The Orphans (Book 2): Surviving the Turned (21 page)

Shaun said, “Yeah, that’s pretty much what you sound like. We don’t know if we’re going to make it. We are going to do what we can though, to try. We aren't going to give up, if that’s what you mean; I will die before I give up.”

“Yeah? What makes you think you are so tough, kid? You’ve probably never had one hard day in your life.”

“You don’t know me, and I don’t have to know that I’m tough. It’s in my DNA; I get it from my dad. He might have done something horrible, yeah, he probably ruined the world, but he did it because he was trying to save the woman he loved. He wasn’t a terrorist, he wasn’t trying to make money from it, or be famous. He did it because he lost my mom when he was in the Army the first time doing something to help people. And then love struck him a second time and he was obviously past the point of thinking it was acceptable that he had to go through with something like that again.”

“So, as long as it’s for love, the fate of the world being on fire is something you can sleep with at night?”

“What should I do? We were coming down the hill to find the things you got dropped off to come for. I was risking everyone's life to get that one thing, but you don’t seem to give a shit what we were doing. You’re more worried about seeing a corpse than going to get the damn formula that he made this from.”

“I know my superiors, kid. They are going to ask, and they are going to want confirmation of some sort. I’m not saying you should lose sleep every night because of what he did. I just don’t think it’s all that high and mighty. God doesn’t pick and choose who gets a disease. It just happens. Unfortunately for your friend’s mom, it happened to her.”

Ellie raised a fist to strike him in the back of the head, and Tina gripped her arm. “Ellie, don’t. You aren’t going to do anything good if you do that; it won’t make you feel any better.”

“The hell it won’t.”

Shaun turned around and yelled, “Ellie, it’s not going to help anything. Let’s get them to the cabin, get them their notes, and get them the hell out of our lives. We don’t need any help, not that they were about to offer any to us anyways; we’re just a bunch of dumb kids, and the son of someone they have a great deal of contempt for. He’s already written us off as dead, anyway.”

Phelps opened his mouth to try to say something, but he wasn’t one for bullshitting people. He could tell if he tried with this group of kids, they’d see right through it.

Shaun pointed to the last road on the left. “Turn here and take it to where the road ends.”

****

Greg looked back at the road, seeing that they were headed toward the cabin. He shook his head and looked at Patrick, who shrugged. McClellan looked at them and said, “You got a problem, kids?”

Greg smiled, shrugging. “Hey, I got all the time in the world. It just seems like you guys have probably done something like this before, haven’t you?”

McClellan laughed, elbowing Aslin in the arm. “Have we done this before? You’ve got to be kidding me, right? Of course we have… why?”

Greg looked up, trying to think of a way he could say it that might not get him shot or thrown out of the back of the truck by men who didn’t seem to have much of a sense of humor. “We are on our way back to see a dead guy, right? Like, that’s the whole point of us going all the way back to the damn cabin, right?”

They nodded, waiting for him to continue. “Okay, then, so if we are on our way back up this big ass mountain of a hill so that we can show you his dad, who mind you, is dead. What the fuck is the rush when he’s still going to be dead after you get his notes, and email them or whatever you’re going to do with them. I mean, isn’t time somewhat of the essence here, guys?”

Aslin leaned forward. “So, what? You think it’s going to matter if we let a half hour go by?”

Greg shook his hands in the air. “Okay, I don’t know about science… I really don’t, but I’m smart enough to know that the minute they get that information, they are going to look down a big ass list somewhere for scientists who are able to do something with the information they get, and who aren’t dead. Now stay with me here, SEAL boys, the longer we wait to get that information, the longer until we can get a list of these uber smart people who probably have really crappy zombie survival skills, right?”

McClellan thought about saying some of this to Phelps in the front, but as he started thinking it, they were already at the end of the road. It would be pointless to try to explain to him that they weren’t thinking rationally. He just said, “Whatever you say, kid. You let us do our job, and then we will get out of your life.”

Greg gave two big enthusiastic thumbs up and grabbed his rifle, jumping out of the back of the truck, not waiting for orders to do it. He took Patrick’s shotgun from him and gave him a hand out of the truck. He looked at him, noticing he was a little bit on the pale side and asked, “Hey, do you need to take a shot anytime soon? You're looking like crap again, and we don’t have time for you to be passing out all over again.”

“Yeah, it’s about time I take something. Maybe if we have a minute, I can check my blood before we head back up the hill. I’ve got everything with me; figured if we got stuck—even though we didn’t want to talk about getting stuck somewhere—I took it as a good idea to have what I needed with me.”

“You mind if I watch what you do with all that crap in case you do something dumb and pass out again, so we can keep you alive for a while? I figure you know you’re the slowest one here, and I need to have someone around to trip in case we’re being chased.”

Patrick’s face went blank, and Greg punched him on the shoulder. “I’m just bustin’ your balls, man… that’s what Mike’s for.”

Greg and Patrick sat on a downed tree, and Greg got a one-on-one lesson in how to measure his blood with the glucose reader. He had everything from his supply bag packed carefully and with great care. Shaun saw the scene and walked over, checking out what they were doing. “Patrick, you okay? You can stay here if you want. You don’t need to hike up that hill if you don’t have it in you.”

“Nah, I wanna check on Mike and make sure he's doing all right. He was pretty worked up when we left. I don’t want him doing anything stupid.”

Greg said, “He shouldn’t do anything too bad. He’s locked outside; he didn’t even have the key.”

All of the men but Phelps and Clare were walking around, staring at the field and the trees in front of them. McClellan yelled to Shaun, “Christ, who the hell was the genius that put the cabin at the top of a damn mountain?”

Shaun looked up the hill and said confidently, “My grandpa Fox did, and I’d say given the current circumstances, some people might say he is a damn prepper genius.”

McClellan looked around and nodded. “You got a point, kid. How long till we get up to the cabin?”

Shaun said, “We’re going to where my dad is, not the cabin.”

“Wait, you didn’t bury him by the house?”

“No, that would be stupid, McClellan. Nothing like passing dear old Dad every single time I go outside of the cabin.”

“How long is it then?”

“Half hour if you can keep up with us.”

“We can keep up. Are you guys ready to start hiking up?”

Clary yelled, “Hold off; we aren’t ready yet.”

McClellan dropped a smoke and ground it out into the dirt with his boot. “What do you mean? What are we waiting for? That smartass kid made a good point that time is of the essence here and we don’t have time to waste.”

Clary pointed to Phelps, who was in the middle of the field far from earshot. He was walking around impatiently while Clare was on the ground working on something that was in his bag while Phelps held a satellite phone. Phelps walked around, not wanting to waste time but under orders to report anything new that arose. He patted at his pockets out of habit looking for a smoke and coming up empty. He looked at Clare with a bit of contempt because he knew the young man wouldn’t have one he could bum, as Clare was a nonsmoker.

Phelps watched the phone, waiting for it to come to life and have the signal he needed to make the call. “You about got that thing ready, Clare? We need to get up that hill, but they want updates as we get ’em. If we can have this shit wrapped up before nightfall, I’d’ like to get back on that widow maker and get the fuck out of here.”

Clare was nodding his head, moving with what speed he could. “I’m just about done, sir; I just need another minute, and you’ll be up and going.”

“Just get it done, Clare.”

Clare hit one last button, and the phone beeped in Phelps’ hand. “You’re good to go, sir. Just hit the code in to speak and it will connect you directly to the party you are trying to reach.”

Clare stood there, smiling at Phelps, who was already ignoring him. Phelps looked up to see Clare still there. “Was there anything else I needed to know, Clare?”

“No, sir, that’s about it. You just need to hit send.”

“Well, quit standing on my dick and take a walk, damn it. This is above your pay grade.”

Clare walked away saying something about being a dick all right but not loud enough that Phelps could hear it clearly.

Phelps dialed the number and waited while the soldier on the other end advised him to wait for a secure line. A general came on the other line.
“Officer Phelps, how are things going?”

“General, I have mixed news. We are a man down. Gowland didn’t make it, sir. We got dropped into a field full of those things. They move faster than I can explain, sir, and they jumped into the air. My boy took a reading of the field before we jumped; they don’t have a body temp reading we could pick up.”

“Jesus, you’ve been on the ground less than a hour and you already lost a man. These aren’t the kind of results we were expecting, damn it.”

“Sir, we weren’t trying to lose a man. Hell, I’ve had Gowland on my team for years. We are making progress. We got picked up in a field by a group of teens. One of them was Frank Fox’s son, and the other was patient zero’s daughter, Ellie Randall.”

“You found Fox’s son? That is wonderful. You have your orders; you bring Frank and only Frank back. I don’t care what you have to do. Until we know more, we aren’t going to be transporting anyone else out of the infected zone. You and your boys are going to be spending some time in quarantine when you get back until we can understand what is happening because of this drug and infection.”

“I understand, sir, but Fox isn’t able to come back with us.”

“Well, that isn’t acceptable, son. You get him and you bring him back, damn it.”

“Sir, I can’t.”

“Can’t isn’t an option, officer. Get him and throw him on that fucking plane so we can find out how he did what he did; time is important.”

“Sir, that’s going to be impossible, unless you want a corpse brought back to Washington. His boy, Shaun, told us that he had to bury him yesterday. He was trying to save his son and his friends. They have a cabin in the woods and they didn’t want to stay in town so they were on their way here. They ran into a horde of them and Frank got bit by one of those things. He was able to make it back to the cabin, and then I’m sketchy on the details, but things didn’t end well for Frank, sir.”

“God damn it! I can’t believe this cock and bullshit. He’s dead. What the hell are we going to do now, Phelps? Frank Fox was the damn answer to this. When we finally got his name, we thought we had something.”

“We do have something, General. We have his kid and he thinks his dad was probably keeping all of his research at the lab that he worked at. I’m getting visual confirmation first, of Frank Fox’s body and then we will go straight to the corporation where he worked. If it isn't there, we still have Frank’s house to look through.”

“I suggest you get a move on, Phelps. These things are on the move and the initial barriers set up at the outskirts of Illinois have failed.”

“Sir, are you going to be able to get us back out of here?”

“Just get it done, Phelps, and keep your men uninfected.”

Phelps stared at his men walking around and then looked at the kids. He was becoming more concerned about how the disease could spread. “Sir, do you happen to have any more information on how the disease is passed on to others?”

“Just make sure you don’t get bit, but other than that, we don’t know.”

Phelps shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose, and saying under his breath, “What the fuck do you know? Don’t get bit; that is goddamned genius!” He put the phone back up to his mouth. “I’d better get my men moving, sir. Is there anything else we need to do?”

“The notes will have to be enough since we can’t get Fox. The quicker we get the information the quicker we will be able to begin research.”

“Sir, how do you know you’ll be able to cure anything without something to test it on?”

“
Son, the way that these things are moving through the United States, I don’t think there will be any issues with finding something to test it on.”

“I’ll contact you for a ride as soon as we get the research, sir.”

“Good luck, son.”

*****

The men watched Phelps coming across the field straight to Clary, who nodded and pulled out a pack of smokes, getting one out for Phelps. He dropped the bag on the ground, motioning to Clare. “Don’t lose that, kid. The phones are down here. We might want a way to contact them in a couple of hours when it’s time to go home.”