Cars had stalled there, smashed into a tangled mass. Both lanes had been cut off, and no traffic had been able to pass this way for days. The ceiling lights had gone out, but enough daylight streamed in from both ends to let him ride close to the cold tile wall. The horses moved nervously from the close shadows. The empty metal hulks made ticking sounds. Ren and Stimpy began to trot, startled by the reverberating explosions of sound made by their own hoofbeats.
Finally bursting out to the sunlight, Todd took a deep breath of the cool ocean-tainted breeze and stared ahead at the Golden Gate Bridge, and beyond that at the San Francisco skyline.
Not long ago, Todd had been below on the heaving deck of the Zoroaster, trying to offload as much of the crude as possible before the tanker plunged into the channel. There had been helicopters, news crews, boats, rubberneckers….
Now, as he guided Ren and Stimpy onto the bridge, he heard only the whistling sounds of the wind. The foghorns no longer sent forlorn tones out to warn ships. The water, far below, made hushing sounds against the support piers. In addition to the sea dampness, the air carried a sulfurous stench. Leaking crude oil from the sunken Zoroaster continued oozing to the surface, and Prometheus thrived.
Puffing and red-faced, a sweat-suited jogger ran by, intent on the sidewalk in front of his feet. Todd shook his head—people were crazy! How could anybody go through a daily routine in the middle of a crisis? He seated his cowboy hat more firmly; no matter how much the world changed, he thought, some rituals remained the same.
The bridge cables high overhead thrummed in the breeze. The lowering sun dazzled on the water far out to sea. He saw no Navy ships or freighters or fishing trawlers. A shiver went up his spine as he realized just how deeply the plague had separated the world into thousands of tiny pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
Grim-faced backpackers headed along the walkway, moving briskly in a forced march. A gaunt man with red-rimmed eyes, gray stubble on his face, and a SURF! t-shirt, called to Todd, “Hey, you’re going the wrong way, man!”
“I know,” Todd said.
A young couple with three children—the oldest no more than eight, and crying—carried lumpy packs on their shoulders as they hiked toward the Marin peninsula, in the opposite direction Todd was going. The little four-year-old girl carried a cloth doll with yarn hair; dark indentations marked where plastic button eyes had dissolved.
Within ten minutes the two horses approached the southern end of the bridge. Waves crashed against the rugged shore of Fort Point. The deep-green cypress trees and red-roofed military housing of the Presidio shone with brilliant color, as if someone had twisted up the contrast knob. At the end of the bridge, an unlit sign demanded STOP! PAY TOLL. Todd directed Ren and Stimpy through the empty toll booths. He smiled ironically to himself as they passed through the unused “carpool” lane.
On horseback, he entered San Francisco.
Todd avoided the densest part of the city, planning to ride full-tilt through Golden Gate Park, keeping his head low and a firm grip on Stimpy’s reins. His horses were among the most valuable possessions in the world right now. He kept the pistol within easy reach and urged Ren and Stimpy to a fast trot.
Reaching the large forested area of the park, the small lakes, and the wide grassy clearings made him forget he was in the middle of a city, for a short while. In the grassy expanse, Ren tried to stop and graze, but Todd wouldn’t let him, jabbing with his boot heels to keep up the pace. He saw no kids tossing baseballs or frisbees, no fun and games.
A cluster of men and women worked by the trees with hand saws and axes taken from downtown hardware stores. Not one of the people looked accustomed to manual labor, and they took frequent rests. With a scurry, they fled to one side as a eucalyptus came crashing down, then they set to work chopping it into smaller pieces. A mound of firewood sat stacked to one side. Teenagers took turns with sledge hammer and wedges to split the chunks. Two older women with new rifles stood guard over their wood.
Todd urged Ren and Stimpy eastward out of the park and into more dangerous crowds, following the Panhandle under large oak trees. Old Victorian houses towered over the boulevards on either side of the narrow strip of park, but Todd kept the horses on the grass as long as he could, until he was finally forced to return to the city streets in Haight-Ashbury. It did not surprise him to see various apocalyptic street preachers hawking recipes for salvation to the wandering crowds. Every time someone looked at Todd too closely, he conspicuously pulled out the pistol.
In front of a row of dark coffee shops, Chinese street vendors had set up food kiosks with sidewalk barbecues, burning sticks of what appeared to be broken crates and pieces of furniture. They cooked on Weber kettle grills and cast-iron woks over open fires. Looking at the exotic food as he rode by, Todd had a sudden craving for a decent steak. He wondered how hard it was going to be to find food from now on.
A lump caught in his throat, claustrophobia from the jammed, breaking-down buildings, the sounds of breaking glass, shouts from the sidewalks, he realized he had lost his way. “Calm down,” he said to himself, “calm down.” Breathing deeply, trying to quell his panic, he reined the horses to a stop and unfastened his saddle bags to take out a map. He unfolded it and tried to get his bearings, figuring out the best way to return to Highway 101. He felt absurd sitting on horseback in the middle of a deserted intersection, staring at a street map like some lost tourist.
He had just decided which way to turn when a series of popcorn noises came from a rooftop a block away. It took him a moment to identify them as gunshots. Across the street, Todd saw a flash of stone dust and heard the spang as a bullet ricocheted from the wall of a building. “Jeez!” he cried and yanked out the pistol again, waving it in the air. Another gunshot struck nearby. Todd fired off a round in the direction of the sounds, but knew he had no chance of hitting anything.
“Yah!” he shouted at the horses. Both Ren and Stimpy galloped away from the sniper, down Van Ness toward the highway leading out of the city.
With the horses hidden in a cluster of live oaks on the ridgecrest, Todd prepared to spend the night in the highlands of the Peninsula, west of the freeway. By nightfall, he had traveled south, through the hills rimming Daly City and San Bruno. He could see the San Francisco International Airport, deserted, like a vast parking lot.
The gunshots and the turmoil made him want to avoid contact with people. He followed fire roads up into the rugged hills, heading in the right general direction.
He kept thinking about Iris, knowing he needed to hurry, to get her out of a dark, dangerous apartment in Stanford. Heck, she probably wouldn’t wait for him anyway. But on the slim chance that she would, he had to get his backside there as soon as he possibly could.
He decided to rest for a few hours, start out again before dawn, and make a good distance by daylight. He built a campfire in a clearing and heated a can of chili, eating it with a spoon he had taken from Alex’s kitchen. If he had been able to forget about the rest of the world, he might have enjoyed the evening.
The countryside seemed too quiet, wrongly so. Out in Wyoming the silence had never bothered him because he did not expect to hear bustling noises. But the San Francisco peninsula was supposed to be a Christmas-tree network of lights, moving traffic, busy lives. From his high vantage point, he could see only a few glimmering signs of life below—bonfires, Coleman lanterns, battery lamps, flashlights.