Martina pulled into the lot, and stopped the sedan in the middle of the road near the main entrance. Given the lack of people, she was pretty sure what they would find inside, so blocking the way wouldn’t be an issue.
Riley was out of the car first, moving surprisingly fast given her condition. Martina caught up to her just inside the hospital lobby, where her friend had come to a sudden stop.
The reason was immediately clear. Here was where the dead had taken up residence. There were over two dozen bodies in the lobby, sitting in chairs, lying on the floor, propped against the wall.
“Hello?” Riley called out, her voice weak.
“Anyone here?” Martina shouted. When no one responded, she looked at her friend. “If your sister was admitted, she’d be in one of the rooms, not out here.”
“Right. Sure.”
Behind the reception counter, Martina brought up the patient database on one of the computers, and searched for Laurie Weber.
“Her name’s not here,” she said.
“Maybe…maybe they got too busy to input everything. This place looks like it got crazy.”
“Maybe,” Martina said, not adding, “If she is here, she’s probably dead.”
It took them an hour to do a room-by-room search. What they found was a mix of the dead and the almost. The vast majority of the latter was unconscious, but a few moaned as Martina and Riley passed. It was a real-life house of horrors. Martina lost track of how many times she nearly screamed.
“She’s not here,” she said after they checked the last room on the top floor of the tower section.
Riley looked one way down the hall, then the other. “But this is where my dad would have taken her.”
“Maybe they went home,” Martina suggested, hoping it would prod Riley into movement. The sooner they got out of the hospital, the sooner she’d stop feeling like there was something crawling under her skin.
“Home?” Riley said as if she didn’t understand. Then her face brightened. “Yeah, they didn’t have any room here. After Laurie was treated, Dad probably took her to the house.”
They headed for the stairwell, walking at first, but running within the first couple of steps, both anxious to leave. Martina reached the bottom of the stairs first, threw the door open, and screamed.
“Help me. Please.”
A man stood teetering a few feet on the other side of the door, facing her. He was wearing green scrubs, and looked about the same age as Martina’s parents. There was no question he was sick — his watery eyes rimmed by blackened skin, snot running out of his nose.
He tried to raise his hand as if he wanted to reach out to her, but his arms only moved a few inches.
“Please,” he repeated. “Someone has to take care of him.”
The words seemed to knock the wind out of him. He fell back against the wall, panting.
“T…t…take care of who?” Martina asked from just inside the stairwell.
“Come on,” Riley whispered. “We need to go.”
Whether it was guilt for having screamed at the man, or compassion for his request, Martina couldn’t bring herself to move. “Are you talking about a patient?”
A nod.
“Where is he?” she asked.
The man’s lips parted, but no words came out.
“Where is he?” she repeated.
“Post…Op.” The man’s legs began to shake, and he slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor. “Please.”
As if in slow motion, his eyes closed and he tilted to the side, falling the rest of the way onto the hallway tiles. If he wasn’t dead, he would be soon. Martina thought he’d probably been hanging on by sheer force of will, and now that someone had shown up, he could let go.
“Let’s get out of here,” Riley said. She stepped into the hallway and turned for the main exit. When she realized Martina wasn’t following, she looked back. “Come on!”
“We need to check,” Martina said.
“Why?”
“He asked us. We need to check.”
“Are you kidding? His patient is probably dead.” She paused, then added, “We’ve checked all the rooms already. There was nobody we could help.”
“We didn’t think about Post-Op.”
Instead of waiting for Riley to come up with another argument, Martina headed to the right, looking for a map of the hospital.
“Martina, come on! Please!”
“Wait for me at the car. I won’t take long,” Martina shouted.
She found a map pinned to a bulletin board. Though Post-Op was not listed, Surgery was, so she figured it had to be in the same general area.
She located the surgical rooms first, then found Post-Op down the hall. It was a big room with several beds, most empty. Those that weren’t were occupied by the dead. All except the bed at the back of the room.
Unlike the other beds, it was surrounded by a see-through plastic wall, and on it lay an older man. The heart monitor beside the bed beeped a steady, rhythmic beat.
Martina examined the plastic wall. Someone had duct-taped the top and bottom to the ceiling and floor. On her side of the wall were two big oxygen tanks, each with plastic piping running from their nozzles under the duct tape into the enclosed space.
“Hello?” she said.
The man on the bed stirred and opened his eyes.
“Who are you?” he asked, weary.
“Martina,” she said. “Martina Gable.”
He looked at the room beyond her. “Where’s Frank?”
“You mean your doctor?”
“My son. He’s taking care of me.”
“Your son’s your doctor?”
“Yes. Where is he?”
Just to be sure, she described the man she’d met in the hallway.
“That’s him. Why isn’t he here?”
She bit the inside of her lip, unable to tell the man what she’d seen.
He seemed to realize it on his own. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
Martina still couldn’t bring herself to speak.
“I knew he was sick,” the man said. A tear slid down his cheeks. “He was pretending he wasn’t, but I knew.”
“How long have you been in there?” she asked.
“Since those damn containers opened up. Frank picked me up at home and put me in here.”
“What…what can I do for you?”
“Nothing.”
He turned away.
She looked around, unsure what to say or do. The man was trapped inside. Once he stepped out, he’d catch the flu. Her gaze fell on the air tanks. The gauge on one was completely empty, and the other was heading in that direction.
“You know where they store the air tanks?” she asked. “You’re almost out. I’ll get you another one.”
“No. Please don’t.”
“But you’ll suffocate in there.”
“Please. Leave it. It would just be putting off the inevitable.” He paused. “Frank only put me in here because it made him feel like he was doing something.” He looked at her again and stared for a moment. “Why aren’t you sick?”
“I don’t know.” She paused. “How about food? Do you need any?” She wasn’t sure how she could get anything to him without letting some of the virus through.
He nodded at the cabinet next to his bed. “I have more than I need.”
Frank had apparently set him up well.
She turned for the door. “I’m going to get you a new tank.”
“No! Please don’t! What happens when that one runs low? Are you going to come back? And what about when there are no more tanks? I appreciate the offer, but you’re only trying to make yourself feel better. If you hook up another tank, I’ll rip down the wall and die that way. If you don’t, at least I’ll have a different option.”
For several seconds, Martina didn’t move. Finally she headed for the door.