OUTBREAK: ZERO is a semi post-apocalyptic pandemic roleplay set in the fictional city of Lethford, USA. Current season: Winter, 20/21.
March 2020. The world is in pandemonium as one month ago, GHNv-20 was confirmed, five months after the beginning of norovirus season. The number of the infected are in the higher hundred thousands, and the death toll is at an estimated 250,000, with about seventy percent of the rest of the population experiencing mild to moderate illnesses connected to the S. pyogenes bacteria.
The fear of the unknown has caused mass hysteria and panic.
In an attempt to provide a semblance of safety and control, military personnel patrol the streets, even here in Lethford City, and the police force is trying to keep up with the rising street violence, assault, and theft.
Welcome to OUTBREAK: zero. Will you survive?
HAYANA
SITE OWNER + HEAD ADMINISTRATOR
Hi! I'm Haya. I'm pretty much your girl for everything! If you have any questions regarding our plot, membergroups, etc. don't hesitate to ask me. I'm also in charge of coding, graphics, anything skin related, and advertising/affiliates.
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ADDI
ADMINISTRATOR
Hey! I'm Addi. Hit me up if you need help with anything. I'm always for plotting so don't be shy. I like coffee, booze, and working out. I'm back from a long hiatus the dead so if you need anything, best ask the others until I get back into the groove of things!
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FINNLEY
GLOBAL MODERATOR
Hi hello! My name is Finnley, or Finn, call whichever and I'll be there for you (yes like the FRIENDS theme song). I am in charge of the claims and helping with miscellaneous things. Let me know if you have any questions!
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outbreak
/ˈaʊtbreɪk/ zero /ˈzɪərəʊ/
a sudden occurrence of something unwelcome, such as war or disease. number, no quantity or number; nought; the figure 0.
A shower had never felt so good. She hadn’t realized just how yucky the dead things had made her feel until she was stepping out of the shower, clean and ready to put on clean clothes. Her uniform had been left in a pile on the floor unceremoniously and she simply balled it up into a tighter mess in the corner as she dried off and stepped into Thomas’s clothes.And as she stepped out of the bathroom in the oversized clothes she was very aware of the fact that she was going commando. She wasn’t going to put on her death panties again! But she was certain that there weren’t any holes in the sweats he’d given her.
She had missed the look of mortification on his face when she’d invaded his home. But then again, Brooke was fairly oblivious to the world around her, particularly when it came to body language or reading expressions. And there was no reason she could think of that would cause a problem with showering there. She was toweling off her hair, head bent to one side when he spoke to her. But all she could do was scoff at how incredulous he was being, ”Military police. Police have to deal with dead bodies. And I found one today.” She said it casually, mostly because she felt like that somehow elevated her cool factor.
When she was halfway to the couch he asked about the picnic and Brooke stopped, scoffing and throwing her arms down, ”Oh my god you were going to blow me off! What the hell, thomas!” She frowned at him and the rest of the way to the couch she stomped just a little bit, probably only managing to disturb his downstairs neighbors than have any sort of effect on him. She stepped up onto his couch and then folded herself so that her feet were underneath her as he questioned her about the body. Brooke looked around and creased her brow, ”Food?”
But she didn’t see any and instead snuggled down into the cushion and went on, ”I was on the way to the picnic and I got lost- big surprise, I know. My phone had no signal. These outages are getting worse.” She gave pause to let him tease her if he wanted and then went on, ”So I pulled over and I was trying to get signal and then, boom. Body in the woods. And when the police got there they said that it wasn’t the first one found in that same area.” She paused, glancing up at him and hesitating before going on, ”I think they said one or two of them worked at the same place you do.”
Brooke was fairly certain that she smelled like a dead body. When she’d stumbled upon that body in the woods she didn’t know what she had been signing up for. Sure, the young soldier had inserted herself into the investigation, complete with her own insistence that as the one to discover the body that she be brought in to things. And then she’d gone to the morgue and spoken with the coroner and it all smelled very strongly of preservatives and dead things.
She could only hope that the smell didn’t stick to the food in the passenger’s seat too.
Pulling the mask off her face, she texted Thomas and told him that she was coming and bringing food. The N95 hung from her rearview mirror and, thankfully, her phone’s GPS was working. She wouldn’t get lost this time. No more bodies...for now. The phone was thrown onto the passenger’s seat so that it could screech commands at her from there while she drove and bobbed her head to Ed Sheeran. Her lips moved and she mumbled the lyrics, only slowing when she got to his complex and knowing, then, that she’d spend another ten minutes looking for parking on the busy street. With a groan the mask went back around her sore ears and she grabbed the food, her phone, her purse, and her coat. It was an impressive balancing act that had someone opening the door for her and Brooke calling her thanks as she crossed to the elevator.
Her elbow pressed the button. Full hands were smart during a pandemic, and then was stepping out on the third floor a little bit later. Down to his apartment, Brooke kicked the door and when it opened she held out the food to him, ”Can I use your shower? I smell like death.” She didn’t wait for him to answer. She dropped her other things on the end seat of his couch and was unbuttoning her uniform to reveal the undershirt beneath it even before she got to the bathroom. Arching out of the doorway she called, ”Could I borrow some clothes too, maybe? I’ll bring them back, I promise.” and with that her heel kicked the door shut and she turned on the shower. Those clothes would definitely never get back to him, though.
When she emerged she smelled like him and dressed in the clothes he’d set on the counter while she showered. Brooke was toweling off her hair and left the towel in the bathroom when she finally emerged. ”Old bodies smell so much worse than fresh ones. Like drained of the blood and then they just smell stale and chemical’y?!” She made a sort of gagging sound and shook her head, ”idk how you science people handle it.” Stopping in the middle of his living room she gave him a grin, ”Sorry about ruining our picnic.”
With every step toward him her insides twisted up tighter. Brooke wouldn’t be surprised if he got up and left, unwilling to share a space with her because it transported him right back to the moments before the ambush and the firefight. Because it took her right back. She could feel her body tightening up, her fight or flight engaging so that she could save herself from whatever would come up. Because it hadn’t just been one combat encounter with Meiks, there were several. It only took the one to cause deep trauma and ache and change lives forever, though. And they’d been the unlucky ones to hit that lottery.
When he jumped up to attention she was surprised but the look faded to delight. ”Wow, it’s been a while since I had a man jump at attention for me. At ease, soldier.” Brooke teased him, set the beer down and offered him some friendly ribbing. He took it and shot back at her. As a woman in the military she knew all about the fraternizing rules and just the sort of men that shoved them aside. Having one of them defend himself with it was refreshing. ”Well then I hope no one sees us sharing beers. The last thing you need is anymore disciplinary action.” She knew all about his troubled past and knew just how good the military had been for him. It usually was for people like him.
Adam explained how he landed in Lethford and her eyes glanced to his arm and then gave a nod, ”I guess there are worse places to end up after an injury.” There was a knowing sort of tone to her words that seemed to say ‘at least you had to option to go anywhere at all’. Death was their reality, another sick lottery everyone in their rank and station participated in. The mention of retirement made her laugh and she took a sip of her beer, ”Retirement. God, I forgot how fucking old you are.” Brooke smirked at him behind her can. It was so easy to slip right back into the teasing and the joking that came from tours together. But awkward silence settled between them again and she took deeper drinks of her beer to fill it up.
It was his turn to ask about her and she shifted when he asked about her familiarity with the area, ”Uh, I mean I guess. I’m actually pretty shit with directions. Unless it’s the ten miles around my childhood home I’m no better than anyone else..” She went on sheepishly, ”I got lost just last week, actually. It was not my..finest moment.” Brooke reclined a little bit, ”But if it’s secret haunts and best spots to hike to or camp, I’m definitely your girl. Cadets and untethered parenting from my mom and dad mean I know the best overlooks for what some might have called illegal activities for person’s under the age of 21.” She smiled a little, ”Or maybe just for a quiet escape, now that almost everything is legal at our age.”
She had to give the guy credit, he was particularly chill considering she was ready to arrest him and stick him into a military holding cell until one of the superior officers got around to signing the paperwork that would let him out. He joked about Area 51 and she narrowed her eyes, not at all cracking a smile despite the fact that this sort of behavior was exactly the kind he might have gotten up to if she weren’t in the Army. He asked if it would help and she considered, ”It might involve a lot more probing, so I guess it’s up to your preference.”
And then they were off, the kid running and Brooke giving chase. It wasn’t every day a civilian snuck into the warehouses and, if she were honest, she might admit that she was thankful for a break in the mundane. There was no sense of foreboding or anticipation of death in a city like Lethford, pandemic or otherwise. Not like what it had been like in Iraq. At least there even on the slow days spent around basecamp there was the concern that it might be the very last slow day of your life. He screamed, she scoffed, and when he turned back around she shook her head, ”It’s almost mean to restrain you.” But his hands were going up and she was pulling the cuffs from her waist.
He exposed his plan to her and she gave a nod, ”I wouldn’t even be mad, I’d be impressed. Let’s see it, space boy.” It only gave her time to stall, to shift the cuffs between her hands. But nothing happened and she tilted her head as she motioned for him to give her his wrists, ”Don’t worry, you’ll get your phone call. But I have to know..what was the point? What did you expect to happen here?” If he complied she would be gentle with the cuffs, glancing up at one of the cameras in the warehouse and motioning that it was all under control. ”Are you one of those conspiracy theorists trying to prove that these warehouses are full of virus and it’s really the government controlling the world with it? Because sorry to disappoint, it’s just emergency rations.”
Brooke stood in line at the convenience store, her black mask over her face and her eyes avoiding the looks given to her. She was dressed in her fatigues, pants tucked into her boots, shirt tucked and buttoned up to the neck, and hair in a high tight bun on top of her head. She was off duty, finally, and had stopped on her way back to the barracks for beer. There was nothing that combated the mundane day-to-day of Lethford City like beer. Besides, when her mind was fuzzy it pushed away the darker thoughts about the bleak end of the world they were facing and how lonely her exit out of it would be.
It was time for her to face the music. She’d been back in Lethford for months and had seen him over and over again. Adam was a face she would always remember. She saw it in the night terrors and the good dreams. He was there with her worst memories and her best ones. It made his face one of the ones that she wanted to avoid most of all. And over the last several months she had done a good job of it. Brooke stayed busy enough to keep from feeling guilty about it, though. But it was clear none of this was going away anytime soon. And as things escalated it was important she confronted his memory, his presence before she was forced to do it while on duty.
And so she as getting beer. She reached the front of the line and responded to the cashier with one-word answers and grunts in reply, waves for goodbye’s and a sign she didn’t need a receipt and then she was gone, making the drive the rest of the way to the barracks. She’d texted another soldier, checking to see if he was there and the confirmation had set her plans into motion. Once there she put the government-issues vehicle away and made her way inside to shower and dress down. And just a few minutes later she was wandering into one of the many common areas with her cold case of beer, hair wet and dressed from her fatigues and into a pair of leggings and a long army t-shirt that was baggy enough to hide her figure.
She approached him, catching his eye and giving a nod as she spoke, ”Meiks.” It was a greeting and Brooke set the beer down in front of him, sitting across from him and getting to work opening it, ”I know I’m cute but you didn’t have to follow me to Lethford. I mean, come on, I thought you were a man of action.” She pulled out a can for herself and waved to it for him to help himself, ”I always wonder what people think of the place. Considering I grew up here, and all.” The can hissed as she opened it, taking a long drink and avoiding his gaze as she tried to pretend like this wasn’t incredibly awkward.
She’d been escorted out of the yellow tape once her statement was taken, but Brooke wasn’t going anywhere. The body looked unmarred, whatever had caused the death wasn’t physical, or not obviously so. Even asphyxiation would leave post-mortem bruising. She had seen that before first hand. Flexing her credentials and her position didn’t get her far with the patrol officers who were really only concerned with securing the scene, though. They all reassured her that the detective that held the case would make the call as to what her involvement would be there.
Really, she just wanted someone else to say it was weird. Brooke approached with all the posturing she’d learned from her years in the military. Shoulders back, chin tilted up a touch, but not so much that she might appear to believe herself in greater authority over the detective. It would be a delicate balance of submission and confidence. And she didn’t catch the way her eyes moved over the soldier. Distaste was clear. The detective wouldn’t be thrilled the military was there. It twisted her stomach up a little bit and Brooke refrained from pointing out the look and reminding Detective Traver that they were all on the same side. But it was easier for the world to make the military the bad guy, even others in public service roles.
”Thanks, Detective.” she touched her chest as she went on, ”You can call me Brooke.” she offered a half smile and ducked under the tape, stepping forward and wincing when she said that it wasn’t the first body found in the woods. Brooke shook her head, sighing, ”And they’re all like this? Relatively unscathed, as far as obvious physical injuries go?” She frowned. Her next question would be to internal damages. And if that, too, proved fruitless then maybe stomach contents? Puncture spots? Poison or overdoses? She thought through all of that, almost missing the question pointed to her.
Brooke glanced over again, ”I was lost. Looking for a spot in the woods to get a good view of the sun and the shadows to try and reorient myself. The cell service is spotty everywhere, but out here it’s almost nonexistent, at least for civilian carriers.” She knew that the radios and frequencies that the police and military worked with had a little more juice than the lines and services offered to the general public. And that day, she was just another civilian. She followed to the edge of the spot where the CSI were working to collect evidence and take pictures and stopped there, waiting for permission from the detective to approach any closer. ”So is it like the other ones? Does Lethford have a serial killer and a pandemic happening?”
Was it justified? The police state, the curfews, the raids, whatever it was they all got up to at their big fancy lab? Brooke kept her eyes on Thomas as she considered the question. It was rhetorical, but it was the kind that she had to contemplate over and over again in her life. She had been put into positions more questionable and compromising than the one she found herself in back at home. They were the kind of questions soldiers asked each other at 2 in the morning when the laughter and the ribbing settled and the weight of their actions settled onto them. For some of them, the weight was crushing. But Brooke answered him the same way she answered Charlie when he’d ask the same thing, her voice soft and sincere, ”We’re all just doing our best, Tommy.”
The coffee was handed over, the number secured, and they had barely pulled away when he was protesting. Brooke didn’t hesitate to erupt into laughter, scoffing and glancing over at him, ”Come on, she’s cute! Don’t be such a prude.” She glanced back behind her before checking the street she intended to turn out onto for oncoming traffic. ”Did we really go to high school with her? Because I definitely don’t remember seeing her ever.” She kept it light, teasing him and enjoying the way he squirmed beside her. A hand went on her coffee cup so that she could keep it from sloshing. But he wasn’t enjoying the teasing and as she pulled out into traffic she settled into a lane and picked up her cup to take a sip.
Normally, coffee was far too bitter for her. But when the cold brew was smoother and as he explained that he just wanted to be alone she lifted the cup to watch the cream at the top swirl down to mix with the dark brew. She glanced over at him as he swirled his drink and mimicked him, sure that it would do something. She took another drink and gave an impressed sort of ‘hm’ before she spoke up, ”Well sorry, but you’re stuck with me.” She glanced over at him and gave a little smirk as she nudged him. ”I’m back and I can only take so much of the meatheads in my unit, so even if you make me sit outside, you’re officially my quarantine bubble.”
She paused, his office building looming at the end of the block and she slowed as the traffic built up, ”We should hike, do something to get the blood pumping, you know? This weekend, I’m off duty, I can pick you up.”
Brooke did like her job. She liked it a lot more when she felt like she was changing the world instead of managing it. In a combat zone there were days that felt like nothing at all happened, but then sometimes you’d liberate a small village from insurgents and turn back on the running water and the whole place would turn into one big water fight in the hot desert. Even in 20 pounds of gear, there was nothing better. But then there was the ambush, the demotion that they framed as otherwise, and back home in Lethford things were anything but exciting. She was a glorified security guard. The police didn’t like having them there, the civilians saw them as looming enforcers...and then there were things like this.
The young man she’d watched tumble over the fence over and over was just as scrawny as he’d been depicted in the CCTV footage. And when he raised his hands over his head she snorted and tilted her head, ”Are you claiming you’re an alien now? Just so I can be sure I’m following the narrative right.” She was relaxed. This young man wasn’t any sort of threat for an experienced soldier. And there wasn’t exactly anything in the warehouse that would cause a stir. It was all relief supplies for if things got worse. He asked about cuffs and she laughed, ”I keep those ones in the nightstand, sorry.” Brooke waved a hand then pointed a finger and motioned for him to twirl, ”Come on, if you resist it’s a lot more paperwork.”
But then he screamed, did exactly the opposite of what she had asked him to do. And his stupid phrase worked. For a second her mind was busy trying to process what the hell that could have meant. She decided it was some sort of attempt at following her d&d joke through, but was this his dice roll? Because if this was a check of her agility against his she had to guess that she would win. Brooke tucked the cuffs back into her waist and took off, ”The paperwork!!” She called after him, her heavy boots echoing through the warehouse as she took off to follow him. Her weapon at her hip remained holstered but for a second she considered pulling it out. She hadn’t fired a weapon outside of a range since the ambush, though. And she wasn’t certain that even if he threatened her life she’d be able to do it.
There was no threat, though, just a chase, and when she saw the man cut around a crate Brooke dashed the other way so that when he popped around the side she was ahead of him. She gave him an excited grin and winked, ”I could do this all day, my dude. Where are you even gonna go? Give it up.”
There were things about Brooke that could be described as quirky. For example, she couldn’t seem to find her way even in her home town sometimes. There was a fifteen-block area that she knew like the back of her hand but beyond that she relief on her phone’s GPS. And with the way that carrier signals were failing she was lucky if it worked. The government vehicles were different, their satnav was never disrupted and so the drive to Prism would be fine. Otherwise their little detour might have really thrown her and then she’d have to admit that even as a grown-ass woman she still could exclusively find her way home or to the local watering hole.
He was cringing about her living situation and she glanced over, ”Technically I’ve got my own space, they have us spread out. But there are communal areas. And it’s better than sleeping on the ground when it’s over 100 degrees out with the sun down.” But he brought up the riot and she sobered a little bit, glancing over and giving a nod, ”Well yeah. I do my own thing when I’m off duty. When I’m on I...do that kind of thing.” She leaned her elbow on the door, hand going onto the side of her head to prop it up. ”I’ll take escorting a squint every day over those riots.. I hate feeling like the civilians are the enemy. Or anyone thinking that we’re the bad guys.” Brooke didn’t glance over at him as she went on musingly, ”No one has ever lived through something of this scope, you know? Like no one knows what the right thing to do is. We’re all just trying to do our best. I think people forget that sometimes.”
The line moved and she shifted her foot off the break to pull up a little more so that they were approaching the menu. He knew exactly what he wanted and she just grimaced at the menu as she tried to decipher what it was it all said. He asked if she knew what she wanted and she shook her head a little, ”I don’t know...the coffee overseas was chunky. And then when I was in Europe it turned my stomach when I tried it….” she glanced over at his suggestion and looked uncertain, ”Irish Cream cold brew?” Brooke swallowed and glanced back at the menu. She snatched his card and leaned out the window to order. The perky barista had her giving Thomas a look and when they pulled up to the window she was cute, about their age and with red hair that fell to her waist. She had big brown eyes and am impressive hourglass shape.
Thomas’ card as tucked into the door of the car and she gave the girl hers. And when she moved away from the window she glanced over at Tommy and grinned. Her head nodded to the girl, ”Hey, she’s cute.” Brooke winked, ”I’m gonna get her number for you. Just wear a condom with the mask.” But before he could protest the barista was back and offering the card. Brooke leaned against the window and spoke to the girl, ”You look so familiar, did you graduate from Lethford High?” She gasped and bounced and nodded, calling out that she was the class of 2016. Not theirs, but Brooke gasped back and nodded, ”Oh hey! I knew I recognized you! Lydia, right? You threw the best parties.”
They chatted for a second and when she was handing over the drinks Brooke spoke up again, making her pause with the double shot in her hands, ”Hold on, we should connect. Socially distanced style. Thomas knows a great spot. Go ahead and jot your number there on that one, he’ll call you.” Brooke glanced at her friend and winked again, finally offering over the coffee to him. It had a number and a heart with a winky face there. And when they pulled away she rolled up her window and the facade melted. ”I’ve still got it. Wingwoman of the year. Call her, make plans for the three of us and I’ll cancel last minute.” Before he could protest she gave him back his card and looked out to check for oncoming traffic before she got back on the road, ”You need to get out of that lab some, Tommy. You’re pale.”
It was out there. She had said she missed him. He told her not to blame herself. The air felt a little crisper, a little more clear, than it had moments before. The fog of trying to navigate that space without knowing what he was thinking or feeling faded. The weight on her was lifted, not because she no longer felt guilty for Charle’s death but because Thomas was okay with talking about him. It felt like the floodgates could open, or they would have if they weren’t on their way to get coffee and this wasn’t actually a work errand. She hoped that he meant it, that they would go get beers that they didn’t have to hide in the woods to drink.
The funeral came up and she glanced away, but only for a second. That had been a horrible day. She could remember her Mom and Dad standing behind her and she felt like that 17 year old kid signing papers with the Army recruiter and her parents behind her proud but apprehensive. In their world, they were the lucky ones. They could have been the one burying a child and she felt it in the way her Dad had set his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it tight enough that it was uncomfortable as the flag was handed to Mr. Moore. Of course, that day it had been so obvious that Tommy was avoiding her. Brooke had never brought it up, never planned to, and she spoke softly, ”No way, man, that was an awful day. You didn’t have to...you didn’t need to do anything but what you had to in order to make it through it.”
She smiled at him, a little bit of sadness in her eyes and she shook her head a little bit, ”No way, I always could tell the difference between you two. Those parent trap jokes never worked on me.” But it wasn’t entirely true. He was a little bit like a ghost. There were faces that he made that mimicked Charlie exactly, and vice versa. But it wasn’t haunting, more a friendly reminder of her other best friend. They righted themselves, both of them ready for something other than the depressing topic and she got back on the road and reoriented herself as best she could with her path to the closest Starbucks.
Tommy won for the subject changing and she glanced over, snorting a little, ”Put me up somewhere? No way, this is the government we’re talking about. The budget doesn’t actually go to the grunts like me. No, I’m just at the barracks. Communal living. Mmmm.” She wrinkled her nose and gave a shrug, ”But it’s not all bad. I can pretty much come and go as I like. Not the same sort of command structure as there was in combat zones.” The starbucks came up on the left and she pulled into the drive thru, still sticking to her schedule despite the touching moment they’d shared. ”Do you still take it black? Or have you broadened your horizons and discovered the wonder of frappucinos yet?”
Mumbled words escaped her lips as Brooke drove the little pickup down the back roads. She was convinced that she had gone the wrong way. Laws were broken as she picked up her phone and checked over and over again the text message from Thomas that explained the way to the secluded picnic spot he had found. The woods were large and looming and she was pretty sure that she’d taken a wrong turn somewhere. The plan had been lunch but unless a road opened up on the left she was pretty sure that it would be dinner. Or they’d have to send a search party out for her.
It was kind of pathetic how bad she was at navigating. Even years overseas wandering the desert and she could only figure out the compass if she stood completely still and tried to make herself perpendicular to the sun...and even then she had to check her watch a few times to see if it was going up or down. Their picnic in the open spaces behind the lab would be done by headlights instead of noonday sun. Never in a million years did she think that Tommy would actually want to see her. It had to be as intense for him as it was for her. He was the exact copy of Charlie, the man she’d watched die in an ambush. And she was the third part of the trio that made up his childhood with his twin.
But it would be good to do something normal and civilian’y. She cursed out loud, slowing the truck and looking down at her phone again as she read out loud, ”Two miles south and then there will be a gated road to the left…” Was she going south?? With a frustrated sigh she tried to motivate her phone to connect to the network for anything more than a text message but it simply blinked back at her to indicate the increasingly more frequent carrier disruptions. Thats when the truck was pulled over and the brunette climbed out of the driver’s seat with her eyes up on the sky, ”South for two miles. Who says south anymore, Thomas Daniel?!” The sun wasn’t visible, not with the trees there, and so she scanned the woods for shadows. That could help her position it.
Brooke stepped off the road, taking a couple quick steps down the rise that met the rose and stepped into the damp woods grumbling under hear breath as she now had her eyes on the ground to orient herself with the tangle of shadows. But it wasn’t the shadows that caught her eye. It was a hand. She knew as soon as she saw it. Brooke had seen dead bodies before. She stopped moving, didn’t take another step, and instead closed her eyes and made a wish for her phone to work before calling 911.
A little while later the crime scene was established and Brooke was standing on the edge of the road, her hands on her hips and a message to Thomas that his sandwich and soda would have to wait because she had an emergency. The patrol officers that were the first to respond and secure the scene took her statement, not bothering to dismiss her when she pulled her Military personnel card. An unmarked car pulled up and she knew, that would be the detective. She just watched, speaking up after the detective was out of the car. ”I’m getting the vibe this isn’t the typical sort of body in the woods situation. That beat cop wasn’t nearly as surprised as I thought he would be.” She approached and offered a hand, ”Staff Sergeant Brooke Hastings, I discovered the body. I’d like to accompany you on this investigation, if that’s ok. Something feels...weird about this.”
She wasn’t ready for this conversation. This one was supposed to happen when she was drunk, when there was something other than harsh reality to deal with. At least with a drink in her hand she could numb the panic and the pain of remembering that day. Brooke had felt an immense amount of responsibility when she and Charles had ended up, not just in the same branch but then the same unit. She was to keep him safe so that when their service was through the three of them could get back to being the same tightknit trio. But it hadn’t gone that way, she had let him die right there beside her. And now Thomas was talking about it.
Brooke had assumed that he wouldn’t want to see her. That was the main reason she hadn’t reached out and told him that she was back in town. Why would he want to see the girl that got his brother killed? Because whether or not that was true, that was how it felt. Especially when he stopped responding to her emails or answering her facetimes and wouldn’t even speak to her at the funeral. In all of that she had lost both brothers. And now Tommy was there beside her and chatting again and not just chatting, but chatting about Charlie! She shouldn’t be apologizing, he said, but she couldn’t shake that feeling. But Brooke didn’t correct him. She had tried correcting people, like the therapist, but that just made it worse and made them refuse to let it go until she pretended to agree with them.
Thomas explained what that day was like and it felt like he was sharing something sacred and special with her. They had always been the best of friends, but she hadn’t been the long lost triplet. She was best friends with twins, they would always be connected on a level that she couldn’t be. And it was fun that way, the two of them sharing secret glances that made her watch in wonder at their silent communication and the wavelength they shared. It must have been an abrupt end to that connection. He explained it that way and she gave a little bit of a nod, ”I tried to be the one to call, but I was shot too and..” she just stopped, shaking her head and her voice broke so that when she went on she had to whisper around the emotion, ”I couldn’t have gotten through that call anyway.”
But then he moved to leave and a new kind of panic gripped at her. It had only just begun and he was trying to end it...because she was uncomfortable. That had to be it. He reached down for his bag and she reached across quickly, grabbing ahold of his arm with a firm but gentle grip, ”Thomas, stop.” She looked at him now, wouldn’t look away no matter the intensity of the moment. ”You just said it, I’m one of the last ones left that knew him. There’s no one here that I can talk to about it either I just...I wasn’t sure that you’d...want to talk about him.” Brooke paused for a second before she let go of him, aware that the touch was probably inappropriate in a pandemic. ”Sorry..you can’t go, though, I’ve missed you. And we still have to get coffee, right?”
Was it so bad to invade people’s homes? Was it so bad to halt the search for human connection? There were justifications for all of, there were points on both sides. No answer was the right answer. And Brooke didn’t respond right away. Because it wasn’t so easy as to say that raids were good or bad. Raids were...necessary. They were trying to save lives. She gave a noncommittal shrug and glanced over at him, ”Are they a good thing? I don’t know. I get it, people are lonely and they want their lives back, I can understand why they want to be together but..if we aren’t all in this together no one is going to make it out unscathed.” Brooke gave a groan and went on, ”Or maybe it’s natural selection. But then it’s like drunk driving. It’s not just the drunk in danger, it’s everyone they see after the party is over. But people don’t get that part.”
She leaned against the window, elbow there on the door and hand propping up her head. He was up for drinks and she was grateful for the distraction from the kinds of decisions the Government was forced to make. He mentioned drinking, letting her hang out with him, and she laughed at how exclusive it all sounded. The reality was sadder than that, though. He didn’t have friends. Brooke thought back to school, to how the people they spent time with were more inherited from Charles rather than someone that Brooke or Thomas brought in. She might be one of the few that could settle in beside either twin and be perfectly content in the company of thomas or charles. Only the former was an option anymore, though.
Brooke glanced over at him, eyeing him and giving a wink, ”Did you just netflix and chill me, Tommy?” She smirked and teased him for a second, letting that hang in the air before she sobered and held up two fingers, ”I promise I won’t talk through the movie. Scouts honor. And if I do I’m a good catcher.” The comfortable quiet settled between them and she was touching at the buttons on the door when he spoke up and made her go still. Brooke didn’t look at him even when the feeling of his eyes on her was overwhelming. If she looked at him she wouldn’t be okay anymore. Both hands went to the wheel and she listened to him speaking. And when he said again that he should have given them to her she shook her head, ”No, hey, he’s your brother. Your twin brother, those are yours. He would want you to have them.”
Her own tags hung around her neck, beneath the layers of uniform and against her chest. She didn’t even really feel them anymore. And she could remember when they had folded up the flag over the casket, handing it to his Father and then offering Thomas the dogtags. It was military ceremony. If she wanted anything it was that flag. His shitty Dad didn’t deserve it. Brooke and Charlie knew what kind of man they had left Thomas with. Charles would get drunk and talk all about the guilt he felt for leaving Tommy to their mother’s death, but also to his father’s choice in living. There was significant dysfunction in their family and she watched it all unfold from the sidelines.
Her heart raced when he spoke about how Charlie died and in her mind the image of the back of his skull exploding out to spray it’s contents on the unit behind them played again. She had been at his side, she’d watched it unfold. She had seen the way his body folded unnaturally and hit the ground. And then she’d hit the ground with him, crawling over his lifeless form and feeling for any signs of life as she tried to drag him and herself into cover. It didn’t make sense but she didn’t register that she was dragging a dead body until she looked back on all of it.
She was quiet for too long and then cleared her throat as she pulled the car over abruptly. They weren’t at the coffee shop, this was a detour that he hadn’t agreed to, and when she put it in park Brooke sat back, eyes down in her lap, ”I should have said this sooner, Tommy..” Brooke shifted in her seat to face him and tried to hold his gaze but every time she looked at his face her words wouldn’t come out. So she lowered her eyes to his chest and spoke, ”I’m so sorry. I should have done more. I play it over and over again in my head, I could have seen through the ambush but he was leading the unit, I was watching out six..” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, remembering how the army-appointed therapist had told her that she needed to be kinder to herself and that these things happened in times of war. ”I’m sorry I couldn’t save him.”
He spoke about red tape, agendas and budgets and taxes and profits. In all of that a secret passion bubbled up out of Thomas. She recognized it as the same sort of thing that would pop up in the cadets when they had to do the science projects. Her and Charles would stand beside him trying to keep up, but he’d be so excited and it was all in a language Thomas spoke. It was important to him. And the bureaucracy and his disapproval of it all was important to her. She knew a little bit about that. She had met plenty of men and women who profited off of the war that she fought, the war that had killed his brother. The civilian contractors made lots of money off of the deaths of soldiers and foreign citizens alike.
But all she could do was let out a heavy breath of air and shake her head at all of that. The world was fucked up, they each just had different angles of it. He saw the cleaner corruption. She saw the blood and death side. Or she used to. Brooke hadn’t been in an active war zone in three years. He changed the subject and she actually laughed out loud when he pointed out that people like her weren’t the most popular. She shook her head and grimaced when he mentioned the home raids. ”I haven’t had to participate yet...it’s..a lot.” Their hometown was one bad day away from becoming a warzone, with visible enemies that fought back rather than an invisible viral one.
Brooke let him into the car and when he teased her she gave him a wink, ”It’s part of the job, don’t get too used to it.” She climbed in and his request for sanitizer had her waving for him to go for it. But then he stopped and took off his mask. It was only for a second but there he was and she found herself watching him, trying to get a glimpse at his face despite the marks from the more secure mask. It was so brief but it made her feel warm and ache all at the same time. He joked about bras and she smiled, shaking her head, ”It’s close, but it still only takes second place. The first time i got to take off my full fear set overseas...I’ll never forget that feeling. It’s like my body hurt from the lack of weight and pressure on me.”
They were off and she was talking about how different the world was. He wasn’t seeing anyone, she took note of that. She’d have to tease him later about it. Then again, they were in the middle of a serious global pandemic. It was so serious, in fact, that she’d recently seen a medical journal passed around the base from a publisher in Canada that suggested intimate partners wrap up their faces as well as their genitalia in order to help prevent the spread of the virus. In Brooke’s opinion, there were far more worrisome things to think about during the exchange of those kinds of fluids. She scoffed at him at the theater remark, though, and rolled her eyes, ”Me. That person you hate at the movies is me.” She glanced over at him with a glare, but softened a little as she went on, ”Next time call me, I’ll socially distance and drink with you.”
He wanted coffee but Brooke hesitated, ”I don’t know, I’ve got orders. No detours.” But he was appealing to her and it really didn’t take too much convincing to persuade her. After all, what was the rush? All he had were records, no samples, and the paper wouldn’t deteriorate. She gave a nod, ”Fine, coffee. But only the drive thru, you can sip and I can drive.” Brooke used to hate coffee. Before she joined the army she drank the stuff as a glorified milkshake, always in the form of a frappucino and sometimes without any coffee at all. After her tour, though, she took it black and couldn’t have it any other way. The other stuff made her feel sick and privileged and knowing that her friends would never again know the luxury, the least she could do was drink her coffee black and keep herself from the sweet stuff. It was a twisted sort of way to honor them, and one that only she knew about.
”When are we going to drinks? Some place safe, and I’ve got to be out of uniform. I’ll never hear the end of it if someone photographs me at a bar or restaurant or even a park taking any sort of leisure time in uniform.” Brooke made a face at him. It had been ingrained in her that every single thing she did in uniform was a reflection on the military, and in the current climate a soldier with a beer might cause an uproar. ”Or we could always go the old fashioned way and steal a half-empty bottle of liquor and go walk out into the woods to drink it.” She smirked at him, teasing about their more reckless adventures as teenagers. They were lucky to be alive with some of the things Charles dragged them into.
