The Orphans (Book 4): White Lie (29 page)

Clary climbed through the back seat and slid the panel overhead open, bringing up a chain of ammunition to put in the machine gun mounted to the roof.

John looked into the backseat seeing Bowers was on the verge of trying to not pass out and screamed, “I’d say pretty damn confidently that those guys are with that kid, and from the machine gun mounted on that roof I gots a real good idea what he’s planning to use it for. Damn you Bowers! You couldn’t just let the kid go; we couldn’t just pass on stealing one thing. What the hell do we want to do guys?”

The other men worried about looking like they were weak. One said, “We got guns too, there ain't nothing saying that we are going to lose.”

John slammed the wheel and said, “It’s a machine gun you moron. We could all fire at once, and we still couldn’t keep up with that thing. You have seen Rambo right? He’ll cut through all of our shit and do it without breaking a sweat. He probably won’t even finish off an ammo can or box, whatever the hell he is using.”

The other men pushed out of the vehicles with shotguns and rifles raised and taking aim on their truck. Clary said, “So it seems like we don’t need to talk anymore huh? I almost feel guilty.”

Aslin said, “Well why don’t you get shooting, unless you feel too guilty, before one of those idiots starts firing and kills you.”

Clary pulled back and chambered a round. He said, “I didn’t say anything about that.”

Clary thought there was a good chance that even what the men thought was coming their way was going to be much worse than what was expected. He did the math and knew that this minigun, firing on all six barrels, would send two to six thousand rounds per minute down there. One minute, he knew it would be overkill at this point. He aimed for the group of men standing with their rifles raised and took them out in less than ten seconds. John, who might have been the only intelligent one, turned on his heel and ran back up and into the truck. He pulled it around, not caring that he was driving over the men in his group.

Clary started firing on the truck that was heading straight for the horde in front of them. He mowed down the first twenty in his path before he got the attention of the dead. They gripped onto the truck as if their lives depended on it and started smashing their fists and faces into the bullet ridden glass. John tried pulling the truck off into a parking lot but simply only sped up the process by crashing into the side of a building. He, of course, hadn’t taken the time to put on his seat belt before speeding away from the strangers unleashing hell’s fire worth of bullets upon them. John screamed as the truck’s front end folded in like a pop can, sending him into and through the windshield which had already been severely damaged. He screamed as he went through the glass, it tore into his face, ripping it backwards and peeling his facial skin down to the bone. He tried to scream again but the Turned jumped on him, muffling his screams. Their weight pushed the air from his lungs leaving him nothing to plead to God with. They ripped into his neck and licked the fresh blood coming from his face. They had not eaten like this in a very long time and fought amongst each other for the prize. Each one of them was trying to rip pieces from him and succeeding.

When the screams ended, Bowers pushed up from his place half dazed from the crash and the blood loss. He said, “What in the hell are you doing up there you dumb son of a……”

The Turned, who were busy working on his friend, peered into the truck, Bowers’ lower lip began to quiver. He knew that there was absolutely nothing that he could do to save himself, even if he was in a state of health that he could try to run. The Turned piled into the car, ripping the front seats out of their way. Bowers started to scream at the top of his lungs but one of the Turned gripped his face top and bottom. It slammed his head against the window until he started to lose consciousness. The Turned leaned down, sniffed the fresh blood and used its brutal strength to break his jaw, pulling it down until Bower’s head split in half leaving a bloody, fleshy meal to dine on.

Clary and the others just watched, slack jawed and shaking their heads. He said, “Well that was one of the worst things I've ever seen. Given the fact they could change their mind, you think that maybe they might have left Fox alone now? Those Turned are hungry and they don’t look like they are remotely full.”

Greg hit his radio. “Shaun do you have a way to get back over here brother?”

Shaun said, “If I do it sure isn’t going to be the way that I came up here from. There’s still more Turned than I want to try and drive through.

Clary was looking at the truck and thinking this wasn’t what he was going to try and drive through either. He had the rounds on him to spend on the gun but it wasn’t a sure thing. He also wasn’t ignorant to the fact that the few thousand rounds he just spent on the men in the truck would surely bring more people. He looked into the backseat and asked, “Greg, where do you think we could cut across and meet him at, there has to be a crossroad that we can get him right?”

Greg said, “Yeah just head back down Douglas and take a right on Seventy Second Street. We can meet him by a gas station and he can ride with us back.”

Greg took the radio from Clary and said, “Shaun its Greg, man are you gonna get your ass kicked by these guys.”

“They can try. I did some good today before things went to shit.”

Greg said, “Head east Shaun and don’t worry, we all saw your handy work, you always gotta show me up with how damn crafty and smart you are. Anyways, if you head down Hickman Road there should be a place you can cut back. Meet us by the gas station and the pharmacy store. I think there used to be a gun shop across the street named Mike’s.”

Shaun gunned the ATV and said, “Okay, you got it Greg. I’ll be there as quickly as possible. You guys just make sure that you are all there.”

Shaun drove through the streets again trying his best to avoid any of the cars. There was no way of knowing if they were empty and because of that, if they were safe to travel by. Once he made it to a side street he drove the rest of the way through residential areas with his hand down on the throttle pushing the vehicle to its limits. He wanted to be back with others as quickly as possible. He thought of Bowser and the other men and wondered if he would be ok, or if there was a chance that he would run into more of them.

When Shaun pulled up to the gas station, Aslin was sitting on top of the hood holding a rifle and going back and forth with it trying to make sure there were no surprises between Greg, Clary with the minigun, and Hammond. They had a perimeter that was quite solid as long as there wasn’t any massive attack on them.

When Shaun pulled up to the men, Clary wasted no time, he slid out from the machine gun and approached Shaun quickly. Shaun thought for the quickest of moments that there was pain coming his way or something because Clary had never done such thing before. When Clary got within feet of him, Shaun held up his hands in a guard stance. Clary, who moved much quicker than the kids did, and was because of that, he caught Shaun off guard. He pulled the boy in, giving him a hug and it was one that Shaun had not received from another man in quite some time. Clary lifted him off of the ground and said, “Don’t do anything stupid like that ever again you little shit. We can only worry about losing you guys so many damn times. We need you to be careful and watch your asses. If you don’t think that that is a good deal, then too God damn bad.”

Greg asked, “Why the hell does he get a hug when he did the exact same thing that I did?”

Clary turned around and said, “Well because he might have set us up with an initial way to try and take out the Turned. I was thinking of just blowing the damn things up, but if we get enough blood gathered on base, and maybe a few other things that the young zombie scholar hadn’t quite yet thought of, then there was just a chance that if we planned and organized that we could do our best to attempt to try and reverse numbers on who was the one in charge.”

“So you aren’t mad at all Clary?” Shaun asked.

Clary shook his head no and squeezed the kid's shoulder and let him enjoy the moment for a second. “I can’t promise if this becomes a habit that I'll be too happy, but the way that I look at it, you did some good today, no one got killed…...at least no one that we care about sticking around.”

“I hope that the rest of the survivors are a bit more receptive to seeing new people. I don’t know what these guys wanted to do with me if I came back with them. I really am glad that I was able to get out. I can’t imagine how many people they might have at their camp who would not have the resources that I did and were forced to go with them.”

Clary and Aslin hadn’t thought of this and it weighed heavy on their shoulders. “Did they say where they lived?” Clary asked.

“No they didn’t, just that they were in a housing development which for saying that in central Iowa, could narrow it down as well as saying that they live on Earth. But maybe one of their trucks had something in it that we could use to figure out where they were staying?”

Clary said, “Maybe, but I'm not driving back into that horde just to be wrong. People are going to come and look for them. There’s going to be a group that wants to know where they went, if not for the people, then for the guns that they took with them. Every possession is like gold now. There’s probably thousands or millions of unclaimed guns in the states, but one in the hand is better than anything.”

“So what do you want to do Clary?” Aslin asked.

“I want to go back to the base and forget about anything we saw or thought of here.”

Shaun and Greg both stared, already thinking that they were going to be getting in trouble again very quickly if they had to figure out how to find people on their own without the two’s blessing. Clary said, “But like usual, it seems that what I want to do and what I get to do are absolutely two different things. Somehow, it all leads back to Greg doing something dumb.”

Greg went to say something but Clary punched him lightly in the arm and rubbed his hand through the teen’s hair. “Just busting your balls Greg. We’ve seen too much weird shit in third world countries to just walk away. We will find a place to sit tight,” Clary said.

Shaun nodded and they climbed into the truck. He knew this was the right thing to do, regardless of wanting to race back to the base where he could see Ellie, kiss her, and know that she was alive and here to stay. They took the truck and looked for anywhere that would be off of the main road and that they could hide the giant Humvee, knowing it was not easily missed especially with the minigun hanging off of the top of it. They drove until they found a car dealership that they could park amongst the cars long forgotten, their sales stickers faded from the sun and covered with slimy leaves that had rotted on them in the fall.

Shaun said, “We aren’t going to be able to see anything with all these cars, man this place isn’t going to be able to work.”

Aslin pulled up to the side of the building and said, “you seem to love getting yourself up on ladders, so why don’t you go on up there and check things out. Greg, you can go up there too, it’ll give you a chance to do something stupid.”

Greg said, “You are good to me Aslin, you know that? That’s fine because if I have to sit in here for hours, I'm likely to lose my mind.”

Shaun punched him in the shoulder and said, “Come on let's go, maybe we can get lucky and there will be some Turned on the streets that we can target practice with.”

Clary said, “As much as I think that is a good idea, I'd refrain from doing so. If a strange truck is coming and you don’t see it and they witness zombies with exploding heads, there is a pretty good chance that they are going to turn around and head back in the opposite direction as quickly as they fucking can. But don’t worry Shaun, there is going to be a very strong chance that we are going to be issuing a blood drive when we get back to the base.”

“Uh, can I ask what a blood drive has to do with anything?” Hammond asked.

Clary smiled and it was one filled with thoughts of revenge. “Because we are going to hang blood bags galore across the city and we are going to station people at each one. By the time we are done we are going to make Shaun’s little show today look minimal compared to the cleansing that we are going to do on these freaks. We start with Des Moines and we go from there. If we can offer safe haven, maybe we don’t have to live at a base, or those that don’t want to would have the option to live in a normal area. Maybe we could try and get a farm going.”

Hammond said, “It’s kind of hard to picture you in overalls there Clary. It would be a sight that is for sure though.”

Clary said, “Would it break your heart to have fresh beef and vegetables? Do you think that you could handle that? Besides, there are so many more resources outside of the base that are just sitting there. It’s time that we start taking advantage of them. With a bit of organization, those on the outside would be able to make it here safe, and then they’d be able to contribute as well. We just need to deal with some of these sons of bitches. We can’t invite people only to have them worry about strangers as well as the Turned.”

Hammond asked, “How are we going to get the word out about it?”

“Taking care of the problem is just as important as figuring out that issue. It isn’t something that we need to worry about today. We need to be sure that we are prepared to offer that safety, today is the day that we begin that. Shaun started something that doesn’t need to be stopped, a forward progression is as important as anything in the world, remember that.”