Victor Methos - Plague

She saw Duncan Adams walk out of a room. He was staring at the floor, lost in thought as he bit his lower lip.

“Hi,” he said as he looked up.

“Hi. How’s it looking?”

“Incubation period is about seven days, not twelve like it should be. This virus is replicating faster than normal smallpox. I’ve sent some tissues back to USAMRIID. I need to see what we’re dealing with. I’m afraid I’ll have to cancel dinner tonight. I’m going to be on a plane back to Maryland.”

“To tell you the truth I don’t feel much like eating right now.”

Sam noticed a nurse near the reception area walk to a large white board. She erased two names and added six others. It was a death board, though it wasn’t officially called that. They kept track of the patients and erased the names of those that died. Sam ran down the list: not a single one that had been here when she first came to Hawaii was still alive. A small box in the corner said, SURVIVORS. It was empty.

“I’ll be back in a couple days,” Duncan said. “I’d like to take you to dinner then.”

“I’m sorry, Duncan. I just can’t think about that right now.”

“You haven’t handled too many of these, have you?”

“Too many of what?”

“Outbreaks of hot agents. Most people don’t realize that outbreaks like this are quite common in Africa and India, South Asia, places with large numbers of poor that are packed tightly together. In the Congo, Ebola makes an appearance every day. It just appears, out of nowhere. It’ll kill a few hundred people, perhaps cause a hospital to be shut down, and then it disappears as the infected population dies off. I’m always sent to those so I may not have the right perspective on this situation. Sorry if I seem insensitive, but I’ve seen so much of this, I’ve been a little desensitized.”

“You weren’t insensitive. I just have a lot taking up my brain’s processing power right now. So how many outbreaks have you handled?”

“At least fifty. One of the worst was in Kinshasa. A maternity ward had been infected with bubonic plague. They had no antibiotics so I had to fly them in but it took two weeks to get there. It was the worst two weeks of my life.”

“I bet,” she said, now purposely averting her gaze from the death board she’d been staring at.

“So what are you going to do now?”

“I’m setting up a new patient center in the rec center a few blocks away. The hospital doesn’t have the capacity to hold all these people. Then I’m going to recruit staff from all the hospitals to work it.”

“Can I make a recommendation without sounding like an ass? Don’t recruit people. If they feel it’s part of their job to risk their lives, they won’t do it. Ask for volunteers. Once a few of them volunteer, some of the others will be shamed into it.”

“Dr. Bower.”

Sam turned to see Jerry Amoy run up to her.

“Dr. Bower, I need you to look at something right away. Follow me. Dr. Adams, you should come to. Please suit up first.”

They ran to the locker rooms and dressed, grabbing fresh facemasks and booties from stations set up in the corridor. They followed Amoy down the hall to the last room and entered. The man in the hospital bed didn’t appear human.

He was covered in maculopapular rashes from head to toe, and blisters had formed on his skin in every inch of available space. The blisters were raised, filled with fluid, and his skin appeared like it had thousands of pebbles jammed underneath it.

“Haven’t seen this before,” Jerry Amoy said. “He’s the first with the blisters. He’s also blind. The blisters have formed on his retinas and caused scarring. This isn’t the same disease we were seeing; this is classic smallpox.”

Sam wanted to step closer but her body didn’t allow it. A primordial aversion to sickness and death bubbled within her and prevented her from taking those few steps over to the side of the bed. But will is stronger than instinct. She forced herself over to look at the blisters.

There was no hemorrhaging underneath the dermis causing the characteristic charred appearance of the other patients.

“Is it a mutation in the virus?” Amoy said.

“I doubt it,” Sam replied. “We’d be seeing a lot more of it. It might be a new strain, appearing in the population at the same time.”

“That’s super unlikely,” Duncan said. “I’ve read that some patients are resistant to black pox. His body might have fought it off and just been left with…this.”

Samantha leaned down close to the man’s face. She felt her heart pounding and her breaths were inadvertently quick and shallow. “Can you hear me?” she said.

The man didn’t respond. His mouth was agape and his eyes closed, the lids covered with thick, bubbly blisters.

He suddenly shot up and gasped for breath as he began to writhe. She jumped back, into Duncan, as Amoy called some staff. They held the man down and injected a sedative.

“You okay?” Duncan asked.

Sam pulled away from him and straightened her hair, taking a deep breath. “Just to be on the safe side,” she said, “we need smallpox vaccinations.”

Duncan said, “We ordered thousands the second we heard. They’re not here yet but I’m sure they will be. It may be enough to inoculate against the black pox as well.”

Sam walked toward the door and stepped out into the corridor. “That death board has doubled from this morning. If this agent hits its tipping point, there’ll be no one left to inoculate. We need to get those vaccinations here as fast as possible.”

Robert Greyjoy landed in Honolulu and stepped onto the tarmac a new man. He felt alive and refreshed, as if he’d slept for a week and just woken up to a sunny world that welcomed him with open arms. It was, in his mind, weakness. He was too sensitive to allow weather to affect him like this. He toned down his joyful response and headed into the airport.

The airport was just a simple airfield about twenty miles from Honolulu International. Whenever possible, Robert flew small, independent charters. It wasn’t a bad practice; usually it was just him and the pilot. But occasionally he would be seated on a plane with six other people that wanted to talk and he would have to feign interest and tell boring stories. He did everything he could to fit in, to seem so average he would not be remembered should anyone else ask later on.

There was a single cab outside on the curb and he walked to it and put his luggage in the trunk before getting into the backseat. He put on his seatbelt and instructed the driver to take him to Queen’s Medical Center.

“Eh,” the driver said, “haven’t you seen the news? Nobody’s allowed in right now.”

“I’ll be fine. Please go now.”

The cabbie pulled away from the curb and quickly made his way to the interstate by running a red light and speeding. When they had climbed the onramp and were cruising at a steady speed, the cabbie turned on a CD and began humming to the music. Robert took out his phone and began reading facts about the island: geography, history, anthropology, political climate, the economy, the most popular television shows and books, and a little about the language.

He was surprised to learn that there was a powerful anti-American movement in the state. Many were not happy with their island achieving unification with the mainland and would have preferred to stay independent. Robert had no doubt if that were so, China would begin making plans to add Hawaii as a colony. It was a little green gem in the sea, too tempting to pass up for larger nations.

The cab stopped at Queen’s Medical and he tipped the driver well; after their initial exchange, he had not spoken again. Something Robert preferred. He went around to the back of the hospital and saw two military police officers guarding the only entrance that was not barricaded with tape and plywood signs.