He turned left, shooting a look down the hill as he did. The man was running up the slope, not quite halfway to the top.
Adrenaline surged through Ben as he sprinted down the middle of the road. When he glanced back again, he saw his pursuer had not yet reached the top of the hill, but Ben knew the man soon would. And when he did, Ben could probably expect a bullet to slam into his back.
He needed to get out of sight before the man could see him again. Hide behind one of the cars? It would be less than perfect, but who knew? Maybe the guy would run right by and not see him.
Just before he decided it was his only option, he came to a gap between the houses on his right, where the slope went down at a steep angle. There was something at the far end that looked like…
…a staircase!
As he veered off the road, he resisted the urge to look back. Either the man would see him or he wouldn’t. It didn’t matter at this point. Ben had made his choice so he had to go with it.
The concrete stairs consisted of several spans of steps broken up by short, level sections four or five feet wide. Sticking to the railing on the right to avoid the bushes encroaching on the other side, Ben took the stairs two at a time, verging on losing control the entire way down. Scanning ahead, he saw a short road that dead-ended at the base of the staircase. The other end of the road connected to a street that ran through the bottom of a narrow valley. If he could turn down that road before the man knew where he’d gone, he could be free.
He stumbled as he hit the bottom step but righted himself and raced to the end of the street. It wasn’t until he started to make his turn that he finally looked back.
The stairs were empty.
The last thing Gabriel expected was to spot a survivor the moment he stepped out of the Jack in the Box. Talk about making things easy for him.
“Hey! Hey, you!”
The man looked scared. Great.
“Hey!” Gabriel said again as he headed toward the man.
The guy suddenly jumped to his feet and raced across the street.
Just my luck. A runner. So much for easy.
“Buddy, I just want to talk to you!”
Gabriel knew his plea was useless. In the five days he’d been patrolling the area, he’d seen two kinds of people: those who were grateful to find him, and those who wanted nothing to do with him. In the latter group, almost to a man, no amount of cajoling would keep them from running away. The only way to bring them in would be by using a more powerful means of persuasion.
Rifle in hand, Gabriel exhaled an aggravated breath and took off in pursuit.
When he realized the man had darted onto a road that ran up the hill, he contemplated letting the son of a bitch go. The guy was in his early twenties at best, and while Gabriel was in good shape, the ten-plus years the kid had on him would likely give the kid an advantage. To catch him, Gabriel would have to outlast the kid. Which meant this pursuit might take some time.
Though he knew it was a waste of breath, Gabriel yelled at the guy again and started up the hill. He wasn’t much past the midpoint when the kid reached the top and took off down a road to the left.
The last quarter of the upward slope was the worst. Gabriel’s thighs and calves burned from the climb, and his shoulders ached from the pack on his back. Pausing for air when he finally reached the top, he looked down the way the kid had gone.
Shit.
The guy wasn’t there.
Gabriel immediately started running again, his gaze swiveling from side to side, looking to see if the kid had hidden somewhere nearby. He didn’t stop until he reached the point where the street curved to the left. There, he could see a ways down the new section of road, but it was empty.
How had he lost the kid that quickly?
He looked back, thinking maybe he’d catch the guy jumping out of some bushes and trying to sneak away. Nothing.
He was starting to think the kid was gone for good when he heard the sound of someone sprinting along pavement. It wasn’t coming from this road, though. It was distant, off to the side.
He backtracked and tried to zero in on the sound’s location. Ahead, there was a section of the road with no houses on the south side. He hurried over, thinking he might be able to see the runner from there.
No such luck on that point, but it didn’t matter. There were stairs leading down to the road, from which he could still hear the echoes of running feet.
Though Ben was fairly sure he was safe, he continued to move as quickly as possible through the hill, turning down different roads and taking several more of the public stairways that seemed to be abundant in the area.
It wasn’t long before he found himself at the bottom of another valley, this one a bit larger than the one at the bottom of that first set of stairs. According to the street sign, he was on Echo Park Avenue.
It had been at least fifteen minutes since he’d last seen the man chasing him. He hoped he’d lost the guy for good but knew he couldn’t assume that yet, so he decided it was finally a good time to find someplace to hide. There were plenty of houses around. They dotted the slopes on either side, sticking out between giant old trees and patches of overgrown bushes. Break into one, hang out inside for a few hours, and the coast should be clear.
Then again, if he could make it to the survival station, that would be the ultimate in safety. He allowed himself to slow to a walk as he contemplated his options.
No. No stopping. Keep going. Martina was waiting for him. He didn’t want to put off their reunion one moment longer than he had to.
He figured Echo Park Avenue would probably take him out of the valley and put him even closer to downtown than he would have been on his original route. Unfortunately, he thought it might also make it easier for the man to find him.
Perhaps if he kept heading south over the next ridge, he would find another valley. That would probably put him far enough away that he could head into the basin without being spotted.
He began looking for a road or staircase that would take him up the southern slope. At the end of Baxter Street, down a little offshoot road, he found stairs that appeared to do just that.
He adjusted the bag strap on this shoulder and began the ascent. There were more steps than he’d expected, well over a hundred, and by the time he finished the climb, his lungs were burning as much as his legs were.
After he finally caught his breath, he followed the gravel path past a driveway and down to the road along the ridge. He walked down the pavement for a bit until he was able to get a good view of the next valley. Unlike the ones he’d already passed through, this one was not filled with homes. In fact, very few buildings were in it. It seemed to be a park made up of meadows and trees and walking trails.
Ben continued along the road until he spotted a dirt path leading down from the slope into the park. He looked toward the southwest end of the valley, and there, in all its abandoned glory, was downtown Los Angeles. But it wasn’t the only thing he saw.
Toward the end of the valley, just beyond the crest of the opposite slope, was a single row of over twenty palm trees, each seventy or maybe eighty feet tall. It was their uniformity that caught his attention. He’d seen them before. Not trees like them, but these very trees, on TV every time he watch his beloved San Francisco Giants play the Dodgers in Los Angeles. The trees were right outside the stadium.
He was almost there.
Feeling excited again, he stepped onto the dirt path.
“Stop right there!”
Tracking the kid after having almost lost him had turned out to be relatively easy. The survivor was obviously trying not to be seen again, but he wasn’t adept at traveling quietly. Gabriel, on the other hand, had mastered the technique, so he’d been able to follow the kid without letting on he was there.