Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? (8 page)

She orders the onlookers to get back. There's little room and they complain loudly—but manage to squeeze to the side and clear a small space on the bench. She lays him down and opens
his coat. You see the severity of his wound now. His shirt is torn, like it's been clawed by a wolf, and there's a huge gash on his chest. Despite the size of the wound, there's no blood leaking. Dried, black blood around the gash and on his jacket—but nothing wet. The doc looks puzzled. Not a good sign.

She shoves her finger into his open mouth and clears out his throat. Gross. Then she pinches his nose and puts her lips onto his. Really gross. She performs mouth-to-mouth, then presses down repeatedly on his chest.

For a good two or three minutes, he doesn't move. She continues to perform CPR. Then you notice his left foot. It's twitching slightly. More. Jerking. After some chest compressions, she blows more air into his mouth.

“Hey, doc—“

Suddenly she lets out a blood-curdling scream and pulls back, blood pouring from her mouth and his. The man's hands shoot up like a pair of catapults and latch on to the back of her skull and pull her close. Blood pours down her face and onto her chest. The thing is devouring her face. Screams echo through the car. The passengers try to run—but there's nowhere to go. Finally, the doctor flies back, half of her face gone. Blood splashes your shirt and sprays the wall.

Panicked, you push your way to the rear of the car and slide open the door. You step onto the shaky walkway that hangs between your car and the next. Screams chase you.

Your hands grip the metal chains that link the cars and you walk across. You pound the door of the opposite car.

Through the window a man, eyes wide, shakes his head and holds the door shut. You tug. Nothing. A crowd gathers at the window—staring at you and, with horror, staring at the carnage behind you.

“Please!” you shout.

More passengers follow you, pushing you from behind, desperate to escape. They push.

“Open the fucking door!” a young woman shouts.

More people. Slamming you into the door. Your chest feels like it's going to collapse. The train takes a hard turn and you feel your feet begin to slip. The momentum of the turn tosses you to the side—only the chain railing keeps you from being thrown to the tracks below. People continue to push from behind. A man wedges beside you and tugs at the door. Nothing. There's not enough room for both of you. Your waist presses against the chain.

Either that door opens, or you're all going to die.

“Please!” you shout, locking eyes with the man on the other side of the glass. But it's too late.

The chain breaks. You reach out, trying to grab at anything. You're falling back. Everything moves in slow motion. Then you hit the tracks and the heavy metal wheels grind you into a dozen bloody pieces.

GOOD SAMARITAN

They examine the lock.

As Walter squeezes the trigger, you lunge for the gun. You get his arm and knock it into the air. The pistol fires harmlessly into the ceiling.

Voices outside. Feet slap cement as the looters scatter.

Walter stands up, fury in his eyes. “You son of a bitch.”

“You were going to kill them!”

A cool, scary calm comes over him. He raises the gun.

“Oh no, please, please don't—“

BLAM!!!

You look down. A small hole in the center of your chest. Blood begins to soak through your shirt, forming a perfect maroon circle.

You fall to the floor.

Walter's gravelly voice. “Shoulda minded your own damn businesssssss…”

HOWDY NEIGHBOR

Well, might as well go around and meet the neighbors. You walk the halls, going from door to door. No answer. No answer. No answer. Down to the next floor.

You hear television coming from one apartment. Good television. Explosions.

It smells like pot outside the door. You knock again. Nothing. Harder.

You're about to give up when the door opens. Now it really stinks like pot. Smoke wafts out into the hall. It's a young guy, your age, in a bathrobe. Half a beard. Big pair of headphones around his neck. He sticks his head out and looks both ways.

“Yo.”

“What's up,” you say.

“I don't know, you knocked.”

“Yeah, uh, I don't know, I wanted to see who was still alive around here. I've had a hell of a day.”

“Huh?”

“Y'know, with all this shit.”

“What shit?”

“You didn't see the news?”

“News? Nah bro. I've been sitting here for the past”—he glances over at a cheap Mets alarm clock—“shit like nine hours just getting ripped and playing
Call of Duty
.”

“You didn't hear the gunshots?”

“What gunshots?”

“All the gunshots and shooting and screaming and all that shit.”

“Nah. I got a four-hundred-and-ninety-dollar pair of Sennheiser headphones. You play video games? You play videogames, you'd love it. It's like you're in the middle of friggin' Afghanistan, no joke. I spent like three grand on this
sick
surround sound system—then the old lady upstairs bitches every time I crank it.”

“Oh yeah—that's the old lady next to me.” The
dead old lady
, you think.

“Yeah, total bitch, right? So anyway I shut down the surround sound and went with the headphones.”

You nod slowly, then “OK, so, uh, dude—fucking zombies are all over the place!”

He looks at you like you've lost your mind. Hell, maybe you have. “Bro, what the
fuck
are you talking about? You eat some bad acid or something? Mushrooms—is it mushrooms? You wanna come in, lay down, take a few pills? Chill you out?”

You shrug, nod, and walk inside. Holy shit. …

His apartment is out of this world. Fifty-inch flat screen mounted on the wall. Blu-ray rack with at least a hundred titles. PS3. 360. Wii. Old-school Nintendo. Old-school Super Nintendo. 64. Sega.
Sega CD!
Everything. Two bedrooms. Full kitchen.

“How do you afford this?”

“You a cop?”

“What? No.”

“You sure? 'Cause if I ask if you're a cop and you say no I'm not a cop then you can't arrest me for anything I do after that.”

“I'm not sure that's true, but no, I'm not a cop.”

“Then follow me,” he says, grinning.

As you enter one of the bedrooms you see how he makes his money. Rows and rows of marijuana plants everywhere. Bright white grow lamps.

“Holy shit—this has been going on in my building this whole time?”

“Yeah, son. You blaze?”

“Well shit… now I do.”

“So what were you saying about zombies? Wait—yo, is that blood on your shirt? And your hands?”

“Yeah, I just killed a Nazi.”

“You what—”

“Dude, this apartment is amazing! How do you turn on the TV?”

He picks up a beautiful Logitech universal remote and switches to cable. Horror in hi-def. He watches, stunned.

He shuts the TV off. Slowly, not speaking, he sits down and stuffs a good twenty dollars' worth of pot into a massive glass bong. He lights it and draws deep—exhales thick, almost green, smoke. Then, still silent, he hands it to you.

You take it. Three-piece design, all glass on glass. No rubber to muck anything up. In green letters running down the side is the word RooR—as nice a piece you've ever seen. Nearly three feet tall, probably seven pounds in your hands. Made in Germany—you remember that piece of trivia from your college days. Thick glass, ash catcher, diffused downstem to cool the smoke.

You rip the bong—feel the smoke fill your lungs—then explode in a coughing fit. You hand it back.

His name's Matty, he says, but call him the Ardle, everyone calls him the Ardle. The Ardle runs his finger over his enormous Blu-ray collection and pulls
Starship Troopers
. He pops it on. The bass rumbles.

Minutes into the movie, you're so stoned, so lost in the action, you momentarily forget about the chaos outside. “Man,” you say, “this movie's not just so bad it's good, it's so bad it's amazing.”

The Ardle turns his head. Through a cloud of smoke: “What, no way man—it's legitimately good.”

“Dude are you watching this—it's ridiculous!”

“Nah, bro. You're missing it. It's all social commentary about mankind and war and mindless violence and shit.”

“I dunno man—I think it's just an excuse for coed showers and big guns shooting bugs and getting Doogie Howser back onscreen.”

“Nah dude—social commentary.”

“That makes it good?”

“Yeah, I mean—yeah—social commentary automatically makes stuff good. I think. There!” he shouts, pointing at the screen. “See those tattoos they're getting—just like the Nazis, man. Just like the Nazis.”

“Hunh.” You take another bong hit.

You squint at the screen and nod slowly as you exhale. “I killed a Nazi today.”

“Right, that's what's up.” With a burst of energy he sits on the edge of the couch and faces you. “You killed a Nazi, and now here we are. Just like this. It all makes sense now. You get me, right?”

And you do. You get him.

You continue watching the film with a newfound, marijuana-induced respect for it. When it ends, you leave—but not before asking to borrow some pot. Borrow, as in smoke and never give back. The Ardle does you one better and gives you a sandwich bag of weed plus your own plant. You carry it to your apartment like a baby. You put it out on the window and name it Audrey III, then spend the next two days in a haze, smoking constantly, watching Audrey grow and trying not to think about reality.

And then the power goes. You go to the window. It shuts in large chunks, block after block going dark.

Immediately, you think about the effect this'll have. You'll have to change the way you're eating—anything that'll go bad you'll have to eat now. Snack food, cereal, that kind of stuff you'll save.