Simone's parents lived a few blocks down on El Dorado Drive. If he took the East Janss Road exit, he would be there in an hour or so.
It was when Jim glanced up that he saw the man waiting for him. He looked to be in his twenties, dressed in a business suit that fit his linebacker-sized frame just a little too tightly. The suit was expensive looking but torn in several places along one arm and covered in spots of dirt and oil and blood. The man had fashioned a tourniquet out of his equally expensive looking silk tie and fastened it around his left calf just above a large black stain of dried blood.
The man held a baseball bat.
Jim lowered the bike cautiously from his shoulder as they stared at each other across the ten feet of asphalt that separated them.
Jim broke the silence. "Are you okay, buddy?" he asked with as much concern to his voice as he could muster.
The suit looked hard at Jim, summing him up.
Gauging my threat level
, Jim thought
When the man spoke it was in a voice thick with southern syllables. "Give me the bike," he drawled making the word
bike
sound more like
bark
.
Jim shook his head. "Can't do that. I have to get to my wife. I'd be happy to …" Jim barely had time to duck as the stranger covered the distance between them with lightening speed, savagely swinging the baseball bat through the air that his head had just occupied.
Christ! This guy is going to kill me
, Jim thought as he ducked the blow.
Well, Duh! Ya' don't say, Einstein
.
The momentum of the missed strike propelled the stranger forward past Jim. The guy had put all his energy into a one-shot deal to get hold of some transport, he guessed. The assailant now stood panting and gasping from the exertion of the attack, his blood-shot eyes lupine in their wariness of him.
Jim had dropped the bike instinctively when he avoided the incoming bat and now the attacker stood between him and it. He could just leave the bike, give it over to this stranger and avoid anybody getting hurt, but who knew where he would be able to lay his hands on another? Bikes would be like gold dust for as long as the freeways and roads were blocked.
"I don't want to have to hurt you," Jim said, and then added "but I will if I have too."
The suit must have thought this was funny because he grinned insanely, raised the bat to his shoulder, and stepped up to the bike. He spread his feet wide and waited in a stance that clearly said,
try it
.
The guy easily had fifty pounds on Jim, plus he had a weapon. Of course, it looked like his attacker was injured but he couldn't be sure how debilitating that might be.
Jim scanned the ground around him searching for anything he might be able to use to defend himself.
The remains of a VW Beetle rested beneath the overturned body of an SUV, its domed roof crushed beyond recognition, its neo-hippy owner now surely nothing more than pulp behind the compacted steering wheel. The Beetle had collided with the upturned truck that blocked most of the lanes but it had been in a skid when it hit because the car had come to rest sideways against the truck, the chrome front bumper torn from one of its mountings by the impact. The bumper lay glinting in the gloom, beckoning to Jim.
Jim took a step sideways. The thug in the suit matched him but didn't move away from the bike. Certain that he wasn't going to be suddenly battered Jim backed the few remaining feet to the VW. The suit didn't move, guarding his prize like a lion who had just stolen a kill from a hyena.
Casting a nervous glance over his shoulder. Jim turned his attention to the bumper. The impact of the crash had torn one of the metal L-brackets holding the bumper to the car's chassis free, that side now rested loosely against the ground, but the second bracket was still fixed firmly by its welded joint. It was going to take the application of some brute force to separate it.
With a final look over his shoulder to make sure his attacker wasn't going to jump on the bike and attempt to ride off into the darkness, Jim braced his foot against the hood of the Beetle, grabbed the bumper, and pulled. The already stressed and twisted metal of the mounting squealed and screeched its resistance, but Jim felt the ancient rusted metal give somewhat. He was going to have to twist the joint to get more torque and that meant pushing the bumper upwards and leaving no question in his assailant's mind that he was trying to obtain a weapon.
Squatting down Jim spread his legs wide for better leverage, took the free end of the fender in his hands, resting it uncomfortably against his shoulder. Pushing from his knees, he wrestled the length of chromed steel towards the sky. As he heaved, he felt the resistance increase until finally, as it reached the one o'clock position, he had to set his feet back a step and lean
into
the upright piece of metal, his entire body weight now pushing against it. With a squeal that began to increase in frequency the bumper slowly began moving towards its apex until, with a final effort from Jim, the metal fixing snapped.
Jim hurtled forward, his right knee catching the curved hood of the destroyed beetle, momentum sending him sprawling onto his back and the now free bumper clattering and clanging to the ground beside him. Scrambling hastily onto his knees, Jim reached out and hefted the chrome bumper to his chest, testing its weight. Using the remainder of the bracket fixings as handles, he held the bumper in front of him like a staff.
A guttural roar alerted Jim to the oncoming stranger as he charged full force towards Jim, the baseball bat in position for a devastating upwards strike at Jim's head. Instead, the bat connected with the bumper as Jim thrust it out in front of him. The metal fender rang violently in his hands as the bat smashed into it, the energy of the impact reverberating painfully through his fingers and up through his elbows to his shoulders.
A gasp escaped Jim as pain spiked through his hand.
Dear God, this guy is strong
, he thought.
Afraid that his traumatized fingers would drop his only protection, Jim switched his grip from the stubby remains of the fixing brackets and took an overhand grip of the curved chrome of the bumper, exposing his fingers to his assailants bat but assuring his grip.
The suit raised his bat for another attempt, this time an overhead swing. Jim saw the man's eyes flick to his exposed fingers and instinctively knew that the next strike would target them. He would be no use in a fight once his protection was gone and with his fingers broken or crushed, the fight would be over and he would be at the mercy of this psychopath.
It was now or never, Jim realized, spying his only chance to end this uneven fight. He feinted a blow towards the man's exposed crotch, and as his attacker instinctively dropped his guard, Jim brought his metal staff around in a powerful sweeping strike to the side of his head. The makeshift weapon sang in Jim's hands as it connected with a thrumming
twang
against the attacker's cheekbone. The man's eyes glazed over for a second as he staggered back. Unbelievably, the big man regained his senses almost immediately and, with a shake of his bloodied head, began advancing on Jim once more.
Jim smashed the bumper into his head again, this time sending the dazed man to his knees. Still conscious but swaying like a willow in a breeze, he tried to use the bat as a crutch to push himself back to his feet.
What is this guy made of?
Jim hit him once more with all the remaining strength his arms had. This time the man went down and, with a final groan stayed down.
A panting, sweating, Jim Baston kicked the aluminum bat clanking and echoing away into the wreckage of cars. Gasping for breath, he tossed the dented and bloodied VW bumper to the ground, well out of reach of the felled giant.
Jim tentatively reached out two fingers to touch the unconscious man's neck. Good, there was a pulse. At least he hadn't killed the idiot. There was a lump of purple broken skin on the man's forehead and blood trickled from a cut across the bridge of his nose.
Reassured that the disabled man wasn't going to be getting up anytime soon, Jim forced his own battered body over to where his bike waited and gave it a cursory once-over. It looked okay.
What kind of a world lay ahead of him where someone would be willing to beat-in a stranger's head for a bike?, he wondered.
And with that thought, Jim Baston hefted the bicycle onto his bruised shoulder and began to climb over the ruined truck that lay between him and the remainder of his journey.
* * *
Sixteen
Thousand Oaks was oddly untouched by the events of the day. As Jim Baston pedaled his bike onto his ex-wife’s parents street, it struck him how
normal
it all seemed here. The fires and chaos were distant, no smashed cars littered the road, and no bodies lay bloated in the heat.
The streetlights' luminescence pushed back the darkness of the road ahead of Jim, and here and there, garden lights buzzing with moths and bugs cast their meager glow over deserted driveways and empty garden paths.
Not one light was visible behind the drawn curtains of the houses lining both sides of the cul-de-sac, but Jim knew people were home, he could see the occasional twitch of a drape or curtain as the occupants of the single-story homes watched him make his way down
El Dorado Drive
.
Eerily quiet, a sudden sound and blur of movement sent Jim swerving on unsteady wheels out into the middle of the road. He let out an embarrassed laugh when he realized it was just a lawn sprinkler spurting and spluttering into life in a nearby garden. It took all his control not to allow the laughter to disintegrate into tears, his frayed nerves pushed well beyond their braking point by the events of the past few hours.
Thomas and Jessica Shane lived in an alabaster-white bungalow on a quarter acre of landscaped property towards the end of the little street. Jim pulled to a stop outside their home with a squeal of objecting brakes. Resting with one foot on a pedal and the other against the raised curb, he could see that the house was just as he remembered it. Its green lawn so well manicured it looked sprayed into place rather than planted. The drive leading to the two-car garage was spotless, the rose bushes and flower beds glowed in luxurious color accenting the crazy-paved path that led up to their front door.
Jessica Shane had always loved her roses. Her death had left a vacuum in all their lives. When she died, Thomas had been heart-broken but he had taken-on caring for her flowers. He had told Jim in one uncharacteristic moment of vulnerability that it made him feel close to his wife, to be able to continue to do something for her, to continue to raise the flowers she had thought of as her surrogate children.
Jessica had been a truly wonderful woman. When first introduced to her Jim felt an instant rapport with this gentle, caring woman. He could see where Simone got her beauty. When he heard the news of her death back in '33 it had hit him hard.
Standing on the porch of their home, he could not help but remember the great times they had all shared here before everything went to Hell. Jim counted himself lucky; it wasn't every man who could truly call his wife's parents friends.
Thomas had carried on his life. But after his wife's passing he had always seemed less than whole, uncompleted, and Jim had the impression that life no longer held any sparkle for Thomas Shane. Simone had tried to fill the void but her father had taken her aside one spring day and gently told her that he appreciated her kindness and that he loved her very much
but
she could not replace the woman he had spent the last thirty-eight years with and that she shouldn't try. Simone had been upset but Thomas hugged her close knowing that the emptiness he felt was as great for his child as it was for him.
Casting those memories aside, Jim rapped gently on the front door and waited, illuminated in the dull glow of the twin lamps fixed to either side of the entranceway. There was no sound or sign of movement from inside the house and Jim knocked once more, this time a little harder. His hand raised to try one more time; he caught a hint of movement out of the corner of his right eye. The blinds that hung in the front room window had moved, he was sure of it and he turned to face whoever might be watching, stepping a little further into the light so they would have a clearer view of him.