Age of Monsters by John Schneider (books to read for self improvement .TXT) 📗

said.  “Of course I was.”

“So, at this point, I'm really more your hostage, then?”

Lucas tilted his head, considering, but did not disagree.

He hiked his pack.  “Whatever happens,” he said, “you and Julie stay close to me.  You're my watch.”

“What?”

Lucas nodded at the others.  “I've got Bud on Allison.  Jeremy on Jamie.  That means I've got to watch you two.”

Rosa paused.  “Watch us?” She said, “like we're the helpless females?”

She glanced over at Julie and was all the more irritated as the young nurse practically fluttered at the thought.

“That,” Rosa said, “might be the most condescendingly chauvinistic thing I've ever heard.”

“I do get that,” Lucas allowed.  “You really would like my wife.”

But he remained nonplussed.  “Still,” he said, “survival is about pragmatism, and human-nature is human-nature.”

Glancing back over his shoulder, he spoke loudly and openly, to all of them at once.

“Men are guard dogs,” he said.  “It's what we're good for.”  He turned an appraising eye on Rosa.  “Wouldn't you expect your husband to take a bullet for you?”

“I'm not married,” Rosa said.

Lucas snapped his fingers.  “That's right.  I forgot.”

Beside her, Julie tittered.  Rosa spared her a glare.

They had reached street-level, and before he poked his head experimentally into the open air, Lucas gave one last meaningful look to Rosa.  “In all seriousness, Doctor Holland.  Stick close.”

It was still early morning – the beginning of another sunny San Francisco day.

In procession, they let themselves back up into the light.

Lucas made his way up the ridge of rubble that used to be the hospital – the vantage to the rest of the city.

Rosa and the others started to follow, but Lucas motioned for them to stay low.  He pulled out his binoculars, and scanned what was left behind.

Rosa followed a few steps more until she could see.

The city was gone – nothing left but rubble – even the dust had settled.

Likewise, very little remained of the giant carcasses – the bones had been pulled apart and scattered, blending in with the rest of the debris.

What had Lucas said that first night?

This.  Everywhere.

Lucas packed his binoculars, motioning the others back down the slope.

“You all stay put,” he said.  “I'm going to do a quick circle.  I spotted a couple of vehicles.”  He turned to Rosa for emphasis, pointing her back down to the street.

“Wait here,” he said.

With that, he hopped up and over the broken pilings.

After a moment – perhaps feeling a bit defiant – Rosa followed him up to the top – just far enough to watch him hit the street and dogtrot out of sight around the first demolished city block.

“Doctor Holland,” Julie called softly, behind her.  “The Lieutenant said to wait down here.”

Rosa glanced irritably over her shoulder.

“I'm not going anywhere,” she called back, “I just want to see.”

She turned to the view of the city, and promptly slipped on the loose rubble.

The concrete beneath her feet shifted, and before she knew it, she was riding a mini-avalanche all the way down to the street.

She had been standing on a buried girder, or she might have actually been hurt quite badly – the scraps and mortar beneath her feet weighed in the tons – makeshift boulders, some the size of cars.

As it was, she was good and battered by the time she tumbled the forty feet to a rough landing on the road below.

She coughed in the fresh cloud of dust, and her eyes teared.  When she wiped with her hands, they came away bloody.

Julie's head popped up over the top of the remaining pilings.

“Oh, my God!  Doctor Holland, are you alright?”

Julie carefully began climbing down the slope, picking her way over the larger, more stable-looking slabs.  Rosa was dusting herself off, counting her bruises, as Julie kneeled down beside her, helping her to her feet, immediately fussing over her abrasions.

Rosa patted her hands down, looking at Julie earnestly.

“We aren't going to be telling the Lieutenant about this,” she said.  “Are we agreed?”

Julie looked doubtful, as she dabbed at a bit of running blood on Rosa's forehead.

“He might ask,” she said.

Rosa pushed Julie away, and turned back towards the ravaged skyline.

They had lost their vantage, and Rosa began to circle her way back towards the high-ground.

“Where are you going?” Julie asked, a frantic tone creeping into her voice, like a kid afraid of getting caught after curfew.

“For crying out loud,” Rosa said, “I just want to get a look at the city.”

Reluctantly, Julie followed the half-a-block to where the hilltop looked down into the main downtown area.

They stood for a moment, taking it all in.

The city maintained that same dead silence.  Beyond general geography, it was hard even to tell what roads had been where.

Rosa found herself thinking, of all things, about her canceled date – a man she had never even met.  He had lived right downtown.

He had sent her that one last text – 'Have a nice life,' it had said.

Was he out there right now?  Crushed in the rubble – cannibalized by some scaly, pint-sized lizard?

Or what about her friend, Suzy, who lived downstate in L.A.?

Lucas had said they had lost in L.A.

Suzy also lived right downtown.  She would have been right in the middle of it.

Rosa wondered if there was anything even physically left of her, let alone alive.

Beside her, Julie choked just a little bit.

Rosa found she didn't want to see anymore.  She turned away from the ruined skyline...

… just as a voice behind them spoke practically into her ear.

“Well, honey – where did you come from?”

The voice was followed by the sound of rifle bolts sliding back.

Chapter 16

Three men separated from the surrounding rubble –