The rest of the kids in the group were all around fourteen to fifteen, he noticed. He thought how Greg was probably the oldest person in the group now. A girl named Jessie stepped forward and asked, “Hey, Lou, did they get anyone else, did those crazy guys get anyone?”
Lou nodded slowly. He said, “They came straight for the bunk house. Fox saved your lives with his blood bank idea. If you would have been out on regular duty or in the bunkhouse you would more than likely be dead right now. Those men came straight in ready to kill and nothing else on their mind, including trying to talk or negotiate for whatever it is they wanted. Clary, Ellie, Kya, and Scott took out most of the men. The dead showed up pretty soon after and Ellie and Ricky did the majority of the chopping so don’t freak out when you go outside and see a lot of armless zombies laying around everywhere.”
Clary yelled from the top of the stairs and said, “You left a blind man on his own. Do you know how much trouble I can get in on my own up here, Lou? If I start randomly reaching out and grabbing things, it might get pretty awkward in here pretty damn quick.”
Lou said, “Hold your horses, I want to get Joey out of here and back where I can give him a better exam. This kid is going to make it, damn it. You are too, at least half of your vision, I hope can be saved.”
The kids gasped when they saw Clary in the chair with bandages over his eyes. The man had been the figure that didn’t get hurt, and that knew everything. They had relied on him to be the one going forward that was going to be able to make them into temporary Seals until the day that all of the hell was over and they could go about living normal lives…given that ever happened.
Clary said, “I know you are all sitting there staring at me making me feel like an asshole. Now get your asses moving, carefully please, and run over to the armory, if you aren’t carrying then you should be. If you don’t know how to shoot then make sure that you still grab a rifle. Worst case scenario they come back and see you with guns and decided there’s too many of us to make an attempt on the base again.”
Jessie said, “Wait, you think that they’re going to come back? I don’t know how to shoot those freaking guns. We’ve only been here a month and we haven’t learned yet. What are we supposed to do?”
“You stay out of the way of those who do know how. Stupidly easy idea for you. If you tag yourself along to someone who knows what they’re doing you could think about being their back up. You take their rifle when it’s empty and have a new one ready for them. You think that you could learn how to load the guns for the shooter, you trade back and forth and that barrels going to be able to go a hell of a lot longer than if you are loading one after another.”
“Oh, I know all about clips.”
Clary tried not to squint his eyes when the girl said clips. He said, “You learn how to change the magazines not the clips and then you might have a chance. We’re going to be going on a little field trip here real soon, so I think another bit of time in the bunker, or if there is somewhere else we can stash anyone not going, might not be a horrible idea to think about.”
“Wait, we just lost basically everyone who isn’t standing here and you think the best idea you can come up with is for us to learn how to load guns if the assholes come back. What are you talking about with going on a field trip, which I’d love more explanation of that, then we are to just hide until you get back?” Jessie asked.
“You could dig graves too but that is up to you, kid.”
“Could you at the very least tell me where it is that you want to go?”
Clary smiled and the blood that had crusted on his cheeks cracked leaving small amounts of light skin showing. He said, “We’re going to go to their base of operations and we’re going to raise hell until every single last one of them is dead. I don’t mean we’re going to go kick the shit out of them, I'm talking about taking ten thousand rounds with me and unloading on every last thing they have there. Their survival, if at all possible, is going to be harder because of the fact that they were ignorant and cocky enough to try and take the base.”
Jessie was nodding slowly and said, “You guys are all insane. Really, we could take everything, we could leave, and what choice do you want, you want retaliation.”
Lou put a hand on her shoulder and said, “Please stop talking; you don’t know what you are saying. Those men came in and took both my daughters. They took friends and loved ones. Any of those kids in there that had parents here with them from our apartments we saved don’t have them anymore. I can’t handle any more loss and if they think that they can go and take care of the threat then I’m all for it. This base was safe and a good place where good things were being taught. Those men came here and destroyed everything and all of our progression. We were going to be able to take a long stand here. We could have survived for a long time to come.”
She took a deep breath thinking of what he said for a second and gave him the first hug he’d gotten in a long while. Lou gripped her back and the girl practically disappeared inside of his giant forearms. She said, “I can’t breathe, Lou.”
“You’ll be okay, just let me enjoy this for a second.”
She started to say something else but when the tear drops started dripping onto the top of her head she shut her mouth. She knew that showing affection and caring for others was rarer now than it had ever been and she was thankful, in all honesty, to have someone giving her a hug as well.
She walked behind Lou as he helped carry Joey and she pushed Clary along to the examination room. When they made it there she helped him up to a table where he sat waiting and trying his best to be patient.
Clary hadn't realized that Aslin was in the room and thought that he could enjoy the quiet for a moment. The moment did not last long when he said, “What the fuck did I get myself into. God please don’t let me be blind, I don’t think I’m strong enough to deal with it.”
Aslin wanted to give him a hard time and thought how it would probably be wrong but quickly came to terms with being able to do that. He said, “Well, thank God for you, Clary, that you are lucky enough to have me in your life and to look out for you. Just let me ask you one thing.”
“I can’t take any more bad news, Aslin, if it is anything like that just wait till later. We still have a full day of shit ahead of us.”
“No, nothing that serious. I just wanted to ask if you get an eye patch if you’d like to be called Captain Clary, you know like a pirate.”
“You know how you always tell Greg how you never wanted kids and that he’s a hell of an example why that is?”
“Yeah, and what of it?”
“As much as I love you, Aslin, I’d have to say that I feel right about the same way for why I’m so happy that I got to be an only child. But I’m going to hold your ass to taking care of my gimpy ass if I really am blind. I’m pretty sure that they don’t have any schools for the blind that could help me out at this point. God, I can’t imagine trying to walk around anywhere blind in this shit. I would not go anywhere for anything.”
“Well, unfortunately for us, you know the chances of us staying here forever are pretty slim. So, when Lou checks you out you let him do what he needs to or you are getting strapped down to this damn table. You got it?”
“Your bedside manner is something that all nursing schools should have taught back in the day.”
“You want me to get one of the rectal thermometers, make sure that you aren’t running a fever?”
“You do that and I promise you that you’re going to think the Daredevil walked in here.”
Aslin patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll go check on Lou. I want to make sure he’s doing okay. He kind of looks like his life got ripped out of him today.”
“He lost his daughters, Aslin. He did lose everything that he had. I hate to bring it up but I never heard Hammond when you guys came back home. Did he make it and I didn’t hear him or…”
“We split up at the store we went to. We got everything we needed but that wasn't until after we had found a small horde in there, man were they pissed. They came from everywhere, I almost didn’t come back. I don’t think they’re getting stronger, thank God, but they aren’t getting any dumber either. The ones that came here getting their arms chopped off didn’t seem too damn bright, but good luck having a crowd missing an asshole, right?”
Clary smiled unable to help himself, “You'd think between the two of us that we could have gotten that lucky, but alas we didn’t. You go check on Lou. I would really like to know how Joey is, it breaks my fucking heart that kid got shot but I’m glad he at least took care of that little bitch. Anyone who can follow the rules of being civil and helping out are welcome here and those fucks sent in a spy, a teenage girl on top of all of it. I had a conversation with one of the men who wasn’t killed. He didn’t want to talk very much at first but we saw eye to eye eventually.”
“What did he say?”
“That they came from that place in Johnston that we’d checked out a few months back. There is someone called Cade that planned for all of it, the kid was his and he was just as scared of what that man who was miles away was going to do as the man standing over him was. In his defense he had assumed that I, being temporarily blinded, was going to in some way help him.”
“He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, I decided that he didn’t deserve to live and snapped his neck. The last thing I had seen before shit hit me in the eyes was all those teens we’ve spent hours training, and watching trying to adapt to an abnormal life, lying dead.”
“It is going to put some strain on people keeping this place up and going with all that are gone. We barely have a dozen people left, and some of them don't even know how to shoot.”
Clary said, “We start again, we rebuild, but anyone that has a pulse carries a gun with them going forward every single minute of the day. I don’t care if they just woke up they have a gun on them. The threat of having one is almost as good as knowing how to use one.”
“I’d rather them know how to use it.”
Clary laid his head back on the bed; the bright lights of the room were coming through in small amounts through the bandage. But he was only seeing something from his right eye. He was pretty confident of Lou’s assessment that it was not going to be useful going forward. Aslin said, “Are you going to be okay?”
“Yeah, there isn’t much good in crying over spilt milk is there? I thought you were going to check on Lou?”
“Just didn’t want to leave you sitting here in the dark until you were ready.”
Aslin walked down the long room. His heart sank when he walked past Kya and Ellie. Ellie was doing her best to console her but she was having a very difficult time coming to terms with Patrick’s loss. He put a hand on her shoulder, “Kya, he was a great kid, probably my favorite out of any of you guys. He just did what he was told and didn’t complain about it. I’m really sorry about it, sweetheart.”
“Yeah, well doing his job led him to this. Would you look at him? What kinds of people act like this, look at him for God sakes. Just an hour ago he was looking forward to meeting me after his shift was over, now would you look at him? Who does that, there’s like a million zombies for every person out there, don’t you think banding together instead of having wars with people is the way to accomplish winning this battle we have. Jesus, they must be morons, don’t they know this is a war? This fight is probably the most important world war that has ever taken place. What are these ass clowns doing, they’re out killing innocent people because they’re worried about what we will do to them because one group of theirs was taken out by us?”
Aslin rubbed his back and said, “Yeah, they’re monsters, Kya. I promise you they didn’t realize when they pushed us how fucking hard we were going to push back. I'm going to take an embarrassing amount of bullets and explosives with us and we’re going to blow their asses back into the Stone Age. It isn’t going to bring Patrick back, but it is going to make me feel a whole lot better about things. If they don’t think we deserve to live, then I’m not going to waste my time trying to talk them into granting us life. I am very confident that if they had any fucking clue at all whose door they were trying to knock down that they would have cut their losses and walked away.”
Ellie said, “So, you’re like a little pig in a house? Is that what you are saying?”
Aslin turned and walked away slowly patting Kya’s back one last time. “Ellie, you just ruined my entire speech. No, I'm not a little pig. I’m the big bad wolf that the pig has no clue is there yet.”
Ellie smiled a little wiping at the tears and laughing. She said, “He’s starting to grow on me, you know that?”
She grabbed a dark comforter and the two of them spread it over Patrick. “Thanks, Ellie, I don’t think I could stand to see him like this much longer. There are plenty of other memories that I have with him that are a hell of a lot better than this.”
“Yeah, as much time as you two spent on your own out there I’m sure that there are. Those are probably the ones that you want to focus on anyways.”
She laughed a little wiping at her tears. She said, “Those were good times. You know you wouldn’t know it but…
”
Ellie held up her hands and said, “No, no, no, no he was like a brother to me, those are details I don’t need in my life. You go ahead and hang on to those. I need to go check on Shaun; I barely got to see him when he got back.”