Project Airborne

by Johnson, Cassandra

  “Oh, my God.” Kaige’s brows shot up. “And today is Tuesday, you know we offset drug testing on different days for the men and women’s side of the program. Even when there is a new admit on a day when the guys are testing they use the bathroom on the second floor and someone from admissions bring sit up to the lab.” Kaige said mildly freaked out by Candice’s poor judgement.

  “I know!” Logan exclaimed, startling a passerby before flicking ass from his cigarette. “I wouldn’t be upset if this was her first day or even her first week on the job, but Candice has been with us for over three months, one slip up once in a while is one thing, but I’m constantly mopping up one mess after another behind her and it makes me look bad because I am the one who trained her for the job.”

  Logan looked like he was ready to snap as he pushed the heel of his hand into his brow bone, looking down at his shoes as he took another drag from his cigarette.

  “Listen, I hate to see anyone lose their job, but maybe it’s time to talk to Mike? Who knows, it might not even come to her being fired. Maybe just talking to her will help her get on the right path, tighten up the screws a little bit?” Kaige suggested, finishing her cigarette and stubbing it out on the bottom of her shoe, pinching the end between her fingers to make sure the fire was out before she slipped the butt into the pack.

  “Yeah, that might be a good idea.” Logan replied, nodding his head softly.

  “It doesn’t hurt to give it a shot.” Kaige shrugged grabbing her lunch and smokes. “I better get back in.” She told Logan, getting to her feet.

  “Me too.” Logan flicked the cigarette and got to his feet as well following Kaige through the doors of the building. “Thanks for letting me vent, Kaige.” Logan told her as they stood waiting for the elevator doors to open.

  “You don’t need to thank me, sometimes you have to let it out or you could say or do something that you might regret later.”

  Smiling as the doors to the elevator opened, Logan stepped forward, holding the doors to let her in before they tried to bang shut. Eventually, the elevator would be out of service because it got so much business and half of that business was because the younger guys from the men’s side of the program liked to play around with the elevator like it was a toy.

  “You’re right, Candice seems like a great person, but something needs to change.” Logan made a face that had all the verbal communications that he was dreading bringing up the situation with their vice president.

  “It’ll be okay.” Kaige assured him.

  Logan nodded a little, watching the lights on the elevator buttons flicker somewhat.

  Kaige’s biggest fear was that one day the elevator would shut down with her inside of it, and she caught herself staring at the buttons and praying that she made it off alive.

  “Do you want to have lunch together in my office?” Logan asked out of the blue.

  “Uhm, sure. The system is probably down so we aren’t going to be getting much work done.” Kaige laughed, feeling nervous.

  Of course, it wasn’t strange that sometimes her co-workers would ask her to lunch, Megan did it all the time, but Megan wasn’t a co-worker that she had a small crush on either. Logan and Kaige didn’t even see each other every day, usually the most they interacted with one another was when he brought up admit packets to be filed and even then, they might just say Hi to one another and go on their merry ways.

  “Yes, we always say the server is going to be down for fifteen minutes, but we always run into a problem during maintenance that slows things down.” Logan chuckled, ignoring the doors as the opened on the second floor.

  Punching the close door button, they rode up to the fourth floor where Changes main lobby resided. Dodging therapists and patients that were loitering in the open expanse of the lobby while they waited for their therapy sessions or drug testing Kaige followed Logan to the kitchen and waited in the doorway while he got his lunch from the fridge, weaving their way around people back to the elevator.

  Logan’s office was one of the smaller ones on the second floor, but it was still bigger than the office that Kaige worked out of. Settling into one of the chairs, she sat her bag down on his desk, looking at the small grease stain on the bottom of the bag, feeling self-conscious that it might ruin the finish on the sleek cherry wood desk. Kaige wasn’t even sure how the bag had grease stains on the bottom since what she got for lunch wasn’t greasy at all. It was a ham and cheese sandwich wrapped in wax paper, maybe it touched someone else’s lunch at some point and it rubbed off? Nevertheless, she felt like she was going to sit there and go into a panic attack when Logan shit gold bricks and kicked her out of his office for her messy unkempt brown paper bag.

  At least his lunch was as basic as hers. Logan had a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and a can of Coke in his lunch bag. Most of her co-workers were crazy health conscious, so it was surprisingly relatable to see that Logan packed his lunch with junk good and not water and a salad with no dressing. Logan seemed more like a regular person, because being healthy all the time wasn’t cheap. Kaige heard a lot of the therapists talking about the foods that their nutritionist had them eating and how they felt so much better now that they were keeping a balanced diet, but have you gone into the grocery store and priced that stuff? It’s expensive, which Kaige thought was a huge conspiracy. Keep the people with money healthy while all the poor people who were living off of the ninety-nine-cent menu were getting sicker and sicker and had no way out.

  “What did you get from Dana’s? Logan was opening his Dorito’s looking at Kaige taking her sandwich out of the brown paper bag.

  “I just got a ham and cheese sandwich,” she said, unwrapping the wax paper from around it. “It’s kind of funny because I think I am the ham and cheese girl at Dana’s because that’s what I get every time I go in.” Kaige couldn’t help shrugging softly before suddenly snort laughing as Logan held up the sandwich he brought to work.

  “I like ham and cheese too; Dana’s has the best grilled cheeses too. I like to get mine with bacon and tomato.” He replied, taking a bite out of the sandwich in his hands.

  “I’ve never—,” Before Kaige could finish her sentence, the sound of multiple people screaming, and the crunching of metal and breaking glass cut her off. It wasn’t unusual for there to be a finder bender occasionally on the street below, but this was different and as the seconds ticked by, Kaige’s eyes grew wide as the color in Logan’s cheeks drained away listening to the blood-curdling screams outside as they grew.

  Logan pushed his chair back from his desk and stood up, looking out of the window behind his desk.

  “Oh my God.” The words gushed from his lips as he stared out of the window.

  “What is it?” Kaige asked, but Logan gave her no answer. Getting up, she walked around the desk, hesitating a moment, Kaige realized that she was suddenly burning hot all over, and her mouth filled with saliva like she was about to vomit. Inhaling deeply, she brought her eyes to the slats in the blinds and looked.

  At first all Kaige saw was the second level of the parking garage that was directly across from the building, but being this close to the window, Kaige could really hear the mayhem taking place on the street below. Scanning her eyes down at the courtyard she gasped, feeling her heart suddenly stop.

  On the street below mass chaos was in full effect, bodies littered the street and sidewalks while people were running in every direction. Others Kaige saw were on their phones and trying to help the people that were lying on the ground, but Kaige couldn’t see them moving.

  Looking toward the street Kaige turned away from the window quickly after seeing people surrounding a mini Cooper that had rear ended another vehicle, but there was someone pinned between the two vehicles. People were using bottles of water to wipe the persons face, the man was still alive, some had gathered around trying to push the Cooper back, but the cars weren’t budging.

  Turning from the window suddenly, Logan broke from his trance and grabbed the phone on his des
k dialing three numbers.

  “Help!” Someone shouted from the room across the hall. Kaige felt her heart plummet, darting around Logan’s desk and into the office across the hall. Jeremy was on one knee, shaking Candice by the shoulders.

  “Call 911, I don’t think she’s breathing.” Jeremy’s usually ruddy complexion was pale white as he started to perform CPR on Candice.

  “Oh my God,” Became Kaige’s mantra as she took her cell from her pocket and fumbling called 911 but the line was busy. Ending the call Kaige dialed again and proceeded to get the busy signal. What the fuck was happening?

  “I’ll keep trying.” Kaige’s voice shook, ending the call and redialing.

  “Emergency responders aren’t answering?” Jeremy looked up in panic the second that Kaige said she would keep trying.

  “No, I don’t know what is happening.” Kaige swallowed hard as the busy signal went completely dead. Pulling the phone away from her ear she looked at the display on her phone when the call ended. When she dialed again, she heard only a message.

  “Your call cannot be completed at this time, please try again later.” Kaige and Jeremy looked at each other as Logan came to the door.

  “I can’t get anyone from 911, they keep playing the incomplete call message.” His forehead beading with sweat as he spoke.

  “She’s gone.” Jeremy looked at Candice, holding her wrist in his fingers a moment longer, she had no pulse.

  4.

  Pedaling as hard as she could Kaige could barely breath as she saw her old office building coming into view, seeing it now made that day in August seem like a hundred years ago. Daring to look back there was nothing following her. It felt so bizarre to see just the one. Not that Kaige didn’t feel grateful, normally the zombies moved in packs, like cattle grazing in the open. If she had run into a whole swarm of them, Kaige knew that she wouldn’t have gotten away.

  Slowing the bike down, Kaige looked up at the building that Chances was housed in. She remembered that day so clearly in her mind.

  When Kaige went to the main floor, she was afraid of what she would find. It was bedlam, Stephen was on the floor behind the reception desk like he had just fallen out of his chair and gone to sleep on the floor. Patients were laid out on the floor while others had been gathered into Mike’s office so that the therapists could try to keep them calm. Megan and Tom were in her office. Tom held her while she cried. A patient lay on the couch, they had been right in the middle of a session.

  Kaige remembered hearing her sobbing, “She was just here,” repeatedly. As if Lauren had just disappeared before her eyes, but her body stayed behind. Then they were gone, Megan and Tom had a little boy, they had to get to him. That was the last time Kaige saw any of them.

  Getting off the bicycle, she walked up to the bike racks. Even in the post cataclysmic world she lived in, Kaige felt herself almost hesitate to park the bike out in the open. ‘Who’s going to steal it? You haven’t seen another human being in months.’ The sad fact of the matter was that Kaige was beginning to believe that she might be the only one left. No matter how much she wanted to believe she wasn’t alone, Kaige was afraid.

  Swallowing those bitter tears, if that was the case, then she wished she’d been taken during the first stage of deaths instead of living to see it all happen. The end of the world wasn’t at all the way that Kaige was brought up to believe. That day, when Kaige reached her apartment she turned on the news and watched in horror, so many survivors sending in video footage of the moment when everyone just dropped on film. It was the rapture, Kaige was sure of it. Maybe they had just misinterpreted it all these years. God took all their souls at once, not their bodies.

  She’d fallen onto her knees, praying as the tears spilled from her eyes, lying crumpled on the floor. In the blink of an eye God had just snatched them all up and those of them that hadn’t believed were left on earth to watch the rise of the anti-Christ.

  The news reporters were questioning if this was a terrorist attack, but the government had no answers.

  Almost twenty-four hours later the same thing started happening in Canada. Whatever it was, it was rapidly spreading across the globe and no one could prepare for it, though one thing they did know was that the deaths originated in the States.

  Pop up clinics opened all over the country in every city and every American citizen had to be tested, but no one knew what for and they were never given any answers to what the government was looking for. Seventy-two hours after the first stage of deaths the bodies began to rise. The hordes of corpses that woke were just too large to battle. They couldn’t be outrun. The more people that survived the attacks, the virus or whatever caused the flesh craving pandemic continued to spread all over the country. It took less than a week for the fall of humanity to come to completion. They were out-numbered. People barricaded themselves into their houses, some tried to make a run for it, but there was simply too many of them and nowhere to go. For every human, there were thirty of them, Kaige had seen it herself. The swarm of bodies looked like they were all caving in on one focal point in the center while the feeding frenzy took place right in front of you.

  Mass suicides came as people lost hope. Mothers and fathers poisoning their children and themselves, praying for peaceful deaths and for forgiveness for whatever was waiting for them on the other side. Kaige couldn’t say that she blamed them, children didn’t belong in this world. We were supposed to protect them from the horrors that literally roamed the streets and didn’t care if you were a kid. They just saw food.

  Securing the bike so it didn’t fall and make a loud noise to attract one of the others Kaige cautiously went across the street, weaving through the abandoned cars to the Family Dollar store where she knew that they sold cigarettes because Kaige had bought packs there before. Taking out her flashlight Kaige pushed the door open and stepped inside heading straight for the cigarette carousel behind the counter. Scanning the beam of her flashlight over the shelves noticing something that she hadn’t before at any of the other stores she got supplies from, people had been here before.

  Maybe the store had been raided before. Kaige couldn’t say for sure, it didn’t look like anyone had been here very recently, that just meant she would need go scout another store. Using her light to see what she was doing Kaige grabbed the rest of the regulars knowing that they would taste old, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  Going down the rest of the isle she picked up canned goods from the shelves, those feminine necessities that no one liked to talk about, nor did they think about how much they took them for granted when they needed them and didn’t have them. She also found a Stephen King paperback novel that was added to her backpack as well, before she made her return to the bike parked in front of the Maple Street Market catching her reflection in the dirty glass made her stop.

  There weren’t many instances where she looked in the mirror any more, why would she? Kaige looked at her face, it was somewhat thinner, but she wasn’t starving herself even though she tried to conserve her food supply as much as possible, more so it was the tense lines that made up the contour of her jaw and her cheek bones that changed her features. Her blue eyes were tired, red hair that was visible from beneath her cap looked like it had grown significantly longer. The last time Kaige noticed it, her hair was around the top of her shoulders and now it sat closer to chest level. Things like appearances were no longer of any importance. The order of the day was survival.

  No longer looking at herself, Kaige tested the weight of her backpack on her shoulders thinking that she could probably get a little more inside of it before she went home, she realized that there was a face staring at her in the window's reflection. It was a small face, but one non-the-less. And it was alive.

  Startled Kaige’s facial expression must have frightened them because by the time she turned around all she saw was a small person’s shoulder and profile dart out of sight. She had been so preoccupied she hadn’t seen the small figure of a boy standing i
nside the building next door, her office building, there was someone alive inside, a living human.

  Aside from the front entrance, when you went around the building there was a back door that was glassed in, normally when Kaige came in to work and she was alone, she walked straight out of the market to the backdoor, which you needed a key to get inside of, and Kaige had a key.

  Looking up at the windows, she knew exactly which windows belonged to what offices, and she’d never seen the blinds raised in the kitchen of Changes main floor and today, they were but she couldn’t see any movement from inside from where she was on the ground. Getting her keys from her pocket, she picked out the largest one and hurried over to the door, looking in the window, but it was too dark to see anyone inside, all she saw was the hallway that led up to the elevators and the door that went into the stairwell. Jamming her key into the lock it turned and she pulled the door open.

  “Hello? Is someone there?” Kaige listened, but she couldn’t hear anything.

  Stepping inside she made sure that the door secured shut behind her and turned her flashlight on again, sweeping the beam in front of her path as she followed the hallway up to the elevator and then the front door that was locked and barricaded from the inside. If Kaige hadn’t believed it before, she knew for sure that there were people here.

  Her boots sounded too loud as she ran back down the hall to the door that went into the stairwell, once the light from the window outside was gone, it was pitch black and she had no idea how anyone would be able to make it up or down these stairs without falling, Kaige had tripped and nearly fallen going down them many times and that was with lights on.

  “Hello?” Kaige’s voice echoed in the stairwell and carried her voice back to her, but there was no other sound.

  Beginning the ascent up the stairs Kaige reached the second floor and checked the door, it was locked.

  When Kaige started working at Changes, Mike gave her a master key to every door so that if she was every working late or came in early she would be able to get into any part of the building that she needed to, most of the keys she’d never needed to use except for the back door, and in the light of her flashlight she thumbed through the keys on her Keyring looking for the one Mike had shown her so long ago. Eventually Kaige resorted to testing the keys in the door until she found the right one. After the fourth key the door unlocked, and she cautiously opened it, listening as the old hinges creaked and she softened her voice.