by Urban, Ami
“Find anything?”
I looked down. On the floor below me looking up, Jack waved. He’d gone down a flight to get a better look around.
“Not yet. I haven’t checked.” I turned toward the desk at the back of the office. Snowflakes and ashes danced on a light breeze down from the ceiling. The desk was half-covered in a pile of white powder. Light glinted off an item at the corner. I approached it.
Dr. Holmes’ gold-rimmed glasses were perched on top of a blue manila folder. One of the temples had been broken off completely. A single drop of blood had stained the cracked left lens. I shivered again.
That was it, then. Everyone we’d come to know while living in Braycart was dead. Dr. Holmes, his wife and their three children. One of which had been patient zero. Why had someone destroyed this city? It made no sense. Patient zero could have been studied. She could have provided insight on a possibly stronger anti-viral.
I sighed, tucking a lock of hair behind one ear. It was getting long. I brushed it off my shoulder. Without a second thought, I shoved Dr. Holmes’ glasses into the pocket of my shirt. Off in the distance, I heard Rex toddling around. He was chattering about the snow again.
I flipped through the blue folder under the glasses. It didn’t seem to pertain to anything. Then, I rounded the desk to try the drawers. My research was in there somewhere. And I wanted it back.
But he’d always kept his drawers locked. Each one I tugged on refused to budge. I called for my husband. A barely-audible affirmation rose from the floor under me. About three minutes later, Jack was in the office, Rex on his hip.
“What can I do for you, Foxtrot?”
“Down!” Rex kicked against Jack’s ribs. He winced, then set my son on the floor.
“Kid’s gonna be a soccer player.” He massaged his side with one hand as he approached me. “What’s up?”
“It’s locked.” I gestured at the desk.
Raising his eyebrows, he ventured around, giving the piece of furniture the once-over. “I don’t pick locks, remember?”
I nodded while still staring at the wood. “I know.”
We were silent for a moment. The only sound was Rex chattering away about the raining snow. His footsteps scampered farther into the room.
“So… I mean…” Jack folded his arms over his chest while observing the desk. Then, he bent forward, put one hand on top and kicked the bottom drawer with his right foot. It went clear through the cheap wood. “And there you go.”
I was impressed, but instead of saying anything, I watched as he stuck his hand in the hole he’d created and rooted around. With a soft click, the drawer came open. No emotion escaped me because, “That’s the wrong drawer.”
He looked at me as though I’d just called him a dirty name. Then, he laughed. “You’re lucky I like kickin’ things.”
Was I ever. He did the same with the drawer on the other side. Only this one took two swift kicks before breaking open. Practically shoving my husband out of the way, I rifled through the files until I found one with the name of my anti-viral on it. While I was flipping through it to check to make sure it was the correct one, I glanced at my son.
And dropped the folder to my feet. “Rex!” My hands flew to my cheeks as I watched my son toddle over to the hole in the floor. Then, to my horror, he stepped right over the edge.
His entire life flashed before my eyes. Almost as if I were experiencing it for him. The sheer scarcity of any life achievement caused my heart to twist into a tight ball. I was a doctor. And if I didn’t do something, I was going to lose my only child. But I was frozen in place. All I could do was watch as the top half of his overalls disappeared over the precipice.
Thank God for Jack.
Without even a second’s hesitation, he flew into action. I watched him spring forward like a baseball player and slide on the concrete over to the hole. His forearm disappeared, swallowed up by the empty space.
“Not today, kid,” he said, his voice nothing but a grunt.
“Rex!” I called out to him, my hands falling to my sides.
Jack glanced at me. “He’s okay.”
Without even thinking, I ran to them. He’d only just caught my son by the plastic suspenders as he was about to fall too far. Now, Rex was kicking both feet, his movements almost causing more slippage.
“Come on, little dude.” With a groan, my husband began pulling forward.
“Uh oh! Down!” Rex cried out. “Uh oh!”
“Yeah…” Jack sat up, my son giggling madly in his arms. “Uh oh is right.”
I scooped Rex into my arms and squeezed him. He fidgeted, but I didn’t let him down. Instead, I buried my face into his dark hair. It was soft and still smelled a faint bit like baby. The muscles in my abdomen contracted, no doubt causing my biological clock to begin ticking again.
I looked into my husband’s eyes. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
But he only shrugged and gave me a smile. “Hey, he’s my kid too, now.” As he attempted to stand, his left leg seemed to give out and he crumpled to the floor again. He cursed as I knelt down.
“Is it your knee?”
“Yeah.” He nodded, rubbing it with both hands.
“We need to get you to a hospital.”
Footsteps echoed down the hall behind us. We turned toward the door as Lexi rounded it. Her face was twisted in confusion.
“Uh…guys? You should probably see this…”
Just as I was helping Jack to his feet, my phone beeped loudly. I stood, balancing my son in one arm while my husband laid his weight across my shoulders. He’d always been the one to pick me up or support me. I didn’t realize how heavy he was until it was my turn. Since I didn’t have the hands to check my phone, Lexi pulled it out of my pocket and frowned at the display.
“What’s up?” Jack tried putting weight on his knee and winced.
“It says, Alert: Test Ping.” She looked up. “What’s that mean?”
Jack had opened his mouth to say something, but a long and lonely car horn interrupted him. We all turned toward the open walls of the office. In the distance, a cloud of snow rose into the sky, curling into wisps and tendrils on the wind.
“Yeah,” Lexi said, “that’s what I was talking about. There’s a whole caravan coming.”
Jack directed me to walk closer to the hole, then leaned forward to squint into the distance. As we stood there wondering what was happening, a glittering mirage lit up the horizon. Ripples of sky gave way to a row of black vehicles. They looked almost like ants against the stark white snow.
No. Not ants. They looked like [REDACTED].
“Uh… What are the chances those are good guys?” Jack asked the question we’d all been thinking.
“If you ask me…?”
We turned to Lexi again.
“I’d say slim to none.”
My husband and I exchanged glances telling each other it was time to go. And using simple mathematics, I could tell the caravan would be there soon. But how could we run with Jack’s knee in the shape it was?
“I have an idea.” Before anyone could react, I dragged my husband out of Dr. Holmes’ office and through the hallway toward a supply closet. He leaned against the wall as I dug through the cluttered mess. About halfway through the pile, I struck gold. Two sets of crutches had been buried under various medical supplies. I handed them to Jack who put them under both arms and tried swinging his weight to use them. He was a bit wobbly at first but got the hang of it just as my phone beeped three times with the same message.
“I feel like someone’s trying to find you,” he whispered to me while Lexi and Rex waited at the entrance to the stairs. “What else would ping refer to? And why would it only be on your phone?” He paused a moment, almost as if giving me a chance to explain something. “Is someone looking for you, Babe?”
I searched my mind for the appropriate response. Nothing and no one came to the forefront of my brain, so I shrugged. “I don’t think so.”
&nbs
p; “Not anyone…good at least… Right?”
I nodded. He inhaled, then curled his fingers around my forearm. “Smash your phone.”
“What?” I took a step back. His eyes were serious.
“Smash it. We’ll get you another one.” After a quick glance behind him, he pulled me closer. “We can’t let them find us.”
Something in the urgency of his words kicked my mind into high gear. I fished my cell phone from my pocket and handed it over to him. It ended up in three pieces under his boot. Then, it was time to go. The four of us flew down the stairs as fast as we could. Jack had a bit of trouble getting started. The left crutch had snagged between the concrete floor and railing. It took a few pulls to get it loose.
Just as we entered the lobby, the roar of several car engines filled our ears. The sound reverberated, making it impossible to find its origin. Then, the engines died, and there was silence. We stood in the dark lobby, frozen to the linoleum floor. Then, car doors opened, and voices floated toward us from behind.
“Out the front!” Jack hissed, motioning for us to leave. We made a beeline for the entrance just as the voices grew louder.
We picked up the pace, my legs feeling like jelly. My son was getting too big to pick up and carry. He had no idea what was happening, but knew we were distressed, so he was already getting fussy before we’d started running.
Now, he was wailing in my ear. The sound pierced into my brain. I shushed him, tried everything to calm him down, but it was no use.
We fled through the entrance toward the truck as running footsteps echoed down the halls behind us. Incoherent shouts followed us as we piled into the truck. The engine roared to life. Jack spun the wheel, causing the car to fishtail for a moment, throwing snow against the front doors of the hospital. Just as they began to open, we tore out of the broken city in a flurry of snow and ice.
***
None of what I was reading made any sense. Well, it made sense, but not from a medical standpoint. Not even from a research standpoint. Everything I’d done was included. The slides were there. All my reports and charts were there. Even my signature was on documents permitting my own human trial.
Why, then, was someone else’s signature on the federal document? And why did they redact my name from the final memo?
“Where…?” I trailed off while rifling through the rest of the file. “Where is the excipient and media?”
“The what now?” Jack twisted his body in the driver’s seat. We’d been driving down backroads for miles, trying to lose whoever had been chasing us.
“The ingredient list. It’s not here. And everything has been signed by Dr. Wood.” I turned to my husband. “Why would they take my name off this?”
Jack just stared at me. My question was half-rhetorical. But of course, he couldn’t answer. How would he know if I didn’t?
“Well, Wood’s probably dead along with everyone else in that city,” Jack said, gesturing behind him for no reason.
I sighed. “I should hope not. He did his job extremely well.”
“Mm-hm.”
Lexi poked her head between the seats, holding her phone in one hand. “Okay, guys…” She didn’t take her eyes off the screen. “So, the CDC has services in, like, a couple major cities. Closest one is Denver.”
“Then that’s where we’ll go.” I glanced at Jack. “You need someone to look at that knee with an MRI.”
Denver was unrecognizable. The tall, white tapestry of the airport was littered with holes, ripped to shreds on one side. The skyline had been intruded upon and many buildings were no longer standing. But the closer we got, we saw a few cars pass with people in them. Healthy people.
My heart pounded hard against my ribcage as we pulled up to emergency services. It looked like the hospital in Denver had been transformed into a shelter on one side. Children and mothers lay sleeping on cots. A few people coughed. Two babies began to cry as we approached the emergency desk.
“Name?” The tall man behind the nurse’s station didn’t look up.
“Dr. Lisa Reynolds. I’m here with—”
“Is anyone dead, dying, bleeding or infected?” It sounded like the words came right from a script.
I paused. “No, but—”
The man slapped a piece of paper down on the counter in front of me, causing my body to jump. “Fill this out and have a seat. We’ll get to you when we can.”
Alright. I slid the paper off the desk and snatched a pen from the holder next to me. Each one had a gaudy fake flower taped to the top. They were worried about people stealing pens?
“Good to see the system works again.” Jack joked as I sat next to him.
I glanced at the paper. It was asking for the typical information; name, date of birth, medical history, etc. I dropped my hands into my lap.
“I don’t want to fill this out. I know your history.” I watched the man at the reception desk ignore a few people who walked by. I stood. “I’m just going to see if we can use their MRI machine.”
“Babe…”
I turned back to my husband. His expression was one of humor and maybe…pity?
“You don’t work here.”
I tilted my head down and blinked at him. “I know.”
He smiled. “Knock ‘em dead.”
I thanked him before heading up to the man behind the desk. This time, feeling a little cheeky, I slapped the paper down on the counter. Perhaps I relished the bit of pride that came with him finally meeting my gaze.
“My patient,” I said with force, “needs an MRI.”
For a moment, nothing happened. We stared at each other as if we were in competition. “You’re a doctor.”
Really? “Yes.”
The man glanced over my shoulder. “And he’s your patient?”
“Yes.”
He sucked in a breath. It whistled past his teeth. “Are you a doctor here?”
I blinked. “No. But—”
“Is he a patient here?” He gestured at Jack.
“No.”
Using the tips of his fingers, he slid the paper back toward me. it whispered against the wood. “Then he has to fill out this paper.” He tapped it, speaking slowly while looking me in the eye. “And wait like everybody else who isn’t dying or bleeding out.”
I thought for a moment, dwelling on why I didn’t enjoy the way he spoke to me. We were all in the same apocalypse. Working together should be our first instinct. But customer service was not the strong suit of this man.
“I’d like to speak to your resident on staff, please.”
With a roll of his eyes I could almost feel, the man swiveled in his seat and snatched a walkie talkie from the desk behind him. After spitting a few words into it, he glanced over his shoulder.
“He’ll be right over.”
Moments later, another man in blue scrubs leaned against the nurse’s station. The rude man pointed at me with disdain, and the doctor came over.
“Ms. Reynolds.” He held out his hand as I stood.
“It’s Dr. Reynolds.”
He nodded. “What can I do for you?”
“My patient. My husband,” I gestured to him, “needs an MRI. All I’d like is to use yours, so I can get more information on his problem. I’ve done hundreds.”
The doctor listened to me patiently, then nodded. “With all due respect, ma’am, anyone could come in here and say they’re a doctor. We have no real way of verifying that information. Our systems aren’t up yet.”
“I understand that, but—”
He held up his hand. “We also don’t have an MRI machine. There isn’t a working MRI machine in the entire state.”
My shoulders slumped. “There isn’t?”
He shook his head. “Every working hospital in the country has search parties. We try to salvage what we can, but we only get drops every two weeks. We rarely get to speak to each other. There’s no mail service, so we can’t write to other hospitals. I’m really sorry, but all we can do is give your
husband some pain medication.”
While he explained everything to me in a patient manner, I couldn’t help but feel belittled. This man was younger than I, so he hadn’t been practicing long. But I shook the thought out of my head. We needed to work together.
He disappeared and returned twenty minutes later with a few pre-loaded syringes. When he placed them in my palm, he said, “We don’t have any opiates, so this is all we can spare.”
I glanced down at my hand. Three hypodermic needles rolled around until the label was visible. Toradol. It was something.
I thanked the younger doctor and turned back to my husband. Instructing him to roll up his sleeve, I popped the top off one of the needles. Then, as gentle as I could be, I jabbed his muscle tissue with the shot. He winced as the Toradol entered his bloodstream. We still needed to find an MRI machine.
Jack leaned his head back against the wall, closing his eyes. A low sigh escaped him. It sounded as though he’d finally relaxed.
“That’s good stuff…”
I nodded. Lexi stirred in her seat. “Where do we go now? Home?” The word sounded hopeful coming from her. It was the first time I’d heard it and understood everything it encompassed. Home wasn’t just where you slept or lived. Home was where you built yourself, your family and your life.
We didn’t have one of those.
“I need to know if Raychel’s okay.” Jack’s mumble caught my attention.
“Alright.” I tapped a finger against my chin. “We’ll head to Utah.”
February 4 – Jack Reynolds
“Oh. My. God.”
I swiveled my head around to see my baby sister in the hallway between the stairs and large family room of the halfway house. Her hands were on her cheeks and her eyes were shimmering with tears. Before I could even open my mouth to speak, she vaulted across the room and buried herself in my arms. Strands of her blond hair tickled my face.
“I thought you were dead!” Her wails could’ve woken the entire house.
My gaze met her husband’s as he stepped into the room. I nodded an acknowledgement. “You think it’s that easy to kill me?”
At first, I thought she was pulling away and wiping tears from her cheeks to look at me, but instead, she punched me hard in the chest. Not bad, either. She knocked some wind out of me in a long “oof.”