Dead Drunk: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse... One Beer at a Time by Richard Johnson Page A

a disgusting ripping
noise in the process. The corpse slumped to the ground, twitched for a few
agonizing seconds, and then lay still.
    Blaaaaugh . Trent threw up the super-nachos he ate at
four a.m. as well as several confiscated pain pills. He wiped his face and
turned to Sarah. “Are you hurt?”
    “Yeah, I think it’s bad.” She coughed up blood. “My leg
hurts like hell.”
    Trent could see a pure white bone poking through her pant
leg and realized it was a nasty compound fracture. He grabbed the radio. “Unit
145 has an officer down near Hermitage and Augusta, ambulance needed.” There
was no reply so he repeated himself four times. “Somebody fucking pick up!”
Still no answer. Other than a figure approaching from the south, the street was
oddly deserted. “Sit tight, we got someone running towards us.”
    “I'm not…” She coughed up more bright blood. “…going
anywhere.”
    Trent waited until the man was twenty yards out and raised
his pistol. The runner, a black man wearing a janitor's outfit, gestured to
Trent to lower his weapon. He did and the man cautiously approached, sweating
heavily and gasping for air.
    “Thank God. I thought I was all alone. You got to get me
outta here,” he said between breaths.
    “Back up, buddy. Why are you running?” Trent raised his gun
again.
    “I work down at Cook County Hospital. It’s going crazy down
there. Man, we need to go.”
    “What do you mean?” Trent asked.
    “The hospital was packed, but more people kept showing up
and we couldn't let anyone else in. Then folks started going ghetto and it got
nuts. People were screaming, punching, they were even biting each other.”
    “You ran off?”
    “Hell yeah I did. My friend got his damn ear bit off right
in front of me. I wasn't gonna wait for the bus.”
    “Then what?” Trent asked.
    “It spilled into the streets and then big trucks showed up.
There was a bunch of gunshots.”
    “Military?”
    “Fuck, how many questions are you gonna ask?” Trent glared,
so the man continued. “I hear gunshots all the time, and I ain’t never heard any
like that. They were shooting at everything.”
    Trent grabbed the radio. “Where is everybody? I got an
officer down. Hello?”
    “Look, I ain't sticking around. There were some dudes
chasing me and I don't know where they are.” He finally noticed the decapitated
body in the street. “Holy shit. You hit that bitch with your car?”
    At that moment, a group of subway workers, several bums and
a naked man rounded the corner two blocks away. They moved with a strange
shambling gait, almost as if they were drunk.
    “Those are the guys.”
    Trent ignored him. “She’s hurt, so we’ll need to move her
till help comes.”
    “We? You got a turd in your pocket? I mean, I ain't doing
nothing but getting outta here.”
    “Listen, asshole—”
    “It ain't asshole, it's Tyrone.”
    Trent cocked the hammer back on his pistol. “Listen, Tyrone,
I'm not asking you.”
    “Fine, but don't think I won’t sue your ass,” Tyrone
replied. “Police motherfucking brutality, that’s what this is. I’ll get Jesse
Jackson up in here.”
    “You can take every penny I have, brother. But we need to
get her into one of these buildings. Be careful, her leg is busted and probably
her ribs too.” Trent put his leather wallet into Sarah's mouth and gently eased
the door open. So far so good. Even better, the crowd hadn't noticed them.
    Sarah clamped down and fought the urge to pass out as they
started to pull. But the shattered femur worked a jagged groove through her
thigh and blood quickly pooled on the floor.
    “She's bleeding too much, we gotta put her back,” Trent said
and gritted his teeth. They carefully eased her into the front seat.
    As luck would have it, the radio crackled back to life.
“What’s your location again unit 145?” Trent and Tyrone looked to each other
then turned back to the crowd that was now numbering in the dozens and staring
directly at the