by G. Benson
“I am,” Joy whispered. “This ward is in a really bad state. But we will walk straight through it, okay? Straight through. Try stare straight ahead. I’m sorry you have to see this.”
Ro reached a hand up and squeezed Joy’s wrist.
Straight through. They could do that. They didn’t have to look at the leg. Or the bloody hand trail along the wall. Or the person who Ro assumed, by the uniform, was a security guard, just metres ahead. The limp hands at his side. The way his head was caved in. The blood. Had they mentioned the blood?
They didn’t need to look at that.
Just walk straight through.
Follow Taren, and Joy, and Xin.
“You can do that?” Joy asked.
“I can,” Ro murmured.
Joy gave their shoulders a little squeeze.
A gasp. Loud and sharp. Joy’s head whipped around; Ro leaned to the side to peer around her. A person had stood up from behind an overturned shelving unit that had spilled sheets and towels all over the floor. Not a person. One of the things. The first one Ro had seen so clearly. A zombie. Their skin was an off-white, vaguely green colour. She had wounds to her head, like she’d been hit by something. Startling eyes, bright and shot with red. Blood coating her mouth, her chin, down her chest.
She had stripy socks, pulled high up her shins.
She looked everything and nothing like Ro had imagined.
And Xin and Taren were too close. Xin was too close. She threw her hand up, palm open on instinct, knife dropping uselessly, as Taren took a step back, the bag clenched in her fist as it swung wildly between them.
What was it Ro had learned about? Fight versus flight. Taren, with the step back, fled, first.
But Xin tried to push the thing back. Fight first.
There was a scream. Loud. Blood-curdling.
It came from Xin as the dead or dying or sick woman reached out, so fast, grabbed the hand so close to her face and bit down. Blood spurted. Xin screamed again, a horror lacing the sound that made Ro’s stomach twist and the hair on their arms stand up on end, the feeling racing from the tips of their fingers, up their arms, along their shoulders and into their neck.
They couldn’t move. What happened if you didn’t have an instinct for fight or flight, but merely stood, staring, as a person who’d done nothing wrong had their finger bitten off?
“No!” The word tore from Joy’s chest.
Xin wrenched her hand away, blood spraying to the side in an arc at the speed of it, flicking over a poster on the wall advertising the emergency number. Letting go of the bag, Taren grabbed a fistful of Xin’s shirt and yanked her backwards, pathetic knife held up between them. With a burst of speed, Joy was suddenly there, not in front of Ro anymore. She was in front of the woman with Xin’s finger in her mouth, which she started to chew on, fresh blood everywhere.
Who knew fingers bled so much?
Xin had let go of the bag, and bottles spilled everywhere. She and Taren lurched backwards as Taren grabbed at her hand, Xin’s face so very ashen, eyes wide as she stared at Taren like she could save her.
Then Joy was a blur.
She threw a kick and a punch, and the woman fell backwards, clumsy and stuttering in her movements. In Ro’s imagination, the ground trembled when the woman landed fully on her back, arms splaying out either side of her and head cracking on the hard floor. And then Joy looked behind, and saw what Ro saw: Taren grabbing at Xin’s arm, eyes searching wildly.
“Ro!” Taren ordered. “Get me a towel off the floor. And a pillowcase.”
Ro blinked. Joy must have seen the horror on Taren’s face, the fear on Xin’s, the frozen way Ro was staring at it all.
“Taren, oh shit, it bit me! It bit me, Taren!” Xin’s voice was frantic. A marching band of panicked notes flowing out her mouth.
“Ro!” Taren barked.
Ro moved, at the same time as Joy also moved, eyes widening as she stared at Xin’s hand, brow furrowing at what Xin said.
It only took seconds to grab what they needed. Ro held them out to Taren, who took the towel and held it over Xin’s hand to stem the bleeding.
“Great, now twist the pillowcase into a long line, tight. Like you’re making it into a bandage, or a snake.”
Ro followed Taren’s instructions. Their hands twisted the pillowcase, pulling it tight between them, but not looking at their own motions. Instead, Ro couldn’t take their eyes off Joy.
Her fair skin was flushed red, jaw clamped. She span back around to the woman—zombie—on the floor, struggling to get up, and kicked out, hard. The woman grunted—it was so difficult to not think of her as a woman, a person, when that sound was so human—and then Joy’s foot stamped down on her chest. Then her head. Again. And again. Ferocious. Precise.
This wasn’t like someone having a fight during recess. Joy looked like a weapon. Coiled muscle and quivering anger and such precise movements.
The woman stopped moving. Joy stood over her, entire body shaking.
Also shaking, Ro held out the makeshift, tightly twisted pillowcase. Taren didn’t take it. Ro finally looked back at her.
Xin and Taren were gaping at Joy.
“Taren.”
Blinking, Taren took it.
Taren wrapped the pillowcase around the highest point on Xin’s arm, tying it off and pulling it so hard Xin grunted, much like the woman on the floor had—until she didn’t anymore. The towel was already a stained and bunched mess at the end of Xin’s arm. Blood splattered the floor under them.
“Ayton,” Taren said.
Joy didn’t move, but stood trembling, staring at the mess she’d made.
“Joy!” Taren barked.
At the sound of her name from Taren’s lips, Joy’s head turned, slowly, to Taren and Xin. The expression on her face was hazy, as if she weren’t really there. Then her gaze focused, her eyes narrowed, and she was all action again. She stepped forward, taking the end of the pillowcase held out by Taren.
“I can’t get it tight enough. It needs to be tighter.” Taren grabbed her end of the case, stepping in to Xin’s body as Joy did the same.
“Ro! Hold Xin’s shoulders so she can’t move.”
Ro jumped, then moved behind Xin, grabbing her shoulders and trying to hold her in one place.
“B-but isn’t the bleeding stopping?” Ro asked.
The look Taren gave over Xin’s shoulder was grim.
Xin gave a delirious laugh, a chuckle that started deep in her chest, and she craned her neck, trying to see Ro. “This isn’t just for the bleeding,” she said, like she was talking about the weather. “This is to try and stop whatever shit they pass on that makes us turn into one of them.”
Ro’s mouth dropped open.
“One, two—” Taren gritted out “—three.”
As one, Joy and Taren twisted their hips, stepping in opposite directions, pulling the pillowcase hard. Xin grunted again. Ro tried to hold her firm, which wasn’t really necessary; Taren had probably been trying to give them something to do. The material pulled tight, cracking like it was trying to give up on everything.
Ro understood the feeling, right then.
Then they stopped tugging, looped it again, and repeated it. Finished, Taren and Joy stood, Ro still with their hands on Xin’s shoulders, all of them breathing heavily with Xin in the middle of them, pressed close.
“Well,” Xin gulped. “That’ll do it, I’m sure.”
Joy’s jaw clenched again. Taren pressed her lips together in a tight line.
Xin looked from one to the other. “That won’t do it, will it?”
Joy shook her head. Taren ran a hand up and down Xin’s good arm. Ro didn’t get what was going on, but squeezed her shoulders anyway.
“Say it, Joy,” Xin said.
Joy stared at her, face pale, and now there was a moment to breathe, Ro could see tiny specks of blood on her skin, still drying.
Taren spoke, final
ly, as the pressure between them all built with something no one wanted to say. “We have to take it off. Now.”
“You’re fucking kidding,” Ro blurted out.
Joy
1917
When Joy had become a surgeon, she’d done so because she liked cutting. It was enjoyable. Not many people would get that, she knew, but it was fun to cut someone open and fix them. Or, as innovation never stopped, learning how to do procedures that involved less cutting and more threading catheters through veins.
Cutting was less medical—which she loved, because she wasn’t actually all that book smart. Studying had taken a lot out of her, and she’d never been a great student.
Her speciality was one she loved because she got a whole variety. She got to operate on aneurysms. She got to open people’s necks and play with their carotids. She got to operate on arteries and veins. She did amputations, of everything from toes to fingers to entire limbs.
Never, not once, had she thought she would be doing what she was about to do.
“Lay her down,” Joy ordered.
Her voice wavered, the instructions catching in her throat on their way out. What had she done? Pummelled a woman to death with her bare fists and feet, that’s what. Bile rose, and she clenched her jaw. Ro’s ruddy skin was washed out. Xin was ashen. Taren’s lips were pressed so tight together they were one line. Joy squared her shoulders.
“Ro, check nothing is coming down the corridor.” Her voice did not catch this time, nor did it waver.
Staring at Xin’s hand, cradled on her lap where she sat on the cold steel table the nurses in Vasc used to prepare antibiotics and the like, Ro didn’t move.
“Ro.” Joy’s voice was level. Firm. She did not snap. This she could do, like she did with students who got nervous in the OR. Ro looked up. “Check the corridor, in case another is here.”
They went to the door, and Joy stood opposite Taren, Xin sitting up between them, the table under her rusty with a long line of blood down the middle of it.
“We need to do this fast,” Joy said. She could only hope the apology was laced in her voice. “It will not be pleasant.”
Xin was breathing hard between them. “Do it. I won’t be Owen.”
Joy looked at Taren, and Taren nodded.
Joy turned, Ro standing in the doorway watching them.
“It’s clear,” they said.
“Great, stay on look out. Taren, I need a scalpel. I will do this quickly, but I’m also going to try and do this as cleanly as possible, so it heals well. I need a suture kit, bandages, forceps, dressing tray, sterile gloves, betadine, or something similar. Anything that is on the ward that will act fast as pain relief and sedation.”
Taren immediately started bringing things, wheeling over a dressing trolley to set up.
“Lie down, Xin, and I’ll be right back.”
Quivering, Xin stared her in the eye and lay down, short hair splaying around her.
Turning on her heel, Joy steeled herself. As she walked past Ro, she felt their eyes on her back.
“I need something,” she said to them.
Which was the truth. What she really needed was far away in the ORs. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears so loudly that the incessant beeping didn’t even reach her. Her footsteps were light and fast as she made her way back down the corridor she’d spent so much of her working life on. Chin up, she did not so much as glance down as she stepped over the body on the floor that she’d left behind. Her hands tightened into fists.
Back out the double doors, into the corridor they’d left. She moved a linen trolley as quietly as she could, wrapped her fist in a towel, and punched the glass box hanging on the wall behind it. The glass sprinkled over the floor, too loud even over that thumping in her ears. She paused, hand still raised.
No movement either end of the corridor. Nothing but abandoned equipment, some wheelchairs.
Joy dropped the towel and wrapped her hands around the axe hanging there. The handle was smooth in her palms, fitting well. She yanked and it came away easily.
She took a moment to stare down at it, gleaming new and silver, with a shiny red handle. She sucked in a breath. Another.
Then marched back down the corridor, back onto the ward to the treatment room.
Ro’s eyes went wide at the sight of her, and they jerked back so she could walk past.
“Oh fuck, oh fuck,” Ro muttered.
Joy paused, Taren looking up from where she had everything laid out on a tray, pouring betadine onto Xin’s arm, the brown liquid mingling with blood as it dripped off the side of the table and onto the floor, specks of it slowly forming a pool. Taren froze.
“Jesus,” she whispered.
Xin lifted her head, face completely blanching of any lingering colour at the sight of the axe. “Shit. Shit, shit.”
She dropped her head heavily, clanging on the metal surface. That was enough to snap Taren out of it, who grabbed the hand Xin had lifted up, as if to ward Joy away. She squeezed it, and Joy walked over to them.
Xin’s injured hand was flaming red, patches of mottled skin amongst the colouring, the finger missing with jagged skin down to the last knuckle. Even as she watched, she swore some of that red crept up Xin’s wrist.
Xin’s teeth were chattering. Shock? Or infection already spread? How fast did this move? Owen had taken hours to become one of them. And the bite had been on his neck.
Move faster, Joy.
All of them needed to move faster.
Joy lay the axe on the table, then squirted alcohol gel on her hands, rubbing them together. Delicately, Joy took the sterile drape Taren had opened up onto the sterile field she’d made on the dressing trolley, trying to touch as little as possible. Xin, eyes glued on her the entire time, lifted her injured arm obediently for Joy to lay the drape under where she was about to cut.
Sterile surgical field. Sure.
“Doctor Ayton…” Xin breathed her name. Her pupils were blown.
“Joy, remember. Told you ages ago to call me that. Morphine apparently makes you regress.”
She was trying for a joke, but it fell completely flat.
“Joy.” She was high. Next to her head was a vial of morphine and an empty syringe. “You can’t use an axe. You can’t.”
There was a desperate pitch at the end of her words.
“I’m sorry,” was all Joy could say. “I’ve got you, okay?”
Xin screwed her eyes shut, her hand still gripping Taren’s, knuckles white. “Okay.”
Joy put on the sterile gloves Taren had opened and let fall onto the trolley. How many times had she done this? Hundreds?
A thousand?
Normally a nurse, already in sterile gloves and clothes, held gloves open for Joy to push her hands into.
This would have to work.
Taren leaned down, kissing Xin’s forehead and murmuring something to her. Then she went around the other side, near Xin’s legs, and started unwrapping vials. Xin’s hand dropped to her side, fingers wrapping around the edge of the table.
“She’s had morphine,” Taren said, grabbing another vial and drawing up an injection as she spoke. “There are sutures and clamps I opened and dropped as cleanly as I could on the tray, plus anything else I thought could be useful.”
Taren maybe didn’t work in an OR, but Joy wouldn’t have wanted anyone else with her right then.
“Sedation?” she asked.
Taren shook her head.
“Awesome,” Xin said in a way that clearly meant nothing was awesome.
“Do you have a scalpel?”
“I can’t bloody find any. Antibiotic jab, Xin.” Taren jabbed the needle into her upper arm, on the other side of them. Xin screwed her eyes up again. “It’s cleared out.”
“What?” Xin and Joy said as one, Xin’s head twisting up at an angle to look at Taren.
“So much is gone.” Taren dropped the syringe into a dish. “I think
Raj and Natalie cleared a whole bunch out.”
“It’s fine,” Xin said, voice high and verging on hysterical. Teeth still chattering, the fingers of her uninjured hand were clutching the edge of the table opposite Joy so hard she may have cut herself. “You can just hack the whole thing off with the axe.” She gave a feverish little laugh.
“Very funny,” Taren said.
“Taren, sterilise the axe.” Joy stood over Xin, hands held up like she did so often to keep them sterile.
Xin gave another agitated laugh.
Taren poured a bottle of alcohol over the axe head and handle, not worrying that it was squirting all over the floor.
Did she feel like Joy? In a conundrum of this mockery of their normal job? Doing this, here? Like this?
They were in the hospital. They had operating rooms nearby. Sedation, anaesthetic, sterile rooms, sterile drapes, an actual bone saw, which Joy was about to miss very much, thank you.
She didn’t know if she could do this.
She had to do this.
Switch her mind off. Ignore everything.
“Take the axe and wave it around to help the alcohol dry, Ro. It’s not sterile until it’s dried on the surface.”
Looking grateful to have something to do, Ro left the doorway and grabbed it, waving it around in the air like a kid with a baton.
“Xin?” Joy asked. Xin’s eyes had drifted shut. “How much morphine did you give her?”
“The highest possible for her weight.” Taren frowned. “As much good as that’s about to do.”
“Good.” Joy took in a breath. “I have to start. Ro, hold the axe here, next to me on my left, in one hand so you can pass it to me easily. I want you to press close to the table—yes, like that. Good. Now lay the top half of your body over Xin’s legs.” The look Ro gave her was one of shock. “She’s going to try and move.”
Ro blanched, but did as Joy said, lying over Xin’s thighs, hips, and waist, pressed into the edge of the table.
“Good. Taren—”
“I’ll hold her down, don’t worry.” Taren, directly opposite her, could be Joy’s first assistant in the OR. Joy took in another deep breath, watching Xin, whose eyes were fluttering shut, then opened as she looked between them all, then closed again.
