by G. Benson
“He’s got whatever this damn virus is.” Her eyes raked over him, from his sweat-soaked shirt, untucked and unbuttoned over a singlet, to his dirty, worn shoes. She risked letting go of him with one hand and flipped his shirt tail back where it was clinging to his hip, hand going back to his arm before it could wrench out of her grip. A swipe card was clipped to his belt.
“Royal Laboratories,” Taren read aloud.
Xin stared down at it. “That sounds familiar.”
“I think that was the name of the lab this started in—they mentioned it on the radio this morning.” Taren bit her lip. “Maybe he’s one of the originals?”
Xin was staring at her, face going sallow around her protective gear. “Didn’t they say on the radio that anyone that had been in the lab where this virus started was being quarantined?”
Taren’s mind was whirring. “Yes, but maybe this is why the alert was put out. They thought it could be controlled, but then they didn’t count on the fact that one of the doctors had left early. The others were isolated, but if he left and passed out and they couldn’t find him, maybe that’s why they alerted the public…”
All three of them looked down at the violently struggling man under them.
“Okay, what have we got?”
Their heads whipped up to see Owen, in full work mode, slip in next to Xin. He sidled in and pushed her aside, trying to take over the restraint.
“Owen, no—this guy is really—”
Before Taren could warn Owen of the man’s strength, he’d ripped his hand out of Owen’s grasp. Too fast to really follow, Owen’s shirt was clenched in his white-knuckled fist and he pulled him down to sink his teeth into Owen’s neck. Blood flowed, Owen screamed, and the intern passed out over the patient’s legs.
Security appeared, their boots thumping on the ground, brought in by Owen’s increased screaming.
This was one hell of a virus.
The two Security team members dragged the patient off Owen. It didn’t look good. Owen was pale, swooning. Since some buff and burly people were holding down the patient while Xin helped, Taren grabbed some gauze, quickly walked around the bed, and pressed down hard on Owen’s neck. The glimpse she caught showed that the patient had managed to pull an entire chunk of skin away, blood pulsing out.
“You okay?” she asked, trying to hide the tremor in her voice because a patient had just bitten a chunk out of someone’s neck.
They saw things in A&E, but that was definitely not a regular occurrence.
“The fucker bit me!” More blood seeped out of the wound, already soaking the gauze, and Owen gasped as Taren applied more pressure.
“I know.” She tried to smile reassuringly, Owen’s teeth chattering. She needed to calm him down. “We’ll get you stitched up and give you a rabies shot.”
“Rabies?” His voice was way too high.
Taren winced. “Bad attempt at a joke. You’ll be fine.”
Maybe.
A crash in the background drew their attention, Owen wincing as he turned his head. Another patient was thrashing, a tray spinning on the ground they had kicked to the floor.
“We need some restraint help here!”
“Xin, is that the bite patient that came in an hour ago?” Taren asked, watching the nurse attending the patient look around wildly for help.
Xin, who was efficiently jabbing her still-resisting patient with a sedative after apparently finally getting an order for it, looked up and said, “That’s her.”
She focused on helping the security guys wrestle her patient into mechanical restraints.
Owen and Taren stared at each other as the gauze in Taren’s hand slowly became redder.
“Intense day.”
Owen’s lips were quivering and his voice wavered. “Yeah. Intense.”
Taren felt a stab of pity for him. Maybe he was an asshole, but no one deserved to be bitten by the virus man. He was going to need stitches. The bleeding was increasing.
Phones were ringing off the hook, and they both turned their heads again as the shift co-ordinator blew a sharp whistle. Everyone quietened except for the battling patient—their own patient had gone limp as the sedative took hold.
Arif stood on the desk. His face was ashen, frown heavy on his face.
“I need everyone to pay attention!” He paused, face grim as his gaze roved searchingly around the room. His eyes landed on Owen and Taren, staring at where Taren’s hand sat. An observation machine beeped loudly somewhere, abandoned as they all gave Arif their attention.
“I have some news.”
Raj
1120
“Sutures look good, Mrs Fletcher.”
The woman smiled at him and promptly went back to sleep with a snore.
Raj sighed and made a note in the chart. Since Doctor Ayton had been so fixated on the sutures, he’d come back to the Vascular Ward once the patient was out of post-op to check them again.
Normally, working with Ayton was the best part of his rotation. She was quick in the operating room, she seemed to genuinely enjoy teaching, and she gave the residents a real chance to operate, which was rare. Raj generally did what he could to get on her service. Today, though? Today had been terrible. And it was still only the morning.
He dropped the chart into its holder with a clatter and headed back out of the room. The nurses’ station was a hive of activity. For a moment, he hovered by the phone, staring at some flowers left to the nurses next to it while debating if he should page Doctor Ayton again.
One of the nurses shot him a smile, and Raj grinned at her. Biting the bullet, he quickly sent a third page to Doctor Ayton, asking her to contact the ward.
“Has she answered yet?” Natalie had stopped smiling at him. The Irish lilt to her words was clipped.
Uh oh.
“Not yet.”
She sighed. “We have three patients she needs to see, plus the usual stuff.”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry. Why don’t you hand me what you have and I’ll get started on it?” He tried the grin that normally had her smiling. It worked.
“Okay.” She dropped a pile of charts in front of him. “These guys all need discharge papers started, and she needs to, you know, see them before they can go. We have seven patients awaiting a bed here.” Raj stared at the pile. It was very large.
Three more files dropped on top. “These patients all need their dressings changed.” Before he could open his mouth to protest that he didn’t do dressing changes, she raised a finger. “It’s not your job, I know. It’s the nurses’. Except, you need to see the wounds before we can do the dressings, as all these patients are day two post-op. Otherwise, we’ll do a perfectly lovely dressing change, and you’ll come in to check the healing process at some point this afternoon, take down the dressing, and we’ll have to do it again. Wasting our time, increasing patient discomfort, and wasting hospital money on expensive dressings.” She smiled at him blandly. “Please, Doctor Prasad.”
Her eyes gleamed with a hint of mischief.
Raj nodded meekly.
“Good. Thanks.”
She walked off, leaving him staring after her.
Raj had no idea why, but something about that woman always left him wanting more. One day he’d ask her for a coffee.
Today wasn’t that day.
Tomorrow didn’t look good, either.
Folders in hand, he walked into the doctors’ room and dumped them on a desk. Thankfully, the room was mostly empty. Raj checked his phone and pager in the desperate hope that maybe Ayton had contacted him.
Nothing.
Using his toes to spin himself back and forth, he stared at the folders.
Wound checks or discharges first?
If he started with discharges, then whenever Doctor Ayton appeared, she would only have to do a few sign-offs after seeing the patients, and maybe her mood would improve.
She’d really snapped at him earlier,
almost taking over the procedure because he’d hesitated. He’d clung to the forceps like they were his lifeline and met her eye, and finally she had grunted and acquiesced. Any other day, she would have eased him through: strict, direct, and calm. Hell, a few weeks ago she’d even been humming under her breath.
Raj pulled a file towards himself and started reading through the info. With his eyes still on the file, he flicked the computer on, then pulled up the pharmacy page. Discharge medications first. Pharmacy could take hours.
Of course, she’d been humming after he’d caught her talking for ages in the hall with that emergency nurse. And in the canteen. And in elevators.
Everywhere, really, he kept seeing Doctor Ayton and the nurse.
The stunning tall one with amazing cheekbones and skin that was darker than her brown eyes. Raj had even caught himself noticing her, and he liked to keep work and all that separate.
Well, so he told himself. He kept failing at that.
He clicked send and gave himself a pat on the back. One medication order down, far too many to go. He lost himself in referrals and charts, the time ticking on and the screen blurring.
The door opened behind him, and he startled.
“Woah, jumpy! Just me.”
Raj spun his chair around, feeling sheepish. “Natalie. Sorry. I was in my own world.”
She closed the door behind her and pushed light brown hair behind her ear that had fallen loose from her braid. He shook off the urge to stand up and do it for her. Maybe run his fingers down her cheek. It’d be soft, he was sure. She was so pale, with freckles lightly smattered over her skin.
His cheeks burned. “Uh—how can I help you?”
“Any news from Ayton?”
He shook his head as Natalie picked up one of the patient history files on the table. She held it on her lap as she sat down, blowing her fringe out of her eyes.
“Damn. She’s been really flaky lately.”
Caught between defending his boss and siding with Natalie, he gave a non-committal shrug.
Natalie laughed. “It’s okay, Tiger. You can agree with me. I’m not attacking her. I like her a lot, actually. That’s why I’m surprised; she’s normally so on it.”
No point denying any of that. “Yeah, she’s—distracted, or something.”
She scooted her chair closer, wiggling her eyebrows. “You got goss?”
Raj chuckled. This was why he liked Natalie. Whenever work was stressful, she was always funny and stayed relaxed. He really, really needed to work up the courage to ask her out. His last date with the guy in Radiology had not gone so great and left him nervous about getting back out there. “Well…”
Her eyes lit up, the green of them deepening. “Oh, please tell. I’m having the longest morning in history. I need gossip.”
“Surely you all never run out of gossip up here.” Raj leaned back in his chair.
“Got me there; this place is worse than a soap opera.” Natalie studied him for a moment, lips pursed as if she were considering something. “I’ll trade you? I have something good on blond Scott.”
“The maintenance guy?”
“I knew you’d know him. That guy is friends with everyone.”
“I don’t know him know him.” He scratched his head. “Okay, fine. I’ll trade you.”
Natalie bounced in her chair.
“Ayton had some kind of flirtation going on with one of the nurses.”
Her face fell. “C’mon, Raj! Everyone knows that—Taren, I think it is—and Ayton were flirting all over the hospital.”
“Be patient. I have more.”
She side-eyed him. “Go on.”
“I was out for dinner with my parents—”
“Well, aren’t you the social butterfly.” That earned her a playful glare and she pretended to zip her lips. “I was out for dinner in Scarborough, and I saw them in the restaurant.”
Natalie’s eyes widened. “They finally went out.”
“Right? Took their time. So, being the professional that I am, I stared at them over my menu and watched them the entire meal.”
She laughed, and he wanted to say anything that would make her do it again. Something softened around her eyes when she laughed.
“Did they have a massive fight, like?” she asked. If she leaned forward in her chair any more, she’d fall off.
“No, much better.”
“Tell me!”
“Well, Taren disappeared off to the bathroom…”
“And Ayton followed!”
“You got it.” Raj winked, and instantly felt awkward. He never winked. “The best part: my mother went to the bathroom later and came out all flustered, saying she could hear two people, well—”
Heat flared up in his cheeks again. Raj hated that sex always made him giggly.
“Having a ride?”
“A what now?”
She sighed. “Shagging? Boinking? Bang—”
“I get it!” He gave an awkward jerk of his head, a smile pulling at his lips involuntarily at the word choices.
She gave a harsh bark of laughter. “So why is she in a mood? She should be all loved up.”
“Well, the Monday after, she was in the worst mood I’ve ever seen, and I saw her and Taren having a heated conversation.”
“Oh, in the canteen? I saw that too.”
“The whole hospital saw that.”
Natalie leaned closer. “Okay, you’ve earned your gossip.”
“Pay up.”
Sitting straighter, Natalie grinned.
Raj’s pager went off.
Natalie slumped back in her chair. “Maybe that’s her.”
He snatched the pager off the desk. “No, not her.” The message made no sense to him, his brow furrowing as he read it. “We’re on some kind of lockdown.”
“What?”
He showed her the message.
“Code brown?”
The door opened and a nurse stuck her head around it. “Nat, we need some help. The ward’s on lockdown and a patient is seizing.”
Raj stood up. “Do you need help?”
The woman shook her head, grey hair flying around her face. “We have it under control; the patient’s doctor was on the ward.”
Natalie stood up. Before she could leave, Raj called after her, “You owe me that story.”
She turned and winked at him. “You got it.”
Raj went back to his paperwork feeling a lot better than before.
Maybe he would have the courage to ask her for a coffee by the end of the day. They needed time to share the story about Scott the Friendliest Dude, after all.
He cast one more curious look at his pager, then checked his phone, which showed the same alert. Something about the virus he’d heard about on the radio that morning. He dropped his pager back down.
Whatever it was, it was A&E’s problem. One of the biggest reasons he became a surgeon: that kind of stuff didn’t really affect him.
Lost in prescriptions and referrals, it was only a few minutes before the shouting started. At first, he ignored it. It wasn’t an everyday occurrence, but people kicked off at times. Illness did weird things to people.
But then it got louder.
And closer.
Raj knocked his chair back as he stood and headed for the ward.
He opened the door to chaos. Everyone was shouting. Running around. He stepped forward, then jerked back as a nurse ran past him, his shirt stained with something red. Blood.
What the hell?
Raj walked through the nurses’ station, several patients clustered together behind it. The corridor was thick with people running through it. Several of them had blood on their gowns and scrubs, but not all of them seemed hurt.
Patients were never behind the nurses’ station.
“What’s happened?”
One of them was holding their hand to a decent-sized wound on their cheek. “He fucking b
it me, man.”
Raj ran forward and pulled the patient’s hand back. Soaked with blood, the towel he had held against his cheek stuck to the edges of the torn flesh.
“Someone bit a chunk off your cheek, sir?” Raj asked, voice cool and calm. Surgery voice.
Internally, it was high pitched and, well, shrill: someone bit a chunk off his fucking cheek?
The patient was as white as chalk, his eyes glazed with shock. “He was attacking some lady who couldn’t get out of bed. I pulled him back and he bit me. I managed to get away, but he attacked some other person.”
Raj looked at the other patients. “I don’t know what the hell is going on, but if you can walk, run.”
“One of the nurses said something about lockdown.”
“Where are most of the other people?”
“A bunch of them ran when Security didn’t show.”
“Go, get yourselves out of here.”
They turned and, assisting the wounded man, fled down the hall to the corridor that would hopefully get them away from whatever was happening. He watched them go. If someone was attacking patients, this was the worst ward to do it on. Those were probably the only patients on this ward that could walk.
Raj span on the spot and sighed thankfully. A security guard was running onto the ward.
He stopped and watched the mayhem, then gaped at Raj. “What’s happened?”
“A patient is attacking people. It’s all I know; I was just about to check.”
“I was on my way to A&E when I heard the shouting.”
Raj followed the man down the hallway, mostly empty now, a walking frame knocked over in their way. Most people had fled or…or worse. There was a red trail along a wall, as if someone had swiped a bloody hand along it. The security guy and Raj glanced at each other, the security guard’s eyes comically wide.
They stopped dead at the doorway of one of the rooms.
“What the fuck.”
Raj wanted to echo the security guard’s words. The man put his hands on his knees and vomited. Raj almost joined him.
The patient on the bed, whose sutures he had checked not long before, lay eviscerated. Blood pooled around her. Her hand, hanging off the edge of the bed, still twitched.
Raj couldn’t look at her face.
