Destroyers were lined like a parking garage, right at the docks – the carriers in similar rows, two and three miles offshore.
Rosa tried to remember what other military installations existed along the west coast – outside California, there was a naval base in northern Washington State – nothing along the entire coast of Oregon.
As impressive as the forces before her might appear, taken all at once, in greater context, Rosa realized how far the mighty had fallen.
Sergeant Farrell turned the lead jeep off towards the docks as, behind them, the other two continued on.
“They're headed to the infirmary,” Farrell explained. “They'll want to give your friends a quick medical once-over. Get them some food.”
He nodded to Lucas. “But the General wants to talk to you first.”
Farrell took them all the way to the end of the dock, where a man in combat fatigues was preparing to board a large PT boat.
When he saw them coming, he signaled the boat to wait, and he turned, straight and formal, as Farrell pulled the jeep up beside.
Rosa found herself rather intimidated by the man's direct stare as he appraised her briefly, up and down. Beside her, Lucas, clambered out of the jeep, giving a formal salute – the perfect soldier.
“Lieutenant Lucas Walker, sir,” he said. “Reporting for duty.”
Rosa stepped nervously beside Lucas as the man extended his hand.
“General Nathan Rhodes, Lieutenant. Pleased to meet you, son.” He shook Lucas' hand briskly.
Rhodes turned to Rosa, who extended her own hand timidly. As opposed to the rough clench he had afforded Lucas, Rhodes shook her hand gingerly. Rosa could feel his hard, calloused grip held in check.
He met Rosa's eyes once – simultaneous acknowledgment and then dismissal, as he turned back to Lucas.
“Your people will be taken care of,” he said.
“What's the refugee situation, sir?” Lucas asked.
Rhodes glanced at Rosa. “Well, son,” he said, “there really hasn't been one. You're the first. California got hit hard, all the way down the coast. Near as we can tell, no one survived in any numbers.” He shrugged. “We've got reports of more survivors back east – but around here, it's the cities and then the desert. Most of the people lived at ground zero.
“You,” he said, “are the first we've seen come out of one of the epicenters still living. At least in California.”
Rosa blinked. It had been how many weeks? And they were the FIRST?
“I'd like to talk to you, Lieutenant,” Rhodes said, “about what you saw in San Fran,” he said, “when we can get a moment alone.” He nodded to Rosa. “Perhaps you could see to the lady, and meet me on board in one hour.”
Rhodes started to turn, but Lucas spoke out.
“Sir? I've got a wife. She would have reported in up north at Eureka – right where they put up that new tower.”
Rhodes stopped, letting out a slow breath, turning back slowly.
His face was solemn.
“You've been a little out of touch.”
Rhodes met Lucas' eye levelly. “Eureka has been destroyed, Lieutenant. The area is a hotbed. And it's blooming.”
For a heartbeat, Lucas was stone silent.
When he spoke, his voice was absolutely flat.
“How far?”
“Immediate region,” Rhodes said. “You've seen it. Within the perimeter, destruction is total. Where there are buildings, they stomp them flat. Where they don't got buildings, they stomp the trees. It's like they're attacking the ground they walk on.”
Lucas was shaking his head.
“But why? There's nothing there. That's why we picked it.” He cleared his voice. “That's why I sent her there... that's... why...”
He stopped.
Rhodes put his heavy, calloused hand on Lucas' shoulder.
“I'm sorry, son,” he said. He nodded again to Rosa. “See to your civilians, and report back.”
“Yes, sir.”
Rhodes waved back to his boat, but before he climbed aboard, he stopped, looking over his shoulder.
“If it's any consolation, son,” he said, “we're about to start fighting back.”
The PT pulled away from the dock, turning towards the waiting fleet.
Lucas stood on the dock, looking down at the water, saying nothing.
Rosa turned to where Sergeant Farrell stood attentively.
“Could you please give us a minute,” she said.
Farrell nodded, stepping discreetly back, waiting by the jeep.
Rosa touched a tentative hand to Lucas' shoulder.
“You don't know she was there,” she said.
Lucas turned slowly. And for just that moment, Rosa saw the ashen expression – a man utterly gut-kicked.
Then he deliberately cracked into the easy, wry smile.
“She better not be,” he said. “Or else, I'm REALLY in trouble. I'll never hear the end of it. Eureka was my idea.
“No,” he said, shaking his head affirmatively, “if she saw things going south, she'd have skedaddled right out of there.”
The ashen-face was gone – there was no doubt in his mind.
“Yeah, she'll be holed-up somewhere,” he said. “Just got to trust her to look after herself a little while longer.”
Now the smile faded, but the determined, stoic soldier remained. “Always seems like there's something more to do.”
Rosa wondered how much he was even talking to her rather than himself.
“Where are they taking you?” she asked.
Lucas pointed off-shore, out to the largest of the carriers, surrounded by the others – the flagship of the fleet.
“Right there,” he said. “See? Not so far.”
Now he was falling into his reassuring role. But this time Rosa wasn't even sure he was aware of it.
“You'll be alright,” he said, nodding to the jeep. “The boys'll set you up.”
“Just handing us off?” Rosa said.
He held up his hands. “I've got a job to do.”
“So, that's all it is? Doing your job?”
“Well,” he said, “you do choose the job. Don't you 'Doctor' Holland.”
Rosa realized she'd heard this conversation before too – the grateful parent or spouse of someone she had saved. She always responded just like this – professional, polite – not overly accepting of praise – just doing her job.
Because you had to inoculate yourself from all of it. You couldn't accept the good either because that awakened deliberately cauterized emotions.
Today she was on the other end – and those emotions were not as cauterized as she had believed.
She looked up at Lucas and realized she may very well never see him again.
“I don't know what I'd have done without you,” she said.
And then, abruptly – ridiculously – for the first time she'd known him – for the first time in this entire crisis... or even since she could actually remember – Rosa broke into tears.
She buried her face in her hands, utterly humiliated by her own sobs.
“I'm scared,” she said. “I don't think I can handle this.”
Then she felt his hands on her shoulders, and she looked up through blurry eyes to see him frowning at her scornfully.
“You know,” he said, “that's the dumbest thing a smart woman ever said to me. And my wife says some pretty stupid shit.” Lucas shook his head in wonder. “I always try to tell her, too. Just pisses her off. You'd think she'd want to know.”
And despite his flip tone, he looked at her seriously.
“Doctor Holland. You are one of the toughest people I've ever met.”
He smiled. “I even still have faith that you're smart. I mean, I still haven't seen any evidence of it yet, but I do have faith.”
Amazingly, with tears still wet on her cheeks, Rosa felt the impulse to punch him right in his wise-ass mouth. Clearly as he intended.
And so instead, she pulled him clos
e, and she kissed him.
It was her first kiss in how long? And a married man, no less.
The genteel knight took her in his arms, and she felt him kiss her back – an experienced kisser, for sure – letting her finish on her own, until she finally pulled back, looking up at him, breathless, with blinking eyes.
“A man could do no better than you, Doctor Holland,” he said, smiling gently.
He set his hands on her shoulders.
“But my lady's still out there somewhere,” he said. “And I can't go around making-out with hot doctors.”
Rosa blushed.
“She's not stupid,” he said. “She would have gone to ground.”
Rosa saw him telling himself that – self-hypnosis.
It would be a long time before he would let himself believe otherwise.
Still, she couldn't help herself.
“Don't forget us,” she said. And then whispered. “I'M here too.”
His hand dropped from her shoulder to her hands.
“That's another reason why I've got to go,” he said. “If I don't, there won't be anything left at all.” He shrugged. “This is what I do.”
Rosa nodded, tears still running down her cheeks, as he turned to walk her back where Sergeant Farrell waited by the jeep.
She squeezed his hands.
“Just don't get killed,” she said.
Chapter 22
Jonah and Naomi had not yet, in fact, arrived in Eureka, but they were making good time.
Lured by the possibility of food and lodging, and having no better destination, Ariel had agreed to drive. Jonah wouldn't have figured it, but Naomi seemed to hit it off with the hippie-chick.
Of course, that also gave her the front passenger seat, while he was stuck in the back with the belligerent and somewhat over-ripe Terry – not to mention a scaly, talking parrot-lizard.
At least Terry's black-eye was beginning to fade, and Jonah could feel the anthropoid-male beginning to relax in his presence – just another guy on the road. Hooray for short-term memory.
Ariel and Terry apparently had barely known the two men who died – they had literally just picked them up on the road right at the onset – just two people running like everybody else.
“But us you decided to rob?” Jonah had asked.
“Well, we hadn't robbed you, yet,” Terry responded. “We were just checking you out.”
As far as Terry was concerned, that resolved it. Jonah decided to let it go.
They were taking the long route to the coast – despite cajoling by Naomi, Ariel kept them as high in the mountains as she could.
“The beasts,” Ariel told her, “they don't like the mountains. They stick to the valleys.” She tossed a finger back the direction they'd come. “I mean, they'll wander the hills around here, so long as there's lots of basins and flatlands – but they stay clear of the peaks.”
Terry nodded. “Everybody that didn't figure that out early, is gone. We were just down looking for supplies.”
Jonah thought about it, and it actually made sense – the Mesozoic Era was thick with high concentrations of oxygen. It stood to reason creatures adapted to that environment would shun the thin air up in the mountains – sticking to sea-level and valleys – where most major cities were built.
After being force-fed a lot of Terry's bullshit in the last several days, that one was worth knowing.
Terry and Ariel had survived on the road right from the beginning – and as they'd traveled with a CB, and had passed through a number of different radio ranges, they were able to fill in a few gaps.
Jonah and Naomi had known the cities had been hit, but they hadn't appreciated the sheer extent of it all.
But according to Ariel and Terry, the real war was lost in the towns.
“It was the little guys,” he said, “coming right of the woods.”
“Little like a T. rex?” Jonah said.
Terry nodded. “Everything going on in the cities – the 'mega-beasts', was what the news started calling them, just before all the stations went out – but it sure kept the soldier-boys busy. I guess, when you got skyscrapers getting knocked down, a regular old T. rex just ain't getting their attention.
“But that's where they gutted us,” he said. “The towns. Where everybody ran to. Where everybody lived.”
The 'bedroom communities', Jonah thought. Shock-and-awe in the cities – while meanwhile, they plundered the nest.
Like raptors.
Funny how instinctive behavior mimicked intelligence. And vice-versa.
There was a bit of a squiggly line there sometimes.
“We got out of Portland,” Ariel said, “after the giants hit, but when we drove out into the country, they just came right out of the woods.”
Ariel paused, and Jonah could see the too-recent memory in her eyes.
“It was almost worse in the towns,” she said. “You could see it. It was more... personal.”
Jonah understood. It was the difference between being crushed in an avalanche and being torn limb-from-limb – or bitten in half.
“We were in the country,” he said. “We escaped into the mountains.”
“That's why you're alive,” Terry said. “That's why we're still alive.”
Outside, it was beginning to get dark. Ariel pulled over to the roadside, finding a secluded spot between the trees.
As they did so, the little lizard – 'Otto' – started squawking.
“Terry, will you feed him?” Ariel called back from the front.
Grumbling, Terry peeled the tin off a can of cat-food and slipped it into the cage. The little lizard started pecking at it like a chicken.
“Why do you call it 'Otto'?” Jonah asked.
Terry shrugged. “It's what he calls himself.” He tapped the cage. “Here, you little rat, tell him your name.”
And in a clear, human voice – as polished as any ventriloquist – the little creature answered back, “My name is Otto.”
Terry tapped the cage again. “Otto want a cracker?”
And in an uncanny mimicry, the lizard repeated back in Terry's own voice, “Otto want a cracker?”
Jonah watched the little lizard as it cocked its head expectantly. It had repeated the words exactly, in the same questioning tone – but with clear understanding that what it had just said meant 'give me food'.
Terry tossed a couple of saltines into the cage. Otto pushed aside the already-empty tin of cat-food and gobbled the crackers down.
Jonah wondered who had named him – whose voice he had spoken in.
“You think he was made in a lab, or something?” Terry asked.
Jonah didn't answer, but yes, he did.
Ariel had shut off the engine and now she climbed into the back, pushing Terry aside, and started fussing over the little lizard in its cage.
She made kissy-sounds as she fed it more crackers.
Otto repeated the kissy smacks back, this time in Ariel's voice, its head cocked in that cuckoo-bird stare.
That, Jonah decided, was maybe the creepiest thing he had ever seen.
They were making camp for the night – he slid the side-door open, stretching his legs and stepping out onto the road. Once the daylight faded, they would build a fire.
Jonah wasn't sure if the fire was smart or stupid – it was possible firelight at night could attract unwanted attention. On the other hand, if the caveman in him wanted a fire, that was old survival instinct at work. Ignore that at your peril.
Terry joined him, as he began to gather wood.
“So,” he said, “that Naomi-chick. What's the deal with you two? Is she yours?”
Jonah shook his head. “She's married.”
“So,” Terry said, for clarification, “she's not yours? She's available?”
Jonah gave him a look. “No, she's not...” he stopped, indicating Ariel back in the van, “aren't you with her?”
Terry shrugged. “She's there,” he said. “It's not like we're married. If
you hadn't noticed, she's a little cuckoo.”
Jonah HAD noticed – and he was anxious to defuse the entire subject.
“Look,” he said, “she's married. Very married. And a couple phase-shifts out of my league even if she wasn't.”
“Ah,” Terry nodded wisely. “She's a queen. 'Treat the queens like whores and the whores like queens.' Works every time.”
“So what would that make Ariel?”
Terry shrugged. “I told you. She's a loon.”
Jonah was beginning to get impatient.
'You know what?” he said. “Just leave Naomi alone. She packs a gun, and she can get kind of pissy.”
With that, he turned to stand face-to-face.
“And frankly, so can I.”
Terry stared back a moment, debating the challenge.
But perhaps having not actually intended offense, he backed off.
“No need to get testy,” he said. But before he moseyed his way back to the van, he gave Jonah a knowing man-nod to where Naomi was climbing out, stretching her own legs.
“It's the end of the world,” Terry said. “Can't think of a better reason than that.”
He nodded to Naomi as he climbed back in the van. Naomi looked at him, irritably, before marching over to Jonah.
“You know we could both hear you,” she said. “It's the mountains. Your voice carries.”
Behind her, there was a brief ruckus in the van and Ariel's voice – “A LOON? You asshole!” – followed by a load smack and a yelp from Terry: “Owww, BITCH!”
And then Otto: “Owww, BITCH!”
Jonah smiled a little, but it faded at Naomi's stern glare.
“I don't need you fighting my battles for me,” she said.
“What battles? I told the guy to back off.”
Naomi's eyes narrowed. “I am not YOURS to protect. Understand? I don't even know you. We are two people traveling together in a disaster.”
Jonah was taken aback – and found himself a little bit angry.
“Fine,” he said. “I will remember that.”
And with that, he tossed the firewood he'd been gathering aside, brushing his hands, and simply stalked back to the van.
After a moment, Naomi picked up the loose branches and began gathering the wood herself.
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