Outbreak: Boston (41 page)

Lacey stood up and crossed the room. “Let me help you.” he said quietly as he took one of the dead man’s ankles. “I’ll be damned if you’re going to clean up my mess.” The man’s face was still pale and he still looked shaken up.

“It’s okay, man.” Frays said quietly as she put a hand on Lacey’s arm. She smiled weakly at the man and motioned towards a table and chairs close to the windows at the front of the clubhouse. “If you want to help go sit over there and keep an eye out, okay?”

Frays sort of wished she had taken Lacey up on his offer to help by the time she had dragged Holder’s body all the way across the parking lot. She almost could not believe how much the last month or so had worn her down as she wiped the sweat off of her forehead on her sleeve. Amy drank some of the water out of her camelbak as she trudged back across the parking lot and paused to pick up the two long guns lying on the blacktop before coming back inside.

Lacey watched Frays searching the dead with morbid interest and kept throwing nervous glances out of the window. Amy could not help but feel a little pleased as she put the guns on the table with the rest of the stuff: one of them had an M4 and the other had carried an M1014. She had seen some of the grunts and jarheads carrying the twelve gauge shotgun and had always wanted a closer look at one but never asked. Such a question could (and probably would have) been taken completely the wrong way, leading to a total misunderstanding and somebody getting his face slapped.

She turned out the pockets of Reynolds’ gear. “I found four M4 mags. I’ll split ‘em with you. Got about a dozen nine mil rounds too.” Frays said as she set the stuff from Reynolds’ pockets with everything else. Strangely, there was a plastic container of one hundred hollow point .22 LR caliber ammunition in the man’s cargo pocket. She frowned at the box on the table, trying to figure out what it might mean. “How many rounds you got left for your M9? I’m down to one mag and some change plus one in the pipe.”

Lacey thought for a moment and looked at the woman across the room. “I’m still full up on pistol ammo. I haven’t even fired mine yet.” he said quietly. Waves of nausea crashed around in his stomach and he fought them back. He did not want to throw up, especially not right in front of Frays. “Take them if you want them.” Adam watched out of the corner of his eye as Frays ejected the magazine from her pistol and started thumbing the loose rounds on the table into it.

“Okay, I’ll be back in a minute.” Amy said quietly as she slipped the magazine back into place and slapped it into the butt of her pistol. “Keep an eye out, alright? I’ll take him across the road and dig a hole. See you in a few.”

“Sure thing, boss.” Adam said with a weak grin as he turned his attention back to the window. He noticed a small pile of Holder’s brains on the floor after Frays had dragged the body outside. Lacey leapt up and ran to the head with a hand clapped over his mouth.

Amy stood glaring at the two bodies, her hands trembling at her sides. She wanted so badly to just leave them for the crows, especially Holder. Not just for holding a knife to her throat but for making her feel so…dirty. She had felt his penis growing hard against her butt, his breath on her cheek… Frays jammed her hands into her armpits and stormed off towards the truck.
I’ll do the decent thing and bury them
Frays thought angrily as she walked back
but I’m sure as heck am not going to take the time and dig two holes for those animals
. It took a couple minutes of hunting, but she managed to find a short handled shovel in the back of the Humvee and returned to where she had left the bodies.

She forced herself to think about something else as she dug. How was she going to help Lacey? Amy could tell he was doing his best to put on a brave face but the whole thing had left him badly shaken up. She had
unfortunately been there and done that, but Holder and Reynolds had been in his squad. They were obviously not friends, but Lacey still probably knew their families, their friends… Frays shook her head as she continued to dig.
He really is a good man
Amy thought as she threw another shovel full of dirt on the pile near the foot of the grave
He didn’t deserve to have this happen to him
.

That thought brought a fresh wave of anger: Sergeant Emery had been good and so had Jacobson and Jean and Eamo
n. They were good people and they did not deserve what happened to them, either. She started to dig furiously, trying to concentrate on the task to try and derail that train of thought.

It took almost an hour but she finally stuffed the two dead men into the hole and
started filling it in. When Frays finally finished the young woman whacked the shovel against the dirt, slowly at first then harder and faster. A few angry tears sprung from her eyes as she swung the shovel as hard as she could. Frays found herself hating them, hating them more than anything she had ever hated anything in her entire life. Not just because of what they wanted to do to her. No, she realized that she hated them because they had stolen something from her friend. It was something deep inside that he could never, ever get back. She knew. She knew how much it hurt to lose that. She was hoping that he would get to hold on to that…call it innocence or a little part of his soul or whatever for at least for a little while longer.

The handle of the shovel snapped in two. She stared at the head lying on the overturned earth, her chest heaving as she struggled to catch her breath. Frays glanced at the broken handle in her hand then tossed it into the bushes and wiped her brow with her sleeve. Her shoulders sagged as she walked back to the clubhouse.  

An idea occurred to her after a few paces. There had been a box of .22s in Reynolds’ pockets, which meant he had to have had a .22 caliber rifle or pistol but there was not one on him. It was likely that they had ditched their packs somewhere nearby and hoped to steal their Humvee then pick them up again. Frays paused in the middle of the parking lot and looked around. Where did they come from? Reynolds had said they had fortified a house on the other side of the golf course. Amy scowled and tried to figure out where they might have stashed their gear.

Frays scratched her cheek and grimaced when her hand came away sticky with blood. She continued on her way into the house and locked the door behind her. “Hey, Lacey.” Frays called as she replaced their makeshift barricade “Listen…what direction did they come from? Did you see?”

The skinny Marine nodded his head. “Yeah. They came from the trees a little ways from where you buried them.” he said quietly. Adam was sitting in a chair by the window right where she had left him. “What if they had people with them?”

“I dunno, man.” Frays said quietly. The acrid metallic smell of burned gunpowder and blood hung in the air. She went around opening windows to try and get a little ventilation in the room as she considered what Lacey had just said. “Hopefully they didn’t. They didn’t seem like the sociable types.”

Amy went into the kitchen and came back with some dishrags and a pail of soapy water. She watched Lacey looking out of the window as she put on the rubber gloves in her mask carrier and started trying to get some of the blood up out of the carpet before it soaked in too much. The guy seemed lost in thought, barely paying any attention to what was going on around him. “Lacey, could you check on Rodriguez for me?” she asked as she wrung the rag out in the bucket and sopped up a little more of the blood. 

A strange thing happened as she carefully picked up a piece of skull and dropped it in the bucket.
For a brief moment she was breathing through the filter of her gas mask, tasting the salty sweat pooled in the chin of the stifling plastic and rubber mask. Her hands felt clammy in the heavy rubber gloves and she could hear people screaming, children crying…

Frays squeezed her eyes shut and took a couple deep breaths, thankful that
she was back in the clubhouse with Lacey and Rodriguez when she slowly opened her eyes again.
Where the heck did that come from?
Frays wondered as she continued trying to get the worst of the mess out of the carpet. Not that she particularly cared about the carpet, but if they were going to stay here a few more days Lacey did not need to see it the whole time.

Rodriguez stirred and opened her eyes when Lacey pressed his index and middle finger against the woman’s carotid artery. She squirmed against the straps holding her to the stretcher but Adam put a hand on her shoulder. “Shhh…shhh.” he said quietly, smiling a little bit as Frannie started to calm down a little “You’re alright. Everything’s okay. Just relax.”

Lacey felt Frays at his side. “Hey, lazybones.” Amy said quietly as she stood by her friend’s head. “I was wondering when the heck you were going to get up.”

Rodriguez laughed weakly. “Thirsty.” she muttered and tried to sit up again, pressing against the straps across her chest and waist. Frays smiled so hard that her face kind of hurt as she put the bite valve from the woman’s camelbak in her mouth. A shocked look came to Rodriguez’s face when she got a better look at Frays.

“Don’t worry.” Amy said quickly as she gave her friend what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “It’s…um…not mine. I’m alright. Do you need anything?”

Rodriguez looked around as much as she could as she was still strapped down to the stretcher. “Eamon? Where are you?” she asked in a weak voice. Frannie looked at Frays and saw the woman’s mouth scrunch up as she blinked rapidly before her friend could hide it. “What’s wrong? Where’s Eamon?”

A cold ball of dread settled into Amy’s stomach. She frowned and looked down at her boots for a second before turning to Lacey. “Lacey…can you go keep watch for a minute?” she asked, doing her best to keep her eyes from tearing up. Frays swallowed hard and looked at her boots again as the Marine moved off to take up a position near the windows. She took her friend’s hand and squeezed it. “You got shot in the leg yesterday. Eamon needed supplies to patch you up. T-there was a hospital near here so I had Lacey watch you while me and him went inside to get them.” Frays swallowed again, paused to catch her breath and try and still her trembling hands “The place was full of those…things.”

Tears started streaming out of Rodriguez’s eyes, already guessing where this story was going. She squeezed her friend’s hand as tightly as she could, feeling torn between wanting Frays to continue and telling her to shut the fuck up. She started to feel strange, like she was miles and miles away. Frannie looked at Amy, who stood there looking like she was barely
keeping it together herself. “Shut up.” Rodriguez said quietly and looked away. “Just shut up. I don’t need to hear any more.”

Frays nodded and held her friend’s hand in both of hers. “Sure.” Amy said quietly as she pulled a couple paper napkins out of a dispenser on the nearest table and wiped Frannie’s cheeks for her.
Rodriguez thought suddenly of her mother, who had held her hand and done the same when she was in the hospital and cried harder. Amy continued holding her hand and drying her tears until they finally started to stop. “Are you hungry? We’ve got plenty of food.” Frays said as she gently rubbed her friend’s shoulder.

“No.” Rodriguez said quietly as she shifted on the stretcher and let out a small yawn. “Tired.” Frannie blinked several times and yawned again. She just wanted to go back to sleep again.
Hopefully this was just a bad dream or maybe some kind of hallucination brought on by the sweet, sweet narcotics she could feel floating around in her bloodstream.

Frays opened up Eamon’s bag and started digging through it. “Wait just a minute, Frannie.” she said as she frenetically started pulling out the various bottles of pills inside and looking at the labels. “Are you allergic to penicillin?”

“No.” Rodriguez muttered and stretched again.
Damn it Amy, would you just let me get some fucking sleep?
Frannie thought with a sudden stab of anger that she was really too worn out to sustain. She heard Frays shake a bottle of pills then woman held something up to her lips.

“Here, take this.” Amy said quietly as she popped the pill into Rodriguez’s mouth and helped her wash it down with water from her camelbak. “It’s penicillin. Don’t want you to get an infection, do we?”

Rodriguez snorted after she had swallowed the pill and squirmed, trying to get comfortable again. “Can you guys get these straps off?” she asked quietly, frowning as she shifted her weight around on the table.

“I’ll loosen them.” Amy said as she tugged some slack into the straps. “We might need to move in a hurry and I dunno if you can walk just yet.” She gave Rodriguez enough room to move around a little, but they could tug the straps tight again with little effort. “There you go. Better?”

Rodriguez mumbled something and fell back asleep. Amy stood by her side for a moment, that cold ball rolling around in her stomach.
This has been a long day
Frays thought as she glanced absently at her watch and shook her head.
It’s not even freaking noon yet
. She went back to cleaning the floor and kept scrubbing until she had gotten up the bulk of the blood and tissue. Frays sat there for a minute staring at the blood on her painful fingers then got up and moved over to where Lacey was sitting.

Frays knelt beside the man. “I’ve got to go get this crap off me.” she explained as she looked the man over. His color was a little better but he still seemed a little out of it. “I’ll be right back. Shouldn’t be more than half an hour, alright?”

“Sure, boss.” Lacey said quietly. The two of them looked at each other for a long minute. Amy peeled off her rubber gloves and gave the man’s shoulder a pat before moving off towards the latrine.