Outbreak: Long Road Back

by Van Dusen, Robert

  This one’s for all my friends and family that have supported me over the years.

  Thanks, guys.

  Chapter One

  2 July 2011 0721 hours NorthCom Forward Operating Base Freedom Sanford, Maine

  Senior Airman Amy Frays sighed and rolled her dark brown eyes before setting back into the paperwork on the desk before her. She was a short somewhat attractive woman even though her hips were a little too wide and her legs were kind of short. The fact that she was also about five months pregnant complete with a good sized ‘baby bump’ and she had a pinkish scar running almost from the right corner of her mouth to just under the corner of her eye definitely knocked her down a couple pegs on the old one to ten scale in her opinion. Not to mention the dark circles under her eyes too that made her look like a tired twenty five or even thirty instead of her actual age of twenty one.

  However since she was pregnant and they did not have a uniform top that would fit her she got to wear a baggy grey MIT tee shirt instead of the blouse of the Marine cammies she was issued a few days ago. The woman’s LCS was let out almost as big as it could go and her flak jacket was already too small. She was heavily armed with an M4A1 5.56mm carbine with an M203 40mm grenade launcher hanging off her shoulder and a bandoleer with four 40mm HE grenades in the rubberized canvas bandoleer that hung across her chest. There was also a 9mm M9 pistol in the drop leg holster strapped to her right thigh. She rolled her shoulders trying to move the gear into a more comfortable position.

  Frays frowned and grumbled to herself as she tried to concentrate on filling out the stack of reports in front of her. In addition to the sweat rolling down her back and stomach the little boy growing in her womb was stomping the ever loving crap out of her insides again.

  “Airman Frays!” called a voice nearby making the woman jump and look around for a second. A tall wiry man with blue eyes and a fresh ‘high and tight’ type crew cut in Marine cammies came up to Frays’ desk. Amongst one of the many surprises since her arrival Frays was a little stunned to learn that several civilians ran a makeshift barber and hairdresser’s shop where they still took good old fashioned American money. Not that she actually had much in the way of cash… “Gonna need you on radio watch from ll00 to 2300 tonight.” Sergeant Bill Hanes said with a little bit of regret in his voice. He smiled awkwardly and shrugged obviously feeling crappy about having to break the news. “Sorry.”

  She hid her disappointment with a smile. Another twelve hour detail was not going to be fun… “Alright. Who am I working with?” she said then hissed through gritted teeth. Frays laughed at the startled look on Sergeant Hanes’ face. Frays found that she liked the man even if he did seem to be a little slow. “Don’t worry, Sergeant. Little guy just kicked me again.”

  The man nodded knowingly as if he had suspected as much. “Okay. Well…get those morning reports done.” Hanes said quietly then moved off a couple steps then he paused a couple steps away from the desk and motioned towards the paperwork. “Once you get those filled out just make sure you’re at the TOC for watch.”

  Frays grinned and nodded as she took another pen out of her desk then slid the report she was working on over to the side. “Challenge accepted!” the young woman proclaimed and started in on the paperwork, filling out a sheet with each hand. Sergeant Hanes snorted a small laugh and shook his head as he walked away.

  Frays wriggled her fingers after dropping the stack of reports off on Sergeant Hanes’ desk and walking outside, pausing to put her patrol cap on just outside the door. She frowned then rolled her head making her neck pop and sending a delicious little shiver down her spine. Thankfully she did not have to wear the stiff neck brace the medics had put on her to keep her from reinjuring the bulging disk near where her neck met her shoulders any more. She had felt like a dog that had one of those plastic cones around its head to keep it from picking at its stitches after going to the vet or something. Frays checked her watch then started off towards the FOB’s medical center at a fast walk.

  The morning was warm and muggy making her shirt stick to her back as she walked the six blocks to the former cancer treatment center. The air was tinged with the caustic stench of burning garbage emanating from the burn pits on the far end of the FOB. Thankfully it did not smell like they were disposing of any infected that might have wandered up to the perimeter walls yet. It seemed like they did that every couple of days, the putrefied flesh soaked in JP8 and set on fire making such a god awful stink that it made her nauseous when the wind was blowing just right.

  It occurred to her for the millionth time as Frays chewed thoughtfully on a small cake of shelf stable bread just how similar the architecture was to the FOB she had been on in Iraq. There were sand colored protective walls around most of the essential buildings: the TOC, the Med Center, the Security Forces building, the Logistics Center… It seemed a little odd to her that about the only place that was not in its own little walled off area was the ‘Refugee Resettlement Center’ where the couple of dozen civilians lived along with an area set aside for the enlisted personnel and their dependants if they had any.

  A couple guys in green and black Digicam patterned uniforms walked towards her, each of them packing heavily accessorized M16A4s and festooned with all manner of electronic equipment and grenades. Their scruffy beards and ‘I’m cool and you’re not’ swagger not to mention the blue diamond on their sleeve where a unit patch should be marked them as ‘Private Military Contractors’. They smiled at her as she approached. “Morning, Airman.” the one of the left said once they were within speaking distance.

  Frays forced a smile and bit down hard on a harsh comment. “Morning, guys.” she said with as much politeness as she could manage. Half the paperwork on her desk had been generated from the Blue Diamond Group guys: three fistfights, two public drunkenness arrests (despite the fact that FOB Freedom was a dry camp. Where they were getting the booze from was something of a mystery) and one guy peeing on a civilian’s belongings for no good reason. And apparently they had friends in high places as none of them were in the stockade…

  Still that was better than the two suicides. One of the contractors had shot himself last night and an older woman had apparently stabbed herself in the throat with a ballpoint pen… The young woman shuddered at the memory of a tired, scared and hungry young man what seemed like a million years ago… Frays absently traced the scar on her cheek with the tip of her finger for a moment as she walked.

  Several people stopped her along the way and asked her how her baby was doing a few wanted to feel him kick. She obliged, a little flattered by the attention and just plain grateful to see so many friendly faces. For months Frays could not help but wonder if she and her little band were the only people left on Earth… A nice young black man had given her a package of beef jerky which she munched on while she walked. People were always giving her little bits of food and she felt kind of guilty about taking them although after the first couple of weeks when things started getting bad Frays found that she could not turn down food and ate it even if she was not hungry. She also found herself craving anything even remotely salty: pretzels, jerky, peanuts… Sometimes she would just eat one of the little salt packets out of an MRE if she could not get her fix.

  “Hey Tommy.” Frays said as she came to the desk inside the waiting area of the squat brick building. She did her best to hide a small smile as the man grinned back at her. He was tall and handsome with broad shoulders and scruffy looking brown hair. He vaguely reminded her of a guy she had seen in a movie but she could not for the life of her figure out who exactly the medic reminded her of. However there seemed to be a permanent look of exhaustion in the man’s dark green eyes. “Rough night?”

  “
Nah, pretty quiet.” he said still smiling at the woman. Tommy glanced at the heavy set man with the overgrown hedgerow of a beard sitting next to him at the desk. “Mike, keep an eye on things here for a minute?” Tom asked as he stood up and stretched. “I’ve gotta stretch my legs for a minute.”

  Mike rolled his eyes. “Sure man.” he said quietly and shifted his chair over. “See ya in a few.”

  The other medic shook his head as Amy and Tom made their way over to the dispensary down the hall presumably to pick up Amy’s vitamins. The two of them acted like Middle School kids with a crush.

  The woman glanced at Tommy as she sauntered down the hall and flashed a grin when she caught him looking at her. “Anything interesting going on?” she asked and maneuvered the bite valve of her camelbak into her mouth.

  The man smiled and scratched the side of his nose with his thumb. “Nope, not so much.” he said and stole another glance at the woman, her figure a silhouette in the light coming in through the window behind her. “How’s work going?”

  “I think I’m getting writer’s cramp.” Frays said with a small grin. A couple conflicting emotions flitted around in the pit of her stomach as they walked. He was certainly handsome and seemed interested in her and everything but…well…what would be the point exactly? “I actually don’t mind that for some reason.”

  He snickered. “Bet you never thought you’d miss filling out paperwork.” Tommy said as he made a strange little face. His hand brushed against hers as they walked bringing a little color to the woman’s cheeks.

  Frays jumped back as if he had zapped her with a cattle prod. “Oh, hey…um…” she said with a nervous little tittering laugh. Frays glanced at her boots and tucked a stray tendril of her coffee colored hair behind her ear. The woman sighed and tucked her hands into her armpits. “Look…um…”

  “Hey, sorry.” Tommy said quietly. He gave her a reassuring smile. “I’m sorry.” The woman had only been in the FOB for about a week or so and had obviously, judging from her injuries and those of the rest of her squad, been in some pretty serious shit since everything went to hell. Sure he was tired a lot and such but it was tough to imagine what it was like out there. Tommy found that he could hardly blame her for being a little squirrely.

  “No…no…” Frays began as they approached the counter where a bored looking man in ACUs leaned across what used to be an information desk. “Um…I’ll talk to you later, okay? I gotta grab my stuff and get back.”

  “Oh, okay.” Tommy said with an apologetic shrug. “I’ll see you later, okay?” The medic started back towards his desk. “Have a good day. I…I’ll see you later.” The man stuffed his hands in his pockets and spun on his heel headed back towards his desk.

  Frays sighed as she watched the man slouch back down the hallway. She could not help but wonder if she had somehow screwed everything up again. The woman silently kicked herself and turned towards the dispensary.

  “Good morning, Corporal.” Frays said and gave the short squarely built man a little smile. “How are you?” The man handed the woman a small paper cup with six or seven little pills of various colors in it. Frays knocked back her vitamins and washed them down with a long pull from her camelbak.

  “Doing just fine, Frays.” Corporal Waterman said with a grin. He had administered Frays’ first ultrasound last week. The look on the woman’s face when she first laid eyes on her little boy was still fresh in his mind. It made him smile every time he thought about it. “How’s the little guy? Still kickin’ up a storm?”

  “Ooooh yeah…” Frays said as she put a hand on her stomach and smiled, rubbing the lump as if it were a good luck charm. “My boy’s gonna be a soccer playin’ ninja or something.” The two of them shared a chuckle as she turned and started walking away secretly dreading walking past the front desk again.

  “Remember Lieutenant Haskins wants to see you tomorrow morning.” Waterman called after her. Frays waved nonchalantly over her shoulder as she hiked down the hall. Frays made a point of not looking at the two medics sitting behind the desk as she immerged into the bright mid morning light. She sighed heavily and put her cover back on and glanced at her watch.

  “Perfect. Way to go, Aim.” Frays scolded herself under her breath as she trudged off towards the fields in the center of the triangle of runways at the middle of the FOB. There was still plenty of time to go talk to her little brother Carl before her shift.

  Frays walked south down the street headed towards the runways using the now defunct control tower to navigate by. A low unpleasant grumble emanated from her chest when she noticed four more Blue Diamond guys keeping an eye on a group of civilians who were policing up the trash scattered across the yard of a building nearby. The group of heavily armed men did not seem to be paying attention to the wall a couple hundred feet away from them…which was, at least on the surface, the reason why they were keeping an eye on the work details.

  She could hear the low rumbling noise of a bulldozer’s engine somewhere off to her right. A small smile spread across her lips and she quickened her pace a little. Frays grinned and waved cheerfully when she recognized the wiry man perched at the controls of the heavy construction equipment. Private Adam Lacey glanced up then waved back when he saw her. Frays stood there watching the man use the plow on the front of the Bobcat to fill up the big fabric containers along the FOB’s perimeter for a few moments.

  She could not help but feel a little useless and sort of depressed for a second as she continued on towards the fields. Lacey was one of the people, along with her brother Carl and her other friend Specialist Francesca Rodriguez, who had come north from Massachusetts trying to find a safer place to wait out the virus. Her friends were busy helping to keep everybody safe while she was only good for taking up space, eating up resources and filling out paperwork that nobody was probably going to read anyways. Frays kind of suspected that her reports ended up either as toilet paper or used to keep the burn pits smoldering away.

  Frays glumly kicked a rock out of her path as she approached the field. As usual the sight of the orderly rows of green plants growing out of the tilled soil in the center of the airport’s runways lifted her spirits. The corn seemed to be coming in well as it was already up to about her arm pit and there was what looked to be peppers and tomatoes…her mouth watered at the thought of munching on a handful of those carrots off to her right in a couple weeks.

  One of the Blue Diamond men came ambling over, an easy smile on the man’s face. Like most of the mercs the man was tall and built like he was carved out of rock however this guy was clean shaven and a little softer around the eyes. The man looked to be about her age and he wore a Multi-cam patterned baseball cap backwards. “Hey there.” the contractor said as he got closer. The man scratched the side of his head as he looked the pregnant woman up and down. “What can I do for you, ma’am?”

  Frays could not help but find her mood softening a little bit. “My brother Carl Frays is working here.” she said and returned the man’s smile. “Blond kid about sixteen? About this tall.” Frays held her hand a little over six feet off the ground “Is he around? I’d like to talk to him for a minute.”

  The man gave her a playful, cockeyed grin. “Seen Kyle?” he asked and raised his hand in an approximation of the Nazi salute making Frays roll her eyes and shake her head. “Wait right here, Ma’am. I think I saw him weeding the radishes over on the far end.” The man turned his back and whispered into the microphone hanging off of his ear.

  Frays found that she was still more than a little nonplussed by the sight of armed guards standing watch over people like they were prisoners or something never mind the fact that one of those people was her baby brother. Not for the first time she started to feel a growing concern start gnawing on the corners of her mind. She could not help but feel a little relieved when she saw a gangly sunburned teenager in dirty coveralls picking his way towards her, being careful to not step on any of the plants.

  “Hey, Aim!” he called as h
e approached. Carl looked a little worried for a moment. They had seen each other earlier this morning but now she was back only a few hours later. Was something wrong? Whatever it was it hopefully did not have anything to do with the baby… No, if his nephew was in trouble one of the medics or Adam or Frannie would come and get him. “What’s shakin’?”

  “Just wanted to let you know that I’m gonna be on radio watch again ‘til eleven o’clock tonight.” Frays informed her brother. The look of relief on her brother’s face was almost comical. “So don’t expect me for lunch or dinner. I’ll be over at the TOC if you need anything.”

  Carl nodded. “The kid doing alright?” he asked and took a step closer. Amy had trouble sleeping on a good night and the little guy had been giving her some grief lately. The two of them shared a cubicle in the Resettlement Center and Aim kept him up sometimes with her tossing and turning. Sometimes she yelled and flailed around or woke up crying (and then tried to hide it) probably fighting her way out of Boston in her sleep and it broke his heart to see it. Carl would end up going a few doors down and visit Frannie if she was around after waking his sister or he would just go for a walk.

  “Yep. The little guy’s doing just fine.” Frays said, giving her tummy a light pat. “He’s been kicking the crap out of me all morning.” She already knew what Carl’s next question was going to be before he asked it. “And I just came from the Medics. I was a good girl and took my vitamins.”

  Carl snickered. “Alright, Aim.” He gave his sister a quick hug filling her nose with the scent of old sweat and dark, loamy earth. “I gotta get back to work. Be quiet when you come back, alright?”

  “Sure thing, Farmer Jim.” Frays said and smiled as she hugged her brother back. “Go on, get outta here. I’ll see you later.” The woman started walking away, waving goodbye over her shoulder. “Keep an eye on that corn, mister.”

  Frays glanced at her watch as she walked away and was surprised to see that she still had well over an hour until it was time to go back to work. She made a thoughtful face and scratched the back of her neck as she debated a course of action. After a little bit of internal deliberation she decided to hoof it up to the Resettlement Center and pay Lacey’s kids a visit. The thought of being surrounded by kids made her guts churn and boil and her hands tremble just the slightest little bit as she resolutely made her way towards the building. Paulie and Becca were so adorable and sweet but still…