Outbreak: Long Road Back (28 page)

“Dang right!” she said as she put her carbine in the corner. Frays took off her helmet and plate carrier before flopping into one of the nearby chairs. The air in the room had this weird chemical tang to it that she could not quite place, something like strong disinfectant. Frays grinned and held up her hands. “I got an actual bed and everything.”

Lacey grinned as he eased into the other chair. “Trying to bribe me or something?” he asked as he reached out and took her hand. He looked at the children for a long heavy minute before looking Frays in the eye. “I…I dunno about moving in together or whatever, Amy. I mean…don’t get me wrong I like you a lot and I really appreciate what you’re doing with the kids. I know it can’t be easy for you.”

Frays shrugged and seemed to shrink ever so slightly. “It’s alright.” she mumbled as she scratched the back of her neck. There seemed to be pieces of hair in the collar of her shirt or something. “I…I don’t mind. Really. It’s good. It…you know…helps. I guess. I dunno…I mean I just want them to be happy and have some kinda normal childhood.”

Lacey felt a pang in his chest. “Good. I’m glad.” he said after a few moments. It felt like he had a stone in his throat that he could not swallow nor spit out. The two of them stared at each other for what seemed like ages. At long last he stood and leaned over Frays’ chair, his hands resting on the armrests his face inches from hers.

She smiled at him. “Me too.” Frays said as he gradually leaned in closer moving like a glacier. The tips of their noses touched as they stared into each other’s eyes. Frays felt warmth that had nothing to do with the summer heat spreading through her abdomen. He kissed her gently at first then practically smooshed his lips into hers. His tongue probed her teeth trying to find its way into her mouth. She put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back. “The kids.”   

Lacey sighed heavily. “Yeah.” he whispered as hovered over the woman. The man breathed in her scent greedily wanted to bury his nose in her hair to smell if she had washed it as well as gotten the new hairdo. She had brushed her teeth recently or at least used mouthwash. Her mouth had a minty kind of taste to it.

“I’ll start moving some stuff around in here if you want.” Frays said softly. She put a hand on his cheek and ran it down his neck, their noses almost touching again. He gave her a quick peck on the lips and grinned.

“I guess we can give it a shot.” he murmured as he regretfully pushed himself away from the woman and went to the bed. “Hey kiddos. I gotta get back to work. Be good for Amy, alright?” he asked as he gently woke his children and received a hug and kiss from each of the little ones. Paulie eyed his father suspiciously. Daddy was making a strange face.

“Were you smooching Amy again?” the little boy asked making Frays and Lacey burst out laughing. Paulie scowled at his father and the woman sitting across the room. He most certainly did not see what was so funny about the whole thing.

Lacey frowned at his son and sat down on the bed. “Look buddy…” he said quietly. The man glanced at Frays on the other side of the room. “You don’t have to call Amy mom or anything if you don’t want to, alright? We both love you guys a whole bunch and she’s going to help me take care of you.”

Becca sat up and looked at Amy then back at her father. “So Amy’s gonna be like Mommy but not Mommy.” the little girl reasoned then shrugged. “Amy’s already like the Mommy for lots of people. Makes sense.”

Lacey smiled at his daughter’s description of Frays’ job. “Yeah I guess you could say that, Becca.” he said and struggled to his feet. He could not help but envy Frays. It had been a long time since he got to spend the entire day with his kids. A muffled
WHUMPH
made him stop in his tracks and turn to look at Frays.

She was on her feet too. “I guess it worked.” Frays said with a nervous grin. The kids gave the two grownups confused looks. “Me and your Daddy made a trap for the Bad People. He made it so that they would explode.”

Chapter Nine
26 July 2011 1025 hours NorthCom Forward Operating Base Freedom Sanford, Maine

Carl looked around the back of the stake bed truck and smiled nervously at his big sister. She smiled back and flashed him a surreptitious thumbs up. He had his father’s pistol on his hip and a new to him Mossberg 500 shotgun clutched in his sweaty hands, the muzzle resting on the railing. The young man could feel the others looking at him. Part of him could not believe that he was actually doing this: after all the fuss Amy had put up she had told him that they were going out again in the morning and he could come if he wanted.

The way Amy…er…Sergeant Frays explained it their mission was three fold. First they were going to check out where the first bomb went off and assess the damage. After that the squad was to push farther into Sanford, driving around town for a little while to see what was going on in there and set up another device. While they were out and about they were also to see if they could find the local library and track down any useful books they could scavenge. “I’ll bet you never thought I’d be excited about going to the library!” Carl shouted over the noise of the vehicle’s engine.

Frays grinned at her brother. “I didn’t know you could read!” she shouted back. There was a now familiar stink in the air as they got closer to the area where the first IED had been set up. Carl’s stomach lurched when he noticed half a human head lying on its side on the blacktop as the truck rolled past. He could have sworn that the head’s one good eye blinked at him. He stood up in the bed of the truck and shaded his eyes and promptly leaned forward spewing his breakfast out onto the street.
The scene vaguely reminded him of the famous panorama shot of the wounded soldiers in the movie
Gone with the Wind
. There were bits and pieces of bodies littered all over the field several of which were still moving. Frays reached out and grabbed Carl’s shirt and pulled her brother down into his seat. “Stay the freak down.” the woman hissed into Carl’s ear. Standing up like that was a great way to draw sniper fire.

“Holy fuckin’ shit…” Pittman mumbled under his breath. There had to be a couple hundred bodies in various states of obliteration strewn all over the place. The cars they had rigged were blasted to bits. A van was flipped on its side like a beached whale. He frowned and shook his head when Sergeant Frays took a now almost thoroughly useless Smartphone and switched on the video capture feature.

“This is Sergeant Amy Frays, FOB Freedom, NCOIC of Third Platoon.” she stage whispered as she panned the camera around, doing her best to capture all she could of the destruction “Looks like an initial blast crater some eighty meters across ten meters deep with secondary blasts ten or fifteen meters across and maybe six inches deep. I won’t hazard a guess at how many deactivated hostiles. It’s likely that more were vaporized by the blast than are in evidence here.”

The woman panned back and forth a few more times before shutting down the phone and putting it away. “Alright, let’s go!” Frays shouted as she pounded on the back of the truck’s cab with the butt of her fist.

The vehicle’s motor rumbled when Grimes stepped on the gas and the truck lurched into motion. Something squished and filled the air with a smell like a skunk’s rear end soaked in floor stripper and sealed in a Ziploc bag for a month under the truck’s tires. Now it looked like Carl was not the only one in danger of getting reacquainted with their breakfast. Frays covered her mouth and nose with her forearm trying to block out the horrid stench.

They rolled about a quarter mile or so farther into the city proper all of them watching their surroundings warily. At any moment hundreds of reanimated corpses could come slouching out of doorways or alleyways. Frays also found herself watching for the telltale signs of an IED or a sniper lying in wait for their truck. There were likely other healthy people hiding in the city and they might not be favorably disposed towards any competition for resources.

The streets seemed deserted, the sounds of the truck’s engine echoing off the empty buildings the only sound they could hear. According to what the few people that were still kicking around the FOB who had lived in the area said the nearest library was about a half mile or so north of where they had dropped off the IED the first time they were out here.

Carl swallowed hard when the truck pulled up to a building with the words Goodall Memorial Library on a sign out front. Amy and a couple of her guys were going to go inside and look around while he pulled security on the truck with the driver and passenger. He watched nervously as his big sister and the other Marines jumped out of the back of the truck and filed into the building with their carbines at the ready.

Frays barged through the door into the foyer sweeping the area directly in front of her with the muzzle of her M4. She pushed the pressure switch of her weapon’s tac light intermittently banishing the shadows as they advanced into the room. There was a set of doors made out of heavy safety glass about ten feet way that looked to be unsecured. Frays lowered her weapon and took up a position against the door and nodded when Pittman came up to the doorways.

The rest of the squad followed Pittman through the door and into what looked like the main area of the library. The place was full of bookshelves and tables all neatly arranged as if the librarian had just ducked out to go to the bathroom. However there was so much dust it looked like everything had a fine coat of fur. “Alright. Quick and careful. Clear.” Frays reminded everyone as they peeled off by battle buddy teams and spread out to make sure they were alone in the expansive collection of books.

Hubbard did a double take as he and Rowe moved cautiously between two bookshelves. Did somebody just run across the other end of the room? He wished his carbine had a light on it like Sergeant Frays’ M4. All of a sudden he heard Robles shout “Contact!” followed by the punching cardboard noise of the man’s carbine going off, the noise of the shot muffled by the makeshift suppressor attached to the weapon’s muzzle a few feet to his right.

“Oh God! Please don’t! Stop!” a high female voice shouted as a pair of hands showed themselves over the top of a nearby bookshelf. “I don’t have a gun! Don’t shoot!” From where he was standing Hubbard could see the pair of dirt stained hands shaking like leaves in a stiff breeze. The top of a head slowly slid up into view.

“C’mon out of there!” Sergeant Frays shouted as she carefully stalked forward with her M4 pointed at the woman. “Keep your hands up!” She pointed the carbine at the woman while the others moved in to provide security. Frays covered the woman while Pittman moved up to search the woman.

“Put your fuckin’ hands on the shelf!” Pittman snarled into her ear as he shoved the woman towards the nearest bookshelf. “Don’t move a fuckin’ muscle!”

Carl sat nervously in the bed of the truck drumming his fingers on the side. His stomach churned and gurgled after Aim and the others had disappeared into the interior of the library. Being about a foot away from like six pounds of C4 wired to blow inside a steel cage studded with nails and random bits of jagged metal did not settle his nerves any.
Chill the fuck out
Carl scolded himself as he glanced around the vacant street
Aim can take care of herself and the rest of them.

Carl checked the safety on his shotgun and made sure it was loaded for the eighteenth time. The only other person around was Grimes who sat in the cab behind the wheel. He glanced through the rear window.

The woman seemed to notice him looking at her and gave the younger man a nervous smile in the truck’s rearview mirror. It felt like she was melting. Sweat soaked her camouflage shirt and made her butt stick uncomfortably to the faux leather bench seat. Occasionally a slight breeze would find its way through the cracked windows taunting her with a split second of relief before receding leaving her stifling in the truck’s cab.

Grimes also fidgeted as well, constantly making sure the windows were only cracked open (to prevent anything from reaching inside and grabbing her if Carl happened to be looking the other way), ensuring the snap on the sheath of the machete on her belt was unfastened, double and triple checking that the sling of her SKS would not get hung up on anything if she had to get to it in a hurry. She awkwardly reached over her shoulder to slide open the rear window.
“Hey Carl want some water?” Stacie asked as she flipped open the little cooler on the bench seat next to her and stuck a bottle of generic spring water through the window. Carl nodded thanks and took it, gulping down the unappetizingly warm liquid. Something made Grimes jump and turn around. Did she just see something peek out of that storefront a block down the road?
Grimes took a few deep breaths and tried to convince herself it was just some trash from the overturned garbage can in the middle of the street.