Lost in Los Angeles- Chapter 1
#1 of Lost in LA
Lost In Los Angeles- Chapter 1
Tortured, disjointed images blazed through my mind. An army of the undead, rotten flesh covering their emaciated frames and a perverse odor pervading the air around them. The cries of these creatures as they searched for their daily meal of flesh.
I was certain they could smell the fear radiating from my every pore, and thought it a miracle they didn't find me. I wasn't sure what I would do if I came face to face with one of these things, but I knew I wouldn't survive the encounter.
My breath caught in my throat as one of them turned to face me. My body was gripped in the fierce paralysis of fear as it stumbled towards me on legs with bone showing, its arms extended as if to hug me.
I knew better than that. If this thing, this zombie ever caught me, I'd be dead in the time it took to take a breath as it sank its teeth through the thick fur covering my neck and pierced my jugular. But I couldn't move. I could only stand there, quaking with terror as the creature pounced upon me. I could smell its sickening breath and its weight on my back was like that of an anvil. I felt the stab of its teeth into my neck and knew I only had seconds to live before I was turned into one of them.
My eyes closed for the final time as I submitted to the bite, the deadly virus coursing through what was left of my blood as it spurted out through wide gashes in my neck. My vision faded to black, and my last thought was that of my beloved person; how her hair shone in the sun and how her voice could soothe, even through the worst...
* * *
I lurched awake. A sharp snarl escaped my muzzle as I whirled around, trying in vain to spot my attacker. But there was no one.
My adrenaline pumped at full force, my body certain that I was about to be under attack.
'It was just a dream, Bolt,' I told myself. 'A scary as hell dream.'
My breath rushed out through my open maw, chest heaving with each pant. My fur stood on end, hackles raised, and my ears pinned firmly back against my skull.
My eyes darted from side to side, scanning everything in sight to be certain that I was alone and not surrounded by vicious, bloodthirsty zombies.
My eyes alit on a spindly shape concealed in the shadows across the room, and when it moved, my heart almost burst. I focused solely on that shadowy figure, all senses running at ninety miles an hour.
I was paranoid at the moment, and not a single soul on earth could have blamed me. That dream had been so realistic that if I hadn't known any better, I would have sworn to God and back that it had been real, a memory from my past.
I took a deep sniff and instantly regretted it as my nose crinkled with a foul stench that filled the air. Through the cacophony of smells, my brain was able to ascertain that my person, Penny, was nowhere nearby. She had such a distinctive smell, a light fruity smell, that even if my nose had been out of commission, I'd have still been able to track her over the longest distance.
My face creased in an expression of faint annoyance. I wished she had been here. I desperately needed her presence. She had this talent for cheering me up, even if I was sick as a human and dying. Mostly, though, I wished she was here so I could comfort her in this extremely depressing environment.
I'd been forced to do so a couple of months ago when her mother died in a hideous car accident. After the wreck, she had been depressed almost to the point of suicide. Fortunately, Mittens, my sarcastic cat friend, and I had been able to bring her out of her funk. Now, she was back to normal, the fun-loving, easy-going girl I loved.
Then I remembered that I hadn't been able to detect Mittens' scent either. It was lost in the stench that permeated the air.
'That's odd,' I thought. 'Penny and Mittens are never gone without me. I should be with them.' Whenever Penny took Mittens with her somewhere, I was always tagging along with my tongue lolling out and my tail wagging.
"Rhino?" I called out, hoping that the goofy little hamster was still in the vicinity, if not within earshot.
I got no reply, save that of the wind hissing through the shattered window.
I started to get worried at that point. I had only been by myself like this only twice in my life; before I was adopted by Penny as a cute little pup and once during my trip across the country, when I had been stuck in a cardboard box for eight hours straight.
My eyes scanned the room again, taking in the details that I had neglected to notice the first time around. It was a smallish room, only about ten feet to a side. The floor was fading and cracked linoleum. The walls were painted with an odd patchwork of a morbid-looking dark crimson and a light tan. I had seen that color before, but I couldn't remember where.
I spotted the shattered remains of a mirror on the other side of the room, the big pieces leaning up against the far wall. I took a cautious step forward, vigilant for any hostile forces.
I saw my reflection staring back at me; a shepherd with a thick white coat and dark brown eyes and a worrying look of concern on his face. A thick brown leather collar traced a circle around his neck, a brass tag hanging from the loop.
I blinked.
He blinked.
My eyes drifted down towards my front paws, noticing that they were covered in splotches the same color as the wall.
I brought my muzzle down and took a light sniff. Whatever substance I had stepped in smelled very faintly of copper.
All at once, memories came rushing back to me. Jumping idiotically out of a truck and cutting my paw open on a sharp rock when I landed. Mittens had been the one to explain to me that the red liquid coming out of the gash in my paw was called blood, and that it was a necessity for life. The viscous red liquid coursing through my veins was keeping me alive.
The memory of my fight with another dog hammered it home. I had sustained a huge gash across my ribs during that fight, my blood coating everything under me as Penny had stitched me up.
Even to this day, the upstairs bathtub at our house had stains of a very similar color. My blood was never going to come out of the white porcelain.
Blood was on my paws!
I recoiled instinctively, flying backwards across the room to land sprawled across my back.
Against my better judgment, I let out a low whine. I was now officially terrified. What if that blood was Penny's? Or Rhino's?
My first thought was to cleanse my fur of the morbid red stains, but there was no way in hell I was just going to lick it off. I'd have to find some water and rub it off.
My body trembled as shivers raced through me. I couldn't control myself, the shaking just wouldn't stop.
A second whine escaped my throat, then a third.
My composure snapped. I went from the epitome of self-control and calmness to a whimpering wreck of a dog in under a second. My legs gave out from under me as the sickening thoughts of blood coursed through my mind. I fell to the floor and immediately curled up in a tight ball, trying vainly to escape the conscious world.
I had nothing. My person was missing, as were my friends, and I knew not where to begin my search. I didn't even have someone to talk to, except myself, and a fat lot of good that was going to be.
Before I could stop myself, I let out a long howl of anguish. My mind knew that it was a horrible idea to howl like that in a situation like that, but I couldn't help it.
When my breath petered out, I panted heavily and tried my best to regain myself. I had to keep it together, else I would never find my person or my friends.
How long I lay there, howling my guts out, I never knew. All I did know was that eventually I fell into a restless sleep, only to be woken by a crunch as someone stepped on something. My ears perked right up and my head swiveled towards the source of the noise.
My tail began to wag. I hoped it was Penny!
I barked twice, alerting the individual to my presence. But instead of hearing my person's warm voice, a sickening sound hit my ears. An unearthly moan reverberated through the air.
My blood turned to ice as the person in the room with me stepped into the light.
It wasn't Penny. It wasn't even alive!
I gasped. Standing not three feet from me was one of the creatures from my dream. As I stared, horrified, at the zombie before me, a ragged chunk of flesh fell from its mouth onto the floor with a sick 'splat'. I resisted the urge to look down, keeping my eyes firmly on the undead man before me.
'At least it isn't Penny,' I thought to myself.
My hackles rose again and a growl manifested itself deep in my throat. I barked twice more at the zombie, sharp angry barks that conveyed my annoyance and fear.
The thing looked down at me, and I felt myself freeze at its gaze. One of its eyes had been brutally torn from its socket and hung from its stem, right down its cheek.
The other eye was a solid, menacing black. It locked onto me and an obscene smile crossed its face.
With a blood-curdling screech, it lunged towards me.
I sprang backwards nimbly, avoiding the zombie as it fell flat on its ugly face. I snarled, face creasing in an angry stare.
The zombie's head snapped up to look at me and it crawled after me, cawing obscenely. I took a step back, keeping myself well out of range of those teeth.
I whirled around as a second zombie snuck up behind me. My options for defeating the one zombie had just vanished into thin air. I could take one, perhaps, but certainly not two. My best choice now was to beat paws and get the hell out of there.
My head darted from side to side, searching for a viable escape route. There was one, but it involved me going through hand-to-paw combat with the standing zombie that was blocking the door.
I made my move, springing forward with a deep, furious snarl. My forepaws connected with the zombie's chest with a sickening sound, claws sinking right through the feeble skin and punching through his rib cage. My rage turned to shock, the thought that I was about to die rushing through my mind.
The force of my pounce had been enough to knock the zombie flat on its ass, my paws still stuck in its ribs. I brought my hind legs up and pushed against the ground, straining to free myself before I was turned into one of them.
With a 'slurping' sound that I would never be able to get out of my mind, my paws pulled free. I reared up, front paws waving through the air, before jumping the undead corpse and bolting from the room with my tail tucked firmly between my legs.