Lucifer's Hammer

“Nice car,” Eileen said. “Glad it has power steering.”

“For a quarter of a million bucks it ought to have,” Tim said. “Damn, that frosts me—”

Eileen giggled. “Best deal you ever made in your life.” Or ever will make, she thought.

“It isn’t the car.” Tim’s voice held hurt indignation. “It was the extra fifty thousand bucks he charged for gas and oil and a jack!” Then he laughed. “And the rope. Mustn’t forget the rope. I’m glad he had extra. I wonder where he’s going?”

Eileen didn’t answer. They crested a hill and started down, around a bend. There were no more houses. Thick mud covered the road and she shifted into four-wheel drive. “I’ve never been in a car like this before.”

“Me neither. Want me to drive?”

“No.”

There was water at the bottom of the hill. It came up to the hubcaps, then up to the doors, and Eileen backed away. She drove carefully off the road and onto the embankment beside it. The car tilted dangerously toward the swirling dark water to their left. They went on, carefully and slowly. On their right were the ruins of new houses and condominiums, just far enough away so that they couldn’t see any details. A few lights, flashlights and lanterns, moved among the wreckage. Tim wished he’d got a flashlight from the car dealer. They had a spotlight, but it needed to be mounted on the car, and wouldn’t be any good until it was.

They went around the valley, staying just above the water, and eventually found the road again where it rose out of the flood. Eileen gratefully shifted gears.

The road twisted up into the mountains. They passed stopped cars. Someone darted out in front of the Blazer and gestured them to halt. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, but he held a pistol in his hand. Eileen gu

There were gunshots, and a crash of glass. Tim looked back in amazement at the neat round hole through the rear window, then above at the exit hole angling up through the roof. Rainwater ran in through the hole and dripped between them. Eileen floorboarded the car, roaring around the curve without braking, and the car had the feathery feeling of an imminent skid. She got around, braked for the next curve, then accelerated again.

Tim tried to laugh. “My new car.”

“Shut up.” She was leaning forward against the wheel. “You all right?’,

“No.”

“Eileen!”

“I’m not hit. I’m scared. I’ve got the shakes.”

“Me too,” he said, but he felt waves of relief wash over him. There had been that tiny moment, only an instant really, when he thought she’d been hit. It had been the most terrifying moment of his life. Now that struck him as strange; because he hadn’t seen her since she turned down his proposal. Of course not. He had his pride—

“Tim, there are bridges ahead, and we’re getting closer to the Fault! The road may be gone!” She was shouting.

“Not much we can do about it.”

“No, we can’t go back.” She slowed for another curve, then accelerated again. She was still strangling the wheel. She was going to wreck them if she didn’t calm down, and he couldn’t think of a thing to do about it.

The road was often blocked by mudslides, and Eileen, finally, had slowed to a crawl. Once they took half an hour to get fifty feet. Now, whenever they came to a clear section of road, Tim wished that she would drive faster. But she didn’t; she kept the car in first or second gear, and never drove faster than twenty miles an hour, even when the headlights showed long clear stretches.

They drove on interminably. Eventually Tim stuffed his handkerchief into the hole in the roof.

Tim’s watch showed 8 P.M., twilight time for Los Angeles June, but it was as black as ink outside. Rain fell intermittently. The windshield wipers in the Blazer were very good, and Stimms had showed them how to fill the washers. Eileen used them often.

As they rounded a sharp curve, the headlights showed empty space in front of them. Eileen braked, hard, and brought the car to a stop. The headlights bored small holes in the rainy dark, but there was enough light to show a jagged end to the road.

Tim got out in the rain and went toward the edge. When he saw where he stood he gulped, hard, and went back to the driver’s side. “Back up, slow,” he commanded.

She started to ask why, but the urgent fear in his voice stopped her. Carefully she put the car into reverse and crawled back. “Get back there and guide me, damn you!” she shouted.

“Sorry.” Tim walked back behind the car and guided her with gestures. Finally he made chopping motions.

She switched off the ignition and got out to see where they’d been. The bridge had been a slender concrete arch spa

They could see nothing. To the left they felt the loom of a flint-and-granite cliff rising high above them. On the right, beyond a broad earth hump, was a steep drop into nothing. Ahead was the ruined bridge.

There were no lights anywhere, and no sounds except howling wind driving the rain, and far below, sounds of rushing water.

“End of the line?” Eileen said.

“I don’t know. It’s a cinch we can’t do anything about it tonight. I guess we stay here until daylight.”

“If there’s ever any daylight again,” she said. She frowned, and began walking up the road. Tim didn’t follow. He stood, exhausted, wanting to get back into the car, but reluctant to do it until she came back. Somehow it would have been cowardly to sit in the car out of the rain while she tramped up the road, looking for… for what? Tim wondered. Finally she came back and got in. Tim went around and joined her.

She began backing up, slowly, this time without his help. She went on and on, and Tim wanted to ask what she was doing, but he was too tired. She had made a decision, and that was good, because he didn’t have to. Eventually she came to a wide gravel patch to the left side of the road and carefully backed into it so that the car was off the pavement entirely. “I don’t like it,” she said. “There might be a mudslide. But I’d rather be here than on the road. Suppose someone else comes.”

“No one will.”

“Probably. Anyway, we’re here.”

“Beer?” Tim asked.

“Sure.”

He took two cans from the six-pack the car salesman had thrown in. He opened one and started to throw the pull tab away.

“Save that.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Save everything,” Eileen said. “We don’t have much. I don’t know what we can use those for, but we’ll never get more of them. Save it. Cans, too. Don’t crush them.”

“Okay. Here.”

The beer was lukewarm, like the rain outside. They had nothing else. Nothing to eat, and the rain outside was mildly salty. Tim wondered if they could drink it safely. Pretty soon they’d have to.

“At least it’s warm,” Tim said. “We won’t freeze, even at this altitude.” His clothes were damp, and it wasn’t really very warm. He wished they’d saved the old raincoat from the first car. For a moment Tim thought about the Chrysler’s owner. Had they killed him by taking his car? That wasn’t something to think about. What was?

“Do we save this or drink it up and be done with it?” Tim asked.

“Better save at least two,” Eileen said. Her voice was wooden and emotionless, and Tim wondered if he sounded that way to her. Wordlessly he opened another pair of cans and they drank that.

Two cans of beer, on an empty stomach, after the day’s excitement: Tim found that it had more effect than he could have believed. He almost felt human again. He knew it wouldn’t last, but for the moment there was a warm feeling in his stomach and a lightness in his head. He looked toward Eileen. He couldn’t see her in the dark. She was only a shape on the seat beside him. He listened to the rain for a few moments longer, then reached for her.