My alarm clock jars me from my sleep, as it does every
morning, causing me to groan and throw my arm over my eyes, trying to mentally
will time backwards another few hours. Sighing, I roll out of bed and stumble
through the hell-hole that is my bedroom floor (my “floordrobe”, as I lovingly
call it) and into my bathroom, where I gargle the acrid taste of whiskey from
my breath, replacing it with the acrid taste of mouthwash, before picking
amidst my “floordrobe” for the clothes that seem clean enough, and begin
donning them.
The last semester at the grand old University of Texas at
San Antonio, and I cannot wait to be on with my life! Though what the hell I’m
going to do with an English degree I haven’t the slightest… probably end just
being a teacher or something.
No time for breakfast proper, so I snag my backpack
(hanging from my low ceiling fan) and a couple sticks of Boy Howdy’s Cheese n’
Beef, and I’m out the door.
And right into my neighbor, the lovely Miss Cranston, who
was sprinting at a considerable speed while screaming about something, sending
us both to the ground in a tangle of limbs and curse words.
“What the fuck woman, slow down, class isn’t that
important!” I say, scrabbling to retrieve my precious Boy Howdy sticks. She
doesn’t seem to understand my attempt at diplomacy and merely pushes me to the
ground, before dashing off once more, leaving behind her shoe and her wallet,
which must have fallen out of her blue pajama pants when she slammed into me.
I’ll just give it to her later I suppose when-
Low moaning is now fading from white noise you can’t really
make out to that noise that’s within ten feet of you and needs to be addressed.
A cross between a groan of agony and the moaning one makes before they’re about
to barf, this moan attracts my attention quickly because it is coming from
three shambling men that are slowly, but steadily, approaching me. All three
sport some rather grievous wounds, with a broken pool stick sticking out of a
fat man’s chest, while the smallest of the three is a tattooed freak buck-ass
naked, his entire chest a gaping, and bloodless, hole. The leader of the three
is a priest, his vestments a little torn, small red handprints marring the
pristine white of the robes. He’s older and while I can’t see any wounds on
him, blood is drenched down his front from those that he’s personally attacked.
“You!” The Priest bellowed. “Come to the bosom of your Lord
and Savior, for the End of Days approaches!”
After running back inside my room and slamming the door, as
well as my bookshelf against the door, I quickly turn on the TV to see what the
hell is going on. This has to be on
the news…
Sure as shit, CNN’s ticker tape at the bottom is calling it
“The Second Coming,” and two reporters, speaking in their grating falsetto
voices are talking about how some of those that die to the bite wounds, which
are one hundred percent fatal, from any infected individual, rise as to preach
the word of God himself, directing the walking dead around them like an angry
mob to recruit more “children of Christ.”
This is why I’m an Atheist. I’d often complained
about the Christians shoving their religious faith down my throat, waving it in
my face at every available chance, and telling them how annoying that was. Now
it turns out we atheists were wrong on one front: there is an entity called
God, and he has started the Zombie apocalypse. I look around my meager
apartment, wandering what I could use to defend myself with, eyes passing over
a solid oak baseball bat of my roommates, one of those Pakistani Samurai swords
sitting next to his pile of anime, or the big meat cleaver still sitting in the
sink gathering flies from the barbeque a few days ago.
“For people trapped in the Northern Side of San Antonio,
Lackland Air force base will be doing routine helicopter pickups over the next
three days. It is imperative you get to the roof of your homes and try to
remain calm.” The reporters voices echoed in my ears.
Fuck that.
The highest point within running distance is the Social
Sciences building, part of the main campus; if there are any survivors, or any
chance of being picked up, the top of the building would be the place to be.
“Jack is back!” I smile as I snag one of the larger
samurai swords, thinking about an old cartoon I’d enjoyed as a child, due to the
shared name and ethnicity the hero and I shared. Being one of the cheaper
Pakistani swords you buy at Anime conventions, the sheathe is nothing but
cardboard and yarn, so I quickly abandon it.
I snag one of the smaller knives that matched my sword,
shucking it from its sheath and tucking it into one of the belt loops of my
jeans. Noting the lack of an edge on the knife, I chose to look over the sword
while listening partially to the news, partially to the deranged preaching of
the End of Days, and other biblical nonsense as his fellow three zombies hammer
away at my door.
I take the electric knife sharpener that my roommate had
received from his parents, and try and slide the very edge of the blade into
the narrow slit. I can carefully sharpen the sword, I discover, so long as I
maintain as steady, slow pace.
Something that is very hard to do when there are three
people throwing themselves bodily into your door and walls.
After several tries (one of which ended up with me
accidentally embedding the end of the sword into my countertop) I manage to
make the sword sharp enough to cut a piece of paper mid-air, which should be
more than enough. All I really need to do is get to the Sociology building,
that’s only a twenty minute walk.
Rather than trying to exit through the front, I scoop up my
backpack once more (dumping the books and filling it with soda, water and a few
rolls of duct tape) and walk over to my small window, peering outside it from
between the blinds.
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