Outbreak: Brave New World (24 page)

The kids were in Frays’ bedroom, cuddling with Freddie. Carl was glad for that because he was
pretty much certain that he was not old enough to see this, let alone a couple of four year old children. Then again judging from the sickened looks on the faces of his sister and her friends, they were not old enough to see it either. And the smell of putrefied burning flesh, the spitting hiss of melting human fat leaking out of cracked charred skin would be something he would never forget. Carl somehow knew he would never enjoy a barbeque quite the same way ever again.

Once the flames died down, Amy sprayed the ashes with the hose on the back of the house sending plumes of steam into the air as the bones and blackened wood whizzed and popped. She noticed sickly that several of the skulls made a cracking noise, like pine knots popping in a stove when the water struck them. “C’mon, let’s go inside.” Frays said in a low voice once she was certain that the fire was out.
The pile of charred corpses reminded her of some kind of horrible avant-garde modern art piece. The bodies appeared to be sort of melted all together with blackened grinning skulls leering at her out of a tangle of limbs. “Carl, will you help me turn on the generator? We’ve…got some laundry to do.”

Rodriguez and Lacey went inside, where they were both immediately pounced upon by a couple crying children. Frays and her brother went cautiously around the side of the building and down to the generat
or room. It took a couple tries but Amy eventually got the generator to turn over filling the shadowy room with bright light provided by the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. Carl paused in the doorway on the way out, turned and hugged his sister. She smiled into his chest and hugged him back then released Carl and gently pushed him towards the door. It was too loud in there to talk.

Rodriguez
crouched over her rucksack in the hallway, trying to dig out a fresh uniform and some clean underwear. Paulie stood a few feet away, his little face still damp with tears. Her chest felt tight and her hands were shaking a little as she was coming down from the adrenaline rush. “Don’t worry, buddy.” Frannie said as she smiled at the boy and put the clean ACUs over her arm. “Your dad made all the bad guys go away. Just relax, little man.” She was not sure if she was trying to reassure him or herself.

The little boy wrapped his arms around Frannie’s leg and squeezed fiercely. She put a hand on Paulie’s head, running his fingers through his hair. His nose wrinkled. “You’re s
tinky.” he said. There was a burning smell in the woman’s clothes and Paulie thought she might have went number two in her pants. He was puzzled because he did not think that happened to grownups. Only babies made messes in their pants.

Rodriguez’s face w
rinkled up with a little smile. “I’ve gotta change, buddy.” she said as she tried to extract herself from the boy’s grasp. “Buddy, please. I’ll only be in the shower. Your dad’s right in the living room.” Frannie was a little concerned about how clingy the little guy was getting again. She shook her head as she managed to slip into the bathroom and close the door. “Amy’s gonna be here in a minute.”

Paulie
ambled off towards his dad. He was standing by the table and petting Freddie with Becca. The little boy went over and rubbed the dog’s belly. “Daddy…” he said as he ruffled Freddie’s tummy fur. Paulie frowned at his dad, scowled and looked at his sister. “If we do have to have a new mommy, can it be Frannie?”

“
Paulie…” Adam said, looking at his son. He sat down on the floor completely forgetting about the turd in his undershorts. Lacey took his children onto his lap and held them tight. “I don’t think you guys have to worry about that right now, okay guys?”

Somebody knocked twice on the back door and jiggled the handle, letting Adam know that Frays and her brother were back from turning on the generator. “I’ll be right back, kiddos.” he said and smiled, rubbing his daughter’s cheek then standing up and going to let them in. Lacey picked up the pace once he was out of sight of
the kids, fearful of leaving his friends trapped outside with the possibility of more zombies being in the area.

Amy clapped Lacey on the shoulder as he let them in. They exchanged tired, weak little smiles as Lacey and Carl put the boards back in place over the door.
“The genny’s running.” Frays said quietly as she interlaced her fingers and stretched, pushing the palms of her hands towards the ceiling. She covered her mouth with the back of her hand and let out a mighty yawn. “When everybody’s had a chance to change and get cleaned up we’ll do the laundry.”

The laundry machine was chugging away in the foyer with the clothing they had worn while disposing of the
deactivated Bravo Charlies in it. Frays, Rodriguez, Lacey and Carl took turns in the shower, washing the stench of burning rotten flesh out of their hair and off their skins. Laundry day also meant a chance for Frays, Rodriguez and Lacey to at least sort of dress like regular people for a little while. Frannie and Adam had to borrow civvies from Amy and her brother, but it still felt good to wear a pair of shorts and a tee shirt or whatever even if they did not fit quite right.

They
were sitting around the dining room table again, pouring over the maps. Paulie sat in Frannie’s lap while Becca was in her father’s arms. Freddie kept the carpet from curling up in a sunny spot on the floor of the living room. The children scowled at what the grownups were doing and occasionally glanced at one another. “Wait, we’re leaving?” Becca asked, looking up at her father with a look of horror on her little face “We can’t! What if Mommy comes back? We won’t be here!”

“Yeah!”
Paulie said quickly suddenly scared to death. He was kind of sure that Mommy and Mr. and Mrs. Frays would not be coming back from where ever they were but still… The boy shot to his feet, standing on Rodriguez’s thighs. She bit back a shout, as the kid’s heel was resting directly on her tender semi-healed gunshot wound. Frannie grunted and tried to get the boy to sit down. “Mr. and Mrs. Frays too!” Paulie looked confused when Amy swallowed hard and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and Carl pinched the bridge of his nose. Frannie turned him around and held the boy tight.

“W-We’ll lea
ve them a note.” Frays said her voice barely above a whisper after a moment. She took a couple deep breaths, struggling to keep from bursting into tears. The look on the children’s faces made it incredibly difficult. They were just so little and innocent and they understood even less of what was going on than the rest of them did. “Can you guys do that for us? That will be your job when we figure out where we’re headed. That sound good?”

The kids looked at each other
. “Where are we going?” Becca asked, trying to see the maps. She was curious to see if they were going to be near the ocean. Mommy had shown them a program on TV about whales. It said the things lived in the ocean, but she found it hard to believe that they really existed. They were so big! Mommy and Daddy had taken them to see the ships a couple times in Boston Harbor too. “Can we see the ocean?”

Adam hugged his daughter and smiled. “We’ll see, kiddo.” He kissed his daughter’s cheek and she snuggled back against his chest. Lacey squeezed her tight for a moment then relaxed his grip. “How much ammo do we have left?”

Frays, Rodriguez and Lacey cleared their rifles and counted the rounds remaining in the magazines as well as the magazines on their persons. The results were less than exciting in Amy’s opinion. They each had a little over one hundred and ten rounds of 5.56 NATO M855 ‘Green Tip’ and forty five rounds of 9mm NATO for their pistols apiece. They had each used up between twelve and fifteen rounds of 5.56 however they each had three full spare mags left with the partially loaded ones in their weapons. Not good. Not good at all…

“I’ll take the 1014.” Amy volunteered after a moment’s thought.
She had been thinking about switching over to the twelve gauge semiautomatic shotgun for a little while now anyway. They had a bunch of twelve gauge shells so somebody should use those instead of their dwindling supply of 5.56 ammo. “You guys can split up my M4 mags.”

“Admit it.” Lacey said as he gave the woman a sidelong glance and smirked “You just wanna
get your hands on that big scary looking shotgun.” There was something in the tone of the man’s voice made Carl want to break his jaw. Adam looked away when he saw the anger in Frays’ eyes. For a brief second he thought that she might hit him again.

“Watch your mouth, Jarhead.” Amy said quietly. For a second she was back in Ira
q, the eyes on her all the time the line in the chow hall like running a gauntlet. Frays had always tried to go eat with her Flight Sergeant as few of the guys would try anything with that great big bear of a man right there… She took a moment to calm herself down then made up her mind to have a talk with her subordinate. “Lacey…step into my office. Now.”

Amy stood up and motioned for Adam to follow
her into the foyer. “Everybody just stay put for a minute.” she said and followed after him. As soon as they were as close to alone as they could get Frays scowled, pacing as much as the small room would allow. “Get at parade rest, Private.” Frays said harshly, pausing in her pacing only to scowl at the man.

Adam looked confused for a second
, his body involuntarily obeying the sharp tone of the airman’s voice. Frays stopped her pacing right in front of him, an icy look on her face. She had been waiting for her paperwork to go through to officially make her a staff sergeant before everything went nuts but right now the young woman looked every inch the pissed off Non Commissioned Officer. “What’s up?”

“What’s going on,
Airman
.” Frays corrected harshly, her jaw working as she stood inches away from Lacey. The man’s dark eyes darted towards her, searching her face as he tried to figure out what brought this on. Frays’ scowl deepened reminding Lacey of the DIs in Boot. “Eyes front, Lacey.”

Adam stared at the wall across the room from him.
“What’s going on, Airman.” he said careful to keep the tone of his voice as neutral as possible. Strangely, he could not help but get just the smallest amount aroused. Frays was close enough to him that he could feel her breath on his face and neck when she spoke.

“I am not your wife. I am not your girlfriend. I am your superior.” Frays said her tone sharp and quiet. She accented each statement by pointing with her index and middle fingers, her digits millimeters from the tip of Lacey’s nose. “You
will
treat me with respect. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yeah. Yes, Airman.” Adam said, a little sarcasm working its way into his voice. “Is that all, Airman?” he asked. Amy’s jaw started working again and she cocked her head slightly, the woman’s neck making a popping sound. He noted the way the blood rushed to her face, darkening her tanned cheeks. Her breath was warm on his neck.
To his embarrassment, he felt the stirring in his groin getting stronger and stronger.

He leaned forward and kissed her full on the lips. A shock ran through Frays fo
r a second and she stood there until she realized that Lacey’s tongue was in her mouth, his hand sliding down her back towards her butt, his other arm crushing her against his chest. She shoved him and struck Lacey hard across the chin with an elbow then brought her knee up into the man’s groin with all the force she could muster. The man doubled over and Frays backed off her hand involuntarily going to the M9 strapped to her thigh, the other held palm out towards him. “Lacey.” she realized that she was panting, the blood was pounding in her temples “Stop. Right now.”

Adam’s back struck the wall behind him and he slid to the floor, a horrified and pained expression on his face. “Oh, my God.” he whispered “
Ow! Fuck… What the hell?! Fuckin’ shit! Ahh!” He held his groin and writhed, his breath coming in small gasps as he struggled to keep from throwing the fuck up.

Conflicting emotions
flew around inside Frays’ skull like those circus motorcyclists that ride around inside that giant steel hamster ball: fear, anger, confusion, pity… Part of her wanted to tell him it was alright, no harm done and the other part of her wanted to kick his head in. Sure she liked him but not that way and he sounded just like when he told her that he had gotten her friends killed… Frays’ hand tightened around the grip of her pistol, her index finger pressing the retention device. “We’re done here.” she said sharply and turned on her heel, walking as fast as she could without running out of the foyer.

Amy blew past Rodriguez and Carl, the two of them obviously drawn by the sounds coming from the foyer. The two of them exchanged looks as Frays
continued on to the living room and sat down hard on the couch. Carl went to his sister and sat down at the other end of the couch. The kids looked scared again, but thankfully they had Freddie to pet. The dog licked Becca’s face. “It’s alright, guys.” Frannie said carefully as she glanced down the hall hoping to see what was going on with Lacey. “Be right back.”

Lacey was sitting on the floor, his head in his hands.
Fucking shit!
Rodriguez thought as she sat down a few feet away from him
I’m getting really fucking tired of being the grownup around here
. They were quiet for awhile. “Lemme let you in on something here, buddy.” Frannie said after a few minutes. She sighed and looked at Lacey, her face pensive. “It’s like this. You haven’t been deployed, have you?”

“No.” he said and rolled his eyes, a knot of frustration growing in the pit of his stomach.
Frays was mad at him for some goddamn reason and his balls fucking hurt. “This was my first time getting called up.” Was she going to hold that against him? “So fuckin’ what?”