A Glimpse Of Decay (Book 1): Red Storm) (11 page)

“Who is doing all that yelling?”

“It’s the woman’s husband, Doctor Massimov.”

“We can’t have any of that in here while we deal with this.  Have a guard take him over to the waiting area.”

“Yes doctor.”  The orderly turned and ran off to summon the guard from the storage room.

“What’s going on?” Roberts asked, now frustrated with the language barrier.  Unfortunately for him, he had been schooled in German and Spanish, not Kazakh or Russian.

“It’s just the woman’s husband.  We’ll have him moved to the waiting room.  Now, please follow me.”

As the group made their way into the examination room, a young nurse approached them, her voice shaking as she said, “She’s going into convulsions.”  She pointed back to the thrashing lady.  We’ve had to strap her down.”

As they entered the room, Irene’s mouth dropped.  The flailing woman had safety straps across her abdomen and her legs.  Her breasts had been exposed to allow the placement of the monitor pads and she was convulsing so badly that she was rolling the gurney back and forth on its wheels.  The gurney’s frame rattled in protest against the force being exerted against it and blood was splattering on the floor as it fell from her ravaged legs.  A physician was grabbing onto the gurney in an attempt to prevent it from falling over.

“My God, what’s happening to her?” Irene asked.

Roberts looked over at Massimov and said in an unconvincing tone, “Who knows, maybe it could be some form of undetectable rabies?”  Roberts wasn’t aware that the doctor who was struggling with the gurney, Pavlov, was fluent in English and that he had overheard them.

  A loud commotion erupted in the lobby and the three Americans stepped out into the hallway to see what was going on.  They were able to look out through a doorway that led to the reception area and they could see the guard and the distraught husband yelling and shouting at each other.

“I’m not going anywhere!” screamed the man.  He was speaking in his native tongue.

“You have no choice!” the guard bellowed.  “You either go peacefully or we remove you by force.”

“You’ll have to kill me first!  I want to see my wife, right—”

Without warning, the guard delivered a smashing butt stroke with his rifle to the husband’s jaw.  The man, caught by surprise, crumpled to the floor as the guard slung his weapon.  Quickly, he reached down and grabbed the dazed man by one of his ankles, dragging him out of Irene’s view.

Irene and Michael both looked at Roberts, their features contorted with revulsion.

“I guess they don’t mess around here,” Roberts said, chuckling.

“Damn, she’s flat lining!” yelled Pavlov.  He looked over at Massimov and the others, almost as if he was expecting some sort of assistance.  “She’s losing too much blood.  We’ve got to type her and get a line into her!”  He grabbed onto her arm and struggled to hold it down.  He then looked at the nurse and yelled, “Anna, get over here!”

The nurse timidly walked up to the doctor.  “Yes Doctor Pavlov, I’m here.”  She clutched an I.V. bag and drip line, and as she reached out for the whirling arm, the woman let out a deep, guttural belch and vomited a black oily sludge.  She twisted her head violently, spewing her stomach contents over Anna.  Massimov, Roberts and the others jumped back to avoid the vile spray.  The nurse stumbled away from the gurney, her face smeared with the black goo.  Some of the concoction had actually splashed into her mouth and eyes and she was frantically trying to wipe it off.  The stench of the vomit was overpowering and Michael began to gag on his own vomit.

“Holy shit!” Roberts exclaimed.  He covered his nose with his hand as he tried to block out the smell.

“Oh no, she’s been exposed,” Irene said to Michael as she nodded towards the nurse.

“I know.  Someone needs to tell the attending physician.”  Michael stepped forward and with an urgent tone, he said, “Doctor Massimov, the nurse needs to be isolated!  She has been exposed!”

Massimov stood dumbfounded as the unfolding events overwhelmed him.  He knew that Anna needed to be quarantined, but he found himself at a loss for words.

“He is right,” Mamani agreed.  “She needs to be secured and isolated.”

“What are you talking about?” Anna asked in a frightened tone.  She was frantically wiping away the vomit from her face with a small towel.

Realizing the danger now posed by Anna, Massimov said to the E.R. doctor, “Pavlov, we need to get this young woman isolated and restrained.  Immediately!”

The woman on the gurney let out one last sickening belch as the remaining oxygen escaped from her lungs.  With the final rancid breath leaving the bloodied body, the warning tone from the heart monitor began to sound off, announcing the woman’s death.  Her torso immediately went limp and her head fell to one side; the vomit still oozing from her mouth and nose with her eyes wide open.

“Get the crash cart over here!” Pavlov yelled at the attendants.  “We’ve got to intubate her right now!”  Pavlov turned to Massimov.  With an expression of disbelief on his face he asked, “What in the hell is going on out there?  Why in God’s name do we have to restrain Anna?  And what were you saying about super rabies?”  Pavlov turned to look at the frightened attendants.  “Get the defibrillator ready!”

The Emergency Room staff quickly surrounded the gurney as several of them began to perform CPR on the woman.  Mamani quickly put on some latex gloves and was desperately trying to stop some of the bleeding.  That’s when Anna bent over and started screaming out in pain as she clutched at her stomach.

“Quickly, get her on a gurney and restrain her!” Mamani yelled.  She grabbed one of the attendants by his shirt collar and shoved him in the direction of an empty gurney.  “Hurry!  She is showing signs of infection!”

The frightened attendant looked at her in disbelief.  Seeing that the attendant was petrified with fear, Roberts sprang into action and grabbed the gurney, pushing it right up to Anna.  He grabbed the stricken nurse by her shoulders and forcibly threw her on top of the gurney.  “Michael, get over here and help me!”

Hearing his call for help, Michael ran up to Roberts and the two strapped Anna down to the gurney.  She was writhing in pain and her cries turned into shrieks. 

“Take her to the back to Room Three and keep her isolated!” Mamani yelled at the scared attendant.  “Now!”

Without saying anything, the attendant hurriedly wheeled the screaming and yelling Anna away to another examination room.  He made sure to get lost in the back of the E.R., not wanting to be a part of whatever was going on up front.  A second male attendant nervously began to carefully scoop out the vomit from the woman’s mouth as he fed a breathing tube down her throat.  Suddenly, the dead woman began to convulse again.

“We got her back!” yelled the attendant.  “Wait…uh, wait.”  He was looking over at the monitor screen.  “Doctor Pavlov, we don’t have a pulse!”

“What?”  Pavlov went over to the monitor to check it.  He looked at the flat line and said, “This is impossible.”  The woman continued to thrash about in silence and the attendant who was attempting to intubate her quickly jumped back, pulling the tube out of her throat as he did.  It was at that moment when everyone standing around the gurney noticed the woman’s eyes.  They were clouded over in a milky white film.  A stunned silence fell over the room.  Shocked and perplexed at the same time, the attendant who was holding the tube stepped up closer to look at the woman.  He didn’t realize that his arm was right next to her mouth.

In an instant, the silence was quickly replaced by a scream as the dead woman sank her teeth down into the left forearm of the surprised attendant.

“Serik, get away from her!” Pavlov yelled at the attendant.

He pulled away from the woman, but flesh and muscle were torn from his arm as he shrieked.  Blood splattered down onto the white tile floor.

Michael pulled Irene away from the group as Pavlov rushed over to the injured man.  A large chunk of his anterior forearm was missing and blood was gushing out.  The woman chewed on the flesh and began to yank and pull at her bonds.  She started to scream unintelligibly and the gurney was rocking back and forth.  Her yells and shrieks sounded gravely, with the presence of fluid or phlegm gurgling in the back of the throat.  It was sickening and it was unnerving.

The wounded attendant jumped away from the gurney and clutched his savaged arm as he braced himself against the wall.  He began to yell and curse.

Irene drew her hands up to the sides of her head and she covered her ears, trembling in disbelief, and she cried out, “What’s going on!”  She looked over at the monitor and saw that a slight pulse was now showing up.  “How can she be doing this…just a few seconds ago she was dead, and now she’s come back!”

Michael sensed that Irene was losing it and he embraced her, lifting her off of her feet and turning her away from the spectacle.

“Wait a minute, look,” Roberts said as he pointed at the monitor.  “There’s a slight pulse.  She’s not dead.”

Massimov cautiously stepped up beside the gurney, but not close enough to where he could be attacked.  He looked down at the writhing, thrashing woman.  “Quickly, we need to make sure she can’t get out of her restraints and we need to get her up to the quarantine floor.”  The receptionist, terrified at what she had heard taking place, sheepishly walked into the examination room to see what all the yelling and screaming was about.

Pavlov pushed past Massimov and rushed over to Serik.  Roberts, following Pavlov, walked up behind them and looked down at the ghastly wound.  “We need to get this man secured,” he said.

Pavlov looked at Roberts and nodded.  After what had just happened, he knew that it was necessary to secure Serik. 

Mamani darted out into the hallway and yelled, “Guard, get over here and help us out!”

The guard had just finished “convincing” the dead woman’s husband to sit on the sidewalk outside of the hospital and was already on his way back towards the examination room when he heard Mamani calling for him.

“What the hell is all that nonsense in there?” the guard asked.

“Just hurry up!”  Mamani turned and trotted back to the group of doctors and wounded.  The guard followed with his rifle in his right hand.  As he saw the struggling woman, he stopped and pointed at her.

“What’s wrong with her?” the guard asked.

“Help us secure her wrists and ankles to the gurney,” Pavlov said.  Pavlov then turned to Serik and put his hand on the wounded man’s shoulder.  He saw that Serik had already packed and bandaged his own wound.  “We need to get you secured…just in case.”

“Secured?” Serik asked.  The pain was making him wince, and a burning sensation was making its way up his arm and into his neck.  “Shouldn’t you treat my wound and suture it up first?”

“Yes,” Pavlov sighed.  “We will take care of your injury, but first we must make sure you are secure.  We don’t know what we’re dealing with right now and you saw what happened with Anna and the dead woman.  We just can’t take any chances.  We’ll put you on another gurney and strap you down.  Okay?”

“If you say so,” Serik said, his tone uncertain.

Pavlov turned to the guard.  “We need another gurney in here.  There is one more in Examination Room Three.”

“But didn’t you want me to help you with the woman?”

“Just get the damned gurney!” Pavlov barked.

The angry outburst startled the guard and he sprinted over to Room Three.  He was even more startled when he saw Anna in the room, strapped down to her own gurney.  She was screaming and thrashing about.  Cautiously, and while eyeing Anna, the guard slung his rifle, grabbed the gurney and wheeled it back down to Room One.

“Okay Serik, just lay down and we’ll take care of you,” Pavlov gently said.  The screams of the reanimated woman were drowning out Pavlov’s words.

Serik, still clutching his arm, positioned himself against the gurney and he leaned back.  Pavlov and the guard helped Serik ease onto the hard plastic bed.  He placed his arms down by his sides and Pavlov secured the safety straps over his upper torso and thighs.  He then wheeled Serik down the hall and placed him into the room with Anna.

The guard, who was still gaping at the vomit covered woman, again asked, “What’s wrong with that woman?”

“Just help us get her hands and legs,” Mamani ordered.  

Roberts stood in silence as he watched Massimov, Mamani and the guard add more restraints to the screaming woman.  A smirk broke out across his face and Michael saw it.

“What the hell are you smiling at?” Michael asked.  

“The sons of bitches.  They actually did it!”

“They did what?” Irene asked in a choked up voice.  “What in the world are you talking about?”

“We never could get it right, could never get it to work out the way we wanted it, but I guess they did.  We knew it!  We knew they were onto something, but we didn’t know that they had actually done it!”  Roberts almost appeared to be talking to himself instead of answering Irene.  He had a trance-like expression in his eyes as he watched the Kazakhs work to further secure the woman.

“Are you fucking delusional?”  Michael stepped in front of Roberts.  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Roberts broke from his trance and looked into Michael’s eyes.  He looked around to make sure no one else could hear what he was saying.  “The Russians.  We knew that they were working on it too, and now it looks like they beat us to the punch.”