It had been a couple of days probably. She wasn’t that sure. Wasn’t that sure where she was or what she was supposed to do, either. Her thoughts were jumbled; disbelief, mostly, and alarm, and a strange philosophical detachment, as if she were looking down on herself; someone else’s problem.
Ironic, really. She had been doing well recently. Yoga four times a week, running, discipline in her diet, even over the holidays. Work had finally picked up, too. She could hardly believe it. Director of Marketing. Director! Handing out her card and modestly describing her responsibilities always gave her a sexy little thrill of pride. The world outside the Valley seemed to have decided that high-tech startups were dead, gone the way of the dinosaur, sucked back into the ooze as quickly as they had risen up. The reality was, it was great to be semi-single and making a banging salary in San Francisco. All her friends were beautiful; twentysomethings with great clothes and makeup, a cell always up, chatting about something really important or really vacuous. Weekends were spent at yuppie bars like the Matrix or Cosmos, looking tight, drinking Cosmopolitans and talking about clothes or guys, or going dancing downtown and feeling secretly virtuous for getting in a bonus workout.
She wondered if Steve would call her. Can’t blame this one on him.
Propping herself up, her head hurt and something was tangled in her hair. She had been lying in the sun, enjoying the warmth. Outside? Why was she outside? San Francisco is not that warm, you know. It’s not just the cold summers, either.
The scene didn’t fully register. Her apartment, on the north side of Presidio Heights, had mostly been spared. Presidio Heights was the northernmost perch in the City and afforded incredible views of the Golden Gate bridge and the regular weekend flotilla of sailboats. It made you feel wealthy to just be in the neighborhood. She preferred to refer to her spot as “Presidio Heights,” though technically it was really Cow Hollow, lower down the hill. Not quite the same ring.
It was stunning to see how much of the City was gone. When she had visited Nagasaki once, she had heard lectures of how Hiroshima had been picked as a first tier target because it was so flat that the scientists could study the blast effects easily. Nagasaki had been picked as a second tier target because the scientists wanted to see what effects a varied and hilly geography had on the blast radius. Is that what happened? Random sections surviving because they were on the backside of a hill? What kind of explosion could produce this effect anyway?
Touching her skull, she realized it was dried blood that she felt. She was achy all over. Her left arm hurt badly and so did her left knee. She was vaguely nauseated, too.
Looking around she could see that the Golden Gate bridge was gone, just gone, with only one of the two major supports still there, and all sorts of cables and pieces hanging. Huge sections of the City seemed to be flat fields, though it felt as if she couldn’t –or didn’t want – to look very closely. Her mind ran lightly over reasons why her apartment had more or less survived, why she was alive. She remembered a dentist appointment for later that day, her mind as jumbled as the horrific scene around her.
“You going?”
The sudden question startled her. She found herself looking at the weirdo homeless guy who always hung out near the west end of Union street, bothering the midday shoppers on a couple of different levels. Normally he was swearing uncontrollably and pushing some combination of shopping cart and stroller, stuffed with books, newspapers and cans. His mutt with a bandana collar was gone. His demeanor was different, settled.
She used to always make sideways comments about him to friends and would cross the street even inconveniently to avoid contact if at all possible. She looked quickly at his shoes and then his jacket, out of habit, registering non-name brands, and large oily stains. His hair and hands hadn’t been washed in a million years.
“No, I need to stay here,” she said, more annoyed at being drawn into a conversation than responding in any reasonable way.
“No! Look, lady, there’s no other way out of the city. You need to get to the naval yard in Hunter’s Point, down south. They’ve already picked up a lot of people. You should’ve gone with them. There’s been three or four waves of emergency teams that came through to get people over the last two days. How come you didn’t go? Hunter’s Point is where they’re gathering everyone, to evacuate them from the City. I saw it on the news. The terrorists have guaranteed another strike soon, probably today, I think. Probably in just a couple hours, in time for the evening news. It’s the one-two punch of righteousness, they say. Crazy, huh? There’s no way you can get across the bay. It’s filled with debris from the city and a lot of dead bodies. It’s already really contaminated. You’ll catch syphilis if you try to take a boat.” He stared at her in a strange way, twitching a little, and suddenly handed her a bottle of water. She looked at the mouth of the bottle wondering where it had been, taking in his strange disease warning.
“There’s nothing more important than water. You’ll need it. If you’re not too hurt, you better get going. You can’t just wait around. The rumors of a second attack are true, I know it. Don’t stop for anyone. You could get there by the end of today, maybe, if you get started now. Hurry!” He picked her up and pushed her to get moving.
Her mind was starting to function. She reached into her purse, pulling out her cell. Dead.
She was suddenly aware that there weren’t that many people moving around. There were cars everywhere, many wrecked, lots of smoke, lots of rubble. Most of the trees on the street were broken and charred, and a dark brown soot covered almost everything. The City seemed open and exposed. It was still possible to see the gridded lines of streets, underlying the wreckage, though it didn’t look like you could drive far without running into a collapsed building or downed telephone lines blocking the roads in every direction.
The homeless guy pointed her towards the top of Pacific Heights, giving directions, and repeatedly urged her to hurry. Van Ness street cut through most of the city, the best way to get south.
Looking up the row of hills, a thought flitted through her mind. She recalled her pride at climbing the nearby Lyon Street stairs regularly in the mornings before work. She suddenly remembered her somewhat affected walk she had developed to great effect in college, a little swish, always wondering – hoping? – some hottie would be checking her out from behind. She specifically picked out hiphugger Lucky brand jeans to look nice and tight but not too revealing. In a quick rush of emotion, the total irrelevance embarrassed her.
There were several people walking up the hill as well, with a head-down, grudging effort, struggling, but clearly in a rush. Looking more closely at a nearby older women, she realized much of her face was missing, a black and red mass. She stifled a small scream and ran up the rest of the hill, looking back over the contaminated bay and east towards the flattened downtown with no Transamerica pyramid, no skyline at all, running away quickly, telling herself she needed to hurry. A garbled Public Announcement from unseen speakers was making noise. The only part she could understand for sure was “Evacuate Now, Evacuate Now!“ repeated ominously.
At the top of the hill, everything was flattened. The most magnificent homes in San Francisco – they reminded her more of libraries or well-endowed institutes than single family houses – had been absolutely devastated.
It is much harder for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. This old biblical aphorism floated through her mind, an incongruous thought that bothered her. She hoped to be wealthy someday. Why begrudge someone with a nice house? And especially at a time like this.
Then she heard the little voice. What had been an underground indoor pool in one of those monstrous Victorians was exposed, the water black. In the pool, two bodies were floating. A little boy sat near the edge, crying a small pitiful cry.
“Help me!” he pleaded. “I can’t move. Help!” His voice was hoarse and frail. He had seen her and was looking directly at her.
She looked around, wanting someone to help, half pointing to show someone official where the problem was. Just getting to the boy would be hard. And then what was she supposed to do? She had taken First Aid in high school but that was forever ago. At any rate, it’s not like she could stop and help everyone. She wanted more time to think it through, dammit.
Just leave! Just leave. What are you, responsible for someone you don’t know at all? She started to go, looking quickly around, half pretending not to have seen. She was jogging, moving quickly away. The cries were fading. It’s what had to be done. If she got down to Hunter’s Point, she could tell someone where to come to help. That’s the best she could do.
A rising sense of fear was gripping her, the probability of a second attack real and looming. She felt a silent scream inside.
Suddenly, she knew better. She would help as much as she could. In fact, that was the only option. She turned back around, ran to the house, shouting, “Hang on!” She jumped up on the broken wall and onto a monstrous pile of stone and wires and sheetrock, slipping and cutting her ankle, but eventually getting inside of what would have been the underground natatorium. The boy wasn’t as young as she thought, and she could see that his legs were under a large piece of broken marble. Not good. He raised his arms to her as she came near, hugging her tightly, whimpering.
“When are the firemen coming?“ he asked.
“Soon, soon.” She looked around, hoping to see something, finding nothing. She handed him the water bottle, wiping off the mouth, which he quickly gulped down. She vacantly pondered why she hadn’t thanked the homeless man. She huddled close to keep the boy warm, feeling him shivering.
The boy wasn’t bleeding, but there was no way to move the wreckage holding down his legs. When she looked into the boy’s frightened eyes, she could see the strength her presence gave him, and she was at peace. No rush, no need to go anywhere.
“The firemen will be here soon,” she said, feeling him relax in her arms.
In the sky, a large passenger airline was flying at an off-kilter trajectory, tailed closely by three jet fighter planes. The plane wavered up and down, but headed directly for the heart of the City.
And then, all was white, and without noise.