Pandemic

by Daniel Kalla

  That’s when he noticed Isaac Moskor’s little yellow pills had scattered all over the bathroom floor around her.

  CHAPTER 44

  GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL ICU, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  In his blue rubber biohazard suit, Haldane sat by the bed in the ICU negative-air-pressure isolation room hoping to see some sign of life from Gwen. He had spent most of the past ninety-six hours in the same spot. Much of the time, he struggled to stave off the mental comparisons between this vigil and the previous time in Singapore, sitting at Franco Bertulli’s bedside watching him die.

  Haldane was particularly anxious this afternoon. The doctors had only weaned Gwen off the life support of the ventilator two hours earlier, but she had yet to wake up through her heavy sedation.

  Noah studied Gwen. In a hospital gown with two IVs and an oxygen mask, she looked frail; she carried little fat before the illness, but now the outlines of her hip bones pushed through the sheets. Still, compared to the near corpse they had found on the floor of her bathroom, her improvement in four days had been monumental.

  Gwen’s eyes began to blink and she slowly rotated her head, first away from Noah and then toward him. As his joy and relief mounted, he couldn’t keep the huge smile off his face.

  She raised her right hand to him and he took it in his latex-gloved hand and gave it a squeeze. “Welcome back,” he said.

  “Good to be back,” she croaked from having had a tube passed through her vocal cords. She smiled weakly.

  With his other hand, Noah shook a finger at her. “Don’t you ever pull a stunt like that again!”

  “I get that a lot these days.” She chuckled. The laugh gave way to a small coughing spell, but it paled in comparison to episodes when they first found her.

  “Thank you,” she said. “You saved my life. Again.”

  “No.” Haldane shook his head. “You have your friend Isaac Moskor to thank for that.”

  Gwen’s eyes went wide. “His drug?”

  Haldane nodded. “When we made the decision to give it to you, there was nothing left to lose.” He swallowed away the lump. “We were convinced you weren’t going to make it. But once you were started on A36112 ... wow, what a difference!”

  “Where did you get it?” she asked.

  “Luckily, we kept all the pills you had spilt on your bathroom floor.” Noah smiled. “But as soon as Isaac heard what happened, he flew straight up to Washington himself with a suitcase full of the drug including the IV stuff which you were given.”

  “And no hepatitis?” She frowned.

  “Your blood tests are good so far.” Haldane reassured her with a squeeze of her hand.

  She nodded. “Remind me to send Isaac a card.” She smiled, before yawning.

  Haldane leaned forward and ran his other hand over Gwen’s brow. “Why, Gwen? Why did you do it?”

  “It was so stupid,” she said, flushing with embarrassment.

  Haldane refused to let it go. “Tell me, please.”

  “The day after I was freed from the motel, I began to feel so achy and unwell. I just assumed it was some drug Sabri had given me.” Gwen paused and took a few deeper breaths of her oxygen. “But when the chills came and I started to cough ... I knew.” Another deep breath. “Obviously, I wasn’t thinking straight anymore.”

  “But ...” Haldane’s hand rested against her head.

  She looked away. “I thought if I went into hospital, something might happen.”

  “Like what?”

  “What if the paramedics who found me got sick? Or what if someone poked a finger with a dirty needle? Or what if my mask was faulty and leaked?” Her voice cracked. “I was just so sick of all the sickness this virus had caused. One way or another, I wanted the virus to die with me. No one else.” Tears welled in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. You were just being selfless.” He smiled and winked. “Once a Bug Czar always a Bug Czar, right?”

  She shrugged and wiped away the rest of her tears.

  Noah squeezed her hand tightly. “Want to hear the best part?”

  She nodded.

  “The Gansu Flu virus did die in you,” he said.

  “Good,” she said softly, and then yawned.

  “There was only one other potential carrier to worry about, anyway,” Haldane said.

  “Sabri?”

  “Yeah, but his postmortem blood tests showed that the infection was early. He wouldn’t have been contagious for another day,” Haldane said. “He probably infected himself at the same time as he did you. That way his contagiousness would peak the next day for New Year’s Eve at Times Square.”

  Gwen exhaled heavily. “So that’s why he smiled at me and ‘spared’ my life back in the motel.”

  “He thought you were going to be his Trojan horse,” Haldane said. “At the very least, it was his way of getting in one final shot at us.”

  She nodded and yawned again. “How’s Alex?”

  “Doing well,” Haldane said. “He might even beat you out of hospital.”

  “Not if I can help it. I should be home by tomorrow,” she said, but her eyelids drooped with exhaustion.

  “Gwen,” Haldane asked. “When you do get out, do you have any time off?”

  “I probably qualify for some sick time,” she murmured. “Why?”

  “I get Chloe every second week,” Haldane said. “So between times, I thought it might be a nice chance to get away somewhere.”

  “Hmmm,” she agreed, though her eyes had closed completely shut.

  “Maybe somewhere warm,” Haldane said, thinking he was just talking to himself. “It would be nice for us to get away.”

  “Nice and warm,” she mumbled, dreamily. “And no bugs or terrorists.”

  Haldane laughed. “That’s an absolute must!”

  Holding her hand, he watched her drift into a deep slumber. Staring at her sleeping form, Haldane realized that he felt something that he hadn’t experienced in a very long time.

  Peace.