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

              Greg was in the middle of a egg sandwich and said, “What do you mean you are going to take the truck, where the hell are you going. I thought we accomplished what we wanted to when we made it to Andy’s place? You guys aren’t leaving us already are ya?”

              Aslin nodded looking around the farm that had no food growing on it and said, “Look Greg by my count we got sixteen mouths to feed now all overnight, that’s a shit ton of food we are going to need to make a go of it out here. I think we can stay here as long as we need to as long as we get word from the CDC that there is still hope anyways.”

Greg said, “So what you want to go rob a Wal-Mart or something?”

Aslin nodded his head and said, “Do you think that there’s anything else around here that might be better? I mean we need everything including some ammunition to get the rest of you kids up to the point where we can keep this place locked up tight all day long. You think that there’s anywhere close enough to try and make the drive?”

“They army national guard has got a place twenty minutes from here on a regular non zombie filled day. If you want we could take a drive over there.”

Greg cut in saying, “The CDC made it sound like if there was a pair of boots without a job to do that it had been corrected and they did now.”

Aslin said, “So you think it’s empty?”

Both teens shrugged and Ellie said, “I’m sorry so you are worried that we might end up finding a whole bunch of soldiers and find somewhere to sleep that has a bunch of tanks protecting us? I don’t see where we come out lesser here. Why don’t we pack up everything and head out there.”

Shaun said, “It’s to far to have all that crap in the back of the truck again riding again with this many people. We looked like a damn circus car yesterday with everyone packed into it. We are lucky no one fell out and cracked their head open.”

“So what’d you want to do?”

“How about we take a few of us mostly anyone that can shoot or drive and if it looks legit we get a truck and come back and if it doesn’t we get the shit and get out of dodge again.”

Ellie said, “And since I don’t drive, and we know how great I can shoot, I guess tha tmeans we get to babysit the new kids and Andy?”

Andy pushed out through the screen door laughing, “Well I think you got a short memory there Ellie. If you remember when ya’ll came up to my shop yesterday there wasn’t so much as one of this little creepy bastards walking in front of it. Why is that sweetheart well let me tell ya, it’s because when I shoot I hit what i’m aiming at. It’s a done deal, so if they leave and you are stuck here with little ol me, then i’d suggest maybe you show me just a little damn respect because i’ll be the son of a bitch those things out.”

She opened her mouth to talk when Tina said, “Yeah you know he’s probably right considering he’s gonna be the only one left here as usually to be able to shoot those things. I assume Shaun and Greg and going, what about the new kids, you going to take any of them with ya?”

Clary said, “Well we don’t know much about them other than a new learned fact that kids with downs syndrome don’t take medicine.”

Tina rolled her eyes, “You seriously asked him that? God you are so embarrassing.”

Clary said, “Well now I know alright. Yeah I wanted to ask the new kids if they got any special skill sets that could help us get there and back in a safe manner.”

Shaun said, “We don’t really know them yet, you sure you want to take strangers with?”

Aslin said, “Well Shaun if you remember yesterday you were a stranger to. We didn’t know any of you guys before yesterday.”

“Right we were strangers, but we saved your men’s lives.”

“Tell you what how about the four of us go for sure plus Tina and than we can figure it out from there?”

Patrick said, “Wait so Ellie and I are the only two who get left here with Andy?”

Clary nodded, “Yes you, Andy, Ellie, and eight new faces who are dying to find something to do. Besides after yesterday you might need to just bunk down for the day and get yourself fixed right. I don’t know much about diabetes but I know none of the others do either, so if you can stay as healthy as possible that would be great, because I don’t know how much of that stuff you got but we need it to last as long as we can.”

Patrick nodded still feeling the rundown from the day before and looked at Ellie trying to make her feel better. “I’m sure there will be plenty of crappy missions that we’re going to go on overtime.”

Aslin looked to Andy who was having a after breakfast smoke. “Hey Andy you think we can get a running list of all the supplies that you’ve got. Did you have a home stockpile?”

“We ain’t gonna starve any time soon but I was planning one one versus eighteen so we probably got a month or two worth of food. That is if you guys like eating regularly. If we skip a meal here and there we’d be doing even better.” He pointed to Aslin and Clary smiling, “You boys don’t look like you’d hurt if you skipped a few days worth.”

              Clary patted his stomach nodding, “It’s called useable muscle and i’ll outlive you ten times over.”

              Andy looked at his filterless cigarette and cane holding them up giving Clary a thumbs up. “Ellie you and Patrick come find me when you are ready to go start counting shit for the day.”

              “We just need to eat and we are ready to go, it looks like Shaun and crew are going to be leaving real soon anyways.”

              Clary saw the gas pump on the side of a barn and asked, “Hey Andy, is that diesel or can we fill the truck up with it.”

              “Do you see any tractors Clary?”

              They all looked around and other than a empty barn with a couple fourwheelers that didn’t look like they’d been rode in decades they he shook his head no. “Well then it’d be pretty stupid to keep diesel on stock wouldn’t it Nancy.”

              Andy pushed up and limped back into the house yelling at the new kids to get seconds if they needed it. Joey who’d been complaining about eating earlier was the first to get up following him the old man into the kitchen. He caught Andy off guard wrapping his arms around him and giving him a quick hug. Andy patted the boy on the head looking uneasy. Jordan yelled to him, “You’d better get use to it Andy I’m pretty sure you made a new friend.”

              Joey ran in gathering a second plate and Andy gave Jordan and Jen a thumbs up. “I got no problems with a buddy, look at this kid his arms are about as big as me we can get all kinds of work done around here that my old body can’t handle anymore. You know anything about working hard Joey?”

              Joey nodded disappearing upstairs with his plate of food. Aslin came back in letting the kids finish their breakfast. The new group in the living room were sitting around unsure what they should be doing. Aslin said, “So who knows how to drive, how to shoot, or how to do anything useful?”

              Jordan raised a hand, “I know how to drive, i’ve got a car at home.”

              “You feel like going for a drive?”

              “Where are we gonna go? I would prefer not to have to head back to that town, kind of seems that everything running around there wants to eat us once they change.”

              Shaun came in tossing his plate in the garbage and said, “Turned, we’ve been calling them Turned. Seems that’s the best explanation we’ve got for them. Hi I’m Shaun Fox, the guy out there is Greg, the kid with glasses is Patrick and we’ve got Tina the blonde and Ellie. We have been making our way around town ourselves since it happened.”

              “Nice to meet you Shaun, I appreciate you guys stopping yesterday I think we would have starved or gotten eaten if you hadn’t done what you had.”

              “No worries, we need to keep those alive that way. If one of those things bites you or you get their blood in you then you become one of them and you Turn, hence the name.”

“Can you cure them?”

“We don’t know yet. The two guys that were sent here yesterday with their entire seal team. Out of all of them only they survived.”

“Why were they sent here?”

“To try and find the research for the drug that caused all this. We showed them where to go and from there we just kept losing soldiers. We had one of our group Kristy who got taken out yesterday to, another kid decided to try it on his own he was too angry to stay and be one of us.”

“I can’t see what someone would be so angry about that they’d want to try and do this by themselves. We were up there for two days and were to scared to leave and here you guys come rolling down mainstreet armed to the teeth and taking those things out one after another.”

“Yeah well his name was Mike or is Mike I don’t really know if he’s alive, but anyways we picked him up on day one that’s what we call it when this all came here and once I read my dad’s goodbye note telling me that this was a horrible mistake that him and his lab assistant had designed something based off of something that he worked up in the military and the assistant screwed him over and the world went to hell in a handbag in a few hours.”

“Your dad made this? What the hell was he trying to solve?”

Shaun pointed out at Ellie on the deck, “That’s Ellie our parents were dating and when he asked her to marry him, she told him that she had cancer and that she couldn’t marry him?”

“Yeah people live when they have cancer though.”

“Not with terminal cancer. My mother had it and Ellie’s mom Karen thought that it wasn’t fair of her to put him through it a second time over a second love.”

“So she died of cancer?”

Shaun shook his head no, “No my dad wasn’t going to lose love twice. He took a drug he’d made in the army and tried to modify it to work for cancer and when he thought that he had it perfected they started doing test trials on animals. The assistant took the research from him and changed the results so that they’d rush into clinical trials he didn’t really know that the drug was for Karen. Anyways he doctored the results and then told my dad it was ready. Her mom went into a coma and dad knew he didn’t have any time left to wait it was either try the drug on her or lose her forever.”

“So he gave a drug to someone that had never had it before?”

“My dad wanted her around forever he was pretty much willing to try anything at that point. He gave her the drug and that’s how it all started.”

“Wow that’s a lot to take in, so what was it with Mike that made him leave again?”

“I told him the truth, I told everyone the truth and Mike couldn’t handle it. He wouldn’t go with us after that to help find the research that the CDC announcement said they needed. We ran into the Seals and when they found out who my dad was that they made me take them back up to the woods where we had my grandpa’s cabin and all of our supplies located.”

“You guys have a cabin with supplies? Why are we staying here then?”

“Because Mike burned the damn thing down. He left a note saying he had and when we went back up there everything minus what we’d carried down was gone. We found Andy after we sent the research and the general or whoever it was that Clary and Aslin called and were expecting a call from had told them that they had completed their mission but they were worried about the infection and couldn’t pick them up.”

“Ouch I bet they were pissed?”

“They weren’t very happy about it no, I don’t think any of this has really caught up with us yet it’s like every time we try and get ahead some stupid hurdle gets in the way or something bad happens. About all we got to be thankful for at this point is Andy living out in the country and that those things haven’t started thinking about venturing out this far.”

“Do they?”

“Do they what?”

“Think?”

“I don’t know for sure Jordan it’s all new man. But i do know that they are hungry and that they can hunt. They act like wolves and you’ve seen how fast they are i’m sure. I’ve seen them rip doors away and one of those bastards threw me yesterday after taking my gun from me.”

“One of them threw you? What were you doing?”

“Patrick the kids with the glasses well he had went to the cabin and in the hurry of getting out of town didn’t bring his insulin with that he desperately needs to live.”

“That’s a pretty stupid thing to forget isn’t it?”

“Yeah well when you have one of those Turned running faster than you and their main goal is ripping your chest open so they can dine on what’s inside i’d think that you might have a chance of forgetting what you need to. We woke up on day two and he didn’t wake up. After a while we started to think that maybe he was Turning himself but Ellie being the voice of reason found his bracelet explaining what was wrong with him. After giving him the last of his meds we went to town and found his house and got his supply.”

“Did you lose that when the place got burned down?”

“No he took the entire supply with him, thank god because I don’t know if we would be able to find what he needs or the type that he needs. Andy only had so much stuff at his shop and were going to go to Camp Dodge do you know how to shoot a gun?”

“No but i’m thinking it’s something that i’d like to learn how to do here real soon.”

“You might be making the right choice. Are you going to come with and drive something back?”