An Average Day

Three Macho Men Running Around Chapel Hill, Trying to Survive The Zombie Apocalypse While All of Their Friends Are Trying to Eat Them
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. Damn you, alarm. I silence it, hop out of my lofted bed, and land not-so-gracefully on the carpet. Thursday mornings are the worst, for a variety of reasons: a. It s the day before Friday, so it automatically sucks. b. I have a 9:30 am class. c. Said class is comprised of listening to people s attempts at creating art or whatever you call short stories. I need a refresher, so I grab my shower caddy like a boss and head into the bathroom. Halfway into my rendition of Someone Like You by Adele, I hear a female moan. Yo girl, you re off key! Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. She doesn t seem to care. I sing louder. She gets louder too. At this point, I m starting to think something sketchy is going on. Why is there a girl in the bathroom of an all guy s dorm? Why is she moaning? Or the best question: why is she the only person I hear moaning? Luckily, all of my answers are soon revealed when the curtain of my shower is flung open by my roommate s girlfriend. She is not wearing any clothes. She is moaning. Oh, and she s covered in blood. This is awkward for a variety of reasons, the majority of which I don t need to explain. Hi, Chuner! You look nice today. I get a friendly moan in reply. Are you feeling okay? She steps forward. Now, I realize that I look great in the nude, but I feel like Ethan wouldn t like that much. She leans in, going in for what I assume to be the big one. Then, blood starts pouring out of her mouth and I sidestep her move. Luckily for me, she slips on the wet tile . Unluckily for her, she cracks her skull on the shower knob thingy and more blood pours out. I ll go get an RA! I say and I rush out of the bathroom, making sure to put a towel on so as to not give anyone the show of their lives. As I look around my hall, I notice someone seemed to have spilled a can of red paint because there is red EVERYWHERE! It s on the walls and the floor. Hell, someone even found a way to put some on the ceiling. Luckily, the door to my RA s room is open. Michael. I ve got an issue. I say, as I step in front of his doorway. He s crouching down in front of a chick. He turns around and I see that I interrupted his breakfast of fresh liver.

My bad! I say, as I shut the door. I go to another room and knock on the door. Elliot, who is half Pacific Islander, half black, and one hundred percent hulk of a man, ushers me in. Mr. Bowles grew up in the mean streets of Greensboro. During high school, he ran with a tough crowd, selling candy to the hungry students.1 He created an empire, hiring dealers and renting out lockers to store his supplies. Unfortunately, it all came crashing down one day when a dealer tried selling Snickers to a student teacher. When brought to the principal s office and offered a plea deal, he refused, claiming that there was discrimination due to his race. After spending a class period in detention, Elliott swore to rise above the crime world he had once run and became a bodybuilder. Dude. Chuner just tried to kiss me. And Michael is eating some chick out, I say Come on, man. If that was happening, I d be hearing it. These walls are thin. No! I mean like he s eating her guts. I saw her liver in his hands. Oh, right! Michael s a zombie. Well that bites. Elliot rolls his eyes. Not the time. Do we know about the other guys? Nope. You go talk to them. I should probably go check on Ethan. His girlfriend just tried to kiss me. We leave his room and I walk into mine. Ethan is sitting at his computer, watching Starcraft II games like he does the rest of the time he s in my room. What up, bro? He turns. One of his eyeballs is hanging out of its socket, and he s missing an ear. After a hearty moan, he stands up and walks towards me with a House-style limp. To my right, in the corner of my peripherals, I spy a pistol. I pick it up, cock it, pull the trigger, and Ethan gets hit in the forehead with a one ounce Nerf bullet at a whopping 23.26 miles per hour. As surprising as it seems, he is unfazed. Luckily, I have a whip in my closet and I begin to hit him, the whole time thinking Prior to the zombie attack, this would probably be seen as pretty gay and/or kinky. Unfortunately, Ethan is relentless. So I upgrade to a pillow. Not just any pillow though. An authentic Tempur Pedic Suprima Pillow! I hit him across the face and he falls on his back. Crap! You got blood on my pillow! Prior to the zombie attack, this would probably not have been covered in our roommate contract As I m yelling at him, he stands back up. I hit him again so he falls onto the ground. I grab my Xbox 360 and just as I m about to crush his skull, I think to myself Wait a second. Why waste my beautiful Xbox on a roommate who sexiles me all the time? I set it down nicely, grab the computer monitor on his desk, and I smash his brains in. Damn, I say to myself. Stanley Steemer is going to have a good ol time with this carpet.
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At his school, free enterprise was forbidden due to the fact it took money away from the NJROTC, which was selling Nutrigrain bars at gouged prices.

I walk into the room next to mine and it appears that a team has been assembled: 1. Bruce Ward: ROTC cadet. Codename: Sarge 2. Elliot Bowles: Bodybuilder. Codenames: Barry Bonds, Roid Rage 3. Me: Ice Cream Maker. Codename: BAMF Okay, so maybe I gave myself that last codename. So what? I think it accurately describes me. Anyway, Bruce had a campus map pulled up on his computer and the guys were crowded around it. Okay guys. The armory is right here. So what we need to do is make it across the quad and we ll get guns and ammo, Bruce explains. Bruce Ward was born with warrior s blood in his veins. He emerged from his mother s womb on a snowy day in 1991, in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. He crawled for three years before he realized he would be able to get to cover faster by running. To his mother s dismay and his father s pride, the first words out of his mouth were Army strong. As time progressed, it was obvious to his family that he would be a soldier. He received a Red Rider BB gun for his seventh birthday, which he used the following evening to subdue three robbers. Hold up, I interject. Are there actually guns in the armory? I receive condescending looks. Please. We are outfitted to the teeth in that armory. We just don t walk around telling everyone we have weapons. Think of all the liberals who would claim we are a threat to society. True. Continue. Now, from the armory, we will have to walk next to Kenan Stadium to get to the hospital area, where we will then try to get to the helipad on the top of the Emergency Room building. One more thing. I have a copy of The Zombie Survival Guide. Elliot gives me a high five out of sheer jubilance. But it s in Michael s room. And he s currently undead, states Bruce I wouldn t say undead. I prefer the term mortally challenged, says Elliot. And so we come up with a plan to acquire the greatest book ever written. Well, second greatest, when you factor in Twilight. Bruce runs outside to Michael s window. I quietly open the door up as Bruce begins hitting the window and calling him names like Zombie Boy. On his desk, I spot the Bible of the Zombie Apocalypse. I slowly, but steadily, tiptoe to the book and grab it. The moment I touch it, the girl s eyes pop open and she moans. Undead Michael turns around, sees me, and creates a not-so-beautiful harmony with Undead Random. I jump out of the room just as he lunges for me. As soon as he steps into the hall, Elliot grabs his skull with one hand and with another, punches straight through it. I slam Michael s door shut just as Bruce was coming in. Did you get it? asks Bruce.

Of course. Now let s get ourselves armed. Elliot ends up with a baseball bat. Bruce snags his entrenchment tool. And me? I decide to use a sledgehammer. You are probably asking yourself Why in the world does this handsome young man have a sledgehammer? To tell the truth, I tend to steal things when I m drunk, such as cups, bling, and shotgun shells.2 One night, I just happened to take a sledgehammer. We reconvene in the hall. On a whim, I decide to skim through The Zombie Survival Guide. Guys! I found something. They move in closer. Molotov cocktails are a cheap, effective way to kill multiple zombies at once.3 And I have Smirnoff 151 in the room, says Bruce. He disappears for a second and emerges with a handle and an old t-shirt. And on that note, we leave our home on first floor Graham. As one would expect, this is our most exciting trip around campus. Zombies are coming from left and right, and we just knock the crap out of their skulls like it s a home run derby. Occasionally, we see a person we know and wave. Instead of waving back, they usually respond with a moan or roar. We respond back with a heavy object to the domepiece. As we near Spencer Hall, it hits me. I m skipping class right now. Sure, I saw my RA eating a random s guts out4 and there are zombies all around and I m covered in blood but I m skipping class. As I come up to the benches where we sit in all weather, I see dear ol Professor Naumoff lying on the bricks in a nicely colored pool of blood. I quickly dash over to him, kneel, and see that he is missing the bottom half of his body. Jimmy, he wheezes, coughing bile up as he does so. You were always my favorite student. Stop! You ll make it, I say, wiping his bile off my shirt. No, he wheezes, coughing blood up as he does so. You have such a voice. Thank you. I splutter, shiny tears running down my ruggedly handsome face. My final grade for you is a B minus, he wheezes, coughing up a full lung and finally dying. NOOOOOOOOOOO! I scream, my tears immediately drying and being replaced with a red hot hatred. I grab his hands, and in a perverse flashback of better times, spin him around in circles, except that I release him and he flies over the bushes. I turn around and see that I am being stared at. That was weird, states Elliot. Silence fills the air for a few moments.
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Just for clarification, I bought the whip. I was dating a dominatrix at the time and things were getting serious. And that s the end of that story. 3 Brooks, p. 52 4 I ve heard a rumor that if your roommate dies, you get a 4.0 GPA for the semester. I wonder if I can get anything out of this situation.

So, to the armory? Bruce asks. We nod and continue on through campus, holding hands and whistling Dixie.5 Once we get there, it is clear that there is an issue (aside from the hordes of zombies walking towards us): the door is locked. Elliot, without hesitation, starts running and smashes through the door like a fat girl at a Krispy Kreme grand opening. We all hop in and stack some heavy desks to block the door. Bruce leads us to the back and punches a code into a keypad. Two walls split to reveal more firearms than you can find at an NRA conference. 6969? asks Elliot, clearly disapproving. Are you kidding me? Hey, it s everyone s favorite number, Bruce replies, defensively. As they argue, I walk into the room and just stand in awe. You name a gun, and it is in here. This room, and its perfect rack, is the sexiest thing I ve ever seen. 6. I go and pick up a gun. I found my piece, homies! I yell. Dude. That s a flintlock pistol. I know. Blackbeard used this shit. Blackbeard got his head chopped off by the British. But did he get his head bitten off by a zombie? I add. Nope. Didn t think so. Bruce finds another pistol and throws it to me. Scared, I back off and it hits the ground with a loud crack. I pick it up to see that what I had let fall to the floor was none other than a .44 Magnum, AKA the Dirty Harry gun. NOOO! Bruce yells. That was my colonel s favorite gun! He s gonna kill me! That s assuming he s alive, I add. Now at this point in our story, you are probably thinking to yourself: A. This is stupid. Zombies aren t real. B. THIS IS AWESOME. I m 13 years old and nothing makes me happier than guns and blood, even though I m actually afraid of both. C. The colonel will show up. D. This guy sounds like he has fantastic genetics and would be a suitable mate. He will probably create physically and mentally superior offspring.7 E. Answers C and D F. None of the above8

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That s code for killing some fucking zombies. Of guns! Rack of guns! 7 I m single. Hit me up. You just gotta be hot and know how to make a kickass sandwich.

Anyway, the colonel emerges in the doorway. Bruce grabs up my flintlock out of my hand and fires it. Unsurprisingly, the ball curves way off course and goes through the ceiling. Great shot! I say. Don t worry, Elliot says, from a darkened corner in the room. I got this. A tongue of fire emerges from the corner and engulfs the colonel. Elliot steps into the light, proudly toting a flamethrower. Bruce grabs himself an assault rifle. Elliot keeps his flamethrower. And me? I m rocking an automatic shotgun, which is just as badass as it sounds. We leave the armory and start walking to the hospital. Just as we re passing by the Belltower, a helicopter flies over us and lands in Kenan Stadium. Seeing this as our ticket out, we begin running full sprint. I shotgun the lock on the gates open. Down the stairs we run, over the hedges we jump, and we are finally at the helicopter. I notice that the passengers are dressed in blue Nike jumpsuits. Can we get a ride with you guys? Nope. Not happening. Michael said only basketball players, one of them remarks. And we don t have enough cinnamon apple scones for you guys. Or skinny pumpkin frappuccinos. Damn, I say. I ve been craving a skinny pumpkin frappucino all morning. Look, we have to get back to our Duty match. We re on wave five of zombie mode, says another one of the players, just as I blast a male cheerleader in the face9. You got blood on my Jordans, asshole! Michael! MICHAEL! Enough is enough! I ve had it with these motherfucking zombies on this motherfucking campus! The last thing I remember is a tall, bald, black man hopping out of the cockpit and his fist sending me three feet into the air. When I wake, Bruce is standing above me while Elliot is setting (what used to be) a beautiful football field ablaze. Zombies are releasing excruciating death cries as their spleens pop and their hair burns. He s awake! Bruce exclaims. I stand up and we begin running. By this point, we are having to deal with a big problem: freshmen. I realize they re zombies, but come on. Running out of Morrison in just a towel is not classy. Other freshmen come out still drunk and in their clubbing clothes, tripping over each other and their six-inch stiletto heels. I even spot two zombies making out on a bench. 10 Naturally, I stop to
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If you answered A, you suck. If you answered B, you shouldn t be reading this. Go back to playing catch with your pops. C, how intuitive. D, check footnote seven. If you answered E, I like your style and you should keep reading. And finally, if you answered F, go back to the pits of hell from which you came. You re too boring for your own good.
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Again? Come on. Get your mind out of the gutter. It turned out that one of the zombies on the bench wasn t a zombie. I imagine that it was a pretty intense game of tonsil hockey, except I think biting off the other person s tongue is probably a foul.
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watch for a second, because the girl is pretty hot. I consider asking for her number, but then I realize that dating a zombie could be somewhat problematic, for the following reasons: a. She would always be trying to bite my head off. b. I couldn t take her to dinner and a movie, since I m pretty sure there aren t any restaurants in Chapel Hill that serve brains.11 c. Sex with a zombie is never safe. Last time I checked, Trojan doesn t make condoms that can protect me from the zombie virus. d. My friends would call me a necrophiliac. e. A zombie wouldn t cuddle with me when I cry at the end of The Notebook. Bro! Quit looking at the zombies hooking up and kill the Ram s Head person behind you! Elliot screams. I turn around to see a blood covered, armless Hispanic woman running at me. I greet her with 28 lead balls to the face. We continue and end up right in front of the emergency room. Elliot is about to head-butt the glass doors to shards when I stop him. Hospitals: What would seem to be the safest, most logical place to flee during an outbreak is actually one of the worst12, I read13. Well then what the hell are we supposed to do now? asks Bruce as he pops a cap in an old man wearing a particularly revealing hospital gown. Let s steal an ambulance, replies Elliot as he burns the skin off of a man nurse. I run to the closest ambulance and open the door. The keys are sitting right on the seat. I jump in, start the engine, and throw it in reverse. I feel a bump and hear the beautiful sound of a bone crunching. GOOOOOOAL! I scream, fist pump, and dance in my seat. I lean out of the window, expecting to receive high fives from my boys. Instead, I got a middle finger from Elliot, who was sitting on the ground. You ran over my foot, asshole! I hop out of the ambulance and kneel next to him. My bad, I say. I get up and throw open the back doors on the ambulance. Out I pull the stretcher. Up a zombie sits. Away its head goes, courtesy of Bruce. We push the body off of the stretcher and throw Elliot onto it. Bruce brings him into the back with him. To my friends dismay, I volunteer to drive again.14 I throw the ambulance into drive and I jet out of the hospital area. There may be some police on Franklin Street. I m going to drive there, I yell to the back.

There is that Korean place across the street from Granville. And if they don t serve brains, there s a 79.45% chance they serve Labrador Retriever. 12 Brooks, p. 79 13 I got tired of killing zombies, so I decided to take some time to sit down, catch my breath, and read a good book. I think it s pretty understandable. 14 By dismay, I mean sheer fear. And by volunteer, I mean I lock myself into the front cabin.

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On the way to Franklin Street, I run over an astonishing 54 zombies.15 When we get there, we find the street completely jam-packed with zombies. Imagine Franklin Street on Halloween during the day, except with man-eating undead creatures instead of fake zombies. Eventually, the zombies surround us. I try gunning the engine. We don t move. A guido zombie16 begins smashing on the window with its head, leaving blood and cracks. I go into the back cabin with my shotgun. My friends and I have our guns pointed at the door, ready to fight for our lives. Elliot lo;ks at me. Tears are running down his face. We aren t out of this yet, Elliot, I say. Focus! I just can t stand the thought that I may become a zombie before I bench 350. That s all I wanted in life. Just as I m about to preach to him the dangers of lifting such a weight, the doors on the back of the ambulance open. Elliot pulls the trigger on his flamethrower. Nothing comes out. I start shotgunning zombies as Bruce readies, and throws, the Molotov cocktail. This idea proves to be a failure, as flaming zombies begin to enter the ambulance. DJ Zombie Z breaks through the windshield and ends up hitting the console, turning on the radio. Nelly s voice reverberates through the vehicle. It s getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes. I start dancing 17, singing, and shooting zombies. However, our party is crashed when three make it into the vehicle at once. In the distance, we hear another car. Its drone slowly gets louder until we see the source: a Carolina blue Ford Mustang. The driver power slides the car, taking out a multitude of zombies, so the passenger side door opens right in front of the cabin. GET IN, MOTHAFUCKAS the driver yells in a distinct impersonation of the Batman voice. Bruce picks Elliot up as I kill attacking zombies. The driver is blowing Gamestop workers heads off on his side with a large machine gun, which he is aiming with one hand. The moment I slam the door shut, the driver takes off. As we leave the zombies in our dust, I notice a blood covered Rubik s cube hanging on the rearview mirror. The man driving is wearing a black turtleneck and black pants. Going across either shoulder are bandoliers full of ammo. The words THUG LIFE are tattooed on his hands and he is wearing black RayBans. Chancellor Thorp? I ask. That s me. What about it? he replies. When did you get those tattoos? Right after I killed twenty zombies with only a toothpick and my Rubik s cube. Now shut the hell up if you want to live. I get quiet real fast. He flies through the streets, hitting zombies with the grill of his car and bullets simultaneously. He drives into the Graham-Aycock circle and stops.
The record for Most Zombies Hit On The Way To Franklin From The Emergency Room was set by Zack Abrams, who hit an incredible 74 zombies (and two humans). 16 It had a mohawk, a fake tan, and was wearing Ed Hardy. I decided to name it DJ Zombie Z. 17 My dance moves are legendary. Forget The Dougie. Forget The Bernie. I ll teach you how to Jimmy.
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Go through that door right there, he says. This is our dorm. Why would we go back into our dorm? I ask. I told you to go through that door right there. So quit talking and do it, you midget. We quickly evacuate the vehicle. Thorp rips off in his Mustang. He was a nice fellow, says Elliot. Now can we get inside so I can finally take some Vicodin? Bruce picks him up again. We walk into the Graham-Aycock basement and find before us about ten survivors, all of them looking as fresh as us.18 Home sweet home.

We looked way cute. As it turns out, zombie blood is a wonderful substitute for rouge in a zombie apocalypse. It can also double for hair gel in particularly dire situations.

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