Plague

CHAPTER 17

Samantha Bower stood on the beach and stared out over the water. Her thoughts were racing and she felt anxiety that she hadn’t felt since taking medical school exams. Thirteen more patients had been admitted in the last three days with black pox symptoms and they were averaging one admittance per four hours.

Dr. Wilson planned another press conference, as the news programs kept playing the video clip of him saying he didn’t believe there would be any more cases. In the end, as the numbers started to climb, he cancelled the press conference. He had been incommunicado for the last ten hours.

Sam looked back to the Ducati bullet bike she had traded in the car for. It was yellow and gleamed in the bright Hawaiian sun. Eventually, she would have to go back to the hospital, but for now, there was a highway in front of her with few cars on it this early in the morning.

Sam hopped on the bike and it roared to life. Riding motorcycles was something quite routine in her family until her uncle had died on a highway when he hit a stone and careened into a semi. After that, her father refused to let her ride but when she turned eighteen, he didn’t stop her.

She turned into traffic and sped through a yellow light as she took the onramp onto interstate H1. She raced up the onramp and slid two lanes over before easing off the throttle. Her helmet was shiny and black with a tinted shield. She knew that many people thought she was a man when they saw her speed by.

The interstate snaked around the island and she would occasionally glance at the bright green vegetation that surrounded her like a closing army. The jungle seemed to envelope everything and the city and its inhabitants were only fighting it off in short bursts. It felt like with one relatively short absence or time of neglect, the jungle could take the city back.

She pulled off on an exit near another beach and came to a stop in front of a roach-coach that was selling Hawaiian sandwiches. She ordered a pulled pork sandwich with French fries and an apple juice before sitting on one of the benches and watching the surfers gliding on the waves. Her cell phone buzzed and she didn’t recognize the number.

“This is Sam.”

“Oh, hey, didn’t expect you to answer on the first ring. This is Duncan. Um, from the hospital.”

“I remember, Duncan. What can I do for you?”

“Um well, I was just, I mean um, I was looking at and wondering if maybe…you know, I don’t know anyone here and I wanted to maybe grab some dinner.”

“Are you asking me out?”

“Yes and it’s going terribly, isn’t it?”

“Not the best I’ve been pitched. But not the worst either. Yeah, I’ll have dinner.”

“Really? Just like that? I was expecting you to say no.”

“Why?”

“You don’t strike me as the type of person that needs other people around.”

She smirked. “A psychopath doesn’t need other people around. I’m going to be at the hospital until about six.”

“Great. I’m at the base. I’ll pick you up then.”

“All right, bye.”

“Bye.”

Her food was ready and she was surprised the French fries had been put on top of the sandwich along with a tube-full of barbeque sauce and at least half an onion and a tomato. She took a couple bites and realized it was the best sandwich she’d ever had.

When she finished, she thanked the cook and got back on her bike, heading toward the hospital. She’d left a bag there permanently now that contained toiletries and several changes of clothing so that she wouldn’t have to bring anything with her when she went.

It still wasn’t yet 9:00 a.m. when she parked and went inside the building. She noticed several more guards in uniform standing at all the entrances and exits and she saw Wilson speaking with General Lancaster.

“Hey,” she said, “where’ve you been hiding out?”

“We have a situation. One of the orderlies here called in sick to work. On a hunch, the nurse asked him his symptoms. I don’t think I need to tell you what they were.”

“I knew those canopies weren’t enough.”

“The canopies were fine. He reached under them to hand one of the patients his phone. I talked to the kid myself. He was with his girlfriend all last night, at least a few days after he’d been exposed to the agent. We think the girlfriend is infected too. Guess what her profession is? Flight attendant.”

“Damn it, Ralph,” Sam said, anger in her voice, “I told them I wanted full barrier. He shouldn’t have been able to reach under there.”

“What’s done is done. We need to deal with this situation as it is. We can’t find the girlfriend, Yolanda Gonzalez, and her cellphone goes to voicemail. We called the airlines and she has a flight scheduled for noon. We need to make sure she’s not on that plane.”

“I’ll head down there.”

Sam didn’t wait to hear what else Wilson had to say. He shouted something about letting the police and the military biohazard units take care of it. Wilson had more faith in the government than she did. She’d seen military units willingly expose themselves to hot agents because they thought they were helping the patients. She’d also seen confused patients shot by young police officers because they weren’t complying with what they were told, either out of ignorance as to what was going on, or because the disease had taken hold and they couldn’t think clearly.

As Sam raced to Honolulu International Airport, only one thought ran through her mind: if she gets on that plane, millions could die.