Plague War: Outbreak

by Alister Hodge

  As the police organised how they would approach the restraint, the remaining patients that hadn’t bolted on their own volition were moved to a different area. Harry hung back; his help wasn’t required, and he was quietly glad of it.

  The police team opened the door and rushed into the small room. Screams from the dead woman escalated as they pinned the body down, cut the restraints to the trolley and lifted it away. When called for, the paramedics pushed their transport trolley into the room and collapsed it to the ground. The team lifted the flailing body onto the stretcher, and fastened each limb with multiple zip ties to prevent any movement. Harry handed over a copy of the paperwork from the arrest, and the dual police/paramedic team filed out of the department.

  * * *

  The treatment of the injured nurse and security guard was now complete; wounds washed and dressed. Harry wrote them scripts for antibiotics and analgesia to see them through the next few days. The manager took pity, ushering them out the door with an early mark. Harry joined the remaining clinicians on the staff base where they’d gathered. The police had stretched a blue and white tape cordon across the entrance to the resuscitation area, restricting access to the crime scene. There was still a bunch of junk food lying on one of the desks, but no one was interested in eating. A junior doctor broke the silence by asking the question each was thinking, but reluctant to voice.

  ‘How do we explain what just happened?’

  ‘Maybe the equipment failed, and we got the diagnosis wrong,’ offered one of the nurses. ‘What did Public Health have to say, Harry?’

  ‘They mostly wanted to know about the wound.’ Harry paused as a new thought hit him. ‘There’s been a murmur on the grapevine about a new disease in the bat population up north that’s suspected in some recent human deaths. I wonder if that’s why they were so interested in the bite mark. Do you reckon that’s what she had?’

  The other Registrar cut in. ‘We’d have to be unlucky. I think we just stuffed up. She probably had a faint pulse the whole time that was missed.’

  ‘So how do you explain her attack on Kate?’ asked a nurse.

  ‘Maybe she was delirious from the infection? Look, I don’t know for sure either,’ he said, giving up.

  ‘Yeah, you’re probably right.’ Harry sighed; he knew the hospital executives were going to haul him over the coals about Kate’s death. Still, he’d rather deal with that than be staring at the ceiling with a chunk missing from his neck—

  A flat smack echoed from the room where Kate lay. Everyone’s head turned. On cue, another thump from the inside of the door caused it to shudder in its frame.

  ‘What the fuck?’ stammered the Registrar.

  Harry lurched to his feet, ‘It’s happening again. Someone call the cops!’ He ran towards the door. ‘We need to keep her in there – she’s fucking dead. She bled out on me...’

  He grabbed the handle and placed his weight onto it, his foot braced against the doorframe. One of the nurses joined him and leant their strength. Whatever was left of Kate, heard their efforts. A shriek of anger battered their eardrums as the door bounced from the force of her blows. The minutes dragged on as the unrelenting assault continued.

  A police siren escalated in volume as a squad car neared the department, before skidding to a halt in the ambulance bay. Two constables ran in and were directed to the barricaded door. Harry and the nurse were ordered out of the way. One officer stepped forward and turned the handle, pulled open the door and stood back.

  Out from the darkness shambled Kate’s body. The limbs moved in an uncoordinated lurching motion. Clot-soaked tendrils of hair matted one side of her face, covering the left eye. The right eye snapped its focus to the first police officer. Her lips peeled back into a snarl as she started towards him. The officer moved backwards slowly. ‘Stop! Get down on the ground!’

  Nothing.

  The cop pulled out his Taser, and aimed it at her chest. ‘Stop where you are!’

  What had once been Kate, lurched forward.

  ‘Taser! Taser! Taser!’ shouted the police officer in a last warning to the corpse, then fired the pins into her chest to deliver a debilitating shock. Instead of dropping to the floor in an agony of electric charge, her body was unaffected. Her forward motion continued, now accompanied by a maddening groan.

  Shaking hands dropped the Taser in preference of a Glock. The officer’s face drained of colour as he provided his last warnings to surrender without effect.

  Three shots in rapid succession punched through the corpse’s chest, smashing it off its feet. The clot of hair had flung away from the left eye in the fall, freeing both unblinking eyes to bore a hole through the constable’s head as it pushed itself back to standing and started forward again.

  The constable’s hand started to waver as he backed away, firing two more rounds. The first hit her left shoulder; the second entered the right side of her forehead, blowing out a section of her skull to coat the wall behind. The corpse smacked to the ground, lifeless once more. The police officer re-holstered his weapon, took a slow breath and turned around, his eyes searching the people behind until he found his colleague. He maintained a fixed glare at his partner, a “where the fuck were you during that?” expression clearly conveyed while he addressed the rest of the room in a rasping voice.

  ‘Start transferring any remaining patients to other departments or hospitals. This entire Emergency Department is now a crime scene.’

  * * *

  Harry grabbed his backpack and headed for the door. It had taken them another two hours to move the remaining patients elsewhere. He’d never seen patients accepted by inpatient medical teams so willingly before. A further two hours followed of interviews with police and the hospital’s General Manager who was desperate to understand what had happened before it was leaked to the media. Harry was beyond tired, scraped to a husk inside after the night’s happenings. He needed to find unconsciousness in sleep without any more dissection of events. There was a half full bottle of scotch at home that he hoped could deliver a dreamless sleep.

  Chapter Two

  Harry jammed the phone back into the receiver in frustration. The bloody police had gained wind of him moving to Milton from hospital management, and had kept him from sleep for a further two hours discussing the night’s events on the phone again. They had given him “permission” to leave as planned, stating that he could sign a formal statement via the Milton police. Harry glanced at the bottle of whiskey, untouched on the sideboard. He’d never got the chance to pour himself that drink, the phone had been ringing as he’d walked in the front door. Fatigue now extinguished the desire for anything other than bed.

  Harry wandered into the bathroom for a leak and caught his reflection in the mirror. He looked rough. Brown hair curled in rebellious tufts, bloodshot eyes hooded with exhaustion, pale skin and a three-day growth matched how he felt inside. Yawning, he scratched at the stubble on his neck and headed for his bedroom. After moving most of his belongings to Milton, he’d left himself just a camp mat to sleep on for the past week. But with how he felt at the moment, bare floorboards would have done the job. He shrugged off his scrubs, crawled under his sleeping bag and within a few heartbeats, was unconscious.

  …Harry walked outside after meeting with the village elders and glanced at the sun. The humidity was oppressive, his whole body felt damp with sweat, turning his clothes to a wet second skin. The village to which they had tracked the latest outbreak was remote, up in the hills with only walking tracks or rough four-wheel drive trails for access. The locals farmed Cassava, a root crop suited to the poor soil quality of the region. Banana trees encircled the living area, immature green fruit hanging in clumps from the upper branches. The lush green of the surrounding foliage somehow acted as a partial antidote to the unrelenting heat of the equatorial sun, you couldn’t help but feel alive in such an environment. Alive maybe, but still exhausted.

  He looked back towards the hut of concern. Mud brick walls topped by
a thatch roof, the stooped low doorway framed a dark interior, appearing black from outside. Inside lay a forty-year-old mother, matriarch to eight live children ‒ an incredible feat considering child-mortality rates in the region. Despite her resilience, she had fallen ill after preparing her uncle’s body for funeral the previous week. Her uncle was a village trade representative, responsible for transporting produce to local markets and negotiating sales. He had encountered an infected person on one of these trips, however had not become ill until well on his way home. Unfortunately, he had managed to spread Ebola to three separate villages ‒ including his own ‒ prior to his death.

  Harry and two other colleagues from MSF were setting up a clinic in the village to treat locals exposed to the virus. Running a clinic in a remote setting such as this was always a huge challenge. He had to achieve sufficient trust with the locals for them to accept treatment, whilst preventing Ebola transmission to his team during care delivery.

  Harry and another MSF volunteer unpacked their equipment from the back of the twin-cab Ute. Methodically, they helped each other apply the protective gear necessary to prevent exposure to the virus. Once dressed, a plastic suit encased their bodies from head to toe, making all movement ungainly and difficult. Respirators and eye shields covered their faces, erasing all features of humanity. Harry felt his pulse escalate, an unwelcome stirring of anxiety at the base of his chest fluttering into existence at the claustrophobic nature of the all-enclosing suit. The heat and humidity under the layers of plastic was immense, and a sheen of sweat soon coated his skin.

  Harry and his colleague entered the woman’s hut and set up the required equipment for treatment. There was no cure for Ebola. Treatment focused on supporting the body while the immune system fought the virus. Occasionally it worked, with around 20% of infected patients surviving. Looking down at his latest patient through fogged glasses, he didn’t think this lady would make that lucky group.

  The woman on the bed was slick with sweat, her breathing rapid and shallow. She had soiled herself under the sheet, and as Harry pulled it back, he found red blood mixed with the diarrhea – not a good sign. A small number of Ebola victims displayed haemorrhagic symptoms and began to bleed from their orifices; mouth, nose, anus and sometimes eyes. As Harry inserted an intravenous catheter into her arm, a blood-stained tear rolled down her right cheek. The woman suddenly opened both eyes; the whites were scarlet due to bleeding beneath the conjunctiva.

  She looked at Harry in terror and confusion, not understanding why an alien-looking figure was sticking a needle in her arm. She began to fight and grabbed hold of Harry’s facemask and hood, ripping it off his head. Harry backed out of the room as quickly as possible, holding his breath and keeping his eyes and mouth shut, praying that none of the woman’s blood or saliva had touched his skin or mucous membranes.

  Now that he was outside again, Harry opened both eyes, took a deep breath of the fresh air; and froze. Kate stood in the middle of the clearing. Her blue scrubs, clotted with blood, clung to her slim frame. The ragged bite wound in her neck gaped open, glaring evidence of her violent death. Her eyes fixed on Harry, unblinking in accusation.

  ‘You couldn’t save her,’ she croaked, pointing at the hut from which he had exited. ‘And you gave up on me. Some fucking doctor you are.'

  Harry sat bolt upright, chest heaving. He leant forward, resting his forehead on his hands as he tried to slow his breathing. The Liberian woman had disturbed his sleep for weeks after returning from his last MSF placement. Now the dream was back, hijacked by Kate in a combined protest at his failure. He walked to the bathroom, twisted on the tap and splashed some water up to his face. There was no point going back to bed, from experience he knew the dream would pursue any further attempts of sleep.

  Coping with intimate exposure to death was one of the harder components of working in health. Harry had prevented many deaths, however, it wasn’t possible to save every person. In the advent of a patient death, Harry compulsively reviewed his actions to see if he had made the right decisions.

  During daylight hours, he could usually shut his mind down on the subject, but occasionally he found an underlying anxiety would persist, keeping him awake for hours at night. His involvement with Kate and her murderer was something entirely different. He knew he hadn’t misdiagnosed either. They had both died; their hearts had stopped, breathing ceased. There hadn’t been any fault with the cardiac monitoring – blaming these items just sought to ignore the possibility that they had both re-animated after death.

  As soon as his mind tried to contemplate this, it reeled away, still refusing what he had witnessed with his own eyes. Nevertheless, it had happened, and whatever it was that had come back, was empty of consciousness or compassion, containing only a murderous rage and unassailable hunger.

  Harry pulled on a pair of jeans and t-shirt, then stuffed the last few items of clothes scattered on his bedroom floor into a large duffle bag. He rolled up his mat then crammed the sleeping bag into its sack, and slung it over his shoulder.

  After a last glance around to ensure all lights were off and windows closed, he left the house key on the kitchen table for the real estate agent to find, shut the front door and walked to his car. It was mid-afternoon, late to be starting a six-hour drive to Milton, but he needed to leave the recent events in Sydney well behind. Putting the car into gear, he pulled out and headed for the Princes Highway and South Coast.

  Chapter Three

  Steph hooked her toe under the rim of an empty chair and pulled it closer, before crossing her ankles on it and easing into a comfortable slouch. She took another sip from a tall glass of orange juice then set it aside. The air was warm and humid, the slight breeze cooling a prickle of sweat on her brow. Light dappled the ground, filtered between vivid green foliage that cocooned the small, seated area. She felt contented.

  The dent in her savings to attend the rainforest retreat had been worth every cent. After months travelling and living out of crowded backpacker dorms, she had decided to splurge on five days at a secluded retreat outside of Cairns. The eco-resort had a focus on “wellness” activities, offering yoga, meditation, diet detoxes and personal trainers along with a lecture series on the local forest environment for those with an academic bent. The only downside to the place that Steph could see was the lack of alcohol, all part of the “detox” she supposed. Although any holiday for her usually involved a few drinks to unwind, she hadn’t missed it as much as expected.

  This was the first lecture that she had attended so far. It was day four of her stay, and she’d had enough of yoga ‒ there wasn’t a muscle that hadn’t been stretched to breaking point. Her sleep debt was repaid, she couldn’t be bothered doing a gym session, and listening to a tape of whales gossiping long-distance didn’t fit her bill as meditation. That left today’s lecture provided by a local park ranger as her best option for distraction.

  Steph was one of six people that had shown up for the presentation. Hurried footsteps approached along a path towards their clearing, and shortly, a man in an olive-green uniform appeared lugging two covered cages. The ranger introduced himself while placing the cages on a trestle table. He removed the covers gently to reveal a pair of bats hanging upside down.

  The ranger presented his charges, two different species of Flying Fox common to tropical Queensland. In the cage to the right hung a “Little Red Flying Fox”, named for the russet fur that covered the torso of the breed. Two glistening black eyes blinked in the light from a head covered in grey fur. The bat clasped light brown wings about its body, covering it from toes to shoulder. In the second cage hung a “Black Flying Fox”, a much larger creature encased in black fur from head to belly. This creature was a relative giant of the bat world, owning a wingspan of up to one metre.

  The ranger displayed a talent for public speaking, his easy stance and evident passion held each person’s attention closely. The exuberant expression on his face as he described the local bat colonies and eating ha
bits began to fade as he discussed a new disease responsible for a sharp decline in Queensland bat numbers. During the last six months, civilians had provided multiple reports of dead bats to the forestry service. Flying foxes were renowned, despite their almost canine heads, as gentle giants in the bat world. Their diet comprised fruit and nectar of flowering blossoms, and they rarely came in physical contact with humans, however, three people had recently experienced minor bites and scratches when inadvertently disturbing their feeding on low branches.

  The victims had developed a variant of Lyssavirus – a disease closely related to rabies found in some Australian bats. Each person had succumbed despite aggressive treatment at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane. At present, Public Health officials hypothesised that a mutation of the Lyssavirus was responsible for decimated bat populations in Northern Queensland, along with greater susceptibility of transfer to humans. The University of Queensland had launched a research project into the virus, and the Ranger proudly informed them that the bats on display were part of the study.

  He invited those present to come up for a closer view on the proviso they keep their fingers away from the cages. Steph was one of the first to accept the offer, keen to gain some quality photos of the creatures. She pulled a digital SLR from a bag sitting next to her chair, threw the camera’s strap over her neck and walked to the front. Both bats had eyes open now, warily watching the humans about them. Steph snapped numerous close-up shots of the smaller bat, fascinated by its liquid black eyes. A vocal older woman elbowed her to the side to gain a better view. Steph stood back, dumbfounded at the brusque rudeness of the woman.