Day Zero

It’s not so different from gymnastics class, she told herself.

She pulled her legs under her and crouched like a cat, studying the maze of wooden poles under the pier. They stretched from here to the shore. She could very, very carefully crawl back… if the Klan didn’t figure out where she was by then.

She moved with caution, slipping from beam to beam. The crash and bubble of the tide swirling below the boardwalk drowned out the sound of her movements.

The pier shuddered slightly and Elle stopped. She held her breath. They were walking right above her head. They were shouting, but she couldn’t make out their words. What were they saying? Probably something about killing Elle. That was the Klan way, after all.

Their boots made the pier shake, and Elle found herself sweating. But they couldn’t see her down here.

Come on, keep going. You’re almost there.

Almost being a relative term.

The pier was over a thousand feet long — and that didn’t count the boardwalk bridge. Elle had to crawl almost a fourth of a mile to get back to the mainland. And once she did, she would have to run.

She focused her mind on moving from one beam to another. Since the Collapse, she had learned to be patient. To think ahead, but to live in the moment. Panicking in a time of crisis didn’t do any good. She’d seen that.

Staying calm was what had saved her from the Klan in the past.

Focus, focus!

Hours seemed to pass. She stretched from beam to beam, until her hands were blistered from gripping the wood. Splinters bit into her palms. She was only thirty or so yards away from the beach. Once she reached the mainland, she would be able to drop onto the beach. And then she would run. She climbed, and as the pier jutted into the beach, she got about ten feet above the sand. Elle dropped. The tide swirled around her worn te

She peeked around the corner, above her head. No sign of the enemy. If she stayed left, behind the shelter of the buildings on the pier, she might be able to avoid being seen.

She kept her head down and crawled along the side of the pier, out of sight. It was slow going. When she finally got even with the pier, she got down on her knees and crawled.

Think like a turtle, she told herself, smiling wryly. Slow and steady wins the race…

That’s what her mother used to tell her, anyway.

My dead mother.

She didn’t stop crawling until she reached the parking lot of the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Then she stood up and sprinted to the back of the building, breathing hard. She snuck a glance at the pier. She could see the Klan members, small specks in the distance at the end of the pier. They couldn’t see her. But she could tell by the way they were spread out around Pacific Park that they were searching for her.

She turned. And she ran. She did not want to be around when they came back this way. Her legs and lungs were strong as she put distance between herself and the enemy. She passed SM Pier Seafood and the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium, with its white paint and domed ceiling. She passed the massive parking lot on the left, full of dead cars and dead bodies. If you caught the wind, it carried the scent of the cadavers up the street.

The last collection of buildings on the strip was the dully-colored pastel restaurants and seaside souvenir shops. Vines and bushes had covered the exteriors of most of the buildings, but Elle could see that it had once been cute. A little rundown, perhaps, but because it was Santa Monica, it had probably been very pricey.

Whatever. Money didn’t matter anymore. Nothing did.

Elle didn’t look over her shoulder to see if the Klan members were coming back down the pier. She didn’t want to scare herself, and besides — there could be danger right in front of her face. The Klan had hundreds of members — if not thousands — that dominated the streets of Los Angeles and the surrounding urban areas.

Elle paused at a street called Moomat Ahiko Way. It curved left and paralleled the freeway. She stopped dead in her tracks. Following this road would take her all the way back to Ocean Avenue, back to her little apartment, back to what she was familiar with.

But if she turned left, she would be on her way out of the city for good.

Turning left would take her to Highway One, the Pacific Coast Highway. She had stared at the freeway from her apartment window for weeks, wondering when she’d be forced to leave.

In front of her, the city loomed dark and ominous. Huge. The distant rattle and boom of gunfire echoed off the empty buildings. Elle shuddered. The fights between the street gangs and Omega were escalating with each passing day.

The cold breeze ruffled Elle’s short hair. She looked behind her.

The Klan members on the pier were moving toward the beach. They had seen her, and they were ru

Left? Straight? Do I stay or do I go?

Elle closed her eyes.

And she headed back into the city.

She wasn’t ready to leave yet.

Elle didn’t dare go home. If the Klan saw where she lived, she’d have to find a new place to hide. It always took time and patience to find a safe zone. Somewhere she could hunker down and relax without wondering if someone was going to slit her throat while she slept.

She kept moving, checking to see if the Klan remnants from the pier were still pursuing her. They were. At least for now. She would throw them off her trail. Elle knew Hollywood and Santa Monica better than anyone. Every street, every shop, every alleyway.

She worked her way onto Ocean Boulevard and hung a left, bypassing her apartment building. She ran up the street, diving right, into a small alley that led to the back of another apartment complex. This one had been very upscale. A wrought iron fence surrounded the parking lot. Elle jammed her boots into the small spaces between the vertical bars and swung her body over the top, landing with a soft thud on the other side.

She sloshed through puddles and hurried to the back of the building, behind rows of parked cars. A lonely wind swept through the alley, and she could hear the voices of the Klan members on the boulevard. They weren’t trying to be stealthy. Not at all. They wanted her to know they were coming.

To them, fear was part of the fun. It was part of the hunt.

She opened the back door and stepped inside. This was the rear entrance, and she had been here a few times before. It was her little secret. Her passageway for a quick escape.

The hallway was long and dark. It smelled of dust and… something else. She had been wandering the city long enough to differentiate between the scents of rotting food and rotting bodies. She shuddered and ran through the hall, locating the stairwell. She climbed to the top level and opened the door that led to the roof. A five-foot space between this building and the next stretched before her. Elle ran and jumped, easily clearing the distance. Yet another skill she could thank martial arts and gymnastics for.

It was a good thing she’d had hobbies before Day Zero.

She ran to the other side of the roof. A telephone pole sat about two feet away from the corner of the building. Elle hopped onto the metal pegs and climbed down, moving fast. She reached the alley.

“Gotcha!”

Elle choked on a scream. A Klan member was waiting in the shadows, armed with a wicked-looking knife. She ducked under the vicious slash of the weapon as it sliced through the air. Her attacker was an older man, sparse gray hair hanging in greasy strands to his shoulders.