Zombie Apocalypse: Choose Your Fate!

By Colin Webster

Could you survive a real zombie apocalypse? Open up the book and find out!
Will you take the shotgun or the machete?
Do you risk life and limb to save your friends, or leave them to be dragged down by the undead?
Your decisions mean life or death to you and those you encounter as you take a desperate ride through the collapse of civilization and the rise of the dead!
Can you survive?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 2, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477127056

Book preview

CHAPTER 65

Leaping into the elevator, Ali hits the button repeatedly, trying to make it close faster. You wish that worked. Opening up with the Thompson, you keep the zombies away with sporadic well-placed bursts of .45ACP. Max, always one to help out, crouches in front of you and rakes the legs of the screaming creatures with bullets.

It doesn’t stop them but does a fine job of causing them to fall down and tangle up, slowing their progress and hindering those behind them. Finally the door begins to shut. At the last moment, a well-chewed hand slams in between the edges of the door. Drawing his Bowie knife, Jack hacks the thing off with a single stroke. Apparently, the Bowie’s not just strapped to his belt for show.

The doors begin to close again, and this time you don’t stop firing until they’re shut all the way. You take the time to change out the drum in your Thompson, and Max tops off his magazine with a box of extra .223 rounds from his vest. Cheesy elevator music plays softly, creating a very odd and out-of-place atmosphere as the four of you stand ready for whatever waits when the doors open.

You guys ready? asks Ali. You like it when she smirks like that.

Hey, I was born ready, babe! Max grins. Apparently he likes it too, corny lines notwithstanding.

Whiskey Jack just nods and settles the gun belt over his hips. You take a deep breath and crack your neck from left to right.

At any moment that door is going to open, and you have to be ready for whatever is on the other side. The screen above the buttons ticks off the floors on a digital screen. Ten, fifteen, seventeen, twenty, slowly moving toward thirty-three. As you pass twenty-seven, a massive fist punches through the elevator door. Its impossibly huge and feels like it will rip you in half as it grabs onto your shoulder and yanks you toward the doors. Luckily, the pressure plates in the doors gave with the impact, and the doors slide open in time to prevent you from being pulled through the hole sideways. When you see what’s on the other side of the door, you don’t feel so lucky.

The thing that has hold of you is hunched over, yet its back and shoulders still strain against the ceiling. It looks like a nine-feet-tall gorilla on steroids. Impossibly huge muscles bunch and strain beneath stretched and torn skin; beady red eyes set into a comparatively small head glower at you before it tosses you aside with a flick of its wrist.

You crash into a desk, knocking over office chairs, monitors, and keyboards before coming to a halt. You’re dazed, but the sudden rush of adrenaline makes you leap to your feet in time to smash the zombie that jumps at you with your weapon. You knock yourself back as much as you do him, but you manage to squeeze off a three-round burst that stitches him across the neck, separating it from his body.

Struggling back to your feet, you see Max and Ali launched through the air to decimate a cubicle. More zombies rush toward where they land, but they go down when you let fly a fusillade of 230-grain bullets. A bloody creature with a pocket protector and taped glasses smashes into you less than a second later, but a quick elbow sends teeth and glasses flying. As you roll to the side, he moves his head about as if trying to locate you. Apparently being undead doesn’t improve the vision any. Shoving the muzzle of the Thompson into his ruined mouth, you stroke the trigger once, blowing out his brain stem.

The old cowboy is ducking and dodging massive fists inside the elevator while you help Max to his feet. You can’t fire at the mutant zombie without hitting Jack, so he’ll have to fend for himself for the moment. Max throws himself at the creature and smacks it on the back of the head with the stock of his weapon. The next moment he’s flung through the air again as the thing roars and lashes out. The distraction gives Jack just the time he needs, and as the gorilla-zombie is turning back around, Jack thumbs the hammer back on his twin six guns and blows matching holes through the creature’s eyes. The beast slumps to its knees, and Jack kicks it over with the heel of his boot.

Another zombie comes screaming out of nowhere, and the old man raises his Colt and fires once, watching disdainfully as the zombie’s screams become a choking gargle, his throat blown out by the heavy round. Jack blows the smoke from the barrel and winks at Ali.

Coughing on the smoke from the black powder rounds (you didn’t notice how much smoke they make until Jack fired them in a confined space), you head for the stairs.

Once through the door, you peer over the rail to see a swarm of twitching shadows in the dim light. Wow. It looks like there are a lot of them down there. You’d guess they’d all be down at the bottom, trying to get out, but there’s plenty on all the landings and steps you can see.

You can see it now in your mind. The zombies breaking out; them swarming the office building; people trying to hide in the stairwell but either someone is bitten or zombies got in; and now half the office workers are trapped, infected, and lying along the stairs, hungry and waiting. You’ll have to move fast. Only three floors to go.

It turns out to be too far. Before you’ve reached the next landing, they’re caught the scent, and a mob of shrieking infected is climbing the stairs at a speed they never could have reached in life. They don’t seem to get tired, only hungry.

The first ones are on you in moments. Max and Ali keep a withering rain of fire concentrated on the landing below as you and Jack sprint up the steps to the next floor. Firing on the landing diagonally across from you gives Max and Ali breathing space to run up to your level and past you to the next. Repeating the procedure, you notice that there seems to be an unlimited number of zombies, more and more with each wave. After all, there are almost thirty floors worth of these suckers trapped there, and they’ve only got one prospect for a meal.

Soon, even the steady stream of bullets from the Thompson can’t keep them back, and Jack swiftly empties his rifle and revolvers. Run! screams Ali, but you don’t think any of you will make it if you stop firing now—there’s too many of them. They get closer and closer, the bodies stacking up only to be shoved aside to fall twenty-nine stories down to the bottom landing. Jack’s rough, calloused hands clutch at your shirt. His eyes burn with ferocious life, though his face is pale as death. Go, he says sharply, now! Shoving you back, he draws the bowie and leaps down the stairwell, landing with his boots on a zombie’s shoulders and riding him down the stairs, bowling over others to send them screeching over the rails to the depths below.

He lands on his feet, catlike, and begins whirling and slashing about with the bowie. For a fraction of an instant, his eyes look up to yours, telling you with a look to stop your gawking and get a move on. The old man moves like a twenty-year-old fencing master as he disembowels and decapitates infected office drones at a terrifying rate. You hear him cursing up a storm behind you as you race up the steps toward Max and Ali.

The door to the roof is locked, but Max has already smashed through the thin pane of glass and is reaching through it to turn the handle on the outside. A moment later and you’re through, just in time to slam the door on the horde of bloody hands and teeth behind. You turn the lock, giving up hope that Jack would somehow make it out against impossible odds.

The scene in front of you looks little better. Slapping a new drum into the Thompson, you open fire on the crowd in front of you. The elevator door reaches to the roof, and others must have taken it before, massing on the roof in hopes of escape. There’s quite a crowd here to greet you, and you can only guess their bared gore-stained teeth are smiles of welcome.

Well, if they want to eat, they can eat lead. You made it this far, and you aren’t going to die now. Not now. Not now. You repeat the words in your head like a mantra as you fire short bursts into each zombie that rushes you, Max and Ali following your lead.

You can hear the thwup thwup thwup of the blades as a helicopter arrives to hover overhead. You don’t think he’s going to land with this many zombies on the roof, and you’re right. The pilot hovers off a little distance from the building, but the side of the helicopter is open, and a door gunner with a medium machine gun hangs out the side.

You grab Ali and Max and shove them to the ground as the door gunner racks the charging handle to the rear. Empty brass flows out into the open air at the rate of eight hundred rounds per minute. Chunks of infected tissue fly through the air as he rips into the crowd, the bullets cutting through the fragile zombies like a scythe. Heads, legs, and arms bounce and tumble through the crowd as zombies slip and scrabble in the dark pools of blood.

In no time the belt of ammo reaches its end, and you haul your companions to their feet and sprint for the chopper. There aren’t many zombies left now, and it’s time to make a run for it. Max launches a field goal kick that decapitates one of the zombies as you run by, but his momentum carries him slipping and sliding into a heap of severed body parts and twitching torsos. The head flies through the air to get turned to mulch by the propeller. It doesn’t harm the blade but does send the chopper teetering away as the pilot tries to correct the hiccup and maneuver back to the roof.

As you’re helping Max up, a terrifying roar pierces your ears, even over the sound of the helicopter. Another one of those huge gorilla mutants appears out of nowhere, moving fast enough to reach Ali and knock her sprawling end over end before she can react.

Max raises his weapon and tries to fire, but it jams. He starts working the charging handle, but that only seems to make the problem worse. You fire with your submachine gun, but the creature doesn’t even slow as the heavy bullets rip into his massive arms and torso. In a split second, he has crossed the gap between you and knocks the gun out of your hands. You’re clutching for your pistol even as you slide through the gore, but a legless zombie snatches at your arm as you go by, and the pistol disappears into the muck.

Climbing to your feet, you draw the only weapon you have left: the large knife. The blade is long, serrated, and heavy; but it seems puny compared to the mighty creature in front of you. Glancing around, you notice Ali hanging with blood-slippery fingers from the edge of the roof. The beast is between you and her. Max is lying near the helicopter, swatted into unconsciousness by an enormous fist. It doesn’t look good. The door gunner and pilot are making motions with their arms, trying to yell something to you. It’s clear they want you to get on the chopper—right now! The door gunner doesn’t appear to have any more ammo either.

You’re in this alone now, with Max out cold and Ali clinging for her life to the edge of the roof. She looks at you with pleading, desperate eyes. Her fingers start to slip, she’s losing her grip on the ledge.

The creature raises his arms and roars triumphantly. You’re close enough to make it to the helicopter before the beast can reach you, but that means leaving your companions behind. It looks like he’s going to charge any minute now; you’d better decide fast!

If you abandon Max and Ali and sprint toward the chopper, turn to page 163.

If you’re going to stay and fight, turn to page 165.

CHAPTER 59

You grit your teeth and prepare to make a move that would give professional stunt drivers the willies. It’s better than going back to Rearden. Anything’s better than going back to Rearden. Shouting at the twins to hold on, you jerk the wheel hard to the right, shooting through a gap in the guard rail. The Mustang instantly begins to bounce and thud its way down the hillside toward the logging road.

The girls scream as the car is launched into the air. As you grip tight on the steering wheel, a shout of fear rises in your throat as you hope the vehicle comes down level. With a tremendous impact, the tires slam down on the dirt road, and you twist the wheel hard to the left. The car skids, sending up a spray of rocks and dirt before settling onto the road and lurching forward. You take your foot off the gas, just realizing you’ve been pressing it down the whole time. Everyone breathes a collective sigh of relief. You made it.

Driving down the logging road for a few minutes brings you to the scene of a terrific wreck. There’s an old jeep and a long gray bus, smashed up against each other in the middle of the road. Debris and twisted metal are strewn all over the place. Smears and handprints in blood cover the bus and the jeep, and there are few shell casings littering the area around one of the corpses, wearing some kind of dark blue clothing. It could be a cop’s uniform, but it’s torn and chewed enough so that you can’t tell.

There are few piles of rotting meat, wearing bloodstained rags and looking like they’ve been chewed to bits. The area looks clear, but it’s hard to see far with the woods and thick undergrowth. It seems safe enough now; whatever happened it must have been a while ago, judging by the smell. You exit the vehicle and walk over to one of the bodies.

There’s a blood-crusted machete still clutched in one of his hands, though the arm is only still connected by the bone. The face is mangled beyond description. As you survey the other corpses, it doesn’t look like any of them are carrying weapons, and that probably helps explain their current condition.

Bending down, you grab the handle of the machete gingerly, trying to avoid touching the rotting flesh of the hand that grasps it. When you pull it out, the one good eye left in the ruined face flies open, causing you to stumble back in surprise. Springing forward with the blade, you stab it downward into the face, and it doesn’t improve its looks much, but the eye closes again.

Look out! screams one of the twins behind you, and you whirl around to see one of the corpses shuffling toward you. You don’t have time to draw your pistol, and you curse yourself for leaving the rifle in the car. The shambling zombie’s flesh is sloughing off its outstretched arms, and a low rasp comes from its throat. The smell is overpowering, but you manage to swing your machete with brutal force just as he reaches you, lopping of the top of his head diagonally. His body twists and jerks spasmodically as he falls back to the ground. Three other corpses are rising, apparently not finally dead after all.

All of them have on some kind of bright orange jumpsuits, the kind that prisoners wear. Dropping the machete, you grab the pistol and take aim. The zombies are bunched together, which at least makes it easier. Two quick shots drop the nearest one, another well aimed one takes out the second zombie, and then your gun jams. Crap. The third zombie is stumbling forward, that horrible moan reminding you of the urgency of your situation as you slap the magazine hard and rack the slide. The slide doesn’t rack all the way and appears to be caught on something in the action. Maybe a double feed, but there’s no time to check since the zombie’s reaching out for your throat.

Using the pistol as a club, you smash him across the face—hard—but he doesn’t show much reaction as his teeth spill out of his mouth. He grabs hold of your shirt, trying to pull you close as his mouth opens wide. Smacking him across the face with the pistol again doesn’t dislodge his grip, but it backs him up to arm’s length, which is just long enough for one of the twins to put two rounds in his head with her rifle. He slumps to the ground, but something’s making a racket from inside the remains of the bus. It doesn’t seem wise to stick around long enough to find out what.

Before you can take more than a step to your vehicle, badly disfigured creatures in blaze orange jumpsuits start piling out of the bus and shambling out of the woods toward you. Must have been a prison bus that got into the wreck. Some of them are still wearing handcuffs; and most of them look like hell, limbs missing, dragging one leg or the other and flesh that’s been rotting for a while in the sun. What’s worse is that you’re surrounded, cut off from the car. At least the twins don’t have to be told what to do, going back to back and opening fire, trying to make carefully aimed shots with their rifles. You can’t get to yours, so you grab the closest weapon at hand: the machete at your feet.

Most of these zombies are rotted and damaged enough so that they aren’t moving very fast, which makes it easier to stay out of their way. Dodging one’s clumsy charge, you swing the machete backhanded and feel the impact as it slices into the vertebrae in his neck. That should do it.

A squeal behind you turns you around to see one in a prison guard’s uniform, missing his nose, ears, and lips. The teeth clack together as he snaps at you, and you have to leap back as you swing the blade. It cleaves the lower part of his jaw away, but he’s not going down. Bringing the blade back around, you sink it in the side of his head where his right ear used to be just as a pair of hands latches onto your shoulders. Spinning away, the blade slips from your fingers and stays lodged in the prison guard’s skull.

As you dart to the side to avoid another rush, it’s quickly becoming too crowded to move. Your agility is being overcome by sheer numbers. A bony hand grasps your ankle, and as you stomp on its owner’s head to dislodge it, you feel yourself being tackled by a pair of moaning zombies. You hit the ground hard with them on top of you and manage to get one hand over each face to keep them from biting you. They wail and screech as they try to push closer, and you’re not going to be able to hold them off for long.

A fury wells up inside you, and you tell yourself it’s not over yet. And it’s not going to be, if you can help it. Smashing the zombies’ heads together doesn’t do much, but it seems to stun them just long enough for you to reach behind your head for something to use. Your hands close around the machete, still buried in the guard’s skull. With desperate strength, you wrench it free, bringing it around in an arc to cleave easily through one of your attackers’ forehead. Bringing it back, you make another short hard chop, and the next one’s head comes clean off as the blade slices easily through the rotten neck.

Gagging and retching at the sudden outpouring of rotting blood, you stagger to your feet, lying about on all sides at the zombies gathering around you. Fingers and forearms go flying as you slash and hack with the blade indiscriminately, barely able to see through all the splattering dark blood and bits of gore filling the air.

Using your free hand to push them back, you manage to keep the zombies at bay while your blade does its work. Ducking down, you slash at legs and stomachs as they close in, and you dive between a tall zombie’s legs and out of the circle. There are more on the other side, though, staggering up to meet you, all wearing the tattered orange jumpsuits. Their limbs practically fall off as you swing the blade like a madman, determined to live.

The firings stopped, though you can’t see over the crowd that still surrounds you whether the girls have gone down or simply fled. Long fingernails rake your arms as the creatures try to get a hold on you, and it seems like the world is made of bloodstained teeth and stinking animated corpses. You aren’t going to be able to keep this up forever. Driving forward and slashing with both hands on the blade, you desperately try to break free from the crowd. Kicking in between strokes with the machete, you manage to clear a path for an instant and dart through it to the other side.

Freeing yourself from the massed zombies allows you to look around for the girls as you run for the car, but it doesn’t take long to notice that it too is surrounded by the creatures. Stiff-arming one of the lurching prisoners, you race for the vehicle, but there’s no sign of the girls anywhere.

That’s when you see it. The zombies around the car are huddled over something—no, two something’s—tearing at them with their teeth and claws, long red and white tubes hanging from their mouths. No! The twins trusted you to protect them, and this is their fate? Suddenly there’s no fear left in you, just a burning desire for vengeance.

Charging the vehicle, you take off the first zombie’s head with a wicked chop, spilling the half-chewed fingers from his mouth as his head goes flying. The next you split in two down to the collarbone, kicking the lifeless corpse away before whirling to punt the head off another zombie still busily chewing on a leg.

The next zombie looks up at you confused when you lop off his arm at the elbow, half-chewed intestines spilling from his open mouth. You stab the blade in between his teeth, wrenching it around until the head falls halfway off. As you turn, the machete seems to move on its own as it slices across another one’s eyes before burying itself halfway through a skull. Twisting it free, you bring it down hard on the last feeding zombie, cleaving downward from the side of the neck well into his chest cavity.

The madness overwhelms you, and taking no heed of the reaching arms and snapping teeth, you charge head on into the approaching mob of undead. There are zombies to the front and both sides, but you no longer care. As you slash and stab with the fury of a madman, arms and legs fly past as you make your way through the crowd.

A muscular tattooed zombie looms up before you. His skin is peeling away, and his goatee and shaved head are covered in gore. One of his massive hands land on your shoulder as he pulls you in for a bite. With both hands on the machete, you thrust it up and under his jaw until the blade pops through the top of his skull with a sickening sound. Yanking it back, you turn and slice off an outstretched arm that’s already missing several of its fingers.

Suddenly your rage is spent, and you’re back in the middle of a crowd of hungry zombies. They pull and tug at your clothes, and you stumble from side to side even as you shove and lash out with the blade. Launching kicks and throwing punches with your free hand, you manage to work your way over to the bus, and put your back against it.

Fortunately the remaining zombies are the ones too slow and damaged to get in on the action to start with, so you have enough time to cut them down one by one. One almost bites you when you stumble over a severed arm, but you throw a vicious elbow into his face that knocks him back. A quick stroke leaves his head hanging by a small strip of flesh as he topples to the ground. The final zombies are all missing limbs from your earlier attentions, and you take off their heads with long brutal strokes.

Panting, you bend over to catch your breath, thrusting the blade into the dirt to clean the infected blood off it. You’re hoping you’re either immune to whatever disease causes this, or it’s only contagious from the bite, seeing as how every inch of you is covered in the dark infected blood. There’s one or two zombies still twitching, but it only takes a moment to finish them off. When you reach the car, you find your rifle’s barrel was bent somehow in the fight. It’s not bad, but you don’t dare fire it in this condition. Great. You really need to change. Taking the keys from the ignition and avoiding the side of the car where the twins’ bodies lie, you unlock the trunk and look inside. There’s a suitcase and a black duffel bag inside, and the suitcase is filled with clothes. They look to be about your size.

Stripping down and using a few of the T-shirts to clean yourself off, you select a pair of jeans and shirt that fits. It feels much better to be wearing clean clothes. You open the duffel bag next. Jackpot! The former owner of the Mustang must have been getting ready to try to fight his way out of town from the looks of it. No idea what happened to him, but his loss is your gain. There’s a Remington 12-gauge pump shotgun with a flashlight attached to the underside and drop pouch filled with shells. The pouch goes on your strong side, clipping onto your belt. The top is elastic so the shells won’t spill out, but you can easily reach down and grab a handful without having to pick them one by one, as you would out of a bandolier.

There’s also a pistol inside the bag and five spare magazines. The pistol is a Springfield XDM, and it holds nineteen rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber! That should definitely come in handy, and you feel a little stupid for not having checked the trunk earlier. The handgun comes with a black thigh holster, and in a minute you’re all strapped up and ready to go.

When the trunk clicks shut, you jump back immediately. Slouching against the side of the car with her teeth bared, Tara (or it could be Kara) lets out a scream and launches herself at you, trailing her intestines behind her.

Not having checked the shotgun yet, you don’t know if it’s loaded, but you snap it to your shoulder and pull the trigger anyway, hoping. Click. The twin lands short with the muzzle of the shotgun stuck in her mouth. She reflexively gags on the cold steel as you work the pump and feel a round load into the action. It just wasn’t chambered before. Boom! Her head disintegrates with the force of the blast, and behind her the other twin, now risen, has her arm torn raggedly off by the buckshot. She doesn’t slow down, though, and she’s moving fast.

With the few remaining shreds of the first twin’s head still hanging off the barrel, you work the pump and fire again, tearing a large hole through Tara’s (Kara’s? Doesn’t matter anymore) thoracic cavity. The remnants of her lungs gurgle and hiss dark blood as she falls face forward at your feet. Damn.

You feel a quick surge of guilt for letting the twins come to this gruesome fate but just as quickly shove the thoughts aside. If you knew which one was which, you could at least tell them apart now by their wounds. It’s a cold comfort. You’re going to have to survive and to do that you can’t dwell on things like this. You consider burying them, but some rustling noises coming from the woods convinces you it’s time to move on. Leaping into the Mustang, you fire it up and leave a spray of dust and gravel behind you as you speed along the road.

The road twists and turns, winding its way through the forest in a haphazard pattern until you are no longer sure of the cardinal directions. Trees stretch out overhead, making it hard to get a good view of the sun. After miles and miles, you come to a dead end. Just great.

Shutting off the car, you sigh and put your head in your hands. There were a few turnoffs, but they were a long way back and didn’t look promising. You’d have to turn around and pick another one, but maybe it would be wise to find a tree or something to sleep in for the night before moving on. Darkness is rapidly approaching as it is.

The sudden and unmistakable chatter of gunfire breaks your thoughts. It’s coming from somewhere off in the distance ahead. Getting out of the car with the shotgun, you head toward the noise. There are flashes of gray concrete through the trees, and in a few moments, you can see buildings and cars on the other side.

You’d be excited, except for the sounds of battle that sound from several different directions. The closer you get to the edge of the woods, the more alarmed you become.

The odd scream or familiar screech and moan reach your ears from deep within the city before you. It’s definitely much larger than Rearden, and tall buildings start right on the other side of the forest. Well, from the sound of things, at least this place is still alive and kicking. For how long, though, is anybody’s guess. You could go into the city and try to find a way out from there, or you could go back to the car and see if safety lies in a different direction.

To go back to the car and take off, turn to page 137.

To enter the city, go to page 139.

CHAPTER 78

You burst through the door of the hardware store. Suddenly, you’re looking at four people holding sharp looking yard tools.

He’s alive! Shouts one, a teenager in overalls.

How do you know, he’s just standing there staring at us! Says a short man in a plaid shirt and green baseball cap with a tractor on it.

Hit ‘im Jack! Says a wiry looking older woman.

Say somethin’ mister, and quick, you’re makin’ some of these folks nervous, says a burly man in a leather vest and thick soled boots. His thick finger tighten on an axe, but he makes no move to strike you with it.

It’s true, you shout, I am alive! It’s ok! You stammer, raising your hands to show you’re unarmed.

Take this then, and get ready, it looks like you’ve brought company, says the teenager casually, tossing you a chainsaw.

It’s true. The store window shows a veritable Mongolian horde of zombies racing for the store. They’ve caught up to you. The five of you take up positions just in front of the register, there’s nothing you can do but fight now, and try to hold them off. The back door has already been barricaded, the front has a few boards hurriedly nailed up, but they four must not have had time to finish fortifying the store before you showed up with your . . . guests.

The zombies come running up, their shrieks muffled behind the glass. They crash through in a wave, and all hell breaks loose. Broken glass flies everywhere. The short man in plaid lunges forward, darting a pitchfork this way and that, the big man wades into the crowd, laying about with an axe. It takes a few tries, but finally the chainsaw roars to life, just before the zombies reach you. You plunge forward, holding the chainsaw in front of you. The spinning chain does most of the work, cutting through the zombies like the proverbial hot knife through butter, but in this case the butter is blood, and its flying everywhere, along with bits of brain and bone and flesh, and it’s getting in your eyes and all over your clothes. You hope you really are immune.

It seems for every zombie you cut down, two more replace it. The man in plaid with the pitchfork slips in the blood and gore and the zombies swarm him. The fighting’s too thick for you to get to him. He’s bitten a dozen times in a second or two, and you know it’s too late for him anyway. You swing the chainsaw in wide swaths, and bodies erupt in showers of dark blood.

Despite the massive destructive potential of the chainsaw, the remaining four of you are driven back by the endless horde.

We’ve got to get out of here! The teenager shouts.

Maybe you geniuses shoulda’ thought of that before this big lug here stacked the lumber and water softener against the back door! The older woman snarls.

Shut up Martha! The big man snaps, and begins throwing bags of salt and chunks of wood from the pile against the back door. Keep them back! He shouts.

There’s too many dad! Shouts the teen, skewering a zombie with the splintered remains of a spade.

Just hang on! Jack shouts, putting a brawny shoulder to the door and shoving it open.

Sunlight spills into the dark store and Jack and his son race outside. The chainsaw chugs to a stop, jammed up with bone and tissue. You hurl it into the crowd and race through the back door. Martha turns and tries to flee, but a clawing hand snatches at her ankle and she slips in the blood covering the floor. A zombie falls on her, sinking his teeth into her shoulder. She screams so loud and high you want to cover your ears. The zombies pile on top of her, jockeying for access to her legs and arms.

You burst into the light to see Jack take a zombie’s head clean off with a stroke of his axe.

Used to be a lumberjack, years ago, he grins back at you.

I’m Jack by the way, and this is Jack Junior. Cletus and Martha you’ve met, but I guess that ain’t so important now, he explains as you run along.

Um, nice to meet you? you manage.

Likewise. Handled yourself real good back there. We was supposed to have one o’ them monster truck rallies here this weekend. My truck’s wrecked, and there’s an overturned semi blocking the road east of town.

You don’t want to go that way anyway, trust me, you say between gasps.

Anyway, there’s a pretty good chance we could get one of them trucks, and drive our way out. I saw one family trying to run for it already in a sedan, and they got bogged down in a crowd o’ them things and next thing you know, they was drug out and ’et.

Let’s go for it! Says Jack Junior, clearly excited at the prospect of driving a monster truck, despite everything else.

Your trio only encounters a handful of zombies on the way to the monster truck rally, all of which jack handily dispatches with his sharp axe. You’re happy to let him do the work, you’re barely able to keep up with all the abuse you’ve suffered over the last two days.

The lot of trucks is empty. There are rows of demolition derby cars, with numbers spray painted on them. The number 3 seems to be popular, but all have different colors and nicknames spray-painted on as well. These are little more than wrecks, and unlikely to get you out of the city. At the other end of the spectrum huge vehicular monster’s sit slumbering, wheels as tall as you are, high end paint jobs with flames or eyes and teeth, and monikers like Frankenstein and Skullcrusher. Jack picks one dubbed Apocalypse, which seems fitting. It’s all black and glossy and covered in flames.

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