Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Patreon Campaign!

HERE'S A LINK TO MY AUTHOR'S PAGE WHERE YOU CAN GET MY EBOOKS!

Hello everyone! I haven't posted on this blog in ages but I thought I'd let it be known that I've set up a Patreon account. If you enjoyed my books you can see what I've done since I finished the Outbreak series through the link above and visit my Patreon page here to donate if you want!If you donate I'm working on all kinds of fun little extras for your trouble. So far I've got a couple pictures and I'll be working on an exclusive short story specifically for my Patrons.
Also you can Follow me on Facebook here or Twitter here.
If you've liked my work then please take a moment to write a review on my pages. Thanks so much and have a nice day!

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Zombie Short Stories.

Okay...so I know I said I was going to shut this blog down and...well...I did. Just dropping a quick note on here to let people know that...well...I kinda got stuck working on the new book and so decided to do some short stories set in and around the time the events of the Outbreak series takes place.
What can I say I got bored with it. It was supposed to be this big Fantasy story set in a kingdom going through events analogous to The French Revolution. However know what most of The French Revolution actually was? Like 75% of the time guys standing around a room yelling at each other. The other 25% of the time? A metric shit ton of murderific paranoid terror. I couldn't find any good information on what life was like for a regular person during the time period to start really building a solid world and...that was about it. Apparently all anyone did was starve and occasionally set something on fire in between said guys standing in a room and debating. Then they all stood around and applauded while tons and tons of people got their noodles lopped off.
So on the plus side: more zombie related goodness for you. So yay for that. I've got about one and a half stories done so far. I'm really trying to leave the main narrative of the Outbreak series alone and focus on more random places and new characters though I can't promise that Frays and the rest won't turn up a story before it's done. There is one minor plot point involving my main characters that I may resolve. That's all I'm going to say. So be on the lookout. Depending on how fast I work and how much time I have available the new stuff might be up on Amazon fairly soon.
So just remember to click the link at the top of the post and check out my Amazon page. If you've read my stuff and you liked it please take a moment to write a review. It will only take a minute and it won't hurt I promise. Also on the Author's page you can get in contact with me on Twitter and I have a new Facebook page you can 'like' to get new info on what I'm doing and random stuff I find interesting.

Sunday, October 5, 2014

So this is it...


Alright...hey folks... Welp... I've officially brought the Outbreak series to an end. I really don't know what to say, really. The story and characters have been such a big part of my life for well...about the last five years or so now. It's kind of hard to put it into words.
Part of me can't help but experience the absolute joy that Senior Airman Amy Frays would experience throwing herself down on a brand new mattress for the first time. I can't help but think about Specialist Francesca Rodriguez every time I walk into an all you can eat buffet. Carl Frays will never know the stress of a midterm or taking his driver's test. Most certainly Paulie and Becca Lacey never will. So I suppose I'll leave you with some of the songs I listened to on my iPod that got me 'into character' so to speak...and that some of my characters wouldn't have gotten to hear (or at least not prerecorded)...

This one of course made me think of Senior Airman Amy Frays. The anger and frustration she felt at first becoming the targets of the people she had come to help then the...confusion of returning home to a country that doesn't seem to notice what's going on outside its borders... Never mind the reference to 'smoke and explosions' or the 'flood of hate'... Frays was very angry and confused by this return to this society that forced her to turn her entire belief system on its head...but expected her to behave as if nothing was wrong when she returned...
 
"Hero of War" by Rise Against makes me think of not only Senior Airman Frays ("and when I come home they'll be damn proud of me...when she couldn't even get an extension on her thesis) and Specialist Francesca Rodriguez, a character who takes a more central role in Outbreak: Brave New World. She had been wounded in an IED attack well before the start of the series. A pretty young woman before being disfigured and forced to experience the hell of trying to regain normal use of her limbs... I can't help but picture her reaction to "A hero of war...is that what they see? Just medals and scars so damn proud of me."
Body covered with scars, face covered with burns and shrapnel... She ended up drinking and taking pills just so she could bear people staring let alone being able to sleep at night.

 
"Hero" by Skillet was another song that I listened to a lot. I mean listen to it! If that doesn't make you want to go headbutt Nazi zombie terrorists til they explode into huge goopy piles of failure and rotten hamburger I don't know what will. Strangely enough by some weird coincidence it started playing when I was working on Outbreak: Boston during the bit where Frays rallies her little group to go across the blasted ruins of Hanscom Air Force Base to rescue a bunch of civilians. I also listened to it again when writing the daring extraction of Spc. Rodriguez during the same book.
So I guess that's all I got for right now. I'm setting up a new Facebook page for myself where I'll put up stuff for all the new projects I'm working on and stuff. Also I'll be starting a new blog while trying to keep this one going as often as I can. Don't worry I'll still post funny zombie memes and stuff on Outbreak: Boston's Facebook page that you can get to here
Thanks again for all the support over the years. I really mean that. If you have read my stuff and you liked it take a moment to click the link at the top of this post and write a review. Again I'm a one man operation and world of mouth advertizing is VERY important. Every time I get a good review it moves the books up in the rankings so it comes up in the search results. Or if you've got friends that you think might like the books send them a link to the free chapters I've put up on this Blog.
I'm really looking forward to the new projects I've got lined up and I really hope you'll all follow me over to the new blog and Facebook page! 

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Technical Difficulties and WAR DINOSAURS!!

Also I've been kicking around an idea for a Fantasy novel again. I kind of liked where one of the many games of Pathfinder I was playing in (and...the game kinda...stalled...I guess?) could have been headed. I also found the campaign setting that my friend came up with really interesting. It was kind of a steampunkish...mid 1800's Western America...thing... With Elves and Orcs and all that stuff too. It was kinda strange and I was really looking forward to exploring the setting. 
Also I got to be the comedic relief after a fashion. I was playing a Half Elf bounty hunter that had lived out on the plains with other Elves most of her life and, as such, had a pretty poor command of the Common language. For instance: a wanted poster said "Please inquire within". My character marched into the sheriff's office, looked him straight in the eye and said "I have come to see the singing people about the money." and handed him the poster. Since I delivered that line absolutely serious and completely deadpan the entire group cracked up. 
I was looking forward to playing the character more because I also most likely would have gotten to utter my favorite line from the classic 2005 Nicolas Cage film Lord of War:
a

As a quick aside a few years ago I actually managed to sell a semi automatic AK clone to a guy in a gun store that I didn't even work in by reciting Nicolas Cage's monologue praising that particular firearm.
 
And...well...if I wanted to go full on epic Fantasy of Epicness....there's always......
GODDAMN WAR DINOSAURS!!! SUCK IT, TOLKIEN!! TAKE YOUR LITTLE OLIPHAUNTS AND GO HOME!! WINNING!!!1!

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Teaser part 3: The Extra Super Teasering (or the first chapter of Outbreak: Long Road Back)

Hey everyone! I thought that I'd sort of give everybody a chance to take a look at the first chapter of my latest book, Outbreak: Long Road Back, before I release the whole thing this Friday October 3rd. If you haven't read the first book in the series or the sequel...I've conveniently put a link to my Author's Page on www.amazon.com  where you can purchase the first two books.
IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE FIRST TWO BOOKS WARNING THERE BE SPOILERS AHEAD.
 
 
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 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.”
Rodriguez nodded thoughtfully and flipped down a card. “Say…has Carl talked to you lately?” she asked still rifling through her cards. A million bad things started flying around inside Frays’ head as she waited for her friend to continue. What was wrong with her baby brother? Why did he not come to her with it? Rodriguez could not help but smile a little bit. “He’s thinking of enlisting.”
Frays felt the bottom fall out. “WHAT!?” she demanded as she fought down the urge to march out to the garden and confront Carl with the information. Out of everything that could have been going on she absolutely did not expect that. “I mean…what? No!” Frays threw down her cards suddenly shaking with frustration. “Why? Just…just no!”
“He wants his dad’s gun back, Amy.” Rodriguez said quietly. By order of the FEMA guy running the camp the only people allowed to be armed in the FOB were military personnel and the Blue Diamond guys. Major Tennyson, the FOB’s commanding officer, had put out a call amongst the civilians looking for volunteers to enlist in the Marines. “I told him that we’d be going outside the wire soon too. Stupid kid.” She snickered at her friend and gave her a light punch on the arm. “I think we’re a bad influence on him or something.”
Frays pinched the bridge of her nose, shrugged and shook her head. “You’d think that but like in the other direction.” the woman said quietly. Rodriguez walked with a limp because she had been shot in the leg and was on meds for PTSD and his big sister woke up screaming every other night. Neither one of them were exactly recruiting poster material. “Stupid kid. He’s not even old enough. The big dummy’s only fifteen.”
Rodriguez looked stricken. “What? He’s fifteen?!” She started scratching at the scar tissue on her throat then caught her wrist with her other hand and forced it into her lap. “Goddamn! I thought he was like at least seventeen!” It looked to Frays like her friend seemed to shrink inside her plate carrier like a turtle hiding in its shell.
“Well…he is big for his age.” Frays said, trying to comfort her friend. She suddenly snickered then clapped a hand over her mouth to try and hold the laughter in. Rodriguez rolled her eyes and snorted. Before too long both of them were laughing so hard that their bellies ached. They stopped laughing immediately and looked at each other in disbelief when the radio squealed and a tinny little voice called out to them from the ethers.
“Say again!” Frays said urgently after she scrabbled for the radio’s handset. “This is…” Frays snapped her fingers, motioning for Rodriguez to pass her the clipboard with the radio’s procedures and call signs on it. “Region One Bravo. Send traffic, over!”
Rodriguez was out of her chair and over to the door as fast as she could manage. “Guys! We got somebody!” she called and then returned to the desk. Her hand started clawing at the scar tissue on her throat her fingers flicking back and forth over the jagged ridge where a piece of shrapnel had almost severed her carotid artery.
The door burst inward an indeterminate amount of time later. “Outside, Airman.” a middle aged Hispanic man who looked sort of like a bulldog in a Marine Corps uniform said as he barged into the room. He glanced at Rodriguez as he took the handset out of Frays’ hand. “You too, Specialist. Close the door please.”
Frays and Rodriguez looked at each other once they had the door shut. Major Tennyson, the post commander, had just thrown…well…politely insisted that they leave him alone to talk with whoever was on the other end of that phone call. “Hey…Rodriguez…” Frays said quietly as she glanced at the two squids sitting behind the desk. The woman’s hand went inside her LCS to rub her son growing in her womb. “Did…did that just happen?”
Rodriguez let a little smile grow on her face. It made her think of that guy Carl had found on the radio that night in the cabin. “Yeah…Yeah…Frays, I think it did.” she muttered quietly and looked at the Navy guys. “This happen a lot? What’s going on?”
The Navy guy whose name tape said Simons shrugged. “I dunno.” he said quietly and looked at the other man next to him. “Like once maybe?” The man glanced at the door like he would like nothing better than to press his ear up against it.
Major Tennyson cracked the door. “Simons, call up the airfield and have them set up the GPS transceiver.” he said loud enough for them all to hear. The four enlisted people exchanged nervous, excited glances. “Tell them to have a detail on standby to receive an airdrop around 1800 hours tomorrow. Frays, pass the word to the people on perimeter guard. Anybody with a pulse out there that sees those ‘chutes is going to be curious and they might not be friendly. Tell ‘em to keep their eyes peeled.” The man left the radio room and marched purposefully towards the door to the hallway. Major Tennyson poked his head back into the room. “Get Lieutenant Haskins over here. I need to talk to her too.”
The former hotel lobby turned into a flurry of activity as the enlisted personnel hurried to follow the major’s orders. Frays’ hands trembled excitedly as she relayed the instructions to the dozens of makeshift guard towers set up on their side of the wall. There was a maelstrom of speculation buzzing along the wires. Frays grinned at the radio.
The two of them listened excitedly for awhile, hoping to get another call from whoever that was on the other end. Eventually Frays and Rodriguez started playing cards again and waiting for their shift to end. Frays dug a notepad out of her hip pocket and started sketching something, concentrating on the paper with the tip of her tongue sticking out of her mouth. Eventually Rodriguez’s curiosity got the better of her.
“Whatcha drawing, Frays?” Rodriguez asked as she tried to peer over the woman’s shoulder. The picture looked like a weird combination of chicken scratches and Egyptian hieroglyphics or something. Her face scrunched up and she glanced at her watch. She had to be over to the Aid Station in an hour to pick up her afternoon dose of mood stabilizers…
“I’m drawing up a schematic.” Frays explained as she erased part of her drawing and changed a few of the strange little squiggles. “I was just thinking…ever gone coyote hunting?” Frays studied the paper for a moment and added a couple zigzags to the squiggles.
Rodriguez smirked. Fuckin’ hick. she thought good naturedly. “I never been outta South Boston before I joined the Army, Frays.” Rodriguez said as she continued to try and puzzle out what the picture was. It looked kind of like one of those Magic Eye puzzles she had seen all over the place when she was a kid. “Not many coyotes there.”
Frays snickered and shook her head. “Well…you play animal sounds like a wounded rabbit or something to get the coyotes to come so you can shoot them.” Frays added a couple more little boxes next to the squiggles and zigzags. “I was thinking that something like that might work since the Bravo Charlies are drawn by noises. Might actually work a little better because they don’t seem that bright.”
Rodriguez nodded thoughtfully. “But what after that? I mean…so you’ve got a bunch of those things standing around in the open.” She scratched at the scars on her cheek then slapped her palm down on the desk hard enough to make Frays jump a little bit at the sound. “Drone the dog shit outta the motherfuckers! Frays, you’re a genius!”
“I have my moments, anyways.” Frays said once she had recovered from the surprise. The smaller woman shrugged and tugged at the sleeve of her tee shirt for a moment as the garment had gotten bunched up under the shoulder strap of her LCS. “If they don’t have a drone flying around or anything I guess we could always just kind of find safe places and snipe them. Then again that would take up a heck of a lot of ammo.”
A slow, devilish grin spread across Rodriguez’s face. “Or we go talk to our friend who can make things go boom.” she said. She snapped her fingers and jumped to her feet. “Or maybe we ask Major Tennyson about getting one in the next care package!”
Frays frowned and shrugged. “I don’t think that they can really like…ya know…stuff one in a connex or whatever.” Frays said quietly. She thought back to the other FOB Freedom on the other side of the world. There had been an airstrip there and she had seen a couple UAVs flying around but had never gotten near where they were kept because that place was behind its own fenced off area surrounded by signs that said things like ‘Classified’ and ‘Trespassers Will Be Shot On Sight’ so she had never really been curious enough to go look. “Did you ever get a close look at one? They seem pretty big to me. At least the ones that we’d need.”
Rodriguez shivered despite the humidity. For a brief moment she was far, far away lying on her back and gagging on her own blood. She had drifted out of consciousness for a moment only to be rousted by the earth shaking beneath her as a shockwave slapped her in the face and pelted her with grit and small rocks. Someone threw their body across her to try and shield her from the worst of it… “Nope.” Rodriguez muttered as she absently wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. The woman squirmed in her seat. “Hey…mind if I go grab a smoke?”  
Rodriguez went to the bench outside the door and plopped down. She dug out her cigarettes, thumbed open the pack and jammed one into the corner of her mouth with trembling hands. “Hey, Rodriguez!” a voice called cheerily, making her look up then jump to her feet and pull the cigarette out of her mouth. A tall, attractive woman in Multi-Cam trousers and sand colored tee shirt with brown hair grinned as she approached. There was an M9 in a shoulder rig under the woman’s left arm though it looked to Rodriguez that the lieutenant would be more of a danger to herself than anyone else if she ever actually tried to use the weapon. “Geez! Calm down, Rodriguez. How are you doing?”
Frannie grinned uneasily. “I’m doing great, Doc.” she said and lit her cigarette. Rodriguez could sense the other woman’s dark brown eyes searching her face, staring at the latticework of scars covering the right side of her face. Rodriguez looked at the ground and turned slightly in an attempt to hide her damaged face.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” Lieutenant Haskins asked, leaning forward a little and lowering her head so she could look the younger woman in the eye. Daryl, the night nurse, had found a bottle of pills stashed in Rodriguez’s plate carrier and brought it to her the night they arrived. She had started dialing down the dosages on people’s medications since there was currently more people than meds to go around…
“I…I just had a flashback.” Rodriguez admitted and looked around to see if anyone was listening in. The younger woman sank onto the bench and took a long drag on her cigarette. “First time in ages.” She let out the smoke in a shuddering breath. Holy fuckin’ shit I need a goddamn drink right now. Frannie thought and gritted her teeth against the urge.
Beth sat down next to the woman and put a hand on her shoulder. “I have to go talk to Major Tennyson for a minute. When I’m done I’ve got some time if you want to talk about it.” She smiled at the woman and stood up. The expression faltered when Rodriguez sort of shrugged and nodded. “I’ll see you in about twenty minutes or so, alright?”
Rodriguez glanced after the doctor and took another drag off of her cigarette, held it for a moment then let a plume of smoke squirt out of her nose. An unexpected blood boiling rage built up in her chest as she watched that smarmy little squid go inside so intense it made her vision go white. Who the fuck do you think you are? Rodriguez thought angrily at the woman’s back, shaking her head and snorting out another blue grey cloud like a pissed off bull You think you fuckin’ know me or some shit?
Her hand closed tightly around the pistol grip of her M4. For a half second Rodriguez saw herself walking in and blasting that dumb stick up her ass bitch’s pretty little face right off her head. She jumped and looked around then wiped her face with the palms of her hands. “Holy fucking shit.” Rodriguez whispered as she took a moment to try and collect herself. She glanced at her watch and felt for the bottle of pills in an old ammo pouch on her plate carrier, her breath coming in little hiccup gasps. “Shit. Holy fuckin’ shit…”
Once she was reasonably certain that she could go through the door without fragging a superior officer Rodriguez returned to the radio room. “Hey Frays…I gotta go pick something up from the Aid Station.” she said quietly and shot a glance at the two Navy guys nearby. “I’ll be right back, okay?”
“Sure thing, Rodriguez.” Frays said with a knowing expression. Her friend was self conscious about her medication and she noticed the guys on Staff Duty trying to act like they were not listening to their conversation. “Hey Frannie…get some pads for me too.” She added in a stage whisper and barely kept herself from bursting out laughing at the looks of distaste on the squids’ faces.
Frannie snickered and shook her head as she walked out of the TOC. After a few steps Rodriguez was shaking with laughter. She found it a little hard to believe that Frays had actually mentioned maxi pads in front of the squids. The goody little two shoes who she had never even heard swear and seemed unable to even say the word ‘sex’… It was the funniest goddamn thing she had seen in awhile.
She gimped along as fast as she could manage towards the Aid Station. They were dialing back on her meds and Rodriguez found that it was fucking with her brain hardcore. There was this jittery sort of feeling in the pit of her stomach like spiders crawling around in her belly and it was getting hard to sleep. And at the bottom of everything there was a deep fear: that she was going to fuck up and get somebody hurt. That she was going to start drinking or taking pills again. That she might start sleeping around again. Worst of all was the fear that she was going to do something to fuck up things with Carl and his sister.
While they were holed up in the school she had nearly run out of her medication and she had come on to Lacey. Shit, she had practically thrown herself at him but thankfully the goddamn Boy Scout had turned her down. Rodriguez chuckled to herself as she hobbled along on her bad leg. The Boy Scout and Goody Two Shoes. That was something else entirely. A completely different type of animal all together… Actually it was more like a love/hate relationship that had been smoking pounds of meth and chugging Jack Daniels by the gallon. She swallowed hard, wishing for that delicious burn of hard liquor as it went down…
“Hey, beautiful!” a jovial voice called startling her out of her thoughts. Carl came towards her at a quick walk a big grin plastered all over his face. “Where you off to?” The younger man gave her a big hug and a peck on her scarred cheek when he got within range.
“Gotta go to the Aid Station real quick.” Rodriguez said and returned the favor. She quickly disentangled herself from his arms and gave Carl a sheepish grin. “Um…wanna walk with me? I mean if you got time.”
“Yeah, sure!” the blond man exclaimed and moved closer to the woman’s side. “We got the rest of the afternoon off ‘cause of the airdrop.” He added conspiratorially “I heard there’s gonna be a hundred Spec Ops guys dropping in.”
Rodriguez rolled her eyes. “Nah, man.” she said and bumped her hip into the man’s side. “It’s just food and shit. Meds hopefully.” Carl frowned and slipped an arm around Rodriguez’s shoulders, holding her to him as they walked. She shrugged into his armpit for a moment and leaned her head against his shoulder then pushed off. “Look…um…”
“Heh…” he muttered awkwardly and moved into a more comfortable distance. Frannie was weird about holding his hand and stuff while she was in uniform or on duty or whatever. “How you doing? I mean really.”
She snorted and turned her face away rolling her eyes. “Scared shitless.” she admitted. The woman shrugged inside her plate carrier and made an odd face. “My head’s a scary place to be right now, man.” Her hand dipped into her ammo pouch and pulled out her cigarettes, lit one and put them back. “I…I almost flipped shit on Lieutenant Haskins. She just asked how I was doing and I…I wanted to shoot her in the face for a second there.”
“It’ll be okay, Frannie.” He stopped and caught her arm, pulling the woman into a tight embrace. Carl put a hand on the back of Frannie’s neck and put his forehead against hers, the very tips of their noses touching under the rim of her Kevlar. “It’s gonna be alright, right? We got this shit. This ain’t shit.”
She grinned and pecked the tip of his nose. “Right, man.” Rodriguez let her hands slide down the man’s sides, enjoying the way color crept into the man’s face as his breath ticked her cheek. “I don’t want to fuck this up. I don’t want to fuck this up.”
“I know…” Carl said as they came up to the building. He paused outside the Aid Station’s perimeter wall and let his hand run down her arm. She smiled at him and, just for a moment, he saw what she must have looked like five or ten years ago. Before she got hurt and whatever else might have happened to her… “Amy’s got duty over in the TOC until like…eleven o’clock or whatever…”
Frannie laughed and stood on her tiptoes to peck Carl on the lips. “I know. I’m sitting on the radio desk with her.” Carl’s face seemed to fall in on itself and it only made Rodriguez laugh harder. “Bring us some dinner later, please?” She wheedled him, looking up at Carl with her dark brown eyes. The woman grinned and could feel his desire for her like heat.
“Oh, alright!” Carl exclaimed with mock frustration and patted Frannie on the butt as she hobbled through the front gate.  It was no trouble at all. After all, the place where they handed out rations was like way on the other side of the place. It hurt him to watch Frannie limp along even if it was barely noticeable. He suspected that she knew he felt bad for her so she tried really really hard to not limp as much when he was around. And well…his little nephew was getting pretty big. It would not be long now…
Unsure of what to do with himself Carl started ambling over towards the Resettlement Center. He kicked a stone through the grass ahead of him as he walked with his hands jammed into the pockets of his filthy jeans. He could not help but be a little worried about his sister. It was the third time since they got here that some asshole made her stay up so late. Aim was not sleeping good as it was and Frannie was coming apart at the seams…
“Yo! Frays! Get your ass over here!” A big black man in one of the Digicam uniforms shouted from off to Carl’s left startling the boy out of his thoughts. The man’s voice was heavily accented almost to the point of being unintelligible. The guy sounded like he was African or Jamaican or some shit. “Where the fuck did you go?” There were two more guys with him, one of them dressed in kacki trousers and a black polo shirt. “Who the fuck told you you could leave?”
“You did, Johnson.” Carl grumbled under his breath eyeing the man angrily. It was right about then that Carl noticed a Colt 1911 in a familiar holster on Kacki Boy’s hip. He took a couple quick steps towards the man, pointing at the weapon. All of a sudden Johnson and his little butt buddy were the farthest thing from his mind. “Hey where the fuck you get that?” 
“It’s none of your business, son.” Kacki Boy said, giving the boy a cocky little grin that shifted his fashionable Aviator sunglasses on his face slightly. He had a highfaluting accent, probably British. “And watch your mouth.” This drew little titters of laughter from the two Blue Diamond guys.
“Lemme see it!” Carl demanded, pointing furiously at the man’s hip. “That looks like my dad’s goddamn gun! Where the fuck did you get that, you thieving piece of shit?” He walked up to Kacki Boy, his face a mask of absolute rage. “Gimme my fuckin’ gun!”
Johnson slugged the boy in the side of the head, stopping Carl in his tracks. Carl lashed out with the toe of his boot catching the mercenary in the groin. The next thing Carl knew he was on the ground and the two mercs were kicking him. White light exploded behind his eyes when a blow slammed into the back of his head. Red hot lances stabbed through his chest. Carl coughed choking on coppery tasting liquid.
Carl blinked and opened his eyes…or rather tried to open his eyes. They were swollen so much that he could barely crack his lids. “Oh, thank God!” Amy cried, wiping at her cheeks. She took her brother’s hand and held it tight. It took him a couple seconds to realize that he was on a bed in the Aid Station. “Thank God! Thank God!”
Another voice interrupted his sister. “I think we deserve a little credit here too, guys.” Lieutenant Haskins said quietly. Carl’s world twisted and spun like a kaleidoscope on acid then slowly settled into the woman’s face. That other medic dude, the black guy, was standing next to her. “Somebody kicked the crap out of you, Mister Frays.”
Carl made a strange sound in his throat that might have been an attempt at a laugh. Amy was shaking in her chair next to his bed but he could not tell if it was because she was scared or angry or whatever. “Who did this, Carl?” Amy asked in a low quiet voice as she squeezed her brother’s hand.
Lieutenant Haskins made a face behind their backs. “He…he won’t be able to talk for awhile, Airman.” the doctor muttered. She had gotten to know Airman Frays and her brother pretty well in the short time they had been here. “His jaw was partially dislocated.”
Frays dug into her cargo pocket and came up with a pen and a small spiral bound notepad. She flipped the little book to a blank page and put it on the bed. “Who did this, Carl?” Amy repeated as she put the pen in her brother’s hand. Carl scribbled something down then pushed the pad of paper towards his big sister. It took her a couple minutes to decipher Carl’s shaky chicken scratches but Amy felt like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water on her head when she figured out what he wrote.  
A short skinny man in Marine cammies met Frays as she stormed into the hall. “Frays! Frays, what’s going on?” Lacey said as he tried to catch the woman by the sleeve. The woman ignored him and kept right on going. “Frays, is Carl alright? Frays?! Stop!”
Lacey’s throat constricted when Frays turned to face him his friend’s eyes a roiling sea of anger, pain and confusion. “They beat him, man.” Frays choked out at last, one hand going over her mouth. “They beat him half to death. My baby brother, man. They…h-he…th…his friggin’ jaw is busted…”
Lacey put his arms around her. “He’s gonna be okay, Frays.” he whispered in her ear as he held her tight, gently rocking her from side to side. “He’s a tough kid. Don’t worry. He’ll be up and around being a pain in your ass in no time.”
Frays hugged him back then sniffed and wiped her cheeks. “Yeah.” Frays muttered as she extracted herself from the man’s arms. “Look…I gotta go get the report on this and then get back to the desk.” She looked horrified for a second. “Oh, jeez...Rodriguez has gotta be going nuts. This guy just came in and told me Carl was in the Aid Station…”
“I got the rest of the afternoon off.” Lacey volunteered as the two of them went outside and headed towards the gate. He glanced over his shoulder at the woman and shrugged. “I’ll head over there so Frannie can come over and see Carl.”
The two of them went their separate ways, Lacey sprinting off towards the TOC while Frays went towards the Security Forces building. Sergeant Hanes stopped her a few feet inside the door. “Don’t worry, Frays.” he told her with a reassuring pat on her shoulder “You just go back to the desk over there. The investigation’s already underway. Don’t get all stressed out, alright? We’re gonna catch the guys.”
Frays fumed. “Look…Sergeant…” she said through clenched teeth once she felt like she could open her mouth without shouting “It was Blue Diamond guys. Carl told me. I brought him here because it was gonna be safe. We’re here barely a week and he’s in the hospital.”
The man frowned concernedly. “Frays…listen to me, alright?” he asked quietly as he hooked the woman’s arm and dragged her outside. Sergeant Hanes closed the door behind them and glanced back through the pane of glass. His face became the very picture of seriousness. “Listen. Just keep quiet. Let me handle it. Don’t do anything stupid, alright?” When the woman did not respond he put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “Alright?”
“Yes, Sergeant.” She snorted and pressed her lips into a thin line, suddenly realizing how similar this conversation was to one she had with her Flight Sergeant back just before everything went crazy in Boston. “I’m cool. I’m cool. I have to get back to the TOC. Rodriguez…Carl’s girlfriend she was working the desk with me. Jeez…she’s gotta be going insane. I’ll get back over there.”
Rodriguez sat in her chair rolling forward and back, one hand scratching at the scars on her throat. “Rodriguez….” Lacey said as he reached out and caught the armrest of the woman’s chair. “Don’t worry. I’m sure he’s fine.”
Rodriguez exploded out of her chair. “How the fuck do you know that?” She paced around inside the office, still scratching at her throat. She felt this strange sticky warmth on her fingertips and frowned. It took her a moment to connect the blood on her fingers to the burning sensation under her chin. “Fuck…”
Lacey leapt up. “Jeez, Rodriguez…take a seat.” He put a hand on the woman’s shoulder and gently guided her back into her chair. Lacey started pawing through the desk drawers frenetically searching the contents while trying act like he was not in the least freaked out by Rodriguez clawing her skin off in front of him. “Damn…not even a fuckin’ Band-Aid or whatever. Hang on. I’ll be right back.”
“It’s…it’s cool, man.” Rodriguez muttered as she reached out and caught the man’s arm. She blew out a long shuddering breath and licked her lips, her throat and mouth drying out and filling with cotton. She found a thing of toilet paper from an MRE in her pocket so she unfolded it and used that to stop her bleeding.
Rodriguez sat there taking long pulls of lukewarm water from her Camelbak and wishing it was filled with beer or maybe a strong mixture of Jack and Coke….a fifth of bourbon or so to two liters of Coke would do the trick about now.
Lacey felt his eyes getting watery as he watched Rodriguez sitting there. She had lost Eamon, her boyfriend or whatever, like a couple of months ago and oh God Laura… Rodriguez was taking this pretty hard but Carl was going to be okay. He just got hurt or whatever… He jumped a little bit when the woman mumbled something under her breath. “I’m sorry, what?”
Rodriguez sighed and made a strange face. “I said I need a goddamn drink.” the woman sighed again and shrugged. She scratched an itch on the side of her nose and let a breath out slowly through her nose. Now’s as good a time as any, I guess… Rodriguez looked the man in the eye. “I’ve been sober for seven months or so. Used to have a little problem with the bottle and pills. Gave me all the morphine I wanted in the hospital. Bastards threw me out on my ass as soon as I could walk again.”
It took him a second but all of a sudden he realized at least part of the reason why Rodriguez had been so moody and depressed while he and Frays were helping her recover from her gunshot wound… They had kept her pretty well doped up on whatever they could dig out of Eamon’s bag of tricks. “Oh, Christ…” Lacey muttered and wiped his mouth with the palm of his hand “Shit…I’m so sorry, Frannie.”
The woman shrugged. “It’s okay. You guys didn’t know.” Rodriguez turned back towards the radio and leafed through the manual on the table. “It isn’t like I told you. And well, the drive to the cabin wouldn’t have been fun… And I don’t really like to advertise it.”
Lacey loosed a small nervous laugh. “Yeah, I guess so…” he muttered and absently scratched at the back of his neck for a moment. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anybody if you don’t want me to. Your secret’s safe with me.”
Rodriguez smiled a little bit and put a hand on his shoulder. “Thanks.” She squeezed his upper arm and took her hand back. Just then Frays burst into the room. The three of them looked at each other for a moment, the woman’s eyes shifting from Lacey to Rodriguez and back again. Frays looked as if she was not sure if she was interrupting something or not.
“Um…Frannie…” Frays said awkwardly as she took a couple steps farther into the room. “Carl’s gonna be okay. Somebody kicked the crap outta him pretty good but he’s gonna be okay.” She smiled at the relieved look on Rodriguez’s face and she walked over, put a hand on her shoulder. “He wants to see you.”
Frays sank into the empty chair after Rodriguez had left. She glanced at the radio then picked up the binder on the desk and started reading. Lacey opened his mouth to say something a couple times but could not think of anything to say. He could tell from the way the woman was sitting and the way she kept running a hand over her son she was obviously upset. He longed to be able to say or do something that would make her feel better.
The door opened and Lacey leapt to his feet. “Officer on deck!” he shouted and snapped to attention. He bit down hard on laughter when Frays followed suit spilling the binder onto the ground with a loud slap.
Major Tennyson stood in the doorway, the middle aged man wearing an amused expression on his usually stony face. “At ease, son.” he said as he took a step inside the room and closed the door behind him. “Airman Frays, I want to speak to you for a minute.”
Frays glanced at Lacey as she put the binder back. The man felt a strange sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach at the slightly worried look in the woman’s eyes. “Yes, sir.” she said as she checked to make sure she had her patrol cap in her cargo pocket. Frays could not help but snatch surreptitious glimpses of the area beyond as she followed Major Zachariah Tennyson back into the lobby and down the hall. She had worked in the radio room a couple times but had never been beyond that before. It was kind of busy and cramped with people going here and there like some kind of beehive or something…if bees wore uniforms.  
“I heard about your brother, Airman.” the compact, muscular Marine said over his shoulder as the two of them walked quickly down the hall. The two of them dodged an Asian man dressed as a Blue Diamond contractor. Tennyson glared at the man for a second as if he were trying to start the man’s head on fire with his mind. “Hope he gets well soon.”
“Thank you, sir.” Frays said, rolling her eyes at the mercenary as she continued following the major. Almost plowing into a pregnant woman was one thing but a friggin’ senior officer? Some people had no respect at all. “I…I guess he was thinking of enlisting.”
Major Tennyson let her into a large room at the end of the hall. It looked like it had been one of the hotel’s higher end rooms once upon a time: there was a large bed in the middle of the room along with a Jacuzzi filled with water. Frays glanced inside the open door that looked like it led to the latrine with its private toilet, sink and combination bathtub and shower. The latrine looked like it was about the size of her cubicle at the Resettlement Center. There was a large flat screen television mounted to the wall and a desk in the corner that was piled high with papers and binders.
The man sat down at the desk in the corner and motioned for her to take a seat on the corner of the bed. “Actually, that’s kinda what I wanted to talk to you about.” 

So! There you go! There's the first chapter of Outbreak: Long Road Back. If you like it be aware that it's coming this Friday and get ready to snatch that bad boy up. If you are so inclined take a moment to write a review on the various books' Amazon pages. I'm a one man operation here so I rely heavily on word of mouth to advertise my stuff. I appreciate it and I give shout outs to all the awesome people who do so here on my blog. I wish I could do more but I can't quite figure out how to get in contact with the individuals who do so... Sorry.