Even in his stupor he didn’t really believe it. They were gone, and he was here with Loretta. He sat down on the bed and stared at Loretta’s hairbrush and dark glasses.
…Oh.
Of course. The Hammer had fallen, and Loretta had started packing her survival kit. The things she couldn’t live without.
Then the killers had come. And killed her. And left behind as garbage the lipsticks and eyebrow pencils and panty hose Loretta couldn’t face life without. But they’d taken the suitcase.
Harvey rolled over on his belly and hid his face in his arms. Thunder and rain roared in his ears, drowning thoughts he wanted drowned.
He was aware that there was someone looking at him. The thunder went on and on; he couldn’t have heard a noise. But there were eyes on him, and he remembered not to move, and then he remembered why. When he moved, it would have to be suddenly, and—he’d left the gun sitting beside Loretta. Oh, the hell with it. He rolled over.
“Harv?”
He didn’t answer.
“Harv, it’s Mark. My God, man, what happened?”
“Don’t know. Raiders.”
He had almost dozed off when Mark spoke again. “You all right, Harv?”
“I wasn’t here. I was interviewing a goddam professor at UCLA and I was in a traffic jam and I was…I wasn’t here. Leave me alone.”
Mark shifted from one foot to the other. He wandered around the bedroom, looking into closets. “Harv, we’ve got to get out of here. You and your damn hot fudge sundae. The whole L.A. basin is under the ocean, you know that?”
“She wanted me to stay. She was scared,” said Harvey. He tried to think of some way to make Mark go away. “Get out and leave me alone.”
“Can’t, Harv. We have to bury your old lady. Got a shovel?”
“Oh.” Harvey opened his eyes. The room was still lit by surrealistic strobe lighting. Funny he didn’t notice the thunder anymore. He got up. “There’s one out in the garage, I think. Thanks.”
They dug in the backyard. Harvey wanted to do it all, but he ran out of energy quickly, and Mark took over. The shovel made squishing sounds; the hard adobe was soaking faster than Mark could dig. Squish. Plop. Squish. Plop. And rolling thunder.
“Time?” Mark called. He was standing in a waist-deep hole, his boots nearly underwater.
“Noon.”
Harvey looked around, startled at the voice from behind him. Joanna was perched above them on the slope, rain running down her face. She held a shotgun, and she looked very alert.
“Deep enough,” Mark said. “Stay here, Harv. Jo, let’s go inside. Give Harv the shotgun.”
“Right.” She came down from the slope, a tiny figure with a big shotgun. She handed it to Harvey without a word.
He stood in the rain, standing guard by looking down into an empty grave. If someone had come up behind him, he wouldn’t have noticed. Or cared. Except that he did notice Mark and Joanna.
Big Mark and tiny Joanna, carrying a blanketed bundle. Harvey went over to help her carry, but he was too late. They lowered her into the grave. Water flowed up and around the blanket. It was an electric blanket, Harvey saw. Loretta’s electric blanket. She could never stay warm enough at night.
Mark took the shovel. Joanna took the shotgun. Mark shoveled steadily. Squish. Plop. Harvey tried to think of something to say, but there weren’t any words. Finally, “Thanks.”
“Yeah. You want to read any words?”
“I ought to,” Harvey said. He started toward the house, but he couldn’t go in.
“Here. This was in the bedroom,” Joanna said. She took a small book out of her pocket.
It was Andy’s confirmation prayer book; Loretta must have included that in her survival kit. She would have. Harvey opened it to the prayers for the dead. Rain soaked the page before he could read it, but he found a line, half read and half remembered. “Eternal rest grant her, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon her.” He couldn’t see any more. After a long time Mark and Joanna led Harvey into the house.
They sat at the kitchen table. “We don’t have long,” Mark said. “I think we saw your raiders.”
“They killed Frank Stoner,” Joanna added.
“Who?” Harvey demanded. “What did they look like? Can we track the bastards?”
“Tell you later,” Mark said. “First we get packed up and moving.”
“You’ll tell me now.”
“No.”
Joanna had rested the shotgun against the table. Harvey picked it up, calmly, and checked the loads. He pulled one outside hammer back. His firearms training was excellent: He didn’t point it at anyone. “I want to know,” Harvey Randall said.
“They were bikers,” Joanna said quickly. “Half a dozen of them riding escort with a big blue van. We saw them turn out of Fox Lane.”
“Those bastards,” Harvey said. “I know where they live. Short side street, half a mile from here. The street’s half a block long. They repainted the sign to read ‘Snow Mountain.’” He stood.
“They won’t be there now,” Mark said. “They went north, toward Mulholland.”
“Frank and Mark and I,” Joanna said. “We had our bikes.”
“They were coming out of your street,” Mark said. “I wanted to know what was happening in there. I stopped and held up my hand, you know, the way bikers stop each other for a friendly talk. And one of the sons of bitches blasted at me with a shotgun!”
“And they missed Mark and hit Frank,” Joanna said. “Frank went right over the edge. If the shotgun didn’t kill him, the fall did. The bikers kept on going. We didn’t know what to do, so we came here as fast as we could.”
“Jesus,” Harvey said. “I got here half an hour before you. They were here, somewhere. Right near here, while I was…while…”
“Yeah,” Joanna said. “We’ll know them if we see them again. Big bikes. Chopped, but not much. And murals on the van. We’ll know them.”
“Never saw that gang before,” Mark added. “No way we can catch up with them just now. Harv, we can’t stay here. The L.A. basin’s flooded, everybody down there is dead from the tsunami, but there must be a million people in the hills around here, and there sure ain’t enough for a million people to eat. There’s got to be a better place to go.”
“Frank wanted to head for the Mojave,” Joanna said. “But Mark thought we ought to look in on you…”
Harvey said nothing. He put the shotgun down and stared at the wall. They were right. He couldn’t catch the bike crew, not now, and he was very tired.
“They leave anything at all?” Mark demanded.
Harvey didn’t answer.
“We’ll do a search anyway,” Mark said. “Jo, you take the house. I’ll go the rounds outside, garage, everything. Only, we can’t leave the TravelAll by itself. Come on, Harv.” He took Harvey’s arm and pulled him to his feet. Mark was surprisingly strong. Harvey made no resistance. Mark led him to the TravelAll and put him in the passenger seat. He put the Olympic target pistol in Harvey’s lap. Then he locked all the doors, leaving Harvey sitting inside, still staring at the rain.
“He going to be all right?” Joanna asked.
“Don’t know. But he’s ours,” Mark said. “Come on, let’s see what we can find.”
Mark found Harvey’s Clorox bottles of water in the garage. There were other things. Sleeping bags, wet, but serviceable; evidently the bikers had their own and didn’t bother. Stupid, Mark thought. Harv’s Army Arctic was better than any the bikers would have.
After a while he brought his salvage to the TravelAll and opened the back. Then he got the small dirt bikes he and Joanna had ridden and brought them around. He started to ask Harvey to help, but instead found a heavy two-by-eight and used it as a ramp. With Joanna’s help he wrestled one of the bikes into the back, and piled stuff in on top of it.
“Harv, where’s Andy?” Mark said finally.
“Safe. Up in the mountains. With Gordie Vance…Marie!”
; Harvey shouted. He jumped out of the car and ran toward Gordie’s house. Then he stopped. The front door was open. Harvey stood there, afraid to go in. What if…what if they’d been in Gordie’s place while Harvey was mooning over Loretta? Jesus, what a goddam useless bastard I am…
Mark went into the Vance house. He came out a few minutes later. “Looted. But nobody home. No blood. Nothing.” He went to the garage and tried to open the door. It came open easily; the lock was broken. When it swung up, the garage was empty. “Harv, what kind of car did your buddy have?”
“Caddy,” Harvey said.
“Then she left, ’cause there’s no car here and no Caddy with the bikers. You get back and watch the TravelAll. There’s more of your stuff we’ll need. Or come help carry.”
“In a minute.” Harvey went back to the car and stood, thinking. Where would Marie Vance go? She was his responsibility; Gordie was taking care of Harvey’s boy, Gordie’s wife would be Harvey’s lookout. Only Harvey didn’t have a clue as to where Marie might be—
Yes he did. Los Angeles Country Club. Governor’s fundraising thingy. Crippled children. Marie was on the board. She’d have been there for Hammerfall.
And if she hadn’t got back here by now, she wasn’t coming back. Marie wasn’t Harvey’s responsibility anymore.
Mark came out of the house, and Harvey was finally startled. Mark was carrying something…Oh my God. Carrying five thousand dollars’ worth of Steuben crystal whale, Loretta’s wedding present from her family. A couple of years ago Loretta had thrown Mark out of the house for picking it up.
Mark got the whale to the van without dropping it. He wrapped it in sheets and pillowcases and spare blankets.
“What’s all that for?” Harvey asked. He pointed to the whale, and the skin cream, and Kleenex, and the remains of Loretta’s survival kit. And other things.
“Trade goods,” Mark said. “Your paintings. Some luxury items. If we find something better, we dump the lot, but we might as well be carrying something. Jesus, Harv, I’m glad your head’s working again. We’re about loaded up. Want to get in, or do you want to take another look through the house?”
“I can’t go back in there—”
“Right. Okay.” He raised his voice. “Jo, let’s move it.”
“Right.” She appeared from out of a hedge, soaking wet, still holding the shotgun.
“You up to driving, Harv?” Mark demanded. “It’s a big car for Joanna to handle.”
“I can drive.”
“Fine. I’ll be outrider with the bike. Give me the pistol, and Jo keeps the shotgun. One thing, Harv. Where are we going?”
“I don’t know,” Harvey said. “North. I’ll think of something once we get started.”
“Right.”
The motorcycle could hardly be heard over the roar of the thunder. They drove out, north toward Mulholland, along the same route the bikers had taken, and Harvey kept hoping…
■
It rained. Dan Forrester saw his path in split-second flashes when the frenetic wipers disturbed the flood of water across his windshield. The rain ate the light of his headlamps before the light could reach the road. Continuous lightning gave more light, but the rain scattered it into flashing white murk.
Rivers ran across the twisting mountain road. The car plowed through them.
In the valleys it must be…well, he would learn soon enough. There were preparations he must make first.
Charlie Sharps would know sooner.
Dan worried for Charlie. Charlie’s chances weren’t poor, but he should not have been traveling with that loaded station wagon. It was too obviously worth stealing. But Masterson might have packed guns, too.
Even if they reached the ranch, would Senator Jellison let them in? Ranch country, high above the floods. If they accepted everyone who came, their food would be gone in a day, their livestock the next. They might let Charlie Sharps in, alone. They probably would not require the services of Dan Forrester, Ph.D., ex-astrophysicist. Who would?
Dan was surprised to find that he’d driven home. He zapped the garage door and it opened. Huh! He still had electricity. That wouldn’t last. He left the door open. Inside, he turned on some lights, then set out a great many candles. He lit two.
The house was small. There was one big room, and the walls of that room were bookshelves, floor to ceiling. Dan’s dining table was piled high with his equipment. He had bought his fair share of freeze-dried foods while they existed, but Dan had thought further than that. He had carried home far more than his share of Ziploc Bags and salad-size Baggies, insect spray and mothballs. The table was full. He set to work on the floor.
He whistled as he worked. Spray a book with insect spray, drop it in a bag, add some mothballs and seal it. Put it in another bag and seal it. Another. The packages piled up on the floor, each a book sealed in four plastic envelopes. Presently he got up to put on some gloves. He came back with a fan and set it blowing past his ears from behind. That ought to keep the insecticide off his hands and out of his lungs.
When the pile on the floor got too big, he moved. And when the second pile was as high as the first, he stood up carefully. His joints were stiff. His feet hurt. He moved his legs to build circulation. He started coffee in the kitchen. The radio gave him nothing but static, so he started a stack of records going. There was now room at the kitchen table. He resumed work there.
The two piles merged into one.
The lights went out, the Beatles’ voices deepened and slowed and stopped. Dan was suddenly immersed in darkness and sounds he’d been ignoring: rolling thunder, the scream of wind and the roar of rain attacking the house. Water had begun to drip from a corner of the ceiling.
He got coffee in the kitchen, then moved around the library lighting candles. Hours had passed. The forgotten coffee had already been heated too long. Four-fifths of the shelves were still full, but most of the right books were in bags.
Dan walked along the bookshelves. Weariness reinforced his deep melancholy. He had lived in this house for twelve years, but it was twice that long since he’d read Alice in Wonderland and The Water Babies and Gulliver’s Travels. These books would rot in an abandoned house: Dune; Nova; Double Star; The Corridors of Time; Cat’s Cradle; Half Past Human; Murder in Retrospect; Gideon’s Day; The Red Right Hand; The Trojan Hearse; A Deadly Shade of Gold; Conjure Wife; Rosemary’s Baby; Silverlock; King Conan. He’d packed books not to entertain, nor even to illustrate philosophies of life, but to rebuild civilization. Even Dole’s Habitable Planets for Man…
Dammit, no! Dan tossed Habitable Planets for Man on the table. Fat chance that the next incarnation of NASA would need it before it turned to dust, but so what? He added more: Future Shock; Cults of Unreason; Dante’s Inferno; Tau Zero…stop. Fifteen minutes later he had finished. There were no more bags.
He drank coffee that was still warm, and forced himself to rest before he tackled the heavy work. His watch said it was ten at night. He couldn’t tell.
He wheeled a wheelbarrow in from the garage. It was brand-new, the labels still on it. He resisted the temptation to overload it. He donned raincoat, boots, hat. He wheeled the books out through the garage.
Tujunga’s modern sewage system was relatively new. The territory was dotted with abandoned septic tanks, and one of these was behind Dan Forrester’s house. It was uphill. You can’t have everything.
The wind screamed. The rain tasted both salty and gritty. The lightning guided him, but badly. Dan wrestled the wheelbarrow uphill, looking for the septic tank. He finally found it, full of rain because he’d removed the lid yesterday evening.
The books went in in handfuls. He pushed them into the aged sewage with a plumber’s helper, gently. Before he left he broke open an emergency flare and left it on the upended lid.
He made his second trip in a bathing suit. The warm lashing rain was less unpleasant than soaked and sticky clothes. The third trip he wore the hat. He almost fainted coming back. That wouldn’t do. He
’d better have a rest. He took off the wet suit and stretched out on the couch, pulled a blanket over himself…and fell deeply asleep.
He woke in a pandemonium of thunder and wind and rain. He was horribly stiff. He got to his feet an inch at a time, and kept moving toward the kitchen, talking encouragement to himself. Breakfast first, then back to work. His watch had stopped. He didn’t know if it was day or night.
Fill the wheelbarrow half full, no more. Wheel it through slippery mud, uphill. Next trip, remember to take another flare. Dump the books by armfuls, then push them down into the old sewage. Unlikely that anyone, moron or genius, would look for such a treasure here, even if he knew it existed. The smell hardly bothered him; but these hurricane winds couldn’t last forever, and then the trove would be doubly safe. Back for another load.
Once he slipped, and slid a fair distance downhill through the mud with the empty wheelbarrow tugging him along. He crossed just enough sharp rocks to dissuade him from trying it again.
Then: last load. Finished. He wrestled with the lid, rested, tried again. He’d had a hell of a time getting it off, and he had a hell of a time getting it back on. Then downhill with the empty barrow. In a day his tracks would be flooded away. He thought of burying the last evidence of his project—the wheelbarrow—but just the thought of all that work made him hurt all over.
He dried himself with all the towels in the bathroom. Why not? He used the same towels to dry the rain gear. He got more from the linen closet. He stuffed hand towels into the boots before he put them in the car, with the raincoat and the hat and more dry towels. The old house leaked now; he wondered if the old car would too. Ultimately it wouldn’t matter. Ultimately he would have to abandon the car and set out on foot, in the rain, carrying a backpack for the first time in his life. He’d be safe, or dead, long before this rain began to think about stopping.
Into the car went the new backpack he’d packed day before yesterday, including a hypo and some insulin. There were two more such medical packages elsewhere in the car, because someone might steal the whole backpack. Or someone might steal the hypos…but surely they would leave him one.
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