Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? (24 page)

Just before it reaches you, you sidestep and swing the crowbar with everything you got. Connect. Crack it square in the face. Contact reverberates down the bar and through your hands. You take the zombie clean off its feet and it lands on its back.

No hesitating.

You flip the crowbar and slam the sharp end through its face.

You don't have a chance to breathe. A cold arm tight around your neck. You swing your body down, flipping the thing up and over your back.

It hits the cement hard—but in a second it's up. Businessman. Torn suit. Entire calf muscle gone. Bone protruding from its lower leg.

“That's one minute!” one of the Angels shouts.

The businessman thing steps forward. You bring your foot down hard on the protruding bone. It snaps. The thing feels no pain—but the broken bone maims it and it falls awkwardly to the ground. You swing, nail it in the side of the head. It moans. Reaches out for you.

Three more strong swings. Chunks of skin and hair fly off. You rear back, aim, and follow through. Its head damn near comes off.

The Angels clap.

You pant. Pull a piece of the dead thing's skin off your face.

Out of the shadows come three more. A little girl, and what looks like her parents. Tourists. Probably spent a year saving up for their trip to the Big Apple—then they get there and end up as fucking zombies.

“Two minutes!”

They start out stumbling, then walking, then full out sprinting. Fuck. Three at a time?

You backpedal, mind racing.

RUN FOR IT!

Before you even realize it, you're out of the cab, running. Pandemonium surrounds you. A mass evacuation to anywhere but here.

You steal a look behind you. Mayhem. More of the things coming.

You collide with a group of children—kids on a school trip or something—and crash to the ground.

A police cruiser screams by you, hopping the curb. You get a quick glimpse of the cop behind the wheel, face panic-stricken, as he flies past, plowing through a pile of curbside garbage and newspaper racks.

An ambulance swerves to avoid hitting the cop car and smashes into a streetlight with so much force that the pole snaps in half at the middle. The top falls to the street, landing on a van and sending people scattering. Sparks fly as the electrical wires dance on the streets. A zombie, curious, stumbles over to one and reaches for it. It fries. Shakes violently and falls to the ground. Then, horrifically, it rises again.

The police cruiser hops back onto the street, tires squealing. The horn honks. Too late. A man flies up over the hood, rolls over the roof, and hits the ground with a sickening thud. The cruiser doesn't stop. It swerves again, avoiding one man but hitting another. The cop loses control. The car spins on to the entrance ramp to an underground twenty-four-hour parking garage and crashes into the wall. Then, as gravity takes over, it rolls down the ramp.

You rise. Chaos all around you. Your heart races.

UH-UH—I'M NO TEST PATIENT

You pry the officer's fingers from around your arm, jerk away, and run.

The first shot gets you in the shoulder. Goddamn it, Christ! Hot pain in your flesh—like fire. You stumble. Catch your feet. Keep running.

You don't hear the next three shots. Don't even feel them. And that's probably for the best…

THE BRONX IS UNDEAD

Yakuma puts the two bloody samurai swords on the soft leather wraparound.

Rick drives like a man possessed. You watch the city fly by. The river. Thick crowds of people.

“This is a nice limousine,” you say.

“Yup,” Yakuma says.

“This is a nice limousine!” you shout up to Rick. He doesn't respond.

You pour yourself a Cîroc and club soda. Down it. Pour yourself another. Lean back. Try to relax. Not working.

You watch Yakuma. She has her eyes closed. She looks peaceful.

“So uh—you and [
LEGAL EDIT
] ever, y'know.… back here?” you ask.

Her eyes open. “What do you think?”

Damn. You should have worked harder on fielding those grounders in Little League.

Rick cranes his neck. “Miss. We're coming up on the bridge. Doesn't look like the police are letting anyone through.”

“You know the cop?”

“What cop? There're two hundred up there.”

“Recognize anyone?”

He sighs, then cuts across two lanes. “Yeah, Lou, same as always.”

“What time is it?” she asks Rick.

“Eleven thirty-six.”

“So handle it.”

Rick cuts across another lane, cutting off traffic. The partition window closes, but the intercom stays on. The car comes to a stop. You listen with bated breath. Yakuma puts her bloody hand on yours.

“Hiya Lou.”

“Hey Rick. Sorry, no one through.”

“I got you-know-who in the back.”

“Rick, I could if I would, but I mean no one. Orders from the mayor.”

“Game starts in a half hour.”

“There's not gonna be a game today; you nuts?”

“It's the Sox. They're playing. He's got to get to the stadium.”

“Rick—”

“Lou, it's the Sox.”

“Ahh, Christ. You know I'm going to catch hell for this, right?”

“Not when [
LEGAL EDIT
] turns a game-ending double play to secure us a playoff spot.”

“You son of a bitch. Go.”

Yakuma smiles. The car begins to roll. You hear the cop telling people to move, it's an emergency.

“Holy shit, it worked,” you say.

“Of course. He's the king of the city.”

Twenty minutes later, you pull into the Yankee Stadium parking lot. Just as a massive horde of the dead are arriving…

LADY, STOP!

You barely stop to think. You claw at the mountain of chairs and cabinets you just piled against the window, bringing them crashing to the ground. You grab a chair by its legs and swing. The glass cracks.

“What the hell're you doing?” Walter shouts.

You don't know what's gotten into you, but you're impassioned and unstoppable. You give the glass two more hard whacks. Finally, it shatters. You push a cabinet aside and climb over and through. You're lucky—the heavy echo of gunfire is distracting most of the beasts. Those that do notice, you simply run past.

“Hey! Stop!” you shout.

You're running downhill—focused squarely on the woman. She's fast approaching the massacre. Up and to her left is the military—tanks, soldiers, guns galore. In front of her and to the right—more zombies.

You kick it into overdrive. Two-year-old pair of Vans smacking pavement. You close in. Leap. Tackle her from behind, just feet from the battle ahead, and together you hit the cement.

Bullets whiz past you. Over you. The woman kicks and screams.

“She's already dead. Your daughter's already dead.”

The woman goes limp in your arms. Breathes heavily, near hysterical. Need to get out of here. Then the woman does something you're not expecting—punches you in the nose. Your eyes water and your grip loosens.

The woman is up. Bullets fly past her.

You see the daughter. Beneath the gray skin, the bloodshot eyes, the swollen lips, you can see the resemblance. Same hair, so blond it's white. She was a cute little six-year-old. Now she's a zombie with a huge, bloody mess of a hole where her right eye should be.

The mother sweeps up her daughter. “Oh God, oh God—Ruby, what happened? Oh God.”

“Lady, get the fuck down!”

You reach up to get her. At that same moment, Ruby sinks her teeth into the side of her mother's face. The mother screams—confused, in shock at what's happening.

And then—an instant later—the next round of gunfire starts up. And bullets tear through the three of you.