On a sparrow's wings

Chapter 3 - Looking for trouble

  Anastasia was sitting alone on the roof of their temporary shelter. The darkness of the night surrounding her as a cold draft hit against her back but she didn’t care for it. She wasn’t feeling great, she had this rumbling feeling in her stomach that always showed up when someone had died. After a few moments of throwing rocks at the street and watching greys follow the noise around Ethan appeared and sat next to her.

“Gonna sit here and pout all night?” Ethan extended his hand and offered her a can of beans.

Anastasia felt her stomach grumble and begrudgingly grabbed the can out of his hand. Ethan sat next to her and they ate together. A silence followed as Ethan took in a deep breath of the cold night air.

  “It’s nice, isn’t it?”, Ethan broke the silence.

“I guess.”, Anastasia played with the little food that was left in the can.

“Come on, you always have something to say. What’s on your mind?”

She knew that he was trying to distract her from what happened but she didn’t mind. She wanted to be distracted, it helped. She threw away the empty can of beans and laid on the rough cement roof and looked up.

  “The stars are nice.”, they were more than nice. They were beautiful, majestic, fantastic. Ever since it all started the nights got clearer and the stars showed themselves more often than not. In an ironic way the more the world died the more beautiful it became. Things Anastasia hadn’t noticed or seen before were like works of art that hid from people, waiting to be seen by the right eyes at the right time. The sight of baby deers drinking at a stream, the leaves of a tall tree slowly falling into a brown and yellow pile, the faint whistling of wind flowing through the small holes in the walls, almost like a symphony. It was all so peaceful and innocent, but Ethan never noticed it. She had tried to show it to him, but he never understood. In this thing she felt alone. But she still prefered this magical loneliness to the boring ordinary life that most people led.

  And at the top were the stars. These little light bulbs that peppered the dark ceiling of the night. No matter how much she looked she never got tired of them. They were here little glowing friends, winking at her from time to time to show they also saw her. She liked that, whenever she felt like distracting herself she only needed to lay down out in the open and make up constellations. She never learned any constellations as a kid so she made them up herself. She would share them with Ethan when she thought of new ones.

“That one is the big pan.”, She connected a few of the stars with her finger in the shape of a pan.

“Very creative.” said Ethan as he laid down.

“Like you can do any better.”

“Fair enough. Let’s move on.”

Anastasia readjusted herself, “And this one is the lion”, she connected a few stars in the shape of a gaping mouth.

“Now that’s more like you.”

“You think so?”

“It’s a lot better than the big pan.”, chuckled Ethan.

Anastasia smile lightly

  They spent the night naming constellations. They thought of ones like the turtle, the goat and a couple more. Anastasia enjoyed that, it was a welcome break from their daily routine of scraping for food and running from greys. At least during the evenings Anastasia could enjoy these little lights and it was all the better when Ethan was there with her. He didn’t allow himself to sit and relax much ever since their mother died. No matter how much Anastasia tried to persuade him he never relented, always pressing forward, always surviving. The only time he made an exception was when Anastasia was feeling down. But it never lasted for long. And this evening was no exception, after an hour he rose from the hard cement roof and said that they ought to go to bed now. Anastasia didn’t want to argue with him so she followed. Ethan always went to sleep after Anastasia had already fallen asleep.

  The next day the last destination they had to loot before once again hitting the road was the supermarket at the end of town. They decided to loot it last because it was too far from where they had made camp to haul what they found back. And besides it was on the way to their next destination. So they decided it would be more convenient to visit it last.

  The sign was barely hanging on swinging slightly in the wind, whistling and creaking as it did. What used to be written on it was “Great-Mart” but some of the letters had fallen off leaving only the word eat on it. The rest of the supermarket was about what Anastasia expected, falling apart, abandoned and left to decay. A lot of the shelves were broken and the ones that still hung from their hinges were covered in cobwebs and dust, at places there was so much that even when Anastasia ran her fingers against it barely removed any. All the windows were broken and the cash registers were wide open and empty. The stench of feces and dried blood covered the entire building. It would have been hard to breath if everything didn’t smell like that nowadays.

  They went through the supermarket, it was huge so it would take a bit more time than usual to go through the entire things. Anastasia found the usual, expired food and the shelves for cans and tins empty or even entirely gone in some places. She was used to the sight by now. But it always managed to disappoint her. But thankfully they didn’t need any food at the moment. Those cans they got from the guy Ethan killed, would last them for some time. But there was no harm in finding more.

  Eventually she got bored and flinged the expired food at the walls trying to paint a smiley face. When she did she got bored and drove the forklift around but the small amount of gas that was left didn’t allow her to do it for long, allowing only a few circles around the shelves. Although she did manage to knock over a few shelves by bumping into them. Which of course made Ethan mad. Like everything she did.

  Ethan finished scavenging the obviously barren supermarket and they headed for the doors. When they were right at the doors Anastasia heard the screeching of tires against pavement and she saw a car stop right in front of the doors. Anastasia pulled Ethan to the side and they hid, in a small room near the checkouts, it was a janitor’s closet by the looks of it. 

  Four men entered each one brandishing an smg that hung by a strap from their necks. They had this black armor on and there was a red circle draw on their back and a hand clenched in a fist drawn inside it. The men were talking to each other and a few laughs echoed through the supermarket, they weren’t paying much attention to their surroundings. Ethan also noticed this and pulled out the shotgun he took from the man he killed and stood. Anastasia grabbed his hand and urged him to stand still. But he quickly pulled away from her and came out of cover.

  Pointing the shotgun at the men he pulled the trigger. But nothing happened, neither sound nor bullet was whitnessed, only the clicking of Ethan pulling the trigger over and over again. The men noticed him and laughed.

“Looks like someone forgot to clean his shooter.”, one of the men walked over to Ethan grabbed his shotgun and slammed it’s stock into Ethan’s face. Anastasia almost gasped when she saw the blood spurt from Ethan’s nose, but she covered her mouth and stood silent, as she peered through the crack in the door to the janitor’s closet.

   The man pushed Ethan to his knees, Ethan looked at him filled with rage.

The man laughed and pointed his gun at him, “Now I know this boy ain’t on his own. So whoever else is out there come out now or he will get a bullet right through his dumb little head. And I am pretty sure that my gun won’t jam.”. The man poked at Ethan’s head with the barrel of his gun as his friends walked around him and laughed.

  But Anastasia didn’t move she looked at him, biting her lip and wiping the sweat of her palms on her jeans. Ethan had always told her what to do in a situation like this. To hide and wait for them to go. He said that at least she would get away safely that way. But she didn’t want to that, she wanted to come out and help. But her strength and courage failed her and she stood there, her eyes as wide as they could possibly be. She didn’t know how much time she had but she knew it wasn’t enough.

  “Three”, she heard the man’s voice echo through the empty supermarket. Is he going to kill him?

“Two”

Time was running out, Anastasia found her courage in a flash. She came out, her hands up, “Okay, okay I am out.”, she said as she went in front of the man.

“What did I tell you boys? The countdown always works.”, the man smiled wickedly and the butt of his gun went decked Anastasia over the head. She heard her brother yell and everything went black.

  She awoke and gave a dazed glance to the night sky. And again everything went black.

  When she awoke once again the first thing she felt was the humidity in the air. It felt as if the air was sticking to her skin and sucking out the oxygen right out of her lungs. The next thing she felt was the sharp pain that ran across her jaw, as if there was a hammer bashing against her jaw every time it moved.

  She opened her eyes and found herself in the locker room of a school. She was lying on a bench in the middle of the room. The ceiling above her looked as if it was rotting of, it had this greenish color like vomit, a tile fell and shattered on the ground. She stood and took a moment to steady herself. She looked around her and saw that the windows had iron bars on them, although when she took a closer look she saw that they were a little loose at the bottom, maybe removable. Ethan wasn’t there with her and she was worried. She saw the helmet of a guard behind the door to the locker room. She headed towards it and knocked on the door. The guard opened it and looked her all over with his little pig eyes.

  “Do you know where my brother is? He was taken with me. Could-”

The man hit her with his gun in the stomach and she shuttered back in pain. He slammed the door in her face and turned back around. She groaned and sat back on the bench.

“There’s no use, girl.” a low rumbling voice was heard from behind the wall of lockers. She followed it to a man lying on the other bench.

  He had an unkept grey beard, his hair was hidden underneath a beanie but she could see that it was long and dark, although it was greying as well. His eyes were looking at her and not at the same time, as if he was looking straight through her. The combination of the bags under his eyes and the dark circles around them made his eyes ever harder to see. His complexion seemed to be off a color or two and wrinkles hung from his face as if from frowning.

“Your brother is dead, girl.”, the man’s voice rumbled through the locker room, all roughness.

“You don’t know that.”

  “This is a Red Fist camp. The ones they don’t kill they enslave and judging by you I doubt your brother is slave material, so he is dead.”, the man didn’t even bother to look at her when he said that in his dead rumbling voice. He said all that and he didn’t even bother to look her in the eyes when he said it, he faintly stared at the ceiling and the floor.

Anastasia wanted to say something, to insult him, to argue with him but the words couldn’t leave her throat. She stormed back to her bench and felt the tears built up in her eyes. Is he really dead? She didn’t want to believe it but yet again, what would stop them from killing him, like Ethan did. He was some guy who tried to kill them, he meant nothing to them. And they were a lot less empathetic than Ethan. She softly sobbed to herself while hugging her legs tight. She heard a sigh come from behind the wall of lockers, but it wasn’t followed by anything but a slight tudd on a locker.

   She managed to calm herself down after her eyes ran dry. After a few hours she had wasted every form of entertaining herself from searching through the empty lockers to taking off the tiles from the floor, and revealing the green moss that grew behind them. And she soon realised that Ethan won’t come for her and she needed to find him herself. But she knew she wouldn’t manage alone and the only person in there was the that mean man. She didn’t like him, but she had no choice but to ask for help.

  She went over to him and sat next to his head. He didn’t seem to care that she was there. He had his beanie over his face and his hands on his stomach.

“I feel like we got off on the wrong foot. I-”, said Anastasia awkwardly.

“ I don’t give a shit.”

“That’s not very polite.”

“Polite.”, the man laughed, “The world is way past polite, girl.”

“My name is Anastasia, don’t call me girl.”

“As I said, I don’t give a shit.”

“Well what if I told you I know how to get us out of here?”

“How?”, he didn’t seem to care much. He didn’t seem to care about anything.

“I will tell you but I need to find my brother and I’ll need your help for that.”

“Fine.”, he sighed, got up, stretched, “You better be telling the truth girl.”

“This will be easier if I knew your name.”

“Michael.”

“Okay Mike-”

“Don’t call me that.”, the veins on his neck throbbed when he heard that word.

“I just-”

“Don’t.”

  Anastasia went over to the window and pointed out that the bars are loose and could be pulled out. Michael crossed his arms and looked at her sternly.

  “Hey I would do it herself but I can’t reach them.”

“f**k’s sake.”, Michael sighed and got over to the window and pulled on the rusty bars. After a few grunts and groans the bars came clean off. Michael looked it over surprised and threw the bars towards the floor. Anastasia caught them in the air. He looked at her and shook his head.

“The guard.”, she nodded towards the door, he dismissed her. Michael went over to the window and tried to get out through it, he pulled himself as much as he could. He groaned and went back inside.

“I can’t fit through.”

  “Then I will go through and when the guards switch shifts I will open the door for you and will go find my brother.”, Anastasia went half way through the window.

“Why not kill the guard and deal without all the waiting?”

Anastasia struggled to find words that he would understand without question for a while but managed to think of something.

“Because we can’t go through an entire camp full of guards.”, Anastasia looked through the window and saw that there were guards all around going to campfires, on patrols and some standing around doing nothing. She went back inside the room.

  “What are you doing?”

“There are too many guards, we have to wait until night to do this.”, Anastasia sat on the bench. Michael went back to his side of the locker room.