No…it never ends. I might start posting these on Saturday nights so you can get good and drunk before you read it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
——-<\/p>\n
March 22nd<\/p>\n
Bethesda<\/p>\n
Martin had stocked the rear of their stolen Humvee with enough weapons to take over a small country.\u00a0 All it took was the memory of those creatures at Molly\u2019s neck and Daryl was glad for the firepower.\u00a0\u00a0 He sat in the back with her and shifted uncomfortably.\u00a0 All these years looking lustfully at HumVees, he was shocked to learn how cramped and utilitarian they were.\u00a0 This was one of the better models, but he had been hoping for that family station wagon feel.\u00a0 No such luck.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis thing\u2019s a bear,\u201d Daryl said, leaning forward as Martin drove the truck out and onto the country road, leaving Sugarloaf behind them.<\/p>\n
\u201cYep!\u201d Martin shouted back, \u201cBeen driving them for years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTest driving!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTest driving?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah.\u00a0 Put on an expensive suit and test drive luxury cars.\u00a0 It\u2019s a great way to spend a slow Saturday.\u00a0 You\u2019ve never done it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, Martin, I\u2019m not a freak.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s great fun.\u00a0 I\u2019d recommend it but, of course, the world\u2019s ended so it doesn\u2019t matter.\u00a0 Had to take a class to test drive \u2018em.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daryl sat back and shook his head.\u00a0 Molly smiled and patted his leg,\u00a0 \u201cAt least your lunatic friends are resourceful.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAt least.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just a few miles outside of Washington, Bethesda is a vibrant suburb that looks more like a city than DC.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t always that way, though.\u00a0 When Daryl was a kid, he went to high school along East West Highway, one of the main arteries through DC\u2019s suburbs.\u00a0 In those days, the subway was small and new and Bethesda was a town of diners, old brick apartment buildings and tumbledown commercial sites.\u00a0 The old railroad tracks ran through the town and the high school had an open campus lunch policy.\u00a0 It was white bred America, a suburb on the cusp of development.\u00a0 A dozen years since graduation and the city was stacked with high-rises, the school had a glitzy makeover, the diners were\u00a0 gone and the traffic snarled around wide roads throughout the day.\u00a0 It was a frightening place to approach in these end days but, beyond the frozen rush hour and the dead, Daryl took a certain comfort in the once bustling streets.\u00a0 It was a city that could hide them.\u00a0 A city of office towers and alleys that could absorb four foolish survivors sticking their noses where they didn\u2019t belong.<\/p>\n
They headed along a network of two-lane byways, weaving through the country and dropping down onto River Road, heading out of the deep woods and into the outskirts of Bethesda \u2013 million dollar homes on one side and the suburban city on the other.<\/p>\n
Molly hadn\u2019t spoken since they left the Mountain, but her silence, and her eyes, spoke volumes.\u00a0 She thought this was suicidal, and Daryl knew she was right.\u00a0 As they crept closer to the choked streets of Bethesda, he was starting to fall in line with Martin.\u00a0 These monsters had a plan, and it seemed he and his friends were part of it in some way.\u00a0 At the very least, the creatures knew their every move.<\/p>\n
Until that Metro train braked, life had been mindless.\u00a0 Now, what?\u00a0 The end of the world, blowing monsters apart, traveling into the city to see if the world of Man had become a world of monsters.\u00a0 How would you behave if you were in one of those sci-fi action stories?\u00a0 That was a question he had asked his friends since he was in grade school.\u00a0\u00a0 There you are, living after the end of the world, fighting aliens.\u00a0 Would you fall apart or, like Sigourney Weaver, would you just duct tape two plasma rifles together, tell your buddy to keep the engine running, then leap into the pit of despair?\u00a0 Or, like Mad Max, would you just relentlessly go on with your empty life in a world without civilized rules?\u00a0\u00a0 A normal person should be freaking out; kicking, screaming, tearing at their hair.\u00a0 Daryl liked to think of himself as a normal person, so the fact that a bitter calm had settled over him was a pleasant surprise.\u00a0 Survival of the fittest and, since he had survived, then he was going to damn well try and be fit.\u00a0 That\u2019s what he was thinking but, of course, he knew that he ain\u2019t seen nothing yet, as they say.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe we should turn around.\u201d\u00a0 Martin said as he eased the car onto the crowded streets outside of Bethesda.\u00a0 They\u2019d driven for two hours without speaking and the sound of his voice made Daryl jump.\u00a0 Ah, yes, so much for calm and collected.\u00a0 Daryl felt the doubts creeping in.<\/p>\n
The roads were packed with the dead rush hour, just like everywhere else.\u00a0 Abandoned cars and the cars of the dead were lined up, frozen in time.\u00a0 They were all silent now, the headlights faded and gone. The first to go.\u00a0 Bodies littered the sidewalks, those who had been caught when the world ended and those who appeared to have survived a short time.\u00a0 The closer they came to the city, though, the fewer bodies they saw.\u00a0 By the time Martin pulled into the driveway of a ritzy home, about a mile away from the city center, the streets were clear.\u00a0 Cars had been pushed aside to make an open lane down the road which led into the city proper.<\/p>\n
They sat in the driveway, staring at the road and buildings until, finally, Azizi said, \u201cLooks like the jellyheads are civic conscious.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to go in there.\u201d Molly whispered.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe came this far,\u201d Martin\u2019s reply sounded haunted.<\/p>\n
Daryl scanned the streets and the yards of the other houses.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s damned quiet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bethesda, bordering the District of Columbia,\u00a0 had been a farming community with a population that numbered in the double digits.\u00a0 The Confederates and the Federals had skirmished in the farms and fields, burning houses and razing crops.\u00a0 Regardless, the town had supported the South and they refused to celebrate the nation\u2019s centennial in 1876, calling it a Northern victory party.\u00a0 The town\u00a0 organized a celebration focusing on their own initiative, the coming of the Metropolitan Branch railway.\u00a0 But progress would change the face of this farming community, which grew by leaps and bounds from the 1880\u2019s onwards.\u00a0 The farms gave way as Bethesda began a century of growth.\u00a0 In the 1990\u2019s, it took on yet another face as high-rises climbed into the sky and the shops and houses gave way to a densely packed city that grew higher and larger than DC and completely forgot that, at the crossroads in the city center, the community elders had once condemned July 4th as an insult to the freedom of the States.<\/p>\n
Now the city was silent.\u00a0 As motionless and forgotten as a summer night in 1860.\u00a0 The farms and fields, in spirit, had risen up again and swallowed Bethesda.<\/p>\n
The four survivors of an apocalyptic March night in 2001 stepped out of the car and stared at the buildings, lights still on, life still beating in the abandoned heart.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell,\u201d Martin said,\u00a0 \u201cShall we go a-wassailing?\u201d<\/p>\n
They stuck close together, moving in a tight group along the old rail bed.\u00a0 The Metropolitan Railway, which had changed the face of Washington\u2019s most dynamic suburb, had long ago vanished and been converted into a walking trail, leading right into the city and even passing under one of the tall office buildings.\u00a0 They used to call it the \u201cAir Rights\u201d building, as the railroad still owned the ground and the tracks running beneath the busy offices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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