Outbreak: Brave New World (2 page)

George was quiet for almost a minute. He stared into his bowl as he stirred the cereal around. “The TV and radio stopped about
three weeks ago. It was kind of hard to tell what was true and what was…road apples.” He looked at his wife sitting next to him and took her hand. “One live report said there was rioting in Springfield and the bridges and tunnels around New York had been shut down. They showed the Queensboro Bridge getting hit with an airstrike.”

Rodriguez shuddered, suddenly feeling queasy. Lacey took his wife’s hand and squeezed it.
“What else? I mean…that couldn’t be it.” he said quietly. “There wasn’t anything else on the news or anything?” He knew it was bad but somehow he had been holding out hope that it was somehow just a local thing, that there would be some chance of rescue or whatever…

“Well, we’re here.” Amy said
, her tone a little sharper than she intended. She paused a second to calm herself before continuing. “There’s gotta be other people around here somewhere.” The young airman shook her head “I mean…there has to. We can’t be it. There’s a radio in the Humvee. Time to set up a radio watch. Somebody’s gotta be out there and then they’ll let us know where they are.” Jessica took her daughter’s hand under the table and held it. Amy squeezed her mother’s hand then, as if she realized what she was doing, pulled herself free. There was something about the urgent insistence in her voice… Jessica caught the glances that Lacey, Rodriguez and Amy tossed at each other.

George looked at his children for a minute. “Amy, what did you guys hear?” he asked somewhat hesitantly. The three of them had to have been through Hell over the past few weeks and he hated to bring it up
but there had been no news since the television and radio stopped. “What’s it like out there?”

Amy absently stirred her cereal before spooning some of the soggy flakes into her mouth and chewing slowly. “I think Boston’s
pretty much done.” she said carefully, mindful of the small children. No use in scaring them any more than they already had to be. “The quarantine didn’t hold. Hardly anybody showed up.” Frays lowered her eyes towards her food and took a sip of coffee. “I don’t know what the news said, but the people going around attacking everybody aren’t sick. They’re dead. I know how it sounds, but it’s true. I didn’t want to believe it myself but it’s true.” The young woman shifted around in her chair both hands closed around her coffee mug as if she were trying to warm herself with it.

The dining area was silent as Amy’s
words started to sink in. Dead people walking? And attacking people no less? George looked at his daughter. She seemed more than a little shaken by something lending credence to what she had said. His little girl would not lie to him but it sounded crazy and he somehow got the sense that there was something she was not telling them about. George made up his mind to try and talk to her about it later, maybe after dinner or something when they were in private.

Carl
cleared his throat and spoke up. “We should at least go check on the neighbor’s camps.” he said as he looked around the table nervously. “I mean, if the Drakes and Harrisons are around then maybe we can...you know…pool our resources or whatever.” He smiled a little bit when his father and sister both nodded thoughtfully.

“That could work.” George said after he finished his cereal. He spared a glance at Adam Lacey and looked around the table. “I think we should get this place a little more secure first. Probably should have done it before hand, but we’ve got more people now.”

“I can help there, sir. I’m a Combat Engineer.” Lacey said quickly. He glanced over at Frays then looked at his wife for a second. “What do you say we take a quick look around the perimeter, knock heads about locking this place down a little better, boss?”

Amy did not miss the bitter looks Mrs. Lacey shot at her and her husband. “Sure. Let’s
do some personal hygiene and gear up in thirty.” she said, trying to give Lacey’s wife a look that said she had nothing to be afraid of. Frays winced when she pushed herself away from the table and stood up.

“Amy, let me take a look at your feet.” George said as wa
tched his daughter take her bowl over to the sink. It looked like she was walking across the carpet as if it were hot sand.

Frays turned and gave her father a strange look, sending a twinge of pain rocketing from the soles of her feet to her hips. “I’m fine, Dad.” she said quickly
as soon as she could open her mouth without screaming. George speared his daughter with a hard look. He could tell she had to be in agony: her face was strained and her jaw was clenched shut.

“Amy, sit down over there” he said sternly as he pointed towards the couch “and let me look at your feet.” George pushed back from the table and stood up slowly, his hands resting on his hips. Adam smirked behind his hand.
In the brief time he had known Frays she had taken that tone with him more than once and it took everything he had to not burst out laughing now that the shoe seemed to be on the other foot for a change.

Amy and her father stared each other down for a moment until Amy frowned and looked at the floor. “Alright.” the young woman grumbled as she picked her way across the room to the couch and sat down grumpily. George followed and knelt next to his daughter’s feet
then pulled off her socks, cringing a little inside when Amy started whispering “Ouchouchouchouch!” under her breath. Once he got the socks off he could quickly see why she was hurting. The skin under the wool socks was blotchy and raw looking, as if a lot of it had fallen off or something. The nail on her left pinky toe looked like it was either gone or covered over with a big blister.

“Hon, could you get me the first aid kit out of the bathroom, please?” George called over his shoulder. He could feel the others crowding around a little bit, all of them trying to see what was wrong. George shook his head and looked up at daughter’s face
for a moment before turning to glance over his shoulder. “Lacey, there’s a big plastic tub under the sink. Fill that with warm water and bring it out here along with soap and a washcloth.” He glanced up at his daughter and frowned. “You should have said something last night.”

Jessica returned with the first aid kit and handed it to her husband
followed closely by Adam with the warm water. She started to sit next to Amy but stopped when her daughter speared her mother with a warning glance. The two children crouched on either side of the man, watching with perplexed expressions as he treated his daughter’s feet.

Once he had on a pair of latex gloves he first carefully inspected Amy’s feet then worked up a
soapy lather on the washcloth. George gently washed her feet to get rid of the last bits of dead skin then carefully pried each of her toes apart so he could clean in between them. Amy’s face was pinched up in pain as her breath came in short bursts. She squeezed handfuls of the couch cushions while her father gently scrubbed with the washcloth, abrading off dead skin then disinfecting the affected area.

Becca left the group for a moment then returned with a fuzzy little teddy bear in her hands which she offered to Amy. Frays smiled
and chuckled when the little girl gave her a harsh look then shoved the stuffed toy into her arms. Paulie frowned at his sister then stood up and hugged his father’s leg. The Marine picked up his boy and held him tight while he watched Mister Frays treat his daughter.

“
Looks like you’ve got one nasty skin infection or something going on here, young lady.” George admonished while he tested the temperature of the water with his fingertips. If she had been one of his Marines he would have read her the riot act about proper personal hygiene while in the field, making her recite chapter and verse from training manuals and then volunteering her for every single shit detail that he could come up with just to make sure the message sank in. Then again his daughter was Air Force. They probably did not spend much time on stuff like that. He smiled a little bit as he rinsed off her feet then gently helped the young woman set them in the water to soak. “This should help, but you’re not going anywhere for at least a couple days.”

Amy frowned and groaned under her breath. “C’mon, Dad.” she gr
umbled as she tried to stand up but George reached out and put a hand on his daughter’s middle. He gently pushed, forcing her to sit back down. “Dad, we’ve got a lot of stuff to do. I can’t just sit here.”

George smiled and shook his head.
She reminds me a lot of me at that age.
he thought then changed his expression into a scowl. “Yeah, but you won’t be any good to anybody if your feet get any worse. You’re staying put and that’s final.”

Amy grumbled under her breath. “Fine.” she said sharply.
Frays looked down at her lap for a moment and tried to slap a more dignified expression onto her face. “So, what’s the plan for today? Are we gonna start boarding this place up too or go check on the neighbors?”

“I say we
secure this place first.” Lacey said as he set his son down and looked at the others. “What do we have on hand? I mean, this place isn’t that big so we can get it squared away pretty quickly between us.”

“I got a woodshop out in the barn.” George said as he stood up and
glanced at the others then tapped Adam on the arm. “C’mon, Lacey. There’s a pile of two by fours in there. I’ll cut them up to fit over the windows and you and Carl can bring ‘em in here so Jessie and Laura can nail ‘em up. You and me can tear out the staircase leading to the deck after that. From what we’ve seen, those things can’t climb very well.”

Amy and Frannie exchanged glances. “What are we gonna do?” Frannie asked when George and Adam started off towards the front of the house.
“I mean, I can sort of get around. I can help put the boards up on the windows.”

George nodded. “Alright.
Just don’t push yourself too hard.” he said quietly then turned to face his daughter on the couch. “Amy, dry your feet off after a couple more minutes and elevate them. You keep an eye on the kids as best you can but don’t you let me catch you off that couch unless it’s an emergency, you hear me?”

George led the way to the woodshop and unlocked the barn with the key on his key ring. The older man held the door for Adam and closed it behind them. “I’m glad we got a
minute to talk like men.” George said as he flicked on the lights then walked across the room to a pile of long planks stacked in the corner of the room. “I’ll only ask this once and I expect you to be honest. Have you done anything with my daughter you can’t tell your wife about?”

A
pained expression ghosted across Adam’s face. There was a lot that he had seen and done since he had seen his family last that he would be perfectly happy if his wife and kids never ever ever found out about. “No, sir!” he said quickly when he realized what George was alluding to. Adam chuckled to himself as he looked around the shop. “Look, nothing like what you’re thinking of anyway. Sir…Frays…your daughter… We saved each other like a dozen times between us trying to get out of Boston. I dunno…we…we kept each other going, know what I mean? And…um…I-I…ya know…killed two men that were going to…to, well I think they were…ya know…gonna hurt her.” Adam blinked, clearly taken aback that information had slipped out.

Now it was George’s turn to look surprised. “What do you mean hurt her?” he
asked. He scowled, a sick feeling starting to roll around in the pit of his stomach as he was not exactly sure if he really wanted to hear what the young man was going to say.

“We ran into a couple guys from my squad.” Lacey mumbled
, shuddering at the memory of that day a few weeks ago. “Lance Corporals Holder and Reynolds…real jerks… They used to treat me like shit. Anyways, they tried to steal our Humvee but we stopped them. Frays zip tied their hands behind their backs but Holder got loose. He held a knife to Am-er…Frays’ throat and I shot him…Reynolds tried to jump me and I shot him too…” Adam shuddered. Sometimes he woke at night disturbed by dreams where he was a half second too late or his aim was off only by a few inches…

“Good for you, son.” George said as he walked up and shook Adam’s hand furiously. “As far as I can see, you’ve got nothing to fee
l guilty about.” He put an arm around the younger man’s shoulders and clapped him on the back. “Thank you. I mean that. Now, let’s get this done.”

George measured the boards and cut them to length while Adam carried them into the house. The women nailed the two by fours over the windows while Amy scowled at them and from
her position on the couch.

Becca sat on the floor next to the couch a
nd took it upon herself to keep her new best friend Amy entertained while she recuperated: she had discovered an ancient issue of Time magazine on a shelf. The little girl could not read so she flipped through it and made up stuff to go along with the pictures inside instead. Frays, still not best pleased with being confined to the couch, still listened politely and asked questions helping Becca come up with more details. Paulie helped Frannie and the others by carrying a big coffee can full of nails around as he followed behind them. The little boy shot looks at his sister and Amy whenever he happened to be nearby.

It was almost lunchtime by the time that the windows were covered with boards and the staircase ripped out that connected the deck to the concrete stairs that led down the cliff face to the shore of the lake below.
George mounted brackets into the frame of the front door at head middle and ankle height to hold pairs of two by fours nailed together which they could use to bar the door. Now that it was reinforced, the already sturdy door with its five hinges screwed into a steel doorframe and two deadbolt locks would take a lot of work to knock in.