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Novocain
(© Rich Restucci)

This contribution is part of a series:-
1. Unlikely Hero (16-Apr-2010)
Assistance is always welcome when the living dead come stumbling.
2. Run! (14-May-2010)
Runs alongside Unlikely Hero with new characters, and some you might remember. A man and his daughter head for safety when the undead plague hits San Francisco.
3. Debbie (11-Jun-2010)
A flight attendant holes up in a school with some kids and one of San Francisco’s finest. Runs alongside of Unlikely Hero and Run!
4. Novocain (13-Feb-2011)
Sometimes the living dead aren’t the only pain.
5. The Rock (15-Jan-2012)
The survivors on Alcatraz get some new friends... and new enemies.
6. Crossing (28-Apr-2013)
Rick, Dallas, and a team of Navy SEALS traverse an infected United States to meet up with some scientists who just might have a vaccine for the plague.
7. Foray (10-Oct-2013)
A trip into fallen San Francisco reunites some survivors with an old friend, and old enemies.

Page 1

Note from author: As always, thanks to Biswapriya Purkayastha, a good friend, and editor.


So, unless you live under a rock, or are somewhat mentally challenged you have come to realize that the end of the world has come and gone.  I say the world, but that’s not really true.  The world, our Planet Earth, (like the trees and oceans and dirt and stuff) is just fine.  It’s everything else that’s fucked.  Nowadays, you’re just as likely to be on the menu as was a cheeseburger ten weeks ago.  I say come and gone, because, well, it came.  Now there’s nobody left but me, (the living dead ate everybody) so it’s kind of over.  Gone.

A cheeseburger.  What I wouldn’t give for a cheeseburger.  The decadent aroma of freshly grilled ground beef, covered with the gooey melted cheese of your choice, pickles, onions, mustard, mushrooms, and oh God, the buns!  Not that I could eat it, which is why I only mentioned the smell.  Did I mention that I hate ketchup?  Yeah, keep your ketchup for your fries, but put it on my burger and it’s your demise.  That rhymed.  But I digress.

I haven’t had much sleep, nor have I eaten anything in two days.  It’s not because I’m terrified of the pus bags that are out to eat me.  It’s also not for a lack of supplies.  I have a shit-ton of food.  You see, I’m holed up in a sort of distribution center for what I can only guess was a canned and dried food vendor.  Racks and racks of Ramen noodles and pallets of chicken soup on the lower level.  Bottled water,  juices, and powdered energy drinks, but no beer.  The building is comprised of concrete blocks, with no windows on the lower floor, so I’m good, unless the flesh-hungry critters figure out how to open the roll down garage door out back.

So let’s do a quick re-cap:  Zombocalpse has arrived.  My location is quite fortified.  I’m well stocked with enough food and water to last three lifetimes, yet I haven’t eaten or slept comfortably in days.  Why, you ask?  Simple:  I have a fucking toothache.

I would call the pain mind-numbing, but that’s the polar opposite of what’s actually happening in my skull.  The pain is quite relentless, and there’s nothing numbing about it.  In fact, the clarity I possess right now after very little sleep is astounding, even though I have to keep my mouth open for fear my molars will click together causing shivers of agony to course through my lower jaw, down my neck, and into my left shoulder.  Eating is out of the question, but drinking tepid water is ok, as long as said liquid remains on the opposite side of my mouth from my broken and rotting tooth.  I have to tilt my head like a quizzical dog when I drink, or it hurts.  It really hurts.  The little bastard is abscessed now, and the constant throbbing is driving me mad.

Prior to the beginning of this super-infectious global pandemic, I was eating a Tollhouse brand double chocolate brownie cookie. To my utter dismay, while chewing, I crunched on something with a tad more substance than the rest of the brownie, and the outside portion (closest to my cheek) of an already rotten molar snapped off below the gum line.  I spit out the offending piece of something, along with a substantial hunk of tooth, then rubbed my tongue over the resulting chasm where my tooth used to be.  Big mistake. To say I saw stars would be an understatement.  I am thirty two years old, and I whimpered like a baby.  No tears mind you, but there was considerable howling, then some bitching, and finally a mixed growl of anger and pain. When I stopped my yelling, I wiped off the brown goo covering the something that broke my molar.  Nearest I could tell, it was a piece of a broken button.   I no longer saw stars, but dollar signs.  If some dumb bitch can sue a burger joint for a million bucks because the coffee she dumped in her lap was actually hot, and she burned her labia, then I’m raking in the dough for a button in my cookie.  Period.

So I called my lawyer.  He told me I had a huge case, and that the two of us were going to retire off the zillions that this button was going to bring us.  He was very excited, and thus, so was I.  The next day the world started falling apart, and the day after that I saw my lawyer.  He was in the street munching on what looked like a still-struggling Jack Russel Terrier.  It must have been a bitch to hold that bitch, because lawyer-dude only had one arm.  His nub was pinning the hapless canine to his chest, while he held it with his other hand and went to town with his teeth.  Damn shame his Armani was covered in Terrier blood.  Dry cleaning is gonna be a bitch on that one.  Oh, and if that was the Cantonelli’s little shit of a dog from two doors down, then I hope its demise was painful.  Damn animal barked non-stop at all fucking hours of the night.

[ Continue to page 2 ]

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Genre:Living Dead
Type:Medium length story
Rating:8.48 / 10
Rated By:134 users
Comments: 12 users
Total Hits:31864

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