by Max Brallier
“Uh?” you mumble, groggy, confused.
“Go on, take a look,” he says. “She lookin’ real pretty now.”
You sit up.
Iris is across the room, her dead body set in a rocking chair. She looks alive—almost. Her legs are crossed and she’s in a short pink skirt and a white top. Her hair is now thick and wavy. She’s staring at you.
Christ.
“You stuffed her?”
Dewey just giggles.
“I’ll kill you.”
“You be nice, now—or else I might be tempted to make you look real silly when I do you up.”
You try to lift an arm, grab his throat, but your hand is tied too tight. You’re helpless.
Dewey taps your forehead twice, then crosses to a table. “Now, I’m about ready to get started. Hope you don’t mind too much I keep you awake for the beginning. It’s just, shit—well, I get awful lonely here. Having someone to talk to would be nice, while I work.”
You don’t say anything. You just watch as Dewey picks up a long fleshing knife and a curved skinning blade. He takes a swig from a bottle, then grins. “See, I’m gonna preserve you, fella. Then I think I’ll pose you on the porch, out front, next to where I sit at night. Think I’ll make you look like some sort of great zombie slayer. I figure that’s what you s’posed to be, from that car you driving. Some sort of wasteland warrior? I’ll have you posed all strong, with that hog leg in your hand.”
He leans over and begins cutting into your belly.
“Yep,” he says. “But don’t worry. I’ll keep your friend here right nearby, so you have some company. Just you two, posed all nice, ’til the end of time . . .”
AN END
GOOD SAMARITAN
You move quickly: jumping up, grabbing the thick branch, swinging the ax, and slicing their ropes. The couple falls to the ground, landing in a wet pile of their own waste.
You tend to the woman, Martha, first, gently pulling the rusty metal hook from her back.
Looking closer, you see the wounds have been tended to before. The hooks have been removed, then reinserted, many times over, and Martha’s wounds have been stitched up, then torn open, again and again. Her feet are gnarled—animals have chewed them down to misshapen stubs. Raccoons, you guess.
“How long have you been like this?”
Martha’s too dehydrated to cry, so her body simply shakes. You place a hand against her shoulder. She’s hot and feverish. “A year,” she manages. “More. Don’t know.”
Jesus.
“Why?” you ask.
“He keeps us. To attract them. He fixes us, heals us—just enough.”
“Who?”
“The monsters,” Martha says. She coughs, a mix of blood and phlegm and bile coming up, like some blackness seeping from a backed-up sewer drain.
“No,” you say. “Who keeps you?”
“Doctor. The doctor.”
“For what?”
“Experiments. On the monsters . . .”
Iris shouts then, from the car. “Jimmy! Behind you!”
Before you can turn, something hard and metal slams into the side of your face with force enough to kill most men. You tumble forward into the grass. Rolling over, you see a huge beast of a man, gripping a pitchfork. He tramps past you and begins jabbing the tool into Martha. As the man-beast stabs continually into what is now just fleshy pulp, the sound turns to a wet slapping. He moves on to the man then, attacking arbitrarily: chest, throat, face, arms.
They are both dead, and there is silence.
The man-beast turns to you. He’s silhouetted by the full moon.
He moans. A sound like a horse neighing, almost, combined with the thick, guttural cough of someone very sick.
Out of the corner of your eye, you see the glint of the sawed-off lying in the grass. You reach for it, but you’re too slow—the man-beast roars and brings the pitchfork down, piercing your wrist and pinning your arm to the dirt. It’s a shrill pain, like fire inside you, and you hold back a scream.
Iris cries out, and you hear the car door open, but you don’t hear anything else: the man-beast raises a booted foot and stomps your face.
Click here.
CELEBRATORY BOOZING
You grin at Major Eigle. At the man who offered you freedom but instead ran you through this bullshit derby—this test.
“I’m going to get drunk, Eigle. You can buy me a drink next time.”
Boss Tanner slaps you on the back, says, “Attaboy!” and leads you away. You turn back, grinning at the bastard. Eigle stares at you. Whispers something to Hank. You spit.
You and Tanner hit the town. Hard. Some guys hit the town, but you throw it an Iron Mike uppercut.
It’s a blur. You knock back booze with Tanner at an upscale joint, while his militiamen round up all the zombies that were used in the contest and clear the streets. Two hours later, Tanner gets an all clear, and you all make your way downtown, moving from spot to spot.
Bars.
Brothels.
Bars with zombies hanging in the windows.
Brothels with zombies for rent by the hour.
That’s about all there is in this new version of Manhattan.
Just before five a.m., you pass out in a sex house. Room is on Boss Tanner’s tab—anything for a Death Derby driver, they tell you.
They wake you just after dawn. Major Eigle, sitting across from you. The mechanic named Hank, with a big revolver trained.
Light is peeking through the windows. Your head is pounding.
You sit up, yawn, rub your temples. An empty whiskey bottle on the nightstand. “Where’d the girls go?” you say.
Eigle hands you a glass of water. “Jimmy, when I pulled you out of that cell, I told you I had a mission for you. You just had to prove yourself first. Yesterday, you did.”
“I don’t think I want your mission.”
“Then you go back in the cell. And you don’t ever come out.”
You toss back some water. “You think so?”
“I do.”
You look at Hank. “Sorry, fat man, but you won’t be shooting me.”
“I will,” Hank says. “I don’t particularly want to, but I will.”
Eigle looks you in the eyes. “Jimmy, come quietly, or don’t come at all.”
If you’ll go with them and undertake Eigle’s mission, click here.
No thanks. You’d prefer to spend your life in Manhattan, driving and drinking and whoring. Click here.
THE GIRL GOES
“Let the girl go,” you say. “I’ll stay.”
Iris looks at you, head cocked, not quite sure how to react.
“Iris, don’t say a word.” Then, turning to Ring, you repeat, “Let her go, and I’ll fight for you.”
Ring rolls his waxed mustache between his fingers. His eyes move from you to Iris and back to you—like he’s now rethinking the deal.
“It’s that goddamn Boss Tanner,” Ring says angrily. “He doesn’t want the circus in the city. You know how much I could pull in, over in New York? But he says it’s a damn distraction. Says it’s no good. You know what that means—it distracts from what he offers. His fuckin’ derby.”
Finally, Ring nods to the man standing over Iris, and the man steps away, lowering the gun.
Iris reaches for your hand. You pull it away. “Go.”
Reluctantly, she stands.
“Iris,” you say slowly, carefully, “get the keys from the garage. I want you to drive to the place you always wanted to go as a child, okay? And wait for me. I might be a while, but you wait anyway.”
Ring laughs. “You won’t be going nowhere. Most likely, you’ll be dead in an hour.”
Iris ignores him. She looks into your eyes, you nod, then she’s gone, out the door. You hope she knows what you mean—the World’s Largest Ball of Twine. A damn stupid thing, you think, but she wanted to see it, and now it’s a damn stupid rendezvous point . . .
Looking out the window, Ring says
, “Folks are getting antsy out there. Looks like it’s time we get this started.”
You stand. “No.”
“Excuse me?”
“Not until I see her drive out of town.”
Ring chuckles softly. “What, you think I got a man down there, waiting to snatch her? Bring her to Tanner? Get my money’s worth from both of you?”
“Possibly.”
Ring laughs. “Fine, let these country boys wait.”
You walk to the window and stare out. “Got anything to drink?” you ask.
Ring snaps his fingers. A moment later, you’re drinking deeply from a glass of warm scotch. You light a cigarette and you watch.
Waiting.
Finally, you see the El Camino pull out from the garage down the street. Iris’s at the wheel, alone. She guns it, nearly runs over a man carrying two loaves of bread. He slaps the hood and curses at her.
You watch her drive to the gate at the edge of town. It opens and she drives through. You don’t see her for long after that, the El Camino soon disappearing into the surrounding ruins.
You keep watching, though, just in case. And you drink. You feel the warmth in your chest. The warmth fades as the liquor dissipates and as Iris drives farther and farther away.
“Ring,” you say, turning to him. “One thing. When I get out of here, I will kill you.”
Ring laughs. “Best of luck with that. Afraid you won’t be going anywhere.”
He’s wrong. You’ll get out of this place. You’ll get Iris to San Francisco.
You think those two thoughts, over and over, a mantra, as you drink your scotch—until finally Ring pulls it from your hands, pushing you out of the room, down the stairs, telling you the fighting begins now.
Click here.
GETAWAY
Sorry, Tanner, but I won’t dance to your tune.
You rev the Harley, racing toward the flatbed. Standing, pulling back on the handlebars, the bike hopping up the back of the flatbed, gunning it harder, then launching yourself—over the truck cabin, through the air, over the barriers. The Harley thuds down on the other side of the wall—on the Queensboro Bridge—with a loud squeal.
A free man with sixty-five horsepower rumbling beneath.
The Harley charges into the monsters. You lower your body and grip the throttle—undead beasts are spun aside and knocked back. You rev it again, going faster—slow down and you’re dead.
You can see the end of the bridge.
You can see Queens.
Freedom.
But there’s something you don’t see.
Two women in dirty shirts, perched atop the bridge tower, with semiautomatic rifles pointed at your chest.
You don’t see the muzzles flash.
You don’t hear them fire.
You only feel the bullets smash into your chest, ripping you off the bike, slamming you to the pavement.
In an instant, the monsters are on you. Tearing at you. Teeth digging into your face. Hands ripping at your chest, splitting your flesh. Claws inside your stomach, tugging on your ribs, spilling your intestines across the Queensboro Bridge.
Two hundred undead New Yorkers, devouring you—sucking you down, piece by piece . . .
AN END
WELCOME TO TOMBSTONE
Things look different now. The grass is greener. The air almost sweet. The sun is bright and warm but not blinding. You drive down long, flat roads, then onto Interstate 10.
Outside Benson, Arizona, you pass a sign pointing to Tombstone.
Like you told Suzie-Jean and Walter, you always were a Western fan.
You follow the signs and soon come upon Tombstone: The Town Too Tough to Die.
You take a belt of whiskey and step out. You see that the historical section of town—the tourist shit, the old Western setting where Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp shot it out with the outlaw cowboys—is encircled by a fence, fifteen feet high.
There’s a big metal gate beneath a wooden Welcome to Tombstone sign. A man in Western dress stands out front, holding a rifle and spitting tobacco.
The man approaches you, looking the car over. Half-confused, half-intrigued. “What brings you to town?” the man says in a drawl.
“Not really sure,” you say honestly.
The answer seems to catch him off guard. “Man shows up at a town, he should probably know why.”
“Hot meal. Hot shower. Cold drink. Can you do that?”
He nods. “Sure. Got places to stay, too—permanently. Market’s booming.”
You look at him, squinting. “Market?”
“Folks coming from all over, looking to live within the fence. Folks looking for a card game. Folks wanting to start a business. We got places for rent, places for sale. Barter economy now, although Mayor McCray ’spects that’ll change soon enough.”
You take another swig and light a cigarette. “Okay.”
“But,” the man says, “no cars. You leave that behind. No automatic guns, neither, but you can keep your sidearm. Those are the rules in Tombstone, ’n’ we expect folks to obey them.”
If you’re not ready to permanently abandon your mission, click here.
That’s it. No more. You’re done with the El Camino, done with Iris, and done with trying to save the world. Click here.
HELP. PLEASE.
“Billy, I need your help.”
“You do?” he says. He sits forward, looking excited.
“Yes. I need to get out of here.”
He’s scared now, stiffening. “No.”
“Please, Billy.”
“But . . . I can’t.”
“Billy,” you say. “Get me out of here. I have to get out of here. It’s so important, I can’t explain.”
“Mr. Ring told me no.”
You curse and light a cigarette. “Go on, then. If you won’t help me, then get out.”
Billy walks to the far end of the car and begins climbing up to the small crack in the ceiling. “I’m telling,” he says, looking back at you. “I’m telling Mr. Ring that you asked me to help you.”
You pull the cigarette off your lips. “Don’t do that, Billy.”
“I have to. Mr. Ring’ll kill me if I don’t.”
You swallow. You eye the small boy. If he tells, you may very well be dead, and then Iris will be, too . . .
If you’ll do the unthinkable and silence the boy, click here.
To let Billy leave, click here.
AND . . . GO!
You floor the Jeep, quick-shifting, then flick the trigger and unload the fifty-cal. Bullets pound the Lincoln’s windshield. The bulletproof glass spiderwebs but holds.
Mr. King, in the Lincoln, whips around, racing downtown.
You shift into third and the Jeep leaps forward, cutting through the chaos. Other vehicles battling around you, explosions, buckling metal, gunfire snapping and thundering. It’s a war zone. Elwood’s Dodge Monaco is spun around, roof on fire.
You catch a flash, a glimpse of Mr. King’s eyes in his rearview. He’s focused on your car.
He’s making a move . . .
Instinctively, you veer to the right.
Motion on the rear of the Lincoln, and then you see a flash of steel in the sunlight. Tire spikes. Two dozen dropping out the back.
But your swerve worked, and you speed past the tumbling tire spikes unharmed.
The announcer loses his shit. “Jimmy El Camino seemed to know what was coming!”
You can’t help but grin. The announcer is dead-on. And that’s why you always won—in war and on the track. And that’s why you’ll keep on winning.
You cut back behind Mr. King’s Lincoln, unloading with the fifty-cal, slugs battering the bulletproof rear windshield and the reinforced trunk lid.
You stomp the accelerator, keeping the pressure on and keeping your finger on the trigger, firing, firing, firing, until—
KRAKA—BOOM!
Your eyes jump to the rearview and—
FUCK.
You weav
e right, up onto the curb, as a rocket spirals past. It’s the Desert Fox in the World War II Panzer, rumbling behind you. The massive main gun—the KwK—aimed at you.
You’re forced to let Mr. King escape. You hit the brakes, downshift, and jerk the wheel, off the avenue, onto Thirty-Fifth Street. Tires squeal.
There’s another KRAKA—BOOM! as the KwK fires. You catch a glimpse of the shell in your rearview, rocketing down the avenue you just left behind.
You avoided the warhead, but you’re not in the clear. Zombies ahead, clogging up Thirty-Fifth. A fucking parade’s worth—two hundred. Too late to slow down, so you floor it.
Turning up Seventh Avenue, you see two cars dueling ahead of you. Lucy Lowblow, in the lightning-fast Porsche, and Stu Bean, in the Ford van. The old Deadhead cuts it hard, trying to smack the Porsche off the road, but Lucy speeds ahead.
You can take out one of these guys, maybe, but not both. Which one will you hunt? Who will you murder in order to impress Eigle, get the mission, and get back your goddamn freedom?
Chase after Lucy Lowblow in the speeding Porsche? Click here.
If you’ll choose to hunt down Stu Bean in his old Ford van, click here.
WEST WING
You slow the El Camino and grab hold of Iris, pulling her over the shifter. At the same time, you open the driver’s-side door and jump out—the car still rolling. “Iris, you drive around back, all the way, then meet me out front.”
“You’re mad!” she barks, sliding behind the wheel.
You ignore her, grabbing the fire ax and racing away from the already accelerating El Camino. The sawed-off slaps against your thigh as you dash through a splintered door into the White House—and you hear Lucy Lowblow coming around fast.
You sprint through the building now, past undead tourists and decaying tour guides, all swiping at you, moaning loudly in the cramped halls. An undead Secret Service agent lunges, and you swing the ax, barely slowing, burying the blade in its brain.
