Outbreak: Brave New World (15 page)

Amy looked
dazedly at him, a cold blanket wrapping around her brain making the whole scene seem kind of dreamlike. “Oh.” she said quietly. Frays could hear Carl starting to cry behind her but it sounded like he was miles and miles away. The airman swallowed hard, glancing at her brother as if she did not quite get what was going on. “Do you need any help?” Frays asked. Amy sounded almost like she had found her subordinate taking out the garbage and thought he could use a hand with it.

Carl looked in disbelief at his sister then spun on his heel and sprinted into the house. Amy watched him go then, almost robotically, went into the back of the Humvee and dug
around inside, looking for the vehicle’s prospector toolkit. The woman frowned when she realized that the shovel was missing then remembered what happened to it. She had broken it the day she buried the men who had wanted to… Frays blinked and grabbed the pickaxe.

Rodriguez grabbed their bags out of the vehicle and followed after the boy.
She caught up to him in the laundry room just inside the door. Carl was sitting on the floor struggling with the laces to his work boots with tears pouring down his face. Frannie dropped the bags in the corner and knelt in front of him. “Here, buddy. Lemme help.” she murmured as she reached out and gently helped him remove his boots. Rodriguez hoisted the younger man to his feet and stood awkwardly in front of him.

A noise at the front of the house startled them. Rodriguez instinctively pointed her M4 towards it then remembered that the kids were somewhere in the house. “Oh shit.” she whispered
and lowered the weapon. She smiled awkwardly and put a hand on Carl’s shoulder. “C’mon, Carl. Why don’t you go take a shower? I’ll take care of the kids and stuff. Just take it easy and I’ll fix us some dinner in a little while, alright?”

Lacey had gotten Jessie and George
out of the house and dragged them onto the rocky soil around the side of the building. Frays shook her head. “This won’t work, buddy.” she said flatly as she stared at the ruined bodies of her parents wrapped in their plastic burial shrouds. “There isn’t enough dirt here. Let’s take them down by the lake. It’s better. Dad always liked to fish too.”

He waited for Frays to pull the rubber gloves out of her mask carrier and put them on then the pair of them struggled through several trips up and down the stairs, first with the tools then with the bodies.
Frays unwrapped her father’s body then stooped over the tattered corpse and unsnapped the holster holding his pistol then took the magazine carrier off his left hip, tucking the 1911 and its accessories into the map pocket of her LCS. The two of them took turns digging graves and buried the bodies, dumping the three deactivated zombies into a single separate hole. It was almost dark by the time they finished.

Amy stood there trembling as she stared at the freshly overturned earth that covered her parents. She was vaguely
sort of aware of Lacey there next to her. “Thanks, Frays.” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. They were both filthy and sore, utterly spent both physically and emotionally as the ground consisted of only about six to eight inches of topsoil covering several feet of heavy sodden clay.

They stood there for
God knew how long side by side seemingly shocked numb by everything that happened today. Adam found himself somewhat surprised to find that he was holding Amy’s hand. He did not remember taking it in the first place. His cheeks were wet, the tears leaving little trails through the dirt on his face. Frays was not crying but she was holding his hand so tightly that he could feel her fingernails digging into him through his gloves.

The sound of footsteps on the stairs startled them out of their fog. “C’mon inside, guys.” Rodriguez said gently as she
walked up to them. She paused and looked at the graves then looked back at her friends. “It’s late. Take a shower or something and relax. I’ll get dinner started in a few minutes. Paulie and Becca want to see their daddy.”

Amy and Adam let Frannie herd them up the stairs and through the back door.
Rodriguez replaced the braces on the door and made sure the deadbolts were locked up tight once everybody was safe and sound inside. Frays stumbled down the hall towards the living room headed for the rocking chair then corrected course and made for the back bedroom. Carl watched his sister go in and come out a few minutes later with a pile of bloody bedclothes in her hands. He could only shake his head angrily, a few fresh tears leaking out of his eyes.

Frannie got busy in the kitchen since she did not know what else to do with herself
. She took down a couple big cans of beef stew from the cabinet over the stove. There was an awful mess in the cabinet as a couple bullets had punched holes in the door and splattered cans of stewed tomatoes all over the inside. Rodriguez frowned and popped the can’s pull tabs then dumped their contents into a large saucepan. She got a spoon out of the drawer and scraped out the last few stubborn globules of vegetables, meat and gravy with it. By the time she heard the washing machine start up the food was already bubbling.

Frays stumbled back out into the dining area where she
tripped over the step down into the living room as if she did not even see it then collapsed into the rocking chair next to the couch. Rodriguez frowned concernedly into the stew as she stirred the contents of the pan. Frannie swallowed hard suddenly remembering the vials of sweet, sweet narcotics in Eamon’s bag.
Fuck you!
she told the craving and shifted her weight from foot to foot, twitching uncomfortably as she wrestled with temptation.
They fuckin’ need you sober right now. Don’t you fuckin’ do it you fuckin’ bitch!

Lacey and his children sat on the couch holding one another with a frenetic desperation. Rodriguez ladled the
contents of the pot into bowls and carried them to the table then stood there, shaking her head. Everyone seemed lost in their own little worlds. Frannie reflected that while she could at least hold on to hope that her mother was still alive somewhere her friends had just buried their families. “Soup’s on, guys.” she announced, hoping that they heard her.

Frays got up and hugged her little brother after he had extracted himself from the recliner. He wrapped his arms around her, suddenly bursting into long loud sobs as he pressed his face against the woman’s shoulder. The boy’s body wracked with grief, she eventually helped him back into the chair. “Don’t worry, buddy.” Frays said as she picked one of the bowls and a spoon off the table and brought it back to him. “Here ya go, Carl. Eat up.”
she told him as she had when they were children and Amy had looked after her brother when he had the flu.

Amy said the blessing this time; though she had to stop several times eyes squeezed shut to keep from breaking down. That done she forced herself to mechanically spoon the lukewarm stew into her mouth and swallow it.
The stew was salty and pretty good even though she was really not in the mood to eat anything right now.
Mommy’s gotta keep her strength up.
Amy thought as she shoveled another spoonful of potatoes and gravy into her mouth. It probably helped that it was pretty salty as she found herself craving anything salty lately. “Could you pass the salt, please?” she asked Paulie.

Adam could not help but smile a little bit as he watched the woman upend the shaker over her portion of stew and shake it a couple times. “Geez, Frays. Like a little
stew with your salt?” he asked, feeling a little of the funk he was in burn off when Amy sort of snickered and raised an eyebrow at him.

“I just can’t seem to get enough of the stuff lately.” Frays admitted quietly as she set the shaker aside, stirred up her stew and started eating again. It was seemingly just right: salty enough to make her mouth pucker and her face scrunch up. The kids laughed at the funny face Amy was making, which caused Rodriguez laugh as well. Carl set his bowl on the
little table next to the recliner and stood up, curious to see what had everybody so worked up and snorted laughter himself as he went to get her a glass of water.

After dinner
they took turns in the shower and conducting personal hygiene. The hot water had felt heavenly on her sore shoulders and aching back, easing some of the numbness out of her arm as well. She had considered taking some of the codeine or something from the bag stowed safely out of the children’s reach in the towel closet next to the shower stall. The woman might have actually done it if concern for her child had not won out over the throbbing electric pains shooting down her arm.

Frays was just coming out of the shower when
the washing machine dinged. She went into the foyer to put the contents of the washer into the dryer before rejoining everyone in the living room. Amy stared at the red stains on the sodden white bed sheets and the realization struck her like a hammer blow between the eyes. Mom and Dad were both really gone. This was not just all a bad dream. Or a bad dream within a bad dream or whatever the heck was going on. Their corpses were in a pair of cold damp holes just a few hundred feet from the house. The strength left her legs and she sat down hard, unable to tear her eyes away from the deep red stains on the fabric in her hands.

Lacey stood in the doorway of the laundry room/foyer, looking at the woman sitting in the middle of the floor and staring at the bed sheets in her lap and shuddered.
It has Laura and her mother’s blood on it...
he thought, disgusted and horrified all over again as he recalled what had happened earlier in the day. He knelt beside her and gently pulled the sheets out of the woman’s hands and put them back in the washer. It took him a moment but he recalled how to best get bloodstains out of fabric.

He came back with a bottle of shampoo, dumped some into the machine and started it again. “There.” he said quietly as he
crouched beside Frays. It did not look like she was crying or anything like that, which he guessed was good. If anything she seemed to be in a kind of shock. A small smile tugged at his mouth. In spite of everything he had the feeling that Frays would be super-omega-ultimate pissed off if he had caught her crying because she outranked him or something. He could not help but find it kind of funny. After everything they had been through together she was still caught up in little stuff like that afraid that he would think less of her for it or whatever. The man sat down beside her after a moment, leaning against the wall and listening to the washing machine’s low mechanical thumping.

Lacey’s eyes went wide for a moment
when Frays scooted across the floor and leaned against his chest, her dark hair still damp from the shower just under his chin. A brief fit of anger ran through him. Was she just waiting for something to happen to his wife so she could put the moves on him? There was not anything to the shit those idiots they were holed up with were talking back at the school, was there? Adam snickered when he realized that he was being completely irrational. Frays was not like that at all. And she was his friend: if she needed a hug after burying half her family she could have it as far as he was concerned. Hell, he had to admit that he kind of needed one himself.

Frays murmured sleepily and squirmed closer to him, leaning against
Lacey’s chest and trapping him when her now infamous snore started rumbling out of her throat. Adam could only chuff a little laugh and try and move into a more comfortable position. Amy’s LCS was digging into his ribs, so he wriggled a little bit until the offending piece of gear was not gouging into his chest. Her hair smelled faintly of strawberries and there was a slight aura of some other pleasant scent around the woman. He could not guess whether it was her natural smell or some kind of soap she had just used. Either way he liked it. Adam held her tight and smiled when she squirmed against him and murmured into his neck. “What are we gonna do now, Amy?” he whispered and hugged the woman. “What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do?”

He sighed and gently ran his hand up and down Amy’s arm. She shuddered and flinched against his chest, one leg kicking reflexively as a low groan escaped her lips. Adam squeezed her and shook just enough to rescue Amy from whatever nightmare she was having. “You were having a nightmare.” he told her when she glanced up at him. Amy nodded and fell back to sleep. Adam smiled a little bit as he started slipping off to sleep himself.