Amanda's Story (10 page)

Amanda awoke in a cot that smelled more of mildew than canvas with an IV in her arm. She traced the silastic tubing taped to the back of her hand to a small plastic bag that hung above her head. Her unfocused eyes could just make out the word Midazolam. She was sick and didn't need the infusion of the sedative to confirm it. Every part of her was covered in ugly red blisters, her bones ached, and any movement prompted vertigo bad enough to make her retch. The sun was just clearing the horizon and her fractured mind tried to understand what had happened to the day. She recalled flying in on the helicopter, setting up camp, Bernice's blistered face and then … The memory of her psychotic behavior fell into place. Wild, bizarre, disconnected thoughts and images had raced through her mind for hours, days, maybe even weeks. Despite both having died years earlier, she remembered watching as her father and brother walked through the tent and out into the sunshine without even acknowledging her.
This is not real; it can't be happening,
she told herself, but they seemed just as real as the Honduran soldier who had stopped to chat with them. Paroxysms of rage had alternated with bouts of paralyzing terror, and if she hadn't been restrained there was no doubt that she would have hurt herself or someone else. She closed her eyes and felt the sedative pulling at her. She didn't want to sleep; sleep would only bring back the nightmares. Her thinking became mushy and she struggled weakly to remain lucid, but the medicine in her IV won and she drifted away.

She opened her eyes and watched as shadows moved all around her. She thought that she was lucid, but couldn't be entirely certain that this wasn't just another well-formed hallucination. A hand touched hers and it was enough to snap the world back into focus.

“How are you doin', honey?” Bernice's face came into view, but it looked different, bumpy and misshapen.

“Bernice, is that you?” Amanda asked through cracked and bleeding lips.

“For now it is,” Beatrice responded, and Amanda understood her cryptic answer perfectly. “You're going to be like this for a while, and then maybe it will pass.”

“Maybe it won't,” Amanda said. A burst of sharp reports distracted them and Bernice leapt on Amanda, their combined weight collapsing the cot. A half-dozen people around them dove to the floor just as splinters of wood and metal showered down. One of the supports for the large tent gave a loud crack and canvas dropped over everyone.

“Don't move, Amanda,” Bernice struggled to say, her face smashed into Amanda's chest.

“How can I with my hands strapped to this damn thing and you on top of me?” She tried to kick her legs but found them tied as well. The canvas smelled of mildew and Bernice smelled of vomit and suddenly Amanda was flooded with claustrophobia. She squirmed and tried to kick the older woman off of her, then started screaming as more gunfire erupted all around them.

Bernice tried to snake an arm up to Amanda's mouth but couldn't reach; someone next to the pair managed to find Amanda's mouth and clamp a hand over it. She tried to bite the hand but it gripped tighter. A face appeared before hers; it was distorted in rage, and despite the muted light it appeared just as badly misshapen as Bernice's. “Shut your God damn mouth or I'll kill you.” Spittle covered her face and she relaxed, fear now overwhelming her.

Nothing moved for several minutes and the gunfire had ceased. The hand across her mouth relaxed and eventually slid away, allowing her to breathe again. Her head was clearing and she recognized the sound of people and running feet. In a moment the canvas was lifted and the sun streamed back in. Bernice climbed off of her and then fell awkwardly back to the broken cot. “Damn, I got up too fast.” She had managed to miss Amanda's restrained legs and looked around trying to figure a way back to her feet that did not involve using Amanda as a springboard. She rolled towards the end of the broken cot and her feet landed in a pool of blood.

Amanda had already found the source. Kelly Byers, the youngest nurse after Amanda, was lying face down in an expanding circle of blood. Her blouse, once green, was now a dark shade of red. “Oh my God,” was all Amanda could say, so she said it over and over again. Bernice found a sheet and covered the poor girl. “Wait, Bernice. She may not be dead!” Amanda's mind was suddenly clear.

“Trust me; she's dead,” Bernice said to the sheet.

More people arrived and the “Oh my God” refrains continued. Amanda was suddenly struck with a completely random thought:
With all the praying going on around here, where is God, and why did things just keep getting worse?

The silhouette of a tall man stood next to Bernice as two others wrapped Kelly's body in more sheets. They had turned her over and Amanda had to look away; the pretty young face of Kelly Byers was gone on one side. She squeezed her eyes closed and tried not to listen as the body was lifted from the wreckage. After several long minutes Amanda opened her eyes to the early morning sun of a beautiful new day.

“There are fourteen of us left,” the tall silhouette said to Bernice. The voice was distantly familiar, and it took a moment for Amanda to place it. “Hey sweetie. Are you still with us?” Stephen took a step forward and propped some of the fallen tent with a broken pole.

“I think so. How are you, Stephen?”

“I'm okay. A little older, a little uglier. How do you like the new voice?” His voice was deeper and had a rough, raspy edge.

“You sound like an old cowboy.” She smiled and tried to reach for his hand.

“Great. I always wanted to sound like Roger Staubach,” Stephen said, but Amanda didn't understand the reference, and by the expression on her face, neither did Bernice. “Troy Aikman? No? You live in Dallas and don't know Roger Staubach or Troy Aikman? If anyone asks me about the decline of Western society I will have to tell them that it started right here.” He shook his head.

“There are only fourteen of us left?” Amanda asked, looking for an explanation.

“You've been out of it for three days.”

“Three days?” She was shocked and disappointed, and quickly examined her hands, but the cobblestone rash hadn't faded.

“Everybody has it now; we've dropped all the isolation rules. Whatever else this is, it is extraordinarily contagious.” Bernice said, her face looking more swollen than blistered. “Are you thinking clearly?”

“I think so, but you can't trust anything I say.”

“Well said,” Bernice answered and then bent painfully to undo Amanda's Velcro ankle straps. “I'm going to let you go, but you will have to stay with me.” Amanda nodded and Stephen released her hands. He helped her to stand, and she nearly fainted when pain assailed every joint in her body.

“Walk around and it will get better.” Stephen helped her with the first few steps and then Amanda felt stable enough to let go of his arm. They walked around the tent for ten minutes until she fully regained her balance.

“Where did that come from?” Amanda squinted in the bright sun. A new chain-link fence had been erected in the tall grass just outside the tree line.

“They finished it yesterday,” Bernice said behind them. “Don't go near it.” She pointed at a dark shape next to the east end of the fence. “One of our soldiers. They shot him from the woods yesterday morning.”

“They put up cameras this morning,” Stephen said to Bernice and pointed out four towers that supported small rotating cameras.

“Well, they have enough resources for fences, bullets, and cameras, but none for medical care.” Bernice moved slowly as the trio walked the length of the camp's main tent.

“We started with thirty-one people. What happened to the other seventeen?” Amanda asked as Bernice stopped in front of the same plastic chairs they had used the night they had arrived.

“We lost four the first night; the two doctors, the lieutenant, and Oso. Mary lasted most of the next day.” Bernice's voice broke. “I knew her for almost twenty years, and to watch her die that way …” Her voice trailed off and she slowly, painfully lowered herself into the chair. “Dr. Greenburg had the right idea; get it over quick.” She wiped her face with her dirty sleeve. “The soldiers got into it the day before yesterday, and when they were done we had seven more bodies. It looked like the orders to avoid contact with those soldiers from town weren't followed as precisely they were intended. Yesterday we lost two to the virus, and one to those bastards in the woods.” They were closer to the body now and Amanda recognized him as one of the two soldiers who had helped with her pack. “And this morning, poor Kelly.”

“You're one short,” Amanda said.

“Our shooter this morning,” Stephen said sadly. “I had no choice. I tried to just wound him but I'm a pretty poor shot.”

“Seventeen,” Bernice added. “What a God damn mess.”

“Is someone working to get us out of here?” Amanda asked.

“They say they are, but I see no outward signs of it. We have yet to speak to anyone from home,” Stephen answered.

“So when are they going to let us go?”

“When all of us are dead or our people trip to the fact that we have been incommunicado for four days and come looking for us,” Bernice answered, and then turned back to Stephen. “So have we finally accounted for all the weapons?” A pair of soldiers with bloodstained uniforms emerged from one of the three tents the platoon had erected, and slowly walked past them.

“No, and they aren't talking to us. If we had managed to get them all under lock and key maybe this never would have happened.”

Amanda watched as the pair stalked Stephen with their eyes. He had just killed one of them. It didn't matter that the soldier was in the midst of a homicidal rage that took the life of a young woman; what mattered was that the dead soldier had comrades who remained armed, resentful, and mentally unstable.

“So we have two armed camps, us and them, surrounded by a whole lot more of ‘thems.' That, my dear, is the situation,” Bernice concluded as the soldiers disappeared behind the radio tent.

“Both of you look like you're on the mend.”

“I think we are starting to understand this infection a little better. If you survive the first day or two the illness seems to stabilize. What happens next is anyone's guess. We've only lost three to the virus, at least directly.” Bernice began to look around. “What is that awful smell?”

Amanda had begun to smell it as well. It was a thick, acrid odor, almost as if someone were burning plastic. A light breeze blew in from the sea, carrying more of the smell. “Look!” Amanda pointed to the east. “Over the trees.” A plume of thick black smoke was starting to rise into the sky. “There must be a fire in Tela,” she surmised.

Bernice and Stephen stood and watched as the plume of black smoke rose into the morning sky.

“It can't be,” Amanda said incredulously. “You don't think …”

“They're burning the bodies,” Bernice said in disbelieving awe. “Those Nazi bastards are burning the bodies. It's insane.”

“How do you know those are bodies?” Stephen asked, unconvinced.

“Because there's only one thing that smells like this.” Bernice turned and grabbed Stephen's arm. “Help me to the radio. I've got to get a hold of General Regara, and not that asshole Martinez.”

Five minutes later, sitting in the medical lab they found the radio and their small group's armory. “A couple of us moved everything in here when the guys across the hall started to become a little goofy,” Stephen said nodding to the rifles. “These are the only weapons we could find. Let's hope no one has to use them again.”

“El Progresso, this is Bernice Scott,” she dispensed with all radio etiquette. “I need General Regara now!” she demanded.

Surprisingly, it took him only about two minutes to respond. “I have been expecting your call,” he said.

“So the smoke we are seeing … Are you burning the bodies in Tela?”

“Regrettably, we have no choice. The infection that has involved your people and my platoon was much worse in the city. We could find no survivors and most of the bodies showed undeniable signs of infection. We do not have the means to dispose of almost one thousand contaminated bodies properly.”

“But do you understand that if this contagion is viral—and our doctors were certain that it is—burning the bodies may spread the virus if it is not heat sensitive?”

“We were also concerned about that, which is why we are using thermite. It will consume any organic material.”

Bernice paused her attack. She understood the general's position. Cleaning up a thousand infected bodies would strain the resources of the United States in the best of times and was clearly beyond the means of Honduras during the worst of times. Destroying the bodies with Thermite also made sense. Like living things, a virus was made of proteins, but heat-resistant viruses had developed unique shells of proteins that could stand up to ordinary fire, protecting the delicate genetic material inside the shell. Thermite, composed of iron, aluminum, and magnesium, burned at such a high temperature that it would reliably denature any known proteins, splitting them into broken strands of small molecules.

“Are you still there, Mrs. Scott?”

“I'm here, General, although I wish I were any place but here. I agree with your logic; I don't like it, but I agree with it.” Bernice sat back and shrugged her shoulders. “A couple other points, General, while I have you. We have a body of one of your soldiers out by the fence and no one is willing to retrieve it, because they think they're going to be shot.”

“Please send some of his comrades to bring him back to your camp. His death has caused much sorrow here.”

For a moment Bernice was going to tell the general that there were sixteen more bodies in the camp and they too were causing a great deal of sorrow. “Sorry, General, I think I just bit my tongue. What about the supplies that we were promised? We are running low on gas for the generators, water, saline, and food.”