So, I gave in and, after a year or so, even gave my formal blessing to the domestic arrangement. (Debbie had moved in with Ben within weeks of them meeting.)
Ben didn’t seem to care much whether I approved or not but Debbie seemed relieved that the two most important men in her life had called a truce. (Actually, it was I who called the truce – Ben had, by then, gotten to the point where he considered he didn’t need to trouble himself unduly with my views.)
But seven years had passed, the honeymoon was over and the necessary hard work to maintain a stable relationship was proving a little difficult at times.
And now Debbie was clearly unwell - and wanted to have some ‘time out’ at my place.
Fine by me.
By the way, have I yet described my kid sister to you?
No? Well, she wouldn’t win any beauty pageants but, to me, she had always been simply wonderful. She was so full of life and the energy of youth. Her vibrant chatter always crackled like low intensity lightning – and, even as a child, if she caught you not listening to her, she’d yell loudly at you and slap you. She wanted you to know absolutely every exciting detail of her small life – whether you shared her enthusiasm for it or not.
And her face was the most expressive I’d ever seen. As a mere male, I didn’t know what half of her expressions actually meant – which frustrated her a lot. (What was I, stupid or something?)
More than that, she was ultra fit and sporty: whether playing footy (yes, she played footy) or netball, she moved like a cat, swift, lithe and smooth. (She liked winning - lots.)
Come to think of it, there’s little wonder that the boys did like my little sister - she was just great!
Chapter 3
Debbie Gets Worse
We went back to my bachelor pad in Fitzroy, then a fairly grungy inner suburb of Melbourne. My flat was single-man-shabby but sufficient (for my needs, anyway).
I prepared a meal of sausage and veg – which was not a bad effort for me, in those days. Debbie passed on the offer of food once again.
She looked no better than she had when I had found her in my legal chambers.
She sat on my cheap pine couch – you know, those ones which were always covered in brown velour – and looked miserable.
“Deb-deb wanna go beddie-byes?” I asked.
She hated being babied – usually – and would protest loudly whenever I did it.
However, on this occasion, she simply nodded weakly.
I led her into the only bedroom and tucked her into “The Loveboat”. (Personally, I would be curling up on the pine-wood couch, it seemed.)
The Loveboat was a tremendously comfortable but hideously ugly double bed. It had seen much service – even before it had come into my hands.
It consisted of a foam rubber surround – tastefully upholstered in still more brown velour – a foam rubber base and a fairly standard inner-spring mattress.
It was close to the ground and so, when one fell out - or was forcibly ejected, as occasionally occurred – there was no major injury.
By this time, the Loveboat had suffered an injury itself – a major tear in the brown velour upholstery which had exposed the tasteful yellow foam interior. However, I felt no guilt at all about this eyesore. After all, it was not my high-heeled shoe which had caused the damage!
Debbie didn’t seem to mind the tear in the upholstery either – and soon she was asleep.
I returned to the lounge-room, fed myself and settled in for a night of forgettable television programming.
After I had watched the late news, I decided to check to see if Debbie was resting comfortably.
I entered the bedroom and could hear no breathing – not a good sign. There was a perfumed candle burning in the room and this provided some dull, shifting light.
As my eyes adjusted, I could make out the round shape of her pale face on the bed - and so I moved a little closer. Deb was lying flat on her back, eyes closed. I placed my hand gently on her forehead – it was cold and clammy.
I put my ear to her mouth. She was indeed breathing but only very shallowly.
I didn’t panic because I knew from previous observations that, when in deep sleep, a person’s breathing could be quite shallow and slow.
The first time I had encountered this phenomenon, I confess that I did panic and roughly shook the sleeping person awake. As it had turned out, she was very much alive and well – but more than a little unamused by my ill-considered behaviour. And another beautiful relationship bit the dust.
So, I didn’t try to shake Debbie awake.
I took hold of her hand – also cold and clammy. I stroked her finger-tips, knowing that these were packed with delicate nerves which would send messages to her brain. No reaction. I pinched her forearm lightly. No reaction.
“Deb? Deb?” I whispered. “Wake up, girl.”
Still no response.
My pulse rate started to quicken and I, too, started to sweat – just a bit. Was this panic, after all?
Sure.
Still, I didn’t shake her – as I’ve said, that lesson had been learnt well.
“Deb! DEB!!!” I yelled, adding one or two qualifiers, for emphasis.
Deb groaned weakly and then stirred. Her eyes opened. She whispered something incoherently – and immediately lapsed back into unconsciousness.
I didn’t like this.
“This is not good,” I muttered. “Not good at all.”
Fortunately, Deb had not changed her clothes before falling into the Loveboat and so there was no dressing to attend to. I merely threw aside the bedclothes, extracted her from the bed as gently as I could and hoisted her onto my shoulder. (A fireman’s lift, if you must know.)
Debbie did not stir again. She was like a clammy rag-doll, completely limp.
Soon, I had her strapped into Subaru and we headed off to the casualty department of St Vincent’s Public hospital. This was a mere five minutes’ drive from my Fitzroy flat. We arrived there around mid-night and I found myself having to collect my thoughts sufficiently to answer the questions of the triage doctor. (Maybe it was a nurse – I can’t remember.)
You know, questions like: ‘How long has she been like this?’, ‘Has she suffered anything like this before?’, ‘Any known allergies’, ‘Is she on any current medication?’….
Check the vital signs: heart rate, blood pressure and respiration.
“Pupils dilated”.
Chapter 4
St Vincent’s Casualty Department
Triage done, Debbie was placed in a curtained cubicle on a trolley bed – she was still unconscious.
I gathered that this put her towards the top of the queue since many others (cuts, sprains, rashes etc.) who had arrived earlier were simply left seated in the waiting area.
“Another one?” I heard a staff member say to our triage doctor/nurse, beyond the curtaining.
“Another what?” I thought.
At that time, I thought that Debbie’s partner of seven years, Ben, should know what was going on. There were no mobile phones in those days, of course. So I sought out and found a ‘Red Phone’ in the waiting area. (Red Phones were a sort of public phone – only without the phone booth.)
Needless to say, as was the custom of the time, it was inoperative because the coin-box had not been emptied and was over-full. (Bugger!)
Reluctantly, I left Deb at the hospital and went into the public bar of the nearby Eastern Hill Hotel (now de-licensed and converted into a collection of high-class medical suites).
There, I found a newer-style ‘Gold Phone’ and called Ben.
A sleepy voice answered.
“Hullo.”
There was an edge of irritation to the voice.
I explained the situation about Debbie. I did so as calmly as I could but I’m sure the edginess in my voice must have come through very clearly.
“Do I really need to be there as well?” the sleepy voice said.
Would I have called if I had thou
ght otherwise?
“All right,” it said. “I’ll come as soon as I can.”
I returned to the hospital, re-entered the cubicle and sat at the side of Deb’s bed. Fortunately, nothing had changed except that she had been hooked up to a heart monitor.(Ping!) What did the CRT say exactly? Well, Deb’s heart was definitely still working. The heart rate seemed a little high and the blood pressure a little low. But what did I know?
Deb was sweating noticeably now and she seemed quite flushed. The hospital was, however, somewhat over-heated – so, I didn’t think too much of it. She moaned a little from time to time.
Once again, I heard some medical folk conferring beyond the curtains.
“How weird to have six female admissions within an hour - all with very advanced flu-like symptoms,” one said.
“And no blokes at all,” commented the other, stating the obvious.
“I didn’t know there was any particular outbreak of flu going on at the moment. Did you?” asked the first.
“Perhaps it’s new,” said the other.
“Perhaps, it’s ‘girl-flu’!” joked the first. “Caused by girl-germs!”
“Medical humour? Then again, perhaps it is ‘girl-flu’”, I thought.
I sat. Eventually, I found a day-old newspaper and pretended to read it to pass the time. I did the quiz. I knew all the answers – after all, I’d done that same quiz the day before.
Ben arrived: unshaven, dishevelled, grumpy.
“What’s her problem?” he asked – without as much overt sympathy as I might have expected.
“Dunno,” I replied. “The flu or something like it. Seems there are some other cases that have just come in.”
“Yeah, I think I saw them as I came into casualty – all lyin’ on trolleys an’ stuff. There are a few crook-lookin’ people out there, I can tell you. What do the Doc’s think it is?”
I shrugged.
He approached Deb’s bed and bent to kiss her on the cheek but stopped in mid-stoop - and patted her shoulder instead.
“No sense in taking any risks. Is there, Ben?” I thought grimly.
Ben found a plastic chair and dragged it to the bedside. He and I sat together, silent for a time, observing the motionless form of my baby sister, his lover. Eventually, we started to discuss the footy – as men do. It passed the time, at least. (Regrettably, Ben barracked for my least favourite team – Collingwood – and, as was typical of any Collingwood fan, was quite obsessive about their wretched progress in the league.)
Occasionally, a nurse would come and take some readings, record them on the chart and disappear. For most patients, being in casualty is mainly about waiting (though Deb was, of course, completely unaware of this at the time).
By about four a.m., Ben and I were both dozing fitfully beside Deb’s bed but were aroused by a sudden commotion nearby.
Urgent whispering.
“The one in the end cubicle has just died - she couldn’t have been more than thirty! She only got sick today.”
Astonished gasps.
“A healthy woman doesn’t just suddenly get ill and die of the ‘flu. There must have been some complication – a stroke or a heart attack – or something.”
A pause.
Unintelligible medical mumbo-jumbo.
“Better check the others – right?”
An obviously flustered nurse entered Deb’s cubicle trying – but failing – to be nonchalant.
“I’ll just check those little readings again, shall I?” she said, as if making some humorous aside.
It wasn’t humorous.
The nurse’s brow furrowed as she recorded each of Deb’s signs – she was obviously not happy with the direction of the vital indications that she was recording. She said nothing to Ben or me – and left abruptly.
Even so, Ben’s bio-rhythms apparently said ‘sleep’ to him and he dozed off.
I remained wide awake – a long-forgotten voice in my head was trying to speak to me.
Chapter 5
Denial is no longer an option
Ever heard the cry of a banshee?
Well, no, I haven’t either but I imagine it is just like what I heard next: shrill, terrifying, insistent.
There followed a slight pause of absolute silence – then screaming, commotion, pandemonium.
The nurse who had just been taking Deb’s readings burst through our curtaining backwards and fell heavily to the ground. The banshee-patient was on top of her, clutching her tightly and emitting her unmistakeable, piercing cry.
Suddenly wide awake, Ben bolted immediately. (Thanks, Mate.)
I knew what this was. One glimpse of the banshee-patient confirmed what had been lurking in the back of my mind, reviled and unacknowledged: the banshee-patient, undoubtedly the one who had just died, had returned.
My brother, David, and I had been sitting in a French lecture at the time of the first zombie outbreak, some ten years previously. David had acted instinctively and heroically at that time. He had saved many lives that morning – and paid with his own.
I’ll never be an instinctive hero like David was – but I knew I could (and should) do something amid the chaos. I had a clear shot at the back of the banshee-patient’s head. (The nurse on the floor was, for the moment, managing to fend off the hungrily searching maw of the recently deceased. Apparently, the nurse did not want to become zombie food just yet.)
I seized Ben’s recently vacated plastic chair, raised it in the air and brought it down hard on the skull of the banshee-woman.
Good one, Pete! Plastic on a zombie’s skull? Really?
(Well, I did say that I wasn’t an instinctive hero, didn’t I?)
Anyway, the zombie-woman wasn’t even stunned by my blow. Annoyed? Angered? Yes. But not hurt.
She left the (so far uninjured) nurse lying on the ground, rose to her feet and turned on me. Now it was my turn to do some urgent fending off. (I didn’t much fancy being zombie food either.)
A withering banshee cry was directed at me. My skin crawled. A chill ran through me.
‘And, now, for my next move, …?’
“Hey, bitch! Leave my fuckin’ brother alone!”
Amid the chaos, Deb had been woken. (Though she wasn’t normally given to such profanity). It seems she, like David, was an instinctive hero, too.
The banshee-patient immediately released her tightening hold on me and turned to Deb, still lying on the trolley-bed.
Another piercing wail – this time, directed at Deb. Deb didn’t flinch.
“The bed-pan, fuckwit!” she yelled at me.
Oh, right.
There was, lying at the end of the bed, one of those old-style, stainless steel bed-pans – heavy and sharp edged (relatively.) Yes, that would do it, Sis.
As directed, I seized the bed-pan and brought it down heavily on the head of the banshee-patient (whose back was, of course, momentarily turned to me).
Clang! (A beautiful sound, in the circumstances.)
There was no actual splatter. The bed-pan was not heavy enough for that. But the banshee-patient went straight down for the count – and I, for one, was not waiting around to see, if she rose again to beat the bell.
“Come on, Deb,” I said. “We’re outta here!”
With a sudden adrenaline rush, Deb had disentangled the equipment that was attached to her and was on her feet. No second invitation required.
On our way through the waiting area, we came upon the timorous Ben. He trailed along in our wake as we ran to the exit – and my car.
Chapter 6
Back at the Flat
Deb’s adrenaline-induced revival did not last long – within an hour or so of returning to my flat, she was again unconscious.
Ben and I needed to discuss what to do next.
We turned on the TV for the morning news. It was déjà-vu for me.
A grim-faced anchorman announced, and updated, the reports as they trickled in from around the country – and beyond.
�
�And in a developing story from the Northern Beaches, ….” – or similar – the reportage would be commenced.
Then would follow a ‘live-cross’ to a panicky reporter and some tearful eye-witnesses – Broken Hill, Wagga Wagga, Perth, the Alice – you name it. (Even Moscow.)
The same pattern time and time again: a woman had gone down with severe ‘flu, had died and then, within the hour, returned to wreak death and destruction upon whoever happened to be within reach.
Mine (Book 2): Sister Mine, Zombie Page 2