Drink in case of Emergency (5 page)

Part 2: The hangover begins; everything else ends.

Tyler found himself sitting in a familiar seat on a moving train. He looked around curiously at the packed train car.

How did I get here?

Where am I going?

The feeling of deja vu grew stronger, and gave Tyler the slight feeling that something bad was about to happen. An elderly woman was seated next to him, snoring softly.

Tyler’s uncomfortable fear caused him to rise to his feet, jostling slightly with the train’s movement. Looking around at the car full of people, he didn’t recognize anyone.

Something is wrong here, Tyler thought to himself. I just don’t know what.

Tyler felt his stomach lurch, maybe a good time to rush to the bathroom?

Looking up and down the aisle of the train, Tyler was surprised to find that there didn’t seem to be a bathroom in this car, or at least no sign pointing to one. He decided that it might be best to check the next car, as his stomach began to roll.

Walking quickly along the rows of seats, Tyler used the handholds near the ceiling to keep his balance. He felt a little surprised that the aisle was completely clear for him to walk down. There wasn’t a single person out of their seat in the entire car, besides himself. This surprise quickly added to his concern, when he realized that the train car had suddenly become silent. Every conversation and mumbled word ended simultaneously.

What’s going on?

Why are they all staring?

Every eye in the car was turned to face him. Dozens of faces were completely blank, staring at him, but as if he wasn’t there at all.

“Oh....ummm. Sorry everyone. I just needed to use the bathroom.” Tyler meant to speak out loud, so the whole car could hear him, but his voice came out in an awkward squelch. He didn’t have time to worry further, as his stomach gurgled again, forcing a vomit flavored burp up through his mouth.

Why does it taste like pine?

Tyler forgot about the staring faces and ran down the aisle. He reached the end of the train car and pulled open the sliding door. He had expected to find another car, or maybe a small area with bathrooms and stairs. What he actually saw made him freeze.

The door Tyler had opened led into what appeared to be the cockpit of the locomotive. Tyler felt the world tip as the train banked to the left on a side track. The motion knocked Tyler off his feet and into the front seat of the train car he had just run through. He turned to apologize to the owner of the seat who’s lap he had just fallen into, but nobody was there. The train car, a moment ago packed to capacity, was now empty.

Where did they all go?

Tyler looked around the train car he was in, and found it completely empty. Where there had been staring blank faces, there was now only row after row of empty blue seats. Pushing himself back to his feet, Tyler walked through the door and into the engine room.

There were no overhead lights in this car, but the light from a beautiful sunset was coming through the windshield. This car was also much smaller than the passenger car Tyler had come from, all in all it was only slightly bigger than his bathroom at home and filled with the roaring sound of the engine.

The car was filled with dials and gauges, buttons and switches, which came in variety of oranges, reds, and yellows. Everything looked both important and dangerous. There was only one seat in car, and it was occupied by a woman who was facing forward, away from Tyler. He was fairly certain that it was a woman, as the figure had long blonde hair and what Tyler considered a ‘womanly shaped’ head.

A female voice spoke over the roar of the engine. Tyler was confused on how this was happening, as he could barely hear himself think over the sound, and the voice was speaking, not shouting. Even in spite of the engine noise, he could hear her question perfectly.

“You sure you can handle this?” The voice was calm, cold, and slightly mocking. Tyler assumed she was talking to him.

“I...I think I can.” Tyler felt himself speak, without even thinking. His words came out with more confidence than he felt. He was wondering why he had said that, when the woman spoke again, colder, but just as calm.

“No. You don’t. But you’re going to have to, they’ll all need you to.”

It was at that moment, Tyler looked past the woman and through the windshield of the train. The train was going downhill, fast. At the end of this hill, the tracks ceased to exist, falling away into a dark pit Tyler could not see the end of. He felt panic rising in his chest as he felt the train tip over the edge and into the abyss.

****

The sky was overcast the next morning, a pale murky gray, as if the weather hadn’t decided what it wanted to do, so it was keeping all options open. In spite of this weather, Tyler woke as always did after a long night of drinking, painfully early. His body was like a clock. A stupid, frustrating sonofabitch clock that had no respect for the concept of sleeping in, and even less respect for hangovers.

Tyler’s had learned an elegant and beautifully simple solution to this in his Freshman year of college when he started drinking.

His solution was “Be Miserable.”

His head felt like it would explode, and his body ached as though he had the flu while running a marathon the previous day. He was miserable, and he would just deal with it. Sometimes he could be miserable while lying still in bed, but most of the time lying down just made him throw up. Those days, he had to be on his feet. Mobile, and miserable.

This particular morning, was going to be a mobile and miserable day. This mobility began by getting himself seated upright, and then climbing from the reclining chair that had been his makeshift bed for the previous night. His socks made a rasping sound as he dragged them against the worn carpet and pushed himself to a standing position.

As Tyler was accustomed to, this was the single worst moment of a hangover morning. The sudden blood rush away from the head had him seeing black spots in the corners of his vision, and his throat felt like it was on fire. Once the headache began pulsing to his heartbeat, ‘wub dub, wub dub, wub dub’, he knew he was at rock bottom. It got easier from here, it just took a few hours, and a late morning nap, but he would survive.

After rising from the chair and wincing in pain at his headache, Tyler looked around to find Chris sleeping face down on the floor. Tyler assumed Justin was sleeping in his own bed, although he couldn’t fully remember much of what happened after Beth showed up last night. He remembered Justin screaming something about ‘Dr. Big Dick’, but couldn’t remember why.

Awake, and very miserable, Tyler began cleaning up the mess they had made over the last twelve hours. Tyler had built a reputation for this during his college years. People would attempt to get him so intoxicated when he came to their party that he would be forced to crash on their couch. This way, by the time they woke up at 11:00am the next morning, much of their house would already be cleaned up from the party. Tyler honestly didn’t really mind. Cleaning a house while you feel like someone was pounding on the inside of his skull somehow ended up feeling therapeutic to him.

If this is what rock bottom was, he could handle it.

             
Tyler started by collecting all the empty and half empty beer cans, wine bottles, and liquor bottles and filling the garbage can with them. He vaguely remembered seeing a recycling bin outside, so he pulled the overflowing garbage outside and lugged it down the stairs. The recycling bin exactly where his foggy brain had remembered it.

Tyler tipped the lid open, lifted the garbage can and winced as the crash of glass bottles and clatter of aluminum cans shattered the morning silence. After the clatter subsided, Tyler noticed the silence.

The small suburban neighborhood was absolutely silent. No dogs barking, car radios blaring, or even the dull hum of cars driving on the highway a half mile away. The world was silent, and despite his body aches from the hangover, Tyler felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up as the silence surrounded him.

Deja-vu.

Where did they all go?

Am I alone?

No...not alone. Tyler could feel eyes watching him, following him, tracking him. Turning slowly, Tyler was relieved to see a woman in her mid forties standing in the neighbor’s lawn, about twenty yards away.

Not alone.

Tyler tried snapping his fingers up next to his ears. A little muffled. His sinuses always got stuffed up after heavy drinking. Maybe that explained the silence.

“Good Morning.” Tyler croaked out while waving at the woman awkwardly. Tyler cleared his throat and continued, “Sorry...if we made too much noise last night, we got a little carried away.” The woman didn’t respond, and Tyler noticed her appearance.

The woman was wearing a thick, off-white cotton floral nightgown that went down to her knees. Her brown hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail. She looked a little pale, but Tyler remembered that wearing white in bright lighting has a tendency to wash out your color. Just another great tip from television.

What struck Tyler as strange was that she was barefoot. Last night was cold, It must be in the high forties now, and she’s walking around in wet grass barefoot. The idea of it make the bones in Tyler’s feet hurt. Tyler watched as her cold white feet shuffled clumsily through the dewy grass toward him. Tyler felt the hair on his neck stand up a little bit further as he stared mesmerized. It wasn’t until she was ten feet away that Tyler looked up from her feet to her face.

It’s valuable to mention at this point in time that, like many young men brought up in today’s age, Tyler had thought a lot about the undead over the course of his life. He had seen at least a dozen related movies, and since he was a teenager he had an escape plan in place for every apartment, house, and building he lived or worked in, just in case of the such an apocalypse. He and his friends had discussions about what would be their weapon of choice, who they wanted in their survival group and what their plan would be.

Each of these plans were completely dependent upon what “kind” of the undead they would encounter, of course. The machete you wanted against slow ones was not the same as the assault rifle you wanted against super fast, super strong ones. The escape plan and long term survival plan was also very different in each case.

In either case, it was decided that a tank was an acceptable answer for weapon or escape plan.

In spite of all of these hours of discussing and thinking about what he would do when he first faced one of the undead, Tyler reacted poorly.

****

“Are...are you okay?” Tyler looked into the woman’s faded, dull eyes. He thought her eyes used to be brown, or maybe hazel, but the color was faded and hidden, as if her eyes were covered by a fog. She reminded Tyler of when he was growing up, and the family’s old black lab got cataracts. Foggy, white and blue eyes that gazed as if they were seeing another world. He tried to lock eyes with her to get her attention, and was unable to. He couldn’t actually make out her pupils. Tyler could feel the woman looking through him, instead of at him. While Tyler spent his time trying to lock eyes with her, she continued to shamble closer and closer.

Step.

Step.

Step.

It wasn’t until the woman was five feet away that Tyler was absolutely sure that something was wrong. “Hey, hey! Stay back!” He held up the now empty white plastic garbage can he had carried downstairs with him, holding it lengthwise between them as a lion tamer might hold a chair.

The woman stumbled into the bottom of the garbage can, and Tyler felt her weight lean into it. She pushed her body against the can, but didn’t make a move to push it out of the way. She simply leaned into it, pushing Tyler back into the recycling bin he had just emptied his ‘shield’ into. Tyler was confused, a little startled, but not sure how to respond.

“Ma’am....Ma’am you’re scaring me. Please stop that! Please...” Tyler could hear his voice shaking, as his mind began piecing together the ultimate conclusion of what he was witnessing. The woman’s arms reached out and forward, trying to touch him, to grab him. Her arms were pale, only a shade or two darker than the nightgown she wore.

It’s true, white washes out your color.

Tyler looked into her face, her expression was blank, the muscles of her face were slack, as if she were asleep. A low moan, just barely above a whisper escaped from her mouth, along with a dribble of drool. Tyler felt bad, but he knew what he had to do next.

Rearing back, Tyler pushed his weight into his end of the small white plastic garbage can. The woman toppled back easily, falling into the wet grass. She fell so easily that Tyler nearly lost his footing and fell onto her.

Lying on the ground, the woman made a wheezing sound, her mouth agape as she began to roll onto her side and push back to her feet. Tyler jumped to the side, towards the stairs the led up to Justin’s apartment. He moved slowly up them, backwards, never turning his back on the woman for fear that what he was seeing was real.

The woman was now back on her feet, although hunched over at the waist from pushing herself up with her hands. Her eyes locked on Tyler, moving slowly up the stairs. He took this as a sign that it was time to run.