On the Third Day

by Rhys Thomas

  ‘Please. Just untie me.’

  ‘Wait here. If anyone comes in, don’t say anything.’ He rushed from the room and closed the door tight.

  The smell of disinfectant hung in the air. It was not strong, but strong enough to be unpleasant. The blood had dried on her lips, moulding them into place. She stretched her lower lip and felt the satisfying crack of blood splitting apart.

  The doctor returned.

  ‘I’m going to try and get you out of here.’

  ‘Try?’

  ‘Look, we’re not really in charge now. In this building. The army are here and they have orders not to let people find out about what’s going on.’

  It was almost a confession.

  Her stomach churned.

  ‘Where am I?’

  ‘You’re in a Health Protection Agency building. We’re a government agency.’ He scratched his neck. ‘We’re the ones who are supposed to be helping.’ He went to the door and looked once more through the window. As he spoke his eyes scanned the room outside. ‘But we’ve hit some stumbling blocks and people are becoming afraid.’ He turned back to Miriam. ‘They’re getting desperate. The army have been here for three days now.’

  Miriam wondered who ‘they’ were. Surely this man standing before her was ‘they’. The back of her consciousness told her ‘they’ was just something all humans needed, a faceless other to be held accountable.

  ‘Can’t you untie me?’ she said.

  The doctor was hesitant.

  ‘We’re doing tests and we’re not exactly going through normal channels.’ He noticed the fear in Miriam. ‘It’s nothing dangerous, we just need to cut through the red tape. Why do you think we’re picking people up off the streets and not taking them from hospitals?’ He shook his head.

  ‘Why can’t you untie me?’

  ‘I’m trying to help,’ he assured her.

  ‘So untie me.’

  ‘I can’t, not yet.’ He seemed just as scared as she was. He lowered his voice. ‘If we hadn’t tagged you I might have been able to get you out. But now you’re logged. You’re here. And they know you’re here. When we bring people in we don’t expect them to leave again. It’s a self-containing cycle. Once you’re ill, that’s it.’

  ‘But you made a mistake. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t have to pay because you made a mistake. Let me go. I won’t tell anybody.’

  ‘It’s not as simple as that – it’s not the way they think.’

  Little circles of sweat appeared at his high temples.

  ‘I’m going to start screaming if you don’t untie me.’

  ‘That’s not a good idea.’

  Miriam pulled at her ropes again.

  ‘Stop it. If they think you’re violent they’ll take you to a not very nice place.’

  She was afraid now. Her hands and feet were cold with cloying sweat. ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

  His eyes dropped. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘This is insane,’ she said. ‘How can you just stand there? What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘Oh come on,’ he said, sharply. ‘That’s ridiculous. We’re trying to help.’

  ‘Are you helping me?’

  ‘I don’t think you understand just what is going on. This thing is all over the planet. It’s eating the entire species. If we don’t do everything we can, now, at this time, then who knows where it will stop? We just want to save people. Including us. We’re all scared here too. You think we’re not?’ As he spoke his eyes flitted around the room, resting on anything but her. ‘If you want me to tell the people in charge that you’re in here and you’re not ill, then I will. But it is your decision. I am not responsible for what they might do.’

  ‘When you brought us in you said we could leave whenever we wanted.’

  ‘I thought you were ill,’ he said defensively.

  ‘That’s not an excuse.’

  He tightened his hold on the clipboard. ‘You have your choice. What do you want me to do?’

  Her mind was back now. She could think. She had to make a decision based either on the laws of the old world, or of the new. In the old world she would have rights and would not have hesitated. In the old world common sense would have prevailed, society was in place to support her, she would be in no danger. She wanted to trust the doctor. He wanted to help, that much was certain. He was just scared.

  ‘Can you get me out?’ she said.

  ‘I can try.’

  She smiled, more for him than for herself. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I’ll come and help you later. I can’t stay in here for too long.’

  ‘What’s your name?’ she said.

  He hesitated. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I have to go. If anybody comes in, just act ill.’

  ‘How do I do that?’

  ‘You know how they act.’ He turned to leave. ‘Everybody knows.’

  They came for her an hour later. A male and a female. They looked just like two ordinary people and spoke with gentle, modulated voices. The man had a mild American accent. An orderly stood by the door. Miriam was untied. The blood flowed freely through her wrists and feet and she felt the prick of pins and needles. She was transferred to a wheelchair. She did not say anything. Where was the doctor who had promised to help her?

  Outside her room were several glass windows that led the eye into the centre of the building, past the partition walls by way of more large, square windows. She glimpsed computers, charts, people carrying white boxes, steel apparatus small and large, white sheets drawn along metal rails.

  She remained still and tried to make her eyes blank, tried to slow her blood. It felt absurd to behave this way. She kept looking for the young doctor but he was nowhere to be seen. She started to worry that he would not be able to locate her now she was being moved. And all the while she was aware of being taken further into the centre of the building, further away from the exits.

  The two doctors spoke casually to one another. They were discussing the illness, talking about some test results using scientific terms that Miriam did not understand.

  ‘Here we are,’ the woman said kindly.

  Before them was a set of double doors made of flimsy plastic. The male doctor went ahead and held them open. Beyond was what looked like a hospital ward with twelve beds, six along each wall. The room was surgically clean. White veils, like mosquito nets, hung over each bed, rising to a pagoda-like point.

  They wheeled Miriam into the ward. Behind the veils she could see the ghostly outlines of people sitting against their pillows.

  They stopped at the third bed on the left.

  ‘Here we go. Home sweet home.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ said the male doctor.

  The woman took a white shift from the cabinet beside the bed.

  ‘Can you put this on?’

  Miriam paused, unsure whether she should answer. She stood from her wheelchair and removed her sweater and trousers. She rolled off her socks and removed her shirt slowly. She left her underwear and looked to the doctor to indicate that she had finished. She did not want to be naked.

  The doctor smiled.

  ‘Thank you. Here.’

  She handed Miriam the white shift and she slipped it over her head. Its texture was like waxy paper. It was cold on her skin. There were buttons on the chest that she began to fasten before the doctor told her to stop: the flaps of material were to be left open, leaving her chest exposed.

  Several machines surrounded the bed; white plastic things on alloy trolleys. The doctor went to each one and flicked switches, tapped keys, turned dials, explained that the tests were very simple, standard and would not hurt. Miriam did not say anything.

  A clip was attached to her thumb. It led to a red wire and into a screen. The doctor placed electrodes on her body and head to read the chemicals inside her. Blood was taken from her veins.

  ‘We’re all so grateful to you,’ said the doctor. Her hair was sandy, shoulder le
ngth. She had pale green eyes, the edges of which folded into crow’s feet when she smiled. She was probably around thirty years old. Younger than Miriam.

  ‘We’ll find an answer to all this.’

  Miriam watched the lines on the monitor. Those lines were her insides, they were her life in function.

  ‘What are you going to do to me?’ She spoke slowly and felt idiotic in doing so.

  The doctor turned her eyes from the monitors to Miriam.

  ‘We’re testing some new drugs. Some of them are fairly standard but haven’t been used in this way before. Others not so. I won’t lie to you. None of us will. They might make you sick.’

  ‘Somebody said there is no cure because it comes from God.’

  The doctor placed a plaster on Miriam’s arm, across the puncture wound from the blood test.

  ‘Well, that’s not really my field, I’m afraid.’

  She awoke to the sound of shuffling. How much time had elapsed she did not know. She was exhausted. A blurred form moved across her vision.

  ‘What time is it?’ she said, without thinking.

  ‘Ten o’clock.’

  It was a high voice. The doctor. He had come back for her. She was instantly awake.

  ‘How long was I asleep for?’’

  ‘You’ve missed a day. It’s ten o’clock in the morning.’

  She thought about this.

  ‘Have you been able to do anything? About me getting out?’ she said.

  His head dropped a fraction. The movement scared her immediately. She went to sit up but couldn’t. She had been strapped to the bed by two strips of material: one across her chest and one across her thighs. She could hardly move. There was an itch in her arm. She pulled it from beneath her bed sheets. There were pen marks all along it. Arrows, lines and figures. It looked like a map. Her mouth fell open and she looked back to the doctor. He was holding the marker pen in his hand.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s too risky.’

  Her mouth was dry.

  ‘We’re trying to do our best.’

  ‘What is this?’ She held out the underside of her painted forearm.

  ‘We’re just trying to make people better.’

  Her breathing was fast. ‘Oh my God, what have you done? I have children. I have to get back to them.’

  He looked to his left and right and approached her bed. ‘Sssh,’ he said. He lowered his voice. He no longer looked to Miriam like the scared boy of yesterday – he now looked like a coward.

  ‘It’s not so bad. They don’t think you will turn any more. I made sure of that. You won’t get the bad stuff.’

  She craned her neck forward to sit up but it was no good.

  ‘I’m not ill,’ she said loudly.

  He held his hand up. ‘Keep your voice down. Seriously. They’ll change their minds if they think you’re dangerous. They’re looking for people like that. They’re the ones they have to cure. Don’t you realize what they’ll do to you?’

  ‘I don’t care.’ She was almost shouting.

  He ran forward and put his hands over her mouth. His skin was salty and dry. White cracks ran like shattered glass where his thumb and forefinger met.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You have to be quiet. They only want to work on your arm. That’s all. But if they think you’re going to turn, that’s it.’ His eyes darted nervously. ‘They’ll cut your chest open.’

  Her mind started to overload. She could hardly breathe. She thrashed her head from side to side until the doctor let go. She went to scream but stopped. The government could not do this to its people. But here she was, in the bed, surgical markers daubed all over her arm.

  The doctor looked at his feet like a schoolboy.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ he said, ‘what happens when powerful men become desperate.’

  He turned and walked away.

  Miriam watched him disappear behind her white drapes. When his figure had been absorbed entirely she lay back on her bed. She released her balled fists and felt the cold clamminess of the rubber sheeting on the palms of her hands. They had almost made it. They had been so close. And she started to cry.

  Three hours passed. Outside the white nets she had heard voices and the sounds of somebody being taken from their bed but she did not call out for them. When her turn finally came she breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth. She looked at the two doctors who had come. One was the female who had tested her yesterday. Her hair looked lank and unwashed. With her was another doctor, a new one. He was old, thin and wore expensive-looking wire-framed spectacles.

  ‘So,’ he said.

  They think you’re ill, she told herself. She looked at the two lumps at the end of her bed that were her feet and could feel his eyes on her.

  ‘When did you first feel it?’ he asked.

  Miriam paused. She hated the way that her survival instinct was so much stronger than her beliefs. She should not stand for this and yet she was.

  ‘Yesterday,’ she said slowly.

  ‘What happened?’

  There was a decisive, authoritative staccato to his voice that Miriam did not like.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Did you notice any colour impairment in your vision?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t know? Or you won’t tell me?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Have you felt an increased level of anger inside of you? Or hatred?’

  Her innards felt warm. Her throat was soggy.

  ‘I was separated, from my family. I . . .’ Her eyes misted. ‘My husband died.’

  The two doctors glanced at one another. The senior doctor removed his glasses.

  ‘Can you tell me anything about murder?’

  She could not answer that.

  ‘What is the nature of murder? Or death – can you tell me that?’

  Instinctively she looked at the doctor. Her eyes betrayed her immediately. His brow creased downwards at its centre. He cocked his head inquisitively. He knows, she thought.

  ‘Kate,’ he said to his colleague. He lifted Miriam’s arm and turned it over to examine the markings. ‘Can you go to my office and fetch my surgical kit please? I think I left it on my desk.’

  Something reptilian slithered up her. He was looking at her arm as if it was a piece of food. She could hear the heart machine connected to her by the diodes on her chest bleeping faster. The bleeps were closing in on each other. They were giving her away.

  The doctor looked at his colleague. ‘Please,’ he said.

  She turned to leave.

  Please don’t leave me, Miriam thought. Not with this man. She looked at him and thought of Joseph. She thought about what Joseph had told her. People were flawed. The image of a sharp scalpel came into her head. In the distance the low-heeled shoes of the female doctor grew faint. And then they were gone. Miriam was alone with him.

  ‘We don’t have much time,’ he said quickly. He threw off her sheets and untied the straps. She was free.

  ‘Get dressed.’

  Miriam froze.

  He nodded and raised his eyebrows. ‘Do you want to get out of here or not?’

  She came to life. The doctor pulled the electrodes from her chest and they came away with little popping sounds. Her heart machine played a single note. The doctor rushed round to it and turned it off. Miriam threw off her white shift and quickly dressed.

  ‘How the hell did you get in here?’ he said.

  He looked away as she changed into her clothes. She pulled on her sweater and brought her shirt collars into line.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, this is not good.’

  He let out a loud and dramatic sigh. There was a kindness in his face that she had utterly failed to spot. He was going to help her.

  ‘How could you tell?’

  He held open the white mosquito net for her to pass beneath.

  ‘It’s easy to tell. Don’
t you think? That weird sense?’

  Her heart fluttered. She knew.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘There’s no need. Really,’ he said. They passed underneath the white netting and into the ward, his movements urgent. ‘We’re not monsters.’

  They moved quickly through the building; through doors, along corridors, past laboratories filled with people. The doctor told her to act naturally and they told each other their names. They stopped at a small, empty office where he made a phone call. He asked for a car.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘I can get you out on the other side. It’s a bit of a trek, I’m afraid. This place is like a maze.’

  They entered a lift and ascended. On the next corridor was a laminated wooden door.

  ‘This is my office,’ he said. He poked his head inside. ‘She’s not in here.’

  He went to his desk and took a security badge from it. He took some scissors from a desk tidy, cut off her wristband and pocketed it in his white lab coat.

  ‘Do you really think you can find a cure?’ she said, suddenly. There was a burning sensation in her face. She could feel it fizzling up. It was hope and it was radiating out and projecting into him.

  ‘I hope so,’ he said. ‘With a bit of luck.’ He smiled.

  They left the office and descended once more through the building. Miriam could sense that they were underground when they re-emerged. All the light was artificial and it felt somehow trapped, as if it had been bouncing off the same walls for a long time.

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘Enfield.’

  ‘Do you have somewhere to go, outside the city?’

  ‘We’re going to Cornwall. My father-in-law lives—’ She cut herself short.

  ‘That’s a good idea. Get away from London. It will collapse soon.’ He spoke with authority, sure of his words.

  ‘Is it really true that nobody has any idea what it is?’

  ‘That is true, yes.’

  ‘So there were no plans for this?’

  ‘There were plans, but not on this scale. Nothing like this. This is something nobody ever thought could happen.’