EYEHEARTZOMBIES

Like I said before, there’s about 275 miles between Vegas and L.A. and most of that is scrub desert. It’s only about four hours if you can get up a good run, but I didn’t want to call too much attention to myself. I drove forty-five the whole way and it took me six hours. I had passed through Barstow while the whole city slept and just pulled into Los Angeles proper around four in the morning. I pulled into a Super Eight motel and got a room for the rest of the night. I paid the attendant for three nights, but I knew I’d probably only use the one.

He gave me the room key and I drove the car around to my designated parking space. I went into the room, locked the door behind me, sank to the floor and cried.

I don’t know what I was really crying about. I wasn’t sad that Max was dead. I think it was just anger and frustration coming out of me. And the fact that my only family, the Mob, had turned it’s back to me. They couldn’t - wouldn’t - help me and there was nothing I could do about it. I had broken their rules and so I was left to fend for myself.

My sobs died after a few minutes, maybe ten, and I stood up again. I was hungry, but I didn’t feel like going out again. Instead I stripped down and took a shower, then washed my clothes as well as I could in the sink. I didn’t have a lot of blood on me, just a few spots on the arm of my shirt from stabbing the first goon in the eye. Most of that came off but I decided to get rid of it. I used my room key to rip a hole in the arms of the shirt, then used my teeth and fingers to rip the sleeves off below the middle of the upper arm. They almost looked like short sleeves, except they weren’t hemmed or even. Oh well, I wasn’t trying to win any fashion awards.

I hung the clothes up on the shower curtain rod to dry and I lay down in the bed and went to sleep.

When I woke up, the maid was knocking on the door. I yelled at her to go away and she did. I laid down and went back to sleep again, but it was a fitful sleep.

I dreamed I was back in Vegas, back in the Flamingo. This time it was Max who was hunting me. I was trying to hide in my room. I was trying to force myself into the cubby hole behind the floor safe in my closet. I was sweating and scrambling at the heavy safe, trying to move it, but it wouldn’t budge. I could hear his footsteps outside the closet door, see his shadow under the edge of the door. The door starts to slide back and the closet is filled with a bright light. I squint against it, trying to get a good look at Max before he kills, but all I can see if the barrel of his gun, pointing down at me. He pulls the trigger.

I sat up in bed. I was covered in sweat and had thrown all of the sheets off of the bed. I had thrown a pillow to the other side of the room, too. Obviously I had been thrashing around in my sleep, fighting against dream safes and trying to hide from dead enemies. I didn’t even try to go back to sleep again.

Instead, I got up and took another shower to rinse off the horror sweat. My clothes were dry, so I dressed again and dropped the key off at the office. The day clerk, a much older man than the one that had been there the night before, asked me if I wanted my third day’s deposit back. I told him to keep it and see if he could forget I had been there. He gave me a funny look, then nodded and said he’d see what he could do.

I jumped in the car and left again, driving around Los Angeles looking for a safe spot.

I didn’t find any hideaways in Los Angeles. I know that with all the news about how crime-ridden of a town it is you won’t believe me, but I didn’t. The town just didn’t feel safe, so I moved on. I picked up another gun first, though. A Remington hunting rifle. And a few hundred rounds of ammunition for both guns. I wouldn’t need them, though. I decided to continue my journey through California. I started driving north towards Modesto. Ultimately I had aims on making it to Seattle or Canada. Try and get away from all of this mess in the desert.