by Owen Baillie
“Has main brought over those supplies yet?” Juliet asked, sipping her coffee. The main section of Mersey Community Hospital was connected to the ER by a long walkway. They provided all the ER’s supplies, and main had begun to ration things over the last week, especially in recent days as patient numbers and deaths had swelled, diminishing even the most basic hospital and medicinal items. And of course, there were no deliveries scheduled for replacements. It was up to her and Frank, as the senior doctor and nurse on duty, to ration things out.
‘They can’t give us anything,” Frank said, reaching in for a can of Coke Zero. “I spoke to Ross Innis yesterday and he said they were out of almost everything. Wouldn’t surprise me if they shut off all non-life threatening services soon.”
“They’ll be in touch when they want something,” Juliet said. “You watch.”
“I was thinking about taking a walk over there.”
As much as Juliet disliked Frank’s actions and the way he had moved on from her so quickly, she wished no harm to him. “You think that’s a good idea, Frank? They’ve had some patient behavioral issues the last few days.”
“If we don’t get some more IVs soon, we won’t be treating anyone.”
This was true. Most of their pain relief supplies were gone and the IVs were down to the last dozen. These were about their limits of treatment for the sick patients. Influenza was untreatable once contracted. They fitted the bad ones with an IV to try to rehydrate them. The occasional person had another ailment, but 98% of the people waiting to be treated had snotty noses, headaches, and body pains, which was simply influenza.
“Call them again. They may pick up. And they’ll listen to you. Tell them to bring the supplies over.”
“I will,” Frank said, and then guided Bianca out of the kitchenette.
Juliet leant against the bench. Her relationship with Frank had been brief. It had lasted one dinner date and a bit of mild physical interaction, until Juliet had discovered he was married. She had ended it immediately, and he had moved on just as quickly. It reminded her that her time was running out, that finding a man with whom to settle down was increasingly difficult as she progressed into her mid-thirties and beyond. What was her problem? She was waiting for the perfect guy. That was it, and she couldn’t help thinking she’d be waiting forever.
Coffee in hand, Juliet left the area and headed back to the station. As she passed one of the “makeshift morgues,” the door had drifted open, revealing a body on a table with a sheet pulled over it. She hadn’t been part of this one and didn’t know why the patient had died, but the likelihood of flu was high. One arm had dropped from beneath the sheet and hung towards the floor. Even with the door shut, she couldn’t leave it like that. She hurried into the room, placed her coffee on the table, and went to the body. She took the arm and tucked it back under the sheet, resting it on the dead man’s stomach. She remembered the man from when—last night? He was wearing a distinct green T-shirt with a Tasmanian promotional logo on the front. She circled the table, making sure nothing else was out of place. The arm on the other side was precariously poised to fall, so she did the same again. Satisfied she had righted a wrong, Juliet took her coffee and left, closing the door behind her.
Frank was at the nurse’s station playing with one of the desk phones. Bianca had disappeared, which pleased Juliet.
The phone was dialing on loudspeaker. “Trying main,” Frank said. “Nobody’s picking up.”
“Hang in there.” Juliet checked the patient list while the caffeine did its magic. They had been using a ticket system for patients until the overwhelming number caused it to lose effectiveness. Now, it was really a matter of visually selecting who had been there the longest. This sometimes caused unrest, but the patients in the waiting room had been reasonably calm—the ticketing fiasco aside—in contrast to reports of the people out on the streets. Juliet was glad she had the security of the hospital. She swallowed the last of her coffee and headed towards the waiting room. “Keep trying,” she told Frank. “We need those supplies.”
The image of all those hopeful eyes staring back at her struck hard when she walked out into the open. It felt like every time she did, there were more people than before. Her stomach churned and she halted, waiting for the discomfort to pass. If it became any worse, she might have to stop attending patients. She would hang on as long as possible, ensure she wore her mask and gloves so as not to transmit anything she might have picked up. Bottom line was they were short of staff and in the current climate, she thought that probably took precedence.
A host of people stood and signaled for her attention, holding their arms out, calling for her to pick them. Juliet scanned the crowd, dozens of sets of eyes glaring at her. There seemed to be more elderly people now—lots of grey and white hair—but fewer children. At least that was something. She wished the ticketing system hadn’t collapsed. People had started fighting over them or claimed they had the next number, but had lost the ticket.
Amongst the shouting and talking, it was almost impossible to tell who had been waiting the longest. Juliet disregarded her previous notion that they had been reasonably calm. Time, it appeared, was taking its toll. Most of the potential candidates were seated near the front at least. Juliet had several she thought were due to be called; a middle-aged man sitting on the floor near the reception desk, a young woman probably still in her teens, with her father, sitting beside the candy machine, and an Asian woman, sitting with a Caucasian man.
“Excuse me?” The Asian woman looked up, her eyes saggy and pained. “Yes, you.” The man managed a thin smile, and he was on his feet in an instant. “Come with me, please.”
The man helped his wife from the seat as a coughing fit struck her. She didn’t look healthy, and Juliet diagnosed her immediately. Most of the patients in the emergency room were in the same boat and based on her recent experience, the prognosis was not good.
Juliet led the woman and her husband along the corridor, away from the crowded area. They’d wait in one of the rear consulting rooms until the next doctor was available. That might be anything from five minutes to twenty minutes, but at least they wouldn’t be stuck out in the crowded waiting room.
As they rounded a corner and headed down a long corridor, another stomach cramp struck Juliet. She reached out for the wall, and fell against it, misjudging the distance. A series of sharp pains filled her belly. She needed to use the bathroom again.
“Are you all right?” the man asked.
“Yes.” Juliet wiped sweat off her brow with the back of her hand. Damn air conditioning. Both the woman and man had licks of sweat on their faces, too. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”
The feeling faded, but she couldn’t hold it off for long. She gathered herself and walked onward towards the consulting room.
Her steps were slow and cautious, as if too much movement would set her off again. But as they approached the door she had earlier closed, Juliet stopped. The husband and wife almost bumped into her. The door was now wide open. The ticket was still on the door handle, indicating there was a dead body inside the room.
“Is everything okay?” the man asked, with lines of concern on his forehead.
It was plausible that another nurse or even one of the doctors had been into the room and forgotten to close the door behind them, but Juliet hadn’t observed anybody in this vicinity and she’d only just been there. Additionally, they would have removed the ticket.
“Stay here a moment.”
Juliet reached the doorway and stopped. She leant inside the doorframe to pull the door closed and glanced at the dead body on the table.
It was gone.
Apprehension tightened around her, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She let the door handle slip and glanced around the room in a double-take in case her illness had caused an oversight. There was no body. Could someone have moved it in order to free this examination room up? Maybe.
She left the room and closed the door,
then signaled to the husband and wife. “Wait for me in exam room seven. Keep going down this hallway, third door on your left.”
“What is it?” the man asked
Juliet shook her head. “Probably nothing.”
She left them, backtracked past the room, and took a left towards the nurse’s station. Frank was still there working on the phone. Juliet kept going, glancing into other rooms as she passed. Several had their doors closed and were marked with a ticket on the handle. She found Tara in room eleven, but she didn’t know anything about the body from room four. Deirdre was fitting an IV to a man in thirteen, and her response was the same.
Juliet followed the corridor back towards the station. This time Frank had somebody on the other end of the line from main. The voice was high-pitched and frantic.
“I can’t understand you,” Frank shouted. “Slow down.”
“Close the doors!” the male voice shouted. “Close the fucking DOOR TO US!”
Juliet’s stomach cramped again and she stopped, doubled over. She couldn’t hold off. She glanced up at Frank, whose face had gone pale. She grimaced and hurried on down the corridor, the missing body and the screams of the man from main pushed aside as she fought to reach the bathroom.
She did—just—but had to wait almost ten minutes for the cramping and twisting in her stomach to subside, unable to think of anything else.
As she washed her hands thoroughly, Juliet thought she heard the sounds of voices from the hallway outside the bathroom. She hurried to finish, then pulled the door open and stepped outside, intent on getting some answers.
Echoing along the corridor from the hallways and waiting room beyond were the screams and shouts of the people in the main area. And it wasn’t frustration at waiting times—something terrible was happening.
6
There were other things happening in Latrobe. Jim Bennets, the local primary school principal, knew what was coming. Over the last week, as the flu pandemic had strengthened, Jim had watched the news reports progress from mild concern to outright panic. The shelves at the local supermarket had begun to empty. People began stocking up on fuel. And the numbers of folks driving around, going about their summer business, had rapidly diminished. He knew many people in the area, and one by one, they stopped picking up their telephones and answering their doors. The government was replaying the same generic messages. The local police station had shut down and so far, he hadn’t observed any sign of the military. Perhaps worst of all, the sick had begun to wander the streets as if they were lost. Do not approach them, the government warnings said. There was no risk at this point of Jim doing that. He didn’t hold out much hope of the episode passing anytime soon, but he wasn’t going to wait around for the government. He would take measures himself just in case. Some would call it paranoia; Jim preferred to call it caution.
With a heavy brown box in his arms, Jim stepped out through the front door and narrowed his eyes against the heat and brightness of the day. As he reached the white Ford Territory parked in the driveway, he laid the box on the tailgate and glanced up at the sky, surprised to find a gathering of clouds at the southern horizon. Maybe there was finally some relief on the way.
Jim had a vision of turning the school into a place for people whose homes were attacked or overrun. It had six-foot-high wire fences all the way around, with numerous lockable gates. There were three huge rain tanks, and a large collection of leftover non-perishable and canned food they had been saving for a major donation to the Red Cross. Jim had spent most of the day carting more supplies from his house to the school, and he still had at least one more trip to go.
As he walked back to the house, he thought of Alesia and the kids, who had left to go camping before Christmas—before the world had gone downhill—and weren’t due to return until the 20th of January. It was the first time he had been away from his wife and daughters over the holidays since the girls were born. Jim had argued with Alesia that he should know where they were going, but all she would give him is that they were near the central plateau in the middle of Tasmania. “We’re separated now,” she said. “I make my own decisions.” Jim had bitten his tongue at that. He knew she would use it against him at some point if he forced the issue. The last time he had spoken to Alesia she had decided to stay put, citing they were far enough from civilization to still be safe, and if that changed, she would let him know.
Jim locked the front door and climbed into his SUV. As he started the engine and turned on the AC, the deep, serious voice of a newsreader sounded through the speakers. He’d been following the updates for a few days now, ever since he realized this thing was getting far worse than the authorities were letting on. The newsreader confirmed the flu epidemic had ravaged all capital cities in Australia, and that Melbourne and Sydney had been hit particularly hard. Authorities had witnessed a massive increase in hospital admissions, especially over the last forty-eight hours, and more people were arriving for treatment. The number of deaths had gone well past the Asian Flu outbreak of 2010, and experts were starting to fear it would go far beyond the lofty heights of the Spanish Influenza outbreak of 1918. Listeners were again urged to stay at home and wait it out. There were countless reports coming in of sick people wandering the streets in a mindless state. Authorities warned citizens to avoid these people and not to approach them under any circumstances. The government mobilized all military aid units to assist and expected arrivals from the mainland in the next twelve hours.
Jim backed out of the driveway, unable to believe what he was hearing, then edged the car to the side of the road as he fumbled around for his phone. He knew a little about both outbreaks and the numbers were seriously concerning. He’d spent Christmas and the subsequent time alone, wallowing in the separation with Alesia and the absence of his girls. His days had been filled with watching movies, tinkering in the garage, and pottering around in the garden. Any music he listened to was via CDs. When he did turn on the television, most stations were running the same recurring updates. Power was intermittent—it worked for an hour and then cut out for three. Most of the time Jim tried the television or computer, it wasn’t working. Phones were the same. He’d hadn’t been to the supermarket for over a week—hated the places—preferring to stock up on all the items needed to limit the number of visits. Maybe his paranoia wasn’t so far-fetched, he thought. He thought about Alesia and the kids again. He still struggled to believe she’d refused to tell him where they were camping, as if he might track them down and ruin their trip. Had he known, he would have certainly gone after them post outbreak to make sure his girls were safe. Even Alesia, for that matter. As far as Jim was concerned, they were still a family, and he loved his wife dearly.
He finally got the phone out of his pocket and was relieved to find two bars of service. He scrolled through, looking for her number. He hadn’t spoken to the girls since New Year’s Day, calling to wish them a happy 2014. Alesia had been adamant about not speaking to Jim for a time, to let things settle, but now, the circumstances had changed; he needed to know they were all safe. He stopped with his finger over her number and tapped it, and took off from the curb with one hand on the wheel. The line connected, but went straight to the message service.
“Hey, Alesia, it’s me again. Just wanted to make sure you were all safe. Things are getting a bit more serious down here. I’m worried about you all.” He stumbled in his mind for the right words. “Just let me know you’re all safe. Tell the girls I love them. Uh, and you too.”
It was less than a mile to the school. From a distance, he saw numerous people wandering the streets as the authorities had described. They didn’t appear to notice his car. Jim drove past the school and followed the narrow, winding road until he came to a large roundabout that served as a main intersection. He pulled the car over and got out, then lifted the lid of the trunk, revealing the sign he had painted the day before in the garage. In big white letters it read:
TURN RIGHT IN 500 YARDS AT SCHOOL. FOOD & SHELTER
AVAILABLE.
Jim carried the sign to the center of the roundabout, trying to maximize the view from both directions. He wondered if he was doing the right thing by inviting people to the confines of the school. There was always the risk of them trying to take over, or not following the rules, but Jim was prepared for that. And if he was honest, he was looking for a way to prove he really was a decent person. The breakdown of his marriage had tested his opinion of his own worth.
He returned to the car and drove back towards the school, pulling up in the main entrance driveway. He climbed out of the SUV, choking at the blast of hot northerly air gusting around him. He caught his reflection in the door as he closed it; a middle-aged man with a decent head of black hair, a narrow face, eyes with a perpetual squint, and about the right amount of weight. In all aspects, Jim thought himself to be a good representation of the average man.
He strolled to the double gate, shielding his eyes from the bright sun. Jim had been the school’s headmaster for almost seven years, after teaching there for the previous nine. The school was a decent size—with several hundred children—a small gymnasium, a library, a football field, two outdoor basketball courts, and several multi-sized playgrounds. The perimeter was six-foot-high chain wire fence with gates at different locations, and he kept them all locked over the summer period—the kids in the area had a tendency to get bored and would always find something to mess around with that Jim would have to fix.
Jim unclipped the padlock and swung both gates open to the edge of the driveway. He drove through, parked, and locked the gate again, then continued up to the small parking section outside the office building in a spot marked PRINCIPAL.
From the rear of the vehicle, he grabbed two boxes and headed inside. Normally, he’d go through the reception area, but he was using one of the offices next to the staff room to store the supplies. He climbed eight wooden steps and crossed a timber decking to a set of wide glass sliding doors. He had to put the boxes down to unlock them and then went in.
