The Orphans (Book 4): White Lie

by Evans, Mike

  John wrapped Shaun in a bear hug squeezing tight and trying to lift him off of the ground. Shaun stepped to the right, lifting his elbows out and opening up the arms. He brought down an elbow into the middle of his chest sending the last bit of air mixed with spittle out of his body. He leaned forward and brought a second elbow into his groin. When John was falling down, Shaun put a foot in front, this time pushing him forward and off balance. The two boys both stared at him from the ground, holding themselves in a way which would ever make themselves comfortable.

  Shaun hovered over the two of them, keeping a few feet away from the both. He knelt down, picked up his guns and backpack. He said, “Unlike you guys, I have a girl who has been out of commission for quite some time and I need to go see her. If the two of you are done getting the shit kicked out of you, then I'm going to go ahead and proceed onto that. Did either of you have any problems with me doing that, or did you want to kick my ass some more? I have a feeling you wouldn’t be able to go to many rounds.”

  John, whose face looked like he was going to puke, said, “I can’t believe you did that.”

  Shaun walked away and over his shoulder he yelled, “Yeah, funny how people do things like that when it is two on one. You guys have a great day. If you touch me again I’ll break your damn arms. Do you understand me?”

  They nodded their heads and they did not think that he was kidding. There was pure, controlled rage in his face. Shaun walked into the distance and out of sight. The two boys pushed up from their spots, helping each other into the guard's office, sure that they were not going to have any further issues with him.

  Shaun wasted no time heading for the infirmary and when he entered it he saw Kya and Patrick both smiling and sitting next to her. When they saw Shaun they both got up not saying anything. They knew that there’d be nothing that would keep the two of them from speaking together. When he saw Ellie there was a short tear that formed in his eye. He tried to blink it away but seeing the miracle of life in front of him was better than anything else. He couldn’t believe that she was actually up, that she was awake. It was incredible. He walked up, leaned down, not caring who was around, and gave her the longest kiss he’d ever had before. She was weak, but with what energy Ellie had was used to wrap her arms around him and kiss him back. He climbed onto the bed lying next to her, conscious to be delicate of her head wound while brushing the hair from her face. Shaun said, “They didn’t think that you were going to wake up, they were losing hope.”

  Ellie whispered, “Did you think that I wasn’t going to wake up, did you give up on me Shaun?”

  “I never gave up on you Ellie.”

  “Where were you? Why weren’t you here when I woke up?”

  “I had been here by your side, I’d had some issues myself, I don’t know if Lou mentioned to you but I fell through the ice when I was trying to steer the Turned away from the grocery store. Well, weeks of sitting by your bedside left me being able to see only one thing and that wasn’t healthy for me.”

  “What do you mean you could only see one thing Shaun?”

  “I couldn’t stop seeing that thing attacking you. I was on the floor and defenseless, there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t believe that it was happening and it is all that I was able to see Ellie.”

  “So you left to do what?”

  “To take care of the Turned, I wanted revenge. I wanted to have them dead for you. It was all that I could think about. After sitting here for days and weeks on end, I figured out something that would work. When I did, I left with every intention of being back hours before. But we ran into a bit of an issue.”

  “With you that never sounds as easy as it is. What happened Shaun?”

  “A group of survivors were out and they wanted my guns, and me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Fired off a magazine worth of rounds shooting one of them in the leg and booked ass up the hill and away from the base. I couldn't imagine bringing them back here. Clary and the rest hit me on my radio and we went from there. You can say that those following me originally are either dead or Turned by now. They had friends come though and we know where they live.”

  “So you are going to what, go and take them out?”

  “No, we are going to do some recon on them. But it isn’t going to be today and we aren’t going to leave anytime soon. I’m staying by your side until you don’t need me anymore.”

  “There isn’t going to be a time, or day for that matter, that I don’t need you Shaun, and you best feel the same way that I do.”

  Shaun kissed her again and said, “Yes, don’t worry; there’s no future without you. It’s a world I don’t want to think about Ellie. We will figure the rest out when it’s time, there’s nothing that I am going to do but help you get better. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Shaun’s tears dripped on her cheeks and they thought that their future together was going to be a bright one. Clary and Aslin stopped by soon to check on her and could see the young couple resting, a much needed rest on Shaun’s part. Aslin said, “Should we tell him that we are ready to go or leave him be?”

  Clary said, “We can simply wait, there’s no rush. Let the two of them heal. She needs her body, and he needs his mind. We can continue getting people ready and move on from there. I think that we have a chance, more so now than ever.”

  The End

  A quick note from the author, if you enjoyed this book I would very much appreciate you taking a minute to head to Amazon to review this book, or at the least give it a star rating please.

  Please see next page for additional books by Mike Evans

  Discover other titles by Mike Evans Visit

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  Other Titles

  The Orphans: Origins Vol I

  Surviving the Turned Vol II (The Orphans Series)

  Strangers Vol III (The Orphans Series)

  Zombies and Chainsaws Book I

  Gabriel: Only one gets out alive: Gabriel

  Pitch Black (Gabriel Book 2)

  Body Count (Gabriel Book 3)

  Buried: Broken Oaths Buried

  Deal with the Devil

  The Uninvited

  So from her on there are a few extra things that I wanted to do. First there are two short story contests I did in November 2015 when I won Zombie Book of the Month Club for my 2nd time. I did a 100 word short story contest and below is it!

  Allen Gamboa

  The MRI machine....

  I have always been claustrophobic so when they wedged me into the MRI machine I freaked. I didn't care if my rotator cuff ever got fixed. I'm a big guy and being immobilized in a loud medical device sucked. Of course it didn't suck as bad as when the machine stopped and the screaming started. The techs had wrapped me up so tight in the machine I couldn’t move. The screaming grew louder as the door burst open! As I tried in vain to pull myself free I suddenly felt the cold Dead hands on my feet. At that moment realized I wasn't going to be this apocalypses’ Rick Grimes.

  Wy Bowman

  He was hungry but the thought of food made him feel worse. Driving home he tried drive through but the food came right back up. His head pounded, his body shook even with the heat on high. Pulling in the drive, staggering to the house he hears the TV. The girls are watching their shows and Cassie's cooking dinner. His girls see him and run yelling, "daddy". He bends down wraps his arms around his babies, they are so warm. They smell so good. He thinks he hears screaming and wonders if he is drinking something hot. It's so good

  One more thing that most I like to do. Being a indie writer is not easy so I like to help out new authors, this one is my friend and fellow Author Ricky Fleet. He is signed under Optimus Maximus Publishing

  Chapter 1

  Joan stood before the wrought iron gate, a sense of trepidation gnawing at her. It
wasn’t a feeling of danger, merely apprehension about what was likely to happen in the coming minutes. Two days previously, she had followed the coffin of her dear departed mother down this gravel pathway, supported and comforted by a small group of friends and well-wishers. Naturally, she had broken down a little, but the presence of other people had served to reassure her. Now it was her, alone.

  Looking around the carpark at the entrance to the cemetery, she noticed hers was the only car, which only reinforced her sense of isolation and loneliness. The day was overcast and threatened rain at a moment’s notice. Wind soughed through the trees and hedgerows, a wailing cacophony that sounded like the massed sighs of the recently deceased. Taking a deep breath and composing herself, Joan took a step forward, clutched the handle and opened the gate.

  As she walked down the path, gravel crunching underfoot, her grief grew with each step. Pausing where the path opened into the graveyard itself, she had a momentary blank in her mind. Where was the burial plot? It was almost as if her subconscious was trying to protect her. Perhaps it was too soon to pay her respects, the emotion too raw.

  She closed her eyes and balled her fists, willing the pain to go away, which was as likely as being able to lift herself from the floor by her own shoelaces. Opening her eyes and looking up, her mind cleared and it came back to her. Her mother was buried to the left, behind a centuries old mausoleum which had fallen into a state of disrepair. Perhaps the family line had passed away, or in today’s selfish society, the honouring of your ancestors was a much lower priority to people. Joan continued walking down the side path, past the mausoleum doors that had long since been broken and lay open. Litter and alcohol containers were strewn across the steps to the entrance and graffiti could be seen just within the main doors.

  Her pace slowed as she reached the plot. Her fear and sorrow grew to such an extent that her chest became tight and she could barely draw breath. The mud was still piled where the coffin had displaced it, only a small patch in the middle seeming to have sunk in. Flowers stood around the headstone, although after two days they had started to wilt. Something that had been so lovely was now another stark reminder of what was occurring only six feet under the soil to her beautiful mother. Joan stood before the gravestone which bore the details of her mother;

  Gladys Price

  June 16th 1952 – September 12th 2015.

  She lives with us in memory, and will forever more.

  All strength left her and Joan fell to her knees, only the soft, loamy soil preventing damage to her joints. She put her face in her hands, racking sobs escaped her and she cried out; “I miss you Mum, I miss you so much.”

  Joan would have given anything to have someone there with her to lean on, to share the burden of sorrow, but it was not to be. Her mother had been a troubled woman, finding it hard to express herself and make friends. Her father had been killed in an industrial accident when Joan had been only a year old. Suddenly left alone with an infant had only served to make her mother more withdrawn and introverted. As the years had passed, caring for her mother had left Joan no time for her own life, which is why she had never married, or had children.

  Her sobbing subsided a little. Looking up from her hands, she glanced around and noticed that a few other people had arrived. It served to reduce her feeling of isolation and gave her some relief. The improvement in her fragile emotional state was short lived. Embarrassment flushed her cheeks because the other mourners’ attention was fixed on her. They must have thought she was making such a scene with her crying and wailing. She looked away, concentrating on the grave instead, trying to cool her burning face. She did not notice the movement at the broken entrance to the mausoleum, or how the other people in the cemetery had begun to slowly, clumsily, make their way toward her. If she had been in a better frame of mind, she may have even noticed the mode of dress of the others; how it was entirely suits and dresses, and how they were all covered in dirt and other filth.

  Staring intently at the grave, she noticed some movement on the broken earth, a bit more sunk into the depression that had already formed in the middle. Mud began to move more freely, and she thought to herself, ‘I was sure moles were nocturnal creatures, how strange to see one in daylight.’ Looking around at the surrounding area, there were no other signs of disturbance, no more mounds where the moles had surfaced, which seemed strange.

  Looking back to the grave, her mind reeled, and horror rooted her to the spot. She couldn’t breathe, only stare in disbelief at what was occurring only two feet in front of her. No cute, blind creature was disturbing the soil. What had appeared were the fingers of a human hand; skin torn and hanging in flaps from the digging, nails missing and bones showing through the flesh. Reality hit her with a hammer blow when she finally noticed the ravaged wedding finger with the loose, dirty, gold ring that her father had slid onto her mother’s finger at Bosham Church, over forty years ago. Her chest clenched with an agonising tightness and her arm went numb. Crashing waves of pain washed over her and her vision began to blur as she grasped at her chest, struggling in vain to rise. I’m having a heart attack, she thought to herself absent-mindedly. The combination of grief, pain and shock was inuring her from the unfolding events. Falling to her side as the darkness overwhelmed her, Joan now saw that both arms had broken free of the soil. Mother would be horrified to see how dirty her dress is, Joan mused, as she watched the sleeves rise, the dead fingers flexing. Something that could never be, was now trying to sit up, soil cascading from the rising mound. Mercifully, Joan’s mind shut down before the blasphemous reunion of mother and daughter could take place. Joan did not feel the teeth of the body that had dragged itself from the mausoleum behind her, nor her mother’s cold embrace.

  Kurt was having a bad day. He was running over on his current job, after discovering a blocked kitchen sink was the result of months, or years, of fat being poured away, instead of being disposed of in containers. After replacing the pipe and checking the water was running away freely, he knelt down, made one final check on the drain for leaks and sat back on his heels. Looking around, he felt disgust at the state of the property and how people could live like this. Saucepans on the cooker top were mouldering, a layer of hairy growth rising from one unidentifiable dinner component. Washing up seemed to be a forgotten art to these types of people, and the only use for the deep bowl on the sink was to facilitate the draining of the chip pan oil. The smell, a combination of decay, fatty cooking, and cigarette smoke was bound to be on his clothes for the remainder of the day, which made him mildly nauseous. Yellowing stains from nicotine were all over the once white ceiling and curtains.

  Shaking his head in pity for the person who lived there, Kurt closed his toolbox and stood up. He turned the water off and wiped the greasy residue that the tap left on his fingers down his work trousers. He placed the toolbox outside the front door of the flat and went to find the occupant. Opening the lounge door, he was assailed by a cloud of tobacco smoke that was thick and cloying. The owner looked around from the worn red chair he was sitting on and smiled, dark brown patches staining his front teeth. Jeremy Kyle played on the TV, someone was shouting bleeped obscenities at another person on the stage about whose child it really was, while the victim of the abuse stood up and walked off to the boos of the audience. What a state we are in, thought Kurt to himself. The old man stood in visible discomfort, put his cigarette into an overflowing ashtray that was likely to be a major fire hazard at any moment, and made his way over.

  “All done sir,” remarked Kurt, taking a step back into the slightly less noxious air of the hallway. Limping across the lounge and issuing a racking cough, the man followed Kurt into the kitchen.

  “That’s great. What was the problem son?” the old man inquired.

  “The drain was blocked with cooking fat, sir. I had to cut the pipe out and replace it, but you are good to go now.”

  “Really? I always make sure it’s warm when I pour it away and run water to wash it through,” ponde
red the man.

  “The problem you have is that when it hits the cold drain it just hardens again, and this is the result. Try and pop it into an old milk bottle and throw it with your normal rubbish if you can,” advised Kurt, trying to be tactful.

  “Will do son, thanks for your help,” he remarked, as he followed Kurt to the front door to see him out.

  “Have a good day sir, take care.”

  “You too son, all the best,” replied the yellowed old man as he closed the door, sealing the flat once again, from the clean outside air.

  Moving down a short distance on the walkway, Kurt put the toolbox down onto the grey concrete. Leaning on the balustrade, he closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, trying to shift the lingering smell in his nose. He knew it was a pointless endeavour; it wouldn’t go until he had a change of clothes and a shower later. The repeating thud of loud bass emanated from the flat behind him, followed by raucous laughter. He felt a deeper sense of pity for the poor old man, who had to deal not only with ailing health, but anti-social behaviour in his twilight years. The country is in real trouble, Kurt mused, when suddenly, he heard a shout of pain carried on the wind.

  Walking to the far edge of the balcony, he looked out over the second floor railing to see what the commotion was about. From his vantage point, Kurt could see Portsmouth docks, where ferries were docked and dropping off or taking on passengers for the day. The waves were high from the wind, breaking against the ships with large plumes washing over the decks. Even at this distance, he could see the huge vessels listing dangerously. If the wind got much stronger, they would probably cancel any further ferry services. Scanning to the right, his vision passed over the local cemetery with its high iron gates, but he failed to process the large volume of people that were moving around inside and walking through the gates.