The ground itself was glowing. . . . A vast, smoldering depression extended back into invisibility, looking like a lake of fire behind a darker dam of boulders and earth mixed with embers. He was looking at a crater. The “dam” was part of the wall. As he studied it more, he made out another glow, dimmer and more distant, with no details discernible, that had been invisible without the glasses. They could be just two of thousands scattered for hundreds of miles. Too stupefied to speak, he passed the glasses to Colby. They resumed moving to cross the head of a valley descending away to their left, and followed the far side around a shoulder of mountain, all the time angling down the slope. After about another mile they came to a track heading in roughly their direction, which made the going easier. Following the track, they came across an abandoned pickup with dents in the roof and a shattered windshield. Legermount tried jumping a wire from the battery to the starter in the hope of getting them a ride, but the pickup was out of gas.
Lower down, they heard screams—not human but shrill and whinnying, which sounded even more blood-chilling. They found horses, dozens of them, in a corral behind an obliterated farm. Most of those not already dead were writhing with smashed legs, burns, broken backs. The soldiers stopped long enough to despatch them with bullets. A handful remained, milling around each other aimlessly, their eyes bulging in terror. Legermount looked at Mitch questioningly. Mitch scowled, then shook his head. “Hell, let ’em have what chance they’ve got.” He waved toward the gate. One of the troopers opened it to turn the surviving animals loose.
Below the farm was a graveyard of cattle piled in heaps around a pond of red sludge. Nearby was what was left of a car that looked as if it had been hurled some distance, its wheels in the air. There were bodies inside, and two more thrown clear. What little light there had been had faded, and Mitch and Dan, leading, had to use flashlamps to find the trail. From somewhere ahead came the sound of an aircraft climbing. At least, it seemed Dan’s sense of direction had been good.
The valley seemed to be opening onto flatter terrain. The ground still rose to their right, but on the other side fell away more gently and broadened. The track merged with another and became gravel now instead of just dirt, though sometimes disappearing beneath mounds of rubble and sand that looked as if they had been thrown by a giant shovel. Light began appearing below on the left, strung at intervals along a still-invisible road. Dan confirmed that it had to be Interstate 10. There didn’t seem to be a lot of movement on it.
Some distance ahead, the lights became more numerous, fading into the darkness along a line veering left as if the road curved suddenly in that direction. But interstates didn’t change direction that abruptly. An area beyond was still glowing. They could feel the heat on their faces, even at that distance. It seemed that something sizable had impacted square across the highway. Mitch and Dan conferred briefly. The choice was either to head directly down to the road now and follow it to what appeared to be workings in progress to create a traffic road around the far side of the crater; or alternatively, to stay above the road and head right of the crater, which while more direct could mean having to negotiate the broken rim in the darkness and possibly being driven farther uphill again. Deciding not to risk any further unknowns they went with the first, taking the next track they came to pointing directly down toward the lights. From somewhere in the direction of the highway, the muffled whop-whop-whop of a helicopter rotor came distantly through the night.
In the darkness and with all the dust in the air, the road turned out to be closer than they had thought. They passed several houses, some stores, and a gas station, all ruined and partly buried in rocky debris. There were more wrecked vehicles, some thrown topsy turvy, others pinning bodies of people who had apparently tried to shelter under them. And then lights and activity, accompanied by the sounds of voices and motors, were immediately ahead. Approaching, they found there were more vehicles than they had realized; the lights were from just a few with engines running that were being used to illuminate rescue operations in progress among more houses and commercial premises built along a service road paralleling the interstate, now discernible beyond. Workers were shining lamps among collapsed timbers and shoveling away rubble. One building, lit by the headlamps of a couple of trucks in front, had been adapted as an aid station, with casualties being helped and carried in out of the surrounding darkness. A group of hooded and hatted figures approached, presumably having seen the flashlamps coming down the road off the hill. The one leading had a bandage showing below his hat and was wearing a sheriff’s deputy’s badge with a storm coat.