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enough to blow away the Anarchis itself.
That was another unreality, Frank told himself unhappily.
They were fighting their way toward an island of metal, of sanity. It stood
unaltered amid madness and devastation: the motor home. Several new gouges
scarred the trim where something had tried to break through. The metal had
resisted. A little of the pain in his side and shoulders went away at the
sight of it.
"If we survive this I'm gonna buy that damn machine. Alicia can turn it into a
planter or the kids can make a rec room out of it. I'll take off the wheels
and put it up on blocks, but I'm not giving it back. It's saved my ass too
many times."
"It has not saved anything yet." Burnfingers manipulated the keys with one
huge hand until he found the one that fit the door lock.
He and Flucca had to help Frank in. Water continued rising around them.
What looked like a giant salamander came wriggling through the water toward
them. Burnfingers kicked it aside. The contact produced a feeble, gurgling
squeal. Tiny dark eyes peered mournfully up at them out of deeply sunk eye
sockets. The face was faintly human.
Once inside, Frank headed for his familiar place behind the wheel.
Burnfingers gently but firmly eased him into the other chair.
"Not this time, my friend. Now I drive whether you like it or not."
Frank was too exhausted to argue.
"All clear!" Flucca yelled as he closed the door and dogged it tight.
Burnfingers turned the motor home around, accelerated slowly so as not to soak
the brakes. The water was halfway up the wheels and still rising.
Fortunately, the motor home had higher clearance than any automobile.
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After a few miles, the road began to ascend, climbing from the industrialized
harbor area into the suburban knolls of Rolling Hills Estates.
Looking back the way they'd come, Frank saw a ten-foot-high wave advancing
across the city. No ordinary surf, it was more like a bore tide. The solid
wall of water rushed up the city streets from the harbor to crash against
burning buildings. Anything less than a story high was submerged.
Riding the crest of the irresistible tide was an army of nightmares from the
depths, all pulsing red gills and snaggleteeth and poisonous spines.
Flat, silvery fish eyes burned with an unnatural intelligence. Even at this
distance Frank fancied he could hear the bloated bubbling sounds the aquatic
invaders made as they began to feed frenziedly on the drowning carcasses of
the inundated city dwellers. Hills and trees soon blotted the horror from
view.
The Peninsula appeared deserted. Any surviving families were probably cowering
inside their homes. There were no other vehicles moving. Palos Verdes had
become a Gibraltarlike island anchoring the southern corner of the sunken
Los Angeles Basin.
For the moment they were safe, though the land continued to subside.
The fabric of reality was unraveling around them faster than ever. At any
moment the remaining dry land might sink beneath the hungry waves or be torn
asunder by a new earthquake. Gravity itself might end, sending them spinning
into space, choking and gasping for air as the planet's atmosphere dissipated
rapidly around them.
As they continued to climb he saw that the Pacific had reclaimed all the
lowlands. The only evidence of former human habitation were the tops of office
towers and luxury condominiums along Wilshire and downtown, and the
occasional top lane of some freeway interchange to which crowded cars clung
like ants trying to escape a flood.
Burnfingers shifted out of low as the ground leveled off. They drove past
denuded eucalyptus, oak, sycamore, and bottlebrush. Even the evergreens had
been stripped of their needles. As they crossed the Peninsula and turned south
toward his house, they saw the ocean once more. It was bubbling and heaving
like a boiling pot. Waterspouts danced across the tormented surface despite
the absence of wind. The long brown silhouette of Catalina Island was missing
entirely from the western horizon, having vanished completely beneath the
waves.
His house still sat intact on its acres, the iron gate guarding the entrance
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