Last Night at Luster's

Arctic Monkey's, "Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High," was faintly registering in the back of my mind, and I felt like I was underwater because of the zoned-out state I was in. I probably should not have been fixating on the dance floor where we met because I could see his brown eyes and tousled dark hair as if he were there. It definitely didn't help that I was on my third Dirty Shirley. There was no way I was enjoying Luster's shitty bonafide hole-in-the-wall, yet somewhat charming atmosphere tonight. Usually, my roommate and I would be able to walk into our favorite bar in Pacific Beach, and once the overwhelming smell of sweat and saltwater faded away, pure bliss would encompass us. Turns out ending my situationship with Bobby actually hurt a lot ... maybe because he was the only one I ever had real feelings for. Oh no, I was spiraling.

An abrupt tug on my arm snapped me out of this depressing funk.

"Girl, what is wrong with you? They're playing Kid Cudi, and you're moping around? Absurdity!" stated my roommate, Kwa'Sia (Sia for short).

"Dude, I know. What am I doing? He meant nothing to me," I lied while sneaking a hit of my vape. "Why does it feel like the world is ending? I mean like, not because of him, but because it feels like everything is just going wrong," I continued.

"Well, it certainly doesn't help that there is an outbreak of some crazy lung disease in half the country," Sia stated exasperatedly. "Look, you're starting to bum me out, lets go to the bathroom, refresh, then come back out here and dance," she declared.

Truthfully she was right; I needed to get out of this mindset and ground myself. Lately, I've been on this spiritual awakening in an attempt to become more present and grateful for the time I have, and this guy was stealing my peace. When we got to the restroom it was surprisingly empty; this was a very rare occurrence for Luster's. The speaker box dangling above the toilet was blaring out choppy and static ridden renditions of some Childish Gambino song about trying to stay alive; it was kind of unnerving. I was getting that same feeling you get when someone aggressively runs their nails across a chalkboard. About 6 minutes had passed, and we finally completed our ritual of bathroom selfies and rapid vaping.

"Didn't we just hear this song?" my roommate noted. "They're slacking on the music tonight. What do you say we get an AMF then chill out under the pier?" This suggestion unsurprisingly cheered me up a bit. The thought of sitting in damp sand and watching the abyss we know as the Pacific ocean rush up to shore as if it were trying to grab me sounded extremely appealing. What better way to cheer up than to go to an enigmatically void environment?

"Now you're talking my language," I grinned. It was time to get away from all the joyous people flitting around the bar anyway. How can one be happy when my - I mean, the world is on fire?

When I yanked open the door, a chilling wave of tension slapped me in the face; something was amiss, and it was very palpable. The faint red lights that adorn the tiny bar were flickering, and even though the same song we heard in the bathroom was loud as hell, the emptiness of the space was deafening. My ears started to ring, and a wave of fear and nausea began to immobilize me.

"You can hear them breathing, breathing down your spine," Childish distortedly sang. After scanning the room, I finally caught sight of one of the many televisions mounted around the room. The glaring red words, Breaking News, were slithering across the flatscreen; the footage playing was gruesome and utter chaos. An aerial view of dark San Diego captured a scene of sporadic fires, destruction, and people running in every direction.

"Welp, I'm going to make myself a drink. Want one?" Sia huffed out after taking in the scene. She did pretty well under stress and lived for the party, especially in life-threatening situations.

"Holy smokes," I whispered. "Yeah fam, make me a White Russian. I'm gonna go lock the doors." I rushed over to the front of the bar and damn near slipped. There were puddles of blood all over the already sticky floor, and the sight of it almost made me yak. I finally got past the array of crimson-splattered arcade games and made it to the door. That's when I realized there was a garage-style window that needed to be closed expeditiously.

I hopped over some barstools and tried to yank the chains down as quickly as I could. People were running by, and it looked as if they were being chased by ... other people. Panic started to set in, and my heart almost tore out of my rib cage. The perforated sheet metal was halfway down when I heard someone yelling my name.

"Yo, Avalon, wait!" cried out the raspy voice of the one person I was trying to forget. Bobby closed the distance from the bar across the street to the barely open window. "Please let me in, these people are rabid out here!" He frantically said.

I was frozen, not from fear, but from that sickly feeling, people describe as butterflies. "Uh, ya, yeah I mean, come on, hurry," I stuttered. He got one leg over the bar and almost made it in, but someone pulled his other leg and yanked him back. It was the bouncer that I'm pretty sure was a wrestler in a previous life. He stood at about six foot five and was a real burly guy. I grabbed onto Bobby's arm and tried to pull him in, but the bouncer was stronger than me. We were playing tug-of-war with this poor man's body. Bobby was straddled on the window seal bar and struggling to push his body forward. Out of nowhere, I got a rush of adrenaline and kicked my feet out so that the wall could support my weight which allowed me to lean back while pulling him in. Once he was in, Sia came out of nowhere with a broom lit on fire and jabbed it at the bouncer, which seemed to hold him off a bit. Bobby and I hopped up and rapidly tugged the chain to let the metal window down.

Completely out of breath, I lay on the blood-soaked floor for a few minutes and decided to make some red angels. Hell, it's the end of the world anyway, may as well make the best of it. Bobby sat up next to me, and his scent filled my nostrils, intoxicating me in a way the alcohol could not. I can only describe his scent as a natural chalky, fragrantly sweet musk; I know that sounds strange, but his pheromones smelled like the best thing in the world to me.

"What are the odds we end up here together?" He said with a grin.

"What the hell is going on out there?" I tried to sound cool when I said that, but I'm pretty sure I stumbled over my words, and my voice cracked. Woe is me.

"They're killing each other. People are running around and randomly attacking people. They're foaming at the mouth, and their skin is turning into this sickly grey color. It's ugly, dude."

"I bet this has something to do with that virus that spread here from Europe," Sia chimed in. "What was it called again? POVID, right? Pulmonary virus or something? The CDC said that it takes like two weeks for symptoms to show," she added.

"Oh yeah. That thing, I thought it only made it to Florida and Texas. This is starting to sound like biological warfare with how fast it's spreading," I commented. "On that note, let me get up and grab that White Russian." I hopped over the bar and chugged the creamy drink like it was my last.

"All right, you guys, we need to make a plan. Do we want to stay in here and wait it out, maybe try to get some more answers? Or do we want to party it up under the pier because the chances of survival are pretty low with all the maniacs running around? Especially if this disease does have something to do with POVID. Based on what we know so far, we're already doomed," I proposed as I made myself another White Russian.

Sia chimed in with, "You already know what I'm gonna say, let's fuck it up."

I glanced over at Bobby, almost certain he would be up for taking some drinks and cigs out to the beach, but he was looking kind of off. His eyes were bloodshot and glazed over as if he took some sort of stimulant.

"Bob, are you okay? You're starting to look ill, man. Are you having any of the symptoms you told me those people outside have?" I hesitantly asked while keeping at least a six-foot distance from him.

"Nah dude, I just, I just took too much K, I'm good. Let's get those drinks and head out to the pier. It sounds like it cleared out outside," Bobby faintly said while pulling himself up off the slimy, scarlet floor.

I looked over at Sia, and she had already packed a goodie big of vital supplies from behind the bar, and by vital, I mean big ass bottles of Jack Daniels and Coke.

"Wait, before we head out, should we bring some weapons or something? That broom seemed pretty handy a while ago, let's at least grab that and some towels so we can sit on the sand," I thought aloud as we were heading towards the exit.

"Smarticles, yeah, let's do that. Ooh, and let me grab one of those rolly speakers too," Sia exclaimed as she dipped towards the DJ booth.

Our ragtag trio gathered near the door and paused before heading out. "I think we should ease our way outside. Try to be as quiet as possible, so we don't attract any unwanted attention," I decided at the last minute, suddenly overwhelmed with hesitancy.

Bobby pushed the metal door bar slowly, which simultaneously emitted a slow squeak cutting through the silence outside. It was almost comical. He peeked his head out the door and looked both ways.

"I don't see anything. Let's bounce," he whispered. We all filed out the carnage-wracked bar with our “last party” setup in tow. Walking down the street, one could hear the sound of glass bottles clinking and wonky wheels on pavement. The pier was only a block away from Luster's, but that short distance felt like ten miles. It was an eerie, gory atmosphere of limbs and flesh scattered around what used to be the sunny, cheery neighborhood of Pacific Beach.

With a nervous chuckle, I joked, "Let's paint the town red, ... well redder than it already is." No one laughed, but I thought it was funny. We finally made it to the sand and began walking towards the pier. We got under it and found a spot just out of reach of the tumultuous tide. Sia laid out the towels and alcohol spread as if it were a picnic, and Bobby sat down to stare out at the seamless, black body of water. The soft mushy sound sand makes when disturbed comforted me as I sat next to him and thought about our whole deal. It was chaotic, and there was so much drama, but no matter how much we wanted to get away from each other, something kept bringing us back.

"You know, I just wanted to tell you that you're something else, Avalon," Bobby whispered while still staring straight ahead.

"So Much it Hurts" by Niki & the Dove faintly wafted out of the speaker while I tried to fight a sideways smile unsuccessfully. By now, the water had reached our feet, and I welcomed the freezing cold jolt as it brought me back to the present. "Yeah Bobby, you are too. I wish things were different, I wish that.." Before I could finish my sentence, he abruptly fell back. He started to seize and convulse violently while choking on foam that was carried away by the tide.

"Help me pull him up Sia," I screamed, but when I looked back, she was convulsing too and choking on a gnarly combo of jack and foam. I didn't know what to do. Two people I loved were dying right in front of me; how could this be happening?

I got up and pulled Sia back, so she was just out of reach from the water, then I ran back to Bobby. As I tried to pull him back, he went completely still, and the deadweight was a struggle to move. I couldn't pull him back while the water was trying to drag him out to sea. I gave up and sat down so that my thighs were holding him in place, keeping him from washing out.

After about five minutes of sitting this way, the water was viciously racing towards us. I started to feel an overwhelming heat rush throughout my body and settle in my stomach. My once caramel brown skin was so hot and sweaty and such a strange color now. Even though the numbing water began to encompass me, I still felt like I was on fire. I felt weak, and I could barely move. My thigh muscles went slack, and with the tide, Bobby started to move forward. I rolled over to lay next to him, grabbing his hand with what little strength I had left.

I looked back at Sia to see she had gotten up and was standing still. Her skin looked greyish brown too. She began to stiffly walk towards me, and all I could do was lie down and look at the vacuum of light studded black that was the ocean and sky. It was so pretty, grotesque, and quiet save for the sound of the crashing waves. It was a beautiful symphony, but the bass that began to overpower this dark song was my slowly beating heart, so rhythmically.

After a while, I felt two sets of gnashing teeth tearing at my thighs and arms. I was so weak that I couldn't fight them off. The saltwater seared my open flesh, and I let out a grisly scream. The pain made my eyesight fade away, and all I could see was this blinding white light. It was the moon, I think. I was floating towards the moon, and its glowing aura comforted me. I had to be about 20 feet in the sky.

When I looked down at my body I saw Sia tearing out my esophagus and bobby ripping apart my uterus. It normally would have been a sickening sight to me, but for some reason, I didn't care. I was flying now.

Darkness. Darkness encompassed me, almost completely dark except for two faint lights. In those lights, I could make out the faces of my grandma and dad. They were grinning largely, and at that point, I started to feel afraid. I looked at my grandma, and she said in a voice that wasn't hers, "Breaking news, the POVID outbreak has reached San Diego."

"What, what are you talking about grandma Beverly" I whimpered while hot tears slowly fell down my cheeks.

I looked at my dad, and he started to move his mouth, but all I could hear was a blaring warning siren.

My eyes shot open, and I jumped up frantically. In a panic, I scanned my surroundings. I was in Bobby's room ... alive. The TV had jolted me awake.

"What's going on?" he sleepily groaned.

My heart was still beating a thousand miles per hour as I looked at his sluggish form.

"Good grief," I finally sighed, "It was just a nightmare. Man, I gotta stop falling asleep to Last Year at Marienbad, it is not good for my psyche." I hurriedly found the remote and turned the tv off. When I grabbed my phone, I saw a text from Sia reading, "Luster's tonight?! (purple devil emoji)."

I looked up and stared at the black TV screen, then my ringtone, "Zombies," by Childish Gambino began to play on the highest sound level possible.

Confusion flooded my brain, and I couldn't form a thought for the life of me. What the hell was going on?