Welcome To Hell.A.

by Stephens, L.

“Of course, darling,” Joy said as she stood up in relief. “I can’t wait.”

  Sexy little minx? She thought. Who the fuck had she been texting with this whole time? This guy was far from the charming and witty sext partner she had grown accustomed to. Maybe he was just one of those guys who could fake it till he made it, much to the disappointment of all his lovers.

  The continuing wail of the building’s alarm system snapped her from her train of thought. Something was going on, but in the back of her mind she knew she could be on her knees sucking him off in a few minutes, so she didn’t question it. Joy followed close behind Roger as he stormed to the door, hoping she would be able to bustle past him to safety or to at least somewhere public, away from him. Roger stopped short of the door and adjusted his still erect dick in his pants while also making sure his shirt was tucked in and his tie straight. He opened the door a little, and Joy dropped her shoulders. He was blocking what little exit there was so she couldn’t get out and Derek couldn’t get in either. Over Roger’s shoulder, she could just see the meek and aging face of Derek. He looked like a kind, old high school teacher that you thought was the nicest man on Earth, until years later you would come to find out was a kiddy fiddler and reaffirmed how terrible human existence really was.

  “What so important Derek? What’s with the alarm?” Roger demanded, raising his eyebrows and nodding his head, giving Derek an overload of hints. “Can’t you see I’m trying to get more information out of Joy?”

  “I know, I’m sorry,” Derek said gravely, as if he was truly sorry he had interrupted them. “But we have to evacuate the building. It seems the crazy people outside have grown in number and overtaken the city. We have to leave now!”

  “What the fuck, Derek?” Roger said as he opened the door a little more. “We are four miles away from the city.”

  “I know, I know, but you know how occupational health and safety get,” Derek said with gusto. “We’re going to take a few news vans to Pasadena and ride out the storm there.”

  Joy saw her moment and went for it. The Greytech helicopter was waiting for her on the roof. She just had to get to it.

  “I better get moving then,” Joy said as she barged past Roger.

  He almost didn’t let her through, but Derek had moved back so it would have been a little creepy and weird if he hadn’t let her pass.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Tannen, I’m afraid you’ll have to come with us,” Derek said, blocking her path. “Your helicopter left ten minutes ago. The pilot said he tried to call you but he got no answer. Apparently, the air space surrounding downtown is on lockdown. It seems like he left while he could.”

  Joy’s eyes widened. There would be hell to pay, but first she had to get away from Roger.

  “Okay, Derek is it?” Joy said calmly. “Lead the way.”

  “Right this way, Miss Tannen,” Derek said as he motioned her to follow him down the corridor. “Come on Roger, we got to go, we got to go!”

  Roger stood in the doorway. He watched Joy and all her perfect little fuck holes scurry down the hallway, and his anger boiled within his crotch and within his brain. She was going to give him what she owed him, and he was going to give her the best fuck of her life, or at the very least the best fuck of his.

  CHAPTER 78: SIDE BY SIDE

  Jennings swayed the barrel of his rifle as he led Jake down the blood and carnage strewn sidewalk. Jake held his handgun by his side, trying to not look like he was in over his head, as he scanned the eerily deserted street for anything that might make him shit his pants in front of Jennings. He had developed quite a man crush on Jennings over the last mile or two as he witnessed the precision badassery that Jennings had unleashed to any zombie that had taken a step in their direction. Jake was purely a passenger in the fight. He wasn’t even allowed to fire the handgun he had been allocated. It was for emergencies only, but truth be told he didn’t need it.

  “When do I get to hold the rifle?” Jake said with a smile.

  “When I’m dead,” Jennings said under his breath. “Don’t make me regret giving you what you’ve already got.”

  “You should have let me take that shotgun,” Jake whined.

  “I don’t think you would have been able to carry it, let alone shoot it,” Jennings said. “Besides, you would most likely shoot your dick off anyway, so you’re fucking welcome.”

  “Yeah right,” Jake said rolling his eyes. “I know what I’m doing, bro.”

  “If you haven’t realized yet, shit’s getting fucking real out here, mother fucker,” Jennings said stiffly. “I don’t want to hear any more from you, so shut your fucking mouth and let me concentrate.”

  Jake was about to open his mouth, but, with a sharp turn of his head, Jennings quelled that urge.

  The gap between Jennings and Jake opened up as Jake stopped to look in the window of a car that was parked next to the sidewalk.

  “You know how to hotwire a car?” Jake called to Jennings.

  Jennings just kept to his mission, surveying the street ahead.

  “I’ll take that as a no,” Jake said petulantly under his breath.

  Jennings stopped and swiveled around, and Jake held his breath. He was regretting opening his mouth.

  “Buddy, it’s the twenty first century,” Jennings said. “This isn’t some cheesy eighties TV show. That’s a 2014 BMW M4 not a 1968 Dodge Charger, for fuck’s sake. That thing is governed by a computer. You just can’t hotwire a fucking car anymore. You got a better chance of finding a set of keys hidden under the sun visor.”

  Jake smiled. He was surprised by the sudden outburst but he liked it. He had finally seen some sort of human breaking out from beneath the surface of Jennings’ concrete exterior.

  “You see that?” Jennings said as he pointed across the street to a beat-up car. “That’s a 1984 Datsun 280ZX. You could probably hotwire that fucking thing, but I’m guessing you don’t know how to drive a stick.”

  When Jake had gotten his car it had been manual, but he got it converted when he put a new engine in it. He needed to deflect that comment. He needed to make Jennings feel insecure again.

  “Welcome to the party, pal,” Jake laughed. “Where you been this whole time?”

  Jennings squinted at Jake and turned to walk away. Jake was pretty happy with himself. He had been trying to get under Jennings’ skin just to take his mind off the situation, and it had worked. He pulled out his phone and looked at it. There were a bunch of tweet replies to him, but he scrolled past them looking for a notification from Sarah, but there was nothing, not even a message from Daryl. A feeling of guilt rushed over him. He was not looking forward to the inevitable meeting of Daryl’s fist and his face. He put the phone back in his pocket and scampered after Jennings, matching his pace.

  For a few blocks Jake managed to keep his mind on the situation at hand and leave Jennings to do his thing without being annoyed by the asshole behind him, but thoughts of Sarah’s face as she watched David being eaten alive kept burrowing their way into his consciousness. Jake needed to distract himself further, and unfortunately there was only one way to do it.

  “Nice weather we’re having,” Jake said under his breath.

  Jennings swiveled around and got in Jake’s face.

  “What the fuck do you want from me, man,” Jennings said in a firm but quiet tone. “We’re almost to the safe zone.”

  “Then what?” Jake asked, matching Jennings’ whisper.

  “Then…” Jennings said, “you’re on your own.”

  Jennings turned back to the empty street ahead, leaving Jake standing by himself. He smiled and pointed his gun at Jennings’ back.

  “You better not miss,” Jennings called over his shoulder. “I’ll make damn sure my knife won’t.”

  Jake stood there, the handgun still trained on Jennings.

  “Pew, pew,” he whispered quietly as he pretended to shoot the gun.

  Jake brought the gun down and quickly caught up to Jennings.

  �
��Look, guy, I’m sorry,” Jake said sincerely. “I didn’t mean to ruin your fucking day.”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” Jennings said bluntly. “And for the record, it’s Jennings.”

  “Well, yeah,” Jake said, pointing at Jennings’ chest. “It’s written on your shirt.”

  Jake appreciated Jennings’ ever so small offer of an olive branch. He knew he had been a dick since the moment they met, and it wasn’t what he wanted to do, he just felt helpless and was acting out. Like all bad decisions, it started with what seemed like a good idea at the time. Now Jake needed to prove to Jennings and to himself that he wasn’t helpless, even if it killed him.

  @KillingJake got a man crush for a dude in uniform, gonna have to visit one of those gay correction camps when all this is done. #ImDefinitelyATopDoe

  CHAPTER 79: HOLLYWOOD OR BUST

  Jake started running, and Jennings tried to grab him, but Jake was too wily.

  “Hey!” Jennings said in a forced whisper. “Where the fuck you going?”

  Jennings shook his head. There was nowhere to run to, and this guy was already way out of his element.

  “Don’t worry!” Jake said loudly as he showed Jennings the handgun he was holding. “I got this!”

  Jake disappeared around a corner down an alley, and a feeling of dread washed over Jennings. The guy was an absolute piece of shit, but like it or not he was responsible for him.

  “Fucking civilians!” Jennings whispered as he hurried after Jake.

  He turned down the alley and saw Jake trying to pry open a door.

  “What the fuck you doing?” Jennings said aiming his rifle down the alley. “Don’t fucking run off on me like that.”

  “I’m trying to get us a car, bro,” Jake said, pointing up at the sign above him.

  “Get the fuck away from the door, man,” Jennings said with anger on his face. “We’re not looting; you get that straight, right now!”

  Jake stopped trying to open the door and turned back to Jennings.

  “It’s a rental car company,” Jake whined. “I don’t think they are gonna give a fuck if we take one.”

  “I give a fuck. That’s the bottom line,” Jennings said as he threw his thumb back towards the street. “Let’s go.”

  Jennings did give a fuck. It was actually a pretty good idea, but he would never tell Jake that. He also didn’t want Jake to think he could go on a rampage and loot the rest of the city the minute Jennings turned his back.

  “I’m going this way,” Jake said as he shrugged his shoulders and began walking deeper down the alley.

  “Come on, man,” Jennings whispered. “Can we just fucking go?”

  Jake peeked around the corner at the end of the alley and then snapped his head back comically to Jennings. Even from a distance of thirty yards Jennings could see the blood had drained from his face. With much more care and as quiet as a mouse, Jake shuffled back to Jennings.

  “You find what you were looking for?” Jennings said knowingly.

  Jake’s wide eyes and nervous mannerisms gave away everything he was not saying.

  “How many?” Jennings said, nodding towards the end of the alley.

  “I’m not sure,” Jake whispered, looking back over his shoulder. “I didn’t really get a good look, but there’s a lot. The smell almost made me throw the fuck up, but if I had to say, maybe fifty, maybe less.”

  “So, there is most likely a hundred of them,” Jennings said slowly. “I’ve got to go check this out for myself and report back to base.”

  “Fuck that!” Jake whispered, ignoring Jennings’ subtle dig. “Let’s get out of here!”

  It was too late. Jennings was already on his way towards the end of the alley.

  “Oh, so you want to go now?” Jennings sniped over his shoulder.

  “Jennings!” Jake said in a forced whisper.

  Jennings turned back to Jake with a large smile and showed him his rifle.

  “I got this,” Jennings said before turning back to the mission at hand.

  Jake shook his head with a slight smirk and sheepishly followed after Jennings. With their backs to the wall, Jennings made a few hand gestures to Jake that he kind of understood, but the look he gave to Jennings wasn’t inspiring too much confidence.

  “Just stay here,” Jennings mouthed as he pointed to the ground.

  Jake nodded to show he got the message, and Jennings took a couple deep breaths with his eyes closed and then turned around the blind corner of the alley.

  “Shit,” Jennings said in defeat as he stood face to face with a zombie.

  He took a step back and raised his rifle to the zombie’s head and pulled the trigger. A single bullet entered the zombie’s head and zipped out the back before its lifeless body dropped to the ground. With this zombie out of the way, Jennings could see the situation more clearly. As he had thought there weren’t fifty zombies. There were more like three hundred, and they were all coming for him.

  “Jake!” Jennings yelled as he trained his rifle at the oncoming horde. “Get ready!”

  Jennings began taking down zombies with clean headshot after clean headshot as he slowly walked backwards into the alley, but before long he was greeted with a sudden click and the trigger going limp. The rifle was out of bullets, and there was still a large amount of undead making their way over their fallen comrades towards Jennings. With his free hand, Jennings tapped on left side of his torso then on the right. He knew there was no magazine filled with fresh bullets ready for use. They had all been used, but he had to check. Jennings threw the rifle to the ground and produced his handgun from its holster.

  “There are too many of them,” Jennings shouted over his shoulder. “When I say run, you run, okay?”

  Jennings did a double take. There was no one in the alley with him, other than the hundreds of zombies stumbling towards him.

  “That fucking piece of shit!” Jennings said to himself with clenched teeth.

  The horde was moving faster towards him now, and Jennings hurried backwards. The end of the alley to the open street felt like fifty miles, not fifty yards, and he was running low on bullets.

  “Come get it, mother fuckers!” Jennings yelled as he took down a few more zombies.

  He knew there had to be only three or four bullets left, maybe less. It was time to run. Jennings turned to make good his escape. and then he saw them. Seven zombies had turned the corner of the street into the alley, blocking his path. He tried to not let his shoulders drop. He knew it was going to be tough to get out of this, but he had seen similar, if not worse, and there was one positive: they didn’t have guns. The seven zombies that were blocking his escape began to move faster. Like long lost lovers at an airport, they were on a collision course to embrace Jennings. He took down three of them before he heard the all too familiar click of the gun running out of bullets. He didn’t even check for an extra magazine this time. He knew for certain he didn’t have one. What he would give for that shotgun now, he thought as he pulled his combat knife out.

  CHAPTER 80: SMALL TALK

  “Well this is awkward,” Daryl muttered. “Five minutes ago, I was about to shoot your asses.”

  “No you weren’t,” the girl in tight-ass leggings said.

  The girl was about to say something else to him, but he could see she had chickened out and looked away, not there were many other places to look. It was either the ceiling or the back of the bald guy’s head. Daryl couldn’t believe the insane turn of events that had brought him to this equally insane point in his life. If threatening to kill innocent people including a young child wasn’t embarrassing enough, he was now crammed into an elevator with those same people.

  “Where we going?” the mom carrying her daughter asked.

  “Mommy!” the little girl cried at the sound of her mother’s uncertainty.

  “Don’t worry,” the bald guy said. “We should be safe here.”

  “You just jinxed us, didn’t you mother fucker?” Daryl said as h
e shook his head.

  Like clockwork the doors opened on the sixth floor, and Daryl saw the blood on the floor immediately. The dumb ass bald guy that had led them here was just about to walk out into the war zone when Daryl grabbed him by the collar and pushed him out of the way.

  “Cover your ears!” Daryl yelled.

  Everyone reached for their ears, and the mom covered her kid’s at the expense of her own. There were flashes of movement, but Daryl couldn’t see anything clearly. He just started firing at anything that vaguely looked like it could be one of those things. His first thought was to leave the safety of the elevator and attack them head on, but his next thought was the people he had just pointed guns at would immediately press the close door button and leave him outside to rot. Suddenly, a zombie came around from the side and tried to get in the elevator, but Daryl had enough time to bury a bullet in its forehead, sending it flying backwards, taking out a second zombie that was right behind it.

  “Close the doors!” Daryl yelled between gunfire.

  Daryl had just enough time to register that the zombie he had just dispatched and the one underneath him trying to get free were just kids, twenty years old at most. They seemed so tiny, but it was them or him, and he liked himself a lot more. The bald guy hit the button and everyone held their breath as the doors slowly closed and more zombies started appearing, and Daryl hoped the sensors weren’t sensitive enough to pick up the bullets firing through the elevator’s doorway. Daryl stopped firing just as the doors finally closed and everyone stood in a collective silence in the smoke-filled elevator. There were no jokes or posturing. Everything that was happening was about as real as it could get, if not realer, because the building they had just run into in search of safety was just as bad as the outside world they had just escaped from. Daryl pushed the emergency call button and the elevator stopped with a jolt as an annoying bell squealed in their ears.

  “What are you doing?” the leggings girl asked sharply.