The Orphans (Book 4): White Lie

  WHITE LIE

  The Orphans Vol IV

  By Mike Evans

  Dedicated to my wife and children, who are always ready to put up with one of my crazy ideas. Always supportive of my writing. I love you all.

  ****

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  Edited by Christina Hargis Smith Owner and editor at Optimus Maximus Publishing

  Proof read by my good friend Karen Dziegiel

  © 2016 Mike Evans, All Rights Reserved

  Chapter One

  Six months and one day

  Clary walked into the barracks where the teens were sleeping as were Shelman and Philip. He shined a flashlight across them and saw that he was not the only one who had nightmares. The death that each of them had seen was more than they could deal with. “Almost seems a shame to wake them doesn’t it?” asked Aslin.

  Clary shrugged, “If we don’t try and get them into shape and teach them, then it’s going to be a short damn apocalypse for us isn’t it? It isn’t like they need to know advance shit. We show them how to shoot a gun, we get them to run miles on end, and they might just have a chance.”

  Aslin said, “You realize those things never get tired. It doesn’t matter how fast they move or how much of a head start that they will have on them.”

  “So what, you want to just put them out of their misery now and put one in their head? Then you and I can start heading west and hope that we can pick up a boat out in California and head to Hawaii. Maybe we will be able to survive out there if it hasn’t reached the islands yet.”

  “Christ, would you shut up man. If they hear you, not only will we lose their trust, but they’ll probably take off on their own and end up getting themselves killed,” Aslin said.

  Clary rubbed his hands through his hair while looking down the line of teens and kids, thinking of them lying along the streets with their stomachs ripped open and their faces smashed. He went to speak and nodded his head saying, “Yeah, you are right. I don’t know anything else. We don’t have to train them but what are we going to do with those that don’t want to learn?”

  “Anyone that doesn’t want to, or doesn’t have the idea of surviving like us could cook. They could also learn how to fix things but they better pray that no zombies come into the mix because I'm not going to have a babysitter in the middle of nowhere for them. If they don’t want to learn they might as well hope that they are lucky.”

  “Do you think that we should give them the treatment that they need so they can start appreciating military style training?”

  Aslin tilted his head back and forth debating it. “Do you remember your drill sergeant Clary? I mean I know you are like fifty or sixty but can you remember back then?”

  Clary held up a middle finger and thought of his drill sergeant with a shudder said, “Everyone who was in the military remembers their damn drill sergeant, are you kidding me? We don’t need to be like that though.”

  Aslin flicked the lights on and off until people started to wake. He walked down the aisle yelling, “Today is the first day of training! The training that might very well save your life. Now get your shoes and roll out front. We are going to go on a little fun run and then I'm going to teach you how to use a gun!”

  The occupants of the bunks slowly got up, quickly realizing that they had very little choice and even fewer options if they wanted to learn to survive the Turned. When the news had been presented to the teenagers that there was no cure and that lead to the head was the only way to stop them, the choices were limited and to the point. It had been made clear that those wanting to stay needed to be able to contribute and watch out for each other’s back as well as defend the gates of the base. The majority of them had never shot a gun, much less a machine gun on a military base. Many of them had never been away from their parents more than a night. The looks on their faces were filled with no faith in each other.

  When Clary walked by them he smiled and said, “Don’t worry kids, we’ve all had a first day of something, today is no different.”

  A fifteen year old boy Andy looked up from tying his sneakers and said, “Uh my usual first day of anything is like school, or baseball practice, not learning advanced military techniques.”

  Clary said, “It won’t be advanced today. We just want to show you the business end of a rifle and pistol. If you can handle that we will go from there and make sure that you don’t blow your head off with it.”

  Andy looked a bit relaxed and smiled, thinking that he could hold a gun without pulling the trigger. “Well I can handle shooting a gun I think.”

  “Oh and we are going to go and do a good workout,” Clary added.

  Andy asked, “How much are we going to do?”

  “Well there really isn’t an end to it. You will love it, everyone gets to stop once they puke, unless they puke too soon then we will wait until they puke a second time.”

  Andy said, “Well I don’t think that I puke too quick so-”

  Aslin quickly interrupted, “Quit pissing around kid, get outside and get yourself stretched out. We aren’t eating until after we get back from working out. So you need to keep up running like a champ.”

  Andy went to say something but stopped when he saw the look on Aslin’s face. He ran outside to do as told and the two men walked down the rest of the bunks, making sure that everyone had left the barracks. They saw Shaun stretching next to his bunk; they weren’t very worried about him. They had already been teaching him for the last six months and they knew very well that he wanted nothing but to kill those things and that he felt it was a responsibility among all else. Shaun watched the bunk above him but saw no movement and no stirring. He whispered, “Hey, loser you’d better get up man or I think you are gonna regret it.”

  Nothing came from the top of the bunk and Shaun jabbed at it from below, sending a shock into his friend Greg. “If you do that again you will never have children,” Greg said.

  Shaun shook his head. “You know what, you want to do this on your own, don’t you worry about it. From what we’ve learned from Aslin and Clary, they are always nice and sympathetic about things.”

  Greg tried getting up then collapsed back into the sheets. Joey finished tying his shoes and said, “You ready Shaun?”

  Shaun nodded and asked, “You in a hurry?”

  “Well, yep, he’s gonna get yelled at and I don’t want to stay around to hear it. Can we stretch outside before we go on that puke run?”

  Shaun got up, pulling Joey by his hoody and said, “Come on let's go.”

  *****

  The two teens passed Clary and Aslin on their way out. Clary said, “Morning boys, you ready for a run, you think you gonna keep up Joey?”

  Joey smiled while nodding and said, “I won’t have any problems keeping up. I’m fast Mr. Clary.”

  “We’re heading outside to get stretched out,” Shaun said.

  Clary looked over his shoulder and asked, “Everyone awake down there Shaun?”

  Shaun laughed and replied, “Uh, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention Clary, sorry.”

>   Clary saw the lump in the back, lying unmoving on the bunk and asked, “Greg?”

  Shaun shrugged as they ran out the door. Aslin said, “Yeah it has to be Greg.”

  Clary said, “Why’s that?”

  “Because he drives me crazy and has for months.”

  “Yeah I think God put him on earth to make sure that I constantly have a headache.”

  “Headache huh, I think that he gives me indigestion. You get off easy,” Aslin said.

  The two walked up to the side of his bed and Aslin patted Greg on the back. Aslin said, “Come on Greg we have workouts that we need to do, let's get a move on.”

  Greg didn’t move and Clary said, “You know I'm thinking more and more about my training and what would have happened if I didn’t get out of bed.”

  Aslin said, “Are you kidding me? My drill instructor would have gutted me and then fixed me and had me do pushups until I puked my guts out.”

  “Well I didn’t know that you had a pushover for an instructor. Christ, mine would have.... well hell he would have done this,” Clary flipped the bed up in the air propelling Greg to the cold concrete below.

  Aslin yelled like he had the words sitting there waiting for him, “Get your skinny ass up and out of this bunker before I permanently plant my foot up your skinny ass. Go, Go, Go, Go, NOW!”

  Greg pushed up off of the ground slowly. He stood tall yet still not coming within a foot of either man’s eyes. He said, “You do realize, unlike all these other kids, that I already know how to shoot a gun. I made it through day one, day two, and day three. I didn’t do it by hiding, if I remember correctly, I kept the two of you from turning out like your friends did that you came with.”

  Clary stood real close to Greg and bent down near enough so that their eye lashes were touching each other and said, “Just remember no one knew what the hell they were getting into when we got dropped off here. We thought that we were doing something good, that we were going to be able to save the world but come to find out of course, that isn’t the case is it? We just found out how to make this disease and then they die. But I can only say this as nicely as possible, do not, and I say this for sure and clearly, do not ever talk bad about those men. They were serving their country and trying to save the world. They gave up their lives instead of trying to hide in some basement like so many Americans did.

  Greg said, “We weren’t hiding, we were on our way down to save everyone too and we didn’t have a way to get out, we did it just to do it. We knew that there wasn’t anything else that we needed to do but to save everyone. We were putting the greater good before us as well. So like I said, I don’t need this training. We are good to go.”

  Clary nodded slowly. “So you know how you can’t hit anything with handguns? You know that you couldn't set a trap or a bomb to save your life? We’ll keep that in mind. You already know some of the things that you need to but what matters is that you get everything that you can possibly learn in your arsenal of skills. You never know when you will need to be able to do all of it at any given time.”

  Greg went to say something back but Shaun yelled from the doorway, “Greg quit being a pain in the ass and get out here with the rest of us man. We need someone to lead PT and we all know you are the slowest guy here.”

  Greg looked back to the two men, thought about it and turned around realizing that he was wasting his time. He knew it didn’t matter what he did, he was going to be running and knew that he was being stubborn as well as cocky by not learning absolutely everything that he could. Of course he wouldn’t for the life of him tell the two SEALs about that. He turned around, not saying anything else, and headed to the front of the barracks.

  Eric was laughing, still sitting in his bed, and shaking a smoke out of the pack. He lit the lighter just in time for Aslin to turn and see him. Eric said, “Probably a good idea that you get them in shape. We can’t have them out and messing around all day. I figure it’s probably best to keep them busy by giving them something to do and focus on.”

  Phillip said, “Oh I couldn’t agree more with you, it is always good to keep teenagers busy especially with a damn military base at their disposal. I can’t imagine what would happen if they were free to come up with ways to keep themselves occupied. I mean we have enough Turned to worry about the way that it is, right?”

  Aslin looked at Clary and the two of them both smiled. Clary sat down and said, “If you don’t get your asses up and out of those bunks now I'm going to give you nightmares like you have never before seen!”

  “What, wait, did you want us to go out and fry up some eggs for breakfast?” Phillip asked.

  Aslin said, “Yeah you know if you want to cook up some breakfast that would be great, but it’s going to have to be right after you finish your run with the kids, and weapons class, and see if you are still able to stand after that.”

  Eric said, “But we already know how to shoot boys. Hell, I have a whole wall worth of deer racks at home to prove it.”

  Clary said, “Wait, you have deer racks, like you were able to shoot a defenseless animal with a shotgun at what, twenty yards?”

  Phillip laughed and said “Well, he shot it all right but-”

  Eric said, “Shut up Philip.”

  “What?” asked Clary.

  Phillip jumped up off the cot and headed out to the front. He looked over his shoulder and said, “Well yeah he shot it, it just took every shot in his gun to get it.”

  “How the hell would you know? We went out there at five in the morning and you were still back in the woods puking out the beer from the night before. You probably don’t recollect that now do you?” Eric asked.

  Clary put a hand on Eric and said, “Sorry if this comes off wrong, I am not quite a delicate kind of guy. It might be something that I am missing in my DNA. I don’t know, I've never been called sentimental though.”

  Eric said, “Hey, I got thick skin man, don’t you worry about it.”

  “Well to be perfectly honest, listening to the two of you makes me think that I am getting stupider by the moment. I could be wrong but you know, I don’t think that I am.”

  Eric started to say something but Aslin said, “Sorry, I think he said it wrong. What he really meant was, get your ass out front or I'm going to run you until your fucking legs fall off! Now get moving or I swear to God that you’ll regret many, many days to come!”

  Eric sprinted, or what was his sprint at least, and ran out of the barracks. Phillip started laughing and his words were just barely coherent. “That was the fastest that I've seen that guy move in my life.”

  Aslin looked at him and said, “If you don’t match his speed, I’ve got a pretty big foot and it’s going right up you know where if you don’t get out there, go, go, go, go!”

  Aslin and Clary both looked around while rubbing at the bridges of their noses and thought that they couldn’t possibly have to deal with the two of them for an entire apocalypse, but figured that they needed to have more than just a group of teens around. Having a few other adults even as immature as they might be were still somehow probably useful.

  They walked out and looked around at a large crowd of teenagers; their original headcount guess had been fifteen. However, when they had gone back through with bunk assignments they found out there was at least twenty five, which was twenty five additional fingers on triggers that they hoped that they could rely on. They knew that having a base this size with such a small force was not something that was going to be easy to keep an eye on at all times. They had already figured out that there was a strong chance that the Turned did not require sleep.

  Clary held up a hand as he stood up on a platform. He saw nothing but doe eyed children staring at him. He saw Greg yawning while trying his best to look as bored as possible. Shaun and Ellie were stretching and Joey looked like he was ready to burst off onto the run. Clary cleared his throat and said, “Now I know that we all know each other, and that we have been waiting for the best news, for the news t
hat we were going to be able to rely on someone else to save us. That someone else was going to cure these, these inhumanly cruel bastards. They have all hurt you in one way or another, we’ve all lost someone, and we all have a story to tell. There isn’t anything that we can do to fix that after this. There isn’t anything we can do to cure these things. I hate to tell you this and it isn’t easy, we can’t protect you here.”

  Andy walked forward and fear spread across the poor kid’s face. He held up his hands and said, “Wait, wait, what do you mean that you can’t protect us? We came here because we didn’t have anywhere else to go and now you tell me we aren’t going to be able to stay safe? It’s your job to protect us; didn’t you take an oath or something?”

  “Look Andy, we aren’t babysitters. We took an oath while we were under the government's employment. That time stopped when we parachuted into Iowa looking for the cure. Do you know the story of what happened Andy?” asked Clary.

  Andy shrugged, kicked at some gravel and said, “Yeah everybody knows. One of you two were dumb enough to send the research back to your bosses before they got you back off the ground again and on your way back home to somewhere safe.”

  Clary waited for some of the chuckling to stop and ensured that he remembered who had laughed. Clary went to speak but Aslin cut him off and said, “Well just to clarify this, it wasn’t myself….it was Clary. I for one would never do something that stupid, that ignorant, that-”

  Clary said, “Guys, should we skip ahead and have me show you the advanced physical hand to hand combat that you will be able to do once we are done training you? I can show you how to break hands, arms, legs-”

  Aslin whispered so only Clary could hear him. “Fine, oh my God would you relax? Is it your special time of the month Clary?”

  Clary took a deep breath. “Well I lost what I was saying.”