War of the Undead (Day One): The Apocalypse Crusade (A Zombie Tale) (11 page)

It was one of the nurses, though it was hard to tell which one as she was all got up in blue suit of her own. She pulled one of the men into the hall and he in turn pulled another of the three into the hall. When they returned their smiles were as plastic as their suits.

“What’s wrong?” John asked.

“Probably nothing to worry about,” one of the blue-garbed men said. John immediately pulled the tube from his mouth and refused to put it back in.

“I’ll be lettin’ you know when I should worry,” John told them. “Y’all jes tell me what’s goin’ on.”

The three exchanged looks, not an easy thing to do when all they had were little card-sized windows to look through. Finally, the lady in charge said, “The prisoners are complaining about headaches. It’s probably a mild reaction to the Com-cells. You have to remember this is an experimental procedure. There are bound to be side effects.”

“What if it’s more than that?” John asked. “Y’all said it was toxins and such.”

“Fusarium toxicity presents as oral lesions and stomach ulcers,” the lady explained. “Not headaches. It’s also only extremely harmful when you’re exposed over a long term and even then it’s practically unheard of in someone whose immune system is still intact.”

One of the other plastic garbed men thrust his entire torso forward and practically yelled. “Whatever it does it’s going to be better than cancer. Also we have antifungal medications ready just in case. It’s your best bet, my friend.”

John didn’t have friends; Amy Lynn had been the last person he could’ve called a friend. Still, the man was earnest and John was without options. He took the inhaler and sucked in the unnatural concoction.

The phone on the bedside rang, a shrill rooster that jarred Chuck from a coma-like sleep. It took a second ring for him to actually move his arm and open his mouth. “Yeah?” he asked.

“Is this Chuck Singleton?” The voice was tinny as a soup can.

“Depends on what y’all’s selling.” He was so slow in the head just then that he forgot that he’d paid for the room in cash and had signed the registry
John Smith
as a joke. No one should’ve known he was there.

“I’m not selling anything. This is Jack Cable, I work at R &K at the front desk and I…”

“Holy shit,” Chuck said, realizing what time it was. Next to him, Stephanie was staring in horror at the clock while in his ear John was going on about how late they were for the Com-cell study. “Are we too late?” Chuck demanded, his mind solely focused on Stephanie. He would never forgive himself if he was the reason she missed her chance at life.

“I don’t think so,” Jack said, “but Dr. Lee is pissed. You better get in here as fast as you can.”

“Tell them we’re on our way, thanks.” Chuck hung up the phone and then scratched sleep out of his eyes, still trying to come to grips with his sudden reentry into consciousness. “How the hell did I sleep so damn long?” He looked at Steph and smiled in spite of the desire to rush out of there. “It was you what done it.”

“Me? It was you who…” A cough interrupted her and she went on long enough for Chuck to know they didn’t have time for any more jawing. He waited patiently as she went pink and then red.

“Lay down,” Chuck said, sitting her on the bed and then leaning her back. She went into the fetal position and it was five minutes before she could breathe properly. He brushed her hair back and said, “I need to get you to that cure before you spit up a lung. Is it safe to try?”

She didn’t trust herself to talk, or even to move much; she nodded slowly. With quick hands, as if he was roping a calf, he put her sneakers on for her and then laced them up. He was even tempted to carry her, however his own cough had sprung up and he had to settle on letting her lean on him until they got to the car.

“Thank you,” she said, and grabbed his hand just as he was getting ready to hurry to his side of the car. She pulled him close and jutted her chin as far up as it would go. He kissed her. There was no way he was going to trust his breath that early in the morning and so the kiss was all lip. Still it was soft and warm and he knew that if he somehow lived to a hundred he would remember the feel of it to the day he died.

“Thank you again,” she said when their lips parted.

He grinned. “Twern’t nothing, ma’am,” he said, laying the accent on thick. She smiled and climbed in. He was in his side a second later, feeling light in the head and fighting his cough. It would pass in good time, he knew. “Let’s see what this rice-burner can do.”

The Toyota was plenty fast, too fast, in fact. He was doing eighty when he saw the flashing red and blue lights in his mirror. “Can you act pregnant?” he asked Stephanie.

She puffed up her belly, held the pose for only a second and again began to cough. “About as well as you, I’m afraid. I’m practically worthless without my medicine.”

He was as well and was a little ashamed to admit that in the last month he’d become hooked on hydrocodone. Without his pills his coughing would become so bad that he couldn’t walk a block without going into a fit. Being near Stephanie helped, he was so focused on her that he barely felt anything when she was around.

They had lapsed into a silence when the State trooper finally got out of his cruiser. “Here he comes,” Chuck said, fishing out his license and getting the rental paperwork. After the usual boilerplate questions concerning how fast he’d been going, Chuck explained that they were in the middle of an emergency. “We have to get to the hospital. We’re late for an experimental procedure to cure cancer.”

He had done his best to speak “Yankee” to show how serious he was and still the trooper smirked and said, “Right. Good one,” before heading back to his car.

“You’re one smooth talker,” Stephanie said.

“I think ma-only chance is if you show some cleavage. Come on, let out the ladies.”

She blushed and grabbed her shirt with both hands as if the buttons were going to undo themselves at his command. “How would that help? He’s got your license already. By the time he comes back it’ll be with a ticket.”

“I said it was
my
only chance. I’m starting to fade and I need to be revitalized.”

On a whim, she flashed him and when his eyes went comically big she began another coughing fit that lasted until the state trooper got back. “You ok, ma’am? Because you’re, uh…exposed.” She hadn’t been able to control herself long enough to button shirt.

The labs were quiet. The eighteen scientists were working diligently on the fresh round of blood work. It was a somber atmosphere with everyone keeping their noses pinned to their microscopes or glued to computer printouts. Only Dr. Milner stood out in that he walked around with a smug
I told you so
look on his face.

The phone rang next to Thuy’s elbow. She was afraid to take the call, especially in front of the entire lab. Every time the phone rang, everyone would look up and stare through the glass walls. Work was progressing slowly since the nurses on the second floor were calling every five minutes or so with new problems. The headaches were now universal among the patients and worse, they had progressed to migraines. Thuy had sent the staff physician down to begin medicating the patients, first with Tylenol, and then when the migraines had begun they had ratcheted up the drugs but so far they seemed always a step behind. The latest problem the medical staff was facing was a paranoid-fueled aggression that was bizarre in such a frail population.

“It’s Rothchild,” Riggs said, holding out the phone to Dr. Lee.

After a deep breath, Thuy spoke with as much confidence as she could muster: “Hello Dr. Rothchild, how is Gabriele?” His daughter was still in the "Big House" being treated separately. Her personal doctor had come to pick up the first of her treatments just after seven. He’d been officious and dreadfully pompous, but, as he was the best physician money could buy, his attitude was pretty much expected.

“The good news is her O2 saturation rate has been steadily climbing. The bad news is that she’s got a migraine, a pretty bad one,” Edmund answered. He sounded tired and older than ever. “She’s starting to become very agitated.”

“Yes, it’s what we’re seeing with the other patients. We’re prescribing
Relpax
for the migraine, with limited results. I’ve sent Dr. Lorry down to see what we should do about the aggression.”

“Keep me posted,” Edmund mumbled into the phone and then hung up.

“Same symptoms with his daughter?” Riggs asked. Thuy could only nod, feeling the sensation of impending doom hang over her head. If things got much worse she would be stuck using the
amphotericin, an anti-fungal medication that would essentially destroy her trial.

Just then the phone rang again and she flinched. Riggs picked it up, listened for a second and said, “No, send them up here. Thanks.” He set the phone down and said to Thuy. “The two love birds just showed up. I figured you wanted them up here.”

“Sure, I guess.” Thuy didn’t know what to do with Chuck and Stephanie, and considered sending them back to whatever motel they had been shacking up in. Until they got a handle on what was happening she wouldn’t be giving anyone any more treatments.

“It’s early yet,” Riggs told her, seeing the incipient despair in her eyes. “A migraine is a small price to pay for a cure for cancer. No, don’t give me that look. The migraines are a setback, but look at the lung function, for goodness sakes! Except for that one patient, O2 sats are up across the board. That means the cure is working, and faster than anyone thought possible! Cheer up, Thuy. You can’t let something small…”

The phone rang again and Thuy slumped. Riggs ran a hand through his sandy hair before answering. “Riggs,” he said. “No, she’s busy. What do you…Yeah? I’ll—I’ll tell her.”

“What now?” Thuy asked.

“One of the nurses was attacked.”

“By the prisoners?”

Riggs would have thought so, too. “No, it was one of the other patients, Mrs. Applewhite. Supposedly she just went crazy and bit Irene. They had to restrain her, which is nuts. She’s like ninety pounds.”

Thuy had memorized the particulars of every one of her patients—Sandra Applewhite; 54 years-old, married, mother of two; Five foot even; weighed in at ninety two pounds the day before. Four bouts of chemo had left her amazingly frail. “It’s not nuts,” Thuy said, hopping up. “So far the symptoms have been progressing based on when the patient received his or her treatment. It stands to reason that soon or later individual metabolisms and body structure will take over.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Riggs said, following after her. He stopped when he saw she was heading for the elevators. “Whoa, where are you going? Down there? Weren’t you the one who said scientists belong in the lab?”

“I did.” She hit the button and somewhere behind the walls the machinery whirred into life. “And weren’t you the one who said he wanted to help people?”

“Right, but this? I-I wouldn’t know where to start. We have forty-two patients…”

“Thirty-nine,” Thuy corrected. “Mr. Burke is, for the moment, asymptomatic, and Glowitz and Singleton haven’t been exposed.”

“Ok, thirty-nine patients then, none of whom I’m at all qualified to help. You have a medical team, let them do their job. We should do ours.”

She jabbed the button a second time. “Part of my job is finding out the facts. I have to see the patients first hand. Damn, this is taking forever.” She turned and headed for the stairs but didn’t get three paces before the elevator doors opened. Stephanie Glowitz and Chuck Singleton stepped out.

Steph started to apologize, “We are so sorry about being…”

Thuy spoke over her, “Riggs, explain to them what’s going on. They’ll need all the information we have to make an informed decision.”

“Decision ‘bout what?” Chuck asked.

She ignored him. “Set them up in one of the BSL-4 labs. We’re not using them anyway.” Thuy left them without any further explanation, dropping down two floors. The moans struck her as soon as the doors opened. The sound of pain—pain that she had caused—made her pause before stepping out onto the ward.

The head nurse stuck her head out of a patient’s room. “Gloves and masks, Dr. Lee. We’re still in the window for another two hours.”

“Right,” Thuy said. There was very little chance, statistically zero chance, that a healthy adult would have complications to Fusarium in the dry setting of the hospital, especially with all the precautions they had taken. Still, Thuy gloved and put on a surgical mask. She went to the nurse’s station and found Dr. Lorry bent over a nurse, his gloved hands were wet with her blood.

“Is it bad?” Thuy asked.

Lorry was cleaning the bite wound, a ragged hole in the woman’s shoulder. “Seen worse. It’s going to need some stitches and it will leave a scar.” He sat up, rolled his neck on his shoulders and looked at Thuy. “What did you give them? According to the literature Fusarium toxicity shouldn’t present in this manner.”

“This is the first time anyone’s been exposed to Fusarium in this way so it’s no wonder that there are certain unforeseen side effects. I believe the symptoms are acute and will fade.”