“Wait,” he called out, his voice not even deep. “Please. It hurts.” he whimpered. “Please don’t walk away. Help me.”
Ellen hesitated in her reach for the door.
“Please.”
<><><><>
“They got it under control now.” Frank harnessed his revolver as he walked through the back gate of Beginnings to head into town.
“What’s up with him?” Joe motioned his head out to John Matoose who was dragging a body.
“I don’t know. I had no choice but to send him up there. So tell me why, if those were his people, he didn’t tip the bird sending Dan out. He could have done that easily saying a mortar came by him.” Frank shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense.” So angry he sounded.
“What’s the situation out there.”
“Well. We have Johnny doing another reconnaissance, a little farther out to see if there are any more troops. Robbie and his men are reporting success out there. I just sent a cleanup crew out to help gather the bodies and burn them. Also to collect the belongings and the weapons which we can use.”
“It’ll take a day or so to go through all that stuff.”
“We have time for that,” Frank said. “That’s low priority. We just need to gather up the stuff first. Looks like every available man in Beginnings is working right now, huh?”
“Looks that way,” Joe commented. “Cleanup crews in and out. We have a town full of scared people, Frank. I’m gonna have an afternoon meeting here in about two hours. That should give enough time to finish up. Don’t you think?”
“I think so,” Frank agreed as they got in the jeep. “What was the final outcome on the evacuation? How did that fair out, I haven’t checked.”
“It was Sunday,” Joe sad sadly as Frank began to drive. “We were very fortunate that a lot of the women ran to Containment to use that hatch with the kids. Henry and I had twenty-two out of twenty-eight children with us and fourteen women. When you called out about the gas, we pulled them in the cryo. It was tight, but Henry threw on the exhaust and with the masks ...” Joe kept his fingers crossed. “Our man in the Living Section said the ones that didn’t make it into center town were the ones who were in the last rows. They did make it to their basements and they did, like you’ve told everyone, have their masks on as a precaution.”
“That’s good to hear.” Frank drove into town.
“Son, I have to tell you. You did excellent. We had minimal physical damage. We have only two injured. We couldn’t have beat this, not at all, had you not been so prepared and so organized.”
“No amount of organization stopped that gas, did it?” Frank graveled his words.
“The masks may have. What did Dean say?”
“He said he’d be guessing. I told him to guess and he said what I knew. Time is gonna tell. By his injecting the rabbits directly, he guesses hours before they start getting symptoms, a few more hours until they are down.”
Joe looked at his watch. “Christ.” He shook his head. “We’re looking at the time ... how many men were in town?”
“About thirty. We had twenty-four at the back gate and eight at the front. But both of those areas reported being hit too. We got the bulk here in town.”
“What did ...” Joe stopped speaking when Frank held his hand up.
“Yeah, Johnny?” Frank called into his radio headset.
“Dad, about ten miles west I got a group of them. I’m guessing ... thirty maybe. I can’t count.”
“Take them out,” Frank ordered.
“Do you want me to do that?” Johnny asked.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“They’re holding up white flags, Dad.”
Frank looked at his father. “Johnny says he sees a bunch and it looks like a surrender.”
Joe lifted his shoulders. “Make it your call.”
“Johnny? Any view of weapons?”
“Yeah, Dad, off to the side in a pile.”
“All right, hover nearby, I’m sending Robbie and some men out with a truck to get them, if anything maybe we can get some information off of them.” Frank switched channels. “Robbie, you there.”
“Yeah, Frank.”
“Head west, get a hold of Johnny in the bird for direction. He says he has about thirty surrendering. Take some men with you, It might trap, if it’s not, bring them in. We can always keep them in the Security training building and post some guards on them.”
“Will do, Frank.”
Frank turned down the volume of his radio, through the ear piece he could pick up Robbie’s conversation. He half listened to that while nearing the clinic. How eerie it was for Frank as he looked around town, everything looking so normal, so peaceful, yet his gut cried out to him that this was just the calm before the mighty storm.
<><><><>
Ellen finished washing her hands. She pulled her pocket of her lab coat to check for the tube of blood. It was there, and then she informed the young soldier, who now only wore a hospital gown that she would be back in. She knew Frank was waiting outside that door with Joe. Waiting impatiently for her to finish up. Ellen waited impatiently too ... to see Frank.
She opened the door and pulled it closed as she walked out. “Frank.” She tossed her arms around him.
“Hey, El. What’s going on?”
“Stop.” She hugged him tighter. “Take a second, Frank, to hold me. Please.”
With closed eyes Frank embraced, until Ellen was ready to pull back. He set her down. “How’s he doing?”
“No fracture. Massive lacerations. I sewed them up. I think he’ll be fine.”
“So why couldn’t we go in there?”
“You’d frighten him,” Ellen told him bluntly.
“So the fuck what,” Frank snapped.
“No, Frank.” Ellen shook her head. “You can’t say that.” Her eyes shifted to Joe as she explained. “I did an examination on him. Our typical entrance examination. Plus some because he was injured. We talked. He’s sixteen years old, Frank. If that. He doesn’t know. He so young he barely had pubic hair.” Ellen shook her head. “What makes matters worse is he has the mentality of a ten- or eleven-year-old. Not Denny enthusiasm type, but he really is a child. From what we talked about and from what I know about Survivors, that mentality comes from his living by himself for a very long time. He doesn’t know how long, he hasn’t a clue. But I can tell you he spent a good many years living alone, fighting for his life in our world. Never around adults, never learning how to be one. He said it was cold out, snowing, when a man came to the group he lived with. He told me they fed him, clothed him, took him to a military type base, and taught him how to shoot. He was scared to ask questions and scared to say no. We’re the bad guys he was told. Take out the bad guys. He’s scared, really scared.” Ellen breathed outward with her words. “And he kept crying in there, saying he was sorry. And he kept trying to reach to me as if I were some sort of mother to him.”
Joe was taken aback by Ellen’s speech. “You sound unlike yourself Ellen. You sound concerned.”
“I am,” she said. “I don’t know, maybe he pulled the right strings.”
“He’s still on the other side,” Frank stated strongly. “And is he well enough to take to the building up at the Security area? That’s gonna be our new prisoner camp.”
“No.” Ellen stopped him as he reached for the door. “This kid is a kid. He was doing what he was told to do. I don’t even think he comprehends the damage his people could have done with the gas. I know he doesn’t.”
Joe rubbed his own forehead, a little perturbed. “What the hell do you want us to do with him, Ellen, dress him up and stick him in school with the rest of the kids?”
“Yes.”
“What!” Frank and Joe both yelled.
“I mean, not yet. He’s a Containment case. No more. He’s a kid. Don’t treat him like a prisoner. Not him.” Ellen walked to the door. “Talk to him. Talk to him then make your decision.” She opened the door. “Bo
bby?” she spoke softly. “These men want to speak to you.” She lifted her eyes to Frank and Joe who followed in.
Frank saw it on Joe’s face the second they looked at him. Frank knew the same expression was on his own face. A look of what to do. And what made matters worse for Frank was he was prepared to go in there and blast the kid, frighten him a little. But looking at his fright, and seeing him out of that uniform made Frank see something else ... how young he actually was.
<><><><>
Frank’s eyes kept going to Ellen and Henry as those two sat with all the children in the crowded Social Hall. Frank bounced back and forth in a nervous manner as he stood with Robbie, waiting for the late afternoon meeting to begin.
“Their chattering, Frank,” Robbie explained. “All twenty-seven of them. Going at the mouth. Saying how they left their camp last night and kept moving. How when they found out the plan, they just wanted out.”
“Defectors.”
“That’s what they told me. I got information from them that is useless, but they’re telling me anything they can. But unfortunately, they’re grunts. They don’t know too much. I think they were sent here by The Society as an expendable army. To deliver their package and if they made it through, good, If not. Oh well.”
“I agree. And ...” Frank motioned his head. “There’s Dean.”
Dean walked so frazzled, his determination was to only get to his kids, but backtracked when he saw Frank. “Just wanted to let you guys know,” he said. “All twenty-seven. No virus. I didn’t think they would have it. And ... they are immune. My guess inoculated. And Bobby our kid, he’s immune too. So I ran a test out of curiosity on our John Doe. Guess what gentlemen.”
Frank rolled his eyes. “Immune?”
“Yep.” Dean nodded. “Society Soldier. We’ll find out more whenever he wakes up.”
“You seem, too upbeat, Dean,” Frank commented.
“In a way I am,” Dean explained. “Though this hall is divided like a grade school dance.” Dean pointed to how, by his request the men went nowhere near the women or children. Except Henry, because he was immune. Men on one side, women on the other. “I’ve checked with your guys through the course of the day. We should have had symptoms, at the very least complaints. Nothing yet, Frank. And with a direct exposure, that is a good sign.”
Frank didn’t want to buy into it, not yet. “What happens though if they do. How is this going to affect the community health wise?”
“We’ve kept them separated. And this is not an airborne virus so, no contact, no exposure. We’re good, and we’ll keep them separated for five more days to be on the safe side. The men will have to sleep in one of the empty storage buildings. But they can go about their jobs.”
Just as Frank nodded in acceptance of this, Joe walked in.
Silence entailed as Joe made his way up the segregated group and stood before his people. With seriousness and somberness he spoke, “We faced one hell of a battle today, ladies and gentleman. And our men, our men pulled us through it.” He nodded proudly at the group of men who were separated. They excluded very few men in Beginnings. “But as you know, our men may have been exposed to this virus that we have feared.” He heard some whimpering, a few sobs. “Dean tells me, the longer they go without symptoms, the better their chances that the gas masks worked. We have them separated to keep them from any physical contact. We’re doing this with the men who were at the front gate, the back gate and standing center town. The rest of the men, the ones in the tunnels, John Matoose in the air, and the one in the Living Section, Dean believes were at a low, very low risk of exposure.”
Hearing that, Jenny clenched to John’s arm, burying her head against it.
Joe continued, “We’ll keep you apart for five or six more days. Now, moving on to other aspects that we have in this bat ...” It was like it happened in slow motion to Joe. His head swayed to his right at the sound of it. It bounced through his soul, causing his heart to pound, then drop. The deadened ‘thump’. It was coupled by the immediate panic filled noise of people scurrying to their feet and chairs springing back as everyone in the hall watched the fifty-six men who were separated from everyone else. Their eyes rolled, their heads swayed, and their knees buckled. Then one at a time, like dominos, they dropped hard and motionless to the floor.
Dean sprang up, calling out his loudest, holding some of the women back who rushed to their men. “I need everyone but the people who know they’re immune to move out of here. Frank! Get them out!”
Frank and Robbie rushed through the driving crowd of women, pulling them back gently, handing them their children to move along. They were helped by John Matoose and some of the older men who tried to clear the confusion filled hall.
Dean stopped Joe who arrived to aid the fallen men the same time as Henry. He let Henry through. “No, Joe. Leave.”
“Dean, I can’t,” Joe explained. “They are my people.”
“No, Joe.” Dean shook his head. “Right now these are my people and I am telling you to stay away. Go!” Dean pointed. “Go! Ellen! I need you over here!”
Ellen handed Nick to Jenny who held her own baby. “You’ll watch them for me?”
“I will.” With the exchange of the child Jenny laid her hand over Ellen’s. “Take care of our men.” she spoke tear filled.
Ellen crossed her hand on Jenny’s. “With everything I am.” Giving a firm squeeze, Ellen kissed Nick then rushed back to help Dean.
Dean looked up to see Joe had ignored him and bent down to one of the men. “Stop.” Dean sprang out to him grabbing Joe’s hand. “I told you.”
“I have to help,” Joe scolded back.
“You wanna help. Go and get some people together, head to the clinic. Get me the east wing set up for all these men. I need beds and cots. Blankets and fluids. Andrea can help with that, so can Melissa. Get it ready stat, Joe, then move the hell out of there, we’re bringing these men in.”
Joe stood up. “I’ll get on that, Dean.”
“I need them as centralized together as you can get them. Six in a room if needed.”
“I’m on it.” Joe rushed out, laying his hand on Frank’s shoulder in his pass of him.
The first order in the hall was to pull the ill men who moaned and shook, from the piles in which they laid upon each other. Getting them comfortable enough to wait until they could carry them out. There were six to handle all of the men. Dean, Ellen, Frank, Robbie, Henry, and Johnny. And they all worked fast and together toward some sort of organization. Though everyone of the six worked diligently, everyone of the six worked with their hearts racing in fear.
Dean helped Ellen as she tried to turn over Bentley, a man too heavy for her to handle. “You doing all right?” he asked her.
“I’m fine.” She grunted, as she knelt, sliding back as Dean helped her get Bentley to his back.
“As soon as we’re done turning them, I need you to head to the clinic. Make sure everything is ready, you know what we need. I’m gonna send Henry to the cryo where we’ve stored a bunch of Agent Seventeen. We’ll administer some doses, keep our fingers crossed that they have the host strain, if not, try to buy us more time. Slow down the virus reaction.”
“We did make enough Agent Seventeen, right?”
“To help the community ten times over.”
Ellen looked to Bentley. Not ten minutes earlier he looked normal, now his face glistened with sweat, paled in color and his eyes rolled. “Tell me this isn’t happening, Dean. Please tell me this isn’t happening.”
Dean looked up at Ellen while loosening Bentley’s shirt. “I’m sorry, Ellen. It is.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
AUGUST 17
It wasn’t daylight yet. The sky cast that darkened blue, just before the sun would suddenly appear. Ellen sat on the steps of the clinic, her body drained, feeling exhaustion creeping up on it. The sound of the creaking clinic door opening , made her spin around. “Dean.”
“I thought you were going
home to get a few hours rest.” He sat next to her.
“I will.”
“Go home, Ellen. You made me take a three hour rest.”
“Yeah, but I can go without sleep. Living with Henry has taught me that.” She propped her elbow on her knee and rested her cheek in her hand. “What happened, Dean? How did they get so sick all of a sudden. We’ve worked with it. We’ve given the virus to the rabbits.”
“Yeah, but we haven’t given the virus to humans.” Dean pulled at her hand holding it. “Direct exposure to humans is something we could have only predicted, not known with certainty.”
“And they don’t even have the host strain. They have a third mutation. Why? Why, Dean?” She looked at him so lost.
“Throw us off. Come on, George had to know we got hold of those SUTs that were after Robbie. Maybe he knew we got the antiserum. Maybe he figured if we had that, we had the host. I don’t know.” He shrugged then felt her fall into his arm. “I just feel at such a loss.”
“I know how you feel.”
Dean felt her head suddenly spring up. “What’s wrong, El?”
Ellen looked out to the street. She heard the loud, rumbling coughing coming closer. “Frank’s coming. Why is he coughing like that, Dean? He’s been coughing like that since this evening.”
“He doesn’t have the virus, El, I checked.”
“So why does he sound so sick. Look sick?”
“Exposure to the gas?” Dean lifted his shoulders. “Perhaps the smoke inhalation. But he’s not dying, get that out of your mind. I know what you’re thinking. You’re remembering what we saw when we went to the future.”
“Dean.” Ellen breathed slowly out. “I’m not only remembering what I saw with Frank. I’m remembering everything I saw.”
“Unfortunately.” Dean pulled her closer to him. “So am I.”
The Big Ten: The First Ten Books of the Beginnings Series Page 340