“Is the entrance you described guarded?”
“Yes. By video. Other equipment is unknown. No armed guards.” Jared heard muffled voices. His hair pricked his ear and perspiration dripped along his neck.
“Plan for extraction within the next eight hours. Be sure to identify yourself by wearing the arm band provi …” The phone went dead.
Chapter 12
Eight hours. Caroline wouldn’t be ready in eight hours. She needed the procedures done now to save her hand. Why wouldn’t they listen? Delay it a single day. Twelve Hours. He had to get back to Caroline, help Charmin do what she could, and prepare the two of them for an attack on the Shine base and extraction.
Jared glanced down at his watch. It had already been forty minutes and he had nothing but a bottle of Robitussin to show for it. He walked back to the van, took a deep breath, and then entered the hospital through the acute care entrance.
The waiting room was packed. It was standing room only. He could practically smell the pain and disgust in the room.
“Excuse me,” one of the nurses said as he turned sideways and shuffled between Jared and a mother and son combo at the check-in counter. The 11-year-old had an ace bandage wrapped around his foot and was using miss-matched crutches.
Jared followed the nurse with some urgency as if he had been asked to. When the nurse entered one of the rooms, Jared continued forward. He passed cardiology and urology and then ducked down a hallway as a group of physicians and nurses rushed a gurney with an old man on it out of a room and towards the entrance.
The hallway he’d gone down was lined: pacemakers, respiratory mixing equipment and other machinery that looked like it belonged in Star Trek. The hospital must have desperately run out of space and stacked every last item in this hallway.
“Hey you,” a loud voice said. “You can’t be back there.” Footsteps rushed down the hall.
Jared ducked behind a portable x-ray unit and hugged the wall.
A nurse ran by. A moment later she was towing a teenager with his arm in a sling back to the Emergency Room entrance. “You have to wait up front.”
“But my mom. She…”
Jared eased himself deeper into the hallway after the voices passed. He found more equipment and at least a dozen carts. Some of them were laundry carts, while others contained empty food trays or emergency supplies. Eventually he found a cart labeled Surgical Prep. Jared ducked behind the surgical prep cart, opened the drawer, and rifled through the contents. Scalpels, catheters, needles, gauze, bandages, suction tubing, and bone saws. Nearly all of these items were on his list and he hadn’t even brought a shopping bag.
Jared closed the drawers and sat with his back against the wall glancing down the hallway trying to find a way to smuggle out the supplies he needed. There was no way out. He was lucky to have gotten this far. The nurses and physicians weren’t going to let him waltz out of here with the equipment. They wouldn’t even let an injured teenage boy in shock go look for his mother. He bit his lip and pictured Caroline in a patient gown and a hospital bed pushing away the IV and medical devices.
That was it. He couldn’t get out of here looking like a patient, but he may be able to as a doctor. He made his way over to one of the laundry carts and shuffled through it: folded towels and bedding, a few pillows. A second cart was the same, but the third one was stuffed full of boxes of the paper scrubs used in the Operating Room.
Jared ripped open one of the boxes and slipped on one of the scrubs complete with a paper bonnet and booties. Then he removed the remaining boxes from the cart and stacked them against the wall.
After placing all the surgical prep carts contents in the giant laundry bin, he placed the remaining OR scrubs across the top of it. When he heard another nurse and physician team rushing toward the Acute Care entrance to help a patient, he followed them, pushing the laundry bin in front of him.
Jared rounded the ambulance and saw one of the physicians hand a medical chart to the driver. “Get the patient to Detroit General STAT. They have a liver donor.”
The driver jumped in the front seat and glanced into the back of the ambulance where the patient was being loaded.
He had to hurry. His cover could be blown any second. The laundry bin nudged his van’s bumper and he ripped open the van doors.
The ambulance’s lights started flashing.
Ignoring the ear-piercing scream of the siren, he yanked out the shopping cart and shoved the laundry bin into the back of the van. By the time he got the double doors shut, the ambulance was gone. And so were the doctors and nurses.
He ditched the shopping cart in some neighboring bushes, sat down at an empty bus stop near the curb, and waited for Juliet to arrive.
Chapter 13
The tiny hairs lining Frenchie’s throat were acting normally. But that hadn’t stopped the fever or chills. Her arms and thighs looked like chicken skin even though the infirmary was growing warmer. She craved a bottle of Nyquil and two shots of Jack Daniels to make the world go away.
The entire room was silent. Thierry was in the bed next to his sister, while Caroline and Lola were across the room behind a closed curtain. Charmin huddled in the corner with her glass tubes. A huge image was projected across the wall.
Frenchie’s vitals monitor beeped signifying it had just completed a ten minute sequence. Her vitals looked even worse than those she’d seen of Janice’s earlier. She swallowed and was suddenly aware of the large amount of mucous sliding down the back of her fire-lined throat. Was everyone else going through the same thing?
She sat up desperate for a drink of water and some kind of throat lozenge. The bed seemed to sway underneath her and the room began to spin in slow motion. Why wasn’t Charmin coming to help her? She wanted to call out to her, ask for some help, but her throat was too painful and felt as if it would spew lava if she opened it.
Hands outstretched, Frenchie grabbed the wall and eventually pulled herself into her wheelchair. She started across the room. The closer she got to Charmin, the more intense her symptoms became. She held up her hand to thwart the bright light being put off by the projector.
“Frenchie, what are you doing?” Charmin said, as she stood up with great-grandma like speed. She grabbed Frenchie under the arm and helped her over to a vacant chair.
“Water,” Frenchie asked as she continued to shield herself and tried to turn away from the light. “My throat’s killing me.”
Charmin grabbed a bottle of water, mixed in some kind of medication, and then added a scoop of orange punch powder. After shaking up the bottle, she handed it to Frenchie and then turned the projector’s light down.
Frenchie chugged the fluids.
“Slow down,” Charmin said. “Take a sip or two. Gargle if you can. Give the medication a chance to counteract what’s in your throat.”
Frenchie nodded and did as she was told. The burning started to fade. The swelling went down and the back of her throat and tongue became somewhat numb.
“ank you,” Frenchie mumbled. Her tongue felt like it had swelled to the size of a cow’s and was crammed in against her teeth, practically unusable.
“May I?” Charmin asked, holding up a syringe and nodding at her arm.
Frenchie nodded and looked away. She’d always hated needles, which was probably the only reason she never got that Grumpy Care Bear tattoo she’d always wanted.
There was a slight prick, and by the time she opened her eyes, Charmin already had the blood sample and was applying a bandage to her arm.
Charmin injected the blood into a silicon bubble and popped it into her mouth. When she was done, she spit the bubble into a metal bowl filled with alcohol.
“Well?” Frenchie asked.
Charmin ignored her, went to her computer and typed something.
“What did you find?”
She continued typing. “You have the virus, same as me. But your body’s not handling it as well. Your kidney and liver enzymes are way up.”
�
�But I was only exposed an hour or so ago.”
“I’m just telling you what I found. We’ll need to get you hooked up to an IV to keep your fluids up. And then we have to find a way to retard the virus. If we can’t slow it, I’m not sure how long your organs can hold on.”
This couldn’t be happening. Her liver and kidneys were failing. Those weren’t her best parts, but they had to be important. Frenchie recalled one of her cousins that had been on dialysis, had a cystostomy, her bladder removed, and had all of her pee collected in a bag. She couldn’t do that. She couldn’t be that girl. Frenchie’s head hurt like her brain was suddenly resting on the jagged edges of her skull.
Charmin grabbed her hand and gave it a firm squeeze. “I’m going to start the IV now. Okay?”
Frenchie coughed. Her entire body jolted. Pain reverberated from head to toe. When it passed, she nodded. “Be quick. My head feels like it’s about to erupt.” The words came out somewhat different with her new estranged tongue. But Charmin seemed to understand what she said.
Ten minutes later, she was comfortable and buzzing. Charmin had mixed a nice little cocktail and slipped it into her IV. She promised to keep her dosage high, if Frenchie would do but a single task – make sure that the cilia in her lungs and the others remained free to breathe.
Chapter 14
The laundry cart slammed into the back of the passenger seat. Jared flinched and turned around, wishing he’d have secured the cart in the back of the van before they left, but he was afraid doing so would draw attention to himself, that someone would find him and the equipment. A sharp turn smashed the cart against the side of the van.
“Stupid. I can’t believe you took a laundry bin,” Juliet said as she shook her head.
Jared stared at the ground, hoping that the tossing and turning of the equipment didn’t break anything. They’d heard the APB out for them when they were just a half-mile away from the hospital. The cops had the make and model of the van, Jason’s build and their license plate number. They must have pulled it up on their security footage.
There were no swirling lights around yet. Juliet kept the pedal pushed down to the floor and adjusted the volume on the police scanner. “Okay, here’s the plan. I drop you off. You get the supplies downstairs and I’ll ditch the van.”
Jared didn’t argue. He should be the one taking on the cops and ditching the van. But this would get him down to Caroline sooner. He glanced at his watch. Only six hours left.
The van pulled into the open bay doors next to the warehouse that housed the mine’s entrance. The warehouse was empty except for the debris, ice and snow that was piled up mostly at either of the two entrances. Juliet threw the vehicle into park and raced around to the back of the van. Jared already had the van’s doors open and together they pulled out the laundry cart. The five inch wheels squeaked and stuck to the rocky concrete floor. How would they do being pushed through the snow and mud to the other building?
Police sirens echoed throughout the neighborhood, but they still could not see any lights.
Janet jumped back into the driver’s seat and rolled down her window. “Give me five minutes and make sure the coast is clear before you leave. We’ll rendezvous back at the base.”
Jared nodded and Juliet left the garage with her tires spitting dust, and then slush as she exited the opposite side of the building.
Two minutes later three cops flew around the corner. One of them slowed and entered the gated warehouse and garage area while the other two hover vehicles kept after the van. The police had known they had stopped. They were obviously in tune with the van’s mandatory locator beacon.
There was nowhere to hide. The policeman would enter the warehouse in less than a minute. Jared sprinted the length of the garage with the laundry cart in front of him. Before the hover vehicle got to the warehouse he exited the bay doors at the far side of the garage. When the laundry cart’s wheels hit the wet mud and slush, it came to a jolting stop. Jared’s body slammed into the right side of the cart. The cart spun and tipped. Medical supplies flung into the mud, across the ground, and against the wall of the garage.
Jared stood, jumped behind the door frame, and yanked the cart out of the line of visibility. He gathered the supplies as he heard the cop’s hovercraft settle down on the warehouse floor at the far end of the garage.
Jared watched the officer through the door jamb.
The blue lights twirled as the cop used his spotlight to search the corners of the warehouse.
There wasn’t time for this. The laundry bin had broken and one of its wheels had fallen off and skittered across the driveway. Keeping an eye on the cop, Jared removed his shirt and stuffed whatever medical supplies were within reach into it. And that’s when he noticed the bone saw and some of the other supplies littered across the garage’s exit.
The cop was out of his car. A giant flashlight aimed straight ahead with one hand while the other held firm to a Taser. He was still in the middle for the room, but he seemed to be heading straight for Jared.
Jared scrambled for something to defend himself: bandages, gauze, a tiny scalpel or some catheters. What was he going to do, mummify the officer? And that’s when he spotted the defibrillator.
He gathered up the device and looked across the battery indicator. A full charge. He turned it on and then his eyes went back to the cop.
The officer had recognized the medical supplies out past the garage’s opening. He advanced forward. “Come out with your hands up.”
Jared set the paddles to the side and lay on his back.
“I know you are out there. Backup is on the way. Turn yourself in.” The officer’s voice echoed around the large room. He was within five feet of the exit.
Jared had to get back into the mines and get to his daughter. He slammed both of his feet against the 15 foot warehouse doors. The wall shuttered. He stomped again and the entire building seemed to move. The sound sent his ears ringing.
Both Jared’s hands went to his ears.
The cop ran out of the building as Jared gave a vicious kick the door a third time.
A loud crack came from the rooftop. Four foot icicles and three hundred pounds of snow and slush tumbled off the roof. The officer jumped back, tripped, and fell to the ground as two feet of slush washed over him.
Jared grabbed the defibrillator paddles, jumped on top of the overturned plastic laundry cart, and slammed the paddles into the wet ground.
The electricity zapped across the ice and wet earth, into the warehouse, and straight through the policeman’s leather boots. The cop twitched and collapsed.
Jared put the defibrillator paddles away and rushed over to the policeman. He clapped his hands in front of the policeman’s eyes, but he didn’t respond.
Jared’s back was raw from lying down on the ice and his naked chest tightened from the frigid air. But he felt paralyzed as he stared at the officer. Had he killed a man? He wanted to cry, to mourn the officer. But he didn’t have time. Other cops would follow and the extraction team would be here in a few hours. He placed his fingers on the policeman’s wrist.
It took a few moments, but a thready pulse was definitely there. He slapped the radio on the policeman’s chest and said, “Man down. Send help, policeman down.”
Jared didn’t answer the police dispatcher’s repeated request. He jumped to his feet and gathered what medical supplies he could, hoping that what remained was enough to save Caroline’s hand.
Holding the supplies in his soggy shirt, Jared crossed the yard to the other warehouse opposite him. He ran inside, threw open the trap door, stuffed the supplies into the basket, and sent it down to the bottom of the stairwell. Then he raced down the stairs praying he wasn’t too late.
Once he reached the bottom of the mine he gathered the supplies and took off for the infirmary. When he arrived, a four-inch wall of plastic sealed the room. He slammed his fists on the wall. “Charmin, let me in.”
There was no movement.
H
e banged on the wall again. “Charmin, help. I have the supplies,” he screamed.
A pathetic looking Frenchie wheeled over to the door. Her eyes sunken and her face sickly white. She looked a lot like Thierry’s sister, Janice. This couldn’t be. What happened?
Jared grabbed a sheet of paper off the side table outside the infirmary. He scribbled as fast as he could and held the note up against the plastic to Frenchie. “Is Caroline in there?”
Frenchie nodded, giggled, and pointed to a bed surrounded by drapes on the other side of the room. Some of the sparkle came back to her eyes as she stared at him and down the hallway.
Jared slumped against the door. Janice wasn’t supposed to be contagious. But the lockdown of the infirmary confirmed otherwise. His head fell into his folded arms. And he wailed.
Chapter 15
Lola rolled over. How many more times would she have to get up to pee? The infirmary had no bathroom, just a bed pan and all the privacy a curtain would offer. She waited for the latest bout of gas and indigestion to pass and then she got up from her bed. Using her crutches, she limped over to the chair that contained the bed pan.
Before she climbed back into her bed, she noticed that the cold floor seemed to be seeping into her bones. Her body shuttered with chills and she craved the odd combination of dill pickles and chocolate. She had to get something to eat. Her stomach rumbled at the thought of food and then her stomach went into spasm.
After the gastric distress passed, she pulled over her wheelchair. Because of her weak arms and one good leg, it took her a few minutes before she sat comfortably in the seat. How did Frenchie make it look so simple?
She pulled open the curtain. Her eyes settled on Caroline who sat across the room, propped up in her bed, sedated. Her happy-go-lucky smile replaced by stagnant dull eyes. Lola wanted to talk with her, tell her everything would be all right. But with Caroline sedated, Lola wasn’t sure how to get started.
Shine: Season One (Shine Season Book 1) Page 113