by Jack Hunt
Getting from A to B in a zombie apocalypse is hard enough on foot, but if you attempt to do it in a vehicle you are a brave soul — especially if you decided to traverse the clogged-up streets of New York City with Chuck Raynor at the wheel. It was like demolition derby, smashing into stationary vehicles on our way over, squeezing down tight, narrow alleyways and watching the sides of the car get torn up by numerous steel dumpsters that were in the way.
Now I had seen some mad ass drivers in my time but this guy really could have taken home an award. He was out of his frigging mind. Cackling like a lunatic, meanwhile fluffy dice hung down from his mirror like a pair of hairy nads swinging in the wind. I still to this day don’t know if it was just because he was a crazy ass New Yorker or had been a drag racer in his past life, but he didn’t let up on that accelerator the whole time. With him gunning the accelerator and Baja hooting and hollering at Z’s, it was utterly mental.
It didn’t help that Baja was singing Frank Sinatra’s song “New York, New York.”
“Shit, Raynor, was your name Michael Knight in a past life?” I hollered over the noise of the engine. Chuck grinned as he careened around corners like he was bloody Knight Rider.
Now at the speed he was clocking we might have actually arrived there in record time. In fact, it was quite possible that we might have even set a world land record if it hadn’t been for the next corner that we came around. Metal crunched as he slammed the brakes on and we found ourselves facing down at least two hundred Z’s.
“Holy shit.”
The blood rushed from our faces as Chuck slammed the car into reverse and burned rubber backwards. But it was useless. The street behind us was covered in a huge amount of concrete rubble and steel, other areas were blocked off by vehicles that had been abandoned. No amount of skillful driving could have got us around the obstacles that we came across. All of which meant taking a few back alleys and hoping that we didn’t land in a situation like the one we were now in.
Zipping backwards, swerving all over the road. Baja was now screaming like a little bitch, and I was joining him. It was a horrifying sight and not getting any better the further we drove back. We slammed into more Z’s until we couldn’t go any further. It looked like an ocean of faces. Hands clawed the air, jaws slammed up and down as intestines hung like sausages from body cavities.
“We ain’t getting out of this. There’s too many.”
Frantically our eyes scanned for an escape route. There were none. Trapped in a two-way street I noticed steam rising up from the ground.
“There, over there. We need to go underground.”
“Dude, are you fucking nuts, didn’t you ever see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? If anything is going to mutate, it’s going to happen in the sewers and let’s face it, it must smell like a …”
We didn’t hang around to listen to the drivel coming out of Baja’s mouth. I burst out of the door, heading for the manhole.
“Cover me.”
The others formed a circle while I heaved up a heavy ass steel manhole cover using the barrel of my gun.
“Come on!” Ben shouted as the swarm crowded in on us.
“Really, have you tried lifting one of these fucking things?” It was surprisingly heavy. With a little bit of help from Elijah we managed to get it out. As soon as it was up we began piling down the hole. There was no time to use the metal rungs. Izzy took down Hannah in an almost slip, grab, and slide method, Elijah went next. Meanwhile we were firing like crazy at the crowd that was moving at us. We couldn’t hold them back anymore, there were too many. One of them took Chuck down and the others just began to attack. That’s when it all went wrong. Just as they began feasting and tearing at Chuck, he screamed out.
“Take care of her…” then his voice was lost in the noise of the Z’s. I didn’t even touch the rung, I didn’t have time. I was the last one down. Above me Z’s smothered out the light as their arms reached down clawing the darkness.
Their snarls echoed as we backed away waiting for some of them to drop. Sure enough several of them landed with a thud.
A few shots to the head and they were taken care of. But the worst of it wasn’t over.
“Where’s my dad?” Hannah asked.
What do you tell a twelve-year-old kid who’d already lost her mother?
I shook my head. “He didn’t make it.”
Her wailing echoed down the tunnel but was lost in the noise of rushing sewer water. It was dank and smelled so bad I pulled up my top over the lower half of my face.
Using the flashlights on the end of our weapons we swept them back and forth. The center of the sewers was rushing with god knows what. Piss, puke, blood, and shit. We knew we couldn’t stay down here long. It wasn’t just the fact that Z’s could be down here, it was the smell. A rancid smell that was probably made worse as blood from the roads trickled into sewers.
Ben stayed at the rear, occasionally firing a few rounds at Z’s that dropped down. The only upside was when they landed they broke what little bones they had left in their bodies. Not even the fast ones could have made that drop. I had twisted my ankle and was limping along. I cursed under my breath at whoever had started this.
Did they know?
Did anyone know what they were unleashing upon the earth?
The walls around us were covered in graffiti. Occasionally we came across armchairs and furniture that had been abandoned; the leftovers of a society that had failed people. People thought it was bad now. The irony was there were hundreds and thousands of people homeless, living on the streets and in the tunnels long before the apocalypse hit.
Were they the first to go?
If so, maybe death was a better alternative to the life they lived. I had always wondered about the homeless. Those who wound up on the streets. Sure, some were drunks and addicts, and others, people who had turned their back on society. But that wasn’t all of them. Some weren’t there by choice. There were others who had hit hard times and hadn’t managed to bounce back.
I gazed at a small area off from the sewer. It looked as if someone had set the place up like a small home. It had two tables and a piece of artwork hanging against the brick and mortar. Above was a large gridded manhole cover that let light in. How many years had someone been down there?
“Hey, look at this,” Jess said, picking up a diary that was weathered and covered in dust. She blew at it and coughed, then read it out.
It’s over for me. These are my final words. What a world that lives above us. Yuppies dashing around in Lexuses and limos, eating at their fake fine restaurants while others fight to get their next meal. Fuck this world.
She flipped through more of the pages but they were empty. It was almost like someone had attempted to start a journal and had only managed to spit out a few words. We pressed on. Down below it was hot and humid, like rummaging through a garbage dump in the height of summer.
Izzy tried her best to keep Hannah calm but it was hard. You could see the grief and utter despair in her face. I could relate to it. The only thing she had been spared was seeing her father ripped apart. The images of my own dad came back to me. Forever burned inside my mind.
“Dude, there better not be alligators down here.” Baja kept a safe distance from the center line that was rushing with water.
“Are you smoking crack?” Elijah asked.
“No, I’m serious, there’s supposed to be alligators and shit down here.”
“Dude, all that weed has fried your brain cells. Those are urban legends.”
“Whatever, when it bites your dick off, don’t come whining to me as I’ll just laugh my head off.”
I snorted. Baja really didn’t have an off switch.
“Any idea where we are going?” Izzy asked.
“Oh yeah, yeah, it’s just a few miles down this way, then we’ll hang a left and take a sharp right. How the fuck should I know? Do I look like I live in the sewers?” Ben replied.
“What is your problem?” she snappe
d.
Ben just shook his head. These two were starting to get along like a house on fire. It was to be expected. We were a tight unit but that only meant we knew how to grind on each other’s nerves. It was the small things. It could be as small as the way someone chewed, or snored. At first you would just let it slide, then in time it was like fingernails going down a chalkboard. You just wanted to beat them over the head.
GODFATHER
I’M NOT EXACTLY sure how long we were down in those sewers but it seemed like forever. Our feet were soaked in the urine and sewage of New York. If we smelled bad when we rolled into Wright-Patterson, we must have smelled like a sweet summer’s dream compared to now.
By the time we crawled out of there it must have been mid-afternoon. A blazing sun beat down on us, giving me a severely sweaty ass crack and a disgruntled mood. We came up for air to look for any landmarks that could give us an indication of where we were. But that would have been too damn easy. Oh no, just go ahead and fuck it all up … why don’t you! I mumbled to myself as I gazed at signs that were twisted up or crumpled under concrete.
None of us wanted to come up. Not because we wanted to stay a minute longer down in that dank, smelly ass tunnel system but above it was even worse. Z’s were everywhere. It wasn’t our city anymore. It was theirs.
We made a decision to find the closest building with a fire escape and head up. At least if we could get some height, we could see where we were.
Hell, we were barely out of that sewer five minutes when the streets started filling up with crawlers. It was like a race as they dashed down alleys looking for their next feast. Some of them bounced over dumpsters like rabbits. We turned into a street only to find more Z’s stumbling forward moaning and gnashing their teeth. They moved hard and fast towards us.
Baja was the first to fire a round. We all followed suit, racing down the alley firing forward and backwards as Ben led the way toward a black fire escape that snaked the wall. We shoved Hannah up and I went to give Jess a hand but she pushed me back.
“I can handle myself.”
These females were feisty but that was new. The entire apocalypse had a way of bringing both the best and worst out of a person. Fear became anger as we found ourselves constantly engaging with them. The heat of battle intensified as one by one we ascended the stairwell only to find some of them climbing.
“You’ve got to be shitting me?” Elijah muttered.
“No fucking way.”
I was unloading bullet after bullet into their heads. At one point I shoved my boot through the neck of one of them while shooting another. You soon learned to multi-task in this new world. The remaining crowd of flesh-eaters below scraped at the wall with their fingers. At least not all of them were mutated. No one would have survived if they were.
I stumbled back from the edge. Each of us checked ourselves for bite marks. You’d think that we would know if we were bitten but when your adrenaline is rushing and your heart is smashing against your chest wall while you stab a Z in the head… It wouldn’t have surprised me if someone got grazed by teeth and didn’t know. It had become routine. Run, check for bites, check ammo, hide, and run some more. Our daily life was one big marathon run.
I felt like Forrest Gump being chased by the undead across America.
Run, Run, Run! It had become a mantra, a way of living.
Ben was looking over the edge. He walked across to each side of the building and shielded his eyes from the glare of the sun. A cold winter wind nipped at our faces. All across the city smoke rose and fires burned while buildings lay in rubble.
“I think it’s that way.”
He pointed towards Central Park. A vast ocean of trees could be seen.
“Now are you sure? Because I really don’t want to have to get back down there again,” Jess said.
He ignored her and kept on walking to the next building. That was the beauty of New York. So many of the buildings were sandwiched together tightly. Those that weren’t were easy enough to cross using the wires or pipes that snaked along the tops of the roofs.
Now I would like to say that the trek to the hotel was an easy one. It wasn’t. It was tough. We were constantly battling Z’s, then climbing more buildings. By the time we reached our destination, I felt like fucking Spiderman. I was about ready to give up. I just wanted to lie down and rest. That’s all that I could think. The only thing, or person that was driving me on, was Hannah. A young girl!
To think that the survival of the human race now relied on a few unique individuals seemed absurd. How many were there?
Eventually we had to hit the ground. Not all of the buildings had been leveled by military bombs. Once we hit 57th Street we found ourselves facing a wall of metal. They had blocked off several of the streets with the same corrugated steel they wrapped around large work sites to keep out the general public. We didn’t even make it a mile from their front gate when a truck came out to meet us. In the back were six men, each of them armed to the teeth with assault rifles
“You are either dumb, or dumb. Now which one is it?”
“We are here to see Vinny Carlone.”
“Isn’t everyone. State your business?”
“His father is dead. We have his sister.”
Their eyes fell on Hannah.
He radioed back while keeping an eye on us. The others were out of their truck, keeping watch for Z’s. A group of them were heading in our direction. I was beginning to get a little antsy. The guy on the radio seemed to find it amusing.
“What’s his father’s name?”
“Chuck, he said Vinny could help us find the Coalition.”
The man’s eyes widened. He whispered into the mic.
“I guess this is your lucky day. Come on in.”
We double-timed it away from the crowd of Z’s that were converging on the area. As they drove us back through the gates, the sounds of snarling and moaning became less.
* * *
“Leave your weapons at the door.”
We glanced at a Chinese guy who had a gun on us. “Been there, done that. The last time we did that we wound up in a porn shop wielding dildos. It’s not going to happen, my friend,” I muttered.
“It’s not a choice. Vinny doesn’t see anyone with a weapon.”
I looked at Ben and we all shook our heads. There was no way we were going in without our weapons yet there were already far more of them than us. It didn’t matter whether we kept hold of them or not, they could drop us right where we stood.
Ben was the first one to place his weapon on the floor. Reluctantly the rest of us did the same. The Chinese guy along with a few of their men walked around us and pulled out the machetes and tossed those down. He stared at me with a smirk on his face.
“You can’t be too careful.”
They led us into a towering hotel that was fifty-two stories high. Above us was a gorgeous glass window, designed to perfection. Everything about the structure spoke of glamor and money. Marble floors, lights that once probably looked stunning when there was power. Despite the state of the city this place had fared well. It was gleaming. It wasn’t like anyone could get near the hotel. Beyond the metal walls were over one hundred guards fully armed. Inside the lobby there were even more. It was known to cost fifty thousand dollars a night for the Ty Warner Penthouse. The hotel featured four glass balconies with a 360-degree view of the city from the fifty-second floor. The décor was elegant and snooty. At one time it must have only catered to the rich and famous. Art Deco lamps lined the walls. There was blond wood, stone sculpture, and limestone pillars that rose up thirty feet high. We passed by a backlit onyx ceiling and small acacia trees.
It took us a while to reach the penthouse suite but when we did, the sight that greeted us was a surprise. I had imagined, and I think the others did too, that he would resemble the Godfather. He wasn’t your typical mobster, with a belly that stuck out from eating one too many pasta dishes. Instead, we were greeted by what looked like a transve
stite. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
“Darlings, how wonderful. I do love to have new guests.”
He wore a wig, makeup, and a gown that revealed female underwear. He would have given J. Edgar Hoover’s cross-dressing antics a run for the money. We all looked at each other as though we were watching an episode of Queer Eye. Now don’t get me wrong, I had no problem with men’s or women’s choice of sexuality. Hell, if someone wanted to ride around on horses naked like Lady Godiva that was cool with me. What mattered more to me were the choices they made. Did they give a shit about society or suck it dry?
I could hear Baja stifling a chuckle. I prayed that he didn’t open his mouth. I knew he must have had a million things going through his mind right then, none of which I was sure was going to help us. We were already walking on eggshells.
Could this man have really struck fear into the hearts of New York business? Perhaps the apocalypse had drawn him out of the closet. It was hard to tell but man, it was some funny shit to see.
“Now what do we have here?”
He pranced up and down, checking us out and grinning from ear to ear. He stopped at Elijah and put his finger under Elijah’s chin.
“Aren’t you delicious.”
Baja couldn’t hold it in any longer. He burst out laughing.
“And what do we have here… oh I do love me some cocoa butter.”
That sent Elijah into a fit, of course Baja didn’t find it amusing in the least. He backed up slightly, placing his hands behind him on his rear end.
“And you must be, my sister.”
Hannah’s eyes widened like she was seeing the clown from that Stephen King horror flick. Vinny must have picked up on it.
“Oh honey, don’t you worry. You are in good hands. But for your sake…” he turned around and called out to someone. “Michael dear, bring me my gown.”
