Undead L.A. 1 (17 page)

Am I still dreaming?

Gary didn't recall ever having a splitting headache inside a dream before, but he also couldn't imagine that what he'd seen could be anything less than a nightmare. He'd used all his strength to push the door off of him, then lay there panting to catch his breath. It was a miracle he wasn't seriously injured. He pushed himself to his feet and began to examine the aftermath. Blood and guts were strewn across nearly every surface, including the ceiling – like something from a Halloween house of horrors. His stomach churned to look at it. There were severed heads of both guards and prisoners in the carnage. Not a single living soul remained.

How long was I out?

Gary walked back out to the front of the building to find it strangely empty, like a movie set left fully dressed for the next scene while all the actors and crew were at lunch. Gary remembered they called that a 'hot set' from his childhood visits to Universal Studios. He'd loved seeing behind the scenes, loved the mechanical shark and the car you could push over on its side – but this was no movie magic. This was some form of fresh hell Gary couldn't begin to imagine.

Maybe I'm dead and this is my afterlife. I'm being punished for not helping more people.

He walked to his car to find it sitting where he'd left it out on the street. There was a man walking slowly away from him, the first sign of any person he'd seen since waking up. Gary called out to him but as he did a helicopter flew by overhead, drowning his cry. The man froze in place like a statue. Gary called out again as the loud chopper moved toward the center of downtown Los Angeles, where fresh plumes of inky black smoke rose like victory flags to some dark God of chaos.

“Hey, man,” Gary shouted through cupped hands. “You okay?”

The man slowly turned toward Gary. The first thing he noticed was his eyes. They were immobile and lifeless, the eyes of a corpse completely devoid of life. As the man turned back to face him, Gary noticed that he was missing part of his cheek and lower lip. His teeth were clearly visible as well as his tongue. There was a greyish-looking tinge to the remaining skin of his face, but his gums were a vibrant shade of purple and crimson. His teeth were splintered from gnashing. Cold dread washed over Gary as the man fixed his dead stare on him. Panic-sweat formed in his palms. Gary raised the barrel of his gun and pointed it at the man's head, aiming between the eyes.

“What happened to you?”

It was more of a statement than a question. The man unhinged his jaw in reply, letting out a deep growl that sounded more like a wounded animal than a person. He charged forward toward Gary with alarming speed, his stiff joints causing him to amble at an awkward gait while his eyes stayed locked onto his target. Gary didn't hesitate. He pulled the trigger three times. The man fell to the street and lay still like a crumpled heap of bloody rags, skin, and hair. Gary's heart beat fast. He turned in wide circles with his gun still up looking for more. In the distance he found what he was searching for as groups of similar creatures began to hobble slowly out from the inside of buildings and behind parked cars, drawn by the sound.

There are too many of them. I'll never be able to kill them all.

Gary fumbled with his keys, nervously dropping them. He cursed under his breath as he tried to grab them out of the gutter. An orange tabby cat shot past him from under his car and tore down the street. A few of the people advancing his way broke ranks and tried to follow it, but the feline was too fast and agile for them. Gary retrieved the keys – his heart pounding so hard now in his chest that it hurt – and got into his car, locking the doors. It started up on the first try, same as always.

“Thank God for small miracles,”
he said to himself.

He drove away from the small mob, watching them as he went. Several blocks later he stopped at the liquor store. The streets were in total chaos with cars and buildings on fire and no sign of emergency services in sight. It didn't take long for Gary to realize that whatever he'd encountered back at the prison had now spread out into the rest of the world, making it just as crazy. He felt his senses on high alert as he maneuvered his way through the anarchy and back onto the freeway.

Over the years Gary had come to be on a first name basis with his fear. He'd walked with death so many times now it was getting harder and harder to believe his time was still coming, that one day his number would be up, too. Put simply, he'd lost some of his edge because he'd lost his relationship with his fear…and that had left him with a piss poor perspective on death itself – the final darkness.

He was halfway back toward Hollywood by the time he realized he'd never make it across the city to his apartment. Entire sections of the freeway were shut down with abandoned vehicles that had been pushed to the side by something big, like a tractor or a bus. Capitol Records, a symbol synonymous with all things Hollywood, was burning from the street to the top floor. The iconic building was visible from the 101 Overpass. It had been designed to look like a stack of vinyl records reaching toward the sky. Bright orange flames licked the sides of the building, making the stack of records look like they were melting. Looking past it down into the city, Gary saw evidence of the spreading madness in every direction. He swerved to miss a stray dog left on the middle of the highway, then punched it up the hill leading toward the Valley. In the back of his mind he knew he was heading back toward the house on Mulholland, the one owned by Leo Gold up until that morning.

It had been a desperate fight getting off the freeway and crossing Ventura Boulevard. There were people looting stores, people shooting off guns and setting fires, and people like the man Gary had encountered earlier – just like the prisoners – afflicted with a sickness that left them hungry for flesh.

Zombies
, Gary thought.
They are called zombies in the movies.

He couldn't bring himself to believe it, but he didn't know what else to call them. Whatever they were it was obvious that they were winning.

Gary drove through a crowd of them as he passed a gas station on Coldwater Canyon and headed up the hill toward Leo's mansion. The lifeless looking people came in all shapes and sizes. The sickness affected all races equally – both young and old, male and female. They all had those dead eyes too, Gary noticed, as they swarmed over his car and beat it with their angry fists. He gunned his Lincoln through them, knocking a few out of the way and leaving big dents in his car.  By the time he'd gotten to Leo's, the Town Car was limping along. He punched in the gate code Miriam had given them earlier and the gates swung open. He searched the main house and to his relief found he was alone. Miriam was off getting ready for her big anniversary date, or more likely she was dead now. He turned on the television and radio but there were no signals. Whatever was happening had now spread to the whole city, and maybe beyond.

He'd settled into the back of the guesthouse on the Mulholland property he'd now taken over. The little voice in the back of his head let him know that it was still breaking and entering, but he also knew no one would mind. He knew that if looters made their way up the hill, he'd at least have a fighting chance back there.

Gary stretched and got up, taking his gun in his hand. He listened at the door for signs of life but didn't hear any. He slowly pushed the door open with his gun. The only noises he heard were birds singing in the trees. They seemed so loud, so aggressive, that it took him completely by surprise. He hadn't heard anything like that before but now that the cars and planes were gone, the winged creatures triumphant song could be heard echoing off the mountains.

Gary walked out cautiously onto the driveway and scanned the front gate. It was still locked tight from when he had come in. His battered car was still there as well, parked next to Leo's exotic sports cars. Gary hadn't really given them a look over yet, but he knew he would in good time. He checked the front door of the main residence and saw that it was still shut. He turned and looked up the hill toward the neighbor’s property, but saw no movement there either. Jack Nicholson's house was up there somewhere, or what had been his house up until he recently sold it. The famous address had seen a string of high-class call girls and low-rent porn stars in its notorious history…and much worse. It had been the site where director Roman Polanski had allegedly drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl back in the late 90s, before pleading down the charges and ultimately fleeing the country. Gary wondered if the current owners were aware of the piece of Hollywood infamy they'd acquired, or if they even cared. Most people were far more concerned with having their homes ravaged by fires than they were with what had happened in them. They spent thousands in insurance every year, just in case.

Hope they had end-of-the-world zombie insurance,
Gary chuckled.

Satisfied that he was still alone, he went back to the guesthouse and lit his first cigarette of the day. It gave him a small rush. He savored the taste as well as the feeling of smoke burning in his lungs. He'd missed them more than he’d realized since he'd quit. Gary had pieced together some junk food the night before in the main house, which he now picked through. He settled at last on a pack of chocolate-covered donuts and hungrily tore into them. He'd need his strength for what he had planned today. He felt good inside. He flipped through his murder book, feeling glad that he kept it in the trunk of his car. He'd told himself at first that it was because he might want to make a quick note in it, in case he remembered something new about Randy, but he knew that was a lie. He'd wanted it close by so he could access it at a moment's notice. It was his obsession, and now that the world had ended he had all the time he needed to devote to it. He ran his finger over the last known address for Randy. It was a small rental house on Longridge just off of Moorpark Street, which ran parallel to Ventura Boulevard in Studio City. It was a quiet street with friendly neighbors who had no idea a monster was living among them. Gary had driven by on several occasions just to get the lay of the land, in case there was ever a reason to return there. Yesterday he had discovered that reason.

“He's been living well off of my life savings from that damned civil suit,” Gary said to himself, just to hear the words. “He's escaped justice for too long now, but one way or another it's headed his way. I just hope the bastard is still alive and not one of those creepy gray fuckers already.”

Gary walked back out to his car and popped the trunk. He took out two extra clips of ammo and put them in his pocket. He also grabbed a Spyder knife he had in a kit in the back, just in case. He didn't know how hairy the shit was going to get out there on the road and he wanted to be prepared. He shut the trunk and stepped back, taking in the sight of his vehicle. It looked like he'd taken it for a spin through the driving range at the golf course. Amid the dings and puncture holes there were bloody handprints, and in one place strings of hair. He was surprised the windshield wasn't cracked.

He turned and stared at the line of sports cars in the driveway, then walked over and began to inspect the one that had caught his eye the night before. It was an exact model of one used in Leo's last action summer blockbuster – a Lamborghini Sesto Elemento. Its sleek gunmetal gray paint job was like a skin-tight bikini over its lust inspiring curves. It was a futuristic ride, one he never dreamed of sitting in – let alone driving! But there was no one to tell him
no
now. He opened the door and slid inside. He felt his heart jump in his chest as he realized that the keys were still in the ignition.

It was one of the last cars they'd made, with only a limited number making it as far as the United States. He'd seen something about it in the Lifestyle section of the L.A. Times one forgotten weekend forever ago. He didn't remember much. He'd only briefly flipped through the article. All he knew was that it was called the ‘sixth element’ because it relied heavily on carbon fiber for its design. It had a V-10 that was cooled by hexagonal holes in the engine cover. Translation? It was light and high-powered, built for speeds that easily went over two hundred miles per hour on the open road.

The interior was all gray, a softer version of the body color…like the muted skin of a shark. The steering wheel was bright red and so were both of the seats. The wheel was shaped like a rectangular hexagon, with big sections on the side for easy gripping.

“
Even in my dreams I've never imagined a car this nice,” Gary said aloud to himself. He liked the way his voice sounded, like he still had hope for some kind of positive outcome in life, when he knew he was screwed no matter how things turned out with Randy.

He got behind the wheel and turned it on. It purred as it came to life, sounding at least as expensive as it looked. He knew that if the world had not ended there would be no way he would ever have gotten to know what it felt like to fire up an exquisite machine like this, and it made him sad for a moment.

“I should be driving this thing on the Autobahn,” Gary said, still speaking to himself as he put it in gear and began to back up toward the gate. “Guess I'll just have to settle for the canyon.”

The gates parted and he backed through them and turned toward the Valley. He gunned it onto Mulholland, the engine roaring to life and echoing down through the trees onto the city below.

“Randy Whitmore,” Gary said as he took the first turn. “I'm coming for you.”

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