Welcome To Hell.A.

by Stephens, L.

  Jealous bitch, Jill thought as she kept her finger swiping to the affirmative on Tinder. She was used to jealous bitches like the Uber driver. A jealous bitch like her just assessed a person on how they lived their own life, not how someone who was truly free lived theirs. Jill was a valuable commodity, and it wasn’t her fault she knew how to play the game and make a little money along the way. Jealous bitches like the Uber driver were destined to be dried up old prunes wishing they been just like Jill when they had the chance.

  It didn’t matter what the guy looked like as long as he lived within a ten-mile radius. The only thing that was slowing her down, was that every time she swiped “yes” she got a match, so she’d have to wait for the “match success” window to go through its paces so she could then hit the “keep swiping” button and so on and so forth. After ten or so matches she would go and do the message sending. She had it down to a simple routine: paste a brief message to all the guys she had matched with, then reply all sexy and attentive if someone took the bait. The message she used read:

  Hi!

  I’m stuck in a building downtown, will you come save me?

  I’ll make it worth your while I promise!

  XOXO

  She had never used Tinder before, but seeing as Instagram was not working, she thought it would be her best option to get some attention and maybe just get saved. Jill had uploaded the best pictures she had, even the ones she was saving for a special occasion. These were desperate times and they called for desperate measures. Although she felt some satisfaction with the one hundred percent strike rate, a lot of the matches kept pressing her to prove she was real and wanted some physical evidence.

  Jill decided that in her current situation, surrounded by strangers, rapists and a large black guy with a gun, it would be in her best interest to take a sexy picture with the destruction in downtown behind her and hope that it proved she really was L.A.’s hottest damsel in distress. The positive was the lighting; the smoke had created a similar brightness to sunset, so any picture she took would have that great magic hour look to it. She revealed a good portion of her ass as she put her leg up on the edge of the building and outstretched her arm so that tiny bit of butt would be visible as she pulled the duck face from hell. She could feel everyone’s eyes on her as she put on a small photo shoot in various poses, hoping one of them would be the shot that brought a knight in shining armor. It wasn’t a Looney Tunes cartoon, but Jill could almost see the signature Chuck Jones white dashes that led from her ass to Ryan’s eyes. She saw him creepily licking his lips as he massaged his neck. It almost looked like he was jerking off his throat. She knew she was onto a winner with the photos, because he couldn’t even see the angle she was giving the guys on Tinder and he was obsessed!

  “Hey, Jill,” the Uber driver called. “Why don't you come sit by us.”

  Jill turned, wondering why she was talking to her. She then looked to her pose and then to the creep’s gaze and understood. The Uber driver was still being jealous, but the creep was creepy A.F. so it probably was the best idea to move closer to the other girls, even if they were jealous bitches. Jill walked over like she was on a catwalk in Milan, and she could see how jealous they were. Neither one had the perfectly sculpted legs she did, so again they were jealous. She sat down in front of them, keeping her back to the creep while placing her purse and phone in front of her like a shrine.

  “You still with us?” the Uber driver asked with a smile.

  “Just a second. I got to post this pic,” Jill said as she looked through the pics she had just taken.

  The pictures were great, model quality, and she found the perfect one that presented helplessness, beauty and danger and ran through her favorite filters that gave emphasis to her face and curves. She added the photo to her Tinder album and then made it her profile picture. She added a caption to her profile that was so simple it should have been illegal. The caption read, “Please come save me!”

  Jill put the phone down and looked to the Uber driver and the fat mom.

  “What are we doing?” Jill asked quizzically.

  “You mean right now?” the Uber driver asked.

  Jealous and dumb, Jill thought as she looked at the Uber driver’s imperfections and faults with a fine-tooth comb.

  “I don’t know, I mean, like there are crazy people trying to kill me,” Jill said, eyeballing the jealous bitches.

  “Well it looks to me like...” the Uber driver said, trailing off. “I can't even say it. It sounds stupid.”

  “Zombies?” the fat mom said nervously.

  “Yes! Thank you! I was waiting for someone to say it,” the Uber driver said with a smile. “This is like a practical joke, and we are all just waiting for someone to come out and say, ‘Just kidding guys!’”

  The fat mom and the Uber driver shared a smile. It was weird to Jill. She wasn’t sure if they were about to start making out or not. She needed to change the subject before they started smiling at her, ‘cause she only ate vag if there was a guaranteed pair of Louboutins at the end, and she definitely needed a new pair.

  “What am I going to do?” Jill said loudly.

  “I think we are best to—” the Uber driver said, emphasizing the “we”.

  Oh, shit, Jill thought immediately. She is throwing “we” around like some loser would, trying to incorporate me into their world like I was a part of it or something. Jill was getting angry at the totally unacceptable moves the Uber driver was making. She couldn’t have some dyke trying to fuck her while she was trying to save herself and everyone else.

  “I don't think I can handle this,” Jill said, changing the subject. “I had plans, you know? No one is going to want to marry a zombie.”

  “Well, you’re not one of those things,” the Uber driver said diplomatically “And we’re still—”

  Fuck, give it a rest whore, Jill thought. She had to make it clear: Jill was her own property. No one was going to be by her side at the end.

  “I mean, even if I do survive this, what am I going to do?” Jill said quickly. “This whole city is going to be fucked.”

  “It’s going to be okay,” the Uber driver said. “Let’s just worry about—”

  Again, “let’s”, incorporating me in to her shitty little life, totally unacceptable.

  “Downtown L.A. sucks. I sure as hell don't want to die here,” Jill said, looking down, trying not to get the fat mom or the Uber driver excited by looking at them. “Can you imagine?”

  She quickly stood up and left the lesbo circle and went back to her little corner to keep Tindering and maybe save every one of the undeserving, jealous bitches on the rooftop.

  CHAPTER 90: JOY DIVISION

  Some passengers made gut wrenching calls to loved ones or got updates via their phones, but most were staring off in a daze as the minibus weaved in and out of the abandoned cars and zombies that filled the streets. Joy kept an eye on Roger. She was shocked at how easy everyone had been on him. There was no retaliation or Lord Of The Flies-like justice. They had just accepted it as normal and moved on. Downtown L.A. was not somewhere Joy had been that often. She lived in Century City, and like most locals she preferred to go west with her minimal free time to places with trees and beaches like Santa Monica or Brentwood, rather than the concrete jungle that resided to the east. If she absolutely had to go east, she wouldn’t stray much farther than West Hollywood, so her knowledge of downtown L.A. was restricted to where the Lakers played and the Standard Hotel where she had attended a rooftop party once. After a minute of hoping that some familiar landmark or freeway sign would come into view, she realized she really didn’t know much about the city and it was going to be too late to remedy it.

  Joy dove into her purse and pulled out her phone. She saw three missed calls on her notification screen, one from the helicopter pilot and two from Max. She looked at his name, weighing up her options, before she begrudgingly hit the call button.

  “Joy? Joy?” Max said swiftly. “Are you t
here? Are you okay?”

  Joy let him sweat as she listened to him fire questions at her.

  “Joy, please answer me,” Max said sincerely. “Just let me know you’re okay.”

  “What do you want, Max?” Joy said quietly into the phone.

  “You’re, okay! Thank God!” Max said in relief. “I saw that the station had been evacuated, and I got worried about you.”

  “Is this what you wanted, Max?” Joy said firmly. “Have you proven your point, yet?”

  “Joy, come on. You know I would never intentionally harm you,” Max said meekly. “Please come to my house. I have a helicopter coming here right now to pick us up. Let’s let bygones be bygones.”

  Joy shook her head, and her eyes filled with tears. There wasn’t going to be a clean end to this conversation. She was not going to forgive him; she was not going to make him feel better; and she was also not going to let him know how she truly felt about him. Joy was about to hang up when she noticed Roger starting to make his way down the aisle towards the back of the bus.

  “You okay, Denise?” he said softly “I didn’t mean to, I promise.”

  “Don’t go back there, Roger!” Derek said as he grabbed Roger by the shoulder and pulled him back.

  Roger shrugged him off and pushed Derek away.

  “Fuck off, Derek!” Roger said, pointing his bloody fingers at him menacingly. “This has nothing to do with you!”

  The passengers watched in silence as Roger continued to walk towards the back of the minibus.

  “Joy, can you hear me?” Max asked.

  Joy ignored Max but kept the phone to her ear as she kept a raptor-like gaze on Roger.

  “Hey, she’s okay, right?” Roger asked the guy who had taken up residence in between Denise and Joy.

  The guy was wearing blue overalls and looked like a cable repair guy. Joy vaguely remembered him on the television set as the guy who had given her the lapel mic for her interview.

  “Roger, just go and sit down,” cable guy said, putting his arm out to stop him. “Don’t you think you’ve done enough already?”

  Roger didn’t even miss a step. He swung his bloody right fist and connected perfectly with cable guy’s jaw sending him on top of Joy and knocking the phone from her hand on to the floor, out of reach. Cable guy was unconscious and was almost crushing Joy with his weight, but she could see Roger prodding Denise and didn’t want to get his attention, so she decided to put up with it as he was at least providing a barrier between her and Roger. A deep and guttural groan came from Denise, which made Roger grab her shoulders excitedly.

  “See! She’s okay!” Roger said as he beamed ear-to-ear. “I told you there was nothing to worry about.”

  Roger pulled her towards him so what was left of her bloody face was facing him.

  † She’s a zombie! Nah, she’s just got a severe brain injury, that’s all! †

  “Denise, say something!” Roger said as he shook her.

  Denise’s head nodded back and forth, and her mouth flopped open, unleashing a torrent of blood and teeth onto the front of her blouse. Roger, the true gentleman that he was, turned away like it was the worst thing he had ever seen and pushed her limp body back into the corner away from him.

  It was now time for Joy’s eyes to grow big, time for her mouth to open slackly like a kid seeing fireworks for the first time. No one else had noticed. They were all too busy thinking about their lives and what was left of them. They all heard the sound before they could do anything. It wasn’t the minibus; that was moving along nicely, circling around a tour bus that had been left idle in the middle of an intersection. Joy could see his eyes. They weren’t paying attention. The tour bus had also distracted him. Everything was happening fast, but to Joy it was all in slow motion. She could see he was out of his element. Everybody who was in Los Angeles at that moment in time was out of their element. His tie was loose at his throat, his white button-down shirt was dirty with splatters of blood and for some unknown reason he was driving a garbage truck. The truck connected with the back corner of the minibus, right where Roger and Denise were, and Joy watched in horror as the minibus began to tear in half before everything went black.

  † Then love, love will tear us apart, again †

  CHAPTER 91: AN OFFICER AND AN ASSHOLE

  Jake had awoken with giant sheets of canvas around him. He had found himself on a fold-out army cot, and it hadn’t been long before he started to feel the dull pain coming from the side of his head where Jennings had hit him. The cots surrounding him were empty except for stains of a dark liquid that Jake could only surmise was blood. There was a small walkway at the foot of the cots that ran the length of the room, but there wasn’t a visible entry or exit in the canvas.

  The smell of burning tires was thick in the air, and there was an underlying scent of cooked meat, but Jake tried to not zero in on it. He was frightened to find out what kind of meat it was. He could hear a whispered argument not far from where he was laying, but he couldn’t tell if it was about him or not. Words like “kill” and “him” were being thrown around, and a pool of dread was growing in the pit of his stomach. Jake sat up. For all he knew, he could have been out cold for an hour, a day or a week, so he decided not to waste any more time being coy. If they were going to kill him, they would have to do it right now. A muffled gunshot and approaching footsteps sucked all the bravado out of Jake, and he quickly laid back down and secreted the gun from his waistband under the pillow. He kept his hand on the gun, thinking it would be easier to pull it on whoever was probably coming for him. Jennings parted the canvas so he could enter the room. He had traded his blood and dirt covered shirt for a clean one, and Jake smelled his own shirt instinctively, rolling his eyes at the ripeness that an active night and morning had produced.

  “You come to finish me off, slugger?” Jake said as he watched Jennings approach.

  Jennings sat down in the cot next to Jake’s and buried his head in his hands.

  “What’s going on?” Jake asked after what seemed like a minute of silence.

  Jennings took his hands away from his face but kept looking down.

  “You don’t need to know,” Jennings said finally.

  “Really?” Jake said, cocking his head. “I kinda think I do.”

  Jennings looked at Jake for the first time since he had entered the room. They both stared into each other’s eyes for a long moment.

  “This is fucking awkward,” Jake said, finally breaking the silence.

  Jennings kept staring as if he was staring right through Jake, and Jake grew uneasy, quickly swiveling around to see if there was someone creeping up behind him.

  “I’m not sure what you’re thinking right now, but I hope leaning in to kiss me is not top of that list,” Jake said with a smile. “Anyway, I don’t have time for a make-out session.”

  Jennings broke from his thousand-yard stare and returned to looking at the floor.

  “You ain’t going anywhere,” Jennings said before he spat on the ground between his legs. “We barely made it back here alive. There is nowhere safer for you right now than right here.”

  “Is that why you sucker punched me?” Jake asked sharply.

  “I did that for your own protection,” Jennings said looking away for a second before continuing. “From the moment I met you, you’ve been joking around like you’re on some shitty sitcom. That shit would have got you killed and possibly me too.”

  Jake shook his head and blurted a mouthful of air out in a short burst, and Jennings leaned forward so his face occupied all of Jake’s vision.

  “This is fucking serious, and you need to fucking wake up right now,” Jennings said pointing a finger into Jake’s chest. “I just put down a civilian with a tiny bite on his shoulder. Don’t test me or anyone else. This isn’t the place or the time.”

  This shocked Jake to his core. He wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, but it kind of felt like Jennings was showing some feelings, or at the very leas
t some genuine concern.

  “Here you go,” Jennings said as he reached into his pants pockets and pulled out Jake’s phone, money clip and headphones. “I charged your phone. You’re welcome.”

  “Just put it on there,” Jake said, nodding his head to the small stool that stood next to each cot.

  “You better pay those parking tickets,” Jennings said as he complied with Jake’s order.

  “You ran a check on me?” Jake asked. “I’m surprised there is even internet out there.”

  “Nah, I just assumed. You look like a guy who doesn’t pay parking tickets,” Jennings said derisively. “Don’t worry, the world is still out there. There’s still power and internet, not much else though.”

  Jake was in a tight spot right now. The hand closest to Jennings and his phone still held the gun under the pillow. He would have to give up the gun and the only edge he had if he wanted to check his phone.

  “I need to find someone,” Jake said. “Is there some sort of list of survivors or a place you can mark yourself as safe?”

  “Facebook’s down,” Jennings said softly. “The government asked them to turn it off as it was doing more harm than good. They asked the same of Twitter too but they refused. So, no, there is no list. You’re on your own.”

  Thoughts of Sarah driving around looking for him, while he was safe and sound, filled Jake with dread. He needed to get out into the world no matter how bad the situation was. He needed to find her before anything bad happened.

  “Well, I guess I should thank you,” Jake said earnestly. “It’s just, I hate being second fiddle, especially in a crisis like this. I feel fucking helpless here. You know what I mean? I’m not in control of my own destiny. I’d rather be balls to the wall running from those things on the street than wait for a horde of those fucks to come in here and get me.”

  “The people out there are helpless,” Jennings said, pointing symbolically towards the curtain door. “You have all the help you need right here. The situation is under control.”