by Kate Morris
“Eight days?” she asked again, to which he nodded. “What…why so long?”
“You had internal bleeding and required surgery,” he said. “I brought you in, and they wheeled you right away from me. Then you were in a coma, too.”
“Surgery? A coma?”
“Yeah,” he said. “You…you were sick, Ave.”
She noticed he used her nickname. “Sick?”
“RF1. The flu.”
Her eyes widened at the horror. “Wh-what?”
Avery felt like she was about to have a nervous breakdown, like she was a set of Lincoln Logs that someone built into something stable and solid but then knocked over. She was pieces being separated from the whole. And now he was telling her that she was sick with the virus that made people mad? Was she going to become violent and want to hurt the kids? Like her father tried to hurt her?
“It’s okay,” he said. “You were only sick twenty-four hours. They said it was like RF1 and 2 combined in your system or something. They haven’t seen anything like that yet. The doctors actually took a bunch of blood samples off of you. Well, until I told them to stop. They said they haven’t seen anyone recover so quickly. Your body burned the sickness into nothing through really high fevers. There’s a good side to this.”
She stared at her lap, feeling overwhelmed and more than a little dizzy. Nothing was making sense. So much that she thought she might actually still be asleep and was having some delusional kind of nightmare where she couldn’t wake up. Maybe she actually died in the accident.
“Hey,” he said, gaining her attention again. Tristan reached up to stroke her hair. “Hey, don’t be scared, okay? I know this is a lot to take in.”
“Why-what are you doing here?” she asked what was confusing her the most. There was a laundry list of questions behind that one. “What…what…”
“I told them you were my fiancée,” he said quietly and rose to shut the door all the way. “Listen, it’s okay. See?” he held up her left hand for her. “Don’t worry. We’re not really engaged. They weren’t going to let me stay if we weren’t family. I told them we’re engaged.” The ring on her hand might suggest otherwise. Everything was becoming more and more muddled in her brain. The tears began flowing again. “It’s okay, Avery. Everything’s going to be okay.”
Her eyes drooped. Tristan stood and stroked her hair. Then he reached up and shut off the light behind her bed. Her body was so weak and exhausted, her mind foggy and unfocused.
“Just rest. Get some sleep, okay? We’ll talk some more in a few hours.”
She wasn’t even sure if it was daytime or nighttime or which end was up. All Avery knew was that she was exhausted and going into information overload. Maybe she had brain damage.
This time she did dream. It was a nightmare. There was a sharp pain in her side. Her father was stabbing her with a knife in their kitchen. His eyes glowed red. They weren’t just bloodshot. They glowed like a demon from Hell itself.
“Avery,” someone said in her dream. Then they were touching her shoulder. “Ave, wake up.”
She startled away with a jolt and grabbed her side. “Ow,” she whined softly.
“Easy, Avery,” Tristan said in the darkened room. “That’s where your surgery staples are.”
She tried to focus, bring in his face. She knew she’d fallen asleep sitting up, but now she was down on her side flat again.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” she announced in an unladylike manner. Her mother would be disappointed.
“Okay, let me get your nurse,” he said. “I think Betsy’s on now. Just stay right there, okay?”
She nodded weakly as he turned on the low overhead light behind her again. Tristan left, and she used the remote her fingers found on the bed to raise it, after first lowering it further by hitting the wrong button. Avery took a second to look around. Her head felt a little clearer now. She could concentrate better.
A nurse in a pink uniform with bunnies on it bustled into her room. She had poufy blonde hair and red lipstick staining her lips.
“Let me just get this IV outta’ your arm, sweetie,” she said. “My name’s Betsy, and I’ll be your nurse till Amelia comes on at four. Doc Marshall said when you woke up, you could have your IV out and some normal food. That’ll be good, huh? No more liquid in your arm. Actual food’ll taste great. Even hospital food.”
“What time is it?” she asked groggily, still unsure of the hour or if it was night or day.
“Ten p.m.,” she answered cheerily. “You’ve been sleepin’ all day. Poor old Tristan here,” she said thumbing behind her at him, “has been out there helpin’ us all day.”
“Helping?”
“Oh, yeah. He’s great. You got yourself a keeper with this one, honey,” Betsy said very spiritedly. “He pushes patients around for us, helpin’ us transfer them to other floors. Helps deliver meals.”
“Why..”
“’Cuz, sweetie, with all this flu goin’ around, we’re short-staffed and full up. Hold still. Little pinch.”
She looked down as a cotton ball was pressed against the insertion point of the thick IV needle. She looked up then to see Tristan flinch as the long needle was pulled out of her arm. Betsy was fast and efficient.
“Good girl. Catheter came out this morning. Probably why ya’ need to pee so bad.”
Ugh, that was embarrassing. She hoped Tristan wasn’t around to see that, too.
“Okay, darlin’,” she said. “You’re good to go. Haha, literally, I guess. Let me just put down this rail,” she narrated as she worked and lowered the bed rail and then the whole bed itself. “I’m gonna let your big soldier get you safely to the bathroom. I’ve got another post-op patient down the hall that just buzzed for me. Not enough hands to go around, right?”
She offered a small grin.
“Toodles,” she said, leaving for the door. “Tristan, just buzz me if you need me. Go slowly. She’s gonna be a little dizzy having not been on her feet for a while. Food’s on its way up.”
“Thank you, Betsy,” he said. “For everything. Really.”
“See, Miss Andersson? Keeper.”
Then she was gone, and Avery was left alone with Tristan. He helped her swing her legs over the side of the bed. She noticed her feet were covered in warm socks that he must’ve brought from home. They were definitely hers, the cream wool ones with the pale pink stripes that came up to her thighs. Those weren’t hospital issued.
“Let’s just go slow, okay?” he said, to which she nodded.
The second she stood up, a pain in her side twitched, and she pressed her hand there.
“You okay?”
She nodded. “Yes, I think so. Just sore.”
He looped his arm around her waist, careful not to hurt her and supported her weight. Avery’s legs did feel weak and unstable, and she was also a little dizzy as she took slow steps toward the bathroom.
Tristan took her straight into the small bathroom and stood there with her.
“Y-you have to leave,” she said.
He frowned. “You could fall.”
“I’m not going to the bathroom in front of you,” she stated firmly.
“But…”
“No,” she reiterated. “You have to leave. I really need to go. Like right now.”
“Okay,” he resigned. “Here,” Tristan said, placing her IV hand, which was now sore and really bruised, on a metal bar bracketed into the tile wall. “Hold onto this. When you’re done, just stand up using this and knock on the door. I’ll just be on the other side.”
She nodded. He finally left after one last look of concern, and Avery sat and did her business. Then she flushed and stood. The waves of dizziness were bad for a second but passed quickly. Then she shuffled to the sink where a mirror was bolted into the wall above it. She immediately wished she hadn’t looked in it. No mystical face was going to appear and declare her the fairest one in all the anything. Two dark circles below her eyes stared back at her. The hollows
beneath her cheekbones appeared to have been dusted with gray powder to make her appear gaunter. Her lips were cracked and dry and peeling. And her hair? Oh, dear. It was a halo of tangles.
“Avery?” Tristan asked and cracked the door slightly ajar.
“Yes, I’m done.” She washed her hands and used a stiff paper towel to dry them. “I want to shower.” Avery stared longingly at the shower. It wasn’t that nice, probably saw all sorts of sick patients over the years, but she was desperate.
“Maybe in the morning,” he suggested. “Let’s not overdo it.”
She nodded weakly and allowed him to help her back to her bed. “I just want to sit for a few minutes.”
“Sure,” he said. “Let me move my chair around to this side in case you get dizzy. Stay right there.”
She nodded again, too tired to argue or protest all the fussing over her.
“You said earlier that there was a good side,” she stated and then felt unsure of that. “You did say that, right?” Tristan nodded. “Why?”
“You’re immune now, Avery. You’ll never get RF1 or 2 again. That’s it for you. You got the golden immunity ticket.”
“That’s a thing?”
“Well,” he said with charm. “I don’t know if they’ll give you an actual golden ticket, but, yeah, you won’t get it now. Once you’ve had it and get better, you won’t ever get it again.”
“How do you know that for sure? I had the flu twice in one winter one time.”
“A lot has happened since you were out,” he commented. “Why don’t we watch some t.v.? You’ll get caught up a lot faster.”
A second later, a soft knock on the door came right before a young girl pushed a food cart in.
“Hey, thanks, Marcy,” he said and gave the girl something in a bag.
“Great,” she said. “Thanks so much, Tristan. I’m glad you’re feeling better, Avery.”
“Huh? Oh, um, thank you.”
The girl smiled and left.
“You sure know a lot of the people working here.”
He shrugged as he wheeled the cart over between them. “I wanted you to have the best care possible. It seemed like a good idea. I helped Marcy deliver food trays to rooms a few times. The hospital really is overwhelmed.”
“What’d you give her? What was in that bag?” she asked as he clicked on the television and began removing covers from the dishes.
“Donuts. I bring them in for the different shifts.”
“That’s really thoughtful,” she remarked. Avery was starting to think she really was still dreaming.
“I’m not above bribing people to take good care of my ‘fiancée’,” he air quoted, “with a little sugar. I bring the day shift coffees and bagels.”
“Wow,” she said. “Oh, and where did this ring come from?”
“Oh, that,” he said flippantly.
“Yes,” she replied with a slight smile. “That. It fits my finger. How do you know my size?”
She looked down at the marquis cut stone surrounded by a halo of smaller diamonds. It was rather exquisite. She hoped he hadn’t stolen it off a corpse in the morgue.
“Asked Kaia,” he said. “She gave me one of your rings for comparison. Here,” Tristan pushed a plate of food toward her. Chicken, peas and carrots, and mashed potatoes. He’d even buttered her roll and smeared strawberry jam on it. “Eat.”
“Where’d this come from, though, Tristan?”
“What do you mean,” he asked with a confused expression. “A store, of course. I bought it.”
“You… you what? You bought this?” she looked harder at the expensive ring. Her mother didn’t even have a ring this fancy. “Are you crazy? This had to have cost a fortune.”
The chuckle he gave came from a low place in his belly. He looked better than he had earlier today or whenever she last saw him. This morning? He was nearly clean shaven, had showered, and wore clean clothing. A ballcap with the letters ARMY scrawled across the front topped his head. He also didn’t look so tired and stressed.
“Don’t worry,” he said as he handed her a fork and practically forced her first bite. “Go slowly. Don’t rush. Your stomach’s been empty for over a week. You don’t want to get a stomach ache.”
“I am worried,” she said after swallowing the mashed potatoes. She took a bite of her roll next. It was enough to awaken her appetite. Her stomach began growling as if on cue of the offering. “You’ll never get a full refund on this ring. They’ll charge you probably twenty-five percent for a refund.”
He chuckled again and turned up the news. “A lot’s changed since you were out. I didn’t pay for that ring with money.”
“What do you mean?”
“I gave the shop owner a rifle and a truckload of food items I looted from a store.”
“Loo-looted?” she gasped.
“Don’t worry, Ave,” he said so nonchalantly and carefree. “Like I said, everything changed. Eat your food and watch.”
He indicated the news. Avery was pretty sure she was either on some seriously loopy drugs or was still in the fever coma. Her world didn’t make sense anymore.
Chapter Twenty-six
“Yes, sir,” Tristan said to his L.T. on the phone as he smiled and offered a nod to a passing nurse. “Thank you so much for expediting it.”
He disconnected and went back into the room where the news was reporting death tolls from the flu. The same press conference that had been playing on a loop every few hours or so was getting ready to rerun. The twenty-four-hour news channels should’ve been elated with such a big story. Instead, the mood was usually somber now, and most of the regular hosts were replaced with new ones. He knew why. They weren’t replaced because they couldn’t do their jobs well anymore or because of some scandal. They were just dead.
The redhead delivering the news announced for probably the hundredth time this week, “And we’ll go now to the pre-recorded message from the CDC and the press conference that was held nearly one week ago. If you haven’t seen it yet, I must warn you, some of you may find the information disturbing.”
The screen flipped to a man in a white lab coat behind a podium with a microphone surrounded by similar men and women dressed the same.
“Good evening, fellow Americans and members of the press corps here in our audience,” he said. “Please, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Dr. Bachmann, and I am the lead scientist working in the DHCPP, the Division of High-Consequence Pathology and Pathogens. Later we’ll hear from General Allerton on the military’s role in this crisis we’re all facing.”
The man paused and shuffled his notes before starting again, “As most of you know or have heard, we are suffering from a global pandemic that has spread to the United States. It has been labeled as a strain of the influenza virus, but with much more complicated symptoms and, as of yet, unfortunately, no cure. Over eighty countries have reported in and have been affected and thirty-seven states here in the United States. The virus has been named by the CDC and the WHO as RF1. It was somewhat containable as RF1, but unfortunately, it has mutated into what we are now seeing, which is a more deadly and contagious germ called RF2.”
The doctor paused again and referred to a large easel with a chart on it.
“My team here has been working with the Antibiotic Resistance Lab Network along with the EIS, or Epidemic Intelligence Service. Both departments are also working with members of the WHO to tackle this on a global scale. The EIS has trained scientists who are acting as a boots-on-the-ground task force taking samples, studying, and gathering data. Together we are working around the clock to find a possible vaccination for the RF2 virus. It is a mutated strain of the flu that we first saw spreading in Africa. We have since discovered that it was taken there by an outside source and released experimentally.” He used a pointer stick to follow along. “With the RF1 virus, the symptoms started out as this: One, Low-grade fevers and nausea, sometimes vomiting. Two, irrational and sometimes erratic patient behavior, even borderin
g on somewhat violent. You will notice that the patient’s eyes have become extremely bloodshot in this stage, and their fevers begin to rise. This is where we saw a split in the mutation between viruses 1 and 2. RF1 patients at this point in the duration would become comatose and either recover within twenty-four to forty-eight hours or succumb to the disease through organ failure. We call this the incubation period.” He paused and took a breath.
Tristan took a second to tell her, “That’s what you had, but the doctors had to test you because you didn’t wake up from your anesthesia after the surgery. They thought you were having a reaction. It turned out you were also just sick and had fallen straight into the coma phase.”
“Oh,” she said with fear in her eyes.
The doctor on the television continued, “However, after treating patients with a new anti-viral vaccine we developed for RF1, RF2 was born and mutated to protect itself and survive. We do not have a vaccine for RF2 and do not see one being developed for a few months at the minimum. When we try to vaccinate RF1 patients, the virus almost immediately mutates into RF2. So, essentially, our vaccine is rendered unusable.”
“A few months is too long,” Tristan said more to himself, having watched this video many times in the last week. There wasn’t much else to do with her lying in a coma. He’d tried to stay busy so that he wouldn’t lose his damn mind with worry.
“We are no longer seeing the comas in the RF2 patients at all. But, what we are observing seems to be a protection state for the virus where the patient suffers irreversible brain damage. We believe it could be as a result of the much higher fevers than RF1, which also do not respond to fever reducers. The fevers with RF2 do not subside but continue to climb and sustain at a near constant rate. They are coupled with extremely violent behavior, erratic mood changes, and instincts that could be called at best, basic survival mode. The infected persons are without emotion essentially. Their speech patterns no longer resemble those of a normal person. Their hearing is exceptionally strong for some reason. Their vision, however, is worse. They are also fast and strong, those who survive. They are without emotion, essentially. We see behavior like this in serial killers, and they have patterned behavior of schizophrenia coupled with bipolar and paranoia. One doctor referenced it was like he was dealing with a patient who had psychotic episodes who was coming down from a drug overdose. They have a complete lack of reasoning skills, empathy, regret, or sorrow. They should be considered more dangerous than patients with RF1. They should be considered a threat to your safety and to the safety of those in your family. One last thing we should cover is that they seem more active at night. During the day, some are still active, but they become measurably more active at night. We believe them to be what you would call nocturnal. And we aren’t sure yet if it’s because they are hiding during the day or hibernating or that their eyes are too sensitive to bright light or the sun. We estimate that nearly a hundred thousand Americans alone have lost their lives to the RF1 virus and that nearly eight-hundred thousand have died from RF2. This is highly contagious and nearly always fatal.”
