The Suburban Dead (Book 2): Emergency

by Sorsby, T. A.

  Once I was done, and had polished off my sandwich, I made for the quarantine ward, only realising when I’d passed through A&E that I’d left my taskphone behind. I wasn’t used to having it with me yet, but I suspected its usefulness was going to be limited today anyway so didn’t bother heading back.

  Though it wasn’t a permanent ward, County not being an infectious disease specialist, I knew where they’d have set up quarantine – it was the sort of stuff you read the paperwork for, then sign your name here, maybe with a drill or a reminder notice once a year. Since the “human rabies” crisis started sweeping through Rojas, we’d all been drilled again, and again.

  Hospitals are a pretty complicated place to navigate, even with the best signposting in the world. Occasionally, they even change the layout, just to confuse you, I think. Fortunately, once I’d finished my basic medical training in Linkoln, I moved here for my paramedic years, so I’d had plenty of time to get to grips with the hospital layout.

  Even so, it was slower progress than usual, getting through the maze of hallways. Firstly, I had to avoid the main Paediatric ward. My previous relationship had been with one of the doctors there – she wanted more, and when I started dating Kelly, thing got really awkward. Even more so when she found out Kelly was a guy.

  On a more serious note, patients on gurneys were waiting for rooms, and lined what seemed like every other corridor. Their needs were being met by a veritable legion of nurses and orderlies, all here on Trip-C, but the shortage of rooms and wards was definitely an issue.

  I had my orders, so couldn’t do much to help, or so I’d told myself. But as I turned down one hallway and saw another patient on a gurney, I met her milky blue, rheumy eyes and felt compelled to do something.

  ‘I’m really thirsty dear,’ she rasped, ‘could you fetch me a drink of water?’

  She was sickly pale skinned and blue veins showed quite clearly on her cheeks and forearms. She must have really been feeling the cold, as she wore a woollen shawl pulled up like a hood over her hospital robe and gown, with gloves on her hands.

  I fetched her a cup of water from a nearby cooler, but couldn’t do much else for her, so avoided meeting her eyes as I apologised and got back on track, navigating the mess of trolleys and personnel that was the hospital pulling itself into order.

  Beside County’s main entrance, over to the left, is another intake area, rarely used except in the busiest periods, or for quarantine procedures. I came at it from the main atrium, a double-heighted space with nice reception desks on the ground floor and consultant offices above, where one might find white coats abound.

  Double doors into the quarantine intake had been clearly marked with yellow and black “Caution – Quarantine” signs, complete with a biohazard logo. Just in case any wandering patients had any stupid ideas, a pair of guards had been posted either side of the door, one in Sydow grey camo, the other in plain clothes, with a shoulder holster.

  ‘You on this ward?’ the plainclothes cop asked. She was tall and pretty, a brunette with gently kinked hair and a touch of tan in her skin.

  ‘Working under a Dr Lines?’ I nodded.

  ‘Head on through.’ The soldier said, opening one of the doors for me. ‘I know you probably know your job through and through, but Lines knows his too. If he tells you to do something, do it.’

  That took me aback. It must have shown on my face.

  ‘He’s not being an asshole,’ the police officer said, tilting her head at the solider.

  ‘Thanks Mason.’ The soldier beamed sarcastically.

  ‘He’s just giving fair warning. Lines is big in the CDC, makes him a bit of a diva.’ Mason finished.

  ‘Thanks, I’ll bear it in mind.’ I said to the soldier, by way of apology for the dirty look I’d given him. ‘See you guys around.’

  Beyond the first doors was a wall of transparent plastic sheeting, with a zipper for a door. The zip was attached to a large plastic strap, meant to be easily operated if you were wearing hazmat gloves. Fortunately, the virus was known not to be airborne, so full hazmat was actually an unnecessary over-precaution. Still, once though the zip door, I pulled the zip back up and began the process of sanitising myself.

  Most people have a song. You can use anything from three to five minutes in length, but if you’re scrubbing in with exceptionally dirty hands you’ll want to pick something longer. I started singing Kelly’s ringtone song under my breath.

  First, I washed my hands and arms, almost right up to the elbow, in a deep sink with a harsh smelling liquid soap. You’ve got to keep the hand higher than the elbow, or contaminated soap runs back down over where you’ve just cleaned. You go between the fingers, scrub under your nails, and even file or trim the ends if you think they might risk piercing a pair of gloves. Never trust a surgeon with painted nails.

  After that, I took off my trainers and wriggled into a set of white coveralls, taking them from a hanging rail. Any time someone had to leave the quarantine ward, the coveralls would be placed into a bin and sent off to laundry to be re-sterilised. The blue gloves, mask and over-shoe booties were disposable however.

  It struck me as a little odd that I was disinfecting myself to go into a dangerously infectious area, but perhaps there were other risks I wasn’t aware of. Even so, the procedure reinforced how important it’d be to disinfect oneself as you were leaving as well. With most contagious diseases, especially ERHR, you’re not really trying to safeguard the patient from outside bacteria – you’re trying to keep everyone else safe from theirs.

  Fully covered, masked and gloved, I pulled the hood up on the coveralls and made sure it wasn’t too loose. Beyond the next zip-down door, everyone was similarly dressed – even the guards. I did a double take as I saw two people walking in step, one with a crisp white clipboard, the other a slick black shotgun.

  The air of organised chaos was missing from the quarantine ward. Jerry had said they were about to be overrun, and the soldier on the TV said we were already overrun. Miscommunications were bound to happen with an operation this size. But either way, this has the feeling of the calm before the storm. I had to find Dr Lines and get my bearings before the shit hit the fan. Fortunately, Quarantine seemed to have its own Jerry.

  ‘Excuse me! Come sign in.’ a voice called out, with a polite wave and a firm voice.

  The admin station stood on the corner just ahead, with the waving figure behind. I quickly walked over and took the offered clipboard, scanning a list of names for my own to sign beside.

  ‘Got your ID as well?’ the woman at the station asked.

  I handed it to her, then found my name near the bottom of the list, written on in pen rather than typed up. I gave it a quick initial – KC. Katy Cox.

  Would I change it to Kelly? Katy Kelly. Katy Kelly-Cox. Katy Cox-Kelly? Or would Kelly take my name? Kelly Cox? No, he’d be Tiernan Cox, as rarely as he uses his first name. Ugh, Cox was my father’s name anyway, but also my Uncle’s I guess. What about…

  ‘You alright?’ the woman asked again. ‘You’re not sick are you?’

  ‘Right as rain.’ I shook my head, passing the clipboard back. ‘Do you know where I can find Dr Lines? I was told I was working with him today.’

  She checked my name on the clipboard and passed me a name label that’d already been penned out for me; ‘Nurse Prac. K. Cox’.

  ‘Quick brief first – need you to know where everything is. Ground floor, we’re on intake. CDC are still trying to avoid sending any more infected to us. We got some overflow, now we’re full up, and really we want to keep it all up at Mercy. However, we can’t stop people showing up, so down here, we intake, diagnose, and refer when appropriate.

  ‘Upstairs it’s referral proper. If it’s ERHR, we park them in the main ward and wait for a bus. That’s where you’ll find most of the cops, on guard duty in case one of them goes full infected. You know what happens when they do that?’

  ‘An irresistible carnivorous hunger, preferring towards cannib
alism.’ I repeated, from the ERHR booklet.

  ‘Correct. Anyone around here with a gun is under strict orders to shoot on sight anyone exhibiting those particular symptoms. Don’t get in their way.’

  I hadn’t planned on it, and didn’t appreciate the way she was talking down at me. Still, I’d been in enough briefings to know sometimes you’ve got to make them completely idiot proof, so I tried not to hold it against her.

  ‘Finally, third floor – or second depending on your regional preference, but the one that’s two floors up from the ground anyway – that’s where you’ll find Dr Lines and the rest of the CDC slash Sydow Sec contingent. The main ward up there is a CDC field research station. A few patients consented for testing before they succumbed, and the doctors up there are trying to find out whatever the hell they can.’

  ‘Sounds a little macabre.’ I said, worried that the quality of the research might not outweigh the rights of the patients. Anyone in the cold sweats surely can’t give true consent.

  ‘They’ve got a lot of equipment with them. I’m just clerical, don’t understand any of it myself. Word of advice though. If you ask Dr Lines about any of it, be polite and professional. He blew up over a soldier scratching his nose, still had his gloves on, but moved his mask.’

  ‘Sounds like a diva.’ I parroted the cop from the door.

  ‘Tread softly.’ She warned, before I left for the elevators.

  As I waited for the elevator to ding, I wondered if everyone was pulling my leg about Dr Lines. Perhaps he was a kindly old man with bright blue eyes and an affable manner. I didn’t live in hope though. The CDC is a serious organisation. I can’t imagine anyone getting high up in that place without developing a bit of a chip on their shoulder.

  The elevator doors opened to the third floor. Back down south, where I grew up, we call the “ground floor” the “first floor”, and so on upwards. The addition of a G on elevator panels was initially confusing, but you soon get over it.

  Straight ahead was another admin station, this one barely more than a long rectangular hole in the wall. That’s not to say it was small, just the front portion of it. Behind the narrow window stretched a large office space, currently abuzz with humanoid forms in white overalls.

  Standing to one side of the station were two soldiers. They turned to me upon entry, then resumed chatting to themselves. After everyone else had stopped me in the doorways or told me where to go, I felt somewhat belittled for being ignored, especially by these soldiers who’d set up shop in my damn hospital.

  I pushed that momentary flash of irritation aside, and stepped up to the desk, where another white-suited, blue-masked individual was typing at a keyboard.

  ‘Can you tell me where I can find Dr Lines, please?’ I asked.

  He lifted his spectacled eyes to me, and cleared his throat. ‘Name?’

  ‘Nurse Cox. I’ve been reassigned to him from the A&E.’ I answered.

  ‘Interesting. Your name badge seems to be working. I had wondered if mine were broken.’ The man added with a raised eyebrow.

  Stencilled, not sticky-labelled, onto the front of his slightly nicer overalls was the name “Dr Y. Lines”.

  ‘Still working, doctor. I just didn’t expect you to be stuck manning a desk.’ I said with an apologetic nod. ‘Anything I can do to help?’

  ‘Well, you are assigned to me in a medical capacity. But the director was expecting this email an hour ago, and these bastard computers are having a hard time connecting to the network.’

  ‘Try opening settings and connecting to J.ER.EA. Password is “teddy bear”, all one word.’

  Dr Lines looked at me bemused for a moment, then clicked his mouse a few times, tickled the keyboard, and made a satisfied sort of noise. ‘Not an official hospital network, is it?’

  ‘I don’t know how it’s still on there, but it seems to get a better outbound connection than the hospital one.’ I shrugged.

  Jerry must have paid for it separately, and got a better deal with the provider than main admin. The password was a strictly guarded secret, but generally found its way into the hands of sick kids looking to game online with their friends at home.

  ‘Sent.’ Dr Lines said after a moment of uncomfortable silence. ‘Just a progress update. But oh, how she likes to be informed of the minutiae. Let’s get to work now, shall we?’

  Five

  The Doc and I took off down the corridor to his research rooms. County General was a teaching hospital, so the operating theatre had an overlooking observation window. Down the hall from that were preparation rooms for pre-op, a post-op recovery ward and a testing lab. As I previously mentioned, I’m a blood and guts kinda gal, so any equipment glimpsed through the window as we passed by was largely unfamiliar to me.

  This part of the floor was more heavily guarded than downstairs. It was harder to tell the hospital staff from the CDC’s people because of the white overalls and masks, but the mercenaries were easier to spot. Just look for the guns. A pair seemed to be posted to every corridor, some of them pacing up and down, others casually chatting in doorways.

  As we passed by one man leaning against his assigned doorframe, his radio buzzed to life.

  ‘…be overrun…support here…’

  I didn’t catch much, but it made the hairs on my arms stand up. Fortunately, Dr Lines was about to keep me very much distracted from any wild speculating I was about to undertake.

  He hadn’t said anything as we walked down the corridors towards his lab, save for greeting a couple of unidentifiable CDC suits as we passed them, but as we neared the doors, he removed his mask, revealing the face of a middle-aged man with a grey five o’clock shadow. He took on a quick professional tone, reciting a brief he’d probably given a hundred times.

  ‘While inside my lab, you must do exactly as I say. You must not touch anything unless asked. You will, under no circumstances, remove your mask, gloves or any protective clothing. If you feel your clothing has become compromised, you will get into the decontamination shower immediately, then disrobe. Do you have any questions?’

  ‘One, doctor, if that’s alright?’ I asked him.

  ‘Go on?’ he said, raising an eyebrow to suggest this was highly irregular and he didn’t like it.

  ‘Not about your lab conditions. That’s all fine with me, it’s about my assignment to you. Infectious disease, viruses, these aren’t my speciality. I’m a trauma nurse, I don’t know how much good I’ll be to you.’

  The eyebrow came back down and he gave a little nod of acceptance.

  ‘I understand, Nurse Cox. This must be an entirely unfamiliar environment for you. I requested someone from the Emergency Department with solid experience in trauma. Some of the experiments I hope to conduct and confirm in my limited time here will benefit from the training of one who knows how a body should react to certain stimuli.

  ‘I also need someone who isn’t squeamish, as our later experiments may include partial dissections of still-animated bodies, or the autopsy of deceased subjects. ERHR may not be your area of expertise, but what you see in here, I wager, you will find most interesting.’

  Well now. That was interesting. I wasn’t exactly asked for by name, but if a CDC bigwig asks the A&E for a trauma specialist, they’re going to send their best. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I puffed up a bit. Still, something he’d said caught my attention, and I wouldn’t let pride distract me.

  ‘I have one more question doctor, if the floor’s still open. You said your time here is limited?’

  ‘Everything is all terribly confusing at the moment,’ he sighed, ‘conflicting orders, instructions, guidelines, everyone pulling in different directions. The quarantine wards here are at peak capacity for safety, and this hospital must remain open to the general public for as long as possible. Mercy, as a specialist in infectious disease, received the first infected patients. Unfortunately, my team were dropped off here and got to work setting up our facilities before we realised this was the wrong hospita
l.’

  ‘Wow, that’s a hell of a satnav error.’

  Dr Lines rolled his eyes.

  ‘A bloody farce from start to finish. The current plan is for me to conclude my ongoing experiments here as quickly as possible and get over to Mercy. Perhaps by the end of today, but only the Gods know. Is that all for now?’

  ‘Certainly, lead the way doctor.’

  The CDC had arranged this lab in a small ward, previously only six beds judging by the ceiling rails, with a bank of windows at the far end from the double doors. Portable worktables had been set up along one side with all of your basic high school science kit in place – microscopes, burners, test tubes, evaporating bowls, adjustable stands, stirring plates, conical flasks and petri dishes in glass fronted coolers.

  That was just the stuff I was sure of the names for. Gloveboxes were standing by with equipment already inside, perhaps experiments already in progress. Beside them were specialist scales and probes, attached to high-end laptops which probably cost more than a month of my salary.

  My eyes lingered over the equipment for a moment or two, but their attention was quickly diverted to the other side of the room, by the unforgettable sound of a patient struggling against restraints. Part of me was already getting ready to call for an orderly. Or a sedative.

  The curtains had been drawn around the two beds furthest from the door, the closest being taken up by a surround of transparent plastic sheeting – the decontamination shower. Essentially a water tank with a panel of front-facing showerheads. Not very private, but hospitals often value lifesaving over privacy.

  ‘Restless, as expected.’ Dr Lines hummed. ‘Come.’

  He led me to the first curtain, and as we drew closer, I could hear muffled screaming amidst the thrashing, as if someone were being tortured but had been heavily gagged. The uneasy feeling returned to the pit of my stomach.

  ‘A bit of information not in your primer first, Nurse Cox.’ Dr Lines said, stopping with his hand just short of the curtain. Frankly, I was happy to take a moment to gather myself before facing the poor bastard Lines had chained up there, and whatever cruel experiment they were being subject to.