Crawford Kilian - Tsunami - A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller

The submarine gloom appealed to him. He sat at the roll-top and scrawled a few notes to himself; then he picked up the phone. First the logistics call: for transport, fuel, food and weapons. His contact was hard to reach, and harder to bargain with. When negotiations ended, Allison had promised a half-million dollars in gold for two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of supplies and equipment. For the first time, he felt grateful for gas rationing; without it, black marketeers like his contact would still be dealing in nonessentials like cocaine.

Next he reviewed the mental list he’d made the day before, on the drive back from Carmel to the ranch. The Loefflers were at the top of it, thanks to Ted’s organizational ability; Allison expected them to agree. Two more couples remained to be contacted. From what he’d seen so far of conditions in L.A., they were likely to accept his offer as well. He began to punch the number of the first couple.

An hour later, as the rain began to slacken, Allison made one final call. A child’s voice answered:

“Hello, this is Sarah Allison speaking.”

“Hi, love. It’s Dad. How are you?”

“Daddy! Hi, Daddy! Mommy, it’s Daddy. We didn’t have any lights yesterday,” she told him proudly. “So we had cold hot dogs for dinner.”

“Sounds yummy. Listen, love, can I talk to your mom for a second?”

“Okay. Here’s Mommy.”

Astrid sounded cool but tense. “Where are you?”

“Up at the ranch. I’ve been trying to get through to you guys since yesterday. How are things?”

“As well as we might expect. The power just came on a few hours ago. It’s been freezing cold.”

“Same with us.”

“It must be tough to live in a palace with no lights.”

He would not let himself be baited. “Have you got enough food? Enough money?”

“We have a freezer half full of soggy meat. If the power stays on long enough for me to cook it, we’ll be all right. I don’t know about money. Most of the markets in Santa Monica are locked up tight. The open ones are charging three times what they were last week. And the Honda needs a brake job, so I can’t even get out of here except on foot.”

“Jesus. Okay, listen. I’ll call Ted Loeffler and ask him to get out to you with some money and the office car, the Nissan. You’re welcome to it for as long as you need it.”

“Why, thank you, kind sir. Sarah, be still, you can talk to him in a minute, okay?”

“Anything else? Sarah need anything?”

“She’s fine. Mostly we’ve been playing Fish and Crazy Eights. And eating cold hot dogs.”

“Listen, Astrid, this line is getting worse. Can you still hear me?”

“Perfectly.”

“What? I can hardly hear you. Look, I’ll get in touch with Ted. You guys take it easy, and I’ll try to call again tomorrow. Give Sarah a kiss for me and tell her I’ll have a long talk with her next time.”

“And give Shauna Dawn a kiss for me,” Astrid said. She hung up abruptly. More slowly, Allison did also.

By a quarter to eleven the next morning, all of Allison’s guests were sitting together in a corner of the big living room of his house on Encantada Drive. Rain pattered steadily on the long-unused sun deck outside; across the room, logs burned in the fireplace. The air was pleasant with the smell of coffee.

The conversation, as people had arrived, had centred on everyone’s difficulties since the waves: power outages, shortages of food and gas, looting in local stores, businesses collapsing. Allison let them talk for some time, pleased but not surprised that each family’s problems had alarmed them without panicking them.

“Well,” he said at last, “it sounds as if we all agree that L.A. is a bad place to live just now.”

“What do you mean, ‘just now’?” grinned Dave Marston. He was a solidly muscled man in his late thirties, a professional stunt man who had worked on two of Allison’s films.

“Your point is well taken,” Allison smiled through the laughter. “But I think it’s gotten a little past the stage of putting up with smog and no garbage pickups. In catastrophe theory, we’re at what’s called a cusp, the point where everything breaks down.”

Bert D’Annunzio shook his head. He was a small, dark man, an ex-marine who was now doing well as a technical adviser on war films like Gunship . “This isn’t theory, Bob — this is reality.”

“You’re right as usual, Bert. So for us the question is, how do we tough out the next few weeks or months? Los Angeles is a dangerous place now. We’re going to see riots, serious food shortages, maybe epidemics, and probably a complete economic breakdown.”

“That’s already happened,” said Bert. “The New York Stock Exchange is closed for the rest of the week, at least. My broker says if it ever does open again, everything’s going to crash. He told me to forget about anything we own except gold and silver and food.” He hugged his wife Aline. “I sure hope you love me for my good looks, honey, ’cause there ain’t anything else left to love.” Aline, a quiet, pretty blonde, smiled at him — a little nervously, Allison thought.

“So you’re suggesting we all move up to your ranch in Escondido Canyon,” led Loeffler said. Good, thought Allison, Ted always keeps us moving along.

“Right. Ted and Suzi have been there before, and Bert and Aline.” He focussed on Dave and Diana Marston. “It’s hundreds of acres of rolling hills, stuck up a canyon out of sight. It’s got a compound of buildings, a good water supply and limited access. It’s right near Fort Ord, and I’m a friend of the commanding officer there — Ernie Miles. So it’s well protected, about as secure as any place in the country. And it’s got a smart, loyal staff, a Chicano couple.

“What it doesn’t have,” Allison went on, “is enough people to keep it going on a self-sufficient basis. That’s why I thought of you people. Ted’s a super organizer, a guy who gets things done. Suzi has crafts ability, pottery, leatherwork. Dave’s a jack-of-all-trades and a good shot, but I’m really after Diana.” More laughter: Diana Marston was a local celebrity thanks to her gourmet cooking show on the Los Angeles PBS station. She smiled and blushed.

“Bert’s a weapons expert and a hell of an outdoorsman. Aline is another good organizer, a born quartermaster.”

“You keep talking about weapons and military stuff,” Suzi Loeffler said. “Do you think we’ll all have to, have to fight people?”

“I hope to God not,” Allison smiled. “But if we get in a bind, it might help to know something about fighting.”

“If we accept,” asked Suzi Loeffler, “can we bring other people too? Relatives, you know, or friends?”

“Immediate family only. Your kids, but that’s it.” Allison shrugged. If we get into nephews and nieces and cousins and neighbours—”

“I understand,” Suzi nodded. “Just getting it straight.”

“Okay,” said Bert. “And when do we go?”

“Tonight, about seven o’clock.”

It had the effect he’d expected: hands to faces, widened eyes, a long moment of silence.

“All right,” Dave said. “Makes sense. What do we bring?”

The planning went on for hours. At two in the afternoon, the phone rang. Alison answered it, then took Bert aside for a moment.

“Have you got a gun with you?”

“In the car.”

“Some people are coming over in about an hour with a lot of stuff I’ve ordered. They’re getting paid in gold. I just want to make sure no one gets ripped off, least of all us.”

Promptly at three, a new Range Rover and Dodge van pulled into the driveway, while a Volvo diesel sedan parked across the street. The drivers of the Range Rover and the van got out and stood in the shelter of the garage, where Allison was waiting for them. They were young, tough-looking men in rain parkas, jeans and hiking boots. One of them handed Allison a neatly typed invoice. Allison scanned it briefly, then went out in the rain to check the trucks’ contents against the list. Canned and dehydrated food, drugs and medical supplies, tools, jerrycans of gasoline.