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 ] |