Undead L.A. 2

by Sagliani, Devan

  “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 T
echnology (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.

  “Okay then, so that will be a number five, hold the sauce, with a regular Coke, and a number sixteen with extra cheese and a large Diet. Can I interest you in an apple pie with your order today sir? No? All right then that will be sixteen seventy-five, please.”

  Each time, the order and number were different, but the response was just the same. When he was done gabbing his rosy fucking cheeks off, the hungry corpse would reach up with his dirty, blood streaked hands—in some cases with the skin peeling off to reveal bone and sinew—and hand him a single gold coin. He'd then turn around, grab a shiny rectangular plastic tray with a wounded crow on it, and hand it to his eager customer. The zombies twisted those injured birds like they were balls of fresh baked bread, stuffing the helpless creatures into their grayish mouths and chewing hard, while plumes of black oily feathers fluttered in the air, obscuring their terrible gnashing teeth. A loud ruckus from the back resounded, as if hundreds of birds were back somewhere in the kitchen, awaiting their gruesome fate.They grew so loud they seemed to be coming from all around him. Then, without warning, they came from behind the manager and flooded into the restaurant like living smoke.

  The monsters broke from their single-file line, flapping and screaming, and began chasing the birds as the fowl looked for an exit from the locked room full of big plate glass windows. The crows shrieked out in panic as they were plucked from the air mid-flight and jammed into a mesh of biting teeth between dead lips. The last thing Tyler saw was the manager, swarmed by black flapping wings, his bloody hands pounding on the plate glass as the fiendish ghouls tore bloody chunks from his back and shoulders. Gold coins fell from his torn pockets, and the incessant demonic cawing drowned out his screams.

  Tyler awoke again, the sound of the birds echoing in every direction outside. Something was stirring them up, possibly some other living beings. He could hear them swooping around, calling and responding to each other.

  Fuck, Tyler thought. How long can we wait in here before the building gives in and they swarm us? Why did we lock ourselves in here in the first place? How the hell did we get here?

  He knew exactly how he'd ended up trapped in a shed for the official end of the world party. He'd been running through the neighborhood looking for his girlfriend, Emily. It didn't matter that there were zombies outside at the time. It didn't matter that he'd just lost both his parents and his little sister, or that his older brother, Sean, was begging him not to go. He knew he didn't have a choice. He had to go find her; that's all there was to it. Emily was, and always would be, his whole world. He was closer to her than he'd ever been to another living soul.

  There isn't anything I wouldn't do for her, Tyler realized, enjoying the feeling of certainty that lay just beneath the surface of the words. I guess now she knows that. If we somehow manage to live through this I'll always be able to remind her that I literally fought my way through a zombie apocalypse to be with her. Should make one hell of a Hallmark card.

  He'd been dating Emily since the first week his family moved to Southern California. She was one of the first people he met at his new high school. She was in his English class, right before lunch. He'd impressed her by arguing that Emily Dickinson was actually the mother of rap music, because of her invention of the slant rhyme and its importance in the development of the genre. He'd taken on another popular student, a self-proclaimed hip hop head named Curtis who argued that a sickly white girl with an obsession for death had nothing to do with the art of rap. Like jazz, or the blues, rap evolved from the slave culture in America; it grew out of a custom of calling out an opponent and verbally attacking them. Tyler stuck to his
guns, not backing down an inch, and even though Curtis didn't seem to respect him for it, Emily did. She used it as an excuse to sit with him at lunch, and soon they were lost in deep philosophical debates about the meaning of life, the existence of aliens, and the scariest horror movies of all time. A month later they were officially dating, which only made sense since they were inseparable. Not a single day had gone by since they'd met that they hadn't texted each other good morning and good night—at least until the cell towers went down. When he stepped out of the safety of his parents' house, he hadn't heard from her in over a week. By that point, he was ready to risk crossing a mine-strewn war zone if he had to, just to make sure she was still okay.

  I was going out of my mind, not knowing if she was alive or dead, he reminded himself.

  He'd fought his way out the front door towards the minivan. He was so pumped up on adrenaline and caffeine at the time that he hadn't stopped to think much about what he was doing. It was only after he'd gotten to the van, started it up, and backed into the middle of the street—knocking over several of his newly transformed neighbors in the process—that he started processing what he was seeing. They weren't just random strangers hunting him down. These were people he'd known for years, people he'd become close to since his dad took the job at Lockheed, after quitting Boeing, and moving the family from the suburbs of Chicago to the perennially sunny streets of Pasadena.

  I remember being worried about making new friends, he thought. I gave my parents so much shit about it all. If I could have known what was waiting for me, I would have been willing to leave all my shit behind, or even burn it.