
Epilogue
Present Day
Acknowledgements
Prologue
I am alone.
I am alone in the dimly lit basement of an office supply store. If that isn’t bad enough, I am trapped here. I sit behind an old wooden desk and stare at the barred door—the only way in or out of this hellhole. A small Faraday lantern is my sole source of light. If I shake it vigorously for about thirty seconds, it provides around five minutes of dim illumination—just enough to see the outline of the door across this tiny cellar. I spend a lot of time staring at the door. When I listen closely I can hear the distant dripping of water, fast-paced and rhythmic, like a horse’s trot. I can also hear the footsteps above me, and the pounding on a door upstairs.
They know I am down here.
It is fucking Africa hot down here but it’s not like I have a lot of options. Sweat is dripping down my neck and soaking my shirt. A shower would be a tremendous morale booster; but as always, I will be forced to settle for a sponge bath with lukewarm rust-colored water. The air vent only serves to amplify the footsteps, pounding, moans, and shuffling from the main stockroom above. The airflow is marginal at best. I have tried to close it, but the heat is unbearable when I do, and suffocation holds no appeal. But the vent also curses me with their stench, spewing it into my tiny cell. I have seen a shit-ton of monster movies in my life, and so I can say for a fact this subject has not gotten enough attention. Let me tell you—aside from being eaten—the odor is the worst part of any encounter with monsters. Here’s what the movies don’t mention: they perform all of the bodily functions of any living human being, yet have zero hygiene. The BO alone makes for Dry Heave City.
Anyway, I’m stuck in this tiny room, staring at a wooden door; the door opens to a small landing and then there is a short flight of about ten steps, which ends at a locked, heavy steel door. This steel door opens to the main stockroom.
That is where they are.
I constantly fight the urge to pull the two-by-four board from the metal hinges bolted to the door, push open the door, tear up the stairs, unlock the steel door at the top of the stairs, and run through the stockroom to the sunlight!
But I can’t, they are waiting. I would never make it.
The only time I open the lower wooden door is to drop my leavings on the landing. Thus, anyone who comes down here to rescue me would be in deep shit. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
While I don’t have much food left, what I do have in spades is printer paper, ink cartridges, office supplies, desk accessories, and, thankfully, batteries. The batteries keep my flashlight lit when I am too tired to shake it or need the light to last a bit longer.
The boxes of paper products and supplies are piled to the ceiling on three of the four walls, which makes this potential mausoleum seem even smaller than it is. I feel like the walls of boxes surrounding me could cave in at any moment. Although I never before considered myself claustrophobic, I am even grateful the walls aren’t painted, unable to spare the few extra millimeters of space that a coat of paint would have stolen from me. There is a utility sink on the wall next to the door. The sink water comes from a water tank fed by a well I spotted outside earlier, on my way in. I assume the well pump is powered from the adjacent mall. It’s the only thing that makes sense because the electricity to the mall has been out since I have been down here, and so has the well pump. At some point, with no power to pump the well back up, the water tank will run dry and my water will be gone. It is maddening not knowing when the water will stop. Today? Tomorrow? A month? Is it so full I can drink and wash all I want? Fuck, it is hard to ration when you don’t know your supply.
By now you must be wondering, how did I, Remy Norwood, become trapped in this twenty-by-twenty prison cell? What dreadful circumstances led to this horrible predicament? I have had no little time to reflect on this matter myself, and when I found an old typewriter among the detritus in the corner I made a decision. It is dusty, but all the keys work. The ribbon is old, but I doused it with an ink jet cartridge (of which I have a boxful), and, while messy, it works. And so I decided I want to tell my story. Hell, I want to tell our story, my friends included. I don’t know if anyone will be left to read this but I don’t want the story to die with me. If my friends are already dead, I want them to be remembered. Of course, I hope my remaining friends are still alive, and will eventually tell their own versions, but I am not willing to take that chance, there is just too much at stake.
This record may prove useful to anyone who finds it for a number of reasons. Hell, maybe somebody will even learn from our triumphs and mistakes. I would like to think that at least it might educate others forced to deal with them on an up close and personal basis. Perhaps it will only serve to entertain whoever discovers this damn dungeon; I am okay with that too. If the typewriter, story, and my bones are found a hundred years from now, it would be considered a time capsule, no? This is below ground. That counts, right?
At any rate, I hope it will keep my mind alert and focused while I wait for my knight in shining armor, or to decompose, whichever comes first. I will fucking finish this though. Truthfully, I am not typing this story for completely altruistic reasons. This process already feels therapeutic. I cannot entirely explain this, other than to say it calms me, and I could use some relaxation. I only wish I had started writing this story earlier; I always wanted to write a book. Shit, we all do right? I never seemed to have the time though. Jesus, who am I kidding? I had the time, I just didn’t have the fortitude. But due to recent events I am now inspired, hell, almost euphoric. So if the story gets a bit pretentious or melodramatic, please cut me some slack. My previous writing experience was limited to mandatory assignments completed while I pursued my hu
mble bachelor’s degree some twenty years back; I did take a few elective college courses in English Lit but that was mostly because they were late morning. However, I will do my best to tell this disquieting story and do it justice. I remember a Lit teacher telling me Shakespeare’s and Kafka’s reputations rest primarily on the texts they had never approved or reread. So maybe this will be a classic someday, taught in the universities of the future. Regardless, I am hopeful this memoir will be discovered sooner rather than later, and me along with it.
Before I began typing, I was having trouble keeping everything straight in my mind. I have been in this room more than a week but less than two, and what went before is a bit of a horrific blur, like trying to remember what happened when you got drunk at your mother-in-law’s Christmas dinner. But writing this story is causing my mind to bleed details already. I can’t type as fast as I am thinking, everything is coming back to me and snapping into focus. I’m actually excited about something, which is strange but exhilarating, especially if I am able to keep up this introspective bullshit pro-style I am trying to pull off. I think I am going to have to jot notes down too, if I can find a pen. Ironically, I am now confronting my own mortality and relating the horrific events of what may be my last days, yet for the first time in a long time I can breathe deeply and relax. Even so, I am having a hard time concentrating with the pounding and scuffling overhead. I pack office chair foam in my ears and it helps, but I can still hear them. Clumsy fuckers!
So here I am, among these boxes of office junk, trapped underneath a strip mall in Monterey, California. Some of this stuff is almost as outdated as the typewriter. Who uses a Rolodex anymore? I have always considered office jobs the most tedious forms of employment that exist (or previously existed) on the planet. Being a mechanic, I have always loathed the thought of being stuck behind a desk all day. Thus I find it a particularly cruel twist of fate that I wound up here, rather than trapped in a mechanic’s garage, or a metal fabrication shop, or even a Diet Coke factory. At least in those places I could use the tools to try to escape, or at least keep myself busy. I could rebuild a transmission or enjoy a refreshing soft drink while the world was ending.
Damn it! It is so claustrophobic in here. I can’t even look at all the boxes of supplies most of the time, instead I focus on the barred door. While not quite a friend, I have become quite familiar with it, perhaps even a little obsessed. I have sketched countless pictures of it, ink jet cartridge on printer paper being my preferred medium. I am no artist by any stretch of the imagination, but some of the drawings are quite good, in my humble opinion. They should be somewhere around the desk if you found this story and happen to be looking around—the ones of the girl you should disregard. I have cursed that fucking door more times than I have sketched it, I have even made darts out of X-Acto knives and Post-its and used the damn thing for target practice. The door mocks me, it wants me to open it, begs me to use it for its intended purpose. You know, it longs to just be a door. C’mon, Rem, open me up, let’s get some air, my other door buddy upstairs wants you to open him too. I think the door knows I cannot use it for what it was made for, and the irony amuses it. Asshole door.
Enough about the door.
If you have not gleaned from my writing thus far that the world appears to be in the midst of an apocalyptic occurrence, then my writing is worse than I thought it might be but at least you know it now. This situation was brought on by a virus which turns normal human beings into undead, flesh-eating monsters. Of course the virus spreads quickly, the movies did get that right. While these undead, formerly human monsters are pretty much worldwide at the moment, a particularly persistent multitude has taken residence in and around the entire store and stockroom above me. The real problem is they know I’m down here, they saw me run in. They have seen me, hell, they can probably hear and smell me as well. They don’t forget anything and don’t appear to have anything else to do. Subsequently, they don’t want to give up on the possibility of me being their next meal. (Did I mention the cannibal aspect of this thing?)
So I do not hold much hope that the monsters will up and leave, thus facilitating my flight to freedom. I am here for the long haul. Unfortunately, I trapped myself in the worst possible cellar for the situation. If this was a movie, I would have trapped myself in the Showgirls of cellars, only there isn’t any gratuitous nudity to distract me from the horrible plot. What makes this subterranean cell a particularly stupid place to hole up is that there is no food, no bathroom, no electricity, no bed, nor much of anything with utility for that matter. Survivors who come through this little town—assuming that even happens—won’t be in the market for a new computer desk or monitor, and so will skip this place for stores with food, weapons, camping gear, or tools. The problem is compounded because it is flooded with most of the undead who had previously been roaming the streets aimlessly, thanks to yours truly. Getting lucky enough to have someone else sweep this office supply store of monsters for me seems unlikely but for the moment there is little to do but wait and hope. I will soon run out of food, probably water, and then be forced to decide whether continuing to live is worth the risk of being eaten.
Maybe?
While still aboveground, I observed them standing still for hours on end, seemingly waiting for some sort of stimuli to reanimate. Maybe they conserve energy like that? I don’t know, but it looks creepy as hell to see a bunch of monsters in various states of trauma just standing there; heads cocked to the side, waiting for an incentive to move. I know full well their motivation revolves around consuming raw flesh, human or otherwise, and it creeps me the hell out. It is more disturbing than I can accurately describe and I really try not to dwell on it. I do wonder how many are still above my head, in the stockroom, it must be more than just the ones banging. Too bad because I could use a little peace and quiet.
But at any rate, I am done writing for the night or whatever time it actually is. I’m tired and I don’t need daylight or the lack of it to tell me when to rest—although a goddamn window would be nice. Even though the damn footsteps and pounding never seem to cease, I am at the point I get to every couple of days give or take; the point when fatigue usurps all variables, and I sleep. This writing exercise has helped my morale today. It helped pass the time and jarred thoughts and memories I had suppressed, intentionally or otherwise. Now I am eager to write our story, ready to put it all down on paper. But first I need some rest so I can organize my thoughts.
Tomorrow, or whenever the hell I wake up, I’m going to start from the beginning.
Chapter 1
“Enough of this.”
It was probably about three weeks ago, I was paying my bills and watching TV and wondering whether or not to have a shot of whiskey. In other words, it was a typical day when the story broke. It was right in the middle of game three of the World Series. Sure, I knew the Braves weren’t going to pull it off but I was still annoyed when they cut away from the game to go to some snore-fest press conference held by the World Health Organization. The W.H.O. had teamed up with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) out of Atlanta, and some chick in a blue power suit was reporting a deadly virus spreading through some South American country. Along with the virus were reports of widespread panic, looting, casualties, the usual. They returned to the game but kept running one of those update banners across the bottom and eventually broke in again to report rabid behavior and violence were linked to the epidemic. Par for the course in one of those places.
It started in that long skinny country below Peru. Not too sure of the name, but I am going to guess Chile, I’d have paid more attention if I’d realized how soon the virus would be up here in the first world. If I am wrong, sue me, I have nothing left from my previous life anyway. Since the outbreak of the virus I have lost my business, my home, and maybe all my friends.
My ex-girlfriend works in the healthcare field, or at least she did before The Outbreak (they actually started officially calling it that once it hit the States) and had
caught wind of this before it went viral (pardon the pun). Even before the shit hit the fan, the ex told me rumors were swirling about the seriousness of this virus. W.H.O. officials were interviewing doctors from hospitals and practices all over the United States for input and they even sent a few volunteers down there to help out. I was concerned, but life went on as usual for me for the next couple of weeks. Business was good, and in between TiVoed episodes of Mad Men and Dexter, I tried to keep up with the story. The ex also filled in a few blanks here and there but I was only marginally interested. I should have been paying closer attention. We all should have. I am not pointing fingers or lecturing, I am one of those self-absorbed assholes who turns off the news to watch The Soup. I think it is ironic the more we are informed through new technologies like drones and satellites, the less people give a shit about the rest of the world.
That changed in a Goddamned hurry.
It took one overzealous congressman from California to make this our business, forever. Interrupting yet another evening’s TV, he strode to the podium emblazoned with the State of California’s emblematic grizzly bear and stood poised, hair coiffed and expression concerned. His voice was rich and deep. “The United States has an obligation to provide resources and support to our neighbors to the south. Medical assistance and further research into this virus is urgently needed, before it spreads any further. Since the Monroe Doctrine, the United States has been a world protector, in times of strife other nations look to us and we must respond. This virus must be quashed before it becomes a pandemic. Patients must be quarantined and borders sealed. This virus is a serious threat to not only South America but the entire world. Urgent and decisive action is called for. We must stop this virus now.
To this end, some of our finest doctors and medical staff will be deployed to Ground Zero of this epidemic. Our doctors are the finest in the world, we can, and must, help.”
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