I shook my head
"It is without doubt the most venomous snake on the planet. Forget the black mamba, forget the King Cobra. The inland Taipan or fierce snake as it's commonly known as is the deadliest by far. Nothing else even comes close. One bite from this particular snake and you’re dead within a few minutes. Forget calling an ambulance, forget the anti-venom there's just not enough time."
I had no idea where he was going with this. I just wanted him to give me the all clear so I could go home.
"This virus is much the same," he continued. "One bite and you’re dead. Forget the anti-virus, forget the cure. There’s no time."
He seemed to be talking to himself at that point. I noticed his Dictaphone was still on. It was almost like he was making notes, recording his thoughts so he could publish them in a medical journal one day.
There was a knock at the door and the Doctor snapped out of his reverie. A soldier in a space suit wheeled in a bed. On the bed was Kenji. He was strapped to the rail guards like me.
The doctor collected his notes. "Thank you, Rebecca. You’ve been most helpful." "Leave these two here for now," he said to the soldiers. "At least until we interview the others."
"Hurry, sir. We don’t have much time," one of them replied.
The doctor turned his Dictaphone off and left.
Kenji’s bed was right next to mine. I sort of understood why they would strap me to a bed, but why would they do it to Kenji, to one of their own?
"How come they tied you to a bed?" I finally asked.
"I guess they figured I came into close contact with the virus," he said. "It's just a precaution."
"But we don’t even know if those psychos at the police station were infected."
"They were showing all the symptoms. The violent behavior, the indifference to pain, the bleeding. We have to be real careful. This virus... it’s extremely volatile."
"So I keep hearing. But I thought the virus was contained at the Woomera immigration centre?"
Kenji shook his head. "The immigration centre was a mess. In a matter of days it had spread through the population. I was basically on clean up duty and containment. But I knew this thing couldn’t be contained. It was already out of control by the time I got there. That’s why I deserted my post. That’s why I came for you, Rebecca. I needed to warn you."
There was an awkward silence, which was weird because I used to be able to sit with Kenji in total silence for hours and hours and there was nothing awkward about it.
"Look, Rebecca," he said. "I’m real sorry about when I left. I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t sure how to tell you."
"A simple good bye would’ve been just fine. Way better than not saying anything at all."
"I know..." he said his voice trailing off.
It was like he was thinking of the right way to say it without upsetting me further. Or maybe he was waiting for me to ask him why he didn’t tell my why he left. I don’t know. I didn’t want to play games so I kept my mouth shut. I was stubborn like that.
"My parents shipped me off to military school," he said after awhile. "I dropped out after a couple of weeks and joined the marines. I had some cousins of mine from San Fran forge a fake birth certificate that said I was eighteen. I didn’t even tell my parents right away. I know that doesn’t make it right not to have told you but I was scared, you know? And I didn’t want to get you into any trouble of my folks.
"So I joined the marines. And I don't know why, but I excelled. I became a sniper. I knew you were upset at your father for going back to the Middle East and I knew you’d be mad at me for leaving and then running off to join the marines. I know I should’ve told you. I know what I did was wrong. And I’m sorry. I really am sorry. I think about it every day. I should’ve told you."
Kenji had opened up the flood gates and let everything pour out. It sounded like he had been keeping that speech bottled up for awhile now. I couldn’t see from where I was lying down but it sounded like he was crying.
"During all the down time and the waiting," he continued. "All I could think about was telling you that I’m sorry."
I had hated him for so long and had been hurting for so long, now I didn’t know what to feel. I’d gone from red hot rage to feeling completely sympathetic and understanding in a matter of minutes. Basically he had melted my insides and now I was just mad at myself for not being mad at him. I mean, he left and he was a jerk for leaving right?
I was so caught up with how hurt and how angry I was that I never once even thought about what he was going through or why he left in the first place. I guess that was me being selfish.
"I’m not mad." I finally said. "I was mad at first. And I was mad for a long time. But I’m not anymore. At least I don’t think I am. Well maybe I am. But when you left it was like you died. It was just so sudden. One minute you were there and we could hang out together and the next minute you weren’t there. You were completely gone. I couldn’t even call you or anything. It was horrible."
It was a conversation that we needed to have. It had been brewing for the past two years, ever since he left. After we said what we needed to say we both laid there in silence, strapped to our hospital beds. Not really concerned about being tied up or what was going on around us. On the plus side, it was less awkward.
It almost felt like back when we were together. I remember when we used to stay up all night watching b-grade action movies like Rocky Four and Top Gun. Every now and then he would let me watch a chick flick. The Bodyguard was my favorite. And he liked it because it was based on an old Akira Kurosawa movie. I remember the times we used to camp out in the backyard together. One time, over summer we camped out in his backyard for two weeks straight. The tent killed the patch of grass it was covering. His parents were so mad at us. But then again they never really liked me in the first place, especially his dad.
"So what happened," I asked. "Where did you go? What are you even doing here?"
He told me his story and I was completely shocked at what he had been doing for the past two years. He had served in Iraq and Afghanistan as a sniper and a scout. He wasn’t sure of his confirmed kills because in the Afghan Mountains it was nearly impossible to get close enough to the enemy to actually confirm it. But he thought it was maybe over a hundred. I asked him if that was a lot. And he said it was.
He was only redeployed to Australia last week. He knew through a letter from his parents that I’d moved here.
"I couldn't believe that I tracked you down and actually found you. And when you answered your door, I nearly died of a heart attack."
Now I was the one who felt like I should apologize. I was about to tell him I was sorry, that I never should’ve slammed the door in his face the other day. I wanted to ask him how bad the virus was and if he really thought it was out of control. But then Doctor Hunter returned.
"We need to move you to another room," he said.
"What room? What for?" Kenji asked.
"We need to isolate you immediately. We’re moving you to the morgue."
Chapter 13
"Why do you need to take us to the morgue?" Kenji asked. "What’s down there? What are you going to do?
"That’s none of your concern, Private."
Just because someone says one thing, doesn’t mean that one thing is true. For example, just because the doctor said that being taken to the morgue was none of our concern didn’t mean that it was none of our concern. Because the truth was, being taken down to the morgue was a big, huge, massive concern.
I for one didn’t much feel like going to the morgue. It was a place for dead bodies to be stored. For dead bodies to be cut open, organs to be harvested, autopsies to be conducted.
The killer robots in space suits wheeled us out of the room and down the hall. There were people running around everywhere. Doctors were shouting at nurses. Nurses were complaining they were understaffed. Patients had been left on beds wherever there was room.
I suddenly thought of my mother. I hadn’t seen her in what felt like forever. She had been working so many night shifts and double shifts lately. I still didn’t know how I was going to tell her that I’d been arrested and about all the crazy stuff that was going on.
The soldiers wheeled us passed all the mayhem and into the elevator. Doctor Hunter leant over and pressed the button that read ‘morgue’. The elevator descended and I felt my stomach drop. When we arrived on the bottom floor, the elevator doors opened and we were taken down a long corridor.
Just then it hit me that we were completely helpless. They had sucked us in with the promise of medical help but were they really going to help us? Why did they need to take us to the morgue? Was it just another precaution? Luckily I was able to keep myself together. Normally I would’ve freaked out. I'd probably be screaming my head off like the scared little girl that I was. But since Kenji was there with me I was able to keep it together.
We must have gone at least a hundred meters before we arrived at a large set of doors
There were two soldiers wearing gas masks and space suits standing guard with their rifles at the ready. They opened the doors and we were wheeled into the morgue.
Inside there were a couple of steel autopsy tables with low hanging fluorescent lights positioned directly over each one. At the far end of the room was large sliding door that must’ve been the fridge where they stored the bodies.
Positioned next to the autopsy tables were four other hospital beds. It was Maria, Jack, Kim and Officer Dennis. I was initially relieved to see them. I was starting to wonder where they had been taken. It was comforting to know we were all back together. But then my relief turned to fear. Not only were they tied up as well but they were all wearing flu masks and Kim had been gagged. And it looked like nothing had been done about Dennis’s leg. The shard of glass had been removed but the wound hadn’t been stitched up or cleaned. It wasn’t even bandaged.
"Is everything all right?" Kenji asked.
The doctor was in the process of placing a flu mask over our faces. "The flu masks are just a precaution."
Thank God he didn’t gag me. I think I would’ve screamed.
After Doctor Hunter finished putting the flu masks over our faces he left without saying a word. The soldiers followed him and locked the door.
Our beds were lined up in a row right next to the autopsy tables, in full view of all the surgical instruments they used for cutting open cadavers and the scales they use to weigh organs.
We talked nervously.
"So why has Kim been gagged?" I asked.
"She was being just a tad aggressive," Jack answered.
"That’s an understatement," Maria said.
Kim started mumbling, trying to explain herself but she gave up after she realized no one could understand her.
"Well this totally sucks. Whose idea was it to come to the hospital?" Maria asked.
"Wasn’t my idea," Jack said. "I wanted to go home remember?"
"Hey, that man was in serious danger of bleeding to death," Kenji said, defending his decision to come to the hospital. "You would’ve wanted us to do the exact same thing if it was you with the massive piece of glass in your thigh."
"Not if I knew we were going to end up in the morgue," Maria fired back.
"Speaking of Dennis," I asked. "Is he all right? His leg doesn't look too good. Why haven’t they stitched him up yet?"
The wound was oozing dark blood. Officer Dennis seemed to have passed out or maybe he was sedated.
"Is he all right?"
"I think they gave him some morphine," Jack said. "He's just asleep."
"Surely this is just a precaution right?" Maria asked. "It looked pretty busy upstairs; maybe we’re just being isolated as a safety procedure?"
"That makes sense," I said. "But why the morgue? This place gives me the creeps."
I was just about to ask them if they had been interviewed by Doctor Hunter and if he had asked them all those weird questions about being a dog or cat person when we heard a bump followed by scratching noises. We all looked over at the large sliding door of the morgue fridge.
"What was that?" Maria asked.
There was another bump and we all strained our ears. I personally wanted to back away and get some distance between me and the fridge door but being tied down sort of made that impossible. I just then realized if we were attacked now, like we were at the police station we would be completely screwed.
"OK, Kenji. These are your people. What's going on? Is this normal procedure?" I asked.
"Yeah, of course. It's standard practice when dealing with any sort of virus. It's going to be all right," he said as though he was trying to convince himself more than us.
"Really? Well explain to me why it doesn’t feel like it’s going to be all right." Maria said.
"We're being isolated from the rest of the hospital as a precaution. As soon as they figure out we’re not infected they’ll let us go. Simple as that."
I hoped he was right.
After a few more minutes of arguing we all suddenly stopped. We were really just going around in circles, arguing about the same things over and over. It was pointless. A couple of hours must have passed and we all fell asleep. I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep, especially in a morgue but everyone was exhausted. Jack, Maria and I had spent the night in a holding cell, Kim had been on duty for a week straight and Kenji had been on the run, probably sleeping on the streets.
