The Orphans (Book 2): Surviving the Turned (9 page)

Tina and Ellie looked at Shaun then his face as they came around the corner themselves. When they saw the legs, they understood what he was freaking out about. Tina and Ellie joined in on the dry heaving for a moment before they backed away, shaking their heads. Tina got the furthest away from the legs and pointed. “That’s just messed up. Seriously. What the hell happened to normal? Do you remember normal? It’s definitely not a finding a half-eaten mechanic who was catching a smoke out back.”

Shaun stopped for a second, not liking what he was probably going to have to do. “Wait…” He held up a finger to give him a second. “Wait, what did you say?”

Ellie spoke, “You said a mechanic out back catching a smoke, right?”

Tina nodded her head, shrugging. “Yeah, you’ve never seen a mechanic smoke? Really? Do you two even live in Adel?”

Ellie, looking pale, smiled and hugged her. “Do you realize what that means?”

“That you’re dumb and you want to try smoking, maybe?”

“Gross! No! Mechanics have the worst hours, besides the car salesmen, right? So maybe there are keys in the pocket of his… of the pants.”

Tina smiled then instantly wiped it off of her face. “I’m not sticking my hands in the pants! No way.”

Ellie opened her mouth to say something smartass in nature and closed it, realizing that she didn’t want to do that task either. They both looked at Shaun, who wasn’t even going to debate the fact that he didn’t want to do it. He got down on one knee and patted the man's pockets until he felt what he was looking for. He opened it with a knife and pulled out the keys, bringing on a fresh bout of dry heaves. “That sucked something fierce.”

Shaun looked up, jingling the keys that he thanked God were not covered with blood or some other horrible thing. They walked back to the side door and tried key after key until one finally fit in the slot. Shaun twisted the door, and the three entered slowly, looking around the dark space. Shaun shined a flashlight around the space and realized they were in the office. They found a light switch and flicked it on; the halogen illuminated the room one by one until the yellowish glow was all through out it. After noticing that Shaun was still shining on the ground, she asked, “What are you doing, Shaun?”

“Making sure that there isn’t any blood anywhere.”

Tina pointed under a desk. “Better check over there too. I’ve had my fill of these things today. I’d love to be on our way home ASAP, if we can.”

Once they deemed the building safe, they found a locked box in the office with a label that read
KEYS.
Shaun grasped the crowbar that he’d picked up earlier and took a swing at the cheap metal box, smashing it open. Ellie laughed. “Good thing we didn’t pry it open using the crowbar part of it, huh?”

“Hey, it’s open, right? It’s not like there is anyone in here to ask for help.”

Shaun opened his mouth to continue his defense when a wooden door slammed open from the upstairs entrance. A greasy-haired man in his late sixties stumbled out wearing only a stained wife beater shirt that fell short of covering an impressive beer belly and a pair of what might have originally been white underwear.

Tina laughed at first sight, as did Ellie, but they both quickly came to the same conclusion that while this man looked like a slob, he was very much still dangerous as hell. This immediate feeling held true due to the fact that he was aiming a double-barreled shotgun dead center between the two girls.
Shaun pressed his back against the wall next to the office door, staying out of view of the large man.

              The girls flinched as if they were going to run for it, and the man finally spoke in a country twang accent. “Ya’ll can run, but I gots no problems with shooting me women, you hear me now?”

He cocked the hammers back and flashed a tobacco chewer’s stained smile at them. “Don’t let one dumb decision make ya ugly the rest of your lives. There’s enough buckshot in this here shotgun to make sure nobody gonna recognize you ever again.”

Ellie kept her hands up waving them. “They’re up. Relax, please. We are so sorry… we didn’t know anyone was going to be here.”

“So robbin’ a place that’s empty is a better thing. Is that how ya’ll justify shit?”

Tina said, “What I meant is, you’re the first person we’ve run into or seen who’s still alive.”

“Well, of course I’m the first you’ve seen. It’s not even six o'clock in the goddamned morning. The fucking town’s still asleep. Hell, the diner don’t open until seven on Mondays.”

Ellie looked over at Tina, whispering as lightly as she could, “I don’t think he knows.”

The man aimed tighter and stepped a foot closer. “What you whisperin’ about that you can’t go and let ol’ Walt know, huh?”

Ellie started, “You don’t know—I mean about the town. There was an outbreak and everyone in town is either dead or a zombie.”

“You damn kids; start smoking that marijuana… and I’ve seen Oprah. She said it’s one of them damn gateway drugs. Just the first step to a life of hell and regrets.”

Ellie said, “Uh, sorry… we aren’t on drugs. Would you look at us? Do we look like junkies?”

Walt looked down and up at the two teens, seeing that they did appear healthy. He took a second glance at Tina, concluding she was very healthy indeed. “Well, if yous ain’t on the drugs then you are one of two things. I guess you know that.”

Tina said, “What’s that?”

“Well, it ought to seem pretty damn simple. I can explain it though. You see, I figure you are either real stupid—which I don’t think either of you are—or you two are a couple of goddamn car thieves.”

The man approached the two, forcing them to back up away from the open office door. When he stood under the yellow lights, the girls could really see the man’s darkened red face, which was most likely normal for him, based on the drunken slur of his voice. “So, what is ya? Car thieves? And where in the hell is everyone who opens the shop for me? Bunch of no good, lazy bastards. I should fire the whole lot of ’em, damn it.”

Ellie said, “You don't understand. If you just look outside, you’ll see what I’m talking about. You’ll know what's happening and that we aren’t thieves… well, maybe we are, but we figured anyone still in town is one of the dead, the Turned, the zombies.”

“Zombies? Like the Romero type?” The man lowered the gun for a moment, extending his arms, mimicking the ancient zombies incapable of running and only interested in brains.

Ellie shook her head no, speaking before she could think. “Oh hell, no. Those kind of zombies would be easy to deal with. You’ve got to be kidding me. These things are like wolves hunting in packs; they’re killers out for blood and they don’t care who or what is in their way.”

The man shook his head up and down real slowly, trying to take in what the young woman was saying to him. “You know, I kind of do think that you just might be insane.”

Shaun who’d had the rifle aimed at the back of the man’s skull was done being patient; every minute they spent in town was just one more where someone or something was going to come after them. He stepped up slowly and silently behind the old man as Walt continued with his drunken tirade. “Well, what do I do to you? What am I supposed to do? If I let you go, you’ll just come back… your kind always does. I’m calling the cops, damn it.”

Shaun got within a foot of the man and placed the end of his barrel up next to the man’s head, parting his bushy, greasy hair with it. He pushed it firmly against his skull and said, “Sir, if you somehow missed all of the carnage and death that happened on Sunday, you should consider yourself lucky. But one thing you should do first is lower that shotgun. You’re currently aiming at two of the few things I have left to care about in life.”

The man said, “Who the hell do you think you are, kid? Get that damn gun off of me now, boy.”

He tried to turn around, but Shaun pushed harder with the rifle and said, “We are just trying to survive. Unfortunately for you, you’ve got a lot to learn and a hell of a short time to learn it. If you have supplies, sir, then I suggest you just stay here safe and sound; if not, I say get the biggest truck with the most gas that you have and drive until you find a safe place. Oh, and don’t go to Des Moines. It’s been completely overrun.”

“You kids are all crazy, you know that? What the hell do you all want then?”

“For now we just want one SUV; that’s it. You got anything more than just that shotgun here?”

              “It’s all I need to take care of your type.” He set the shotgun down, and Shaun motioned for Tina to pick it up. The man laughed. “Well, at least let the cute crackhead be the one to shoot me.”

Tina and Ellie both looked at the man baffled. Ellie said, “We aren’t going to shoot you. Now show us what these keys go to.”

              The man walked by a fire alarm and started to reach for it. Shaun screamed, catching the girls, who were unaware of this, off guard. “Don’t you dare touch that fire alarm, for god’s sake; you're going to bring on every one of those freaks out there. If you seriously don't know what’s going on, then I’m doing you a huge favor. You got plenty of trucks here and they aren’t going to do you any good going forward. You aren’t ever going to sell another one of them again. Just get us one and we’ll leave and you’ll never see us again.”

              “Well, as soon as you leave I’m calling the damn police and they’re going to throw your skinny asses in jail, you hear me?”

              They walked up to a large truck on the showroom floor where one of every model was out for display. Ellie opened the door and read the number on the tag. Tina ran back and grabbed the right key. After they turned the key in the truck’s ignition, they saw the gas gauge was sitting at three-quarters of a tank. Shaun hoped the gas pumps were still working; he wanted to have any extra gas that they could collect for the big gas-eating vehicle.

Ellie pointed at one of the efficient cars on the floor that was two wheel drive and small. Shaun shook his head no. “It’d be nice if we could take more with us, Ellie, but we need something that will let us go anywhere anytime. Think about wintertime the snow out in the woods can be brutal. In bad conditions, this thing might have a hard time getting out on that gravel road. Remember, going forward, there isn’t going to be any snow removal.”

              Ellie said, “Yeah, it’s hard to think of the world in that way. I guess I keep hoping there is some way they can cure those things.”

Walt was listening to this and getting a little curious about what they were discussing. He started peering out into the street but saw nothing. Shaun saw him and said, “If you go up to the roof, sir, you can see exactly what I’m talking about. Shoot them in the head, or they will tear you apart.”

The man just stared at the group of kids. “Look, you little shits, I don’t know what you are talking about. God, I just wish that you’d leave. I’ve been upstairs since Friday, determined to get through two bottles of Templeton, and this week I finally won. I haven’t even came back downstairs since we closed shop on Saturday.”

Shaun took the shotgun from Tina and unloaded it, ejecting the two shells. He handed them to the old man then walked the shotgun over and slid it across the floor far from his reach. Shaun opened the tailgate and the rear door, putting everything in the backseat. He took a big whiff and came back out. “You gotta love that new car smell, right?”

Tina started the vehicle and pulled up to the doors that led to the infested streets. Shaun punched the door to go up and yelled back at Walt, “Shut these doors as soon as you can and get that gun loaded back up. Then get upstairs and go have a look for yourself. Good luck; sorry about, well, about all this.”

As Tina pulled into the street, Shaun ran out behind her, jumped into the tailgate, and closed it. Walt staggered up to the door, screaming and shaking a fist. “You little bastards! You're just a bunch of pieces of shit. Do you hear me? I hope they throw the goddamned book at you, damn it. It’s too early for this shit, and I’m still hungover.”

He pulled the security alarm located next to the door and the sound erupted through the building. Shaun whipped his head back around, yelling from the window to get inside but it was too little too late. The man’s blind rage did not allow him to focus on anything else but the truck and the teenagers who took it. When he finally heard the growling, he turned to see a mob of blood-covered people running toward him. His eyes grew wide and he turned to run into the shop. His old legs weren’t enough to get him to where he needed to be though.

As he ran in through the garage, he hit the red button to lower the door; it came down slowly, inch-by-inch. He ran for the shotgun. “Goddamn kid couldn’t have just left the gun sitting somewhere.”

He knelt down next to the shotgun, opened it with shaking hands, and loaded it. He turned around as he slowly rose to a crouch—as much of a crouch as his aging back would allow—and shouldered the shotgun, using the Cadillac that Shaun had slid the gun beneath as a barrier. At first, he heard nothing, but then the sound of growling filled the space until that was the only thing he could hear. The growling wasn’t coming from one individual; it sounded like hundreds, as though packs of monsters had converged upon his dealership. He peeked around the rear of the car and took a quick glimpse. Men and women, all looking like they had lost their minds, were roaming in front of the large glass door.

He stood, walking slowly to the office. He wanted nothing but to get out of there but knew now that opening the front door was probably a bad idea. He still didn’t know what the hell the kid was talking about, but in sixty years of living in the city, no one had ever looked like or made a sound like those things. As he approached the alarm to turn it off, the large group of Turned stopped directly in front of his door; they were wise to sounds and knew immediately that it was coming from the inside. As he was punching in the code, he thought one of them was going to attempt to see inside the window past the glare.