Carnival of Death

LIVE OR DIE IN LA

VOL 1,

The Day I Awoke to The Apocalypse

Prologue- 16 years Ago
Helen was seventeen years old, there she sat at an awkward dinner table, an only child, her parents thought of her as a disgrace. Her mother had made a delicious pot roast, it was a shame it couldn't be enjoyed due to the bitter taste of disgust in everyone’s mouth. The silence was unbearable, it was so that you could hear the chewing of food. All of a sudden Helen just screams out, “You know what, I got a fucking abortion!”. The mother just starts to cry and the father can‘t even look at his daughter. The mother starts prattling on about how the Lord forsakes such things, and how she’s going to hell for sinning against Jesus Christ. Helen responds with, “IT’S NOT LIKE YOU EVEN WANTED ME TO HAVE THE BABY! YOU KNOW WHAT? FUCK ALL OF YOU!” And with that, Helen stormed out and never talked to her parents again.

Chapter 1 - Forgotten Dreams
The arrogant sun has risen yet again to sit upon it’s stately throne. The vultures circle the sky, as kings in front of a feast deciding whether to start with the pork roast or the broiled chicken. Hundreds of cars remain motionless on this Nevada state highway as if time has stopped, but there's a simpler reason, all the drivers are dead. In one of the many motionless cars that adorn this dirt encrusten highway, a passenger is remarkably not dead, and she's finally awakening. She awakens, she is in a daze, she looks around, trying desperately to figure out how she got here. For in her mind, only moments ago she was in her designer bathroom, crying in her Jacuzzi that’s worth more than a teacher’s salary in south central, her life force oozing away from the slits in her writs. That was six years ago and now she’s in a car, on a highway, in God knows where, awakening to the apocalypse. The woman’s name is Helen, in the time before the apocalypse she was a super-model, she posed in such popular magazines as Maxim and Playboy, now she nothing. She finally notices that she on a highway with hundreds of cars yet not a single car is moving.

She gets out of her car. She looks into the car next to hers, what she sees is the corpse of a Larry Arthur Miller of 51st Street. Larry’s been dead for about five years, so he’s become home to many organisms especially Benny the worm, whom is currently crawling out of his eye socket. Helen screams and starts running. Helen starts to look in other cars and everyone is dead, her mind is racing she isn’t even considering the fact that these bodies have been dead for awhile. Helen keeps running till she sees a man, she is relieved, but she realizes too late that this is not a man to be running to. For the man’s already put his hand around her mouth, and she's passing out. Helen’s last thought is whether she died and went to hell, and if she did, it’s a lot more mundane than she thought it’d be.

Chapter 2- Acquaintance of the Devil
Helen regains consciousness, she immediately feels her cage, she awakens to the strangest sight. Before her are two women on a log in front of a fire, one is extremely obese and the other is obviously mentally retarded. The fat one greets Helen in that snobbish way that somehow manages to constitute as politeness. Helen immediately begins probing Chunky for some information, Chunky is not so willing to give. Helen does glean that there is a six year gap in between her last memory and her waking up in the car. What’s more shocking is that in those six years there was a nuclear holocaust, and there is no United States anymore. Helen is taken a back and it takes her awhile to grasp what she just was told. Her whole world means nothing, yet what happened in those six years. Chunky seems to bask in Helen’s confusion, and jeers at her. Helen then asks why she is caged. Chunky puts on a big old smile like a Jack A Lantern and says, “Because your to be sold of course!” Helen asks about her and the mentally challenged woman, who occasionally interrupted with a squawk from time to time. Helen learns they are to be sold too, Helen finds this far too insane and starts just pleading to be let out. Chunky just laughs at her in that cruel and callous way that only the ugly of the world do possess. In retaliation Helen begins to scream, Chunky starts yelling at her, “SHUT UP! DO YOU WANT TO ATTRACT RAIDING PARTIES!!!” Helen won’t stop, she’s going scream till she gets what she wants. Chunky is more than happy to give her a good thump on the head with her walking stick, Helen goes down but before she does she notices a black woman in the same plight as her across from her.

Helen once again regains consciousness, she playfully think that hell’s not so bad if they knock you out every time it gets too intense. But then she remembers you always have to wake up eventually. She’s no longer in the cage she now sits by the fire in a circle with other people. She now finally takes in her surrounding which is the dessert. There’s a fire, and there happens to be a donkey tied up, and what appears to be a laundry basket set up. But everyone in the camp minus the black woman seems to be sitting around in this circle around the fire. Chunky and Squawks are sitting in this circle, but playing with Squawks is nine year old girl, next to her is her 16 year old brother, and then the man who had render her unconscious sitting right next to her. The poacher hands her a bowl of beans, the first though to enter Helen’s mind is whether or not it’s poison, she realizes that there are far simpler ways of killing someone. She also realizes that there is a sort of tenderness in the poacher face which takes her back, since this is the man that kidnapped her. She takes the beans, eats it, and then puts on a horrible grimace to show her distain as if she still in one of her many frequented expensive restraints where things are completely autonomous of thought or speech. Chunky just laughs at her saying, “The beans aren’t good enough for your highness?” The poacher tells her to shut up and then turns to Helen.

The poacher says to Helen, “My name is Bill, and I’m asking you clear cut do you want in or out?” Helen is confused by what he means, he further elucidates that the majority of the women he sells to men are here of their own free will and don’t wish to be on their own, except for Wanda over in the cage, she’s here only because she catches a high price with the black tribes. Now being that Helen is a scrawny super-model, it doesn’t look like she will last long in the cold harsh winters so her price would be rather low to which Chunky laughed and Squawk squawked. So Helen can either stay and be eventually sold, or strike it on her own. Bill says all of this in a very kind tone, never once being harsh, just stating the facts of life. Helen ponders this for a moment, on the one hand she’d be safe here but on the other she’s never been dependent on a man and never will be so she decides to strike it off on her own. She gets up and just starts walking.

It’s remarkable how far a person can walk in a matter of minutes, in no time Helen can no longer see the fire and she finally feels alone, for better or worse. Helen decides to finally lay down and bask in the moonlight, she looks up at the sky, the stars are so beautiful. She tries to remember when the last time she could see the stars so clearly. Yet the warmth of the stars could not save her from the arid chill of the Nevada dessert, she sits up and looks out upon the dessert. All she can see are looming shadows, it’s as if she had sent her imagination to a playground and it was having a ball. At one point she thought she saw the shadow of a bear upon her. The next thing that creped in her mind was boredom, a matter of minutes turned into a lifetime, god knows how she'd be able to endure a hour of this. She quickly realized that she had absolutely nothing to think about either, everything that ever mattered to her was gone. In that instant she heard a growl, and she immediately ran. She ran straight back to camp, perhaps for the fear of the beast or simply because she knew she had no other choice.

Chapter 3- The Forge
The camp didn’t ask many question besides Chunky, she kept mocking Helen. Helen seemed to fit right in, like finally the missing piece of the puzzle was finally put in. She did everything a motherly figure would do, she did laundry, looked after the kids, and just made sure everything went smoothly. So time went by rather quickly once she found her role in the camp. The children took well to her, she even spent time with poor Wanda who was caged up, but things between Chunky and her didn’t change much and as a result Squawks wanted nothing to do with Helen as well. Helen and the girl, Sarah, got along really well. Bill was happy that his little girl finally had a motherly figure of sorts, if anything he tried to keep her away from the usual riff-raff he traded but there was something different about Helen, an innate good he sensed within her. And occasionally Helen and Bill would have some alone time, yet most of this time was awkward, like two teenagers in love but each afraid to make a move. This went on for a month, and in this period Helen was actually happy compared to her old life. Then came a fateful night.

One night, Chunky had gone to bed early due to her not feeling well, and the boy and girl had also gone to sleep, and Squawks always goes to sleep early. The aroma of beans permeated in the air, but at this point the smell had been as regular as the arid cold of the dessert. Bill took out his pipe, which he only did on rare occasions when he was in a fine mood, and began to puff on it a bit. Helen and Bill began ruminating on the ethics of what he was doing, Helen still argued what he was doing wasn’t right, she seem to be pleading to the human side she had grown to care for. Bill on the other hand knew deep down there was no other way so he had grown to just rationalize it as something good. So each clashed with rhetorics they both knew to be false yet they trudge on with the good fight as if fighting for redemption of their souls, in some epic battle of words to prove their humanity, which is perhaps why it ended with them in the sand making out like two teenage kids. It begins in pronouncements of love yet is ended by sounds of terror. For they hear the earth shake, and they hear a great stampede. Bill immediately knows it’s a raiding party, he tells Helen to run, and to wake everyone up.

Helen gets up and starts to run toward the first tent, she unties Wanda and tells her they have to go. Helen gets out of the tent with Wanda, she sees the raiding party and panics. Coming out of the emptiness of the dessert are a multitude of cars and motorbikes, the sound of old engines rips through the air like an ancient battle cry. Helen and Wanda just run. They don’t know where but they run with their tails between their legs. They run till they can run no longer, and then they stop, until that point Helen’s mind has been frantic she hasn’t even had time to think, Wanda already knows her next move which is to keep running after she rests. They both sit down and take a breather, Wanda thanks Helen, Helen then realizes what she’s done which is ditch her new surrogate family. Helen starts to weep since she is now alone yet again, Wanda just looks at her funny and asks what’s wrong. Helen responds with, “WE JUST LEFT THEM FOR THE RAIDERS!” Wanda laughs, she laughs a very cruel and callous laugh just as Chunky would always laugh at Helen, Wanda replies, “What is wrong with you, BILL WAS A GOD-DAMN POACHER!” Helen was just astounded, everyone in this world was just so callous, and the only person she found who seem to give a damn, she just left for dead. She decided then and there what she must do is rescue them.

Helen tells Wanda about her plan to rescue them, she just lets out that callous laugh again. Helen tells her that she needs Wanda help, as well. Wanda is just flabbergasted by this, Wanda can not comprehend how someone who just escape the belly of a lion wants to go right back in. Wanda just looks up in hope of some type of answer, all she sees are those same spiraling vultures just waiting for their eventual death so they can feast. Wanda says, “WHY SHOULD I HELP YOU!?”, Helen replies with, “Because you know just as I do what it’s like to be alone in this dreary world, you might survive for a little away but what happens when you run into another tribe? How lucky do you think you are?” Wanda knows she’s right and that she’s better off with them then alone so she agrees to help.

The world maybe barren, desolate, and downright depressing but some things remain constant. So with that in mind, Helen and Wanda venture forth on there mission to rescue a family that intends to sell them into bondage, but in the end it’s all they have. The raider camp has been set up for the night, they have there cars and motor cycle at one end, with a couple of tents set up in the middle, there some scouts on the edge. At the perimeter of the raider camp is a man named Larry, he was a Jew in his past life, but such things matter not unless he had joined up with the tribe of David, but for all intents and purposes his nationality is now raider. Larry, like most of the men in the camp were basically hungering for sex, the last time they actually saw a woman was months ago, at the moment the leader was having his way with Chunky, Larry could hear her lovely song off in the distance, it went something like “AHHH OH MYYYY GOOOODDD!”. So when he saw Helen, it was as if someone had thrown a juicy red steak in front of a tiger, and he just pounced without thinking, and as such he didn’t even noticed the rock go slamming straight into his skull. The sound of his lifeless body hitting the ground made Helen cringe, Wanda was devoid of emotion, she knew what she had to do. They stole his weapon, and made there way further into the camp.

Elsewhere in the camp, there was a tent where brewing was the making of a man. There lie in the tent Sarah and Abrams, Abrams had spent most of his time consoling his sister and making sure she was all right, while at the same time trying to break free of the rope that shackled him. In walks in another member of this notorious gang, he also has been starved of sex, yet he seems to be fixated on Sarah. He starts to move in on Sarah, Abrams of course makes empty threats. Abrams watches on in horror, but at that moment he knows he must save his sister, so he uses all his strength to break free of the bonds, lucky for him, Larry was the one who tied his knot, and his knots suck. As he is released from his shackles, he takes the gun on the table, and just fires till the man is not moving. Before that day Abrams never did a cruel thing before but now he’s experienced what his father has since the day of the holocaust, the will to survive.

The entire camp of raiders hear the gunshot and flood to it, in the meantime Bill finds himself tied to a chair with a blindfold, his heart skips a beat when he hears that gunshot. His heart is racing now, he knows it has to do with his kids, he starts to struggle, and eventually his chair just tumbles to the hard sand. There he lays on the floor in pain and helpless to save his kids. He does something he hasn’t done in many years but it’s the only thing he can do which is pray to God for a miracle. Wanda and Helen walk in, they’re carrying guns and there bloody. They untie Bill, Bill and Helen just look at each other and they understand each other. They give Bill a gun, and Bill then tells them that he’s going create distraction, and he wants them to get the girls and the boy and haul ass. Helen asks what about him, he says that if he doesn’t make it, that she promises to watch over his family. She says no and walks away, Bill walks up to her, put his arm around her, and tells it’s the only way, she says okay.

One raider, Charlie Bowman, was a shrewd man and he also knew to trust his instincts. He knew their was something wrong and that, he was on a sinking ship, he just couldn’t place his finger on it, till he saw Wanda and Helen go into Bill’s tent, while the rest of idiots raced off to the gunshot, Charlie bided his time outside Bill’s tent. He heard what was going on inside, he knew he had a choice, ally with these suckers, or stay as a fucking rat part of this shit crew. All he did was stand by and watch innocent people die, now Charlie wasn’t a good human being but he was not without heart, though it might also have something to do with how he lives in squalor as well. But there’s one thing Charlie knows that in this dessert, you got be one crazy son of a bitch to travel alone. So ol’Charlie decides he’s going help these suckers out and see if this venture more luxurious than this ship wreck. And truth be told he thought Helen was one sexy fox.
Helen is the first to exit the tent, Charlie grabs her by the throat and puts gun to her head. Helen is taken aback, but not because of her plight but because she finds herself slightly turn on. Bill and Wanda walk out next and are in complete puzzlement, they don’t know what to do. Charlie makes the first move, “I know why you’re here and what you plan to do, I’m willing to help you under one condition?” Bill doesn’t trust him but he asks what? That in exchange for his help, they’ll provide him shelter and food. Bill asks how he knows he’s on the up and up, Charlie tells them they don’t. Wanda automatically says no, she knows there’s no conning a conman, but Bill knows there no other way other than to deal with the devil. So they agree, he releases Helen, Helen gives look of Hell’s fury yet deep down she attracted to the slimy character. Bill and Charlie go off to cause a distraction.

In the tent where Sara and Abrams were it’s now crowded with the raiders and there leader. There leader was a tall, broad shoulder man, with scars all over his face, and he didn’t say much, but he was deadly. When he saw Charlie walk in with Bill as his prisoner he was taken back, because he didn’t know what the hell was going on. Charlie explain he found Bill trying to escape, Charlie knew what would happen next they’d attempt to kill Bill so he ask that the kids be led out of the tent. The leader wasn’t without a heart so he allowed it. Once they were out, Charlie knew what he had to do, he took out his gun, and shot the Leader twice in the face, he then turned around and went straight over to the next scariest guy in the tent. That’d be a huge Japanese man, who use to be a sumo wrestler, Charlie knew that he always vied for leadership, and god knows Charlie didn’t want the spot because he knew sooner or later a snake would pop him just as he done. So he told him he was the new leader, and that all he wanted in return was that he take Bill as his prisoner. Bill all of sudden jumps from his docile state and start screaming about how he’s a backstabber. The sumo wrestler accept these terms and Charlie walks out.

Squawks isn’t stupid, she has a mental disability but it doesn’t make her stupid. She knows how everyone perceives her because she can’t communicate her thoughts, but that’s why her and Chunky got along so well. They understood each other, they were both outcasts of a society. So it was right now that she was truly sad for her disability because there was nothing she could do as her only friend was about to kill herself. Chunky did know what to do for the only thing she ever had was her body as silly as it sounded, but she firmly believed her self-worth was tied into being a virgin, and that was stripped from her. She hears a gunshot, Wanda and Helen burst through the door. Helen yells out to Chunky to stop, Chunky asks what does she know about this. Helen walks over slow to Chunky, looks her in the eyes, and tells her she knows. She knows of the pain, of knowing your living a hollow life, the overbearing question of what the point of living, seeing everything stripped from you, of being a lesser being, but in the end it’s all bullshit and your just being a coward. So she says you can either bitch up and live, or sit there and die. She says her and Wanda will be outside. Squawks gives her a pleading look and then walks out. Chunky sighs, and says what the hell, then walks out too.

Helen leads everyone to the cars, they all hop in, Charlie comes out of no where with the two kids, Helen asks where Bill is, he tells her he didn’t make it. She about to cry but she remember he’s speech about bitching up, and just gets in the car and they drive away.

Epilogue - 2 Months Later
Helen stands on the outskirts of a barren town, she looks out into it, wondering how the fuck she got to this point. She wonders about Bill and how he judge her performance leading to this rag-tag group of miscreants and how she’s raised his kids. She wonders if what she’s doing is right, she’s a fucking poacher for Christ sake of her own kind, they just picked up a scared 18 year old girl the other day. She has a meeting tomorrow with someone tomorrow for the selling of Chunky, Squawks is unhappy she can tell, for she’s stop squawking. So there she sits with a gun in one hand, and one eye watching her back. And then she hears that voice, Charlie’s, “Babe come back to bed, we still got round two.” He’s slime, she knows, but there are something that a person need, and that’s one of them. So she returns to bed before another excruciating day begins.

Before she goes to bed she looks up at the huge sign, there camped under, it says, “Welcome to Las Vegas” then she notices those blood thirsty fucking vultures that are always swarming.

The End