Then he went from safe zone to safe zone. Each one either fell to the zombies or ran out of supplies and had to be evacuated. After surviving for eight months with random strangers whose faces changed on a weekly basis, he eventually ended up in a fortified city along the Gulf of Mexico that would become his home for the next twenty years.
Like most male refugees with no family to take care of him, Lee was immediately drafted into the local army. Despite the fact that he was still a teenager, he was expected to defend their city from the hordes of undead surrounding their settlement. At first, Lee was proud of his job. The city’s population was over 2,000. He wanted to do his part to keep all of those people alive. But so many of his fellow soldiers died. Even the trained soldiers were little match for the indestructible undead. Lee realized that it was unlikely that he would live long enough to see adulthood.
In the first year after Z-Day, there were over 150 fortified cities like this one in America. By the next year, there were only 57. The year after that, there were only 22. By the time the island of Neo new York was constructed and the entire continent was undergoing evacuation, only 6 cities were still standing and most of those had populations that had dwindled into the low hundreds.
The worst part was when Lee realized that the people he was giving his life to protect were a bunch of selfish assholes who didn’t give a shit about him. They lived in comfort and safety, while he risked his life to hold back all the undead who tried to break through the barricade. The citizens despised the soldiers so much that they separated them from their society. The soldiers became third class citizens. They weren’t allowed in most parts of town and spent most of their time in the barracks, in the guard towers, or patrolling the city walls. Lee saw this as a form of slavery. His superior officers, who did have full rights as citizens, saw this as just following orders.
He knew that the only way he could be integrated into society was if he became an officer. He did his best to rise through the ranks, but could never get past the rank of sergeant. This rank meant that he was more commonly put into dangerous situations and had far more responsibilities than lower ranked soldiers, but without the benefits of being an officer.
The only time Lee was truly happy was when he led scavenging missions. Once a month he would take a team of six soldiers in an armored vehicle into the Red Zone for several days, picking up canned food, tools, machine parts, and everything else that could be useful. They had to fight their way through zombie hordes to get from store to store. Part of the reason Lee liked these missions was the absolute freedom he had. He wasn’t a slave to his superior officers, he was a ruler of the wasteland. But the main reason he loved going on these missions was that he was able to drink. In old convenience stores or bars, Lee and his men took the liquor for themselves. They barricaded themselves in old garages and drank themselves stupid. It was the only time the soldiers were ever able to enjoy their lives.
In the old liquor store Lee went for two bottles of single malt scotch. When he was a soldier on missions, good single malt scotch was in high demand among the fat upper class citizens of their city. But when he was in charge of the missions, the best bottles of scotch would never make it back to home base. He would drink them with his men.
Lee opened a bottle and took a swig. Then smiled. He had not tasted something so wonderful in a very long time. When he looked down at the label, he recognized the brand. It was a bottle of Talisker 1994 Manager’s Choice, double-matured in a sherry cask.
Talisker reminded him of his old friend, Timothy. This guy was his right hand man on many a mission. Not because he was a great shot or a good soldier, but because he knew how to track down the best liquor. Lee wasn’t sure if it was because he had good logic when it came to guessing locations of taverns on city maps or if he was just a lucky bastard, but that guy was always able to track down a cache of liquor bottles no matter how well-scavenged of a region they were in.
“You’re supposed to drink the worm,” Timothy said to Lee as he held up the bottle of mescal.
“What kind of worm is it?” Lee put his eye close to the bottle.
“It’s a butterfly larvae, actually,” Timothy said. “It’s supposed to make the tequila taste better.”
“Are you sure they weren’t just put in there by Mexicans to see if they could get gringos to eat worms?”
“Of course they were, but that’s not the point,” Timothy said. “The point is you’re a pussy if you don’t drink the worm.”
“Oh…”
Lee took a drink from the bottle. His face cringed as the harsh liquor burned his throat.
“The worm isn’t working,” he said, holding back a cough. “This stuff tastes like shit.”
“Of course it does, there’s a fucking worm in there.” Then Timothy laughed and took a swig of Talisker.
Lee stared at the worm in the bottle. He could swear the thing had a little human face that was staring back at him. He knew that it was impossible for insects to become infected with the zombie virus, but he could swear the worm in there was alive and watching him. He decided to put the cap back on and save the rest for the upper class.
Then Timothy poured him four fingers of Talisker.
Lee drank half the bottle in less than five minutes. He didn’t know how long he was going to last in the game and he wanted to make sure he was good and drunk as soon as possible.
A camera ball followed him as he walked down the street, chugging the bottle of scotch. He flipped off the camera and then stuck his finger up his nose. Lee hated the upper class. He always did. When he was relocated to Neo New York, it was no different. They put him with the rest of the trash in the Copper Quadrant, outside of the city gates, separated from the rest of society. He had given thirty years of his life protecting the assholes and once they moved to Neo New York they didn’t need him anymore and tossed him aside.
Copper was filled with old soldiers with similar stories. Living in homemade shacks down by the beach, living off of crabs and seagulls, shitting in holes in the sand. They drank the worst swill on the island that was made in orange rusted garbage cans. It tasted like urine-flavored rubbing alcohol and quickly turned their livers into blackened husks.
Lee decided that he would not put on a show for the fat cats. His final act would be to get drunk and die a very boring death. No going out in a blaze of glory for Lee. He was going to just let those zombie bastards take him without a fight.
So he walked casually down the street, drinking from his bottle. When the two clay-fleshed zombies came after him, Lee just tossed a grenade over his shoulder and blew them into pieces.
Staggering down the road, Lee tossed more grenades at the zombies as they approached him. The explosions completely disabled the corpses. The grenades might not have killed many of the undead, but they did blow all of their legs out from under them. The zombies weren’t able to catch up to him even if he was walking so slowly.
“Fuck you, bastards,” Lee said to the camera. “I gave all you rich sons of bitches the best years of my life. You know what you gave me? Nothing.”
He paused to take another swig and throw another grenade.