Ch. 1 - Memories
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The squeak woke him.
The one that Kara complained about every time she opened the door to the small hunting cabin. The one that Danny refused to fix. Because that sound was all he needed to be completely awake, gun up and ready to put a bullet in the intruder's chest. Next to him Kara lay perfectly still, arms cradled around three-year-old Frankie, but Danny knew that she was awake, prepared to duck and run if he gave the signal. The one that might come at any moment, signaling that the enemy had invaded their ranks and their current home, this camp deep in the Tennessee wilderness, was no longer safe. Two years may have passed since the last time that they were chased from their beds, but neither Danny or Kara would forget how quickly it all went bad, or how much they lost that night.
"Just me, Commander," came Wolf Taylor's distinctive Australian accent. Danny still felt uncomfortable with the title. The promotion earned not through skill but luck, the good fortune of not being dead.
"Next time knock." Danny lowered his weapon, swinging his legs off the side of the bed and reaching for the clothes that sat in a neat stack on the nightstand. When Smith mentioned this training camp, one long abandoned by the military, following the disaster in Virginia, it had seemed like a God-send. Somewhere for Doctor Scott to work on the cure, hidden from the Russians and Granderson and the Immunes. A safe place to regroup. But as the months turned into years, Danny began to see the camp less as a refuge than a prison, a castle under siege, giving them only the illusion of safety.
Wolf waited until Danny was done dressing. "We have visitors."
"I take it the Captain and XO are still gone?"
Both Captains Chandler and Slattery were off on supply missions. Captain Slattery's was the more critical, in Danny's view, an attempt to locate provisions to stock the shelves for the quickly approaching winter. Feeding twelve-hundred mouths was no joke, and there was no telling how many more would arrive in the coming months, hungry, ravaged by weather, with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Captain Chandler's mission, on the other hand, was to locate some replacement equipment for Doctor Scott. At one time they would have dropped everything to make sure the Doctor Scott had what she needed for her work but, after four years of failure, Danny was not the only one who no longer believed it was possible to stop the Red Flu. All they could do was stay hidden, waiting for the day when the virus burned itself out, killing so many people that it had nowhere left to spread.
"Yes, sir."
"I'll be out in a minute." Waiting for Wolf to exit, Danny took a moment to rest his hand on his daughter's blonde curls, watching her chest rise and fall as she slumbered. Frankie was used to middle of the night interruption as one or both of her parents were called away. This world that seemed so foreign to Danny, one filed with so much chaos and uncertainty, being the only one that she had ever known. "You two stay safe."
But Kara must have sensed his inner turmoil, setting her hand on top of his before he could move. "We're not out yet, Danny. Eventually we will find a way to fight this."
Leaning over, Danny captured her lips in a quick kiss before he rose, knowing she wasn't fooled but unable to offer anything more. Not tonight, when the losses and failures of the past hung so heavy on his shoulders. Joining Wolf outside, Danny once again considered the strategic benefit of living in one of the small perimeter cabins rather than the main lodge. The cabin was larger, of course, and offered much more privacy but more importantly it was across the camp from the gate, giving them time to escape in case of an accidental breach. On the flip side, walking through the quiet cabins at this time of night, Danny was reminded how easily it would be for someone to sneak in and infect them with the virus, sentencing them to death before they even knew there was a problem.
"What are we looking at?" The late October air was crisp, reminding Danny of fall in Connecticut.
"Twenty-two survivors, about half children. None of them appear sick." The unspoken 'yet' hung between the two men.
"Okay, standard protocol." They stopped at the armory for Danny to grab the rest of his gear, the stuff Kara deemed too dangerous to keep at the cabin with a curious preschooler around. There was always the risk that he wouldn't have time to gather his equipment where they to leave in a hurry, but as with everything these days, it was a choice between bad and worse. There were never any good options.
Wolf waited for him to finish before speaking again. "People are planning a memorial for later today. Thought you should know."
Danny closed his eyes, doing his best to block out the memories of that night. The screams, the panic, the frantic searching in the darkness. And later, Kara's heartbreaking sobs when they figured out who had made it safely out – and who hadn't.
Not for the first time, Danny thanked his lucky stars that they ran into Wolf upon the Nathan James' return to Norfolk. Not only had the man saved his ass on multiple occasions, but he was also a good friend. Now that Danny knew what was going on, he could avoid the lodge, not wanting to see any of their pictures, eyes staring at him reproachfully, demanding to know why he didn't do more, why he didn't go back, why he let them die.
"Commander." Teylor Cruz nodded as Danny joined him and Walker in the small guard house, Wolf trailing behind him. Danny began the elaborate process of donning his hazmat suit. Not the flimsy ones they used originally, but ones commandeered from the CDC. Too late to help Smith or Morales, but standard for all out-of-gate trips now because of what happened to them.
"Our visitors giving you any trouble?" Danny asked.
About half the groups did. Yelling, swearing, trying to force their way through the gate. A few even brought guns. But those inside the gate had learned their lesson, the days of refusing to fire on civilians were long gone. Until those survivors were cleared by Doctor Scott, they were the enemy and were treated as such.
"Nope. Leader is a Marine. Seems to have them trained well," Teylor replied.
"Keep a bead on him," Danny replied, grabbing the CDC case and moving towards the first set of doors that would allow him outside. Power was a problem when they first arrived, especially with Doctor Scott needing her coolers running full time to protect the primordial strain. Fortunately, Chung came through, rigging a combination of solar and wind power, backed up by generators, which allowed them to keep both the lab and the decontamination room running.
It took roughly ten minutes before Danny emerged outside the wall, quickly taking in his surroundings. There was nothing unusual about the group itself, several armed adults around the perimeter, the children and a few women carrying small children in the middle, all of them regarding him warily. What was unusual was that Danny recognized the man striding towards him.
"Eddie?"
It took Eddie longer, his view obstructed by Danny's mask. "Danny? Danny Green? That really you?"
Eddie Ward. A friend from a different time, a different place, a different life, but still a friend. And if Eddie was here, maybe there was hope for the others he left behind, for his parents and siblings. He had made his choice three years ago when the Nathan James docked in Norfolk after returning from the Arctic, the choice to remain with Kara and Frankie rather than join the group that left to search for their families. But there were times when he wondered what he might have found, when he envied those who had gone because, good news or bad, at least they knew, no longer haunted by the question.
Setting down the bright yellow case, Danny stretched out his hand despite Wolf's voice over the comm asking him what the hell he was doing. "It's me."
Eddie grasped his hand like a lifeline. "We heard it was safe here. We've been traveling all summer, avoiding the warlords, but winter is getting close and we can't go further south without running into that wacky cult. Think you could let us in? We can work. Farm, hunt, stand guard. Whatever you need."
The desperation in his voice clawed at Danny. Eddie saw the camp as a sanctuary, yet nowhere was really safe, the camp merely another illusion.
"Can't let anyone in without a blood draw. But once our doctors make sure you aren't infected, you are all welcome. We can always use more help, especially guys with training." And if Danny wasn't mistaken, based on the way these men were handling their weapons, Eddie was not the only one in his group who had a military past.
His announcement drew smiles, the slightly relaxation of the guards, the quick murmur of conversation, the group sure they were clear. It was a confidence Danny did not share. How many times had he seen this same happy reaction, only to learn that they were infected, unaware that they were already dead?
"How long will it take?" Eddie asked.
"I brought the equipment to do the blood draws now. This many people, we should know by the end of the day." Danny stopped, his eyes drawn to a woman standing in the middle of the group clutching a small boy. "Is that Amber?"
Eddie waved his wife to join them, the boy on her hip a mini version of his father. Danny swallowed. The boy was tiny, smaller than Frankie even though he was more than a year older. Was Tyler naturally small? Or was lack of food and medical care the reason for his diminutive size? Amber was crying, moving as though she meant to hug Danny, only to realize that his suit made it impossible.
"You have no idea how happy I am that we ran into that Navy captain. Is your family here?"
That was how most people found the camp, which was tucked in the middle of a wilderness preserve previously off-limits to all but the occasional bird watchers, deliberately hidden so there would not be too many questions about what the military was doing here. Danny guessed that Slattery was the one who sent them in this direction. The man had a weak spot for kids.
"My wife and daughter are. I haven't heard from anyone else from Cornwall. Do you know anything?"
Eddie shook his head. "We were in the Berkshires with Amber's family when the phone lines went down."
Amber's face dimmed at the thought, then brightened. "Daughter? How old?"
"Three. A year younger than Tyler." Danny's throat caught as he looked at the little boy clutching at his mother's shirt. "You look just like your daddy, young man. I bet you're as tough as he is too."
That drew a chuckle from Eddie, but one that was laced with sadness. "He's tougher."
The boy buried his head in his mother's shoulder, the sight of Danny's suit no doubt terrifying. "That's why we have to be so careful about letting people in. The kids."
"We understand. We do." Eddie was smiling but the strain was back. The desperation. Maybe he really did understand, maybe not, but the rules were the rules and Danny wasn't going to bend them for anyone. "I'll go first."
It took almost an hour to collect the swabs, hampered as Danny was by the suit. He stopped next to Eddie, holding out his hand once again. "There's food, water, blankets and some other supplies next to the door. Just wait for me to get through before you start distributing them. I'll let you know once I get the results."
"Thank you, thank you, Danny." It was Amber, tears of joy in her eyes.
Danny wondered if his eyes reflected his guilt, knowing that if these results came back positive for the Red Flu, he would never come this close to Eddie or Amber or Tyler again. He would tell them the news from the safety of the guard booth, ignoring their denials, ignoring their pleas, ignoring their cries, ignoring the fact that these were his friends, simply waiting for them to die.
Because better twenty-two dead people outside the camp than twelve-hundred dead people inside it.
The trip back to the gate felt like a lifetime, the ten minutes through decontamination another one, before he emerged on the other side where Kara, rather than Cruz, waited for him. She took the box of samples, passing them to Walker to deliver to Doctor Scott who, despite the hour, was no doubt already in her lab, alerted to the new arrivals by someone at the camp.
"Where's Frankie?"
Seeing Kara here made him twitchy, the compulsion to know where his daughter was almost overpowering. When Frankie was little, Kara would strap the little girl to her body when she left their room, so Danny never needed to worry about the two being separated in an emergency, never needed to consider the horrifying possibility of Frankie being left behind if containment was breached. But as Frankie grew older and more mobile, that arrangement worked less and less, requiring them to rely on a small circle of people to take care of their daughter. People they could trust with Frankie's life should something happen while Danny and Kara were both gone.
It was a short list.
"With Carlton and Ravit," Kara explained as she helped him remove his hazmat suit. Danny felt his anxiety ebb. Frankie would be safe there. "Wolf said you know some of the arrivals."
Of course he did. There were times when Wolf's inability to mind his own business got annoying.
"A childhood friend. Guy named Eddie Ward. I've mentioned him before."
"I remember. You grew up together. A Marine, right?"
Danny's eyes closed as the memories flooded him. Images of he and Eddie playing Little League, riding bikes to the penny store, getting drunk at Eddie's bachelor party, smoking cigars to celebrate Tyler's impending arrival, each memory a reminder of what a good guy – a good friend – Eddie had always been. A friend that Danny might have to watch die. "That's the guy. He's here with his wife and son."
"How old?" The question was quiet. The children got to all of them.
"Four."
The way her breath hitched, her eyes falling closed for a second, told him she was just as affected as he was, but Kara caught herself, her arm threading through his, directing him outside. "We won't know for a few hours. Let's go home."
The walk to the cabin was silent. Once there, Kara helped him strip down, following him under the covers, cuddling up next to him in the now-cold bed. But when her hands slid under his t-shirt, he moved to stop her.
"No condoms," he reminded her, no need to point out that her last birth control shot was well more than three months ago. She knew. There was just nothing she could do about it. No matter how much Captain Chandler prioritized birth control – and he had since the rash of unplanned pregnancies in year one – there was never enough to go around.
But Kara didn't stop, maneuvering his shirt over his head before pulling off her own shirt, letting it flutter to the floor as she straddled him. "We'll have to risk it."
"What would we do with a baby?"
Kara didn't hesitate. "Love it, just like we love Frankie."
The words caught in his chest, making it hard to breathe. "I don't know if I can. I don't know if I have anything left to give."
"But I know that you do." She cupped his face, her lips laying butterfly kisses on his forehead, his cheeks, his lips, kissing away the tears that he could no longer hold back. "None of this is your fault, Danny. Not tonight. Not last week. Not two years ago. None of it."
And just like that the damn broke, the tears turning into sobs – sobs of pain, of guilt, of loss, and of hopelessness. And then, almost inevitably, the grief turned into an overpowering need to hold her, to kiss her, to touch her, to reassure himself that he was still alive, that he wasn't alone, that he still had Kara and Frankie.
Desperate to have a minute of peace before the next knock came, and he found out whether he would, once again, serve as the messenger of death.