For a moment he’d considered pursuing her into the maze of trashed metal and glass to carry out his threat to open up her scrawny neck. But discretion had prevailed, and he’d simply continued on into the city, coming down off the bridge and walking cautiously toward the Embarcadero.
Among the shambles of ruined stores and smart eateries, Jeff had holed up until the dawn was well established. Then he’d crept warily out into the ruins of the city that he’d loved, the city that had been his home.
Somehow nothing stated the sad demise of the city as much as the bridge. The graceful arch across the chill gray waters, its girders painted a dark reddish brown. The color of the heart’s blood of all the country singers who had come west and failed to make it. That was what his neighbor on Jackson Street, Mad Dave Caswell, had told Jeff the day he’d arrived in town.
Now, silhouetted against the pink sky, he’d seen that the bay bridge had a great gap at its center. Huge hawsers trailed into the water, and the middle span dangled in thin air. Much of it was stained a bitter ebony color, streaked with scorch marks.
Jeff’s only conclusion was that there had been a massive traffic accident as tens of thousands tried to flee San .Francisco toward the north, and there had been a fireball so intense it had actually destroyed the main structure of the bridge.
It was a sad and bitter sight.
Jeff Thomas had wandered the streets for a day and half, not wanting to go back to his apartment, guessing what he’d find.
It was a nightmare scenario from some futurist fantasy, but after a couple of hours, it all began to blur in his mind.
The overwhelming impression was one of fire. Building after building, block after block, reduced to tumbled heaps of charcoal and twisted metal.
Surprisingly there weren’t as many bodies as the journalist had seen in much smaller towns. His only guess was that a lot of the inhabitants had fled into the countryside before death overtook them. Or had simply chosen to crawl beneath their blankets and fade away in their own homes.
But there had obviously been plenty of corpses around.
Otherwise, what were all the rats eating?
Apart from the huge gray-brown vermin that scurried everywhere, unfearing and oblivious to his passing, Jeff had seen comparatively few human scavengers. And those that he saw seemed eager to keep clear of him.
At the back of Walton Park, Jeff had found several blocks of houses that hadn’t been damaged by fire. All of them had their doors broken and most of the windows shattered.
Hunger was setting its teeth into his stomach as he’d spent an entire afternoon laboriously picking his way through building after building. Most had been sucked clean by the scavengers.
But he had already learned to look in unlikely places. Kitchens were a waste of time, but cellars and utility rooms had sometimes been overlooked by the starving looters.
Just before evening on that day his patience had been rewarded.
It was a small bedroom, with posters of bronzed, muscular women in tight shorts on the walls. Maybe a teenage boy. The wardrobe had been stripped, and some of the drawers thrown onto the floor. But there was a long drawer beneath the narrow bed, almost hidden by a duvet.
“Bonanza!” Jeff had taken out a treasure trove. Trail food, packets of dried nuts and dates and raisins. Glucose and fructose tablets. Even some hi-cal drinks in cans and waxed packs. Mint cake in boxes.
He’s stuffed it all into his pack, figuring he had enough to keep him going for at least a couple of weeks. Maybe longer, if he was careful with them.
Jeff had wondered about the lucky find. The interior of the apartment suggested that it had belonged to a middle-aged couple with a son away, probably at college. A son who hadn’t returned home when the disaster struck, and whose hidden hiking supplies had then been overlooked.
THE BLOOD from his nose was falling in great lumps, giving Jeff the illusion that his brain was dripping out through his nostrils.