The Neuropathology Of Zombies (7 page)

CHAPTER 5

A soldier walked up to me carrying a tangled mass of rope, “We have some stuff to bind the hands and feet. Found it in the police station. We’ll put a pillowcase over his head so he won’t see us and it’ll keep his teeth from getting too close for comfort, he looks like a biter. Once we get him down you can get some blood. We’ll need one of the medical guys to do the sticking.”

“Good, I’ll take one arm and I will find someone to do the other. Can anyone think of any other samples we should take while we’re there?” I said. I turned my head and looked at the group of scientists around me.

“Well, there seems to be dermal manifestations, maybe we should take a skin biopsy,” one of the men said.
“I agree. We’ll need somewhere to process the tissue. General Fitch, how are we coming on the hospital?”
“Our team secured the building last night, so the inside is clear. The problem is all the racket brought the dead out of the woodwork and the place is pretty swarmed. The two main entrances are double glass doors and they seem to be holding. All other ways in or out are loading docks and are secure. I’m worried about the glass doors, our engineers are designing a barricade to cover them. It should be done this afternoon. We’ll have shooters on the roof that can take out the crowd at the doors if needed, but we don’t want to draw too much attention to ourselves, we’re trying to lay low. I think you’ll be alright once your inside.” Fitch replied.
I was starting to trust him and felt as though he was one step ahead of everything. He was probably one step ahead of any scenario we could think of. I imagined he’d seen his fair share of combat somewhere, and I had a vision of him hunkered down behind a sand dune, shouting orders into a radio, his cool demeanor a stark contrast to his hot desert surroundings.
I stood up, “Alright! Things are taking shape! Let’s get our samples and send them to the hospital. While everyone’s working on the blood and skin specimens, I’ll head to the hotel.”
The General looked at me, “Doc, there is no way we can get anywhere near that hotel.”
“General, it’s important. We need to see what’s in that hotel! It may hold the answer as to what this is and how we can stop it. Always go to the scene, that’s what I was taught and that’s how I roll,” I replied.
“Fuck me. Alright, but it’s going to have to be quick as shit, Doc, quick as shit,” Fitch said and pointed his finger at me. “I ain’t losin’ anyone to those assholes, you got me? And that means you, too, Doc. Don’t be stupid.” I could read the message in his eyes: I like you, I trust you, don’t make me hate you because you kill one of my men.
“Agreed. I won’t be stupid. Now, let’s get to poor Igor. When we’re done, we should leave him bound, just in case we need to go back. Maybe put a mattress down for him.” I said.
Igor was still pacing around in circles when we entered the prison block. Eight of us crammed into the holding area. There were four Marines, along with myself and Dr. Allen. We were all dressed in biohazard suits. Another Marine with an automatic rifle stood by, in case things got out of hand. And there was of course, General Fitch.
Our plan was simple, hit him quick, bag the head and tie him up. From my early observations I could see he didn’t have any increased strength. If we all worked together, it should be pretty easy to subdue him. We snuck down the narrow corridor separating the two rows of cells, the General in the lead.
Igor stopped and released a loud, deep moan. His eyes widened and his teeth shown behind his rotting mouth. He shuffled over to the front of the cell, anticipating our approach. General Fitch slipped ahead and took position on the opposite side of the door. Igor dove forward and stuck his arms out between the bars. The Marine with the gun struck Igor in the chest with the butt of the rifle, driving the monster to the ground with a wet sounding ‘plop’. The four Marines rushed in, it was over within seconds, and Igor’s head was covered and his limbs were secured.
Someone yelled at me, I couldn’t hear what they said, but their body language read ‘hurry!’ so I hurried and ran into the cell.
I knelt down beside Igor. The Marines were sitting on the legs and shoulders. The beast was struggling, but he wasn’t able to move. I rolled up the sleeve of the police uniform and searched for a vein. Igor looked as though he were decomposing. Firm, fluid filled blisters covered his body. His skin slipped away as I moved my finger along his arm feeling for a blood vessel. A cold, greasy liquid burst from the bubbles and coated my hand, making my grip slippery. The pink dermis glistened from underneath the peeling green skin.
I couldn’t palpate a vein, so I stuck my needle in the dark outline of where one used to exist. I pulled back on the plunger of the syringe and a viscous sludge dribbled into the attached test tube.

I was breathing heavily, and the clear plastic visor of my biohazard suite fogged up, obscuring my vision. Sweat dripped from my forehead as my heart raced.

After I filled several tubes with the muck coursing through Igor’s veins, I reached into the medical kit and grabbed a scalpel. I hesitated for a moment, thinking about where to make the incision. Then I brought the blade down across his arm. A thick black fluid leaked from the cut. I made a second, parallel incision and grabbed the sliced piece of skin with a pair of forceps and placed it into a small plastic tissue cassette for histology.

I stood up at the same time as the internist, which made me feel good, “
Notbadclinicalworkforapathologist,
” I thought. We both walked out of the cell with our samples and stood in the hallway waiting for the others to join us.

The two Marines holding the legs got up first and exited the cell. The two holding the shoulders were next. As one of them started to walk away he knelt down and removed the cover from Igor’s head, and then stepped out into the hall as almost simultaneously, the General slammed the cell door shut.

“It’s just not right to leave him like that!” the Marine shouted through the isolation suit, gesturing his thumb at Igor. We all turned around to look at the poor creature laying tied up on the ground. I think we felt a bit guilty for violating him the way we did. There was absolute silence, when suddenly, there was a deafening wail from Igor. We all jumped and shouted various vulgarities. As we watched, Igor began to bend at the waist, slowly sitting up without the assistance of his limbs. He fell over onto his side and convulsed, thrashing like a fish out of water. He positioned himself face down and began to slither across the floor like a snake, screeching and snapping his teeth together with an ominous ‘click, click...’ He reached the bars of the cell and began to ram his head against the steel, his body writhing, his mouth foaming. We left him alone.

Once outside I removed the hooded mask of the biohazard suit. I expected to feel a blast of cool air, but the sun was high and it was actually cooler inside the suit.

“Let’s get this stuff to the hospital,” I said.

Fitch stood next to me, “We’ll take the chopper and set you on the roof, our guys there will bring you inside and show you around. The emergency generator is running and the civil engineers have built a temporary water supply, so you should be all set.” The General smiled, “We’ve brought in a lab technician from the ship, he’s waiting for you on the roof.”

I loaded all the tubes of black liquid and the skin biopsies into a plastic carrying case and closed the lid. I tried to think if there was anything else we would need, but I wouldn’t really know until I saw the hospital. I thought to myself “
Maybe we’lcatchabreakandendthisthingfast
,” but something in the pit of my stomach told me I was in this for the long haul.

I sat in the helicopter, next to the General, cradling the precious samples. The microbiologist and the virologist were across from me, and the technician sat on the floor. Dr. Allen stayed at the barracks to keep an eye on Igor.

The chopper lifted off the roof and I craned my neck to see out the window. The streets were full of dead bodies, staggering aimlessly in all directions. A few of them stopped and looked up at us as we flew overhead. From above it was easy to see that there was no way to drive through the small town. The helicopter was the only way to move around, the streets were overrun by Driftwood.

A minute or two later we circled around the hospital. It was larger than I imagined, the five stories towered over the surrounding buildings. The General began to point out various strategic landmarks, such as the two main entrances on either side, and the loading zones in the rear. It gave me comfort to see Marines stationed along the roof. The exterior of the building was swarmed by zombies, most of them were crowding the main doors.

We stepped out of the helicopter and walked down a staircase that led into the hospital. We descended into darkness and the only sound was our feet on the metal stairs. A single beam of yellow light shown from a Marine’s flashlight. The soldier leading the way opened a heavy steel fire door and waved his hand for us to enter the hallway. It was pitch black. A small amount of light leaked in from the patient rooms lining the corridor casting a soft glow on the laminate floor. The alarms of various medical devices chirped, begging for attention. Through the shadows I could see the nurses’ station. A television flickered with static, gray snow. The Marines brought our group to a stop.

“OK, everyone, welcome to St. Marie’s Hospital. We don’t accept insurance or credit cards, we’re a cash only operation!” laughed a babyfaced soldier holding a large machine gun. “Why don’t I give you a tour and you can tell me where the best place for you to work might be. I don’t know anything about hospitals, hate ‘em and no offense, I hate doctors, too! You will have an armed guard with you at all times, no wandering around alone,” he continued.

“We need some lab space,” I replied. “Is there a directory? Maybe we can find the pathology department.” I looked around the hallway, searching for a sign.

“I’ve got something better than that, Doc, I’ve got the blueprints!” the Marine replied, unrolling a poster sized tube of paper. He studied the drawing for a few seconds, “Here it is, first floor, to the left of the elevator, near the operating rooms.”

We walked a little further down the hall and into a large central foyer. Corridors led off in three different directions. Small tress and wooden benches lined the circular enclosure. The walls were glass and I could see down to the first floor. A small amount of natural light crept in from the floor below. We stopped at the elevators and I hit the down button. The bell chimed and the doors opened. We stepped inside.

We came to a stop on the floor below, a burst of bright sunlight pushed through the space between the doors as they opened. Soon the elevator filled with a warm glow. My eyes were blinded for a second, all I could see was a white haze. Slightly disoriented, I stepped out into the main lobby. I could hear loud banging on glass, and as my eye sight returned I could make out the black outlines of bodies crowding the main entrance; their arms raised, fists clinched, and beating on the glass doors. We watched for a moment.

Our tour guide motioned for us to follow him, “Come on, it’s not nice to stare, plus we don’t really want to get them riled up, bad enough they know we’re here. I think they’re hungry.”

There were two unlit hallways leading from the lobby. A sign with the words “operating theatre” and an arrow pointing left was hanging from the ceiling. As we walked in the direction of the surgical suite, I noticed a number of offices along the corridor. Just before the large double doors with the words “Hospital Staff Only” scrawled upon them, someone saw the pathology department. It was marked by a counter with a sliding glass window that read “Specimen Drop Off Ring Bell”. A doorway was located next to the kiosk, I opened the door and stepped inside.

It was much more modern than I had imagined. There were two rooms, the first was the clinical pathology area. There were multiple automated machines for running blood tests, along with microscopes, and specimen refrigerators. I think toxicology was a big part of the department, probably due to the drug trade funding the Island, because there was a nice, new mass spectrometer sitting all alone in one corner.

The second room off to the right was dedicated to surgical pathology. Inside there was a large grossing bench for dissecting surgical specimens, a cryostat for cutting frozen sections of tissue from the operating rooms, a slide staining station for the frozen sections, and a cytology bench with special stains for biopsy slides. In the middle of the room was a single tissue processor that would dehydrate tissue and seal it in wax overnight so it could be cut into thin sections and placed on glass slides to be looked at under a microscope. Next to it was an automated staining machine; it looked as though it could do several immunohistochemical stains in addition to the typical pink and purple hematoxylin and eosin stain that was the workhorse of pathology.

“This is much better than I had hoped for, I think we might be alright!” I said, turning to the technician. I was probably a little more excited than I should have been, I don’t recall ever having been so happy to see the inside of a surgical pathology room. “I imagine the morgue is in the basement, I should go check that out as well,” I continued.

“That sounds good. I’ll do a quick blood smear, get the blood cultures going and then try a frozen section on one of the skin biopsies,” replied the technician, “We’ll save the second skin sample for the processor and run it tonight, maybe there will be a few more specimens to put in by the end of the day.”

Two Marines came with me, the other two stayed behind with the lab team. We walked back down the hall to the elevators, passing by the group of Driftwood beating on the glass doors. I waited for the elevator, flanked on both sides by men considerably taller than myself, and watched the angry horde outside. The sound of the pounding was somehow different, it was sharper, more shrill. I moved closer trying to get a better look. One of the creatures was holding a rock and driving it into the glass.

“I don’t think that door is going to hold much longer. How are your guys coming with that barricade?” I asked.
“The General says by later afternoon. Fuck. I better tell them to hurry,” stated one of the armed guards.
Although the rock was hitting the glass, the lone Driftwood thrusting it at the window was weak and having a hard time controlling the blows. It would take some time for the zombie to break the window, and then it would have to get through the second set of doors.
The high-pitched ping of the elevator bell startled me. I continued to watch the main entrance as the elevator doors closed. I hit the ‘basement’ button and we started to drop.