by Stevens, GJ
A radio squawked somewhere in the room; an urgent voice calling though, but using words I couldn't quite catch.
“Now, sir, we need to get on. We have more to deal with than you can imagine,” the white coat said.
I turned, hearing movement at my back. The right of the two soldiers had stepped forward again and held the Taser out.
“Easy way, or the other?” the soldier said, tilting his head.
I unzipped my jacket. As I pulled off each item of clothing, I felt the gaze of the white coat and the nurse peering over every inch of my skin.
The white coat stepped forward as I pulled down my jeans. The soldier stepped right to my back as the white coat peered down to examine my knee.
Nodding to the nurse and the soldiers, he stood and looked me in the eye.
“Everything, sir,” he replied.
I drew a deep breath and turned to the nurse.
“It's cold in here,” I said, and pulled down my boxer shorts.
The radio crackled again as I drew on my clothes, only just in time to be hurried back through the door and shoved to the side of the corridor by a blur of soldiers carrying one of their colleagues, horizontal, between them.
His hands and legs were bound as they rushed him into the room. I just about saw a blooded gauze pushed against his hand with blue gloves.
The door closed and the guard who'd stood there as I'd arrived turned his fallen expression away from the door and looked at me, his face pale.
“Do you know him?” I said.
The soldier didn't respond, his face staring at mine like he was looking to share his pain.
He gave a shallow nod as I held my expression fixed.
“I've got someone like that,” I replied. “She can't be helped, but it's not always a death sentence.”
His eyes narrowed, longing for the rest of my words.
“We know someone who didn't die.”
His gaze flinched to my side and he straightened up, coming to a salute.
“Really?” came a female voice, and I turned to see a woman, her hair silver white, green eyes fixed intent on mine.
Cassie walked by her side from the direction of the other door whilst straightening her clothes with her face full of alarm.
“Where are they?” the woman said, stepping into my personal space.
I could feel electricity crackle off her words, my blood rushing with panic as if I'd just made a big mistake.
65
“Can you help us or not?” I said, stepping back.
Her feet stayed put as she leant forward, her unblinking eyes fixed with an intensity which made me want to turn and run the other way.
I didn't run. I didn't turn away; instead, I took a step forward and spoke again. “I need to speak to someone in charge, or we're leaving.”
“You are,” the woman said, the wrinkles on her facing relaxing. Her stare dissipated as she took a step back, her hand pushing out and lips curling in a forced smile.
“I'm Doctor Lytham. I apologise for our introduction. I'm sure you can understand we're still finding our feet here.”
I squinted towards her, but Cassie seemed to shake her head.
“What is this place? Why weren't you evacuated?” I said.
A panicked scream raced across my nerves. Cassie's gaze caught mine as we twisted to the room I'd just left.
The soldier standing at the door hadn't flinched. He was left unmoved as the sound died. Only then did he raise his eyebrows, asking the doctor a question without words.
Turning back, her face hadn't changed, her arm sweeping out to guide us down the white corridor. Her head gave the smallest of shakes, dismissing the guard's unvoiced question.
She turned and walked down the corridor, her heels clicking along the hard floor.
“What are they doing to him?” I said, my voice more urgent. Cassie was already following. I hurried behind, despite my instinct to get clear of this place; I would not leave her with this woman who reminded me so much of Cruella De Vil.
Every few steps, the antiseptic smell built, the taste coating my tongue as we passed door after door, each with a porthole window painted white.
We rounded a corner to find it much the same, with two guards stood either side, their backs to us. As we passed to the click of her heels, I turned back to see neither of the soldiers would meet my gaze.
“Did you work at the hospital before?” I said, as I hurried to catch up.
She turned, smiling high with her cheeks, her head shaking.
“There wasn't a great call for my specialism in this corner of Cornwall.”
“What specialism is that?” I asked, walking fast to stay alongside.
“Let's call it tropical diseases,” she said, giving me the least reassuring smile.
“Is it or not?” I said.
Looking across Cassie I saw her worried expression, then turned to the doctor, whose forced smile was back again. Her eyebrows raised.
“I'm seconded to Public Health England. We're trying to understand the outbreak.”
“And find an antidote, a cure?” I said, my voice rising with excitement.
“Is it a tropical disease?” Cassie butted in from my side.
“Yes,” she said in my direction and turned to Cassie, repeating the same.
“Have you found a cure?” I said. “Please, if you have, we need your help.”
Approaching a double door on the right, she stopped, pushing both open and holding them wide.
A few steps inside, a clear plastic sheet with a zipper in the middle separated us from two figures in white plastic suits covering them entirely. Around their waists were white belts, a holster each side. In the left holster sat the yellow of a Taser, in the right the black of a pistol.
Beyond the guards, a long hospital ward stretched out, with ten beds on either side. In each bed lay a patient with reddening bandages on either their arms, legs or faces. At least two protective white suits busied around every one of them, changing bandages, drawing blood or pushing buttons on a bedside display which looked much like those on an A&E ward.
Watching in silence, we listened to the buzz of activity, which was broken only by the sudden shrill of an alarm.
Our gazes were drawn to the raise of a white-gloved hand. The suit stood at the middle right-hand bed. The two guards stepped from their post, each drawing their Tasers. A suit hurried from the other side of the room, holding a red liquid-filled syringe.
“Now for your answers,” Doctor Lytham said, letting the doors swing closed. “We have promising lines of evaluation, but we haven't found a cure.”
After following a few steps down the corridor, she opened another door and ushered us into an office. White packing crates lined the walls. Many were closed, but most were open, their contents spread across the two sturdy wooden desks in the centre of the room.
“We've isolated the disease to a new species of the Ophiocordyceps genus,” she said, as she offered the two empty seats on the nearest side of the desk.
We sat as she took one of the two empty seats the other side.
“I don't know if that means anything to either of you?” she said, her cheeks bunched in expectation.
“Zombie ants,” I said.
She raised her eyebrows and slowly nodded.
“Ophiocordyceps Unilateralis,” she replied. “Could we use you?” she said, tilting her head to the side.
Cassie turned like I'd been keeping something from her, like we'd known each other for years and she was only now finding out I had some hidden depth. It was getting harder to remember we'd known each other for less than a day.
“No,” I replied, shaking my head. “I watch a lot of documentaries.”
The doctor's shoulders deflated.
“We're calling it Ophiocordyceps Sapien, for obvious reasons.”
Cassie looked at me with a tiny shrug.
“Because it infects humans,” I replied, then turned back to the doctor. “But how? Hav
e the tabloids not been warning of this ever since David Attenborough filmed it?”
Her mouth raised into a smile.
“Even a stopped clock is right twice a day,” she said, her lips flattening.
“We don't know how it started,” she said, and I turned my head to the side. “We're examining as many victims as we can, but the fungus is so virulent our best chances are with those newly infected.”
“What have you found? Are you close?” I said, feeling my heart pounding in my chest.
“All we know so far is if we can stop the bleeding, we can extend the time till the fungus takes control.”
“You can keep them alive longer? How much longer?”
She shrugged.
“We don't know yet.”
“But you can't stop it altogether?”
“Not yet. We need more data. We need to know when anything unusual happens. Like if someone doesn't die from a bite,” she said, raising her eyebrows, letting the silence hang as she watched me turn to Cassie's blank face. “That's why I'm so very interested in what you said.”
“You're trying to help?” Cassie replied, turning between me and Doctor Lytham.
There was a knock at the door and it swung wide before anyone could raise an objection. Standing in the doorway was the white-coated man who'd examined me as we'd arrived. Across his white coat was a diagonal splash of what looked like blood.
“Major, that's a negative on B29,” he said, his breath panting.
I looked to the man and saw the khaki shirt underneath, turned to the doctor and saw the same under hers.
She spoke, her eyes locking onto Cassie. “What else would we be doing?”
Scraping back my chair, I stood. “Trying to clean up the mess you made?”
66
Dismissing the white coat with a flick of her fingers, the door closed and we were alone again.
The major, or doctor, whichever was the truth, hadn't reacted to my accusation and now I was concerned about what she might do.
When she finally spoke, her voice was calm, her crow's feet deepening as the forced smile came back. Her upturned mouth made me want to jump across the table and take her by the shoulders, shaking her until she told me what she knew; told me the government fucked up playing God and it had all gone wrong. Told me she was part of the problem and not the solution.
“I'm not sure what conclusion you've just jumped to, but just because I'm an army doctor doesn't mean there is anything more sinister going on,” she said, her cheeks bunching high.
Despite the constant smile, her stern expression did nothing to reassure me. “The military is best equipped to deal with the situation and that is all.”
I stared back, trying to keep my expression as neutral as I could, forcing myself not to glance at Cassie, already knowing the concern on display.
“We've heard things,” I said, the words helping to stop from launching a tirade. Even though we'd only caught part of a conversation, everything the two thugs had said back in the bedroom had made sense. How could all what was going on outside just appear with no warning? How could this place be transformed in just two days?
Someone must have known before. The woman sitting across from me had to know so much she wasn't saying.
Her cheeks bunched higher still.
“I'm not interested in what you've heard or what you think you might know. We’re here to get people to safety. We're here to stop the spread. Who are you to get in our way?”
“And what a good job you’ve done,” I said, turning towards Cassie. “How many more were left behind like us? Do you even know?” I added, turning back toward her.
“We can’t do the impossible,” she replied, shaking her head as she squinted in my direction. “Indications show eighty percent of the population was successfully removed from the quarantine zone.”
“What about the others? What about us? When do we go?” I replied.
She didn’t reply straight away. Instead she looked me in the eye, unwavering.
“What would you do in my position now the infection has taken hold?”
I didn’t reply. I knew my answer would be the same has hers.
She nodded. “You can’t leave until we know what we’re dealing with. We can’t let what’s left of the twenty percent out until we have a cure.”
She was right. I let out a breath; despite the questions coursing through my head, how we'd got to where we were now didn't matter. We'd seen first-hand what was going on outside these walls, what was happening to everyday people. With no need for much of an imagination, I could take a good guess at how quickly this could be the end.
What could I do? I wasn't an all-action hero and we weren't in a Hollywood movie, whose script had been audience-tested to get the right level of peril before everything turned out fine in the end.
So many had died and I knew what we'd seen was only a tiny part. Too much had already been lost for a happy ending.
For the second time since this had started, I thought of my parents. I thought of my life before the New Year had turned. Everything was different now. I didn't know if they were alive or, if they were, then how much longer they would be able to stay that way.
I turned to Cassie and wanted to smile, wanted to take her somewhere quiet and enjoy the one good thing to come out of this whole mess. There were people who needed help and, even if the boy wasn't part of the cure, we had to find out. What else could I do? Despite my unwillingness to trust this woman, what option did I have?
“Okay,” I said, nodding, watching as her smile relaxed and her brow bore down to what I could guess was its normal, stern position.
“So, tell me you've been wasting my time. Tell me you've not seen someone who has survived a bite. Tell me you haven't witnessed what could be our first clue in bringing this nightmare to an end before it takes out the rest of the country.”
Still, I couldn't just blurt out the words she wanted to hear; something was telling me it wasn't right to just hand over Jack.
I couldn't help but turn to Cassie; couldn't help but look deep into her eyes as she stared straight back like she was trying to reach into my mind and tell me something. Trying to urge me to go one way or the other.
67
“Jack,” I said, knowing as the name came out I could no longer take it back.
Staring at Cassie, I watched the intensity of her expression melt to a smile.
“His name is Jack,” I said, warming with her reassurance. “But he's only ten, or thereabouts.” I turned back to the doctor and watched her hands slide through the mess of paper spread across the desk.
“When was he bitten?” she said, as she seemed to find what she was looking for.
I looked to Cassie, turning away as she nodded.
“Two days ago, when this all started, but we only met him this morning.”
She looked up from a page of paper she had in front of her as her right hand found a pencil.
“How can you be sure?”
“There's a wound on his hand. Looks like a bite. Plus, it's what he told us.”
She continued to stare in my direction before turning down and scribbling.
“Did he say if he had any ill effects?”
I shrugged.
“He said he slept an entire day, but he didn't mention anything else.”
The pencil ran across the page.
“And there's no chance he could be lying?”
“He's a good kid. What would be the reason?”
Looking down at the page, she made more notes, before striking through part of what she'd written.
“Where is he?” she said, her pencil hovering.
I looked to Cassie and saw a flash of what I thought was concern in her eyes.
“What are you going to do to him?”
Her smile came back and I stiffened upright in the seat until she let the facade drop.
“Blood samples, that's all. We're not the monsters,” she replied. “There's a simple test
. If he continues to suffer no symptoms and we find the Cordyceps fungus in his blood stream, we'll know he's creating the precious antibodies we need.”
“Then what?” I said, my voice more stern than I'd intended. I looked to Cassie and her eyebrows raised, urging me on.
“More tests, but it's hard to say until we see the blood work,” she replied, her own posture stiffening. “Where is he?”
“We were holding out with our friends in a house about ten miles away. They're waiting for us to come back with supplies.”
“Where exactly?” she said, the pencil still hovering.
“I couldn't tell you,” I replied, shaking my head and watched as she leant forward, tilting her head to the side.
Her eyes squinted, but still locked on to mine.
“It's the truth. Ever since this started we've been on the move.”
As she shook her head, I felt rage building in my chest.
“Look here,” I said, moving to stand. “What with watching our friends die, scavenging for food, hiding from those creatures, being shot at from the skies, attacked by looters and kidnapped by the military, I didn't have a chance to consult the map I didn't even have.”
Cassie's hand reached across from her chair and I felt myself calm with her warmth. I sat and watched the doctor take a deep breath, the wrinkles on her forehead flattened out for a moment as a scowl flashed across her face.
“But we can take you there,” I said.
Her head angled up and her shoulders relaxed as her hand went below the table. From her pocket she pulled a radio handset, her long wrinkled fingers tapping across the numbered buttons before she held it up to her mouth.
A quiet male voice came from the speaker. “Captain Bains, Ma'am.”
“Captain, when is the next patrol due back?” she replied, her gaze not leaving mine.
“Sixteen hundred, Ma'am.”
The doctor shook her head. “Have you got another squad available for a retrieval?” she said, her eyes still fixed. “About ten miles?”
I nodded.
“Ten miles out. Collecting a group of?” she said, raising her left eyebrow.
