The Orphans (Book 3): Strangers

by Evans, Mike

  Tina let go of her death grip wishing that none of this would have happened and he would have still be available and not back with Ellie. She kissed his cheek with a long wet kiss. “Thanks Shaun. I do really appreciate you saving me though. I don’t know if anyone else would have done that for me.”

  Shaun pushed a hand through her hair and smiled, “You never know i’m pretty sure there are plenty of people that would come to your rescue if you needed it. I’m not trying to get myself killed but -” He stopped talking trying to think for a minute he looked her in the eyes, “Its uh just that the idea of having to do what i did to Jordan is too much to try and comprehend.”

  “Well I don’t want to think about having to see you being eaten by those things either. I think that Ellie would be destroyed by it to. You two look like you are starting things back up again.”

  Shaun shrugged, “Yeah I think so, a lot has happened in the last couple days, who knows what will happen from it.”

  Tina looked down trying to think of how to say it and said, “Well up to a few days ago I thought that you and I might have a chance at each other. She had been so busy with her mom that she kind of gave me the go ahead that there wasn’t anything between you two at the time and I wanted to I guess go out with you.”

  Shaun smiled awkwardly and said, “I don’t really know what to say, we better get going though before Aslin leaves us.”

  Tina gripped his arm. “If you know things don’t work out between you two, well don’t wait too long i’m sure there are plenty of not turned boys out there. I’m a hot commodity right now.”

  Shaun smiled and motioned with his head to get moving. “Come on lets get going.”

  *****

  They went back outside and found Aslin waiting impatiently for them. He was clearing the turned off of the hood and checking out the truck. He said, “We shoudl still trade this thing out, but we should still take two trucks to get Clary incase there is anything that we really need to take with us now. Who knows what they found. I don’t see anything wrong with loading up some of the rifles and ammunition i’m hoping that they found if we run into anything between here and home.”

  Shaun nodded and said, “I’m riding with Tina then if we are taking two trucks.”

  Aslin winked and said, “Just do me a favor if any of those things jump on my truck you feel free to shoot the little bastards in the head. Got it?”

  Shaun pulled out a fresh magazine and gave him a thumbs up. “I’m not going to take my eyes off of anything around here. Until we know this place is safe i’m not going to blink.”

  “Ok well lets go see what kind of shit Clary and Greg got themselves into.”

  The three climbed in and headed in a line Tina following closely to Aslin’s truck. Aslin was staring around checking every direction that he could. He did not want to have to worry about becoming one of those things. He was talking to himself at this point, “What the hell am I doing, i’m debating with teenagers trying to keep them with me and at the same time worried about what will happen to them if they dont. God I need to find me a nice pilot and get the hell out of here. Hawaii has always sounded really nice.”

  Shaun kept his eyes alert as directed, not that he needed to be told to do so. Tina said, “So I know what you said in front of him. Now that he isn’t here, tell me what you think we should do? I can’t say i’m to worried about where I live, if its going to be here, or if its going to be at Andy’s place, either one seems ok. Aslin had a pretty good point that once this place is secure that we probably are going to be better off here than anywhere.”

  Shaun nodded and said, “It really all depends on if the others will come with us. I don’t know what we need to do to survive but having what seems to be a endless supply of everything while we wait doesn’t seem like the worst idea.”

  “We don’t know how long we will have to wait but what is wrong with the idea of having one less thing to worry about? Maybe we will be able to pick up a few more people. If they aren’t infected and we can trust them i don’t think there is anything against the ol saying of strength in numbers.”

  “Yeah I totally agree. We use that as our argument with the others if anyone isn’t up for the idea. But really I don’t think anyone is going to have a big issue with it if we can just make the valid point about why we think its a good idea.”

  Tina said, “It seems like Andy’s place is going to get cramped pretty quick to, we were lucky that he invited us in the first place to go out there. If he hadn’t been trapped in his shop he probably would have left already and we would have never been able to find him. It was just dumb luck that he was still there.”

  “You think that Ellie will go for it? What do you think about Patrick?”

  “Ellie will go wherever you go I think. Patrick just wants someone to stay with I don’t really think that he is too worried about the details behind it as long as he has his medicine and someone by his side. You think Greg will be cool with it? How’s he doing with the Kristy thing?”

  “I don’t know i’d say bad overall. He was still pretty pissed about the door and i’m sure Greg being the way he is that he already spoke to Clary about it by now. He didn’t say anything last night he just stayed in bed. I don’t know how good he is with me right now either. He knew I didn’t have a choice but it doesn’t make me taking her out any easier on him. He isn’t stupid though he knew she would turn and after that there wouldn’t be anything holding her back from coming after us.”

  Tina said, “Well there’s a good chance that it still hurts. Even if we know its not good for us there can still be issues that arise from something like that. I just hope that the longer we go the better things get. There will be a lot of healing that will need done by everyone - myself included.”

  Shaun said, “I understand. I’m no different from you either. Between my dad, and our friends, Ellie’s mom its just been a shitty run. Things will turn around for us I got a good feeling about it.”

  *****

  As they pulled up to the armory building Aslin slowed down checking out the damage from Clary and his driving skills. He laughed a bit looking at it thinking of the massive amounts of shit he was going to give him later for it. He didn’t care if it was because of one of them or not.”

  He parked the truck motioning for Tina to park alongside him. He hit his microphone to radio Clary. “Hey speedracer go get the door open will you?”

  “Hey ass there were freaking zombies on top of my damn truck. It was either them or us and they were going to destroy that truck in no time if we would have let them stay aboard of it.”

  Aslin laughed, “Well its a good thing that you got them off of it so that you could destroy it yourself. It looks like the giant concrete wall you drove into was able to make sure any damage you needed to do to it was done properly.”

  “God I hate you, i’m sending Greg up and we can start loading shit up, I hope that you got enough food for an army because i’m starving. That breakfast of Andy’s has long been burned up.”

  “Yeah well we didn’t get anything actually. But i’ve got a good explanation for it.”

  “Good, I’d hate to think of what kind of shitty excuse you would have had.”

  “Tell you what, you and Greg come out front, i’ve got an idea that I need to run past you.”

  Clary said, “Is it going to worry me?”

  Aslin said, “No, my ideas are genius why would you have any worries?”

  Clary didn’t answer he just laughed as his mic went off.

  Clary and Greg came out slowly rifles up until they saw familiar faces, ones that were not intent on ripping their faces off. They lowered them and ran to the back of the truck optimistic to think of the supplies that they would have over the coming span of time. They looked like their puppies had been eaten by the turned when they found the empty truck bed. Clary looked up at Aslin and before he could say anything Greg said, “Hey where did you leave Jordan at?”

  Clary looked at the
bullet holes in the truck and the windows smashed out and started adding thing together that he hoped wouldn’t be true. “Aslin where is he? You left him there to guard the food right? Or he’s doing something back there that is safe enough to leave a teen there by himself?”

  Aslin looked at Shaun and Tina and said, “We lost him when we made it to where the food is stored.”

  “You don’t lose a teenager? Are we talking about him running off? Or what?”

  “Lets just think of it in these terms like we lost our entire team. Same idea.”

  Clary tried to keep the look of disgust off his face and the blame out of his voice but he failed miserably. He snapped at Aslin. “Aslin you had two jobs to do. You go and get food, which I don’t see a damn thing to eat in the back of this truck, and two you were supposed to keep these kids safe. I didn’t think that was something that I needed to tell you, but it seems like maybe i did need to make the blatantly clear to you!”

  Aslin puffed up his chest walking towards Clary rage filled him. Clary could see the signs all over Aslin and said, “Don’t fucking do it Aslin.”

  “You don’t scare me Clary. I’m gonna rip you a new asshole god damn it. You think I was trying to lose him? You think I’m like that? How long have we been on the same crew, for fucking ever right? I don’t need this shit.”

  Clary stepped up shoving him backwards and against the truck. “You don’t need this? You don’t need this? You think that I do? You think that I want to be here in this shit, you think these kids want to be here well then your dum as shit. None of us want to be here, but here is the only place we got. There isn’t anywhere that we can go. We are surrounded, so we either stay here or move on but our choices are limited. I don’t think that you tried losing the kid, but don’t need you trying to take command here with your genius ideas.”

  “I’m well aware that seniority at this point doesn’t mean shit. But it doesn’t mean that we need to become completely out of control. Ideas need to be listened to. If you’d shut up i’d tell you what happened to him. It doesn’t really matter though does it?”

  “What do you mean it doesn’t matter if he’s dead? Maybe there is something that I missed.”

  “He got taken by one of them, the point is he is gone, there’s no lesson to teach him because he isn’t here. Tina pulled up ahead of us. Jordan wanted to come off like he was useful and raced up to the doors letting out a horde of turned they raced back to the truck but it was to late.” Aslin pointed to Shaun, “Shaun there risked his ass jumping out of the truck so that he had a shot. By the time he’d saved Tina one of them went after Jordan and well thats really all that needs to be said about that.”

  Clary backed up a few feet still pissed but seeing why he wouldn’t want to bring it up. The idea of what Shaun had said the day before about how bringing up the past did little to make things better made more and more sense. “Alright then we don’t talk about it. But we stay together god damn it! We fucking stay together!” Clary pointed at everyone including Aslin with looks they would not soon forget.”

  Aslin shook his head climbing back in the truck, “We better pick up another truck so we can make sure that we can take everything from Andy’s that we need.”

  Clary realized this must be part of his genius idea that in their quick bickering he’d forgotten all about. Clary said, “What do you mean bringing everything from Andy’s wasn’t that the point in coming here was to get everything that we would need to be able to make until we know what's going to happen?”

  Aslin did a circle pointing at all of the buildings. He said, “I know we came here with the intentions on going back. I totally get it.”

  Clary got defensive thinking for a moment that he wasn’t thinking that he thought he would be going back to Andy’s. Clary yelled, “You mean you aren’t going back at all? You are just going to abandon everyone.”

  Asln shook his head pinching at the bridge of his nose, “Try and stay with me Clary, really focus ok. This really big place has got everything we need including probably a few of the turned that we don’t need. My idea is that we go through the base kill them all. I mean them all, cure no cure I don’t give a shit. We secure this place is the point and then we make this place home. We have facilitys right here that we can use to just trian these kids, its safe, theres food, there is everything we need. I mean everything, you know as good as i do that place we are trying to call home is going to be to small and we won’t have the room for storage that we need to make it there. It is only going to be a matter of time before those thigns mae their way into Andy’s place especially being that close to his house.”

  “You are more worried about the turned than you are about the people who are going to be out trying to take everything that isn’t nailed down?”

  Asln said, “A lot of those poeple are just going to be looking for a place to stay. If we can offer somewhere safe, somewhere that they won’t have to worry about the turned maybe we will be able to start our own place our own-”

  Clary cut him off not being defensive but just stating the end of Aslin’s thought, “You want to start a army. You want us to have our own group of people.”

  Aslin said, “If we end up having to take out more of these things, then does it seem like that bad of a idea? If you really think about it, how bad would it be we can only watch so much of this base, or of Andy’s place if we don’t move on. We need to start making decisions. The longer we wait pissing around the worse things can potentially get.”

  “So we go back right? We get the kids, and we come back.”

  Aslin nodded, “We need to get them and get straight back. If we can get at least somewhere t sleep for the night secure we can start our clean sweep of the base in the morning.”

  Clary said, “You think Andy will be up for it? I mean he’s lived at that place forever. What do we do if the others aren’t up for living at some military base?”

  “Then they don’t have to. But this is mynew home, i’m coming back here with or without them. It just seems like to good a place to pass up after driving around. It seems there are turned everywhere and we might as well take the best spot that we can. Think of the communication we could have with the outside here, they’ve got to have somewhere around here that has a kick ass radio center. We are going to get updates hopefully or the nation is going to get them i’d like to be able to receive them.”

  Clary stared around the bas, seeing the points that Aslin was making and couldn’t see anything in his logic about being wrong. He knew others might come there and having numbers wasn’t always a bad thing. Clary nodded and said, “You know I can’t say that what you are thinking about is really a horrible idea. I guess that is why there isn’t any food in the back of the truck huh.”

  Aslin nodded and said, “Well should we get going?”

  Clary shook his head and said, “Well since we didn’t know that this was going to be our new home, Greg and me went ahead and got crates and crates of guns and ammunition ready to take back with us.”

  “They’ll still be here when we get back Clary.”

  Shaun stepped up clearing his throat and said, “Hey we are taking some of those guns with us. We only have so much left the way it is. We need to be able to take out those things if we run into any of them.”

  Aslin went to interject before really thinking about it and and Clary said, “Yeah he’s right. The last thing we need to do is get stuck out in the middle of nowhere without any fresh magazines.”

  Chapter # Going Home

  They loaded the trucks with more than they could imagine needing under teh worst circumstances and headed off of the base. They picked up an additional truck on the way out leaving everyone driving but Shaun who rode with Tina. They’d all ripped into the supplies and had a healthy amount of rifles and mazagines in the giant cabs ready to go. As they headed back out Greg disappeared into the guards desk again hitting the controls to lower the fence back into the ground. Greg opened the door slowly as well an
d the German Shephard stuck its head through scaring Greg thinking that maybe the dog had turned but when a large pink tongue came out running itself up the front of Greg’s face his tension eased. He opened the door all the way giving the dog a minute of affection and the two of them walked out side by side. Greg took the truck that they had drove originally in and they made a convoy line back to the farm taking it slow and easy.

  They pulled up slowly to the edge of the road that would lead them to the farm and stopped. Walking across the roadway was a small group of the turned. Tina whispered, “Oh my god.”

  Shaun’s heart dropped into his stomach as he watched the Turned walking across the roadway in search of food. He whispered, “No, no damn it no.”

  Tina reached over gripping his shoulder but before she could Shaun had already grabbed a backpack full of magazines and a extra rifle and was opening the door to the truck. Tina said “Shaun wait, please this is what happened to Jordan.”

  Shaun paid her no attention to her walking up the dirt road. The rest of the group pulled to a stop seeing this and seeing Shaun. Cary, Greg, and Aslin were all screaming at Shaun to stop. Shaun heard them but it was as if he was in a pool under water. He didn’t stop he had one thing in his eyes and it was Ellie. The nightmare running through his eyes right now was her running from a pack of the turned, them running after her and taking her down ripping into her perfect skin. The screams he was imagining would haunt his nightmares he had no doubt of it. Shaun saw red and that was all he saw.

  Shaun sprinted up the side of the hill. When the turned noticed him coming they crouched and began their run towards him. Shaun went into auto mode not thinking just reacting. He pulled the trigger five times and five turned dropped the pink midst filling the air behind them. The gunshots brought more up over the hill Shaun focused on them crouching down and picking them off as fast as they could come over the hill. He knew distance was important and he did his best not to waste ammunition. Aslin came up putting a hand on his shoulder but he shrugged it off. He gripped Shaun’s rifle and took it away from hm. Shaun went to push Aslin but Clary gripped him keeping him from doing so. Greg yelled, “Hey let him go, now!”