Dead Drunk: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse... One Beer at a Time (18 page)

Chapter
35

Deadeye

Brooke smiled as she cleaned her puke from the floor. It was
an odd reaction for sure, but she had been trying to get pregnant, as selfish
and crazy as it was. Women hadn’t stopped being mothers throughout the
countless wars and famines of history, and this scenario wouldn’t be an
exception. At least that’s what she told herself.

But now Brooke wanted to make sure it actually was morning
sickness and not mild food poisoning from her random diet of canned goods and
rainwater. To do that she’d have to sneak away from her sleeping roommate and
grab a pregnancy test from the nearby convenience store. Since Charlie’s men
had gone medieval on the zombies in the neighborhood and she hadn’t even seen
one in days, she hoped it would be a cakewalk.

Brooke tiptoed downstairs
and unlocked the multiple locks on her front door, then grabbed the wooden
softball bat wedged against the stairs. That would be coming with her.

Next, she studied the area in front of her apartment for a
full minute, ready to pop back inside at a moment’s notice. It was quiet, so
she took a deep breath and sprinted over. There were no zombies, no
stereotypical female tripping and injuring herself, nothing. Brooke walked
inside without incident, but her heart still pounded as she began to rummage
around the foul-smelling store.

Picked clean of anything useful by her new boyfriend and the
other marauding neighbors, Brooke figured a pregnancy test should still be
there amongst the trash. She just had to find it. Two minutes turned to five,
five to ten, and she was about to give up. The sun was rising and her return
trip would already be more dangerous because of it.

Brooke searched one last pile when movement from the corner
of the room caught her attention. Before she could turn though, small hands
crawled up her back and onto her shoulder. Brooke stifled a scream and fumbled
for the bat until she saw her reflection in the shoplifting mirror. It was no
tiny zombie resting on her, but a raccoon. A raccoon named Elvis to be precise.

“You almost gave me a
heart attack, little girl,” she said and stroked the ornery creature’s chin.
“But your friends are gonna be so happy to see you. Speaking of happy…” Brooke
spotted a pregnancy test peeking out from under several boxes of condoms.
“Jackpot.” She squatted over the white handle and did her business, then picked
it up and waited a minute before checking. One red bar. She waited a little
longer. Two red bars meant Brooke had a bun in the oven.

The front door swung open
and she froze in place while several men barged in, speaking a harsh-sounding
foreign language. Brooke pulled up her shorts and crept into the bathroom as
the moment of joy turned to one of pure terror. Once inside, she locked the
door and stood back, clutching Elvis in one hand and her Louisville Slugger in
the other.

* * *

Private Wu shut the door
behind him and surveyed the ransacked store. “The sun’s coming up, so unless we
want to end up like Cai, we rest here. Finding the tank can wait.”

“Sounds good,” Private Lin said and fingered through a stack
of nudie magazines.

Wu frowned. “Damn, I thought there would be food here. I
guess it’s back to pork roll with mustard potato.”

“You don’t like egg roll?” Lin asked and looked up from a
copy of
Drunken Babysitter
.

“Of course I like fucking egg roll. Just not three weeks in
a row.” Wu turned to Yi Chen. “Duànbèi, make yourself useful for once and guard
the door. I gotta shit.”

Chen scowled as he moved behind the cash register with his
assault rifle. Not that he had much firepower left. Their mission had been a
total disaster, and his comrades hadn’t shared Private Cai’s rounds following
the radio specialist’s demise. As it was, Chen had three clips left, and even
if they found the tank soon, with every man for himself, getting back to the
unit was a pipe dream.

Wu jiggled the handle to the unisex bathroom. “Why’s this
locked?” Lin came over to investigate and the two raised their rifles as Wu
kicked the door in. The last thing they expected to see was a flying raccoon
wearing a pirate shirt, but that’s what they got.

Screaming like a banshee, Brooke threw Elvis at Wu and swung
at Lin as the man raised his weapon to parry the blow. The force knocked the
rifle from Lin’s grasp, and Brooke aimed next for the man’s head. But Wu quickly
tossed the raccoon off and used his own rifle to knock Brooke unconscious.

Elvis scampered away as Wu scowled and wiped his bloody
forehead. “After I deal with this round-eye, we skin that rat and have a decent
meal for once.”

Lin grinned with anticipation as sweat formed on his greasy
forehead. “A dinner date?” They both chuckled while dragging the prone woman
into the middle of the store, dumping her onto a pile of paper towels.

Brooke woke up but kept quiet in order to eavesdrop.
Although she didn’t know their language, one of them pulled her shorts down and
it was crystal clear what they were after. Brooke opened her eyes and
struggled. “Please stop, I’m pregnant!”

Wu’s lecherous eyes widened in glee as he recognized a word
from his rudimentary English training. “Pregnant?” he said while nodding his
head vigorously. “I can make pregnant! I can make pregnant!”

At this point, Chen set his weapon down and approached the
trio, stone-faced as usual. He took off his belt.

“Wait your turn,” Lin
said with the same deviant chuckle. “Besides, I thought you were a—” The latest
insult was cut short as Chen broke the teenage conscript’s windpipe with a
powerful chop to the throat. Lin mouthed a silent scream as he fell to the
ground and suffocated amongst the garbage.

Wu reached for his rifle
but tripped on the pants tangled around his ankles, and the athletic Chen was
upon him. He wrapped the belt tightly around the man’s neck and slammed his
head into the floor repeatedly. The first blow made Wu bite his own tongue off,
the second shattered his teeth, and the third broke his jaw. Unfazed, Chen
pounded the soldier’s skull until all that remained was an oozing mess of meat
and bone fit for a butcher’s block.

Chen rose and then stumbled briefly as the crazy flow of
hormones subsided. He steadied himself and walked over to the blonde woman
cowering on the floor.

She was obviously convinced the violent beast would take
over where the others had left off, and Chen realized how he must appear,
shaking with righteous fury and covered in his squad mate’s blood. So he smiled
sheepishly and spoke the only English words he could remember. “Pizza. Batman.
New York.”

Brooke sobbed, this time with relief, as she realized the
soldier meant no harm. She straightened her torn clothes and threw her arms
around the odd savior. “Thank you,” she whispered and buried her head into his
chest.

Yi Chen had no clue what the attractive woman said, but her
honeyed voice sent butterflies fluttering in his stomach all the same. Her warm
tears trickled down his neck and mixed with the even warmer blood of his
victims. She felt soft and frail against his skin, and her trembling body
reminded him what it was like to be a man. He took in a deep breath. It was the
first time he’d smelled a woman in three years and the scent was intoxicating.
Too intoxicating. Chen’s heart had just pumped a year’s worth of adrenaline and
testosterone throughout his body, and the girl’s complete helplessness began
setting off dormant predatory instincts.

Like a character from a classic werewolf movie fighting off
a deadly transformation, the champion athlete closed his eyes and reigned in
the sinister thoughts. It wasn’t easy. He hugged the girl again, a little too
hard, and breathed in deeply once more, taking her essence in one final time
before releasing his grasp.

Next, Chen retrieved a sidearm from one of the bodies and
placed it in the palm of her hand. “
Gāi zǒu le
,” he said, telling her to
leave and pointing to the door.

Brooke nodded goodbye and sprinted outside, leaving Elvis
behind in her rush to escape. An instant later, the pregnant woman was back in
the safety of her apartment, nursing a bruised forehead and a damaged psyche,
but otherwise fine.

Chen smiled as he watched her disappear from his sight
forever, knowing he’d proven himself once more to the memory of his beloved
wife. Left alone in no man’s land, he realized he could be joining her at any
moment. However, that wasn’t his plan, so Chen loaded up on ammo, left bite
marks on the dead in order to cover his crime, and picked up the search for the
missing tank. He found it thirty seconds later.

The burned out hull was literally around the corner. If
they’d made one more turn, his squad mates would still be alive. Not that Chen
cared.

He gave a quick inspection of the tank and turned to leave
when a flash of color caught his eye. Inexplicably, in the midst of all this
death and destruction, a single flower grew from a pile of dirt in the middle
of the road. It was so out of place, so utterly impossible, and yet, so
beautiful. It had to be a sign from Chunhua. With tears forming in his eyes,
the reluctant warrior knelt to smell the rose and focused his thoughts on
happier times.

* * *

Charlie manned the heavy machine gun the moment he saw the
Chinese soldier approach. He waited patiently for more troops to come into the
kill zone, but none did, and it seemed the man was alone. Oddly enough, the
soldier stopped and smelled the flower they’d planted in Blake’s memory, and
Charlie lined up his shot. Something felt wrong about it though, and so he
hesitated. This was a human being, not a zombie.

The feeling soon passed and Charlie pulled the trigger,
riddling the man with .50 caliber rounds. It was not as satisfying as he had
expected.

Chapter
36

The Blindside

“You’re saying the dog won’t make it without getting
medicine?” Marquell asked the prison doctor.

“That’s right. With all of the vomiting, Toby is going to
need subcutaneous water treatment, anti-nausea medicine and antibiotics. Pancreatitis
is a very serious condition.”

Heather’s voice trembled.
“I told you those idiots brought back the wrong food, and now my dog’s going to
die?”

Marquell was not about to disappoint her again. “He’ll be
fine. I’ll get the stuff myself, you’ll see.”

Heather scoffed. “Great.”

“You don’t want me to go?”

She sighed and put her hand on Marquell’s broad chest,
changing her tone. “I’m sorry. That’s very big of you, Marky. This would mean a
lot to me.”

“It’s settled then. Doc, you’re coming with so we get the
right stuff. Fausto, go round up the twenty hardest motherfuckers here and get
‘em suited up. We leave in an hour.”

Exactly one hour later, Marquell met Heather at the main
gate for a proper sendoff. “I’ll be back quick, baby-girl. You’re in charge and
my man Fausto will do anything you tell him to while I’m gone.”

Heather hugged the man responsible for the death of her
husband. “Be careful, but hurry.”

Full of confidence, Marquell boarded the prison bus and led
the caravan of hardcore criminals full steam ahead into the wild lands beyond.
They didn’t make it fifty yards. Hitting a solid wall of zombies, the bus tires
spun uselessly in the muck as the body count piled up. His men blasted shotguns
out of the windows while the rest of the convoy arrived on motorcycles and four
wheelers. It was gruesome work, but after plenty of gunplay and a little
chainsaw action, the bus broke free of the carnage. The Dirty Two-Dozen sped
off into the distance.

Heather was unimpressed. “Take me back to my room.” Minutes later
the two were alone in Marquell’s opulent headquarters. He’d taken every nice
object in the prison for his own personal space, no matter the interior
decorating implications, and the results would have made Saddam Hussein proud.
The first lady of the prison put her dog in his tiny bed and sat on the edge of
her own. “You have to do whatever I say, right?”

“That’s boss’s order,” Fausto said, wondering what she was
after.

She pointed downwards. “Then get to work. I need to relieve
some tension.”

“I don’t think that’s what he—”

Heather’s temper flared. “You aren’t supposed to think,
monkey boy.”

“Marquell would chop off my
cojones
.”

“You saw what happened outside. We won’t be seeing them
again. Consider this an audition.”

Fausto wondered if this was some cruel game to test his
loyalty. “He’ll be back.”

“Don’t you want to know how I got Marquell so
pussy-whipped?” she said and batted her cold eyes.

“Relax, lady.”

“Have you been in prison so long you only like boys? Are you
a
chevalla
now?”

“A sissy? Bitch, you must be crazy talking to me like that.
Don’t you know what I’m capable of?”

Heather was unimpressed. “I know what you’ve done, but what
you’re capable of still remains to be seen. Now don’t make me tell you again.”
She hiked up her skirt and revealed smooth skin and a thin black thong.

Fausto rubbed his hands
through his hair as the dilemma consumed him. In the end, questioning his
machismo proved too much, and the hired gun dropped to his knees in defense of
his manhood. Fausto didn’t even notice the screwdriver until it penetrated his
ear canal and scrambled his brain.

“Typical man,” Heather said and pulled the bloody tool out
while Fausto writhed on the floor like a beached fish. Finished with the
amateur lobotomy, she turned to her puppy that was cowering in the corner.
“Mommy won’t make you drink the bad stuff again. No more being sick.” It turned
out that the most conniving person in the prison hadn’t been the warden or his
replacement.

She calmly went to the window and gave a signal by raising
and lowering the blinds. In moments the second prison rebellion began in
earnest, and it was even bloodier than the first. Vengeance was swift as the
guards clamored for payback, beginning with Sharpshooter Gus opening up on the
basketball league with his AR-15 from the safety of the watchtower. From there,
the orgy of violence reached every corner of the compound, from the kitchens to
the greenhouse to the morgue, with the same results.

The bloodbath was finished in minutes and Marquell’s reign
was over. If he did make it back, he’d be walking into a buzz saw. For the
third time in the prison’s short history, there was a new sheriff in town. Only
this one had fake boobs, a manicure and a tan.