Outbreak: Long Road Back

by Van Dusen, Robert

  The realization that Frays was right dawned on him. The other raiding party was only going like a half mile or so down the road from the FOB so they should be back by now. “Hang on, Sergeant.” Lacey said as he shoved off the truck and started towards the TOC. “Lemme ask around inside.” he called over his shoulder.

  Lacey walked quickly up to the CQ desk. “Hey…where’s the other half of Sergeant Frays’ squad?” he asked this cute little brunette in a tight black tee shirt and jeans who was sitting behind the desk. “They were supposed to meet us out front.”

  The woman sighed heavily. “Um…” she mumbled and looked around like she desperately wanted somebody else to come through the door that led to the offices in the building. “Ah…well…there was an accident…”

  That was all Lacey had to hear. He spun on his heel and sprinted out of the door across the courtyard and up to the truck. “Go to the Med Center!” Lacey shouted as he approached the woman leaning against the massive truck. “I’ll keep an eye on the parts and stuff!”

  Frays ran towards the Med Center, her feet churning like pistons carbine slapping against her back as she sprinted towards the squat brick building on the far side of the compound. Somebody was running towards her. “Aim! Aim, wait!” Carl shouted when he spotted his big sister on a dead run towards the Med Center.

  Frays stopped at the sound of her brother’s voice. “What is it?” she said breathlessly. The woman bent slightly and rested her hands on her knees. “I gotta get to the Med Center. My guys are there, Carl.”

  He hated to be the guy to have to tell her bad news yet again. “Aim…Aim….” Carl started then just went to his sister and held her tight. “There was an accident. Some kind of gas leak or something. Sergeant Hanes and a couple other guys got killed. The rest are in there right now getting patched up.”

  Frays felt like Carl had just wound up and kicked her really hard right in the stomach. “What? Oh, God…oh no…” She turned and continued on full tilt towards the building a few hundred feet away. Frays was tangentially aware of her brother following her.

  Stark jumped a little bit when Sergeant Frays burst into the exam room. Worse yet Daryl, who was stitching the giant gash shut on her forearm at the time, jumped too and tugged on the open wound. The medic glared at the woman. “Thanks, Sergeant.” Stark muttered testily as she slowly got her breathing under control. “I really fuckin’ needed that.”

  Frays was more than a little shocked at how pale the small blonde woman looked as she sat on chair with her forearm resting on the exam table. There was a small pile of bloody gauze next to Stark’s elbow and a nasty piece of crooked metal that looked like it might have been a six inch nail at some point. Frays felt a wave of nausea when she realized that the twisted metal spike had probably been pulled out of giant hole in Stark’s forearm.

  “Are you okay?” Frays asked as she took a step inside the room. The woman sitting in the chair gripped the edge of the table so tightly that her knuckles showed white. Daryl glanced up from his sewing and gave Frays a wry smile.

  “Should be okay in a few days, Sergeant.” the black nurse said as he finished sewing up the first series of sutures. The wound was so deep that it would actually require the flesh inside the woman’s forearm to be stitched up then the skin sewn back together. Thankfully the nail did not hit any major arteries or veins. However if there was any nerve damage or not would have to remain to be seen. “Gonna immobilize your hand for a few days after I finish up here, Stark. I’ll get you a note for some Tylenol in a minute.”

  “Where’s everybody else?” Frays asked trying to keep the urgency out of her voice. After seeing how badly Stark was hurt she could not help but be scared to death for the rest of her platoon. “Are they here?”

  “Parker’s back at the trailers.” Stark said around the pain blocking up her throat. She wished that they still had some actual anesthetic instead of the three swigs of rotgut whiskey Daryl had given her before he started stitching her arm back together. “We barely made it back.”

  Frays nodded and walked back into the hall. A wave of exhaustion crashed down on her as she strolled back towards the lobby. Sergeant Hanes was dead? Half her trainees gone in just like an hour outside the wall? She made it into the lobby then, finding herself choking on bile, Frays scrambled for the door leaned over the railing outside and puked into the bushes.

  Frays sat down hard on the steps with her face in her hands still trying to wrap her brain around the whole thing. Once she could stand up she went back inside. Keep it together Frays chided herself as she took water from her camelbak and made her way back to where Stark was getting patched up. They’re your damn guys and they need you right now!

  She waited outside the room for Daryl to finish stitching up Stark’s forearm. “Hey are you alright?” Frays asked when the other woman came out into the hall. “It’s alright Daryl. I’ll walk her over to get her pills and make sure she gets home alright.”

  Frays monitored the pale shell shocked looking woman out of the corner of her eye as they walked. Tommy was working the dispensary. Stark accepted the pills he handed her without much comment and the two of them walked out of the Med Center. Finally Frays swallowed hard and decided to break the silence. “It’s gonna be okay.” she said quietly as they walked “It might not feel like it right now but it’s gonna be okay.”

  Stark shook her head. “I dunno…” she muttered under her breath. The woman’s arm was sandwiched between two thin boards and wrapped tightly in bandages to keep her from moving her wrist and fingers, the entire thing now resting heavily in a sling against her midsection. “I saw the zombie through the window before Sergeant Hanes or Buckley. I…I shoulda warned them. I coulda done…I dunno…something…”

  Frays sighed heavily. “I know what you’re going through, Stark.” she said quietly as she kicked a rock out of her way. “Things can go sideways on you in a heartbeat. It was the same in Iraq and it’s the same here. Look…you can’t let that stuff eat at you. I know you probably don’t want to hear this right now…I mean…Lord knows I didn’t…but you did the best you could at the time.” The woman shrugged and glanced at her subordinate. “You and Parker got each other back here in one piece.”

  Stark shrugged. “You got your group back alright.” the medic said. The fence around the rows and columns of steel grey trailers was just coming into view. All she wanted now was to go to fucking sleep for like a week.

  “It could have happened to us instead.” Frays said quietly. She looked up at the cool blue sky overhead for a moment then let her eyes continue in their usual pattern of incessantly scanning her surroundings. “I mean…when I was in Iraq a ‘Private Military Contractor’ almost blew me to bits because he accidentally fired his RPG in the air. We were on our way to get chow and I went back to get this flash drive out of my stuff so I could email some documents home to my professor… If I hadn’t gone back I’d have been perfectly safe and if I had taken a couple extra seconds trying to find that stupid flash drive I’d have been killed. No vehicle I was in ever hit an IED but I saw three trucks get blown up.”

  “I get it.” Stark said as she stumbled along next to her platoon sergeant. “You don’t think I do but I do. Look…Sergeant Frays…with all due respect I’m tired, really really sore and I really don’t know how I’m even standing right now. I just want to go find my cot and go to fuckin’ sleep.”

  Frays nodded with a wry grin. “Sure.” she muttered under her breath as they passed through the cordon of chain link and concertina wire where the bulk of FOB Freedom’s population now slept. She had her own room on the second floor of the TOC. It was more than a little nice and she felt guilty having a bed while her guys slept on cots or hide-a-beds in a trailer especially after tonight. Frays glanced at the darkened Super 8 and frowned. “If you and Parker can squeeze into a twin bed with no hanky panky going on you’re welcome to crash at my place.”

  Stark laughed. “I don’t think you gotta worry about that, Serg
eant.” the slender blonde woman muttered under her breath. It was all she could to do to stay on her feet at this point. “I’m a married woman.”

  Now Sergeant Frays laughed. Stark could not help but feel a vague sense of wonder at the sound. Strangely it seemed weird to hear it. Sergeant Frays laughing? Then again…after losing her son…it occurred to Stark that her Platoon Sergeant would have little to laugh about. A grin spread across the medic’s pale face even though her left arm was a throbbing agony attached to her torso with strings made of fire. Another thought occurred to her: that Sergeant Frays was just as lonely and lost as the rest of them. That she did not want to be alone tonight either. “I think I’ve got some coffee.”

  Sergeant Frays nodded. “Thank you, Private.” she said quietly. “I’ll check on Parker and see if he wants to come too.” Once they were inside the little cordon of steel and razor wire Stark left in search of her bags while Frays went and knocked on the door of the third trailer on the right from the gate.

  A face that Frays recognized but was not Parker peered through the cracked door at her. “What can I do for you, Sergeant?” asked a bleary eyed young man asked quietly. He scratched something out of the corner of his eye. Parker’s roommate looked like he had been up late and she felt bad for waking him up.

  “Is Parker in there?” Frays asked as she pushed her helmet back on her head. “Tell him Sergeant Frays wants to talk to him.” The man nodded and disappeared into the trailer. She could hear somebody moving around inside and low voices talking. The door opened a few moments later and Parker limped out onto the little front porch.

  “Hey Sergeant.” the man said with a wry little grin under the bandages wrapped around his head. The man’s face was peppered with tiny wounds. “Glad to see at least some of us made it back safe.”

  After the rest of the squad got the gear unloaded at the Supply Depot Frays drove over to pick up Stark and Parker from the trailers while their two injured people changed into fresh clothes. About ten minutes or so later the remains of the training platoon were crammed into Sergeant Frays’ little room in the TOC having an impromptu wake for their comrades. They each provided little bits of food or sweets to share. Frays was surprised when Major Tennyson showed up with a carton of cigarettes and an eighteen pack of some generic local cola for them. “Just remember to smoke those outside, alright?” the older man said with a dry little smile.

  The eight of them sat up long into the night talking and drinking the warm cokes. They talked about their friends and families. They shared stories about what they did before this…plague or outbreak or whatever it was screwed up their plans. Frays could not help but notice the change in the group dynamic: in spite of the disaster today her Marines were talking like they had a future here. They were bonding as a group. She also noticed the way Rowe sat in the corner with his arms around Grimes’ waist as she leaned against his chest. Something told her that unless something was done soon there would be another pregnancy in the offing…

  Frays fingered the pack of cigarettes in her cargo pocket. “Alright guys.” she said regretfully. It had been nice to see everybody getting along and stuff. “Let’s let Stark and Parker get some sleep. Remember what I said you two.” She finished this with a warning glare that made everyone in the room chuckle.

  While Stark and Parker were in her room Frays would take her subordinate’s cot in the trailer. The woman took the pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and slapped them on the palm of her hand as she walked towards the cordon around the trailers. She found the place easy enough and sat down on the front steps pulling a cigarette out and jammed it into the corner of her mouth. Frays lit the cancer stick with a match that she had scrounged from an MRE at some point. Her hands trembled making the tip of her cigarette bob up and down.

  She took a deep drag on the cigarette and slowly released the smoke through her nose as she looked up at the stars. The nicotine made her brain buzz pleasantly as it clawed its way into her bloodstream and she coughed. A story occurred to her that she had heard from her grandfather’s war. A private arrived at a Firebase in Vietnam and the place had been so badly mangled by the VC that after six months he was the First Sergeant…because he happened to be the only one still alive from when he got there.

  In a little over three months she had gone from a Senior Airman in the Air Force Reserve to a Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps. Now she was a Platoon Sergeant. Or something like that. The details were a little iffy to her as to what branch of the service she was even still in. She also had to seriously wonder if there was even much in the way of a government to order her around anymore…

  She sat there on the stairs hugging her knees to her chest as she tapped the ash off of the tip of her cigarette. The tremors in her hand almost made her drop it into the tall grass growing around the little metal staircase. Frays started to rock back and forth as she fought back the tears she had been holding in all day. Her stomach roiled, filled with warm soda and M&Ms and beef jerky… Frays pressed a palm to her mouth.

  She leapt up and ran for the latrine dug about seventy or eighty meters away. Frays knelt over hole in the seat suddenly feeling like she was going to throw up again. The stench emanating from the darkness certainly did not help matters in that regard. She vomited after a couple more moment’s struggle eventually ending in wave after wave of painful dry heaves. Dizziness and nausea kicked each other around inside her stomach.

  Eventually Frays forced herself to her feet and made her way into the trailer. There was a row of cots against each wall with each occupant’s meager possessions piled against the wall. She stood there in the shadowy illumination provided by the moonlight coming in through the thin blinds and eventually picked out what had to be Stark’s bunk. Frays could not help but think of being overseas as she carefully picked her way back to the empty bunk. She pulled off her helmet and lay down asleep and snoring like a chainsaw in moments.

  Grimes crept back into the trailer and rolled her eyes. Sergeant Frays was sleeping on her cot and snoring very, very loudly. The woman grumbled as she debated reaching out and waking up her platoon sergeant. It was not that big of a deal, really. Stark had the bunk next to hers and Stark usually kept her gear piled on her cot and covered it with a blanket. In the dark it could look like a person sleeping. Grimes ended up piling Stark’s gear on the floor under the cot and lay down on it tossing and turning for hours.

  At some point later in the night Grimes opened one eye when she heard a low keening noise somewhere nearby. She propped herself up on an elbow and was surprised to hear that Sergeant Frays was probably screaming in her sleep through clenched teeth. Grimes made a strange face and she was tentatively reaching out to wake her platoon sergeant when the other woman started awake with a gasp. Frays smiled, seemingly slightly embarrassed by something.

  “Wanna grab a smoke, Grimes?” Frays asked as she sat up and swung her feet onto the floor. She glanced at her watch and frowned. It was almost 0200 and there was a senior leadership meeting at 0730… Of course sleep was kind of out of the question right now. The two women put on their boots and tiptoed outside so that they would not wake the others slumbering a few feet away on either side of them.

  Sergeant Frays handed Grimes one of her cigarettes and the private broke out a cheap Bic lighter. The two of them stood under a defunct street light a little bit away from their trailer. Frays blew a plume of smoke out of her nose. “Couldn’t sleep?” she asked.

  Grimes coughed on a lungful of smoke. “No.” she muttered once she could talk again. “That…that thing in the car really shook me up…I taught at PS 134 in Harlem before all this. I mean…what if that was one of my kids?”

  Frays was quiet for a moment. “It wasn’t a kid anymore, Grimes.” she said at last as she flicked the ash off of the end of her cigarette. “That poor little girl’s soul was gone and in Heaven with Jesus. It didn’t suffer…if those things can suffer which I doubt.”

  Grimes shrugged. “I think they can. I me
an they always sound like their in agony to me. Or maybe they’re just sad.” The woman looked down at the ground and took a drag off her cigarette.

  Frays looked as if she were contemplating something she had never even considered before. “They’re not alive anymore. I didn’t believe it even though I saw a bunch of ‘em get mowed down by a fifty cal then get right back up.” she said quietly. Frays shook her head and looked at her subordinate then stood almost nose to nose with the woman. “Ever looked one of those things in the eye? I have. I was this close to one. Trust me, there’s nothing going on in there. They’re dead and they just want to freakin’ eat you. And the kids we have here. So get that crap outta your head right now. Understand?” All of a sudden Frays found that she was shaking with frustration and something like a close cousin to rage. “C’mon. It’s late. Let’s get back to friggin’ bed, Grimes. We got an early morning.”

  Grimes stood there watching the woman stomp off towards the trailer shaking her head. The sergeant was some kind of a bible thumper so of course something like the exact nature of what they were fighting would seem pretty cut and dried to her. Grimes found herself envying Frays’ convictions on the subject. That pitiful little girl strapped into the car groaning with its empty eyes staring as it reached for her… Something told her that she would not be going to get any sleep at all tonight…

  Chapter Eight

  24 July 2011 0816 hours NorthCom Forward Operating Base Freedom Sanford, Maine

  “You and your guys got a twenty four hour pass, Sergeant.” Major Tennyson had told her after the meeting was just about over with. “We’ll put you guys back in the rotation when your pass is up. Have your platoon at Towers three, four and five at 0730 tomorrow morning. Your injured can take the classes on canning and preserving.” Frays dutifully passed the word along to the platoon and also suggested that they find some way of getting a haircut before showing up back at the TOC by 0700 tomorrow morning.