Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [113]
Nothing but static. She thought she heard a few words in the static. Someone shouting "Hammerfall!" over and over again, or was that in her head? No matter. There was no useful information.
Or, rather, there was, in that fact itself. This wasn't a local disaster. The San Andreas had let go. Okay, but there were plenty of radio stations in southern California, and not all of them were near the fault. One or more should still be broadcasting, and Eileen knew of nothing an earthquake could do that would cause so much static.
Static. She went on through the back of the store. She found another body there, one of the warehousemen. She knew from the coveralls; there wouldn't have been any point in looking for a face. Or for an upper torso, either, not under that … The door to the alley was jammed. She pulled and it moved, slightly, and she pulled again, bracing her cut knee against the wall and straining as hard as she could. It opened just far enough to let her squeeze through, and she went out and looked up at the sky.
Black clouds, roiling, and rain beginning to fall. Salt rain. Lightning flashed overhead.
The alley was blocked with rubble. Her car couldn't possibly get through. She stopped and used the mirror from her purse, found a Kleenex and wiped away the dirty tear streaks and blood; not that it mattered a damn how she looked, but it made her feel better.
More rain fell. Darkness and lightning overhead, and salt rain. What did that mean? A big ocean strike? Tim had tried to tell her, but she hadn't listened; it had so little to do with real life. She thought about Tim as she hurried down the alley, back toward Alameda because it was the only way she could go, and when she got to the street she couldn't believe what she was seeing. Tim was there, in the middle of a riot.
The earthquake rolled Tim Hamner under his car. He stayed there, waiting for the next shock, until he smelled gasoline. Then he came out, fast, crawling across the buckled pavement, staying on hands and knees.
He heard screams of terror and agony, and new sounds: concrete smashing on street pavement, concrete punching through metal car bodies, an endless tinkle of falling glass. And still he couldn't believe. He got up, trembling.
People in white robes, blue uniforms, street clothes, lay sprawled on shattered street and sidewalks. Some moved. Some did not. Some were obviously dead, twisted or crushed. Cars had been overturned or smashed together or crushed by falling masonry. No building stood intact. The smell of gasoline was strong in his nostrils. He reached for a cigarette, jerked his hand violently away, then thoughtfully put his lighter in a back pocket, where he'd have to think before finding it.
A three-story building had lost its east face; the glass and brick had disintegrated, spilling outward across the parking lot and side street almost as far as where Tim Hamner had been lying. A chunk with part of a bay window in it had dropped through the passenger section of Hamner's car. Gasoline ran from it in a spreading pool.
From somewhere he heard screams. He tried to shut them out. He couldn't think of anything to do. Then the riot spilled around the corner.
It was led by three men in white robes. They were not screaming; they were panting, and saving all their breath for it. The screaming came from those behind them, and not from those in the lead.
One of the robed ones screamed at last. "Help! Please!" he screamed at Tim Hamner and ran toward him.
The mob pursued. They were looking at Tim Hamner, all those eyes at once, and he thought, They'll believe I'm with them! Then a worse thought: I could be recognized. As the man who invented the Hammer …
Time was too short to consider the idea. Tim reached into the trunk and brought out the portable tape unit. The robed youth running toward him had a wispy blond beard and a lean face set in classic lines of terror. Tim shoved his microphone toward the Warden and