The Last Peak (Book 2): The Darwin Collapse (21 page)

No way was she going out like that bad guy in
Ghost
.
 

She cleared the upper rim and then stepped outside. After retrieving the keys from the door lock, she drew her pistol and hurried to her bike. She fired it up and noticed Diana’s bags piled on the ground. She threw them in a saddle bag hoping they’d turn up something useful.

She holstered the Glock and hit the gas harder than she’d intended. The front wheel popped up a couple feet and nearly made her lose control. A little rear brake and it thumped back down. As the bike picked up speed, her mind screamed about the lion jumping at her back. But the only thing that roared was the old Vulcan as it sped down the last curving pathway and out the entrance, into the parking lot beyond.

A long sigh of relief escaped her lungs.

She had the antibiotics that Clyde needed, that any of them might need someday. Now she needed to get them home. Get herself home in one piece.

A sliver of moon peeked above the eastern horizon. She’d done this commute a thousand times. Oftentimes at this hour and later. In fact, the later the better.

That was then.

This was now.

The darkness was no longer the technological twilight of the old Los Angeles. It was now a truly shadowed world.
 

One that hid unimaginable horrors.

THERESA
steered the cargo bike around a car and turned left onto Washington Boulevard. The setting sun burned the sky a dull orange color. They’d ridden south a few blocks on Lincoln and the entire time felt like something horrible was about to happen. There was too much evidence of humanity and yet none of the movement. They were like superheroes moving so fast that the rest of the world seemed to stand still. Only they were too slow to save it.

They wound through a maze of packed cars, and it felt fake like a movie set. Everything laid out for the big action scene but nobody showed up to shoot it.

 
Washington was just as freaky so they took the first right and cut into the residential streets of the Del Rey neighborhood. As they rode further south, they passed a kid’s park on the right. She remembered attending birthday parties there as a kid. The place was always jam-packed full of people because it was one of the few open spaces in the area.

She stared at the vacant swings and sand pit, shivering at the silence. That wasn’t the only weird thing though because she realized the giant, old maple tree was gone. She’d climbed it countless times back in the day. It broke her heart to think that other kids wouldn’t get the chance to explore its upper branches. To feel the tickle of the wind on their faces. To look down with wide eyes, astonished at how high they’d climbed.

Then again, there weren’t other kids around to miss it in the first place. Was there any hope at all?

They took a left and headed east through typical west side residential streets. Tiny houses on postage stamp lots with driveways that almost always had two cars because people used their garages for extra rooms.

Red triangles tagged most of the front doors—evidence The National Guard had swept through the area. Their hasty paint jobs had made the spray paint pool and run making it look way too much like blood.

Like Venice, the neighborhood was mostly gentrified. The infrequent run down old home contrasted sharply with the surrounding remodeled ones. Her dad told her these were refugees from areas further west that had been priced out by the ever- climbing price of real estate. He often complained about how crazy it was.
 

The changes of the last week or so put that whole thing into a new perspective.

"This is really not cool," Elio said from behind her.

"What's wrong? The pillow not enough cushion?"

"The pillow is fine. The problem is that I feel like your biker babe."

Theresa laughed at the unexpected comment. "Elio Lopez, are you a sexist pig?"

"No, not at all! It just feels a little weird is all."

"Oh, so it would be totally normal if you were in front and I was in the back?"

"Yeah, that’d be fine."

"Unbelievable. I thought I knew you. I suppose you’d expect your wife to cook all your meals, keep the house clean, and be beautiful when you got home from work."

“Hold up, now. Don't go fantasizing about being my wife already. I haven’t agreed to marry you yet."

Something twisted in Theresa's belly. What started out as a joke was quickly turning into something else. "You're digging yourself into a hole. You might want to apologize before I shovel in more dirt on top of you."

"Two things," Elio said. "One, I apologize. And two, it's a little gross that you're making burying jokes considering what your father and the neighbor are doing."

Theresa thought about her father digging a grave in the Crayfords’ backyard. He would finish the exhausting work and return to find her and Elio missing. He’d be worried sick. She felt terrible about it. But she couldn't let Elio go alone, and she couldn’t betray his plan either. She’d chosen the only option that kept her and Elio together.

"You'd better start being a little bit more considerate or you might end up buried, too.”

It was wrong to joke about something so serious. And yet, the humor helped deal with it. Helped to compartmentalize it so that she could carry on.

She glanced at the battery gauge and saw that it was still in the green at about three quarters full. With her peddling along to help extend the range, they should have enough to get back home.

"So, how long do I have to ride bitch before I can get a bike of my own?"

Theresa laughed. "You could break into any garage on this street and get your own ride. The question is whether you could keep up."

"I could keep up."

"No, you couldn't. No way."

"Okay, I probably couldn’t.”

“Probably?”

“Fine. I couldn’t. But that's only because I'm not a hundred percent and also because this bike has an electric battery boosting your speed."

"I didn't say it would be a fair race. I just said I’d win."

“You wouldn’t win.”

“How would I not? I’m the rabbit and you’re the turtle. And this ain’t no fairy tale.”

“You don't know where I live.”

He had her there. In order to win a race, you had to know where the finish line was. She was trying to come up with a snarky reply when a gunshot echoed down the street. The driver side window of the car to their right shattered.

CRACK.

Another gunshot and the windshield of the car ahead exploded into a thousand pieces.

Theresa weaved back and forth not so much as an evasive maneuver as it was just trying to keep the bike upright while shock numbed her sense of balance. She thumbed the battery power to the max and the long bike picked up speed. The acceleration and her wobbly balance nearly shot them right into the side of a big white truck. She steered away at the last second and the right handlebar smacked its side mirror forward. The driver side window exploded an instant after Elio's body passed by.

She turned right at the next cross street without slowing down. They rode another couple of blocks before she managed to swallow her heart back into her chest.

"Are you okay?" Elio said as squeezed her shoulder.

"I'm fine. You?"

"A few bits of glass in my hair, but fine."

"That last one hit right behind you."

"Tell me about it. Listen, I don't like cruising down streets with houses lined up on both sides."

Theresa nodded as she looked at the apparently not totally vacant houses on each side. "I was thinking the same thing. It feels like we’re in a shooting gallery just waiting for someone to win the prize.”

"I've got an idea," Elio said. "There's an entrance to the four-oh-five a few blocks over. We can take it five miles south to Inglewood. My place is a half-mile east of the exit.”

"You want to go up on the highway?"

"Yep. Should be safer. Just a road crammed with abandoned cars. You saw the news reports. Every major highway in the Los Angeles area was packed with cars going nowhere within twenty-four hours of the outbreak."

Theresa remembered the disturbing images on the news in those first few days. And how soon after that the technology to broadcast any news had begun to break down. For the millionth time since the outbreak began, she subconsciously reached toward her back pocket to pull out her iPhone to check something.

The something wasn’t important. It was act that was important. The security blanket of having instant access to information at your fingertips.

But the phone was no longer there. She'd stopped carrying it a few days ago when it became apparent power was not going to be restored. It was a photo album of the last year of her life because she was terrible at syncing it. She swiped through the pictures when Holly’s absence threatened to drown her in sadness. The pictures and videos helped in a happy-sad way.

She dreaded the day when the battery died for good and she lost those shared moments. They were proof that Holly had lived. That life had once been normal and fun and not terrible like it was now. The images reminded her of who she used to be.

"Hey," Elio said, "if you wanna continue testing our luck in the shooting gallery, we can do that too."

"No, you're right. Let's try the highway. It can't be worse than this."

They rode up the entrance ramp alongside abandoned vehicles. People had ignored the single lane and crowded two lanes onto the ramp. An open span about two feet wide ran along the right shoulder between the concrete barrier and the uneven line of cars on the left.

Theresa slowed a couple of times when that open space pinched in a little. They made it to the top of the ramp and she involuntarily sucked in a breath.

Cars went on
forever
.

As far as she could see.

A frozen river of vehicles with five lanes in each direction. Who knew there were so many?

 
She was surprised that for most part, they were lined up between the dashed lines as they would’ve been on any normal evening. That was the only thing that resembled normal. The rest was a shock. Here was the symbol of the modern world. The symptom of it. And now, the end of it. All around in three dimensions.

The movie versions of the endless traffic jam didn’t do the real thing justice. Maybe the details were off or maybe it was that a flat screen simply couldn’t compare to the gut-punching reality.
 

Millions of cars carrying millions of people that all tried to escape at once and so blocked everyone from getting anywhere. She’d seen the stalled traffic on the news and it had seemed no different than a movie. It was nothing more than entertainment.

But now? Extending out in an endless swerving snake into the distance? It took her breath away.

"Why are we stopped?" Elio asked.

"What?"

“Do you want to turn back?"

"Oh, no. I just didn't realize it would be like this."

"Yeah."

Theresa thumbed back on the battery power and pedaled to help get the bike moving. She stuck to the right shoulder as that seemed to be the most reliable lane of open space. They cruised passed about thirty cars with both of them staring into their empty interiors.

“I bet we could find some good stuff in these," Elio said.

“Want to stop and check a few out?"

"Let's do it on the way back."

Theresa nodded as she slowed down and was forced to cut in by a black Cadillac Escalade with its bumper touching the barrier. She clicked off the electric assist and carefully pedaled between cars trying to stay as equally far away on each side as possible.

She expected something to jump out at any second. They came up to some open space between cars on the right and she cut back over to the shoulder. The chill of the evening wind made her earlobes tingle. The setting sun was losing its warmth and she was glad she brought a jacket to slip into later. The west side was like that. No matter how hot it got during the day, the evenings always ended up cool because of the air coming in off the Pacific Ocean.

Something seemed to move at the exit ramp up ahead, maybe a couple hundred yards away. Theresa squinted her eyes and stared to see if maybe she was just seeing things, expecting movement where there was none.

There was.

She eased off the electric assist and squeezed on the brakes. "Elio, do you see something up at the next exit?"

He leaned forward around her shoulder. "Yeah, something. What is it?"

They both stared and then spoke at the same time. “A dog."

They watched silently as it raced towards them at top speed. Theresa noticed movement further behind it and her jaw dropped open. "There's people chasing it!"

“Let’s go back!" Elio said.

Theresa carefully maneuvered the bike around and was about to take off in the other direction when her thumb froze above the electric assist lever. "Elio, we have to hide.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Now!"

They jumped off the bike and laid it on its side like it was just another failed escape plan. Elio threw open the door of an old suburban and a wave of stench washed over them.

Theresa gagged and swallowed hard to keep the contents of her stomach down. Rotten food. Rotten meat. Rotten human meat. Whatever it was made that spot a no-brainer, no thank you. She scanned the line of cars ahead and saw a big Ford truck. The body sat higher than the surrounding cars due to the huge tires it sported. They could get up there and the people passing by wouldn't see them as they passed.

She grabbed Elio's hand and took off. "Come on!"

They weaved back and forth between cars and made it to the truck. She jumped up on the sidebar and cracked the passenger door open. Aside from being stifling hot and stuffy, nothing disgusting made it a bad place to hide. She jumped across the passenger seat into the driver seat and Elio followed in behind her.

He closed the door and peeked above the dash. "Think they saw us?"

She peered over the steering wheel and saw the dog now maybe seventy yards away and still running in their direction. A group of five people pursued it. One paused and hurled a rock but missed.