La La Land: A Zombie Dystopian Novel (The Last City Series Book 2)

by Logan Keys

  “Can you take them, Phillip? Just across the water. They can hide until we can figure something out. Do you have people there?”

  He nods, and then shakes his head. “Yes, but no, I can’t take them. Liza, you need to come with me already. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Listen, Simon’s going to — harm this child, or whatever it is he does to make his Specials. Or worse. You’re supposed to be the good guys, right? I know you have people in the wilds. Please. Just take him, and take Baby, too.”

  “No,” Baby says.

  “What do you want me to do with a child? It’s dangerous out there.”

  “I don’t have time for this! If you don’t take him right now, he’s as good as…” I leave off the rest, so I don’t scare the poor kid.

  Frustrated, Phillip blows out air, his strange eyes rolling before he nods and motions for the child to get inside the boat.

  Baby crosses her arms when I motion for her to go with them. “I’m going with you.”

  “Fine,” I say, and then to Phillip, “I just need a few hours. Hide him. Please.”

  Phillip nods, getting into the boat. He looks at me like he believes this will be the last time.

  -89-

  With MPs all over the place, Baby and I can’t get through the gate. We keep trying, but it’s no use. Several times we’ve almost been spotted.

  We decide to check along the perimeter for another possible way, and when we round the corner on the backside, I crash into someone who tumbles in a flutter of white coats.

  Chalberg.

  “What are you — how…” He straightens. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “I need to see Tommy.”

  Chalberg checks to see we aren’t noticed. “Certainly not. You should be gone. There’s nothing left for you in this city. If Simon knew what you are — ” He looks at Baby.

  “She already knows,” I say.

  “Liza,” he says in a hushed voice, “if he knew about that mark on your arm, you’d never be free again, you’d be a project.”

  “I have to see Tommy.”

  Shaking his head at my ignorance, Chalberg turns to leave, but I grab his coat, dig into his pocket, and pull a syringe from it. I move quickly, denial of defeat sharpening inside my chest, and press the needle tip to his neck.

  He struggles, but I don’t relent, and the end digs in enough to make blood trickle.

  The liquid in the syringe sloshes — black, familiar.

  Chalberg gasps, shuddering.

  “So, you are heading to see Tommy,” I say. “Isn’t this his special cocktail?” The doctor turns a shade of white. “I wonder what it’ll do to a normal person.”

  Baby comes around and demands, “Tell us where he is.”

  “The hospital,” Chalberg squeaks. “The one in the compound, not the main one.”

  “Can you get us in?”

  “No!”

  I press harder, and he folds. “Ah — okay, all right.”

  Baby nods at me, and I let him go.

  Chalberg fixes his coat, fingers coming away with blood. He gazes at me first in fear, and then in acceptance, before leading the way.

  Turns out, the compound has a secret entrance nearby. On the far side, just before the sand meets the ocean, a section of fencing is a camouflaged door. Chalberg shows us the way through, sweating and breathing heavily.

  “Is this a hospital, or some kind of Special-making factory?” I ask, noticing how empty the area is.

  Chalberg avoids my eyes, using his keycard.

  “What are they doing to him?” I’m afraid to know the answer.

  “Just holding him for now.”

  Baby and I follow Chalberg into a dimly lit, makeshift hospital that’s been painted pale green, like a mental institution. Lining the hall are doors with thin, rectangular windows to check on the locked-in patients.

  “Are there people in these?”

  Chalberg doesn’t answer, but instead presses through a set of double doors at the end of the hall.

  “Where are we going?” Baby asks.

  Into a lab with machines, where things beep and hiss on all sides.

  I gasp when I see the first table, on which a body’s hooked up to what seems like hundreds of hoses. At first I think it’s Tommy, but a closer look shows another male, strapped down. He’s asleep — or in a coma, rather — with the loudest machine in the room breathing for him. Another spits out readings while it pumps the lifeblood into and out of him.

  “Who is he?” I ask.

  Chalberg sighs. “He was supposed to be, well, like you, Liza.”

  I frown at him. “And?”

  “He’s going the way of the others now, like his brain can’t handle the overload. Not sure how to explain it, but our bodies are so finite, and the perfect Special has infinite possibility, knowledge, and power.”

  A small amount of excitement creeps into his face when he gazes at me, like he’d do anything to put me there on that table, and I cringe.

  “It’s nothing like that,” I say “I can’t do anything close to what the Specials here can.”

  While this poor man’s wasting away, Chalberg still looks ready to try again.

  Baby approaches another door on the far side of the room.

  “Don’t!” Chalberg lunges, but it’s too late. She’s already pulled it open. It whooshes as if it’d been air-locked. A blue glow emits through, painting everything in its haze.

  “My God!” she says, leaving us behind.

  We follow her into a room that’s bare, except for a contraption that’s set perfectly in the center. One circle of metal offsets another, and if they turn at once, together they’d make a sphere. It seems at least ten feet high, the sides are bolted down, and a loud humming makes me shout at Baby, who’s gazing at it in recognition. “What is it?”

  “It’s Chronos,” she calls back. “It’s real!” she exclaims at the same time Chalberg yells, “We can’t be in here!”

  Colors change against Baby, who’s bright pale, and in the glow of the machine, she’s blue. Both her hair and mine rise on end from some magnetic field. As she approaches Chronos, her arms stretches out, fingers reaching for the metal.

  “No!” Chalberg calls, yet he’s too afraid to approach. Baby already has a hand pressed to one of the circles.

  She turns to face me. “How does it work?” she wonders.

  An inscription has been etched onto the side of one of the metal circles. I’ve seen this writing before, on Spirit; the inscription’s the same, in Latin. Frowning, Baby puts a finger to the markings, so I translate for her. “The doorway beyond the veil.”

  The machine turns off. All but a small light remains, and a voice interrupts the quiet. “Very good, Liza.”

  Simon’s at the door, hand at the switch. “Most people have mistranslated that last word. It is the pathway beyond, between what happens after, amongst other things.”

  “To Heaven?” Baby says, sounding hopeful, and Simon chuckles.

  He comes closer. “You could say that. Heaven and Hell, while a reasonable attempt to describe things beyond, are only placeholders. There may be some truth to them, but this … is indescribable. Unless you’re there, in what lies next, you cannot comprehend it, and neither can they comprehend this life, either. Describing limitations to the limitless is as difficult as explaining to you what endless places exist inside this machine.”

  Simon gazes at Chronos as if she’s a lover.

  Baby seems afraid to ask, but it’s like she’s compelled. “My sister. Her name was Sarah. I’ve been told she went in. Is that true?”

  “Yes. Sarah went in, Kendra,” Simon replies, and then grins. “Why do you look surprised? I recognized you right away. She looked just like you, and was just as stubborn.”

  “Can she return?”

  “Most cannot after a time, but I’d give you leave to try to find her.”

  Trying to stop her is on the tip of my tongue, but who I am to judge? If Baby, all
this time, had a missing sister, then she’d had her own goals beyond ours. No wonder she’d jumped at the chance to help Thomas. She’d held out a wild hope that her sister was simply missing, not gone.

  Baby bites her lip, her gaze on the machine. She looks back at Simon, hoping, but afraid to hope.

  Simon flips the switch at the wall, before approaching. Spinning one of the circles, he nods at Baby, who grabs her side and pulls.

  The two sides pick up speed, until they create a perfect sphere.

  A blinding light grows in the center; small at first, then larger, spanning the full circumference.

  I’d yell for Baby to stop, if I thought anything could be heard over the rushing wind, but she’s already creeping toward the light.

  Then, it’s as if a hurricane lands in the room, and everything happens too fast to see. Baby’s gone, and I’m flinching back from a flare of light.

  The machine quiets, and my eyes adjust. Baby’s lying on the ground, her body at odd angles.

  How much time has passed? I feel stiff, as if we’ve watched the machine for days.

  “What did you do to her?” I demand, rushing to her side.

  Baby’s neck is at an impossible angle, and her eyes gaze at nothing.

  “She chose her path,” Simon answers. “Something over there must have done this. She came back the wrong way rather than face it, or faced it and was destroyed. What happens to your body there, follows you here.”

  I wipe tears away. “She wasn’t a Special, is that it? You need to be a Special to make it to the other side? You had to know that.” I stand, fists clenched. “That’s why you made them, isn’t it? Because then they could go through and not be torn to bits.”

  “Liza,” says Simon, “I’ve tried a million ways to make it so the passage is useful to someone other than myself, and this has been the result every time.”

  “Then why did you let her go!”

  Military police flood the room, probably from hearing my rage.

  They grab onto me, tie my hands.

  Chalberg hovers over Baby’s body. “You won’t kill her, right?”

  When Simon doesn’t answer, Chalberg rushes toward me. “You can’t! Simon, you don’t know….” His eyes go wild when he sees Simon’s made up his mind. “She’s Eve,” he blurts out. “Check her arm. She’s Eve. He sent her…”

  I choke on my words, half-trying to curse the doctor, and half-trying to deny what he’s saying. “Why?” I finally ask, but then I see. His project lies dead on the table. He can’t make one like me, and he knows this.

  If Simon executes me, then he’d no longer have his toy.

  I glare at Chalberg as they take off my bandage to reveal the letters E V E. Simon traces the marks on my arm with amazement.

  “It can’t be,” he says.

  Simon’s gaze turns gentle. He watches me, just as he had Chronos.

  He motions to Bradford. “Take her to a cell. And Chalberg, make sure she doesn’t hurt herself.”

  Before we arrive, Chalberg injects me in the neck.

  “Traitor,” I whisper as the drugs begin to work.

  I slump against Bradford, who holds my weight, while Chalberg’s eyes come into focus before blackness takes me.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, truly sounding like he is indeed.

  -90-

  I wake up in a glass room. Lethargy holds me long minutes before I can sit up, and when I do, I hear a voice that makes everything better.

  “Hey there, sleeping beauty.”

  “Tommy!” I slur, trying to stand.

  Tommy sits in the cell next door to mine. “That’s some good stuff they gave you,” he says, a weary edge to his voice.

  “Tommy,” I murmur again, my words already wet with emotion. “Baby — she…”

  He nods with a painful swallow, and his eyes darken before he looks away.

  “What will they do?” Tommy knows I mean with him.

  “Firing squad. First light.”

  My knees fail me, and I have to sit down again. “No …” I moan. “He can’t.” But he gives me a half-smile that assures me that Simon can and will.

  “How long?”

  “Not very. At least you’ll be okay, now. Simon won’t risk his Eve. You’ll be safe.”

  A lie, but it’s a nice lie. Alive, yes. Safe, no.

  Even deep within this concrete building, I can feel the coolness of night already fleeing.

  I have so many things to say. Instead, I sit on the bed, and in his last moments, we share the quiet. I look deep into his remorseful eyes, and I shake my head. Don’t be sorry. Not for me.

  I will him to see how none of that’s needed, we don’t have time for regret right now.

  Tears come, though I swiftly whisk them away, trying to remain strong.

  Tommy breaks our silence, chin tucked into his chest, hands out in front of him. “Sometimes,” he says, “I like to pretend that my hands are clean. But they aren’t, Liza. I’ve hurt so many people with the choices that have brought me here.”

  I hold my breath, feeling him trying to continue.

  “But I have loved. My father, my mother, my sisters. Daisy, Joelle… you.” He doesn’t look up, but rushes onward. “It’s not just a romantic love you can have for a person.” Tommy waves a hand in embarrassment.

  I feebly rise to my feet and walk over to the glass.

  Tommy comes forward, too, breathing loud, sad sounds.

  Together, we lay our hands on the coldness.

  Unable to avoid the looming approach of his own time, Tommy turns his head to gaze at the door. The fear etched across his face as he tries to see his own future undoes me. I cannot bear it.

  “Tommy,” I say, fighting for my voice to return. Emotion pulls me into a tense thing of breakable quality while I search his eyes. “You stupid-stupid boy. What will I do without you?”

  “How?” he says, his bravado fleeing. “What if I can’t?”

  What if he can’t die? Or can’t face his own death? I don’t know which thing he means, but as he turns again to look at the door, body shuddering, wondering how much time he has, I hit the glass and say, “Don’t look into the abyss. Look at me. I’m here. Until the end. Even in the end, please, look at me.”

  He finds me again, and anchors himself there.

  We lock eyes, and I pass him as much strength as I can muster.

  Tommy stands taller with that familiar smile, though his eyes don’t quite absorb any of it.

  If there’s a love greater than romance, it’s a brother-sisterhood born out of shared desperation, separated by violence. This is a love that forges iron, changes worlds.

  The door opens in Tommy’s cell, and Cory enters. “It’s time.”

  Tommy moves away, and I press my head against the glass, hard enough to hurt. I shudder as grief radiates through my body.

  They go to leave, and I pound on the window, frantic now. “Wait!” I shout. “Cory! Will you come back to get me?”

  Cory shakes his head. “He said not to bring you.”

  “What! They have to let me. Cory please — You can’t just — I have to be there! I need to be there!”

  Cory turns away and leads Tommy out, despite my yelling.

  Tommy gives me one look of goodbye before he walks away, dragging his feet — a dead man’s tarry.

  I stare at that empty doorway until my eyes burn and tears bring me to my knees. Wracking sobs break me in two, and I wail loudly enough for it to echo through my cell.

  -91-

  They chain me, injecting me to make sure I can’t transition.

  Everyone’s guilty here, including me; none of us hate one another for the task at hand.

  Cory seems complacent; he’s accepted his choices. I get it — we’ve all walked toward that same fire, only some of us have been burned.

  I see him now, the man who’ll strip me of my soul: Simon.

  He wanted the world, and even with all of his Specials, he still doesn’t have it.
>
  Simon has the machine.

  Rubber man has the genius to create the one thing Simon cannot.

  But now Liza’s in Simon’s hands, too.

  At least she’s safe, though. My flesh is payment for that. So be it.

  My bladder’s so weak I haven’t touched a drop of water for over a day.

  When the end comes, I won’t be lying in a puddle of my own making.

  At least they haven’t blindfolded me. They just send me off into the field, where I march to find my end.

  One … two … three steps, a dozen, and I turn.

  Then I’m still, with my eyes to the horizon, and I beg God to spare me … until I change my mind and beg him to spare Liza instead.

  Simon nods, and just as he lines up the soldiers who’ll take my life, the sun breaches the horizon and the day breaks from orange to blue, with white puffy clouds.

  “What is it?” Cory asks, approaching to make sure I stay on the mark.

  I turn to answer, and the bullet strikes the middle of my forehead.

  Before my body realizes the deadness that’s claimed me, I see Cory with his pistol raised.

  -92-

  It’s day, yet all of us are awake where we lie. I’m in the bed in the cabin, while others are in their shallow graves, caves, and any other darkness they could find before the sun rose. But as one, we’d opened our eyes, remaining where we were in sleep lethargy.

  Joelle began first, screaming, thrashing, sending out a signal of tremendous alarm, as though we should flee. But none of us can. I finally rise and wake her the rest of the way to find that she’s inconsolable.

  Her words are garbled, and she falls into my arms, scratching me in the process.

  “He’s gone,” she says, bringing alertness to my sleep-drugged cells. “He’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone. He was just here, I could sense him, and I didn’t realize how much, until it went. It left. Something’s happened!”

  “Tommy?” I say, trying to sound braver than I feel. “You mean he’s left? LA?”

  “No.” She shakes her head so fast it’s a blur. “No. No. No. He’s gone!” she wails.

  “Gone…” I whisper, letting my body melt into despair.