by Mark Wheaton
As the helicopters landed, several guardsmen hurried off the helicopters to the survivors as Sergeant Zamarin pulled Paul to his feet. Bones seemed to have lost a step or two to the rats but was recovering. Sharon, her clothes torn and her body bleeding from two dozen cuts, got to her feet in a state of disbelief.
But then she looked down and saw that the rats had chewed through Lisa’s stomach and had dragged out her entrails as they fled. Sharon bent down and could tell from the blank-eyed look on her friend’s face that, perhaps thankfully, Lisa was already dead.
Along with Lisa, Sebastian, Greta, and the Australian finance minister, the two other members of Lisa’s medical consortium, Gregoire, three of the hotel workers, and Shahin were all dead. Sally had actually survived, but had her hands chewed down to the bone. Shahin had been the one to fall behind first and she had been trying to save his life when the helicopters arrived. This left a dozen survivors, albeit severely traumatized ones.
The guardsmen approached Paul and Zamarin, looking over their weapons.
“Where did you get those?” a captain asked, “Feliz” on his uniform’s name stripe.
“Found them,” Zamarin replied without blinking.
“Where?” the captain continued, sounding as if he didn’t believe Zamarin.
“Back of a truck. Same place as we found these clothes. Looked like the owners had been killed by the birds. Mercenaries, I think. Mayer, maybe?”
The captain looked from Zamarin to the others in the group, waiting to have the man contradicted, but when no one did, he sighed.
“Well, this was just meant to be a flyover, not a rescue,” the captain said. “I’m sorry, but we don’t have room for all of you.”
“That’s a shame,” Paul said, piping up. “My friend and I will be the last ones on. If there’s no space for us, we’ll do what we can.”
Captain Feliz wasn’t expecting this response, but then nodded. “We can see about sending back a relief helicopter, but we were under strict orders not to land or engage anyone on the ground.”
“We’re glad you countermanded that order, captain,” Paul replied. “But even if you did come back, we’re not really planning on staying in the same place.”
“I understand,” Feliz said. “Good luck to you all the same.”
• • •
One by one, the survivors divided themselves amongst the helicopters and climbed on board. Once they were on board, one of the guardsmen looked expectantly at Sharon, but she shook her head.
“You won’t considering taking the dog, will you?” she asked, knowing the answer.
“Are you serious?” the guardsman asked.
“The number of times he’s saved my life, I can’t just leave him behind,” Sharon explained. “Thank you, though.”
Paul turned to Sharon like she was crazy. “You need to get on that helicopter.”
“I cast my lot with you guys. You’ve gotten me this far.”
“Yes, but that’s mainly because we know who your father and grandfather is and was.”
Sharon grinned and nodded, moving away from the helicopter.
“Lieutenant?” Captain Feliz said. “Relieve them of their weapons.”
The sergeant stepped forward, but then Sharon stood in the way. “You can’t leave us defenseless!”
“I absolutely cannot allow weapons like that to remain here in such a hostile environment,” Captain Feliz said. “If they should fall into the wrong hands, terrorists domestic or foreign, I would be in dereliction of my duty.”
No one missed the implication of Captain Feliz’s emphasis on the word “foreign” as he made it clear that he knew neither Paul nor Zamarin were locals. The lieutenant indicated for the pair to hand over their weapons, so they did so. The guns were then loaded onto the helicopters with the others.
As the choppers began prepping to take off, Captain Feliz eyed Sharon.
“You’re staying behind? Despite the dangers?”
“Absolutely.”
Captain Feliz turned to Paul and Zamarin. “I don’t know who you people are, but I have a good idea. Something tells me that I don’t want to know more. I don’t wish you ill, but I will be reporting your descriptions in my report and will recommend the new military authority locate you and possibly take you into custody. If your business here is concluded, I’d suggest you bug out at your earliest convenience.”
“Understood,” Paul replied.
The captain nodded and headed back onto one of the Seahawks. A few moments later and the helicopters were aloft, sending a storm of concrete dust all down the street. But Paul, Zamarin, Sharon, and Bones were already gone, taking the captain’s advice and hastily beating a path to the ocean.
• • •
Though they had one eye over their shoulder the entire time, the rats never returned. The night passed swiftly, but now that it was only the three humans and one dog, they made excellent time. The streets were even relatively clear of debris. That is, until the last blocks before the ocean as the buildings got higher and the familiar sight of massive chunks of broken concrete sprawled across their paths returned. It was when they reached 16th Street, though, that the impassibility became laughable. The road was completely blocked by a tall hospital structure that had collapsed across Santa Monica Boulevard for several blocks.
“What now?” Sharon asked the sergeant.
“It’s too dark to pick through, so we’ll have to go around,” Zamarin said.
“The side streets are a mess, too.”
“What do you want me to tell you?” Zamarin replied, shrugging his shoulders. “We either backtrack or pick our way down. Simple as that. Paul?”
“I don’t want to sound too confident, but I think the rats have found something better to do,” Paul suggested. “I think we can afford a detour if that means saving time in the long run.”
Sharon nodded and Zamarin turned Bones’s leash, aiming his nose south. “What’s your nose telling you, boy?”
Bones sniffed the air a little, didn’t seem to be picking anything up and Zamarin nodded. “Let’s go.”
Though the side streets were littered with broken buildings and cars, Sharon’s belief that they would be just as impenetrable as Santa Monica proved untrue. Soon they had found a much more passable route.
“Guess a stopped clock really is right twice a day,” Sharon said. Zamarin scoffed and kept going.
A few blocks later, Sharon saw something rising on the horizon. She didn’t think it was any kind of structure, but whatever it was hadn’t fallen in either quake.
“What is that?” she asked.
Zamarin peered ahead and grunted. “Looks like trees. A park. Some kind of oasis in the desert.”
“Intact?” asked Paul.
“Yeah, appears to be. Quake brought down every goddamn tree from here to Christendom, but decided to leave this little group alone.”
The survivors moved ahead. As they neared the park they saw how right Zamarin had been. There were a couple of tennis courts and a children’s soccer field, but then there were rows and rows of live oak trees left to grow wild in and around a winding walking path. All in all, the park covered at least three acres of land that appeared, at least cloaked in darkness, to have avoided the brunt of the quake.
They moved ahead and stepped into the park. The feeling of grass and soil beneath her feet was surprising to Sharon. It really was like discovering some Garden of Eden that had already grown up amidst the ruins, a more believable scenario than to think somehow the quakes that had devastated the city simply weren’t felt in this one perhaps acre-sized patch of trees.
“You’d think this would be the one place any other survivors would come to camp out,” Sharon suggested.
They’d seen the evidence of other survivors in Santa Monica as they walked or, more accurately, smelled it. Cooking fires were distinguishable from accidental ones mostly by the rich scent of the food being prepared over them. Though they didn’t see anyone, there wa
s a part of Sharon that was allowing her brain to imagine that Emily was among these people, having somehow, miraculously, survived the initial collapse and found herself separated from Sharon. She knew this was unlikely, but it made her happy.
“Seems like someone has,” Zamarin said, nodding at a pile of belongings leaned up against one of the trees that included a pile of empty food wrappers.
Bones moved over to the wrappers and began nosing around in them. He found two miniature donuts and immediately scarfed them up.
But then, Paul stopped and raised a hand.
“What is it?” Zamarin asked.
“You don’t smell that?”
“I don’t smell anything,” Zamarin replied cheekily, but then saw Paul was deadly serious.
That’s when Sharon smelled it, too, something she hadn’t smelled since the hotel, the same acrid phosphorus and nitrogen of the eighth floor. She tried to look around in the darkness but knew what she’d find.
Guano.
“Oh, God,” Sharon said under her breath. “The birds.”
Sharon looked up into the trees above and watched as a bird shifted its wings a little as it rested on a branch. Even in the dim light of early morning, she could see that there were literally dozens of birds just above her. This led her to believe there were hundreds, maybe thousands throughout the trees in the park.
Paul, sensing her distress, leaned over next to her. “What is it?”
“The birds are in this park. This is where they sleep.”
Paul froze. Zamarin moved over, having heard this, and took Paul’s arm. “It’s dark. Let’s keep going. We’ll stay quiet.”
Paul nodded but then leaned down next to Bones.
“You’re going to need to be quiet,” he whispered, gently holding Bones’s jaws shut. “Absolutely silent. Do you understand?”
Paul removed his hand and Bones licked his chops but didn’t bark. Sharon took Paul’s arm and the group slowly made their exit. The park wasn’t particularly sizable, but given how few structures were standing as well as how few trees, it might have been the one place in the entire city that a flock that large could bunk down together. The irony that it just happened to then be precisely in the path of the survivors was not lost on them.
Bones did his part by not making a sound. He could tell that the humans were being stealthy and he copied this, keeping low to the ground and quiet. He hadn’t smelled the birds as his nose was still awash in the stench of the burning rats, obscuring all else. But after poking his nose into the ground under the trees, he could at least inhale the smell of the nitrogen and phosphorus of their shit.
Stepping lively, the group made it out of the park in under a minute and were soon on their way again. Sharon looked ahead and realized that she could see the ocean. Well, not precisely the water, per se, but where it was meant to be on the horizon with no more obstructions.
“We’re only about eight blocks to the beach,” Sharon said. “We’re as home free as we’re going to be, I think.”
“You want to jinx us?” Zamarin snarled. “Watch. We’ll get to the pier and the boat will be covered in birds.”
Paul chortled at this. “Well, let’s get there first. How much longer until the sun comes up?”
“Fifteen minutes?” Zamarin suggested.
VIII
They made it in ten.
The boat, a converted cabin cruiser that wouldn’t attract much attention if discovered, was anchored just offshore in a marina surrounded by a number of sailboats. It had been painted white, but if someone knew what an LRAD looked like, they might be able to identify the large version mounted to the front deck. Originally designed to be attached to the top of a truck, the mounting had been modified to fit on the boat and painted the same color before being shoved in the bag of a transport plane and brought to the American West Coast with the Israeli commando team.
Zamarin climbed into a skiff and made the quick journey out to the boat, powered it up and then drove it to the pier, where Sharon helped Paul get aboard. Bones stood on the dock looking uncertain, but then Sharon turned to Paul.
“We’re taking Bones, right? No more you’re going to shoot him?”
Paul shrugged as if he didn’t care. Sharon reached out to the shepherd. He hopped on board. Within seconds, Zamarin had the boat turned around and was leaving the shore.
Sharon stared back at Los Angeles as the sun began to rise over the hills. There was a part of her that felt this was not what was meant to be and that her lot was cast with the City of Angels. But here she was leaving, Emily still buried in the rubble some miles away. She was leaving with unfinished business.
That’s when she felt Bones’s head moving under her hand, the shepherd nuzzling up next to her. She kneeled alongside him, stroking his ears, then glanced back to Paul to see that he had already fallen asleep on one of the benches. She looked over at Zamarin, who grinned.
“Yeah, passed right out. Hopefully that’ll be us soon.”
“I’m running on adrenaline myself,” Sharon said. “When I crash, it’ll be for hours and hours and hours.”
“Sounds good to me. Except, the moment we’re in safe waters, I guarantee the U.S. military is going to swoop in and demand to debrief us.”
“Let them try.”
Zamarin snorted and turned back to the wheel as Sharon looked back over at the city. She saw the birds coming, the entire flock from the day before, and chuckled. Her brain told herself that it was an optical illusion, that it was smoke, that it wasn’t aimed anywhere near their direction, but she knew all of this to be untrue. She wasn’t in a nightmare, like her subconscious was also trying to convince her of. No, she had thought she was going to escape, and here came the engines of her destruction.
She turned away and sat down, staring in the direction of the ocean. She watched as the waves approached the boat, and then glanced to her right and saw the white water of the boat’s wake churning through the green of the Pacific.
She vaguely heard it when Zamarin shouted in alarm when he, too, saw the birds, and Paul rocketed awake. Bones began dancing around the deck as the birds moved closer and closer, but Sharon didn’t care to look.
Instead, she sat as if meditating on her life. She closed her eyes but continued picturing what had been directly in front of them moments before: the never-ending expanse of ocean. She remembered seeing footage of a group of Mahayana Buddhist monks burning themselves alive in protest of the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government in the early sixties. She imagined the supreme concentration and focus that act must have taken. She remembered seeing one of the burning monks topple over and out of his lotus position, only to quickly right himself in the flames. Their composure had been unbelievable. She was determined to follow their example and as her body was torn apart, she wouldn’t flinch and she wouldn’t flail. She would embrace the experience and disregard the pain.
Her eyes were closed when Paul ordered Zamarin to wheel the boat around and face the birds head on. The sound of the boat engine practically blotted this out, but she felt the boat come around and realized what Paul had said. She heard an electric whine as the LRAD on top of the boat was charged and magazines were inserted into submachine guns.
She heard Zamarin coaching Paul on where to aim, his voice filled with naked terror as the birds neared. She could hear them now, clucking and crying as they flew, though they didn’t sound like birds. Their “voices” were strained. They struck Sharon as sick.
“Come on, goddammit!” Zamarin was shouting. “Motherfuckers!”
“Sharon!” Paul cried. “Help us out!”
But Sharon didn’t move. Bones tripped over her feet as he continued his circuits of the deck but righted himself. He barked and barked in answer to the cries of the gulls.
The sound of the birds got close enough that they couldn’t have been more than a couple dozen feet away. That’s when all the sound was sucked out of Sharon’s ears and replaced with an impossibly high-
pitched whine. She felt it in her head but also her throat, stomach, and bowel. Unlike the hand-held disruptor, this was something else entirely. Sharon found herself vomiting across the deck.
The birds screamed and she heard what sounded like hail as the animals smacked into the ocean and the boat, several dead.
This broke her trance. She turned around to see what was assuredly a bizarre sight. As the LRAD continued to sound, birds tumbled dead out of the sky. Carried by inertia, they spun out of control and splashed down into the waves. The effect in the sky was similar to the earlier parting of the rat sea, only this was mass death on a different scale. Dots of black and white were suspended against the hazy white and blue of the morning sky but as they hit a certain spot in the sky, the radius of effect for the disruptor, they tumbled down like lemmings over a cliff straight into the water.
Hundreds upon hundreds of birds soon lay dead.
But then, the LRAD shut off and Zamarin shouted to Paul. “All right. Steady…three…two…one…”
As the disruptor recharged, Sharon watched as Paul and Sergeant Zamarin blazed away into the sky. She was shocked at how well Paul did, given his blindness. She supposed he’d been able to lock in at least a little bit on the sound. He and Zamarin fired out a magazine, tossed it out, and reloaded in quick succession, sending several more birds to a watery grave.
When Zamarin activated the LRAD again, Sharon realizing that the ringing hadn’t left her ears in the first place so when it began anew it had little effect on her.
Then she saw something that amazed her. The flock, sensing the device’s range in some way, shot out to the west, angled upward, and flanked the boat.
“SHIT!” Zamarin cried as he spun the wheel so quickly that Sharon and Bones were both knocked off their feet.
But the birds were too fast. They came around the craft at a perpendicular angle and swooped in. They cut the distance in seconds. Though Zamarin turned and got a couple of shots off, the birds quickly reached the boat and tore directly into his face.