Ch. 4 - Photographs
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Through his entire two minutes shower Danny swore he could hear a woman laughing, the disembodied sound driving him to distraction. He couldn't picture either Wolf or Colin giggling like a girl and, even if he could, there was nothing about the decontamination process - the kind that blasted water and antiseptic soap at you hard enough to kill any virus germs that might have been carried inside, taking off a fair amount of skin in the process - that was conductive to laughter. So either the sound was coming from Ray Diaz, who was in the guard station, or, rather more alarming, Danny was beginning to hear voices.
Tucking his shirt in, Danny stepped through the door to the guard station, relief that he was not certifiable warring with annoyance at the scene before him.
Eighteen-year-old Kat Nolan sat on a desk, foot swinging as she smiled at her twenty-year-old boyfriend. Beside her Ray was paying no attention to the monitors he was supposed to be watching or the door that Danny was walking through, too busy tucking a stray curl behind Kat's ear, causing her to giggle. His face settling into a scowl, Danny felt like an eighty-year-old curmudgeon. At one time he would have found it amusing to watch Ray chase after Kat, the tough military brat drawn both to Kat's physical attractions (something that Danny attempted not to notice as it made him feel like a creeper) and her free-spirited and upbeat personality. But now all Danny could see was the risk posed by Ray's crush on Kat, risks far more severe than a charge of dereliction of duty.
Danny slammed the door closed behind him, watching the two spring apart, Ray's back going ramrod straight. "Commander. We were just..."
"I can see what you were doing," Danny interrupted, tone harsher than he planned. If there was one thing that Danny had learned in over the years, it was that berating someone was rarely effective. Ray was well aware of his shortcomings. Channeling Captain Chandler, Danny forced himself to moderate his voice. "Did you need something, Kat?"
Kat jumped down from the desk, flashing her usual sunny smile in Danny's direction, far less cowed than Ray. Of course, unlike Ray, Kat was not in the process of neglecting her duties. "Doctor Scott asked me to come by and collect the samples from you."
In other words, Doctor Scott was pissed that Danny took so long. The woman was not exactly known for her patience.
"Here you go." Danny passed the yellow case to the teenager, once again considering the unlikely chance that brought Kat, Ray, Colin, and fourteen other teenagers from a summer camp in Alabama to the middle of the Tennessee wilderness.
They had simply appeared at the gate one afternoon a few months after the Nathan James crew arrived, a bunch of kids the first and only group to stumble upon this camp out in the middle of nowhere. Suspicious of an Immune trap, Captain Slattery had been reluctant to admit them at first. Kat was the one who convinced him that they had nothing to do with the Ramseys. According to the girl, her dad called her from somewhere - she wasn't sure where but the connection was bad - right before the phone lines went down and told her to meet him here if he didn't find her first.
Although the story explained how these kids knew about the camp, it raised the question of who Ken Nolan was - and how he knew about a secret military training facility closed twenty years before. Smith was dead by then, so too late to ask him if he knew a Nolan, and nobody else recognized the name, leaving them with more questions than answers. Was the man former special operations? Had he worked or trained here? Why hadn't the man himself appeared, something that Kat was still convinced was just a matter of time? And, if both Ken Nolan and Jason Smith knew about this place, how many other people did as well? For months Captain Chandler doubled the guards, expecting more arrivals, but nothing happened and, like every threat they faced, the concern eventually faded to the background. Never entirely disappearing, but eclipsed by more pressing concerns.
"I passed Kara on my way here. She was headed to the lodge with Mrs. Allen." Kat paused, head tipped to the side as she considered Danny. "I can't make the memorial service but will you let Kara know that I'm thinking about her?"
Ignoring a surge of guilt - he had no intention of appearing at the memorial himself - Danny nodded. "Of course."
With a saucy smile for Ray, Kat ducked out the door, leaving the two men alone until Wolf's shower was finished. Danny narrowed his eyes at Ray, who looked appropriately embarrassed. "Do you need a refresher course on the purpose of guard duty, Seaman Diaz?"
Such an odd was to describe a man who had never been on a Naval vessel. Heck, apparently Ray had never even been out on the ocean in any vessel, having such a weak stomach that he got seasick sailing on a lake.
"No, sir. It won't happen again." Diaz promised. And he probably meant every word. But the next time that Kat walked by, Danny knew that Ray's attention would waver. A pandemic was nothing compared to raging teenage hormones.
"You can make up for it by pulling a double-shift." He studied the young man. "I assume that you have put yourself on Captain Slattery's list."
Ray's face flamed at the mention of this particular list, the one for birth control. "Yes, sir."
Behind them the shower door opened to admit Wolf and, with a nod of his head, Danny exited the guard station. It was a brisk four minute walk back to the command center. Mercifully Carlton restrained himself from launching into the lecture that was no doubt on the tip of his tongue, the one reminding Danny that the protocols for handling infected groups were in place for a reason and that, think what he might, none of them were invincible. It was a lecture that Danny knew well. One that he had given more times than he could recall, most likely the reason that Carlton didn't bother saying anything. Danny already knew exactly what he did wrong.
He just couldn't bring himself to care.
Three hours passed slowly, Danny's eyes wandering to the clock every few minutes, wondering when the news would come. The virus advanced quickly, fevers and coughs beginning within twenty-four hours of exposure. The two men known to be infected were beginning to show symptoms, as expected, but the real question was whether anyone in the group managed to avoid exposure. And the only way to figure that out was to watch who got sick, and who didn't. Danny was about to call for an update when the door opened to admit Ravit, who waddled across the room towards him and Carlton.
Before Danny could ask the question, Ravit held up her hand. "Frankie is with Kara. Mrs. Allen wants to know if you'll be at the memorial ceremony. I told her that I would convey the message."
Not a chance in hell. Not that Mrs. Allen, the chairperson for the camp's elected board of representatives, would take the news well. Luckily he had a perfectly reasonable excuse. "No. Not with the situation outside the gate."
"Which I can monitor," Carlton replied. "They're expecting us to send someone. Captain Chandler went last year. If Captain Slattery was back, he'd go."
Danny wondered whether Slattery deliberately delayed his arrival to avoid the memorial, the type of civilian affair that Slattery hated almost as much as the virus that stole his wife and son.
"Then you go," Danny retorted. Carlton and Ravit were his friends. They shouldn't be forcing him into this position. They should understand why he couldn't go.
Carlton raised an eyebrow. "You're the ranking officer. She'll complain to Captain Chandler if you send someone else. "
Ravit regarded Danny steadily, the way she always did when she was about to put him on his ass. "Kara shouldn't have to do this alone."
Danny clenched his teeth. He expected this type of behavior from Carlton, the man's natural optimism leading him to push Danny into doing things that would be good for him. But Ravit, Ravit was supposed to understand. None of this mattered. It was all just a show, a game they all played pretending that everything was okay. "Fine. But let me know immediately if anything changes."
He dragged his feet on the way the armory to remove and lock up his gear before following the path towards the lodge. He paused outside, studying the missing tiles on the roof and peeling paint, signs of twenty years of neglect. The paint could be ignored now that Doctor Scott confirmed that it wasn't full of lead. The roof, on the other hand, would need to be dealt with before the snow fell. Hopefully Slattery had located some replacement tiles or else they would have to send out another team.
Entering the lodge itself, Danny paused at the doorway, eyes sweeping the large entryway. The memorial was being held here, in the largest community space, and the far wall was covered in pictures, the floor beneath lined with votives. Danny had objected to their use last year, arguing that candles were too precious to waste on the dead, but Captain Chandler overruled him. And as Danny stared at the wall, he understood the Captain's position. There was something about the flickering lights that turned the space from a common room into a church.
Or at least something more than a fifty-year-old conference room with faded wallpaper and ragged curtains.
Kara stood on the left side of the room, Frankie in her arms. Danny moved through the crowd towards her, responding automatically to who addressed him. Nodding at the comments - good to see you Commander, thank you for your service, God Bless. Smiling at the children who saluted him. Pausing to pat the hands that clutched at his arm or to accept the handshakes offered, voices gushing as people thanked him - thanked him - for keeping them safe. Every word, every gesture like a knife to the chest.
These people trusted him, believed in him, thought that there was a plan to keep them safe. They had no idea that he was just as lost as they were, stumbling through each day, his only goal to make it to the next. Keeping them safe by killing others. Danny stopped two feet from Kara, his eyes draw to the pictures on the wall before her. The ones that he knew she had added.
The first one was Alisha, puppy in her lap, smiling radiantly at the camera. According to Kara, the picture was taken days before the Nathan James left for the Arctic, Sarah having adopted the puppy to keep her company while Alisha was at sea. Next to Alisha was Gator, wearing a t-shirt and jeans, far more casual in death than Danny ever remembered seeing him in life. Both looked happy in their pictures, carefree and hopeful, the opposite of the last time Danny saw them. Coughing. Covered in boils. Blood pouring from every edifice until Doctor Scott finally put them out of their misery with a shot of morphine. Why had he put them in charge of recovering the communications equipment? Why hadn't he told them to forget it and run? The two never stood a chance, running directly into Niels Sorensen, the sick bastard.
The day that Ravit put a bullet through that contagious asshole's head was a day of celebration.
To the right of Gator's picture was one of Commander Barker, his arm around his wife's shoulders, children on each of their laps. Their youngest was here, actually, in the group of children chosen to sing at the memorial. In the unlikeliest of chances, Stella had a terrible cough the night of the attack and Barker brought her by the improvised hospital to see Doc Rios, concerned it was bronchitis. When the alarms went off, Rios evacuated with Stella and the other patients while Barker returned for his wife and son, all three gunned down before they could make their escape.
Eyes moving to the next picture, Danny's throat caught at the unexpected sight. It was his team - he, Benz, Berchem, and Smith - a picture taken in Iraq a year before they joined the Nathan James, the four of them in uniform, kneeling in the sand. Scanning over the wall of pictures, seeing a sea of faces looking back at him, Danny realized that this memorial was about more than the one-hundred-sixty-three people lost in the raid two years ago. It was about everyone, and everything, they had lost since the Red Flu turned the world unrecognizable.
"Daddy!" Frankie had caught sight of him, her arms outstretched so she could climb from her mother to her father. Hefting her up, Danny marveled in how solid Frankie was, so different from the frail, feeble children he saw only hours earlier.
Forcing a smile, Danny kissed her nose. "Hi sweetheart."
"Mommy was showing me Grandma," Frankie replied cheerfully. "She's dead."
Danny's eyes flew to Kara, not expecting such a stark statement from his daughter. Tears glittering in her eyes, Kara stretched out her hand to Danny, intertwining their fingers, the show of affection uncharacteristic given that they were in public and in uniform. "I was telling Frankie about how Grandma Debbie and I would ride horses together when I was a little girl."
Kara gestured to the small polaroid pinned to the wall, faded from time. Debbie was smiling, her arm wrapped around her only child, the two standing before the farmhouse in Kansas where Kara was raised. Danny felt a familiar sense of guilt. One minute Debbie was there, right behind them, and the next she was gone. Lost in the panic and confusion of the evacuation, Danny too focused on Kara and Frankie to notice that Debbie was no longer there. He had looked - they had all looked once it was safe to go back, to search for survivors - but she was simply gone, disappearing into the night without a trace.
He still wondered which was worse for Kara. Knowing that her best friend was infected, dying, and there was nothing anyone could do to save her. Or realizing that her mother might still be out there, lost and alone, but equally helpless as the hours ticked down until it was time to move on to their next temporary home.
Because that was the rule. Forty-eight hours from the sound of the alarm to make it to the rally point. A blood test to check for infection. And when the deadline passed, they moved on. No forwarding address. No exceptions. Out of the four-hundred-seventy-nine people at the camp at Deer Park, only three-hundred-sixteen left the rally point. The next stop had been this camp, a thirty-four hour drive, and Kara stared out the window the entire trip, each mile they traveled a reminder of who they were leaving behind.
"I want to ride a horse, Daddy," Frankie continued, her innocence tearing at Danny's heart. In another world, a world without the virus, such a request would have made him laugh. His little girl asking a pony. But not now. Not when there was every possibility that Frankie would never see a pony - or the world outside of these walls.
"Maybe someday, curly-sue."
"My name isn't Sue!" Frankie responded indignantly.
"It isn't? I could have sworn it was..." Danny tugged at one of Frankie's curls, causing her to giggle.
"Daddy!"
"Daddy's just teasing you, Frankie," Kara interjected before Frankie got too loud. Looking up, Danny found Kara watching him, her expression unreadable. "Thank you for coming."
He could barely form the words over the lump in his throat. "I would do anything for you."
Kara squeezed his hand. "I know."
"Can I have your attention!" Mrs. Allen's voice rang out, the murmuring in the room quickly dying. "We will start with a moment of prayer. Chaplin?"
Danny bowed his head, fixing a look of polite interest on his face as the man began to speak. Wondering whether next year he would be adding Eddie's picture to that wall.