The Orphans (Book 3): Strangers Read online

  Shaun took a long deep breath, “We sometimes are put in situations that we can’t control, sometimes we have to do things for the greater good of others and put yourself second.”

  “Well that’s easy to say but.”

  Greg cut him off. “Sorry to say man but you don’t know what you are talking about. Like you said we’ve had a pretty shitty couple of days.”

  “So he had to.”

  Shaun leaned forward speaking very clearly and very slow. “Remember bringing up the past now does nothing to make anything that has already happened easier. The only thing you gotta know is that if it comes down to you or them you better be ready because they don’t hesitate and they don’t wait.”

  He nodded thanks for the heads up I just need someone to teach me how to do one of those things. My dad taught football but never did anything with guns. He thought they were dangerous.”

  Aslin patted Jordan on the shoulder and gave him a thumbs up. “By the time i’m done with you guys you are going to know so much more about weapons and rifles than you ever wanted to. Once your training is done though only those that don’t want you to be armed will have a reason to fear you with a gun. Shaun and Greg seem to have a pretty good start already like you’ve been shooting for a while.”

  Shaun pointed to a main highway not wanting to get into any other talks that would keep the discussion on his father. “Hey here’s the last road we need to take to get into Camp Dodge hang a right we’ll be there in no time.”

  Aslin said, “Thank god a solid road. So it’s just past this farm?”

  Greg said, “Nope this isn’t a farm it’s where they go and play their war games on the weekends. They have a skeleton crew working most the time full of guard members that put in their forty at least that’s what my dad would say. Anyways that field has all the different types of courses all rolled into one making sure that they stay in war time shape.”

  Aslin slowed letting the truck coast. He said, “Greg didn’t you say that all resources were being gathered when you listened to the CDC announcement yesterday? So there is a pretty good chance that those guys all got called out. I wonder if any of them came back?”

  “Aren’t they going to let you back on either way? I mean don’t they have to if you showed them any credentials?”

  “It depends on what their orders are. There is a hell of a good chance they aren’t letting anyone in. It might be smarter if I took a stroll in there before I put you guys in arms way to.”

  Jordan asked, “Do you think that you could get in there?”

  Aslin stopped the truck checking out the road ahead of him and saw a barrage of military vehicles not parked, not on guard but crashed into each other in the street. They weren’t smoking or on fire but from the blackened pavement it didn’t take a genius to try and see that something was seriously wrong here. Aslin drove the truck up slowly as they got closer they looked at the guards entrance and could see that the entrance was not accessible. Instead of having a metal gate or a wooden gate it was worse. They saw large foot thick poles that rose from the ground and enough of them that there would be no chance of getting through. Shaun said, “We are going to have to go in on foot. You think that’s a good idea Aslin?”

  “Fuck no it’s a horrible idea. Let’s take a minute and think about this though.”

  Jordan said, “Well what the hell do we know about this type of thing. What are you asking us for?”

  “Because it’s your life on the line. You aren’t a kid anymore, you aren’t waiting for mom and dad to tell you what to do. If you want to survive all this shit you need to think like a man and you need to be able to make decisions for yourself. It’s important, don’t be a follower, none of you be a follower, you’re going to have to make tough choices and if you follow someone thinking that they know more than you then you probably aren’t going to last to damn long.”

  Shaun said, “How about we pull in a little further and see what it looks like. We are still in a truck and there isn’t anything behind us that we need to worry about as of now so if we need to get out of here I think we are ok.”

  Aslin thought about it and did a u-turn in the middle of the highway. He backed it up slowly Clary sat at the edge of the tailgate watching he sat back by the window and slid it open. “You boys seeing this here? Shaun what the hell’s wrong with them they’re just standing there.”

  Shaun turned around in his seat giving them the full attention that they deserved. “Don’t get any closer I’m pretty sure those aren’t soldiers there it’s something worse.”

  Clary tapped on the roof of the truck, “Stop the truck will you? Greg hand me your rifle I want to see those things up close and personal. If they’ve Turned I say we take them out from a distance anyone got a problem with that?”

  Aslin said, “Well you know my take on distance over up close and in it. I wonder how many more there are there. I hope we have enough ammunition on us.”

  Shaun patted his backpack happier that he brought it with every passing second. “Greg and I should have plenty of ammo to get us through this. If we can’t find some more 223 bullets at a army base we are seriously doing something wrong.”

  Aslin put it in park and said, “What’s the point in changing a working formula?”

  Clary twisted a knob on his shoulder. “My battery says half full s that means it’ll probably last another half hour at best. You know how great these things are.”

  Aslin checked his and opened the door walking across the highway and into the woods that lined the opposite side of the highway. Clary yeled, “How long do you need to take care of them?”

  “Give me an hour, keep your battery off and reserve it.”

  “That’s great and all but what if you need help?”

  “Well Clary if you hear me firing my handgun how about you guys come and pick me up.”

  Tina hopped out of the truck and climbed into the front driver seat. She looked at Shaun and Greg laughing for a second. “What’s so funny Tina?” Greg asked.

  “Seems kind of like deja vu you guys ready to go and save the soldiers and me driving through no mans land.”

  Shaun tried to watch Aslin but within a minute he melted into the tree line and was gone. He pointed at Greg, “We need to be able to do that shit.”

  Greg said, “Yeah but what goods it going to do if they can still find us by smell? Remember the bloody rag it did more than us screaming at those things did.”

  Shaun watched in awe. He didn’t care what Greg said, those kind of skill were going to prove to be useful. If reports didn’t come back with the news that they were praying for from the CDC this was going to be good to know. He thought that as people changed that sometimes it would be better to be able to go undetected. Clary poked his head in through the window, “TIna go ahead and kill the truck last thing we want to do is pollute the air wit our carbon emissions.”

  Tina snapped her head around but Clary was already smiling, “We don’t have the gas to waste.”

  “Nice to know boys never mature Clary.”

  “Things are already dark enough, if we can’t joke then we are all gonna snap at some point.”

  Tina killed it just leaving the radio on keeping it low but they all felt a little piece of normalcy if it hadn’t been for the pistols and rifles spread around the truck. Clary heard the new music playing from bands he’d never heard before, “Hey great music guys really uh different.”

  Tina smiled, “I have these guys on my mp3 they are the best right?”

  Clary gave a thumbs up nodding excitedly as he slid the window shut to the truck and moved to the rear putting as much distance between himself and the music as possible. He rested his machine gun on the truck’s tailgate not taking his eyes off of the Turned soldiers in the distance. He knew that even though they looked comatose right now that it was a matter of a sound a gun blast or anything to make them come out of their current state. He thought of all the places that he and his team had been, the nightmares t
hat became true in third world countries and he knew that he would gladly, gladly trade any one of those horrible missions for their current circumstances.

  *****

  Aslin moved through the woods being extra cautious to avoid broken branches. He’d been trained by the best to be a ghost in the shadows. Even now decades later after his training had been long past, he could still hear the screaming of his instructors even after passing buds training. It was something that he was sure had helped keep him alive over the years.

  Aslin moved slow until he was within a few hundred yards of the Turned soldiers. He rested behind a fallen tree counting the men there were fifteen in all and he knew that they were just waiting to do harm. He rested the rifle on his left arm sighting in the closest of them and thankful as hell for the silencer on the barrell. He started firing one after another dropping them and keeping them from causing pain to others. After the third had fallen they came out of their state. They tilted their heads back sniffing searching for the meal they knew something was harming the others but unsure what or who it was. They launched themselves into the air landing on top of the burned military trucks still searching. Aslin never stopped firing and had never been happier to have a silencer in his life before now.

  He walked out of the woods when he could not find anymore of them to take out. He waved to Clary signalling for them to come down and meet him. Aslin walked slowly seeing the trucks with bloody hand prints on the inside of the trucks thinking of guards who must have tried to stop the men from entering the base when they were trying to come back in, possibly running from the Turned themselves or already on their way to being infected.

  He saw the poles that rose from the ground acting as a gate and knew that the’d have to be going on foot if they wanted anything from inside. He was unsure how they were going to get or his the supplies out in the mass amounts that he was hoping to score. He walked slowly through the mess avoiding the men on the ground and knocked on the door at the guards office. When no one answered he thought about walking in and realized he had a perfectly good teammate coming real soon that would be a good thing to have watching his six.

  Aslin stayed alert slinging his high powered rifle for his much more compact machine gun. He walked around making sure there were no hidden surprises still wandering waiting for their meals. He made his way back to the road yelling to Clary to follow him. Shaun yelled from the truck, “What do you want us to do?”

  Clary said, “You guys wait there, leave it running Tina, we don’t want anything slowing us down if there is a reason to leave. Shaun why don’t you and Greg get in the bed of the truck. The two of you keep an eye out incase any of those things are still lurking around here.”

  The two boys climbed out and Greg winked and said, “Tina you two be good in here all by your lonesomes.L

  Jordan tried to answer but Tina was already ahead of him. “Don’t respond to him Jordan he’s just going to keep talking if you do.”

  Jordan nodded, “You’ve been with them for longer than a few days I assume.”

  “Unfortunately I’ve known them for quite a while. We were all already close before the whole zombie outbreak thing started. Shaun’s dad saved greg, patrick, and me from the school where the breakout really happened.”

  “Wait the guy that started this came to your rescue to?”

  “The guy that started this was screwed over by his assistant and he’d have let Ellie’s mom and the love of his life die before he would have tried a experimental drug on her.”

  “So he just saved you three from the school?”

  “No there were others but they didn’t make it. I think the longer this goes on the less people we are going to have around to worry about saving. I think if he would have had more time to plan out saving us he’d have gotten a bus and saved as many people as physically possible.”

  Jordan thought about his dad and said, “Yeah if my dad is still around i’d really like to make sure he gets treated. Who knows what these things shelf life is? I mean are they dying, are they getting weaker, are they getting stronger?”

  Tina hadn’t thought about that and said, “Well I know we ripped ones arm off, blew them up and shot a cheerleader in the chest and they all just kept getting up and coming back for more.”

  “Well that really makes a guy feel better. Are they going to let my brother and sister stay? Some people don’t like strangers especially when they have something different about them.”

  “Are you talking about your little brother Joey?”

  “You know that I am. I’m serious though if you know anything i’d like to know because if not were going to have to try and find somewhere to hold up for a while.”

  “You’ll be ok, did you see how Andy took to him today? They look like they’re going to be buddies pretty quick.”

  “I’m glad Andy is so willing to take on strangers. I promise he’s got a the biggest heart of anyone that you’ve ever met.”

  Tina smiled thinking of the boy and couldn’t think of anything that sounded more like the truth. “I think we are going t all be together for quite a while to come. Those doctors aren’t going to be able to solve this overnight regardless of if they have the research or not at their hands. It took Frank months to come up with what he thought at least was a cure.”

  Jordan laughed wiping some tears from his eyes. “You realize that we should be in school, we shouldn’t be sitting outside some military base trying to break in and get weapons from it. I mean it’s insane isn’t it, blue skies and warm temps and zombies chasing us down and trying their best to kill us.”

  Tina rubbed his arm and shoulder. “It’s ok, everything is going to be alright. I don’t know how but i’m sure everything is going to work itself out eventually we just need to be patient and be calm.”

  Aslin and Clary walked around the guard desk trying to see in but the high brick windows made it impossible even at their height. Clary set a small charge on the door and the two of them took cover around the corner. He hit the blast to go off and the door popped with a boom. Aslin smiled giving a thumbs up, “You finally didn’t do overkill.”

  Clary looked sad for a moment, “Are you kidding me, my personal stock of explosives is finally running low.”

  Aslin said, “Let’s clear this building and we will make damn sure that you have got everything and then some that you need before it is all said and done.”

  Clary went first around the corner gun up and Aslin followed close behind a hand on his shoulder. They made their way into a smoke filled room they heard a growling but could see nothing. When the low growl turned into a bark the two men stopped in their tracks. Clary said, “Dog, dog, dog, back up now.”

  The dog lunged for the men Clary only guessing where the dog was held up his rifle trying to protect his face. He heard the powerful jaws of the dog clench its muscles hard and tight. Aslin screamed, “Fuck are you ok?”

  Clary screamed, “I’m fine, he isn’t attached to me.”

  They backed out of the room waiting for the rest of the smoke to filter out. When it did the two men saw the eighty pound german shepherd with a turned soldier that was kicking and trying its best to get away from the dog. The dog was standing over it in such a way that it was impossible for it to reach the animal. Clary said, “I’m keeping it, he’s mine.”

  “Are you serious do you really want a dog.”

  Clary put a bullet through it’s brain and when it stopped resisting the dog let go of its jugular. Aslin said, “So we are sure that the dogs can’t get infected right?”

  “Not sure enough to sleep well at night. I say if the dog is still doing ok when we are ready to go home that we go ahead and bring him with us. He does seem pretty badass right?”

  “You know if those things bark that they're going to be bringing the Turned left and right if they are in the vicinity.”

  “Dude you do just realize that he probably saved our life.”

  Clary pulled out some beef jerky and tossed a p
iece to the dog petting its head and behind the ears. “You're a good boy, yes you are, and i’m gonna name you something evil.”

  They cleared the rest of the guards desk and found the main control room. When they did they saw the control panel for the front entrance and hit the button to lower the raised barrier. Clary watched on the video monitor and when it was down hit the intercom saying back it up and bring it over Tina. The truck’s brake lights flashed as she backed up the large truck. Whey they got past Clary hit the button to raise it back up. Aslin said, “Wait that’s a horrible idea you realize this right?”

  Clary said, “I don’t want any other surprises today, if any morons think robbing a military base is a good idea i’d like them to be persuaded to find another way in or somewhere else better suited to loot when they aren’t able to enter the facility.”

  Aslin said, “Well aren’t we kind of robbing a military base?”

  Clary said, “We are highly trained Navy Seals hell no we aren’t robbing, we are just borrowing until we are fit to return it. We have a duty to keep these kids safe. Far be it from me to try and take on such a task without a well armed arsenal and are you telling me that you want to try and leave all those chery rifles and bullets behind?”

  Aslin looked at his machine gun and thought about the kids still shooting single shot rifles and pistols. He nodded knowing not for a second he’d want to leave a single bullet behind if they were able to carry all of them with. They went through the files watching the footage and seeing the troops pulling up and some looked fine others looked injured. There were others that left nothing to the imagination jumping and eating those that were within grabbing distance. The guards had put up a valiant effort to try and save them but had failed, and for their attempts had been rewarded with turning themselves or being eaten.

  Aslin went out to meet the kids as they backed up and Clary looked through the file cabinets until he found a base map. He found the buildings he wanted labeled armory, kitchen, and the motor transport. He took the file with and ran to catch up with Aslin. Tina put it in gear saying, “Where’d you want to go?”