They Thirst (81 page)

"Uh-huh. What barracks are you assigned to, please?" "That one, way over there." She pointed to a building about sixty yards beyond them and across the road.

"You'd best get in for the night, miss. Climb in and we'll take you over."

"No, really I . . ." She paused, frowning, and tried her best to summon up some tears. All she got was a glazed expression, but she figured it was probably good enough. "I . . . need to be alone. Please. I need to think."

"Ten o'clock curfew, Miss," the SP said. He checked his wristwatch. "It's ten-oh-eight right now."

"I . . . lost my husband in the earthquake," Gayle said softly. "I just needed to get out and walk. The walls were closing in on me."

The first SP nodded, glanced over at the other one, and then back to Gayle. His face had softened a fraction, but his eyes were still hard. "I'm sorry to hear about your husband, ma'am, but I'm afraid you'll have to obey the curfew like everyone else. Of course, I don't suppose it would hurt if you finished your walk, do you, Roy?" "Nope," the other SP said and gunned the engine. "Okay, then. But afterward, straight to your barracks, Ma'am. Good night." He gave her a quick salute and then the jeep had rolled on past her, its red taillights flaring briefly before it turned to the left and disappeared.

Shit!
Gayle thought.
Have to watch out for those cops!
She walked quickly around the barracks, the noise of her footsteps disquietingly loud on the pavement. She kept looking back over her shoulder, but the SPs didn't return.
Why would they?
she asked herself.
They bought my story.

She found the jeep parked on the other side of a large green dumpster. The keys were in the ignition, and under the passenger seat there was a canteen and a few items rolled up in cellophane. She tore the packet open and found a small penlight, a compass, and a map of the base that showed the desert terrain and lava rock that lay to the east. It looked like hard country, but she had no choice. Chaplain Lott had helped her as much as he could—now getting there was her responsibility.

Okay,
she told herself.
Time to go.
She flicked on the light and studied the map for a minute, then found an easterly heading on the compass and started the engine. The noise seemed loud enough to wake up every marine within ten miles. She saw a light come on in a building just a few yards away and, with fear galloping through her, she pushed down on the accelerator. She was determined to head as near due east as she could, but several times she saw the lights of an oncoming truck or jeep ahead, and she either turned off onto another road or stopped behind a building for a few minutes to wait and muster her courage. The further east she went, the more scattered and dark the buildings became. Finally she could look back over her shoulder at most of the base. Ahead of her, like black hulks in the starlight, loomed a ridge of mountains directly in her path. The pavement ended at a group of sheds surrounded by a high barbed-wire fence. Gayle turned off the road and started across the desert, the jeep's tires jubbling over rocks and sagebrush.

A monstrous apparition suddenly came sweeping over the mountains, red and green and white lights flashing. It was another Hercules transport plane, coming in low toward the airstrip. She could see the green cockpit glow, and the noise of the plane's passage deafened her. Then it had passed over, a wave of scorched air churning behind it, the roar slowly receding Gayle recalled what Lott had said about the observation towers and immediately cut her headlights. The night enveloped her, but soon she could see fairly well just by the starlight. The desert stretched out on all sides, the mountains coming up to meet her. Several times she had to risk flicking on the penlight to check the compass.

An observation tower came up on her right frighteningly close, like an oil derrick topped by a black square of glass. Gayle angled away from it, expecting a piercing shaft of light, but none came. Cactus-strewn foothills began to rise out of the earth, carrying her into the mountains. She found what seemed to be no more than a rutted, boulder-strewn goat track, hardly wide enough for the jeep, but she started up along it. She became aware of a faint
chuck-chuck-chuck
that seemed to be steadily drawing closer. She stopped the jeep's engine. A helicopter passed overhead, flying slowly, and vanished toward the west.

Soon she passed near a second observation tower perched high on the mountain. The other side of the mountain was far rougher terrain—deep gullies, cracked earth, a scattering of high, soft dunes. She wondered where she'd go when—and if—she made it off the base. Las Vegas? Flagstaff? Phoenix? She had no money nor ID, nothing left in the world but the clothes she wore. She couldn't even prove she was a survivor of the quake, much less a reporter. If she went ambling into some small newspaper office talking about vampires, they'd either kick her ass out or call the men in white coats. But she had to try. Surely there were a lot of stragglers who'd made it out of L.A. on their own, who had gotten to telephones and started calling friends and relatives with chilling stories to tell. There was going to be a lot of scoffing—mass hysteria, had Lott said?—but if the stories were repeated often enough, by hundreds of people, every editor in the nation would have to start paying attention. It would first be a matter of convincing somebody to loan her a typewriter and some desk space in a newspaper office, and if that place didn't take the story, she'd go on to the next, and the next, and the next one after that.
Hell,
she thought, she could wash dishes and live in a fleabag motel if she had to, but she was determined to be at the forefront when the story broke. Eventually somebody would buy it, and she could work her way up from there. In a year she thought she'd be able to write her own ticket, possibly with the
New York Times
or
Rolling Stone.
In any case, a publication based as far away from California as she could get.

A helicopter suddenly came out of the night from the south, flying less than fifty feet from the ground. It passed over her with a thunderous racket, frightening Gayle so much she hit the brakes. The helicopter immediately started veering back, and Gayle realized they must've seen the brake lights flash. She pressed her foot to the floorboard, knowing there was no place to hide out here. The land was miserably bare, a series of sand dunes and red rock ridges ahead of her. The helicopter swept back over her again. Grit blinded her for a few seconds, and when she cleared her eyes, she saw the copter coming back for a third pass. A searchlight blazed down from the copter's underbelly and began a long, slow sweep.

Gayle zigzagged desperately. Then the searchlight had crept up behind her, glancing off the jeep. It came back and held, blinding her with its intensity. Over the combined roar of the jeep's engine and the copter's blades, she heard a voice amplified through a loudspeaker command, "Pull over! You're in violation of martial law! Halt immediately."

Gayle spun the wheel to the side and veered out of the light. If they stopped her, she knew she wouldn't have another chance to get off the base. Hot and dazzling, the light found her again. Above her the voice took on new menace. ". . . in violation of martial law. If you don't stop right now, you will
be
stopped."

Christ!
she thought.
What are they going to do, shoot me? Maybe a warning shot, or perhaps they'd try to hit the tires, but surely they wouldn't shoot a civilian!
She was going to have to call their bluff. The wind whipped into her face, a maelstrom of dust and sand churning around her from the copter's rotors. She was going up over a cactus-stubbled ridge, the tires shuddering over purple rock. She heard a high thrumming sound and winced. About five yards to the left she'd seen sparks and dust fly in an orderly line—bullets. She was filled with rage, and when the next row of bullets fired from a machine gun with pinpoint accuracy struck the ground just ahead of her, she realized they were trying to make her turn. She kept going straight ahead.

At the crest of the ridge, she felt the jeep shudder madly. The wheel shook free from her hands, and she knew the bastards had hit a tire. She fought for control as the jeep hurtled over the ridge and down. It fishtailed to the right, and through the churn of sand she saw what the helicopter had been trying to turn her away from—a high barbed-wire fence at the bottom of the ridge and beyond it a flat plain stubbled with scrub and cactus. The limits of the base. She spun the wheel back, having an instant to fear that the fence might be electrified, then the jeep had crashed into it, flattening and roaring over it. The copter screamed past, trying to hover in her path. Unintimidated, Gayle drove straight ahead and underneath it, leaving the copter whirling like an angered insect. It found her again and stayed with her for another few minutes until she passed a large sign on a post driven deep into the sand. She glanced back at it and saw in the backwash of the copter's light the words U.S. GOVERNMENT PROPERTY—NO TRESPASSING BEYOND THIS POINT. The copter came down low on her, the searchlight striking her savagely in the eyes. Then it veered away slowly, in defeat. The light went out.

Gayle didn't reduce her speed. Less than a mile later the left rear tire spun off the wheel, ripped to shreds, and the bare wheel dug a trench in the sand before the jeep came to a halt. She cut the engine and sat there for a few minutes until she could stop shaking. Then she began to study the map. According to it—and she hoped she'd read the compass right so far—there should be a road a couple of miles ahead that would take her to a white dot called Amboy. She took the map, flashlight, and canteen, checked her compass again and started walking.

By the time she'd reached the narrow black line of road, a chill wind had kicked up. Her legs ached fiercely, but she had no time to rest. She'd seen more helicopters flying around in the distance, and she expected a truck full of soldiers to come roaring across the desert after her at any moment. She walked north toward whatever Amboy was. Something slithered across the road in front of her, and she realized with a shudder that it must've been a sidewinder. She started watching her step and was surprised when headlights appeared on the flat horizon ahead. She started to wave her arms, then realized that it could very well be a jeep or a truck sent out after her from the base. She moved quickly off the road and crouched down in a gully about twenty feet away.

The headlights brightened, the vehicle took form. It was a white van, and as it passed, Gayle saw NBC NEWS printed on its side above the peacock logo. She stood up and shouted, "HEY!" but the van went on without even slowing, heading south.

Well,
Gayle thought,
it was headed in the wrong direction anyway.
After another mile her legs felt like taut springs, and the ground seemed to be crawling with rattlers. She wondered if there was a telephone in Amboy. She hadn't seen or talked with her parents in a long time, but she figured they were still up in Susanville, watching the grass grow. Her brother Jeff would be sixteen now and probably hanging out at the roller rink while her folks ran their little corner drugstore. Though she'd had her differences with her parents, she knew she should call them, if just to let them know she was still alive. If they asked her to come home or even volunteered to come pick her up, she would say no. Definitely.

Headlights came up very fast behind her, scrawling her shadow across the pavement. A dark blue, late model Buick passed her and went on perhaps fifty yards before it slowed and stopped. Then it reversed, and the driver was looking out through his window. "You need a ride?" he asked.

"Sure do," Gayle said without hesitation. He waved her over, and she got in, putting her map and canteen on the seat between them. The man drove on, and Gayle rubbed her aching calves. "Where are you headed?"

"East," the man said.

"Yeah, me too. How far east?"

"As far as I can."

"Good." Gayle took the pack of Winstons out of her pocket and offered him one. He shook his head, and she punched in the cigarette lighter. "Lucky for me you came along. I would've had a long walk."

"What are you doing out here?" the man asked her. "All alone, I mean?"

"I was . . . uh . . . my car broke down a few miles back. I got out of L.A. before the quake hit, and all I want to do is put a lot of miles between me and that place." The lighter popped out, and Gayle lit her cigarette. In its glow she studied the man. He was chunky with large shoulders and hands; he wore a red-checked shirt and dark trousers, one knee was torn, exposing a raw-looking wound. There were cuts on his knuckles too, and the one ear that Gayle could see looked absolutely mangled. He wore thick eyeglasses, held together in the middle with black electrical tape, and behind those glasses his small darting eyes looked watery and . . . spooky. He seemed to be trying to watch her without turning his head. There was a bruise on his chin, another cut on his cheek. His face, lit by the green glow of the dashboard, was large-jawed and thin-lipped. He carried an air of determination about him, an urgency, and when Gayle glanced at the speedometer, she saw that they were moving at just under eighty. The man finally turned his head and looked at her, then back to the road. Under his gaze Gayle felt. .. slimed.

She shifted uneasily in her seat and blew out a lungful of smoke. The headlights picked out a green road sign. Amboy—3. "Amboy," Gayle said. "That's where you can let me out."

He was silent. His huge hands tightened on the wheel, and Gayle thought that if he exerted an ounce more of pressure, it might break off in his grip. "Were you in L.A. too?" she asked him.