Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? (27 page)

Rounding Seventy-third Street onto Broadway you see the mess waiting for you: a thick line of pissed-off New Yorkers stretches up and out of the station.

Fuck.

You catch your breath, wipe the sweat out of your eyes, and get in line. You run your hand through your hair, tap your feet, sigh, anxious. A minute later and thirty people have filed in
behind you. You feel slightly better—never good to be the last guy in line.

The metal grates below your feet rumble as a train pulls into the stop—then, after a longer than usual wait, the grates rumble again as it pulls away. The crowd flexes and the line moves some. Fifteen minutes later you've reached the stairs. Another ten and you're halfway down. The stairs stink like garbage, but you're happy to be out of the sun. A lone man, small and bookish, struggles to escape from the station, pushing his way up the stairs, fighting the tide.

You finally reach the bottom. The station is filled to the brim—it's like nothing you've ever seen before. You're no good at ballparking numbers of large groups of people, never have been (at a carnival, as a kid, you once guessed that an average bag of peanut M&Ms contained three hundred M&Ms. When told that was too high, you readjusted your number to seven.) But you guess there are about two hundred people in the area at the bottom of the stairs. Two hundred people, shoulder to shoulder, waiting to swipe their cards, go through the turnstiles, and get out onto the just-as-crowded platform and then board a sardine can of a train.

At the turnstile in front of you a pretty young black woman in a bright yellow, flowered dress is arguing with a business type in front of her, yelling “you stole my swipe!” He ignores her, so she squeezes into the turnstile with him. He turns, roars, and shoves her back into the crowd. No one does a damn thing but mumble.

The sound of an approaching train echoes through the station. People push harder. Little progress is made. Finally, a collective “Fuck this” echoes through the anxious crowd and damn near everyone—a mother and a son, a businesswoman, an elderly Asian man—begins jumping the turnstile, desperate to get on the train. You follow suit, then allow yourself a slight smile and mentally check off “hop turnstile” on the list of things you've wanted to do as a New Yorker.

People continue to pour down the stairs from the street,
continue to force their way in, desperate to escape the city. How many people can this place hold? You can't move forward or back. The crowd keeps coming, pushing, fighting. You wiggle your toes, trying to stay relaxed. But you can feel the claustrophobia building inside you.

You wedge yourself between two strangers, stand on the tips of your toes, and try to grab a peek of the arriving train.

Goddamn it.

It's the 1 train—headed to South Ferry. You need the 2 or the 3 train if you want to get to Brooklyn.

The train slows to a stop. The doors slide open and the crowd pitches forward. You're almost knocked off your feet. Your face smacks into the shoulder of a big guy in a blue hoodie beside you. He jerks, pushes you back. You crash into a woman who screams at the woman next to her like it was her fault. Anger builds. Small shoving matches break out.

You can't breathe. Panic building in your chest. Heat pouring over your body in waves. For the moment, you forget about getting to Brooklyn. Just need to get out. On anything, going anywhere. You don't care if it's a train or a great glass elevator that takes you to the moon—just need to get the hell out of this goddamn madhouse. Then you can collect yourself, calm down, do some thinking, and figure out what the hell to do.

But you're twenty feet from the train car, at least. And you know it'll be a nightmare on there, no better than here on the platform. And the 2 or 3 train to Brooklyn could be just a minute away…

ALRIGHT, ZOMBIES, I'M COMING

Classic rock and a hard place—the rock the United States military machine, and the approaching army of the dead just about the hardest place on earth.

Bullets rip apart a woman one lane over. She jerks as the lead tears through her, then she falls back onto the hood. Uh-uh. I'm not going out like that, you think. You turn and run back for the city. About half the mass does the same. Others continue to press forward, not believing that their own military would fire on them.

Bullets scream past you. Bodies drop.

The zombies are a hundred yards ahead, moving nearly as fast as the thick crowd that runs with you. You're quite literally on a collision course with death.

You cut between two cars and scramble up the hood of an idling taxi. The cabbie, still inside, confused, scared like everyone else, shouts at you. In a second, you're up and over the cab and leaping to the next car. You continue like this—jumping from car to car—making more progress than the rest of them.

But the farther you get from the bullets, the closer you get to those monsters. Everyone knows it. Before anyone has time to think, prepare, or do anything—the army of the dead runs headlong into the running crowd. It's terror. Chaos. Bodies ripped apart. Men throw useless fists.

You continue over the cars. Dead hands swipe at you.

Then, as you leap from the roof of an SUV to an old sedan, it all goes bad. The driver of the SUV hits the gas. Your jump is thrown off—you slip and fall hard onto the concrete. You land
right in the middle of a pack of zombies. You rush to your feet, try desperately to get onto the hood of the sedan.

Something pulls at your shirt. You swipe at it, feel the cold, dead arm of one of the beasts. It's an awful-looking thing—a homeless man, at one point, before he joined the ranks of the dead. Another one grabs at you. A young kid. And then another. You tug, pull, fight with everything you've got. But there's nowhere to go. You're surrounded.

Teeth dig into your skin. Pain in your shoulder. Your back. Everywhere. The kid claws at your thigh, tearing the flesh open.

You're dead. You're done for. You know it. You pray for shock to set in. Beg for God to end it.

But it never happens. Instead you feel heat all over you—a burning inside, pumping through your blood.

You swat at the beasts. They back off.

You can feel your mind going. Thoughts and emotions disappearing. You try to grab them, hang on. Things go in chunks—your name, your identity.

You have no idea how much just time has past. You're left with just the hunger. Simple, dumb bloodlust.

Something moves out of the corner of your eye. Smells good. Fresh. Your body goes that way.

GETTING A HAND ON THINGS

Your fear of the beasts is paralyzing. As the crowd continues to push and the zombies continue to feast, you slip your hands deeper into the wooden slats of the bench.

The train roars, just seconds away.

The zombies tear through the crowd. You don't see the cop anymore. Bodies lie bruised, battered, and bloodied across the station. Limbs strewn about like yesterday's garbage.

You see that a few lucky people are able to roll underneath an overhanging section of the platform to avoid the train. Others run for the opposite side of the tracks—some successful, some not. The nots fry on the third rail.

The boy in the Mets cap stands frozen in the middle of the tracks. You give him one last look and close your eyes.

VSHOOOM!!!

The train never even slows down. Roars past, fades down the tunnel.

You don't want to, but you look. The track below you is sickening. In its wake the train has left a grisly mass grave. The tracks are slick and crimson.

The beasts have managed to negotiate the turnstiles. They'll be upon you in seconds.

You need to leave.
now
. Onto the tracks it is, before the next train comes. You pull your hand from the bench and—

No…

You tug.

God no. No, no, no.

Your hand is stuck.

C'mon!

The lower knuckle on your middle finger refuses to come free—the bench like a ring that won't come off.

The ghouls approach. Five, six, maybe more. They're rising up all around you.

You push your leg against the bench and pull with everything you got.

Nothing.

The beasts come closer. You pull harder—fuck it, right now you'll lose the finger if you have to. Just want loose.

The beasts surround you. Grab at you. You squeeze your eyes shut.

You're not a religious man, but…

“Hail Mary, full of grace—”

WHAT'S ONE DRINK?

Wall Street slides the two crisp hundred-dollar bills across the bar and tells the bartender to bring everyone a shot of tequila. Judging by the look on her face, the bartender finds this guy to be just about as charming as you do—but she takes the money. She pulls a bottle of Two Fingers tequila from beneath the bar.