Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? (14 page)

“Three minutes!”

You grab the girl monster by its hair and rip its head back. Pieces of your jeans hang from its teeth. Christ—close call.

You toss it as far as you can. Need to separate the father and daughter. The thing flies six, maybe seven feet. You rush over and smash it in the mouth with your sneakers. Its baby teeth, probably loose already, spill out across the sidewalk. You grab it by the hair, run with it, and toss it into a Dumpster. It hits the top of the Dumpster and falls in. The lid shuts behind it.

The father's on its feet again and coming fast. You look for the crowbar—it's a good ten feet away. And the fat, Hawaiian shirt–wearing, drool-spilling, son-of-a-bitch father stands between it and you.

“Almost there, friend!” yells one of the Angels.

“Looking fucking lovely,” shouts another.

You step back. Pat yourself up and down. Looking for anything.

Your belt. You unbuckle it and rip it off.

The monster's closing in. Hands out. Mouth open. Just as it gets to you, you jump to the side, wrap the belt around its neck, cross your hands, and pull tight. You step behind it and bury your foot into the pit of its knee. It goes down. You pull the belt even tighter. If it had been breathing in the first place, it'd be out by now. But the lack of oxygen ain't doing a damn thing. It shakes, trying to jerk itself free.

You let the belt go, lift your foot, and kick it as hard as you can in the back of the head. It falls forward. You put your knees into its back, grab it by its hair, and slam its head into
the sidewalk. Again. Again. Again. Until its face is nothing but mush. Finally, a piece of its skull cracks and enters its brain. The thing's done.

“Four minutes!”

Alright. One minute left. Let's do this.

You stand up.

They're coming out of the shadows like rats. Dozens. Closing in around you.

But you're not scared. Shit, if time was up—you might even be a little disappointed. You're not yourself anymore. You want every one of them. You're angry. Full of bloodlust. Plain fucking demented.

You run for the crowbar. A punk rock thing comes at you—black and white sneakers flashing in the moonlight. It lunges for you. You dive to the cement, roll, grab the crowbar, and bury the sharp end into the base of its skull as you rise. It kicks, twitches. You push it in farther.

An arm on your shoulder. You rip the crowbar free and spin. Old man. Mouth wide open. You grip the crowbar with both hands and block its bite. Its teeth clamp down. You hear them break. Bastard has some jaw on him.

You roar and push. Run, driving it backward. Farther. Screaming now. You run it right into a wall. Two solid whacks with the crowbar and its head sags.

More now. Three, four. You swing the crowbar wildly, trying to keep them at bay. Connect with one's eye socket. Makes a nasty, mushy sound. Three more behind you. You're surrounded.

Goddamn it. Wild swings. Anything to keep them away. You're not going down without a—

RATATATAT!!!!

Their heads blow apart like watermelons. Chunks of skull and brain matter and fleshy, matted pieces of hair fly through the air. Then, almost in sync, the zombies fall to the ground.

Tommy. Gun up and aimed. He grins.

“Almost made it six minutes.”

“Six?!”

“You looked like you were having fun. Didn't want to interrupt.”

“You son of a—”

“Don't worry, I had them in my sights.”

“And what if I only made it four minutes?”

“Then you'd be dead.”

“Well I fucking made it, didn't I?”

“That you did,” Jones said, getting on his bike. “Now get on—any longer here and the whole neighborhood's gonna come out for our little block party.”

LET IT HAPPEN

You can only imagine what's going through her head as she watches the army unload round after round into this mass of zombies, many of them children.

She sees her daughter. Stops in her tracks—then darts into the crossfire and swoops the girl up. She turns to run, then stops. The girl is already one of them. The woman lets out a bloodcurdling cry. Her daughter's tearing at her face.

You turn your head, unable to look, and walk to the back of the store. “Walter, maybe we should head out the back, huh?”

He sits on his stool behind the counter. “Go to hell. I've owned and operated this store for twenty-seven years. I'm not running now.”

You nod and take a seat. You and Walter sit in silence. Walter keeps the gun on the counter and stares at the door. You keep your eyes on your shoes. Nothing to say—the sounds of battle outside are noise enough.

After an hour, the fighting stops. Walter walks to the window and peeks out. Hesitantly, you follow. All of the military vehicles are gone. Bodies are strewn across the ground. The zombies are everywhere—many of them soldiers.

Walter goes back to the counter and turns the scanner back on. It's all frantic reports, garbled orders, and calls for help. Around dusk, the transmissions slow. They finally cut out altogether just after midnight. Then it's radio silence…

C'MON KID, RUN!

You grab the kid by the wrist, scramble out from under the platform, and take off sprinting down the track.

“You OK?”

“Yeah,” he squeaks out through hurried breaths.

No more low moaning from the things. Loud now. They're angry. You hear them hitting the tracks.

Then something louder. A train.

You look behind you. It's coming around the bend, lights nearly blinding you. Through the bright white beams you can see the silhouettes of damn near fifty of the things.

To your left is the third rail. If you had time, you'd carefully cross it and avoid the train. But you don't have time. You have fifty fucking zombies on your heels.

You start running, dragging the kid.

Up ahead you see a maintenance door. It's like that moment in
Stand By Me
. You're River Phoenix, obviously. (Well, you want to be River Phoenix—clearly, you're more Wil Wheaton.) Just have to outrun the train and get to that door.

You swoop the kid up in your arms and sprint. Long strides. Feet splashing in the dirty water. You trip, stumble, regain your balance, and keep going. You can feel the train bearing down on you.

Then you're safe—in the doorway—just like that.

A split second later, the train passes. Went your whole life without ever almost getting hit by a train and now that's three times in the past few hours. Not your day.

The train roars by, taking the zombies with it. Three are stuck to the front like hood ornaments. One, a Brooklyn hipster type, reaches out at you as the train passes. You get a quick glimpse of its hands and a supertight lumberjack button-down, and it's gone. You've got your hand over the kid's eyes by now. If he makes it out alive, poor guy's going to be traumatized as all hell.

Other zombies are caught beneath the wheels. You half expect the train to grind to a halt with all the gore in the wheels, but it doesn't. The wheels keep turning, the zombies keep getting diced.

Once the train passes, you and the kid start walking again.

After a moment, though, it's clear they're not done. There's a dozen behind you still, at least. Persistent fuckers.

You pull the kid along, running like hell. You see a light in the distance. Next station. If it's swarming with monsters, you're dead. Need a little luck on your side here.

You come up on it, heart pounding.

Thank Christ—deserted. You lift the kid up and over the platform edge. Then you hoist yourself up. You finally breathe. The zombies are clawing at the platform edge, but they can't make it up. Moaning, they try with everything they've got. Dead arms slap against the platform. But nothing.

You and the kid leave the station and come up near the Lincoln Tunnel. Might as well walk that way, see if you can get through. Nothing interesting ever happens in New Jersey.

And then you come upon the Javits Convention Center—biggest convention center in Manhattan. And across the top, a huge banner:
COMIC-CON 2011
.

Outside is a guy dressed up as that Star Wars character in
Jedi
who watches the ship leave with the binoculars. Appropriately, he's holding a pair of binoculars, staring in your direction.

From across the avenue you can hear him shout, “They're here!”

And he's pointing at you. Huh? Quite the welcome.

Then you hear them behind you. Running for you. Hundreds.

You sprint across the street, kid's hand in yours, up the front steps and inside the convention hall. Clearly, they've been preparing. Armaments have been set up. Booths moved to block the windows.

And then you realize, and you can't help but smile. Zombies have just struck Manhattan. And inside this joint are about twenty-five thousand people who have been waiting their whole lives for exactly this to happen.

A guy dressed as Legolas from
Lord of the Rings
steps past you and out the door. He pulls an arrow from his quiver, draws back the bow, and fires.

The single arrow sails through the air—a weapon from another time, out of place inside the modern city.

But it's still deadly as all hell.

The arrow nails the zombie leading the charge—goes straight through its head and the zombie crashes to the ground. Legolas steps back inside, takes a slow look around, and says, “Alright, geeks—time to shine.”

GUNNING FOR TOMMY

He charges, closing in, fast.

You jump to the side, just in time. His hand swipes at your chest, but gets nothing. As he passes, you grab hold of the strap keeping the tommy gun around his shoulder and tug. It pulls him back toward you. You pull again, hard as you can, and the strap breaks.

He waves his arms around wildly. You kick him in the side, pushing him back.