She mustered the courage to open her eyes. Her vision was blurry. She blinked rapidly and looked around. There was a blob to her right and one on her left. The cobwebs in her mind cleared along with her vision. It was Ian on her right and Dr. Randall to her left while Tex stood in front of her.
“Is everyone okay?” Dr. Randall asked.
His voice warbled as though Erika’s ears were filled with honey.
“We’re alive,” Ian said. “Too soon to tell if we’re okay.”
Tex remained quiet though he appeared to have come through the travel without further injury.
Though the ship’s door remained closed and there were no windows, they could see through the walls to the outside. The landscape was familiar. The ground was the color of a honeyed latte dusted with sage-green bushes and cactus. The sky a brilliant blue edged with wispy white clouds.
And two figures approached the ship cautiously, covered from head to toe in white hazmat suits.
“How do we open the door?” Erika asked.
Before any of them had a chance to look for a control, the side of the ship opened and a ramp extended. As soon as the doors began to open, the two white blobs stopped their approach.
“Do you think we’re on Earth?” Ian asked.
“It appears so,” Dr. Randall answered. “I suggest that we exit together and form a ring around Tex to reduce attention on him.”
They slowly progressed down the ramp. Erika breathed in the rich air deeply. Her lungs had burned from lack of oxygen, but the pain was gone. She sucked in another breath of warm, dry, oxygen-rich air. Her head cleared. Her brain’s cells rejoiced to be fed well again. Her skin prickles disappeared. The sun was bright and warm on her skin.
Dr. Randall stopped about five feet away from the two people dressed in hazmat suits. Another fifty yards back from them were a half dozen green military trucks and about a dozen more people all dressed in the same hazmat suits. All of them except for the two that approached had AK-47s trained on them.
“Who are you?” the man in the hazmat suit asked.
“I’m Dr. William Randall, former chief scientist for the A.H.D.N.A. program, recently retired.”
Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Hazmat registered any recognition of his name or the program. Whether it was because they were playing it cool or because they truly had no idea who he was, Erika didn’t know.
Mrs. Hazmat took a few steps closer and asked, “Why were you in that ship?”
Dr. Randall continued to field the questions. “That’s a rather long story and highly classified. Before we get into that, we all are in dire need of medical attention. Answers to your questions will have to wait.”
The man pushed a button on his wrist and pulled it to his face. “They’re human. Quarantine situation. Yes, full containment.” He put his wrist down. “You will receive medical attention, but you must first be debriefed. Come with us.”
Ian stepped forward on the other side of Erika. Mr. and Mrs. Hazmat took a few steps backward.
“Look, the who we are and why and how we got here is a very long story. We’ll share it with you over a coffee someday. But we need medical help first. Now.” As if to punctuate his point, Ian passed out and face-planted on the sandy ground a few feet from Erika.
Ian couldn’t have planned it any better if he tried. Mr. Hazmat got back on his comm and told someone on the other end of his radio connection that they needed an ambulance. “Yes, immediate status change. Full containment but with medical evac.”
While he radioed, Erika knelt on one side of Ian while Dr. Randall knelt on the other side. Dr. Randall felt his wrist for a pulse. He glanced up at Erika. “He’s still with us. But his pulse is slow and weak. Likely severely dehydrated.”
Erika looked to Tex. “Can you help him?”
Tex stared at her evenly. “He simply needs hydration. I cannot help him with that.”
Tex was even more distant than usual and had a nearly hostile tone. Erika wanted desperately to speak with him alone and try to understand what was going on with him. But it would have to wait.
Erika took Ian’s hand in hers and stroked his hair. She put her lips next to his ear and whispered, “We’re home. Hang in there. It will be okay soon. We’ll all be okay.” She brushed his hair. His skin was dry and paler than she’d ever seen it. Ian had pushed himself too hard to help them escape. But his reserves were spent. If he didn’t get help soon –
Dr. Randall stood and stepped closer to Mr. and Mrs. Hazmat. “What organization are you with? D.A.R.P.A.? N.S.C.?”
Mrs. Hazmat said, “Actually, we’re CDC.”
Dr. Randall breathed a loud sigh of relief.
“Thank God.” He spoke quietly. “Look, you have to listen to me. The military will want to take us to a military facility. It is imperative to both national security and the health and welfare of every American citizen that you stall that. We’ve been exposed to a deadly virus that a – terrorist organization – intends to disseminate into the general population. I need to speak with Dr. Montoya from the CDC office in Phoenix immediately.”
The man said, “You know Dr. Montoya?” He looked skeptical.
Dr. Randall nodded. “I implore you. Before you hand us over to the military, you need to get word to Dr. Montoya that I’m here and that I need to see her. Please. If you buy us some time on this, it will save countless lives.”
Dr. Randall’s clothes were filthy rags that hung on him like a sack over a skeleton. His glasses were so dirty, Erika didn’t know how he saw through them, and they were crooked on his face. He looked like he’d escaped from an insane asylum. If I was them, I wouldn’t listen to him.
But the woman pulled her wrist to her face. “Get Dr. Montoya over to medical unit A. She needs to see someone.”
Within a few minutes two white ambulances arrived, bouncing over the washboard road and throwing up a cloud of dust. They were completely devoid of markings on the outside such as a town or county name. The men and women in them were dressed in the same full-body hazmat suits. They spoke to Mrs. Hazmat for a few seconds then got a gurney. They scooped Ian onto it and had an IV started before they even got him through the doors of the ambulance.
“I’m going to ride with Ian,” Erika said. He once again teetered near the brink of death. She hoped that if she held his hand, it would tether him to life.
Dr. Randall patted her hand. “I’ll stay with Tex. I need to make sure they don’t hook him up to a saline IV.” He smiled wanly at her.
He looked so tired. Erika hoped he would accept medical attention for himself after he got Tex squared away.
Tex stood behind Dr. Randall. He was staring off into the distance as though he was asleep or maybe in the midst of a daydream.
“Tex?” She waved her hands in front of his face.
He moved his head slowly in her direction, looked at her, blinked then returned his gaze back to the distant spot on the horizon. It was as though he didn’t even know her.
“You coming?” one of the medics in the ambulance with Ian asked her.
Tex had been through so much. Maybe he’s not as okay as I thought he was. But she would have to worry about it later. Ian needed her.
She jogged to the ambulance, and the medic lent her a hand and pulled her into the back. She crawled in and knelt on the steel floor next to Ian and took his hand in hers again.
His eyes fluttered open but only for a few seconds. But it was long enough for him to register that she was there. His lips curled into a small smile that faded as he passed back into the dreamless sleep of unconsciousness.
The medics didn’t use sirens or lights. They drove as fast as they could on the bumpy dirt road, but they couldn’t go more than about thirty without risking bouncing Ian too hard. The bouncy ride made Erika’s right shoulder ache where she’d held the butt of the rifle. She was relieved when the ambulance finally turned onto a paved road.
The paramedics asked her questions about Ian’s health history. Had he had me
asles? A history of chest pain or asthma? Her patience wore thin with what seemed like irrelevant questions.
“Look, you’re wasting time with these stupid questions. Let me help you get to the important stuff. He got infected with a nasty virus, okay? It nearly killed him. High fever. And see those sores on his face? They were filled with blood. He even had blood oozing out of his eyes and from his nose. See the stains there?” Erika pointed to Ian’s face. “And to make it all worse, we were – he was – deprived of food, water and medical treatment for a really long time. It’s sort of a miracle that any of us made it.”
The questions continued anyway. “Where were you held? Where were you when they infected him?”
“I don’t know. It was – well, we weren’t shown where we were.”
Another medic took over the interrogation. “Was it near here? Were you in Arizona?”
Technically, they were in Arizona. The fact that it was thousands of years in the future? Well, they didn’t need to know that bit. “Yes. We were in Arizona. Near Ajo.”
The medics looked relieved. One of them said, “That’s good news, anyway. At least it’s not a new outbreak.”
New outbreak? “Wait – you’ve seen this virus before?”
They ignored her question but pressed her to answer more of their own questions about Ian’s symptoms. A part of her wanted to tell them to stick it. If they weren’t going to answer her, why should she answer them? But Ian’s life hung in the balance, so she forced her hardheadedness to the side and answered as best she could. Her answers were mainly from memories of her own reaction to the virus rather than observation of Ian.
Erika had assumed that they’d landed in a remote area and that it would take hours to get to a hospital. In Arizona, if you weren’t in one of the major cities, you were at least an hour from a medical center.
But within fifteen minutes, the ambulance stopped. One of the paramedics handed her a bag with a white hazmat suit in it.
“You’ll have to wear this, miss.”
“But –” If Erika told them that she’d already had the virus, there’d be no need to wear the stupid suit. “I’ve already been exposed. You saw me holding his hand. I’ve touched him – kissed him even.”
“Sorry, ma’am. Protocol. You can’t go in without one.”
“But I’ve already had the virus.” She didn’t see any point in wandering around looking like a marshmallow.
“You got the virus – and survived?” The paramedic sounded incredulous.
“Yep. Sick as a dog, but I got better.”
He handed her the suit anyway. “Look, we can’t take any chances. Until you’ve been tested and your story pans out, you gotta wear the suit like everyone else we bring in. No exceptions.”
Erika grudgingly took the hefty suit and donned it. She wasn’t about to let Ian out of her sight.
The medics swung the back doors open, and at least a half dozen people in the same white hazmat suits hovered just outside the doors. There was no sign of Dr. Randall or Tex.
They quickly pulled Ian out and wheeled him across the pavement toward a large complex of buildings. Someone gave Erika a hand down. Her legs were shaky, but even without food, she was feeling much better with plentiful oxygen to breathe.
People peppered her with questions and took notes with gloved hands on small pads of paper. She looked around and tried to answer them, but her head swam again. The complex of buildings was familiar to her. Brick buildings she’d seen before. Concrete paths she’d walked before. It made no sense for them to take Ian inside on a gurney. He needed medical attention. Why are they taking him inside our school?
She was dizzy from the conflicting information and emotions. If they were at her school, maybe these people weren’t really CDC. But it was her town, which meant she was close to home. That meant she might be able to see her mom and familiar faces soon.
She followed along behind Ian and had to practically jog to keep up. She passed by strangers dressed in the otherworldly hazmat garb. They averted their eyes. It was the same thing people had done when her dad died. They felt sorry for her and guilty at the same time.
They wheeled Ian down a concrete sidewalk and through double doors. The gurney moved quickly on the scuffed, dirty powder-blue floor of the hall lined with glass cases filled with trophies of sports glories past. Erika had walked this hall countless times. It looked the same except it wasn’t filled with kids hanging out in small groups, gossiping and laughing. Mr. Parathi wasn’t standing in the center with his arms crossed across his chest, standing only five feet six but trying to look tall and daring someone to do something to earn a detention.
But it wasn’t the same school. It smelled like hospital, not like school lunch and dirty feet and cheap cologne.
They turned the corner and pushed through another set of double doors into the gymnasium. The championship banners still hung from the rafters and the bleachers were there, rolled up and pressed against the wall like they usually were during the school day.
But the wood floor was covered by rows of cots. And the cots were filled with people.
Men and women. Teens and little kids. Young and old and even some babies too. As she got closer, the mass of bodies became faces, and the faces became people she knew.
A cheerleader named Heather. She rolled over and vomited into a metal school wastebasket. On the cot beside Heather was Jamie, Heather’s best friend. On the other side was Carlos and his brother. And Mr. Keys, her ninth grade math teacher. Rocket and Ms. Fletcher.
Their faces were like a collage of a life she once knew. They were familiar, but it was more like a movie she’d seen than a memory of her own life.
Men and women in hazmat suits walked up and down the aisles. They changed IV bags, cleaned vomit off the floor and put cool washcloths on foreheads.
Erika walked slowly, taking it all in. Ian’s gurney was ahead of her now, but she’d catch up. Her head turned from side to side, looking at as many of the faces as she could. Her town was here. All of them.
And it dawned on her. The Conexus had been here. Before she, Ian, Dr. Randall and Tex came back, the Conexus had come here. To her town. To her people. And infected them.
Her heart leapt to her throat. Mom? Jack?
Her eyes roved frantically from face to face as she ran to keep up with Ian. She recognized nearly everyone there. Ajo was a very small town.
But her question remained unanswered. She didn’t see either Jack or her mom. It was too soon to know if that was a good or bad sign.
The doors on the other end of the gym opened, letting in bright, midday sun. They pushed Ian out and Erika followed. They wheeled down another concrete path to a pod of classrooms that had once held the English department, her favorite part of the school.
Desks had been tossed onto the grassy courtyard in a tangled jumble. No rows or order, as though it had been done quickly and without a thought that they’d ever need them again.
The medics opened the door to a room that had once been the home of Erika’s AP English class. The chalkboard was still filled with Ms. Baumgarten’s slanted, left-handed writing. Two tall bookcases against the back wall still held the teacher’s well-used collection of suggested reading. Erika had read nearly all of the books in that case.
In place of the usual desks for students were four empty hospital beds. The four medics grabbed Ian’s sheet on either side at the corners and heaved him onto one of the empty beds.
The paramedics, apparently done with their job, began to walk away. Erika grabbed one of them by the arm.
“Wait – my family. I need to know if they’re here.”
The man looked down at her hand on him as if it he’d just been touched by the plague. Erika removed her hand.
“Please,” she pleaded. Tears had welled in her eyes.
His eyes softened. “I’m sorry, miss. I don’t know. I’m just transport. But these folks here may be able to help you. I’m sorry.”
He eased
by her and disappeared into the courtyard outside the pod with the other paramedic.
A man stepped toward Ian and pinched Ian’s eye open with a gloved hand. He flashed a penlight across Ian’s eye and back. “Reactive.” The man searched Ian’s wrist for a pulse. “Pulse fifty. BP one hundred five over forty. Get me an EKG and keep the saline going. I want a full CBC, liver panel, CMP, AST and a PT. And as soon as he’s awake, find me.” The man, presumably a doctor, rushed from the room without so much as a glance in Erika’s direction.
Erika called after him, “Wait! I need to ask you something.”
But the man continued walking away as though he hadn’t heard her.
That left one nurse and a lab tech, who was already draining blood from Ian.
The nurse hung a clear IV bag on a pole beside Ian. “You okay?” she asked Erika.
Of course she wasn’t okay. She’d been living in hell and recently watched a friend get blown to pieces. She got back from hell only to find herself in a surreal apocalyptic dream. But she lied because she didn’t figure the nurse had time or inclination for the truth. “Yeah. I will be, anyway.”
The nurse smiled. “You need anything?”
She needed lots of things. A shower. A cheese pizza and a cola. But more than anything, she needed to know. “Do you have – does anyone here have a list? Of all the – infected people?”
The nurse nodded. “But I can’t give it to you. You know, HIPPA and all that.”
All things considered, Erika thought she’d held it together pretty well. But someone using a pre-the-world-has-gone-completely-to-shit rule to keep her from knowing if her loved ones were dead or alive made her come unglued. She got so close to the nurse that their face shields nearly touched. “Look around you. To hell with HIPPA.”
“You okay over there, Elise?” the blood drainer asked.
Elise looked Erika in the eye and showed no fear. If anything, she looked sympathetic. “We’re okay.”
Erika pulled herself back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be an ass. It’s just – I’ve been gone for so long. I have to know if they’re safe. My mom. And my boyfriend. They were here. In Ajo. I need to know.” She touched Elise’s arm. “Please.” She hadn’t meant to tear up, but the mere thought of her mom and Jack made her eyes mist again.
H.A.L.F.: The Makers Page 27