The Apocalyptic Nurse (Book 1): Plagued Road Home

by Bell, A. E.

  Chapter 1

  Evie walked into the emergency room on the first night of her travel assignment in Seattle. She wore burgundy scrubs that fit her curvy figure like they were made just for her. Her raven hair was pulled up in a messy bun, with little wisps falling onto her ivory skin. Downtown Seattle was one of the last places she ever wanted to be, it was so dreary and rainy. It takes a special kind of person to live in a place like this. Evie wasn’t built for Seattle, but the money was right, and her dream of living off the grid in the middle of nowhere was intact. It was a means to an end. The assignment was only thirteen weeks long, and she knew that anybody could do anything for that amount of time.

  Jennifer was Evie’s preceptor for the night. She had been a nurse at Seattle Samaritan General for several years. When Evie saw her, it was like looking at the stereotypical older skinny nurse that had been hardened by life. Evie chuckled to herself because she assumed that in the good old days Jennifer probably sat at the nurses’ station smoking away while she charted. Evie figured based on the first hour that she would get along fine with Jennifer. She was a nurse after her own heart. To put it very simply, she was an old school bitch.

  This night started the same as any other night in the many hospitals that she had worked. A fair share of overdoses, stab victims, and the occasional gunshot wound. Over the years, the different hospitals just seemed to fade into one long memory.

  She called her husband, Creed, when she took a break at 2100. She always called to check in on him and say goodnight to the kids. They were staying at a nearby RV campground. Creed began homeschooling the kids when Evie started travel nursing, which made it possible for the family to follow Evie anywhere in the country.

  When Evie got back from break, an ambulance brought in an unconscious John Doe. They attempted to find an ID on the gentleman, but there was none to be found. He began having a seizure, his temperature was 104.8, and he had a rash covering his entire body. Evie and Caroline, one of the patient care techs, put on their masks and gowns to protect them from any communicable diseases. They placed a cooling blanket on him to bring down his temperature. Evie initiated an IV and allowed the normal saline to run wide open. They gave the patient a dose of valium through his IV to stop the seizure and administered a Tylenol suppository to bring down his temp. A lab technician came to draw a CBC, CMP, blood cultures, and lactic acid. All these labs would help them to understand what type of infection he may have acquired. It would also tell them if he was septic. The infection would be much harder to treat if it had reached the bloodstream. Radiology came to take a chest x-ray.

  The lab took about thirty minutes to complete the blood work. The patient’s white blood cell count was through the roof, which could be suggestive of a viral infection. The lactic acid was also elevated which meant he was probably septic, given his symptoms. Dr. Tomlyn made the call to do a spinal tap. Evie wasn’t sure how she felt about Dr. Tomlyn, but in this case, she thought he made the right choice.

  Before they could complete the spinal tap, their patient flatlined. Dr. Tomlyn, Evie, Jennifer, Caroline, and the lab assistant worked on the patient for thirty-five minutes, but they were unable to save him. They decided it was best to obtain the spinal tap that they had failed to get before he coded.

  They prepared the body to take down to the morgue. Evie had prepared more than her fair share of bodies for the morgue in her career, but Caroline had not. Evie could tell by how pale this girl’s face was that she had never done this before. Evie told her, “Just think about cute little puppies and kittens, and you will get through this fine.”

  Evie felt awful for the guy. She always felt sad, for the people that died without a loved one by their side. She wondered if they would ever locate his family. Evie glanced over and saw Caroline standing over a trash can vomiting. Evie handed her a cold, wet towel and pulled her overly bleached hair back so that it wouldn’t get in her face.

  Thirty minutes later, a lady named Tera came into the ER. She was able to talk but seemed confused, almost delirious at times. She had a rash, and her temp was 101.3. The staff performed the same tests and administered meds to bring down the temperature. They started an IV on her as well, to keep the patient hydrated. They gave her broad-spectrum antibiotics, in the hopes that they would stop whatever infection Tera had.

  She didn’t respond to the Tylenol or the IV meds. Her temperature had increased to 103 degrees in less than forty-five minutes. They started using cooling blankets to stabilize her temperature. Evie went to speak to Dr. Tomlyn to see if maybe it would be best to start anti-viral meds. And just like with most doctors fresh out of their residency, he quickly shot the idea down. She could tell that he was going to be one of those dumbasses that didn’t like any idea unless it was his own.

  Within the next hour, eleven more people came into the hospital with similar symptoms. It seemed that no sooner than someone could be triaged another patient was arriving. The nursing supervisor advised the hospital administrator of the situation. The administrator decided to turn the lobby into a makeshift emergency room. They also decided to handle the current situation internally. Evie had become accustomed to ignoring the idiot mistakes that hospitals made as a matter of protocol, but in her heart, she knew this mistake would be catastrophic. For some reason, hospital administrators tend to be slow to react to problems. They all had the habit of being reactive instead of proactive, and these administrators were no different. Evie looked down at her watch; it was 0030. She could not wait until her shift ended at 0700. It was a hell of a way to start her first day of a 13-week long contract. She sure was missing her small little hospital in rural Kentucky.

  Alarms started sounding in trauma room two. Evie took off running; she knew that was Tera’s room. Her patient’s oxygen saturation was 43%, it should’ve been between 90-100%. Dr. Tomlyn decided to put a tube down her throat to breathe for her. They worked together to place the tube which stabilized her oxygenation. Evie couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that something terrible was happening.

  Jennifer looked through Tera’s clothes and wallet to try and locate a phone number for a next of kin. Meanwhile, Evie decided to look through her phone. She tried the contact labeled HUBBY. The number went straight to voicemail. Evie left a message for him to phone the hospital as soon as possible. Evie happened to notice the background on Tera’s phone. As she dropped the phone on the floor, she said: “For fuck’s sake, she’s the John Doe’s wife. This is turning into a real shit show.”

  The spinal tap on Tera and her husband both showed low glucose and increased white blood cells, which meant they probably had a strain of meningitis. They had to send off the results to confirm the diagnosis.

  By 0300, the total amount of cases with similar symptoms had grown to 24 patients: eighteen adults and six children. The administrators finally started to call other hospitals to see if they could divert some of the patients. The other hospitals were just as overwhelmed with this meningitis as Seattle Samaritan General.

  Evie wondered if it would ever end. She had seen a lot of shit as a nurse but had never dealt with anything like this. She went to the bathroom and called her husband. She told him, “Make sure all the shit is ready cuz we are getting the fuck out of this God-forsaken place when my shift is over.” He tried to get her to tell him what was going on, but she wouldn’t say, she just repeated what she had already told him.

  She had less than four hours before she could get the hell out of dodge. Shit was getting out of control, and she had no intention of risking her own life. Evie and Creed had prepared for a day like today. One of the reasons that Creed and Evie had decided to live in the RV
and homeschool the children is because they were convinced that one day, a virus or bacteria was going to wreak havoc on the world. She did not know if it would be nature or humans with biological weapons that would pull the trigger, but she knew a time of reckoning was on its way. Evie double checked to make she had put her “go bag” in her locker. There was an ankle holster with her 9mm inside it. She made sure nobody was watching and strapped it on her ankle.

  Evie went back to Tera to check her status. Tera was so much worse, Evie knew that she was circling the drain and it was just a matter of time. All the patients were getting worse; the ER staff couldn’t seem to get them stabilized to move to another unit. Nurses from other floors were sent to help. It had become a complete cluster fuck.

  Tera lost her fight with the mysterious illness. They ran a code on her, but there was no saving her. Dr. Tomlyn pronounced her dead at 0430. Evie left to take care of her other patients while Caroline and another patient care tech prepared the body for the morgue. They took her down to the morgue. Caroline wasn’t sure she was up for the task because she feared the deaths would never end.

  At 0500, Evie was looking for a patient care tech. Evie yells out, “Where the fuck are the techs?”

  Jennifer said, “The last time that I saw them they had headed down to the morgue.” Evie couldn’t help but wonder if the techs had decided to jump ship, she certainly wouldn’t blame them. The thought had occurred to her in the past couple of hours. She went to the front desk and asked the receptionist to page the security guard to the ER.

  The security guard showed up; he was pathetic looking. His hair and uniform were both disheveled. He meekly introduced himself as Thomas. She wasn’t sure he was capable of defending anyone, but right now she just needed somebody to escort her to the morgue. Evie always hated going to the basement of any hospital and she sure as fuck wasn’t going to go down there alone. The hallway was long and dark, and she asked, “Why the fuck don’t they ever keep the hallways in the basements of any of these damn hospitals lit up?”

  As they got closer to the morgue doors, they started to hear strange noises. It was a mixture of groaning, screaming, and banging noises. Bobby laughed and said, “It’s probably a freak fucking one of those dead people. It’s not the first time that it’s happened here.” She knew that he was right, there are freaky fucks everywhere you go.

  Chapter 2

  She opened the door to the morgue expecting to see someone fucking a stiff, but what she saw was so much worse. There was a body on the floor that was ripped apart. She couldn’t even tell who it was. Then she looked to the far corner and saw one of the techs with a broom trying to fight off Tom. Evie shrieked, “What the fuck? He’s dead.” She gestured with her hand and yelled, “Make a run for it!” The young girl hit Tom on the head and sprinted towards the door. When Tom ran after the girl, Evie could finally see his face. He had glazed over eyes and was covered in the blood from his victim lying dead on the floor. As the girl ran through the doorway, Evie and the security guard slammed the door. Tom was banging on the door trying to get out. Evie grabbed the broom from the tech and put it through both door handles to try to keep the door shut.

  They all just stood there dumbfounded by what they had just experienced. Evie noticed that the tech was bleeding. She told her, “We need to get you upstairs, so we can clean that and put a dressing on it. Not to mention we need to run some tests and start meds on you.”

  They ran upstairs and told the rest of the staff what they had seen. Everybody looked at the trio as though they had lost their minds. Dr. Tomlyn laughed and asked, “What the hell do you think this is the zombie apocalypse?”

  Evie didn’t dignify him with an answer; she just rolled her eyes in disgust. Evie cleaned the tech’s arm and noticed that the area around the wound was turning black. She knew the tissue was dying. She placed the girl on a stretcher. Meanwhile, the security guard called the police. There was no way he was going back down in that basement.

  The cops arrived about 0600, the security guard took them to the basement doors and said, “This is as far as I’m going, I don’t get paid enough for this shit.” The cops chuckled and shook their heads. He could hear them make fun of him as they were walking down the hall, “These damned rent-a-cops, they are afraid of their shadows. It seems to me that they need to be drug testing the staff here because they got to be fucked up.” He didn’t care; there was no way that he was going back down to that morgue. As they neared the morgue, the cops could hear banging on the door.

  One of the policemen ordered the person inside the morgue, “You better stop banging on the door, we are going to let you out. You need to come out with your hands above your head. Do not make any sudden moves.” His partner moved towards the door and removed the broom. He slowly opened the door. All the sudden, a figured lunged towards him. It began biting his arm with a fury that the cops had never seen. The other cop started shooting at this monstrous figure. This creature was unaffected by his bullets, he unloaded 15 rounds in this thing, and it did nothing.

  His partner laid there bleeding to death. Officer Jasper knew there was nothing he could do for him, so he ran for his life. He ran towards the door that the security guard was holding open. As soon as the officer got inside the stairway, the security guard closed the door and pushed his back against it. Officer Jasper called on his radio, “Officer down at Seattle Samaritan; this is worse than you could ever imagine. I need help ASAP.”

  Officer Jasper instructed the security guard not to move until he got back with help. The security guard didn’t know what to do, but he didn’t think standing and holding this door was in his best interest. Officer Jasper left and ran up the stairs, two steps at a time. When he reached the top, he could hear calls over his radio asking for help at other hospitals. He called in and spoke with his direct supervisor, “Where the fuck is my help?”

  His supervisor replied, “We are sending a few guys your way, but hell has broken loose at three other hospitals in the city, we have called the national guard in to help us out. There’s no way we can handle what is going on. We have reports of dead people coming back to life and ripping the flesh off living people. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but if not, we got a whole lot of idiots on some good drugs.”

  Officer Jasper said, “Sir, with all due respect, you know I don’t use drugs, and I just saw a dead guy rip my partner apart like a rabid dog.”

  Officer Jasper could hear sirens coming his way; he ran outside to meet up with his back-up. Evie looked out into the lobby and saw all the officers coming in. She overheard them talking about the national guard coming in and from the time she served in the army she knew that meant the shit was getting ready to hit the fan. She called Creed and told him that he needed to start making his way there. The officers disappeared into the stairwell.

  Officer Jasper and four of his brothers in blue reached the bottom of the stairwell. To his surprise, the security guard was still holding the door. He doubted it was because of bravery. Jasper assumed the man was paralyzed by fear and couldn’t think of anything else to do. He asked one of his fellow officers for his backup gun and gave it to the security guard. He told him, “Stand at this damned door and hold it open, if anybody or anything comes towards it that ain’t one of us, shoot it.”

  They made their way down the hallway, and within their first few steps, two of the creatures came charging at them. They all started shooting frantically, but the grisly beasts just kept coming. Finally, Officer Jasper had the creature, that had killed his partner, in his sights. He shot it in the head, and it hit the floor. He yelled, “Shoot that fuckin’ bitch in the head.” Shots continued to be fired, and she finally went down. They cautiously approached the lifeless beings lying on the ground. Jasper kicked the one he shot, and there was no movement. They went on to kick the other one, again there was no movement.

  They looked inside the morgue door and saw two dead bodies. These things had killed three people. The officers felt they h
ad neutralized the immediate threat. They made their way back upstairs to meet the national guard soldiers that had been dispatched. The security guard put the gun in his pocket and went upstairs with them. He was relieved that he didn’t have to hold that damned door shut anymore.

  About the time they made it up the stairs, some guys from the national guard arrived. You could tell that outside of their drills; they hadn’t yet seen any real action. They didn’t have that hardened look that soldiers get when they have seen and done unthinkable things. The police officers weren’t concerned because they felt confident that the situation was under control. They started to talk to the soldiers and explain what had happened. The soldiers informed them that they still needed to survey the area and make sure there was no active threat.

  Two of the soldiers headed downstairs with Jasper. The rest stayed upstairs to talk to the staff. They wanted to figure out what was going on. The local national guard was stretched extremely thin because they had been called out to all four Seattle hospitals due to similar incidents. The girl at the front desk directed one of the soldiers to Evie. She saw the girl pointing in her direction and knew that he was going to come her way. As he approached her, Evie noticed his name badge said Roberts and that is rank was that of a specialist. It was the same rank she was when she got out of the army.

  Spc. Roberts said, “Ma’am I need to speak to you about what is going on in this city.” She agreed to his interview. She described all the horror that had taken place and told him about all the sick patients. They hadn’t lost any additional patients that she knew of, but she needed to make rounds to check on them, and she invited him to come along.

  The first victim Evie took him to was the injured patient care tech, and she wasn’t looking good. She seemed to be in a catatonic state. She wouldn’t speak, but she laid there with her eyes wide open staring at the ceiling. The necrosis around the wound was spreading, and black streaks were running up her arm. As Evie made her rounds, she realized that they had lost count of the number of patients that had arrived. She was trying to get everything squared away so she could pass her patients off to the next shift nurses that would be taking over for them. She had a bad feeling that the administration was going to try and mandate the nursing staff to stay over. There was an internal battle going on inside her brain. Should she stay with her patients and do her duty as a medical professional or should she jump ship and try to give herself and her family the chance to survive whatever this was going on? On the one hand, she could lose her nursing license for abandoning her patients, on the other hand, what the fuck good was a nursing license if she was dead. The decision became much easier to make the more she thought about her family.