by Glenn Cooper
Only then did he check the gauge on her oxygen tank. It was empty. He figured she had gotten confused after suiting up, had forgotten how to remove the helmet, and had suffocated when the oxygen ran out.
He remembered Carrie. The bathroom door was closed. She was behind it, on the floor near the toilet, staring up at him like a feral creature that had gotten itself trapped inside a house.
“Carrie, it’s Jamie.”
She opened her mouth and let out a high-pitched scream.
“Come on, let me help you up. I won’t hurt you.”
He slowly reached for her, but she tried to bat him away. He managed to get a purchase on an upper arm and while he was pulling her to her feet, she clamped her teeth on his hand.
He pulled free and backed up.
There was uneaten food on her bedside table. He got the tray and slid it into the bathroom.
“Are you hungry?”
She looked at the food, sniffed at it and went for it the way a hungry dog might.
He left the isolation door propped open, so Carrie could free herself, and attended to his hand with Betadine and gauze.
As soon as he was in the hall, he heard a piercing alarm. Someone had opened one of the stairway exits. He ran toward the nearest one. From down the corridor, he saw a group moving toward the sound of the siren, their faces pictures of vacant fear. Then he saw Margaret, the elderly diabetic. She was limping toward him, but she looked different from the others. She was frightened too, but her expression was nuanced.
“Dr. A,” she said. “I am glad to see you. We have surely gone to Hell in a handbasket.”
“Are you okay?”
“I am, but they’re not. Look at them. They’re like a herd of animals.”
“They’re sick. They’re infected.”
“How come we’re okay?” she asked.
“I really don’t know. Did you see if any of them made it down the stairs?”
She shook her head slowly. “Oh no, it wasn’t any of them. It was four normal folks, like us. Bill was one of them. He was like me, one of the patients in the waiting room. Then there was Alice, the young pretty nurse—I saw you talking to her yesterday. And there was an older gentleman—I never caught his name—and a man called Tim who kept to himself. They were scared of these folks and wanted to get the heck out of here. They told me to come along but I said there was no way I was going to go down the stairs with my foot and all. These poor people, Dr. A. Are they dangerous?”
His hand was throbbing, and his shoulder was bruised from his encounter with Dave Soulandros. “I don’t know, Margaret. They’re not themselves. It’s hard to know how they’ll react when frightened or hungry. Why don’t we get you into a wheelchair?”
The door to the stairwell was slightly ajar. He pulled it shut and the alarm stopped. Now the only sounds coming from Avenue Q were grunts and sharp, random utterances.
*
The drive from the medical center to her house in the Broad Ripple neighborhood of Indianapolis was surreal. It was the middle of the morning, but the streets were deserted. Mandy had finally acquiesced to her husband’s pleas to come home, but she was so exhausted she worried about dozing at the wheel. The news-radio station was a constant stream of government advisories to shelter in place and not to leave home unless there was an immediate, life-threatening emergency, and then, to wear a mask at all times. A Washington-based correspondent reported that there were unconfirmed rumors about some sort of turmoil inside the White House, but the news was scanty. Her eyes closed for a full second. Startled, she pulled up the N-95 mask dangling around her neck, lowered the windows to get air on her face and smelled the smoke before she saw it.
The fire was to the north. When she turned onto N. Illinois Street, smoke was rising above the trees. A block from the Children’s Museum, a small house was fully engulfed. A man stood on the lawn impotently spraying the flames with a garden hose.
Mandy called out to him, “Did you call the fire department?”
He turned toward her, and she saw he was distraught. “They won’t come. My wife is inside. She wouldn’t come out. She’s not herself.”
“Jesus,” she said. She put the car in park and dialed 911. It took ages for someone to answer.
“911. What’s your emergency?”
She gave the address of the fire.
“The fire department’s not going out on calls this morning, ma’am. The epidemic and all.”
“So, the house is just going to burn down? There’s a woman inside.”
“There’s nothing we can do. I’m truly sorry.”
The line went dead.
“I tried,” she called out to the man with a hose, who turned toward the flames in tears.
She drove on, crying herself. Turning onto her block, she had to pull over again, a few houses down from hers. Two of her neighbors, a couple whom she recognized as frequent dog walkers, were aimlessly milling about their front lawn, the front door wide open. She never knew their names, only the terrier’s: Shandy.
“Are you all right?” she called out.
The middle-aged man and woman recoiled at her voice and darted toward the front door. Shandy appeared from around back, barked at first, then approached her car, tail wagging.
She got out of the car and petted the dog. “Hey, guys,” she said. “It’s your neighbor, Mandy Alexander. Is everything okay?”
The couple turned. The husband tripped up, walking backwards and quickly picked himself up. The wife looked at Mandy with wide eyes and said, “This.”
“This what?” Mandy asked.
“This.”
Mandy pinched her mask tighter and approached them. She could tell. They were infected. Parts of her virus were in their brains. The enormity of it hit her hard.
Her voice was thin. “Let me help you inside, okay? You need to be inside.”
The man ran through the open door and the dog happily followed. The woman stayed put, saying her one word over and over, until Mandy got a hold of a sleeve and led her inside.
The man was in the kitchen, standing mutely by the sink while the dog circled her empty food and water bowls. There was a smell of burning coffee. Mandy switched off the dry pot.
“I know you’re hungry, Shandy,” Mandy said, “but how about you, folks? Are you hungry?”
She opened the refrigerator and took out a half-eaten roast chicken. As soon as it was on the table, the man went for it, seizing it with both hands and bringing it to his mouth.
She propped the refrigerator door open with a chair and pulled open the fruit, vegetable, and meat drawers. Then she rummaged for dog food, poured a huge bag of kibble onto the floor, and filled several bowls of water. Shandy seemed delighted.
“I’ve got to leave you now,” she said. She choked on the next words. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do more.”
*
The phone was getting moist in Jamie’s hand. After getting Emma’s voice mail ten times, he thrust the phone into his pocket and saw there were red grooves in his palm from clutching it too tightly. When it rang a few seconds later he whispered, “Thank you, Emma,” and pulled it out. But it wasn’t her. It was an Atlanta area code.
The caller was a staffer at the CDC Global Rapid Response Team who had been tasked to try to reach participants who had not called into the scheduled conference.
“We’re trying to ascertain the status of no-shows,” she said.
“How many are on the line?” he asked.
“Only about half. Dr. Hansen was concerned.”
“Please tell him that I’m okay, but that the majority of people I’m in quarantine with have developed FAS. I’m kind of up to my ass in alligators, so I don’t think I can participate right now.”
“I understand. I’ll pass that along.”
“What’s the bigger picture?”
“I’m just an admin, Dr. Abbott, but if you like, Dr. Hansen should be available to take your call a bit later.”
“I’ll try
to reach him when I can.”
There was a pause on the line. “Actually, from what I’ve heard, it sounds pretty bad. The big picture, I mean.”
He tried Emma one more time then decided to take stock of the situation on Avenue Q. As he walked through the corridors, he counted heads. It didn’t take a neuro exam to decide if someone was afflicted. He could tell instantly by someone’s blank or frightened expression, or if they fled at his footsteps. Flushed cheeks and a cough sealed it. He kept score on a 3x5 card, one small line for each patient, the fifth lost soul, crossing four lines. Dave Soulandros had fallen asleep on the floor, his flaccid genitals hanging out. Jamie gently tucked and zipped him up. His brother, Andy, was walking in a small circle in his isolation room. Jamie put chairs in front of the doors so he could get out. Including poor, asphyxiated Martha, he counted twenty-six with FAS. Then there was Margaret and him, normal for now, plus the four people Margaret had seen fleeing the ward. Six unaffected of thirty-two, about twenty percent, a truly shitty ratio.
He went over to Margaret and sat beside her. She was on her own by the nurses’ station, reading her Bible on her charging phone. For the most part, the afflicted patients had been leaving her alone.
“What are we to do, Dr. A?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t. Can I get you something to eat?”
“I’m fine. How come we don’t have it?”
“I don’t know that either. I wish I could tell you we won’t get infected.”
“It’s in God’s hands. What’s the TV saying?”
He swiveled the TV around and turned up the volume. There was a static picture of an empty desk and just when he was about to switch channels, an anchorwoman came into view and took her seat.
“I apologize for the dead air,” she said. “We’re short-staffed right now, very short-staffed, actually. Understandably, most of our employees are staying at home. There are, however, a few intrepid Channel-Ten people still manning the cameras and the control booth, and we remain in contact with a couple of mobile teams. Let’s go to Charlie Springer who is in Framingham at the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency. Charlie.”
The reporter was standing in the half-empty parking lot of the bunker. “Thanks, Pam. State officials here at MEMA have their hands full. There are two dynamics at play. On one hand, municipalities have been overwhelmed by the volume of 911 calls coming in reporting medical and other emergencies, and on the other hand, large numbers of first responders have either succumbed to this FAS illness or have elected to remain at home to protect their own families. It’s a dilemma—”
The anchorwoman broke in and said they were cutting to the network for a breaking story.
A reporter was standing on the White House lawn. “NBC News has just learned that President Ebert and Vice President Carew have both been diagnosed with FAS. In the event of presidential disability, the trigger for invoking the Constitution’s Twenty-Fifth Amendment is a signed declaration from the vice president stating the belief that the president is incapable of fulfilling his duties. However, in view of the vice president’s disability, the reins of power are being transferred to the next in line for presidential succession, Oliver Perkins, the Speaker of the House. He is expected to arrive at the White House and address the nation within the hour.”
“Jesus, save us,” Margaret said.
Jamie’s phone rang from a number he didn’t recognize. The TV was turned up loud so Margaret could hear it. He stepped away to take the call.
“Is this Dr. Abbott?” There was an urgency to the woman’s voice.
“Yes, who is this?”
“This is Linda Milbane, Kyra’s mother. Kyra wasn’t picking up her phone, so I went over to your house.”
“Kyra’s with Emma? I told her to stay by herself.”
“I was working. Kyra went over there last night. There’s something wrong, Dr. Abbott. Seriously wrong.”
12
As long as he possessed his own memory, he knew this moment would stay with him—a mouth full of sand, skin, as if pricked by a million fire ants, his chest banded with steel.
Margaret saw he was in pain. “What’s the matter, Dr. A?”
“My daughter.”
“Oh dear. Was that your wife?”
He shook his head. “I think—no I know, I’ve got to leave. Where do you live? I’ll run you home.”
“What about all these people? We can’t just leave them.”
“I don’t know what to say. I’ve got to get to my daughter. I’ll give you a few bottles of antibiotics for your foot. We’ll take Dr. Bowman home too. Please, we’ve got to go.”
Margaret’s eyes were glistening and sorrowful. “There’s no one at home for me. I might as well stay here and be a help to these poor folks.”
“I can’t guarantee when help’s going to come for you.”
She said she understood. “Just have them send up as much food as they can spare, and I’ll try as best I’m able to keep them safe. Are you going to be able to find a cure for this, Dr. A?”
“I’ll try.”
“Well good. I’ll be waiting. If I can’t remember who you are, it will be a shame because you’re a good man.”
He was half-surprised when someone answered down in Food Services. A harried-sounding woman who identified herself as the assistant director told him that she was down to a skeleton staff providing for patients who were too ill to be discharged and a few intrepid caregivers. She didn’t know how long they’d be able to keep providing.
“I’ve got twenty-five infected people up in the Biocontainment Unit,” he said. “Can you just load up the stairwell with as much food as you can?”
She wearily agreed and that was that.
Jamie found Carrie wandering the hallway. Jamie moved past her slowly, so as not to scare her, and got her handbag from the isolation room. Her driver’s license had her address in the South End. He knew her husband’s name was Rob—he had met him at a department holiday party. The phone was locked. He unlocked it by holding it up to her suspicious face.
“Ga—” she said.
There were over twenty missed calls from Rob, and he hit one of them.
“Carrie! Where the hell have you been?”
Jamie explained the situation as benevolently as he could and told her husband he could drive her home if that’s what he wanted. “It’s up to you, Rob. I’ll put a mask on her but you’re going to be at risk.”
“But you’re not infected,” he said.
“Not yet.”
“Will she know who I am?”
“I’m not sure she will.”
“I don’t care. I want her home.”
*
Most of the houses on Mandy’s street were ranches. Hers had started out that way before she and Derek commissioned a renovation, adding a second floor. When they began the project, they were planning on having children at some point, and though both of them were highly rational scientists, they worried about jinxing themselves. In the end, it was Derek’s low sperm count that put the kibosh on conception, but they consoled themselves with the extra space while they slow-walked toward adoption.
She ripped off her mask when she got inside.
“Derek?”
He was sitting in the living room, which was unusual. They rarely used it except for company.
“I just saw a house on fire and the fire department wouldn’t come. Derek?”
His back was to her. She went around and saw he was crying.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I-I don’t feel right. Do we live here?”
His eyes and cheeks were tinged pink. She spent a few seconds thinking about the mask she’d left by the door. No, she decided, if it was going to happen, let it happen now, in her own house. She touched his warm forehead.
“Oh Jesus, Derek, have you been coughing?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I was going to call you, but I couldn’t get the—what do you call it?—to work.”
“Was anyone in your lab sick?”
“I don’t remember. I don’t know. Do I work in a lab? I can’t remember where I work.”
She sat down on the sofa facing him, her hands heavy on her lap. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
*
Jamie’s car was in one of the multi-floor hospital lots. With soothing words and a gentle touch, he managed to get a mask onto Carrie, but keeping it there was another thing. She got scared in the open spaces of the deserted lobby, made a short, sharp sound, and yanked it off. Two masked hospital security guards backed away and yelled at her to get her mask on.
Jamie pulled it on again and through his own mask said, “Sorry. We’re good now.”
He still had his white coat on and one of them said, “Is she okay, Doc?”
“Yeah, she’s fine.”
Storrow Drive was nearly empty, and he took it twice as fast as he’d ever done. Out of habit, he stopped at a red light at an empty intersection on Mass Ave. A man with a bandana over his mouth was trying the door of a closed convenience store, and when it wouldn’t budge, he broke the glass with a hammer. When the alarm went off, he looked over his shoulder, directly into Jamie’s window.
“Fuck you looking at, man?” he shouted. “I need milk for my kid.”
Jamie drove on.
He kept Carrie in the car while he rang the bell of her apartment. Her husband came out, distraught.
“Where is she?”
“I’ll get her,” Jamie said.
“Should I be wearing a mask too?” he asked.
“I’ve got some in the car. Yes, you should.”
