Outbreak: Brave New World (33 page)

Lacey rolled his eyes. “Jeez, already?” he joked as Frays stopped the truck
and put on the parking brake “We’ve only been on the road for like an hour. Didn’t you go before we left?” Amy gave him a sour look and climbed out of the Humvee. The others climbed out a few moments later to stretch their legs and let Freddie empty his bladder too. Carl and Adam kept the others away from Frays, who leaned against the driver’s side front tire squatting with her trousers around her ankles. Frannie stood nearby with her back to the woman making sure the others kept their distance, providing at least a little bit of privacy.

After they had conducted their business they filled their water sources from one of the cans in the back
then piled back into the truck. Adam took the wheel this time, he and Frays switching so that she was in the front passenger’s seat. The weather was nice and warm, a pleasant breeze stirring the thick stands of trees on either side of the road. It was getting quiet and kind of tense in the truck.

“Who knows a joke?” Frays suggested as she let her eyes scan from the road to the shoulder, the trees and back again slowly in search of anything that might look like an ambush or some other danger. She wished that they had a couple pairs of NODs or something so that they could drive at nigh
t without turning on the vehicle’s white lights or at least see what was going on around them if they stopped after dark. “C’mon, somebody’s gotta know one. Just remember there’s kids so keep it clean everybody.”

They were all quiet for a minute, think
ing. It was kind of absurd. A joke? Now? Carl spoke up first. “There was this U2 concert in Dublin.” he began, pausing to scratch an itch on the tip of his nose. “Bono calls for a moment of silence in the middle of the set and once everybody calms down he starts clapping his hands” Carl clapped his own hands, about once every couple seconds or so “Bono says ‘Every time I clap my hands a child in Africa dies’. The whole place is quiet for a little bit then this guy shouts out in the back of the concert hall ‘THEN STOP DOIN’ IT YA FECKIN’ SICKO! JAYSUS!”

The kids looked confused at the jo
ke but everyone else cracked up making Carl look pleased with himself. The smiles fell away from their faces as they rolled down the road and came around a bend. A big orange Ford F250 and a rusty red and silver Bronco blocked both lanes of the road about a quarter mile down the road. “Whoa, whoa Lacey.” Amy said quietly as the man started slowing the Humvee down. The two of them peered at the vehicles straining their eyes to see if the roadblock was abandoned.

Adam looked over at Frays. “What do we do?” he asked quietly. His palms got sweaty on the steering wheel and he glanced over his shoulder at his kids. They were scared and Paulie was still pale… A familiar, cold look was on Frays’ face when he looked back at her. The truck was rolling towards the roadblock…Lacey had taken his foot off the
accelerator. Visions of the shitstorm that had gone down in Concord started dancing in his head.

“Hold on, kids.” Frays ordered as she braced herself against the dashboard. She patted her little passenger with one hand.
Sorry, little guy!
Amy thought guiltily as she glanced back at Lacey. “Punch it, man.” Frays muttered a prayer to Saint Catharine as Adam mashed down the accelerator.

The Humvee’s engine roared, pressing them back in their seats
and leaving a trail of burned rubber on the blacktop. Several figures sprang up from behind the trucks and sprinted for the woods on either side of the road. One of them raised a handgun, firing wild shots over his shoulder as he fled into the forest. There was a terrific screech of metal on metal impact when the Humvee slammed into the trucks blocking the road. Their truck fishtailed, threatened to flip over but Lacey somehow managed to keep the big sand colored vehicle on the road.

The kids were screaming in the back seat, the two of them getting thrown around between Carl and Frannie.
Amy’s head snapped back when the Humvee plowed through the trucks frying her left arm like a slab of hamburger slapped onto a hot grill. Adam gave a glance around the inside of the truck. “Everybody okay?!” he stomped on the gas and glanced in the truck’s side view mirror. “I can’t believe it! Look at that!”

Amy
looked in the mirror on her side of the truck and grinned. If the would-be robbers were going to come after them it would have to be on foot. The Humvee had knocked both vehicles into the ditch on either side of the road at odd angles. Their trucks were stuck and it would be hard to get them out. Frays felt no inclination to stop and lend a hand. “We’re alright, guys.” she said as the truck bellowed around a corner.

A small compound of structures that looked kind of like
barns made from corrugated steel came up on their right hand side of the road. A truck screamed out of behind the smallest barn, tearing across the compound’s gravel parking lot. “Hold on!” Frannie shouted, trying to get her M4 to bear on the vehicle. Adam veered to the left but the Chevy S10 caught the back bumper. The Humvee spun hard, its tires squealing and smoking as it clipped the guardrail on the side of the road.

Amy jammed
her carbine out of her window and squeezed the trigger, waving the weapon back and forth as she dropped half a magazine of 5.56 into the S10’s cab leaving the vehicle’s windscreen a spider’s web of cracked safety glass. The noise was deafening as Frays’ weapon sprayed hot brass into the laps, chests and faces of those in the back seat. “DRIVE! GO! GO! GO!” she shouted, banging her nonfiring hand on the dash. Amy frantically ejected the empty magazine and jammed a fresh one into the M4’s magazine well then slapped the weapon’s bolt release to chamber a round. The empty magazine rattled around on the floor of the truck when Lacey cranked the wheel and slammed down the gas leaving the scene in a plume of burnt rubber and exhaust. It was only after they were a half mile down the road that he realized that Becca and Paulie were sobbing behind him.

Frannie slowly loosened the white knuckle grip she had on her M4’s pistol grip.
Abandoned houses came and went, barely noticed by the occupants of the Humvee. “Is everybody okay?” she asked, setting the carbine aside and pinning it against the vehicle’s door with her thigh. Becca was closest to her so the woman started checking the little girl over first. “You okay, Becca? You alright?”

It looked like Becca had mainly been scared by the excitement and there was an angry red mark on her forearm where an expended shell casing had burned her. Frannie’s heart leapt into her throat when she moved to check her brother. “Lacey, Frays we need to stop.” Rodriguez said, keeping her voice low and measured but giving the two of them an urgent look when they
glanced over their shoulders at her. Rodriguez was holding the boy’s injured hand above his head while trying to get pressure on the stumps of his fingers.

“There!” Frays said and pointed towards a gap in the trees. There was a driveway cutting off the road to their right
, a barely noticeable gap in the trees. Lacey let of the gas and wrenched the wheel the truck sending it skidding and sliding down the shady and overgrown gravel road. Amy felt a sudden pang of something kind of like homesickness for a moment. The driveway looked an awful lot like the road leading up to her parents’ hunting camp.

The vehicle exploded into a clearing, a small two story farmhouse appearing in front of them. Lacey slammed on the brakes sending everyone pressing against their seatbelts. Frays and Lacey bailed out covering the house with their weapons as Carl tried to get out. His long barreled Mosin-Nagant got hung up
on the doorframe… “Carl, hurry up!” Amy shouted at her brother as she knelt, sparing a glance at the young man. “Get to cover!”

It was still and quiet save for the sound of the children crying. Frannie
forced a smile as she tried to tighten the bandage around Paulie’s hand. “Shh…” she whispered hoping she sounded somewhat comforting “It’s alright, buddy. I gotcha. You’re gonna be okay.” The blood was oozing out, soaking through the bandage and running down the boy’s arm. His face was getting alarmingly pale. “Shit…” she muttered under her breath. “Frays, can you come over here please?”

Amy kept low, using the truck for cover, as she came over to Paulie and Rodriguez. “Oh, Jeez…” Frays whispered as she rushed forward. The ground under the boy was rapidly becoming a little mud puddle from the blood dripping off of his elbow. His wounds had somehow gotten opened up in all the excitement. “How you doin’ little guy? Don’t worry. Me and Frannie are gonna take real good care of you, alright?”

Frannie and Amy exchanged nervous glances. Frays dug furiously through her CLS kit trying to find something, anything that might resemble a fresh pressure bandage. The poor boy’s face was pale and his skin was getting that peculiar waxy sheen to it that told her he was going into shock. “Crap. Paulie, stay with us buddy.” she smiled and gently slapped the boy’s cheek. “Talk to me, little guy.”

Amy poked her head up for a second, sparing a look at Adam and her brother. “Carl, Lacey clear that house. We need to get the kids inside
time: now!” she ordered as her hand thankfully closed around what felt like a bandage. Frays glanced upwards and gave a quick prayer of thanks before tearing open the plastic wrapper with her teeth as Rodriguez carefully pulled off the old one and threw it aside. The little boy whimpered as Frays replaced the bandage and tried to get it in place as tight as she could without cutting off the circulation to what was left of the boy’s hand. “Sorry, sorry kiddo.”

Carl and Lacey appeared on the porch of the house. “C’mon.” Adam called, waving them towards the building. “Get in here. I’ll move the Humvee around back of the house.” Frannie gathered up the boy while Amy took Becca’s hand and the two of them bundled the children and took them inside.
Freddie jumped out of the back of the truck and sprinted inside, almost knocking Frannie on her butt.

“Damn dog!” Rodriguez shouted as she brought Paulie into what looked like a hallway. The animal scrambled past her and farther into the house,
Freddie’s toenails scratching and tapping on the wood floor. She stood there a moment unsure of where to go.

Carl stuck his head out of a doorway a few feet down the hall. “In here, Frannie.” he called, waving her into the room. It looked like a long disused living room or parlor, its chairs and couch looking somewhat moldy and the older style faux wood television was coated in a thick layer of dust. Frannie put the little boy down on the couch
and smoothed his hair away from his face. The place was kind of humid and moldy smelling with a faint hint of decay.

“Okay, buddy.” Frannie said quietly as she patted Paulie’s shoulder. “I need you to keep your hand with the owwie up on the back of the couch, okay? Can you do that, buddy?” She smiled reassuringly at the boy and
rubbed his cheek. “I’ll be right back with your dad. I just need to get some stuff out of the truck. Amy and Carl’s right here if you need anything.”

Amy hurried over to one of the chairs and sat the little girl down. “Are you okay?” Frays asked as she patted the Becca down. She fought to keep a grimace off of her face as her left arm felt like she had banged her
funny bone really, really hard. A twinge of guilt did backflips through her stomach at ordering Lacey to run the blockade. That feeling only deepened when the girl lifted up her shirt revealing a couple red marks in the shape of expended 5.56 casings on her chest and stomach. Amy dried the tears still running down Becca’s face as she held the little girl and stroked her hair for a moment. “Oh, kiddo…I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

Frannie and Adam came into the house through the back door a moment later loaded down with water cans, cases of MREs, some ammo and Eamon’s medical bag. Amy and Carl rushed to help them set down their burdens around the room. Lacey went over to the couch and spread a parka over his son then sat down with the little boy’s head in his lap.

Amy looked at Lacey across the room. She sighed and left Becca for a moment, wandering out in search of the kitchen. The little room at the back of the house was just as dingy and misused as the rest of what little she had seen of the house so far, but she was heartened by the little black woodstove in the corner. Frays guessed that it was antique, probably just there for looks… She grunted when she checked out the pipe leading from the stove to the wall. It seemed that she was wrong.
Never underestimate Yankee practicality.
Frays thought as she built a small fire in the stove.

A few moments later there was a cheery little blaze going in the potbelly stove. Amy
looked at the fire, a sick feeling roiling around in her stomach. She hated the idea that occurred to her but kept telling herself that it was necessary, that Paulie would eventually bleed to death if it was not done… Amy built up the fire a little more then turned and rooted around in the drawers until she found a wide carving knife. She set it on top of the stove and went back into the parlor.

“Lacey, Rodriguez…” Frays said from the hall. “On me.
” She leaned against the dirty cracked plaster wall, hands jammed in her armpits as she waited for Frannie and Adam to join her. “Frannie, have you gotten that bleeding to stop yet? I’m out of quik-clot.”

Frannie looked grave. “Poor little guy’s lost a lot.” she said quietly. The woman shook her head and sighed. “I’m out too. It stops for awhile but he keeps
coming open.” Rodriguez swallowed hard and took a drink of water from her camelbak. A little color drained from Frays’ face but the woman nodded.