Quaranteam - North West Ch. 16

"Yep," I nodded. "I got her a couple of weeks ago now."

We piled into the front. "So who are we looking for, and where?"

"His name's Victor Fenton, goes by Vic," I said and fished the slip of paper I'd written Melina's directions on. "Lives in a condo block at 3614 Goodpasture Loop."

"Alright, I know Goodpasture," Kristine said. "Let's see if it's still standing."

"What?" I asked.

"There's been more than a few fires over the last couple weeks. Some residential, some commercial. The riots were the worst for it, but every day there's one or two. Our crews, those of us that are left, have dealt with more in the past two weeks than in the past five years."

"Fuck," I said and shook my head as I pulled out of the visitor parking.

"Yeah, that about sums it up," Kristine frowned. She gave me directions through town and pointed out where some of the fires had been, and we took a quick detour through a commercial neighbourhood where one of the big riot sites had happened. The buildings looked like they'd been burned out and gutted.

"You ever serve?" I asked her.

She shook her head. "Took a straight shot to becoming an EMT out of high school, then transferred to firefighting after that."

"Well, you've been serving in your own way," I said. "But this - this reminds me of over there more than it does back here."

"I can imagine," she sighed.

We pulled onto Goodpasture and had to do a bit of driving to reach 3614, but as we got close it quickly became apparent that this wasn't going to be easy.

"Well, I guess I jinxed it," Kristine said as we looked out the window at the blackened pile of rubble. The place hadn't just lit on fire, it had burned to the ground. "We've been prioritizing which fires we fight hard, and which we think we can let burn themselves out. We don't have the manpower to save everything."

"So what now?" I asked. "Is there somewhere that the displaced people from the fires are going, or are they in the wind?"

"There are a few sites," Kristine said, picking up her phone.

"I thought there wasn't cell service?" I asked.

"There isn't," Kristine said. "But I loaded the 'Refugee Doc' onto my phone this morning when I got in. If there are survivors from these condos, I should be able to figure out where they are in the city."

"Do you have names?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Too many people moving. We're just keeping them in groups. Alright, looks like the survivors from this building got moved to the Rink Exchange. If your Victor guy wasn't dead from the virus or died in the fire, we should be able to find him there."

"Shit, alright," I said. "Where to?"

Again Kristine had to give me directions by memory, backtracking us to a main street before working us around through the city. We passed by a few different gathering points throughout the neighbourhoods. Several were supply depots where the National Guard were handing out provisions to people since all the stores were closed. A few were checkpoints we had to pass through, but between my truck and badge and Kristine's outfit we got through with little more than a cursory glance. One of the active places we passed was the hospital, which looked like it had been through its own warzone. All of the lower-story windows were boarded over, and several of the entrances were blocked as well. The ER entrance was manned by armed National Guard soldiers.

"The riots hit the hospital twice," Kristine explained when she saw I was slowing down and looking. "It was one of the first places the National Guard secured, and they are processing wounds but stopped all other treatments."

I grimaced, thinking of all the people who were missing out on important healthcare they relied on. Duo Halo was killing tens of thousands, but how many would end up dead at the end because they just didn't get what they needed?

The Rink Exchange was another National Guard-manned building, the complex parking lots stuffed to the gills with both civilian cars and army transports. I ended up needing to park a ways down the street and we walked our asses over. At the front, we got cursory inspections and then were allowed in. It looked like several of the ice rinks, all of which had been cleared and turned into barracks areas, were housing many of the National Guard but one of the rinks was housing displaced folks. Kristine led me over there, and we checked in with an admin person who huffed at us interrupting whatever she was doing. She struck me immediately as someone who had created her own little fiefdom of power and seeing someone outside her little world step in with some real authority got her back up.

It took almost an hour for us to get the answer that Victor Fentonhad been at the Rink Exchange, but he'd 'moved out.' It took another half hour for the lady to confirm that she was allowed to release the forwarding address to us, and it ended up being another condo block in the south end of the city.

We sanitized heavily coming out of the complex and got back in the truck, again heading back to a main street so that Kristine could get us to the right place. By the time we pulled up in front of the condos, it was going on the middle of the afternoon and I hadn't had a lunch and could feel my stomach wanting to revolt against me. Ever since that first time with Erica, I'd found I was eating more, and the more sex I had the more I found myself wanting to eat for energy. Four partners had me eating three full, hearty meals a day usually. Add in the new workouts and I was usually snacking in between meals as well. All of that added up to me starting to get a little impatient, and trying to figure out where the hell I was going to get a meal. Everything in Eugene was shut down, so I'd need to drive north out of the city, past the roadblock and back to one of the other towns on the way to find an open fast food place with a drive-through.

Katrina and I parked in the condo parking lot and headed into the building. The front glass doors had been broken and boarded over, but other than that the place seemed in general good maintenance. The lady at the rinks had told us he had moved into Apartment 122, so Katrina and I made our way through the lobby and followed the signs into the corridors of the building down to the right door.

I knocked lightly at first, and we could hear the muted sound of some sort of small dog barking behind the door but there was no answer. I knocked louder. "Police. We're just looking to contact Mr Fenton," I called with authority. A door down the corridor opened as someone poked their head out, but quickly pulled back inside their own place.

The barking continued, but still no answer.

"We're on the first floor," I said to Katrina. "I'm going to go check and see if I can get a look in through an outside window. You mind staying here?"

"Sure," she nodded, and I left her.

Outside it took a bit of work to figure out the right window to peek into. As best I could tell, Apartment 122 had two windows. The first one was mostly covered and seemed to lead into a living room of some sort. The place was a mess, but a lived-in mess and not a ransacked one. There were also, oddly, several piles of what I thought was dog poop.

I figured out why when I went to the second window.

Back inside the building I met Katrina. "What did you see?" she asked.

"They're in the bedroom," I said. "Dead. We need to get in."

"That's not protocol," she said with wide eyes.

"Exigent circumstances," I said. "I don't need a warrant if there's a dead body in plain view."

"That's not what I mean," Katrina said. "It's dangerous. We're supposed to report it, and the National Guard come and handle it."

"Not good enough," I said. "I'm going in. You don't need to come in with me."

"I'm going to be in the same car as you," she said. "If you catch something in there, I'll just get it from you then."

"I'm not going to touch the bodies," I said. "And I'll sanitize. Fuck, I'll take a full bath with a hose outside if you need me to."

"...fine," she said with a sigh. "But if I catch something from you and die, I'm haunting you every night."

I suppressed the urge to snort - Katrina's ghost would find my nights were a little jam-packed with women already.

It only took me two solid kicks to bust the lock on the apartment door, and a shoulder slam to push it in fully. Inside I caught the strong waft of Death, along with dog shit. Katrina started coughing and gagging in the hallway, and I tried not to let my eyes water and took shallow breaths behind my mask as I moved through the apartment. It was clearly a woman's place, but not one who took a lot of pride in keeping it clean. There were also several unopened boxes of electronics and a big stand kitchen mixer sitting in the living space - likely looted goods from a box store. At the door to the bedroom I knelt down before opening the door a crack, the thicker stench of the corpses inside making me gag now, but I opened it a bit more and the little bundle of fur came flying out at me and I caught it.

He, and he was definitely a he with the oversized pair of fuzzy nuts hanging off him, wasn't exactly full of energy. He was more desperate than anything as I manhandled him around in my hands so that I was holding him under his gaunt belly and he yapped and snapped.

"You're nothing more than a puppy," I said to the little guy. He had shit on him - likely from being cooped up in that room for days - and he stilled quickly as he ran out of what limited energy he had from going hungry for so long. I bundled him up under my arm despite the dog shit on his coat and I kicked open the door to the bedroom more fully. Inside, Victor Fenton was lying in bed next to a woman - the only reason I could tell was that he had that dumb mutton-chops moustache that was in the picture Melina had sent me of her boyfriend. The covers were thrown off and they were both naked, though not in a sexual way; it was clear that they'd both gone through an uncomfortable stretch at the end of their lives as the Duo Halo took them.

"OK, little guy," I said, almost gagging on my words. "Let's get you water and food." I headed for the kitchen and scrounged in the cupboards until I found a couple of Tupperware containers, then filled one with water and set the little guy down with it so he could get some hydration while I looked around for his dog food. I found it and filled the second container with food and water to let the kibble soak and get soft to be easy on his stomach, then scooped him up away from the water bowl before he sucked back too much of it and got sick. I carried him, the container with the food, and the bag of food, out and met Katrina in the hall.

She gave me a look as I came out with a shit-covered dog in my arms. "What the fuck?"

"Well I wasn't going to leave him in there," I said, a little affronted. "He's just a puppy and he was starving."

"The shelters are shut down," Katrina said bluntly. "It wasn't safe to run them, if the people running them are even still alive. They put down all the animals."

That turned my stomach in an entirely new way to the 50,000 dead number, or the smell from the apartment. "Then I guess I'll need to find him a new home myself," I said.

Katrina just shook her head and sighed. "Did you find your man?"

"Pretty sure," I said. "Looks like he shacked up with his mistress or something. There was some looted goods in there, so one or the other of them probably caught it during the riots."

"Fucking assholes," Katrina grunted, shaking her head again, but then glanced at me sharply. "Sorry, if you knew him..."

"Nah, he seems like he was a real prick," I said. "Come on, let's go find a hose so we can get this little guy cleaned up." It took some work not to feel a bit of revulsion at Katrina's lack of empathy, but I'd seen it before. She was living through a trauma that I could recognize - the trauma of seeing things that most people weren't equipped to handle, over and over. Of being exposed to horrible things at an increasingly speedy rate. I'd seen it in soldiers overseas, and had experienced it a bit during the worst of my MP investigations.

I had to forgive her for her callousness because she was still living through it.

Outside we found a hose on the back of the building, and after the little guy had a chance to scarf down a bit of food I gave him a quick wash and rub down, then cleaned myself off as well. I wasn't completely sure since he was still a puppy, but I was pretty certain he was a full-blooded dachshund.

"Well, when he isn't covered in shit, I'll admit it," Katrina said. "He's cute."

I was making sure his ears were cleaned as he gobbled down another few mouthfuls of the soaked kibble and he didn't mind being touched one bit as he was eating. "Well behaved too," I noted. "Not scared or aggressive."

"Well, I can't take him," Katrina said.

I sighed and smiled behind my mask, then couldn't help but laugh a little.

"What?" Katrina asked.

"Just something my fiancee said before I left this morning."

We headed to the truck and I stripped off my wet shirt and wrung it out before stowing it in the bed and grabbing a t-shirt from my gym bag that I'd stashed there, along with a towel that I wrapped the little guy up in. Katrina held him in the passenger seat, her eyes slowly softening as she gave me directions back to the Police Station and she played with the puppy.

I pulled up out front and looked over at her. "Last chance," I told her. "He likes you."

She shook her head again. "Get him out of this hell," she told me, handing him over to me.

"Katrina," I said as she started to get out of the truck, stopping her as she turned to look at me. "Don't blame yourself for this."

She frowned at me with her eyes over the mask.

"Survivor's guilt," I explained. "None of this is your fault. You're doing what you can."

"You don't know what I'm doing," she said.

"I served, remember?" I said. "This place, the way you all are running on fumes and there's still more and more bad shit raining down on you... Don't let it break you." I pulled out a pen from the centre console and scribbled my number on the paper I'd originally had Victor's address on and handed it to her. "If you need to talk, and somehow get access to a phone that works, you can call me. Just to talk or whatever, or if you need anything brought down here. I owe you one for today, OK? So don't be afraid to collect."

Katrina took a breath and nodded, accepting my number. "Get out of here while you can," she told me. Then she reached over and ruffled the head of the puppy and her eyes softened again as she did it. Then, before she could change her mind about anything, she hopped out of the truck and closed the door.

"Fuck," I sighed as I watched her head back into the police station. I looked down at the puppy in my arms, laying belly up and cocking his head to the side as his big eyes fixed on me. I pulled off my mask and gave the little guy a scritch behind the ears. "You are going to cause me a lot of grief, aren't you?"

I let him eat a bit more, sitting on the passenger seat of the truck, then took him out onto the torn-up grass on the front lawn and he pee'd a little, which was a good sign.

* * * * *

"Melina, I'm sorry but it looks like your boyfriend passed when his condo unit burned down," I said.

Melina deflated a little, tears springing to her eyes. "He... literally died in a fire?"

I pressed my lips together and nodded, lying my ass off. "I couldn't get too much info, but Eugene isn't a very safe place right now and fires aren't uncommon. It's possible he was sick when it happened, which would explain not evacuating the building when the alarms went off."

She broke down, and Abi and Sara both held her. The two of them had come out to meet me with Melina when I called from the gate that I was on my way in with news. I consoled her a bit and didn't have much more information I could give her. She hugged me tightly, squeezing hard enough to make my ribs ache a bit, and thanked me for trying.

Sara led her back to the compound where a few of the other women were waiting and immediately surrounded her and started loving on her. Abi stayed back with me.

"You're lying," she said bluntly but quietly.

I swallowed and nodded.

"Worse?" she asked.

I glanced at her and then looked away.

She hugged me, not quite as desperately as Melina had but still firmly. "If dying in a fire is the easy version, thank you for not hurting her more," she said.

I hugged Abi back.

* * * * *

"So, remember what you said about not bringing home strays?" I asked as I walked into our little RV compound with the puppy bundled up in my arms.

Erica laughed when she saw what I meant, and all of the women were immediately taken with the little guy. I had to tell them not to spoil him with snacks since his stomach was still adjusting to food again. Ivy took charge of the little guy, parading him around our home and talking about what sort of toys and other stuff would be needed.

"You really know how to turn my words back on me," Erica said as she hugged me from the side. "Where'd you get him?"

I gave her a sad smile, and she frowned. Kyla, after a brief snuggle with the puppy, had come back over to me as well and hugged me from my other side. "Something's wrong," she said, looking up at me.

They took me into the RV, and I told them about all of it. About the death, and destruction. About finding the dead boyfriend of a scared woman, in bed with someone else. About finding a starving puppy, and a woman who was balancing on a knife edge of holding it together, and leaving a plagued city.

And they held me softly and listened to it all, and cried with me at how the world seemed to be on a downward spiral into hell.

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Thanks for reading! Votes are appreciated, and comments are even better.

Quaranteam: North West is an ongoing series that will continue to see updates moving forward. If you have enjoyed the series so far, definitely make sure to check out CorruptingPower's main series and other spinoffs. For similar Harem-y themes, you might want to check out my other series currently releasing.

Cheers!

~Break.

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