by Max Brallier
She lets out a relieved breath as she finishes. You stomp your cigarette butt out in the grass.
“This is how we’re supposed to act now,” she says. “If we make it to San Francisco and they’re able to use my body to make a cure? Then this thing . . . it’s telling us how to build a better future.”
“Iris, it’s just bullshit.”
She glares. “Why would you say that?”
“It’s just something some nutcase with too much money came up with. ‘Maintain humanity under five hundred million in perpetual balance with nature.’ Do you know what that means, Iris? The population before the plague was seven billion. So this thing is saying it would be plain fucking wonderful if near everyone on Earth just up and died.”
Iris swipes a cigarette from your pocket. She lights it. “So these statues here—they’re saying that the plague was supposed to happen?”
“Iris, it’s nothing. Don’t pay attention to it.”
“It’s important,” she says coldly.
“It’s the ravings of a cult.”
“That’s what you think. I think it’s a sign. I think it’s saying I’m not supposed to get to San Francisco.”
You shake your head.
“But it could be.”
“No.”
“Like this is the rapture. Like the Bible says, Thessalonians: ‘Then we who are alive, we who remain, will meet the Lord.’ It has to happen, and this is it. Who am I to get in the way?”
“No.”
Iris sits down and for a long while, she doesn’t move, resting in silence. You find a stump and take a seat and pull from your flask. You notice a few zombies, far off in the distance, across 77. They pay you no attention, but you grip the shotgun a little tighter.
The sun is starting to set, throwing deep orange across the field, when Iris comes and sits down beside you. “I feel safe here,” Iris says. “This place feels like a temple. You think it’s a big joke. I get that. That’s fine. But I don’t.”
“Okay.”
She looks up at you then. “We’re going to stay here tonight. I want—”
“No.”
“Don’t fucking cut me off when I’m speaking. This feels like something sacred. And if I’m going to die in San Francisco, I want to be clean first. The things I’ve done to stay alive in New York . . . I’m dirty, inside.”
“Iris, the last time you tried to go to church, it didn’t end well.”
“No shit! So I need this to end well. I need peace, before . . .”
“We can’t—”
“Motherfuck!” she screams suddenly. “Listen to me! I’m giving my life! I’m giving my fucking life to end this plague!” Her eyes are wide and wet. She quickly gets ahold of herself and continues, “Jimmy. It’s important that we sleep here tonight.”
If you’ll agree to stay for the night, click here.
If you choose not to risk spending the night in the field and instead want to get on with the mission, click here.
LIFE’S JUST GRAND
You drive the endless, deserted roads, feeling madness crawling along the folds of your brain, infecting you. You drink whiskey until you can barely see—hoping your old friend will fight off this enemy.
But you get the opposite.
Pulling over. Stumbling, pissing, puking, heaving, clawing at the desert ground.
Driving again. Nearing Monument Valley, Route 163 grows thick with cast-aside vehicles, and you cut off the road—racing across the vivid, stark-red valley.
The poison is now throttling your insides, squeezing your stomach, like two hot hands, fingers strangling your intestines.
“Iris, I don’t feel too good,” you say.
Iris does not respond.
“How you feeling?” you ask.
You hit a rough patch of desert sage and the car jumps and Iris’s body jerks and her head rolls to the side, like she’s looking at you—two big, dead eyes staring at you—like she’s saying, Jimmy, how the hell do you think I’m feeling?
“Yeah, well, that’s about how I feel, too, I guess.”
Coming toward the Grand Canyon, you turn to the freeze-dried body in the passenger seat. “Iris,” you say, excited, sounding like some great, wholesome dad in a movie, taking his kids on vacation. “Iris, look! The Grand Canyon! You ever see it?”
No response.
“I saw it when I was just a pup—my dad was stationed at Fort Huachuca. Don’t remember much, except it was grand.”
You swoop across the sprawling plains and pull the car to a stop not far from the canyon edge. You’re not alone, though; an RV is parked nearby.
“The hell is that?” you say, stepping out. There’s a U-shaped cantilever bridge jutting out over the canyon. Very gentlemanly-like, you step around to Iris’s side of the car, open the door, and carry her.
There’s a single zombie leaning against the railing. From behind, you see he wears a green vest and a fishing hat. His body is thick, not long dead.
You come up behind him, slowly, ready to kill him—when suddenly, he turns.
“Hey there, stranger,” he says.
Your heart nearly stops. “Shit, you’re alive.”
“For now,” he says.
He looks at you, battered and bleeding, your eyes dilated from the poison so you surely look mad. He looks at you holding the dead girl’s torso. And he just sort of shrugs.
You see now that there’s a boy with him. Maybe five years old. Undead—red hair thinning, yellow eyes, blood on its lips. Rope tight around the legs, arms, and wrists.
“Name’s Jim McCaugh,” the man says, sticking his hand out. You take his hand and shake it. You see his wrist then, and see that the flesh there has been torn open.
“You’re bit,” you say.
He nods. “Yeah. I am.”
“How long?”
“Few hours. Figure I got another half hour or so. I got careless. Didn’t lock the bathroom door properly. He came out,” he says, indicating the boy, “while I was driving. Didn’t even hear him. Can’t get careless out here.”
“No, you can’t.”
“Always wanted him to see this,” he continues. “I saw it when I was a boy—”
“Me, too,” you interrupt.
He smiles solemnly. “I couldn’t remember it, really. This wasn’t here, though. This is new, for sure,” he says, stamping his feet on the thick glass beneath you. “Read about it in the paper, when it opened some years back. Thought, Lord, that’s something.”
You light a cigarette.
“Well, Danny, you seen it now, haven’t ya,” the man says, rubbing his undead child’s hair. Hair drifts through the air, like he’s scratching a golden retriever.
Looking at the canyons, cut by time, you wonder—how much time will it take to come back from all this? Is there enough time?
“Well,” the man says, “I think that’s about it. Mister, there’s some food in the RV, and you’re welcome to it.”
You nod. “Appreciate that.”
The man picks up his boy and holds it around the stomach, so they both face you. The boy’s face is bloody and angry. The man doesn’t look sad or broken, just ready. He smiles at you, nods good-bye, and then squeezes his boy tighter as he tumbles back, over the railing.
You watch him fall, end over end.
It happens so slowly, it seems.
On the ground, in Iraq, you saw a Ranger plunge from a chopper—got tangled up in his jump line. And you remember thinking then, too, that it seemed to take him so long to fall.
“Hey, Iris, you see that? You don’t see that every day.”
You pick up Iris then and carry her back to the El Camino.
Sitting in the car, facing the skywalk, you think about the smile on the dying man’s face before he toppled over the side.
Your hand reaches for the shifter.
“We can do him one better, Iris,” you say. “We could drive right through that damn thing. What do you think?”
Her ey
es, milky and cold, look at you. They seem to be pleading with you. But pleading for what?
If you think Iris’s eyes are pleading with you to end this and drive straight off the ledge, click here.
No, you believe Iris’s eyes are pleading with you to press on and finish. Click here.
MEAT SHIELD
The Panzer unloads again, the MG 13 cracking, smoke filling the air. Need off these streets, fast. You spot a Gristedes supermarket—looks abandoned—and you race inside.
A single zombie shuffles outside the entrance. A onetime Gristedes employee—a teenager in torn jeans, a blue shirt, and a guts-splattered apron.
You whistle, getting the zombie’s attention. It stumbles over, moaning. There’s another loud crack, and an MG 13 bullet blows apart the monster’s arm just below the elbow. It pays no attention to the wound; it’s not even an inconvenience.
You wait inside the store for it and then—
THWACK!
You bury the fire ax in the thing’s head. It falls to its knees.
You peek back around the corner.
Two more zombies coming—more former employees. One is charcoal black, burned head to toe.
Again, you whistle. They hear the sound of a living human: food. They shuffle.
The Desert Fox is sick of waiting. You hear the treads churn: the Panzer rolling toward you, only a block north now.
The two zombies make their way through the shattered sliding door, inside.
THWACK!
WHACK!
Two chops, two undead things fall to the ground.
Outside, the heavy crunch of the Panzer’s turning tread grows louder.
You stuff the chopped-up zombies inside a grocery cart. The first one goes in easy. The second: you chop away at its knees, cutting off the legs. You then pile the legs on top of the upper body. The third one takes three hard cuts. You sit its torso up in the kids’ seat, strapping it in using the little belt loop. You pile their heads on top.
Meat shield complete.
You take a deep breath, lay the ax and the gun on top of the bodies, and charge out into the street, pushing the cart. It’s got a bad wheel and keeps trying to pull to the left.
The Desert Fox opens up with the MG 13. You keep your head low, pushing the cart, as the announcer screams, “THIS MAY BE THE MOST INSANE THING WE’VE EVER WITNESSED AT A DEATH DERBY!”
Bullets pound the meat shield. Chunks of flesh splatter. The first body is turned to pulp. The second will go soon.
RATTA! RATTA! RATTA! RATTA!
A bullet rips through the final piece of the meat shield. A CRACK as the next bullet snaps past your ear.
You give the cart a hard push, toward the Panzer, just as the huge KwK cannon fires. Still a block away and no time to—
KA—BOOM!
The meat cart is exploded, detonated, blown to bits. The ground around it, too. The eruption lifts you off your feet, somersaulting you through the air. You crash to the concrete.
No time to lick your wounds. The Panzer is turning. You scramble forward, crawling, then rising, sprinting, head lowered, closing the distance.
You shove your boot into the tank tread and slam the ax into the gray metal hull. It sticks, and you pull yourself up.
The announcer squeals, giddy, but you pay no attention, only focused on staying alive.
You tug at the pilot hatch. Locked. You bring the ax crashing down into the handle, twice more, and it cracks. You rip open the hatch and—
BLAM!
You leap back. A screaming bullet nearly gives you an unwanted nose piercing. The Desert Fox is firing from inside with a Luger.
You pull a grenade from your jacket pocket. Pop the pin.
“I’m liberating you of your vehicle!” you shout, just as another Luger bullet whistles past.
You drop the grenade into the tank, throw the hatch shut, and put your weight on it. Four seconds, five seconds, and . . .
The Desert Fox cries out. He weeps, sobs, pounds at the hatch.
Eight seconds, nine seconds, and . . .
BOOM!
“My God, Jimmy El Camino has just blown the Desert Fox back to hell!”
You lift the hatch. Smoke pours out. You let it clear, then hoist yourself down. Bits and pieces of the Desert Fox drip from the walls of the tank cabin. You’ve vaporized the Nazi bastard.
You glance over the tank controls. They’re damaged from the blast but still usable. You rode in modern tanks during Operation Enduring Freedom. Never driven one, but you’ve seen it done.
You hit the gear switch with your foot and work the blood-soaked steering levers. The tank jerks, then rolls forward.
Just then, a shriek as Mr. King’s Lincoln comes speeding around the corner ahead of you.
Mr. King. Boss Tanner’s man. He’s the one you want . . .
You unload with the MG 13, bullets pounding the ass end of the Lincoln.
Parked along the avenue are two large NYC Department of Sanitation dump trucks. As you roll toward them, the truck beds begin to lift. The rear hatches open, and dozens of zombies tumble out.
Another of Boss Tanner’s booby traps. But this one is no threat, the Panzer simply rolling over the monsters, pulverizing bone beneath the treads.
In an instant, you’ve wiped out two dozen of them.
The announcer calls out the score. You’ve paid no attention to it—too busy trying not to die.
“Ten seconds remaining, with Mr. King in the lead . . .”
Time’s nearly up. But you want Mr. King dead. You trigger the guns. Cement explodes. Buildings splash brick on the escaping Lincoln.
“Five seconds remaining . . .”
Mr. King is now four blocks away, moving fast. You trigger the KwK cannon, the boom echoes, shattering nearby windows, and the shell rockets toward Mr. King, closing in just as—
He swings around the corner. The shell soars past him harmlessly.
“That’s it, folks! Time’s up! Game over!”
Shit.
Mr. King beat you. You don’t like that. But you did like Eigle asked. You didn’t get dead. Now, time to get out of this tank and into some fresh clothes—you’re soaked in deceased psychopath . . .
Click here.
LEAVE ’EM HANGING
The woman groans and raises her hand, attempting to cry for help. You can’t risk Iris. You certainly won’t risk yourself.
You quickly march back to the car.
“What was it?” Iris asks as you slide into the driver’s seat.
“Something bad,” you say, shifting, pulling back out onto the dark country road.
“Can we help?”
“No. Goddamn hopes of humanity riding on you.”
You drop it into second. The high beams light up the night.
You’ve gone just fifty feet when there’s a snap-bang sound: the triggering of a small explosion. An instant later, a massive branch crashes down onto the road, directly in front of you. The El Camino’s tires screech as you brake, too late, and slide into the sudden wooden obstacle. Your head slams into the wheel and Iris cries out.
You were merely a target. One of many, surely.
A huge, beastly man-figure appears, stepping up and over the branch.
Iris reaches for the shotgun, but it’s fallen to the floor, at your feet. “Jimmy!” she barks. “The gun! I can’t reach.”
The figure steps around to the side of the car. He moves, methodical and quick, and he’s suddenly standing there at your door.
You’re dazed, dizzy from the impact. As you reach for the gearshift, the thing rams a pitchfork through the side of the car door. It slices into your left arm. Sharp pain.
And then he swings a hammer. Through the window. Into your skull.
Click here.
A GIFT FROM SANTA . . .
You drop the hot tommy gun to the ground and shout, “I’m empty!”
Dewey’s in the small garden in front of the house, flipping over rocks. Beneath each rock, a grenad
e. He grabs an American MK2 from World War II, pulls the pin, and hurls it.
It skips across the dirt and then blows, launching four shattered corpses into the air. A wet stump of an arm lands on the El Camino’s windshield.
“Watch the fucking car!” you shout from the doorway.
Soon, finally, you see the last of the monsters. No more coming up the path. Maybe fifty remain, surrounding the house. Dewey hurls another grenade, then shouts, “Go to the roof.”
“Why?” you bark back.
A zombie is close, leaning over the fence, crooked fingers reaching out. “Just go!”
A rotted wooden ladder lies on the ground. You lean it against the house and climb.
On the roof you see the chimney and the big plastic Santa Claus.
The shingles are weak, it feels like you could fall through at any moment. You grab the plastic Santa and lift it.
A smile crosses your face.
The plastic Santa has no bottom. Dewey used it to hide an M134 minigun. The gun is mounted—screws and plates holding it to the roof.
You step behind the minigun, grasping it tight, and then—
KRAKA! KRAKA! KRAKA!
It’s an absolute massacre: two thousand rounds per minute, the ground exploding in a fury of dirt and stone, stray shots filling the air with tree bark and splintering stone. Klan hoods tear apart. You don’t even see entry wounds; you just see hoods suddenly—POP!—turn red as bullets explode the faces inside.
The sound is deafening. Hot shells rain down upon the roof. It’s like gripping a jackhammer, your arms shaking and vibrating and going numb.
Under a minute, and it’s all over. Two hundred Klansmen zombies. Dead. Actually dead. Bodies slumped in the woods, bodies piled in the drive, bodies draped over the El Camino.
And then a scream.
From below, inside the house. Suzie-Jean.
You jump down from the roof and land in the garden, turning and pulling open the door. Walter stands at the window, frozen. The back door hangs off its hinges. Four hooded zombies inside the house, moaning, frothing.
Two of the monsters are attacking Suzie-Jean, pulling at her, jerking her back and forth.
