Outbreak: Long Road Back (21 page)

On the other side of the compound Frays stood over the five casualties strapped down to stretchers. Her throat made a dry clicking sound when she swallowed and did her best to hide the anxiety rolling around like a couple wet Mastiffs fighting over a bone in her belly. The sight of the three men and two women tied down at her feet kept looking like the corpses on the floor of the holding cells. The little boy screamed in her ear, the poor little guy scared to death by the stranger in a gas mask pulling him out of his mother’s arms… “Get another pair of hands and take them outside.” she ordered, sparing a glance at the younger woman standing next to her. “Tell Pittman to keep an eye on them. When the time comes tell him to come get me. I…I’ll take care of it.”

Frays sank into one of the chairs scattered around the lobby. Whatever was going on the worst of it seemed to be over for now. There had been a few scattered gunshots and a grenade going off a few minutes ago but other than that it had been quiet. Hopefully there would not be any more casualties to deal with. Something told her that she would have trouble sleeping again tonight. She hoped that Stark did not hear the little tremor in her voice… Frays ran a hand over her face and sucked warm water out of her Camelbak. Her uniform was stiff and scratchy with dried sweat and…was that blood? She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and tried to take deep breaths…

Lacey walked over and sat down next to her. He sneaked a glance around to make sure they were alone then put his hand over Frays’ and gave it a gentle squeeze. She smiled at him and held his hand. The man smiled back and, for the briefest of seconds, thought about stealing a kiss from her then dismissed the idea. She looked a little pale and shaky and he could not help but feel a little twinge of fear for her given what she had been through in the past couple weeks. Was she hemorrhaging again? He thought about running to get Daryl or one of the other medics just in case…

Frays closed her eyes, took a deep breath and shoved herself to her feet. “C’mon, Lacey.” she said quietly. The woman stood and walked towards the door smirking just a little bit as she led the private outside. She pointed towards the gate. “Help ‘em keep an eye on things over there, man.”

Frays walked along the perimeter of her Area of Operations taking a moment to make sure each of her Airmen…or Marines…or whatever knew where their sectors of fire were and briefed them on the Rules Of Engagement. It was right about then that she noticed the black smoke against the blue sky. For some bizarre reason it took her a moment to figure out that the source of the smoke seemed to be the Resettlement Center… Frays raced to where Lacey stood with the others by the gate.

Lacey glanced over Frays. Again she had to marvel at how the man had a talent for looking exactly like how she felt: queasy, terrified and ready to tear somebody a new asshole. The woman frowned at the smoke as if she were debating a course of action. Frays pulled her little Motorola walkie talkie off of her LCS and thumbed the talk button. “Big Daddy Big Daddy this is Baby Momma. Sitrep, over.” She stared anxiously at the little yellow plastic radio in her hand waiting for a response.

“This is Big Daddy.” Sergeant Hanes shouted into his radio. There was a brief pause then he keyed his Motorola a few times. “We’ve just about got things wrapped up here, Baby Momma. Looks like we’ve got the last of the bastards holed up in the air control tower. How are things at your end?”

Frays keyed her radio. “We’ve got the Med Center locked down.” she said as she spared a glance at the others around her. “There’s some that are…expectant…but the perimeter’s secure. What’s going on at the Resettlement Center? It looks like there’s a fire.”

There was a pause, probably from the man on the other end of the radio trying to see what she was talking about. “We’re busy here. I don’t know what’s going on over there. Take Stark and a couple others and go check it out.”

A tiny bit of relief made Frays’ shoulders sag for a half second.
Finally a guy with a little common sense!
she thought as she pressed the talk button. “Roger that. Moving in five.” Frays said quickly as she stashed the radio and moved off to her people. “Alright! Stark, Lacey and…Hubbard on me.

When the three others gathered around her Frays frowned and motioned towards the smoke drifting across the sky. “We’re going to break off as a fire team and go secure the area around the Resettlement Center. Gather any first aid supplies and fire extinguishers you can find and meet me by the gate in five.”

Lacey watched the column of black oily looking smoke with growing unease as the four of them made their way towards the Resettlement Center. Every fiber of his being wanted to break formation and run towards the burning building. Paulie and Becca were in there. His little ones, his whole world could be in there right now scared to death and wondering why their Daddy was not there to save them. Why their Daddy had left them with a bunch of strangers…

The place was absolute bedlam by the time they arrived. The air was thick with noxious smoke and inside the muffled screams of people trapped inside. A lanky teenager came running up to meet the four soldiers and wrapped his arm around his big sister when he recognized her leading them, nearly lifting the smaller woman off the ground in a big bear hug. “What the heck happened, Carl?” Frays demanded when her brother put her down.

“Dunno, Aim. Me and Frannie got in here before the jarheads locked it down. Everybody started going crazy. There was at least one…um…Bravo Charlie in there. Frannie took care of it.” Carl answered and looked around. He eyed the red fire extinguishers that Lacey and the others were carrying incredulously. “I don’t think those are gonna cut it, guys. Frannie’s helping to take care of the people that got hurt.”

Lacey rushed forward, the extinguisher falling from his hands with a metallic clank. “Where’s Paulie and Becca?” he nearly shouted. “Were they with you? Did you see them? For the love of God tell me you saw them.”

Carl looked at the blacktop under his feet. “Um…I swear we tried to find them…” the younger man said quietly. “I…I-I I had Paulie by the hand and I…” Carl’s face tightened and he swallowed hard, tears starting in the corners of his eyes as the realization of what he was trying to say dawned on Lacey’s face. “S-Somebody knocked me over. And…and the zombie jumped on Frannie. This guy shot all these people and some fuckin’ crazy lady…”

“WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN?!” Lacey roared as he closed the distance between them and caught a double handful of Carl’s shirt. “WHAT THE FUCK?! FUCK!? FUCK!!” He levered the younger man to the blacktop straddling him. Lacey slammed the man against the asphalt with the force of a battering ram, driving the air from Carl’s lungs. “THE FUCK!? FUCKIN’ FUCK FUCK FUCK!!”

Frays grabbed the Marine by the drag handle on his plate carrier and hauled him to his feet. She stood between him and her brother and hooked a hand around the back of the man’s neck, pulling his face down to hers so that the very tips of their noses were touching. “It’s alright, man. It’s alright. Just calm down, okay?” Frays whispered. She took a couple deep breaths, the man’s fear and grief spreading to her as well. “Look, buddy…there’s a lot of people here. I’m sure they’re alright and we’ll find them, alright?”

Lacey broke free of the woman and looked down wiping his face with the palm of his hands. “Okay. Okay.” he said quietly. The man took a couple deep breaths and tried to get his shit back together. “What do you want us to do?”

Frays looked at Stark. “Stark, get to work helping those that need it.” She turned to the two men and pointed off towards the playground equipment on the far side of the parking lot. “Lacey, Hubbard get everybody over there by the trees. I want everybody away from the building and make sure they stay there, alright? I don’t care if you gotta dive tackle some wannabe hero. Everybody stays the heck away, got it?”

The entire scene seemed like something out of Dante’s Inferno as they worked to get everyone safely away from the building and take care of the wounded. The heat coming from the burning building was stupendous as it raged inside the structure. Frays kept wondering crazily if somebody had called the fire department and what exactly was keeping them. If there was a silver lining to this fiery cloud it was that the blacktop seemed to be keeping the fire from spreading for the moment. If any embers decided to find a nice little place and start making little baby fires remained to be seen.

Somehow she had to keep Lacey busy to keep him from falling apart. “Lacey! Hubbard! On me!” Frays called out as she helped an older fellow with a broken arm get comfortable under a tree. She spared a glance at the two men over her shoulder. “Take those fire extinguishers and go walk the perimeter of the lot. If anything looks like its burning put it out.”

Rodriguez came over. “How the fuck are we gonna get these people to the Med Center?” she asked under her breath. “We at least need to get the burn victims some more pain meds, man.” The woman held one arm across her stomach and scratched her triceps as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

Frays frowned sympathetically at her friend. “I already called for a medivac, Frannie.” she said quietly as she moved a little farther from the collection of wounded people sitting or lying on the grass. The Wal-Mart was pretty much burned to cinders by this point. “I don’t know what we’re going to do.” She paused and scratched an itch on the side of her face. “Did…did you find Paulie and Becca?”

Rodriguez looked like she was going to cry. “We had ‘em, Amy.” the woman mumbled, her chest hitching as she took rapid shallow breaths. “Carl…he was…I dunno…” Frays put an arm around her friend’s shoulders trying to encourage her to get what she was trying to say out. “I-I…had a flashback…I hurt Carl, Amy. I was going to kill him…” The strength left Rodriguez’s legs and she sat down hard on the blacktop. “I love him and I was gonna choke him…” The woman gasped then started to sob quietly her head hanging.

“Hey…hey hey hey…” Frays whispered as she sat down next to her friend. “I love him too and I wanna choke him sometimes.” She smiled awkwardly at the woman sitting next to her and was glad to hear her snicker. Thankfully a pickup rolled up to the burning building a few moments later.

“Hey Amy!” Mike called as he hustled over to her with a stretcher under his arm. “Who’s going first?” Frays flashed a relieved smile at the fat medic then hustled off towards the worst off of the casualties. “Oh! By the way if you run into that Lacey guy let him know that his kids are waiting for him at the Med Center.”

Frays stopped dead in her tracks, the Gordian Knot of tension and anxiety in her gut coming loose just a little bit. “Thank God!” she whooped joyfully. She hurriedly helped Mike and a couple volunteers get as many of the worse off casualties onto the truck before running off in search of Lacey.

“Lacey! Lacey, come here!” Frays shouted when she spotted Hubbard and Lacey on the far side of the now smoldering Wal-Mart. “Lacey, you’re not gonna believe this!” she panted, a little out of breath from sprinting the several hundred yards to where she found the two of them absently stomping out embers. “Paulie…Paulie and Becca…”

Lacey ran over and caught the woman by the shoulders forcing her to stand up straight. “Well! Don’t keep me in fuckin’ suspense!” he shouted as he unintentionally gave her a shake. Behind them Hubbard scowled at Lacey as if the big good ol’ boy was unsure as to if he should punch the man or not.

Frays held one finger up in the man’s face as she caught her breath. “They’re at the Med Center! Paulie and Becca are at the Med Center!” Frays gasped. Her eyes went wide when the Marine swept her up in his arms and kissed her hard on the lips. She pushed him away with a nervous giggle. Frays gave Hubbard a look that said
Don’t you ever dare tell anyone!
“C’mon, man. We’ll go over once we’ve got the rest of the casualties loaded up. My guys are over there keeping an eye on things.”

He sighed heavily and held her at arm’s length. “Can I head over there now?” he asked and when he remembered that one of Frays’ Marines was standing right behind him let her go. “Please? C’mon, Sergeant...”

Frays smiled a little bit and her cheeks get warm in spite of her best efforts to keep her game face on in front of Hubbard. “No, Private.” she said quietly. Part of her wanted to tell him they would go together but they she still had a responsibility to the people that had been hurt. There was no telling if there were any more Bravo Charlies in the area.

It took two more trips to get the injured loaded up and over to the Med Center. The last handful sat in the bed of the truck with the soldiers. It was a tight fit and Frays thought they might dump someone out by accident but they made the five minute drive in one piece. The truck eased to a halt and Frays hopped over the side then helped the wounded down and directed them where to go once they got inside. She jaw clenched involuntarily at the sound of two children squealing as they rushed out of the Med Center and hugged their father.

Lacey swept Paulie and Becca up in his arms and smothered their faces with kisses. “Where did you two run off to?” he asked, trying to sound mad but not quite pulling it off. The little ones squeezed their father for all they were worth.

“Becca had an owwie.” Paulie said into his father’s neck. He was so happy that Daddy and Frannie and Carl and Amy did not have any owwies or anything. Daddy smelled like smoke and had soot on his face. “Some bad man pushed her and she got cutted so we came here ‘cause it’s where people get fixed.”

Becca held her forearm up for her father to see. “It’s okay Daddy.” the little girl said as she showed Lacey the band-aid with little cartoon dinosaurs on it then shrugged. “Daryl fixeded my owwie good. I wanted Beth to do it but she wasn’t there.”