Hour 23 (22 page)
“We’ve got four coming up,” a male nurse announced from far off in the dimly lit hallway. “Two adults: one male, one female; two adolescents: one male, one female.”
As the nurse made the announcement, he breezed quickly by Sherri’s desk. A stack of paperwork she was filling out fluttered as he passed.
“Alive?” Sherri asked.
The nurse scoffed and continued to hustle towards an elevator at the end of the hall.
“Hey, Rolland. Are they dead or alive?”
The male nurse turned towards Sherri as the elevator dinged open behind him. “The word ‘alive’ has become fairly subjective today, wouldn’t you say?”
Sherri winced, not amused by Rolland’s morbid sense of humor. Sensing her annoyance, the young male nurse clapped his hands together and clarified. “Alive, Sherri. In the broadest definition of the word. Suit up, they’re waiting in the lobby.”
Several nurses assembled near the elevator alongside Sherri. “We shouldn’t be taking new patients, we should be getting ready for evac,” one said.
Sherri stood in the corner of the elevator, uncomfortably shoved up against Rolland. As far as Sherri was concerned, Rolland was young, arrogant, and a show off. She had been thankful for how little their paths had crossed over the past forty-eight hours.
“Try not to look so serious, Sherri,” Rolland said with a wide grin. “It’s only a deranged, flesh eating virus that turns its victims into walking corpses. Lighten up a bit.”
Sherri kept her cool, deciding it would be better to keep her lips sealed with a polite smile than point out Rolland’s lack of tactfulness. She had worked in her profession long enough to understand why some men found gallows humor so appealing—it was better to laugh and shrug at that which truly terrified them than to risk losing even an iota of machismo in the eyes of their peers.
The elevator arrived at the twelfth floor and the nurses inside flooded out into the creep ward. When Sherri first put on a hazmat suit at the start of the outbreak, it felt strange and foreign. Now, it was almost like second nature. In a matter of moments she was outfitted in the protective suit, breathing apparatus and all. When the last piece of duct tape had sealed her in tightly, she returned to the elevator.
Sherri hoped to be the first, and only, nurse to get back on the elevator. The others were still only half dressed. Except for Rolland.
Rolland jammed his hand between the closing doors of the elevator, causing them to fully reopen. Sherri reluctantly stepped aside, giving him the room needed to board the elevator.
“Don’t worry, I won’t fart,” Rolland said with a chuckle. “Besides, even if I do,” he continued, pointing at the breathing apparatus deep inside his helmet, “I’ll be the only one who can smell it, right?”
Sherri grumbled, and the elevator began to descend.
“Come on, Sherri. That was funny.”
“Are you sure you’ve had enough rest today?” Sherri said.
Rolland seemed aggravated by his inability to make Sherri laugh. He took a deep breath. “But seriously,” Rolland said, after a long silence. “Don’t these things make you feel like Darth Vader?”
The elevator reached the lobby. When the doors opened, a nurse was already waiting outside with a gurney.
Nolan, Chloe, and Dana all looked shocked by the aliens that had stepped foot off of the elevator to take care of Jim. They were even more shocked when the short, slim one appeared to recognize their father.
“Jim, oh my God. What happened?” Sherri asked, her panicked breathing fogging the visor in front of her face.
“You know how it is,” Jim said, helping himself onto the stretcher. “The world ends, planes start falling from the sky…you decide it’s a good time to brush up on your boxing.”
Sherri giggled. Rolland sneered at their exchange.
“Jim,” she said, helping the battered man swing his legs over the stretcher. “You look like hell.”
“I got my ass kicked, Sherri,” Jim said with a grunt.
Rolland and Sherri wheeled Jim towards the elevator. Chloe, Nolan, and Dana followed closely behind.
“Your wife and kids?” Sherri asked.
“No,” Jim quickly replied. “Well, the girl is, Chloe.”
“Your dad’s in good hands, Chloe,” Sherri said.
Chloe was hysterical.
Jim said, “I know what’s waiting upstairs and I don’t want them anywhere near it.”
“No way,” Sherri said, smiling at the trio following close behind. “There’s a room upstairs—
beneath
creep ward—that they’re more than welcome to.”
The elevator doors closed. The boxy enclosure ascended slowly with creaks and screeches.
“Nolan, you look white,” Jim said, glancing at where the boy stood in the corner of the elevator.
“I hate hospitals, and I hate blood,” Nolan mumbled.
The elevator came to a halt and the doors slid open. “You three take a right down this hall. At the very end you’ll see a door, it says Dr. Merrill,” Sherri said. The three followed her every word. “Whatever you do, don’t go in that door. Go one over to the right of it, room 1145. There’s a couch and some vending machines. The TV comes in and out.”
Dana, Chloe, and Nolan nodded. Dana put one arm over Chloe and the other over Nolan, then walked them in the direction that Sherri told them to go.
“So, you two know each other?” Rolland asked after the elevator doors shut. He slid a key into the numbered panel so that the car would lift to the infamous twelfth floor.
“Not exactly,” Sherri said, grinning. “Just a couple of ships passing in the night, huh Jim?”
“Something like that, I suppose,” Jim said. “God, I never would have believed I’d be back here right now.”
Sherri’s smile slowly faded.
“Sherri,” Jim said, looking at Rolland and then back to her. “When we get—you know, up there—can I talk to you for a minute? Just the two of us?” Jim looked worried.
Rolland rolled his eyes. Sherri seemed surprised by Jim’s request.
“Of course, Jim,” Sherri said.
When the doors opened to creep ward, Rolland stepped out first, pulling the stretcher behind him.
At first, Jim tried to close his eyes, not wanting to revisit the horrors from his last visit. Unable to resist a morbid curiosity, he watched the creep ward nursery as he wheeled by.
“Where did they all go?” Jim stammered.
Sherri nodded. “They’re dying, Jim. In less than a day they die. Truly die. After twenty-three hours, to be exact.”
Jim gulped and looked at his watch.
After a short trip, Jim was back in the same room he was in just the morning before. Jim looked at Rolland, then Sherri, and back to Rolland again.
“I nearly forgot,” Rolland said, stepping back out of the room. “Excuse me.”
Sherri dragged a rolling office chair close to Jim’s bedside, then sat beside him.
“What happened out there, Jim?”
Jim sighed. “Where’s Dr. Merrill?”
“Preparing for the evacuation. I can get him for you, if you want.”
Jim looked nervously at the ceiling. “That’s not necessary.”
“Jim,” Sherri repeated gently. “What happened?”
After a moment of wondering what to say, Jim peeled back the collar of his shirt. Sherri turned slightly in her chair to see Jim’s wound. Purple flesh, swollen and bruised, in the middle of what was unmistakably a bite mark.
“Oh, Jim. God.” Sherri crossed her arms and could feel her eyes begin to sting. “When, Jim?”
“A little over half an hour ago.”
Sherri cocked her head in confusion. “Half of an hour ago?”
“Yeah.”
Sherri spun in her chair, perplexed, and pulled herself close so she could get a better look. Whoever had bit Jim, their teeth had broken through the skin—there was no denying it.
“That’s impossible.” Sherri spoke so lowly that Jim could barely make out what she was saying.
“What do I do now?” Jim asked, his words wrought with desperation.
Sherri stood up suddenly and pulled Jim’s shirt down, covering
the wound. “Who knows about this?”
“No one else. Everything happened so fast. I woke up in the backseat of my truck while they drove me to the hospital. They loaded me in without ever realizing it happened.”
“Hold on,” Sherri said, and she looked around the room. “We’re going to run the blood panel on you—no,
I’m
going to run the blood panel on you.”
Sherri grabbed a small plastic vessel and held it in front of Jim’s face. “Spit in this,” she said.
Jim sighed. “What?”
“Just do it. Spit in it.”
Jim spit into the plastic bottle then wiped his face. Sherri sealed the container, then grabbed a vial and syringe from a drawer.
“Let me warn you, I’m not a phlebotomist. I might miss a few times. Especially with these gloves.” Sherri made a pumping motion with her fist. “Do this.”
Jim mimicked Sherri’s motions, then extended his arm. Sherri pressed the needle against Jim’s arm, miraculously hitting a vein on her first try. She filled the vial, removed the syringe, then quickly bandaged Jim’s inner elbow.
“How are you feeling?” Sherri said.
“A little light headed.”
“That’s fine. What was the name of your first grade teacher?”
Jim raised his eyebrows. “I don’t remember, why?”
“Okay, how about your fifth grade teacher?”
“I don’t remember that one, either.”
“Fine, Jim, just think of a teacher you had in grade school. Tell me the name of the first one that springs to mind.”
“Sure,” Jim said, closing his eyes. In seventh grade he had a young math teacher, straight out of grad school. She had fiery red hair and the measurements of a model. Her name was Miss Curtis…Maxine Curtis, if Jim remembered correctly.
“Okay,” Jim said. “Maxine Curtis.”
Sherri chuckled. “Mhm, that was my mistake for not asking for a male teacher’s name, but I can work with that.” Sherri picked up a black marker and scribbled something onto the vial of blood and container of spit. “I’m going to drop off Max Curtis’s blood work and saliva sample. I’ll be right back.”
Sherri vanished from the room, her containers in hand. Jim waited patiently on his stretcher, examining the dimly-lit room around him. In no time at all, Sherri returned.
“What was that all about?” Jim asked.
“My lab guy is going to run your samples. We all act like we know what the hell we’re doing, but I’ll let you in on a little secret—it’s just a simple rabies test.”
Jim looked confused.
“Well, no rabies test is simple—especially on humans. Living humans. But its all we’ve had to work with. Every patient who came through these doors wanting to eat everyone in sight…they all had one thing in common. They all tested positive for rabies.”
“So this is all…because of rabies?”
“No,” Sherri said, finding it difficult to explain. “They don’t actually have rabies. They just test positive for it.”
Jim didn’t seem to understand any better. “Why did you lie about my name?”
Sherri stuttered, trying not to cry. Again, finding the right words were difficult. “Jim, if you’re positive, you’re positive. There’s nothing we can do about it. That’s the cold, hard reality of it all. But if you’re positive, they’re going to keep you up here, and you’ll never be in the same room as your daughter again. Those that are infected and die get boxed up so they can ship out with WHO.”
“Who?”
“World Health Organization. Literally shipped out, like a package. I’ve watched it all morning. No one has left yet, obviously, but once the dust settles that’s what will happen next. There’s maybe a dozen or so in the basement wrapped and waiting. They’ll be poked, prodded, and dissected. And then cremated. And from the rumors I’ve heard, their families won’t even be allowed to keep the ashes.”
“Jesus,” Jim muttered.
“So if you test positive—and you’ve made it this long—I’m going to send you right back out the front doors of this hospital. You do or say whatever it is you need to do or say with those three that came in with you, and you let them decide what to do next. That’s your choice, and your choice alone.”
Jim began to stare a hole into the ceiling tile above him.
Sherri said, “All things considered, I’ve had it easy up here. I’ve gone through hell but I haven’t had to explain my patients to anyone. And I’m sure as hell not ready to start now. I’m not going to be the one to tell that beautiful blonde daughter of yours that her father has been sealed away.”
“So if Max Curtis tests positive for rabies…?”
“Then I wheel Jim Whiteman out of that front door as fast and discreetly as humanly possible.”
Jim nodded and the two sat in silence for a while. When some time had passed, Sherri put her gloved hand on Jim’s.
“How long before I’ll know?”
“No sooner than an hour.”
“Then you shouldn’t be here with me,” Jim scoffed. “I feel like fucking Dr. Jekyll…like at any moment I’ll transform into some monster.”