Thunder rolled down the street, making him open his eyes and jerk in its direction. He didn’t recall seeing a gun in the hands of any of his assailants.
It was such a friendly, natural sound, pure and clean in the smoky air, unaffected by madness and death. As he sat dumbly with the saltwater burning his skin, it echoed a second time. The creature preparing to smash his brains out, which looked like a cross between an ape and a Chinese warlord, spread its arms wide as it was knocked backward. The right side of its skull vanished, blown to bits like a Christmas piñata. The sight did not sicken Frank. He’d seen much worse in the previous half hour.
A third boom was chased by a couple of sharp pops from a smaller caliber weapon. The cordite conversation continued until the last of his tormentors had fled or been flattened. Still clutching his injured rib, Frank gazed in disbelief at the inhuman corpses surrounding him.
The survivors piled frantically into their truck. A ratcheting noise came from the half-stripped transmission as it spun its wheels in the water before rumbling off in the direction of burning downtown Long Beach. Frank followed it with his eyes until he was sure it wasn’t coming back. He tried to stand, failed, sitting down hard in the bloody water.
Take it easy, he told himself. Whoever it is, if they want you, they’ll get you.
Saltwater, blood, and tears blurred Frank’s vision, but he was able to isolate two figures hurrying toward him. Two beasts lucky enough to have found working weapons had slaughtered his attackers. Now they were coming to claim their kill. Doubtless they’d kill him as well, when it suited them. They were only two. Maybe he could get away. With so many bodies to gather maybe they wouldn’t waste a precious bullet on one more.
He struggled erect, turned, and tried to limp in the direction the fleeing truck had taken. He thought he heard a final shot but couldn’t be sure as his legs gave way beneath him, sending him tumbling again into the shallow water. It was a good six inches deep now, he mused. The whole of Los Angeles/Long Beach Harbor would be submerged.
It was a good final thought to cling to: the unaltered sea rising to reclaim the land. The water would drown the abominations that now inhabited it, put out the fires that tormented the ruined buildings. Too bad he wasn’t up on the Peninsula. From the palisades he would be able to watch it all with his family.
A hand grabbed his shoulder and turned him. He expected to see the muzzle of a gun and wasn’t disappointed. But the tunnellike barrel of the big pistol wasn’t aimed at him.
“Man, I was afraid we would never find you. You have got balls, and they are not all on the shelves of your stores.”
Somehow Frank managed to grin through the pain. “Hi, Burnfingers. Looking for a job already?”
17
“COME ON, LET’S MOVE IT!” Frank recognized the other voice as well. It was high and determined. The .22 looked larger than it was in Niccolo Flucca’s tiny hand. “Before we run into any more playful citizens.”
“Coming, little kitchen wizard.” Burnfingers put a massive arm around Frank and lifted him to his feet. The rib screamed and Frank bit into his lip.
“Can you walk?”
“I dunno, Burnfingers.”
“You have to try. I cannot carry you and aim at the same time.”
“Then I guess I will walk, won’t I?”
He did it by rote, putting one foot ahead of the other, chiding the laggard to follow until it was alongside. Burnfingers helped as much as he could. Flucca walked on the other side, his stubby legs kicking up saltwater, his eyes missing nothing.
“Alicia. Wendy,” Frank gasped.
“They are fine,” Burnfingers told him. “Your house was unchanged when we left to come look for you and it is well above the rising water.” The huge Casull gleamed in the smoke-tinted light. In Burnfingers’s fist it looked big enough to blow away the Anarchis itself.
That was another unreality, Frank told himself unhappily.
They were fighting their way toward an island of metal, of sanity. It stood unaltered amid madness and devastation: the motor home. Several new gouges scarred the trim where something had tried to break through. The metal had resisted. A little of the pain in his side and shoulders went away at the sight of it.
“If we survive this I’m gonna buy that damn machine. Alicia can turn it into a planter or the kids can make a rec room out of it. I’ll take off the wheels and put it up on blocks, but I’m not giving it back. It’s saved my ass too many times.”
“It has not saved anything yet.” Burnfingers manipulated the keys with one huge hand until he found the one that fit the door lock.
He and Flucca had to help Frank in. Water continued rising around them. What looked like a giant salamander came wriggling through the water toward them. Burnfingers kicked it aside. The contact produced a feeble, gurgling squeal. Tiny dark eyes peered mournfully up at them out of deeply sunk eye sockets. The face was faintly human.
Once inside, Frank headed for his familiar place behind the wheel. Burnfingers gently but firmly eased him into the other chair.
“Not this time, my friend. Now I drive whether you like it or not.” Frank was too exhausted to argue.
“All clear!” Flucca yelled as he closed the door and dogged it tight.
Burnfingers turned the motor home around, accelerated slowly so as not to soak the brakes. The water was halfway up the wheels and still rising. Fortunately, the motor home had higher clearance than any automobile.
After a few miles, the road began to ascend, climbing from the industrialized harbor area into the suburban knolls of Rolling Hills Estates. Looking back the way they’d come, Frank saw a ten-foot-high wave advancing across the city. No ordinary surf, it was more like a bore tide. The solid wall of water rushed up the city streets from the harbor to crash against burning buildings. Anything less than a story high was submerged.
Riding the crest of the irresistible tide was an army of nightmares from the depths, all pulsing red gills and snaggleteeth and poisonous spines. Flat, silvery fish eyes burned with an unnatural intelligence. Even at this distance Frank fancied he could hear the bloated bubbling sounds the aquatic invaders made as they began to feed frenziedly on the drowning carcasses of the inundated city dwellers. Hills and trees soon blotted the horror from view.
The Peninsula appeared deserted. Any surviving families were probably cowering inside their homes. There were no other vehicles moving. Palos Verdes had become a Gibraltarlike island anchoring the southern corner of the sunken Los Angeles Basin.
For the moment they were safe, though the land continued to subside. The fabric of reality was unraveling around them faster than ever. At any moment the remaining dry land might sink beneath the hungry waves or be torn asunder by a new earthquake. Gravity itself might end, sending them spinning into space, choking and gasping for air as the planet’s atmosphere dissipated rapidly around them.
As they continued to climb he saw that the Pacific had reclaimed all the lowlands. The only evidence of former human habitation were the tops of office towers and luxury condominiums along Wilshire and downtown, and the occasional top lane of some freeway interchange to which crowded cars clung like ants trying to escape a flood.
Burnfingers shifted out of low as the ground leveled off. They drove past denuded eucalyptus, oak, sycamore, and bottlebrush. Even the evergreens had been stripped of their needles. As they crossed the Peninsula and turned south toward his house, they saw the ocean once more. It was bubbling and heaving like a boiling pot. Waterspouts danced across the tormented surface despite the absence of wind. The long brown silhouette of Catalina Island was missing entirely from the western horizon, having vanished completely beneath the waves.
His house still sat intact on its acres, the iron gate guarding the entrance unbroken. Flucca borrowed his key and opened the lock, admitting them to the circular driveway.
As they entered, a vast shadow darkened the motor home. Frank leaned forward and looked skyward, flinched as the monster attacked. It was all teeth and claws and dripping toxins. The motor home rang like a bell when the thing made contact with the roof, but the metal held and they managed to remain upright.
Flucca darted outside, popping away with his tiny pistol. Frank followed, then Burnfingers. The Casull bellowed once, twice. Nothing tumbled to the ground and there was no answering scream, but the shadow vanished.
“It will be back.” Burnfingers holstered the now empty hand-cannon. “Along with mother knows what else. The world is going crazy.”
