After the Birds

Chapter Ten

Remerton

NY, USA

2024

Andrea

A shadow fills the hallway, and someone dressed in a dark trench coat step inside. “Hello? Are you still here?”

Is he talking to her? Andrea barely dares to breathe. The man, because she can tell it is a man from his voice, walks a few steps farther into the condo. Oh, no. What if he understands that she has to be hiding in the walk-in closet? What if he just runs toward her and yanks open the door and grabs her? She grips her bat firmly. If he tries something like that, she’s going to hit him. Hard. Smacking his head right off.

Andrea trembles and angrily wipes her tears that insist on running down her cheeks. They come through her nose too, and she fears she might need to sneeze. She pinches her nose hard with her freehand and it helps.

“I saw you on the stairs. It’s not safe here for little girls.”
Little girls? Andrea wants to growl at him and his head super hard with her bat. Is he a creep too? Is being a creepy guy a rule for surviving? Well, not the old guy in her stairwell back home, Dave. He seemed cool.

“I know you’re still on this floor. Aren’t you the big sister of the little guy who stays here on some weekends? Theo?”
Andrea stops breathing again. Can he really be one of the looters if he knows who lives here? If he mentioned Antonio, she would have chalked that up to him reading the name on the sign inside the front door. But Theo’s name’s not on there. She realizes that she can’t remain in the closet indefinitely. Sooner or later, he’s going to open it. It’s better if she stays in control and is the one scaring him, rather than the opposite.

Andrea grips the baseball bat with both hands and kicks the door open. She’s ready for the door to hit the wall behind it and swing back and jumps out before it does. Behind her, the door closes again with a loud bang.

“Dear God, girl!” The man swivels and presses a hand to his chest. He’s younger than Tage, but not by much. Dressed in a dark gray trench coat, with a navy suit underneath, he looks like he’s on his way home from the office. She doesn’t recognize him. “You scared me half to death.”

“Who are you?” Andre barks. “And how do you know my little brother?”
“I’m Anita’s brother. She lives…lived across the landing.” The man gestures behind him. “I’ve been here several times to see if she’s returned. None of the ones who seemed immune in this building are here any longer. Your little brother and his dad seemed to be all right, and—” He wipes his eyes and Andrea notices that he’s crying. She feels his pain, his worry, but she doesn’t lower the bat.

“What’s your name?” sha asks calmly. It’s as if his tears have made hers dry up. She’s calm and feels safe with her bat.

“George. George Ellison. I don’t remember your name, but you have a brother called Theodore and his dad is Antonio. Antonio waters Anita’s, that’s my sister, her plants when she spends time in the countryside with my wife and me. My wife…” He grows quiet and dries more tears with a blindingly white handkerchief. “My wife and I have a cottage, well a beath house, really, by the ocean. Now that my wife is dead, I thought Anita and I would be better off there. We could fish…” He sighs and stops talking about his dream of some sort of survival. Andrea is grateful for that. She can only focus on finding Theo right now.

“And your sister is gone?” Andrea taps her foot.

 “Yes.” George sighs and walks into the kitchen. Andrea cautiously follows him. He sits at the kitchen table, looking devastated.

“Are you thirsty?” Andrea pulls out the last bottle of Pellegrino from the fridge. It’s the one that wouldn’t fit in her pockets. She throws it to him, and he fumbles but catches it with unsteady hands.

“Thank you.” George opens the bottle and drinks from it. “That was nice of you. Not a lot of people are willing to share their assets these days. I live in a large house in northern Remerton, and those who are still alive have boarded up their houses from the inside. They are afraid of looters, but they also would easily ignore neighbors they’ve known for twenty some years. I never thought that could happen.”

“They’re terrified,” Andrea says. “People aren’t who they used to be before the virus. Those who didn’t die, instead change. Perhaps that too is because of fear, but also because of how traumatic this is for them. My mom said that before she died. This will lead to PTSD for everyone for the foreseeable future—and maybe longer.” Mom had explained about PTSD and how terror, stress, and starvation, could fester on your mind, and last a very long time. Andrea had nudged the idea several times if that meant she would remember how she had rolled Mom’s dead body into a rug for all eternity? Probably.

“You and your mother are most likely correct. All that has happened in the last month is unprecedented. I would say that humanity has never come this close to extinction. Not in modern time anyway.” George rolls the bottle between his hands. “I have to find Anita. She’s the only one I have left.”

“And I have to find Theo. Have you been making the rounds to all the doors that aren’t open? Asked if anyone’s seen where they went to? Perhaps they are evacuated or decided to pull their resources and left.”

“No, I haven’t. It’s very empty in the houses around here.” George stands without warning, and Andrea raises her bat and backs off.”

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says. “You don’t have to worry.”
“I won’t hurt you either as long as you keep your distance.” Andrea refuses to be lured in. It would be such a relief to put down her bat and let a grown-up make all the decisions and trust that they can figure it all out. It’s what grownups are meant to do. Take care of kids and young people. But that was how it used to be. Now it’s a new world. Simply a new time. Here, everything must fend for themselves, children, and grownups alike.

“Sure. I get it.” George waits until Andrea has backed out of the kitchen. “I’m going down to the basement,” he says. “Honestly, I haven’t dared before now, as I’ve only been here alone before.

But if you stay and keep guard by the entrance to the basement, I can go down and see if someone’s staying down there. I might find something useful, even if no one is there.”

“Okay.” That sounds doable. Andrea nods. “I can do that.”

“Then I’ll trust you to stay put and not leave me alone.” George looks afraid.

“To quote yourself. You can trust me.” Andrae means it, but he can’t know that. But then again, he knows she’s looking for Theo. Perhaps that’s enough.

They walk down the stairs, George first, and Andrea about six-seven steps behind him. When they reach the foyer, George walks over to a door at the far end. He takes a key from his large key ring and opens the door, leaving the kay in the door and putting the keyring into his pocket. He must’ve come by car, and he might think Andra could steal the keys, and thus the car, if he left the entire set in the door. She’s tried driving a tractor at the 4H camp. Surely driving a car can’t be harder?

Andrea nods toward George who clenches his jaws before he disappears down the staircase leading to the basement. He has a small flashlight in one hand, but right now the power is on, and the ceiling lamp is enough. Andrea keeps guard and becomes increasingly nervous about having to be stationary. She doesn’t dare leave the door since George might think she’s left him to his own devices. That said, it would have felt better if she could have peered through the broken front door. As it is now, they’re both vulnerable if looters decide to break in again.

There’s a rustling sound from the basement and Andrea gasps. What is going on? Then she hears something falling over, and it this the floor below with a thunderous bang. A muted male voice calls out, “Let go of me!” and then there’s another bang. “No, no!” Andrea can tell it’s George’s voice. She doesn’t know what to do. Should she rush down the stairs and swing her bat? Go in without knowing what she’s in for? Would George do that if she were down in the basement? She likes to think so, but how cand she be sure?

“George,” she calls out. “What’s going on?”

“Run, Andy! Run!” George yells with a strange, gurgling voice. “Don’t wait for me. It’s…” He calls out something else that she can’t make out. “Ah!”

“My dad and my uncles or on their way in, George! They’ll help you!” She doesn’t know where the lie comes from. “They’re five of them, so t shoe who are messing with you won’t have a chance against a bunch of police officers!”

There’s a rattling sound when something else falls to the floor, and then she hears running footfalls. Andrea hides behind the open basement door and raises her bat. Her knees are shaking, and she tries to ignore the dryness in the back of her throat that makes her want to cough.

The steps mix with heavy breathing when someone darts up the basement staircase. It sounds as if it’s only one person, but it can be a huge man for all she knows. Andrea tries to remember how she swung the bat at home in the living room. A special angle and a special grip that drove the bat through the air with immense force. Now she can’t remember a thing. She holds it tight. She can’t let anyone yank it out of her hands.

The door slams into Andrea, and she has no chance of stopping it from hitting her face. Her nose hurts and then something warm runs down over her upper lip and into her mouth. It tastes like warm metal. Blood.
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The steps disappear toward the front door and Andrea dares to peer around the door. A man, or a big boy, dressed in a blue jacket and a knitted black cap, pushes at the broken door, and presses his body through the opening.

The lack of noise is strangely deafening now. Shaking all over, Andrea rounds the door to the basement and looks down the stairs. There is no sight of anyone else.

“Hello? George?” She has to clear her throat several times and then try again. “Georgie? He’s gone now. Hello?” Still nothing.
Andrea really doesn’t want to go down into the badly lit basement. But what if Georgi is wounded down there? Perhaps his unconscious? The thought of that is more than she can ignore. What if Theo, Antonio, and Anita, are all down there? The guy who ran might have locked them up in a way that prevents them from screaming loudly enough. Andrea pinches her thigh with her free hand to stop her brain from conjuring up such images. They hit her more often now, as daily horrors, mixed with wishful thinking and as nightmares.

Determined, she slowly descends the staircase. She prays to unnamed gods that the power won’t cut out while she’s down here. She knows there are tiny windowpanes from when she was down here with Antonio last year when she helped bring up all the Christmas decorations. She finally has reached the basement floor, she sees a sign with an arrow to the left, saying “Laundry Room.” Damn, so spooky to do laundry in this primed-for-ghosts kind of basement several times a month. Ugh.

Andrea doesn’t know which way George went. “Hello?” she calls out and holds her breath to hear better. A few pipes above her makes a whistling, airy sound, but that’s all she can make out. Carefully, she tiptoes to the right. There are several doors in the basement and from the markings, she remembers they lead to the storage rooms for the condos. The first one is locked, and so is the second. When she reaches the one marked number three, she sees it’s half open. She raises her bat and tries to be soundless the last few steps. A gnawing sensation in her belly makes her nauseous. Why didn’t George answer her?

When she’s right at the half open door, she can see why. Georgi is on his back with his trench coat spread around him like a snow angel. His eyes are pen and his empty stare is directed to the ceiling. Andrea has seen this before. Mom lay exactly like that in bed when Andrea woke up on the worst morning of her life. It feels like an eternity ago, even if it’s only a couple of weeks. Now George is gone before she even found out if he was an okay guy or not. The fact that she never got to know him is suddenly so sad. She would have liked to find out if he were trustworthy.

Andrea makes a fist and presses her knuckles into her mouth and sobs quietly. She knows she has to leave George here. She can’t drag him up the stairs and even if she could, where would she put him? Slowly, she bends and places the coat around the man on the floor. She has seen on TV how you close a dead person’s eyes, and she tried it with Mom’s, but only succeeded to a degree. The idea of George’s eyes being unprotected hurts her chest. She carefully pushed his eyelids closed, and on him, they actually remain closed.
As she’s about to get up, she sees something shiny next to George. She feels with her hand and then has his large key ring in her hand. Car key. House key. And then a tiny key. “Want me to take care of your keys?” she asks the dead man even if she knows he will never answer.

She can tell now that he has strange markings around his neck. Was he strangled? Andrea can’t stay another second. She gets up fast and runs through the corridor over the toe staircase. There she stops to listen, and when she can’t hear anything but her thundering heart, she continues upward. Back in the foyer, she walks up to the door that now is almost fully open where it hands from one of the hinges. The one who strangled George must have kicked it hard.

Then she’s on the sidewalk and breathing in fresh air in deep gulps. She can barely process what just happened. A murder. Perhaps the other guy thought George was out to hurt him? No matter how it happened, it’s tremendously said and Andrea swallows against the rising bile just below her throat. She leans against the wall of the building and spits. The street is empty. The guy in the blue jacket and black hat is gone. Not that she’d recognize him if he changed clothes. She never saw his face. Perhaps that’s better or she might have to see him too during her nightmares.

Andrea sips some of Theo’s Pellegrino, and rinses her mouth. She drinks carefully to not aggravate her stomach that still trembles.

In one hand she’s holding the key ring and the other holds the bat. Checking out the car key, she can tell it’s a fob, which means all she has to do is get close to the car for it to unlock. Ebba’s dad used to have a car like that.

“Let’s see then.” She starts walking along the row of cars and after a hundred yards, a car gives a muted two-town beep. She recognizes the symbol on the trunk. A BMW. She hurries over and opens the front left door. It’s a sedan and she doesn’t want to lock her things in there in case she needs them fast, but instead puts them on the passenger side before she slides in behind the wheel. She rests the bat within easy reach next to the gears. She finds the button locking the doors and does so.

Sighing deeply, Andrea slumps into the seat, feeling safer in George’s car than she has all day, including in Emma’s and Eva’s kitchen. Sure, a maniac can show up and throw a rock through the window, but it’s entirely empty around her at the moment.
Studying the instruments, the wheel, and the gear shift, Andrea tries to figure them out. She remembers Antionio’s old car, which was an automatic, that the letter next to the gear shift shows which one to use. D for driving. R for reverse. P for park. That’s all she needs to know. The tractor at the 4H camp was actually more complicated.

Antonio always pressed down the brake pedal when he started his car. Maybe it is the same for this one? She can’t reach it, but after adjusting the seat, which is another fancy electric lever on the left side of the chair, she adjusts the seat to fit her. She presses down the brake and then the button to the right of the wheel.

The car starts very smoothly and isn’t loud at all. Antonio’s car had sounded like a broken lawn mower before he sold it to a scrap yard.

A pinging sound reminds her of the safety belt, and she clicks that into place as well. She grips the wheel hard, but then she makes herself ease up a bit. Letting go of the brake slowly, she is still unprepared for the car to be so ready to move. She almost hits the burned-out car in front of her but slams the brake hard.

Placing the gear shift into reverse, she casts a glance in the rear-view mirror. She has to adjust it as she can only see herself. She doesn’t recognize the way her eyes are virtually black, rather than brown. Making sure she can see behind her, Andrea then eases the car back slowly, and then turns the wheels to a hard left. Andrea barely touches the accelerator and still the car slides past the car in front of them and out in the middle of the road.

“Good thing there’s no traffic,” Andrea murmurs, but immediately regrets her words. If there was a lot of traffic, it would mean people weren’t sick, and that she didn’t have to pretend she knew how to drive, and George would be in his car to visit his sister, who would be home. And Theo would be home. And Mom would be alive. Pressing her lips tightly around the sobs and threatening tears, Andrea juts her chin out and starts easing the car down the road.

Theo is on her mind, but he’s not the only one. The girl she helped. Emma. Who in their apartment had coughed just as she closed the door? She should look in on them. The idea of remaining completely on her own, with no one to share the responsibility with is wearing on her. She could be of use to Eva and Emma, and they could brainstorm how she could start looking for Theo now that she had a car. Or, she had a car for as long as it had gas.

She holds it tighter to the steering wheel when she rounds the block and drives down the road that leads to the street where Emma lives. She sees a man at a distance and wonders if that’s the murderer. In that case, it’s a blessing that he’s moving in the opposite direction. Andrea drives up to Emma’s building and stops the car fairly close to the sidewalk. She puts the gear shift into parking. She’s just about to grab her gear and get out when she sees the radio system. With eager fingers, she presses the start button and turns up the volume. She looks for the frequency she managed to get to her apartment. There’s static, and at first, she thinks all broadcasts have ended, but then there’s a female voice.

“…the latest information from the authorities is bleak. Two months after the initial outbreak in the US, they surmise that two percent of the population has survived. There is no reason to think that the numbers are different around the globe. The situation in the larger cities is chaotic. Help from law enforcement and other first responders are no longer given. 911 is down, if there is any cell service at all in the respective area. The hospitals are overrun by the infected, and the ones among the staff that are immune work against insurmountable odds. Looters keep attacking emergency rooms and pharmacies.” The woman sighs and then clears her throat. “Our newsroom has three employees’ still in the building. We’re doing our r best to provide you with broadcasts on all frequences. We’re still getting news via some of the news agencies, but the news from abroad is sporadic. The UK tried to close its borders before they realized it was spread via the birds. We have several confirmed reports that scientists are working on a vaccine, and even if it’s too late for the majority of Earth’s population, we still pray it can happen for those of us who are not yet know if we’re truly immune.

The woman sobbed once, but then continued huskily, “My name is Veronica Lawson, and I’m really just an intern here at CBS New Radio. I study…studied, Information Technology, at MIT. I started an internship after Christmas as I had an idea that being a news anchor could be something I’d enjoy. To think that I ended up reporting about the end of the world… I’m not here alone. I have Stan and Louise here as well. We know as little as you do how our loved ones are doing. Like the two guys on MSNBC, we have locked ourselves into the building. As far as we know, we’re among the few people left to report the news on the East Coast.” Veronica goes quiet for a while and Andrea pulls her legs up and hugs her knees close to her chest.

“Keep talking. I need to know more.” She whimpers and presses her forehead against her knees.

“We have some more news from abroad.” Veronica is back. “The EU parliament in Brussels has been demolished in a massive explosion. There is no word on who was behind the attack. The devastation is enormous for blocks. The death toll is unknown. A source quotes a rumor that the policies when it came to the bird virus can be the reason for whatever faction is responsible, to commit such a crime.” Veronica sighs, but then continues. “Australia and New Zealand looked like they were going to be unaffected, and they also evacuated their respective governments, physicians, scientists, and from other vital occupations to a secure underground location, along with their immediate families. Like Noah’s ark for people. Now we’re going to go off the air for a bit. For our listeners, try to tune in on this frequency every hour on the hour. We’ll do our best to keep the broadcasts going. Until then, we’ll broadcast the information loops from the authorities that you have heard so many times by now. Do what is right for you. God help us all. We’ll be back.”

Andrea turns off the radio. She’s heard the official advice so many times, she knows it by heart. She grabs the backpacks and her bat. Checking in all directions, several times, she doesn’t see anyone. Opening the car door, she slips outside. Patting her pocket to make sure she has the fob, she closes the door and hears it lock automatically.

Hurrying into Emma’s building, she sees the dead person by the elevator as before. Running up the stairs, she keeps looking around her, ready to flee—or fight.

She reaches Emma and Eva’s door without spotting a soul. She knocks. “Emma? Eva? It’s me. It’s Andy. Are you home?” She hopes they are and prays Eva hasn’t gone nuts and pulled Emma along to the park or something.
Someone is barely visible in the frosted glass partition next to the door. A small figure. Emma.

“It’s me. Andrea. Andy.”

The door opens a few inches, and a pale and trembling Emma looks at her with big, empty eyes. “You came back.”

 “I told you I would.” Andrea tries to sound encouraging even if her stomach performs new somersaults. “Where’s your mom?”

“She’s sick.” Emma’s bottom lips quiver. “She’s got the cough.”

Andrea goes inside and locks the door carefully behind her. “I’m here now. My brother wasn’t home, so I can stay a while, if you like. We can help each other. What do you think?” She already knows what Emma is going to say. The little girl looks at her as if she’s a guardian angel and it feels both good and extremely intimidating.

“Emma! Emma!” A hoarse voice echoes from one of the bedrooms. “Emma, damn it, where are you? Have you run off again?”

“Momma's not just coughing.” Emma presses close to Andrea. “She’s acting really strange. Crazy, my grandma said over the phone before it stopped working.””

Andrea walks up to the door leading to the bedroom. “Hello, Eva.”

“Who the hell…” Eva roars and tosses back and forth in bed. Then she goes still, and her meek smile is even more terrifying than her cursing. “Ah, it’s you. The little hero. Have you come to save us?”

“I came back since I promised Emma I would.”
Eva locks her burning gaze on Andrea. Andrea thinks back to when she looked into her own eyes in the rearview mirror. They’d looked like someone else’s. Is she risking the madness that she sees in Eva’s eyes now? Perhaps all survivors are doomed to go crazy after a while?

“You’re not leaving, are you?” Emma whispers.

“No. Don’t worry.” Andrea pulls off the backpacks. “You know something? I brought some of my brother’s things that he must have forgotten to take with him. It’s fine if you want to borrow something until he needs them.” She pulls out the different toys and books that she’s shoved into the small school backpack. “This book is one of his favorites.” She gives it to Emma to takes it and presses it hard to her chest.

“Your little brother…is he dead?” Tears run down Emma’s pale cheeks.

“No.” Andrea swallows hard. “No. He can’t be. I won’t allow it. It’s as easy as that.”

Emma wipes her wet cheeks with angry movements that leaves her skin red. “It’s as easy as that.”

Continued behind door 11

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