Undead L.A. 2 (23 page)

“Why am I here?” Chad looked around, feeling lost.

“You're here because of an agreement we have with General Franks,” Grandpa Joe reminded him. “His work is very important to us, and we'd prefer he isn't distracted during this transitional phase.”

“Oh,” Chad puzzled, not understanding. “There was something he wanted me to do. What was it?”

“He'd like you to find Skylar,” the old man said. “We all would. It's important that we locate her before the event starts. Once things kick off the chances of either of you surviving are severely diminished.”

A mild burst of euphoria flooded through him, causing him to relax and smile.

He's doing this to me,
Chad thought.
I don't know how, but he's the one causing me to feel like I took a quarter dose of ecstasy and it's just kicking in.

“And when exactly is the event starting?” Chad mildly asked, as if he were asking what time dinner reservations were for a large party he'd be attending, instead of what time the world was going to end.

“Stage one is already completed,” Grandpa Joe calmly replied, unable to hide the look of pride on his face. “We've been administering an airborne contagion inside America for years now using chemtrails. We've also worked closely with the top multinational agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporations in the world to introduce it into the food supply. Last, but not least, we used human agents to contaminate water supplies around the planet with it. According to our predictive models, ninety-nine percent of the inhabitants of this planet are now carrying a latent form of the virus, including you.”

“Well, that's just terrific,” Chad voiced, as a second burst of euphoria flooded him.
 

You've got to fight this
, a little voice whispered in the back of his mind.
This isn't real.

“So what happens next?”

“Next, we introduce stage two,” Grandpa Joe said with enthusiasm. “Stage two is a secondary infection that activates the initial one and transforms it into something much more powerful: what you'd call the zombie apocalypse. Then all that's left to do is sit back and watch the show, so to speak. And what a show it's going to be! Humans will turn on one another like wild animals. Driven by their hunger, their feasting on flesh and blood to survive, infecting everyone they bite in the process, and spreading the disease like wildfire. It's going to be total carnage down there. We're all very excited.”

Grandpa Joe pointed out over the landscape towards the tall buildings of the downtown Los Angeles skyline.

“But those are people,” Chad protested.
 

“Well let's be honest now, Chad,” the old man laughed. “You've never really cared for others, not until Skylar came along. All you've ever cared about is yourself—and if you do what we're asking, you'll be taken care of and rewarded beyond your wildest dreams. So let's not start in on how the poor little people are going to suffer.”

It's true
.
I've lived a pretty selfish life, but still that doesn't mean I want to wipe humanity off the face of the Earth!

“How long will it take?” Chad asked, feeling the guilt rise back up in his chest.

“We'll let things go for about six weeks or so,” Grandpa Joe continued. “Humans will do most of the work for us. We'll send a sweeper team in to clean up the last of the stragglers before sending down the workers to start the process of stripping your planet for resources.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Chad protested, holding his hands up to ward off the fog in his head. “You expect the survivors on the ship to go back down to Earth after you've turned it into a zombie wasteland, and help you pick apart the bones of their former planet?”

“Don't be ridiculous,” the old man scoffed. “Humans are far too delicate and emotional for that kind of work. Among the planets we've assimilated are several classes of worker drones no different in theory than bees are on this planet. These guys are tough as hell and work 18 hours at a time before taking a break.”

Chad saw an image flash behind his eyes like it was being projected on a monitor. A group of creatures that looked like rocks were tearing apart everything in their paths. They went through cars and buildings like giant paper shredders, leaving a trail of fine mulch in their wake. The skin stretched over their lumpy bodies was like a hard shell, and their eyes were narrow, protected slits set into the sides of their heads. Each of them had at least six appendages, all fitted with sharp claws at the end. Chad shook his head, and the vision he was seeing of a row of these alien beasts demolishing a city block slowly faded.

“They're something else, aren't they?” Grandpa Joe remarked, letting out a long whistle of admiration. “Plus, their saliva is practically made out of acid so they can eat through anything with their mouths. Most importantly, for our purposes, they can lift hundreds of tons by themselves, which will come in handy once we clear off the surface and set up the heavy-duty mining equipment. They'll be doing the hard work while humans enjoy a new life beyond their wildest dreams.”

“So you're not moving in and taking over?” Chad asked. “I thought you wanted our planet.”

“We do, but we're more like what you would call hunter-gatherer types,” the old man explained. “We live in space, moving from one place to the next in search of resources to support our armada. You'll see for yourself one day soon, that is... if you live through this.”

“So you've come all the way out here to the middle of nowhere, as you put it, just to burn us to the ground and take all our shit? That's fucked up.”

“You've been given more than you will ever know,” Grandpa Joe laughed, “and what have you done with it? Squandered it fighting amongst yourselves. Our races are quite different. You think in terms only of yourselves and your immediate circle. We think in terms of the whole. You hoard wealth and resources for no reason. We share everything. In our world there is no cancer, no diseases of any kind. If something happens to one of us, it's like it's happened directly to all of us. There is no such thing as a billionaire in our society. A person like Donald Trump or Warren Buffet wouldn't be revered as a leader among our people—they'd be despised. Instead, humans put them on a pedestal and elect them to the highest offices of the land.”

“Hey, don't blame us for Trump, pal” Chad argued, feeling some of his former self returning with the anger. “He's practically an alien to us as well!”

“Your world has polluted the water, polluted the air, and children are dying of hunger and disease,” Grandpa Joe detailed. “You think of us as savage for what we're doing to you, as cruel lords torturing you like burning ants with a magnifying glass, but the truth is it is you who is cruel and selfish and unyielding in your lust for materialism and power. It is only because of us that any of you will survive, or even be remembered at all.”

The old man's lips moved, but Chad heard the words inside his mind like bad dubbing on a late night kung fu movie.

“Humans were bound to destroy themselves eventually. All we've done is speed up the process. This way
some
of you will survive. You will live perfect utopian lives beyond your wildest imaginations. There will be no more war, no murder, no suffering of any kind. You will have all of our medical expertise. You'll live to be hundreds of years old and explore the wonders of the galaxy; things you've never dreamed of in your life await you. All you have to do is find Skylar. She is your ticket to paradise, so to speak.”

Chad nodded his head, thinking over what he'd been told.

“So why would you bother saving any of us in the first place?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it is obvious you hate us,” Chad snapped. “You've made that clear with your little speech about how selfish and unevolved we are. So why bother keeping any of us around at all? Surely you could have just doused us all with your zombie virus and been done with it. Why go to the trouble of trying to preserve our corrupted, selfish species?”

“It's our way,” Grandpa Joe shrugged. “It's what we've always done, according to the oldest records we possess, which go back to a time long before the birth of your sun. These traditions have been handed down for millennia. First, we make deals with your world leaders in exchange for their cooperation. They in turn assure a smooth transition. We've estimated that we can take one million of your kind with us. They will live in a perfect version of this world, one that looks and feels just like this, like a simulacrum of what your world could have been.”

“You mean like pets in a floating space zoo,” Chad said sarcastically, reflexively jerking his head back as a fresh bolt of euphoria was starting to hit his brain, driving the sarcasm away.

“That's one way to look at it,” the old man consented. “As I said, we prefer to think of it as more of a floating paradise than a prison.”

“But that's essentially what it is,” Chad laughed. “You're not doing it for us. You just like taking trophies so you can point to us and say, ‘Look how primitive this species is.’ Is that about right?”

“You have a very unique interpretation of our actions. I will have to share it with the others. For now let's just get back to why you are here,” Grandpa Joe reasoned, looking annoyed for the first time. “The chosen ones are marked. They are chipped for tracking, and given an antidote to the stage one virus that prevents a stage two infection. Before you leave to go back up above, you'll be given the same.”

“And if I say no?” Chad tested. “What happens then?”

“You'll be condemning not only yourself, but the woman you love, to a horrible death,” Grandpa Joe vented. “Is that what you want?”

“What I want is to get you out of my head,” Chad said, wiping away what felt like snot from his nose. He looked down to see that his hand was covered in blood. “What the hell are you doing to me?”

“Your mind is resisting us,” the old man justified, his image starting to shimmer like a mirage. “Like I said, it takes a while for most of your kind to adjust. Let's wrap this up. If you succeed in finding Skylar, and don't get torn to shreds in the process, you'll be rewarded with a brand new life in New Los Angeles upon your return—including a mansion for the two of you to live in, along with many other perks. I don't think I have to tell you again what happens if you fail.”

“But how will I contact you once I do find her?”
 

“Don't worry,” the alien disguised as his Grandpa Joe said, patting him genially on the hand. “We'll find you.”

Grandpa Joe leaned in to hug him. Chad felt a wave of revulsion wash over him, like he was hugging a human-sized cockroach. Along with it came the same desire he'd had earlier to crawl away from this thing, but he found his body leaning in anyway, against his will, like he was caught in a tractor beam. He closed his eyes as gossamer dots of white light began to swirl around him in a clouded blur. The world felt like it was spinning, and just when he thought he wouldn't be able to bear it a moment longer, it slowed to a halt. He sat up sweating, completely naked, his heart racing. He was in his own bed.

“It was just a bad dream,” he told himself, his body shaking all over. “It had to be.”

But then he caught a glimpse of the back of his left hand, the one that Grandpa Joe had patted. There was a small blinking red light visible just underneath the skin. It burned when he touched the area, but there was no sign of a puncture mark. He had a brief memory float through his mind, one of lying on his back in what felt like a dentist's chair, as a long tube was inserted down his throat. General Franks was there, and so was the monster he'd seen. He shook his head to force it out of his mind.

I've got to find Skylar,
he thought.
It doesn't matter what else happens. I've got to find her and keep her safe from these things. But where would she have gone?
 

Then it hit him all at once—his favorite diner, Jan and Dean's. They'd gone there on their first date and it had become a ritual ever since, but Chad hadn't been back since she'd left him. He'd been too depressed to go in and face their favorite waiter Mort, knowing he'd ask where Skylar was and that he'd be hard pressed to come up with a good excuse. And with the bustling atmosphere the busy diner had all day long, it would be the safest place to hide in plain sight. For all he knew she was there now sipping the dark black coffee she loved, her eyes locked on the front door waiting for him to walk in and order breakfast.

“Hold on, baby,” Chad called out, hurriedly dressing and grabbing his keys. “I'm on my way.”

* * *

“I'm starting to get hungry again,” Skylar complained, jolting Chad out of his trip down memory lane. “Do you think they have peanut butter and crackers here?”

“Who doesn't have peanut butter?” Chad asked, getting to his feet and wandering into the kitchen. He could hear the moaning outside growing louder. The pounding on the front door and hallway walls had increased as well. They were drawing in greater numbers of the undead, practically ensuring they'd never make it out of the luxury apartments in the Miracle Mile alive.

It would take a full-blown miracle to make it out of here alive
, Chad mused, imagining a spokesperson or leasing agent gleefully delivering the line like an advertising jingle.
And just think, if you lived here you'd be dead by now!

He pulled open the fridge to reveal that it was chock full.
 

Thank God for small graces,
he thought.
At least we won't die of hunger for a while.

Skylar pushed him aside and unwrapped a promising looking wad of tinfoil to reveal a honey-baked ham. She peeled off a slice and noisily scarfed it down, stopping in between chews to take big swigs of orange juice right from the carton.

“Slow down and chew your food,” Chad teased her. “You're going to choke.”

“I can't help it,” Skylar rationalized. “I'm just so hungry. Aren't you?”

“Not really. But I guess everyone deals with stress differently.”