Outbreak: Brave New World

by Van Dusen, Robert

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Adam grumbled then winked at Carl. “We’ve got it, Zoomie. We’ll be fine. You just keep an eye on my kids, alright? You need the mommy practice.” He looked like he wanted to say something else to Amy but could not bring himself to say it. The Marine clapped Frays on the shoulder instead, the two of them exchanging uneasy little grins.

  Carl and Lacey went out the back door and around the house, looking around nervously as they heard Frays and Rodriguez securing the door behind them. They went down the stairs to the lakeshore then started off north towards the cabin. “You know where we’re headed?” Adam asked quietly as the two men picked their way carefully through the fir trees growing along the side of the water. He found himself wishing that Frays’ map or the road atlas covered the area a little better. Frays’ map only showed the Boston area in any detail and the road atlas did not even show the road the cabin was on so they decided to leave it at the house so they could have more space in their pockets for more mission essential gear.

  “Yeah.” Carl said carefully. There was a carpet of pine needles under their feet, dampening their footfalls but there were still twigs and dead branches hidden in the detritus strewn along the forest floor. He considered what they would do if they stumbled across a deer or something. He had slugs loaded up in the shotgun, but would they drag it all the way back to the house? Butchering the animal in the woods would probably make more sense as those…things…would probably follow the smell of the carcass. He had to wonder if the smell of the dead fish had drawn the zombie that attacked Mrs. Lacey.

  The walk there was relatively uneventful, save for the occasional squirrel or bird taking exception to their intrusion. Carl kind of wished he had thought to bring one of the .22 caliber rifles along to take small game. Oh well… he thought as they halted a couple hundred yards from a wooden dock that jutted out into the water Have to remember that for next time.

  The two of them cautiously picked their way along the shoreline. The trees had been cleared from the water up to a single story house, leaving a gently sloping lawn that had not been mowed in quite some time. The place looked like it was empty from a distance and in reasonably good shape. The cabin’s wooden shingles looked like they had been stained possibly as early as last summer and the two huge picture windows facing the lake were intact. Lacey studied the building with his field glasses trying to see if the place was as empty as it seemed.

  He paused, frowning as he looked around the area. There was no movement around the place and if there was a car or anything it had to be on the opposite side of the building. There was a big grey satellite dish bolted to the roof, facing south. “Okay, looks clear.” Lacey whispered as he put the field glasses back in his rucksack. “There’s a door on the east side of the building. We’ll go in there, clear it and if nobody’s home then see what we can find and beat feet.”

  The two men crept quickly across the overgrown lawn, Lacey’s heart in his throat the entire time. It was about three hundred meters or so from the trees to the building but it felt like a mile. Once he got to the house, Adam led Carl along the side to take a peek and see if there were any vehicles parked in the driveway. It was on the other side of the house so they could not see it from their previous position in the trees. “Shit.” he muttered under his breath. Adam nodded towards a black Jeep Grand Cherokee sitting in the gravel driveway. “Know who belongs to that truck?”

  Carl stole a quick glance around the side of the building at the vehicle and nodded. “Yeah.” he said quietly. All of a sudden he felt kind of nervous and twitchy. Well…even more nervous and twitchy anyway. “That’s Mister Drakes’ Jeep.” The boy was quiet for a moment then wondered aloud “If they’re here, where are they?”

  Adam shrugged. “Dunno.” he said, returning to the door he had seen from the trees at the edge of the lawn. Was somebody asleep in there or something? Anybody inside the house would have seen them coming through those big ass windows… The two men stacked up at the door. Lacey wiped a few drips of sweat off his brow then put a hand on the handle.

  Adam reached out and tried the door, amazed and concerned that he found it open. They stood in a small kitchen and dining room, all chrome dully shining in the light drifting in through the small windows and heavy butcher block counters. The table in the dining room just passed the kitchen looked like it was made of oak and probably cost more than Lacey made in a month working the shit jobs he could get trying to support his family. The air in the room was thick with buzzing flies and stank of rotten fruit and spoiled meat. He started to doubt very much that they would find anyone alive in here.

  The kitchen cleared, they moved on to the living room. It was brightly lit, thanks to the huge windows that gave a breathtaking view of the lake. It had plush carpets on the floor and the plasma screen television took up a good portion of the wall on their right as they came into the room. There were leather sofas and nice loungers arranged around the TV, but what really caught Lacey’s eye was the bookshelf across the room. Hopefully there would be something worth reading there. The Frays had a pretty extensive collection of Westerns but that was not really his thing. And maybe there would be something new for them to read with the kids. There was only that old ass paperback Peanuts comics for them. He secretly hoped to find something a little more educational, maybe some Dr. Seuss books or something, as it did not look like they would be attending Kindergarten this fall… He could not help but feel a little disappointed and sad for them. They had been looking forward to riding the school bus.

  The two men jumped when they heard a thump in what sounded like a back bedroom that branched off the hall on the other side of the living room. Adam and Carl moved as one towards the sound, their weapons at the ready gripped in sweaty hands. Lacey, on point, noticed a pair of feet sticking out of the shadows in the hallway. His hand clamped tightly around the pistol grip of his rifle as he shown the weapon’s tac light at it.

  The pallid form struggled to sit up, it’s graying face caked with dried blood and black goo as they advanced on it. Unthinking, Adam lashed out with the butt of his M16, knocking the creature onto its back. He brought the heel of his boot down hard on the zombie’s face a piston fueled by fear, revulsion and a bucket full of adrenaline. The creature’s head cracked apart like a ripe melon, ruining the white carpet. The stuff that dribbled out of its fractured skull looked a lot like the oatmeal they had eaten for breakfast.

  Adam and Carl moved down the hall, stepping over the deactivated zombie. “Don’t look, man.” Lacey said under his breath as he dragged his foot on the carpet in an effort to clean the brains and other goop off of his boot. He could hear something scratching at the door at the end of the hall. They moved up to the door, Lacey putting a hand on the door.

  His hands sweating, Adam glanced over his shoulder at Carl. The two men exchanged nods and Lacey threw open the door, covering the area. “Holy shit!” he said quietly…

  Amy and Frannie sat at the dining room table, half heartily playing a game of spades. Frays made each of them an extra cup of coffee, which they sipped in between hands. The radio hissed very quietly at them and one of them would occasionally switch the station, trying to see if anything would come in. They were both tense and fidgety, worried sick about Carl and Lacey but neither one wanting to say anything about it. Were they okay? Did they run into any trouble? And did they find any toilet paper?

  Amy scowled at her cards. “Do you think it was like this for our folks?” Frays asked quietly after grumpily tossing out the queen of spades, sticking her with sixteen points. Frannie was beating her badly this time around. She was starting to give some serious thought to that jar of pickles in the cabinet next to the stove even though she was not really hungry. “Anybody want a pickle?” Amy asked, waiting for the inevitable smartass comment from Frannie. Rodriguez simply looked unhappily into her coffee cup for a moment then rifled through her cards.

  The kids seemed to keep themselves occupied with the stuffed animals and toy c
ars that they had brought back from their trip into town. Paulie stood up with a couple of the little metal cars in his hands and took a seat at the table. The little boy watched the women playing cards for a few minutes then put one of his toy cars on the table. A mischievous little smile played across his face when he pushed the miniature fire engine red Lamborghini Diablo across the table, where it rolled over the discard pile and landed in Frannie’s lap. Rodriguez scowled at the little boy and came around the table as Paulie giggled, hopping out of his chair and running into the living room.

  Rodriguez caught the boy and tickled him. In a matter of minutes Paulie, Becca and Frannie were all rolling around on the floor and horsing around. Frays smiled into the palm of her hand as she watched. She liked the kids but for some reason she just plain could not bring herself to play with them like Frannie did. It made her feel sort of panicky and sick to her stomach and it kind of annoyed her whenever she thought about it. How could she take care of her own kid if she could not even play with Becca and Paulie? How soon would it be until the others started questioning her leadership if they knew she was half crippled and almost constantly on the verge of losing her crap? She clenched and opened her left hand a few times, willing the appendage on the end of her arm to stop shaking.

  Amy’s breath caught in her throat. She thought she heard the crunching noise of a car pulling into the gravel driveway outside. Frays and Rodriguez looked at each other, identical expressions of surprise and anxiety on their faces. “Did you hear that?” Frannie asked, hoping that her ears were playing tricks on her.

  “Kids, get behind the couch.” Amy said quickly as she stood up with her carbine in her hands. “Time to play hide and go seek.” Rodriguez jumped up then slapped on her Kevlar as she picked up her own weapon. Frannie nodded at the children and gently pushed them towards the furniture, hoping that she was giving them a reassuring smile as she got them hidden behind the sofa. “Don’t worry. Me and Amy aren’t gonna let anything happen to you guys.”

  The two of them moved to either side of the hallway leading to the foyer. Whoever pulled up to the house would probably come knocking soon. Frannie and Amy exchanged nervous glances as they focused on the door, waiting for their visitors to come on in. “I wouldn’t want to be the first guy through the door.” Rodriguez said quietly as she flicked her carbine’s selector switch from Safe to Semi. Frays snorted a tiny laugh out of her nose then hushed her friend: she thought she heard the sound of a boot heel scraping on the concrete outside.

  The two of them nearly shot through the door when someone rapped on it twice then jiggled the handle once. Frays and Rodriguez both let out breaths that they did not realize they were holding as they lowered their weapons. Amy rolled her eyes as she put her M4 back on safe but still advanced cautiously towards the back door. Whoever was out there knew the signal…but who drove a frigging car up here?

  Amy crept to the door then pushed her M4 around to her back and drew her pistol then pulled the bars out of their brackets. She stood off to the side and slowly opened the door, pointing her weapon at the opening. “Lacey, why the heck didn’t you say anything?” she asked as she let the man inside. There was a shiny new black SUV sitting in the driveway. “I could have shot you, you jerk! And where did that truck come from?”

  Lacey seemed to deflate a little. “Glad to see you too, buddy.” he muttered under his breath as he pushed past her into the foyer. “I…think we…um…found your neighbors.” Adam said quietly. The tone of the man’s voice told her everything she needed to know about that subject. Amy nodded and sighed, letting the man into the house. Carl was right behind him.

  “What else did you find?” Amy asked. Rodriguez was in the living room getting the kids out from behind the couch. Becca and Paulie ran across the room and latched onto their father’s legs the second they laid eyes on him. “Anything good?”

  Carl and Adam exchanged a conspiratorial look which immediately made Frays suspect that something was afoot. “Why don’t you guys come help us get the stuff inside?” Lacey asked smiling down at his kids. “C’mon guys. Come and see what we got.”

  Everybody filed out to the SUV. Something big and black leapt out of the car when Carl pulled open the back door of the vehicle. Amy yelped and stumbled over her own feet, abject terror freezing her muscles as she fell on her butt. She sat on the ground shaking like a leaf and staring at a scrawny half starved black Labrador Retriever that stood there wagging its tail and panting happily a few feet away, its long pink tongue lolling out of its mouth. Becca and Paulie ran to the dog and started speaking in baby talk to the animal as they rubbed its neck and scratched behind its ears. Frays could not believe that even Rodriguez started petting it too. The bony old dog seemed to be in seventh heaven as it was at the center of attention.

  Lacey looked from everyone playing with the dog to the trembling woman half pointing her M4 at the dog, her eyes as big as saucers. “Hey, Frays.” he said softly as he quickly put himself between her and the dog. Adam crouched next to her, feeling really shitty because their little surprise had scared his friend so badly…even if it did strike him as kind of funny. He put her arm over his shoulders and helped Amy up, who was shaking so badly she could barely keep her legs under her. “C’mon inside, Zoomie. It’s alright. C’mon.”

  Carl and the others brought the dog inside a couple minutes later along with a big bag of dry dog food and his food and water bowls. A couple more trips brought in cardboard boxes filled to the brim with cans of corn, string beans and tuna as well as homemade pickles and beets in mason jars. There were even a few jars of spaghetti sauce, something that Carl was secretly looking forward to. Carl had also found a ten pound bag of rice, four case sized variety packs of Top Ramen, eleven boxes of dry pasta and a half dozen boxes of generic Mac and Cheese. There was more laundry soap, a handful of tubes of toothpaste, razor blades and an electric hair clipper and other assorted personal hygiene gear (including a dozen rolls of toilet paper). Lacey had found a snubnose Bulldog revolver chambered in .44 Special in the nightstand of the master bedroom as well as two speedloaders and a box of ammunition for the pistol. The other cabin’s garage proved a goldmine as well: a search turned up a couple axes, a hatchet and a pair of Louisville Sluggers in addition to more nails, screws and various hand tools.

  Amy had recovered after her initial fright before the dog came inside. Now she sat at the edge of the couch, close to the sliding glass door and looking like she was doing her level best to keep her fear in check. Paulie and Becca were playing with the filthy animal a few feet away and letting it slobber all over their faces. It occurred to her that she might have shot the stinking thing if the kids were not there. Becca noticed that Amy was looking pale and was breathing heavily a few feet away so the girl took the dog’s collar and led it over to her friend. “Amy this is Freddie.” she said as she gave the big dog’s furry neck a pat, sending ripples through the animal’s flesh. Frays noticed that there was a mustache of white fur along the front of the dog’s muzzle above its long sharp teeth.

  “F-Freddie.” Amy stammered as she tried to concentrate on not hyperventilating “Hi Freddie.” The dog took a couple steps towards the woman and rested its head in her lap, its brown eyes almost looking apologetic as it slowly wagged its tail. Frays glanced from the girl’s smiling face to the dog then slowly, tentatively reached out and scratched the dog behind its ear. “G-Good boy, Freddie.”

  Adam, Carl and Frannie finished bringing everything inside and put away. The three of them stopped in the dining room, all of them doing their best to keep from laughing at the sight of an obviously terrified Amy squished into the corner of the couch. Carl walked into the living room and knelt down, his hands spread wide. “Come here, Freddie.” The dog limped over to the boy and licked his face.

  After she was reasonably convinced that the dog was going to bite her or anything, the sight of it limping after her brother kind of moved her to pity the poor beast. It did not stop the tremors running throug
h her limbs but she did feel kind of bad for the old thing. Becca and Paulie scampered off to help Carl feed the dog as Lacey sat down next to her. The man had a barely repressed grin on his face. “So I take it you’re more of a cat person.” he said quietly.

  Amy smiled weakly, interlocking her fingers and running them over her hair. “Yeah.” she said quietly as she leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. “Dunno why, but dogs scare the crap out of me. Puppies are…you know…sort of okay, but dogs? Uh uh. No way.” Frays chuckled and shook her head, glancing at the man sitting next to her. “I’ve never been bitten or anything. Weird, huh?”

  “Yeah. Weird.” Adam agreed. He smiled, listening to his kids feeding the dog in the foyer with Carl and Rodriguez. “I’m sorry, but the poor thing was starving. We couldn’t just leave him there. His owners left him shut up in a bedroom without any food. Luckily they left the bathroom door open. Looked like Freddie there was drinking out of the toilet.”

  “Uhhh! Ew!” Frays said under her breath, her face wrinkling up in disgust. “That filthy thing was licking the kids’ faces!” Amy shuddered and squirmed in revulsion. The woman started flapping her hands around a little bit, a look of utter revulsion on her face. “It licked my hand! Ick! Ew! Ew! Ewww!”

  That did it. The dam burst and laughter erupted out of Adam. She scowled at the man for a second before snorting and cracked up herself. The others in the foyer heard the laughter coming from the living room. It spread slowly amongst them at first. Carl snorted and grinned. Rodriguez tittered as she scratched Freddie behind his ear. Becca and Paulie smiled up at the grownups as the children poured food in the dog’s plastic bowl. It grew and grew until they all sat on the floor clutching their stomachs and laughing. Puzzled by the humans’ behavior, Freddie wandered around the foyer and looked at the little boy then licked his face.