by Stephens, L.
WELCOME TO HELL.A.
BOOK 1 OF THE HELL.A. SERIES
Copyright © 2018 by L. Stephens
The characters in this book are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. Except for Jake, he kinda wishes he was me.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Lord,” at the address below.
Darklife Publishing
www.DarklifePublishing.com
ISBN-13: 978-0-578-44322-5
First Edition
† This isn’t a book about zombies.
This is a book about people, shitty people,
just like you and just like me. †
CHAPTER 1: THIS CHARMING MAN
Jake woke with a flurry of arms and legs. It had been one of those nightmares where you actually sit up because you need to make sure there is no chance you are going to drift back to sleep for round two. Despite setting the temperature of his apartment to sixty-nine degrees, like some horny teenager, he had accrued a heavy sheen of sweat. It felt an inch thick and the cool air made him shiver like a waterlogged dog. His hangover was making sure it was on a first name basis with him, banging in his head like a debt collector knocking on a deadbeat dad’s door. The events of the previous evening were beginning to form a montage, which kept cycling through his brain on repeat. Needless to say, it was not pretty.
It had been a normal Thursday night, beginning innocently enough with some blotching at his apartment, followed by a visit to a few bars and then a dirty street dog to close down the night. It was at this point everything went off the rails. For some stupid reason he had decided to snort half a gram of Adderall, and all hell broke loose. He was already wasted. He didn’t need to go on a five-hour-long bender, but this was Jake Meyers, a piece of shit douchebag with a penchant for dumb ideas. At the last after-hours establishment he visited, he had procured a fuck partner, and from the best of his recollection, it wasn’t hard to get her to come home with him. The memory of this last part of the puzzle made his head snap to the other side of the bed, and in a surprising and somewhat devastating development, the girl from the night before was still there.
Jake was no lawyer, but he had enough empirical evidence to build a strong case that he should be waking up alone. Shortly after they had finished fucking, he had set up a substantial body wall with his back to her. He had also underlined that same body wall with a strong don’t touch me policy, so by law, she should have gotten the message and been long gone. But there she was, lying peacefully, invading his world with her presence. He hoped she wasn’t one of those girls who got more infatuated the worse you treated them, which was fairly common given the type of girls Jake liked. His main concern was that she was too hungover to leave and he’d be stuck with her all fucking day.
His bedroom had a gloomy feel to it. The walls were dark and blackout curtains cut out all attempts sunlight made to come in. That was the way he liked it. Except for a full-size bed and a couple crates that doubled as a bedside table, the room was empty, which left a lot of room for clothes, shoes and empty water bottles to find a home on the floor. He lived alone in a one-bedroom apartment in East Hollywood that on the exterior looked above his station in life. Late night parties during the week and aggressively vocal fuck partners had made him the scourge of the apartment complex. You see, his apartment was like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, nobody ever goes in and nobody ever comes out! He was an enigma, talked about in hushed tones and the subject of night letters stuffed under his door.
He picked up his iPhone from the bedside table slash couple of crates and pressed the home button to turn it on. Above the slew of missed calls and text messages was the time. He rejoiced a little when he saw that it was just a little after one in the afternoon. There was still time to recover from the hangover; there was still time to not have to deal with the day ahead or what was left of it. He pulled up the Twitter app on his phone to see if he had missed out on anything interesting, but the scrolling just made him feel even worse. On Twitter, he used the handle @KillingJake. It didn’t really mean much, other than it was his name and every choice he made generally involved killing another small part of him. He used Twitter as a journal and a way to find out information in a fairly even manner. Fifty thousand tweets and ten thousand organic followers later, he considered himself a part of the community, but his tweets were generally self-serving and personal. He typed out a quick tweet just to let his followers know he was still alive and put the phone down. The tweet read:
@KillingJake woke up from a nightmare of doom to discover I was in a real nightmare of doom. Girl from last night is still here! #Doom
His eyes rolled towards his sex guest, and he considered if he had the energy or the will to pull her close to him. He couldn’t quite recall what she looked like, but in the dim light she looked half decent. Her skin was pale and clung to her ribs like a greyhound. There was some sort of Sanskrit tattoo written over her ribs. Her long blonde hair was teased and full as it lay on her pillow, and he thought some casual sex just might be the hangover cure that he needed right now. His cock got hard at the prospect of action but the need to see her face was definitely a high priority. He had been wasted when he had met her and his track record with “Golden Deceivers” was terrible. She may have looked good from behind, but the front was what interested him the most. Jake reached for her shoulder and gently pulled her towards him. Before he could get a look at her face she shrugged him off.
“Not right now, dude,” the girl said as she buried her face in the pillow.
Jake was in shock. He had been denied by an overnight sex guest. He was definitely slipping and was starting to think maybe it was time to settle down.
“Fuck my life,” Jake whispered as he ran his hand through his hair.
His hair was his favorite asset: extremely short on the sides with a perfect fade that led to a healthy few inches of luscious hairline on top. It wasn’t a flat top. He didn’t want to exude that sort of precision. The top was uneven and chunky. He took to it with scissors where he could, giving it an “I don’t give a fuck” vibe, the irony being he gave a lot of fucks about it.
His phone began to flash and another notification of a missed call appeared on the screen. There was no mystery of who it was from. He let out a large breath and picked up the phone, but he wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone right now. He never was. He found the text message app and saw the red circle in the corner of the icon alerting him to unread messages. Like the missed phone calls, all the messages were from his best friend, D-Dubs. A quick glance showed the messages were fairly redundant, ranging from “You up?” to “Where are you?” to “We still on?”. Jake giggled at his friend and hit the text window under D-Dubs’ messages and typed in, “Yeah, I’ll pick your ass up at 3:30.”
After hitting send, he put the phone down on the bedside table slash couple of crates. He guessed it was time to get up and hope that his movement to a vertical state might encourage his sex guest to do the same. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and leaned forward, burying his head in his hands. The necklace that was wrapped around the back of his neck was choking him, so he pulled it to the front, and the razor blade pendant attached to the chain bounced back and forth against his chest. It wasn’t a real razor blade, merely a stainless-steel replic
a some fashion house had thought would be edgy for wannabes to rock around their necks. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror that ran along the side of the room, it looked like he was staring at a human with a skull for a head. His gray colored eyes sat in dark sockets, and the shadows hid how bloodshot he guessed they were. He caressed his gaunt cheeks and the stubble of his square jaw. Like his eyes, his skin was gray, and the color was amplified by his jet-black hair.
The mattress shifted underneath him, and he felt a warm hand caress his back.
“Jack,” said the girl sharing his bed. “What time is it?”
“Jack? Who the fuck is Jack?” Jake said in astonishment. “It’s Jake, and it’s about time I called you an Uber.”
The hand touching his back shot away from him like a cobra.
“There is no need to be an asshole,” the girl snapped as she sat up. “I bet you don’t even know what my name is.”
Jake turned back to look at her and regretted being short with her instantly. Her tits were amazing and her face, even when scrunched up in anger, was great too. She looked about twenty-three, and that gave him a chubby, because he had almost ten years on her. It wasn’t his M.O. to apologize, but her tits were giving him reason to change that personality disorder.
“You going to give me three guesses?” Jake said with a sly grin.
She paused and folded her arms over her tits.
“I’ll give you two,” the girl said reflecting Jake’s grin.
Jake fell back onto her lap, and she unfolded her arms and cradled his head to her chest. He offered her a smile and closed his eyes.
“So, what’s my name?” the girl asked tenderly as she stroked the stubble on his jaw.
Jake smiled out the corner of his mouth and brought her head down to his face. The innocent kiss turned into something more heated as he pulled her to her knees and rose to his. He ran his hands from her neck to her bare ass as he kissed her deeply and used his weight to push her onto her back. This time he was between her legs.
“You think you can fuck me again?” the girl laughed between kisses. “I know you don’t know my name.”
He pulled back away from her face and they stared into each other’s eyes before Jake broke the staring contest by looking her up and down.
“You’re kinda hot, you know that, right?” Jake teased as he pulled her knee up to her shoulder and angled his cock at the entry of her pussy. “You want this or not?”
He tapped her clit with the head of his erect dick.
“My name is Melissa,” the girl whispered as she reached up and brought him inside her.
“That’s really none of my business,” Jake said through a smile as he started to increase the ferocity of his thrusts. “But I will say, your body is fucking amazing!”
Melissa smacked his back and wrapped her legs around him.
“You talk too much, asshole.” Melissa cried as she looked up at Jake. “Hurry up and fuck me before I change my mind!”
Jake leaned forward so his mouth was right next to her ear.
“For real though,” Jake said. “You’re going to have to leave after this.”
@KillingJake sometimes you got to push your luck to get the full satisfaction from life. #SaltNPepa #PushItRealGood
CHAPTER 2: SO, YOU’RE A WAITRESS, HUH?
Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.
― Dalai Lama XIV
As Sarah sat there thinking of how her life had come to this, she wondered whether if she had just been willing to suck that dick or lie back on that casting couch while some ugly-ass producer had sex with her, everything would be different and she wouldn’t sitting here right now. She wasn’t that person though. She discarded the thought as she rolled her eyes at her own negativity, but the dark cloud still loomed over her, and the sense of regret filled her mouth. The entertainment industry, the only job she had ever known, was getting to her, and it scared her. She didn’t know what else to do--teach yoga, sell real estate or do what her friends did: find some rich guy to take care of her.
Her teen years felt like a long-forgotten dream, filled with commercials, TV shows, straight to DVD movies and of course teen heartthrobs. She never actually dated a heartthrob, but losing your virginity to one in his trailer was every girl’s dream, right? After five good years in the spotlight she went from the next “it” girl to the “no one loves you anymore” girl. Now here she was, twenty-nine, somewhat talented, with a handsome 401K and even a nice two-story house in a trendy, hipster area. It definitely could have been worse. That elusive comeback, the one that she hoped was going to turn everything around--you know, that Drew Barrymore shit, minus the rehab--was all she needed.
Streaks of dirty blonde hair ran through her long locks. The salon-bought imperfections gave it an oceanfront essence, perfect for the southern California vibe, but not so much for getting parts lately it seemed. Her eyes were her favorite feature, and she always made sure to enhance them with makeup so attention was drawn to them. Anything to keep focus away from her thin lips and her nothing-special nose. She was her biggest critic, other than her mother of course, but she was happy with her God given imperfections, she felt no desire for lip injections or a consultation to sculpt her nose into something special.
“Sarah Dale?” the receptionist called out to the waiting room.
All the seats were taken in the tiny room, and the women sat elbow-to-elbow, jostling each other with their handbags and scripts. Sarah had sized them all up as she glanced over the top of her script pretending to memorize her lines. They all had similar facial features and hair to her, and she had seen most of them before at one audition or another. Lately, each casting session had felt like a boxing match, leaving her internally bruised and battered. She hadn’t booked a TV role of significant value in a while, especially from cattle call auditions like this. The commercial work she had once turned her nose up at had dried up too. Her face was recognizable but her name wasn’t, so she was a distraction more than anything. Episodic TV work had been her best bet. All she needed to get her nut for the year was a one or two episode run in a network show. There were enough crime shows being shot for her to play a corpse, a rape victim and a murderer all in the same calendar year, but the year was coming to a close, and she hadn’t booked a part since early last year.
She recognized Andrea Andrews sitting across from her, nonchalantly doing her makeup. She probably didn’t even know who Sarah was. Andrea hadn’t lost a role to her, and you only remembered the people you lost a role to. If the cattle call audition wasn’t a massive hit to her ego, sitting across from the person who got the role you thought you had in the bag was downright demoralizing. It wasn’t as if Andrea wasn’t good, but every failure got her one step closer to admitting defeat. Sarah had been close to hanging it up before, then a residual check would come, and that comeback felt within in her grasp again.
“Sarah Dale?” the receptionist called again.
Sarah adopted a steely look of determination and stood up.
“I thought it was you!” the receptionist cooed as Sarah approached the desk. “I used to watch Sunshine High all the freaking time!”
Sarah smiled sweetly. The receptionist fit the usual demographic of people who recognized her: Caucasian, female, aged sixteen to twenty-two, a little on the heavy side and not afraid to alert a crowded room they had a D-list celebrity in their presence. Sarah stopped in front of the desk and presented herself to the receptionist.
“Oh, brother!” Sarah said showing her open palms.
It hurt her to have to stoop this low. She was used to dropping her signature catchphrase in public when she was approached by a fan, but she had hoped an audition would be a safe haven from that kind of stuff. The receptionist, however, was the gatekeeper, and you just never knew when the receptionist would become a vice president. In this industry the journey was surprisingly short.
“My friends are going to freak out when I tell them,” the r
eceptionist said as she jumped out of her chair and ushered Sarah towards the closed door that led to the studio.
If her day wasn’t bad before, it was now. She was at the mercy of an underling, hoping she would mention something to the casting director, because at this stage, every little bit helped.
“Well, it was nice to meet you,” Sarah said kindly. “What’s your name?”
The receptionist froze like a deer in headlights.
“Um,” the receptionist stammered. “It’s care, I mean, Clare, I’m Clare.”
Sarah smiled. She was used to this kind of reaction, in a way she thrived on it. She definitely didn’t appreciate it at the height of her stardom, but now it filled her with energy.
“That’s a beautiful name,” Sarah replied. “Where are you from?”
“Henderson,” the receptionist answered. “Just outside of—”
“Las Vegas!” Sarah interrupted. “I’ve been there. My aunt used to live there.”
You couldn’t just be friendly to a fan, you had to leave them with something and let them know you were paying attention. Finding out their name was a good start but finding out where they were from took the interaction to the next level. Sarah knew within minutes Clare would be running to Facebook and Twitter to exude that she and Sarah Dale were now friends and she was the nicest person she had ever met.
“Do you mind if I get a photo with you, before you leave?” Clare asked, her confidence high. “I’m sorry if that’s inappropriate.”
Fuck yeah it was inappropriate, Sarah thought, but she touched the receptionist gently on the forearm.
“Oh totally!” Sarah said back with a big smile. “I’ll meet you right here.”
Sarah disappeared through the door into the next room. There was a high chance that she was going to renege on that. It really depended on how well the audition went.