The Last Orphans

by N.W. Harris

“Let’s get this convoy back down to the school and try to get some rest,” Tracy said in the slightly condescending way in which she always spoke. All the buses were fueled up, and the water cans were loaded. “It’ll be easier to drive to Atlanta if we wait ’til the morning.”

  Although Shane suspected no one cared to have Tracy barking orders at them, everyone obeyed, climbing into the buses and looking too tired to respond. The diesels rumbled to life. They pulled out of the gas station one at a time, swerving around the body of a woman who lay dead in the street. Her neck was missing a huge chunk where her windpipe should be. Shivering at the thought of how bad it must’ve hurt to be killed that way, Shane wondered what kind of animal had attacked the poor woman. She wore a torn, flowery sundress and one shoe, and Shane guessed she’d lost the other one while being chased down by the animal like prey. He couldn’t imagine a worse way to die.

  Aaron put bolts on several more crossbows and stacked them on the front seats while Shane drove. This time, Kelly rode with Steve in the other passenger bus, and Tracy and Matt took the supply bus. Shane realized he felt more depressed in Kelly’s absence. By needing him, she’d pulled him out of the numbness that sunk in after his aunt died and gave him a reason to keep going. If Kelly hadn’t come up the driveway asking for his help, he might’ve just lay down in the road and waited for death.

  “Seems a little excessive, having so many loaded,” Shane said, trying to distract himself from the numbness creeping back over him like kudzu swallowing a deserted building.

  “It takes too long to reload these if they’re needed,” Aaron replied, grunting as he pulled the cable back on another crossbow. “This way you can fire off a lot of bolts quickly in a crisis.”

  “I think I’ll leave the shooting to you,” Shane replied, uncomfortable at the thought of seeing the bolt from one of the crossbows kill something or someone because he’d pulled the trigger.

  “I’m not coming with you,” Aaron said, sounding like he anticipated Shane would argue with him about his decision.

  “What?” Shane looked at him in the rearview mirror.

  “I have to try to find my mom.” Aaron’s voice trembled with uncertainty, and he didn’t look up from his work.

  Shane hated himself for lying to his friend. He’d known Aaron since they were little, long enough to recognize he sounded like he already knew his mom couldn’t have survived. Shane deserved to be punched—he should’ve just told him the truth before. Tightening his grip on the steering wheel, Shane glanced in the rearview mirror at Aaron.

  “She’s dead,” he blurted out, hating how insensitive he sounded.

  “You don’t know that,” Aaron said, quiet anger rising in his voice. “She could be okay, or she could be hurt and might need my help.”

  Shane took a deep and shaky breath, and then let it out slowly. He twisted his hands on the big steering wheel and tried to organize his words. Aaron would’ve never lied to him, and he knew he owed his friend the truth.

  “Earlier, when you asked me if I’d seen her,” he paused and sighed. “I’m really sorry, but I didn’t have the balls to tell you the truth.”

  “What the hell are you saying?” Aaron shouted, rising to his feet and leaning toward Shane, while still holding a freshly loaded crossbow in his hands.

  “I’m so sorry, bro,” Shane replied, feeling like he should be shot with one of the carbon-fiber bolts. “I saw her.”

  He waited for Aaron to slug him in the side of the head, almost wanting him to do it.

  “Well?” Aaron’s nostrils flared. Shane saw them do that before, when Aaron broke his arm on the football field last year, though the tall, blond running back hadn’t shed a tear. “What happened to her?”

  “Dogs,” Shane replied, the word choking him. “I tried to throw them off, but there were too many.”

  “Damn you, Shane,” Aaron yelled and punched the metal roof. He spun around and stomped to the back of the bus, sat down in one of the green seats, and put his face in his hands.

  Seeing Aaron so upset made Shane feel like crap, and made the pain of losing his aunt and Granny resurface in full force. He leaned forward on the wheel, feeling like a dump truck full of rocks had just been unloaded on his head, bashing him to a pulp and suffocating him at the same time.

  His thoughts drifted to his father. Shane couldn’t be certain, but his dad had to have been killed as well. No one saw a single living adult since the animals went berserk. Wondering about how his dad died caused tears to well in his eyes. Had he suffered? He hoped not. He wiped the tears clear and tried to focus on the narrow road leading down to the high school, wishing his last moments with his dad hadn’t been spent fighting.

  Tall oak trees grew up on either side, their canopies connected above the road, blocking out the sky and creating an ominous, dark tunnel. Shane’s bus coasted down the hill behind Tracy’s, its transmission whining against the vehicle’s weight. Steve and Kelly drove the last bus behind him. Shane wished Tracy would go faster; he couldn’t wait to be near Kelly again. She sparked a little glimmer of hope in his chest, staving off the cold, dark depression settling in when she wasn’t around.

  Tracy’s bus turned right at the bottom of the hill, and then roared and sped across the street before Shane could see the school. Dread knotted his stomach because he knew she wasn’t the type to mess around. Hot adrenaline bursting through his veins, Shane pulled out of the oak tree tunnel and saw orange flames licking from the windows of the three long, red brick buildings housing the library and classrooms.

  “Aaron,” he yelled over his shoulder. “We got problems!”

  Rushing to the front of the bus, Aaron leaned down and looked out the windshield. Shane floored the accelerator and zigzagged the bus across the street and into the dirt parking lot. Steve’s bus slid up beside him in a cloud of dust. As soon as the diesels stopped rumbling, they could hear the shouts and screams of the kids in the school. They climbed out and converged in front of the buses.

  “Look!” Matt said. “Those guys weren’t here earlier.”

  He pointed at three teenage boys darting across the yard and into the side door of the gym.

  “And they’re wearing orange convict clothing,” Tracy exclaimed. “Grab the weapons—they must be escapees from the juvenile prison.”

  Shane forgot all about the North Georgia Juvenile Rehabilitation Center, an experimental, high-security penal colony tucked away in the woods about five miles out of town. Rumor had it the center housed young rapists, murderers, and the nastiest of gangsters, not the kind of guys he wanted to tangle with.

  “Come on, man,” Aaron said, pushing a crossbow and quiver filled with bolts into Shane’s hands. “We have to get in there and save those kids.”

  If Aaron was mad at him for withholding the information about his mother, Shane could no longer see it in his eyes. He ran toward the gym with the others. Kelly, Matt, and Tracy carried crossbows as well, and Tracy also wielded a large hunting knife in her free hand. Steve and Aaron, who Shane knew hunted deer with bows every year, had high-end compound bows with quivers full of the razorblade-tipped arrows on their backs.

  “We have the element of surprise,” Tracy said. “They won’t know what hit them.”

  “No, no!” A girl’s scream came from inside the gym. “Get off me!”

  Cackling laughter and hoots from several boys followed. Shane’s imagination conjured up what horrible things the convicts might be doing in the gym, and any hesitation about attacking them vanished, replaced by boiling rage.

  “Let’s split up into two teams,” Shane ordered. “Tracy, take Matt and Steve and wait by that side door. Kelly and Aaron, come with me.”

  “These boys will not negotiate,” Tracy said. “We’ll have to shoot first and ask questions later.” The cliché warning made Shane’s stomach turn, and he feared he wouldn’t be able to kill once he was inside. His hands grew slick with sweat on the crossbow’s handle.

  “I got n
o problem with that,” Aaron said, nocking an arrow and drawing the string back, the razorblade arrowhead aimed at the metal door of the gym. His eyes narrowed like he prepared to unload all his anger over his mother’s death on the young convicts.

  Once she had her team at the door about fifty feet down the side of the gym, Tracy glanced back at Shane as if she awaited his order. Another girl’s agonized scream came from inside, making it hard for him to keep his rage in check. Knowing that being in control would help them stop the convicts, he took a deep breath and raised his hand, then dropped it to signal go like he’d seen the soldiers do in movies. He jerked the door open and rushed into the building with his crossbow leveled and ready to fire.