The Onyx Seed - A Story of Survival by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 8

Marty suggested that both of them get some sleep. They would have to live as night owls for a while. But sleep does not come easily in the L.A. heat, especially in areas where anything that was once green was now replaced by asphalt, brick, and concrete. Lucas seemed to have a harder time of it. His room was at the front of the building, where waves of heat rippled off the street and against the facade. Marty, however, had the good fortune of having the room in the back of the building, where the shadows of the adjacent building securely sheltered him from the day’s heat. Marty rose at about five in the afternoon. He ate a quick dinner and sat at the kitchen table, reading over the lengthy list he and Lucas had compiled. He found a map of the city in the phone book. Knowing how useful it would be, Marty tore it out and placed it with the list. Soon after, Lucas stumbled from his room in a drowsy haze and made his way back to the kitchen. “Can we turn on a light?” he asked. “We need to keep them off,” Marty answered. “Especially at night, we’ll end up standing out like a sore thumb.”

“So, no lights at all?” Lucas asked. Marty gave the question a moment’s thought. “I got an idea,” he said.

The apartment was divided into four sections with the living room situated at the front of the building, while the foyer lay as the entryway to the front door. The bathroom and kitchen were arranged next to each other, separated only by a short hallway. Four bedrooms let out into the living room, foyer, hallway, and kitchen, with two being used for storage.

Marty’s plan was to obtain one or two large rolls of black cloth. He would block the windows on each side of the apartment and hang curtains in the doorways of the living room and foyer, just at the entrance of the hallway. The front and back windows would be left as is. Marty felt that any changes made to the building's outward appearance might attract attention. They would be able to use one light and only in the foyer. Lucas agreed with the idea. “I guess we have to start maintaining a low profile, huh?”

But he took the idea a step further, suggesting that he move out of the front bedroom and into the one-off the foyer. This would effectively cut the apartment off between the living and the foyer, providing the illusion that their apartment was as lifeless as the hundreds of those surrounding them. Further, Lucas thought it might be a good idea to seal the front door with wood screws in order to keep unwanted guests from breaking in. Things being the way they were he didn’t think the lock was enough. “That’s a good idea,” Marty said. Lucas was very pleased with himself, knowing that he could contribute to the process of making their situation bearable.

“How about this,” Marty continued. “You know how they used to bar castle doors? Let’s do that to both doors.”

They would get the necessary materials at a nearby hardware store and bar the doors in two places shoulder and knee-high. But, until they left for Whittier, Marty and Lucas would have to use the back door exclusively so as to remain hidden from view.

As the sun began to sink, casting its long shadows over L.A.’s concrete cityscape, Marty and Lucas sat in the darkened kitchen, talking about what the future may hold for them.

“When we get to Whittier,” Lucas said. “What then? Where are we going to go from there?” Marty already had a destination in mind. “Well,” he began. “I was born in upstate New York. I thought we’d go there. We can hug the coastline in a few spots and just work our way up.” Lucas wasn’t quite sure if he wanted to make such a long trip, with society having collapsed around its ankles.

“How long do you think it’ll take?” he asked. “I don’t know,” Marty answered. “But it would be better than staying here.”

Unlike southern California, upstate New York is, by comparison, sparsely populated. And with the Adirondacks comprising sixteen million acres of largely untouched wilderness, it seemed like the perfect place to go. They would, almost certainly, be isolated from anyone else who had been spared from the infection. But the first thing Marty wanted to do was to make another attempt at going to the hospital. Before anything else, he wanted to know what it was that could shut down a city the size of Los Angeles almost overnight. The two continued talking as nine o’clock approached. The sky had turned a blackish blue, as a few stars twinkled to life. Appearing only as pinpricks of light, one might think it difficult to imagine them in their true form. An enormous, churning ball of fire, floating as a distant island in a celestial sea. They left through the back door, down the stairs and out the rear of the building. By car, it took about twenty minutes to get to County Hospital. On foot, it would be closer to an hour, if there was nothing to slow them down. The first thing Marty noticed was that the street lights were on. At least, this part of the city still had power. He moved quickly through the streets, between buildings and down alleys as Lucas tried to keep up. The smallest sounds could easily be heard at night, after the dust of daylight settled and the air became cooler. Everything was louder at night.

About forty-five minutes after leaving their apartment, they noticed a slight orange glow coming from the direction of the hospital. “What the hell is that?” Lucas asked. A sight like this would be unusual for L.A. and would, no doubt, attract a great deal of attention. “I’m not sure, answered Marty.”

He expected that, by this time, there would be a few fires, due to electrical problems, or people who felt the urge to burn down houses and buildings. For no other reason than there was no one to stop them. But as the hospital came into view, what Marty and Lucas saw was not, at all, what they expected. From a moderate distance, the government’s solution to the infection had become clear. A large fire was burning in the hospital’s front parking lot as people dressed in hazardous materials suits worked in pairs, throwing body bags onto the pyre. Each contained the lifeless remains of what was once a human being before the world had gone quietly insane. Marty and Lucas watched in silent horror as the bodies of men, women and children were thrown, one atop another, into the gasoline-fueled blaze that now appeared to be the only form of treatment for, what was likely something other than the flu.

Lucas was quickly overcome by the sight of so much death woven together with the curing touch of fire. Without hesitation, he fell to the ground and crawled behind a pair of garbage cans, where a sudden gurgling sound was followed by the contents of his stomach. He stumbled back to Marty, who was closely watching through his binoculars as more bodies were being put to the flames. After a few moments, Marty noticed that something had changed. “They ran out,” he said.

Lucas bent down in an attempt to get the blood moving back into his head. He tipped his face up when Marty’s words caught his attention. “What?” he asked weakly.

Marty glanced down at him from behind his binoculars.

“Luke,” he said. “You don’t want to see this.” Marty was trying to shield Lucas from something that even he found disturbing. The military had run out-of-body bags and was resorting to swinging bodies on the fire by the wrists and ankles. It looked like something out of a horror movie: the devil flinging wide the gates of hell and with a teasing grin, giving welcome to the newly arriving dead. The rising stench offered itself up as an unholy gift from an unearthly realm of saints and sinners alike. But this was not a Hollywood rendering of the underworld. This was far more terrifying than anything that could be dreamt by a writer’s pen.

The hospitals front parking lot was lined with floodlights. And Marty, continuing to scan the area, noticed a familiar form being carried out. “Oh, God,” he said quietly.

Lucas was suddenly struck with curiosity at the tone of Marty's words.

“What is it?” he asked.

Marty looked down at him, shaking his head slightly. “You don't want to see this,” he answered. She was still dressed in a hospital gown. Her long hair fell towards the ground as two faceless soldiers carried Maria's body to the fire. Her I.V. bag had been hastily placed on her stomach, while its tubing was left to drag along the pavement. “Marty, what is it?” Lucas asked again. Marty turned to him again with a grave expression on his face. He stood up slightly and looked closely as the men approached the fire, carrying Maria's lifeless body. His eyes flooded with tears as he watched her body being tossed to the flames. Her hospital gown immediately catching fire; her beautiful long hair billowing smoke before, it too, erupted into a blaze of disintegration.

“Luke,” Marty said, with grave concern. “Luke, talk to me.”

Lucas was frozen in emotional shock with tears streaming down his face. His breathing became quick and labored as he weakened at the knees. As his legs crumpled beneath him, Marty turned and grabbed his arm, helping him to the ground. He glanced around, making sure they hadn't been seen. “Luke,” Marty said. “We've got to get going.” He gently shook Lucas by the shoulder. “Luke, we have to find out what happened.” He waited a few moments as Lucas drifted back into the glaring light of reality. Marty helped him back to his feet and as Lucas stood, his gaze became fixed on the burning rubble of human flesh. His mind went back only a few days before when the world was normal. Or at least, as normal as it could be. He remembered walking with her to the restaurant almost every morning. He knew that he never had a chance to win her over, but that didn't stop him from caring.

A look of determination came over his face as his emotions moved, almost visibly, from the shock of grief to anger as well as a new sense of clarity. “Marty,” he said. “We've got to find out what happened. We can't leave until we figure this out.” Lucas had found his courage, in spite of the horror that faced him and the many lives that would lie as a random heap of charred remains.

“Just tell me what to do.”

Marty nodded with admiration for his newfound strength but was also concerned that Lucas may have crossed into a delicate state of mind. “Alright,” he said.

Marty turned back again to scan the area and pointed off to the far right.

“Let's go down there.”

Now, Marty would have to more closely watch Lucas, making sure he didn't suddenly break down and attract unwanted attention.

They made their down to the far right side of the hospitals front parking lot, where an intersecting road led down to the emergency room entrance. The smell of burning flesh was unbearable. But before getting too close, Marty warned Lucas not to breathe through his mouth, telling him that it was better to smell than to taste the odor of burning flesh. He also cautioned Lucas against getting too close to the bodies. “Don't touch anything,” Luke, he said. “We have no idea what this is.”

Lucas gave a thumbs-up as they crossed the street near the far right side of the parking lot. A light breeze suddenly changed direction, forcing them back by roughly thirty feet. They found it necessary to remove their shirts, using them as breathing filters. Continuing on to their destination, they rounded the corner and onto the road that led to the emergency room.

“What are we doing here?” Lucas asked. Marty paused only twenty feet from the emergency room parking lot.

“If you were sick and decided to go to the hospital,” Marty began. “What part of the hospital would you go to?”

Lucas was still holding his shirt over his nose and mouth, but nodded his head and gave another thumbs up.

“Besides, I'm betting that most of the military are out front, not back here.”

The military had, however, surrounded the hospital campus, yet only one guard had been placed at the emergency parking lot.