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The Church Part 10- The Sickness, Chapter 10 |
| Written by john mccuaig | |
| Sunday, 10 August 2008 | |
Straight after the meeting I find myself back up on my roof and once again I am sitting there talking to myself. "****! No it can't be! The Berlin Virus had started off just like this, people were on the telly coughing and then getting more and more sick. How the hell can it happen again? Has it ******* mutated once again? Why will it just not leave us all alone?" I know that I need to go and speak to Dawn and Matt, I need to get some answers.
As soon as the sun rises I make my way along the highway on foot to the supermarket and then head straight up to Jim's old office. This, and the two rooms next door, has for some time now been transformed into their own personal sleeping quarters. When I get up to their door I have to take several deep breaths before I can get up the courage to knock on it.
"Hi Sam, come on in. Would you like me to get you something to eat or drink?" Dawn greets me with her now usual politeness. Its then that I notice she has a bit, no make that a lot, of a warm glow around her. It seems that the gift of being an expectant mother more than suits her well.
I shake my head and walk right by her without saying a word and into their trim and tidy little abode. Matt is sitting on a chair beside their home made bed and is attentively reading a book. He barely lifts his head up from the pages and barely gives a half hearted nod in my direction.
Even after this long time it seems that he has still not fully forgiven me or even forgot about my part in his beloved fathers' death.
"Dawn, Matt I am sorry to disturb you so early but I am really worried." I sit down on the bed without being asked; I can't stay standing up, I feel like I may faint any minute now. I feel as if I'm going into total shock.
"It, the virus, its came back again hasn't it? That ******* virus is going to get us. Has everything we have fought so hard to achieve recently, and the deaths we have caused, all been just a total waste?"
Matt gets up; whispers something in Dawns ear and leaves the room without even saying a word to me. She then turns back towards me, "Sam, it's not the virus. Please calm down; if you can just wait for a few minutes and then we will explain everything to you." I go to reply that I need the answers now but she holds her hand up to stop me and then she turns away and sets about clearing away all the dirty dishes from the breakfast table.
Matt returns after only a couple of minutes with Sylvie Fells at his side. I recognise her straight away as she is the nurse for our two communities; she was originally one of the supermarket survivors. She has done some really excellent work since I first met her and was now even training up a couple of the others in the arts of medicine to help her out.
I remember someone telling me once that when it all began she had disobeyed all the calls for any medical staff to go and assist in the hospitals. She had decided to stay at home and look after her gravely stricken husband. He of course eventually turned into one of the beasts but somehow she had managed to get away. Sylvie still won't tell anybody how she escaped but she was fortunately found, and not killed, as she was wandering around by one of Jim Wallace's early patrols.
"Sam, you of course know Sylvie. I am going to let her explain what we have got going on now. She can also answer all the medical questions that you may have." He then dejectically sits back down on his chair whilst he starts to slowly rub his hands through his by now long blond hair.
Sylvie smiles at me and then takes a deep breath and starts, "I will try and keep this simple Sam. First of all without a lab to confirm my findings I can't be a hundred percent sure about what I am telling you but to the best of my knowledge I am correct. You will be glad in a way to hear it's not the virus that infecting us. But what we are seeing is just the start of another virus, the start of a Tuberculosis epidemic. The coughing that you have undoubtedly noticed will only be the start, it is going to get a hell of a lot worse and on the law of averages at least eighty five percent of us will get affected."
At first I feel a delight and a strong relief that it's not the Berlin virus but then I notice that the sadness is still fully etched on the other three peoples faces.
I want; no I needed to get some more info. "How bad is it going to get? Doesn't that just cause some bad coughs?" It must be pretty obvious that my medical knowledge isn't that good.
"Yes it does starts off in the lungs but unabated it will soon spread like wild fire throughout the whole body. It will quickly attack the lymph system, the central nervous system and even the bones and joints. Unfortunately if untreated it's also got a very high mortality rate. I can guarantee you this Sam; if it is in fact Tuberculosis we will lose over half of this group within a year."
"But..." I am trying to think of anything that could possibly help, "but don't we have medicines from the in store chemists here at the supermarket? Christ there is shelves and shelves of the bloody stuff in there. Surely there has got something amongst all that stuff that can help us?"
Sylvie shakes her grey haired and wrinkled head, "No Sam, my god if only it was that simple. We need certain strong antibiotics which are not kept in normal pharmacies. The only ones which will work on this are Rifampicin and Isoniazid. It's also not just what we need it's also the huge amount. It will take a good few months of the treatment to ensure that its purged completely from everyone, we are talking about thousands of tablets here. If its not fully eradicated at the first attempt then it will just resurface again and we will be right back at square one."
Matt now stands up and puts a comforting hand on Sylvie's shoulder, she smiles at him and sits down at the table while he turns back to me. "So Sam you now know the full story. We have been keeping it quiet from everyone else until we had came up with a plan and I will tell you now that a plan is what we have."
With his arm outstretched he leads me over to a local map he has got pinned up on the far wall. He points to a large building, "Here, this is the answer," he says. I get closer to the map so that I can see what he is trying to show me. I am stunned as it suddenly dawns on me what he is pointing at, it's the biggest building on the map, it's Mayday Hospital!
Whilst I try and take all this in Matt continues on without even the slightest hesitation, "We have come to the conclusion that it's our only hope. We will have to borrow the two working cars; we are going to take a little trip; a trip down to the local hospital to go and get ourselves some medicine."
I now have to butt in and pipe up, "I guess we don't have much of a choice but you surely must know it's going to be a bloody suicide mission. ****. It's nearly four miles from here to the Hospital and its right bang in the heart of the most built up area around. Also now that I think some more about it can you just imagine how many people must have died in that damn hospital at the height of the outbreak? They will all have been turned into zombies; Christ it must be well into the thousands. ****, even just the size of the building; how in hells name will we ever find anything in there?"
Matt looks at me and takes a large gulp out of his cup of coffee, "Sylvie here had worked in the Hospital for over ten years; she knows it like the back of her hand. She will be our guide around inside once we get there."
He sits back down at the table, "I have picked who shall be going. The teams shall come from myself, Sylvie, Ron, you Sam and four of my best shots. And yes you're right; I don't really expect that everyone will return. But please just think of this for a minute. With children now on the way some might say it would be a brave and honourable way to die; that's if indeed that is what fate has in store for us."
I am slightly puzzled at his choices, "A couple of questions Matt, why are we taking so few people. We could quite easily fit four or five more men into the cars; surely with more of us to fight our way through means we would have a better chance of success? And secondly now please don't think I am trying to get out of this but why the hell have you picked me to go? There must be dozens of better fighters and marksmen around here than me to choose from?"
Matt almost sniggers, "We will need all that spare space in the cars. It's just not the drugs to combat the Tuberculosis that we are after; whilst we are there it's everything that we can possibly carry. After talking to Sylvie for the last few days about this we have realised that this might only be the beginning of our problems."
He goes back over to Dawn and holds her hand very gently in his.
"The risk to us from disease and viruses will just keep getting worse and worse. Think about it Sam, all that rotten meat that's just walking about everywhere; this world has turned into a perfect breeding ground for germs. No matter how much we keep the zombies out of our living areas what about all the airborne stuff? What about the water table and even the soil where we grow all of our food in, it will all just keep getting more and more contaminated."
He pauses and pours just himself another cup of coffee before he continues.
"Oh, and the answer to your other question. Yes there sure are plenty of better men than you here but there is something about you Sam, something about the way you seem to always survive. I think that maybe you will turn out to be useful." He then sheepishly looks over at his love Dawn, I can't help but think that it was all her idea, and not his, to bring me along.
I don't know whether to take that decision by Dawn as a compliment or not. I suspect he does not want to take me due to his apparent dislike of me or more than likely it's simply his total mistrust in me. I just hope he hasn't just agreed with Dawn because he has something else planned up his sleeve for me.
We, or more truthfully Matt, then make the decision that we will tell the rest of our groups the truth first thing in the following morning. We start to formulate the plan in some more detail for now but we will do it further more once everyone is aware of the problem and we have got the rest of our team together.
Sylvie and I now get up; say our good byes and leave Matt and Dawn to each others comfort.
What the **** is it with this world? Every time we think things are going well something comes along and bites us in the arse. Copyright 2008 john mccuaig |
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