Outbreak: Brave New World (14 page)

Amy looked at her brother out of the corner of her eye as the three of them crouched next to a box van in the store’s back lot. The store seemed to be quiet enough and did not look to be burned from this side
of the building, but that was no guarantee of what was inside. Hopefully there was not a bunch of filthy disease ridden monsters stomping all over their potato chips or anything…

Frays crossed herself, muttered a quiet prayer then pulled the Saint Joan’s medal she wore around her neck out and kissed it before
tucking the little metal disk back into place under her clothing. “How did you know about the hole in the fence?” she asked, covering Rodriguez as the woman hurried across the parking lot to the back door. Once Frannie had climbed the stairs to the loading dock, cleared the area and taken up a position next to the rear door the woman brought her carbine up to cover Frays and her brother.

“Me and Mikey Thompson would sneak down by the tracks on break to smoke.” the boy confessed, smiling a little at his sister before sprinting across the lot to join Rodriguez. Amy looked shocked for a moment then, once Carl was safely across the lot and
at the back door with Rodriguez, hustled to join them.

Rodriguez and Frays stacked up at the back door. “Carl, cover us.” Amy whispered over her shoulder as she pointed towards the parking lot. “Me and Rodriguez will go in first. When we say ‘
clear’ you come in behind us and close the door.”

Rodriguez took a flashbang
grenade out of a pouch on her plate carrier and held it up for Frays to see. Amy pursed her lips for a second then shook her head. “No.” she whispered in Frannie’s ear. “Go soft. Those things get drawn by noise, remember?” Amy saw the woman nod as she slipped the grenade back into its pouch and secured it. Frays put a hand on Rodriguez’s shoulder and squeezed, indicating that she was ready to go.

In a flash, the two of them were through the door which had been left open probably by some
considerate looters or maybe an employee who had left in a hurry. Frays and Rodriguez swept their immediate area, using the tac lights attached to their weapons to illuminate the shadowy store. “Clear.” Frays whispered as she flicked the light off and on, moving to the end of a row of shelves nearby in between activating the pressure switch on her weapon light. Rodriguez mirrored Frays’ movements, covering the opposite side of the door. Nothing seemed to be moving in the store. “Clear.” she said. They both felt a little better when Carl rushed inside and gently closed the door behind him.

The air inside the store was thick with the cloying smell
of rotten vegetables, spoiled meat and dairy products that were several weeks past due. Amy gagged a little on the stench and peered into the dark. The store was dimly lit, the only light in the building now coming through the shattered windows at the front and the small skylights overhead.

The three of them moved quietly through the store, tiptoeing around knocked over displays and garbage strewn on the floor.
The place was a mess: there was a station wagon parked in the display windows, shelving units were knocked over, there was trash everywhere. There were moldy clumps of rotten food on the tile floor. A couple times they came across a gnawed skeleton lying on the floor: either the victims of the creatures or human predators it was impossible to tell. “Don’t look, Carl.” Frays whispered over her shoulder, hoping that the dumb kid would actually listen to her for a change.

Frays took point while Rodriguez brought up the rear while Carl was in the middle with his rifle slung over his shoulder. He gripped the Mosin-Nagant’s bayonet in one hand, using the other to occasionally pick something up off the floor or a shelf as they passed and
stuff it in his backpack. Carl directed his sister towards the pharmacy with gentle taps on the shoulder, right to go right left to go left, in between his pilfering.

When they reached the pharmacy
Amy hopped over the counter then started rifling through the shelves where the prescription drugs were stored searching for not only any kind of an antibiotic she could find but also secretly hoping to find another resupply of Rodriguez’s meds. Amy frowned as she picked through the remaining bottles left scattered on the shelves or on the floor. There were a few white paper bags in a plastic basket which she tore open and looked at the labels on the pill bottles inside with her flashlight. Frays could not help but be more than a little concerned about what would happen when they eventually could not find any more of Frannie’s ‘little blue battle buddies’. She had heard that bad things could happen to somebody who was on those things and just suddenly stopped taking them…

Frays vaguely remembered hearing Rodriguez
hitting on Lacey when she was laid up after the incident with Powers. Everything had been a little fuzzy and strange for a few days thanks to the concussion and pain meds. If Amy had been more certain that she actually heard what she thought she heard Frays might have mentioned it to her friend, but she was not so she did not. Frannie had been low on her meds then and it seemed sort of out of character for her.

Amy spared a glance over the top of the counter towards her friend
. For some reason having the kids around seemed to help Frannie out but there were a couple times a day where she could tell her friend just wanted to go on and be with Eamon. She sighed and made a strange face and pondered how to bring up the subject the next time they were in private…

Frannie and Carl searched the shelves outside the pharmacist’s area, filling their bags and pockets with whatever looked useful. Boxes of adhesive medical strips, a bag of cotton balls, some hydrogen peroxide… Carl glanced at his sister as she rooted through the drugs and
smiled to himself as he tucked something into his pocket. He saw Frannie filling the cargo pockets of her ACUs with little stuffed toys and other such things for the kids from a display that had been knocked over at the other end of the aisle. “Hey, Frannie.” Carl whispered from the end of the row as he picked up a blister pack with a dozen toy cars and a little nylon mesh bag of plastic army men that had somehow ended up on the floor in the chaos and stuffed them into his pack. “Got anything good?”

“
Multi-vitamins, some cold medicine, a bottle of aspirin, a bunch of band-aids and a half box of protein bars.” she answered, jamming a couple of the foil wrapped bars into an empty pouch on her plate carrier. “You?” Frannie spared a glance at the boy then turned her head a little bit to check on Frays.

“Some razors, three bars of soap…” Carl swung his pack off his shoulder and rooted through it, though still glancing around to keep an eye on their surroundings. “
A thing of powdered Gatorade and…” he held up a big bottle of prenatal vitamins then tipped his bag forward, showing Rodriguez two plastic containers of baby wipes and a travel sized bundle of newborn diapers.

Frannie smiled and clapped Carl on the shoulder. “Uncle Carl.” Rodriguez said quietly and chuckled to herself. “Good thinking, man.” She turned to Frays and was glad to see that the woman had finished with whatever she was doing behind the desk.

“Ready guys?” Frays asked as she finished stuffing the few bottles of pills she had liberated into her pack beneath a spare uniform to stifle the noise they might make. She paused, straining her ears to see if she could hear anything coming towards them. Rodriguez and Carl nodded as she readjusted the straps on her rucksack. Amy spared a glance at her semi functioning watch. “Okay, five more minutes. Second objective.”

They moved on as they had before, this time Carl directing them towards the part of the store where the canned food was kept. There were, not surprisingly, pretty slim pickings but Carl found something that made him grin at his sister “Merry Christmas, Aim.” he said as he picked a family sized glass jar of kosher dill whole pickles off the shelf and held it up for her to see before
sticking it in his bag with all the other loot.

“No
w if we can find some ice cream you’ll be in business.” Rodriguez sniggered as she crammed a half dozen large cans of baked beans into her pack.
Goddamn I’d love some fuckin’ mint chocolate chip.
Frannie thought with a frown. “C’mon, let’s get out of here. I’m pretty much out of space to carry shit.”

The three of them backtracked a little bit to the railroad tracks then set out on their way back to the Humvee. Taking the same way out of town that they had taken in was pretty far from ideal, but they needed speed now especially that they were each carrying significantly more weight than they started out with.

Frays glanced at her watch again and set off at a range walk, the pace somewhere between a power walk and a slow jog down the side of the railway. They were a little behind schedule, but they should be able to make it home inside the time limit. Hopefully some of the pills in her pack would work and make Laura better…

Frays signaled a halt within sight of the Route 31 overpass. She could see a half dozen figur
es milling around on the bridge. Some of them bumped into the railing or the stalled cars scattered on the roadway overhead. Amy dropped into a crouch and slapped the magnification module into place on her M4. The quiet crunch of gravel behind her told her that Rodriguez and Carl were following her lead, probably because they saw the forms on the bridge too.

Crap!
Amy thought when one turned and stared directly at her, its mouth opening in a feral snarl.
Did it see us?
She caught the movement of Carl raising his rifle out of the corner of her eye and heard its safety snick off. Frays pivoted a bit then switched her grip a little on the carbine. “Carl, no.” Amy ordered as she flipped up the leaf sights of her M203 and estimated the distance to the area on the west side of the bridge farthest away from them. Frays flicked off the 40mm launcher’s safety then steadied her aim and squeezed off a shot.

The M203 made a hollow thump and t
he grenade sailed through the air, where it bounced on the pavement just out of sight with a metallic ping then hissed like a snake while it spewed white gas into the air. The three of them watched tensely as the creatures wandered off to investigate the grenade. Without looking back Amy waved forward and the three of them took off, hurrying off towards where they had left the truck.

They stopped just south of the burned out warehouses. Frays wiped at her
runny nose and her eyes stung a little. Apparently, Carl and Rodriguez were in about the same shape: their eyes were red and a little watery. Carl was coughing a little bit but thankfully nobody seemed that bad off. The boy was about to dump his canteen in his eyes but Frannie caught his arm. “Don’t Carl.” she warned, shaking her head from side to side. “You’ll just make it worse. Give it a few minutes and it’ll go away.”             

“Sorry, Carl.” Amy said quietly. She pushed in the barrel latch an
d reloaded the grenade launcher with a fresh grenade more out of habit than anything else.
Have to see if I can scrounge up some HE rounds somewhere.
Frays thought dejectedly as she snapped the launcher’s action closed. On the other hand, the little trick with the tear gas grenade had worked better than she thought it would. Amy smiled at her little brother. “C’mon. We’re almost there.”

The ride back was as bumpy and jarringly uncomfortable as the ride into town. Frays let Rodriguez drive
, her neck throbbing as the Humvee jostled and bounced its way down the railway. Carl was in the seat behind her and pawing through his backpack. He could tell from the way that Amy was breathing she could use some of those Tylenol that Rodriguez had found. “Frannie, where’d you put those pills you grabbed?” he asked. Frannie dug around in her cargo pockets and handed the boy the plastic bottle. Carl peeled off the plastic seal, pulled out the cotton ball and shook a few of the pills into his hand. “Here ya go, guys.” he said as he divvied them up and gave the little white pills to the two women in the front of the truck.

It felt like a mild form of torture as the Humvee rolled on down the railway. Frays gritted her teeth and tried to focus on keeping an eye out for any threats
but it was all she could do to keep from curling into a little ball in the passenger’s seat and crying. Her left arm felt like she had plunged it into a hornet’s nest up to her shoulder and the muscles kept twitching on their own. She sighed gratefully when they finally made it onto Old Mill Road. “Almost there, guys.” Amy said, taking a deep breath and very slowly turning her head to give Carl a small smile. “Keep an eye out, but we’re almost done for the day.”

Frays and Rodriguez looked at each other uneasily as they pulled into the driveway. “What the fuck…” Frannie wondered aloud under her breath. Lacey was dragging something wrapped up in a blue tarpaulin across the blacktop. He stopped and dropped whatever it was, waiting for them to get out of the truck.

He was pale and shaking when the three of them walked over to him. “Guys…” he said quietly, taking deep shuddering breaths as he looked frantically from Amy to her brother and back again. “Um…”

“W-What happened, Lacey?” Frays asked, her brown eyes flitting from the thing in the tarp. “Where is everybody?” She glanced at Carl, who gave his sister a confused and worried look. All of a sudden the pain
running up and down her arm was the farthest thing from her mind.

A few tears leaked from the Marine’s eyes
. He looked shamefully at the ground. “Ah…um…” Adam started, took a deep breath. “A couple of…them…turned up. T-They…er…got your dad, Frays.” Frays blinked at him then turned to her brother, glanced at Rodriguez. “I-I…Laura…s-she…attacked your mom. She…your mom… she killed your mom when I was looking for your dad.”