The Post-Apocalyptic Tourist's Guide to Los Angeles

by Jake Marley

  Those skulls, like warnings of danger. Like promises of death.

  He saw a word, painted huge on the barn door of a blue building. A word in red that was simultaneously familiar and absolutely foreign.

  In letters nearly as tall as he was, the word said: PELIGRO.

  Beneath that, in black letters, was another word. DANGER.

  Peligra tried doors and found one that wasn’t locked. She dragged him after her, and they huddled together, expecting the men giving chase at any moment. Unarmed, exhausted, broken, Thursday knew they were helpless. That they would be caught and taken to this Saint.

  The room was small and gloomy and smelled of mildew and rot, but the windows were so grimed and full of dust that they offered good cover and just enough light to see by.

  Men rushed past the little house, and Thursday slowly, calmly, set a bolt lock for the door.

  “We have to move,” he said. “They’ll be here any moment.”

  When Thursday looked at her, he was surprised to see that Peligra had her atlas out and was studying it.

  “Yes they will.” She shoved the atlas at him. “What is this word?”

  It was a map. Thursday’s eyes found the key in the corner and something lit up inside him when he saw the words LOS ANGELES. A grid and tangle of streets. Peligra’s fingers tracing a line from one black dot called UNION STATION to another, north. She touched the word again.

  “Right here. What is this?”

  “Observatory,” Thursday read. “Griffith Observatory.”

  Someone had written on the map. A single word in shaky letters. STARS.

  “I don’t understand how to use this yet.”

  Thursday shook his head. “Let me see.”

  She turned it fully toward him, and Thursday found Union Station. He found another inked line, presumably the path of the Bone Rails they’d had to abandon in the dark tunnels below. He formed a path, trying to memorize street names. Directions. A right, a left, straight for the length of his middle finger. He compared it to the key. To the mile markers.

  In the narrow street, they heard the men calling for them. Shouting. Searching.

  “Find them, find them!”

  “We shouldn’t be here. This is a bad place.”

  “The Saint is worse than the Dead,” one man said, and he sounded so close it was like he was in the little house with them.

  Thursday couldn’t concentrate on the map. Couldn’t hold it all in his head.

  His brain was clouded. Adrenaline spent. So damned tired.

  He pointed. “We’re here.” Double tap on the word. OLVERA. Then on UNION STATION again, and he pointed back the way they’d come. “Maps are about directions. Find your bearings. Find landmarks. That’s what I’ve filled my guidebook with. Landmarks. Points of interest. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s knowledge, you see? Information.”

  “Yes,” Peligra said. Her eyes widened and her fingers danced on the page. Traced a route between OLVERA and GRIFFITH OBSERVATORY.

  Outside, someone far off shouted. “There! I see someone!” The men from the tunnels ran past, further down the street, chasing ghosts or shadows or unfortunate wanderers.

  When Thursday glanced again at Peligra, her scarred mouth was twisted into a grin.

  “This,” she said, closing the atlas, “is so much easier than following a story.”

  ~~~

  They made their way slowly north toward Griffith Park. Peligra was cautious, and all too aware of how hurt they both were. How damaged. She was on high alert, and saw the men they’d left to stand guard, to watch the streets, and Thursday was shocked at how easily she moved past them, even dragging him along behind her.

  Her mind was sharp, and her instincts on point. Every bit of cover was used, both to rest and to recheck her map. She read street signs, sounding them out, committing them to memory. Her nerves were steel and her resolve was absolute, and it was only when they left the buildings and streets behind for a green park of steep hills and trees that Thursday thought he understood her.

  She’d spent her entire life waiting to get here. To journey to the Stars.

  ~~~

  He’d never felt so exhausted. After the climb to freedom inside Union Station, the hills of Griffith Park were almost impossible. More palm trees, and scrubby dirt hills. Peligra held her course, pointing up and up to a building atop a small mountain. The Griffith Observatory.

  In one of the foothills, Peligra let Thursday rest against a tree. The sun was falling on the horizon, and the sky was full of colors. It reminded him of the flowers on her broken skull mask abandoned on PCH. Purple and pink, orange and yellow. “You can stay here,” she said. “I’ll make the climb on my own and come back for you in the morning.”

  “What do you think you’ll find up there?”

  “Another guide, like Tom. Queen Mary told me that this was the path. This was my story. We would’ve been here two days ago if the swarm had kept off of us. These roads were built for cars, not for people on foot. Everything I was promised is up there. The Stars. I can’t stop another night with you. I can’t wait any longer.”

  Thursday nodded, and held out his hand to her. “Then help me up.”

  “You can’t—”

  “I can. And it isn’t machismo, either. It’s something Grandpa Cornelius called good ol’ fashioned stupidity. I don’t know when to quit.”

  “You look like the dead.”

  Thursday felt his face crack into a grim smile. “Yeah, well, I’ve been dying since I left home. At this point, I might enjoy the peace.”

  She hesitated only a moment, then reached for his hand and hauled him, once again, to his feet.

  ~~~

  The path wound up the mountain, and they could never quite see the Observatory as a whole. They saw walls of it, the dome, an outside staircase. White in the fading sunlight. A temple to the stars.

  Thursday went someplace else, allowing his body to work on automatic. The pain was a constant. The only whole and real thing in his life at that moment. He sent his mind away and climbed.

  There was something soothing about being outdoors after their mad scramble up from the tunnel below Union Station, and if he closed his eyes Thursday could almost imagine he was safe. Cured. Home.

  “What is that smell?” Peligra asked. Her voice was a whisper.

  Blood. Sweat. Sand. Thursday shook his head.

  “Horses,” he said. They crested the final ridge and saw the garden laid out before the Observatory. Rows of corn, beans, tomatoes, peppers. Well-tended, and honest. The horses were lined against a rail, three brown mares who turned their heads when Peligra and Thursday were in view. The horse in the middle had a white stripe between her eyes, and something about the shape of it reminded Thursday of Peligra’s skull mask.

  “I’ve never seen a horse before,” she said. “They’re beautiful.”

  “And hard to keep alive in times like this,” Thursday said. “Resources are scarce enough as it is.”

  “We’ll be on our guard, then,” Peligra said, but there was a note in her voice Thursday hadn’t heard before. It was dismissive. Annoyed.

  At that moment he realized how exhausted she probably was as well. That she’d fought hard. She’d kept her wits about her, and plotted their course with quick thinking and even quicker adaptability. Peligra was almost supernatural with her ability to change course, to reason, to make split-second decisions . . . but she’d had enough. She was tired. She was done.

  She’d reached her goal.

  “We should wait until morning,” Thursday said, but even as the words came out Peligra walked through the garden, toward the entrance, ignoring him completely.

  ~~~

  Peligra went into the building low and dangerous, ready for a fight. Her fingers were hooked into claws, and her arms were crossed over her chest in a defensive X. Just looking at her, seeing the fluidity of her movements, made Thursday’s heart race, made him crouch down, made him search the garden for
a wayward tool or stave that could be used as a weapon.

  Beside him, just outside the door, the horses snorted.

  There were people inside, and he moved beside Peligra, angling his body to protect his broken arm and raising his fist, ready for whatever came next.

  The room was round and rose up and up into a dome. Overhead, a painted mural of gods and planets filled the sky with aching beauty. In the center of the room was a bowl-shaped depression in the floor with a massive gold pendulum swinging back and forth, back and forth. The men and women in the room had no weapons. They were clean, surprised, and a little scared of the two intruders into their sanctuary. Blankets and mats were stacked high along one wall, probably to be taken out at night and laid around the pendulum. This wasn’t a fortress, but a home.

  The adults raced around, hands up, placating. Thursday saw the children behind them—wide-eyed and clutching books to their chests, grouping together like herd animals. He chanced another look around the room and saw murals up high on the walls. Puzzling iconography, strange as any desert religion or fanatic obsession he’d yet seen on his long, painful journey.

  “Please,” a bearded man said. He was scrawny, but had thin whipcord muscle under his sallow skin.

  “We have plenty,” a gray-haired woman said. She had kind eyes, strong hands, an easy smile. “You’re welcome here.”

  Their clothes reminded Thursday of what he’d worn back in Louisville—patched and serviceable, handed down when outgrown, cared for like something precious. Then he saw the shared design that each man, woman, and child in the room had drawn on their foreheads.

  Stars.

  Peligra must’ve seen them too, because she fell to her knees and wept.

  ~~~

  The gray-haired woman introduced herself as Lilliana Magellan. “This is a refuge of knowledge. Of learning. We’re students, all of us, and we’ve colonized this place to do our part. To teach the next generation how to shape the world around us, to bring us all closer together. To rebuild communities.”

  She took Thursday by the hand and showed him the murals painted on the walls inside the building. “These are the foundations of civilization. Time. Astronomy. Aeronautics. Engineering. Navigation. Metallurgy and Electricity. Mathematics and Physics. Geology and Biology. This is our purpose here.”

  The occupants of the Observatory had given Thursday food and water and rest. They had clean bandages, and made him a proper splint for his broken arm. Their doctor was a young woman with deft fingers who explained patiently, calmly, that his arm might not ever heal properly. He had feared as much, but thanked her for being honest.

  “Of course, there’s always hope,” she said, and she was so earnest he thought his heart might break.

  Thursday had shared his guidebook with them. They listened when he told stories, and they had respected his silence when he couldn’t bring himself to relive the worst of his experiences. Lilliana held him once, and softly, kindly, she said, “I am so sorry you’ve witnessed so much death. You’re still so young.”

  He had no way at all to respond to that.

  Peligra’s hunter’s eyes were restless in this place. They took care of her as well, washing her clothes, caring for cuts and bruises, explaining who they were and what they were doing there. Every question she asked had an answer, and nearly every answer led to more questions. “Everyone here is like Tom Bucket,” she said to Thursday once, and something complicated passed over her face. She spoke low and conspiratorially, afraid her voice would carry. “How different would his life have been if he knew these people were here? If he’d followed this path for himself?”

  Thursday told the people of the Observatory about the Science Center, and about the secret blockade Tom had created. When he mentioned the space shuttle, eyes went wide.

  “I haven’t seen it myself, but I’m told its still there.”

  Peligra spent the evenings comparing Thursday’s crude guidebook with her new atlas, helping him clarify things and redraw them when necessary. His story was locked between those pages, and looking through them calmed him.

  Someone else can finish this. Someone here.

  It was a strange thought, but not filled with the dark hopelessness he’d felt on the beach. This was enlightening. The idea that he would leave a mark on the world, a legacy, and that someone in this hall of science would be able to translate his words, to redraw his maps and share his experiences, soothed his soul. If his story inspired someone—one of these children, maybe—to leave their home and travel, to see something new, wouldn’t that be a life well lived? Wouldn’t that be enough?

  You can stay here.

  For a moment, he couldn’t breathe. Didn’t dare.

  They had books on every subject, most rescued from all points of the compass. The scholars of this place, this temple to learning, would share it all. He could fill his mind, even as his body devoured itself, and when he died—sooner, rather than later, perhaps—there would be people to mourn him.

  They wouldn’t have a cure, but did that matter any longer? Seattle was still impossibly far away.

  On the third night, he slept restlessly and woke to see a breathless boy talking rapidly, more frightened than just about anyone Thursday had ever seen. Thursday reached to the mat beside him, but Peligra was already up, already lacing her boots.

  “Nothing ever lasts,” she said.

  “We all get our time,” Thursday said in return.

  Her scarred mouth smiled in a way he’d never seen before, filled with equal parts sorrow and resignation.

  The adults were crowded together, and Lilliana Magellan looked heartsick. “We’re not warriors,” she said. “It’s not our way.”

  The bearded man spoke up. “It’s not . . . not—”

  “Civilized,” Peligra finished for him.

  “What did the boy see?” Thursday asked.

  The single word came as no surprise, and it made every bone in Thursday’s body feel heavier, and it made every one of his wounds—physical and mental—hurt worse.

  The boy’s voice was barely a whisper.

  “Soldiers.”

  ~~~

  Thursday had his pack on his shoulders and new laces in his boots. He’d been given new clothes, a jacket, new pants, promising that if he ever returned he’d bring as many supplies back with him as he could carry, but the people of the Observatory only shook their heads and told him his company had been trade enough.

  Could a society like that continue to exist in this world of violence? He didn’t know, but he wanted to believe it could. Wanted to do everything in his power to keep them thriving and alive.

  “How do we do this?”

  Peligra had her satchel over her shoulder and across her body. Just before leaving she’d traded her atlas for a hammer, and when Thursday asked her about it, she said, “I’m coming back here for it. Before I go home, I’ve got a lot I need to learn. Gardening. Medicine. Peace-keeping. I feel like my familia lived like animals compared to these people. I can change that. Make it better when I return.”

  Thursday nodded. It was a noble goal.

  For himself, though, he again thought of Robert Frost: Yet knowing how way leads on to way . . .

  He knew he’d never return to this place. One step on the path north again, and he wouldn’t be able to stop, wouldn’t quit until he was in Seattle and had tracked down the antidote to his disease. He’d wanted to stay, to give it all up, but what good was knowledge if you couldn’t live to share it?

  His guidebook was in his pack, and his eyes were once again wide open to the complexities and wonders of the expanding world.

  “If we run,” Peligra said, “they’ll burn these people out. They’ll destroy everything. You heard how desperate the Saint’s agents were in the tunnels. How scared. They won’t stop.”

  “Then, what? Surrender ourselves to protect them?”

  Peligra had her hand inside the satchel on her hip. Her scarred lips were pulled back from her teeth
. “Surrender is an ugly word.”

  Going down the hill should’ve been easier, but his muscles were still sore and screamed with every step. They had the high ground, and could see the campfires of the soldiers below, nestled in the foothills and canyons. Dozens of soldiers, perhaps a hundred.

  “I must see him. The Saint.”

  “And if he kills you?”

  Peligra shrugged. “We all get our time.”

  The first soldiers they encountered had sharpened axes, loops of chains, and the same sort of street-sign spears Thursday had seen at the caravan. A woman in some kind of black body armor held up a hand and said, “You are the Muertas?”

  Peligra thrust her chin out and put a hand on Thursday’s shoulder. “We are. Have you come from the Saint de España?”

  “We have,” the soldier said, awe in her voice. It was clear she recognized Peligra somehow. “We’re to take you to him.”

  “In chains?”

  “Only if it comes to that.”

  “It won’t,” Thursday said.

  The soldier looked back and forth between Thursday and Peligra, trying to read them, then she turned and shouted to her troops. Dozens of men and women, all of them fit and well-fed and armed to the teeth. “Break the camp! We’re going to the Mission.”

  Thursday had been in situations like this before. Negotiations that felt almost like suicide. The unknown opening like a chasm before him.

  When he looked to Peligra, she bared her teeth in a fierce grin.

  ~~~

  The female soldier was Commander Cortez, and more than once on the seven-hour march to the Mission San Fernando Rey de España Thursday caught the woman watching Peligra with a look that seemed half-made of fear and half-made of reverie. Cortez was open with directions when Thursday mustered enough energy to ask, pointing out that they traveled along Lankershim Boulevard to Arleta Avenue. The roads reminded Thursday too much of the high-speed death race along the Pacific Coast Highway, with the same kinds of empty shops and restaurants and strip malls as that other, bloodier road.

  “Where did people used to live around here? I haven’t seen many houses.”