Nolan's Ark Read online

  “No safer place to be tonight than a cemetery,” Axel said. “Who’s gonna bomb a bunch of dead people?”

  Lars shook his head. “I don’t like it.”

  “C’mon Lars,” Kasey said. “Grow a pair.”

  “Maybe going to Paramount isn’t such a good idea after all,” Lars said, ignoring Kasey’s jibe. “Everyone knows about that charity thing with the President and that other woman. What’s her name again? The one that looks like a bearded dragon in a dress.”

  “Jezebeth Black,” Charlie said. “And that bearded dragon in a dress just happens to be the leader of the main opposition party.”

  “My point,” Lars said, eye-growling at Charlie, “is that if all those important people were at the party, they’re all up in smoke by now. All burned up and shit. It’s like Charlie said – those jets had to be going after the Prez. They had to be. In that case, what the hell are we going to Paramount for? It’s a graveyard.”

  “We don’t know anything Lars,” Kasey snapped. “We don’t have a clue. Do you see any smoke rising above Melrose? I don’t. Would you rather go back to Oakwood? It’s like I said – we know for sure that place has gone up in smoke and that anyone who was there is…”

  “Easy Kasey,” Axel said.

  “Don’t say it!” Lars said, stabbing a finger up at the girl who was at least three inches taller than he was. “Just because you don’t give a shit about your junkie family. Fuck you Kasey!”

  Kasey’s body went stiff.

  “Alright now children,” Axel said, glancing back and forth between the combatants. An angry, scalding heat wafted into his face from both sides.

  “We’re family,” he said in a calm voice. “The four of us. Remember? Right now we’ve only got each other to lean on and that makes fighting amongst ourselves kinda stupid. Right Charlie?”

  Charlie nodded.

  “The President is down there,” Axel said. “And maybe there’s some police or army or Secret Service people too and if so that’s where we need to be right now. We need help if we’re going to make it through the night.”

  “Shortcut then?” Kasey asked, unclenching her fists. She stepped backwards, away from Lars. “We go through the cemetery, right?”

  “Right,” Axel said. “Lars?”

  “Yeah whatever.”

  Lars grumbled some more but he followed the others as they cut off Santa Monica Boulevard. They rushed towards a block of retail stores squeezed under a pink, low-roofed building that screamed cheap. Everything was here – a DIY store, a Laundromat, pet supplies, a filthy, rundown liquor store and a whole lot more besides.

  Kasey peered through the window of a travel agent. Then she tried the door handle.

  “Shit,” she said, finding it locked. “Hollywood Forever’s directly at the back of this building. We need to get through somehow.”

  “Everything closed at five,” Axel said, glancing around the storefront. “Or…maybe not. What about the liquor store?”

  “Good call,” Kasey said, slapping him on the back.

  They hurried twenty feet to the left and tried the door of Donny’s KO Liquor. The door was open. They ran inside, huddled close together like a four-headed monster trying to slip through the night unseen. Donny’s store hadn’t been ransacked by looters. Not yet.

  The looters would come though, as sure as sunrise.

  It was dark inside and it sounded like there was a radio playing hip-hop nearby. Axel peered left and right as they passed the checkout, dreading the sound of angry footsteps rushing down the aisle towards them. Was Donny here? And if so was he alive and if he was alive, what would he do to four intruders sneaking around his place of work? Axel didn’t want to find out – as the sole black kid in the gang he always took the brunt of the blame.

  They crept past an office at the back, which led them down a hallway towards the back door. The door was bolted shut but as far as Axel could see, it was no more than a simple slide bolt without a padlock. Axel pulled the bolt back and slowly opened the door, trying to keep as quiet as possible.

  The door shrieked like it was raising an alarm.

  “C’mon,” he whispered to the others. “Quick.”

  They hurried down a concrete yard flanked by the dark silhouette of garbage bins, wooden crates and metal barrels. At the end of the yard they found themselves standing in front of a giant hedge, which was ten feet tall at least. This hedge was the last barrier between themselves and Hollywood Forever.

  Lars stared at the hedge like it was Godzilla.

  “Oh fuck,” he said.

  “What’s wrong?” Charlie said. “It’s just a hedge.”

  Lars blinked like there was something in his eye. “Just a…”

  Something exploded in the distance. Shards of orange-red appeared in the corner of the night sky. The kids fell silent for a few moments, waiting to see if there was a follow up blast.

  When nothing happened, Lars pointed a stumpy finger at the hedge.

  “I ain’t getting over that,” he said. “No way guys.”

  Axel and Kasey weren’t listening. They were already scouring the hedge, searching for a way in from the bottom. Lars was right – it was too big to climb over but that didn’t mean there wasn’t another option on ground level. An entrance, a hole – a simple access point that would take them into the cemetery.

  There was nothing. Axel, who’d split up from Kasey to search further along the hedge, couldn’t see a way in and he was already thinking about the return leg through spooky Donny’s when she called out to him.

  “Here,” Kasey said, sounding as excited as someone who’d found buried treasure in the back yard. “There’s a gap at the bottom. I think we can wriggle through it okay. Wait, let me see…”

  As Axel ran over she was clawing at the hedge with one hand, pushing her way towards the base. Kasey’s other hand gripped her phone, which she was using as a flashlight. The crisp yellowy light landed on the lower branches, giving off a sinister Brothers Grimm vibe, as if the branches were alien limbs reaching for Kasey. A second later the top half of her body disappeared as if the hedge was swallowing her whole.

  “What the hell?” Axel said. “That looks painful.”

  “There’s a decent-sized gap at the bottom,” she said. “Looks like a little path through the branches. Easy to squeeze through if we’re careful.”

  Axel touched the visor of his cap. “Ummm, even for Lars?”

  “I can hear you,” Lars called over. “Fat doesn’t mean deaf you know.”

  Kasey disappeared through the other side, slipping into the cemetery. She let slip several shrieks of pain.

  “You alright?” Axel asked, crouching down for a closer look. He could only hear a faint rustling sound on the other side. “You in?”

  “I’m in,” Kasey said. “That was a bit rough but what the hell right? This is our shortcut. C’mon, I’ll keep the flashlight on for you guys.”

  “Coming,” Axel said.

  Axel dropped to his knees. He ducked his head down, flopped onto his elbows and worked his way through the dirt, following the light on Kasey’s phone. Even with a cap on his head the branches still managed to scrape at his face, raking their tips down his skin.

  “Shit,” he said. “Damn thing’s trying to take my eye out.”

  “Hurry up,” Kasey said.

  Axel slipped through the last of the hedge and wriggled into Hollywood Forever, cemetery to the stars. Kasey helped him up, rubbing the dirt off his clothes.

  “Let’s go,” Axel said, addressing Lars and Charlie on the other side. He sounded like an overeager soccer coach. “Move, move, move.”

  Charlie had no problem getting through the hedge. The kid was like the liquid Terminator. He could have puffed his entire body out and still it would have been a cinch. Lars on the other hand, suffered every inch of the way but to his credit he sucked his belly in and said what the hell. In the end he picked up little more than a shallow cut on his cheek.

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; The others helped him back to his feet.

  “Piece of cake,” Lars said, wiping his face down.

  As his friends dusted him down, Lars stared in horror over their shoulders. This was his first glimpse at the headstones in the distance.

  “Oh shit,” Lars whispered, as if the dead might overhear their conversation. “That’s a lot of dead people we’ve got to run over.”

  He tapped Charlie on the arm.

  “Are you sure Melrose is on the other side of this?”

  “Yeah,” Charlie said with an encouraging smile. “Don’t worry Lars, it’ll be worth it. After this we’re going to find people who can help us. Maybe…take us to our parents, you know?”

  Lars was still gawping at the headstones.

  Kasey shrugged. She looked over at Hollywood Forever’s tombstone landscape as if it was a regular street crossing.

  “I’d rather be in here with the old stiffs than out there with the fresh ones,” she said.

  Lars dabbed at the scratch he’d picked up crawling through the hedge. It was nothing – a red worm stitched to the side of his face.

  “We can do this guys,” Charlie said. “Help’s on the other side of this cemetery.”

  Axel tilted the Dodgers cap back, clearing his line of vision. He didn’t want to trip over anything in here. Or anyone.

  They started walking at a brisk yet cautious pace. The three boys also brought out their phones to use as flashlights.

  “Hey isn’t Rudolph Valentino buried in here somewhere?” Lars asked.

  “What are you talking about?” Axel asked.

  “He’s like a film star from hundreds of years ago,” Lars said. “My mom’s got this framed photo of him in the house somewhere. I think my granddad gave it to her. The chicks dug him – Valentino, not my gramps. I heard they flipped their gourds when he died. Jesus, what if I trample over his grave?”

  Kasey kept her eyes out front. She bounded her way forward, easily the least cautious member of the group.

  “Lars my friend,” she said. “You’ll trample over every dead movie star in Hollywood if it means getting your ass to safety. Right?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Good. Now shut up and walk.”

  Axel took in the sights as they crossed over a never-ending lawn of flat, barely visible tombstones. Palm trees stood tall and silent up ahead, like guardians of the dead. The kids had sneakers on and yet as they trekked forward, it sounded like a herd of elephants running loose inside the cemetery.

  They stepped off the lawn, emerging onto a long and winding concrete path that led them past a series of crypts, each one more ominous looking than the others. Crooked silhouettes stood up on the roofs as if someone…something was lurking there watching the young travelers as they passed by. But it was merely the architecture – that’s what Axel told himself anyway.

  Despite everything happening elsewhere it was oddly peaceful inside the cemetery. As they walked it felt like they were the last four people in the world. It wasn’t a bad feeling at all.

  At the cemetery perimeter they climbed a short wall and jumped down onto North Van Ness Avenue. After a moment’s deliberation, Charlie led the group south towards what they hoped was Melrose Avenue.

  There was no smoke. The air was surprisingly clear and as Axel and his friends reached the turn onto Melrose Avenue, other people could be seen, all of them marching in the same direction.

  Axel and his friends merged with the crowd, approaching the famous double arched gates of Paramount.

  As they got closer they saw about two hundred people gathered outside the gates. That number was growing by the second. Axel and his friends were swept up with the new arrivals, a human convoy traveling east to west along Melrose.

  Things were getting rowdy.

  People pushed and waved their hands in the air. They hollered to be let inside the grounds but there was a black-suited wall of government personnel standing a few feet behind the arches. Secret Service, Axel thought. They were packing guns, lots of guns – handguns, semi-automatic rifles and God knows what else that could take a person’s head off. Axel thought he recognized an AK-47 in the hands of one man.

  “Holy shit,” he said.

  There were cops too, not many but the few that were still visible were all gathered at Paramount. Either they were there to help the President or maybe they were trying to source military help for their battered forces.

  Didn’t seem to Axel like anybody knew what they were doing. LAPD was in deep shit, just like everything else. The army? Christ knows where they were. Probably getting their asses kicked by a clearly superior, better prepared invading force.

  “It’s a mess,” he said.

  “Hey at least the Prez is alive,” Lars said. There was a smile on his face like he was celebrating a great victory. “That’s what I call a major setback for the other side don’t you?”

  Axel shook his head.

  “He’s a lucky son of a bitch,” Kasey said. She sounded disappointed, like she’d lost money on a bet.

  “LET US IN!” someone yelled near the gate. “HELP US FOR GOD’S SAKE!”

  The security wall came forward, separate parts of a greater whole working in harmony. They trained their guns on the advancing mob.

  “BACK,” one of the men in black yelled. “Get back.”

  Restraining the crowd was one thing, silencing them was another. More and more people were showing up outside the studios, some begging for help, others demanding it. All the madness of the night had gathered in one location. Not that people didn’t have a reason to be pissed off – their homes were burning. Many of them had lost loved ones. And now, caught in the grip of a senseless situation they wanted their political leaders to show themselves and shed light on why their local neighborhood resembled CNN footage of a warzone in the Middle East.

  “Let us in!” someone screamed.

  “Where is he?”

  “Where’s that useless sack of shit?””

  “Where’s Jezebeth Black?”

  Axel and his friends found themselves being pushed closer to the gate. It was impossible to resist the momentum.

  The night air was clammy and suffocating. On more than one occasion, Axel had a dizzy turn, convinced that he was going to faint. Fortunately he managed to stay upright and clear his head. Going down would be a bad idea. God knows if he’d get back up again, despite the best efforts of his friends.

  The standoff between crowd and security went on for another ten minutes with little change. Distant explosions interrupted the proceedings, the interruptions growing shorter and less significant with each new bomb. It was as if people were getting used to things blowing up in LA.

  “We should get out of here,” Axel said. “I have a bad feeling…”

  “And go where?” Charlie asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Hollywood Forever? We can sit it out, come up with Plan B. What do you think Kasey?”

  Kasey was about to speak when a roaring noise at her back cut her off. It was such a remarkable and close sound that even the angriest protesters were jolted into a sudden silence.

  Everyone turned around.

  A pair of large headlights on the road came closer. To stare at these lights was like catching the eye of a Titan-like monster with a fierce, dazzling stare. Even the blackness that threatened to devour Hollywood was momentarily squashed in it presence.

  The light approached the double arched gates.

  Some people screamed. Others began to push their way through the impenetrable crowd in a bid to run away.

  “Tanks!” they yelled. “They’re coming for us.”

  Axel’s heart was thumping. He grabbed Kasey’s arm but it was an impotent gesture – they had no chance of making a sudden getaway from Paramount. They, along with Lars and Charlie, were too deep inside the crowd. They were trapped.

  A second pair of headlights appeared behind the first vehicle. Both machines snarled in unison as they roamed down Melr
ose, a pair of large predators closing in on their prey.

  Axel wasn’t sure if the road was shaking or it was just his legs.

  Lars, usually the first to panic, was surprisingly calm. When he smiled at the incoming monsters, Axel began to think he was dreaming. Or that his friend had gone legitimately mad. Surely Lars wasn’t relieved to see the enemy closing in? God knows what awaited all American citizens as these foreign invaders rode into Hollywood on their tanks and trucks, foreign flags flapping in the breeze, devil grins gloating over the destruction of the nation.

  “Lars?” Axel said. “What the fuck man?”

  But Lars was still smiling.

  “Don’t you see?” he said. “I see.”

  And a moment later, so did everyone else.

  “Holeeeeeeeee shit!” Axel screamed, peering through a gap in between the crowd. Before he knew it he was laughing and jumping up and down, throwing his arms around Kasey, Lars and Charlie. A weight had fallen from his shoulders. The nightmare was far from over of course, but this was the morale boost they needed.

  It was a break. A goddamn break, at long last.

  “We’re going to be alright,” Axel told his friends. “ Look you guys. The cavalry’s arrived.”

  Chapter 3

  The Monster Bus-Tanks, known as MBTs, were about twenty-five feet tall. Give or take. They were wider than a regular bus with chromium plated exteriors and protruding steel-grille bumpers, which made them look like transport from a harsh and unforgiving, desert-landscape future. Sharp machete-like spears stood out at the front, nicely complimenting the vicious bumper-teeth.

  The first MBT driving down Melrose Avenue was blood red in color. The one at its tail was dark blue, the shade of a deep pool of water.

  Black machine gun barrels, every bit as flexible as human limbs, jutted out from either side of both Monster Bus-Tanks.

  “Jaws and Kong,” Kasey said, grinning. “They’re here to help us.”

  “Thank God,” Charlie said, groaning with relief. “But who’s in them?”

  This sudden change in mood, from despair to joy, was jarring. It was also infectious, spreading across the crowd instantly. The crowd knew the MBTs, knew that their appearance on Melrose had nothing to do with the invaders. Jaws and Kong were two of three MBTs featured in Paramount’s biggest TV show, Goliath, which was currently in its fifth season and still going strong. Goliath followed the adventures of hard-bitten loner, Chuck Kowalski, played by actor and former UFC heavyweight champion Butch Nolan. Kowalski, along with several other characters in the show, lived in a zombie-ridden, post-apocalyptic America, driving around the barren wasteland in the MBTs, searching for a cure for the manmade disease that gave rise to the plague of undead.