“Okay,” Christine’s voice wavered, as if it came through uncalm seas, “I’m going. I love you too.”
Sevita sagged against the concrete wall as she hung up.
Five
Christine stared at the radio for a moment, not entirely certain what she’d just been told to do.
“You okay?” asked the girl on the other side of the counter, one hand still pressing a cotton ball into her opposite arm. Christine nodded and hurried over with a bandage.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” She peered down the hallway, looking for another nurse to take over. She wished she knew why Sevita had told her to go alone.
“Who was that?”
“My wife. She just— she wanted to remind me of something I had to do today. It’s nothing.”
“Sure didn’t sound like nothing.”
“Let’s go back to the exam room, Marnie. I’ll see if the doctor is ready to approve entry and then I’ll take you over to Housing.”
The girl shrugged and Christine led her slowly down the hall. The lights flickered, the hospital’s old generator having trouble powering the whole place. Marnie flopped down onto the gurney and Christine gave her a smile. “Be right back,” she said. Marnie nodded. Christine thought about bolting. The panic and desperation in Sevita’s voice had been so uncharacteristic. It chilled her.
She found one of the hospital’s four doctors, a pediatrician who’d barely graduated from medical school when the Plague hit. Christine had known more of immediate use than he had. Probably still did. But people still trusted the initials MD more than EMT.
“Exam three is ready,” she said, trying to keep her voice and breath steady. All she wanted to do was scream at him to go downstairs, for God’s sake, to move. He looked blandly up from his paperwork.
“Sorry, Mrs. Das. Quarantine team is on its way with a high priority patient, something infectious. I hope it’s not dysentery. That would be bad news. Anyway, I have to suit up. Admitting paperwork will have to wait. Why don’t you take her to the cafeteria for a meal?”
Christine nodded, but the hairs on the back of her arm prickled. She turned around as the doctor stood up. She tried to regulate her pace back to the exam room, fighting her unease. She glanced at Marnie as she entered the room. The girl was swinging her legs against the gurney, but Christine could see the tension in her hands as she gripped the thin foam mattress. Marnie’s face was starved and shadowed with deep hollows, making her seem even warier and ready to flee than she would otherwise have appeared. Christine couldn’t just leave her. It was one thing to race down an empty hall and hide in a basement. She told herself it was even okay to lie to her coworkers because she was almost certain that Sevita was overreacting and Christine would emerge sheepishly from the bunker in a few hours time and pretend she’d been sneaking in a pregnancy nap. But this girl had no one. No family, no friends. She’d wandered in alone, hungry, dehydrated and obviously no stranger to hardship with nothing but a tattered, empty backpack and a wrinkled, ruined road map of the county. Christine couldn’t bring herself to dump her.
“Um— the doctor was called away for a while,” began Christine, “we’re running a— a drill. For emergency preparedness.”
“A drill?” asked Marnie.
“Like fire drills in school. Can you remember those?”
The girl shook her head. Christine was both vaguely relieved and saddened. “Well, just— just come with me, we need to head to the shelter. Walk as quickly as you can, but don’t run and don’t stop. If anyone tries to stop you or talk to you, just let me do the talking. We’ll be done before you know it.”
Marnie shrugged and dropped onto her feet. Christine checked the hall again. It was still empty. They walked quickly to the stairwell, Christine glancing back a few times to be certain Marnie kept up. They were only a few flights from the ground floor, four from the basement bunker. Christine began to ease up. No one ever used this back entrance. It connected to the huge, empty parking garage. The only people that ever came down were the maintenance men and only to keep the hospital’s generator clean and filled and to make sure no pests had reached the bunker supplies once a month. Although everyone who worked in the hospital was supposed to know about the bunker, Christine guessed that only a handful of people even remembered it was there.
She froze and grabbed Marnie’s arm as she heard the metal door screech open a landing below. She leaned over the rail and looked down. The doctor was masked and holding the door open for figures in biohazard suits backed through the doorway pulling a gurney. The bed was covered with an inflated plastic tube that wheezed and billowed with the rhythm of its private oxygen tank. The figure inside thrashed and twisted, thumping the sides of the tube irregularly. The sight disturbed Christine, though she wasn’t sure quite why. She pulled herself back up before anyone could look up to see her.
“What’s wrong?” asked Marnie.
“Shh,” hissed Christine. The teen glared at her, but was silent as the small group of soldiers wheeled their strange patient deeper into the building and the clomp of their boots dwindled.
“Are you going to tell me what’s really going on?” hissed Marnie in a sharp whisper. “Because I could easily scream and bring everyone running.”
“I’ll tell you what I know when we get there. I don’t have time right now.”
“Maybe I don’t feel like going with you. Maybe I don’t trust you.”
Christine’s soft face stiffened into steel as she stared at the girl. “Go ahead, scream all you want. Stay up here or leave the City, or do whatever you want. I’m trying to save our lives, but believe me when I tell you that I don’t need you. You got it?”
Marnie nodded and Christine hurried down the rest of the stairs.
The bunker was large, it had been built for a few hundred people before the Plague. It had been meant to shelter patients too critical to evacuate so it was more spacious than most. Still, it shared the basement with the hospital’s large generator. Christine knew she was lucky that no one was checking on the generator when she got to the basement. She also knew she wouldn’t be lucky for long unless the City’s power were somehow restored quickly. Someone would be down soon, and if they looked, they’d know someone had locked themselves in the bunker.
Don’t borrow trouble, she told herself, plenty of it around already.
She felt a sick wave of guilt as she looked at the rows of empty bunks inside the shelter. Why had Sevita warned her not to take anyone? And what was Christine going to say if someone wanted to come in? Someone she knew?
She closed the thick steel door and locked it. The air filtration kicked on with a hiss and the battery powered lights flickered to life. Marnie had already found the bunker’s kitchen, rifling through the food stores before ripping the foil off a decade old granola bar. She came back to sit on a bunk and swung her legs casually. “So what’s all this about?” she asked.
Six
“I’m sorry Dan, it’s just for now. I’m sure we’re going to get to the hospital and find out this guy is high or had a psychotic break or something. It’s just a precaution.”
Dan nodded and began unbuckling his weapon from its holster. Paul put a hand on his arm to stop him.
“If it’s just a precaution then why do you need to take them?” he asked the man in the biosuit.
“Are you questioning me soldier?” the man straightened, suddenly less friendly.
“Yeah, I am. You know I don’t have time for your chain of command shit— I’m not military, remember?”
“We’re all military now. And I’m following protocol. Now hand over your weapon.”
Dan tried again to hand over his gun, and again Paul stopped him.
“Fuck protocol,” said Paul in a low voice, “We all know there’s no protocol in place for this. You’re just making this shit up as you go along.”
“I have to relieve you of duty. You’ve all been exposed,” the man snapped.
Paul leaned in and said very qu
ietly, “We’ll be an ally for you on the inside. You don’t want to risk your guys on this, it’s a waste. Like you said, we’re already exposed. What’s going to happen if it is the Plague? These people are going to start turning at some point. What are you going to do? Send your eight guys against three dozen Infected? And what’s going to happen to us? Chances are, we’re weeks behind them. We’ll still be sane when they start to turn cannibal. You want to leave us defenseless?”
The man was silent. Paul wished he could see the man’s face instead of guessing what he was thinking.
“Let us keep our weapons. We’ll be able to eliminate any new threats in here much more easily than your guys. And you won’t risk more exposures. And if it’s not the plague, we aren’t going to say anything. We’re bottom of the pack anyway, who’d even listen? Nobody will ever know the difference.”
The mask turned toward Dan.
Dan slid the gun back into its holster and Paul knew he’d won. “We’re keeping them,” said Dan, “If you want to court martial us, you can start with me when this thing is all over.”
“Look,” said the man, “You told me your men went in prepared for close combat only and didn’t bring your firearms. I saw nothing. You got it?”
Dan nodded solemnly.
“We’ll let you know when we know. I’ll— I’ll send someone by your houses. I know your wife was expecting you home on leave this week.”
Dan smiled. “I’m sure we’ll be home in a few days. The Governor can extend our leave to make up what we miss.”
“Yeah,” said the man, “Yeah, of course.”
Paul watched them leave, uneasy that they had caved so readily. Dan turned to him after the biosuits had sealed the door with a thick panel of plastic sheeting.
“It can’t be back. You can’t seriously believe it’s back.”
“There don’t have to be rabid cannibals roaming the halls to cause a panicked mob to turn to violence. You know that, Boss.”
“So they’re just for what? Looks?”
Paul shrugged. “If you look like an authority, and you believe that you’re the one in control, other people will believe it too, and act accordingly.”
“Pah, don’t quote my own training course to me. This has nothing to do with that. You think this is the Plague.”
“I really don’t know, Boss.”
“What did we miss? We were so careful. I took care of it myself— I even lost a man to make sure…”
Paul was distressed to see Dan begin pacing. It was always a very bad sign.
“Dan, stop,” he said, “you can’t do this to yourself. We didn’t miss anything. You heard that reporter, the welder lied. We did everything we were supposed to do. The psychologist and that lawyer— they did everything right too. It’s not your fault.”
“But I told everyone that we were okay. I made the call.”
“We were okay. Everybody left in that hospital was cleared. There was no plague left on our watch. We don’t even know that it is the Plague. Maybe the Q-team was right. Maybe it’s drugs. Or just a work argument— you and I have both seen how ugly those can get.”
“And— and they didn’t dare do an autopsy on Pazzo and Schneider right? If it is the Plague, then maybe it doesn’t transmit the same way. I mean, Pazzo kissed Schneider to infect her. Everyone else in the courtroom was okay. Maybe it doesn’t travel through the air. Maybe Glist is the only one infected.”
“Right,” said Paul, “so let’s not panic. All we have is two guys in a really fucked up fistfight, okay?”
Dan took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay, you’re right,” he said, and clapped Paul on the back. “Guess we better go calm the natives too.”
Seven
Dan stood halfway up the stairs and whistled to make the others listen. “I know you’re anxious,” he said, “I think it’s probably fairly obvious that the quarantine team is taking precautions in case of a resurgence of the December Plague. Most of you will know the symptoms, because you’ve experienced it before. But I’m asking you not to panic.”
Sevita was one of the few Immunes present. Almost everyone around her bore large scars or were still underweight and frail-looking from their time as Infected.
“I know you don’t want to hear this, and I don’t really want to say it, but the truth is that it’s too late for us,” Dan continued, “If it really is the Plague, then we’re either already sick, or we aren’t going to catch it. If it isn’t the Plague, then there is nothing to be worried about. We can only wait to find out. But if we go out there, we could hurt our families. Our friends. At least in here, we can do some good.”
“How’re we going to do anything down here?” shouted someone.
“We need to restore power to the City if we can,” said Dan. “The doctors at the hospital can only beat this thing if we make sure they have the tools they need to do it. Your families will be safest if we keep the lights on and things like the news broadcasts working. My men and I are happy to help. Just show us what we can do. The quarantine team will have sealed up the building by now, so we are free to roam the plant for supplies or to use workstations.”
“But it was a turbine,” came a voice from the crowd, “It’ll take days to fix. How long are we supposed to stay here?”
Dan glanced toward his men. “I’m not sure,” he lied, “the quarantine team will tell us when they find out what’s wrong.”
“We already know what’s wrong,” cried a woman in the back, “It’s the Plague come back again.”
“That’s just a guess!” came another shout and a roar of voices echoed across the room.
“Hey!” Dan’s voice rumbled like a boulder through the competing noise. “We don’t know for sure what it is yet, but the worst thing we can do is get upset or angry. It will only make the disease take hold faster, if it is the Plague. The best thing for us to do is to stay calm and focus on a task. I promise, I will let you know anything I find out as soon as I can. In the meantime, working is better than fighting about it.”
The plant manager began breaking the crowd into teams with specific tasks and the mob dispersed. Sevita slid the phone back into its spot amongst the soldiers’ equipment then tried to find a spot to volunteer. She ended up in the cafeteria with another woman wrapping sandwiches for the other workers.
“We going to be on the news?” asked the woman with a sideways grin, “I watch you every night.”
Sevita smiled. “Well, we need you guys and your juice to run the station. There’s no news without you guys.”
The woman nodded. “We’re working on it. We should have half power in a few hours, with the other turbine, but the busted one— Ned Glist was trying to fix it because the plant manager isn’t sure that are even any existing spare parts anymore. And with a skeleton crew... I just don’t know. Weeks? Months to full power?”
Sevita wrinkled her brow. “Skeleton crew?”
“We lost a lot of people over the past few months,” the woman shook her head and scattered a tiny amount of rough, handmade salt over the sandwich she was making.
“I thought there were only forty from the whole City who left.”
“In the beginning it was forty. But every day, fewer and fewer Cured show up. The Immunes never visit the Cured side of the City, so they never see how empty it’s become. We’re not exactly in the high-profile jobs either. No offense,” she added quickly.
Sevita just smiled sympathetically. They loaded two large trays. Sevita took hers slowly down the stairs to the turbine room. She tripped partway down and her side slammed into the cinder block wall as she struggled to save the tray. A man climbing the stairs saw her and ran up to steady her.
“Are you okay?” he asked, holding the tray steady.
“Yeah, thanks,” she said.
“No. I mean, are you okay?” He held on to her tray. “Maybe we shouldn’t eat these.”
“Don’t be silly,” laughed Sevita uneasily, “I just tripped. It’s dark in here without the light
s and I don’t know my way by heart like you.”
The man shook his head with a goofy grin. “Sorry, you’re right. I overreacted. You’ve only been here a few hours, there’s no way you’re sick.” He relinquished the tray and left her in the dim stairwell. Though he seemed convinced, she wasn’t sure that she was. She spent ten minutes looking around for whatever she had tripped on.
She was able to slip away after emptying her tray. It took her a little while to find the locker room, but since nobody really cared what she was doing or where she was going, she could afford to take her time. But Ned’s locker was already hanging open, halfway down the middle row. Of course they would have taken everything, thought Sevita, though she couldn’t avoid her disappointment. She pulled out her camera and filmed it anyway.
“As you can see, the quarantine team has already removed all materials from Glist’s locker. But how many weeks did the Plague sit inside? Was it already released or did Glist have to do something to make it spread?”
Sevita turned off the camera. Who am I filming for anyway? I’ll be quarantined in here until… Until it’s too late either way. Still, something inside compelled her to document it. It almost gave her comfort. A tiny layer of removal, as if she were outside the situation.
Eight
The radio crackled. Sevita watched Dan grab it. The loud static cut through even the noise of the welding in the turbine room. All work came to a halt and every face turned toward the small black box in Dan’s hand. He looked nervously around. Paul stood quietly beside him and took a deep breath. Dan echoed the breath and then said, “Whatever they say— just remember that we are human beings. Just remember what we’ve already survived.”
He held out one hand toward the group as if pleading. Silence was his only answer.
The radio crackled again and a woman’s voice came thinly through. “Q-team Beta report to the prison, priority one. Reports of a possible spill, multiple exposures. Be advised, guards are armed.”
Poveglia (After the Cure Book 4) Page 3