Carl’s eyebrows scrunched up. “Did you take it with you too?” he asked. He honestly could not remember if she had or not. It felt like a million years had gone by since then and Dad had kept the pistol in his sock drawer at home, so Amy very well could have had it in Iraq and he would never have known.
Amy chuckled as she used her fingernail to get a bit of stuff out of the checkering on the grip panel. “No, Dad wouldn’t let me.” she said with a wry smile. She had tried to get Dad to suggest that she put the pistol in the bottom of her rucksack. “Besides, they checked all my stuff before I got on the plane and I probably would have gotten in trouble if I got caught with it.”
“Oh.” Carl said quietly. He watched his sister push a wire brush through the barrel to loosen any carbon or debris that might be inside it. “Dad let me shoot it a couple times. It was fun.” He smiled at the memory.
“I smacked myself in the face with it the first time Dad let me shoot it.” Frays admitted, making her brother laugh. “I was like seven and he had accidently put a couple of +P loads in it. I put the safety off, lined up my sights and POW! Right in the kisser.” Amy mimed the recoil of a handgun rocking back and smacking her in the mouth. The two of them laughed almost to the point of tears at the image of a skinny little girl with a fat lip being fussed over by her daddy. “Dad felt soooo bad! He bought me a banana split on the way home from the range to make up for it.” She finished cleaning the pistol and put it back together then wiped the holster, magazine carrier and the magazines off.
Frays held the weapon out to Carl butt first. “Go on, buddy.” she said, waiting for him to take it. “I think Dad would want you to have this. Just take good care of it. It’s an antique.” A look of awe came over the boy’s face as he accepted it then locked the slide to the rear and inspected the chamber, just as Dad had always taught him to do when picking up a gun. Amy smiled so widely it kind of made her cheeks hurt a little.
“Hey, it’s better than that little nine mil popgun you got.” the boy said as he stuck the pistol into the waistband of his jeans. Amy only shook her head, went to the boy then pulled him to his feet and gave him a big hug. The siblings held each other for a moment, a few tears leaking down their faces. Carl finally broke off the embrace then wiped his eyes and smiled. “Aw, c’mon! Aim! Stop!” he said half heartedly.
Frays laughed then her face became serious. “Look…Carl, I’m so sorry about before.” she said as she held him at arm’s length. The woman looked sheepishly at her little brother and sighed. “The last time I ever talked to Dad was when I told him I was pregnant. He slapped me and called me a…um…anyway…and I didn’t speak to him since. He was right there and…and I was so mad at him that I couldn’t bring myself to even talk to him…”
Carl was quiet. It explained why Dad and Amy were so pissed at each other ever since the news broke that she was pregnant. He smiled and hugged her, careful to avoid touching anywhere near her neck. “C’mon, let’s go back inside.” he said quietly as he gathered the rag, cleaning kit and the pistol’s accessories. Amy picked up the cold pack and rested it on the back of her neck and followed after him, smiling a little to herself.
Rodriguez and Lacey were slowly getting the kids to settle down for bed. Carl was finishing putting away the dinner dishes after they had dried in the rack next to the sink. It had been Amy’s turn to make dinner and now she was in the bathroom doing personal hygiene. Half of them used the shower before dinner and the other half did so later in the evening so that they all had enough of hot water since Lacey had to wash the kids individually, exhausting the supply in the tank under the deck fairly quickly.
“Holy crap!” Amy shouted, her voice muffled by the bathroom door. The three of them hustled into the hall and ran into each other, all trying to get at the handle. Lacey rolled his eyes when Frays opened up, holding the bottom of her undershirt up. She smiled uneasily at her friends. “Sorry, guys. Look!” Frays pointed to a small, distinct lump in the middle of her stomach. “I got a baby bump.”
Carl smiled nervously. “Can I?” he asked, tentatively reaching out towards his sister’s belly. Frays nodded and the boy ran his fingers over the tiny bulge, making Amy giggle and back away. Carl crouched, smiling at his little niece or nephew. “Cool! Hey little guy, I’m your Uncle Carl.” he said quietly to his sister’s stomach, a big goofy grin plastered all over his face.
Adam shook his head. In addition to the lump, he could not help but notice that Frays’ breasts were a little bigger than the last time he had seen her in a tee shirt. “Jeez, Frays.” he muttered, glancing towards the dining area and was not that surprised to see two little heads poking around the corner. He smiled a little, remembering when Laura had first started to show. The first ultrasound had only shown one fetus, but much to their surprise a second one appeared at the next doctor’s visit… All of a sudden two competing emotions sprung to mind: grief for his wife and concern that his friend might be in a similar situation. What if there were two or even three little people growing in there?
“I was kinda hoping that I was starting to get some weight back.” Amy said as she leaned against the doorframe. She smiled a little bit and glanced down as she tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Looks like somebody else had other ideas.” Frays patted her belly and snickered.
Rodriguez snorted then looked a little startled. She turned and rushed out into the living room, coming back with Carl’s backpack. “Carl, did you show your sister what you grabbed at the store the other day?” she asked, thrusting the bag into the boy’s arms.
“Um…no.” Carl muttered, surprised that he had forgotten all about it. He tugged open the zipper and held it open so Amy could see the contents. Frays grinned and hugged her little brother when she pulled out the diapers, baby wipes and vitamins. He tried to look embarrassed and pulled himself away.
“Thank you, Carl.” Amy said as she set the gifts on the sink. Frannie and Adam exchanged little smiles at the scene then backed away from the door a little. Rodriguez put a hand on Carl’s shoulder, indicating that he should follow them.
“Uncle Carl’s on top of shit, Frays.” Rodriguez said quietly. She glanced at the little lump still visible under her friend’s shirt then backed away a little more. “Taking care of our nephew.” She smirked at the red creeping into the boy’s face. “C’mon, guys. Let’s let momma here get her shower taken.”
Amy snickered and sighed as soon as he had the door shut. She ran her hand over the bump on her belly, glad that the little person seemed to be coming along okay but also starting to get scared too. It would not be long until her flak jacket would not fit. How long would it be before she could not even get up out of a chair without help? A wave of queasiness ran through her when she thought about how she had fallen on her face the other day. She could have miscarried right there in a ditch by that stupid rusted out railroad track. What then? Carl and Frannie would have had to try and carry her all the way back to the truck. Or one of them would have to stay with her and the other go get the Humvee. Heck, what if she got tore up inside or whatever when the baby came?
She thought about what Lacey had confided to her about his family, how his mother had died in childbirth and his father had abandoned him as a baby. At the time, Amy could not understand why a father would turn his back on his son. There was a wave of self loathing. She had been so ticked off at her dad…and now she would never have the chance to at least try and explain to him…to make it right somehow…
She put a hand out and leaned against the wall, taking a few deep breaths choking on tears. “Stop it right now.” Frays told herself sharply as she turned on the shower then stripped and got inside. The young woman squirted a little shampoo into the palm of her hand and started washing her hair. She squinted, trying to keep the soap out of her eyes. “Everything’s alright right now. There’s a way around if you calm down and look.”
After a nice hot shower and having a go at hacking down the almost freakishly long hair on her
legs (and shredding herself pretty badly) Frays had to admit to herself that she felt better. Carl was talking again. She had to remind herself that she had a full belly and a dry, reasonably secure place to sleep as she toweled off and dressed. The generator was in good working order and it had a decent amount of fuel left and the boiler was in good shape. There was the water pump and filter too, giving them a virtually endless supply of fresh water from the lake not to mention hot showers.
However the constant gnawing hunger that had plagued her at the school was still fresh in her mind. There were probably a lot of people out there worse off than they were and she should be grateful. Heck, she even seemed to be more or less getting a pass in the morning sickness department too. There was a little queasiness sometimes but nothing like they made it look like on TV or anything. Her dinner stayed where she put it which was great because they did not have the food to waste.
Carl was winding his little dynamo powered radio at the table in the dining area while Frannie and Adam were trying to get the kids ready for bed when Frays came out of the bathroom. The boy had first watch and kept himself awake by going through the radio bands, hoping to find a signal. So far he had reported no joy. The hide-a-bed was folded out, taking up a good portion of the floor in the living room. Lacey looked up from tucking Becca into bed. “Um…Frays, why don’t you sleep in your parents’ room?” he asked tentatively. There was an odd look on his face, as if he was not sure how she would respond. Frays got the feeling that they had all been talking about this while she was in the shower. So far nobody had the guts to go into the back bedroom for more than a couple minutes.
Frays frowned slightly as she looked around the house. One of them would be sleeping in the recliner, probably Rodriguez and there was the rocking chair…Carl had his cot in the dining room. She looked uneasily at the door to her parents’ bedroom. “I’d feel better if we were all together.” Amy said quietly as she rolled her shoulders. The woman winced as another electric shock ran down her arm but it was not as bad as before when Lacey had touched the base of her neck.
“Aim, you need a comfortable place to sleep.” Carl said as he finished winding up the radio and plugged a set of earbud headphones into it. The boy put one into his ear and looked seriously at his sister for a moment then a hint of a smile tugged at his lips. “I mean, if you don’t want that nice soft bed, I’ll take it and you can have my cot.”
Amy looked uneasy but nodded. It made sense, seeing as how she was getting pretty pregnant. “Alright, guys.” Frays grumbled as she turned towards the door. She paused and poked her head into the dining area. “We’re going to have to have a talk in the morning, alright?”
Rodriguez gave her a drowsy thumbs up from the recliner as Lacey got into bed with his children. “Roger that, boss.” the man called as the little ones cuddled up with their daddy. “Good night, Frays. I’ll wake you around 0400 for watch.”
Carl twirled the little dial on the radio as he sat there, listening to the various degrees of static on the radio. He was getting pretty good at distinguishing the different stations simply from the ratio of hisses to pops and whistles to whines. He did not really think that he would actually hear anything, but…it was something to do. And, well, if he did hear something it would be awesome because they all seemed to be getting a little claustrophobic and scared ever since…the thing the other day.
Carl frowned as he changed stations and watched Frannie sleep. She really was hot even with the scars on her face and stuff. He wondered what it would be like to hold her close, feeling her warmth as Frannie leaned against his chest. She snorted in her sleep and flinched, obviously dreaming and it made a brief smile flash across the boy’s face. An intense feeling of discomfort radiated from his groin so he turned away and focused on the noise coming through the earbud.
His frown deepened as he changed the station again. Carl could tell everybody was scared and sad and worried even if they were not saying anything about it. Amy was hurt and probably pretty bad judging from the way she flinched and nearly screamed whenever somebody touched her neck or turned her head too fast. Not to mention that the idea of his big sister giving birth here at the house without a doctor or anything almost sent him into screaming fits every time he let himself think about it for more than three seconds.
The boy had never really thought about it, but he loved his big sister even though they had never been close growing up. Amy had gone away to college when he was about nine or so and she was fourteen cutting down on the chance for them to really get to know each other or anything save hunting trips in the spring and fall with Dad or when she came home from college during the summer. Sometimes he could not help but get a little pissed, like his teachers and parents were expecting him to be a goddamn super-genius like his big sister…
Not that it was all bad: when Aim was over in Iraq it made him a minor celebrity around school for awhile. Nobody else in his class knew anybody over there and lots of people wanted to talk to him about it. It stopped being cool when he got called down to the counselor’s office one afternoon where he met his parents.
Mom had been crying a lot and Dad had that same stony expression on his face whenever something was bothering him but he did not want anybody to know about it. It turned out that there was a video on YouTube showing little bits of this metal box thing all over the place. He did not get why Mom and Dad were so upset about it at first until they said it was where Amy was living over in Iraq. It took him a minute but he recognized a couple things in the background from the pictures Amy had emailed him. He got to go home from school while Dad frantically tried to get a hold of someone in Amy’s chain of command to see if she was alright. Mom had cried and cried all afternoon on the couch and clutching a picture of Amy in her dress uniform, taken at her graduation ceremony.
Even Dad started to cry when the phone rang in the middle of the night. Amy had called from a satellite phone and spoke to each of them for a few minutes to assure them that she was okay and currently had the same number of parts as she did when they last saw her. Somebody over there had told her about the video and she had worked a drug deal with a reporter to use his satellite phone so she could call them and let everybody know she was alright. He remembered how shaken up his big sister had sounded as she talked to him from half way around the world. Carl had guessed that there was something she was not telling him but he let it go. Aim just probably did not want to worry anybody. Yeah, he loved his sister.
Frannie looked sad a lot too even though she tried to hide it. He thought about bringing it up with Amy and Adam but he was embarrassed to admit that he watched her a lot. He scowled bitterly as he switched stations. A pang of sour anger came and went as he remembered all the shit that some of the real douchebags at school would give him. Carl was generally pretty sociable but for some reason he could not talk to any of the girls. He could not even conjure up the guts to say a word to any them but instead hung back and stared. So, of course, the swaggering jocks would pick on him: creep, loser, weirdo…or if they were feeling particularly malicious, they would call him a rapist.
Why did this have to fucking happen? Carl thought, growing frustrated and lonely… He started flitting through the stations on the dial, hoping and begging silently to hear the sound of another human voice. “Holy shit!” Carl shouted as he jumped up from the table.
Rodriguez leapt out of the recliner and stumbled into the end of the hide-a-bed as Lacey launched himself off of it and plowed right into her. Carl might have found the whole scene funny if he was not busy fiddling with the dial on his radio: Adam and Frannie were crawling over each other trying to stand up. Amy burst into the dining room with her M4 in her hands and expecting to find a horde of zombies pulling the dang house down around their ears from all the commotion in the living room.
“Hey guys!” Carl hissed as he unplugged the headphones from the radio and slowly dialed up the volume. “Listen to this!” Rodriguez and Lacey hurried over to the table and stood by the boy
as he owlishly stared at the dial, tuning through the static. “I know I heard something. C’mon…c’mon dammit.”
Frays scowled at her little brother as she scratched sleepily at an itch on her nose. This had better be good! Amy thought with a little frustration. As she had suspected, Frays found that she could not get a wink of sleep in there leaving her tired and grouchy. The bed was comfortable enough but the room itself seemed like it was full of ghosts. She kept expecting Mom and Dad to come in and kick her out at a moment’s notice and the bedclothes still held scents that reminded her of them. She could smell her mother’s hairspray and the lingering odor of burned tobacco, the tang of Dad’s deodorant and the powder Mom used sometimes. Lacey and Frays gave each other nervous smiles across the table. They had apparently both been thinking the same thing when Carl had started yelling.
Carl and Amy’s jaws dropped when the radio finally managed to pick up a weak signal and a voice, familiar even through the feedback and static, came through the radio’s tiny speakers. “-ow to the head. These things can be destroyed by damage to their brains.” explained a tired but friendly voice sounding voice before disappearing into a cloud of hissing white noise.
“Aim!” Carl hissed excitedly, a look of utter disbelief on his face. “Aim, that’s Ian Punnett! Ian goddamn Punnett!” Frays smiled at her little brother, holding an index finger over her lips as she concentrated on trying to make out more of the broadcast. The boy picked up the radio and moved closer to the window, stumbling over the stair going down into the living room.
Outbreak: Brave New World Page 13