Undead L.A. 1 (4 page)

Not today,
he thought with fierce determination.

He sprinted forward a few steps, feeling a new confidence enter into him. It didn't matter what was really going on. There would be plenty of time to figure all that out later. All that mattered now was that he escape in one piece. He locked his eyes on the open door of the Escalade and decided it was his best chance for sanctuary and a possible getaway. His feet pounded against the ground as he turned toward the door, and he gave it all he had. He marveled for a split second about how amazingly resilient the human body was; how the mind, so often murky and tired and muddled, could be cleared instantly in the face of an eminent threat to one's survival.

It's written in the DNA
, he thought.

He heard the feral animal grunts of the man behind him. He tilted his head slightly to see if the walking nightmare was in his peripheral vision, all the while keeping his body moving straight for the refuge of the sports utility vehicle. He saw a flash of oily, thick, inky black hair matted with blood, and something else that looked like brain matter. It was moving incredibly fast. His heart thundered in his ears as he pushed his body for more, but it wasn't enough. He felt the cold hand clamping down on his shoulder as spikes of panic raced through him, making him numb.

There was something heavy on the back of his legs, pushing the fabric of his suit pants into the crease of his knees. He felt the back of his right shoe push hard into his silky dress sock, and then come loose. The next thing he knew something solid hit him in the lower back, right where he hurt the most from sitting through long flights. Then the ground came up, rushing unexpectedly toward his face. He put out the palms of his hands to break his fall. He felt a sharp sting as they connected with the hard ground, drawing blood. He tumbled forward and the monster clinging to him rolled with him like a heavy sack filled with foul liquid. A strong smell overpowered him, and he realized it was coming from the man. He came to a clumsy stop flat on his back, nearly knocking the breath out of him. The palms of his hands screamed in pain, but he held them up to force the man back. The smell of fresh blood only seemed to drive the man further into a frenzy as he snapped viciously at Edgar's face, leaning over and drooling what smelled like rancid meat saliva, missing his face by near inches.

“
Get off me!”

It was no use. There was no longer any man left to reason with, no longer anything that resembled a human being other than the sack of skin and bones that pinned him to the ground. Edgar could feel his strength leaving him as the monster leaning over him used the force of gravity and the weight of his body to drive himself closer and closer to his face. He turned his head and saw in the distance more creatures like the one that was trying to kill him. They were sniffing the air like a pack of wolves. Some had already caught the scent of fresh blood and were now heading his way, picking up speed as they moved.

I thought zombies were supposed to be slow and dumb
, he thought briefly before shoving back with renewed force against his assailant.
This isn't what I expected at all.

The realization came to him suddenly – he didn't have much time left. If he planned on living to see another day, he'd have to do something drastic and do it fast.

“Here goes nothing,” he said, reaching up and driving his thumb into the Asian man’s left eye. To his great surprise, the man didn't even flinch. His thumb slid into the eye socket and the man's eye squirmed out, dangling by a series of fleshy threads until the gelatinous orb was now inches from his own face. A trickle of dark fluid oozed down to the ball and dripped onto Edgar's face. The man above him showed no response to having his eye gouged out. Edgar wasted no time doing the same thing with his other hand to the right eye. Using all the strength he had, he drove his fingers in deep until he felt a spongy material somewhere deeper inside the man’s skull. Driven on by adrenaline and the will to live Edgar squeezed down, jamming both thumbs toward each other. He could feel the muscles of his arms and chest contracting painfully as he gave it all he had. He felt the man's grip on him loosen slightly as he drove his fingers all the way into the brain. With a great cry Edgar forced the man off him, rolling over and hurling the disgusting corpse away from him. The man crumbled into a ball, then rose again quickly and began wildly searching for his victim. His eyes hung loosely from the filth-covered strings in their sockets, dangling near his collarbones like some kind of macabre kid's toy. He sniffed the air, knowing his quarry was just nearby, but was unable to locate him. He threw back his head and screamed out in anger, an inhuman cry that brought the attention of the others now closing in.

If they didn't know you were here before
, he thought,
they sure do now.

Edger pushed himself to his feet just as the next one came running toward him at an impossible speed. Without thinking about it, he rushed right at the creature – a stocky white guy in a Budweiser delivery uniform with thick dried blood smeared down the front of his goatee and white undershirt. As he reached the man he brought his palm up, fingers curled in, and drove it forward into his attackers face. He felt himself connect with the underside of the deliveryman's nose, driving the bone straight up and into the brain. The man went instantly silent and fell to the ground lifeless. It was as if Edgar had turned off an electrical switch that had kept him running. He laughed at the simplicity of it, the sound of his own mirth surprising him.

“Fucker went down like a sack of bricks,” he said aloud, eliciting a fresh roar from his sightless companion.

There were others closing in now and no time to waste. A stream of undead horrors was now converging on the parking lot of the Radisson from all sides, drawn in by the chaos and the smell of fresh meat. Edgar wiped his hands on his pants before turning back to the Escalade. He jogged over, feeling sore in his hips and legs from where he'd hit the ground only moments before, and inspected the vehicle. There was blood all across the driver's seat and what looked like a puddle of urine, but he didn't care anymore.

I just gouged a man's eyes out with my bare hands
, he thought.
What's a little piss after that?

He got into the car and slammed the door. He could feel the alien wetness soaking into his pants as he hit the car locks. He did his best to ignore it. There would be time later to deal with it. He buckled up, more from routine than a conscious attempt at safety, and turned over the ignition. The car came to life, blaring loud hip-hop music. He recognized the song on the radio. It was by the rapper, Snoop Dogg, a world famous icon for the West Coast and L.A. area, who grew up in Long Beach. Snoop had always impressed him. The fact that he'd gone from selling drugs on the streets of Long Beach as a member of the Crips gang, to becoming one of America's most beloved celebrities – all the while advocating the use of marijuana – always struck Edgar as nothing short of brilliant. He'd become familiar with Snoop Dogg’s music during the two weeks he'd spent in Budapest having an affair with a local named Agi. She'd rented a friend's flat so we could screw all week without being interrupted. The place was sprawling, with solid plumbing, having been built before World War 2. It was also almost surely haunted. The slightest breeze would produce unearthly howls through the eroding tile hallways as if the dead were calling us to follow them home.

The guy who rented the “cable ready love shack” to them was a Serbian refugee who went by the name of Victor. He owned and ran the youth hostel in the heart of town, on the Pesti side. His assistant, Vlad, was a Romanian who'd preferred staying in a building teeming with teenage Swiss girls rather than going into the family’s factory business back home. One night we went to visit them, giving ourselves a chance to hydrate a little and score more ecstasy pills. We found both of them painting the stairs up to the beds a shade of bright blue that reminded him of Violet Beauregarde; high on coke and blasting Snoop Dogg's hit single, “Gin & Juice.”

“
You know, I usually don't like rap music,” Edgar had said at the time. “But this is pretty catchy.”

After that, Victor made them take the CD with them. They'd never been able to hook up to it without Edgar breaking down and laughing, but when the week was over he packed it with his stuff and took it home. It had been on his iPod ever since.

“Sorry Snoop. Gotta concentrate.”

He shut the stereo off and turned the AC on. A frigid gust hit him in the face and arms as the air loudly came blasting out.

“God that feels good right now.”

A moment later a resounding thump rang out on his left side. He nearly jumped out of his seat as he turned to face another monster – a woman this time – with stringy blonde hair sticking out of her head in patchy clumps. She had started out pounding both fists on the driver's side window but soon gave up and pressed her open mouth against it, sucking at the tinted glass.

It's like those fish at the doctor's office
, he thought,
the ones that eat algae off the walls
.

He could see inside the woman's mouth to the back of her throat. Her tongue was chewed up to a pulp. She was missing several teeth including her two front ones, which looked like they might have come out before she was transformed into a walking corpse. She was dressed like a streetwalker so it came as little surprise to Edgar, who assumed that women only turned tricks to score illegal drugs anyway. He knew from years on the job that women like that worked at airport hotels all over the world, buying rooms and placing ads for Johns online. He was grateful once more that he'd never sunk so low as to hire one, even for comfort. He knew a pilot years back who'd been robbed at gunpoint by a pimp who had literally caught him with his pants down in Singapore.

Play with fire
, he thought,
and eventually you will get burned.

The hooker let out a loud, distressed moan of hunger. She ran her fingers pitifully down the windows, almost as if she was begging him to get out and kindly let her take a bite out of him with her hobo teeth. He could see her fingernails were chipped and cracked, and in some places torn off completely, exposing the sensitive quick of the nail.

“Sorry sweetheart,” he said, a feeling of renewed confidence coming over him. “But I’ve got a flight to catch.”

He put it in drive and the car shot forward with a sudden jerk toward the exit and Century Boulevard. There were people blocking his immediate path out of the parking lot – a landscaper missing his right arm at the elbow, a tall white guy with spiky black hair in an expensive suit covered with bloodstains and looking like a charred palm tree; and a short, severely overweight woman with a huge ass wearing pink sweat pants, a bejeweled, sequined T-shirt, and flip flops. The woman carried the gnarled remains of a lap dog still in her arms, while the empty leash dangled from her other hand. There were huge chunks torn out of the now deceased animal. A sickening shade of dirty yellow puss ran out of the bite wounds and over her manicured hand with French tip fingernails. She clutched the remains to her out of instinct, emitting a low growl sounding like a sinister siren as she waddled forward in between the men.

There were more monsters out in the streets, but Edgar knew he could drive around most of them. These three stood between him and his escape plan. They'd have to be dealt with, one way or another.

“
Fair warning,” he said darkly as he brought his hand down and sounded the horn.

He noticed the monsters in the streets turning at the sound of the noise, their heads rising up like wild beasts as they sniffed at the air. It was then that he realized they were drawn to sound as well as movement and smell. If he was going to make it out of this nightmare alive, he'd have to do a better job of keeping a low profile – or find a way to blend in.

He put his foot down hard on the gas and drove straight into the three ghouls blocking his path, gripping the wheel confidently with both hands and bracing for an impact. He felt the grill of the automobile hit the bodies before he heard it. The woman was in the middle when he collided with them. She was so short that she instantly went under the car, taking the corpse of her rat pup with her. The others bookended the hood of the SUV, both of their heads whipping forward dramatically on impact like two stoned teenage boys headbanging at a rock concert. Only instead of coming back up again with their fingers twisted up in a heavy metal salute to their favorite bands rock guitarist solo, they collided hard with the hood – the force of the blow cracking the landscapers skull. Edgar didn't stop to see if he was dead.

Instinctively he pressed down on the pedal, causing the wheels to pull the men’s legs under the tires and spin them away from the speeding vehicle, their ragged clothes making them look like flags whipping around violently in a gale wind. Edgar could feel the woman beneath the car hitting the undercarriage as he bore down on her. He felt only relief that it had worked. He caught a fleeting glimpse of the expressionless face of the Latino man just as his gray brains slid through the gash in his forehead and down the front of his tattered uniform. It was all over in seconds and Edgar was out on the street at last.

Cars jammed up the short distance between him and the airport departures entrance, but he wasn't worried about that now. He piloted the Escalade up onto the center divider, covering the short distance of stalled and abandoned vehicles before turning back to the right and using the cars weight to push a Toyota Corolla and a Mazda Miata easily out of his path. He saw a few mangled people out there, moving in between the cars, searching for living things to eat. He didn't see any normal-looking people. He passed the Police Checkpoint station that had been set up after 9/11 and was never taken back down. Whoever had been left in charge had done him a favor by setting up the wooden RESTRICED ACCESS signs and blocking off incoming traffic. Edgar barreled through them like they were made out of matchsticks, leaving a trail of scattered plywood in his wake.