The Walk

CHAPTER TWO

10:30 a.m. Tuesday

Marty emerged from the grip truck, ready to go, his bulging gym bag looped over his shoulders like a backpack.

He pulled a white paper dust mask over his nose and mouth, slipped on his Ray-bans, took a deep, filtered breath, and headed off.

It meant going past the rubble of the warehouse again. The surviving crewmembers were too intent on their work to notice Marty, which is what he was hoping. He diverted his gaze, afraid someone would see him watching and try to draft him into the hopeless enterprise.

The three bodies the surviving crewmembers had recovered so far were laid out on the cracked asphalt under the tent that was supposed to protect the caterer’s junk food from the sun. It was amazing the tent was still standing. But the table had fallen, the donuts, candy, fruit, and drinks splattered on the street in a swath of crushed ice.

A woman Marty recognized as one of the hairdressers sobbed beside the body of Clarissa Blake, one of the twenty-something stars of the show. The hairdresser was soaking a napkin with Evian, trying to wipe the blood and dirt off Clarissa’s unnaturally pale face, the only part of her celebrated body that was still identifiable. It was as if someone placed a perfect Clarissa Blake mask on a deflated inflatable girl. Thinking of it like that, it didn’t seem real any more, just a grotesque rubber prop on a horror movie set.

Again, he glanced away quickly, not wanting to be drawn into the morbid scene or think too deeply about it. Clarissa Blake was dead, nothing Marty could do to change that. And bottled water was far too valuable now to be wasting on cleaning the dead. It could be days, maybe weeks, before drinking water was easy to come by.

The thought made Marty swoop down and grab a couple Evians off the ground, jamming them into his jacket pockets as he went. The little bottles were still cold.

Marty walked up the middle of Sante Fe Avenue, wanting to put as much distance between himself and anything that could collapse on him as possible. The most important thing now was to avoid tall buildings and power lines, tunnels and overpasses, staying out in the open as much as possible, even if it meant veering a mile or two off-course. It would be really stupid if he survived the quake only to get squashed by chunk of concrete two minutes later.

Marty didn’t know downtown LA well; in fact, he probably hadn’t been here more than half-a-dozen times in ten years, but he’d seen it from the sky, flying into LAX from New York or Hawaii. From above, the skyscrapers looked like a tangle of weeds breaking through a crack in a parking lot. It wouldn’t be hard to keep away from them. He’d head north, cut across the Civic Center on 1st Street, then follow the course of the Hollywood Freeway back into the valley.

Having a solid plan, and a gym bag full of emergency supplies, made him feel in control of the situation. It was a relief to know that the shifting tectonic plates of the earth’s crust could be tamed by clear thinking, bottled spring water, and a Thomas Brothers map.

There usually wasn’t much traffic on Sante Fe any more, an industrial neighborhood with no more industry. So there were only a few cars on the street now, spread haphazardly along the roadway, banged-up Hot Wheels thrown on the floor by a bored child ready to play something else.

Marty approached a Crown Vic, resting on its side on a jagged slab of bulging asphalt, its wheels spinning slowly. The obese, middle-aged driver was still alive, belted into his seat and wide-eyed with shock, resting his head on the blood-speckled airbag like a pillow, listening to the radio.

“They’re dead… they’re all dead. There’s fire everywhere. I can’t get out. Harvey… he’s burning. He’s behind the glass and he’s burning. He’s all on fire. Oh, God. Oh, shit. If he doesn’t stop banging against the glass, it’s going to break! Stop! Can’t you see it’s cracking? Stop! Goddamn it, Harvey! Please!”

The driver didn’t seem to hear it, or if he did, he was mistaking it for soothing music. Marty wasn’t blessed with such blissful delusions. The terror was seeping out of the radio’s speakers like smoke and he didn’t want to breathe it.

He kept right on walking past the car, trying not to listen to the frantic newscaster and yet unable to stop himself.

“Oh God, it’s fucking breaking! Oh God. Oh fuck. I don’t want to die! Somebody help me!”

Marty quickened his pace, stumbling over cracks and rocks, until he couldn’t hear the voice any more, the newscaster’s pleading muffled by the sobbing, moaning, and cries of pain coming from a parking lot up ahead.

Several dozen workers were behind a wrought-iron fence topped with curls of razor wire, huddled as far as they could get from the building they’d just escaped, its pre-fab concrete walls caving in under a collapsed roof. They hugged each other, covered in plaster and gore, lost in their sorrow and fear.

Don’t look, Marty told himself. Keep moving.

He knew there were going to be a lot more sights like this. Dioramas on a gruesome theme park ride. He couldn’t let any of them get to him. The only person he had to care about was Beth. That was his moral imperative as a good husband.

So he was absolutely doing the right thing. Letting himself get distracted from his moral imperative by the misery of others would be the real sin.

Up ahead, the 4th Street bridge arched over Sante Fe Avenue on its way across the LA River to Boyle Heights. The concrete bridge was still standing, unlike its big sister two blocks south, but as Marty got closer, he could see it was severely cracked, raining a fine powder on the street. Perhaps it was only cosmetic damage, but it wasn’t worth the risk.

Marty took the first side street that came along. It wasn’t much wider than an alley, bordered by gutted, decomposing factories, and blocked mid-way through by an ugly car accident. A big-rig truck had driven over one of those boxy old Volvos, then rolled over and slammed through the wall of a derelict loading dock.

His best guess was that the two vehicles were about to pass one another in the instant before the quake and veered head-on at each other.

He stopped for a moment, worried, feeling beads of sweat roll down his back.

What was bothering him?

There was no fire, and if he hugged the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street, he could slip past the accident easily and continue on to Alameda Street, where he was bound to see worse pile-ups than this.

Much worse. And just think about what the Harbor Freeway is going to look like, he told himself. You’re going to have to cross that soon enough. This is nothing.

He braced himself for the worst and pushed on, his own footsteps sounding unnaturally loud, crunching on bits of glass and crumbs of concrete. The air smelled of mulch, like a freshly planted garden, even through his perspiration-soaked dust mask.

As he edged past the accident, he couldn’t help looking at the carnage. Every Los Angeleno had the same, undeniable urge; it was why even an overheated Chevette parked on the freeway shoulder could cause a traffic snarl going back twenty miles.

The cab of the truck was imbedded in the warehouse, sparing him the sight of the driver. The cargo trailer was cracked open, spilling bags of potting soil, which had burst open on impact, spraying dark black dirt everywhere. Now he knew where the smell came from.

The Volvo was squashed nearly flat and covered in dirt. Even the dullest, safest car made was no match for a Mack truck. The two vehicles bled gasoline, oil, and coolant, which pooled against the curb near Marty’s feet.

Something crackled.

He peered over the Volvo and saw a severed electrical line jerking on the ground, spitting sparks. The truck had taken down a power-pole across the street. The live wire was far away from him and the leaking gasoline. Even so, he would be glad to put some distance between himself and the power line, which he eyed as if it were a living thing, a predator waiting to attack.

And that’s when something did, grabbing him by the ankle.

He screamed and instinctively tried to jump away, tripping himself and hitting the ground hard, provoking another scream, only this one wasn’t his own. It was a scream of agony from inside the car.

Marty scrambled away, looking back to see a dirt-caked arm sticking out of the Volvo, clutching desperately at the air. It was like a hand shooting out of a grave.

“Help me, please,” a woman’s voice pleaded from inside the crumpled Volvo.

He could run. Just keep going. No one would ever know.

“I can’t breathe,” she whimpered.

Marty was crawling to the car before he was even aware he’d made a decision, taking her hand and peering into the opening it came from. It was as if he were staring in the mouth of some metal monster, a great white Volvo that was chewing this poor young woman alive. The lower half of her body was completely consumed by jagged metal, her upper body nearly buried in potting soil. Her other arm was twisted at an unnatural angle, ragged splinters of bone ripping through the skin.

“Hold on,” Marty said, “I’m right here.”

He reached in and scooped the dirt away, clearing her head so she could breathe. She had hair almost as dark as the soil, and green eyes that blazed with terrified intensity. She took in the air with shallow, raspy breaths.

“I thought you were going to leave me.” Her voice was tinged with a slight Texas twang. He guessed she was about thirty.

Marty took off his glasses and pulled his dust mask down from his face, leaving it hanging around his neck. “You startled me. That’s all.”

He almost asked if she was all right before he caught himself. The question was a stupid reflex. She was obviously in deep, deep trouble. Even though her blouse was covered with dirt, he could see it was drenched with blood, oozing where the car was gnashing her.

“Is there anybody else with you?” he asked.

“No, thank God,” she licked the blood from her lips and looked up at him with pleading eyes. “Can you get me out of here?”

Her body and the metal were meshed tightly together. There was no way he could do anything, not with just his hands and a tiny tire-iron. It would take a team of firemen, the jaws-of-life, and some paramedics. And even then, he had his doubts.

“I don’t think so,” he replied. “And I’m afraid of what would happen if I tried.”

She nodded slightly. “It’s okay. I think I already knew the answer anyway. Can you do anything for the truck driver?”

“I don’t know,” Marty glanced away, surprised by the sudden stab of guilt he felt. When he glanced back, she was looking at him strangely.

“Maybe you should check.”

The way she said it, without being overtly judgmental or scornful, somehow made it sound even more damning. He started to get up and she grabbed him again, gently this time.

“You’ll come back, right?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said, “Of course I will.”

Marty got to his feet and went to the truck. Fifteen minutes into his journey and already he was breaking the rules. If he were smart, he would keep on walking. There was nothing he could do for her.

As he neared the truck, he kept his eye on the fallen live wire, undulating on the pavement, hissing and crackling. The puddle of gasoline was still far away from the sparks, but that could change.

He climbed up the side of the cab and looked down through the driver’s side window. At first, he couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing. The driver was slumped against the passenger door, but his head was in his lap. How could that be?

An instant later, his mind registered what he saw. A sheet of corrugated metal, ripped from the warehouse wall on impact, had chopped through the windshield like an ax, lopping off the driver’s head.

Marty scrambled off the cab as if decapitation was infectious, backing away without taking his eyes off the wreckage, just waiting for some new horror to pop up.

When Marty was eight years old, he stepped on a nail and it went right through his foot. Up until now, that was the worst physical injury he’d ever witnessed, if he didn’t count Irving Steinberg and Clarissa Blake.

He backed right into the Volvo, causing it to rock, the woman’s cry of pain snapping him out of it. The woman, somehow he had to help the woman. Who was he kidding? There wasn’t a damn thing he could do for her. This was a job for professionals.

Marty reached inside his jacket for his cell phone and tried to dial 911. Once again, he couldn’t get a signal. But even if he could, what were the chances anybody would come for her with a city in ruins? She’d be the very last priority.

There was only him. And Marty didn’t have the slightest idea what to do. He fought back the urge to run, shoved the phone back into his jacket, and crouched beside the car again.

“How is he?” she asked, but interrupted him before he could speak. “Never mind, I can see it on your face.”

She shuddered, grimacing in agony. He had never seen anyone go through such pain before and he didn’t want to see it now. He looked away. Blood trickled from her nose and escaped from the corners of her mouth.

“My name is Molly,” she whispered. “Molly Hobart.”

“Marty Slack.” He took a Kleenex from his pocket and wiped the blood off her face, then wondered what to do with the tissue afterward. What if she had AIDS? He dropped the tissue and hoped none of the blood got on his hands. “Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?”

There was a first aid kit in his gym bag, but he doubted a squirt of Bactine and an ouch-less Band-Aid were going to make her feel any better.

“Just hold my hand and talk to me,” Molly said, “until help gets here.”

That could be days, if it ever came at all.

Marty couldn’t stay and wait. He was on his way home. If he didn’t get into the valley by nightfall, he could be in real danger. She’d understand that. All he had to do was tell her and she’d let him go.

“Sure,” he said.

“Could I have some water?”

He took one of the bottles out of his pocket, twisted off the cap, and poured a little Evian slowly into her mouth. She was having a hard time swallowing.

After a moment, she said softly: “I’m not supposed to be here.”

“I know what you mean,” he said.

“No, really. It’s wrong. There’s a body shop near my house I could have gone there. But the bastard insurance company said I had to get the car fixed at this place downtown, or they wouldn’t pay for it. That’s not right, is it?”

“What happened?”

“My daughter spilled grape juice on the seat. I reached back to grab the box of Kleenex before it got all over everything and sideswiped a parked car,” Molly squeezed his hand, tentatively, like she was checking if it was still there. “Two accidents in one month. They’re really going to jack up my rates now.”

“No one’s going to blame you for this.”

“You haven’t met my insurance company,” she said. “Has anyone called 911 yet?”

“I tried, but I can’t get a signal.”

“I’m sure someone has called.”

In that instant, he had a sickening realization. Molly had no idea what happened to her, what really caused her accident. And if he told her, she’d know just how little her predicament mattered to anyone right now.

Anyone but him.

He should have gone under the bridge, cracked or not. He should have just said a prayer and run as fast as he could.

“You’re from Texas,” Marty said.

“Thalia,” she replied. “It’s a real small town.”

“What brought you to LA?”

“Another accident,” Molly smiled, her teeth smeared with blood. “Clara’s five years old now.” She let go of his hand and pointed to the sun visor. “Pull that down.”

Marty did. There was a photo pinned to the visor with a rubber band. He slid it out and looked at it.

It was a picture of Molly, a radiant smile on her face, a smaller version of herself in her lap, the two of them on a picnic blanket on a lush lawn somewhere. The kid was maybe five, old enough to know how to pose adorably for a camera.

“My whole life has been a series of accidents,” Molly said, “Clara is the only one that made me happy.”

Clara even made Molly smile now, entwined in metal, holding hands with a stranger. The thought of a child made Molly smile as easily as it made Beth break into tears.

“Do you have children?” she asked.

“No,” he replied. “We tried for a while, but it didn’t take.”

For months, Marty snuck away from the network for “power lunches” at a Beverly Hills fertility clinic, masturbating into a cup in their tastefully appointed hospitality rooms. At first, it wasn’t so bad. There were worse ways to spend a lunch hour than jerking off with an X-rated DVD.

But one day he stepped from his hospitality room with his sample cup and bumped into Freddie Koslow, a studio development guy, coming out of the hospitality room next door. The two infertile executives stood there, holding their cups of sperm, casually discussing projects in development as if they’d just bumped into each other at the Bistro Garden.

That was the last time Marty visited the clinic. But he didn’t tell any of this to Molly. It was bad enough half the television industry knew about his shiftless sperm.

“We weren’t trying for anything except some fun,” Molly said. “We did it just once, and that was all it took. Roy disappeared right away, and I couldn’t stay in Thalia, not like that. So I left before she was born. I was heading for San Francisco, but the car broke down as I was passing through LA. So I stayed. See? Another accident.”

Molly’s face suddenly crunched into an agonized wince, her eyes closed tight, squeezing out tears of pain. She reached out and grabbed his wrist, squeezing it hard, digging her fingers into his skin until he had to stifle a cry of his own.

Her grip eased, and when she opened her eyes again, he saw just how scared she was. No amount of talking was going to distract her now.

“She’s at Dandelion Preschool in Tarzana,” Molly said in a rush, “you’ll call the school from the hospital, let them know what happened?”

“Sure,” he said.

And then Marty heard it, the unmistakable rumble, like a stomach growling below his feet. Molly’s eyes went wide.

“What is it?” she cried out in that one, hanging instant before the inevitable.

“Aftershock!” he yelled.

“Aftershock?”

Marty realized his mistake too late, and just as he saw the betrayal and confusion registering on her face, the shaking started, the giant, unseen waves rolling under the street.

He gripped Molly’s hand tight, tucked his head down, and closed his eyes to ride it out. The rumbling grew louder, the subterranean thunder mixing with the sounds of concrete cracking, glass breaking, metal grinding. The two wrecked vehicles rocked back and forth, creaking like rusty hinges. The car slid away, jerking her hand from his grasp.

Marty reached out for her again, but was driven back into a fetal curl by falling masonry that shattered on impact, exploding into dusty shrapnel that pierced his skin in tiny pin-pricks.

And then it was over. The rumbling receding like a fleeing stampede.

Marty unfurled slowly, stinging all over, and surveyed the damaged. The Volvo had slid a few feet, and so had the truck, gasoline gushing out of its ruptured tank and surging towards the live wire dancing on the street.

He ran to the car and leaned into it. Molly stared up at him with desperate eyes, one hand reaching out to him, blood gurgling out of her mouth, drowning the words she tried to speak.

She was trapped and so was Marty, confined by a few dwindling seconds, forced to choose between her plight and his own survival.

Marty looked from her to the wire. The fingers of gasoline were only a few inches from contact with the wire. He had seconds.

Molly grabbed him, pulling him down.

He whirled around, and for one horrified moment, thought he’d have to fight Molly off to escape. But she immediately let go, opening her hand to show him the picture she clutched in her palm, offering it to him, her eyes pleading.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and ran.

He heard her yell one, last, desperate time, something that sounded like “Angel,” and then the truck erupted behind him, the force of it lifting him off his feet and hurling him onto Alameda Street, the fireball rolling over his head.

Marty hit the pavement face-first, too hard and too fast to do anything to break his fall, knocking the air out of him, crushing his glasses and smashing one of the tiny water bottles in his jacket pocket. As he lay gasping for breath, a piece of paper fluttered in front of his face, tiny flames beginning to curl the edges. It was the picture of Molly’s kid. He slapped the flames out with his hand.

The edges of the picture were charred, but the smiling faces were intact. The Molly in the photo and the woman he’d left behind, the woman with the pleading eyes and bloody smile, were two different people. Marty would never be able to reconcile the two images, one of which he knew he would never shake.

Angel.

Was she crying out to her daughter, her little angel, with that last breath? Or was she calling out to Marty, mistaking him in her desperation for something he definitely was not? Or was she screaming in horrified recognition at the dark spirit that came to take her away?

He’d never know, but he’d probably never stop wondering, either.

Marty took the photo and staggered to his feet. Every part of his body seemed to ache. His hair was singed, his face was scratched, one pant-leg was torn at the knee, and his crotch was soaked with Evian, but he’d made it.

He turned slowly towards the narrow street, staring at the sight in disbelief. Both vehicles were engulfed in flames, the fire spreading to the ruins of the nearby buildings.

If he’d hesitated another second, he would have been burned alive. That’s how close he cut it.

Up until today, he managed to live his life without risking it even once. And now, twice in one morning, he’d barely avoided death.

That kind of luck doesn’t last, not for real people. He was almost killed, all because he stopped, all because he let himself be pulled into someone else’s problem. Molly’s certain death nearly became his.

He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

Marty turned his back to the fire, crammed the picture deep into his wet pocket, adjusted the straps of the gym bag over his shoulders, and started walking.