When I pulled the sword out of the closet I first considered strapping it to my back. I’d seen that kind of thing in movies, where guys did an over-the-shoulder draw of a weapon, a sword or a shotgun. I quickly realized that unless I had arms like an orangutan, that kind of draw could be clumsy and time-consuming. I didn’t want to accidentally slice off an ear before beginning a fight for survival.
We reached Van Ness Avenue, which was filled with abandoned cars and buses. Even if we could find a car we couldn’t drive it anywhere; all the main streets were blocked with empty vehicles. If there were any bike messengers left in the city they were now the kings of the road. We walked to Sacramento Street, and then up the hill to Mason Street, where we saw flames in the windows of the stately old Fairmont Hotel.
There was fog over the bay, and no lights on the Bay Bridge. What we could see of downtown was dark. To the east and west we could hear gunshots. We started down the hill, passing a cable car lying on one side at Powell. A big canvas-covered truck was coming up the hill. The truck was painted Army green. Jillian took a blue bandana out of her pack and told me to wear it over my mouth and nose, bandit style. When I asked her why, she said, “If any soldiers see you from the wrong side they might shoot you on sight.” Being a dumbass, I hadn’t even considered that. She put one on as well, a pink one.
The truck roared past us. Someone in the back of the truck was shrieking, hidden from us by canvas flaps.
A red flare silently rose up and over the bay, a pinpoint of ruby light.
The power was out all over the city, but we saw the flicker of flashlights and candles in a few apartment windows. We listened to the radio as we walked down the hill, but there were no more broadcasts.
We had to squeeze past a near solid line of cars at Sacramento and Stockton. The cars were abandoned, but some had their headlights on.
A slender teenage girl darted from the black hole of the Stockton Tunnel and ran toward us. Her hair was blonde and it danced behind her. Her grin was so wide it looked as if her lips had been surgically removed. There was a cunning hunger in her eyes. She was wearing a t-shirt and denim shorts and sneakers. I couldn’t move. I saw that she was a threat, but I also saw how young she was, how pretty she had been. She was just a kid.
Jillian stepped between us and swung the bat. The girl let out a clotted cry as the lower part of her face was shattered. Jillian swung again and the girl’s jawbone spun into the air like a meat boomerang. Jilly swung the bat a final time, up and over, bringing it down on the girl’s head. There was a horrible, horrible wet crunch and the girl fell on her side. Blood that was too dark and too thick oozed like molasses from her crushed skull.
“You need to stay sharp, honey,” Jillian said. “That smile means it’s no longer a person. It’s just a thing that needs to be put down.”
We continued down Sacramento Street, passing a group of thirty or forty people heading away from downtown. They thought we were crazy going in that direction.
Some people said the infection had come from China. Chinatown was being burned to the ground; we could see that as we passed Waverly Place. Smoke filled the air. Firelight bounced off of the smoke and illuminated the street. Someone shouted, “Chink roast!” and let out a high-pitched laugh.
Some said that the infection was just reaching the Far East. Most European capitals were in flames, according to an older black man leading a young girl and boy up the hill. “This disease is eating the world,” he said. He told us he was taking his grandchildren to Grace Cathedral. Glide Memorial was their church, but it had filled quickly with sick and injured people and had been burned down by the Army.
We weren’t the only ones wearing bandanas. The air was thick with the smell of smoke, and a scent I realized later was burned human beings. That smell is almost impossible to describe and one I’ll never forget. It was layered. We could smell the sweet and bitter combination of charred pork, and a sharper, more awful metallic smell like burned liver that might have been overcooked blood or internal organs. That smell made this nightmare more real than anything else had, more than all I had seen, more than the tear in the left side of my face. You couldn’t avoid tasting the smell, unless you wore something over your face. That smell turned my stomach, and made me terribly sad.
Looking north along Grant Avenue all we saw were buildings in flames. At the corner of Grant and California, the grounds of Old St. Mary’s Cathedral were littered with dead Chinese.
We turned south on Kearny Street. We could see a gridlock of abandoned cars choking Montgomery Street a block away.
We saw the dead, many of them. People who had been shot, beaten, dismembered. We saw dead grins and their frozen smiles were grotesque.
A longhaired teenager who looked as if he had stepped out of the Summer of Love was standing on the corner of Market and Montgomery. He had a candle burning inside a water glass, using it like a lantern.
“Dudes, am I, like, so glad to see other living people, man!”
He was wearing a baggy tie-died t-shirt and blue jean shorts, and had the strap of a canvas bag over one arm.
Jillian pulled her bandanna down so it hung loose around her neck. I did the same. When the teenager saw my face, he reached into the canvas bag and drew a Smith & Wesson Police Special, showing he wasn’t quite the peacenik neo-hippie he appeared to be.
“It’s okay,” Jillian said to him, “It’s cool. He’s my husband. He’s not one of those things. Look at his cheek. It’s a wound. He isn’t smiling.”
The kid took a long look. “What’s the capital of Illinois?”
“Springfield,” I said.
The kid thought about that. “Really? I thought it was Peoria.” He put the gun away and looked at my face. “That’s fuckin nasty, man.” He pronounced man as me-yan. “But at least you aren’t one of those things. They’re pretty stupid, you know? I mean, they think, but all they think about is going apeshit on people cause they got the blood munchies.”
“I’m Louis Bellemer,” I said. Sibilants were tough with my cheek wound. The letter S became a hiss. “This is my wife, Jillian.”
“Benjamin Lively.” The kid said. He let out a slow laugh. I looked at his bloodshot eyes. The kid was baked.
“We thought there would be more people here,” Jillian said.
The kid nodded. “Me too. I usually hang out down here with other bike messengers, man. But when the craziness started everyone bolted. I guess people headed home or got out of the city. I didn’t want to risk leaving a safe area so I found an unlocked building and smoked a bowl and crashed on a bench in the lobby. Next thing I know the SFPD are running back and forth and saying the bridges are a no-go, so I’m boned.”
There were seats here at McKesson Plaza, arranged in long concrete steps like seats in a Greek theater. They wrapped around the entrance to the underground BART and MUNI trains. A week ago it was a popular place for local cube rats to get some fresh air and eat lunch, before the world went all to hell. Benjamin sat down and placed the glass holding the flickering candle at his feet.
Jillian sat beside him. “Your family?”
Benjamin forced a smile. “They’re up the coast. Near Eureka. I’m pretty sure they’ll be OK. They’re out in the country.”
Jillian put her arm around him and gave him a hug. A complete stranger. I could never do that.
Benjamin wiped his eyes. He looked so young. He should have been starting college, or partying with friends, not living like this.