He hopped onto the I-5 and headed south. The first few miles were fine, but right before he reached the Burbank area, he had to slow way down due to the amount of abandoned cars on the road. At one point, the road was so obstructed that he had to exit the freeway and then get back on.
Thankfully, he didn’t have to leave the I-5 again until he reached the airport exit at Hollywood Way. He could feel his anticipation growing, sure that there would be people at the survival station, good people who would offer him food and a place to sleep instead of trying to steal his car. And, God willing, Martina would be there, too.
His excitement began to wane as the airport came into view. He’d expected the runways to be full of tents, but they were empty, the whole area quiet.
Perhaps everyone was inside the terminals, he thought.
He continued to the turnoff that would take him into the airport, but there he stopped.
Someone had pounded a makeshift sign into the ground right at the corner. Spray painted across it:
SURVIVAL STATION LOCATED AT DODGER STADIUM
He laughed in relief. He must not have been the only one to think about trying the airport. He pulled out the map and checked it. Dodger Stadium was near downtown. All he had to do was get back on the I-5 and it would take him there.
He made a U-turn and returned to the interstate, feeling that finally things were going right. Once he passed the 134 interchange, the freeway widened by several lanes, but his hope that it would be easy sailing the rest of the way quickly vanished.
The traffic jam started a few hundred yards before the interchange with the 2 Freeway. Ben let his car roll to a stop, then hopped out and climbed onto the hood so he could get a better look. Cars filled both sides of the interstate for as far as his eyes could see, all the vehicles pointed downtown. While most looked empty, a few still had people in them.
If Ben didn’t know any better, he would have thought it was just another traffic-filled day in L.A. But from the dust on the cars, he could tell the vehicles had been sitting there at least a week and would probably do so forever—one long monument to the city of cars, a memorial of a world that would probably never be seen again.
Clearly, the freeway was no longer an option.
Ben backed up his car to the previous exit and rolled down the ramp. When he reached the bottom, he found the road as congested as the freeway above.
Where had all these people been going? he thought. He hadn’t seen similar jams in the other cities he’d passed. Having no idea what the answer was, he focused on what he should do next. He could always backtrack to see if he could find another way around, but what if it was just as blocked as this way was?
He knew from some of the signs he’d passed that he was getting close to downtown. If he couldn’t drive, he might as well walk.
He put his extra bottles of water into his bag and climbed out. After deciding the freeway would be almost as difficult to travel on foot as in a car, he chose to stick to surface streets. He headed west on Fletcher Drive, hoping to get beyond the hills that paralleled the freeway. It wasn’t long before Fletcher fed into a road called Glendale Boulevard, which then veered left and through a mixed area of grocery stores and banks and bars and apartment buildings. When he reached the top of the hill, he caught sight of several high-rises in the distance.
Downtown.
His energy renewed, he headed down the hill and under a freeway overpass into a small valley that he thought opened up at the other end into the L.A. basin.
Smiling broadly, he started jogging down the middle of the road. He knew, just knew he would find Martina at the survival station. The sooner he could get there, the sooner he would see her, and the sooner everything would be all right. They’d have each other. Whatever happened after that wouldn’t matter.
GABRIEL DIXON HADN’T meant to finish off both cans of ravioli, but he couldn’t help it. He’d been burning a lot of calories these past few days and seemed to be constantly hungry. Still, his little overindulgence came with a price. If he was going to eat again at lunch, he would have to hunt around for something else. Not that doing so would be much of a problem. Los Angeles being a big, empty city meant all he had to do was walk through the front door of any house or apartment or store and he’d pretty much have his pick of food.
Of canned or dry goods at least.
At some point in the past week, the power had gone off in this part of town, so anything kept in a refrigerator or freezer had gone bad. He would have killed for a hamburger at that moment. Ironic, given that he was sitting in a Jack in the Box fast-food restaurant, where hundreds of hamburgers must’ve been served the day before everything went down.
A fresh loaf of bread. He might kill for one of those, too. Any bread he found now that hadn’t gone bad was basically hard as a rock. But that was the price you paid when you were working the front lines.
He brushed the crumbs off the table into a paper napkin and wadded the whole thing up so he could dump it in the trash on his way out. Just because civilization had ended didn’t mean he should forget his manners.
Sliding out of the booth, he pulled on his worn leather jacket—careful not to drop the napkin—and donned his pack. After a final check to make sure he’d cleaned up properly, he grabbed his rifle and headed for the door.
It was time to start his rounds.
WRAPPED IN HIS cocoon of hopeful thoughts about Martina, Ben didn’t notice the door of the Jack in the Box restaurant open a block ahead. It wasn’t until the man wearing the leather coat and carrying a rifle stepped all the way outside that Ben picked up on the movement.
He stopped and slowly lowered himself next to a parked car, hoping he would blend into the background.
The man at the restaurant took another step forward, but then he, too, stopped. In what almost seemed like slow motion, the guy turned to his right and stared down the road in Ben’s direction.
For a few seconds, Ben thought the man couldn’t see him. But then—
“Hey! Hey, you!”
First Iris, then the two punks the night before, and now this man with a rifle.
“Hey!” the man called again as he started walking toward Ben.
Ben whipped around, looking for a way out. There were no nearby roads leading off Glendale on his side of the street, but there was one almost directly across from him, leading up a hill into what looked like a residential area.
“Buddy, I just want to talk to you!” the man yelled.
Ben shot out from his crouch and ran across the street.
“No, no, no! I don’t want to hurt you! Where are you going?”
By the time the man finished asking the question, Ben had reached the other road, and within seconds was hidden from the man’s view by the building on the corner. Up the hill he raced, pushing himself hard.
“Hey! Stop!”
Ben looked over his shoulder. The man was at the bottom of the street.
“I can help you! That’s what I’m here for! Hey!”
As Ben neared the top, he could see the road he was on ended at a street that appeared to run along a crest.
“Come on! Don’t make me go up there!”
Reaching the new road, Ben paused for a second, looking both ways. To his right, the road went back down the hill. To his left, a slight rise.
He turned left, shooting a look down the hill as he did. The man was running up the slope, not quite halfway to the top.
Adrenaline surged through Ben as he sprinted down the middle of the road. When he glanced back again, he saw his pursuer had not yet reached the top of the hill, but Ben knew the man soon would. And when he did, Ben could probably expect a bullet to slam into his back.
He needed to get out of sight before the man could see him again. Hide behind one of the cars? It would be less than perfect, but who knew? Maybe the guy would run right by and not see him.
Just before he decided it was his only option, he came to a gap between the houses on his right, whe
re the slope went down at a steep angle. There was something at the far end that looked like…
…a staircase!
As he veered off the road, he resisted the urge to look back. Either the man would see him or he wouldn’t. It didn’t matter at this point. Ben had made his choice so he had to go with it.
The concrete stairs consisted of several spans of steps broken up by short, level sections four or five feet wide. Sticking to the railing on the right to avoid the bushes encroaching on the other side, Ben took the stairs two at a time, verging on losing control the entire way down. Scanning ahead, he saw a short road that dead-ended at the base of the staircase. The other end of the road connected to a street that ran through the bottom of a narrow valley. If he could turn down that road before the man knew where he’d gone, he could be free.
He stumbled as he hit the bottom step but righted himself and raced to the end of the street. It wasn’t until he started to make his turn that he finally looked back.
The stairs were empty.
THE LAST THING Gabriel expected was to spot a survivor the moment he stepped out of the Jack in the Box. Talk about making things easy for him.
“Hey! Hey, you!”
The man looked scared. Great.
“Hey!” Gabriel said again as he headed toward the man.
The guy suddenly jumped to his feet and raced across the street.
Just my luck. A runner. So much for easy.
“Buddy, I just want to talk to you!”
Gabriel knew his plea was useless. In the five days he’d been patrolling the area, he’d seen two kinds of people: those who were grateful to find him, and those who wanted nothing to do with him. In the latter group, almost to a man, no amount of cajoling would keep them from running away. The only way to bring them in would be by using a more powerful means of persuasion.
Rifle in hand, Gabriel exhaled an aggravated breath and took off in pursuit.
When he realized the man had darted onto a road that ran up the hill, he contemplated letting the son of a bitch go. The guy was in his early twenties at best, and while Gabriel was in good shape, the ten-plus years the kid had on him would likely give the kid an advantage. To catch him, Gabriel would have to outlast the kid. Which meant this pursuit might take some time.
Though he knew it was a waste of breath, Gabriel yelled at the guy again and started up the hill. He wasn’t much past the midpoint when the kid reached the top and took off down a road to the left.
The last quarter of the upward slope was the worst. Gabriel’s thighs and calves burned from the climb, and his shoulders ached from the pack on his back. Pausing for air when he finally reached the top, he looked down the way the kid had gone.
Shit.
The guy wasn’t there.
Gabriel immediately started running again, his gaze swiveling from side to side, looking to see if the kid had hidden somewhere nearby. He didn’t stop until he reached the point where the street curved to the left. There, he could see a ways down the new section of road, but it was empty.
How had he lost the kid that quickly?
He looked back, thinking maybe he’d catch the guy jumping out of some bushes and trying to sneak away. Nothing.
He was starting to think the kid was gone for good when he heard the sound of someone sprinting along pavement. It wasn’t coming from this road, though. It was distant, off to the side.
He backtracked and tried to zero in on the sound’s location. Ahead, there was a section of the road with no houses on the south side. He hurried over, thinking he might be able to see the runner from there.
No such luck on that point, but it didn’t matter. There were stairs leading down to the road, from which he could still hear the echoes of running feet.
THOUGH BEN WAS fairly sure he was safe, he continued to move as quickly as possible through the hill, turning down different roads and taking several more of the public stairways that seemed to be abundant in the area.
It wasn’t long before he found himself at the bottom of another valley, this one a bit larger than the one at the bottom of that first set of stairs. According to the street sign, he was on Echo Park Avenue.
It had been at least fifteen minutes since he’d last seen the man chasing him. He hoped he’d lost the guy for good but knew he couldn’t assume that yet, so he decided it was finally a good time to find someplace to hide. There were plenty of houses around. They dotted the slopes on either side, sticking out between giant old trees and patches of overgrown bushes. Break into one, hang out inside for a few hours, and the coast should be clear.
Then again, if he could make it to the survival station, that would be the ultimate in safety. He allowed himself to slow to a walk as he contemplated his options.
No. No stopping. Keep going. Martina was waiting for him. He didn’t want to put off their reunion one moment longer than he had to.
He figured Echo Park Avenue would probably take him out of the valley and put him even closer to downtown than he would have been on his original route. Unfortunately, he thought it might also make it easier for the man to find him.
Perhaps if he kept heading south over the next ridge, he would find another valley. That would probably put him far enough away that he could head into the basin without being spotted.
He began looking for a road or staircase that would take him up the southern slope. At the end of Baxter Street, down a little offshoot road, he found stairs that appeared to do just that.
He adjusted the bag strap on this shoulder and began the ascent. There were more steps than he’d expected, well over a hundred, and by the time he finished the climb, his lungs were burning as much as his legs were.
After he finally caught his breath, he followed the gravel path past a driveway and down to the road along the ridge. He walked down the pavement for a bit until he was able to get a good view of the next valley. Unlike the ones he’d already passed through, this one was not filled with homes. In fact, very few buildings were in it. It seemed to be a park made up of meadows and trees and walking trails.
Ben continued along the road until he spotted a dirt path leading down from the slope into the park. He looked toward the southwest end of the valley, and there, in all its abandoned glory, was downtown Los Angeles. But it wasn’t the only thing he saw.
Toward the end of the valley, just beyond the crest of the opposite slope, was a single row of over twenty palm trees, each seventy or maybe eighty feet tall. It was their uniformity that caught his attention. He’d seen them before. Not trees like them, but these very trees, on TV every time he watch his beloved San Francisco Giants play the Dodgers in Los Angeles. The trees were right outside the stadium.
He was almost there.
Feeling excited again, he stepped onto the dirt path.
“Stop right there!”
TRACKING THE KID after having almost lost him had turned out to be relatively easy. The survivor was obviously trying not to be seen again, but he wasn’t adept at traveling quietly. Gabriel, on the other hand, had mastered the technique, so he’d been able to follow the kid without letting on he was there.
Gabriel had another advantage, too. In the several days he’d been in the area, he’d scouted most of these streets so he had a good knowledge of the area. When he realized the kid was headed for the stairs that led to the ridge overlooking Elysian Park, he decided to take an easier way up a few blocks west.
He cut down the road behind Elysian Heights Elementary School and turned up the street that would take him to the top. When he reached the end, he stopped behind several bushes and peered up the ridge toward where the stairs let out.
Nearly a minute passed before the kid showed up. After walking about halfway to Gabriel’s position, the kid stopped and looked out over the park.
Gabriel eased out from his hiding spot and maneuvered himself into position not far behind the kid.
Raising his rifle, he said, “Stop right there!”
BEN LOOKED OVER hi
s shoulder.
It was the man in the leather jacket, his rifle pointed at Ben’s chest.
“All right,” the man said. “Here’s what I need you to do. Very slowly, turn toward me and set your bag on the ground.”
Ben did as ordered. “All yours.”
A brief moment of confusion passed over the man’s face. “You got me wrong. I don’t want your stuff.”
A chill ran through Ben. If not his stuff then…?
“I’m trying to help you,” the man said.
“I don’t need any help, thank you.”
“You do. You just don’t know it.”
Was this guy a psychopath? If so, Ben could imagine what kind of “help” the man wanted to give him.
He glanced at the gun. “You said before that you didn’t want to hurt me.”
“I don’t.”
With a nod at the weapon, Ben said, “But…”
After a second of hesitation, the man lowered the barrel, aiming it now at the ground by Ben’s feet. “I’m sorry. I need to make sure you come with me.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s my job.”
Ben had heard enough crazy for the morning. If this guy was going to kill him, Ben would prefer that happened while he was trying to get to Martina than after he was taken back to whatever hovel the guy was now calling home.
“Okay. Fine. I’ll…I’ll go with you,” he said, trying to sound defeated.
“Good,” the man said. Then, as Ben had hoped, the guy dropped the barrel of the rifle so that it was pointing straight down.
Knowing he might not get a second chance, Ben threw himself backward, hitting the top of the slope on his ass and shoulder, then rolled down the hill, bypassing the path altogether.
GABRIEL WAS GLAD it was over. After he delivered the kid, he might take an hour or two off. Hell, he might even take the rest of the day.
“Good,” he said, and lowered his weapon.
The Project Eden Thrillers Box Set 2 Page 63
