Drink in case of Emergency (24 page)

“Gentlemen, these last few days have been exceedingly...exhausting. We have traveled many miles, accomplished impossible tasks, and made a few new friends along the way.” Justin and Scott nodded in response to this last point. “We are not going to be the saviors of this world, and I’m not really sure if we’re going to survive past today for that matter. Regardless of how this all ends, I wouldn’t begin the apocalypse any other way. Now we stand on this iconic landmark, which is fresh with the waters of our travels...” Tyler broke into a laugh at this, Scott smiled and snickered, but Chris continued. “For today, for this moment, my life is perfect. And I am glad to have shared so much of it with you. To the end of the world.” Chris held his glass up and upended it into his mouth, gulping the brandy in a single swallow. His three friends gave a cheer in agreement and followed suit, downing their drinks in the same fashion.

Twenty seconds later, Justin and Tyler had puked up their brandy. Scott was about to do the same, over the railing so he could say he puked off the Willis Tower too. Chris hadn’t moved from where he stood, looking thoughtfully at the empty glass in his hands, and then around him. He missed his friends regurgitating on a national landmark, his eyes were affixed to the panoramic view of the city.

To the survivor, the spoils.

On the edge of the observation deck, Scott began puking over the edge of the tower. One hundred and seven stories below, on the street, the puke was falling on the heads of the last dozen zombies that were being led into the lobby of the Willis Tower.

After another ten minutes, the four friends began making their slow descent to the city below, unaware of the danger that was about to greet them.

The entire world stopped for Jessica. For a full twenty seconds she believed that time stood still. She remembered seeing Amy hang lifeless from the arms of Mr. Fedora, and then in a split second, they were both on the ground. Jessica wasn’t sure what was happening, but she heard a noise, and there was blood everywhere. She remembered thinking that it could have been her. That Mr. Gold Chain was only five feet away now. If he reached her, it was all over. That dark red blood, full of life, nothing like the purple mess that came out of the zombie Amy had just helped her slaughter. Oh, sweet Amy, she taught her so much in so little time. And she was totally going to rock those orange shorts too. The idea of Amy never getting to wear those shorts steeled her resolve.

Jessica felt the solid weight of the gun in her hand. A moment before, it had weighed a hundred pounds, she had almost let the burden drop from her fingers. Now it felt small again. Small and deadly. She raised her arm and put four rounds into Mr. Gold Chain’s chest.

Time sped back up, and it suddenly registered to Jessica that Amy was moving slightly. Dropping the gun, she ran over to Amy’s side and began shaking her arm. Amy’s eyes fluttered and slowly came into focus. Jessica felt overwhelmed with joy, which turned to panic when she heard a loud voice shouting behind her.

Turning quickly, she realized with fear that she had dropped the gun.

Why was she so stupid to drop the gun? There could be more than two of them.

Turning to look east toward the sound of the voice, Jessica was blinded by the midmorning sun. Another second or two passed before it registered to her that this voice she was hearing belonged to a woman. This lessened her panic to a dull unease.

Amy was rolling groggily off of Mr. Fedora’s corpse while Jessica helped her up. The source of the voice finally stepped far enough out of the far alley so Jessica was able to make out a silhouette. She was tall, at least taller than herself. As the woman drew closer, Jessica could see that she had bright auburn hair that looked as though it was on fire in the morning sunlight. She had full lips that were in a wide grin, bright white teeth showing beneath.

“Hello, I’m not sure if you heard me. My name is Brooke. Those guys weren’t friends of yours, were they?” The woman’s voice was soft and cheerful. It reminded Jessica of every beauty queen she had ever seen answering one of those scripted questions about world peace.

As she came closer, Jessica was able to finally look her over. She was on the taller end, maybe 5’10 or 5’11. She had wavy auburn hair that fell over her shoulders like a waterfall. Her enchanting ice colored eyes lit up what was already a beautiful face. She wore a charcoal gray trench coat that seemed to hug her slight curves, along with what looked like designer jeans from here. Her dainty feet were barefoot at the moment, which seemed strange to Jessica. Looking back up, Jessica finally noticed the large rifle slung over her shoulder.

Suddenly it dawned on Jessica what had happened. So Jessica did the only thing she could think to do in the situation, she began to cry.

“Oh god...you...you saved our lives.” While Jessica cried and blubbered out her words, Amy worked herself into a sitting position, still dazed and unclear about what was going on. Rubbing her neck where Mr. Fedora had choked her out, Amy finally registered that a woman was walking toward them. Slowly and carefully, she reached behind her, groping for a pistol that was no longer there.

“No problemo. You ladies need some water, food? I know a great coffee place down the street. I mean, obviously the machines aren’t going to work, but we could make something happen, or at least grab a bite to eat.”

Amy stopped hunting for the pistol, deciding that this Brooke probably wasn’t all that dangerous. Although it hurt her throat to speak, Amy was still able to croak out, “I need a drink.”

Jessica reached back and picked up her backpack that had fallen in her initial shock and fear. Pulling out a large water bottle, she twisted off the cap and offered it to Amy. Amy took a small sip which she spit out in a the exaggerated gesture that typically only befalls the victim of shocking news.

“Wine. I need wine.”

“A lady after my own heart. There’s a great place just a block away.” Brooke said in her velvety smooth voice. She walked the final ten paces and offered her hands to help the two women to their feet.

****

Brooke led her two new friends to the bar she had promised was only a block away. Each grabbed their own bottle of wine and they sat at a table on the small patio outside. Over the next half hour, the three women had exchanged their stories.

Up until a few days ago, Brooke had been an astrophysics student at the University of Chicago. The night of the plague, she and a couple she was friends with had gone out to celebrate the meteor shower.

To Brooke and her classmates, a meteor shower like the one that had happened on Thursday was a big deal. Naturally, a small celebration turned into a lot more. She had been almost a full bottle of wine in, but Dr. Aresh - the Ph.D. she was working with, was leaving her and the rest of the group in the dust. Dr. Aresh was almost two bottles of wine deep, which confused the entire group. None had ever see him have a single drink before, much less get wasted. The fact that was setting up to ruin the night was that Dr. Aresh was a sad drunk.

Somewhere in the middle of the second bottle of wine, Dr. Aresh began crying. Crying and confessing. He started off stammering that he had tried to notify NASA of what he had found the day before. He tried to sound the alarm, but nobody would listen.

Dr. Aresh’s specialty was the planet Saturn. He could rattle off any and every fact about Saturn, as well as all the best solar system jokes (pretty much all using “Uranus” in the punchline).

Apparently, two days before, he had been watching Saturn remotely through a telescope in the Arizona desert, when it happened to pass through the supernova wave that was causing the meteor shower on Earth. As it passed through the wave, the rings of Saturn were pushed noticeably off course.

Dr. Aresh had initially thought that it was just a glitch in the system, but when he checked several other telescopes across the globe, they found the same result. Whatever this wave was, it had the potential to do serious harm to all life on Earth. It was impossible to tell for sure how Earth’s atmosphere would affect the wave. If it would protect us all, or simply be swept aside like a cloud of smoke.

Which is why Dr. Aresh had decided that tonight was a good night to start drinking heavily. Brooke and her classmates, upon hearing this news, sincerely hoped that it had more to do with Dr. Aresh’s recent divorce that might be causing him to overreact. In either case, there was nothing that any of them could do. Earth would be hit by the wave no matter what. So, they drank. Brooke ended up crashing with a couple of friends.

From there, it was a similar story to Jessica and Amy’s. Brooke woke to her friend Max screaming as his girlfriend, Jill, attacked him. Suddenly Brooke was locked in a tiny two bedroom efficiency with two murderous people, two zombies.

Brooke had locked herself in a bathroom for a half day, spending the first two hours trying to call 911 for help. Thankfully the guest bathroom had a small window that overlooked what was normally a busy street. The vacancy of any traffic, coupled with her inability to call anyone for help on her cellphone, led her to believe this was not an isolated situation.

She was able to kill Jill and Max with the large, heavy piece of porcelain that covered the back of the toilet. After that ordeal, she showered for the entire afternoon and stayed camped out in her dead friends apartment for a full day. It seemed like other zombies in the building must have been able to hear her, as they soon filled the hallway outside Max and Jill’s front door.

Once Brooke had decided there was no way out through the building, she went out the fire escape and quickly armed herself, and she had spent the last few days practicing with the rifle she carried on her back.

While Brooke had a good idea that this plague was likely directly connected to the meteor shower, she had not yet figured out the trick about safety and alcohol. For some reason this revelation was one of the funniest things in the world to her. Amy and Jessica told their story, Brooke lit up a little bit when they mentioned that they had four guys they were traveling with as well. Four young guys, while also offering the opportunity for amorous activities, offered the more appealing idea of having a group, which offered a better night’s sleep. Brooke really perked up when she learned why the group had come to Chicago in the first place.

“Wait. Let me get this straight. You traveled for four days to get here, just so one of the guys could piss off the Willis Tower?” The question hung, Jessica and Amy unsure if it was rhetorical or not.

“Ummm...yeah.” Jessica finally answered.

“That doesn’t seem weird to you? Taking all that time and effort, just for a piss?”

“Well, what else were we supposed to do?” Amy answered honestly. The question seemed to catch Brooke off guard, she stared into her half empty bottle of wine while she contemplated it.

“I guess, I don’t know. Whenever my friends and I talked about zombies, it was always arguing over what the best safe house or best weapon to defend yourself would be. Nobody ever really talked about what they would do with all the free time.”

“You really don’t consider it. I mean, so you sleep eight hours a day, and you might have to forage for food and fight off zombies for a couple hours a day, but then what do you do with the rest of your time?” Amy smiled into her bottle of wine as she took one last pull from it.

“Piss off the Willis Tower and rob fancy boutiques, I guess.” Jessica said, following Amy’s example, even though it made her eyes water. The wine was calming her nerves from the events of the last hour.

“Would you ladies mind if I joined your little party?” I don’t really want to hang around here, and as you can see there’s plenty of things worse than zombies for a lady to defend herself against.” Brooke smiled with the question, but Jessica could sense her loneliness. She played it cool, but something in her eyes told Jessica that Brooke was scared.

“I don’t know if it’s entirely up to us, we’ll have to run it by the guys first, but I don’t see any reason why not.” Jessica smiled. “After all, you did save our lives back there.”

By this point, a few zombies that had been milling aimlessly along the street began moving closer to the table where they were enjoying their bottles of wine. There was a tall, thin African American man, a white woman who looked to be in her late thirties, and a chubby boy of maybe twelve. Each had the paled skin and stumbling gait, however seeing the three together confirmed something for Amy that she had noticed before.

The child was moving with a similar gait, but it was not the same. His little legs moving surprisingly quickly, making his bare feet scrape against the pavement.

“The kid zombies move a lot faster than the adults. It’s weird.” Amy pulled the pistol out of her pocket as she spoke. Jessica noticed a wry smile cross Amy’s lips as she lined up her shot, taking out the two slower moving targets first. Two clean headshots. She waited only a moment more, observing the child zombie as it was now less than ten yards away.

Amy took a long drag off her bottle. She was about to aim and shoot, when something dark flew over her shoulder and crashed into the zombie boy’s head, knocking him off balance and to the ground. Amy and Jessica both turned to see Brooke, sans the bottle of wine she had just finished. She had hurled the empty bottle which had collided with the kids face.

A moment later the chubby boy sat back up, purple blood running down his cracked lips from what looked like a horribly broken nose. Out of the corner of her eye, Jessica noticed that Amy’s wry smile had developed into a full grin as she aimed and pulled the trigger, finishing off what was left of the chubby boy’s face.

“I think I’m going to like hanging out with you ladies. You’re fun.” Brooke said, standing. “How about we go find your friends now?”