The Orphans | Book 8 | Retaliation Read online

  “Oh, so once they get back, you’ll be set to go, right? Not to rush you, we’ve been at this since day one, stuck in camps to keep us safe, training to make sure we can think on our feet and overall have probably had to deal with more effed up stuff than would be healthy for someone our age. I mean if this thing actually ever ends, could you imagine what kind of therapy we are going to have to get to get right in the head?” Ellie said.

  “I’m sure you’ll be able to find someone to listen to you. They had said that there were a few different colleges that might have what I need,” Mark questioned.

  Joey, who not to Mark’s offense in any way at all, hadn't really thought of him other than the cover of the book that was portrayed. He wouldn’t admit it, of course, which would be good for him. Joey hadn’t been a small guy when he’d first come to be one of the group and with all of the help and training he’d gone through, he’d definitely taken some of what little baby fat he had had and turned it into his gun show that he was overly proud of. Joey asked, “Is there a reason we can’t go get the stuff, that we can’t pick up the things needed?”

  “Well, son, these are very complicated items with really long names.”

  Ellie was going to try to stop Joey or to say something but there was no chance. There was a glint of evil in his smirk. She knew whatever it was, was probably well deserved as well she hated people making fun of him or judging him. Everyone on the base had grown to love Joey, who at first might have been a bit standoffish, however, when the world is in need of hugs, this guy never ran out, nor did he ever judge or hold a grudge against anyone.

  Ellie always thought that if she’d not been an only child that having a brother like Joey would be a blessing. He’d been there quite a lot while she was going through depression mixed with a changing body and mind on what seemed at times a daily basis. Not having a mother there to be consoled by about the loss of the boy she knew she loved made nothing easier. She felt like the world was on her shoulders at times, knowing that all of this started just because a man and a woman fell in love with each other and then tragedy in the way of something horrible called cancer, which she thought by far were the worst words in the English language, she thought somewhat selfishly, because it was going to potentially take her best friend away. Of course, had she or anyone with a soul known about the repercussions of “the cure” to cancer that Frank Fox had come up with after hundreds of hours of research and development alongside his assistant, who only sped up the end of the world by forging the results in their test subjects, coupled with her mom going faster than expected, leading to Frank making a decision which would change the world, then she’d have happily traded her mom’s life for the fate of the world.

  Joey couldn’t have been less suspicious when he walked around looking at Ellie’s desk and scratching his head. Joey said, “Ellie, do you have a crayon at your desk?”

  Ellie knew damn well he knew they didn’t and said, “No, Joey, after we lost Lou, we got rid of all the crayons, sorry. Would a pen work for you?”

  “Geez I don’t know, those tips on them could hurt my hand if I went and missed the paper.”

  “Well, what do you need it for? Is it something I can help with?”

  “How are you with big words?”

  “Like how big?” Ellie asked.

  Joey seemed to be looking at an imaginary word in his head and held out his thumb and index finger a few inches apart. Mark, who didn’t have the patience for teens or many people in life which is why he spent the majority of his time happily in a lab nerding it up and doing his thing with no complaints, said, “Christ, so maybe you could tell me when they get…”

  Joey cut him off saying, “Mr. Mark, sorry I don’t know your last name but my mom always said it isn’t polite to interrupt others. I don't know if you didn’t know that.”

  “Yes, I did know that. You don’t think you might go find your mother on base so I can talk with Ellie, please. This might be a bit over your head, young man.”

  Joey never broke the act not even for a millisecond, the more this guy gave him to play with the more line he was going to pull off his reel. “Ellie, oh my gosh, my mom isn’t here is she, she isn’t on base, is she? Did Mark see them when they were flying in maybe?”

  “No Joey, I promise your mom isn’t on base.”

  Mark said, “Was his mother abusive?”

  “She and my dad tried to eat my sister and brother and me. We barely escaped with our lives. We probably wouldn’t have made it if Ellie and Shaun and Mr. Clary and everyone hadn’t stopped to pick us up in Adel. It was one of the scariest days of my life. I couldn’t believe that we’d gotten out of the car, let alone gotten somewhere safe...as safe as you can be during a zombie apocalypse.”

  “And that is why we don’t bring up people’s pasts if it isn’t important to the conversation. We also don’t assume things about people. Got it?” Ellie instructed.

  Joey asked, “So, do you think that you might be able to write down what you need, Mr. Mark?”

  “I don’t see the point?”

  “Oh, don’t worry, I can’t spell big words either.”

  “It isn’t an issue with length Joey, it is that it won’t do you any good.”

  “That’s what she said,” Joey replied to an obviously frustrated Mark.

  “That’s what she said, what?”

  “That’s what she said about your length.”

  Ellie said, “We don’t have much to watch with the world ending, Joey found a boxset of The Office, it is just a reference to his favorite character, Michael.”

  Joey said, “So how about you get to writing.”

  “Again, I don’t see the point.”

  Joey said, “You write down what you need, and Ellie and I can go get it.”

  “Just the two of you? I’m sure you’d need me to go with you, you’ll never be able to…”

  “Thanks for thinking I’m not able to do anything, I really appreciate it, Mr. Mark, but believe it or not, even someone like me can spell. I probably can’t spell any of your drugs and chemicals that you need but I bet no one else here could either. If you write it down, I’ll make sure that everything on the paper matches.”

  “You kids are going to need adult supervision if you are leaving the base. I wouldn't feel right sending you off to go and do something that I should be a part of. I would feel horrible if something happened to you going out and getting the things that I needed.”

  “We all need them, Mr. Mark. If you can kill those zombies with them, then we want to get it going as soon as possible. Now, if you don’t think your formula works, then let's wait. But if you think you can kill a couple zombies without bullets then let’s rock and roll. I hate guns and don’t shoot them.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  Joey replied, “No, that makes one of us, because I don’t know how to make that stuff and you do. So, unless you wanna write down how to do it really quick in a way that anyone can understand then you might be just smart to keep yourself here, Mr. Mark. How does that sound?”

  Mark realized quite quickly that this teenager seemed to be a helluva lot brighter all of a sudden than he had let on just a few minutes ago. He could feel his blood pressure and annoyance level at this beginning to soar higher than he was used to and probably higher than was healthy too. Ellie said, “You might as well give up, Mark. I agree with him; you can’t be risked. We try to be optimistic, but we never know who is going to come back when they roll out those gates. I mean, think about the dead and what they are capable of. Have you seen a lot of humans? It is going to make for some very hungry and angry Turned out there to contend with.”

  “So, I just write down a list and you guys go get them. Is that about it, and are you stunted in growth? You talk like a forty-year-old woman.”

  “I got to grow up fast. But yeah, that’s about it. We can go to a few different places that I know of. If it isn’t there, we can get a little more creative.”

  “An
d you really think that you’re going to be able to find this? That you are going to find any of this?”

  “Won’t know if we don’t try, but we can’t do anything yet,” Joey said.

  “Why’s that?” Mark questioned.

  Joey responded, “It is going to be hard to collect the list…”

  “That’s what I was saying…”

  “Mr. Mark, remember what I said about being impolite? You are being that way right now. I was trying to say, thank you, that you haven’t written anything down. If you could make the list then that would be great. I got some work to go do.”

  Mark thought if he was going to leave then he would happily let him. The idea of having to go back and forth with a teen for too much longer was a painful existence. Mark wrote slowly and neatly, not wanting to have to worry about the kids bringing back something that wasn’t right. The idea of him screwing up and them not getting the one ingredient needed to be able to create the hope that was in the vial made him sick to his stomach. He finished his list, looking at Ellie, almost unsure if it was safe to give it to her. From a medical standpoint, the idea of sending someone off to do this probably wasn’t on par with being ethical.

  “Would you feel better if I took someone who knew a lot less than me about guns and military protocols? I’m sure some of your group has been training with a tough ass Navy Seal for the last year and change, right?”

  “Would it be someone much older?”

  “Yes, yes it could be someone older, and probably a few more who aren’t. We try not to go out in two people groups with, you know, being outnumbered a million to one.”

  “That would be horrifying.”

  “Well that’s why we don’t go out in twos.”

  “No, no, because that idea of a million, never mind, just let me write for a minute or two.”

  Ellie nodded and said, “Down the hall is a lab. If you want to get it cleaned or organized, I think that would be a good place for you. There’s a lot of natural light that comes in. I have this digital camera. I think you ought to try and record your process.”

  “I won’t forget it, don’t worry…”

  “Did you hear Joey when he mentioned it isn’t polite to interrupt people? Well, he wasn’t kidding. I don’t doubt that but if you don’t know if you’re going to live then you might want someone else besides you and Scott to know how to do it. On top of that, we are in Iowa. If we upload it to the internet, then everyone out there can make this stuff and we can take the world back just a little bit quicker!”

  “That does make sense doesn’t it?”

  “It’d seem you are smart, aren’t you?”

  “I guess that will depend.”

  Chapter 6

  “Wait, how much time does that thing take to get ready?” Greg asked, looking a bit uncomfortable.

  “Oh, it don’t take too long, once you get it ready. I’d say maybe four or five minutes. You see anything that we need to be using it on at the moment?”

  Scott, who very much wanted to see the end of this zombie apocalypse that the world was going through, slapped Earl hard enough on the back of the head that it brought a tear to his eye. “You realize what he’s doing, right, Earl? He’s going to bring the zombies to us, so if it isn’t too much trouble do you think that you could get your gun loaded up and ready to do the only fucking reason that we came out here for, please?”

  Earl flipped a switch and opened a tank valve. “All ya had to do was ask; you know I’m a sensitive man. I’d like to think that in a day and age such as this that we are beyond violence towards one another.”

  “Earl, I’m…”

  “Yeah, I wasn’t done talking just yet. If you ever lay another hand on me, I’m going to hit you back so fucking hard that you won’t wake up for a week. I don’t give two shits who you are or what you helped contribute. The last thing I’m going to do is deal with some high school bullying.”

  Greg snickered leaning forward to Shaun and asked, “So this is the guy that we are counting on to be the one who saves like the entire fucking world?”

  “I’m not counting on shit, Greg. But I assure you what they used originally worked with no issues. I trusted them enough to take that shit and I didn’t die. I watched more of the Turned die than we’ve ever been able to do in a day….well maybe not that many but they didn’t have to fire a single bullet to do it. It was definitely impressive. Just give it a shot. Earl fixed the gun and they are set to kick ass with it.”

  Scott said, “Earl, how did you fix it?”

  Earl looked over shocked, “Oh, I’m sorry, Scott, are you done physically abusing me, already?”

  “I said I was sorry…or at least I was going to before you cut me off. Yes, I won’t lay another hand on you, Earl.”

  “All right then, fixing it didn’t take a whole lot of work, I mean I already knew how I put it together the first time, so all I did was repeat what I’d done the first time. Why fix what ain’t broken, right?”

  “Joe very clearly explained to you and I that you guys couldn’t kill anything at first because your zombie lung, the one and only, would not break the vials filled with our precious cargo if there wasn’t something to break it against.”

  “Right, but how often are we really gonna be somewhere with no brick buildings around to go breaking it on?”

  Clary came walking back with a definite hop in his step. You could see he was nervous and optimistic all at the same time. He was definitely excited about the possibility of what the future might hold and the end for them. When Scott saw him coming, he felt that they had an immediate issue that was about to set a bucket of barely contained gasoline which was Clary on fire.

  Clary got in, and he couldn’t help himself but smile, he didn’t walk with a hop in his step but he very well might be walking on a cloud, he contemplated. The good news was coming one after another. He pulled one of his cigars out from a pocket thinking how they were thinning out for sure from his personal collection...but on a day like this, it was going to be one hundred percent worth it and there was no joking around about that. He was going to smoke the goddamn thing until there was nothing but ashes resting between his fingers. When Clary looked to the others with his enthusiasm, he realized very quickly that something was wrong...very wrong. The only one smiling besides himself, which had died instantly like someone had shot his puppy, was Earl. Clary figured if it wasn’t serious that Greg would be able to find some sort of humor in whatever situation was being played out. But he looked absolutely stone faced.

  Clary said, “Spill it, what’s wrong? We have the cure to take out the dead quite literally at our fingertips. Why do you all look like shit? Someone speak up before I lose it.”

  Shaun was going to say something but Scott beat him to it. He wished he’d have asked a few more questions about his zombie lung when Earl had advised it was ready for use again. Scott said, “The gun is working...but it isn’t doing what it should.”

  “It’s only job is to shoot those vials, what in the hell is working on it then?”

  “It’s shooting them vials just damn fine,” Earl responded.

  Clary starred at Scott waiting for more information about what in the hell wasn’t working. Clary said, “Look, it wouldn’t be a big concern but if you didn’t realize what that red shit that is in those bags dripping in the air then let me just inform you that it is blood. That blood is drawing in every single one of The Turned for as far away as those things’ noses can smell it. We could be a helluva long ways from home.”

  Scott advised, “Look, so it is working but it isn’t going to be able to break the vials.”

  Earl, thinking he was adding common sense to the conversation added, “Like I said, how many times are we going to be somewhere without bricks?”

  Greg said, “You know, Earl, it would seem to me that there isn’t any bricks around here. You know on account of the simple fact that we are in the middle of a damn field. Just exactly when was that going to strike home with y
ou?”

  Shaun was using his binoculars, combing the field with them, trying to see just how much time they had before the dead were coming their way. Shaun spoke before the useless bickering which didn’t seem a damn thing could be done about it where they were. He said, “Guys, there’s Turned coming our way. They are less than a few hundred yards away.”

  “They look serious?” Clary asked.

  “It’s the Turned, Clary, are they ever anything else?”

  Greg said, “We can try and take away their incentive to come this way.”

  “Or we could leave the blood, Greg, and we could go and just drive out of here. Those coming this way still know what direction they are going. If we just leave, the worst-case scenario would be that they follow us, right?” Shaun questioned.

  “Did you look in any other direction than forward, boy wonder?” Greg asked.