Outbreak: Brave New World (5 page)

“WOOOOOO!” Becca called, imitating the sound effect she had heard when people kissed on television. The little girl stopped throwing rocks at the lake to point at her parents and laugh.
Paul giggled then concentrated really hard and whipped the rod towards the water just like Mister Frays had shown him. The little bobber and impaled worm sailed through the air for a couple dozen feet before plopping into the water over a submerged forest of dark green weeds.

The boy
reeled in the slack and waited intently, waiting for the slightest hint that he might be getting a bite. The red and white plastic ball bobbed on the little waves then suddenly disappeared below the surface. “Dad! Dad! I got one!” Paulie shouted excitedly as he tried to reel in the fish. Adam rushed to his son’s side and tried to think of some advice to give. He had not been fishing since he was his son’s age.

A large silvery fish twisted and writhed as
Paul started reeling it in. The fishing pole’s reel screeched occasionally when the trout tried to make a run for it. Adam became aware of George and Carl standing behind him on the dock. “Holy smokes! Carl, go get the net out of the shed!” the older man exclaimed. After what seemed like a minor eternity, the fish finally gave up and allowed Paul to reel it in and George scooped it up with a net.

“Wow! Dad, look!”
Paulie shouted and jumped up and down as the fish flopped and gasped in the green nylon netting. The fish lay still and Becca crept in slowly for a closer look then jumped and ran back to her mother when it suddenly flopped around for a few minutes as if trying to make one last bid for freedom. Her brother laughed and smiled up at his father.

“Good for you,
Paulie!” Adam said and pulled his son against his leg. “Boy, look at that!” He gave Paul a prideful grin and looked at George. “Um…what do we do with it?”

George smiled and reached into the net and pinched the trout’s bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger, paralyzing the flopping fish. “
Holy crow! That’s one of the biggest rainbows I ever seen, kiddo.” he said and winked at the little boy as he lifted the trout. “We’ll put him in a bucket over here and hopefully we’ll catch a few more to have for supper tonight.”

Paulie grinned widely as Carl filled a five gallon pail with lake water and set it on the ground near the stairs. “Nice one, Paul.” Carl said and tousled the boy’s hair. He dug around in his pocket and produced a crumpled dollar bill. “Here. Whoever gets the first fish gets a dollar. Remember, Dad?” Paul’s grin widened when both George and his
father each gave him a dollar.

“Mom! Look!” he cried joyfully as he held the money up for his mother to see. “I gots one
…two…free dollars!” The little boy crumpled up the bills and jammed them into the front pocket of his jeans before racing back to the dock and picking up his fishing pole again. His little tongue poked out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrated then flicked his line back out onto the water.

Becca
frowned and stomped over to the shed where Mister Frays had gotten the fishing poles from. There was another child sized one hidden in the cobwebs in the corner behind an ancient refrigerator mounted to the wall in the back corner. “I’m gonna catch a bigger one than you!” the little girl declared as she clomped past him and onto the dock. “Daddy, gimme a wormy!”

It was almost suppertime when George decided that they should pack it in. There was about a dozen or so keeper sized fish battering into one another when he looked into the pail.
“Okay, everybody.” he said as he hefted their catch “Looks like we’re about done for the day. Let’s get upstairs.”

The children groaned and started reeling in their lines. Adam grinned at his children and helped them pick up their things. The kids were probably going to be sore later and he kicked himself for not making them put on sunscreen. Then, he reflected that they all probably could have used some: the back of his neck felt dry and hot.

“Time for you to learn how to clean a fish, city boy.” George told Adam as he followed the Laceys up the stairs. Adam smiled uneasily over his shoulder at Mister Frays and sighed resignedly, obviously not looking forward to it.

Paulie raced over to Rodriguez and scrambled into her lap as if the deck was lava. “Frannie! I caught one! A real big one like this!” the boy said proudly as he spread his hands as far apart as he could.
He hugged her and smooched the scarred portion of her face. “Did you see?”

“Yeah
I did, buddy!” Rodriguez said a slightly surprised look in her eyes despite the wide grin on her face. “Way to go! I’m proud of you.” She returned the boy’s embrace and then let him squirm off her lap and go inside to tell the others. Frannie watched Paulie go inside then shook her head and chuckled to herself, one hand absently stroking the scars on her cheek.

Adam and George exchanged tight lipped grins after hearing the exchange between Paulie and Rodriguez.
“Lacey, could you go inside and get us some newspapers?” George asked as he hefted the bucket onto the landing where, up until that morning, the stairs from the deck had been attached. “And I think there’s a shovel by the back door. Could you grab that too?”

Carl stared at the empty couch when he entered the living room, his jaw dropping. “Mom! Where are you?” he called into the house as he took three quick steps into the room and looked around nervously. “Mom? Amy?” Carl swallowed hard and looked uneasily over his shoulder towards Fr
annie, Laura and the kids on the deck. “MOM?! AMY!?”

He felt
kind of stupid when his mother came out of the bathroom a half second later. “Carl, keep it down!” she scolded with a small smile. “Your sister’s asleep in the back bedroom.” Jessie gave her boy a quick hug and held him at arm’s length.

“Come on, Mom.” Carl muttered under his breath as he squirmed free
and glanced again towards the deck. “Mom, stop. Come on.” He smiled a little and kept looking over his shoulder to see if Frannie had witnessed him acting like a scared little kid.

“What, afraid I’m gonna embarrass you in front of somebo
dy?” she asked with a mischievous grin as she glanced towards the people on the deck. “How many fish did you guys catch? Enough for dinner?”

“Yeah, I think we got enough.” Carl answered as he backed off a half pace and looked towards the deck again. Paulie seemed to be keeping Frannie occupied, so he deemed that there was
little chance that she had seen him. He smiled at his mother. “I think Dad’s gonna make Adam clean ‘em.”

“Would you ask Mrs. Lacey and Frannie if they’d help with dinner,
please?” Jessica said sharply, glaring at her son. “Then make sure your sister’s up. Thanks.” She shook her head slightly and smiled at Carl. “Just go easy on Mister Lacey, alright? We’ve had it kinda bad but I think Adam, Frannie and Amy have had it worse.”

Carl nodded, his brow furrowed. “Fine.” he grumbled under his breath and turned back towards the living room. He relayed Mom’s message to Mrs. Lacey and Frannie on his way to the door that led to the back bedroom. Carl rapped gently on the doorframe and listened, trying to tell if Amy was
still asleep inside or not.

He eased the door open and crept up to the bed,
a little surprised to see that little beads of sweat were dotting his sister’s forehead. Her arms were wrapped around her torso, her limbs twitching as she mumbled and made little groaning noises in her sleep. “Hey, Aim?” he whispered as he tentatively reached out for her “Aim, it’s time for dinner.”

Carl stumbled out of the back bedroom, both hands clasped over the lower half of his face. Laura and Jessica dropped what they were holding as Frannie rushed towards him. “Hey, Carl. What happened, buddy?” she asked as the young woman took his arm and
pulled him toward the nearest chair at the kitchen table. “It’s alright, man. Just lean your head back and let me take a look.”

“I…I hit him.” Amy said from the doorway. She made her way to the table and sat down, hiding her face in her hands. “I’m sorry, Carl. Are you okay?”

“I think you broke my damn nose!” her brother shouted angrily as Rodriguez stuffed a bit of gauze into the young man’s nostrils and held it there. “Jesus Christ on a crutch, the hell is wrong with you?”

“Carl! Language!” Jessica admonished as she rushed forward to take over for Frannie. “What happened, Amy?” Frannie allowed Mrs. Frays to take her spot and gave her friend a brief, worried look. Jessica pinched her son’s nose then glared over her shoulder at her daughter. “Well?”

“I think I was having a nightmare.” Frays admitted guiltily. She shook her head and looked at the table in front of her, sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. “Carl grabbed my shoulder and it startled me. Jeez, Carl…I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it. Are you okay?”

Lacey looked from Amy to her brother and back again. “Do you remember what it was about?” Amy
speared the man with a harsh look as the image of her flight sergeant’s handsome face exploding in front of her the truck smashing into their Humvee appeared on the insides of her eyelids. If anyone would know what she was having nightmares about it was him…

She
shuddered and frowned slightly. “No, I don’t think so.” Amy muttered under her breath and ran the palm of her hand over her face. Laura managed to catch a look of guilt on her husband’s face as he turned away from her. Frays reached out and took her brother’s hand. “I’m so sorry, Carl. I really didn’t mean it.”

His upper lip was already puffing up, but he still managed to frown. “Next time I’ll wake you up with a stick from across the room or something.” Carl grumbled bitterly as he slowly stopped leaning back. He turned to look at Rodriguez standing behind him. “Is it broken?”

“Nah, I don’t think so.” she said as she clapped the younger man on the shoulder. “Just got a big ol’ fat lip and a bloody nose. Hold that under your nose and I’ll get you some ice.” While Rodriguez crossed the kitchen Amy struggled to her feet and made her way painfully towards the bedroom door. Frannie sighed and shook her head as she filled a little Ziploc baggie with ice cubes and wrapped it in the dishtowel hanging on the handle of the stove.

“Your daughter nearly knocked your son’s block off.” Lacey announced as he walked down the steps towards the landing where
George awaited him with the bucket of fish. He handed the older man the rolled up newspapers from under his arm and frowned. “Everybody’s okay. So…how’s this work anyway?”

George
nodded to himself as he spread the papers on the cement. “Well, pay attention.” he said as he flicked open his sharp knife and reached into the bucket. In a matter of minutes a largemouth bass went from flopping and gasping on a year old edition of the Boston Globe to two good sized fillets. “That’s how it works, son.” He held the knife out to Lacey handle first with a grin “Your turn, Private. Take action.”

Somehow he could imagine that Frays would
have found the whole scene hilarious as he tried to grab the big trout his son had caught out of the bucket and get it onto the newspaper. Her father certainly seemed to be getting a kick out of it. He managed to get a hold of the fish long enough to get it almost out of the bucket before it squirmed out of his grasp.

He had to chase the flopping fish around a little before he got it onto the newspaper.
Adam even managed to laugh at himself a little bit as he tried to hold the fish down but his face became grim as he held the knife behind the fish’s gill slit. He took a deep breath and started to fillet the wriggling trout. He shuddered involuntarily when the fish finally shivered and stopped moving about halfway through the procedure.

I
t took him a little getting used to but Lacey managed to do a pretty good job cleaning the fish. The whole thing was kind of funny, really. He had killed two men and God knew how many of those things but he was squeamish about flaying a couple dumb slimy fish. The sight of the blood on his hands still made him a little sick to his stomach though.

George wrapped the fillets in some of the newspapers and handed them to Adam. “Take those inside and give them to Jessie, if you would.” he said as he scrapped the fish guts onto another piece of bloody newsprint and bundled them up. “I’ll get a shovel out of the boiler room and bury these in the garden and be along in a minute.”

“Hey guys.” Adam said as he set the fish on the deck and hopped over the gap where the stairs used to be. It took him a minute to wriggle his skinny ass over the drop off, just enough time for Rodriguez to grow concerned, come over and help him. “Got the fish done.”

Frannie wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Yeah, smells like it.” she chided as Lacey picked up the bundle of newspaper and started towards the glass doors.
Rodriguez opened the door for him and grinned. “Wash your damn hands before you get that stink all over the house.”

Lacey
flashed a brief smile when he looked at Frays, who sat in the blue recliner with her feet up frowning at the paperback novel in her hands. He glanced towards his wife and Amy’s mom in the kitchen and smiled again. He could sense that both the women had their suspicions about what he and Frays might have been up to together. He was glad that Frays’ dad had been upfront about it and seemed ready to take him at his word when he said that nothing happened romantically between his daughter and himself. Laura on the other hand…

The kids were in the bathroom, probably getting washed up for dinner.
“Are you okay?” he asked Amy as he paused in front of the chair. “Too bad you couldn’t come fishing with us. You should have seen the one Paulie caught.”