Outbreak: Boston (24 page)

The downside was, now that her mind was beginning to clear, Frays found that she could at least partially able to remember what she was dreaming about. It took awhile but she was able to get back to sleep. Mercifully, she did not dream this time.

Adam woke up when the alarm on his watch went off. He sat up and got dressed then packed up his gear before leaving. Their flight…squad…thing had been busy the last couple days prepping the two Five Tons they were going to take for their trip to Fort Devens. Lacey was more than a little surprised to see that Frays was not waiting for him outside his door.

He walked around the corner to the female side of the building. Adam frowned, wondering how he was going to find Frays with a minimal amount of trouble. There were six doors to choose from and he wished that there was some way that they could actually settle who was sleeping where, however there was not enough room in the building. Lacey was about to pick an end and just start sticking his head in the rooms, consequences be damned, when Frays came out of the room two doors down from him.

“Hey, Lacey.” Amy said cheerfully as she put on her Kevlar. “Ready to go?” The two of them walked towards the cafeteria and each picked up two cases of MREs from the locked storage closet in the back of the kitchen. He looked her over appraisingly as they made their way to the auto shop. She seemed much better for whatever rest she had gotten over the last few days, which he was glad to see. Lacey felt a little more confident about going out, but he could not help still being nervous. The trip should only take about two hours there and back under ordinary, ideal conditions but conditions were pretty fucking far from ideal.

The Five Tons were parked just outside the open bay doors. Amy was mildly put out with herself because she had overslept a little and the others were already waiting for the two of them by the trucks. Private Powers from Sergeant Barnes’ squad volunteered to come with them. Amy had been tempted to refuse the man’s help at first, given what had happened between him and Rodriguez. “You gotta give me a chance.” he’d pleaded as he clutched at her sleeve. “I need to prove to the others that they can trust me again. Please.”

So, in the end, Frays had frowned and let the man come along, in spite of her personal misgivings. She shook her head as the man turned and went to help load the trucks, her mind unintentionally wandering back another kid (she was probably at most a year or two older than Powers, but something about him made her feel much older) in another parking lot only about a week ago.

Frays and Lacey divvied their burdens up between the vehicles and Amy made a last check of the gear stowed inside them. In addition to the standard issue took kits stowed in the vehicles they tried to think of everything that could be spared from their shelter that they would need: a big ball of 550 cord, a giant roll of
olive drab one hundred mile an hour tape, bolt cutters, a cordless drill with a diamond carbide drill bit and spare batteries, some coils of nylon rope, empty jerry cans, two spare five gallon water cans per vehicle and three four foot long pieces of garden hose in addition to the water and the MREs. They could shelter in the vehicles but, in a pinch, the people that had them could snap their ponchos together and make improvised tents.

Once Frays finished her checks of the vehicle Adam produced his contribution to their kit: a half dozen soda cans, each with a fuse stuck in their open mouth in a green and black nylon satchel he had stuck under the front seat of the lead Five Ton. Lacey smiled at the questioning look on the woman’s face. “They’re homemade TH3 grenades.” the combat engineer explained as he held one up for the group to inspect. Adam laughed when Eamon looked frightened and backed away. “Relax! It’s Thermite, you know, like on Mythbusters. I made some up in the chemistry lab yesterday. Figured we could use some if we have to open a vault door in a hurry or something.”

Amy could have hugged him. She had not even thought of that. “You know something?” Frays said as she took one of the soda cans out of the bag and stuffed it into one of her cargo pockets “You’re pretty smart for a jarhead.”

Lacey smirked as he scratched his chin with his middle finger. “Are you gonna ride your bike, Zoomie? I didn’t see it in any of the trucks here.” They all laughed, but Eamon giggled as if he did not quite understand the joke.

“Okay, fall in guys.” Amy said still smiling as her flight lined up shoulder to shoulder. She walked up to Adam and started her hands on checks. Frays made sure he had enough ammo and his hydration bladder was full and had the rest of his gear. Satisfied he had all the stuff he would need, Frays moved on to Private Powers.

He looked at her gratefully as she checked over his gear. “Don’t worry, Senior Airman.” Powers whispered as the woman checked the grenade pouches on his plate carrier. “I’m not gonna disappoint you guys. I promise.” Amy simply gave him a discomforted half smile before moving on to Eamon.

Once the hands on checks were done Frays went over the route and the rest of the plan with everyone to make sure they all knew what they were going to do. “Okay, guys.” Frays said once she had finished her briefing. “Lacey, you’re with me. Eamon and Powers in the other truck. Be careful and keep your eyes open once we get outside town. Remember, everything that isn’t us is hostile until it proves otherwise.”

They piled into the vehicles. Once she was in the passenger seat of the lead Five Ton, Frays bowed her head. “Saint Joan, please help me get these people where we have to go, find what we need and get back safe. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, Amen.”
she prayed quietly in Latin. Amy made the sign of the cross before reaching over and grabbing the radio’s handset. “Alright, everybody. Let’s go.”

Lacey looked at her strangely as they pulled away from the school. “You speak Latin? Who speaks Latin anymore?”
he asked then snickered under his breath.

“After nine years at Saint Mary’s I should.” Frays said with a small grin. She shifted around into a more comfortable position on the bench seat. “They used to give Mass in Latin at the church I went to as a kid. I still love the sound of the language.”

About a half mile down the road Amy noticed a pair of big pickup trucks parked across the road with perhaps six or seven armed men hanging around them. She could not help but notice the hateful looks some of them gave her as their truck went around the townies’ makeshift barricade. Frays smiled and waved at them and the youngest one, a guy who looked like he was about sixteen with sandy hair and a bolt action rifle slung over his shoulder, returned the gesture. A few of the others glared at him so he looked guiltily at the ground and let his hand fall to his side.

They rolled down the road in silence. Amy let her eyes play over the surrounding landscape, keeping a look out for anything that might be dangerous. It was going to be another hot, humid day today if the sweat already rolling down her back was any indication. Frays sighed and wiped a drop of sweat out of her eyes. “You know something, Lacey?” she said quietly, still scanning their surroundings “I don’t know a thing about you, really. Tell me something.”

Adam glanced at her from across the cab of the truck and chuckled under his breath. “What do you want to know?” he asked. Lacey steered the truck around an overturned car. “Ask me anything.”

“Anything says you?”
Amy’s lips curled up into a mischievous little smile as she contemplated the question. “How did you meet your wife?” Frays looked down at her lap for a second before turning her attention back outside.

“I was going to Bunker Hill Community College.” Adam said quietly, a smile growing slowly on his face as he remembered. “Laura worked at a pizza joint off campus.
Best pepperoni and mushroom pies north of Brooklyn. I’d go in every time I had two nickels to rub together. Eventually I got up the nerve to ask her to a movie.

“We’d been together a year or so when she got in a family way.” Lacey recounted. He spared a glance at Frays, who was looking back at him out of the corner of her eye with an interested expression on her face. “We got married and I had to drop out of college to support my new family.”

“Is that why you signed up?” Amy asked. She paused to roll up the sleeves of her ABU top over her elbows, drawing a snicker from Lacey. The skin of her forearms was pale as a sheet compared to that of her hands, neck and face.

“Yeah.” Adam said
this time swerving the Five Ton around what he really hoped was the carcass of a deer or something lying in the middle of the road. “Laura didn’t want me to. She was scared I’d get sent to Iraq or Afghanistan or someplace like that and leave her with two little kids to take care of.”

Amy nodded. “I can understand that.” she said quietly. Frays pulled her head towards her shoulder with her left hand. Lacey grimaced at the audible pop her vertebrae made. “
A…friend of mine has…had two kids.” She exhaled hard, choking on the memory of Sergeant Emery and his family saying goodbye to each other before they got on the plane to Iraq. “I couldn’t imagine what they went through all those times he got deployed.”

He was quiet for a minute. “My dear old dad was a loser and a drunk.” Lacey said spat. There was a strange, faraway look on his face as he spoke. “He dropped me off at my grandparents’ house when I was nine months old and disappeared for the next sixteen years. The bastard blamed me ‘cause my mom died bringing me into the world.” He wiped at something on his face and looked at the truck’s instrument panel. “Why am I talking about this? I never talk about this.” Adam muttered under his breath. Frays put a hand on the man’s arm and gave it a sympathetic squeeze.

Amy noticed the light bar of a police cruiser up ahead. It looked like the vehicle’s front end had gotten up close and personal with a light pole. “Hey, pull over a minute.” Frays said quietly as she pointed to the cop car. “Let’s see if there’s anything in the police car we can salvage.”

The convoy pulled to a halt beside the police car and descended upon it like a pack of vultures. Lacey ran up to the front of the car while Powers approached from the rear, weapons at the ready in case the figure behind the wheel was hostile. At the same time Amy hopped down from the truck cab and sprinted to the back of it where she grabbed a couple jerry cans and a length of garden hose while Eamon provided security.

Adam smashed in the driver’s side window with the butt of his M16, knocked the broken glass out of the window frame and reached in to open the door. The smell emanating from the corpse seated behind the wheel made him stagger back and cover his mouth with his hand. The corpse was so bloated with decomposition that it was impossible to guess what gender the peace officer had been in life.

“C’mon, Lacey.” Frays called encouragingly as she set down the gas cans near the rear of the car. “You can do it. Breathe through your mouth, buddy.” He looked like he was going to be sick but took a deep breath, held it then grabbed the corpse by the sleeve of its uniform and hauled it out of the car. The corpse made a belching noise when it hit the pavement. Adam jumped back and pointed his rifle at the body. “They do that sometimes, man. Just ignore it.” Amy said
as she got ready to siphon the fuel out of the cruiser’s tank.

He nodded dumbly and rushed back to the car and pushed the buttons next to the steering column, popping the trunk and the cover to the fuel tank. “One of these days you’ll have to tell me how you know some of this stuff.” he said as he started searching the inside of the car.

“No, no I don’t think I do.” Amy muttered with a frown as she unscrewed the gas cap and jammed the garden hose into the tank while Powers rooted around in the trunk. Powers let out a whoop. “Got an M4 here!” he announced as he pulled the rifle out along with a small olive drab bag, which he slung over his shoulder. “Looks like some ammo too!”

“That’s great, dude.” Adam said as he groped around inside the front of the car. His hand closed around something under the dash that brought a smile to his face. He tried to tug the shotgun out but it seemed to be locked in place. Lacey raced back to his Five Ton and came back with the cordless drill. After a couple minutes of work under the dash, he managed to ream out the core of the lock and release the weapon. Clutching the shotgun, he ran back around the front of the car as Frays made a gagging sound and stuck the hose into the jerry can.

Frays glanced at the Marine and smiled weakly. “I hope you guys won’t lose respect for me because I’m good at sucking gas through a hose.” Amy said as she stood up carefully and walked towards the corpse. She felt a little nauseous and unsteady on her feet from inhaling the gasoline fumes.

Lacey and Powers laughed so hard that their eyes watered. “I don’t think you’ve got to worry about that, Frays.” Adam said as he set his new shotgun on the ground and started pulling on the rubber gloves out of his gas mask carrier. He unbuckled the pistol belt around the corpse’s waist and threw it over his shoulder.

“Check around the ankles.” Amy advised as the first jerry can started to fill up. She pulled the hose out and put a thumb over the end and switched out the cans. “He might have a backup piece in an ankle holster.”

He did as Frays suggested and grunted with surprise when he found a small automatic in an ankle holster. Adam felt around for some way to get the holster off the corpse’s leg, but the flesh was so swollen it was hard to even find where it was exactly. He jammed the little pistol into his pocket and stood up.

The three of them stood nervously around the car, waiting for the jerry can to fill up. “What do we got?” Frays asked as she glanced at the two men. The gas can sounded like it was starting to get full. “Looks like eight or nine gallons of regular gas.”