HOOD: A Post Apocalyptic Novel (American Rebirth Series Book 1) (13 page)

Her eyes were wild with anger as she stared intensely back at Whiskey. For whatever it was worth, Hood believed her. At least about this, anyway.

Hood bumped his shoulder into Whiskey’s. “Let her go,” he said quietly. “We need her help.”

Whiskey slowly let go of her black denim jacket and put away his gun. She leaned back against the truck and wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her sleeve.

“For being the smartest person I know you're a god
damned
moron,” Whiskey grunted at Hood and walked away.

Kerry pulled her jacket straight and then tucked her hair behind her ear.

“I'll go talk to him. Just don't fucking go anywhere,” Hood said, holding his hand up to stress the point.

“Yeah, you do that,” she said with venom. Hood expected her to spit in anger, but she didn’t. He had clearly spent too much time around guys. She marched to the back of the truck and sat in the open bed, leaning back on her arms.

Hood slung the rifle over his shoulder as he walked towards Whiskey, who stared out into the empty road, arms crossed. Hood walked up next to him and kicked idly at a piece of asphalt that skittered back and forth down the road.

“Everything's just gone to hell,” was all Whiskey said.

Hood nodded slowly.
Yeah, it has. But we're still here.
He rubbed the back of his head, which lead to a compulsive stretch and yawn. He needed much more sleep. They weren't going to get it anytime soon.
Time is ticking away and we still have a ways to go to get to D.C.. Taylor's in the belly of the beast and you can't get out of your own way. I know Ian will do everything he can to keep her safe. But can he really protect her?
Dirt kicked up by the wind flew into his eye and he blinked it away.

“Taylor. . .” Whiskey seemed hesitant to even give the thoughts air. “She's all alone, prisoner. . . We're all she's got left. We can't take risks.”

“I know how bad things are. I know what we're up against. But we can do this. And Kerry might be able to help us save her. Don't you think you're being too paranoid?” Hood said finally. Whiskey uncrossed his arms.

“No.”

The sound of the high grass swishing heralded a particularly strong gust of wind. The sun finally peered out from a hole in the clouds.

“Why is it so hard to believe she's just a regular person trying to survive?”

Whiskey worked his mouth in frustration. His short stubble had slowly become a beard. It felt like a year had passed since they left Clearwater to raid the Sheriff's cache.

“Because girls like that don't just get left alone.”

Hood squinted at the horizon, considering this. It certainly was a hard thing to argue. Even if Hood believed her story, there was the question of how she’d been able to escape. Her story was just a story, whether it was true or not. But she had a genuineness about her that Hood wanted to trust. After all, her introduction to the group had been not unlike his own. But he couldn't afford to trust too easily. Hood looked back at the truck. She looked like she was rooting through her bag inside the cab.

“Listen, I get it. But what future do we have if everyone we ever meet is an enemy to us? You trusted me when you met me. Why?” Hood gazed out to the other side of the river. The clearing filled with tall grass gave way to a wall of trees, cut into only by the worn, graying road.

“Because I knew you were a good kid,” Whiskey said definitively.

“How could you have known that?”

Whiskey opened his mouth to speak but stopped himself. He shook his head ever so slightly, and turned to look upriver. “I could just feel it. . . And I can feel that this girl is hiding something from us.”

Hood rubbed his eye still itching from the dirt before breathing in deeply, arching his back to stretch. “Yeah, she probably is.”

The two of them sat in silence. A raccoon appeared from the tall grass and scurried over the road a ways ahead of them.

“I have to believe we can give her a chance. If not, I don't know why we're still alive and human. I won't let you kill her just because she
could
be working for someone. And I guess, in a selfish third place, you’re right: I think I like her a little bit.”

Whiskey sighed. “Well, if she’s sold us out, we're screwed no matter what happens.” He rubbed his short beard. “To hell with it. You've already made up your goddamned mind and I don't have it in me to argue anymore.”

“I was a stranger, and I turned out to be a solid addition, I’d say!” Hood slapped Whiskey on the shoulder. “So was Taylor.”

The two of them stood silent. Hood knew they both were thinking about her, about what they could be doing to her—whether she was even still alive. The fear built in the silence, and they needed to kill the fear. It did nothing but hold them hostage.
We're coming, Tay. If we have to ride a fucking radio flyer through hell to get there, we will.

“Yeah, it all worked out goddamned great.” Whiskey grumbled, turning to walk back to the truck.

Hood laughed, turning on his heel, adjusting the rifle strap with his thumb as it tried to slide off his shoulder. “Aww, someone's getting grumpy in his old age! Want me to build you a porch so you can yell at me to get off of it?”

Whiskey held up his middle finger over his shoulder.

“When you used to open up fortune cookies, did they all say 'out of touch old man thinks everyone is out to get him?’” Hood shouted.

“I bet you were one of those kids who used to wear skinny jeans and look sad all the time,” Whiskey said loudly.

“Ohhh shiiit,” Hood tossed at him, walking back towards the truck. “Someone get the old man some new dentures, because he's spittin' fire!”

Chapter 8 – In The Dark

As he lay on a mat of blankets in the bed of the truck, with the band of the milky way bright in the night sky above him, Hood wanted to indulge the fantasy that he was on a vagabond road trip straight out of Kerouac. Forget about the war that his life had become. But there was no time for that; it was his turn to sleep while Whiskey drove, and sleep was a precious commodity. And it felt so damn good.

The bright full moon shimmered a path across the Atlantic. The sound of the rolling waves crashing on the beach had a rhythmic therapy to it. Ian's phone binged with a text message. Then another. The two of them sat in the sand side by side, both with their forearms resting on their knees. Ian took a swig from his beer.

“You gonna answer that?” Hood said.

“It can wait,” Ian said calmly.

“Probably your girl.”

“It can wait.”

The salty air howled off the ocean, whipping Hood's unkempt hair in his face. He finished his beer, pushing the bottle into the sand next to the other empties beside him.

“I'm not cut out for this shit.”

“It's a part of life, man. Don't let it all weigh you down,” Ian punctuated it with another drink.

“It feels like she's gone. Like she died. Like a part of me died. Do other people get this torn up? I wish I could just not care about it at all.”

“No you don't,” Ian smiled at his bottle. “Then you'd be a miserable asshole like me.”

Hood laughed. It felt good, it felt real. A momentary reprieve.

“Come on. Look around you. Look how awesome this is. We got this place for the weekend, lets just enjoy it. Forget about her. I'm sure there's some girls our age around here.”

“I can't even think about that. I can't stop thinking about her,” Hood said, picking up a handful of sand and letting it run through his fingers.

“You two still talking?” Ian said, finishing his own beer and twisting it into the sand.

“Yeah,” Hood said, pulling his phone out of his jeans to check it.

“That's your problem,” Ian said, snatching the phone out of his hands. He stood up and hurled it towards the ocean. It glimmered in the moonlight and plopped into the sea.

“WHAT THE FUCK, DUDE?” Hood yelled, jumping to his feet.

“Relax, I'll buy you a new one! Now you have to enjoy your weekend.”

“Dude, all my contacts, what the hell, seriously?”

“Fuck your contacts. What are you, an ambassador?” Ian ran down to the shoreline. Hood laughed, charging after him.

“Fuck you!”

Ian held his arms wide in front of the moonlit ocean, the din of the crashing waves booming behind him. Hood grabbed him, spun him around and tossed him into the surging water. Ian popped his head up, laughing. Hood grinned uncontrollably. He hurled himself headfirst into the water, the cold sea exploding around him. Ian pulled off his shoes and threw them onto the beach. The waves rose up like abyssal monsters, and Hood dove through them each time.

“What, are you trying to find it?” Ian said loudly.

“Nah, fuck it, it's gone,” Hood shouted back.

“Yes it is!” Ian grinned wide, standing up in the water and running his hand over his face. “There's the Rob I remember.”

Hood floated on his back, out past the breaking waves, staring up at the glimmering night sky and the bright moon. Dotted along the shoreline sat dark summer homes and hotels. The water didn't feel so cold anymore.

When the two of them trudged back onto the beach, ocean pouring out of their sodden clothes, Taylor stood on the shore with folded up towels under her arms.

“How did you know?” Hood said, calling out to her with a smile.

“Come on,” She said. “Like I don't know you.”

“You shoulda come in!”

“I prefer it when the sun is up, thanks.” She said, holding out towels for the both of them.

“You're an angel Tay,” Ian said.

“You don't even know. I just ordered us a pizza. Now come back inside and we can drink and watch Mystery Science Theater.”

Ian and Hood looked at each other, still sopping wet despite their best attempts to towel off..

“You two? You're all I need in this world,” Ian said, smiling. “Fuck everything else.”

Reality came and went with the shuddering of the truck. When he roused from his slumber, it was daytime again. The memory from his past life lingered, still fresh in his mind.
God I miss them. I could deal with this. I could deal with everything if they were just here with me.
He hoisted himself up off the blankets, arching his back to stretch it. He scooted backwards, leaning against the broken back window and letting his arm rest over the side of the truck. There was the simple problem of freeing them from the Kaiser once they found them. Not that it mattered. It's not like anything would stop him from trying.

The wind howled in his ears and the truck glided smoothly for once as they sped north on Richmond highway. His rifle lay next to him, a reminder of how ready he needed to be. As he looked back at the road, the once normal world slid by on either side of him, empty commercial and industrial complexes hidden behind thin layers of trees. The sky was gray, but wasn't dark with coming rain. He put up his hood to stop the whipping wind.

They sped by a black BMW parked on the shoulder, still shiny and with all windows intact, surely left there by someone who had run out of gas. Why anyone would have decided to drive north towards D.C. under the circumstances was beyond him.

Maybe Mr. black BMW was like us, trying to find someone.

If so, he pitied him. Or her. They faced long odds.

They drove by a golf course to his left, the grass tall and overgrown. It wasn’t much of a course anymore, but there were tell-tale wide expanses of green with flags protruding from encroaching weeds. Something loomed in the distance, deep in the overgrown field of grass. Hood turned towards it, squinting. It was dark and slender, possibly a person. It didn't look like it was moving. He leaned over a box of supplies to look more closely.

The truck screeched to a halt, nearly throwing Hood into the cab as his head smacked against the frame of the truck. He checked for blood, but there was none. In the road in front of them stood a man in jeans and a button-up shirt, breathing hard, with both hands up.

“Please help me. She's about to give birth!” He said.

Whiskey turned and looked at Hood as the truck idled.

“We've got to help them!” Kerry said.

“No, we don't,” Whiskey said, pulling out his glock and pointing it at the man. The man raised his hands in the air, backing away. “Please,” he begged. “She's been in labor so long, something's wrong. I don’t know what to do.”

“Get the
fuck
out of the way if you don't wanna die!” Whiskey shouted out the window.

Kerry opened the door and got out of the truck.

“Kerry, wait!” Hood shouted.

“Let her go,” Whiskey shouted at him. “Let her make her own choice.”

Hood froze.
Whiskey won't think twice about leaving without her. But she's not really giving us much choice here. There's no time to play doctor.
The man thanked Kerry and they started down a dirt path beside the highway, one used for industrial equipment. Hood cursed and jumped out of the back of the truck with his AK.