The Orphans (Book 3): Strangers (21 page)

Greg didn’t even reply he shoulder the rifle again taking sharp aim and fired off dropping the five of them as they started their forward rush on the two. Clary watched as they fell to the ground thankful to have Greg. He felt a tight grip around his ankle and didn’t even look down. He unholstered his pistol and aimed it just off of his foot and started firing the pistol. The turned took two to the face and fell backwards looking like death falling to the ground both of its arms outstretched in the air until it hit the ground. The only thing hitting first were the droplets of brain matter.

Clary slid it back in after making sure that they were clear and pulled himself up to safety. “We need to get moving, there is no way in hell we are going to stick around here and wait for dark to come.”

Greg said, “I don’t know so far they don’t look like they see all that well.”

Clary said, “Well I don’t know about you Greg but unless I have some nightvision going for me - which at the moment I most certainly don’t then i’m not going to stick around. I can’t see worth a shit without it either.”

Greg realized that the idea of having something that could hear, hunts in a pack, and can smell trying to find him in the black of night didn’t actually seem so smart. “Got it, lets just get what we need and get outta here. I’d very much just like to go back to Andy’s place and try and forget about this place. How do you think they turned out here already?”

Clary climbed up and started taking the ladder two at a time double time. “I don’t know bud, but I do know they aren’t soldiers anymore. Maybe they were deployed to try and control them and got overrun? Maybe they were trying to set up a camp and when they did they got bit and things went to shit. These might have been the only ones who made it back to the base. I can only imagine this place to have a few hundred or a few thousand soldiers available at any time.”

“So how the hell do we survive when a entire army can’t take these on?”

“We don’t have someone telling us what to do with them who doesn’t have the first clue how to kill them or what they are capable of. They probably have fifty or hundreds or whatever number of the zombies walking around Des Moines who have got the perfect chest shots going through them. These boys were doing what they were trained aim center mass, shoot them in the heart, but how the hell would they know what to do, besides think about these things running at you full blown speed jumping in the air, my god they were probably shitting themselvesl. One of the things about rifles that is almost a constant factor with it, is that if you are pointing one alongside a entire team of men in a direction those coming from that way usually turn and get the hell out of there.”

Greg said, “But these things would just smile and keep on coming. They wouldn’t be fearful, they wouldn’t care, they’d just be thinking about the meal beneath. God I hate this.”

“If you didn’t kid there’d be something just a little wrong with you.”

Greg laughed, “Are you kidding me, if anyone is excited about the whole zombie apocalypse thing they are seriously messed up in the head. My dad didn’t drag me to a bunch of church services but from what I did go to it sure seems like this is the exact description of hell on Earth. The only exception is that we’ve got a couple of people looking out for us that don’t have any reason to.”

“Are you kidding me, you guys are not useless to me and Aslin We don’t last a few weeks if we don’t have someone else watching our backs. It’s only a matter of time if me and him were cruising the city trying to find a place to stay put. It’s just a waiting game right now, the further we stay from them the better we are. If we got what we need then there’s no purpose going anywhere.”

Greg looked at the hatch that kept the door shut. Greg said, “See I told you that we’d grow on you.”

Clary punched him in the shoulder laughing, “Yeah like a rash kid. Lets get moving.”

“Wait there isn’t a lock on that roof, or anything to keep people from going in there? What’s up with that.”

“Greg we are on a secured military base. This isn’t really a entrance so much as a escape hatch. If there is a fire and someone is on the top floor, that last damn place they are going to want to be is inside a military armory. You only think you’ve seen shitty conditions until you are on the inside of somewhere that is on fire with bullets heating up. We aren’t talking about a couple thousand rounds we are probably talking hundreds of hundreds of thousands of rounds. They got enough for a effing war in here I can almost guarantee you.”

“You don’t think that they took it with them?”

“I doubt it, even if they left their reserve we should still have enough to get us through what we need to. Again this all falls under the idea of us staying put and not having to run into thousands of these things. If that happens then - well we can hope that the rest of the group turns out to be as good of shots as you and Shaun are.”

Clary opened the door swinging it upwards and listened. “Alright, give me a minute and let me -”

“No we go together, or we don’t go at all. You just said you wouldn’t last a minute if you didn’t have someone behind you watching out for your guys. Well how’s that different if you just go down there by yourself and it is filled with those things. God knows what could happen because of it.”

They went down the ladder and into the dark. Clary put a foot down and tapped it left and right until he figured out that they were going onto a scaffolding. “Watch it kid there ain’t a lot of room here so take it easy. They walked across in the dark, the building was silent and cool for the weapons sake. Greg pulled out his flashlight, you got any problems if I turn this thing on?”

“No i’d like to know what is going on beneath us. There could be fifty guns pointing at us right now and we wouldn’t know. It’s probably a fifty foot plus drop down. Go ahead and flick it on, we ought to be safe up here”

Greg flicked the switch on and illuminated the long catwalk that they were on. There were no bells or whistles to it, it was suspended from the ceiling and didn’t look like it needed to hold very much weight before it would go crashing down. Greg said, “You feel better now? They didn’t waste any money on making sure this place was safe did they?”

Clary shook his head and said, “You know I don’t feel any better, i’m actually a bit nervous about the idea that both of us are on this thing at once. More my weight than yours. Just take it slow and if we start hearing any buckling you get ahead of me and get to the end of this thing.”

Greg shone the light around the rooms ceiling seeing that there was a set of stairs that led to the catwalk as well as a ladder that came straight up off of the floor on both sides of it. Greg shone it on the floor and wished he hadn’t done so. Clary said, “Oh my god!”

Greg said, “What the hell, what do you think happened?”

They were both staring in awe knowing what they’d done was to late to be taken back. The Turned were everywhere and covered the floor. The death spread across the room as far as the light illuminated. The death that came back as the devil disguised as the Turned. “I don’t know they probably thought that they’d be ok and raced back here. There was probably a infected among their unit and they thought what better place to get into than a military armory. The guys assumed that they’d be safe in here, and if anything made its way in here that they’d have all the bullets needed to take out any potential attackers or threats.”

“Instead they ended up probably not knowing what was going on by the time it was to late. There is no way these things would have let up either can you imagine them moving through the dark? By the time they were done it was to late, they’d just devour the shit out of those guys.”

Clary nodded walking slowly but it seemed the slower they walked the louder his footsteps became. The turned who looked like they had been in their own world staring aimlessly were no longer doing so. They craned their necks upwards staring directly at the flashlight and the two warm meals on the catwalk. Clary looked back at the ladder to the roof and thought of the lack of lock on it now and realized that even if they got back up there’d be little chance of keeping those things from busting through it. Greg whispered, “I wouldn’t have turned it on if I would have know that was down there.”

Clary said, “Yeah greg i’d kind of hope that is the case. It’s ok we can get out of this, I just need a second to figure shit out though.”

Greg said, “Sounds good and all but we don’t have a minute, we need to get the eff out of dodge now!”

The shadows on the floor were moving and that was not the worst thing because what it led to was the Turned finding the stairs. Clary yelled, “Go the other way, go now!”

Greg didn’t need to hear this he was already turning around and going as quickly as he could on the catwalk. It started to shake and rattle and he looked over his shoulder to see Clary coming full force behinds him. Greg sped it up and the creaking grew quickly as the turned had made short work of the stairs and launched themselves on the catwalk uncaring for the amount of weight that it was able to hold. When the catwalk started to shake and bolts started to pop out of their place on the ceiling Clary knew that there was only a matter of time before the entire thing went down. He contemplated jumping off the side and giving Greg that much more time but there were to many of them up here already. As Greg made it close to the ladder to climb back up the end nearest Clary broke off and fell. The only thing that save the two of them from death were the bolts on the opposite side of the catwalk. The turned that were on the opposite end fell backwards rolling over each other entangling themselves and breaking bones that had become stuck in between the handrails.

Clary put his feet between two bars to keep from sliding down after them. He shouldered his rifle to start taking out those that had gripped as well. As he aimed to fire he heard Greg screaming from above him. He was sliding with a rifle in one hand and a bar that had snapped off in the other. He tossed it and made three failed attempts to grip another handgrip but just kept going. Clary put his sling around his neck knowing that if he lost his rifle he was surely dead. He gripped Greg by the bicep as he slid past his thing ropey arm sliding through Clary’s sweating hand. Clary gripped tight to his shirt sleeve it ripped under the pressure, but Greg gripped Clary’s thigh and held on for dear life. He would not lose this grip. Clary pulled him up until they were both secure and took a quick set of breaths both having seen their lives flashing before them.

The Turned at the bottom of the catwalk growled and screamed ready to kill. They aimed and started at the top ofthe group and worked their way down quickly. Clary screamed over the gunfire, “YOu make damn sure you don’t waste any of those bullets we don’t have enough to miss any of these things.”

Greg didn't reply he just squeezed the rifle hearing his dad hovering over his shoulder whispering,
Take your time Greg, take your time and you will never miss.
In less than a minute the two had cleared the space and their immediate danger was now past. The turned kept trying to climb it and the buckling of the scaffolding anchors into the wall were definitely beginning to give way. Clary said, “It ain’t gonna hold kid, when we hit the ground we get on top of those crates against the wall. There can’t be more than ten of these things left.”

Greg screamed, “It’s dark how the hell would you kow what is left in here?”

“Because if we need much more than that we are probably going to be on our last magazine soon.”

“Don’t you have any grenades left?”

They slid down still shooting as they did and were ready when they hit the ground to sprint to the boxes of gear on the floor. Clary slid past the turned pulling the trigger just as quick as he could their out stretch mouths tasting gunpowder as their last meal as his pistols bullets tore through the back of their heads. The light from the muzzle was the only thing brightening the room. The two hit and went straight for the boxes Greg holding onto Clary’s shoulder using him as a guide. There were only two turned in the way and Clary embedded his knife up through its chin and the long blade stuck out of the top of its head. He left it to collect later, knowing they didn’t have the time to waste. Clary hit the first crate and as Greg came up on it he turned around gripping the teen under both armpits bending his legs and launching him up the last three crates in one fluid movement. Greg’s shock would have been priceless had it not been near pitch black in the storage area.

Clary was gripped by the leg and with his free foot he sent a size twelve military boot into its skull with enough force to break its neck and leave it paralyzed still trying to bite at his foot. The others who were trying to climb after him threw the crippled zombie into the air knowing it was no longer of any use to them in their fight. Clary climbed next to Greg and screamed get your light back on. Greg complied and fired up the light, Clary took care of the remaining turned that were coming their way. When he’d shot the last one Clary collapsed on their platform breathing heavy. Without thinking he patted at his chest pulling out a nearly crushed pack of smokes lighting one. He offerened one to Greg who said, “Dude i’m seventeen you’re kidding me right?”

Clary looked at what he was doing as he lit his up. “Don’t smoke, its bad for you, you could die of you know lung cancer.”

Greg just stared at him, “Are you alright?”

Clary stared at the turned strewn across the floor thinking of how close they had just come to death again and shook his head no, “No I don’t think that I am ok. I really hate these things. Like I fucking hate them. I don’t care if you can cure them or not. Every damn one of them that is in my way is dead. I can’t handle these freaking things anymore all they do is make every situation as horrible as possible.”