HOOD: A Post Apocalyptic Novel (American Rebirth Series Book 1) (19 page)

He threw the thoughts into the void of his mind, focusing on the smell of dust and the motionless hellscape ahead of him. The once-golden statues of men on horseback on the other side of the bridge were black with dirt and ashes. The trees surrounding the Lincoln memorial were dead or ripped from the ground, huge shelves of earth clinging to their roots and jutting into the air. Concrete road barriers had been blown away or crushed underneath the treads of a tank that sat blackened and defunct in a blasted ditch on the hill of the Lincoln memorial. The three of them trod silently through the blasted landscape, as if making noise would cause the charred remains of the dead to rise.

Nothing moved besides the paper and plastic that kicked up with the wind. The memorial was empty, save for Lincoln, who's face and famous beard had been reduced to rubble. Someone had spray-painted black chains on him from wrist to wrist. The Gettysburg address had been altered, as well. All that remained was
These dead shall not have died in vain. . . people shall not perish from the earth.

A chill flashed through Hood's body as he read it. It seemed to communicate that all this death and destruction was someone's idea of a future. Hood and Whiskey had never known who or what caused the collapse of the country. The infrastructure collapsed so fast that there was no way of knowing. One thing was clear, though. There was no invading army. This was someone's homegrown revolution.

The walls of the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial were cracked and crumbled, and the long reflecting pool was a shallow, murky basin of sludge, the dark reflection of the broken mall on its surface. The north side of the mall had become an impassable wall of collapsed structures and upheaved earth. The Washington Monument was scarred and blackened, but still stood tall. The closer they got to the White House lawn, it became clear that much of the impassable terrain had been crafted on purpose. Walls of debris had been piled up to keep anyone from going north. Hood cursed softly, afraid any sound he made might somehow carry across the empty city.

“The Church of the Epiphany is just past all this. It's a bit east of the White house,” Hood said, gnawing on his bottom lip.

Whiskey glared at the impasse, his nostrils flaring. “Hell, it ain't the Maginot line, so let's find a spot and climb through it.”

Hood shook his head. “I don't like it. If someone finds us clambering over broken walls, we're not exactly in a good strategic position. And it looks like someone destroyed all this on purpose.”

Whiskey stared motionless at the jagged wall. “I don't think the Kaiser did this.”

“Probably not. But he's clearly smart enough to use it to his advantage while he's here.” Hood took a step forward. Something he stepped on sank into the dirt under his foot. He lifted it and saw dull bullet casings pressed into the dark earth.

“Where's the subway?” Whiskey said, looking around.

“Oh, shit, the Metro!” Hood said, spinning on his toes and pointing to the Smithsonian metro stop. He sprinted towards it, weaving through two blown out black SUVs, a filing cabinet that looked like it had been ejected from somewhere by an explosion, and a sedan propped up by a run-over mailbox. Whiskey’s and Kerry's footsteps carried across the empty mall behind him. He stopped at the stairs leading down to the metro. The walls were tagged with graffiti, some artfully crafted, some of it hasty scribbles of hate and rage.

Hood stared down at the landing that led to a metal gate and the dormant escalators in the dark. Whiskey and Kerry walked up beside him, Kerry registering the carnage there with a sharp intake of breath.

Hood hefted his rifle onto his shoulder. “Look at it this way, we found someone.”

The landing was splattered with blood, and what had once been a body lay torn apart, a bloody ribcage showing amidst the mess of flesh. The nauseating sweet smell of decay was everywhere.

Kerry gagged, covering her mouth.

Hood himself had to fight the urge to heave. Immediately his brain conjured up Leonard’s mass grave.

Hordes of flies spun around the corpse. It had been there a while. Above the fenced- off entrance, someone had written in blue spraypaint:
Salvation lies through the darkness.
It was markedly different in tone from the words scrawled onto the descending walls. Though one other tag stood out from the others. It was spraypainted in big white lettering, rivulets of dried white paint coming down from where it was stenciled:
STAY AWAKE, STAY ALIVE.

“Do we really have to go down there?” Kerry asked, covering her nose and mouth with her hand.

Whiskey, too, looked askance at Hood.

“This goes straight to the church,” he told them. “It's not far at all.”

“All right then,” Whiskey said, holding his shotgun ready with both hands. He nodded at Hood, looking at his backpack.

Hood pulled off his pack and opened it, pulling out the flashlights and gas masks, handing them out. He produced a roll of duct tape and carefully taped a flashlight to the underside of his rifle. He tossed the roll to Whiskey, who wasted no time taping his own flashlight to the side of his shotgun barrel. They hung the gas masks loose around their necks.

“I don't know about this. . .” Kerry said, watching them prepare their weapons. “I don't know what would do . . . that,” she said, looking at the mangled corpse.

“Scavengers,” Whiskey said, turning on the flashlight.

Kerry turned to Hood with a pleading look in her eyes. “Even you must think this is insane.”

Hood took a deep breath through his nose, looking down the stairs into the dark. “I'm kinda curious, aren't you?”

“Admit it, you're scared!” Kerry said, pointing to the corpse. “That is
not
natural!”

“Of course I'm scared,” Hood said. “Who isn't, anymore?”

Whiskey walked down the steps to the steel gate that sealed shut the entrance. A metal desk, a dumpster and a refrigerator sat in front of it, keeping it closed.

“Give me a hand with this?” He called back to Hood.

“Come on,” Hood said to Kerry. “You'll be fine. I promise.” He strode past the mangled body, heaving at the refrigerator as it squeaked and squealed against the concrete.

Kerry stared at him in consternation. “You're awfully quick to make promises!”

Hood flashed her a smile, and said nothing. One by one, he and Whiskey moved the obstacles out of the way of the gate and pulled it open. Whiskey stepped inside, the beam of his light jumping back and forth from wall to wall.
You're either with us are you aren't.

Hood paused for a moment, glancing back at Kerry. Her hands were in balled fists at her side, and on her face was a pleading expression. She didn't want to leave them. Otherwise she already be gone.
If you want her to prove herself, this is your chance to let her. She can't do much empty handed.

He reached into his bag and felt the metal of the Glock 9mm. He grabbed it and strode to to Kerry, placing it in her hands. Her warm hands wrapped around both the gun and his own. He hated how good just the feel of her hands on his was. She looked into his eyes, a mixture of surprise and fear in her own. “Point it at the bad guys,” He said, winking at her and making a shushing sound, nodding towards Whiskey. He turned and went through the open gate and down the motionless escalator.
Don't make me regret this.

At the bottom, he turned and looked back at Kerry once again.
Desperate times.
She cocked back the slide of the pistol and held it for a moment before she let it snap back into place. Then she tucked it into the back of her jeans, shook her hands at her sides and exhaled. With slow, deliberate steps, she followed them down into the station.

Chapter 12 – Descent

The beams of light from Hood’s and Whiskey's guns danced inside the dark subway, crossing occasionally as they scanned back and forth. Their footsteps echoed with a metallic clank on each step down the escalators. Inside the metro, the ceiling was a like a huge concave waffle, rectangular indents running the length of the walls. Hood remembered thinking that as a kid. His familiarity with the station only made the broken landscape harder to take in. This couldn't be home.

They walked around the same bend as he had hundreds of times, down another set of escalators. The same escalators he lost his Hot Wheels truck in when he was a boy, crying on the train ride home. Maybe it was still down there, somewhere, covered in dust. At the bottom ran a long hallway. It was pitch black except for the flashlights. Piles of refuse and makeshift sleeping mats hid along the walls. The air was dry and acrid, like old dust in a bone-dry river bed. There was no sound but their footsteps, which echoed in the dark so loudly that he was sure people in Georgetown could hear them. He felt like an invader in a tunnel on some foreign planet, as if some giant bug monster would jump out and eat them, something out of Starship Troopers.

Hood exhaled slowly, closing his eyes.
You're in no danger. At least not from the architecture, anyway. The place isn't going to collapse on you. It isn't going to collapse on you.
He repeated, hands starting to sweat.

The long causeway toward the trains was littered with signs of life: Empty food wrappers, water bottles, beer cans, dirty newspapers and even an old ratty couch someone had brought down. Much of the refuse looked as though it had been torn apart.

Whiskey held the light on something on the floor and approached it cautiously: a puddle next to a metal subway bench. As he got close, he knelt down and shone the light around them. Hood sighted down his rifle and scanned the empty subway. Nothing was there.

"Is it blood?" Kerry asked.

"Keep it down," Whiskey whispered. "Speak only loud enough to be heard." He sniffed at the air, then touched the liquid, looked at it in the light, and smelled it again.

"It's water," Whiskey said quietly. "Clean water." Whiskey pointed his shotgun directly above them. The ceiling had no leaks; no droplets oozed through the cracks.

"Someone was here," Hood replied in a hushed tone.

"We don't really know that. This place looks as empty as the rest of the city. I think we should go back," Kerry whispered.

"We're not going back," Whiskey responded gruffly.

"We don't even know if the way through is clear. It could be a dead end," Kerry retorted. "We are literally and figuratively in the dark."

Whiskey turned around and pointed his shotgun into her face, the light blinding her. She shielded her eyes.

"I don't know why you're still here, or what exactly you intend to do with the rest of your short life, but you would be dead already if it weren't for Hood. If you don't agree with our decisions, then leave!" Whiskey growled.

Hood stepped up and pushed Whiskey's gun down.

"I just want to help," Kerry said.

"Oh yeah? And why is that? So you can sell us out to someone else down the road?" Whiskey barked.

Hood moved between the two of them and patted Whiskey on the chest repeatedly, reiterating that they needed to stay quiet. The darkness around them felt overwhelming.

Kerry stood her ground, her feet residing in the halo of light from Whiskey's downward-facing shotgun.

"You may hate me, but you two are the only people I can trust. The closest thing to family I have left." She hung her head.

Whiskey glared at her, searching her for some sign of weakness, some hint of a lie. He hefted his shotgun and turned to continue. "You're not my goddamned family," Whiskey said.

She didn’t answer.

Hood believed her. Enough to give her a gun, anyway. She had done terrible things, sure. But she wanted to redeem herself. It was also valuable having someone around who owed you their life. Just thinking it felt ugly, but it was reality. Was her life just a chip to bet?
Don't pretend like that's the only reason she's here. Don't pretend you don't feel the way you feel.

"We have to stay quiet," Hood reiterated.

He could feel her eyes on him as he scanned the empty corridor. He faced her and offered a halfhearted smile of reassurance. "Come on," he said quietly. "Let's keep moving."

He walked forward silently, sighting down his rifle again, using the light to show the way. Whiskey was a few steps ahead of him, doing the same.

The corridor became an open balcony with steps down either side to the train platforms below. Hood saw nothing but rubble and refuse on the platforms, and the empty black train tracks below.

Whiskey grunted. “Anything?”

"No," Hood responded. "Both of the train tunnels have been sealed up with rubble. It looks like they wanted to block the exits."

"One of them on this side is open," Whiskey said. "Heading north."

"Isn't that the way we want to go?" Kerry asked.

"Yeah," Hood replied.

A cockroach scuttled across the floor, illuminated by the light from Hood's rifle. The three of them inspected the tunnel entrance, aglow from Whiskey's light.

“Doesn't that seem a little too convenient?” Kerry said.