The Last Orphans

by N. W. Harris

  THIS book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the authors' imagination or are used factiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  NO part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  The Last Orphans

  Copyright ©2014 Neil Harris

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Design by: Marya Heiman

  Typography by: Courtney Nuckels

  Editing by: Cynthia Shepp

  For more information about our content disclosure,

  please utilize the QR code above with your smart phone or visit us at

  www.CleanTeenPublishing.com

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Dad twisted away from the steering wheel and glared, the veins in his leathery neck and temple bulging.

  “You can’t keep carrying on about it, Shane,” he yelled. “She’s dead! That’s the short and sweet.”

  “Bill! Look where you’re going!” Jackie, his dad’s girlfriend, put one hand on the roof and one on the dash, bracing for a collision.

  Spinning forward, Dad jerked the wheel. The tires screeched, and the car veered into its lane. Shane’s six-foot-tall body whipped hard to the left, and then right, his head slamming into the upper part of the doorframe with a loud thunk. A lifted four-wheel drive almost flattened the ancient station wagon. It swerved toward the opposite shoulder, roaring by with its horn blaring and the driver hanging his finger out at them. Cursing and rubbing the lump growing on the side of his skull, Shane almost wished the truck had put him out of his misery.

  By the time Dad got his window down and hurled a mouthful of slurred insults back at the truck, it was already a quarter mile down the road.

  “Such a tough guy,” Shane muttered under his breath.

  “What did you say, boy?” Dad shouted, his knuckles white from gripping the steering wheel so hard. At least this time, he kept his eyes forward.

  “Nothing,” Shane replied and looked out at the rolling hills covered in brown fescue, pastures separated by stands of twisted pine trees and rusting barbwire.

  Jackie lit a Virginia Slim with trembling hands. She took a deep drag and rolled her window down a crack to pull out some of the disgusting smoke.

  “You have got to be the worst driver alive,” she seethed between puffs.

  “Well, it’s that one’s fault,” Dad retorted with a defensive whine in his tone, like he always did when she laid into him. Pointing his thumb at the backseat, he glared at Shane in the rearview mirror, the car drifting across the centerline again. “You still cry’n?”

  Shane was, but it wasn’t like he sobbed inconsolably. Silent tears clung in his eyes for two very good reasons. One—Shane loved Granny. She was the sanest person in his jacked-up family. She had always been there when he needed a place to run to, a place where he could find a minute of peace. And now she was gone. It felt like a round bale of hay—those big ones full of moldy thistle they fed to cattle—sat on his chest. Reason two—Shane’s boiling anger towards his dad made him want to punch something. With each passing moment, the pressure of his bottled-up rage increased. Dad getting drunk and being a prick to him in private was one thing. Spewing so much crap about Granny at the reception—for that, he deserved to have his nose busted. And he didn’t even have the decency to wear a suit to the funeral, showing up in his greasy, blue work Dickies with his stupid name above the shirt pocket.

  Dad slammed on the brakes and swerved off onto the shoulder. Gravel tinged against the corroded bottom of the musty, old car, and a cloud of dust engulfed it as it skidded to a halt. He jumped out and ran around the front to get to Shane’s door, leaning over so he could glower at him the whole way. He pulled it open so hard that it was a miracle it didn’t come off its creaking, thirty-year-old hinges.

  “Get the hell out!”

  Shane stared up at him, unsure how to proceed.

  “I said get out, damn it,” Dad repeated, spittle flying from his mouth. “I won’t have a sixteen-year-old boy bawl’n like a little girl all the way home. Man up or walk.”

  Too much wine had left Dad’s teeth and lips stained red, and Shane could smell the alcohol, even over the foul stench of Jackie’s cigarette. His aunt had whispered an apology to Shane at the funeral reception, saying she’d only put wine out because she didn’t think his dad would drink it. What she didn’t realize was Dad had become such a raging alcoholic that he would’ve drunk turpentine if it were on the table.

  His father’s eyes widened, and his fists balled up. Shane thought he would grab him and try to drag him from the car.

  “You know what?” Shane shouted. Gritting his teeth, he climbed out. He had grown a lot in the last two years; he wasn’t the little boy scared of the big man anymore. Speaking quieter, Shane put all the meanness he could into each word, “I hate your stupid car.”

  Standing there with his arms crossed over his chest, Shane stared down at his father’s sunburned baldhead. Dad pulled his oil-stained hand away from the door and straightened up in an obvious attempt to be taller. He huffed, his breath smelling like another DUI in the making.

  Was he daring Shane to hit him? Why not? It might do him some good, Shane thought. And if he could knock him out, he’d be keeping him from driving drunk. It’d be a community service.

  Dad leaned back. The whiskers of his thick, red-and-gray mustache pulled down on the sides and twitched. The muscles in his forearms, swollen from twenty years of work as a mechanic, rippled. His big, scarred knuckles protruded outward as his fists clenched tighter. Shane braced himself. He’d taken a thousand hits on the football field; he could handle one from this old man.

  “Don’t come home ‘til you’re done blubber’n,” Dad growled with faltering bravado.

  “I wasn’t planning on it,” Shane replied, slamming the door so hard the car’s decrepit suspension complained with loud, reverberating squeaks.

  Dad hesitated and then he pivoted away, stomping back around the front of the car. He hopped in and must’ve floored the accelerator, because the engine groaned for a moment, threatening to stall. With a noxious puff of black exhaust, it roared to life and spun the rear tires in the dusty gravel on the side of the road.

  Shane turned away and covered his face just in time. Once the rocks stopped pelting him, he picked one up and threw it with all his strength at the smoke and dirt cloud into which the car disappeared.
Dust stinging his eyes and nose, he stumbled away from the road to get out of the choking plume and fell. Rolling to a stop at the bottom of the ditch, he lay there on his back in his Sunday finest.

  Granny bought him the black suit to wear on special occasions, getting it a little on the big side so he’d get use out of it for a few years. She’d be sad to see it abused like this. It upset Shane something fierce. He felt more important when he wore the suit, felt like he was going places, like he could escape Loserville and see the world. Of course his dad had to ruin it, just like he ruined everything else.

  After Shane calmed down and caught his breath, he decided it felt good just to lie there on the cool ground for a minute. Granny had always loved dirt, saying it strengthened her connection to God when she touched it. She liked to walk barefoot around her small garden where she grew most of her food. He remembered sitting next to her on the strip of grass that grew down the center, listening to crickets and counting the stars. How could he have known Saturday was the last time he’d ever get to do that with her, that she’d be dead two days later?

  Biting the side of his tongue and rubbing his nose, Shane suppressed the tears. Granny was in a box, in the dirt, and there wasn’t jack he could do about it. The idea of being buried after he died gave Shane the heebie-jeebies, but it didn’t bother Granny. On that last night, sitting in the yard, she said she didn’t even need a coffin, that she’d rather have the cool soil right up against her skin. It was like she knew she’d die soon, even though she seemed more fit than Shane at the time.

  Against Granny’s wishes, his aunt flew in from New York, bought the finest box she could afford, and spent a mint on the reception. He knew it was just her way of doing something nice for Granny, but he wished she hadn’t provided booze. Dad wouldn’t have acted like such an idiot if it weren’t for the wine. In this small town, it seemed everyone knew everything about everyone else. Shane expected the commotion Dad created would be popular gossip for the next few months.

  Before, when Dad was being a jerk, Shane would go to Granny’s house. She’d feed him some fried green tomatoes and buttermilk biscuits the size of a cat’s head, or sometimes a fresh cucumber sandwich, and listen to him vent until he’d calmed down. Then he’d help her in the garden or they’d play board games, until Dad sobered up and called sounding all apologetic, on the downside of one of his rollercoaster rides.

  Standing up and making a futile attempt at brushing his suit clean, Shane wished he could go to Granny now. The smoldering heat called for a few glasses of her sweet iced tea. He took off his jacket and his light blue, clip-on tie and hung them over his arm, cursing at the sight of a tear in the left sleeve.

  He’d been dropped off in front of a creepy, kudzu-covered lot. The vines blanketed a deserted structure so completely that he couldn’t tell if it was a house or a barn. The kudzu also engulfed a couple of trees, making them look like giant, green ghosts looming on either side of the unidentifiable building, warning all to stay clear. Shane heard a long time ago that the stuff grew a foot a day. He could almost sense the creepers stretching out toward him, wanting to entangle and strangle him. A hot breeze rustled the kudzu’s broad, dusty leaves, and it sounded like the wicked plant was hissing at him. In a hurry to get away from the desolate lot, he started down the side of the pothole-riddled road, heading in the opposite direction Dad had gone.

  Might as well stop by Granny’s, he decided. There was nowhere else to go. Regular clothes and shoes awaited him there. And he reckoned the fridge still harbored a pitcher of sweet tea. Tears welled up in his eyes knowing she wouldn’t be there, and his heart ached realizing how lonely her little, white cottage would feel. An image of her vacant property ten years from now, swallowed by the kudzu, struck him. The thought made his skin crawl and the knots in his gut cinch tighter.

  After the scorching August sun passed its peak, it shined directly into Shane’s eyes, making him squint so hard his face hurt. Perspiration soaked his white, button-down shirt and rolled down his cheeks in little streams. The muggy heat demanded shorts and a T-shirt, and the thick, black slacks made his legs feel like two suckling pigs being slow roasted in a barbeque pit. Sweat drenched his stiff, leather dress shoes as well, and his useless polyester socks kept sliding down into them.

  Within ten minutes, painful blisters swelled up on Shane’s ankles. He stopped in the shade of an old oak tree growing in an empty field alongside the road, its gnarled branches reaching well across the fence. Four miserable miles stood between him and Granny’s house, an easier walk if he had his sneakers and if he knew she’d be there to greet him.

  He settled on a large clump of grass, crossed his arms over his knees, and rested his head on them. Closing his tired eyes, he contemplated hiding under the protection of the oak for the rest of the day. If he sat there long enough, the sun would be lower, and it would cool a bit. But the low, drawn-out rumble of thunder off in the distance warned he’d better keep moving. They’d had a lightning storm every afternoon for the last month, typical for North Georgia in the late summer. The rain would feel good, but he doubted his slacks and dress shoes would be any easier to walk in for it. And he didn’t relish the idea of being struck by lightning, a likely occurrence if he stayed out here in the open and even more probable if he sat under the tree for too long.

  An ominous humming caught his attention, and Shane looked up to see a beach-ball-size hornets’ nest engulfing several branches about ten-feet overhead. The black-and-gold hornets were three times as big as a normal wasp, and they looked angry, buzzing around as if someone had thrown a rock at them. Shane stiffened. He’d been stung by one of the massive insects once when he was little, and it had left a welt as big as a golf ball on his arm that took weeks to heal. He slowly rose to a crouch and slipped out of the shade of the tree, not daring to breathe until he was twenty feet away. Once he no longer heard the threatening drone of their beating wings, he stopped and glanced back.

  They acted crazy agitated, swarming around the oak’s canopy in a threatening way. A stray one buzzed past his ear and he ducked, then turned and hurried down the road, not risking another look.

  After a few minutes, the adrenaline wore off, and the heat made Shane worry less about the hornets. His pace slackened. He gave up on walking on the gravelly shoulder, finding limited relief for his blistered ankles on the flat surface of the asphalt. Shane raised his hand, attempting to shield his face from the blistering sun, though even more heat seemed to be reflecting off the blacktop.

  A sudden roar came from behind him, accompanied by the blare of an air horn. Shane leapt off the road onto the shoulder, hurdled over the ditch, and then landed next to the fence. A semi loaded with ill-fated chickens barreled by in a blast of wind, no doubt headed for the processing plant. It disappeared around the corner, leaving the grass dancing and little, white feathers floating down in the black diesel smoke of its wake.

  Shane’s pulse raced from the near miss. In his rush to get out of the big rig’s way, he’d almost fallen onto the heavy gage electric fence containing the Douglas’ pasture. Down the hill, he saw the cattle stampeding around in a peculiar way. Usually, during this hottest part of the day, they would find shelter under a tree or wade in the stagnant water of their pond. Instead, they ran in wide circles as though a pack of wild mutts nipped at their heels, but he didn’t hear any barking and couldn’t see a single dog. They came up the hill and charged at the thick, aluminum cables of the fence, heading straight for Shane with such fury that he expected they would plow through it and trample him. He tensed, ready to sprint across the road and jump in the opposite ditch, but the cattle changed direction abruptly and headed the other way, down the hill toward the barns.

  Stunned, Shane watched the herd rumble away. He figured a few would die of heatstroke if someone didn’t calm them soon. Because Kelly Douglas—the hottest girl in the twelfth grade and his future wife when hogs learned to fly—might answer, he entertained the temptation to go down to the palati
al farmhouse and knock on the door to offer his assistance. A glance at his sweaty, dirt-covered clothing made him decide against it. He’d have to make the varsity team before he’d have a chance with Kelly anyway. Not to mention, it was unlikely she’d give a junior the time of day. And there wasn’t much he could do to help with the cattle dressed like this.

  Thunder boomed, and mountainous purple clouds moved in from the west. The wind started to blow harder, and he hurried down the road with more haste. The approaching storm must’ve been putting the cattle on edge. Shane knew that sometimes animals acted rash before a tornado struck. The notion of being stranded outside in a twister put even more speed in his pace.

  Not more than ten minutes had passed before a rustling sound in the deep grass on the left side of the road startled Shane again. Hundreds of rats leapt out of the ditch and scampered onto the scorched asphalt a few feet in front of him, stopping his progress. They paused in unison and all turned their beady eyes toward him, raising their noses and twitching their whiskers as if to smell him. A sudden rush of fear caused him to freeze. Before he had a chance to take a step back from the abnormally bold rodents, they continued on, vanishing as quickly as they appeared into the cornfield on the other side of the road. Angry hornets, stampeding cattle, and now this—one heck of a storm was surely brewing. Or, he feared, the heat was getting to him, and he was starting to hallucinate.

  The sky took on a light green hue, a sickly color that preceded really nasty weather. With a mile and a half to go until he made it to Granny’s house, Shane started a limping sort of jog, knowing he’d better get into her cellar soon or he could be in big trouble. Sharp pain exploded in his feet and ankles with each step, and he expected half of the moisture in his shoes might be blood. He didn’t dare stop and look, knowing the pain would only get worse once he exposed his ruptured blisters to air.

  The sound of an engine downshifting behind him made him run off onto the shoulder. The car’s horn beeped, and he turned to see his aunt’s rental slowing down as it approached. Relief flooded through him, and his legs suddenly felt too rubbery to keep him upright.