Smoke 'Em if You've Got 'Em Read online

  Smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em

  by David Rogers

  Smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em

  Copyright© 2013 by David Rogers

  [email protected]

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased or lent for your use, then please return to your preferred ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of original fiction set in Georgia. Some real locations and businesses have been used to set scenes, but all such trademarks are the respective property of their owners. All depicted characters are fictional and not intended to represent specific living persons.

  Cover map data Copyright©2013 Google

  Table of Contents

  Foreword

  Chapter One – Ditching

  Chapter Two – Hungry

  Chapter Three – Do you know what this means?

  Foreword

  Zombies

  Chapter One – Ditching

  “–aying with breaking news, the governor has just been evacuated from the Capitol Dome downtown by State Police, but hundreds of others did not have access to helicopters and are currently trapped in the building by a horde of sick individuals–”

  Craig rolled over and slapped at the clock radio without opening his eyes. The voice cut off in mid-syllable, and he grunted in a distracted, relieved manner. A moment later he opened his eyes long enough to fumble at the switch on the top of the clock to turn the alarm completely off, so it didn’t trigger again in five minutes. As soon as he felt the click, he rolled back over and snuggled into the blankets and pillows once more. He was unconscious again in seconds.

  * * * * *

  When he woke again, he could tell it was nearly dusk by the shadows falling across his bedroom window. He sat up and yawned, then stretched, then yawned again. Blinking blearily around the bedroom, he frowned a little, then reached into the half cabinet that served as his bedside table. Opening the door on its squeaky hinge, he lifted out the three foot glass bong and checked that the bowl was still filled the way he’d left it before passing out the night before.

  Green bud lay in it, just waiting for flame to bring the happy. He grabbed a lighter from the little pile of them next to the clock radio and sparked the bowl up as he put his mouth to the bong. Sweet smoke swirled up and quickly filled the chamber while bubbles burbled in the water. When the smoke was so dense it was just a solid wash of swirling milk, he lifted the bowl and expertly sucked the entire mass into his lungs in less than two seconds.

  Craig closed his eyes with a lazy smile, though he carefully kept his lips together to avoid wasting any. He fitted the bowl back into place by touch as the weed hit him and flooded through his senses in a warm wave. Nothing ever – ever – beat the first hit of the day. It was always the best. The rush as it filtered into his bloodstream, the feeling as it flooded into his lungs, the taste of good bud as he inhaled it over his tongue and down his throat . . . it was the best.

  When he couldn’t hold it in any longer, when he could feel himself starting to get a touch light headed, he exhaled in an enormous cloud that was immediately wicked up by the ceiling fan that slowly rotated above him. Craig grinned and got out of bed, carrying the bong and lighter with him. He abandoned both on the bathroom counter long enough to piss in the toilet, rinsed his hands with two seconds of water from the faucet, then reclaimed them and went into the living room.

  “Dude, you ditched Hadley and Morris again?” a black haired, sleepy eyed guy said from the computer desk on the far side of the room. The top of the desk was crowded with three widescreen monitors that displayed an animated mountain side of red rock with a burly looking Orc wearing leather armor in the foreground. Two ashtrays, a crumpled pack of cigarettes, a few lighters, and a cookie tin completed for what desk space remained against a pile of detritus that included candy wrappers, wrinkled and stained pieces of paper, unopened envelopes, soda cans and an even taller bong than the one Craig carried.

  “Man, I was so not in the mood for a history lecture on why the rich get richer.” Craig shrugged as he collapsed into the chair at the other desk. It was marginally neater than the other one, but only in that there were no empty cans or food wrappers. Otherwise the clutter was basically the same.

  “You know you have to show up occasionally if you’re going to graduate, right?’

  “Plenty of time man.”

  “Right.” Kyle snorted. “Your funeral dude. Another wake and bake I see.”

  “Lay off man, you’re bumming me out. It’s fucking Labor Day weekend.” Craig said, his voice conveying the barest hint of irritation. He arranged himself in position at the bong again and took another huge hit. When he had filled his lungs, he leaned back, then frowned slightly and looked at the television. A bunch of teenagers wearing retro clothing were wandering around in what looked like a forest holding plastic cups of beer.

  Craig raised his eyebrows at his roommate, gesturing at the television with a ‘seriously?’ look. Kyle grinned and reached for his own bong. “Lay off yourself dude, I felt the need for dose of Wooderson wisdom.”

  Exhaling, Craig laughed. “Man, like you don’t know it by heart.”

  “We both do.” Kyle said before he flicked his lighter and started hitting his bong.

  “There are over two thousand movies loaded on the server.” Craig said, setting his bong down in the one bit of space on his desk that wasn’t occupied by anything else. It looked suspiciously like it was kept clear just for the bong to live there. “You don’t have to keep playing Dazed and Confused all the time.”

  Kyle leaned his head back and gave an elaborate shrug as he held his hit in. Craig looked at him for a moment, then jiggled his mouse to wake his computer up. He had six screens on his desk, arranged in two rows of three one above the other. The bottom three all showed a panoramic view of an enormous waterfall in a tropical forest; but the upper three each held windows with text. He darted the mouse cursor up to the top middle monitor and scrolled through the window.

  “Oh man, that cam copy of Expendables 2 finished overnight. Let’s watch that.”

  The other man grunted. Craig ignored that, checking the status of the other downloads in his torrent program. He made a few adjustments to things queued up in the window, then looked over as Kyle exhaled very loudly. “Expendables 2?” he repeated.

  Kyle shook his head. “Not yet.”

  “Man, seriously?’

  “Seriously.” Kyle said, putting his bong back down in a spot on his desk that was as equally cleared and just as suspiciously kept that way just for that one object. “I’ve been gathering, and I need to update my auctions.”

  “You can do that while we watch the movie.”

  “No dude, I’m fucking hungry as hell.” Kyle said as he hit something on the keyboard that caused the orc on his middle screen to mount a rather large flying bird of some sort that just appeared out of nowhere.

  “We out of teevee dinners?”

  “No way. I mean, I dunno. I don’t feel like eating out of the freezer. I want tacos.”

  Craig grinned. “Running for the border already?”

  “Man, it’s like fucking six already. You’ve been sleeping all afternoon.”

  “I was wiped after that raid last night.”

  Kyle shrugged. “I told you half the idiots we had online were noobs.”

  “Yeah, but if they’re in the guild they should be able to follow directions.”

  “Dude, we’re lucky they even remember their passwords. People are fucking
stupid.”

  “Wiping seven times on Halfus because the tanks can’t agro switch is lame.”

  “Citadel is still trying to teach the two new guys. I told you, we’ve lost a bunch of people who aren’t interested in Pandaria.”

  “It shouldn’t have taken all night.” Craig said darkly.

  “Whatever.” Kyle shrugged again, reaching for the pack of cigarettes. He pulled one out and lit it, then leaned back. “Let me do auction maintenance, then let’s run for the border and come back with tacos and we can watch your fucking movie.”

  “Hey man, Expendables was awesome.”

  “Expendables was a nostalgia trip for old people.”

  “Just because your dad didn’t spend any time with you–” Craig started.

  “Me and my dad spent loads of time together.” Kyle laughed. “We just didn’t waste any of it on cheese 80s action movies.”

  “Don’t bag on Expendables man.”

  “I’m not. But I’m not watching it until I’ve got some tacos in me, and that’s not happening until I have a chance to update my auctions.”

  “So update then.”

  “Dude, I’m flying back.”

  “Teleport.”

  “Fuck no.” Kyle shook his head. “That’s not how I roll.”

  “You’re the only retard in the entire history of Azeroth who won’t use the hearth stone, you know that right?”

  “I like flying.”

  “You like fucking around.”

  “Look, you play your way, and I’ll play mine.”

  “Thought you were hungry.”

  “Dude, I am.”

  “So teleport back then.”

  Kyle fixed Craig with an annoyed look. “You know, I can always stop supplying your potion components.”

  “Man, that’s low.”

  “So lay off.”

  “I need a hit.” Craig muttered, glancing briefly at the Orc on Kyle’s screen before picking his bong back up.

  “Yeah, you’re grouchy when you oversleep.”

  Craig filled his lungs again, then went back to fiddling with his computer while he enjoyed the hit. The media server was technically shared, but Craig was the one who managed it. He hadn’t done any proper file updates in the past week, and the ‘recent downloads’ directory was getting cluttered again. While he contented himself with moving files around and labeling them for easy access, he listened to Kyle mutter and type on the other side of the room.

  Finally he heard his roommate’s chair squeak, and looked over. Kyle had pushed back from the desk and stood to stretch. “Okay dude, I’m gonna take a leak, then let’s get some food so we can watch your fucking movie.”

  “I can’t believe you’re giving me this much shit over a Stallone flick man.”

  “The last good one he did was Demolition Man.”

  “That’s harsh.”

  Kyle shrugged. “Whatever. Find your shoes before I get back.”

  Craig looked down at his bare feet, then around the room. “Uh . . .”

  Chapter Two – Hungry

  “I’m just saying, we need to have some fucking standards in the guild.”

  Kyle scowled as he stuck his key in the door lock of a dirty and battered old Saturn. “And I’m telling you it’s not like we’re exactly swimming in applicants these days.”

  “Man, it’s gonna pick back up. Every expansion has a dead period just before it comes out while all the posers are waiting for it to drop.” Kyle dropped in behind the steering wheel and hit a button on the door’s panel. The locks clicked, and Craig opened the door, still talking. “And when it does, we’re going to have a fuckton of drama getting rid of all the losers you and the officers have let in over the past six weeks.”

  “Dude, you want to raid or not?” Kyle started the car and put his seatbelt on.

  “Raid, yes. Fuck off wiping for three and a half hours without getting any bosses down, no.”

  “It’s not that bad.” Kyle said as he backed out of the space in front of the apartment building.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “Man we only just barely dropped Halfus on the seventh attempt last night. We had time to wipe once on the Sibs and then whiners started logging out.”

  Kyle shifted into drive. “So you find some good recruits.”

  “That’s your job.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since you became an officer.”

  Kyle scowled. “I’m a raid leader, not recruitment.” He took the curve at the end of the long line of buildings a little faster than was probably prudent; causing him to need to swerve a little to avoid a pedestrian that was weaving across the pavement. “Fuck. Guess you’re not the only one doing wake and bakes today.”

  “What?”

  “That guy is way stoned, or drunk, or something.” Kyle shrugged with a brief glance in the rearview mirror. “He can barely stand.”

  “Is he trying to flip you off?” Craig asked curiously.

  Kyle took a slightly longer look in the mirror. The guy he’d avoided hitting was holding his hands out like he wanted to hug them. “I dunno.”

  “I’m just saying I’m fucking tired of wasting gold on repairs and raid nights on wiping.”

  “Dude, it is what it is.”

  “It didn’t used to be that way.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe it’ll pick back up after the expansion hits.”

  Now Craig scowled. “I don’t think so.”

  Kyle sighed as he reached the front of the complex. He glanced both ways on Ashford-Dunwoody Road, then turned right. “How do you figure?”

  “Man, pandas are not cool. That’s why people are bailing.”

  “No, they’re bailing because they’re tired of waiting for the expansion.”

  “That, and they don’t like panda bears.”

  Kyle caught a green light at the Y shaped intersection at Johnson Ferry Road and stayed right, following the road around south.

  “I thought you were going to Taco Bell?” Craig asked, sounding puzzled.

  “I am.”

  “The other one is closer.” Craig said, pointing east, back at Johnson Ferry as they diverged from it.

  “Dude, I don’t like the one near Chamblee-Dunwoody.”

  “Taco Bell is Taco Bell.”

  “No way, they always fuck up my order at that one.”

  “You always order tacos.”

  “Right.” Kyle said. “And they fuck them up.” He didn’t notice the crumpled figure laying on the other side of the road, half on the shoulder. It was twitching and rolling around a little as it tried to crawl toward the car.

  “How do you fuck up a taco.”

  “Don’t ask me. They manage though.”

  They’re just tacos.”

  “No, they’re my tacos.” Kyle pointed out firmly. “And I want them un-fucked.”

  “Un-fucked? You want un-fucked tacos?”

  “Yeah. That’s not much to ask for.”

  “Are you listening to yourself?” Craig laughed.

  “Dude, you’ve been bending my ear ever since you woke up about the game and wipes. Don’t even.”

  “I just want to actually get something done when we raid.”

  Kyle opened his mouth, but closed it as he pulled up to the light at Peachtree Road. “What’s up with this shit?”

  Craig looked out his window in the direction Kyle was staring, and blinked. There was a large mass of police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances about two blocks down. The road was all but blocked off by emergency vehicles that had been parked haphazardly across the four lane street. Doors on some of them were open, but no one was visible in and around the vehicles.

  “Man, that looks fucked up.”

  “Shit.”

  “What?”

  Kyle scowled and looked over his left shoulder, then turned left without putting his blinker on when the light switched to green. As he settled into the northbound lanes on Peachtree he s
hrugged. “I ain’t going near whatever the fuck is going on back there.”

  “Yeah, that’s fucked up whatever it is. Maybe some of the Oglethorpe girls tried to throw a room party or something.” Craig agreed, looking in the passenger side mirror without any real interest. “Guess you get fucked up tacos.”

  “Dude, not funny.”

  “It’s a little funny.” Craig grinned.

  “No, funny is going to be me benching you tonight.”

  “Hah, you need me. I’m the top Priest since Daffodil left.”

  “Daffodil didn’t leave, she’s on vacation until the end of the month.”

  “That means she can’t play?”

  Kyle sighed. “She’s on vacation from the game.”

  “I still don’t see why that means she can’t log in for raids.”

  Kyle looked across at Craig for a long moment. That meant he missed the staggering figure that emerged from the tree line on the left side of the road. “Dude, how stoned are you?”

  “Pretty stoned.” Craig laughed. He was so busy chuckling he missed how the person outside was reaching for the car as it passed, hands outstretched hungrily.

  “I think you need to cut back.”

  “Man, fuck that. Life is too harsh to take straight.”

  “Are you even listening to yourself.

  “Why, you aren’t.”

  “I am, and either you’re too baked or I’m not baked enough.”

  “We can fix that.”

  Kyle shook his head. “Not until we get back.”

  “Square.”

  “Safe.” Kyle shot back. “Don’t do shit in public.”

  “I keep telling you, we should’ve moved to Colorado.”

  “Dude, I don’t want to live in Colorado. I get light headed in airplanes, so I don’t think living in the mountains is advised.”

  “Yeah, but weed is legal there.”

  “Just wait.”

  Craig sighed loudly. “That’s your answer to everything, just wait. Patience.”

  “Yeah.” Kyle said as the Saturn hit the next built up commercial section of the road. “Patience. You should try it.”