can’t bury the undead – night one
amc popcorn was so good & expensive, i kept the leftovers and finished it before i got home. im waiting for my stomach to call for help. and yes out on a early monday night is a surprise.
it was that fateful night when everyone in the gaslamp area celebrated the change of season beginning of the year spring. there was no explosion, no storm in the horizon, no indication that something happened. something did happen though. i have no theory how it started but it made me sick to my stomach and it was an invisible wave that i or we couldnt avoid.
at first it was all silent and confusion began to fill the air.
then came the screams. my god, the screams. i wanted to put my hands over my ears but they already echoed in my mind.
people who were stupid enough to only stare in horror got overwhelmed while the darkness unveiled the night. screams of help turned into grossly sounds of flesh being torn apart or eaten.
i was with two former co-workers of mine, on the fifth floor of the horton plaza parking structure. weve just finished watching a movie that had a twisted japanese version of episode four of star wars. both of them were smokers so they both lit each other with cigarettes. for me, i had the urge to drink a corona earlier but i’m on doctor’s order not to drink for the time being. seconds later, it was jessi’s expression of her face that caught my attention. her jaw literally dropped and her cigarette fell from her mouth. she was the first who saw one the horrors that changed that night forever.
it started when one of the undead valet attendants from the sixth floor made his way down to our floor. his eyes was lifeless and his flesh deteriorated nearly to the bone. we were all caught off our guard. he even grabbed kurts right arm and took a salivating attempt to bite it. with kurts lightning reflexes he was able to get out of his hold. i then without thinking delivered an over hand right to the valets face and he fell back near the ledge. like a true champ, he stood up slowly and looked un-phased. thats when jessi ran up and gave him a round house kick dead center in his chest. the kick was so hard; he toppled over and fell five stories to the sidewalk. id curiously looked over the ledge, nodded, and humorously sprinkled what was left of my popcorn in the air. the popcorn, all scattered, took their time to fall on the ground and onto the undead. it wasnt out of respect because i knew the night wasnt going to end there. besides, i had no 40 oz of old e to pour out in celebration.
moments later being distracted, we were almost surrounded. kurt told us to get in and we all got in his mercedes without being touched. kurt dropped it in first and peeled out running over a half dozen other undead valet attendants and amc movie goers. as we were making our way out of the sixth floor, this was kurts test in how to drift as he claims he watched tokyo drift a million times.
he made me proud when he pulled the e-brake and made the rear of the car swing graciously around slamming several undead employees from starbucks against the wall. that was no tall order since we all love starbucks right? yeah right.
kurt paused and checked his side view mirror. for a second he just chuckled thinking how’s he going to explain the damage to his insurance agent from geico. his deductible is completely insane. he drives like a madman. he doesnt believe in california stops, he believes in not stopping at all. i guess he wasnt in good hands after all.
jessi, whos riding shot gun, lit up another cigarette and got that i need a stiff drink look. i think god would smite you if you really wanted to know what shes thinking. well screw that, she would do that herself. remind me to buy you a drink before we play pool. its kind of hard to buy someone a drink if you lose all your cash money beforehand. its like a nightmare, it gets worse and worse.
i was in the back sucking up all that second hand smoke trying to make a call. to whom or is it to who, i cant recall. i just wanted to reach out and touch someone for some reason. but i couldn’t connect to anyone. i threw my crack berry down in disgust. if im still alive, ill defect and get an ipad for that reason alone. stupid verizon.
when we reached the first floor near the exit, he stopped instead of going full throttle out of here. its the smell that got to us. it was the smell of rubber stench from the michelin tires. it was annoyingly pungent.
one hundred feet away before the gate was a little boy. he had a padres jersey, black reebok shorts, and his hat had the black lantern symbol on it. he stood there. he looked like he was standing his ground like the guards at the coronado naval base. they look for suspicious characters. they look for whats next for dinner.
unlike kurt, he un-released the emergency brake, dropped it in neutral, and revved the engine thinking what to do next. jessi shook her in disagreement and id put my hand on kurts shoulder letting him know that this is a bad idea whatever hes thinking. no dude, this is not right.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
kurt popped in first and off we went like a bat out of hell.
i cant believe whats happening.
just before we saw the kid in total view, kurt at the last second changed his mind.
we swerved to the left and slammed into those three and a half foot cement poles in front of the parking ticket booths.
id blacked out the moment after impact.
smelling of burnt oil,radiator fluid and no kid in sight, i was slowly getting out of unconsciousness. my vision was slightly blurry since ive lost my reading glasses. but i see my friends with their heads limped down. i dont know if their alive.
as I tried to reach for them to check if theyre alive, i was suddenly being dragged out the shattered back window. theyve got my shirt, my hair, my neck. theyve certainly got a hold on me. i struggled. i panicked. i felt the anxiety from the pit of my stomach to get away. soon i was then half way out on my back on top of the trunk. i scrambled and swatted desperately to keep a half dozen hands off me.
to see who the hell was dragging me, i looked up and thats when
heh dont you love it when you get an upset stomach minutes later after trying to go sleep?
to be continued at a future time