The Orphans (Book 3): Strangers

by Evans, Mike

  Philip turned around his face turning shades of red. The anger was pouring out of him and he lunged for Eric trying to grip his hands around his neck. “What the hell do you mean, what did I do, what did I do? I pushed the gas pedal down, and tried to get us out of here.”

  The two wrestled for a moment longer and Ellie walked up kicking Philip in the side hard enough to make sure that she had his attention. What are we going to do? What the hell are we going to do, stop fighting and get up. They are coming and we don’t have any time for this shit!”

  Philip rolled off of Eric both men panting on the ground wanting a smoke that they didn’t have time for. The teens saw them coming and ducked down in their seats hoping that the thin metal was going to be enough to keep them safe. One of the teens in the back pulled at the emergency exit handle on the back of the bus door. Ellie screamed, “No don’t open that you need to leave it shut, we can’t let them in!”

  The boy ignored her waving her off. He pulled the handle and three of them ran out sprinting away with no plan or directions in mind. Five of the horde of soldiers ran after them and they did not make it fifty yards. The men caught up to them tackling the boys hard and they ripped into the boys necks and stomachs. Their cries echoed across the parking lot. Ellie sprinted for the back of the bus. Patrick screamed, “You can’t save them, stay in the bus Ellie!”

  Ellie skidded to a stop slamming the door shut on it and pushing the emergency exit handle back into place. The turned that hadn’t ran after the boys and stayed true on their path made it up to the bus. They were everywhere on the roof, the hood, and hanging off of the side of it slamming fists and faces through what glass was still remaining. Patrick looked at the complicated rifles that he’d been given by Andy. He said, “Do you, I mean do either of you know how to shoot these?”

  Eric took one pulling back the charging handle and taking the safety off. Philip held up his hands shaking his head no. Eric handed him his rifle and said, “You’ve got thirty shots. When thats empty give it back to me and we will reload it. You lost your man card though, like really.”

  Eric grabbed the other rifle and a handful of magazines he ran down the aisle shooting with precise execution. The hands were through and they were starting t bend back the thin metal peeling the bus apart. Ellie pulled the small pistol from her side and contributed they were making a fight out of it but there were to many of them to fight off. Ellie screamed, “What are we going to do? We are trapped and there’s nowhere to go.”

  Ellie’s gun fired empty as did Philip’s a moment later. Eric was still running up and down the aisle doing what he could but they weren’t able to keep up with it. The door to the bus had hands coming through it Philip, kya and the rest all moved away from the front of the bus. Philip yelled, “What are we gonna do man?”

  Eric hung his head feeling remorse for something that was out of his control. He said, “I don’t know man. I don’t know.”

  When one of the turned threw its head in through the window Eric slipped the gun around forgetting the fact that he had the pistol on his hip and smashed its head in splitting it open until its brains fell out onto the bus seat. Eric’s chest was heaving the anger pouring out of him. When another came through he repeated the act, the others watched in awe. Ellie appreciated the effort but knew that it wasn’t going to last long they were going to be inside the bus in seconds. Hands started punching through the roof of the bus and the sides as well. Patrick screamed, “They are coming everywhere we don’t have a choice, we need to make a run for it.”

  “We are trapped Patrick, we aren’t going anywhere.”

  Patrick looked at the front window of the bus it was the only place that none of them had been covering. He screamed, “We can make a break for it, if we bust that window out and run we have got a chance right?”

  Ellie nodded and as they went to kick out the window that moment they felt was going to be their one chance to get out was now gone. The turned filled the windows space and took care of breaking the glass for them. Ellie sat down in the seat waiting for death to take her. Patrick who was frantically trying to think of something, anything that they could do screamed at her, “Are you seriously giving up? You are just going to sit there and, and die?”

  “I’m not going to be died, i’m going to be viciously murdered by these things. If you have a idea, i’m all ears but there’s nowhere to run. There isn’t anywhere to run.”

  Ellie closed her eyes waiting for it to come, imagining the blood and horror that was about to come. As the thoughts passed she felt a moment of calming as she thought of Shaun, her mother and Frank, but mostly Shaun. She waited for the pain but it did not come. She jumped in her seat when what she first thought was her own blood unsure how it could be as she’d felt no paid splattered on her neck. She wiped at it instinctively not wanting the foreign substance on her skin. The pain she was waiting for didn’t come instead what sounded like a army came from outside. She heard gunfire, gunfire that didn’t stop, it just continued repeatedly. She opened her eyes staring at the turned scattering the area blood splatter painted the windows and street around her. She peered through trying to figure out what was happening and when she finally saw it her heart felt warm. Shaun and Greg were standing side by side behind the door of the truck using it to rest the rifles on. The turned had all but forgotten about the bus and had focused all of their attention on the boys. As they tried their continual unsuccessful approach they realized that the threat and reward in front of and behind them was not worth the short gain. The spread out roaring at Shaun and Greg as they ran away disappearing back into the dark tunnel.

  Greg looked over and said, “Who would have thought that they were smart enough to know when to give up.”

  Shaun says, “That is actually just as scary as the idea of the abilities they’ve gained physically.”

  Greg said, “What do you mean?”

  “Dude they know when to run, and when to fight, they arne’t stupid, they aren’t just blood hungry. They care about living, if that is what they are doing even. I don’t know, maybe that means they can be cured, maybe there is some hope.”

  Greg said, “Yeah and maybe they are just the worst kind of monster in the fucking world.”

  The two watched as heads started to rise from the seats. Shaun walked not waiting for Greg when he saw Ellie sitting up in her seat on her knees her face appearing over the blood soaked window. Tears were already pouring as she connected eyes with Shaun. She smiled a smile that she’d not known herself to be capable of the love was bursting from her and her lip was quivering as she was trying to control her tears. She was unsuccessful of course. Shaun started running towards the bus not wanting to go another second with any distance between the two of them. He could feel the emotions running rampant through his body as well, the warmth spreading from his heart and outwards.

  Ellie didn’t need to wait for him to come to him she was more than happy to meet him halfway. She pushed her pack and Patrick out of the way wiping at tears and hit the release on the door. She had to help it open as the bus door had just been hanging on by the slimmest pieces of metal. She ran around the front of the bus not looking where she was going tripping over the bodies laying astrewn in the parking lot. Shaun gripped her tightly picking her up and squeezing the life out of her. Ellie squeezed him back with no less force whispering, “You saved us Shaun. You came back for us. Thank you so much.”

  Ellie smothered her face into his shoulder still squeezing. Shaun said, “We need to get out of here before they come back out. They might be smarter than we gave them credit for but they aren’t going to stay in there forever. We need to get moving, go get your stuff and say goodbye we need to leave and we need to get to the base. We saw what happened at Andy’s and can’t think of any reason to try and make a go of it there.”

  Ellie said, “Joey’s sister, we lost her there. There were to many of them and we didn’t have any time we just ran, but she didn’t keep up and well that was the en
d of everything. They ransacked the house and Andy had something rigged because when we were half a mile away we saw an explosion going off and it totalled his house. It looked like it was on fire, was it? We didn’t go back to the house after the explosion and the turned were everywhere they were still following us.”

  Shaun looked down at the ground kicking at some gravel. “Well they aren’t there anymore, they attacked us and we took them out.”

  Ellie saw the look on his face and started thinking instantly that they were missing people. She said, “Did Tina, and Jordan go to the base with Clary and Aslin? They did right? I’m sure those two didn’t even want you to come after us.”

  Shaun nodded, “Yeah I don’t think they were too happy that we came after you guys, but I told them that there was no chance that we were going to leave you behind.” He whispered the rest just barely above hearing, “I would have rather died than not have you around to be with me.”

  Ellie rubbed a hand through his hair and said, “I am glad you came back, i’m glad that both of you came back, but really did something happen to Tina? I don’t know how much more loss we can handle.”

  Shaun nodded his head, “Yeah I agree. I don’t have good news for you though. We were searching for you guys everywhere at Andy’s I refused to believe that they;d gotten you. When we saw Jenn in the field I about lost my mind. The idea of you gone was as bad as one of those things ripping my heart out of my chest. It’s my fault though about tina.”

  Greg came up behind hearing this and yelled, “That’s bullshit Shaun, you can’t blame yourself for every person that gets taken out by these fuckers. Think about it man, do I agree that maybe we shouldn’t have gone off half cocked looking for them, yes probably, but under the circumstances when we didn’t know what was happening, or if they needed saved there wasn’t a lot of choices left but to go after them. The barn seemed like a smart place to try and find them.”

  Ellie said, “So you opened the barn up and they were in there?”

  Shaun nodded, “Yes the five of us were walking down to the barn and -”

  “Wait sorry, what about Jordan?”

  “The story doesn’t get any better Ellie we lost him at the base. They were everywhere in the food storage building and they came out of nowhere. Jordan ran in there letting them loose and they poured out of the building I saved Tina, but Jordan was lost. Aslin took it pretty hard to, I am pretty sure we are growing on him.”

  Greg laughed, “Yeah we are growing on him because he finally realizes that he needs us.”

  Ellie was going to say something but the words which were little more than a whisper interrupted her. “Ja - ja - ja - Jordan was killed? But he - he’s all I had left.”

  Ellie turned around and when she saw the look on Joey’s face it was instantly burned into her soul. She reached out a hand for him, but Joey backed up a few steps tripping over one of the turned. A hand reached out from under the bus Joey looked at it numbly but when it reached for him and growled he came back around. He stepped back a foot crab crawling and pushed a few steps away. When he did it came out from under the bus. Shaun raised his rifle but there was Ellie, and Joey in the way with no shot. Joey saw red staring at the thing, knowing that it was because of these that he would never see his brother or sister breathing again. He pushed up to the ground and when it came out from under the bus Joey snapped a foot into its face. It’s head snapped backwards and cracked into the buses rusted bumper.

  Shaun watched forgetting the boy had downs for the first time and seeing the rage and hate that was boiling out through his actions. He brought up a large foot as it tried to get back up and smashed it repeatedly in the head until it stopped trying to rise its skull had been crushed. Eric and Phillip came out of the bus seeing what he had just done, and Eric patted him on the back, “holy shit kid that is the way to take it to those things, good lord man, I think you might want a bat, or something t hough, you know unless there is more than one of them next time?”

  Joey wiped at some tears checking that nothing else was under the bus and walked to the side of it leaning against it and staring at the mass death littering the ground around him. Shaun said, “You ok Joey?”

  Joey shook his head no and Shaun had no idea what to say. Greg said, “What do you need Joey? ? You need us to do something for you?”

  Joey shook his head, “No there isn’t anything that you are going to be able to do. I want my brother and sister. I want my parents. I want all of these things dead.”

  Greg said, “I’m sorry bud but they -”

  Joey gave a dark look to Greg, “I’m not stupid Greg, I know they are dead. It doesn’t mean I don't want them back. I loved my family, I love my family I mean.”

  Eric ignored the sentiments being put out by Joey and held out a hand to Shaun, “Hey bud you saved our ass. We didn’t have enough supplies with us and we ran into these things after thinking that we were going to have a place to call home for a while.”

  Shaun said, “And how exactly did you end up with Ellie and everyone else on your bus?”

  Ellie was going to speak but Eric said, “I can speak for myself Ellie. We came out of Adel where we’d been hiding out. When we decided to go out and hit up the town for supplies we thought that we needed something bigger to transport so we went out to the orphanage.”

  Shaun taking this as wrong as the others said, “Wait you went to their home to steal their bus? Like you know orphans don’t already have enough going against them, they need grown men stealing from them.”

  Eric snapped back, “Watch it kid, you are getting ahead of yourself.”

  Greg put a hand on Shaun’s shoulder and Shaun shrugged it off. “Get off Greg, why don’t you fill us in, so you are saying you didn’t try stealing their bus?”

  Philip rose a hand and said, “Hi, actually what happened was our buddy Tim was with us and he thought we should head out there and check on them. The bus was our main reason originally to go out there, but when we went out there we kind of made the decison that they needed to go with that we weren’t sure if we’d be able to come back from the camp or whatever this mess was supposed to have been.”

  Eric said, “Wow that didn’t any better actually. Look we ended up going through town and we had a horde of those things following us they came from everywhere. We didn’t know where to go but we knew where Andy lived. I had gone into the shop and see it completely picked over, it looked like anything with a barrel attached to it was missing. I found his address and we left heading towards his place. By the time we were almost there, we had so many following us that we didn’t know what to do.”

  Shaun’s fists couldn’t have been any tighter he had the rifle slung and was processing everything Eric was saying and feeling the anger building to a point close to eruption. Shaun said, “So when you found a giant horde of the turned that have no purpose other than ripping us limb from limb and drinking our blood and eating our bodies only to leave a mangled mess ready to walk around. Driving a giant bus where there were a hundred different roads you couldve taken that weren’t to Andy’s but why is it that you still drove to Andy’s knowing that you wouldn’t be able to stop anyways. You thought that you would what jump out grab stuff and get back in before those things that run almost as fast as some cars caught up to you?”

  Eric said, “Hey kid I don’t like your tone.”

  “And I don’t give a shit old man.”

  “Old man?”

  Shaun pointed to Joey and yelled, “We lost people today, people that we cared about, they were peoples sisters their friends, their loved ones. We lost our home because of you, a man that was doing nothing but trying to help us out was lost damn it.”

  Eric held up his hands in a well its to late now manner and looked at Phillip who was already feeling the pain that was coming Eric’s way. Eric whipped his head back around just in time to see Shaun’s fist flying towards him and connecting into his nose breaking it instantly and sending him flying backwards. Phillip he
ld up his hands, “Whoah lets settle down kid.”

  Shaun stepped towards him and Greg picked him up from behind pulling him backwards and trying his best to defuse a situation where he thought that Shaun was completely in the right of way. Eric landed on his ass the warm blood coming down his face and seeping into his mouth. He shook his head trying to clear the fuzziness and pushed up only to fall back down again. “You broke my nose god damn it, Christ kid.”

  Shaun screamed, “You are still alive. You’ve got to think, you can’t just do what you want you two. You’ve got to think.” Shaun pointed to the bus, “It looks like you decided to care for those kids, and you already got a few of them killed, we need to get out of here, and we need to leave now. But start thinking! We are going to be talking again about this i’m sure, the guys that we are with are going to have questions for you and you probably better get your answers straight or they might just send you two on your way.”

  Eric said, “Who are these people that we are going to have to answer to?”

  “They came yesterday, they are navy seals and they are all that is left of their team that was air dropped in here yesterday. They have been helping us just as much as we have them. But they are going to be very pissed when they find out why you’re the reason why the farm got taken over. That was a good place, with good people.”

  Eric just stared and Phillip said, “How old are you?”

  “It doesn’t matter how old I am, what matters is surviving every day and keeping others from being taken by them. Just because i’m young doesn’t mean i’m incapable of thinking. You have got to think! You gotta plan stuff out.”

  Shaun patted Gregs shoulder and he finally released him. The rest of the kids had came out of the bus and Shaun was questioning how they’d all get back in the one truck. Greg yelled, “You what’s your name?”