by James Somers
Riding the Tubes
13 Days Earlier
Hu Takashi hates the late hours he is forced to keep, working as an orderly at St. Mary’s Hospital in London. He is determined not to be forced into any more college loan debt than is absolutely necessary. “One of these days,” he often tells himself, “I’ll be a doctor in this place, and then I’ll do whatever I want.”
He is a first year medical student already, attending the Imperial College School of medicine, but Hu still has a long way to go. He hopes to do a surgical residency, possibly in Orthopedics, but he isn’t sure. There is still plenty of time to sort it out.
Hu doesn’t bother changing out of his scrub clothes. Usually, he wears one pair into the hospital, changes them for his work day and then wears the new set out until the next morning. Through the week, he hardly wears anything else. They are comfortable and fashionable in a professional way.
He likes the way people look at him when he is wearing his scrubs. He is always received in a respectful manner. Being male, most people assume he must be a doctor. He rarely corrects them and never explains he is actually working as an orderly. However, when he’s feeling especially forthcoming, he does explain he is a medical student.
Being young and unattached, the stares from young women are a nice perk also. He likes to date, but this is sporadic at best. And, with his course work, Hu rarely has time for a social life. Besides, he is only twenty-three. He isn’t looking for a serious relationship right now.
Hu leaves the hospital, walking down Praed Street toward Paddington. He plans to ride the Tube from Paddington to Shepherd’s Bush and then walk the short distance to his one bedroom flat on Uxbridge Road. It isn’t a bad trip. He has a little time to read on the train, studying for tests and assignments with the books and laptop in his backpack.
The sky drizzles rain tonight, but the air is reasonably warm, so he tries not to be bothered too much by the weather. At least it will be dry on the train. He is glad this isn’t a downpour. His laptop might not survive.
After a few minutes walking, Hu passes before the Praed Street entrance to Paddington and turns inside. He descends the steps, coming to the expansive concourse below, nicknamed the Lawn. It is 8:15PM already, and some of the shops are closed for the evening. He spots the Burger King open, but decides he will save his cash and just eat the leftover Dominos Pizza in his refrigerator.
The Lawn is reasonably free of pedestrian traffic, though there are enough people out this evening to feel like he isn’t the only person in the station. He passes Paddington Bear. The statue was placed for the children’s book character that was found in the London train station and named after it.
Not far beyond this, Hu notices a woman sitting on a bench with her head lying in her hands. She appears disheveled, making Hu wonder if she might be drunk or taking drugs. He decides to leave her be and continues to walk by.
Her head comes up suddenly. “Hu?”
He stops, turning back to the woman. She peers at him from between her fingers. When she pulls her hands away, her face is flush. Her long hair lies in tangles across her shoulders. She looks like she hasn’t slept in a week. Upon closer inspection, Hu realizes he knows this woman.
“Sharon?”
She nods slightly, looking like she might vomit on the tiles at any moment. The fluorescent lighting doesn’t help her appearance, casting a pale aura around her. Overhead, heat lighting illuminates the frosted ceiling. The sound of squealing train brakes fills the concourse.
He walks back to her. “What happened to you?”
“I’ve been sick,” she says, lowering her head into her hands again.
“Did you work today?” Hu asks. “I didn’t see you in med surg.”
“I left after the incident yesterday,” she explains.
“Yeah,” Hu says. “I don’t blame you. That guy nearly got you didn’t he?”
“He was on top of me,” she says. “He tried biting me, but he barely broke the skin before the security guard pulled him off of me.” Sharon shudders. “How is the guard? Do you know?”
“That kid killed him,” Hu says. “At least he managed to save you in the process. That’s one good thing, right?”
Sharon nods weakly. “I felt pretty freaked out. I had to go home. I wanted to come in today, but I feel awful. I couldn’t sleep last night.”
Hu wants to put his arm around her and console her, but she looks really sick. He isn’t sure he should. “Hey, no wonder after all that happened yesterday. He hurt some of the others pretty bad, but I think the security guard was the only fatality. The government got involved after the police. I saw some of the same people there from when they took the first boy into custody.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, they must have come after you left work,” Hu says. “They took the victims from yesterday into custody as well. Somebody said they were MI6, but it’s difficult to know for sure. They never answer anyone’s questions. I’m surprised they didn’t call you up.”
“Well, the kid barely did anything to me,” she says. “It would be pretty pointless.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Hu says. “I’m wondering what they did with that first kid.”
“The one with the fractures?” Sharon asks, still hanging her head over her knees.
“Yeah, that one. I was the one who took him to x-ray. It was crazy. That kid’s arm was definitely broken when I took him. They said Dr. Schultz was screaming at the Radiographer. In surgery, the arm looked like it had never been broken.”
Sharon starts to moan, holding her stomach. People passing by glance over at Sharon. Seeing her condition, they hurry on their way. No one stops to see if they need assistance.
“Are you going to be all right?” Hu asks. “Would you like me to get you a bottled water from the machine, or something?”
Sharon leans over the side of the bench, dry heaving. A bit of saliva hits the floor. Hu notices traces of blood in her sputum.
“Maybe I should get you over to the hospital,” he suggests.
She waves him off. “No, I’m fine. I just need to get home.”
Hu nods. “I’ll help you to the train,” he says. “Where are you going?”
Sharon gets her breath and wipes the saliva from her lips with her sleeve. “Hammersmith,” she says.
Hu stands and tugs under her arm to help her up. “I’m taking Bakerloo also, to Shepherd’s Bush.”
She allows him to help her to her feet. She is unsteady, feeling dizzy, but she manages with Hu to lean on. He scans his travel card twice at the stalls, and they descend to the lower platforms.
A train departs from the opposite platform. Drizzly rain falls upon the tracks just ahead of the tunnel through a gap between the frosted awning and the main building. The lights from their train approach them from the darkness of the tunnel, like a dragon emerging from its lair.
Hu and Sharon descend the steps to the platform, coming out to arched walls of red brick. Benches sit beneath these arches against the wall. Sharon leans heavily upon him now.
“Hu?” she asks. “Would you please help me to get home tonight? I know it may be out of your way, but I would really appreciate it.”
He considers this for a moment. It is out of his way. Not only does he know Sharon from work, he also wants to date her and has for awhile. They flirt with one another from time to time on the job. Still, he has never gotten up the nerve to actually ask her out. Doing so while she is sick would be ill-timed and in poor taste.
He decides against it. Still, it never hurts your chances with a young woman to save the day. Hu hopes she’ll remember this later.
“It’s no problem, Sharon,” Hu says. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Sharon attempts a weak smile, but she still looks nauseated. Hu hopes he can get her home without having her puke on the train. Nothing like the smell of vomit to spoil an evening.
The train speeds past, beginning to slow before their platform. Six white cars
trimmed in blue with red doors pop and screech with the sounds of metal on metal. The train stops, and the doors opens. A female voice resounds from the cars, stating the train’s destination route.
“This is us,” Hu says and starts forward with Sharon still clinging to him.
“Mind the gap,” the train’s voice warns.
They step inside the second to last car in the line. There are a few other people onboard already. Hu sees at least a dozen spread out throughout the train as it slows and stops at the platform. However, no one else has been waiting with them to get onboard.
After a standard pause from the computer, the doors close. In the first car, within the cockpit, the train’s driver waits for the all clear and then sends the train into motion again. Hu and Sharon find a place and sit down upon the cushioned seats. That’s one thing Hu likes about the Tube in London over other places he has visited. It is almost always kept very clean, and you don’t have to sit on hard plastic seats.
As the train starts off, the voice chimes in overhead. The next stop is Westbourne Park Station. They are four stations away from his Shepherd’s Bush stop, but six away from where Sharon is going at Hammersmith.
Sharon lays her head back against the window with her eyes closed. Hu figures she is very tired and might even sleep the entire way to Hammersmith. He pulls out his cell phone and plugs his ear buds into the headphone jack. A quick scroll through his MP3 app finds him the dubstep playlist he threw together a week ago.
Skrillex starts on the player. He rifles through his backpack and finds the notes he is required to study for an upcoming pathology exam. He likes path, studying disease processes and all, but he doesn’t think he would enjoy it as a career.
Hu flips the spiral binder open and finds the chapter notes he needs. They are currently studying Rhinoviruses. The same kind that causes the common cold. Symptoms are basic, but these are all modern medicine can treat. The viruses themselves have no known cure, and they are easily transmissible.
The flu is similar in transmission, but at least you can vaccinate for it, if you get the strain identified and isolated in time. At worst, most vaccinated individuals will only become mildly symptomatic. A flu virus might be reduced to cold status with one shot or dose of spray.
Diseases are kind of marvelous in a way. Hu considers it darkly ironic that some of the smallest living things in existence can kill you. He finds the worst ones, like Ebola, to be the most fascinating. Those bugs can melt your insides and leave you hemorrhaging from every orifice.
Wicked, he muses.
He almost forgets about Sharon sitting quietly next to him. If she tries to speak, he will barely hear her for the bass rhythms pounding in his ears. Besides, he really becomes engrossed when he studies. It isn’t just getting the grade for him. He loves this stuff. Medicine is his passion.
A piercing cry rocks Hu out of his groove, causing him to nearly leap out of his seat. His hands jerk up, yanking the headphone cord, whipping the ear buds out of his ears. Sharon screams next to him, her head thrown back, mouth wide open like she is being stabbed with a hot poker.
Hu jumps to his feet, not knowing what is wrong, or what he should do. His eyes dart around. He notices faces looking their way through the windows at each end of their car. They hear her screaming.
“Sharon?” he cries, trying to break the spell she is under. She doesn’t respond to his call.
Her teeth grit together, sucking in hissing breaths, her eyes squeezed shut. She slams her head back hard against the window with a loud bang. Hu winces. He knows that must hurt, but she doesn’t seem to notice.
Sharon’s body trembles now, shaking almost uncontrollably. Her fingernails dig so hard into the seat that she pierces the vinyl and pulls ruts into the cushion. Her head thrashes from side to side in unbearable pain.
Hu backs away. He has no idea how to deal with this. What is he supposed to do? This isn’t like coming upon someone who is unconscious, or choking. CPR is a good thing, but it doesn’t prepare him for anything like this situation.
Other passengers make their way toward his car. He and Sharon are the only ones inside. Hu picked it so Sharon could have some measure of privacy. He did not want her to be embarrassed, just in case she vomited along the way.
He hears shouting from the car ahead of them. Others peer through the door window at the car behind. The train is underground with only the fluorescent lights in the cars for illumination.
The door opens behind him. A policeman comes through with another two men behind him, passengers who think they might be of help. Hu backs far enough away from the thrashing woman to make it clear he isn’t the cause of this. He doesn’t want the policeman to think he is attacking her.
Regardless, the bobby clearly thinks it. Hu can tell by the man’s expression. He is guilty until proven innocent. The man’s nightstick comes out as he approaches Hu.
“What’s all this then? Keep your hands where I can see them!”
“I didn’t do anything,” Hu pleads, raising his hands. “She’s a friend. She’s been sick. I’m not sure what’s happening to her. I’m a doctor.”
The policeman takes that statement in along with his scrub clothes. His whole demeanor changes. “Well, what’s happening to her then?” he asks, expecting the doctor among them to know.
“It could be a seizure,” Hu says, trying to think like a doctor.
Sharon clenches her teeth, her screams trying to get out, but barred like waters behind a dam. She smashes her head back against the window again. Hu and the others stop, watching with horror on their faces. None of them know what to do.
Her head bangs the glass again and again until cracks spider-web through it. Still, the safety glass refuses to give way. Sharon continues. She foams at the mouth like a rabid dog. Blood splatters across the glass behind her head as she thrashes and crashes against it.
“We’ve got to stop her from hurting herself!” the policeman shouts.
He approaches her with his hands out, the nightstick still held in his right. The two men who came to help stay back where Hu is standing. Neither of them appears anxious to do anything. Hu doesn’t blame them. He wishes now that Sharon had never noticed him at Paddington.
Faces press against the door glass at either end of the car. Curious passengers have their cell phones out, trying to record something that will likely end up on Youtube as soon as they log on at their homes. Hu wants to leave now. He did not sign up for this. Then he notices his book bag and laptop still sits by his seat. Only his cell phone has come away with him, the ear buds dangling down onto the floor at his side.
He remembers something that did not click in his mind before. The hospital. The boy who attacked the nurses and doctors trying to restrain him, the same one who killed the security guard. That boy attacked Sharon also. She mentioned him biting her, but only barely breaking the skin.
What if the boy contracted something, something that made him go crazy? What if he is a carrier for this disease? He might have infected everyone he attacked at the hospital.
“Wait!” Hu calls to the policeman.
It’s too late.
The policeman holsters his nightstick. He places a hand on Sharon’s arm. Her eyes fly open, red-rimmed and bloodshot. She shoots off the seat like an ape, grabbing the officer’s head in her hands. He falls backwards with her on top, gripping the sides of his head.
Hu jumps back as they land in the floor in front of him. The other men step back, looking bewildered. Hu runs past them for the door. He saw first hand what happened at the hospital. He saw when that crazed boy attacked Sharon and then killed the security guard who dragged him off of her. The boy mauled him and tore his throat out with his teeth.
Sharon goes berserk behind him, pounding the officer’s head against the floor of the train car. He fights back, but barely. Her painted nails claw bloody gashes across his head and face.
Hu is the first to the door at the head of the car, but the other two passengers tr
y to get out now also. They crash into him in their panic, trying to get to the door before him. Hu’s face hits the safety glass hard, bloodying his nose.
Hu elbows the man behind him and kicks back at the man’s legs to get him off. He falls back onto the floor, hindering the second man also. Hu unlatches the lock and slides the door aside. The noise of the train comes at him through the small gap in the cars.
The people in the adjacent car, seeing his desperation but knowing he has been with the girl and may have overcome the policeman, won’t open the door for him. Then the second man is with him at the glass, trying to get them to open. Realizing this man in the scrubs must not be the danger, they open up to him.
The door slides aside, and Hu passes through, bumping into the passengers in the other car as they try to make room for him. The second man comes through right on Hu’s heels. Then he screams.
Hu turns back and sees Sharon has come through right behind them. She leaps upon the man’s back and drives him to the floor, biting and clawing at him. The rest of the passengers in the car, most of who were close to the door trying to get a look, scream in terror as the monstrous mad woman attacks the man in front of them.
Hu goes through the crowd, pushing some out of his way, trying to put as much distance as possible between him and Sharon. He isn’t sure if she might be after him, but he also has no intention of hanging around to find out. If she is carrying the same pathogen that caused the boy at the hospital to go crazy, then he doesn’t want her anywhere near.
An older woman sits with her husband near the front of the car. They don’t know what is going on at the other end, or what to do. Hu passes them by in favor of the door. He wants out of this car.
Pandemonium breaks out among the passengers behind him. Sharon is at the center of it. Hu glances back, but he can’t see much of her at the moment. Some of the passengers are trying to get away, while others are fighting. They pound on the young nurse; trying to put her down, kill her, whatever they can to stop this madness.