Alicia threw up in the corner, not through illness but with the thought of blood on her hands, the thought of killing Ellen her best friend, the adrenaline and shock that filled her body and also the thought of being locked up in prison for cold blooded murder. She grabbed her phone from the floor which had fallen in the struggle, the emergency number still on the screen but she had never hit the ring button. Deleting it she dialled Glenn’s number, he answered on the second ring.
“Alicia? Um Hi”.
“Glenn I need your help”.
“What’s happened?”
“There’s so much blood!”
“Blood? Alicia what have you done? Are you ok? Are you hurt? Is it Amber?”
Her blood ran cold at the mention of that sly little whore’s name.
“Alicia? Alicia speak to me? Have you hurt her? Alicia?” But she hung up, Amber’s name making her want to scream.
Beep, her message tone went off. It was her mum asking her to pick up Daniel from school. Could be a good alibi when the police eventually caught up and questioned her. ‘K’ was all she put before grabbing her bloodied bag and running out of the door. Not noticing Mr Goodyear opening his bloodied and sick eyes and them following her as she hurriedly left the classroom.
3pm Public Health Organisation Quarantine Zone
Dr Rosetta Lawson sat with the young child in her examination chair, the child looked really sick. A small boy named Austin, he was 12 years old and had been travelling home from a week away visiting family. A home schooled shy child who really didn’t want to help Rosetta in anyway in making him better.
“Does this hurt?” She asked having a feel of his stomach which felt a little bloated to her.
His reply was a shrug.
“What about this?” She shone a torch light into his eyes, she watched as the pupil dilated but there was an almost bleeding notion from the pupil down the bloodshot veins, making his eyes flash red.
Again just a shrug.
“Austin when did you start to feel poorly, was it before or after you got on the train?”
Shrug.
She sighed, “Austin sweetie I can’t help unless you give me some clues”.
Again that shrug.
“Ok my guess is that’s enough then huh?” She said leading him over to a large tent that had been erected in the middle of the street. Inside were small plastic zip lock rooms, his mother was already inside one after Finch having examined her, so she led Austin to the same one and let them be together before zipping up the cubicle.
“Excuse me doctor, when can we go home?”
Rosetta tried to find a nice and unfrightening way to put it in front of the boy, “I’m sorry but I’m not sure, we need to examine everyone then come up with a treatment plan. Then we will send you home with some medicine to make you better”. She winked at the boy but he just turned away from her.
“So we could be here all night?” The mother snapped.
Rosetta kept her cool, “I will make people with children a priority to go home first, I promise”.
This didn’t please the woman but Rosetta walked of leaving before she could argue. The rest of her team was starting to arrive and help with the cubicles making sure none of them got out unattended.
Leaving the tent she found Finch waiting for her, “Finch what’s up?”
“Don’t you think the symptoms are strange? I mean a little like that of volcanic ash irritation but… Something else?”
She nodded, “Yes… If I’m honest it reminds me of the Ebola outbreak”.
“The little boy’s eyes start to bleed?”
She nodded again, “Inside the eye yes, not yet through the tear duct but I’m imagining it will soon”.
“The mother had the same thing and so did the mother and child before them and a man I just examined, they all have it”.
“What about the train driver?” She asked.
“Haven’t been allowed in to see him yet, the police wanted to check the cab was safe to enter first”.
“Well tell them we cannot see any more people until we have seen the driver. Go get the stretcher ready”.
Finch nodded and rushed off.
A sense of dread filled Rosetta from the inside as she looked up at the train which was half mangled on its side and half upright. Fearful faces of the casualties all looking out at her, wanting her to make them better but she still had no idea what ‘this’ was.
3pm - The Light Side Of The Tracks, Near The Quarantine Zone
Pippa made her way through the emptying street, police telling people to turn around and go home. Mother’s and father’s just like her screaming that they needed to get their children from the school’s the other side but being told that the schools had been told to stay open and keep all children there until the parents or carers could get to them.
“Why can’t we just cross the bridge?” One father asked getting more and more fired up.
“The bridge might be unsteady from the crash, we can’t allow anyone to cross it just yet until fire crews have checked it over”.
“Why’s it taking so long the fire crews are there?” The father pointed at the fire crew attending to the station and the train cab and not at the bridge.
“They have been releasing the train cab from the station and making sure the station doesn’t collapse and kill any more people. It takes time, I’m sorry but I cannot allow you to pass through”.
“This is bullshit”, the angry father shouted skulking off to his car.
With the police officer’s attention fully on them Pippa took her chance and strolled right past like she was meant to be there. As she neared the station she found a huge medical tent in the middle of the road and a few doctor like people rushing to and from it doing things. She spotted the Public Health truck with the door to the driver’s seat open and a white lab coat sitting on it. Making sure no one was watching she snatched it up and put it on, hoping to blend in with the sea of doctors.
The view in front of her was horrific, like nothing she had seen before. Seeing a crash or a medical emergency on this scale on the big screen was nothing to witnessing it in real life. The place was alive with hustle and bustle, people in their homes next to the train tracks were being evacuated in case of potential explosion or damage risks, injured people on the train’s carriages were sitting at the train windows screaming and crying, the doctors walking past ignoring their pleas for help. The large tent like area was housing medical staff, she could see a doctor with curly hair scribbling down some notes just as another doctor appeared with two more carrying a stretcher and what looked like the dead body of the train driver. A sheet was placed over his body but Pippa had seen enough train staff to know their uniform which stuck out from under the sheet.
“You there?” Called out a male doctor, “What’s your I.D?”
Pippa froze before stuttering, “Doctor…Um… Dawling”.
“You new?”
She nodded, “Yes”.
“Ah thought I didn’t recognise you. We need help in the tent. Doctor Lawson is going to be doing an autopsy of the driver to see if we can figure out this illness that’s aboard the train”.
“Um ok”.
“You are qualified right?” He asked his eyes narrowing.
She shrugged, “Training”.
“Why the hell did head office send down a trainee?” He stammered angrily until the curly haired doctor appeared.
“Most people are off sick with a bug. Doesn’t matter, be good practice for her for the field. Put it down on your resume as experience. I need someone to pass me the instruments. The others are needed to keep examining the other patients on the train. Was meant to wait for me and Finch to do it but HQ says to hurry this along, media will be all over us for imprisoning sick people soon enough”.
“So an autopsy huh? Is that…necessary?”
The curly haired doctor frowned, “What is your profession going to be within the organisation?”
Pippa again
froze feeling her palms drip with sweat, what the hell was she doing? Why was she even in here? She should have just made a run for the bridge, to get to Daniel! “I haven’t chosen yet, I’m wanting to explore all regions of the…Programme to see what suits me best”.
The woman gave her a look, a sly smile spreading over her face, “Ok…Fine…And yes it is necessary. I need to see what went on in his body, to see how I can help the others”.
“Why not do it at a hospital or a morgue?”
“Because we can’t cross the tracks and the other way is blocked by traffic, the hospital for some reason isn’t responding to our calls so in a sterile tent is the next best place. Not squeamish are you Doctor Dawling?”
“No, no not at all”, she lied.
“Good”, the curly haired doctor had that smile again.
“But is it really…You know…Suited to protocol?”
“And what is our protocol?”
She bit her lip, “To prevent and reduce…the effects…of diseases, radiation and chemical hazards”, Pippa whooshed, feeling proud at her knowledge of television shows and all the heavy bedtime reading. Her brain was like a sponge, she remembered everything.
“And that hopefully is what I will be doing Doctor Dawling”.
Pippa nodded as she followed her inside and kept her eyes on the doctor ahead. They passed people in plastic cubicles being examined by other doctors before passing through some heavy plastic hanging door panels. Inside this rather plastic smelling room and clinical white washed equipment was a propped up travelling examination table, lined with disposable protection wear. The curly haired doctor suited up with scrubs, goggles, gloves and a hair mask as well as putting on a new fabric breathing mask, she then motioned for Pippa to do the same. Clumsily Pippa followed suit.
One other doctor was in the room, Doctor Finch. He was preparing the body to be operated on and getting the utensils ready, then he brought over a camera and pushed play before grabbing a pen and paper to jot down notes. Curly hair motioned to the tray full of medical utensils.
Pippa nodded, “I’m ready”. She was lying though she felt sick to her stomach.
The doctor nodded and spoke to the camera, “I am Doctor Rosetta Lawson, this is doctor Finch Davidson and here is trainee Doctor Dawling. We are going to perform an autopsy on subject one, the train driver from the crash in Hampden Park”. She paused briefly before saying, “My Concern on this is that he passed away from an illness, a disease, one that is contagious and is spreading like wildfire. It also seems that all the passengers on the train are also infected with whatever this illness is, hence the wildfire connotation”. She then stopped and started to examine his body starting with his eyes and his skin, “The skin is mottled and showing gradual signs of rigor mortis setting in, fairly normal considering. The eyes are extremely bloodshot which has been a sign all of the infected have carried and…” She pushed down with her gloved hand on his tear duct, a small pool of blood flowed from it trickling down his gaunt face, “And it also seems the driver had the bleeding from the eyes”. She carried on examining him, muttering things to herself as she went along. “No sign of drug abuse, no sign of alcohol intoxication and no other wounds that might have contributed to the crash”. She stopped for a moment bracing herself then looked at Pippa and said, “Scalpel”.
Pippa glanced at the tray, she knew which one was that due to watching all the current doctor like programmes, deep down she hoped that was all the doctor called Rosetta would require.
Rosetta with a steady hand sliced down the front of the now naked man, making a ‘Y’ shaped incision from both shoulders joining together over the sternum and down to the pubic bone area. Carefully she separated the skin and exposed to them all the underlying tissues, muscle and blood vessels. She asked for another device but Pippa was transfixed by the gore that was displayed before her. Her stomach twisting and churning until… She dashed for the corner of the tent where a small waste bin was placed, kneeling down she threw up into it.
Once her stomach had finished heaving she realised that the doctor Rosetta hadn’t battered an eyelid at her apparent repulse at seeing the inside of a real human body, instead the doctor just carried on. She now had hold of a section of lung and was slicing it open to reveal the insides.
“The lungs seem…Harder than normal”, Rosetta spoke out loud showing to the camera what she meant, “The structure feels denser and thicker than normal like something is clogging it up inside”. She then sliced into the strange meaty substance and opened it up, grey smeared blood leaked out onto the examination table making the world swim again for Pippa. She then poked in the scalpel and pulled something out from one of the bronchi like tubes. “The lungs are clogged with what looks like ash”. Her brow furrowed as she took a sample and placed it in a petri dish, “I’m going to examine the sample under the microscope quickly”.
Rosetta wondered off to the other side of the small tent room, Finch seconds behind her with the camera and Pippa hesitantly watching. She placed it under the view finder and turned the dial so she could zoom in on the sample. “Definitely ash and looks like some sort of parasite or something is in the ash… Hard to see what though because it looks dead or dormant here…Think I need to check the brain”.
Standing back she went back to the body, this time though she instructed Finch to get her the special drill to get into the skull. She basically ignored Pippa now. Pippa was sure that they wouldn’t even notice if she snuck out until Rosetta said something, “Miss Dawling, would you please move the camera into position over the skull and focus it”.
Pippa nodded but made sure not to say anything due to the fact that she knew she might spew again. Once the camera was in position the noise began and Pippa’s head spun all over again and she found herself indeed with her head in the bin spewing up bile and nothing else, she was empty. The drill reminded her of the dentist and how it rattled in your brain when they had to drill into cavities in your teeth but this was worse, times by at least twenty!
The silence once it stopped was deafening and Rosetta gently peeled back the skull to reveal the pinkish, grey jelly thing that was the late train driver’s brain. Rosetta gasped, “It can’t be?”
“Doctor what is it?” Finch asked trying to peer in over holding the heavy drill and moving his hand slightly to aim the camera to look.
“Something that is rare and not normally seen in this side of the pond, something that only effects a few people a year, it’s hardly heard of and not contagious!”
“What?” Pippa asked wiping her mouth as it watered again.
Rosetta lifted her hand and pointed to darker patches to the brains tissue, “This isn’t normal for a brain, this is a ‘Brain-Eating Amoeba’”.
“A what now?” Pippa exclaimed.
“Don’t they teach you anything in Uni anymore?” Finch tutted at her.
Pippa shrugged.
Rosetta just looked away from her, “An Amoeba is a single celled organism. The so called Brain-Eating Amoeba given its name due to the way it dissolves the brain tissue was found in around 1965. Its scientific name is Naegleria Fowleri and was first identified in Australia but is thought to have evolved in the America’s. It reproduces by cell division and when conditions for it aren’t quite right it lays dormant like a cyst then when conditions are right it becomes a Throphozoite which is the feeding and infectious form of the amoeba”, Rosetta looked to see that Pippa looked vacant, she hadn’t understood anything about it.
“Where does it come from?” Pippa asked fear spread over her face.
“Normally the amoeba like heat and warmth, for example; Warm lakes, ponds and rock pits, untreated swimming pools, runoff from power-plants, aquariums and some geothermal sources. They can survive in heat as hot as 113 degrees. And it usually gains access to the human body via the nose, by water that’s infected being forced up by jumping in a lake or swimming pool or dunking your head under. The amoeba, actually normally eats bacteria but when they come
in contact with the brain they use it as a food source and it travels through the nerves connected with the sense of smell to get to the frontal lobes”.
“The symptoms of the ash the wheezing, sore eyes and this…The amoeba…Vomiting, seizures, headache, altered mental state…I get, I understand those but the bleeding? From the eyes, that’s more of an Ebola thing?” Finch said to Rosetta.
She nodded, “Yes but if you look at how fast it ate into the brain mere hours instead of days… I think it’s mutated somehow, maybe it has caused deep tissue bleeding, internal bleeding that is escaping through any hole it can”.
“How do you know it hasn’t been days?” Pippa asked.
“Because the ash cloud only hit London and most of the UK this morning”.
“It’s the ash cloud then?” Finch butted in, “A mutation of some sort in the ash has made it contagious?”
“My guess is if you breathe in the ash particles yes, it is contagious”, She looked worried.
“Do you think it could pass from human to human? Not just through the ash?” Finch also looking worried.
Pippa’s heart froze in her mouth, “Human to human? Like through salvia and bodily fluids? Like… Blood? Like a zombie virus?”
Rosetta spun on her heels, “Who are you exactly? I now know that you have just snuck in here to see what is going on, you’re not a trainee doctor or microbiologist no one says ‘Zombie Virus’ in our field of work, those words are enough to make the whole world riot in panic… You work for the press or something?”
“Nu…Uh…No…No I’m just…”
“What? You’re just what? No trainee would lose their lunch like you did. People like us have strong stomachs.”
“A mother trying to get to the other side of the line to get to my little boy”, Pippa’s heart pounded in her chest, would she have her arrested? Would she stop her from getting to her son?
The Amoeba From The Ash Page 3
