Zombocalypse Now (15 page)
THE END
130
The Toyota Celica hasn’t let you down yet. You kick a zombie interloper away from the driver’s seat, force your key into the ignition, and step on it. A clump of bodies in front of you grinds you to a halt, so you throw the car in reverse and peel out backwards.
You pull back about fifty feet and stop. The windshield is completely covered in gore, so after getting both doors properly shut you roll down your window and stick your head out. Ernie and Candice have (thank god!) survived your blind driving crapshoot and are still pummeling away with their makeshift zombie-bludgeoning tools.
“Run!” you yell, throwing the car into drive. You jut your head out the window for visibility, and your friends hurl themselves in opposite directions as you ram the mass of zombies at full speed, plowing right through and sending pieces of reanimated corpse flying. You pull back around, flattening a couple of stragglers, and Ernie and Candice hop in the car, wild-eyed and out of breath. “Okay! What now?” you ask.
“We’ll need a lot more data to get to the bottom of this,” Ernie says. “Maybe the Crogaste corporate office?”
“I barely got out of there alive!” Candice insists. “The shipping center isn’t far from here. I think we should check there first and see if they have any of this stuff sitting on a loading dock.”
If you agree with Ernie and go looking for answers at corporate headquarters,
turn to page 8.
If you think Candice’s suggestion sounds like a better plan and head for the UPS hub,
turn to page 236.
131
“Welcome to Chainsaw Island,” you say. Here comes the good part. “Where the chief export is PAIN!”
You know, you thought it was clever when you first came up with it, but hearing it actually come out of your mouth, it’s kind of goofy. First off, you totally stole it from one of those Chuck Norris jokes, and while the idea of Chuck Norris having a chief export is funny, what the hell is Chainsaw Island supposed to be? Is it a sovereign nation? Can the undead even feel pain? Now your badass zombie taunt is falling apart.
Although you’re probably being a little hard on yourself, needless to say your full attention is not on the task at hand. And it’s really a good idea to completely focus on the zombie slaughtering in a situation like this. You cut through a torso horizontally and then move on to the next in line, but by the time you realize that the top half of a zombie still poses a significant threat, it’s already pulled its stubby body toward you and bitten you on the ankle.
That’s it for you. Soon you’re an overly self-critical
zombie
badass with a chainsaw.
You drop the power tool and wander off looking for brains.
THE END
132
Nerd. You enter the shop and quickly lock the door behind you. The place is small and packed to the gills with comics, tabletop games, little statues of superheroes, and collectibles of every kind. Behind the counter, mounted above the cash register, you see . . .
No. Fricking. Way.
You see a replica of some kind of giant, bladed weapon that you think is from
Star Trek
. It’s crescent-shaped with the handle in the middle and various spikes radiating out. You take it from the wall and find that it’s nice and heavy. Ouch—it’s sharp, too! The thing is perfectly balanced and just lovingly crafted. And you can’t think of a more perfect implement for chopping off zombie heads. Screw the comic book store. Armed with this thing, you’re off for greener pastures. Outside, a zombie immediately spots you and starts lurching your way, but this time you’re ready. Your geekweapon separates its head from its body like it’s slicing through a honey-baked ham.
That was surprisingly fun.
You need to find a long-term base of operations. There’s a gated community on the north end of town, and if you can get to it, you might be able to organize the residents to keep the infestation at bay. Gated. Hmmm . . . what about the city zoo? It’s closer, there should be plenty of bars to sleep behind and, though this might just be the Klingon talking, an ample supply of meat if things take a turn for the worse.
If you head north toward the gated community,
turn to page 159.
If you decide the zoo is your best bet for long-term shelter,
turn to page 237.
133
Toothpaste is the key, you think, and besides, the people plowing out of the store barely seem able to help themselves. You knock a couple of them aside and enter the front door, casting about for the oral care aisle.
The scene that confronts you is madness. A zombie is savaging a shopper just to your left, and the shopper’s eyes are quickly glazing over as he joins the ranks of the living dead. Others are running around in hysterics, and a few appear to be looting. You keep your wits about you and head toward the pharmacy. Just when you find the right aisle, two zombies spot you and lurch in your direction. So you tear open a toothpaste box, twist off the cap and squirt goop liberally over both of your attackers.
They completely ignore it and keep moving toward you. “Braaains,” one of them moans. That didn’t work at all. Perhaps they’re less interested in dental hygiene than the ones you ran over with your car? Or did you simply select the wrong brand? The tube in your car was purple and had sparkles on it. Total Extreme with Extra Whitening, you think? Something like that? For all you know, it’s the whitening action that makes zombies go nuts.
If you keep searching the toothpaste aisle and try to find the winning flavor,
turn to page 123.
If you abandon the toothpaste plan and just try to get out of the store while you still can,
turn to page 57.
134
You leap across the desk and punch Clampy Pete right in his smug little stuffed crab face. The officer tackles you, and you struggle with him as much as possible, hoping to add some time for resisting arrest. You think about trying to grab his gun, too, but figure that the protocol for that most likely involves shooting you to death.
“You have the right to remain silent,” the chief sputters, blood now gushing from his nose. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
After hearing the entire Miranda Act, you get dragged out for booking, but nobody seems to be in a terrible hurry. The fingerprinting process alone takes about forty-five minutes. They leave you at a telephone for some time to make your one phone call, even though the station apparently hasn’t had working phone service for hours. It seems that most of the officers here are a little tired of living with Clampy Pete’s rules and are secretly delighted that somebody finally gave him a piece of their mind. It doesn’t last, though, and eventually you’re taken to your cell. “Sorry about this,” the officer says. “Really. But we’ve made an awful lot of arrests today.”
“People would rather be in here than out there, huh?”
“Naw, it’s not like that. It’s just . . . we’re cops, you know? We can’t shoot them. All we can do is throw them in jail.”
The cell opens up in front of you, and you realize that something is terribly wrong. It’s already quite crowded in there, and your cellmates all moan and reach out as they see you coming. “Braaaaaains,” one of them groans.
The cell door slams shut behind you.
THE END
135
You throw yourself over the side. Goodbye, cruel world! It’s over in seconds—the fall snaps your spine and crumples your limbs, and you black out instantly.
If you properly understood zombie physiology, though, you would have made sure that you landed on your head. With your brain still intact, you awaken to the very undead nightmare you were trying to avoid. Only in this version you’re unable to walk or stand, and can barely drag your shattered body to the side of the road. There are no cars on the freeway, which is kind of a shame, because if there were, one of them might run you over and put you out of your misery. As it is, it takes you the better part of an hour to cross three empty lanes.
You drag yourself along for weeks. You’re a threat to no one, so no one ever bothers with you. At some point you stumble upon a sleeping kitten, but the moment you take a nibble, it awakens, clawing the hell out of you and bolting, eventually becoming a horrifying (but adorable) zombie hell kitty, but not providing you with any sustenance.
There are a lot of ways to die in this book, but overall, the ones where you’re killed outright are more pleasant than the ones where you end up a zombie. And of those, you’ve managed to find what’s probably the most wretched, pitiful one.
Which is an accomplishment in itself, I guess.
THE END
136
You run as fast as your plush bunny feet can carry you toward the edge of town. Darkness falls as you hit the suburbs, and the streets seem abandoned, by both regular townsfolk and the living dead. One family seems to have fled in particular haste, leaving their garage door open. You’re getting desperate, so you try the door leading from the garage to the house—sure enough, it’s unlocked. The place is empty, and you decide to settle in for the night. If the residents do show up, their surprise should be easier to deal with than the zombies are.
After a sleepless night of unspoken dread and cellphone Tetris (still no service, so it’s useless for anything else), morning comes. You check outside, and all looks calm. Then you see them down the block: a pair of roving zombies trampling through the shrubbery. They’ve made it to the suburbs after all.
A few houses on the block still have cars in their driveways—if they’re as abandoned as this one you might find car keys inside. Then again, what if the cars are still there because their owners have been zombified, and are home waiting patiently for breakfast?
This neighborhood borders the woods where you went camping with your family as a kid. You could just head into the wilderness on foot and hope the zombies keep to the populated areas.
If you break into a house in search of car keys,
turn to page 156.
If you decide to head into the woods on foot,
turn to page 213.
137
You can barely contemplate the horror of government-controlled zombie super-soldiers. There’s no way that winds up okay. “I’ll never help you,” you insist defiantly. You consider spitting for dramatic effect but figure that might be a tad much.
“Whatever, dude,” the officer says as the guards come to take you away. Whatever, dude? You start to wonder if desperate times have called for some fairly drastic field promotions, or if perhaps he just got his rank by putting on someone else’s clothes like you did.
As the guards open the door to your holding room, you realize that this might be your only chance to get out of here. You’re not sure what sort of last-minute heroics you could attempt, however. They do have guns.
If you try to pull off some crazy acrobatic ninja escape moves,
turn to page 73.
If that doesn’t really sound like you and you get in your cell, hoping for the best,
turn to page 214.
138
You decide to leave the Freedom America Citizens’ Militia alone. They seem way twitchier than anyone packing that much firepower should probably be, and from what you can tell they don’t even
know
about the zombie outbreak yet. The problem, though, is that this leaves you alone on the undead-filled streets, and you still have nothing to defend yourself with.
Since you haven’t got any better ideas, you start back toward the hardware store, but soon spot a wall of zombies headed right at you. Is it possible that they’re getting organized? Suddenly you’re struck with a flash of brilliance. You pick up a rock and slowly make your way down the street, with the zombies in lurching, gradual pursuit. You pass the gun shop, and as soon as the undead are right in front of it, you chuck the rock at the shop’s front door.
The result is a hail of gunfire like you’ve never even imagined, tearing up the zombies something fierce. Granted, a large number of them are still dragging themselves after you—persistent!—but at least it slowed them down. Your luck can’t last forever, though, and since you don’t have a weapon, you figure you’d better get indoors as soon as possible. The shops on this street all seem empty, and a quick check reveals two that the proprietors seem to have abandoned without bothering to lock up: a comic shop and a liquor store.
So, if you were holed up somewhere waiting out the zombie apocalypse, would you rather have stuff to read or stuff to get hammered on?
If you hide out in the comic book store,
turn to page 132.
If it’s the liquor store for you,
turn to page 267.
139
You do like ice cream. So you have some breakfast and then get to work boarding up the rest of the windows so the zombies can’t see in. And so you can’t see out, you think. This whole business has a head-in-the-sand ostrich quality about it that doesn’t sit well with you, but you hope it’s all for the best.
Days go by, and life in Grocery Store Utopia starts to get a little weird. You hold free elections for store mayor, and since you refuse to be nominated yourself, the group elects the track-suited housewife who lent you cigarettes on the first day. She ran on a platform of zero rationing, insisting that there was enough food in the store for everybody to eat as much as they want, whenever they want. Normally, you would favor a more sensible approach, but you had already ventured a glance outside earlier that morning.