Degeneration

by Mark Campbell

  Green tapped one of the CDC white-suits on the shoulder.

  The white-suit spun around, holding a clipboard in one hand and a digital thermometer in the other. He looked down at Terry and Richard, both of which were still unconscious and badly bruised.

  “We don’t take the dead,” the CDC white-suit said, annoyed.

  “They’re not dead, just out cold. They were involved in a train accident near the edge of downtown,” Green said. “Their temperature readings came back acceptable, though.”

  “There is no guarantee that they will wake up, though,” the CDC white-suit snapped, shaking his head. “And besides, we hardly have the facilities to handle trauma patients.”

  “What, this isn’t a hospital?” Small snidely replied.

  “Not anymore,” the CDC white-suit said, gesturing an arm out at the packed waiting room. “Look, I don’t have time to–”

  “Well what should we do with these two?” Green asked. “Will you at least take them?”

  The CDC white-suit sighed and quickly scanned Terry and Richard with the digital thermometer. The LED read back ‘37.0 °C’ and ‘38.1 °C’, respectively. He put the thermometer away and flipped through the scribbled pages attached to the clipboard.

  “Wheel them up to any one of the available patient rooms on… the fifth- Oh, wait, goddamnit,” the CDC white-suit muttered, flipping through some more pages. “That floor is festering, now. Wheel them… up to the eighth floor…. Let me check… Yeah, eighth floor. Stick them inside any available room.”

  The CDC white-suit turned and hurried away without speaking another word.

  Green and Small wheeled Richard and Terry through the crowded waiting room towards the elevators, ignoring the pleading cries echoing all around them.

  12

  Terry’s eyes opened and the florescent ceiling lights above him slowly came into focus. He leaned up and saw that he was still in his dress shirt with his sleeves rolled up. He smelt like diesel. An IV fed into his arm and was tapped securely against his skin. He laid his head back down and closed his eyes as fragmented memories of the train accident flooded back.

  His whole body ached, but it was not as intense as before. He touched his badly bruised forehead and suddenly became reacquainted with the sharp stabbing pains he had felt earlier. He quickly lowered his hand and allowed the stabbing pain to fade back into dull throbs. He coughed and made his body cringe with fresh pain.

  Slowly, he opened his eyes and looked around the windowless hospital room.

  The room was nicely appointed with the latest medical and monitoring devices. Gauges and pristine instruments were mounted on the wall behind his gurney. In front of him, white cabinetry and a small sink dominated the wall. A sterile scent hung in the room and clashed with the burnt diesel smell that lingered around him. He–

  “I didn’t think you were going to wake up,” Richard said from the gurney next to him.

  Terry startled and looked over towards the voice. It took him a minute, but he recognized the tacky rings and then helplessly gawked at the vicious bruises that covered the man’s face. He frowned and laid his head back down.

  “Hi. How long was I out?” Terry groggily asked. He glanced around the room, but was unable to find anything that even resembled a clock.

  “Not sure, I’ve only been up for about thirty minutes,” Richard said, shrugging. “It’d be nice if I saw a doctor sometime soon. Nobody gives a fuck around here it seems. All I saw so far was one nurse who was more concerned with taking my temperature then doing something about the…”

  Richard trailed off and simply pointed at his bruised face, as if explanation enough.

  “I can’t believe this… I better call home,” Terry muttered, noticing the LED television on the wall for the first time. It was turned off. “Did you check the news? How bad was the accident?”

  Just then, a middle-aged nurse walked into the room, coughing. She wiped her sweaty hands on the side of her uniform and slipped on some latex exam gloves.

  “Glad to see you’re up, sweetie,” she said to Terry, smiling. “Let’s just see how you’re doing.” She walked over to his bed and fished the electronic thermometer from the wall behind his head. She slipped a fresh probe over it and stuck it into his mouth, coughing into her arm. The silver name pin on her shirt read: T. Brooks, LPN.

  “Look, when is a doctor in? I need my–” Richard started.

  “Miss… Brooks, what exactly happened and how long–” Terry interrupted, making the thermometer bobble in his mouth.

  She quickly shushed him, and then sneezed into her sleeve.

  “Don’t talk. Wait, and let me get this.” The thermometer beeped and she took it out his mouth. “100.1. Well, you still got a low grade fever but that could be caused by a variety of things. It’s not the worst we’ve seen, but it’s not the best either. It’s still not high enough to pull you out. Anyway, we’ll know for sure after the blood work gets checked out.” She sneezed again.

  Both Richard and Terry stared at her, hungry for answers.

  She smiled.

  “Pull me out? What’s going on?” Terry asked, confused.

  “All sorts of craziness, I’m afraid. Terrorists released some sort of engineered flu virus and it’s catching like wildfire. The army’s got all of downtown on lockdown, you know. All sorts of craziness,” she said as she started walking towards Richard to take his temperature. “But you didn’t hear any of that from me.”

  Terry look baffled.

  “What about the train accident?” Terry asked, voice shaken.

  “Oh, I don’t know anything about that. We’ve been busy as bees here all morning and those government people in their white spacesuits aren’t exactly fountains of information,” she said.

  Richard raised his hands up and shook his head.

  “Look, whatever is going on, I need my medication. It’s not in my pocket. When can I see a doctor and–” Richard asked before she popped the thermometer into his mouth and cut him off.

  “I’m afraid I can’t say, honey. The only doctors left are from the CDC. The last staff doctor we had just got locked up in the isolation unit downstairs,” she said, frowning. “If I were you, I’d ask the CDC man when he comes in to do the blood work. He’d know better than I would. They just have us out checking temperature readings and moving sick people into isolation.”

  The thermometer in Richard’s mouth beeped and she slid it out, smiling.

  “98.1, good,” she said, throwing the thermometer probe cover away, smiling.

  “Wait– isolation? How bad is this flu?” Terry asked.

  The nurse lost her smile.

  “You shouldn’t worry yourself. You just need to worry about feeling better,” she replied and then coughed. “I have to go now and check on the others, but I’ll be back later to check on you two, okay? One of the CDC guys should be coming in to draw your blood and give you something to tide you over until a doctor gets a look at you two.”

  Frustration boiled inside Richard and he clinched his fists until his knuckles turned white.

  “Can you please try to get someone up here soon?” Richard asked, massaging his throbbing forehead. “It’s very important that I see somebody soon, okay?”

  “You and the other thousand souls in here,” the nurse said. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.” She exited, coughing violently on her way out.

  They never saw her again.

  “Well she was helpful,” Richard muttered over to Terry. “This is all so fucked-up.”

  Richard unclenched his fists and stared at his open palms. He could hear the whispers growing louder inside his head. He needed his pills.

  “This is all too much,” Terry said, shaking his head. “One minute we were on a train and now we’re trapped inside a hospital in the middle of a terrorist attack? I-I really have to call home.”

  Terry reached towards the small table between the two gurneys and grabbed the room phone. He quickly dialed his home number, d
esperate to call the one woman who couldn’t care less about his well-being.

  “Due to network malfunctions, your call cannot be completed at this time. Please hang up and try your call again later,” the operator’s voice chimed in his ear.

  Terry cursed and hung the phone up. He picked the receiver back up and dialed again.

  “Due to network malfunctions, your–”

  Terry slammed the phone down, picked it up, and dialed ‘0’ for the operator, frantic.

  “Due to network–”

  And again.

  “Due to–”

  And again.

  “Due–”

  And again.

  “D–”

  Terry hurled the phone off of the table. The cord tore from the wall as the phone flew across the room.

  Richard stared down at the phone as it started to ring.

  Richard startled in his bed, staring at the broken phone as it rang continuously. Each ring was loud and piercing. It made his head pound as he stared down at the ringing phone, trying to make sense out of what he was–

  Get the phone, Richie.

  The voice reverberated in his head, drowning out the rings.

  Richard pressed his hands against his pounding forehead as the phone rung louder each passing second.

  “Stop,” Richard whispered to the phone.

  Terry said something, but his voice was drowned out.

  Get the phone!

  Richard startled again at the sound of the familiar voice as the ringing continued to echo inside his skull.

  “Stop it,” Richard hissed between his clinched teeth. “You’re not really him…”

  Answer the goddamn phone!

  “STOP!” Richard screamed at the voice, squeezing his hands over his ears.

  The ringing stopped.

  Laugher reverberated inside his head and slowly faded.

  “Stop WHAT?!” Terry asked for the third time, frustrated. “What is wrong with you?!”

  Richard lowered his hands and stared at the phone on the floor, silent. He habitually reached a shaking hand down to his front pocket, feeling for the pill bottle that was no longer there. Remembering his missing medication, he stopped, and folded his arms across his stomach. The nausea and dizziness, both of which were common withdrawal symptoms, were already starting to manifest.

  “Nothing,” Richard said, head aching. It’s been a long time since he had an episode and it left him feeling beside himself and frightened.

  Terry shook his head and muttered something as he slid his cellphone out from the carrying case on his belt.

  Richard shot a questionable look over towards him, unable to decipher what he mumbled.

  (What the hell did he say?)

  He said something about you, Richie. Don’t trust that little shit.

  Richard winched at the sound of the whispering voice, but he knew that it was right, even if it wasn’t real. People were always saying cruel things about him underneath their breath and behind his back. His condition made him different, and he knew that everyone around him picked up on it. His whole life has been about trying to fit in and appear normal. But without the medication, he didn’t know how long his pharmaceutical mask of normalcy would last.

  He felt his deceptive mask chipping away a little bit more each passing minute.

  Terry didn’t pay Richard any attention and continued to stare at his cellphone. Despite being relieved to see that it survived the crash, he was dismayed to see the message on his screen.

  “No signal. Great!” Terry yelled as he shoved the phone back into the leather case.

  Terry snatched the remote off of the nightstand and turned on the television. He flipped anxiously through channels.

  Richard closed his eyes and his headache slowly subsided. His anxious roommate wasn’t helping him any. His stressed behavior was obnoxious and, frankly, becoming intolerable. He wasn’t worried about the flu. Hell, he had the flu countless times before.

  “Maybe you should try to relax,” Richard suggested with his eyes closed.

  “Relax? We’re in the middle of a terrorist attack! We need to find out what is going on,” Terry counter and finally found CNN on the television.

  “–as planned. We don’t know the exact nature of the attack, but we have been told that the entire downtown area is affected,” the reporter said from behind the news desk. “The Raleigh evacuation is still in progress and we’ve been told that things are going orderly, due mostly to the multi-agency coordinated response we saw at Fort Detrick this morning. We–”

  “They got Fort Detrick, too?! What in the hell is going on,” Terry muttered, shaking his head, watching fearfully.

  He flipped to Fox News–

  “–in size and scope,” the reporter said. She stood outside a large grass field full of white tents. People wearing blue jackets adorned with ‘FEMA’ in yellow lettering scurried behind her, carrying boxes of supplies while helicopters hover overhead.

  “FEMA is establishing a number of refugee centers just like the one behind me in and around the Halifax County area for evacuees,” the reporter said, speaking loud enough to drown out a passing helicopter. “The fact that no vehicular traffic has been permitted through Raleigh’s city-wide quarantine roadblocks has complicated evacuation procedures, a source inside has informed us. The military is transporting evacuees out of the city via helicopter from FEMA centers that have been specially designated throughout the city. Even more time consuming we’ve been told, is that evacuees must pass through strict medical screening before even being allowed to board.”

  “Any word on why such strict security measures or why the refugee centers are being placed outside of North Carolina?” a male’s voice asked.

  The reporter shook her head.

  “Unfortunately, officials have been very tight-lipped about the nature of the contagion. We can only speculate that–”

  Terry flipped back to CNN.

  A woman stood behind a podium, hurriedly shuffling through a series of notecards. Cameras flashed and cast her in strobe. The ticker at the bottom of the screen read ‘BREAKING NEWS: NC GOV. JANET WELLS declares state of emergency.’

  “Due to the unprecedented and volatile nature of the biological terrorist attack, I am hereby declaring a state of emergency for North Carolina effective immediately. All schools and public offices will be closed and all off-duty local and state emergency personnel are ordered to report to their duty stations at once.

  “While Raleigh is the only city currently under a mandatory evacuation order, I deeply implore residents in nearby cities to evacuate and seek a safe place until the issue is resolved in a satisfactory manner. Residents quarantined inside downtown Raleigh will be evacuated as soon as it determined safe to do so.

  “It is also with a heavy heart that I am declaring martial law and activating the full resources of the North Carolina National Guard in order to maintain accountability for personal safety and the protection of personal property in this time of crisis.”

  The ticker at the bottom of the screen changed: ‘NC GOV ENACTS MARTIAL LAW’

  “A statewide curfew of seven to seven will be enforced. Looters will be dealt with extreme prejudice. May God watch over us and give us strength in our hour of need. This concludes my announcement and there will be no questions.”

  She walked off of the stage as the reporters erupted into an uproar of questions.

  Terry flipped through the channels, hand trembling as he pressed the button on the remote.

  CSPAN was all static, as were a lot of other basic cable stations. Most of the local stations were static, but the local FOX affiliate, WRAL, came through.

  He turned the volume up and listened.

  An attractive reporter stood a few blocks away from an army roadblock setup a few miles away from the edge of downtown Raleigh. Tanks and Humvees blocked the street while soldiers in white hazmat suits stood post in front of them. Bright halogen lamps ran the expanse of the roadblock
and created an eerie white glow that silhouetted the soldiers. Despite the extreme military presence, the reporter seemed unnerved as she yelled into the microphone, speaking over the rumble of the passing Humvees and the helicopters overhead.

  “FEMA assures us that residents trapped inside the downtown quarantine will be evacuated as soon as the area is deemed safe. People trapped inside are under careful supervision and twenty-four-hour medical supervision,” she said carefully and exactly as instructed. She didn’t glance over at the armed white-suit standing next to the cameraman even once.

  “While exact fatalities are not yet known, those who have taken ill are receiving the best medical care available. CDC has assured us that no cases of the virus have emerged outside of the downtown containment zone, but they also urge residents in the rest of the city not to take the evacuation order lightly.”

  Footage of men and women standing in line at the Crabtree Valley Mall FEMA evacuation center filled the screen.

  “Officials urge all residents to report to any of the multiple FEMA Safe Haven evacuation centers that have been established throughout the Raleigh area for free medical screening and safe evacuation out of the city.”

  A list of FEMA Safe Haven locations rolled along the bottom of the screen, slowly.

  The footage switched back to the reporter.

  “Thanks, Lisa. Any word on what to do if you do start to feel ill?” an off-screen voice cheerfully asked from the newsroom.

  The reporter, Lisa, nodded stiffly and tried to smile.

  “Yes, don’t go anywhere. Stay home. They’re urging anybody exhibiting flu-like symptoms to isolate themselves from other family members and call the twenty-four hour hotline as soon as possible to receive help. Do not call 911.”

  A 1-800 number flashed along the bottom of the screen.