Outbreak: Brave New World (21 page)

“Holy fucking shit.” Rodriguez said after a minute or two. A smoldering finger of ash protruded from the
filter of woman’s cigarette. “Holy fucking shit.” This was way, way worse than Eamon’s…misunderstanding. Fuck no, he did not misunderstand
shit
her boyfriend had sexually assaulted Amy in a hangar at Hanscomb Air Force Base. He had apologized, even cried a little, but fucking shit… Frannie’s thoughts dissolved in a flurry of confusion, grief and directionless anger.

She licked her lips and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand as she suddenly fought back the urge to go take a couple of pills and nod off or maybe try and find some booze. She never really got to know George that well but he struck her as the type to have a little whiskey or bourbon stashed away in the place somewhere. Even if it was only a little pint bottle or something that and a couple of Percocet would set her up for a few hours…

“We’re gonna be okay.” Amy said, watching her friend as if she could see the thoughts buzzing around in her head like a swarm of angry bees. She guessed that they were some of the same thoughts careening around her own head. Frays sighed heavily as she watched Frannie out of the corner of her eye. “Just calm down. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

“Would you just fucking shut up, you bible thumping bitch?” Rodriguez shouted, suddenly furious with the woman sitting next to her. Frannie was on her feet, pacing from one end of the deck to another, spewing a
mile long string of obscenities under her breath. “How the fuck can you even stand to be in the same room with that asshole?”

“I-I don’t know.” Frays said quietly.
“I…I dunno, Frannie.” She was still sitting on the deck, looking at the ground through a gap between the two by fours. “I get so mad it scares the crap out of me…so I just don’t think about it. I liked him…you know…before he told me. He’s one of my guys…so I look after him. And…well…I want to forgive him, but…goddamnit” an embarrassed expression came to Amy’s face making Frannie smile a little. Frays grimaced and quickly made the sign of the cross “I want to forgive him because he begged me to and he’s such a nice guy but I can’t I just can’t do it and I hate myself for it…” A few hot tears leaked down Frays’ face and she batted them away with the side of her hand “He’s been
so
good to me…trying to…I dunno…make up for it or something. I mean…I’m not stupid. I really want to but I
can’t
…” Amy looked up at her friend, a lost sorrowful expression on her face. “Then my mom and dad and Laura… I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

Rodriguez found that she could only stand there a foot or two away from her friend, shaking her head.
She crouched in front of Frays knowing that she should not but still offering the woman her cigarettes. Amy waved them away with a hint of a grateful smile. Rodriguez chuckled under her breath. “C’mon.” Frannie said after a long and somewhat awkward moment “Let’s get inside. All this Doctor Phil shit’s starting to annoy the shit outta me anyways.”

Amy kind of half smiled
and chuckled then blew her nose then made an effort at slapping her game face back on as she looked at the floor. Frays’ dark brown eyes met Rodriguez’s for a brief moment. They were friends, sure, but in their own way closer than Amy and her brother. Amy extended her hand and Frannie took it, helping Frays climb to her feet. They clapped each other on the back, an awkward half hug. “Yeah.” Frays grumbled, wiping at her cheeks. Amy started towards the sliding glass door. “You done? I think we need to have another group meeting.”

Chapter Six

17 June 2011, 0844 hours 4 Old Trout Lane, 10 miles north of Holden, Massachusetts

The six of them sat around the table, lingering over the bowls of
the oatmeal Carl had fixed for breakfast. There was a little brown sugar in a plastic Ziploc bag, which they sprinkled into the lumpy hot cereal to make it somewhat more appetizing. Amy tried to look like she was not nervous. “Well, I hate to say it, but I think you guys should get going.” she said quietly over the rim of her coffee cup. Her heart settled into the pit of her stomach. “It looks like it’s going to rain later, so don’t be too long, alright?”

Lacey and Carl stood up and stretched then collected their backpacks and other gear. Frays checked their gear in the dining room, making sure the two men had enough water, spare food and ammunition. “Okay, guys.” she said as she gave Lacey one of the M4 magazines out of her LCS
. Frays gave the man an intense, warning look as he secured the ammunition in a carrier. “You’re just going to the Drakes’ cabin about a mile or so north of here. If you follow the lakeshore, you’ll come right up to it.”

Carl had his father’s Remington 870 shotgun in his hands.
The forest was pretty thick around where they were going and the twelve gauge shotgun would do better in the brush than the long barreled Mosin-Nagant the boy usually carried. He smiled nervously at his sister as she took the weapon from him and made sure it was loaded. Frays tugged on the bandolier of twelve gauge shells thrown over the boy’s shoulder then shook his canteen and checked the contents of his backpack. “Be careful, guys.” Amy said, returning Carl’s awkward smile. “If nobody’s there grab what you can find and come back.” Frays counted the items on her fingers “Canned food, flour, sugar, first aid supplies, TP…Frannie, am I missing anything?”

Rodriguez frowned thoughtfully. “I don’t think so.” she said quietly. The little ones looked nervous.
Frannie found that she could not blame them. “C’mon kiddos. Give your daddy a hug then help me with the dishes please.” Becca and Paulie squeezed their dad and kissed him then took their bowls to the sink. “Be careful, guys. See you in a few.”

Amy lightly punched Carl on the arm. “Go on, get out of here.” she said with a small smile. “Watch yourselves. Remember, when you get back knock twice then jiggle the door handle once so we’ll know it’s you.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Adam grumbled then winked at Carl. “We’ve got it, Zoomie. We’ll be fine. You just keep an eye on my kids, alright? You need the mommy practice.” He looked like he wanted to say something else to Amy but could not bring himself to say it. The Marine clapped Frays on the shoulder instead, the two of them exchanging uneasy little grins.

Carl and Lacey went out the back door and around the house, looking around nervously as they heard Frays and Rodriguez securing the door behind them. They went down the stairs to the lakeshore then started off north towards the cabin. “You know where we’re headed?” Adam asked quietly as the two men picked their way carefully through the fir trees growing along the side of the water. He found himself wishing that
Frays’ map or the road atlas covered the area a little better. Frays’ map only showed the Boston area in any detail and the road atlas did not even show the road the cabin was on so they decided to leave it at the house so they could have more space in their pockets for more mission essential gear.

“Yeah.” Carl said carefully. There was a carpet of pine needles under their feet, dampening their footfalls but there were still twigs and dead branches hidden in the detritus strewn along the forest floor. He considered what they would do if they stumbled across a deer or something. He had slugs loaded up in the shotgun, but would they drag it all the way back to the house? Butchering the animal in the woods
would probably make more sense as those…things…would probably follow the smell of the carcass. He had to wonder if the smell of the dead fish had drawn the zombie that attacked Mrs. Lacey.

The walk there was relatively uneventful, save for the occasional squirrel or bird taking exception to their intrusion. Carl kind of wished he had thought to bring one of the .22 caliber rifles along to take small game.
Oh well…
he thought as they halted a couple hundred yards from a wooden dock that jutted out into the water
Have to remember that for next time
.

The two of them cautiously picked their way along the shoreline. The trees had been cleared from the water up to a single story house, leaving
a gently sloping lawn that had not been mowed in quite some time. The place looked like it was empty from a distance and in reasonably good shape. The cabin’s wooden shingles looked like they had been stained possibly as early as last summer and the two huge picture windows facing the lake were intact. Lacey studied the building with his field glasses trying to see if the place was as empty as it seemed.

He paused, frowning as he looked around the area. There was no movement around the place and if there was a car or anything it had to be on the opposite side of the building.
There was a big grey satellite dish bolted to the roof, facing south. “Okay, looks clear.” Lacey whispered as he put the field glasses back in his rucksack. “There’s a door on the east side of the building. We’ll go in there, clear it and if nobody’s home then see what we can find and beat feet.”

The two men crept quickly across the overgrown lawn, Lacey’s heart in his throat the entire time.
It was about three hundred meters or so from the trees to the building but it felt like a mile. Once he got to the house, Adam led Carl along the side to take a peek and see if there were any vehicles parked in the driveway. It was on the other side of the house so they could not see it from their previous position in the trees. “Shit.” he muttered under his breath. Adam nodded towards a black Jeep Grand Cherokee sitting in the gravel driveway. “Know who belongs to that truck?”

Carl stole a quick glance around the side of the building at the vehicle and nodded. “Yeah.” he said quietly. All of a sudden he felt kin
d of nervous and twitchy. Well…even more nervous and twitchy anyway. “That’s Mister Drakes’ Jeep.” The boy was quiet for a moment then wondered aloud “If they’re here, where are they?”

Adam shrugged. “Dunno.” he said, returning to the door he had seen from the trees at the edge of the lawn. Was somebody asleep in there or something? Anybody inside the house would have seen them coming through those big ass windows
… The two men stacked up at the door. Lacey wiped a few drips of sweat off his brow then put a hand on the handle.

Adam reached out and tried the door, amazed and concerned that he found it open. They stood in a small kitchen and dining room, all chrome
dully shining in the light drifting in through the small windows and heavy butcher block counters. The table in the dining room just passed the kitchen looked like it was made of oak and probably cost more than Lacey made in a month working the shit jobs he could get trying to support his family. The air in the room was thick with buzzing flies and stank of rotten fruit and spoiled meat. He started to doubt very much that they would find anyone alive in here.

The kitchen cleared, they moved on to the living room. It was brightly lit, thanks to the huge windows that gave a breathtaking view of the lake. It had plush carpets on the floor and the plasma screen television took up a good portion of the wall on their right as they came into the room. There were leather sofas and nice loungers
arranged around the TV, but what really caught Lacey’s eye was the bookshelf across the room. Hopefully there would be something worth reading there. The Frays had a pretty extensive collection of Westerns but that was not really his thing. And maybe there would be something new for them to read with the kids. There was only that old ass paperback Peanuts comics for them. He secretly hoped to find something a little more educational, maybe some Dr. Seuss books or something, as it did not look like they would be attending Kindergarten this fall… He could not help but feel a little disappointed and sad for them. They had been looking forward to riding the school bus.

The two men jumped when they heard a thump in what sounded like a back bedroom that branched off the hall on the other side of the living room. Adam and Carl moved as one towards the sound, their weapons at the ready gripped in sweaty hands. Lacey, on point, noticed a pair of feet sticking out of the shadows in the hallway. His hand clamped tightly around the pistol grip of his rifle as he shown the weapon’s tac light at it.

The pallid form struggled to sit up, it’s graying face caked with dried blood and black goo as they advanced on it. Unthinking, Adam lashed out with the butt of his M16, knocking the creature onto its back. He brought the heel of his boot down hard on the zombie’s face a piston fueled by fear, revulsion and a bucket full of adrenaline. The creature’s head cracked apart like a ripe melon, ruining the white carpet. The stuff that dribbled out of its fractured skull looked a lot like the oatmeal they had eaten for breakfast.