by Max Brallier
To stay alive, you need to think. One mistake, you’re history. And not the good history—not the kind that ends up in a middle school textbook—the bad kind, the forgotten kind.
You peek around the other side of the truck. You don’t almost get shot—good start. Squatting down, you make your way along the side of the truck, to the next car. A convertible. The driver and his three passengers—pretty, young girls—are all riddled with bullets. The arm of the girl in the front seat hangs over the side, blood dripping down to her hand, collecting around a massive diamond ring, and trickling off her fingers. You gently push her dead arm aside and keep moving.
Still low to the ground, you work your way down the bridge, hugging the sides of the cars.
Suddenly a mass of people, twenty or thirty, you can’t tell, comes tearing around the side of an SUV up ahead—stampeding right toward you. The Army catches two of them in the back, dropping them. The rest keep coming. You try to get out of the way—no luck. The first guy knocks you aside. The second, a woman, rolls you onto your back. They trample you. You use one hand to cover your face and another to protect the family jewels.
After a few brutal moments the game of doormat ends and you’re left bloody and bruised. Since they were running back to the city, the Army seems to have let most of them live. Up ahead, you see the soldiers, guns up, ready to unload on anything coming their way. You slide under the SUV, wipe the blood from your eyes, catch your breath, then slip discreetly out the other side.
You’re about two-thirds of the way across the bridge. Only one football field to go. You have no idea what you’ll do when, if, you make it to the other side—but the United States Army still seems like a better bet than the army of the undead behind you.
You continue your crawl. When the firing begins again, you slide back under the nearest car. When it lets up, you move. It’s slow going, but you see no other way around it.
As you near the head of the bridge, the cars are no longer in any sort of order. Some point this way, some that.
Fenders latched together, smoke pouring from hoods. Twisted metal.
Then, just beyond the mess of vehicles is the Army.
KRAK!!!
A sound like nothing you’ve ever heard. Loud times infinity. An earthshaking blast. Cannon fire. Coming from a tank—one of four that guard the exit to the bridge.
Another one fires. A huge explosion behind you rocks the bridge.
While the smoke clears, you try to think. You’ve got one chance. One chance at survival. You’ve got to get to one of these soldiers—hopefully not some trigger-happy fool—and plead your case.
You reach one of the tanks and crawl underneath. Make your way along the massive tread that covers the wheels.
Up ahead, you can see feet. Boots. You crawl forward and reach out. There’s a scream, then the loud report of an automatic rifle, and the cement in front of you rips apart.
You yank your hand back underneath the tank. “No! No!” you shout. “No! I’m not—”
Bullets pelt the cement again. You skitter back underneath the tank and scramble out from the rear end.
Here goes nothing. Slowly, arms up to the sky, you rise.
Across from you is the biggest goddamn machine gun you’ve ever seen. Well, the only goddamn machine gun you’ve ever seen in person, but it’s big as fuck. You see the soldier’s eyes—wide, scared. Just about as scared as you.
“I’m not one of those things,” you say.
Artillery erupts around you. The world shakes again. You shout to be heard. You can’t hear a damn thing, but you can tell he’s waving you back across the bridge. Back the way you came.
“Go, or I shoot,” he shouts over the firing.
You shake your head like a wet dog trying to dry off. You frantically wipe the blood from your face, trying to make yourself look like less of a bloody mess. “I’m not one of those things. I’m not bit. I’m not hurt. I’m not infected. I’m not fucking dying or fucking dead or whatever the fuck is going on. I’m just trying to get to Brooklyn.”
The soldier continues to stare at you. You can see the wheels turning. See him struggling. He’s probably got orders to kill anything that looks remotely human—but to shoot a guy like you, a regular Joe…
“Please…” you say. Begging now.
Finally, he takes a few steps back. Taps the shoulder of a higher-up, someone with rank. They exchange some words. The officer looks you up down like a piece of meat. He nods. The soldier marches over to you and grabs you by the arm. “Alright, let’s go.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
He leads you back through the maze of tanks and Humvees. Past the gunfire.
Beyond the bridge, men stand around in big yellow plastic suits—hazmat, you think they’re called. The shit from that Dustin Hoffman movie with the monkey from friends. Breakout. outbreak. Something like that.
One of the hazmat guys, accompanied by the soldier, leads you by the arm to a large trailer that says MILITARY SCIENCE on the side.
And then a burst of fear rushes through you—your knees go weak. What if they’re going to take you and do a bunch of experiments on you? You know you’re not infected—but they don’t know that. They probably don’t know much more about what’s going on than you do. You could end up some test patient—the star of some alien autopsy shit.
Your mind races.
If you want to go with the Army and the dream of safety, click here.
Forget about it—the Army’s too scary—run! Click here.
A MAN’S HOME IS HIS CASTLE
You skid to a halt and hop off the bike, the things right behind you.
You run up the back of your parents’ Camry, up over the top, and leap off the hood to the fence. You scramble over and fall into the backyard.
Kim comes running out of the back of the house. “What happened?”
“Back inside, back inside, go.” You follow her, through the back door, into the kitchen, and then through a swinging door into the dining room. There, you look out on the front yard.
“What is that?” she asks.
“The entire high school varsity football team.”
“You brought them back here?”
“Not on purpose!”
“You’re right, sorry. Well, fucking now what?”
“We get to work. Lock up everything.”
A man’s home is his castle—in this case, quite literally. You have your princess. You’ve already rescued her. This isn’t Super Mario Bros. Your princess isn’t in another castle. She’s here. In this castle. Now, as the king, you have to protect her.
That’s right. You’re the king. Hail to the king, baby…
You get to work. Lock all the doors. They scratch and claw at the big front window. Have to do something about that.
Backyard. Tool shed.
Thank God your dad retired early and went on that absurd Tim Allen, “I’m a man” kick and bought all those tools and decided to build the patio himself. It’s the shittiest patio in town, sure, but he’s got one hell of a tool set.
You reach the shed, throw on his tool belt, and start putting anything that might be useful inside. Hammer. Nails.
Weed Whacker? Nah. That’d only work on, like, kids.
Chainsaw? That could work.
Ooh, nail gun. Fuck it, bring both.
There’s some spare wood in the rear of the shed. Just long enough to board up that window.
A scream. No. Kim….
You forget the wood and dart back inside and into the dining room. Shit! They’re through the window already. Three of them. Only the dining room table separates you from the beasts.
“Kim! Get in the closet.” She does. You throw your mom’s good chairs to either side of the table to slow their approach.
OK, chainsaw time. Now—how the hell do you turn one of these things on? You tug at the cord. C’mon, start, goddamn it!
GAROOOMMM!!!
There we go. Alright, you bast
ards.
The first one slithers over the dining room table. You run up and swing. It hits the floor, headless.
Next one comes over the chair. You ram the weapon into its chest. Bad move. It continues clawing at you, even as you grind up its insides. You turn the chainsaw sideways and rip it out the side of its stomach, leaving the thing slumped over. You rear back. Chainsaw, right down the middle of the head. One left.
You back up, through the swinging kitchen door. Not quick enough—it lunges for you, sending you stumbling back. You lose control of the chainsaw and it drops to the floor. The thing’s on you. Going for your face. You grab for the nail gun in your tool belt, but before you can get a firm grip—
Smack.
Its head goes flying to the side. Kim stands above you clutching a cast-iron skillet. You scramble to your feet, grab a santoku knife from the wood block, and bury it in the side of the thing’s face.
“Go in my bedroom and lock the door, OK?” you tell Kim. She nods.
Before you creep back into the kitchen, you disable the safety system on the nail gun. Now it’s a fine zombie-hunting weapon.
Slowly, you open the door.
The entire varsity football team is in your dining room—minus a couple of casualties from the previous skirmish. Had this been ten years ago—well, that would’ve been pretty cool and made for a helluva party.
Right now, not so good.
You flip the dining room table, sending the good china flying. That blocks them some. They struggle to get over it. You back against the wall, don’t want anything getting you from behind.
You aim the nail gun. Pop two in the head. Third shot misses, shattering your mother’s favorite mirror.
They come at you hard. Unrelenting. You fire a load of nails into the closest one. Six into its face. Finally, it drops.
From beside you, you see the whirl of glinting metal, which makes contact with a zombie and drops it immediately. You whip your head over. Kim’s standing next to you, holding one of your father’s golf clubs.
“Kim, back upstairs, go!”
“You need help.”
“Kim, go!”
It’s too late. One of the things has her by the arm. Pretty kid. Probably the quarterback. He sinks his teeth in and tears out a chunk of flesh.
“No!” you shout. Kim screams. You unload the nail gun into the QB’s pretty face, leaving him all sorts of ugly.
You spin, they’re everywhere. Need to retreat. You drag Kim into the kitchen. She holds her bleeding wrist against her stomach.
You have seconds.
Cut off Kim’s arm, hoping to save her? Click here.
Take her upstairs, away from the zombies, and deal with her then? Click here.
MAKING TOM BERENGER PROUD
You put it out of your mind. There’s nothing you can do about it anyway—you couldn’t take this guy down even if you had ten guys helping you.
You scan the horizon. Hauk treads water, working his way along the fence, beneath the park. Above him, zombies roam across the grass.
Through the binoculars, you see Taft. His stomach is torn open. He stumbles across the street.
Then Hauk goes under.
“You got him?” Hammer asks.
“Looking.”
“Got him?”
“Looking.”
“Find him!”
“I’m trying!”
Hauk’s head pops up, bobbing in the water.
“There!”
Hauk emerges from the water, scampers up the hill, and ducks down behind a truck, his back to it. He gives you a thumbs-up.
You spot two of them. From up the street, coming his way. Pair of goth girls.
“To his right, two of them,” you say.
No response.
“Hammer, to the right!”
You watch as the zombies draw closer.
“Right! What the hell are you—”
You look over. The binoculars drop from your hand and clang on the floor. Hammer’s undead eyes are staring right at you.
“Oh shit—”
Hammer launches himself at you. Pushes you against the ledge. Mouth wide. Teeth shimmer.
You push back, throwing him into the pillar that holds the torch. His hands dig into your throat.
You feel for his gun. Around his belt. Unclip it.
He closes in. His eyes wild.
You rip the gun free. Whip it up. Squeeze.
The flash momentarily blinds you. The bullet rips up the side of his face, tearing open his cheek. The muzzle flash burns his skin. He stumbles back, against the ledge. But he’s not dead. He raises his head. Angry.
You raise the pistol. Put five shots into his bare chest. The skin explodes and blood splatters the floor. The final shot knocks him back, over the side.
You run to the edge just in time to see him bounce off the statue’s base and fall to the cement, hundreds of feet below.
You catch your breath. Christ, that was close.
Shit, Hauk!
You run to the rifle and look through the scope. OK, just like the video games, you tell yourself.
You spot the two goth beasts bearing down on Hauk. You line the closest one up in your sights. Fire. The side window of the SUV explodes. Hauk spins, draws his sidearm.
Little lower, to the left.
You fire. A flash of red comes from the zombie’s top and it falls. Hauk fires and blows the other one away before it gets him.
Six more immediately surround him.
With superhuman speed, Hauk pushes through the crowd and sprints down the street toward the two tanks and the Humvee, at least a dozen beasts in his path.
It takes you three shots to get the first one. Finally, you connect with its head. The she-beast’s hair flies up, and it falls. Hauk runs past it.
Next one. Homeless guy. Huge jacket. Ball cap. Messy beard. You can almost smell it from here.
You put the crosshairs right on its head. Squeeze. His head jerks to the side and his ball cap flies through the air.
Hauk dives inside the overturned Humvee. The beasts gather around it.
Goddamn it—c’mon—get outta there!
You continue firing, putting them down. But there’re too many. No way he’s going to get out of there. You scan. Look around them. A motorcycle. Harley, overturned.
You get the gas tank in your sights.
Squeeze.
A window in a building about twenty feet beyond the bike shatters.
You adjust your aim. Fire again. The bike explodes. The blast catches the beasts in the back, hurling them forward and to the ground.
Hauk peeks his head out from under the Humvee. Momentarily clear. He books it for the water, firing as he runs, killing two.
At the fence, one of the beasts stands in his way, its back to you. A big guy. Bald head. You see Hauk aim and squeeze, then see the horror on his face as he realizes he’s empty.
You train the sights on the back of that big bald head.
Then you squeeze.
The head comes apart and the thing collapses in a heap.
Hauk runs past, then leaps over the fence and dives into the water. He swims a quick fifty yards, climbs back on the Hellfire, and guns it.
OK—made it this far.
You race back down. Panting, pain in your side, you exit the statue base. Hauk is motoring across the harbor, a stream of water kicking up behind him. He rides the Hellfire up onto the rocks, leaps off, and vaults over the fence.
“Where’s Hammer?” he asks.
“Dead. He was bitten—attacked me, went over the side in the struggle.”
“What?”
“You heard me. That’s what happened.”
Hauk doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then, “Where?”
“I’ll show you.”
You walk to the base of the statue. There’s a bloody pool on the ground, no body.
“Fuck me, where’d he go? I killed him!”
Hauk glares at you. “Forge
t it,” he says finally.
“You get them on the radio?”
“I got some civilian—guy runs the helicopter tours off the West Side. He said he’d come when he could.”
“When he could? We don’t have time.”
“Yeah—well, he didn’t seem to care.”
Then you hear the splashing. You turn. Zombies are streaming out of the water from every direction. They struggle getting over the fence as intestines and flaps of skin become caught on the tines. They slip, their decomposing skin soaking wet. But they make it over—land on the grass—and get to their feet. Then they start running.
“Fuck—inside!” Hauk shouts as he takes off running. You follow him.
And there, just inside the entrance, is Hammer. Body mangled. Bones shattered. Blood everywhere. He moans. Limps toward you.
Hauk fires. Blows undead Hammer’s brains out the back of undead Hammer’s skull. You sprint past.
Christ, climbing the Statue of Liberty twice in an hour—not your lucky day. The monsters follow, racing up the steps behind you.
You climb higher. And the beasts keep coming. No way to block the doors behind you. No way to keep them from chasing.
Finally, you reach the peak—the torch. Hauk looks over the side. “How do you like heights?” he says.
“I hate them.”
“Yeah, me too—that’s why I joined the Marines, not the Air Force.”
The beasts flood the platform. You and Hauk quickly climb over the side, hanging on the edge of the torch, three hundred feet above the ground.
You take the lead, dropping onto Lady Liberty’s arm, wrapping your body around it as you slide all the way down to her sleeve. You smash against it, nearly fall off the side.
Hauk comes next, barreling down the arm, right for you. You brace yourself—it’s a tight spot—if he hits you hard, you’ll both be over the side and dead. He slams into you, rolling to the side and almost over. You grab him, holding tight as he steadies himself.
The beasts try to follow, unsuccessfully. They tumble over the side, free-falling to the ground.
Together you sit on the rock-hard sleeve of the Statue of Liberty, wind howling, threatening to blow you off, and you wait. Wait for the helicopter that maybe, just might, be coming…
