by neetha Napew
"Yes," breathed Jim, seeing the men fall, the wall behind them sprayed with two vivid splashes of arterial blood, double red in the sunlight
.
NANCI WAS RUNNING FAST, arms pumping, Mac behind her holding a pair of binoculars he'd snatched up. Paul McGill was third, then Jeanne and Pamela. Jeff was jogging, and the two little girls brought up the rear.
All of them wanted to see what was happening in Eureka, below them.
"BASTARD SHITTY… Got it!" Carrie Princip struggled with the knot in the thick, damp rope and finally freed it from the smooth bollard.
Heather was sitting in the bow, Sly slumped on the next thwart along. Jim was about to jump in when he realized that he'd messed it all up.
"Heather, take the tiller and steer us. Sly, in the front. Carrie, sit where he was, and I'll take this pair of oars at the back."
There was instant confusion. Sly screamed out in a thin little voice as the boat wobbled from side to side, but Jim managed to grab his hand and steady him. "Oh me, oh me, oh me…"
"You're fine. Sit down and keep still, Sly."
Heather was far more nimble, sitting at the stern, hand on the tiller. Carrie had her oars into the oarlocks, while Jim was still trying to get his in place.
Behind them, in Eureka, he heard someone shout. Another yell. Running feet.
"Son of a bitch… Right, let's go."
Fortunately his daughter had the sense to realize that the two adults needed guidance in keeping time with each other. "In and out and in and out…"
The water whirled under the blades of the oars, and Jim Hilton had the exhilarating feeling of movement. "Yeah, kids, we're off," he hissed between clenched teeth.
They were clear of the end of the jetty, the girl steering out to sea, putting as much distance as possible between them and the shore. Where there was more shouting and a woman screaming.
"Found the bodies," panted Carrie.
Facing backward, Jim could see what was happening. The setting sun behind them painted the town bloodred, showing a number of men scrambling toward the rest of the boats. They were less than a hundred yards off. A gun cracked, but Jim couldn't tell where the bullet had gone.
"Keep rowing," he said, shipping his oars. He glanced over his shoulder to see to his relief that the sun was almost completely gone. Full darkness was moments away.
He drew the Ruger and fired three careful shots, trying to allow for the movement of the rowboat as it began to encounter larger waves. A man went down, and he saw with great satisfaction that the rest of them had dived for cover, abandoning their attempts to get more boats launched.
He tucked the empty gun in his belt and resumed rowing, pulling with all his strength, wishing for a moment that Henderson McGill was there to help them with his powerful muscles. But two more shots from the shore, one kicking up a tiny fountain of spray only a yard from the starboard side of the boat, concentrated his mind most wonderfully.
They were now close on three hundred yards out, moving smoothly into the crimson trail of the sun. "Keep us straight out. Head north in a few minutes."
"We safe?" said Sly.
"Believe we are… for the time being."
There were no more shots.
NANCI SIMMS WATCHED Mac's face as he stared through the glasses at the tiny boat disappearing, unpursued, toward the ruby blur of the dying sun.
Going into the darkness of the far west.
"Is it?" she asked.
"Yeah," he said, lowering the binoculars. "Yeah, it is," he said.
II
Chapter Twelve
It was a starry, starry night.
Jim had carried on rowing for another quarter hour or so after Sly Romero had finally given up. The lad had battled bravely, the oars rising and falling steadily as the boat made its slow way north. But eventually he'd begun to cry, almost silently.
"Hands hurt, Jim," he whispered, his voice barely audible above the gentle lapping of the Pacific against the keel.
Now they were drifting.
Heather was curled up in the bow, head pillowed on her arms. A sliver of moon peered through the wrack of high cloud, making her face look as pale as death.
Carrie Princip was also asleep, head resting on the forward thwart, one arm hanging over the side of the boat, fingertips nearly trailing in the cold water.
Sly was sitting with his back to Jim, locked into that half world between wakefulness and sleep, staring out over the stern, toward the south where the faint lights of Eureka had long disappeared.
Jim Hilton could just hear the teenager mumbling to himself, repeating the same thing over and over again.
"Wish I may, wish I might, wish I may, wish I might, wish I may, wish I might...."
There was a bank of thin mist clinging to the black surface of the sea about a half mile away to the west. Jim lay back and rested, watching it, aware that he needed to exercise extreme caution for the next few hours. If the fog came closer and thickened, then it would be only too easy to lose all sense of direction. They had no compass in the boat, and it would be frighteningly simple to row strongly out toward the far horizon instead of trying to keep reasonably close in to shore.
Jim also knew that the coast of northern California was notorious for dangerous currents and treacherous changes in the weather.
But for now he felt fairly secure.
He was trying to identify some of the main diamond-glittering patterns in the starry sky from his fast-fading memory. It had been at least nine years ago, at the beginning of his space training, when Ursa Major and Orion and Betelgeuse and Cygnus and Hydra were all familiar to him, along with hundreds of other stars and constellations.
"Delphinus?" he said quietly, doubtfully. "Draco, over there? Shit, I don't know."
It was a passingly strange thought that all of his qualifications and expertise as a leading officer in the United States space program were now of less value than his ability to kill other human beings with the big Ruger Blackhawk Hunter holstered at his hip.
Sly had finally fallen silent and was doubled over, his large head resting on his hands. Jim was astounded at the lad's resilience, wondering what he must have made of the past few weeks of his life. To be ripped away from his mother, Alison, though that was probably not much hardship. And then to be exposed to so much death. The deaths of his father and then his good and trusted friend, Kyle Lynch.
Jim also wondered what might have happened to the rest of his command. How many were alive?
"If any," he whispered.
The rocking of the boat made him feel sleepy, but he fought against it, digging his fingernails into his cheeks, pinching himself hard, until tears watered his eyes.
The stranger from the mist… what had his name been? Dorian Langford, the widowed publisher of school textbooks. He'd said the big quakes had devastated the land to the north, severing virtually all communication by land. Thousands of acres flooded as the sea had broken inland. Jim had seen some old vids of the catastrophic disaster of the early nineties, clear over the Midwest, when months of rain had inundated tens of thousands of square miles all across the valleys of the Missouri and the Mississippi. It was an eco-holocaust that had taken the region thirty years to recover from. It had finally just about gotten back on course when Earthblood had struck.
If the cautious Mr. Langford had been correct, then it might involve a long ocean journey in the frail little rowboat before they could once again find dry land and resume the quest toward Aurora.
The swaying movement of the little boat was languorous, the chuckle of water rippling under the keel lulling Jim Hilton toward sleep....
IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL sunny morning, in the hills above the reservoir, less than a half mile from the Hollywood sign. Jim was standing in the heated pool of his home on Tahoe Drive. The twins, Andrea and Heather, were rehearsing a playlet to be performed at their school in a few days, just before Easter. They wore frilled bathing costumes, Andrea's vivid green and Heather's a startlin
g bloodred.
Jim leaned on the hot stones and smiled up into the cloudless sky.
This was about as close to perfect happiness as the gods allowed you to get.
Lori came out of the cool depths of the house, sliding back the almost invisible screen door. She carried a large white tray, carefully picking her way around the girls.
"Hi, lover."
Jim waved to her, sending spreading ripples across the chlorinated turquoise pool. "Looks good," he called.
"Me or the food?"
"Both, of course."
Lori was wearing a tiny bikini in white satin, setting off her long blond hair. As she came closer, the high heels of the gold leather sandals clicked on the stones.
"Feel hungry?"
After glancing around over her shoulder to make sure both the girls were safely preoccupied, Lori had come very close to him. She squatted down, deliberately spreading her perfect thighs inches from his face.
"Very hungry," Jim replied. "Got all my juices starting to run."
There was a tiny golden fuzz, like that of a fresh-picked peach, around the edges of her bikini pants, tantalizing him. The material was so tight and sheer that he could see the shape of her pubic mound and even distinguish the pouting lips beneath.
"Better tuck into this first, lover," she said. "Before it gets cold."
"Wouldn't want it getting cold," he replied, moving one dripping hand from the water, toward her.
"Hey, what about little eyes," she cautioned, gesturing to the twins. "Later is better. Wish you may, wish you might?"
Lori put the tray down, and Jim saw the big plate brimming with delicious food.
Five thick rashers of Canadian bacon, pink and crisp edged. A splash of ketchup, like clotted blood, at their center. A cloudburst of scrambled eggs, cooked to perfection, dusted with salt and pepper. Two tomatoes, sliced in half, and a heap of lightly fried mushrooms. A portion of veal, tender and just a little underdone, with a mist of pink clinging to its edges. Some link sausages, jostling a Matterhorn of hash browns.
There were some baked beans, surrounding an island of green chili. Jim was disappointed not to see any of his favorite bloodied chilies there, as well. A steak sat in one corner of the plate, with a haunch of sea bass next to it. A pile of shell pasta was sprinkled with grated basil. Huevos rancheros sat waiting for him in the middle of the platter, nudging a whole lobster.
"Good," he said.
"Not too much?"
"Never have too much," he said with a grin. "You coming in the pool? Or do you want to come somewhere else?"
Lori shook her head, the blond hair tumbling across her bronzed shoulders like waves of Kansas wheat. "You and your dirty mouth quite disgust me, James Hilton." But her smile contradicted her words.
"So, everyone is blowing Bubbles!" exclaimed Heather.
It was the punchline to their sketch for the school and was totally incomprehensible to their parents.
Lori Hilton slipped into the crystal water, hardly disturbing the placid surface, moving in a few languid strokes to the far, deep end.
"Come over here," said Jim, beckoning to his wife. There was a frosted pitcher of fresh-squeezed orange juice, along with a decanter of cranberry juice, tart on the tongue, its colour rich as fresh-spilled blood.
As she started to swim slowly toward him the sun was veiled and a cold wind rattled the storm shutters. Jim shuddered, hunching his shoulders. The sparkle went off the surface of the pool, and it became clouded and dull.
"What's happening?" he whispered tentatively.
The screen door slammed shut, and both the girls had disappeared from the garden. The water in the swimming pool had assumed the color of pewter. Jim knew that there was a delicate whorling pattern in scarlet-and-crimson mosaics at the bottom, but it had become invisible.
Lori had stopped swimming and stood up, barely in her depth, the surface of the gray liquid only a couple of inches below her chin. Her blue eyes were wide and frightened. "Jim, dearest… help me...."
Jim glanced at the tray. Though only a few seconds had passed, the food had rotted. Everything had turned into a disgusting sludge of green-gray putrescence, covered in thin white worms and fat, leprous maggots.
He turned toward her again, and his jaw dropped. "Lori…"
His wife had vanished. Jim nearly went under himself as the depth of water in the pool seemed to increase dramatically. Now it was as if he were swimming in the middle of the sea, with a thousand feet of sullen ocean below him.
He gasped as he felt something immeasurably huge move by, only a few yards beneath his feet.
"Lori...." he said again.
"LORI," he said, his own voice waking him.
It took Jim a few moments to reassert his hold on reality. They were all still safe in the rowboat, the gray Pacific around them glittering under the cold moonlight. He noticed at once that Carrie had changed position in sleep, her right hand and lower arm now dangling in the water.
And a few yards away, moving toward them with an inexorable, unstoppable power, was the triangular fin and glistening flank of a huge shark.
Chapter Thirteen
Nanci Simms returned to the others, emerging from the feeble moonlight, holding the Heckler & Koch, the Port Royale machine pistol slung across her shoulders.
"Jesus, you made me jump," exclaimed Henderson McGill. "Never heard you coming."
She smiled at him. "You wouldn't, Mac."
The others had been dozing in sleeping bags, but all of them, except for Sukie and Jocelyn, came out to hear what the woman had to report.
"Was it Hilton?" asked Jeff Thomas.
"Most likely." She nodded. "They outed three of the good people of Eureka and wounded another. From the sound of the shooting, it was Jim's Ruger that did the business. Must say I'm impressed with his marksmanship. I overheard the talk, and it seems he killed the three guards on the boats with his first three shots."
"How do you know it was Jim?"
She brushed back a stray strand of hair from her eyes. "Bulky, middle-aged man. Woman with blond hair. Young girl. And a teenager, who seemed a mite clumsy."
Mac nodded. "Sounds like Jim and Carrie, for sure. So they got away north in the boat, did they? You figure why they did that, Nanci? Run out of fuel, maybe?"
"I don't know. Surely there's gas in a town like this, unless they tried for it and failed. Don't know. I wonder whether these quakes have blotted out the highways north. Could even be the sea's come in."
"How the fuck do we find out?" Jeff was almost in tears. "We got so close to being with them again."
"We don't find out, Jefferson," said Nanci. "I do. I'm going in to ask some questions. I'll be back in a couple of hours. I want everyone ready to move when I come back."
"Move where?" asked Jeanne McGill.
"Jim Hilton reckoned the best bet was a boat…he could be right. I'll find out. Scout the harbor. They won't look for another raid in the same night."
As quickly and silently as she'd appeared, the woman vanished again.
SHE WAS RIGHT.
The shooting and the theft of one of the twelve-foot rowboats had left the settlement in a state of shock.
There was a movement among some of the younger men for sending out one of their bigger sailing vessels after the killers, but caution won out.
With three corpses to be readied for burial on the morrow, and wounds to be tended, nobody gave a lot of thought to protecting the remaining vessels. As a token gesture, one of the teenage boys, Nathan Gambon, was ordered out.
He was given a 9 mm Llama Omni automatic—one of the best handguns in the whole township—to overcome his moaning about being given the shitty chore.
"They are gone," he complained. "Won't come back, will they? No fuckin' point."
But his father cuffed him so hard around the side of the head that his ear started to bleed.
Now Nathan was sitting on the end of the jetty, practicing drawing and cocking the gun, the checker
ed plastic grips firm in his hand. The moon was sinking behind a bank of thicker cloud, and the ocean was dark as pitch.
One of the church clocks was still kept wound, and he was able to keep track of the passing time by the chiming bell. His father had promised that someone would come out to relieve him on watch. But his father had been intending to bury a cask of home brew with some friends, and Nathan wasn't too optimistic about his ability to recall the promise.
The night had become bitingly cold, and the lad turned up the collar of his borrowed parka, huddling down into the warm, quilted material.
"You look lonely, son."
He shot around like a startled rabbit, jumping to his feet, holding the gun at the end of his outstretched arm. "Who the… ?" Instantly he felt a little foolish when he saw it was a stooped, elderly woman. The rest of the pier was deserted. "What d'you want?" he asked.
"Little talk, son."
"Yeah, that's… I don't know you, do I?"
"Just passing through Eureka. Why not put that big cannon away, son."
"No, I'm…"
He never saw her move, but his right wrist felt as if someone had chopped it in half with an ax. His fingers opened, and the Llama dropped to the damp planking, bouncing once before plopping over the side into the fishy water.
"Hey! That hurt, and the gun's gone and—"
The old woman didn't seem so stooped and was standing close to him. There was a sudden griping pain in his groin as her fingers clawed shut around his testicles, freezing the breath in his lungs. The pain was blinding, and tears coursed down his cheeks. Slowly he was being drawn up, forced to rise to the tips of his toes to try to avoid being gelded.
"Quietly," whispered the woman. "No noise, there's a good boy. I'll not take a moment."
"What?" he managed to gasp as she released her hold a little, letting him settle back on his feet.
"Is there a highway open north?"
"Course not. Lotsa quakes, lady. Lake's a hundred miles across a ways north of town."