The Orphans (Book 2): Surviving the Turned (20 page)

Phelps lowered his sunglasses, looking at Clare and then at the boys. “You guys pointing those shiny new weapons at my soldier? Do you think you are responsible enough to keep those things?”

Shaun looked again at the massive hardware count and knew that he was screwed more than he’d like to admit. “Sir, he threatened that you guys were going to come down here and take our truck because your truck got destroyed!”

Clare said, “I just mentioned it to him.”

Patrick once again found his voice. “He’s full of shit! He… he said he was going to take the truck and then pointed to his gun. We were already aiming ours at him by that point. Sir, if you take our guns and our truck, you might as well go ahead and shoot us in the head now, because it’s just a matter of time before those things make their way out here. From what I’ve learned, they probably already are on their way here. They are attracted to noise.” Patrick was breathing heavily, looking like he was going to hyperventilate.

Shaun patted him on the shoulder. “He’s right. We can give you guys a ride or we can take you somewhere to get a new truck of your own. But just because we are kids, doesn’t mean we deserve to be left high and dry out here. I appreciate you are here to help, but you won’t be doing anything for us if you do what Clare, there, thinks is right.”

Phelps said, “Relax son. We aren’t taking anything, but we do need a ride, and if we can get one of our own, you guys can go about whatever it was you were going to do.”

Shaun nodded, looking over his shoulder and around. Phelps didn’t like the nervousness of the kid and asked, “What’s up, kid? You look like there’s a ghost out in the field somewhere. Is there something we need to be on the lookout for?”

Ellie, who had done her best to keep her mouth shut the entire time, couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Hi. I wanted to let you know that it’s really great and all that you are here, but we learned something really valuable about those things earlier today.”

Phelps went to ask what when Ellie smiled holding up finger. “Sorry. I wasn’t done. When we went down to get Patrick’s medicine, we—or maybe I should say, this young man—accidently blew up our van and the noise from just that brought just about every one of the Turned directly to us in a very short amount of time.”

Phelps said, “So they are big on noise. Is what you are saying?”

Phelps knew the answer, but Kristy, who hadn’t picked up on his understanding, said with a sense of urgency in her voice. “We need to leave. Those things will be on their way here, if they aren’t already. We need to take the highway to get back to town and there isn’t any other way for us to get there, we don’t even have a gravel road between here and there.”

Phelps said, “But those things are still a couple miles away. If they are in town, we should have some time, right?”

Shaun said, “Did you see those things running when they had something that they were after?”

Phelps nodded and Shaun continued, “Well, imagine that pace and they never stop, they never slow down, and as far as we know, they never grow tired. We do probably need to get moving, and the less we blow up or shoot our guns, the better. If you guys have silencers for those guns, it might be a good idea to put them on.” Shaun pointed to the back of the truck and pulled out his backpack. “I picked up an axe and brought my hunting bow for when we only have one or two of those things to take out.”

Phelps was staring at the axe and saw the blood on it already. “You already needed to use that thing today?”

“When we went down the hill I had to save Tina and Ellie. The guy who owned the hardware store, Steven Bynum, had already turned. He had thrown me like a rag doll and I lost my rifle. It took everything I had to make it there in time, and this was the first thing I could grab on the way there.”

Phelps nodded his head and pulled out the same looking fact sheet that Clare had used and looked at the names on it from the report and then back up. He pointed at Ellie, asking, “So you’re Ellie? What’s your last name, Ellie?”

“Why?”

Phelps leaned in with his large frame toward her thirteen-year-old one, which was quite intimidating. “Because I asked you what it was, Ellie.”

Shaun stepped between them and said, “Her last name is Randall. Can you back up a foot or two, sir? You don’t exactly scream ‘friendly’.”

Phelps could see this wasn't going how he wanted it to. He did back up a few feet and went back to trying to be nice over scary. “Well, the report I have said that the next of kin for patient zero, Karen Randall, is Ellie Randall, her teenage daughter. And I can only imagine there aren’t too many teenagers with the name Ellie in town who are also your age. What do you have to say about that?”

Tears started welling up in her eyes and her lip started to quiver. Shaun looked at her, and she buried her head on his shoulder. “Nice, sir. Way to go. Did you accomplish something there? I’m confused.”

Ellie wiped at her face and screamed, “It wasn’t her fault she was at the hospital. She was comatose already; she didn’t have any idea what someone had given her. It isn’t her fault. You guys can’t blame her for any of this. She was dying, damn it!”

Phelps said, “We're just trying to track down Frank Fox, and if your mom was dating him, then I would say you are my new best friend until I find someone closer to him than you.”

Shaun had been trying his best to keep who he was a secret from the men, as he was unsure what they were going to do to him once they found out. There was a good chance, he felt, that they wouldn’t just let him go off on his merry way with his gang of teenagers. “Leave her alone, all right? My name is Shaun.”

Phelps said, “Nice to meet you, Shaun, now get out of the way. We need to ask Ellie some questions, and then we can get out of this field, which sounds like a great idea if there is going to be more of those things coming this way.”

Shaun yelled, “You might want to listen to me. You guys aren't real good about that. You seem to underestimate us just because you think we are just a bunch of kids.”

McClellan said, “You
are
just a bunch of kids, aren’t you?”

Shaun looked at him with steel and determination in his eyes. “Yeah, we are kids, but we are the ones still alive. We made it through day one, we kept your boy here from getting killed, and if you want to know the truth, my name is Shaun
Fox
. My dad was Frank Fox. If you want us to take you to his lab, we can. I’m sure everything is still there that he’d been using, or it could be at the office. Just pray that he didn’t store the information in his head, because he was one smart son of a bitch and didn’t need to keep a bunch of stuff around to look over again and again.”

Phelps said, “Was your dad… he didn’t make it through yesterday?”

Shaun kicked at some hay in the field, thinking about his dad and taking some long deep breaths to fight back the feelings that were pouring through him. “He didn’t make it. We got stuck in a firefight yesterday when we were trying to get to the cabin, and he saved us and got bitten himself.”

The look of being let down was painted on their faces. “Sorry if we don’t believe you, but I’m going to have to see the body. I can’t go back on a kid’s hearsay.”

Shaun said, “You’ve got to be shitting me! Why would I lie about something like that? Hell, I didn’t even want to tell you who I was or that I was his son. I want as few people to know about me as possible, if we can keep it that way. I don’t think many people are going to be very friendly with me for… well…
ever
if it gets out about my father and what he did.”

Phelps said, “Sorry. I don’t know why you would lie, but I do know that if, by some weird chain of events, I was the one who set loose a world of hell on America, I might not be raising my hand to claim responsibility.”

Shaun shrugged. “We can go up there. We can waste time if you want, but I’m guessing
 
that your mission at hand is somewhat time sensitive.”

Phelps motioned for the men to get in the back of the truck, and they did as ordered. “We need to verify it. I’m sorry that were going to have to put you through it, but we need visual confirmation about it, and that’s really all there is to it.”

Tina walked back to take the driver’s seat again, and Phelps whistled. “You can sit in the back of the cab with the other girls. We’re going to be doing the driving for a while; seems like we might have a bit more experience than you.”

Tina shrugged, opened her door, and brushed at the broken shards of glass from the seat. “Good. I’m over this driving thing, anyway.”

Phelps tapped Shaun on the shoulder. “You get up front with me and ride shotgun. I’m going to need some directions, obviously.”

He looked at his group, not liking having to waste the time but realizing these guys weren’t going to take the word of any kid. Greg said, “Go ahead Shaun it’s okay. We can get up and back. It won’t take more than a couple hours right? I can handle these guys.” He grabbed Patrick around the neck, pulling him off balance. “Besides, I got Patrick, here. We can handle some SEALs.”

Clary walked up next to him. His barrel chest and midsection was as large as Greg’s and Patrick’s combined. He crossed his arms, still chewing on the cigar. He looked down at Greg, who was tall but nowhere near his size, and said, “You, uh, want to say that again, smart ass?”

Greg let go of Patrick, who put some distance between himself and Greg, not wanting to be thought of in the same light as him when pissing off a bunch of guys with much larger guns than his own. Greg smiled uneasily. “I’m kidding. Christ, don’t you guys have a sense of humor?”

McClellan said, “This is serious shit, kid. We don’t joke around; we are SEALs. Get in the truck. Now.”

Greg jumped into the bed, helping pull up Patrick. Clare climbed in, and the girls piled into the back of the truck. As McClellan was climbing into the back, Clary placed an iron grip on his shoulder and leaned in close. “You have got to be kidding me. Did you just tell that kid that SEALs don’t joke around and managed to keep a straight face?”

McClellan laughed shrugging. “He doesn’t know me from anyone else. It’s not my fault they don’t know me from any other complete stranger. If they want to take me seriously, probably best, right?”

They climbed up, pulling the tailgate shut. Phelps started the truck and drove back toward the tree line. Shaun said, “We need to go back toward the road. You’ll never get there trying to go up these hills; turn around.”

Phelps kept driving until they got up close to the tree line, where he could see why Phelps was driving that way. Aslin came out of the woods with a rifle on his shoulder that looked as long as Ellie. He was dressed in a suit made entirely of leaves, twigs, and what looked like hay from the field. Shaun had to keep focus on him to not lose him in the woods. “That suit is effing great. How do I get one of those things?”

“You go to the military and you learn how to do camouflage, kid.”

Shaun was nodding his head, thinking that the chances of anyone going into the military after yesterday were slim and that those currently in it were going to be stuck in it until death. He didn’t see how there would be enough resources available to be able to provide any decent soldiers.

“I bet they got something like that at the sporting goods store that is probably going for the low price of free right now. To bad it won’t keep you safe forever.”

Phelps pulled alongside Aslin, who climbed up on the truck tire and into the back of the now very full truck bed. Greg looked at the gun and at Aslin’s suit. “You look badass, man.”

Aslin nodded his head, shaking loose a smoke from a pack. “I am badass, kid. It’s a lifestyle.”

Clary pulled down his sunglasses, unable to deal with the bullshit he was capable of producing out of his mouth.

Shaun said, “You ready for directions yet?”

Phelps nodded, turning the truck around and heading back toward the road.

Shaun pointed the direction back to the cabin and looked over his shoulder at Ellie and the girls. Shaun laid his head back, closing his eyes for a second. He took a long deep breath and tried to relax himself. Phelps looked over, seeing this and couldn't help himself. “You look a little nervous, Shaun. Something wrong?”

Shaun smiled, still with his eyes closed. “Why would I be nervous? I’m about to watch my father be unburied by five complete strangers who are armed to the teeth and want to find all of his research in town—where there are a freaking ton of those things absolutely everywhere.”

Phelps nodded and tried to think of what he should be asking the kid and realized he probably didn’t know anything useful. “You think you guys are going to be able to survive up wherever this cabin is that you have? It seems like the population is going down like wildfire, at least the alive portion of it.”

Shaun opened his eyes and looked at the man with an angry stare. “That’s kind of a dumb question to ask, isn’t it?”

Phelps didn’t like being addressed this way when he knew it was meant to be full of disrespect. “What do you mean it’s a dumb question?”

Ellie couldn’t help herself. “Well, right before you got on the plane to get flown in and dropped off in the middle of a field, did your general… or major… or whoever it is who tells you to do things say, ‘Oh, by the way, boys, do you think you have a rat’s ass chance of making it out alive? Or do you think those crazy zombie-creature-people who are super strong and fast are going to eat you and then make you one of them?’”