There was a little bit of time left before the briefing was supposed to start. Frays was surprised to see Rodriguez standing outside the TOC with Paulie and Becca. The kids hugged Frays’ legs when she got a little closer. “Hey Frays.” the woman called with a wry grin “Somebody wanted to say goodbye to you and their dad before you guys left.”
“Awww!” Frays grinned and knelt to hug the children. “I’m gonna miss you guys so much!” She kissed both of them on the cheek and hugged them again. “You two be good for Aunt Frannie and Uncle Carl, alright?”
Paulie scowled at Frays. “I don’t want you to take Daddy away again.” the little boy said hotly with his little hands balled up into fists on his hips. “I don’t want Daddy to go.” Paulie’s little chest heaved as if he were about to start crying.
Frays frowned and kissed the little boy’s forehead. “I’m sorry, buddy…” she said quietly. The woman sighed and knelt so she could look into Paulie’s eyes. “I don’t want to take your Daddy away but he’s a really important guy and I need him with me, understand? Look, kiddo…I promise I’m gonna bring your daddy back safe and sound, alright?”
The little boy’s expression softened a little. Amy had always brought Daddy home safe before and she had not promised before. He made a strange face then held up his fist and extended his pinkie finger. “Pinkie swear, Amy.” Paulie said, his little features doing an excellent impression of an adult being serious.
Frays grinned and hooked her pinkie around the boy’s digit then did the same with Becca. “Pinkie swear, kiddos.” she said and tousled the children’s hair as she stood up. “But you guys gotta make sure that Carl stays out of trouble for me, alright? We’ll be back tomorrow afternoon at the latest.”
Frays could not help but feel more than a little horrible as she left the children and entered the TOC. There was a palpable electric tension in the air of the lobby. Stark, Hubbard and the other trainees stood around in little groups chatting excitedly amongst themselves. She waited for a moment then cleared her throat. “At ease!” Buckley shouted, making the ten people fall silent and lock their hands behind their backs.
“Alright folks!” Frays announced as she hiked a thumb at the door behind her. “Grab your stuff and get out to the trucks. Convoy brief in five.” She smiled a little bit as she herded the privates outside and watched them gather around a battered late model Ford F250 King Cab with all the bells and whistles: CD player, USB ports, satellite radio, leather interior, air conditioning, customized off road suspension... An incorrigible tomboy, there had been a heated Rock Paper Scissors contest between herself and Sergeant Hanes regarding who was going to get to drive that bad boy. She had won in the end even though it had come down to a tie breaker.
Frays listened to Sergeant Hanes’s briefing as a strange sensation started wheedling her insides. It had been some time since she had felt it so it took her a moment to realize what it was: she was craving a cigarette. When she was overseas Sergeant Emery would let them smoke while he briefed the convoy… She ignored the urge as she watched the map spread out on the other truck, a piebald Toyota Tacoma.
The plan was basically this: Frays would take Lacey and half the squad to a traffic circle where Routes 4, 109 and 4A joined together. Frays would help Lacey emplace the device and daisy chain other prefabricated charges placed under stalled cars or piles of debris to help make sure the infected did not just get mangled by the explosion.
Sergeant Hanes would take the other half into the housing track close to the FOB in search of medical supplies to supplement their dwindling supplies of antibiotics, pain medications and bandages. Frays and her group would leave first in twenty minutes then the others would head out and start their search. Perhaps the most nerve wracking part for Hanes was the fact that Frays and her group would be out of radio communication until they set up their bombs and started back to the FOB.
Frays grumbled to herself as she turned to Lacey and her team. She would be taking Grimes, Robles, Pittman and Rowe out with her. “Alright, fall in.” she ordered and started her hands on check of her team’s gear. She nodded after checking Lacey’s ammo carriers, camelbak and his other kit. Frays gave him a light punch in his chest. Grimes looked like she was on the verge of peeing in her pants. Frays checked the woman’s carbine and smiled. “Relax, Grimes.” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “It’s gonna be fine.”
Frays bowed her head and pulled out the Saint Joan’s medal from under her shirt. The woman muttered a quick prayer, kissed the little silver disk and cranked the F250’s ignition. The big truck’s motor rumbled to life drawing a big grin to Frays’ face as she pressed down on the gas pedal a couple times. The Ford pulled away from the TOC and rolled towards the north gate with the four privates seated nervously next to the bomb and ammo cans full of plastic explosives and detonators as well as more conventional supplies: a case of MREs, two five gallon containers of fresh water and a couple hundred rounds of ammunition for their weapons. There was space left over so they could stash any extra supplies they stumbled across while on their mission.
Lacey rode in the passenger seat. He could not help but smile whenever he saw the little grin on Frays’ face as she steered the massive truck around stalled vehicles or onto the shoulder of the little two lane highway. It made him unbelievably happy to see her enjoying herself again. After burying all those people that died in the fire Frays acted like she was carved out of wood for days and days. “See if there’s a CD or something in the glove box, man.” Frays said as she reached back to crack the little sliding window in the truck’s rear windscreen.
The man rolled his eyes. The storage compartment had a small selection of Country and Western and some unidentified homemade CDs. “What do you want to hear?” he asked with a small scowl as he ran a finger over the plastic cases. “Waylon Jennings? George Strait?”
Frays frowned slightly as she considered the options. “Got any Garth Brooks?” she asked as she held her arm up in the air to let Lacey rifle through the rest. “I’d love to hear me some Garth. If not some George Jones would really hit the spot.”
Lacey chuckled, opened a case and put a disk in the truck’s CD player. Moments later they were bombing down the road and all of them singing along with a Charlie Daniels Band greatest hits CD. Frays was surprised to learn that of all people Rowe had a really good singing voice. Lacey, however, had a voice like a wounded goat…not that hers was any better.
Grimes gripped the wooden stock of her SKS with sweaty palms. While everyone else was acting like they were on some kind of fucking road trip she could not take her eyes off the stumbling forms following the truck just inside the copses of trees on either side of the road. There was at least five to ten of them that she could see and probably more just out of sight in the brush. What the fuck was wrong with these people? “Jesus would you assholes shut the fuck up? Look at what the fuck you’re doing!” the woman hissed under her breath.
Pittman smiled encouragingly at her. “Don’t worry, Stace.” the big southerner said. He patted the case of Comp B he was sitting on and grinned. “It’s all part of the plan. We’re driving way faster than those dumb fuckers can walk. We’ll get this shit set up and be long gone before they even get half way there.”
“I just got a real bad feeling about this.” Grimes muttered as she clung to her carbine as if it were some sort of magical talisman. She dug out a pack of spearmint gum and stuffed a piece into her mouth before offering it to everyone else in the back of the truck.
Robles took one and popped it into his mouth. “I’m just glad you noticed them.” he said as he slowly chewed the gum. It had been ages since he had a piece of gum that was not so stale it crumbled to bits in his mouth. “I was wondering if I was seeing shit.”
Lacey turned his head so that he could try to hear the conversation going on in the bed of the truck. It also let him steal another glance at Frays. The lustrous dark brown of her hair…the gentle curve of her jaw line…the graceful curve of
her neck… She looked really fucking hot even in her plate carrier and Multi-Cams… The man felt a brief stab of grief over the miscarriage. He could not even fathom how profound a loss that was. Lacey fought back the urge to reach out and try to take the woman’s hand.
Frays caught him staring at her and she smiled. “Eyes on the road, man.” she said just loud enough for him to hear but hopefully not be heard by the others in the bed of the truck. He laughed and settled into his side of the bench seat. Frays looked over her shoulder. “Get ready, guys. We’re going to be in the target area in a couple minutes!”
Lacey muttered a curse under his breath as they got closer. There was a great big angry snarl of traffic around where they intended to set up the device making driving right up to it all but impossible. Frays stopped and looked at the man. “Well, come on.” the woman grumbled as she opened her door and hopped out of the truck.
“Let’s go, people!” Frays said tersely as she lowered the truck’s tailgate. “We can’t get closer with the truck so we’ll have to drag this stuff over there and get set up. Rowe and Pittman give Lacey a hand getting this stuff over there. Grimes, Robles we’re on security. We were drawing a crowd on the way here so let’s not hang around too long.”
It took a couple trips but the three men got the explosives along with its assorted paraphernalia unloaded and set up in the target area. Grimes stood on the little island of dead grass in the center of the traffic circle watching them out of the corner of her eye. Something about the stalled out hatchback a few feet away kept drawing her attention.
Sergeant Frays was busy helping Lacey set up the bomb while Robles and Rowe were running around sticking blocks of plastic explosive under nearby cars. Pittman was watching his half of the traffic circle. Grimes frowned over her shoulder at the rest of the group and crept over to the abandoned car. The windshield was thick with dust and had a crack in it as long as her arm. Thankfully the original owner did not appear to be anywhere near the vehicle…
Grimes practically squealed in delight. The little car looked like it was packed to the gills with supplies. “Hey, can we start taking stuff from the cars?” she asked loudly as she tried the passenger side door. A hand shot out of the duffle bag on the front seat and caught her wrist as the zombie she had not seen beneath the pile of stuff tried to pull her into the car.
Grimes screamed and stumbled back somehow able to twist free of the creature’s grasp. She stood there her ample bosom rising and falling as she tried to catch her breath. The woman glanced at the others as she looked at the pitiful sight in the passenger’s seat of the car. An animated corpse that used to be a preteen girl now so bloated that its skin was split open in places as it clawed at the air, held in place by the seatbelt.
“I’m alright!” she called as she unfolded the SKS’s bayonet and locked it into place. “I’m alright!” Grimes hooked the bayonet inside the handle of the duffle bag and flicked the luggage out onto the ground then took careful aim and thrust the razor sharp steel blade through the pitiful animated corpse’s eye socket. The creature stopped flailing like a hydraulically powered puppet that had been disconnected from its power source.
Rowe came over with a brick of plastic explosive in his hand. He winked at Grimes as he set it on top of the driver’s side front wheel. “Good job. Are you alright?” he asked. Rowe had to admit that the woman was not as bad looking as he originally thought. Either that or she had gotten in shape with all the exercise they had had gotten over the past few weeks. He threw open the doors on the opposite side of the car and started tossing bags and milk crates of stuff out onto the grass.
“Contact!” Hubbard shouted as he raised his carbine. A handful of figures stumbled towards them winding their way drunkenly through the stalled cars and trucks. He drew careful aim on the closest one and took a deep breath as he flicked the carbine’s safety forward. The tall spindly black man’s face disappeared when the 7.62mm bullet smashed through its skull just above the bridge of its nose.
Frays stood up from the motorcycle battery she was hooking up to the radio and looked around. Lacey was running a spool of det cord from the main charge to the bricks of Comp B the others had positioned under the cars and trucks. “How much longer you need, Lacey?” she shouted as she tried to figure out how many more zombies were coming.
Lacey looked around and counted the remaining charges that needed to be set. “Maybe ten minutes!” he yelled as he finished crimping the end of a length of det cord to the shock tube and jammed it into the brick of Comp B.
Grimes shouted a warning. She fired two quick shots both of them whipping past the head of a reanimated child as it came towards her at a fast clip its little hands hooked into claws. The woman grabbed the door of the hatchback next to her and shoved it open in violent motion smashing the little monster in the face with a sick thump. The creature stumbled and fell on its back allowing Grimes to plant a boot on its chest and stab downward with the bayonet. A gunshot rang out close enough to tug at her hat.
There was a creature on the ground with the top half of its head missing a few feet away. There was the sharper cracks of Sergeant Frays’ suppressed M4 now joining the others. Grimes stood there watching the others her breath coming raspy little gasps as the bullets whizzed and whined past her. All of a sudden Sergeant Frays was standing in front of her. “Shoot something you little twerp!” the NCO shouted as she violently spun the private so that she was facing the incoming zombies.
Frays grumbled and shoved the woman aside dropping a zombie that was coming around the bumper of a rusted out Chevy Tahoe. The woman shook her head disgustedly. “Get that stuff on the truck!” she shouted at Grimes and covered the woman’s sector of fire. “I got this. Just get the stuff on the truck and come back here.”
The sound of a creaking door opening followed by a very familiar baseline started throbbing out of the oversized speakers. Frays raised her cheek from the stock of her M4 and gave Lacey a look as the man hurriedly assembled the last of the charges. She shook her head when the man grinned up at her. “C’mon! It’s funny!” Lacey shouted over the noise as Michael Jackson asserted that it was indeed Thriller Night.
Just as Frays and her group were choosing what music to listen to Sergeant Hanes and his group were starting out for the housing tract east of the FOB. PFC Stark nervously fingered her CLS bag and readjusted the strap. God, if you’re taking requests, please don’t make me have to use this today… the slender woman thought as she tugged her cap down to keep the sun out of her eyes as they left the east gate behind them.
Sergeant Hanes was driving with Buckley in the passenger seat. The plan was that Stark and Parker would pull security on the truck while the rest moved out as teams of two to search the houses. Each team had a big rucksack or duffle bag to stash supplies in and a can of bright orange spray paint. They were looking for medicine followed by any stores of lumber or building supplies. If they ran across anything that they might need but could not fit in the truck they were to mark the building with the spray paint and a team would come along later with a bigger truck to get it.
The brakes squeaked as Sergeant Hanes pulled the pickup truck up onto the lawn of what probably used to be a nice little two story colonial and jumped out. “Okay, let’s make this fast!” he shouted as the others piled out of the vehicle and hurried off. “Keep an eye out and be careful. No gunfire unless you have to. Watch your corners and be back here in twenty!”
There was a flurry of activity as Hanes and Buckley went towards the house in front of them while Sharpe and Chang made a beeline for the large storage shed off to the side. If there were any building supplies there might be some there.
The first house turned up some good stuff: a closet full of winter coats, snow pants, a pile of canned food and dry pasta that was still good, some hand tools, a couple boxes of shotgun shells and a heap of 2x4s in the shed. This last discovery made Chang spray paint a big letter L on the side of the shed so that the next crew to come by could see i
t from the street.
The foragers hustled towards a big bluish green house across the street. This one had a small barn or a garage build a few feet from the house. Stark sat on the top of the truck’s cab and kept watch with a pair of binoculars as Hanes kicked in the house’s back door. Her heart stopped when she spied movement through a window at the opposite side of the house. A gunshot rang out inside and the next thing Stark knew she was staring up at the sky and her ears were ringing. For some reason a thick black cloud waved and swirled across her vision. Something was burning? What the hell happened?
She sat up with a groan and electric currents of the most agonizing pain she had ever felt nearly made her black out. The woman lay there gasping as she tried to figure out what the hell happened. The Tacoma was on its side, the contents of the vehicle’s bed spread all over the blacktop. There was a rapidly spreading pool around the pickup which she guessed to be the contents of the vehicle’s gas tank. “Ah! Fuck!” Stark spat as she tried to sit up again. It was right about then that she noticed the huge open gash in her left forearm and the hot blood coursing out of the deep open wound.
The medic struggled into a sitting position and tried to open her CLS bag with her good hand. After a few moments of cursing and frustrated shaking she managed to undo the buckle and get the bag unrolled. Fighting unconsciousness she dug open one of the pouches and found what she was looking for: a Combat Action Tourniquet or CAT. “C’mon you stupid bitch.” she muttered to herself as she shook out the inch wide loop of fabric and shoved her wounded forearm through it. She grabbed the tab with her blood slick fingers and tightened the tourniquet a few inches above the wound and twisted the plastic rod then locked it in place, cutting off blood flow to the rest of her arm. She then gathered her CLS bag back up and tried to get to her feet. The explosion had to have drawn a bunch of attention…
Outbreak: Long Road Back Page 17
