Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? (47 page)

You take a step into the water. Then there's a violent splash from the center of the swamp. You rip your foot out, your heart pounding.

A huge tail whips up. Two eyes come out of the water.

“Fucking Christ, is that an alligator?!”

“Crocodile, I think,” she says. “But yeah. Let's go.”

The horde continues through the woods behind you. You've got no choice. Yakuma steps into the muddy water, blade out, and begins wading through. You follow her, close behind.

You're about halfway across when, in a flash, a huge snout bursts from the water, tremendous mouth open. Massive, jagged teeth.

You scream like a little girl.

Yakuma stabs the sword up. The blade slices through the crocodile's armored scales, through its lower jaw, pierces its tongue, and then bursts through the roof of its mouth. Its eyes go wide, but it makes no sound. It struggles to open its mouth, but only cuts itself further.

Yakuma rips the sword out and begins swimming. You hear splashes behind you as the zombies enter the water. You dive in, swim madly.

You and Yakuma come out at the other end of the swamp. You sprint for the tower. You begin climbing. Yakuma follows. Halfway up, you stop. Clinging to the ladder, you pull the map out.

Through jagged breaths: “If we catch the monorail, we can hitch a ride to the aquarium. From there, we can walk to the Zoo Center.”

Yakuma grunts. “Just keep climbing.”

You make it to the top, nearly five stories. The monorail track runs across most of the zoo. You see one coming around, minutes away.

Below you, the crocodiles tear a group of the zombies to pieces. Body parts float in the water. The brown-green swamp water mixes with the blood, turning the water black.

The monorail approaches. You crouch on top of the tower, not looking down. The train car approaches. You steady yourself. Ready. Do this wrong, and you'll plummet to your death.

You dive inside. Phew. Safe, for the moment. Below you, giraffes graze. Zebras, close by, mill about. Through a canopy of leaves, gorillas bask in the sun. And then the zombies—they're everywhere. They pay no attention to the animals.

The monorail passes over a polar bear exhibit, then closes in on the aquarium.

“Ready?” you ask her.

“Ready,” she says.

As it passes over the aquarium roof, you toss the swords out. Then you leap. It's only ten feet and you make it fairly effortlessly—skinned palms, but nothing broken. You collect your sword, Yakuma does the same, and she follows you into the dark aquarium.

You gasp. There, directly in front of you, a zoo worker. Trainer or something. Green shorts. Green T-shirt. Poor attempt at looking like he just stepped out of a savannah.

His face is torn to shreds.

He leaps at you. You reel back, turn your head away, and thrust out the sword. He skewers himself, sliding up to the blade's hilt. Blood spills out on your shoes. The thing grabs you by the shirt. Teeth gnash. You try to raise the sword and lift the beast up, but the blade just cuts up through its chest.

Yakuma lunges over, grabs the beast, and rips it off the sword. She has its hands pinned behind its back. You grab its legs and together you lift the beast up and throw it over the side. It drops into the tank, thrashing. Water splashes over the side. The thing sticks a dead arm out at you, stretching its fingers, moans once, then goes under.

You catch your breath, then follow Yakuma down the spiraling ramp, past the glass tank. The undead zoo worker sinks, moving along with you. It continues to thrash as it sinks farther.

Then from the bottom of the tank come a rush of tiny fish—each one no more than half a foot long. Hundreds of them.

You see the sign on the tank:
RED-BELLIED PIRANHAS
.

The entire school swarms. In a moment you can no longer see the zoo worker's body—just the fish, completely covering it. Hundreds of little black and red fins. Blood fills the water. Then, twenty seconds later, the fish split, swimming off in different directions.

All that remains of the zoo worker is a meatless skeleton.
One piranha continues to pick at one last piece of its brain, then scurries away.

Dear Lord…

You look away and continue down the spiraling path. You come to the bottom and step outside into the bright sunlight. A perfectly paved path stretches out in front of you, a fence running along the side. At the end is the visitor center.

And there, blocking your path, is the massive female lion. Its fur slick with blood. It paces back and forth. Shakes. Twitches. Its eyes wild and red.

A goddamn zombie lion.

Yakuma spins the sword. You do the same—spraying the dead zoo thing's blood on the ground.

The lion paws at the ground, then charges, hurtling toward you.

Yakuma charges the animal and just before it pounces, drops to her knees and slides across the ground. She swings the sword, cleanly slicing off the animal's front right leg. It takes its next step with a bloody stump and crashes to the ground. It whimpers. Lashes out at you with a hairy paw.

Yakuma stands over it, knees bloodied, and chops the animal's head off.

Then a tremendous roar.

You look up. At the end of the path are three more massive lions. And behind it, a wall of zombies. The animals are bloodied, ravenous. Just like their zombie friends.

You and Yakuma look at each other. Sad. Defeated.

And then they all charge…

ALL TOGETHER NOW

You wait to see which one jumps first. But they all come at once.

The kid leaps, throws its arms around your waist. It's like a goddamned Chucky doll. You rip it free before it gets its teeth in you.

You feel your arm flesh tear. You scream. The mother zombie has its nails in you. It digs deeper, pushing them into your arm. You try to shake it loose.

But the dad creature looms over you. It jumps, throwing all of its weight on you, taking you and its family down to the ground. Your head whacks against the cement and your eyes tear up. Through the mist, you see the father's face, hovering over you. Sick, rotted teeth. Disgusting smell of death on his breath

A drop of saliva falls from his decaying lips, lands on your tongue, sending a cold shiver through your body. Then his mouth opens wide, ready to eat…

THE COMIC-CON MASSACRE

You went to Comic-Con International the summer you interned in San Diego. You remember the craziness. A hundred thousand people packing the showroom floor, many in costume. And not just costumes—staggeringly detailed outfits, complete with metal helmets, thousand-dollar chunks of armor, and real-deal weapons.

You grip the boy's hand and push through the thick crowd. Need to find the back exit—now. Their defenses won't hold long.

The boy looks around in awe at the convention attendees. A middle-aged Wonder Woman. An ugly version of the Bride from
Kill Bill
. Most of the crew from the Watchmen. Frank Miller's depiction of the Joker. A puffed-up Bender. A so-real-you-can-hardly-believe-it Guts Man. Edward Scissorhands, his blades shimmering, sharp.

Glass shatters behind you. People scream. It won't take long for the beasts to flood the convention hall floor and overrun the entire place. Bodies push past you. You get swept up in the crowd, carried onto the main floor, and spit out into one of the convention hall's long aisles. Somehow the kid has managed to hold on.

Behind you echo the sounds of battle as the zombies clash with the cosplay crowd.

You drag the kid down long aisles lined with tables and booths, stocked with action figures, comic books, T-shirts. Huge banners hang from the ceiling:
DC COMICS, MARVEL, NICKELODEON, CAPCOM
. Great—all sorts of cool shit—but where's the goddamn banner that says
EMERGENCY EXIT
?

It's like a hedge maze, only it's packed with people, all in full-on panic mode. You pass the remnants of the Mattel booth, slipping on Matchbox cars as you run. Transformers toys scatter the floor in front of the Hasbro booth. A sign promises a Shia LaBeouf signing.

You take a left turn. Then a right. Fuck—zombies at the end of that aisle. You turn, back the way you came. Another left.

Goddamn it! You're back where you started.

And in front of you is an epic, full-on
Night of the Living Dead
meets
Braveheart
battle. Thousands of undead New Yorkers trying to devour thousands of costumed geeks.

The battle pushes them back, onto the show floor. Fighting in the aisles. You turn to run—then realize, horrified, that your hand is empty. The boy is gone.

You look around, frantic. “Kid! Where are you?”

You sprint down the closest aisle, searching for him.

A fat man in a Freddy Krueger costume sends a case of Super Mario figurines crashing down on an approaching beast, which slows it momentarily. Fat Freddy slashes the thing in the face, splitting open four parallel slices of flesh.

Then Fat Freddy swings his open hand in a roundhouse, slamming the four blades into the thing, the steel piercing its skull. The monster drops. The next one gets Freddy, tackling him. Freddy swipes, tearing its shirt, but it's useless. The monster rips into his face, tearing at his mask, and then sinking its teeth into the flesh beneath it.