Riding The Apocalypse

by Frank Ignagni III

  I had a feww belts after writing that chapter. I miss her hell, I miss Buell, Max, and Rich asswell. I don’t knoow if I will ever see them again. I don’t know if I will ever see anybody ever again. ’Cept Speedy. I just don’t think I have the capaciity to bum rush hundreds of monsters waiting for me at the top of the stairs. So I am stuuuck here. I don’t want to be eaten alive. God Damn Footsterpa!!!! I drank too much, I feel buzzsa, and tried, I have about a onee mnore day of food, shtty brown water….”Why fucked j did I not t gowith you, Emily? Fuck this, I a going to….

  Hey, Speedy, come back, put this hat on! he must be great at that limbo game, he gets pretty low under those boxes.. Little fuckker. I amndrinking too much now, therte aree wet stains of ink everythwer, cause of course the ribbon earliower just went dry. Like ouur relat- The a andf I cant write fer shit,I wil sleep it off anf pick it up tomorrw.

  Goodkn

  Post Script-

  The alcohol hit me pretty hard last night. I haven’t eaten much the past few days. I was going to just throw away that chapter, but I decided to keep it in. The point I typed about regretting I did not go with Emily—or keep her with me—is true. I have actually read this chapter back more than any other I have written so far.

  True story.

  Chapter 15

  “They are more trouble than they are worth, but not really.”

  “I am sorry, Rem, I know that must have been terrible,” Max said as he passed the bottle of Buffalo Trace to me.

  “It’s alright, man, I mean, it’s not alright but I am really glad she didn’t come back as one of those things and wander around helplessly attacking everybody. I can’t imagine what that must be like,” I said. “I appreciate you guys taking care of that. I am grateful I didn’t have to see her that way for one second longer.”

  “I gotta admit, I tried my hardest not to look either,” Max added as he grabbed the bottle I passed back him.

  “I didn’t see much,” Buell said, looking down at the small makeshift campfire we had constructed on top of the roof. “Sorry, man.”

  Earlier, Max had brought a large oil pan up the catwalk to the roof. He filled it with assorted wooden planks he picked from the garage. We sat on the roof, in the middle of the night, passing a bottle of bourbon, watching a makeshift campfire in a metal pan. At that point, we didn’t give a shit if the zombies saw us or not.

  “Was she the one, man?” Buell asked. “I know you guys were on and off, but she always seemed to come back. Do you think you would have wound up with her? I mean, if life had continued normally…”

  “I dunno,” I said. “She didn’t seem like the permanent relationship type, but of all the women—” My voice broke and I faltered but Buell saved me.

  “Max, remember Anna?” Buell laughed as he reached for the bottle across the flames. “Remember when we came over to Rem’s and she was passed out in the hedge in front of the pool?”

  “Yeah, and Remy was asleep on the patio chair. Wait, how did that go down, Rem?” Max asked, laughing in unison with Buell.

  “She told me she fell into the hedge and was stuck, so I tossed her the pruning shears and passed out.” I smiled at the memory.

  Then we all laughed out loud, but Buell to the point of almost choking.

  “I felt horrible about that for a long time. I was just so hammered it made sense at the time,” I added a bit defensively.

  Buell picked up a bag of peanuts, cracked one open, and threw the shell into the fire. We all watched it burn and heard the quiet crack when the shell scorched.

  “I love nuts with bourbon,” Buell said, cracking another.

  “Legumes,” Max said.

  “Huh?” Buell said.

  I knew what Max meant, peanuts are not nuts, technically, they are legumes.

  “Peanuts don’t grow on trees, they grow in the ground, so they are legumes,” Max added, looking into the fire.

  “Well, I love me some legume-butter and jelly sandwiches, regardless,” joked Buell.

  We all laughed. Another home run. Damn it, Buell was clutch under pressure.

  Thank God.

  “Jesus, Max, where do you fit all this information?” Buell asked. “I am still reeling from that time you told me black boxes aren’t black. I still can’t get ’round that.”

  I perked up at this tidbit. “Oh yeah? What—”

  “Orange,” Max answered.

  Made sense, it would be easier to find.

  I reached for the bottle, and looked at Buell. “So what about you? I haven’t seen you with a woman since that Cindy girl from our ride to the Grand Canyon.”

  “I don’t have time—”

  “What, waxing your pipes takes too much time?” Max laughed, taking the bottle back from me.

  “Naw, man, I just have stuff I wanna do. Cindy had this crazy notion that I was supposed to call her back after she called me,” Buell said, shaking his head.

  “Wasn’t she the one who wanted the impossible oral?” Max asked.

  “Wait, what?” I jumped in. “I haven’t heard about this, Buell!”

  “Seriously? I never told you this story?” Buell smiled.

  “Nope, I think I would remember this one.”

  “Okay, well she liked getting oral, right,” Buell said as he took a long slug of bourbon. “But she was really sensitive in the beginning, so I had to do it really lightly to start with.”

  Already Max was laughing so hard he lost his balance and fell back over the rear axle taken from ’69 VW Bug. I had dragged that axle up a few weeks ago to keep some sheet metal from flying off the roof-mounted air conditioner. Now Max’s ass was re-purposing it.

  “I love this story. Tell him, Buell, tell ’em! Rem, wait till you hear this!” Max struggled back to his seat and took the bottle from Buell. He took a drink and the bourbon leaked from his lips as he tried to regain his composure.

  “C’mon, tell me, Buell, let’s hear it,” I said.

  “Okay, so she liked it soft in the beginning, I mean, she was super sensitive to start. It was ridiculous, just how she was. So, I kept missing.”

  “Missing?” I asked incredulously.

  “Yeah, I was trying so hard to be gentle that I would literally miss the whole thing,” Buell said, burying his face in his hands. “You know, I hovered too high and missed the target area.”

  “Like a second baseman’s phantom tag on a double play!” Max said, again laughing hysterically.

  “So your tongue was shooting air balls?” I asked, laughing as well.

  “Then she would ask why I stopped,” Buell said, looking to the sky. “But I wasn’t stopping, I was just, you know, missing. It was impossible.”

  We were all laughing so hard we had tears in our eyes. I am sure the reason this seemed so hysterical was because we were desperately in need of a good laugh. Honestly, I am not sure it was quite that funny, but I was sure we needed the comic relief.

  On second thought, maybe it was?

  I am sure the bourbon helped too.

  Buell was sitting by the fire, obviously embarrassed. I would bet a case of Buffalo Trace Buell was glad to jump on a grenade for the team though. We needed the laugh, and self-deprecation was definitely in the Buell playbook.

  “Women are so demanding,” added Buell, “but I have to admit it would be nice to have someone to share my…rent with.”

  “Asshole,” Max said, punching Buell in the shoulder.

  Buell wouldn’t admit it, but I bet that punch hurt. Even messing around, Max was a brute. Buell didn’t rub his arm, but I know he wanted to.

  “I miss Kristen,” Max said. He was staring into the fire in a surprise moment of candor. “I really could have settled down with her.”

  “Whatever happened to her anyway? I just remember that being over so—”

  “He found out she had a penis,” Buell added.

  It was on.

  Max leapt to his right and dropped Buell on his back, laughing and slapping at the same time.
/>   “Uncle!” Buell laughed, trying to cover his face. “Remy, help!”

  “On my way, Buell!” I yelled, jumping to my feet and almost in one motion circumventing the fire and rescuing the bourbon from Buell’s hand. “Don’t worry, nothing spilled!” I exclaimed as I sat back down, ignoring the melee.

  Eventually Max had enough, and let Buell get up. He laughed to himself and puffed out his chest.

  “That was funny, Buell,” Max said. “What’s even funnier is Kristen told me it was too small for you though.”

  Laughs all around.

  “She moved to New York for a job, turd,” Max clarified as he reached for the bourbon.

  “I remember that, the ill-fated long-distance relationship ensued,” Buell said.

  “Ayup.” Max nodded. “It actually shook me up a bit. I remember dropping her off for the red-eye and driving straight to the nearest bar,” Max said, pausing to stare into the fire.

  “So cliché.” Buell rolled his eyes.

  “You would think so,” Max said. “But you know that is bullshit. The whole go-to-the-bar-and-be-sad thing.”

  “Huh,” I said.

  “Yeah, so I go to the bar, but nobody’s there, hell it’s almost one in the mornin’, I think. This little hole in the wall, can’t remember the name of the place. Anyway, I sit down on a stool and the bartender sees me, comes over from the other end of the bar, and asks me what I want. I tell him bourbon, his choice, and he goes and gets a bottle of Four Roses—”

  “Good stuff,” Buell interrupted.

  “Agreed. Anyway, after he pours the drink, he says six bucks, or whatever. I put a ten on the bar, he takes it, and walks away. He didn’t ask me how I was doing, or what was on my mind or any of that bullshit. He didn’t even buy me a drink. The fucker just walked back to his business at the other end of the bar.”

  I laughed out loud.

  “I was pretty pissed at the time. I mean, what the fuck? When is the part when he asks me what is on my mind? ’Cause after that I get to tell him my problems, right? Where the fuck was my sage advice? He didn’t even polish a glass nearby to make a token effort. Douchebag.”

  “You’re killing me,” Buell said, laughing and playing an air violin. “So it’s all bullshit? The empathetic bartender in the lonely dive?”

  “Only happens in the movies or a country song,” I said just before I added my own bourbon laced spittle to the fire.

  After my spit hissed in the fire, Max reached for the nearly empty bottle of bourbon and continued, “Getting too close is a drag when it doesn’t work out.”

  “History doesn’t always repeat, Max,” I said in a serious tone.

  “But it sure does rhyme a lot,” Buell jabbed.

  “That was pretty good, Buell. Not bad, dude, you write that?” I asked chortling.

  “Mark Twain.”

  I nodded.

  “Kristen was beautiful, I will give you that, Max,” I said. “You truly outkicked your coverage there. She was movie star qual—”

  “Pssshhh!” snorted Buell in protest. “Let’s not get too crazy, she was no Morgan Fairchild.”

  “Morgan Fairchild? Where did you pull that name from? Your high school jerk-a-dex?”

  “Don’t tell me your little man didn’t move in your Underoos when you saw her on Love Boat. She was my first crush, the standard by which all others will forevermore be measured.”

  “I actually dug Jaclyn Smith when I was little, had a Charlie’s Angels poster with her on it,” Max added, with a smile and a glance at the stars. “I had a huge crush on her—fuck Farrah Fawcett, man. Jaclyn had great—”

  “Jane Fonda for me when I was a lad. Let me explain it to you two Neanderthals in a way you can understand…None more like her.”

  “I suggest you head east for about 7300 miles if you wanna find her now,” Buell joked.

  “Wait, I think I got that joke?” I said, looking at Max.

  Max shrugged his shoulders quizzically.

  “Look, I am not sure if she was the one, but she sure moved the needle more than any other—Emily, I mean, not Jane.”

  “I know what you mean, Rem,” Max said, rescuing me from my sappy proclamation. “I liked you with her around, and that is saying something.”

  “To Emily,” Buell said, grabbing the bottle from Max and raising it skyward.

  Buell took a swig and passed it to me with a wink. I saw him rub his shoulder after he passed the bottle to me. Sneaky fucker. Max did hit really hard. I toasted, took a drink, and passed the last of the bourbon to Max. He finished the bottle, got up, and flung it over the edge of the building toward the undead assholes below. He threw it fucking hard. The frustration was hard to hide, even for Max.

  The buzz from the bourbon and male camaraderie significantly curtailed my grief. I was thankful for these two guys. Less than an hour ago I had been questioning my own will to go on, and now I was optimistic and energized. Besides, I had something I needed to do. The more the minutes passed, the more crystallized my feelings and intentions became.

  I gave a parting shot to my buzzed droogs as I headed to the roof hatch. “They are more trouble than they are worth, but not really.”

  Chapter 16

  “I certainly hope so, for all our sakes.”

  “You lookin’ at what I am looking at, Max?” I said, pointing to the south while simultaneously handing him the binoculars.

  “Jesus, man, those fuckers are getting pretty close, huh?” Max answered. “How much time do you think we have till they get to our neck of the woods?”

  “A day or two, not more.”

  From the roof of the garage, we peered across the highway toward the San Jose airport and the surrounding fields. It was dusk, and as the sun set, more menacing shadows appeared across the horizon. It appeared at first glance like thousands of roaches moving in slow motion. However, as the sun set, the roaches grew, the shadows lengthened; it was clear the roaches stood upright and were a different kind of monster.

  There were isolated cars, helicopters, tanks, and military planes moving about, but not as many as I had hoped. It looked odd to see the cars moving so erratically. It just looked wrong, for lack of a better world. Sometimes I forgot what good little campers we were on a daily basis. Day after day we followed our little self-imposed traffic laws. But take away those laws and rules and toss out that flimsy paper book you got at the DMV, and all of sudden it looked like Armageddon down there. You think the Bible is a powerful book? I am gonna go with the California Driver’s Handbook.

  I also noted a few random fires and smoke downtown in the distance. What was disconcerting was the lack of emergency equipment and fire trucks. Again, just wrong. I couldn’t even hear a siren. We could hear the occasional gunshot, and a remote yell or scream. One more time, just wrong.

  We’d been cooped up in my garage for three days, and the situation had steadily deteriorated all around us. There hadn’t been a live television broadcast for two days, not even a radio broadcast we could find. The internet had been down since around the same time cell service crapped out. I found that odd in a way the fires were not. I mean how did those dirty fuckers get to servers and why did they bother? How was it even possible? Aren’t servers encrypted?

  Aside from an occasional trip outside to relieve ourselves, or throw a rock at the just too curious dead guy, we stayed inside. Overall, we were laying low, trying not to draw attention from the growing number of undead occupants of our cul-de-sac.

  With nearly a week’s worth of breakfast bars and a vending machine full of junk food, we had no need to venture out. However, the military had not progressed as we had hoped. There were no more standoffs. It looked to us like they were doing more surviving than fighting. So the elephant squeezed into the garage through one of the roll-up doors as we noted the advancing army of monsters.

  President Atkins’s last transmission reported there were cases of the undead in other countries, thusly, the United States could not depend on foreign
assistance. He also gave the location of a “secured sanctuary,” set up just outside of San Diego at a military base about four hundred and fifty miles from the garage. We contemplated heading there, but looking off the rooftop at the creatures, we never gave it serious consideration. We would be heading into the teeth of the monsters. Pun intended. It really didn’t matter, I knew where I was going I just hadn’t been able to force myself to go. My mind had been made up since Emily dropped the not-so subtle hint.

  Ed was long gone. I do not know if he made it to wherever he was headed. I truly hope he did. Chances were better than not, he was a modern day MacGyver, he could disable a monster with a potato chip bag clip and a rubber band. Which, of course, he had in his pocket. Ed said he had family up north. And if he did make it, that family was better for it. Good man to have around.

  Ed’s initial estimate of when the monsters would reach the garage was off because of the defensive put out by our brave soldiers the day he left. The military made a stand ten miles southeast of us and slowed the monsters considerably. We only caught glimpses of it from the rooftop, but it was a spectacular exhibition of firepower. Unfortunately the monsters just kept coming. They were relentless. A Robin Williams stream of consciousness would be the best way to describe it; never ending and somewhat horrifying. Their sheer numbers overwhelmed the failed military intervention, but it did buy us time. Max looked out to the highway, I saw him sigh and lower the field glasses. I could sense what he was going to say.

  “We gotta fucking go, man,” Max said. “I really thought the military was gonna get hold of this, doesn’t look like it though, Rem.”

  I nodded.

  “Look, Rich is south, maybe he can put us up at his son’s house. They live by the water, and that is a natural barrier on one side,” Max said. “He has been there since before, so I bet he is set up. Whadda ya think, man, feel like a trip to the beach?”

  “I know where I am going, Max, and I don’t expect you guys to come with me,” I said, looking south at the horizon. “I have been thinking about it since Emily—”