by Mark Kelly
Lucia leaned over and grabbed his rifle. The crazed man’s eyes flashed with anger as she tried to pull it away. He elbowed her in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her.
“Goddamn it, Ronnie, stop this foolishness,” McNee bellowed. As he jumped up and took a step towards Gourley, a single burst of gunfire struck him. He stumbled backward, dropping his gun and clutching at his chest.
“McNee’s been hit,” Simmons yelled to Samantha, who immediately left the side of the man she had been tending to.
She knelt down beside McNee, placed a hand on either side of his shirt collar and yanked. The buttons on his shirt popped one by one. With each breath, a slurping sound came from the bloody wound in his chest.
“Help me get him onto his side,” she shouted at Simmons. “I need to see if there’s an exit hole.”
They flipped McNee over to find a small round hole in his back leaking blood. “That’s good,” she said to Simmons’s surprise. “It means there isn’t a bullet inside of him. Quick, put pressure on the wounds while I look for a bandage.”
Simmons placed his hands over both holes and watched blood trickle out from beneath the edges of his fingers.
“Press harder,” she said, “Don’t be afraid of hurting him. Nothing you do will make it worse.”
Brandon ran over and dropped to his knees. He clutched at his father’s hand and spoke. “You’ll be okay, dad.”
The older man groaned. His breathing was shallow and labored.
“How bad is it?” Simmons asked.
“Bad,” Samantha answered. “We need to get him back to the farmhouse, but I’ve got to stabilize him first.” She grabbed the small medical kit Mei had given her and dumped the contents on the ground.
“Damn it!”
“What?”
“He needs an occlusive dressing, but there isn’t one in the kit?”
“What’s an occlusive dressing?”
“It’s air and waterproof—almost like a patch,” she answered. “He has an open pneumothorax. Every time he takes a breath, air is being sucked into his chest cavity. I need to seal the wounds to stop the blood loss and prevent air from entering the space between his lung and chest wall. The gunshot won’t kill him, but if the pressure builds in his chest, it will impair his heart’s ability to pump blood.”
“What about duct tape?”
Samantha and Simmons both glanced at Brandon. She gave him a weak smile. “Never would have thought of it, but it might just work.”
“I have some in my saddlebags—I think.”
“Go check.”
Brandon took off down the hill, returning a minute later with a roll of gray duct tape and a chunk of brown fabric about the size of a piece of bread. He handed them both to Samantha. “I don’t know if you can use it,” he said, “but the cloth is waterproof. It’s from a tent repair kit.”
“We can use it. Hold out your hand.”
Using the tiny scissors Mei had included in the medical kit, Samantha cut off four pieces of duct tape, each about a foot long and stuck them to Brandon’s hand. Then she lay the fabric on the ground and cut it in half.
“I need to clean the blood off or the tape won’t stick to his skin,” she said, unrolling a roll of gauze and balling it up in her hand. “Tony, on the count of three, lift your hand so I can wipe his chest and place the cloth on the wound. Once I’ve done that, press down like you did before.”
“1…2…3…Go!”
The second Simmons lifted his hand, blood gurgled up from the hole in McNee’s chest. Samantha wiped the blood away and dropped the piece of tent repair fabric on top of the wound. Simmons immediately placed his hand on the fabric and pressed down.
“Good, now I need to tape it up and seal the wound. Brandon, hand me the tape and then cut more. Make them about the same length.”
While Simmons held the patch in place, she taped the edges of the tent fabric to McNee’s chest and then completely covered the wound with tape. “It’s air and waterproof now,” she said, inspecting her work, “but we need to do the same thing on his back.” When they finished, she looked at Simmons with concern in her eyes. “We need to get him back to the farmhouse. Mei will know what to do next.”
Simmons beckoned to the men who stood in a circle around McNee’s body. “Make a basket with your arms and carry him down to the wagon.”
The men moved into position and lifted McNee up and off the ground. As they shuffled down the hill, the wounded man groaned in pain.
Simmons turned and glanced at Lucia, who didn’t looked like she was ready to leave.
“Aren’t you coming?”
“There is unfinished business.”
“What business?”
“Down there,” she said, pointing to the crossroads where a number of badly wounded roamers lay on the asphalt.
Simmons understood, but didn’t like it one bit. If they took the wounded roamers to the farm, Mei would insist on treating them and in the process, use up their valuable medical supplies.
Or, as Lucia was implying, they could put them out of their misery—which amounted to mercy killing.
“You could leave them,” Simmons said, suggesting a third option.
She shook her head. “That is worse than killing them.”
Simmons was at a loss. In a perfect and just world, the right thing to do would be to treat them. But that world was gone for the time being.
“Tony, let’s go,” Samantha shouted. She and the men carrying McNee had almost reached the wagon.
“Go,” Lucia said to him. “I will take care of it.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded and turned away. Simmons watched her walk through the trees and wondered if he should stop her.
“Tony!” Samantha shouted again.
Simmons grabbed his rifle and ran down the hill. When he reached the wagon, McNee was lying on the wooden floorboards. The wounded man’s breathing had become even more labored. Samantha looked worried.
“Is he getting worse?”
“I think his lung was nicked by the bullet. Every time he inhales, air is entering his chest cavity. If the pressure continues to build, he’ll go into shock.”
She reached down, peeled back one corner of the duct tape covering McNee’s wound, and counted to three.
“What are you doing?” Simmons asked as she re-sealed the bandage.
“Burping it to relieve the pressure. I’ll have to keep doing this every couple of minutes. We need to get him back to the farm—fast.”
Brandon jumped into the driver’s seat and grabbed the reins. The wagon lurched forward without any warning.
Simmons flinched at the sound of a gunshot. He looked up the hill, but there was nothing to see.
9
He’s Immune
Simmons stood at the end of the bed and watched Mei check the flexible plastic tube inserted in McNee’s chest. The tube was connected to a jerry-rigged contraption he had built with help from Brandon and a few basic instructions provided by Mei.
Conceptually, the device was simple. Air and excess liquids from McNee’s pleural cavity flowed into a sealed mason jar on the floor. That mason jar was in turn connected to a second jar with a water trap to prevent air from re-entering McNee’s chest cavity when he inhaled. Lastly, a third jar was connected to the water trap on one side and to a small hand-held bicycle pump on the other side.
Every few hours, Samantha or Mei used the pump to create a slight negative pressure drawing liquids and air out of McNee’s chest cavity and keeping his lungs from collapsing.
“How much longer is that infernal tube going to be stuck in me?” McNee asked.
“Just a couple more days,” Mei said, bending down and checking the fluid in the first jar. “It’s looking good, mostly clear, just a little tinge of pink. There isn’t as much internal bleeding as yesterday.”
A burst of laughter came through the open bedroom window. Simmons heard Callie and Saanvi laughing as they horsed around on
a tire that hung from a rope tied to the giant oak tree in the front yard.
McNee frowned, but it wasn’t clear to Simmons if the farmer was frowning because of the noise or the news he’d have the tube stuck in him for a few more days.
“I’ll tell them to be quiet, Tom,” Mei said. She made a move towards the window, but stopped as Lucia’s voice filled the air.
“Would you two be quiet and go somewhere else to play,” Lucia shouted at Saanvi and Callie. “You will wake the dead with all of your noise.”
Simmons smiled at the familiar sound of Lucia yelling. It meant life was slowly returning to normal. His grin faded at the memory of her riding into the yard on the back of Brandon’s horse with a serious expression on her face. That had been almost two weeks ago and a few hours after the battle at the crossroads. Thankfully, there had been no sign of the Roamer gang since then and neither of them had said a word about the unfinished business she had tended to.
Another outbreak of the giggles came from the front yard and Lucia yelled again in Spanish, causing Callie to laugh even harder.
“Brandon complains about Callie all the time,” McNee said, gazing at the open window, “but he and his brothers never had a sister. I think they like having her around. Even Bruce smiles a little more often.”
“How long are Samantha and Callie going to stay with you?” Simmons asked.
“As long as they want. Samantha saved my life out there. It’s the least I can do.”
There was the sound of someone at the bedroom door. Simmons turned. Samantha stood in the doorway with a bowl of soup in one hand and a glass of milk in the other. Her cheeks were flushed. He guessed she had heard McNee’s words. The praise was well deserved. If it hadn’t been for her and Brandon’s quick thinking, McNee would have probably died.
“It’s time for lunch,” she said, “or I can come back later if you’re busy?”
Mei waved her in. “We’re done. I was just checking Tom’s fluids. They look good. A couple more days and we can pull the tube.”
Samantha placed the bowl and glass on the small nightstand at the head of the bed. She pulled up a chair and attempted to feed McNee.
He pushed her hand away. “For God’s sake, It’s only a gunshot wound, I’m not crippled. I can feed myself.”
Samantha sighed. She glanced at Simmons and Mei and then rolled her eyes.
Mei smiled as she spoke. “Tom, are you being a good patient?”
Not likely, Simmons thought, knowing that if it were him in the bed, he’d go stir-crazy in a couple of days.
McNee winced as he raised the spoon to his mouth. Samantha let him suffer through a couple of mouthfuls before taking the spoon back and feeding him. McNee didn’t object, but immediately pushed her hand away at the sound of a knock on the bedroom door.
Brandon stood in the doorway with Emma beside him. McNee’s eyes blazed with anger. “Where’s your damned mask?” he snapped at his son. “I almost lost you once. How many times do I have to tell you to wear it when there are other people around?”
Brandon went rigid. He lowered his eyes as his father chastised him in front of the others. “I’m sorry, Dad. It’s downstairs. I’ll get it now.”
“Damn right you will, and if I ever see you without it when there are other people around—”
“Geez…he’s immune, why don’t you leave him alone,” Emma muttered under her breath.
Simmons froze, hoping no one had heard her. His eyes darted to Mei. The wide-eyed look of fear on her face confirmed that she had heard Emma say it too.
“What in tarnation are you talking about?” McNee snarled at Emma.
Emma stared down at the floor when she realized she had been heard. McNee glared at Mei and then Simmons. “Someone had better start talking—and I mean now.”
Simmons took a deep breath. He decided it was time to tell Tom McNee the truth. Not only was there no way to undo Emma’s words, he would need McNee’s help finding the supplies and equipment to continue his research on a cure.
“Brandon is immune to the pandemic bacteria. So are Mei and I and Lucia and the girls.”
McNee blinked and found his voice. “What are you talking about? There’s no cure and no one is immune.”
“There is a cure,” Mei replied. “We discovered it by accident just before we came to Canada.” She told McNee and Samantha about their trip north and the time they spent in Akwesasne curing the Mohawk girl, Kateri.
“I’ve heard about FMT as a cure for recurrent Clostridium difficile infections,” Samantha said, “but never for this strain.”
“It isn’t a typical FMT reaction,” Simmons said. “There’s something unique in Saanvi’s digestive tract that deactivates the infectious C. diff bacteria.”
“Now, wait just a goddamn minute,” McNee shouted, becoming frustrated and overwhelmed by the conversation occurring around him. He looked at Mei. “You say Brandon was infected, and now he isn’t? And you cured him using…uh, poop…from that little British girl outside?”
Mei nodded.
McNee slumped back in his bed.
Brandon appeared dazed by the news. He looked at Mei for confirmation.
“I’m really immune?”
“Yes. Do you remember when we first arrived in town and you were sick? I lied and told your father it was cholera, but it wasn’t. You were infected by the pandemic bacteria and we used the same procedure to cure you that we used to cure Kateri.”
“Do you know what the mechanism for conferring immunity is?” Samantha asked Mei.
“Tony initially thought it might be antibody-related,” Mei replied, “but he’s leaning away from that theory.”
“Why?”
“Because that would imply a form of passive immunity and passive immunity rarely lasts,” Simmons answered. “From what we’ve seen, every person who receives material from Saanvi develops permanent immunity to the infectious strain. I think something in Saanvi is triggering the C. diff bacteria to self-destruct.”
Samantha appeared stunned. “I’ve never heard of that before.”
“It’s rare,” Simmons said, “but some bacterial strains have a built-in suicide mechanism to enable self-preservation of the species.”
“How does committing suicide accomplish that?” Samantha asked.
“It’s a similar concept to what happens with larger organisms. Some insects—bees, for example, effectively commit suicide by leaving the hive when they detect they’ve been infected by a parasite. This helps the rest of the population in the hive because it removes the source of a disease that otherwise might kill more of them.
“Similarly, bacteria infected with a bacteriophage will kill itself to prevent the spread of the virus to other members of its species. My suspicion is there is something in the biochemical soup in Saanvi’s colon that activates the suicide mechanism in the infectious C. diff bacteria.”
McNee grunted in pain. He pushed himself upright in the bed and narrowed his eyes as he stared angrily at Simmons. “You told me you taught history. How does a professor of history come to know all this scientific mumbo jumbo?”
Simmons swallowed the lump in his throat. The lies had been necessary when he and the others first arrived in Douglas and didn’t know who to trust. Now, they were just an unnecessary complication.
He looked McNee in the eye. “Tom, some of what we’ve told you about ourselves isn’t true. I wasn’t a history professor at NYU. I was an assistant Professor of Biochemistry at Georgetown University in Washington. Emma was one of my students—”
“Are you a real doctor,” McNee asked Mei, “or is that a lie too?”
“I’m a doctor, a real doctor,” Mei replied. “Everything I’ve told you about myself is true. I had no reason to lie. No one is trying to kill me like they’re trying to kill Tony.”
McNee’s jaw dropped. He looked at Simmons. “What else aren’t you telling me, Professor?”
“It’s a long story,” Simmons said, “but here’s the shor
t version. Before we came to Canada, I was at a military research lab in Maryland working on a vaccine to protect against the bacteria. I discovered the strain had been created by a rogue CIA agent to destabilize the North Korean government. When the people who were responsible for creating it realized what I knew, they tried to kill me, but ended up killing the man I was working for—a colonel in the army. Then they framed me for his murder and I ran.”
McNee narrowed his eyes and gave Simmons a skeptical look. “Sounds like something out of a movie. Do you seriously expect me to believe that?”
“It’s the truth, Tom.”
“Then why didn’t you go to the authorities,” McNee asked skeptically.
“I couldn’t. My fingerprints were on the gun. I was an outsider. They would have thrown me in jail and left me to rot.”
When the skeptical look on McNee’s face wavered, Simmons took a step towards the bed and leaned in closer. “You have to understand, Tom, when we first decided to come north, it was to escape the people who were after me, but once we discovered Saanvi’s immunity was transferable, we had to protect her. If something were to happen to her, it would be catastrophic.”
McNee grunted. “Suppose I believe you. What next?”
“I have an idea about how we might be able to scale up the treatment, but I need your help.”
McNee let out a cynical laugh. “My help? I’m just a farmer.”
“You’re more than just a farmer, Tom. You’re a problem solver, and we have a big problem to solve—the biggest one in the world.”
“Hmmph…go on.”
“Although I don’t understand what it is that is in Saanvi’s colon that confers immunity, I do know it can be transferred. In a perfect world, I’d run a series of experiments to try to isolate the mechanism and then replicate it, but I don’t have that option here.”
“Why not?”
“Labs with the type of equipment I need are in the cities or on a university campus. To get to them, I’d have to fight my way through the quarantine zones and I wouldn’t know if the lab was usable until I reached it—and I suspect most of them aren’t. They need electricity, skilled researchers…resources that don’t exist anymore.”
