GoT Writings

House of Black and White GoT Challenge Prompt 72, w.c. 1464

72. "Don't mess with that."
"I want to know what's inside it."
[w.c. 1464, story only]


In the days preceding the Near Annihilation the Black Plague transformed into something diabolical. For centuries it was a horrible thing that would occur every year, the doctors would cure every year, and life went on. In the years of the Near Annihilation, the strain took a turn for the ugly. This is that story.
Dr. Dallas Neal threw the scope with one hand and grabbed the infant with the other, and the mother wept in heaving sobs and deep inhaled sniffs followed by fits of coughing. He locked the door to the burn room. He put the infant on a table. He should have more respect for the dead, but this infant had the hybrid plague. Usually, the plague was kept to a few hundred cases a year. In most cases, it was treatable. Lately, a hybrid form of the plague developed. They had contained it in most cases. The protocol was clear. With barely a second thought, pulling the emergency lever would move the unit from lockdown to quarantine. The infant had hemorrhaged blood from every orifice. The hazmet crew was already doing the hazardous waste cleanup. Dr. Neal was shouting, “We need to burn everything with blood on it. Red bag it.”
East was the first hospital to put the crematorium in to deal with the plague cases. Originally, it was to be used as a way to make ends meet. They were getting all the plague cases because they could dispose of the bodies quickly.
The first wave was nuts, and the panic did not let up. The young doctor was talking to himself as he assessed another patient for the HP. “Get a hold of yourself. This isn’t like you. I need you alert and calm.” All the self talk sounded good, but it did not help. He was still running from here to there doing unorganized searches for whatever he thought he needed.
The nurses and interns were equally as panicked. Howard was in his first year residency, standing in the middle of the unit with his scopes and “It’s too late. It’s in the eyes. You can see it. You can see it. We have to burn it. We have to burn it.”
Dr. Neal took a minute to slap the intern’s face, then stared at the blood now staining his hands. The slap may have shocked the intern, but now blood poured out of his eyes. Dr. Neal now saw what the intern meant. The eyes had something moving behind them, before he let Howard sink to the floor.
The alerts were going off constantly. “Code Blue, Bed …” Dr. Neal no longer registered that everyone in the unit was in Code Blue. The blood? How could this epidemic be spread by blood? That was ridiculous! Wasn’t it? Yet, it wasn’t. This must be what soldiers felt when they knew they would not make it out alive.
“Doctor! Help or get out of the way!”
“I’m sorry. Who was the last patient worked on?”
This intern was not his usual respectful self. He was starting to use the slang for the crematorium and ordering his superiors around. “Either help Howard or put him in the Burn Room. MOVE.”
Dr. Neal moved. He should have been the one giving orders, but the only thing he knew for sure was that he had 24 hours tops before he too would be put in the burn room.
When the chief physician, the head in charge on that day, inquired about the infant mortality, Dr. Neal choked out, “There.” Georgie approached the naked, blood soaked infant who lay between layers of discarded latex gloves. She pulled fresh gloves on while making mental notes of the infant’s condition before having him moved to the room where dead bodies were transferred to the morgue, the one the interns called the Burn Room. She pulled the ophthalmoscope off the wall to begin her exam of his body. When she looked in his eyes, she saw what Neal saw and knew something was seriously wrong.
Georgie stepped back to let the interns moving in automatic, as they all must do when fatigue and urgency were both ratcheted to the max, remove the infant to the transfer station.
She moved to the front desk, the sounds around her dull and overlapping, “Page Dr. Davis.”
It might help to know that the blood was the pathogen. Georgie startled at the hand tapping her shoulder
“Oh, , I did not see you.” Turning back to the Charge Nurse, “Cancel that. I can work with Dr. Neal.”
“We can’t keep up with getting all these things burned. What is the infectious cycle?”
“We don’t know. The numbers are all over the board. Some report days, some weeks, some hours. Why? It doesn’t matter. We are in quarantine lockdown and people are dropping like flies. It’s just a question of who’s going to clean up the last person dropping.”
“That’s gross. This is just like Bubonic Plague on steroids. We’ve treated that before. What’s the protocol. It can’t be that much different.”
“We ruled the ancient plague out in the first round of tests.”
“Did you see their eyes?
“It’s not hyphema. We ruled that out.”
“I know that. They are all bleeding out, every last one of them, while still breathing. Did you examine the eyes on any of them?”
“Yes. We can’t explain it. And we don’t have the time to do an in-depth study. I haven’t had time to check to see if this is localized or just how far and fast it’s spreading.”
Dr. Neal’s head snapped around. Firefighters and first responders were pounding on the door. Forcing his way through the bodies. “What happened? We are in lockdown. If you come in, you will not be able to leave.”
The Fire Chief hung his head in irritation. “Some nut is running around setting everything on fire. We can’t keep up. I have injured. What should we do?”
Georgie had followed Dallas into the fray. She caught his eye. “Out of the pan, into the fire.”
“Or the inferno.”
Dallas looked the Chief in the eyes, “Your exposed?”
“Probably.”
Dallas entered the release code on the panel and let the firefighters in. He did not know what good it would do to treat them when they were going to die anyway, but the oath he had sworn took over and he had to help as long as help was needed and as long as supplies lasted.
And the supplies would have lasted for a few more days. But the panic in the City did not. The hospital was set ablaze. Anyone trying to leave the hospital was shot on sight. At this point, no one really cared about record keeping other than to say it was a dark time.
The remnant that survived rebuilt. It was an amazing testament to the human spirit. The new founders had the good sense to preserve this part of history. They put the surviving information in a locked box and marked it with the hazard symbols. It was assumed that everyone would know and respect the symbol and not open the lead box.
Adults would have known what the symbol meant and respected it. They did not count on teenagers overcoming the security levels. They did not anticipate the level of curiosity in a teenager.
Mark and Jeff were just two ordinary teens playing hookie for the day. The teachers wanted to talk about the Near annihilation, but they wanted to play vid wars with their 3D RPG helmets. The boys had found a private spot in the ruins many weeks ago and shared the info with other teens. So far no adults had been informed and the place remained a perfect place to get into their war games.
Mark was the first to call a timeout. The box looked so interesting.
Jeff was concerned. "Don't mess with that."
But Mark insisted, "I want to know what's inside it."
Jeff read the inscription aloud, “In the years of the Near Annihilation, the strain of the Bubonic Plague took a turn for the ugly. This is that story.” “What do you think that means?”
Mark shrugged. “Don’t care. How does it open?”
“Not sure, there must be something that fits in that.” He surmised as he placed his finger on the glass plate attached to the seal of the box, which immediately released the seal.
Mark was pleased. He proclaimed as he lifted the lid, “Thanks, man! Do or die.”
The boys read the story. Mark was the first to be disappointed, “Still had to learn that plague shit today.”
“I know. What did you do? Your eyes are weird. They’re bleeding! We have to get you to a hospital!”