Chapter 420: Shannon’s Birthday [1]

The door opened.

Shannon stood there, and her face lit up the second she saw me.

"Welcome, Ryan!"

Her smile was so wide that part of the tension in my body loosened before I could stop it.

"Happy birthday," I said, smiling back as I stepped toward the doorway. "I came early like I promised."

"I knew you would not miss my birthday," she said with a small giggle.

I looked at what she was wearing.

She had clearly put effort into it. The dress was simple, but clean and neatly kept, probably saved for a day like this instead of being worn around the Boardwalk. Her hair had been fixed up too, and the smile on her face said she had probably been waiting near the door for longer than she wanted anyone to know.

"Nice dress," I said.

"Right?"

She stepped back and turned around once, holding the sides of it as if she wanted me to see it properly.

"Come in," she said, grabbing my hand before I could say anything else.

She pulled me inside and shut the door behind us.

The house smelled better than usual. Carmen was cooking something downstairs, and there was a sweeter smell mixed into it that I guessed came from the cake she was trying to make. A few lamps had been placed around the living room, their yellow light filling the corners that would normally stay dark after sunset.

"Mom! Ryan is here!" Shannon called.

Carmen looked over from the kitchen area.

"Welcome, Ryan," she said. Her hands were dusted with flour, and she was working carefully over a metal tray near the wood stove. "We are putting up a few decorations. Garlands, balloons, nothing huge. Would you help us make the house look a little better?"

"No problem," I said. "Where are they?"

"There is a box upstairs in the storage room. It should all be in there." Carmen looked toward Shannon. "Sweetie, show him."

"Yes, Mom." Shannon picked up a flashlight from the table. "Come on, Ryan."

She rushed toward the stairs, and I followed.

I already knew where the storage room was. I had spent enough nights here by now, sleeping upstairs in the room that had belonged to Shannon’s brother. Still, I let her lead the way. She seemed too excited about showing me around to point out that I knew the house well enough already.

When we reached the upper floor, Shannon opened the storage-room door and shone the flashlight inside.

The place was packed with old furniture, bags of clothes, boxes of canned food, and things Carmen’s family had managed to keep from before the world fell apart. Dust covered most of it, though someone had cleared a narrow path through the center.

"Here," Shannon said.

She raised the beam toward a high shelf near the back wall.

"That box up there should have everything."

"Just keep the light on it," I said.

I reached up, got my fingers around the edge of the box, and carefully pulled it down. Dust drifted across the flashlight beam as I lowered it to the floor.

Shannon crouched beside me while I opened it.

Inside were several packages of balloons, old paper decorations, tape, scissors, and garlands in faded colors. Some had been folded too tightly and were bent in places. One was already torn into two separate pieces.

Everything looked old.

Even though Summer had bought new ones? I thought she would come in early especially for that with the new decorations we recovered from Fun Birthday in the shopping mall.

I hope what happened with me, didn’t traumatize her or something...

Shannon picked it inside the box then, looking at the torn garlands.

"Oh..."

"It only needs tape," I said. "We can put the pieces together."

Her face brightened again.

"I will get some."

She ran out of the room, and I heard her footsteps disappear down the hallway.

A couple of minutes later, she came back carrying rolls of tape and a pair of scissors.

"Here."

"Thanks."

I picked up the box and headed toward the room I had been using upstairs.

"Do you need help?" Shannon asked from behind me.

"No, it is fine. You should go help your mom. I will handle this and come downstairs when I am done."

"Okay." She held out another flashlight toward me. "Use this one too. The room is dark."

"Thanks."

I took it, flicked the switch, and aimed the beam into the room ahead.

"By the way, Ryan."

"Yeah?"

I turned back toward her.

Shannon stood by the hallway wall, fidgeting with the edge of one sleeve.

"You look very handsome in those clothes," she said.

Her face went red almost immediately after she got the words out.

I froze for a second, caught off guard.

"R...Right. Thank you, Shannon," I replied. "You look nice too. The dress suits you."

Her whole face brightened.

"Thanks!"

She hurried away before I could say another word, practically racing down the stairs.

I watched her go with a complicated feeling in my chest.

Shannon was young, and she was going through that age where feelings could grow too big too quickly. I had to be careful with her. She deserved kindness, but she also deserved someone who did not confuse her or let her believe things that could not happen.

I turned back toward my temporary bedroom.

After setting the box on the bed, I sat down beside it and looked through the decorations again. There was enough to make the house feel different for one night, even if it was only paper, tape, balloons, and a few colorful strings.

"Alright," I muttered, picking up the torn garland and the tape. "Let’s get this done."

As I started fixing the torn garlands together and peeling strips of tape from the roll, a strange calm settled over me.

For once, it felt like none of the other stuff existed.

No Infected outside the city. No Starakians. No Callighan, Gaspar, Brigantine, or plans that could fall apart if one person made the wrong move. There was only a small room, a box of old decorations, and the sound of Carmen moving around downstairs while she prepared food for Shannon’s birthday.

It was normal.

That was probably why I liked it so much.

I was used to killing Infected, running from danger, training until Marlon had me on the ground, or trying to think of ways to stop the next disaster before it happened. Sitting here and fixing paper decorations for a birthday felt stupidly peaceful compared to all of that.

I kept working, lining up the torn ends of the garland and pressing tape over the ripped paper.

Barely two minutes passed before somebody knocked on the door.

"Yeah?"

The door opened.

Summer stood there with several plastic shopping bags in both hands.

She had changed out of the clothes she wore earlier. Her hair was tied neatly behind her head, and she wore a skirt dress that looked far more suited to a birthday party than treating bruises on somebody’s arm after training. Usually, I would not have thought much about it.

Tonight, though, she looked beautiful.

The thought came too quickly, and I forced myself to look back down at the garland in my hands.

Regardless, the second I saw her, the awkwardness returned.

"Summer..." I muttered.

After what happened earlier, I did not know what I was supposed to say beyond apologizing. I had been thinking about it since I left her. I had gone through different versions of what I wanted to tell her in my head, but now that she was standing right in front of me, every sentence had disappeared.

Summer did not look at me for long.

She stepped inside, walked to the bed, and placed the bags down beside the old box of decorations.

"There is no need to use the old ones," she said. "These are new. We found them at the shopping mall."

"Yeah," I replied. "Right. That is good."

My answer sounded pathetic.

Summer gave a brief nod, turned around, and walked back out of the room.

The door closed behind her.

I stared at it for a few seconds.

Congratulations to me.

I had managed to ruin a friendship with someone who had done nothing except help me.

I dropped the half-fixed garland back into the old box and pushed it away with my foot, harder than I meant to. The cardboard scraped across the floor before stopping against the wall.

Then I pulled one of the plastic bags closer and looked inside.

There were new garlands still sealed in their packages, balloons in different colors, tape, paper decorations, candles, and a few small explosive candles meant for the cake. The kind that crackled and threw sparks when someone lit them.

Carmen had asked me to decorate the whole house.

At first, it sounded like too much work for a small birthday party, but I understood why she wanted it that way. Shannon’s father and brother were dead. She did not have the people she would have wanted around her before the apocalypse.

Carmen probably wanted the house to feel different for one night. She wanted Shannon to walk downstairs, see decorations everywhere, smell food cooking, and feel like her birthday still mattered.

In that case, I would help as much as I could.

There was no reason to decorate the room I had been sleeping in, so I took several packages from the bags, grabbed the tape, and headed into the upstairs corridor.

I started with the walls.

The old wallpaper had peeled in places, and there were water stains near one corner of the ceiling, but the new garlands added some color immediately. I taped one across the hallway entrance, climbed onto a chair to fasten another closer to the ceiling, and stretched it carefully so it would not sag in the middle.

I was working on the third one when I heard footsteps coming up the stairs.

I looked down.

Maribel had reached the top floor.

For a second, I nearly lost my footing.

She was wearing a red shoulder straps mini dress reaching her knees instead of her usual tank top and trousers. Her hair had been tied back neatly, leaving her face more exposed than usual. The outfit was simple, but it made her look completely different from the guarded woman I had gotten used to seeing around the Boardwalk.

She looked good.

Too good.

I quickly looked back at the tape in my hands before she could catch me staring.

"It will never end if you do it alone," Maribel said.

She ignored my lingering glance, walked past me, and took several balloon packages from the plastic bags.

"I guess," I replied.

Maribel went into the room I had been using and started opening the packages without waiting for me to answer further.

I appreciated the help.

More than that, I was grateful she had not brought up what happened earlier.

I stayed focused on the garlands while she handled the balloons, taping another colorful strand across the hallway as the quiet sounds of balloons being inflated began coming from inside the room.