Zombocalypse Now (14 page)
The protesters raise their signs and banners and start marching directly into the cadaverous embrace of the undead. You grab Josh by the arm and try to very quickly talk some sense into him. “Josh.
Dude
. This isn’t what you think it is. These zombies are going to kill you all. They’re going to chew on your flesh and either eat your brain or convert you into one of them!” He just looks at you like you’re the most racist, horrible person in the world. “No,” you say, “this isn’t one of those things where you substitute the word ‘Jew’ for the word ‘zombie’ and reveal your dark, subliminal prejudices. They’re a rainbow of different races, sexual orientations and nationalities, but they all died and came back to life with a mindless hunger for the flesh of the living.” You’re not getting through to him. You need to change tactics.
“Also,” you add, “they’re walking, decaying corpses. There are no cute girls there who want to hook up with you.”
“What?” he says, incredulous. “Dude, it’s not about that.” You’ve clearly hurt Josh’s feelings a little. He pauses for a moment. “Really? None?” Taking a closer look at the crowd in front of him, your message starts to sink in. “Oh, my God,” he says. “Those aren’t people, are they?”
Josh drops his banner and starts convincing his group that this march might not be their scene after all. The SA-Human Alliance (or SAHA), never super-committed to Undead American rights to begin with, is fairly easy to divert from the cause. Alas, the ACLU is not so easily swayed.
“It’s not just the rights of . . .
ghah
,” their leader says, choking a little at the stench of the oncoming crowd. “This is America, and . . .” You don’t have time to argue. The stuffed animals and their allies are fleeing to the marina, and you hurry to join them, risking a glance backward just in time to see the regional chapter of the state affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union devoured as one by the ravenous zombie tide.
A stuffed pelican in a sea captain’s outfit (really?) has a yacht moored there, so you pile on board and set sail. He knows these waters well and sails to a large private island that features several posh vacation homes. The sheer numbers crowded into the boat make it difficult to pilot, however, and you wind up crashing it on the shoreline. You’ve become castaways.
You make the best of it. The group is eager to work together for the common good, and the island has a fresh water well, and ample room for farming. Decades later, the community is thriving. And out of all the enclaves of humanity that survive the worldwide zombie outbreak, yours is the only one that endures. In a few centuries, every living person on the planet is a descendant of your island community.
Which is to say that they’re all stuffed animals (SAHA had a good number of human members as well, but the demographics of protest groups being what they are, they all turn out to be lesbians). It would be nice to think that an all stuffed animal world would be a more tolerant, more peaceful one, but after generations of re-populating the globe, mankind is still warring, amassing wealth, and doing battle with the darker aspects of its own nature. The planet is more or less the same as the one we know today.
It’s freaking
adorable
, though.
THE END
122
You dip a finger into a hole that has been conveniently gouged in the top of your head and have a taste—sure enough, delicious, mouthwatering brains! What luck! You shamble off to a quiet area away from the crowd and settle down in a nice shady spot under a tree.
There’s still quite a bit of bone up there, but with some effort you manage to break it to pieces and clear most of it away. As you gorge yourself on the delicacy, all the problems of the world seem to melt away. It’s as if with every bite you have less worry, less anger, less despair. You’ve never been so happy and content in your entire life (at least as far as you can remember, which, granted, is less and less). Before long you’re down to one last delectable scoop, and one final snippet of thought before the blissful embrace of blackness finds you once again.
Brrrrrraaaaaaaaiiiinnnn . . . nnnn . . . nn . . . n . . . s . . . .
THE END
123
The zombies out on the street were crazy about this stuff. You scan the shelves and find a blue, sparkly box labeled “Crogaste Total Complete Extreme Whitening.” That sounds right, you think. And it had better be, because now another bunch of them are approaching from the far end of the aisle.
You squirt a glob of paste at your new attackers, but it doesn’t faze them. Crogaste’s competitor also sells a sparkly-blue branded toothpaste, but the zombies don’t seem to care for that one, either. You start opening any tube you can get your hands on, and in a moment of desperation even try that all-natural stuff from Maine. But none of the zombies show the slightest interest in any of it.
Which is terrible news for you. Maybe you can climb over the shelving and escape to another aisle? Not a bad plan, but your immediate surroundings are now completely covered in fluoridated goo, and you slip and fall while attempting to gain purchase.
Then the zombies are all over you the moment you hit the floor. You never do find out what the deal was with the toothpaste.
THE END
124
“We have to bring it home with us!” you say to Ernie.
“That’s just what I was . . . wait, what?” he replies. “Are you sure? It still seems kind of evil to me.”
“It saved our lives, Ernie,” you insist. “At the very least, we owe it the benefit of the doubt.” When you get back to Ernie’s place, you’re pleased to see that the dog has shaken off its limp. You prepare a soft bed of pillows in Ernie’s basement and thaw out a ham from his freezer to offer the dog for supper. It may take some time, but you’re sure you can eventually earn the dog’s trust.
You and Ernie are both exhausted from the day’s activity, and he’s more than a little wary of the dog, so you compromise, locking the basement up tight for safety. Then you fall asleep thinking about how much easier it’s going to be fighting off zombies with your trusty new companion by your side.
Of course, for a dog that chewed through a steel cage and jumped right through a car windshield, a little basement lock isn’t likely to present much of a problem.
Princess, needless to say, devours you both in the middle of the night.
THE END
125
Whatever else she may be, this girl’s a zombie, and if the afternoon’s adventure has taught you anything, it’s that people like her eat people like you. And anyway, it doesn’t feel right to go around basing life and death decisions solely on cuteness. Running for your life has worked okay so far, so you stick to the game plan.
You manage to lure your undead neighbor away from the stairwell and climb up to your second-floor apartment, relieved to find the walkway empty. You’re surprised to find something small and fuzzy on your welcome mat, scratching at your apartment door. Good lord, is that a cat?
Sure enough, a tiny, fluffy white kitten, barely bigger than a good-sized cheeseburger, is camped out on your doorstep. “Aw, what are you doing here, little guy?” you coo. It sees you, does a funny little hop, then flops over, rolls over on its back and . . . moans?
Apparently, the answer to your question is “hungering for the flesh of the living.” Seriously, though, this is the most adorable zombie kitty ever. If you were going to seek out a cure for zombism, here’s your test subject right here. I mean, how dangerous could it be? It’s
frolicking
.
If you carefully bring the kitten inside your apartment, figuring maybe you can nurse it back to health and then apply what you’ve learned about curing cat zombies to the general population,
turn to page 44.
Wait a minute, didn’t you already decide something about basing life and death decisions solely on cuteness? If you want nothing to do with the scruffy little thing,
turn to page 172.
126
Look at you, being all noble and sacrificing your own safety for the chance to help others. Daryl drives his giant spiky ice cream truck of doom around for another couple of hours, picking up several would-be zombie victims along the way. At some point they ask him why there’s a dead stuffed bunny in the back of the truck, at which point Daryl realizes you didn’t make it, and tells them about your selfless deeds.
The passengers erect a monument to your heroism that night. It’s not a terribly impressive monument, since they don’t really have proper tools or monument-building materials on hand. Then zombies come and eat the monument. Such is life in the post-zombie apocalypse. There are like four people alive who wouldn’t be if it weren’t for you, though.
You should
totally
feel good about that.
THE END
127
“No one lives forever!” you yell, firing wildly into the zombie crowd. It’s actually quite difficult to down these things with a bullet, you’ve discovered. Anything but a direct head shot and they just shrug it off and keep coming at you, dragging themselves along on their bellies if you manage to take out a leg or two. Which you’ve done quite a bit so far, since you’re a terrible shot. Legless zombies are crawling all over the place.
“Not interested in the coward’s way out, huh?” Vinny says. “Fair enough. If you stick it out, I’ll stick it out.” The two of you keep blasting away in a blaze of glory, and it would be nice to report that things work out in the end, but you already know it’s not going down that way. Just as you see a potential path open up back to the police station, you realize that you’ve fired your last shot.
You turn to your foxhole buddy. “What do we do now, Vinny?”
It appears, though, that Vinny ran out of ammo some time before you did. He’s lying there silently with a pair of zombie torsos on top of him, chewing away. “Braaains,” he moans softly.
You’ll be joining him shortly.
THE END
128
“No rest for the wicked,” you say, and Daryl’s face lights up. It turns out “No Rest for the Wicked” is his favorite Ozzy Osbourne record, and now you’re stuck listening to it for the rest of the night. At least it keeps you awake, though.
You continue your mission, dropping off small groups of terrified civilians at the arena and then turning right around to look for more. You’re increasingly exhausted as the night wears on, but determined to save as many folks as possible from the zombie menace. As dawn breaks, you find yourself outside the city zoo, with a nightmarish scene playing out in front of you. Zombie people are interspersed with zombie creatures great and small. There are zombie monkeys, a zombie koala, and at least three zombie polar bears. You rescue a hysterical young woman who collapses as soon as she climbs aboard the van and decide that you’ve finally done everything you can do for tonight.
When you get back to the stadium, however, the girl awakens. “My baby!” she screams. “My baby is back at the zoo! You have to save her!”
You glance at Daryl, and he winces. There’s no way a helpless child could still be alive back there. For the love of god—
zombie polar bears
.
If you apologize to the poor woman and then go collapse in the soccer arena,
turn to page 98.
If you can’t bear to deliver this news and would rather go back out than have to tell her you’re giving up on her baby,
turn to page 158.
129
You come to terms with the fact that your fate was sealed when you took that zombie’s mailbag in the first place. Unwatchable 1997 Kevin Costner vanity project or no, you’re officially the postal department now.
Brad’s enthusiasm for the project is infectious, and most of his college compatriots decide to join the cause as well. You have to admit that the look on people’s faces when they receive news of their loved ones is kind of life-affirming and whatnot, and although at first you limit your activities to the greater metro area, before long Post-Apocalyptic Post Offices are springing up in nearby towns, and eventually all over the world.
Granted, there’s only so much basic communications can do in the midst of a complete societal breakdown—it’s mail, you know?—and delivering letters and packages through the undead wastelands is grueling, dangerous work. But you manage to create a basic foundation upon which humanity limps along for decades, maybe even centuries, to come. Plus, it keeps the pie coming. All told, not a bad way to eke out a living in the never ending hell of the zombie wastelands.