Not real sure what's happened in the last few days, or exactly what the fuck has happened to me. It's Tuesday now. At least, I think that's what day it is. I've spent the last two days in a liquor haze, so I'm not real sure.

Me and Rachel stayed in the hotel room until Saturday. We waited until daylight, and then we went out to scout the immediate area. Same kind of shit going on as when we first entered Chemos' Zone; lots of fucking in the streets. We heard a woman scream as we moved down the street outside the hotel. We looked up to see some guy beating the shit out of his woman on the fire escape. She was bare-ass naked, and bloody as hell. He turned her around, and shoved her off from about five stories up. She landed head first, and her head busted like an over-ripe melon. Blood and brain splattered in about a ten foot radius, and the body just kind of slumped over, twitching on the ground. Then, a bunch of lurkers came rushing over to the corpse, drooling like a pack of fucking jackals. The guy up on the fire escape looked down while they propped the body's ass up in the air and started fucking the corpse. "Serves you right for still being warm, you fucking cunt!" He turned and went back inside, and you could hear the screams of another woman for blocks around.

And people say romance is dead.

We tried to move past the necros at fast as possible. One was drilling the body from the ass end while the other was making creative use of the stump where her head used to be. A third turned to look at Rachel, and that was enough to earn him a 12-gauge face removal. Fucked up part was, instead of his buddies scattering, like even the freaks in Central Park would have, the ones waiting for a turn at the dead bitch grabbed his body and started working it over. I've seen a lot of shit in the past four years, but nothing like the debasement that goes on in this Zone. Sarah would have loved it, if she wasn't digesting in the belly of a Beast right now, that is.

Something started burning real bad as we walked. I saw the kind of shit that Heaven decided it didn't want, and I started getting real fucking pissed that Jaime, me, and now Rachel had been lumped in with these fucking mongrels. Made me wonder who the real Father of Lies was. At least the Infernal Legions didn't give you any illusions about who they were, and what your place was. We're all damned. We know it, and those of us who want to keep from going out of our minds accept it and move on with life. But I still remember all that forgiveness and mercy bullshit they used to cram down our throats during Sunday school. Then, you could go home, watch the news, and hear about another priest getting arrested for molesting a fucking kid. Sure, the priest is probably still getting ass-raped by some eight foot demon with a razor spiked dick, but that doesn't change the fact that the kid is fucked up for life, through no fault of his own. Where was God's mercy while that kid was listening to his screams echo through the empty halls of the church that he was raped in? Where the fuck is God's tender mercy while folks whose only crime is that they weren't quite pious enough for Heaven's standards get all manner of horrors committed on them daily? What about all the kids condemned to Hell for no apparent reason? Since when is Original Sin considered fucking merciful?

Where the fuck was His-All-Fucking-Mightiness' mercy when Jaime was killed?

The memory of the dream about Michael comes to mind. How I dearly wish that winged motherfucker was here so I could piss on his foot. Wandering in and out with his cryptic bullshit. I'm just fucking sick of it…all of it.

Rachel saw it in my eyes that day, and she suggested we turn back. I just wanted to get away from all that shit, so we went back to the hotel. I needed a drink.

I raided the hotel room's bar, and found some fairly decent whiskey to toss back. It calmed the nerves, but didn’t kill the images burned into my skull, or kill the anger at us getting fucked like this by a being that supposedly loves us so damn much. I'm beginning to think that He sacrificed His only Son just because He likes to see what happens when we get nailed to trees. Kind of like when you were a kid and pulled the wings off of flies.

I threw back about four shots before Rachel decided to join me. I had been so pissed that I hadn't noticed she was shaking again. After a few drinks, she calmed down more, and I held her for a while. I was more than a little drunk at that point, and all the frustration of being so close to her started to come to the surface. Apparently she'd been feeling the same way, because before either of us knew it, we were all over each other. My entire world turned into the feel and taste of her fantastic brown skin. The next coherent thought I had was of thrusting inside her, face buried in her breasts, while she bit down on the torn remains of her shirt and made noises that would make the bawdiest of porn stars blush.

We made love for hours -- that looks strange. Never thought I'd use that word again after Jaime, but there's no other word for it. It was more than simple fucking. I've bedded down with my share of women, and it's only been like this with one other woman. I wanted to be able to touch every inch of her simultaneously.

Then, it happened.

You see, Hell don't like true bliss, and having a moment of true contentment on this side of the Black Curtain is like a disguised Jew hiding among the SS and suddenly breaking into a chorus of Hava Nagila. Might as well paint a target on your forehead. After all this time, you would've though I would know better.

I blinked my eyes, and for an instant, the body writhing beneath me turned into a long dead corpse, then right back again. Under normal circumstances, this would still fuck with me, but I could get over it fairly quickly. But those weren't normal circumstances. Between the anger I'd been feeling earlier at the whole of Creation, and it's Maker in particular, the liquor, and the fact that I was laying with only the second woman I've truly cared about in my life, my emotions were running too high for me to control, and I lost it. I jumped off of her, and recoiled like she was some kind of poisonous snake. She started coming towards me, trying to help…to find out what was wrong. I was scared shitless, screaming at her to stay the fuck back. My brain was so fucked up that nothing seemed to come together as a firm image. I vaguely remember shoving her away from me, and that I at least had the presence of mind to shove her down on the bed.

I only remember bits and pieces after that. I was on a kind of auto-pilot, I guess. I remember getting dressed, and grabbing the .45. I remember running into someone on the street, and pounding him in the face with the gun butt. I kept pounding over and over until the face caved in, then I kept pounding until I'd pushed his face to the back of his brain cavity. I wandered around from bottle to bottle for a few days, and just sobered up this morning. I'm completely fucking amazed that I have this damn book with me still. I'm not sure where I am, but I know I'm still in Chemos' Zone. Too much fucking going on to be anywhere else.

I have to get back to the hotel. Gotta find Rachel, and make this right.

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Needless to say, Rachel's gone. I've torn the room apart trying to find a clue as to which way she went, but all I found was clothes and my shotgun, hidden away in the base boards. Can't blame her. She probably thought I was going to kill her.

If I thought it was possible for God to damn Himself, I'd say the curse. Is this all that there is? Is this what Hell's all about? Or is this all just another of God's little amusements to keep Himself busy?

I’m so fucking tired I can't think straight. I vaguely remember putting the shotgun barrel in my mouth again, but I pussied out at the last minute. Couldn't summon the balls to cope with what Hell threw at me, can't summon the balls to kill myself.

I spent the next few hours shouting out to a God that doesn't give a shit about us anymore. "How much is enough?! How fucking far do You want us to bend over?! Why did Your All-Fucking-Mighty Forgiveness seem to peter out when it came to anyone who didn't measure up?! By what fucking guidelines did you condemn us?!

After about an hour of the expected lack of response, I decided it was pointless, just like it had always been. God had shit on us, and I had no use for Him. I need to find Rachel. She's the only thing that makes sense in this whole fucked up mess. She's the only thing good that's still left in me. I have to find her.

Been looking for going on three days now, and still no sign, other than the body trail she's leaving behind. Plenty of fucking pervs would be more than willing to have her for dinner, and apparently some have tried, because I keep finding groups of necros fucking corpses with .44 caliber bullet holes in them. She's dumping the shell casings on the ground when she re-loads. It's the ammo I took from the God freaks, no question.

I feel sick from all the shit in these streets. I nearly retched on the greasy little pimp who offered me an eleven year old girl with "a mouth meant to suck dick, and an ass as warm and sweet as home cookin' ". Instead of puking, I blew his knee cap off. He screamed like a banshee when he went down, holding the hamburger that used to be his leg. Just for giggles, I shot the motherfucker in the other knee. "Goddamn that hurts, don't it?" I smiled. I don't like flesh peddlers, but I really hate these pedophile shit bags with a passion. His screaming started to die a little, so I splattered his balls across the pavement with another shot. Man, did that get him going. I smiled a little more.

Finally, I grew bored with the noise, so I pulled the Spyderco, and cut open his voice box. Not much, just enough so he could enjoy the pleasure of drowning in his own blood while not even being able to scream about it. Adios motherfucker, don't forget to write.

Feeling better after the diversion, I continued looking for Rachel. Found a few more examples of her own brand of handiwork, but still no her. At least she's leaving a trail, but she'll be running out of ammo soon if I don't get to her.

She'll be moving quick and light, trying to make it to the next Zone. Not exactly a nice place, but more like the shit hole we had left, and less like the shit hole we were in now.

I'm going to try and move through the night to see if I can catch up to her. Ordinarily I wouldn't even consider travelling at night in this place, but I have to find her. Hopefully, when I pick up again, I'll have her back with me.