“You can’t go out alone, Sam!” Seena said. “Somebody gotta go with you.”
“It’s still pretty sparse out there, after we cleared all the streets. I should be fine. I need everybody here--”
“Fuck that, Sam. You not goin’ alone,” Johnny said. “I’m going with you, and that’s that.”
I saw determination in his eyes, so I just said okay. Truth is, I was glad for the company. I put Ornell in charge, since he’d demonstrated the most leadership ability, and we came up with guard duties for each guy to keep this place safe. The old guy we’d saved was pretty useless, but I told him to find some aspirin for Ma’Sheea and keep her company.
Johnny told the others, “Remember, one guy at the front door and one at the back door at all times. If you need a break, call someone to relieve you. Don’t open the back door unless you hear my knock.”
“Fast and low,” I reminded Johnny as we stood at the back door, ready to exit.
“Shit, man, don’t forget I been doin’ this all day while you were still wearin’ your zombie diapers.” He grinned and I felt silly being all Action Jackson on him when really I was the weakest guy on the team.
Our clips were full, and Johnny had collected some ammo from the other guys so we each had over 20 bullets in our pockets.
Juan wished us luck, pushed the side door open, then Johnny and I ran into the night, staying low. There was one zombie back here, but he was far enough away we ignored him and dashed across the lot toward Geddes Street.
I could see the church steeple from here, two long blocks away. And I could see an army of dark, ambling shapes blocking us from that steeple.
Chapter 42: Now
A split second after the bullet tears into my heart, my head hits the ground. A scream sounds from far away, across the parking lot. A few moments later, I realize that scream came from me, and then it’s sucked into the blackhole of pain which my body has become. I cry like a baby, looking up at the man standing over me, trying to ask him why he did that. But my mouth can’t make any sounds except a blubbering whimper that throbs out of me with each pulsating agony as my heart shovels my lifeblood onto the floor of Wal-Mart/Mavmart: two totally suck places for my journey to come to an end.
He aims his pistol between my eyes. “Stupid motherfucker,” he says. “Tryin’ to bring a knife to a gun fight.” He smirks, and I almost see the humor in my absurd end. And there’s nothing I can do about it at all. I’m not afraid--I see that my life is about to end, and there’s some sense of relief in the inevitability of it, that all this pain and fear and misery will end. At least I’m not going to turn into one of them!
“You’re right,” I whisper, cracking a smile. “Knife to a g-g-gun fight.” It feels so fitting and I can almost see the entire wheels of the cosmos laughing with me: live like an idiot, die like a clown.
Even the fact that I will never see Charisse again doesn’t matter. I think of her, but I’m light years away, about to go somewhere else. I tried, though, and that’s all that matters. She’s the last thing I think of, this silly girl I never really knew who gave me the memory of her lips.
My executioner kneels down so he can hear what I’m saying, or maybe so he can put the gun right against my forehead, which he does.
The gunshot sounds far away. The man who took my life falls away from sight as I tumble into death, which looks like a bright circle of gray light. Time stands still, and the whole world is just a hazy blob filling my vision, with a dark triangle jutting into it like a stab wound.
Marsha’s face suddenly fills my vision, but she’s huge--Godzilla Marsha--looking concerned. “You went and got yourself shot, huh, Sam? Shit. Did you know you bleed like an anemic chink?”
I don’t know what that means. I try to wheeze goodbye to her, but the last thing I remember is her hands on me, and inhuman pain throwing me off the precipice into blackness.
Chapter 43: Then
The church stood three football fields away.
Do you remember the very first moment I saw the zombies, when that gas station blew up and I was standing around in the middle of them all, then had to run through them to get home? This was like that moment. Almost exactly.
It was an adrenaline rush, but I wasn’t afraid. My senses were so alive that nothing could’ve gotten near me. Johnny led the charge, a quarterback gracefully dodging linemen as he danced through their ranks. Most of them didn’t hear or see us coming. They’re stupid and slow. Zombies are child’s play, really. As long as you don’t get surrounded.
Or grabbed by one of the ones lying on the ground…
I didn’t see it; just felt a vine wrap around my ankle and then my headlong momentum sent me sprawling into a faceplant.
I spit blood and felt the vine turn to fingers just before its other hand grabbed my other foot. My gun was no longer in my hand. I wriggled frantically and tried to pull away, but it had me pinned.
“Johnny!” I screamed.
Almost as soon as the word was out of my mouth, I heard a gunshot and the hands went limp.
“Sam, come on!” He pulled me to my feet. Another gunshot sounded, and then one of them grabbed him from behind. I felt a hand on my back and I turned and shoved the one that was on me.
No sign of my gun in the dark…another had grabbed Johnny so now two held him from behind as he wrenched to get free. More were coming. Thinking quickly, I grabbed a beer bottle off the ground and cracked it on an old lady’s face as hard as I could. Her head snapped back, but her hands still gripped Johnny. He kicked out and then swore loudly. “Fuck, I’m bit!” he said, stumbling forward onto his knees.
I yanked the gun from his hand and aimed it point-blank and shot both of the ones on him, as well as two more that were upon us.
“Come on!” I shouted, grabbing him roughly and pulling him to his feet. “We’re almost there.”
The commotion had attracted their attention. Now they all saw us coming. And we ran through them, and to me it looked like some nightmarish montage, like Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, racing down the chocolate river losing his shit. Just frames of horrific teeth and wounds flashing in and out of my panicked vision as I dodged the oncoming zombies.
We leaped up the steps of the church two at a time, seizing the doors, only to find them locked.
The mob of zombies closed in to block the foot of the steps. “Let us in!” I screamed, pounding on the door as the creatures began climbing the steps.
Chapter 44: Now
Turns out, the bullet lodged in my breast bone and didn’t reach my heart. I’m not dead, after all. Obviously, because I wouldn’t be alive to write this book. Unless, of course, someone finds my manuscript while salvaging and publishes my firsthand account then I become the posthumously famous Van Gogh of the apocalypse.
That could happen, right? I mean, if they’re able to beat the zombies and rebuild civilization. Eventually, they’ll make a historic film about the apocalypse, based on my book, but it will star David Krumholtz as me and Krysten Ritter as Charisse. That guy who played Ellis in Die Hard will be Mav, with his thick cheesy neck rug. And Doyle, no idea who could play him. Nobody looks like him, but he has this inbred quality that only someone lopsided could capture. Lyle Lovett if he gained 50 pounds and joined ZZ Top.
You’re probably wanting to know where I woke up from my gunshot death. It’s a familiar bed, back in that suburban house where I first met Marsha. As I come to, it’s only vaguely familiar. My head pounds with every heartbeat, and it feels like my breastbone has been pried open with a crowbar.
I distinctly remember an ‘aww shit’ moment as I realize I’m alive and have to keep slogging through this misery. It’s kind of how I felt before things ended. We just keep putting one foot forward as life throws one turd after another into our path. How do we keep going?
The dream seems further away now than it ever had. Was I a cripple? I feel immobilized, although as I begin exploring my body, it’s clear I can wiggle fingers and toes. Fuck trying
to raise my arms, just the slightest attempt is a circular saw screeching to life in the middle of my chest. I try to call out, but it hurts, and my throat’s parched, and not a sound comes out.
No idea how much time passes before Marsha drags her ass in to check on me, but it’s eternal. I feel like Johnny Got His Gun--that guy trapped in a vegetative hell tapping ‘please kill me’ in Morse code because it’s the only way he can talk.
“Wakey wakey!” Marsha exclaims excitedly.
I try to speak but can’t, so I smile back, which sends pain lancing across my skull.
“You’re really fucked up,” says Captain Obvious in her chipper little voice. “But you should heal fine.”
“Water,” I try to say, but it’s a croak.
“Come again, hon?”
“Water!” I rasp.
“Oh, the patient is thirsty!” She bustles from the room, returning with a cup of water and Vance trailing behind her. I grin hugely at him, then slurp some water into my mouth. Oh God, it tastes better than Charisse’s kiss! I must’ve been near dead from dehydration.
“More,” I say. Marsha dutifully holds the cup up and I suck the water down, and my cells come alive like sunbursts inside me. “Holy crap I’m thirsty.”
“You’ve been in a coma for three days,” Vance says. “We weren’t sure you were gonna make it back to us.”
“I guess you guys forgot to hydrate me during that time,” I rasp.
Vance laughs; Marsha’s indignant. “Well, aren’t we Mister Ungrateful over here,” she says.
“No, I’m pretty grateful I think.” My voice is barely a croak, and it hurts. “Vance, did you find your boy?”
He shakes his head. “Not yet. Not giving up, though.”
I nod.
Marsha put her arms around Vance lovingly and pulls his face to hers. “Don’t worry, sweetie; if he’s alive, we’ll find him.”
Then Vance turns and they kiss each other adoringly. What. The. Fuck?
Chapter 45: Then
I took careful aim and head-shotted each zombie as they ambled up the church steps, instantly replaced by a fresh member of the horde, like the front row at some grizzly Bon Jovi concert.
Johnny pounded frantically on the door. “Hasbro, open the fuck up, man! It’s Johnny and Sam!”
After six rounds my gun went click, but fortunately, so did the lock on the church doors. Johnny yanked me up the stairs and into the church and the heavy wooden doors slammed shut behind me.
My legs shook from the terror and exertion, and I slumped onto a bench in the vestibule. This church wasn’t very big, and the sanctuary was almost standing room only. Outside came muffled groaning and the occasional thud against the doors. At least I knew these doors would hold--no zombie fists would come punching through paper thin doors like a Thriller video. That stuff just doesn’t happen in real life.
“Holy fuck. You got bit because of me,” I said to Johnny. “Jesus Christ I fucked up.”
“He bit?” someone yelled, and alarmed voices began clamoring to throw him out or kill him.
“Shut up, people!” Hasbro roared, silencing the lot. “Sam,” he said, nodding to me before turning to Johnny. “Johnny, what happened to your team?”
I thought it was my team, but I guess that was just a test or something.
“We a’ight,” Johnny said. “Aybody holed up at the gas station.”
“Where’s Seena?” His voice shook and his fear was written across his face.
“She okay. Barricaded in at the Hess.”
Hasbro sighed with relief. “Okay, Johnny, lemme see yo’ bite, brother.”
“It’s on my shoulder,” Johnny said, turning around.
“Ma’Sheea got bit,” I told Hasbro. “That’s why we came here. It’s on her ankle, and if we cut her leg off, I think we can save her.”
“Shit nigga, you fine,” Hasbro said to Johnny. “Take yo jacket off.”
“What?”
“You mighta got bit, but it didn’t get through ya coat.”
Johnny took off his coat and shirt, and sure enough, the skin wasn’t broken.
“Thank fuckin’ God!” I said as relief replaced the horrible guilt gnawing on me.
“Amen!” someone shouted.
I explained Ma’Sheea’s situation to Hasbro, and I could see the pained expression on his face. He yelled to the people crowded into the sanctuary, “Okay, where Olivia Castle at? She in here? Olivia? I need a nurse or a doctor right now!”
Olivia Castle shouted from the back and headed through the crowd. She was a heavy middle-aged woman.
“You a PA, right?”
“Nurse Practitioner,” she said.
“Close enough.”
While he explained the situation to her, all I could think is that she was overweight, and getting her through the swelling undead crowd outside was going to be a suicide mission.
Hasbro ordered people to grab the church’s first-aid kit and some other supplies. I tried to call him over, but the noise was too much so I crossed the space and tugged on his shirt.
“What’s up, Sam?” he said. His eyes were all business now, none of the friendliness he’d shown before. I wondered if he blamed me for this clusterfuck somehow.
“Uhh, listen, the streets are really swarming out there. I don’t think this Castle woman is gonna be able to get through.”
“You mean cuz she fat?” A glimmer of humor played in his eyes, while a slight smirk barely curled the corners of his mouth.
“Well, uh, yeah pretty much.”
“Okay,” he said, then shouted, “Hey, listen up, my man Sam here thinks Olivia’s fat ass won’t make it through the swarm out there. Is aybody else here a nurse or doctor or other medical kinda person who in good enough shape to run and fight? We trying to save a young girl named Ma’Sheea right now, and she stuck down at the Hess gas.”
I was mortified, but nobody seemed offended. His comment had garnered a few chuckles and smiles, but no hostility. I guess when shit gets this bad, being honest and realistic is appreciated more. Or maybe black people are just more comfortable being honest than white people.
There were some murmurs and crosstalk, so Hasbro cut it short and said, “Okay, if you got a medical degree of any kind and want to help, step up to the front.”
Time was passing and all I could think about was the virus creeping through Ma’Sheea’s blood while we wasted time here. I’d tied the tourniquet tightly enough that hopefully she’d be okay. But it was possible that we’d get back to her, chop her leg off, and she’d still turn into one of those things.
Amidst the jostling, at least a dozen people made it to the front to raise hands and volunteer for the mission. It was heart-warming, but I had a feeling most weren’t really qualified for a complicated surgical procedure. Who would you trust to cut your leg off--a Home Health Aide? A Phlebotomist?
Chapter 46: Now
The world has finally flipped upside down: Marsha the racist is kissing Vance the black guy. Score 1 for the zombie apocalypse curing racism!
The first problem is that my radio’s gone. I can’t reach Doyle without it, and he’s expecting to meet me. Vance and Marsha won’t let me go back and find it while I’m injured, and when I tried to defy them and stand up, my entire body felt like it was being smushed inside a car crusher. Bone pain is the worst thing known to man, and I feel certain my chest plate must’ve been cracked in half. I probe around it, but it seemed solid and unbroken, despite the agonizing pain.
The next week passes with a lot of PDA and sex noises in the house. I remind them to keep it down, but even when she’s quiet, Marsha’s moans are high-pitched kitten mews that can summon the dead. Which didn’t actually happen, but it could’ve if we were in a more populated area.
Marsha and Vance aren’t excited by the news that Doyle followed Mav’s Gang to Infinity Mall, and they handcuff my ankle to the bedframe to stop me from leaving.
“Who the fuck do you think you are, keeping me all
chained up?” I ask Marsha after five days of imprisonment in which she refused to go to Mavmart and get my walkie talkie.
“Okay Rambo Sambo,” Marsha says. “Sorry I didn’t think to grab your bag while you were bleeding out. You gonna strap on a bazooka and limp into Macy’s to take down fifty guys, just so you can win the heart of some chick you met once?”
“Well, putting it that way, it sounds retarded,” I reply. “But yeah, that’s pretty much what I’m gonna do. Just like you, Miss-I-Hate-Niggers, suddenly found yourself in love with Vance here. This is the time for miracles.”
Vance grins at the whole exchange, not seeming to care that I dropped an N-Bomb in front of him. “I get you, Sam. Love is a funny thing, and it’s definitely worth dying for. What the hell else you gone do, just sit around eating canned peaches and shooting guns?”
He has a funny way of putting it, but he gets what I’m saying.
“But you also gotta check yourself,” he says. “I mean, come up with a smarter way to do it than just go all Jackie Chan on them.”
“I’m leaving tomorrow, with or without you two.”
Marsha looks at me seriously. “Sam, I’m not risking my life for this fool’s errand, and neither is Vance. It’s sweet, but, it’s beyond stupid.”
I look at Vance and try to cock my eyebrow like Doyle. “Vance? You coming or not?”
Vance shakes his head. “Nah. I get why you need to do it, but Marsh and I, we okay now and don’t need to do some foolhardy shit with our lives. If I were 20 years younger and single, I might be gung ho. But I’m still hopin’ to find my son.”
“Maybe he’s there,” I say.
Vance shrugs. “Maybe. If you see a gangly black kid, don’t shoot him, okay? Ask if his name is Jamie first.”
“He won’t see anyone because I’m not letting him leave until he’s in better shape,” Marsha says. “Sam’s kinda like the son I never had, except he’s not tough or streetwise or anything. But he’s got courage, and I love the guy.”
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