Zombocalypse Now (24 page)
Daryl pulls on the highway, only to discover that it’s every bit as overrun with zombies as the city streets. You drive right into them, but the engine is clearly about to give out, and within moments a tire blows, almost toppling the truck over on its side. Daryl somehow manages to pull out of it, and you break through the crowd. It looks like smooth sailing ahead!
But looks can be deceiving. As the truck slowly lurches forward, barely outpacing the mob following close behind, you realize that the overpass ahead has collapsed. How on earth do a bunch of zombies break a freeway? Regardless, the only way forward is now a sheer drop 50 feet to the city streets below.
Daryl looks over his shoulder at the approaching horde. “I’m not becoming one of those monsters,” he says, looking you in the eye. “Let’s keep going.”
You think about the broken overpass ahead, and the fate that’s quickly approaching from behind. “Are you sure?” you ask. Daryl just nods. He steps on the gas, and, hand in hand, the two of you go careening over the edge.
Your whole
Thelma and Louise
thing is a little ruined by the fact the your truck is only good for about seven miles an hour at this point, but it’s the thought that counts. You sputter over the edge and unceremoniously smash into the asphalt below.
THE END
217
Nothing could stop you from having another drink right now. And, just as a reader, you may want to take this opportunity to take a good, hard look at your life.
You disassemble the barricade and stumble out into the restaurant. It turns out the party is actually kind of hopping. People are milling about everywhere, although—and you have a pretty good sense of these things after you’ve had a few yourself—they look like they might all be drunk.
As you hop behind the bar, a crowd of thirsty patrons approaches. You’re the bartender now! Woohoo! You grab two random bottles and pour them simultaneously into the same glass, and then flip one behind your back in a half-assed Tom Cruise
Cocktail
move. It falls to the floor and shatters, but the crowd doesn’t seem to mind. They’re still pushing toward you. You realize that these are your people. They get you. You suspect that the sort of marginally hot one in the back is, in fact, totally
into
you.
There’s no way on earth this is going to end well.
THE END
218
“Ranger station!” the first guy yells, followed by a smattering of cheers from people who were never crazy about the idea of sleeping outside in the first place. “Gorilla warfare!” Daryl chimes in to a surprising amount of support. “Back to town!” somebody else yells. “We tried following the rabbit and it just got the toothpaste lady killed!”
“Yeah, that rabbit sucks!” somebody else yells. You know what? Fine. If they want to get themselves eaten, that’s alright with you. You head into the woods by yourself. Without their dead weight you shouldn’t have any trouble reaching the campsite by nightfall.
About halfway there, you start to have second thoughts. They may be morons, but you don’t feel good about leaving them out there to die. Maybe you can trail some of them in the woods, stay out of sight and keep an eye on them. They’re all split up, though—which group should you follow? Daryl’s guerrilla warriors will probably survive the longest if they’re careful, you think. And the group heading for the cabin might be okay, if they can find it. The ones heading back to the city, though, are definitely in for a world of hurt. You decide to see if you can catch up with them and do your best to keep them alive.
As you backtrack, you stumble across hundreds of undead making their way along the riverbank toward the valley. You dive into the underbrush, out of their way, and they keep shambling right by you. Why would they be heading that way when there isn’t even anyone to follow? Then you remember the toothpaste that Daryl threw into the river. Denture Lady went nuts for that stuff when she zombified. Could they be following its scent down the river? Could the toothpaste be the key to this entire zombie nightmare?
“Die, zombie!” you hear, and turn your head just in time to be smacked in the face with something heavy. You hit the ground, and open your eyes to see the housewife in the pink tracksuit smack you again. “Aaaaagh!” she yells. “Cigarettes! Daryl, come quick! I think this zombie has cigarettes!”
It’s taken her a remarkably short time to go native, you think. But not for long, since she keeps hitting you until you’re not thinking anything at all. You get killed by a rabid, zombie-hunting housewife in the throes of a violent nicotine fit.
THE END
220
Freaking the hell out it is. You scream at the top of your lungs and make a mad dash for the alley. You didn’t really consider the fact that a running, hollering zombie might stand out a bit from the crowd, though. A number of real zombies start lurching in your direction, since to them, screaming and running usually means something’s good to eat.
You make it to the alley, but your cover is blown. Now a small group of undead (not many, so apparently this is the intellectual cream of the zombie crop) are on your tail. There’s no time to stop and look for an eye-washing station. You keep up your pace, and after a couple of blocks manage to lose them. The good news is, the sting in your eye is wearing off. Maybe you did overreact, you think. You slow down and then almost bowl over a teenage couple coming around a corner.
“Zombie!” the boy screams.
Oh, that. “Calm down,” you say. “I’m not a zombie.”
“Talking zombie!” He pulls a shotgun out of his duffel bag. Uh-oh.
“Listen, I’m not a zombie!” you insist. “I just disguised myself so I could get past them!”
“You lie, talking zombie!” he shouts. He’s fumbling with his gun now. “Prudence, pass me the ammunition!”
You take the opportunity to snatch the weapon out of the boy’s hand before he can get it loaded. “Now I’m a talking zombie with a
shotgun
,” you say. “Wrap your mind around that.”
The kids scream and run for their lives. Unfortunately, they take their duffel bag, so you have a shotgun but no shells to go with it. Hmm. You can use it as a club for now, you suppose. Who knows, maybe you’ll run across shotgun ammunition at some point down the road. It’s a long shot, but . . . .
Before you can finish the thought, something hard hits you in the back of the head, knocking you to the ground. “Die, talking shotgun zombie!” someone yells. Others apparently join in, because before you can get up you’re being pummeled by multiple blunt instruments. You never do get a good look at your attackers, but whoever they are, they’re going to have to get much more efficient at killing stuff if they hope to survive the zombie apocalypse.
As it is, they take like eight or ten minutes to slowly bludgeon you to death.
THE END
222
“Sorry, Ernie, but I think Candice is right,” you say. “Let’s try the R&D department, and if we don’t find help there, we can always come back.”
You head down to floor six—eight flights that are much easier going down than they were coming up—but discover that the door from the stairwell has been locked. As you try the knob, a voice shouts at you from inside.
“Stay away! The speaker phone warned us that you would come and spread lies and despair! The speaker phone commands and we obey!”
You remember now that the CEO was ranting about his speaker phone, and it appears that the research folks on the sixth floor are taking this nonsense seriously. “The speaker phone is not your god!” you yell back through the door, hoping to argue some sense into them.
“It’s just Gary!” Candice yells helpfully. You try to convince the people inside that they don’t have to live in fear of office equipment, but at first all you hear is the same voice uttering non sequiturs about the speaker phone and how you’re an emissary of evil. But soon a woman’s voice challenges the first voice’s authority and there appears to be some dissent in the ranks. Then, after a lot of yelling and banging around, someone unlocks the door and you open it to reveal an all-out holy war.
You’re not sure which side you’re supposed to be helping, so you just stand by and watch as unassuming-looking people in lab coats viciously pound on each other. After a minute, a guy with horn-rimmed glasses and a clipboard leads a small group to the elevator, swipes a key card in it, and disappears inside.
“Man!” Ernie sighs, exasperated. “The elevator
works
?”
A woman approaches and tells you that the sixth floor inhabitants will no longer live under the speaker phone’s iron-fisted rule. You try to discuss toothpaste ingredients with her, but if these were once people of science, the horrors they’ve witnessed have driven them far past the point of reason. Suddenly the elevator dings and out pops the clipboard guy again, Only now he’s glassy-eyed, drooling, and packed in with about a dozen other ravenous zombies.
“I don’t think there’s anything here for us after all,” Candice mutters, and you and Ernie both agree. You hurry out into the stairwell and start back toward the fourteenth floor. Half a flight up, though, you run right into a wall of undead. Could they have stopped off at the seventh floor first and actually cut you
off
? Before you have the chance to react, you feel rotting teeth sinking into your flesh.
You have just a few moments to live with the fact that you’ve been outsmarted by zombies.
THE END
224
You’re pretty sure it’s not fluoride, but the idea of breaking into secret government installations or messing around with the paranormal is freaking you out a little. “I’m pretty sure it’s fluoride,” you say.
“That’s what I think, too!” Ernie exclaims. “I have schematics for the facility where they fluoridate the water supply on my computer. With the elements of surprise and overwhelming force, we should be able to break in there and see what they’re really up to.”
Yikes. “Actually, I had something else in mind,” you respond. “My aunt does marketing for Crogaste, so she might know something.” It would be nice to check in on Aunt Candice and make sure she’s okay, you think. Also, she always has excellent coffee.
“Marketing. Hmm. Doesn’t sound promising in terms of intel,” Ernie muses. “And if she does know something, that makes her part of the conspiracy. I don’t think we can trust her.”
“Let’s just try it,” you insist, grabbing your car keys. “If it’s a dead end, we can always fall back on your plan.” Modified, of course, so that the use of force is a little more underwhelming. You open the door and discover that scattered bunches of zombies are now shuffling around Ernie’s neighborhood. It seems they’ve made it to the suburbs.
And they’re all headed directly for your car.
“Run, Ernie!” you yell, as you break into a sprint to get there before the zombies do. Your friend buckles into the passenger seat and you get the engine started just as the first one reaches you. You drive right into it, and a quick jerk of the wheel sends it over your hood and onto the sidewalk with a crunch. You’re getting good at this offensive driving thing.
The undead thin out almost immediately as you leave Ernie’s block, which gives you a bad feeling. They couldn’t have followed you there, could they?
You take the long way to Candice’s house to avoid driving through the city. It’s completely dark by the time you get there, and it looks like your aunt isn’t home. The door is unlocked, though, and the place is a terrible mess. Furniture is overturned, kitchenware is broken, and papers and other debris are scattered everywhere. Taped to the coffeepot, you find a frantically written note.
“IF ANYBODY FINDS THIS, YOU MUST KNOW THE TRUTH. IT’S EVERYWHERE. IT’S GLOBAL. IT STARTED WITH US, AND NOW THE WHOLE WORLD WILL SUFFER. OH, CRAP.” There’s a bunch of swearing, and then the note continues. “I’M OUT OF COFFEE. I HAVE TO GO. WHAT HAVE I DONE? IT’S MY FAULT. IT’S ALL MY FAULT.”
“I knew it!” Ernie says. “Fluoride! We have to get to the water filtration plant!”
It sounds crazy, and you can’t believe you’re even entertaining the thought, but maybe it is fluoride. If you decide to head out to Ernie’s filtration plant,
turn to page 111.
Hold on a minute. Something more must be going on here, and you’re worried about your aunt. If you try to track her down,
turn to page 34.
226
“To hell with it,” you say. “You keep promising me that I’ll get to use that other shotgun.” Mittens fetches the gun from her trunk, loads it for you, and the two of you walk toward the church side by side. “Front door?” you ask. You can’t help but imagine how badass this would all look in slow motion.
“Why not?” Mittens replies. The door might very well be unlocked, but she kicks it open regardless. Inside, worshipers line the walls, some muttering to themselves, some praying frantically, and others simply passed out. Down the hall is an enormous set of double doors, and a man wearing robes and a pointy hat rushes toward you. This must be Cardinal D’Amato. And he must think a lot of himself, since his getup makes him look like the pope. “Stay back!” he screeches. “You have no business in there! You are not fit to behold our Lord!”