Ken McClure: Trauma

Lafferty saw one pair of feet turn and head for the lift corridor. The other pair followed, Tyndall continuing to argue.

“What was all that about?” whispered Lafferty to Sarah.

“Sounds like something has gone wrong with the vaccine,” replied Sarah. “Did you see where they came from?”

“Somewhere up the top end,” replied Lafferty, moving his head in the direction of the far end of the room.

“Maybe there’s a way out up there?” suggested Sarah.

“Let’s see.”

They slid out from under the bed and hurried up to the head of the room which was in deep shadow. They found a narrow passage to their left where they deduced Tyndall and Sotillo must have come from. Lafferty led the way cautiously along it, keeping his back against the wall and peering out slowly when they came to a right-angled turning. His heart sank when he saw the passage end in a door marked, ISOLATION SUITE. He straightened up and Sarah joined him at his side. “No way out,” he said.

“Try the door,” said Sarah.

Lafferty nodded, recognising that they had nothing to lose by going on. There was no way out behind them save for the lift. The thought made him realise that Tyndall and Sotillo must have been told of the break-in by now. He pushed the door in front of him and it clicked open. The room was in darkness, but he could hear the now familiar sound of a life-support machine and could see the coloured LEDs blinking on the control panels. He felt along the wall to his right with an open palm and found the light switch.

The room contained one life-support bay, similar to the ones outside, but before Lafferty or Sarah could take a look at the patient lying there, they heard the sound of loud voices and Lafferty turned out the light again.

“They must know we’re down here!” whispered Sarah urgently.

“Maybe not,” replied Lafferty. “Maybe they’re checking just in case. Get under the bed!”

Sarah got down on the floor in the darkness and crawled across to where she remembered the end of the bed was. Lafferty followed and urged her to hurry as the voices grew louder.

“I can’t!” said Sarah. “There are some boxes in the way! There’s no room!”

“Try going in from the side!” urged Lafferty.

Sarah slithered round to the side of the bed and managed to get underneath, but there was no room left for Lafferty.

“The boxes are too heavy. I can’t move them!” said Sarah.

Lafferty clapped his hand to his forehead in anguish. The shouting voices outside were getting very near and there was nowhere else to hide except perhaps...

He tugged at the side of the plastic bubble enclosing the patient and it came free. He crawled in, feeling his way in the dark, warm, humid atmosphere inside the plastic, and lay down beside the patient. If the searchers, as he hoped they might, just switched on the light and took a quick look into the room they wouldn’t see him.

Lafferty was very aware of the patient’s chest rising and falling in response to the ventilator as he lay as still as a corpse. He tried to breathe as little as possible, partly through fear, but also because of the sweet, sickly smell that now filled his nostrils inside the plastic bubble.

“They can’t possibly be down here,” he heard Tyndall say outside the door. “It was probably yobs who broke in. They’d be looking for drugs. And even if it was one of these nosy parkers, they wouldn’t have found anything up in the Sigma lab — and there’s nothing to suggest that they found the lift.”

“We have to be sure,” replied Sotillo.

Lafferty heard the door open and the room was suddenly filled with light. For the first time he saw his companion on the bed and it was a vision from hell. He could not stop himself gasping at the nightmarish face that was only a few centimetres from his own. For a moment he thought it was some kind of animal, but then he realised that the face was human. The skin was completely covered in suppurating pustules; they were the source of the sickly sweet smell. Even the eyes were affected with the sores and a sticky, yellow exudate oozed out from encrusted lids. The face jerked rhythmically as air was injected into the lungs by the ventilator.

Lafferty felt the urge to vomit become almost overpowering. He could taste it in his mouth as he kept his lips pursed and continued to fight the gagging in his throat. For some reason, he felt compelled to continue staring at the apparition in front of him, following the hideous contours of the face as guilt began to mingle with the revulsion he felt. This had been a human being, he told himself. He should be feeling compassion and pity, not fear and revulsion. He continued to stare at the horror until a new thought crept into the nightmare and exploded inside his head. This was not just a human being... there was something familiar about the outline of the forehead and cheek. His eyes widened as he realised the truth. The stinking, pustulated body lying beside him had belonged to Mary O’Donnell!

The realisation proved too much for Lafferty. He turned away violently to the left and threw up, fighting his way out of the plastic bubble as he did so. He ended up on the floor on his knees in front of Tyndall, Sotillo and two other men dressed in white. Sarah slid out from under the bed and put a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s Mary,” he gasped, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “It’s Mary O’Donnell.”

Sarah got to her feet and looked at the body inside the bubble. She recoiled before saying quietly, “Disseminated Herpes . The new vaccine did this to her, didn’t it?” She looked to Tyndall and Sotillo for an answer.

“A chance misfortune,” said Sotillo smoothly. “It happens sometimes with vaccines. You’re a doctor, you should know that.”

“But you don’t know what the chances are with this particular kind of vaccine. Right?” asked Sarah.

Tyndall and Sotillo looked at each other as they realised that Sarah must have heard their earlier conversation.

“How could you possibly get involved in something like this?” Sarah demanded of Tyndall.

“It’s not as if they were live patients we were using,” replied Tyndall. “Can’t you see the advantages to be gained by using such a culture system?”

“Culture system?” exploded Sarah. “They were people, for God’s sake, not culture systems!”

“Emotional claptrap!” snapped Sotillo. “They were dead at the outset. Can’t you rise above such pettiness? You’re a doctor.”

“It’s much to her credit that she can’t,” said Lafferty, getting to his feet and standing beside Sarah. “Maybe she recognises greed and avarice even when it’s disguised as a quest for medical advance. People like you don’t give a damn for anything other than their own glory and advancement. Money and prizes! That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think we could expect anything else from an anachronism like yourself,” sneered Sotillo. “You and your kind are two thousand years out of date!”

Lafferty made a move towards Sotillo but the two white-clad attendants blocked his way. “Really, Father. Violence, and you a man of the cloth,” sneered Sotillo.

“I’m looking at the face of evil, Sotillo,” replied Lafferty. “I don’t think my church would have the slightest problem with me smashing it through the back of your head.”

Sotillo seemed discomfited with the look on Lafferty’s face. He said to one of the attendants. “Prepare two bays out there.”

Lafferty smiled ruefully and said, “And now there are to be two more murders in the cause of medical science. Right?”

Sotillo didn’t reply and Tyndall looked at his feet in silence.

“Well, Doctor?” said Sarah. “Are you going to murder us?”