Outbreak: Boston (25 page)

“A semi auto only M4 and…” Powers paused to dig around inside the little bag he found in the trunk “looks like three mags for it. A couple pistol mags, probably for the pistol on your new belt there, Lacey. There’s a little first aid kit and a radio too.”

“I found a shotgun, a couple Glocks and this belt. We can take a closer look later.” Lacey said as the jerry can began to overflow. “Let’s get out of here.” The three of them hurried back to the trucks, threw their new acquisitions into the back and started off again.

They switched drivers, this time Powers and Frays taking turns behind the wheel. They stopped three more times to siphon diesel fuel from semi trucks or cube vans along MA-62 between Concord and the Concord Turnpike, scrounging enough to nearly fill up the tanks of both vehicles. The convoy was about a quarter mile or so from the turnpike when Amy stopped the truck and frowned out of the windscreen. “I was afraid of this.” she said quietly. There was a line of vehicles clogging up both lanes of the road. “Come on. Let’s go talk to the others. I got a plan.” Lacey’s sphincter tightened up as he looked around the area. The houses looked like they had been looted as far as he could see in all directions. Some of them looked like they had recently been lit on fire, their charred skeletons still smoldering and the trees along the street reduced to blackened sticks. He swallowed hard, his mouth going dry. He looked anxiously at Frays as she got out of the truck.

Amy hurried over to Eamon and Powers in the second Five Ton. “The road’s pretty blocked up.” she explained as she climbed up the side of the truck and stood on the step. “I need a volunteer to go with me and see if we can find a way around and get across the turnpike.”

Lacey spoke up first. “I’ll go.” he said, looking around nervously as Powers was just about to open his mouth. “What are we going to do if we can’t find a way around here?”

Amy scowled as she thought about the question. “If we can’t find a way across here, we’ll have to backtrack and try to find another way around. We might be able to find a way down Dee Road.” Frays said, pointing towards the intersection the convoy had just passed. “The road is smaller that way, so I don’t want to try it unless we have to. Easier to get stuck.”

“I should go instead.” Powers volunteered as he started climbing down from the truck. “If we need to go, it might be in a hurry. We can do that better with one guy from each vehicle keeping the motor warm.”

“Good thinking, Powers.” Amy said, drawing a small grin from the Army private as he grabbed his rucksack and climbed down from the cab. She and Adam started back towards the lead vehicle. “We’ll only be about half an hour or so at most. Stay in the trucks and be quiet. See you in a few.”

Adam smirked as he swung up into the cab and handed Amy her rucksack. “At least you didn’t say ‘I’ll be right back’.” Lacey said as Frays put on her rucksack and made sure the straps were tight enough. He handed her a pair of folding binoculars from under the seat. Frays smiled and shook her head then waved and started off up the road with Powers in tow.

Lacey sat in the truck, drumming his fingers nervously on the steering wheel. He glanced in the truck’s driver’s side rearview mirror to see if Eamon was still behind the wheel of the other truck then let his eyes wander across his field of view to look in the passenger’s side mirror. It was still and quiet except for the rumbling of the Five Ton’s diesel engines. Adam dug around in his pockets and came up with one of the little things of gum from an MRE. He tore it open and popped the gum in his mouth. “C’mon, c’mon…” he grumbled as he looked around.

Adam thought he heard a noise off to his right. “Aw, no.” Adam said as he rolled down his window and stuck his rifle out of it. A lone figure shambled towards the trucks then stopped and looked directly at him. The man was tall, pale and flabby with a big beer gut hanging over the elastic band of a pair of whitey tighties. Lacey lined up his sights on the man’s head and flicked the weapon’s safety off. The creature fell like a puppet with its strings cut when Adam’s bullet
cracked
into its skull. He hoped Frays and Powers came back quickly. Adam thought he saw something moving in the house on the left side of the street.

Frays and Powers walked quickly on the sidewalk, constantly scanning their surroundings. Amy frowned and climbed up on the roof of a sedan. She shaded her eyes to try and see ahead of them and peered through the binoculars. Powers looked around nervously. “Do you see anything?” he asked, his voice raising a couple octaves and sounding like it might actually crack. “What’s going on up there?”

“Easy, Powers.” Frays said quietly. She fiddled with the binoculars’ focus as she tried to make out what lay ahead. “I can’t quite see. Looks like this traffic jam goes all the way to the turnpike.” She sighed and started to climb down when a face slammed itself against the rear window of the sedan. Amy screamed and scrambled down off of the car then lost her balance and fell on her butt. Powers brought his carbine up and snapped off three quick shots, one of which splattered the creature’s head all over the back of the car.

Powers flicked his M4’s safety back on, keeping a suspicious eye out as he offered Frays his non firing hand. “Thanks.” Amy said quietly as he helped her to her feet. She dusted herself off and looked around. “Well, let’s get back. I think, if we manage to build up a good enough head of steam, we can push our way through and across the turnpike.”

Powers looked grateful as they headed back towards the trucks. He heard a noise and turned around, his eyes growing wide with shock. He hurried up to the airman and pushed her down, forcing her to hide beside a car. “Frays!” he hissed through clenched teeth and pointed to the other side of the road. “Look over there!”

Frays slowly peeked over the hood of the Crown Victoria as she heard a thump followed by a number of dragging footsteps. Almost a dozen people shuffled after them, drunkenly weaving their way around the vehicles obstructing the road. She dropped back down and squeezed her eyes shut for a second, willing herself to calm down. Once she opened her eyes she leaned close to the private. “Okay, Powers.” she whispered, insanely thinking of when she used to play hide and seek as a kid. “We’re gonna stay low and move fast. It’s only a couple hundred more meters to the trucks. Don’t worry we’re gonna be just fine, alright?” She rose to a crouch and prepared herself. “Ready? Let’s go.”

Frays and Powers hurried along as they tried to keep out of sight. Amy prayed silently to Saint Joan of Arc as they went along, asking the patron saint of soldiers to keep the infected looking somewhere else.
Please, please Saint Joan
she begged as they stopped to look around for a second
help me get this kid back in the trucks so we can get outta here
.

Powers screamed. A waxy skinned Hispanic boy had his hands wrapped around the man’s arm, grunting like an animal as Powers tried to pull his arm away from the kid’s open mouth. “GOD! FRAYS!” he shouted, one hand pressed on the boy’s forehead as he tried to keep his arm out of the infected child’s jaws. “HELP ME! PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD HELP ME!”

Frays slid over a little and kicked the boy in the mouth, shattering most of his front teeth with the heel of her boot. She kicked again and again, somehow managing to give Powers the opportunity to escape the boy’s clutches. “Come on!” Frays shouted, giving up on any attempt at stealth. They were within sight of the trucks anyway. They sprinted down the road, their boots clomping loudly on the blacktop. The only things they could hear were the wind rushing by, their own panicked breathing and the pounding of blood in their ears.

She stopped a few feet from the Five Tons and let Powers dash back to Eamon’s truck. Amy brought up her M4 and scanned the area they had just fled from, hoping they had outrun the infected hot on their heels. When no targets presented themselves Frays scrambled into the cab of the truck. “Go off to the right!” she shouted at Lacey as she slammed the door and belted herself in. “What are you waiting for? DRIVE!”

The truck started off slowly, nudging the Chrysler Le Baron in front of the truck out of its way and gathering steam as Lacey pressed the accelerator all the way to the floor. Frays cringed when a couple of the infected that had been chasing them stepped out in front of the truck and got flattened, their bodies making a series of sickening thuds as they bounced off the front bumper.

The two of them bounced around the inside of the cab like super balls as Lacey steered the Five Ton onto the turnpike, smashing into a green VW Beetle and sending it flying. Somehow the convoy managed to force its way across the four lanes of the turnpike, knocking the stalled cars and trucks out of the way like they were toys and crushing a couple more infected that rushed out in front of the truck.

Lacey steered the Five Ton up onto the curb once they got to the other side of the turnpike and made it clear of the guardrails. “Well, I don’t think that did my neck any favors.” Frays said glumly from the passenger’s seat once the truck reached somewhat level terrain. She rolled her head around her shoulders, hissing at the cramps in the muscles at the base of her neck. Adam started giggling at first before erupting into a full belly laugh. He started laughing so hard that tears streamed down his face, still keeping the accelerator pressed to the floor.

“It’s alright, man.” Amy said after they were well away from the turnpike. He narrowly avoided hitting a tree but took out a mailbox instead. “We’re okay, Lacey. Slow down.” Lacey looked at her with eyes as big as saucers. Frays sighed with relief as Adam started to slow the vehicle down and pull over. “We’re alright, buddy. Switch with me, okay? I’ll drive for awhile.”
              A couple minutes later they started off down the road again, the drivers of both trucks switching with their passengers. Frays looked out of the corner of her eye at Lacey. “How you doin’, Lacey?” she asked as she steered the truck over the curb and onto the sidewalk. They were rapidly approaching West Concord and, given how things had been trying to cross the turnpike, Frays was beginning to wonder if they would get through alright.

“I’m alright.” Adam said quietly. He frowned out at the landscape around them, a cold terror roiling around in his guts like a big fat greasy eel made of ice. The thought of Laura and the kids out there by themselves… He shook himself and tried to get his head back in the game. Lacey could feel Frays’ eyes on him. “Really, I’m okay. I’m sorry if I lost it a little bit back there.”

“It’s alright, buddy.” Amy said, a small smile plucking at the corner of her mouth. A line from the movie
Psycho
sprung to mind. “We all go a little mad sometimes.”

Adam snorted laughter out of his nose. “Do we got any of those MREs up here?” he asked as he started rooting around in the cab. He frowned when his efforts came up goose eggs and thought about asking Frays to stop so he could break open the case in the bed of the truck.

“There’s one in the front center pocket on my rucksack.” Frays said as she steered the truck around a couple smashed up cars. She thought she could make out a bloated, destroyed body launched through the windshield of one of the vehicles, catapulted there by the force of the crash. Amy swallowed hard, her mouth going dry so she took a drink from her camelbak.

He grinned as he pulled the MRE out of Frays’ pack. “Spaghetti with meat sauce.” Adam said, reading aloud the printing on the plastic bag. He spared a
suspicious glance at Frays as he tore it open. “I kinda thought you might be holding back some of the good stuff on us.”

“Hey, it’s like my flight sergeant always used to tell me.” Frays said, flashing a quick grin at the Marine. “Rank has its privileges, Private.” She chuckled at her own joke, but Lacey thought he could perceive a deep sadness hidden behind it. He handed the foil packet containing the meal’s dessert, a
dense lump of chocolate chip fudge pound cake, to Frays then set about trying to get the jalapeño cheese spread onto the vegetable crackers. It was harder than you would think because everything kept bouncing all over the place. 

He
glanced at Amy out of the corner of his eye every now and again as he ate and kept a watch on their surroundings. Her mouth was a thin line in between bites of the pound cake. Lacey frowned as he squirted a little water from his camelbak into the plastic bag containing the MRE’s main entrée and heating element. A cloud of foul smelling steam started billowing out of the bag as he folded the open end shut and jammed it back into the cardboard box the entrée came in. Adam leaned the box against the vehicle’s transmission hump and blew on his fingers. The box was already getting hot.

Amy wrinkled her nose at the stink and rolled down her window as much as she dared. “I would have told you just to sit on it.” Frays said, furrowing her brow at the man in the passenger seat. “That heating element stinks up the place something awful.”

Lacey smirked and pointed to a sign up the street for a place called Vincenzo’s Restaurante. “Well, we can always see if they’ve got an open table.” he said as he picked up the box and carefully extracted the piping hot foil packet. “Somehow I don’t think they’re that busy today.”

Amy laughed bitterly. “That’s alright.” she said around a mouthful of pound cake. “I’m not that big a fan of Italian food anyway.” She noticed a liquor store on the corner and one for a supermarket just beyond the restaurant’s billboard.
“Give me a good ol’ American burger and fries any day.” The road forked and they would have to take a right to get to the stores but their route took them left.