by G. Benson
“The artery is fine,” Joy said. “But the jugular vein is broken. I need to fix it.”
“Can you do that here?” Taren asked.
Joy sighed, straightening and rubbing at her forehead with the back of her wrist. “I’d prefer an OR. Sterile. Scalpels. Equipment. But yes, I can do a messy job with scissors and sutures.” Her wrinkled nose showed what she thought of that. “We should at least wash our hands.”
Joy and Taren went and washed their hands, Xin pushing gauze back down on Owen’s wound as they did. This day was feeling beyond comprehension. Had it really only been a few hours since she’d been with her cousin, whining at each other in her kitchen?
She wanted to message Lola. The thought was itching at her. Neither she nor Xin had had reception when they’d been hiding in A&E. Owen’s phone, fished from his pocket, hadn’t either.
Maybe she could try again.
Neck wound first. A neck wound that came from a bite. From that man. The other patients who had…turned, who had been admitted with bites.
Taren’s gut twisted.
She was not thinking about what that bite on Owen’s neck meant. It felt like the truth of what that bite could mean sat between Taren and Xin behind her as she washed her hands. The words built in the space between them, up and up, until they felt like something solid in the air. A wall of fact they didn’t have the mental space to acknowledge.
Next to Taren, Joy was washing her hands with no idea of what that bite could mean.
Maybe it didn’t mean what they thought. They couldn’t be sure. And what would they do? Not fix the wound? Should they have left him behind?
“Dishwashing liquid is a bit different from antibacterial soap, hey?” Taren said, for something to say. If she didn’t say that, she’d look at Xin and admit what they’d been ignoring about Owen this entire time.
“I miss my OR,” Joy stated.
Taren bit her lip to stop a smile, because Joy sounded so genuine and sulky. “We’ll make it work.”
Their elbows bumped, and Taren pulled away because she couldn’t deal with the buzz that ran along her skin at Joy’s touch right now.
Would that always be there? It had been for ages. It had been that night. It had buzzed up her arms the day after when Joy had messaged her to say it had been a mistake.
It had even buzzed across her skin like lightening when they’d stood in a hospital corridor, Joy telling Taren that she wasn’t ready for anything serious and she was sorry, leaving Taren completely floored.
Using Owen’s too-still body as a trolley, Xin opened the sterile packets, leaving them open so Joy, sterile gloves already on, could pull out what was inside. Not their usual style. Taren pulled on some normal latex gloves.
“Almost no need, I’m covered in his blood anyway,” she said.
Xin smiled at her. “Habits die hard.”
Taren and Joy swapped places from before, Joy kneeling at his side so she could get at the wound, Taren leaning over the back of the couch so she could reach it and angle her arms out of Joy’s way as much as possible.
“I’ll watch the hallway,” Xin said.
She went to the window, staring out, leaving just Joy, Taren, and Owen’s shallow breathing.
The flesh was ragged.
“Wish we had adrenaline,” Joy muttered.
Taren gave a soft laugh. “Some adrenaline to stop that blood flow, some antibiotics, fresh gauze, scalpels, OR…”
“Definitely my OR,” Joy agreed, that sulk still in her voice.
Taren looked down at her, her brow furrowed as she inspected the wound, taking in a breath. Taren put her fingers to the edges of it and pulled so Joy could see in like before.
The futility of this was creeping along Taren’s back. If they fixed this, then what? Was Owen going to be okay?
Taren thought she knew the answer to that.
But not doing anything was not something Taren did well.
None of them would. Two nurses and a surgeon: first aid. It’s what they did.
Joy took one final, slow breath, and started. Owen didn’t make a noise, his eyelids fluttering. His pulse was bounding at his neck. He was clammy and scarily pale. Joy’s hands were steady as she reached for the scissors and snipped inside Owen’s neck.
Taren hadn’t liked surgery. She’d found it too distanced from the patients. Watching Joy sink scissors into Owen’s neck, snip at his vein, then start making sutures with a calm hand and a focused expression, she understood more than ever exactly why that distance needed to be there for surgeons and patients.
Joy worked methodically, not pausing once, and it seemed only moments before she was suturing the skin closed, quick and sure in a way Taren could only dream of. And she was known for doing damn good sutures.
As she finished up, Joy straightened, pushing her shoulders back and rolling her neck. Taren looked up at Joy, who finally looked her in the eye, blue gaze solid on hers, cheeks flushed.
“Nice,” Taren said. An offering after weeks of weirdness between them.
For a second, Taren thought Joy would turn from it. But instead, she gave a tiny half-smile. “Thanks.”
“There’s nothing out here, in case you’re wondering,” Xin said.
Taren turned quickly to see Xin watching them, eyebrows raised. “Nothing?”
Xin’s lips were dangerously close to smirking. “Nothing. No movement.”
Taren turned back to Joy, who was staring down at Owen. “Are you okay?” she asked Joy.
“People are biting people and we just watched some guy eat an intestine.”
Taren cocked her head as she looked at her. Joy was even clammier than before, now she didn’t have a mini surgery to focus on. That flush was draining from her cheeks. “I mean beside that?”
Joy mumbled something, eyes scanning the couch and the blood-soaked shirt Owen had on. Her gaze darted to Taren’s balled-up scrub shirt on the floor. Flicked to the streak of red on her white singlet.
“What?” Taren asked.
“I have a blood phobia.”
Xin looked around sharply, hair flicking around her face. “Is that a joke? You’re a vascular surgeon.”
Joy stared down at Owen, chest caked in his own blood, at her hands that were covered, and rolled her eyes, the gesture weak and lacking the usual sting it would hold. “No, I’m serious. And this amount of blood on all of you, on him—here, on a couch—this is not normal.”
Xin bit her lip and looked at Taren. The second their eyes locked, her lip twitched, and Taren keeled over, trying to smother her laughter by turning her head into her shoulder. Xin all but fell against the door laughing.
Something broke in Taren and she couldn’t stop cackling.
“You?” Xin managed. “A vascular surgeon?”
“With a blood phobia?” Taren choked. “After just operating on a guy’s neck?”
It was ridiculous. She snorted, loudly, which didn’t help their laughter. As it verged on hysterical, she felt it ebb away as quickly as it had taken over. She was left with an exhaustion that settled in her eyes. Her laughter died slowly, and she wiped the tears off her cheeks. Xin’s laughter had turned to hiccups. Her eyes were glued on Owen, who had somehow become even more still.
Taren swallowed heavily, dragging her eyes up to Joy. “Sorry.”
Joy looked scared at what she had just witnessed. “No worries. It is funny. Though I’m guessing that that was in relation to something else.”
A smile still pulled at Taren’s quivering lips, and she nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”
Joy peeled the gloves off her hands, shuddering and dropping them in the bin by the sink. She washed her hands again, pouring dishwashing liquid all over them.
“Surgery is different, when it comes to blood,” she said, a little defensively as she dried her hands. “Normally I can disconnect it. But this, on the couch, like this…it’s not as easy.” She crossed her arms and leaned ag
ainst the sink, giving them her attention, eyes flicking to Owen occasionally. “So. What happened?”
Xin walked on shaky legs and fell heavily into a chair. Taren sat cross-legged on the floor, pulling her gloves off. She peered at her hands. Normally, she would wash them immediately, as Joy had done. But crusted blood sat under her nails even after the scrubbing she’d given them earlier, and she dropped the gloves on the floor and didn’t move.
“Two patients kicked off, basically at the same time.” Xin picked at a piece of string on her scrub pants. “One of them bit Owen.”
Xin’s gaze slid to Taren and Taren refused to meet it, instead staring at Owen. Who was breathing so very, very shallowly.
So they told Joy about the patients, their theory about the one who’d bitten Owen being a scientist from the lab it had all started in. The look on Arif’s face when he’d got off the phone and told them about the lockdown.
Joy listened, face drawn and a line between her brows that got deeper and deeper.
“They really only told Arif that they weren’t to move, nothing more?”
Nodding, Taren continued. “Only that they had evacuated the other blocks.” Taren gave a dry laugh. “The Health Department can suddenly move fast. Who knew?” The mirth faded quickly. “Anyone with bites or scratch-like wounds were left behind, and they moved out everyone else in isolation transport and busses to a quarantine area.” At once, every single one of their gazes flicked to Owen, watching his chest rise and fall. Taren swallowed heavily, continuing. Realisation was dawning in Joy’s eyes.
Joy looked like she was considering if she really wanted to ask the next question. “What happened after that?”
“All hell broke loose, with patients trying to exit, both from A&E and the waiting room. The doors were completely barricaded, even when some of the big guys tried to ram it. In the chaos, the patient that…” Xin’s voice wavered, and Taren didn’t have it in her to continue for her. She was avidly not thinking about it all. “The patient that bit Owen hadn’t been completely restrained, but in the chaos, no one really noticed. I turned around and one of the security guards was on the floor, dead. The patient, he was…”
Joy had obviously decided she did want to know. “Was what?”
Taren answered, surprised at how hollow her own voice sounded. “Eating him.”
Joy slid down the door, sat down, and stared at them.
Xin shuddered. “Everything was chaos. There was screaming from the waiting room, but we don’t know what happened there. Then, Taren—”
“I dragged Owen and Xin into a small supply room and shut the door. We hid. We hid and listened to a lot of screaming.” Taren picked at invisible lint on her scrub pants, plucking at the same spot over and over.
Joy’s voice was a whisper. “How did you get out?”
Words spewed from Xin. “The noises stopped. Some people must have run, but we didn’t know what had happened to the others.” She swallowed heavily. “We slowly pushed the door open. There were three of them, at least, and a lot of d-dead people, or…mostly dead. Some I think had been trampled by panicked people. And the, the bitten ones—their faces were buried in their abdomens. There was so much blood.”
She had no idea what had happened to Arif. Her stomach rolled over.
Taren turned her head to Joy. “We went as quietly as we could. We…” The blood. The crying out. The people. “We ran. And got out. And ran into you.”
A groan came from the couch, and they all turned their attention to Owen.
His body shook at what seemed like a convulsion, over quickly. Taren watched him intently as he lay still again.
None of them spoke.
Owen didn’t move again.
Taren watched the bite mark on his neck, the blood no longer oozing. Joy was good at what she did.
Xin’s gaze was burrowing into her. They’d whispered about that bite mark in the supply cupboard, trapped and squashed together and smelling of fear. But they’d abruptly stopped, because what were they supposed to do there? Push him out of the cupboard? Leave him behind? They’d seemed to have decided, then, to ignore it.
Now, they needed to talk about it. But Owen was still breathing. He wasn’t one of them.
Joy stared at him for a moment. “Wait! This is Owen.”
Taren rolled her eyes and picked at her scrub pants. “Yes, it’s Owen.”
Xin looked at them, confused, but when they said no more, she went back to staring at the man in question. Finally, she asked, “Well? Do I have to beg for context?”
“I told her about Owen, when we caught up outside of the hospital one time.”
Specifically, she’d told Joy about Owen on their date, that one date that they’d had, during which Taren had thought they were going somewhere. Joy had screwed her face up at how creepy Owen had been. A righteous anger had filled her up at the story, at the way Owen hadn’t respected Taren’s boundaries, the dismissal of Taren’s sexuality. Taren had managed to make her laugh when she’d told her about Arif sending Owen away from A&E like a punished child. It was a sound Taren had enjoyed. Then, of course, the woman had slept with her and then dumped her.
Xin barely reacted, and Taren figured she didn’t need to go into all that much detail, so she bit her lip and said no more. Taren shared a lot with Xin—they’d got so close. But not about Joy. Embarrassment at having been rejected so badly had kept Taren mostly quiet.
Taren watched Joy now stare at Owen, her eyebrows knitted together and a curl of disgust at her lip as she looked at him.
Taren wiped her sweaty hands on her scrub pants. Joy was now staring at Taren openly. Despite Xin’s presence, despite the blood and horror, Taren was gripped with an urge to ask what the hell had happened those few weeks ago.
“The window!”
Joy and Taren whipped their heads around to look at Xin.
“What?” Taren asked.
Xin stood up, staring at the small window near the sink. Since they’d come in, Taren had been focused on the threat from inside and on stopping Owen’s bleeding. She’d not given the window a second thought.
Taking slow steps towards it, Xin looked out.
“Woah.”
At that, Joy walked hurriedly around the couch. Taren pushed herself up off the floor and the two of them stood either side of Xin, all three staring out.
The car park was full of ambulances, fire trucks, and cop cars. What made the scene intimidating, however, were the armoured cars and trucks, the SWAT force that loitered around. A barrier of sandbags was set up around the perimeter.
Was it even called SWAT? That was very American. Regardless, that was what they were like. Taren had never seen a scene like it before in her life.
“Push the window up!”
Xin stepped forward to press her palms flat against the glass, pushing upward.
“Aren’t all windows above ground sealed since we had the jumper last year?”
Taren felt breathless at the flicker of hope. “In all patients’ rooms—but maybe not here.”
Not daring to be too optimistic, Taren watched Xin push again. Nothing. Xin sighed, dropping her forehead against the glass. “Nope.”
Clearing her throat, Joy flicked the catch above it. “Try now.”
With a scowl at herself, Xin straightened and pushed up again. It shifted an inch. All three of them gasped at once, Xin looking from one to the other.
“Holy shit, I didn’t think it would work,” she said.
Taren’s heart was pounding. Maybe they could get out of this mess.
“Keep going!” Joy seemed ready to push everyone aside and do it herself.
Xin pushed up once more, and it slid open easily.
“Oh, thank God!” Around Xin’s back, Joy’s hand grabbed Taren’s forearm and gripped it as the words burst from her mouth, and Taren shocked herself by not yanking it out of her grasp.
Rather, it steadied her.
&n
bsp; They all pushed forward, heads out of the window as they stared down. One floor up wasn’t too bad.
“Close the window and return inside.”
Taren jumped at the booming voice and hit her head on the windowsill above her, yelping. She rubbed her head and they all looked around, trying to find the source of the noise. Police officers and the SWAT team lookalikes were all she could see. Was that a tank? Holy shit, that was a freaking tank.
She couldn’t see a single journalist or person who could be a civilian. The hospital was on a main street, houses and businesses surrounding them. Behind the lines and lines of military people and police, it was like a ghost town.
“You will have three warnings!” That booming voice said.
Now Taren could focus more, it seemed to be coming from several large speakers set up next to some police vans.
“For what?” Xin yelled out.
Her junior nurse had a lot more sass than she’d thought.
“To return inside and shut the window!”
Six heavily armoured people with very large guns marched forward in unison and fell to a knee two metres inside the barrier, weapons raised.
Taren’s heart was racing. This could not be real.
“One!”
Xin wasn’t shaken. “We aren’t infected with the virus! Please, let us out!”
“Please!” Taren added, like it would help.
“Two—warning shot.”
“They wouldn’t—”
Whatever Joy was going to say was interrupted as one of them fired their gun, the bullet spraying brick and mortar everywhere as it hit the wall right next to Joy’s head. She screamed and stepped back inside, pulling Taren with her with the vice-like grip she had on Taren’s arm.
Taren laid a hand on Xin’s back, grabbing a fistful of shirt, and wrenched her inside.
“Three!”
The force of five shots blew enough brick and mortar up to cloud the air, the roof towards the other side of the room dropping paint and dust as some bullets made it through the window, thankfully angled up.