by mike Evans
Yassa looked around, realizing that they were so used to worrying about the next meal, that he wasn’t sure what he was freaking out about, considering they had more supplies than this place had ever started with. “Never mind. Can I ride with you, then?”
Clary looked to Jon, who looked a little uneasy, looking at Yassa in a pair of very worn cowboy boots, a jean jacket, and a shirt that had a guy he didn’t recognize giving him the middle finger.
Yassa took one more look, seeing nothing but camo, and yelled, “There ain’t no way in hell if you want me to be a solider boy, I'm wearing any of that dumb shit. Real men make their own camo.”
“That’s why you’re wearing a jean jacket, huh?” Clary asked.
Yassa walked by, bumping shoulders with him, and slid into the back. He yelled to the six kids who were sitting around, “Get your asses in the Humvee. We’re going with these really uptight soldiers. It’s going to be a good old time, I'm sure!”
Clary helped get Tony secured in the back and Al climbed in, looking more numb than one of the dead during their comatose state. Clary closed the door and slammed on the back.
Jon was leaning in the Humvee, hitting his radio. “Hey, Kya, you get everyone standing out there in the Humvee. We need to get out of here. Lou’s on his way out and he isn’t stopping.”
“Yeah, we got it, just give us a minute. We’ll have everyone in the truck.”
Jon let the transmit button go. He could hear Joey from there without a radio, yelling for everyone to get in the truck. Clary climbed in, slamming the door hard, resting his gun, and patting his chest out of old habits. “Come on, Jon, let’s go home. I'm ready to put this day to sleep.”
“What about all our shit, Clary?” Yassa asked again.
“Just like I already said, Yassa: it’ll all be here tomorrow and we’ll all be a little better off if we get some shut eye. We’ll find something to feed all of you and set you up for the night with somewhere to sleep. If you don’t like the accommodations in the morning, I will load you all up and give you a ride back myself. I promise that.”
Allen spoke up, “I want to stay. Greg said there’s an Orphans Brigade or something. I want to join it. He said you would teach me how to kill those things. He said that we could kill all of them, or kill them until we ran out of bullets.”
Clary looked back at the kid, surprised. When they’d first come on him, he looked like he’d blow over if the wind hit him right. But losing his dad had left him broken and hard. “We can do whatever you want, kid. Only thing we ask is, you to contribute and listen. You also gotta be safe with the rifles. You can do those few things, and you’ve got a place with us as long as you want it. We have plans for the dead; we just need bodies and time to take care of them. They aren’t gods. We can take them out.”
“I'm more worried about them being the devil than gods,” Yassa chimed in.
“I guess time will tell, Yassa. Not sure about you just yet.”
“Wasn’t trying too hard to make an impression, Clary,” Yassa replied.
Clary shrugged, replacing the magazine in his rifle. He handed an extra pistol back to Yassa. “You know how to use this? If you don’t, that’s fine.”
“I know just fine what to do with this. Where’s the machine gun?”
“It’s at home where it belongs, until you can show that you know what you are doing with it.”
Yassa made the pistol disappear and kept his bow handy in-between his legs. Jon, who was getting worried about Yassa, even more so now that he had a pistol, punched the gas, making sure that he kept right on Lou. When the time came to do it, he pulled around him and took the lead.
Clary saw him disappearing into the distance and patted Jon’s shoulder. “Slow down, Jon. Let Lou catch up. Ellie and Kya were still loading up. We need to get there quick, but we don’t need to leave them alone.”
Jon let off the gas until Lou had caught up. Clary pointed for him to go back the way they’d come from, and Jon said, “We don’t want to go that way… That’s where we lost Aliyah. I don’t know how many more there were. We didn’t stay there too long afterwards. Do you know another way that we can get back to base?”
Clary looked to Greg. “Greg, you got any idea where we can go that’ll be easier?”
“We can go south and then cut back east. Take a right here.”
Jon did, and it wasn’t hard to tell that he was sweating bullets. Greg asked, “You want me to drive, Jon? Wouldn’t be any issue at all if you do.”
“No, I want you to be ready to go if we need someone on the big gun up there.”
Yassa laughed, “What, soldier boy here isn’t the one who does all the heavy work?”
“His name is, Clary, Yassa, and I'm a killer with that thing. I bet that I’ve dropped more of The Turned than you have. You don’t know the shit we’ve seen. We haven’t been hiding in the woods. We’ve gone out, we’ve tried to find people, and we are trying to come up with a plan. You guys were sitting waiting to be bait, but not having anything to do about it once you brought the dead,” Greg remarked.
“I'm just making all kinds of friends here, aren’t I, Allen?”
“Speak for yourself. You keep your mouth shut and maybe you’d do better Yassa.”
“You do as you please, Allen. Here I was gonna look out for you. Screw off if you are too good for me.”
Clary turned around and with no question in his face or his authority said, “You need to stop, Yassa. Give the kid a break. You want out right now, that can be arranged. If you and I need a round two, just say the word and we can take care of that when we get to the base. I’ve been in the shit for too long to deal with absolutely any of your bullshit, I can promise you that. I’ve been killing longer than you’ve been alive.”
“Yeah, let me think about it, Clary. I’ll let you know what I come up with.”
“You do that, Yassa. looking forward to it.”
Chapter 12
Al wiped at tears, looking to see if Lou was watching him, embarrassed that they were coming. “I’m sorry, Lou, I... I'm not usually like this.”
“Like what? Human, Al? You need to cry, you do it. I was a fucking mess when I lost both my daughters. It was the worst day of my life. After I lost my wife to the dead, I told myself that I would do anything I could to take care of my daughters and protect them from anything that posed a threat. Well, that didn’t happen, and I lost them both at once. I had such optimism when we went to that base.”
“You think you and yours would've been better off never going, then?”
“No, not really. I think if they didn’t find us there that we would have been even easier to go after, staying at the apartments we were at. I think it would have taken them longer to come there, but there isn't anything that can be done about it now,” Lou explained.
“Am I making the right choice with Tony? By taking him there, I mean.”
“You don’t have a choice if you want a definitive medical answer. The best thing I can say is, if it was my kid and the world had gone to hell, and medical help—real help—was available, I wouldn’t think twice about taking them to hell and back to get them the help.”
Al leaned back, looking up, almost like he was looking for answers from someone not in the ambulance. “You’re a good guy, Lou. I really appreciate this. I appreciate all of you, even if I don’t do that good of a job showing it. Never been too big on emotions, not that you could tell right now.”
“Anyone out there judging a visibly broken man doesn’t have any place judging in the first place, because they aren’t a man. Do what you need to, I’ll give you some privacy. You tell me if there’s anything that changes. He’s been pretty stable for a while. That’s usually a good thing.”
“How do you figure that?” Al asked.
“Because it means he’s still alive, and if he was any worse, then we wouldn’t be in quite as big of a hurry. Those things don’t leave survivors too often. I think someone was looking out for him, if he’s
still around.”
Lou reached behind him, pulling the privacy curtain across. Seeing Al’s kid lying there looking like that was doing nothing for his heart. He couldn’t stop thinking of Karen and Theresa, when they were lying on the floor, and the thought that maybe they’d miraculously be okay.
Al looked around, seeing that the ambulance was not your normal emergency vehicle. They had ammo cans and rifles stored beneath everything, as well as MREs and jugs of water. This thing was ready for the long haul if it needed to go on a lengthy trip. He was actually feeling a little better about this being where his son could rest his head at night, if by God’s good grace he came back to him.
Al pulled his rosary from beneath his shirt. Before hell had taken over, he’d been the world’s worst catholic—or at least that was what he told Tony when he’d ask why they never went to church. Al kissed it and knelt on one knee next to his son’s gurney. He tried to think of the words for a prayer, for any prayer. The only one that he could come up with was the one he had ingrained in his brain from when his wife had made him go on special occasions.
“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our tresp-”
Al quit speaking when something wet dripped onto his hand. He looked at it, watching a single droplet of blood drip down his hand. He whispered, “What the fuck?”
“Did you say something, Al?” Lou called to him.
Al looked up to see Tony sitting up on the gurney, bright eyed, with a look of pure ecstasy across his face. A mouthful of skin flapped from his clenched teeth. He tilted his head as if he had no clue who his dad was.
“Are you… are you okay? What in the hell are you doing, boy?”
Tony seemed to see his dad for the first time. Al watched as the color of his eyes faded, turning to black. Blood made its way down his face, dripping onto his already dirt covered shirt. Al put a hand on his shoulder not ready to believe that it was really happening. “Dear God no… No, Tony.”
Tony looked up, seeing the veins in his father’s necks pulsating. He did not know him from a stranger at this point. In a second he was on his feet, crouching on the gurney. Al tried to take two steps back, but lost his balance in the tight quarters. Tony leapt at him, tackling him to the ground. His father used his arms to try to keep him from passing his demons to him.
Tony swatted at his hands, but Al refused to give up no matter how heartbroken he was. This would not be his and his son’s final time together. Tony kept his arms around his skull trying to squeeze until it crushed under the pressure, but did not yet have the muscles of the dead.
Al said a prayer and punched his son square in the nose, knocking him back a few feet. When Al got a bout of confidence, he took a second, heartbreaking swing. This time, Tony caught it. The power that he’d heard about from the dead developing very quickly made Al a believer. Tony caught his wrist and using all of his forward momentum, he took his father’s forearm in his free hand and brought it down, snapping it. Al screamed, “No!” and the curtain shot open. Lou saw the blood, bite wound, and Al’s state, and took very little time to know what was going on.
Lou tried to slam on the brakes and floor it to throw the boy off balance, but it did not work. The brake sent him forward directly towards Lou. When he punched the gas, the boy gripped Lou’s seat belt, pulling himself forward. Lou was elbowing the boy in the top of the head as he was on his knees beside him. “Get the fuck away from me, damn it!”
He screamed after three elbows, catching Lou’s arm, then pulled himself up and made six quick claw arcs at Lou’s face. Lou could feel the nails, which felt were more like carpenter’s nails, being dragged down the side of his face, turning it to pulp. The boy had no clue what he was doing and pulled the wheel to the side. The ambulance turned abruptly, and the wheels arched off the ground, sending it into a slide. Lou was trapped in place as they slid. The pavement was only inches from his face. Tony held his face down to the pavement, making the left side of his face now match more closely to the right side. It burned as he was dragged across it.
Lou screamed, doing everything he could to fight him off, but knew he was fucked. There was nothing that would save him. He could see the gun bouncing back and forth in front of him, but could not reach it. He knew if he hit his belt that he would be ripped apart, going out the window. Lou thought of the others on the southside, and the horrible thoughts that would be going through their minds thinking they needed help; that they needed to be saved. He would not let them fall into this monster’s hands.
Lou reached up with his left hand, trying to pull Tony down and out, but the boy gripped on to Lou’s mouth, squeezing until it felt like he was going to cave it in.
Tony began smashing Lou’s head against the headrest. He did everything he could, but the change had happened, and he was now overpowered by the teen. Lou felt teeth dig into his cheek. The ambulance came to a stop, and the boy chewed greedily. Al moaned from the back of the ambulance, making Tony almost forget all about Lou. Tony ripped into his shoulder, taking one last bite, and left Lou to bleed by himself, still stuck in his seat. Lou hit the seatbelt release, trying to wipe the blood from his eyes. The world around him growing dark and beginning to spin. The thoughts of his daughters fading away slowly and being replaced with a hunger like he’d never before experienced. He realized with his final thoughts, as his heart exploded in his chest, that he was becoming one of them.
Al was kicking at the back door to the ambulance, trying to open it but doing little to make it open with his good arm broken. Tony slammed into his father, making the doors explode open, and the two tumbled onto the street. Kya hit her brakes, sending the Humvee into a skid. She looked at the group of teens who weren’t ready to do anything to assist, and as she came to a stop, shifted the transmission into reverse, hitting the gas and sending them backwards, having to hold onto something to keep from falling out of the seats.
Joey yelled, “What are you doing?! They need help!”
Kya yelled, “Tony’s past help, and Al doesn’t look too good himself, Joey. We need to keep these kids safe and away!”
When she was forty yards back, she grabbed her rifle, as did Ellie, and Joey gripped his baseball bat, forgetting about his hand.
In the other car, Jon yelled, “Oh, fuck!”
Clary looked to him, surprised, as he was one of the more behaved kids he had under him. He saw his eyes and looked behind them. His gentle smile very quickly faded. “Oh, no. Stop, Jon! Stop now!”
As Jon was pulling to a stop, Clary already had the door to the Humvee open, stepping out and away. Yassa saw what was happening and ran for the rear of the Humvee, opening the door and jumping out. He had his bow in one hand and checked that the pistol was still on his waistband. Clary took off running for Al and Tony.
Al was still trying to keep his son at bay but was failing miserably. Tony took his dad’s broken arm, squeezing and twisting it until he ripped it from his body. Al screamed as he watched his son treating it like a straw, mouth wrapped around the cartilage and flaps of skin. He began tearing at the fat on his forearm. Al tried kicking him off, but the boy brought his treat down like a club, hitting Al with everything that he had, sending his head back hard enough on the pavement to make it bounce back off. Tony went for the gushing blood, biting into his father’s arm. Clary took aim, but knew the bullets would rip right through the boy and end up down in Ellie, or god knows who.
Yassa watched him hesitating, not seeing why he was waiting. “Are you gonna shoot that fucking thing or not?”
“I can’t! It might hit one of the kids or ricochet in and get Lou. You any good with that bow, or is it just to make you look cool?”
“I don’t need any help to look cool.”
Yassa pulled back an arrow, aiming for Tony’s chest. He released the string, letting the arrow cut the through the air.
Tony heard it moving, not kno
wing it was a threat, and moved just before it hit home. The arrow, tipped with a single, broad head blade, pierced through his skin. Tony got up off his father, who was convulsing on the ground, going through a turn of his own. His body was spasming. Tony looked down at his shoulder, seeing the arrow protruding from it, and made the connection between it and what Yassa was placing back onto the string.
Tony knelt low, leaping into the air and making any shot with a bow useless for him. Clary knocked Yassa out of the way and stepped far enough to the side that his rounds would not find Ellie or the others. He unleashed a full magazine on Tony. The boy dropped to the ground, landing on his back. He flopped around, the bullets having torn through his sides, spine, and knee. He lay there, temporarily paralyzed.
