by Rob Horner
His ass burned as he lifted his shorts…
I’d give anything for one of those baby wipes we used to use on Bitsy right about now!
…but he didn’t have anything to wipe with and he needed to get moving, get off the shoulder of the road. It was already something of a shock that no one had stopped to check on him, see if he was all right, or if he needed help with the car. Hell, it was a surprise no one tried to steal the car, which he’d left running.
His legs ached as he pushed the passenger doors closed, pins and needles like hundreds of tiny electric shocks sparking through his toes, feet, and ankles, coursing up past his knees as the circulation returned. Every step around the back of the car hurt, but even through the pain in his legs, Austin was aware of his stomach like a ball of dull fire, a banked coal waiting for a breath to bring it roaring back to life. He eased himself into the driver’s seat and took a moment to evaluate whether the pain was getting worse.
Maybe I should go to a hospital.
There was a big hospital system in Greenville, he remembered, which couldn’t be more than an hour and a half away. He told himself if he didn’t feel any better by the time the big H signs started appearing on the Interstate, he’d go to the emergency room.
Closing the door and buckling his seatbelt, Austin waited for a break in the traffic and pulled back onto the highway.
Lost in the renewed thuds/jolts from the shoulder rumble strip was the sharp crack and snap of his smartphone being crushed under the press of the SUVs tires.
It was something straight out of a movie or a television show, like Manifest, a portion of a busy airport turned into a combination Mass Casualty and quarantine section. After the pilot passed out, losing control of his bowels sometime just before or just after, the co-pilot initiated an emergency landing, bringing Flight 102 from Atlanta to San Diego into a small airport on the outskirts of Greenwood, Mississippi. Where they were didn’t matter. It could have been Hollywood or the dark side of the moon, for all that Carolyn Wallace cared.
What she cared about was her little girl, Elizabeth, who was doubled-up on a fold-out cot in a dirty airport rather than in an emergency room being attended to by trained doctors and nurses. Her knees were pulled almost into her chest, as if returning to the position she lived in for nine months while being carried in her mother’s stomach was the only way she could find any comfort. After the initial stream of bloody vomit, she hadn’t thrown up again, which was a relief, though Carolyn wondered why Bitsy hadn’t experienced any diarrhea yet. From the sounds and smells filling the air around them, loose bowels were the dominant symptom of whatever was happening. Be it food poisoning or some strange stomach flu, getting it out was the fastest way to get better. Or so she’d always been told.
A fresh shudder coursed through Bitsy’s small frame, and Carolyn placed a hand on her shoulder. She felt hot under her T-shirt, though not as hot as she’d felt when she had the flu last winter. Maybe this wouldn’t be that bad. If she threw up whatever she’d eaten, and it didn’t have a chance to work its way all the way through, wouldn’t that be better?
For perhaps the thirtieth time she pushed the Speed Dial button for Austin, listening as it rang its prerequisite number of rings, then terminated the call as it went to voicemail. Why the hell wasn’t he answering the phone? Had he gotten into an accident? Wouldn’t that just be great, her husband lying in a ditch somewhere while their daughter suffered with some horrendous stomach bug and neither of them able to talk to each other?
A ripping sound accompanied a fresh waft of fecal matter, which also carried a hint of copper, the combination enough to force Carolyn’s arm across her face so she could breathe through the cloth of her shirt. Of the hundred-fiftyish passengers and crew, more than half were laid out on cots like Bitsy, or on folded blankets strewn about the cold tile floor once the cots ran out. Family and friends stood or squatted beside their loved ones, most without any symptoms other than a near-universal look of nausea and a desire to be somewhere where the air did not smell like a Cholera ward in 1854 London. Airport employees and medical staff, overwhelmed from the moment the too-large jet disgorged its cargo of sickly patients, huddled anxiously along the walls, the lower halves of their faces covered with the thin paper masks doctor’s offices gave out during flu season. Seeing them so concerned with their own protection gave Carolyn a mental flashback to the television mini-series made in 1994 about Stephen King’s The Stand, where one of the characters quipped that masks like those wouldn’t stop a “cold bug with a hangover.”
“More water, dammit. I need more water!” one woman yelled, on her knees with her head hanging over a bucket, hands waving blindly behind her. It was the twenty-something bitch who’d sneered at Bitsy getting on the plane, the same one Bitsy sprayed with her initial blast of vomit. She’d been a royal pain in the ass to everyone around her ever since, screaming about her eyes burning, demanding water so she could keep pouring it over her face, probably not even aware of the real danger facing many of her fellow passengers. Some of them looked worse than they smelled, especially the old and the very young. Diarrhea and vomiting like this could lead to dehydration quickly.
And there was that blood in Bitsy’s throw up.
Carolyn shuddered, trying to block out the memory of that scene, the bile-green gusher coming out of her daughter’s mouth, thick rivulets of blood running through the stuff like a red velvet swirl inside a bowl of yellow cake batter. It lasted only seconds but seemed to go on forever. There’d been a lot of screaming, most of it coming from the woman sitting in front of Bitsy, cursing and carrying on like it had been a deliberate assault, pushing herself back and staggering to her feet, ready to run to the nearest bathroom and get started cleaning up, furious that some brat would dare spoil her makeup.
But there was that flight attendant down on her hands and knees in the aisle, trying to curl into a ball around her own middle, and little Miss Priss didn’t see her there so when she shot out of her seat and tried to go sideways, all she did was trip over the attendant going ass over teakettle, black leather calf-boots with four-inch heels up in the air while her vomit splattered upper body landed in the lap of a young man sitting across from her.
It was probably a position she’d put herself in numerous times before.
Only this was different.
She was still complaining about her eyes burning, and maybe that meant she was just that kind of person, where the smallest discomfort was the end of the world and every ache and pain required pain medicine. But what if it didn’t?
Carolyn wasn’t a doctor and had no medical knowledge beyond the bits and pieces from the television shows—House, and Gray’s Anatomy—questionable at best, as well as the Public Service Announcements—remember Face, Arms, Speech, and Time…FAST for stroke symptoms—which she trusted a little more, so she didn’t know if it was possible for the eyes to continue to burn thirty minutes after being exposed to vomit, even though she’d rinsed them at least a dozen times. Carolyn could see the woman from where she knelt beside Bitsy, short, frizzy hair now plastered against the head, water streaming over the sopping bangs, running into the bucket. She remembered an instance of morning sickness when she was pregnant with her daughter, where she ran to the bathroom and lunged for the toilet but didn’t quite make it and a little vomit bounced off the seat and hit her in the face. It burned, but it faded quickly.
But still the lady bitched, moaned, and demanded more water.
The “they” that exist in all these situations, ubiquitous and unnamed, people in authority or with some form of presumed authority, kept admonishing Carolyn to be patient, keep her daughter comfortable, that help was on the way. Supposedly the local hospital, probably not much more than a jumped-up Bandaid station just like this airport wasn’t anything more than a gas station layover for planes in between real cities with real names and real facilities, supposedly they were sending a team to try to help these people. Now whether that meant an actual doctor a
nd some nurses or just an ambulance crew, they didn’t know. When it came to specifics, “they” never did.
“Get away from me, you stupid bitch!” Puke Face yelled suddenly, pushing herself to her feet, the bucket of slough water in her hands. An airport attendee staggered back, though Carolyn didn’t see if she was pushed, or if she was just reacting to the vehemence in the younger woman’s voice.
It didn’t matter.
The woman swung the bucket by its curved metal handle straight into the attendee’s face. Bone crunched and blood flew as vomit-stained water splashed from the bucket, spattering onto the floor. People screamed at the sudden violence, those that could move scuttling or ducking and dodging to put as much distance between themselves and the crazed woman as possible.
For a moment she just stood there, head lowered and sodden hair obscuring her features. The bucket came to rest against her thigh, the handle still held in her left hand. Her shoulders heaved like she was deep breathing, trying to control herself.
The screams died as quickly as they began, everyone afraid to make a sound lest they draw the woman’s attention.
The attendee lay where she’d fallen, blood running freely from an obviously broken nose. No one moved to help her.
A final shudder of the shoulders, then the head lifted. She gave it a practiced twist-and-flip that relocated her hair. Scarred and bleeding eyes searched out of a ruined face.
Did Bitsy do that to her?
The eyes focused on Bitsy.
“It’s all your fault!” she screamed, lurching into a running charge at the little girl on the cot, bucket coming up and back, readying for an overhand strike.
The Nurse’s Aide who got a face full of ass gravy went home after ten minutes in the decontamination shower. Sandy’s eyes were a little red and her face felt puffy, like she was coming down with a cold, but otherwise there wasn’t anything wrong that thirty minutes in her own bathroom with her hair dryer, flat iron, and mousse couldn’t fix. Honestly, would it kill them to at least have some cheap conditioner available? Luckily, she didn’t live far from the hospital. No need for a bus or a taxi. No need for anyone to see Sandy Campos with this shapeless mass on her head.
The sky was darker than it should be.
Sandy checked her watch as she left the hospital grounds. The digital display read 7:35, but the numbers on the watch face were dim, like the battery was dying.
She’d had the watch for a couple of years, ever since Evan gave it to her for her twenty-fourth birthday.
A picture of Evan’s handsome face came into her mind, and a flush of heat crept into her body. Damn, but he was sexy. And the things he could do with his tongue…
As always happened, those happy thoughts came just before a surge of remembered anger, barely diminished by the passage of time. The hospital let her go home early on her birthday, so she strolled into her apartment at 3pm instead of 7. And there was Evan, face-planted between another woman’s thighs, putting that silver tongue to work.
Her heart rate increased as her anger flared, bringing with it a heat very different from what she’d felt a moment before. Rather than radiating out from her center, this suffused her whole body, riding a wave of adrenaline like burning oil over a surging tidal wave. A pounding that matched her heartbeat began in her head, pulsing behind her eyes. Her teeth clenched as her lips twisted into a snarl. Her hands fisted, fingers digging so tightly into her palms that it became painful, yet they dug farther, fists and arms shaking with the power of her fury. Her vision dimmed and brightened in time to the pounding in her head, though it was an inverse relationship. The surge of pressure that matched the beat of her heart brought the dimming. Each period between caused a brightening, though that was less each time.
Darkness came suddenly while she crossed the big street behind the hospital, the sky suddenly devoid of light. Sudden panic warred with the anger that would not fade, and she stopped. Horns blared, but she couldn’t see any cars. Hands fisted at her sides, she stopped walking, waiting, hoping for her sight to return. Tires screeched as brakes screamed. There was a sudden heat on her left, a sensation of baking, summer sun trapped in hybrid plastics and the fire of an internal combustion engine heating metal components underneath. Had she reached out a hand, she could have touched the bumper of the yellow mini-Hummer that stopped inches before turning her into a twisted and bloody hood ornament.
“Stupid bitch!” someone yelled. “Get out the road! The hell’s wrong with you?”
The voice was angry and scared, something she could relate to.
More honks as traffic backed up behind the hummer. More brakes squealing. Cars doors opening and slamming shut. A multitude of voices now asking questions:
“Who is she?”
“Why’s she standing there?”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“What’s wrong with her?”
What’s wrong with me?
“I can’t see,” she said in a small voice.
As if speaking the words made everything real, the wall of anger burst, and a flood of panic raced through the breach.
“I can’t see!” she shouted, and now there were footsteps, coming closer. Her thoughts tangled like skeins of yarn in the paws of a litter of kittens, a snarling mess with no end and no beginning and no way to trace a line through the mess Evan; thinking about Evan; no conditioner in the shower; sick lady, so sick, couldn’t help herself; silver tongue; it smells awful; watch battery died; can’t see; Evan cheated; what if it was the diarrhea; headache; Evan gave me the watch; can’t see the watch that Evan gave me; can’t let him touch me can’t see Evan can’t see can’t touch Evan gave me can’t see…
Hands touched her…
“Hey, miss?”
…and they were Evan’s hands. Evan who gave her the watch she could no longer see. Evan who couldn’t touch her again because he’d made it so she can’t see.
The hands grabbed for her and she fought, righteous anger over what Evan did to her lending her strength beyond what adrenaline and panic provided. Nails rounded and kept at the exact quarter-inch length dictated by the hospital were sharp enough to gouge what reached for her.
“Holy shit! She’s gone loco!”
More hands, more invisible targets.
“Call 9-1-1!”
“That’s stupid, the hospital’s right there!”
She reached up, fingers curved into talons…
“Almost got my eye!”
…and then Evan had her wrists trapped, but that didn’t make sense. How could one person have her arms stretched out to both sides?
It didn’t matter, she could still kick. Her head and neck still worked.
“Fuckin’ hellcat!” someone swore as she yanked her right arm in, her teeth finding purchase on a hand or a wrist or a forearm.
“Keep everything stretched out.”
Then all she could do was whipsaw her head back and forth, wordless cries of anger coming out like screams. She knew what she was yelling Get your fucking hands off me you cheating son of a bitch but all that wanted to come out were the vowels, as if her lips were so frozen in a rictus snarl that consonants were impossible.
“The hot ones always are.”
She was being lifted, a set of hands on each wrist, arms wrapped around each ankle with supporting hands high up on her thighs, and she was moving through the darkness.
Five minutes after leaving the hospital, Sandy Campos returned to the emergency department, this time as a patient.
Two men would check in as well, one with a large scratch over his left cheek that went deep enough to draw blood, another with a bite wound on the right wrist that oozed red from one spot. Two other men sported mild abrasions from their encounter with that crazy-ass Hispanic chick, but they wore them like badges of honor and went home to spread the sickness.
Danny Rogers wasn’t the only one to experience a needle stick injury during the initial treatment period of those afflicted with the roiling stomach pa
in, blood-tinged vomit, and uncontrollable diarrhea from exposure to the explosion’s fallout, though his occurred almost a day later.
One percent of all encounters between healthcare staff and patients that require the use of a needle, scalpel, or other instrument that penetrates the skin results in a percutaneous injury to a member of the healthcare team. That’s not one percent of all encounters. That’s one percent per encounter with a sharp instrument. While most hospitals do their best to minimize the number of times a patient is stuck by a needle, there are always those patients who are “difficult sticks,” like the diabetic on dialysis, the drug-seeker with scar tissue instead of veins, or the ones who don’t understand what’s going on well enough to hold still for the procedure, such as older ladies with dementia, schizophrenics suffering a psychotic break, or a three-year-old who only knows that his tummy hurts and how can a needle help that, Mommy?
There were more than ten thousand patients seen in an emergency room with those symptoms that first night, filling the beds from Atlanta, Georgia to Chattanooga, Tennessee. During those encounters more than fifty healthcare workers suffered some form of accidental cut or scrape. Some were completely benign, such as a new nurse in Dalton, Georgia poking herself while uncapping a fresh needle. But most were not.
Another hundred or so nurses, doctors, aides, paramedics, and security guards suffered an injury while being attacked by a patient, like Buck. And still others had a different kind of exposure. Like Lisa…but that hadn’t happened yet.
Finally, Sandy and the bitch-lady from the plane weren’t the only ones to get sprayed by a bucketful of nasty, though that happened far less frequently than any other kind of exposure. Simply put, most healthcare workers were well-aware of where the outlets are. Keep them on their backs with their heads turned away, and your scrubs will stay clean throughout the day.
