Undead L.A. 2 (2 page)

Diora didn't dare scream for fear of luring the human looking monsters closer to them. She trusted Jamal completely, and knew he'd see them through this just as he had with everything else. She watched in terror as two men covered from head to toe in ripped-apart bites, their skin nearly peeling off of them, leaned into the car and began tearing chunks of the man's face off—the man she'd just been servicing. The last thing she saw was one leaning in to chew off his face.

Served him right, cheap fucker,
she thought, recalling how he'd haggled with Jamal on prices for services as if she wasn't standing there listening the whole time.
I hate it when they treat me like a piece of meat. Now that asshole knows first hand how it feels.

They'd waited out the rioting in the streets, listening to guns going off and the terrified screams that echoed in the predawn stillness. By the third day there were only car alarms and the low groaning sounds of flesh-hungry demons roaming the streets, a sound like wind whistling through a screen door. Jamal had begun to make runs for food, water, and drugs after that.

The first place he'd gone was to her dealer’s house, kicking down the door and storming in. He'd found Billy, the skinny, white USC dropout who'd been her best supplier, cowering in the corner of his apartment, waving a .38 Special at him as he approached. Jamal yanked the loaded weapon free from Billy and used the pistol grip at the back end of it to knock the little wigger out cold. They'd hit the dealers place at just the right time, too. From what Diora could tell he'd just gotten in a big shipment of junk before the whole world fell apart, and he’d been unable to move most of it. Jamal came back with several bricks of the cleanest dope she'd ever tasted, not like the usual stepped on shit she fed her system most days. She had enough to last her practically forever without having to dial back on her habit at all. Jamal even got something out of the deal, since Billy had a backpack full of Blue Dream stuffed in his closet as well. He'd been a heavy marijuana user since he was a kid, but had stopped once he started pimping—knowing that he needed to stay sharp to keep one step ahead of the cops. That night they both got wasted out of their minds and laughed so hard their sides hurt, over nothing, over silly shit, like fart jokes and bad puns and other nonsense.

On top of all of that, Jamal had managed to bring back enough cigarettes and lighters to keep her puffing pretty the rest of the year, after clearing out the pharmacy of a CVS of all its painkillers and antibiotics on his way back to the crash pad. But even with all of that he still had to wander out to find food for them, which generally meant scrounging through corpse-infested apartments in search of canned goods. At first they'd managed to stockpile a healthy amount of grub, and not just fruit and vegetables. There were containers of beans and stew and raviolis and even juice boxes. They'd stacked them up in the far right corner, declaring the unfinished space to be their de facto kitchen. Jamal never had to go for long, since there were still plenty of well-stocked apartments in the area. But as time went by the good stuff dwindled down and Jamal's trips began to take longer and longer, extending from hours to days that Diora was left alone. This was the longest he'd been gone so far, three days if she had counted correctly. He'd never been away this long before, but Diora wasn't worried. Jamal didn't like taking chances. If he was gone longer it was to ensure he wasn't seen, or worse—followed home.

Still I could use a fresh fix
, she thought.
If I have to wait much longer it's going to be a long, miserable day.

She needed him to be back before she took care of herself, otherwise she might fall into the bliss of the high and leave him waiting for the rope ladder on the lower landing. Jamal did not like to be kept waiting. She'd learned that the hard way. He asked for very little considering what he gave her, but he would not tolerate her disrespecting him. For her the disappointed look in his eyes stung far worse than the beatings he gave her with his belt, or the welts they left on her legs.

Maybe just a little taste
, she thought.
Something to get me going.

She looked over and saw that there was still some left in the needle. There was no way she could go cold turkey without getting ill, so she'd been taking nips over the last couple of twenty-four-hour periods to keep from drying out. She was really looking forward to Jamal coming back so she could get all the way out of her mind. Until then one last bump would have to do the trick. She sat up and tied off with the length of panty hose she'd cut for just such a purpose. Slapping her arm, she saw the familiar vein rise to greet her.

Hello, old friend.

There were bruises and track marks all around it, but that big bulge still worked better than any other vein in her body to deliver her sweet medicine. There was a brief sting as she sank the needle in, piercing the flesh, and then a warm rush as the dope blossomed into her system, burning away all the pain and worry.

Maybe I can clean up a little, throw some of this stuff down the chute. That will make him happy.

She wanted to get up, but she didn't quite have the strength for it once the heroin hit her system. She pushed with her skinny arms, but they did little to assist her and soon she sank back to the bed, feeling dizzy and overwhelmed. Her vision was obscured by blurry patches as the drug took hold. She felt blissfully disoriented. Her mind would not fully focus. It was as if she was slipping back into the world inside her head—the world she'd been vividly dreaming about. The floor rose up to greet her and she fully surrendered to it.

Now what was I dreaming about again?

Images came flickering back as she let her eyes close. She'd been talking with her third grade teacher, Mr. Sparks, but somehow it wasn't really the same person she'd known back then. He was different, more like her first boyfriend Jake, but wearing a sweater vest and loafers. This made the comparison all the more ironic, owing to Jake's obsession with Kurt Cobain.

Jake wouldn't have been caught dead in those
, Diora laughed.
He was strictly into ripped jeans, cheap plain white T's he could scribble idiotic phrases on to freak people out with, and endless plaid flannel shirts. If he had shoes on they were always Converse high tops, the ones that eventually wore out in the sole, so he wrapped duct tape around the front and the bottom of the sneaker several times and continued wearing them for another six months until the tape wore out and broke.

“His rich parents were always so mortified,” she said with a dry laugh, the sound of her own voice scaring her. Her voice was foreign to her, raw from smoking, and so much lower than it was inside her head. It sounded like one of those old modems from when she was a kid, back when the dial up had to perform a digital handshake to communicate with the other computer, and images took several minutes to load. She rubbed her throat, feeling the hard ridges just under the sagging skin. Time was starting to catch up with her and she knew it. She rolled over and climbed back into her memories.

Jake followed right in his idols footsteps, didn't he? Blew the top of his head off with a shotgun in his mouth. Pulled the trigger with his toe.
It reminded her of the crass jokes that went around after the singer first died:
What color were Kurt Cobain's eyes? Blue. One blew this way and one blew that way.
She thought about how so many of Kurt's fans blamed Courtney Love in some way when it happened, but she hadn't had such terrible luck after Jake died. She remembered thinking how sad and awful it was that life just moved on with its banality despite his absence, that in no time at all it was as if he had never existed outside of her memory. No one spoke of him again to her. She always imagined that they were simply too cautious of upsetting her again. After all it was no great secret that she'd seriously considered chasing him to the underworld those first few months after his death. But here he was now, vibrant and alive and all smashed up against the most kind and caring grade school teacher she'd ever had.

Merrily merrily merrily merrily... life is but a dream.

They were sitting in the classroom. Everything was just as it had been so long ago. She looked around the room taking in the front chalkboard, the hand outlined Thanksgiving turkeys, the American flag next to pictures of former United States presidents, the fish tank with the one speckled fish stuck to the side, sucking at the glass. Everything looked normal. His name was even sketched in puffy chalk letters on the green board, with dust on his fingers. Diora knew they didn't use old chalkboards anymore, that all schools now used dry eraser boards if they used anything.

For all you know, they used iPads at all the fancy schools before the world fell apart, spoiled little rich fuckers.

She looked up and the ceiling disappeared, revealing a sky obscured by clouds. She could hear the insects out in the woods, the wind moving through the trees in a steady rush making so much deafening noise, and something else she could not place at first.

It's so graphic for a dope dream,
she thought.
Which is the dream world and which is the real world? One requires the use of high grade drugs to function, has walking corpses coming to murder you at any moment, and is filled with the constant threat of rape and murder. This world is like a painting made out of memory, perfect down to the last nonsensical detail, like the stack of Dr. Seuss books piled perilously in the corner over by the beanbag chair.

She ran her fingers under the crack of her desktop and found it was full of cool, fragrant planting soil, like the kind she'd used to try to grow tomatoes once when she was in kindergarten.

I kept waiting for them to blossom, to see the green balls form, then slowly turn ripe and red, but they never did.

The back of the classroom led to the river at the edge of the park. She'd noticed it when he was giving her a lecture about trying harder to reach her full potential, and when she looked back he was now Jake and they were flying over the trees on a shiny, silver disc of light, watching wolves run through the depths of the forest, hunting together in packs.

That's what I was hearing
, she thought, under the sound of the swaying trees.
The beating hearts of these hairy, unrelenting animals.

She watched them move with detached interest, suddenly yearning for more of the sweet sting in the crook of her arm that always took her to her safe place in the clouds, a mindless place of bliss and happiness, a place she had started to unofficially call Yama. She was sinking towards them, towards the panting and hot breath of the pack. Then, with no warning, she wasn't watching them run, she was one of them, running fast, the cold air burning in her lungs, her sore paws pounding the hard earth as the pack chased down a tan rabbit with a bushy white cotton tail.

The hunger is taking over.

The rabbit was so fast, always just ahead of them, but her hunger would not let her give up. It doubled back, losing the other animals, but she had the scent of it in her nose, like dried menstrual blood, and she did not let up for a second until she had chased it onto a small pebble beach where it was cut off from escape by a vast body of water. The rabbit was white now, as if the fear coursing through its veins had bleached away all color from its fur. Its big pink eyes filled with panic as it looked for some kind of escape that wasn't there. The animal dashed to the left, but she was there before it could get away, so it turned quickly and retreated towards the water. It froze as she moved in, all drooling teeth and snarls. She brought her teeth into it and felt a warm rush of pleasure as the metallic blood filled her mouth, refreshing her, filling her with the same bliss she got from the first hit of the day. There was a shaky fear in her as she realized she wasn't the hunter anymore, she was now the prey. The wolf was now a large man in a torn coat biting into her neck and she laid there, legs apart, naked and shivering, as he took his time drinking her blood.

Do vampires exist?
The thought floated through her mind like a dry breeze. She already knew the answer. The world was full of monsters, even before the dead came back to life.
Why not? If zombies are real, who knows what else is out there?

“Diora! Bitch, where are you?”

The words seemed far away. She opened her mouth to answer that she was lost in the past, but no sound came from her. She heard the cries of a girl screaming from somewhere off in the distance, but couldn't see her. Her body was shaking back and forth, something slick and reptilian was moving in between her legs, a sickening wetness that numbed her insides as it worked its way up into her until all she felt was pressure, nothing more. She heard a voice whispering into her ear as a tiny hand stroked her head, turning to see that her younger sister had appeared.

“Don't act like you don't like it,” Makayla laughed.

She turned away from her in disgust, afraid to look at her, afraid she might get sick if she tried to focus on anything for too long.

Take me to Yama! Take me above this wretched place, this breeding ground of sorrow and pain.

She turned to stare into the dark face of the monster looming over her, the putrid smell of his ripped, unwashed clothes overpowering her. His face was obscured by a twisting ball of dark shadows. She'd never seen it before. No matter how she tried to bring it into focus, its details slid off with the silkiness of oil being poured over a black pearl.

“Diora!”

No,
she thought as the sickness crept through her like tiny poisonous fingers underneath her tainted skin.
Not again. Please no!

A mouth formed in the puddle of shifting shadows, panting hot bursts of whiskey and tobacco smoke at her face like a dragon. She was shaking hard now, the serpent twisting into her, feeding on her blood with its scaly tongue and filling her with fresh pain.