Project Airborne

by Johnson, Cassandra

  “Is anyone here?” Kaige asked, seeing sunlight pouring in from the windows she crept inside and began to look around. Yes, people were absolutely staying here because there were sleeping bags and pillows on the floor. Old food wrappers, but no actual people. Maybe they were on another floor? Kaige went back out into the stairwell and climbed up to the third floor, the Change finance team worked here, but it was empty with no evidence of people hanging around there. The room looked oddly empty and sad, waiting for its people to return and bring life into those walls again.

  If there were people here, they had to be on the fourth floor. Suddenly, the thought occurred to her that, what if the little boy she saw was the only one left and he was here all alone and hiding because he was scared. Surely, he’d know that the zombies didn’t talk, they couldn’t form sentences, they weren’t intelligent creatures. They held vague memories of their human life, Kaige knew that much, because before all of the people that lived next door, one of her neighbors had become infected and his corpse kept returning every day, aimlessly wandering around the building and in the street. But they couldn’t comprehend more than that, at least she thought.

  Returning to the stair well, Kaige began to climb them, and stopped at the landing when she saw the door to the fourth floor. She needed to be cautious, if the boy was afraid he might hide from her and if there were others there, they also might attack her. Kaige had seen a lot of end of the world movies where they didn’t like newcomers, it didn’t matter that humans were dying out, you were encroaching on their territory and they would do whatever it took to protect it.

  Kaige really hoped that this wasn’t the case with whatever was waiting for her behind that door as she stuck the key inside and turned the knob, holding her breath she pushed the door open and looked around. Seeing the lobby was such a surreal sensation, it didn’t look any different than it had on any other regular day, but its appearance didn’t tell the viewer anything about what the world had gone through. It was bittersweet looking around this place, seeing how dull life had once been peaceful, and safe. You never thought about how good life was until it was all torn apart.

  “Is anyone up here?” Kaige slowly stepped inside, her hand gripping the handle of her bat out of instinct as the door clicked shut behind her and as the silence filled her ears, suddenly, she heard whispers.

  5.

  “Someone is out there.” A voice whispered.

  “I told you there was a lady.” The voice was a child this time, the little boy that Kaige saw in the window downstairs.

  “Shh.” Again, it was a deeper voice, an adult male.

  “How did she get inside? Tobey were you outside?” The panic that rose in the woman’s voice sounded like a mother’s tone.

  “No,” Tobey’s voice took on that mildly annoyed tone that children usually had when their parents weren’t listening to them

  “Did you let her in?” It was the man’s voice again, but Kaige didn’t hear the rest of the conversation, instead all of her attention was focused on the sound of the hammer of a revolver being pulled back before the barrel was pressed against the back of her head.

  “Drop the bat and turn around slowly with your hands in the air.”

  Kaige’s fingers instantly lost their grip on the baseball bat, swallowing vomit at the back of her throat and put her hands in the air so that the man holding the gun could clearly see them.

  “I-I won’t hurt anyone, I just saw the little boy and was afraid he was alone.” Kaige’s voice shook as she slowly began to turn around. She couldn’t believe that after all that had happened, this was how she was going to die, a victim of a shooting. At least it would be quick, Kaige told herself she wasn’t being eaten alive by a cluster of hungry walking corpse, or worse, become one of the walking dead.

  The face that stared back at her, hard features softening, his black shaggy hair hung around his temples and almost yellow eyes widened in disbelief.

  “Kaige,” Logan stared at her a second longer before he came closer, their bodies crashing into each other as their arms wrapped around one another. “I never thought I would see your face again.” He said against the shell of her ear. Logan’s breathing was erratic as he held onto her, almost painfully like finding another person meant so much, that he was afraid to let go or perhaps the person might disappear. “Guys, get out here, come look.” Logan slowly released Kaige, sharp, scratching stubble left Kaige’s cheek red from irritation.

  The door into one of the group therapy rooms where Kaige heard the voices whispering before slowly cracked open. At first, Kaige wasn’t sure who she was seeing, tall and lanky she realized it was Tom, and behind him were Megan and their son Tobey.

  All the oxygen left her lungs as she watched them step out into the main lobby. Megan crossed the lobby at a fast clip before she grabbed Kaige and squeezed her just as hard as Logan had and it took Kaige a few seconds to realize that Megan was crying against her, the painful sobs that erupted from the woman before she could speak.

  “You’re alive.” Megan croaked, continuing to hold onto her as Tom stepped in, moving his arms around his wife and Kaige at the same time.

  “It’s so good to see another familiar face.” Tom’s voice shook for a second before he stepped back, pushing his fingers into his eyes for a second still adhering to the old stereotypes that if you cried you weren’t a man, that you had to be strong otherwise women wouldn’t find you attractive as a mate.

  “I told you I saw a lady, I told you!” Tobey was jumping up and down somewhat, even now he was still a very energetic seven-year-old, Kaige wasn’t sure, but it was likely that he also suffered right along with his dad with attention deficient disorder.

  This immediately broke them all up, laughing.

  “Yeah, you did.” Tom was ruffling Tobey’s brown hair somewhat as the boy leaned against his side.

  “I didn’t even recognize who you were.” Kaige said, lowering to her knees and hugging him, touching his hair, kissing his cheek. A kid, a real kid still alive in all the mayhem was a sign of hope. The last time she saw a child, he was split in half, nothing but the head and torso was left of him, and he was chomping at the bit for a taste of ankle meat. Thank God some things had not changed, Tobey still felt like a child, the circumstances of the world they lived in hadn’t hardened him or made him into a grown up long before those years were meant to take him. “But I’m so grateful that I saw you. How long had you been watching me?” Kaige let Tobey go, looking at him. He was paler from not getting to run and play outside, he had some dark circles under his eyes like they all did, but his eyes still held that spark of life, it hadn’t been trampled out yet. Hope. The word continued to zig-zag through her mind.

  “I was sitting in the kitchen looking out the window and saw you on your bike and I ran and told mama, but she didn’t believe me.” Tobey looked up at his mother pointing and sticking his tongue out teasing her. “So, I went downstairs to watch from the window to the back door. I waved at you once, but I don’t think you saw me.”

  “I didn’t.” Kaige swallowed, thinking about how she would have gone back to her lonely home, never knowing how close she was to finding other survivors.

  “Come on, let’s find someplace comfortable to sit down. I want to hear everything.” Kaige told them as they gathered, headed into the second group therapy room where they had made a makeshift living room of sorts, taking couches and chairs out of the therapist’s offices to make the room look homier and more comfortable.

  Megan and Tom took a seat on her old couch, pulling Tobey down between them. Logan sat on one of the arm chairs that if she wasn’t mistaken, used to be in Zach’s office.

  “Are there any others?” Kaige asked, looking around at them curiously as she sat opposite Logan, looking at the four of them.

  Logan laced his fingers together, glancing down at the floor for a second, not a good sign in Kaige’s eyes.

  “There were, but we lost them.” His voice was laced with a bitt
er regret that Kaige didn’t know how to put her finger on, but she was sure that she would get the full story eventually. “One by one, it’s come down to just the four of us here.”

  Kaige knew that there would be people that she worked with whom she would never see again, Kaige had suffered her own losses as well. She was the only one there to care for her elderly landlords, she’d even buried them as respectfully as she could, but seeing people she never thought she would see again?

  “I’m afraid to ask.” Kaige told them with a hard swallow.

  “I was in the neighborhood looking for food a couple blocks away when I ran into a big hive of them. The only thing that saved me was this building, it seemed like a good place to stay and apparently I wasn’t the only one who thought that because I found Zach, his wife Lisa, Mike and Jeremy were here too, living on the second floor.”

  Kaige shivered listening to Logan’s story, she knew that they were truly gone, their absence in the room was palpable. Removing her backpack, she sat it down on the floor and removed a package of tissue from one of its pockets and wiped the tears from her cheeks that she hadn’t felt there until they dropped off her chin.

  “Jeremy and Mike were the first to disappear. It was safer looking for food and supplies together in groups, no one went out on their own, but one day they left and never came back.” Logan sniffed, scrubbing the sleeve of his shirt under his nose.

  “They would have never abandoned us.” Megan spoke up, blinking hard.

  “What about Zach and Lisa?”

  “That was the hardest one.” Megan’s voice shook. “Lisa was sick, ovarian cancer. When she passed away, Zach couldn’t take it.”

  Kaige didn’t need any more explanation than that, she knew that Zach took his life, she didn’t need to know the details of how it was done and Kaige couldn’t say that she blamed him at all. It must have been so hard for him, watching his wife dying from cancer in a world where there were no doctors to help her and the amount of pain she had to go through before finding peace. Kaige sat back in the chair, holding the tissue over her eyes a moment to just let it all out before she sniffed, blowing her nose before she sucked in a tight breath.

  “When was the last time someone went out to scout for supplies?” Kaige cleared her throat gently, looking around at them before she began to take the things, she’d gotten at the Family Dollar store out of her backpack. “I’ve hit a lot of the stores that were close to me, but I haven’t gone into North Little Rock, there might be better stores there with more supplies or we might even find more survivors.” Kaige said, holding out two cans of Spaghetti-o’s and seeing Tobey’s eyes light up some seeing the food that was typically geared towards children. Kaige still loved it and she was twenty-eight, ever since she was a little kid, it was an odd comfort food to her.

  “I’ve been going out on my own.” Logan looked up at Kaige as she began to remove some of the canned goods from her backpack. “Tom has a family...” He trailed off slowly and it was unspoken within the group that Logan was the one putting himself in danger for the group.

  “He won’t let me come with him, no matter how much we argue about it.” Tom spoke up having been silent this whole time.

  “How are your supplies?” Kaige asked then, there was no way that they could have been able to stock up when there were the four of them and only one person was able to go out and look for food.

  “It’s gotten really low.” Megan said, her hand stroking through Tobey’s hair softly as she looked at her little boy.

  “I think that I might have an idea. My apartment building is empty, it’s only me left in the house and the other three units are empty. There’s plenty of room for all of us and the area is clear. I only came across one of them today and I’m decently stocked, but if the two us, me and Logan could go scouting together we could bring back more food for all of us and we wouldn’t be all alone, or cold. All four of the units have working fireplaces.”

  “We would be able to survive better together through the winter.” Kaige added.

  “I won’t lie, it hasn’t been easy here.” Megan admitted. If she thought the heat of the summer was hard, she knew without a doubt that her family would suffer just as badly if not worse as the winter grew colder. Without food and warmth they wouldn’t make it and Megan was afraid each time Logan went out on his own in search of food without any backup he would eventually disappear too, just like Mike and Jeremy. Megan couldn’t even think about that.

  “How far away is your apartment from here?” Tom asked.

  “When I could drive, it took me about five minutes, depending on the traffic, but I rode a bicycle today and I got here in about forty-five minutes, walking it will take longer, maybe an hour or two.” Kaige hadn’t been thinking about how long it took her to make it to the office. Not after her scare.

  “What about the apartments? Do they have any furniture in them?” Tom was asking all the questions now.

  “Yes, the landlords had a full house, but everyone is gone now. I’m the only one left. The windows are all boarded up on the first floor and the basement windows too. They are all two-bedroom apartments.”

  There was a long silence after Kaige finished explaining the building. She hoped that they would come, but even if they didn’t, she could understand if they were hesitant, especially moving about when they had a child that they had to protect.

  “What do you think, Logan?” Tom turned to look at the other male.

  “It sounds like a good idea.” Logan replied, standing and moving to one of the windows, looking out at the city below. “Every day it gets colder and the streets have been safer the last dozen or so times I’ve been out, it’s just difficult to carry back all of the things that we need.” He told them. “If we’re going, we should get a move on, those clouds look too dark to just be rain and I don’t want us to be caught in the middle of a storm.” Logan pointed out the window at the darkening clouds that were gathering in the distance.

  “Take everything we can carry, plus we can strap some stuff on my bike and I will push it.” Kaige nodded up and down absently taking a pack of cigarettes from her jacket pocket and shaking one free, placing it to her lips before she stopped. Kaige had gotten so used to smoking whenever and where ever she wanted that her manners with society had begun to slip.

  “I’m sorry. I’ll step out.” This was the first time she felt embarrassed or self-conscious in a long time, she didn’t miss that part of society.

  “No, no. It’s okay.” Megan spoke up. “If you have an extra one, we can step into the kitchen together and I’ll start packing up the food we have.” Megan smiled and kissed the top of Tobey’s head.

  “I’ll get our stuff.” Tom told her, “Come on buddy, you can help dad pack.” Tobey got up and followed his dad out of the room.

  “I’m going to grab the extra bags.” Logan said making himself busy as Kaige and Megan went into the kitchen, both firing up cigarette’s and rolling up their sleeves, metaphorically since it was too cold to take off their jackets.

  “When did you, Tom and Tobey come here?” Kaige asked, grabbing cans and tossing them into a duffle bag as Megan took them down from the cabinet for Kaige.

  Kaige never realized how much taller Megan was than her, maybe it was the absence of seeing each other every day that helped Kaige see it.

  Despite being in her forties Megan still looked like a child in the face what with her high cheekbones. Megan didn’t look her age. Kaige imagined that she probably hated her features when she was a girl because she would never really look like an adult. She had strawberry blonde hair, soft brown doe eyes. Maybe it was being a fellow redhead that helped them bond? Megan’s hair was naturally curly however, whereas Kaige’s was a fiery copper that was straight as a board and never held a curl no matter how hard she tried. Megan was always kind to her, not that others hadn’t been, it was one of the many things that Kaige loved about Changes. They had done a great job of hiring people who were so open and accepting
of people from every walk of life.

  “We came about a month after the outbreak. Our neighborhood was completely swarmed with them,” Megan laughed bitterly, “It still feels silly saying zombies. Like we’re living in a terrible B horror movie, but that’s what they are, aren’t they?” Megan swallowed and sniffed. “We didn’t have any food, it had been two days since my baby went to bed with a full stomach. Tom and I were desperate, we didn’t know what to do or where to go. We put Tobey in the car and gunned it out of the garage running over as many of those bastards as we could. I stayed in the backseat with Tobey, covering his eyes so that he couldn’t see them. I didn’t want him those things. The witch in the Wizard of Oz gives him nightmares.” Megan shivered, swallowing hard. “Tom drove on the sidewalks to get down the streets, he’s our hero. It seemed like once the zombies depleted one food source, they started to migrate, when we got here the streets were almost deserted, lots of stores nearby. We ran inside the building, but we weren’t alone. It was like seeing you again, like somehow a weight was lifted because we weren’t surviving all on our own anymore.” Megan finished taking the last can from the cabinet. “I thought that when we came here, we would finally be safe.” Sitting down at the table, Megan lit another cigarette, not realizing she’d virtually eaten the first one. “How are four people supposed to live off ten cans of cold soup?” Inhaling from the cigarette, she wiped at the tears in her eyes that fell onto her cheeks as if by some chance Tobey came into the room, his mother didn’t want him to see her crying, that was the last thing Megan wanted.