Zombocalypse Now (20 page)
If you join the crowd of your peers heading toward some big building that just might contain a tasty lunch,
turn to page 231.
If you continue the way you were headed toward . . . what was it? An old lady or something? Man, you’re hungry.
Turn to page 85.
178
Trying to wade through the mess outside would be suicide. Staying put, on the other hand, is . . . marginally slower suicide? Perhaps the zombies will eventually get bored and go away.
Banking on the fact that the undead aren’t super bright, you direct everyone to stay hidden. Hours pass, and then a full day. The glass seems to be holding the zombie horde at bay, but their faces are still smooshed up against it, and they aren’t going anywhere. The sporting goods store isn’t well stocked with foodstuffs, either—you’re almost out of beef jerky, packaged camping supplies, and cash register impulse-buy candy bars.
The following morning, things look even worse. Or at least as bad. In any event, this isn’t working. You could never fight them all at once, but what if you prop open the doors, let one or two in at a time, and just keep slaughtering them individually until you run out of zombies?
It’s worth a shot. You and Daryl arm yourselves with football pads and baseball bats, send the rest of the group to hide in the far corner, and open up the flood gates. The plan works like a charm. No matter how many zombies wander in and get their heads bashed in, the next one in line follows right along. Soon the doorway is clogged with re-dead corpses, giving you a chance to rest. You recruit volunteers from the peanut gallery to haul them away (they start a pile over by the workout equipment, which kind of stinks up the joint, but it’s the best you can do for now). In time you develop a rhythm: Bash zombies for fifteen minutes, take a ten-minute breather, haul away corpses, repeat. It’s actually pretty good cardio.
After the fourth or fifth batch, you start to believe that you might just get through this. The crowd outside seems slightly thinner, anyway. The doorway is filling up again, so you call out to your hauling crew for corpse-dragging detail, but get no response.
“Come on, guys,” you say. “Break time’s over.” As you turn around, a soft moaning comes from the back of the store. Oh, no. Sure enough, one of the guys who was hauling corpses is shuffling toward you with a blank expression on his face. How do you get infected by something that doesn’t move? Did you not kill one of them enough? Did he bite the friggin’ zombie?
You rush to the back of the store, but it’s too late. The rest of the group has been turned as well. It’s possible that they were napping, but somehow they were zombified without making enough noise for you to hear it over the sound of your headcracking. You hurry back to Daryl to warn him, but now the undead are coming from both sides.
Somehow you always knew these folks would be the death of you.
THE END
180
When you stand up, all the adrenaline immediately drains from your system. What were you thinking? Those things are friggin’ zombies! They’ll eat you to death! You snatch your bottle from the bar and make a run for the kitchen. You’re in no shape to drive, and you’re not sure if taxi service operates during a zombie apocalypse, but you’ll figure something out.
You scoot through to the rear exit, only to discover that the back alley is swarming with undead. You’re trapped! Also, this doesn’t bode well for getting a cab. You close and lock the door, then hastily barricade the swinging doors from the kitchen to the restaurant proper.
Now it’s just you and your old friend Bombay Sapphire. There are plenty of abandoned dishes in various states of completion, which is good, because you’re ready for a snack by the time the bottle is about half empty. Eventually you drain it, which makes you sad. You vaguely remember, however, that there’s a whole wall full of bottles on the other side of a huge pile of kitchen appliances someone has inconveniently stacked in front of the door. Except that all the awful internet dates you’ve ever had are waiting out there, moaning, or something? You’re having a hard time standing up.
The important thing is that you have another drink! If you muster up the balance to move the barricade and commandeer a refill,
turn to page 217.
If you suspect you might be way too drunk already and decide to try passing out on the floor and sleeping it off,
turn to page 99.
181
Over Billy’s objections, you drive north toward Prudence’s home. It’s a long trip, and you spend the journey slowly helping Billy come to accept his romantic situation. You couch it in a lot of language about family and responsibility, and by the time you’ve arrived, he’s more or less convinced that the pair of them are star-crossed lovers torn apart by the zombie outbreak and destined to find each other again at some (very, very distant) point in the future.
“I will always love you,” Billy starts as Prudence gets out of the car. “Even in my darkest hour—”
“Okay, thanks!” she says, cutting him off abruptly. “Bye, now!” Fair enough. You drive away.
It’s a heck of a drive to spend in awkward silence, peppered only by Billy’s intermittent sobbing. You pass some zombies by the roadside, though, and he uses them for target practice, which cheers him up. By the time you reach his parents’ property, he’s downright chatty. It turns out Billy has some strange ideas about women, the government, and just life in general.
“Hey,” he says. “Now we have an extra spot open in the bunker! If you want, I can ask my dad if he’ll let you in.”
It’s not a horrible idea. Underground bunkers are the textbook definition of “safe.” On the other hand, Billy’s weird conspiracy talk reminds you of your friend Ernie, and knowing him, he probably has a contingency plan for the end of the world, too. Maybe you should try to find him.
If you tell Billy to try and get you into the bunker,
turn to page 23.
If you pass on life underground and track down Ernie instead, turn
to page 161.
182
You persuade Ernie to put off his plan until the next morning—it’s been a hard day, and you could both use some sleep. With any luck, he’ll wake up refreshed and with a better grip on reality. You settle on the couch, but can’t sleep, so after a few hours of worrying about the world in general and specifically about your friend’s unexplained access to explosives, you get up and putter around the house a bit. You wander into the garage and find it surprisingly cold. Did someone leave a window open?
Ouch—something just bit you on the leg! You jump about three feet, then turn around to discover that a raccoon has sneaked in to the garage through some hole in the architecture. You freak out and smack it with a pair of garden shears, but it keeps attacking you until you finally manage to sever its head. Sure enough, the damn thing’s a zombie.
“Hey, is everything okay down there?” Ernie calls out from inside the house.
“Everything’s fine!” you yell back. “Go back to bed!” Now you’re panicking, but you slowly calm yourself down. After all, it was only a little zombie. And as long as the wound doesn’t kill you, you can’t become one of the undead, right? Telling Ernie will only worry him. Or worse, with the way he’s been acting he could freak out, put you on his “fluoride” list, and try to blow you up or something.
If you think the only rational thing to do is to come clean and tell Ernie the truth about the raccoon,
turn to page 232.
If you decide to keep quiet and hide the wound from your friend, at least for now,
turn to page 43.
183
You carefully lure what appears to be a zombie bike messenger into the alley and use the tire iron to brain him. Now for the utterly disgusting part. You rub his rotting flesh all over yourself, trying to approximate both the visual and olfactory presence of the living dead. You get a little queasy partway through and vomit up some bile (the good news is, you haven’t eaten since breakfast, so yay), and this only adds to the illusion. In a few minutes, you’re ready to go.
You stumble into the street, trying to act all zombie casual. So far, so good—your plan is working! You rub shoulders with a few of them, but overall the zombies accept you as one of their own. About twenty feet in front of the police station you absentmindedly scratch your eye with one hand.
The sudden sting blinds you. Crappity crap!
You have zombie in your eye!
YOU HAVE ZOMBIE IN YOUR FREAKING EYE.
Never
touch your eye with the same hand you’ve used to rub zombie guts all over yourself! Now you’re just wigging out. Can you get infected from rubbing zombie guts in your eye?
If you try to get hold of yourself, screw your eye shut, and continue as calmly as possible to the police station,
turn to page 50.
If you think the more prudent thing to do is freak the hell out and bolt for the alley, trying to find somewhere to wash your eye before it goes all undead on you,
turn to page 220.
184
“To the hardware store! Chainsaws for everyone,” you roar. There is much rejoicing. You hit the gas station first, and fill up a bucket of petroleum to take with you. It turns out the store stocks a wide variety of chainsaws, and although there aren’t enough gas-powered ones to go around, the smaller, corded models will do for practice. Once everyone has a saw, you line them all up.
“Okay, basic chainsaw training,” you start. “No, you’re going to want to stand a little farther apart than that. Good. Okay, now everybody hold your saw out in front of you. Careful with that end, sweetie. Okay, on my count, start your motors. One . . . two . . . three!”
Throughout the whole group of twenty, about four chainsaws actually start up. This is going to take some work. “Here, let me see that,” you say to the woman closest to you. “Hold it like this and OH MY GOD MY LEG!”
Sure enough, now she’s got it going. Another team member, who did manage to start his saw on the first attempt, leans in to offer help and YEAH, THERE GOES YOUR ARM, TOO. There’s general panic, and in the resulting melee you incur at least five more potentially fatal wounds. If you had it to do over, you’d definitely schedule basic chainsaw training after basic first aid, you think.
The group calms down, looks at each other silently for a moment, then as one drop their chainsaws and run for the door.
You bleed out pretty quickly.
THE END
185
“That’s a zombie,” you say. Madison’s jaw drops, and for once she doesn’t have a snide remark. Instead she just stands there, staring. “Run!” you add helpfully.
She does, and you and Ernie follow—your friend is struggling with a pronounced limp, so you throw his arm over your shoulder and do your best to help him down the hill. Fortunately the zombies aren’t in such great shape themselves. They pursue, but even hobbling along wounded, you manage to outpace them.
Right up until Ernie steps wrong on a loose stone and falls to the ground, bringing you down on top of him and sending you both rolling several feet down the path. You’re bruised up a little, but Ernie yelps in pain. You look down and discover that the foot attached to his hurt leg is now bent in entirely the wrong direction.
“Go on without me,” he howls. “Save yourself!”
You protest—there’s no way you’re leaving him here to die! Your friend, however, is adamant. “If you stay, we’re both goners. You have to save the girl! Make sure she gets home alive!”
Madison is already halfway down the hill, glancing back to see that you’ve fallen, but not pausing for a moment.
It breaks your heart to even consider it, but Ernie’s right. If you leave him there in order to protect Madison,
turn to page 266.
Never! The girl is apparently a better runner than either of you, anyway. If you stay, attempting to fend off the zombies and save Ernie,
turn to page 243.
186
A zombie just bit you. If there was ever a situation in which chopping off your thumb in a blind panic was a good idea, this would be it. You snatch a bottle of something clear from the bar (ooh, Finlandia) and hightail it for the kitchen.
You find a really impressive cleaver and slosh vodka over your thumb, then immediately regret the decision, since it stings like a mother. Taking a long swig from the bottle—you’re woozy now from the booze and the blood you’ve already lost—you hold the cleaver as steady as you can in your left hand. Unfortunately you’re right-handed, and you make an absolute mess of things in the five or six strokes it takes to sever the rest of your thumb.