Outbreak: Boston (12 page)

“Come on, Alice.” Lacey said in a quiet, even voice. He slung his rifle over his shoulder and took a step towards the woman. “We aren’t going to hurt you. I swear…now just let the doc check you out and we can get back.”

“No way!” Alice shouted, backing away from the Marine. “I heard what you folks were doin’! Shootin’ anybody you thought had it! Well, I don’t!”

Lacey produced a pocket sized copy of the New Testament that some of the chaplains
had been passing out at the staging area and showed it to the woman. He did not know why he took it at the time, but now he was glad he had. “Alice, look.” he said carefully as he tried to move a little closer to the woman. “I swear on the Bible that we’re not going to hurt you. We need to check you out so we can get going and get you to the Air Force Base safe and sound, understand?”

Alice allowed Eamon to get a little closer. “Now then, were you bit or scratched by one of the infected?”

“One of ‘em caught my arm.” Alice admitted shamefully. “I’m not sick though. I feel fine.”

Amy felt like
she was going to throw up. She felt like she could not breathe and she swallowed hard as she looked at the others. A sharp pain in her stomach came out of nowhere, like heartburn but worse. “I…I’m going to go provide security.” Frays said under her breath as she started to move back towards the Humvee. She flinched when the shot rang out behind her followed by a wounded, mewling noise. Frays turned to see Alice with her eyes bugging out as she clutched at the bloody mess that, up until a moment ago, had been her belly.

“God damn it, Private!” roared Lieutenant Jenkins, staring in horror at the woman groaning and bleeding her life away at his feet. “What the hell is wrong with you? Frays! Get back here and put this man under arrest! Teeling! Help that woman!”

“Sir, she was infected.” Lacey tried to explain as the lieutenant blew by him to try and catch up to Frays. “In an hour she would have tried to kill us all!”

“It’s true, lieutenant.” Eamon tried to explain. He tried to put himself as far from Alice as he could but still stay near Adam and the lieutenant. “I don’t know how, but there’s some kind of an infectious agent spreading via bites and scratches…it causes those exposed to it to attack other, healthy individuals.”

“Oh, bullshit!” pronounced Lieutenant Jenkins. Whatever he said and his tone, Lacey and Eamon noticed that he eyed Alice with suspicion. “Teeling, help this woman right now! That’s an order!”

They were all so busy arguing that they didn’t notice Alice climb painfully to her feet. The woman groaned and reached towards the lieutenant as Amy snapped her carbine to her shoulder. “DOWN!” she screamed as she quickly put the red dot of her Aimpoint on Alice’s forehead and squeezed the trigger twice.

Adam and Eamon looked at each other then at the lieutenant. “Believe me now, sir?” Lacey asked loudly. Frays’ shots had passed close enough to him that he could feel the wind on his face. “She would have tried to eat your fuckin’ face off.”

The lieutenant looked a little green as he ordered the convoy back on the road. Jean, who had stayed with the trucks, noticed the way Amy and Adam glared at each other as they climbed into the Humvee. She got a full report from Eamon as to what had just happened. Jean shook her head. “That explains why they looked like they were trying to light each other on fire with their minds.” she muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose.

The conversation between the trucks of the convoy was subdued as they made their way back to the base. According to Frays’ map they would be coming up to another small town soon. Much to Amy’s surprise, a police car appeared in her side view mirror with its light bar flashing. After everything that happened the sight seemed so surreal that she had to ask Lacey “Hey, look behind us. Is that a cop back there?”

Lacey laughed and shook his head in disbelief. “
Hey, yeah! Looks like we’re getting a ticket!” he shouted down into the vehicle.

Amy smirked and keyed the hand mike to the radio. “Whiskey Bravo Six, this is HQ Five Niner.” she said, still watching the police car in her vehicle’s mirror. “I’ve got a civilian police car with its lights on coming up behind us. I think he wants us to pull over. How copy?”

The radio was silent for almost a minute. The police car’s siren blared. “How copy, Whiskey Bravo Six?” Frays asked as she watched the cop speed up and pull parallel to her truck. “Sir, the policeman really wants me to pull over. Please advise.”

The convoy rolled past the first buildings on the town’s main street. Frays glanced nervously from the cop, who was now vigorously motioning for her to pull over, to the rear of the Five Ton in front of her. She looked at the policeman and held up the radio’s handset and gave an exaggerated shrug. Brakes squealed and smoke rose from the tires of the larger vehicle as it fishtailed and turned sharply to the right. Amy stood on the brake pedal and wrenched the wheel to the left, narrowly avoiding the police cruiser which skidded to a halt and boxed her in from behind.

Lacey nearly slid down inside the Humvee when it screeched to a stop. Once he recovered he stuck his head down inside the vehicle. “What the hell is going on?” the Marine asked. He looked around, seeing several people coming out of the houses on either side of the street. A Massachusetts State Trooper exited his cruiser and walked quickly to the truck. Amy thought nervously of the cop she had run into earlier on her way from school to the Air Force Base.

“Hi there, Trooper.” Amy said with an uneasy smile. She was glad to see that the man did not have his hand anywhere near his pistol.

“What’s going on, soldier?” the policeman asked, casting a glance at Lacey behind the giant machine gun. He moved quickly towards the Humvee and leaned towards the window.

“Airman.” Frays corrected helpfully, moving her arm and gesturing towards her Security Forces armband. “I don’t know, Trooper. Talk to Lieutenant Jenkins in the vehicle at the front of the convoy.”

The radio squealed loudly. “Any station this net” said Sergeant Barnes, sounding a little irate. “Any station this net, this is Whiskey Bravo Six. Who has a map of the area, over?”

Frays felt inside her cargo pocket and pulled out her map. “Whiskey Bravo Six, this is HQ Five Niner. I have a map.”

“Roger, HQ Five Niner, break.” A long couple of seconds passed before Sergeant Barnes continued. “Bring your map up here, Zoomie. Everybody else, stay near the vehicles but smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.”

Amy rolled her eyes, pulled her M4 out of the rack and climbed out of the truck. “Well, c’mon.” she said quietly to the state trooper as she made her way towards the front of the convoy. “You might as well talk to the lieutenant. Back in a minute, Lacey.”

It was obvious to Frays why the convoy had stopped the way it did as she walked up to Lieutenant Jenkins’ vehicle. A county sheriff’s cruiser, complete with light bar flashing, was parked perpendicular to the Humvee’s crash bar. The lieutenant and Sergeant Barnes both appeared to be quite irate with a short, stocky cop. Amy chuckled and shook her head. “This trooper wants to have a word with you, sir.” she gestured towards the state trooper standing next to her. “What’s going on here?”             

“Sheriff Yates here pulled out in front of us.” Sergeant Barnes said bitterly. He spared a glance at the man standing near him. “Fool almost got himself shot full of holes.”

“Hey sergeant, maybe if you mooks woulda pulled over I wouldn’ta had to do that.” Sheriff Yates grumbled. He was a rough, fit looking man with wrinkles around his eyes and the corners of his mouth. The sheriff had a thick New York accent, which explained to Frays why the other men took such an instant dislike to him. “We might just be local yokels, but we’d kinda like to know what the hell’s goin’ on around here too.”

Amy handed her map over to Sergeant Barnes. “What seems to be the issue here?”

“We’re just trying to get a little more information, ma’am.” the sheriff said quickly. “All we know is what we’ve heard on the civilian radio and TV. Trooper Halloran saw your convoy on the highway and tried to get you to pull over so we might be able to find out what’s going on.”

Amy’s eyes brightened. “What’s the problem with your radio?”

“It doesn’t have much range.” Sherriff Yates muttered with disgust. “The town council would never give us the budget to replace it. Damn thing’s probably older than you are.”

“Sir? Can you spare me for half an hour?” Frays asked hopefully. The hint of a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “I’d like to take a look at their setup and see what I can do with it.”

“Are you some kind of tech or something?” asked Lieutenant Jenkins. He cocked an eyebrow at the young woman as if he were trying to figure out a puzzle.

“I was a hair’s breadth from getting my Master’s in Electrical Engineering from MIT, sir.” Frays said quickly. She already started to move towards the sheriff and felt around in
the pouches on her LCS for her multi-tool. “I helped my unit’s commo sergeant out sometimes.”

“Fine.” the lieutenant said as he turned back to his Humvee. “You’ve got half an hour. Everybody else, just hang tight.”

Sheriff Yates led her to a small building a couple blocks down the street. The older man looked at the Airman appraisingly out of the corner of his eye. “You really goin’ to MIT?” he asked, still looking the young woman over. “Seem a little young for that.”

Amy smiled as they entered the sheriff’s office. “I got to skip high school and go to Bard College for my BA in Engineering. Got that and my driver’s license in the same month.”

Yates let out a low whistle. “Maybe you might be able to fix this thing then!” he said, looking down at the wad of keys in his hand. “Can never seem to remember which one it is…here we go.”

He let Amy into the dispatch office revealing a radio sitting on a desk across the room. “Oh wow.” she whispered as she took off her helmet and crossed the room to get a closer look at the radio. “You weren’t kidding when you said it was older than I am!”

The young woman broke out her multi-tool and carefully unscrewed the case so she could get a closer look at the radio’s internals. Amy blew layers of dust out of the radio’s circuit boards and sneezed, hiding her face in her elbow.  “The good thing about these older units is that there’s usually plenty of room inside for more modern components. Don’t suppose you’ve got a Radio Shack or something like that in town?”    

“No, but there’s one in Lincoln.” one of the deputies working the phone banks volunteered in between answering the phones.

Amy shook her head. The town of Lincoln was about ten minutes away under normal circumstances. “Might as well be on the moon.” she muttered, the woman’s face scrunching up as she thought for a minute. “Can I borrow two pads of paper and a couple pens?”

Somebody handed her what she asked for and she flipped open the pads of paper. “Okay. I’m making you a shopping list for when one of your guys can get over there and instructions on how to make the
upgrades.” Frays said carefully as she took a pen in each hand and started writing. A small crowd of cops and office staff gathered around to watch, making Amy feel like some kind of circus performer. When she finished she handed the papers to the sheriff several of them actually applauded. “I put my name and contact info on there too, so if you need a hand you can get a hold of me.”

“Thanks a lot, Frays. You’ve been a big help.” Sheriff Yates said and extended his hand. “If you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask.”

Amy shook his hand. “Glad I could help, Sheriff.” she said with a small smile and turned to leave. Frays paused at the doorway. “Sheriff, do you have any way to get in contact with the police in Holden?”

“Sure. What’s up?” Yates said quietly. The young woman
was trying to keep her face impassive but he could see the edges starting to pinch up. “Could you have them check in on my family? They live at 372 Walnut Street. I haven’t been able to call them yet and they don’t know I made it out of Boston. They’ve got to be worried sick.”

“Say, Freddy why don’t you put in the Airman’s call for her?” the sheriff said to of his deputies as he escorted her out of the building. They said their goodbyes on the steps and Frays walked quickly back to the convoy. When she got there she told Lieutenant Jenkins and Sergeant Barnes what she had told the sheriff before climbing back inside her Humvee. A few people stood outside their houses or shops along the main drag. A couple of small boys waved and cheered as if they were watching a Fourth of July parade. Eamon waved back as he drove by.

Forty five minutes or so later the convoy was back on the expressway. “Awww shit.” Eamon muttered under his breath. A good quarter mile or so of the two lane blacktop was clogged with stalled cars and irate people. The convoy veered to the right and rolled along the shoulder of the road. Amy felt her gut tighten up as the people stuck in traffic started to notice the convoy. They started shouting at the soldiers and a few of them threw rocks. One thumped off her window. The radio started going nuts as the others started getting the same treatment.

The convoy slowed and eventually came to a stop. Amy picked up the handset to the radio. “Bravo Whiskey Six this is HQ Five Niner, over.”

“This is Bravo Whiskey Six Actual.” Lieutenant Jenkins said loudly. She leaned as close as she dared to the window as another rock bounced off it. There was a small knot of people crowded around the front of the convoy. No wonder the LT sounded panicky. “Go ahead, HQ Five Niner.”