Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? (7 page)

You take the hammer and the drill from the table. Hold one in each hand. Feel their weight. Two weapons are better than one, you think—even if they are close range. This gives you freedom of movement—you can wield them like twin Glocks on some John Woo shit, no prob. You forget about the
Big Buck Hunter
gun and follow Anthony out of the office. He carries the fire ax.

Standing at the door to the hall you listen to the moans. They're louder now. Anthony unlocks the door slowly. You can almost hear the click of the pins.

You breathe in, pause, breathe out. No point in waiting.

“Let's do it.”

He kicks open the door and sends the two closest zombies flying back.

In front of you is a regular-looking guy—type of guy you might see around the office. You swing the hammer, catching him in the side of the head. He stumbles to the side. You follow the hammer blow with the drill, squeezing the trigger and burying it into the thing's ear and into its brain. After a second, you pull it free, blood and brain spraying off the still-spinning, squealing drill bit. The thing drops.

The next one leaps at you. You duck. Awkwardly, it falls onto your back. Before it can attack you, you stand and flip it over onto the floor. You go in with the drill—but Anthony's there first, burying the ax into its face.

You give him a thankful nod and turn your attention to the others. Behind you, you hear Anthony take care of the two on the floor.

Four down. Seven to go.

You push the drill up through the chin of the next one. Not deep enough. It thrashes at you. You kick it back and let loose with the hammer. Finally, it falls.

The next one, an old woman, lunges at you. You raise the drill to block the attack. The drill bit pierces the thing's hand. You yank it out, swing it around, and ram it through a busted pair of old-lady shades and into its eye. You swirl the drill around, scrambling its brains, while pounding its head with the hammer, and it finally goes limp.

Anthony steps ahead of you now. He swings the ax wildly and misses—the blade sticks into the wall. He tugs. It's stuck. That split second is all it takes. Two are on him.

You ram the drill into the back of the head of the closest one. After a moment, its grip on Anthony loosens, and it falls.

But it's too late. The other one has its mouth around Anthony's face. Blood pouring down both of them.

Anthony's bit. Done for.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. What now? Panicked, you turn to run back into the bar—but it's blocked. The two that Anthony had handled—he had put the ax through their chests, not their brains—it didn't do anything except leave them in a bad mood. Have to kill them all over again…

But then you stop—

You sense Anthony rising behind you, and you slowly turn back. He's gigantic. He fills the entire width of the hallway. His face—moments ago normal—has changed. Amazingly, just a minute after his death, the blood has clotted, dried. He rocks back and forth on his thick, trunklike legs. Stares you down—Christ, almost like he recognizes you.

ANGELS

Jones walks past you.

You snap out of it and work your way down, following the Angels. Weapons over their shoulders. Heads down. The job is done, but there's little rejoicing.

You board the bus. Lean over the front edge, exhausted, ready to get back into the dead man's bed.

You see it out of the corner of your eye. A flash of iron in the moonlight. A tank. U.S. military.

And too late, you realize. They were never going to give you anything. No pardons. No pats on the back. No job well done. No nothing. Just do their dirty work, and that was that.

The tank aims at the bus. You brace for death.

BOOM!!!

SOMEBODY'S IN HERE!

You stare right back at him. You should help. But your body won't move. Something down in your balls won't let you. Fear. Feels like leaning over the side of a roof twenty floors up. Like Anthony's asking you to jump. You can't.

The feeling in your balls jumps to your gut and then volcanoes up your throat—puke.

You turn away and run to the back of the bar and into the bathroom. You jiggle the handle. Vomit seeps out the side of your mouth. You ram your shoulder into the door and it opens. That's as close as you get—puke splashes the floor. Last night's pizza.

You don't feel any better—just more frightened, more incapable.

You slam the door shut behind you. Search for a lock. None. You put the toilet seat down and take a seat. Drop your head into your hands—cold and clammy. Icy sweat drips from your forehead. Your mind fades out—black spots fill your vision.

After a long, scary moment, the world comes back to you. You can hear faint screams coming from the bar—or maybe that's the street. You hope street.

You pull out your phone, hit Safari, and check the Web. Nothing will load. The whole country—hell the whole world, maybe—is online right now, checking the news, trying to figure out what's going on.

Just then, you hear a scream. A man's scream. Then more. “Oh Lord!” someone shouts.

A rush of noises from beyond the door. Bar stools hitting the floor. Glasses shattering. Chaos.

You tiptoe toward the door. You need to block it, or else you're next. You look around for something—anything.

There's a loud slamming sound from just outside the door. The hinges buck. You back into the corner, terror rushing through your body.

Banging on the door. The wood splinters. The door's top hinge pops off and it falls open, awkwardly, still attached at the bottom. It lands on the sink and cracks apart.

A rotund redheaded man collapses on top of the door, blood pumping steadily from an open wound in his back.

Standing behind him, staring directly at you, is one of them. One of those things. On TV you believed it, but you didn't understand. But now—right in front of you—it's real. A zombie. The walking dead. A beast in a business suit. Blood is spattered across its yellow power tie and the pink shirt beneath it.

Sonofabitch. It's Wall Street.

Its face is deathly white. A hole is torn in its cheek—you can see the inner workings of its mouth and jaw. It jerks forward. Fills the door.

You make a move for the bathroom stall. But it's too late. It leaps. You stick your hands out, try to toss it aside. No luck. Its teeth get a hold of your hand. It rips you forward and sinks its teeth into the bridge of your nose.

Your body goes into shock. You lose all sense of time. Minutes later, hours maybe, you regain some vague semblance of your senses. And then some. You smell flesh. Want it. Need it.

You're one of them now. And you've got a driving urge to devour that pretty young bartender…

IS THERE A DOCTOR IN THE CAR?

His eyes stare up at the ceiling, glossy and devoid of life. Then they roll back into his head—a slot machine, both wheels coming up death.

“Hey,” you say, quietly, to no one in particular. You've never had to yell for a doctor and to be honest, you're feeling awkward as hell about it, despite the circumstances. “Um.… is anyone here a doctor?”

A thirtyish woman, straight off the set of
Sex and the City
, turns and looks at you like you asked her if she wanted to swap underwear.

“Is anyone here a doctor?” you ask, louder now. “This man needs help!”

You look back down at him. He's no longer shivering. Definitely not breathing. Jesus…

“Is anyone in here a doctor?” you yell.

A tall, handsome woman with dark, mid-length, curly hair pushes her way over and announces herself as a neurologist.

You talk fast, stuttering. “I don't think this guy's breathing—and—and—and his eyes just rolled back in his head. And he's all bloody there—by the arm.”

You half expect her to throw a stethoscope over her neck, pull out a little black bag, and play small town doctor making a house call. Instead she leans over and lifts open his left eyelid. Then his right. Nothing looking back but creamy white.