Harold got a sour expression on his face and quickly dry-heaved into the bed pan.
While Harold was busy vomiting, Doune spoke quietly to Keith before turning his attention back to his patient. Keith brought a set of Velcro straps into the room but kept them out of sight for the moment.
When Winston looked back up, he had a small trickle of blood running down the corner of his mouth.
“Maybe you can explain to these wannabe nurses here that with the ‘zombie’ thing and now an E. coli outbreak, we’re going to need all the healthy doctors we can get. Their first priority should be our health. If we’re sick, who’s going to take care of the patients?”
Marla stuck her head in the door after hearing the conversation from down the hallway.
“Don’t be dissin’ us nurses,” she said with her index finger pointed in Harold’s direction.
“And she’s about as sharp as a tennis ball!” he said as the woman continued down the hall.
“Well, you know how that goes,” Doune said, “it’s hard to get good help these days. They just don’t understand how it is for us, Harold, going to school all those years to become a doctor. We deserve special consideration for that, in my opinion.”
Doune stepped away from the man with a sigh. “It looks like E. coli to me, Harold. I’m going to get you started on an IV right away since you look a little dehydrated. We’ll start something for the nausea, too.”
Telling Keith to hook up an IV, Doune excused himself to go look for Jack.
Keith took his time making the preparations since he had no intention of actually following through. The doctor’s blood might as well be poison now and Keith had no desire to infect himself.
~*~
Doune found Jack near the elevator.
“We may have a problem,” he stated.
Jack thought the statement was strange. The city was in flames, most of the population had turned into zombies, and the doctor said, “We may have a problem.” But it was Dr. Doune who was speaking. His tone of voice probably wouldn’t change if he were on fire.
“What can I help you with? Jack asked.
“We believe that Dr. Winston is infected,” Doune said, giving him a summary of what he knew. “It probably happened when he tried to remove the infant from its mother. Regardless, we need to get him restrained to check him for bites and I think he’ll fight us, so we may need an extra set of hands to do it.”
Jack thought about it for a second.
“We could bring in the bikers, but I think that would get him even more agitated. I’m sure the three of us could handle him.”
Jack walked with the doctor back toward the room. “Actually, I think I’m going to enjoy this,” he smiled.
“I think I’ll enjoy it more when I’m dissecting his brain,” Doune admitted.
When they reached the room again, he asked, “Harold, how are you feeling?”
“Did you tell him?” Winston asked while pointing a finger at Jack. He redirected his complaints at Jack before the doctor could answer. “Your biker-gang deputies poisoned me. They had no business in that cafeteria. Where are their health cards? They could make everybody who eats in this hospital sick. If we survive this, I’m going to report every . . .” Jack stuck a towel in the man’s mouth and held his arms down. Harold’s eyes registered shock.
“Oh, now that was just downright pretty,” Keith grinned, grabbing one strap while Nick took the other. It only took a matter of moments before they had the doctor’s wrists strapped to the rails of the bed.
“Now the question is whether we want to take the towel out or not,” Doune said. He looked at the unhappy patient and said, “Harold, if you get too mouthy with us, we will replace the towel, though I’ll remove it for now, so you don’t choke on your own vomit.”
He pulled the towel free, careful to tug only at the end, keeping his fingers away from the man’s teeth.
“Have all of you gone insane?” Harold screamed. “You can’t hold another physician against his will. This is kidnapping!”
“No,” Jack calmly replied, “this is restraint. When you admitted yourself as a patient, your rights as a physician ended and you are now under Dr. Doune’s care. He thinks you have been infected with this virus and that you may become a danger to those around you. It would be in your best interest now to cooperate. Maybe he can even cure this virus before you turn into one of those things outside and I have to put a bullet through your head. Understand?”
“You’d enjoy that, wouldn’t you?” Harold replied.
Jack tried to keep from smiling.
“Look at this,” Keith said, pointing to a tiny red mark on one of the doctor’s fingers.
“That’s nothing,” Winston said, trying to pull his hand away. There was a similar mark on the other side.
“Looks like a very small tooth mark,” Keith said.
“Did you get bitten, Harold?” Doune asked, already knowing the answer.
A small trickle of blood ran out of the corner of his mouth once more and Nick Doune made a mental note of it all.
“No, of course not. That’s just a hangnail. Look at my hands. I bite my nails. Just loosen these straps, I’ll cooperate with . . .” Harold stopped in mid-sentence and stared off into space. Suddenly, he started to convulse.
When Keith stepped forward, Doune placed a hand on his shoulder and said, “Don’t bother.”
Keith shot the surgeon a look. He might not like Dr. Winston, but it was his duty as an RN to do what he could to help.
Sighing, Doune said, “There is nothing that you can do for him and if you try, you might end up just like him.”
Keith glanced at Jack and stepped away. His training had been drilled into him for years, but everything had changed. From now on, the old rules would only apply to uninfected patients and it was going to take some time to get used to it.
Doune watched Harold as the convulsions slowed then stopped. “It’s interesting how some patients seem to simply slip into comas before they change while others pass through different stages, including convulsions.”
Keith disliked Dr. Winston intensely but it still bothered him to think that the man was doomed to death. Dr. Doune’s attitude seemed extremely cold-hearted.
Doune glanced at Keith as though reading his thoughts. His eyes went back to Dr. Winston as he noted the changes in the man. In general, they all had some similar symptoms – the dark circles around their eyes and the pasty skin. Most had fevers and sometimes chills, but other than that, there seemed to be a lot of differences from person to person. Dr. Doune continued to watch his new patient with his usual clinical detachment.
“I suggest we move him into the quarantine room,” Jack stated calmly, leaning over to unlock the wheels on the bed. “Well doctor, looks like you have your first victim.”
“Victim,” Doune said thoughtfully. “An interesting choice of wording, Jack.”
Keith quickly moved the IV rack and a chair out of the way so they could get the bed out.
“It’s too bad we don’t have riot gear for the guards to wear when they’re dealing with the infected,” he said as they wheeled the bed out of the room. “The doc here wasn’t too hard to handle, but what if we get someone my size who’s been infected and doesn’t want to be strapped down?”
“That is an issue that should be addressed,” Doune said. “Assuming we could find riot gear or something similar.”
Keith said, “Most of Snake’s guys are wearing leather and it’ll be hard to bite through. I’m thinking that thick leather gloves for all of us could come in handy.”
“Leather gloves would be a plus,” Jack agreed. “You got any Hannibal Lector masks? Maybe a hockey mask would do. Of course, we could always duct tape their mouths shut.”
“I like it,” Keith said. “In fact, it might be better than these Velcro straps, for that matter. I have the feeling someone could rip right out of them if they tried hard enough.”
“I have some old four-poin
t restraints downstairs,” Doune said. “We’ll use those on Harold when we get him to quarantine.”
“And where did you get those?” Jack asked. “I thought we destroyed them all when we were told to quit using them.”
The corners of Doune’s lips turned up into a smile, though it didn’t reach his eyes.
“It’s probably best if I keep that little secret to myself,” he stated.
Winston’s convulsions finally stopped and he lay quietly, staring into nothing. When he quit moving, Keith grew more serious.
“That was fast,” he said quickly wheeling the bed into the elevator. He kept one eye on Harold’s still form the whole time.
Doune followed but he was jotting notes as he walked along, not wanting to leave out a single detail of what had just happened.
“Are you moving him to another floor?” Marla asked, looking up from the desk.
Jack laughed at Marla’s comment. He tried to think up a sarcastic answer, but the elevator door closed. Halfway between the third and second floors, the power went out, stopping the elevator mid-floor. They were in total darkness.
“Uh oh.” Jack’s comment seemed to understate their plight.
“Oh, great,” Keith said at the same time. The idea of being trapped in a small dark space with an infected body was about as bad as it could get. He moved away from the bed and leaned against the wall, trying to breathe slowly.
The small room was silent except for the sound of the three men breathing until a low moan filled the air.
~*^*~
~26~
There was a quiet scuffling of feet as the men moved as far from the gurney as possible.
“Seriously? The lights had to go out now?” Keith said. “What are the odds?”
“Pretty good, considering it’s been happening about five times every hour lately,” Jack replied.
“How tightly did we do his restraints?” Keith asked. “I think I got the one on my side tight.”
The sound of human voices seemed to agitate Harold, who began to struggle in the bed.
“Shhhhh,” Doune said, hoping that if they were silent, Winston would forget about them.
Keith closed his eyes, trying to slow his breathing. He hated confined spaces and this was so much worse. Had they done the restraints tightly? They’d been in a hurry when they had strapped the doctor down. He had fastened one strap and he thought that Doune had done the other one, but he couldn’t remember. He didn’t want to reach out and accidentally find Dr. Winston’s teeth. Winston’s head would be close to the back wall, so Keith slid down the side wall the other way a couple feet, guessing he was now about where the doctor’s restrained arm should be. It would be better to wait, but each moment that ticked by seemed to last forever. If the arm wasn’t restrained, Winston might be able to raise himself far enough to grab one of them. Keith could almost see the dead arm reaching for him through the dark.
“What was that?” Doune asked, thinking he’d heard the sound of Velcro pulling apart. His imagination was creating a vision very similar to that of Keith’s, now that the RN had brought up the question. Harold hadn’t been able to get loose in the room, so there was no reason to believe he could do it now, but the doubts lingered. And was it possible that the virus could be transmitted through methods other than biting? If Winston clawed one of them and drew blood, would they become infected? Doune had no idea what sort of infectious material Harold might have on his nails but they didn’t dare allow him to claw one of them. He carefully reached over and checked the wrist closest to him, flinching when the dead man’s fingers began to move. The moans from the late doctor became more insistent, causing some shifting of bodies in the elevator.
The strap seemed to be tight, but Doune wanted to check the other arm, too. He reached across to do so and his arm was suddenly grabbed, the grip much tighter than what Doune would have expected. He yelled and so did Keith. Jack’s voice could be heard as well, asking what had happened. The gurney was shoved back and forth as Doune struggled to pull himself free from Winston’s grasp. Doune fought panic as he envisioned the undead Harold leaning closer now, his mouth opening to bite.
The lights flickered then came back on, illuminating the scene. Keith groaned and rolled his eyes, releasing Doune’s wrist. Doune let out a breath he’d been holding and stepped back to run a hand through his hair. They both looked down at Winston who was still tightly restrained.
“What just happened?” Jack asked, looking back and forth between the other two men.
“Nothing,” they said at once, both looking at the walls in silence as the elevator continued its downward journey.
When they reached the first floor, the three men moved the revived corpse out of the elevator.
“Let’s take him to the lab,” Doune said. “There’s no reason to have him in quarantine now. He’ll just upset people.”
Jack agreed, but he insisted that a guard be posted at all times as long as Dr. Winston was still active.
Lindsey and Autumn walked over in time to catch the discussion.
“He’ll be strapped down,” Doune promised.
“That’s not good enough,” Jack told him. “I want the door kept closed and I want a guard right outside that room. I’ll talk to Snake about it.”
“Fine,” Doune said. He felt that the guard was an unnecessary waste of manpower, but it was Jack’s call.
“Well, Harold,” he smirked, looking down at the zombie. “I can’t say how much I am going to enjoy spending time with you, now that you can’t speak.”
The doctor did a few basic reflex tests and made some notes. Once that was done, he put on a special apron and a pair of stainless steel nylon mesh gloves that were often used in autopsies where there was a high risk of contamination. He wasn’t about to take any chances, so he also put on a mask and added a face shield. Rolling up some gauze, he cautiously jammed it into his subject’s mouth then looked around for a moment.
“Where’s my duct tape?” he asked. “I know I had a full roll.”
After a couple minutes of searching, he gave up and pulled out a roll of adhesive tape and tore off a long piece. He placed it from one side of Harold’s face to the other.
“I’ve always wanted to do that to you,” he said. He turned to open a cabinet door and pulled out some of the four-point restraints he’d brought down from his office. He fixed them to the bed then hooked them to Harold’s wrists and ankles before unfastening the Velcro straps. Speaking to Lindsey and Autumn without looking up, he said, “I’d appreciate it if one of you would add duct tape to my list. Make it two rolls.”
Autumn started making notes and looked up when Doune pointed at some supplies on a tray.
“I’ll also need one of you to get some clean slides out of the box. Once I put a sample on the slide, someone will have to place a drop of that liquid on it,” he nodded in the direction of a bottle with a dropper, “and a cover. They’ll need to be marked. Don’t forget to wear gloves. In fact, wear two pair.”
“I’ve got it,” Autumn said, before Lindsey could speak. Moving over to the tray, she put on the gloves and picked up a rectangular piece of glass. “This is a slide, right?”
“Correct,” he said, “and the thin square piece is the cover.
She lifted one of the covers and looked it over, finding it much thinner than the slide. It looked very fragile.
Doune turned his attention back to his patient and lifted a scalpel from a nearby tray.
“Now, Harold, let’s take some samples.”
He began to cut.
Lindsey made a face and turned away as the doctor started to slice into his subject’s flesh. Autumn, on the other hand, became intrigued with the entire process, watching every move the doctor made.
After placing samples from the wound and from other parts of the patient’s body on slides, Doune told Autumn how to mark them.
“Do you think he can feel that?” she asked.
“I’ve already tested his reflex
es with no results. His nerves don’t respond to touch or to light. He doesn’t seem to feel pain, but he does respond to sound and he can certainly see us. Come closer, Autumn. See how his eyes don’t change when I shine this light into them?”
She looked on with fascination. “So the optic nerve isn’t working, right?” she hypothesized.
Doune glanced over at her. “How old are you?”
“Nine,” she replied.
“Where did you learn about optic nerves?”
“I read a lot and I ask a lot of questions,” she said with a shrug. “Last time I went to get my eyes checked, I think I almost drove my optometrist crazy, but she answered my questions. She told me about the optic nerve and the ocumoter nerve.”
“The oculomotor nerve,” Doune said. “It controls most of the eye’s movement.”
Autumn nodded and added, “And she said the other eye reacts even if you don’t shine a light into it because the nerves cross or something.”
“Right,” Doune said. “So the assumption might be that some of Harold’s nerves aren’t communicating with his brain, though that’s nothing new. This is where it gets interesting.”
He waved a hand over Harold’s face and the dead man’s eyes followed.
“He can obviously see, though I have no idea how good his vision is. It just makes me wonder if our usual tests will even be valid on the infected people.”
“It’s almost as though he’s been lobotomized,” Lindsey added.
“What’s that mean?” Autumn asked.
“A lobotomy is a surgical procedure where some of the nerve pathways in the brain are severed,” Doune said.
“I can’t wait to see the brain! You need to operate to see what parts of the brain are working, don’t you Dr. Doune?”
“Yes, I’ll have to dissect the brain to learn more,” he said. He took a scalpel and slid it deep into Harold’s leg, but there wasn’t so much as a flicker of reaction. “No pain, no reactions. The brain is not getting a signal from the nerves, I would guess. Yet the brain must still be sending messages to the body or the muscles wouldn’t be working.”
Lindsey interrupted. “You can’t operate with Dr. Winston still being alive. Can you, Dr. Doune?”
Dead, but Not for Long Page 22