Undead L.A. 2 (5 page)

It was a lie. All they had was the one gun, but their new friends didn't need to know that.

“You're not gonna do that,” the man said with a short, forced laugh.

“You sure about that, white boy?”

“I am.”

“What makes you so certain?”

“For starters you're still talking, which means you're hoping to fix things without using your hand cannon. Plus those things make a whole lotta noise, and we left the door wide open when we came in. You start blasting and this place will be filled with corpses real quick. I think it's time we talk about your real options.”

“We ain't got nothing to talk about,” Jamal spat. “This is your last warning.”

“I'd like to come up,” the man said. “Considering what you took from me, I think that's the least you can do. Don't you?”

“You got it all wrong. You move an inch and I'll pop that dome wide open.”

Diora felt her heart beating wildly in her chest.

What could he have taken that would have caused them to track him down? What was left in the world that had any value? She didn't know. Nothing came to mind. All she did know was that whatever happened she was sure she didn't want those men coming up, that anything happening to Jamal meant reliving what had happened at the river many times over. She'd rather die than become their sex toy.

“Jacob,” his friend hissed at him, but Jacob talked right over him.

“Shut up, Fred. I got this.”

“Listen to your friend, Jacob,” Jamal counseled.

“Throw down the ladder,” Jacob commanded. “You have to the count of five or we open fire.”

“You ain't got the balls,” Jamal yelled back. “You said it yourself. Them things will come inside if you start shooting. What you goin’ do then?”

“This is an AR-15,” Jacob shouted back. “We've all got 'em. We'll take our chances. You on the other hand, will be fucked. You hear me? FUCKED! With a Capital F! Now stop stalling and THROW DOWN THAT LADDER!”

“Give me a minute,” Jamal yelled, sliding back away from the ledge and towards Diora.
 

“Make it fucking fast,” Jacob hollered. “We don't have all night. I promised my guys we'd have them back in camp before the sun came up.”

“What are you going to do?” Diora whispered.

“We can't let them up,” Jamal said softly, cupping his hands to her ears so his voice wouldn't travel. “They kill us both if we let them up.”

“Can we wait them out?”

Jamal looked like he was considering her suggestion for a minute, then shook his head.

“No, baby,” he said. “They ain't gonna leave now that they know we here. Plus they start shooting at the floor and they likely to blow a hole through us anyway for all we know. We only gonna get one chance at this. I want you to go sit over there as far away from this as you can. Don't make a sound, you hear?”

“What did you take?”

“Nuthin,” Jamal said, looking away. “Just some supplies and a book with some writing in it. They trippin' is all. You trust me?”

Diora nodded her reply. Jamal kissed her softly on the head.

“That's a good girl. Now go.”

She got up and scampered as quickly as she could to the far corner of the room. She slunk down to the floor, her back touching the sides of both walls, her arms hugging her knees tight into her chest.
 

“Okay now,” Jamal said pleasantly. “I'm gonna throw down the ladder. Go ahead and step back so it don't hit you.”

“Don't even think about trying anything,” Jacob warned, but before he could finish the sentence Jamal sprang to the edge of the landing and began firing at their unwelcome guests. Diora clapped her hands over her ears and screamed as the rapid sound of gunfire rang out in the hollow, empty room. Flashes of light drove shadows across the walls. Fred screamed at the top of his lungs, but fell silent as Jamal pulled the trigger again and again until the gun was empty. As quickly as it started it was over.

“You shot me, you fucking nigger piece of shit!” Jacob cried out.
 

“That's right, bitch,” Jamal shouted. “What you gonna do now? Ain't no Cedar Sinai coming to save your lily white ass neither. Go ahead an’ try to call 911, you racist asshole. You best hope you bleed to death before them things get in here and chew yo ass up!”

Diora stood up and started moving slowly back towards Jamal. He turned to her, a victorious smile on his face.
 

“I told you I take care of you, baby,” he said. “I always take care of you.”

A clipped burst of gunfire rang out once more, and Jamal's body danced like a toy on a string as the bullets pierced through him. He reached for Diora, but it was too late. He was already falling backward. By the time she got to where he was standing he'd already thudded down on top of Jacob; his lifeless, bullet riddled corpse trapping the injured man beneath. Diora could hear the low moaning of the creatures as they moved in, drawn by the sound and the smell of blood in the air. Seconds later a dozen or more of them came shuffling in, their clothes torn and caked with dried blood, their decomposing bodies giving off an unholy stench. The living dead descended on the warm flesh with greedy mouths full of sharp, jagged teeth. Jamal stared up at her with lifeless eyes. She turned away, unable to watch as they tore chunks from his arms and chest. She heard Jacob screaming in terror as they ripped off chunks of skin and muscle.

“Please! Oh God! Please kill me!”

She felt no sympathy for him. He'd brought this on himself, on them, and being torn limb from limb was the least of the tortures she'd wish on him after taking away her protector. She listened with satisfaction until his cries became wet gurgles, and then there was only the sound of
them
—moaning, growling, and tearing at the remains. There was nothing left to do now and she knew it. Once they got wind of you they didn't leave. They waited you out. This was their world now, not hers, and they knew it.
 

“I'm a survivor,” she laughed. “It's what I do. I just keep on going no matter how awful things get. It's what I've always done.”

But things were different now that Jamal was gone. Surviving would be much harder now, especially for someone like her, someone soft and weak and, worst of all, addicted.

There is only one way—one easy way—out now.

She went to the backpack and took out the block of brown powder they'd taken from her dealer. There was just so much of it left, more than she was used to seeing or having on hand, more than enough to last her until it was all over. The end was near now and she knew it, but that didn't mean she'd have to face it sober.
 

Death is scary enough without having to know that it's happening while you die, without rethinking all the mistakes you ever made in your life. I just want it to be over. I want to be as far away from this world as possible.

She dug the cooking spoon deep into the bag of dirt-colored powder and scooped out a significantly larger than normal serving for herself, adding some bottled water to it and heating up the mixture with a Zippo lighter. Once the solution began to bubble, she took away the heat and stirred the concoction with a small red coffee straw. She loaded it up, still warm, into the closest syringe she could find and began tying off, trying not to think about Jamal being gone. She'd be with him soon enough and he'd understand. He'd forgive her. He always did.

Everyone goes eventually. You can't trust people to stick around. Sooner or later everyone lets you down.
Besides, what's left to keep on living for at this point?

Her hands shook a little as she slammed the sharp needle into the crook of her sore arm, using her thumb to inject the thicker than usual sludge into her bloodstream. She was high in seconds, the drug lifting her up and away from the terrible world around her, a world where dead things came back to life to kill you and eat you; a world where no one could be trusted and nothing lasted.
 

This world is like a fever dream,
she thought,
like something from out of a child's nightmare
. It wasn't where she belonged. It seemed so obvious now. It was her punishment from some previous lifetime, but whatever she'd done she was certain that she'd paid for it a million times over… and then some. She was going to her real home, lifted by wings of angels, all the way up to Yama. She closed her eyes and slipped into a soft puddle of warm, white light as the last of her breath left her body, and her heart stopped from the massive overdose. She was finally free.

***

Pasadena was a city in Los Angeles County, California, located just north of downtown Los Angeles.
 

It was most famous for hosting the Tournament of Roses Parade on New Year's Day, which began in 1890 a few short years after the town was incorporated.
 

In 1902 the annual Rose Bowl football game was added to help offset the cost of the parade which by then had become part of "America's New Year Celebration" and drew in hundreds of thousands of spectators from all over the world.

The parade included themed floats constructed from flowers, marching bands, and equestrian riders.
 

It was broadcast on multiple televison networks inside the United States, making Pasadena with its warm sunny winter days the envy of the nation.
 

The final parade featured 45 floats, 30 bands and 21 equestrian units with approximately 450 horses in all.

Pasadena was also the home of many leading scientific and cultural institutions on Earth, including the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Art Center College of Design, the Pasadena Playhouse, California School of Culinary Arts Pasadena, the Norton Simon Museum of Art and the Pacific Asia Museum.

With a population of 137,122 Pasadena was the sixth largest city in Los Angeles County and was ranked among the top three cities in Southern California best suited to raising a family.

***

BLACK CROW LAUGHING

Tyler came to with a start, jerking his head back up and darting his eyes around in search of fresh danger. He'd fallen asleep again and not realized it. He could feel her back pressed to his—the weight of the small ax in his limp hands—the low rumble of the structure as it buckled under the constant pressure from the weight of the bodies outside, crushed together, yearning to get inside and tear them apart.

Was I snoring? Did I make things worse?

It hardly seemed possible. For a moment he wondered if he was still dreaming, until swirling snippets of the graphic nightmare he'd been having began to bubble up from his subconscious. He grasped at the fleeting images he could recall, feeling them slip away like shards of paper being torn from his hands and scattered by a hot desert wind.

A loud caw from a crow outside set off a round of similar cries, and he jerked to full attention once more. Their number had swelled from a few loud hecklers with glossy black feathers, to a full blown murder since he and Emily had locked themselves into the woodshed in her parent’s backyard to get away from the living dead. Tyler was sure if they quietly waited, the monsters would get bored and leave, but instead more and more came, drawing the heartless birds with their low sustained moaning. Tyler wondered if there had always been so many crows, or if somehow they had begun to clone themselves since the bodies had started piling up?

Were they always there in these kinds of numbers? Why didn't I notice them before? Had the sounds of the industrial world drowned them out? Had the cars and machines and planes and helicopters only masked their incessant cries? There are more of them than us!

Another loud round of caws went around as his eyes adjusted to the dim light of his drab surroundings, and his mind came fully back online. It sounded like they were mocking his situation, like they were laughing at him as they waited to pick the unspoiled flesh from their newly deceased corpses. They were letting him know that they were patient. They would wait him out, and have their meal— one way or another.

Why don't the zombies just eat the damn crows? They've been outside all night pushing their way in, keeping us trapped and terrified. Why don't they use that same kind of energy to catch wild animals and birds? Why do they prefer the meat of humans instead of every other species?

It was a question that had plagued him since the dead began to rise. He'd seen freshly transformed zombies going after the family pet, but only after they'd exhausted every attempt to get a mouthful of fresh human flesh. Often they seemed dissatisfied, and abandoned their hard won meal mid bite. Tyler considered that they might need the rapid influx of protein from human meat in order to survive.

They are fast
, he thought.
Once the rigor mortis ends they move at the same speed we do, if not faster! Maybe they need to feed in order to keep up their energy?

He imagined large groups of zombies roaming through the countryside, like a gruesome congregation from some new demonic religion, taking bites out of cows and other livestock as they went. He could feel himself drifting again, the heavy pull of sleep attempting to take him back under. He was utterly exhausted. He caught a glimpse of his dream once more and allowed it to fully form in his mind's eye.

It's like a vision of hell,
he thought,
or something as close to hell as I ever want to see.

He'd been dreaming he was at a fast food restaurant, some place like McDonalds only closer to a bad retro television commercial version of the restaurant than a real one. All the customers were undead ghouls, faces dripping pus from angry boils, pale greenish skin, blood streaming from their eyes and noses, and chipped black teeth. They were making that bone chilling sucking sound they made between feedings, like a foreign tongue from a place you never wanted to visit. The manager, a fat, middle-aged fuck with a chipper smile plastered on his face, was taking their orders just like they were still real, normal, living people. He'd ask them what they wanted, and then translate their grunts and moans while hitting register keys.