The Last Orphans (19 page)

Holding the M-16 across his chest, its barrel hot from the firefight, Shane took off at a sprint with his friends behind him. The sounds of battle faded as they distanced themselves from Shamus and his gang. They crossed an intersection, and Shane heard the buzz of motorcycles, racing down the side streets. Running even faster, he feared they would cut back and try to intercept him before he made it to the capitol building.

Halfway down the next block
, his fear was confirmed. Four motorcycles slid around the corner and did wheelies as they accelerated toward Shane and his friends.

“Take th
em out,” Tracy shouted, leveling her gun and shooting from her hip while still running down the street. Shane and the others did the same, hitting three of the riders, who dropped to the ground, their bikes veering off onto the sidewalk.

The fourth bike sped toward Shane, moving too fast for him to aim at the rider. Shane fired several shots and missed. He saw the
long, dirty blade of a machete in the bike rider’s hand, and then the motorcycle was upon him.

“Watch out!” Aaron yelled.

Aaron leapt in front of Shane, knocking him to the ground. The bike passed, its front tire grazing Shane’s arm. Aaron buckled over, holding his stomach.

“Aaron?
” Shane jumped to his feet, catching his friend before he collapsed.

Blood poured out from between Aaron’s
fingers, draining onto the asphalt.

“N
o,” Kelly shrieked, standing on the other side of Aaron.

The motorcycle slowed and turned around. Kelly raised her gun and let out a pained scream. She unloaded her clip in
to the motorcycle’s rider, and he dropped dead in the street, his bike falling on top of him.

Aaron folded over, holding his wound.
Shane dropped his gun and eased him to the ground, laying his friend’s head in his lap.

“Hang on, Aa
ron,” Shane demanded. A flash of lightning revealed the gash running across Aaron’s abdomen. Guts had spilled out of the wound, and Shane knew there was no way he could survive.

Steve held a flashlight over Aaron and Shane, his face slack and pale with shock.
Tracy squatted down and ripped packs of gauze open with her teeth, dumping them onto Aaron’s gaping laceration. The white cotton turned to blood red in an instant.

“How bad is it?
” Aaron asked, groaning in pain.

“It’s
just a scratch, man,” Shane said, stifling his tears. “You’re going to be fine.”

“Lying bastard
,” Aaron replied, with a weak smile. He coughed, and blood spurted from his mouth. “Do me a favor?”

“Yeah,” Shane said.
“Anything.”

“Get your as
ses to the capitol and shut that stupid weapon down.”

“We will, man,” Shane promised
. “Why the hell did you have to jump out in front of me like that?”

“Hey man,” Aaron said, his voice faint
. “I got your back—you got mine. Right?”

“Yeah
, right,” Shane said, trying to smile.

Aaron grinned up at Shane, and then his face went slack, his head rolling to the side.

Tracy stuck two fingers on the side of Aaron’s neck for a moment and then looked at Shane with apologetic eyes.

“He’s gone,” she said, and sat back on her heels
, rubbing Aaron’s blood off her hands onto her pant legs.

Shane leaned over, wrapping himself around Aaron’s head.
A pained moan erupted from deep within him, tears flooding out of his eyes.

“Come on, Shane,”
Tracy said with a firm voice. “We have to go.”

“
Damn it! I know,” Shane snapped, sitting back. He carefully slipped Aaron off his lap and lowered his head to the bloody asphalt.

Kelly helped him to his feet, saying, “He was so brave. Let’s keep yo
ur promise and get to the capitol building.”

Maurice’s gang came over the hill, getting pushed down the street by Shamus’ mob.
Shane looked at the two fighting groups of teenagers—the reality of how little time they had to make it to the capitol motivating him into action.

He cleared his throat
and wiped his eyes.

“Let’s go,”
he said, and then continued running down the street, his promise to Aaron and his desire to protect Kelly pushing him forward.

It beg
an to rain, soaking Shane’s face and hiding his tears. He could only hope Aaron had gone to a better place—that maybe he’d been reunited with his mother.

Shane
and Aaron had been close friends since they were little, playing football in every league together from the time they were old enough to wear a jersey. As he ran, Shane’s grief transformed into anger. He wanted to get even with the people responsible for Aaron’s death but, in reality, it was the same people who killed his aunt and dad. And those people had to be dead too. Making it downtown and destroying the weapon was as close to revenge as he’d be able to get.

With rain com
ing down in blinding sheets and frequent flashes of lightning illuminating the way, they sprinted three more blocks, trying to put some distance between Shamus’ gangsters and themselves. Shane’s ribs hurt from the effort, and he feared he wouldn’t be able to keep up the pace, but then Tracy pointed at a dark building up ahead with a round dome for a roof.

“There it is,”
she shouted. “We made it!”

T
he capitol building loomed in front of them, a gleaming, white symbol of the government that failed its people. Recharged by the idea that they were so close to success, Shane took the steps two at a time. At the top, he rushed forward and pushed through the doors. Motorcycles buzzed onto the street below. Shamus’ thugs jump off them and ran up the steps behind Steve, Kelly, and Tracy.

“Get inside and block the doors,”
Tracy yelled.

But Shamus’ thugs made it to the top of the
flight of steps, across the concrete walkway right behind her, and one had his weapon pointed at her back.

“Tracy!” Shane yelled.

Her eyes went wide, like she read on his face that he saw she was
about to get shot. Without warning, four of the older thugs stopped and turned their weapons toward each other. With a loud boom of their guns going off at once, they wiped each other out. Only five younger kids remained on the porch of the capitol, looking at each other and at Shane and his group with confused expressions.  

“It must be happening,”
Tracy said. “The weapon is starting to affect younger people.”

Shane looked over at Kelly.
Her eyes glazed over, like she was hypnotized. She glanced at Shane, Tracy, and then Steve, perhaps assessing their age to determine if she should kill them. Then she walked toward the steps stiffly with her gun raised toward the fighting teenagers down in the street.

“Grab her,” Shane ordered
, rushing after Kelly.

Steve and Shane took Kelly’s arms
, and Tracy pried the M-16 out of her hands. Her eyes stared straight ahead and her face was pale, like she had become a zombie.

“Kelly
? Can you hear me?” Shane asked. His worst fears coming true, he waved his hand in front of her face, hoping to bring her out of the murderous daze.

When she didn’t respond, they
tried to turn her around. Without a change in her empty expression, she resisted, like every muscle in her body wanted to go down and kill the teens fighting in the street below. Steve and Shane had to lift her off the ground to get her to face the other way.

“Take her inside,” Shane said to Steve.

Steve nodded and lifted Kelly in a bear hug. She kicked and clawed at him but didn’t make a sound. He carried her between the large, limestone columns and into the dark building.

Turning around and looking
at the five stunned kids from Shamus’ gang who remained on the capitol’s porch, Shane shouted, “Now do you get it? This weapon is going to kill us all if we don’t stop it soon.”

The kids, all boys
who looked to be about fourteen or fifteen years old, glanced at each other and then back at Shane. Their faces were slack with shock, and they suddenly looked very young and innocent.

“You know how to stop it?” one of them asked
, a mixture of fear and desperate hope clear in his voice.

“Yeah, but we have to keep the rest of your pals from killing us first,” Shane replied, pointing his gun
at the two mobs engaged in a shoot-out at the bottom of the capitol building’s steps.

Only a small contingent of Maurice’s people remained
. One of Shamus’ thugs must’ve dropped their torch, because the building across the street was on fire. It created enough light for Shane to see a flock of crows swoop out of the dark sky and attack a girl off to one side of Shamus’ gang. He worried the animals would be coming after Kelly next.

“We’ll hold them off,” the boy said
, shouldering the butt of his shotgun and aiming down the steps. “You go shut that thing down.” The others followed his lead, turning their backs to Shane.

G
rateful these guys had a handful of common sense, Shane spun around and rushed inside.

“Help me,”
Tracy called after Shane stepped through the doors and shut them behind him.

He
rushed over and got behind a large, antique desk, helping her push it in front of the doors to block them. The emergency lights around the parameter of the room provided dim illumination, so they weren’t fumbling around in total darkness.

“The stairs are
over here,” Steve said, carrying Kelly across the room. She kicked and fought him, her face still blank as if she were under some kind of deep hypnosis, but Steve was so big and strong that he didn’t have trouble hanging onto her.

Pulling flashlights out of their packs, they made their way down the marble steps and into the basement of the building. A small plaque at the bottom of the steps had the words
Federal Offices
printed on it and an arrow pointing down a pitch-black hallway.

“That has to be it,” Steve said and rushed down the hall.

They came to a door at the end of the hallway with
B101
painted on the glass, and Shane opened it and peered inside. The emergency lighting in the room illuminated bodies lying everywhere. Some suffered gunshot wounds and others had their heads smashed in, like they’d been killed with office equipment used as weapons of opportunity.

“Eew, this place stinks,” Kelly said. “Where the heck are we?”

“Kelly, you’re all right?” Shane asked. Overcome with relief, he turned his flashlight on her face. Steve released her, and she stood on her own two feet. She no longer attempted to escape.

“Yeah, I think I am,” she replied, shielding her eyes. “I must’ve passed out for a minute.”

“Maybe the weapon only makes her go all weird when she’s near other older kids her age,” Tracy observed. She walked to the opposite side of the office and studied a large, stainless-steel door that looked like the entrance to a vault.

A scurrying sound made Shane look down. A rat ran across the floor and jumped on Kelly’s leg, sinking its teeth into her. Kelly screamed, and
Shane kicked it off and stomped on its head.

“This means the animals and bugs are gonna come a
fter me,” Kelly said. She sounded frantic, and her face turned white with fear.

“Don’t worry—
we’ll protect you,” Shane said. He looked over at Tracy. “Can you get that door open?”

“Yeah,” she grunted, pulling on the
large, shiny handle. “It’s unlocked.”

Shane latched onto Kelly’s arm and
tugged her across the room, kicking another vicious rat along the way.

“Shut the door,” he ordered once they were all inside.

Steve helped Tracy close them in the vault. Shane searched the floor for more rats, but didn’t see any. The small room’s metal walls had racks against them, each one stacked high with file boxes.

“This can’t be it,” Steve said
, sounding distressed. “There’s no way out of here besides that door.”

Tracy walked over
to the left wall and pulled on a rack of boxes. When nothing happened, she worked her way around the room. Realizing she might be onto something, Shane started at the opposite corner and did the same.

“Got it,”
Tracy announced a minute later.

The r
ack she pulled on swung away from the metal wall. Shining his flashlight on it, Shane could see the outline of a door. When he pushed on it, it swung inward, stopping halfway when it hit the body of a woman, laying facedown on the tunnel floor.

“Yo
u think she’s the scientist who recorded the message?” Steve asked, standing over the body.

“Could be,”
Tracy replied. “She is wearing a lab coat.” She reached down and grabbed the woman’s arm, flipping her over onto her back. The dark-haired woman’s face was bloated, one side of it flat from lying against the hard floor. “Yep—says Dr. Gunderson on her name tag.”

“Looks like she got shot and dragged hers
elf in here to try and shut the weapon down,” Shane said, pointing his light at the trail of dried blood leading back into the capitol building.

The tunnel walls w
ere made of cinder block, and the ceiling was a smooth, continuous arch of concrete. The air smelled dank and stale, with a hint of rotten meat that made Shane feel sick to his stomach. A large, black beetle scurried out of the darkness and headed straight for Kelly. She shrieked, and backed against the wall. Shane managed to step on the beetle before it got to her.

“More
bugs will be coming after her,” Tracy said, sounding overly casual as usual. “Rats too.”

“No
, really?” Steve said, glaring at Tracy to scold her for her insensitive tone. “I think she already realizes that.”

“Look guys,” Kelly said
, sounding like she was trying to muster her courage. “I’m right here, so no need to talk about me in the third person, like I’m already gone or something.” She shined her light down the tunnel. “Can we just get going now, please?”

“Yeah,” Shane agreed. He stayed close to Kelly, and
they headed into the darkness.

“Look up.
” Tracy shined her flashlight at a black sphere hanging from the ceiling. “Cameras.”

“And they got juice,” Steve pointed out
. “See the red light on the backside?”

“What did the scientist say? The secret laboratory is p
rotected by an automated weapons system?” Kelly pulled her M-16 up to her shoulder and aimed it into the darkness.

“I wonder what that even means,”
Steve said. “Like flying drones with laser beams or what?”

“I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough,”
Tracy replied.

“
Keep your eyes peeled for a door on the side walls,” Shane ordered. “The recording said the battery compartment would be outside of the laboratory. If we can cut the power, this will all be over a whole lot quicker.”

They walked along at a rapid
pace, the sounds of their footsteps echoing off the concrete walls of the passageway. A small herd of spiders rushed out of the darkness toward Kelly. She screamed and jumped behind Shane. He, Steve, and Tracy stomped as fast as they could and managed to kill them all before they got to her.

“I wonder how deep
we are underground?” Kelly said once they started walking again, obviously trying to calm herself by thinking out loud.

“I’d guess we’
re pretty deep,” Steve answered, sounding like he shared her need for a distraction. “We started at least twenty feet below ground level, and the floor has been sloping down for—”

“Shhh!”
Tracy put her hand up to stop everyone.

Shane held his breath and listened, look
ing at Tracy’s wide eyes and worrying about what could have spooked her. The unnerving answer came in the form of a mechanical buzzing sound echoing from the dark tunnel up ahead.