“Okay, well I’ll position a man to monitor the radio overnight and let you get some sleep,” Constantine said. “On the off-chance that we hear back from the commander sooner than expected, he’ll have orders to wake either you or Emily, okay?”
Emily and Jacob nodded their agreement.
“Now,” the captain said. “I think it’s time we all got a good night’s rest.”
CHAPTER 15
Emily repositioned the backpack to a less awkward position against her shoulders. It felt almost comforting to have it on her back again, although it was not the same pack she had used on her travels—that one had finally been retired. This one was smaller, just large enough to carry some water, a first-aid kit, and a day’s worth of rations. After all, this was just a quick foray to survey the area around the base. The Mossberg was slung over her shoulder, and extra shells rattled in the pockets of the light windbreaker jacket she wore. A machete hung from a loop on her belt, slapping against her thigh as she walked.
By their fourth day at the base, the stretch of land they had put to the torch was finally cool enough it would no longer melt the soles of the shoes of the first scouting party to leave the base. There were still hot spots scattered across the desolate field of pink ash, silently smoldering, but the smoke rising up from them was an easy indicator of where the group should steer clear of.
Rhiannon, after much complaining, had agreed to stay behind. Thor, however, trotted by Emily’s side, as she, MacAlister, and two sailors headed out through the security gate just after sunrise. Thor seemed as happy as Emily to be out of the encampment again. He had put on weight since the arrival of the submarine crew; a combination of lack of exercise and overfeeding by the crew, who had all seemed to take a very protective attitude over what could be the last of his species. Though, after everything Emily and he had been through, the last few weeks must have seemed like doggy heaven for him.
The small group followed the main road out of the camp north along the peninsula. The fire had consumed almost everything in its path for about a mile in each direction, but eventually, as the fire’s fuel had been depleted or natural firebreaks had impeded its progress, the jungle of red again began to assert its hold over the land. A quarter mile farther on and the road was so choked with growth that they could no longer push ahead, and had to zig east until they located a smaller path to continue along.
The few buildings on the side of the road were all but covered in the same latticework of creepers that had given her and the rest of the crew such trouble back at the base. The buildings were only recognizable as being man-made by the vague outline of their shape beneath the plants. It wasn’t hard to imagine, given another month or two, as the vegetation grew up through the spaces between the offices and apartments, that there would be little identifiable proof of humanity’s existence left to see here.
Some of the homes and offices that were still visible suffered from very obvious storm damage. Walls had been toppled or ripped away, roofs perforated by flying debris, windows shattered, and retaining walls crumbled to little more than boulders of concrete. One entire building had apparently been ripped from its foundation, leaving nothing but the bare concrete slab, broken rebar, and, most curiously, a single staircase that rose into the air, climbing past floors that no longer existed.
The travelers cut across the surface of the exposed pad, stepping over the vines and creepers that laced it like a carpet. Something glittered in the early morning sun, flashing baubles of light into Emily’s eyes like pieces of broken glass.
“What is that?” she asked MacAlister, pointing to the side of a nearby building where the scintillation originated from. MacAlister looked in the direction she was pointing and caught the same twinkling light.
“I have no idea,” he said as he diverted the team toward the source, a two-story building just a few yards away.
“What on earth…?” he exclaimed as they approached the wall. It was covered in a sapphire-like crust that spread out for about eight feet along the side of the wall and another four or five up toward the second floor. Bathed in the light of the slowly ascending sun, whatever this growth was made of reflected the sunlight beautifully, refracting it into scintillating colors that lit the surrounding area.
“It’s beautiful! Like mother-of-pearl,” one of the sailors said, reaching out a hand to touch the thin membrane of jewel-like growth. The kid let out a sudden yelp of pain as MacAlister slapped his hand before he could touch it.
“Jesus, kid. Didn’t your mother ever teach you to look and not touch?” He gave the chastened sailor a hard stare. “You have no idea what that is, so keep your hands in your pockets from now on, okay?”
Emily gave the sailor a sympathetic smile. “Best to take that advice to heart,” she said. “We have no clue what’s dangerous out here and what’s not. It’s better to assume everything is going to try to kill you, until we know for certain.” Then added, “Because, it probably is.”
“Yes, Miss,” the sailor said, his face still flushed red with embarrassment.
“Oh please, please, please, stop calling me ‘Miss.’ You’re making me feel like I’m an eighty-year-old schoolmarm. My name is Emily.”
“Yes… Emily,” the kid said, some of the embarrassment forgotten.
“Come on you lot,” MacAlister insisted as he continued to watch the growth. “Time’s a-wastin’ and we need to get out of here.”
They found a road that was almost entirely clear of growth and followed it as it curved slowly downhill toward the bay. Until now, the only sound had been the crunch of the group’s feet as they walked and Thor’s panting breath, but now the roar of the surf crashing against the shore filled Emily’s mind with scenes from her childhood of trips with her parents to the seaside. The only thing missing was the screech of seagulls and the smell of cotton candy and funnel cake… and the background noise of humanity at play, of course.
“Bloody Hell!” The exclamation came from one of the young sailors—his name was James but his shipmates called him Rusty, due to his red hair. As they rounded the bend in the road the vegetation on either side of them finally fell away, giving the group an unhindered view out over San Diego Bay out past Coronado Island. The fog that had covered the horizon since their arrival at Point Loma had finally burned off, revealing a clear view into the distance and what should have been the city of San Diego, three miles or so across the bay.
Instead of the city all they could see was red jungle stretching out along the curve of the distant coast. The red vegetation obscured everything. It was as though the mainland had been somehow transported back in time to the Jurassic period, all trace of humanity’s influence in the area was gone, covered under a blanket of red and purple.
Well, almost all signs.
The only clue that there had once been a major city located just across the water was the prow of a sunken ship—maybe an oil tanker or maybe it had been a naval vessel—that jutted out from the water near the shore. Its deck dripped with red fronds.
MacAlister took a pair of binoculars from his pack and raised them to his eyes. He scanned back and forth along the distant shore then offered them to Emily.
“Tell me what you see.”
Coronado Island sat a half mile or so offshore of San Diego, parallel with Point Loma, giving the bay between them a distinct horseshoe shape. Point Loma was an extension of the mainland, a long spit of land that looped down toward the southwest tip of Coronado Island. Of course, it wasn’t really an island, just a pork-chop-shaped landmass with a skinny sandbar that extended off its southern tip until it reconnected with the mainland again. She swept the binoculars over the island past the airport and several aircraft, including a couple of military helicopters that still sat on the relatively unmolested runway, then across the water to the mainland beyond. There was nothing but a wall of tangled red vines and alien trees. The trees were huge, but nowhere near as large as the ones she had seen during her journey north. These ones seemed more organic; in fact, if it wasn’t for their dark-red hue and jutting branches they could easily have originated from some distant corner here on Earth.