Dead Paper Birds

by Megan McKinney

  Chapter one… I should’ve stayed in bed

  I backed slowly down the hallway. My breath racing in and out of my lungs rapidly. I had my pistol pointed at the cracked door in front of me, both hands gripping it tightly. From behind the door I could hear soft moaning and crying coming from inside the room. I slowly set each foot down carefully, before putting any weight on it, I swished each foot side to side to ensure that I didn’t step on anything that would catch their attention. All it would take would be one sound that didn’t belong. As I reached the corner of the enjoining hallway, where I could make my escape, there was a hellish scream. I rotated to my left and a human shape crashed into me. Miraculously I kept ahold of the pistol with one hand while the other automatically went up to stop the teeth from ripping out my throat. Hands grabbed the sides of my head squeezing and scratching while I pulled my right hand under the torso and pulled the trigger. Once. Twice. Three times and the body finally went limp on top of me. I heard running feet and more screams coming from the hall, from that room. I pulled the body further on top of me and went limp. I held my breath as feet ran past me and over me to go down the hallway.

  Once silence resumed I pushed the body off of me and stood up shakily. I checked myself to make sure that I wasn’t bleeding and had no broken bones. It didn’t feel like it but I could be wrong. My head pounded from being smashed on the floor but it was something I would live through. My face though, felt like it had lines of fire racing up and down. I kicked the corpse away from my feet, it rolled onto its stomach, facedown into the carpet. My breath rattled in my chest and I had to lean against the wall to keep from falling over. I could feel myself shaking, just to visualize it, I held my hands out in front of me. I wasn’t surprised to see them twitching, they were twitching so badly that I doubted I would be able to carry anything. Still shaking, I dusted myself off and looked to my right from where it had jumped me at.

  The window was shattered all over the ground, leaving pieces and shards in the frame. I leaned over just enough so I could see out of the window. Infected weren’t smart enough to climb walls, which there has to be something down there for it to stand on. The window overlooked a patio. There were overturned tables and chairs, besides that nothing. Nothing else was moving out there, unless I counted the wind. I peered back down the dark hallway where all the infected had ran off to, where I had come from. There was no way I was going back down there. I’d much rather go this way than run into those guys again. When they went on the hunt it was always best to just get out. Get out and as far away as possible. I didn’t have the ammunition to kill them all. I reached back to touch my bow, making sure it and my arrows were still in place.

  I stepped up to the window, there was still no movement so I carefully poked the remaining shards out of the bottom of the frame before slinging my legs through it. I slid through the frame and landed gently on my feet, my knees bending with the impact. I looked around me carefully. I slid my pistol into its holster and pulled my bow out. It wasn’t as deadly as my gun but I could make the arrows if I lost any and it didn’t make any noise. I nocked an arrow while I walked around. Stealth was the best friend anyone could have out here. It was the only way to survive.

  Before the world basically died, this would have been a beautiful place to enjoy a meal or a book. Antique chairs and tables were overturned and rotting on their sides and backs. Umbrellas that had long since succumbed to mold were under layers of dirt and rotting debris from the plants that had grown wild and taken over the place. Ivy trailed up the sides of almost all the buildings, covering them in green year-round. Trees sprouted in the streets. In places it was flooded year-round, leaving those areas untouchable. I stepped carefully over to the edge of the balcony. Trying my best to avoid breaking anything. The view in front of me was breathtaking. Beautiful, even though everything was dead and rotting. It still had a certain charm to it. Even though I wasn’t high up, this side of the building overlooked part of the bay. Waterfront property. At least as close as any business could get. From here I could see where the boats used to dock. There were some still anchored and from here they looked like they were still in pristine condition. In the distance I could hear sea lions going about their day to day lives. The absence of humans didn’t bother them or the ocean in the slightest.

  On either side of me stood other buildings, much taller and menacing. The windows in most of the buildings had been broken for a long time, letting rain and ocean air into the buildings. Allowing them to disintegrate from the inside out. Now just standing here looking, actually looking, I could see how some of the buildings had started to lean at alarming angles. Within the next ten years they’ll be on the ground, quite literally. With no one around to do the upkeep it really shouldn’t be surprising. This building hadn’t started leaning yet but parts of the floor or ceiling depending on how you looked at it, were already falling through. There were some areas I could look down several floors where water had eroded everything in its path.

  I didn’t enjoy rummaging through large buildings like this but what choice did I have when everything else had already been looted? Going through these buildings was like walking into a deathtrap. There was so much water damage that the floors weren’t all that stable in places, and then there was the mold. Mold was rampant. It grew on everything. If I stopped for too long I swear it would start growing on me. If I could find a respirator that would make life much easier but the way it was, I had to tie a bandanna over my face to avoid breathing in too much of it. That wasn’t including the infected that like to hide everywhere, just waiting or in some cases hunting for their next meal. Or the bodies. Every door I opened, I dreaded it, would I find one? Would I find a whole family? Stumbling across a corpse was still horrible, it was downright depressing. Knowing that they had died at the hand of someone else or been eaten alive. No one deserved to die like that and then their remains be left behind with no one knowing who they were. No one to even know their name.

  I stared out into the bay, trying to turn my dreary thoughts around. Sometimes, I would daydream about hopping on a boat and sailing away. Leaving this behind. There had to be somewhere better out there. Somewhere that people weren’t constantly afraid of dying. Right?

  The sunlight refracted on the water. It shimmered like a crystal. I never made time to go down there. Honestly, I never had the courage to go look, I could make the time if I really wanted to. Would the rocks feel the same under my feet, would the water feel any different? What if I’ve changed so much that I can’t even enjoy being down there on the beach? I don’t want to face that. And then, what if I found a boat? I could theoretically sail away on it but I didn’t know anyone who could sail. I never learned, not that I had a boat to learn with anyways. My daydream would come crashing down around my feet. No, I’d rather have my daydream instead of nothing and I don’t want to ruin good memories with facts from the present. My fingers were twisting the hair at the end of my braid almost frantically. I took a deep breath and forced my fingers to stop tangling themselves in my hair.

  I looked around me, pulling myself out of my head. I had to get moving, the sun was on its downward trajectory. I didn’t want to get caught out here after dark or past curfew. But it was almost worth the risk to stay here a moment more. It was rare moments like this that made me miss the way everything was before, to have a sense of normalcy. Was there ever any normalcy? Once upon a time there was. Once upon a time, everyone just had to deal with other people not the dead. The military had been able to contain the infected but only for so long. The fighting with the infected had waged for years and years before they finally swelled up enough to overtake the population. Everyone had held out for as long as they could. Out here was one of the last places to fall. Before
everyone retreated behind the wall. As far back as I could remember there were always reports on the news about them. How they had contaminated another city or about how the military had been able to push the infected back. Everyone tried to carry on as normal. Growing up, to me it was perfectly normal to hear about more casualties, more cities falling. But when mom told stories from her childhood, it was always then that it would hit me that it wasn’t supposed to be normal. In the safe zones society still held strong back then, with only minor changes to everyone’s attitudes. It wasn’t until the infected had started killing people in greater numbers did the panic start building. Even then people didn’t want to abandon their false pretenses.

  Here, what was left wasn’t in as bad of shape as it was in other places. I hadn’t seen personally but I’d seen pictures. Nature would eventually take this all back. But here for now, I could still figure out what businesses the buildings used to house.

  The first floor of this building had been some sort of hotel lobby and the floor below me was where they had prepared the food. I had stopped to stand in the middle of the large kitchen, it could easily feed hundreds of people, with the size and amount of cooking utensils. It would have held twenty people easily, with their own space to work. This was the kind of kitchen would have been bustling with noise and activity. It still seemed to be clean with the cupboards, drawers and counters done in stainless steel. It was obviously dirty but it had a cleaner look than any other place I had seen. There was even minimal rust on everything. The whole kitchen was covered in grey. The only thing that wasn’t grey were the cutting boards and utensils left lying around. Most of all the supplies were sitting in their places, waiting for their owners to come back and put them to use again. The walls were white, or at least used to be white, mold and dirt had attached itself to the paint. Dust covered everything else. It was so thick on the floor that I left footprints behind me.

  It wasn’t an area that had been overly looted simply because I found china that was still in one piece and even food. It wasn’t much but it was two sealed containers, one of rice and of oats. Before I stuffed the oats in my backpack I ate several handfuls of it. It was bland but it was so much better than the food I ate on a regular basis. In one of the cupboards I found several bottles of hard liquor. Which are currently sitting in my backpack, next to the rice and oats. It beat the stuff that I made, but no one complained when I brought it to them. This stuff though, it was a treat. I sighed, more than likely I would just trade it all away, I wouldn’t keep any for myself. My family needed the food and supplies more than good booze.

  I looked around, this used to be a high-end place, a place where rich wives would meet to gulp their martinis and complain about how ‘awful’ their lives were. I was going on twenty-seven now, so ten long years ago I was making minimum wage for a lousy fast food place, one of the few that were left. I had managed to swindle my way into that job. With so many people unemployed it was hard. But we had to have food, we couldn’t live without it. Dad worked his fingers to the bone. There was no reason why he had to bear the weight alone, I found other odd jobs. Jobs that didn’t pay much but what they did contributed to buying food. Yeah, no doubt these people would have looked at me and sent me on my way if I had tried showing my face here. It wasn’t just lack of money that would have made them turn me away, it was the attitude. I could never understand how they could act so haughty.

  Why did I care anyway? Most, if not all of those people are dead now. I hung my head to the side to rest on my shoulder. It doesn’t bother them anymore that I’m here. No more than it bothers them that the dead walk around. I shook my head, nope. Time to get moving. I moved my foot and it cracked something. I moved my foot back and peered down. Glass glittered up at me, I crouched down to pick it up. It was a little angel made out of a pink crystal or colored glass. Mom would like this. I smiled down at the little angel. If it made mom happy I was happy. I slipped it into my side pocket.

  I pulled myself away from the railing and looked for another way out. To go down the hallway would be asking for infected to rip my throat out. And I wasn’t feeling suicidal today. Today, was the key word. I could go through the doors and try to find the stairs from there but again with a group of infected on the move I didn’t want to risk it. I didn’t explore this floor. When I was going up the stairs the door was sealed shut which was why I had moved up to the next floor where the group of infected were. No, I’d try to find another way first. I had stuff to deliver, mouths to feed and it was a beautiful fall day to boot. The sun was shining and the wind wasn’t blowing too badly today. No point in going out of my way to get hurt on such a nice day. I walked to the side of the balcony, I glanced back behind me, nervously. It felt like someone was watching me. Nothing was moving, at least that I could see. I was alone. Relax. It’s fine. No one else is out here. I turned forward again. Carefully I leaned over the railing to look down. I was four stories up and the only catches on the building were for the window ledges, and even then, they weren’t that big. Enough for my toes to rest on that’s it. There was a semi-truck parked below me but I was still far too high to jump down onto it. Ugh, looks like I’m going to have to find another way down. I smacked my fist on the railing, ignoring the stinging of my hand.

  I turned around and walked to the other side of the railing. Instead of stopping at the edge of the wall the railing kept going with a path leading to stairs. I couldn’t help it, I laughed. Finally, some luck. I wouldn’t have to go back through the building. I scratched the back of my neck nervously. The feeling still wasn’t going away. It was just time for me to get moving

  The stairs were made entirely of metal and they were red with rust. Gingerly I put a foot down onto the first step and pushed down on it. It held. I took a deep breath and stepped down onto it, letting my weight rest on that one foot. From behind me, something fell and broke. It sounded like glass breaking. I turned halfway to look back, straining my ears listening for any other sounds. I swore I could hear male voices. It only lasted half a moment but I know I heard them. I pulled my bow back up, pulling the arrow half back and slowly I stepped back towards the balcony. I tightened my grasp with both of my hands, blew my breath out slowly before I jumped around the corner, facing the edge balcony. Nothing was there. I was still close enough to the wall that nothing would have seen me unless they were on the balcony. Tentatively I peered into the windows, half expecting to see nothing or maybe an infected. Instead there were three figures standing near the back, intertwined with shadows. My blood pulsing in my ears, I propelled myself through one of the broken windows. My feet landed on the broken glass, I pulled back the arrow and let it fly. I missed. It embedded itself into the wall next to one of their heads. One of the three figures raised their own gun, while the other hit it knocking it down. They then ran out of the room, into a dark doorway. I stood there uncertain. Were they wearing gas masks? They were the first people that I had actually seen out here in a long time. There was evidence that there were other people but this was the first time I had actually seen them.

  There wasn’t much worth in chasing them down. They didn’t look like they were starving or doing too badly for themselves. They had gear and looked relatively healthy. I must have just caught them by surprise, or if they knew I had been here they must have thought I’d already moved on. But if they knew I had been here they must have realized I was alone. Or maybe. I shook my head. No, stop overthinking. They left you alone, you leave them alone now. it explained why I felt like I was being watched. Cautiously, keeping my eyes trained on the dark doorway I retrieved my arrow. As soon as I had it in my hand I turned tail and ran back to the window. I jumped through it and took several steps away from it before putting my arrow away. I looked back inside cautiously, it was still empty. But why did I still feel like I was being watched? I took a long look around me. Nothing was moving, besides the leaves that were flying through the air. I pulled my collar of my jacket up before going back to the stairs.

&n
bsp; I knew the first step would hold me but I still stepped gingerly down onto it. I did the same with the next step, but I tested it before putting my weight onto it. Half way down the stairs, they turned back on themselves. I turned keeping a hand on the railing and one hand on my bow while I followed the stairs down.

  From inside the building gunfire sounded. A lot of it. They must have found infected or the infected found them. I froze mid-step. I was almost tempted to run up the stairs to try and help them out. I had caught myself in mid-turn to go back up. But even as I stood there internally debating it the gun fire ceased. They’re either dead or they killed all the infected. There’s nothing I can do either way. Everyone’s on their own, I bit down on my cheek. On our own. How stinking true is that?

  I unfroze my legs and kept walking down. The stairs abruptly stopped at one floor above the ground, at the next landing. They looked like they had been chopped off somehow. The edges were rough and uneven. Someone wanted to keep someone or something from coming up this way. Well this was the best I would get, there was no way I was going to go back up when I was so close to the ground. I tightened my back pack, pulling it tighter onto my back, going down one floor was much better than four. I could try to just drop down or I could climb the railing and try to lower myself down with a little more control and less of a chance of cutting myself on the sharp metal. I rattled the railing, it didn’t budge. I tried harder but still no movement. I slid my bow over my shoulder before I climbed over the railing and fit my feet in-between the bars. I braced my knees against the railing as I slid myself down. When I couldn’t keep my knees braced against it anymore I let my legs dangle below me while I walked myself down as far as I could using just my hands. Hanging there I looked below me, the ground wasn’t that far away. I closed my jaw, pulling my tongue away from my teeth. I let my breathe out and back in before letting go.