The Schrödinger Enigma

by Greg Krojac

  “Important. You must get away.”

  Sitara didn’t know what to say, as Suzy opened her left hand to reveal a razor sharp scalpel. She looked up at Sitara.

  “Cut thumbprint off.”

  Sitara was horrified at the words.

  “Cut thumbprint off. Opens doors.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Have to. Do it now.”

  Sitara was surprised how forceful the dying woman was. She took the scalpel from the nurse and held it to Suzy’s right thumb. She froze for a moment before her eyes welled up with tears.[a13]

  “I can’t. I can’t do it. Can I wait until after?”

  “Do it now. I…I need to know you’re safe.”

  Sitara brought the blade close to Suzy’s thumb but drew back again, unable to follow through with the grotesque task – even though she knew her life depended upon it.

  “Sorry. I just can’t do it.”

  Suzy wheezed.

  “Give back.”

  Sitara handed the scalpel back and was forced to look away as Suzy sawed off the fleshy tip of her thumb, leaving the thumbprint intact. Her determination to release Sitara from her sterile prison trumped any pain that either the disease or the blade could throw at her. Suzy swallowed a gulp of air, as blood gushed from the wound.

  “Take thumbprint. Open doors.”

  It was hard for her to do so, but Sitara took the bloody thumbprint from the nurse, wiping it clean on her towel. Suzy tapped Sitara’s leg.

  “Clothes in locker room. Open doors. Thumbprint.”

  It was becoming almost impossible to breathe. Sitara could do nothing to help Suzy but at least she could ensure that her nurse wouldn’t die alone. Three minutes later it was all over and Suzy had taken her last breath. Sitara leant over and kissed her on her forehead.

  “Thank you, my friend. Thank you for saving my life.”

  She stood up, and saw that the towel had several pus and bloodstains on it from where she had held Suzy, but she couldn’t be concerned about that now. She really needed some clothes. [a14]She took a few seconds to compose herself, before stepping over Suzy’s corpse into the ante-room. She was faced by the closed door, but this time she had her macabre key. A sudden fear swept over her - what if the disembodied thumbprint didn’t work? She delicately placed the thumbprint over the optical reader.

  Nothing happened.

  What could be wrong? Perhaps there wasn’t enough pressure behind the print? She screwed up her face in disgust as she placed Suzy’s thumbprint over that of her own and pressed it against the reader. This time the door clicked open. She rushed through to find herself in an empty corridor. Which way should she go? Left? Right? Did it matter? She saw exit signs pointing to the left, and would have loved to leave the hospital straightaway, but she couldn’t leave the hospital wearing only the towel. She turned right, hoping that she was going the correct way.

  Three more locked doors were opened, and Sitara found herself outside the recreation room. She entered but almost walked out straightaway when she saw Ian’s corpse sat up in an armchair looking into space.

  She went over to the lockers, all of which were secured by an electronic lock, each requiring the owner’s thumbprint in order to gain access. Pushing her squeamishness to one side, she pressed Suzy’s thumb over each of the four readers until one of the doors opened.

  She looked inside. There were a couple of paperback books, half a dozen magazines, a make-up bag, a pair of stonewashed denim jeans, a T-shirt, a pair of black lacy panties, and a pair of Nike training shoes. She was surprised at the T-shirt - Suzy hadn’t seemed like a Led Zeppelin fan. She also thanked Allah that she and Suzy were more or less the same size, clothes wise at least. She turned to face away from the lifeless Ian as she let the towel drop and hurriedly put on the panties, T-shirt and jeans. She knew he was dead and that his eyes could see nothing, but she still felt an urge to protect at least some of her modesty. The T-shirt was a snug fit, but not so snug that it could cause her any embarrassment. The trainers were one size too large for her, but they would have to do. It wasn’t as if she had much choice. She looked inside the locker again and found a few pairs of running socks. She put two socks on each foot in an effort to make the Nikes a better fit.

  Clothed again and feeling much more comfortable, she retraced her route back to the isolation room, looking straight ahead as she passed it, so as to avoid seeing Suzy’s body again. Another two doors and she was outside, taking a deep breath of fresh air and feeling the spring breeze on her face for the first time in four days.

  The Clinical Health Center had been disturbingly empty as Sitara had made her way to the exit. Unbeknown to her, Ian and Suzy had been the only nurses still on the campus. Everybody else, both staff and inpatients, had been sent home to die with their families. Sitara was the exception – while she was alive, there was hope. Ian and Suzy, along with a handful of research scientists had volunteered to stay behind, ignoring the urge to join their families and friends, and instead dedicating their remaining time to what they considered to be mankind’s final battle. And now every one of them was dead.

  The streets of Bethesda were not completely empty. Dozens of empty cars were parked along the wide streets, waiting for drivers who would never return. Most of Bethesda’s residents had returned to their homes to offer comfort and solace to each other before the inevitable wave of death overcame them. But some of those who were alone in the city had tried to pretend that nothing was wrong, that somehow by ignoring the disease they could make it all go away. But the truth was that they were terrified of dying alone.

  It was the bodies of lonely people who littered the streets of the beautiful city. Sitara wished that she had been given the opportunity to experience Bethesda before it was ravaged by the plague. The bars and restaurants looked intriguing. In a different time, she would have loved to have checked out the Cava Mezze Grill, Jaleo Spanish restaurant, and Sweetgreen’s, and would have tucked into a delicious sandwich from Potbelly’s Sandwich Bar. [a15]But she didn’t even know where her next meal was coming from.

  It would have been bad enough if the bodies on the streets were simply inanimate versions of their previous selves, but each and every one of them bore the scars and marks of the torture they had faced in their final moments. The red wheals on the victims’ skins were unsightly, but not enough to make Sitara turn her head away in disgust - she turned her head out of sorrow. Each and every corpse was steeped in its own waste, flies buzzing around the corpses enjoying so many impromptu meals. A few were not yet dead, finding the strength in their draining bodies to stretch an arm towards Sitara, imploring her to help them or put them out of their misery, but she could do neither.

  The smell on the streets was becoming unbearable and made her gag more than once. She had to get away from all these dead and dying people, but she had no idea in which direction she should run. It didn’t really make much difference - she was bound to arrive at the city limits eventually. She nearly stumbled over a young child, the bodies of his dead parents snuggled up to him, and a poodle - obviously their pet – was left wandering between the three of them, unsure of what to do next.

  The sight of dead children was the worst. She passed a playground and saw the body of a young girl, slumped on a swing. A woman, face stained by tears, lay dead on the ground directly behind her – Sitara imagined that the girl’s mother had probably taken her to play at the park one last time. Had she seen the life seeping out of her daughter and been unable to leave her side? Tears filled Sitara’s eyes as she noticed a sticker on the child’s dress, proudly proclaiming ‘It’s my birthday. I am five’.

  Sitara could stand it no more and let herself fall to the ground, sobbing uncontrollably. Through her tears she could see the clear blue sky above her head. How could something so obscene take place on such a beautiful day? She shouted up to the heavens before lying down on the ground and curling up in a ball.

  “How can you do this Allah? How can you let t
his happen?”

  DAY FIFTEEN

  8 May

  Jason Green sat in an armchair watching a DVD movie. He had a large collection of films, but it didn’t make any difference which one he watched, the scenes shown on the screen bore no relation to the world. Actually, that wasn’t strictly true. One film, ‘I am Legend’ starring Will Smith, looked exactly like the world outside. The streets were deserted and silent. No birds sang. No dogs barked. It was as if the wildlife recognized that the city was becoming a giant morgue and had decided to steer well clear of it. Jason would have liked a dog for company, even Will Smith had a dog with him in the film, but he was totally alone. If he stayed there, the outlook was for a very lonely life with no one to talk to, no living creatures anywhere. He had been forced to stray out of his comfort zone in order to look for more provisions, but looters hadn’t left much. He’d seen a few living people but they had run away as soon as they saw him, probably fearing that if they got too close, they too would become infected. If he stayed where he was, the choice appeared to be death from hunger, thirst or sheer loneliness.

  He had no idea why he was still alive.

  Three days earlier, Jason had been helping plan a group evacuation to find a new home with more resources, but by the following morning he was the only one alive, having spent a restless night listening to the death throes of his neighbours.

  That[a16] morning, having had hardly any sleep, he had taken it upon himself to clear up the mess, the ‘mess’ being the bodies of his friends. Xi-Wang Ren, the local pharmacist and his seventeen year old daughter Mai had been the first two that Jason dragged from their homes and placed in the now deserted square that had once been the social epicentre of the community. Then, Burt and Mary Prentice, the elderly couple from number twenty-three, had been hauled across the road to the square, where they had been placed carefully on top of the Chinese father and daughter. Jason had been surprised that the pensioners had survived as long as they had; they were obviously tougher than they looked. Jamaican graphic designer, Marshall Frank, and his website-designer Japanese wife, Sayuri, had died wrapped in each other’s arms, their devoted love for each other masking the horror of their deaths. It was having to deal with this nauseating aftermath that had convinced Jason that he shouldn’t stay in his home much longer. He just wanted to get away from the place, to leave the bad memories behind him. Of course, they would always be in his head but he hoped that with new surroundings and perhaps new friends, he could relegate them to the back of his mind. Removing local builder Patrick Dunbar, his wife Sally, and their twin two year-old daughters was the straw that broke the camel’s back. As he threw the bodies of the two innocent toddlers onto the small pile of bodies, the sound of their giggles invaded his mind. He didn’t really have a game plan as to what he was going to do with the small heap of bodies - he couldn’t burn them because the smoke might attract outsiders and that could be dangerous. Maybe he should have left the bodies where they were and saved himself a lot of distress. He also knew that if he stayed in the square, the stench of his friends’ rotting carcasses would be a daily reminder that he was alone.

  He switched off the TV and DVD player and walked across the room to where the two-stroke electric generator was still chug-chugging. He pressed the kill switch and the apartment suddenly became silent. Eerily silent. He picked up his backpack and the Remington R-15 Semi-Automatic rifle that he had ‘found’ in a local hunting store and headed towards his front door. He left his apartment and trotted down the two flights of stairs to the main door. Opening the door slightly, he peeked through the small gap as a precaution, although he knew that this was no guarantee that it was safe to leave. However, if he stayed at home, he would simply be living in a gilded cage until he died. No, not living. He’d be merely existing. Shutting himself inside a box might be the safer choice, but it certainly wouldn’t be living.

  He opened the door wider. Fortunately it was quiet outside. Some might say too quiet. No birds singing. No dogs barking. A tabby cat suddenly ran across his path, startling him. If it had been a dog he may have been tempted to try to befriend it – even four-legged company would be better than none – but a cat wouldn’t need him and would be a fair weather friend.

  He looked out into the street, rifle at the ready, as his eyes became accustomed to the bright sunlight again after having been immersed in the near darkness that the closed curtains of his apartment had provided. The road was completely empty. Even the sprinting cat had disappeared out of sight. He checked his backpack and the semi-automatic rifle again. One of the side pockets of his backpack contained spare magazine clips for the rifle and the pocket on the opposite side of the bag held ammunition for the Beretta 9mm semi-automatic pistol he had holstered by his right hip. With a bullet-proof vest he felt he was ready for anything.

  The rest of the backpack was filled with ‘rescued’ clothes and food rations. A flashlight, a water-bottle, and a spare pair of boots hung from the buckles of the bag. Jason cautiously stepped outside and surveyed the kingdom that he was about to leave. His kingdom, population one, and about to become population zero. He turned around, pulled the door closed behind him, double-locking the door. If he needed to come back, he wanted there to be a good chance that the building would be unoccupied.

  He walked for about forty-five minutes, not seeing a soul, until he came across an old school building. He stayed a short distance away, just observing, trying to evaluate the characters of a small group of people who had occupied the building. They seemed harmless enough, a mixture of men, women, and children, and looked reasonably secure behind the high walls surrounding the playground. He didn’t see any weapons, although that didn’t mean that they didn’t have any. He doubted that they would have stayed in one place like this, in a semi-secure environment that didn’t offer impregnable protection, without weapons.

  Suddenly he heard a sound behind him and instinct drove him to dive to his right, narrowly avoiding being hit by a bullet fired by one of two men who had crept up on him. That answered that question then – they definitely weren’t friendly. Although he too was armed, he had no time to even think about defending himself with his rifle. Fight or flee are the two survival instincts, and he had been left with no choice but to make a run for it. He had to be more careful in future. He had always been a fast runner, be it sprinting or long/middle distance running, and that was what probably saved his life. He leapt to his feet and started sprinting away from the school compound, zig-zagging as he did so, so that the gunmen would find him a much more difficult target to hit. He darted left and right, into roads and alleyways, having no idea where he was going and not really caring either - as long as he was heading away from the school that was good enough for him. He was athletic, but he knew that even he couldn’t keep up this pace for long. The gunfire ceased, and he hoped that this was a good sign; perhaps his pursuers weren’t as fit as he was and had given up the chase. Perhaps they considered that the distance between him and the school was now sufficient that any threat Jason may have posed had disappeared. He’d better get off the street. He saw a door to a warehouse. It was impossible to tell whether it was empty or not but that was the least of his concerns. Fortune looked down on him as the door wasn’t locked and he ducked inside the building, closing the door behind him.

  It was dark inside. Of course it was. There were no windows. Slowly his eyes became accustomed to the poor light, and he could make out the shape of several rows of tall racks packed with cardboard boxes. There was a forklift parked in one of the aisles, but he didn’t feel safe enough to risk starting the engine. Just because the gunfire had stopped didn’t mean that his two pursuers had gone. Perhaps they had, but he wasn’t going to risk it. He chose a rack two rows down that wasn’t too full of boxes, allowing him more room to climb up the structure. Standing on the wooden baseboard, two shelves up, he used his knife to open the first box. It contained packs of disposable diapers, so there was no point in taking those. The next box containe
d packs of toilet paper. There was no way that he could take a complete pack with him – his backpack was large, but not large enough to waste valuable space with a sixteen roll pack of toilet rolls. He’d take a couple with him though, knowing that the importance of toilet rolls should never be underestimated. Another box yielded first-aid kits; now that would certainly come in useful. He was just about to open the fourth box when a noise from the far corner of the warehouse caught his attention. It was probably a mouse, or maybe even a rat, but he may as well take a look anyway. He was pretty sure that nobody else had entered the warehouse, so he didn’t think it would be his pursuers. He drew the pistol from its holster – just in case - and took a flashlight out of his pocket. He didn’t switch it on though, silently making his way to the source of the noise.

  Whatever was there was keeping very still but Jason could just about make out the sound of slow breathing. He came within five yards of the mystery creature and then pointed both the gun and the flashlight at the origin of the breathing, simultaneously switching the flashlight on.

  He wasn’t prepared for what he saw.

  There was a man, crouching underneath an empty rack, his exaggerated shadow cast on the wall behind him by the bright flashlight. The man, dressed in dark blue denim jeans, and light blue denim shirt, raised a hand in front of his face to shield his eyes from the bright light. On his feet were a pair of Adidas trainers. The man looked at Jason, a mixture of fear and curiosity evident in his eyes. Jason meant to ask the stranger who he was, but that’s not what came out of his mouth.

  “Who are you?”[a17]

  The stranger understood that Jason had the upper hand and clearly recognized the threat of the revolver that was pointing at him.