Contagious (17 page)

“Cassie stay with me. Stay with me.” Amita turned her head. “I’m going to intubate you. I need to get this to your lungs so you can breathe. Stay with us. Please.”

“Can you save her?” Ava asked.

Amita only made eye contact with Ava. She didn’t verbally answer, she only continued to work.

<><><><>

There was nothing Bianca wanted to do more than to help out in the ballroom, but she knew that her skills were as limited as everyone else’s. She did better holding Landon, giving him comfort and allowing him to cry in her arms.

She wanted to cry.

It was a tragedy. Bianca felt for every single person around her. Joel was lost. A man usually knowing how to take control couldn’t control or change the situation. Rayne looked like a beaten man. Calvin was distraught, after all it was his sister and Ava. Bianca didn’t know how she was dealing with it at all.

JJ paced back
and forth in front of her. He moved with an edge and so much anger. Bianca knew he was scared. He was just a kid. Not much older than Cassie.

“Are you sure” he said
, “you don’t want me to take the boy so you can go in there?”

“No, JJ. He needs comfort.”

“I can do that.”

“I need to do this,” Bianca said.

“Should I go in there?” he asked. “Who was that woman?”

“She was one of the CDC workers.”

“Can she help?” JJ asked.

“I hope so. Oh, God, I hope so.” Then Bianca received her answer on whether the woman doctor could do any good or could help the young girl.

Despite the fact that they were in the courtyard, the cries of agony and defeat from Calvin and Ava carried to Bianca.

The screams of ‘No’ rippled through the air and physically struck her.

Bianca felt them.

She closed her eyes, clutched tighter to Landon, because she knew.

The young girl, Cassie, was gone.

<><><><>

“Three hundred and eighty-seven cases now confirmed in New York,” The Secretary of Health followed the President around the Oval office. The President rushed about grabbing papers. “Ninety in Atlanta. Two in Chicago. A new case just popped up in Las Vegas.”

“I’ll make the executive order once we are in the air.” The president said. “I’ll address the nation only after we land. Is the First Lady ready?”

“Ready to board, waiting on you. We’ll move you to the safe location.”

“Sir,’ An aide to the President came in the room. “There’s something you need to see.” He set a laptop on the desk.

The Secretary of Health balked. “Son, are you insane? We’re mobilizing the president.”

“Yes, well he’ll be asked about this.” The aide clicked on the laptop. “This was uploaded just a few minutes ago. Already has a million hits. This isn’t good.”

The president stood before the laptop as did the Secretary.

An image of JJ Wylde was on there. JJ was disheveled and apparently did a self-recording.

The aide clicked ‘play’.

“Is this what we have come to?” An emotional JJ rambled into the camera. ‘This isn’t fun. This isn’t games. This is real shit. You see this?” The image switched to a woman and a teenage boy crying. Then it zoomed to the bloody lifeless arm. “They keep us here because of some stupid virus. No one tells us anything. No one comes in. They shot her. Why’d they shoot her? She was sixteen years old. Sixteen. She was only scared. Scared. This didn’t have to happen. They killed her. No one cared. No one stopped. They shot my friend, Rayne too. Someone get us out of here. Mom, I want to come home. Because I’m scared, too. I’m really scared!”

The footage stopped. The aide turned. “One point five million.

“What the hell?” the Secretary of Health exclaimed.  “Did our people lose control of that site?”

The President ran his hand over his mouth and groaned. “In less than twenty-four hours this country is going to go chaotic. This isn’t going to help. Get that footage taken down and then get that camera off that kid so he doesn’t do this again. Take that camera.” The President said. “It’s in the national interest... so do it at any cost.”

<><><><>

Things weren’t even calm. Emotions weren’t even in check. The only person that had it slightly together was little Landon and that was because he passed out in Bianca’s arms.

JJ watched. Envying the small child. At nineteen years old he realized he wasn’t as grown up as he had believed. All he wanted was his family and his mom.

He was just sitting there when two armed soldiers in gas masks stormed through the front doors.

“JJ Wylde!” they called out.

JJ stood.

Bianca, in protective mode, stood up and blocked them. “What’s going on?”

“He has a phone. We have direct orders to retrieve it.”

“He doesn’t have a phone,” Bianca said.

They moved right by her.

“Phone.” The one soldier held his rifle on JJ.

“I … I … don’t have one.”

“Phone!” He said stronger, his words muffled through the mask. “Turn it over now.”

The other soldier shifted the chamber of his weapon.

JJ held out his hand. “Look. I don’t …” he stopped and then he coughed.

Silence.

JJ coughed again, this time it was violent and his whole body jolted. He moved to the soldiers as he coughed. “I think I’m sick. Can you…”

The soldier backed up. “Stay back.”

JJ moved to him, coughing. “Can you get me a doctor. I really think …” he coughed again.

For as fast as they stormed in, that was how fast the two soldiers high tailed it out of the lobby.

JJ supposed the risk of infection was far more important to them than his phone.

He sighed out once they left the building.

Bianca approached him. “Are you okay?”

JJ nodded. “I’m fine. Just fine
,” he said. “They are not getting my phone.”

<><><><>

“Randall,” Amita stood outside the mobile lab, staring up at the camera. “You have to let me in.”

The doors were locked. Amita tried but couldn’t get inside.

“No,” He replied through the speaker. “I don’t. Once I leave, you can come into this lab only. But you cannot touch anything that will be passed to another. You hear? You will eat and sleep at that hotel. Work only in lab one.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?” Randall asked. “You have a job. Going in there was not it. You not only put yourself at risk, but those remaining on this project. All of it is at risk.”

Amita replied. “I know. But the teenager was hurt.”

“It wasn’t your call to make. You were not to leave this lab.”

“I couldn’t sit by and watch and do nothing.”

“Yes, yes, you could. This isn’t your field of specialty.”

“I was a doctor first.”

“And she still died.” Randall stated.

Amita felt his words. She tried, she really did. But the child was already fatally injured.

“She died. There wasn’t a chance in hell in saving her, yet you still put yourself at risk. Was it worth it, doctor? Was it … worth it?”

Amita knew her answer without hesitation. She looked up to the camera. “It was the compassionate and humane thing to do. That is who I am. That is what I have to answer for, when I leave this earth. Was it worth it? I believe I did the right thing
,” Amita said. “So yes it was.”

“Well we’ll see if you feel the same way when you are dying before you see your son again. 
His words were harsh, cruel and angry. Amita sighed out, turned from the camera and sat on the step of the lab. She wouldn’t second guess her decision. She couldn’t. The only thing she’d second guess was why it took her so long to help in the first place. Despite the risk, no matter what the outcome, Amita wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she didn’t step up to the plate.

“Mom.” Ava squeaked out the name as she clutched tightly to JJ’s phone. She wiped the tears that fell fast and furiously down her cheek. “Mom, Cassie died.”

She hadn’t spoken to her mother in days. She hadn’t told her about the quarantine because she didn’t want to worry her unnecessarily. But she had to call her, she had to, like JJ, speak to her mother.

The brief rumored news flashed across the screen that the President was moved to a secure location after rumors of outbreaks in other cities. One of them being Las Vegas where her mother lived.

The call was short, Ava was too emotional.

She told her mother that she loved her and tried not to convey the fears she felt building in her.

Ava knew or rather felt, that Cassie’s death was the beginning of the end.

She hadn’t gotten in touch with Darren at all. She couldn’t leave a voice mail stating, “Your daughter was shot’. She needed him to call. Chasing him down was not on her list of priorities. His children should have been topping his list of priorities. Darren should have been calling day in and day out.

Ava was too sad and drawn to deal with it. She had to comfort Landon and more so poor Calvin. He hadn’t moved from his sister’s body. Of course, no one knew what would be done with the body.

Joel said to wait and that maybe someone would come for her.

It was falling apart.

For as fast as they swept them away that was how fast it was crumbling. Just as fast as the world outside the hotel seemed to fall.

The stock exchange crashed.

News reported that many areas were without power or water because essential service workers didn’t feel that it was essential enough to show up to work.

Even the Ambassador quarantine was dwindling. There were less workers and less soldiers. No one came in and it had only been two days.

Soon enough, with outbreaks scattered here and there, the quarantine would be deemed obsolete.

At that point Ava and the kids would probably be able to slip out. But was that responsible? Go where? Home to die? To possibly infect those in her neighborhood that weren’t anywhere near the virus?

Ava was certain she had it.

Eighty percent caught it.

She didn’t have the luck not to.

After one more attempt to call Darren, Ava returned the phone to JJ. She thanked him and left to find her sons.

She needed to be around them. After Cassie’s death, she realized every moment was precious. With the looming virus, Ava didn’t want to waste any more seconds than she needed to away from the kids.

<><><><>

JJ felt helpless.

With all that was going on, he sought out his missing bodyguard, who he pretty much thought was hiding out in the hotel somewhere trying to be safe. Shep was a war veteran and had told stories about how he tried to save a brother in arms and failed. JJ figured the best person to talk to Rayne would be Shep. But Shep was nowhere to be found. A sickening feeling hit his gut when he realized, somehow, someway, during the initial quarantine, Shep had taken off.

He grabbed hold of the CDC lady, Amita and told her. She stared at him and then merely said, ‘It figures’.

“What does that mean?” JJ asked. “Why would you say that?”

She didn’t answer, she walked away.

The entire feeling in the hotel had changed. Not that the demeanor was ever good, but it grew quiet.

JJ believed, like everyone else, that the virus wasn’t going to touch them. It was just precaution, but in the aftermath of Cassie’s death, the virus was the least of the things he feared.

His mother sent him a text as soon as she saw his video upload. Which of course was taken down right away. He then called her. He didn’t want to, because he knew they probably were tracing his phone and the first call to his mother would link his phone and off it would go.

JJ was right. Barely did he get out that he missed her and he was sorry for any wrong that he did, and that he wasn’t sick yet, when the phone died.

No more communication.

It was his last phone.

JJ felt horrible. He shouldn’t have done it.  Ava had been counting on him, she used his phone to try to get a hold of Cassie’s dad. Now he’d never be able to get back to her. He wouldn’t know, unless he saw the video, that his daughter had been killed.

Unnecessarily shot and killed.

No one moved about the hotel. No one was in the courtyard. The manager and the security guy, Walter were the only ones. It seemed as if they walked a beat.

The entourage of people he had brought with him, dancers, hair dresser, costume designers, all of
a sudden acted as if they didn’t know him. They stayed in their rooms on the top floor of the hotel and when JJ went to see them, no one answered the door.

It was funny because a week earlier he was God to them. Now he was nothing more than a messenger of death. He had been close to the woman that died.

‘Stay away’ one person said. ‘Just stay away.’

He wanted to grab his guitar and play, just strum something, but a part of him felt that everyone would get angry and think it was inappropriate to be playing music.

JJ would be the first to admit, after seeing what happened with Cassie, and after witnessing how everyone tried to  help her, he had let his emotions get the best of him.

He didn’t know her well, but her death affected him. How could it not? She was close to his age? She was just scared.

JJ hadn’t been in the ballroom since they pronounced her dead. It was as if it were sacred territory for the family only. That’s what he thought until he sought out Bianca.

“I need to do something,” JJ said. “Can I help anywhere?”

“As a matter of fact  ..,” Bianca said. “Can you check on Rayne? He’s not come out of the ballroom and I’m worried about him.”

“Is he hurt that bad?”

“He was shot, but that isn’t what I’m concerned about. I asked him if he needed anything and he just shook his head.”

“I’ll go see him.” JJ turned. “Bianca, will Ava get mad if I walk in there?”

“No,” Bianca said sadly. “I know it will feel awkward, but just when you walk in there, don’t pretend they aren’t there.”

JJ agreed even though he didn’t quite understand what Bianca meant.

Until he walked into the ballroom.

There were so many cots set up in the large room, all of them empty but one. Cassie was still on that cot. It was in the center of the room. Blood was all over the floor and her body was covered with a sheet. Next to her was Calvin. He sat in a chair, his hand resting on her body, while his head was lowered.

Twenty or so feet from him, near the door, was Ava. She held Landon on her lap. He was sleeping, probably worn out from the emotions. Ava just stroked his head, cradled her child and stared with a traumatic look at Calvin.

It was then JJ realized what Bianca meant. She didn’t want him to walk in that room and ignore them but JJ didn’t know what to say.

Simply he conveyed a compassionate and sorry look to Ava as he passed her and when Calvin briefly raised his eyes, JJ nodded in respect.

His
mission was Rayne and the reason for Bianca’s request was evident when JJ saw him. All the way on the other side of the room, Rayne sat on a chair with his elbows on his knees as he stared down at his hands. His face was hidden beneath his hair and the clothes he wore were still stained with blood.

To JJ, Rayne looked like he carried the weight of the world on his back. The closer JJ walked, he saw the jaw muscle on Rayne’s face twitching steadily like a metronome. His eyes puffy, lips enlarged and pouty.

JJ pulled up a chair. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Rayne replied without looking.

“Should you be sitting up? You were shot,” JJ said.

“I’m fine.”

“No, see, I kind of know that’s not true.”

Rayne sniffed and it was sluggish and loud.

“You sick?” JJ asked.

“You gonna run if I tell you that I am.”

“No.” JJ shook his head. “We’re all breathing the same air. Sick now, sick later. Get it over with is the way I feel.”

“I’m not sick.”

“Whew. Good.” JJ exhaled. “I just don’t want that on top of everything else.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean … you were beat up, shot, and now … now I don’t know what to say, but a part of me thinks you need to talk.”

Finally, Rayne turned his head and looked at JJ.  “I appreciate the concern, but … I’m ok.”

“No, you’re not. I look at you and I feel really sorry for you, dude.”

“Don’t feel sorry for me. Feel sorry for that family.”

“Oh, I do. Don’t get me wrong. I feel sorry for them. But I feel sorry for you too. You’re hurting. Why are you sitting here?”

Rayne exhaled. “I wanted to be here in case they had questions. If they wanted to ask me what she said before she became unconscious.”

“Did she?”

Rayne nodded. “Yeah, she did. She said … she said … she was sorry.” He brought his hand up to his beard and ran his fingers down the corner of his mouth as his voice cracked. “She was shot up and said she was sorry.”

“Did you tell her mom that?”

“Not yet. I’ll wait; I don’t want to bother them. I think hearing that her last words were that she was sorry would hurt. I told her there was nothing to be sorry for.” His mouth twitched from side to side. “I can’t process this. I can’t. I feel guilty for even feeling sad because I barely knew her. Almost as if my sadness takes away from theirs.”

“There is no ownership on grief, dude.”

Rayne’s head cocked up and he sat back. “That’s profound.”

“I can be profound. Some of my songs are very deep.”

“I know.” Rayne rubbed his hands together. “The meaning is just hidden behind teen induced sound.”

“Yeah, it sucks, don’t it? Not the way I hear them in my head when I write them.”

“Your song, Rise to the Occasion, is amazing. The words …
”  Rayne dropped his voice, quoting the song. “Nothing is too big on the measure of life’s scale, if I rise to the occasion I cannot fail.”

“Whoa, you just quoted my song at a really deep moment in your life.”

“It’s a great song. I wanted it as my wrestling theme song, but it’s so damn poppy.”

“Change it
,” JJ said. “When this thing is done. It’s yours. In fact, I’d ... I’d be honored if you let me write you a song.”

“Why would you do that?” Rayne asked.

“Because you’re an amazing man, my friend, and there is so much to be learned from you.”

“You are nothing like you project.”

JJ shook his head. “Girls love a bad boy but … everyone loves a hero. That’s you.”

Rayne let out a sarcastic laugh. “I’m not a hero.”

“Know what my definition of a hero is?” JJ asked. “It’s someone that goes out on a limb or does something without thinking of their own well-being. They put the interest of others in front of themselves. That’s you. That’s what I saw. Now, are you sitting here feeling bad because Cassie died or because you think you failed?”

“Both.”

“That’s fine.”

“I need your permission?” Rayne asked.

“I kind of think you do. I think you need someone to say it’s all right to feel bad all the way around. It’s all right, Rayne. Nothing you’re feeling is wrong or out of place.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” JJ reached out and laid his hand on Rayne’s arm. “You didn’t fail. You need to know that. When this family comprehends what happened, they’ll tell you the same thing.” JJ stood. “Do you need anything before I go and bother someone else?”

“No, I’m fine.”

JJ turned to leave.

“JJ.” Rayne called him.

JJ stopped. “Yeah?”

“Thank you. I mean it. Thank you.”

JJ gave a closed mouth smile to Rayne. He wished he could do more. But he couldn’t. He’d move on and find something else to do. He had to keep busy, because if he didn’t, he was afraid he would just fold.

<><><><>

It has been confirmed, the President has been moved to an isolated area.

The
FAA has suspended all air travel as a precautionary measure.

… Rumors are rampant that when the President addresses the nation, he will instill martial law.

.. Still no word on the actual number of infected in Europe, some reports put it as high as ten thousand …

There was nothing positive on the news. Not even the weather, which was something the world seemed to forget about. Unseasonably cold or hot weren’t a passing thought. To Joel it shouldn’t have been that way. All weather conditions were vital, because if the power went down, if things got bad, they had to know all the variables of what they were dealing with. Everything was important when it came to survival.