The Orphans (Book 3): Strangers (24 page)

Shaun shook his head not wanting to say it. Tina stopped walking letting Aslin walk ahead and motioning for him to keep going when he didn’t hear the footsteps behind him. He just said, “Don’t be all day alright we need to keep going and you know it.”

Shaun nodded and tina gave him a look that froze him. “Just give us a minute won’t you? We won’t be all day.”

Shaun looked down walking back down the hall and turning around. Tina stared at him leaning against the wall. Shaun said, “You don’t want to know what i’m thinking about. It isn’t going to make  you or me feel any better talking about it.”

Tina shrugged, “I don’t care if it makes me feel better. You saved my life and at the same time risked yours. What the hell were you thinking? What was it you thought that you could do Shaun? You aren’t a miracle maker you realize that right?”

“I know... I guess I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe I was worried about losing you. After yesterday with Kristy and the day before my dad, I just don’t think that I can handle anything else. I can’t keep losing friends, and family. The idea of having to keep you or anyone from hurting others is more than I want to deal with. I’d rather risk my own life if it means that you can stay safe and away from those things.”

“Shaun you won’t last very long if you keep this up. That thing with your dad, and him trying to get the cure for Ellie’s mom it isn’t your fault. There are a million ways that it could have gone down where they still met. Where they still fell in love. It’s just a matter of time, or hell maybe its just fate that brought them together. But regardless of how you look at it there isn’t anything you could have done. I know you can’t let it go but you can’t keep doing this to yourself either. You want to commit suicide then you just make sure you aren’t saving me because of it. You don’t deserve it.”

She came in before he could step away and gripped him tight giving him a hug and squeezing hard. “I know you feel bad about what has happened and no one blames you Shaun. It isn’t your fault.”

Shaun tried to push her away but squeezed even harder. He could feel every inch of her pressed into his body. He gave up trying to push her away and squeezed her back. “Thanks Tina you’re pretty awesome you know that? I don’t think you give yourself enough credit for how great you are.”

Tina let go of her death grip wishing that none of this would have happened and he would have still be available and not back with Ellie. She kissed his cheek with a long wet kiss. “Thanks Shaun. I do really appreciate you saving me though. I don’t know if anyone else would have done that for me.”

Shaun pushed a hand through her hair and smiled, “You never know i’m pretty sure there are plenty of people that would come to your rescue if you needed it. I’m not trying to get myself killed but -” He stopped talking trying to think for a minute he looked her in the eyes, “Its uh just that the idea of having to do what i did to Jordan is too much to try and comprehend.”

              “Well I don’t want to think about having to see you being eaten by those things either. I think that Ellie would be destroyed by it to. You two look like you are starting things back up again.”

              Shaun shrugged, “Yeah I think so, a lot has happened in the last couple days, who knows what will happen from it.”

              Tina looked down trying to think of how to say it and said, “Well up to a few days ago I thought that you and I might have a chance at each other. She had been so busy with her mom that she kind of gave me the go ahead that there wasn’t anything between you two at the time and I wanted to I guess go out with you.”

              Shaun smiled awkwardly and said, “I don’t really know what to say, we better get going though before Aslin leaves us.”

              Tina gripped his arm. “If you know things don’t work out between you two, well don’t wait too long i’m sure there are plenty of not turned boys out there. I’m a hot commodity right now.”

              Shaun smiled and motioned with his head to get moving. “Come on lets get going.”

              *****

They went back outside and found Aslin waiting impatiently for them. He was clearing the turned off of the hood and checking out the truck. He said, “We shoudl still trade this thing out, but we should still take two trucks to get Clary incase there is anything that we really need to take with us now. Who knows what they found. I don’t see anything wrong with loading up some of the rifles and ammunition i’m hoping that they found if we run into anything between here and home.”

Shaun nodded and said, “I’m riding with Tina then if we are taking two trucks.”

Aslin winked and said, “Just do me a favor if any of those things jump on my truck you feel free to shoot the little bastards in the head. Got it?”

Shaun pulled out a fresh magazine and gave him a thumbs up. “I’m not going to take my eyes off of anything around here. Until we know this place is safe i’m not going to blink.”

“Ok well lets go see what kind of shit Clary and Greg got themselves into.”

The three climbed in and headed in a line Tina following closely to Aslin’s truck. Aslin was staring around checking every direction that he could. He did not want to have to worry about becoming one of those things. He was talking to himself at this point, “What the hell am I doing, i’m debating with teenagers trying to keep them with me and at the same time worried about what will happen to them if they dont. God I need to find me a nice pilot and get the hell out of here. Hawaii has always sounded really nice.”

Shaun kept his eyes alert as directed, not that he needed to be told to do so. Tina said, “So I know what you said in front of him. Now that he isn’t here, tell me what you think we should do? I can’t say i’m to worried about where I live, if its going to be here, or if its going to be at Andy’s place, either one seems ok. Aslin had a pretty good point that once this place is secure that we probably are going to be better off here than anywhere.”

Shaun nodded and said, “It really all depends on if the others will come with us. I don’t know what we need to do to survive but having what seems to be a endless supply of everything while we wait doesn’t seem like the worst idea.”

“We don’t know how long we will have to wait but what is wrong with the idea of having one less thing to worry about? Maybe we will be able to pick up a few more people. If they aren’t infected and we can trust them i don’t think there is anything against the ol saying of strength in numbers.”

“Yeah I totally agree. We use that as our argument with the others if anyone isn’t up for the idea. But really I don’t think anyone is going to have a big issue with it if we can just make the valid point about why we think its a good idea.”

Tina said, “It seems like Andy’s place is going to get cramped pretty quick to, we were lucky that he invited us in the first place to go out there. If he hadn’t been trapped in his shop he probably would have left already and we would have never been able to find him. It was just dumb luck that he was still there.”

“You think that Ellie will go for it? What do you think about Patrick?”

“Ellie will go wherever you go I think. Patrick just wants someone to stay with I don’t really think that he is too worried about the details behind it as long as he has his medicine and someone by his side. You think Greg will be cool with it? How’s he doing with the Kristy thing?”

“I don’t know i’d say bad overall. He was still pretty pissed about the door and i’m sure Greg being the way he is that he already spoke to Clary about it by now. He didn’t say anything last night he just stayed in bed. I don’t know how good he is with me right now either. He knew I didn’t have a choice but it doesn’t make me taking her out any easier on him. He isn’t stupid though he knew she would turn and after that there wouldn’t be anything holding her back from coming after us.”

Tina said, “Well there’s a good chance that it still hurts. Even if we know its not good for us there can still be issues that arise from something like that. I just hope that the longer we go the better things get. There will be a lot of healing that will need done by everyone - myself included.”

Shaun said, “I understand. I’m no different from you either. Between my dad, and our friends, Ellie’s mom its just been a shitty run. Things will turn around for us I got a good feeling about it.”

*****

As they pulled up to the armory building Aslin slowed down checking out the damage from Clary and his driving skills. He laughed a bit looking at it thinking of the massive amounts of shit he was going to give him later for it. He didn’t care if it was because of one of them or not.”

He parked the truck motioning for Tina to park alongside him. He hit his microphone to radio Clary. “Hey speedracer go get the door open will you?”

“Hey ass there were freaking zombies on top of my damn truck. It was either them or us and they were going to destroy that truck in no time if we would have let them stay aboard of it.”

Aslin laughed, “Well its a good thing that you got them off of it so that you could destroy it yourself. It looks like the giant concrete wall you drove into was able to make sure any damage you needed to do to it was done properly.”

“God I hate you, i’m sending Greg up and we can start loading shit up, I hope that you got enough food for an army because i’m starving. That breakfast of Andy’s has long been burned up.”

“Yeah well we didn’t get anything actually. But i’ve got a good explanation for it.”

“Good, I’d hate to think of what kind of shitty excuse you would have had.”

“Tell you what, you and Greg come out front, i’ve got an idea that I need to run past you.”

Clary said, “Is it going to worry me?”

Aslin said, “No, my ideas are genius why would you have any worries?”

Clary didn’t answer he just laughed as his mic went off.

Clary and Greg came out slowly rifles up until they saw familiar faces, ones that were not intent on ripping their faces off. They lowered them and ran to the back of the truck optimistic to think of the supplies that they would have over the coming span of time. They looked like their puppies had been eaten by the turned when they found the empty truck bed. Clary looked up at Aslin and before he could say anything Greg said, “Hey where did you leave Jordan at?”

Clary looked at the bullet holes in the truck and the windows smashed out and started adding thing together that he hoped wouldn’t be true. “Aslin where is he? You left him there to guard the food right? Or he’s doing something back there that is safe enough to leave a teen there by himself?”

Aslin looked at Shaun and Tina and said, “We lost him when we made it to where the food is stored.”

“You don’t lose a teenager? Are we talking about him running off? Or what?”

“Lets just think of it in these terms like we lost our entire team. Same idea.”

Clary tried to keep the look of disgust off his face and the blame out of his voice but he failed miserably. He snapped at Aslin. “Aslin you had two jobs to do. You go and get food, which I don’t see a damn thing to eat in the back of this truck, and two you were supposed to keep these kids safe. I didn’t think that was something that I needed to tell you, but it seems like maybe i did need to make the blatantly clear to you!”

Aslin puffed up his chest walking towards Clary rage filled him. Clary could see the signs all over Aslin and said, “Don’t fucking do it Aslin.”

“You don’t scare me Clary. I’m gonna rip you a new asshole god damn it. You think I was trying to lose him? You think I’m like that? How long have we been on the same crew, for fucking ever right? I don’t need this shit.”

Clary stepped up shoving him backwards and against the truck. “You don’t need this? You don’t need this? You think that I do? You think that I want to be here in this shit, you think these kids want to be here well then your dum as shit. None of us want to be here, but here is the only place we got. There isn’t anywhere that we can go. We are surrounded, so we either stay here or move on but our choices are limited. I don’t think that you tried losing the kid, but don’t need you trying to take command here with your genius ideas.”

“I’m well aware that seniority at this point doesn’t mean shit. But it doesn’t mean that we need to become completely out of control. Ideas need to be listened to. If you’d shut up i’d tell you what happened to him. It doesn’t really matter though does it?”

“What do you mean it doesn’t matter if he’s dead? Maybe there is something that I missed.”

“He got taken by one of them, the point is he is gone, there’s no lesson to teach him because he isn’t here. Tina pulled up ahead of us. Jordan wanted to come off like he was useful and raced up to the doors letting out a horde of turned they raced back to the truck but it was to late.” Aslin pointed to Shaun, “Shaun there risked his ass jumping out of the truck so that he had a shot. By the time he’d saved Tina one of them went after Jordan and well thats really all that needs to be said about that.”

Clary backed up a few feet still pissed but seeing why he wouldn’t want to bring it up. The idea of what Shaun had said the day before about how bringing up the past did little to make things better made more and more sense. “Alright then we don’t talk about it. But we stay together god damn it! We fucking stay together!” Clary pointed at everyone including Aslin with looks they would not soon forget.”

Aslin shook his head climbing back in the truck, “We better pick up another truck so we can make sure that we can take everything from Andy’s that we need.”