“I see way too many people here right now that i didn’t know last year,” Drake mumbled to noone in particular as he looked out onto the dancefloor from his VIP terrace.
His annual OVO Halloween birthday party was already well under way and much like last year and the year before, it was bigger and more immaculate. As he scanned through the crowd’s endless sea of mysterious faces, Drake couldn’t help but wonder if the party budget had reached the point of diminishing returns. He watched as two girls who must have been highschool or college aged entered the party.
“Oh my god, Becky look at her butt,” one of them yelled in shock as they walked by one of the many go-go dancers OVO had hired for the event.
Drake smiled, remembering that it wasn’t too long ago that he was the one using a fake id to sneak into parties he wasn’t supposed to be in. Best I Ever Had feels like a decade ago he thought to himself. A sudden tap on his shoulder interrupted his reminiscing.
“It’s about time,” Chubbs muttered, leaning in to be heard over the music.
Drake took one last look at the crowd and then turned to Chubbs. “I swear it feels like the last few nights we’ve been everywhere and back but I just can’t remember it all. What am I doing”
Chubbs looked deeply into Drake’s eyes for a moment before grinning and pointing to his hand. “Drake, will you please stop smoking la la? You know that shit doesn’t help.”
“Tell the DJ, pump-p-p-pump pump it up,” a drunk Joe Budden shouted out from the back of the crowd, rudely interrupting Drake mid-sentence.
Drake waited as the DJ fiddled with the equipment to turn up his microphone and then moved the microphone closer to his lips. “How bout now?”
The crowd nodded and murmured in approval. They could actually hear him now.
“They say more money more problems, my nigga don’t believe it. I mean, sure, there’s some bills and taxes I’m still evading but I blew six million on myself and I feel amazing.”
Drake took a deep breath as the crowd roared in approval at this flex.
“My classmates, they went on to be chartered accountants or work with their parents, but thinking back on how they treated me…my high school reunion might be worth an appearance. Make everybody have to go through security clearance,” he continued.
“All I care about is money and the city that I’m from –”
“– Nigga, what is that?” somebody shrieked, interrupting Drake mid-speech yet again. It sounded a lot like Joe Budden but Drake couldn’t be sure with all the stage lights and cameras pointed at him. He squinted to get a better look at what was causing all the commotion in the crowd. A man covered in blood seemed to be stumbling towards the stage.
Wait a minute, was that Jay-Z?
Drake watched in horror as what looked an awful lot like a zombified Jay-Z made his way through the crowd biting party-goers.
“Sasquatch, Godzilla, King Kong, Loch Ness,” Jay chanted as he worked his way up towards Drake.
Drake’s bodyguard Baka ushered him and the rest of his crew towards an open door behind them and then pulled a pistol from his waistband, pointing it directly at zombie Jay-Z.
“Don’t make me turn this red light on your head like you Roxanne” Baka yelled menacingly.
“Goblin, ghoul, a zombie with no conscience,” Jay chanted, continuing his slow march towards them, only pausing to occasionally take bites out of terrified partygoers.
“Just know I’m a shooter first,” Baka yelled out. He fired off a few warning shots as if to prove his point but it all looked like an attempt to reassure himself more than anything.
Zombie Jay seemed to find this threat amusing. “Stop your silly nonsense. Think. What do these things all have in common?” he asked Baka.
“This is not a playground, ain’t no fist fight bitch I’m blastin,” Baka warned, slowly starting to pull the trigger.
“Everybody knows I’m a motherfucking monster!” Jay yelled out before beginning to run directly at Baka, moving surprisingly swiftly for his age. I guess 40 really is the new 20.
Baka fired two shots directly into Jay-Z’s chest which didn’t seem to do anything but annoy him. He figured he had time for one more well placed shot before Jay got within biting distance and aimed his gun a little higher.
“I drink Henny when I shoot my pistol at the range. That way when I’m tipsy, I still know I got my aim,” he whispered to himself as he placed his red laser directly onto the the charging zombie Jay’s forehead.
Just like a good basketball player recognizing a short jumpshot, Baka knew that his aim was off as soon as he pulled the trigger and the pinging sound the bullet made as ricocheted off a metal speaker in the background only made the miss more gut-wrenching. Baka turned to run back towards the door behind only to have his stomach drop even further. The door had already been closed behind him.
So much for OVO loyalty.
Drake and the rest of the crew watched through the door’s narrow window frame as Zombie Jay lunged headfirst at Baka. Their two bodies exploding in the air upon collision like a linebacker lowering the boom on a poor unsuspecting slot receiver.
Blood was instantly everywhere.
Zombie Jay’s first bite must have been out of the left side of Baka’s chest since he quickly crumpled backwards towards his left. With Zombie Jay straddled on top of Baka’s torso it was difficult to see exactly what was happening but Baka’s screaming made it hard to imagine that things were looking good. The rapidly increasing pool of blood towards his left wasn’t promising either. It’s kind of hard to put up a fight when your bleeding out.
But suddenly there was a glimmer of hope. Literally.
Drake watched as a shiny knife came swinging out of Baka’s right hand directly into Zombie Jay’s neck. Zombie Jay immediately began grasping at it, falling forward off of Baka’s body and revealing a horribly disfigured and almost unrecognizable Baka.
Baka always said the Louis pouch he wore across his body wasn’t for fashion.
This is all Drake thought as he stared at Baka and Jay through the window. Baka’s dead body lay still on the floor just a few feet from where he stood and Zombie Jay’s barely breathing body was right next to him. Drake knew opening the door was out of the question until Jay’s body finally stopped moving but he felt it was finally time to break the heavy silence that filled the room.
“You know, I never cried when Pac died but I probably will when Hov does.”
“Oh you fancy huh?” Drake said, playfully pulling at the flamboyant pink feather boa that Nicki wore.
The two stood next to each other in an empty office that apparently belonged to the nightclub’s owner. The office was nice but sparse, with a dark mahogany desk on one end, a makeshift bar by the door and a large floor to ceiling window that overlooked the dancefloor. The same dancefloor where tonight’s zombie chaos had all begun.
“I came dressed to kill,” said Nicki.
She gestured for him to hand her his joint and immediately put it out once he did.
“It’s my birthday, I get high if I want to,” complained Drake.
He watched as Nicki took a seat behind the almost comically oversized desk before walking over to the makeshift bar. Drake figured it wouldn’t be long before the rest of his security team finally returned with a zombie-free path out of the building and he probably wouldn’t get another chance at alcohol for a while.
“Look, I’m just thinking out loud,” Nicki said from behind him. “Maybe it’s time to finally put this pussy on your sideburns.”
“Girl don’t tempt me,” Drake chuckled, unsure of whether she was joking or not. “You know the things we could do in twenty minutes girl?”
Drake poured himself a glass of Remy before turning around and walking towards her.
He put his glass on the edge of the table before sitting down across from her and shaking his head.
“Nah, next time we fuck, I don’t wanna fuck, I wanna make love.”
“C’mon. We done did everything, you can think of.”
“You know, you used to call me on my cell phone when you need my love.”
“I don’t need no frauds. There’s drama when you call.”
“’Cause you don’t say you love me to your friends when they ask you. Even though we both know that you do. And I don’t wanna just talk, I wanna trust.”
Drake leaned across the table to remove Nicki’s sunglasses and get a better look at her eyes.
A chill suddenly ran down his spine.
The yellowish tint in her eyes was undeniable. Those weren’t the normal eyes of Nicki Minaj. Those were the eyes of a soon-to-be zombie. Those were the eyes Baka had before they eventually turned red and started to bleed.
Drake stood up and pretended to pensively stare out the window, struggling to summon every ounce of acting ability he had picked up from his years at Degrassi and hoping that Nicki couldn’t sense his nervousness. He made sure to keep his face neutral while mentally running through the night’s events, wondering when exactly Nicki might have been bitten.
Maybe it was only one small bite. That’s not so bad. She hasn’t shown any zombie-like signs yet. I’ll just play it cool and wait it out until the others get back. Maybe there’s even an antidote out there that can reverse mild cases.
Dozens, if not hundreds of thoughts rushed through Drake’s mind in the next few moments as he tried to figure out what to do. But it was what Drake heard next that let him know that there was really only one option available.
“OK, first things first I’ll eat your brains,” Nicki said bluntly from across the room.
Drake was stunned. There was was not even a hint of doubt in Nicki’s voice.
“Then I’mma start rocking gold teeth and fangs,” she continued calmly.
Drake turned around to look at Nicki. He couldn’t help but notice the lack of emotion on her face. It was as if she was just simply reading out instructions from an IKEA manual and not the the instructions to his death.
“You’re making me nervous,” Drake said, taking a slight step backwards.
“Why? Cause I’m a motherfucking monster and that’s what a monster do,” Nicki responded.
This was all the confirmation he needed. Drake immediately pulled a pistol from his velour hoodie and shot Nicki right between the eyes. She instantly fell onto the floor into an unrecognizable heap of feathers, makeup and blood.
“You must have forgot. I been Steph Curry with the shot,” Drake said coolly.
If I die, I’m a legend.
Drake’s entire body trembled as he peered out the broken window at Oliver and Chubbs standing in the club parking lot three stories below him.
“Jump, man! Jump, man! Jump, man!” they yelled back up at him.
Drake knew that the zombies would break through the flimsy door behind him and burst into the office any moment now, so he carefully contorted his body through the broken window and stepped out onto the ledge, making sure to avoid stepping on any large pieces of glass.
The first crack that Drake heard was the sound of the door beginning to splinter behind him. Suddenly the zombies on the other side of the door seemed even more frightening. Drake knew that every second spent on this ledge would be one less second available once they got through the door so he mustered every ounce of courage in his body and stepped off the ledge.
The second crack that Drake heard seemed even louder than the first. He would later find out that it was the sound of his left tibia snapping into two upon hitting the ground. As of right now though, he was certain he was going to die. Drake had never felt pain like this in his life. It was as if someone took exactly how hurt he felt when recording “Marvin’s Room”, injected it directly into his leg and then amplified it somehow to feel about ten times worse.
As his friends rushed over to his writhing body, Drake spotted a dark figure heading towards them from the distance. Drake squinted to get a better look. Was this finally it? Was this the grim reaper finally coming to take him away?
“Oh man, oh man, not again!” Drake howled as soon as he realized that the dark figure wasn’t a figment of his imagination.
“Just hold on, we’re going home” Oliver and Chubbs kept repeating as they tried to help Drake to his feet, completely failing to recognize the imminent threat behind them.
Drake watched as the dark figure kept coming closer. It looked eerily familiar. But it wasn’t until he was able to make out what the figure was chanting that he recognized who it was.
“Platinum that platinum this. Meanwhile I’m on the carpet with a platinum chick. I got a platinum rollie, platinum whip,”
Holy fuck. Zombie Meek Mill.
“Back to back,” Drake immediately called out to his team, gesturing for them to look out for other potential zombies in the parking lot.
“I just wanna know. I just wanna know was it Quentin Miller? Was it Hush or was it Detail where you really got your flow?” Meek yelled out as he continued to walk closer and closer.
“Man, I just wanna know,” he continued, this time a little louder.
“You don’t have to try and say it louder nigga. Trust, we heard you the first time,” Drake replied.
“I just wanna know, if you ain’t write that running through the six shit. Tell us who the fuck was Quentin running through the six with?”
Zombie Meek was now getting dangerously close.
“You underestimated greatly,” said Drake before taking out his pistol and aiming it right at Zombie Meek Mill’s head.
Zombie Meek stopped dead in his tracks and looked directly at Drake before unleashing his next barb.
“You fucking dork, you changed the style because you studied us.”
“You gon’ hype me up and make me catch a body like that,” Drake shot back immediately.
Drake paced back and forth a few times, visibly seething with anger. He then stopped, looked directly at Zombie Meek and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened. At first everyone was a little too shocked to comprehend it all but the second and third cold metallic clicks made it pretty clear. Drake was all out of bullets.
Meek let out a long laugh before taking a step forward and continuing, “Hold up, wait a minute! Y’all thought I was finished?”
Drake was just about to begin saying his final prayers when he spotted a white Bentley aggressively driving towards them from the other side of the parking lot.
Was that? No way. It couldn’t be. Either way, Meek definitely didn’t see the car coming.
“You let Tip homie piss on you in a movie theater nigga, we ain’t forget –”
The Bentley gained on Zombie Meek in just a few seconds, driving directly over him from behind and crushing him instantly. Unfortunately, it showed no signs of slowing down as it continued to head towards Drake, Oliver and Chubbs.
“We should all disappear right now!” yelled Drake as the crew scattered in separate directions.
The car continued to accelerate and Drake, with his badly injured leg, was almost certain that he would become roadkill when the driver hit the brakes and drifted to a screeching stop just a few feet away from him.
40 smiled as he rolled down the window.
“Meek Mill trying to take you away from me? Only over my dead body!”