Undead L.A. 1 (24 page)

The food pile began to run low so Gary made plans to do what the adults had failed at – go out and scavenge for supplies. They started by hitting the apartments closest to Camp Zombie, breaking windows and ransacking their way through.

“Stick to the kitchen and the bathrooms,” Gary cautioned them. “In and out, you got it? There will be time later to go back and pick the places apart. Right now we wanna stockpile what we can use: food, water, and medicine. We'll worry about the rest later.”

There was a universal belief among all the kids that the authorities would eventually step in and fix shit. Sooner or later, adults who knew how to handle things like this would arrive: cops or firemen or military people. All they had to do was wait it out.

They lost a few of the smaller kids in those first few apartment raids. It was always the smart ass ones, the brats who didn't listen. They'd go off script, wandering into parts of apartments they didn't need to visit or kicking open locked doors, only to have a zombie come flying out to tear them to shreds. After the herd had been thinned out a few times, they stopped deviating from Gary's plan. Get in, hit the kitchen and the bathroom, and get the fuck out. The trouble was that most of the apartments had been picked over. It was as if people had seen the writing on the wall, grabbed what they could, and gotten the fuck out of Dodge. Trouble was, most of them hadn't made it far in the chaos of those first few days. Some asshole had gone around lighting all the abandoned cars on fire after that. Donny wondered if the thoughtless prick had even bothered to check for supplies before they torched the vehicles.

For all we know we could have lived a month off of that shit
, Donny thought, the anger boiling up inside of him.
Then maybe Fast Jeff would still be alive right now.

As time went by they grew more desperate, and also more bold. Gary began leading them up the street and out onto Sunset. They no longer ran when they saw a single zombie on its’ own. They'd gather around it in a circle and hack it to pieces with their weapons. Donny preferred the baseball bat because he could crack open a zom's skull with one well-placed blow over the top. Gary usually carried a fire ax with him. Once they ran out of ammo, it had become his weapon of choice. Donny had seen him behead more than one monster with it. The rest of the gang used whatever was at hand. Jimmy made a spiked club one day, but later traded it for a machete. Fast Jeff didn't like to use anything at all, relying instead on his speed and on Gary's growing appetite for killing zombies. The tactic worked one on one, but was almost no use if they saw a pack of zombies working together. In those situations they'd just pull back and haul ass to Camp Zombie, locking themselves in tight – just in case there were runners in the group.

No one had ever escaped a fast moving zombie. They came out of nowhere, as if they had been lurking around waiting for their next victim, and they didn't stop until they had the taste of fresh flesh in their rotten mouths.

“
I'll bet you I can outrun one,” Fast Jeff boasted one night while roasting a spoiled hot dog over the fire pit on a wire hanger. “They're fast, but they’re no match for a real person.”

“
Yeah, right,” Donny laughed sarcastically. “That'll be the day.”

“
You wait and see. I'm going to run circles around one soon, then let Gary pop his head off like a Pez dispenser.”

They'd all laughed, but Fast Jeff had never gotten the chance to try.

Now he never will
, Donny thought, his mind flashing back to his present dilemma.
Fuck! I've been drifting off again. What the hell? Why can't I seem to stay in the moment? Why do things keep getting fuzzy on me? And why
didn't I warn him?

It was fear that had held him back, and he knew it. The least he could have done was tell them to block the door with something, maybe booby trap it so they'd have some kind of warning if something was coming through. He'd kept his mouth shut and now his friend was paying the price for it. Jeff hadn't even wanted the gig in the first place. None of them had.

“Fast Jeff, you stand watch,” Gary instructed. “You see anything coming out that door you give a shout and we'll all make for the parking lot. Got it?”

“
Sounds good to me,” Jimmy said, but Fast Jeff didn't look as easily convinced.

“
Why does it have to be me?”

“
Because I said so,” Gary fired back at him. Fast Jeff shot him a look that softened him up a bit, adding, “You're quick enough to stay ahead of 'em that's why.”

They'd all come at once, led by a huge fat man with half his guts hanging out. He still wore an apron and a hair net, probably from the meat department. His skin looked greasy and sallow, but his mouth was pinkish. He had a pear shaped body with tiny, stick legs. His face wore no expression as he hoisted Fast Jeff up in the air, grunting through his open mouth as the others behind him clawed at the skinny kid’s body like a swarm of hungry, biting insects. Donny heard Jeff's screams echoing in the back as the plastic closed around the egg-shaped belly of the butcher.

“Don't just stand there,” Gary shouted, the sound of his voice breaking Donny out of his trance, “move your ass. Go now! Go!”

Donny turned, his legs suddenly working, and bolted toward the parking lot as fast as his feet would carry him. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the others running in the same direction, moving like broken warriors fleeing a losing battle. They gathered near the shopping cart return, panting and scared and angry.

“We've gotta go back in there,” Jimmy said, looking guilty now.

They were armed with sticks and baseball bats and rocks, but nothing that might help them get their lost friend back.

“It's too late,” Gary said, shaking his head from side to side.

“
We got nothing,” Jimmy scornfully laughed. “We lost another one of us, and for what?”

“
Shut up,” Gary said, his voice a dangerous low whisper.

Jimmy immediately fell silent.

“It's like they’re getting smarter or something,” Donny said.

“
They're not getting smarter,” Gary argued. “They just got lucky, that's all.”

“
That's more than luck,” Donny panted, making eye contact with Gary, then looking down when he saw the angry glint in his eyes. “They're learning strategy, like a computer game figuring out our moves.”

“
Fast Jeff took his eye off the ball,” Gary replied. “He let his guard down and turned his back and that's why they got him. If he'd done what he was told, he'd be with us now instead of with them. It ain't pretty, but it's the truth and each of you knows it. I wish to hell we could go back there and beat those monsters to death and bring him back, but we just can't. You all know that.”

“
I wish we'd never come,” Donny said, a guilty look crossing his face before he hung his head down again, staring at his worn sneakers.

“
Instead of blaming ourselves we need to let this be a lesson,” Gary admonished us, sounding more like a preacher on Sunday morning than a soldier. “Keep your fucking eyes open at all times, especially when you've got your back to an unchecked area.”

“
I'd like to go back in and bash their fucking brains out,” Jimmy said, the anger working through him. “Just stand over them and drive my fucking stick into their disgusting puss-filled heads over and over until there's nothing left.”

“
That won't bring him back,” Gary said, “and it won't get us what we need right now, which is food. We’d better get moving before the sun goes down on us. I'm hoping this day won't be a total waste after all.”

“
We should’ve caught that fucking dog,” Donny offered. “Could’ve had ourselves a fucking Korean barbeque in no time.”

Jimmy opened his mouth to say something, but he never got the chance. Before the words could find their way out of him a deafening explosion ripped through the air from somewhere behind them, causing all to turn and stare in silent fear. From a distance it looked like there was an
actual
wall of fire heading their way. It towered over them, like a tsunami made out of moving fire.

It's beautiful
, Donny thought for a split second as his fear gave way to detachment at the undeniable realization that they were all about to die.
The way the flames dance…so alluring…so inviting. It's almost sexual – like erotically charged women whose bodies are made of flames; all hypnotically humping and grinding, luring us in with their perfect siren’s song.

The last thing they saw was the edge of the blue sky directly above them filled with military fighter jets shooting past, bellies open, while shiny metal cylinders poured out like storks delivering bundles of love and joy to new mothers depicted in a cartoon. The loud roars were quickly drowned out by the rushing wind as it brought its cleansing fire to burn away the last remnants of hell on Earth.

*** *** ***

Los Angeles was also considered a global city,

with strengths in business, international trade, technology,

entertainment, media, sports, science, medicine and research.

The city grossed around $831,000,000,000 yearly,

making it the 12th largest economy in the world,

and putting it on par with other nation states.

In its last days the sprawling metropolis was home to many

types of eclectic personalities – including

bikers, hippies, billionaires, gang bangers, lawyers,

drug dealers, celebrities, athletes, politicians, actors, junkies,

vatos, reality television stars, chefs, cops, surfers, and other thrill seekers...

– each adding in their distinct flavor

to the already vibrant blend of unique cultures.

***

To Live and Die in LA

“What would you do if you had only one year to live?”

The words hung in the air as she stared at the mirror in her hotel bathroom, makeup smeared like a clown, fake hair disheveled and slipping off, a full bottle of Oxycontin in her trembling right hand.

How did I get here?
She thought about all the possibilities her life once held. In her mind’s eye she pictured each of the possibilities as tiny pearls strung together like a necklace. She thought about her dreams as a young girl, the achievements she'd accomplished through hard work, and the milestones she'd lived to see. She thought about all the dreams she'd had over the years. She'd once dreamed of being a career woman…then of being a wife, and maybe even a mother. She tried to picture the faces of her unborn nameless children, but everything was just fuzzy. Each of those dreams had their time; each had failed to come to fruition, leaving the bitter taste of dissatisfaction like a permanent stain in her memory. Each had once really mattered to her, but now there was nothing left of them. They were hollowed out now, leaving just their spent husk behind. They'd done what they were meant to do – given her false hope, enough to move her to the next period of her life where the new dream was waiting to leave her unfulfilled. Each had been it's own perfect catastrophe and now there were none left. She'd finally reached the end of the line, where no more dreams existed, where hope quivered like a guttering flame in the frigid and absolute whirlwind of the gaping abyss. She imagined putting the string of her life's pearls around her neck as she went to meet Death. She pictured him as a large skeletal figure in a thick, scratchy, hooded robe. She daydreamed about slipping her tiny, quivering pink fingers into his oversized, cold, bony hand.

What is life but a series of moments strung together?

She heard the contents of the bottle she was holding shifting around, chemicals measured and pressed into shapes by machines and coated and baked and sorted. Pills weren't much different than pearls, were they? Or dreams for that matter?

They serve a similar purpose
, she noted.
They exist to get you through...until there isn't anything left to get through…until the darkness reaches up and robs you of everything and everyone you've ever loved and cared about.

Using both hands to steady the bottle she managed to get the top off at last, then stared down into the container. These pills could fix all her problems. Quick and easy, they remained the perfect solution; a clean answer to a messy and unsolvable problem staring back at her from the mirror, dressed in flesh and blood, walking around like the zombie corpses out there in the burning streets.

Even the dead don't find me interesting
, she mused,
now that I'm so close to being one of them. They moved right past me like it was already done, like I had already died and come back as one of them.

Perhaps it was the fact that she'd never indulged in bouts of self-pity, not once during the whole ordeal, but she began to feel her strong resolve slipping away as doubts crept in.