The Orphans (Book 3): Strangers

by Evans, Mike

  They went through the house methodically checking every corner and room. When they had found nothing Philip slipped from the group and disappeared into the bathroom. Eric moved to the kitchen and came back rattling trying to balance a handful worth of bottle beer and refusing to relinquish his grip on the pistol or for one moment put it down for fear that Tim might take it back leaving him naked.

  Cedric disappeared into his bedroom Tim was trying to get the television to come in when he heard the rattling of a gun locker which might have been the sweetest, sweetest thing that he had ever heard before. He ignored the set and went down to the bedroom where Cedric was pulling out a small arsenal. Tim who had the sense to ask a very intelligent much needed question said, “You got ammo for all of that Cedric?”

  He had a smile on his face that did nothing to make Tim feel any better. He pulled out a ammo can pointing at it proudly. “What do you think this here is?”

  Tim walked in opening the can seeing it was almost half full, or as he was beginning to think today definitely half empty. “Cedric you did see how many of those things that there were. I mean unless you are going to never miss and you are going to kill like a hundred with each bullet we are going to need to find more bullets. We are going to find lots more of everything.”

  Cedric was in pure agreement with him and pulled out magazines for the AR and tossed a shotgun over to Tim who loaded it with slugs. Screaming came from the living room the two men grabbed the extra two rifles and made their way into the room with rifles up ready to go. They skidded trying not to run into Eric and trying to not push him through the flat screen television. Eric sat unmoving in front of the set he looked frozen in place. Cedric screamed pushing him from behind. “What the hell are you screaming about dipshit?”

  Philip stumbled out with his board in one hand and still trying to secure his pants with his other. “Jesus I thought those things had found us already.”

  Eric pointed his right hand that he still had clasped tightly around the massive revolver at the television. “Look….look at the television, fuck yeah i’m screaming. Look there would you.”

  The men fanned out all watching the tv set. They wanted a man with an impeccable hairdo but also with the most terrorized expression stretched across his overly tan faced. Eric set the beer down and turned up the television. They read the name going across the bottom of the television each word coming up was like some new discovery they hadn’t known before. The funny thing about it was they had been watching the news reporter David Lund for the last five years but at this point and time he seemed like a alien sitting in front of strange war zone. It hit like a landmine once the words Des Moines, Iowa scrolled across the bottom.

  The men stared a sense of cold crept up their legs moving up their body slowly as what they hadn’t expected to see came true. The reporter was so nervous he had to be directed to lift the microphone to his face so everyone could hear. “Hello my name is David Lund bringing you...uh bringing you the news first with channel five at five. There is something horrible it seems that is going on in downtown Des Moines. We came down originally from reports of a crashed medical helicopter and what we found was much worse.”

  Eric said, “Hey how do you think that they got his hair to stay like that?”

  A hand was already flying through the air from Cedric to the back of Eric’s head. “Shut up moron, fuck maybe they’ll give us something that we need to know.”

  Tim said, “Christ, would you quit, we don’t know anything about these fucking things except the only thing that seems to take them out is a shot to the head. He pushed his second rifle over to Philip who gladly exchanged it for the piece of wood. He checked it out looking up and said its a freaking twenty two, are you kidding me? Am I going to be shooting at zombies or squirrels for god sakes?”

  Ceric said, “Well I hope that Eric likes twenty twos more than you do because that is what he is getting also. I don’t got money to burn on weapons. One ar and a shotgun will get you through a ton of scenarios.”

  Eric yelled, “This ain’t going to cut it with those things, we needs to go and get set up for the longhaul. We got a gun shop not more than a few miles from here all we gotta do is make it back through town again and we will be good to go. That old guy won’t be able to do anything to keep us out once we get there. What’s he going to do tell us that we can’t come in? There’s four on one.”

  Tim said, “Dude it’s stealing, we aren’t going to go and stick some guy up for his hard earned shit.”

  Philip looking at the skinny rifle in his hand said, “Uh I think that I could probably be talked into doing something like that. Hell why don’t we just take him with us, he’ll need someone to watch his back, what good are all those guns if he can’t have someone watching out for him right? I mean he can only fire those things off so fast and he’ll have to reload at some point and i bet the two or three seconds while he’s locking and loading that he’d like to think someone might be there to help out right?”

  The men nodded and the reporter they’d been talking over was screaming, “Whatever you do please don’t approach them. We don’t have anything but initial reports. Cell phones seem to be down the helicopter that we had came to originally report on was the reason for that crashing directly into it. When we went a few hours later to speak to the head of the hospital and see what happened we found this.”

  The camera panned across the parking lot of the hospital and a lone car with two men firing into the air sped out of the drive. A hand pointed at the people who were attacking innocents left and right ripping and gorging on anything they could remove from their bodies. Eric had tears in his eyes by this point and was no longer worried about the fact that he was on a televised news network, “Jesus fucking christ, what the hell happened to those things. I don’t understand how this is-”

  A what was once a ninety year old woman who had been Turned jumped in from off the screen gripping the two hundred plus pound man like a ragdoll and knocking him to the ground. He kicked her off throwing her five feet away and pushed up to the ground. The cameraman who was worried about survival over his job heaved the camera it spun in the air sky then ground then it connected with the old lady who was pushing herself up to the ground as if she was a teen. It knocked her back to the ground she screamed a war cry filled with hunger and hate. The camera fell showing the camera man running for everything he had back to the news channel five van that was waiting for them.

  The camera was barely in focus but none of the men watching were upset. Not one of them were interested in seeing the gory details crisp and clear. What they could make out was still more than any man wanted to see. The cameraman who was a healthy meal to be had was running for everything he had. The reporter was running before he was fully standing.

  Eric screamed at the television, “Run god damn it, run now!”

  The reporter was trying to push off the ground as he was still trying to right his balance. Doing more of a bear crawl that a run. The elderly Turned pushed to her feet running leaping with her hands. When she was close enough she exploded into the air going out of the view of the camera and when she made her way back into view landed squarely on his shoulders.

  She brought up two skinny arms bringing them down with such force that she split the reporters face wide open. His blood sprayed from the wound landing in her mouth making her drunk with hunger. She buried herself deep into his neck clenching tight and pulled off the side of his neck, it’s blood pouring freely now. Other Turned whom had not seen the fresh meals were racing past her, their eyes planted firmly on the cameraman ahead of them trying to get into his van.

  The television cut to the news at five logo for a moment advising that they were having temporary technical difficulties. When it came back on a well dressed anchorman and woman were sitting staring at the camera mouth open shaking their heads. They had not been told they were back on the air yet and the man yelled at who could only be a producer, “Well what the fuck do you want
me to tell them Roger? To be on the look out for perfectly normal looking grandmas that would like to rip your goddamn head off? Jesus christ, what the fuck are we even doing here? Did you see the video feed, there’s no one watching this shit because everyone is either hiding, or already one of those bastards. We are all fucked!”

  His face went a new shade of white when the unseen man had relayed that they were live and broadcasting right now. The man smiled adjusting his tie and started back up, “Well as you can see viewers that there is something very wrong in the city. Airways have been shut down immediately the last planes that have left are going to be the last ones allowed to do so.”

  The mystery man came onto the news stage and handed the woman a slip of paper to read from. She read it before cutting the man off, “Hello, we have received a report from the local government that we need to stay inside consider everyone on a curfew that is in effect until new information comes out. Camp dodge and all of the reserve units in the state are being called active immediately. The government is going to be setting up safe zones to come to. If you are feeling ill please stay in your home, do not attempt to leave. Please do not try and leave the state we are sure that those who do will be shot on sight if you try passing borders. The best thing you can do is stay inside and not try to make contact with the infected. Every option is being looked at but it will take time to put the plan of evacuation together. Thank you and god bless.”

  The anchorman who was past his job at this point just stared at her, “Well thank you Molly, son of a bitch we are all fucked.”

  He threw his notes on the table and ripped his mic off cursing his way off stage. Molly smiled looking down at her notes, “Please stay tuned for further details, we will be getting them to you as soon as possible.”

  The woman grew fearful as a growling came from off camera. What looked like a bucket of blood being thrown across the room painted her and the set followed by the leftovers of a head. When she tried to get up to run one of the Turned jumped onto the set knocking her backwards and only her legs stayed in air shaking violently as she was fed upon.

  The four men just stared at the carnage unable to fully process what was happening. Philip said, “So i’d say that travelling is out right? I was kind of thinking if it was just in Adel we weren’t really all that bad off you know?”

  Tim said, “Oh i’d say Des Moines is definitely not a possiblilty. We aren’t able to leave the state, at least that’s what they say.”

  Eric said, “What do you mean?”

  “Simple, how far is Dallas Center from here eight minutes maybe right? If you wanted to get there without taking a paved road, do you think you could?”

  “Well yeah dipshit, all we gots to do is go on gravel roads but we can’t get all the way to another state by them man?”

  “No but we can sure as hell take every podunk town road that we can praying that we don’t run into any of those things. We need to stock up on food and guns and get out of here.”

  Cedric cut in, “Wait if we try and leave and we get stuck we don’t have nearly what we need man, I saw we try and give the guard a few days to clear those things out, you never know it might work right?”

  The men were all ok with this and over the next few hours they watched more reports losing hope with every second that they were already to far behind the spread to be able to get somewhere that was free. The reports showed it spreading to the west faster than the east but only because the military was focused on keeping as much firepower between the Turned and Washington as possible. Information was relayed to citizens as it was figured out only to be recalled later and given something different in its place.

  They made their way up and down the block knocking and trying to find any other survivors as they did Philip yelled, “Dude, were we like the only ones who didn’t go to that stupid rally?”

  Tim who realized they’d gone up and down the block and they were yet to run into another human said, “Yeah you know it kind of looks that way doesn’t it?”

  The men had been stuffing all the food that they could find into luggage at the people’s homes and marking down any house that they had found gun lockers in not wanting to waste time looking for keys that might not be able to find. They had enough to eat for weeks after raiding everyones pantries and Tim was becoming thankful for having a crew to run with unsure what would have happened had it just been himself at the bar when those things had shown up. He thought about the two on the fourwheeler and wondered where they were and how they had known what was happening, they were genius for getting out of the city.

  Day Three

  The men had seen the news reports saying to stay put and had ignored them happy with their haul that they’d gotten. The kitchen was as packed as it would have ever been, and their ammo supply while still lacking was much better than it had been to start off with. Each of the men had a rifle and a pistol now of different calibers. The news had stopped reporting and only the emergency broadcast channel sign had shown up with the exception of one daily report from the center for disease control. The men had ignored the reports saying to try and make it to the large sports arena in Des Moines knowing that if they could make it through hell to get there that there was nothing guaranteeing them that they would be safe or allowed to bring in firearms which they would be leaving without over their dead bodies.

  Eric said, “You know what I say we go and try to see that gun dealer Andy. It’s been three days by now, I don’t care who you are, you are going to want to have some company by now, you k now what i mean?”

  Cedric looked at Tim who’d been the unelected group leader. “Tim what do you think? You’ve had some pretty good ideas so far.”

  Tim looked out the window seeing nothing going down the block. He shrugged, “I can’t see what it’s going to hurt doing a quick drive through town. There must be someone out there fighting after that bomb blast going off yesterday. Maybe someone figured out how to blow all the damn things up.”

  Eric cut in, “Yeah that or maybe someone got drunk as shit and drove their car straight into somebodies gas station pump.”

  Philip raised a hand that wasn’t needed, “You know just a thought but do you think we might stop back by the bar on our way to Andy’s place?”

  TIm said, “Dude I told you I don’t have any other guns there, besides we are going to a gun store.”

  Eric laughed, “Are you kidding me, he doesn’t give a shit about the guns, Philip is worried about going through a zombie apocalypse dead sober, we ran out of beer on day one of this shit. I for one would be more than happy to take a swing by yur place and pick up a couple of….well pick up all of your kegs. I mean if someone hasn’t already looted all your shit then I say we might as well take them with, and smokes, we should get smokes.”

  Tim said, “So your shopping list for the zombie apocalypse is smokes, beer, and guns?”

  Eric smiled winking, “You got it brother, now let’s grab all your guns and shit and lets get moving.”

  The men made their way around the house collecting all of the ammo that they had collected the last couple days. They filled packs that they could carry with them and when every pocket was full and they looked like they could burst from the seems that was when Tim said, “We need to put the rest of this in the pickup. We don’t want to leave any of it behind.”

  “Christ how much more do you think that we need Tim?” Eric Asked.

  “I think we need all of this and thousand and tens of thousands more. We need food, and warm clothes when winter comes and some kind of kevlar, you saw what happened when they got bit in the alleyway. It took seconds before they turned into one of those things. I don’t know what it is that happens and I don’t have any interest in finding out.”

  Eric interrupted the spiel, “Beer….beer we need beer lots of it probably hard liquor to. God knows that the breweries bless their hearts are gonna have to take a break for a while. Man it would have been cool if we could’ve been stuck in one of those p
laces.”

  Philip and Eric both looked to the ground in sorrow for the stoppage of beer being made. The two might as well have been at a funeral with the compassion they showed in their faces. Tim said, “You guys do realize that we are going to a grocery store right? What I mean is that they have beer and liquor there right? We can get stocked up with enough booze to drink yourselves stupid. We can get enough non perishable foods hopefully to make a stand somewhere? Hell I don’t give a shit if it’s right here as long as we got the supplies that we need and can stay safe and sound.”

  They walked out slowly checking out the side driveway and the back yard. All of tem walked cautiously guns up and relieved when there was nothing on the ground. Eric said, “We are going to need a bigger truck if we’re getting all of these supplies i mean-”

  A single droplet and then a few more droplets of blood hit him in the forehead. He wiped at it seeing the dark red blood smeared on his fingers and hand. A mangled leg dropped in front of him not attached to a body. Eric screamed jumping back under the roofs edge. He had nothing in his gunsights but began firing as fast and rapidly as he could pull the trigger.”

  The bullets punched through the roof sending pieces of wood down into his eyes. The bullets were able to hit the Turned but doing little damage. Had it been able to feel pain it would have thoroughly pissed it off. It leapt off of the roof’s edge landing on the truck’s roof fifteen feet away. It screamed for everything that it had. Pieces of the leg fell from the mouth of Turned. It clenched it’s fists sticking it’s chest out never letting up its cry. Cedric Philip and Eric unleashed hell’s fire on it hitting it dead center in the chest from all three rifles. The force of that many bullets knocked it backwards on the opposite side of the pickup truck and out of view.