Quaranteam - North West Ch. 09

I was trying to decide if I should call the emergency line, but they were gone as quickly as they arrived. Teens, rebellious and angry at the world, and most importantly bored and left to their own devices. Thankfully since I'd parked at the back of the lot they didn't really come near me.

I did end up calling 911 when the fight broke out though.

Two women were yelling at each other as they exited the store, both of them with full carts. I had no idea what they were shouting, but they definitely got the attention of everyone in the parking lot and the line. Then one lady pivoted and smacked her buggy into the other lady, and that one grabbed something out of the other's cart and threw it.

"911 Emergency Services. Where is the emergency located?"

"Yeah, I'm at the Green Grocer in Jewell," I said. "My name is Harrison Black. I need police services, a fight has broken out between two women in the parking lot and it's gotten physical."

I could hear typing on the other end of the line. "I've dispatched a cruiser, sir, but the arrival time is at least twenty minutes. Is anyone's life in danger?"

"Other than the pandemic?" I sighed. The women were grappled at this point, both of them trying to throw punches. "Hard to say. Neither of them are backing down and they've got a hold of each other and are swinging."

"If you can, try to keep anyone else from getting involved, sir," the operator said. "And remember to keep your distance."

"Fuck," I said as one of the ladies connected cleanly with the nose of the other. Blood started streaming down that one's face but it didn't stop her from clawing at the other with a snarl. "It's getting worse. There's blood now. Look, I'm not saying you have the authority to let me do this, but I've got my handgun in the truck and could pop one into the ground to spook them and try and disperse the issue."

There was a long moment of silence on the other end of the line. "..... I mean, I'm not going to tell you to do that.... But..."

"Understood," I said.

I gave the operator my number, since I was sure the police were going to want to follow up with me, and then slammed the gate of my truck closed and went to the passenger side. Dani had returned the 1911 to its case thankfully, so I quickly slammed the magazine home and did a quick check to see it had one chambered before walking across the parking lot with the pistol held low and to the side.

The women were scrapping on the ground at this point. A crowd had formed, not so close to each other to be shoulder to shoulder, but closer than they should have been.

"Hey!" I shouted over the noise in my best military voice, but only the closest few people glanced over at me. One saw my gun and his eyes went wide.

I sighed and shook my head, then pointed the muzzle at one of the little end-row barriers that had a sprig of a garden inside the concrete curb and pulled the trigger. The loud popping boom of the discharge quieted everyone real quick, including the fighting ladies as they all looked over at me.

"Get thefuck out of here," I shouted.

People scattered, including the two fighting ladies as they scrambled to recover their carts. I was pretty sure several items had gone missing from their shopping bags in the ruckus, claimed by other people who felt they needed them more.

I just shook my head as I flipped the safety on and tucked the 1911 into the pocket on the front of my sweater. There were still a few people in line at the front of the store, along with an employee monitoring it, so I went over. It turned out to be the same teen as that time I'd been here with Erica and almost gotten in a fight myself.

I gave him my name and let him know the police were already on their way. He said it wasn't the first fistfight he'd seen break out this week, let alone in the last month.

"Kid," I said. "This job ain't worth your life."

He shrugged. "I'm saving for college, and the bonus pay I'm getting as a front-line worker is adding up quickly."

"College ain't worth your life either. Just saying."

Dani and Vanessa came out of the store a little while later. I'd already returned the 1911 to its case and was sitting on the tailgate of my truck again. I explained to them what happened, both with Mary and with the fight. And I admitted to hugging Mary despite the danger.

"I can walk home from here," I said. "We probably shouldn't get into the truck together. I'll need to-"

"Harri," Vanessa interrupted me. "Shut up and get in the car. You're not in any danger, right? You're vaccinated. We're both vaccinated."

"Yeah, butyou are way less covered than the rest of us," I said. "It's not a big deal. It'll take a couple of hours of walking."

Vanessa took it into her own hands and practically tackled me. "Oops, too late."

"Vanessa!" I said in a panic and looked at Dani for help.

"Lady made her decision," Dani shrugged. "We can either live in fear of it, or just do our best."

So I ended up driving again, praying that Mary wasn't sick, which would mean I wasn't carrying it. I felt like an idiot all over again for hugging her, for risking everything to comfort her. But then I'd also seen that look on her face and I knew she'd needed it.

Our last stop of the trip was Mrs Branston's, but when I pulled into the front of her long gravel driveway I noticed that she hadn't put the flat of eggs I'd asked for in the usual spot. Frowning, I pulled out my phone and called her, but it went to voicemail immediately.

"That's weird," I said. "Mrs Branston is always home."

"You want to go check on her, don't you," Vanessa said, not really a question.

"Well, she's seventy and lives alone," I said. "She's not exactly ancient, but she's no spring chicken either."

"Alright, let's go see what's up," Dani said. Then turned to Vanessa. "You're staying here though."

"What?" Vanessa said. "Why?"

"Because you already took one risk today, and I'm starting to like you too much to let you do two in a day," Dani smirked, then pulled up her mask.

"Ugh, fine," Vanessa sighed. "Crack the windows for me at least."

I did her one better and left the truck running with the AC on.

Dani and I walked up the drive. It was long, but nowhere near as long as mine had been. The Branston's had built their house almost forty years ago - Victor Branston had worked at the local lumber mill, and his wife Hailey had started their side business of raising chickens and eggs after they built their single-story ranch house and barn. They'd had a son who had died in a drunk driving accident when I was still a kid, and a daughter who had moved away when I was still in middle school.

At the top of the drive I tried calling again, and with no answer, Dani and I went to the front door and I knocked, then stepped back.

"Mrs Branston!" I called loudly. "You home?"

Again, no answer. Shaking my head, I frowned beneath my mask and furrowed my brow. Her car was parked in front of the house, so she wasn't out.

"Let's check in some windows," Dani suggested. "If she fell and broke her hip or something she might not be able to reach her phone."

So that's what we did. It felt rude, peeking in her windows like that, but I let the MP side of me take over. I was looking into her kitchen when Dani gasped and motioned me to the other end of the side of the house. She was holding a gloved hand over her mask. I rushed over and looked in.

It was Mrs Branston's bedroom, and she was laying in the bed completely still. There was a dark stain around her mouth and nose and on the edge of some of the sheets. I recognized the dried blood. It looked like she'd been coughing it up.

"Fuck," I sighed, stepping back from the window. Her sallow skin. Her sunken eyes. It was haunting.

I called Emergency Services for the second time in less than an hour and reported it.

"What do we do now?" Dani asked.

"I'd say call her family, but I don't know her daughter's number. I think Mrs Branston said she moved out east somewhere," I said. "We'll need to leave that to the police. Other than that?" I shrugged and looked around at the property. Hailey Branston had lived here going on forty years. Now there was no one.

My eyes settled on the barn.

"If nothing else, we should feed the chickens," I said. "No need for them to starve to death."

"Good idea," Dani nodded and followed me towards the barn.

Now, my worry had been that the chickens might be dead. I really wasn't sure how long it would take for chickens to starve to death, so I was preparing myself for the stink of not only a chicken coop but of dead bodies.

What I wasn't prepared for was for the place to be empty.

"What the fuck?"

"This is weird," Dani said, looking at the rows and rows of empty cages.

It was obvious this was a chicken operation. Just the bird poo around was enough to point to that. But there weren't any chickens.

"How do fifty chickens just up and vanish?" I asked, wandering deeper into the barn.

"It's not just the chickens," Dani said behind me. She was standing at a big bin near the front door with a big 'feed' label on it. She'd lifted the lid. "All their food is gone too except for a bit of mess at the bottom."

I just shook my head, frowning as I looked around. Maybe there was some sort of metaphor here about Haily Branston's life, but all I was seeing was a crime scene. "Who the fuck finds out an old woman is dead, and instead of reporting it they steal all her chickens?"

"An asshole," Dani said.

"Assholes," I corrected. "This would have taken forever if it was just one person. There had to be at least two, probably more." I sighed. "Alright, we need to get out of here. We'll report it to the police when they get here."

Dani and I went back down to Vanessa, filling her in on what we'd seen, and then waited.

Thirty minutes later I called Emergency Services again on the non-emergency line, asking for an update on when we could expect someone to come out.

"I'm sorry sir, but all our services are currently dispatched at the moment with active issues," the operator said. "We've got your report on file, and an ambulance will be dispatched when police are available. We have your name and number on file, we don't need you to stay on location."

That wasdefinitely not the norm for someone calling in a dead body, and it made me worried. "Alright," I said. "I just need to add something to the report then. After my previous call we checked in on Mrs Branston's agricultural livestock. Someone has stolen all her chickens."

"I'm... sorry?" the operator said.

"Someone stole fifty-odd chickens," I clarified.

There was another long moment of quiet from the other end of the line.

"Chickens?"

"Yeah, chickens," I said.

A long sigh. "Alright, I added it to the report. Have a good day, sir."

"You-" the operator hung up. "-too."

"That sounded like it wentgreat," Vanessa said sarcastically.

"Yeah," I said, wondering what the fuck was happening to my home town. "I can't say that it did."

* * * * *

Vanessa came jogging down from the office portables when the black sedan came rolling around the bunkhouses.

After we'd gotten back from our big run, and Erica had berated me for taking a risk with Mary even while telling me how sweet a man I was, things had settled down. Leo's new partners had slept through the day with their imprinting, but we'd grilled up some extra sausages in case they woke up in the night and were hungry. I'd spent some time late in the afternoon with Ivy, and that night I'd slept with Vanessa on one side of me, and Ivy on the other while Erica spooned up behind her and rested a hand on my chest. We'd all been naked, but nothing overtly sexual had happened

Vanessa had gone back to work in the morning, the first to wake up, and as she got ready and dug through her luggage Erica got up and made her coffee. The smell woke me up, and I realised it was 5:30 in the morning. It looked like our schedule was going to be changing with Vanessa in our lives.

Breakfast was a quiet affair later in the morning - at least, quiet for us. Leo's RV was visibly rocking, and I had to assume Aria and India were up and the four of them were getting better acquainted. By the time Vanessa came back around for her breakfast break I'd already come in Erica, but Ivy had held off - apparently, the three of them had talked, and Vanessa only had about fifteen minutes for her breakfast break which meant a quicker-than-usual blowjob was necessary if she wanted some fun with her food.

By mid-morning things had quieted down over at Leo's RV, and I'd left a platter of food wrapped with tinfoil on a chair next to the door. Ivy was just starting to get handsy with me, sitting on my lap and giggling with that look in her eye, distracting me from my drawing, when the crunch of tires outside the compound perked us up.

The sedan ground to a halt, and Vanessa quickly came down to stand with Erica and Ivy and I.

Agent Sourpuss was the driver again, and she just narrowed her eyes at us for a moment before turning back and speaking into the back seat. The door opened, and a woman in that same hooded coverall getup stepped out.

"Hi," I said, stepping forward and offering her my hand. "I'm Harrison."

"Kyla," she said through her mask, taking my hand and shaking it lightly.

"I'm not really sure what you were expecting," I said. "I know things are weird and changing a lot for everyone, so if anything sounds like a problem just let us know and we can figure it out. The first of which is that, ah, these are my partners Erica, Ivy and Vanessa."

"Allo!" Ivy said, stepping forward and wrapping the woman up in a hug. Ivy was still the shortest and most petite of the women, with Kyla standing around the same height as Vanessa.

"Hi," Erica said, smiling warmly but not stepping forward, which I knew was because she knew the secret. In any other circumstance she likely would have been trying as hard as Ivy to be welcoming in an effort to dispel the weirdness.

Agent Sourpuss rolled down the window. "Hey, you need to stop being so touchy. Protocol says you need to imprint as soon as possible."

I sighed, glaring at her a little. "I hear you. Let's just make sure this is all OK with her, yeah?" I turned back to Kyla, whose eyes were a little wide as she cautiously accepted the hug from Ivy.

"Um, hello," she said, looking around at the construction site, and our ridiculous-looking compound.

"There's a lot for us to explain," I said.

"I can see that," she said. The more she talked, the more I heard a slight accent. It wasn't strong, not like Dani's, and I had to assume being the daughter of an Ambassador meant she'd grown up at least part of her life in the US or other places. Not to mention any training she'd received.

"Are you OK with this?" Erica asked her. "The idea of sharing space with a group of us?"

"For what it's worth, I'm the newest and stumbled into it by accident, but it works for me," Vanessa chipped in.

Kyla looked around again, then back at Sourpuss, and finally back to me. "It's the way things are," she said. "I can make it work."

"Well, if you change your mind, you have until we start the imprinting process," I said. "Just say something and we can try to find you someone, or somewhere, else."

She shook her head, then turned to Sourpuss again. "You can go."

"Fine by me," the Agent muttered, raising her window and pulling the car away. I was almost sure I heard her mutter something about never wanting to come back again.

"Come in," Erica said, gesturing to the fabric-draped entryway. "We'll show you around and can tell you what's up."

Kyla followed Erica and Ivy in, but Vanessa hung back. "I need to get back to work," she said. "I'll come meet her later if you haven't dicked her down yet."

I snorted and shook my head at her crassness. The only people who could get close to matching military folks in that way turned out to be construction workers. "Everything going OK?" I asked.

"Yeah, it's fine. Just getting the animals back in order after being away. They're going to be moving workers into the bunkhouses in the next few days so there's a lot to get ready," she said. She reached over and squeezed my hand for a second, but didn't step in for a kiss even though I could see her glance at my lips. "See you later?"

"Absolutely," I said, and she started marching back towards the office portables.

When I ducked back into our compound, Erica and Ivy had arranged the deck chairs into a semi-circle and Ivy was coming out of our place with a quartet of beers from the fridge. Erica was just gesturing for Kyla to take a seat.

"We're all vaccinated," she was saying. "So if you want to get out of that getup you can."

Kyla sat and sighed, lowering her hood and then taking off her medical mask. She was gorgeous. Her hair was a natural silky black with that smooth quality that Native Americans and East Asian folks shared, and she had cute little apple cheeks when she smiled softly in thanks as she accepted a beer from Ivy. Her skin was naturally tan, and she'd done her makeup to accent her ethnicity a bit rather than downplaying it, and knowing what I knew about her I wondered if that was a move to try and distract or seduce me.

She had espionage training. She knew how to use her assets.

"So Harrison," she nodded to me, then pointed at Ivy. "Ivy, and..." she looked at Erica. "Sorry, something with an E, right?"

"Erica," my girlfriend clarified for her with a smile.

"Right, Erica," Kyla said. "And the other was Vanessa?"

"Right," I nodded. "Vanessa is actually a forewoman with the construction crews, so she had to get back to work."

"OK," she nodded. "And you all live in these trailers?"

"RVs," I said. "And it's just temporary. My family owned this land for generations, and recently the government leased it from me and is building a residential compound. We'll be getting a house, and for now we've got these luxury RVs. But, uh, we're actually only living in that one. The other one is occupied by my friend and Erica's brother Leo and his partners."

"So there's going to be five of us in there?" Kyla asked, raising an eyebrow as she looked over the RV.

"Yes," Ivy said with a smile. "It's very nice on the inside. And the bed is very cozy."

"The bed?" Kyla said, emphasizing the singular.

"That's, uh, another thing," I said. "This is a little rude but, well Erica, Ivy and Vanessa are all bisexual. Are you-?"

"I'm straight," she said.

Erica just nodded, though I could tell out of the corner of my eye that Ivy was a little disappointed but tried to hide it.

"That's perfectly fine," I said. "We'll figure out a sleeping arrangement so that you're comfortable."

"I-" Kyla started, then glanced at Erica and Ivy for a moment and seemed to change her mind. "Look, I'm stepping into your thing here already, so I don't want to be a bitch. But could I just... Could I talk for a moment with the guy who I'm going to be bonding DNA with or whatever?"

"Yes, absolutely," Erica said. "Do you want to go inside, or should we?"

Kyla glanced over at Leo's RV. "Maybe we should," she said and stood up.

I stood as well, patted Ivy's shoulder and met a glance from Erica as she tried to warn me to be careful without saying anything. Kyla and I went to the RV, and I opened the door for her and followed her in.

"Sorry about the mess," I said. "Vanessa just moved in yesterday and we're trying to figure out what to keep here, and what to move into the storage containers."

"It's... fine," Kyla said. She was looking down the length of the RV, through the open door to the bed. I could only imagine what she was thinking.

"Let's just sit here," I said, offering her the bench as I took the chair by the Murphey table. I wasn't going to mention that we used the bench for fucking almost as much as the bed. "Ask me anything," I said as we sat. "I know this is all weird, and you must have a thousand questions and concerns."