The Last Orphans

by N.W. Harris

  “We have to keep moving,” Tracy said, turning and hobbling down the tunnel.

  Shane glanced over his shoulder while they rushed away, leaving the barrel covered in spiders and encircled by rats with Kelly in it in total darkness.

  “Shouldn’t we have left her some water?” Shane stopped, about to turn back.

  “Yeah, we probably should have,” Tracy replied, sounding aggravated. She held one hand on her injured leg and limped along with her gun raised and pointed into the darkness ahead.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll be back before she gets too thirsty,” Steve said with more compassion than Tracy seemed capable of, putting a hand on Shane’s shoulder. “We can’t risk opening the barrel now with all those bugs trying to get to her.”

  Reluctantly moving on, Shane felt like he left a piece of himself behind. He’d come back for her, he vowed. He wouldn’t let her die crunched up in that horrible, dark can.

  A herd of rats, more than they could possibly have fought off, scurried past them and ran up the tunnel toward Kelly.

  “See,” Tracy pointed out, her voice strained with pain, “she’s definitely better off sealed in the barrel.”

  Steve jogged around a bend ahead of Tracy and Shane, and a deafening roar of gunfire erupted, the tunnel ahead lit up by muzzle flashes.

  “Steve?” Shane yelled, rushing to the corner.

  Cursing, Steve rolled back by Shane, and the gunfire stopped.

  Leaning around the corner and shining his flashlight down the tunnel, Shane could see another door that looked like it led into a vault.

  “That must be the entrance to the lab,” Tracy whispered over his shoulder.

  “Yeah,” Shane replied, “and it’s protected by some crazy-looking guns.” He shined his light up at two guns with multiple rotating barrels pivoting back and forth as if scanning the tunnel.

  “Mini-guns,” Tracy said. “They must only shoot when someone gets a certain distance away.”

  The concrete floor and walls of the tunnel had fresh scars on them from where the guns had shot at Steve.

  “How the heck did you get out of there alive?” Shane asked, looking back to make sure the big linebacker wasn’t hit.

  Steve’s face had lost all color. “I don’t have a freaking clue.”

  “Look,” Tracy said, pointing toward a less-impressive metal door on the right side of the tunnel, about fifteen feet away from the vault door.

  “You think that’s the battery compartment?” Steve asked hopefully.

  “It has to be,” Shane answered. “But the scientist made it sound like it was less heavily protected than the lab.”

  A rat came out of the darkness behind them, screeched, and then bit into Tracy’s shoe. She looked down at it, and then glanced up at Shane with a worried look on her face. She was in the eleventh grade as well, and was the same age as Shane, so he wasn’t sure why the rat had attacked her instead of him. Tracy kicked the rat down the tunnel toward the lab door. The mini-guns pivoted toward it and fired a burst of rounds, turning the rodent into a bloody smudge on the floor.

  “When’s your birthday?” Shane asked once the guns stopped, his ears buzzing from the noise.

  “July,” Tracy answered, understanding in her eyes. “When’s yours?”

  “October,” Shane replied.

  They looked at Steve, and he said, “August.”

  Five spiders crawled out of the darkness toward Tracy, and she stomped on them before they could climb on her shoe.

  “The weapon must be affecting us now,” she said, sounding more nervous than Shane had ever heard her. Shining her flashlight on the floor around them, she added, “We have to get to that side door before we start trying to kill each other.”

  “Obviously,” Shane snapped. Anger surged in him, and he felt the urge to punch Tracy. He knew the weapon had started to tweak his brain. Biting his lip, he fought the aggressive impulses getting worse by the second.

  Taking a deep breath, he said, “I’m going to try and shoot out those guns. You guys might want to stay back.”

  Steve and Tracy got behind him, and Shane leaned around the corner. Expecting either of them to go nuts and shoot him in the back at any moment, he took careful aim at the guns.

  “Try to target the motor that makes them turn back and forth,” Tracy whispered.

  “I’m not stupid,” he replied, then bit the side of his tongue, trying to suppress another wave of rage.

  When the mini-gun closest to the battery room door panned to the left, Shane pulled the trigger. He fired a short burst of rounds into the black box under the gun, and it stopped. Before he jerked his head back and took cover, Shane saw both mini-guns return fire. The good one swept back and forth, covering the tunnel in bullets, but the one he’d hit pivoted over a smaller area, only hitting the floor and wall on the right side of the tunnel, opposite the metal door he hoped led to the battery compartment.

  “One down, one to go,” he said, glancing back at Tracy and Steve. He looked at their eyes and tried to discern if they struggled against the near uncontrollable rage he felt. They seemed fine, at least for the moment.

  But then Steve snarled, “What the hell are you waiting for? Shoot the other one out before I shoot you.”

  “Chill, dirt bag,” Shane said. Without a second thought, he brought the stalk of his gun back into Steve’s gut.

  Buckling over, Steve fell onto his side. Lying on the tunnel floor, he raised the barrel of his gun, pointing it at Shane.

  A flash of light exploded from Steve’s M-16, and the cinderblock wall next to Shane’s head erupted into a cloud of dust. Shane jumped to the side, his face stinging from bits of concrete that hit him.

  “Stop!” Tracy yelled, stepping between them. “Get control of yourselves.”

  Steve lay motionless, his eyes wide with shock. Shane wiped away the blood that trickled down his cheek.

  “Sorry, man,” Steve said, dropping his gun and pushing it across the floor of the tunnel. “I feel like something is trying to take over my mind.”

  “Me too,” Shane said, remorseful. “I didn’t mean to hit you, bro.”

  “We’re all falling apart,” Tracy observed. Shane could see her jaw muscles rippling, like she gritted her teeth to keep from yelling. He expected the only reason she hadn’t lost it yet was because God had run short on emotions when it came time for her to get her share. “Shane, get back over there and shoot out the other mini-gun.”