by Tracy Serpa
She had no idea how much time had passed when Mike finally emerged into the lighter darkness of the front yard. He held the rifle by the butt, the barrel hovering inches above the ground. A dark bloodstain colored his jeans above his right knee and his shirt near his heart.
“Oh God,” Heather choked. A sob broke in her throat as Mike looked briefly toward the car and gestured for them to wait. He pulled a spray can from his pocket and shook it, turning toward the garage. The car shook with Heather’s sobs as he spelled out, “kai don’t stop—honolulu airport.”
Eighteen
The attack happened so quickly, she still hadn’t registered the pain. Standing in the crowded emergency room check-in, directing patients to triage in the parking lot or the ER waiting room down the hall, Karen had been doing her best to exude calm and confidence. Everyone around her had the look of frightened, confused children—even the nurses that jogged back and forth, helping patients to the station to sign in or taking vital signs at waiting room chairs in an attempt to speed the process. But with every injured, sick, or just scared person in a fifty-mile radius heading to her hospital, Karen wasn’t sure how much longer they could keep control of the ER.
She had been racking her brain for solutions and had just decided to go find the person in charge of the military triage center when a young man with a broken arm began convulsing violently in his seat. His hands seized at the armrests, and he let out a terrible choking sound that sent his neighbors scurrying in different directions.
“Here!” Karen had shouted, motioning for the nearest nurse as she ran forward to help. But the seizure had stopped with the same suddenness as it began, and he locked his eyes on her when she knelt before him, her stethoscope out and pressed to his chest. She might not have heard the low growl that rumbled in his chest cavity without the tool, and it was the only thing that saved her from taking a brutal blow to the face. He swung his broken arm down at her with such ferocity that she gasped and fell backward onto the floor; the people around him moved farther away, clambering over each other, and there was no one to hold him back.
He rose to his feet in a smooth, deliberate motion, and Karen felt the adrenaline push into her bloodstream. His expression told her with certainty that he would kill her if he was given the chance. As he lunged for her, she kicked with her heel and grimaced as she felt the pointed tip sink into his gut. His howl was one of frustration and not of pain, answered by a chorus of terrified screams from the waiting room, and instantly they were in the midst of a riot. No one could hear her calls for help over the din, and the man scrabbled at her ankle, clawing her leg brutally, his blood seeping out around her heel and running down her foot. He jerked ferociously and wrenched her foot to the side, sending a stabbing pain shooting up her leg. The clinical voice in her head debated if the bone was broken or if it was a simple sprain.
In her peripheral vision, she saw one of the larger female nurses and a male nurse fighting through the crowd toward her. Keep him off you for a few more seconds, she commanded herself, shoving away the panic. He lunged again, his full weight slamming against her heel, which was still embedded in the flesh of his stomach, and her knee caved. He was nearly on her, with just her bent leg between his body and hers; he slavered at her face and clawed at her hair, and another boost of adrenaline hit her system, giving her one last bit of strength. She shoved against him, and his feet slipped from under him, sending him face-first into the floor. She heard the sound of his teeth hitting the linoleum-covered cement, and cringed.
Finally the nurses were there, pulling away the crazed man as he snapped and screamed at them. Karen thought he might have been trying to speak, but the sounds he made didn’t form any words; still, she was sure that there was some kind of indecipherable intention behind his ranting. Another nurse she didn’t know was helping her to a chair and asking if she was all right. She found she was unable to speak.
“Dr. Lau, you’re bleeding.” The nurse pointed to her leg.
She looked down, following the nurse’s hand, and found the wound. Her attacker had managed to pull a hunk of skin away from her calf, exposing one of the deeper layers of skin. In a haze, she traced the path of red that oozed from her skin down her calf a few short inches before she realized it mingled with the smaller rivulets of the man’s blood near her ankle.
“Get me antiseptic and gauze. Now.”
She was surprised by the calm tone of her voice; it belied the edge of panic she felt creeping into her brain. The adrenaline was beginning to wane, the cold of the room beginning to fill its void. The nurse hurried away, and Karen ripped her nylons open to expose the wound more completely. She peeled the fabric away down her leg, hoping to pull away most of the foreign blood with it, but she knew it was likely too late. Her attacker’s blood had run much farther down her calf, well past the open wound in her flesh; in all probability, some had already entered her system.
The nurse returned seconds later and immediately began cleaning the blood away from the gash.
“We’ll get the vaccinations in you right away,” she said, referring to the many shots she would have to take to ward off infection and hopefully keep her from contracting any blood-borne illness. But she knew they would not have a vaccination against what was likely already coursing through her veins.
Think, Karen, she said to herself. Anything they inject in you now is going to feed it. We know that from the lab. What else do we know? Nanotechnology . . . it’s too small to see, and we don’t know what it’s programmed to do. We don’t know how long it takes to control the system. But we do know it will eventually cause cardiac arrest, and then continue to animate the blood and body. She thought about the girl strapped to her bed and the impossibility of that reality. Her thoughts turned to Brandon, and a sudden hope made her lift her head abruptly.
“Sorry, I know that stings,” the nurse said, still dabbing at her leg. “You’re probably going to need sutures.”
Karen swatted the nurse’s hand away impatiently and stood, testing her weight on her injured leg gingerly. Her ankle was definitely painful; she’d have to tend to that later. Looking down at the nurse, she said in a low voice, “Anyone who comes in reporting they’ve been attacked or come in contact with anyone behaving strangely, I want them taken to the psych ward and strapped to a bed. Pass the word to triage outside. That makes three cases in the last six hours of patients exhibiting violent tendencies—I want it under control.”
With that, she headed for the elevator. As she waited, she felt her hands begin to tremble. Stop it, she told herself. It’s much too early for symptoms.
Once inside the elevator and alone, she jabbed her thumb into the number “4” and began formulating her plan and explanation for Thad simultaneously. It would take some convincing, she knew, but he would have to see her injury and exposure as an opportunity. She certainly had to; it was the only thing keeping her from losing control.
The ding of the elevator snapped her out of her thoughts, and the doors slid open to reveal one of her younger residents standing in the hallway, his arms crossed protectively across his chest, his face pale. Surprised to see him, she checked the level indicator on the wall and saw that she was only at the third floor.
“Dr. Lau,” he said breathlessly, extending an arm to prevent the doors from closing. “I was just coming to find you.”
She nodded curtly, still trying to remember his name. Kurt? Kirk?
“I’m heading up one floor. Ride with me?”
He stepped inside with her and let the doors slide shut.
“What can I do for you?” she asked simply, still unsure of his name.
He swallowed hard, his eyes on the floor.
“Well . . . we’ve been stitching up Justin and Maria, and then we had them both under observation for a few hours.”
Karen remembered her orderlies with a pang of guilt. It had been hours since Brandon had lashed out and bitten them, and she had completely forgotten the incident.
“How are they doing
?” she asked, trying to keep the anxiety out of her voice.
He cleared his throat and shifted his weight from foot to foot.
“Well, Justin has shown some . . . strange symptoms. About two hours ago he started shivering a lot. We wrapped him up, even put him under a thermal blanket, but it didn’t help. He started slurring his words, and then he didn’t respond at all anymore. We thought he might be having a stroke, so we ran him down for an fMRI.”
“And?”
He shook his head slowly. “We can’t explain it really. The scans show his brain function decreasing . . . almost like whole sections are shutting down. The amygdala is still active, but the blood flow is inconsistent. We’re not sure what that means. And the brainstem is showing signs of hyperactivity; everything else is . . . dark. We were almost through when he regained consciousness and started fighting the restraints.”
She was listening with half of her attention and setting pieces of the puzzle into place with the other. The elevator reached the fourth floor, and they stepped out automatically; she was briefly unnerved by the still-quiet hallway that contrasted so starkly with the ER. Walking next to her, the young resident checked her face for a reaction and continued.
“The rest of the images are too distorted to give us any certainty, but I think you should take a look at them. When we lined them up, it almost looks like whole areas of the brain are without blood flow . . . all the higher functions gone. Which matches with the nonsense he’s shouting, but not with his motor skills. I mean, by all accounts, he should be almost immobile.”
They were nearing Thad’s lab, and Karen knew she had to scrape the resident off for a while so she could brainstorm with her tech.
“Where is he now?” she asked curtly, pulling up short.
The resident tightened his arms across his chest.
“Um, we moved him back to his room and put him in restraints. He’s showing a tendency toward sudden, violent outbursts,” he said, his face blanching.
Warning bells sounded in Karen’s head, and she felt her eyes narrow. For the first time, she looked the resident over carefully and saw evidence of fingernail scratches where the backs of his hands were visible and on his neck. He had pulled his collar up to try and hide the marks.
“It’s Kurt, right?” she said, gambling.
“Yes, ma’am,” he responded. His face colored slightly with pleasure; it was not often she called her residents by name.
“Were you hurt?” she continued bluntly, and the color drained back out of his face.
“Well, I . . . when we were moving him, he wasn’t . . . he didn’t really cooperate. I got a few scratches,” he stammered.
“Can you unfold your arms?” she pressed.
He was clearly hesitant, so she put on her kindest face, the one she used to coax children into receiving their IVs, and finally he dropped his arms to his sides. As he moved, she saw a bright red bloodstain on the inside of his sleeve, near his wrist.
Trying to keep her face soft, she asked, “What else happened?”
Quietly, he explained that as they had dragged Justin back to a bed, he had fought violently, kicking and scratching at their arms, the aggression escalating until he had eventually managed to knock them to the floor and sink his teeth into Kurt’s forearm.
“I got it cleaned up,” he said quickly, his voice tight. “I don’t even need stitches . . . he barely broke the skin.”
“I see,” she responded, thinking. Less than five minutes prior, she had instructed her ER nurse to restrain anyone who had been attacked or bitten, and now she was having trouble following her own protocol. It was nearly impossible not to feel sympathetic toward Kurt; he was fresh out of medical school, idealistic and kind to patients. And he looked scared. She swallowed her guilt forcefully and looked him in the eyes.
“Kurt, I need you to go see the ER nurse. I know you said you don’t need stitches, but I want you to get an antibiotic in your system. We’re also following a protocol for attack victims, just until we can get some sort of order imposed.”
He blinked rapidly a few times and licked his lips nervously.
“I’m sorry; I have to be consistent,” she said, moving back toward the elevator. He followed without protest, and she waited with him until the car arrived to take him down to the main floor.
“Please, Kurt, go straight to the nurse. I can’t go with you, but I’ll come check on you in a little while,” she said just before the doors closed. He smiled thinly, knowing full well her words were a platitude. Still, she gave him her best comforting smile as the elevator doors slid closed.
Once he was gone, she turned quickly, forgetting her ankle, which sent spires of burning pain rocketing up her leg. She limped the rest of the way back to Thad’s lab, her mind working feverishly. More information is always helpful, she told herself, trying to ignore the fact that it was also terrifying.
~
The rain drove down in sheets so thick it acted like fog, obscuring the streets ahead of them as they made their way toward the police station. Leading their small group, Kai walked slowly, hunched over slightly against the rain and cold, keeping to the darkest part of the shadows. He watched for street signs to keep them on the right path, while doing his best to keep an eye out for any movement besides their own. Once, when they were only a few blocks away from the gas station, he thought he saw motion, a hazy silhouette moving in the rain, but when he focused it had disappeared. They moved on, cautiously.
Jones’s teeth were chattering hard; he walked a step behind Kai, just visible in his peripheral vision. His arms were wrapped tightly around his torso as he trudged along, eyes on the sidewalk. The once-proud Mohawk now hung in tangles, the longest part dripping water onto Jones’s pallid face. Kai reached out and patted his friend reassuringly on the shoulder, slightly surprised when Jones jumped at the contact.
He looked up, his eyes disoriented and hazy, but then the sunny grin broke through and he chuckled. “Sorry. I was dreaming.”
Frowning, Kai looked at Paul, whose face was awash with concern. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but a nagging pull at the back of his brain told him he should keep a close eye on Jones. But he smiled at Paul reassuringly.
“We should be getting close,” he said in a low voice.
“I hope everyone’s okay,” Paul answered quietly.
A shiver ran up Kai’s spine; he had been working hard to ignore any doubts in his mind about Sarah’s safety. Repeatedly he told himself that she was with Mike, who would ensure that no harm came to his sister. But that lid only held for so long—eventually the fears would break loose and pervade his thoughts again until he could barely focus on anything but the urge to break into a run and get to the station. He held himself back with the reminder that neither Paul nor Jones would be able to keep up with him, and if they were separated, even by a few yards, they were infinitely more vulnerable to attack. And then he would return to the struggle to understand this strange new reality in which such considerations were necessary.
They came to a corner that required they move away from the shelter of the buildings and cross a street. Uncomfortable with the prospect of a dash across an open road, Kai scanned the area for other options. Finding none, he gathered his nerve and signaled to the others to follow. The rainwater gushed down the street in torrents, tugging at their feet as they splashed along, sapping their energy and calling attention to their movement. Bits of trash and glass whirled in the dark water that smelled of brine and asphalt. Once across, they huddled against the side of a building and watched for followers.
“Frickin’ rain,” Jones cursed and pushed his hair out of his face. He was panting hard as he pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes.
“You gonna be okay, man?” Paul questioned.
Jones just nodded, still winded. Kai frowned again—he was tired too, and the weight of his wet clothes was making it difficult to move efficiently. It was now well past the middle of the night, and the strain of all t
hat had happened threatened to crash down at any moment, overwhelming what little energy he had left. But Jones looked completely exhausted, as if he had been up for a week straight, and a strange kind of fog was creeping into his eyes.
“Jones,” Kai said, turning to place both his hands on the younger man’s shoulders. Jones looked up, and Kai realized with a shock that he was crying.
“Something’s wrong,” Jones whispered, his chin quivering.
“What do you mean?” Kai pressed.
The younger man shook his head slowly, like he was trying to clear it, and brought his hands up to his temples.
“I feel like my brain is going soft,” he whimpered, his chin puckering as he held back tears. “Like I want to go to sleep, but not lie down . . . like I would keep going. But every time I try to say what I . . .” He groaned and pressed on his forehead. It was both a sound of frustration and fear.
Kai looked up at Paul, who was watching him with guarded eyes. He knew what his brother was thinking—the same realization had finally hit him. The way Jones moved, his speech, the look in his eyes—all reminded him of Brandon over the last few weeks.
Jones wiped his face and looked up at Kai with searching eyes.
“You think I . . . you think I got something, from that girl?” he stammered, his teeth chattering hard. “Whatever she had? Whatever made her . . .”
Kai searched for an answer, but before he could speak, Jones yanked himself away and stood back from them, eyes wide.
“It’s got to be, right? Whatever is turning people into maniacs, it’s contagious. That’s why they want us in evacuation centers, so they can monitor the spread. Oh shit,” Jones rambled, running his hands over his face and head frantically. Blinking furiously, he started to pace a short path back and forth in front of them.
Paul took a step toward his friend. “Jones, I don’t think—”
“No, it makes total sense!” Jones exclaimed, his eyes simultaneously foggy and feverish. “Something is going around, making people act crazy . . . violent . . . it’s only natural that it would spread through the blood, right? I mean, her blood must have gotten in my cut, and now . . .” He trailed off and stopped short, staring off into space. In a quick, fierce motion, he spun to face them.