The Birdman Project: Book One

by E. L. Giles

  “I’ve noticed a rising number of executions and more retribution by the government against the people,” I reply dryly. I don’t want my voice to sound aggressive, but I immediately recall Anna’s execution, and my stomach twists.

  O’Hare frowns, his expression darkening in a matter of seconds. “And the people, they don’t rise up? I mean, no one revolts?”

  “I don’t know. Recently I was in a convoy heading to the Retirement Center where supposedly I was to be killed,” I say. I can’t hide the edge in my voice as my frustration boils inside me.

  “Supposedly.” He snorts. “You really have no idea then.”

  “Then shed a light on it for me, since no one else dares to.”

  I struggle as anger rises into my chest. My cheeks burn with it. My skin burns with it. I feel as if I’ve been set on fire. I’m sweating and trembling, waiting to hear what I could have always sworn wasn’t true. I wipe my palms dry on my pants. Will I finally hear what I haven’t stopped asking since the beginning? Will I finally find out what is going on?

  “If you really want to throw up your dinner, then listen carefully.”

  He pauses. And I wait. I hate waiting. Particularly right now, as his unspoken words feel awfully heavy. We both sit motionless in our respective chairs. I grip the armrests too tightly, and my hands throb with lack of circulation. I try to forget the aching for a moment and concentrate on O’Hare.

  “Stephen and I were sent there on a mission for the rebels to bring it down—the Retirement Center. We had an idea of what was going on there, and while Stephen was on watch outside, I set up some explosive devices all around the building. It was night. We thought the Retirement Center was empty, other than a few guards milling around. But we were wrong.” He wipes tears from his eyes before they can fall. His hands shake before he clenches them together to stop them.

  “What happened?” I ask anxiously. I think I see where he’s going with this.

  “There was a large room with people inside, all lined up in the center. They were still and calm. They didn’t know what was about to happen, I suppose. And then the fans started blowing. A thick gas began to fill the room. Only then did they understand what was going on, but it was too late. They cried out in agony scratching their throats to a bloody pulp, gasping for air. They suffered as they vomited onto the floor, and they spat out blood as they tried to scream for help. I tried to open the door…uselessly. I couldn’t do anything for them. The door remained closed and locked. I think I had a breakdown at that moment because I don’t remember exactly what happened from there. All I recall is holding a hammer in my hand. There was blood all over it and all over me. Stephen was at my side and a guard was beneath me on the floor, bathed in his own blood. His head was cracked open. Stephen and I parted ways that night. I couldn’t go back to Kamcala. Not anymore. So, I ventured south into the woods until Alastair found me. Stephen probably joined back up with the rebels.”

  I let my body fall back against my chair, breathless, gasping for air.

  “Are you all right?” asks a voice. Whose voice is it? I can’t say. I don’t know. It sounds muffled and distorted behind the ringing that fills my ears.

  A hand lands on my shoulder. Warmth radiates from it and crawls up my neck, setting it ablaze, then courses through my whole body. I shiver as my body fights to cool itself down. My teeth chatter, my hands tremble, and my vision tunnels.

  The revelation is so immense, so hard to believe, and it’s all real. I would like to refute it, to ignore it, the same way I refused to accept Peter’s claims. But now I can’t. The threat was real from the very beginning, but I was too blind to notice it. Marcus’s warning now takes on a whole new meaning. I can visualize the Retirement Center, feel the gas invading my lungs, hear the cries of the people who were on the bus with me, destined to be murdered. Is that really what I’ve been spared from—being disposed of like cattle? Useless and disposable, no longer worthy of life. How can such a place exist? How is it even possible…? And the rebels…

  Stephen was one of them then. Was the unificator-turned-guard or Marcus rebels then too? It seems so. And all the events of the past few days and weeks in Kamcala—the burned poster of President Nightingale and the explosion of the coal mine—were those was caused by the rebels too? Was it really a black flag I glimpsed on the television? Is war being waged in Kamcala?

  Everything rushes together in my head, the thoughts colliding and shattering against each other. I’m dazed. It’s too much to handle all at once, and I can’t take any more information. My head can’t process it any longer. I feel my heart race and slam heavily in my chest like it wants to break through my sternum and escape my body. I don’t blame it. I would escape from it all too if I could.

  I suddenly feel hot and weak, like I’m succumbing to a fever, and then the uninvited guest I know all too well presents itself and threatens me from the pit of my stomach.

  “I’m going to be sick,” I say, pinching my lips closed.

  Before I can get up, I’m lifted from my chair, and through my blurred sight, I notice I’m curled up in Josh’s arms. I grip the collar of his jacket and bury my head in his neck.

  I must hold on. I must hold on. I must hold on.

  Josh runs to the door, slamming it open, and rushes outside. As we descend the stairs, I feel the fresh air cover me like a cold blanket. My breathing slows, but not enough. My stomach bounces painfully with every step, and acid sloshes up my throat, threatening to spew from my mouth at any moment. I gasp and tap Josh’s shoulder several times so he’ll release me, but it’s too late.

  I can’t hold it back, and he can’t dodge it. As I pull myself out of his grasp in an attempt to spare him, the burning liquid rushes into my mouth and splashes all over his hair and his chest.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I plead, but I bend away from him toward the ground. He allows me to stand by myself and turns away to pace back and forth, running his hands through his messed-up hair.

  “Dammit,” I hear him grumble countless times, hurrying to pull his coat off.

  At this very moment, it’s like time slows.

  First, I wipe my mouth with the sleeve of my shirt. The taste of bile sticks in my mouth and continues to burn. I raise my head slowly and squint at Josh. He’s standing across from me, half illuminated by the flickering flames of the bonfire and half hidden by the darkness of the night. His gray coat is unbuttoned, and it slips down his shoulders and along his arms before it slumps on the ground with a soft thud that lifts dust off the ground. While he scrubs his hair free of the vomit, something catches my attention, and I can’t stop looking...

  It’s there, as real as the earth under my hands and the tears in my eyes, but I can’t bring myself to believe what I see. It can’t be real. Can it?

  Josh stands there, facing me, two pale feathery blankets stretching from either side of him, moving on their own like they’re alive and casting a halo of darkness over Josh. It’s like…it’s like he has wings.

  Finally, our eyes meet. I can see his dilated and wavering pupils in the flames that reflect in his wide eyes. I see terror in them, the very same emotion I glimpsed earlier in the house, but it’s significantly worse now, wilder, darker. His shaky lips slowly curve down in a grimace that brings an instant ache to my heart. He tries to cover himself, folding these…these wings behind his back and making himself smaller than he is, crouching over himself as if in terrible pain.

  The world twirls insanely, spiraling, and I can’t tell the ground from the sky anymore. Colors blend together until it all fades to black, all in the matter of seconds. Far away, I hear what I think are flapping wings whipping in the air, sending dust over me, pelting my bare skin. And then there’s nothing.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sunrays fill the bedroom, and a gentle summer breeze whispers through the open window—

  Wait, open? How is that? The air feels warm, and I’m sure it’s going to be a hot, sunny day. The kind of day
that makes me want to get out of the bed and sink into this halo of warmth. I inhale deeply as the fresh scent coming from outside wafts in; it smells flowery and woodsy and damp from the morning mist. The sheets are pulled to my chin. My chest and stomach muscles ache, and I notice I can’t recall having gotten to bed by myself.

  I look down at my wounded arm. The bandage has been changed, but I don’t remember that happening—no more than I remember having changed into this flowery dress I have never seen before. Why do I have new clothes?

  I scratch my head, thoughtful, combing my damp hair with my fingers as I normally do—but wait. Damp? Why is my hair damp? Why does it smell like lavender? And what’s that taste that’s stuck in my mouth, like an aftertaste of bile, like I vomited?

  Vomit! Yesterday—

  Josh.

  The ache spreads through my entire body, the memory building inside of me like a threatening pressure. I must see Josh. I must see him now. I untangle my body from the sheets until I’m sitting at the edge of the bed. I can’t think about anything other than slamming the door open and running to him to confirm that what I saw was real, that he is real. Above all, I must apologize to him.

  I recall the heart-wrenching expression on his face that I am responsible for and realize that it will surely haunt me for a long time—as if there aren’t already enough memories to do that. I hope it’s not too late to mend myself and repair what I’ve broken.

  I push myself off the bed and start toward the door, but before I clear the second step, a jolting pain shoots up my ankle into my leg. I fall to the floor with a crash no one could have missed. I feel stupid, and to make things worse, I realize I tore my stitches during the fall. I can’t hold back the tears from flowing down my face. The pain is unbearable.

  The door squeaks open, and Dolores appears through it, faltering at the sight of me before she rushes to me and helps me to my feet.

  “Are you all right?” she asks, worried, feeling around my head like any good nurse would do. “What happened?”

  She helps me walk out of the bedroom and then gestures for me to take my place at the table.

  “Yeah…I just—” The events of yesterday distract my thoughts. “Where’s Josh?” I look around in every direction. I see no sign of him in the living room or on the wide red couch.

  “He’s not here,” she says as she unwraps the bloodied bandage from around my arm. There’s something in her voice I can’t put my finger on. Worry maybe? Or concern? Or does she hold a grudge on me that she is trying to hide?

  I turn my head toward her. “But I need to see him,” I say. As if that will change the fact that he’s not here at the moment.

  Dolores stops halfway through her task, the bandage hanging off my side and a ribbon of blood running down my arm.

  She sighs heavily. “I’m sorry, he left earlier this morning.”

  “He left?” I exclaim. “Why? Where?”

  “He’s on a hunting trip with O’Hare,” she says. “But why such urgency?”

  “You know why,” I snap and instantly regret my tone. It’s not her fault after all. I drop my chin to my chest. It suddenly all becomes clear to me. “He’s upset. It’s all because of me.”

  “No, I don’t know why,” she says. “And he’s not upset, much less because of you, so please, stop worrying about it.” She sounds tired, and I wonder what happened after I blacked out. She starts rubbing at the wound on my arm a bit too roughly, and I can’t stop myself from jerking it away. Dolores sighs, then says, “Josh needs some time alone.”

  I know there is something more to it than simply needing time to himself. She didn’t see the pain and terror I saw in his eyes as he revealed his secret I now realize he had been trying to hide under this awful gray coat. He hadn’t been ready but had been forced to reveal it to me despite everything.

  I feel Dolores’s eyes on me, but I keep my head lowered. I can’t face her right now. She doesn’t say anything else and starts to poke my wound with a needle and a thread. How I’d like to have some painkillers right now, but all I can do is grit my teeth and suppress the scream of pain that builds in my throat. At least it makes me forget about Josh for a moment.

  “I give Josh no more than a few hours before he goes mad and shoots an arrow at O’Hare,” she says lightly, handing me a cup of steaming tea that she picked up from the countertop behind her.

  Her words surprise me. Is she joking, or is that how the world works here—killing someone because they piss you off?

  “Oh! Sorry, honey.” She claps her hand over her mouth, visibly apologetic. “That was in bad taste. Sorry. What I meant is that Josh is a fierce hunter, and where he excels with a bow, O’Hare excels in blabbering impatiently.” She turns around and puts the needle and the thread back on the little desk beside the door. “Don’t get me wrong, they like each other—until O’Hare invites himself on hunting trips.”

  I hear her talking but only get half of what she’s saying. Something else has my attention, a thought I must clear up once and for all.

  “Is it real? I mean, are they, you know, are they actually real wings—or am I totally crazy?”

  Dolores pauses and stares at me for quite a long time before she nods uneasily. “You’re not. They are. But it’s a subject we generally avoid. Josh—” She exhales like someone punched her in the stomach. It looks painful. “Josh doesn’t like it—them.”

  For a few minutes, I share this silence with her. I take the time to process it all. It’s all real. How is such a thing even possible? And now that I start accepting the facts, hearing that Josh doesn’t like them sounds odd, wrong to me. Why is that? This is all so strange to me, but the fragility I detect in her voice and the grimace that contorts her face into a melancholic pout tells me not to insist. If I learned anything from Kamcala, it’s to know when to push and when not to—and generally it is better not to push at all.

  I contemplate the scenery outside; Alastair is chopping wood in the front yard. He wipes away sweat from his forehead as he restlessly lifts the axe, chops the logs, and carries them to a tall pile before going back to start the process all over again. My eyes wander to the far side of the front yard. Birds peck the ground. The breeze rustles through the bushes and trees. At the center is the fire, and faint tendrils of smoke still swirl out of the ashes before being blown away. I remain contemplative of this new world, and it doesn’t take long for my thoughts to come back to Josh. For a futile moment, it’s not pain I recall but warmth from his arms, the lines of his face, and the cold gray of his eyes. I sigh heavily, releasing the air that got stuck in my lungs.

  As I close my eyes and let the sunrays warm me from the window, Dolores breaks the silence. “He was born like that, you know,” she says.

  “What?” My eyes pop open as I wake from my reverie.

  “Josh. It was on my second scan that we realized something was wrong. The moment Marcus saw, he stared at the screen and the color left his face. I can still see him, leaning back in his chair, reaching for a drawer in his desk, and grabbing a cigarette that he must have smoked in less than a minute.” Dolores pauses, blinking back the tears that fill her eyes. “One day, I was walking back to my apartment after my work shift when a car stopped by me. It was Alastair. ‘Marcus sent me,’ was all he said. Totally like Marcus.” Dolores smiles and adds, “I went with him because I trusted Marcus. We fled by night to this house, packed with every possible drug and medical supply you can think of. I gave birth to Josh here, in the living room.” She gestures toward the red, moth-eaten couch. “It nearly killed me. It would have, in fact, if it wasn't for Alastair and the drugs Marcus gave us. And when I saw Josh for the first time…I don’t know. I can’t express how grateful I was to Marcus for having taken us out of Kamcala.”

  I can feel Marcus’s urgency in Dolores’s words to get them out of Kamcala. If only Marcus’s behavior toward me could have been as clear as it had been to Dolores, and his reasons for helping me out is a maddening mystery that haunts me. H
e could have minded his own business and not cared about me.

  Why?

  “What’s it like, to give birth? To raise your own child?” I ask.

  That was the first thing I wanted to ask when I heard she had a son, but I haven’t had the opportunity until now. Now we have time to kill before Josh comes back, and I have an urgent need to take my mind off my worries.

  “Well, it hurts—a lot.” I could have guessed that all by myself, since Anna had already told me so in detail. “After the pain of giving birth, it feels like you give a part of yourself or like you’re only whole with your child. You would give your own life to save your baby, without ever thinking of yourself, like their life matters more than yours. It’s hard to explain. You really need to live it to fully understand.”

  “Then I’m screwed,” I say dully.

  She shrugs. “You never know.”

  Yeah, I know. I failed the Birth Program three times.

  “Who’s Alastair?” I ask, remembering what she said about Alastair bringing her here. “How did he know about this place?”

  Dolores gestures at Alastair outside and says, “You see his forearm?”

  Besides the PIN tattoo, I see nothing at first. But as he lifts the axe over his head, I glimpse a black spot on his other forearm. It appears only as the hem of his sleeve slides up. I squint, but he’s too far away, and I can’t properly see what it is. Nonetheless, it reminds me of something. Something frightening.

  “What is it?”

  “His past,” she says mysteriously, “a past that was dead way before he left with us.” She rubs around the empty spot on her own forearm, staring into space. It’s like it’s her past and not Alastair’s tattoo that she’s talking about. “He was Marcus’s closest friend, you know, and formerly a unificator.”

  The skull crossed by rifles—their sign. That is what is tattooed on his forearm. My jaw hits the floor. I wasn’t expecting such a revelation. That explains how Alastair could have known about this house; his position granted him the right to venture freely outside the walls. He probably found it when pretending to inspect the areas around Kamcala.