by Bobby Akart
“My, no, our number one priority is survival and staying safe. This may sound crass and insensitive, but those people out there are not our problem. Our decisions need to be practical, considering the risk versus the reward. There are—”
Julia interrupted. “What if we were the ones suffering from injuries? Look at Mass General. It’s like a war zone! What’s the harm in going over to offer a helping hand? I’m not saying we have to give up our food or guns or precious medical supplies. Let’s just, you know, help somebody!”
Katie and Steven remained silent, and wisely so. Sarge would always be the one to make decisions for the group. This responsibility carried a heavy burden, especially after the collapse of society. Julia stared at him. She would not go against his wishes, but she would not be happy if he turned down her pleas.
“What I was about to say was,” started Sarge, “there are bigger plans for us down the road. I’m not entirely certain about what caused these events, but that conversation can be held another time. I do know this. The Declaration of Martial Law by the President came quickly, as if prearranged. Steven and Katie’s observations of National Guard placement in Washington was organized at warp speed. There are aspects of this that stink to high heaven. If my hunch is correct, I believe we will play a significant role in saving Boston and maybe our nation. But, in any event, we have to maintain our humanity.”
Sarge walked back to the window, where the view of the city was becoming clearer. Julia joined him and held him around his waist. She whispered into his ear.
“I love you, Sarge. Let’s see if we can help them. Even if it’s just one.”
Chapter 5
Thursday, September 8, 2016
10:35 a.m.
100 Beacon
Boston, Massachusetts
Sarge and Steven went over the final preparations. The group agreed that Steven would remain behind and monitor a rooftop position with the Barrett .50-caliber rifle. Sarge, Katie, and Julia were going to walk up Storrow Drive to Mass General. The walk, which was less than a mile, would take about ten minutes. Steven would provide them some cover for the first half of the trek, but after that they were on their own.
Sarge thought they could help with the victims, as well as get a sense of what was happening in the city. The martial law declaration just took effect the night before, but he doubted the more onerous provisions had been implemented already—such as gun confiscation. All three of them would carry a concealed sidearm as well as two radios to contact Steven in the event of trouble.
Sarge would never admit this to Julia, but this was a terrible idea, in his opinion. He believed in the concept of karma, to an extent, but willfully entering what looked like a war zone for an unknown purpose just didn’t make sense. He needed to indulge Julia, not only because he loved her, but because she hadn’t been out of the building to witness the devastation firsthand. Moreover, she had no idea how the collapse had affected people. Going to Mass General was a relatively safe way to show her the realities of a post-collapse America.
“Listen, Sarge, I need to talk to you about something before you go,” said Steven. He pulled Sarge to the side, out of earshot of the girls. “It’s about Katie.”
“Don’t worry, buddy, I’ll keep her safe,” said Sarge.
Steven looked past Sarge again and leaned in to whisper to his brother, “I’m not worried about Katie. I’m worried about anybody who might get in her way.”
“Whadya mean?”
“Listen, when we were getting back here, she embraced this whole without rule of law thing a little too quickly. She’s well trained and handles herself as good as you or I would in a dangerous situation. I think she might be a little quick on the trigger, if you know what I mean.”
“You two went through a lot out there, Steven, she did what she had to do, right?” Sarge wasn’t overly concerned, but wanted to hear Steven out.
“I agree, and she impressed the hell out of me. I’m just saying Katie didn’t think twice about shooting a guy in the back because she assumed he was going after that girl to rape her or something. No warning. No hey you. No stop or I’ll shoot. It was just boom, done. Another dead guy to notch on the bedpost.”
“Well, did she waste any ammo in the process?” Sarge laughed, trying to make light of the situation.
“Fuck no, of course not. All I’m saying is that Katie may be turning into a shoot first, ask questions later kinda gal. In my experience, that is not always the best way to diffuse a dangerous situation. Gun battles should be avoided, not encouraged.”
Sarge considered this statement for a moment. Steven had seen more gun battles than any human being should. He had more experience in combat than Brad. He had to respect his point of view on this. “Should we cancel this deal and maybe have a talk with her?”
“No, go ahead,” replied Steven. “What could possibly go wrong between here and the hospital, right?”
“A shit ton, that’s what. Are you saying Katie is a loose cannon? If so, this is a bad idea.”
“I don’t think so,” replied Steven. “It could be she was being protective of me. I don’t know yet. One thing is certain, though, you can count on her out there. I’d rather have a gunslinger by my side than someone afraid to use their weapon when needed.”
“Okay, got it. Three or four hours, max. I’ll let Julia get her fix. I hate to patronize her, but I think it’s necessary for her to see what’s going on out there. Plus, I want to see what’s happening in other parts of the city. At some point, soon, we have to decide whether we are going to stay here or join the others out at Prescott Peninsula.” Sarge adjusted his holster and covered it with his shirt.
“If it were up to me, we’d be on the Miss Behavin’, heading for Bermuda.” Steven slapped Sarge on the back and the men walked toward the security door. “Alright, ladies, keep an eye on Sarge for me. He’s not a very good shot.”
“Get your ass on the roof.” Sarge laughed. “Don’t shoot me with that .50 cal if there’s a problem.”
Sarge descended the stairs with his hand on his weapon. He didn’t anticipate any issues within the building, but he maintained a heightened state of awareness nonetheless. Julia stayed several steps behind him, and Katie brought up the rear, constantly surveying the doors from the other floors. They did not encounter any other residents. Have they left?
Stepping onto Beacon Street, Sarge stopped to scan for any hostiles, but his attention was quickly grabbed by the scene. The vehicles, including the FedEx van that Steven drove the day before, still blocked the road in front of them. Bullet holes riddled the van, and the lifeless bodies of the four assailants were lying in the road. Someone had covered them with a sheet, but birds were pecking away at the hand of one of the dead.
Julia gasped and held her hand to her mouth. As they cautiously walked toward the street, the smell of the decomposing bodies began to reach their noses.
“Come on, let’s get away from this entrance before we’re noticed,” said Sarge. He quickly led them around the corner and towards Storrow and the Charles River.
“Katie, are those the men who were attacking the building yesterday?” asked Julia. She turned to look again, but Sarge grabbed her hand and urged her along. As they walked swiftly down the sidewalk, their feet crunched on broken glass. Sarge glanced up and to his right, noticing some residents of another building watching their movements. He could feel their eyes. I don’t like this at all.
They crossed the median and walked along Back Street before finding the sidewalk. Sarge turned and glanced toward the top of 100 Beacon. Steven stood on the wall with his hat turned backwards. He was giving Sarge the middle finger. Yeah, fuck me too, bro.
Dozens of stalled cars dotted Storrow as they walked briskly up the sidewalk. As they crossed Pinckney Street, some residents of a nearby building were standing on a balcony and began to shout at them.
“Hey, where are you going?”
“Do you have any food?”
“Do y
ou girls wanna come up and party?”
Sarge moved between Julia and the fence and picked up the pace. He glanced at Katie to see if she was going to shoot them. Fortunately, she walked faster as well, but turned and walked backwards, not wanting to lose sight of the men.
Two hundred yards later, they caught their first glimpse of the river and Longfellow Bridge. The three stopped to take it all in. From the middle of the river, toward Cambridge, the bridge was gone. Both the east- and westbound lanes were collapsed. Emergency vehicles blocked the entrance ramp in front of them, but there were no officers accompanying the vehicles.
They made their way past Cambridge Street, which resembled a parking lot full of abandoned cars. The infamous Liberty Hotel, where the Bilderberg Conference was held just three months ago, was barricaded, and the entrance was manned by security personnel.
“Let’s go this way,” said Sarge as they entered Grove Street and followed the sign to the emergency room entrance. What they saw caused them to stop in their tracks. Hundreds of people lay in the open promenade typically used for patient drop-off and the emergency room entrance. A makeshift triage had been established for the victims of the pipeline explosion.
As they got closer, they could hear the moans and cries of the injured. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air. Julia and Katie immediately held their hands over their mouths. Julia was fighting back the tears. Sarge stopped them before they crossed Fruit Street.
He looked Julia in the eyes. “We don’t have to do this. None of us are prepared for what we are about to see.”
She looked at him and then surveyed the rows of temporary cots and the personnel scurrying about. “We have to try, Sarge.” She pushed past him towards the barricades, where a single police officer was attempting to hold people back. A frantic hospital candy striper was attempting to check on the status of loved ones for the distraught family members gathered around.
Julia approached the officer. “My name is Julia Hawthorne, with the Boston Herald. We’re here to—”
“Miss, no reporters,” said the officer. “These folks have their hands full, can’t you see that?”
“No, you don’t understand,” started Julia, but Katie interrupted.
“We have medical training and we’re here to help,” she said to the officer. “My friends and I can lend a hand wherever needed.” Katie grabbed Julia’s hand and pushed forward past the crowd, attempting to walk past the officer.
“You stop right there,” he shouted. “Medical personnel only.”
A doctor dressed in blue scrubs overheard the scuffle and approached them. “What’s the problem here?”
“No problem, Doc, these people are trying to force their way in,” the officer replied. “Now move along. I don’t have time for this!”
The young doctor turned his attention toward Katie. “Did I hear you say you had medical experience?”
“We do,” replied Katie. “All of us are trained in advanced first aid. You look like you could use a hand, or three.”
The officer became distracted by a woman trying to walk around the other end of his barricade. The young doctor saw this as well and quickly waved them through.
Sarge extended his hand. “I’m Professor Henry Sargent from Harvard. These are my friends Julia Hawthorne with the Boston Herald and Katie O’Shea with, uhm, she works in Washington.”
The doctor looked puzzled. Katie perked up and helped Sarge with the introductions.
“I’m a spook, or at least I used to be.” She laughed.
“A what?” he asked.
Katie and Julia started laughing.
“Listen, that was another life. How can we help you, Doctor…” Katie searched for a name badge.
“Daugherty. I’m Dr. Judd Daugherty, a third-year resident here at Mass General. As you can imagine, we’re a little shorthanded. This is the biggest mass casualty incident in the history of the hospital.”
Mass General had a storied history. Founded in 1811 under the guidance of John Warren, an ancestor of J.J.’s, it was the original teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. It was the third-oldest hospital in America and conducted the largest hospital-based research program in the world. It commanded the best of the best in the medical field, but it was clearly challenged by the events of the last four hours.
At this moment, Mass General was overwhelmed with the injured. The number of casualties far exceeded what Sarge envisioned, and he was glad that Julia convinced them to assist. These were Bostonians, and they needed help.
“Well, Dr. Daugherty, what can we do to assist?” asked Sarge.
Chapter 6
Thursday, September 8, 2016
10:35 a.m.
Massachusetts General Hospital
Boston, Massachusetts
Julia and Sarge followed Dr. Daugherty as he led the trio to a temporary scrub station. A table was manned by a nurse who was handing out clothing, gloves, and temporary badges.
“We’ve had our staff arrive without their scrubs or IDs,” pointed out Dr. Daugherty. “Sadly, several of the injured are hospital personnel. One of the explosions occurred on the east side of the campus near the ambulance entrance. There’s a thirty-foot-wide hole in the middle of Blossom Street. A part of the building collapsed and we began treating the injured in the ER.” Dr. Daugherty motioned over his shoulder to the glass entrance of the emergency room.
He continued, “We lost generator power yesterday afternoon. The feds promised us more fuel, but nothing was delivered. When the injured started arriving at dawn, it was too dark inside the building to deal with the mass casualties. We had no choice but to treat the vast majority of the victims out here.” Dr. Daugherty turned and looked across the asphalt entry. “Welcome to our new burn unit.”
Julia tried to count the cots and the injured. She estimated three hundred injured and less than fifty hospital personnel. Some were dressed in scrubs, others were in street clothes. All wore masks to cover their nostrils from the smell.
“I’ve never smelled anything like this,” said Katie.
“Some of the people were actually burned by fire as a result of the car accidents on the Longfellow,” said Dr. Daugherty. “But the majority of the injured have been exposed to extremely high temperature steam and hot debris, which hit them without warning. I have to warn all of you, some of these injuries are grotesque. The most severe cases have been moved inside for treatment. But you will still see some third-degree burns, and you need to be prepared for that.”
“How will we know what to do?” asked Julia.
Dr. Daugherty turned to the personnel manning the table and began to gather clothes, masks and gloves. He gave them each a blank identification badge and a black sharpie.
“Write your names on here and put Daugherty in parentheses underneath. That will let hospital personnel know that you are assigned to me. I’m going to take you on rounds and assign you to assist certain patients.”
“We don’t have any experience with burn victims,” said Sarge. He didn’t want the doctor to expect too much from them.
“I understand,” he replied. “Listen, this is unprecedented for our staff. Come over here and let me give you an overview of our approach today.”
Julia and Katie followed him as he walked toward some mobile racks filled with gauze, ointments, and other medical supplies. They were running low.
“Sarge,” Julia whispered as they followed behind, “thank you for letting me do this. I wanted to help, but I also wanted to see. But you knew that, didn’t you?” She stopped in front of him.
“I did,” replied Sarge. “I’m glad we’re here.”
“Okay,” interrupted the doctor. “Unfortunately, we have to triage these patients as if we were in a third world country or in a remote location without a hospital. Thanks to whatever it was that happened Saturday night, the medical treatment these patients will receive is not that different.”
“With the power grid down, do you have to pick and choose which
patients get priority?” asked Katie.
“That’s true under any circumstances, Katie,” replied Dr. Daugherty. “In a mass disaster event, the goal of the triage unit is to separate burn patients from trauma patients. Ordinarily, we would send them to the burn unit and others to the trauma center. What we are doing today is acting as a triage and burn unit for those who have experienced first- and second-degree burns. Although, as I said, there are some victims that indicate third-degree burns.”
“How do you tell the difference?” asked Sarge.
“Well, a trauma patient has obvious life-threatening injuries, usually to the brain, internal organs, and certain extremities. We identified these patients and moved them inside to avoid exposure to bacteria.”
“Aren’t third-degree burns the worst?” asked Katie. They walked through the rows of patients as Dr. Daugherty stopped and looked at charts while he adjusted bandages.
“Yes. The degree or severity of most burns is determined by the depth and size of the burn. There is, technically, a fourth-degree burn where the damage caused by a third-degree burn extends beyond the skin into tendons or even bones. Clearly, that is a trauma case, and those patients are inside. Most of the third-degree burns—identified by a widespread thickness of blistered skin that has a white, leathery appearance—are also inside. We have to be careful with the third-degree victims because the damage can reach the bloodstream and affect major organs. I won’t show you a third-degree burn.”
Julia was fascinated by the learning experience. It would be difficult to leave the hospital today knowing that these patients required much-needed attention. Katie wandered ahead, and Julia caught Dr. Daugherty’s eyes admiring Katie from the rear.
“Are you single, Doctor?” asked Julia.
“What? Uhm, yes, but please don’t mistake what I was doing,” stuttered the young, handsome doctor.
“It’s okay, Doc, Katie is pretty, but she is taken.” Julia laughed.
