The Orphans | Book 8 | Retaliation

she saw the Johnston Soccer Fields, which she had only had a reason to go to a few times. She’d not been big into sports, and her mom, who worked a lot of hours, did not complain when her daughter did not need every waking hour of her own to be taken up with activities. Ellie saw the sea of minivans spread out across the field. Apparently, it had been a soccer day when the outbreak had begun. There were no shortage of people who had not survived the day and who had not had enough body mass to become one of the Turned. Ellie let out a small whistle- it was in no way a shocking surprise, given the fact that everyone had to be somewhere, and the virus had spread faster than anyone could have predicted. It seemed as if it was a zombie wildfire.

Ellie's biggest concern about this was that there was a potential for the Turned to still be here. If they didn't have a reason to move, or they didn't have the promise of food, no smells to attract them, then it basically meant they were going to still be there. Ellie put a hand on Joe's bicep patting him whispering as if they could hear her, “Go real slow, Joe. Go really, really slow.”

“Could you tell me why I'm going to go really, really slow, Ellie?”

“Sure, because the dead could rip this thing apart, regardless of the fact that it is made to take heavy fire. Do you see all of those vans up there?”

Joe let the Humvee roll to a stop, not trying in any way to assume that he knew more than someone that he didn't know anything about. Joe surveyed the area seeing the vans and the giant Gatorade containers knocked over. He could see people who had obviously been trying to flee and had done a horrible job at that. Half of the vans were on the field, some were in the ditches, others had rolled over, and the majority of them all shared one thing alike, every single one of them appear to have had the windows ripped out of them and there'd been no shortage of blood covering them. Even after all this time, there was still carnage leftover from the day that would forever change the world.

And at that exact moment, Joe was wishing that it was dark out, he figured he could either use a spotlight to know if any of the Turned, as these kids called them, were standing around waiting for a fresh meal. Or, he figured, at least he could die ignorant, not knowing about his demise until it had already happened. He had always told himself if he did get taken by one of the Dead, that he would be thankful as hell to not become one of them. The idea of running around trying to hurt people purposely was not something he was too fond of. It was the main reason why he had become a police officer in the first place.

Joe saw no dead anywhere. Joey leaned forward saying, “So, everything looks okay here?”

“Joey, we have no idea yet, buddy,” Joe replied

They started inching forward, taking their time, everybody peering around looking, trying to see if there was a threat. As Joe got closer to the soccer field, he could feel a tightness in his chest that he knew was not going to go away until he got everyone back safely to the base. The bodies that had been left were not something for the faint of heart. It appeared that they had been meals for more than just the dead. Coyotes were one thing that they had thought it could be. There were also a plethora of maggots and flies on the bodies and everyone was very happy for their windows being up.

Kya said, “I kind of want to puke. Would you look at this? You know if we end up winning and taking these things out, we're going to spend a lot longer than a year getting all of those that weren’t as lucky as us cleaned up and buried where they belong and put to peace.”

Ellie could care less about how long it took to clean up the dead. It was the Turned that she was concerned about, and she knew that given all of their ages not a single one of them was going to have anything to complain about. The years they still had left on Earth if they took out the Turned were going to far exceed the years that they've had to deal with having the Turned. Ellie said, “Just think of the payoff. Being able to walk anywhere you want to go, being able to drive, being able to swim, being able to feel peaceful, it's more than anyone who has lived through this could possibly ask for.”

Kya thought about what Ellie was saying, and she did not want to be a Debbie Downer, but at the same time, she also was thinking the only thing that she could ask was for Patrick to still be here. She missed him more every day, especially as the time had passed and she had realized that he was gone forever. Unfortunately, as of right now, she had not seen anyone that would be able to fill the hole that he’d left in her heart. Kya said, “You know Ellie, when you are right, you're right. It would be awesome to get to see something outside of Iowa that didn't have to do with the Turned.”

Joe rolled through; there were soccer fields on each side of them. Everyone looked around like their eyes were going to pop out of their head, knowing that the dead could be everywhere that they were going to be rolling through. When Joe got through the cars, they saw that the bridge was covered with cars. They were