"Yeah," Johnny waved, taking off down the road. He turned the car around a corner and in the middle of the road was someone stumbling down it.
“Look at this drunken asshole. He thinks he owns the whole goddamn road!” Rick said.
“Yeah, the least he could do is stumble down the sidewalk,” Johnny replied.
“Hey, Rick, toss your beer bottle at him as we go by,” Mark said.
“Alright!”
The car moved closer and Rick rolled down his window. The car swerved and the bottle sailed out the window, hitting the drunk in the shoulder, shattering into dozens of shards. The drunk slipped and fell, rolling into the gutter.
“Awesome! “ Rick yelled.
“Direct hit!” Mark yelled back. They all started laughing and Johnny gunned the engine.
In the gutter, the infected homeless man moaned angrily at the rapidly disappearing car.
September 15th
Dr. Pierre LeRoux was busier than usual this weekend. The emergency room was full of the usual: those needing real emergency care, like the three car crash victims from Devon and a seven year-old boy hit in the head during a hockey game, as well as a variety of elderly patients, those who should have gone to a clinic to treat their minor ailment and, of course, plenty of hypochondriacs.
As one of the best medical facilities in Western Canada, the University of Alberta Hospital had an excellent reputation, which meant that everyone and their little brother came here when they got sick or hurt themselves. Well known in the medical world for its research into heart surgery and heart disease, it also had top-notch oncology and pediatric departments.
Today, as most days, LeRoux was being run ragged. His day started at 6:30 a.m., and the emergency reception area had already been filled to the brim. By 8 a.m., it was standing room only. Like most emergency departments, the hospital used a triage system to quickly diagnose patients and decide who got treated in which order. A Level One meant the patient needed immediate care or they would die, while a Level Five was along the lines of, “Why the hell didn’t you go to a clinic near your home?” Those were the people subjected to fifteen or twenty hour wait times in news reports.
At about 10 a.m., he was sitting in a side room draining a cup of black tar that a nurse swore was coffee when the intercom blared, “Code White! Code White in Emergency!” Code White was hospital lingo for a patient with violent behaviour, much in the same way Code Blue was for a patient in cardiac arrest.
He dropped his cup in the trash and stuck his head out the door just as a pair of burly security guards ran by. He followed them into the ER, which had descended into chaos. Everyone was screaming and pointing at an elderly man who was shuffling around, trying to bite anyone who got close to him. He had already bitten the bald man who had been sitting beside him in the neck. Several orderlies and a pair of security guards surrounded the elderly man and tackled him. In the process, he sank his teeth into one of the orderly’s arms, causing him to emit a bloodcurdling shriek.
The other men subdued him and restrained him on a stretcher, while LeRoux examined the man bitten in the neck. A nurse had put a dressing on it, but it was still bleeding. Luckily for the man, the bite had missed his jugular. If it had been punctured, he would already be dead. LeRoux helped the man into a wheelchair and one of the other orderlies wheeled him to one of the examination rooms so he could get stitches.
Meanwhile, LeRoux went to look at the orderly’s bicep.
“He barely broke the skin. I’ll get a nurse to find some antiseptic and she can clean that wound out and dress it. After that, you take the rest of the day off and rest,” LeRoux said.
“Thanks, Doc,” the orderly grunted.
LeRoux went over to examine the elderly man on the stretcher next. The elderly man strained to reach LeRoux with his teeth and hands. LeRoux pulled out his pocket light and shined it in the man’s eyes, which were cloudy. There was no response to the light at all. He grasped the man’s wrist to take his pulse. That was strange, nothing at all. He pulled out his stethoscope and pressed it to the man’s chest. No raspy breathing sounds, no heartbeat, nothing at all. And yet the patient was thrashing and squirming in his restraints.
“Orderly!” LeRoux shouted.
An orderly popped into the room. “Yes?”
“Take this man upstairs to quarantine and see that they follow procedures strictly,” LeRoux said, “and make sure you do too!” LeRoux tossed the orderly a box of latex gloves.
“Yes, sir,” the orderly replied curtly as he pulled out a pair and slipped them on.
LeRoux picked up the phone and called upstairs.
“Dr. Miller, please,” Leroux asked the nurse on the other end. “Hey, Harvey, I’m sending up a strange case to you. A homeless guy went code white on us and bit a couple of people down here in the ER. When we got him strapped down to a gurney, I couldn’t find a pulse or even him breathing. Actually, all of his vitals were flatlined. Take a look at him when he gets there and let me know how it turns out, okay?”
He wandered over to the examination room where the bald man was being treated. The nurse cleaned his wound and prepped him for stitches. An anesthesiologist administered a shot to freeze the area so LeRoux could put in the stitches. In a clinic, LeRoux would have given the shot, but here in the hospital, everyone had a union and union policies to deal with. The bald man didn’t even flinch when the needle went in.
“Wow, you must be pretty tough, not to even notice a needle in such a sensitive area,” LeRoux commented.
“What do ya mean, Doc?” the bald man replied.
LeRoux glanced down at the man’s chart, and said, “Well, Mr. Campbell, the neck has a lot of nerve endings and you should have felt something when it went in.”
“I always had a high tolerance for pain,” Campbell grunted.
LeRoux poked the area around the wound and said, “You sure you don’t feel anything?”
“Nope, not a thing, stitch away, Doc.”
LeRoux sewed slowly and carefully, making sure each stitch was done correctly. After a couple of minutes, he was finished.
“There you go, after it heals you shouldn’t have too much of a scar.”
“Thanks.”
“Here’s a prescription for some painkillers. Trust me, high pain threshold or not, you’ll need ’em in a couple of hours.”
He sent the man on his way and continued on with his day, which, from then on, was rather uneventful. It wasn’t until several days later that the event popped back into Dr. LeRoux’s mind, but by then, it was already far too late to put the pandemic genie back in the bottle.
Chapter 2
September 17th
Scott Johnson was doing what he usually did most mornings, holding a small press conference prior to his daily council meeting. As the mayor of the City of Edmonton, his job entailed lots of public speaking, ribbon-cutting ceremonies and such. He had won the last two elections rather handily, defeating his closest opponent by a wide margin in each. Like many politicians, he had been a lawyer previous to running for office and came from a wealthy family, so when he decided to run, he had plenty of support to get his campaign going, especially from his family’s well-to-do friends. His goal was to stay in office for another term or two and then move to provincial politics.
“And finally, I’m happy to announce that the NE leg of the Anthony Henday will open ahead of schedule next spring and under budget,” he concluded.
“Mayor, do you have any comment on the strange medical crisis at several of the city’s hospitals and medical facilities?” a reporter from the CBC asked.
“Well, Crystal, I’ve spoken with officials from Alberta Health, and they have assured me that the quarantines at the University Hospital, the Capilano Medical Clinic and several seniors’ homes are purely routine and only temporary in nature. It is expected that they will be lifted in the coming days.”
“Mayor, why are police officers posted at each of the quarantine sites? Couldn’t security
guards handle the task?” Dale Allen, from CTV, asked.
“Those quarantined have exhibited symptoms of a hyperactive form of rabies, making them quite aggressive and potentially dangerous. Almost half a dozen orderlies at the facilities have mentioned being bitten, and as such have received rabies vaccinations and are also now under quarantine. Police officers are better trained to deal with violent individuals, and therefore are on hand to help should medical staff need such assistance,” Mayor Johnson replied.
“Let me assure the citizens of Edmonton that everything is under control. We have had outbreaks of meningitis, tuberculosis and a variety of diseases in the recent past, and our medical staff are very well trained for just such an event. That same training prevented massive outbreaks of swine flu several years ago and halted the spread of SARS in the capital region years before that. There is absolutely nothing to be worried about,” Mayor Johnson continued. “I’m sorry, but that’s all the time I have right now. I’ll be free again after the council meeting.”
Mayor Johnson stepped off the podium and walked back to his office, flanked by a pair of aides.
“Do you think that they bought it?” the mayor asked his chief of staff after they had closed the door.
“I hope so. As per your request, we’ve activated the Emergency Operations Centre and are in the process of canceling all leaves and vacations for the city’s emergency personnel. Is there anything else we can do?”
“Pray that this isn’t as contagious as it appears,” the mayor replied. “Let’s get to the council meeting and inform everyone else of the seriousness of the situation.”
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Xander got up early Monday morning to get ready for work. He turned off the alarm in his bedroom and then walked to the bathroom, where he turned the shower on full blast and scorching hot.
His weekend hadn’t been bad, all things considered, especially given that his girlfriend had dumped him a few weeks ago. That meant their usual Saturday of dinner, movie, and a blowjob had gone out the window. He and Johnny had gone to a club on Saturday night and partied a bit, but Xander’s heart really hadn’t been in it. Despite that, a couple of cute girls chatted with him and Johnny. Eventually, being the good wingman he was, he went home with, in Johnny’s opinion anyways, the slightly less pretty of the two. Personally, Xander thought Johnny’s lady friend was too skinny and smoked too much. The sex was pretty good and they promised to call each other, but they both knew that probably wouldn’t happen.
He played hockey again on Sunday afternoon, this time scoring twice, and reveled in watching Rick’s head nearly explode at his incredible play. Xander was plus four for the game and drew assists on three other goals his team scored, while Rick was held off the score sheet entirely, except for six minutes in penalties and one measly shot on net.
“Why the fuck can’t you play like that every game, asshole?” Rick bitched at Xander in the dressing room.
“I try, sometimes I have a great game, and sometimes, it’s just a good game,” Xander lied.
Everyone on the team, including Rick, knew what Xander could do if he really wanted to. In fact, some of them, like Rick, wanted him to do more so they could do less themselves.
“Maybe you should worry about your own play, Rick, and less about Xander’s,” Johnny interjected. “Six fucking penalty minutes, one shot on net and minus fucking three”, he said, shaking his head reproachfully.
Rick turned to Johnny, sporting a wounded look. “Why do you always stick up for him?”
“Because he’s a team player and you’re not.”
Rick stormed off to the showers.
In Xander’s mind, the beer after the game had never tasted so good. He spent hours at the restaurant soaking up his teammates praises. It was even sweeter because Rick had come too and had been forced to listen to it all.
Xander shaved with his electric razor and then hopped in the shower, which was blowing out tons of scalding hot water. Xander wasn’t a metrosexual by any stretch of the imagination, and like a lot of guys, took quick showers, using shampoo or body wash, whichever he had that day, to clean himself from head to toe. He got out of the shower, dried himself off and got dressed in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.
Next, he went into the kitchen to make breakfast where he nuked some bacon strips from the day before then made some toast with peanut butter. He mashed the bacon strips onto his toast and quickly devoured the sandwich. He washed it down with a glass of cold milk and then ate an orange. He quickly brushed his teeth and then turned on the Weather Network to look at the forecast for the day. Nice, he thought, plus eighteen degrees, sunny and only a five klick per hour wind from the southeast.
He slipped on his steel-toed boots, grabbed a light jacket just in case, car keys and walked out the door. His condo was on the second floor of his building, and the elevator was only ten feet or so away from his front door. It was annoying sometimes when it announced its arrival late at night, or even worse – really early on ‘hangover’ mornings, but it came in handy when he went shopping and returned with several bags of groceries. He walked past the elevator and took the stairs into the parkade, where he walked over to his pride and joy, a Nissan X-Terra.
His X-Terra was fitted with a snorkel, bush bumper, winch, fog lamps and every other cool thing he could think of. He had wanted to put a whip antenna on it for his CB, but the parkade’s low ceiling would have destroyed it in short order, so it sat in a box in the back, just waiting to be attached to the mounts on the back of the truck. His X-Terra was a total redneck vehicle, but he loved it nonetheless.
In the summer when he wasn’t playing hockey, he liked to go to his cousin’s place near Pincher Creek and do some off-roading, camping and even some hunting once in a while. This was a by-product of his childhood. His parents had been, and always would be, city people, so for summer vacations they sent him to visit his uncle Dave, a farmer in southern Alberta, for a couple of weeks. There he got to do all sorts of things he never could in Edmonton. He learned how to ride a horse, shoot a rifle and forage food from the land. His parents liked to tease uncle Dave about being a gun-toting survivalist, but he was simply a throwback to the early pioneers of Canadian history, a man capable of living off the land and who wasn’t scared of a little hard work. He also had been a veteran of the Korean War as a member of the Royal Canadian Regiment and a staunch Conservative Party supporter. He never held the fact that Xander’s parents were dyed in the wool Liberals against them, and in return, they never held his views against him. In fact, family reunions usually had some pretty lively discussions when the liberal city folk squared off against the conservative rural folk.
Uncle Dave had liked to joke with Xander that hard work never killed a man, but it sure scared a lot of them. So on his annual trips to the farm, Xander worked, and worked hard – chopping wood, tossing hay bales, you name it. At the time, Xander resented a lot of it, but when he started playing hockey seriously, all that hard work had given him muscles most kids his age didn’t have, which gave him a big advantage. It had also instilled in him a work ethic second to none, as well as made him mature faster than a lot of other boys.
Of course, his trips to the farm hadn’t been all about hard work, they also included, as his uncle said, “a helluva lot of fun,” things like hunting, fishing, camping, and hiking and every other outdoor type of activity Uncle Dave could think of. He also taught Xander how to shoot, basic gun safety, and everything else that went with gun ownership. Uncle Dave was a very responsible gun owner and only let Xander use a .22 rifle. However, it was arguably the coolest .22 rifle in the world, an AR-7 survival rifle. Xander’s favourite thing about the rifle was that the receiver and magazine could be disassembled and stored in the stock of the rifle, which was filled with foam, so it could float as well. Xander never got to test out that feature, but he got to be a pro at putting the rifle together and taking it apart. It wasn’t big enough to bring down any big game, but it was enough to teach him how to shoo
t properly. Xander would never qualify for the Olympics sharp-shooting team, but he could hit the broadside of a barn from fifty feet away.
Unfortunately, uncle Dave had died a few years back from lung cancer, another by-product of his old-fashioned lifestyle, which among other things included a pack and a half of cigarettes each day. After his funeral, Xander had been surprised to find out that his uncle had left him that very same rifle he had used on all those summer vacations. In the past few years, he had hardly ever used it, as his trips south came less frequently, now that uncle Dave was gone.
Xander started up his truck and flipped on the radio.
“Let me assure the citizens of Edmonton that everything is under control. We have had outbreaks of meningitis, tuberculosis and a variety of diseases in the recent past, and our medical staff are well trained for just such an event.”
“Yeah, whatever. I just want to hear some damned music,” Xander muttered. He switched stations and some hard, thumping rock music blared from his speakers, “That’s more like it. Now if they could only get those morning idiots to shut up and just play music…”
Traffic seemed awfully light on his drive to work, but Xander didn’t complain. Occasionally there were breaks in the music, with the DJs blathering on about this and that.
“A mysterious rabies outbreak this weekend at the U of A Hospital has local health officials baffled.”
“Odd reports of widespread rioting and chaos are coming from the Middle East and southeast Asia.”
“Blah, blah, fucking blah.” He hit the CD button on his stereo and it switched immediately to his CD player from those annoying DJs. “Ahhh, much better,” Xander mumbled.
He got to work and noticed that the lot was only half full. He walked to the front door, swiped his keycard on the employee entrance, and walked right in. As he walked past the main office, he noticed several people huddled around the receptionist’s desk.
Zombie Night in Canada (Book 1): First Period Page 2
