The Orphans (Book 2): Surviving the Turned (17 page)

              Her face turned three different shades of red, bouncing back and forth from anger, to embarrassment, and then a mixture of the two. “Oh, won’t you please grow up?”

              Greg laughed and Patrick, who’d been quiet almost the entire walk down, started to let a few laughs slip out as well. Kristy shot daggers at him, and he held up his hands in defeat to her. “It was funny… what do you want me to do? I mean, hell, look at what we are going to go do. If we can’t laugh at anything, we are going to snap. Let it go; I’m sure there will be some really stressful stuff we're going to go through, and you can think back to this and have something to laugh about.”

              No longer in Tina’s grip, Shaun looked over his shoulder, saw the two boys laughing and the look on Kristy’s face, and realized that he’d probably missed something great. “Hey, Greg, can you guys get moving? We want to get back as soon as we can, and we still need to figure out how we get the information to the government if we find anything.”

              Kristy perked right back to her normal self, knowing the answer. “Hey, um, that’s actually easy; we can just send it through email. I wrote down the address to send it to. I don’t know if I needed to do it, though. I’m pretty sure the address would be all over the internet.”

“Did they actually say all of that this afternoon?”

Kristy smacked Greg on the shoulder. “Christ, were you not listening to the newsfeed, Greg? It was, like, probably the most important government broadcast ever… except maybe when the moon landing happened or when Kennedy got shot. But that’s beside the point; you need to pay attention.”

Greg smiled at her with nothing but bad intentions, saying, “Oh, I was paying attention to something, Kristy. It just might not have been fully on the guy talking. I had better things sitting right next to me to keep my attention.”

Tina made a gagging sound. “Greg, do you have one shy bone in your entire body?”

“At my age? Are you kidding me? Us guys are doing good just to be able to put one foot in front of the other.”

Kristy pulled on his shirt. “Come on, sex-crazed male.”

Greg draped an arm around her. “You know, it really is a disease, and there isn’t a cure yet… well, at least not one that can be openly distributed.”

Shaun knew exactly what Greg was alluding to and prayed she didn’t go into further questions. She did not, and they put their gear in the truck, finding that they had plenty of space in it. Greg opened all the doors, took a large whiff of the truck, and smiled. “Gotta love the new car smell.” Greg looked at the sticker on it. “Uh, by any chance, did someone give you the forty thousand dollars to purchase this lovely vehicle?”

Shaun realized he hadn't actually told the full story how they came about the truck. “You know the old guy that owns the dealership on Main Street?”

Greg nodded his head. “Yeah, he’s only been at that spot since before our parents were born. What, was he still alive?”

Shaun looked at Tina and Ellie who shrugged. “It’s not like we didn’t try to be civil with him, right?”

“When we lost the van—”

Ellie cut in. “You mean the one that you blew up into big pieces?” She helped emphasize this by making the explosion symbol with her hands.

“Right. When I blew up the van, bringing a big group of the Turned, I realized that we had very little choice but to get a new vehicle. We… or I figured with it being across the street, we could just break in and go pick up something new. I mean, think about it. Everyone in town was at that rally. I figured for sure that the guy who donated more money to school athletics than anyone would have been there for sure. But was he? Hell no. He wasn’t. He’d been swimming in a bottle of whiskey for a couple of days.”

“So, was he Turned when you got in there or not?”

Tina said, “Well, we found the bottom half of a mechanic who had a set of keys to the side entrance door and we went in through there, Ellie and I were looking through the office and he came down half dressed, holding a gun on us, and threatening to blow us away if we didn’t sit still. Shaun came up out of nowhere and saved us from getting shot. He took his gun, and then we made him get us keys to the truck that you are about to ride in.”

Greg said, “So did you offer to bring him back here?”

Shaun shook his head no. “You know, you’d think that would be a good idea, but he couldn’t get past the zombie thing and was more focused on the fact that he thought we were just robbing him. By that time, it all came full circle and we were out the door and the Turned were coming very quickly for the shop. I told him to get to the roof, but we don’t know what happened to him. I fear it probably wasn’t anything good.”

Greg held his hand out for the keys, and Shaun abruptly tossed them over his shoulder to Tina who already had an outstretched hand ready for them. “Just because there are crazy Turned running in the streets doesn’t, in anyway, justify why it would be a good idea, or a safe idea for you to drive us when Tina is willing and able.”

Greg couldn’t resist making Shaun uncomfortable, thinking it was good for him somehow. “Is she willing and able, Shaun?” He nudged Shaun in the shoulder with an elbow and a wink. Ellie rolled her eyes and climbed into the truck, slamming the door harder than she needed to.

Tina’s face went just a bit red as she looked at Shaun. “Well, I don't think that is something you're going to have to worry about affecting you anytime soon.”

Greg said, “Hey, I’m sure Kristy is going to make me a happy man. I mean, look at the choices she has left in the world, right?”

Kristy climbed into the cab, not allowing him an answer. Shaun said, “You go sit on the other side; I want us to be able to shoot out of either side if we see something.”

“Well, that gives us a left and right shooting, but what about the back of the truck?”

Shaun looked at Patrick. “You think you can hit anything with the shotgun, Patrick?”

He looked at the gun thinking of the water bottle that he had decimated and nodded his head. “Yeah, I think there’s a good chance I can hit one of them.”

Shaun tapped him on the forehead. “You realize it’s the head that counts, right?”

Patrick smiled as though he had thought of something they hadn’t. “You aren’t thinking right, guys.”

Greg said, “No, I’m pretty sure you need to shoot them in the head. You can’t scare these things. They don’t seem to know anything, but they want to kill us from the second they get a taste of themselves.”

Greg handed his gun to Shaun and slid off his backpack, throwing it in the bed of the pickup and climbed in. Shaun handed up his shotgun, still waiting for an answer that didn’t seem likely to come. “Christ, Patrick, so what genius method do you have that we don’t know about yet?”

He pointed to the truck. “Guys we’re going to be moving when they start chasing us, right? So all we have to do is shoot them in a leg or in the thigh or hip and disable them. If we leave them hobbling around town, they’ll be easy to avoid and we won’t have to worry about them.”

Shaun nodded. “Yes, that is assuming they don’t heal.”

Greg said, “Wait—that actually isn't that stupid of a thought. The very first one that we ran into on Sunday, when Tina and I were in the squad car, was ripping the door off and I shot her right in the chest, thinking that I’d saved the day. Then out of nowhere, she popped back up to her feet and came at us, ready to kill. She didn’t have a clue that she’d even been shot.”

Shaun looked up at Greg and said, “You know to aim for the head, but if you can't do that, you are just as lucky if you aim at their feet. Hell, if you blow their feet off, even if these things can heal, there isn’t any way in hell that they’ll be able to fix themselves that fast, right?”

Greg looked at Patrick. “You make damn sure that you keep your eyes up to the sky. If those things learned how to climb buildings or something, there’s little chance there will be anything you can do about it.”

Shaun pointed to the back window. “If you need to get inside the truck, we will make sure to leave that window open for you, okay? Just toss your gun and bag in and get in the truck—no screwing around. I doubt glass will stop those things, but it’s better than just sitting in the back with them. I saw what they can do to someone with their bare hands. I’m serious—if it looks wrong, get in the truck. I really don’t like the idea of you back here by yourself, but we won't’ be much better off with these rifles in the back.”

Tina rolled the window of the truck down, leaning out of it. “Are you guys done making out back there? Good god, we’ve been waiting forever.”

Shaun and Greg nodded and climbed into the truck. Kristy was sitting in the middle of them, looking at the large rifles resting on the floor and pointing up at the roof. “You guys going to be able to shoot with me sitting here?”

They each shouldered the rifles, pointing them out of the window, and looked at her and then at Tina. Well, there is a good chance that Tina’s head is going to be catching all of my brass if worse case scenario comes up and I have to fire.”

“Is it going to hurt if those things hit me?”

Shaun said, “Well, yeah, probably. They are hot as hell after firing off a load of gunpowder from them.”

She threw up her hoody and said, “Well, hell, if I’m about to get my head burnt, damn it.”

Shaun said, “You guys better make sure that you have ear plugs in too, because if we have to unload in the truck, we’re all going to be deaf like nobody’s business.”

Tina turned over the engine of the massive truck after everyone inserted their earplugs. Before she had a chance to put the gear in drive, they heard Patrick hammering on the window over the music coming from the blasting stereo. Shaun popped the gun up to his shoulder, wildly pointing it around and seeing nothing. He looked over his shoulder. “Greg! Greg, what do you see? Are there any of them out there? Do you see anything at all?”

Greg turned back to Shaun as worry spread across his face, barely able to hear what anyone was saying. He thought about the echo effect he was getting from his ears and ripped the molded ear protection from where they were inserted. Much too loudly he yelled, “What the hell are you freaking out about?”

Shaun took his ear protection out also. “I wasn’t freaking out about anything, for Christ’s sake, but Patrick’s going ape shit in the back of the truck. I thought maybe one or many of them had shown up here. I mean, I’m sure it's bound to happen eventually, right?”

Ellie sat back in her seat, taking a deep breath, remembering her dream, and praying that those things won’t make it to the campsite anytime soon.

Shaun pulled the release to the three-way window in the back and slid it open to a frantic Patrick, who looked like he was about to lose his mind. “Patrick, what the hell is wrong with you? She hasn’t even started driving yet. What’s the problem?”

Patrick was pointing into the sky, waving frantically. “There is a plane! Look up in the damn sky; it’s gotta be military too. It has to be. There is no way that they still have planes up and flying after all that has happened. You know what that means? They sent someone to rescue us! They sent someone to save us, for god’s sake. We’re saved—they are coming to get us!”

Shaun hopped out of the truck to get a good eye on them. He dropped his pack on the ground kneeling next to it, sorting through it as quickly as he could, and produced a pair of binoculars. He found the plane through them, trying to keep it in focus. He watched as the back of the plane opened. “I think they are going to drop something for us. I don’t know what the hell it would be.”
 

Chapter 10: Departure

The intercom through the plane went off. “
This is Captain Forsyth speaking. I hope you enjoyed your flight on the Widow Maker; please thank and tip your stewardess on the way out. You gentlemen make sure you find whatever you were supposed to get so I can get permission to land and pick you up. I’ve heard there might be one or two hostiles down there.”

McClellan leaned over near Aslin. “Really? A hundred thousand fucking planes in the damn armed forces and they picked one called the
Widow Maker
to drop us off in hell with?”

Aslin smiled, raising his eyebrows twice in return. “Gives you a deep, down, warm feeling, doesn’t it?”

McClellan looked down to the new kid, still waiting to be inspected by Phelps. “Hey rookie, did you look up this type of plane? How long can they stay in the air for?”

Clare pushed up his glasses, repositioned his helmet straps, and pointed at himself. Aslin yelled down, “No. The other new guy on the team—yeah, you. Tell us something good about this plane called a
Widow Maker
.”

Clare yelled back, “It can stay up in the air for a very long time without needing to refuel. Chances are they will have him circling the area, trying to conserve as much jet fuel as possible so that when we are ready, we won’t have to wait around to be picked up.”

Aslin looked over at McClellan and they both decided that was better news than they were expecting to receive. Phelps walked down the line of men, looking them over, checking their harnesses, and ensuring they were good to go. Clary laughed. “Sir, do you think that you could wipe my ass for me, too, please? I’m not sure I got it all.”

Phelps reached down towards the straps that went through Clary’s legs and pulled them tight, making sure that whatever was down there would be as uncomfortable as could be for the next twenty minutes until they had the green light that they were clear to jump. Clary choked and tried to jump away from the pain. He smiled uncomfortably to Phelps. “On second thought, sir, I believe my ass to be quite clean.”

Clary reached down, loosening it back to where he was able to breath. Phelps double-checked Clare and patted them on the shoulder as he walked one last time; everything looked to be in order. The men all walked in a single file line to the edge of the plane. Clare read a report from the plane on a monitor near the exit that examined the body heat of the area below.               “Sir, it doesn’t look like there is anything in that field to the south of us. If he can drop us down there we should be good to go. We can land near the edge of the tree line and take cover until the hummer makes its way down to the ground safe and sound.”

Phelps, who believed nothing until he saw it with his own eyes, stared at the readout and the picture in front of him and nodded his head. He hit the radio and said, “Hey, Forsyth, take us around one more time. We want to go down in that field we went by a few minutes ago. We want to be as close to that tree line as possible.”

“
Roger that. You guys try not to take too long out there. This thing has about ten hours of fuel in it, and I’d hate to try and figure out where there is a safe refueling station, unless I can talk some crazy fuck into coming up here and doing it during flight.
”

Phelps hit the response button. “We won’t be stopping for anything. It’s just in and out.”

The men waited while the plane made the approach. Gowland hit the red button for the back to open. The lights illuminated red in the back of the plane, and the men pulled the release, letting the Humvee slide on its rollers out of the back of the plane. Phelps nodded his head at it. “Boys, I’ve seen that a million times, and it still gets me every time that it ends up in one piece on the ground.”

Clary was nodding as well. “Totally agree sir. Let’s hope that we can have that same wonderful thing happen to all six of us.”

Forsyth hit the intercom for the last time, counting off.
“And we go in five, four, three, two, and go go go.”

Phelps opened his mouth to yell at the men to go as he watched Aslin and McClellan run past him and swan dive out of the rear of the plane. Phelps rubbed at his face, watching—not surprised, just in awe. “God, I hate those guys. I really do, Clary.”

Clary tapped him on the shoulder, prancing past him somewhat like a ballerina, and then made the ugliest jump he’d ever seen. Clare walked up next to Phelps asking, “Sir, how long have you been with these guys?”

Phelps ran for the edge of the plane, yelling over his shoulder, “Too goddamn long!” Then he disappeared from view.

Gowland nodded his head and he and Clare ran for the edge of the plane, the last two to exit. They jumped from the rear and soared through the air. They watched as Aslin and McClellan pulled their cords and disappeared back above their heads, screaming in joy from the adrenaline pumping, followed by Clary and Phelps. When Gowland and Clare checked their wrists and saw that they were at the right altitude to pull, they gave each other a thumbs up and pulled their cords. The wind was pushing them away from the tree line they were aiming for and what they saw a quarter mile down almost directly beneath them sent shivers through their spine.

Clare screamed at Gowland, trying to be heard through the helmets and heavy winds. “There’s people down there!”

Gowland looked down using the scope on his rifle to confirm this and yelled back, “There’s a shit ton of people down there, but they aren’t moving! They’re just standing there! Where the fuck did they come from? What’s wrong with you? I thought you checked the readings before we told Forsyth where we wanted to be dropped.”

Clare screamed in frustration, “That scan of the area was for body heat. Whatever those things are, they don’t have a body heat signature.”

“And that is?”

“Bad Gowland, very, very fucking bad. How the hell do they plan on curing something that has no body heat?” He hit his radio up to the rest of the men. “Sir, there are friendlies on the ground; I repeat, there are friendlies on the ground and they are plentiful!”

The same question came back. “Are you useless, Clare? You—I repeat—
you
said this was the place to drop in… that it looked safe… that there were no goddamn bodies on the ground.”

Out of character for him, Clare yelled back at a commanding officer, screaming into his mic, “Yeah, there were no warm bodies on the ground! Whatever these things are must be ice cold.”

Gowland and Clare pulled back on the cords, directing their path and slowing their descent to the ground. They watched the Hummer fall from the sky and land on top of one of people, crumpling the body beneath it. The rest of them, who hadn’t so much as moved their head during the entire descent, heard the crashing vehicle and slowly turned toward it. Within a second, there were twenty of them running for it, leaving the field wide open for the men to land and run into the safety of the woods.

The two men watched in horror as the things, which only a moment before seemed docile and almost comatose, exploded from their places and rushed the vehicle. They turned their bodies into weapons with no care or worries for their own well-being. A man in a tracksuit ran up to the passenger window and slammed his head into it repeatedly, splitting his forehead open and painting the window with blood. He managed to work his hand inside the door then ripped it off the Humvee, throwing it twenty yards away.

At the same time, a six-year-old girl with pigtails that might have been blonde the day before but were now bright red, covered her white shirt with her own blood as she smashed her nose and forehead into the windshield until the glass shattered.

The Turned filled the vehicle, all rushing in to be the first to get what fresh warm meat might be inside. The sunroof was pushed with force from its lock; two feet came out of it then disappeared back inside. A moment later, out came the little girl.

              Clare stared down at her and she, in turn, stared directly back at him, licking her own blood from her lips. She growled towards Gowland, sending shivers up his spine. When the two men realized the speed with which these things could move, they did not feel good about coming in for a soft parachute landing. As they got within twenty feet of the ground, Clare shouted to Gowland, “What do we do?”

Gowland, the more experienced soldier of the two, took charge and yelled back, “Pull your release cords when you get within ten to fifteen feet to the ground and then run like hell!”

“Me? What are
you
going to do?”

“I got a shit knee. Run for the trees and give me as much cover fire as you can. I’m going to need it.”

Clare nodded, judging the ground and seeing the mob of the Turned were no longer sitting on the car. Instead, they were running like crazed people through the field. They jumped in leaps and bounds, gripping at the air in anticipation of the arrival of fresh meat. Clare moved his eyes away and looked at Gowland. “Good luck,” he yelled.

He punched the release, flailing his arms wildly as he dropped to the ground. He kicked his legs then tucked and rolled upon impact. Once he was on his feet, he looked over his shoulder to see what might be coming from behind then sprinted toward the tree line, letting his chute blow across the field. He gripped his rifle, kept himself low as he ran into the woods, and melted into the trees and grass. He tripped at the edge of the tree line, scraping his face and cutting his cheek. Clare ripped the glove from his hand with his teeth and touched his fingers to his cheek. When he pulled his hand away to look at it, he saw his hand was covered with a respectable amount of blood.

In the near distance, he saw Gowland pulling hard on his rig, trying not to get to the ground any faster than he needed to. As the mob got underfoot, they jumped the difference of fifteen feet, gripped his legs and feet, and pulled themselves quickly hand over hand up onto him. He was helpless; he pulled out his pistol from its holster and shot a few in the chest, but he might as well have been throwing the bullets with his bare hands for all the good it did. The force of the bullets almost knocked them off of him, but unfortunately for Gowland, “almost” wasn’t good enough.

The Turned attacked him like wild animals, biting and tearing at his legs and thighs, ripping chunks of flesh off as they worked their way up. He screamed in pain, emptying the pistol; out of bullets, he gripped it by the barrel with his gloved hand, hitting them in the face with everything he had, but within seconds five of the Turned had ripped his cheeks and nose away from his face; he gurgled on his own blood as it poured into his mouth. They tore into his lips and forehead, greedy for the next bite.

In the frenzy, the Turned ripped the cords connecting Gowland to the parachute, sending them all to the ground, where he was greeted with open arms. The fifteen Turned beneath him had been waiting for that moment with mouths open, ready for the taste of his warm blood to grace their tongues.

Clare hit his neck radio, speaking into it rapidly. “Sir, come in, sir; they got Gowland! They got Gowland, for god’s sake; you need to abandon the drop zone you’re aiming for. These freaks are… they are… I don’t know what they are, but whatever they changed into it sure as hell ain’t human, sir.”

He saw the men a few hundred yards up and heard Phelps shout to the others, “They got Gowland! They fucking got Gowland. We need to drop in somewhere else—that space is hot!”

Clare watched as his support circled around, headed in the opposite direction, and floated behind the tree line. He hit his mic, realizing any help he was going to have would be a quarter to a half mile away. “Sir, orders, sir what do you want me to do? I need directions.”

“Son, you don’t need directions. You need to keep your mouth shut and stay alive. We’re going to make our way down there, but we’re going to do it slow and right, son. If you get into hot shit, double tap your mic. Can you see Gowland? Do you have visual confirmation of him?”

Clare peered around a tree; he did get a visual confirmation on the soldier, but it was not what he expected to see. Clare watched in awe as Gowland got to his feet. His entrails were in his way and he ripped them out, throwing them aside. He fell into step with the rest of the Turned, his eyes bleeding, and he started gnawing on his own arm, tearing a chunk out of it. Clare bent down next to the tree and whatever he had enjoyed for lunch was no longer with him.

He hit his mic, praying but knowing that any chance of this coming out good were probably non-existent. “Sir… sir.”
 

Phelps’ voice came through. “It’s me, Clare, what the hell are you doing, son? Shoot those goddamn things!”

The now Turned Gowland walked in circles with the rest of the Turned, looking for the source of the sound invading their ears. They started to sniff slowly and then faster, as if their nose was telling them there was something delicious and that there would be a reward for them if they continued looking for it.

Clare stopped hitting the mic and watched as they seemed to be sniffing and looking his way. He felt his face again, remembering the blood and realizing that those freaks could smell it. He aimed his rifle, waiting and trying to keep his cool, but with every step they took closer to him, that became more difficult. “Sir, they’re moving this way. Gowland got infected, sir, after he was bitten.”

“Then don’t fucking get bit; get your ass moving. Do you have anywhere you can go?”