HOOD: A Post Apocalyptic Novel (American Rebirth Series Book 1) (20 page)

Whiskey stared at the tunnel, clenching his jaw. His hesitation was response enough.

But Hood wasn't about to back away now. Not when they were so close.

“It doesn't matter,” Hood said.

"What station does it lead to?" Kerry peered at it.

"Metro Center," Hood said, shining his light on the faded subway map on the wall. "If I remember it right."

Whiskey said nothing as he walked down the stairs to the platform on the north side, scanning the ground ahead of them. Hood followed behind him. A few rusty cans and some dirty plastic bags greeted them, the only inhabitants of the space. A soiled newspaper sat in a crumpled ball against the wall. Hood wondered what the date was today. It was hard to keep track.

Whiskey hopped down onto the train tracks. A skittering noise made him whirl around. Two rats ran down the tracks in the other direction. He let the shotgun rest at his side and rubbed the back of his head.

"I hate rats," Kerry said. "I'd rather see snakes."

Hood jumped down alongside Whiskey and shone his light into the open tunnel. Rubble had once blocked it, but it was strewn about as if the wall of refuse had been torn down. Wooden cabinets and a metal table lay against the platform, pieces of a garbage puzzle that had walled up this exit. Had someone dug it up to get in . . . or get out?

Whiskey stepped over the pile and into the tunnel. The light skated over years of filth, though the tracks gleamed from decades of use. The third rail sat dark and quiet, no longer carrying fatal amounts of electricity to make the trains move anymore. Just a piece of history. Hood looked over his shoulder.

Kerry still stood at the entrance of the tunnel.

Hood jogged over to her.

"I don't want to be here," Kerry said."There's something wrong with all of this."

"It's okay. It's just dark," Hood said, trying to reassure himself, even though his heart was pounding. What if the tunnel was structurally unsound and collapsed on them? He urged her on, but she wouldn't move. "I won't let anything happen to you. Come on."

He grabbed her hand and led her into the tunnel. She followed behind him, and he let her hand go and lifted up his rifle to keep the light ahead of them. Whiskey hadn't waited, and they needed to catch up.

The air felt thicker and cooler as they kept moving. The sooty walls of the tunnel appeared undisturbed, and nothing could be heard except their own footsteps.

"Something smells funny," Kerry said. The air had become somewhat foggier.

"Put on your masks," Whiskey ordered, a few steps ahead of them.

Hood secured his gas mask and Kerry did the same.

The sound of their breathing was the only sound in the tunnel. They crept forward carefully as they focused on every foot of dirty track the lights revealed.

Whiskey halted. A train sat dormant on the tracks ahead of them, blocking the way.

They inspected it with their lights.

"There." Whiskey pointed at the wall to their right. There was an inset cubby in the walls that lead to a utility room. The door was open slightly.

Hood shone his light back at the train cab.

"We can probably get into the train through there." Hood said. “Walk through.”

Whiskey wasn't paying attention. He held his gun up to sight, and slowly walked towards the utility door. Hood raised his rifle and followed behind him. They stepped up into the cubby and Whiskey looked over at Hood to see if he was ready. Hood nodded.

Whiskey swung the door open slowly with his left hand. The room was empty except for a small desk and a chair next to a switchboard of some kind. Most of the space in the room was taken up by a big, boxy machine that led up to the ventilation shaft.

Hood jerked his head in the direction of the open vent. A person could fit inside, though it wouldn't be comfortable. The vent cover lay on the ground, bent with the screws ripped out.

Behind the mask, Whiskey's eyes narrowed and his breathing quickened.

This was the first time Hood had ever seen Whiskey show fear.

“We're so close.” Hood said. “We just gotta be quick and quiet.”

"Let's take the train." Whiskey said, looking up at the vent again before turning away. He closed the door behind them.

Kerry stood in the dark, her hand on the pistol behind her back.

"What was in there?" she said quietly

"Nothing," Whiskey said in low tones. "We'll have to go through the train."

"What if it won't open?" she posited.

"Then we'll crawl to the other side," Whiskey grumbled.

Hood jumped up onto the train, and yanked the door handle hard. It budged a little, and on the second try, slid open.

"No crawling for us," Hood said through his mask.

"Not yet," Kerry retorted.

Whiskey climbed onto the train.

Hood waited for Kerry.

"After you, milady."

"How chivalrous. Do me a favor and keep that light off my ass and over my shoulder where it belongs?"

"Don't flatter yourself."

She turned to face him, her face obscured by the monstrous mask. "My eyes are up here," she deadpanned, pointing at the alien-looking plastic eyepieces of her mask.

Hood stifled his laughter, the sound reverberating in his own mask.

She paused, clenching her fists. She exhaled, the sound more pronounced through the mask filter, the only sound in the empty tunnel. She climbed onto the runner and into the train. There was something comforting to her visible trepidation and attempts to diffuse it with humor—like he wasn't alone with that itching feeling in the back of his neck.
I feel it too. But we have to keep on,
he wanted to say. But he wasn't sure giving it words would help.

Hood grabbed the handle beside the door and hoisted himself inside.

Hood walked beside Kerry through the cab. Dust swirled in the foggy air. An empty sports drink bottle lay on the floor; a faded tabloid
magazine on the seat. The metal poles for standing passengers shone in the light.

“You ever imagine you'd be doing something like this?" Hood said just above a whisper. She seemed to be expecting something with ever step.

“Not ever.” She searched the darkness for unseen terrors. “Based on my master plan, about now I’d be engaged to a handsome musician, planning to have kids in a few years.”

It was an indulgent bit of sentimentality.

Hood had never really been a big-picture guy. He’d never known what he wanted to do with his life. He still didn't—after they rescued Taylor. And Ian. If he needed rescuing. Hood raised his rifle to his shoulder as they crept through the cab.

The thickening fog made it harder to see. Whiskey opened the stainless-steel doors that led to the next cab. It was similarly abandoned, empty aside from scattered refuse. Whiskey quickened his pace, walking past the rows of silvery posts to the door of the third cab. They finally reached the engineer's car, the seat empty and the control panel dormant. The dials, control lever and gauges were covered in dust. The windshield had been removed, and the dust spiraled in the light of Whiskey's flashlight out of the train into the tunnel.

Whiskey leaned over the console, looking down at the tracks below. Hood stepped forward as Whiskey slung his shotgun over his shoulder and climbed over it, dropping down with a crunch onto the fractured latticework of the plexiglass windshield.

Kerry followed, eager to keep moving. She, too, dropped down onto the tracks with feline grace.

Hood handed her his rifle, and she illuminated the matted steel finish of the train as he climbed down. The shattered windshield ground against the tracks under his feet.

She handed him back his rifle. They walked down the murky tunnel, Whiskey twenty paces ahead of them. The air was thick with whatever fog surrounded them. As uncomfortable as it was, Hood was grateful for the gas mask suctioned onto his face.

The three of them made little noise as they pressed on, the walls black with grime and the rails shining from the flashlights. Fetid puddles lay outside the tracks. There was an uncomfortable moisture in the air, like the station had slowly come alive, and they were deep in its belly.

"Come look at this," Whiskey said aloud.

Hood and Kerry hustled forward. Whiskey stood at the entrance to the next station. Light came through a gaping hole in the ceiling. Vines and a large tree clung to a shattered chunk of sidewalk that hung down into the station, its branches growing upward in a slow-motion attempt to reach the outside world.

On the collapsed overhang sat a wrecked missile, huge, with nothing but empty chambers open on either side. It was clearly a chemical weapon.

Boom.
A distant rumble resuonded in the dark.

The three of them looked around, Whiskey pointing his shotgun light into the open train tracks.

Hood looked up at the escalator, into the concourse.

Boom. Boom. Boom
. The echoing grew closer.

Hood pointed his rifle light upwards, illuminating a vent just as the cover burst off.

A humanoid figure flew at him, screeching, crashing down onto him.

Every nerve in Hood's body came alive as he fell into a heap on the ground.
What the fuck is that?
His mind screamed, his heart raged in his chest as he fought to push whatever it was off of him. Hands clawed his face and shoulder, pulling his mask off. He reached up to grab the creature’s arms, flailing wildly. He rolled onto the train tracks, trying to get away, but it had wrapped its legs around his torso from behind, was ripping his hair out and trying to gouge out his eyes.

Hood lurched to his feet and threw himself, back-first, into the wall. The creature—a woman?—screeched even louder, and fingernails dug into his neck. Searing pain wracked him as teeth dug deep into his left shoulder.

Whiskey and Kerry shouted something indiscernible. He felt the teeth clamp down again into the meat of his shoulder as he heard a deafening gunshot.

The creature went limp, sliding off him to the floor.

Kerry stood next to him, pistol in hand. She was screaming at him, but her voice was muted from the high-pitched ringing in his ears. He inspected his shoulder; his torn shirt already bloody. Pain consumed him.

Flashes of light blasted from Whiskey's shotgun as humanoid figures collapsed in front of him.

Hood's rifle lay on the tracks, the cone of light illuminating the dirty gray wall. He picked it up as Kerry grabbed his arm, pulling him to his feet. Disoriented, Hood ran alongside her, the gas mask hanging around his neck.

The three of them climbed onto the platform as a veritable horde of feral humans charged towards them from the far tunnel. Something clawed his shoes from below. Terror galvanized him, and he ran.

Whiskey pushed shells into his shotgun as the three of them headed up the escalator. There were no thoughts. The primal urge to run as fast as his body was capable quickly snapped into a desire to cut down that which hounded them.

At the top of the escalator, Hood turned around. Filthy people with torn clothing and crazed eyes surged onto the platform and ran towards the escalator. He lifted his rifle butt to his shoulder and squeezed the trigger, firing on full auto as the stock quaked on his shoulder.

He cut the feral humans down as they climbed the escalator, a mass of bodies piling into a heap that the others screeched at and fought each other to climb over.

He fired the clip empty. The pain and the adrenaline pumping through his body demanded retribution. He removed the magazine, flipping it over and tapping it against the body of the rifle before loading and cocking it.

Kerry pulled on his hood, screaming at him to keep running. He could barely register her words, but he forced himself to follow her. Whiskey was ahead at the exit.

Twilight shone through the closed gate ahead of them. Rubble, office furniture and an uprooted mailbox were piled against the fence on the other side of the metro exit. Whiskey shot the padlock on the fence until the chain broke.

"C'mon, hurry up!" Kerry shouted.

Whiskey cursed at her, trying to pry the fence open.

Hood turned to face the subway tunnel. His mind slowly started to clear. The words of the man they’d found in the church, Donte, came back to him . . .
Turned you into an animal while you was still alive.
It was a chemical weapon.

A few of the ferals made it up the escalator and ran at them. A woman in a summer dress, a man in a suit. Hood was not about to be anyone's dinner. He lifted the rifle and shot the two of them down. Another man in jeans and a torn shirt came at him. He smashed his face with the butt of the rifle, then pulled out his knife and stabbed him in the heart. The man stared up at him with wide, sightless eyes, baring his shattered teeth as he fell.

"Come on!" Kerry shouted.

Whiskey had opened the gate enough to squeeze through.

Kerry was holding it open.

"Go!" Hood shouted. "Go already!"