The Last Orphans (14 page)

“The
buses are useless,” Tracy announced, her fists on her hips.

He
r stoic manner and tone took over, and though her brow still showed frustration and anger, the post-apocalyptic-super-survivor version of Tracy Shane was introduced to yesterday returned.

The dawn’s light waxed, revealing the damage caused by the storm. Thick, glowing, lime-green clouds hung low overhead, the wind kicking up again. The three school buses suffered a lot of damage. They had flat tires, busted windows, and one had a steel beam sticking out of its front grill, a testament to the power of the tornado.

“I don’t think walking is such a good idea either,” Shane replied
, scanning the base for another means of transportation. “Why don’t you take Aaron and scout the area? Maybe y’all can find a couple of military trucks that are still in one piece.”

“Yeah, a Humvee would be a hell of a lot cooler than a school bus,
” Aaron said. He’d crawled out from under the Freightliners and was relieving himself nearby. “Where we going?”

“Yuck,”
Tracy growled. “There’s got to be a better place to do that!”

“You
’re just jealous you can’t whip it out and whiz wherever you please,” Aaron countered, spinning around and zipping his pants with his hips thrust forward.

“Come on, guys,” Shane scolded. “Can it, and find us some rides. Tracy will relay what we heard on the radio while you search.”

“Yes sir,” Aaron replied, giving a mock salute.
As fresh as it was to see him acting in good spirits, his joking around didn’t fool Shane. His eyes spoke of the pain they all felt, the loss of their parents still too recent an insult.

Aaron scooped
his bow and quiver of arrows. Tracy and he set across the tarmac, dodging twisted remains of buildings and cars crumpled like stepped-on soda cans and dropped by the twister. The sounds of gunshots and mortar explosions carrying across the base yesterday were gone. All the soldiers must have killed each other, the animals wiping out the few who survived the battle.

Looking at
the devastation, Shane was once again amazed they managed to survive. He took it as a sign. If they persisted, they might make it through this nightmare and stop the weapon before it killed them all.

Kids woke up and
crawled out one by one from under the wet refuge. The curious little ones began poking around in the trash deposited by the tornado, and some of the older kids passed out the snacks and sodas that survived the night in the supply bus.

“Shane,” Kelly called
from under the bus with a distressed voice. “I think you’d better come here.”

He dropped to his knees and reluct
antly crawled into the wet shelter where he’d spent the night. Kelly crouched near the rear axle, leaning over Matt. Shane made his way back to her, careful not to bang his head on the driveshaft.

“What’s up?”

“I don’t think he’s breathing,” Kelly whispered. A tear dripped off her cheek and onto Matt’s pale face.

Shane put his fingers on Matt’s neck and didn’t find a pulse. He knew as soon as
he touched Matt’s cold skin he was dead. Pulling the blanket back, a subtle odor of decaying flesh met Shane’s nose. Nauseous, he laid his head on Matt’s chest, listening for a heartbeat. He couldn’t hear anything. Under Matt’s half open eyelids, Shane could see the whites of his eyes looked dry and sticky.

He leaned back and pulled the blanket over Matt’s head. Then Shane looked at Kelly
, whose chin crinkled against a deluge of tears. Shane shook his head to let her know Matt had passed. She grabbed him and buried her face in his shirt, muffling her weeping.

S
hane cradled her head with his hand, each of her sobs hot bullets searing through his otherwise-numb heart.

“I
t’s better this way,” Shane whispered. “He’s not in pain anymore.”

It sound
ed awkward and stupid, and he knew it would be better to be alive and in pain than dead, but Shane had to say something. The worst part was he didn’t want to cry. And he and Matt were best friends when they were little. Shane couldn’t feel anything except for a desire to save Kelly and to see her smile like she used to every day at school or at church. It was the only thing still anchoring his soul in his body. If he lost that thread of motivation, he may as well be dead himself.

“Come on,” he said
, wanting to get her away from Matt’s corpse. “Let’s get out of here.”

“But,” Kelly pulled away, wiping her e
yes with the backs of her hands. “What do we do with him?”

“I think we should leave him her
e for now,” Shane replied, hoping not to sound insensitive. “I don’t want to upset the little kids.”

Kelly nodded. They crawled out
together. Natalie came over after they stood. She wore a blanket draped around her shoulders, the soggy and dirty bottom dragging the ground.

“I want to
go home now,” she said, peering up at Shane as if he was the reason she couldn’t.

Shane glanced at Kelly, at a loss for words.

“Uh,” Kelly stammered, “we can’t just yet.” Her voice sounded weak and unconvincing.

“Yeah,” Shane added, trying to rescue Kelly. “The adventure isn’t over.”

“But this isn’t any fun at all,” Nat said, her green eyes big and wet and her chin crinkling.

“Come on,” Kelly said, putting her hands on the little girl’s shoul
ders and steering her away. “Let’s get you some breakfast.”

After watching Kelly and Nat
, Shane took a deep shaky breath and gazed across the tarmac. Matt’s death hadn’t affected him as he would expect, but the sad expression on that six-year-old girl’s face caused him unbearable heartache. He couldn’t imagine what would happen if the little ones didn’t have the older kids to take care of them. They had to shut the weapon down and get the world back to normal, and they had to hurry.

A flock of crows flew overhead,
screeching angrily at each other. Shane eyed them, worried. Any moment, the weapon could cause them to attack Kelly, and then shortly thereafter, Shane, Tracy, Steve, and Aaron would be targeted. If they didn’t shut the weapon down before that happened, he doubted there’d be a kid left old enough to do it.

Shane put the kids
to the task of gathering salvageable materials and supplies scattered by the storm and had Laura and Kelly listen to the scientist’s radio broadcast. A grumbling sound carried across the tarmac, catching Shane’s attention. A green army vehicle with a raised, boat-bow front end rolled toward him. It had eight wheels on four axles, a machine gun on top, and slits for windows.

He started
to order the kids to crawl under the buses for cover, but a hatch on top of the angular vehicle flipped open and Aaron popped up and waved at him.

Looking like it could climb straight up a tree, t
he vehicle pulled in front of Shane and stopped. A hydraulic pump whined, and the rear gate on the machine lowered down to make a ramp. Tracy and Aaron climbed out.

“This should do the trick
.” Tracy almost beamed, though her tone was dispirited.

“What the heck is it?” Shane asked, studying the
fierce vehicle.

“It’s a
Stryker armored personnel carrier,” Tracy announced. “That’s a 12.7 mm machine gun on top, and those little tubes are grenade launchers. This baby should get us downtown—no problem.”

“C
heck this out,” Aaron said, waving Shane to the back of the Stryker.

Shane followed him
up the ramp and into the belly of the machine.

“We found
a bunch of guns and ammo.” Aaron showed him weapons stacked on the bench seats on either side of the Stryker.

“What’s that?” Shane pointed at blood spattering the walls.

“A couple of soldiers killed each other in here,” Tracy said curtly, seeming annoyed Shane would complain. “We cleaned up the mess the best we could.”

“It’s
a reminder we might do the same if we don’t hurry,” Shane whispered. He surveyed the rest of the interior and added, “This thing doesn’t look like it’ll carry too many people. What about all those kids we’re responsible for?”

“We can’t take them with us,” Tracy answered, like it should have been apparent.
“They’ll slow us down anyway.”

“What are we supposed to do?
” He struggled to keep his anger in check. Tracy didn’t act like she had a heart half the time. She seemed to be looking for a way to ditch the kids. “We’ve brought them this far—we can’t just abandon them.”

“They’ll be safer here,” Aaron said
from behind Shane. “Once we get down to Atlanta, we’re bound to find some trouble. Even if the buses would run, they won’t protect those kids.”

D
id it make sense to leave the kids here on the base? It seemed somewhat safe and isolated. If all went as planned, they’d be back by nightfall. But the thought of abandoning them still made Shane uneasy.

“Do you know how to use these?
” Shane asked, picking up a rifle.

“That’s a
n M-16,” Tracy replied. “And yes, I know how to use it. My dad got my JROTC unit access to the base’s shooting range a few times.” Tracy’s stoic face twitched, pain in her eyes.

It was the first time she
mentioned her dad since they left the high school, heading to this base to find him. He had to be dead, just like all of the other adults. Shane again felt the urge to say something to comfort Tracy, but she seemed so tough that he feared anything he’d come up with would sound too awkward and would probably tick her off, so he kept quiet.

“Take a few
of these guns and show some of the older kids who won’t be coming with us how to shoot them,” Shane ordered, putting the M-16 in her hands. “And leave them plenty of ammo. They’ll need it for protection while we’re gone.”

Tracy
took the gun and nodded. Steve grabbed three more, carrying them to the kids who Kelly and Laura organized into two work groups. Shane had seen many types of guns growing up, most of them designed for hunting. But these, with their plastic stalks and black barrels, were made for one thing—killing people. In fact, he thought, glancing at a splatter of dried blood on the Stryker, these weapons had just killed people.

He
jogged over and tried to find distraction in helping Kelly move sheet metal, the remains of the hanger, together to create lean-to shelters. Tracy took eight of the older girls behind the buses to give them a crash course on how to use the M-16s. Their eyes were wide with trepidation and missing any spark. He knew, especially after what they’d been through, they’d be able to defend themselves with the guns if they had to. Shane, Tracy, Steve, Kelly, and Aaron had already killed. He’d never get the images of those dying boys out of his head.

Once the shelters were
finished, he helped Steve and Aaron gather supplies and stock the Stryker for the trip downtown. Shane called a meeting of the other four who had fought in the gym and Laura.

“W
e’ve all listened to the radio message,” Shane said, looking at each of his friends and hoping to channel Coach Rice once again. “We know we have to get downtown and shut the weapon off.”

Shane didn’t really have a plan. He hoped
someone else would jump in, and their silence said they expected him to have the answers. He’d always dreamed of being a quarterback, but not when the life or death of the rest of the people on the planet was at stake.

“
Tracy and Aaron found us this armored truck, which should keep us safe if we run into trouble,” Shane continued, patting the front of the Stryker. “Does anyone know how to get to the capitol building from here?”

“The Stryker is loaded with electronic maps, and it has GPS,”
Tracy said. “We won’t have a problem finding our way.”

“What about all those
kids?” Kelly asked, glancing over her shoulder at the groups huddled thirty feet behind her.

Shane expected the
question. He looked at Tracy and then Aaron, hoping one of them would give Kelly the news. Of course, they didn’t answer.

“We’
re going to have to leave them here,” Shane said, hoping he hadn’t just started a fight.

“What?” Laura asked, sounding flabbergasted
and glaring at him.

“We can’t do that,” Kelly retorted
. “Most of them are too young—they won’t be safe.”

“
Tracy taught some of the older girls to use the guns.” Shane hated how the two girls had him backed in a corner. It wasn’t like this was all his doing. “You guys are free to stay here too, but we need all the help we can get.”

“Whose we?” Laura asked, glaring at each of them
as if they’d been conspiring.

“I’m going,”
Tracy said, the usual coolness in her voice. She didn’t break her gaze from Shane, barely acknowledging Laura’s complaint. “I’m driving the Stryker.”

“Me too,” Stev
e chimed in, leaning back as if he were trying to hide behind Tracy.

“I’m the
best shot here,” Aaron said, obviousness in his tone, “so I have to go.”

Sha
ne figured it was pretty apparent he had to join the mission because no one else seemed to want to lead it.

“We need you two as well,”
Tracy said. She was the only one who didn’t seem intimidated by the angry girls. “It might get ugly down there, and the more people we have, the better our chances.”

“And in a few hours, the animals might be attacking us anyway,” Steve said
, poking his head out from behind Tracy. “We won’t be much help to these kids if we stick around.”

“I understand if you can’t come along, Kelly,” Shane said, “being that your little sister is here.”

Kelly looked over her shoulder at the group of kids huddled near a small fire built in front of the lean-to shelters. After a moment, she returned her focus to Shane. Her blue eyes had always seemed to glow, emitting a constant flow of joy that made him blush when she looked at him. His chest ached to see so much sadness and pain in her gaze now. With her staring at him, deciding if she should leave her little sister behind, Shane made a silent vow that after all this was over, and the weapon had been shut down, he’d find a way to make Kelly happy once again—he’d find a way to make her smile.

“I have to go
,” she whispered. “I’m the oldest, so the animals will come after me first. It’s better if I say goodbye to her now than have her see me ripped apart like… like…” She looked at the ground.

“Okay,” Shane sa
id, rescuing her before she could say,
like her parents
. He cleared his throat and clapped his hands together. “Let’s say our goodbyes and get going. The sooner we shut that weapon down, the sooner we can get back here and make sure these kids stay safe.”