Welcome To Hell.A.

by Stephens, L.

  Jake jumped over a chest-high concrete wall, praying to Satan that they wouldn’t follow. He landed on the other side and waited for a moment to see the level of trouble he was in. There was nothing but screams and sirens. Either they couldn’t climb over, or they had been distracted by something easier to catch.

  Not willing to push his luck any further, Jake turned, and headed down the ramp to the basement levels of the parking lot. He found the car that he thought would be the easiest for him to hot wire. There weren’t many options, but a black van in the corner of the structure gave him the most hope. It was the oldest vehicle by ten years and had no alarm, so he quietly used a nearby trashcan to shatter the glass window at its back. Quietly wasn’t exactly the right term, but seeing as police sirens, alarms and screams filled the air, Jake’s smashing of a small window was fairly subtle.

  Once inside, Jake lay in the back on his stomach, resting on his elbows like a kid watching TV after a long day at school. His head nodded along to the music seeping out of his headphones. He had found the headphones in the center console of the van along with a charging cable plugged into a cigarette lighter. Jake looked forward to the obvious moment when the van’s rightful owner came to take them both to safety and couldn’t start the engine because some asshole had used up all the battery charging his phone.

  The music wasn’t loud; he could still hear the outside mayhem, and he just wanted to keep his mind distracted as he looked for a way out of this mess. On his phone’s web browser app, Jake headed to the Google search engine and typed, “Hotwire a 1993 Chevy G20?”

  Jake pressed the “search” button, and an animated wheel turned for a few seconds then disappeared, replaced with a message saying: “Cannot open the page you requested because your phone is not connected to the internet.”

  “Damn it!” Jake said in a whisper. “No fucking service.”

  He exited out of the web browser, hit the message icon and began writing a reply to Daryl. It read: “Hey man, I’m stuck! Stay safe!”

  Jake pressed “Send” and a progress bar came up on the phone. The bar moved across the screen at a good pace before slowing down at the halfway mark and eventually turning red. Jake read the popup window that came up on the screen: “Message Failed To Send”

  “Fuck!” Jake whispered. “Daryl is going to kill me!”

  Jake raised his phone up to the roof of the van in the hope that he would get better service. He pressed “Send” again, and like before the progress bar did not get past halfway.

  “Technology is a dick,” Jake muttered as he brought the phone back down.

  Jake found himself growing sleepy. The alcohol and his prone positioning were finally catching up to him. He knew it wasn’t the best idea to fall asleep right now, but if he was going to tackle this situation and make good decisions, he was going to have to be sober and well rested.

  @KillingJake fuck my life and this fucking city. Hope I wake up dead #Goals

  “Tweet failed to post due to a lack of service activity.”

  CHAPTER 47: DUTY CALLS

  Sergeant James Paul Jennings wasn’t sleeping when the call came in. He was thinking about classic cars, cycling through in his mind the top ten rarest by model name and how many were ever produced.

  1970 Plymouth Hemi Superbird, one hundred and thirty-five made.

  1969 Chevrolet Camaro ZL-1, sixty-nine made.

  1967 Ford Fairlane 500 R-Code, fifty-seven made.

  1967 Plymouth R023 GTX, fifty-five made.

  1970-71 Plymouth Hemi Cuda Convertible, twenty-one made.

  1967 Chevrolet Corvette L88, twenty made.

  1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS 454 LS6, twenty made.

  1971 Pontiac GTO Judge Convertible, seventeen made.

  1969 Chevrolet Corvette ZL-1, three made.

  1967/1970 Dodge Coronet R/T 426 Hemi Convertible, only two ever made.

  This wasn’t unusual for him. He hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in years. After one extended tour in Iraq and three in Afghanistan, he wanted to be awake as much as possible. Friends and family had thrown armchair diagnoses at him on a monthly basis, but he didn’t pay them much mind. He knew way too many vets who were actually suffering with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and he was nowhere as bad as them. Well, that’s what he told himself anyway. His sisters had nicknamed him Spock because he never showed emotion, whether he was happy, angry or sad, but he wasn’t a sociopath. A string of doctors and therapists had gone over him with a fine tooth comb, and he had come up mostly normal. Emotions weren’t foreign to him, in fact it was quite the opposite. He had cried more for lost friends than most people would in five lifetimes, but an outpouring of emotion in public just wasn’t his thing. On the outside at funerals or memorials, he may have been stone faced and rigid, but inside he was in the fetal position sobbing. Because of this, being alone didn’t suit him. It caused him to let his guard down and succumb to his pent-up emotion. Jennings wasn’t part of the Special Forces or in some elite Black Ops team. He was just a normal grunt. Well, normal was a stretch. He had seen some of the worst things humanly possible and lived to not tell the tale. He was a career military man but hadn’t risen above the rank of sergeant, mostly by choice. He didn’t have a wife or kids. A few girlfriends here and there kept him satisfied sexually, but they weren’t anything long-term. He found his relationships were more positive and lasted longer when he was stationed overseas.

  His companion slash service female slash security blanket for the night had been found at a trendy hotel bar in Santa Monica. Her name was Sandy, Celine, Sally, Sandra or Cindy, he wasn’t quite sure, and like all things in his life, it didn’t matter. They’d gotten a nearby hotel and fucked for a couple hours. Emotions weren’t the only thing he had pent up. With his mom dead, his dad never been, his siblings calling him Spock and anyone in a uniform calling him Jennings, she had called him by his first name more times than anyone had in the last ten years. Someone screaming out his name for a couple hours felt like he was having an out of body experience. For that brief time, he forgot about the life that Jennings led and reverted to James, a guy with not a problem in the world.

  Jennings had been laying there, hands behind his head looking at the ceiling with whatever her name was tucked into his side, when the call came in.

  “Jennings, it’s Brand. We’ve been activated,” Brand said stiffly through the phone.

  Jennings had been waiting for the call. He hadn’t been hoping for it, but he knew it was coming. It was his lieutenant, his direct superior and as close to a father figure as he had, but Jennings would never tell him that. He might fumble and spit out the words at Brand’s funeral, when it was too late, but that’s what that shit was for: reminiscing, regretting and reinventing history.

  “Yes, sir,” Jennings said, sitting up. “When do we leave?”

  “We’re being posted local. It’s need to know right now,” Brand said. “You on base?”

  “In Santa Monica, sir, but I can be there in an hour,” Jennings said, standing up.

  “You got your boots?” Brand replied. It was more of a statement than a question.

  “Yes, sir,” Jennings said.

  It was just a courtesy question. Brand knew Jennings’ uniform and boots were always in close proximity. That was Brand though, everything by the book. He never let loose ends unravel a plan.

  “Okay, we’ll pick you up en route,” Brand said. “Rendezvous at Santa Monica Airport in thirty minutes. Don’t be late.”

  “Yes, sir, thirty minutes,” Jennings said, ending the call.

  Jennings let the conversation rattle through his brain. He knew it was serious. A personal pick up definitely wasn’t by the book. It wasn’t uncommon in battlefield type scenarios, but this was home soil.

  “What’s going on?” Sally said, lifting her head up.

  “I got to go,” Jennings said putting his pants on.

  “Where are you going?” Celine said.

  “It doesn’t matter,”
Jennings said, putting on his shirt. “Go back to sleep.”

  “James,” Sandy said, sitting up. “You coming back?”

  Jennings hated this. Pointless questions from someone he didn’t know, let alone want to talk to. She was just a walking security blanket with a bonus vagina as far as he was concerned.

  “Yes, I’ll be back in two hours. Go back to sleep,” Jennings said sweetly. “I’ll get you a latte.”

  He was more than capable of human interaction when the situation called for it. After all, he’d been acting his whole life.

  “Thanks, babe,” Sandra said as she laid back down and closed her eyes.

  Babe? Jennings thought. He’d known her for all of four hours, and she was calling him babe? What happened to James? Typical. Everything that was good in his life was fleeting. Thank fuck for calls in the middle of the night.

  Jennings got dressed and quietly packed his overnight bag. He had one last look at Cindy or whatever her name was. She had a great body and had been just what he had needed. He could do great things in four hours: make you feel wanted, make you feel loved and most importantly in his opinion, fuck your brains out. But if you wanted anything further than that you were going to be shit out of luck. The girls who understood this stuck around. The ones who didn’t were laid by the wayside.

  The Black Hawk arrived ten minutes late but he had only been waiting for five minutes. Jennings was never late but the girl had seen him sneaking out with the bag and had put up a fight. There was nothing he could do, he just had to revert to his stone like nature, listen to her yell at him for ten minutes and then leave without a word.

  In the early morning light, he could see army trucks flying through the air suspended from their transports as a procession of Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters flew over the Santa Monica Mountains heading towards downtown. It was surreal to see something like this on home soil so close to a major city. It was like war had broken out, and in the back of his mind he knew it must have. The Black Hawk didn’t even touch down, and that’s when Jennings knew shit was about to get real. The chopper hovered a few feet off the ground, and his bunk buddy, Diaz, helped him in. The rest of his squad greeted him with head nods, and Jennings could feel the anticipation. Everyone was ready to fuck shit up. They didn’t have a name for their squad, no matching tattoos or patches on their fatigues. They were more than that, and the consensus was not to cheapen the bond. Brand handed him his helmet and a combat bag filled with his weapons and ammunition. It was his own equipment not just standard issue. Again, this was Lieutenant Alexander Ryan Brand, no loose ends.

  “Suit up!” Brand yelled above the roar of the helicopter.

  Within ten minutes they had touched down and unloaded. Jennings was impressed with how the L.A. police force had created a perimeter around downtown, but there were definitely holes. There was no way you could block off a city. It wasn’t New York; there were hundreds if not thousands of ways in. All you could do was plug the main arteries and keep an eye on everything else. Jennings could only assume a terrorist attack or some sort of riot was taking place. Given the volatile nature of race relations at the moment, he was leaning towards a protest that had gotten out of hand, way out of hand.

  “Men, needless to say this is not a drill,” Brand barked. “Get locked and loaded. Our orders are to contain and maintain. We are assisting the L.A.P.D. It’s their party, and we’re bringing the party supplies. The situation is still unclear, but looks like an insurgent group is running through the city.”

  Brand turned and began walking to a bank of police cars which had made a barricade. There was no need for Brand to tell them to follow. Jennings and the rest of the men were already hot on his heels.

  CHAPTER 48: SUPER CREEP

  With the convertible’s top still down, the morning air was like two cups of espresso as Ryan barreled down the empty 101 freeway. He wore his usual white button-down shirt, navy blue slacks and black loafers as he exited onto Vermont Avenue. It was early Saturday morning and he had plans to go to work for a few hours to scout some potential actresses slash possible money makers. He wasn’t sure if it was going to happen Monday morning, but he had a bad feeling Linda from H.R. was going to call him in to her office to hand him his exit papers. The secret recording from his phone was pretty poor. You could hear her, but you couldn’t see her. The only thing you could see was Ryan pulling out his cock, not exactly something he could hold over her or show the board to keep his job. He had to secure another couple meetings before losing the ability to use the Formica Talent Agency name in the pursuit of soon to be prostitutes. The other thing that made him want to head in there was his chubby little assistant, Angie. He hadn’t forgotten her little betrayal, and he had been jerking off all night to her Facebook profile, so he was pumped to go out of F.T.A. with a bang. Before all that though, he had a little errand to run.

  He knew Jessica had said not to come until the afternoon, but it was 6AM as Ryan pulled up out front of her bungalow. Ryan worked on his own schedule, not anyone else’s. Plus he was just leaving it at the door. When she found it was really up to her. Most of the east side between Hollywood and downtown had a massive street-parking problem, so he didn’t have much choice but to block the driveway and keep the engine running. It may have been early Saturday morning in the upper-class neighborhood of Los Feliz, but he wasn’t going to take any risks. He hit the button to put the top up on the convertible as he got out of the car. It was L.A., there was always someone lurking, looking for a place to sleep and that was a much bigger headache than having someone steal your car.

  Script in hand, he walked towards the front door and noticed a black SUV parked half on the driveway and half on the grass. He considered it for a moment, but a terrible park job was fairly common in L.A., so he walked around the SUV and continued on his morning mission. As he bent down to put the script on the doormat, he noticed the red rose petals scattered on the ground. He looked up and saw the front door ajar and a note taped to it. The note was askew and read:

  Hey you!

  Cum inside, I’ve got a special reward for you.

  XOXO,

  J

  Ryan read the note and read it again. Cum spelled with a “u”? A reward? He hadn’t talked to the social media team like he promised, so news of her landing the role must have been inundating her with internet love all night, which must have turned into her wanting to give old Ryan some love. Every time he had tried to fuck her, she had laughed at him mercilessly but it seemed all he really needed to do was get her career going again. One thing was for sure, unless this film did insane numbers, she was most likely finished as a marquee actress. Ryan was glad she was finally rewarding him, because the only role she was going to get after this was as a high-class prostitute or reality TV star, and to him both went hand-in-hand.

  “Helloooo?” Ryan called as he pushed the door open and walked in.

  The trail of rose petals made a little path down the hallway, and Ryan followed them slowly, savoring the moment, and with every step he got harder. He wondered if he should do a little bump of coke to wake him up, but as he didn’t have any Viagra on him he thought against it. He didn’t want coke dick in his most triumphant moment.

  The candles in the bedroom had died in small pools of liquid wax, and the room was in darkness. Jessica was on all fours, swaying like a blade of grass in the breeze.

  “Jessica?” Ryan called from the hallway.

  Like hearing the voice of God, Zombie Jessica awoke from her trance and began to knead the mattress like a house cat getting ready to sit down. Her handcuffs clinked louder as she became more and more agitated.

  “Jessica, it’s Ryan!” he said in a singsong voice. “I’ve got the script for you.”

  He walked slowly into the room with the script held out in front of him. Jessica was shrouded in shadow, but he could still make out her form, and Ryan’s eyes rolled back in his head. This was like something out of a porno and it was better; it was happening in
real life. Ryan dropped the script and it landed with a loud smack on the hardwood floor, and Jessica began to thrash and buck like a caged lion. He was completely hard now, and he didn’t think he could get any harder, that was until he saw she was handcuffed, and he just about let himself cum right there and then.

  For a zombie, Jessica was still sexy. The darkness of the room had covered the fact that there was a large pool of dried blood at the foot of the bed and that her skin had inherited a gray tinge. Ryan was still unsure if this scenario was all for him. He wanted the green light because he wanted to enjoy everything about this, guilt free.

  “You ready for this cock?” Ryan asked, unbuckling his belt and dropping his pants.

  Jessica started bucking even more wildly. Her perfect white teeth glowed in the darkness as Ryan stepped out of his pants and inspected his reward, walking around it like he was at a car show checking out a vintage hot rod—a hot rod he was about to get inside. She followed him with her eyes as he moved behind her. She gnashed her teeth at him, growling and moaning.

  “I'm not sure what this is, Jessica,” Ryan said as he got up on the bed, kneeling behind her. “But I can honestly say, this is the hottest thing I've ever seen!”

  He looked down at his cock, which had wormed its way out the front of his boxers. The whole scene looked magnificent to him. His hard cock, Jessica bucking and squirming in front of him, her clean-shaven pussy glistening in the dim light, and again he thought about blowing his load right there and then. Ryan needed to distract himself, calm himself down, even at risk of ruining the moment. He’d prefer to go soft than to blow his load as soon as he entered her. That would be embarrassing and would most likely not get him a second chance. He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled the bullet from around his neck out and made a couple bumps on the back of his hand, snorting them as fast as he could.