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.
“You know why all of you assholes are still alive? It’s because of me. I kept all of you safe and sound while you sat on your fat asses eating all the food I risked my neck scavenging for you. And how the fuck do you thank me? You put me on this fucking show. You feed me to the zombies I protected you from since I was fourteen years old.”
The sound of the grenades was waking the dead in the surrounding buildings. The number of zombies that were coming after him was increasing dramatically.
“But you know what I have that you don’t?” Lee raised his bottle to the camera. “I’ve got a sixty year old bottle of single malt scotch whiskey. Not a single one of you will ever have a liquor of this quality, not ever in your lives. No matter how rich you are. No matter how many mercs you send into the Red Zone. You’re never going to find a bottle quite as nice as this.”
Then Lee finished off the bottle right there in front of the camera.
“I’m living the high life,” he said, pulling out the second bottle of scotch.
But before Lee could break it open, a thin red laser beam shot out of the camera ball and shattered the bottle, splashing the liquor all over him.
The camera eyed the whiskey-drenched Lee as if it were laughing at him.
“Fuck you, you fat dirty pigs!” he growled at the camera. Then flipped it off.
With his liquor gone, Lee went looking for something else to drink. He went from store to store, wishing he had Timothy’s alcohol intuition. In the center of downtown, he saw a tavern at the end of an intersection.
“Bingo,” he said to the bar.
But before he could get inside the place, the group of zombies had caught up to him and he accidentally blew himself up.
Bleeding from his legs and face, Lee takes a sip of the sour mash. It’s not as flavorful as the scotch but it’s just as smooth. The camera ball floating next to him zooms in on his wound. A piece of shrapnel juts from his temple. He’s so drunk that he can hardly feel the chunk of metal pressed against his brain.
“I’ll never forgive you fuckers,” Lee says to the camera. “I’ll never forgive you for what you did to Timothy.”
When the fortified city on the Gulf of Mexico was evacuated, not everybody was allowed to leave. There were only so many people who were allowed to move to the island of Neo New York. Over two hundred soldiers were left behind to fend for themselves. They weren’t left with any food, supplies, or weapons to defend themselves with. They weren’t even left with the proper tools necessary to keep the barricade up. They were left to die. Timothy was one of them.
“I’m going to stay, too,” Lee told Timothy the day he was supposed to evacuate. “It will be better here than on that shitty island with all those assholes.”
“Nah,” Timothy said. “You should get out of here. You’re one of the lucky twenty percent.”
“It’s bullshit they had us draw straws. None of the citizens had to draw straws.”
“Forget about it. That’s just the way things are.”
“I’m not going to forget about it. I’m going to stay. We can scavenge the Red Zone like we used to. Only now everything we find we can keep for ourselves.”
“They didn’t leave us with any weapons or vehicles. Going into the Red Zone now would be suicide.”
“We’ll get new vehicles. We’ll get new weapons.”
Timothy just shook his head. “Lee…”
