Greg said, “Well, for the most part it’ll buy me some breaks from pissing off Clary, I can hope.”
Shaun held the picture up, “We need to go tell them if they haven’t already found it. We can check out the house later, there’s nothing going anywhere.”
“I think if I’d have gotten bitten, I would have nose-dived that thing and crashed it into a million pieces and took all those asses out with me.”
“What about the other survivors?”
“I don’t know, but I wouldn’t want to become one of those things and that’s no question.”
****
Clary pointed to the door to a Morton shed. The house was a stand-alone with no garage, so their best and only hope to find a car that wasn’t parked out in the fields somewhere would be inside the Morton shed. The only other place would potentially be in one of the barns, but people probably weren’t going to keep their running cars in there, he figured. Earl said, “You sure it was smart to go sending them two boys by themselves?”
Clary slid the joke right past Earl saying, “I don’t know, Earl, I’d say no probably. I mean, I sent the two best I got with me or on that base for the most part off on their own and away from me. They got a really good end of the deal by doing that.”
“But don’t you think they're scared?”
“No, I think having you on my six is scarier than anything.”
Earl nodded his head, missing the joking insult. Scott actually snorted to which Earl asked, “You got a hairball, Scott?”
Scott smiled, giving a thumbs up. Clary motioned for Earl to swing the doors open. He had already turned on the flashlight attached to the end of his rifle. When Clary took the lead, Scott walked in between the two of them. It hadn’t dawned on Clary to hand over a gun. Young Greg had zero interest in giving up any of his firepower, especially to someone he didn’t know and who wasn’t going to have his six. He knew Shaun would be ideal to have with him. Clary was jealous as hell of the two at the moment because of it.
Clary felt a small amount of pressure rise off his shoulders when he exited the barn. That was quickly replaced tenfold when he saw the Morton shed which was twice as big as the old country house the boys were exploring. He knew what the inside of these buildings looked like, but most of the ones he’d encountered were overseas and had the SEAL team’s gear in them and bunks. He hadn’t been around a whole lot of tractors in his time. But it was his guess, given the state of the barn’s emptiness. The guy had to have something somewhere, unless he was just one of the weirdos who was a fan of living in the country and driving an hour into the city every day, but as far out as they were, he didn’t think that was the case.
Earl said, “I’m sure glad to have your back, right now, nothing like being able to count on the one behind you, right?”
Scott looked at his pitch fork, wondering what the hell he was thinking walking around with this stupid fucking thing. He had seen those things in action and unless he stuck it through their brain, they would reach forward, probably even more pissed off, grab him by the throat and rip it from its place. Leaving him standing there staring at his own guts. He’d also be leaving his son an orphan, which by the look of the base, he wouldn’t be the only one, but that wasn’t his goal nor would he let that happen.
Clary said, “Well, I can’t tell you how good I feel about you guys on my six. Scott that’s one helluva nice pitch fork you got there. I’m sure there’s some hay somewhere you could use that on.”
Scott knew how stupid he looked and just smiled, raising his middle finger off of the handle.
Earl said, “You want me to go in first?”
“I’d love for you to go first, but the only light I have is on this gun, and I don’t think it’d be too smart for me to let you go in on your own and blind with only a pistol.”
“You sure you wanna go?”
“Just make sure you guys don’t forget to come in, or at least you, Earl. Scott, no one would blame you for staying outside. Kind of wishing Greg would have been a little more willing to loan out his pistol, but if you don’t have it, you can’t use it.”
Earl walked to the barn door and said, “Okay, I’m gonna count to three. So, when I get to three, I’m gonna pull it open, or do you want me to say three and then signal and then open it, or do you want me to count to three and then you nod to me and gimme the okay and then I open it or…”
Clary put his hand up to Earl’s never stopping moving mouth. Clary looked to Scott who said, “Gunless guy probably ought to open the door anyway.”
Clary would have winked but remembered the eye patch and that it wouldn’t probably have the same effect given the current circumstances. Scott did a one-two-three and pulled it open. Clary had about three seconds to process what he was looking at before action was what needed to be taken.
Earl saw them first and didn’t even try to count. The rafters had Turned standing staring off into the nowhere. Those on the ground seemed to sense the light first and turned, racing towards the door. Clary was going to have him close it but they’d just knock it down. It might even make things
