Dead Drunk: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse... One Beer at a Time

by Richard Johnson

  Juan Garza, a mid-ranking member of the 13th Street Crew, stepped forward nervously while pointing to the guards. “Respectfully, um… why are these pendejos getting a free pass? They always treated us like shit.”

  “I heard that,” an armed robber named Dantel agreed loudly. “Their bitches should be up for grabs, right? I mean, a lot of the homies got a piece and I gotta get mine, you feel me? I’ve been behind bars for five years.”

  “No. That shit’s done,” Marquell replied calmly.

  “Fuck that! Daddy Longlegs needs some play.” Dantel strutted towards the line of cowering and bloodied women.

  Marquell merely pointed, and the man’s head exploded into a cloud of red mist and gray matter. Pop, pop, pop. The rest of the prisoners hit the ground as several more shots sailed harmlessly overhead.

  “There’s that dome shot I was talkin’ about.” Marquell waved at the watchtower. “I think y’all know Gus, the crack-shot cracker with an itchy trigger finger? He works for me now. Y’all work for me now.” He rolled Steve’s severed head like a bowling ball towards the fresh corpse. “Clean this mess up. Shit’s ruining my ambiance.”

  Marquell approached Juan and picked up the discussion without missing a beat. “Now back to your question. Do you know how to run power generators?”

  “No ese,” Juan replied hesitantly.

  “What about surgery, or setting a broken leg? No, I didn’t think so.” The leader turned to the rest of the men. “You see, the only things y’all know how to do is kill and steal. Without me, this place would burn down in a month.” He pointed to the electric fence and the dozen or so smoldering zombies stuck to it. “But don’t worry, you’ll get a chance to do plenty of that. Only it’s gonna be on the outside of those walls.”

  * * *

  Warden McCabe’s eyes opened as his head bounced roughly on the concrete floor. He was being dragged feet first down a corridor in the prison basement, and he couldn’t recall how he’d gotten there. A hazy flashback of an ambush on the toilet slowly materialized, and the warden cursed his luck and his taco salad. They stopped.

  “This is it, vato. Wait here for the boss,” one of his former inmates said to another as they dropped the warden’s legs to the ground.

  “Goddamn!” A crippling pain shot from Jack McCabe’s knees to the rest of his body. They had been shattered by repeated blows from a steel pipe.

  Footsteps approached, and now it was his turn to wait in fear. He prayed the end would come quickly, but knew better as he recognized the newcomer’s voice.

  “Get up, you sack of shit.” Marquell Washington gave a swift kick to the warden’s ribcage. “You said that after you had that animal Steve beat my ass the day I got here, remember? Unfortunately, Steve’s no longer with us.”

  “It was nothing personal, Marquell. I… I had to show the prisoners who was in charge.”

  “I know that, Jack. I was taking notes the whole time.”

  The warden had manipulated people his entire life and he wondered if there was an angle to use with his captor. It was doubtful the psycho would listen, but he had to try.

  “I actually learned a lot from watching you, Jack, and some of that’s gonna help me run this place. For starters, I’ll be gettin’ acquainted with your wife tonight.”

  “Please, don’t kill her. She hasn’t done anything to—”

  “Kill her?” Marquell looked bemused at the thought. “She’s the hottest piece of ass in the prison, maybe now the entire world. I’m planning to do plenty of things to her, and trust me, killing ain’t one of ‘em.”

  The warden continued to brainstorm, believing there was wiggle room for survival if he could only keep the dialogue open. “Don’t be rash. I can help you.”

  “Oh, really? You can help me?”

  “I can tell you where the gold is hidden, and—”

  “I don’t give a fuck about no gold. I’m not opening a bank.” Marquell looked at his newly acquired watch, the warden’s shiny Vacheron Constantin. “We’re done here, I’ve got places to be.” He pointed to his lackeys. “Toss him in.”

  The giggling idiots heaved the warden into a dimly lit cell. Jack screamed upon impact and fought the urge to black out. He rolled over to see what was so damned funny.

  A severely wounded man wriggled across the floor towards him, almost slithering. The former deliveryman’s tendons had been cleanly cut, but his hunger remained quite intact. Panicked, Jack clawed at the ground and dragged himself away as the zombie closed in.

  “I hope you like your roommate.”

  “No, you can’t do this. Please, please!”

  Marquell chuckled. “Who’s the hamster now, bitch?”

  Jack stopped dead in his tracks, not wanting to give Marquell the satisfaction of seeing him struggle any further.

  The slow chase ended as the wheezing zombie methodically used its clammy hands to climb up the warden’s back. Jack shut his eyes and tried to clear his mind, but there was no happy place to be found when the clumsy attack came. A blind man with a rusty spoon would have done better work.

  Marquell’s men stopped laughing after witnessing the frenzy of gnashing teeth and squirting veins. A painful reality dawned on them as they viewed the macabre scene; this was the fate of their parents, their girlfriends and their children.

  Keeping to his tight schedule, Marquell had them torch the cell and left for his next engagement. Moments later, he arrived outside the private dining room.

  Waiting there nervously was one Heather McCabe, a gorgeous blonde with long legs, a year round tan and a sense of entitlement. She’d been “asked” to come to the dinner dressed to the nines. The men wielding shotguns were quite persuasive, and having lost contact with her husband after the riot, Heather was in no position to argue.

  Marquell leered at her for a full thirty seconds, and then led the knockout by her manicured hands into the room. The floor shifted slightly as they entered, and Heather looked down to see rough plywood had been placed over the mahogany floor.

  They sat at a long table as several of the prison “sisters” placed silverware and filled glasses of water. Heather swore she heard a strange whispering noise every time the flamboyant men returned.

  Marquell made awkward small talk while picking at overcooked smokey-links and undercooked mashed potatoes. Unfortunately, his vision of high-class women stemmed from watching one episode of Desperate Housewives, and Heather was too preoccupied with survival to humor him.

  This woman made Marquell feel like a stuttering schoolboy, which was something he’d never experienced during his countless conquests of hookers, prostitutes and crack-heads. Though the psychopath could literally do with Heather as he pleased, he savored this newfound emotion and desperately wanted her to like him. He pointed downward. “Try the green tomato soup, it goes great with the cornbread I made with my special recipe. I use cayenne pepper to spice it up a notch.”

  The candlelight glinted off Marquell’s shiny watch and Heather immediately recognized that it was her husband’s. Her head began to spin and her heart raced. “What have you done with Jack?”

  Marquell played with his soup. “This needs to be heated up.” One of his fawning attendants spirited the bowls away. Again, the strange noise.

  “Please, you need to tell me where my husband is,” she pleaded once more, only quieter this time.

  Marquell fixed the lovely blonde with a soulless gaze. “He’s gone. But I think you already knew that.” Her lower lip trembled, and he made his move while she was at her most vulnerable. “Look, I’ll tell ya’ straight up. You got a choice, are you gonna be my girl, or…”

  Heather steadied herself, batted her eyelashes seductively and asked, “Is that wine I see?”

  “Sure is, I made it myself,” Marquell said while beaming with pride. “Don’t worry, it’s made with raisins, oranges and sugar, and I didn’t make it in the shitter. I mean toilet,” he added hastily.

  The former Miss Illinois runner-up poured
two glasses of prison hooch and sprouted the fakest smile she could muster under the circumstances. If cozying up to the scumbag meant she’d live another day, the decision was made. Besides, she’d been cheating on her husband with everyone from the UPS guy to her Pilates instructor. In fact, no one would miss Jack McCabe.

  Marquell smiled handsomely and clinked his own glass forcefully against Heather’s, splashing wine onto the fine tablecloth. Two more servants walked into the room, napkins in hand, and this time an audible groan came from beneath the plywood floor.

  Unlike Heather, the surviving gang leaders had refused Marquell’s ultimatums. Carlos “The Spider” Huerta, Max “Dime-bag” Dixon and Javonte Taylor found themselves crammed underneath the makeshift floor, bound and gagged. These unlucky dinner guests now suffered a fate Marquell dreamed up while poring over The History of Attila the Hun.

  The floor compressed further as each extra pound came into the room, pushing air from lungs, cracking ribs and squeezing organs. Heavy tables and chairs, the diners, the food and the servants all added up until the bound men’s eyes burst from the pressure. The whispering noises had been fruitless gasps for air and the final death rattles of Marquell’s foes. They should have toed his motherfuckin’ line after all.

  Chapter 21

  Sausage-Fest

  Big Rob pinned the deadish, snarling beast down and rubbed its face into the gravel. “He doesn’t like Left-Nut.”

  “It’s a good thing that I pulled Cliff’s teeth or he would’ve gobbled his last nut down like a chicken nugget,” Trent added and pointed his pistol at the back of the thing’s head. “But this fuckstick’s done for. We can’t have Left-Nut shitting his pants every week. Even I think that’s messed up.”

  Mike intervened. “Hold off. We’re learning too much from him.”

  “Like what, that he wants to eat us? Sorry, but that’s pretty much Zombie 101, and I don’t think we need to keep Cliff around for that type of brilliant insight,” Trent replied.

  “He’s dropping weight.”

  “So? We’re all starving,” Bruce said and chuckled, still buzzing from the weed.

  “Watch.” Mike grabbed a chunk of cat food from an opened can and dropped it under Cliff’s slobbering mouth. The zombie completely ignored it.

  Trent shrugged. “I don’t want to eat that crap either.”

  “This shows they only want human flesh, and there’s not much of that left in the city,” Mike said. “If he starves to death, we’ll know how long the others can last without food.”

  “That’s all fine and good, except we’re gonna starve right along with them,” Blake said. “Our stash might last a few more weeks, then what?”

  “Then we get more,” Mike replied.

  Trent holstered his gun. “Okay, so the shit-bag gets a reprieve. Now what are you gonna do with him?”

  Mike walked to the side of the roof facing the fenced-in alleyway and pointed downwards. Seconds later, Cliff bounced off of the garbage cans and then rose, seemingly unscathed by the thirty-foot drop.

  Russ peered over the edge. “That dude’s like a cockroach.”

  Mike rubbed imaginary dirt from his hands. “Problem solved. Now we can safely study him.”

  Left-Nut was having none of it. “This is bullshit. That’s the second time he tried to eat me.”

  “It is bullshit,” Charlie said while holding back a smile. “He should’ve gotten you the first time.”

  The excitement over and the group completely out of weed, everyone turned in for another sleepless night. Meanwhile, unaware of his freshly shattered ankle and broken nose, Cliff stared aimlessly at the alley gate like a dog waiting to go outside.

  * * *

  The next day began uneventfully. There were angry complaints of hunger, Rob stunk up the place by dropping a ridiculously large dump and the gang turned to self-medication of the alcoholic variety.

  “I’m starting to feel like Anne Frank up in here,” Blake said as he paced from the living room to the kitchen. For a guy who’d always been on the move, being cooped up was pure torture. It didn’t help that chugging whiskey straight from the bottle while watching season ten of The Golden Girls was the only entertainment available.

  “Not to mention this is a never ending sausage-fest,” Left-Nut added, then looked at Mike. “And I bet you’re loving it.” Mike rolled his eyes and Left-Nut waved his finger. “See? You’re eye-fucking me right now.”

  “And Golden Girls?” Blake said. “I can’t believe you took the time to grab that when you were supposed to be looking for food and medicine downstairs.”

  “Rue McClanahan has always given me wood for some reason. I think it’s because my grandma was sassy and—”

  “Shush, I hear something outside,” Charlie said. Sure enough, a faint buzzing noise approached from the west. It was a running engine, and the first they’d heard in days. The group raced to the roof with the fragile hope of rescue taking hold.

  Blake peered down the street with the binoculars. “It’s a school bus, and it’s hauling ass.”

  Charlie grinned at the only good news they’d had. “I subbed at a school about four blocks away that used to be an armory. I bet they were holed up there.”

  The newcomers weren’t alone however, and a large mob of the infected streamed behind the bus pied-piper style. Those in the path of the speeding bus became instant steaming piles of road kill.

  The guys cheered them on, reveling with each zombie explosion. “Go! Go! Go!” they shouted in unison. But a loud grinding noise rang out as the fleeing vehicle reached the nearest intersection.

  Russ, a truck driver of fifteen years, said one word, and their exhilaration turned to dread. “Transmission.”

  The bus jerked to a stop and the ravenous crowd was upon it, punching and tearing at the doors and windows. Those inside were trapped like divers in a shark cage, and there was nobody to pull them to safety.

  Jim spoke first. “We need to do something, this ain’t right.” He got no response. “What if those were your kids?”

  “Let’s go.” Big Rob cracked his neck while hoisting a softball bat. Nobody else stood up.

  The numbers on the ground swelled to at least a hundred with more arriving by the second. Someone fired a small caliber pistol through the window several times, but like the Alamo, every attacker knocked down had two more spring up in its place.

  Charlie grabbed Jim’s shoulder roughly. “You’ll get torn to pieces down there.”

  He yanked away. “So? You call this living?”

  The infected throng breached the rear door of the bus and clamored in. Soon, fretful yelling and thrashing gave way to nothing but cold, painful silence. The men on the roof could only imagine what horrors were happening mere yards away.

  Big Rob threw his bat at the crowd and then slumped to the ground, sobbing uncontrollably. Jim simply glared at Charlie. “I can’t believe I used to look up to you. You’re nothing but a coward.”

  The words stung because Charlie knew they were true and had been for years. Only now his wavering did more than ruin his career and dating life, it cost actual lives. Even worse, they were children.

  Surprisingly, the bus door opened and a short man with a beer belly sprinted out while firing a gun. The forty-year veteran gym teacher was instantly gang-tackled to the ground. But the ruse worked as intended, and as countless zombies feasted upon the organs of the unsung hero, a small child snuck off the bus, unnoticed for the moment.

  Rob threw the ladder over the side while the others shouted directions.

  “Over here!”

  “Yo kid, run this way!”

  “No, this way, dumbass!”

  But the small boy hesitated, and the mob closed in on all sides. The men couldn’t bear to watch and averted their gazes as the child screamed. And screamed. And screamed.

  Russ’s drunken eyes widened as he snuck a peek. “The little bugger got up in a tree.” Indeed, the boy had jumped from a fire hydrant to a low hangi
ng limb, and from there scaled up to the top.

  After devouring the old man, the zombies next clawed unproductively at the base of the tree. This caused the kid to scream bloody murder and drew even more cannibals to the scene. If a rescue attempt was suicidal before, a move now would be plain idiotic.

  Mike stepped in front of his massive friend. “Don’t even think about it. Charlie’s right, there’s too many and they’re too fast. We need to wait till the crowd goes away. Then we can see about helping the kid.”

  Still blubbering, Rob pulled the ladder up while Jim gave Mike a few choice words and then retreated into the apartment to sulk.

  “Why can’t the zombies be like the ones in the movies?” Bruce said. “You know, the ones that move so slow you can do your taxes while fighting them.”

  “Because these aren’t undead zombies that are sluggish and corpse-like, they’re sick people,” Smokey said, still considering himself the ultimate word on the issue due to his vast knowledge of B-rated horror movies. “How many times do I have to tell you that? They’ve got the ZIV, Zombie Immunodeficiency Virus or something.”

  Trent rolled his eyes. “Like I said, it’s fucking Zombie 101 up here. Where do I drop the class?”

  Smokey continued to ruminate about the more delicate points of zombie lore while Charlie’s shoulders sagged. Disgusted, he wished he had some kind of brain bleach to rid himself of the day’s nightmarish images. Charlie grabbed the ever-present bottle of rotgut from Russ’s grubby hand, and amid protests, took a long, deep pull. It would have to do.

  Chapter 22

  Gone Fishin’

  Charlie cast his line over the side of the building and dragged his bait across the street, jerking it now and then like the bass pros did on television. It wasn’t likely the enormous rats would notice the tiny chunk of meat over the stench of dozens of bloated bodies, but the mindless repetition kept him occupied for hours on end.