The Orphans | Book 8 | Retaliation Read online

  Shaun didn’t want to look any other direction and apparently Clary didn’t either because he turned over the Humvee and put it in gear, not wasting any more time. He punched the gas and headed back for the road. He’d thought knowing where they were coming from with a long view of it wouldn’t hurt anything. He was thinking of taking the zombie lung and sticking it directly up Earl’s ass.

  Greg checked behind them; there were a few dozen of the Turned coming up over the horizon. Clary realized that they were surrounded. He didn’t want to drive through them because he knew they weren’t going to run away in fear. The Turned would come straight for them and they’d come hard. The Turned didn’t understand giving up. When they couldn’t use their arms to do something or were too frustrated to be patient, they’d use their face, feet, knees, it didn’t matter what damage it was, it was never enough if they didn’t get that meal that they so craved and needed. If they knew that they could heal, they would be even scarier. The idea of something like this able to heal itself was terrifying.

  Earl looked left and right. He knew right now Clary might not be his biggest fan but had to ask, “You got some sort of a short cut or a different direction that we are going to be taking? Cuz, I don’t mean to tell you your business, but them there things will smash the shit out of this thing if they get to us. So, what’s the plan?”

  “The plan is Greg getting off his ass, opening this hatch, and using that fifty-caliber sitting up on top of the roof to get me a hole big enough that I can get through!”

  Earl should have shut up but added with a grin, “That’s what she said.”

  Clary was very much wondering if he really did care if these people stayed if that meant having to deal with this dumbass for the time being. Greg did a quick perimeter check before exiting the safety, or what they thought was safety, the inside provided them. When he saw it was clear, he flipped the roof hatch open, popping up and setting a canister of ammo next to him then feeding it into the gun.

  The Turned were practically running in leaps and bounds, trying to get there just as fast as they could. They were growling and screaming at the same time and were slowing down for no one. They seemed to have materialized from nowhere all at once, which was haunting to think about, Greg thought.

  Greg pulled back, making sure he had a fresh round in his machine gun and started unleashing hell on the Turned. He didn’t even attempt to go for headshots. He knew a zombie without knees or legs would be just as useless as one shot through the skull when dealing with a Humvee coming barreling towards you like a bat out of hell.

  He smiled, watching as they began to fall. He was thankful for the tracer rounds because with as hard as the vehicle was bouncing, he was having a helluva a time keeping the heavy gun still on its swivel mount. He wasn’t going to complain though...not for one second, because the last thing he wanted Clary to do was to let off the gas and slow down. He wanted out of here and wanted out now. So long as they survived, Greg wouldn’t give him a hard time about picking a spot in the middle of nowhere, but he was already thinking of ways you could shoot a powder with any sort of distance to it and still have it break on something, or what options there were.

  Clary had nothing but confidence in Greg’s ability...at least when it came to killing the Turned. He had gotten quite proficient with the gun over the time he had spent under his watchful eye. Greg was one of the few people who he’d trust with his life, when it came down to it, so long as he hadn’t made any sort of stupid decision prior to being needed because he was still a teen with raging hormones which at times left him a bit susceptible to making ignorant choices. But right now, he was the son he’d never had.

  When he thought he had the space needed to get through, he showed Shaun a cut it sign and he tapped Greg on the thigh letting him know that was enough. The last thing you ever wanted to do at a time like this was to go and get wasteful with your bullets. Greg let off the trigger and came back down, pulling the hatch shut and locking it. Greg leaned up in between the seats watching the front view. When they got up to the dead, Clary pushed down even harder on the gas, feeling satisfaction as he drove over the fallen Turned. Clary didn’t care how many of these things they killed, each one always felt like a little slice of heaven.

  Earl yelled, “Christ, I hope this thing can take some damage. You’re beating it up like a red-headed step child.”

  Shaun knew it was just a saying and this wasn’t the time to mention not being a prick to the man. When they made it to the road, none of them felt much better. The dead came out of the ditches and woods lining the highway. All of them saw the Humvee as the golden ticket with a creamy nougat center. Clary felt a temporary relief, knowing he was on solid ground, but it ended as quickly as he’d felt it. The dead seemed to be multiplying by the second. Clary was wondering if these things could starve or if they just grew hungrier the longer they went without food. He figured there were still people out there and they, like he and the others, had learned how to survive. They had probably taken a more peaceful approach, trying not to die as the dead made their way around the country, making the living the minority.

  As they got closer, the Turned looked like they were becoming one as they swarmed in all at once. They met the Humvee with enough force to stop it from continuing forward. He could feel the tires spinning but the giant Humvee didn’t budge an inch forward. Clary went to put it in reverse but the dead were already climbing up the sides of the Humvee, engulfing it. The first thing they did was tear the zombie lung gun off the side of the vehicle. Earl’s lip quivered and he said, “I can’t believe they took that, damn it.”

  Chapter 7

  Joey looked around when he went outside. He thought of who should go with them and immediately thought that if he had to have someone a little crazy who was good at what they did that maybe, just maybe, having Mr. Yassa going with might be smart. Joey thought if there was some kind of lock needed picked, he’d heard Mr. Clary say a million times how Yassa probably had been a thief in his pre-zombie days. If they needed to bust into somewhere then he might be good, and he liked to fight and knew how to if things hit the fan.

  Yassa was looking at the giant plane, dreaming of everyone just flying until they found somewhere...somewhere where there weren’t any of the Turned, where life could just be normal. He saw Joey coming and nodded to him. Yassa asked, “How are you doing today, Joey? Did you come to get a flying lesson from Bob the pilot? You are going to have to wait your turn. I’d love to get my hands on this thing.”

  Bob walked over, trying to take in Yassa. He’d not taken to the base attire and so long as it wasn’t laundry day for him, he just stayed in what he thought was comfortable. Joey replied, pointing and asking, “That’s the pilot, right?”

  Yassa nodded, repeating, “Pilot Bob is his name.”

  “Mr. Pilot Bob, I’m sorry but you don’t get to come. I don’t want you to feel bad though, because you are the only pilot. I don’t want to let you get your head removed. Yassa, you get to be our wingman. You totally get to come with.”

  “With where, Joey?”

  “Oh, Mr. Mark, who needs to get some manners lessons, gave us a list.”

  “A grocery list?”

  “A zombie list.”

  Bob said, “Is he sending you kids after that stuff? We can’t let you go off on your own.”

  Joey walked over, giving Bob a hug, and replied, “Look, Mr. Bob, I don’t like telling people no, but I can’t let you go. If a zombie eats you, then you can’t fly people off the base if things go really badly. Unless you wanna show someone how to fly, you know, if you wanna go with us really bad and worry about them zombies killing you? Is that why you are giving lessons?”

  “Uh, it isn’t quite that easy to get the plane up and going. But I think you’ve got a good point. Would you be offended if I asked Joe to go with you? He was a Chicago Police Officer. He and the arsenal we took to fight our way to the CDC building. He and Earl went out first to test the powder and from th
ere we came here.”

  Joey looked around and whispered to Yassa, “You aren’t going to get in trouble if we take an officer with us are you, Yassa? We won’t get in trouble for stealing the chemicals, will we? I don’t wanna get put in jail for taking stuff.”

  “If we get the stuff to kill all of these things, you won’t be put in jail, we are gonna be put in history books. We’ll probably be more famous than rock stars.”

  Joey said, “I think if someone wrote our story, this would be a monster story.”

  His statement was hauntingly accurate. Yassa and Joey found Joe, and the further promise of hope, which was a rarity these days, did not leave him able to say no. Joe was looking around the base and said, “You guys got an armory close? I’m not going out naked.”

  Joey laughed, “Well, I hope there aren’t any of us going naked. I mean, where are you guys going to put your bullets at? I mean, we need a bag for sure right, just to get the stuff back. I don’t think if it kills zombies that I want any of that stuff touching me.”

  Joe asked, “Do you know where the college is, Joey?”

  “It’s in Iowa. I don’t know where. I think that Ellie knows, though. She’s getting the list of ingredients that we need from Mr. Mark. He was stuck on us having to take a couple people with who were older than me. Ellie figured that if we took him and he died and Scott died that we could be in some serious trouble, since no one else will know how to make what they got.”

  “But Yassa and myself would be worth the gamble, is that bout the gist?” Joe asked without much enthusiasm.

  “Mr. Joe, you sure are smart. If you wanna go with Yassa, I got a couple other people I want to round up. They’re always talking and complaining how they never get off of the base. Always saying what they’d do to the Turned if we just gave them a chance. Well, they are going to be really happy when I go find them and let them know the good news.”

  Yassa didn’t say anything. He was a man of few words, but when it came time to get a job done, he might have unconventional ways of accomplishing it but he did not let down. Yassa was looking at Joe and said, “Well, I’m assuming that we are taking an armored Humvee, I hope. I would say we should take a tank, but the guy that knows how to drive one is off on his own mission and the other one is sitting shotgun, I'd imagine, next to him or in the back.”

  “I am pretty excited about getting to go and do a mission right after almost dying a handful of times in Chicago.”

  “Strange, you guys went from somewhere horrible, yet you found a way to come to somewhere even worse, probably much worse,” Yassa informed.

  “I guess I’m just lucky, Yassa,” Joe said, walking towards the direction Yassa had been pointing in.

  Twenty minutes later, Ellie came out, seeing a desert colored Humvee, and she smiled leaning over to Kya. She asked, “Is this what you’d think of for a group going after the most important thing that could change everyone’s fates in the world?”

  Kya studied the group; she knew pretty much everyone outside of Joe the officer. When she saw Yassa was coming, she wasn’t sure how much help he was going to be or if he was going to find some way to get into trouble. Joey had acquired four other boys, all the same age as herself and Ellie. She knew Jon would want to come because he’d been trying to get back good again with Clary. The day that Ellie had left, and he hadn’t stopped her, and then the aftermath of hell that was the biggest shit show, almost ever, did not leave him in a friendly position with Clary. So, when Joey had been asking Henry, Brett, and Lucas, Jon had overheard and practically begged him to let him go with. Not realizing Joey had already asked a few kids who as much as they liked Joey, they’d said pretty clearly not over their dead bodies would they go on a fool’s errand. Joey, not really up to speed with sarcasm, had mentioned why he would ever want to take someone’s dead body. They wouldn’t be any help at all.

  Ellie walked by, nudging Jon with her elbow, asking, “Jon, you still trying to redeem yourself from last year?”

  “Pretty much. I think if it had been anyone else, Clary wouldn’t have cared as much, but I think that man thinks of you like one of his own kids.”

  “I don’t know if I’d go that far, but I definitely know that he likes me way more than you. I’m going to go out on a limb and just ask all of you guys that you do know we are going in town, like Des Moines in town if we can. We’ll be on a college campus and god willing can find the departments that we need and the ingredients on this list. I made two copies for everyone here. I want you to stick them in your pockets so you’ve got a backup if things go bad. You make sure that you stick to the list though. I want to be in there and out just as fast as we can be. So, when we get there that means no looting things we don’t need.”

  Ellie had turned around and was staring dead on at Joey. Joey held his hands up trying to look just as innocent as possible. His big puppy dog eyes didn’t change her mind about what she was thinking. Joey said, “Hey, I’m going because I want all of those Turned to be put out of their misery...but if I go and walk past a perfectly good pop or vending machine I don’t think that I can live with myself if I went and wasted the chance to go and get something I could share with my…”

  “I’m sorry, are you really lying to me? You know how much I like you; you wouldn’t lie to me would you?”

  “I might give someone some of the candy.”

  “Really, Joey?” Kya said, trying not to laugh.

  “Sure, I hate coconut...not the taste but the consistency.”

  Joe looked to Yassa, who whispered, “He’s seen Zombieland right around a thousand times.”

  Ellie figured if they had the time, and they were able to get him something, it would be a small price to pay in the amount of time to see how happy he would be. Ellie pointed to Joe and said, “Officer Joe, do you think you could handle driving? I’ve got directions to get there. Hopefully, we don’t need to stress out about anything if we just go nice and slow and keep things quiet.”

  “And what do we need all these guns and bullets for?” Lucas, who was one of the camp kids collected when Ellie had raced off after Shaun, asked. She didn’t know, of course, the hell that she’d be unleashing on her group and the new one by chasing after someone who, at the time, didn’t want to be found. By the time the day was over, she wasn’t sure if she’d ever felt that much loss before in her young life.

  “We pack heavy and then pray we don’t need it, but if I know one thing, it isn’t that zombies are easy to deal with. I just wished they could have been the out of the grave kind that don’t have the ability to rip arms off. The kind who can’t outrun an Olympic sprinter, or heal themselves or....”

  Lucas interrupted Ellie, saying, “Yeah, we are all well aware how horrible they are. We aren’t looking forward to this, but doing something like this is freaking epic! I can’t believe that we get to go.”

  “You can thank Joey. I would’ve taken anyone who knew how to shoot competently, outside of Mark the science guy, who is invaluable.”

  Yassa was debating a smoke when he finally decided to save it for a victory and asked, “Do you think we could get going? It is still early and I want to make it back in time to watch the game.”

  Joe didn’t know his sense of humor and leaned over to Joey asking, “Did this guy hit his head, or is there something wrong with him?”

  Yassa heard him perfectly as he climbed into the backseat saying, “Oh, there’s definitely something wrong with me. Thank god there aren’t any pills anymore to fix it.”

  “Well, that’s relieving,” Joe said.

  Yassa slammed the door, rolling down the window, and said, “You just remember the good news is that I haven’t killed anyone yet...today.”

  Joe got into the driver’s seat, looking at the unproven group that he was going to put his life in the hands of.

  Chapter 8

  Earl watched in dismay as they tore his gun to pieces. He’d spent a lot of time on it and the fact that these bastards were tearing it apa
rt did little to make him feel okay. Earl wished that he could unleash that fifty-caliber on them right now. But he wasn’t ignorant and knew exactly what was going to transpire if he did such a thing.

  Greg did little to help Earl feel better, yelling, “I don’t know why the hell they’d want it, it doesn’t do a damn thing good. If it worked, we’d never be in a situation like this.”

  “It does...or it did work before those effers went and broke it in half. It isn’t my fault about the bricks, having to break those vials was nothing that I usually have to worry about.”

  “There is no usual, you idiot. You have to do something more than once before you can say something like that! You only took the stupid thing out one time,” Scott yelled, failing to hold back his temper the best he could.

  Clary was trying to think on his feet. He’d been in plenty of situations before and during the zombie apocalypse which had not gone the way with which he’d wanted it to. When he saw his hood coming up, he felt that was not a good sign. It wasn’t because they were prying it up from the body of the Humvee but because the two front tires were no longer on the ground. Shaun was getting seriously nervous as he watched the dead who weren’t helping to push the Humvee over were climbing up over the grill, ignoring their burning flesh as they made their way to the windshield, smashing their fists and faces into it.