The Orphans Brigade (2 page)

Shaun had a hand on Ellie’s shoulder making
sure he wouldn’t lose her in the blindness, as always he was
willing and ready to take the blunt of any attack that came from
the end of the tunnel. If worse came to worse he had a jacket full
of grenades that he would happily pull the pin on If it meant that
he could take as many of those bastards with him as possible. He
heard a low growling coming from behind them they pushed harder and
faster for the edge of the tunnel. Shots would start firing soon if
they didn’t make it, he felt for his radio clicking the button and
getting no response the depth of the tunnel was to deep and the
signal was too weak. He could hear people screaming ahead and he
started blinking his flashlight to warn them that someone was
coming. When they made it to the group everyone ran up staring at
them in awe. They were covered from head to toe in a thick layer of
white dust from the building, Shaun pulled off his bandana that he
had around his mouth as did Ellie.

Shaun looked at his watch knowing very well
had they been a minute later that the group would have started
firing down the tunnel. Survival was the top priority and it didn’t
matter who was left behind, Shaun knew that well, because this was
the very rule that he had beaten into everyone’s memories time and
time again. A new recruit skinny and frail who looked even smaller
in comparison to holding his automatic rifle opened his mouth to
speak to Shaun. Shaun noticed the eager young man he shook his head
no holding up a finger. “Shut up everyone.”

They all stared at the leader each of them
knowing the man before them did nothing and said nothing that
wasn’t required. He made a motion with one finger to wait and the
group did the same as well. Shaun looked at the group estimating
quickly maybe 20 of the 50 men had made it down the tunnel.
Unfortunately for the group Shaun realized these were pretty good
survival rates considering he had just dropped a big ass building
on top of them all.

Shaun walked up near the tunnels edge
listening; trying to make the invisible become visible again. He
could hear the growling and that was all that his senses needed to
confirm that they weren’t alone. “Some of them must have survived
the blast.”

He pointed for the metal ladder that was on
the other side of the small space pointing to get up it. He pulled
up his rifle checking the side of the magazine seeing he had a
fresh thirty round clip in it. Ellie knelt down beside him as
always ready to take on whatever they could together.

The two of them were always the first and
the last to leave a war zone. The troops did not need to be told a
second time to go. They raced up the ladder to the backup bunker
where they would spend the night and regroup. In the morning they
would follow Shaun to a new spot that he deemed worthy of being
able to call home for a few days until the scent of themselves
brought the Turned yet again.

Shaun waited his blood pumping away staring
at the tunnel for what seemed an eternity. Ellie laughed kneeling
next to him breaking the concentration of Shaun. Laughter wasn’t
something that was plentiful around here as people didn’t have much
to laugh about during these dark ages. “Something on your mind
Ellie?”

Ellie actually snorted peering at Shaun
remembering the young clean cut teenager who did not have scars up
and down his face and a mixture of dried blood and soot from
explosions as his regular street clothes. No he had a short clean
haircut back of course when there was a barber alive to do it, and
a school sweatshirt. “I was thinking back to the day we met. Do you
remember what caused the end of the world was you thinking that one
boy was going to hurt me, and it was in a school of all places? I
mean if you’d have been some regular prick and just kept going,
there would be like four billion more people still alive
today.”

Shaun thought back to the woman who was just
barely a teen at the time who couldn’t assemble and then break down
an assault rifle. He laughed to something he wasn’t sure he could
still do. “Yeah I remember, I thought for sure it was going to get
me a date with you. God bless dear old dad.”

“Your dad had every bit of good intentions
it wasn’t his fault about what happened. That son of a bitch Rogers
is the one who should burn in hell.”

“You know what good intentions and a dollar
get you?”

Ellie laughed, “Yeah a dollar, which isn’t
worth much more than the good intentions, right Major Fox?”

Shaun shook his head. “God I wish there was
a reason to call me that, if the military hadn’t collapsed so
quickly after the Turned had taken over we would probably have
double the population. Hell maybe we’d even still have running
water and some sort of civilized democracy instead of a fend for
yourself mentality.”

As Ellie tried to speak a head appeared
lunging from the dusty haze straight towards her, its mouth wide
opened with yellow teeth. Shaun seeing this shoved her off balance
and to the side. He put up a heavy military grade boot connecting
with its jaw and knocking it backwards only momentarily. It lunged
for Shaun, who stabbed it under the chin up through its skull and
out the top of its brain with the rifles bayonet. To be sure he
fired one shot blowing out the back of its skull. Shaun put a foot
on its shoulder dislodging the knife from the Turned and scrambled
backwards towards Ellie. As another one appeared Shaun let go of
his rifle pulling his pistol from his hip and blowing a small hole
through its skull that exploded from the back. You could hear it
whistle its way down the tunnel. The two raised their rifle taking
out as many as they could. Shaun pulled a grenade motioning to
Ellie to cover up. When the grenade was at a two count before
detonation he hurled it down the tunnel and the sound was
deafening. Shaun grabbed Ellie who was in a daze pushing her up the
ladder one hand on her ass to keep her going the other on the
ladder himself.

****

The soldiers helped them as they came up the
ladder taking their gear and weapons. The new recruits stared in
awe at the man whom it seemed could not be killed. A light blood
trickle came from his ears. They knew if it was his eyes that he
had been Turned and that he would need to be dealt with. They
stared at his arms as well, the other immediate sign to tell if he
was one of them was missing skin from the first bite of flesh they
took was almost always that of their own. They tightened down the
hatch moving from one building to the next until they were in the
back up bunker where a portion of goods was left.

The young soldier who had tried to talk to
Shaun earlier came up a second time eager to speak to the man. He
had heard stories of him for the last few years. Each one was
wilder depicting him as a man that was immune to the bites, who
could take the Turned on with his bare hands and win. Shaun turned
around eying the kid and nodded his head. “Sir I just wanted to ask
you where we are going to go next, I mean we are after a cure or
something right. Your dad he was a scientist?”

Shaun just stared at the kid, he pointed to
one of the Turned who they had put down when they entered this
building originally as a backup shelter. The boy nodded looking at
it, Shaun walked over pulling the bayonet knife from his rifle and
knelt down next to it. The other new recruits followed in closely
staring at the man who had no signs of a weak stomach. Shaun
stabbed the knife down into its chest deep and brought the knife
all the way down the Turned’s sternum. The group all took in a deep
breath as the stench of rotting flesh was unbearable. Shaun pulled
the knife back out wiping the sludge on its pants and pointing to
different organs which were no longer intact or weren’t much more
than a black sludge. He pointed at where the heart used to be. In
its place was at best a quarter of a heart that until a bullet by
his rifle had pierced the monsters skull had still been pumping
even in its mangled state. Shaun looked up at the group realizing
this was probably the first time that they had seen something like
this and anything like this so closely.

“Look here class, there is no cure, and the
only way to avoid getting this is to not breathe in the spray from
X-74 and to not get bitten, scratched, or share any blood with the
infected. You can ask for forgiveness if you make a mistake, but it
won’t save you from having a bullet put in your skull if you make a
mistake that turns you into one of them.”

Shaun looked up at the group each of them
looking ill. The harsh realization of what they had to deal with on
almost a daily basis was pushing their young minds past the brink
that they could handle. He peered over seeing Ellie resting in the
corner, she was making a drop it down gesture with her hand. Shaun
took a second gaze seeing that every kid here was looking at the
specimen in front of them praying that it wouldn’t be them. He
thought of the original group that had gone up to his family cabin
when the shit had hit the fan, all of them now were either in a
better place or had abandoned the group convinced staying with
Shaun and Ellie and their never ending battle would wind up with
them dead or worse Turned.

Shaun stood covering the man again, trying to
think of something, anything that would make the small group feel
at ease. It was not something that was his strong suit. He held up
the rifle for all to see. “They might have numbers, they might be
stronger, but they are not the dominant race. We know that a bullet
to the head will kill them, we know that without legs we can chop
their damn heads off we can win this battle! We can take back the
continent!”

The young man who had originally been so
optimistic asked. “How are we going to do that?”

“We blow the son of a bitches up.”

Everyone just stared at Shaun who was
confident, thought that he was insane. But he had been thinking of
this plan for a while. He came up with the idea after going to the
last military base. It had been stockpiled with plastic explosive
enough to make what they had done today look like a small
firecracker. “We can lure them into following us and I don’t mean
just a few I mean we go through the city, we find cars that still
have gas in them and will start and we get them to follow us. We
find the biggest building in the city and we blow the son of a
bitch up.”

Ellie was standing now, not sure what to
think about this. “What building are you talking about Shaun? We’ve
been here for months you have your pick from what I can tell of big
ass buildings lying around just sitting empty with the exception of
the Turned that were either stuck in there or who were still
looking for a fresh meal.”

“I was leaning towards the Regan building,
its big enough if we stack the walls with the

C-4 that we can bring the entire thing down
around them.”

The group just stared at Shaun, Ellie the
only one confident enough to talk back to him or question him
nodded her head slowly in a natural for her sarcastic tone asked.
“So…. we go get some cars and we get all the explosives we can
carry and then we get every turned in DC to follow us into this
building armed and ready to have an explosion big enough to be seen
from outer space?”

Shaun who was more than use to Ellie’s
sarcasm nodded his head. “Exactly.” Offering no further explanation
of the plan for the night.

*****

He pushed through the doors carrying his
pack where he found a cot and dived into a restless night filled
with ghosts of the past of more people than he knew the names of.
Ellie came in lying next to him only able to sleep when she knew he
was safe. He was almost never safe and he almost never got the
chance to rest like he was tonight.

Shaun awoke when she came in. He couldn’t
fall back asleep but was able to relax feeling the same way about
Ellie. She had rested her hand on his chest and breathed deeply.
Shaun pulled out the last thing he would ever receive from his
father besides heartache. It was crumpled nd had been folded a
thousand times.

“
Shaun this is the impossible letter to write. I don’t know
how to put this into words, I don’t know if you will ever choose to
forgive me? By the time you read this it will be too late and there
will be nothing that anyone can do about this. I can only pray,
pray to god one day they will be stopped. If you choose to tell
Ellie that I was responsible for this than that is your choice. I
don’t have time to make peace with everyone that will be harmed
today by this disease.
”

Shaun read until the end laying the letter
down looking at Ellie thinking of how much happier the rest of the
world would be if he had just been the guy in the hall who just
kept walking. But he knew that he couldn’t live without her in his
life even if it meant an existence of blood, death, and loss.

Over the next week the young crew of all that
America had left fighting for it gathered the supplies needed. Had
there been astronauts still in outer space they would have been
able to see the explosion from their space craft.

The Orphans Brigade

By M. Evans