“Now’s our chance to get the nurse!” Grace whispered to the others. The visual before her was appalling and her instinct was to take flight, but she hadn’t become so self-serving she lost sight of the chance to save a fellow human when she could.
Together, the three of them might be able to get it done while the ghouls were preoccupied with Gerard. “Let’s grab the nurse and get on our way before they notice us, or any more of the fuckers show up.” Grace kept her voice low as she and Tilford crept out the stairway and toward Childs. Sanders stayed by the door, ready to open it when they came back.
Tilford grabbed Childs by an arm and shook as hard as he could without making noise. The folds on her arms blubbered like bowls of Jell-O, but he didn’t dare utter a word for fear of attracting the three ghouls. Grace got behind, leaned over and lightly shook the nurse’s head in an attempt to bring her around. Sanders kept a vigilant eye out, but when she saw the attempts from the two doctors weren’t getting anywhere, she took matters into her own hands as only a nurse can. She rushed out and grabbed a bottle of water off the counter next to the computers, ripped the top off and poured it over the face of the unconscious nurse. Water splashed over Childs’s cheeks and ran into her eyes, but it did the job.
“Pffffppppp, pfffppp,” Childs spluttered.
“Shh!” Grace placed a palm over Childs mouth, then pressed an index finger to her own lips.
“We have to move, Jenny, but be quiet, be very, very quiet, okay?” Sanders, holding the empty water bottle, whispered.
I’m hunting wabbits! An Elmer Fudd cartoon rushed into Grace’s head when Sanders spoke those words. Strange the thoughts we have in times of stress.
Tilford kept a hold of Childs’s arm helping her up. Well, he tried. If she fell or resisted, it would be doubtful he’d be able to move her.
“Don’t look that way,” Grace whispered to the nurse when she became more aware of her surroundings. “Up the stairs everyone, go straight up the stairs.”
None of them had any idea of what to expect on the second floor and more than one wondered why there hadn’t been any activity from there. Grace felt a surge of adrenaline as she climbed the stairs, and by the wide-eyed looks of the others, she wasn’t the only one.
7
Seven
Moya packed what belongings he had into his single suitcase as his cell phone rang once more. He didn’t want to end up stranded in a foreign country as a new pestilence spread, taking all in its path. He figured Calgleef or that the Delaney woman were on the other end of the call and was going to let it ring; but after it continued for some time, he picked it up and saw Thorncroft’s name and number on the display. He answered immediately.
“What took you so long?” Thorncroft demanded.
“I was, err, having a crap, Mr. Thorncroft.”
“Hmph.” Thorncroft detested vulgarity but didn’t have the time for reprimands. “The vaccination program appears to have run into some obstacles, which I’m sure you know of, you were correct about looking for live strains of the flu bacteria in the vaccine. Our biologists discovered it straight away thanks to your initiative. I’d like to know how you knew Moya, but we’ll save that for another time, right now we’re in damage control. Calgleef has informed me the hospital has been sealed off and all outgoing calls are currently monitored by one of the American spy agencies, thanks again to your better judgment. The latest information we have, is the patients who received a shot, attacked others and from the few calls made by staff members, the attackers tried to drink their blood.”
“What? That’s, that’s crazy!” Moya was aware that as a businessman of Thorncroft’s standing, honesty and integrity wouldn’t be high on the list of personal traits, but judging by his lack of concern shown for the discovery of live bacteria in the vaccine, he now suspected that deceit most likely was. He also took the information of the patients becoming blood sucking vampires, with a grain of salt—for now.
“My thoughts exactly, but here is something else I know,” Thorncroft paused to allow the details to digest more. “If this becomes public knowledge, it will not only cost us billions in lost contracts but billions more when the reputation of Thorn Bio-Tech has been torn asunder, even if they can’t prove anything. You do understand, don’t you?”
Moya was now sure, after that subtle warning, the live bacteria hadn’t found its way into the vaccine by accident; but he also knew it would probably be easier to show Lee Harvey Oswald was innocent. Thorn, as one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in Europe, would be ruined, and Thorncroft now took the time to point out the importance of the plan; it had to be salvaged—somehow.
Yes, Moya understood only too well: he couldn’t escape his involvement not matter where he ran to.
“Of course, Mr. Thorncroft, of course.”
He’d made his bed, he rationalized, so he may as well lie in it.
“Good. Here’s what will happen.” Thorncroft told his man in America the next move. “Our director friend of the CDC will come up with a pretext for postponement of the vaccination program without attracting any suspicion. The delay will give the American manufacturing labs time to make enough for their own use. Our quality control responsibility will be over, but our bank accounts will be full, get my meaning, Moya?”
“Yes, sir, but what if someone from the hospital in Des Moines speaks out?”
“How so, Moya? No one, I assure you, will leave that hospital alive, no one.”
Moya sat on the edge of the bed, his half-packed suitcase beside him. Thorncroft’s last words sent a chill down his back. Yes, he had turned on his beliefs as a medical professional and was prepared to say publicly what he knew to be wrong, all in the pursuit of financial reward; but had it gone so far that he’d now become an accomplice to murder—mass murder? If he hadn’t fully understood before, then he did now. Everyone inside the hospital was to be sacrificed.
“Oh shit!” Grace was greeted by a closed door at the top of the stairs that led to the second floor.
“Wait, just wait,” Tilford called from below. He was last in the line, behind Childs, which limited his view ahead.
“Let me get by, Jenny,” he said to her. She obliged by stepping to the wall side so he could glide by along the hand rail. He couldn’t avoid rubbing up against her huge, round breasts, and water-barrel stomach in the confined space, however. He tried to act as if nothing unusual took place, but when he looked up, Nurse Jenny Childs had a smile on her face, a glimmer in her eye.
Is she fucking kidding me or what? Our lives are in danger from some freaked-out bloodsuckers, and she gets excited cause I rubbed up against her tits?
“What is it?” He ignored Childs’s flirtation and concerned himself with Grace’s problem.
“The door ahead, what if it’s locked, we’ll be caught in here in—”
“No, no it’s okay. This is a fire exit. It leads to the nurses’ station next to maternity and must be kept open at all times. It has a keycard lock, but it’s not activated,” Tilford told her. He kept his eyes focused on the door ahead; Nurse Childs was close behind and might want to continue to rub on him some more.
“Better let me take a look first.”
“Going to play the macho man now?” Grace asked in a cheeky way.
“Err no, but I know the floor plan better than you,” he countered. He then smiled at her; it was harmless by-play, welcomed by both. He needed something other than Childs’s huge boobs to alleviate the stress.
Tilford pushed the door as gently as he could. He didn’t know what to expect, and if any staff were nearby, they would have the same thoughts; he didn’t want to get clonked on the head by an overzealous orderly wielding a bedpan.
When no one challenged him—or lunged at him—Tilford opened the door fully and immediately felt like the sausage that fell from the grill into the hot coals. No one, not a soul, could be seen at the nurses’ station, chairs were tipped over, computer monitors on the floor, papers scattered about and a
silence, full of dread, hung over the entire area. A hospital isn’t a center of noise and mayhem, most of the time but there was always some activity and background chatter.
“This doesn’t look promising.” Tilford stepped through and held the door for the others.
“I assume the floor isn’t normally this quiet?” Grace hadn’t had the occasion to visit the second floor but knew what hospitals were like.
Before she received answer, Sanders grabbed the CDC officer by the arm and pointed to a pool of blood smeared across the floor near the counter.
“Were any of the patients who received the vaccine shots brought up here, Nurse?” Tilford’s eyes bulged as big as plates.
“We ran out of beds in IC, and the more stable patients were transferred up here to make room for the more severe sufferers.”
Grace and Tilford exchanged anxious looks, emphasizing their suspicions; if any of the transferred patients exhibited the same behavior as the blood-drinking ghouls from the first floor, then it would be a smorgasbord with expectant mothers confined to beds, and defenseless newborn infants. And the blood on the floor didn’t come from a premature birth. They now realized the entire hospital was probably overrun with infected crazies seeking blood.
“If we want to live, then we have to find a way out of here,” Grace pointed out their only option.
“But how? We’ve been sealed in.” Childs couldn’t hide her fear.
“The roof. We have to get to the roof through the maintenance room. There’s a fire escape—”
“Which will take us down into the waiting clutches of the National Guard or the cops—if they don’t shoot us first!” Sanders cut Tilford off.
“And what would you have us do, fly?” Childs asked sharply.
“Let’s not start any arguments among ourselves.” Tilford could see the tension building. “We have to work together, and we can’t go back down; so we have no choice but to head to the roof, all right?”
He looked at the others, and when there was no dissension, took that as a sign of agreement.
“Okay then, let’s forge on.” Grace urged the others. “Dr. Tilford, can that door be locked?”
“Only by security and—”
“Security. That’s it!” Grace raised an index finger. Her excitement grabbed the attention of the others. She would be the difference between success and failure. Her energy level and attitude said as much.
“Where’s security and how do we get there?” The possibility of armed security officers to assist with their escape wasn’t lost on any of them.
“It’s on the first floor, but their administration office and storeroom is on this floor,” Tilford told Grace.
“Lead the way.”
As impressed as he was with Grace’s leadership qualities they still had to take precautions.
“It’s that way, through those doors.” Tilford pointed to the double doors with the path of smeared blood beneath.
“How far? Can we make a run for it?”
“Not far, but those things move fast. I mean, you saw them pounce on Gerard. I’m not sure we could outrun them.” He didn’t say it, didn’t need too, everyone knew he meant their chances of outrunning the ghouls with Nurse Childs with them were slim.
They moved through the side entrance behind the counter; Tilford had a quick look for anything that might resemble a weapon, but without luck.
“Maybe we use tranquilizers or a strong sedative on them?”
“You want to get that close to administer it, Jenny?” Tilford’s answer ended that idea.
“There,” Grace saw a mop and knocked-over bucket outside the door of the male restroom, “we can use that!”
“And just who is ‘we’?” Tilford knew he would be the designated jouster. It was better than the array of hole-punchers and staple guns on the counter; he would have some distance with the mop, which was wet, giving it more weight and hopefully impact.
“Get in behind me, ladies, and when I says so, you run, just fucking run, okay?” Tilford said as, with mop held high in two hands, he approached the door. Not wanting to slip over, the four of them did their best to avoid the blood on the floor.
“Ready?” Tilford asked. He waited until he received a nod from each before proceeding. He took a deep breath, then pushed open one side of the double doors that led into the main corridor of the maternity unit.
The door creaked as Tilford entered and his heart rate doubled.
8
Eight
Moya received a call not long after he’d spoken with Thorncroft; the puppet master, as he now thought of him.
“Moya.” He answered as he unpacked his suitcase. He decided to see it through to the end, there was no other choice.
“Dr. Moya, I have some news for you on the current situation.” An upbeat Calgleef announced.
“Good, I’m listening.” Moya grabbed another bottle of water, sat on the bed and listened to Calgleef’s summary of what was to take place, or at least what he was to be told.
“I’ve sent a recommendation to the FDA and to the president demanding the current program be postponed due to a contamination in the vaccine, at least in the dosages found at the Riverside hospital.”
“Excuse me, if I may.” Moya stood and walked to the sliding glass door and looked out onto the street below. Traffic flowed without incident, while people walked or jogged along the side of the road or in the small park next to the hotel. Not one of these people knew, Moya reflected, that decisions which would affect their lives, were being made by a few select people—some of whom were on the other side of the world.
“Certainly, by all means.”
“As you know, I’m Mr. Thorncroft’s representative here in the US for this program, and I was under the impression that Mr. Thorncroft expected a more temporary response. I’m sure you’re aware of the considerable investment in this. How is informing your government of a contamination going to assist this situation?”
“I understand there is much at stake for Mr. Thorncroft, for his partners and you, but let me reassure you that I have quite an involvement as well. We are all partners in this business deal. What I’ve stated in my report is that some vials of the vaccine appeared to be affected, perhaps because they were improperly sealed and the cabin pressure from the plane may have led to the alteration. I also added that not all of the vaccines were affected, but to be on the safe side it would be best to abandon these vaccines until a locally manufactured version can be produced.”
Moya wondered if the director of the CDC was reading this from a transcript, but Calgleef hadn’t finished.
“This, as I assured Mr. Thorncroft, would not jeopardize the program, his contract or the initial purchase, as the decision not to use these supplied vaccines was ours, and therefore Thorn Bio-Tech would be fully compensated.”
Moya looked again at the traffic and people below and wondered how many of these people would end up infected, or dead, from the Baltic flu. He couldn’t do anything about it now if he tried, all he could do was think of the money once more. Yes, the money, that’s what it was all about wasn’t it? The corners of his mouth turned upward; yes, I’m a whore for sure, but not a cheap one! He liked Calgleef’s plan and told him so, he was especially pleased the contract wouldn’t be affected and therefore, neither would his stipend. But he didn’t tell him that much.
“The disturbance at the hospital will be explained away as an aggressive reaction from a mixture of the Legionnaires’ disease and the contaminated vaccine, a tragic situation yes, but an accidental one.”
Moya realized too that Calgleef was made of the same substance as Thorncroft; you had to be, to make and keep money these days, he assumed, and he’d become no better.
“How long will this take?”
“Not long, Dr. Moya, with the situation at the hospital and the cost factor, believe me the government will be distancing itself from any immediate scrutiny. Laying blame on a malfunction in the seals due to cabin pressure
on the plane—which can’t be proved either way—it’s an easy out. I expect an announcement tomorrow and a recall of all vaccines to follow shortly thereafter. In a month or so the first batch will roll out from the US manufacturers. Sound good to you, Dr. Moya?”
It did; music to his ears as the saying went. A thought full of promise also crossed his mind. With that timeline in place his presence wouldn’t be necessary, he could return to London—he had special clearance—and should anything break out in America in that time, well…
“It does indeed, Dr. Calgleef. And the press?”
“They’ll toe the line. They always do.”
“Good to hear. Well if there’s anything you need from me, I’ll be here at the hotel for a few more days and—”
“Few more days! Did Thorncroft not inform you?”
Moya fell silent as he felt a hole open up in the pit of his stomach.
“You’re to oversee and advise on the production of the vaccines here in the United States, Dr. Moya.”
He should have known you don’t just walk away that easy—not from Noel Thorncroft.
But at least I’ll get away from this city. This would be his only consolation.
Tilford took his time to pushed open the door; his mop cocked ready at his shoulder. He and the others avoided the smudged blood below on the cream linoleum floor of the maternity ward.
Hospital doors do not, as a rule, creak when opened, but Tilford wasn’t about to take any chances. He looked back to check on the other three; Grace, dressed in a white doctor’s jacket like him, and the two nurses in their blue scrubs, right behind. Tilford noted the difference in facial expressions. Grace had a determined look, which didn’t mean she wasn’t fazed by the abhorrent nature of affairs. It hadn’t affected her looks at all, which Tilford took more notice of the longer he was in her company. Sanders had an eager expression; there was fear in her eyes for sure but not quite panic. Nurse Childs, on the other hand, was close to panic if not already there. Her dark eyeliner ran in streaks down her cheek from her tears; her trembling hands sent shock waves through her leg-of-pork-sized arms, which fluttered like sheets on clothes line. Tilford didn’t pass judgement on her though. Hell, he felt like crawling into a corner somewhere, putting his head between his knees and hoping it would all go away. It wouldn’t of course, and doing so wouldn’t help them get out of here, he couldn’t afford to do it—they couldn’t afford it.
Pestilence Boxed Set [Books 1 & 2] Page 6
