Meanwhile, Back In New York.

The streets were quiet as usual. With gasoline-powered vehicles reserved for military and government use, and dirigibles being very expensive, there was not as much noise as there used to be in New York City.

There was always the general background noise of the city, though. When you have 1 billion people living in close proximity, there is noise. There is the noise of footsteps on city sidewalks, and the noise of people arguing through thin walls, and the noise of dinner plates clattering as they are washed, and the noise of children playing somewhere and the noise of lovers loving and the noise of 1 billion lives being led, each in their own way. That noise was always present.

One of those 1 billion people came walking out of an alleyway, pulling up his pants a little and adjusting them. He glanced around and then shook his head, as though thinking he should have glanced around before leaving the alley, or maybe as though he was thinking that he should have finished pulling up his pants before leaving the alley. But he left, walking off to his right, secure in the knowledge that nobody he cared about saw him. His footsteps added a new sound to the background buzz; before walking away, he had been perfectly silent.

Another of those 1 billion people watched him from a little ways up the street, sitting on a doorstoop.

A third of those 1 billion people stood in the alleyway tucking some money into her bra cup and pulling her skirt back down. She did not watch the first man in this tableau leave; she did not even think about him any more than she thought about the other 15 men that night. It would be morning soon and she had a lot of money and just needed to make it through one more hour or so.

She saw the silhouette of the second of the people in this scene, at the alleyway entrance. She almost could not make out the shape of the man, it was so dark in this part of the city. 1 billion people lived in the city but none of them, it seemed, could be spared to fix the 6 broken street lights on this street.

Angelina -- the name of the woman with the bra strap and the money, the name of the prostitute who now looked at the shape in the alleyway-- could no longer be scared. She did not feel very much emotion at all, anymore.

If you live with an emotion for long enough, it no longer qualifies as an emotion. It becomes part of your existence. Similarly, if you live without an emotion long enough, you no longer note its absence.

Angelina had lived without love for a long time. She did not realize, anymore, that she was living without loving.

Angelina had lived in fear for so long that she had stopped noticing it. She was afraid all the time, and so, paradoxically, she was never afraid. Her level of fear was constant and therefore no longer alerted her when it was necessary.

"Come on over," she said, and shrugged back out of her bra so that her breasts were free. Men always wanted the breasts free. "It's seventy."

The man moved closer. Angelina should have feared him but she did not. He was tall and dark and muscular.

"Let's get you ready," she said, and reached down his pants. She looked up at him in surprise.

The man hit her over the head and she went unconscious. She should have been afraid before that. When she woke, she would, finally, feel fear again.

Count Your Blessings

It was on us with a heart-rending roar. The waterspout suddenly leaned over and dove at us, I swear it dove at us, and Ivanka and the horse reared back. I saw the waterspout's mouth open up and there were waterspout teeth that looked both solid and liquid, I guess the ordinary rules of things don't matter in Hell, and they came at us. As the horse reared back and tried to avoid it, it almost flew straight up in the air and I slipped off.

I was holding onto Ivanka's waist, luckily, and had my arms wrapped pretty tightly around her. So the horse was going straight up and Ivanka was riding it like a pro and I was hanving from her as it flew up and the waterspout came at us and swallowed us.

It was engulfing and terrifying. The teeth clamped around us and I clung to Ivanka as we were instantly soaked. I could feel small things pelting me and the water was both icy cold and boiling hot and it burned my skin something fierce. A big thing slammed into me as I closed my eyes and I saw just a glimpse of a tortured soul being flung past us and it was shrieking. You think when you're alive that you've heard shrieking but you haven't heard shrieking until you get to Hell.

When the soul slammed into me it jarred one arm a little and I felt my hands slipping. I tried to interlace my fingers but it wasn't working.

"Ivanka!" I screamed but even I couldn't hear my own voice. The water was howling around us and we were immersed in it. I could feel the horse straining. Another body slammed into me and my hands broke free and Ivanka turned her head to look.

I fell from the horse and from Ivanka. I fell and fell and fell and the waterspout was swirling me around just like any other damned soul...

... was I a damned soul?...

Ivanka and the horse tried to turn around. They were going to their left; I had been torn off to their right. Souls and debris and water were pummeling me now and I was getting bruised and broken. One poor person grabbed at me, got a hand on my neck and I started choking and they pulled me down. I looked over my shoulder and saw a man, his face half melted off. He scrabbled at me and he tore my hair out by the roots. I felt the water stinging it. I was screaming and didn't see Ivanka anymore but I was still falling and getting sucked down closer to the ocean' surface.

I saw the face of the waterspout appear; it had rotated around and was inside the spout now and was leering at me and it opened wide and the mouth reached out for me. One of the teeth was right above my face and was about to bite in and I couldn't breath because the dead guy was still holding onto my neck when suddenly a sword lashed out and cut off the tooth at the root.

Ivanka and the horse had worked their way around, going upstream, and the horse had broken out of the walls of the waterspout and was in the middle where there was only a bloody sort of misty haze. They floated there and Ivanka whirled her sword around and the water was about to carry me past but she leaned way over and with her left hand grabbed my foot and pulled me into the middle of the waterspout, too.

The face roared and the horse started up, Ivanka still carrying me by my foot. The dead guy clung to my throat and I gasped for air and saw the blood drip from my scalp onto his face as the horse climbed and climbed and climbed and finally we were at the top.

We broke free.

We broke free and got out into open air, as open as air can be in Hell. The waterspout kept stretching and reaching for us. The voices in the waterspout, the souls, were crying out. I saw them whirling by and reaching out arms for us. The dead man clung to me grimly, moaning. I couldn't get him off of me.

We kept flying higher and higher, putting distance between us and the waterspout. I wished we'd done that in the first place.

I wished, too, that I could get the dead guy to let go of me.

I wished, three, that Ivanka would pull me up instead of dangling me by a foot.

I tried to count my blessings, though.

The Waterspout Appears

Hell is sort of timeless, so I'm not sure how long we flew before trouble arose. Literally arose. We'd been flying over the sea, which would ordinarily seem to be the safest course of action but there's nothing safe about Hell. So our flight was not some idyllic jaunt with naked women riding on a flying horse and trying not to accidentally (or not) cop a feel.

Instead, it was filled with images of people, souls, I guess, struggling for their life in the acidic burning boiling monster-filled seas of Hell.

I don't know how they sort out the souls that arrive in Hell or who gets what punishment. I'd guess it's random. And I go back and forth on which would be worse, given the various things I've seen, but it looked pretty bad that day, with Ivanka, watching people getting their eyes chewed out by fish that were all teeth, it seemed, while their skin slowly bubbled away so that they were these eyeless-half-skeletons trying desperately to swim but failing because you could see the boiling acid water filling their mouths and coming out of their lungs.

I clung to Ivanka.

And I clung to these words, ringing in my memory: They move freely between the Life and the Afterlife, Reverend Tommy had said. I was not able, so far, to move freely between those two things. But maybe I hadn't tried the right way.

I didn't know if Ivanka was the right way. But she was there. Sort of like that song that Doc sometimes played for me about loving the one you're with, which I'd also done, but in this case, using the one you're with to try to escape Hell.

Which I was beginning to think we might do until I saw the Waterspout rising up. It began to spin, ahead of us, so far away but so big that I could see it, first a disturbance, then a column, then a giant whirling thing that moved directly at us.

It was coming for us. I knew that, and Ivanka and her horse knew it because I felt her thighs tense under my arms and I felt her back tense and I felt the horse feel it and the horse flew right, and the Waterspout moved that direction. The horse then went left, and the Waterspout moved that direction, getting larger and larger both because it was getting larger and because it was getting closer.

Beyond it, I saw actual white light.

Then all I could see was the Waterspout. It was a tornado of the red acid water which was also burning and spinning and spitting at us, and in the Waterspout were the things that were in the ocean - - monsters and fish and snakes and tentacles and eyes and teeth and claws and jagged rocks, and half-eaten souls screaming in pain and terror like they'd been doing for eternity and like they'd keep doing for eternity.

All that was coming at us, fast. The Waterspout had all that to throw at us.

It also had a mouth and eyes.

Rachel and Ivanka are done making out.

Part Two, Chapter 3, Getting out of Hell, Posted Today! Rachel has woken in Hell and runs into an icy cold woman...

Welcome to

Lesbian Zombies Are Taking Over the World

A serialized story updated 1-2 times per week.

Two weeks ago, Rachel was a waitress in a coffee shop in New York City. She doesn't remember anything in her waking life before that. In her dreams, she remembers a lot longer, but she also spends time in Hell in her dreams. And her Octopus wants her to take over the world.

The story is told in parts:

The Beginning: At the Church of Our Savior of Living People Only:

Rachel wakes up one day to realize that she doesn't know anything about her life. On the advice of her octopus, she walks south and meets Brigitte. And the revenants.

Part Two: In Hell:

Running from the Revenants, Rachel wakes up in Hell and seeks help from a Valkyrie.

Getting Out Of Hell

Ivanka did not say anything. I've never heard her talk. I'm not entirely sure that she can talk or what language she talks. In Hell, I've never had any problem understanding anyone, and Ivanka seems to understand me. She didn't even nod.

"I need to get out of here," she said. Ivanka just looked at me, her large hand caressing the inside of my bicep on my right arm. It tickled a little, and excited me a little.

"How long has it been since I last saw you?" I asked her, without much hope that she'd answer. I sat up and wondered why Ivanka had clothes but I didn't. I tried to think how long it had been in my time since I'd seen her. But I couldn't. Time flows differently when I'm awake and when I'm asleep or in Hell or both or whatever.

Ivanka stood up and stretched and started rearranging her clothes. I hadn't had much of an effect on them. Valkyries are sort of set up for sex. Or Ivanka was. I hadn't met any other Valkyries so I guess I sort of stereotype them by Ivanka. I wasn't even sure how I knew she was a Valkyrie. Or how I knew what a Valkyrie was in the first place.

What I mean is: Ivanka's clothes were ready for sex anytime and didn't need much adjusting. They were loose and open and you could get to the good parts without much trying. I figured watching Valkyries fight would be exciting.

I looked around. I had no idea where I was. Most of the time when I appear in Hell I didn't care where I was and it's almost always somewhere different and I spend most of my time trying to hide and not get caught by the various people and things that populate Hell. This time, though, spurred on by Reverend Tommy's rants, I had an idea.

I was going to get out of Hell, and Ivanka I figured would help me.

"Where's your horse?" I asked her. Valkyries, I figured, always had horses. I don't know how I knew that, either.

But I was right. Ivanka turned towards me again as she pointed; she had one breast still a little outside of her armor. Think of Brigitte I told myself and as I did, I pictured Brigitte, kneeling over my unconcscious body and hoping I was all right and also I pictured her baby, which I wasn't yet ready to say was my baby. But that distracted me while Ivanka tucked her nipple away and pointed.

I turned in the direction she pointed and looked where I'd just been looking a moment before, before I'd turned towards her, and saw a horse materialize. Ivanka crooked her finger and the horse looked up and came trotting over.

"That's your horse?" I asked.

The horse nodded.

"Can you understand me?" I asked it.

It nodded again.

"But you can't talk?"

It shook its head, no.

"Just yes and no."

It tapped its hoof.

"What's that mean?"

The horse tapped its foot once, paused, then twice, paused, then three times.

"You can count."

It nodded.

"What's your name?"

It just looked at me.

"Right. Dumb."

Ivanka was walking around the horse and stood on the opposite side of it. She leaped up on top and sat there. I walked over, and she held out her hand. I reached up and grabbed it and she hoisted me onto the horse's back. I put my arms around her and tried not to think of what we'd just done, but it was hard what with my breasts pressed into her back and the fact that I was naked and had my legs pressed up tight against her.

The horse began trotting forward along the seashore, staying well clear of the boiling water but otherwise seeming unaffected by the rocks and pointy stuff and heat and general atmosphere.

Ivanka looked back over her shoulder at me. Her eyebrows raised up.

"Um. Out of Hell," I said. She nodded. The horse nodded, and began galloping. Then it took off and flew, running, up into the sky.