Outbreak: Brave New World

by Van Dusen, Robert

  For Heather Lee Savary and Grace Forbes, two of my favorite tiny people.

  Thanks to radio personality and generally awesome guy, Ian Punnett for agreeing to make a cameo appearance in the book. Coast to Coast AM is a great program put together by some amazing people. Seriously, I think they’d be like ‘Zombies? Meh.’ and all get right back to work.

  Chapter One

  10 June 2011, 0643 hours 4 Old Trout Lane 10 miles north of Holden, Massachusetts

  The sand colored Humvee seemed remarkably out of place parked next to a pockmarked, archaic looking red Ford Explorer and a Dodge Caravan in the driveway of a small cabin well off the main road. What color the minivan used to be was anyone’s guess as the vehicle’s body was made up of more putty and grey primer than anything else. The cabin was a simple affair: a single story home covered with green aluminum siding, its driveway only recently paved with asphalt instead of the gravel that covered the winding road leading out of the woods and to the blacktop county road about a half a mile or so away to the east. It was just beginning to turn light outside, the forest coming to life after a still quiet night. A breeze occasionally stirred the tree branches sending early morning shadows flicking here and there.

  George woke a little after dawn and sat up coughing. He was a big burly middle aged man with a graying brown crew cut. His face was heavily lined, making him look much older than his forty nine years. Recent circumstances beyond his control had forced him to more or less give up his two pack a day habit but he still seemed to have twenty plus years of crap in his lungs. It took every ounce of willpower he could muster to not jam a cigarette into the corner of his craggy mouth and light up. He had to make the two and a half packs he had last as it did not look like he would just be able to drop in at the local 7/11 and grab another carton any time soon.

  His wife, Jessica stirred when he extracted himself from her arms and he kissed her. The two of them dressed quickly, George securing a battered worn Colt 1911A1 in its holster on his hip before the two of them quietly then went into the dining room. A slow smile spread across Jessie’s face and she nodded towards the living room. “George, look at that.” she whispered. George chuckled and slipped an arm around his wife’s waist as he took in the scene in their living room.

  Amy, their oldest child, lay sprawled on the hide-a-bed snoring loudly under a thin blanket. She was dark haired like her father had been when he was younger but was built like her mother: wide hipped with short legs however Amy had a good bit more muscle. A little smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth as he watched her. Their daughter had confided in her mother a couple times that she hated not looking like one of those stick figures on the magazine covers but now she sort of had gotten her wish. However the new reddish pink scar under her left eye would probably ruin any chance of Amy getting a modeling job in the near future.

  Amy looked like she had lost a lot of weight since he had last seen her. Her cheekbones were much more prominent and it looked like the ACUs she was wearing were more than a little too big. His daughter was in the Air Force Reserve so he could not help but wonder for a moment where she had gotten the clothes. And judging by the damage that Amy and her friends had done to dinner last night they had not been eating either very much or with much regularity or some combination of the two since the current emergency began.

  The young woman twitched and murmured occasionally in her sleep, her hands opening and closing her legs kicking a little under the blanket, reminding her father of a dog chasing rabbits as it snoozed. Jessica and her husband exchanged slightly worried expressions when Amy made a noise that sounded kind of like she was mumbling the word ‘No’ over and over again under her breath interrupted occasionally by low noises that might have been screams if she were awake. Jessica was about to wake her when thankfully their daughter groaned and rolled onto her side a moment later as whatever nightmare she was having released her from its grasp.

  The man felt his heart swell up with pride as he watched his daughter sleep. His baby girl had really only just gotten back from a tour of duty in Iraq when she had gotten called up to help out during the trouble in Boston a month or so ago. The only word they had from her was when Laura Lacey came to their house in Holden with her two kids and asked for help a day or two before everything really started getting bad in Boston. She had said that they were a Marine’s dependents and that Amy had sent her and their daughter was okay. As an Inactive Marine himself, George very well could not do the unchristian thing and turn them away.

  So after waiting a couple more days he had Jessie and their son, Carl, pack their things and they all came to stay at their hunting camp north of town until everything settled down. Only things did not settle down… He had secretly made his peace with God, given up his child for dead and prayed for her immortal soul about two or three days after the television and radio stations stopped broadcasting.

  That had been about two weeks ago but Jessica had always set out a place for Amy and Mrs. Lacey’s husband at meals. George just could not bring himself to tell his wife that they…would probably not be coming. Then, miracle of miracles, Amy rolled up yesterday afternoon in a Humvee with Private Lacey and this Army Specialist named Rodriguez.

  Jessie felt a tear roll down her cheek when she saw that poor Hispanic girl still asleep in their recliner curled up with that sweet little Paul, one of the Lacey’s two children. The young woman might have been pretty once but now she had a face like a mile of bad road. You could almost make out where the woman had been wearing those fancy protective sunglasses they gave to soldiers now: the area around her eye still looked normal but her right cheek and side of her neck was a moonscape of pockmarks and pale scars.

  A few of George’s friends from the VFW had scars like that, shrapnel or burns picked up in rice patties in Vietnam or Iraq the first time around… Amy had introduced her as Specialist Rodriguez. The poor girl could not walk all that well because Amy said she had been shot in the leg a couple weeks ago. The poor babies, all of them…

  Carl shifted on his cot and grumbled in his sleep a few feet away from them. He was tall for his age and handsome like his father, though he had his mother’s sandy blond hair. Jessie started to cry silently into her husband’s chest. “Poor babies. Oh George…our poor babies…”

  A noise drew the Frays’ attention. Becca, the Lacey’s other child, crawled out of the pile of couch cushions and blankets where the little ones had spent the night. The children both had unruly mops of brown hair and big blue eyes, a sign of the fact that they were fraternal twins. The little girl smiled mischievously at the Jessica and George then carefully tiptoed over to the hide-a-bed. Becca climbed up on to the mattress and rested her chin in her hands, staring at the sleeping woman with intense curiosity. Amy was a new and strange thing to her: she was Mommy’s age but Daddy listened to her and did what she said and she wore Army clothes and carried a gun like Daddy. It was all very, very puzzling to the four year old girl.

  Amy stretched and groaned, writhing on the bed for a second as she worked the kinks out of her stiff muscles. After spending the last month or so sleeping on cots, floors or wherever else seemed safe enough for the moment the thin lumpy mattress was like heaven wrapped in bacon. It occurred to her that she had kind of lost track of the date. Her watch’s face was cracked so that all she could really make out was the time. Amy could tell it was Friday…for all the help that was.

  She had very nearly fallen back to sleep when Frays felt a sneaking suspicion that somebody was watching her… She rolled onto her back and looked over to find her face inches from one of Lacey’s kids. “GAH!” Frays shouted as she pushed herself away from the child and almost leapt out of bed before managing to calm herself
down. “Jeez, kiddo! Don’t do that!” She flopped onto her back one hand pressed over her heart, which was hammering away in her chest. She did not even realize that her other hand had closed around the grip of the pistol in the drop leg holster on her right thigh and half drawn the weapon. Frays slowly loosened her grip on the M9 and smiled awkwardly as she snapped the pistol back into its holster.

  Becca laughed and moved a little closer to Amy with a big grin on her face, revealing a gap between her two front teeth. The little girl growled in mock ferocity as she crawled on her hands and knees towards Amy. Frays scowled playfully at the child and caught her as she approached, flipping Becca onto her back and tickling her armpits.

  The little boy woke when Frays shouted and scrambled out of the chair and to his sister’s defense. Paulie climbed up onto the bed and jumped onto Amy’s back where he got one of his little arms around the woman’s throat. Frays gave an exaggerated cry and let the boy pull her off his sister and giggled as the two children started trying to return the favor. Frays sniggered at first and squirmed, trying to work the children’s fingers out of her armpits but inexplicably felt a growing alarm a few seconds later. “Okay, guys! Stop!” she said quietly then repeated herself a little louder as the panic worked its way out of her chest through her voice. Frays started trying to push the children away gently at first then harder as blind terror started eating away at her self control. Amy suddenly inexplicably found herself scared to frigging death of these two little kids. “Stop! Guys! That’s enough!”

  A pair of hands grabbed Paul and hoisted the boy into the air. “When somebody says stop you stop, alright Paulie?” the child’s father, Adam, said sternly as he picked his son up and held him. Becca looked over at her father then ran across the bed and wrapped her little arms around his middle. Amy flashed a relieved smile and nodded thanks to the short, wiry man and took a moment to catch her breath as she hid her shaking hands in her armpits.

  A tall, willowy blonde shook her head as she came and grabbed Becca away from her father. “Come on, kids.” Laura said sourly as she jostled her daughter. “Let Amy get woken up before you start jumping on her.”

  Rodriguez fiddled with the chair she was sitting in for a moment before getting the footrest to fold down. “Yeah. It’s a little early for roughhousing, little man.” Frannie mumbled as she made her way painfully to her feet and dug something crusty out of the corner of her eye. The woman’s leg was throbbing because Paulie had ground his leg against the mostly healed bullet wound on her thigh on his way to goof around with Frays.

  Amy got out of bed and looked around the house as she tucked her tee shirt into the waistband of her ACU trousers and threw on her jacket. It took a moment but a burning sensation made its way up her legs from the soles of her feet. Frays grimaced as she quickly made up the bed and folded it back into the couch writing the sensation off as one of the many bumps, bruises and scrapes she had gotten on their trip here from Boston. There seemed to be a sort of permanent cramp in the base of her neck, probably from when the dump truck had hit her Humvee…. Frays pushed the thought away as Lacey and his children carried the cushions over and put them back where they belonged.

  Now that everyone was awake, Jessica went into the kitchen and set about getting breakfast ready. She was not planning anything fancy, just powdered milk and corn flakes and some freeze dried instant coffee. Laura mixed up a giant pitcher of the faux milk, sparing a glance over her shoulder while Mrs. Frays got the cereal out of the cupboard and took down bowls. Her stomach churned a little when she saw her husband and Amy setting the table for breakfast. They were not overtly flirting or anything…but…

  Frays, Lacey and Rodriguez exchanged uneasy glances as they ate after George said the blessing. “Um…hey, Dad.” Amy said quietly as she swallowed a mouthful of the bland cereal. She sprinkled just a tiny bit of sugar from the little bowl into the cup of coffee steaming at her elbow. “What have you guys heard about all this? I mean…how bad is it?”

  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 watched 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.”