by mike Evans
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me! How hard is it to just leave the gates up? I swear it doesn’t seem to matter who I put on gate duty, there isn’t one mother out there that is smart enough to keep it up. I mean it, how hard is it to just not push the button? There’s nothing else that’s required, you just sit there and if you see someone coming you say, ‘hey someone is coming,’ that’s it!”
“I’m sorry, I-”
“Rhetorical! Rhetorical fucking question, Jon. That means if you value your manhood, you shut up and you do so fucking now! Damn it, she’s going to do something stupid. I know it, there’s no question about it.”
“Can I ask what happened, Clary?” Jon asked hesitantly.
“Sure, Jon, you can ask all the things you want, but I’m not telling your bean pole ass anything.”
Jon was going to say something, but he caught his reflection in the window. “For now, Jon, I guess you ought to stay on duty. I’ll be up front in a few minutes. If I were you, I’d be sure I don’t have to slow down when I get there. Or there’s going to be a boot much bigger than your little asshole can handle. Do you understand me, Jon?”
Jon didn’t answer. He was more than confident that if ever he had heard a rhetorical question, that this was that time.
Clary clipped the radio on his pants, looking down at himself. Greg and Kya were both staring at him, looking about as clueless as someone could be. “I need to go do something, can you two hold down the fort here? Make sure that nobody does anything stupid.”
Joey leaned in close to Kya, sucking up a healthy strain of snot back into his nose as he was wiping his eyes. “He must be sick or something.”
“Why do you say that? I mean, other than his eye, I think that he looks all right,” Kya said.
“Because he just said that he doesn’t want anyone to get in trouble, and that he wants to have Greg keep people out of it. Something has to be wrong, don’t you think?”
“Uh, yeah, come to think of it, that doesn’t sound like something Clary would ever say,” Kya said as worry began to rise in her voice.
Greg walked up, ignoring the two of them bantering back and forth. “I’m sorry, did you just say you want me in charge? You know I’m not staying on base when Ellie just left looking like she just heard something that broke her heart. Besides, you don’t ever go anywhere when Aslin is gone, same with when you are out. You know we’d burn this place down without your help, and ever growing wisdom, and, like, guidance and shit.”
Clary, who was just barely keeping his own shit together, took a few deep breaths. He looked up at them, and his pale face said it all. Kya who had lost Patrick only weeks ago broke down. She had been seeing that look in the mirror more times than she wanted to admit to anyone. She felt ignorant for not seeing it and putting the pieces together. She, much like Ellie, had assumed the worst and been wrong. “I don’t understand—did Shaun’s idea not work? Did the dead take over their set up? What happened?” Kya asked.
“I don’t know. Shaun didn't get taken out, but we did lose McQuaig and Aslin. He said that... it doesn’t matter. Shaun finished what I hadn’t. Ellie wouldn’t listen to me and she thinks he’s dead. She’s going to get herself hurt, or worse. I need to get to where she is before she does something stupid,” Clary said.
“What the fuck do you mean we lost McQuaig and Aslin? What happened? How?” Kya yelled.
“Shaun said one of the men that we hit a few weeks ago must’ve survived. He was on an opposing roof and had a long gun; they never knew it was coming. The shock of what happened was enough that he got two of them. Shaun must’ve moved, it was the only thing that saved his life. He said that he was leaving.”
“Fuck! I don’t understand, what do you mean Shaun isn’t coming back? Shit,” Kya said. Kya tried to say something, but the image of Aslin and McQuaig lying shot near each other was more than she could handle.
The implications of what Clary said made their way through Joey’s mind, and his psyche, too, began to crumble. Tears escaped his eyes and flowed freely. Greg tried to put a hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged it off, walking over to a Humvee, bringing his baseball bat out of his pack and smashing it into the driver’s side mirror, then the window, shattering each of them in one swing.
Kya, who wanted to ease his pain, walked forward. Greg gripped her by the shoulder, firmly pulling her back and out of his reach. “Christ, are you trying to get yourself killed, Kya? He’d fucking kill you with one hit, even if it was by accident.”
They watched him for a minute, swinging repeatedly as the metal bat did massive damage to the sheet metal. He swung until he couldn’t hold the bat any longer. Joey’s shoulder’s shook and he dropped the bat by his side. Greg walked up to put a hand on his shoulder and he fell to his knees. His cries sent chills through their spines. Clary knew that if what he felt like on the inside could be expressed on the outside, that Picasso couldn't paint a better picture.
Greg knelt down, bringing in Joey to a hug. He tried to shrug him off but Greg had muscles of his own and held him tight. “You’re going to be all right Joey... Not today, but you’ll be okay. We gotta go on. I know how you feel, I loved them too.”
“Greg, how come we keep losing people? I don’t understand why people gotta be so vicious. Why?”
“People suck, Joey, but we have to keep trying. We’re going to find the good ones, and we are going to get rid of these monsters. You just need to hang in there. You want to go lie down or see if you can help Lou?” Greg tried to soothe. “Kya, can you watch Joey?”
“Where the hell do you think you are going? Do I look like I’m in any condition to watch anyone?” Kya said.
Greg gave her a stern look that she would have thought was something her father or Clary would give. “We need you to help. I’m not letting Clary leave on his own.”
Clary cleared his throat. “You realize that I’m still here, right?”
“Yeah, good. That means that you haven’t left yet. You leave without me, I promise you that I’ll do the stupidest shit that you’ve ever seen me do! Kya, please?”
She wiped at her face, walking up and taking Greg’s place. Joey didn’t try pushing off Kya. He turned around, wrapping his arms around her thin, teen frame. If you’d have looked at him from behind, you’d have been clueless that she was even there.
“We’ll be back soon, Kya. If you guys see Lou, you can tell him. Or I’ll let him know when we get back. I don’t want to waste the time trying to track him down at the hospital. I don’t see what good telling him right now is going to do, anyways. It can wait a little bit. I want you to keep the radio on and handy though, Kya. If we need help, there aren’t many left here I can count on that know what they are doing,” Clary ordered.
Kya looked back at Clary and just barely whispered, “It’s because we can’t keep anyone alive, Clary. Go, now; go before we lose Ellie too. I hate today and everything about it.”
Clary patted her on the shoulder as he walked away. “Not too much I can think of to help you with that right now. It’ll get better.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Probably means that we’ll all be dead. Won’t matter a whole fucking lot after that, will it?”
Greg picked up his gear, knowing he was carrying light. “We need to stop by the armory. I don’t have enough to leave with. We can do it quick,” Greg said.
“You go grab a Humvee and make sure that it is gassed up. Come get me at the armory. I know where shit is better than anyone in there.”
“Do you have any idea where we are going?” Greg questioned.
“We aren’t going anywhere until you get a truck, fucking go!” When Greg didn’t so much as move, Clary screamed it again. “Fucking go, Greg! Go, or I will leave your ass!”
Greg nodded, taking off in a jog and doing as he was told. Clary walked with a mission in mind, hating this day more with every passing second. If anything happened to Ellie, he was going to blame himself, and knew she’d haun
t his dreams. He opened the door to the armory, running down a checklist through his mind. He took two duffels, filling them with everything they would and wouldn’t need, hoping that with his eye and fatigue from it they’d be able to stay in the truck.
Greg sprinted off towards the car depot, finding a Humvee, and topped it off with as much fuel as he could put in it, making sure that there were four extra tanks in the back. He opened the rear, checking that there was plenty of room for ammunition. He turned it over, not waiting for it to warm up, and peeled out the tires, racing to the armory. When he pulled up, Clary was raising the door and motioning for him to back up. When he stopped, the two did double time getting the ammo in the back. Clary had four rifles sitting next to him and two duffel bags. The news of the day had already taken its toll on Clary.
Greg was looking at his watch as Clary was getting the door closed to the armory. When he came back around, he yelled, “You trying to move like old people? Fuck, Clary.”
“Not today, Greg, I am not in the fucking mood I can assure you! You want your ass handed to you, then keep it up, damn it. I'm quite confident I can move faster than you think.”
“Fine, but you realize how fast those four wheelers can go, right? Throw in some teen hormones, and think how fast she’s probably going. I can think of a hundred things that could happen to her that aren’t good.”
Clary put the last rifle up in the passenger seat with himself and said, “Only a hundred? Christ, I can’t tell you all the shit I’m thinking; it’s making me want to puke. Get this thing in gear. Don’t make me regret letting you drive, Greg.”
Greg wanted to assure him she’d be okay, but in the back of his mind, he couldn’t even convince himself of that. He put it in gear and punched the gas, making Clary instantly think that having Kya take him there might have been the smarter move.
He shook off his doubt as Greg got the Humvee under control and straightened out. Clary checked his gun, making sure that it was locked, loaded, and ready to take anything or anyone out in their way. His and most of the other’s thought process that life was sacred had been seriously changed after losing almost everyone on the base in one day, and all of that being because of betrayal by Bella and her dad.
Jon was standing out front, watching the two drive up. He waved uneasily to the two of them and received only the finger back from Clary.
Aliyah watched from a distance, knowing that something was seriously wrong. She’d been around for a while, and Clary and Aslin didn’t both leave at once unless everyone left; that wasn’t something that happened on a regular basis. She ran to speak to Kya, but she was nowhere to be found.
Chapter 2
Ellie drove up the highway away from the base, not thinking twice about the speed in which she was racing towards town. She stopped after she couldn’t see the base over her shoulder. Ellie’s chest was shuddering, rising up and down, and she was an absolute mess. She let off the throttle, looking around, making sure there weren’t any of the Turned standing around.
She used her hoodie to wipe away at the tears and tried to get a bit of composure before she began to drive again. She stared around at the countryside, taking deep breaths, knowing she needed to have some rational thought process. But all that she could think of was Shaun, and how he was gone; how there would never be another connection like what they had. No more walks, kisses in the dark… nothing. Just done.
She looked at the ditch and was thankful at least that she hadn’t driven into it while trying to get her emotions under control. She listened for a minute, hearing Clary screaming on her radio. She knew that she should have answered it, but knew the earful that she would have gotten if she did. She reached down hesitantly, turning it off, well aware how bad of an idea that was. She didn’t want to listen to anyone about anything right now. Her heart had never felt like this, and she prayed that either she died or it went away, because she didn’t want to let it continue. Shaun’s smile and long walks were all that she could think of.
When she thought she had herself under some control, she started moving again. Ellie began to think of Clary and wondering how horrible he must have felt. Aslin was practically his brother, and they’d been together forever, according to the way they described it when the two would reminisce of better days. The entire thing made her feel worse. The last thing she wanted to do was put additional stress on an already broken heart. But she had to know. She had to see it for herself. Ellie knew she couldn’t explain it to anyone, but she didn’t think that once she went back she would be asked for—or offering up—any explanations.
She ran the four-wheeler up the large hill, still thankful to not see any of the dead roaming the countryside. The upside about the versatility of the four-wheeler was the fact that she could go anywhere in it. The downside to it, of course, was that she couldn’t have any protection from the elements or the dead. She’d not seen many in trees or on roofs, but didn’t put it past them not to be able to find their way there.
When she was on the outskirts of Johnston, she pulled onto the main street that led to where Shaun had said they’d be trying out their plan. She drove slowly, realizing even more so that she didn’t have any details how he was taken, or how Clary had known about it in the first place. Her earlier explosion of emotions was only fueling her growing rage. The idea that she didn’t know what happened to him was crushing her, but the fact that there was nothing she could do about it only made things worse. She drove slowly along the main street. She stopped a few hundred yards shy of what looked as if it was a war zone.
The dead could be seen for as far as the eye could see. She whistled a little and tried to figure out where the three of them would have been set up at. Ellie drove up carefully, keeping a watchful eye on the surrounding buildings, just waiting for one of the freaks to come out of their comatose states and come sprinting at some inhuman speed towards her, ready to feast on her.
She looked at the pavement, finally making sense of what she was seeing. All the dead had one side dominantly decimated by gunfire. She saw a scene that could only be explained as a paint splatter artist had ripped out handful after handful of brain matter and blood, then smeared the pavement with it. She looked to the top of the roofs, seeing a video camera on top of one of them standing all by itself. She admired what they had done, thinking that they’d been there and massively successful. At least at first, she thought.
The dead lay everywhere. There were easily a few hundred lying across the ground, some by themselves, others in piles on the ground. She took the four-wheeler at a crawl, going in and out of the dead, not worrying about hurting the Turned but refusing to get stranded out in the middle of nowhere because she’d gotten stuck on one or flipped the ride while trying to get over some of them.
The further in she got, the more rational her thinking became, and Ellie knew that she should not have bolted from the base. There would be nothing good that came from it, and there would be watchful eyes on her for quite a while going forward. She did not care if Clary said she needed to be restricted to base. After all the death, there wasn’t any reason to leave for quite some time. There was more food than they would need to have on them for a long time. Before, when their numbers were growing, they had started to wonder what they would do to help replenish rations. But after almost everyone had gotten wiped out, it had reduced that stress greatly.
Ellie felt sick to her stomach when she pulled up to the first building that presented the kind of angle they would have needed. She wasn’t sure whether it was the one they’d used, and when she climbed it, she saw that it wasn’t the right one. She was momentarily relieved about that, until she ran her rifle around the tops of the other buildings, and she saw a few bodies atop of one.
The tears began again and would have been worse, but she could not see the faces; the profiles lying on the roof did not look like they would have belonged to Shaun. She started to wonder if they’d gone to separate roofs. A thousand questions raced through her mind. If the
y were dead, then how did Clary know? Did one of them say goodbye with their final breaths? What was going on? Had she left too hastily? Should she have stuck around until she heard what it was that was going on? Would she regret it, or would she be putting the final nail in her own coffin by coming here by herself?
She wiped at the tears, looking around and listening. She could only hear the sound of the four-wheeler’s muffler and instantly regretted leaving it running. She walked to the edge, crouching down now, putting a little more thought into self-survival. She ran the scope along the street where she’d come from, seeing she was good to go. When she took it along where Aslin and McQuaig had been, she saw a horde of the Turned that were coming out of what was their normal, comatose state.
The sound of the muffler broke their focus. She could see there were easily twenty-five of them, and they’d been gorging on something. They had blood on their faces—now almost ghostly looking from frostbite caused by the hard winter, and their clothes were ragged and torn, soaked in blood.
