by Rod Rayborne
He was thrown backwards by another wave of concussive energy, along with everything else in the store, swept as though by a mighty broom five stories high. Then the ground began to convulse in violent, rhythmic waves. If he had thought about it, he might have imagined he was paddling a canoe through a crushing ocean squall.
The store would fall. Lurching to his feet, he dragged the pack by one strap and ran as quickly as he could manage towards the light exploding through the entrance. Holding his right hand in front of him, he shaded his eyes from the increasing light. Ceiling tiles fell around him, wires and cables dropping down from above, swinging in his path, waiting to ensnare him as he passed. Heat exploded through the entrance, fires flaring spontaneously around him, yet still he struggled towards it.
The heat was becoming unbearable. He hesitated a moment and then a crashing behind him forced him forward once again. The building was indeed collapsing. He wanted to drop the pack, find someplace to hide and hope for the best. Instead he pushed forward, his face buried in the crook of his arm, stinging from flying grit.
He stumbled to the entrance as a swath of ceiling crashed behind him. Dragging himself outside, he gaped at the heat, the silhouette of a range of distant hills swallowed up by the light. Then he slipped to his knees, falling back on his heels. He dropped the strap, let the pack fall to the ground and fell face down to the hot asphalt. Consciousness dissolved slowly then, a dream of cool waters enveloping him as he slipped beneath the waves of an encroaching sea.
Chapter Twenty
S ofia lurched towards north La Cienega Blvd, tottering under the weight of her pack and gun belt. The spring in her step had turned into a stagger. Since leaving Rodeo Blvd, she had 'acquired' a few more possessions she had decided on the spur of the moment that she couldn't live without. Among them, a small but heavy clay sketch of a woman holding an urn on her shoulder. The sculpture was signed by someone named Rodin. She doubted the rather amateur ability of the artist, but the thing had some trifling appeal, she'd decided.
Around her neck hung a magnificent assemblage of necklaces, some dangling crystalline rocks of various sizes, suspended from gold and platinum chains. Rings lined her fingers as well, crammed together and overlapping. As she walked, Sofia's skinny legs wobbled, her knees trembling. She staggered again while trying step over a body on the sidewalk, then fell backwards, landing on her pack, then sitting down hard on the splintered sidewalk.
Immediately she pulled her arms from beneath the straps and massaged her shoulders where they had been digging in. Then she looked around critically, watching the smoke drift by.
Around her face was tied a gaudy silk scarf she had found in a Versace store to breathe through, the corners knotted behind her head and hanging down from there like a bride's delicate lace veil.
Her personal adornment consisted of several diamond and pearl studded necklaces, a gold armlet on her right bicep in the shape of a cobra, various gaudy rings competing for room on her fingers, white shorts she found in a high-end clothiers and the socks buried deep inside a heavy pair of hiking boots.
Along with the pearl handled pistols that swung from her hips, she presented a curious but not unappealing sight. Standing not quite five foot three in her stocking feet and weighing slightly less than two sacks of feed, she would have been a rather comic sight for anyone, had there been anyone around to see her. But she was alone here, utterly and completely.
Sitting on the hard concrete, she pulled the pack towards her and untied the flap. Then she carefully spilled its contents onto the ground. Several diamond rings, some of which she would call rocks, emeralds, rubies and other stones, stared unblinkingly back at her. A diminutive silver tea pot, the small clay sculpture, already chipping in the pack, a tiny oil painting in an elaborate gilt frame by someone she had never heard of but it fit in the pack and looked expensive and of course a few cans of soda and pre-packaged pastries to complete her haul.
She wondered about New York and Paris, Florence and Madrid. She was confident life went on in those places just as before, the rich got richer and the poor dog paddled. That was Sofia not three days ago, barely able to keep her head above water. Now she had all this, more wealth than any one person had a right to. She pushed her load back into the pack, tossing the chipped clay figurine out into the street and looked once again at the heavy bag with a smile. Then, burying her face in her hands, she began to cry.
She awoke in a king sized bed on the forth floor of the fourteen floor tower of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel yawning deeply. She opened her eyes slowly and stretched, sliding her bare skin languorously along the satin sheets, savoring their smooth embrace a few moments longer. Then yawning again, she sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, necklaces clinking together, looking for the place she had sleepily dumped her belongings the night before.
Spotting them sitting by the door where she had dropped them before falling into bed, she relaxed and glanced towards the curtained glass door leading to the balcony. Below the heavy curtains, little squares of glass were piled, lying where they had blown against them and fallen. Standing, she stretched again and slipping on her socks and hiking boots, moved to the window, throwing back the drapes. The glass crunched beneath her shoes. From her forth floor vantage point, she looked out at the Los Angeles basin and scowled.
She'd made her way to the hotel the night before, seeing its shape rearing up in silhouette against the glowing sky. It had grown so dark, she knew the sun must have set, though the fire laced smoke blocked it so effectively, it could almost have been sunrise instead. Exhausted, she found her way to the building and up the stairs. Trying the doors, she was dismayed to find most of them locked. Those not locked were occupied, the smell as effective at keeping her out as the unoccupied ones.
She climbed the stairs in the dark, exploring floor after floor, feeling around her with her feet so as not to stumble over someone until on the forth floor, she found a door standing open. Outside, a maid's cleaning station sat, propping the door open but the maid was no where to be found, probably having run off with some of the guests when the boom was heard. Rolling the cart out of the way, Sofia let the door shut behind her and dropping her pack onto the floor, had fallen into bed, asleep almost before she touched the sheets.
The sky had lightened again, though some areas were still aglow with various billows of orange and magenta, each rolling in and around the other like baker's dough being kneaded by enormous cosmic hands. Farther away, darker clouds were on the move, threatening weather.
Below, the valley was littered by fires dotting the landscape as far as the horizon and, Sofia suspected, probably farther. She had hoped to be able to see a break in the clouds somewhere so that she could plan her trip out of benighted city to civilization. She knew where the coast lay but realized that was no guarantee of salvation from that direction. Her only hope, she told herself, rested in finding the shortest route out of LA before she succumbed to the smoke.
She walked to her pack and squatted, pulling back the flap. Digging inside, she took out a can of Coke and a couple of prepackaged pastries. Taking them with her back to the balcony, she carefully stepped outside and began to eat. Waves of heat washed over her. She felt sticky, layers of sweat building to create a pungent barrier standing several feet from her body.
Absently munching on a Cinnamon roll, she looked up towards the top of the hotel stretching high above her. Staring up, she decided to climb to the roof, several floors higher and look from there. Finishing her Coke, she dropped the can and pastry wrapper over the balcony's railing. The empty can drifted away in a hot gust to eventually hit the walk below, a lonely ringing echoing in the quiet. She could see the shapes of wreckage scattered about the hotel, but no movement. She walked back into the room.
Remembering from the night before on her ascent to the forth floor that the dead smelled worse indoors than out, she tied the cloth around her face once again. Then she turned and bent to pick up her pack, loath to l
eave such a wealth of treasures behind where they could be stolen. Lifting one strap, she grunted under the weight. She stopped, remembering that she had seen no other living person in the city since the Blow. Probably she was the only one left.
Too, the thought of dragging herself up another ten flights of stairs with the ungodly weight of the pack on her back as well was sufficient to dissuade her and she dropped the strap. The gun belt, on the other hand, was something she had no intention of letting out of her sight.
She began to buckle it on when a thought occurred to her. Dropping it back to the floor, she pulled out one of the pistols and flipped the barrel open. Just as she had suspected, it was empty. She took six of the silver bullets from the belt and pushed them one at a time into the chamber, spinning it as she did. Doing the same with the other gun, she slid them back into their holsters. Then straightening, she buckled the belt around her hips and walked out the door.
Chapter Twenty One
H ershel was a big man. A big man! At 6'5", 280 pounds, all of it muscle, he would have presented an imposing figure anywhere. His low heavy voice, rich with the resonant tones of his African/American ancestry, did nothing to lessen that impression. Now he stood with his ear pressed against the door to apartment 2E in the Royal Lux. Ignoring the sounds of the last spatters of rain dripping from the apartment overhang, he listened carefully instead where he stood, waited a few seconds and then gently pushed the door open. He slid his head inside, ducking to keep from banging it on the doorframe.
The walls of the Royal Lux apartments on Capital Street were nearly covered in graffiti, as were many of the other houses, apartments and businesses in the surrounding neighborhood. The lawn that fronted it had long since dried up, becoming just a dusty repository for empty beer cans and cigarette butts, while the shrubs around the short block retaining wall looked as though they had been dead long before any fires had swept the area clean of life. Like most of the other buildings within a two-mile radius of the Metro bus terminal in South Central LA, the Royal Lux had already been in poor condition before the bombs fell. Being violently shakened in the blast and scorched in the subsequent fires hadn't done much to improve their appearance.
All unnoticed by Hershel, he pushed the door open and seeing no one immediately in sight, quickly looked behind it. Satisfied that no one else was in the room, he walked to the single closed door on the other side of a short hallway. The shattered window from which he had heard the whimpering from the street below was inside the room.
He listened for a moment, standing to the side of the door. Still no sound met his ears. Gently covering the knob with his heavy right hand, he threw it open. Standing just inside, a woman turned towards him, nude, her bright red dress at her feet where it had fallen. She'd yet to step out of it.
Her face was a glory of makeup, fake lashes standing out fully an inch from her eyes, cherry red lipstick and clown like rouge on both cheeks. Her emaciated, heroin addicted body was covered in leathery tattoos, while her arms were littered with track marks, making a detailed map of way points where she'd tried to find a vein. Anything that might once have identified her as a woman had long since vanished.
Behind her, a small girl stood in bare feet, wearing a thin filthy dress, looking at him with wide, frightened eyes, her chin quivering. She stood in a puddle of urine, visibly shaking, her face smeared with tears that had created dirty smears down her cheeks.
Near her was the small broken window through which he had heard her crying. Hershel guessed her age as somewhere between five and six years old.
Next to the woman, three men in their own filthy rags stood, one with a large hand still clasped over the woman's mouth. They must have heard him coming. He was going to have to work on his stealth.
Hershel bent to one knee, looking at the girl with gentle eyes.
"Hello there, child," Hershel said slowly. "You come on over here now. Ain't these men gonna be hurting you or your mom no more. I promise. Come on now."
The man holding the woman put out his other hand to block the girl, glaring defiantly back at Hershel.
Hershel stood and looked at the men each in turn starting and finishing with the man holding the woman. The man's hand slipped from her face and he stepped back to join the other two.
The girl ran to Hershel and threw her arms around one of his massive legs. He looked down, patting her back gently. Then he looked at the woman and frowned.
"Ma'am, you take your little'un and go. Go home!" It wasn't a suggestion.
The woman hurriedly gathered her dress up, grabbed a purse, shoving makeup and home rolled cigarettes back inside and taking the little girl's hand, ran from the apartment.
One of the men started to say something but Hershel just held a finger to his lips. He waited until he heard the front door slam. Then, with a grin, he leaned back against the door to the room he was in with the men and heard it click shut behind him. They began to shake visibly. Hershel was a big man!
When Hershel opened the front door, he was surprised to see the little girl standing outside. On her dress, a message was written in large red lipstick letters.
She's not my kid!!
Hershel looked out and saw the woman two blocks away, a skeleton running, still naked, her things bunched in her arms. Then his gaze fell to the little girl staring up at him, his heart sinking. Looking again at the running woman, he sighed.
"Well now child, do you live around here somewhere?"
The girl just stared at him, quiet, impassive.
"That'd be too easy, wouldn't it?" he sighed. He stared up at the sky for a moment.
"What do you say we take us a walk, hmm?" He lifted her gently onto his shoulders and together they left Capital Street behind.
Chapter Twenty Two
B
ennett checked his rifle's safety for the third time and then laying it aside, looked to his side arm. Then reholstering it, he turned back to his pack. Getting it outside and well hidden had been no small feat with so many nervous pairs of eyes combing the compound and surroundings for any hint of threat or anything else out of the ordinary.
Major General Owen was proving to be a loose cannon as far Bennett was concerned, something he chalked up to his distinctly unfriendly attitude toward anything or anyone he saw as a challenge. His 'guilty until proven innocent' policy rubbed Bennett the wrong way. To him, Owen was endangering the lives of his entire command. He wondered if Owen represented the American Military or just himself.
Pushing the sheet of metal that covered the tool well in the automotive bay of Harry's Foreign and Domestic Automotive Service out of the way, he pulled out the heavy canvas bag from where he had hidden it and laid it down next to his rifle. Throwing back the flap, he poured the contents onto the cracked concrete. Everything was just as he had left it. Food, water, blanket roll, compass and new maps, extra ammo, binoculars, first aid kit (that one had been the hardest to secure), a roll of duct tape and a nylon climbing rope, an extra pair of socks and a dog-eared copy of the Army Survival Handbook.
He had briefly considered including an edition of Stephen King's tome, The Stand, the only non-fiction book on the shelf in the tiny army library, but changed his mind at the last minute. The pack was already heavy enough and the book, the unabridged version, at more than a thousand pages, was more weight than he could justify. Besides, he had never much cared for the post-apocalyptic genre anyway. Too depressing.
He pushed everything back into the pack roughly (he could sort it all out later), except for the compass, which he tucked into a front pocket of his pants. A tat tat sound quickly brought his head up. The corrugated metal roof began to rattle. Apprehensively, Bennett looked out the large open bay door. The noise was coming not from flying debris but a rain that was fast becoming torrential. He realized as well that the temperature was dropping rapidly from sweltering to merely torpid.
Without, the sky had turned dark once again. Greasy rain exploded from it in great droughts that threatened
to penetrate the roof like buckshot. Seeing the downpour as cover, he threw the bag over one shoulder and his carbine over the other and ran towards the auto shop exit.
Cautiously he peered around the bay door. He wasn't supposed to be on guard duty for another hour. Likely no one even knew he was gone. He chanced a quick glance in both directions and seeing no one, moved in the direction opposite the compound. Reaching the corner, he turned and charged several more blocks before changing direction once again. He continued in this way, jogging in a zigzag pattern for several miles before he finally allowed himself to slow down.
The rain, if anything, had only increased in ferocity making it difficult to see more than a block in any direction. Owen's men, if there where any following him, would find it nearly impossible to see him even were they looking in his direction at a hundred paces from him. Bennett stopped to catch his breath, looking down at himself. Soaked to the skin, he rested for several minutes.
His plan was to head south on the supposition that the southern hemisphere of the planet might have escaped the destruction the north couldn't. If he chanced on an army unit in his journey out of LA, he would rejoin them, saying that he'd gotten turned around in the storm. But if he could get out of the city, he would get as far south as possible.
The first thing he wanted to do was to ditch his military wear for something civilian that he hoped would let him pass as a survivor and present less of an interesting target to either the army or other survivors, especially by any who might be tempted to take a shot at a uniform, those who they might deem responsible for their current unfortunate situation.
