Slow Apocalypse (52 page)

“We might get that reaction anywhere
we
go, too,” Lisa said.

“We could. But…well, I hope the people wherever we end up can see us as an asset. We have food. We have vehicles that run. We have a wood chipper. We have you, Lisa, an M.D. We have bicycles. We even have a horse.”

“All things people could take away from us.”

“My hope,” Bob said, “is solely that we be allowed to become a part of a community. I would be prepared to donate everything we’ve got to a communal pool of resources, share and share alike, privation as well as wealth.” He looked at Dave, who looked at Karen. She nodded.

“We have no problem with that.”

Bob looked slowly from Lisa to Mark and Rachel, then to Marian and Gordon, then to his wife. Each in turn gave some form of silent assent. So the broad goal was agreed to by acclamation.

“I don’t think at this point there’s any need for a show of hands,” he said. “My sense of the meeting is that no one is supporting the option of going to Santa Monica and getting on the boat, if any of you ever did. If I’m wrong, speak up now, tell us your arguments, and we will throw it open to discussion.”

“No way,” Mark said.

“I didn’t like them, even before Teddy’s story,” said Lisa.

There were other murmurs and headshakes, and no opposing opinion was expressed. Bob looked at his watch.

“All right. It’s almost ten. If we see the sun at all today, it’s probably going to be when it sets. There is still a lot to do. Marian, you’ve been doing such a good job of organizing things, I’m going to leave that in your hands. You have that list we made of things that still need to be done?”

“I have it. People pretty much know what they need to do, but I’ll keep track of progress and pitch in when I can.”

“Me and Addison and Dave are available for anything you need done,” Karen said.

“That’s right. What Mom said.”

“Okay, family. This is going to be like a wagon train, you know. Anything we leave behind you’ll never see again. Anything we desperately need and forget to take…well, you get the picture. So
think
! Do we need this?
Really
need it? Can we do without it? Marian has the lists we’ve made up, she’ll check things off as we load up. If you think of something that isn’t on the list, bring it to this table and we’ll talk it over. Now, those of you who have assignments, get to them. Those who don’t, see Marian. She’ll have some work for you to do, I guarantee it.”

As the work proceeded through the late morning and early afternoon everyone kept one eye on the fire. Rest breaks were usually spent standing or sitting on the edge of the golf course, looking east.

Solomon, Rachel and Mark’s Down Syndrome nine-year-old, was set the task of monitoring the weather vane and anemometer, which had been knocked over in the quake but was undamaged enough that it could be remounted on a pole over the workshop. He sat at a table facing the fire with a clock and called out the wind speed and direction every fifteen minutes. He seemed happy in this work, was totally devoted to it, to the point that he had to be coaxed into taking his afternoon nap. Every time he shouted, the people within earshot would shout back, “Good job, Solomon!”

They could see that the fire was spreading south and east, having missed Holmby Hills by no more than a mile and a half. Soon the entire eastern horizon was billowing thick black smoke. It was too far away for them to see any actual flames.

Somewhere around noon the wind veered. It became a brisk breeze from the ocean, bringing the temperature down fifteen degrees to a more tolerable eighty-two. The wind gusted to twenty-five miles per hour, which picked up the soot and ashes that had covered all the land to the west, and blew it in their faces. Everyone tied wet handkerchiefs over nose and mouth, but they couldn’t keep the foul, gritty stuff out of their eyes.

The westerly winds blew the smoke that had been hovering over them toward the east. The sun came out over a landscape that had not burned, but nonetheless looked blasted, hellish, with the ashes covering everything. Eventually the air cleared and the almost unimaginable extent of the fire could be seen. There were still no visible flames—the fire front had to be ten or fifteen miles away from them by then, eating its way inexorably through the middle of the city—but the smoke rose up to the infinite sky, a boiling black wall that looked like some monstrous wave that was about to crest and crash over them.
Like the famous “face of Satan” in the dust cloud raised by the fall of the World Trade Center, you could imagine all sorts of images in that black wall if you were imaginative and superstitious…and Dave thought that in the face of such a thing, we were all superstitious. He had seen a total eclipse once, and had experienced some of that feeling, had understood why the ancients had danced frantically and raised a great racket to scare away the dragon that was eating the sun.

Dave’s job was to help Mark in the workshop. He didn’t know how he had been elected to the post, but he didn’t mind. He figured it would be good to get a better idea of how everything worked. The job didn’t require a lot of brains, so he had plenty of time to think. He had an idea, so when they took a break he sought out Bob.

“I presume we won’t be leaving tonight?” he asked.

“I would certainly be against it. But we’ll talk about it this evening, if we get the needed work done. See what people think.”

“And it’s pretty certain that we’ll be heading south. Toward San Diego.”

“I don’t think that’s been established yet.”

“No, but I don’t have much faith in the I-15 route north. In fact, I don’t think we could get to Oregon, not anymore.”

“Maybe just Northern California?”

“Possible, I guess. Anyway, either direction, east and then north, or straight south, there’s the fire to consider.”

“Yes. I’ve been worried about that. I’m thinking we may have to wait another day. I don’t want to mess with the fire.”

“That’s wise. But I think I can solve two of our problems at one stroke.”

“You have a route around the fire?”

“No. I don’t know where all it’s burned. I think we should go through it.”

Bob half smiled, as if he thought it was a joke. But then he saw that Dave was serious.

“Did you enjoy your last trip through fire that much?”

“Not so’s you’d notice. I guess through the fire isn’t what I meant. I think we should follow the fire. Head for the places where the fire has burned out. Even if we go east, we will be crossing a lot of the areas that the fire has burned out. And when you think about it, those areas should be the safest places in Los Angeles.”

Bob smiled.

“I see what you mean.”

“Anybody who
was
there is either dead, or they fled the area.”

“But it will stay pretty hot for a while, won’t it?”

“We’ll have to see. If it’s too hot, we stop. It will cool down, eventually.” Dave looked at his watch. “I’m due back at work. I’ll run all this by Mark. Okay?”

“By all means. What time is it?”

“Just after four.”

“We’ll all be meeting at eight. We’ll talk it over.”

The fire grew more distant. Every fifteen minutes Solomon called out the wind speed and direction, which stayed from the west and between ten and twenty miles per hour, but the wall of smoke scarcely seemed to diminish at all. It filled the eastern sky, mostly a roiling black. Every once in a while there were traces of other colors of smoke, yellow and red and green. The consensus among the people watching was that it was produced by burning chemicals in refineries or warehouses. Fairly often they heard distant explosions, and one around five o’clock that rattled the windows. There were many things that might blow up as the fire advanced: paint in cans, bottled gases, dynamite and other explosives, and who-knew-what sort of exotic chemicals. Dave worried about that, about entering the fire area where deadly gases might be lingering, but he supposed if the wind changed direction, they could be in danger from that even where they were working. They had a Geiger counter, but no way of detecting traces of airborne chemical poisons.

The work was essentially done around sundown, and everyone but Mark and Teddy gathered in the backyard to make final plans. Mark was still tinkering with his various constructions, and Dave suspected he could happily keep doing that for several more weeks if left to his own devices. He was the sort of person who had trouble meeting deadlines because nothing was ever quite at the level of perfection he was after. But Rachel had told Dave that when there was no more time, that he must now lay down his tools and accept that what he had was good enough, she could usually drag him away.

The sense of the meeting was that they would leave as soon as the sun came up in the morning. If there was no sunrise again, then they would leave as soon as it was light enough to see.

The proposal to follow the fire was a little more controversial.

“I’m afraid it will be too hot,” someone said.

“Then we’ll detour,” Dave suggested. “I think we could at least go to the western edge of the fire area, which should be the coolest by now. If it’s too hot, then we turn south and try to go around it.”

“Or east,” said Lisa.

“Or east,” Dave agreed. “But I’m pretty sure we
can’t
go east without crossing through the fire area.”

“It would be like Moses and the Children of Israel,” Sandra said. “Following a pillar of fire.”

“It was a pillar of fire by night,” her twin sister Olivia pointed out. At least Dave thought it was Olivia. “In the daytime they followed a pillar of smoke.”

“So will we.” Sandra pointed to the east, where an orange glow lit the horizon.

“I think Dave’s suggestion is the right way to go,” Bob said, with uncharacteristic bluntness. “We go to the edge of the burn area and see what’s what. Make a decision there. Any objections?”

There were none.

Teddy had joined them, washed up and dressed in his cycling clothes. He had slept most of the day and eaten twice. Nobody begrudged it because they all knew he was expending more energy than any three of them put together, and providing the only completely reliable intelligence regarding their surroundings. And, of course, he was laying his life on the line every time he cycled away from them. Bob and Emily always knew that the sight of the bright yellow jersey on his back might be the last they ever saw of him, in life or in death.

That night he was wearing all-black clothing, and he had a proposal that didn’t make anyone happy.

“I want to strongly suggest that you folks wait one more day.”

That was greeted by a buzz of conversation, and a deep frown from his father. Teddy waited it out.

“I had always planned to be your advance scout,” he finally said. “I could save you a lot of trouble by going ahead and seeing what the best routes were. But the little walkie-talkies we have are pretty short-range. If you’re all on the move, and I get farther away from you than about half a mile, I might never find you again. The only way I can see to avoid that is that when I’m scouting, you have to stay where you are so I can be sure of getting back to you.”

“Or you could not scout at all,” Bob pointed out.

“Then I think you’re throwing away a big advantage,” Teddy said, rather forcefully.

There was a brief silence, then Marian spoke up.

“I have to agree with my little brother,” she said. “Intelligence is critical in a situation like this. Teddy can range farther than any of us. We
need
to know what’s ahead of us before we walk into it. After that, communication is critical, and we have to deal with the limitations we have. Our only means of talking at a distance are those pitiful little radios. When he goes farther than a few miles he has to know where he’s coming back to. You can no longer say ‘Meet me at such-and-such a place at noon.’ If one party can’t make it…you might never see him again.”

She paused to let everyone think that over.

“I agree with Dad that after we get moving, Teddy should range ahead only a short distance, but this one time, he can save us literally days of travel if the route to the east is impossible. You can no longer drive to San Bernardino in a couple hours from here. It will take us at least a few days, I’m sure.”

“And I can get there by midnight, I’m sure of it.”

“What? Midnight?” That was Emily, clearly terrified at the prospect. “When would you leave?”

“In about ten minutes,” Teddy said.

There was more consternation, most of it from Emily, with Bob stone-faced beside her. At last he held up his hand.

“I can see you’re determined to do this, son. And I can certainly see the advantages to us all…if you come back.”

“I have every time so far, Dad.” He held up his hand, stopping his father. “No, sorry, I shouldn’t kid about it. I know it’s dangerous, but in some ways I don’t think it’s as dangerous as what we all will be doing, either tomorrow morning or the next day. If you insist on going tomorrow, I’ll stay here and go with you, mostly because I believe if we split while we’re both moving, there’s a good chance we won’t meet again.”