Outbreak: Long Road Back (2 page)

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 he 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…

Frays wiped her hands on her trousers as she stood a few dozen yards from the edge of the group of children huddled in the shade of a leafy maple tree on the edge of the former Wal-Mart parking lot. A fleshy older woman with a kindly face read to the kids from a copy of what sounded like
Winnie the Pooh
as the little ones sat on blankets on the grass. Frays felt a sudden stab of grief and she sucked her lower lip into her mouth doing her best to keep from falling to her knees and sobbing her eyes out right there on the blacktop. Memories came flooding back of her own childhood when her mother would hold her on her lap in this old rocking chair and read that same story to her before bedtime…

A little brown haired little girl glanced at the woman standing on the edge of the group and leapt to her feet. “Amy! Hi Amy!” Becca cried happily as she rushed over and took Frays by the hand. “It’s story time. C’mon Amy! You’re missing it!” Frays sighed, smiled at the girl and let Becca drag her over to sit on a fuzzy blanket with Paulie, her twin brother.

Genny Carver, the child care provider reading to the children, smiled at the younger woman as she sat down with Becca and Paulie Lacey and gathered the two little ones close to her. Rachel, a little orphan girl with dirty blonde hair and a look of perpetual lost sadness in her red rimmed green eyes scooted over and put her head in Frays’ lap. Genny frowned slightly, her heart breaking just a little bit at the troubled pained look in the young airman’s eyes as she held the children. Genny could not help but guess why the children’s friend always looked so out of it around the kids. She had seen the videos people put up on the internet back when the internet still worked, after all.

After about fifteen or twenty minutes Frays checked her watch. “Oh, jeez!” she exclaimed as she gently started trying to extract herself from the children. “I’m real sorry kiddos but I gotta get going. I have to get back to work. Have a good day, kiddos.” Becca and Paulie each grabbed one of the woman’s legs and gave it a squeeze. Frays’ mouth pinched up and she tousled the children’s hair before bending and kissing the tops of their heads. “Be good for Mrs. Carver alright guys? And say hi to your dad for me.” 

Frays shuddered as she hustled off towards the TOC. Twelve hours sitting there hoping that somebody was going to call them up on the radio was not going to be fun… She hoped that whoever she was going to be on the detail with would be interesting at the very least. It could be a very long twelve hours if you were stuck in there with the wrong person. She had heard a few times that somebody had actually talked to a base in southern Canada checking up on them. Major Tennyson, the post commander, had ordered the people manning the radio to leave the room so what exactly was being said was a matter of debate.

The radio room was set up inside the old hotel manager’s office behind the front desk. Frays stopped and showed her ID card to the two Navy guys sitting behind the front desk and after they checked their list went into the room. “Hey Frannie!” Frays said with a wide grin as she sank into the nearest rolling chair.

The Latina’s scarred face brightened visibly. “Amy! How the hell have you been?” she asked as Frays rolled her chair up to the table next to her. “Long time no see!” It was easy to see why Carl had taken up with the young woman while they were holed up in the Frays’ hunting cabin west of Boston. She had long shiny black hair that was coiled into a bun at the base of her skull and a figure that could make a man drive his car straight up a light pole even when wearing Marine cammies and bulky combat gear. However the right side of her face and neck was covered with pockmarks and thick scar tissue, the result of a roadside bomb during a deployment in Afghanistan.

As much as she liked her friend Frays could not help but find the idea of her and Carl as a couple kind of unsettling. She was easily a decade older than her little brother and…well...Rodriguez was on some kind of happy pills for PTSD or whatever. But then…she did not have much room to talk being a single mother and all. And as long as she and Carl made each other happy then she should stop being such a stick in the mud especially since there was so much to be miserable about these days.

“I’m doing good, Frannie!” Frays answered happily and clapped the woman on the shoulder. “Little guy’s been kicking the crap out of me but well…I can’t say that it doesn’t make me happy.” After everything that happened to her before she even knew she was pregnant she could not help but relish every single strange little sensation of the life inside her. She loved her little boy so much already. “Whatcha been up to?”

Rodriguez frowned a little bit and shrugged. “Pulling perimeter guard mostly.” she said quietly as she rubbed her thigh. The woman had been wounded in a firefight with some locals over in Concord a few weeks after the failed attempt of quarantine in Boston. “Handing out MREs and stuff. Winning hearts and minds and all that horseshit. How’s Carl and everybody?”

“They’re great.” Frays said and fidgeted a little. “Just stopped by and said hi to them between getting done with my work and coming here.” She made a strange face and sent a flittering look towards the door. “How’s perimeter guard been working out?”

Rodriguez’s face darkened. “Took down a couple Bravo Charlies the other day.” she whispered, casting a nervous glance at the door herself. She tried to give her friend a reassuring look. “Don’t worry though. That can you gave me worked really good.”

Frays smiled wryly. She had worked out a way to build a suppressor for their M4s out of scrap metal while they took shelter in a high school at the start of the current crisis. Frays had shared her secret with the guys working in the Motor Pool/Machine Shop a couple days ago and now there were folks churning the homemade ‘cans’ out by the dozen. The steel wool stuffed inside them was starting to become a high value item. “Hey, no problem.” Frays muttered and started looking around in the drawers of the desk. “Is there a deck of cards in here?”

The two of them sat there playing a game of Spades as they listened to the squawky white noise coming out of the radio set up on the desk in front of them. Frays turned the volume up on the radio just a little bit. “How…how’s everything going, Frannie?” Frays asked with a conspiratorial glance at the door.

Rodriguez gave Frays a wan smile. “I’m doing fine, Frays.” she said and shrugged as she suddenly found the keypad on the radio very interesting. Rodriguez leafed through the three ring binder she found on top of the radio, rediscovering a list of frequencies and procedures for using the equipment. “I’ve been getting my meds. My leg’s still kinda crappy but I get by. How about you?” Carl had come down to visit her in the middle of the night a few times because his sister kept waking him up with her night terrors.

Now it was Frays’ turn to shrug. “I’m okay. My back aches a little bit but Doc Haskins gives me some aspirin when I get my vitamins in the morning.” Frays frowned. The more…colorful…symptoms of her pregnancy were none of Frannie’s business. “I still get nightmares sometimes but not as bad as I used to.” She smiled slyly at her friend and played a card. “Don’t tell me you mind Carl coming over to visit you.”

Rodriguez looked a little startled. “How did you know?” she asked. Carl had only come to visit a couple times and they had gone out to sit on the benches out front of the Wal-Mart. They would hold each other and look up at the stars. It was weird because they were near a big city but they could clearly see the flickering little lights in the inky blackness overhead.

“I’d hear him get up in the middle of the night.” Frays explained and stretched then scratched the side of her nose. “You’re a couple doors down from us and I hope for his sake that he’s not smoking.” Frays grinned and took a trick. As a matter of fact she had smelled Rodriguez’s cigarette smoke in her brother’s shirt when they got up for work this morning.

Rodriguez smiled and shook her head slightly. She discarded sticking Frays with the queen of spades. “How are you and Lacey doing?” Rodriguez asked as she watched Frays pick up the cards and start to deal again. She could not help but feel like kind of an ass for bringing it up when a confused and irritated expression came and went from the woman’s face.

“I’m not sure.” she said quietly as she finished dealing the cards. Lacey had lost his wife in the same attack that had taken her parents. He had…helped in all the…stuff…that came after… Lacey had held her tight and told her that everything was going to be okay… Sometimes, late at night, as much as she hated to admit it she kind of wished that he was around after waking up on her cot in a pool of sweat with tears drying on her face. “I haven’t seen him much. Haven’t really gotten to talk to him.”