The Orphans (Book 3): Strangers (23 page)

              Tina was just barely paying attention to him talking she was concentrating as hard as she could to not drive the giant truck into the building. As she was bringing it to a stop Jordan jumped out of the truck wondering how quickly he would be able to get back to the house. He didn’t want to waste any more time here than he needed to. He pulled the doors open to the front of the building and his smile faded the optimism melting and his his fears exploding out of him. The turned that had been standing in the hallway craned their heads slowly sniffing then seeing then crouching and sprinting towards the young man standing before them.

Jordan muffled a scream not that it would do any good and turned to run and slipped falling face first and landing on his chest. He pushed up off of the ground running back for the truck. The growling from the group of zombies behind him echoed past him. He ran to the large truck jumping up on the side of it and screaming to Tina scaring the hell out of her. “We gotta go, put it in drive now, floor it!”

Tina didn’t question she looked in her side mirror and saw the mass of bodies filling the hallway and pouring out of the building. She went to put it in park but it was to late they were on the truck and they were were too many of them. They covered the truck and busted out the windows to the cab. Tina screamed staring at Shaun and Aslin in the truck in front of them. Shaun pulled up his rifle pointing it out the window towards them. There were to many and they were covering the windshield, he knew that if he fired at any of them that the bullet would pass through their bodies and kill Tina anyways. Aslin screamed, “We can’t do anything for them. There are to many of them kid, i’m sorry but we need to go before they move on to us. There are only so many in there that are going to be able to be fed by whats in there.”

Shaun screamed, “You are kidding me thats the best we can do is drive away? She’s my friend damn it. We can’t lose another one, not yet, not her!”

Aslin went to speak but Shaun jumped out of the truck pulling free from Aslin’s grip and sprinted kneeling for a minute and firing off a succession of five sloppily placed shots. The gun fire and the report of the gun was more than enough to gather the turned’s attention. Shaun aimed better with his next round of shots taking off those that were on the hood. The turned saw their fallen brothers and immediately began their focus on Shaun forgetting about the fresh meal on the inside. Aslin screamed at him to get back in the truck but Shaun couldn’t hear anyone now. As they made their way off the truck and started closing in the distance between themselves and where Shaun had taken his stand he started firing. Shaun clicked empty on his magazine. He thought that he was screwed as one of them got within ten feet of them as shaun cringed feeling the bite already he heard a round go off and when he looked up he saw the fallen zombie on the ground the right side of his face and head gone.

Shaun looked up and saw Aslin’s rifle barrel sticking out of the truck, it jumped every second and another one of them hit the ground. Aslin yelled lock and load Fox, hurry up!”

Shaun seeing he’d gotten a second chance slammed a magazine on the ground and then drove it home releasing the charging handle and taking aim again. Tina watched as the two fired repeatedly never stopping the piles of the turned were littering the street. There was a red mist covering the light pavement. Tina pulled out her pistol and aimed the laser sight on the remaining turned on the hood firing the small caliber pistol until they slumped and fell off the side of the truck. She looked to Jordan, “We are alive, we did it. They saved us, jesus christ we are alive!”

Jordan looked up pushing up off of the floor of the truck. I can’t believe that just happened, what the hell was that? What just happened, how are we still alive, those things were everywhere.”

“It was Shaun, he just risked his life to save us. I can’t believe that he just did that, that he was going to do that for me. Oh my god.”

Jordan opened the truck door sliding out Aslin screamed for him to stay in the truck but it was to late. Aslin yelled again, “There’s one on the side of the truck, stay in the-”

Jordan snapped his head towards Aslin screaming and when the words hit home he realized that he’d turned the wrong way and that instead of listening to Aslin he should have been running. He sprinted the wrong way keeping Aslin without a shot. Shaun had nothing as he was on the wrong side of the truck to shoot at it and when Jordan tried to outrun it there was no hope. The turned leapt into the air landing on his shoulders. Jordan’s face smashed into the pavement the skin peeled away and the turned gripped his hair in its hand and smashed his bloody face into the pavement until he had made mush of it. It bent down licking the skin and blood off of the pavement. The last thing that Jordan could remember before blacking out was the feeling of teeth ripping his cheek from the bone.

Aslin made his way out of the truck the turned had done its damage and as Jordan lay there turning it moved on to meat that had not been tainted. Aslin did not hesitate taking the side of its head off with a fresh round. He stared in awe at Jordan getting up he remeinded him more of two face than he did of a teenage boy. He hung his head for a moment and watched the death in his eyes focus on him. Shaun came around the side of the truck seeing the downed zombie and yelled but already knew the answer. “Jordan - Jordan are you ok?”

Jordan looked at Shaun seeming to be wobbling on his feet. He brought up his forearm to his mouth never taking his eyes off of Shaun. Jordan placed it in his mouth and bit down hard pulling away until a flap of skin as hanging from his mouth fresh blood drippin from it. The look of pure satisfaction was on Jordan’s face and it made Shaun’s stomach roll. Tina crawled over into the passenger seat staring at Jordan. She couldn’t help herself and screamed for him, “Jordan! No, damn it no!”

Jordan snapped his neck up still chewing on the first and last bite of flesh he would ever be able to indulge himself in. He bent at the knees ready to jump. Aslin screamed for Tina to get back, but Shaun squeezed the trigger and the bullet raced across the parking lot and as Jordan was jumping caught him in the neck breaking his spine. He fell to the ground still trying to get up from where he fell. Aslin watched the teen walking up. Tina was screaming here tears were falling on Jordan where he lay on the ground washing small specs of blood from his face. Shaun closed the distance thinking of Joey, and Jenn and how he was going to have to explain all of this. He would be fine if he didn’t pick up any more groups of kids that were family along their way. He looked at Jordan being probably the closest he’d been to one of the Turned and it did not know how critical wounded it was. Shaun pulled his pistol taking a long breath. Aslin came up saying, “Shaun you don’t have to do this. I can do it, it doesn’t have to be you.”

Shaun shook his head firing off the gun. “It’s ok, seems like something that i’m going to have to get used to.”

Tina got out of her side of the truck and came around to Shaun. She saw Jordan and his mangled face and pieces of brain and hair covering where he lay. She buried herself in Shaun’s chest. She gripped him tight and he tried to think of something to say that would make it alright but knew that there wasn’t anything that he could think of. “It’ll be ok Tina, we couldn’t have known how many there were in there, or that there were any. He should have waited to go in.”

“He was worried that he wasn’t pulling his weight, because he could barely drive, and didn’t know how to shoot. He had every worry that his family wouldn’t be able to stay if they couldn’t contribute. He just wanted to help you guys. He thought that going in first was ok, he just didn’t think that was going to be how this turned out i’m sure.”

Shaun patted her back gripping her tight. “It’s ok we need to get moving.”

“But if I hadn’t backed up the truck to the building.”

Aslin said, “You can’t do that to yourself. Blaming yourself for things that we can’t go back and fix is just going to tear you up on the inside Tina. You need to moveon, will it be today? Will it be tomorrow? Who knows but you need to try and cope with it, the future is undetermined and we need to do our best to make it through this.”

She looked up off of Shaun to Aslin who was doing his best to make a smile. “Come on you two lets check out that building and get moving. I want off of this base as soon as I can. Clary and Greg are going to get itchy if they have to wait to long on us.”

Tina went to walk into the building still in the daze of what happened. Shaun gripped her shoulder tight. She flinched but realized what he was implying. She fell behind the two of them who hit the flashlights on their rifles going into the building. They made their way through the building checking everything in the facility and seeing nothing. The horde that had been inside had came out as one in a pack leaving nothing inside.

They found the supply room and were pleased that as well as the rest of the places there were no inhabitants residing there, alive or otherwise. There was a entire room stacked with shelves, canned goods, dried meats, vegetables, mre’s and more. Shaun said, “Hey we're uh gonna need a bigger truck man.”

Aslin shook his head, “We don’t need a bigger truck we need to secure that front entrance and we need to make this our home. We can spend a few days clearing this place out and removing the corpses. There’s no way we will ever be able to get through all of this, but we aren’t going to find somewhere better than this. There is no way.”

Shaun said, “Wait so you want to move into the base? You don’t think that the government is going to send people at some point? Or that you know others that know about the base are going to try and come here to get stuff or will have the exact same idea as us.”

Aslin said, “Hey I know it isn’t perfect but this place was built to withstand war. It should sure as hell be set up to be able to take care of the Turned. We get this place locked down, and we go get everyone that we need and come back and make a fresh start. There is nothing here that we will want for. They have medical treatment centers probably fully stocked. If we run into any soldiers we explain what we know and what we can do to try and survive as a whole. No one is going to turn away help we aren’t any threat to them. At least they won’t think we are if we don’t tell them that we are seals.”

“So we leave the food, lock the place down here, pick up Greg and Clary and bring everyone back from Andy’s place? Is that about it?”

“Yep that’s about it. It seems easier than making trip, after trip, after-

Tina cut him off, “You think that you are going to be able to talk Andy into coming back here? You think that he will be up for leaving his place and just coming here?”

Aslin said, “He’s lived here his entire life hasn’t he? There is a pretty good chance that he has been by this place a time or two. Hell he’s probably been around longer than this base has been for. We need to quit wasting time, you know and I know that the quicker we get there and back the safer we are going to be. Looking back at yesterday and today it doesn’t seem like we can afford to waste any opportunity we have. We need to stop wasting time, it is precious. You’re a smart kid, I don’t think that I have to tell you that, do it?”

Shaun laughed, “Really, I think just after what we had to deal with on day one that I stopped being a kid. I bet there’s stuff that soldiers haven’t seen that I have had to deal with.”

“Meaning what Shaun?”

“Exactly that, you can call me Shaun, you can call me Fox just don’t call us kids. We’ve probably all lost more than you guys in the last two days. I think that we have earned that at the least don’t you?”

Aslin nodded, “Whatever you want Fox. Lets go pick up the other two and head back. We can get another truck and our pickup and be back in less than a hour hopefully. Hell we might be sleeping in a nice military bunk by the end of the night. But the longer we stand here the longer we waste time.”

Shaun shrugged, “That’s fine with me. I don’t care if this is gonna be home or its Andy’s place both of them seem to make sense in their own way to me. There isn’t anything left for me in Adel if we go back and get the others. There’s no one left for me there once we are all together again. But I think we are goin to have to vote on it. We can’t just go around telling people what to do.”

“That’s kind of how the military works bud.”

“Right if this was the military that is how it would be. But you seem to forget you were released from the military yesterday. Both of you were released right after you got screwed over.”

“I can’t force anyone to do what they don’t want to. That is fine by me to. I’ll live up here by myself happy as shit but i’m more than willing to give ya’ll a chance to consider it. If you and your friends wnat to stay there that’s fine. If shit gets to thick you’ll know where I am, and I can assume that Clary is going to be down with staying with me as well. It’s something you should think long and hard about. Staying with me is not a bad idea. With all of the things that we have going for us you could stand to learn something by staying here. There is a entire base that you can look forward to training on. If things go well and they cure those freaks you still have one hell of a skill set that no one else does. Either way you're gonna be better off because of it.”

He nodded and said, “I’m just saying we need to approach others with a do you want to instead of a this is how its going to be approach. You are dealing with teenagers after all. We hate being told what to do ya know.”

*****

              The three wasted no time getting the place secured, getting every door locked after finding the keys for the doors in the guards room. Shaun thought about living here and didn’t really care where he was if they were safe. He stared at Tina for a moment thinking how close she had come to dying and wondered if he really would have sacrificed himself if need be for the other members of the group. When he really thought about it he didn’t think that he could ever leave someone behind. He knew in the back of his mind that he was always going to be the last one out so that if possible he would never again have to shoot another one of his friends to keep them from turning. He tried to picture Tina turning and what he would have been forced to do and the thought made him sick to his stomach. Tina turned around seeing Shaun’s face knowing it wasn’t a look of want or admiration in her way. She slowed down walking step for step with Shaun. “Hey are you ok Shaun? You look like you’ve seen a ghost, what’s wrong?”