The Orphans (Book 4): White Lie (20 page)

“Fuck Philip, focus would you? Get your fat ass up on the bus and get that fucker started and do it now damn it! We don’t have time for this, I'll be right back, get mine going too, and get the heaters on, these people are going to be terrified going somewhere with absolute strangers. I can only imagine the shit that’s going to be running through their heads.”

Phillip shut up at this, took the keys and disappeared into the buses. Clary ran to the barracks looking around and seeing but only a few people. Their names escaped him at the moment but he did remember they weren’t too bad on the ranges. He pointed to them and said, “We need to leave and we need to go pick up some people, do you guys think that you could help me out?”

Andy pointed slowly to himself and asked, “You….you want us to go with?”

Scott leaned over and said, “Uh, I don’t know if I want to go with. If they are leaving to go pick up Aslin, who went to pick up Greg and Shaun, then things must be shitty out there.”

Clary snapped off like a drill sergeant. “Hey, I don’t have all day, if you guys don’t want to go then let me know I'll go find a few others, but I need to get going. I need to leave, we need to go now, I want to make it there and back before we lose the sun, it’s precious for us.”

Andy didn’t need to be asked a second time, he grabbed his rifle and backpack full of magazines that anyone with a gun was required to keep on them, and his coat, and nodded to Clary who slapped him on the shoulder. Scott was much slower grabbing his and walked past Clary and stopped and said, “I know it’s our job to contribute, that we need to help, but I've never had to actually shoot one of those things before. I don’t know what I'm going to do when it comes down to it, you know what I mean?”

Clary put a hand on his shoulder and said, “You’ve been doing target practice for three months. I know that you can hit a target, and that is all that these things are. They don’t have any feelings, they don’t care about you. All you are is a meal presented to them, but be thankful that in your case, you have a pretty damn impressive amount of ammunition. I don’t know about you, but I'm going to go down firing my rifle before I just let one of those things come after me. I promise you that they could give two shits about your well-being, so there is no reason to do anything but take them out.”

“I don’t think that I'll feel bad it’s just, I don't know if I can do it. What happens if I choke out there, if you need me and I let you down?”

Clary leaned in real close and said, “You can ride with me, and I'll even make you a deal, this might help you stay motivated. If you choke, and you ride with me, and you do anything that gets me in a position where you get me or any of the people who we are going to save killed, I will personally throw your skinny ass off of the bus and into the snow and let them tear you apart. You didn’t have to train; you didn’t have to learn how to use that gun. If you made us waste time and bullets on you learning, only to have you make that machine gun a really expensive paperweight, then I highly suggest you stay here. Because I'm sure the alternative is something you can’t be too happy about having to have happen, huh?”

“Would you really do that?”

“Are you going to step up or are you not going to deal with it? There are people that need our help, there aren’t many of us that know what we are doing and you do, so it’s time that you handle what is put before you, ok?”

Scott nodded slowly, thinking about the cold snow and watching Clary drive away if he didn’t man up when he needed to and said, “I can handle it, I won’t let you down, come on I got all the ammunition I'll need with me.”

Clary clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Well you can still grab a couple of cans out of the armory before we hit the bus. We aren’t going to do anything stupid like think that we have all of the ammo we need when you don’t have a clue what we are driving into. It is always, I repeat always, better to have too much than too little. That bus is big and a few extra cans of bullets isn’t going to hurt a damn thing. I will happily leave someone's suitcase behind before I waste one precious firearm.”

“You sure I can’t ride with the other guy?” Scott asked.

Clary held the door open for the kid and replied, “Not over my dead body kid. You are going to be something great once you realize that there’s a little bit of self-confidence buried deep down inside of you.”

When they got to the buses, Andy had already taken care of making sure there was plenty of bullets and two extra rifles as well for each of them. They had been taught how to strip them down and even how to fix the most minor of issues with them. They weren’t ignorant though and had been told time and time again that if something happens to your gun, and there is another one within reaching distance that no one is using, of course you pull that fucker out and begin firing and you don’t think twice about it whatsoever. Clary walked straight into his bus, looked around, and then opened the emergency door in the back. He left it shut but only with a zip tie that could be cut in a moment’s notice. When he was finished he went back to Phillip’s  s and repeated the steps on his door and advised them of what to do.

Phillip was smoking one last cigarette before they started the snowy drive and asked, “So once we get there, how is this going to get down, you just want to honk and let them know that we are there or-”

Clary pinched at the bridge of his nose, shaking his head wondering why there weren’t more able minded people at his disposal. He said, “Do not, I repeat, do not under any circumstance, honk your damn horn. You and I both know, and we know well, that there is nothing more that draws those freaks in with only the exception of blood in the air. We want to go in and keep as quiet as possible. You follow me but you keep enough distance that you don’t lose me. If you guys see those things out in the road if you can avoid them without shooting them you do that, as empty as it probably is there’s going to be an echo coming from everywhere if we shoot and we don’t want to worry about them following us there. I have a feeling we are going to have enough shit to deal with the way it is.”

Phillip was mouthing to himself, ‘do not honk the bus, do not honk the bus’. Andy clapped Phillip on the shoulder and said, “Come on, we want to be there and back before we lose daylight, right Clary? If so, then I suggest we get our asses moving.”

Clary checked his own rifle and gear quickly and said, “You got it Andy. It’s a short drive so keep your eyes open and remember, do not shoot if you don’t need to. And Scott, you remember what I said, if there is a reason to shoot and you don’t you are going to have to find an entirely different way to get back. Once you get back, if you chicken shit out on me, you’ll be lucky to step foot back on this base. Got it?”

Scott nodded slowly while thinking about the long walk back through miles of snow and the Turned and didn’t want to let anyone down. He climbed in behind Clary. He took a seat near the back of the bus so that he would be able to see if anything was coming out of the woods as they drove until they reached the main road where the wilderness ended and the urban city began.

Clary cranked the heat in it and the two buses pulled out, heading slowly through the base. There were kids everywhere staring and waving as they left, Clary nodded back hoping that everyone would be ok until they were to come back. He also was praying that he would bring everyone back with him, human lives were much more endangered than ever before and he didn’t want to ruin any more of them.

As the buses left, he looked in his rear view, making sure that Phillip was keeping up with him. What he saw was Phillip gripping that wheel as if it was his life blood. He could tell that if he had any other choices that he would have happily not gone with them to pick everyone up. After ten minutes they made it to the street that would take them into the city. Clary took a left turn, slowly taking his time and making sure not to lose the ass end of the bus behind him. He knew rear wheel drive was shit, but for the numbers they were taking back with them, there was very little that he could do about it.

He watched as Phillip took his turn and almost lost control of his own bus as he tried to correct the wheel, instinctively wanting to fix what Phillip was doing wrong. The rear of the bus slid from left to right, and Phillip continued to try and fix it but he only sent the bus further left then to the right until he was sliding down the hill with all four wheels of the bus no longer spinning. Phillip cranked the wheel one last time before the tires went up in the air and the vehicle flipped on its side and went skidding.

*****

Phillip screamed to Andy, “Hold on, hold on to your seat now, put on a belt!”

Andy screamed back, “What belt, there is no belt, oh my God we are gonna die, we’re going to die!”

Phillip closed his eyes as the bus flipped. The metal scraping against the concrete might as well have been a dinner belling begging to be rung. Phillip screamed to Andy, “When this thing stops you hand me one of those damn rifles and some ammunition, the two of us are going home damn it!”

“Yeah what makes you say that?” asked Andy.

“Because I'm not letting one of those ugly bastards eat me.”

The two of them landed hard when the bus flipped with the left side of it in the air. Andy made out better, landing on the seats and holding on for dear life, not to get sucked out of the broken glass and below and out from under the bus. Phillip was holding onto the steering wheel but it didn’t last very long, his weight was too much to contend with at the time. He finally lost his grip and slid to the bus doors, doing his best to hold onto something but not having anything to grip firmly to.

The bus buckled and jumped, hitting something in the road and then sending it into the air. When Phillip looked down to see what was causing the excruciating pain in his ankle, he noticed that it was the lack of a foot being attached. The bus had landed atop of it, and between the sharp edges of the door and the concrete below, it was torn off. Phillip screamed, the Turned that came out of the woods followed the bus, waiting for it to stop. They were even more enticed by the bloody stump now painting a line in the snow, a written invitation to come and eat.

Andy looked over the seat, saw Phillip’s  s face and the sweat from the pain pushing out of his pores. He didn’t ask if he was alright because he already knew the answer. Andy yelled to him, “You need to wrap your foot, or you are going to bleed out. Do you have a belt?”

He nodded and Andy slid out when they finally came to a stop and said, “Ok then.” He waited impatiently for Phillip to pull it off and when he handed it to him, Andy put the belt a few inches above his stump and started to tighten it until it would go no tighter.

Phillip screamed as tears rushed down his face like he hadn’t have come out of his eyes in years. He punched at the floor, trying his best to keep his balance while leaning and biting his hand until it too bled. When Andy was done he said, “I’m sorry about that, but it was the only thing that I could think of to buy you time until we get back to the base.”

Phillip whispered, “Don’t apologize, you probably saved my life kid. Now what’s it look like outside?”

Andy climbed back up, and then walked across the seats on his knees, making awkward movements in an attempt to not fall down. He climbed up to the left row of seats and started pounding on the window to break free. He could not hear Clary screaming ‘no’ or he would have left the windows in place. He broke one out of its protective casing only to discover that one of the Turned was waiting impatiently to take a bite of his flesh.

It pulled Andy out by his hair, using only one arm to do so. Andy screamed, trying his best unsuccessfully to get released from its grip. When he realized that he wasn’t going anywhere, he pulled out his pistol and aimed it dead square at its face and then at the one next to it as well. He fired off one round, point blank, decimating its skull. As he was falling back down and inside of the bus, he fired off the second round and took the dead's brother next to it out.

Andy hit the ground inside the bus hard and reached for the rifle, the one that he needed to feel safe and the one that he had shot more practice rounds with than he could keep count of. Phillip was watching, trying not to pass out. His mangled stub where his foot used to be attached was throbbing and felt as if there was a blow torch working on it. He yelled, “Hey, hey are you ok Andy? Did they get you?”

Andy looked wide eyed at him, shook his head no and did his best to get back towards the extra ammunition. Phillip watched, waiting and wondering if there would be more, his wait was not for long.

One of the Turned came through the window head first, looking where its target was before falling into the bus, flipping in the air and landing on its feet. It crouched atop of one of the sideways seats. Andy turned to see that it was in the bus now and nervously fired off two shots at it, though he was not yet in a shooters position with the rifle. He hit it once in the shoulder and once in the chest. The impacts knocked it back a foot, making it step back to the seat behind it, and then it roared, sending an echo out of the bus that Clary and Scott could hear from their own bus.

The Turned started coming for them, running fast enough that it used its speed to jump off of the smooth bus roof then slamming into Andy and sending him off of his feet. The two of them crashed through the safety glass of the bus.

Clary was already opening his doors as his bus came to a stop. The exact image he didn’t want to see was exactly what he had a front row seat to. Clary watched as he saw the Turned and Andy explode out of the window. The two slid to a stop in the fresh white snow, which would only remain that way for seconds.