The Orphans (Book 3): Strangers (30 page)

Ellie didn’t need to wait for him to come to him she was more than happy to meet him halfway. She pushed her pack and Patrick out of the way wiping at tears and hit the release on the door. She had to help it open as the bus door had just been hanging on by the slimmest pieces of metal. She ran around the front of the bus not looking where she was going tripping over the bodies laying astrewn in the parking lot. Shaun gripped her tightly picking her up and squeezing the life out of her. Ellie squeezed him back with no less force whispering, “You saved us Shaun. You came back for us. Thank you so much.”

Ellie smothered her face into his shoulder still squeezing. Shaun said, “We need to get out of here before they come back out. They might be smarter than we gave them credit for but they aren’t going to stay in there forever. We need to get moving, go get your stuff and say goodbye we need to leave and we need to get to the base. We saw what happened at Andy’s and can’t think of any reason to try and make a go of it there.”

Ellie said, “Joey’s sister, we lost her there. There were to many of them and we didn’t have any time we just ran, but she didn’t keep up and well that was the end of everything. They ransacked the house and Andy had something rigged because when we were half a mile away we saw an explosion going off and it totalled his house. It looked like it was on fire, was it? We didn’t go back to the  house after the explosion and the turned were everywhere they were still following us.”

Shaun looked down at the ground kicking at some gravel. “Well they aren’t there anymore, they attacked us and we took them out.”

Ellie saw the look on his face and started thinking instantly that they were missing people. She said, “Did Tina, and Jordan go to the base with Clary and Aslin? They did right? I’m sure those two didn’t even want you to come after us.”

Shaun nodded, “Yeah I don’t think they were too happy that we came after you guys, but I told them that there was no chance that we were going to leave you behind.” He whispered the rest just barely above hearing, “I would have rather died than not have you around to be with me.”

Ellie rubbed a hand through his hair and said, “I am glad you came back, i’m glad that both of you came back, but really did something happen to Tina? I don’t know how much more loss we can handle.”

Shaun nodded his head, “Yeah I agree. I don’t have good news for you though. We were searching for you guys everywhere at Andy’s I refused to believe that they;d gotten you. When we saw Jenn in the field I about lost my mind. The idea of you gone was as bad as one of those things ripping my heart out of my chest. It’s my fault though about tina.”

Greg came up behind hearing this and yelled, “That’s bullshit Shaun, you can’t blame yourself for every person that gets taken out by these fuckers. Think about it man, do I agree that maybe we shouldn’t have gone off half cocked looking for them, yes probably, but under the circumstances when we didn’t know what was happening, or if they needed saved there wasn’t a lot of choices left but to go after them. The barn seemed like a smart place to try and find them.”

Ellie said, “So you opened the barn up and they were in there?”

Shaun nodded, “Yes the five of us were walking down to the barn and -”

“Wait sorry, what about Jordan?”

“The story doesn’t get any better Ellie we lost him at the base. They were everywhere in the food storage building and they came out of nowhere. Jordan ran in there letting them loose and they poured out of the building I saved Tina, but Jordan was lost. Aslin took it pretty hard to, I am pretty sure we are growing on him.”

Greg laughed, “Yeah we are growing on him because he finally realizes that he needs us.”

Ellie was going to say something but the words which were little more than a whisper interrupted her. “Ja - ja - ja - Jordan was killed? But he - he’s all I had left.”

Ellie turned around and when she saw the look on Joey’s face it was instantly burned into her soul. She reached out a hand for him, but Joey backed up a few steps tripping over one of the turned. A hand reached out from under the bus Joey looked at it numbly but when it reached for him and growled he came back around. He stepped back a foot crab crawling and pushed a few steps away. When he did it came out from under the bus. Shaun raised his rifle but there was Ellie, and Joey in the way with no shot. Joey saw red staring at the thing, knowing that it was because of these that he would never see his brother or sister breathing again. He pushed up to the ground and when it came out from under the bus Joey snapped a foot into its face. It’s head snapped backwards and cracked into the buses rusted bumper.

Shaun watched forgetting the boy had downs for the first time and seeing the rage and hate that was boiling out through his actions. He brought up a large foot as it tried to get back up and smashed it repeatedly in the head until it stopped trying to rise its skull had been crushed. Eric and Phillip came out of the bus seeing what he had just done, and Eric patted him on the back, “holy shit kid that is the way to take it to those things, good lord man, I think you might want a bat, or something t hough, you know unless there is more than one of them next time?”

Joey wiped at some tears checking that nothing else was under the bus and walked to the side of it leaning against it and staring at the mass death littering the ground around him. Shaun said, “You ok Joey?”

Joey shook his head no and Shaun had no idea what to say. Greg said, “What do you need Joey? ? You need us to do something for you?”

Joey shook his head, “No there isn’t anything that you are going to be able to do. I want my brother and sister. I want my parents. I want all of these things dead.”

Greg said, “I’m sorry bud but they -”

Joey gave a dark look to Greg, “I’m not stupid Greg, I know they are dead. It doesn’t mean I don't want them back. I loved my family, I love my family I mean.”

Eric ignored the sentiments being put out by Joey and held out a hand to Shaun, “Hey bud you saved our ass. We didn’t have enough supplies with us and we ran into these things after thinking that we were going to have a place to call home for a while.”

Shaun said, “And how exactly did you end up with Ellie and everyone else on your bus?”

Ellie was going to speak but Eric said, “I can speak for myself Ellie. We came out of Adel where we’d been hiding out. When we decided to go out and hit up the town for supplies we thought that we needed something bigger to transport so we went out to the orphanage.”

Shaun taking this as wrong as the others said, “Wait you went to their home to steal their bus? Like you know orphans don’t already have enough going against them, they need grown men stealing from them.”

Eric snapped back, “Watch it kid, you are getting ahead of yourself.”                           

Greg put a hand on Shaun’s shoulder and Shaun shrugged it off. “Get off Greg, why don’t you fill us in, so you are saying you didn’t try stealing their bus?”

Philip rose a hand and said, “Hi, actually what happened was our buddy Tim was with us and he thought we should head out there and check on them. The bus was our main reason originally to go out there, but when we went out there we kind of made the decison that they needed to go with that we weren’t sure if we’d be able to come back from the camp or whatever this mess was supposed to have been.”

Eric said, “Wow that didn’t any better actually. Look we ended up going through town and we had a horde of those things following us they came from everywhere. We didn’t know where to go but we knew where Andy lived. I had gone into the shop and see it completely picked over, it looked like anything with a barrel attached to it was missing. I found his address and we left heading towards his place. By the time we were almost there, we had so many following us that we didn’t know what to do.”

Shaun’s fists couldn’t have been any tighter he had the rifle slung and was processing everything Eric was saying and feeling the anger building to a point close to eruption. Shaun said, “So when you found a giant horde of the turned that have no purpose other than ripping us limb from limb and drinking our blood and eating our bodies only to leave a mangled mess ready to walk around. Driving a giant bus where there were a hundred different roads you couldve taken that weren’t to Andy’s but why is it that you still drove to Andy’s knowing that you wouldn’t be able to stop anyways. You thought that you would what jump out grab stuff and get back in before those things that run almost as fast as some cars caught up to you?”

Eric said, “Hey kid I don’t like your tone.”

“And I don’t give a shit old man.”

“Old man?”

Shaun pointed to Joey and yelled, “We lost people today, people that we cared about, they were peoples sisters their friends, their loved ones. We lost our home because of you, a man that was doing nothing but trying to help us out was lost damn it.”

Eric held up his hands in a well its to late now manner and looked at Phillip who was already feeling the pain that was coming Eric’s way. Eric whipped his head back around just in time to see Shaun’s fist flying towards him and connecting into his nose breaking it instantly and sending him flying backwards. Phillip held up his hands, “Whoah lets settle down kid.”

Shaun stepped towards him and Greg picked him up from behind pulling him backwards and trying his best to defuse a situation where he thought that Shaun was completely in the right of way. Eric landed on his ass the warm blood coming down his face and seeping into his mouth. He shook his head trying to clear the fuzziness and pushed up only to fall back down again. “You broke my nose god damn it, Christ kid.”

Shaun screamed, “You are still alive. You’ve got to think, you can’t just do what you want you two. You’ve got to think.” Shaun pointed to the bus, “It looks like you decided to care for those kids, and you already got a few of them killed, we need to get out of here, and we need to leave now. But start thinking! We are going to be talking again about this i’m sure, the guys that we are with are going to have questions for you and you probably better get your answers straight or they might just send you two on your way.”

Eric said, “Who are these people that we are going to have to answer to?”

“They came yesterday, they are navy seals and they are all that is left of their team that was air dropped in here yesterday. They have been helping us just as much as we have them. But they are going to be very pissed when they find out why you’re the reason why the farm got taken over. That was a good place, with good people.”

Eric just stared and Phillip said, “How old are you?”

“It doesn’t matter how old I am, what matters is surviving every day and keeping others from being taken by them. Just because i’m young doesn’t mean i’m incapable of thinking. You have got to think! You gotta plan stuff out.”

Shaun patted Gregs shoulder and he finally released him. The rest of the kids had came out of the bus and Shaun was questioning how they’d all get back in the one truck. Greg yelled, “You what’s your name?”

Phillip pointed to himself, “Phillip, my names Phil er Phillip.”

“Can you try and get that thing started again? I’m not sure we are going to be able to fit that many people in the truck even if we drive squeezed tight I still don’t think that we are going to be able to fit everyone in there.”

Phillip didn't answer he helped Eric up and the two of them headed back to try the bus. Phillip sat behind the drivers seat and Eric sat next to them both hopeful that it would start. Phillip said, “You alright man? You uh, you’re bleeding pretty good man.”

Eric nodded he held his shirt up to his nose and eyes trying to clean up the mess. “You know I think that kid is right, if we are gonna try and do shit we need to think it out first. We might still have Cedric and Tim if we had. Hell we might as well have put those kids on a damn plate. We drove straight in and I don’t even know why at this point, he was right we wouldn’t have been able to stop, we wouldn’t have been able to get any of the stuff there.”

Phillip said, “Eric what is done is done man, there ain’t no going back now, its done. We can move forward and get this bus going, or we can die, thats about our only two options.”

Eric motioned towards the bus to get it going. Phillip tried unsuccessfully a few times trying not to flood it. He punched the steering wheel hard and yelling, “Start you dumb son of a.” That was the instant that the bus came to life its engine warming up and the two men just stared at each other neither allowing a second to celebrate until it had completely started and was going to not die again. When they were sure about it Eric ran back to the front and said, “Well lets try and make it to the base who's coming?”

The teens stared around not impressed with their options stay and die or head off to the unknown on some military base. One after another they started walking towards the bus ready to embrace their future, whatever that might be. Greg looked to Shaun, “Well should we get going?”

“Yes lets get moving. Those things aren’t going to stay in that tunnel for long. We can be back before its dark.”

Greg said, “You gonna ride with them?”

Shaun snapped his head around, “Why would I want to ride with them? It’s those twos fault that we had to come here in the first place.”

Greg went to say the inevitable that they neded to protect those kids that they weren’t responsible for the stupid acts that the men had done. When Joey said, “We need to keep them safe. We need to stop those things from hurting anyone else.”