Pandemic Ch. 01

She pulled aside the curtain, silently hovering in the gap, not wanting to disturb David or the middle-aged woman who had entered with the troublesome blonde that David had called Chloe. But the woman must have seen the motion in the corner of her eye, because she looked up. "Oh! I'm sorry, I hope I didn't wake you."

"I needed to be woken," Anna replied, seeing the wall clock had advanced eight hours in her absence. "David, you shouldn't have let me sleep so long."

"You needed sleep," he offered simply. "Forty-eight hours awake is far more than I would ask of anyone, especially someone who needs their immune system in fighting shape."

She sighed rather than argue with his sound logic. "You need all the help you can get." Turning her attention to the woman who looked to be about forty, she tried on a shaky smile. "I'm sorry about before, I was overtired and we got off to a rather rocky start. I'm Anna. I had the privilege of being on duty when one of the sick burst in."

The woman glanced at David for some kind of sign, but he didn't move. "Samantha, though please call me Sam, everyone does. I've been one of his assistants ever since he cured me." She held up both hands, revealing black bruises on the inside of both wrists.

Anna winced in sympathy. "Ow. How did you get those?"

Samantha's eyes widened, and she turned to David with a look akin to shock. He leaned back in his chair with a sigh. "I haven't had time to explain," he told the woman, then turned the chair to face Anna. "But it's about time I do." He beckoned to his newest helper, who dragged over the only available folding chair. "Anna, patients who reach the stage of insanity do so because the virus actually disrupts their nervous system long enough that they stop breathing for nearly twenty minutes. Depriving their brain of oxygen and then the body's automatic pumping of adrenaline into the re-awoken system causes a kind of psychotic episode, which, if left unchecked, would be permanent."

Anna blinked, finding this to be surprisingly easy to understand for all that it had become a multi-continent crisis according to the news yesterday. It was likely he was dumbing it down to her level, but that was fine with her. "So you can cure all these people," she concluded. "What's the catch?"

"It has to be administered within hours of contracting the virus, and is somewhat unique to each outbreak, depending on mutation and the given host's DNA."

She sighed. "No wonder. Have you figured out what to give our patients, then?"

"The hospital sent over the medicines I need, yes, but it's already too late for most of our patients, especially those that get shipped to us from other locations. By the time they get here it's usually been at least eight hours." David gestured to Sam's hand, which she extended to display the bruise again. "The veins work too hard, polluting the immediate tissue with blood, just like a bruise. Unfortunately, a side effect of the cure usually means the marks remain, instead of healing naturally."

"Chloe has them on her ankles as well," Samantha contributed. "Anywhere the veins are close to the surface you might see them, and more easily the paler the skin tone."

Anna nodded, that making sense. "How many have we treated?"

"Only twenty or so," Sam replied with a sigh. "One committed suicide, one killed another. We've started handcuffing them to the cots, but they're stronger now than they were, and that doesn't hold the strongest of them."

David sighed also. "I've asked about getting the terminal cases out of here, less risk for those with a chance of responding to a cure, but it's not a pleasant topic... and all I've gotten for certain is a promise to think about it further. The state, the country even, doesn't want to have to house and provide for even a fraction of the numbers we're talking..." He trailed off, rubbing his forehead. "Sorry, personal sore spot, that."

"I can see how it's an issue," Anna agreed. "My sister is disabled, and she keeps me updated about the government's worries that it spends too much on Social Security and welfare. Twenty percent of all American income in the past year was Social Security, unemployment, and the like, if I recall correctly."

Samantha's eyebrows rose at the figure. "Really? That much?"

David cut in. "There isn't a choice. What do they want us to do, kill anyone who doesn't respond to a cure?"

Samantha hushed him promptly. "Don't say such things. Politics is politics, and I'd prefer to stay out of the lot of it. We have enough work to do without damning ourselves in the process."

"Amen, sister," Anna replied whole-heartedly.

*

Day three saw their little facility overworked, having trouble fitting everyone in. Chloe and Sam set up a room upstairs for their break time, and between them worked out a shift schedule for who slept when. The only person who refused to take any much needed rest was David. He and Anna got along wonderfully, except when he tried to order her out of the quarantine. For a couple hours she ignored him completely, but new patients that had some serious health problems before they were exposed to the virus forced her to work closely with him for several hours straight, at which point he could hardly deny her usefulness. She did leave long enough to get the medicines she took nightly, getting a few ideas when she picked up the pills she used as an occasional sleep aid.

That evening, about seventy-two hours into the quarantine, the centrifuge's hum was making Anna sleepy, but she still had a few hours left in her shift. She had finally gotten David to fall asleep around two a.m. with the help of her sleep aid, but she was on duty until seven. Glancing at the clock, she mentally begged the hands to speed up. Three a.m. was normally when she got most of her work done, but effective programming logic and medlab work were two very different things.

She yawned, then checked that what she saw under the microscope matched what she had typed into the computer. As yet, no one had called her on hacking the health center. With any luck, no one would ask around to find out who had authorized it at two-thirty in the morning that first hectic day. So far they had simply accepted the data and the extra users in their system, and with any luck, they would continue to look the other way.

Anna signed off the computerized document in the medical chart of 'Miller, Samuel', then took her slide and dumped it in the red hazardous waste bin. They were going to need another of those sooner than she liked.

Hitting control-alt-delete, Anna locked the workstation and looked around the cluttered desk for a pad of paper. Finally she spied her sticky notes behind the computer's monitor--what they were doing there was beyond her--and took the pen from where it was stuck in her hair to write 'haz waste - 3 gal size?' on the underside of the top slip. She would have to stick it to the window where one of the patrolling DPS officers could see it and radio to the clinic.

She was trying to decide if they were low on anything else when a hand clapped over her mouth, another circling her throat. "Move and I'll kill you," a voice hissed from behind her, sending a chill down her spine. "Now. Are you alone?"

Anna nodded slightly, hoping against hope that David wasn't asleep as soundly as it had seemed, and that he would come in now.

"Good girl. Are your assistants gone?"

Another tiny nod. She had to wonder at the pronominal 'your'. Did he think she was in charge?

"Where are they?"

She raised a hand to shakily point at the ceiling.

"Upstairs?" Nod. "Asleep?" Nod. "Good. Now I'm going to remove my hand from your mouth, but if you scream, I'll kill you. Understand?"

Anna nodded again, brain on overdrive. If this man had slipped through the quarantine security, then maybe she could alert them somehow.

"I'm going to ask you a few questions. You will answer them, nothing more." The hand was removed from her mouth, but not from her throat. "Agreed?"

"Yes," she replied, licking her lips and then chewing on them. There had to be something she could do or say to get him to release her.

"Good. Now, doctor. Have you come up with a vaccine?"

Was this man sick, and wanted a cure? She sighed, swallowing before she answered. "Only a trial vaccine. It seems to work if--"

The hand at her throat squeezed, cutting her off. "Simple answers, please, doctor." There was a pause before he continued. "How many patients have received this vaccine?"

"All those less than twenty-four hours from exposure."

"Approximately how many?"

She did the math in her head. One of the vaccine vials was gone, and they were about halfway through the next. "Here? About a hundred fifty."

"You have shared this vaccine with other sites?" The voice sounded angry at this.

"With the local hospital, in order to--"

He squeezed off her explanation more roughly this time. "How many of your patients responded to this cure of yours?" Definitely angry.

"Maybe half." Not going to give him a chance to cut her off again, Anna repressed the urge to speak of the hospital's better luck. She was having trouble deciding what this man's purpose was. If he were after a cure for himself or a loved one, he likely would not be upset about its use.

"Then roughly seventy five?"

Rather than speak, she nodded.

"Do you have a supply of this vaccine here somewhere?"

"Yes." She pointed at the fridge.

"Let's see it then," came the response.

Unsure what he wanted, she took a step to her left. When he moved with her, she sighed and slowly made her way to the refrigerator, opening the door to point at the top shelf and its three bottles of yellowish liquid.

"Take them out."

"What? Why?" Anna had a sudden bad feeling about this.

A squeeze of her throat cut off any further complaints. "Because I said so, that's why," her captor growled.

When she hesitated, the hand at her throat tightened. She took a step forward and took the open bottle from the fridge.

"Hand it to me," he ordered, shifting his grip on her throat. She got the hint, offering the two-inch-high bottle over her shoulder. It was taken from her, but that was all. "Now the others."

"What for?" she asked, taking the next bottle off the shelf anyway, and offering it up.

"To analyze," he replied, taking it from her. She heard a quiet clink and realized he must have pocketed both bottles.

But analysis shouldn't require all of it, just a drop or two. "This is all I have," she begged, reaching for the last jar. She let her voice rise in hopes of waking David. She could play the role of overworked clinician as long as it took.

He just kept his grip on her throat. "Hand it over, doctor," he prompted. "There are fates worse than death I can introduce you to if I must."

Trying to think of something else to say was impeded by her rational side telling her not to do something dumb. Her arm rose slowly, but she still hadn't thought of anything by the time he snatched it from her. A thud and smash from the direction of the trash can made her spin, knocking his hand away. "No!"

The man before her didn't scowl; he grinned a slow and evil grin. "I was hoping you'd do something rash," he told her, grabbing her shirt faster than she could stop him.

"What the... hey!"

He roughly pulled her to him, crushing his mouth to hers in a horrible parody of a kiss. Her struggling only made him hold tighter, one arm all it took to restrain her.

She found out why he would chance using only one arm when he pulled away, stuffing a handkerchief in her mouth when she opened it to scream. His eager grin scared her more than the hand at her throat had. "Don't worry, you'll enjoy this," he told her, ripping her t-shirt down the front in one go. She recognized the strength of her patients in the same instant he leaned forward and bit her shoulder.

Anna struggled weakly, the realization that she was now infected--and without a supply of the vaccine--turning her limbs to lead. She begged him to stop through her gag, but the man before her was actually drinking the blood that flowed from her wound.

Vampires, she remembered David saying. She had laughed at him. Now she came to the conclusion that he had known all along. Whether she would have believed him or not was irrelevant; it was too late for her now.

Multiple bites along her neck, shoulder, and down the edge of her bra bled sluggishly, too slowly for there to be any chance the virus might get bled out of her system, yet fast enough that she was losing blood. Her captor held her arms pinned to her sides as he played with her bra-clad breasts, and his eyes practically glowed as he undid her jeans with his teeth.

"The more you struggle," he told her, pulling her to him so he could hold her fast and remove her clothing at the same time. "The longer it will be before you pass out, I promise you."