Nick continued to look around at the wounded city. It was odd seeing Lansing so quiet, so devoid of life. He had always enjoyed driving in to the hospital early, before the morning rush began, but even then there had always been at least a few other cars on the road. Up ahead, the partial wall around the hospital could be seen and the gap where the gate would eventually go seemed to be clear. Snake drove through it then turned around to back up to a loading dock as several of his men approached the truck.
One of the bikers said. “We’ve been dropping a lot of bodies trying to keep this parking lot clear for you.”
The man looked at the rest of the crew on top of the truck. “Where’s Monkey?”
Snake shook his head and jumped from the cab. “Let’s hurry boys. We’re going to have more company soon.”
~*~
Doune thanked them and then hurried inside with a few of his most fragile instruments. He got the doors opened to the lab and propped them that way so that the rest of the equipment could be brought in.
“Is this lab going to be big enough for everything?” Lindsey asked Dr. Doune, as she looked around the room with some doubt.
“I doubt it. It’s already a little tight in here as it is but I want to be close to the quarantine room and there isn’t anything bigger available nearby.”
He glanced back toward the ER and he saw that the rescued family had come in along with the bikers.
“We picked up some survivors,” Doune told Lindsey. “Could you see about getting them into quarantine?”
“Sure,” Lindsey said, walking over to meet the family. She introduced herself and asked if anybody had been bitten and was relieved when they assured her that they had not. She explained that they would have to be in quarantine for a while, just to be safe, but they could rest or watch DVDs or have something to eat. The mother seemed distracted but that was understandable after what they’d been through.
Brian told Lindsey that they’d seen the lights from the hospital a couple of days earlier and had been desperately trying to get there ever since.
“Our building was completely overrun,” he explained. “I had to lower my family down several stories by rope, one at a time. It was terrifying for all of us and that was just the beginning of the nightmare. I don’t think that any of us except the baby have slept at all in the last two days.”
A couple of the teenagers who were helping in the kitchen brought some food over and the family began to dig in, except for the mother.
“I can hold the baby while you eat,” Lindsey offered, but the mother shook her head and seemed to clutch the child tighter.
A bad feeling began to creep over Lindsey. Something wasn’t right.
“Once you’re done eating,” she said, eyes on the bundle in the woman’s arms, “we’d like to have one of our doctors check your family over.”
“No,” the woman said quickly, eyes fearful.
“You can all be in the room together,” Lindsey told her. “We won’t separate you.”
The woman started to argue, but her husband spoke to her quietly and she nodded.
“That’ll be fine,” he said.
Lindsey watched Brian’s expression for a moment. He looked exhausted but there was something darker in his eyes, something that caused her feeling of apprehension to grow even stronger. Not convinced that the family was going to cooperate, Lindsey went to look for Dr. Winston, who was on duty at the time. He wasn’t anywhere to be found on the first floor so she went to look for him in the fifth floor doctor’s lounge, where he seemed to be spending much of his time. She informed him that they had newcomers and he lay down his book with a sigh.
“I hope everybody realizes that we can’t keep bringing others in. We’re already crowded and food is becoming an issue.
Lindsey bristled at his words. He’d complained every time survivors had arrived.
“They would have died out there. We’ll just need to figure out a way to make it work. We’re not turning anybody away.”
“I’m still not sure what makes all you low-level workers think you’re in charge,” he snapped, standing. “But you go ahead and have your little power trip. Before we know it, this will be over and everything will be back to normal. When that happens, don’t think I’ll forget any of this. I’ll make all of your lives a living hell.”
“Oh, you already do,” Lindsey assured him, walking back to the stairs.
Not ten minutes later, loud voices could be heard coming from the ER. Lindsey hurried over there with Autumn close behind. Doune carefully set his microscope on the table before following them.
Dr. Winston was yelling at the woman, Ginny, who was trying to cover her baby’s head. Brian was standing between his wife and Dr. Winston, trying to calm both of them. Two big bikers were already there, trying to figure out who needed to be restrained. They pulled both the father and Dr. Winston back as Doune arrived on the scene.
“That child is infected!” Dr. Winston yelled, pointing at the squirming bundle in the woman’s arms. “Let go of me!”
The biker let go and Winston continued. “It’s already changed. We need to destroy it!”
This set off a whole new round of yelling, from the mother and father as well as the two children.
“You can’t have him!” the woman screamed, hysterical.
“Lady, if that baby bites you, you’ll have to be destroyed as well,” Dr. Winston yelled at her.
The woman was having trouble holding onto the baby, who seemed to be growing very active under the blanket. Lindsey knew that they needed to act quickly.
“Does he have teeth yet?” she asked. From what she could tell of the child’s size, it was not a newborn but was probably several months old.
“He has four teeth,” the daughter said in a terrified voice. “Please don’t kill my mommy.”
Lindsey glanced at the girl and hoped that it wouldn’t come to that.
“Ma’am, you need to think of your other children,” Lindsey said, desperately. “They need you. It’s too late for the baby, and there is nothing that can be done for him now. He’s already gone.”
The woman looked at her other children and burst into tears again before shaking her head and backing away.
“Buddy, you need to help us out here or you’re going to lose your wife,” one of the bikers said to Brian, who was trying to block them.
“Dad?” the girl said, tears on her cheeks. The young boy was crying, too.
The father looked at both of them before closing his eyes in pain and stepping away with a nod.
“No!” the mother screamed as the two bikers stepped forward and finally wrestled the child away from her.
“Be careful!” Lindsey reminded them. “Watch his mouth.”
Another biker restrained the mother long enough for Dr. Doune to inject her with something that quieted her almost instantly.
“Don’t you hurt my mom!” yelled the boy, running over.
“She’s fine,” Doune assured him. “This will just allow her to sleep for a while.”
The child watched intently as Doune helped his mother to a chair.
“You can stay here and watch her if you want,” Lindsey told the boy. “See? She’s breathing quietly, just sleeping.”
Her words seemed to calm the boy and soon his sister joined him, sitting in the chair on the other side of their mother.
“I want to see him first,” Brian said, his voice breaking as the biker started to walk away with the wiggling bundle.
The biker hesitated and lifted the blanket to look at the infant before making a decision. He quickly put the blanket back into position, shaking his head.
“No, you don’t,” he said quietly. “Just remember him how he was, all right? Not like this.”
As the biker turned to walk away, Brian tried to go after him but he was immediately grabbed by a couple of other men. As they restrained him, one gray arm slipped from beneath the blanket and began to claw at the biker, who hurried to get hi
m wrapped up again. The sight of the arm seemed to stun Brian and he instantly stopped struggling, collapsing into a chair near his family, his eyes distant and vacant.
Doune walked past Dr. Winston and said, “Check the mother for bites.”
Dr. Winston started to protest but Doune was already gone, planning on getting some samples of the child’s flesh for his lab. The parents would not be told about this, of course.
~*^*~
~25~
Keith jumped when he heard his phone start playing, “You’re No Good.”
“Shanelle?” he asked.
“Hey, Babe, it’s me,” she said, though there was so much static it was hard to hear her.
“You okay?” Keith asked, covering his left ear to block out the sounds of voices down the hall.
“So far,” she said. “I told the others what you said about getting to the roof, and we’re going to try it.”
“Good, good,” he said, relieved. He suddenly realized something. He wasn’t sure exactly which building was hers. He knew the general area but since she had moved out of the house, their only contact had been over the phone. “Hey, what’s the address of your building? I’ll tell this guy, Lt. Reynolds, and he can look for it next time they go to check for survivors.”
Keith heard only static. “Shanelle?” he asked, but she was gone. He quickly texted a message to her, asking for the address and he made a mental note to talk to Reynolds about it the next time he came to the hospital.
~*~
“Do you know how long it took the infant to turn?” Doune asked Lindsey.
“No,” she admitted, keeping her voice down so the family wouldn’t hear the discussion. “I never actually saw the baby when the family came in. For all I know he may have already turned before then.”
“I don’t think so,” Wombat said. A couple of the other bikers agreed. “That baby wasn’t moving when we picked them up. I’m betting it was dead then.”
“I’ll talk to the father once he’s calmed down,” Doune said. “In the meantime, I need to find Harold and ask him a few things.”
“I can go look for him,” Autumn said, bored. “Theresa said she’s making cookies today, too. Maybe I can nab a few for us.”
“Mmmm, I haven’t had a cookie since this whole thing started,” Lindsey said, mouth watering at the thought.
Doune wrote a note for Dr. Winston with his questions on it and handed it to Autumn.
“Just give him this. Maybe he can write down the answers and I won’t have to speak to him in person.”
Autumn grinned and grabbed the paper, leaving Doune and Lindsey to discuss some of Doune’s findings. Within twenty minutes, Autumn was back with three cookies and crumbs all over her face. She placed two of the cookies on a desk for the others. “I couldn’t find Dr. Whinealot.”
Doune had to fight a smirk at the name she’d found for Harold. “Did you try the doctors’ lounge?”
“First place I checked. He told someone in the kitchen he was going to rest for a while. He said he was just too tired and was suffering from exhaustion from doing all the work around here.”
“Poor Harold,” Doune said, rolling his eyes. “I guess he’s not used to working more than three hours a day. This must be quite rough on him.”
“I ran into Dr. Sharma and gave her the note,” Autumn said. “She promised to give it to him if she sees him.”
~*~
It was almost two hours later when all hell broke loose in the emergency room once more. Lindsey hurried over with Autumn close behind. Nick sat his pen down with a sigh and went to join them.
The mother who had lost the baby had woken and was hysterical. Dr. Sharma was trying to calm her but was not having much luck. At the same time, Snake was trying to stop the bleeding on the arm of one of the bikers. Nick glanced at the hysterical woman and the wounded man and headed over to the biker.
“What happened?” he asked Snake.
“The genius was messing around and he cut himself,” Snake said.
“With what?” Doune asked
“With a banana,” the biker answered sarcastically. “He was messing around with his knife.”
Doune gave a long sigh before asking, “What kind of knife? A kitchen knife, perhaps? Or maybe a weapon that could have infected blood on it?”
“Oh,” the biker said, glancing at Snake. “Oh, crap. I think I cleaned it after I used it last.”
“Did you just wipe it off, or did you spray it with bleach and wash it off, like I told you guys to do?” Snake asked. They always carried one or two of the spray bottles with them when they went out.
“I think I sprayed it. I really can’t remember,” the biker answered nervously.
“Well, I think that we should assume that you didn’t, to be safe. Stay here,” Doune said, leaving to retrieve gloves and bandages.
When he returned, he cleaned the wound and bandaged it but insisted that the man spend a few hours in the ER with a guard.
“We’ll keep an eye on him, Doc,” Snake said then turned to his friend. “If you don’t end up going zombie, I’m going to give you a good thumpin’. I can’t afford to lose any guys to macho knife throwing games.”
Doune turned to see if he needed to administer drugs to the sobbing woman but Dr. Sharma assured him that she had things under control.
“I’ll give her something if she needs it,” she said, not quite hiding the look of annoyance in her eyes. She was fairly certain that Doune’s wish to help the woman had more to do with keeping her quiet than any concern over the grief-stricken mother’s well-being.
No sooner had Doune turned to go back to the lab when a call came over the loudspeaker saying that a doctor was needed on the fourth floor.
“Where the hell is Harold?” Doune asked, angrily. Everybody else had been working long shifts and he was getting a little tired of Winston disappearing every couple of hours while the rest of them picked up the slack. He looked around and found Autumn. “I’m going to see what they need on the fourth floor, but will you try to find Dr. Winston? Dr. Sharma and I have our hands full and I still need to check on the fifth floor patients or Amelia’s going to come looking for me.”
“I’ll go look around,” Autumn said.
Dr. Doune handled the emergency on the fourth floor but Marian, the nurse on the floor at the time, said that Dr. Winston hadn’t been to see any of the patients yet.
“Do you have the schedule?” Doune asked.
She handed him the paper and he looked at it. Dr. Winston was listed as being on duty in the ER for the morning shift but had been assigned to the fourth floor for the afternoon. Nick shook his head.
“He went to take a nap a couple hours ago, from what I heard, but I assumed he would be back by now. I need to check on my patients upstairs but I’ll try to find Dr. Winston in the meantime.”
Doune had just gotten done with his rounds on the fifth floor when Autumn appeared.
“I found him,” she said. “I guess he has the flu and he’s taking the rest of the day off because he’s just too sick to work.”
“Oh, please. The flu? Did he diagnose himself?” Doune asked. “If he did, it could actually be anything from the common cold to rabies.”
“Yeah,” Autumn replied, “he was all pale and sweating. First he said he was suffering from exhaustion. Then he changed it and said he must have caught the flu because he was soooo overworked.”
Doune shook his head. “We’re too busy for him to be taking the day off. I think I’d better go pay him a visit myself. Where was he when you saw him last?”
“He checked himself into a private room on the third floor so Keith and Marla can wait on him hand and foot, and Keith doesn’t seem too happy about it,” she replied. “I think if the flu doesn’t kill him, Keith will.”
“I don’t imagine Keith will put up with much from him,” Doune said. “I think I’ll pay Harold a visit.”
He took the elevator to the third floor and found Keith at the des
k.
“I sent Marla in to deal with him for a while,” Keith told him after Doune asked about the GP. “He’s being a pain in the ass.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Doune asked.
He started to leave but Keith stopped him.
“I think Dr. Winston might be infected but he insists that it’s impossible.”
“On the contrary, it’s very possible,” Doune said, telling Keith about the infected infant. “Dr. Winston was the one who looked the child over so he has been exposed recently. We’ll need to check him for bites.”
They headed toward the private rooms.
~*~
“Well, Harold, what seems to be the problem?” the surgeon asked once he stepped inside.
Winston was deathly pale and had developed dark circles around his eyes since Doune had seen him a few hours earlier.
“The problem is that the nursing staff doesn’t realize how important we doctors are at the moment.” Harold coughed into a tissue and tried to sit up.
“I’ve had to wait an average of ten minutes for service after I ring my bell. Ten minutes! I got this damn flu bug or food poisoning. Yes, that’s exactly what it is. Those gangsters Jack brought in probably cooked something up to kill us. They want the hospital to themselves. My blood pressure is dropping like a rock, I’m damn near hypothermic and I’ve got blood in my urine.” He stopped talking long enough to vomit into a bed pan. “And that. I’ve been doing that constantly.”
“Well, Harold, I think they’ve got their hands full at the moment, with half the staff having been eaten and all,” Doune said, then he began to lie - something he did well, when it worked to his benefit. “Just last week I heard there were three cases of a deadly strain of E. coli that killed the victims within a couple of hours. The hospital hushed it up of course since it most likely originated in the cafeteria, but I’d like to make sure this isn’t what you have. If it is, we’ll need to start antibiotics at once.”
“Well, thank you,” Harold said, thinking someone had finally realized his importance. “That’s why I never ate at that damn cafeteria until now.”
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