Much worse. And just think about what the Harbor Freeway is going to look like, he told himself. You're going to have to cross that soon enough. This is nothing.
He braced himself for the worst and pushed on, his own footsteps sounding unnaturally loud, crunching on bits of glass and crumbs of concrete. The air smelled of mulch, like a freshly planted garden, even through his perspiration-soaked dust mask.
As he edged past the accident, he couldn't help looking at the carnage. Every Los Angeleno had the same, undeniable urge; it was why even an overheated Chevette parked on the freeway shoulder could cause a traffic snarl going back twenty miles.
The cab of the truck was imbedded in the warehouse, sparing him the sight of the driver. The cargo trailer was cracked open, spilling bags of potting soil, which had burst open on impact, spraying dark black dirt everywhere. Now he knew where the smell came from.
The Volvo was squashed nearly flat and covered in dirt. Even the dullest, safest car made was no match for a Mack truck. The two vehicles bled gasoline, oil, and coolant, which pooled against the curb near Marty's feet.
Something crackled.
He peered over the Volvo and saw a severed electrical line jerking on the ground, spitting sparks. The truck had taken down a power-pole across the street. The live wire was far away from him and the leaking gasoline. Even so, he would be glad to put some distance between himself and the power line, which he eyed as if it were a living thing, a predator waiting to attack.
And that's when something
did
, grabbing him by the ankle.
He screamed and instinctively tried to jump away, tripping himself and hitting the ground hard, provoking another scream, only this one wasn't his own. It was a scream of agony from inside the car.
Marty scrambled away, looking back to see a dirt-caked arm sticking out of the Volvo, clutching desperately at the air. It was like a hand shooting out of a grave.
"Help me, please," a woman's voice pleaded from inside the crumpled Volvo.
He could run. Just keep going. No one would ever know.
"I can't breathe," she whimpered.
Marty was crawling to the car before he was even aware he'd made a decision, taking her hand and peering into the opening it came from. It was as if he were staring in the mouth of some metal monster, a great white Volvo that was chewing this poor young woman alive. The lower half of her body was completely consumed by jagged metal, her upper body nearly buried in potting soil. Her other arm was twisted at an unnatural angle, ragged splinters of bone ripping through the skin.
"Hold on," Marty said, "I'm right here."
He reached in and scooped the dirt away, clearing her head so she could breathe. She had hair almost as dark as the soil, and green eyes that blazed with terrified intensity. She took in the air with shallow, raspy breaths.
"I thought you were going to leave me." Her voice was tinged with a slight Texas twang. He guessed she was about thirty.
Marty took off his glasses and pulled his dust mask down from his face, leaving it hanging around his neck. "You startled me. That's all."
He almost asked if she was all right before he caught himself. The question was a stupid reflex. She was obviously in deep, deep trouble. Even though her blouse was covered with dirt, he could see it was drenched with blood, oozing where the car was gnashing her.
"Is there anybody else with you?" he asked.
"No, thank God," she licked the blood from her lips and looked up at him with pleading eyes. "Can you get me out of here?"
Her body and the metal were meshed tightly together. There was no way he could do anything, not with just his hands and a tiny tire-iron. It would take a team of firemen, the jaws-of-life, and some paramedics. And even then, he had his doubts.
"I don't think so," he replied. "And I'm afraid of what would happen if I tried."
She nodded slightly. "It's okay. I think I already knew the answer anyway. Can you do anything for the truck driver?"
"I don't know," Marty glanced away, surprised by the sudden stab of guilt he felt. When he glanced back, she was looking at him strangely.
"Maybe you should check."
The way she said it, without being overtly judgmental or scornful, somehow made it sound even more damning. He started to get up and she grabbed him again, gently this time.
"You'll come back, right?" she asked.
"Yeah," he said, "Of course I will."
Marty got to his feet and went to the truck. Fifteen minutes into his journey and already he was breaking the rules. If he were smart, he would keep on walking. There was nothing he could do for her.
As he neared the truck, he kept his eye on the fallen live wire, undulating on the pavement, hissing and crackling. The puddle of gasoline was still far away from the sparks, but that could change.
He climbed up the side of the cab and looked down through the driver's side window. At first, he couldn't make sense of what he was seeing. The driver was slumped against the passenger door, but his head was in his lap. How could that be?
An instant later, his mind registered what he saw. A sheet of corrugated metal, ripped from the warehouse wall on impact, had chopped through the windshield like an ax, lopping off the driver's head.
Marty scrambled off the cab as if decapitation was infectious, backing away without taking his eyes off the wreckage, just waiting for some new horror to pop up.
When Marty was eight years old, he stepped on a nail and it went right through his foot. Up until now, that was the worst physical injury he'd ever witnessed, if he didn't count Irving Steinberg and Clarissa Blake.
He backed right into the Volvo, causing it to rock, the woman's cry of pain snapping him out of it. The woman, somehow he had to help the woman. Who was he kidding? There wasn't a damn thing he could do for her. This was a job for professionals.
Marty reached inside his jacket for his cell phone and tried to dial 911. Once again, he couldn't get a signal. But even if he could, what were the chances anybody would come for her with a city in ruins? She'd be the very last priority.
There was only him. And Marty didn't have the slightest idea what to do. He fought back the urge to run, shoved the phone back into his jacket, and crouched beside the car again.
"How is he?" she asked, but interrupted him before he could speak. "Never mind, I can see it on your face."
She shuddered, grimacing in agony. He had never seen anyone go through such pain before and he didn't want to see it now. He looked away. Blood trickled from her nose and escaped from the corners of her mouth.
"My name is Molly," she whispered. "Molly Hobart."
"Marty Slack." He took a Kleenex from his pocket and wiped the blood off her face, then wondered what to do with the tissue afterward. What if she had AIDS? He dropped the tissue and hoped none of the blood got on his hands. "Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?"
There was a first aid kit in his gym bag, but he doubted a squirt of Bactine and an ouch-less Band-Aid were going to make her feel any better.
"Just hold my hand and talk to me," Molly said, "until help gets here."
That could be days, if it ever came at all.
Marty couldn't stay and wait. He was on his way home. If he didn't get into the valley by nightfall, he could be in real danger. She'd understand that. All he had to do was tell her and she'd let him go.
"Sure," he said.
"Could I have some water?"
He took one of the bottles out of his pocket, twisted off the cap, and poured a little Evian slowly into her mouth. She was having a hard time swallowing.
After a moment, she said softly: "I'm not supposed to be here."
"I know what you mean," he said.
"No, really. It's wrong. There's a body shop near my house I could have gone there. But the bastard insurance company said I had to get the car fixed at this place downtown, or they wouldn't pay for it. That's not right, is it?"
"What happened?"
"My daughter spilled grape juice on the seat. I reached back to grab the box of Kleenex before it got all over everything and sideswiped a parked car," Molly squeezed his hand, tentatively, like she was checking if it was still there. "Two accidents in one month. They're really going to jack up my rates now."
"No one's going to blame you for this."
"You haven't met my insurance company," she said. "Has anyone called 911 yet?"
"I tried, but I can't get a signal."
"I'm sure someone has called."
In that instant, he had a sickening realization. Molly had no idea what happened to her, what really caused her accident. And if he told her, she'd know just how little her predicament mattered to anyone right now.
Anyone but him.
He should have gone under the bridge, cracked or not. He should have just said a prayer and run as fast as he could.
"You're from Texas," Marty said.
"Thalia," she replied. "It's a real small town."
"What brought you to LA?"
"Another accident," Molly smiled, her teeth smeared with blood. "Clara's five years old now." She let go of his hand and pointed to the sun visor. "Pull that down."
Marty did. There was a photo pinned to the visor with a rubber band. He slid it out and looked at it.
It was a picture of Molly, a radiant smile on her face, a smaller version of herself in her lap, the two of them on a picnic blanket on a lush lawn somewhere. The kid was maybe five, old enough to know how to pose adorably for a camera.
"My whole life has been a series of accidents," Molly said, "Clara is the only one that made me happy."
Clara even made Molly smile now, entwined in metal, holding hands with a stranger. The thought of a child made Molly smile as easily as it made Beth break into tears.
"Do you have children?" she asked.
"No," he replied. "We tried for a while, but it didn't take."
For months, Marty snuck away from the network for "power lunches" at a Beverly Hills fertility clinic, masturbating into a cup in their tastefully appointed hospitality rooms. At first, it wasn't so bad. There were worse ways to spend a lunch hour than jerking off with an X-rated DVD.
But one day he stepped from his hospitality room with his sample cup and bumped into Freddie Koslow, a studio development guy, coming out of the hospitality room next door. The two infertile executives stood there, holding their cups of sperm, casually discussing projects in development as if they'd just bumped into each other at the Bistro Garden.
That was the last time Marty visited the clinic. But he didn't tell any of this to Molly. It was bad enough half the television industry knew about his shiftless sperm.
"We weren't trying for anything except some fun," Molly said. "We did it just once, and that was all it took. Roy disappeared right away, and I couldn't stay in Thalia, not like that. So I left before she was born. I was heading for San Francisco, but the car broke down as I was passing through LA. So I stayed. See? Another accident."
Molly's face suddenly crunched into an agonized wince, her eyes closed tight, squeezing out tears of pain. She reached out and grabbed his wrist, squeezing it hard, digging her fingers into his skin until he had to stifle a cry of his own.
Her grip eased, and when she opened her eyes again, he saw just how scared she was. No amount of talking was going to distract her now.
"She's at Dandelion Preschool in Tarzana," Molly said in a rush, "you'll call the school from the hospital, let them know what happened?"
"Sure," he said.
And then Marty heard it, the unmistakable rumble, like a stomach growling below his feet. Molly's eyes went wide.
"What is it?" she cried out in that one, hanging instant before the inevitable.
"Aftershock!" he yelled.
"Aftershock?"
Marty realized his mistake too late, and just as he saw the betrayal and confusion registering on her face, the shaking started, the giant, unseen waves rolling under the street.
He gripped Molly's hand tight, tucked his head down, and closed his eyes to ride it out. The rumbling grew louder, the subterranean thunder mixing with the sounds of concrete cracking, glass breaking, metal grinding. The two wrecked vehicles rocked back and forth, creaking like rusty hinges. The car slid away, jerking her hand from his grasp.
Marty reached out for her again, but was driven back into a fetal curl by falling masonry that shattered on impact, exploding into dusty shrapnel that pierced his skin in tiny pin-pricks.
And then it was over. The rumbling receding like a fleeing stampede.
Marty unfurled slowly, stinging all over, and surveyed the damaged. The Volvo had slid a few feet, and so had the truck, gasoline gushing out of its ruptured tank and surging towards the live wire dancing on the street.
He ran to the car and leaned into it. Molly stared up at him with desperate eyes, one hand reaching out to him, blood gurgling out of her mouth, drowning the words she tried to speak.
She was trapped and so was Marty, confined by a few dwindling seconds, forced to choose between her plight and his own survival.
Marty looked from her to the wire. The fingers of gasoline were only a few inches from contact with the wire. He had seconds.
Molly grabbed him, pulling him down.
He whirled around, and for one horrified moment, thought he'd have to fight Molly off to escape. But she immediately let go, opening her hand to show him the picture she clutched in her palm, offering it to him, her eyes pleading.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, and ran.
He heard her yell one, last, desperate time, something that sounded like "Angel," and then the truck erupted behind him, the force of it lifting him off his feet and hurling him onto Alameda Street, the fireball rolling over his head.