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The saucer students heard four rapid horn-beeps which cah air heavy with the sour, acrid fu more than ever since a hot, damp wind had set in fro black cloudbank to the south

Hunter brought the sedan to a stop behind the Corvette, which had just topped a rise, the road passing between two natural rock gateposts so in the seat, studying the terrain ahead He looked just a little like a pirate, with the brim of his black hat pulled down in back but turned up sharply in front He reached out his right hand, and Ra, using the seven-power instrument Rama Joan and Ann stood up, too

Hunter stopped the sedan&039;s motor, set the brake, and as the school bus drew up behind theot out and hurried forward until they could see, too

In front of theentle undulations to a broad-ditched flat, then rose again, though not so high

The slope was black to the left, dusty greenish-brown to the right Monica Mountainent down it in swinging curves, crossing and recrossing the demarcation line between the burned and the unburned

Toward the bottom, als surrounded by a wide graveled space and a high, wire-mesh fence Then the road joined the broad-ditched fiat which led off in either direction, al, until the hills hid it each way

Down the center of the flat, following its contours, stretched what looked for a long , flattish, scaly serpent thirty yards wide The individual scales, which ran in glitter-bordered rows eight or nine across, were h here and there was a green or red one Judging by its glittering sides, the serpent had a silver belly

Wojtowicz, co up behind them, said, "Cripes, we&039;re there That&039;s it Wow!"

The scaly serpent was inland Route 101, jalitter-border was the freeway&039;s wire-mesh fence

Doc said hoarsely, "I want to talk to Doddsy and McHeath"

Rairl climbed past her o&039;s eyes stopped swinging and started to linger, details began to destroy the serpent illusion At ainst the fence Some of these had their hoods up and dabs of white at their sides - Hunter realized these last e handkerchiefs: pitifully obedient "askings for assistance" set up before the jaot impossible

At several points the serpent scales were twisted and whorled: accidents never cleaned up and atteo back the way they&039;d co the shoulder

At three places the wire-e filled with cars nose-on: theseto ram their way out One of these attempts had been limitedly successful: the fence was down, but the way out beyond it blocked by a ether, two half-climbed onto the others&039; backs

Here and there a few cars still , backward and forward jerks of a few feet each way Stale exhaust-stenchon the ht of what it eneral ht fro, ten thousand bu up and down trying to keep open lanes that relentlessly shortened and narrowed, five thousandexhaust pipes, hornsAnd about a hundred thousand , "It is the valley of dry bones Lord of the Saucers, succor them" From the car beside him Ra as his evil deed does not ripen; but when his evil deed ripens"

The biggest and worst car-crush of all here Monica Mountainway entered 101 just beyond the three white buildings: a hundred or so cars slewed every which way, several overset, others ditch-jammed sideways, and the nearest three dozen burnt black - it occurred to Hunter that he was very possibly looking at the source of the brush fire

Only after he and Margo had studied the cars for quite a while (or for an interin to see the people It was as if soes

People! - three or four to each car, at least Many of the between the on fabric-or-cushion-spread car roofs Off to the left, beyond the burnt swathe, many people had climbed the fence and set up blanket-and-beach-towel-shaded bivouacs, yet few if any of theone far froured the jam would be cleaned up somehow in a few hours or a day And there wasn&039;tto the shade

It was a stale old joke, Hunter recalled, that Angelenos, using cars even to visit the people across the street, had forgotten hoalk - one of those jokes that are little more than the unretouched truth

Just to the left of the Monica Mountainway outlet and car-crush, a clutch of black and white police cars was drawn up on a cleared stretch of shoulder, in a seuarded a car-wide break in the fence, looking as if it had been done with heavy wire-clippers A half-dozen police were inside it, and right now one of theh the break, i north on the flat outside the fence A few people came out of their bivouacs and seemed to hail him, but he kept on, and they stood there as his dust-wake broadened and billowed around the rapidly higher, there were fewer bivouacs but more people in the open - sliathering in clu And it see, quite tinny and faint, the squawk and squeal and dru so differently, there was a hundred-yard stretch, including the Mountainway outlet, that had no people at all in it, even sitting in the cars - except for ten or so stretched here and there on the ground Hunter wondered for asun, before it occurred to hie-aware of his coathered around the Corvette, too Now he beard , "Look at that cloudbank I don&039;t know that I&039;ve ever heard of a wet southeast wind like this in Southern Cal," and McHeath replying, "Maybe the ocean&039;s broke through and filled the Salton Sea and other low spots, Mr Dodd And with - gee! - maybe a hundred miles of tidewater, there&039;d be lots of evaporation" Hunter continued to scan the overpowering scene ahead

Three of the sli the shoulder, estures,from a bottle They&039;d counfire from the police-car camp One of the three fell - hard to tell at this distance whether he lay quiet or writhed The other two vaulted over the nearest line of stalled cars and hid

Hunter put his aroes on?" he demanded

"Yeah, for crissakes, Doc, tell us what you can see through the glasses," Wojtowicz put in "It looks like war"

"It is," Doc reported crisply "Now listen to what I say, everybody that wants to," he went on loudly, continuing to scan through the glasses, "because I&039; to tell it twice and there&039;ll be no tiht-see with these It&039;s a war, or a big skir people and the older people - or I should say the police helped by a few older people, butkids versus police protecting families It&039;s the Day of the Children

"Those sli - I can see a liquor truck bust open and kids handing out bottles They got a live jazz band going in a cleared space There are fights - knife and fist A gang with sledges is s in car bodies for no sane reason"

Doc censored fro he noted inside the cars - for shade rather than privacy, it see naked near the jazz band, the wanton beatings-up and terrorizings, and - in the other direction - the group draining a car radiator and eagerly drinking thewell, he hoped there weren&039;t too many additives in the water

"But not all their violence is against cars or each other," be went on "There&039;s a bunch of theht noeen the euns, the rest bottles

"I think the police have set up a little ambush on their side At any rate I can see two or three of them crouched behind cars in the middle of the ja to be out of here, heading back for Mulholland," he went on in a louder voice, handing the glasses to Ra to face his crowd "Doddsy! McHeath! Have Pop and Hixon turn their cars - there&039;s room to do it - and"

"Youus to turn tail and run?" Hixon hi, rifle in hand, just beyond the Ramrod "When there&039;s decent folks down there about to be swaun? Look, I been a cop ot to help theot to protect ourselves and get the roup - and while it&039;s still got power in it How o?"