by Stephens, L.
“Where the hell are you!?” Daryl bellowed into the phone after a few seconds.
There was no reply on the other end of the phone, just screams.
“Jake!” Daryl yelled into the phone.
Sarah flinched and looked towards Daryl.
“Help us!” screamed a distant female voice.
“Who is this?” Daryl said, perplexed.
“Help!” screamed a male voice this time. “You got to help us!”
Daryl looked at the phone’s screen for a moment and then compared it to his phone before putting it back to his mouth.
“Oh yeah? You want me to help you?” Daryl said stiffly, and then made a big show of pressing the “End Call” button on the phone.
“Fucking fat fingers,” Daryl said with a laugh. “I put the wrong fucking number in!”
Daryl offered a big grin to the group, but it disappeared as soon as he saw that no one was looking at him. Even Ryan had gotten the message and distanced himself.
Daryl walked over to the edge of the building and spat down on to the street. He wasn’t sure why he kept looking to them for attention. They definitely weren’t his biggest fans, and he understood completely. No amount of shutting down of Ryan was going to dig him out of the hole he had dug for himself. He was about to put Jake’s actual number into Lynne’s phone when a text message came through. It was from some guy named Mark, and Daryl turned his head to Lynne. She was on the other side of the rooftop and hadn’t heard the notification sound. He thought about telling her, but that would mean giving back the one thing he had that everyone else didn’t.
“Jesus,” Daryl whispered to himself as he read the message. “That’s some fucked up shit.”
Daryl scrolled up to see what had taken place in the messages previous to Mark’s response.
“Woof,” Daryl said as he snuck another look over at Lynne.
It was all one-way traffic. All the messages started and ended with Lynne. There was not one response from Mark other than the one he had just sent. There were cute “Good morning” and “Good night” messages, hot naked pics captioned with “I miss you”, pics of her blowing other dudes captioned with “Fuck you!”, messages asking for him to pay late child support, messages asking him to see Ava and finally messages asking him for help because they were stuck on a rooftop in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. All the messages had been left on read and went back years, so Daryl wondered why this fucking scumbag had waited till this exact moment to reply to her. The message from Mark read:
“Lynne. I’m sorry you are in a tough situation, but I can’t help you. With the help of the Lord and my family and friends I’ve been going to AA and it’s been great! I’d really appreciate if you ceased all communication with me or my family for the time being, while I focus on them and start being a proud and productive father and husband. I hope you understand this isn’t about us. Take care, Mark.”
Daryl knew no good would come of sharing this message with Lynne. She had gotten this far and seemed to be doing okay. A message of this magnitude during this cluster fuck would definitely not end well. He deleted the message without a second thought.
The sound of a car coming down the street made Daryl look up from Lynne’s phone.
“Who’s this fucking guy?” Daryl said to no one in particular.
The car screeched its tires as it avoided hitting a zombie that had strolled into its path. The horn beeped and the zombie didn’t move, so it kept beeping and more zombies came from the shadows to surround the car.
“Now you’ve done it,” Daryl said to himself. “If that’s you Jake, you’re never going to hear the end of this.”
The car was a Chevy Impala, definitely not Jake’s Trans-Am, but Daryl thought Jake probably would want to use something a bit more reliable in this situation. Daryl had texted his location to Jake earlier and he had gotten no response, but that was standard for Jake, especially in a crisis. The others on the rooftop heard the beeping and quickly got to their feet. The car finally reversed away from the zombies and went around them as it came down the street towards the rooftop, still beeping like an asshole, just like Jake.
CHAPTER 98: JUAN MORE TIME
Ick, Jill thought as she saw the little monster peek her head outside the tent. She hoped the annoying brat wouldn’t start crying again—that was the last thing she needed.
“Here, darling,” the fat mom said. “Drink this.”
Jill sighed with relief as the little monster took a sip of water and moved back into the tent and out of the sunlight. The fat mom patted her head and then joined the Uber driver at the edge of the building. Jill didn’t want to join the jealous bitches, but she kind of wanted to get the fat mom’s phone charger, so she felt the need to be social with her before she asked her. Jill walked over behind them and craned her neck to see what all the fuss was about.
“Look at this idiot!” the creep said over his shoulder.
Jill looked over the edge of the building and saw a blood-stained silver car with a fat guy beeping the horn as he leaned out of the driver side window.
“Angel! It’s me, Juan!” Juan yelled up to the rooftop. “Angel!”
“Gross,” Jill said in surprise.
Of all the potential knights in shining armor she had lured to save her, she got the fat and ugly one.
“Jill, you know him?” the Uber driver said as she pointed down to the fat guy.
Jill rolled her eyes at the Uber driver. She didn’t like this bitch and she didn’t like her tone. It sounded like she was judging, and an Uber driver should be the last person to judge.
“Um, not really,” Jill said biting her lip. “I think it was one of the guys from Tinder. He said he was going to come save me.”
Jill was embarrassed. She expected a helicopter. She was hoping to leave all these assholes behind as she flew off into the sunset. She wasn’t impressed with how her knight in shining armor was trying to save her. There was no style or panache.
“Who’s Angel?” the Uber driver asked. “Is that your real name?”
What the fuck is this bitch’s problem? Jill thought. She’s got all these pointless questions. She probably just moved to L.A. a week ago and doesn’t know you never use your real name online. That’s how you get stalked, and that’s how you end up in some guy’s basement.
“It’s me, I’m Angel,” Jill snapped. “You probably wouldn’t understand the need to keep things private. I’m kind of a big deal, you know.”
The creep laughed.
“Do you even know who she is?” the creep said to Jill, nodding his head at the Uber driver.
Jill didn’t like his super creepy laugh, but she was interested in the coke she had seen him snorting, so she didn’t shoot him down in flames like she could have.
“It’s kind of weird. I don’t really recognize him,” Jill said turning back to the Uber driver. “I don’t really match with fat guys, so he must have just seen my profile and worked it all out.”
“Are you serious?” the Uber Driver said with a look of disbelief. “This guy just drove through a war zone to save you! You should be happy!”
“Happy about what?” Jill said pointing at the fat guy. “Look at his car. He’s not saving anyone! I’m not even sure how he even made it this far, T.B.H. He might as well have run here and lost a few pounds!”
“Well, I guess you’re going to have to let him down gently, then,” the Uber driver said.
Jill nodded her head as an idea started to form. She could see the Uber driver’s point. For the first time, in her whole dumb fucking life, the Uber driver had made some sense to someone. Jill walked up close to the Uber driver. She could see by her H&M or Zara tank top and leggings combo she was not wealthy. She was just a commoner, another person put on the planet to waste Jill’s time, but maybe she had a purpose after all.
“Ummm, I think you might be right!” Jill said, excitedly looking to the Uber Driver. “I’m not really that good at that sort of stuff. You t
hink you can you do it for me? I mean, he’s a total sweetheart and all, but I just don’t think it’s going to work out like he hopes. You know?”
Jill didn’t even wait for a response. She knew her type. She just strutted back to her spot on the rooftop. As she walked away, she smiled at how giving she was. She knew the Uber driver would make it her honor to do something for the cool girl, for the princess. That’s what she was there for after all.
CHAPTER 99: MEDIEVAL TIMES
An open heart is an open mind
― Dalai Lama XIV
Sarah looked on in disbelief as Jill walked away. Not only had her hair-brained scheme to get some random stranger to save her turned out to actually work, she was now denying the poor guy because of how he looked and the car he drove. Sarah returned her gaze to the internet Casanova who was there to save Jill. Well, now, he was here to save them, but with a building full of zombies between him and the rooftop, she wasn’t counting her chickens just yet.
“Wow,” Lynne whispered as she nudged Sarah with her elbow. “Linda is fucking strict.”
Sarah and Lynne shared a quick giggle.
“Oh, excuse me, sir?” Sarah said in an upper-class English accent as she waved down to Juan. “I’m so sorry, but your services are no longer needed from her majesty, princess Angel. She would like to thank you for coming and hopes that you have a great and amazing day! Now be gone, peasant!”
They laughed louder this time, not caring if Jill heard them or not. Juan kept beeping the horn as if it was going to change something. It was like he was trying to get his to-go order and didn’t want to leave the car.
“This guy better shut the fuck up or he’s going to get eaten,” Daryl said as he looked up and down the street.
“Hey!” Sarah yelled as she waved her arms like she was trying to flag down an airplane. “Stop beeping your horn!”
“What?” Juan yelled as he beeped the horn a couple more times.
The same zombies that had crowded around his car a couple blocks down the street were making their way towards his car. Daryl laughed and shook his head. The scenario was right out of a comedy skit.
“Behind you!” Sarah yelled, pointing in the direction of the zombies.
Juan stopped beeping to try and hear what was being yelled down to him.
“Behind you!” Sarah yelled, still pointing like an audience member at a pantomime.
Juan turned around in the nick of time before the lead zombie in the group lunged. He slammed on the gas and rolled his window up as the group watched him speed down the street, away from danger and away from them.
“You think he’s coming back?” Sarah asked Daryl, but she made it seem like it was to no one in particular.
“If he’s smart, no,” Daryl said, craning his head so he could see further down the street.
Juan did a shitty U-turn a few blocks down and started heading back in their direction.
“This guy, ain’t smart!” Daryl said with a chuckle.
“We got to get down to him,” Sarah said, looking to Daryl.
“We’re not going anywhere,” Daryl said with finality. “This guy doesn’t seem like the type that’s going to storm the building and clean house for us. And if we try to get to him, and we do make it down there alive, and by some miracle he’s still alive, we aren’t all going to fit in that tiny ass car!”
Sarah nodded. Everything he said was true, but she at least wanted to explore the idea, even if she knew it wasn’t a great one. There was something that came out of Juan’s attempt to rescue them: it was a little bit of positivity that filled her with hope. Daryl had just thought of their rag-tag group as a collective, not a lead weight hanging from his nuts. Juan’s car hit the zombies who he had lured to the building with his horn. Blood and limbs flew everywhere as he pulled up a half block down the street.
“Great job, buddy,” Ryan said sarcastically.
Juan shifted the car into reverse and tried to run over the zombies on the ground behind him, but his reversing skills were just as bad as his U-turn skills, so he missed all but one of them.
“This guy needs his own show,” Daryl said between chuckles. “He’s too funny.”
“Yeah, and I can represent him!” Ryan said, trying to buddy up to Daryl.
“Shut the fuck up, weasel,” Daryl said, not having a bar of it.
Juan rolled down the window and leaned out.
“Angel! Where are you!?” Juan yelled. “Let’s go!”
“Watch out!” Sarah yelled.
It was too late. A zombie that was trapped under his car reached up and grabbed Juan’s arm, taking a big chunk out of it with his teeth.
“Well, that’s the end of Juan,” Daryl said dryly.
Juan screamed as he shook the zombie off him and inspected his bloody arm.
“I’ll come back for you, Angel!” Juan called as he rolled his window up.
The group watched as Juan’s car barreled down the street again, and this time there was no shitty U-turn. With all hope lost again, they went back to their respective spaces.
CHAPTER 100: THE DEAD ZONE
“I got so many regrets right now,” Jake said to himself as he peered around the corner.
He had decided to go headphone and music free for the trip back into The Dead Zone, and it had been smooth sailing since he had left the army base. Jake had taken Jennings’ advice, hiding when he had seen patrols and keeping out of sight of the helicopters circling above. He didn’t want to be a victim of friendly fire, and he definitely didn’t want to be taken back to where he had started. As he got closer to The Dead Zone, Jake started cutting through apartment buildings and back alleys, narrowly avoiding the undead that hadn’t been eradicated yet and hiding from the even more dangerous survivors, who were hell bent on protecting themselves, their friends and their families.
Jake climbed his way into a high school. It was the weekend, and the fences were high. Everything about it seemed like a good idea. Instead of having to skulk around corners and turn in to what could potentially be a dead-end alley full of zombies, Jake could cut across a whole city block in relative safety and maybe even find a place he could use as home base. Jake wondered why the army hadn’t thought of the school as a viable base for their operation, but he supposed if it was easy enough for one person to scale the fence, to secure the whole place would be a lot more treacherous. He felt safe and confident for the first time that day when he entered the school, but as he walked through the quad the sunlight dimmed and thick black smoke swirled around him like an eerie fog. There was an intense smell like a dumpster fire. It was almost toxic, and Jake had to lift his shirt up above his nose. His body odor was like sweet roses in comparison.
The fangs were long and sharp. They framed a serpent-like tongue that hung out over a defined jaw, and Jake’s hands went up defensively as he stumbled backwards to avoid the bright green ghoul that had sprung out of the smoke. Once he had established a good distance from the sinister face in front of him, Jake pulled out his gun from the small of his back and aimed it through the smoke. The ghoul was straight from a fucking B-grade horror movie and stared back at him with its mouth wide open, trying to suck him in like the hose from a vacuum cleaner. The smoke cleared a little as he waved his hand that held the gun, and the ghoul’s disembodied head became clear. It dripped blood from where its neck used to be, and as Jake inched forward he leaned in to see a meaty fist holding it aloft by its greasy hair.
“What the fuck is this shit?” Jake said, waving more smoke away.
A giant fucking man with a Neanderthal-shaped head that flashed a loveable grin materialized in front of him. He wore a Trojan or Spartan or whatever the fuck helmet that had a Mohawk protruding from the top of it.
“Huh,” Jake said as he cocked his head to the side.
He stood proud, his loincloth barely covering his manhood, while his bowling ball sized bicep strained to hold the ghoul’s head in all its violence and glory. Jake read the words “GO WARRIO
RS!” that hung above him. They looked like they popped out of the wall in 3D, and he shook his head and released a mouthful of air. Jake had almost unloaded his gun into a wall that was covered in a mural designed to inspire team spirit.
“Fucking Spielberg,” Jake said as he rubbed his head with the gun. “I need to get off the coke.”
Coke didn’t make you hallucinate. Jake knew that, but he was definitely looking for something to blame in that moment. He watched a lot of movies and had seen enough horror films to know how this usually ended. Some idiot would think he was about to die and then a sudden reprieve would lull him into a false sense of security, then BANG, the actual threat would strike, causing the death of the C-grade movie star. Being in no mood to go out like a sucker, especially after all the near misses he had somehow ducked throughout his life, be it criminal or sexually transmitted, he quickly turned and pointed his gun in various directions into the smoke.
“Who’s there?” Jake whispered.
He didn’t know why he spoke out to the void, but he was glad that no one answered the question. After taking a few steps backwards, he felt the cold concrete of the wall on his back. There was a deep vibration pulsing through it, and he could hear something in the distance. He inched his way along to where the light was getting brighter and the smoke cleared a little. As Jake reached the end of the wall he breathed out slowly, trying to regain some semblance of composure.
“I got so many regrets right now,” Jake said to himself again as he peered around the corner.
The flames made the whites of Jake’s eyes a bright orange as they reflected the mass inferno that was a mere thirty feet from him. The heat was intense. A garbage truck had ploughed through the fence and smashed into the wall of the school, igniting a gas line in the building. It was like a giant Roman candle made out of a jet turbine. The massive blowtorch shot straight out of the wall and into the back of the garbage truck, creating a dense acrid smoke that smelled as bad as imaginable. The sound, the heat and the movement attracted them. A legion of zombies were lining up to receive their blessings from the flamethrower, their withered heads melting within feet of the flame as their bodies piled on the ground before it. Jake watched in awe as the pile of headless smoldering corpses grew so large that the zombies lining up to inspect the noise could no longer reach it and gathered around like teenagers at a bonfire.
