HOOD: A Post Apocalyptic Novel (American Rebirth Series Book 1) (21 page)

She hesitated before sliding through the opening. Whiskey put his shotgun barrel through the fence, firing at the incoming ferals.

Hood ran to the gate, threw his rifle through, then pushed his head through, using his hands to leverage his torso. His shoulder screamed in pain. He looked back to see a naked feral man lunging at him. Hood kicked the man away. Whiskey unloaded on the man with his shotgun.

Kerry grabbed his free hand and pulled as hard as she could, leaning backwards. Whiskey fired away through the gate openings.

Hood felt something clawing at his legs as he burst through, falling forward onto the concrete. Kerry stumbled, then picked up his rifle and held it out to him.

"Let's go, close it up!" Whiskey shouted, jamming the gate shut again and holding it closed. Hood climbed up onto the pile of broken concrete and wedged himself between two huge chunks, pushing as hard as he could with his legs. His left shoulder shrieked louder than any words could. He pushed the concrete chunk forward forward, it slowly rolled off the pile and crashed up against the gate. The three of them hurled every piece of rubble they could find up against it amidst the din.

Hood ran up the stairs out of the station, following Whiskey and Kerry. The three of them stopped to look back at the metro. A horde of the crazed ferals pushed against the flexing gate, but it held them back. Hood gasped for air, hands on his knees, the feel of his heartbeat thundering in his ears.

“Jesus Christ. . .” Kerry panted, pushing her hair back. “I told you that was a fucking bad idea!”

Hood gritted his teeth. “They’re . . .
animals
.”

Whiskey pulled the last two shotgun shells out of his flak jacket and pushed them into the body of the shotgun. "Well, we found
somebody
," he grunted.

Chapter 13 – Epiphany

“It's just up the road,” Hood said, the narrow street heavy with stillness. The city was dark, a carved-out husk of it's former self.

“Keep your eyes open,” Whiskey said with a quiet vehemence.

I feel it too, big guy. What if she's not here? What if no one is here?
Hood gnawed on his lower lip.
What do we do if she is here?

Kerry walked up beside him, looking at his wounded left shoulder. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Hood said. “As good as you can be walking out of a nightmare.”

“Whiskey,” Kerry said. “Hold on a sec.”

He looked annoyed at her request, turning to face the two of them.

“We need a second. I can bandage him up.”

“You all right, kid?”

“Yeah, I'm fine.” Hood shrugged, pain shot through his shoulder and up his neck.

Kerry shook her head. “You're still bleeding.”

Whiskey glanced back up the street, his gaze lingering. He bowed his head. “Alright. Let's take a minute. Get him cleaned up.” He moved towards the nearest storefront, a dark electronics store. He pulled open the door, raising his shotgun, moving it in a sweeping arc as he surveyed the scene.

Kerry met Hood's gaze momentarily before turning her head to scan the street and the rooftops. Hood watched her movements, taking in her every curve.
She really is looking out for you.

“You saved my ass back there,” Hood said, waiting for her blue eyes to meet his own again. “You saved all of us. We would've gotten overrun by those ferals.”

“Payback.” She flashed a smile. “I'm just glad I got the chance to do it. I really. . .” She took a deep breath, looking aside at the pavement. “It killed me to betray you guys. You have to know that. I thought I was saving my family.”

“I know. It's alright,” Hood managed a faint smile.
This is why, Whiskey. This is why we can't lose ourselves. I saved her, she saved us. Now we can save Taylor and Ian. This is what we are fighting for. She's just like us.
Somehow, despite all the hell they had put each other through, their mutual survival was proof that Hood wasn't wrong
. We can live like this.

“I hated myself for it. I hated myself right after I met you guys. I was praying you'd be someone I could hate to make it easier. But you guys are easy to like.”

Fuck it. What the hell are you waiting for?
Hood moved towards her, his feet acting on his own until he was standing in front of her. His heart was racing like he was a kid again. She looked up at him, from one of his eyes to the other. He wrapped his arms around her, her lips soft against his own. He took his time, wanting the feeling to last. His shoulder seared, but the pain didn't matter.
We're in the open, we're vulnerable,
a voice in his head said.
He shut it out. I'll take the risk.
He pressed her body against his, and she slid her hands up his back between him and his backpack. She was a good kisser. Patient, enjoying each moment.

“It's clear,” Whiskey said from the doorway. Hood and Kerry stepped away from each other slowly. Hood scratched behind his ear, and Kerry ran her thumb and middle finger across the top of her head, pulling her hair back.

“Come on,” Whiskey said, shooting Hood a I-knew-it look. “Yeah, just wanted to help her out all right.” He murmured as he turned back inside. Hood couldn't stifle a laugh, and Kerry gave him a humorous smirk.
What are the chances you'd find a girl you like this much in this world?

The thought brought the hammer of fear down on him.
She's another person you can lose. Another tragedy waiting to happen. Someone else you can't protect from this war.
The two of them moved through the doorway inside.
Shut the hell up, brain. I won't let you ruin this. Not right now.

Kerry took in the dimly lit scene, ambient daylight from the storefront the only thing keeping away the darkness. Dusty shelves of phone chargers, cases, USB cords and Ethernet cables undisturbed.
We're still alive. We've made it all the way here. Just enjoy this, even for only a few minutes.

The store remained largely intact, much to their surprise. Fear and death must have taken the city quickly for there to be no looting. It felt good to peel off his shirt, except of course for the intense pain in his shoulder. Kerry zipped open her backpack and removed a first aid kit.

Hood snatched an unopened pack of double A batteries off a hook, tore them open and pushed them into a portable CD player as Kerry tried to tend to his injuries. “This is the greatest discovery we've ever made,” Hood said to Whiskey, intently focused on the outside world.

“Stay still, for God’s sake,” Kerry said from behind him, prodding the gouges in his shoulder and neck with swabs of hydrogen peroxide. Hood tried not to wince, failing miserably. He took a swig of vodka from a bottle they’d found in the back office of the store. He tossed it to Whiskey, who barely caught it before it hit the floor.

“You almost done?” Whiskey said to Kerry, taking a drink from the bottle while staring out the wall of windows, into the street. He wiped his mouth with his forearm.

“Stop moving around!” Kerry pleaded, grabbing Hood by his good shoulder. “You're gonna pull your wounds open.”

Hood plugged in earbuds, snapped the CD player shut and pushed the play button. The CD whirred up to speed as the music started. He recognized the song, his mom and dad used to play it in the house when he was young. “This is the best thing ever. I can't believe this place still has CD players. Whiskey, check this out.”

“I'm good.” Whiskey said quietly.

“This is
music
were talking about here. Real music. Not Billy howling over a a shitty old guitar he found.”

“How can you even think about somethin' else right now?”

“We just survived a horde of human animals. We are minutes away from the Church. This is it, big guy. We've made it all the way here. Just take a second while I'm getting put back together to enjoy this with me.”

Kerry was wrapping bandages around his shoulder. “Where did you find that? I want one.” Her voice did little to contain the sound of childlike excitement. Hood pointed over to the darkened shelves of electronics.

“See? She knows what's good. Come on, you're gonna love this shit. My dad loved this song and you're old, so yeah.”

Hood held out an ear bud. Whiskey stared at it like it was a foreign animal for a moment, before taking it and placing it in his ear. Hood jacked up the volume to max level.

“...
After all these years, You're still the one I want somethin' somethin' here!...You're still the one,”
Hood sung aloud badly. He didn't know what ‘in key’ was, but he knew he wasn't.

Whiskey was bobbing his head with the music. “I do love this damn song,” he admitted. “Call me ‘old’ again and you're gonna be pickin' your ass up off the floor.”

Hood laughed, plucking the strings of an air guitar.

“
We're still havin' fun, and you're still the one!”
Hood sang.

For the first time in a long time, he felt normal. He felt like things might just be okay. Not that that was true. Reality was they were moments away from everything they had fought for. There was no sequestering the nerves that the Church of the Epiphany was just down the street, that Taylor and Ian might or might not be inside. Or that they might not be able to rescue them.

I'll do whatever it takes to find her. If she isn't there, I'll keep looking from one end of the continent to the other—and so will Whiskey.

“Maybe I should be gettin' myself one of these.” Whiskey said, looking towards Kerry. “Hey, grab me one!”

Hood turned to see her reaction. She was intently sifting through rows of CDs.

“They have some awesome shit here!” She exclaimed.

Hood pulled a gray tee-shirt over his head that said
Bigfoot was born blurry
and a black hoodie over that. Then he shouldered his backpack with a grimace.

“Where in the hell did you get that shirt?” Whiskey said, chewing on a handful of trail mix.

“What? I found it at the abandoned T-shirt kiosk awhile back. Pretty great, huh?”

Whiskey scoffed, shaking his head.“ Your shoulder all right?”

Hood picked up the Vodka, taking another drink before he tossed the empty bottle away. It clanked against the floor and rolled up against the wall. “Burns like a bitch, but fuck it, still alive. Right?”

Whiskey chuckled. “For now.”

An excited Kerry showed the two of them the plethora of CDs she'd procured, most notably
No Doubt
and
Biggie
. Hood plucked a few albums from the rows as they left the store and tossed them into his bag. It was something to look forward to, extra incentive to stay alive long enough to enjoy them.

The last light of the day was fading away. Anticipation, excitement and worry all rattled around Hood's head as the three of them headed down the abandoned streets in a euphoria that was giving way to raw fear the closer they got to the church.

The buildings showed ancient signs of struggle, some sporting flamed out windows, while others had collapsed entirely. The dusty scent of abandonment drifted through the air. They crept up the side street around the corner from the church, wildly distrustful of the utter silence that gripped the empty city.

Hood directed them up a narrow alley between tall corner buildings. The rotten smell of decayed garbage surrounded them as they crept ahead, guns at sight. Hood tucked the rifle stock tight against his right shoulder.
Is there really no one around?
He thought he should feel relieved, but it only made him more nervous.

They entered the back of a sports bar across the street from the Church of the Epiphany. The air in the bar was stale, the only sound the soft thud of their footsteps as the crept ahead to the windowfront. There it stood. A narrow, white gothic-modern tower of a church. Plain, sparsely adorned with an arching bright red door. It was sooty, but otherwise unscathed between the boxy windowed buildings on either side of it.
Why here? Maybe the Kaiser was a religious man.
That thought had never crossed Hood's mind
. Hard to picture such a ruthless bastard to be religious. History is littered with them though.
No, it didn't make sense. There had to be another reason.
Is anyone even inside? Did they leave this place behind?

The only thing that moved was a hanging sign that swung back and forth in the wind. Kerry sat down on a stool, looking around at the once-upscale bar that was now covered in a layer of dust. She leaned over the bar, pulling a bottle of rum out of the rack. Hood couldn’t help but enjoy the view.

“No charge? You're too kind.” She said this to nobody, pulling a rocks glass off a stack and wiping it down with her shirt before pouring the rum. Hood turned back to face the doors. Whiskey stared at the church, jamming his thumbnail between his two front teeth and gnawing at it.

“Doesn't seem like anyone's here,” Kerry said, inspecting her glass.