CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

EXODUS, STAGE RIGHT

Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city.

—Holy Bible, Revelation 14:8

Alex Smith, 28 December, Mars Year i

San Francisco, California, Planet Earth

Although electricity in the Bay Area had failed several days before, people were still living there, but as that third morning after Christmas dawned crisp and bright, all the survivors were ordered out of the City of San Francisco and surrounding communities. It was now obvious that the Martians would soon occupy the place, and that anyone left behind would not survive very long.

Indeed, there were more people remaining than the authorities had ever imagined, tens of thousands of them, and evacuating the multitudes was no easy task. Some were loaded on ships at the Embarcadero, some sent south on trains, some put on BART or buses or trucks or bikes or skateboards or anything else that was mobile.

By mid-morning, though, the Police Department began to lose coherency as an organization, falling apart as individual officers fled with their families for safer climes. Official government was just about finished in the city.

The freeways out of town were all jammed, although some effort was being made by the Highway Patrol to clear away any vehicles blocking traffic. One of the major problems confronting the evacuation was the fact that two Martian fighting-machines were planted at Mountain View, just west of San José. These’d landed fairly early in the picture, but hadn’t moved any further than the area immediately surrounding the impact sites. They’d obviously been positioned to anchor the southern hub of the alien advance.

As transportation efforts eased, the remaining refugees began fighting among themselves for room in private automobiles, vans, delivery trucks, or whatever was available, often paying exorbitant prices for the privilege. Those who couldn’t pay tried taking matters in their own hands, which resulted in several violent shoot-outs with many casualties. Helicopters were used to airlift hospital patients to waiting ships off-shore.

As the day advanced and the bus, BART, and train drivers refused to return to San Francisco, the people began fleeing in an ever-thickening multitude to the south—by foot, by bicycle, even by grocery store cart. At noon a Martian strider was seen on the Marin side of the Golden Gate Bridge, which was being defended on the San Francisco end by some hasty emplacements erected at the Presidio, the long-decommissioned Army base. It was important to keep the Bridge clear as long as possible, because the ports of both San Francisco and Oakland are located within the Bay, with the only exit into the Pacific Ocean being through the Golden Gate. People were still being evacuated through the strait by ship.

There was a brief firefight at Fort Baker on the tip of the Marin Peninsula, but it ended with the usual result. This was followed by an exaltation of the Black Death, but its effect was minimal, since the intervening ocean neutralized its potency before it could reach land on the other side. The Martian striders would have to enter the city proper to seize control. Nothing happened immediately, however.

A freight train consisting of empty boxcars and flatcars had been run all the way up to the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero. Refugees piled into the gondolas any way they could, and still there were more people wanting to leave. Why they’d waited so long is a mystery to me. The train started backing its line of cars south along the waterfront, eventually plowing through the shrieking hordes that tried to block it, crushing a number of refugees, but eventually getting out of the city with some difficulty, and saving perhaps a thousand souls.

The Martians moved into the city around dinner time, spraying the area near the waterfront and the Presidio with the Black Death, killing anyone who couldn’t get to high ground.

The few survivors fled into the higher parts of the city—the ziggurats of Babylon, you might say—where they waited and watched as the Martians spread out, establishing bases at strategic points. Of course, I knew nothing of this until later, but I had my own hell to experience first!