The Long Summer

by Rod Rayborne

  The rain followed Bennett. It felt to him like it had not just lowered the ambient temperature by several degrees but his core body temperature as well. He walked along for a few blocks looking for a clothiers somewhere. Until he'd been 'volunteered' for the army by his father, all he'd ever worn were hand me downs. Army greens weren't much of an improvement. He wanted something with a little style. Something in black perhaps.

  He grinned to himself. Before the Blow, the only suit he had ever worn was the old pin striped felt one his grandfather had worn to his wedding. Not Bennett's wedding. His own, fifty odd years before.

  The next time it had been worn was by Bennett to his grandfather's funeral. By that time the suit was so threadbare, the hanger had worn narrow tears in both shoulders that stood up like horns during the whole ceremony. When the preacher got to talking about the devil (his grandfather was of questionable character), Bennett, standing next to him on the stage, felt like everyone was looking at him.

  Bennett walked on for several more miles in the driving rain, stepping over bodies, around chunks of pavement, through store merchandise blown out into the street. Nothing was of any interest to him now but a fresh change of clothing.

  He passed a Holiday Inn with a small No Vacancy sign in the office window and laughed.

  At Newman and Cause he saw a Taylor and Son's fine clothiers. Emerging from there an hour later, he was decked out in a black tux and tails, no shirt, and a 50's style black felt fedora. The boots stayed. Stiff leather wingtips just weren't practical, he had decided. Not when one was running.

  The soaked canvas storage bag hung on his dry suit like a waterlogged blanket. The rain had dwindled to a gentle mist now but the streets flowed with sepia colored mud several inches thick that had washed from the surrounding buildings and looked more like a serious case of soil erosion than the results of a brief down burst.

  He would be missed by now, he knew, was due at watch more than an hour before. A search would have been implemented around the compound and perhaps a few blocks outside it and woe betide him should he be found.

  He wouldn't be found though. Owen hadn't gathered enough manpower to waste on something he must know was futile in a dead city with a million places to hide. Resources were better spent fortifying the compound and insuring that no one else followed his lead. He wondered who Owen would try to blame for the escape. He was that kind of man. Why Rodriguez couldn't see it, he didn't understand. He liked the man, wished he had come with him. We would have made a good team, he thought.

  Bennett pulled the compass from his jacket pocket where he had stowed it and waited for it to stabilize. He was sure the northern hemisphere was toast. The New States, Russia, China. Half a planet wasted. He settled on walking South /West until he reached the coast and then follow it down into Mexico. From there he would play it by ear. Holding the compass in one hand and the rifle in the other, he turned towards Santa Monica.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  I t was dark on the forth floor hallway of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Very dark and very quiet. The smell didn't help either. Among the kaleidoscope of odors, the purification of death was the most overwhelming. Sofia wondered what had killed these people seemingly tucked away here from the heat of the blast inside the corridor. Then she remembered the look of so many of the buildings she had seen on the streets outside. On most of them, those still standing, shades, curtains, blinds, even blankets from nearby beds hung outside the glassless windows.

  She could imagine just by looking at them the concussion that must have wracked the buildings, the sudden force and then loss of air, as the wave ripped across the city much the way waves at the ocean behave. Crashing shoreward, then sucking everything back out to sea in a mighty undertow.

  The same must have happened here in the corridor with it's blown out single window. People slammed first to one side of the long hallway and then to the other. Some even pulled out through the window. Oxygen ripped from their collapsing lungs in an explosive surge, bodies crushed from both within and without. That explained the curtains. First they were blown inward, then sucked back out leaving behind a temporary vacuum.

  Sofia held the cloth over her nose and felt around with her feet as she walked, her right hand sliding along the wall as much for balance as for direction. A few bodies were scattered across the corridor. She didn't want to break a leg falling over one in the dark. She moved slowly, her other senses heightened by the lack of visual stimuli. She listened for any sound that might indicate that she wasn't alone in the long hallway.

  She didn't know just what she would do were she to discover that someone else really was there with her. Someone alive that is. Standing perfectly still, waiting for her to get a little closer, just a little, knife in hand, or ice pick maybe, a grin revealing a row of sharpened teeth. If she could see, that is. But of course, she couldn't see a thing. Something was stuck in the window at the end of the corridor, blocking its light. A body perhaps. Someone could be inches away, reaching for her right now, jaws slavering, weapon poised. It occurred to her that going to the roof just to gaze out at the view might have been one of her more concerning ideas. She didn't have many.

  Without realizing it, she had moved to the left side of the hall so as to free her right hand. In it, a pistol shook in trembling fingers. The lack of any light to help guide her aim should she need to unload her weapon slowed her pace even further. As she proceeded, she became aware of breathing near her, heavy and rapid. She felt only mildly reassured when she realized that the breathing was her own.

  Running the fingers of her left hand over the wall, she tried every handle, panel and button they encountered. She couldn't remember where the door to the stairs was. When she chanced on a large button, she knew it must be the elevator and pushed it hopefully, knowing logically that it wasn't going to work but wishing some benevolent all seeing entity would make an exception for her. There was no response. She grumbled indignantly and continued down the hall.

  All of the doors she tried were locked except the one for the stairs, as per fire regulations, that she had climbed the night before. She had gone some hundred feet or so down the hall and still not encountered any unlocked doors, though there was one shattered door that must have been open at the moment of the blast, lying splintered in her path over which she stumbled. She turned back then and retraced her steps down the hall, wondering how she could have forgotten which side of the hallway the stairs were on when her foot struck something soft and yielding and she tumbled forward.

  Sprawling onto her belly, the gun flew out of her hand. It hit the floor and went off, a loud explosion ripping through the quiet like a small cannon. The corridor was briefly illuminated by an explosive flash that burned itself into her retinas. She clamped her eyes shut, yelping in fright. A siren went off that slowly coalesced into ringing in her ears. A newfound respect for the weapon seized her.

  She crawled forward then, feeling around for the pistol. Finding it, she picked it back up and carefully slid it into its holster. She didn't want it to go off again. She stood back up and felt behind her. A body, a woman she realized, yanking her hand back in embarrassment. She stepped back and her hand came in contact with another door. The door had come to rest against one of the woman's chubby feet. She pushed it slowly open.

  She must have just missed the woman coming from the stairs the night before. She might have been going to or coming from the stairs. Perhaps to escape the detonations she was hearing. Who knew? It was just speculation and putting it from her thoughts, she stepped towards the door.

  She stood then, still holding the handle and listened. There was no sound. She was about to enter the stairwell when she remembered that the hotel was a tall one. She didn't know how many floors it held. Could be twenty, could be more. She would count the floors of course as she ascended but she wanted to make sure when she came back that she hadn't miscounted and lose her way. All of the doors in the hotel were the self-closing kind, so all of the stairway doo
rs would be closed though unlocked. She decided to prop open the door to the floor just to be safe.

  Sofia considered placing one of her pistols between the door and the metal threshold and ease the door against it to be sure it didn't slide closed. But the thought of scratching the finish on the weapon was more than she could bear. The baggy shorts she was wearing she was equally loath to soil. They were Armani after all, silk. Well, satin but who was counting?

  Remembering the woman in the hall, she scowled. It was that or nothing. She moved back out and felt for the body with her foot. Finding it, she slid her hands along the bloated shape hoping to find a purse.

  "Sorry lady," she said, "Nothing personal. You got something I can borrow for a few minutes? Purse, shoes, hat? Anything?"

  She moved her hands lightly to the woman's feet. They were stockinged but shoeless. The woman had been running then. She had taken nothing with her but what she had been wearing at the time. And that meant no purse, shoes or hat. What then?

  Sighing, she grabbed the woman's feet and began dragging her further into the doorway.

  "Oof, you're heavy lady."

  Swinging the door open behind her, she pulled the body half way inside. The door settled against the woman's torso with a soft whisper.

  Sofia took the cloth from her face and wiped the sweat away. Then, turning to the stairs, she started to climb.

  Standing atop the fourteen story flight of stairs, Sofia leaned against the metal door that separated her from the roof. Breathing heavily from the climb, eyes closed, she imagined a crystal skyline, dotted with puffs of white cumulus meandering across a sea of azure with the skyscrapers of Los Angeles cleanly reflecting the golden morning sun back into her eyes. Then she pushed against the bar that kept the door closed. The door swung slowly outwards and she gasped.

  Instead of the subtle nuances of hell she had expected to see, in the half hour it took her to climb the stairs, the sky had brightened to a warm dusty tan. Even without the puffs of cotton swaying through the blue, her heart leapt in joy. The smoke was clearing out, aided, she knew, by a strong nor'easter that had grown distinctly cooler, her long hair billowing about her head. She didn't know if she had ever felt such a sense of inexpressible joy in all her life. Grinning, she let the door sigh shut behind her and walked out onto the roof.

  The roof was composed of an asphalt composite tile painted white to reflect the heat of the sun away from the building. It murmured under her boots like a gravel road on a hot summer afternoon, something she had always liked the sound of. She walked to the edge, mighty gusts pushing her forward, encouraging her to keep moving. The barrier was knee high, only a short three-foot tall partition separating her from eternity. Standing near it gave her a delicious sense of vertigo that made her chin tremble and her knees shake.

  Terror at the thought that the gale might push her over the edge battled with a keen self-loathing that she didn't have the courage to let it do so. She would have said as much too if asked and she was feeling inclined to be honest. Honesty wasn't her long suit however, so she scowled instead.

  She walked around the perimeter, gazing at the city below. Fourteen floors up was a pretty good vantage point from which to measure LA's undying magnificence. She looked out over the quiet city, staring at a brown landscape of tall, perfectly rectangular hills reaching into the sky and stretching as far as her eye could see on one side, luxury homes on the other. All was mounded around their bases with piles of dust separated one from the other by brown lanes that used to be named after streets.

  Untold numbers of cars once negotiated their narrow passages with the deftness only traffic cameras and fear of the police could ensure. Now they sat silent and still, movement limited to the occasional bit of paper or plastic bag sailing by.

  Standing there, a tiny figure on the top of a tall mountain of concrete and jagged glass, her hair whipped around her head like a flag in a summer squall. Sofia would have presented a weird sight from below, if there had been any below to see her and their eyes were sharp enough to perceive such a tiny figure standing on the edge of forever, resisting the tempest around her, hovering high above the brown forest of steel.

  She traversed the roof, gazing towards the horizon, greedy for a break in the umber. This time turquoise was the jewel she was after. Blue sky. She didn't find any. She felt suddenly guilty for her lack of appreciation for the brighter sky and southward trending temperature. She walked entirely around the hotel roof, climbing where she had to, looking towards the horizon. There was no sign to give her direction, no paradise that she could see lying just over the next mountain range. No way home.

  She was back where she had started. From her vantage point, the gale appeared to be blowing out some of the fires around the city as well as pushing away much of the smoke. She walked to the little tower through which she had gained access to the roof and, realizing that the sky was growing dark, paused with her hand on the knob to look up.

  Clouds had gathered again, dark, heavy and menacing. But now instead of fire, they threatened only rain. She waited patiently, closing her eyes, listening. Listening. Seconds stretched into minutes in a silence so complete, she wondered if quiet could rupture her ears. Then she felt a single drop touch her right cheek just below her eye. A drop so modest, so insignificant, she thought it a tear instead.

  Still she waited, hope straining against common sense, aching with a longing she knew no material thing could ever answer. Then somewhere far away she heard a sound, gentle and sweet and felt a terrible bitterness that she had only imagined it.

  A ppt. Then another. Ppt, ppt. A touch on her chest. Two more drops on her legs. She let go of the door and walked again towards the short perimeter wall. The drops came more quickly now, a gentle but persistent pattering. She unbuckled the gun belt and let it slip to the roof. Holding out her arms, her face turned to the sky, she allowed the cool water to wash away days of heat, of sweat, of grime. Of grief, loneliness, loss. Mara. Her parents. Her world.

  Sofia's body looked like a monster sized mascara run, rivulet's of dirt running down her skin in black tributaries that ran together and merged into the shallow lake the roof had become. Her tears joined them, mingling with the downpour to empty through a roof drain and a chink in the masonry, pitching it two feet away from the building as a narrow waterfall into the void below.

  Feeling cleaner than she had in recent memory, she walked back to the gun belt and rebuckled it. She wondered if the water would spoil the bullets. She pulled out a pistol and turned it over, watching water spill out the barrel. She frowned, feeling careless, but contented herself with the knowledge that she would never need to actually use it in a city with a population of one. Besides, the pistols were still pretty. Reholstering the gun, she walked back to the little tower and took the door knob in her hand. Twisting it, her heart froze in fear. The door was locked.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  M ajor General Owen stared, red faced, at the Ham radio and then back again at the operator sitting next to him. Around him stood his cabinet, officers all, though from the anxious expressions on the faces of some, they felt less like respected members of the new government and more like sacrificial lambs at the whimsy of Owen's moods.

  The Ham operator, beads of sweat standing out on his forehead, looked as frustrated as Owen, turning knobs, pressing buttons and standing to check the cables in the back of the set for the third time. He made all the appropriate sounds but his trembling hands and refusal to meet Owen's eyes revealed genuine concern. He was afraid for his life.

  "What's wrong with it? It was working this morning." Owen barked at the operator.

  "Sorry, Sir," the operator said timidly. "I only talk on them. I don't know what makes them work."

  Owen swiveled in his chair and looked at a young officer standing behind him. The man had been set down by chopper, hardened, only an hour before. A mid-level adjunct from Washington. In his hand he held a binder.

  "What about it, Cray? What
's wrong with the radio?" He was fairly livid, spittle spraying from his mouth in tiny arcs that reminded Cray of a misaligned windshield wiper nozzle.

  Cray stared back at Owen with open distain. His commanding officer at the Pentagon was subordinate to Owen, but he had the ear of President Lowry. Unlike the Ham radio operator, Owen's display did nothing to intimidate him, a condition Owen angrily discerned.

  "The numbers are my responsibility." He tapped the white binder in his other hand. "The Ham is yours."

  The meager electricity that powered the radio came from a gasoline generator sitting outside in a small courtyard behind a rain of fallen masonry. It had been stored along with several barrels of gasoline in a nearby underground storage room along with food and other essentials against the day it might be needed. From the generator, the growl of the motor and a thin column of black smoke melted into the sky.

  "It's got to be the set," Cray continued. "Redundancy was built into the system. Look to your supplier. Where's your backup?"

  Owen frowned, looking hard at the wall as though expecting an answer from there. Memory momentarily dimmed his sight and then he refocused back on Cray.

  "Bennett. PFC Bennett. He was a radio repairman before we got him. Worked on them for a living. An idiot country bumpkin from Alabama or Mississippi or somewhere like that, but he knows radios. He's the one who hooked this up."

  Owen turned to a helmeted soldier standing by the door. "Get Bennett."

  The soldiered turned and walked out the door, shutting it behind him. Another man took his place at the door and looked back at Owen. Absently Owen turned his chair back to face the radio, glancing away from Cray. He held out his hand and said, "Give me the notebook."