The Walk Read Online Free PDF

his glasses and smashing one of the tiny water bottles in his jacket pocket. As he lay gasping for breath, a piece of paper fluttered in front of his face, tiny flames beginning to curl the edges. It was the picture of Molly’s kid. He slapped the flames out with his hand.
    The edges of the picture were charred, but the smiling faces were intact. The Molly in the photo and the woman he’d left behind, the woman with the pleading eyes and bloody smile, were two different people. Marty would never be able to reconcile the two images, one of which he knew he would never shake.
    Angel.
    Was she crying out to her daughter, her little angel, with that last breath? Or was she calling out to Marty, mistaking him in her desperation for something he definitely was not? Or was she screaming in horrified recognition at the dark spirit that came to take her away?
    He’d never know, but he’d probably never stop wondering, either.
    Marty took the photo and staggered to his feet. Every part of his body seemed to ache. His hair was singed, his face was scratched, one pant-leg was torn at the knee, and his crotch was soaked with Evian, but he’d made it.
    He turned slowly towards the narrow street, staring at the sight in disbelief. Both vehicles were engulfed in flames, the fire spreading to the ruins of the nearby buildings.
    If he’d hesitated another second, he would have been burned alive. That’s how close he cut it.
    Up until today, he managed to live his life without risking it even once. And now, twice in one morning, he’d barely avoided death.
    That kind of luck doesn’t last, not for real people. He was almost killed, all because he stopped, all because he let himself be pulled into someone else’s problem. Molly’s certain death nearly became his.
    He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
    Marty turned his back to the fire, crammed the picture deep into his wet pocket, adjusted the straps of the gym bag over his shoulders, and started walking.

CHAPTER THREE

This is the City, Los Angeles, California
     
    11 :40 a.m. Tuesday
    Marty’s Ray-Bans teetered precariously on the bridge of his nose, held in place by only one arm. A lens was cracked, too, but there was no way he was taking the glasses off. They were part of his disguise as he moved purposefully up the middle of Alameda Street, carefully winding his way through the debris field of fractured pavement, smashed cars, and crumpled buildings.
    His dust mask was crushed, but he molded it back into shape and pulled it up over his nose and mouth. He only had three masks left and wasn’t disposing of this one until it absolutely couldn’t be used any more. It also covered his face and helped conceal any sympathy or fear that might inadvertently escape.
    Smoke and dust filled the air, shrouding him in a swirling fog of destruction. He welcomed it. The haze further obscured him from others and they from him.
    He ignored the crashed cars and the crushed cars and the victims inside them.
    He ignored the dazed survivors, most of them elderly Asians, stumbling across his path like drunks, their faces lined and puckered with age.
    He ignored the injured and the dead, laid out on the sidewalks like garage sale trinkets on display.
    And he ignored the crying, the moaning, and the screaming.
    He ignored it all.
    There were a thousand Mollys out there, and he didn’t want to meet another one. It was too painful and far too dangerous.
    Marty kept his gaze at his feet, following the twisted iron of the long-forgotten railroad track imbedded in the broken asphalt. Or maybe it was an old trolley track. Marty didn’t know and didn’t really care. What little Los Angeles history he knew was gleaned from
Dragnet
reruns. If Jack Webb didn’t film it, Marty didn’t know it.
    He didn’t feel he was missing anything. Los Angeles didn’t have much history anyway and what little it did have was paved over the instant it showed any age, which made sense to him. The only buildings tourists