The Last Orphans

by N. W. Harris

  Shane cursed and leaned over to retrieve the key. His aunt let out a weak moan when he pressed against her, and he knew he had to calm down or he’d never get her to the hospital. He let out a slow and shaky breath, reinserted the key in the ignition, and twisted it.

  The small block 302 roared to life, and Shane was grateful he’d done a tune-up on the engine two weeks earlier. It would get them to the hospital in a hurry without issue. After a last check to ensure the windows were rolled up tight, he said a silent prayer and clicked the garage door opener. Bees spilled in under the aluminum door as it rose, engulfing the truck.

  Shane turned on the windshield wipers and smeared insects across the glass. Hoping he could kill even more, he floored the accelerator. The rear tires squealed on the greasy, concrete floor. When the tires bit, the truck charged out of the garage and down the driveway with the engine roaring.

  By the time he turned on Rural Route 2, heading east toward town and the hospital, his aunt started having a seizure. She flopped around on the seat next to him, punching him and kicking the passenger door so hard that he expected it might fly open. Shane pressed his right arm over her to keep her on the seat and struggled to keep the truck on the road.

  “Please hold on, Aunt Lillian,” Shane begged, tears making it even harder to see through the bug-gut-covered windshield.

  Shane glanced in the rearview mirror and saw that hornets blanketed the back window. Sick with terror, he pushed the truck harder, the speedometer rising above eighty. The tires left the ground at the top of a hill, and they screeched around the bend at the western corner of the Douglas’ farm.

  His aunt stopped bucking and kicking, and she stiffened as if every muscle in her body contracted at once. Shane’s heart rose into his throat, and hot tears spilled down his cheeks.

  “Aunt Lillian!” Shane shouted. “Don’t give up on me! You hear me, damn it?”

  She didn’t move. Shane couldn’t breathe.

  “You’ll be alright,” Shane said, sniffling. “I’m not gonna to let you die.” He used a fist to wipe his eyes and then gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles cracked. Shaking his head in defiance, he pushed the accelerator into the floorboard.

  “We’re going to the hospital—they’ll have you fixed up in no time.”

  He feared he was only lying to himself at this point, that she was already dead and he was rushing her corpse to the morgue. But he couldn’t be certain—she might just be unconscious. He had to drive faster, had to get her to help.

  Shane steered the truck around the hairpin blind turn at the Douglas’ driveway and came out of it with the dual exhaust pipes and the rear tires belching white smoke. Up ahead, he saw a massive, dark box blocking the road. The Ranger barreled toward a tractor-trailer flipped over onto its side. His eyes went wide and he slammed both feet onto the brake pedal, pulling the wheel hard to the right. The old pickup slid sideways, rocked up onto two tires, and slammed into the belly of the rig. The window on his door exploded, glass pelting his face and landing in his lap.

  Stunned, Shane took a quick account of himself. Other than the painful bruise on his shoulder from running into the doorjamb at Granny’s house, he seemed uninjured. The engine stalled, and only the clicking sound of cooling metal punctuated the morbid silence. Realizing he didn’t have a window to keep the hornets out, Shane jerked his head around to see outside of the cab. He expected insects to swarm in, but they had vanished. Not a single wasp buzzed around the truck.

  Aunt Lillian lay motionless next to him, looking asleep. Leaning over, Shane put his ear by her mouth and his fingers where he thought her carotid artery should be. No air flowed in and out of her, and he couldn’t feel a pulse.

  “No, please,” he gasped, acidic bile burning his throat.

  Lifting her chin and blowing into her lungs, the metallic taste of blood on her engorged lips drew vomit up into the back of his mouth. Swallowing hard and trying to stay focused, he compressed her chest thirty times and blew two more breaths into her. He kept doing CPR until sweat burned his eyes and her ribs cracked under his palms with each compression. His arms went rubbery, and spots swam in his vision. Shane leaned against the dash to keep from collapsing. Panting, he stared down at her. Her tan skin had turned a pale gray color, and her swollen tongue protruded between her lips.

  Silent tears welled in his eyes and spilled down his cheeks. He cried for her, for Granny, and for his mother. Death stole too much from him. Fresh anger erupted in tiny fires throughout his body, growing into an inferno that made him grit his teeth and caused a red haze to close in on his vision.

  He slammed his right fist into the roof of the truck. Bits of the insulation exposed by rips in the old headliner rained down from the impact. Following with a left fist, the sheet metal reported a loud thunk and more of the crumbling headliner fell. He threw another right fist, punching again and again, yelling until his throat hurt. When his arms gave out, refusing to push his bruised knuckles up into the ceiling of the cab anymore, he collapsed and hugged his aunt in his arms. Sobbing into her damp, black hair, Shane’s voice was hoarse as he begged her to wake up. Pressing her tight against his chest, he tried to will life back into her limp body.

  She was dead. Gone forever.

  Light faded from the gloomy heavens as Shane climbed over his aunt and out of the passenger side of the cab. Ominous green clouds still choked the sky, but the air was calm and quiet. He walked a few yards away and turned around, staring absently at the wreckage and wanting to die. The truck door hung open, his aunt’s swollen feet sticking out. Crippling numbness overtook him, pressing in on all sides, as if he were being buried in wet cement. It invaded his mind, drowning his thoughts, and leaving only dejected questions that no one could answer. What was he supposed to do now? Why did he have to still be alive when everyone he loved was being taken from him?

  “Help!” A girl’s hysterical voice ripped through his viscous daze like a bullet through a soda can. “Can you please? Help!”

  The voice was pitched with agony and grief, but also very familiar.

  Shane pivoted, the weight of his aunt’s nightmarish demise making it hard to move.

  Two girls ran up the Douglas’ long, gravel driveway toward him. The taller one’s tangled, blonde hair billowed behind her. She wore cutoff blue jeans and a baggy, white T-shirt with crimson paint smeared across her chest. She dragged a shorter version of herself by the hand behind her as she ran. It took a second for Shane to register who it was.

  “Kelly?” he shouted, his voice hoarse with shock. Struggling to break free of the catatonic state threatening to turn him into stone, he jogged heavily down the driveway to meet her.

  “They killed my dad and my mom!” she shrieked, her eyes wild and her gaze darting like she expected some horror to jump out of the fields and attack her. “They went berserk and trampled them!”

  “Wait—slow down.” Shane grabbed her shoulders to steady her. Her distress tore his mind away from the despair seeping through every part of his body, starving him for breath and welding his joints together. “Who killed your parents?” He realized the red on her clothes was fresh blood.

  “The cows,” she cried, collapsing into him. “Dad went out in the pasture to herd them into a paddock, and they killed him.” She hugged Shane, pressing her face into his shirt and weeping.

  Kelly’s little sister looked up at Shane, her tear-streaked face slack with confusion and grief.

  “What about your mom?” Shane whispered, afraid to hear the answer.

  “She was standing by the fence,” Kelly replied without taking her face out of his shirt. “After they got Dad, they turned and ran through the wire like it wasn’t even there. It was horrible. Then the dogs attacked my grandfather and killed him too.”

  Kelly leaned back and looked up at him with wide, wet eyes. “Why is this happening, Shane?”

  “I don’t know.” He looked down the hill at the Douglas’ farmhouse. Wretched bewilderment coiled aro
und him, a python tightening its grip for the kill. “Something’s gone wrong, bad wrong.”

  “What should we do?”

  Having been content with dying moments before, Shane’s mind hadn’t come to the answer yet. He didn’t have a clue. Turning his attention to her bloodshot, wet eyes, he didn’t have the heart to tell Kelly that. He stared at her for a long moment, trying to think of something. Scanning the field around them, his gaze stopped on the road.

  “We’ll have to go to town and see if we can get some help,” he said, at a loss for any other ideas.

  Putting his arm around Kelly’s waist and leaning into her for support almost as much as she leaned into him, he led her up the driveway. The green clouds hung low and heavy overhead, and an ominous bolt of lightning arced beneath them. This was one of the most picturesque stretches of Route 2. It twisted over rolling hills and past the straight, modern fences. Mature oaks separated the fence from the road, allowing a broken view of the green pastures of the Douglas’ farm. But at the moment, it looked like Hell on earth.

  Shane remembered the pastor at the church his grandmother made him go to preaching about the Book of Revelations, and wondered if this was the beginning of the end. Maybe his aunt and Granny were taken to heaven, spared from the horrible things yet to come. Had he and Kelly been left behind because they weren’t good Christians? Had they already sinned so much in their short lives as to incur the wrath of God? If so, why would Kelly’s little sister still be here? Shane always understood that the children would be spared in the apocalypse.

  “What happened there?” Kelly asked between sobs once they got to the road, pointing at the flipped rig with the brown-and-white Ranger entangled in its undercarriage.

  “There was an accident,” Shane replied, his voice trembling. “Stay here for a minute. I’ll go get the truck.” Although she no longer sobbed uncontrollably, tears still streamed down Kelly’s face. He didn’t want her to see his aunt, figuring it would only make matters worse.

  Shane used a tarp he found stowed behind the seat of the truck to cover his aunt’s body and then tugged her out of the cab. The bee venom left her swollen and stiff. Her skin felt cold and damp, with fluid leaking from thousands of puncture wounds caused by the stingers. Shane wanted to puke and cry at the same time when he touched her, but he managed to keep it together, knowing he had to help Kelly and her sister.

  He cradled his aunt, uncertain what he should do with her body. Leaving it on the side of the road seemed wrong. She wasn’t heavy, but Shane’s legs grew rubbery and the world began to spin around him. Rushing to get her out of his arms, he lifted her up and lowered her into the back of the truck. She rolled in and made a horrible thud as she settled onto the metal bed. Guilt adding to his list of torturous emotions, Shane tucked the tarp around her and placed rocks on either side of it so it wouldn’t blow off while they drove.

  Climbing into the cab from the passenger side, he held his breath and turned the key. To his limited relief, the truck’s engine roared to life.

  It took a couple of tries, going from reverse to drive, to get the Ranger dislodged from the belly of the semi, and then Shane backed down the road to where Kelly and her sister waited.

  “What were you doing?” Kelly asked after she’d climbed in and shut the door. She’d stopped crying, but her eyes were red and moist. Her voice was weak, just audible over the growl of the engine. Her little sister sat in the middle, looking up at Shane with a heartbreaking expression.

  “Uh, the truck was stuck against the rig. It took a few minutes to break it free,” Shane replied, sensing he didn’t answer her question.

  “What did you put in the back?” Kelly clarified, slipping the seatbelt around her sister.

  “My aunt,” he whispered, glancing down at the little girl and back up at Kelly.

  Horror flashed through Kelly’s blue eyes, but she seemed to understand Shane wanted to spare her sister the details.

  Shane steered the truck into the ditch, so they could get around the overturned semi and back up onto Route 2. Coming by the front of the big rig, he caught a glimpse of the cab. Dead crows lay on the ground and dangled from the grill and off the mirrors. The front window of the cab hung in a sheet of thousands of crystals. It reflected the last of the diminishing light, fractured and peeling away from the driver’s half of the cab and lying folded across the hood.

  Visible through the opening, the driver was limp, suspended by his seatbelt at the same odd angle as the broken windshield. His dripping face hung in shreds, his blood painting the wreckage. A solitary crow perched on the steering wheel, pecking at the holes where the man’s eyes should be.

  Sick from the sight but still numb from his aunt’s horrific death, he looked away from the dead man and focused his eyes on driving. The cushion sank to his right. Kelly’s little sister was pushing her hands down into the bench seat, raising herself up to see. He leaned forward to block her view and gunned the pickup onto the asphalt.

  Bringing the truck up to speed, he smiled down at the little girl the best he could, hoping to put her at ease. “What’s your name?”

  She looked up at him for a long moment, her eyes glistening and sad. It seemed hopeless. How could he cheer her up when he was suffering so much inside? She blinked, her lower lip puckering out like she might start bawling, but her eyes stayed fixed upon him and she answered, “I’m Natalie.”

  “Now that’s a pretty name if I’ve ever heard one,” he said, struggling to sound normal and failing miserably.

  “It was my mommy’s mommy’s name.” She spoke a little louder, though so quiet he could just hear her over the engine. Even still, her voice sounded sweet and innocent, like little glass bells ringing.

  “That makes it even more special, doesn’t it?” Shane replied.

  “I guess so.” She gave him a feeble grin, and the weight pressing in on his chest seemed to lessen. “Kelly calls me Nat. You can call me Nat too.”

  “Well, alright.” Shane cleared his throat and winked at the girl. “I think I will.”

  Five minutes later, they came across another accident. Shane slowed the truck as they approached. A little, red Honda’s smashed front end was reaching up a broken telephone pole. At least thirty dogs surrounded it, barking and growling like they’d cornered a coyote. Some stood on the roof and the hood, all their attention focused on whoever sat inside.

  Dread washed through Shane. But perhaps he was wrong. There were lots of red Hondas in town. Driving closer, Shane could see her, fighting a dog sticking its head through her window and biting her arm. Her long, blonde hair was painted with blood, glued to her face so she was barely recognizable, but there was little doubt in his mind now. Shane’s brow sank over his eyes, and he bit his lip so hard it bled. Without another thought, he aimed the truck at the dogs.

  “Don’t!” Kelly sounded terrified.

  “What?” Shane yelled, the truck twenty yards from the dog-bristled Honda.

  “There’s nothing you can do, Shane,” she said firmly, pulling Nat into a hug so she couldn’t look out. “Please, don’t!”

  Swallowing the hard lump forming in his throat, Shane pressed the accelerator. He slammed on the brakes as he hit the dogs and the truck smashed at least ten of them, their yelps so loud it made his ears ring. The truck came to a rest a foot from the driver’s side door of the wrecked car. The dogs that survived his attack returned their attention to the Honda, climbing onto the hood of the truck to get a better angle on the driver. Her guttural screams carried over the vicious barking and yelping of the dogs.

  Shane slammed the truck into park and thrust the door open as hard as he could, batting the dogs on the other side.

  “No, Shane!” Kelly yelled.

  “I can’t just leave her.” He jumped out, pushing the door shut behind him so the dogs couldn’t get into the cab.

  Shane grabbed a big German Sheppard by the skin of its back. He recognized a sticker on the window of the car, and the last bit of do
ubt as to who was inside vaporized. Mrs. Morris—his best friend’s mother. After throwing the dog across the street with all his might, he leapt onto the truck’s hood and kicked, punched, and tossed dogs aside, unleashing his bottled rage. They yelped and whined when he hit them, but not a single one tried to bite Shane. They kept pushing their way toward the Honda, toward Mrs. Morris. Over the complaints of the dogs he battled, Shane heard her screams grow weaker.

  He made it through the pack of dogs to the car and found a pit bull latched on her neck. Shane punched the dog with all his might in the side of its skull, yet it didn’t let go. He straddled the determined animal, crushing in on its ribcage with his knees, and shoved his thumbs into either side of its jaws. Ms. Morris went limp, and the dog’s grip relaxed. It jerked and bucked out of Shane’s grasp and slid off the hood of the pickup onto the ground.

  Like someone flipped a switch, the dogs went from agro to docile. They backed away from the car and sniffed around with their heads hung low, seeming remorseful about having killed the woman.

  Shane looked at Mrs. Morris, or what was left of her. A black Labrador pushed its bloody snout under his hand, wagging its tail like it wanted to play. Disgusted, he jerked his arm away and kicked the animal off the hood. He stood alone atop the Ford, his blood boiling as he looked at the dogs. They poked around submissively or sat on their haunches and returned his hateful gaze with innocent eyes and wagging tails—friendly, lost pets that wouldn’t harm a soul.

  Without warning, they perked up and turned their attention toward the south. They took off barking like they’d seen a rabbit, heading up into the pasture and over the hill. Stupefied to the point of madness, he watched them go.

  “Shane,” Kelly called from in the truck. “Can we please get out of here?”