Every vibration of her phone made her jump. Wren kept thinking it was going to be the hospital pager, but it wasn’t. Mostly it was her uncle. He told her he probably wouldn’t be back until tomorrow night. He was flying to a new meeting. She sat outside in the gazebo and walked around the landscaped grounds of the hospital until it was too cold to do so. Then she went in. The waiting room was a walking cesspool of germs and bacteria. They were even handing out paper face masks, which she took and immediately put on. Then she went to the restroom, used the facilities, and scrubbed her hands in scalding water for a long time, probably more than what was necessary. When she looked up at the mirror, she was shocked. The mask took up more than half her face. It reminded her of the severity of the situation. They didn’t just hand stuff out like this unless there was some sort of bird flu or swine flu or something like that going around. It made her feel a little panicked. Her eyes betrayed her anxious feelings.
When she was done, she checked her phone again for the hundredth time and saw that it was almost nine-thirty already. She bought a coffee from the vending machine to help her brain stay frosty. She almost dropped it when the buzzer finally went off in her hand. It glowed an ominous red. That just seemed wrong.
Wren rushed back to the E.R. and handed the pager to the nurse waiting with a chart near the swinging doors that locked the second anyone went through.
“Alexander Brannon?” she asked, to which Wren nodded. “Come with me.”
A man behind her yelled angrily, “Wait a damn minute! We want some answers!”
“Sir,” the nurse started but was interrupted.
“No, we’ve been here all day!” he shouted and tried to barge past Wren.
A crush of people came forward and began pushing into them. Soon, security got involved as the shouting escalated, and the situation became more volatile. The nurse swiped her card and pulled Wren with her through the door.
She followed the nurse on shaking legs to a small room and immediately felt a sense of foreboding come over her. There were boxes of tissues on the stand and a Bible and pamphlets for funeral homes. The nurse indicated she should sit.
“Your family member is gravely ill,” she explained. “He has lapsed into a coma.”
“That fast? What the…what the hell’s wrong with him?”
“There is a flu going around…”
“Yeah, we know. We’ve seen some people with it. Is that what he’s got?”
The nurse looked around as if she were nervous. Then she said, handing Wren a tiny slip of scrap paper, “Look, I’m not supposed to be telling anyone this, but check out this website. It’ll tell you everything you need to know.”
The door opened, and she quickly sat back in her chair.
“I’ll just be another minute, Rhonda,” she said to another nurse, who nodded and left. “People here are also getting this. Doctors and nurses here. It’s already hit a lot of people, a lot more than you understand. Take precautions. Wear the mask. If you’re in the hospital, don’t take it off. They still aren’t sure if it’s airborne or not.”
“I don’t have access to the internet,” she said. “How am I supposed to look at this website.”
“There’s a family lounge on the sixth floor. You can use the computers there.”
“Okay, but where’s Alex?”
“The ICU because of the coma. It’s common with this sickness. It sets in quickly. He’s tested positive for RF1.” “What the hell is RF1? I’ve never heard of it. Is it like the bird flu?”
She shook her head. “Just look on that site.”
“Is he gonna die?” Wren asked with desperation.
The nurse sighed before saying, “Do you believe in the power of prayer?”
Wren shook her head. If there was a God, he certainly never answered any of her prayers, or she wouldn’t be living the life she was living. Her faith wasn’t in great shape the last four years.
“You’d better start.”
“Where is he?”
“They’ve moved him to the fourth floor,” she said quickly and stood. “That’s where all the infected in a coma are being kept, in the ICU.”
“Will he get better? Does anyone?”
The door opened again, and it looked like a doctor this time. She was wearing a white lab coat instead of the colorful scrubs of the nurses.
“Good luck,” the nurse told her and left Wren with nothing but a slip of paper.
She crumpled the paper and stuffed it into the pocket of her black jeans. Rushing out of the E.R., Wren went outside for fresh air. It was a little too fresh, brisk even, but that room felt stuffy and the air stale with lousy news and dissipated hope. Her phone buzzed again. It was Elijah. He was five minutes away, so she decided to wait outside for him instead of the bleak choice of returning to the germ pool. By the time she caught sight of his loud car, she was shivering. Partially her chills came from the cold because she’d not gone out earlier today with a jacket, just a lightweight sweatshirt. Mostly the chills were from having to tell Elijah the news of his brother’s condition.
He waved as he jogged toward her. She tried to put on a smile but gave that up. Fake smiles weren’t her specialty.
“Did you win?” she asked, trying to be upbeat.
“What? Yeah. Whatever,” he said. “How’s Alex? Did they page you yet?”
He whipped off his letterman jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders without even pausing to think twice before just doing it.
“Thanks,” she mumbled uncomfortably. His jacket still carried his body heat inside, so it warmed her quickly, even though it was about four sizes too big.
“So? Doctors- did you talk to anyone yet?”
“Yep, just did,” she said.
“And? Where is he? Can we go back and see him?”
“Come over here and sit so I can explain,” she said, leading him back to the gazebo. It was dark out, the only lighting from street lamps on this part of the hospital grounds. She took her time and tried to explain as best as she could what the nurse had told her. When she was done, Wren had to admit, it wasn’t much.
“That’s all they said? He’s in a coma? That’s it? What’s the freagin’ prognosis?”
She winced, not wanting to say.
“What? What is it, Wren?”
“Not good, Elijah,” she said. “The nurse told me we should pray.”
His face instantly deflated of hope, and he roughly scrubbed a hand over it with stress. A five o’clock shadow she hadn’t noticed before seemed more prevalent when he was done. Elijah bent forward and rested his elbows on his knees while looking out into the distance at nothing. She was pretty sure he hadn’t showered after his game. He smelled a little sweaty and looked a little more than dirty. He actually looked…manly, not like a high school kid or a teenager, but a man. Maybe burdens and stress like this instantly aged people. If so, she probably looked forty.
Wren cleared her voice. Then she placed her hand on his shoulder and tried to offer him comfort. Elijah instantly took her hand and pulled it through his arm and between his knees where he held it with both of his without straightening. She leaned her head on his back.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said.
“We can wait upstairs. Maybe they’ll let you see him when he comes to.”
“If,” he corrected.
She nodded against his back, not wanting to give him too much false hope.
“What if he wakes up like one of those…things?”
“Don’t think like that,” she said. Then Wren remembered the slip of paper in her pocket and pulled it out. She explained what the nurse had said about it.
“Computers upstairs here that we can use?”
She nodded. “Yeah, that’s what she said.”
“Let’s go.”
Wren followed as he led her to another entrance.
“We could’ve just gone back through there,” she said, indicating the E.R.
Elijah shook his head, “No, that’s not safe. I’m glad you didn’t sit in there too long.”
“Elijah, here,” she said, leading him over to a mask dispenser. “That nurse said to take precautions. There’s gloves here, too.”
He nodded, and they both put them on, as well as the masks. Then he took the elevator to the fourth floor. They were quickly informed that his brother was not allowed to have visitors. Elijah shot the uniformed guard blocking entry into the hospital wing a nasty look. Wren tugged at the sleeve of his shirt to get him to back up.
“C’mon, Elijah,” she encouraged until he was walking away with her. He sent a glare over his shoulder at the pudgy security guard, though. “Forget him. Let’s go to the computer lounge.”
Elijah looked down at her hanging on his arm. His light brown eyes looked more topaz when he was angry. There was an illumination behind them, something fierce. Plus, his face was half-covered with the white mask, so it made his eyes stand out even more.
“Yeah,” he said with a nod and closed his fingers around her hand until they were interlinked, and he was walking fast and pulling her along.
They took the elevator up two more floors and found the family lounge tucked away at the end of a long corridor far removed from the hospital rooms, nurses’ stations, and the area that was apparently the cafeteria according to the signage pointing down a long, dark hallway. There wasn’t anyone else in the lounge. Elijah released her and turned on the lights.
“Wait,” Wren said, stopping him from going further into the room. She glanced around. There was an exit at the other end of the long room where desks, computers, chairs and sofas and six mounted televisions were located.
“What is it?”
She was getting a bad vibe. Only one other exit. “I don’t like this. We’re about to look up stuff that they don’t want found.”
“Why do you say that?”
Wren locked the door and flipped the light back off. Emergency lighting was on, a few dim lights near the exit doors including the glowing red signs, and some outside the building on the brick wall aiming down toward the ground to illuminate the hospital building itself. It was pretty dark, but she was confident they could see to get around and not fall over something.
“What’s going on?” he questioned further.
“They erased the video we were in the middle of watching last night. You had to go onto some dark web, sketchy type of site to find anything. That nurse was…I don’t know…acting really strange about giving me information. She seemed scared to tell me.”
Elijah’s eyes narrowed as they removed their masks. In the dark room, his angular cheekbones and sharp jawline stood out more with gray shadows forming under them and on his neck.
“Jeremy texted me right before I went on the field,” he told her quietly. “His dad’s sick. His little sister is, too. He said he knows two other people, distant relatives, that have something, too. Now Alex has it.”
Wren rested her hand on the pistol under her shirt, under his jacket. She nodded and swallowed the lump of nerves in her throat.
“Yeah, let’s do this,” she said. “I’m with you.”
He reached out and cupped her cheek, and she had to stop herself from leaning into it. Just being with him was a bad idea, but for whatever reason, fate kept throwing them together. She did step back, though. Tiny lines formed as his eyes narrowed, and he seemed disappointed but didn’t say anything.
They went to the back of the family lounge and turned on one of the computers. She scooted her chair closer, saving him from doing it like he had at the school. It had made her feel something odd in the pit of her stomach when he’d pulled her over closer to him by dragging her chair with her in it. He was really strong. Something about that made her feel at once safe and also a little scared because trust was hard for her. Elijah could easily hurt her if he wanted. He could also kill her. She tried to push those sorts of thoughts down, but it was hard to trust people.
He logged onto the website the nurse had scribbled on the paper. It was some sort of conspiracy theory site. The home page had a UFO on it.
“This doesn’t seem legit,” he said and doubled-checked he typed in the site name correctly. “Hm, this is it.”
“There,” she said, pointing to the tab on the screen labeled “pandemic.” Without waiting, she touched the screen and was given about thirty video options. “The people who are blocking information from getting out must not have found this yet.”
“Good,” he said and clicked on one, and it began playing. “What the…”
The video was obviously taken in secret, from what seemed like a camera in a person’s shirt pocket. Some sort of meeting was taking place in a formal office type of setting, like a boardroom or something.
“Elijah, what is this?”
He shook his head and turned up the volume, “Not sure. Let’s listen.”
Someone off-camera was nearly shouting in a British accent, “…and all you want to do is blame the fucking Russians, Dr. Peterson.”
“Yes, I do. We all know that’s where this came from. And now they’re seeing mutations of the disease? What are we gonna do if it mutates here?” a woman at the long, shiny black table, presumably Dr. Peterson, explained.
“There were two cases reported in Los Angeles,” someone else said. “Six more in Salt Lake. It’s already done, mutated. There’s no stopping it.”
“Great,” an older man in a white lab coat said. “Jesus Christ. We’ll never contain it now. Once we started vaccinating people who were infected with the anti-virus- the same damn anti-virus I told you wouldn’t work- it mutated already. It’s antibiotic-resistant, too. It’s gone into self-preservation mode already. The mutation is already being called RF2 by the WHO.”
“Fuck,” someone off-camera commented with evident frustration in his voice. “Now what? We’re already getting overwhelmed at the hospitals. What are we supposed to do? Any suggestions, Dr. Bachmann?”
“We have to inform the public,” he said, and the camera turned in his direction. He was sitting close enough to the person with the hidden camera to see his name badge.
“Look, see there?” Wren said, pausing the video. “Dr. Bachmann, CDC, and I can’t make out the rest. It’s too small.”
“Wow, this is pirated footage of a meeting taking place within the Center for Disease Control? Like at the headquarters or something? This is big, Wren. This is crazy if this is real,” he questioned aloud as she hit the resume play button.
Dr. Bachmann was still speaking, “Soon, we won’t be able to control the information getting out to the public. Once it starts taking down people in law enforcement and the staff at the hospitals, it’s over anyway. There won’t be anyone out there to contain it or the information we’re feeding them.”
Wren paused it again, “That nurse told me that some of the doctors and nurses that work here have it.”
“Then it’s too late,” Elijah speculated as she pressed play again.
“I disagree,” someone said, and the camera turned in that direction. It was a woman who looked like she was in charge because everyone stopped arguing. She had on an expensive suit instead of a lab coat and wore designer eyeglasses. “We give them only the information they need. If you insight a panic, Dr. Bachmann, what good will that do?”
“People need to hear the truth, Selma,” he retorted.
“They need to stay calm, or we’re going to have to call in the military.”
“We will soon enough anyway,” he said. “Once RF2 hits the states in the numbers we’re seeing overseas we’ll need the military to keep the peace and to set up safety perimeters for the hospitals. You are severely underestimating…”
The video cut. Elijah tapped at the screen as if that would make it restart.
“Here, this one is time-stamped like the last starts up again over here,” she said and tapped the play button on the next video in line. It picked up where the other left off, or close to it. The same people were in the meeting.
The woman in the suit was saying. “…and use the same precautions and safety methods you’d use if you were treating an Ebola patient or handling H4N9.”
“Yes, that was a doozy, too.”
“A doozy? Are you fucking serious, Ralph?” Dr. Peterson exclaimed and laughed maniacally. She seemed at the end of her rope with the situation and her colleagues. “You’re talking about a man-made virus that got unleashed on the public that could take out half of mankind…”
The older man with the gray hair interrupted, “Dr. Peterson, don’t get ahead of yourself…”
“We’ve already got a death toll in the hundred thousand range from RF2 in South Africa, Roger,” she said angrily. “We’re in unprecedented territory, ladies and gentlemen.”
The person with the video camera in their pocket said in a much calmer man’s voice, “I agree with Dr. Peterson. The RF1 patients who are lucky enough to survive the coma are recovering well enough. It’s a slow process. They’re weak for a while after it, but they’re recovering. If they recover. That’s not a high number right now, either. We’re already in the one-to-twenty numbers. But the RF2 people aren’t recovering at all. Those are the patients we need to focus on. It seems almost as if…I don’t know…”
“Explain what you’re thinking, Jonah,” Dr. Peterson said to the videographer.
He audibly sighed because the camera was so close to his body. “If we don’t get the vaccination worked out soon, we’re potentially writing the death sentence of millions, maybe billions of people. The immune seem to be few and far between. Less than twenty-five percent is what’s being reported.”
“Jesus,” Elijah swore softly. “Does that mean Alex only has a twenty-five percent chance of living?”
She put her hand on his forearm. “No, we don’t know that. We don’t really know what they’re talking about. Hell, they don’t seem to know what they’re talking about.”
The video cut and they watched three more of the same meeting, but a lot of it went over her head. In the middle of the third video, Wren heard the door click.
“Elijah,” she said, hit the power switch on the computer and dropped to the deck. He followed her down without question. “Someone’s trying to get in.”
A second later, the doorknob was tried again back and forth as if the person were becoming frustrated. Elijah crawled to the end of the aisle and peeked. He shot back to her.
“We gotta go,” he stated fervently. “It’s the cops.”
That was all she had to hear. Wren scampered under the desk and out to the other aisle. Two more rows like that and she was to the exit door. Without standing, she pushed it open and was through. She wasn’t waiting for Elijah. She couldn’t afford to. Police contact was the number one rule of many things to avoid, even higher on the list than mingling with boys.
Standing in a hunched over position, she shot down the dark hospital hall and hooked a right through an exit door. It led to stairs, which she dashed down.
“Wren, wait up,” Elijah said and jumped down onto the landing in front of her.
“Get outta the way, Elijah,” she demanded and darted around him and kept going. Halfway down the next flight, he grabbed her arm.
“Stop,” he said. “They aren’t coming. Slow down. Stop and listen.”
She did but only momentarily before she tried to yank away from him. His grip was too tight. He held his finger up to his lips and gave her a ‘shh.’ It was difficult to do, but she held still.
“See? There’s nobody coming,” he said just as the door above them opened and slammed into the wall.
She gave him a look letting him know he was an idiot and ran past him again. He grabbed her arm again and pushed open the door for the fourth floor, going through. The hallway was dimly lit.
“Over here,” he whispered of the dark patient room. She shook her head, but he pulled her with him anyway. “It’s empty.”
He shut the hospital room door and left the lights off. Then he dashed over and stuffed pillows under the blanket, making it look like a body was under there. He turned on the low, dim night-light above the patient bed. Then he pulled her into the bathroom and locked the door. He left the light off, though.
“We need to get outta here,” she whispered and felt his hand cover her mouth. She got another ‘shh’ for an answer.
Voices in the hall somewhere, loud and angry, sifted into the bathroom.
“Just a couple o’ kids, man,” a man said.
A woman replied, “Yeah? Then why’d Homeland Security call and alert us to someone in the family center hitting sites they aren’t allowed to be on?”
“It was probably just a teenager watchin’ porn, Martina,” the first said.
“I really don’t think Homeland Security would call the local cops working here in the hospital to alert us to porn, genius.”
“Well, they’re gone. I don’t see anyone.”
“I’m gonna keep looking. I bet they took the elevator to the ground floor.”
“’Kay, I’ll watch out for a fifteen-year-old kid walkin’ around with a boner.”
“You’re an idiot,” she replied.
Wren exhaled when it stayed quiet for a long while. Her heartbeat finally slowed, and she relaxed after a couple minutes of waiting.
“I don’t think anyone’s coming in here,” he said and turned on the light. “I’m going to see my brother. He’s on this floor. I’m not leaving until I see him for myself.”
“They said you can’t.”
“Too bad,” he answered, looking down at her with pure determination on his face. “I need to know he’s being taken care of.”
Wren’s brow knitted together with worry. “Okay, I’ll go with you.”
“No, you should leave, get out of here.”
She lifted her chin with determination, “I’m going with you.”
He must’ve seen something in her face that made him realize she wasn’t leaving without him. He could get arrested. He was the Golden Boy, but they weren’t in his town anymore. She wasn’t sure how far his celebrity status stretched. Probably the whole county, maybe the whole state.
“We need some sort of layout of this hospital,” she said.
“I know where we need to go,” he said. “The ICU is on this floor. This wing is for the ones who get out of the ICU and still need to be monitored for a few days before they go home.”
“How do you know that?”
“This is where my father was brought. This is also where my mother died.”
“Oh, shit,” she said and shook her head. “Sorry.”
Elijah looked down at her and pushed his face mask under his chin, leaving a red line behind in the outline of it. “Thanks for being here.”
He stared down at her with intensity. There was something in his eyes, a soft yearning that scared her. He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. Wren backed up.
“Don’t do that,” she warned quietly.
He looked disappointed but nodded. “Sorry. Ready?”
They made their way to the ICU a different way this time and weren’t met by a guard. Elijah took out his wallet and held it up to the small scanner box beside the door. The double doors swooshed open.
“I don’t know why I never threw that out. It’s weird. I know. It was just the last thing I had of my mom, of our last days together.”
“It’s okay. I get it. You don’t have to explain.”
Elijah looked down at her and frowned but nodded.
He led her through a maze of rooms and hallways until they finally came to a nurses’ station. Pressing his back against the wall, Elijah peeked around the corner.
“He’s in number forty-one-twenty-two. That’s this way,” he said, indicating they should go to the right.
They found Alex’s room quickly enough, but there were nurses and a doctor in there. The whole place was bustling with activity. She wasn’t even sure they’d be noticed even if they walked right past a nurse or doctor. At this time of night, the hospital should’ve been a lot quieter.
“Over here,” he said. “Let’s wait till they’re all out of there.”
He took her into an alcove where a few waiting chairs and a vending machine were located. They hid on the other side of the soda dispenser. After about ten minutes or so, the team from Alex’s room went hurrying by them. He nodded and motioned for her to follow. They entered his brother’s room, and Elijah shut and locked the door behind them. When they turned to the bed, Wren gasped. Elijah made a strange sound beside her and approached the bed slowly.
His brother, who’d seemed so full of life and vitality at his house looked like he was a breath away from leaving this world. A plastic mask was over his face, probably supplying him with oxygen. His body was covered in a light blanket, his brow was sweaty, and his hands were cuffed with leather restraints to the bedrails as if he were a criminal.
Wren knew they weren’t treating him poorly. They had him in restraints in case he became violent like those others. Elijah, not cautious, walked closer and touched the cuff on his brother’s right wrist.
“Elijah,” she warned and pulled at the back of his shirt. “Don’t touch him. That could be dangerous.”
He turned to look down at her but seemed to understand because he allowed his hand to drop away. He nodded jerkily and turned to stare at his brother again.
“This can’t be happening,” he stated softly. “Alex is only twenty-two.”
“He could be one of the people who gets better,” she offered, trying to be hopeful. Behind her, someone tried the doorknob.
“Hello?” a friendly woman’s voice came from the other side. “Hello? Is there someone in there? Open up, please.”
Elijah turned and unlocked the door. Apparently, he didn’t see the point in sneaking. A nurse, probably in her sixties, walked in. Her nametag said “RN” and “Nancy” right above it.
“How’d you kids get in here?” she immediately asked.
“This is my brother,” Elijah answered. “What’s his status? What’s going on?”
She sighed behind her own mask, which looked a lot more substantial than theirs. She was also wearing a head to toe, white paper-looking suit of some kind that covered everything but her neck. It even wrapped up around the back of her head.
“Son, you shouldn’t be in here,” she explained. “Your brother’s very ill. Everyone on this floor is. You could both get infected.”
Wren thought of something and blurted it quickly so they didn’t get thrown out, “We’re immune. We were tested already.”
“You were? I thought the tests weren’t ready yet.”
“My dad works for the CDC and sent home test kits,” she lied smoothly. She hooked her thumb at Elijah. “He and I are both immune.”
“Oh, okay then.”
“What’s going on with him?” Elijah asked immediately after he recovered from observing her cool fallacies.
“He’s fevering as you can tell. Last I checked, he’s at a hundred and four. We’re keeping him hydrated and on fever reducers and antibiotics intravenously.”
“Is he going to die?” Wren asked so Elijah didn’t have to.
“We don’t know, dear. He’s young. That seems to help in some cases. He’s in a coma, but that’s not the worst thing. Sometimes the body does that to protect itself,” Nurse Nancy answered. “Go home. Get some rest. Give me your number, and I’ll personally call you if his status changes or if anything happens.”
Elijah quickly dictated is phone number. Then Wren did, too. She knew that wasn’t allowed, but the lady seemed nice, harmless. Plus, if Elijah missed the call, she wanted to make sure she was available to receive it.
“Good,” she said and put the paper inside the front pocket of her sterile white suit. “Go now before security sees you in here. The police are all over this hospital. They’re arresting people for being in the quarantine zones.”
“Quarantine?” Elijah asked.
“Yes, that’s what this whole floor is now,” she explained and looked over her shoulder as if she didn’t know if someone were there. “Just be careful. Leave before they see you. They’ll put you in a forty-eight-hour holding cell to make sure you aren’t infected if they find you up here.”
“Let’s go. Now,” Wren ordered and tugged at his arm. She didn’t want to have a run-in with the cops. Jamie would kill her. Then they’d have to move again. Tomorrow.
He snapped out of it, and together they got out of the hospital without being seen, mostly because he had that swipe badge to use on the other exit for the ICU department. Then they skirted security and went to his car. Wren finally breathed again when they were driving away.