Project Airborne

by Johnson, Cassandra

  Turning, she heard the back door opening and saw Logan and Brian coming outside, their backpacks already strapped to their backs.

  Kaige had a feeling that Brian was packing a gun somewhere on his person, but she didn’t say anything.

  “The plane was headed in this direction.” Kaige told them, pointing up the hill that went up to Pinnacle Mountain Road. “After it was out of my sight, I have no idea how long it stayed on that course, but we can still go that way and see if we find something.” She explained.

  “Sounds like a plan to me.” Brian said, looking out onto the road, left and then right before he stepped out, leaving Kaige and Logan to follow him.

  Trudging up the hill, Kaige kept her eyes on the horizon. Since the temperature dropped it was just like before, the zombies had disappeared again, they’d found other places to hunt and Kaige hoped that the cold killed them all off.

  Picking their way through the abandoned cars, Kaige stopped.

  “Hey guys, hold on a second.” She called to Brian and Logan quickly, staring at a dark stain in the pavement, her eyes darting to the back bumper of a car. Kaige wasn’t sure of the make or model, she couldn’t remember those details, but she saw the dent in the bumper, it was where her bike had run into the bumper the very day that she went to the office building.

  When they came back, Kaige remembered worrying about Tobey seeing the dead zombies’ brains leaking all over the ground there, so she told him to keep his eyes closed.

  It wasn’t there.

  The zombie was gone.

  “What is it Kaige?” Logan turned back, his hand reaching inside of his jacket pocket and pulling out a nine-millimeter handgun, turning the safety off while he quickly looked around, Brian doing the same as they moved around her.

  “There was a body here.” Kaige pointed to the ground. Her eyes were probably playing tricks on her, but she thought that if she looked hard enough, she could still see some of the brain matter smeared into the concrete pavement.

  “What do you mean?” Logan looked at her confused.

  “I was attacked here, remember? The day I found you guys all hauled up at the office, we came back to my apartment down this road. I never told any of you, but when I was coming up Pinnacle Mountain Road the first time, I was attacked by a zombie, he was already half dead when I killed him, I smashed his skull in with my baseball bat. The body was here when we passed by again and now it’s gone.” Kaige said, pointing at the dark stain on the ground.

  “See? You can still see where all the jelly blood was, it’s smeared into the creases of the road.” Kaige swallowed hard before she looked around quickly.

  There weren’t any signs that the zombie had re-risen from the dead, or that maybe it wasn’t fully dead when she beat it.

  Nothing in the surrounding area showed signs that it had drug itself away either.

  “Where would it have gone?” Brian wondered aloud, squatting down to look at the stain on the ground.

  “I don’t know. I mean, I thought that I killed it, I beat it in the head until it’s face had caved in. Have you ever seen a zombie get killed and reanimate again?” Kaige asked, looking at Logan afraid and confused.

  “No, never. And I’ve shot more than my fair share.” Brian straightened again and looked down the road. “Come on, let’s keep walking.” He told them, taking the lead again while they walked down the center lane of the road.

  “Do you think that another zombie would have eaten it?” Kaige wondered, walking behind Brian while Logan watched their backs.

  “And leave no clothes or bones? No.” Logan shook his head a little.

  “I agree, I’ve seen what the hoards did, they picked the bones clean, but they never ate them. They aren’t flesh.” Brian explained, keeping his gun in his hands as they walked.

  “It could have been the people in the helicopter.” Logan suggested as the passed the road that lead down the street to their old office building.

  “But why though?” Kaige felt her nose wrinkle in the thought of just touching one of them when they were alive, much less after the rotten corpse was finally met the end of the road. The whole process seemed disgusting to her.

  “Burial, perhaps?” Logan questioned as they walked on.

  It was plausible, it absolutely made sense to bury the bodies or to cremate them, cremation seemed like the best possible option because of germs. Either way the whole process still seemed strange to her and then, they didn’t really know exactly what was happening behind the scenes. Again, it was like when the first deaths happened, no one knew what was happening much less their government or, so they thought.

  “So strange.” Kaige whispered more so to herself than her companions as they continued up the road, their surroundings changing as they came closer to the industrial parts of town, there were more stores, and the residential areas were further out, but they saw nothing. No vehicles, no soldiers. No evidence of any survivors. Nothing.

  It was just as deserted as the rest of the city. Kaige felt her disappointment taking a toll on her energy levels.

  “Can we stop and rest for a minute? My legs are killing me.” Kaige said, pausing as she leaned against an abandoned car, looking off at the buildings and shops.

  “Need some water?” Brian pulled his pack off his shoulders, and retrieved a bottle of water, handing it to her.

  “Do you need to go back, Kaige? We can turn around if you’re too tired.” Logan was watching her closely. Her face looked red and blotchy as she scooted up onto the hood of the car and opened the bottled water.

  “No, I’m fine. I just feel a little disappointed. I honestly imagined we were going to just cross this invisible line drawn in the sand and find civilization again.” Kaige shrugged softly drinking her water in silence afterwards.

  “It’s okay, we might still find it or that plane could have been going a lot farther and we just haven’t reached a hub of survivors yet.” Logan assured her, Brian nodded up and down in agreement.

  “Just because we didn’t find anything yet doesn’t mean that we won’t.” Brian said, through the guns that he and Logan were carrying suggested that they didn’t expect the people they met to be civilized.

  Nodding, Kaige downed the rest of the bottled water and stood up again ready to keep moving.

  “It’s so strange how different everything looks, like it’s probably been six months since the first deaths and then the zombies rose up, but it literally looks like people haven’t been here in a hundred years.” Kaige commented.

  “Wait until summer hits again, the wildlife will take this place over in no time without people around to control it.” Brian told them as the weaved through a parking lot, looking around as they headed towards the residential areas.

  Kaige knew that they must have been coming closer to the river because she could smell the difference in the air, there was a colder wind coming off the water and she remembered that the wealthier neighborhoods were backed up against it because the views were so spectacular, depending on where your house was located, the view of Pinnacle Mountain was supposed to be breathtaking.

  As they walked, the road began to wind and curve leading them towards the houses that were left behind when the zombies came, her heart sinking further. Kaige kept thinking of all those people, their lives and families. All of it was gone and she didn’t even know whether they were alive or not. And if they were, would they find each other again? Would the world ever be the same?

  The day’s mission seemed hopeless at this point as the continued to wander aimlessly through the desolate remains of family homes, that is until a twig snapped sharply in the distance, causing the trio to stop dead in their tracks, not even daring to breath as the listened.

  19.

  “Charlie, be quiet.” Blake whispered to her sister.

  “I’m trying.” Charlie whispered back, but it was difficult to be quiet when they were walking through the dry dead leaves.

  “I thought I heard something.”
Blake told her younger sister as she tried creeping up to the corner of the gate to look around at the street. She’d heard voices, but over the last two weeks they had heard a lot of strange things and Blake didn’t trust anything anymore. Not since their parents disappeared.

  “Maybe it’s Mama and Daddy.” Charlie replied, clutching her sister’s arm.

  As Charlie held onto Blake’s arm, moving closer to her sisters back, her worn sneaked fell on a twig hidden somewhere in the pile of leaves that hadn’t been racked, the snap was deafening in the silent neighborhood.

  “Did you hear that?” It was a woman’s voice, but the speaker wasn’t their mother. Blake would have known her mom’s voice anywhere and she also knew that their parents would have never abandoned them by themselves. Something else happened to them, they hadn’t seen a single zombie in months, not once it had gotten cold. They were dying. Something about the cold stopped whatever sickness was in them that fueled the virus or bacteria that caused the infection.

  Charlie squeezed Blake’s wrist, pulling on her arm. She was afraid, strangers posed a threat. They hadn’t seen any other living person aside from their parents, they didn’t even know if there were more survivors, but they’d heard things. Noises at night. The dead that had frozen or dropped in the streets finally from the cold had disappeared almost overnight, like a street sweeper came along and just swept them all up as if they’d never existed.

  The girls never saw anything, no one, but when it got dark, that’s when they began to hear the noises, always at night and as far as the girls could tell, it seemed that it was always around the same time.

  Holding onto Charlie’s hand, Blake slowly crept closer to the fence, their bodies easily concealed behind the whitewashed brick, one eye peeking out to see three people standing in the middle of the street. Two men and a woman, they didn’t look dangerous, at least not at first glance.

  “Please tell me I am not the only one who heard that.” The woman said, her two male companions, bringing her closer between them as they looked around.

  They looked clean and well taken care of, but Blake wasn’t sure, not until she saw the other man, she knew him. His face was so familiar to her, but she couldn’t remember why.

  Moving back so they couldn’t see her, she looked at her sister, motioning for her to look at the threesome out on the road.

  Charlie leaned around her sister, afraid to move her feet because the sound of the leaves rustling might alert the new comers to where they were hiding and looked.

  Immediately Charlie’s face sparked recognition and she darted away from the fence line, running towards one of the men.

  “Brian!” Charlie shouted while Blake ran after her sister, trying to stop her before she got too close, her brain frantically trying to catch up to where her sister was.

  “No, Charlie,” Blake shouted, but it was already too late, she was out in the open, running up to the man that saved them the day the zombies rose up and destroyed their world.

  Brian was one beat from drawing his gun to eye level when he saw the girls face, a face that danced through his nightmares every night looking for his sister and her children. The girls were as lost to him as his niece and sister were.

  “Charlie?” Brian was in complete disbelief seeing the girl as she crashed into him and wrapped her arms around his midsection. He looked down at the brown headed girl, her sister appearing from nowhere. They were both alive.

  “Charlie, I told you not to run away from me.” Blake had caught up to them, grabbing her sister by the shoulders and drawing her back.

  “But look, it’s Brian.” Charlie let go of Brian and looked at her sister.

  “Yeah, I see.” Blake couldn’t be mad at her, she was right. It was indeed him, the man that had saved them, but what if it hadn’t been? With their parents gone, Charlie was all she had left and now, the fourteen-year-old felt herself being much more protective of her little sister.

  “How did you two get all the way out here, where are your parents?” Brian asked, staring at the two girls.

  “We don’t know.” Blake replied, gathering her sister Charlie closer to her again. “They went missing.”

  Somehow, saying they were missing just felt better than saying they were dead, Blake didn’t know if she said it for herself or for her Charlie, but it kept a small belief in the back of her mind and in her heart that someday they would be together again.

  Brian stared at them for several long seconds before his gaze moved to Kaige and Logan.

  “You could come with us, we have a small place and it’s been very safe so far.” Kaige spoke up, looking at the two kids.

  “Can we Blake, please?” Charlie once more clasped her sister’s arm. Blake was a few inches taller and the big sister, little sister dynamic was clear between the two of them. “Come on, Blake. It’s not like we have anywhere else to go.” Charlie said, her tone desperately pleading.

  Blake looked at the group hesitantly before she finally took a deep breath and nodded her agreement.

  “Do you have room for us?” Blake asked. The girl already so grown up in a world so completely screwed up.

  “We will make room.” Brian assured the girls.

  As they began to make their way back to the apartment, Kaige was wondering how they had been getting along all by themselves and how long had they been on their own?

  Kaige heard Brian mention their parents, and while she didn’t know how he knew the girls, he might have been friends with their parents –where were they?

  Unlike Tobey, these girls hadn’t been so lucky. The girls' parents could be alive, but what could have happened to them that caused them to leave their two young children alone by themselves for so long?

  RETURNING TO THE APARTMENT, Tobey was curious to see other children, and they were starving too. As soon as Blake and Charlie ate, it was time for some questions.

  “We don’t know where they are.” Blake began, a small lonesome shrug of her shoulders.

  Megan could tell that the older child understood better than her sister even though there appeared to only be a few years apart in age.

  “They went out to find food.” Charlie told them. “But then it started getting dark and they never came back to the house.”

  Seeing these children, Megan felt herself pulled to them, maybe it was because she was already a mother or perhaps it was the therapist in her, but she knew that they were going to need serious counseling dealing with the loss of their parents.

  “They aren’t dead.” Blake said, almost as if she was reading Megan’s mind, the girl was incredibly perceptive. “I know they aren’t, I’d feel it you know?” But further than that, the young teen was unable to focus her thoughts on how she knew they weren’t. It was just a feeling she had, something more had happened to their parents. When they went out looking for food there weren’t any zombies around the house or on the street.

  Obviously, neither of their parents wanted to let them out with them. They were protecting them the way that they were supposed to Blake and Charlie had both looked at their neighborhood from the windows of their house and then, when Blake couldn’t talk Charlie down anymore, they went out looking for them and got lost. No matter where they went, they didn’t find any of the undead. It wasn’t at all the way that it had been before when they were crowding the streets, going after anything living whose scent they caught.

  “What do you think happened to them?” Brian asked, pulling a seat up closer to them, feeling the need to protect them as much as he could. He should have gone back to them when he couldn’t find his sister, the rest of his own family. Brian blamed himself for their parent’s disappearance, dead or alive. Brian had a safe place to hunker down when the height of the madness was happening, and he didn’t take Blake, Charlie and their parents with him.

  “I don’t know.” Blake shook her head. “But there weren’t any zombies in our neighborhood. Charlie wanted to go looking for them and we ended up getting lost together, but
we waited inside the house for days waiting for them to come home. But I don’t feel like they are dead.” Blake tried to explain, but it all seemed to fall short of the point she was trying to make. Her brain wanted to tell her otherwise, but in her heart, her very soul she didn’t believe what her mind was telling her.

  “Do you think they would have gone back to the house?” Brian asked, his hand brushing Blake’s arm gently. “I can go there, I’ll find a way to get there and see if they made it back somehow.”

  “They might have, I’m not sure.” Blake frowned, shaking her head gently. “If you go, can I go with you too, please?”

  “You can.” Brian agreed quickly, he couldn’t imagine taking Tobey out into the world, even now, but Blake and Charlie? For them, somehow it was different, they had already seen this, they knew what the world looked like out there, also Tobey was several years younger than the girls. If they could protect him from those images, they were going to do everything they could. Blake and Charlie could handle themselves better, Brian saw that. Just the fact that Blake took care of her sister in every way possible while their parents were gone.

  “It would be a hell of a lot easier getting over to North Little Rock if I still had my truck, but I’ll find a way to get us there..” Brian nodded quickly.

  “I’ll come along too.” Kaige offered. “Keep an eye out for you guys.” She smiled.

  “You’re not going anywhere without me.” Logan nudged her shoulder. “I used to live close to that area so I’m pretty sure that I can help navigate us there from here.”

  “We can get on the road first thing in the morning, I don’t think we will be able to find our way there and back today though.” Brian said, “Can we?” He asked, turning his attention to Logan.

  Logan shook his head quickly glancing outside at the sun already at its highest peak in the sky.

  “As much as I hate waiting, it’ll take us hours walking just to get there, plus the chance that I might get us lost a couple times before I get back into a neighborhood that I recognize. It’s better to go in the morning.” Logan nodded up and down before he pressed his hands into the pockets of his jeans feeling restless. He felt like Blake and Charlie, he wanted to go now. If they could take a car it was possible to do within two hours or less, but they had to walk everywhere now, and getting places took a lot more effort than it used to. Logan couldn’t believe how he often put things off because he had to drive there and back when it literally only took fifteen minutes. One thing was for sure he knew he would never complain or put things off like that again because he firmly did believe there were more survivors.