by N. W. Harris
“What now?” Steve asked, spitting blood out of his mouth.
Shane looked around at the bodies of kids littering the steps, lawn, and the gardens of the capitol building, many of them several years younger than he was. It was the most depressing scene imaginable, somehow far sadder than all the adult dead he’d seen. He noticed a few kids down on the street below looking up at him. Maurice stood as well and waved at Shane and his friends, a weak smile and an expression of relief on his chubby and now much-younger looking face.
“We have to get back to the base and make sure my sister and the other kids are okay,” Kelly replied, a desperate urgency in her tone.
“Yeah,” Shane said. “And then we should get as far away from this city as possible.”
He slipped his good arm around Kelly, and they climbed down the steps and across the wide, blood-covered concrete walkway to where Maurice stood. The sun peeked between the buildings and warmed Shane’s face. Squinting at the brilliant light, Shane tilted his head back and looked up at the American flag dancing in the gentle morning breeze.
“Thank goodness you guys are alive,” Maurice said, eyeing Shane’s wounds with concern.
“Barely,” Shane replied. “What happened to Shamus’ gang?”
“I was out of it there for a while, but I guess most of the younger ones must’ve run off when the older kids started turning on each other,” Maurice replied, looking at the street. He had a gash on his cheek, and his shoulders were slumped forward with fatigue. “I’m worried that they might come back at any moment.”
“Yeah,” Tracy said, staring down the street leading away from the capitol. “We should get out of here ASAP.”
Steve picked up a motorcycle. “Come on, we can get back to the base a lot quicker on these,” he said, pointing at several other abandoned bikes.
Maurice gathered the few of his people who survived and those who defected from Shamus’ gang, and they climbed onto the motorcycles. Those too injured to drive rode on the back behind those who could. Shane sat behind Steve, Kelly rode with Maurice, and Tracy rode with Jules.
They buzzed up the street, leading away from the gold-domed capitol building just in time, because Shane glanced over his shoulder and saw some of Shamus’ gang pull around the corner on motorcycles to give pursuit. After a couple of miles, the thugs seemed satisfied they had run the intruders out of their territory, and they stopped and turned back.
Every bump the motorcycle hit caused shockwaves of pain to flash from Shane’s injuries and radiate throughout his body, but he managed to hang on and stay alert. When he wasn’t distracted by the pain, the faces of all those he’d seen die and those he’d killed tormented his thoughts. He wondered if his mind would ever be at peace again, and expected to be plagued by nightmares whenever he finally had a chance to get some sleep.
By midmorning, they pulled into the military base. Kelly leapt off the back of the bike she rode on before it came to a complete stop and ran to the crowd of kids gathered around the lean-to shelters. Nat rushed out of the group, passing through the teenage girls who held their guns ready to defend the children against the approaching motorcycles. Kelly scooped her little sister up and held her in her arms.
“Where’s Laura?” Shane asked, after he’d climbed off the bike and limped to the girls who stood guard.
“She’s over there,” Rebecca, the red-haired girl who’d been assaulted in the gym replied, pointing at the cot that was used for Matt two days before. “A bunch of birds attacked her. We did our best to keep them off, but they cut her up pretty bad. Luckily, they stopped as suddenly as they started. A minute more, and I think she would’ve been killed.”
Shane rushed to the cot as fast as his injuries would allow. Scratches covered Laura’s face, and chunks of her black hair was missing, her scalp bloody where it had been ripped away. She had a makeshift patch covering one of her eyes, which Shane feared had been plucked out.
“Laura?” Shane gently touched her shoulder.
She opened her good eye, blinked, and then gave him a little smile. “You guys made it back,” she whispered.
“Yeah, we did,” Shane replied, trying to smile.
Laura began to push up to sitting, and when Shane tried to stop her, she said, “Don’t worry, I’m not half as bad as I look. You guys must’ve shut that weapon down just in time.”
“I suppose so,” he said. Shane was relieved to see she wasn’t dead or dying, but he knew by looking at her that her face would bear the scars of the bird attack for as long as she lived.
“I think we should head north,” Tracy said. “It doesn’t feel safe here, so close to the city. As soon as the bodies start rotting, the gangsters may start venturing out into the suburbs.”
“You’re right,” Shane said, cringing at the pain that shot through his neck and shoulder when he glanced at her. He reckoned, like Laura, they’d all have scars from the last few days for the rest of their lives—both inside and out. “Let’s try to find some trucks to load these kids on and get the heck out of here.”
Proving to be quite the amateur doctor, Tracy recruited some of the healthier people to treat the wounded with the medical supplies they scavenged. She even found antibiotics and had those with deep cuts and gunshot wounds, including Shane, take them to prevent infection. Maurice and Steve acquired a couple of large military trucks in which everyone could ride. After gathering all the weapons they could carry, they drove away from Atlanta.
They visited every grocery and convenient store they saw along the way and loaded up on canned goods and other nonperishable supplies. Some of the stores had already been picked over, and they kept watch for other groups of kids roaming around north Georgia, but they didn’t see any. Shane knew that when the grocery store food ran out, he’d need a way to provide for the kids for whom he and his friends were responsible, so he decided they should try to find a farm that could supply them with everything they needed.
That night they stopped in a rural area forty miles northeast of Leeville on a large farm. Seeing the cattle and other animals made Shane nervous, but they took no interest in him and his friends. The civil war-era mansion had plenty of room to sleep everyone and a generator out back got the power going. They all took showers and had a large meal with hardly a word spoken the entire time. Shane passed out on an old, musty couch in a hallway near the front door of the home, a half-eaten plate of food on his chest.
“Good morning,” a woman’s voice roused him.
Shane sat up, groping for his gun. Unable to find it, he raised his hands and blinked his eyes at the sun blazing through the open door. An adult—a woman in a black suit—stood in the doorway.
“What?” he bumbled. “How…?”
“Some of us survived,” she explained.
The thumping of a helicopter wound down outside, and another one flew overhead.
“You guys are safe now,” the woman said. She looked to be about thirty, a slender brunette with intelligence glistening in her eyes. “But you’ll have to come with us.”
The End—The Last Orphans Series Book I
As I think about who to thank for helping me in my journey as a writer and ultimately in the creation of this book, dozens of faces and names come to mind. Writing, and art in general, draws influence from life, and in life I’ve encountered so much inspiration each day. I am inspired by my fellow writers, my friends, my family, and even random strangers who spark my creativity just by being who they are. So, writing acknowledgements is a daunting task to say the least. An incomplete list of those who deserve recognition will have to do.
I want to thank my wife Amanda, who reads everything I write and cheers me on through the joys and tribulations of being a writer. Thanks to Emily and Logan, my beautiful children, who constantly remind me that we are born with imagination abound, that we just have to remember to listen to our inner child and creativity will come naturally.
Thanks to the amazing Clean Teen Publishing team. From the first in
teraction I had with you, I knew I was dealing with a rising star in the publishing industry. Thanks Dyan Brown, Rebecca Gober, Marya Heiman, and Courtney Nuckels. From cover to cover, you helped me polish The Last Orphans and make it into the book it is today. And thanks to Cynthia Shepp, my editor, who found a home for orphaned commas, ironed out confusing sentences, and was always there, tirelessly helping with edits to the last detail.
Thanks to Jennifer Anne Davis, my writing partner from the beginning and my friend of many years. I am happy to follow in your footsteps and learn from your persistence and unwillingness to settle for anything short of success. Thanks to author Mary E. Pearson for believing in me and encouraging me to keep writing. And thank you Celso, Andy, and coffee shop Kevin, those early readers who had the patience to see past the crudeness of my rough drafts and offered enthusiastic encouragement. Also thanks to the beta readers at Clean Teen Publishing and Melanie Newton and the Clean Teen Publishing Street Team for reading and promoting my book—you are integral to the success of all CTP writers.
Born at the end of the Vietnam War and raised on a horse farm near small town north Georgia, N.W. Harris’s imagination evolved under the swaying pines surrounding his family’s log home. On summer days that were too hot, winter days that were too cold, and every night into the wee morning hours, he read books.
N.W. Harris published his first novel—Joshua’s Tree—in 2013. It was no wonder that with his wild imagination and passion for all things word related, that N.W. Harris was named a quarter finalist in Amazon’s Break Through Novel Award Contest. In early 2014, N.W. Harris joined the ranks with Clean Teen Publishing when they signed his new young adult apocalyptic adventure series—The Last Orphans.
In addition to writing, N.W. Harris has been a submarine sailor, nurse, and business owner. His studies have included biology, anthropology, and medicine at UCSB and SUNY Buffalo. He is an active member of SCBWI and lives in sunny southern California with his beautiful wife and two perfect children. He writes like he reads, constantly.
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