Robin Cook - Contagion

“I’ll bring around my Explorer,” Richard said.

“The problem is getting him into it and then keeping him quiet,” Terese said.

“I’ve got ketamine,” Richard said.

“What’s that?” Terese asked.

“It’s an anesthetic agent,” Richard said. “It’s used a lot in veterinary medicine. There are some uses for humans, but it can cause hallucinations.”

“I don’t care if it causes hallucinations,” Terese said. “All I care about is whether it will knock him out or not. Actually, it would be best just to have him tranquilized.”

“Ketamine is all I’ve got,” Richard said. “I can get it because it’s not a scheduled drug. I use it with the animals.”

“I don’t want to hear about any of that,” Terese said. “Is it possible just to give him enough to make him dopey?”

“I don’t know for sure,” Richard said. “But I’ll try.”

“How do you give it?” Terese asked.

“Injection,” Richard said. “But it’s short-acting, so we might have to do it several times.”

“Let’s give it a try,” Terese said.

Jack found himself perspiring heavily when Terese and Richard reappeared from the living room. Jack didn’t know if it was from a fever or from the worry engendered by the conversation he’d just overheard. He did not like the idea of being an unwilling experimental subject with a potent anesthetic agent.

Richard went to a cabinet and got out a handful of syringes. From another cabinet he got the drug, which came in a glass vial with a rubber top. He then stopped to figure out a dose.

“What do you think he weighs?” Richard asked Terese as if Jack were an uncomprehending animal.

“I’d guess about one-eighty, give or take five pounds,” Terese said.

Richard did some simple calculations, then filled one of the syringes. As he came at Jack, Jack had to fight off a panic attack. He wanted to scream, but he didn’t. Richard injected the ketamine into his right upper arm. Jack winced. It burned like crazy.

“Let’s see what that does,” Richard said, stepping away. He discarded the used syringe. “While we wait I’ll go get my car.”

Terese nodded. Richard got his ski parka and pulled it on. At the door he told Terese he’d be back in ten minutes.

“So, this is a sibling operation,” Jack commented when he and Terese were alone.

“Don’t remind me,” Terese said, shaking her head. She began to pace as Richard had earlier.

The first effect Jack experienced from the ketamine was a ringing in his ears. Then his image of Terese began to do strange things. Jack blinked and shook his head. It was as if a cloud of heavy air were settling over him, and he was outside of himself watching it happen. Then he saw Terese at the end of a long tunnel. Suddenly her face expanded to an enormous size. She was speaking but the sound echoed interminably. Her words were incomprehensible.

The next thing Jack was aware of was that he was walking. But it was a strange, uncoordinated walk, since he had no idea where the various parts of his body were. He had to look down to see his feet sweep out of the periphery of his vision and then plant themselves. When he tried to look where he was going he saw a fragmented image of brightly colored shapes and straight lines that were constantly moving.

He felt mild nausea, but when he shook himself it passed. He blinked and the colored shapes came together and merged into a large shiny object. A hand came into his field of vision and it touched the object. That was when Jack realized it was his hand and the object was a car.

Other elements of his immediate environment became recognizable. There were lights and a building. Then he realized that there were people on either side of him holding him up. They were speaking but their voices had a deep, mechanical sound as if they were synthesized.

Jack felt himself falling, but he couldn’t stop himself. It seemed as if he fell for several minutes before landing on a hard surface. Then he could only see dark shapes. He was lying on a carpeted surface with something firm jutting into his stomach. When he tried to move he found that his wrists were restrained.

Time passed. Jack had no idea how long. It could have been minutes or it could have been hours. But at last he’d regained orientation, and he was no longer hallucinating. He realized that he was on the floor of the backseat of a moving car, and his hands were handcuffed to the undercarriage of the front passenger seat. Presumably they were on their way to the Catskills.

To relieve the discomfort of the driveshaft pressing against his stomach, Jack drew his knees underneath him to assume a crouched-over position. It was far from ideal but better than it had been. But his discomfort was from more than his cramped posture. The flu symptoms were much worse, and combined with a hangover from the ketamine, he felt about as bad as he’d ever felt.

Several violent sneezes caused Terese to look over the back of the seat.

“Good God!” she exclaimed.

“Where are we?” Jack asked. His voice was hoarse, and the effort of speaking caused him to cough repeatedly. He was having a problem with his nose running, but with his hands secured he couldn’t do anything about it.

“I think you better just shut up or you’ll choke to death,” Richard said.

Terese turned to Richard: “Is this coughing and sneezing from the shot you gave him?”

“How the hell do I know? It’s not as if I’ve ever given ketamine to a person before.”

“Well, it’s not so far-fetched to imagine you might have an idea,” Terese snapped. “You use it on those poor animals.”

“I resent that,” Richard said indignantly. “You know I treat those animals like my pets. That’s why I have the ketamine in the first place.”

Jack sensed that the anxiety that Terese and Richard had evidenced earlier about his presence had metamorphosed into irritation. From the way they were speaking it seemed to be mostly directed at each other.

After a brief silence, Richard spoke up. “You know, this whole thing was your idea, not mine,” he said.

“Oh no!” Terese voiced. “I’m not about to let you get away with that misconception. You were the one who suggested causing AmeriCare trouble with nosocomial infection. It never would have even crossed my mind.”

“I only suggested it after you complained so bitterly about AmeriCare gobbling up National Health’s market share despite your stupid ad campaign,” Richard said. “You begged me to help.”

“I wanted some ideas,” Terese said. “Something to use with the ads.”

“Hell you did!” Richard said. “You don’t go to a grocery store and ask for hardware. I don’t know squat about advertising. You knew my field was microbiology. You knew what I’d suggest. It was what you were hoping.”

“I never thought about it until you mentioned it,” Terese countered. “Besides, all you suggested was that you could arrange some bad press by nuisance infections. I thought you meant colds, or diarrhea, or the flu.”

“I did use the flu,” Richard said.

“Yes, you used the flu,” Terese said. “But was it regular flu? No, it was some weird stuff that has everybody all up in arms, including Doctor Detective in the backseat. I thought you were going to use common illnesses, not the plague, for chrissake. Or those other ones. I can’t even remember their names.”

“You didn’t complain when the press jumped all over the outbreaks and the market share trend rapidly reversed,” Richard said. “You were happy.”

“I was appalled,” Terese said. “And scared. I just didn’t say it.”

“You’re full of crap!” Richard said heatedly. “I talked with you the day after the plague broke out. You didn’t mention it once. It even hurt my feelings since it took some effort on my part.”