EIGHT

JANUARY 23, 2025

A week after the EMP attack, Los Angeles was in a state of anarchy. An entire societal system had denigrated to a primal level in just seven days. It was extremely dangerous to venture into public. Gangs of thieves roamed the streets, robbing—and sometimes killing—anyone who looked as if they might be holding food or water. The police had all but given up. It was a losing battle. Without the benefit of squad cars, proper supplies, radio equipment, and manpower, law enforcement personnel were at such a disadvantage that most officers threw in the towel and went home.

Without electricity, hospitals and medical facilities couldn’t cope with the sick and wounded. Patients who were already on dialysis or hooked up to life-support machinery had no chance. People died by the hundreds on a daily basis. Fear of uncontrolled disease and pestilence kept doctors and nurses away as well. It was as if the Black Plague had made a return appearance and no one wanted to take a chance of catching it.

A related problem was that the city was littered with corpses. Some were in their homes, many in the streets, others still sitting in their wrecked automobiles on the roads. Cleanup crews simply had not got around to removing all the bodies and properly disposing of them—and stray dogs were having a field day for meals. Since schools were closed, many high school gymnasiums were turned into morgues. The mayor finally issued a decree that corpses would be cremated in mass funeral pyres built in school football fields. Attempting to identify bodies was a lost cause. In most cases, however, no one cared about the carrion. The stench permeating the city was overpowering.

In area prisons, it was impossible to control the inmates’ rage. When the EMP hit, prisoners were in their cells. But because cell doors operated by electricity, the guards had no way to open them; thus the prisoners were forced to remain locked up. They didn’t like it, and after a couple of days they let it be known. In addition, the kitchens ceased to operate, so there was no food. The stronger inmates murdered weaker cellmates in protest. The guards, facing an intolerable situation, left the prisoners to live or die on their own. Survival of the fittest.

After seven days, even the city authorities became disenchanted. No one was on salary anymore—there was no way to get paid. With banks inoperable, all work was on a volunteer basis. The tasks, such as clearing corpses and disposing of them at the ad-hoc morgues, were thankless and disgusting jobs. Many well-intentioned souls gave it a couple of days’ effort and then couldn’t take it anymore. With police dropping out of the game, elected officials also threw up their hands in defeat and walked away.

No one was in charge.

   Walker had spent the previous few days in his home, not venturing out except to get a bit of fresh air—but even that was in short supply. The stink of the city had grown worse with each passing day. With no city services at work, the sanitary conditions had gone to hell. Standing on his deck, the smell wafting up from Hollywood was nothing less than that of an overflowing toilet. He had heard portable latrines were distributed around the city, but without vehicles to carry them, it was a long and difficult process. Walker himself had to determine a way to get rid of waste. He was lucky in that he had a bit of yard in front and back of his house. He dug holes in the backyard and buried it. He supposed other home owners could do the same thing, but thousands upon thousands of people in the Los Angeles area lived in apartments. What were they supposed to do? There were over eighteen million people in the LA urban sprawl. In seven days, that many human beings could produce a lot of shit.

No wonder it smelled bad outside.

He’d also spent his time maintaining the motorcycle. He had all the parts and tools he needed in his garage, but because the bike was an older model, there wasn’t serious damage. On the third day of work, it was ready. The Spitfire started on the first kick.

The sound of the motor was like music to his ears.

The rest of the day Walker spent considering his options. He was sick and tired of his house, even though he’d been stuck there only a week. Now that he had wheels, he could take off and leave the stench of Los Angeles behind him. But where would he go? The rest of the country was probably no better off than Southern California. But how did he know? Things might be better farther east.

On the other hand, how would he survive? The Spitfire held four gallons of gas. Would he be able to obtain more on the road? He had very little cash. Would it have value outside of LA? Walker also knew he was not a guy who liked to “rough it.” He never enjoyed camping, didn’t know jack shit about surviving in the wilderness, and couldn’t start a fire without matches to save his life. He was a city boy, completely addicted to modern accommodations. He was good with tools and considered himself an amateur tinkerer, but he’d never be able to build himself a log cabin.

As afternoon eased into evening, Walker came to the conclusion he was better off staying put. Nothing worked in his home, but at least it was familiar. And so far, no one had bothered him. His house was remote enough that burglars and squatters had yet to make their way up into the hills.

But they could come one day. What would he do then? How would he defend himself and his property?

Walker had considered buying a gun a few years ago, when he’d had to do some reporting in questionable areas of the city. Now he kicked himself. At least a weapon would skew the odds of survival a little more in his favor.

Putting those thoughts aside, he went to the kitchen to take stock of what food remained. There were two more boxes of cereal in the pantry. He’d been eating the stuff dry. Wasn’t bad. Three liters of bottled water left. The crackers were gone. Everything in the fridge was consumed. He’d even eaten all the candy in the house.

Not much left.

Walker thought of the Gomezes and wondered how they were getting along. He hadn’t seen them in a few days. In fact, he’d seen none of his neighbors. He rarely saw them anyway, since the houses were so far apart—but it was unusual not to see the Gomezes every other day or so.

He decided to take a box of cereal over and share it with them. Maybe they had some other food they could trade. They all had to be humanitarians to survive, right?

Walker grabbed a cereal box and left the house. To get to the Gomezes, he had to walk down the gravel drive to the road and then follow it about thirty or forty yards to their drive. He noted that the smell wasn’t so bad in front of the house, which faced the hills and countryside. The back of his home, and the deck, faced the city. That direction was what reeked.

He approached the Gomezes’ house and went up the walk to the front door. He knocked and called, “Rudy? Luisa? It’s me, Ben.”

Silence.

He tried again, louder. Still no answer.

Had they left? The garage door was closed, so he couldn’t tell if their old station wagon was inside or not.

Walker tried knocking one more time, a little harder—and this time the door pushed open. It wasn’t locked.

He peered inside. Nothing in the front foyer and short hallway leading to the living room.

“Rudy? Luisa?” He couldn’t remember the kids’ names. “Anyone home?”

Well, hell, he thought. Might as well take a look. Maybe there was food in their pantry. If they were going to split and leave the door unlocked … And wasn’t it better that a friend and neighbor raid their kitchen rather than some vagrant?

As soon as he stepped inside, a putrid odor bombarded Walker and made him gag. He heard the sound of flies buzzing around him.

Oh no …

In his heart of hearts, he knew what he would find inside the house, but he didn’t want to believe it.

“Rudy? Luisa?”

Walker put a hand to his nose and mouth, and then he walked slowly toward the living room. The horror he found there made him drop the box of cereal and vomit on the floor.

Rudy Gomez was sitting in a comfy chair, but his head—what was left of it—was a gooey mess of dried blood and gray matter. He was still holding the shotgun between his legs.

After Walker recovered from his nausea, he stood and braced himself against the wall. “Oh, Rudy. What have you done?”

He turned toward the hallway leading to the bedrooms. Dreading what he would discover, he moved at a snail’s pace toward the closed doors. He went to the master bedroom first. He placed his hand on the knob, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

Luisa Gomez was lying on the bed. Her brains were all over the mattress and wall behind her.

Walker closed the door and stifled a sob.

Trying the other bedroom doors was superfluous, but he had to do it just to bring closure to what he’d seen so far. Both Gomez children—the teenage boy and the younger girl—were dead in their own beds.

Gomez, in despair, must have killed his family and then turned the gun on himself.

It was too horrible to fully comprehend.

Walker rushed to the foyer and started to leave—but then he remembered the cereal box he’d dropped. Normally he might have run out of the house screaming, or perhaps dialed 911 first and then fled in terror. But the cereal was too precious a commodity to leave behind. He steeled himself to return to the sepulchre that was once a family living room and retrieve the box. He didn’t dare glance at Rudy Gomez a second time.

Only after he got back to his house did Walker realize that a more valuable commodity would have been the shotgun, but he wasn’t about to return to the scene of the crime and retrieve it. It was covered with Gomez’s dried blood and who knew what else. Dismissing the thought, Walker dropped on his sofa and stared at the blank television. He knew he was in shock. Nothing he’d seen during the past week had prepared him for that. The hellishness of what he’d seen in the streets was nothing compared to what he’d uncovered next door.

And what was he going to do about it?

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

What could he do? The Gomezes were dead. There was no ambulance to call, no police to phone. He supposed he could dig graves in their backyard and bury them, but he didn’t want to go near the bodies. They were bloated and putrefied. Probably been dead two or three days. It was Bacteria Heaven over there.

No, he wasn’t going to do anything at all.

And that thought struck him profoundly.

He had left a revolting scene of carnage, simply returned to his home, and plopped down on the sofa. If he’d had a cold beer, he would have popped it open and turned on the television.

How could his soul have degenerated to such uncaring nonchalance?

Walker stood, opened the glass door to the deck, and stepped outside.

It would be dark soon. The only lights in the city below him were fires. The silence in the air was the sound of death.

It was time for a change.

Walker would risk it; he would take his motorcycle and head east.