Infected

by Alana Terry

  Silence.

  “Dominic?”

  She stared at her phone.

  Completely dead.

  Kennedy bit her lip and hurried out of the bathroom.

  It didn’t matter anymore who could tell that she’d been crying.

  CHAPTER 12

  “Ok, just calm down,” Willow whispered, “and tell me exactly what he said.”

  Kennedy tried to keep her voice low so the other people in the waiting room couldn’t overhear. “He said we might not be safe in the ER, and we should go meet him somewhere.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. I lost the call before he could tell me.”

  “So call him back.”

  “My phone’s dead.”

  Willow pulled her cell out of her purse. “Then use mine.”

  “I don’t know his number.”

  Willow sighed. “Ok, well, let’s think through it then. If he said the ER wasn’t safe, then maybe there’s somewhere else we could go.”

  “Yeah, but what about the security guards? They’re not letting anyone get anywhere.”

  “So maybe we just ask.”

  “You can’t just walk up to a guard in the middle of a lockdown and say, ‘Hey, I need to find my boyfriend. He’s in another part of the hospital and I don’t know where, but can you let me get past so I can try to find him?’ It doesn’t work like that.”

  Kennedy was sulking, but she didn’t care. If God wanted her to be a good example of spiritual maturity for her roommate, he needed to stop throwing her into these situations where her life was constantly in danger.

  Willow didn’t respond. At first, Kennedy thought she was just being moody too, but then she noticed her staring somewhere past Kennedy’s shoulder.

  “What are you looking at?”

  “Holy cr ... I mean, holy cow. Don’t turn around right now, but some guy with gorgeous hair just walked into the waiting room.”

  Kennedy rolled her eyes, but something about seeing her roommate fawning over a man made her feel a little better. Some things didn’t change. Even in the midst of a hospital lockdown, life went on.

  It always would.

  “Man, you should see him. No, don’t turn yet, he’s looking here. Oh my L ... I mean, oh man. He’s walking this way. He’s looking right at me. He’s coming straight over here.” Willow ran her hands frantically over her magenta highlights.

  “Hey, Kennedy. What are you doing here?”

  “You mean you actually know him?” Willow hissed.

  Kennedy turned around. “Oh, hi, Nick.” She glanced at the large bandage on his head and momentarily forgot how big a fool her roommate was making of herself. “What happened to you? Are you ok?”

  He let out a jocular laugh that carried through the entire waiting room and pointed at his bandage. “Oh, yeah. Got this defending some little old lady at the grocery store.”

  He sat down and stretched out his hand to Willow. “Hi, I’m Nick.”

  Willow stared for several seconds until Kennedy wondered if she’d forgotten her own name. “This is Willow,” she answered for her. “She’s my roommate.”

  “Hi, Willow.”

  Her hand was still in Nick’s. “Oh. My. Goodness. That hair.”

  Nick laughed and pulled his hand away. “Oh, that. Yeah. I get that a lot.”

  “It’s so long.” Willow reached out her hand but stopped. “Can I? I mean, may I ...”

  Nick shrugged. “Sure. Go ahead.”

  Willow picked up one of his dreads and ran her fingers all the way down to the tip. “That is the most wicked awesome thing I’ve seen in my entire life.”

  “What are you doing here?” Kennedy asked.

  Willow still had his hair in her hand. “Yeah, what was that you said about a little old lady? Was that just a joke?”

  “No. I’m dead serious.” Nick unzipped his coat.

  “Good grief.” Willow stared. “Does that shirt make you a Christian?”

  Nick chuckled. “No, I’m pretty sure only God can do that.”

  “Then does it mean you’re a Christian?” Willow stared at the praying stick figure on Nick’s chest.

  “Nick’s the youth pastor at Carl and Sandy’s church,” Kennedy told her.

  “Oh. My. Goodness.”

  Kennedy was certain that beneath that sanitation mask, Willow’s mouth was hanging wide open. “So what happened to you?” Kennedy asked again.

  “Well, I went to go get groceries at Rory’s, and like I told you earlier, nearly everything was gone. But they had a few things left, and I got my basket filled, but there was this little old lady. I mean, she probably wasn’t even five foot tall. She had gotten the last few cans of chili beans. And these two thugs, I kid you not, they knocked her over just to get at her shopping basket. So I jumped in and ...” He shrugged and pointed to his bandaged forehead. “Ten stitches and a possible minor concussion later, here I am. Sorry I didn’t get the car back to you on time.”

  “That’s ok,” Kennedy assured him.

  “You were so heroic,” Willow breathed.

  Nick shrugged again. “Yeah, well, you should see the other guys.”

  “Really?” Willow asked. “Are they that bad off?”

  “Who? The other guys? No, they walked away without a scratch.” He grinned broadly. “But at least the little old lady got her chili beans.”

  Kennedy hadn’t realized until now how nearly everyone in the waiting room was staring at them. Had they been talking that loudly? She’d been so amused watching her roommate’s reaction to meeting Nick that she’d almost forgotten for a moment that they were in the middle of a lockdown.

  Apparently, Nick was even more oblivious and kept chatting away. “What about you two? Everything ok here?” He pointed to his face. “What’s up with the masks?”

  Kennedy didn’t even know where to begin explaining everything. “We were just bringing Woong here to see Carl.”

  “Carl? Isn’t he still away with Sandy?”

  “Not anymore. They cut their trip short when school got cancelled, then on the way home Sandy called and said she was bringing him here.”

  Nick’s face dropped. “Why? What’s wrong?”

  Kennedy shrugged. “Wish I knew.”

  “Is it serious?”

  “I don’t know any more than that.”

  “So you two are just staying here until he gets out?”

  “No,” Kennedy answered. “We were on our way out when the lockdown started.”

  “Lockdown?” Nick glanced around the waiting room, apparently taking in the security guards near all the doors for the first time.

  “You didn’t hear?” Kennedy asked.

  He chuckled nervously. “Truth be told, I don’t handle needles all that well. I didn’t really exactly pass out, but I’m not sure how with it I was while they were stitching me up.”

  Willow reached out and rubbed the top of his knee. “You poor thing. That’s terrible.”

  Nick sighed melodramatically. “So what’s going on then? What’s this lockdown thing all about?”

  “Nobody knows for sure,” Willow piped up. She seemed eager to be the one leading the discussion for a change. “We think it might have something to do with ...”

  Kennedy had been distracted watching Willow and Nick’s interactions and hadn’t noticed the security officer coming up behind her. She had no idea he was there until he cleared his throat and tapped her on the shoulder.

  “Excuse me, Miss.”

  “Yes?” She turned around. What was wrong? Were they in trouble for talking about the lockdown?

  “Are you Kennedy Stern?”

  Her stomach dropped as if she were in freefall on a rollercoaster. How did he know her?

  “Yes,” she answered tentatively. Her face heated up with the certainty that everyone in the waiting room was staring at her.

  The security officer kept his voice low. “I need you to come with me, please.”

  “Is som
ething wrong?” She stood up. “What’s this all about?”

  “Follow me,” he repeated.

  Kennedy didn’t look back but knew that if she did, she’d see the worried glances of Willow and Nick following her as she shuffled behind the man in uniform and headed out of the ER.

  CHAPTER 13

  “Where are we going?” Kennedy’s voice was timid. Afraid. At least she could breathe. Everything would be just fine as long as she kept on breathing.

  Please, Jesus ...

  “Just come with me.” The security guard walked several paces ahead. Kennedy had to scurry to keep up. Why had she worn her little heeled sandals and not something more practical? Then again, when she left the Lindgrens’, she’d only been thinking about making it to Providence fast. She hadn’t stopped to worry about shoes fit for racing down empty hospital corridors.

  “Is everything ok?” What kind of a stupid question was that? Nothing was ok. That’s what happens when you’re stuck in a hospital lockdown in the middle of a horrific epidemic. Why hadn’t she taken her dad more seriously? Why had she breezed through the past few weeks taking her health for granted, refusing to think of all those people getting infected?

  Folks were dying. Not just in far-off reaches of the globe. In New York. Florida. Right in her backyard in Boston itself. The Nipah virus didn’t care if you were young or old, strong or weak. It didn’t pay any attention to your medical history, your immunization record.

  Kennedy was the queen of germophobes. Did her little bottle of Germ-X delude her into thinking she’d march through this whole epidemic unscathed?

  She thought about different outbreaks she’d studied in history class. The black plague. More than decimated the world’s population. Typhoid Mary. Infecting scores of individuals before doctors forced her into quarantine. Lived completely alone for decades before she finally died of pneumonia. More recently there’d been SARS, swine flu ... Kennedy had heard about all of those but never knew anyone who actually got sick from any of them.

  Maybe that’s where her little bubble of perceived invincibility came from. She’d never been seriously ill. Of course, there were all the typical childhood conditions. Colds. Stomach viruses. An ear infection or two. She’d had chicken pox, though she’d been so young she had no memories of it. Is that why she assumed she could blitz through this whole Nipah scare without having to worry herself about it?

  She glanced at the hallways lined with closed doors, wondering how far she’d have to go before she’d learn what she was doing here. Was she infected? Did they suspect she was a carrier? Had Woong’s teacher tested positive for Nipah? Were they quarantining everyone who was possibly exposed? How long would they keep her here? And what about Willow? Had she put her roommate in danger?

  She hated hospitals. Hated the bleached, antiseptic smells that only vaguely masked the odor of vomit and blood and bodily fluids. She hated the way hospital air made her skin crawl, as if every single germ in a ten-foot radius swarmed her like a mob of hungry mosquitoes. It was ironic, really. Before starting college, she’d pictured herself in that white gown, stethoscope hanging from her neck like a mantle, walking stately from one needy patient to another. Now she just hoped she could make it down a single hallway without turning into a hyperventilating mess.

  Her counselor said that maybe Kennedy’s academic drive was related to her trauma experiences. That maybe she threw herself into her studies to combat how helpless she’d felt watching a young girl nearly hemorrhage to death on a grimy bathroom floor at the start of her freshman year. It sounded logical, but he hadn’t met Kennedy before the PTSD. She’d been like this for as long as she could remember. Always been a control freak. An overachiever. With or without the panic attacks, she’d always pushed herself past her breaking point. Anything for the grade. For the sense of accomplishment. That’s how she’d gotten into Harvard’s early acceptance medical program to begin with.

  She was destined to become one of the nation’s top physicians. Except she couldn’t stand five minutes in a hospital.

  Who ever said God didn’t have a sense of humor?

  If anything, her disdain for hospitals started over a decade ago, at her grandmother’s bedside as she lay dying from lung cancer. Kennedy had been so young. So naïve. So certain that what the Bible and her Sunday school teachers always told her was true. If she prayed, God would answer.

  And so she’d prayed. So fervently. With that impossible to imitate faith of a child. A child who foolishly believed that if she trusted hard enough, God would always give her what she asked for. It’s not like she was praying for a pony to ride or a castle to live in. She just wanted her grandma to be healed. To be able to go back to her own home. Enjoy her evenings with Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy and her cans of plain black beans she heated up for dinner. To be there every Christmas and every summer break in that beautifully quaint little cottage in upstate New York. Far from the city, from traffic. Kennedy’s perfect little refuge. Where she’d catch dragonflies in the summer and race her dad down giant sledding hills in the winter.

  All she’d wanted was for Grandma to stay alive. It wasn’t fair she’d gotten lung cancer in the first place. She’d never smoked a day in her life. Hated cigarettes. But still came down with the dreaded disease after spending forty years married to a chain-smoking addict.

  In the end, it’s what killed her. Killed her in spite of Kennedy’s prayers. In spite of Kennedy’s perfect, childlike faith. In spite of all the Bible promises Kennedy read and claimed and called her own.

  Grandma still died, but not until after six months of torment. Six months of torture. With her hair falling out in clumps, her entire body hooked up to tubes and machines that reminded Kennedy of some scene from Star Trek: First Contact. No wonder there were those parents who refused chemo for their kids. Six months while the medicine ravaged her grandma’s body. Poisoned her blood. It shrunk one of the tumors for a few months. Enough time for Kennedy to assume her prayers really had worked.

  Until a routine checkup showed the tumor had grown. And spread. And by then, there was nothing to do but make hospice arrangements.

  And still Kennedy held onto faith that God would heal her grandma. Held onto that faith until the morning her grandma died, surrounded by family, covered in tubes, her body shrunken to nearly half her pre-diagnosis weight.

  Is it any wonder Kennedy hated hospitals?

  She let out her breath. This line of thinking wasn’t going to get her anywhere. Come on. She gave herself the best pep talk she could muster. Think about something else and snap yourself out of this. The last thing the guard needed was a hysterical basket case on his hands.

  She bit her lip, focusing on the pain it caused. She glanced around her, desperately hoping her eyes would land on something to ground her. Something to snap her brain back to the present. Her counselor had given her clear instructions when she felt a panic attack rising up in her chest. Name four things you can see. Four things you can hear. Focus on her senses, not on her irrational fear.

  The plan made perfect sense on paper. Harder to do when your lungs have already decided to seize shut on you. Harder to do when your breath is so short and choppy your brain’s overcome with dizziness until you’re certain you’re about to suffocate. When your heart’s racing so fast you wonder if you’re about to become the first sophomore in the history of Harvard University to die from cardiac arrest.

  She bit her lip even harder when the officer unlocked a small room at the farthest end of the impossibly long hallway. Her thoughts flashed back once more to Typhoid Mary, locked up for decades to keep from infecting anyone around her.

  That couldn’t be what was happening to her. She was a citizen. She had rights. Her dad knew lawyers ...

  “Kennedy? Thank God they found you.”

  At the sound of the welcomed voice, she rushed toward Dominic who held out his arms to her.

  “It’s ok,” he whispered. “You’re safe here.”

  CHAPTER 14<
br />
  “What’s going on?” Kennedy had lost track of how many times by now Dominic had seen her cry. He’d seen when her panic was at its worst. She was too relieved to find him here to feel embarrassed. It was one of Dominic’s greatest strengths, what made him such an effective chaplain. He had such a calming presence. Even when he wasn’t whispering his powerful prayers over her, Kennedy got the sense he was interceding for her anyway. The impression that when she was with him, her spirit and body were surrounded by an extra layer of heavenly protection.

  “It’s ok.” He stroked her hair and then led her to a small couch. She glanced around and realized they were in the same small conference room where she’d met him a full year ago.

  “What’s going on?” she asked again.

  “Shh.” He patted her hand and sat down beside her. “I can’t stay long. I just wanted to make sure you got out of the ER.”

  Kennedy glanced at the door and discovered the security guard who led her here was already gone. “What about everyone else? Willow’s still there.”

  “It’s going to be ok.” He was sitting next to her. So close. She leaned her forehead on his shoulder, wishing she could stay like this forever. Or at least until the lockdown ended and everyone was able to go home safely.

  “What about my friends? Are they going to get exposed?”

  “Exposed?” He furrowed his brow. “To what?”

  “The Nipah.” She paused, studying his features. “Isn’t that what this is about? Lockdown? The epidemic?” Her stomach sank like oil droplets falling in her roommate’s lava lamp. “It’s something else?”

  Dominic glanced at his watch. “No, the lockdown has nothing to do with Nipah. At least not directly.”

  “Then what is it?” She tried to keep her body from trembling, praying to God he wouldn’t answer back with his usual rhetoric about confidentiality.

  Another furtive glance at his watch. “Have you followed the case of the Robertson boy? The ones whose parents wanted to deny chemotherapy treatments?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, I’ve heard a little about it.”