An arrival hall was stuffed with tents and shelters as people used to live here for some time. Darker corridors were a problem for Karen, but not as much for me. Moving around at a fast pace we swapped. I was walking in front of Karen while she held on my parka following me.
Shops were empty especially those with food and jewelry.
"There were always hoarders." she spoke as I stood in front of old sign saying Swarowsky and there was nothing but empty shelves.
"Even when the world ended?"
"They though money can save them." As Karen spoke I shrugged and we moved deeper into the airport.
The huge lobby had two floors. On the first was in the middle info hud with all the check-in desks and then there were moving stairs leading on the second floor. Once we explored the bottom and scavenged what we could, our next move was to do the same on the second floor.
There it was mostly fast food courts or restaurants, build in nice half-circle, in the middle was plenty of fabric and sleeping bags, even some weapons and clothes as people used to hide here. A lot of those clothes were stained with blood and now and then I found dead bodies, massacred and torn apart. From first I wanted to throw up and run, but more I see it, more natural it becomes.
I dusted off one of the counters at McDonald's and moved over, just to find piles of bones. Behind the fryer was dead gron impaled on a huge metal rod.
"There is a dead gron" I said with obvious concern in my voice.
"No worries, grons don't walk around looking for killed grons to burry them." she said and nudged me and I walked to the back where supplies could have been stored. There was a narrow corridor going along every shop from behind. Each shop had then a small warehouse facing the entrance to the shop.
"Oh god what would I do to have a burger right now." Nostalgy kicked me hard as I saw all those brands and boxes filled with supplies.
"How does it tastes like?" Karen asked me with a high pitch as she got really curious.
"It's quite hard to describe, the food was shit, but it tasted as good as it looked like." Chuckle escaped from my mouth.
"You have to eat it to understand it." I simply answered her question before we start to dig through boxes looking for any kind of food that was still packed and could be good. Old sandwiches, canned food, compressed food. Vacuum packed salads, whatever we could at least think of eating will be good.
"Nathan!" I heard voice from the other side of the corridor.
"Yes?"
"I found something... I don't know what I can see shit."
When I approached the very end of the corridor I found Karen standing near door frame leading to the kitchen of KFC.
"What is it?" she asked me all leaned over the wall as she didn't know where I am going to throw the content of my stomach.
"Mass grave and fresh one. There is a pile of bodies in the middle of the kitchen and guts are all hanged over the walls and furniture inside. I can see torsos are a thorn and thrown somewhere off the center while In the center is somehow circular built of limbs and kids part.
"There must be a harpy. It's her nest. Quickly we need to get somewhere where is at least some light, I can see shit." anxiety fills her voice as she speaks and pulls me back. My eyes couldn't get out of the horror of what was in front of me.
A nest built from human bodies, walls painted in blood and insides. "What is wrong with this world?" each day was like a knife to my back teaching me one cruel truth after another. We made it back to the main hall and back to the last light of that day.
"We have to kill her, or we have to run from here." Karen's hands were already on her rifle checking ammo in it and preparing it for fire mode.
"Isn't it easier to kill her inside? Can't she fly away?"
"She can but it's gonna be hard for her. Harpy is somewhere inside, usually, they prepare nest when they are ready to give birth. They stack human bodies as you saw it and then they hide somewhere near the nest. Once she gives birth young harpies will feast on the nest, barely leaving anything from it. So my guess is we have a day or two until she gives birth."
"That means we have day or two to kill her right?" My voice jumped a bit as i said it, it was still something that my brain had hard time to accept. But it was me or grons and that was it.
"Yup, they are light weight and harpy won't attack us until they outnumber us. Plus... one harpy is easier to kill than 4 smaller ones." Karen took off her backpack and I did the same. She gave me once again knife long as my forearm.
"But how do you want to hunt her in that pitch black?"
"Its simple Nathan... you are my flashlight." she said with smug smile and put her mask on the face.
"What do you mean?"
"You go back court and storage, she is somewhere there. Scuffle her feathers and when she try to run away im gonna put bullet to her head."
I gulped ball in my throat before words left my mouth.
"Am i going back alone?"
"Don't worry. Harpies are really light-weighted and she can't really use her upper limbs for fighting, so and in those narrow corridors she can't flap with wings, so it shouldn't be problem for you to scare her out."