I finally reached the crawlspace. I knew there was no way to avoid being seen here. My only hope was to move through it as quickly as possible and hope no one was looking at that monitor or that there was a time delay in the video feed.
I took a deep breath and started for the hole, but quickly stopped in my tracks. My backpack. I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. I took it off and wrapped one of the straps around my foot. Once the knot was secure, I took another deep breath and scurried into the hole.
Going through the hole this time was much quicker. For one thing, I wasn’t certain if I had a team of people from the hideout hot on my heels. Since I had no way of knowing if they’d seen me enter the hole, I proceeded with the assumption that they were after me. Secondly, I was going downhill this time and could count on gravity to do some of my work for me.
I was through the hole within minutes, and, when I exited the tunnel, I pulled on my backpack again and illuminated the area with my watch. I did a quick sweep to confirm I was alone, and, when I was sure there wasn’t anyone lurking in the dark tunnel, I hastily restacked the stones to disguise the crawlspace opening and began to move.
Instead of going back to the Hollywood and Highland entrance where Karl’s people were loitering last time, I decided to go the other direction, hoping there wasn’t another group to deal with at the next subway stop.
Adrenaline surged through my body, helping me move forward at a pace I wouldn’t have believed possible for my small legs. I held the button on my watch down as I ran, lighting the few feet in front of me. To my surprise, I didn’t fall this time. I tried to listen for Karl’s men as I ran. I was hoping that if there were any down here, they’d be using much stronger flashlights, so I’d be able to see them coming before they saw me, giving me enough time to duck and hide. Other than that, I had no real plan to defend myself. I should have fashioned a weapon of some kind, but in my haste to get back, I’d forgotten about that detail.
After a while, I saw a dim light emerging from the darkness ahead of me. It was the Hollywood & Vine platform. I slowed my pace and turned off my watch light to listen. It was miles between this subway entrance and the next one, and the next exit would take me even further east and further from home. On top of that, I wasn’t sure how much battery I had left in my watch, and I couldn’t run the risk of having to navigate even more miles of tunnel in the dark. I needed to exit here.
Suddenly, I heard a snap several yards ahead of me. I froze in my footsteps. Then I saw the little light. My blood went cold. I very quietly made my way to the wall and tried to force myself to keep going. The man walked down the middle of the train tracks, keeping his light focused on the ground in front of him, only lazily scanning the area every so often. I couldn’t see his face, just the beam of light coming from his flashlight. I imagined he’d made the trip dozens of times, never finding anything, and that his boredom with this assignment made him apathetic.
He was nearly parallel with me when I heard him stop and yawn. I froze. I put my hand over my mouth to stifle the sounds of my breath. The fear of being captured made my ears hum loudly, and I started to feel weak. If he didn’t go soon, I might pass out, and he’d hear the loud thud as my body hit the ground.
After what felt like an eternity, he started forward again. I waited until he got nearly a hundred yards away before I started moving. I wasn’t sure how many more of these moments of tension I could physically take. Each time, they left me feeling sick and on the verge of having a heart attack. Was that even possible at my age? It felt like it might be.
Soon, I saw the outline of an escalator set just off the subway platform. I crept toward the edge of the platform, staying in the shadows, while I carefully scoped out the area. When I was certain there was no one else around, I took a deep breath, and gripped the edge of the platform, hoisting myself onto the walkway.
I made it to the non-functioning escalator and charged up the stairs, refusing to look behind me. I ran as if I were being pursued. The escalator stairs were long, so long that my energy started waning before I made it to the top, but I didn’t let my sore thighs slow me down. I was too close to the surface. I felt the open space above me, waiting, still as a pool at night.
When I emerged, the fresh nighttime air welcomed me. I sucked it in deeply and then took a quick look around for signs of The Front. A handmade flag waved on a streetlight pole above me, but there were no other signs of movement, so I began walking. I was in old Hollywood, and the Walk of Fame lay under foot. There were no new stars here, and I trotted over them, focused on deciding the best route home.
I didn’t want to make the trip on foot if I didn’t have to, so I made sure to pass by the intersection where Ben and I were separated, hoping our electric golf cart would still be there, but it was gone. I considered finding a car and trying to make it run after a year of lying idle, but decided it would draw too much attention.
It took three hours to make it to the 10 freeway. The sun broke over the horizon and streamed through the high rises downtown. It seemed silly walking up the entrance ramp from National Boulevard, but even without a car, I thought it would still be the quickest way, and on top of that, being exposed on the surface streets made me paranoid. There wouldn’t be much cover on the freeway, but I could duck between the cars if I suspected I was being followed.
I huffed and puffed up the elevated ramp that connected the 10 to the 405 freeway. I’d never noticed just how steep this interchange was. From the apex I could see all of the Westside in front of me and the ocean beyond. My muscles wept for a break, but I kept moving south toward the marina and home.
I stayed on the shoulder of the 405, constantly scanning left and right and behind me, making sure I was alone. The streetlights seemed spaced further apart than I’d remembered. In the car, they’d seemed close together, but now it seemed like an eternity between them.
My feet ached, and blisters were forming. I knew if I picked my pace up to a jog, I could make it home by early afternoon, but I just didn’t have it in me. It was hard enough to convince myself not to take breaks. If I stopped, it would just take me that much longer to get to home, and the longer I was out, the longer I was in danger of being found by The Front. So I walked on, counting the streetlights and BMWs.
There were so many expensive cars on the Los Angeles freeways. American-made cars and trucks were the rarity. I thought if any of the survivors were car enthusiasts, they’d be delighted with the choice of cars left out on the roads.
I stopped looking at the cars after the first few miles. Once I started to see past the exteriors, I saw what lay inside some of them and felt the urge to sprint to the nearest freeway exit. Some people had tried to outrun The Plague by leaving town. They hadn’t realized the illness could still find them in their cars, and now the 405 was one of the largest graveyards in the world. I thought for a moment about all of the other cities across the globe that probably had scenes just like this. My eyes stung, wondering if my mother, my dad, or any of my friends were in similar graveyards.
I made the mistake of glancing into an overturned Volkswagen Beetle as I passed and saw a pair of legs clad in jeans and white Jack Purcell sneakers in the shadows of the car. They reminded me of Sarah’s shoes. The man who laced those up that morning hadn’t realized he wouldn’t be taking them off again.
I lingered by the car, my eyes flickering between his now weathered shoes and my own sneakers, which were coated in dust. They were strikingly similar. A surge of panic pulsated through me, and I ripped my sneakers off and began pounding them against the asphalt, dust clouds billowing from each, beating the dust, dirt and decay from them.
I had to get away from here. I stood up unsteadily and took a few steps, then pulled on a shoe. I took another few steps and put the other on. I paused just long enough to tie the laces into knots that would be unimaginable to undo later and then put one foot in front of the other.
I forced myself to count streetlights again. The only words I would allow in my head were the numbers I counted and, in time, the miles seemed to go by more quickly.
It was just after midday when I started to see signs for the 90 freeway, which dead ended at The Water Tower. The signs telling me I was nearly done with the freeway graveyard refreshed the adrenaline in my veins, and I picked up my pace.
When I finally made it to the 90, I was thankful it was such a short freeway. Maybe another hour or two and I would be home. However, there weren’t as many cars to hide in between, and that concerned me.
I decided to start walking between the cars for extra cover, abandoning the shoulder of the freeway. It proved slower for travel, as I had to weave in and out of the gaps, and sometimes climb over spots where cars collided. I was also graced with some new bruises where I’d crashed into a few side mirrors. Each blow irritated me. I wanted to yell at the mirrors as if they were living, breathing things that went out of their way to make my journey more difficult. My nerves were shot.
I was halfway down the freeway when I thought I saw movement ahead of me and ducked. I’d been lucky so far. My escape had gone unnoticed, as far as I was aware. I spotted The Water Tower, standing elegantly at the end of the freeway. It was like the pot of gold at the end of my asphalt rainbow. I focused in sharply on the top floor, where Rissi would be. Home looked so close, but I was still at least a mile away, and now I wasn’t sure if I was being followed.
I crouched next to a gray Passat. I used the side mirror to make sure there was no one behind me, and I listened intently to verify there were no new noises around. Slowly, I straightened my knees, allowing them to lift me to a near vertical posture. I peeked ahead, staring in the direction of the movement. I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but I wasn’t confident enough to stand. So I stayed in my semi-crouched position and started again forward, every now and again straightening slightly to look around.
I finished the entire last mile this way. It was well into the afternoon, and even though the weather was cool, the sun beat down on me, making my skin hot to the touch. My neck and back ached, and I felt the beginning strains of a headache.
The freeway ended directly across the street from my beautiful glass tower. I looked up its straight sides and swore I could feel Ben and Rissi’s presence. I was so close to safety. I wanted to run, but I’d been so careful up to this point. I had to continue moving with care.
I slowly crossed the street, hiding between the cars as I had for the last couple of hours. Then I heard the voices. There was laughter and loud talking. I froze. My hands started to tremble, and my heartbeat sped up again. Here I had been counting my blessings, surprised by my good luck through the bulk of my trip, only to get to the very end and be trapped.
I shook my head, hard. I couldn’t think like that. A defeatist attitude wasn’t productive. That’s what my mother always told me, and I subscribed whole-heartedly to that philosophy. I forced myself to focus in on the voices, to figure out where they were coming from. I decided they were a small distance away, because despite their loud tones, I couldn’t make out specific words. That was good. The direction of the noise was ahead and to the right of me. Using my senses this way reminded me of the lesson Grey taught me in the alley. I missed him in that moment, wishing he were here. I shook it off again. Thinking about him wasn’t productive either. There was just this one, last obstacle to overcome. I could do it.
I forced myself to peep over the trunk of the car I was hiding behind. I spotted them at an outdoor café across from my building. There was a new white flag tied to a light pole nearby where the previous one had been, and I immediately identified the small group as The Front. I saw Sam, the greeter who’d chased me at the warehouse store, sit up after doubling over in laughter. She was among a group of boys the same age, all looking healthy and definitely capable of outrunning me. Next to them stood a homemade sign that said, “Welcome!” in bright, happy letters.
I slinked back down, going to my hands and knees. The cement was rough against my tender hands, and I crawled through the cars until I was finally at the mouth of the entrance to my building. There was a long driveway leading up to the entrance. And no way up it without being spotted. I sat down behind the car and waited, hoping they might leave eventually.
An hour passed, then two. It hadn’t taken me long to conclude they were all Greeters, as Sam had been when I originally met her. They must’ve moved a few blocks south from her old station further up Lincoln Boulevard. I remembered Sam telling me about a tour bus she slept in near her greeting post, and I was willing to bet there was something similar around here for the small group. That meant these people probably weren’t leaving anytime soon.
I waited, hoping for a miracle that never came. I was scanning the area behind me, trying to trace out a path with enough cover for me to possibly go back and around my apartment building, when I saw the movement. My breath caught in my throat, and I dropped from my squat onto my butt, trying to make myself as small as possible. I was certain I’d seen someone duck behind a car about a block back. More Greeters, I wondered, but quickly shook the thought away. They had no reason to hide from anyone.
I saw the movement again, this time more clearly. There were two people, a boy and a girl, both looking young enough to be my own age. They slipped from behind one car and to a crouch behind another one, peeking over to survey Sam and the other Greeters with her. After a couple minutes they both stood upright and began tentatively walking toward the Greeters. That’s when I realized what I was witnessing. They were coming out of hiding to join The Front. Karl’s message had reached them, and they had no idea they were walking into a trap.