Bobby Adair - Ebola K

No one was outside to witness his transgression. Salim hurried across a wide dirt path with the woman making every effort to keep up. Even though he was burdened with carrying her stick figure of a husband, the disease was taking a heavy toll on her. He crashed into a field of towering sugar cane, pushing through the stalks, hoping the couple would be well hidden inside. The woman struggled behind him—grunting, wheezing, and pushing against the cane.

When Salim figured he was far enough in, he stopped and looked back. He couldn’t see through the tall crop. They were deep enough. The woman fell to her knees and emptied the reddish-black contents of her stomach onto the ground.

“Sorry,” Salim told her as he lay the man in the red dirt. “I’m so sorry.” Without looking back, he took off at a sprint toward the burning village, already glowing orange in the sky over the field.

Oily black smoked settled to the ground all through the village. Gray smoke blew over his head. Night grew darker in the sky as the fire grew up to meet it. Salim retrieved his bundles of grass, lit one on the last hut he’d torched, and ran onward. But instead of going on to several small buildings close to the road, he instead took off across an open field, the shortest distance to the hospital.

With the glow of the fire ruining everyone’s night vision, he hoped no one would notice his sole lit torch running across the field. Structures were going up in flames through the town from east to west. He wasn’t the only one hurrying through the task of burning.

He tripped, got a face full of dirt, and his torch bounced across the rough ground in front of him. Thankfully, the fall didn’t extinguish it. A thought crossed his mind that he shouldn’t get up. His jihadist brothers were going to be in a hurry to leave the burning township. They’d likely not even notice his absence.

Rising up on his hands and knees and to his feet, he knew the question of whether or not he got on one of those trucks headed east wasn’t as important as getting to the hospital’s back door before it was set ablaze.

Salim picked up his torch and ran.

As he approached the back of the hospital, he saw he didn’t have much time. The other jihadists were past the town’s central intersection and were working their way up the road toward him.

Bodies behind the hospital were strewn in piles large and small, with some from earlier cleanups laid next to one another in neat rows. Salim touched his torch to the cloth that wrapped the first body, near its feet. It had diesel fuel on it, and after a little coaxing, it burst into flames that jumped quickly to the adjacent bodies. Those burning bodies were the cornerstones of the hope he needed to make his desperate plan work. None of his comrades would come around to the back of the hospital to light the bodies if they saw them in flames already.

Salim hurried past body after body, lighting as he went. He reached the largest pile, lit it in several places, and stepped back for a few seconds to watch the flames crawl with red fingers across the crumpled cloth that wrapped them. He tossed his torch to the top of the pile and ran to the hospital’s back door. A half-dozen bodies were piled outside the door to prevent it from opening. Salim grabbed the feet of the one on top and dragged it out of the way. The second followed. He rolled a few more away and pulled others far enough from the door that he was able to get it open.

It was then that Salim realized he would need to light those bodies, too. If he didn’t, anyone coming around to check the backside of the building—not that it would happen, but it could—would see the door unblocked. Burning bodies just outside the door would keep it hidden.

Salim pulled one of the smaller grass bundles from where he had it tucked in his belt, ran to the nearest fire and lit it. He heard voices. The others were getting close.

Running back to the door as the sickly smell of burning flesh mixed with the diesel and smoke, he quickly lit the scattered bodies and flung the door open. The lantern light in the room seemed dim compared to the conflagration outside. He cast a fearful look at the front door and ran to the center of the room. Patients who could were getting up on their hands and knees, panic in their blood-red eyes. Some fell right back down. Others slept—good for them. Many were too sick to have any awareness of the flaming horror coming their way.

Salim saw immediately that the tidy Arab boy’s cot was empty and the yellow HAZMAT doctor was gone. Austin was getting up on shaky knees and looking out a window when Salim arrived at his side. “Can you run?”

Austin looked at him as if he didn’t understand.

“Can you—?” To hell with it. Salim lifted Austin to his feet, and threw Austin’s arm over his shoulder. As Austin tried to stand and struggled to walk, Salim was forced to drag him toward the center aisle.

Austin pulled back and pointed at a box by the tidy boy’s cot.

Medical supplies.

Salim managed to grab a cardboard flap on the box then move as fast as he could toward the back door. Ambulatory patients understood fear and urgency, and started to make their way to the door, some shuffling slowly, most of those struggling to stay upright, a few on hands and knees.

“Margaux?”

“What?” Salim asked.

Austin repeated, “Margaux.”

The white girl.

Damn.

“I’ll try.” Salim got Austin and the box through the back door. Austin’s feet seemed to become more useful once they were outside, moving quickly past the largest pile of burning bodies. Austin stopped, jerked his arm away from Salim, and stood on his own feet. “Margaux. Help her.”

“I can’t.”

“Please. The others.”

Salim slumped. Having succeeded in rescuing Austin—a feat he didn’t expect to live through—he deflated. A second rescue would surely fail.

“Take the box. Go to the trees.” Salim turned and ran to the back door.

He didn’t see any of his brothers coming around the side of the building, but a few of the sick villagers had come out. “Run to the trees!” he commanded as he pushed past another of the patients coming through the back door.

The situation inside the ward was chaos, for as much that can be said about people who could barely muster the energy to take care of the most basic necessities in the bucket next to their beds. Several were trying to get the front door open. Some were staring out of windows. Many were yelling some kind of nonsense.

Mostly, they were just stinking and dying in peaceful comas. The disease had made sure of that.

Back beside Austin’s cot, Salim dropped on his knee beside the white girl. She was in terrible shape. Salim had seen enough of the sick to know she was destined to die. He saw her chest rise and fall, so she wasn’t dead already. He picked her up, threw her over his shoulder, and started toward the back door. A gush of hot liquid poured over his back as Margaux retched. Salim cursed, knocked another patient aside, and made it to the back door.

He heard the front door bang. The patients trying to get out inadvertently kept the jihadists out front for the last seconds he needed. He pushed through the back door and slammed it closed behind him. Anybody still inside would have to deal with their own fate. Salim knew several buckets of diesel were sitting just inside the front doors, and he knew someone would open those doors, kick the buckets over, and throw in a torch. The diesel, the bedding, and the people would flame up in seconds.

The explosion of shrieks behind him told Salim the fire inside had started. He didn’t look back.

Some things just seem to take forever, and the greater the push to speed them up, the slower they seem to go. Mitch sighed loudly and looked at his watch as he leaned against the open door of the truck. He looked inside at the driver—a Ugandan who shrugged, making it clear that it wasn’t his fault. Of course it wasn’t. They both knew it.