Plague

CHAPTER 39

Ralph Wilson was at LAX within six hours of hearing the news. It was a red-eye flight and he didn’t arrive until 2:00 a.m. Pacific, which was 4:00 a.m. Eastern. He felt a fatigue he hadn’t felt since his days as a resident at Cedars Sinai, running from room to room in the ER on thirty-six-hour shifts, hoping he wouldn’t fall asleep as he sat down to do a patient intake.

He raced through the airport and opted to grab one of the cabs that were ever present outside on the curb instead of renting a car. He stepped out into the night air. It was warm and had a slight taste of exhaust in it. Two cabs were parked at the curb. One was driven by a white man, the other by a black woman. He chose the white male and sat in the back.

“Good Samaritan Hospital.”

“You got it.”

The cab pulled away and they began to drive. He rolled down his window, hoping for fresh air, but instead got lungfuls of exhaust and low hanging smog. He rolled the window back up.

“What you doin’ out at this hour?” the cabbie said.

“What’s that?”

“What you doin’ out at this hour? Most guys that ride in here with suits as nice as yours don’t pop in at two in the mornin’.”

He shook his head as he stared out the window. “Cleaning up other people’s messes. That seems to be all I do nowadays.”

“Better than causin’ ‘em.”

They rode through sections of the city that Ralph hadn’t been to in decades. He had lived here once, long ago. Back when the city wasn’t exploding with crime and the police were actually seen as the good guys. One thing he remembered vividly was taking walks around Echo Park every night. There would be families walking dogs, mothers pushing strollers, women jogging alone. Those things were impossible to do safely now. The city had transformed itself in such a short amount of time. Cities were like people; tragedy and heartbreak molded them. Pain molded them. Over time, they were unrecognizable.

On the corner of Wilshire several women in lingerie or fur coats with tall high heels paced along the sidewalk. They smiled to him and he smiled back. In a year, many of them would be dead or in jail. During his stay here for graduate school, he had conducted a study on the spread of disease among young prostitutes aged fifteen to twenty-five. He had bought them meals in exchange for their cooperation and most were eager to do it; their pimps only allowing enough food so they didn’t starve but that they were always hungry.

He had gone back into the population in exactly one year to track the results and couldn’t find a single person he had used. They were all gone, fresh new faces replacing them.

“Good Samaritan,” the cabbie said.

Ralph looked up and saw that they were in front of the hospital. He dug out some cash from his wallet and handed it to the man, not bothering to count it. There was only one piece of luggage: a black doctor’s bag like a physician from the 1950s would carry. He grabbed it and stepped outside.

The hospital was several stories of dull brick and appeared much like the police headquarters in the movie Dragnet. There were palm trees up in front and a few ambulances lined next to each other. Two of the drivers were sitting on the hood, smoking, and they stared silently as Ralph walked by and through the sliding glass doors of the ER.

The reception area wasn’t staffed and he noticed a few people hanging out in a room nearby; a nurse and probably the two receptionists that should have been at the desk. Ralph waited a moment to see if they’d noticed him and then walked around the desk. There were a few charts lying out and he glanced through them quickly. He ruffled through some papers that were stacked neatly in a pile and then looked behind him to a large white board that had been made into a grid with marker.

The grid contained names and room numbers of patients. They were in blue with the names of the treating physicians and nurses in orange. Except for one. At the bottom of the list was a patient in red marker: John Doe. Under the diagnosis square of the grid, for patient John Doe, it simply said Flu.

Ralph glanced at the room number and then headed through the large double doors leading into the treatment area. There was another set of double doors and this one required swiping a key card or buzzing in. He went back out and looked at the board again before heading back and pushing a button on the intercom.

“Can I help you?”

“Yes, I’m Jake Sanders. Melissa Sanders’ brother. She’s in room 110.”

“Okay, I’ll buzz you in.”

As he came into the treatment area he smiled widely at the staff and headed toward room 110. He came to 110 and looked back; the nurse at the front desk glanced at him. He smiled again and went inside.

Melissa Sanders was asleep but the light over her bed was on. Ralph reached outside and grabbed the chart that was in a holder against the wall. He flipped through it. The treating physician thought it might be Alport Syndrome, an inherited disorder that damages the vessels in the kidneys. He stared at her a moment and then stepped outside and replaced the chart. The nurse was staring at her computer. He headed down the hall.

The linoleum and harsh lighting as well as the smell of antiseptic made him miss his treating days. When he would get so tired he’d forget to eat for periods of twenty hours or more. But there was camaraderie there, a shared purpose among the staff and physicians. His days were now filled with board meetings and administrators and he sometimes longed to just hang out in a lounge and gossip.

He was at room 153 when he heard boots stomping behind him. Two security guards were running down the corridor straight toward him. He glanced into the room and saw the open window and wondered if he could make it down the street and call a cab somewhere before the police got here.

No, that was ridiculous. He had nothing to be afraid of. Under the direction of the president, the secretary of Health and Human Services was given emergency powers in dealing with a health crisis. He would just claim he was acting under those orders; the bureaucracy was so thick no one would be able to say otherwise.

He placed his bag down on the floor and kept his hands down to his sides to show them he was non-threatening, but they didn’t stop running. He thought maybe they meant to tackle him but then noticed they weren’t looking at him at all but past him. They sprinted past without so much as a glance.

A nurse and a CNA were running after them. Ralph managed to step in front of the CNA.

“What’s going on?”

“Sir, just stay in your room please.”

“My sister’s a patient here. Please tell me what’s happening?”

“One of our patients has escaped custody. Now please go back to your sister’s room. Let us handle this.”

Ralph stepped aside and let her run past. It was possible that they had a suspected criminal here and while under watch he escaped. All gunshot wounds were reported to the police and most of the gangsters in any major city knew to get treated and sneak out before the cops got there.

But he had a feeling that wasn’t what this was.

Ralph watched them run down the hall and then decided to go the other way. The front doors were too heavily manned. You’d have to be a fool to run through them, and the ER was the busiest section of the hospital this time of night. The other floors, though, especially the top floors, which in any hospital usually contained the administrative offices, were nearly empty past nine. If someone were smart, they would go to the top floor and find a way to climb down.

Ralph hopped onto the nearest elevator. He pushed the button to the eighth floor. He leaned against the elevator as it rose, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. Fatigue was making his neck ache and giving him a migraine.

The elevator buzzed and the doors slid open. Ralph stepped off.

The floor was dark and only a third of the lights were on; an effort to cut costs that most hospitals were employing now. The corridor ran both to his left and right equal distances and he chose to go right. He could see his reflection in the windows at the end of the corridor. He resembled his father and it sent a chill down his spine.

He turned left and went past the restrooms and the vending machines. The floors in this hospital were massive and he thought it could take days to find someone in here.

Ralph walked another twenty minutes and then sat down near the lounge. He needed a break. A television was up on the wall with a remote on the reception desk and he grabbed it and sat back down.

He kept the volume off and flipped through the channels until he came to a fishing show. The boat was out on the Pacific somewhere-he could tell from the sapphire blue water-and the sky was cloudless. He wished he was there now, fishing and soaking up sun and thinking about…nothing. Rather than being stuck in an empty hospital doing what he was about to do.

He watched the show a long time when he heard a sound. It was muffled, coming from a far room, but it was enough. He rose and quietly followed the sound down the corridor. It was coming from a small room to his right. The lights were off. He reached in and turned them on.

A young woman sat on a gurney, her face in her hands, weeping. She gasped when the lights came on and looked up. Her eyes were rimmed red and her face was pale with splotchy patches of white. She looked healthy but malnourished. The only giveaway that something was wrong was the crusted blood that stained her teeth and the corners of her mouth.

“Please,” she said, “I don’t want to go back.”

Ralph took a breath and sat down on the black stool against the wall. “You’re the patient, right? John Doe? The one that’s suspected of being infected with Agent X? Clever calling you John Doe. I could have walked past you in the hall and I wouldn’t have even thought about it being a woman.”

“I don’t want to go back?”

“Go back where, honey?”

“Downstairs. They want to quarantine me in a room and they said I can’t see my family anymore. They said they’re gonna lock the doors.”

“They have to. You’re carrying something extremely dangerous inside you right now. The people here don’t even know how dangerous it is. Otherwise, you never would have had the opportunity to get away.”

“Please,” she begged, “I have a fiancé. I just want to go home.”

“You look healthy enough to me. Were you in Hawaii recently?”

“Yes?”

“How did you get back to the mainland?” She didn’t say anything. “Don’t worry, I’m not the cops. I’m a doctor.”

“They were letting people in the Army off. I bought a uniform and a fake ID from this guy that was sellin’ ‘em and they let me get on one of the planes.”

“How many other people bought uniforms and IDs?”

“I don’t know. There were three other people with me. I don’t know how many others.”

Ralph nodded, melancholy on his face. “The will to survive. It never ceases to amaze me.” He reached into his bag and came out with a syringe and bottle with a white label. He stuck the needle through the rubber top of the bottle and pulled up an amber fluid.

“What’s that?” the girl said.

“It’s to help you relax. You’re frantic. Stress aggravates your condition.”

“I don’t want it.”

Ralph took a cotton ball out of the bag along with a Band-Aid and then approached her.

“I said I don’t want it.”

“You need it.”

“No I don’t. Get away from me.”

“Listen to me,” Ralph said, showing her his palms in a placating gesture. “If you don’t get this shot and sleep through the night, you will overwork your endocrine and cardiovascular systems. It could literally give you a stroke. We’ve seen it in other patients with your condition. I’m just going to give you the shot and then let the staff know where you are. They’ll take care of you. As soon as you’re better, they’ll release you. I’ll see what I can do about your fiancé coming to visit you here.”

She didn’t speak or move. Her lip quivered a little and Ralph didn’t push it. He stood silently until she was ready.

“What’s in it?”

“It’s Mebaral. A sedative. You’ll feel like you’re slipping into a warm bath. It’ll be euphoric at first and then you’ll sleep like you’ve never slept before.”

She looked away a moment, and then held out her arm.

Ralph came over and wiped an area just underneath her bicep with the cotton ball. She didn’t notice that he hadn’t used any antiseptic to clean the area; he wasn’t worried about her getting an infection.

He injected her and then withdrew, gently caressing her forearm, and he laid her back on the gurney and sat next to her. He held her hand; her breathing was slow and growing labored.

“I feel weird.”

“I know,” he said.

“Wait…wait…I don’t like this. I don’t like this, Doctor. Please stop it. It feels like my head is burning.”

“It is. It’s potassium. It’s slowly suffocating you and soon your heart will stop. People will think it was a natural death, probably brought on by Agent X.”

“No,” she said, her eyelids dipping and then opening again. “No. Ple…please.”

“I’m sorry. There’s no other way.”

“No,” she said, attempting to cry. “No no…please.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, gripping her hand tighter.

She wept for a few moments and he didn’t interrupt her. She looked up at him, their eyes locking. Ralph wanted to look away, but didn’t. There was a measure of respect involved.

“I have to tell you somethin’,” she said, her breathing growing difficult. “About the other people.”

“What is it?” She mumbled something. “I didn’t understand you.” There was more mumbling. Ralph hoped he hadn’t moved to soon; perhaps she had information that could help him track down the three others that had snuck off the island with her.

He leaned down close to her, staring into her eyes. They were blue, but he saw that they were growing dim and wondered if it was life leaving her body or the disease eating away at her. The edges of the whites of her eyes were dark black; blood was seeping into them. Soon, she would be blind.

“What is it, honey?”

It happened too fast for him to notice. She seemed meek, mild mannered. Weakened from the disease and unable to defend herself. He hadn’t seen her coming.

He reached up and touched his face. The thick glob of black spit, mingled with her blood and mucus, dripped through his fingers. He jumped off the gurney as the girl laughed.

Ralph ran to the bathroom and ran the hot water. He splashed his face as much as he could, knowing the ooze had gotten into his eyes and onto his lips. The water burned him but he didn’t stop. He took soap and scrubbed his face until it was raw. Rummaging through the contents of a shelf, he found packaged iodine sponges and wiped his face before repeating the hot water and soap.

He wasn’t sure how long or how many times he repeated this but it must have been several dozen because his face felt like it had been stuck in a furnace. He stood over the sink, panting, looking at his eyes in the mirror. Had it gone into his mouth? Or had it hit his forehead and dribbled down, missing the orifices of his face and just dripping off his lips?

He stepped out into the room. The woman lay still on the gurney. He walked over to her. Her eyes still had life in them, but she wasn’t breathing. It’d be six minutes until brain death. He wanted to reach out and slap her across the face. Instead, he sat down again next to her, and held her hand.

A few minutes later, he saw the light in her eyes fade and he closed her lids and said a prayer. He rose and took his bag and left the room, turning the lights off behind him.