Extinction Point: The End ep-1

by Paul Antony Jones

The Phoenix came equipped with an onboard navigation system as standard. Its display was set into the dashboard, within easy reach and view of both the driver and passenger.

  “Computer, display my present location,” he said. Immediately the display flickered into life. Jim tilted the screen toward him to get a better view, saw it had already computed the location of the car, displaying it as a red pulsing triangle in the center of the screen. The surrounding streets and roads along with places of interest were all illustrated and labeled. At the bottom of the screen, a row of icons allowed for manipulation of the system: activation of the voice mode, omni-directional scrolling, zoom in and out and half-a-dozen other options. Jim tapped the icon labeled Current Location. Instantly a box popped up with the information, Nearest Traceable Location: 21207 Topanga Canyon, California, 91614.

  Quickly, Jim navigated through the menu system until he found the Directions button. He was relatively sure he knew the general direction of the house but it had been a quarter of a century since he had last made this drive and he did not want to get lost out here. He was going to need a little help from the computer.

  Choosing Current Location as the point of origin for the trip, he pressed the Home button as the termination point and instructed the car’s computer system to calculate the fastest route to get him there. Instantly the display showed a step-by-step list of the route from the store straight to the front door. According to the navigation computer, the house was twelve miles away. If he were lucky, he would make the trip in less than thirty minutes.

  Activating the voice mode on the navigation system, Jim slipped the car into drive and edged out of the parking spot.

  Twelve

  His eyes opened to blue sky overhead and pain throughout his entire body; a relentless sharp throb that made his hands spasm and clench involuntarily.

  Grass; his hands had grabbed a palm full of grass, his fingers digging deep into cool loose dirt.

  Byron Portia sucked in a lungful of clean air and coughed violently, the wave of pain that washed over him so intense he willingly accepted the black sheet of unconsciousness that rippled across his mind, longing for the painless embrace of oblivion. Instead, the pain subsided a little and with it the darkness, replaced by a glow filtering through his tightly clenched eyelids. Light motes swayed and eddied across his vision.

  His eyes fluttered open. He was alive.

  Overhead the sky stretched limitlessly, filling his vision, summer-blue and still, undisturbed by either cloud or aircraft. Carefully, with no wish to experience another nauseating bout of agony, he raised his head from the soft earth.

  He found himself on the grass verge running alongside the freeway. Thirty feet away he could see the burning wreck of his big-rig, jackknifed diagonally across most of the lanes of the freeway. It lay on its roof, wheels pointing into the sky, looking like a giant dinosaur, dead under a Jurassic sun. Surrounding his decimated truck a fortification of mangled metal jutted out in a chaotic display of torn steel and plastic, tattered flesh and splintered bone. The cab of his truck erupted suddenly in a brilliant ball of flame that sent a pillar of flame, smoke, and debris skyward.

  A gentle cooling breeze swept the smoke from the burning vehicles away from Byron’s side of the embankment, exposing the destruction in all its glory.

  It was a magnificent sight. An earthly manifestation of the power of God. The evil and unclean, sinners one and all he was sure, struck down in one lightning act of might. It was truly beautiful in its power and terrible in its swiftness.

  And he had been spared.

  “Beautiful,” he whispered. “Beautiful.” The word slipping from him as though he were seeing his newborn child for the first time.

  His pain all but forgotten now, Byron tilted his head leisurely to the left, scanning the full extent of the destruction that had just taken place, absorbing the grandeur of the mass of destroyed vehicles that stretched off into the distance. It was horrifyingly arousing. That heap of twisted burning metal, of smashed, burnt and crushed lives. It made him feel alive. The pain in his leg began to fade, inconsequential when compared to the ecstatic excitement that coursed through his blood. He felt giddy, this time with pleasure. A giggle of wicked pleasure rose to his lips.

  “How are you feeling,” said a voice off to his right. He whipped his head in the direction of the sound.

  Nearby, a man in his forties, stocky with a mass of disheveled hair, stood staring out at the concrete river of devastation, his arms folded across his chest. When he spoke, he did not turn his head to look at Byron, instead he calmly continued to watch the freeway.

  “I have been given a sign—” the stranger continued before Portia could answer him. The stranger turned to face the injured killer, the white clerical collar of a priest clearly visible now around his throat. Regarding the exhausted Byron Portia with cool, piercing, intelligent eyes he raised his right arm and extended a long well-manicured forefinger directly at him. “—and you, you will be my first disciple.”

  “Who are you?” Portia asked, his voice a barely audible croak over the crackling of the freeway fire.

  “My name,” the stranger said, “is Father Joseph Pike.”

  Thirteen

  It did not take long for Jim Baston to realize that it was going to take a lot longer than the thirty minutes he had originally estimated to get home. He had managed just over two miles and that had already taken him over twenty minutes.

  The city was a battleground.

  Car’s littered the road. Some smashed beyond recognition, just smoking heaps or burned out wrecks. The majority just abandoned as though the drivers had suddenly vaporized into thin air, forcing Jim to pull off the road and onto the sidewalk.

  Pedestrians were everywhere, walking dazed in the street, screaming at each other over collisions, stepping in front of his car as if he did not exist. Most had a stunned, uncomprehending look and it seemed like all they could manage just to put one foot in front of the other. He saw a couple of cops looking just as confused as the rest. Others seemed to have grasped the situation quickly and more than once he saw the smashed windows of stores, their merchandise scattered across the pavement as looters quickly grasped opportunity from the confusion. The store alarms ringing shrilly in an attempt to alert emergency services that either didn’t care or no longer existed.

  He had passed several bodies laying in the street, sprawled in twisted poses, congealed blood pooling around them, flies already buzzing expectantly. Those unlucky enough to have found themselves crossing the street at the time they had found themselves back here, he guessed.

  Further on, he passed a European style sidewalk café, the kind where the patrons could sit under the large umbrellas on the sidewalk sipping cappuccinos and lattes. A large tow truck had plowed through the sea of umbrellas cutting a swathe of destruction, sending them and the people sitting in their shade in all directions. The truck had continued on its deadly journey right into the café interior, until, finally, it had come to rest against the interior wall, its rear end jutting obscenely from the café’s front, the tail-hook still swinging gently back and forth. Jim counted nine bodies laying in the heat, scattered like pins in a bowling alley.

  Several other vehicles were trying to make their way through the crowds but it was like trying to drive a truck through a middle-eastern bazaar — painfully slow and ultimately futile.

  The throng of humanity became worse and he slowed the car to a crawl and eventually to a standstill. If he kept on trying to edge the car through the crowd, he would hit someone for sure and anyway, at the rate he was traveling, he would do better off on foot. It might not be safer but he would make quicker time, and Jim had a nagging feeling that time was definitely of the essence today.

  Pulling the car as close to the sidewalk as he could he grabbed the cell phone from the back seat, stuffed it in his trouser pocket and checked his position with the navigation comp one final time. Making a mental note of the roads he would need to take t
o get to the house he killed the engine and stepped out of the car.

  * * *

  Rising high above the stores and tree line, the plume of smoke snaked ominously into the air, a dark harbinger of doom. Jim felt a growing unease creep insidiously over him, setting his skin tingling and his pulse throbbing as he realized that the smoke and fire emanated from ahead of him, directly in his path. The closer he got to the spiraling plume the less breathable the air became and once again, he pulled out his makeshift bandanna pushing it to his mouth.

  Outside a deserted Ralph’s food store on Roscoe Boulevard a soft drinks machine thrummed in the burgeoning heat. In the shade of the stores overhang, he fished through his pockets until he found what he was looking for. Dropped the three coins into the machine and selected a bottle of spring water, listening as the plastic bottle of H2O rumbled through the machines metal innards before dropping into the dispensing slot at the base of the refrigerated machine. He took a long swig from the icy bottle and felt the water ease the stinging sensation in his throat.

  The air was thick and heavy, the sun now just a dim light shrouded in the blackness of the cloud. The temperature was rising and in the near distance, Jim could now clearly see the flames of multiple fires. Houses and trees burned brightly and intensely, the flames dancing like crazy imps at the gates of hell, free to run rampant with no fire service to check their spread.

  The crowds began to dissipate as he made his way out of the commercial area and into the residential section of the San Fernando Valley before finally evaporating all together as he drew closer to the smoke plume, driven away by the poisonous air and the treacherous flames. Jim did not miss the panicked eyes and the thousand-yard stares of his fellow humans. He was glad to be alone, happy to be making headway without the hindrance of the unwelcome zombies that the majority of the human race seemed to have become.

  He made good time and his confidence surged as he began to recognize certain streets. There was a cigar store on the junction of Fallbrook and Saticoy, its large walk-in humidor a regular hangout for Jim, and across from there, a Taco Bell; Lark’s favorite fast food joint. He had passed by both as he made his way down Saticoy and he knew he was less than a mile from his home as he finally crossed over Woodlake.

  * * *

  There had been a strip-mall set back from the street at the junction of Saticoy and Woodlake. It had contained the usual smattering of convenience stores: a large supermarket, hair-salon and discount liquor shop, and a gas station.

  That was all gone.

  In its place, a smoking gash ran diagonally across Saticoy, slashing through Woodlake; a smoldering pit thirty-foot deep and at least that distance across, and extending into the flaming ruins of what had once been a gated-housing community. Now it was so much rubble and broken timber.

  The tail fin of a Boeing 787 jutted incongruously out of the remains of the food-store, its charred skin blackened and smoking. Jim guessed from the devastated housing estate and fields of fire he could see in the distance, that the jet had collided with the ground right here, tearing away the tail section and sending the body of the plane careening off before finally coming to rest somewhere west of the housing community that now lay in ruins.

  If he wanted to reach his home, he was going to have to get across the massive trench that ran between him and his destination. He could walk around it but that would add too much time to his trip and the fire was spreading rapidly. If he didn’t get to the house soon then there might not be a house left — assuming it hadn’t already been consumed by the fire.

  His decision made, Jim moved to the edge of the pit and peered cautiously over the edge. A chunk of tarmac broke free under his weight and slipped into the hole escorted to the bottom by a cascade of gravel. He stumbled back, barely in time to save himself from following the rubble into the crevice.

  “Shit!” he said, scuttling away from the lip of the crevice on all fours. Heart thumping audibly in his chest, Jim waited until his pulse began to slow before flipping over onto his belly and sliding carefully towards the lip of the crevice until he was able to look safely down into the pit.

  On the opposite wall of the pit, halfway down the wall of dirt, a broken water-main gushed a torrent of water the ten remaining feet to the base of the pit. Below, a muddy lagoon had formed and a river of brown mud sluiced off downstream. The action of the water against the dirt walls was rapidly eating away at the soft earth, forming an overhang in the rut that did not look like it would support the weight of the ground above it for much longer. As Jim watched, assessing his next move, a six-foot long piece of the overhang collapsed with a giant splash into the water below, sending waves rolling downstream and splashing him with dirty droplets of muddy water. The gash was gradually increasing in width as the water eroded the sides. If he was going to get across, he was going to have to do it now before the gap became too large.

  Pushing himself a little further over the edge, Jim looked down at the wall of mud and clotted earth on his side of the pit. He could make out the sister piece of fractured piping on his side of the pit. It jutted out from the wall of earth about a foot, enough for him to get at least one of his feet onto. A slight incline in the pit wall would allow him to slide down and onto the exposed piece of plastic piping.

  Jim said a quiet prayer that the pipe would hold his weight and swung himself around until his legs dangled over the edge of the pit, flipped himself onto his belly and began to inch out. When his midriff reached the lip, he dropped his legs until he felt his toes rubbing against the loose soil. He kicked a couple of times until he had created tears in the wall he was confident would allow him to place some of his weight while he shifted his torso out far enough to see whether he was positioned over the pipe.

  Pebbles of gravel sliced at him as he slid his upper body cautiously over the edge; he glanced down, his left foot positioned directly over the pipe, about four or five feet above it. This next part was the difficult bit, his nerves were singing their discomfort as he slowly allowed his body to drop down, his elbows taking the majority of his weight until his arms were fully extended and the only thing stopping him from falling the remaining ten feet to the floor of the gully was his tenuous finger hold on the thin crust of road above him.

  Less than a few hours ago, he was talking on the phone to his literary agent. If someone had told him back then he would soon be attempting the equivalent of a rock climb while trying to avoid a fiery death, he would have laughed in their face. But with his newly regained vigor Jim felt as though he could achieve virtually anything; he let go of his handhold.

  His knees scraped painfully against the sides of the pit as he slid downwards, he felt a nail on his right hand fray and break as he tried to grab at the wall to slow his slide and then, he felt his right foot connect with something solid and his downward slide stopped abruptly and jarringly.

  Jim’s breathing came in quick ragged bursts. He buried his face into the cool soil and a bitter laugh escaped him. He was halfway down. Glancing down to his right he could see that the wall of the gully curved down at a much steeper angle towards its base. He maneuvered cautiously around, balanced precariously on his piece of piping, until he faced the opposite wall. Crouching as carefully as he could, Jim swung his foot off the pipe and allowed his hands to take the weight of his body as he lowered himself to a sitting position. Then, slipping himself off the pipe, he slid the remaining few feet to the bottom of the scree-strewn slope.

  At the bottom of the massive furrow, the walls looked a great deal higher than the thirty feet he had estimated. Looking up at the sky, filigreed with gray strings of smoke, he imagined that this was what it would look like to gaze up from ones grave. Dismissing the morbid thought from his mind, he turned his attention to escaping from the gully.

  The lagoon of water from the fractured water pipe was growing rapidly; fed by the waterfall that cascaded down the side of the furrow from the broken water pipe. The ground was sodden, water logged, and his shoes
sank deep into the muck up to his ankles.

  Jim stopped to catch his breath and he felt the mud sucking at his feet, pulling him deeper. This quagmire would suck him down until he couldn’t escape if he didn’t keep moving, and then this really would become his grave.

  His foot came free with an obscene slurp as he pulled it out of the mud. If he headed upstream away from the water, he would eventually reach dry ground. Trying to stay as far up the crumbling bank of earth as he could, Jim edged his way along the margin of the growing pool of water.

  In the minute or so he had been at the bottom of the pit the water level had increased by over two inches, eating away at the thin vein of flat ground that he had expected to be able to use to move freely upstream. Now the water was lapping at his knees and with each step his foot slipped down the loose scrabble of earth and deeper into the water.

  Finally, he stepped onto firmer ground. His feet and lower legs were frozen, his sodden trousers flapping like rain soaked flags as he rubbed furiously, trying to get some feeling back into the blocks of ice that had once been his lower legs.

  As feeling returned Jim began moving further upstream, away from the cataract of water. Up ahead, he could make out a feature he spotted when he first reconnoitered the fissure from up top. A large piece of the road had collapsed, due he surmised to some underground geological abnormality, exposed when the jet had carved out the land. The collapsed road had formed a steep ramp from the bottom of the pit and standing at its base, he could see that it reached all the way up to ground level and the newly formed corniche.

  The giant chunk of tarmacadam and bituminous solids had broken into three pieces, and now formed a set of giant steps that Jim was sure he could use to climb up to the road. Reaching one mud splattered hand towards the first handhold he could see, he began to pull himself skywards.

  * * *