Rose and Dr Faraday approached the desk and Dr Faraday pulled out an ID card from a pocket of her jacket. The man working at the station that day was sitting behind the desk looking down as a computer terminal, its screen turned away from Rose. He was a black man, solidly built but not bulky, he was about Rose’s height and age, but it was hard to tell the former as he was sitting. As they approached, the guard looked up, glanced at Dr Faraday’s ID card, and then nodded returning his attention to the computer terminal. As they passed by the man through a set of double doors, Rose could see over the man’s camouflaged shoulder he was watching a movie, not another thought given to her or Dr Faraday.
The hallways of the hospital were fairly bland, much as you’d expect in a hospital, and they were only minimally lit. Unlike the wing where Rose had spent the last week, the in-between places like hallways, stairwells and other less-essential places were dark unless there was motion and then just the bare minimum. Efficient and logical, clearly a military idea.
Dr Faraday hadn’t been lying when she told Rose it was going to be a long walk. MGH was big and Jamie was at the extreme far end. Elevators were only used for patients that couldn’t walk and Rose was not one of them so it was all hallways and stairs for her. She was glad she’d pushed herself so hard to keep moving, while fatigued, Rose could only imagine how she’d feel had she just laid around for a week or two. After a long walk, they reached Jamie’s wing.
There was much more security for this wing than her own. A guard station had been set up outside this wing and it was staffed by two soldiers, rifles slung on their shoulders, standing in front of a set of double doors. There was not computer screen with movies playing here, this wing was being guarded. As Dr Faraday and Rose approached, one of the two soldiers stepped forward and took Dr Faraday's ID card. The man produced a small device with a slit in the top. Sliding Dr Faraday’s ID through the slit, the device beeped and a green light appeared. The soldier handed Dr Faraday back her card. “Yall’re set. Good to see you again Doc,” said the man, a distinct southern accent to his voice.
“You as well Sgt Cody,” replied Dr Faraday, flashing him a quick smile.
The other soldier keyed a radio mic attached to his shoulder. “Two coming in,” he said in a crisp military tone.
The double doors behind the two soldiers popped as the magnetic locks released and electric door openers engaged swinging the doors open. The two men stepped aside as Dr Faraday and Rose continued on past them and into Jamie’s wing. Rose noticed the name of the wing on the wood paneling above the doorway: “Blake 14 - Labor & Delivery Unit.”
“The maternity ward?” asked Rose as they continued in.
“Yup,” said Dr Faraday chuckling. “It was the most secure unit in the hospital, so it made sense for the CDC to take it over and use it for curing non-immune. Easy to contain and secure.”
“Makes sense, but where do people have kids now?”
“There are so few babies born now,” replied Dr Faraday, shrugging. “Our population is so low and I don’t know, I guess people have other things on their minds. We’ve had births from time to time, but not frequently enough to warrant a whole wing. We usually do it in the wing we just came from.”
They continued on into the wing’s lobby and to a desk with several nurses seated on the opposite side; Dr Faraday stopped and briefly spoke with one of the women. “We’re here to visit the patient in room #17. Can you please check with the Doctor-In-Charge and make sure this is still ok?”
As the nurse behind the desk made a phone call, Dr Faraday turned back to Rose. “This wing is in MGH, but it is essentially an entirely different facility run by the CDC. While we’re all on the same team, what they do here is way beyond what I typically do in my wing. They do their thing, we do ours. We work together, but right now we are essentially guests in their facility.”
Before Rose could answer, the nurse hung up the phone. “Dr Faraday? I just spoke with Dr Knight, he said the patient in room #17 is heavily sedated and unconscious as she is mid-treatment, but if you’d like to visit, he sees no problem with that.” The nurse looked over to Rose. “Ma’am, I need you to fill out this sheet so we can document everyone who comes in and out. Do you know the patient in room #17?”
“Yes,” answered Rose. “She’s my...she’s my wife, her name is Jamie.”
“You’re…” the nurse looked from Rose to Dr Faraday then back to Rose. “Alright, whatever, please fill out this other sheet too then, we had her listed as ‘Jane Doe’ so having a name and any medical history would be helpful.”
It took several minutes for Rose to complete all the paperwork, something she’d never thought she’d see again when the world ended. “As long as government agencies exist, so will bureaucracy,” Rose sighed quietly to herself as she worked through the forms.
Finally finished, Rose passed the paperwork back to the nurse and was pointed in the direction of room #17. “I’ll wait for you here in the lobby,” said Dr Faraday.
Rose made her way down the hallway toward Jamie’s room. All the patient’s doors were closed as she traversed the hallway making it feel narrow and close. Upon reaching #17, she found that door closed as well. Pushing open the door and walking inside, Rose found the hospital room mostly dark. The light from the hallway was enough for Rose to easily find the lightswitch for the room and flicked it on. Appearing to be a typical birthing suite of a maternity ward, the room was adorned with white walls and a small window, its shades drawn, a couple hotel-style water color paintings of landscapes, some chairs for sitting, and a single bed surrounded by IV bags and beeping machines. Lying on the bed, pale, seemingly lifeless, unmoving with a tube down her throat, wires and diodes connected to her arms and face, was Jamie. The crushing realization of Jamie’s injuries had not fully registered until that second, seeing her lying there, so drawn, hovering on the brink of death. Rose found the nearest chair and collapsed into it. She sat there, staring at Jamie, the beeping of the machines keeping her alive the only sound in the room.
Finally, with great effort, Rose dragged her chair over to Jamie’s bed and sat next to her holding her hand, warm but limp, in her own. The realization that she was once again in a hospital at the bedside of another woman, gravely injured by the infected and near death, could not be avoided. Kate’s death was still a vivid memory in Rose’s mind years later. Rose had done everything she could to prevent Jamie from suffering the same fate but she’d failed. Rose was not going to abandon Jamie to this disease. They were going to overcome this together.
Rose was unsure how long she sat there musing on Kate and Jamie, Dr Faraday’s talk of a cure, the CDC...there was something bothering Rose. Some detail buried that was wiggling it’s way out, trying to get Rose’s attention. The more she seemed to focus on it, the hazier it seemed to become. She knew it was important, what was it? What was she missing?
Sighing, Rose stood and stretched. Dr Faraday was probably still waiting for her in the lobby, in this wing run by the doctors of the CDC. CDC. Doctors. What had that nurse said when she’d hung up the phone? Rose could feel her stomach drop as it clicked into place, white-hot adrenaline shooting through her veins. Dr Knight.
Chapter 10
Rose moved over to the open door of the room and glanced out into the hallway. There was no one waiting to grab her and no guards closing in on the room. Taking one last glance, Rose closed the door and stood with her back against it. Dr Knight was still alive, the scientist who’d come to the Green Forks Police Department and told them about the outbreak, the one who authorized the extermination of the staff at Green Forks Hospital, he was here and he was the head doctor. There were two ways Rose could handle this. Option one involved scooping up Jamie, hoping she’s cured and attempt to make a break for it somehow. Glancing over at Jamie, unconscious and frail, Rose recalled the security they passed through on the way in; that option one wasn’t going to work. Option two, her only option, was to continue to bide her time. The chances of Dr Knig
ht remembering Rose, especially after two years was slim. Also, they had a cure, or so Rose has been told, which means they no longer needed her. If that was the case, it would mean no more “by any means” experiments to find a cure, they were already there. “But at what cost?” Rose wondered quietly out loud. How many immune people like her hadn’t fought back against the CDC but instead gave up? Were they brought to Boston instead of Georgia? How many immune people died to find this cure Jamie was now benefiting from?
There was a soft knock at the door behind her. Slowly, Rose cracked open the door, half expecting to see the the tall Dr Knight with his dark, wiry hair and pinched face, but instead it was Dr Faraday. “How are you doing Rose?” she asked softly.
“Oh, we’re ok. Thank you,” said Rose awkwardly.
“I know this can be tough for some people, seeing their loved one in a medically-induced coma with all the wires and tubes. I can give you more time if you’d like?”
“No that’s ok, when will I be able to come back and visit her again?” asked Rose opening the door more.
“As much as you’d like. I got you a visitor’s pass so you’ll have access to this wing at any time,” said Dr Faraday, turning back to the hallway. “I’ll meet you in the lobby.”
Turning from the door to face Jamie again, Rose could do little else but stare at her. Jamie’s colorful tattoos seemed dull against her pale skin, buried under wires. Rose missed Jamie’s wit right then, her ability to make a heavy situation light with some snappy comment. Most of all though, Rose missed her companionship. As alone as Rose had been after Kate’s death, Jamie had come and more than filled that void, they’d survived together, loved each other. They had a special bond, leaving her alone in this room felt...wrong. Rose resolved to come each day, talk with Jamie, make sure she knew Rose was still with her.
Moving over to Jamie, Rose gave her a kiss on her forehead, lingering near her face for some reaction, some acknowledgment of her presence but none came. Blinking back tears, Rose turned away from Jamie and walked over to the door. “I’ll be back soon Jamie,” said Rose turning. Before she closed the door behind her, Rose leaned back into the room. “Don’t go anywhere without me,” Rose added with a sad smile that quickly evolved into more tears.
Closing the door, Rose took a minute to collect herself before walking back to the lobby. Dr Faraday was waiting for her talking with the nurse. As Rose approached, Dr Faraday turned to face her, and handed her an ID card ignoring the puffy eyes and tear streaked cheeks Rose surely had.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Two weeks of daily visits to Jamie’s hospital room and there was little change in her condition. Rose had been told by nurses in the CDC wing that Jamie was improving, she’d even been shown results of blood tests and brain scans that showed the disease was in remission. Rose wanted to believe them, she really did, but all of these people worked for Dr Knight. Rose wouldn’t be able to forget what he sanctioned and her imagination had gone wild picturing the horrors that may have happened in the two years since their last meeting; how many people were killed on his orders?
Despite all this, Rose could hardly deny the results. Color seemed to be returning to Jamie’s complexion. To Rose’s dismay however, she still remained unconscious and wired to machines. Rose had brought books from her wing and read to Jamie every day. Rose even recounted some of the adventures they’d had together, anything she could think of so Jamie could hear her voice and know she wasn’t alone, she hadn’t been abandoned.
Since her first trip to the CDC wing with Dr Faraday, the guards at both wings had become accustomed to Rose coming and going. Rose made sure that she visited Jamie at different times of the day and night, always somewhat random so no matter when she was going to visit, her presence in the hallways of MGH wouldn’t be questioned. This freedom allowed Rose the ability to explore the hospital as she pleased. Leaving the hospital would be too suspicious, there were guards at the front doors who would question why she was leaving. Dr Faraday had decided that, based on Jamie’s consistent recovery, she would hold off on discharge for Rose until Jamie was ready as well. As far as Rose could tell, this was done as a gesture of goodwill from Dr Faraday to Rose. Rose had gathered that once she was discharged, she would be put into the service of maintaining the City of Boston somehow, her role to be determined at that time. Rose was grateful for this, her ability to visit Jamie, and to explore, would be severely hampered if she then had a job outside the hospital.
In an attempt to be as random as possible, Rose would always switch up her exploring, sometimes before Jamie’s visit, sometimes after; random patterns were harder to detect. According to her phone, it was just after 6pm on May 12th. The day had been a sunny one and even at 6pm, it still seemed like late-afternoon. Rose had just finished reading another chapter of George R. R. Martin’s “A Storm of Swords” to Jamie and had given her the usual kiss on the forehead before heading out to do some more exploring. Rose had started with the top floors of MGH and had systematically worked her way down. Just as Dr Faraday had said, most of the hospital was empty and in many cases, the lights weren’t powered causing Rose to procure a flashlight to continue her exploration. As Rose had guessed, most of the floors with no power had nothing of note, occasionally some were used for storage, but otherwise empty and unremarkable. Only as Rose neared the first floor and basement levels did things start to become more interesting.
On the second floor of the hospital, in another wing that was powered down but being used for the storage of medical equipment, was a service door. Rose had missed it on her first sweep through the clutter. It was a nondescript metal door with a small glass window set into it and a standard circular door knob. The door was buried behind stacks and stacks of beds piled on top of each other and if Rose’s flashlight hadn’t lingered in just the right spot, she would have missed it entirely. It took her some time to clear away the beds and the amount of noise that Rose was making, she was sure she’d be caught but to her surprise, she wasn’t disturbed at all. By the time she had cleared enough away however, she was out of breath, sweaty, and had been gone from her wing for hours, much longer than normal.
Deciding to call it a night, Rose made her way back to her wing barely acknowledging the guard at the doors making a beeline for her room. The last thing she wanted to do was raise suspicions, but going straight to her room was much less suspicious than someone noticing she was drenched in sweat.
Swinging into her room and closing the door behind her, Rose let out a sigh of relief. On a table next to the bed was a new DVD. The nurses in the wing did a good job of circulating DVDs for the patients. There were only so many, but they made sure there was a good rotation. Tonight looked as though she would be watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Putting in the movie, Rose got ready for bed. She planned on an early morning. She wanted to get back down to that door as soon as she could.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rose woke early and dressed quickly. She was going to head straight for the door and then go and see Jamie. The door had been the most interesting thing Rose had found since she’d started searching the hospital and she was excited to see where it led. If it ended up just being some access stairway that led to another floor, she was going to be thoroughly disappointed. There was part of her that wouldn’t be surprised though. Since she’d been at the hospital and with the exception of Dr Knight, everything appeared to be as it seemed. The doctors and staff, the patients and civilians she’d met all appeared to be survivors, the military were your normal military troops. Even the CDC seemed to be working in conjunction with everyone else as she’d been told and Rose had finally started to see major improvement in Jamie. Rose had been told it’d only be days before she was out of the coma, the threat of the infection now gone, her body now healing from the physical injuries.
Maybe she was paranoid. Maybe she’d been looking out for threats for so long, she’d conditioned herself to never stop looking even when there wasn’t one. Despite the g
nawing doubts at the back of her mind, she needed to do this. She needed to finish checking out the hospital. If there was nothing to see, she would cross that bridge when she got to it, but until then, she just couldn’t operate under that assumption. She needed to be sure. Maybe she was still that cop from Green Forks in some small way.
That made Rose smile to herself as she dressed in the light of the rising sun outside her window. It was going to be a nice day, cloudy but nice. Slipping out of her room and down the hall, she got an uninterested wave from an uninterested Asian female working the security desk. One of the four or five in the rotation, the woman seemed the least interested in the comings and goings of Rose, which Rose took as a good sign.
Not taking any chances someone might be following her, Rose took a roundabout route to the second floor storage area she’d been to the night before. Finding it undisturbed from the previous night, Rose went right to the door, grasped the handle and yanked it open, the metal door letting out a loud but quick shriek as it was dragged across the metal frame. Inside, Rose found a nondescript cement staircase, unlit and seemingly unused.
Clicking on the flashlight, Rose shined the beam out into the darkness. The stairwell went up at least a few more floors before the beam was lost in the darkness. Pointing it down, Rose could see that it only went down one more level to the first floor. Following the stairs down, Rose found a single exit door. The door was another metal one, identical except without a window. It was closed and showed signs of rust around the bottom edge. In the center of the stairwell’s base, there was a rusted metal drain. Neither appeared wet currently but there was a evidence of past watermarks by the door and drain. The cement floor was rust colored indicating water had come from beyond the door to the drain.
Jordan Rose Duology (Book 2): Homecoming Page 12
