The Orphans (Book 3): Strangers
Page 17
Clary nodded walking slowly but it seemed the slower they walked the louder his footsteps became. The turned who looked like they had been in their own world staring aimlessly were no longer doing so. They craned their necks upwards staring directly at the flashlight and the two warm meals on the catwalk. Clary looked back at the ladder to the roof and thought of the lack of lock on it now and realized that even if they got back up there’d be little chance of keeping those things from busting through it. Greg whispered, “I wouldn’t have turned it on if I would have know that was down there.”
Clary said, “Yeah greg i’d kind of hope that is the case. It’s ok we can get out of this, I just need a second to figure shit out though.”
Greg said, “Sounds good and all but we don’t have a minute, we need to get the eff out of dodge now!”
The shadows on the floor were moving and that was not the worst thing because what it led to was the Turned finding the stairs. Clary yelled, “Go the other way, go now!”
Greg didn’t need to hear this he was already turning around and going as quickly as he could on the catwalk. It started to shake and rattle and he looked over his shoulder to see Clary coming full force behinds him. Greg sped it up and the creaking grew quickly as the turned had made short work of the stairs and launched themselves on the catwalk uncaring for the amount of weight that it was able to hold. When the catwalk started to shake and bolts started to pop out of their place on the ceiling Clary knew that there was only a matter of time before the entire thing went down. He contemplated jumping off the side and giving Greg that much more time but there were to many of them up here already. As Greg made it close to the ladder to climb back up the end nearest Clary broke off and fell. The only thing that save the two of them from death were the bolts on the opposite side of the catwalk. The turned that were on the opposite end fell backwards rolling over each other entangling themselves and breaking bones that had become stuck in between the handrails.
Clary put his feet between two bars to keep from sliding down after them. He shouldered his rifle to start taking out those that had gripped as well. As he aimed to fire he heard Greg screaming from above him. He was sliding with a rifle in one hand and a bar that had snapped off in the other. He tossed it and made three failed attempts to grip another handgrip but just kept going. Clary put his sling around his neck knowing that if he lost his rifle he was surely dead. He gripped Greg by the bicep as he slid past his thing ropey arm sliding through Clary’s sweating hand. Clary gripped tight to his shirt sleeve it ripped under the pressure, but Greg gripped Clary’s thigh and held on for dear life. He would not lose this grip. Clary pulled him up until they were both secure and took a quick set of breaths both having seen their lives flashing before them.
The Turned at the bottom of the catwalk growled and screamed ready to kill. They aimed and started at the top ofthe group and worked their way down quickly. Clary screamed over the gunfire, “YOu make damn sure you don’t waste any of those bullets we don’t have enough to miss any of these things.”
Greg didn't reply he just squeezed the rifle hearing his dad hovering over his shoulder whispering, Take your time Greg, take your time and you will never miss. In less than a minute the two had cleared the space and their immediate danger was now past. The turned kept trying to climb it and the buckling of the scaffolding anchors into the wall were definitely beginning to give way. Clary said, “It ain’t gonna hold kid, when we hit the ground we get on top of those crates against the wall. There can’t be more than ten of these things left.”
Greg screamed, “It’s dark how the hell would you kow what is left in here?”
“Because if we need much more than that we are probably going to be on our last magazine soon.”
“Don’t you have any grenades left?”
They slid down still shooting as they did and were ready when they hit the ground to sprint to the boxes of gear on the floor. Clary slid past the turned pulling the trigger just as quick as he could their out stretch mouths tasting gunpowder as their last meal as his pistols bullets tore through the back of their heads. The light from the muzzle was the only thing brightening the room. The two hit and went straight for the boxes Greg holding onto Clary’s shoulder using him as a guide. There were only two turned in the way and Clary embedded his knife up through its chin and the long blade stuck out of the top of its head. He left it to collect later, knowing they didn’t have the time to waste. Clary hit the first crate and as Greg came up on it he turned around gripping the teen under both armpits bending his legs and launching him up the last three crates in one fluid movement. Greg’s shock would have been priceless had it not been near pitch black in the storage area.
Clary was gripped by the leg and with his free foot he sent a size twelve military boot into its skull with enough force to break its neck and leave it paralyzed still trying to bite at his foot. The others who were trying to climb after him threw the crippled zombie into the air knowing it was no longer of any use to them in their fight. Clary climbed next to Greg and screamed get your light back on. Greg complied and fired up the light, Clary took care of the remaining turned that were coming their way. When he’d shot the last one Clary collapsed on their platform breathing heavy. Without thinking he patted at his chest pulling out a nearly crushed pack of smokes lighting one. He offerened one to Greg who said, “Dude i’m seventeen you’re kidding me right?”
Clary looked at what he was doing as he lit his up. “Don’t smoke, its bad for you, you could die of you know lung cancer.”
Greg just stared at him, “Are you alright?”
Clary stared at the turned strewn across the floor thinking of how close they had just come to death again and shook his head no, “No I don’t think that I am ok. I really hate these things. Like I fucking hate them. I don’t care if you can cure them or not. Every damn one of them that is in my way is dead. I can’t handle these freaking things anymore all they do is make every situation as horrible as possible.”
“Dude are you freaking out?”
Clary took a deep drag on his smoke just staring at them. “Seriously they are everywhere! You realize how many times we’ve almost died in the last few days and we haven’t even travelled this place was like a half hour drive away.”
Greg used the light going back and forth in the large building seeing nothing else moving. He said, “Well lets get moving so we can get out of here. God KNows how big this place is, and there could be more of these things don’t you think?”
“Are you kidding me, with our luck hell yes there are more of these things, probably hundreds of the bastards. Before we do anything lets find the damn lights so we can see what the hell we are doing. First thing we find their ammunition and then we get you upgraded from that single shot something that has a option on it.”
Greg thought of the machine guns he’d seen in war and shook his head at the disbelief that in a short time he’d be walking around with one in his hands. He was in the same mindset as Clary about these things and was more than happy to take out any that he saw that posed a threat to himself or his friends. He knew that they’d be relentless in their pursuit after them. “You ready to get moving Greg?”
Greg pushed up off the crate walking slowly between those on the floor, making sure that they were really down for the last time. Greg shun flashed the walls and when he saw a large steel pipe going down the wall they followed it finding a long line of light switches for the facility. The room illuminated and the two felt even better about the fact that they were still alive. The number that they had taken out in that short of time was a miracle. The fact that they hadn’t been eaten didn’t go unnoticed with how very lucky they had been. Greg stared at the large crates and then to Clary, “How are we ever going to find anything in this place. There are just piles of everything, do you know how to find stuff in one of these places.”
“Do I look like someone that worked in a warehouse kid? We can and will figure it out don’t worry.”
They spent the next hour sweating and laboring over the heavy boxes filled with rifles. Cracking wood open and pulling the now good as gold colts from their places. Greg said, “You realize we are taking enough for a army right?”
“No it isn’t enough for a army, but it is definitely enough to build an army.”
“That’s your plan? We become your army, we take out those turned if they tell us that they can’t cure them, that the only thing that will save the country are bullets and blood?”
Clary smiled nodding his head, “Yep pretty much Greg, if we can’t cure em them we need to kill em.”
Clary wiped at his brown the sweat from his forehead was almost extinguishing the smoke that he was balancing in between his lips. Greg watched him as he puffed on it and laughed. “You do realize that i’ve never seen one track start smoking a cigarette after he ran the big race right? Not counting the fact that those things are killing you each time you inhale one of those drags right?”
“You realize that living another year at this point might make me a minority, hell it could leave me as the last man alive if shit progresses like it is.”
“That is true but if you think about it, you might click empty one day and need to run. If you haven’t noticed those things don’t get tired, or winded, and what do you think is going to happen to you if you need to run a half mile to get away from one of thsoe things? I don’t see you as the giving up type but what do you do if you don’t have the strength to keep up? If you fall back and a horde is following us you are going to be lost. When we don’t have any resources those things are going to be like shooting fish in a barrel and you know it.”
Clary let a drag of smoke out slowly contemplating what the kid was saying and hating the fact that he knew that he was right, it was one of the saddest things that he was going to have to give up. He took it out of his mouth and stared at it and stared at Greg. He said, “You realize the minute, I mean the fucking minute that we shoot the last one of those things in the head, or the cure of course i’m going to be taking these things back up right?”
Greg shrugged and said, “Maybe when they are gone or however it ends up going down you won’t need them, or maybe you might not even want them. I’m sure stranger stuff has happened to you before.”
Clary laughed, “You know there was this place down in Mexico but I think the whole zombie apocalypse going on still wins in the weird shit category of my life. Let’s get a few more of those rifles and then we need to move on to the ammo and handguns. If we are doing it we are going to do it right. There is little that we can hope to come back to, the longer we stay here the better chance we are going to have of others showing up. You know that resources are going to become harder and harder to come by if things don’t get better soon. People’s compassion and feelings of needing to help others are going to be less and less. People who’ve been a part of society are going to find their new found freedoms to much, and those that think that they can either run things or control others will be even worse. They’ll think people owe them things, so if we can make one trip and be good for a long time to come, I say that is the way to go hands down.”
“You don’t have much faith in humanity do you?”
“You haven’t had to see what i’ve seen, and the places that i’ve been are nothing as bad as this. Those third world countries have been that bad forever now imagine that those people have never known the good life, they’ve never known about being ahead about having the good life. Now think about day one day two and day three, those people that get up and go to work, they come home they have energy, plenty of food, stores with food thats all something that is so ingrained in their brain that they’ll be able to do on a daily basis that their heads are going to explode when that all comes into reality. That is of course for those that made it through. We don’t even have a way to figure out right now how many people did make it, but if the rest of the state and country is anything like Adel then i’m not feeling to god damn hopeful about anything.”
“Well I guess the minute it doesn’t seem like we have people looking out for us and that they are only out to screw us over, maybe i’ll feel the same way, but I gotta think with people like Shaun’s dad making sure we made it, and Andy helping us time and time again now at this point, and you guys even thought you might not have wanted to save us but now you are helping us maybe I still have just a little bit of faith left in people. It helps when you have a group of friends as great as I do to rely on. They would do anything for each other and that isn’t a horrible feeling to be able to rely on feeling.”
Clary just kept working, not wanting to tell the boy any horror stories that weren’t going to do him any good. He couldn’t see a point in explaining how things would go to shit on a grand scale if they didn’t turn around soon. “Hey lets hope that things keep going that way kid. Hell with your luck I guess I can’t see why they wouldn’t.”
*****
Aslin drove the road slowly watching the signs to where the food was stored and the mess hall was located. He peered over at Shaun who looked like he’d been in the shit already for weeks on end. Shaun saw him watching him and asked, “What’s up? You good?”
Aslin nodded slowly thinking about the fact that he had a crew of teenagers underneath him. He was driving through a base that could be filled with zombies and the one thing that he had to hope for was a cure to some super human zombie drug. He said, “Yeah i’m good kid, you just look like you’re a bit tense over there.”
“I’m good, I don’t trust those things and I want to make sure that we don’t have any further issues to worry about. I keep thinking of Greg and Clary and how everytime we have to split up to try and get something done we almost die or something goes even worse.”
“You mean like Kristy?”
“Yeah exactly like Kristy. We can’t afford to keep losing peoople this quick.”
“You are worried about your numbers already, god you are gonna be a solider kid.”
Shaun looked at Aslin dead faced with a tear forming in his eye. “No i’m not worried about numbers or building some army. I’m more worried about our hearts. We can only continue on this path for so long. If one of them has a breakdown we aren’t going to have time for them to recoup. We have to be able to continue on the goe, to keep moving at all times. If we get stuck somewhere we could be good as dead.”
“Are you sure you're just a kid?”
Shaun nodded, “I’m pretty sure Aslin.”
Shaun checked his rearview seeing Tina and Jordan driving safely behind them. He thought of Ellie and Patrick still back at the house, just a mile or less from town and god knows how many of the turned walking through the streets. He was becoming sick to his stomach at the prevailing thought that they could move into the farm at anytime and attack and other than Andy none of them really had any clue what they were doing with the firearms that were there. The idea of her being torn apart was making him fidget in his seat.
Aslin saw the worry on his face and said, “Hey we’re going to be alright kid. We just need to get these supplies and pick up our lesser good half and be back on the way again. Take it easy man we need to keep our cool.”
Shaun said, “I’m good, I just, want to get back to the farm. They don’t have anyone but Andy to take care of them. I can’t stop thinking if those things came across the bridge that it’d just be them and Andy maybe to save them if he can keep up. You’ve seen those things attack I can’t see him having it in him at his age to still be abl
e to keep up with that kind of pace.”
“You shouldn’t underestimate him just because he’s old Shaun. Those old guys that were in the wars are tough as nails. Doctors tell them that they aren’t going to make it and they just keep pushing through it. You are going to make yourself sick though if you just continue like this, as early on into it as we are.”
“It is Ellie I don’t like leaving her behind.”
“Got it good for her huh?”
“Well no, or yeah, I don’t know it’s complicated. I just know that my dad has promised to keep her safe if anything happened to her mom.”
“That was your dad’s promise though not yours. She isn’t your responsibility Shaun.”
“I know, I just think she keeps me balanced out. I can’t explain it really, it’s difficult.”
“No one is asking you to, i’m just saying you need to go above and beyond to keep yourself alive and those in your group, but if you lose anyone remember it isn’t your fault. You shouldn’t be punishing yourself because of it. This isn’t your fault. You know that right? Regardless of what you think, or what rationality you are using to blame yourself that this could have happened a million ways. Your dad might have sped it up but even so it still isn’t your fault. it’s too much weight on your shoulders for you to try and carry and it’ll crush you if you don’t stop.”
Shaun took a few deep breaths thinking of Ellie, the school hall, his dad falling for her mom, the cure that he was working on, the assistant that he used screwing him over and the end result of hell being unleashed. As horrible as he knew it was to think he just wished that his dad would have never gone out of his way to try and cure her. That he would have just let her slip through his fingers and chalked it up as fate and that maybe God didn’t want him to have another love in his life or at least not Karen. He watched the signs as well, “Hey there it is, come on lets get moving. I’m already ready for this day to be over and it’s barely begun.”