Zombocalypse Now (10 page)
“Not on my watch,” you tell Velasquez. “We can try to get them away from the thick of things, but other than that, we’re just going to have to do the best we can with what we’ve got.”
The best you can do with what you’ve got, it turns out, is not actually all that great. The screaming chaos, combined with the fact that a good deal of the equipment you need to deal with it was inside that command center you burned to the ground, make this a losing battle. The undead forces keep growing, and your platoon, or whatever it’s called, keeps shrinking. Eventually the zombies overwhelm you.
You go down leading your troops in one last desperate push. As far as military commanders go, you could have done worse.
THE END
83
With the exception of a few abandoned cars, the freeway is empty. As you get closer to the city, the opposite side of the highway becomes more and more congested with empty vehicles until it appears as though an entire bumper-to-bumper rush hour crowd simply gave up and walked away. The lanes heading into town, however, are completely clear.
Convenient! You exit downtown and find the city streets as abandoned as the freeway. The whole place is probably on lockdown, you think. As you drive further in, though, the zombies slowly start coming out of the woodwork. At first they’re in groups of two or three, but soon they clog the streets. And they’re all headed right for you.
You turn the car around, but they’re filling in behind you as well. Suddenly something falls from the sky, hitting your hood like a load of bricks. Crap in a hat! Did that zombie just
throw himself off a building
at you? Sure enough, another one hits, shattering the windshield, followed by two more smacking the street right behind you.
It’s raining. Freaking. Zombies.
They keep pummeling your car until you’re completely buried under a dogpile of mostly-flattened undead. Your windshield disintegrates under the assault, but multiple lacerations are the least of your worries. The shattered bodies of fallen zombies shimmy and twist their way into biting position.
It’s all over before you know it.
THE END
84
You slam on the brakes and throw open the passenger door, telling the kids to climb inside. The boy, who’s wearing a baseball cap and a t-shirt with a chewing tobacco logo on it, hops in the front seat and motions for the girl to join him. She climbs into the back instead.
“Okay, where are you kids headed?” you ask. “Is there someplace I can take you where you’ll be safe?”
“Head south on highway 16,” the boy says. “My dad has a totally awesome underground bunker—I was supposed to meet him back at the gun shop, but Prudence took forever, and they left already.”
The girl winces, catches your eye, and shakes her head when he mentions the bunker. “Um, I live up north on highway 16,” she says quietly. “Out by Zebediah Creek.”
Either way, to reach Highway 16 you’ll have to drive further into town, through a veritable morass of zombies. “There are too many of them in that direction,” you say. “I don’t think we can even get to the highway.”
“Oh, I think we can handle them,” Billy grins, pulling an enormous gun out of his duffel bag. “What?” he says defensively when he sees your stare. “It’s hunting season.”
If you think a teenage boy with a shotgun is exactly what you need to navigate the streets of zombie town and make it to the highway in one piece,
turn to page 89.
If you suspect that plan will get you and both of your young wards killed, and instead seek safety by driving AWAY from the zombies,
turn to page 150.
85
Must . . . kill . . . queen
, you think. Then you think a lot about brains. Mmm, brains sound really good right now. You should try to get some of those.
You squirm through the now uninterested zombie crowd looking for the queen, but it’s getting more difficult to tell them apart as the hunger makes it impossible to concentrate. As your humanity slips away completely, your last conscious thought is that in this condition you couldn’t possibly take any kind of orders from anyone. There’s no zombie queen. The reason zombies act together is simply because they all want the same thing.
Brrrraaaaaiinnns. You can smell them. There’s some guy lashing about frantically in an umpire’s uniform nearby. He might have some. On the other hand, something right here near your face smells delicious. Could a delightful lunch possibly be leaking out of your own head?
If you press forward and try to muscle in on some of the umpire action,
turn to page 61.
If you back off and investigate the snack that smells like it’s right on top of you,
turn to page 122.
86
You know, Ernie’s a sweet guy, but the dead are rising from their graves and feeding on the flesh of the living. At this juncture it might be more appropriate to seek help from somebody with a badge.
You drive a few blocks to the police station, but find it completely overrun with zombies. It looks like a lot of people had the same inclination as you, and the ravenous dead are swarming on a crowd of screaming, panicking still-living. It’s utter chaos. Maybe you should turn the car around and just keep driving.
The more you consider the police station, though, the more you’d like to find a way inside, where they have trained officers, guns, Kevlar body armor and stuff. You’re pretty smart. Is it possible you could figure out a way to get in there? Besides, what’s your alternative plan? To burn rubber and keep driving as far away as you can until you run out of gas or something?
Uh, yeah. If you burn rubber, then keep driving as far away as you can until you run out of gas or something,
turn to page 173.
If you think your best bet is to park the car and find a way inside that police station,
turn to page 20.
87
You step forward. “Let’s carve this turkey,” you say, disemboweling the first zombie with one deft motion. That was awesome! Granted, you have to go back and behead the thing as well, since zombies continue to function more or less at full capacity without their bowels, but now you’re all juiced up. The oncoming monstrosities don’t stand a chance.
Your new-found confidence comes with a realization: people are running around in a mad panic, and they need someone to lead them to safety. Someone with a plan and a calm, soothing demeanor.
Someone armed with a chainsaw
. You nominate yourself for the position, since you fit all of the above criteria (except for the part about having a plan, but you figure that part you can just wing), and start the process of saving some lives.
Over the course of an hour, you gather together a group of fifteen or twenty people. Now it’s getting dark, and many of your crew are worried about surviving the night. They’re also eying your chainsaw with more than a little envy—perhaps you should scrounge up some more weapons and spread them around. Others are starting to grumble about being hungry. Organizing dinner for twenty people seems like it would be a pain in the butt even under the least apocalyptic conditions.
Your crew is looking to you to lead the way. Where to, Cap’n?
If you think that the most urgent need is to find food,
turn to page 109.
If you think that right now arming the group is more important,
turn to page 184.
88
“Ernie, there are people still alive in this city, and I’m fairly sure they need water. Let’s head for the mountains. Or we could still go look for my aunt. Maybe she can tell us more about the fluoride thing before we just rush in there half-cocked.” Or full-cocked. Any kind of cocked, really.
“That’s right,” Ernie says, narrowing his eyes. “Your aunt. It’s funny that I’ve known you all these years and you’ve never mentioned that your aunt works
for them
.”
“Ernie, look out!” you yell, and when he turns around, you hit him over the head with your shoe. It was all you could think of. Instead of passing out like they do in the movies, though, he lets out a yelp and grabs his head with his hands. So you hit him a couple more times until he goes limp.
Wow, that got weirdly violent.
You feel bad about whaling on your friend like that, but he was veering out of control. You take his ammo belt, duffel bag, and keys, figuring you’ll lock everything safely up in the car and then come back for him. When you get to the road, however, you see the hard hat guy standing by your car with four uniformed police men.
“Drop the bag!” they yell, pulling out their guns. “Put your hands in the air!”
Drop it? For all you know there’s twenty pounds of explosives in that thing! “Don’t shoot!” you yell back, carefully setting the bag down and raising your arms. As you do, though, something falls from Ernie’s belt and lands on the dirt with a thud. The police look down at it. You look down at it.
It’s a grenade.
Really, Ernie?
Obviously, the cops open fire.
THE END
89
“Okay, let’s do this,” you say. “Billy, hang out the window and gun down anything and everything that gets in our way. Prudence, you sit next to me and keep your eyes peeled for the most zombie-free route.”
“Actually, why don’t I navigate,” Billy says. “Pru can handle the shotgun.”
“What?” Prudence says, startled. “Um, I guess I could. I’ve never shot one of those things before, though.”
“It’s easy,” Billy insists. “You’re the one who keeps saying that your compound has been stockpiling weapons for the end times. You’ll be a natural. And that way, me and the rabbit can talk.”
Stockpiling weapons?
Who are these kids?
In any event, you don’t have time for this. Someone needs to drive, someone needs to shoot, and someone needs to navigate.
If Billy doesn’t want to shoot, you’re not going to force him. If you give the shotgun to Prudence,
turn to page 241.
On the other hand, this isn’t amateur hour. If you tell Billy to buck up and take the weapon,
turn to page 113.
Perhaps shooting at zombies is too important to leave to either of these two. If you have one of them drive and take the gun yourself,
turn to page 71.
90
A secret government conspiracy sounds dangerous, but all that other stuff . . . man, that’s just crazy. “Let’s look into the military experiment thing,” you say.
Ernie agrees. The two of you get to work boarding up windows, since night has fallen and you’re not sure how widespread this zombie invasion is. Ernie then starts sifting through his paper backup copies of what looks like the entire internet, printed for just such an occasion. It’s slow work, and you find yourself nodding off on your friend’s surprisingly comfortable couch.
Before you know it, morning comes and Ernie wakes you, excited about his new plan. Does this guy ever sleep? Your excitement fails to match his, however, when you hear the details: Your job is to break into the army base fifteen miles outside town. His job, somehow, is to stay home and continue his research, which he insists is at a critical juncture.
After losing that argument, and dodging a crowd of zombies that have made it to Ernie’s neighborhood and chosen to congregate in his driveway, you’re in your car and driving toward the base, armed with a pair of bolt cutters and a giant monkey wrench. Your meticulous break-in plan, though, proves unnecessary. The base is overrun by zombies! Most of the undead are in army green and all torn up from multiple gun wounds, and a few pockets of disorganized soldiers seem to be scattered here and there, fighting them off.
If you try to help the soldiers fight off the zombie droves,
turn to page 114.
If you use the ruckus as a convenient distraction to sneak in and find out what’s going on here,
turn to page 171.
91
Feral cats have been multiplying in the area like vermin, so there’s a ready supply. You also take a few short trips out to lure roaming zombies into your new, expanded testing facility. You learn quite a bit about the habits of the walking dead, but constant exposure is starting to take a toll on your sanity. Fortunately, a 16-year-old refugee named Phillip shows up at your doorstep one day, and you take him in. Having an actual human being to talk to is a refreshing change.
Phillip forms particularly close ties to Smitty and starts acting as your research assistant. There’s a whole long montage where the two of you bond over scientific experiments and lighthearted shenanigans, but we’ll spare you all of that since in the end, Phillip forgets to muzzle one of the new zombie recruits while cleaning out the pens and gets bitten on the ass.
You desperately try to save him, going so far as to perform a double cheekectomy, but it’s no use. Phillip turns. In your grief, you swear that you will never let this happen again—you’ll burn the facility to the ground! Or wait . . . if you only knew more about the zombification process, perhaps you could have saved him.
Maybe you can still save him.
And Smitty, and all the rest! That type of research is going to require new test subjects, though.