Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? (44 page)

“Are you kidding me?”

“You got two seconds.”

Sonofabitch.

You leap. Crash onto the roof, half your body inside through the sunroof, the other half out. Your wrist snaps against something hard. Intense pain. A feeling like fire rips through your thigh. You want to cry. No. Don't cry. Not in front of the pretty stripper.

Yakuma pulls you inside. You collapse onto the leather seats. Massage your wrist.

“Hit it, Rick,” Yakuma says to the driver, and the car takes off.

You introduce yourself to the driver, but he doesn't seem too interested. Too busy driving like a madman.

“Lady, you're gonna get me in so much trouble,” he says as he swerves up onto the curb, smashes into something, and cuts back onto the street. Copies of
The onion
and the
Village Voice
splash over the window. Rick hits the wipers.

“Rick, how long have I known you?”

“I don't know. While.”

“Have I gotten you in trouble yet?”

“No…”

“So stop worrying.”

He sighs deeply. “To the stadium?”

“Yep. Stop for nothing.”

HIGH-PRICED REAL ESTATE

You look out at the abandoned city. “I'm gonna stay,” you say.

“Huh?”

“There was a law office a few floors down. Had power. Had food. Like the military said, this is the last job—now they're coming to take the city back. I never did shit like you guys—I have no record that needs to be wiped clean. I want my reward for all this work. Apartment in the Empire State Building? How can I resist? Hey—maybe I can claim squatters' rights.”

You stick out your hand.

Jones looks you in the eyes. Then grips your hand. “Good luck, kid.”

“You too. And try not to kill any more cops, huh?”

Jones smiles, turns, and disappears out the door.

Down there, nearly one hundred stories below you, they look like roaches boarding the bus. It pulls back out onto Fifth Avenue, taillights glowing in the pitch-black night. You can't even hear the roar of the Harleys from this height.

But you do hear the blast from the Abrams tank.

The huge machine comes around the corner of Twenty-eight Street. The cannon fires and blows the bus apart. Soldiers running alongside it unload.

The bullets tear through the Angels. Rip them off their bikes.

Jones is lifted off his bike, hangs in the air for a second, then crashes to the ground, not moving. The soldiers walk through the street, executing any men that are still breathing.

You should have seen it coming. No way they'd let them get away with it.

When we do right, nobody remembers. when we do wrong, nobody forgets
.

The tank reverses and disappears down the alleyway. The soldiers follow.

You choke back a tear as you lean against the fence and stare at the smoldering remains of the Angels. And you wait—wait for the city that never sleeps to rebuild itself.

OUT!

You hop out. Another car in front of you explodes in a colossal ball of fire. The heat is extraordinary. Eyebrows—gone.

You turn to run but slam right into one of the things. A girl. College aged. Pretty.

It throws itself into you, sending you both flying back. Your back hits the bridge wall. The beast whips its head forward, its teeth aiming for your neck. You counter with a head butt, meeting it in the middle.

It pushes harder against you. Your upper half is hanging over the bridge. You feel nothing but air behind you. Its teeth are at your shirt. Through it. You're pushing back as hard as you can, hands on its shoulders, desperately trying to get it away. But it's got you.

KRAK-KOW!!!

A rocket slams into the car beside you—fiery, white-hot chunks of shrapnel slice through the air. The monster at your chest is thrown to the side. The explosion lifts you off your feet, and your whole world is turned upside down. Intense heat. Flames at your face. Then you're falling. Spiraling. Spiraling down into the East River.

…

…..

Your eyes flitter. It's nighttime.

It's silent. No gunfire. No explosion. No tremendous banging sounds that make your head want to implode.

Your body is broken. Arms, legs, everything. But you're alive. How? You should have drowned. Confused, you try to move.

Garbage. You're tangled up in some sort of netting. Plastic trash bags, torn open, lay about. You're the centerpiece of a massive floating pile of garbage. And is that a syringe on your chest?

Ahh, the East River…

You drift for hours. Any sort of movement is impossible. The pain is too strong.

Fuck me, just let me die here, I don't care
.

Then a bright light flashes over your eyelids. You struggle to open them. Can't turn your head. Feels like you're about to be abducted by a UFO.

A man's voice, shouting. “Hold up! Over there, in that hunk of shit!”

The light flashes over you again. A searchlight. The sound of a boat. Two splashes. Bodies in the water next to you. Hands on you. Ever so slightly, you tilt your head. Make out the words
COAST GUARD
on their chests.

A man's voice. “Hang on pal, we got you, you're going to be alright.”

PEANUTS AND CRACKED BATS

The undead drift into the parking lot, moving toward the stadium, drawn by the smell of fifty-two thousand fresh, live bodies and a pennant race.

The limo stops just in front of the main entrance. Yakuma's out of the car in a flash, Rick yelling after her to be careful. You wave good-bye to Rick as you hurry to catch up with her.

You race trough the parking lot, over a track of perfectly trimmed trees, planted at perfectly measured ten-foot intervals, and around the side of the stadium. The blue walls become a blur as you race pass.

Yakuma slides to a stop in front of a set of large twin doors. In big letters:
PLAYERS' ENTRANCE
.

She bangs twice. A heavy metal door slides open. Slim man, suit, funny cap.

“Yakuma! How are you?”

“Fine, Freddy, move it, gotta talk to you-know-who.”

“Oh c'mon, you know I can't—”

His eyes glaze over. He stares beyond you.

“Wha—”

“Exactly,” Yakuma says.

“On the walkie—they said something was happening—but don't interrupt the game, don't alarm the fans.”

“I think the fans are about to be alarmed, hon.”

Yakuma brushes past him and you follow. As you turn the corner, Freddy shouts “Wait—are those samurai swords?”

“It's been a crazy day.”

You follow her through the guts of the stadium. Down pipelined
halls that are still clean. “New” Yankee Stadium. What a joke. In other countries, they hang on to their landmarks, their important buildings, their places of worship. Here they tear them down, go across the street and build crappy replicas, and slap “New” on the front.

Shit, even before zombies invaded the island, New York City was already half dead…

You come out in a more normal-looking hallway. Two lefts, and you're standing inside the Yankees home locker room. It's empty.

“Shit,” Yakuma says. “Too late.”

A beautiful flat screen mounted on the wall shows the game under way, first inning, someone you don't recognize at bat.

“Hey,” you ask, “so, what's the plan? What the hell am I doing in the Yankees locker room?”

“I'm getting [
LEGAL EDIT
]—and he's getting us out of the city, now. C'mon, to the field,” she says.

To the field. Yankee Stadium field? You watch Yakuma go, hair long and thick, ass perfect, samurai swords gleaming—yeah, you'll follow.

On your way out the door, you pass a tall glass display case. A plaque reads
NEW YORK YANKEES. PRIDE. POWER. PINSTRIPES
. Inside the glass—the Louisville Slugger that Babe Ruth used to hit his first homerun at Yankee Stadium. Dark wood. Worn handle. A number of gunslinger-style notches are etched into the grain—one for each home run he hit with it.

Yeah, you gotta have that.

You grab a stool and smash it against the case. You reach inside and take the bat from its stand. You feel like King Arthur clutching Excalibur for the first time. Babe Ruth's bat, in your hands…

An alarm sounds. Out in the hall, a security guard stops you. Yakuma flashes the blade. He shuts up and steps back.

At the end of the hall, through the dugout door, you see the
bright green field. You follow Yakuma—right through the door and into the Yankees dugout. You haven't been to a baseball game all season, forgot that feel of taking in the field for the first time. The boys of summer.

The Yankees are in the field, Red Sox at bat. A few players sit around, bullshitting. The manager leans against the dugout fence, spitting sunflower seeds. The cheer of the fans is loud, overpowering. Hard to hear anything.