“Sounds good.”
Tom extended his hand and shook James’, then set his empty beer on the railing. “Thanks for the beer and for caring.”
James nodded and Tom walked away.
He had thanked him for caring, that surprised James, because he didn’t think Major Tom, a man who put people down every day even cared about those who were still alive.
James never really thought about what happened out of his little comfort of care circle, he was so focused there. He didn’t even image there were people that couldn’t get help.
It was time to venture out like Tom had asked. The question wasn’t if James would, it was if he was ready.
That remained to be seen.
SEVEN – RUN
They called it Sanctum, simply because it had become their home and Industrial Park was just odd to say. It consisted of eight warehouse buildings surrounded by a fence. One of the buildings ended up being a home furnishing place, so none of the survivors of Sanctum were sleeping on the ground.
In the months there they had made it a home. A clean and safe community. The view however, from inside the fenced-in area, left a lot to be desired.
Hundreds of Codies gathered at the fence.
Ella’s husband Bruce was one of them.
Bruce was front and center again, and every time Ella saw him she felt compelled to walk to the fence. Almost driven by guilt, as if it would hurt him if she didn’t go and see him.
He stared at her, doing that snapping jaw thing. It was hard to stand there, especially when the weather was warmer, the stench was horrendous.
Sometimes Ella would imagine words coming from his mouth. A whole fantasy conversation would take place in her mind.
“How’s it going out there, Bub?” she’d ask.
“It’s okay. Kinda of stinks being on this side of the fence. Stinks … get it?”
Bruce had that corny sense of humor.
“He lost another finger,” the male voice said behind her.
Ella turned around slightly startled by his sudden presence. “Oh, hey Grant. What did you say?”
“Bruce.” He pointed. “He lost another finger.”
“Yeah, they’re like falling off of him.” Ella shrugged.
“Where do you suppose they go?”
“Just drop, I guess. He’s decomposing.”
“So is Betty over there, but she still has her fingers,” Grant indicated to another Codie.
“We can do an entire study on the decay of the human anatomy from this side of the fence. One day they’ll decay enough they won’t be a threat.”
“There will still be the fresh ones out there unless the cure works.”
“I’m not very hopeful,” Ella said. “Stuff like that take ages to perfect, testing, they’re only throwing something out there. It’s a way to appease the public, let them know they aren’t forgotten. It’s all a façade and we know it. Clean up the streets, shoot a few Cooties.”
“And lead the rest to the wastelands.”
“Us,” Ella said.
“So,” Grant sighed out. “We have a bit of a problem.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Little Jensen. Her tonsils are bad again, really bad. Swollen, infected and it’s affecting her breathing. We’re out of antibiotics and if she doesn’t get them, I don’t see her making this bout. We are dangerously low on maintenance medicine as well.”
“You need me to go?”
“Yeah,” Grant said. “You don’t have to.”
“No, no, I’ll go. It’s my contribution. Same as before?” Ella asked.
“You know the routine.” Grant handed her a switchblade.
<><><><>
It wasn’t easy the first time Ella left Sanctum to venture out of South Side, but she found a way to make it work. Despite how many times she did it, she was scared because she had to go at night when the Codies didn’t see as well.
Grant always helped her with the anxiety. He filled a pint size bottle with Jack Daniels and shoved it in the front pocket of her tee shirt. It was for the road and her run. Ella wasn’t ashamed to admit she indulged in liquid courage. Alcohol was one thing they had an abundance of. The South Side of the city used to be the go to nightlife location for most young people, there were eighty bars in the area.
Libations were a plenty.
Ella had her straight up double from the main bottle, saving her pint for when she was out there. Her exit from Sanctum was the rear area of the fence. Very few Codies were there and Grant and two others distracted them while Ella slipped out.
From there she ran along the river bank. She was always chased, but she moved faster than the dead. Three blocks down was her rowboat tied under the bridge.
She had to be quiet and row slowly. She also had to stay under the bridge so she wasn’t seen. She was fortunate on this night, the river barely had a current and she made it across with ease.
Once on the opposite bank, she tied the boat and checked for guards. She worried less about Codies, they were out there on the street, but not in the numbers of the South Side. Once she saw it was clear, she took the old city steps. She had to be quick, the guards made a pass every twelve minutes.
The steps took her to a part of the city called Uptown. It wasn’t as glamourous as it sounded. It was inner city, with rows of old townhouses. It reminded her of the time she was in Queens.
Uptown was safe from the military, they rarely patrolled there. The residents of the area took care of their own and had their own watch crew on corners.
The first time through there, Ella was nearly shot, and would have been had it not been for an older woman named, Marcy and her husband Horace. They called out to the fact she wasn’t a walking corpse.
They not only saved her, they became her help from that moment on.
She made her way to the rear of the large, red row house and knocked on the back door. Ella remembered the days when the simple knock would have caused dogs to bark, no more. It was silent.
Uptown used the animals for other purposes.
Marcy opened up the door. “Oh, hey there,” she said in a greeting. “Passing through?”
“Sure am, Miss Marcy, thank you.” Ella walked into the home and stood in the kitchen. The counters were stacked with water and boxed goods.
“You hungry? You want anything?” Marcy asked.
“No, I’m good. How’s Horace doing?”
Marcy lifted her views to the ceiling. “Shuffling around. He’s been quiet for the most part. R-Team came through the other day for Sophie’s house.”
“The R-team came through?”
“The field hospital is right up the street, it doesn’t take much for someone to hear or see.”
“I’m sure you’re fine. I have to head up there. Do you want me to grab you something?” Ella asked.
“Not from there. You doing your thing to get in?”
“I am.”
Marcy walked to the kitchen cabinets, opened one and pulled out a bowl. She placed it in front of Ella along with a dish towel. “If you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.”
“It’ll keep him quiet until the feeders come tomorrow,” Marcy said.
“It’s the least I can do.” Ella said, pulling out the switch blade. “And I crushed half this pint.” She patted her chest pocket. “Horace will get a nice nightcap.” She brought the blade to the inside of her forearm and sliced a good two inches. The wound immediately bled and she allowed the blood to drip into the bowl.
Slicing her arm was her ticket into the hospital camp and as twisted as it was, Ella didn’t mind sharing the blood. She had to cut herself anyways, why waste it, especially when Marcy needed it and she was always so helpful.
EIGHT – DIFFERENT WORLD
Even though James didn’t live in a wealthy neighborhood like other doctors, he was pretty much as suburban as they came. His housing community was upper middle class with perfectly maintained lawns, and neighbors that ran the m
owers every Saturday morning, even with the world in a different state, he felt safe and comfortable in his zone.
With the exception of the curfew and no deli counter at the supermarkets, life had returned to about seventy percent normal.
James knew there had to be a catch.
His father always told him that life was about balance, that everything evened out. There wouldn’t be rich people if there weren’t those who were poor. The summer wouldn’t be enjoyed if the winter wasn’t dreaded.
There were only so many soldiers, so many doctors and workers, and James remembered his father’s words of balance when he arrived to the inner city. The reason they had so much in the suburbs was because they had so little in the city.
He wondered why he was advised not to drive there, but to take a ride from the soldiers. Even before the sun set he could hear the gunfire.
The city itself looked as if it had seen war, and in an essence, it had. Mercy Hospital, a once icon of the city was burned out from the original days of chaos.
The streets weren’t empty, in the suburbs, James rarely saw a revived walking the streets, yet in the city they moved about everywhere.
There weren’t enough soldiers to kill them.
The new hospital was a series of erected tents on the old hospital grounds that spread down the streets of the inner city neighborhood.
The tents were surrounded by poorly and hastily built fences, but he was told, he was safe in there.
He was greeted with an abundance of gratitude from a nurse named Jodi and given a hand drawn map of the hospital camp when she guided him on a quick tour.
“It’s you and me on emergencies,” she told him. “Then we’ll split rounds on the long terms.”
“What about infected?” he said. “Do we put them somewhere?”
“Only to another tent where the soldiers wait to rectify them,” she replied. “Oh, yeah, a lot of our emergencies haven’t seen a bath in a while. We have showers and personal packs that have soap, toothpaste, a towel .. that kind of stuff. Tell them they are welcome to use the showers.”
“So we insult them.”
She smiled and shook her head. “They won’t be insulted. Trust me. There’s no gas out there so a lot of these folks don’t have hot water.”
“How do they not have gas?”
She shrugged. “Does anyone?”
“Yes.” James nodded. “I do. Essential services went back up months ago.”
“I guess that is privilege for you,” Jodi said. “Thank you again Doctor Ung for being here tonight.”
And that was it. His introduction to everything and then she was gone. It was calm at first, then it seemed in a snap of a finger things went insane.
In the middle of removing a bullet from the thigh of a soldier, James got word he had a baby to deliver.
By the time he delivered and arrived at the tent, the young woman named Jodi was alone and bearing down.
He could see the baby’s head and barely had time to wash his hands.
A baby.
James hadn’t delivered or thought of babies in months.
He cleared the baby’s mouth and nose, and after his stock encouraging words of, “You’re doing good, Rhonda, one more push,” James finished the delivery. The baby boy was normal, healthy and large.
He wrapped him partially in a towel, then placed the baby on Rhonda’s stomach and cut the cord.
“We’re going to need to deliver the placenta,” James said to her.
Jodi’s voice entered the tent. “I’ll handle that. You examine the baby.”
James agreed and thought nothing of it. He took the child across the room and did a thorough examination, again clearing his eyes, nose and mouth. Upon wrapping him and turning to hand him back to his mother, James saw Jodi sealing a clear plastic bag that obviously contained the afterbirth.
He wouldn’t have thought it odd, had Jodi not hurriedly left the tent with Rhonda still exposed and in a birthing position.
It felt strange and it angered him a bit.
How could she just leave the patient?
He handed the baby to Rhonda, covered her, informed her that he’d be back and left the tent to look for Jodi. New man on the field or not, there was a level of care to be given and Jodi just dismissed that.
He spotted her walking away with the bag, moving at a quick pace.
Where was she going?
He prepared to call for her, wanting her to stop, when he noticed she walked straight toward the fence. James stopped following and stood back a few feet.
Two men were on the other side of the fence, Jodi lifted the bag of afterbirth over to them. They tossed something in return to her.
She turned around and saw James. Jodi didn’t react as if ‘busted’ exchanging afterbirth for whatever it was she received. She coolly looked at him and walked away.
“Doc, hey Doc,” a male voice called to him.
“Um, yes.” James turned around.
“You have an arm injury in tent three.”
“Thank you. I’ll be right there. I need to finish up another patient.”
The male worker nodded is acknowledgement and walked away.
James returned to Rhonda and her newborn child. He would do what he could for them, but he couldn’t help but wonder what would become of them when he was finished, he wondered if anyone in the hospital camp really cared.
NINE - LAZARETTO
Tent three.
Ella had never been in tent three. Most of the time it was the higher numbers, which made things easier for her. The higher number tents were closer to the supplies.
Tent three held four cots, each sectioned off by a drape. She was the only one in the tent and awaited the routine. The nurse would come in, numb, then stich her up, fetch the release papers so she could travel on the streets after curfew, and then go, leaving Ella to get what she needed in from the camp.
It was the same way every time.
She realized that could change when the partition curtain parted and an Asian man in scrubs stepped into her section.
“I’m Doctor Ung, I hear you hurt your arm,” he said, placing down a medical tray on the cot next to her.
“Wow. This is new,” Ella said.
“Excuse me?’
“No one’s ever cared enough to give me a name around here.”
“So you’re here a lot?”
“Um … I’m pretty accident prone.”
“I see. Where’s the injury?”
Ella held out her arm.
He touched it with his gloved finger. “How did this happen?”
“I cut it opening one of those big fruit cans. You know the giant restaurant kind? I don’t have a can opener, I use a knife.”
“Well you’ll need to find a …” he turned her arm. Ella knew he saw them, the similar scars. Some healed, some still fresh. “You … you have quite a bit of the same injury.”
“I’m a klutz.”
“Are you cutting yourself?”
“Yes. When I open the cans.”
“That’s a lot of the same type of cut.”
“I open a lot of the same type of cans.”
He sighed out heavily as if to say, ‘I give up’, then grabbed a syringe injecting a greenish ooze into her arm to numb her.
“So you’re a real doctor?” Ella asked.
“I am.”
“I've never seen you here before.”
“I work at a hospital in the suburbs. I was asked by the Major who runs the R-team to do some volunteer work. Numb?” He touched the wound.
“Yes,” Ella nodded to his question. “Major Tom?”
The doctor lifted the sutures. “Yes. You know him?”
“Doesn’t everyone. He’s well known. He’s the grim reaper.”
“That’s pretty unfair considering he’s only rectifying those who have passed already.”
“Have they?”
His eyes lifted to her.
“I mean, have they rea
lly passed?” Ella asked. “I heard they still have a beating heart. Some even look like they know you.”
She noticed the doctor paus in his stitching to stare at her.
“What? That sounds crazy, huh?” she asked.
“No. It sounds like a good friend of mine. She said the same thing,” he told her. “A fellow doctor as well.”
“Something to be said about what a doctor thinks …”
“She’s dead.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She got bit and died. She tried in a way to prove her point. Unfortunately, we’ll never know.”
“A lot of people think they retain,” Ella said. “A lot. And that is what will be the downfall of the remainder of civilization.”
“That’s an odd thing to say considering it’s pretty much under control and a cure is on the horizon.”
Ella laughed.
“That’s funny?”
“Yes, it is. Not the cure, but under control. How can it be under control when people won’t kill their own? When they hide them. Believing they are still who they were.”
“You contradict yourself.” He bandaged her arm. “Do you think they retain or not?”
“I’m torn. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. But even if they do, eventually they won’t. The brain would be what keeps the person intact, right? They’re decomposing. How long before that brain goes, too?” Ella slid from the cot. “And thank you for this.”
“You’re welcome. Stay here, I’m going to go get your papers so you can head back home.” He took a step and stopped. “And, um, before you go, if you want to use the showers, you’re welcome to.”
“So you’re saying I stink?”
“No. No. Maybe like booze but not ...,” he stammered his words. “I was told to—”
“Insult me?”
“No, to offer showers. I didn’t mean to insult you. I’ll be right back.”
Eight minutes.
Ella knew from experience it took eight minutes to walk to the main tent, get the papers and return. Typically she was in the back, so she took off a minute or two. Still, plenty of time.
She reached into her back pocket and pulled out the folded nylon bag. It wasn’t huge, but big enough to get what she needed and then she slipped from the tent.
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