LZR-1143: Evolution (39 page)

I nodded as she began to push the doors, making enough space for me to deposit Romeo on solid ground before widening the gap for myself and Kate.

I crouched as we emerged, early morning daylight blinding me as I sought to gain distance from the escalator bank. Behind me, Kate stumbled into the light, also squinting and grimacing.

Ky jogged forward, to the short stairs leading to street level, peering out cautiously into the street.

“All clear,” she said as we approached. “Which way?”

I paused for a moment, thinking. In truth, I was trying to remember the maps that were now lodged safely in my pack. We were on 1st Street and I strained to remember the maps of D.C., and to access my dim memories of this area of the city from my days here with Maria. More importantly, I strained to determine our best plan B. The worst case scenario was being forced topside in the middle of the city, and we were miles from the Pentagon now—more importantly, we were on the wrong side of the Potomac.

I scanned both directions and made a decision. If we were going to the Pentagon, we needed to scout the pathway to the bridges. That meant visibility. That meant height.

“Left,” I said, starting out along 1st Street, and continuing to avoid the bright sunlight. I was becoming increasingly sensitive to sunlight, and I didn’t like that one bit. I had nightmares of the discomfort being part of the vaccine, and I ignored it.

For now.

“Where are we going?” asked Kate, also shielding her eyes from the intense glare of early morning sun.

“There,” I said, pointing up as we reached the intersection of Independence Avenue and 1st.

“You gotta be kidding me,” she said, following my pointed finger and looking up.

Chapter 40

The United States Capitol was situated on a large piece of real estate at the East end of the Mall, looking directly West toward the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. We jogged up 1st Street and over Independence Avenue, checking both directions on the street for evidence of movement as we crossed. The large avenue was strewn with cars parked and crashed haphazardly on the road, and several prone corpses laying on the street, all with large, impressive bullet wounds to the head, all permanently dead.

As we cut through the manicured lawns and trees on the Southeast corner of the Capitol complex, we scanned the foliage for movement or danger. The wind kicked up briefly, sending several pieces of trash scurrying across our pathway, making Ky flinch in surprise.

As we moved toward the Capitol, Kate asked quietly, so as to keep it from Ky’s ears.

“How do you know we can get in?” she asked, as we started up the driveway to the wide marble stairway that led to the East entrance of the building. Massive sandbag fortifications sprawled across the top of the wide stairway, and wooden sawhorses were staggered along the stairways in intervals, as if to slow the approach of anyone walking up the stairs. Many of the wooden barricades had toppled, and blood covered the bags and steps at the top of the stairwell.

“I don’t know,” I said, looking up the steps. “I just kinda assumed.”

The massive, thick, reinforced glass doors to the building were wide open to the air and, as we approached, we could see the signs of disarray. Bullet holes peppered the marble, and pools of blood sat, dry and long crusted over, at irregular intervals. On the wide, marble floor outside the entrance, there were many discarded placards and protest signs, marks of either a hastily abandoned protest, or a hastily convened one.

We ignored the body parts strewn across the landing as we warily picked our way over the sandbag barricades and over portions of human anatomy.

Romeo ranged ahead, bolting through the doors of the building before returning to me as I whistled softly.

“Anyone ever been here before?” I asked, looking up and around the massive rotunda. I wished I had made it here before the infection. It was a tribute to our enduring democracy—dysfunctional as all hell or not—and a feat of architecture and our continuing spirit of excellence. I frowned, wondering if we would ever recover from this, and drew in a deep breath.

One thing at a time.

“Civics class, fourth grade,” said Ky, also staring at the rotunda and avoiding looking at the gore spread along the marble and carpet at intervals. We walked beneath the metal detectors arrayed along the doorway and I spied what we needed: a visitor’s map.

Our footsteps echoed loudly on the marble tile as we crossed the atrium to a large map spread out tastefully behind a visitor’s desk. I looked for the telltale “You Are Here” arrow, and scanned for the stairwell doors, finding what I needed and turning to Kate and Ky.

“Okay, plan is simple. Stairwell to the top floor, maintenance stairs to the roof, and we take a peek at the mall and the bridges, see if we can’t find a clear pathway across the river. Sound good?”

Ky looked at Kate and back to me.

“Uh, this is your plan B?”

I sighed and looked at the ceiling then back to the young woman who looked confused, and slightly worried.

“Yeah kiddo, this is what I’ve got. We’re only a couple of miles away. We’ve defied the odds up until now, and you gotta believe we can keep it up, okay?”

I tried to convey a sense of hope that I didn’t feel. She smiled wanly and nodded as Kate walked slowly to the left, toward the House side of the building. We followed closely behind, and Romeo ranged forward, always careful to keep us within eye and earshot.

We passed through the ornate archway leading out of the rotunda, and through a dark hallway, paintings of past Congressional leaders adorning the walls. The historical and political significance of the setting was marred only by the odd graffiti sprayed on the walls, and the streaks of dark, dried blood on the carpet. The decaying form of a capitol police officer sat slumped over a large desk, hands splayed out in on the top, head facing us. The top of his skull had been shattered, and large gobbets of brain matter dripped onto the floor, gathered beneath the opened skull.

I stepped forward, trying to shield Ky from the sight as we passed through another metal detector and into another, smaller rotunda. This one had clearly marked stairs on one side next to the nonfunctional elevators, while on the other, the large, double doors leading to what was marked as the House Chamber. If I remembered my civics class correctly, this was where the House of Representatives convened and held votes.

As we walked toward the stairwell, Kate grabbed my hand and pointed with her pistol.

“Check that out,” she said quietly.

I followed her gaze to the thick chain wrapped tightly around the handles of the large doors leading into the House Chamber. A hastily scrawled sign was taped above the chain, and we all stepped closer to make out the words:
You can all stay in here until you get some goddamned work done!

I looked at Kate and back to the sign. The same graffiti mark as was scrawled on the hallways outside the guard booth was painted carefully on the doors.

That couldn’t mean ... It wasn’t possible.

I pulled the large doors slightly, creating a slim line of light between the doors to the chamber.

The doors slammed suddenly against the chain as multiple bodies pressed against the heavy wood, rotting faces in suits adorned with Congressional pins pressing their faces into the crack as if they were willing themselves to melt through the small opening and into the rotunda.

I jumped back, disgusted but ever so slightly amused.

Behind me, Ky whistled softly.

“That wasn’t in any of my civics classes,” she said, backing up to the stairwell door.

“No shit,” I said, walking away and wondering at the mark that was left on the doorway. Someone or something had incapacitated that guard. Could have been a zombie. Could have been a human. I guess it didn’t matter much to him.

It did give me slight pause to consider that Congress had actually come to work on the day it all ended, a true juxtaposition to their behavior in other times of crisis. I guess “zombie plague” ranked as one of the few reasons left for them to clock in and get some damn work done.

The stairwell door was unlocked, and we pressed forward. We climbed several floors until reaching the top, where we carefully pushed the large handle and opened the heavy security door. A long, ornate carpeted hallway stretched to either side, lined with dark wood doors.

“Look for the door marked ‘roof access,’” I said, gesturing to the left for Kate and indicating to Ky that she should follow me. Kate turned and moved down the hallway, scanning each door for the correct marking.

Ky and I did the same, making good time with two sets of eyes. At the end of the hallway to the right, I found it, and turned to call to Kate, but there was no need. She was walking back with her hands in the air, indicating defeat. I pointed at the door and she nodded, starting to jog toward us.

It was a heavy, riveted metal door recessed in a small nook at the end of the hall next to a vending machine and a water fountain. It was unlocked, and as we walked into the narrow hallway leading to the metal stairs going upwards, I could see why. Lines of provisions, such as MRE’s and bottled water were lined up in the small space. They were marked “Maryland National Guard” and had date stamps along the edges from weeks ago.

The military had clearly planned something here, but to no avail.

We paused long enough to dump the supplies we had and replace them with the lighter MRE’s and fresh water, then mounted the stairs to the roof access door. Behind us, the stairwell continued, presumably to the top of the dome. But I thought that we could get the view we needed from here, so we stopped and went outside. As we exited, I noticed the self-locking mechanism in place, since it was an exterior door to a secure building, and I lodged a spare MRE in the gap between the door and frame to prevent getting locked outside.

The walkway along the edge of the roof extended the length of the flat surface, and had ornate and decorative waist-high railings. We moved toward the edge, and I took in a deep breath as I looked toward the Washington Mall.

This was
not
your father’s Washington Mall.

The once-green space that extended from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial was covered in the evidence of death and destruction that had become the hallmark of our new world. Abandoned vehicles were parked in and around the vast park, some smoking as if from long-smoldering fires. In regular intervals, the military had attempted to set up barricades and restricted spaces, but had been stymied by what appeared to be the raw press of humanity. Tents, campers, and other marks of refugees littered the commons, and the half-completed line of barbed wire that was surrounding the pitifully small remnants of humanity was toppled in several places.

The Washington Monument itself appeared to have been a rally point of some kind, and was surrounded by tanks and troop carriers, all now abandoned and burned out, as if set ablaze or hit with friendly fire in the confusion that had clearly reigned.

Behind the Washington Monument was the most shocking evidence of this new world. The carcass of a massive 747 with blue and gray markings rested crosswise on the grass, its belly flush against the back of the World War II Memorial, one wing still attached and pointing straight up into the air, like the rotting, fetid flipper of a long dead beached whale. The raggedly torn tail section of the aircraft rested in three feet of water at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial, at the far end of the Mall.

The tent city ended at 14th Street, before the Washington Monument; beyond the military units rallied and burned out at the top of the monument’s hills, the Mall was abandoned. Deep, muddy tracks led from the area toward Constitution Avenue, and it was those tracks I followed closely. Clearly, many vehicles, possibly hundreds, had evacuated the area after making a stand in the park. The monument itself bore signs of close combat, with charring and smoke damage marring the white marble sheathing.

The tracks faded into the tree line beyond the edge of the park, and I allowed my eyes to wander into the distance, scanning against the bright light for any other signs of occupation.

Beside me, Ky looked up and tapped my arm.

“Look up there,” she said pointing to the top of the dome, where the long barrel of a large rifle was pointed toward the sky, secured to the ledge by a large tripod.

I pressed my eyelids together in pain, trying to shake off the bright sunlight. Must have been one of the Guard units assigned here. I nodded once to Ky, squinting back into the sun as I scanned the distance.

“What are you squinting at, man? It’s cloudy out.”

I scoffed, looking at Kate squinting into the bright sun as well.

“Whatever, kid,” I said dubiously, still scanning.

“Seriously, man. Look, can you see those helicopters over the river?” she asked, pointing above the Lincoln Memorial in the distance. I squinted so hard that my eyes were nearly closed before I could detect the seemingly small movements in the distance. Two of them, moving quickly along the path of the Potomac, toward where I knew the Pentagon was located.

Bingo!

But why the hell was the light so bright?

“Good eyes, Ky.” I said quickly, turning to Kate. “You see those?”

“Not until she pointed them out,” she said, holding a hand over the side of her face to block the light. “It seem hot to you out here?”

Come to think of it, it did.

“Ky, what’s your take on the temperature?”

She shrugged, looking at both of us worriedly.

“I dunno. Maybe 70 degrees? It’s like seven in the morning, so ... You guys okay? You seem weird.”

“Yeah, well. Story of my life.”

Shit. What the hell was wrong with us?

“Whatever it is, we don’t have time to worry about it right now. Those choppers mean that someone is alive over there. We need to contact those helicopters and the people inside the Pentagon. Ideas?”

Kate stared onto the mall as I spoke, then slowly turned back to me, holding up a single finger.