Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? (17 page)

Immediately the beasts surround the car. Pound the windows. One, a woman in a blood-spattered waitress's apron, is halfway through the broken rear passenger-side window.

You drop it into reverse and hit the gas. The whole storefront collapses as you pull out. You spin the cab around and kick it back into drive. You floor it—a zombie on the hood goes up and over the windshield and crashes onto the cement behind you.

You check the side mirror. The undead waitress is still trying to get in through the back window—its legs out in the air, its upper body on the rear seat.

You press harder on the pedal. Pick up speed. Swerve up onto the curb to avoid a mess of cars. You're closing in on a streetlamp. You check your side mirror. Have to line it up just right.

You floor it.

Forty mph.

Harder.

Fifty mph.

One last look in the side mirror.

You blow past the pole. The mirror smashes against the metal and rips off. The zombie waitress is torn in half. Its severed upper body falls into the backseat; its lower half drops to the street.

You hit the brakes and skid to a stop. You glance back at the thing's torso in the backseat, intestines dangling onto the taxi floor. Its arms swipe at the cab partition. A disgusting lump of flesh, sure, but harmless for the moment.

You begin driving again, headed for the bridge.

At Nineteenth Street you run into a mass of them. Too late, you brake. The car skids and spins. You slam into the side of a small used furniture store. The air bag deploys, punching you in the face. Your nose breaks, bringing a rush of tears to your eyes. Blood in your mouth.

You're seeing stars. You start to drift away, but their moans snap you back to attention. They surround the car. Smoke pours from the hood. The windshield wipers flash back and forth. You try the gas. Nothing. You're a sitting duck.

No time for hesitation. You bolt out of the car, knocking one back with the door, and tear down the street. More ahead of you. Even more behind you. Nowhere to go but up.

You pick up some speed, jump onto the back of a busted sedan, and launch yourself up to a hanging fire escape ladder.

Cold, dead hands pull at your feet. Nails claw at your ankles. You kick them away and climb.

Once you're safely on the fire escape, you yank the ladder up. You're dizzy. You stop to catch your breath. Your nose hurts like hell. Blood continues to stream from your nostrils. A slice on your forehead leaks blood down over your eyes. You take your shirt off, press it to the wound, but the bleeding doesn't stop.

You tilt your head back, just like everyone's always told you
not
to do, and after a minute your nose stops bleeding. You spit blood onto the zombies below. Hit one in the face. Its tongue darts out, tasting it.

You wrap your shirt around your head and tie it tight. That keeps the blood out of your eyes.

You want to collapse. Sleep. Don't want to move ever again.

But you need to keep moving. The longer you wait, the more those things multiply. Like fucking gremlins.

So go. Just go. Stand up. Move.

And then you're out.

When you wake, it's bright. Early morning. Sun bathes you. Takes you a second to remember where you are.

Beneath you, the zombies haven't moved. Still there, still watching you, still waiting for their next meal.

You make your way farther up the fire escape. Bars cover each window.

Finally, seven floors up, you make it to the roof. You walk to the edge and take in Union Square. In the center, a park. Store-lined streets on each side.

A woman runs out of DSW, screaming. You watch as the things go from slow, stupid stumble to deadly sprint in an instant. Six of them pounce on her. Minutes later, she rises, a bloody mess, now one of them. You turn away.

At the center of the roof is a skylight. You peer through. Books. Rows and rows of them. You must be on the roof of the Barnes & Noble. Have to get inside there. Food. Shelter. Delicious little muffins.

You look around for some way to break the window. You find a cinder block. That should work. Your body weak, you struggle to lift it and toss it against the glass.

Instead it bounces off and lands on your foot. You shriek. Sonofabitch—the stupid fucking thing just broke your toe. You go to kick it—stop yourself just in time. Don't need to make things worse.

OK, trying again.

You step farther back and throw. This time it cracks it. You toss it again. A bigger crack. OK—one more—right through.

The reinforced glass breaks. You look down. It's about a twenty-foot drop.

Here goes nothing.

You jump. The same foot that just took a beating from the cinder block rolls and snaps. Sharp pain shoots up your leg. You scream. Ankle's broken, definitely. You're a fucking mess. The pain is overwhelming. You lie back. Drift in and out of consciousness.

Suddenly the entire building shakes, jolting you awake.

You limp across the store to the large window that overlooks Union Square.

The zombies aren't alone anymore. Two tanks have rolled into the southwest corner of the square, diagonal from your position. Smoke pours from the tanks' barrels.

They fire again. The building shakes. The shell travels clear across the park and explodes against the front of a Best Buy. The front caves in, rubble pouring out into the street.

The zombies start pouring out of every corner of the square. Hundreds.

A military truck with a gunner in the back skids to a halt. The soldier manning the gun lets loose, mowing them down.

The tank turret turns. Fires a shell directly into one of the rushing crowds. The blast is tremendous. Bodies everywhere.

When the dust clears, though, it's clear the military has a major problem.

The zombies are limbless, broken, bodies shattered. But they're not brainless. They still keep coming. It's now a horde of armless things running, legless things crawling, wounded things stumbling.

It's a true war zone down there.

But when the military pulls out, if you're there, it could be your escape.

WELCOME TO CHARLIE CHAN'S

You don't like Wall Street and you're not drinking what he's buying. So you sneak back out the door and begin jogging to Amsterdam Avenue with your hand out, glancing back every few seconds for a cab. No luck.

You stop jogging. Switch to walking. Sweat pours down your back. The heat. The stress. The fear. You need to sit down. Someplace dark. A movie theater, maybe. Need cool air or you're going to collapse. Any second now, you'll be sprawled out across the sidewalk.

Up ahead is a neon sign for Charlie Chan's Lady Land—a strip joint on Eighty-third and Columbus. Hmm. You pull your hand back and stop.

This could be the place. You've been to your fair share of strip clubs—about as dark and cool as the world gets.

So you step inside. You show the bouncer your ID and take in the perfume-heavy, beer-laden scent. Eau de Topless Bar.

It takes a second for your eyes to adjust. Charlie Chan's is an Asian-themed joint and laughable décor echoes that—wooden folding door panels, tapestries everywhere.

You grab a twelve-dollar Bud Light, watch the flat screen behind the bar for a moment, and head to the main room. Two samurai swords crisscross above the stage. You wonder if they're real.

Your heart stops. Your dick hardens. There, below the tacky samurai swords, working the pole, is the most jaw-droppingly beautiful stripper you've ever seen.

She looks half Asian, half European. Some sort of mix that
made for something fantastic. Topless. High, high heels. A tiny white G-string. You're entranced. Stunned. Gut-punched by her beauty.

You get a seat right up front, sip your beer, and take in the show. You're the only one near the stage, so the way-hot stripper saunters down and does her thing for you. You pull out your wallet and slide a few crumpled bills onto the stage. Wish you had something crisper, bills that didn't look like they spent the night in your gym sock, but what are you gonna do.

She has a nice smile and shows it off. Then, after three or four more highly,
highly
enjoyable moments she bends over, picks up the bills, and slips them into her G-string. She gives you a cute little wave and leaves the stage.

The DJ comes over the speaker system: “Yo Yo this is DJ Aaaron Wemrock, let's give it up for Yakumaaaaaaaa,” he says, the second
a
carrying on for about twenty obnoxious seconds. “That's right, Yakuma finishing up on the main stage. Like all of our lovely ladies here, Yakuma is available for private dances and, of course, the Champagne Room. Coming up next is our very own lovely Latina Go-Go Dawson! Don't be shy, folks, let that money fly.”

The main floor is nearly empty—probably typical for a Monday afternoon. Most of the crowd is business guys, taking advantage of the ten-dollar lunch buffet. You're hungry—but not “strip club buffet hungry.” Gotta draw the line somewhere.

You order another beer. Six girls cycle through, an hour or so passes, then it's Yakuma again. You're waiting with a grin and another wrinkly single.

She smiles at you and begins her dance.

You're lost in an erotic fantasy when she steps off the runway and onto your table.

“Wha—”

The small table tips—but she doesn't fall—she rides it to the floor like a surfer riding a wave. On her way down, she grabs your Rolling Rock by the neck.

“What the—”

You lean back just in time to see her smash the bottle into the face of the pretty Latina, Go-Go Dawson. The stripper falls back—Yakuma follows her to the floor and slides the bottle into the stripper's neck, which opens up like a gutted fish. Blood sprays out over Yakuma like she just popped the cap off a fire hydrant.

Yakuma stands over her, holding the empty bloody bottleneck. But Yakuma isn't quite done. She raises her leg and skewers the girl's face with the heel of her stiletto.

“Sorry, Go-Go…” she says.

You stand. Chair hits the ground. What the fuck is going on? Yakuma seemed totally sweet and normal a second ago, and now she's in a murderous rage. And then you look closer at the dead girl's tits (you can't resist). They're greenish and shriveled.

Holy shit, zombie tits.

You look up just as three more of the things sprint toward you. Three men. Two in suits, one the bartender. Real-life zombies. Dead as dead gets. Just like the beasts on TV.

Stunned, you watch as Yakuma dispatches the first one with the same move she used on the stripper. Kills the second one with the steak knife he was using to eat his buffet chicken. The bartender, thick and heavy, charges. She uses the thing's weight to her favor, spinning as he hits her and sending him stumbling into the stage headfirst. She buries the knife in the base of his skull. His massive legs kick. She turns the blade and he goes limp.

She leaps up onstage and rips down the two samurai swords. Hmm—maybe they are real? She'd know better than you would.

She stops. Turns her gaze on you.

“I'm, I'm not one of those—” you stutter.

“No shit. This way, tough guy.”

You follow her—back through a curtain and into the dressing area.

Three strippers feast on a fourth that lies on the floor.

Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. Stay calm. Breathe, breathe—
you're in a strip club dressing room!!!
Your whole life has been building up to this moment.

Yakuma bolts forward, blades low by her side. One slices through the air, cutting the first stripper straight up from the chest to the top of the skull—splits her in two. Before she hits the ground, the other two are dead—with one horizontal slash Yakuma decapitates them both. Yakuma walks past them and out a door marked
EXIT
. She's back inside in a moment.