Project Airborne

by Johnson, Cassandra

  “What is it?” Kaige’s brows wrinkled in concern. Brian also seemed to slow his gait not only so that the two of them could hear the gossip, but also because between himself and Logan they were both over six feet, Kaige was a lot shorter and it was more difficult for her to keep up and the men wanted to keep her safely between them away from any hidden threat.

  “I heard them arguing in the hall one night, I’m not sure they realized how much their voices carry when they step outside the apartment to argue so Tobey won’t hear it, but... I think, Megan might be pregnant.” Logan said.

  “What?” Kaige stopped suddenly, staring at Logan after his revelation.

  “I can’t say if it’s true or not, but I thought that I heard Megan saying that she hadn’t gotten her period and that it’s been about two weeks since she was supposed to get it. Apparently, her time of the month runs like a train station and she’s never missed one except for when she was pregnant with Tobey.” He went on to explain as the three of them stood in the middle of the street.

  Kaige couldn’t seem to get a solid lead on any one thought that was suddenly springing through her mind at one hundred miles per hour. On the one hand, a baby was a miracle that she couldn’t help feeling excited about, but then the reality of the situation sunk in and she felt herself quickly deflating.

  “If that’s true, no wonder they’ve been so tightly wound.” Kaige said, shaking her head softly. “Poor things.” Tucking the bottom portion of her face into her hoodie as they began to walk again Kaige couldn’t imagine how they must have been feeling. Babies were a lot of work even under normal circumstances, but with the world the way it was now? With no doctors, it just felt like the universe was giving you a gift but you didn’t know if you would get joy or pain inside that beautifully wrapped box.

  “This might seem incredibly insensitive to what’s going on between them but, maybe we should swing by that Walgreens and pick up all the condoms and pregnancy tests they have.” Kaige murmured, her voice coming out slightly muffled beneath the neck of her sweatshirt that she used to cover her mouth. If they didn’t want children, then they needed to take all the proper precautions to make sure that no more children were born into this world, unless they suddenly uncovered a manhole full of doctors and nurses who weren’t infected by the end of the world virus that may or may not have been unleashed on them by a foreign invader that didn’t think it would go this far. “We don’t have to say anything about the possibility that Megan might be pregnant, who’s to say that the three of us could be in a sexual relationship? It’s for the better of the group.”

  Now that she said those words Kaige wished she could suck them all back into her mouth and swallow them down into her empty gut. How embarrassing could she possibly be right now? Saying that when she was literally sandwiched between two guys who were not unattractive. It wasn’t a secret, to herself anyway that Kaige always had a little crush on Logan but she didn’t intend to imply that she wanted to have sex with either one of them.

  “I think regardless of whatever is happening between Meg and Tom, we need to be responsible.” Brian intoned, although he didn’t look at either Kaige or Logan, he just kept looking straight ahead of them, seeing the sign from the Lowe’s creeping closer to them.

  “Then it’s settled.” Kaige swallowed and nodded deciding that she wasn’t going to say another word until they got back to the house and she somehow had to figure out a reason as to why suddenly there were condoms and pregnancy tests stuffed inside her backpack.

  Getting inside the Lowe’s wasn’t difficult, much like the rest of the businesses in the area the doors were open. There wasn’t much to worry about when martial law took over, Kaige was never the type of person to feel ok about taking anything she hadn’t paid for no matter what the circumstances happened to be, but then the zombies took care of anyone who had those ideas in their head.

  Clicking her flashlight on, Kaige had never been in this store before. Normally she preferred the Home Depot a little further down the street for no other reason than the fact that her grandma loved going to that store and buying all of her bulk cleaning supplies when the woman was still living.

  The beam of the flashlight bounced around in her hand as the three of them began to look around, Kaige wasn’t even sure where they would keep generators at, but it wasn’t like they had to worry about their curfew anymore, there was no one coming to tell them the store was closing soon, or armed soldiers walking around to make sure that everyone was still acting accordingly.

  Passing by a spring planting display, Kaige paused, breaking away from Logan and Brian to look at the bags of seeds. She wasn’t sure why this display was out considering that it wasn’t anywhere near spring time when the world ended, but she still found herself pulling her backpack off her shoulders and unzipping it, grabbing packets of seeds. Tomatoes, snap peas, green beans, cabbage, onions, lettuce, black eyed peas they all went inside her backpack. Kaige had never kept a garden before in her life, but once spring hit, they could start planting. Canned goods wouldn’t last forever, maybe she could find some information about doing their own canning? Kaige immediately felt herself getting off track as she zipped her backpack up and quickly caught up to the guys who were standing in the middle of the isle where all the water heaters were.

  “Find them?” Kaige asked, scanning her flashlight over the prices, she had no idea why, it wasn’t as if she was worried about finding a store associate to wheel this thing up to the checkout counter for her. That was an annoying aspect of everyday life she didn’t miss, but she would absolutely do it any day of the week if it meant that there weren’t zombies running around trying to eat people.

  “You know what I’ve been wondering ever since this whole thing started?” Kaige asked. “How come none of those zombies have ever tried to eat our brains? Every zombie movie I’ve ever seen in my life they always wanted brains.” She shook her head softly as they began to make their way further down the aisle, eagerly scanning the shelves for anything that might look like a generator.

  “Maybe because they’re just movies.” Logan replied. “Obviously, up until this summer those kinds of monsters didn’t exist, they were all fiction and I guess it just worked for them to want to eat brains. But in the real world all they care about is sinking their teeth into the soft flesh and having blood gush straight into their hungry mouths.” Logan felt himself gag in the back of his throat. “Sorry, guys. I shouldn’t have made that description so vivid.” He said, swallowing hard as they made it to the back wall of the store and began to look around.

  Neither Brian or Kaige could reply because they were seeing what Logan described in their heads, they were also trying to block out the imagines of all those people they’d seen in the days after the zombies woke up and those that survived the first stage of deaths were quickly killed off because their bones were picked clean or they themselves were infected with the deadly virus that was running through those walking corpse veins.

  “What’s that?” Kaige asked, shunning her flashlight at something that looked like it had handles. At first, she thought it was a tiller, one of those things that helped break up soil. That’s what those were called, right? But as she looked closer, it looked like there was a whole engine block sitting in the middle of it.

  “I think that might be close to what we are looking for.” Brian said, swerving from the pack and getting closer. “Yep, it’s gas powered though. We’re looking for solar –” He paused, shining his flashlight along the top row of the shelve. “There it is.” His white teeth split into a wide grin before he handed Kaige his flashlight to keep trained on the boxes as he and Logan pulled the box down from the shelf.

  “Nature’s Generator,” Kaige said aloud reading the side of the box. On the display there were the panels that collected energy and a separate device that was charged. “I think this might work.” Kaige surmised as they each read over the description. “We could get a couple, set the panels up on the roof or down in t
he backyard where the sun comes through the trees, or whatever’s left of them.”

  Brian and Logan brought down three more boxes and fit them into one of the carts before they began to scout out the rest of the store. If they had generators, maybe even if it was August at the time the store closed for good, they might have some heaters around that they could take back to the house.

  Before their shopping spree was finished, Kaige found some bungee cord and used it to strap everything down. With the three generators, they got six heaters, electric cook tops, batteries and the solar lamps that Kaige had been wondering about for some time now.

  The next stop was the Walgreens which surprisingly took longer than Kaige thought it would just because Brian and Logan were having trouble pushing the carts up the street in the wind, but once her backpack was as full as it could possibly be with every type of pregnancy prevention known to the Walgreens, she stocked up on medicine too because she seriously thought she was probably coming down with something the way her throat was literally on fire.

  She couldn’t help thinking how fucked up it was with so few people in the world to spread germs and somehow Kaige was still getting a winter cold.

  16.

  By the time the trio reached home the sun had disappeared from the sky, but Megan was over the moon about what they brought back. The thought of a heater in their bedroom and Tobey’s at night, even helped bring Tom out of his sullen mood. Kaige didn’t have the guts to tell Megan about the pregnancy tests, at least not then.

  Kaige woke up hearing voices in the hall and footsteps stomping up the stairs, disappearing as they went into the apartment over Megan and Toms. She wished she could just turn over and go back to sleep, but that was impossible for a couple reasons, one she had her usual morning pains because it was time to take her medicine and two because it felt like she’d tried to eat hot coals. The guys must have been up on the roof getting the solar panels set up and she could hear someone moving around in her apartment.

  At first Kaige thought that maybe it was Tobey, but he almost never came into her apartment without knocking anymore. That one time when Megan told him to knock stuck with the little boy.

  Sitting up, she’d gone to bed the night before in her robe and she was happy to have it wrapped around her as she got out of bed and slowly shuffled, hunched over to hug herself as she made her way into the living room to find Megan lighting the fire again and getting breakfast started for her in her living room, Meg hadn’t done this since they moved into the apartment next door and settled in.

  “Morning,” Kaige was barely able to get the words out as she collapsed onto the couch and just watched the other woman setting the kettle into the coals of the fire.

  “You sound terrible.” Megan turned, looking back at her and instead of making coffee, she made Kaige hot tea instead with a lemon cough drop inside it.

  “I feel terrible. I took some medicine last night before going to sleep, but I don’t know if it made any difference. My throat is killing me.” Kaige explained, taking a throw blanket from the back of the couch and wrapping herself in it as she curled up in a ball hugging her mug close to her chest.

  “Until you are better you are not going outside or on anymore scouting missions. Brian and Logan can handle it. Tom can help them too if they need it.” Megan said, disappearing into Kaige’s dark bedroom before she came back out carrying one of the heavier blankets she had on her bed and adding that to the blanket that Kaige was already shivering inside of, the back of Meg’s hand touching her forehead. “And you’re running a fever too. Where’s the medicine you got?”

  “It’s over there in my backpack.” Kaige pointed, although no one would have been able to tell, it just looked like she was hiding a huge boner underneath all those blankets when she pointed.

  Standing up straight Megan crossed the room, picking up her backpack, the weight, surprising her somewhat as she brought it over to the couch and sat down, pulling the zipper back. The first box of condoms wasn’t mentioned, Megan just put it down on the coffee table and went to find the medicine, but then she pulled out another one and another one, and then a pregnancy test before she stopped and turned to look at Kaige, pretending to be a little Eskimo as she pulled her blankets further up onto her shoulders and wrapped her head up inside of it because even her ears felt like they were freezing.

  “Uhm, Kaige? Is there something going on you want to talk to me about?” Megan asked, holding up one of the pregnancy tests from the backpack.

  “Huh?” Sniffling, she shivered, taking another sip from her tea before she let her eyes focus on what Megan was talking about before she suddenly felt like she wanted to throw up. She’d completely forgotten that the condoms and pregnancy tests were mixed in with all the medicine she stock piled into her backpack. “This is going to be a little embarrassing to explain.” Kaige told Megan, her voice fading in and out, but at least, thanks to the tea she had one.

  Megan scooted closer to her, looking at her closely for a second or two as if she was trying to figure out who Kaige was having sex with. The embarrassing truth was, Kaige was a virgin and it wasn’t something that she liked talking about. She wasn’t even sure she would want to talk about it with the person that she eventually, if ever, had sex with beforehand. Being a virgin wasn’t a bad thing, obviously, but once a man or a woman reached a certain age and they still hadn’t ever had a serious relationship or slept with someone it made you wonder what was wrong with them.

  “Well, obviously we do need to practice safe sex, so I thought that we should have condoms on hand for those of us who are sexually active.” Kaige didn’t know if she was awake enough to explain this properly.

  “That’s reasonable.” Megan conceded before she held up the pregnancy test again.

  Sighing, Kaige just didn’t have it in her to be subtle this morning and she really hoped that Megan didn’t get mad at her.

  “I’ve noticed that things have been kind of tense, between you and Tom lately and I thought I heard you say you hadn’t gotten your period once. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop I just heard it in passing once when you two were in the hall, so I got some condoms and a pregnancy test. I thought maybe if you knew for sure, it might help the situation, if I actually heard what I thought I did.” Kaige would have to let Logan know that she took the blame for overhearing Megan say she hadn’t gotten her period. She didn’t want Meg to think that the three of them had been talking about her behind her back in earnest. It wasn’t like that at all, they were talking because they were just concerned for the couple.

  Megan released a small sigh as her chin tipped down, her thumb idly stroking over the cover of the box in her hands.

  “You heard me correctly.” Megan said, her hand coming up to wipe a few tears away from her eyes. “I don’t know for sure exactly if I am pregnant, but I’ve never missed my period, except for when I was pregnant with Tobey and one other time. After Tom and I got married we wanted to start a family right away and I got pregnant a month after our wedding. We were so excited, but I had a wreck and I lost the baby because of it. We didn’t try again for another year. It isn’t that Tom and I don’t love each other, but we completely disagree on this subject.” Megan frowned. “If I am pregnant, yes, I’m terrified, but women have had children for centuries without modern medicine. I know that I can do this, but I still understand where Tom is coming from. The timing isn’t right, look where we are? This is a terrible world to bring a child into. We just can’t seem to get on the same page, the not knowing?” Megan asked, shaking her head. “We’ve been arguing a lot and I think we are both at our wits end and we’ve been snapping at each other a lot more than we ever have.”

  Kaige listened, sipping her tea and letting the hot liquid soothe her sore throat.

  “As much as I have my own doubts about having babies now, I still can’t think of them coming into the world with an ounce of regret. More so I feel sad, but this is our world and we must do everything we can to make it righ
t again. Maybe this happening is somehow the universe's way of hitting the reset button on planet earth.” Kaige explained through her hoarse voice. Tossing her blankets around to reach out and pat Megan’s arm softly, hoping that she could give her friend comfort. “Whatever happens, I promise I will help as much as I can.”

  “You’ve already done that, since the day you brought us back here.” Megan smiled through glassy tear-filled eyes as she patted the back of Kaige’s hand and sniffed quickly before she set the pregnancy test aside and went back to her original mission, dumping the contents of Kaige’s backpack down on the cushion between them. Kaige had grabbed a little bit of everything from Walgreens that would have cost bookoo bucks in the living world.

  “How do you feel?” Megan asked, looking her over as she read on a box of Alka Seltzer cold and flu.

  “My throat hurts really bad, I got the sniffles a little and my chest feels like it’s got a lot of thick gunk in it.” Kaige explained the best she could. “I don’t know if being cold is a symptom or not because I already know it’s cold in here.” Though Megan did say she felt like she had a fever.

  “Looks like you’re going to get some of this stuff, it’s the night time formula so it’s going to knock you out for a while, but I’ve always found sleep is the best medicine there is.” Opening the box, she pushed two of the pills from their foil and held them out to Kaige in her palm.

  Maybe it was a reflex of her childhood, but even as an adult her mother usually had to force her to take medicine. If Kaige absolutely had to, she put on her big girl panties and took the medicine on her own, but she still felt her nose wrinkle up as she looked at the two dark purple hued pills in Megan’s hand and sighed, taking them with her tea.

  “I’m going to make you some soup and then you’re going straight back to bed.” Megan nodded before she got up and went to the kitchen, however, she didn’t expect Kaige to come following her, dragging her blankets along with her.