The Orphans (Book 4): White Lie

by Evans, Mike

  “Well then we aren’t much smarter, given we are outside.”

  “Yeah but I’m only outside because I wanted some one on one time with you. Still though, I’d love to know where they are hiding.”

  “Well in our defense, we’ve really only been looking for twenty minutes. Maybe Clary or Aslin put them on a special assignment? Want to go and ask them about it?”

  “Yeah we better, I’m not so worried about Shaun or Ellie, but God knows what Greg is up to.”

  They knew where to find Clary when he had free time. They made their way into the armory and found him hunched over a set of AR’s and chewing on a cigar, whistling a song they didn’t know. Patrick asked, “Hey Clary how you doing?”

  Clary looked up over a rail that he was attaching a night scope to and saw the two love birds. “I don’t know, it depends Patrick.”

  Patrick asked it, though already knowing what the answer was, “Depends on what Clary?”

  “On if you are going to take a crap on my somewhat pleasant day or not Patrick. You see, when you are an adult, people never come to see how you are doing, and they never want to know if you need help. They simply come to you when there is either a job that they can’t do, that is too shitty to do, or they just plain don’t want to do. So to figure out if you will ruin mine, let me ask, is your purpose for being here any of those reasons?”

  Patrick and Kya both shook their heads no.

  Clary actually gave up a rare smile. “Well hell, if you aren’t here to ask me to do anything then pull up a seat. What did you guys come in for, hell did you need something to do? Patrick, you know I can always use someone that knows what they are doing and that can help me out. We need to keep these rifles in good condition or at some point we aren’t going to have anything to defend ourselves with that goes bang.”

  Patrick said, “Well, yeah, I would like to be able to help out actually but that isn’t what we are here for today.”

  Clary just stared, waiting for it and when Patrick missed the point that he should just keep talking, Kya cut in, “We are looking for the group, do you know where they are? We’ve been looking for them for a while now.”

  Clary set the scope down and lit up the cigar he been saving for later. “You know you’re going to ruin my day right? I guess I didn’t remember to mention that, that was one of the other reasons people come to me, it’s sometimes not because they need something, sometimes it's simply because they want to take a giant crap on my day and then make me step in it. You see, what will happen next is going to be something like me going to look around for them and then I'm going to figure out that they did something stupid. Just don’t tell me that they are with Greg.”

  Kya shrugged and said, “Well, we don’t actually know that, but the bad news is that we haven’t found him either and if he’s out and about and not looking for girls then there is a pretty strong chance that he is with Shaun or Joey and we can only assume Ellie is with one of them.”

  Clary lit his cigar again taking a long puff off of it while stretching out his back and thinking of what trouble he could be getting into on his own if the two of them weren’t able to find them. Christ, I need to keep that damn kid busy twenty four seven, he thought to himself. “I want you to get back to the barracks and I want you to double check he isn’t there, and if he is, you come back and let me know. Now, if he isn’t there and you still can’t find him, I’d like to give you the unpleasant job of coming back and telling me, in which case I'll be stopping this delightful work and moving on to wasting the better part of my day searching the entire base for them,” he instructed the two teenagers.

  Kya said, “You sure that you don’t want to come with?”

  “It would probably speed things up wouldn’t it? Besides, do I have a choice?”

  She said, “Well you do, but most likely we are just going to follow you around until we find them also.”

  Clary pulled on his parka and grabbed his rifle, making sure that it was fully locked and cocked. He pulled on a watch cap after thinking about it and deciding that the only way to find them was to go out into the cold. He said, “There was a reason that my family didn’t settle in the cold, you know what it is? It’s because going outside in Iowa make’s your face hurt, what idiot would stop moving across the country in a state that made their face hurt? I don’t need five hundred feet of snow to make my life perfect. You know why people stayed in this state? It’s because they had to have been quitters. Anyone that wasn’t a quitter just kept going and was rewarded with California or anywhere on the west coast.”

  Patrick just stared at him and asked, “Damn, are you bitter much? It isn’t my fault that the apocalypse didn’t start in California for you. Just think, how hard it would be though if it wasn’t for bad weather?”

  “What do you mean by that?” Clary asked.

  “If the Turned didn’t have a foot of snow to move through and it was eighty degrees each and every day, can you imagine how dangerous they would be? We wouldn’t ever be able to sleep, we’d have to keep one eye open and always be on guard, I mean more so than we are now. We would have to worry about their packs moving through more often, but at the same time, we’d also be able to try and make a break for it without having to worry about losing our vehicles into a ditch and being a sitting duck waiting for them to rip the doors out and pull out-”

  Kya said, “Patrick that is enough. God, are you trying to make sure no one ever sleeps again? I’m sorry we don’t have a base shrink but it doesn’t mean you need to embrace the sickness.”

  Clary said, “You know what, on second thought, I don’t want you to come with me. You go on back to the barracks and check on them and make sure they didn’t sneak back in. If they did, then let me know about it. If they didn’t, well duh, don’t go ahead and keep looking for them, stay put so I don’t have to go looking for you when I eventually do find them.”

  When they went outside to split up they were confronted with a thick icy snow that felt like each ice covered flake was pinching at their skin. Patrick and Kya pulled up scarves to shield themselves from the cold. Clary, not being a scarf kind of guy, was glad for the thick beard that he had grown over the last four months. He’d been unable to do it while employed by the military and it was a bucket list item he’d been wanting to cross off for quite some time, though just not under the present circumstances. He looked up at the dark skies that were casting the storm down on them and said, “God damn it, they better not have left the base or they are going to be on their own.”

  Patrick snapped, “What do you mean they are going to be on their own? We can’t leave anyone out in this. What if they are hurt, or stranded? What are we going to do then?”

  Clary said, “Well then I guess we just sort of pray that they are ok, and that they’ve learned enough over the last nine months to take care of themselves and each other. Are you two just thinking that it is Shaun and Greg?”

  Kya said, “Actually I haven’t seen Joey or Ellie all afternoon either.”

  Clary knew that Ellie could more than take care of herself but as much as he did not want to give extra worry to Joey because of his special needs, at times he was unable to do anything about it. He said, “Oh for God sakes, they took Joey with them. Damn it, if anything happens to him they aren’t ever going to be able to surgically remove my foot from Greg and Shaun’s ass.”

  Kya said, “We will let you know if we hear anything back at the barracks.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Clary disappeared into the blanket of whiteness, already coming up with jobs for them to do that they only thought was something you saw in movies. He could only imagine the dumb shit that Greg could come up with when left to himself. Clary hit his radio to Aslin’s channel. “Hey what’re you doing?”

  Aslin hit the talk and said, “I’m working, I’m always working Clary. What do you want?”

  “Well hello to you too Princess Aslin. I could use a hand with something.”

  “What?�
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  “We can’t find a few of the group.”

  “The group?”

  “Yeah, the group. The biggest pain in our ass or at least one of them anyways.”

  “Greg?”

  “Yup, he’s MIA. I don’t know where he is-”

  “Yeah that’s kind of what missing in action stands for isn’t it? This base is big but it isn’t that big. Do you have the girls all accounted for? If he isn’t chasing one of them around there’s a good chance that he is with some of the originals.”

  “Yeah that’s part of the problem. Greg, Shaun, Ellie, and Joey are all missing.”

  “Really? Is anyone watching anyone anymore or is it just a free for all?

  “I’ve been working all day too, what are you doing that is so important?”

  Aslin smiled as he leaned down and aimed at a bank shot on the pool table. “I’ve got more going on than you can imagine. I could explain it, but you know, you’re not my boss.”

  “You aren’t shooting pool are you?”

  “You know, now you are starting to offend me. I’ll meet you over by the mess hall in twenty.”

  Clary said, “Well, I will be inside, I don’t know if you’ve looked outside anytime recently, but we have a fucking blizzard starting up and it looks like it’s going to be here for a while, or not. Who the hell knows without the news.”

  Aslin opened the curtains to the rec hall and saw that you couldn’t see past twenty feet away. He thought of the Turned and knew that they’d all be screwed if they had to deal with any of them outside in this. He threw the stick on the table and bundled up and headed outside, cursing the kids for having to endure the cold.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Kya and Patrick walked into the snow towards the barracks. She said, “I think you could have left your rifle at the armory and just brought your AR with. You aren’t going to be able to see anything with that thing in this mess.”

  “Better to have it and not need it right? Come on let’s see if we can get lucky and wrap this up before they get in some serious trouble. They hate Greg the way it is, so anything we can do to lessen the ass chewing he’s going to get is probably for the best, right?”

  “Well if he’d stay out of trouble and show just the littlest amount of respect maybe they would not butt heads with him so often.”

  They pushed through to the barracks and with the exception of the two of them; there weren’t many people in there. They felt the warmth on their cheeks and were grateful for it. The rest of the teens were more than likely standing in guard towers. They walked up to Andy, one of the only kids in there to ask question of. Patrick asked, “Hey Andy, have you seen Greg or Shaun anywhere?”

  “What am I, their babysitter?”

  Kya laughed. “Well no, they are more like your babysitter considering they keep watch most the time while you get to have a good night’s sleep.”

  Patrick cut in and asked, “Is it that hard to just say that you have or have not seen them? We are in a hurry and the longer that you waste our time the more we are going to have to tell Clary and Aslin that you were pissing around.”

  Andy perked right up and said, “Oh, well you didn’t tell me that you were on a job for them, crap.”

  “Christ man, it isn’t rocket science. Do you know where the four of them are or not?” Kya asked.

  Andy said, “I think you are going to get them in trouble, well I mean you are going to get us in trouble, mostly me.”

  Kya said, “You sound like you are going to tell me something that is going to really piss off Clary.”

  “No, I can’t see how it would piss either of them off,” Andy said. Patrick rolled his fingers indicating for him to keep talking. Andy continued, “Well I can’t see how they could be mad. I mean they were the ones who said that it was ok. I thought that it was pretty bad ass that they were going to get a pass.”

  Patrick asked the question, “A pass? What do you mean a pass? You are starting to make me even more nervous.”

  “You two are both screwing with me, why don’t you knock it off. He told me this morning that it was cool if he took a few people out with him and that they were going to get some supplies and try and see if they could find any other survivors on the outside. They were going to bring them back in. It sounded like it was mostly a fact finding mission though,” Andy said.

  Patrick started pacing while looking at the radio and cursing under his breath as he walked away, kicking at objects that weren’t in the air but that he looked like he hated more than the Turned. The idea of having to be the one to inevitably give Clary the bad news was boiling his insides.

  “I don’t understand, what did I say?” asked Andy.

  Kya patted him on the shoulder. “Is it nice being you Andy? I mean, do you enjoy the idea of everything you hear being true? There’s no way that they told Greg, of all people, that they could leave. He doesn’t let Greg do anything that he doesn’t know what the outcome is going to be.”

  “Then why would they leave?” asked Andy.

  “Because they, much like you guys, have all been here for quite some time and probably just needed to bust free for a while. Now why in the hell he decided to pick a day as crappy as this, only he can tell us, given that he comes back.”

  Andy, without thinking, asked, “Wait, what do you mean if he comes back. Why wouldn’t they come back?”

  Kya, already walking away to follow Patrick, stopped and said, “Are you dense? Zombies Andy, zombies, lots of them too, hungry and pissed and not discriminatory in who they kill.”

  “But they’ve been training for months on end, I mean, they help us with training,” he said.

  “Right they do, and they are good. I don’t know about you but I've seen hordes of those things in the city. When they come at you, if you don’t have enough bullets to put them down, then you don’t stand a chance. Not to bring up the fact what happens if you don’t have the distance you need between you and them because, well, you get the point don’t you?”

  He nodded and said, “So-”

  Kya patted him on the shoulder and said, “I don’t think that he had permission. I figure he either lied to the others or that they wanted to leave as well, anyways don’t worry, it isn’t your fault.”

  *****

  Patrick was leaning into the snow, holding up a hand and trying to see. He looked around the base and could see nothing. He hit his radio, “Clary, Aslin can you hear this?”

  Clary came back, “Yeah, what did you two find out at the barracks?”

  “We spoke to Andy, and I don’t have good news, Clary.”

  “You going to ruin my day by chance Patrick? Can I assume that is an accurate assumption?”

  Patrick hated giving bad news and he always had. He felt like he was letting down a teacher at school. “Yeah I'm really going to piss you off, but just remember, don’t shoot the messenger please.”

  Aslin came over and said, “Quit wasting time Patrick, what is it?”

  “They’re gone.”

  A string of cursing came back that was anything but able to be understood. Clary screamed back over the radio, “What in the hell do you mean that they are gone? Where the hell did they go?”

  Kya came up behind Patrick, slowly whispering, “How’s it going?”

  Patrick let off the transmit button shaking his head. “I’d say that we definitely ruined their day. I’m going to just let them stay missing next time. Somehow we are going to get into trouble because the rest of them are morons.”

  Kya laughed a little, not having the same worry that Patrick did. She was more concerned with the safety of her friends than having to worry about upsetting their superiors. She said, “Yeah you know the least they could’ve done if they were going to get in trouble was to invite us along. I mean really, you’re going to go to town and not invite your friends to come with? That just seems inconsiderate.”

  “Well we might have been elsewhere at the time or did you forget about that?”

/>   Not that Patrick could see it but Kya blushed and gripped his hand trying to make him less stressed. Patrick held up the radio and could still hear strings of curses a minute later. He was starting to wonder if he’d stop and if it was still considered the English language at this point. He knew that between Aslin and Clary it was almost not coherent at all. Patrick took a deep breath and broke into their rants. “Ok guys what do you want to do? If you need to go get them, or go look for them, let me be the first to volunteer please.”

  Aslin came over and said, “Yeah you bet your sweet ass you’ll be coming, you and Kya are one of the only other ones who have been doing weapons training since you got here. The rest are all still wet behind the ears and I don’t know if we are doing anyone, including ourselves, a favor taking them with us. They still need more time to train.”

  “So where do you want us to meet you at so we can leave?” asked Patrick.

  Clary cut in, just as worried, but trying to be rational. “I’m sorry but did either of you happen to notice the fucking blizzard? I know both of you have glasses but I didn’t think that you were blind because of it. How do you expect to go anywhere? You have to be able to see to drive. I know we don’t go out cruising everyday but think about it. You and I both know that we are just going to be sitting ducks if we go out in this.”

  Aslin said, “Wait, wait, wait, so you are suggesting that we just don’t go? I mean is that what you are seriously saying? We can’t leave them out there in this.”

  Clary pinched at the bridge of his nose then said, “Hey look, I don’t want to leave them out there but if we can’t see anything we can’t make it safely.”

  “I’m sorry, are you really worried about being safe or are you scared?” Aslin asked.

  “Look, you know I'm not scared of anything but unless you forgot, we have other responsibilities, lots of them that need to eat. Do I want to leave those kids out there considering they are even stranded in the first place? Hell no I don't. But what do you want to do, just leave the rest of the kids here with no one to watch over them?”