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  AFTER SUNSET

  DAN GALLO

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to events or places, or real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2022 by Dan Gallo

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

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  “Know, that on the right hand of the Indies there is an island called California very close to the side of the Terrestrial Paradise”

  GARCI RODRÍGUEZ DE MONTALVO

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  EVERY PLANET WE REACH IS DEAD

  The sun rose over the horizon in the City of Angels and cleared away the early morning haze that heralds every summer sunrise in Southern California. Its golden rays of weaponized photons were still charging up to their full July strength, giving people at least an hour before they had to worry about sun damage. At that moment, the air was still cool and humid. Everything was bathed in a soft yellow pastel that made the sky orange and warm. The Industry called that time of day the “Magic Hour,” and it only happened twice daily if the weather cooperated. Which it always did. God and the Teamsters both have a big slice of the movie business in this town.

  In Hollywood, tourists were clogging the intersections at Sunset and Vine, while across town, beach traffic ate Santa Monica alive. Silverlake was deserted because nothing fun happened in Silverlake before noon. On the other hand, Malibu was deserted because nothing fun ever happened in Malibu at any hour. Venice Beach was wide awake and strung out and looking for a fix. The San Fernando Valley already had its clothing off with some strange man’s phallus in its face. Burbank was still trying to get points on the back end before agreeing to do a tasteful nude scene. The City of Industry had been hard at work for four hours and Beverly Hills was just now getting out of the shower because it had, like, a brutal headache from Muffy Tandino’s rager last night. Mulholland and Bel Air had no comment and would like you to get off their fucking lawn.

  It was only 9 o’clock, but Friday was in full swing, and the Los Angeles rush hour had begun. The 405 was a parking lot, and the 101 was a nightmare. If you read those names as “four hundred and five” or “one hundred and one” instead of “four-oh-five” or “one-oh-one,” then please do everyone a favor and get back on the bus and go home.

  You will never make it in this town.

  And this town is Los Angeles, a sprawling city of 4 million god-awful pricks trying to make it, break out, or just survive.

  Some people were surviving better than others, and James “Jimmy” Bionel was one of them. His black Bentley Imperial sedan settled neatly into a parking space on a side street near the West Coast offices of Howard, Fine, Besser, and Associates. His $5,000 tan linen suit was a little wrinkled as he emerged from the car and his $900 brown Italian loafers shined as he stepped into the Southern California sun.

  If it were a movie, heroic music might play, but it wasn’t a movie, and the only sound that played was a wino screaming at a commuter bus down the street.

  This irked Jimmy a little. He genuinely believed there should be heroic music playing every time he got out of his car, and yet he never got his wish. Instead, he had to settle for simply feeling like he was the world’s favorite main character without the universe actually confirming this as fact. So Jimmy had to hum the chorus from “Staying Alive” as he walked to the building’s front entrance. On the fourth downbeat, he ran his thirty-two-year-old fingers through his thick black Italian-American hair, and on the tenth upbeat, he rubbed his tongue across his bleached teeth to ensure no part of his fried egg sandwich was lingering inside of his handsome smile. By the time he got to the second verse, he removed his $400 designer sunglasses so that his dark brown eyes. Then he adjusted his suit jacket over his athletic figure and used his brown leather briefcase to tap the handicap door button that automatically opened the doors.

  He stepped inside the building and gave a wave to Amy, his receptionist, and headed for the elevator. He tapped on the elevator’s control panel for the third floor and tapped his foot as he waited for the doors to close. The elevator took its sweet time to get started and Jimmy paced impatiently as the devilish machine began its slow trip up the shaft towards the building’s third floor. When the doors finally opened, Jimmy was at the end of his patience and he wasted no time in getting across the office towards the conference room. He ignored everyone that tried to get his attention and he arrived at the conference room.

  The executive conference room at the firm was a large room with a glass wall that looked out into the office, and on the opposite side was a panoramic third-floor view of Beverly Hills. Dominating this room was a large, expensive conference table, expertly carved from reclaimed wood and shellacked with exorbitant varnish. The chairs were also an exercise in luxury; they were handmade brown calfskin rolling chairs and so comfortable that if you sat in them for more than a minute, there was a danger you might become aroused.

  Jimmy settled into one of these chairs and waited until the bald head of Matt Besser came into view in the outer office beyond the glass wall. Besser had changed a lot in the five years that Jimmy had known him. In those days, Matt was a schlub of a man with a dirty blond comb-over, a cheap suit, and a deviated septum that whistled when he breathed. Early Matt had been a lonely, unmarried public defender with an Ivy League education and a famous father that had long ago cut Matt out of the will.

  The New Matt Besser was a sleek-looking man in a blue Saville Row suit, a slim figure, and a shaved head that seemed to tell the world “I have everything I want out of life and it doesn’t include hair.” He walked confidently with excellent posture and a big smile full of shining white teeth. Besser no longer resembled the man of five years ago, and that was entirely because of Jimmy. Matt was the Monster to Jimmy’s Frankenstein, which was why it hurt Jimmy so much when he had to roll up a newspaper and whack his little Boris Karloff on the nose.

  As the door to the conference room closed behind him, Matt whistled a chummy tune and flashed Jimmy a happy smile.

  “Good morning Jimmy.” He said, and he meant it. Matt Besser didn’t have a sarcastic bone anywhere in his body. That was the hardest part about being angry with Matt. The guy was so friendly and kind and polite. It was disgusting.

  “So I heard about the commercial, Matt,” Jimmy said

  Matt released a heavy chuckle before plopping down into a chair. “I know. Isn’t it great?”

  Jimmy felt a sense of disgust wash over him. He hated the commercial. He had spent the better part of five years trying to convince Matt that the commercial was a stupid idea. “Matt, we’ve talked about the commercial.”

  “I already cleared it with the partners in New York,” Matt acted like he was already on set, imagining the bright, bright lights of his beloved TV commercial, “It’s gonna be great, we’ll run it in prime time and I know a guy at KTLA, he thinks he can get it in a local spot at the Super Bowl,”

  “That’s... that’s just great,” Jimmy sighed and gave Matt a big, fake smile with lots of shiny teeth. “Really, just... good for you buddy, you got thing green-lit. Quick question, what will we be advertising?” He tried not to sound too bitter when he asked because Matt folded like a ping-pong table if you were mean to him, “I mean our corporate clients don’t need to see a TV commercial, our entertainment clients might hate seeing us on TV and the-”

  “Well, it would be for our Pro Bono wing,” Matt said, and he started jumping up and down again. Jimmy winced once more, but this time it was a full-body wince, like someone shoved electrical wires in the cushion under his chair. As soon as he heard “Pro Bono”, Jimmy’s legs shook and his torso jolted like a sinner at an old-time revival.

  “Are you okay?” Matt asked.

  “Yeah, sure,” Jimmy muttered. This was a lie. He was not okay.

  The Pro Bono division of Howard, Fine, Besser and Associates had been part of Besser’s contract agreement five years ago. According to that contract, Matt Besser happily took a lower salary than the rest of the senior partners and gladly took fewer shares of the firm’s revenue-sharing plan, but in exchange, the firm had to create a charity legal service for the underprivileged, something that the lawyers in the firm nicknamed it “The Pro Bono Division”. Jimmy hated it. He’d spent the better part of five years trying to kill the damned thing.

  Howard, Fine, Besser, and Associates was a massive law firm with branches in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. It dealt only with corporate clients or family law cases for extremely wealthy people. The very notion of having a giant
multimillion-dollar law firm drop everything to stick up for poor people disgusted Jimmy. Why, in God’s name, would you spend all those years in law school to work for free?

  But here it was. Matt Besser’s bleeding heart monstrosity got its ad campaign. Jimmy shuddered. What was next? Bus benches? Those little calendars they give away at insurance conventions?

  “I mean, we are going to help so many people! We can establish a trust for the at-risk kids, create a foundation for helping felons from becoming recidivists, and we’ll stop them from cutting down all the trees in Oompa Loompa Land.”

  Matt didn’t actually say “Oompa Loompa Land”, it’s just that Jimmy’s brain translated his friend’s actual words into something just as ridiculous.

  “Matt,” He said as he stood up from his chair, “I really think you should give this idea a little more thought…”

  Jimmy had taken three steps before the world went insane as a huge metal object flew and crashed into the glass barricade that separated the two rooms. Finally, succumbing to gravity, this bulky steel missile smashed into the place where Jimmy had been sitting a few moments before.

  The force of the impact sent Matt tumbling to the floor while Jimmy hurled himself sideways to the floor as an object passed just inches from his back. He whirled around and saw that this makeshift mortar shell was a large black filing cabinet, the one that the firm kept next to the coffee machine by the elevator. In the back of his mind, Jimmy remembered this cabinet was about 70 pounds and not even an Olympian could toss this thing further than a foot or two. But the path of broken cubicles and overturned desks showed that someone had thrown it clear across the third floor.

  Matt groaned and struggled to get to his feet. “Was that an earthquake?”

  Jimmy didn’t answer. He was more focused on the second flying object that hurtled through space towards the conference room. It was a large desk, and it was traveling parallel to the ground, like the front of a freight train.

  It took a split second for Jimmy to recognize the object’s trajectory and then send his body into action. He bounced off his back foot and threw himself atop Matt’s body. Together, the two men tumbled through the air like acrobats as time froze around them. When the world regained its momentum, the desk passed over their heads and onto the massive table. Splinters of wood flew like fairies in a high school production of Peter Pan.

  Then Jimmy heard the screams, a cacophony of terror as the employees of Howard, Fine, Besser and Associates ran for their collective lives. He lifted his head just high enough to see people running in all directions as more office furniture grew wings and went airborne. Jimmy regained his feet just in time for an espresso machine to fly past him and then collide with the window. There was a bang-crack as the espresso mortar created a tremendous gash in the thick window.

  A roar cut above the chaotic din, and Jimmy turned to see an animal dash between the open spaces where cubicles once stood. It hunched forward, walking on all fours and crawling towards him with the methodical steps of a mindless predator.

  But as the beast approached the conference room and the drywall dust cleared, its stance shifted from beast to human being.

  It rose onto its hind legs and stretched itself to its full height and then advanced. It came closer still and suddenly Jimmy saw the familiar shape of a woman’s body, the long flowing dark hair.

  Jimmy recognized the woman instantly.

  “Erica?”

  She looked different. Her face was puffy and swollen, especially near her jawline, her skin was pale and sickly looking, and there were droplets of sweat on every exposed piece of her dermis. This created a jarring picture for Jimmy, who was used to seeing Erica as the prime picture of health. And her fingers. Jimmy saw something protruding from the gloves on her hands, something that looked like thick, ugly coral that had covered her fingernails. It took him a moment to realize that these growths were actually claws.

  She waved those clawed fingers in the air as she unleashed a primal snarl. For an instant, Jimmy stopped seeing his ex-girlfriend and started seeing some sort of wild animal or ancient life form, a primeval creature that stalked mankind thousands of years ago. Erica leaped into the air and landed on the ruined conference table. Her head whipped back and her mouth opened.

  A human throat had never uttered that sound in all of history. It was a deep and guttural sound with a wet, throaty bass deep within its tones. The sound was so loud and terrific that it seemed to punch Jimmy in the face. Jimmy had never realized that a human body could make a noise like that. As the growl ended, Erica’s head snapped forward again, and the action moved so quickly that it threw her wrap-around sunglasses away from her face. Then she turned to look at Jimmy and fixed both eyes on his face. They were yellow, not jaundice or diseased, but golden yellow, like a cat.

  Jimmy’s voice rose, and he shouted without realizing it, “Jesus Christ!” He exclaimed and he recoiled across the damaged conference room as far as physical reality would allow.

  The sound of his voice brought a change to Erica and as soon as she heard him speak, awareness overtook her. She looked down at her claws, at her body, at the wreckage all around her, and she moaned. “No, I... oh god!” Her voice was unfamiliar, still grating and animal-like, but now at least she was forming words instead of roars and snarls, “Oh no, what did I do? What did I…” She looked at Jimmy and her face was a picture of horror, a twisted visage of pain and fear. “Help me, Jimmy!” Erica gasped. And then her eyes rolled back in her head and Erica Brooks faded away into unconsciousness.

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  For nearly three seconds, nobody did or said anything. After that, the initial shock faded into pure madness.

  “Oh God, oh God, oh God!” Matt Besser was jumping up and down in a hysterical panic while outside the conference room the wounded were moaning in pain and the fearful were crying in anguish.

  The only person in the room not having a panic attack was Jimmy, because he was more focused on the unconscious woman spread out on the ground in front of him. He leaned over her, carefully examining the hideous growths on Erica’s fingertips. They were claws, like actual claws, not fancy nail extensions.

  Jimmy pressed a thumb into the middle of Erica’s palm and he watched as the flesh of her fingers peeled back to allow the claws to extend a further inch and a half. Semi-retractable claws, real honest to God semi-retractable claws like the kind your house cat used to catch mice. He pulled on them, testing their connection to the structure of her hand, only to wince as their razor-sharp points split the flesh of his forefinger.

  He yelped in pain and leaped back just as Matt Besser started fumbling through his pockets in search of his cell phone. Jimmy did a double-take when he saw the numbers “9-1-1” flash on the surface of Matt’s iPhone. With his good hand, Jimmy reached over and slapped the phone away from Besser.

  “Are you nuts?” He shouted as his business partner dropped to the floor in search of his phone.

  “We need to call the police!” Matt said when his fingers closed around the phone. He tried to raise it back to his ear, only for Jimmy to slap it back onto the ground. “Stop doing that!”

  Jimmy’s voice was curt, clipped, and calm. He felt his pulse steady out and the adrenaline in his system thin to nothing. Suddenly, he was ice cold. “No police, Matt.”

  “But-”

  “No. Police. Contact a private service, tell them to deploy an ambulance, don’t call 911 because they record phone calls.” He leaned down and swept Erica into his arms. She was heavy, heavier than she’d ever been in his arms, and he felt the twitching cords of thick muscle under her clothing. It was a lot more muscle than he remembered her having before they’d broken up. Jimmy started for the door with Erica awkwardly positioned on his shoulder. He grunted under her weight.