CHAPTER 5

What’s Going on Here?

For a long time, the doctor didn’t say anything, even when—gloves on—he peeled back the bandage. Only when Karen came in did he say, “Can we get another trauma bandage ready? Thanks.”

And the nurse bustled out as fast as she entered.

Until finally Christie had to say, “So?”

The doctor looked up from the wound on her right thigh to Christie’s face, and smiled. “Looks good. With all your blood loss, seemed bad, worse than it really was. Stitches look clean, and the bandage is doing its job. I’m happy.”

Karen came in with another bandage pack, a puffy plastic bag with the self-contained bandage, probably loaded with antibiotics and—she hoped—a local aesthetic.

“Much pain during the night?” Dr. Martin asked.

“No. I mean, if I move it, feel the pull.”

“Yeah. You will have that for a few days. Should be a little better each day.”

He ripped open the bandage pack, and then carefully placed the pad on the wound, just above where the stitches ended.

“I need to clean up the suture with hydrogen peroxide… that will sting. But as I said, I’m happy. Mending well already.”

Christie watched as he took a swab, dipped it into a vial and applied the peroxide right to the stitches, and the skin around the wound.

A slight sting. Nothing she couldn’t handle.

The doctor tended to the wound quietly.

Still—Christie knew that this morning she had questions that weren’t just about her wound.

There were a lot of things she needed to know about.

And this was the time.

*

She waited until the doctor had snapped off his gloves and tossed them in a nearby bin.

“Doctor, what is this place?”

He turned to her, smiled. “What do you mean? It’s a hospital. Rather obvious, I thought.”

She nodded.

Not at all what she meant.

“No. Sure—it’s a hospital. But you have people here, staying up at night with guns, guarding. People—I guess—living here.”

He didn’t say anything.

“But I’ve been out there; I know what’s happened… what’s happening. How can you keep this place running? What are you going to do with all the people? Feed them? Care for them?”

She wondered if he knew that she was asking the question not out of any idle interest, but because she was here, her kids were here.

She had to know.

The doctor looked at the open door of the room and then, without a word, walked over and shut it.

Then he grabbed a straight-backed chair and pulled it close to the bed, sat down.

“Okay. Right. When things got bad out there, the past few months, worse than before…” He took a breath. “When nobody knew where the hell the troopers were, when the attacks kept coming… so many people ended up here. We were swamped.”

Another breath.

“We are swamped.”

“I’m sure.”

“The fence—that had been taken care of years ago, along with our generator. Though fuel remains a problem. Always scavenging for that. And food, supplies. No choice really. For the people here, there was nowhere to go back to. Homes gone, neighbors dead—the ones that hadn’t changed, that is. This became a safe place.”

A safe place.

She had heard that term before.

“You took people in, even after you took care of their wounds?”

“Yes. Had to. I mean, what else could we do?”

Christie nodded.

“And the other doctors?”

At that, Dr. Martin shook his head, looking so weary.

“Oh, you mean the medical staff here? I’m afraid you’re looking at it.”

“Just you?”

A nod. “We had others. Many left to get to their families. Some said they’d be back but never came back. We have two nurses. Karen, and another young woman, Emma, who really is more of an EMT. She stays with the kids mostly.”

Then she asked the difficult question.

“What’s the plan?”

That stopped the doctor. “Plan? I guess, hang on here, take care of people. People go out for supplies, though with winter coming that won’t be easy. Stay alive. What’s the phrase? One day at a time.”

Christie thought of their family home on Staten Island, inside the safe, secure development girded by a massive electric fence.

Safe. Then, completely overrun, taken over by hordes of Can Heads.

And the Mountain Inn. What did they call it? A redoubt. A mountain fortress, and yet it still was besieged by Can Heads.

That is… until it was attacked by something new.

By people who seemed perfectly normal.

By people that were more terrifying than the cannibalistic monsters that roamed the surrounding woods.

Did the doctor know of such things?

“Doctor, when we—my kids, myself—left that mountain inn, I had seen something. Haven’t even talked to my kids about.”

“Go on.”

“People. Looking just like you and me. Who went out… they went out…”

She started to shake, the memory of what she witnessed suddenly hitting her so hard.

“…captured others.”

“For what reason?”

He didn’t know? He couldn’t goddamn guess?

Christie had to tell the doctor that things were actually worse than he imagined.

She struggled to control her emotions; she slowed down her speech.

“They collected children. They herded them, Doctor. Ready to take them with them, wherever they went.”

Did he understand? Did she have to spell it out for him?

Because if she did, Christie felt as if she would lose it.

But then the doctor said, “God. How can that be?”

“Because it is. I don’t know. Maybe it’s part of this whole plague; maybe it’s something new. Or maybe it’s just about survival.”

Then her point.

The one that made her stomach tighten, especially now with her confined to bed.

“Your people here. Could it happen to any of them? Could any of them, all those people with their big guns, could they get that idea? In the interest of surviving.”

The doctor shook his head, clearly rattled.

But Christie could see in his eyes that he could well imagine the terror she was talking about.

Maybe had even seen some signs of it already.

But then he said, “I think we’re okay… the people here, with their kids. Good people…”

“We were all ‘good people’ once.”

Finally the doctor turned away. “I… I’ve got other patients. The only doctor, right? ‘Rounds,’ they used to call them.”

He stood up and pushed the chair against the wall.

“Maybe we can talk some more. Let’s see how the healing goes, hmm?”

Christie nodded.

“I’ll check in later. You should sleep, rest as much as you can.”

But in a painful move, Christie leaned up, using one arm. She had to make a point. She had to ask one more thing.

“I will. But can you check on my kids? During the day. Make sure they’re okay.” A deep breath, hoping that the man knew what she was asking.

To keep his eyes open. For anything. Because Christie couldn’t.

“Can you do that?”

The doctor nodded. “I will. And Karen, she’s tireless. My right arm. I will ask her as well. We’ll keep eyes on them, talk to them.”

Christie lowered herself back down to the pillow, grateful for the promise.

“And you just work on getting better, okay?”

Christie smiled at that.

She closed her eyes as he left the room, and in seconds she was dead asleep again.