Orpheus: Homecoming (The Orpheus Trilogy Book 2) (9 page)

"Well I'll be damned," Orpheus said. "Lena, is the channel open?"

"It is now."

"Attention, we will be engaging in twenty seconds. Everything is under control. Hold your positions unless otherwise advised." He ended the transmission and checked his weapon. "On my mark, open fire. One quick volley, make sure they're down. Then we wait to see if the sound draws any others."

They took up firing positions.

"Fire!"

The volley lasted less than three seconds, and there was no more movement from the zombies. Scalpel waited to see if any more would show up, but none did.

There were more rooms to check, but the school was virtually clear.

There was no celebration, because they all knew that they still had a lot of work to do.

Except for Fish. He could always celebrate. "Seriously, you guys, how awesome am I?"

O

The five companions cleared the bottom floor in the same manner as they had the top. Fish's gambit couldn't have been more successful. There were no more zombies in the school, but the job wasn't completely done. They verified that all of the doors and windows were secured.

Once that was done, they headed to the sole remaining unexplored space, which had long ago been secured beyond reason.

"The gym."

Ethan said only those two words, but they carried an unmistakable grimness that Orpheus easily picked up on. He had expected it, of course. Ethan had only mentioned the incident briefly, and then never brought it up again. Rachel, on the other hand, had gone out of her way to discuss it with her future father-in-law in grisly detail. The talk had been cathartic for her, and it had also allowed Orpheus to understand his son a little more without Ethan having to relive it. Rachel was much more open than Ethan was. No surprise there, of course, considering who his father was. There were a lot of things about himself that Orpheus was proud to see in Ethan, as well. The difficulty in allowing someone else to share the burden was certainly not one of them.

"Don't tell him I told you about this," Rachel had said. "He blames himself for all of it. It's stupid, and stubborn, and ...” She paused.

"And just like me?"

She smiled. "Well, yeah. He thinks that it's his cross to bear, and his alone. He forgets that I was the first one to make it to the gym. Mickey and I, we knew right away that they were trapped. Before he got there, Mickey told me that he had a bad feeling, that things were about to get worse. You know what else he said?"

Orpheus waited.

"He said that, no matter how badly it all turned out, that it wouldn't be my fault, or Ethan's.
He said that he knew I understood that, and it was my responsibility to get Ethan to understand that." She took a deep breath, on the edge of tears. "And I never could. I tried, I just couldn't. He just keeps pushing it farther and farther down. I'm afraid that it'll push back one day, and I won't be able to help."

No one understood the futility of that tactic better than Orpheus. He'd tried to bury the island, but memories like that have a nasty habit of clawing their way back to the surface.

Orpheus had everyone else hang back and approached the doors with Ethan. The welds around the door were the damnedest thing. He grabbed the handle and give it a tug. There was just a little give at the center weld between the doors. Ethan and Mickey and whoever else may have been assisting from the other side had managed to loosen the center weld in a pretty short amount of time, as Orpheus understood it. Given a few more minutes, they probably could have cracked the door, at least, and escaped.

Whoever had done this was evil. If they were somehow still alive, they would have to pay.

"You okay?"

Ethan gave the door two halfhearted pounds. "Yeah, I just wasn't looking forward to this."

"Understandable. Give the order when you're ready." Orpheus had briefly considered sending Ethan on another errand while this was done, but that wouldn't be doing him any favors. If Ethan wanted to have any chance of truly getting past this particular horror, he first had to face it.

Ethan nodded. With one final, more forceful, pound on the door, he said, "Okay, let's crack it." He radioed to Lena to send everyone in. "We'll meet them at the front door."

A few minutes later, the high school was teeming with activity. The dedicated services personnel were getting the kitchen back in shape, some others were gathering all of the info that they could off of the zombies in the hopes of identifying them, and the rest were setting up a secure corridor for when the supply trucks arrived. Orpheus made sure that no one was close enough to the gym to see what he was doing.

Orpheus was still cutting through the door with the reciprocating saw. He didn't bother trying to break the welds. They'd need a heavy-duty torch for that, so he just concentrated on cutting out as much of the thick wooden doors as he could. It wouldn't look great, but it would allow them to start hauling in the cots and other items. He finished with the cut. Friction held the door in place, so he put his shoulder up against it and drove forward. The door held for a split-second, then fell over on to the gym floor with a thunderclap. Rachel updated Lena, who in turn called the ferry to have them send the trucks.

Orpheus sniffed out of habit. Nothing but a musty smell, because the gas had long since dissipated. Before Orpheus gave an order, Ethan produced his flashlight and stepped through the opening. He directed the beam around the gym. "All clear."

Orpheus felt that his son had done enough. "Fish, Tim, you're with me. You two are in charge of the supply escort." He had expected an argument, but he got nothing more than a relieved
okay
from his son.

Light streamed from the large, story-high windows, enough to see comfortably, but not enough to reveal every detail. The three men stepped through the hole that Orpheus had made. What greeted them was something that they had each seen dozens of times before and had hoped to never see again:

The aftermath of a reap.

The piles of clothes made from synthetic materials. Jewelry. Fillings
. Bullets.
The non-organic material was unaffected while the person that once held them was eaten away.

It was clean, bloodless, and still horrifying.

He knew about Ethan's documented head count, so identifying the victims wholesale wouldn't be an issue. Their loved ones would get some closure, at least. Orpheus walked to the supply closet, reached in, and grabbed two wide mops. He handed one each to Tim and Fish, who immediately got to work. The mops had once been used to clean up the basketball court during timeouts, and now they were being used to push together the remnants of dozens of people.

It was obscene, but it was also necessary. There were some things that Orpheus had never revealed during his endless debriefings, and Scythe was one of them. That would cause too many questions and put them all at further risk. The young men made short work of the cleanup and were nearly finished, but Orpheus still had one thing to do.

"I think I found it," Tim said. Orpheus walked over to where he was standing over a pile of clothes, a short-sleeve collared shirt and blue jeans. He wasn't interested in the clothes, only in the metallic tags that lay near them. He picked them up and ran his finger across them. The flashlight beam revealed the name Mitchell Potts. Ethan and Rachel had known him as Mickey.

Orpheus said, "Thank you for helping out my kids, grunt. I'll return the favor, somehow." He slipped the tags into his cargo pocket, and the three of them bagged up the rest of the debris.

Orpheus opened the door to the former principal's office and dropped his bags on the floor. The antique mahogany desk and leather furniture seemed excessive for a high school principal, but as soon as he'd settled into the high-back chair, and saw the matching sofa, he knew that was where he was going to call home for the next year, guilt-free. Everyone else could sleep on a cot in the gym. He was exercising managerial privilege.

He placed his two-way radio on the desk and confirmed the proper channel. Once that was done, he unclasped his duffel bag, opened the flaps, and began moving in. He hung his uniforms on the wrought-iron coat rack. His "civvies" consisted of shorts, t-shirts, sweatpants, and a pair of blue jeans that he'd probably never have occasion to wear. There wasn't exactly any nightlife on the island anymore, and the majority of his spare time would be spent sleeping or doing paperwork. He stuffed those in two desk drawers.

The school really had everything that they needed. An industrial kitchen, cafeteria, gym, several bathrooms with shower facilities, an auditorium for briefings and movies. And it had been secured before. The only time it had been compromised had been due to his own men. Those mistakes would not be repeated.

He leaned back and closed his eyes. He began a breathing exercise that he'd learned from his shrink. He had to admit that meditation did wonders for his blood pressure. And it was nice to have a few minutes to himself.

"Captain, we have an incoming chopper. Mr. Trager requested that you meet it personally. Arrival in ten mike."

Orpheus sighed and acknowledged the transmission. "Well, that figures," he said to an empty office.

O

Orpheus grew more agitated with each step.

They hadn't set up a secured landing spot for the helicopter yet. That wouldn't be done until the next day when the Jersey barriers arrived and enclosed the school. Everyone knew this, because it was on Orpheus' extremely detailed itinerary. So whoever had disregarded that itinerary (Orpheus was pretty sure who) was coming in on a proven zombie magnet and would be landing in an unsecured location, which meant that they'd have to do their best to secure it in a hurry. He stormed outside and was ready to start giving orders, but was pleasantly surprised by what he saw.

His lieutenants were organizing the vehicles into a ring around the cul-de-sac, and they were doing it quickly. Once the last vehicle was in place, Tim threw a smoke flare into the grassy center. Red smoke billowed up, showing the pilot where to land. If the arrival attracted any zombies, they could just dig in and eliminate them.

Orpheus jogged over to Ethan just as the chopper came into sight.

"There's an asshole on that helicopter, and I bet it carries the rank of Colonel," Ethan said.

"Took the words right out of my mouth."

The helicopter arrived overhead and hovered for a moment before it began its descent. The down draft blew red smoke everywhere, and everyone had to turn sideways to avoid it getting in their eyes. The helicopter touched down with a gentle thud. After being bounced around in helicopters several times before, Orpheus could both recognize and appreciate a gentle touch like that. The rotors powered down, the smoke cleared, and Orpheus took a look into the back seat.

Of course it was Ralston, and Orpheus once again berated himself for letting himself get caught in the position of having to answer to him.

"Play nice," Ethan said.

"Ugh."

The pilot hopped out and slid the door open. Ralston climbed down, all smiles and waves. He was quickly followed by another man with a professional photography rig, it seemed.

Ethan said, "He does know that it's not an election year, right?"

"Would you knock it off, I ... no fucking way is that who I think it is."

"Who?"

"This just keeps getting better and better," Orpheus grumbled. He waited for Ralston to approach, then snapped off a crisp salute, which was lazily returned. "Colonel." There was a flash of light as they shook hands. Orpheus ignored the photographer for the moment.

"You work fast, Captain."

"Not fast enough, it seems. I wanted to have a secure landing area by tomorrow."

More flashes.

"We checked the sat images. This area is clear enough. I'll be honest; my curiosity got the better of me."

Another flash, and Orpheus cast an annoyed glare over at the photographer. He'd never gotten a name, but he'd never forget the face of that pain-in-the-ass reporter.

The reporter grinned, as if to say,
bet you didn't see that one coming.
He extended his hand. Orpheus shook it and managed to avoid crushing every bone in it.

"Iver Thompson," the reporter said. Cocky.

Ralston said, "He tells me that you two have met before."

"You could say that," Orpheus replied. "Why is he here?"

Ralston's tone changed to a more serious tone. He clearly didn't like being challenged. "Because I want him here. I owe a favor to a certain editor-in-chief, so I agreed to allow Thompson here to be embedded with your op, per our contract."

Orpheus tried to figure out a way to politely object, but was having a hard time.

Thompson spoke up and filled the silence. "You see, you have all of that spiffy satellite imaging, but they don't actually tell any story, give the human interest angle. That's what I'm here for."

Orpheus paid him no attention and spoke directly to Ralston. "I won't be responsible for him. I agreed to lead men who went through specialized training."

"Understood."

"Hey, I can handle myself. I've been in a dozen warzones. This is a tourist spot."

"I'll remember you said that when you have dead people coming for you."

Tino yelled, "Cap, we got incoming!" from the top of a Rhino.

Orpheus smiled coldly. "Well, imagine that." He grabbed Thompson by the arm and said, "Come with me."

"What, I, don't ... Colonel!"

Ralston showed his palms, indicating hands off, and Orpheus actually liked him for a split second.

Thompson climbed the ladder. He had no choice but to do it quickly, because Orpheus was right behind him.

German looked at Thompson. "We taking in strays now?"

"Don't even get me started. Clip him in and arm him." A small mob of five zombies was coming. They weren't really a threat, but they could serve as a good test.

Tino unslung his weapon and held out his hand. "Trade."

Thompson looked confused, then realized that Tino was talking about his camera. He took it from around his neck and shakily handed it over, while accepting the weapon with his free hand.

German clipped the reporter in, aimed his own weapon, and said, "Like this."

Thompson mimicked him. Tino flicked the safety off and said, "Just like a camera. Point and shoot. Steals souls."

The zombies had closed to within fifty yards. Orpheus watched Thompson's attempts at aiming. Sweat had broken out on the man's brow, and the barrel was swaying too much to be attributed to breathing.

"Still plenty of time to make the kill," Orpheus said flatly.

The zombies closed to within twenty yards, and the reporter still hadn't taken a single shot. Orpheus grabbed the weapon from his hands, aimed and squeezed off several shots. Two were headshots, the other three were to the body, which didn't kill them, but did knock them back. Orpheus finished them off with three more headshots. "Yeah, you're hardcore," Orpheus said. He handed the rifle back to a grinning Tino and went down the ladder.

"Not my responsibility," he reiterated to Ralston. "He gets himself killed, that's too bad."

"I think you just scared him straight. Now how about a tour?"

O

Orpheus gave Colonel Ralston the dime tour, and was relieved when he said it was time for him to go. He assumed that he'd see less of Ralston the longer the operation went on. There were only so many photo ops available, and it's not like he could add anything strategy-wise. As he watched the helicopter disappear into the distance, he took note of the setting sun and checked his watch. He motioned to Fish and pointed to his watch.

Fish understood and yelled, "Quittin' time, kids! Finish what you're doing and get inside."

Most of the personnel filed in immediately. Only a few lagged behind because they were moving the vehicles yet again, this time to the front of the school where they were easily accessible. Orpheus was the last inside, and he secured the door.

He saw Tim directing the drivers to the auditorium. Once they were gone, Tim said, "Counting them, you, and me, we're all accounted for. Ethan's doing another head count in the room."

"Good work." Orpheus followed Tim into the auditorium. He heard the familiar din of dozens of conversations, and was pleased that they all dropped shortly after he walked in. The only sound was the click-click of Thompson's camera. He'd apparently gotten over his fear once he had a familiar object in his hands. Ethan had finished roll call, and gave his father a thumbs-up.

Orpheus stood at the podium, a hand resting on each side. "I want to start off by congratulating all of you. Great job today, all things considered. We'll begin and end every day in here, for a briefing. We will be putting together a rotating schedule for laundry, latrine, and guard duty. If you have any other skills that may come in handy, just let me or one of my lieutenants know. That's it for today. Get some food, get some rest. Unfortunately, tonight it's going to be MREs and gym mats. No one goes off by themselves. Understood? Here at 0800, don't be late. Dismissed."

He watched the soldiers file out, and then walked out with his lieutenants. "Does anybody have anything?"

Tim said, "Comms are up. Phones, internet, WiFi."

"Good. Anything else?"

No one did.

"Then bye-bye. You're on free time."

Orpheus peeled off, and the others continued on to the gym. If they were as tired as he was, they weren't showing any signs of it. He entered his office, took off his blouse and boots, and collapsed on the couch. His right hand dropped to the side and rested on his other bag. The back of his hand hit the corner of a box. He knew everything that was supposed to be in that bag, and that wasn't one of them. He sat upright and pulled it out. Even under the wrapping paper, he could tell it was a shoe box. Jackie must have slipped it in his bag on the pier. There was no card, so he pulled the ribbon and took off the top.

He moved aside the tissue paper and smiled when he saw what it was covering.

A black tomahawk. Black.

Jeez, the memory on that woman.

He remembered a conversation that he'd had with his wife at least ten years prior. They'd been watching an action movie, and the protagonist had just thrown a tomahawk end over end until it buried itself in the bad guy's skull. He'd remarked how awesome a tomahawk would be when the zombies came.

It had been nothing but a joke then.

He turned it over in his hands, admiring it. It was made of high carbon steel from the feel. He ran his finger along the curved front blade. It was sharp. If he applied any more pressure, he'd be looking for a bandage. Opposite the chopping blade was a nasty spike, perfect for scrambling a zombie's brains. Between the two was a laser engraving of a lyre, representative of his namesake in Greek legend.

He held it in his right hand and took a few practice swipes. It felt perfectly balanced. More than that, it just felt
right
in his hand. There was also a sheath in the box. He took a moment to attach it to his belt, and secured it with a strap to his thigh so it wouldn't swing. He could feel the pressure against his thigh, but its weight was barely noticeable. He took it out of its sheath as quickly as he could. He was slow (mostly because he didn't want to cut himself), but he thought that with a little practice he could deploy it pretty quickly.

He considered things for a moment. It would certainly violate the uniform code, but he decided that he didn't care. It would probably never need to come out of its sheath, but it would serve as a constant reminder of why he was doing this, and for whom.

He owed her a phone call.

O

It was dark when he opened his eyes. He hit a button on his watch, and the display glowed for three seconds. He'd been asleep for several hours, it was now just after 2300, and he was starving. He considered changing his clothes, but he'd fallen asleep with his boots on. That was the deciding factor, so he just went as he was to grab a late-night meal. He was the sole occupant of the cafeteria, so he grabbed a sandwich from the fridge and ate it standing up.

He took a return route that would bring him by the gym. German was the guard on duty in the sleeping quarters.

"How are we?"

German passed the beam of his flashlight over the sleeping personnel. "All present and snoring."

"Ethan and Rachel?"