Apocalypse Atlanta (95 page)

“DJ, what you think?”

Darryl finished sitting down and saw a number of the Dogz looking at him.  “About what?”

“How long until zombies gonna get here?” Joker asked.

“What the fuck kind of question is that?” Darryl said, barely managing not to turn his response into a snap or a snarl.  He tried to cover the extent of his irritation by pulling his cigarettes out and tapping one from the pack.

“Hey, all them zombies tearing through Atlanta, and they saying Athens is a damn hell zone – it a relevant question.”

“Ain’t no need for none of us to go wishing for trouble.” Big Chief said.  He had a beer in his hand, and Darryl suddenly paused with the Bic lighter unlit in his hands, looking around for the cooler.  He could really use a beer.  Maybe a couple of beers.
“I ain’t wishing no trouble.” Joker protested “But we ready ain’t we?  Why not thin the herd out some?”

“Fuck man, that ain’t right.” a couple people muttered audibly.

Darryl managed to catch Big Chief’s eye and made a drinking motion, gesturing to the can in the other man’s hand.  Big Chief grinned and snapped his fingers at a nearby boy who was fiddling with a Gameboy.  The boy looked up, saw Big Chief pointing at Darryl, and ran over to the barn.  Darryl watched him go, then lit his cigarette.

“You a damn fool.” Burnout was saying to Joker.

“No, I for real.” Joker protested.  “If nothing happen them zombies just gonna keep wandering around eating folks, right?  Why not do what we can to clean them out some?”

“Oh . . . Dog, just leave it the fuck alone.” Chrome said, shaking his head.

“Come on now, someone gotta do it.  Why can’t we help a little bit?”

“They dropped some kind of bomb on Atlanta.” Low said, clearly nervous about it.  “That’ll fix it, right?”

Some people shrugged, but it was Tank who spoke first.  “I ain’t never did figure out what kind of bomb they said that was.  News didn’t explain where I heard”

There was a general pause, and Darryl hid a grin.  Typically, most of the Dogz didn’t want to come off as too smart.  Even about something as presumably cool and macho as stuff getting blown up.  EZ was the one who finally answered, but only after several of the Dogz were clearly looking at him to do so.

“It a fuel bomb.” the biker offered when it became obvious he was supposed to say something.  “You don’t know what that is?”

“Naw.” Tank shook his head.  “I know regular bombs, and I guess I know what nukes is, but this one I don’t know.”

EZ grinned.  “It a bomb that got a whole lot of fuel in it, right?  They drop it, and before it hit the fuel get released in a big ass cloud.  It go everywhere, just like air, cause it almost is air at that point.  Air mixed with fuel.”

“What kind of fuel?” Needles asked.

EZ shrugged.  “Just . . . like gas or something.  I dunno.  But after it release all the gas into the air, it go off and make the cloud go off.  Whoomp!”  He made a blowing up gesturing with both hands, holding them together then casting them apart in an upward direction.

“Like a gas main blowing up?” Tank asked slowly.

“Yeah, like that.  But bigger.”

“Whole lot bigger.” Big Chief nodded.  “When it go, if it get dropped right, it as big as a small nuke.”

“Yeah.” EZ grinned.  “But no radiation and shit.  Just bomb.”

“Fuck.”

Darryl saw the boy coming back from the barn with a can of beer in his hand.  He reached out and took it when the boy reached him, giving him a grin and a thumbs up.  Popping the top, Darryl tipped his head back and savored a long drink.  It was even cold.  When he lowered his head and sighed happily, he saw Big Chief smiling.  Darryl tipped his head gratefully in response.

“That don’t mean we ought not kill all the zombies we can get at.” Joker protested.

Darryl abruptly decided he didn’t like where that line of conversation might go.  “Joker?”

Joker looked over at him along with nearly everyone else.  “Yeah DJ?”

“Shut the fuck up about it bro.  Just relax, enjoy the day or something.”

Joker held up both hands.  “Hey, DJ, I ain’t trying to cause no trouble.”

“Then don’t.” Darryl said, then took another long drink.  He frowned at the can a little; it was already half gone, and he didn’t know what the deal with getting more was.

“Hey, hey, hey.” Needles said, standing up and reaching into his pocket.  “I know what we need to chill.”  He pulled a slim metal case out of his pocket and spit it open in his hands.  Darryl couldn’t see what was in it from where he was sitting, but Needles held something up that looked like a cigarette.  Except he knew Needles, so it probably was a joint.

“Yeah.”  “Hell yeah.”  “Shit, right on.” a number of Dogz said at the same time.  Darryl hesitated, then shrugged.  If he couldn’t drain a six pack, firing a burner would go over pretty good too.

“Now there gonna have to be some sharing, so anyone who gonna partake need to get together in a good circle.”

“Fuck you and your circle jerking.” Burnout said, but he got up and slid his chair closer.

Darryl got up, but he looked behind himself at the roof of the clubhouse.  To his surprise he saw a small pavilion had been set up.  It wasn’t much, just some aluminum tube legs that were connected at the top by more to form a hollow square, but they held up a tarpaulin and provided some shade.  That was probably a good idea, especially since sooner or later it was going to rain, but the important thing was he saw five guys sitting up there looking off in different directions.

Dragging his chair into the assembling circle, Darryl went over to Big Chief and leaned in a little so he didn’t have to talk loud.  “Who next up on the roof, and how long?”

Big Chief looked a little surprised at the question ,then shrugged.  “Uh, I ain’t sure.”

Darryl straightened up and looked around.  “Who next on the roof to guard?”  Three hands went up; Burnout, Chrome and Fish.  “When?”

“When what?” Chrome asked.

“When you going up on the roof?”

“Oh, like two I think it was.”

“That three hours.” Shooter offered, giving Darryl a slight nod of understanding.

“Right.”  Darryl said, mollified.  He didn’t have anything against a good buzz, but it occurred to him the guards needed to be reasonably alert or there wasn’t much point in putting them up there.  He sat down and finished off his smoke while the circle finished forming and Needles lit the first joint.

“How much you brought?” Tank asked, accepting the joint after Needles had it going and took a big puff.

“Shit, like a couple of pounds.” Needles grinned.  “Lucky us.  If them zombies had started eating everyone next week I would of done already moved most of it on.”

“Word.” Tank said before taking an enormously big hit off the joint and passing it on.

Darryl waited patiently.  Like he’d told Jody a few minutes ago, there was nowhere to go.  Needles got three more of the joints going, getting up and starting them at different parts of the circle.  When one of them came to him, Darryl took it and pulled a nice long toke.

As the sweet smoke swirled through his lungs, he took another moment to admire the joint before handing it on.  Needles was definitely just a couple of bad days away from being a full on crack head, but he did know how to roll a good joint.  His looked exactly like cigarettes; in fact, at one party, Needles had gotten cigarette style filters and rolled joints with those in the ends.  A lot of people who didn’t normally smoke had fallen for that one.

“Don’t be bogarting bro.” Low said from next to him.  Darryl handed the joint on and glanced over to see how far away the next one was from circling over to him.  He had a minute or two.

“So, I got a question that been bugging me since yesterday.” 2C said lazily.

“It hurt?” Stony asked with a clever look.

“Naw, not yet anyway.” 2C grinned.  “But I serious.  For real.  Heat, Lakers.  How many LeBron gonna score if the Lakers all trying to eat him?”

There was a pause, then just about everyone burst out laughing.  Darryl shook his head, picturing the basketball player trying to dribble around five zombies.  He himself liked to root for the Hawks, even if they did fucking suck most years.  But he also liked watching a good game, and LeBron was damned good.  But even so.

“How they gonna run a game with LeBron against five zombies?” Stick asked.

“Yeah, ref gonna call it for one on five.” Tank said.

2C’s grin widened.  “Not if the ref a zombie too.”

More laughter.  “Wait, there can’t be no zombie pro team.” Evil said.

“Why the hell not?”

Evil shrugged.  “Ain’t enough reporters and shit left around for LeBron to do another ‘Decision’.” he said, making quote marks with his fingers.  “An ESPN busy broadcasting real news.  He ain’t gonna change over to zombie without a hour on teevee.”

This time there were a few boos intermixed with the laughs, particularly from the Heat or LeBron fans.  Darryl accepted the next joint as it reached him and took a long toke.

As he leaned back, he heard the outside speakers come to life as someone inside the house turned them on.  But they didn’t blast music.  Instead he heard an unfamiliar voice reporting on the status of outbreaks in various major cities around the country.  Darryl shrugged, took another quick puff from the joint, and passed it on.

Leaning back, letting the smoke dribble lazily from his mouth and up into his nostrils, he settled in to listen to what was going on as the Dogz continued shooting the shit.  Sure enough, just as he expected, the world was still coming to an end.

###

I wrote this story because it was trying to claw its way out of my head for a couple of years.  I finally gave up trying to hold it back and sat down to write it.  I’m better now.  A few things come to mind that I’d like to leave you with.

First, I didn’t set this in Atlanta because of another certain zombie franchise that is set in Atlanta.  I set it in Atlanta because I live here, and because I know the city pretty well.  At the risk of sounding pretty damned immodest, I like to think I’m using Atlanta more extensively than the other franchise is.

Second, while I used a lot of memory, real life trips, and some sessions with Google Maps to help me block out scenes, some of the locations have been modified for the needs of the story.  So if you’re also an Atlanta native and notice a store isn’t where I said it was, or that a building is occupied by different tenants than I portrayed it as, that’s why.  Hopefully a minor thing that shouldn’t throw anyone too badly.

I wanted a zombie story that follows the early stages of an outbreak.  I’m not saying it’s never been done, because it absolutely has, but even my favorite zombie stories often seem to blast right past that part to get to the zombie killing pretty fast.  I wanted to explore a little more of the initial portion than I usually see done.

After all, if we ever find ourselves saying things like “this can’t be happening, this is real life” while zombies beat on the door and chew the arms off our next door neighbor, the initial phase of the outbreak will be the most crucial part.  It sets everything else up.  I’m not saying you should run out and start stockpiling MREs and ammo, but I am saying you should maybe do a little thinking now.  Thinking is free.  What would you do?

Finally, I’ll leave you with this hopefully amusing little anecdote about a guy I used to know fairly well.  We’ll call this person Jim.  He was a pretty intense guy.  Went into the military, came out, and both before and after was always a pretty big fan of guns.  Jim wasn’t a violent guy, but he just liked weapons.  He liked having them, he liked maintaining them, and he liked going to the range to shoot them.

As you probably know, not everyone in the world today is as eager to love guns and implements of destruction as Jim is.  Some of these people would occasionally ask him why he had so many guns, why he spent so much time with them as a hobby, and other inquiries along those lines.  In case you’re wondering, Jim had many guns.  Many.

Jim’s answer used to be “Well, they’ll come in handy when the revolution starts.”  At this, most people would edge away from Jim slowly, carefully keeping an eye on him.  Then one day, Jim’s answer to this query changed.  The new answer?

“They’ll be useful if zombies ever attack.”

For some reason, that answer never seemed to bother people.

So, I guess what I’m saying, is even pacifists recognize the need to kill zombies.

David Rogers

Atlanta, Georgia

2013

David Rogers was born in Atlanta and has lived there for over twenty-five years, with the only interruption between birth and Atlanta being a detour of about a decade into Florida.  If you’ve never been to Florida, let him save you a trip.  It’s very flat and quite tropical.  Oddly enough, Georgia is very hilly and quite humid, so maybe there’s not so much of a difference between the two.  Also, it wasn’t his fault.  His parents made him go.

Since escaping childhood, David has been a secretary, file clerk, tech support operator, telemarketer, gopher, FedEx truck washer, and office manager.  He loves good stories in nearly all forms, particularly novels and movies, though television is gaining rapidly since some of the quality there has shot up quite a lot in the past few years.