“You realize if I wasn’t blind and that I’ll need your help that I’d totally snap my foot off in your ass, right? I'm not fifty for god sakes. Christ, I'm barely forty-five years old. I still have the best years of my life ahead of me.”
Greg laughed a little wiping at a tear that was fighting its way out. “You know who says things like that?”
Clary bit and said, “Who, people who are still trying to hold on to something good?”
“Nah, old dudes say that, so you’re old.”
Clary said, “You know what, Greg?”
“Yeah, don’t even say it. I already know. It’s times like this that you couldn’t be happier to have never had kids,” Greg said.
Clary patted him on the shoulder and then pulled him in for a hug. He said, “Nah, if I had kids, Greg, I think I’d probably be pretty fucking lucky if they ended up like you. Come on. Let's go over to the medic then we need to tell those kids that it's okay to get out of that bunker, and we also need to make sure that there isn’t any of the Turned in there having a feast on our blood bags.”
Aslin was staring at Clary and praying that the only other member from his Seal team wasn’t going to be blind forever. He would take care of the guy until his dying breath but he seriously worried about how long he would be able to survive, or how he would be able to handle the handicap. Aslin whispered to Clary, “Hey, are you okay, man? You look like shit.”
“Well good, because I feel like shit. I’d hate to be having a great looking day and feel like shit. Get us over to the medic building and then we need to swing by the armory and figure out what it is we’re going to do.”
“What are you thinking that you want to do? Don’t you want to wait to see how your eye is doing?”
“I want to do a clean out of my eye and see how it is doing. I may be able to see, it’s hard to tell with bandages over my eyes, definitely not as easy as it could be to see if that was the case, if you know what I mean?”
The small group walked over, Clary yelled to Aslin. “Hey, you going to go with us, Lou? I’d like to know what you think Joey is looking like after that quick patch job you had to do on him.”
Lou said, “No, I think I'm going to stay here for a while with my girls. I have some serious thinking to do.”
Ellie who usually was as respectful as she could be to most adults snapped. She said, “You told me that Joey was going to be okay, that it wasn’t that bad of a wound. Now get off your ass and go over there and check on him. He’s going to get an infection or something that is stupidly easy to fix but that we don’t know what to look for. You daughters are gone, your heart is broken, and you feel like you have been let down. I can understand that, really I can. You have a job to do and you have been doing it probably longer than you have had kids or a wife. You help people; that is what you do. You do it on good days and bad and you are going to keep doing it today. If you want to get everyone taken care of then we are going to reorganize and we’re going to go rain hell on those bastards’ doorstep. We won’t leave any of them, not one still alive. If they want to fight, they’re messing with the wrong goddamn group!”
Aslin just stared in awe. He had always thought that if anything happened to the two of them that he would be having Shaun groomed to take control. He already knew most people looked up to him on the base regardless of the history of the dead and what made it start. He said, “Christ, girl, with speeches like that you might have to be the one in charge. That was some motivating shit.”
Lou bent down giving each of his daughters a kiss on the head and nodded. “Alright, let's go take a look at how bad it is. If you guys can’t live without me then I can stay until Joey is better at the least. I want retaliation though and I want blood for it. Those bastards came here to kill and there’s no reason why they deserve to keep on going.”
Greg said, “We’re going to get those guys back. We just need to figure out something smart to do it. They got their asses kicked coming here because we knew the layout and we had our supplies. We need to figure that out before we go after them, or have something crazy enough to keep them busy while we pick them off.”
Shaun was staring at the dead strewn across the yard out the door. He looked up seeing Scott holding position with the sniper rifle and realized for the first time that they had never had this few people on the base. He turned to Aslin and Clary and said, “You realize if we have less than twenty people left on this base that clearing and moving would not be that hard, right?”
Aslin said, “What are you talking about, Shaun?”
“I’m saying if the blood bag idea works that we could clear out Des Moines and start working our way east.”
“Why east?”
“Why west? I just figured the White House is east, right? If things go all to shit on the coast maybe we can get a boat. We surely have enough supplies here to make that trip ten times over and never go hungry.”
“And where are we going to go on the boat there, sailor?” Aslin asked.
“I don’t know everything, Aslin, but if I haven’t beaten the subject into the ground it is time to take these damn things out. We have the knowledge to show people how to do these things that can get rid of the dead. Imagine if others knew how to do it then we’d have a chance. We won’t gain any numbers but I’m sure as hell confident we can put a dent in theirs.”
Greg, who didn’t sugar coat anything, said, “I’m sorry but this conversation is making my brain hurt. Are you really serious about driving across America because you want to show people how to take out the Turned? I mean is that what is really happening right now, like you are saying these words and genius Shaun doesn’t have any bells and whistles going off saying how stupid this is?”
“Is that the nicest way you can say that it is a bad idea, Greg?”
“When it is my best friend, yeah I think that it is. But really that idea is genius. But we don’t have that kind of time to waste. God knows how much time we wasted on this base over the last year and how many thousands or hundreds of thousands of people have died across the world,” Greg said.
Aslin cut in and said, “Oh Jesus, would you just spit it out, Greg. My mood right now isn’t one that I would mess with, son.”
Greg said, “Oh my God, you're dumb too, you were the reason I had the idea in the first place.”
Aslin placed a hand on Greg and realized he had to lift his hand higher, the fact that he had gone through a growth spurt had passed him by.
He said, “Okay, smartass, out with it. What genius did you figure out because of me?”
Greg looked around smiling devilishly. He said, “The web, dude, we can make like a video of it and then we can put it on the web. Billions of people, or however many are left, can watch it and see how we’re killing them. It is the smartest and fastest way to get the word out there. We can put it online everywhere possible. Hell, we could stick someone behind a bank of the computers on base to send out messages to every country in every language. It doesn’t take a genius to see a blood bag, plus the dead, plus a bullet to the head, right? It shouldn’t be too hard with the exception of them getting said blood. I’m sure if they think hard enough that they’ll be able to figure something out.”
Shaun rubbed his hands through his hair annoyed that he hadn’t thought of it. “Really, how did you think of that before me? Oh, that sucks. I mean it is a great idea, which is really annoying the hell out of me.”
Aslin leaned over as Greg walked off and said, “You didn’t have the heart to tell him we already talked about it, did you?”
Shaun said, “No, there wasn’t any reason I needed to shoot his puppy.”
Clary who’d been sitting impatiently while they discussed all this interjected and said, “Don’t worry about the blind man that is waiting to get looked at in a real medical facility. I’m sure none of this conversation could be taking place while we’re letting Lou get to his work, while we have him at least.”
Lou gripped his bicep. “Come on, Clary, I can go ahead and take you in there. That place was locked down tight when we left, there isn’t going to be any dead in there as long as those kids listened and didn’t open back up again once they were secured.”
Aslin watched as they left and the rest of the group sat there hashing out plans quickly trying to go with the momentum while they had the opportunity to do so.
Clary said, “So, I know you haven’t had much time to think about what I said, but do you think that you might consider staying, Lou? It really won’t be the same here without you. There’s so much you could teach these kids. I know it's all kill the dead, but saving the living is something that we need to know about too. I know it sounds ironic coming from a Seal but these things are going to be lost eventually. We’ll be little better off than cavemen but there’s going to be an expiration date on the shit you know. If you don’t show these kids, when you are gone, it is gone with you. You think that we want a trained army of our own? Hell no! What I want is these kids to be able to make it, I’m not immortal and I’m aware of that. I’m reminded every fucking day when I wake up and feel injuries combined over a lifetime. Even more so today after almost going blind, which is still yet to be seen…literally.”
Lou actually laughed a bit at this. He was thinking that smiling was going to be something that would take effort for a good time to come. He was having issues trying to tell himself to keep going. The thought of giving up to the dead and letting all his pain and suffering be taken away all at once was almost as enticing he thought as a drug addict to what they used to get their fix.
“I can understand and appreciate what you are saying, Clary. I have to agree that the more we can teach these kids the better off they’re going to be, and who knows, they might even be able to use some of that information they learn to help us one day. I know that I sleep a hell of a lot better knowing that Shaun, Greg, Ellie, and all the others were walking the grounds while we took time to rest. There’s a lot to worry about right now with all these things. The fact that the gates are all fucked up again isn’t doing anything to make me feel at ease. I will stay for a bit unless I change my mind, Clary. Honestly though, the first thing that I want to do is kill those bastards!”
Clary said, “Let’s check on my eyes, please, and the kids that are in the fallout bunker. What is the second thing you want to do, Lou?”
“I want to bury my daughters. It is one of the things that I don’t think very many people are afforded the luxury to do nowadays. I want them to have a proper grave and casket. I want them to be put to rest in the way before all this shit started, before hell came to our front doors.”
Clary said, “I’ll help you make the graves, Lou. We all will, I’m sure. We can see about rounding up some caskets for them and for everyone that was one of ours. We’re going to need a fucking semi, sadly enough, to get enough back here, but there is no reason that they don’t deserve it. They died without having a chance to fight back. I tell you we are done going forward not having weapons on those kids at all time. If they know how to use them, then they’re walking around heavy and loaded from now on.”
Lou started walking Clary back wishing that rule already would have been in place a long time ago. He thought of Hammond and the fact that Shelman had had his brains blown out. He noticed that he wasn’t with Shaun or the others and said, “Hey, can I ask you a question, Clary?”
“I'm an open book, Lou. What’s up?”
“Where is Hammond? I thought that he went with the group earlier that went out to get Aslin’s supply list?”
“He was with them, but come to think of it I don’t remember hearing him when they came back. I don’t want to ask right now, I think that we both know the answer that we’re going to get. We can check later. There’s been far too many lost today though. We will not have a day like this again!”
When they entered the medic building Lou walked pistol up knowing he’d hit little but felt better than not having anything at all. He fought to put Clary in a wheelchair but he finally gave in and sat in it. Lou had told him that it was hard enough leading a blind man around so he didn’t walk into shit. When they made it up to the bunker Lou called on the radio and said, “Hey, open it up, we’re good to go.”
The lock gave and you could hear the pressure being let out with the air whooshing as it did. Lou knelt down lifting the door up the rest of the way and taking in the innocence of all the kids that had survived. He counted ten thinking of the five that were outside and the numbers made him sick. They had lost over three fourths of their people today and it was a horrific number to try and deal with. Lou looked at the innocence in their faces and felt guilty that they had been kept in there for that long. One of the boys, Jeff, pulled himself up and out of the hole. He said, “We thought that you guys were all dead. We were worried that we were going to be stuck in there for days. I’m glad that there are supplies in there but we were seriously thinking about freaking out. Not to mention the fact that Joey is down there and he was still asleep on the cot you guys carried him down on.”
Lou patted him on the shoulder not ready to really have a deep conversation with a teenager if he could forgo it happening. Lou ducked going down and saw the cot with Joey on it. He noticed the boy wasn’t sweating heavily or more so than normal.
When he checked the wound the blood had stopped and the staples he’d put them in were holding the way he had prayed that they would. He smiled, looking up, thinking that at least he had done something for the good of others that day.