Outbreak: Brave New World

by Van Dusen, Robert

  Lieutenant Haskins returned pushing a small cart just as Amy came out of the latrine in her PJs. The clothing was kind of floating around her somewhere but comfortable, even though she had to hold up the trousers with one hand. “Just finishing up here, ma’am.” Daryl said as he bagged up Amy’s LCS, boots and other personal effects then sealed them with tape. He gave Amy a ballpoint pen and had her sign a piece of paper that he stuck onto the bag. He gave each of them an orange plastic bag with a black biohazard symbol on it to put their dirty clothes in after they had changed into their PJs.

  “Thanks a lot, Mister Jones.” Lieutenant Haskins said as she wheeled the cart into the room. The woman arranged some things on the cart as she pushed it over to Paulie’s bed. “Okay…got some fluids for everybody, some medicine for Paul…aaaand some extra vitamins for mommy. It’ll have to hold you until the galley opens in a few hours. Sorry.”

  Lieutenant Haskins rolled up the sleeve of Paulie’s pajamas. “Where’s my daddy?” the little boy asked, his big blue eyes searching the woman’s face. “I wanna see my daddy.” The woman smiled a little and patted the boy’s shoulder.

  “Is your daddy the Marine?” Haskins asked as she put a strip of rubber around the boy’s arm and put a racquetball in his hand. “Squeeze the ball for me a few times, please Paul.” The woman watched the veins rising up on his arm.

  “Yeah.” Paulie said and smiled uneasily at her. He liked this woman but there was something about the way she said fluids that was making him suspicious. Not that he had a clue what a ‘fluids’ was but still… He realized a little while ago that grownups only used weird words or spelled things out when they did not want kids to know something. Now this thing with this rubber band and the ball…

  “I need you to be brave like your dad for me okay?” Haskins said as she got picked up the clear plastic bag of liquid nutrition and got the IV ready. “I’ve gotta give you a little shot. There will just be a little pinch.” She took the ball out of his hand and carefully inserted the needle into a vein in the boy’s arm. His little chest rose and fell rapidly but he did not cry.

  “Whoa, what a brave little boy!” Haskins said as she hung the IV bag on a rack attached to Paulie’s bed and got it all set up. She smiled and leaned close to the boy’s ear. “Can you keep a secret?” the woman asked. The way she glanced suspiciously at Amy and Frannie brought a little smile to the boy’s face.

  The boy looked up at her gravely. He did not know what a ‘lieutenant’ was but Paulie knew that she had to be important because of how Amy acted earlier. “Yes, ma’am.” Paulie said and nodded.

  “You’re way braver than me.” Haskins whispered conspiratorially as she reached into her cargo pocket and slipped the boy a packet of Skittles she’d saved from an MRE earlier in the day. “I always cry like a little baby at needles. Don’t tell anybody, alright?” She patted the boy on the shoulder then gave him a child sized dosage of painkillers in his IV line.

  The lieutenant set them up with their IVs and gave Frays an extra injection of vitamins D and C as well as a mild painkiller for her neck. Frays felt an oddly familiar fuzzy sort of warmth coming over her after a couple minutes and started to doze off as the drugs took hold. Amy grumbled to herself and struggled to keep her eyes open after the woman left them alone for the night. She did not drink or use drugs, heck she hardly ever even took aspirin… The lights went out a few moments after the lieutenant left, the shadowy crimson illumination of emergency lighting coming in through the hall.

  Frannie frowned at her friend. She was snoring even louder than usual about ten seconds after lights out. She shook her head. The doc had to have given Frays something. That little squid is probably going to get an ear full in the morning. Rodriguez thought as she smiled in the dark, listening to Amy’s snoring and the quieter sound of Paulie’s breathing. She shrugged into the mattress under her, kind of wishing Lieutenant Haskins had given her a little something too. She had always hated hospitals and that was before she had spent almost a year and a half stuck in one recuperating after her tour in Afghanistan…

  She probably hated hospitals so much, she reflected, because her grandmother had died of Alzheimer’s in a shitty nursing home. Her last memory of Gramma Rodriguez was a croaking pale skeleton covered in bed sores that smelled bad… What the fuck was Mom thinking bringing a little kid there to see that? Frannie shuddered away the thoughts.

  She fished around for the call button but it slipped out of her hand and clattered on the floor. Frannie groped around in the dark hoping to reach the wire that connected it to the wall. “Aw goddamnit fuckin’ shit.” she hissed, throwing an embarrassed glance over at the sleeping child on the other side of the room. Thankfully Paulie was sound asleep and would not be requesting another quarter or two being added to the amount she already owed him. The call button was somewhere out of reach. She grumbled, feeling small and completely fucking helpless… All of a sudden Frannie felt like she was going to start crying and got mad at herself for it.

  Someone shined a flashlight into the room, flicking the beam around as they came in. “Are you okay?” Daryl asked as he moved closer. Frannie flinched away from it, the bright light making her eyes smart. “Anything wrong?”

  “No.” Rodriguez said sharply. She frowned and tried one last grab for the call button. Frannie smiled apologetically as she shielded her eyes and tried to see who was standing there in the dark. It sounded like the night nurse but she could not be sure. “I don’t like hospitals.” Daryl smiled revealing a set of white teeth that contrasted nicely with his dark skin. Frannie genuinely smiled too. “Um…listen…Daryl…I’m dying for a cigarette.”

  An indecisive look flitted across Daryl’s face in the dark. “Well…” he glanced at the IV tube sticking into the woman’s arm then at the level of the clear liquid in the plastic bag. “Tell you what. Give me a minute. I’ll see if I can scrounge up a portable IV stand.” The nurse smiled and disappeared out into the hall for a moment then returned pushing a tall metal rack. “Just don’t tell the doc. Your chart says bed rest and she’ll be pissed if she knows I let you walk around.”

  “Your secret’s safe with me, man.” Frannie said with a grin as the nurse transferred her IV bag to the new rack. He helped her out of bed then held her arm as the two of them made their way to a back door. Daryl dug a pack of smokes and a lighter out of his pocket. He gave one to Frannie and lit it then took one himself.

  “Figured you’d had enough of hospitals and such.” Daryl said after they had taken a couple drags. Frannie noticed that the man had a pleasant southern accent, maybe from Georgia or Tennessee. He frowned slightly at the woman a few feet away. She was leaning against the wall looking up at the stars. “I was a nurse at Walter Reed for a few years.”

  Rodriguez sort of half laughed. “I was there about three years ago.” she said quietly and flicked ash off of her cigarette. Frannie took another drag, held it a moment and let the smoke out of her lungs in a series of smoke rings. “My truck hit an IED in Afghanistan. Was stuck in that shithole for a little over a year.”

  The nurse frowned sadly. “You doin’ alright now?” he asked. Daryl had the scars on the woman’s face and neck pegged as shrapnel from the moment he saw her. To his surprise the woman burst into tears. “Hey, hey…shh…” The man put his arms around her and held her tight, smoothing her hair as she sobbed helplessly into his chest. “Shh…it’s alright. It’s alright…go on and let it out…shhh…” He wracked his brain to see if he could remember if this woman had been on his ward but came up blank. There were just so damn many of them…poor busted up kids missing arms, legs, disfigured like this poor girl…

  He let her cry to the point of exhaustion. “Don’t gimme any more drugs.” she moaned softly into his chest. “Please please don’t. I want some so bad but don’t please…” It had taken her so long to get clean, almost destroyed her trying the last time. After getting shot it had taken every ounce of willpower she could muster to not dip into their stash eve
ry time she was in the latrine. Amy and Adam did not know because she had not told them so she could not really get mad at them for dragging her off the wagon but shit… The pills were right there: codeine maybe even some oxy or something…

  Then after that really shitty day where Frays’ mom and dad and Lacey’s wife died, pretty much leaving her more or less in charge while they were grieving… She wanted something anything to help her escape for a few hours at least so badly she could almost taste it. It would have been so sweet to just pop a couple pills and drift away for awhile… Daryl rubbed her back and smiled as he started walking her back to her room once she was cried out.

  “Alright.” Daryl said with a small smile as they made their way down the hall. “I’ll let the doc know when she shows up tomorrow.” He helped her into bed then put her IV back. The nurse patted her shoulder after helping her arrange her blankets. “You just get some sleep and everything will be better in the morning.”

  “I dunno about the monkey.” Amy grumbled and shifted around in her sleep. Frannie and Daryl looked at each other and quickly clapped a hand over their mouths to muffle the sounds of the laughter.

  “Good morning, everyone.” Daryl said as he entered the room bright and early at six o’clock. He was pushing a plastic cart with a cover on it. His patients groaned and stretched, he figured due to being woken up only a few hours after their arrival. “Please, don’t get up.”

  Amy looked at him through one half opened eye. It took her a minute to remember where she was and her mouth tasted like something had peed in it during the night. “There is one good thing to say about having to stay here.” Daryl said as he pulled the cover off of his cart with a flourish, revealing three trays of scrambled eggs and potatoes...and a sausage link. There…there were even cans of orange juice lined up on the edge of the cart too… Frannie felt her mouth water at the sight of the food and juice. “Breakfast in bed.”

  Amy and Frannie looked confusedly at each other their brains refusing to believe what their eyes and noses were telling them. It certainly smelled like real eggs and actual potatoes and…and for really real sausage. “You can have my sausage, Paulie.” Amy said, a little disappointed by the realization. “I can’t eat pork for some reason since I got pregnant. Tried eating some ham a little while ago and it made me sick as a dog.” she explained for Daryl’s benefit.

  The man nodded and took the link off of one tray and put it one of the others then distributed them. Amy crossed herself and prayed while the others did not stand on ceremony and quickly devoured their food. The eggs proved to not be the genuine article but instead the fake kind that came in big plastic bags. They certainly looked and smelled like the real thing but there was something off about the consistency that gave them away. Frays noticed that Daryl did not leave but instead leaned against the doorway watching them eat. “Want my potatoes?” she asked with a small smile.

  “Nah, it’s just been awhile since new people came in.” Daryl said, waving the woman’s offer away with a smile. Paulie finished his breakfast and guzzled his juice. The nurse collected his tray and plastic silverware then put them on the cart. “Besides you’re eating for two, young lady. How far along are you? Two months?”

  “Three, almost four I guess.” Amy said and pushed the spuds around on the tray. She looked uncertain then shrugged and slowly started in on the potatoes. “I kinda lost track of time since…you know.”

  Daryl grinned and took Frannie’s dishes for her. “Yeah, the days do tend to blur together.” he agreed as he checked his watch. Most of the medical staff had been working twelve on twelve off since the shit hit the fan, except Doc Haskins who was on call twenty four seven. In less than an hour his relief would be here so he could go get some sleep. “Doc should be here any time to let you know what’s going on today. The inprocessing people are gonna send the rest of your squad over. They should be here in about fifteen twenty minutes or so.”

  Paulie seemed much cheered by this news. “Am I gonna see my daddy?” he asked hopefully. He did not think that anything bad was happening or anything but he missed his dad and his sister. The doctor lady was nice and so was Daryl and he knew Amy and Frannie would not let anything happen to him but he was still a little scared.

  “Shouldn’t be a problem, Paul.” Lieutenant Haskins said as she came in the room. She had abandoned the lab coat in favor of a set of Multi-Cams. There was an M9 in a shoulder rig under her left armpit balanced out by a couple magazines under her right. “The medics already gave everybody else a preliminary clean bill of health last night, so I just have to give them a quick look and sign off.” She smiled and checked the chart on the foot of the boy’s bed. “Don’t worry. I’ll bring them by as quick as I can.”

  Amy sighed. She did not want to say anything but she was worried about the others too. “My brother’s alright, ma’am?” Frays asked and took a sip of her orange juice. She marveled that the can was cold and glanced up. Saint Joan and Saint Bessus must be looking after us after all.

  “That would be Carl, right? Don’t worry. He’s fine.” the doctor said as she checked Frays’ chart. She flipped through the paperwork for a moment then replaced it. “I’ve got you scheduled for an ultrasound at ten. Ready to meet your kid?”

  “Am I, ma’am?” Frays asked and grinned happily. Her eyes felt moist all of a sudden and she blinked back tears. This whole thing did not seem real… “Can I have other people there? I’d like to have at least my brother and Lacey there if I could.” Lieutenant Haskins took Amy’s hands in hers and had her patient squeeze them.

  Haskins grinned and nodded. It felt like ages since she had gotten to give someone good news for a change. “I don’t think that will be a problem. I think you’re going to be hanging around here a little longer so we can keep an eye on your neck.” She moved on to Frannie and checked her chart. “How are you, Specialist?”

  “I’m alright, ma’am.” Frannie said as she shifted around on the bed. “No offense meant but I’d like to get out of here.” She tried to not be offended when she caught the doctor staring at her scars. She got the feeling that the woman was also trying to see if her patients were trying to conceal any illnesses or something.

  Haskins laughed. “Well, I’ll see what I can do about that.” the lieutenant said as she put her chart back then came around the side of Rodriguez’s bed. “How’s the leg? Any pain?” She pulled back her patient’s blankets and gently started to lift Frannie’s wounded leg, putting one hand under the woman’s ankle and the other on top of her knee to keep it strait. Haskins watched the woman’s face for any sign of pain as she manipulated the limb, bending the knee and flexing the leg. “Alright. Looks pretty good. Healed up alright, but if we had one I’d get you in for an appointment with a reconstructive surgeon. I’m going to put you on a light duty profile for the time being and set you up with some physical therapy.”

  Lieutenant Haskins covered Frannie back up then moved towards the middle of the room. Carl, Adam and Becca came in and rushed to their respective patients sides. Lieutenant Haskins hopped out of the way as the little girl sprinted and climbed up onto her brother’s bed. Adam bent and kissed his boy’s forehead. Carl hovered between Frannie and his sister, a little freaked out by the brace around Amy’s neck. “Don’t worry, Carl.” she assured him and grinned. “I’m alright.”

  “Okay, here’s what’s on the agenda today.” Haskins announced as she clapped her hands together in front of her and let them swing to her sides as she moved into the middle of the room “The post commander, Major Zachariah Tennyson will be here to give you a welcome brief at zero eight thirty. Don’t be nervous, he’s not that bad of a guy for a Marine officer.” The enlisted personnel laughed politely at the lieutenant’s joke “He just wants to get to meet you guys. Everyone has a job here and it might take a day or two, but you’ll end up assigned somewhere. He tries not to break up any existing units, but no promises.

  After that Private Lacey, Mister Frays and Becca have to finish thei
r inprocess. I’ll take them down the hall to the exam room and sign off if everything’s alright. Not expecting any problems, so that should only take about half an hour. At ten Airman Frays has her ultrasound. Mister Jones will take her down to Corporal Waterman to get that done. We’ll try to accommodate your squad, but I don’t know if there’s enough room for everyone in the exam room. After lunch, one of the intel guys will be over to debrief you guys individually. Depending on what Major Tennyson’s going to decide, you might end up with your new jobs after that.”

  Lacey spotted a stocky Hispanic man that kind of reminded him of a bulldog in MCCUUs walked in the room behind Lieutenant Haskins. His throat tightened when he saw the oak leaf on the man’s uniform. “OFFICER ON DECK!” Lacey shouted and stood at attention. He suppressed a small smile. Frays and Rodriguez sat as close as they could manage to the position of attention. Even Lieutenant Haskins was locked up.

  “At ease, folks.” the major said and smiled. He and Lieutenant Haskins maneuvered past each other in the area between the hospital beds. “I’m a little early, but we’ll get this welcome brief knocked out. I’m Major Tennyson and I’m in charge of the military personnel on this FOB.

  “Thanks, Lieutenant. I’ll talk to you offline later.” Tennyson said as he looked around the room as Lieutenant Haskins nodded and walked out. The man walked up and put a hand on the foot of Paulie’s bed. He glanced at Carl and then smiled at the boy in the bed. “Say, son could you take the kids down the hall for a minute? I’d like to talk to my people.”