Eileen stood in the doorway. She glanced back at Corrigan’s body. Two vertical lines deepened between her eyes as she watched Patrolman Larsen’s retreating back. A riot was starting out there, and the only cop was walking away, fast, after calmly watching murder. It wasn’t a world Eileen understood.
World. What had happened to the world? Gingerly she picked her way back through the broken glass toward her office. Thank God for medium heels, she thought. Glass crunched underfoot. She moved as quickly as she could, without a glance at the smashed goods and broken shelves and sagging walls.
A length of pipe, torn loose from the ceiling, had half crushed her desk, smashing the glass top. The pipe was heavier than anything she had ever lifted before, and she grunted with the effort, but it moved. She pulled her purse from underneath, then scrambled about looking for the portable radio. It seemed undamaged.
Nothing but static. She thought she heard a few words in the static. Someone shouting “Hammerfall!” over and over again, or was that in her head? No matter. There was no useful information.
Or, rather, there was, in that fact itself. This wasn’t a local disaster. The San Andreas had let go. Okay, but there were plenty of radio stations in southern California, and not all of them were near the fault. One or more should still be broadcasting, and Eileen knew of nothing an earthquake could do that would cause so much static.
Static. She went on through the back of the store. She found another body there, one of the warehousemen. She knew from the coveralls; there wouldn’t have been any point in looking for a face. Or for an upper torso, either, not under that… The door to the alley was jammed. She pulled and it moved, slightly, and she pulled again, bracing her cut knee against the wall and straining as hard as she could. It opened just far enough to let her squeeze through, and she went out and looked up at the sky.
Black clouds, roiling, and rain beginning to fall. Salt rain. Lightning flashed overhead.
The alley was blocked with rubble. Her car couldn’t possibly get through. She stopped and used the mirror from her purse, found a Kleenex and wiped away the dirty tear streaks and blood; not that it mattered a damn how she looked, but it made her feel better.
More rain fell. Darkness and lightning overhead, and salt rain. What did that mean? A big ocean strike? Tim had tried to tell her, but she hadn’t listened; it had so little to do with real life. She thought about Tim as she hurried down the alley, back toward Alameda because it was the only way she could go, and when she got to the street she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Tim was there, in the middle of a riot.
The earthquake rolled Tim Hamner under his car. He stayed there, waiting for the next shock, until he smelled gasoline. Then he came out, fast, crawling across the buckled pavement, staying on hands and knees.
He heard screams of terror and agony, and new sounds: concrete smashing on street pavement, concrete punching through metal car bodies, an endless tinkle of falling glass. And still he couldn’t believe. He got up, trembling.
People in white robes, blue uniforms, street clothes, lay sprawled on shattered street and sidewalks. Some moved. Some did not. Some were obviously dead, twisted or crushed. Cars had been overturned or smashed together or crushed by falling masonry. No building stood intact. The smell of gasoline was strong in his nostrils. He reached for a cigarette, jerked his hand violently away, then thoughtfully put his lighter in a back pocket, where he’d have to think before finding it.
A three-story building had lost its east face; the glass and brick had disintegrated, spilling outward across the parking lot and side street almost as far as where Tim Hamner had been lying. A chunk with part of a bay window in it had dropped through the passenger section of Hamner’s car. Gasoline ran from it in a spreading pool.
From somewhere he heard screams. He tried to shut them out. He couldn’t think of anything to do. Then the riot spilled around the corner.
It was led by three men in white robes. They were not screaming; they were panting, and saving all their breath for it. The screaming came from those behind them, and not from those in the lead.
One of the robed ones screamed at last. “Help! Please!” he screamed at Tim Hamner and ran toward him.
The mob pursued. They were looking at Tim Hamner, all those eyes at once, and he thought, They’ll believe I’m with them! Then a worse thought: I could be recognized. As the man who invented the Hammer…
Time was too short to consider the idea. Tim reached into the trunk and brought out the portable tape unit. The robed youth running toward him had a wispy blond beard and a lean face set in classic lines of terror. Tim shoved his microphone toward the Warden and said loudly, “One moment, please, sir. Just how—”
Insulted and betrayed, the man swiped at the microphone and ran past him. The other two fugitives, and most of the mob, had continued on down the street — toward the dead end, and of course that was a pity. Some burly types ran past Tim, chasing the robed man into the broken building. One stopped, panting, and looked at Tim.
Hamner lifted the microphone again. “Sir? Have you any idea how all this happened?”
“Hell, yes… buddy. Those sons of bitches… those Wardens blocked us off just as we… were taking off for Big Bear. They were… going to stop the comet by praying. Didn’t… work, and they… trapped us here, and we’ve… already killed about… half of the motherfuckers.”
It was working! Somehow nobody ever thinks of killing a newsman. Too vividly public, maybe: The whole world is watching. Other rioters had stopped, were crowding around, but not as if they were waiting their turn to kill Tim Hamner. They were waiting for a chance to speak.
“Who you with?” one demanded.
“KNBS,” Tim said. He fumbled in his pockets for the press-card Harvey Randall had given him. There it was. Tim flashed it, but kept his thumb over the name.
“Can you get a message out?” the man demanded. “Send for—”
Tim shook his head. “This is a recorder, not a remote unit. The rest of the crew will be here soon. I hope.” He turned back to the first man. “How are you planning to get out now?”
“Don’t know. Walk out, I guess.” He seemed to have lost interest in the fleeing Wardens.
“Thank you, sir. Would you mind signing…” Tim brought out a stack of NBS release forms. The big man stepped back as if they’d been scorpions. He looked thoughtful for a second.
“Forget it, buddy.” He turned and walked away. Others followed, and the whole crowd melted away, leaving Tim alone by the ruins of his car.
Hamner put the press card into his shirt pocket, adjusting it so that the big lettering, PRESS, was visible, but his name wasn’t. Then he put the recorder’s strap over his shoulder. He also carried the microphone and a stack of release forms. It was all heavy and awkward, but it was worth it. He did not laugh.
Alameda was filled with horrors. A woman dressed in an expensive pant-quit was jumping up and down on a lumpy white robe. Tim looked away. When he looked back, there were more people swarming around him. They carried bloody tire irons. A man swung toward him, swung an enormous handgun toward Tim’s navel. Tim pointed the microphone at him. “Excuse me, sir. How did you manage to get trapped in this mess?” The man cried as he told his tale…
There was someone at Tim’s elbow. Hamner hesitated, not wanting to look away; the man with the gun was still talking, tears of rage running down his face, and his gun still pointed at Tim’s navel. He looked earnestly into Hamner’s eyes. Whatever he saw, he hadn’t fired yet…