This was not a good day. Gridlock spread outward from every crowded access ramp and crossover. In a few hours the entire length of freeway—from the Sepulveda Pass all the way to the Mexican border—would be gone. But right now it was a major obstacle.
Where Santa Monica Boulevard crossed under the 405, several LAPD motorcycle officers were calmly working to unravel the chaos at the underpass. Surrounded by frantic and desperate drivers, they were doing their best. They were scheduled to withdraw at least twenty minutes before impact—if they could get out. That wasn’t certain anymore.
At the mayor’s desperate orders, both sides of all major surface streets were now mandated for eastbound and northbound vehicles, especially through the underpasses and across the bridges. Both sides of the 110 and the 405 were now handling northbound traffic.
It wasn’t enough.
Police and news helicopters circled overhead. Other choppers, all kinds, were shuttling east and west, their own small contributions to the evacuation. The apocalypse was being televised. Further south, at LAX, every plane that could get off the ground was heading inland, some with passengers sitting in the aisles.
James and Hu came to a stop on the sidewalk just past the Nu-Art theater—an ancient movie house that had survived for more than nine decades. For most of its history, it had been a cinematic sanctuary, unspooling an assortment of independent films, obscure foreign dramas, various cult classics, assorted Hollywood treasures, a variety of otherwise forgotten and questionable efforts, occasional themed festivals, and the inevitable midnight screenings of crowd-pleasers like The Rocky Horror Picture Show and other film-fads of the moment. In a few hours, it would be closed forever.
James pointed ahead—the underpass was gridlocked. The officers had blocked off the northbound on-ramps with their motorcycles, and were now directing traffic to use the southbound off-ramp instead, their only remaining access to a northbound escape, but even that was moving slowly. Too slowly. Even with cars crawling along the shoulders of the freeway, the 405 just couldn’t accept any more traffic.
Los Angeles had not been designed for an evacuation—not on this scale. No city had ever been designed for such a massive torrent of people, an exodus of unprecedented size, a titanic crush of desperate humanity.
And yet, somehow, it moved.
Not fast enough. Not nearly fast enough. But it moved.
Some of these people would survive—if they could just get over the hill into the San Fernando Valley, or even halfway up the Sepulveda Pass. There was time.
Except—
—except for the angry shouting.
Which was why James had stopped.
An old green van, a decrepit-looking Ford Windstar, hastily overloaded, had collided with a silver Lexus, a fairly new model. Both vehicles were in the middle of the road, blocking three separate lanes. A frightened woman sat in the passenger seat of the Lexus.
Two desperate drivers had left their vehicles to confront each other—neither had given way, both had tried to force their way forward, only to demonstrate that specific law of physics that two objects cannot occupy the same space—so now they were screaming at each other in near-incoherent rage.
A crowd of other drivers surrounded them, also screaming, demanding that they move their fender-crunched vehicles out of the way. Snippets of conversation echoed off the underpass walls—
“Get your fucking cars out of the way—”
“Not until I get this asshole’s insurance—”
“It’s your goddamn fault, I want your insurance—”
“There’s no time for that, you assholes—”
“Will both you idiots move your goddamn cars—”
“Daddy, I wanna go home—”
“The police are right there—”
“Good! They can arrest this jerk—”
“Just please move it to the side, so the rest of us can get by—”
“Move it where?! We’re boxed in by the rest of you—”
“I don’t back up for assholes—”
“It’s okay, I do—”
“I’m not moving till he gives me his insurance information—”
“We don’t have time for that, and your piece of shit Ford isn’t worth it anyway. You’re just trying to hold me up, and I won’t stand for it—”
“That’s just the attitude I’d expect from a spoiled brat manbaby—”
“Guys, please! This isn’t helping anyone—”
“Daddy, I gotta pee—”
“If you won’t move it, I will—”
“Touch my car and you’ll regret it—”
“Why don’t the police do something—”
“Okay, enough is enough. You’re gonna move this shit outta the way now—”
That last was a burly member of the sasquatch family—red-faced, longhaired, scruffy-bearded, flannel shirt, and the kind of expression that usually stopped all conversation.
“You gonna make me—?”
“Officer, over here! Please!” That was a woman shouting.
Two of the officers were busy trying to stop impatient drivers from backing up onto the southbound on-ramp, intending to join the northbound exodus that way. Two more were struggling to keep the evacuation orderly—one had to dodge sideways as an impatient driver forced his way around the sluggish line of cars ahead of him. They had more immediate priorities than the argument in the underpass. But the backup of cars was growing, and so was the angry crowd.
From his position at the ramp, one of the officers waved furiously at the drivers of the two vehicles, urging them to get back into their vehicles and move, but the two men were too angry, each so focused on winning this argument they couldn’t see past their own rage. It looked like violence was inevitable.
“Can we get past that?” asked Hu.
“I don’t know,” said James. “I’m wondering if we should try to go around it.” He pulled out his phone to study the map again. Where was the next closest underpass? Half a block north. Ohio Avenue.
The immediate problem would be just getting across the street. Santa Monica Boulevard was gridlocked. The closest cross street was Sawtelle, just on the other side of the Nu-Art theatre. Maybe they could thread their way around the stalled cars—
A sudden shift in sound, a scream of incoherent rage. Both James and Hu whirled to see—
Sasquatch was now waving an aluminum baseball bat. “You gonna move it—?” This was followed by a well-aimed blow. The right-front headlight of the Lexus shattered in the impact. “You gonna move it now—?”
“What the fuck are you doing—?”
“Giving you a reason to move it—”
“Fuck you! You’re gonna pay for that—”
“Let’s make it two—” Another swing of the bat, it bounced off the left headlight. A second swing shattered it. “And three—” The windshield shattered next. The woman inside flinched and tried to scramble across the seat.
“Stop it, goddammit! Stop it!”
“Move it and I will!”
The driver of the Lexus scrambled into the car, but instead of starting the engine, he came out waving a—
“Gun! He’s got a gun—!” The crowd scattered. The panic rippled outward. At its spreading edges, people ran or ducked, hiding behind the most convenient cars.
And just as quickly, three of the police positioned themselves, flattened across the hoods of several stalled vehicles, guns drawn, and pointed, held steady in both hands, red laser dots wavering on the Lexus driver. The lead officer shouted, his voice electrically amplified—“Drop it! Drop the gun! Now!”