Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? (21 page)

You hit the ground. The pain is immense, but you don't care. You smile. There're a thousand of the fucking things out there. And you just outran them all.

You lie there for a good ten minutes, catching your breath, happy to be alive. Then you stand. The construction site is a giant sort of pit, with slight hills sloping inward from every side. At the bottom is the building's foundation. And huge machines. Steamrollers. Wrecking balls. Cranes. Dump trucks. Massive things.

In the center, trailers. There's a light on in the nearest one. You can hear the rumble of a generator. Half dead, you stumble down the hill. You make it to the trailer, open the door, fall inside. You collapse onto the floor. Blood pouring out. You can taste it.

And then you hear something you very much don't want to hear.

“Its one of them! Get it!” a voice shouts.

“No, no,” you manage to get out, “I'm not. The blood—from the fence.”

“Bullshit. Kill him.”

“Big Al, we gotta help him.”

You can't see anything. Head on the floor. Too much pain. Too exhausted to lift it. Too exhausted to even open your eyes. You feel hands on you. Moving you. They tie off some of your more severe cuts.

“Thanks,” you manage—then pass out.

You come to in a chair. Three men sit across from you. Construction workers.

You try to get up. You can't—you're restrained. Duct tape all around your arms and legs. The fuck?

“What is this? Why am I duct-taped to a chair?”

The one sitting in the middle—the calm-looking one—talks.

“We're waiting to see if you turn.”

“Turn?”

“Into one of those things.”

“Well I'm not going to. So untie me now please. Or untape me, whatever.”

The big one walks over and points a ruler in your face. “Buddy, you're lucky you're not dead right now.”

“You're telling me.”

“What I mean is,” he says, getting down and in your face until you can smell the pastrami on his breath, “you're lucky we haven't killed you.”

The calm-looking one: “Big Al. Go for a smoke, huh?”

“I'm fine right here, brother,” he says. He takes two steps back, leans against a counter along the wall.

“Why's everyone want to kill me? And who are you?”

“I'm Sully,” says the calm “OK, Sully—why do you, Big Al, and this third guy here want to kill me?”

The third guy speaks. He has a quiet, almost timid voice. Fits his small stature. “The guys call me Fish. 'Cause they say I look like a fish.”

“Yeah, you do.”

Fish frowns.

Sully continues. “The reason Big Al is so eager to kill you is because we were fine here—then you showed up—and now we got this.”

“Got what?”

Sully pulls the curtain aside. Through the large window you can see most of the empty construction site. And at the fence, the zombies. Clawing. Chewing on the metal. The bigger ones pound at it.

Big Al steps forward, pointing the ruler at you. “Look, fuck-head. You brought those things here. I say we give you back to them.”

STORMING THE GARDEN

The Harley engines echo through Manhattan, the heavy roar bouncing off abandoned skyscrapers and deserted storefronts. In the sidecar, it feels like you're about two inches off the ground. The street is a blur.

Tommy follows Joe Camel. Camel rides a camo Harley with an empty sidecar. That's how you'll be taking the woman out.

Buildings flash by you. Tommy drives like a madman. Your stomach jumps with every 40-mph turn. Finally, you close your eyes, trust Tommy not to kill you, and think about the job ahead of you.

You'll ride straight into MSG, clear out the ground floor, and then you and Tommy will head to the concourse, up to the top, grab the girl from the suite, she'll squeeze in the sidecar with you, then you head back to the ground floor where you hand her off to Joe Camel and together you all ride back to the club.

You're heading for the most famous arena in the world. And it's going to be packed to the rafters with the walking dead. And it's your job—
your job
—to go inside and rescue someone. You clutch the MP5 submachine gun against your chest.

You open your eyes. White lines flash beneath you as Tommy cruises up Fifth Avenue. You come to a stop at Thirty-fourth Street, across from Penn Station and Madison Square Garden. Husks shuffle about in the moonlight, covering the stairs to the Garden entrance.

“Now what?” you whisper to Tommy.

“We wait. Colonel said they'd restore power to this grid at midnight.”

Just as Tommy finishes his sentence, the building lights up and the street is bathed in white light. The large digital screen outside reads
KNICKS VS CELTICS—TONIGHT, 7 PM
.

The monsters turn, surprised by the light. You can see them full on now—a few dozen in the street, maybe a hundred on the ramp leading up and into the garden. You don't even want to know how many more inside.

“Ready?” Camel asks.

Tommy nods.

Camel reaches into his sidecar and hands you each a forty-ounce bottle of Olde English, filled with gasoline and dish soap. The dish soap, Tommy told you, works as a thickening agent—it'll turn the Molotov cocktails into a sort of miniature napalm bomb.

You light a match. Hold the flame to the wick. Count to five, like Tommy said. Then you let it rip.

The bombs fly through the air, across Sixth Avenue, and smack against the side of the Garden entrance, showering the stairs with fire. Yours falls short, hitting the ground, and exploding at the beasts' feet. The dish soap causes the fire to let off a thick cloud of smoke, and the beasts stumble around, smoke pouring off them.

“OK fellas—let's give 'em hell!” Camel yells.

Tommy hits it. Drives across the avenue, straight up the ramp, past the burning beasts, and into the main hall. One stands at the entrance, blocking the way. The mounted saw cuts it in half at the waist. No blood. Just dry, dead innards.

You let loose with the submachine gun. It bucks in your hand. You slow it down—three-round bursts.

You send a pair of them flying into the ticket vendor windows. As they fall, you fire again, blowing apart their heads.

Tommy pulls the tommy gun from over his shoulder and begins firing. Takes down the beasts on the stairs.

Joe Camel works more methodically. With a .357 Magnum in his hand, he fires rounds sparingly. Aims. Shoots. One in the head. Aims. Shoots. Another in the head. The blasts are impossibly loud.

Finally, the shooting stops. Empty shells litter the floor beside you. Thick smoke in the air. Two balls of wet paper towel in your ears do little—your ears ring and your head pounds.

Tommy gets off his bike and walks over to Camel. They talk for a second, and Tommy returns.

“We go to the concourse,” Tommy says. “Then the elevator to the top. Camel will be waiting here, keeping things under control, then we all ride out together.”

You nod.

Tommy hits the gas. Your ass smacks repeatedly against the hard seat as he takes the bike up the stairs. At the top, he slows it down. A pair of double doors ahead of you, and beyond that, the concourse.

He continues the crawl through the doors. And then you're there. It's a hall about twenty feet wide, lined with bathrooms, food vendors, ATMs, beer, and all sorts of blue and orange shit for sale. And it's packed with a mass of undead New York sports fans.

“Ready?” Tommy says.

“Not really.”

“Good!” Then he guns it, headed right for them. No more MP5—time for the Vulcan. You grab the twin triggers, like holding two joysticks, press down with both thumbs, and do everything you can to hold it steady.

The Gatling gun whirls, then begins firing. Nothing could prepare you for this thing. Huge bullets tear through the monsters. Legs separate. Chests blow apart. Arms fly off. Bodies spin around. Masses of flesh burst.

Tommy picks up the speed.

You keep your thumbs on the triggers. Arms shaking. Hands hurting. It's like holding a jackhammer. Takes everything you have to keep it from shooting off to the right or left.

But you keep it forward. Keep mowing down whatever is in front of you.

The sound is beyond deafening. Chunks of tile fly off the walls. Bullets rip through an ATM machine. Money flies. A souvenir booth goes down in a mess of T-shirts and ball caps.

Finally, Tommy slows the bike—you're back where you started. The damage is tremendous. Smoke hangs in the air. Water sprays from the sprinklers.

Bodies litter the path ahead of you. Some crawl. One steps, stumbles, and falls.

“Not bad,” Tommy says. “Now, we go up.”

He drives to the elevator. You lean out, press the
UP
button, and wait. When the doors open, Tommy backs the bike in and hits the button for the tenth level.

As the elevator ascends, you sit in silence, hand on the Vulcan. It's hot. Smoke leaks out the end of the gun's six barrels, filling the elevator with the rich smell of gunpowder. You say nothing. Neither does Tommy. You hope that door never opens. You don't want to face another round of these things. Don't want to save that woman; you really don't give a damn about her right now.

But, of course, the doors open.

Right in front of you is a servicewoman. Young, maybe twenty-three. Absolutely gorgeous—or was. Her face is sunken in. Hollow looking. Nothing behind her eyes. Her left arm stops just below the elbow and her body sags to the side.

You let loose with the Vulcan. Bullets rip through her waist, propelling her into a deathly, spastic dance. The force of the shots pushes her back. As she falls, one of the massive bullets catches her in the chin and exits through the back of her skull.

The elevator doors shut behind you. You hear it begin to descend. Tommy drives. The sidecar goes up and over the dead woman. It's horrific. You feel sick—but, unfortunately, not numb. Every undead person you put back down pulls at your insides.

Tommy seems to sense it. He stops the bike. You idle in the small area outside the elevator, in front of you the long hall stretching to the left and right.

The things are coming. You can hear them running down the hall. About to come around the curved corner.

“Hey—get it out of your head,” he says.

“It's gone,” you say, not looking up.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“OK—then shoot those things, huh? Before they eat us?”

Tommy turns the corner just as you squeeze the twin triggers and lay waste to the approaching mass. Men in suits. Business types. The type of people who can afford top-level suites.

You circle the entire upper level of the arena and make it back to the elevator. It's clear. Every zombie, dead for real.

“OK, let's find this broad,” Tommy says.

There are eight large suites at the top level of Madison Square Garden. You try the first. Locked. Tommy tosses you a crowbar. You've never had to crack open a locked door, and Tommy explains it to you like you're an idiot. You wedge it in just above the handle and pop it. Tommy kicks in the door.

You peek in behind him. Tommy fires nine quick shots and drops three zombie businessmen.

It takes two more tries before you find what you're looking for. And it isn't nice.

The woman lies on the floor, barely breathing. She looks awful. She's older, mid-sixties. Emaciated. About what you'd expect for someone who spent the last three months living off what looks like nothing but water, soda, and Doritos.

Through the huge window you take in the arena for the first time. Thirty thousand undead Knicks fans. And on the floor, the entire Knicks roster—zombified.

Then a scream. You turn. Tommy. One has him pinned to the wall, teeth in his face. You can't tell where Tommy ends and the beast begins.