Outbreak: Boston (26 page)

The streets were deserted, giving the place the feeling of a graveyard. The convoy rolled down Main Street. The air seemed close as Frays rolled up her window and asked Lacey to do the same. There were vehicles parked along the sides of the street along with sitting either on flat tires or out of gas in the lanes. Amy steered around obstacles where she could and used her vehicle’s bulk to force their way through where she could not. Lacey shuddered when he thought he saw a few shadowy forms turn to face them in the recesses of the storefronts.

“What happened to your flight sergeant?” Adam asked as he pulled the plastic bag of spaghetti out of the hot water. He shook it for a moment to try and cool it. Lacey’s eyes darted towards the woman in the driver’s seat. She was blinking rapidly, her face creased into a frown. Adam immediately felt like the world’s biggest asshole for bringing the subject up.

“He…died. I think so, anyway.” Frays said quietly. She wiped at the corner of her eye with her thumb. “I’m not sure. Things went all sideways at our checkpoint. A dump truck knocked our Humvee into the river. That’s all I’m gonna say about it.”

A bullet spanged off the roof of their truck a half second after the sound of a shot reached them. Amy mashed down the accelerator, smashing their way past a stalled SUV. The impact drove the Five Ton into the parked vehicles on the right side of the street with a shower of sparks as metal shrieked against metal.

She spared a glance in the rearview mirror and was glad to see that Powers was doing an admirable job of following their truck. Frays spotted a spark as a round ricocheted off the hood of the Five Ton behind her. Lacey was shouting obscenities as they tore through the streets. Someone walked out in front of the truck. Amy stomped down on the brake pedal with both feet and wrenched the wheel to the left in an effort to avoid hitting the person then mashed the accelerator to the floor again.

The truck nearly flipped on its side when she horsed the steering wheel back the other way. She narrowly avoided the person but Frays heard a fleshy thud told her that Powers did not. When Amy glanced at the rearview mirror again there was a thick reddish stain on the bumper of the truck behind her.

After a couple more minutes of frenetic driving it seemed to Frays that they had gotten through the city of West Concord. She sighed with relief. “Lacey, can you get Eamon or Powers on the radio, please?” she asked as she fumbled in her pocket
s, her numb fingers trying to find her cigarettes. “Tell them we’re going to pull over at the first place I can find so we can take a break for a minute.”

Chapter Seven

26 May 2011 0343 hours, Shirley Road (3/4 mile north of MA-117)

It had been almost dark when they made it near Fort Devens a few hours ago. Amy brought the convoy to a halt alongside the wooded lane leading to the base. She decided that there was going to be a fifty percent radio watch: one person sleeping in each vehicle while the other one stood watch and tried to raise someone on the radio every hour on the hour. Hopefully, if there was anybody on the base sitting near a radio, they would answer and come out to meet them.

Eamon did not hold out much hope of there being anyone on the base. Everywhere they had seen so far was only full of infected, save for that assclown that had been shooting at them earlier in West Concord. He wished that Amy had them stop in the town or continued on to the army base and let them hole up someplace there.
He was a city kid born and bred and the strange sounds of the night animals around them was creeping him the hell out. The chubby EMT frowned and looked at his watch then picked up the handset to the radio.

He keyed the mike. “Hello? Hello?” he asked, pausing for a response. He grumbled under his breath and pressed the button on the side of the handset again. “Is anyone there?” Eamon put the handset back and stared out of the window. He wondered what Adam and Amy were up to in the cab of the truck in front of him. He smiled as he thought about what he and Frannie would be up to if she had been able to come with them.

“Looks like it’s just us still, Eamon.” Amy said, her voice sounding tinny and slightly distorted because of the radio. He had seen her climb out of the truck and lean against the side of the vehicle while she spent about five minutes or so smoking a cigarette maybe forty five minutes ago before scrambling back inside. Eamon did not blame her: even if everything was not falling to shit he would find this place unsettling. Personally, he really had to take a leak but he was not about to leave the cab of his truck until sunrise unless the fucking thing started on fire.

Eamon spared a glance at the man sleeping across the cab from him and, not for the first time, found that he was fighting back the urge to smother the cocksucker with his blanket. On top of all the bad shit that Frannie had been through, the fact that one of her own had turned on her had really shaken the poor woman up. He found that he hated Powers with an intensity that he did not know he was capable of because of it.
The power of it actually frightened him a little bit. Eamon made a mental note to ask either Amy or Adam to switch trucks with him on the way back.

The radio squawked in its mount under the dash, startling him. “Stand to, guys.” Adam said over the radio. Eamon shook himself and scowled at the truck ahead of him. “C’mon, guys. Answer up.” Eamon reached over and shook Powers as he picked up the handset.

“Okay, okay.” he muttered into the mike and stuck it back on the radio. Powers was slowly waking up. Eamon found it hard to resist the urge to kick him again as he grabbed his gear and climbed out of the truck. He relieved his aching bladder beside the vehicle before walking over to meet the others.

Frays had her map spread out on the ground between the two trucks. Lacey and Powers had parked themselves on either side of her, the three of them hunched over the laminated sheet of paper. Powers took a
chemlight off of his vest and cracked it, illuminating the map in the early morning gloom after he shook the small plastic tube. Eamon took a knee and looked at the others.

Lacey traced the road they were on with his index finger. “Okay, this is the road we are on right now.” he said, running it up the line to an intersection. The road branched off in three different directions. “If I remember right, this is the way to the supply point.” Lacey’s finger went off to the right fork then north again after about a mile and a half or so. “That’s where they had the Force Provider kits. I didn’t get a chance to look around all that much, but I can only imagine what’s in the other buildings.”

“Sounds reasonable.” Frays said as she studied the map. It had been the better part of a year since she had set foot on the post. It had been a marathon weekend on Fort Devens’ ranges to qualify with her pistol, M4, M203 and a M240 Bravo general purpose machine gun as part of her pre-deployment training. It had been a lot of fun until it came time to clean all the weapons afterwards. “Alright, folks. We’ll drive right up to this supply point. If there’s anybody home, hopefully we’ll run across them. If not, then we’ll see what we can find. Are these warehouses big enough to pull the trucks inside?”

Adam nodded. “
That should work.” he said as he stood up. “That would make it easier to get the trucks loaded without getting swarmed.”

Frays stood up and brushed a clump of dead grass off of her leg. “Okay.” Frays said as she checked to make sure there was a round in the chamber of her carbine. “Make sure you’re weapons are loaded and be ready for anything. After what happened in West Concord, I don’t want to take any chances on the locals being friendly.”

After a couple minutes the two trucks started off, their big diesel engines blowing exhaust up into the leaves hanging over the road. Powers found himself trembling with excitement as they passed through the open gates that were supposed to be blocking the road leading onto post. There was pile of wood and sandbags that probably used to be a makeshift machine gun nest in the middle of the road about a hundred meters or so past the gates. He decided that, if the post was overrun or abandoned (as he was rapidly beginning to suspect), he would suggest that they stop and see if there were any weapons or other supplies buried beneath the rubble.

Their Five Ton followed the lead vehicle down the road as the sky slowly started to brighten around them. Powers judged that it
was probably going to be a nice enough day out as he looked out the window of their truck at the thick stand of trees. “Pretty country.” he said conversationally. He had never been here before. Eamon merely grunted and kept his eyes on the road.

After twenty minutes of driving Eamon was rapidly beginning to suspect that Lacey had gotten them lost. He frowned as they passed by what appeared to be the same gun range for the third time. Powers picked up the handset. “So…you guys planning on having us drive all over
the base or what, Echo Two Zero? Over.”

“Don’t sweat it, HQ Niner.” Frays said over the radio. “We’re almost there.” Not three minutes after she spoke the convoy came to a compound of buildings surrounded by an eight foot high fence with spools of concertina wire on top. There were three large white barnlike warehouses in the center of the fence with a pair of short squat little four story office buildings on the north end. The gates were shut and locked, a sight that Frays found encouraging. Lacey started inching the truck forward towards the fence. “LACEY STOP!” Frays shouted, making Adam stomp on the brakes. Amy
was somehow able to get her hands up to catch herself before her forehead bounced of the dashboard of the truck.

“What? What’s wrong?” he asked. Lacey looked around frantically, trying to see what made Frays yell. When nothing immediately presented itself he turned in his seat and narrowed his eyes at her
, half suspecting the woman of trying to play some trick on him.

“Those gates have center poles sunk into the pavement. If you ram the gate you’ll knock down half the fence and probably shred the tires on the concertina wire.” Frays said as she felt around under her side of the bench seat. Amy frowned when she could not find what she was looking for. “I’ll cut the chain holding the gate shut and open it up then shut it behind us.”

Frays hopped down from the cab of the truck and sprinted around to the back of the Five Ton. She caught a glimpse of Eamon and Powers’ faces as she let down the tailgate and scrambled into the bed of the truck. Frays frenetically searched the truck bed and found what she was looking for: the huge pair of bolt cutters they had packed before they left the school. She held them up so the two men in the other truck could see what she had been looking for.

Once Frays had the gates open the trucks rolled through. Lacey stayed behind and picked her up after she had closed and latched the gate behind them. Amy grabbed the handset and keyed the mike. “Okay guys, let’s go to the warehouse farthest on the left.” she said as the trucks started off towards the building. “Me and Powers will get down to open the door and you guys and close it behind you. Once we clear the building, grab everything useful you can find and throw it in the trucks. How copy?”

Amy shook her head and rolled her eyes when Powers responded with “Hooah.” She looked at Lacey out of the corner of her eye as she prepared to jump out of the truck. “What is it with you grunt types and that word?” Frays asked as she pushed her door open and leapt down as soon as the Five Ton started to slow. Powers ran to the warehouse door and looked at the padlock securing it.

“Eamon!” he shouted as he ran back to the truck. “Get me the tire iron out of the tool kit under the seat!” The flabby medic leaned across the cab of the Five Ton and started rooting around in the green canvas bag on the floor. Powers threw open the truck’s door and started scrabbling around in the bag as well. “Found it!”

Amy stood a small distance away from the man as he struggled to pop the latch off the warehouse door, her carbine at the low ready. She spotted a figure about six hundred and fifty meters away coming towards them. The airman frowned and slapped the magnifying module into place with the heel of her hand as she brought her M4 to her shoulder, pulling the rifle butt in tight. The figure revealed himself to be pallid with a large festering open wound on his face. His formerly white starched shirt was spattered with dried blood.