Dead Drunk: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse... One Beer at a Time (9 page)

Secretary Childers screamed through the pain, “For god
sakes, our men are down there! This is genocide, you crazy son of a—”

The stiff jab from the president shut Childers up. “I told
you not to interrupt me.” It was a well-placed sucker punch that knocked the
secretary of state's dentures right out of his mouth. They skittered across the
floor and disappeared under a chair.

Secretary Aikens ignored the melee. “We need to find out why
they haven't launched their nukes. If they wait much longer, we'll knock out
their capability of striking back completely. It doesn’t make sense. There’s no
rope-a-dope when it comes to nuclear exchanges.”

As Childers kicked and screamed, the president steadied
himself and launched the next round of missiles, this time with no speech and a
swollen right hand.

Another aide rushed into the room. “Mr. President.” All eyes
turned to the young airman. “We have word from the Pacific Fleet. Their radar
has picked up a large naval force leaving China.”

“How large?” Secretary Aikens said.

“It’s the biggest ever.”

The secretary of defense nodded grimly. “There’s our answer
it seems. China doesn’t want to destroy us, it wants to own us.”

The plot had been as elegant as it was insidious. China had
been crippled by a currency war and then ravaged by a massive drought, and the
world had shrugged while millions died. So, rather than fight Mother Nature,
they used her to their advantage. The man-made virus would depopulate North
America and the Chinese would use the open land to start over, much like the
pilgrims had done hundreds of years earlier. Only small-pox had nothing on the
Chinese virus.

The new revelation strengthened the president’s resolve.
“Turn this plane south, our plans have changed.” He looked to Secretary Aikens.
“Tell President Goya we're annexing Northern Mexico, and it’s not up for
discussion.”

Chapter 18

Operation
Ben-Gay

Russ lit a cowboy killer and cracked a hesitant smile.
“Blake’s not turning into a zombie?”

“Not according to his symptoms and the information on his
medical bracelet. This is a diabetic attack,” Mike said.

Rob smiled and dabbed a wet cloth to Blake’s clammy
forehead. “Diabetes, that’s not so bad. Right?”

“It’s a death sentence unless we can find some insulin,”
Mike said and swiveled his head around the room. “Did anyone know about this?”

Jim shook his head. “He never mentioned it to me.”

“Blake’s been taking a lot of personal days, but he said it
was for wedding stuff,” Bruce added, clearly shaken up.

“Why would he hide it?” Smokey said.

Trent holstered his gun. “Probably the same reason Mike hid
the fact that he chugs cock. It’s embarrassing.”

Mike’s eyes burned. “First off, it’s not embarrassing to
have a disease or to be gay. Second off, I never actually acted on my urges.”

“You’re a virgin?” the cop said in his typical schoolyard
bully fashion.

“No, I’ve slept with lots of chicks.”

“That doesn’t count and you know it.” Trent sensed blood in
the water. “We’ve got ourselves a thirty-year old virgin here.”

“Yeah, what a loser,” Left-Nut said, always one to bring himself
up by putting others down.

“I’m not dignifying that with a response, but I do have one
question, Trent. Why are you so eager to shoot people? I know Cliff was an
asshole, but Blake’s been your friend for years and you didn’t even hesitate.”

“I’m not taking any chances. I’ll shoot you in the face if
you get bit, and I don’t care if you’re the Pope, my mom or a bum off the
street.”

“What do we do?” Bruce asked. “We can’t exactly march down
to the drugstore and fill out a prescription.”

“We can check Mrs. Stone’s apartment downstairs,” Charlie
said. “I know she gets medicine delivered because the dumbshit mailman keeps
putting it in my mailbox.”

“Do you know what it was?” Mike said.

“Fuck if I know, but it’s worth finding out. Plus, she might
have food.”

“That’s not a half bad idea, Chuck, but who’s got the balls
to go?” Russ said. “I mean, I will because he’s family, but who’s coming with
me?”

Fat, drunk and bloody, Russ wasn’t the type of man you
wanted to follow in line at the gas station, much less into a situation where
you might get eaten alive. Every fiber of Charlie’s body screamed to sit this
one out, to let someone else volunteer, but he’d already seen one friend die
and wasn’t prepared to see another.

“I’m in,” he said numbly, feeling like the words left
someone else’s mouth.

“Count me out,” Trent said predictably.

“Ditto,” Left-Nut added.

None of the others volunteered, and Russ flew into a
mini-rage. “Look, this isn’t D-Day. We’re just going right downstairs, so stop
being a bunch of faggots.” He glanced at Mike. “Sorry, homosexuals.”

Mike blinked rapidly a few times in exasperation before
composing himself. “He’s right. We need to start acting like a team if we want
to survive. And since I’m in charge of the food, if you don’t help, you don’t eat.”

They bickered over the details for a while until coming up
with what they considered a somewhat decent plan. An hour later, the men
gathered on the roof, partially sobered up and ready to rock.

Cliff had continued to glare at everyone, until it got creepy
to the point where Smokey had to blindfold him with an old sock. This seemed to
make the stockbroker even more desperate, and now he sniffed the air like a
bloodhound.

“That pissed him off,” Trent said while walking with Smokey
to the front of the building.

“He’d be even more mad if he knew what I use that sock for
in my spare time.”

Trent chuckled as the pair readied their diversion.
Meanwhile, Big Rob raised the ladder into position over a back alleyway dimly
lit by a handful of burning cars. Below, a host of creatures milled about in
the haze, casting large, ominous shadows. They went berserk as Trent cranked up
hardcore gangster rap on his boom box and Smokey shot a roman candle right into
their ranks.

The cop banged on pots and pans for effect. “Hey, you
morons, up here!”

While every zombie within a quarter mile swarmed the front
side of the house, Rob dropped the ladder out back and nodded to his waiting
friends. It was time.

Charlie had seen more action in the past ten hours than he
had in the past ten years of his life, and had the cuts, bruises and sexually
transmitted diseases to prove it. And so he hesitated for a moment.

“Move it, Nancy,” Russ said. Charlie obliged and soon found
himself on the ground, scanning the alley for any stragglers. Seeing none, he
signaled for Russ and Left-Nut to come down and then pushed in a window screen.
They climbed inside and were, for the time being, out of sight.

“Yuck, this place smells like old lady,” Left-Nut said as he
rummaged through the cabinets.

Russ smirked. “You think
this is bad, wait till the corpses in the street start rotting. Hell, when I
was in Vietnam…”

Charlie ignored Russ and focused on raiding the medicine
cabinet next to the fridge. He found blood pressure medicine, hemorrhoid
ointment and some pills he’d never heard of. It all went into the sack.

“Did she have any good prescriptions? Oxy or codeine or
something?” Left-Nut asked.

Charlie moved on to the fridge and spied a plastic baggie in
the vegetable drawer. “But look what we have here.” He pulled out several vials
of clear liquid as a look of pride crossed his face. “Insulin.”

Left-Nut peered past Charlie and groaned. “She doesn’t have
anything to eat in the fridge? It’s like food is illegal in this damned
apartment.”

Russ opened a pantry door and revealed row upon row of
canned goods tucked away inside. His face turned sour as he took a closer look.
“It’s all cat food. Every stinkin’ can.”

“Where’s the cat?” Left-Nut asked.

Charlie grimaced. “She didn’t have one.”

“Oh that’s gross,” Left-Nut said, a little too loudly.

“Lower your damn voice,” Charlie said. “And I wouldn’t get
too judgmental. It’s our dinner.”

Russ pointed to the potted meat. “That stuff is dangerous.
Too fatty.”

The schoolteacher looked at Russ’s ample gut. “I think that
ship has sailed.” They tossed the cans into trash bags and then looked for
anything else that might be useful.

Left-Nut zeroed in on a picture of a youthful looking Mrs.
Stone on her nightstand. “She used to be pretty friggin’ hot back in the day.
I’d totally hit it. Kinda sad Rob smashed her like a wet turd, ya know?”

“She was pretty,” Charlie admitted and rubbed the fist-sized
knot on the back of his head. “And judging from these other pictures in here,
she was a bird watcher too.”

Left-Nut looked at Charlie sideways. “Who gives a shit?”

“It means there’s probably a pair of binoculars in here we
can grab. Which would come in mighty handy.”

They continued rifling around as the racket from outside
covered their tracks, and Russ found something of interest in a dresser drawer.
But it wasn’t a pair of binoculars. In fact, it was far from it. He threw the
giant, pink, spiked vibrator to the floor and dry heaved while the others tried
to hold in their laughter.

“Mrs. Stone was a dirty girl,” Left-Nut said approvingly. “I
like it.”

“Keep looking, those binoculars have to be close by,”
Charlie said, hoping to erase the pink monstrosity from his mind by focusing on
the task at hand.

Left-Nut popped open a small cylindrical device he had found
in a leather case. Mrs. Stone’s last boyfriend had left the electric voice box
there before dying the previous winter while shoveling snow. She had kept it
around for other purposes.

The discovery should not have been a big deal, but Left-Nut
couldn’t control himself. He held it to his throat and created a loud robotic
voice. “Bow down before Optimus Prime and suck on these metallic balls.”

His eyes bulging in shock, Charlie grabbed at Left-Nut, but
it was too late. Upstairs, the song had ended right as Trent paused banging on
the pots to open a beer. Left-Nut’s corny shtick might as well have been an air
raid siren. Two zombies immediately crashed through the front window and became
tangled in the blinds while dozens of others jockeyed for access behind them.

Russ entered the hallway and emptied his pistol, dropping
the two lead zombies. However, they brought the blinds down with them and
opened a clear path for the others to stream in.

Charlie raced to the kitchen with the type of speed that
life and death situations call for. He grabbed the table, tilted it vertically
and shoved it into the doorway all in one fluid motion, catching the impact of
the racing horde. It inched backwards, and hands poked through the opening.

Russ put his shoulder into the table, pushing it back and
pinning the flailing arms snuggly to the wall. “Dammit, Left-Nut, get over
here!” he yelled and peered over his shoulder, just in time to see two feet
disappearing through the window. “Motherfucker!”

The pair wouldn’t be able to hold the crowd back for long,
so Charlie pointed to the refrigerator. “When I say go, tip it towards me.”

“But—”

“Do it, I’ll move,” Charlie assured him. “Now go.”

Russ pushed the fridge over, and it broke the legs off the
table and slammed to the ground, barricading the door perfectly. As Charlie
hopped backwards, an object flew off the top of the fridge and hit him square
in the chest.

“I found the binoculars.”

Chapter
19

The Curious Case
of Matt (Left-Nut) Tucker

“Is it cool to bang a zombie? Like, say it’s a really hot
one?” Smokey asked and passed his pipe. The outbreak was now a week old and
things had slowed down quite a bit. They were spending that particular night
gazing at the stars, smoking the last of the pot and focusing on the important
things in life.

“No way,” Charlie said, a serious look etched on his face.
“You’re talking statutory rape. A zombie can’t give consent any more than a
coma patient.”

“Or that poor girl Left-Nut recently had sex with,” Bruce
said and took a hit.

Trent snatched the pipe. “Zombies don’t have any rights and
you gashes know it. If they did, Cliff could have us shot for crimes against
humanity.” He threw an empty can at the restrained man who now sported strings
of rapidly blinking Christmas lights and a paper sack emblazoned with a smiley
face and the words “INSERT PENIS HERE.” Cliff looked almost comical in the
getup, but his feral grunts betrayed a murderous lust that was just waiting for
an opportunity.

“And for the record, if a zombie Jessica Alba were to come
shuffling by, I’d feed her a piece of meat all right. Fuckin’ quarter-pounder.”
Trent patted his imaginary giant dong for emphasis.

Mike rolled his eyes. “You know, for me being the only
homosexual here, you guys talk about penis an awful lot.”

“And that's why we always knew you were a butt pirate,
because you say penis,” the cop replied. “Real men say cock, shlong, wanker,
dong, joint…” Trent’s manhood list went on for several minutes.

A lightweight, Bruce leaned back in the lawn chair as his
head spun from the designer strain known as New York Diesel. “I’m high as
giraffe pussy right now.” He squinted at the sky. “Why are the stars so bright?
It’s like we’re out in the country or something.”

“Without the smog and city lights, we’re close. It seems
cooler too,” Charlie noted, and he was right.

After a cascading overload of the electric grid, besides
Smokey’s solar-powered building, Chicago had been dark for days. Without a
million air-conditioners dumping out heat, the record temperatures had eased.
The gentle breeze would have made for a nice night if not for the stench of
rotting flesh wafting in from the neighborhood. It was the turd in the
punchbowl nobody wanted to mention.

Bruce sat up. “Did you know Cliff’s a sex offender?”

Blake nodded begrudgingly. “Yeah, I knew.”

“Why?” Left-Nut said through a split lip and two black eyes,
courtesy of Russ and Charlie. They’d threatened to toss the coward off the roof
but had settled for kicking the living shit out of him. It was a close vote.

Bruce continued. “True story. We were at a Hawks game and
got completely plastered by the second period. This older chick came on to
Cliff and blew him right there in the seats. Then the Jumbo-tron picked it up
on accident during their kiss-cam shot, and it happened to be family night.”

“What happened?” Rob asked and exhaled a monstrous stream of
smoke through the air.

“Let’s say the judge came down on him way harder than the
old skank did.”

“That ain’t so bad. I’ve done a lot worse,” Russ said and
patted Zombie Cliff on the shoulder. “You’re still okay in my book.”

Cliff’s head swiveled towards Russ and shook with anger or
hunger. It was hard to tell as the smiley-faced sack made every move look like
a well-orchestrated goof. Only Cliff wasn’t joking around. He wanted to eat his
friends.

Blake sighed. “It was bad. Cliff had to hand out fliers
every time he moved and shit like that. He even took a bunch of pills one time
trying to kill himself. Poor bastard never did clear his name.”

Trent nailed Cliff in the head with another beer can. “I bet
he wished he finished the job.”

“Stop torturing him,” Blake said and rose to his feet. “He
might still be in there for all we know. It’s not right.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, lighten up. He’d treat you like a roast
beef sandwich if he had the chance.”

Mike turned to Charlie. “You feeling better?”

“No, it still hurts to piss. First time I hook up in four
years and I catch something.” He punched Blake in the arm. “I never properly
thanked you.”

The admission blew Russ away. “You hadn’t gotten laid in
four years in
Chicago
? Talk about no game.”

Charlie blinked as he fought the urge to blast back at the
mouthy hillbilly. “I was in a rut. The only girl I talked to regularly was the
one that cut my hair.”

Blake rolled his eyes. “Oh, not her again.”

“I called her Tits Magee, for obvious reasons. She was
gorgeous, good personality and fun to talk to.”

“She got paid to talk to you, dude,” Bruce said.

“What happened?” Big Rob asked.

“Absolutely nothing. I got my hair cut every week for a year
and never asked her out. I couldn’t pull the trigger.”

“I always told you to go for it Charlie. Girls with dead-end
jobs usually date losers, so you had a chance,” Blake said with a snicker.

“Maybe you were better off,” Jim said and looked at his
feet. “At least you didn’t have to lose her. I mean, look at me. I had
everything and now I’m sitting in this dump listening to you guys talk about
your bullshit problems. I was gonna be a dad, and now…”

Russ’s hand crept to the weeping man’s shoulder. “Son, life
is like a box of chocolates. Only each individually wrapped morsel is really a
turd. Some have peanuts, some have corn, but in the end, they’re all shit.”

“Having kids isn’t a big deal anyways. I had about ten
running around, and you don’t see me crying about it,” Left-Nut added with a
smug look on his beat up face.

“Shenanigans,” Charlie said.

Blake nodded. “This is why you’re less popular than dog shit
at a picnic, you’re always making stuff up.”

“Remember that newspaper job I had the summer before junior
year?” Left-Nut said.

“How could I forget you trying to sell me a subscription
about thirty times?” Charlie said. “You were even more annoying back then.”

“Moot point. One day I was covering for a guy at the ad desk
and this dude in old timey clothes comes walking in. He was from that weirdo
cult south of town.”

“The Seventh Day Shepherds? They’re like a mix between the
Amish and Southern Baptists, only nuttier,” Blake said.

Left-Nut nodded. “Yep, that’s them. It turned out their gene
pool was getting shallow and all their kids were being born with extra fingers
and crap. Anyways, they wanted to place an ad for reproductive assistance.”

“Like sperm donors?” Russ said and perked up.

“Only they weren’t talking test tube babies. It was more of
a pinch-hitter situation, if you catch my drift.”

“They wanted to pay people to sleep with their wives and get
them pregnant?” Mike said.

“Bingo. And since they refused to read the newspaper, like
it’s idolatry or something, they never knew I trashed the ad. Nobody else
showed up, so I was a hot commodity.”

“Let me get this straight,” Blake said. “You’re telling me
this religion thinks newspapers are taboo, but a random dude banging their
wives is kosher?”

“Crazy, I know. Even better, I got paid five hundred a pop.
It was the scam of the century.”

Russ beamed with approval. “Impressive. But how’d they
look?”

“Like total sasquatches because of all the birth defects.
But there was one chick that was hot, and I mean
hot
, and I was biding
my time until I could get my turn at her.”

“You just strolled into town and started blasting these
chicks?” Bruce said.

“It wasn’t exactly spring break. We’re talking fully
clothed, and their relatives are in the room.”

“Awkward,” Jim added. A rare smile crept onto his face as he
listened to the ridiculous story.

“Yeah, I wasn’t supposed to show pleasure or make any noises
or I’d get fired. Plus, they just lay there, stiff as a board, so it wasn’t as
awesome as it sounds.”

“Oh yeah, impregnating mutant women while their troglodyte
family watches sounds like a regular dream come true,” Mike said.

Left-Nut shrugged. “At the end of the summer I finally got a
crack at the hottie, and she ended up being the preacher’s daughter, go figure.
But the thing was, I took a bunch of my dad’s Viagra that day because these
chicks were seriously testing my libido, and that’s saying something because I
would pretty much nail a mud puddle.”

“No shit,” Blake said.

“I’m packing some serious steel that this girl’s bum-fuck
husband Jedediah or whatever has never done, and she actually opened her eyes,
and I can tell she’s loving it.”

The group stopped their pestering questions and leaned in,
lost for a moment in the epic tale. “As if on cue, the storm that was brewing
all day crashed into the little cabin. We’re talking heavy winds, rain, thunder
and lightning. It was something right out of a movie. Not a porno, mind you,
but like a sexy thriller. Maybe something with Brad Pitt.” Left-Nut paused and
looked at his friends slyly. “But you guys don’t want to hear the rest of it
since I’m always making crap up.”

A collective groan went up in response. “Fine, fine. So
there we are, missionary style, literally, because these weirdoes were
missionaries. And I started railing this chick and she screams out, ‘Oh God,
give it to me!’

“I bet they didn’t like that,” Blake said.

“Yeah, it turns out that was the absolute worst thing to say
for The Seventh Day Shepherds, and her family decided to yank the plug on the
whole operation. Her husband started crying like a little bitch, and her dad
tried to pull me off, but as you can imagine, I was buried in deep as a tick.
They paid me to get that girl pregnant, and for once in my life, I was a
workaholic.” Left-Nut looked around. “Is there any pot left?”

“Finish the damned story,” Charlie said.

“They started hitting me on the back with a broomstick, and
that just made me pump away harder because I like the rough stuff, but then
wham
!
Her dad cracked me in the head with a chair and I tumbled out of bed,
bare-assed and pants at my ankles, boner dragging on the floor. So I crawled
outside, and by this time half the town’s come to kick my ass.”

“That, I believe,” Mike said.

“I couldn’t make it to my car, so I pulled my pants up and
grabbed this old bike from the porch. It was like this old 1800’s style with
metal wheels. Now it’s pouring rain by this time and all these inbred
dumb-fucks are chasing me on foot. I’m riding up this big ass hill and barely
making headway on account of it being such a retarded bike. I got to the top
and it was all downhill from there, so I turned to give the dipshits a double
middle finger salute. But as I did, there was a huge flash of light.”

“There is a God,” Jim said dryly.

Left-Nut rose from his seat. “Next thing I know, I’m in the
hospital, my hair’s permanently turned white, I got black eyes, a broken nose,
and my shlong’s all bandaged up.” He dropped his pants to reveal a giant,
solitary testicle gleaming in the moonlight. “And that, dear ladies and
gentleman, is how I really earned my nickname.”

The group shielded their eyes or turned away in disgust,
which allowed Cliff to break free of his bonds unnoticed. Amidst half-hearted
cheers, Left-Nut bowed to his audience, completely unaware of the infected
lunatic lurching towards him. The brown paper sack fell to the ground, smiley
face up, peering at the shining stars overhead.