Zombie Punter - Chapter 1

I never thought my odds of surviving a zombie outbreak would be very high. I dislike calling my current existence surviving, but from what I’ve heard, I’ve got it good compared to most of the survivors.

That’s not really important. Let’s get back to my odds.

I once took an online test to see what my odds of surviving a zombie outbreak were, and the test gave me a 3% chance of living through the first day. I find it suitably ironic that the people who devised that test are probably dead now.

Besides, their test didn’t take Jake Mahoney into account.

Jake was everything that I’m not. Big and bulky, Jake inherited his size from his Irish father, and his dark color and hazel eyes from his Jamaican mother. He had dark hair that was a combination of David Mahoney’s curly locks and Rhonda’s stiff ebony mop. Like his mother, Jake cropped his hair short rather than put up with finding a way to style his untamable black mane.

At 20, the former high school soccer team captain and football linebacker had moved on to Rugby in college, and his muscular frame got thicker, even though I didn’t think such a thing was possible.

Jake had been my best friend since first grade, when he rescued me from a pack of third grade bullies. Jake plowed through four older boys like they were toddlers, and from then on, I was Jake’s shadow.

I admit, I had ulterior motives for hanging out with Jake at first. When you’re a skinny nerd with short legs, asthma and allergies, running isn’t an option.

Jake gave me a better alternative to getting my butt flattened every single day. I could just hide behind Jake, and the bullies chose to find easier prey.

Jake couldn’t always hang out with me, so I still got beat up sometimes. When I did, Jake was usually the one to find me, carry me home, and bandage me up.

My mother’s typical reaction to me coming home bloody was horror, but she felt this out of concern for the imported rugs lining our hallway, and not for me.

That was all years and years ago, before the outbreak. That’s what this story is about, after all; how a nerd like me survived the worst event in human history. I’ll tell you right from the start without bullshitting you. It was Jake who got me through the first weeks of the outbreak.

The morning it started, I was woken up from a dreamless sleep by a pounding thump on my front door. Even as I was jolted up into a kneeling crouch, I became aware of screams in the distance.

Jake’s booming voice brought me to full wakefulness. “G, open the fucking door already!”

I stumbled off of the futon and across my tiny one room apartment, or the cracker box, as Jake liked to call it.

Unlocking the only two deadbolts I bothered using, I was thrown across the room when Jake slammed into the door. Pain exploded down my arm as the door connected with me and threw me into the air.

 I was able to keep my balance and land on my feet, though I had to drop on my haunches and set a hand on the floor to keep from rolling into a backwards somersault.

Once I had myself stopped, the same hand rose to clutch at my throbbing shoulder.

Jake slammed the door shut behind himself, and he locked all five locks before he leaned against the door. Without explaining himself, he shut his eyes and leaned over while he panted.

At that point, I became antsy, because from where I crouched, I could see something on Jake’s round face that had never been there before.

He was afraid.

Crossing the room, I dropped my hand from my bruised shoulder and patted Jake’s arm. “What’s wrong?”

“Zombies,” Jake said, still not opening his eyes.

Outside the door, there were moans filling the corridor, a chorus of mindless hunger that raised the hackles on the back of my neck.

Unnerved, my voice came out a creak as I asked, “What?”

“You heard me, I said—” Jake stopped when he opened his eyes and saw me. His gaze dipped, and then so did mine. “Ah, for fuck’s sake, G! Put on some underwear before you answer the door, man!”

I whined, “I’m dressed.”

Which was only partially true. I was covered in an oversized black T-shirt, the front emblazoned with the cover of Billy Joel’s Piano Man album.

I got it because Jake said Billy looked like a zombie. And he does, which is kinda cool, until you remember you’re looking at the Piano Man.

However, I believe that what annoyed Jake was that I still had morning wood, and I don’t wear underwear when I sleep. So my erection was making a tent at the middle of the shirt.

There was no risk of Jake seeing anything, because even with my three inch hard-on pushing out the shirt, the hem almost covered my kneecaps.

I should introduce and explain myself, I guess. My name is Eugene O’Donnell, and I’m a red-headed step-child. I’m skinny and too pale, and as you can see, at twenty, I’m not really all that muscular. Or, you would if I wasn’t swimming under this lovely orange uniform.

As you can see for yourselves, I’m developmentally stunted. Where most everyone else gets a second growth spurt as they enter adulthood, I didn’t. I got the first spurt of puberty, but I got it late, and the second never showed up. During my teens, I remained an unimposing height of four foot two while all of my high school peers shot past the five foot mark.

During my mid-teens, Jake started pushing me to go to the gym with him, and while that’s given me some muscle tone, I lack the genetic traits to produce bulk mass. Under this uniform, I don’t look too bad, but with all the extra fabric, I’m sure I must look like a twelve-year-old boy with freckles and a fuzzy red caterpillar crawling across my lip. But I assure you, I’m twenty, and I’ve already completed three years of college toward a bachelor of science degree, with a major in biological science.

I was nineteen at the time of the outbreak, and obviously, given my stature and my chosen field of study, I was a virgin. Jake came close to talking a few drunk co-eds into giving me pity pussy over the last two years that he’d been studying at college with me, but my mouth always ruined those arrangements. Or maybe I was intentionally sabotaging things.

Never mind, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Under Jake’s annoyed glare, I moved to open the top drawer of my dresser and take out a clean pair of Superman Toon-a-roos. Pulling them on, I bent over to dig in the bottom drawer for a clean pair of jeans.

I said, “I’m decent now, so tell me what the hell is going on, please.”

Jake slid down the door, his annoyance at me forgotten. “I don’t know much more than you, G. I woke up this morning, and my next door neighbor was screaming bloody murder. Then she stopped, but I noticed that a lot of other neighbors hadn’t.”

Jake raised both hands to rub his face, slicking the sheen of sweat back into his already wet hair. He looked pale, and for a guy whose normal color was dark bronze, this was unusual.

While he gathered himself, I finished buttoning my jeans and went to the “kitchen,” a counter with a sink and a microwave. On top of the microwave were two mugs. I took both down and filled them with water.

“What are you doing?” Jake asked.

“I’m making coffee.”

Jake stared at me, his annoyed scowl returning. “G, are you fucking retarded? We can’t stay here and have coffee.”

I stared down at the mugs, feeling useless. “Well what are we supposed to do, Jake? If the zombies are already outside, there’s nowhere to go but up onto the roof.”

Jake nodded, his face relaxing into an apologetic frown. “Yeah, you’re...” he looked over at the patio sliding door on the other side of the room, his eyes widening before he patted down his pockets and nodded.

“G, you still got that nightstick I gave you?”

I set down the mugs, glad to be of some use for once. “Yes, it’s behind my dresser, and it’s probably dusty by now.”

Jake got me the nightstick as a present for my sixteenth birthday, when I moved into my own apartment. I got away with that on the excuse of needing to be closer to the campus, and to my part time job.

Jake hadn’t cared for the idea, since it meant I didn’t get to see him as often. Fearing for my safety, he got me the nightstick, which was my sole defense against zombies.

I should pause to explain again. Jake and I both have something in common, something we came to love together in second grade. It started with the zombie comics in Vault of Horror, Twisted Tales, and Tales From the Crypt. Throughout our childhood, our love for zombies spread out to movies, books, and games. If it had anything resembling a walking corpse, we wanted it. Every Halloween, you could easily predict what we would show up to the school dance dressed as.

Yes, this fascination with the undead thrilled my ultra-uptight parents, but they said little about it, since it kept me out of their way most of the time.

Plus, they loved Jake, and if he liked zombies, then the undead couldn’t be all bad.

In our misspent youths, Jake and I had made all kinds of plans about what to do if an invasion ever really happened, and the nightstick was his idea.

His logic was that guns were pointless, since we would run out of ammunition sooner rather than later. But a nightstick could be hefted longer, and didn’t require reloading or skill to make every shot a head shot.

That gift was now three years old, and it had never moved from the hiding spot that I’d chosen after unwrapping it. Sure enough, the glossy black finish was grey, and just picking it up, I raised a flurry of dust.

It was enough to make me sneeze, and then I dropped the nightstick, resulting in a bigger dust cloud just as I was sniffling to clear my sinuses.

My eyelids swelled, and I was blinded by tears. My hands flew to my face, the meat of my palms pressed to either side of my nose to squeeze the sinuses and try to rub out the dander and carpet fuzz.

But it was already too late, and when I drew in my next breath through my mouth, it was an involuntary action, the preclude to a much stronger sneeze.

Jake bowled me over, surprising me with his forcefulness as he pushed me to the floor and dropped over me. He pinned one hand over my mouth and my nose, and my eyes bulged as I sneezed.

My eyes grew wide again when I tried to breathe in. Jake parted his fingers, allowing me a tiny crevice to suck air through. This of course was followed by another sneeze, but none were as loud as the first.

It didn’t matter. The zombies heard me, and they began pounding on the wall of the corridor. Then my muffled sneezing was lost under the growing thunder inside my room.

So, there I was, listening to an army of the undead outside my home. Through my blurry vision, I watched Jake’s face, full of fear and concern for me. I convulsed from an uninterrupted fit of sneezing under his broad frame, unable to control my body’s reactions to the dust, or to him. My erection rubbed under his stomach, suddenly aching in a way I’d never known before.

It’s an odd time to realize you’re gay, lying under your best friend in the middle of a zombie invasion while you’re suffering from an allergy attack.