The Orphans (Book 2): Surviving the Turned

by Evans, Mike

  The smoke dissipated and Phelps, or what was left of him, crawled toward Clary and Greg on the ground. Clary walked to his commanding officer, who had lost everything from the torso down. Only the blackened top half of him remained, but he was still trying to kill. Clary walked up, horrified that he was still ready to kill everything he saw and unsure how the hell anyone could cure the devil’s work. He un-holstered his pistol, a 1911 forty-five caliber, cocked the trigger back, and walked to Phelps and then kicked him over onto his back. He placed a bullet through his mouth, which ricocheted up through his skull and bounced around inside of his helmet. The need to kill in his eyes faded and went away.

  Clary pulled out a pack of smokes; hid hands were shaking so bad, he could barely hold them. He dropped them, spilling them onto the ground. He bent down, scooped them up, and lit one before hitting his mic to Aslin. “Looks like it’s just the two of us. You need a bigger rifle; if you can’t take out a guy with a direct head shot, what kind of pussy ammo are they loading for you?”

  Aslin came back into his ear, “You do realize that we are trained to shoot people in the heart, right? Like, it’s the best place to shoot someone if you want to kill them? Unfortunately, that practice is going to go to shit now since we have to shoot people in the head—people who run like insane freaks and don’t ever slow down.”

  “Sounds like it’s a good thing we are getting out of dodge then.”

  Greg was putting his hands over his ears, trying to get them to pop so that he could begin to hear again. He started walking in a daze; Clary grabbed him by the shirtsleeve and they walked back to the building. Shaun came out of the broken doorway frame, rifle up, scanning the area for Phelps or whomever else had turned. He saw Greg being pulled by Clary, looking disheveled, covered in soot and blood. His hair was sticking up in ten different directions and his eyes looked distant and confused. Shaun shouldered the rifle, sprinting over to him. The rest of the teens came out of the doorway when they saw Greg and sprinted to him as well.

  Clary stood back, watching in awe; he was impressed by how tough they were as a group. They looked out for their own, and they would die for each other if the need came for it. He wished that there was a better chance of them surviving; wishing that they could get trained to survive in such a time but knowing that there was nothing he could do about it. He thought about the plane ride home and if it was possible to step foot on the plane knowing he’d be sentencing them to death, or quite possibly sentencing them to an eternal life of death. He walked back over, grabbing Greg’s backpack and looking through it. He only saw ammunition, food, water, and a change of clothes.

  Clary looked up, dumbfounded. “Where the fuck are the papers at?”

  Shaun pointed to the window saying, “We need to go back up there and get them. It isn’t our fault. Your team members kept finding ways to get turned. I tried to save Phelps but it was too late. Whoever was there bit him. He changed while I was trying to take care of the Turned man.”

  Clary hit his radio. “We are going back in there and then I think we need to radio and let them know what is going on. We need to get that data before anything else unexpected happens, man.”

  “We need to make sure there is still a flight out of here we can get.”

  Clary gave a thumbs up and said, “Let’s get your dad’s research found. I don’t know how much longer we have.”

  The kids started walking to the building. Tina said, “Well, we wouldn’t want you going and missing your ride home now, would we?”

  Clary didn't say anything in response; he knew there wasn’t anything to be said. Patrick asked, “So now that you know everyone but the two of you are dead, do you think we have a better or worse chance of hitching a ride with you?”

  Clary shook his head. “I have no idea, kid. You’re asking questions to things I can’t answer. Even if I wanted to bring you with us, there isn’t anyone who gives a shit what we think. Someone already has my life planned out for the foreseeable future… or until the worlds end.”

  They made their way back up the steps, taking it slow, going through all of the rooms again. Shaun looked at the dogs and pointed to them. “Check them out, Ellie. The dogs and other animals aren’t moving. They are just dead.”

  Ellie said, “What? Is that a good thing?”

  “Hell yes, it is. You want a Doberman who can’t die chasing you around, trying to rip you to pieces? No. That’s the answer—actually, ‘hell no’!”

  Shaun walked to the safe inside his dad’s office. It was flashing with six spaces to enter a code. He thought about it, knowing that his dad wasn’t a man who tried to remember useless information. He punched in a set of numbers; it flashed red and cleared itself. Shaun punched in a second set of numbers, and a green light blinked then an airtight lock released air and opened.

  Shaun swung the heavy door open and saw many different file drawers. He pulled one open that was labeled KR. They grabbed the files, and Shaun was looked at the dates, noticing they were all recent and that there were different sets of handwriting on the files. Clary took them and looked them over. He located the earliest information, seeing the original formulas with jotted notes about the X-74. Clary flipped pages slowly, reviewing and seeing that they had been making changes over the months. He saw that the final entry was made by Rogers and that the formula was signed off and sent to be tested in mass. He said, “Hey, it looks like your dad’s assistant was helping him modify the formula, but for some reason, he went back to the original and added some extra chemicals into it.”

  Clary grabbed all of the materials and said, “We need to get this scanned and into a file to send. He went to a scanner and started placing papers in, one after another, sending all of them to become one giant electronic pdf file. He called to the base on his satellite phone. “General, it’s Clary. We are four men down, sir.”

  He looked around at the six kids, realizing that maybe he didn’t want to have a life changing conversation in front of them. He took the phone into the other room where he could have a bit of privacy. “Sir, these kids are on their own. They aren’t infected, and it looks like from the research that it was actually his assistant who made the—”

  The general cut him off. “It happened, soldier. We don’t give a shit at this point who. If you found what we need, what America needs, then you need to quit wasting my time and get it sent ASAP!”

  “Sir, I just wanted to ask if we can bring the kids back. I’ve got the files ready to transmit. Your men should be able to access the computers; I have the security open in his office for his computer.”

  “Son, get the information transmitted. Do it now and stop fucking around.”

  Clary was feeling uneasy about—well, about everything. He went back into the room, trying not to make eye contact with the kids. His guilt was weighing quite heavily on his shoulders, and he didn’t need to have any more added to it. He hit send on the PC. “Transmitting now, sir. Do they see them yet?”

  “Hold while I get confirmation from our boys in tech.”

  Clary held the phone, staring at the computer. It looked like it had a mind of its own, the speeds with which folders were opening, closing, and disappearing. He hit his mic to Aslin. “Hey, they are getting the data now; we ought to have a ride out of here in no time.”

  “Wait, you sent them the information already? Like, they have everything they need?”

  “Yeah, he ordered me to send it now. They have everything.”

  Aslin was deep in thought and not very happy with the thoughts that were running through his mind. The idea of being abandoned in the middle of the country with nothing but the dead around him everywhere they turned was not a very pleasant thought. “Did he say when the widow maker was going to be back here to pick us up?”

  “No, not yet.”

  The phone was muffling; he released the throat mic and put it back up to his ear to hear the general already speaking. “Son, you’ve done a hell of a job and the country owes you the greate
st of debts… you and your remaining men.”

  “Thank you, sir. I’d appreciate a ride home though.”

  “Son, we don’t know how many people we are going to have around to fly once the shit is done hitting the fan.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, what does that mean exactly?”

  “Son, there isn’t a ride home. We already have Forsyth home. We can’t guarantee any of you aren’t infected. You need to stay safe, son, and once we learn more, there might be a ride home for you, but right now it’s just not going to happen.”

  “That is—” The static he heard was gone. The general was no longer on the opposite end. He slammed the phone down and noticed six blank faces staring at him. He pulled off his helmet, hurling it across the room. “You have got to be fucking me. This is fucking shit! Son of a bitch, this is fucking ridiculous.”

  The teens jumped at the ranting and raving. Clary screamed, picked up the computer tower sitting on the desk, and launched it across the room, where it crashed into the same wall his helmet had.

  Greg, who was just finally getting his hearing back to a respectable usage, said, “Something wrong?”

  Clary said, “Yeah, something’s wrong! Something’s very fucking wrong! Are you kidding me? That son of a bitch general left us here. We are abandoned and on our own and have no way to get the hell out of here.”

  Ellie, with more sarcasm than a human should be able to muster, said, “Oh no… that is too bad. I can’t imagine what being left in the land of zombies could possibly be like. On your own, no one to care for you.” She held out her arms toward Clary. “Do you need a hug? I’m a hugger. Come on, group hug, Clary.”

  He hit his mic. “We are fucked. They aren't coming to get us. Get inside; we need to regroup and we need to do it ASAP.”

  Clary had to remove his ear mic because the yelling coming through from Aslin was too much to listen to. He walked around, swearing to no one but God and the general, who obviously could not hear him. He picked up a lab stool, spun around in one flow of momentum, and chucked it out the window near the one Greg had already broken. A faint voice from downstairs echoed up saying, “Hey! Go fuck yourself too, you son of a bitch!”

  Clary stopped his wild display of anger and ran to the window. Aslin had been walking about twenty feet from where the stool had landed. It was the first thing that day that had made him smile just a little bit.

  Shaun said, “So what’s your plan? I mean, you’re done with us now, right? We got a long walk back to town ahead of us.”

  Clary said, “No, we got that shiny new truck we can take back to town. Just like you said, there are plenty of places to sleep in this town. Now we just need to find the best one.”

  Ellie said, “What truck? You mean the one that we don’t have any keys for? You guys melted them when you blew up Phelps. He refused to let us keep a set, remember?”

  Tina said, “What ‘we’? We don’t exist, remember? If you were getting that flight back, you were going to be waving at us from a plane window, losing no sleep about leaving teens on their own. So now it’s ‘we,’ you say?”

  Clary looked up at the ceiling, contemplating. There was no good answer. He looked at the teens’ dirty faces… some of them covered with blood; Greg looked the worst for what he had been through. “It’s up to you. Do you want to survive? Or do you want to just hope that you’ll survive?”

  Shaun, who very much wanted to keep his group alive, stared at Ellie. He knew the chances of keeping her safe with the supplies and knowledge that they had were going to be less than fair. “So what happens if you stay with us? What’s the plan going to be?”

  “You live. We can stockpile. There are supplies; we just have to get them. It won't be easy but we can do it. You said there was a man who had his own personal armory. We can start there. That truck that you don’t have keys to can be hot-wired; you just need to know and learn how. We can pick up a new vehicle in town.”

  “So you train us, and you can teach them how to shoot. We already know how to shoot, and we don’t need you for that.”

  “Don’t be ignorant, kid. Aiming a gun is only ten percent of war. You need to know how to live off the land, and that means more than just being able to shoot a deer or squirrel in the woods. I can teach you how to make bombs; Aslin can teach you how to shoot better than you ever thought you could and from further than you can imagine. If you don’t think there is something that I can teach you, that Aslin can teach you, then I wish you the best of luck, kid.”

  Ellie pulled Shaun over and whispered into his ear, “Hey, we can’t screw this up. There is a good chance that they can live without us. There is a lesser good chance that we can live without them. I think we stood a chance when there was a cabin, but we can’t build something like that. He is right, though, there are plenty of supplies in town, there are plenty of places to stay, and if we have them, I think we will be able to make a run at it. Maybe when things cool off, we can try to get out of town, out of the state, and go somewhere safer.”

  Shaun smiled. “I bet there aren’t any Turned in Hawaii.” Then he nodded. “We need them, I know. I just didn’t want him thinking that we were going to be kissing their asses.”

  He looked up at Clary and the others and nodded. “We need to learn. I get that; just don’t ditch us the first chance you get for something better. I’m sure there are people in town alive, and they’ll come out eventually.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know those people, and you already have proven yourselves a couple times over again. I think if it wasn’t for the whole zombie apocalypse thing starting, Greg would be one hell of a candidate for a future SEAL—if he could keep himself out of jail.”

  Greg smiled, shaking his head no. “Nope, that crewcut just wouldn’t do this face justice. It’s too damn pretty. Let’s get going. If we are going together, I think we should try to get to Andy’s before we find somewhere to crash for the night.”

  Shaun stared around. “You know, this place seems to be empty and could be secured. It has already got security cameras. They have a kitchen and freezer in the cafeteria and water and probably a back up generator. There’s no way they would have this much stuff and not have a way to keep it going, right? What do you think, Clary?”

  “I think this place would be great. My only fear of it is the possible looters who will feel the same way, and the fact that we don’t know if any of the stuff your dad’s assistant conjured up is still in here. I have no interest in finding some of that on accident, either.”

  Shaun said, “Well, can we at least smash open the vending machines and take all the water and meal bars that are in there?”

  They left, finding all the vending machines that each floor offered and packed the items onto a cart from his dad’s office until they found a laundry bag large enough to stuff them into. By the time they were done, they could drink and eat meal bars for the better part of a month. Aslin came in, seeing this and said, “What are you doing? It looks a lot like we are staying here for a while. Did you make plans without me?”

  He grabbed Clary, pulled him into an office, and slammed the door, knowing that a little privacy when a disagreement is at hand isn’t always a bad thing. Clary shrugged. “You know what? These kids have connections. They know the town, they know the layout, and they probably would be one of the reasons that we stay alive. If you want us to go at it on our own, we can cut our ties right now. But you think about the fact that we packed for a day mission. We were to be in and out at this point. We have a truck that needs hot wired and nothing else to our names but a depleting amount of ammunition, and a sadly slowly diminishing amount of explosive devices.”

  “You don’t think we could go to a military base for refuge?”

  “You think anyone left is going to worry about letting any fellow soldiers in? I’m sure if we get within fifty feet of a base, there would be anything but bullets flying our way. You know they’ve gone to a ‘shoot first and ask second’ policy. But worse, what if they sent
all the troops out to try and stop these things? There’s little chance that martial law isn’t completely in effect if there is anyone left in town to enforce it with.”

  “So what? We stay here and babysit some kids until we get word that it’s safe to try and move through the United States somewhere safe?”

  “I could think of some much worse things that are possible, but you can do what you want. I think we got a chance in this town. Hell, I’m kind of loving the idea of a houseboat right now. I can only pray God didn’t make these things smart enough to swim.”

  “God doesn’t have anything to do with today.”

  Clary nodded, “Yeah, if I was a religious man, I’d say this is nothing but the devil’s hand.”

  “So what? We stay? We go? You really think we can do something with these kids?”

  Clary shrugged, twisting the handle to go back out. “We stay, we hope we don’t die, and we go back to wherever that hardware store is so I can get some things. I have an idea if we need something.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The kids said they react to the noise. If there’s anything around, I say we make homemade pipe bombs. We can toss them down the street and try and keep those things away.”

  Chapter 12: Andy’s

  Clary walked out into the hallway. The teens were resting against the wall in one manner or another. “You now, I hope you guys get some endurance, eventually. I think you need a nap more than needing to go to a gun store.”

  They stretched, getting back up to leave. Ellie said, “What do you mean ‘a nap’?” She reached into the bag and pulled out a handful of five-hour energy shots, untwisting one and slamming it back like a pro. The others did the same and they went back out to the truck, loading up all the junk food that they’d taken from the vending machines, as well as some chemical ingredients that Clary insisted he could not live without. Aslin disappeared in the truck cab and it came to life in no time. Clary climbed into the back, putting his machine gun up on top of the cab’s top, extending the bipods mounted underneath the barrel and was ready for war. Shaun and Ellie climbed in too, settling against the bed of the truck, and the other four climbed up into the cab. Greg sat next to Aslin. “You sure you don’t want to let one of us drive so that you can get set up to shoot if we run into anything?”