HOOD: A Post Apocalyptic Novel (American Rebirth Series Book 1) (3 page)

Hood drew the story to a close, staring off into the fire.

“Well?” Lucky said, staring at Hood. “Did Ian bang that chick?”

Hood shook his head. “You're an idiot.”

“Don't leave it like that, douche! Tell me what happened!”

“Yes, you moron. They hooked up on and off all through senior year. It was a huge dramatic pain in the ass. Not exactly a limited-time-offer.”

Whiskey shook his head, wearing a slight grin. “That's some funny shit. How come you never told that one?”

“I guess I normally don't think about high school much. But I just remembered it.” Hood leaned back, the fire so warm it felt like it was burning his face. Maybe it was partly the liquor.

“High school huh. I bet you were one of those swoopy-haired kids who listened to that weepy ass music all the time,” Lucky said, staring down Hood for his reaction. Hood didn't dignify it with a response, giving Lucky the finger.

“Who the fuck's Mrs. Doubtfire?” Billy said, blinking slowly.

Whiskey snorted, rubbing his forehead. “Goddamned kids.”

The fire had died down suddenly. The glowing red chunks of wood lay broken atop each other, glowing suddenly brighter as a gust of wind blew smoke and ash towards Hood. The leaves on the trees swished softly. Lucky tossed the cigarette butt into the fire. Billy was swaying in his seat.

“Should I get more logs?” Lucky asked no one in particular.

“No. We're going to pack up and head home. The Sheriff will know we're here for sure when his men don't come back. He'll tell the Kaiser by tomorrow or the day after. I want to be gone by then. They're not too happy with us raiding that stockpile, so we should take the supplies back to town and lay low,” Whiskey said. A look of exhaustion hung in his eyes as he stared at the embers.

Hood was sure he knew what he was thinking: That sooner or later they were going to piss off the Kaiser enough that he wouldn’t be able to ignore them anymore. But they had little choice. Hood knew just as well as Whiskey how much the town needed food, water, gasoline, and every little thing in between. They had a long way to go before they could learn to farm enough food to support themselves, let alone find a way to sustain every other need.

“Well, shit. You ain't gotta tell me twice. I'm sick'a this busted-ass cabin,” Billy slurred, standing up and moving towards the house in one motion. His foot caught in the legs of the folding chair and he slumped into the grass with supreme drunken inelegance. The airborne bottle of vodka thunked into the grass in front of him. Lucky exploded off his seat, howling in laughter, berating Billy loudly between breaths.

“Damn dude, you all right?” Hood said, trying to suppress his own snickering.

“Changed m' mind, I'm jus' gonna lay here awhile,” Billy said, the side of his face pressed against the grassy earth.

Hood looked over at Whiskey, grinning. Whiskey shook his head in annoyance, but couldn't suppress a smirk. He stood up, hands pushing himself up from his knees.

“Well Lucky, that leaves you to get the trucks out of the hiding spot. Come on, we got to get movin'.” Whiskey stretched his right arm behind his head.

Lucky complained loudly about Billy's drunken stupor as he stomped off down the hill. Whiskey made the rounds and gathered the crew from out on watch. Everyone started packing up the supplies and loading them into the trucks Lucky parked by the cabin.

All Hood could think about was the dead man and the kids he wouldn't be able to look after. He hadn't had many choices. Very few people did anymore.

Hood believed completely that Ian and his parents were still alive; what would they do to protect each other if they lived under the Kaiser's rule?

Morning light had broken through the trees and onto the dirt road by the time Hood and Whiskey headed off with a truck laden with supplies. It shed clarity on an unpleasant thought.

One day when I look down the sights it might not be a stranger I see walking through the woods, gun in hand.

Chapter 2 – One Man Gone

Hood slammed the door of the truck. The bright sun blared down on an old house that remained largely intact. He'd seen this exact sight before: an unhinged red front door and pile of rotten wood shingles that lay in a heap next to the walkway. They'd already been to this house, months ago.

He scanned the area, looking over each shoulder. The narrow lake shimmering in the sunlight nearby looked much more sylvan now than in the nighttime.

“Whiskey?”

“Mmm-hmm?” He replied, the crunch of his footsteps on gravel unceasing as he strode towards the old farmhouse. It still held the air of the majestic country home it must've been some years ago.

“Why are we looking in the same place again?” Hood's tone did nothing to hide his annoyance.

“Just keep an eye on the truck,” Whiskey said, entering the house with his police-issue shotgun half-raised.

Hood breathed in deeply, leaning his head back and letting out a grumbling sigh. He looked out over the still lake, a few lost pine cones bobbing about like ships at sea. He turned around, observing the vast overgrowth of grass and weeds on what must have once been fields. The old barn, covered in flaky brown paint, was listing so heavily to one side it looked as if Hood yelled at it, it would collapse.

In the distance, over the top of the treeline, he could see the rise of the Shenandoah Mountains. At least, he was pretty sure that's what it was.

He hoisted his rifle onto his shoulder, letting it rest there lazily. At least it was a gorgeous day, even if they were in yet another ghost town.

He wondered what his old home in D.C. looked like. The parts of the city that still stood had been on the brink of chaos when Hood and Taylor left two years ago. They’d waited for days hoping their parents would show up, but fled when the survivors grew desperate. Radiation sickness had decimated many of the people who had survived the blast.

How different would Hood's life be if his entire family had been together during the fall. They probably never would have met Whiskey and become a part of Clearwater. He hadn't seen Ian in over a year even before the fall. Their brotherhood had become a long distance text conversation and occasional Skype call. Ian had been busy starting his family and Hood couldn't figure out what the hell he was doing with his life. They both had treated separation like a temporary nuisance, the distance in the modern world seeming so small.
God, I miss you bro. What I wouldn't do just to get to sit down and talk with you again about nothing.

It was hard transition going from global, instantaneous communication to a life where your survival depended on being cut off from the world. A bird of prey was floating slowly on the strong winds high up in the blue sky.
Nothing to see here, buddy.

Wearing a blank expression, Whiskey walked out the front door of the house, heading straight for the truck.

“So I'm gonna go out on a limb and say... it's still an empty house,” Hood quipped.

“Come on, I want to check in town a ways,” Whiskey said, hopping inside and starting the engine with a deep rumble. Hood shook his head and climbed into the passenger side.
I should have brought a god damned book or something. What I wouldn't do for a PSP or a 3DS, with even just a few games and infinite battery life.

Hood's brain rattled off into the land of the ridiculous, spurred on by boredom. “You ever wonder how long pubes would grow if no one ever shaved? Maybe you could make like a groin-beard, or make braids or something nice.” Hood cast an absurd look Whiskey's way.

Whiskey looked incredulous.

“Man, not even a smile?” Hood turned his head, chuckling, and stared with tired eyes out the windshield. The weather-worn, one-lane, two-way road lay baking in the sun. It looked barely wide enough to accommodate two different directions of traffic.
Ian would've thought that was hilarious. Or maybe not. At least he would've fired back with something.

“It's like you're drunk when you're sober,” Whiskey grumbled.

Hood shrugged. “You never thought about shit like that?”

“No.”

They both stared ahead again at the sun-baked road. Whiskey scratched his bearded jawline.

“How did the hobbit ruin the boxing match?”

Whiskey glanced over at him, annoyed.

“What, you not into Tolkien?”

“Not particularly.”

Hood shook his head, looking out the passenger side at the overgrown fields passing by.

“I bet you used to give out bags of pennies for Halloween.”

A slight grin crept over Whiskey's face.
Victory.
“Tootsie rolls. I like Tootsie rolls.”

“You're a man of boundless curiosity, you know that? The body of a thirty-something, but the spirit of an eighty year old losing at bingo.”

Whiskey laughed quietly to himself. “You know what Sue Morris said to me on my last patrol before we left town? 'Be careful to keep the lord with you. It's the devil's curiosity to find a way into our hearts.'”

Hood scoffed. “Her husband doesn't do much to ward off the devil. All he does on guard duty is sit in a chair, farting in his sleep.”

Whiskey propped his arm on the door and rested his chin in his hand, gnawing at the first knuckle of his pointer finger. He knew they needed more people to defend the town in case they ever were attacked outright.

Hood furrowed his brow. The roadside was empty save for overgrowth and a gas station that looked as though it had been stripped down long before the nukes had changed their world.

“My old partner, Alan,” Whiskey said. “He retired four years ago. That farmhouse was his grandfather's, and he told me he wanted to move there.” He finally addressed the latent question in the air.

“Well, considering we've been here before, and this time we have a truckload of invaluable food and gasoline, I'd consider this visit a waste of time,” Hood said, looking through the back window into the loaded bed of the truck.

“We could use his help. We've got too many guys who won't be worth a damn if wasters find our town with blood on their minds.”

“You can just say the dude is your friend and you want to find him,” Hood shifted in his seat, moving back to sit up straighter, giving himself more leg room.

Whiskey rubbed his chin. “Yeah, I suppose there's that too,” he murmured after some hesitation.

The one-stoplight town was the kind you might not be able to find on a map unless you knew where it was. The only buildings of note in the intersection were a long-cleaned-out old grocery, a faded white house—once a local diner—with peeling paint, and an old wooden church. The road curved past the church and over a river with a low, flat wooden bridge across it. Whiskey turned off the truck and Hood hopped out of the passenger side, his shoes grinding dirt into the pavement.

If there had once been people living in this town, they certainly weren't here anymore.

“Look there,” Whiskey said quietly, pointing to a watery, muddy trail that lead from the rushing river to the church doors.

No animal did that.
Hood's pulse quickened.

The two of them hustled over to it, guns in hand. Clearly someone had dragged himself out of the river. Puddles still remained, and wet footprints. Hood’s eyes met Whiskey's. He didn't need to say anything.

They moved swiftly and quietly along the wet tracks to the church. The outside smelled of a musty, aged wood that stirred up vague memories of his grandfather's garage. Was it cedar? Whiskey gave him a glance, then grabbed the cast-iron door-handle.

Hood held up the rifle to sight.

Whiskey pulled the door open and the hinges groaned.

Beams of sunlight lit up the empty pews, and leaves covered the floor. Many of the windows had been shattered. The muddy trail led down the center aisle and then to the left of the altar, where it became lost to sight. Blood trailed along the faded white stone floor.

He motioned to Whiskey: forward and to the left. The two of them entered, their footsteps echoing throughout the room despite their best efforts, followed by a gust of wind that sent leaves and dust swirling in front of the altar.

“You win. I can't run no more.” A man's voice echoed through the church. A pistol clattered to the ground, sliding to a halt in the empty space in front of the altar.

“Jammed. Ain't that my luck,” the hoarse voice said with heavy resignation.

Hood and Whiskey turned the corner, guns raised. A wiry dark-skinned man sat on the floor, his head resting against the prayer pedestal with its rows of candles. He was drenched, his jeans and long-sleeved shirt dark and heavy with water.

After a second, Hood lowered his rifle.

“We're not here looking for you,” Hood said.

The man stared at him, squinting.“Are you gonna kill me?” He asked.

“No,” Hood said immediately.

Whiskey cast him a disapproving glance.“Provided you don't do anythin' stupid,” he added, shotgun still raised.