Before the Fall

Chapter Fifty-Eight - Arrival

Namjoon

We landed without any real incidents. The airport, located in Pennsylvania, was completely barren. The pilot landed us and we told him to stay put inside the plane. He had enough rations and ammunition to last him should we be a few days, but if any of us had our way, we would blow the place to bits with Li inside in a matter of a few hours.

As we exited the plane, nothing seemed to be different. It was eerie and a fall chill was in the air. The place was lifeless, and for lack of a better term, dead.

We just didn't know how dead.

We walked up to a service door, located just off the runway. It was unlocked and Yoongi pulled the door open. It took a few seconds, but he yelped and jumped away from the door, holding his nose and gagging.

It didn't take long for us to realize why he was putting up such a fuss. The stench of human decomposition hit us like a wall. Jungkook immediately turned away and vomited. Jin didn't appear to be faring much better. This place must have never been cleaned out after the Extinction.

Putting on some surgical masks from Jimin's medical kit, we forged our way into the building, stepping over bloated and rotting bodies, all murdered by gunshots it seemed. Definitely part of the Extinction. Corpses were piled up in heaps, some shot where they stood and others dropped on top. The masks did little to keep out the stench. We didn't stop to take in any more of the carnage as we quickly made our way over to the rental desk.

Taehyung, arriving there first, shoved the dead customer representative off the counter, grimacing only slightly when his hand came back covered in gore, and the body crumpled to the ground with a juicy slurp. Jungkook coughed, but managed to hold back anymore vomit.

The cabinet where the keys were stored was locked and without hesitation, Taehyung pulled out his gun and shot it. Our ears were ringing as he reached in and grabbed several sets of keys, tossing one to each of us.

"Great, a puzzle. I just love puzzles," muttered Yoongi with greater disgust than when he had opened the service door.

"Spread out, stay alert, and do your best to not hit any alarm buttons. We don't want to give ourselves away so soon," I instructed.

I took several more sets of keys and headed to the parking lot. It almost seemed laughable to be walking by cars and punching buttons on key fobs and trying door handles for keyless cars, looking like we had forgotten where we parked. But no one felt like laughing after what we had just seen. With all of us working together, we finally were able to get into few SUVs. A half hour later and we had siphoned enough gas out of the remaining vehicles to give both trucks a full tank. A few gas cans were pilfered from remaining passenger cars and we made sure we had enough fuel to reach H-Corp and get back.

It took all of an hour to do all of the above and we were on the road to New York. Our palm coms had GPS locators and we used that to lead us in the right direction.

"I think we're going to stink for days," muttered Hoseok.

He, Taehyung, Jin, and I were all in one SUV. Jin had already rolled down the windows because the stench was horrible and we were only inside with the dead for a few minutes.

"It must be Taehyung's nasty arm," grumbled Jin, scowling at the offender seated behind me.

I was driving and a quick look in the rear view mirror told me Taehyung was annoyed but knew it was true. He was almost green from the smell making him nauseated.

"Look at us, we're such a bunch of wimps. Trained killers and we can't even stand the stench of death," I laughed.

"We're used to fresh blood, not bodies that have lain around to rot for a few months." Hoseok's voice was thick as he turned his face towards the window, sucking in fresh air.