The Orpheus Trilogy (Book 2): Orpheus: Homecoming

by Dan DeWitt

  He took a few tugs on the net, and was confident that it would hold up under its own weight. He transmitted to Lena that they were starting their sweep. "All right, you two. Your show."

  Enough light seeped through both the external windows and the smaller ones in the classroom doors that the hall wasn't in complete darkness, so they used the flashlights sparingly.

  They began a room-to-room sweep. Ethan remarked to his father that they'd already done this once before, and there was no reason to believe that there were any zombies in any of these rooms, but agreed that not even the slightest risk was acceptable. Ethan and Rachel led the way, he on the left, she on the right. Tim was with Rachel, Fish with Ethan. Orpheus stayed in the middle to ensure that the halls were clear. He marked each door with a piece of duct tape as it was cleared, and radioed in to Lena so she could electronically mark their progress, as well.

  Everything they did had a redundancy somewhere, because Orpheus was tired of taking chances.

  They worked in relative silence, breaking it only occasionally to acknowledge that a room was clear. As suspected, the second floor was as Rachel and Ethan had left it during their evacuation.

  Orpheus had just finished marking a door when he heard Fish blurt, "What the fuck happened in here?" He trotted to where Fish and Ethan were standing. Fish seemed to be embarrassed that he'd lost his noise discipline, whereas Ethan just looked stunned.

  Rachel joined them and quickly understood. "This is where Denise ...?”

  "Yeah. I'd, uh ... I'd forgotten about this. Damn."

  "Who?" Orpheus asked.

  Ethan responded, "Might as well show you."

  O

  The first thing that Orpheus noticed was the odd white substance that covered half the room. At first he assumed that it was flour, and that they had walked into a Home Ec classroom, but the assorted beakers and microscopes told him that he was wrong. "I give, what is that?"

  "It's from a fire extinguisher. There was a bad guy here. And there's a body on the other side of that table."

  Orpheus leaned his weapon up against a sink and went around the other side. Ethan was correct. A body lay under a clear plastic tarp. Orpheus was pretty sure that it was a female, but he had no inclination to lift up the tarp to confirm it. There was almost no odor of decomposition now, but under the tarp was a completely different story. "You never told me anything about this."

  "I never told you about a couple of things. That whole day was just fucking awful." Still, Ethan managed to relate the details of Trent's betrayal and Denise's death.

  When he was finished, Orpheus advised Lena of the situation in the science room. He put a hand on his son's shoulder and said, "Hey, we'll make sure she gets a real burial. Is, uh, there anyone else that we need to take care of?"

  Ethan took a moment to answer. "No one who still has anything left to bury. Let's just keep moving."

  Ethan led them back out, and they continued clearing the floor.

  They circled the entire floor without incident and ended up on the other side of Orpheus' net, which was fully intact. "Okay, down we go."

  The group stood at the top of the stairwell. The first flight of stairs and landing were clear, but the stairs took two ninety-degree turns before they reached the bottom floor. "We're blind here, so be careful," Orpheus said.

  Fish asked, "Hey, guys? What music do you think zombies would hate the most?"

  Tim and Ethan answered simultaneously. "Country."

  Rachel rolled her eyes. "You guys just don't know good music."

  Fish fiddled with his cell phone. "Country ... it ... is." He looked at Orpheus. "Try something?"

  "Go nuts."

  "Cover me."

  Tim crept down the stairs and rounded the corner slowly, making sure that he wasn't going to run into a zombie. He motioned for Fish to follow. Fish whispered, "Here, zombie-zombie. Come chow down on some hoedown." He pressed a button on his phone once more and then flung the cell phone the rest of the way, like a Frisbee. The hard protective case slapped the tile floor and continued to spin as the opening notes of a recent country hit began to play at top volume. He held his palm backwards, indicating that everyone should wait.

  They were rewarded with the sounds of pounding footsteps. Orpheus estimated that there were maybe seven or eight sets of footfalls, although it was impossible to know for sure, because they were all in close proximity to one another and moving at something just shy of a dead run. The shapes came into view, mostly in shadow, but somewhat illuminated by the glow of the telephone's screen. The shapes whipped their heads back and forth, seemingly unable to find the source of the sound that drew them.

  "Well I'll be damned," Orpheus said. "Lena, is the channel open?"

  "It is now."

  "Attention, we will be engaging in twenty seconds. Everything is under control. Hold your positions unless otherwise advised." He ended the transmission and checked his weapon. "On my mark, open fire. One quick volley, make sure they're down. Then we wait to see if the sound draws any others."

  They took up firing positions.

  "Fire!"

  The volley lasted less than three seconds, and there was no more movement from the zombies. Scalpel waited to see if any more would show up, but none did.

  There were more rooms to check, but the school was virtually clear.

  There was no celebration, because they all knew that they still had a lot of work to do.

  Except for Fish. He could always celebrate. "Seriously, you guys, how awesome am I?"

  O

  The five companions cleared the bottom floor in the same manner as they had the top. Fish's gambit couldn't have been more successful. There were no more zombies in the school, but the job wasn't completely done. They verified that all of the doors and windows were secured.

  Once that was done, they headed to the sole remaining unexplored space, which had long ago been secured beyond reason.

  "The gym."

  Ethan said only those two words, but they carried an unmistakable grimness that Orpheus easily picked up on. He had expected it, of course. Ethan had only mentioned the incident briefly, and then never brought it up again. Rachel, on the other hand, had gone out of her way to discuss it with her future father-in-law in grisly detail. The talk had been cathartic for her, and it had also allowed Orpheus to understand his son a little more without Ethan having to relive it. Rachel was much more open than Ethan was. No surprise there, of course, considering who his father was. There were a lot of things about himself that Orpheus was proud to see in Ethan, as well. The difficulty in allowing someone else to share the burden was certainly not one of them.

  "Don't tell him I told you about this," Rachel had said. "He blames himself for all of it. It's stupid, and stubborn, and ...” She paused.

  "And just like me?"

  She smiled. "Well, yeah. He thinks that it's his cross to bear, and his alone. He forgets that I was the first one to make it to the gym. Mickey and I, we knew right away that they were trapped. Before he got there, Mickey told me that he had a bad feeling, that things were about to get worse. You know what else he said?"

  Orpheus waited.

  "He said that, no matter how badly it all turned out, that it wouldn't be my fault, or Ethan's. He said that he knew I understood that, and it was my responsibility to get Ethan to understand that." She took a deep breath, on the edge of tears. "And I never could. I tried, I just couldn't. He just keeps pushing it farther and farther down. I'm afraid that it'll push back one day, and I won't be able to help."

  No one understood the futility of that tactic better than Orpheus. He'd tried to bury the island, but memories like that have a nasty habit of clawing their way back to the surface.

  Orpheus had everyone else hang back and approached the doors with Ethan. The welds around the door were the damnedest thing. He grabbed the handle and give it a tug. There was just a little give at the center weld between the doors. Ethan and Mickey and whoever else may have been assi
sting from the other side had managed to loosen the center weld in a pretty short amount of time, as Orpheus understood it. Given a few more minutes, they probably could have cracked the door, at least, and escaped.

  Whoever had done this was evil. If they were somehow still alive, they would have to pay.

  "You okay?"

  Ethan gave the door two halfhearted pounds. "Yeah, I just wasn't looking forward to this."

  "Understandable. Give the order when you're ready." Orpheus had briefly considered sending Ethan on another errand while this was done, but that wouldn't be doing him any favors. If Ethan wanted to have any chance of truly getting past this particular horror, he first had to face it.

  Ethan nodded. With one final, more forceful, pound on the door, he said, "Okay, let's crack it." He radioed to Lena to send everyone in. "We'll meet them at the front door."

  A few minutes later, the high school was teeming with activity. The dedicated services personnel were getting the kitchen back in shape, some others were gathering all of the info that they could off of the zombies in the hopes of identifying them, and the rest were setting up a secure corridor for when the supply trucks arrived. Orpheus made sure that no one was close enough to the gym to see what he was doing.

  Orpheus was still cutting through the door with the reciprocating saw. He didn't bother trying to break the welds. They'd need a heavy-duty torch for that, so he just concentrated on cutting out as much of the thick wooden doors as he could. It wouldn't look great, but it would allow them to start hauling in the cots and other items. He finished with the cut. Friction held the door in place, so he put his shoulder up against it and drove forward. The door held for a split-second, then fell over on to the gym floor with a thunderclap. Rachel updated Lena, who in turn called the ferry to have them send the trucks.

  Orpheus sniffed out of habit. Nothing but a musty smell, because the gas had long since dissipated. Before Orpheus gave an order, Ethan produced his flashlight and stepped through the opening. He directed the beam around the gym. "All clear."

  Orpheus felt that his son had done enough. "Fish, Tim, you're with me. You two are in charge of the supply escort." He had expected an argument, but he got nothing more than a relieved okay from his son.

  Light streamed from the large, story-high windows, enough to see comfortably, but not enough to reveal every detail. The three men stepped through the hole that Orpheus had made. What greeted them was something that they had each seen dozens of times before and had hoped to never see again:

  The aftermath of a reap.

  The piles of clothes made from synthetic materials. Jewelry. Fillings. Bullets. The non-organic material was unaffected while the person that once held them was eaten away.

  It was clean, bloodless, and still horrifying.

  He knew about Ethan's documented head count, so identifying the victims wholesale wouldn't be an issue. Their loved ones would get some closure, at least. Orpheus walked to the supply closet, reached in, and grabbed two wide mops. He handed one each to Tim and Fish, who immediately got to work. The mops had once been used to clean up the basketball court during timeouts, and now they were being used to push together the remnants of dozens of people.

  It was obscene, but it was also necessary. There were some things that Orpheus had never revealed during his endless debriefings, and Scythe was one of them. That would cause too many questions and put them all at further risk. The young men made short work of the cleanup and were nearly finished, but Orpheus still had one thing to do.

  "I think I found it," Tim said. Orpheus walked over to where he was standing over a pile of clothes, a short-sleeve collared shirt and blue jeans. He wasn't interested in the clothes, only in the metallic tags that lay near them. He picked them up and ran his finger across them. The flashlight beam revealed the name Mitchell Potts. Ethan and Rachel had known him as Mickey.

  Orpheus said, "Thank you for helping out my kids, grunt. I'll return the favor, somehow." He slipped the tags into his cargo pocket, and the three of them bagged up the rest of the debris.

  Settling In ... Again

  Orpheus opened the door to the former principal's office and dropped his bags on the floor. The antique mahogany desk and leather furniture seemed excessive for a high school principal, but as soon as he'd settled into the high-back chair, and saw the matching sofa, he knew that was where he was going to call home for the next year, guilt-free. Everyone else could sleep on a cot in the gym. He was exercising managerial privilege.

  He placed his two-way radio on the desk and confirmed the proper channel. Once that was done, he unclasped his duffel bag, opened the flaps, and began moving in. He hung his uniforms on the wrought-iron coat rack. His "civvies" consisted of shorts, t-shirts, sweatpants, and a pair of blue jeans that he'd probably never have occasion to wear. There wasn't exactly any nightlife on the island anymore, and the majority of his spare time would be spent sleeping or doing paperwork. He stuffed those in two desk drawers.

  The school really had everything that they needed. An industrial kitchen, cafeteria, gym, several bathrooms with shower facilities, an auditorium for briefings and movies. And it had been secured before. The only time it had been compromised had been due to his own men. Those mistakes would not be repeated.

  He leaned back and closed his eyes. He began a breathing exercise that he'd learned from his shrink. He had to admit that meditation did wonders for his blood pressure. And it was nice to have a few minutes to himself.

  "Captain, we have an incoming chopper. Mr. Trager requested that you meet it personally. Arrival in ten mike."

  Orpheus sighed and acknowledged the transmission. "Well, that figures," he said to an empty office.

  O

  Orpheus grew more agitated with each step.

  They hadn't set up a secured landing spot for the helicopter yet. That wouldn't be done until the next day when the Jersey barriers arrived and enclosed the school. Everyone knew this, because it was on Orpheus' extremely detailed itinerary. So whoever had disregarded that itinerary (Orpheus was pretty sure who) was coming in on a proven zombie magnet and would be landing in an unsecured location, which meant that they'd have to do their best to secure it in a hurry. He stormed outside and was ready to start giving orders, but was pleasantly surprised by what he saw.

  His lieutenants were organizing the vehicles into a ring around the cul-de-sac, and they were doing it quickly. Once the last vehicle was in place, Tim threw a smoke flare into the grassy center. Red smoke billowed up, showing the pilot where to land. If the arrival attracted any zombies, they could just dig in and eliminate them.

  Orpheus jogged over to Ethan just as the chopper came into sight.

  "There's an asshole on that helicopter, and I bet it carries the rank of Colonel," Ethan said.

  "Took the words right out of my mouth."

  The helicopter arrived overhead and hovered for a moment before it began its descent. The down draft blew red smoke everywhere, and everyone had to turn sideways to avoid it getting in their eyes. The helicopter touched down with a gentle thud. After being bounced around in helicopters several times before, Orpheus could both recognize and appreciate a gentle touch like that. The rotors powered down, the smoke cleared, and Orpheus took a look into the back seat.

  Of course it was Ralston, and Orpheus once again berated himself for letting himself get caught in the position of having to answer to him.

  "Play nice," Ethan said.

  "Ugh."

  The pilot hopped out and slid the door open. Ralston climbed down, all smiles and waves. He was quickly followed by another man with a professional photography rig, it seemed.

  Ethan said, "He does know that it's not an election year, right?"

  "Would you knock it off, I ... no fucking way is that who I think it is."

  "Who?"

  "This just keeps getting better and better," Orpheus grumbled. He waited for Ralston to approach, then snapped off a crisp salute, which was lazily returned. "Colonel
." There was a flash of light as they shook hands. Orpheus ignored the photographer for the moment.

  "You work fast, Captain."

  "Not fast enough, it seems. I wanted to have a secure landing area by tomorrow."

  More flashes.

  "We checked the sat images. This area is clear enough. I'll be honest; my curiosity got the better of me."

  Another flash, and Orpheus cast an annoyed glare over at the photographer. He'd never gotten a name, but he'd never forget the face of that pain-in-the-ass reporter.

  The reporter grinned, as if to say, bet you didn't see that one coming. He extended his hand. Orpheus shook it and managed to avoid crushing every bone in it.

  "Iver Thompson," the reporter said. Cocky.

  Ralston said, "He tells me that you two have met before."

  "You could say that," Orpheus replied. "Why is he here?"

  Ralston's tone changed to a more serious tone. He clearly didn't like being challenged. "Because I want him here. I owe a favor to a certain editor-in-chief, so I agreed to allow Thompson here to be embedded with your op, per our contract."

  Orpheus tried to figure out a way to politely object, but was having a hard time.

  Thompson spoke up and filled the silence. "You see, you have all of that spiffy satellite imaging, but they don't actually tell any story, give the human interest angle. That's what I'm here for."

  Orpheus paid him no attention and spoke directly to Ralston. "I won't be responsible for him. I agreed to lead men who went through specialized training."

  "Understood."

  "Hey, I can handle myself. I've been in a dozen warzones. This is a tourist spot."

  "I'll remember you said that when you have dead people coming for you."

  Tino yelled, "Cap, we got incoming!" from the top of a Rhino.