"It's okay," I called back down. I faced Martin and I must admit part of me wondered whether I should trust him and the other three. I still held the gun, barrel pointed toward the ceiling, and I had six shots left. The Kimber was now nuzzled in the holster at the small of my back and the Ruger was lying on top of the refrigerator, toward my left. I only had to take three steps to reach it. As far as I could tell, Martin and the other three didn't have weapons.

I met Martin's gaze with grim determination. "Any of you have weapons?"

The black woman looked annoyed by the question. "What the f.u.c.k kind of question is that?"

The teenage girl shook her head and the bearded guy, who'd looked relieved to reach not only safety but to find somebody who wasn't a primitive, said, "No, man, we don't have any weapons. Listen, we're cool, man, we're just trying to stay away from-"

Martin overrode him. "We're just trying to get out of the city away from these things." Martin's eyes held mine and I saw a level of determination.

"Get out of the city?"

From downstairs: " David? "

"It's okay," I called out. "Come on up."

And that was how Tracy and I met the group we would leave the Los Angeles basin with.

Four.

Martin Hernandez suggested that we all head downstairs and remain quiet. I immediately picked up on his game plan and agreed. I made sure the sliding gla.s.s door was locked and that the lights upstairs were off, then I retrieved the Ruger and led the way downstairs. Tracy had turned on the nightlights we kept plugged in the downstairs hallway and bedroom sockets, and now in their glow we hastily introduced each other. Lori West was the thirty-something African-American woman. The pudgy bearded guy was James Goodman, and the girl was Heather Young.

Tracy accepted the foursome without hesitation. I was still wary, but Martin quickly put me at ease. He was direct and to the point. "How many other weapons do you have in the house?"

I told him, leaving out the various butcher knives in the kitchen. He nodded, his eyes wandering around the hallway. "Those things chased us all the way from Altadena Drive. We didn't..." For the first time Martin sounded like he was succ.u.mbing to the fatigue of the nearly two-mile escape through suburban Pasadena into the foothills of the San Gabriels.

"Those things are all over the place," Heather said. Her left nostril was pierced and she had multiple piercings in both ears.

"We made good distance in the car I was able to get, but the intersection of Allen and Franklin was completely blocked," Martin said. "Probably from when...whatever happened, happened and turned people into those things down there."

Very faintly we could hear the primitives raise their cry. I heard Emily whimper.

"I killed one of them outside," I said, giving them an abbreviated version of my encounter from this morning. Martin nodded. For the first time I noticed how sweaty and dirty he was. h.e.l.l, all of them were. It had been in the upper nineties that day, and running around outside being chased by those things hadn't helped them.

We eventually sat down in the hallway in a rough horseshoe shape, silent, listening for any sounds outside. The plaintive cries of the primitives carried throughout the valley and we listened to them. I felt my skin gooseflesh at their sound. It was hard to tell if others were trudging up the hill toward our house. Part of me was expecting it, and I was tense for the next half hour as we sat in the hallway and listened. I glanced quickly at Tracy and her gaze met mine. A silent understanding pa.s.sed between us as she held Emily cradled in her lap. If push came to shove, it was the three of us against the four people we'd saved from certain death outside. It was survival instinct-our family against everybody else. On an intellectual level I knew it wouldn't come down to that today. Maybe later, but not now with these four. I had a good feeling about them, and the trauma of what happened was still too fresh in everybody's mind. Right now it was normal humans against the primitives and I think the seven of us understood that.

Still, I was tense as I listened for the telltale signs of footsteps clamoring on our deck, of hands slapping uselessly at the windows or the front door. None of that happened. In time the howling outside ceased. For a while we remained seated on the floor in the hallway. James finally broke the silence. "I think we're okay," he whispered.

We all nodded in agreement. Emily asked, "Mommy, what's happening?" Tracy whispered to Emily, what it was I don't know, and I looked at the other four one at a time.

When my gaze rested on Martin he nodded. "It's going to be dark soon," I said, my voice low. "We should keep the lights off."

"Is anybody hungry?" Tracy asked, ever the consummate hostess even when things were turning to s.h.i.t.

"Yeah," Heather said. "I am."

"We have food," I said. I stood up slowly, my kneecaps popping. I picked up the Ruger, cradling it in my hands. I'd reholstered the Sig and I wanted to maintain control of my armaments for now. "Come on."

The others followed me slowly upstairs. Because it was still light outside we had good illumination in the upper level even with the drapes closed. I led the way to the kitchen and approached the sliding gla.s.s door tentatively. Martin joined me. We stood at the door, listening at first. Our eyes met. "I don't hear anything," I said, my voice low.

He nodded. I took a peek between the curtains, saw a glimpse of my deck and the shrubbery beyond it. Everything looked normal. Likewise, we heard no strange sounds.

Tracy still held Emily in her arms, who was clutching her mother in fear. "Let me check the front of the house," I said, as I moved past them to the entryway.

Once I was a.s.sured there were no primitives in the vicinity of the house, we gathered in the kitchen/dining area. Tracy was trying to get Emily to sit down in her booster seat at the table. Emily was having none of it. She clutched Tracy's neck as she sat her down. "Come on honey, it's okay."

Lori knelt beside Emily. "Hey sweetie, it's okay. My name's Lori!"

"Can you say hi to Lori, honey?" Tracy asked Emily as she pried the little girl's fingers from around her neck.

As Lori and Tracy worked at breaking the ice with Emily, I retreated to the main area of the kitchen with Martin, James, and Heather. I opened the refrigerator. "There's leftover hamburger patties and hotdogs from a barbecue we had two days ago," I said, pointing everything out. "Buns and rolls are over there. There's frozen stuff in the freezer, and there's eggs and sausage. Help yourself."

"Thanks," James said. He and Heather dug in. A moment later the microwave was reheating hamburger patties and hotdogs.

I asked Lori if she wanted anything. "Whatever that is you're heating up sounds good to me. I'm starving."

I retrieved bottled water for them and by the time the meat was reheated, the buns and condiments were out. I retrieved some fresh fruit-apples, bananas, and pears-along with fresh lettuce. I retreated back to the table with my family while our four guests prepared their food. I glanced at Tracy, who was sitting next to Emily. Our daughter seemed to have come out of her sh.e.l.l a little. I brushed Emily's hair back from her face. "We're okay, pumpkin. These people are friendly."

Emily nodded, and I think the fact that Tracy and I had let down our guard around these people, that we weren't displaying any overt signs of fear, had a positive effect on her. Lori West's friendly overtures also helped tip the scale.

One by one our guests took their meals to the table. Only James remained standing at the kitchen counter, munching on a hamburger greedily. As they ate, Tracy and I got their story out of them in bits and pieces.

They'd thrown themselves together one person at a time. Martin Hernandez had spent most of the day holed up in the condominium he'd shared with his life partner, who'd left for work at his usual time that morning. Martin was an executive at a financial firm in downtown Los Angeles and had moved to the area from Phoenix, Arizona three years ago after meeting his partner, Jerry Horn, at a conference. "I had a late morning meeting," he said. "I'd just finished my morning workout and was brewing coffee when I turned on the news and saw everything go down. I tried calling Jerry on his cell and it rang straight into voice mail. He was probably still on his morning commute and I panicked. I couldn't get through to anybody at his firm, and I spent the next four hours trying to get a hold of him, praying that he was all right and trying to...keep my head down because of what I was hearing going on at my complex." I could only imagine. I wondered if Martin was the only person in his complex who was unaffected. I wondered if his partner, Jerry, had turned even while he was driving himself to work.

Everybody else's story was similar. Lori West was just pulling her car up to the building she worked at-on Lake Avenue in Pasadena-when a naked man ran in front of her. She was so surprised she crashed her vehicle into the car in front of her. "The person in that car seemed to turn in that instant," Lori related. "It was a woman, and she got out of the car and yelled at the naked guy. She...I don't know how to say this, so f.u.c.k it...she got down on her hands and knees right there in the street and a.s.sumed the position. She was like a b.i.t.c.h in heat and he jumped right on her, somehow tore her skirt off and they started going at it right there."

Lori was able to pull away and drove around the block when a trio of men in torn business suits swarmed around her car. "They were snarling," she said, pausing in her meal to reflect on how her version of h.e.l.l had gone. "I just reacted instinctively, put my foot on the gas and ran them down !"

By then the local news was reporting on what was happening and Lori could only pull over and listen in stunned disbelief. "I was near the back entrance to my office building and watched as people streamed out. I recognized some of my co-workers. They were...some of them were b.l.o.o.d.y and dirty and they looked...they looked mad ...like wild animals or something." Lori had stayed hunkered down in the front seat of her car while chaos erupted all around. She hadn't felt safe in her car, and at some point decided to head into the building. "I probably shouldn't have," she said. "But n.o.body had come out in over an hour so I took my chances. I made my way to my office and everything was just a mess. It looked like a hurricane had swept through. The place was deserted and my secretary, Barbara, was lying on the floor near her workstation with her throat ripped out. I closed the door to my office and tried to get an internet connection to see what was happening but I wasn't successful."

Once things calmed down somewhat outside she ventured out with a metal pipe she'd salvaged from inside the building. That's when she saw Martin's SUV weaving around stalled vehicles on Lake Street. "You don't know how big a relief it was to see Martin. A living, breathing, sane human being!"

James Goodman's story was similar to Martin's. He'd spent the morning at his house north of Walnut Street in Pasadena. His wife had just taken their son to school on her morning commute to the office. "I'm a history professor at Pasadena City College," he said. "And I didn't have anything scheduled until that afternoon. I spent most of the day riveted to the news and trying to get in touch with Carol, but-"

James would eventually venture outside in his Audi not to escape the city, but to find his son, Jacob. That's when he ran into Heather Young, almost literally.

"Those f.u.c.king things were chasing me," Heather said. She'd wolfed down a hamburger, two hotdogs, and was working on a makeshift salad. "I was watching everything on TV like you guys were when some of them came into my yard. My folks and my brother had gone to work. I grabbed one of my dad's guns and got one of them, but ran out of ammo. Two others started chasing me and that's when I ran into James."

"I stopped the car instantly," James continued. "I could tell she was normal and she just got into the backseat as I was pulling away."

"Those things chased you?" I asked.

James and Heather nodded. "f.u.c.k yeah," Heather said.

James was driving his Audi so fast that when he tore out onto Lake Street he nearly collided with Martin and Lori, who'd just begun the journey toward the mountains. "We kind of threw in together at that point," Martin picked up the narrative. He leaned back in his chair, his meal polished off. "We noticed those things would come out when they heard us drive by, but having a vehicle helped put the distance between us."

It wasn't until they reached the blocked intersection that they were forced to abandon their vehicle and strike out on foot. "We found a car," Martin continued. "And Heather hotwired it. That took us to almost four blocks from here."

"What happened then?" Tracy asked.

By then the four of them agreed they had to get out of the city. James told them that there was a road that went over the San Gabriels into the valley on the other side. Once there they could hit one of the major highways that would take them out of the major metropolitan areas. "We've got to get out of here," Martin concluded. "That's the bottom line. There's not only going to be more of these things in major cities, but anybody like us that's unaffected...well... as society continues to fall-"

"s.h.i.t, society already G.o.dd.a.m.ned fell," Lori huffed.

"It's going to get more crazy," I said, finishing Martin's train of thought. "There's no rules, no society, nothing to keep order."

Martin nodded. "Exactly!"

I didn't say it but I thought: not to mention the stink of decay that's eventually going to permeate the city like the G.o.dd.a.m.n smog. By my estimation, the primitives outnumbered the living and the dead by a great margin. Eventually as both normal people and primitives succ.u.mbed to violence, natural disease, or accidents, there was going to be a big problem when it came to the dead.

The foursome had made it halfway up the development we lived in when they were once again blocked due to a vehicle pile up. "We got out of the car and started hiking up the street," Martin said. "I figured we could snag another car since Heather proved to be so reliable in hotwiring them."

Heather offered a bemused grin and I grinned back at her.

"But then we heard that d.a.m.n sound they make," Lori said. "And two of them were emerging from a house about fifty yards back. They came after us and we just started running."

More of them joined in the chase and the four dove into the shrubbery-infested hill, trying to lose them. That's when our paths crossed.

"Are there any stations on the air?" James asked as Lori and Tracy cleared the table. Emily stayed at her mother's side wherever she went.

"No," I said. "Last one went off not too long ago."

"So we have no idea what's going on elsewhere in the city," Lori said.

"Or even the world," James said.

"So now what do we do?" Tracy asked.

I gestured toward the windows and the sliding gla.s.s door, which were covered with drapes. The upstairs area was growing dark from the falling sun outside. As if on cue, those howlings from the primitives started again.

"What are those things?" Lori whispered. For the first time she looked afraid.

I heard Emily whimper, saw her bury her face in the hollow of Tracy's neck. We stood silently as more howls rose from outside. Most of them sounded far away enough but others sounded close, perhaps coming from a few blocks away.

"I wish I knew," I said.

That's when we heard the rustling sounds, first coming from far away, and then becoming clearer. I could feel the air grow tense as the sounds grew louder.

And there was something else I felt, too. Something I didn't know how to describe at the time.

"Get back downstairs," I said, urging Tracy toward the stairway. Martin darted toward the kitchen and grabbed the Ruger from where I'd left it on top of the refrigerator. The sounds grew louder and I recognized them now for what they were.

Footsteps. Running toward us.

We made it downstairs and huddled on the floor in the hallway once again, listening as the primitives roamed outside, hooting and howling in those strange voices.

We listened in silence as footfalls from perhaps a dozen primitives roamed around the house. It sounded like they were moving past our house, headed elsewhere. Why our house happened to be in their path was just our dumb luck, I guess.

I could hear the primitives make their way around both sides of the house. Some of them stepped onto the deck and headed around the side path toward the front of the house and continued on. Others stopped near the front, probably pausing to take interest in the dead primitive I'd killed outside. I could hear startled grunts and hoots and a very brief flurry erupted-it sounded like a fight by our front door-and eventually subsided. Emily's face was pressed into her mother's breast, both hands clamped over her ears, her eyes squeezed shut. I wanted to do nothing else but envelop Tracy and Emily in a protective shield away from this nightmare, but I knew I couldn't. For the first time in my life I felt like a total failure for being unable to provide security and safety for my family.

Eventually the sounds faded. At one point James asked if he could use the bathroom. I pointed out the lone bathroom on the bottom floor and James made his way over to it, shutting the door behind him. He didn't flush the toilet when he was through. Okay by me. I think all of us were afraid on some subconscious level of making any noise.

At some point the foot-traffic around the house stopped.

We remained seated on the floor in the hallway for a while, talking quietly among ourselves. I think that was the first time we all began to relax since the nightmare began. Emily fell asleep in Tracy's lap as we talked, and Tracy retreated to Emily's room to put her to bed. When she returned she plopped herself back down on the floor next to me and took my hand.

"I've got to be honest with you, David," Martin said to me. He was leaning back against the wall, his legs stretched out in front of him. "I, for one, am so grateful and glad we met you. I don't know what we would have done without you."

Lori, James, and Heather murmured their thanks as well. James sighed and kept his face averted from the rest of us. He'd been silent and brooding ever since the foot traffic ceased. I guessed he was quietly mourning the deaths of his wife and son.

I checked my watch. It was only 8:35-still relatively early, but I felt beat. I nodded at Martin. "How are you doing?" I asked.

"Aside from the fact that the world has just ended and I probably won't see Jerry ever again, I'm doing okay."

I turned to Tracy. "How about you, honey?"

"I don't know." She leaned against me. I could tell she was still in mild shock from the events of this morning-losing Eric being the chief among them. "I don't think I can sleep, if that's what you mean. And I still can't get over losing Eric."

I quickly explained to the others what happened to us this morning regarding Eric. Lori was immediately consoling. "Oh my G.o.d, I'm so sorry," she told us. She was sitting on Tracy's right and gave her a hug.

"We should take shifts through the night," I said to Martin. "You, me, Lori, and Tracy. Each of us takes a two hour shift while the rest of us gets some sleep."

"I'm up for that," Martin said.

"What about me?" Heather asked.

"You were a big help today with hotwiring cars," I said. "And we can rotate as the days pa.s.s. I don't think James is going to be up to taking a shift tonight, and I wasn't sure about you."

All eyes went to James.

He was crying.

James looked at us. In the darkened hallway I could see tears streaming down his bearded face. "I'm sorry..." he said. "It's just..."

Lori scooted over to him. She put an arm around James's shoulders. "I know, baby. You go on and cry now. Go on."

James settled against Lori and cried. His sobs weren't loud. They weren't dramatic and braying, but they were heart wrenching. We could only sit there in silence, feeling our own respective losses and grief well to the surface. Martin remained stoic. He sighed and drew his knees up, bowing his head against his knees. Lori closed her eyes while she held James and I think she, too, was crying over whatever loved ones she had lost. All of us had loved ones we either knew were lost forever to the sudden spate of violence, or had no way of knowing their fates-were they primitives or were they somewhere else cowering in fear like us? Tracy leaned closer to me and I held her, feeling a sting at the back of my throat over our own joint loss. At least we knew Eric was dead. There were still our parents and siblings to think about. I had a sister in Orange County who lived with her husband and two young children. I had no way of knowing if they were alive or dead or had turned primitive. Most of Tracy's family harkened from the Midwest. Only Heather seemed to not let her emotions get the best of her. She sat on the floor, somewhat away from the rest of us, looking up at the ceiling. I couldn't tell if she was contemplating anything or if she was p.i.s.sed off.

At one point I got up to check on Emily. Tracy followed me to Emily's room. We stood over our daughter's bed and watched her sleep. Emily had plopped one of her pacifiers in her mouth and every once in awhile she would suck on it, deep in sleep.

"I don't want anything to happen to her," Tracy whispered.