Z Children (Book 2): The Surge
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Z CHILDREN:
THE SURGE
BOOK TWO
The Z Children Series
B.V. BARR
ELI CONSTANT
This book may not be reproduced
in whole or in part, by any means, without explicit permission from Eli Constant
& B.V. Barr. Eli Constant and B.V. Barr assert their right to hold
copyright of this work entitled “Z Children: The Surge.” The branding Cosmo
Constant Books © Eli Constant 2013 was created for the express purpose of
labeling ‘Eli Constant’ works; this includes the Z Children world, first
appearing in an original Eli Constant work in the anthology “Let’s Scare Cancer
to Death”.
This is a work of fiction. Any
locations, characters and entities are products of the authors’ imaginations or
are used fictitiously; they should not be construed as real in any capacity.
Similarities to actual persons, living or deceased, organizations or locales
are purely coincidental.
Cover Design- Wilde Book Designs © 2016
Z Children: The Surge
Z Children Book 2
1st Edition Print,
eBook version
Copyright © 2016 Eli
Constant, B.V. Barr
Cover Design © 2016
Wilde Book Designs
All rights reserved.
A NOTE FROM THE
AUTHORS
We
send you our sincerest thanks for purchasing
Z Children: The Surge
! We
hope you enjoy reading the story as much as we loved writing it.
If
you do enjoy the read, it would mean a lot to us if you would consider posting
a review and star-rating on Amazon.com/Amazon.co.uk or other review sites. Word
of mouth will carry
Z Children: The Surge
far!
We
hope the next book you pick up to read is a true literary ride, a veritable
page-turner with a cornucopia of spunky characters. Thank you so much for taking
a chance on our book! It is our honor to share it with you!
-Eli Constant & B.V. Barr
PART I
DALLAS
“Yeah,
I really think I’ll like Dallas, Mom.” I’d been on the phone for over an hour;
my nails were clicking quietly and impatiently against the dark wood of my
desk. “Right, my place is only a few miles from the hospital. It’s an easy
drive.” I stop talking as she begins to ramble off questions mixed with
nonsensical words. She gets confused so easily and she interrupts regularly, as
if she cannot hear me speaking. “No, remember the truck’s transmission went out
right before I moved here. I have a little station wagon now.” Another pause.
“Yes, I remember Dad’s wagon. A lot of road trips in that.” Another pause.
“Yeah, I’m really liking it here, Mom.” Picking my right hand off the desk, the
office suddenly felt too silent with the absence of my nails no longer
contacting the wood surface.
Dallas
had been my home for six months now, and my mom was still acting as if I’d just
moved here. I should expect it. I’m a doctor and I knew what her diagnosis
would mean; how she’d become worse and worse as her mind and body failed her.
Yet, it seemed that I was as ill-equipped to deal with illness in my own loved
ones as I was well-equipped to deal with illness in strangers. I wanted to cry
every time she said that she missed me and wanted to move home again. It didn’t
help that most often we talked in the early morning after her breakfast and
before her daily occupational therapy. She was worse in the morning and better
at night. For most patients with her condition, the opposite was true.
“I
miss you too, Mom. We don’t have the house anymore, remember?” She always
expected her two weekly calls—the staff at the nursing home would highlight the
days and times I told them on her calendar and daily she’d run her finger
across the white paper to see if ‘Chris is calling today’. The few times I’d
missed our call, Mom had been hysterical. I tried my best not to do that to
her, but there’d been a few emergencies at the hospital.
She
just didn’t understand—the sickness had spread throughout her body, and the
medicines did little but numb the pain anymore. I hated listening to her voice;
it slapped me with the reality that she wouldn’t be around much longer.
Sometimes, I felt guilty for moving away, but I had to…God, I just couldn’t
watch her die.
“Sure,
I’d love to have you come visit, Mom.” I paused again, listening to how she
wanted Daddy to come too. “Oh, Mom, you know Daddy isn’t here anymore. He
passed away a few years ago.” I heard it in her voice then; she was going to
start crying. “Mom, it’s okay. Don’t cry. Let’s talk about something else.
What’s the restaurant serving today?” She always called the small cafeteria a
restaurant. The food was decent, palatable. I’d chosen a nice place for her at
least…not that my choice of this final home for my mom made my guilt any less.
We
talked for a while longer until Mom said that she needed to hang up because her
little Chris, the doctor she was so proud of, was calling soon. That sent a
pang through my heart when she said that she was proud of me. It’s always hard
when you grow up and those you love grow old. And I was at that age when losing
people wasn’t an uncommon event. Dad went too early. He’d been my rock, always
so accepting of who I was as a person.
After
hanging up the phone, I just sat a while in the dimness of my office before
heading towards the OR to scrub up. I had to put Mom out of my head. I couldn’t
go into a surgery worried over what was going on in my own life. My patients
deserved my full and determined focus.
It was
a quarter after nine and I was waiting on the go-ahead from the
anesthesiologist to start my surgery. A conjoined twin separation. They’d arrived
at the hospital around seven AM and pre-op was already done. They looked so
small lying on the oversized operating table. These girls were lucky, joined at
the chest and abdomen. Dividing their liver, which had a potential towards hemorrhaging,
was the biggest risk. It would be a ten-plus hour operation if all went well.
I’d consulted over the past month with surgeons across the country;
specifically conferencing with one doctor who’d performed a nearly-identical
separation back in 2011. I wanted the best for these girls.
“They’re
under.” Dr. Rand, the anesthesiologist, looked at me. I could only see her eyes
and they were a thunderstorm grey flecked with bronze. It was a strange
combination. Without the mask on, when her full face was exposed, I found her
unattractive. But when I could only see the eyes…
I
can still look. That’s not cheating.
But it felt like cheating—even though
Virginia hadn’t given me very much hope that she’d be willing to give ‘us’ a
try again.
I’d
just fallen into the rhythm of the surgery when the nearest twin, Holly,
stirred. Faith was still comatose, the anesthesia doing its job.
“Dr.
Rand?” I lifted the scalpel blade from the twins’ skin.
Dr.
Rand was directly across from me, her eyes were not calm; I could see confusion
there, like this was the first time she’d ever had a patient begin to rouse
during surgery. It wasn’t my first.
During
a twelve-year-old’s appendectomy, he’d bolted upright just as I’d started
closing the first incision after removing the inflamed appendix. It had
startled the freaking daylights out of me. Since then, I’d felt ready for anything.
Holly
was really moving now, her body twitching and her eyelids fluttering. Beside
her, Faith also started to move and struggle to open her eyes, made heavy by
the knockout drugs.
“Keep
them on the table.” My hands flew to Holly’s body as her movements turned
violent. “She’s having a seizure. Put that under their heads,” I pointed to the
extra pile of blankets on a table nearby. The girls had circulation cuffs on
their legs and electric blankets across their lower bodies, but I’d often found
that children needed even more than that to keep warm during lengthy surgeries.
God,
it seemed like the seizure would never end. Poor Faith was being jolted about
by her sister’s movements. Her eyes were wide and staring at me, a plea in them
to get me to stop whatever was happening to Holly. But it shouldn’t be
happening at all.
Both
girls had nearly separate anatomy, save for the liver. They were healthy,
vaccinated, and had been cleared by multiple doctors for this procedure. Why
was this happening?
Finally,
after what seemed like an eternity, Holly’s body calmed until it was so still
that I had to check her pulse to make sure she was alive. My gaze found Faith’s
face, and this time, I could really look at her. Her eyes were unfocused. A
thin film of opaqueness seemed to coat them. She still looked scared out of her
mind even though her sister was no longer convulsing.
The
endless consultations, all the planning, and now these girls wouldn’t get what
they most wanted today—to be their own persons after living conjoined for seven
years. All I could give them was more waiting. I wouldn’t take chances. The procedure
wouldn’t move forward and wouldn’t even be rescheduled until I knew why Faith
had reacted so poorly to the anesthesia.
Because
it had to be the anesthesia.
She
was a healthy girl.
They
were healthy girls.
Standing
at the entrance to the recovery room, I looked at the girls. I felt bad for
putting them here where they would have been this evening had the separation
gone as planned, but the room we’d planned to move them to post-op wasn’t
ready. The current occupant was set to be discharged at noon and the hospital
was packed.
In
fact, this was the first time in six months that there’d been no room at the
inn.
So
many sick children. The majority of them had started showing up in the wee
hours of the morning when the staff had been minimal.
I’d
already spoken with the twins’ confused parents. They were thankful both girls
were alright, but, like me, did not understand what could have gone awry with
so much planning and so many tests that the girls had endured over the past
month.
I felt
like a tape recorder saying what I always said to the family of patients when
things went wrong:
“Even with all of our advancements in medicine, we can’t
predict everything. Sometimes, things just happen. All we can do from here is
try to figure out what went wrong and what we can do to get the girls’
operation back on track.
It
never satisfied the families, saying what I did. But I couldn’t give them
half-truths or half-lies. I never guessed or made promises.
God,
I need something comforting. Maybe tea and a blueberry scone.
The
cafeteria wasn’t exactly close to where I was, but I had a shortcut—the
taped-off construction zone that no one was supposed to access. The workers
never arrived before ten, though, and I often snuck through the maze of tools
and materials for a late breakfast.
I
wasn’t in a hurry for the work to be done and not just because I’d lose my
shortcut. Once finished, the area would be comprised of suites for terminal
patients, a place where their parents could be with them. Short-term hospice.
It would be a place where I’d have to visit children that the hospital had
labeled as hopeless. I didn’t like that. I couldn’t stand the thought of moving
a small boy or girl to one of the rooms. No matter how lovely they might end up
being once complete, they’d still be a place for dying and not living.
Walking
over stacks of drywall and buckets of plaster, I made my way to the café.
Just
walking through the space in-progress was saddening, so I thought about the new
NICU wing just finished last year. It was gorgeous. That area of the hospital I
loved. Private rooms, fully-equipped with cutting-edge incubators and
everything else a preemie would need. I loved the tiny ones, the ones that greeted
the world a little too soon. I loved children in general really; they were
innocent, defenseless, lovely, the hopes of a harsh world.
“Two
Earl Greys with half & half, Fran. Sweeten them today, please.”
“Uh-oh.
Double teas and sugar? Having a rough one, Dr. Hastings?” The tall woman with
mocha skin and beautifully natural hair that curled in all directions at once
smiled, but her eyes held concern.
“Yeah.
Little bit rough.”
“Not
rough, rough, though…right?”
“No. I
didn’t lose a patient. Not that rough, thank God.”
Fran
nodded. “God don’t like taking the kids. I know he doesn’t, but sometimes the
little angels have to go back. He’s got his reasons.”
“Mysterious
ways.”
“Mysterious,
confusing, wonderful, and often sad.”
I
reached over the counter with both hands and took the teas. “Thanks, Fran.
How’s your boy?”
“He’s
doing alright this year, actually. I think he might graduate on time.”
“That’s
great. Has he applied to any colleges?”
“Do
you mean has he looked at any of the applications I put on his bed last week?”
I
laughed then. Fran was the kind of mother who’d sit in her son’s class and make
him answer questions if she could. “You didn’t?”
“Course
I did. I even shoved one into the girly magazine under his mattress that he
doesn’t think I know about.”
My laugh
is less a laugh this time and more of a snort into my hot beverage. It burns my
nostril as the air hissing out of my nose goes into the drink hole and sends
piping hot steam back at me. “You didn’t.”
“Darn
right I did.”
“Well,”
I chuckle, Fran always makes me laugh, “it’s only October. I’m sure Shawn will
shape up and get some applications in.”
“Like
he has a choice.”
Our
laughter didn’t die out until I was exiting the cafeteria and entering the hall
under construction. I was still chuckling to myself when I arrived back at the
recovery room and plunked my already-empty to-go cups in the large trash by the
sinks. While washing my hands, I realized that I was so distracted by the
conversation with Fran that I’d totally forgotten my blueberry scone. My stomach
would not be pleased with me later. Luckily, there was a broken vending machine
in the construction zone. Just a few raps on the side and you were almost
always guaranteed a candy bar or two.
As I
was drying my hands, a dual scream—identical in level and pitch—startled me
into dropping my paper towel onto the granite-look, linoleum tile. It was
coming from the recovery room, and all I could think was,
Even their voices
need separation.
I
didn’t know what was wrong, why they were screaming, but the sense of urgency I
felt inside my body hearing the cries sent my medical instincts into overdrive.
Snatching a pair of exam gloves from the Plexiglas dispensers above the biohazard
trash, I raced for the doors. The gloves were on before I pushed through into the
recovery room.
The
twins were awake. Fully awake.
Their
still-joined bodies—their body—stood next to the connected hospital beds where
they’d been resting when I’d left for the tea which was now trying to force its
way out of my stomach. I didn’t puke though.
They
were twitching and salivating and staring at me with glazed-over eyes. When the
light did not hit them, they looked pure white, but when they were illuminated,
I could see the original color—Faith with navy blue and Holly’s a brighter
shade, more like the pale color at a wave’s crest.
“Holly…
Faith…girls, are you okay?”
Stupid
question to ask.
They
were obviously not okay.
They
didn’t respond verbally but began jerkily moving towards me—slowly,
deliberately, and with hate in their eyes. Immediately, my chest tightened and
I felt my pulse begin to race. My body knew before my brain that I should be running.
Running fast.