In the back of my head, I knew what was happening. The morning anchor had reported the arrest of a researcher somewhere in Europe, and while my thoughts kept returning to how impossible it was, I knew.
I looked into the rearview mirror, my appearance nearly unrecognizable to anyone that had known me in better days. The browns of my eyes were no longer bright and full of purpose like they once were. The skin beneath them was shaded with dark circles. Just fifteen years ago I was two hundred pounds of muscle and confidence; now I felt a little more broken down every day.
Aubrey and I met in high school. Back then she wanted to touch me and talk to me. Our story wasn't all that exciting: I was on the starting lineup of a small-town football team, and she was head cheerleader. We were both big fish in a small pond. My light-brown, shaggy hair moved when a breeze passed through the passenger side window. Aubrey used to love how long it was. Now all she did was bitch that I needed a haircut. Come to think of it, she bitched about everything when it came to me. I still went to the gym, and the women at work were at times a little forward, but Aubrey didn't see me anymore. I wasn't sure if it was being with her that sucked the life out of me, or the disappointments I'd suffered over the years. The further away I was from high school, the less making something of myself seemed possible.
An obnoxious buzzing noise on the radio caught my attention. I listened while a man's robotic voice came over the speakers of my car. "This is a red alert from the emergency broadcast system. Canton County sheriff's department reports a highly contagious virus arriving in our state has been confirmed. If at all possible, stay indoors. This is a red alert from the emergency broadcast system . . ."
Movement on the side of my rearview mirror caught my attention. A woman was sprinting from her car toward the door of the school. Another woman jumped from her minivan and, after a short pause, ran toward the school as well with her toddler in her arms.
They were mothers. Of course they wouldn't let the logical side of their brain talk them into hesitation. The world was going to hell, and they were going to get their children to safety . . . wherever that was.
I shoved the gearshift into park and opened my door. I walked quickly, but as frantic mothers ran past me, I broke into a run as well.
Inside the building, mothers were either carrying their children down the hall to the parking lot, or they were quickly pushing through the doors of their children's classrooms, not wasting time explaining to their teachers why they were leaving early.
I dodged frightened parents pulling their confused children along by the hand until I reached Zoe's classroom. The door cracked against the concrete wall as I yanked it open.
The children looked at me with wide eyes. None of them had been picked up yet.
"Mr. Oxford?" Mrs. Earl said. She was frozen in the center of her classroom, surrounded by mini desks and chairs, and mini people. They were patiently waiting for her to hand out the papers they were to take home. Papers that wouldn't matter a few hours from now.
"Sorry. I need Zoe." Zoe was staring at me, too, unaccustomed to people barging in. She looked so small, even in the miniature chair she sat in. Her light-brown hair was curled under just so, barely grazing her shoulders, just the way she liked it. The greens and browns of her irises were visible even half a classroom away. She looked so innocent and vulnerable sitting there; all the children did.
"Braden?" Melissa George burst through the door, nearly running me down. "Come on, baby," she said, holding her hand out to her son.
Braden glanced at Mrs. Earl, who nodded, and then the boy left his chair to join his mother. They left without a word.
"We have to go, too," I said, walking over to Zoe's desk.
"But my papers, Daddy."
"We'll get your papers later, honey."
Zoe leaned to the side, looking around me to her cubby. "My backpack."
I picked her up, trying to keep calm, wondering what the world would look like outside the school, or if I would reach my car and feel like a fool.
"Mr. Oxford?" Mrs. Earl said again, this time meeting me at the door. She leaned into my ear, staring into my eyes at the same time. "What's going on?"
I looked around her classroom, to the watchful eyes of her young students. Pictures drawn clumsily in thick lines of crayon and bright educational posters hung haphazardly from the walls. The floor was littered with clippings from their artwork.
Every child in the room stared at me, waiting to hear why I'd decided to intrude. They would keep waiting. None of them could fathom the nightmare that awaited them just a few hours from now--if we had that much time--and I wasn't going to cause a panic.
"You need to get these kids home, Mrs. Earl. You need to get them to their parents, and then you need to run."
I didn't wait for her reaction. Instead I bolted down the congested hallway. A traffic jam seemed to be causing a bottleneck at the main exit, so I pushed a side door to the pre-K playground open with my shoulder, and with Zoe in my arms, hopped the fence.
"Daddy! You're not supposed to climb the fence!"
"I'm sorry, honey. Daddy's in a hurry. We have to pick up Mommy and . . ."
My words trailed off as I fastened Zoe into her seatbelt. I had no idea where we would go. Where could we hide from something like this?
"Can we go to the gas station and get a slushie?"
"Not today, baby," I said, kissing her forehead before slamming the door.
I tried not to run around the front. I tried, but the panic and adrenaline pushed me forward. The door slammed shut, and I tore out of the parking lot, unable to control the fear that if I slowed down even a little bit, something terrible would happen.
One hand on the steering wheel, and the other holding my cell phone to my ear, I drove home, ignoring traffic lights and speed limits and trying to be careful not to get nailed by other panicked drivers.
"Daddy!" Zoe yelled when I drove over a bump too fast. "What are you doing?"
"Sorry, Zoe. Daddy's in a hurry."
"Are we late?"
I wasn't sure how to answer that. "I hope not."
Zoe's expression signaled her disapproval. She always made an effort to parent Aubrey and me. Probably because Aubrey wasn't much of one, and it was clear on most days that I didn't know what the hell I was doing.
I pressed on the gas, trying to avoid the main roads home. Every time I tried to call Aubrey from my cell, I got a weird busy signal. I should have known when I got there that something was wrong. I should have immediately put the sedan in reverse and raced away, but the only thing going through my head was how I would convince Aubrey to leave her goddamned computer, what few things we would grab, and how much time I should allow to grab them. An errant thought ran through my head about how much time it would take the Internet to cease, and how ironic it was that a viral outbreak would save our marriage. There were so many should haves in that moment, but I ignored them all.
"Aubrey!" I yelled as I opened the door. The most logical place to look was the den. The empty blue office chair was a surprise. So much so that I froze, staring at the space as if my vision would correct itself and she would eventually appear, her back to me, hunched over the desk while she moved just enough to maneuver the mouse.
"Where's Mommy?" Zoe asked, her voice sounding even smaller than usual.
A mixture of alarm and curiosity made me pause. Aubrey's ass had flowed over and cratered in the deteriorated cushion of that office chair for years. No noise in the kitchen, and the downstairs bathroom door was open, the room dark.
"Aubrey!" I yelled from the second step of the stairs, waiting for her to round the corner above me and descend each step more dramatically than the last. At any moment, she would breathe her signature sigh of annoyance and bitch at me for something--anything--but as I waited, it became obvious that she wouldn't.
"We're going to be very late," Zoe said, looking up at me.
I squeezed her hand, and then a white envelope in the middle of the d
ining table caught my eye. I pulled Zoe along with me, afraid to let her out of my sight for a second, and then picked up the envelope. It read "Nathan" on the front, in Aubrey's girly yet sloppy script.
"Are you serious?" I said, ripping open the envelope.
Nathan,
By the time you get this I'll be hours away. Your probably going to think I'm the most selfish person in the world, but being afraid of you thinking bad of me isn't enough for me to stay. I'm unhappy and I've been unhappy for a long time.
I love Zoe, but I'm not a mother. You are the one that wanted to be a father. I knew you would be a good daddy, and I thought that you being a good daddy would make me a good mother, but it didn't. I can't do this anymore. There are so many things I want to do with my life and being a housewife isn't one of them.
I'm sorry if you hate me, but I've finally decided I can live with that. I'm sorry you have to explain this to Zoe. I'll call tomorrow when I'm settled and try to help her understand.
Aubrey
I let the folded paper fall to the table. She could never spell you're correctly. That was just one of a hundred things about Aubrey that bothered me but I never mentioned.
Zoe was looking up at me, waiting for me to explain or react, but I could do neither. Aubrey had left us. I came back for her lazy, cranky, miserable ass, and she fucking left us.
A scream outside startled Zoe enough for her to grip my leg, and reality hit about the same time that bullets came crashing through the kitchen windows. I ducked, and signaled Zoe to duck with me.
There would be no calling Aubrey's friends and relatives to find out where she was so I could beg her to come back. I had to get my daughter to safety. Aubrey might have picked a horrible first day for independence, but it was what she wanted, and I had a little girl to protect.
More screams. Car horns honking. Gunfire. Jesus. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. It was here.
I opened the hallway closet and grabbed my baseball bat, and then walked over to my daughter, kneeling in front of her to meet her tear-glazed eyes. "Zoe, we're going to have to get back to the car. I need you to hold my hand, and no matter what you see or hear, don't let go of my hand, do you understand?"
Zoe's eyes filled with more tears, but she nodded quickly.
"Good girl," I said, kissing her on the forehead.
Chapter Three
Scarlet
"BIT OFF?" THE NURSE, JOANNE, asked, carefully prepping the patient's hand. "By a dog?"
"I don't know," Ally said, her voice muffled behind her mask. She was a new hire for the scrub tech team, just out of school. She was twenty, but the way her big eyes were staring at the patient's hand made her look all of twelve. "Some kind of animal."
"Her son," I said, waiting with my X-ray equipment for the surgeon to arrive. Joanne and Ally looked at the meaty, exposed knuckle. "I took the X-rays," I added. "She was pretty shaken, but she said her son bit off her thumb."
Angie walked through the door with tiny steps. Her scrub pants made a swishing sound as she busily finished different tasks around the room.
"Are you sure she said her son?" Ally asked, staring at the site of the missing digit with renewed interest.
"He's in the ER," Angie said. "I heard he's exhibiting signs of rabies. Several people are."
"You don't think this has anything to do with what's been on the news, do you?" Ally asked, nervous. "Could it have made it here already from Germany? Could it spread that fast?"
The room grew quiet then.
The anesthesiologist had been nervous from the beginning about putting Margaret Sisney under. Instead of playing on his cell phone like usual, he stood over her, focused on every rise of her chest. He looked away every few seconds to focus on the numbers on the monitor, and then returned his attention to Margaret. It was hard to tell with the rest of her under blue surgical sheets, but her face and neck were visibly bluish in color. "She's cyanotic," he explained. He adjusted several knobs, and then prepared a syringe.
"Dr. Ingram," the nurse said to the anesthesiologist. "The patient's fingernails."
Even through the orange-brown tint of the iodine scrub, Margaret's nails were blackening.
"Shit," Dr. Ingram said. His eyes bounced back and forth between the patient and the monitor. "This was a mistake. A big damn mistake!"
Margaret's thumb was on ice across the room, waiting to be reattached. It was cyanotic as well, and Dr. Ferber's call to take her to surgery when she wasn't quite stable in the ER was questionable, even to a newly graduated X-ray tech like me. I watched as her stats deteriorated, and moved my equipment to the far wall, knowing a Code Blue was imminent.
My pager vibrated against my skin, and I reached under my top to grab it from the waistline of my scrubs. "Shit. Angie, I've got to set up in OR Four, and then I'm off. I'll send David up here. He'll have the pager."
"It's probably going to be a while, anyway, if we do it at all," Angie said, opening packages and buzzing around the room.
I rushed to the end of the hall, pushing and pulling heavy X-ray equipment in front of and behind me. The moment I finished setting up for the next patient, the call came over the intercom system.
"Code Blue. OR Seven. Code Blue. OR Seven," a woman's voice droned, sounding calm and apathetic.
I picked up the phone that hung on the wall by the door, and called down to the department. "Hey, it's Scarlet. I set up OR Four, but looks like Seven's going to be a while, if at all. Tell David to meet me at the south elevator on one. He needs to work this code, and I need to give him the pager."
As I walked down the hall, nurses, doctors, and anesthesiologists rushed past me, making their way to Margaret Sisney. I pushed the button for the elevator, and yanked the surgical mask off my face. When the doors opened, I sighed at the sight of the crowd inside.
"We've got room, Scarlet," Lana from accounting said.
"I'll uh . . . I'll take the stairs," I said, pointing with a small gesture to my right.
I turned on my heels, pushed through the double doors of the OR, and then used my shoulder to help offset the weight of the heavy door that led to the stairwell.
"One, two, three, four, five, six . . . ," I counted quickly, jogging down one set, and then the other. When I pushed my way into the hallway of the first floor, David was already waiting at the elevator.
"Enjoy," I said, tossing him the pager.
"Thanks, buddy. Have a good one," he said.
The crowd I'd left behind in the elevator exited, walking as a unit down the hall, in tight formation, their voices low and nervous as they discussed the latest news on the outbreak.
"Code Gray. ER One. Code Gray. ER One," a woman said over the intercom system.
Anita, the radiology manager, stood in the middle of the radiology hall with her arms crossed. Within moments, men from maintenance and from every other department scurried through the open double doors of the emergency room.
"What does Code Gray mean, rookie?" Anita asked with a smirk.
"Er . . . hostile patient?" I said, half guessing.
"Good!" she said, patting me on the back. "We don't hear those very often."
"Code Gray. ER Six. Code Gray. ER Six," the woman's voice called over the intercom. Her voice was less indifferent this time.
Anita looked down the hall of our department. "Something's not right," she said, her voice low. Julian, the CT tech, stepped out into the hallway. Anita waved him to the emergency room. "Go on!"
Julian obeyed, the ever-present bored expression momentarily absent from his face. As he passed, Anita gestured to the women's locker room. "You better clock out before I change my mind."
"You don't have to tell me twice." The keypad beeped after I pushed in the code, and then a click sounded, signaling me to enter. I walked in, noticing I was alone. Normally the room was abuzz with women opening their lockers, pulling out their purses, laughing and chatting, or cursing about their day.
As I spun my combination lock to access my locker, another an
nouncement came over the intercom.
"Code Blue, ER Three. Code Blue, ER Three. Code Gray in the ambulance bay. Code Gray in the ambulance bay."
I grabbed my purse and slammed the door, quickly making my way down the hall. The radiology waiting room was on my way, separated from the hall with a wall of glass. The few patients inside were still focused on the flat screen. A news anchor was reporting with a scowl, and a blinking warning scrolled across the bottom of the screen. Most of the words were too small to make out, but I could see one: PANDEMIC.
A sick feeling came over me, and I walked quickly, on the verge of breaking into a sprint for the employee exit. Just as I opened the door, I heard a scream, and then more. Women and men. I didn't look back.
Running across the intersection to my Suburban in the southwestern lot, I could hear tires squealing to a stop. A nurse from the third floor was fleeing the hospital in a panic. She was afraid, and wasn't paying attention to the traffic. The first car barely missed her, but a truck barreled around the corner and clipped her body with its front right side. The nurse was thrown forward, and her limp body rolled to the curb.
My training urged me to go to her and check for a pulse, but something inside of me refused to let my feet move anywhere but in the direction of the parking lot.
Angie, the circulation nurse from upstairs, appeared in the doorway of the employee exit. Her surgery scrubs were covered from neck to knees in blood, her eyes wide. She was more cautious, dodging the traffic as she crossed.
"Oh my God, is that Shelly?" Angie asked. She rushed to the curb and crouched beside the woman lying lifeless. Angie placed her fingers on the nurse's neck, and then looked up at me, eyes wide. "She's dead."
I wasn't sure what expression was on my face, but Angie jerked her head forward to insist I respond. "Did you see who hit her?" she asked.
"I don't think it's going to matter," I said, taking a step back.
Angie stood, and looked around. A police cruiser raced toward downtown. Other employees of the hospital began to filter out of the door, racing to the parking lot.
Red Hill Page 3