No Easy Way Out

by Dayna Lorentz

  He was currently examining the charts for those dying or dead from this novel influenza strain. There were some strange anomalies, beyond the obvious only-killing-the-strongest/healthiest/youngest. For example, there were kids who carried dying friends in, kids who’d been completely exposed, and yet they showed no symptoms. What did they have that the others didn’t?

  His laptop had a few hours worth of battery—if he conserved it, he was sure he could work out what connected them all.

  “I found a lantern,” Rachel said, appearing in the stockroom. Dr. Rachel Kleinman was the only other doctor in the mall. Statistically, this was improbable. Dr. Chen wrote the anomaly off by assuming that the other doctors had all died. After looking at the vast mounds of corpses on the ice above him, it did not take much of a leap to assume such things.

  “We should move anyone with a chance of survival back here,” Steve said. “The dark is only going to exacerbate the chaos.”

  Dr. Kleinman nodded. “I’ll get Leslie and Jazmine to help.” They were the remaining two nurses. Ms. Ross had ordered him and all healthy staff to abandon the medical center. Rachel and the two nurses wouldn’t leave the patients. Steve himself had stayed to finish his research.

  Influenza was a terrible, yet fascinating foe. It was one thing the first time you met it, and something completely different the next. It liked to mutate, was almost designed to do so. Every time it replicated in a cell, there was a slight mutation in the antigens on the surface of the virion. But it was bizarre for the virus to have changed so radically in so short a time. It was almost as if a new strain of the flu had been introduced—from where, though, could it have come?

  Steve had become fascinated with the flu early on in his career. He’d been shocked to learn that more people died from the Spanish flu than in all of World War I. In America, whole towns were wiped out; children died in their homes because there was no one alive left to care for them, every adult having been taken by the virus. Carts rolled through the streets of cities collecting corpses piled in the gutters and on the porches of houses. Ordinances were passed forbidding such things as handshaking; and schools, churches, stores, and theaters were closed to try to prevent the spread of the disease. He couldn’t believe he’d never been taught about this pandemic before med school. How could this not be in the consciousness of every American?

  Jazmine and Leslie rolled in the first two beds.

  “Got some kids who just crawled in,” Leslie remarked, parking the first gurney. “They’re alive at least.”

  “I’ll take a look,” Steve said. When I’m finished.

  The initial strain of what had been termed the Stonecliff flu appeared to be some hybrid of an avian flu that was extremely infectious. Steve had hypothesized that the terrorists had infected a sick pig with bird flu, and somehow cooked up a disease with the virulence of the H5N1 avian flu and the transmutability of H1N1 swine flu. A potent and deadly combination if there was one.

  In those first days, they’d thrown everything but the kitchen sink at those infected. Vaccination didn’t work to protect people, and antivirals proved useless, as usual. The CDC had ordered him to abandon the willy-nilly disbursement of the drugs for fear of wasting stores when the nation was on the verge of a pandemic. Somehow the senator had finagled a few crates for them, but Steve hadn’t bothered prescribing them. Why throw good medicine after bad?

  He flipped through the initial intake forms for everyone in the mall. After Mr. Ross had input all the raw data, he freely parted with the hard copies; for all his work on computers, Steve liked paper. Now that there was no electricity, this peccadillo proved useful.

  At some point, everyone had been asked whether they had gotten the flu vaccine. Those who were vaccinated had a V marked beside their names. Steve cross-referenced the answers on the paper intake forms with the names of the sick kids. All were unvaccinated. He checked the names of the healthy kids who’d brought in their sick friends. They’d all reported getting a flu shot.

  Could it be that, however the flu had mutated, the strain that was currently making its way through the population was in some critical way similar to one of the strains in this year’s flu vaccine? If so, these kids were dying from a very different virus than what had been injected into the air by the bomb. And if that was true, might there be some chance that the antivirals would at least slow the rampage of this incarnation of the disease?

  Dr. Chen figured that it might be worth a try. At this point, what was there to lose?

  He dug around in the corner where they’d been storing supplies they weren’t using and found a crate marked TAMIFLU. He flipped open the plastic top and grabbed a package of the oral suspension dose. The two beds contained girls, one older than the other. Steve recognized the older girl. Dixit? Her grandmother had died. She’d fainted in his arms.

  He would try her first.

  “Miss Dixit?” he said, pulling on gloves.

  She groaned.

  He took a syringe of the oral suspension with the dose for an adult—she was close enough. He shook her shoulder. “Miss Dixit, I need you to wake up.”

  The girl rolled her head toward him. She was pale and her breathing was labored. Her skin was burning hot. She coughed, then opened her eyes, which were bloodshot. He hoped he wasn’t too late.

  “I’m going to give you some medicine.”

  She blinked. He took that as consent.

  He slipped the plastic cylinder into her mouth and pressed the plunger. She swallowed, then drifted back into the haze of her fever. Dr. Chen dosed the other girl, and then each of the other patients as they were rolled into the stockroom.

  Rachel pushed in a gurney carrying an older patient. Dr. Chen waved the old man past.

  Rachel raised her eyebrows. “We only trying to save the young?”

  Steve shrugged. “He has the original flu. If he’s going to die, he’s going to die. Why waste the medicine?”

  Rachel nodded and rolled the man to the corner opposite the kids.

  The women went back out to examine more patients. Steve and Rachel had argued early on about his role in the med center, Dr. Chen insisting he was of more use continuing his research. After seeing him attempt to get a case history from a woman, Rachel had agreed and told him to stay in the back. He was only brought out to examine unusual outlier cases or when Dr. Kleinman was busy. He wondered if he should offer to help at this point; he decided he’d wait for Rachel to ask.

  Returning to his desk, he bent over his notebook and began to make notes on this new treatment experiment. Just as he was finishing up, he heard a gunshot. Then women screaming.

  The chaos had reached the medical center.

  Dr. Chen pulled together all of his notes and his laptop and looked for somewhere to hide them. He wasn’t sure why he thought anyone in the mall would want his scribblings, but they were his life, his legacy. He wanted at least to keep them from getting ruined in a scuffle.

  Marauders would most likely avoid the sick. He crept over to the gurney containing Miss Dixit and slipped everything under her bedcovers. Her body would guard his work. As he patted the blanket back down over her legs, she fluttered her eyes. He could have sworn they were no longer red.

  Before he could examine her more closely, a gentleman bearing a handgun appeared in the doorway, the barrel of his weapon pointed at Jazmine’s temple. She was weeping.

  “Where’s the virus?” the gentleman snarled.

  Dr. Chen’s first reaction was one of bewilderment. “Virus?”

  The boy tightened his grip on Jazmine. “Don’t screw with me. You have a new flu weapon and I want it.”

  The boy’s ignorance would have been amusing if not for Jazmine’s obvious distress. “I’m sorry,” Dr. Chen said, “but there is no new flu weapon.”

  The kid pointed the gun at Steve. “You think
I’m kidding?” He did not give Steve a chance to argue. “I am not screwing around here. Give me the goddamned weapon!”

  The boy replaced the gun against Jazmine’s temple and shot her.

  For all the death he’d seen, Dr. Chen had never seen someone shot. Watched a person just fall away dead, like a sack of meat. “What have you done?” he asked, eyes filling with tears. Jazmine was a good woman. She’d been wonderful with the children.

  “I’ll find it myself.” The kid aimed at Dr. Chen and fired.

  The bullet ripped into his gut. Steve slid down the footboard of the gurney to the floor. Pain seared through his insides. For the briefest moment, he viewed the pain with clinical interest—he’d never before had a serious injury.

  The kid riffled through the papers on the desk, tossed around some boxes. Dr. Chen thought how wonderfully clever and entirely inadvertent it’d been to hide the antivirals in with the extra bed pads and catheterization kits. The pirate kid rummaged through the first few crates, then gave up.

  Another marauder appeared. “Find anything?”

  Dr. Chen wondered what had happened to Dr. Kleinman and Leslie. Surely they were dead. They were martyrs; they would have died before letting a patient come to harm.

  “Nothing,” the pirate kid said, throwing handfuls of plastic catheter bags at the wall. He holstered his gun and loped out of the room.

  Steve’s last thoughts were of the virus. He saw the spikey orbs bouncing in front of his eyes. How lovely they were. Vicious and lovely.

  • END OF BOOK TWO •

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to my early readers on this one: Anne Cunningham, Jennifer Decker, Mary-Beth McNulty, and Matthew Weiner. I especially depended on their fresh eyes to see through the morass of verbiage. And to Christine Kaufman, my mom, for doing that final read-through with me.

  Thank you to my panel of “experts”: Karen Mangold, super-awesome doctor friend, answerer of icky questions, accomplice to all my characters’ injuries and deaths; John Kaufman, my dad, whose background in designing key-card access systems made him the perfect coconspirator for busting the heck out of them, and who told me I needed another explosion; Justine Clinch, who helped guide me through the world of fashion; Bill and Sue Ward for brainstorming what might be found in the back of a post office; and finally, for filling me in on the lingo, Cate Williamson, mi hermana; Erin Sheridan; Angela LaCour; and the Quattro Quatros—McKenna, Keaton, Hallie-Blair, and Hudson—and their mom, Jamie.

  Thank you to my team at Dial Books: Greg Stadnyk, for creating a stunning cover that shines from the shelf; Jason Henry for his subtle, effective interior design; Regina Castillo, my copy editor, who helped me refine the rough patches; and Jessica Shoffel, publicist extraordinaire!

  To my exemplary editor, Kathy Dawson, I owe a great deal of thanks. It was her detailed and unflinching editorial letter concerning the rather pitiful first draft of this puppy that helped me shape it into the complicated plot-octopus (ploctopus?) that it is today. Everything I write is made better by her keen yet kind eye, and her support and enthusiasm help me keep going through the dark nights of revision.

  Thank you to my excellent and extraordinary agent, Faye Bender. I depend on her advice, enthusiasm, and support. Thank you for holding my hand through everything.

  Thank you to Evelyn for putting up with Mommy when she was writing instead of playing. And thank you to Jason Lorentz, who makes my life a love story.