Page 8 of Breaking Danger
But she was trapped.
That was yesterday. She’d spent a sleepless night shaking, listening to the sounds of screams and explosions, the city falling apart. And she’d spent the day watching the carnage outside her windows.
Her building had photovoltaic solar panels on the roof. At least she’d have electricity until the end. Probably. Maybe.
She made herself a cup of tea and sat on the sofa. It was the new Frau model with a digital music player in the arm. She plugged in her new noise cancelling earbuds and sat back, eyes closed, savoring the utter silence for just a few minutes.
The day had been filled with the cries of the enraged and the dying. Fire and car alarms going off all over the city. The sound of feet pounding on the pavement, glass shattering, a few far off explosions as gas mains went. Howls. Terrifying sounds of utter destruction.
Now the noise canceling ear buds gave her the gift of silence, a moment of weary peace. She loved silence. Sometimes after a stressful week she’d head up to the Marin Headlands for a long walk. Something she’d never be able to do again.
The last of the TV announcements had said that both the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate were closed off and that Marines were stationed at the San Francisco ends. Earlier today, there’d been a huge explosion, a column of smoke rising from the west. Her windows gave out onto Beach with no view of the Golden Gate Bridge but it sounded as if they’d blown it. Or maybe they’d blown up the access roads?
Maybe she could never leave San Francisco ever again.
Unless…
Before the internet had gone last night, her best friend, Elle Connelly, had emailed to say that someone named Jon was coming for her, would be there in a few hours. Elle had made only the vaguest mention of where she was—somewhere up north. And no mention of who this Jon was.
Then Sophie lost her internet connection and was left only with this thin thread of hope.
Something about the way Elle had written the email—Jon is coming—had given her a rush of hope. Jon was coming. She had no idea who this Jon was but it felt as if though the end of the world was here, Jon was coming maybe, just maybe, things would get better.
That was 24 hours ago and Jon hadn’t come.
Jon was dead somewhere, torn limb from limb. Or, worse, Jon was now roaming the streets of San Francisco or wherever it was that Elle was, with madness in his eyes, covered in blood and killing as many people as he could.
She’d watched death on a massive scale all day. Now she needed respite and silence. The noise-cancelling headset beckoned.
Sophie leaned back, enveloped in the cool embrace of the silence, wishing there was some kind of image-cancelling mechanism, something that would cancel memories the way the headsets cancelled noise. But some things, once seen, could never be unseen.
So much violence, so much blood. So many dead.
She tried visualizing other things. Better things.
After all, her life had given her plenty of wonderful images. Her parents sneaking downstairs on Christmas Eve, placing presents under the ten foot Christmas tree, relaxing with a glass of wine, making out on the couch and then pretending with a perfectly straight face the next day that Santa had arrived.
Playing in the snow with her gorgeous, dumb-as-a-rock cocker spaniel Fritz on the lawn of their house outside Chicago. Pajama parties. Piano recitals, her first kiss, her first lover, Allan Mercer, who’d been just as gorgeous and just as dumb as Fritz.
She smiled, eyes closed.
Lots of good things.
Lots of not so good things, too. The death of her parents in a car accident when she was 24. It had been the death of her family. No siblings, her parents had been only children too. They’d been a close, charmed circle, untouchable until the hand of fate swatted her family away.
That same hand of fate was going to swat her away, too, together with the rest of humanity if she died here and no one found the vaccine and the original virus.
Oh, God.
Without even thinking about it, a tear trickled down her face. She opened her eyes and sat up straighter. Tears weren’t going to change anything. If there were ever a situation in which tears couldn’t help, this was it.
Maybe wine would help. Yes, a glass of that really good Damoit Chambertin. She’d bought a case of the ridiculously expensive wine because she was enchanted with the origin name—Cote de Nuits.The Night Coast. Turned out it wasn’t a coast at all, but by that time the vendor had charmed her out of $400. It was okay because it was fabulous stuff.
Right, she had 12 bottles of it.
A bottle a day…
Would the world last 12 days?
