Project Airborne

by Johnson, Cassandra

  “We’re picking up a signal, but the transmission is off. That garbled sound that keeps cutting in and out through the pitched tone? It’s what happens when you’re picking up a radio signal from a long distance. When I was overseas, we got that all the time if someone was talking from too far away, but we still caught part of the conversation, there’s no conversation here. Like someone left their radio on.” Brain explained as they all continued to listen, wondering if they were going to finally hear a voice on the other end, but it never happened it just continued without any other sounds.

  They sat there in the middle of the street listening for five minutes before Kaige turned the radio off, maybe it was possible that somewhere there was a radio frequency, but they were nowhere near close enough to pick up what was being said, they were just getting the white noise but it called so much into question and Kaige felt herself even more confused.

  They were back in their own neighborhood after fifteen minutes and they had to park the car and walk the rest of the way home.

  Kaige did admit that it was still closer than she originally thought that she would be able to get, and they only had to walk for ten minutes to get back to the apartment. She would be using that car to get back to the library.

  Everything that Brian told them when he found them, about Sam, about what he went through in Vietnam, about what their own government was doing to them, the fact that Blake and Charlie’s parents just went missing when there were hardly any zombies left, or that the body from Pinnacle Mountain was gone and Kaige had serious doubts that it got up all on its own and walked away. The cars that were pushed onto the side of the road, it all pointed to something deeper and she intended to find out what it was. Anyone that wanted to argue with her was free to do so, but they weren’t going to convince her that it was all just one massive coincidence. It made absolutely zero sense and the more she thought of it, Kaige had a creeping feeling that the girl’s parents hadn’t just gotten lost, they were taken. Kaige just hoped that where ever they were, they were still alive.

  21.

  With the sun coming up in the sky, Kaige rolled over and looked at her wristwatch, realizing that it was now seven-ten in the morning. It was time to get up and get moving. Strapping the watch onto her wrist Kaige was not going to find herself guessing at what time it was anymore. Cleaning herself up, she could already hear the others were up and moving around and had come down to Tom and Megan’s to have breakfast. The house was filling up and she wasn’t sure that there was enough room for them here anymore.

  Putting her clothes on, she emptied her backpack and went across the hall, opening the door to find the group all crammed around the small dinette table trying to eat. Megan and Brian were holding their plates in their laps so that the kids had room to sit their plates at the table.

  “I think we need to find a new place.” Kaige announced as she came inside and poured herself a cup of coffee. “Our numbers are growing; Blake and Charlie deserve a room of their own instead of camping on a hide-a-bed.”

  “We’re okay.” Blake said, looking up from her bowl of oatmeal, pouring a little more maple syrup onto her oats.

  “I know sweetie,” Kaige smiled. The two of them were no trouble, none, but they needed more room. “We need a house, like a real one. Not a multi-family home.” Scratching the tip of her nose softly she bolted down the rest of her coffee easily before putting the cup in the sink. “And I think I know where I should start looking.”

  Clearing her throat gently, she picked up her backpack, but before she made it out the door Logan pushed his seat back from the table.

  “I’m coming with you.” Logan told her. “Tom? Do you think you and Brian can handle getting the generators charged while we’re gone? We’ll need some more firewood too.” He hesitated for a second, suddenly remembering his usual responsibilities and the day before had left those priorities untouched.

  “Yeah, we can handle it.” Tom nodded up and down quickly.

  “Good, we’ll be back before nightfall.” Kaige smiled and opened the door, stepping out into the hallway with Logan, following him upstairs to get his things. “I have to tell you something.” Kaige said as they reached the second-floor landing.

  “What is it?” Logan stopped and looked at her, his thick dark brows pinching together in concern. “Are you okay? You don’t feel sick again, do you?”

  “No, it’s nothing like that. I don’t know how much you heard yesterday when Charlie and I were talking, but she said that when she and Blake were looking for their parents, they were staying in those apartments next to the Walmart, but it was locked down and they heard things at night. I don’t think their parents just went missing I think someone took them.” Kaige said as they went into the apartment and Logan got his backpack and his duffle bag.

  “You think someone is staying at the Walmart?” Logan asked, their voices hushed as they went back down the stairs and outside.

  Kaige grabbed the cart, wheeling it through the gate.

  “I don’t know, but there is no way those cars were parked like that by the people who were driving them, they were moved and not by just one person, and with what Charlie told me? Do you think that it’s possible at all that maybe there is a branch of the military using it as their base? And what was going on with the radio yesterday? I know we haven’t been listening to any music lately that didn’t come from a CD, but you can’t tell me that isn’t suspicious.”

  Kaige pressed her lips together softly as they walked down the hill to the place where they left the car yesterday.

  “So, are we really going to look for a new house or was that your story to get out of the house to check out that Walmart?” Logan asked her, glancing up the street seeing the gold colored 4X4 coming into view.

  “A little bit of both. The priority is finding a new house that can hold all of us, and I want to check out the Walmart as well as the library.” Kaige said, pressing the button on the remote that unlocked the doors.

  “I don’t know how good of an idea this is, but I’ll stand by you.” Logan looked like he wanted to say more, but he hesitated, the moment slipping away as Kaige got into the driver’s seat of the car and he climbed in after her.

  “All I am asking for is your support, Logan. Maybe I’m being crazy paranoid, but I can feel the pieces of a puzzle falling into place here and I can’t ignore them.” Kaige twisted around in her seat backing down the street until there was an open space for her to turn around in.

  “You’ve got a theory, don’t you?” Logan asked.

  “I do,” Kaige sighed, glancing at him for a moment as she drove. “But I’m afraid if I tell you, that you really will think I’m crazy.”

  “You think anything about the way things have gone isn’t crazy? I think that I am open to accepting crazy, Kaige. Tell me what you’re thinking.” Logan replied.

  “I think they fucked us, the government I mean. Remember what Brian was saying about Sam? How they used the vets to test their experiments on with Agent Orange in Vietnam when he was there? I think this is what that was, another experiment. Maybe they didn’t intend for there to be zombies, but this was some mass population control bullshit.” Kaige swallowed, reaching into the pocket of her jacket while she drove with one hand, shaking a cigarette from the pack, catching it with her lips before she stuffed the pack back into her pocket and felt around for her lighter, something she’d done countless times before.

  “You think that this was all planned?” Logan asked, grabbing the lighter from her and flicking it, his eyes glancing at the road as she swerved once or twice.

  “Yes, I do. And I also think that they have a base at that Walmart, that would explain the plane, the dead zombies’ bodies disappearing, one was right outside on our own fucking street and it had clearly been shot and no one started looking around at the houses to see if there were people? We aren’t that inconspicuous Logan, someone would have noticed our solar lanterns even if they came at night. They aren’t looking fo
r survivors because they don’t want survivors. They want the elite and I would almost guarantee you that there are some rich mother fuckers hiding out somewhere underground living the goddamn life of Riley while the rest of us are up here being slaughtered by the governments cock up.”

  Logan sat in silence as Kaige drove them back to the neighborhood where they found the girls.

  “And Blake and Charlie’s parents?” He asked.

  “I haven’t gotten that one completely fleshed out just yet, but if Charlie was right and her parents went into that neighborhood looking for supplies, maybe they got too close to the truth? They could be alive somewhere in that store and they are being held hostage because the story can’t get out about what really happened.” Kaige explained quickly, cracking the window to let some of the cigarette smoke out of the cabin.

  “But what about us? You remember what it was like that day when people literally died in the street. Why did this affect them instantly and not us?” Logan was really trying to poke holes in Kaige’s theory any way he could, but she seemed to have an answer at every turn.

  “These.” Kaige said, holding up her cigarette. “I don’t know how, or why, but every one of us are smokers and our kids? Meaning Tobey, Blake and Charlie, I am willing to bet that Blake and Charlie’s parents smoked too, they came from second-hand smoke households. Whatever is in this, saved our lives and it saved our kids to.” Kaige considered Tobey and the girls as if those children where their own, and in a way, she felt like they were. If it came to Tobey or one of the girls or both, she would put herself in the line of fire to keep them safe, they were the important ones.

  “You’ve really been thinking about this haven’t you?” Logan asked, adjusting himself in his seat and lighting his own cigarette, as if the power of suggestion made him do it.

  “I have, I know how crazy I sound Logan and I want more than anything to be completely wrong, but it’s the only explanation my mind can come up with. I was up all-night last night thinking about what we saw when we found the girls. Then what Charlie told me about those apartments. I don’t think that these are the tales of a scared little girl who was over reacting, I believe her.” Kaige said, flicking some of the ashes of her cigarette out the window as she slowed down to take the curves in the road, only a few cars were abandoned in the wealthier neighborhood, many of them were either parked on the side of the road or in driveways, as if they had never even left their homes, or they were picked up.

  “So why this long?” Logan asked, his eyes peeled and looking at the houses. Houses that with their salaries they could only dream about possibly owning. “Why haven’t we seen any signs of others up until now?”

  “I think it’s because of the zombies. Whatever they used to poison us, the zombies weren’t supposed to happen, so they had to hunker down and wait them out, now that it’s colder and we aren’t seeing as many as when they rose up. Now, they think it’s safe to come out and they are slowly but surely cleaning up their mess, so that they can start the world anew, with a better class of people. People who think like they do.” Kaige said, spotting an open driveway and pulling the car up inside. There was a curving driveway that leads to a garage, but the front and sides of the house were shielded by a brick wall that was painted white.

  Logan sat up in his seat slightly as Kaige killed the engine and they stepped out. The wind almost cut straight through them as they walked along the winding path to the door.

  It looked like at one point there may have been Koi pond, but now there was nothing but rotten stagnant water with dead leaves and twigs, trash and she was sure the bones of those little fish floating at the bottom of it.

  “What made you want to look at this one?” Logan asked, pausing at the double doors at the entrance.

  “The roof looked flat, it would be a good place to anchor our solar panels.” She told him, testing the door, it was unlocked like so many of the doors that they had come to before. Pushing it open, the air inside was stale and cold. The people who lived there, were long gone by now. Probably since the day of the zombie attack that killed off the rest of the human population that they knew of.

  “Let’s see how many bedrooms there are.” Logan said, taking Kaige’s hand as they closed the door behind them. There was a short entryway, to the right was a large living space with a huge fireplace, to the left was a formal dining area. Stepping down into the living room Logan stared out of the window, or the wall, it was made entirely of glass that stretched from floor to ceiling and looked like it spread on that way into what might have been a home office area at one time. “This way.” He tugged Kaige along with him, not content to lose her in this house as it looked a lot smaller from the outside.

  Off the living room there was a set of stairs that went up, a bathroom in the hallway and another set of stairs that went down into who knew what kind of area.

  “Jesus, I wonder who owned this house before?” Kaige asked as she took out her flashlight and shined it into the dark bathroom.

  “Who knows, I just hope they don’t come back and decide to reclaim it.” Logan murmured glancing into the bathroom noticing a door that was closed and easing it open. It was a bedroom, there was a queen size bed inside, television, chest and dresser all in the same cherry wood fashion, a laptop computer sitting on a small desk in the corner was the only thing that didn’t seem to match the bedroom.

  “That’s one bedroom and one bathroom so far.” Kaige said aloud, counting the amenities they discovered.

  “Let’s see what’s upstairs.” Logan nodded, making a small check mark in the air.

  Following Logan upstairs, they found four more bedrooms as well as a master bath in the large bedroom, and another one at the end of the hall.

  “We’ll need at least seven bedrooms, Logan. The girls can share a room if needed as long as they aren’t camping out on a sofa.” Kaige explained.

  “There are five so far, let’s go look downstairs and see what we find.” Logan said, and the two went back down into the living room, following the set of stairs that went down.

  There was a finished basement below, as well as another entrance. It looked as if it had been renovated into an apartment of its own, there was a living room, a bathroom and two bedrooms on either side along with a small galley kitchen.

  “One thing is for sure, the previous owners were loaded and had a big family.” Kaige said softly, checking each of bedrooms as she had done upstairs.

  “Think it will do?” Logan asked her as they went back upstairs and explored the rest of the house. It looked like most of the space was taken up by the living room and the open floor plan that made up the formal dining room. Up a short set of steps there was another smaller eating area with a long wood table and the kitchen was oblong, with a long island separating the sink and cabinets from the oven on the other wall with twin refrigerators backed up against the far wall.

  “It looks like it.” Kaige said, looking around. “There’s another room here.” She said, pointing as they went through the door. It was the pantry; the washer and dryer were there along with floor to ceiling cabinets and another sink before you came out of the door that led to the garage.

  “We’ll need those to transport everyone and move all of our supplies.” Logan said shining the beam of his flashlight over the two cars parked inside. One was a black Tahoe and the other was a navy-blue BMW.

  “And here are the keys.” Kaige said, plucking them off hooks on the wall.

  “Come on, I want to take a look outside around the house.” Logan said, closing the door to the garage again.

  “Ok.” Kaige said, placing the keys back on their hooks.

  With Logan leading them back through the house, Kaige tilted her head softly.

  “Do you hear that weird little humming noise?” She asked.

  Logan stopped at the door, his fingers brushing the handle as he cocked his ear, listening carefully.

  “Yeah, where is it coming from?”

  “I don’t
know.” Kaige looked around curiously. “It sounds electrical though.” Turning around, she investigated the living room and then back inside the kitchen where the buzzing sound seemed to be loudest, surprisingly, Kaige didn’t know why she hadn’t noticed it before.

  Walking as softly as she could, she listened.

  “It’s coming from the refrigerator.” She told Logan, as he entered the kitchen behind her. Following the sound of the soft electrical hum.

  “It sounds like it’s running.” Logan said in disbelief as he walked up and opened the door, the light inside coming on, and the cold air from inside gently flowing into the room. “This is impossible.” He said, bringing the sleeve of his jacket up to cover his nose. The food inside had spoiled even while it was refrigerated, it had been in there for months untouched.

  Kaige looked around his arm, into the fridge and caught a whiff of the spoiled food, coughing softly as she pinched her nostrils closed and turned around, looking for a light switch and flipping it on. It belonged to the garbage disposal, turning it off, she checked another switch and the overhead lights came on above them.

  “They have electricity...” Her brows pinched closed as Logan quickly closed the door to the refrigerator and looked back at Kaige.

  “They have to have some kind of external power source.” Walking out of the kitchen quickly, Logan’s long muscled legs were almost running as he hit the front door of the house and stepped out, walking around the side of the house the meter was running. His eyes straying up the utility pole where cables were hanging from the side of the house, carefully zip tied to the pole.

  “Kaige, look at this.” Logan waved her to him, pointing up.

  “They already have solar panels, I can just barely see one. The whole roof must be covered to keep power in the house.” He said, a smiled, stretching across his face, suddenly grabbing Kaige around the waist and hauling her off her feet, spinning around. “We’ve got power!” Logan shouted, putting her back down on her feet before his lips suddenly crashed into hers for a second before he jerked away, shock and embarrassment written across his face as his cheeks grew red.