by K. S. Black
“Is she going to be okay?” Kevin asked, his face pale and lined under the LED light.
“I don’t know. It looks pretty bad.”
Cooper brought over a gurney he had loaded with surgical drapes, towels, betadine soap, and two IV bags filled with lactated ringers. “I’m going to see what I can do to secure those front doors.”
Before he could take a step towards the triage area, he heard Hayley shouting. “Infected are coming! I couldn’t lock the doors.”
Within seconds, the entrance doors burst open as several infected pushed into each other trying to rush in. Hayley unleashed a volley of rounds from her XM8. Cooper kicked the door closed with such force that he knocked two of the infected down, but two more rushed in over top of them and knocked him to the ground as he tried to back away.
Hayley shot wildly at the other infected as they came through the door in front of Cooper. She peppered them in the chest and head, and they fell backward onto the sidewalk outside.
Cooper continued to struggle with two infected on the floor. One of them kicked Hayley hard in the stomach before he positioned himself closer to Cooper. The impact knocked her to the ground. She sprayed the walls and ceiling with what was left in the magazine.
Kevin shouted from inside the treatment room. “Something’s in here with us!”
Bare feet slapped across the floor of the triage area.
Still on the ground, one of the infected had latched onto Cooper’s shoulder, but before teeth could meet flesh, the infected man was catapulted through the air by a tall woman with a dirty blue cloth wrapped around her head. He landed on his back no more than a yard and a half from Hayley’s feet. Cooper scrambled to get to Hayley, but the floor was slippery with blood. The other infected grabbed him by the ankle and pulled him back toward the door.
Gasping for air, Hayley lifted her head off the ground and watched from between her bent legs as the infected man rolled from his back to his hands and feet and scuttled towards her. She threw her XM8 at him but missed. As the weapon flew past his head, he let out a high pitched screech and came at her.
She reached for the .45 in her waistband and fired three rounds. The third round hit the center of his face. He dropped to the ground. Seeing movement to the right, she swung her .45 towards Cooper and fired above him.
The tall woman pulled the infected man off Cooper and used his body to shield herself from Hayley’s bullets.
Hayley continued to pull the trigger until the pistol was empty. Cooper slid across the floor and grabbed her. He pulled out a Kimber from behind him.
The woman dropped the lifeless body and vaulted over the counter of the check-in station. “Don’t shoot! Secure the doors now! There might be more coming! Move!”
“Come out of there!” Cooper was having trouble believing what he just witnessed. He got up and picked his Tavor off the floor. He holstered his Kimber and pointed the Tavor at the check-in station. The flashlight illuminated the area. The woman didn’t respond.
“Are you and Hayley okay in there?” Kevin called out from the treatment room.
“We’re okay. You and Julie stay put and be ready.”
The woman stood up with a pair of scrub bottoms wrapped around her head and neck like a shemagh. “The doors don’t lock anymore. We need to find a way to secure them.” Her voice was calmer this time.
“How?” Cooper said, trying to catch his breath and pointing the Tavor at her chest.
She looked at the ground when she spoke. “We can tie them shut and push all the chairs and tables in front of them. It might not hold them for long, but it’ll slow them down if they manage to get back in.”
“Hayley, grab your rifle and reload.”
She maneuvered around one of the dead infected as if she thought he might reach out and grab her by the ankle.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. He’s not getting up.”
She retrieved the XM8 and expertly reloaded both the rifle and her .45. Cooper bent down and pulled the extra-long paracord laces from his boots with one hand while cautiously eyeing the woman. He held the Tavor in his opposite hand. When he was done, he dropped the paracord in front of her on the floor. You tie off the door while we start moving the chairs.”
When they were done securing the door, the woman said, "I can help her if you let me."
“Are you a doctor?" Cooper asked.
She kept her gaze on the floor. “Yes.” She put her hand up to shield her eyes. "Get that damn light out of my face. It’s hurting my eyes.”
Cooper lowered the Tavor, but kept it ready. “How’d you pull that infected man off me like that?”
"I used to work out a lot."
She looked up at him, but he couldn’t see her face very well since it was covered with the makeshift shemagh, but something was wrong with her eyes. He leaned in closer. “Look at me.”
She looked directly at him. Her blood red eyes were the eyes of someone infected with Dante’s. “Decide whether you’re going to shoot me or let me save your friend. Your choice, but you better do it fast.”
“Good god. You’re one of them.” Cooper said.
“Do you want me to try and save her or not? There’s not much time.”
“Hayley go to Kevin and Julie.”
“How the hell can you save her?”
“Can you?”
“Make any threatening moves, and you’re dead. Now go.” He pointed the muzzle toward the treatment room.
As she walked through the door, Kevin was waiting with his rifle. He pointed it at the woman’s head. “Hayley told us that she’s infected. She’s not going to touch Katrina!”
The woman stepped towards Kevin. Her head was only inches away from the muzzle.
“If I wanted you dead, you stupid, hairy hipster, I would have stayed in the back of the room where I was and watched all of you die. You could still die before you get out of here, but you have a better chance if I help you. The woman on the gurney will definitely die if you stand around posturing like a couple of idiots.” She folded her arms across her chest. “So do you want my help or not?”
Cooper grabbed Kevin’s forearm. “We are way out of our league. Lower the rifle.”
Kevin did as Cooper asked but continued to glare at the woman as he made room for her next to the gurney.
The woman stepped beside Katrina and felt for a pulse in her neck. She looked straight at Julie. Julie flinched and rocked back on her heels and looked over at Cooper. He nodded his head to reassure her.
“When I tell you, put steady pressure as hard as you can with that gauze on the wound. I’m going to take off the tourniquet. If there’s not enough pressure, the shock may kill her or she’ll bleed out.” The woman turned her head towards Hayley. “You—little girl—you shoot better than most men I know. You want to help save your friend?”
“My name’s Hayley. And I don’t really know her.”
“Okay, Hayley. I need your help anyway. Get me some clean scrubs from that cabinet against the wall. Grab two bottoms and a top. I need to change out of these dirty ones. Grab some masks and gloves, too.”
Hayley handed Cooper her XM8.
* * *
An hour later, Katrina was resting. Her leg and side sported bandages, and some color had returned to her face.
“Katrina must have been born under a lucky star. The bullet didn’t hit an artery. One of you knows how to apply field dressing and a proper tourniquet. And two of you have her blood type.”
The woman tightened the makeshift shemagh around her head. “I also removed a small bullet fragment from her side. She lost a lot of blood, but she should be okay. Keep an eye on her. Nothing too strenuous for a while, and keep the wounds clean. The penicillin injections I gave her should decrease the likelihood of infection. That’s all I could find. So, did you run into our friendly, neighborhood gangbangers?”
“She got shot in Bisbee.” Kevin said.
She looked from Kevin to Cooper. “Are you all from Bisbee?”
<
br /> No one answered. Instead, Cooper asked, “What are you doing in the hospital?”
“Where else was I supposed to go?” When she unwrapped the cloth cover from her face and neck, what she was became even more apparent. Her hair was thin and patchy on her scalp like the other infected they had encountered. Her eyes were so red they almost glowed in the dim light.
“How come you don’t act like them?” Julie asked.
* * *
“I was assigned to United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, USAMRIID for short. We were the lead laboratory for the DoD for medical, biological and defense research. Our main purpose was to protect the military against biological threats, but we also investigated outbreaks and other threats to public health. I was a part of a team that did the latter.
“We were sent here to work with a dozen other civilian researchers who were brought in from all over the country to find a correlation between Dante's Influenza and the weaponized A/H5N1 virus—you probably know it as Rapture. The virus is a kind of a DNA-RNA hybrid that may contain a new form of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy.”
“Would you mind translating that into everyday English for us idiots?” Kevin asked.
She glared at him but continued. “My team and I were looking for a relationship between Rapture and Dante’s. We were trying to develop a vaccine for both viruses.” She looked back at Kevin. “Got that?”
“Uh-huh.” He furrowed his brows back at her.
“Two days into my investigation, one of my patients broke out of his restraints and bit though my decontamination suit. Before anyone could stop him, he killed one of our doctors and an orderly. We weren’t prepared for the physical changes in the infected.”
Everyone nodded in agreement. She held out her arm and showed them the bite mark on her arm. All eyes were riveted to her wound. It had healed, but the imprint was clear and looked the same as the one on Kevin’s jacket.
“Unlike the others who were infected, I got sick in less than forty-eight hours, over three times faster. At first, I felt like I had a typical flu virus with general weakness and discomfort, a fever and a pounding headache. They pumped me full of human immune globulin, passive antibodies and every new anti-infection serum we had.
“Those symptoms lasted for two days. My assistant recorded everything. On the third day, my temperature rose to 104.5 degrees. I showed symptoms of cerebral dysfunction, along with high levels of anxiety, confusion, and agitation. The next day was worse. I was delirious and hallucinating. That’s when my temperature jumped to 106 degrees.”
Hayley had been looking at the woman with rapt attention. Cooper was surprised when she spoke to the woman directly. “That’s what we heard on the news reports. I can’t believe your brain didn’t get fried.”
“Me too, or we wouldn’t be standing here talking.”
“Why was it different for you?” Julie asked.
“Instead of cold water immersion that my team figured out wasn’t working, they hooked me up to a dialysis machine to cool my blood with a chilled dialysate solution. Then my chilled blood was re-circulated into my body. They considered the procedure a failure because it didn’t stop the progression of the virus. For all intents and purposes, I am infected with Dante’s, but my brain wasn’t damaged from the high fever probably because of the dialysis. I’m still me in here.” She tapped on her head and paused. “Mostly,” she said quietly.
“My body is going through changes, as you can see, and it’s been very painful. My temperature seems to have leveled out at 104.9. I don’t know what the final outcome will be for me, but I plan to document everything and continue to look for a cure.”
“I’m sure you would have said so if you were, but I have to ask—are you contagious?” Everyone’s eyes focused on the woman after Cooper asked the question.
“It’s highly unlikely. I was with my assistant for two weeks after I got infected. We also did some testing and determined there’s no danger from casual contact like touching or even me breathing on you. The only way I could infect you is if I were to bite you or if you were to come in contact with my bodily fluids.”
“Where’s your assistant now?”
She shifted her eyes downward. “She was killed.”
“I’m sorry,” Cooper said.
“Me too,” she said with no emotion in her voice. “All of this sucks. I can’t spread the virus with casual contact, but I do have some of the symptoms of rabies, the part that affects the brain. I get agitated easily, and I’m prone to extreme violence if provoked, but so far it’s all been deserved.”
“You kind of sound like the Hulk.” Kevin’s face showed no hint of humor.
“Remember that and don’t make me angry.”
“Oh, my god, Kevin! What’s wrong with you?” Hayley shot him an irritated glance. “Let her finish.”
“I wasn’t trying to offend.”
“No offense taken. May I continue?”
“Please do. I really am interested.” He sounded earnest.
“I also have photophobia,” She faced Kevin. “And no, that’s not a fear of the light. I’ve become very light sensitive. Sunlight or any bright light hurts my eyes and causes migraines, anxiety, and confusion, if I spend too much time in it.”
“Gotcha.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest.
“We’ve noticed light sensitivity with the infected we’ve run into. I wondered if that was the case because we usually don’t see them out unless it’s dark or close to it. Unless there’s food around.” Cooper said.
“I’m not different from them in that respect. I’m sure they’re also somewhat hydrophobic like me. I have some difficulty swallowing liquids. It makes me not want to drink anything even though I feel thirsty a lot of the time. I have to force myself to drink water. I feel better if I eat at least every three to four hours while I’m awake since I can only manage to sleep for about four hours at a time. I found that if I eat something after I wake up, I can go back to sleep for another three or four hours. I bet that’s what most of the infected are doing, too.
“The plus side is that I’m a hell of a lot stronger and faster than I use to be. I can eat anything from produce to carrion. Food that would make you sick or kill you has no adverse effect on me. It doesn’t smell or taste bad. Food is food. I don’t feel any kind of attachment or aversion to it anymore.”
“That’s one way to get rid of chocolate cravings.” Julie said. “I’m sorry I shouldn’t have said that. My nerves are jumpy and that popped out of my mouth without thinking.”
She let out a muffled chuckle. “I used eat chocolate almost every day, but I haven’t thought about it once since I got sick.” In the next instant, she became serious again. “I’m done with this pity party. Your friend should be good for the trip home and it should be safer now that the sun is starting to come up. I need to get back to my work.” She turned to leave.
“Your work? How are you doing any work without any power? Do you have a generator?” Julie asked.
She turned back around and faced the group. “I had a generator up until a couple of days ago. I’ve been looking for another. Can I go now?”
“Wait—don’t leave yet. Give me a moment to talk to Cooper. I may have an idea to help you.” Julie jabbed her thumb behind her shoulder and got out of her chair. Cooper got up and followed her.
After a minute of back and forth discussion, they came back to the group but didn’t sit back down.
“We want you to come back with us. We have power, food and enough room for another person. We could use your help, too.” Julie looked at her and did not let her eyes waver from her face.
“I can’t. All my research is here. Everything is stored here or linked to the USAMRIID database. I was still able to access it up until my generator was stolen.” She started to walk away.
Hayley caught up to her and touched her on the arm. The woman jerked her head around, but her demeanor softened when she saw who it wa
s.
“We have computers and the internet. We haven’t had much contact but we’ve seen messages from people around the world.”
“You still have a connection? The real internet?” Her red eyes got wider.
“Don’t ask me how, but we do. We may have to bug out for a few days. But if you don’t mind sticking with us, I can set you up when we get back.” Cooper said.
The shemagh had come loose from around her face and she smiled, giving them a glimpse of the woman she had once been. “Give me a few minutes.” She ran out of the treatment room. The sound of her bare feet echoed down the hallway.
Cooper sat back down in his seat. Exhausted, he closed his eyes and exhaled loudly as he rubbed his head. After a few seconds, he began to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Kevin asked.
“When I went to bed last night, there were only three of us and my biggest worry, besides the infected, was adjusting to living with two women who have a tendency to gang up on me if I’m not careful.” He laughed again. “But now our group has doubled, and one of us is her.” He pointed down the hallway.
Kevin got up and pulled his chair next to Katrina and held her hand. She didn’t stir.
Julie and Hayley were at the closest sink washing their hands and talking softly. The light from the flashlight lit their faces enough for Cooper to see that they were smiling as they spoke, even in these grim circumstances. Julie’s presence took the edge off of their dire circumstances. Hayley was certainly better off with her around.
He looked over at Kevin and the young woman on the gurney. He was glad that Kevin was back and hoped he would stay. He figured he would find out soon enough what had happened in Bisbee. For now, he was content to sit back and rest his eyes for a few minutes.
* * *
The sound coming from the hallway was different this time. Someone was wearing boots or heavy soled shoes. They all stood up and got their weapons ready to fire but lowered them when the woman entered the treatment room. She wore an Army Battle Dress Uniform with a leather biker jacket that looked as if it had belonged to a real biker. She carried two large, black-handled cases, one was a rugged-use, military laptop. Major Alexandra Young was stenciled in white on both cases. Her BDU cap covered her head, and she had put what was left of her hair inside.
