Carl seized his sister’s wrist and held her hand in both of his. “Aim…I’m sorry…h-he’s gone.” he said quietly. He glanced towards the door, hoping that Adam or Frannie or anybody else would come in so he would not have to do this on his own. “There was…um…l-like complications…”
Frays blinked at her brother. She started breathing rapidly and settled back against the mattress staring at the ceiling as she tried to catch her breath. Carl held her hand and made little shushing noises as he ran the other one over his sister’s hair still throwing glances at the door in hopes that somebody else would come in soon. He was starting to get a little scared by how Amy could not seem to breathe right or whatever. She was starting to get pale and her eyes looked strange like they were too big for her face.
“Aim, calm down.” he said quietly as he continued smoothing her hair. Carl looked at the door again and smiled back down at his sister. “Somebody! Help now please!” the boy nearly shouted. He remembered the call button wired to the wall and he frantically searched for it. “Ha!” Carl said as he squashed the little red button over and over again.
Tommy hurried into the room with Lieutenant Haskins close on his heels. The woman nudged Carl aside and put a hand on Amy’s shoulder. “Frays…Frays look at me.” she said in a quiet but stern voice. The doctor started breathing deeply once she had her patient’s attention. “C’mon. Breathe with me now. That’s it. Slow and easy. It’s okay…shhh… There…just like that, alright? Easy does it.”
After several minutes Frays started to calm down and her color got a little better. “Why did you save me if you couldn’t save my son?” Frays asked accusingly once she could get enough air back to speak. She slapped the doctor’s hand away and nearly shouted. “Why? Why did you do that?”
Carl looked as if she had slapped him instead. “Aim, you can’t mean that.” he said quietly. The woman in the hospital bed seemed to be a different person altogether. He sat down and moved as close as he could to his sister’s bedside, taking her arm in both of his hands. “Aim…” A couple tears started running down his cheeks before he could wipe them away. “Aim…you’re all I got left! Please…just don’t even think that, okay?”
She snatched her arm away and glared at her brother. “You got Frannie.” Frays said quietly. The woman wrapped her arms around herself and stared at her toes under the blanket. “Go on, get!” Her head snapped up. “GET OUT OF HERE! ALL OF YOU!”
Lieutenant Haskins put a hand on Carl’s shoulder and nodded towards the door when he looked up at her. Carl, Tommy and Lieutenant Haskins filed slowly out of the room. Carl looked helplessly at the medical people. “What do we do now?” he asked as he leaned back against the wall.
Haskins snapped her fingers. “I’ve got it.” she announced and started out towards the lobby. “You two stay here and keep an eye on her. See if you can get her to eat something once she calms down. Tell the cooks to try and find her some protein. I’ll be right back.”
Lieutenant Haskins hurried into her office and started making calls. After a few minutes she managed to track down where Private Lacey was working that day. It was all she could do to keep Mister Frays out of work to stay by his sister’s side so her friends had been sent back to work the next morning. She smiled a little as she tossed on her Multi-Cam top and zipped it up then put her sidearm back on over it. Apparently Specialist Rodriguez’s supervisor was going to have his hands full with her from what she had overheard the day before.
She hustled across the compound, wishing for the hundredth time that she could scrounge up an electric golf cart or something so that she could move around more quickly around the FOB without burning through their precious stores of gasoline or diesel. Finally she arrived at her destination: the ‘main gate’. It looked like something from one of those Mad Max movies. The entryway was secured by a school bus with one side reinforced by ‘hillbilly armor’ covering the windows and tires as well as the gap between the bus and the ground. The whole affair was flanked by twin guard towers covered with sandbags and more steel plate. The barrels of Browning M2 heavy machineguns poked out of the nests at the tops of the towers pointed towards the city meant to stop any attempt to ram the gate with a vehicle.
Lacey was up in the tower on the left with a couple other guys, the three of them nervously glassing the horizon with binoculars. The city of Sanford was only a few miles away in that direction so it stood to reason that if there was going to be another major assault on the walls it would come from that direction.
“Private Lacey, would you come down here please?” she shouted and could not help but smile a little bit at how fast the man scrambled down the ladder once he saw that she was waiting for him on the ground. “How much longer are you going to be here?”
“Um…I get done at 1600, Ma’am.” Lacey said growing more and more anxious by the second. He glanced back up at the two men in the tower then looked at the woman before him. “What’s wrong, Ma’am? I mean…you didn’t come all the way over here just to ask me that.”
The naval officer sighed heavily. “Mister Frays told his sister about her son.” Haskins said at last with a frown and a shrug. “If…if I have your permission I’d like to take your kids over to see her.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Ma’am.” Lacey advised with a shake of his head. The man exhaled loudly and glanced around looking to see if anyone seemed to be paying attention to their conversation. “She loves my kids but she’s a little…twitchy around them.”
“What do you mean ‘twitchy’, Private?” Lieutenant Haskins asked, now more than a little curious. She had seen Sergeant Frays with his little ones a few times and there did not seem to be anything out of the ordinary going on.
Lacey glanced around again. A couple of the Blue Diamond guys were standing around looking at them but they did not appear to be much interested in what they were doing. “When we were at Hanscomb Air Force Base…” he began his voice barely above a whisper. “It was nuts. Between…them…and the people going crazy we had to fall back to the base.
I don’t know how things were where you guys were when this all started but the base was just a fuckin’ madhouse…fuckin’ crazy. They had me and Frays and a few others that were with us trying to weed the infected out of the civilians coming from Boston.” Lacey ran a hand over his head nervously brushing at his hair and scratched at his cheek. “Don’t tell her I told you anything, Ma’am but…Frays said she shot a little kid that might have been bit. I guess she like suppressed it or something but it really screwed her up.”
Lieutenant Haskins nodded thoughtfully. “Still come by. She may not act like it but she needs her friends right now.” she said quietly. Lieutenant Haskins made a strange face. “Would it be okay if I at least gave it a shot? I know she wouldn’t like to see the dog.”
Lacey shrugged and smirked a little bit at the doctor’s attempt at a joke. “Sure. It can’t hurt…or at least the kids will want to see her.” he said quietly and glanced back at the ladder. “Tell Paulie and Becca I said hi and I’ll see them as soon as I get outta here. Thanks, by the way. I know you did everything you could.”
The doctor shuddered as she walked away. They had been shooting people farther south? There had been rumors of it on her Facebook feed when the internet was still running but she just could not believe it. The sick people she had tried to treat ended up being locked up in a wing of the sick bay until somebody figured out what to do with them. Sometimes the moans and pounding on the doors the hands grasping through the bars on the windows attached to arms that had been ripped to shreds on shards of broken glass haunted her dreams on the rare occasions she was not too exhausted to dream.
She wondered absently if those poor Marines and Sailors were still there wailing away like banshees and clawing at the walls. The thought made her insides squirm. She knew some of them, good men and women who had been bitten and infected trying to subdue patients. Stupid! Beth thought as she mercilessly pushed the thoughts aw
ay. Stop getting so wrapped around the fuckin’ axel, goddamnit!
Beth smiled as she approached the childcare area. “Hello, ma’am.” she said her eyes on the kids playing on the swings and jungle gyms under the shade of the trees next to the former Wal-Mart. It took her a minute but she recognized Lacey’s boy and girl. “Can I borrow Paul and Becca Lacey for say half an hour or so? Their friend, Sergeant Frays, is awake and I think she’d like to see them. Private Lacey said its okay.”
“Oh sure go right ahead.” Genny said as she called the children’s names and motioned for them to come over. She remembered that Amy would come and sit through story time in the mornings with the kids. She seemed like such a sweet young lady always willing to let as many of the little ones as she could manage sit in her lap. “How is she doing? I heard she got brought to the hospital the other day. Such a nice young lady. Tell her we all miss her at storytime.”
The two little four year olds came scampering over. “What’s up, Doc?” Paulie asked in his best Bugs Bunny voice. His sister laughed at her brother’s joke then the smiles started slowly slipping away from the children’s faces because of how Doctor Haskins was looking at them.
She looked at Genny, silently telling the woman to give her and the kids a little space then knelt so that she was eye level with the children. “You know that your friend Amy was staying with me over at the hospital, right?” the doctor said quietly. It was a little hard to judge how much the children knew and how to explain it to the kids. From the looks on their faces they had been at least somewhat aware of Sergeant Frays’ predicament. “How would you guys like to come see her?”
The children’s eyes lit up as they took off running across the parking lot. Lieutenant Haskins jogged after them smiling a little at how rambunctious the little ones were. It was a little sad that they knew the way across the compound to the Aid Station by themselves. She stopped them just inside the door. “Amy’s pretty sick so you can only see her for a few minutes, okay? And be gentle alright guys?” the doctor instructed them as she walked the kids towards Sergeant Frays’ room.
Tommy stood leaning against the wall outside the door. “Hey kiddos!” he called as he came over and tousled the children’s hair. “How’s my little buddies doin’?” The kids had come around a few times since their arrival to get checkups and allow Doctor Haskins to look at Paulie’s amputated fingers.
“We came to see Amy.” Paulie explained as he grinned up at the medic. He had gotten to be friends with the nursing staff in the week or so that he stayed here with Frays when they first arrived. Tommy had let him follow him around and act like he was helping him make his rounds. “Did she have the baby? I wanna play with the baby.”
“Yeah…s-she had the baby, buddy.” Tommy said quietly. He glanced up at Lieutenant Haskins who looked like she was doing her best not to cry. The medic knelt down so that he was eye level with the kids. “The…um…the baby isn’t okay. You can’t play with him.”
Becca looked from Tommy to Beth and back again, an idea slowly forming itself in her little head. “Did Amy’s baby go to Heaven?” she asked, scowling a little bit at the idea. The grownups were only sad like this when somebody went to Heaven.
Haskins put a hand on the little girl’s shoulder. “Yeah, sweetie.” she said quietly, her lower lip trembling as she spoke. “Amy’s little baby’s in Heaven right now. Go on in and see Amy, alright?” She gave the little girl’s bottom a pat as the two kids went into the room. Lieutenant Haskins walked quickly down the hall to her office, locked the door and allowed herself the luxury of bawling her eyes out for almost half an hour.
After her initial outburst Frays had fallen asleep again. The shock and rage at everything in sight used up what little energy she had and it took everything she had to keep her eyes open. Frays mumbled something when Tommy came in and asked her if she was hungry. In minutes after that she was snoring away dead to the world.
The door creaked open and Frays lifted one exhausted eye lid. “Hi, Amy!” a quiet little voice called as Becca and Paulie crept nervously inside. Amy was in her tee shirt and there were all these plastic tubes in her arm. After a couple moments Amy smiled at the little ones and motioned for them to come and climb onto the bed with her.
“Ow, careful guys.” Amy said quietly as she let Paulie and his sister snuggle just under her armpit on either side. Paulie had brushed against the IV line in her right forearm making the catheter move. The little boy put a hand on Amy’s stomach and frowned sadly.
“I miss your baby.” he said quietly. The little thing in there was always wriggly and stuff and he wanted to see the little guy. Paulie hugged Amy and buried his face under her chin holding her as tight as he could.
“Don’t worry, Amy.” Becca said after a few minutes. Amy was running her hand through the little girl’s hair. She dug her little notepad out of her pocket and flipped it open to the picture she had drawn of her family. The little girl pointed to the little stick figures near the sun. “Mommy will take care of your baby for you. She’s in Heaven with God too.”
Amy kissed the top of Becca’s head. “What a little sweetheart.” she whispered and kissed her brother too. “What little sweeties.” Tears welled up in her eyes as she hugged the children tight. The kids hugged her back. “Geez you guys are strong. Is your dad here?”
“No the letenedant lady brought us over.” Becca said carefully. She scowled as she was pretty certain that she had mispronounced the word. “She said we could come see you so we did and now we’re here.”
“Thanks for coming to see me, guys.” Amy glanced at her watch and frowned. “Well poop. You guys are going to have to hurry if you want to make it back for lunch.” She smiled at Becca and Paulie as the two kids regretfully extracted themselves and climbed down.
Tommy poked his head in after the kids had left. “Feeling better?” he asked and started easing into the room. It had been quieter in the last few minutes but that did not mean everything was okay either. “Want some lunch?”
“I’d like it if you could give me my son back.” Frays spat at him. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the medic as he slunk into the room. He took a couple steps towards the bed but she held up a hand. “Come one step closer and I’ll throw something at you.”
“C’mon…Frays…” Tommy said quietly holding his hands up as if he were surrendering. “Please…you haven’t eaten in two days. You gotta have something.” The medic tentatively took a step towards the woman hoping that she would come to her senses and calm down. “Frays…please ju-”
Frays dug for the metal bedpan underneath her and whipped it across the room with all the strength she could muster. It missed Tommy by scant inches and struck the wall behind him with a tremendous clatter and splattering the tile floor with a mixture of blood and urine. “Leave me alone!” she shouted loud enough that she was sure that they could hear her on the street outside. “Go on, get out of here!”
She glared at Tommy as he stooped to pick up the bedpan. “If I give this back you aren’t going to throw it anymore, okay?” he asked as he carefully approached. The medic was not sure what else Frays might have over there but he was in no mood to get hit in the face with it either. He sighed heavily as he crept forward.
“Look…I know you probably don’t want to hear it right now but we all tried our best to save your son.” he muttered as he lifted the sheet over the woman’s lower half, replaced the bedpan and put the blankets back. There were bandages around the woman’s privates that held a catheter in place so she could urinate. “We were all really looking forward to meeting your boy. Please just let us help you get better, okay? Then you can go yell at those kids or shoot somebody or whatever it is you do all day when you’re not in and out of here.”
Frays glared icily at the man. “Screw you.” she muttered under her breath. Frays found that her little outburst had taken a lot out of her as she looked up at the ceiling, not wanting to even make eye contact with the man. The simple act
of slinging the bedpan across the room made sweat spring out on her brow and her breathing labored.
Tommy sighed and reached out for Amy’s hand but she drew it away. He frowned and stood there looking down at her for a moment before walking out of the room. “I’ll be back with a mop.” he said, doing his level best to not slam the door behind him.
She stared at the door boring holes in the wood with her eyes. Frays gave this up after a few minutes and wrapped her arms around her stomach and stared at her now empty womb. Why’d you have to leave me, little guy? she wondered absently as she ran her hand up and down the flaccid spongy area where her little boy had been just a few days ago. I loved you so much and you’re gone, little man. Why did you have to go?
She wanted to cry but the tears ran up against a wall inside her head that held them inside. Frays sighed and now forced herself to try and get a couple tears out but nothing came. Amy sat there staring at her stomach. It was so quiet now and she just wanted to feel her little boy growing inside her again to feel his little feet stomping on her bladder just one more time…
Tommy came back in pushing a mop bucket that smelled strongly of bleach. He barely looked up at her has he wrung out the mop and washed the tiles all the while keeping one eye on Frays in case she decided to lob something else at him. The tired, defeated look in the woman’s eyes made his heart ache for her and he wanted to do anything that would make it go away. He thought about trying to get closer to her again but reconsidered the idea.
She fell asleep for a little while after Tommy left and woke up at some point in the afternoon. There was a knock at the door and Frays was surprised to see Becca and Paulie poke their heads into the room followed by their father. “Two times in one day?” she asked as the little ones climbed into bed with her. “Lucky me.”
“Are you gonna get betterer quick, Amy?” Becca asked as she smooched her friend’s cheek then settled back against the woman’s chest. “We all miss you at story time.” The little girl looked up at Frays and snuggled her shoulder into the woman’s armpit.
Outbreak: Long Road Back Page 10
