The Orphans (Book 4): White Lie (28 page)

Bowers said, “You know, I think we’d like to have a look at this place, maybe it’s better than what we got. We aren’t against up and moving; hell there’s plenty of real estate nowadays right? There’s no reason that we can’t just go out and get new places to live right? Hell, we could go live up in those big old mansions in town if we wanted to, no taxes to even pay on them.”

Shaun still didn’t trust them but the more awkward he acted the more tense and untrusting they would be of him. “No government to collect it. Have you guys been listening to the reports, do you know everything?”

“What do you mean by everything, is there anything new or that we care about besides not getting bit by the son of a bitches?”

“About there not being a cure. The government or the CDC advised that they couldn’t do anything about it. What I mean is they couldn’t cure them once they turned. The only thing we can do is kill them.”

Bowers said, “Well hell, seems like we must have been well informed because we’ve been killing the damn things since day one. We might want to keep that no cure thing a secret though because well, there’s a lot of people and that is about the only thing keeping them from going absolutely bat shit crazy.”

Shaun said, “Well, you do what you want to do, I am on my way home and going to need to be leaving. I’d think after some point people are going to lose their minds if they don’t start seeing a cure coming about. Good luck to you guys, I hope everything works out ok for you.”

Bowers took a few more steps towards him, still keeping his arms to his side and taking a good long look at the artillery that Shaun was carrying. “So can I ask what type of rifle that is? It looks like what the military uses for their rifles, but there’s no way a kid would have a fully automatic machine gun right?”

Shaun lied through his teeth and said, “They got those guns at the sporting good stores. When the shit hit the fan I didn’t waste any time finding myself a rifle to protect myself with.”

Bowers said, “Well it looks to me like maybe you picked up more than one thing there, and you sure as hell know how to use your long gun there. You want me to take a look at your stuff and make sure that it’s still in good condition? You sound like you’ve been on your own for a while for as talkative as you are.”

Shaun let his rifle fall down off of his shoulder as Bowers approached and gripped it ready to shoot. Shaun said, “There isn’t anything at all wrong with my gun sir. I prefer if you just stay back there. I got a place to stay and I like it just fine.”

Bowers said, “Well if you are on your own do you mind if I ask what business you have with a walkie talkie? Typically it isn’t just so you can talk but so you can communicate, unless you found some new way to use those things?”

Shaun looked at the men in the cars and they were slowly starting to get out of their vehicles. Shaun said, “Look, I don’t want any trouble. That store there is filled with food; you guys go help yourself. I won’t come back around here again. I just wanted to see if my idea would work.”

Bowers said, “Well you might be going somewhere, but I don’t think that the weapons are going to go anywhere with you. The world is getting short on supplies, or at least it sure as hell seems that way.”

Shaun shrugged he said, “That isn’t my problem sir. But I assure you, if you don’t stop walking up on me I'm going to create new problems for you and yours. This one gun can’t mean that much to you sir. You need to just move on.”

Bowers said, “You did count how many of us there were right? I'm sure you are smart enough to know that when you are outnumbered, that you give up. You also won’t be able to outrun us on that little diddly thing.”

Bowers reached for his pistol slowly going to unclip it. Shaun yelled, “You or anyone else takes out your damn guns and points them in my general direction, I can promise you I am going to spray you and your cars with bullets. Now get back in your trucks and get out of here until I leave. I don’t want to deal with this today. It’s been a long last few weeks, I can assure you that.”

Bowers unclipped the safety button on his pistol and drew it as quickly as he could. Shaun was already squeezing the trigger before he had it up to his shoulder. He sprayed one magazine of ammunition across the parking lot and just barely missed Bowers. Shaun hit the release on his rifle and slammed another one in, and this time aiming directly for two of the trucks that were visible in the front of the group. He took out two tires on each truck. Bowers was the first one to fire and the first to receive a bullet to the leg for his trouble. Shaun knew he was starting a war that he could not finish. The gunfire was going to be plenty to bring in a horde and mixed with the blood now spilled, it was something he wasn’t about to stick around for.

Shaun gunned the gas and instead of heading towards the base he went in the opposite direction into a part of Des Moines that he did not know what inhabited it. Shaun stood on the four wheeler, trying to put everything he had into the engine as it screamed across the area. Bowers was helped into the backseat of one of the brand new trucks and they peeled off behind him. They had heard the shots but the idea of catching him was all that they could think of. They were not thinking in the least that maybe they should take their time and think things out.

Shaun looked over his shoulder as he gunned it up the large hill weaving in and out of cars that had either crashed or had their drivers ripped from their seats and slaughtered. He had barely made it to the top before he could see the Turned coming out of the trees and buildings that lined the large four lane street. When he got to the top of the hill he idled for a moment and watched what was going on. He hit his radio and asked, “Clary, Aslin, Greg, anyone, is anyone fucking there?”

Clary came back over, obviously ignorant to what had happened and said, “Oh my God am I going to kick your little, tiny, scrawny ass the next time I see you. What in the hell were you thinking? You just barely lived the last time that you went out now you went out on your own and had absolutely no one to look over your shoulder. You trying to get yourself killed? Because if you are, Ellie’s going to be extra pissed when she sees you.”

Shaun stopped and everything went fuzzy before him. “What do you mean when I see her? Spit it out, don't screw with me!”

“Lou radioed us on the way there, saying that we better find you because she was awake. She is still pretty loopy from being asleep for so long but said that she is looking good and that she is having a conversation with Joey. So if you aren’t so busy do you think that you could tell us where in the hell you are and what you are doing so that we can come for you and bring your ass home now?!”

Shaun said, “Yes,” forgetting what it was that he was doing, “I am being chased actually, and I could use your help. I'm being chased right now.”

Aslin cut in and said, “What do you mean you are being chased, chased by who, the Turned?”

“No, well yes, but not just the Turned.”

Aslin immediately went to the worse thing he could think of and said, “Is there something new? Did they mutate into something else for God sakes?”

Shaun said, “How the hell would I…..you are making me lose focus damn it, not I don’t know about that, what I am saying is these assholes came out of nowhere. They wanted to take my guns, and from what I could tell, me too, to wherever it is they have a camp. They seemed ok but when I told them that I didn't want to go with them they told me that it wasn’t a choice. They weren’t going to let me leave with my gun for sure.”

Aslin came back, already getting pissed about it. “Those sons of bitches out stealing from the living, that’s effing ridiculous, what a bunch of assholes.”

“Can’t say that I can complain with that assessment, but I really could use some help or a plan because what I wanted to do got done and then these guys showed up and screwed everything up that I had planned.”

Aslin said, “Oh hell, I quit relying on plans years ago. It’s just God telling you how little control that you have over what you want to happen Shaun. Where are you though?”

“I’m on the same road that we were on when the Humvee crashed. You just keep going south on that road and well you probably won’t see me, but you are going to see a shit ton of the Turned and probably a handful of trucks with a bunch of guys trying to decide if they want to try and fight their way through the horde or if they want to cut their losses.”

Clary came over the speaker he said, “Oh let’s hope that they run into us. If they were willing to take you out without a minutes notice, I'm not going to worry about leaving them for scrap for the Turned.”

Shaun said, “So we aren’t going to take them prisoner Clary?”

Clary said, “No, I don’t think there’s a reason for that. We have enough food, but you know something my drill sergeant in the Navy told me from day one?”

Shaun said, “We really need to get moving here Clary.”

Clary said, “He told us that you can’t fix stupid. But we aren’t giving up on Greg just yet.”

Shaun could hear Greg saying something to the effect of ‘asshole’. Clary said, “If you have something that you can hide behind that looks safe I’d highly suggest that you get behind it. There's no reason to lose you after all this work to keep you alive.”

*****

Bowers was in the backseat screaming at his men. They were doing the best that they could to apply pressure to his wound and make sure that the bleeding stopped as good as possible. The driver turned around and said, “Hey Bowers, uh, there is a horde of those fuckers clogging the street. Do you want to turn around or what are you thinking of?”

“I’m thinking that we go get that little son of a bitch and if we can’t then we find some other way to get over there. If anyone has a problem with that I'm sure that you know damn well how to use the door handles.”

The men knew better than to try and talk sense into him. The driver John said, “You know if we have the option sir, I'd say that we turn it around and we head back and try and circle around. There’s plenty of cross roads that we can take if we go back by the grocery store, then we can cut across and back up.”

Bowers sat back, pulled out a bottle of whiskey to numb the pain and took a large pull off of it, “Well, what the hell are we still sitting here for then?” he asked.

John turned it around and started to head back down the long hill and to the street the grocery store sat on. The men were hoping that they weren’t going to be driving right back into another horde of the Turned.

*****

Clary and Aslin’s hearts, much like everyone in the Humvee, had hearts racing. Clary said, “Why is it that we have to go fifty fifty? The first group of people we’ve seen in months couldn’t be better. The second set of them turns out to be complete psychos that are out to kill the innocent. I mean its Shaun for God sakes. Why would anyone want to hurt him? It’s just a couple of rifles; I can’t see why someone would go through that much if they already have gear. It seems like such an easy way to get yourself hurt doing something that way.”

“Didn’t you say something earlier about how you can’t fix stupid?” asked Aslin.

They slowed down as they approached the corner where the grocery store was and where Shaun had been stacking the Turned in piles. Clary said, “Holy shit, would you look at that? Those guys must have been out hunting the Turned or something. This is insane, would you look at all of them?”

Greg looked up at the top of the street lights and saw the bags of blood, much like the ones that Ellie had gotten when they first had gotten back. He used binoculars to look at them and saw in red thick letters that they said Camp Dodge on them. “Holy shit, I don’t think this was those guys, I think that this was Shaun. Those bags have the base’s name on them. Shit, it was Shaun that came here to do this. Holy hell, he was on his game today,” Greg exclaimed.

Everyone in the Humvee looked around the street. When they thought they couldn’t be any more impressed, Hammond pointed to the end of the road at the next stop light down. “Christ, there is another group of them down here. Jesus, how long has he been here doing this, like, all day?”

Greg said, “No, I started getting hate messages from Clary about an hour ago, before I came to get you guys. He must have been working quickly then.”

Hammond said, “I've never seen so many of them dead. I’ve seen ours like this…..until they started to rise back up that is.”

Clary cut into their conversation and said, “Well as beautiful as this is, we need to get to Shaun. We can see this later when we have Shaun safe and sound and are on our way back to the base where we belong damn it.”

They drove the rest of the way up the long street, doing their best to swerve in and out of the cars. The winter had washed most of the blood from the car doors but there were still signs of struggle and pain within them. They stopped when they saw a row of trucks coming their way driving like a bat out of hell. When the truck saw them it slammed on the brakes, skidding to a stop. John held up a hand to them from their small motorcade. Clary said, “Do you think they’ve put together where Shaun got his machine gun and sniper rifle, and well all of his gear, at yet?”

Aslin said, “I don’t know, I'd have to say they’ve probably been looting much longer than a zombie apocalypse. Typically, once a piece of shit, always a piece of shit.”