Undead L.A. 1 (40 page)

“
If that's true, then how did they get it into the general population in the first place?”

“
That's easy, man,” Shiloh smiled, like it was obvious. “Chem trails. They've been spraying us down for years and using government planes to do it; just hiding in plain sight. Shit, between the air and the water we're probably all infected with God-only-knows what.”

He turned around and went back to making coffee. It was like a calling for him now that the world had changed. DLU officially gave him the shop as well, since the former owner lived out in Beverly Hills – not that it mattered since no one used money anymore. People just shared the basic stuff and bartered for shit like booze and books and porn magazines. Those became worth their weight in gold overnight, since people could no longer run DVD players or go online. I don't think I'll ever get over the loss of the Internet.

The homeless camps are downtown. Most everyone believes that this thing started there. Shit, it's the only thing we've ever heard repeated about an origin. It's not really up for debate at this point, not by anyone wanting to be taken seriously. All we talk about is how the second part, the part that made the virus go off, was introduced. Shiloh thinks that maybe they slipped something in with the methadone they give the addicts down there, or added it to the food at the soup kitchens. From there it spread like fucking crazy in every direction until it reached it's first natural stopping point – a break in the feeding chain.

Then shit got harder for the walking corpses because rigor mortis set in. That's when I think they go really super crazy. You see now they have all that hunger building up inside of them, like they're going to die in terrible pain if they don't consume something living, but they can't move fast anymore. But rigor mortis is only a temporary and inconvenient condition if you're a zombie. That's what the new dead can't understand because they're not using any higher brain functions. So they get angrier and angrier until by the time they can start feeding again they’re super fast once more. We called this shit ‘the second wave’ when it first happened. You see people were fucking praying that this shit was over once rigor mortis set in. They were on their knees in the streets thanking God for letting them live. They were sure that the dead bodies would lie back down and be at eternal rest; sure that the nightmare was almost over. They were celebrating, drinking, laughing, you name it. It was crazy to see people risking their lives taunting the hungry and immobile dead, never realizing for an instant how close they were to blood thirsty monsters with no remorse and insatiable appetites for human flesh. There were people who actually thought they were in the rapture and had been spared by God. There were people who acted like it was more annoying than anything else; there were even people that went back to work. I know for a fact that the Starbucks that's up on Ocean Park by 26
th
never even closed during the first 48 hours. One of my friends stopped in to grab his usual Grande Caramel Machiatto like nothing had happened, like it was a bad fight that had broken out during a baseball game, just another bench-clearing brawl for the Dodgers. He said they had a hand printed sign out front that said to pay in cash.

Second wave took a pretty heavy toll. Shiloh says that's Darwinism, or maybe it’s karma, but I still feel bad for all the people who were caught off guard and unaware when their time came, even if it is their own damn fault.  After the carnage and chaos began to die down once more, the rest of us – the real survivors – began to notice something crazy. The longer they didn't feed the monsters, the crazier they became; but once they had fresh meat to eat they were calmer, more manageable. They slowed down a little. We were cautious at first, or I guess I mean
they
were since I wasn't allowed within ten feet of a zombie on purpose. They feed them rats and mice from the pet shop, a little at a time instead of all at once. Soon the zombies were letting them put leashes and collars on them. They weren't quite like pets. You couldn't do anything with them. You couldn't play catch or make them fetch, not really since they never brought anything back, but you could wield them, use them as security. And there did seem to be some low level sort of loyalty if the same person fed the same zombie over and over again. I wouldn't call it recognition, but some do. Thing is, you run out of mice to feed them and you are fucked. A pit bull will give you a chance to go out and find some damn dog food if you ran out, but a zombie will eat your fucking hand right off if you stick it out without warning. They can't distinguish between their master and a stranger, which makes them pretty lousy guard dogs in my opinion. Shiloh says I'm wrong. He says there is still some kind of muscle memory going on in there, that they still have the motor functions and their innate Buddha seed. I have no idea what he's talking about to be totally honest. I still get Buddha and Krishna confused. Hell, I barely read the Bible through once and I don't remember much. I was just trying to impress a new girl who turned out to be a total skank anyway. Never mind that now though. It doesn't really matter anymore. Nothing does, I guess.

Word spread around my hood that the zombies could be taken down a notch by feeding them. Guys took to keeping containers full of rats and mice with them at all times, but it wasn't enough to fend off the ones that had just eaten a full-sized human. It took time to get a system down and people got messed up sometimes in the process, or sometimes they just got lazy about it. Some dudes would kill on the spot to keep their mindless eating machines in just the right place where they wanted them, in between weak and fast. I knew a guy who used to use a slingshot to knock seagulls out of the air and feed them by hand to the monsters. We were always telling him that he was going to lose his arm one day, that they'd have to hack it off to keep him safe. Guy by the name of Gideon. He used to have his eyes scanning the ground anytime he went anywhere, scouring back and forth like crazy, looking for just the right sized rock or hunk of metal to use in his sling shot. He was fucking dead on with that thing too, ‘on the money’ as they used to say before money became worthless. Gideon disappeared after a while and all we got to explain his absence were rumors. Some people said he paddled out and drifted down to Manhattan Beach. One version says it was a rip tide that caught him and another that he did it on purpose to get away from all the fighting. Some people say he crossed DLU and that's why he went away. I don't believe it. Thing is, everyone is too scared to ask the leaders of the DLU except for Bronan, and when you ask Bronan he just gives you this creepy fucking smile that says you don't want to know. It's a mess.

I'd already pulled my suit on and been waiting for almost ten full minutes, sweating the thing up, when the knock finally came. A small knot of tired looking surfers in suits with their boards under their arms awaited me when I finally got all the locks undone and pulled open my front door. They had three armed guards with them in Dogtown hoodies. One of the guys had a container full of mice and a long feeding stick, the kind of thing that old people used to use to grab cans off hard to reach places up in their cupboards, back when there were old people. The zombie apocalypse took care of the whole social security debate as well. I don't know if they still exist out there somewhere, but I haven't seen anyone over fifty years old since this shit started.

“
Took you long enough,” I said, grabbing my six-one Lost board and two extra bars of Sticky Bumps surf wax. I'd been happy riding my Mayhem shredder while everyone else I knew was all on the Al Merrick tip. Don't get me wrong. Kelly is a great surfer and all. He didn't need to win over ten world championships to prove that. But the guy could just as easily be riding a pool noodle at this point as a Channel Islands board and get the same results. It's Kelly getting those wins, not the board, so shelling out extra dough for the logo has always seemed like a waste of money to me.

“
It's popping out there man,” said Gus. “Supposedly Bronan has been out all day directing traffic.”

“
Since when do we need to direct traffic in the apocalypse?”

Gus shrugged. None of the other guys with him said shit or made eye contact. They were four younger guys I didn't know, but one of them looked like a kid I used to go to school with that everyone just called Nards. They were super grommy by any account, especially compared to Mountain Man Gus.

We used to call him all sorts of names back in the day, from Yeti to Gentle Giant. At six-foot-four Gus lumbered over almost any group of people. He was wiry, with ropy muscles packed on a werewolf's frame and patches of animal-like fur running up his arms and legs. He'd come from Portland once upon a time and picked up a gig as a lighting guy in Hollywood with aspirations of someday moving up to being a cameraman. Despite being big enough to simply intimidate anyone who crossed his path, Gus acted like a playful kid who didn't know his size. He was a real Lenny, you know, from
Of Mice and Men?
As in
'I will love him and pet him and call him George'
. And it didn't help his cause at all that he was a total fucking hipster on top of it. I'm talking skinny jeans, clunky black framed glasses, odd pastel plaid combinations, tank tops, old timey facial hair, low top Vans with no socks, all of it. He was also into micro brews and making his own bread and retro photography with old cameras and speak easy bars and shit like that. I once saw him build a picnic table in his living room for fun. It was a dead week out on Lake Pacific with no swell so he bought some lumber and hammered it out, sanding and varnishing it while listening to some jug band Irish music with a lead banjo. Fucking thing was scary perfect too, like something you'd spend good money for at a store.

“
Where's my brother?”

I knew Caesar had been on early morning patrols. He'd rolled out early when one of the other DLU's had come knocking. They generally swept the streets cleaning up One Blood's messes from the night before and reporting back to the higher ups if there were any issues. Caesar said he liked to get work out of the way nice and early so he could enjoy the rest of the day.

“Last I saw he was paddling out,” Gus barked. “You coming or not?”

“
Yeah I'm coming.”

I shut the door behind me and followed them out into the streets, heading past Sidewalk Cafe and out toward the skate park with my board under my arm. I heard the sound of chattering overhead and looked up to see wild parakeets flying between the palm fronds, moving from tree to tree in the safety of groups. I smiled. If they could survive this, then so could we.

*** *** ***

It feels good to be back in the water
, I thought as I paddled out the long way around the break to make sure I didn't end up in the way of Bronan and Caesar and the rest of their crew. A four-foot wave broke in front of me in the distance, sending a foaming wall of white water drifting toward me. I leaned forward and pushed the nose of my board down, easily sliding under the waters surface where it was still calm and coming up on the other side. Behind me I heard the wave rumbling toward shore as a salty mist blew back over me.

You never really get used to that first icy plunge where your head goes under, but in time you grow to love it. I can tell you this though, it will wake you the fuck up way faster than coffee! That's a fact, man.

By the time I was finally over to where the waves were breaking, I'd already seen Bronan and another guy named Tubes catch a few rides. Caesar gave me a hard time right away.

“
What took you so long, bro? You scared or something? Thought you was a charger.”

He splashed water at me as I paddled past him. He was sitting sidewise in the break, leaning away from the sets in order to trash talk me. What he didn't realize, because he wasn't watching, was that a new set was about to roll in and he was positioned perfectly for take off. By paddling around him on the shore side I drew his attention away from the approaching set.

“What's the matter, Yerm the Worm? Zeds got your tongue, bro?”

I smiled as I came around him and shifted into position, paddling hard and snaking what should have been his ride.

“Later, broseph,” I shouted as I popped to my feet, dropping in on a sweet wave that seemed to be gaining size as it rolled toward the breakwater rocks.

“
Ah shit!” That was all I could hear before the wind blew his response away. He'd missed out on an amazing wave and it was all his own fault.

I shot down the front face of the curling water, picking up speed as I came out in front of a clean section, then digging in hard as I turned and began to climb up the face of the wave. With a hard twist at the waist I brought my lower half through, pushing down and pumping with my legs as the tail end came through the cascading salt water, and extending my arms out to keep my balance. A white fan of continuous spray shot out the top of the wave as my fins carved across the face. I let the momentum carry me forward until I was slotted back in, then turned to ride toward the shore as the rest of the section closed out. I kicked out and ducked under the water, letting the rest of the wave pass me so I wouldn't have to paddle all the way back out from scratch. When I came up, I heard Bronan hooting.

“Hell yeah, bro! Nice ride!”

“
He got lucky,” Caesar said, but he was smiling too, looking proud. “Besides I taught him everything he knows.”

The other guys and Gus were now vying for the best position to take on the next set. I paddled around them as I came to the outside of the break so I could catch my breath. Most people don't realize how insanely tiring surfing is, or how much cardio you do in the water. I didn't want to burn myself out too early. It looked like there were going to be good waves for at least a few hours more.