The Secret Hood

by Thomas Lombardi

  Farther down the countless ribbon of dual carriageway, many different automobiles and a few trucks stood immobile, big empty areas keeping apart them. In the distance I might also need to see the turbine domes of the decommissioned San Onofre nuclear power plant, and perplexed approximately radiation. Had the guys in price cleansed the cores in advance than the extraterrestrial beings arrived to close all humanity down? Were we already tormented by radiation illness and didn’t even comprehend it? Too overdue to surprise, we’d discover rapid sufficient now.

  “We can also want to depart our dedicated antique truck here…circulate down there and take this kind of,” I said pointing. I noticed his eyes shift south.

  “Or we may also need to try to near this door. I don’t take delight inside the notion of packing all our stuff half of of a mile away. What do you assert?”

  I shifted my eyes down at the ramp/door. It seemed heavy. We had been traveling mild, with high-quality the gun, ammunition, and a backpack apiece. A first-useful resource package deal. No trouble to…Peter had loaded a few water, a similarly five-gallon can of gasoline, snoozing baggage while I’d been accumulating up the weapon. Not exactly visiting mild. He eyed me.

  “Well?”

  “Okay, it’s well really worth a strive.”

  I have been given on one aspect of the door’s stop, Peter were given on the alternative.

  Ten minutes later we had been off again. As we passed the useless electricity plant, I gazed over at it one last time. It turned into too awful that a few first-rate nuclear scientist or engineer hadn’t devised a leak detector with a unusual, strong odor like someone had finished for natural fuel, or a shiny flashing pulse of mild that warned of radiation, and ran on massive batteries. Could the nasty visitors from galaxies a long way away have sealed the center for our gain, perhaps? Useless thinking. We drove on.

  Silence surrounded us. Dead quiet. No movement anywhere as we approached the town, at the least from our vantage factor on the expressway, except for the occasional startled takeoff of birds. Mile after silent mile.

  “Why birds, and not puppies and cats and other animals?” I requested Peter while we had gotten deep into the outskirts of the metropolis.

  “Who knows?” he said. Peter kept his eyes forward, and slowed to move throughout the developing clog of vehicles. “It’s so fucking weird, isn’t it? Marysville and the coastal towns surrounding it are one element, but this…”

  Yes, this. Mass demise. Tens of thousands of patients decrease lower back home, however here…How big changed into San Diego? Two million humans? A million and a 1/2 of? And here we had been, getting into the open graveyard. Over the past months the concept of some element like this had been summary, present best in imagined pics. Now it took at the mantle of fact, and the scope of destruction end up truely surprising. Playing the percentages, how many, if any, survivors could probably there be? I couldn’t don't forget that if a dozen or more were spared again domestic, what number of past that quantity could there be in a massive city of this length? Further, the concept struck me—and no longer for the primary time—what number of might be scared, harassed, in depression, or men and women descended into savagery?

  Charles and Lashawna. That changed into why I'd decided to undertaking out searching for living souls. To find out suitable partners for them. Maybe that modified into idiotic of me.

  But proper here we had been.

  In the gap the spires of excessive rise homes commenced out to emerge. A cluster of workplace towers and lodges. Peter noticed them.

  “Shall we begin there? Where may you flow in case you have been the simplest one left?”

  “Depends on where I was whilst it passed off. We have to spend eternity scouring all the neighborhoods. Yes, downtown is as well as wherever else.”

  I don't forget vividly. Peter became to me and smiled. “Not this sort of awful concept.”

  We exited the freeway, drove carefully beyond the first of the houses for several prolonged blocks, and then stopped. To our proper, a massive automobile parking space with its patchwork of abandoned automobiles buffered the view of the harbor, however the conning tower of the united statesMidway loomed excessive into the sky actually beyond it. On our right, the doorway to a grand inn. We sat for a 2nd till Peter ultimately opened the door and stepped out of the truck.

  "This one, I bet."

  Why no longer?

  Dead doormen, a few unfortunate site visitors close by them at the entrance. The absence of the horrid smell I smelled while we’d first driven into Marysville months within the past. Thank God. Whoever they’d as soon as been, the ones patients had been now barely recognizable as flesh and bone, blanketed by means of their discolored apparel.

  I grabbed the gun besides, and joined Peter, veering significant round a female and what ought to had been her husband once upon a happier time. The doorman nearby, mendacity half of-atop the bags they’d added. Vacation reduce brief. Afternoon responsibilities ended . We entered the lobby thru the revolving door, the squishing sound of its rubber seals at the cylindrical metallic framework breaking the silence, alerting the ghosts and cockroaches of our presence. Every step we took echoed eerily again at us, reminding me of Saint Andrew’s Cathedral in miniature. I became my head left and right and skyward, taking in the once-elegance of the region in quick glances. A few our bodies on one of the living room sofas off to the proper close to the dusty windows, tumbled over in opposition to each different. A small dog on a leash below them on the bloodless marble ground mendacity on its component. A mag dropped. I imagined that second in December, looking at them. The flash of slight searing thru the windows. She reacting in ache and surprise. A bolt of lightening racing down the leash frying the canine. Did it yelp as it died?

  We stopped on the reception desk. I didn’t want to appearance over the top. No doubt a body or or 3 lay at the ground on the alternative facet, now not smiling or frowning. Not anything. Just lifeless.

  “Should we check in?” Peter joked, and his phrases echoed almost thunderously, despite the fact that he’d spoken softly.

  “I assume we have to discover the eating room, or the kitchen. If I’d survived…” I stated, my remark trailing off.

  “Restroom first,” he said. “I should pee.”

  So did I. “Okay, meet you decrease lower back right here in 5 mins. If you notice something…”

  “I understand, scream bloody homicide.”

  “Or hallelujah,” I said.

  I pushed the door of the Ladies Room inward, halting for a 2d, momentarily burdened thru the darkness. Black rooms usually apprehensive me, this one no less than a few different. I used the butt of the shotgun to wreck the door closer, banging on it half of a dozen times earlier than it clattered free of its mooring. It appeared like World War III, and in advance than I’d gotten two steps in, Peter came bursting around the nook.

  “You okay?” Echo, echo.

  “I couldn’t see.”

  “Oh.” He stayed planted genuinely indoors, a few ft at the back of me as I walked to each stall, pushing the doorways open. Each modified into empty, thank goodness, or horrific fortune. It was Alien, wasn’t it? The little female hiding in terror in an air duct? The sole survivor. Hiding this time in one of the stalls.

  Not nowadays.

  I glanced over my shoulder on the dim image of Peter repute in the back of me. “You can pass now. I’m exceptional.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll stay. I can use this type of stalls down proper right here.”

  I questioned if he changed into joking.

  “Peter! That’s gross! Go use the Men’s.” But he wasn’t joking, he modified into already within the first stall. I laid the shotgun in competition to the modesty panel, closed the door, and rapid grabbed a handful of tissue and crammed it in my ears. Funny. A easy, regular natural necessity clouded by using the use of convention.

  Peter changed into lengthy long past once I finished. I left to join him decrease low
er back inside the lobby. Dining room first, after which off to the kitchen.

  Hello?

  I didn’t factor out my embarrassment, but Peter changed into grinning once I rounded the nook.

  “You look ten pounds lighter.”

  “Ha ha. Just bear in mind who’s keeping the shotgun. Don’t get any humorous thoughts. Now, in which’s the dining room?”

  Here we were in an stylish lodge, searching out symptoms of existence. A one-in-a-million shot at locating certainly absolutely everyone, no matter the truth that we searched every room on every ground—every door locked anyway. The concept became absurd, it hit me as I followed him thru the foyer, until we may additionally need to get right of entry to the public cope with device for the lodge and shout out, “Anyone home?” Dead machine, out of the question. We might as properly strive constructing a rocket ship.

  A modern lodge. An emergency city energy failure. Sort of what befell…should this area have a generator the dimensions of my vintage residence in case of such an emergency? Even if it did, we’d still have to decide out a manner to begin it up. It likely started on its personal after the calamity besides, and ran out of gas prolonged ago. Scratch that concept.

  We wandered thru the eating room—a sterile looking place in case you discounted the presence of lifeless our bodies and dried up meals at the tables. Into a hall important to the kitchen.

  I’m some teen or waiter or chef or wandering soul. Would I hold close out right here? Maybe, at the least inside the short time period. After I’d raided the meals lockers, might I find a room that I can also need to get into to sleep off the meal of canned beans and fruit cocktail, or would possibly I wander once more out onto the road to search for some kindred spirit a few different place? I flew in from Chicago or New York; landed simply earlier than the relaxation of the airliners got here crashing to the earth in balls of flame. Somehow I located this vicinity, virtually burdened and in depression. How prolonged might I live? Would I? Probably not. But then, in which may want to I bypass?

  Snake eyes. Seven-11. Give us a top notch shot at locating the little female in that air duct.

  The large kitchen became pretty similar to the rest of the resort; darkish, with a dank scent that struck me the second Peter shoved the door inward. I don’t like darkness. Peter reached for a trash field just inner and shoved it in opposition to the open door, and then stepped farther in. I observed.

  At first, the sound of skittering tiny claws on the concrete floor. Then a refrain of high-pitched screeches. Movement in the close to darkness emanating from a niche at the ground ten ft in. Peter struck a in shape.

  COCKROACHES! RATS! At our look the the relaxation scattered in every route, a dozen of the rats abandoning the piles of bones they’d picked easy over the months, and were now gnawing on.

  Why didn’t you kill THEM, invaders!

  Instinctively, I raised the gun and pulled the motive, aiming badly, but nicely enough to blow the carcass of some worker farther into nation come, along facet the few creatures on it that hadn’t scurried away even as we got here in. The noise become deafening, and the pressure of the blast despatched me flying backward onto my returned.

  The complete scene there has been past disgusting, and the second one I obtained my senses, and Peter had rushed lower returned to my facet, I screamed.

  “Get me out of right here!”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m with you there! Get up. Give me your hand.”

  He helped me to my ft, and we both darted out.

  “Jesus,” I wailed, “I’m going to throw up!”

  “Okay, k. Give me the gun. God, you neglected me thru an inch! Pull it together, Amelia. Try to shake it off. We’re alive…they had been simply rats. We’re quality. Settle down.”

  I permit him pull the shotgun from my shaking hands, after which stumbled to a chair a long way a long way from any of the other grisly-looking our bodies. Peter back to the kitchen front and kicked the trashcan. The double performing door swung closed. He retraced his steps to my facet.

  “I hate this region, Peter. It’s bloodless and sterile, and if I’d been proper here whilst it passed off, the number one thing I’d have done will be to leave! Oh God, the rats!”

  “Maybe you'll have. On the alternative hand, as a minimum right here you will have had a room to transport again to.”

  “And how ought to I are getting in? Blow the lock open with that gun? God, my shoulder aches!”

  He scrunched his eyes and mouth in agreement. “Well, we’re proper right here, and every one-of-a-kind motel or bar or restaurant will likely be the identical.

  “I’m hungry. Did you percentage whatever, or do I should flow decrease lower back into the kitchen and discover something canned? We’ll eat first, and then determine whether to go away, or search the flooring separately.”

  “Just a bag of chips and a few candy bars. I’m sorry. Don’t go once more in there, we can eat the chips.”

  “Chips aren’t food.” He stopped. “I’m going lower again in to locate a few thing that’ll fill our stomachs with nutrition. Wait right here…and don’t shoot once I come lower back out.,” he said, laying the weapon in the direction of my thigh.

  “Hurry. I don’t like being on my own in this graveyard.”

  He leaned over, placed his fingers on my cheeks, and kissed me softly.

  “I’ll be right again.” With that, he dashed out to the foyer, returning some seconds later with a pen mild, smiling. “Should have perception of locating this while we first came in.” He continued on without hesitation, decrease returned into the kitchen and the rats and cockroaches and decayed our bodies, shoving the garbage can once more into area as he entered.

  I cringed searching his decide disappear, the feeble moderate bouncing left and right with each of his footsteps. I glanced spherical on the nothingness, regretting my Cupid concept yet again. Maybe Charles didn’t need a mate. At least with Lashawna he’d indicated that. Certainly he’d in no way cast his eyes longingly at Cynthia. Or me. And as for Lashawna; most effective a critical case of puppylove?

  I questioned what grow to be taking place back at the farm right then? Were Cyn and Charles and Munster weeding the garden, speaking about Peter and I off on a unstable adventure, all by myself? Wondering what we have been doing together? Conjecturing approximately our coming night together? Could Munster and Cynthia, maybe, have observed in his flashy sportscar, a ways enough within the lower back of so that we wouldn’t spot them tagging alongside? Or maybe they had left whilst we did, smiling and giggling, and heading north?

  I gazed out the long bank of domestic home windows at the gray-blue sky. What had been the aliens as much as? Had they visible us leave the farm? Did they care, even? They have been to be had somewhere, and Mari end up with them. Perhaps. Or useless somewhere.

  Mom and Daddy. The Horvats. Mrs. Ryan, my math trainer. Again and again photographs of all of them smiling and speakme within the actual days. The long long past days.

  Back to Lashawna. My head spun.

  Hurry, Peter.

  Five mins that seemed like five hours exceeded. I educated my ears towards the hole, thoughts of Peter collapsed on the floor somewhere deep within the room, bleeding. Ambushed with the aid of way of guys just like the ones Mari had blown away. But no, the shotgun blast may want to have scared them out in their wits. If all people had been in that kitchen—so, so not going—they would have hightailed it out the returned door inside the confused seconds even as we rocketed out the the the front.

  Too prolonged.

  I rose and commenced to creep toward the open door, the gun raised, my finger urgent lightly at the cause.

  Easy, easy. Don’t freak and…

  At the edge, the comforting jump of moderate, the absence of shouting or screaming introduced the pass lower back of Peter. A few seconds later the outline of his body appeared, and then his face with the look of resignation and defeat.

  “Empty. Nothing in any re
spect inside the larders except a can of sauerkraut they should have neglected. Or him, or her.”

  “Larders? Like in plural?”

  “Yes. Like in two. Perishables from the seems of the first one—refrigerated lengthy in the beyond. No rats interior, via the way. It emerge as sealed tight as a drum. The one-of-a-kind round the corner to it,” he stated pointing back, “become for the imperishables and canned meals. Huge! The visitors ought to had been served like kings and queens.”

  “So a few one or ones survived, like us,” I mused out loud.

  “Looks that manner, otherwise the rats packed all of it out.”

  “With a can opener or two.” I looked at the returned of Peter as I said that. A tiny squeal and the reappearance of one of the disgusting rodents. Another right at the back of it, searching out what remained of the carcass.