Dead Fall

by Joseph Xand

  So much to plan. So much to consider. And still, a tent to pitch.

  Of course, all the planning went out the window the next day. It was then that Thad's father seemed to develop a cold.

  * * * * *

  It started the next morning when Allison called to tell Thad to buy Sucrets if he was going to the store. He'd told her to start making a list of anything she thought they might need for the house. By then, he'd expanded the possibilities beyond simply winter clothing.

  "What's going on?" Thad asked. He sat straight up and banged his head on the Mercedes's roof, Karen at the forefront of his mind.

  "Your father. He woke up with a little bit of a sore throat. Probably the cold snap the night before."

  Thad doubted it. His father was not a man to get sick easily. Never had been. Like clockwork, he usually experienced a little cold at the end of every November, early December at the latest. Thad had never seen his father so much as sneeze in the summer, even at the height of allergy season.

  "Fever?"

  "Mild." He could see her nodding as she said it, a visual gesture he couldn't possibly see from the other end of the phone. He used to tease her about it all the time. Back then he thought it was cute. "He took some Ibuprofen for it about an hour ago."

  "Okay. Put him on."

  Thad could hear the scratching and scrambling of a phone exchanging hands, then eventually his father's usual raspy breathing. Not enough years removed from too many years of smoking.

  "I'm here, son."

  "Did the Ibuprofen help at all? Reduce the fever any?"

  "Not a lick," he said. His voice was steady and sure. He knew as well that the medicine should be working by now.

  Thad sighed. He wasn't sure what to say.

  "Talk to me, son. Remember, I'm a doctor, too."

  "Dad, I'm sorry. This is all my fau—"

  "Not about that. We both know all this is about our little girl here, not some old man whose days of living are long passed. Do I need to quarantine myself? For Karen and Allison's sake?"

  Thad shook his head. Allison would have teased him for sure. "No. If you have it, then they are already carriers. Time will tell if they are immune beyond that."

  "Well, then, if that's the case, I don't see any reason for you to stay up there playing Ranger Rick. Might as well come down here and hug your daughter. I know she'd like that."

  "Not yet, okay. Send me up Allison's list. As much as she's got so far. I'll get some more medicine. I'll write a prescription for something stronger than Sucrets. This really could just be a cold."

  Thaddeus, Sr. grunted a half chuckle. He knew that was so much bullshit.

  "Okay. If it makes you feel better, I'll send up the list."

  * * * * *

  Thad was gone a while. The list was more extensive than he'd anticipated and he had to go to several stores. Plus he didn't want to leave any sort of a paper trail by writing a prescription himself, and his father couldn't write them anymore being retired, so Thaddeus, Sr. called an old friend who was still practicing and had him write it. Thad requested several medications and they took awhile to fill.

  In the meantime, his cell phone crank obviously wasn't working as advertised. His phone ran out of juice thirty minutes after he left. He was gone four hours and called down to check on his father as soon as he got back.

  Thad didn't have to ask. Allison answered the phone in tears. Thaddeus, Sr.'s fever had risen, spiking at 104.2°. He was hot to the touch and his eyes were bloodshot. He couldn't keep down food or liquids without vomiting them up, but it didn't matter because his throat was too swollen to swallow anything. He was in bed and in and out of consciousness.

  "I'm coming down," Thad said.

  Thad started to walk down to the house, then decided to take the Mercedes. As a passing thought, he picked up the tent, still in its box, and tossed it in the trunk.

  Something for Karen to play with.

  Thad was ambushed by his daughter as soon as he walked in the door. He went down to one knee and hugged her tight. Just as his father had said, it was all about this little girl, and even though his father's health was a pressing issue, Thad took the time to hold her.

  "Whose car is that, Daddy?" Thad followed Karen's eyes through the front window into the yard.

  "It's a friend's."

  "Did he give it to you?"

  Not as far as he knows, Thad thought. "No. I'm just borrowing it."

  "Is Papaw gonna be okay?" Just like that. New subject. Four-year-olds.

  "I'm going to go see. Stay here with mommy, okay?" Thad stood and looked over at Allison. She leaned in the doorway leading into the kitchen. Disheveled. Worried, of course. But every bit as beautiful as ever. "Hey."

  "Hey." She held out a hand to Karen. "Come on, honey. Those cookies aren't going to bake themselves."

  Thad didn't go straight to his father's room. He detoured to his father's lab in the basement to get some supplies he thought he might need.

  When he hit the lights, the basement wasn't the large gulf of space where he'd spent so many hours building blanket forts and trying on his father's old, boxed clothes. Now it was crammed end-to-end, floor-to-ceiling with cartons bearing the Sustained Sustenance, Inc. logo. Each carton featured a picture of some scrumptious-looking plated meal, and Thad had no doubt the real thing looked nothing like it after shoveling it out of a can and stirring in hot water. If there was some organization to how the boxes were stacked, Thad couldn't decipher it, but it was no doubt there. Thaddeus, Sr. was nothing if not organized.

  Despite all the food and supplies, his father had made sure to leave a narrow aisle of space, about two-feet wide, so people could maneuver to the lab at the back of the basement. Thad squeezed through it. At first glance, the outside of the lab looked to be nothing more than a wall built clumsily between the basement's stone walls with a single door hung in the middle of it. The studs were exposed, as was any wiring, and the door was not trimmed out.

  But inside the door, the lab was something else entirely, the room deceptively large. It was well-lit with three fluorescent lights and the floor was tiled. The walls were finished, painted a soft white, and every surface was stainless steel. The room was as sterile as humanly possible, every crevice sealed. Thad knew from experience that if the lights were on in the lab and the door were closed, and he were standing in the basement with the lights off, absolutely no light would escape the lab.

  Near the middle of the room was a table with a round, roll-away stool beneath it and a Zeiss microscope on top. The microscope was covered and obviously hadn't been used in awhile. Even in here, a small amount of dust had settled on it. There was an incubator at the far end of the table, but it was empty; no Petri dishes with cancer cells growing in them.

  Thad walked around the table to the steel storage locker at the back of the lab. Inside was his father's personal equipment, hanging from hooks like carpenter's tools in a workshop. Thad grabbed the stethoscope and the blood-pressure gauge.

  Thad knew he wanted a blood sample, just to be productive. He opened a nearby cabinet and found a box of new hypodermic needles. He stuck two in his pocket, then dug in a drawer for test tubes.

  On his way out, he stopped at a small refrigerator with a glass door. Inside were samples of cancer cells in small vials, probably shipped from hospitals all around the country. His father had connections.

  At the back, Thad found what he was looking for: an unopened bottle of morphine. Thad didn't plan on watching his father suffer through the illness any more than he had to.

  Back upstairs Thad was surprised to find his father awake and mostly alert. But he looked terrible. Just as Allison had said, his eyes were bloodshot, and one of them had recently burst a blood vessel. His whole body was flushed with fever, yet the chills had risen goosebumps on his arms. Sweat soaked through his clothes and sheets. He looked emaciated, which contradicted his bloated face and hands. The pillow was caked in blood on one side, apparently draining from
one ear. Thad had to tiptoe around a fresh puddle of vomit.

  "Sorry about that," Thaddeus, Sr. said as Thad came around the bed.

  "It'll clean," Thad assured him. "It would be a stupid question to asked how you're feeling."

  His father tried to laugh, which launched him into a violent coughing fit. He fisted a pile of tissue on the nightstand and held it against his mouth. When the spasms were over, the tissue came away with blood on it.

  "I'm just going to look you over, then get a blood sample."

  "That'll be easy. It's coming out of me from everywhere." He tried to laugh again and was once more seized with a coughing fit.

  When it settled down, Thad donned the stethoscope and checked his father's chest. His heartbeat was slow and irregular, his lungs drowning in fluid. Thad slipped the blood-pressure cuff onto his father's arm and pumped it up. His blood pressure was dangerously low. It explained the loss of consciousness Allison had described, and no doubt he was experiencing numbness in his legs.

  It was all happening much faster than Thad anticipated. This morning his father had all the symptoms of a common cold. Thad thought his father would last a few days. But five, six hours later, and his father appeared only hours from his organs shutting down. Probably his advanced age. His immune system not what it used to be.

  Next Thad gathered his blood sample, filling two test tubes. Then he filled the other hypo with morphine.

  His father noticed and somehow managed a smile. "Ahh, the good stuff." Ahh, da goo shluff. He was fighting to stay awake.

  "Nothing but the best for you, Pops." Thad held up the needle, thumped it twice, then cleared it of air. His father was already out by the time he administered the morphine.

  But as Thad stood to leave, his father's hand shot out and grabbed his arm, hard. His eyes were open and wild, his breathing fast and raspy. "I'll go crazy, son! I saw it on T.V.! I go crazy. I could hurt someone! I could hurt Karen!"

  "Dad, I'm not gonna let that happen. I'm gonna have to restrain you, okay? Tie you down. I won't let that happen."

  It must have satisfied him. A faint smile returned and he let go of Thad's arm, then patted it. Immediately, he was gone again.

  * * * * *

  When Thad left the room, Allison was waiting for him in the hall.

  "How long does he have?"

  Thad looked past her. "Where is she?"

  "I put a movie on for her."

  Thad nodded. Thank you, Pixar.

  "Not long. Hours, maybe. I'll try to make him comfortable."

  Allison looked over her shoulder in the direction of the living room. When she looked back, there were tears in her eyes. "Thad…"

  "No, honey. No. At least, I don't think so. I'll run tests to be sure, but I'm pretty sure already. We were cautious with the rope and the pulley. I seriously doubt he got this from me. He got too sick too fast."

  "Then how?"

  Thad sighed and looked down at the floor. Finally, he looked back at Allison. "From you. You got here a day before me."

  Her eyes lit up. "But you said she doesn't have it!"

  "It's spreading around the city. I have it, too. But we're immune. We're just carriers. Like I said, I'll run tests to confirm that first thing tomorrow morning, but if neither of you are showing symptoms—"

  "Today, Thad! Today! I have to know!"

  "Okay, okay. Today. You'll have to help me with Karen. She's not gonna be happy. You know how she is with needles."

  Allison breathed deep and wiped her eyes. Finally, she nodded. "Okay. After the movie. Come on. We made your favorite cookies."

  * * * * *

  Thad had been right about how difficult it would be to get blood from Karen. She cried and was defiant. Allison had to help hold her down and in the end was in tears along with her daughter, as mothers often are when their little ones are in pain.

  To test the blood, Thad performed an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, or ELISA, as they were called. Different ELISAs can test for different bacterial infections and diseases. Before Thad had arrived at Shoreline Hook Regional Medical Center, the CDC researchers realized that those who were dying of the infection had blood that wouldn't coagulate as normal. Even after their hearts stopped pumping, their blood remained viscous. Thad helped them develop an ELISA to test the clotting factors in the blood that would separate the infected-immune from their doomed brethren.

  Kits to perform ELISAs were readily available on the open market and could even be bought online. Thad's father had a small collection of his own in his private lab, but those tested for certain cancers. When he had communicated with his father about buying food and other supplies to wait out the plague, Thad also had his father purchase other kits that better fit Thad's needs so he could continue his own research.

  Of course, simple blood wouldn't work as a sample antigen. First he had to use his father's centrifuge to separate the plasma. From there, he placed the plasma into a microtiter plate sandwiched between the capture and detecting antibodies provided in the kit (which is why this particular ELISA was called a "sandwich" ELISA). Last he added the enzyme-linked secondary antibody and the substrate.

  The test took hours to complete, most of which was spent waiting for the antibodies to incubate. Thad had to send Allison away more than once. Meanwhile, Karen played with dolls in the living room, the blood-letting already a distant memory.

  As expected, the blood was clean. Karen was a carrier, sure, but her blood coagulated normally.

  As he made his way out of the basement, Thad looked up at Allison's silhouette in the doorway and reassured her Karen was clear. He watched her bury her face in her hands, then choke with sobs.

  "I should test you, as well," Thad said as he came up the steps.

  "Tomorrow," Allison responded. She disappeared from the doorway, probably to hold their daughter and not let her go for some time.

  Thad checked on his father again. His vital signs had slowed considerably—breathing, heart rate—but he was hanging on.

  That done, Thad decided to tackle the business of restraining him. He didn't have leather adjustable straps as were available at the hospital. And he certainly didn't have handcuffs. Maybe he could use some of his father's button-up shirts. Maybe take the rope down from the pulley and cut it up. It wouldn't take much, and the restraints probably wouldn't even be necessary. Thad planned to make sure his father didn't wake up again once he was clinically dead.

  As Thad stared down at his father, unconscious but still not absolved from the pain and suffering of the infection, he wondered why he need wait so long. Thad could end his father's life now. Save him from the worst of what the infection had to offer, because as bad as it was now, Thad knew it could, and probably would, get much, much worse. He could find something long and sharp—there were plenty of instruments in his father's lab, and just get it over with.

  "But I took an oath," Thad mumbled.

  And what's an oath now? he thought. What's taking one life out of compassion when you've already sacrificed millions more out of selfishness? What's an oath?

  Thad didn't have an answer for that. But then he did.

  "An oath is an oath," he said. He opened the closet door and began snatching shirts from their hangers.

  * * * * *

  Different people die of the infection in different ways.

  Because of the course his father's illness had taken, Thad knew his father was in for a tough exit. His skin cracked and created painful open sores. His muscles tensed unceasingly and he spasmed in violent bursts, nearly tearing his makeshift bonds. Inside, blood vessels burst and his organs, in the death throes of shutting down, wracked his body with stabbing stings no amount of morphine could touch.

  Thaddeus, Sr. lasted longer than Thad had guessed, not giving up the ghost, as it were, until a quarter till midnight, long after Karen had come in and said her final goodbyes.

  It was hard on Thad's daughter, who loved her Papaw as much as any four-year-old could love anyone.
Allison laid with her while Karen slept fitfully, but eventually sleep found her and the bad-dream fairies gave her a pass. Soon Allison fell asleep as well.

  Thad stayed up and held his father's hand, not because he was a doctor, but because he was a son. When the spasms ceased and his father's heart finally realized pumping blood was a fruitless endeavor, Thad didn't cry. Instead, he set about the next deed, which was in no way a part of being a son, or even a doctor.

  Instead of finding a sterilized instrument from his father's lab, Thad had dug through a junk drawer in the kitchen and found a hammer and a long, Phillips-head screwdriver. Thad placed the tip of the screwdriver on his father's temple and drove it into his brain with the hammer, like a vampire slayer dispatching one of Dracula's minions with a stake to the heart.

  Once Thaddeus, Sr. was quieted (a word Thad had added to his vernacular during his stay at the hospital, and one he'd teach to his daughter), Thad still didn't cry. No time for that.

  Now it was time for the dirty business of burying the body in the grave he'd dug earlier that day, then cleaning up the mess in the bedroom; the blood and shit-stained sheets, the last of the vomit on the floor, the smell of death. It all needed to be finished before Karen woke up for breakfast so that he'd be free to get on with the next piece of business—comforting a grief-stricken little girl.

  It wasn't finished until nearly three in the morning when Thad collapsed on the couch, his shirt a disaster of dirt and blood. It had to be changed before Karen saw it. But now he needed to rest and now he needed to cry. While he did both, he turned on the T.V. He hadn't once listened to the portable radio he had bought for the purpose of keeping up with the latest news in relation to the infection. He wasn't sure he could handle it.

  In the few days since Thad left the hospital, there had been many new developments. The President had gone public early with the dire news of a spreading infection, this after other major East Coast cities were seeing outbreaks—Boston, Philadelphia, D.C. The President recommended people stay indoors to reduce exposure. He was putting a quarantine around any infected city as well as closing off travel to and from the New England states east of the Hudson River.