by Paul Jones
The thick plume of smoke that he had seen rising into the air earlier now filled most of the southern horizon. Vast clouds of smoke roiled and billowed; angry, black and purple bruises forming against the skin of the abused sky. Most of the western skyline was gone, buried beneath a black shroud of smoke, the sun a barely visible afterimage and, he realized with horror, the buildings visible earlier had disappeared behind the thick bank of smoke that rolled and crept towards his location. Jim could see unruly spires of flame leaping high into the air: the source of the Pompeian snowstorm that now fell on the city. Tendrils of smoke drifted free from the main body of the massive fire and hung overhead the mall, the advance guard of the rapidly approaching firestorm, blown by the high altitude winds.
"Christ!" he said aloud.
The sense of disquiet he felt in the empty clothes store had not entirely dissipated and as he watched the rapidly approaching storm of smoke, his uneasiness returned with a vengeance, teetering on the verge of panic.
"Get a grip," his voice muffled by the bandana over his lower face, surprised by the trace of nervousness he detected in his own voice. He just needed to reason this out, not let the panic blind him to his situation. "I must have got here somehow. There has to be a car parked somewhere out here."
Pushing his hand into his jeans' pocket, he pulled out a six-inch rectangle of green plastic, blank on one side. He flipped the piece of plastic over. On the reverse side, he saw the glittering laser etched hologram of the Ford Company. What car had he been driving back then - back now, he corrected himself, staring at the plastic ignition key in his hand as if it might be able to answer him. Of course, it was the Ford Phoenix. He'd only ever owned the one Ford; the great-granddaddy of all motor vehicle companies had gone belly-up in the late thirties, swallowed up by Nissan who immediately laid off all the subsumed company's employees and closed down all the plants.
The Ford Phoenix was a great little car - if ironically labeled, having been the last vehicle to roll off the Ford production line. It was one of the first vehicles to switch from the gas-electric hybrid system to a hydrogen fuel cell. Simone had bought this one for him for - when was that? His thirty-fourth, thirty-fifth birthday? They had still been living in California back then. He was still working for J.P.L. and they had that place in the San Fernando Valley. Their first home.
They were still been together back then too. They were still a family, back before everything had fallen apart, back before the accident that had taken Lark and destroyed their marriage.
Jim froze. Simone! He hadn't dreamed that she might be caught up in all this, but if this event was as widespread as he suspected it might be, then they still lived in the house in the valley at this point in time. They wouldn't put it on the market for another two years and Simone would be there. God knows what she might be going through.
They hadn't talked in years but, if there was even a slight chance that what was going on was as widespread as he suspected then he was not going to leave her alone. He had to get to her.
Now, where the hell was the damn car parked?
* * *
The key-card had two raised studs; press one to unlock the vehicle and the other to switch the anti-theft protocols on or off. The alarm system would give an electronic warble and flash the car lights when activated or disarmed. If he were within fifty feet or so of the car, the system would pick up the transmission from his key-card.
He was just going to have to walk the rows of parked vehicles until he found his car, hopefully before the rapidly advancing inferno reached him.
It took him nearly half an hour before Jim finally found his Ford. He was beginning to worry that the little power cell that drove the key-card would exhaust itself if he had to carry on much longer and had rationed himself to pushing the button every ten cars to conserve its charge.
The boop-boop of the alarm sounded off to his left but he didn't catch the flashing lights. He pressed the button again and turned to face the direction of the alarm, he squeezed past an ancient SUV and into the next row of parked vehicles. This time, when he depressed the stud, he spotted the flashing red taillights of his blue Ford Phoenix through the swirling mist of smoke, one row across from where he stood.
* * *
A cellphone lay on the passenger seat; tossed there he guessed when he parked the car. Jim grabbed it and flipped it open as he climbed into the car. It had power, the screen glowed a reassuring blue. Scrolling through the list of saved telephone numbers, he found the number for the house landline and hit the call button with his index finger. The phone beeped the tone for each of the numbers rapidly in his ear then ... nothing. Not even an engaged tone. The LCD screen flashed NO SIGNAL repeatedly at him.
"God damn it," he hissed, tossing the useless phone onto the back passenger seat before he pushed the key-card into the starting slot on the dash, engaging the car's power source.
A low mechanical thrum filled the cabin of the car as the elctric-powered engine hummed efficiently into life. The dashboard computer glowed with electronic luminescence and a synthesized voice swam unexpectedly from the car's concealed dashboard speakers. "Hello James, please fasten your safety restraint," it said in a husky female contralto. Jim pulled the safety strap into place, knowing that this would be the only way to mollify the eternally persistent onboard Artificial Intelligence of the car. Besides, if he didn't comply with the AI it would not allow him to engage the drive and he would be stuck here until the fire reached him. "Thank you, James," the disembodied voice said as the clasp of the seat belt clicked into place.
The Phoenix came equipped with an onboard navigation system as standard. Its display was set into the dashboard, within easy reach and view of both the driver and passenger.
"Computer, display my present location," he said. Immediately the display flickered into life. Jim tilted the screen toward him to get a better view, saw it had already computed the location of the car, displaying it as a red pulsing triangle in the center of the screen. The surrounding streets and roads along with places of interest were all illustrated and labeled. At the bottom of the screen, a row of icons allowed for manipulation of the system: activation of the voice mode, omni-directional scrolling, zoom in and out and half-a-dozen other options. Jim tapped the icon labeled Current Location. Instantly a box popped up with the information, Nearest Traceable Location: 21207 Topanga Canyon, California, 91614.
Quickly, Jim navigated through the menu system until he found the Directions button. He was relatively sure he knew the general direction of the house but it had been a quarter of a century since he had last made this drive and he did not want to get lost out here. He was going to need a little help from the computer.
Choosing Current Location as the point of origin for the trip, he pressed the Home button as the termination point and instructed the car's computer system to calculate the fastest route to get him there. Instantly the display showed a step-by-step list of the route from the store straight to the front door. According to the navigation computer, the house was twelve miles away. If he were lucky, he would make the trip in less than thirty minutes.
Activating the voice mode on the navigation system, Jim slipped the car into drive and edged out of the parking spot.
* * *
Twelve
His eyes opened to blue sky overhead and pain throughout his entire body; a relentless sharp throb that made his hands spasm and clench involuntarily.
Grass; his hands had grabbed a palm full of grass, his fingers digging deep into cool loose dirt.
Byron Portia sucked in a lungful of clean air and coughed violently, the wave of pain that washed over him so intense he willingly accepted the black sheet of unconsciousness that rippled across his mind, longing for the painless embrace of oblivion. Instead, the pain subsided a little and with it the darkness, replaced by a glow filtering through his tightly clenched eyelids. Light motes swayed and eddied across his vision.
His eyes fluttered open. He was alive.
He found himself on the grass verge running alongside the freeway. Thirty feet away he could see the burning wreck of his big-rig, jackknifed diagonally across most of the lanes of the freeway. It lay on its roof, wheels pointing into the sky, looking like a giant dinosaur, dead under a Jurassic sun. Surrounding his decimated truck a fortification of mangled metal jutted out in a chaotic display of torn steel and plastic, tattered flesh and splintered bone. The cab of his truck erupted suddenly in a brilliant ball of flame that sent a pillar of flame, smoke, and debris skyward.
A gentle cooling breeze swept the smoke from the burning vehicles away from Byron's side of the embankment, exposing the destruction in all its glory.
It was a magnificent sight. An earthly manifestation of the power of God. The evil and unclean, sinners one and all he was sure, struck down in one lightning act of might. It was truly beautiful in its power and terrible in its swiftness.
And he had been spared.
"Beautiful," he whispered. "Beautiful." The word slipping from him as though he were seeing his newborn child for the first time.
His pain all but forgotten now, Byron tilted his head leisurely to the left, scanning the full extent of the destruction that had just taken place, absorbing the grandeur of the mass of destroyed vehicles that stretched off into the distance. It was horrifyingly arousing. That heap of twisted burning metal, of smashed, burnt and crushed lives. It made him feel alive. The pain in his leg began to fade, inconsequential when compared to the ecstatic excitement that coursed through his blood. He felt giddy, this time with pleasure. A giggle of wicked pleasure rose to his lips.
"How are you feeling," said a voice off to his right. He whipped his head in the direction of the sound.
Nearby, a man in his forties, stocky with a mass of disheveled hair, stood staring out at the concrete river of devastation, his arms folded across his chest. When he spoke, he did not turn his head to look at Byron, instead he calmly continued to watch the freeway.
"I have been given a sign -" the stranger continued before Portia could answer him. The stranger turned to face the injured killer, the white clerical collar of a priest clearly visible now around his throat. Regarding the exhausted Byron Portia with cool, piercing, intelligent eyes he raised his right arm and extended a long well-manicured forefinger directly at him. "- and you, you will be my first disciple."
"Who are you?" Portia asked, his voice a barely audible croak over the crackling of the freeway fire.
"My name," the stranger said, "is Father Joseph Pike."
* * *
Thirteen
It did not take long for Jim Baston to realize that it was going to take a lot longer than the thirty minutes he had originally estimated to get home. He had managed just over two miles and that had already taken him over twenty minutes.
The city was a battleground.
Car's littered the road. Some smashed beyond recognition, just smoking heaps or burned out wrecks. The majority just abandoned as though the drivers had suddenly vaporized into thin air, forcing Jim to pull off the road and onto the sidewalk.
Pedestrians were everywhere, walking dazed in the street, screaming at each other over collisions, stepping in front of his car as if he did not exist. Most had a stunned, uncomprehending look and it seemed like all they could manage just to put one foot in front of the other. He saw a couple of cops looking just as confused as the rest. Others seemed to have grasped the situation quickly and more than once he saw the smashed windows of stores, their merchandise scattered across the pavement as looters quickly grasped opportunity from the confusion. The store alarms ringing shrilly in an attempt to alert emergency services that either didn't care or no longer existed.
He had passed several bodies laying in the street, sprawled in twisted poses, congealed blood pooling around them, flies already buzzing expectantly. Those unlucky enough to have found themselves crossing the street at the time they had found themselves back here, he guessed.
Further on, he passed a European style sidewalk café, the kind where the patrons could sit under the large umbrellas on the sidewalk sipping cappuccinos and lattes. A large tow truck had plowed through the sea of umbrellas cutting a swathe of destruction, sending them and the people sitting in their shade in all directions. The truck had continued on its deadly journey right into the café interior, until, finally, it had come to rest against the interior wall, its rear end jutting obscenely from the café's front, the tail-hook still swinging gently back and forth. Jim counted nine bodies laying in the heat, scattered like pins in a bowling alley.
Several other vehicles were trying to make their way through the crowds but it was like trying to drive a truck through a middle-eastern bazaar - painfully slow and ultimately futile.
The throng of humanity became worse and he slowed the car to a crawl and eventually to a standstill. If he kept on trying to edge the car through the crowd, he would hit someone for sure and anyway, at the rate he was traveling, he would do better off on foot. It might not be safer but he would make quicker time, and Jim had a nagging feeling that time was definitely of the essence today.
Pulling the car as close to the sidewalk as he could he grabbed the cell phone from the back seat, stuffed it in his trouser pocket and checked his position with the navigation comp one final time. Making a mental note of the roads he would need to take to get to the house he killed the engine and stepped out of the car.
* * *
Rising high above the stores and tree line, the plume of smoke snaked ominously into the air, a dark harbinger of doom. Jim felt a growing unease creep insidiously over him, setting his skin tingling and his pulse throbbing as he realized that the smoke and fire emanated from ahead of him, directly in his path. The closer he got to the spiraling plume the less breathable the air became and once again, he pulled out his makeshift bandanna pushing it to his mouth.
Outside a deserted Ralph's food store on Roscoe Boulevard a soft drinks machine thrummed in the burgeoning heat. In the shade of the stores overhang, he fished through his pockets until he found what he was looking for. Dropped the three coins into the machine and selected a bottle of spring water, listening as the plastic bottle of H2O rumbled through the machines metal innards before dropping into the dispensing slot at the base of the refrigerated machine. He took a long swig from the icy bottle and felt the water ease the stinging sensation in his throat.
The air was thick and heavy, the sun now just a dim light shrouded in the blackness of the cloud. The temperature was rising and in the near distance, Jim could now clearly see the flames of multiple fires. Houses and trees burned brightly and intensely, the flames dancing like crazy imps at the gates of hell, free to run rampant with no fire service to check their spread.
The crowds began to dissipate as he made his way out of the commercial area and into the residential section of the San Fernando Valley before finally evaporating all together as he drew closer to the smoke plume, driven away by the poisonous air and the treacherous flames. Jim did not miss the panicked eyes and the thousand-yard stares of his fellow humans. He was glad to be alone, happy to be making headway without the hindrance of the unwelcome zombies that the majority of the human race seemed to have become.
He made good time and his confidence surged as he began to recognize certain streets. There was a cigar store on the junction of Fallbrook and Saticoy, its large walk-in humidor a regular hangout for Jim, and across from there, a Taco Bell; Lark's favorite fast food joint. He had passed by both as he made his way down Saticoy and he knew he was less than a mile from his home as he finally crossed over Woodlake.
* * *
There had been a strip-mall set back from the street at the junction of Saticoy and Woodlake. It had contained the usual smattering of con
venience stores: a large supermarket, hair-salon and discount liquor shop, and a gas station.
That was all gone.
In its place, a smoking gash ran diagonally across Saticoy, slashing through Woodlake; a smoldering pit thirty-foot deep and at least that distance across, and extending into the flaming ruins of what had once been a gated-housing community. Now it was so much rubble and broken timber.
The tail fin of a Boeing 787 jutted incongruously out of the remains of the food-store, its charred skin blackened and smoking. Jim guessed from the devastated housing estate and fields of fire he could see in the distance, that the jet had collided with the ground right here, tearing away the tail section and sending the body of the plane careening off before finally coming to rest somewhere west of the housing community that now lay in ruins.
If he wanted to reach his home, he was going to have to get across the massive trench that ran between him and his destination. He could walk around it but that would add too much time to his trip and the fire was spreading rapidly. If he didn't get to the house soon then there might not be a house left - assuming it hadn’t already been consumed by the fire.
His decision made, Jim moved to the edge of the pit and peered cautiously over the edge. A chunk of tarmac broke free under his weight and slipped into the hole escorted to the bottom by a cascade of gravel. He stumbled back, barely in time to save himself from following the rubble into the crevice.
"Shit!" he said, scuttling away from the lip of the crevice on all fours. Heart thumping audibly in his chest, Jim waited until his pulse began to slow before flipping over onto his belly and sliding carefully towards the lip of the crevice until he was able to look safely down into the pit.
On the opposite wall of the pit, halfway down the wall of dirt, a broken water-main gushed a torrent of water the ten remaining feet to the base of the pit. Below, a muddy lagoon had formed and a river of brown mud sluiced off downstream. The action of the water against the dirt walls was rapidly eating away at the soft earth, forming an overhang in the rut that did not look like it would support the weight of the ground above it for much longer. As Jim watched, assessing his next move, a six-foot long piece of the overhang collapsed with a giant splash into the water below, sending waves rolling downstream and splashing him with dirty droplets of muddy water. The gash was gradually increasing in width as the water eroded the sides. If he was going to get across, he was going to have to do it now before the gap became too large.
