Virus
Page 6
Her mother smiled back, patting her on the back gently before turning to enter the house. Tunrayo paused for a couple of seconds and hurried in after her.
Chapter Fourteen
Four days later
“Doctor please what is happening to our son?” Chioma gasped looking at the doctor’s face with wide terrified eyes.
The wan faced doctor sat behind a wide mahogany desk sifting through a pile of papers in front of him. They were in the doctor’s office, a wide and spherical shaped room with high walls, asbestos ceilings and thick blue carpeting. Frank stood some distance away. His back faced them cos he had his eyes fixed on the closed wooden door.
Chioma glanced at him searching for support but he gave none. He had barely spoken more than ten words since Chike’s return to the hospital and with the almost helpless vibe she sensed coming from him, she doubted he would say anything more.
Before she could dwell on that thought the doctor rose to his feet staring at the more than half a dozen test results spread out on his desk.
“Mr. and Mrs. Chidozie, I am afraid I do not know what is wrong with your son. His symptoms defy all our attempts to treat them. From the test results that just came back from the lab, we really have no idea what is wrong with him.”
“Then send his blood work to another lab.”
“I am afraid there is no other lab. The two labs we sent his blood to are the only ones in Oraromi. If he does not improve by the end of the day, I would advise you take him to the teaching hospital in the next state.”
“But__” Frank growled turning around slowly. “There must be something we can do?”
“I am afraid I do not know what else to do_” The doctor replied with a helpless look on his face.
An eerie silence engulfed the room. The silence was broken by a hard knock on the door a few moments later.
“Yes!” The doctor barked irritably.
“Its me__” A soft voice answered from behind the door.
“What do you want?”
“Its time to give Chike his next shot sir.”
“Then give him and stop bothering me.”
“His other results just came in__ but__”
“But what?”
“Something is happening to him which I think you should see.”
That made everyone in the room freeze. Without another word, they hurried to the door. Chioma somehow managed to reach the door first. She wrenched the door open and rushed out with the others following close behind.
She reached Chike’s side and fell to her knees sobbing hysterically. Frank got to his bed next and his face instantly grew pale. The doctor pushed past them and gasped in horror.
Chike lay spread-eagled on the bed. His eyes shone with maniacal maniacally intent and were unfocused. He wore a pair of navy blue shorts, which was the only item of clothing he had on.
Along both sides of his body, on the part of his ribcage that lay beneath his arm, all the way to his abdomen were several orifices, seeping blue green pus like liquid. The openings of these orifices opened and closed spasmodically, sort of like the way a fish’s gills moved as it breathed.
Each time they opened, a sickening hissing sound burst from it and several frightening spasms would rock Chike’s body. His skin, which had always been a healthy chocolate color, was now blackish green tinged with a bit of red.
“DOCTOR WHAT IS HAPPENING TO HIM?” Chioma wailed.
“I honestly do not know.” The doctor gasped looking plainly horrified.
Seven hours later
Doctor Makinde walked out of the hospital with long hurried strides. He had a strained look on his face. The black slacks he wore were rumpled and the white long sleeved shirt covering his torso was wrinkled, stained in several places with greenish red dots.
He frowned as he looked at it. He could not remember where he had gotten the stains. His face grew grimmer as he replayed his day in his head. The only place he could have gotten the stains from would have been from Chike Chidozie.
Thinking about the Chidozie boy made a cold chill run down his spine. Hundreds of goose pimples sprouted on his skin as he remembered the gill like holes on Chike’s sides.
He scratched his fingers absentmindedly. It itched badly from the scouring he had given it. He and his team had moved Chike to another room and had him quarantined. He forbade everyone from touching him with their bare hands since the start of his new set of symptoms.
The nurses and doctors who attended to him wore masks and thick latex gloves. Just thinking about the green pus coming out of his body made him feel like puking.
In all his years as a medical practitioner, he had never seen anything like that before. He made a mental note to pull out some of his old textbooks and do some searching. If he found nothing he would try checking online.
He could not wait to have the boy and his parent’s transferred to the teaching hospital in the next state where they would become someone else’s problem. For as long as he could remember, he had always been a down to earth and extremely realistic person. He hated it when he could not figure something out or the world around him did not make rational sense.
It made him feel un-tethered. Trapped in a world without gravity, floating, drifting on the whims and caprices of the weightlessness around him; he hadn’t felt like this for years. Truth be told, he never believed he would ever feel like this again. How wrong he had been.
A sting on his left arm just beneath his elbow snapped him out of his reverie. He touched the spot carefully and almost jumped from the sharp pain his touch evoked.
Still frowning he raised his elbow to look. A circle of bright red blood brought him up short. What in the world? Ki lo n sele si mi?* What is happening to me?
Rolling up his sleeve to the elbow, he was shocked to see a set of crescent shaped marks on his arm just beneath his elbow. He studied them carefully. They looked like bite marks. His skin was broken in four places and blood seeped out of the broken skin.
He had been bitten! But by whom? Fear stole into his heart. Why hadn’t he noticed before now? Four patients struggled with him as he tried to give them their shots. It had to be one of the four that had bitten him. Chike was one of the four. He refused to consider the possibility that he was the one responsible.
His strides grew longer as he hurried towards home. When he got home, he would rinse out the wound and put iodine and spirits on it. All would be well. The cold feeling in his heart told him he did not really believe what he was trying to get himself to believe but__ he tried to clear his head the closer he got to his house.
Nurse Damilola stood in front of a long mirror examining her reflection carefully. A thrill of fear stole into her heart as she looked at the tightly clasped green rubber suit she wore. She packed her luxurious black hair into a shower cap and a green surgical mask covered the lower part of her face.
The lime green wellington style boots she wore made walking quite difficult. Since her destination was the next room, she did not have to go too far to get to where she was going. Her wide panicked eyes drifted to the digital clock hanging on the wall to her right.
It said 11.45. Great! Why did her shift have to fall on this night of all nights? Maybe the gods hated her, especially since she was the one charged with the responsibility of giving the Chidozie child his injection. A shiver ran down her spine and she shuddered.
Deciding not to put it off any longer, she started for the door behind her. Taking a deep breath when she reached it, she opened it and stepped into the room closing the door firmly behind her.
She turned facing the large bed sitting in the center of the room. Chike’s fragile looking body filled her with a sadness so great that it seemed to come from her very soul.
There were long tubes inserted into the gill like opening in his sides, which were sucking out the greenish fluid from his insides. His skin color, which a couple of hours ago had been blackish green, was now a cross between red and purple with a tinge of black.
The syringe in her hand was half-full of a clear colorless liquid, which she injected into the bag of normal saline. The fluid in the bag turned deep blue.
Reaching down for the drip control, she made the liquid flowing into his vein faster. A sigh burst from his lips but Chike did not open his eyes. If not for the rising and falling of his chest, she would not believe he was still alive.
A muffled cry from her right reached her ears and she jumped startled realizing at the last minute that it came from the large window to her left. Her eyes grew sadder when she saw the tragic looking expression on Chioma and Steven`s face. Chioma’s had her nose pressed against the glass as rivers of tears streamed down her cheeks.
Steven stood beside her squeezing her shoulders and trying hard to look strong. Damilola could see however that he had tears in his eyes. Her heart went out to them. She could only imagine the pain and horror they were going through. Their eyes were red and bloodshot and they looked like they had not slept in days. She nodded at them slowly. Steven responded but his wife was too overcome with her grief to respond.
Chike’s body suddenly jerked, as if five hundred volts of electricity ran through his body at once. A piercing scream erupted from his lips at almost the same instant. His body went into intense spasms, so sharp and furious that she thought his body was going to snap in two.
Then in what seemed like a microsecond later, he became still. Rushing to his side, Damilola felt for a pulse. She got nothing. She began CPR, pounding his chest with all her strength while Chioma’s cries rang out like a mantra behind her.
She was so intent in her task that she did not hear the door to the quarantined room fly open. Four other masked and rubber suited people rushed in. They all worked on him for another ten minutes trying to revive him. When he remained unresponsive, they eventually gave up. They declared Chike Chidozie dead at 12.24am.
Chapter Fifteen
Wole sat up drenched in sweat. It was the dream. Always the same dream. His eyes flittered to the clock on the wall. It said 3.15am. A frown roughened his brow. That was not right at all. For as long as he could remember the dreams always came just before dawn. Between the hours of 5.30 and 6.30am. A sense of dread filled his insides.
Something was wrong! Or was it his mind playing tricks on him again? He sat up, placing his feet on the cold floor. He would probably have continued dwelling on it if he did not hear his mother’s footsteps moving along the passage heading towards the kitchen.
The frown on his face grew even harder. What was she prowling around at night for? He suddenly remembered that she said something about preparing moi moi* (bean cake kind of meal). She sent him to grind the beans the previous night. Since it took quite a while to prepare, she probably wanted to get everything ready before it was time for school.
He sank back down on the bed with another sigh and closed his eyes. Wake up time for him was 5.30am. He still had more than two hours to catch up on some sleep. He drifted off with that thought running through his head.
6.45 am (En-route to school)
Tunrayo stood at the end of the path, which broke out onto the dirt road leading towards the school. Her orange uniform was sparkling clean and her hair, tied into a bun behind her head, was nicely combed and neat. Both eyes were red and swollen, as if she had been crying.
“Are you alright?” Wole asked his heart skipping a couple of beats as he looked at her face.
“I am fine. I am just a little tired and stressed out.”
The look on his face said in very clear terms that he did not believe a word she was saying, but he did not query her any further. He started towards the school without another word and she quickly hurried after him. They walked in silence for several moments before anyone spoke.
“Have you heard anything about Chike’s condition?”
“No I haven’t.” He replied stiffening slightly. “Have you?”
She shook her head slowly.
“I really hope he is feeling better.”
“Me too.”
His voice was low, almost too low for her to hear.
7.15 am (Oraromi police station).
Taiwo Betiku sat behind a large desk in a wide room riffling through a thick stack of papers. He was a large man, about 6.3 inches tall and very broad. His hulk stuffed into the black on black uniform of the Nigerian police force. Taiwo Betiku was many things. He was focused, career driven, loyal, honest, unmarried but most importantly, he was the D.P.O (District Police Officer) of the Oraromi police station.
That title meant he was the head honcho, the lord of everything he surveyed, all things regarding the law that is. His dark and extremely weathered face was hard, his nose wrinkled as if he caught an extremely bad smell. That was not the case however. His nose always went that way when he was face to face with something he did not like; like the report he held in his hand for instance. A knock on the door broke his concentration.
“Yes come in__” He barked not looking up.
The door to his office opened and a whipcord lean police officer walked in. He wore the same black on black uniform Taiwo was wearing but his eyes looked sad and weary at the same time. He saluted and quickly went at ease after a curt nod from Taiwo.
“What is it sergeant?”
“We just got a call from the general hospital sir.”
“And?”
“Chike Chidozie died this morning.”
Taiwo gasped looking up at the sergeant in stunned silence.
“Didn’t they say it was just a bite? Who dies from a bite?”
The sergeant shrugged but did not speak.
“Have his parents been told?”
“They were with him when he passed.”
Taiwo rose to his feet tutting quietly as he did so. “This is horrible. I can only imagine what they must be feeling.”
The sergeant said nothing more again and a heavy silence filled the room.
“Did the hospital say anything?”
“Yes they said Eze should still be kept under lock and key and quarantined. They are sending someone to examine him and take some tests.”
Taiwo nodded and walked towards the door.
“Are you going somewhere sir?”
“As a matter of fact I am. I want to get a good look at the infamous Eze.”
The sergeant nodded and stepped aside to let him pass. They walked down a long corridor, which opened, into the main body of the station. It was a beehive of activity filled with almost two dozen peopl
Wading through the throng took almost two minutes, before they headed down two more long corridors, which led to the cells. Eze’s cell stood alone, separated from the others by almost twelve feet of concrete. This section of the station was dark and gloomy as if some sort of evil presence lurked there.
Eze’s had his face pressed against the bars. His eyes were wide and bloodshot, his lips curled into a benign snarl. Both men jumped startled when they saw him taking two steps back.
An eerie laugh erupted from his mouth. His laugh was high pitched and squeaky. The sound drove a chill into both of their hearts and without a word they quickly turned and headed back the way they had come with Eze’s maniacal laughter ringing out behind them.
9.15 am
Dr Makinde sighed staring at the death certificate he held in his hands. Even though it was a cool morning, sweat poured out of his skin soaking his pristine white shirt which was tucked into slim fitting black trousers.
This was wrong! It was so wrong! Nothing in his medical career could have prepared him for this. What sort of infection gotten from a bite could kill a young boy in less than a week?
In spite of the legion of tests carried out on Chike’s blood work, the labs had not been able to ascertain whether the infectio
n was viral or bacterial. He had nothing to go on. Now because of his lack of information, a young boy was dead.
He almost passed out in shock when the nurse on duty informed him when he came in for work. Fear stole into his heart when the bite wound beneath his elbow started to itch.
It stopped smarting two hours after he got home last night. Cleaning it with spirits and pouring a bit of iodine on it had eased the stinging. The itching started at five in the morning.
Still sleepy he scratched it quite badly, opening up the wound again. The pain roused him fast. The itching eased somewhat when he gave it another dressing. That respite lasted only an hour. Now it was back in full force and becoming quite unbearable with every moment that passed.
Turning back to the death certificate in his hand, he tried to get his mind to focus. At his request, Chike’s medical details, tests and blood work was forwarded to the teaching hospital in the next state. Maybe they could get a sense of what kind of infection they were dealing with. It would have been nice to get a sample of Eze’s blood but after Chike’s weird symptoms started, none of the hospital staff was willing to go to the police station to get a sample of Eze’s blood. A sharp knock on the door startled him so much that he almost fell off his seat.
“YES!!” He yelled thoroughly incensed. “Come in!!”
The door opened violently and Damilola the night nurse rushed in looking frightened and extremely flustered.
“Sorry to disturb you Doctor, but we cannot find Chike Chidozie’s body.”
“WHAT???!!!” He roared.