Dead Paper Birds

by Megan McKinney

  I stepped out into the hall with Richard on my heels, he was still close enough that I could feel his body heat on my back. I tip-toed to the next door and put my ear on it. It was completely quiet inside. I moved on to the next door, Richard copied me on the opposite side. I moved on to the next door and there was something. A whisper. I nodded at Richard, who had frozen when I stopped moving. I grasped the handle with my back against the door with the knife clasped in my hand and pushed it open. The room was empty except for a bed. Dean was tied to the post and was sitting on the ground with his back to the bed. His shirt was missing and there were cuts that went down his chest, from his neck to his waist, eerily similar to Richard except far worse. There was a bat lying on the ground next to him. Under the blood his skin was already black from the bruises. His breath hitched in his chest, as if it hurt to breathe. Broken ribs at the least. He’ll be lucky to survive this. The ground was stained red from his blood. But there was no one else in the room with him. Someone else is still wandering around and I just haven’t bumped into him yet, terrific.

  Dean looked up at the door with panic written on his features, there were deep shadows under his eyes and the rest of his face was white. It was white enough that I was surprised he was conscious. He had a gag tied around his mouth keeping him quiet. He pulled on the bed trying to pull his arm up and it made the same whispering sound I’d heard through the door. Richard rushed past me to him. He first undid the gag before starting to saw through the ropes holding Dean down. I stayed at the door alternating between looking down the hallway and in the room watching their progress. Richard untied Dean and steadied him as he sat away from the bed.

  “Where is he?” I heard Richard ask.

  “I dunno. He stepped out of the room and hasn’t come back yet.” It was hard to understand Dean, he was slurring his words.

  I tore my eyes from the hallway, “Do you know where our supplies are?” There was stuff in there that would help him. That would save his life. Even as he sat there, he couldn’t stay up on his own. He was having to use Richard to stay upright, even while sitting.

  He slowly shook his head.

  I chewed on my cheek. Ok, I’ll have to look for them. First get Dean and Richard to a secured area and I’ll come back to look. I stole a look at Dean, he was in no condition to go anywhere right now and that’s if he’s even capable of walking.

  The hairs on the back of my neck were starting to stand up. We needed to get out now. Thinking the same thing Richard helped Dean stand by swinging one of Dean’s arms around his shoulders. I turned back out to face the hall and came face to face with a tall pasty face man. I gasped purely from shock, and that was all I had time for. He grabbed me by my bad shoulder and pressed me against the wall. I grunted from the pain. I tried to slash at his arm but he used his other hand to hold my arm down by twisting my wrist, making me gasp from the pressure. He pressed his thumb deeper into the bullet wound and started twisting it.

  “Sit on the bed and drop the weapons-“

  I cut him off by kneeing him in the stomach. This was the man who hurt Dean. He wouldn’t be allowed to touch anyone again. I let go and just attacked. He grunted, letting go of my hand. I twisted my hand, pulling it out of his grasp and plunged my knife into his stomach. His face made an ‘O’ of surprise and he turned his gaze back to look at me. I pulled the knife out and pushed it back into his stomach before pulling it back out again. He let go of my shoulder and bending over clutching his stomach, he tried to walk away but before he could take five steps he collapsed to the ground. I followed him and stood towering over him. He watched me out of the corner of his one eye that was visible. I squatted down and slowly pressed the knife into the back of his neck and applied pressure until it slid through. His body jerked.

  I stood up before I backed out of the way so Dean and Richard could step slowly out of the room. They stared down at the dead man with morbid fascination. I was shaking and I wish I could say it was from fear, basically anything but from the anger that was flooding my body. My adrenaline was pumping hard enough I felt like I could run a marathon, twice. Instead of my voice coming out steady and pumped like I anticipated it would, it came out the exact opposite. Shaky and weak. “We should find our… stuff and… go.” I stood there, staring down at him. My legs were shaking and I didn’t know if they would support me if I decided to move. Even just standing there I almost felt like I was going to collapse they were shaking that badly. I just wanted to go, to get some fresh air. It was too thick in here. All I could smell was blood. It was absolutely sickening. I pressed a hand to my mouth, it felt like the remnants of my breakfast was sitting in the back of my throat. It was taking every ounce of will power to not throw up. The anger faded and terror replaced it. Terror of myself. I was a killer. No doubt about that. No doubt that I enjoyed killing him. After agonizing that I felt numb, here I go proving myself wrong. I’m no different from them.

  Richard put a hand on my shoulder and I shrugged it off. I really didn’t want to be touched right now. I really didn’t. Anything that would distract me and I might just might lose it. Shoot both of them and then myself. Put us all out of our misery. Richard put both hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eyes. Instead of being angry he looked lost. He wasn’t a leader. Dean wasn’t in the condition to lead, so that left me to be the one to get us all out of here. I steeled myself and packed everything away, deep inside. It’ll be worse later but I can only hope that I’ll have the luxury to break down. I can’t just stop and give up. I have mom, Emmie, Jack and Lily to think about. I can’t just give up on them. I looked past Richard to see that Dean was sitting with his back against the door frame just inside the opposite doorway of the room he had been in. He was sitting there with his backpack in his lap. When he saw me looking, he pushed mine towards me. If it was possible, he looked almost translucent, there was no trace of color in his face. No color in him anywhere except for the front of him and it was red. I turned to look at Richard and he looked steadily back at me. “Can you help him?” Richard nodded. “I’ll go watch the door, you patch him up as best as you can.”

  I held out my hand to take my backpack, I was floored to see that my hand was shaking. That was shocking in of itself. Dean didn’t say anything while I took my bag from him before I turned away. My backpack had originally been a sappy girly mix of pink and purple flowers on a white background with a pink border. That is until being bright and clean could spell death. Now it was covered in dirt and old blood. It was torn in places that I had clumsily tried to sew together; the bottom was being held together by duct tape and even more of my crude stitching. It was probably the saddest looking backpack for miles around. My machete and bow had been sloppily tied to it. I untied them, my fingers clumsily untied the knots. I slipped my bow into its proper strap and I hooked the machete back to my hip. My pistol had been shoved inside my bag I was happy to see. I pulled it out and checked to see if it was still loaded. It was. I took the heavy and awkward pistol and shoved it into my bag. If I need it, I’ll have it for later. Here’s to hoping that I won’t need it, I mentally crossed my fingers. I put my pistol in the lining of my jeans so I could grab my back pack with both hands. I pulled it over my left shoulder but there was no way I could put it on my right. It was too screwed up to hold any weight but I couldn’t navigate while balancing it on one shoulder. Grimacing I pulled it over my right shoulder, holding in my gasps of pain. I’d never felt anything that was as painful as this. I sighed and pulled my pistol back out and held it in both hands. I wasn’t giving anyone else the chance to jump us.

  Richard was bending over Dean. Please let him be able to fix him. Please. I turned on my heel and started opening doors. I had to try to secure the area. We were either in the same building but on a different floor or in a different building altogether. There were maybe ten doors all together with one flight of stairs in the middle of the floor. Each room opened up into something different. Some rooms were empty, while others had beds or other p
ieces of furniture piled randomly inside them.

  After I checked the rooms I stood at the top of the stairs. At the end of the hallway Richard and Dean looked small. As I watched, Richard pulled out white gauze from one of the bags. I tore my eyes away and slowly descended. The stairs were covered in torn up carpet. I couldn’t tell what color it was supposed to be, it was so imbedded into the ground that it didn’t even look like carpet anymore. I went around each corner slowly. I passed two doors. Each of them was boarded up. Faded graffiti covered every inch of the walls, from floor to ceiling. As I came around another corner I was faced with a broken door. There was an EXIT sign above it, I pushed the door open. A rush of cool air came rushing in. I took a deep breath, it smelled so good. It was glorious. It was so much better than the stale, corrupted air upstairs.

  I was so busy breathing in the fresh air that I didn’t notice the growling at first. It was coming from a dog. A big one. It was brown and black, with golden brown eyes. Its lips were raised, showing white teeth. I grabbed the handle on the door, ready to pull it shut. I didn’t want to shoot the dog, not unless I had to. This was the first dog I’d seen in years. There was a shrill whistle and the dog backed off. It didn’t take its eyes off of me but it stopped growling.

  Slowly I turned my whole body to look at the new comer. He looked like he was in his 50’s with close cropped grey hair. He had sunglasses covering his eyes but his face was a dark brown as if he spent a majority of his time in the sun, with a scruffy beard covering the lower half of his face. He had on a brown trench coat that reached the tops of his boots. The boots were scruffy and looked like they had been worn well past their prime. Under the trench coat he had on a flannel jacket and under that was a dark green t-shirt. He had faded but clean looking jeans on. He had a large rifle in both hands, along the top of it was a large scope.

  We stood there staring at one another. Another dog, the same size as the first one wrapped itself around his legs. It too was staring at me while it began pacing back and forth. There was something familiar about him. I felt like I should know him. But I couldn’t remember.

  He pulled the sunglasses off of his face revealing bright blue eyes. Nostalgia and pain hit me like a ton of breaks. “No. You’re dead.” I whispered.

  He smiled, exposing straight white teeth. “’Fraid not. I’m very much alive.”

  I shook my head, confusion running rampant. “No. No. No. Dad said.”

  “Your dad did always prefer lying over telling the truth. But I am very much alive.”

  “Then what are you doing here?”

  His smile faltered. “Trailing you. Trying to get you out of trouble.”

  Hysterical laughter spilled out. “Well you’re just a little too late. I rescued myself.” He stood there studying me, while my laughter turned to sobs. “I won’t say no to help though. There’s two guys upstairs. One of them, I don’t think will make it, the other he’s ok. I think. Rick, you’ll help right?” I tried to plead with him without saying anything, I didn’t care that my voice was cracking. I sunk to my knees, they were shaking, the room was spinning slightly and I didn’t want to fall over because I was too proud to sit when I needed to.

  Rick strode over, covering the space between us in a matter of a few steps. “Yeah I’ll help. Your dad will kill me if I don’t. Where is he by the way? I ought to skin him for letting this happen to you.” As he was speaking, he was pulling out bandages to wrap around my arms.

  “He’s been dead for years now.”

  Rick froze momentarily before continuing to wrap my arm. “We’ll talk about it later then.” His voice was full of pain but he didn’t let it show on his face, not that there was much to see. “This will just help stop the bleeding. I’ll finish patching you up somewhere else a bit more secure than this.” The gauze as soon as it touched my arm it soaked up the blood, leaving crimson stains.

  He stood up and held out a hand, I grasped it and he pulled me to my feet. I dug deep for the energy to climb that first step after that it was a bit easier to keep going. Momentum, I guess. What was that, stuff in motion stays in motion? As long as I kept moving then maybe I could keep going. It wasn’t hard convincing Richard that Rick would help us. Dean was in such bad shape that Richard wasn’t willing to spend too much time arguing. Dean wasn’t even conscious at this point but he was still alive. Barely. That was all that mattered, he was still alive. Between Richard and I, we were able to carry Dean back down the stairs without too much trouble. Rick led the way out of the building. His dogs were running happily beside him, stopping to sniff something every now and then. As long as they were calm then we would be ok. But as soon as they started growling then it would be time to boogey out of there. Rick had a car that was just down the block. Hidden in an alley way somewhere.

  At the car, actually it was a blazer not a car, we piled in with the darker of the two dogs sitting almost in my lap and the other in the back next to the window. The sun was falling behind the buildings, leaving us mostly in shadow. As Rick started the vehicle, I let myself fall back into the seat and relax. My body felt dead. Exhaustion was eating away at me. I let my eyes close, I didn’t have the strength to keep them open. This exhaustion, I just couldn’t fight it. It was just pulling me down further and further, closer to sleep. I didn’t let myself fall entirely through to oblivion, I forced a part of me to stay awake. Rick steered us through the city. Running over potholes and debris. I couldn’t tell which and I didn’t try, neither did I try to keep track of our direction. It was all I could do to keep a part of me aware of what was happening. When he slowed down to a stop, I forced myself to wake back up. I opened my eyes to assess our surroundings.

  Rick had pulled us next to a low-lying brown building. The building was on one side and on my side of the vehicle dumpsters stood side to side blocking us from sight. Rick shut the car off quickly and climbed out silently. The dogs followed him out. I didn’t want to get up but I didn’t have much choice, I could either sleep in here or go inside. Using the dredges of my energy I basically fell out of the vehicle. The door was the only thing that was helping me stay upright. My legs just didn’t want to help support me, my head felt strangely light and everything would shift when I moved it. Get it together, I snapped at myself. I shut the door quietly before I hobbled to the other side where Richard was waiting for me. While he started to pull Dean from the car, I closed my eyes and lifted my face towards the sky. The air felt strangely calm, it wasn’t the calm before a storm either. It was just calm. I reopened my eyes to see Richard was watching me with concern written on his features, the tight lined mouth, the lines on his forehead, the focused eyes. I took a deep breath and nodded. The muscles along his jaw flexed before he turned back to puling Dean out of the blazer. He took most of Dean’s weight by holding his upper body, his head cradled against Richard’s chest. I picked up his legs underneath his knees and pulled him as close to my back as I could. My body protested in pain, my shoulder especially. I can do this. I can and I will. I staggered forward towards Rick. He was holding his rifle across his chest, his head constantly moving, looking everywhere but at us. The dogs fanned out and were doing their own inspections. He led us to a small door that Rick had to pry open, he glanced briefly inside before letting us go in ahead of him. As soon as we were through, he whistled and the dogs came running through it. They nearly took us out when they pushed themselves through our legs. I could only grunt. I didn’t have the energy to do much else.

  “Up ahead. Second door on the right.” Rick stage whispered.

  There was light from the door behind us but as soon as Rick closed the door all the light disappeared. I untangled an arm, holding Dean’s leg up by leaning on the wall while I clicked my flashlight on. It illuminated a white hallway with grey tiling on the floor. Surprisingly it wasn’t that dirty either. There was some dirt on the floor but for the most part it was clear. We passed two doors, one on the left and one on the right. At the second door, it was a plain brown door, I pushed th
e door open and led the way into the room.

  Inside the room there was a bed and a stool. Besides that, the room was empty. No cupboards, no counters, no decorations of any kind. White walls and a mattress on the floor with a stool, homey. We deposited Dean onto the bed and Rick came in behind us. “Was this a doctor’s office?” I couldn’t help but asking.

  Rick nodded. “Yeah, I use this as a base while I’m here. If you want across the hall there’s another bed. Or you can go up further to the sitting room. There’s still chairs in there even.”

  I nodded. Sleep sounded amazing right now. I stepped out of the room and opened the door across the hall. Inside the room, there was another bed and a velvet chair. A velvet chair? Wow. I don’t even want to ask how this got here. I mean why would someone even think about making a velvet chair? Seriously? I couldn’t help myself though, I put my hand on it. I rubbed my fingers back and forth enjoying the simple comfort of it. Mom had a dress, it was a dark purple. So dark it could almost pass as black. The trim pieces were made with velvet, and along the back of the dress careful pieces of velvet had interconnected creating an almost sheer back. She would lay it on the bed and I would sit there and stroke it over and over until she would laugh and tease me that I would rub all the velvet off. The only times she would pull it out is when her and dad would go out to eat dinner for a special occasion like their anniversary. Whenever dad would see her in it his face always lit up like it was Christmas morning. She would always wear it for Emmie’s piano and dance recitals too. She never wore it for anything of mine because my activities always involved dirt. What would she think of me now? My smile faded away. I’d never made her proud but they were all alive because of me. I stared down at my hand that was stroking the velvet. It had blood splattered all over it. My nails were crusted with it. I know what she would think of me.