Slow Apocalypse

by John Varley

  They made it to the Beverly Hills Hotel and a few blocks beyond before they came on a crack in the ground that couldn’t be driven over. They went south on Rexford and then east again on Elevado, and were about to turn north to regain Sunset when they heard gunshots.

  All their windows were down, and it sounded as if the shots were coming from the south, down a street that might have been Hillcrest and might have been Arden; the street sign had been knocked down.

  Karen immediately stuck the barrel of her shotgun out the window. In his rearview, Dave could see Addison looking around in all directions. He wanted to find some cover. There were many houses, many driveways, some of which led to garages in back, but he didn’t think he dared drive around behind any of them, as there was no way of telling which were occupied. If he had been in one of them, and had heard the guns, he knew he would have shot at the intruder. So he waited, putting his own shotgun across his lap but ready to throw the car into reverse and back away as fast as he dared.

  It sounded like a major battle. There were no automatic weapons, but the shots kept coming. Whatever was happening was coming at them from the right, from the south. He started to back up.

  “Dave, look!” Karen shouted.

  Three large dogs had rounded the corner ahead of them. One was a Rottweiler, another a black Lab, and the third some large exotic breed he couldn’t identify.

  “Roll up your windows, everybody,” Karen ordered. Dave hit the switch for his window, and saw that Addison was doing the same.

  The Rottweiler looked as savage and scary as that breed always did, and he looked well fed. Not so the Lab. The black dog’s ribs were showing, and he didn’t move with the easy self-confidence of the Rottweiler.

  Suddenly the Rottweiler turned and snapped savagely at the black Lab, which whined and cringed away. Dave realized the Rottweiler was the pack leader, and that he enforced his position ruthlessly, by dealing out fright and pain to anyone anywhere near his size. He felt sure that Rottweiler had not always been a stray. He could very well have been a pampered and gentle pet. That was all gone now. Dave had only to look at the dog’s eyes to know he was a killer. The veneer of socialization had worn off quickly when the pangs of hunger began to gnaw inside. Beneath the training, under the calm exterior, the heart of a predator still beat, and when push came to shove the Rottweiler knew how to behave, how to hunt, how to assert leadership.

  The pack was larger than they had realized. A dozen other canines came tearing around the corner, like some crazily effete, Beverly Hill version of the Hounds of Hell. It was all happening very quickly, but he had time to spot a Labradoodle and a Goldendoodle and a Schnoodle. There was an Afghan hound and a German shepherd, more traditional large dogs. There was even a big standard poodle whose pom-pom clip was looking very ragged. And yapping on the edges of the pack were a few small to medium-sized dogs—a miniature pinscher, a cavalier King Charles spaniel. All of them were dirty, with matted coats and what was probably dried blood around their muzzles. And in the eyes of all of them was something he had never seen in domesticated dogs: a wild, relentless gleam that was a combination of unfamiliar physical hunger and the bloodlust excitement of running with the pack.

  He could even see how it would work within the pack. Surely the very tiniest, the most overbred of these animals had been unable to keep up, and had probably become prey themselves. The other small dogs must have learned to keep to the edges of the pack, tolerated as long as they kept out of the way while the big dogs were feeding. They would be surviving on the scraps left behind by the alpha male and his lieutenants. Surviving, that is, until the moment the pack became hungry enough and there was no other prey around.

  The three big dogs in the lead slowed down and approached the Escalade, cautiously, but showing no fear. The Rottweiler stopped by Dave’s door and regarded him as a shopper might look at a lamb chop in a butcher’s case. This animal was smart enough to know Dave and his family were safe inside the steel beast. But just open that door, just a little, the dog seemed to be saying to him.

  Only wide enough to put the barrel of a gun through, Dave thought back at him.

  “Dad, let’s get out of here. This is scary.”

  “David, look! Ahead of us!”

  Dave jerked his attention away from the bottomless black eyes of the Rottweiler and was in time to see two people come zipping around the corner on bicycles. The barking was even louder now, loud enough for a hundred hounds, though there weren’t nearly that many. One was a man and the other a woman, both were dressed in shorts and boots and helmets and wore yellow T-shirts with POLICE on the back, and they were trying to get away from half a dozen dogs in the medium-to-large category. The woman was in the lead, desperately trying to guide her bike with one hand while with the other she worked at ejecting an empty magazine from her Glock.

  The man’s pistol must also have been empty, because he was using it as a club to beat at the face of a dog who had him by the leg. His screams chilled Dave to the bone.

  “Somebody help us!” the female cop was shouting.

  Dave put his shotgun across his lap with the muzzle pointed toward the door. He was glad he had sawed off the barrel; it made it easier to handle the weapon in the close confines of the car. He grabbed the gun by the stock and then opened his door a crack. As he had expected, the Rottweiler had to explore this, and soon his own muzzle was there, dripping a long rope of drool. The dog scratched at the narrow opening with a bloody paw. Dave shoved the barrel into the dog’s face and pulled the trigger. The shotgun roared and jumped in his hand, and the dog was gone.

  “We’ve got to help them,” he shouted, and pushed the door wider. He saw that all the dogs had been startled and were racing away from him. All but the pit bull that was attacking the officer. That one seemed determined to hang on, no matter what.

  He jacked another round into the shotgun. The barking of the dogs was louder than ever.

  “Addison, stay in the car!”

  “Daddy!”

  He stepped on the dead dog and out of the car. A German shepherd began to approach him. Dave took aim and fired, and the dog tumbled backwards. He was amazed at just how much damage a shotgun could do when taken directly in the face.

  The female officer was off her bike and had managed to get her gun reloaded. She quickly killed three of the dogs closest to her, then kicked a small one high into the air, not wasting a bullet on it. The dog howled all the way to impact with the ground, and howled even louder when it landed and seemed unable to get up.

  Another shotgun blast startled him, and he looked to his right and saw Karen was out of the car. She had dispatched another large dog that had been coming up on him from behind. Her eyes were sweeping the terrain, the shotgun at her shoulder.

  The woman had reached the man and dog and pressed the barrel of her Glock to the pit bull’s eye. She fired, and the dog’s forepaws stopped scrabbling at his prey.

  But he didn’t let go.

  As Dave reached them, the woman had taken her baton from its ring on her waist and was flailing away at the dead dog’s head. Her partner kept crying out to get the goddam dog off of him.

  “I think you’ll have to pry his jaws apart,” Dave told her.

  She looked at him with dazed eyes.

  “Son of a bitch won’t let go. Fucker is dead, and he won’t let go!” She seemed to be at least partly in shock. Her hands were shaking, and she was covered with small bites and scratches, including a bad one on her left leg. She didn’t seem aware of any of them.

  “Try sticking the baton down between his jaws.”

  “Don’t touch his teeth,” Karen cautioned as she came up beside them.

  “We haven’t had any reports of rabies. But I don’t want my hand in his mouth, anyway. Just thinking about what he’s been eating lately.”

  The woman was doing as Dave had suggested, but was having a hard time getting the baton between the massive jaws. Karen had broken her gun open as was inserting n
ew shells as they watched.

  “I’m going to shoot again,” Karen said. Immediately the shotgun fired, and Dave looked around. Another large dog was lying on the ground, spurting blood.

  “Mom, another one!”

  Karen turned as Addison shouted, and killed another dog.

  “Cover us,” Karen said, as she opened the smoking shotgun again. She got her gun loaded and snapped it shut. She handed it to Dave. She lifted the tail of her shirt and reached for a sheath knife in a leather scabbard. He recognized it as a piece of equipment they had taken on their long-ago camping trip.

  From the corner of his eye he saw Karen sawing at the knot of muscle on the side of the pit bull’s mouth. The male officer cried out again, but made no move to stop her. Dave stood, gaping, as the dog’s lower jaw came free.

  A large part of the officer’s thigh looked like raw hamburger. A large chunk of his flesh hung loose. Blood oozed from the open wound. Dave turned away.

  “Oh, God, I am so fucked,” the man moaned. He was trying to get to his feet, but didn’t seem to have the strength for it.

  Karen and the woman got on each side of him and tried to lift him, but they weren’t able to at first. Dave moved forward to help.

  “Don’t, Dave,” Karen said. “You keep watch. Officer, reach under him and grab my hands. We’ll lift him that way.”

  Dave turned to the Escalade. “Addison, crawl to the back and unlock the hatch. Don’t lift it. You got that?”

  “I got it, Daddy.” Dave could see her hurrying to the back. He turned, and saw that Karen and the officer had managed to lift the injured policeman and were staggering along behind him. He hurried around to the back of the Escalade, made sure that Addison was safely out of the way, and lifted the hatch. He moved a few feet away so he could see if anything was approaching them from the sides of the vehicle. Karen and the woman got the man seated on the deck. Both of them were dripping with sweat. They paused for a moment, then heaved.

  “Karen, take the gun and I’ll help with that.”

  She moved out of his way. He saw Addison coming around the backseat, where she knelt and caught the man as he leaned back. She pulled on his shoulders, her eyes wide when she saw the horrible extent of his injuries. They got him inside and the woman officer crawled in beside him. Dave closed the back and he and Karen hurried around to get back into the car.

  “The bleeding’s getting worse,” the woman said.

  “What’s the best route to a hospital?”

  With the female officer—whose name turned out to be Melissa—giving directions, the trip to Cedars-Sinai didn’t take long. Dave drove as fast as he dared while Karen and Melissa tried to stop the bleeding.

  “At first there were just some smaller packs,” Melissa was saying. Dave wasn’t sure she knew she was talking, the words just came pouring out of her. “They were starving, mostly. There were some do-gooders, PETA, the animal shelters, folks like that, tried to feed them. Kibble, I guess, people weren’t eating that. Not yet, anyway.

  “At first we just ignored the dogs. Hell, I like dogs. I mean, I liked them. I don’t think I’ll ever be happy to see a dog again, though. Now, I’d shoot them on sight, every damn one of them, if we didn’t have orders not to waste bullets.”

  They reached the stream of refugees. Dave turned against the tide and crawled along. Most of them moved aside. But a few were slow, and some looked hostile. One man right in Dave’s way stopped pushing his shopping cart and stood defiantly.

  “Honk your horn, Mister,” Melissa said.

  Dave honked, which just seemed to make the man angrier.

  “Fuck this,” Melissa said. She opened the door behind Dave, leaned out, and shouted.

  “Get out of the way! Police emergency! Move to the side of the road!”

  The man with the cart wasn’t impressed. He started to reach into his cart.

  “You don’t scare me, bitch, I need that—”

  She fired a round into the goods piled into the shopping cart.

  “If your hand comes out of that cart with a weapon, you’re dead,” she said. “The next round goes into your leg, and you can fucking crawl to the hospital. Police emergency!”

  The man got the message, and quickly shoved his cart aside.

  “Get moving,” she said to Dave. He passed the man, and could see in his mirror that Melissa kept the gun trained on him until they were safely past.

  It went more smoothly after that. Most of the people who had heard the gunshot were already at the side of the road. He eventually got up to twenty miles per hour. He soon reached San Vicente, and turned south.

  “How’s he doing back there?” he asked.

  “He’s passed out,” Karen said.

  “He still has a strong pulse, though,” Addison added. She had taken a first-aid course, and was proud of it. Dave could see her holding her fingers to the man’s neck. She looked pale, but steady. He felt proud of her.

  They passed the Pacific Design Center, those three giant, oddly shaped buildings in primary colors with all-glass exteriors. Much of the glass was broken, leaving jagged teeth of red, blue, and green.

  He crossed Melrose, which had a few people on foot, all headed relentlessly west, and within a few blocks arrived at the hospital.

  The place was still in business, but there didn’t seem to be a lot of people left in the outdoor infirmary. There were two of the Hollywood tour buses and one city bus, all running on wood chips, and stretcher cases were being loaded onto them. Hospital beds sat right out on the street, protected from the sunlight by the long shadow of the main hospital building, but the heat coming off the pavement was still stunning. Big tents flapped loudly in the hot, dry Santa Ana wind.

  “Officer down! Officer down!” Melissa was shouting, still hanging out the door. Two cops looked up and hurried over. They lifted the hatchback and shouted for a stretcher. In a very short time the unconscious man was on the stretcher and being rushed toward one of the tents.

  “Lord, I hope they have enough stuff to treat him with,” Dave said.

  The three of them sat in silence for a moment. Melissa had hurried off with the medical team, too busy to say thank you. Dave didn’t blame her.

  “Well,” Dave said. “I think that’s enough excitement for one day, don’t you?”

  Karen let out a little guffaw. She looked down at her hands, covered with dog blood, and began to shake. Dave leaned over and put his arm around her and pulled her as close as he could. He watched Addison in the rearview mirror. She was still wide-eyed, but seemed calm.

  “Addison…”

  “You don’t need to say anything, Daddy.”

  “We did what we had to do.”

  “You think I’m going to be mad at you for killing the nice little doggies? If I’d had a gun, I’d have shot the fuckers, too.”

  “Addison,” Karen said, wearily.

  “Mom, please don’t get pissed over my language.”

  “I’m sorry. Reflex, I guess. But still…”

  Addison moved up and put her arms around her mother from behind.

  “Okay, I’ll watch my mouth. But I’m so proud of you, Mom.”

  “Proud?” The concept seemed to baffle her.

  “The way you…the way you cut…” Suddenly she was crying.

  “I just did what I had to do,” Karen said.

  “We all did,” Dave said softly.

  “Things are different now, Mom.” Addison was getting her sobbing under control, with just a slight hitch in her breathing. “I know that. I don’t know what happened to you two when you went out yesterday, what you did, but I know you’re not telling me something. And that’s okay, I don’t want to know. Maybe someday you’ll tell me, and that’s okay, too. But I know school’s out, and not just for the summer.”

  Dave didn’t think he could sum up the situation any more eloquently. School was definitely out, and when it would be back in session was anybody’s guess. Addison was already a long ways toward bein
g grown-up, but she would have to make it the rest of the way in a hurry, because the only classes being held now were going to be in the famous school of hard knocks, the cauldron of bitter experience.

  They drove now like a NATO patrol through the mean streets of Kandahar. Karen kept her shotgun across her lap, the muzzle pointed out the window. In the back, behind Dave, Addison held the other shotgun pointed in the other direction. Simply rolling up the windows would be protection against any dog attack, unless Stephen King’s Cujo made an appearance. Dave didn’t worry about them. They wouldn’t come sneaking up; they would come baying and barking. It was humans who were good at surprises, and at attacking from a distance.

  It was a clear shot back up San Vicente. They crossed Santa Monica without incident. A road blockage forced a diversion on Cynthia Street and they all stayed alert, looking for an ambush, but they made it to Doheny and across Sunset.

  “Home sweet home,” Dave muttered, as they pulled up to the barricade. There was none of the warm feeling he usually associated with getting home to his family after work—at least until his marriage started to go really bad—but the feeling of relief was awesome. Although the people behind the barricade didn’t look all that welcoming.

  “I think something’s happened,” Karen said.

  Dave felt it, too. There were three men behind the dead cars: Lucas Petrelli; Max Crowley, the son of the old cinematographer; and Alfred Charbonneau. Dave had never taken to Petrelli, the times they had stood watch together. Petrelli had assumed the position of Richard Ferguson’s right-hand man.

  Petrelli and Crowley rolled the gate car out of the way. Dave drove through, and Petrelli positioned himself in front of the Escalade with his hand out. With his other arm he cradled a rifle. From the corner of his eye Dave saw Karen shift her shotgun slightly, so that the barrel was back inside the vehicle.

  “Is there a problem?” Dave asked as Petrelli and Crowley came around to his side of the car.

  “Ferguson’s dead,” Petrelli said. “Heart attack last night.” He walked around to the driver’s side and looked in the window.