by Welker, Wick
“Jayne, what’s wrong? Did you hurt your arm?”
“No, I fell.”
“Well, did it hurt when you fell?”
“Yes, it hurts.” Jayne put out her bottom lip, which puffed up her entire face into an exaggerated expression of sadness.
“Okay, you just need to be more careful.”
“But it wasn't my fault, Ms. Stutsen, it was Jacob's.”
“Where you two fighting?” Stutsen looked around the playground to find Jacob but she couldn't see him. “Where is he?”
“He pushed me over and I pushed him back. Then he went and pushed Katie and then Katie started to cry. I didn't cry.”
Stutsen got up from the grass and her afternoon daydreaming, and holding Jayne's hand, walked towards the playground. “Well, it sounds like we need to talk to Jacob about this. Just because he pushes you, Jayne, doesn't mean you have to push back. When you see a problem, you can just come tell me without being mean back.”
“I know I should play nice.” From her teachers and parents, Jayne had learned the proper words to use when being chastised to avoid punishment.
Stutsen looked around the chaotic playground but still didn't see Jacob. She quickly began to walk down the length of the playground with her head bent low to see into the playground equipment. “Where did he go?” This question was no longer intended for Jayne but as an admission of concern to the open air. Once she circled the playground without seeing him, her heart began to beat violently and her mind began to swirl. Before a cascade of panic could erupt through her body, she heard the yelling of children behind her. She turned and saw two girls running towards her.
“Ms. Stutsen, Jacob is over on the grass and he hit me.” Stutsen looked up and saw him just ten yards from the playground. She realized how just a little panic made her irrationally circle around a fifty square foot playground without looking outside of its perimeters. Jacob was lying on the grass.
“Jacob! Get up and get over here, right now!”
Jacob lay on the grass, cheerfully rolling from his stomach to his back repeatedly. As Stutsen started to approach him, she realized that what she thought from a distance was the jolly demeanor of a six year old playing was really the writhing of a child in pain. She ran over to Jacob, which in her mind was a single flash that instantly transported her to him.
What she predicted was Jacob clutching his abdomen from a stomachache, but what she saw was the boy's face gouged by fluid filled sacs of dark pus rupturing from his skin. Some of the membranous sacs were slowly dribbling blood and yellow secretions while others remained intact but ready to burst at the mere graze of contact. The swelling was prominent on his eyelids, which forced his eyes completely shut. The blistering had created craters in his cheeks, indenting inwards, making it appear as if his entire cheekbone structure had been altered. The skin on his entire face was slightly pulsating with his heartbeat, and with every beat, more fluid flowed from the open wounds. The abrasions on his face were so severe that the swelling was starting to alter the placement of his right ear. It had become loose with the skin to which it was attached and was drooping downwards. His entire head was rapidly losing the essential characteristics that made it identifiable as an actual human head.
Jayne screamed and began to cry. Stutsen fell to her knees beside Jacob and shook his shoulders calling his name. She could see that he was trying to respond but his lips had swollen outwards making it impossible to articulate words. The only sound he could produce was a shallow gurgling. Stutsen scooped up Jacob in her arms and yelled to Jayne. “Jayne, sweetheart, I need you to run ahead of me and go tell another teacher inside that there is an emergency on the playground and that Jacob is hurt.”
Jayne stood up and began to run in a manner that surprised Stutsen. Jayne turned around, “But you tell us not to run in the halls?”
“It's okay to run in an emergency.”
*****
The employees of the northeast side of the 9th floor of the building had gathered into multiple groups around the conference room that had become the temporary confinement of temporary insanity. Two filing cabinets had blocked the door to the room. After someone saw the body of an unconscious, disheveled bald man being carried from the room, they thought the precaution was necessary. It proved not to be. Janice had made no attempts to open the door by the actual doorknob. Rather, she had devised the crude strategy of lunging 270 pounds of her own body at the glass windows. The attempt had only resulted in a few hairline cracks in the pane. The glass had become difficult to see through with the bloody and greasy strokes of her face and hands making an opaque film covering. In addition, the lights were off in the room which made it that much more difficult to see what she was doing. Currently, she was sitting silently in the recesses of a dark corner.
A gaunt looking man in accounting, Jared Hess, was protesting the confinement. “Why can't we just go in there? Do we really need to block her in there? This is insane. It's Janice.”
One of the three men from the cough syrup company interjected in the small congregation of people around the windows of the conference room. “She is acting incredibly violent. She just got up and started lunging at us. Bob over there is concussed. I mean, what in the hell is going on. Does anyone know this woman? Is she off her medications or something?”
Hess offered a response amongst the employees, “Not that I know of. Her husband would know but he's not here. Hey,” he turned to the workers around him, “does anyone know where Frank is?” There were muttered responses but no actual coherent answer.
Keith was sitting in a swivel chair leaning forward with his chin resting in his hands. “Where the hell is the ambulance? You called, right Sharon?”
His secretary looked out from her cubicle. “Yes, I called right when you told me and I just called again. They said it’s en route.”
“What's it been, twenty minutes? Is that normal? Seems like they should be here by now.”
Hess shouted over at them, “I also called like five minutes ago and they said they were on their way.”
Keith shook his head. He had known Janice for eight years. He never knew her well, but he knew she was bitchy, not psychotic. He also knew what he saw on the news that morning with Dave's girlfriend shooting at the police. Remembering the soaking face of the man on the sidewalk who broke his elbow and ran away started to make him worry.
“Hey, man, what is going on?” Dave had walked up from behind him.
“Janice has gone crazy and I mean really crazy. She attacked Bob Courtman and is locked up in the conference room. She is sick or mentally ill, I don't get it.”
“Janice?” Dave stared.
“Yes, Janice. She is bleeding all over the place, and I don't know what to do. We called the ambulance, but they're not here.” He looked towards the stairwell.
“Well, why isn't someone in there with her? She can't just bleed by herself in the damn conference room. What is everybody doing?” Dave looked around at the crowd.
“You don't get it; if you go in there she will attack you. She is not in her right mind.” Keith ran his hands through his hair and exhaled.
“How can she attack me if she's bleeding everywhere? That doesn't make any sense.”
“Do not go in there.”
Dave briskly walked up to the windows of the conference room.
“Do not open the door!” Keith shouted.
Dave darted his head around, trying to find an opening of visibility through the grime on the inside of the glass. He cupped his hands around his eyes and brought his face to the glass.
“Janice?” He knocked on the glass. He could faintly see her sitting in the corner of the room, her back propped up by the wall. She seemed to notice and started to roll her body to gain momentum enough to latch onto the end of the conference table to stand. She got hold of the table, but slipped and her face fell downward onto a leg of the table.
“Oh, jeez...” Dave cringed and turned around to see if anyone else saw her
fall. He looked back and saw that she had managed to stand and was shuffling her feet towards him. That's when Dave saw her face. He doubled at the waist and dry heaved, keeping his head down toward the carpet. Her face had become a conglomeration of boils, drooping crevasses and bulging fluid-filled sacs.
Keith came up from behind Dave and peered in. He couldn't understand it. In the course of little under an hour, her face had undergone a drastic change. It no longer resembled anything close to the face of Janice Johnston. He couldn't think of anything that could cause such a radical change. No type of chicken pox, measles or fever could ever create the hanging skin and blistering boils on her face in such a short period of time. Not only could he not see her eyes, but also he couldn't tell where the eyes were supposed to be. She had become blind, deaf and mute.
Dave stood up and looked at Keith with his mouth open, trying to convey the perplexity that he was feeling. “What is wrong with her? Her face! Holy shit, her face. Keith, what happened in the meeting?”
“She was looking sick before we started but something happened right in the middle and she completely changed. She was literally sitting on top of Bob Courtman and pounding on his face.”
“Well, how the hell can she walk around hitting everybody when I can't even see her eyes, Keith! How does she even know what she's doing?” Dave's confusion was translating into displaced anger.
Keith knew what was going through Dave's mind. He knew he was thinking about how his girlfriend had shot at three policemen earlier that morning and that his brain was surreptitiously making quiet connections.
“What is going on with her?” Dave started to look around at all his coworkers who were silently eavesdropping. They stood and stared, just as speechless as anyone else who had looked into that conference room. “Call the police and an ambulance!”
“Dave, I told you, we have called them, but they haven't come yet. We don't know where they are. Look, we have all seen what's going on here and we have already tried everything we can, so stop yelling at everybody.”
Keith flipped his phone out from his jacket pocket and dialed 911. The phone rang for twenty seconds with no answer.
A voice finally picked up, “911, what is your emergency?”
“Hi, I called early about a woman in the office building on 28th avenue and…”
“Yes sir, we are aware of that situation. You should only call once for an emergency. We can't be holding up the line.”
“Yes, I know, but it's been a half an hour and no one has showed up and she is in a serious condition. She is incredibly sick and needs to get to a hospital immediately.”
“Sir, our call volume at the moment is beyond our maximum capacity. We have sent out an ambulance, but you must wait. I'm sorry, but it's all we can do under the circumstances.” She spoke hastily, trying to dissuade him from responding.
“What circumstances?”
“Thank you, sir, the ambulance will arrive shorty.” She hung up the phone.
Keith just stared at his phone. “Man, something is tying up the phone systems and the ambulances. Can someone turn on the news? Does anyone know anything about this?” Keith spoke out loud to his coworkers who were scattered randomly around the offices.
Hess started moving towards the receptionist’s desk where a television was mounted on the wall. “Yeah, we can check out the TV in the foyer.” A flood of people started to congregate around the TV.
Keith turned to Dave, “Can you stay here and watch Janice?” Keith felt odd making the request, as if he wasn't asking him to watch over a sick person but a danger trying to be kept under control like a forest fire.
The TV was switched to a news station, which showed a street in the Bronx with eight ambulances parked down the length of it. A news reporter was standing in front of one of the ambulances talking into a microphone.
“...The unprecedented volume of calls for emergency assistance has resulted in a citywide gridlock of ambulances and an overflow of hospital outpatient clinics. The flu season has hit early this year with more cases than ever reported. Many hospitals have reported symptoms of vomiting, fever, nausea and some bleeding. At this point, it is unsure what guidelines the Mayor might set forth for the city, but we anticipate hearing from him in just a few minutes. We have been told he will be appearing in a news conference in regards to this recent outbreak of the flu...” An anchorman in the news studio broke in over the news reporter’s voice.
“Jan, have the hospitals given any instructions to patients that are coming in for the sickness in light of the large volume of patients right now?”
The news reporter clutched her ear in her hand and responded, “There have been no official reports from any hospital in the city but you can see from this shot... if we can get a change over...” The screen changed to the view of a hospital on a busy street corner. A crowd of people was coming out of the entrance and led down to the end of the street. There was a vague semblance of an actual line, but people were crowding one another to get better access to the doors. The crowds had blocked the entrance to the emergency ambulance entrance, forcing ambulances to park in the middle of the street, blocking traffic. “Things are really getting hectic at this hospital. It doesn't look like any care is being given in a timely order. We expect to hear a citywide statement shortly from the Mayor on how to better manage this situation.”
The abrupt silence that fell on the employees as they watched the news report began to build into immediate tension. It wasn't the kind of tension one feels with common stress like attempting to finish a project under a deadline or trying to get your kids to quieten down in a restaurant. This tension was a quiet dark fear that starts to build in someone’s stomach when they witness an event that they fear might quickly get beyond their control. Like suddenly watching the water level of the ocean sinking out beyond the shore in prelude to a tsunami. A small distinguished fear in the employees was growing, which perhaps went unspeakable to relinquish the sudden onset of the reality of the situation.
Without speaking, Keith moved towards the windows of the building and peered downward into the streets. He saw traffic jams and swiftly moving foot traffic. The anxiety in his stomach began to diminish, because it looked like the normal operating streets of downtown.
The office looked at him, knowing why he went to the window. “Well, it looks pretty normal out there, normal traffic. Hopefully, we won't have too much trouble getting home today.” They continued to look at him as if he were going to give further instructions. Instead, he pulled out his phone and called his wife.
She picked up on the other line, “Hey, what's up?”
Keith realized that the only reason he called her was to try to sense panic in her voice, as if knowing her mood would help him to determine the current psychological state of the entire city. He felt an enormous amount of relief to hear her nonchalant voice on the line.
“Hey, I just wanted to see if everything was okay with you.”
“Yeah, everything's fine here. The carpet guys are here and they’re making so much noise downstairs that I can barely think up here.”
“Have you seen the news? There are a lot of people sick in the city and... Janice here... something happened to her. I don't think she will make it.”
“What? What are you talking about? What happened to her?”
“She just got really sick all of a sudden and her face and arms have boils and blisters all over. It's bad, really bad. No one knows what to do and we can't get an ambulance here because the entire city seems to be sick.” He stopped there before he mentioned that Janice was also caged in a conference room.
“Jeez, that is horrible.”
“Yeah. Well, Dave and I will make it back sometime. I still don't know what we're going to do about Janice, but we can't just leave her here without help. I'll call you in an hour. You should call the school and make sure everything's okay with Jayne. Call me if anything happens.”
“Okay, I will. Love you.”
Keith
made his way back to the conference room and couldn't see Janice in the darkness of her confines. Dave saw him walking over to him.
“Hey, we got to go, man. We should get out of here. Things are not looking good in the city. Jared left with some people already. We should go.”
“What do you think we are going to do about Janice? We can't just leave her locked up in that room. We have to wait for an ambulance. Just stop panicking. We’re going to be fine.”
“People don't get sick like this. This is major. This is a big deal. Hospitals don't overflow like that. Have you ever seen it like this? You know you haven't. I don't want to get caught in a damn quarantine. We need to get out of Manhattan.” Dave was purposely speaking in a soft yell.
“Fine, then go, I'll take to train, but I'm not leaving yet.”
Dave hated his quick response. He knew he couldn't leave knowing the Keith was staying behind when he himself was taking off like seamen jumping overboard. The boldness of his opposition made Dave forget about the people rushing out of the office to catch the subway, or going to hospitals to see how a loved one was doing. Keith's simple defiance had created boldness within him and he knew he couldn't leave now.
He breathed heavily and sank into a chair. “Okay, we'll wait.”
Chapter six
Dr. Stark's leg hurt. He had sat crumpled up in the last seat on a coach plane bound for D.C. For four hours, his right leg was jammed between the chair in front of him and the wall of the hull. Even now, while sitting in a plush leather chair, he could feel the tenseness of the muscles and the shooting rhythmic spasms down his hamstring. He gently massaged it and looked over the vast conference table where thirty people were seated. He heard a few of them introduce themselves when he walked in, but didn’t’ remember any of them. There were various researchers and other physicians present.
