The Orphans (Book 3): Strangers

by Evans, Mike

  Eric smiled wincing in pain. “You….you really think I looked like Mel Gibson?”

  “Hell yes that was bad ass.”

  Matt said, “You guys think maybe we should get going, you know while there aren’t anything running after us and trying to eat us.”

  Philip came back to reality pushing up and backing the bus up to avoid the light pole and they made their way down the street and out of town. Matt came up sitting by Eric who was holding his side and said, “You alright man?”

  Eric pushed himself up in his seat patting his sides down until he found his smokes and lit one up. Thinking how it very well could be the best one that he’d ever had. He said, “Yeah i’m alright I think, I don’t think i’ll be doin that anytime soon though.”

  Matt said, “Yeah well that’s probably a good idea seeing how as you almost got yourself killed a couple times back there.”

  Philip yelled over his shoulder, “Where the hell am I going?”

  Eric pulled the piece of paper from the shop that he’d taken and handed it over to Matt who gave it to Philip. Philip said, “You sure that’s a good idea.”

  “I’m not sure anything is a good idea at this point, but we gotta do something or we are just going to sit and die.”

  “You are such a chipper little thing you know that right?”

  Chapter - Waiting

  Ellie watched as they drove away. She was unhappy and feeling a sense of insecurity about the group splitting up. Each time they did, they had some sort of heartache which seemed to happen and no good had came from it. She kicked at the gravel driveway sending rocks flying. Jen walked up by gripping her shoulder. “I’m not any happier about them leaving than you are. My brother is in that truck and he is the only one left to help me take care of Joey. Are those guys any good?”

  Ellie shrugged watching the dust from the gravel road dissapear into the sky. “I don’t know they were the only ones out of their group that survived yesterday. They probabl kept us alive to. I don’t know what would have happened if we’d have gone to the chemical plant by ourselves with those things running around in there. I guess they are good? They think they can at lesat teach us how to shoot and maybe survive.”

  “So you guys are just going to stay here until you hear something?”

  “There isn’t any reason to leave from what I can see. We have been cut off from everything since the outbreak. Shaun’s dad, Frank wasted no time getting us out of the city,” Ellie laughed a little, “of course that didn’t do a hell of a lot of good given the fact that we just went right back to town again on Tuesday.”

  “So you had somewhere that was safe and then you left it to go back to town? What were you thinking? I wouldn’t go anywhere if I had a safe place, we would have starved if we would have stayed in that building.”

  Ellie pointed to Patrick who was staring intently at the television through the porch window. “He was with us on day one. His name is Patrick and he is diabetic. He had only planned on going to this school welcome home rally for our school volleyball team and didn’t bring any extra medicine with him or any of his testing stuff. So with the whole zombie outbreak thing and them trying to eat us he kind of forgot to mention that he needed it to stay alive.”

  “Wow so you guys went back down just to get his drugs, that is pretty ballsy of you.”

  Ellie shook her head no, “It’s just what friends do for each other, we really only met him the day before but we couldn’t see watching him die just because we were to scared to go and get his meds, you know?”

  Jenn shrugged, “I really don’t know if i’d have been able to go and do something like that for a complete stranger.”

  “We actually thought he’d neglected to tell us he had gotten bitten but after checking his wrist we saw the bracelet that has his diabetic writing on it advising if he ever had medics come help him to be extra cautious giving him extra drugs. If you would have saw him sweating and shivering on the cabin floor you would have helped him i’m sure of it.”

  She nodded thinking of her brothers and knowing that there was nothing beyond trudging through hell and back that would keep her from doing something if it meant saving them. “So did you guys lose everyone yesterday also?”

  “Pretty much, my dad was already out of the picture, so I can’t really say as he was a big worry about the end of the world coming and if he was going to be around. My mom was already on her way out from cancer.”

  “Wow so you guys really had a tough first day to didn’t you?”

  “I don’t think anyone that survived day one had a very good day, it’s kind of defeating knowing that anyone that was left after yesterday more than likely lost someone they loved. We haven’t even had time to mourn since the whole thing happened, if you sit around to long you die. But hopefully now that we are here we will be able to have some down time or at least we can pray right. It can’t just be a constant battle we aren’t going to make it if we keep up like this, there’s only so much luck to go around. The fact that Greg was able to make it through yesterday was a miracle. We lost Kristy and I think it really messed with his head.”

  “Were they dating?”

  “No, but he definitely looked like he was going to be interested in it. No one in the group of us is dating, well maybe me and Shaun; but that is kind of more complicated. I don’t want to get into it.”

  “What you’ve got something better to do?”

  “No, it just kind of brings up every bad memory i’ve ever had in the last year, but yeah lets chat about it. Last year during school a boy and his friends was messing with me in the hallway. Well Shaun saw this and thought he should do something about it. Him and I kind of became close after that. Well when it had all happened his dad and my mom had to come and get us from the principals office which really was pretty entertaining hearing someone give him the ass chewing of his life. Well his dad and my mom hit it off and that did little between Shaun And his dad getting along because Shaun liked me. So they got engaged after my mom was diagnosed with cancer. Frank had some drug that she was trying that ended up not being anything. He had been trying to come up with a drug, or modify some drug that he already had from when he was in the army doing research for some project, well the drug that was developed was altered by the guy that worked with him and it got distributed.”

  “So his dad is the one responsible for all of this?”

  “Yes and no, if you ask Shaun he’s put a lot of weight on his shoulders. He keeps thinking about had he not doing anything to help me that day that our parents would have not ever met. He’s having a hard time letting the fact that all things happen for a reason and sometimes it is out of our control.”

  “Wait so where is his dad at now?”

  “When it broke out in Des Moines he raced back here and picked us and the rest of our group up which has dwindled sadly from there. He got some random kids that were running for their lives as well.”

  “Ok so what happened to his dad?”

  “As previously mentioned this is kind of a long story Jenn, one that you kind of asked for right?”

  Jenn nodded her head ready to reply when Ellie started right back in, in Ellie fashion. “Well Frank picked up more kids than he had room for after getting all of the supplies from Andy’s gun shop. Andy gave us his van thinking that he’d just be able to take the squad car that Frank was driving. Well when we went to leave a horde of zombies was coming our way and we just barely made it out of town. One of them almost busted through the window trying to grab Shaun. We thought that the rest of the ride there was going to be a safe ride.”

  “You seriously were still trying to be optimistic at that point?”

  “No we just figured that we had made it far enough away from town to be safe; Christ were we wrong. I’ve seen war zones on television that looked less horrible than what we ran into on the way to their cabin.”

  “I don’t understand?”

  “You were one of the volleyball players yesterday right?�
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  Jenn nodded confirming this, Ellie continued, “Well somewhere between here and there those that were close enough as you figured out with your dad got infected, and it seems a couple miles out of town was about where the Turn happened for most of them. I don’t know much about the change when people are exposed to the drug but we’ve seen what happens with people getting bit and depending on where or how many bites can be a immediate change or Turn. We call them Turned, I don’t know why it just seems more realistic somehow than saying there are zombies in the streets.”

  “But there are zombies in the streets….lots of them actually.”

  “Yeah but when I think of zombies i think of the kind that shuffle around and walk slow and don’t jump twenty feet in the air, or punch through metal roofs, or rip peoples limbs off single handedly. These things are monsters more than zombies, they just kill and after some time at the school and moving through town, they seem like they think.

  “What do you mean they think?”

  “When Shaun and I were on a hill on day one we were shooting some of them at the school. I had told Shaun to quit shooting that we needed to leave and catch up with Frank and the rest of the group. Well Shaun kept firing and after a while they started looking for the noise, they weren’t stupid about it. Between their hearing and sense of smell they know when there is something around that they want. I don’t know about their eyesight. They bleed right after they Turn so maybe that affects their eye sight, but who knows.”

  “Why would it affect their eyes?”

  “I don’t know i’m just kind of praying that it does. But where was I…”

  “You were driving through a war zone.”

  “Right, thanks, so uh yeah we were driving and couldn’t get through on this highway. Frank had to stop the van and Shaun, Greg, and himself went out to move some of the vehicles out of the way that were keeping us from getting through. When they got everything cleared they had found why all of the vehicles were empty.”

  “They found the occupants you mean?”

  “Oh ya they most certainly did. I’ve never heard so many bullets being fired at one time in my life. Like not even in a movie have I heard something like that before.”

  “Why didn’t the rest of you go out and shoot?”

  “We didn’t really have a clue how to shoot the guns. We learned a bit yesterday but we still would probably be in serious trouble if we needed to try and save ourselves in a hurry.”

  “Wow that is pretty intense.”

  “No shit, we didn’t know if they were coming back or not. But they did of course. When they were fighting those things off one of them bit Frank’s ankle. It wasn’t a bad bite so it gave him the time he needed to get us to the cabin and make one trip up the hill.”

  “Wait, what happened to him after that?”

  “I can’t say for sure, but i’m pretty confident that Shaun put him out of his misery before the full Turn could happen. I don’t think i’d bring it up if I were you. Like I said we haven’t had much time to mourn. If I had to guess though I would say that Shaun isn’t in a grieve stage so much as a hate one.”

  “Hate?”

  “Yes he hates the turned. I think if he had the ammo and a safe place to do it from that he would shoot every damn last one of them. I don’t think he’s worried about the cure, but he’s willing to at least give the government a shot at curing those things before he goes off on a rampage. I don’t think he feels like he has that much to lose, and like I said he feels partially if not completely responsible for all of this.”

  “Well it’s not like he knew that his dad was going to do some mad scientist crap to try and save the woman he was in love with. It’s kind of romantic that he didn’t just take no for an answer.”

  “Yes it was totally romantic except that it is like the one lone action that is causing the zombie apocalypse to take place and ruin life as we know it. So yah if you can ignore that then yep it was romantic as can be.”

  “So now that your parents are gone, there isn’t much keeping you and Shaun apart right?”

  “I don’t know, seems like a crappy time to go out and try and start a love life you know what I mean. I already worry about him every second he is away and can’t bear the thought of him turning into one of those things. I don’t think I could put him out of his misery.”

  “But could you let him do that to someone else? Would you let him bring pain to someone or take another persons loved one?”

  Ellie shrugged kicking at the gravel. “I don’t know it’s impossible to say. I don’t think anyone can answer that until they are really put into that situation. It’s just the same as saying what would you do if Joey got bit? Or Jordan for that matter, if it meant they were going to hurt others would you put them out of their misery? Or would it be to painful to do anything about it. Would you rather die yourself before you hurt someone you love? Because the way I look at it, it’s just as good as ripping my own heart out having to go through with something like that.”

  Jenn tried to think of what to say next but knew that there was nothing left that she needed to say. She was well aware that she would not be able to pull the trigger or do anything to Joey no matter what circumstances were at hand. She knew the same could be said for Jordan. She thought of what Shaun must have felt having to deal with his dad before he had the chance to Turn and felt her own heartache for him. It was just more than she could handle. She didn’t even know him yet and already admired the strength he had to be in possession of to be able to do such a thing.

  Ellie walked slowly towards the house she saw Patrick and Kya pacing back and forth in front of the television looking quite excited about whatever it was that they were watching. Jenn said, “What is wrong with Patrick and Kya?”

  Ellie laughed, “I don’t know a lot I would guess, but I think most of it is social related. I haven’t actually talked to Kya but she looks just as hyped about whatever it is they are watching.”

  “No really, he’s like freaking out in there, what do you think he’s doing?”

  Ellie shrugged walking up to the large houses’ steps. Patrick and Kya appeared to be losing their minds. Just as Ellie went to climb the steps the two ran out of the house screaming. Patrick yelled, “It worked, it worked!”

  Ellie questioned, “What worked?”

  “It worked!”

  Ellie said, “Yeah we get that, what is ‘it’ though, you kind of lost us at ‘it’?”

  Patrick stopped sucking in a large breath. He pointed back at Kya and the house, we were watching tv and they had a announcement just in from the CDC stating that they had received information that they are going to begin using immediately t try and develop a cure from. They said that the team of navy seals that the government had sent in yesterday had succeeded and were heros!”

  Ellie said, “Wait, so that just means that they got the stuff that Clary sent yesterday?”

  Patrick shrugged, “What else could it mean!”

  Kya said, “They said to keep checking back on the television report and that they would be updating from the quarantined building on a regular basis.”

  They all shared a smile but in the back of Ellie’s thoughts she was having a hard time not being a bit skeptical about what everyone was being so optimistic about. Jenn saw the lack of enthusiasm on her face and said, “What’s wrong Ellie? You don’t look overly psyched about this!”

  Ellie tried her best to put on a fake smile. “I don’t know what my problem is it just seems that we are getting our hopes up over something that doesn’t quite have any merit behind it. I mean they have all kinds of research going for hundreds of different diseases all around the world everyday. It doesn’t mean that there is going to be a cure for it anytime soon. I hope that they do but after what we saw yesterday it is hard to tell.”

  Jenn nodded, “But it’s better to have hope right? I mean it gives us a reason to continue and to wait right? I know it keeps me from losing my mind in the fact of what is rea
lly going on so close to us and all across the country and world.”

  Ellie nodded, “Yeah sorry, you are right it’s amazing, it isn’t that bad here right? If we can make the place safe and just stop going to town I don’t think we will have to much to worry about.”

  Patrick said, “Hey no school, and Clary and Aslin said they were going to teach us how to shoot and survive you know just in case things don’t end up going well. So either way we get a summer education like we wouldn’t learn anywhere else right?”

  Kya said, “Uh I don’t know how to shoot a gun. I don’t know if I could shoot one of those things anyway they scare the hell out of me.”

  Ellie said, “That’s probably a good thing they scare you. I think the first second you decide that you don’t need to fear them would be the end of you for sure.”

  Kya looked sad for a second thinking of what she was going to say and said, “You know I got pretty excited thinking that my parents were going to freak out when I told them I was going to learn all kinds of amazing stuff from real live soliders…...but then it hit me that I won’t be telling them anytime soon.”

  Kya buried herself in Jenn’s shoulder as her body convulsed up and down. Jenn’s shirt was slowly growing wet. Ellie mouthed did her parents turn? Jen shook her head no and Ellie mouthed, ‘eaten?’ and Jenn nodded affirmative slowly.

  Joey came out the front door holding a pancake that he had turned into a makeshift tortilla filled with sausage and eggs. Jenn saw him smiling proudly at the concotion. “Joey you realize that you are going to make yourself sick if you don’t take it easy right?”

  “Hey when I am full I won’t eat anymore.”

  Jenn sighed, “That is what he always says and he ends up making himself half sick if no one checks on him. Fine Joey you keep eating but when you have a upset stomach don’t go complaining to me later about it.”

  Joey gave her a thumbs up while never stopping his mission at hand of finishing his snack. He saw Kya and wiped his hands on his jeans and Jenn saw the look in his eye and laughed a little. “Watch out Kya you are going to become a sandwhich.”