“Allegheny General is just a few more blocks. I need to move you there now, but you’ll need to keep pressure on the wound,” Mike said.
Blood spilled from Garry’s gut when Mike removed his hands from Garry’s stomach. Mike threw his arm around his shoulder and took the bulk of Garry’s weight onto it.
Mike pulled Garry from the alleyway, his feet dragging behind him, drips of blood splattering against the concrete underneath.
When they appeared out of the alleyway, people just stared at the two of them. Everyone took a few steps back. Nobody was sure what to do. Mike stared into faces filled with fear, panic, and uncertainty. A guy in a business suit came up and threw the young man’s other arm over his shoulder.
“Thanks,” Mike said.
The crowds outside the hospital were enormous. The shouts, cries, and pleas for help drowned out any sound or ability to hear. The three of them kept moving forward, each bump into the person in front of them cleared a path to the hospital’s doors.
People jumped back in revulsion. Most people had minor injuries and the sight of blood dripping from Garry’s stomach, his head hanging limp on his neck, caused them to get out of the way.
Nurses and doctors ran around the lobby. Patients were being treated in the chairs in the waiting room. Trails of blood stained the hospital’s tile. The only light visible shone through the glass doors from the entrance. Mike could see a few candles down the hallways, offering a slight glow in the darkness.
Mike reached out and grabbed a doctor’s arm passing him.
“I’ve got a critical patient with a gunshot wound to the abdomen,” Mike said.
The doctor’s eyes fell on Mike, Garry, and the man helping them. He lifted Garry’s head up and opened his eyes. He placed his fingers on the side of Garry’s neck. The doctor shook his head.
“I’m sorry, boys. He’s gone.”
The room around Mike went into slow motion. The frantic nurse that rushed up and stole the doctor, family members begging with the medical staff to do more, and the blood dripping onto the tile from Garry’s stomach seemed unreal. Ten minutes ago the man he was holding up was alive.
They dragged Garry’s body over to a corner of the room next to a door with “MAINTENANCE” written in white bold letters, and set him down. Mike grabbed a sheet off a stretcher and tossed it over Garry’s body. Mike turned around and the man that had helped him was gone. Garry’s blood was still warm, lingering on Mike’s hands. He smeared his shirt, attempting to wipe the red from his fingers.
No matter how hard he wiped the blood wouldn’t come off. The metallic stench filled his nose. He could feel it, taste it. He had to get out. Mike made a beeline for the door, savagely pushing people out of his way, and then he stopped suddenly.
“Dad,” he whispered.
Mike turned on his heel and grabbed another nurse rushing past him. He held her by both of her arms.
“I’m looking for my father,” he said.
The nurse squirmed to free herself from Mike’s grip. Her face twisted from the uncomfortable feeling of the unfamiliar touching her.
“Sir, please let me go,” she said.
“He came in for a blood test this morning.”
“I have to get ready for surgery.”
“Where is he?”
“I-I think they put all the non-critical patients on the third floor.”
Mike let her go and sprinted for the stairwell. The door was propped open. The light from the lobby doors and windows flooded the first flight of stairs. He could see faint rays of light above him from the open doors in the stairwell.
Two large orderlies carried an elderly man on a stretcher and were making their way down to Mike as he reached the second floor. Mike could see the white wisps of hair on the old man’s head, the limp hand hanging off the stretcher with a gold band around the ring finger, but couldn’t see his face. Mike’s heart leapt and he pushed the orderly aside to see get a better look.
“Hey, what the hell are you doing, man?” the orderly asked.
It wasn’t his dad. Mike let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d held.
“Sorry,” Mike said.
Mike moved to the side of the stairs and let them pass. On his way up the last flight of stairs he could overhear the two orderlies below talking.
“You think he’s gonna make it?”
“You kidding me? You see what’s happening right now? Anybody who’s dependent on modern medicine ain’t gonna last much longer. The old man’s a goner.”
Hospital
Mike leaped the steps two at a time. He burst through the open door into a hallway on the third floor. He looked left, and bright sunlight shone in from a window down the hallway. To his right, the hallway faded from the light into darkness. He rushed past nurses, doctors, and patients, scouring the floor for his father. Shouts from hospital staff filled the hallway.
“We need IV drips going in rooms twelve, nineteen, and seven.”
“We need a doctor in here now!”
“Ma’am, please, we’re doing everything we can to help your husband.”
“Any spare candles should be put in the operating rooms.”
Mike squinted, trying to make out the signs hanging from the ceiling. He read “ICU”, “ADMINSTRATIVE DESK” and “BLOOD LAB” on the bottom with an arrow pointing further down the hallway.
Mike weaved in and out of the traffic of people clogging his path. He passed rooms and saw the figures in bed, unmoving. He saw nurses huddling around candles, filling syringes by their light. He walked past the intensive-care unit. The silence of machines replaced by the sobs and screams of mothers, fathers, wives, and husbands slumped over lifeless bodies.
Beyond the ICU Mike passed the blood-soaked operating tables with doctors frantically trying to keep their patients alive. All of the technology used to aid them in surgery now gone.
The sign of the blood lab was plastered on the door. Mike bolted inside. The room was pitch black.
“Dad?” Mike whispered, but no answer.
Mike exited the lab. He stood motionless in the hallway. The hospital staff rushed past him. He had no idea where to look next.
“Michael!”
The light from the window down the hall outlined Ulysses’ silhouette. Mike couldn’t make out the reaction on his father’s face upon seeing him, but Mike knew Ulysses could see the relief spreading across his own.
“Dad,” Mike said, running toward him. He took his father in both arms, pinning him against his chest.
“I thought I’d lost you, old man,” Mike said.
“Not yet,” Ulysses replied. “I need your help.”
Mike tried to keep up with his father. He noticed the red bandage around Ulysses’ arm.
“Are you all right?” Mike asked.
“There are some people trapped in the elevator down the hall. I don’t know how many,” Ulysses said.
“Dad, did they give you any insulin?”
“I’ll need you to hold the doors open until I can pin them in place.”
“Dad!”
Mike seized his father’s arm. He whipped him around and the two stopped dead in their tracks. The flow of people moving through the hall rushed around them like water breaking on rocks in a river.
“Michael, I’m fine,” Ulysses said.
“Did they already give you your insulin?” Mike asked.
“The lights went out before they could give it to me.”
“We need to get you that medicine now.”
Ulysses jerked his arm out of his son’s grip.
“After we get those people out of the elevator.”
Ulysses marched back down the hallway and Mike turned his head back to the direction of the blood lab. He should have tried to grab the insulin before he left.