As he looked on dazedly, half a dozen newly sentient automobiles pawed the remains of what had been a big tractor-trailer rig. Now it more closely resembled a beached humpback whale being torn to shreds by a pack of killer whales. The rig moaned in agony — a chilling, grating, mechanical cry. Frank turned away, his stomach churning.
The street was full of mangled, broken bodies, some of which were still recognizable as human. Others were bloated or distorted like the raging occupants of his own building. While he stood staring, a man and woman tried to cross the street, angling for the safety of an alley. They were instantly run down by a car whose wheels were still round, but whose headlights and grille had been transformed into a cold inanimate face. Both hapless pedestrians went flying. They bounced off the pavement and lay motionless. As Frank looked on in horror, the car-creature ran over them repeatedly, until little remained save darker stains on an already mottled street.
An iron juggernaut came clanking around a far corner. It was green with black stripes and spots. Originally it had been a skiploader. Now it was crunching the sidewalk across from him, sucking up people and smaller mobile machines with a forty-foot-long tongue, drawing them into a mouth the size of a sports car. A broken fire hydrant spewed blood skyward. Drops of it coated Frank’s face and shoulders. The horrid downpour did not stir him because he was already in shock.
Blood ran in a steady stream down the gutter, to vanish into the nearest storm drain. Not all of it was red. Green and orange fluids completed the viscous torrent. The stench of death and burning flesh was worse than any of the sights, overwhelming his senses and threatening to make him faint.
This is it, then, he thought numbly. The End. What happens to reality when the fabric of it finally unravels. Reason was giving way to madness.
Bodies and structures continued to metastasize as he stood there, machines and people changing into ever more grotesque forms. Long Beach Boulevard was now a painting by Bosch, a Claymation film gone insane, with smells and sounds to match.
Halfway up the street a car that was still a car stood parked at the curb. He made for it like a drowning man for a life preserver. It was unlocked, but the ignition was empty. Could he jump the wires? He’d seen it done dozens of times on TV, but he’d never tried it himself. He plunged inside. As he slammed the door behind him, something landed on the hood.
Its pupilless eyes glowed bright orange. Once it might have been a big, friendly dog: a Dane or a Saint Bernard. Now it was a fanged skull fronting a horribly emaciated body. It tried to howl but managed only a feeble choking sound as it dug at the window with stubby, broken claws. Teeth broke and bled as it tried to bite through the safety glass.
Frank tried to ignore the thing as he bent beneath the steering column. A tangle of wires swam into view. They were all color-coded, but which ran to the ignition? Using the tiny pocketknife attached to his key chain, he cut through the whole bundle, praying he wouldn’t get shocked. Above and outside the car something moaned.
So far he’d been too busy and too stunned to wonder what might be happening up on the Peninsula, what Alicia and Wendy might be going through. Maybe, he told himself desperately, the unraveling was localized. Maybe up in the hills overlooking the ocean everything was still normal and undisturbed. Could he drive out of this maelstrom of madness even as they’d driven out of other distorted realities in the motor home?
He couldn’t go anywhere unless he managed to start this car.
The dog-thing had vanished with a yelp as something larger and more vicious had carried it off. It was better without the moaning. Frank started crossing wires. Once a spark stung his cheek, but the engine remained silent.
Then the front door was torn from its hinges.
He scrabbled against the floor and seat, kicking away from the steering column as something like an immense black slug peered in at him. It had arms like licorice cables. Ropy fingers grabbed his left foot and started pulling him out of the car. He heard himself screaming. As his hips slid over the doorway he threw both arms around the steering column and tried to pretend they were made of the same Detroit steel.
He could feel his arms being slowly pulled from their sockets. Then the awesome grip on his ankle relaxed. Sobbing from the pain, he loosened his convulsive lock on the steering column and turned onto his back.
The shuddering, sluglike mass was quivering in pain. Steam rose from the curve of its bulk. Frank managed to sit up and look out. The boulevard was full of running water. It mixed with the blood and gore briefly before sweeping it away. The rising torrent was rushing up the street from the south. Frank didn’t have to taste it to know it was saltwater. Sea water. It ran two inches deep and rose as he watched. That’s when he sensed the subtle but steady trembling in the earth.
The land was subsiding, the sea invading a sinking reality. Practically every building still standing was smoking or on fire. The bank across the street shuddered and collapsed, dumping tons of concrete, steel, and glass into the ravaged boulevard. At first he thought the subsidence was the cause, but it might as easily have been a change in the reality of the structure itself.
He bent to work on the wires again and this time was rewarded with a rumble as well as a flash. As he rose, he hit the accelerator with his right hand. The motor raced encouragingly. Settling himself behind the wheel he put the car in gear, pulled out into the street. The undercarriage cleared the rising water, but not by much.
Up to Anaheim Boulevard where he turned left, not trusting the lower lying Pacific Coast Highway, which might by now be completely inundated. Water invaded storefronts and homes all around him. He peered grimly over the wheel. If the car held together, in ten minutes he’d be climbing the Peninsula. His home stood several hundred feet above sea level.
So intent was he on watching the rising water and the flooding of the city that he didn’t see the truck until it slammed into him. They struck at an angle, which sent him spinning two full circles before he came to a halt. Blood trickled from his lip where he’d bit himself. Worse, the front of his vehicle was smashed in. Smoke rose from the engine compartment. When he tried to restart, all his desperate efforts generated was a feeble squeal from the alternator.
The truck had come to a stop nearby. A delivery vehicle of medium size, it had been only slightly damaged by the collision. The Ford emblem on its hood hung askew and there was a long gash on its flank, but otherwise it looked functional.
He stumbled outside and straightened — only to find himself confronted by the truck’s occupants. They all wore fancifully decorated uniforms, probably scavenged from some deserted surplus store. Braid and medals and ribbons hung from sleeves and pants legs as well as chests. Some of them were remotely human, but most had metamorphosed completely. Angry animal and mutant faces glared at him. Every one of them carried a club or worse.
A couple grunted to each other as they stood regarding him, grinning nastily. Looking left and right he saw he was almost surrounded. So he jumped on the hood of the broken car and made a break for the only gap in their ranks. As he cleared the roof something struck him painfully in the ribs.
He landed hard in the water-filled street, tried to rise but got no farther than his knees. Inhuman chuckling and laughter came close. With a sob he sat up and clutched his throbbing side, knowing it was all over, finished, done for. No mistake about it this time. He tried to cushion himself with warm memories of his family, especially of Steven. Around him, only the ocean was unchanged. He inhaled the salt air, thankful his last sensation would be a sane one.
They closed in around him, laughing no longer, seriously discussing his demise. He saw each weapon as an individual instrument of death. Cold gray blurs rose over him. Maybe he’d be lucky after all, he thought. Maybe the first blow would be a killing one. The idea of a prolonged beating or dismemberment discomfited him. Closing his eyes tight, he waited for the pain.
Thunder rolled down the street, making him open his eyes and jerk in its direction.
He didn’t recall seeing a gun in the hands of any of his assailants.
It was such a friendly, natural sound, pure and clean in the smoky air, unaffected by madness and death. As he sat dumbly with the saltwater burning his skin, it echoed a second time. The creature preparing to smash his brains out, which looked like a cross between an ape and a Chinese warlord, spread its arms wide as it was knocked backward. The right side of its skull vanished, blown to bits like a Christmas pinyata. The sight did not sicken Frank. He’d seen much worse in the previous half hour.
A third boom was chased by a couple of sharp pops from a smaller caliber weapon. The cordite conversation continued until the last of his tormentors had fled or been flattened. Still clutching his injured rib, Frank gazed in disbelief at the inhuman corpses surrounding him.
The survivors piled frantically into their truck. A ratcheting noise came from the half-stripped transmission as it spun its wheels in the water before rumbling off in the direction of burning downtown Long Beach. Frank followed it with his eyes until he was sure it wasn’t coming back. He tried to stand, failed, sitting down hard in the bloody water.
Take it easy, he told himself. Whoever it is, if they want you, they’ll get you.
Saltwater, blood, and tears blurred Frank’s vision, but he was able to isolate two figures hurrying toward him. Two beasts lucky enough to have found working weapons had slaughtered his attackers. Now they were coming to claim their kill. Doubtless they’d kill him as well, when it suited them. They were only two. Maybe he could get away. With so many bodies to gather maybe they wouldn’t waste a precious bullet on one more.
He struggled erect, turned, and tried to limp in the direction the fleeing truck had taken. He thought he heard a final shot but couldn’t be sure as his legs gave way beneath him, sending him tumbling again into the shallow water. It was a good six inches deep now, he mused. The whole of Los Angeles/Long Beach Harbor would be submerged.
It was a good final thought to cling to: the unaltered sea rising to reclaim the land. The water would drown the abominations that now inhabited it, put out the fires that tormented the ruined buildings. Too bad he wasn’t up on the Peninsula. From the palisades he would be able to watch it all with his family.
A hand grabbed his shoulder and turned him. He expected to see the muzzle of a gun and wasn’t disappointed. But the tunnellike barrel of the big pistol wasn’t aimed at him.
"Man, I was afraid we would never find you. You have got balls, and they are not all on the shelves of your stores."
Somehow Frank managed to grin through the pain. "Hi, Burnfingers. Looking for a job already?"
17
"Come on, let’s move it!" Frank recognized the other voice as well. It was high and determined. The .22 looked larger than it was in Niccolo Flucca’s tiny hand. "Before we run into any more playful citizens."
"Coming, little kitchen wizard." Burnfingers put a massive arm around Frank and lifted him to his feet. The rib screamed and Frank bit into his lip.
"Can you walk?"
"I dunno, Burnfingers."
"You have to try. I cannot carry you and aim at the same time."
"Then I guess I will walk, won’t I?"
He did it by rote, putting one foot ahead of the other, chiding the laggard to follow until it was alongside. Burnfingers helped as much as he could. Flucca walked on the other side, his stubby legs kicking up saltwater, his eyes missing nothing.
"Alicia. Wendy," Frank gasped.
"They are fine," Burnfingers told him. "Your house was unchanged when we left to come look for you and it is well above the rising water." The huge Casull gleamed in the smoke-tinted light. In Burnfingers’s fist it looked big enough to blow away the Anarchis itself.
That was another unreality, Frank told himself unhappily.
They were fighting their way toward an island of metal, of sanity. It stood unaltered amid madness and devastation: the motor home. Several new gouges scarred the trim where something had tried to break through. The metal had resisted. A little of the pain in his side and shoulders went away at the sight of it.
"If we survive this I’m gonna buy that damn machine. Alicia can turn it into a planter or the kids can make a rec room out of it. I’ll take off the wheels and put it up on blocks, but I’m not giving it back. It’s saved my ass too many times."
"It has not saved anything yet." Burnfingers manipulated the keys with one huge hand until he found the one that fit the door lock.
He and Flucca had to help Frank in. Water continued rising around them. What looked like a giant salamander came wriggling through the water toward them. Burnfingers kicked it aside. The contact produced a feeble, gurgling squeal. Tiny dark eyes peered mournfully up at them out of deeply sunk eye sockets. The face was faintly human.
Once inside, Frank headed for his familiar place behind the wheel. Burnfingers gently but firmly eased him into the other chair.
"Not this time, my friend. Now I drive whether you like it or not." Frank was too exhausted to argue.
"All clear!" Flucca yelled as he closed the door and dogged it tight.
Burnfingers turned the motor home around, accelerated slowly so as not to soak the brakes. The water was halfway up the wheels and still rising. Fortunately, the motor home had higher clearance than any automobile.
After a few miles, the road began to ascend, climbing from the industrialized harbor area into the suburban knolls of Rolling Hills Estates. Looking back the way they’d come, Frank saw a ten-foot-high wave advancing across the city. No ordinary surf, it was more like a bore tide. The solid wall of water rushed up the city streets from the harbor to crash against burning buildings. Anything less than a story high was submerged.
Riding the crest of the irresistible tide was an army of nightmares from the depths, all pulsing red gills and snaggleteeth and poisonous spines. Flat, silvery fish eyes burned with an unnatural intelligence. Even at this distance Frank fancied he could hear the bloated bubbling sounds the aquatic invaders made as they began to feed frenziedly on the drowning carcasses of the inundated city dwellers. Hills and trees soon blotted the horror from view.
The Peninsula appeared deserted. Any surviving families were probably cowering inside their homes. There were no other vehicles moving. Palos Verdes had become a Gibraltarlike island anchoring the southern corner of the sunken Los Angeles Basin.
For the moment they were safe, though the land continued to subside. The fabric of reality was unraveling around them faster than ever. At any moment the remaining dry land might sink beneath the hungry waves or be torn asunder by a new earthquake. Gravity itself might end, sending them spinning into space, choking and gasping for air as the planet’s atmosphere dissipated rapidly around them.
As they continued to climb he saw that the Pacific had reclaimed all the lowlands. The only evidence of former human habitation were the tops of office towers and luxury condominiums along Wilshire and downtown, and the occasional top lane of some freeway interchange to which crowded cars clung like ants trying to escape a flood.
Burnfingers shifted out of low as the ground leveled off. They drove past denuded eucalyptus, oak, sycamore, and bottlebrush. Even the evergreens had been stripped of their needles. As they crossed the Peninsula and turned south toward his house, they saw the ocean once more. It was bubbling and heaving like a boiling pot. Waterspouts danced across the tormented surface despite the absence of wind. The long brown silhouette of Catalina Island was missing entirely from the western horizon, having vanished completely beneath the waves.
His house still sat intact on its acres, the iron gate guarding the entrance unbroken. Flucca borrowed his key and opened the lock, admitting them to the circular driveway.
As they entered, a vast shadow darkened the motor home. Frank leaned forward and looked skyward, flinched as the monster attacked. It was all teeth and claws and dripping toxins. The motor home rang like a bell when the thing made contact with the roof, but the metal held and they managed to re
main upright.
Flucca darted outside, popping away with his tiny pistol. Frank followed, then Burnfingers. The Casull bellowed once, twice. Nothing tumbled to the ground and there was no answering scream, but the shadow vanished.
"It will be back." Burnfingers holstered the now empty hand-cannon. "Along with mother knows what else. The world is going crazy."
Frank leaned against the comforting side of the motor home, breathing a little easier. He felt a lot better now than he had when his friends had dragged him from the collapsing city below. The throbbing in his side was starting to relent.
"Nothing’s stable no more," Flucca avowed, still scanning the sky. "The fabric of existence is really coming apart." Satisfied that the clouds shielded nothing more than an errant pigeon, he looked over at Frank. "We’re running out of time, we are. That’s what Mouse told us before we came looking for you."
"That’s what she’s been telling us all along."
"I was beginning to wonder if we could make it all the way to your office," Burnfingers told him. "Then we saw you lying in the water with that bunch preparing to do you."
"Five more minutes." Frank straightened, able now to stand on his own. "No, I didn’t have that much. Three, maybe."
"We have to get her to the Vanishing Point quickly. She is the only one who can stop this."
"You get her there. You and Nick. I’m all out. I’m staying here. I want to die in my own house surrounded by what’s left of my family. If things keep worsening at this rate you’ll never make it, no matter how close the Point lies."
To the Vanishing Point Page 30
