Assassin's Web

by Richard T. Burke

  The woman removed Antimone’s surgical mask. In its place, she slipped on a black mask connected to a beige-coloured box by a snaking corrugated pipe.

  “Let’s just pop this on. We’ll let you know before we turn on the gas.”

  Antimone inhaled the smell of rubber and strained her senses to detect any change in the air hissing through the tube. The woman raised Antimone’s hospital gown, exposing her distended abdomen.

  A door to her left opened, and a man dressed in blue surgical attire entered backwards, his gloved hands extended in front of his body. He stopped by the operating table and peered down at Antimone through a pair of large, plastic-framed glasses.

  “The name’s Martin,” he said. “I’ll be the lead surgeon today. In a second we’ll put you to sleep, and this will all be over.”

  A surge of adrenaline made Antimone’s heart beat faster as the full implication of his words sank home: over, as in dead. Her life was moments away from ending. Despite coming to terms with her predicament, now that the time had arrived it was all happening far too quickly. When her mother had given birth, it had been a joyful experience. Now pregnancy was a death sentence.

  A faint hissing sound joined the beeping and humming of the assorted machines. Antimone’s eyes darted across the room in panic, attempting to identify the source. She sensed dampness on her face and stared up at several evenly spaced, white, circular plastic boxes on the ceiling, each of them emitting a fine mist into the room.

  “Nothing to worry about, just anti-bacterial spray,” the surgeon said. “We need to keep everything germ-free in here.”

  The woman who had fitted the black mask moved back into Antimone’s line of vision. “Right, we’re going to put you to sleep. Start counting aloud backwards from ten.”

  “Ten, nine …”

  This isn’t happening. I’ll wake up in a second, and it’ll all be a bad dream.

  “Eight, seven, six …”

  A sickly-sweet scent invaded her nostrils. She experienced a brief sensation of nausea as her vision greyed out.

  “Five.”

  Antimone sensed the approach of another contraction but was unconscious before it took hold.

  ***

  One of the assistant doctors painted yellow-brown liquid across the lower part of Antimone’s stomach. The surgeon peered down at the stained skin and nodded his approval.

  “Cauterising scalpel please,” he said holding out a hand expectantly.

  Grasping the instrument like a pen, he made a confident incision horizontally across her abdomen. Like a well-oiled machine, the surgeon lifted his hand away as the doctor swabbed away the small quantity of blood that welled from the cut.

  “Spread the incision,” the surgeon said, using his left hand to open the wound from his side of the operating table. On the opposite side, the doctor used a metal instrument to pull back the layers of skin and muscle and expose her uterus. In his other hand, he held a suction tube that hissed and gurgled as he inserted it inside the cut.

  “Making the incision,” the surgeon announced. With a steady stroke, he drew the scalpel towards him in a straight line.

  “Okay, we’re in. Let’s bring the nipper into the world.”

  Both men used their hands to ease the baby’s head out. Within seconds, they grasped a slippery, screaming bundle of life and handed it to the doctor who had been waiting patiently at the side.

  “A boy,” the man announced although none of those present in the room paid any attention.

  The surgeon waited until his assistant had clamped the umbilical cord then severed it. The third man cleaned the baby and placed him in an incubator.

  The anaesthetist looked up from the readout on her machine. “She’s flat-lined.”

  The surgeon glanced up at the wall clock. “I see no point in attempting resuscitation. Call it at two forty-eight. There’s nothing more we can do for her.” He began the job of suturing the open wound.

  The row of stitches extended across a quarter of the incision when a repetitive chiming sound filled the room. The doctor closest to the flashing terminal strode towards it. “I’ll get it.” He swept a hand across the front of the screen.

  The image of a woman’s head occupied the display. “Mr Martin and Dr Carlson are wanted in operating theatre one as soon as they’re free,” she announced. “Emergency C-section.”

  “It sounds like we’re needed elsewhere, Dr Carlson,” said the surgeon, addressing the anaesthetist. He turned to face the two male doctors. “One of you can finish up in here. The other can assist me next door.” He strode away without waiting to see who volunteered to join him.

  The two men stared at each other. “I’ll sew her up,” said the doctor who had assisted Martin during the procedure, “but it all just seems a bit pointless when the pathologist is only going to open her up again.”

  “I know what you mean,” the other said, “but the dragon will fire you if you don’t follow procedure. In any case, the girl’s parents may still be watching through that window.”

  “Good point,” the doctor said turning back to the lifeless body. “See you later. Have fun.”

  ***

  The blue-gowned medical staff departed leaving Antimone’s body lying on the operating table. The doctor hurriedly completed the stitching job before rushing away to his next call. The faint hum of the machines was the only sound in the room. A thin film of moisture from the inactive atomisers in the ceiling coated every surface.

  A cough and then a low groan broke the stillness. The fingers of Antimone’s left hand twitched. Her head moved first to one side and then to the other. She sucked in a lungful of air but couldn’t seem to satisfy her body’s unconscious craving for oxygen until finally she was forced to exhale and draw in another deep breath. Sensations crowded in on her as she began the painful return to full consciousness. The reek of the anti-bacterial spray filled her nostrils and stung her throat as she inhaled. She ran the fingertips of her right hand down her arm, the skin feeling cold and clammy. Instinctively, she brushed her hand against the outline of the bump that had been a feature of her body for the past few months but snatched it away as she sensed the rough edge of the stitches through the thin hospital gown.

  Slowly her thought processes ground into gear. She moved her elbows back and tried to raise her head, but the excruciating pain as she tightened her stomach muscles forced her to lie back. Once again she probed the edges of the incision. The baby’s gone. Why am I still alive?

  In a rising panic, she inspected her surroundings.

  “Help! Someone, please help me!” she croaked, her throat muscles still sore from the exertions of the labour.

  She lay back, trying to goad her oxygen-starved brain into action. Her eyes scanned the deserted operating theatre. They think I’m dead. It could be hours until somebody comes. I’ve got to get help.

  Steeling herself, she shifted her elbows backwards for a second time and raised her torso. She almost passed out from the jagged shards of pain ripping through her abdomen but eventually manoeuvred herself to a sitting position. Spots of blood appeared on the front of the hospital gown where it touched against the rushed stitches. Using one arm to support her upright posture, Antimone used the other to slide her left leg until it was dangling over the edge. She paused for breath, allowing the agony to subside before repeating the process with the right leg. With excruciating slowness, she shuffled her body forwards. It was over a metre to the floor, far higher than she would have attempted under normal circumstances.

  “Here goes,” she muttered as she edged her bottom over the rim of the operating table. Her toes touched the ground, but as she passed the point of no return, she couldn’t stop her momentum and pitched forward. She tried to break her fall but still smacked her head on the white, plastic-coated floor.

  For several minutes, she lay motionless, dazed by the blow. Finally, she moved her right hand and probed her forehead which had borne the brunt of the impact.

 
; “Christ, that hurts,” she whispered.

  Using her arms, she dragged herself across the floor, centimetre by centimetre, with frequent pauses for rest, until she found herself up against the door. A thin smear of blood trailed behind her. She attempted to push the door open with one arm but couldn’t budge the heavy mechanism. She had no more luck when she used both hands. Rather than achieving the desired effect, she found herself pushing her own body backwards. In frustration, she rolled onto her back and closed her eyes. Within seconds, exhaustion overcame her, and she was asleep.

  A sudden bumping against her head awakened her. Her brain struggled to make sense of her surroundings before she recalled where she was. Somebody was entering the operating theatre.

  “Hang on,” she croaked, “I’m trying to get out of the way.”

  The door stopped moving, and the sound of low voices filtered through. She shuffled her body out of its arc.

  “Okay, you can open it now,” she called.

  The door opened a few centimetres, and a head peered tentatively through the gap.

  “Who the hell are you?” the man asked. His eyes tracked the smeared blood trailing from the operating table to where Antimone lay. “My God, you just had a baby, and you’re alive? Nick, get in here and call Mrs Baxter. This one’s alive.”

  A second man entered the room, pushing a trolley. “Yeah, right. Nice one.”

  The smile vanished from his face when he took in the girl lying at his feet and the patchy, red streaks across the floor. While the first man tended to Antimone, the other rushed to the wall-mounted terminal and swept his hand from right to left in front of it.

  “Call Mrs Baxter,” he said in a trembling voice.

  After a few seconds, the irritated expression of a man in his mid-twenties with jet-black hair, and a narrow face filled the screen.

  “I’m Nick Jenkins from the mortuary. I need to speak to Mrs Baxter urgently.”

  “Mrs Baxter is busy. What’s it about? If it’s something to do with overtime or working conditions, take it up with Personnel.”

  “No, it’s nothing like that. Could you please inform her that the woman who just gave birth in operating theatre three is still alive?”

  “Alive? Are you sure? If this is some sort of practical joke there will be serious consequences.”

  “I’m telling the truth. She’s talking to my colleague right now. We came in to pick up the body and found her on the floor.”

  “Wait right there. For Christ’s sake don’t touch anything … In fact, don’t move at all.”

  The display went blank.

  The Colour of the Soul

  by Richard T. Burke

  The woman held the syringe by her side and glanced backwards to confirm she was alone. Hospital policy meant she had no reason to fear surveillance cameras, only the presence of prying human eyes. Satisfied she wasn’t being observed, she strode into the ward, the soles of her flat-heeled shoes squeaking on the cream tiled flooring. It was important to give the impression of normality; creeping about would only mark her behaviour as suspicious.

  Beads of rain smeared the glow from the car park lights, casting a subtly shifting orange pattern on the walls. A dimly lit bulb mounted above each of the four beds supplemented the meagre illumination from outside. At just after three o’clock in the morning, most of the patients in the hospital were fast asleep, but none of the residents of this ward had opened their eyes even once since being admitted.

  Beside each bed, a bank of machines signalled the occupant’s status in a bewildering array of pulsing colours. Several beeped in a muted rhythm, blending with the clicking valves and periodic wheezing of the artificial respirators as they worked tirelessly to keep their charges alive. The discordant tones reminded her of the moments before the start of a concert, the low murmur of the audience mingling with the sounds of the orchestra tuning up.

  She crossed the room and stood beside the furthest bed. The sharp tang of disinfectant tickled the back of her throat. She stared down at the unconscious teenage girl who lay with arms resting atop the white sheet.

  It might appear to an uninformed observer that the patient was simply asleep. Her serene expression belied the fact she had been in a coma for the past eleven months, monitored by the unwavering technology at her bedside. Unlike two of her fellow inmates, she breathed without mechanical assistance. Thin plastic tubing snaked from a white dressing just below her shoulder up to the bag of clear fluid hanging from the drip stand. In a few minutes, it would no longer be necessary.

  The woman’s head jerked up as a sudden flurry of raindrops pelted against the window. The droplets merged to form a rivulet before zig-zagging down the pane. She exhaled shakily and lowered her eyes to the instrument readouts. The heart rate monitor indicated a steady fifty-one beats per minute, as it had done for many weeks. Oxygen levels were normal. Other than the absence of high-level brain activity, the patient seemed perfectly healthy.

  The woman refocused her attention on the bed and brushed a stray strand of hair from the girl’s face onto the pillow. Her lips barely moved as she stooped to whisper in the teenager’s ear.

  “I’m sorry, but it’s time. They can’t keep you lingering here between life and death forever. And if they won’t make a decision, then I will.”

  “Rest in peace, Annalise, darling,” she murmured, running her fingers down the warm skin of the girl’s cheek.

  She straightened, inserted the syringe needle into the drip bag and depressed the plunger.

  ***

  It started as a recurring, high-pitched screech, the insistent warning blaring out once a second. Within moments, another machine detected an anomaly and added its own cry for attention. The sound of running feet was barely audible above the wailing cacophony.

  “Shut that bloody din off,” a male voice commanded.

  The irregular bleeps of the button presses mingled with the avalanche of noise until first one then the other alarm fell silent. The resident physician, a man in his late twenties, and a female nurse who was five years older, stood over the unconscious girl.

  “What the hell’s going on here?” the doctor asked.

  “Pulse is erratic at forty BPM. Actually, make that thirty-seven. Oxygen levels are crashing. There’s no indication of the cause.”

  “Is there anything special in the drip?”

  “Just the usual total parenteral nutrition,” the nurse replied.

  “Remove the damned thing—at least until we have a handle on what’s behind this. Let’s also get the resuscitation team over here right away. It looks like we might need them. Oh, and prepare a syringe of epinephrine.”

  The nurse hesitated. “Um ... are you sure you want to do this? I mean, she’s been in a coma for so long. Don’t you think it would be kinder to just let her go?”

  The doctor raised his eyes from the patient and fixed them on the nurse’s anxious face. “That’s not your decision to make. Now do your job.”

  The woman blinked and half opened her mouth to reply. With a brief shake of the head, she hurried away to the phone. The doctor turned his back on her, the previous conversation already wiped from his mind. He withdrew a torch from his pocket and raised the girl’s eyelid. He flashed a beam of light, first in one eye and then in the other. “Pupils totally unresponsive,” he muttered to himself. “Not entirely unexpected in the circumstances, I suppose.”

  The machine monitoring the patient’s pulse awoke from its muted state and emitted a continuous tone.

  “Cardiac arrest,” the doctor yelled. He glanced over his shoulder at the returning nurse. “Where the hell is that crash team?”

  She handed a syringe of clear liquid to him. “They’re on their way. They’ll be here in a minute.”

  “We can’t afford to wait.”

  The white-coated man held the syringe like a dagger and plunged the needle directly into the patient’s heart. He depressed the plunger with his thumb in one steady movement. When it was empty, he d
eposited it into the metal tray the nurse now presented to him.

  “Starting CPR,” he announced. Positioning the palm of his right hand in the centre of the girl’s chest, he placed his left hand on top, laced the fingers together, and pressed down hard in slow, repetitive strokes. His eyes remained fixed on the heart monitor readout.

  “Still no pulse. Where are they?”

  The sound of rapidly approaching footsteps accompanied by the squeak of trolley wheels answered his question.

  “Not before time,” he murmured, continuing the chest compressions.

  Two women in blue uniforms rushed to the opposite side of the bed and readied the machine.

  “She’s been in ventricular fibrillation for about thirty seconds,” the doctor said, glancing across at the newcomers. “I’ve already given her a shot of epinephrine.”

  “Give us a sec,” the taller of the two replied, opening the unconscious teenager’s hospital gown. She grasped an orange paddle in each hand and waited while her colleague adjusted the defibrillator settings. The doctor maintained his focus on rhythmically pumping the girl’s heart.

  The nurse by the control unit looked up and nodded her readiness.

  “Clear,” the paddle operator called.

  The doctor took a step backwards and raised his hands to indicate he was no longer in contact with the patient.

  The resuscitation nurse placed the paddles diagonally opposite each other on the patient’s chest. She depressed the yellow button with her thumb.

  The girl arched her spine then sank back to the bed. All eyes in the room stared at the heart monitor.

  “Still nothing,” the doctor said.

  The woman lifted the orange plastic handles. “Increase it by twenty joules.” She waited for her colleague to adjust the machine.

  “Clear.”

  A jolt of energy surged through the unconscious teenager’s body.

  Once again, the display became the centre of attention.

  The doctor shook his head.

  “Give it thirty more,” the nurse commanded. As soon as the other woman’s fingers had entered the new value, she triggered another electric shock.