“Is that cherry pie in the back?” Skylar asked. It was. She pulled it out and set it on the checkered tile counter top. “That sounds so good right now. I wonder if they have vanilla ice cream? A la mode sounds like heaven right now.”
I'm so in love with her
, Chad thought as Skylar plunged into the freezer, pulling out several quarts of Breyers and setting them on the counter next to her fruit pie. She had the lid off in seconds and was soon up to her wrist in the stuff with an oversized spoon.
It was worth it; worth being trapped here just to spend one more day with her. How many people ever get that?
He pulled her to him and kissed the top of her head.
“What's that for?” she asked through a mouthful of ice cream.
“No reason,” he said. “Just an end-of-the-world kiss.”
She laughed and covered her mouth to keep from spitting up her dessert.
The skies filled with a terrifying roar as fighter jets passed overhead. A moment later several loud explosions sounded in the distance, out past the freeway and towards the ocean. The world went dead quiet for a brief moment, and then the low moaning and pounding returned as an army of flesh-hungry corpses demanded to be let in to feast on them.
“I'm scared,” Skylar wailed, tears welling up in her eyes.
“Me too, babe,” Chad admitted. “Me too.”
“Chad?” Skylar turned her eyes to his.
“What is it?”
“I'm pregnant,” she whispered.
* * *
The day the zombie apocalypse struck, and the whole damned world came unglued, started out just like any other day. Just as he'd expected, Chad found Skylar hanging out at Jan and Dean's, except she was lurking in a booth near the back of the restaurant rather than their usual spot at the counter. He explained his visit with her father on the walk back home, and she begged him to forgive her. They'd agreed they wouldn't talk about what was coming. They'd agreed to put time on pause until they'd had a chance to catch their breath and come up with a plan. They'd stayed up well into the early morning hours making love until they passed out from sheer exhaustion and lack of body fluids. Chad woke up first and snuck in a hot shower. Skylar wasn't far behind him, the sound of the running water luring her in like a siren's song. Chad didn't complain, even though the cold draft of air she let in made his skin crawl and his balls shrivel up. An involuntary shiver raced through him like someone had just walked over his grave, but he pushed it from his mind, yearning to focus on her alone. He felt like he hadn't seen her in years instead of just weeks. He wanted to drink in every inch of her while there was still time. He watched in childlike wonder as her petite white hand, laced over the top with tiny white scars like rivulets of frost from years of cutting, delicately pulled the moldy tropical fish shower curtain back before she scurried in with a squeal.
“Close it up,” he barked, as she rushed into his arms shivering so hard her teeth chattered. “You're letting all the heat out.”
“It's cold,” she protested. “This wouldn't be an issue if you didn't keep your thermostat set lower than the morgue, you know.”
“Enjoy it while you can,” he said, gracefully sidestepping one of their longest running arguments. “Once the power goes the only time we'll feel cold like that is during the winter months. In fact the normal weather conditions and lack of water will drive out most of the survivors.”
“Only because Los Angeles is a desert wasteland that was never meant to have millions of people living here,” she countered.
He sighed and leaned over, the tips of his fingers catching the gummy plastic and yanking it shut again. He got a good look at her in the process and felt himself stir back to life anew, her nudity still a shock despite the previous evenings unrelenting carnality.
“But I don't want to live anywhere else,” he said, returning to their intimate huddle under the jet of piping hot water. “Including New Los Angeles.”
“Neither do I,” she agreed, standing on her tiptoes and arching up to kiss him. He ran his hands over her warm, wet curves, pulling her deeper into their kiss, their lips parting as their slick tongues met, and just like that he was painfully hard once more, pressing into her soft belly. She'd put on a little weight in her time away, but he didn't mind. In fact, he thought it looked good on her. Probably all that high quality food, instead of Taco Bell and Norms like he usually fed her.
She pulled back, her lips curving into a smile as her fingers curled around his throbbing member.
“Easy there,” he teased. “That thing's dangerous.”
“Don't I know it,” she exhaled, turning around and pressing her hands into the tile of the shower wall. She arched her back and leaned towards him, her deep hunger arousing him further still. He was inside her, warm, tight, slick, his hands roaming from her pert breasts and taut stomach, up over her smooth ass cheeks. The water pounded down on his back, spraying past him, and coating her in a shimmering rainbow of light as he drove deeper and deeper into her.
When they'd finished, they dressed and walked down the block holding hands just like any normal couple on any other normal bright and sunny Southern California afternoon heading out to get breakfast. They strolled across Fairfax, running through traffic to make the light, then down to Wilshire, walking past the light display at LACMA, and passing by the La Brea tar pits. There was an amazing cafe inside the museum with an omelet bar that featured black truffle oil and crispy pancetta. Chad would have loved to eat there, but he knew they were living on borrowed time, that the odds of them making it through their meal and back to safety were slim as it was. If he was going to have one last meal out in the world it was going to be at his favorite greasy spoon. They passed the El Rey Theater, and walked past the long line out in front of Jan and Dean's, heading straight for the counter. Chad took a moment to appreciate the interior design for once, knowing it might be the last time he laid eyes on it. The place was done up in 60s surfer chic, with pictures of James Dean, the Beach Boys, Elvis, and Janis Joplin. Each table had it's own little jukebox, the selection ranging from “Mr. Sandman,” by the Chordettes, all the way to “Enter Sandman,” by Mettalica. Every hour they'd play “Surf City” or “Deadman's Curve.”
I'm really going to miss this place
, he thought, as they snagged the last pair of stools at the counter, and their favorite waiter, Mort, came over with a smile and two plastic, grease-coated menus.
“Well, if it isn't my favorite couple!”
“Hey, Mort! How's tricks?” Chad said with a wink.
“Been busier than usual,” Mort declared, pouring him a coffee without asking. He brought it with a fresh glass of water for Skylar, taking care to add an extra lemon wedge. “Where have you been hiding? I've seen your lady here almost every day for the last two weeks, but there's been no sign of you in a while.”
“TCB, my man,” Chad hedged, popping open one of the non-dairy creamers from the ceramic dish sitting on the counter, and dumping it into his sludge-black coffee. “Taking care of business.”
“You look amazing, as always,” Mort sweet-talked Skylar.
“Thanks, Mort,” she blushed.
“I'm serious,” he said, fixing her with a curious stare. “There is just something different about you. You look like you're glowing. What's your secret, kid?”
“I'm in love,” she smiled coyly. “That's all.”
“Ain't life grand?” Chad broadcast with an ear-to-ear grin. “Say, Mort, can you bring me the usual?”
“One heart attack on a plate, coming right up,” Mort sang out, dinging the bell for emphasis. “And what about you, little lady? You want a poached egg with four strips of bacon and a side of hash? Maybe fry you up a jalapeño to go with it?”
“Not today, Mort. I'll just have something light. How about a melon and some cottage cheese?”
“For you, my love, anything,” Mort replied, turning to walk back to the kitchen and put in her order. Chad looked at her like she had lost her mind.
“You sure about that, babe?” he asked. “You know, this might be the last chance we get to eat out.”
“I'm sure,” she said, a twinkle in her eyes. “I'm just glad to be here with you.”
She took him by the hand, and even though he'd never been much for public displays of affection, he leaned in and gave her a long, soft kiss.
“I wouldn't want to be anywhere else,” he vowed, his forehead touching hers still, her lips curling into a simple smile.
If I could just stay in this moment forever, I would,
he thought.
A loud crash broke the spell they were in, causing Chad to jump to his feet and grab her hand. He turned towards the street where a bus had crashed into the back of several parked cars, shoving one of them through the window of the restaurant.
“I think that's our cue,” Chad announced.
“But you didn't get to eat your favorite meal yet,” Skylar protested.
“No chance for that now.”
Chad pulled her along with him towards the front door, ignoring the screaming customers who were running back and forth inside the restaurant arguing about whether or not it was a terrorist attack.
“Time's up!”
Chad yanked the door open. What he saw outside made him gasp in surprise. The large, black man, who had been driving the bus, was being eaten alive by several homeless people, all chewing at him at the same time. Thick spurts of blood shot out of his neck and coated the inside of the windshield. Chad could hear his muffled screams. In his thrashing, the driver accidentally opened the doors of the bus, unleashing a flood of blood-covered undead monsters out onto Wilshire. There was a heavyset businessman in an expensive suit holding up his cellphone filming the accident. A small crowd had gathered behind him. The zombies wasted no time tearing into them, attacking the man with the phone first. He let out a shrill scream of pain as a homeless man chomped down on the meat of his arm and shook his head like a terrier with a freshly caught rat in its mouth. Chad turned the opposite way and saw that several more of the infected were already blocking the path back to his apartment. They were attacking anything living: joggers and businessmen and mothers with strollers taking their newborns for a walk.
“Which way do we go?” Skylar implored, tugging on his hand. Another loud crash went off to their left as a blue Honda Civic smashed into a red Jetta, setting off the air bag.
“I don't know,” Chad yelled back in frustration. “Wait. There! On the other side of the bus. That street leads back to 6
th
. There are less people in that direction!”
“Are you sure?”
“As sure as I'm going to be,” Chad yelled. “Let's go!”
The next few minutes were a blur. Chad was running as fast as his legs would carry him through a nightmare landscape of mayhem and death. All around him people were fighting and dying and being torn to shreds, then coming back to life and joining in the terror. He could feel the blood thumping in his ears as his heart pumped at maximum speed, like a runaway semi with no brakes headed down a steep embankment smack into rush hour traffic. Sweat poured down his forehead in greasy rivulets, bursting out of his pits and streaking down his arms. The air was like wildfire in his lungs, burning the way he imagined eternal damnation would feel, the way they described it in all those stupid stories in Sunday School that were used to frighten children into behaving. His senses were on high alert from all the adrenaline he had in him. He could smell his own stench the way they could in that moment, and all the wretched and useless fear wafting off him along with it, calling the newly risen dead right to them as if they were a hot and ready meal from Ralph's. They hadn't made it more than two blocks in the chaos.
They're just too many of them,
Chad agonized.
They're everywhere
.
There is no safe place.
“We can't stay out here,” Skylar yelled, pulling his attention back to her. “It's just a matter of time until they tear us to pieces.”
“If we go inside one of these buildings they'll just follow. Plus we don't know that there aren't already like a hundred more of them waiting for us in there.”
“We don't have a choice anymore,” she screamed in frustration.
“We always have a choice!” Chad tried to sound encouraging instead of angry. She seemed to soften.
“Please, baby,” Skylar pleaded, looking vulnerable for the first time since he'd met her. “I don't think I can run much further. I feel like I'm going to freak out.”
“That one,” he said, pointing to the first building. There was a couch holding the front gate open, as if movers had been interrupted on the job and simply abandoned it. “The door is jammed open, but we should be good on the second floor. Come on.”
They darted into the building, trampling up and over the expensive couch, then up the single flight of stairs, a pair of skinny, fast moving, freshly turned zombies close on their heels. They barely made it inside before the thudding started.
* * *
“How long have you known?” Chad asked. His head was swimming at the revelation.
“Ever since my father kidnapped me against my will,” she disclosed. “The doctors did a full health scan on me the minute they got me under the mountain.”
“How far along are you?”
“Just six weeks. You should have seen the look on my dad's face when they told him he was going to be a grandfather. I thought Mister Macho was going to pass out right then and there.”
That's why he wanted me to find her
, Chad thought.
He never gave a rat's ass what happened to her before, but now that his grandchild is at risk he's willing to do whatever it takes, even offer me asylum from the end of the world, to get her back.
“Are you angry?” she asked.
“What? No. Of course not. I'm just processing it all,” Chad said thoughtfully. “It's not every day that you find out you're going to be a dad, you know?”