Shady Friday #19

Hello Bookworms!
Wow! I finished my first short story! OK, for those of you wondering, I looked at the premise of Shady Friday #6, and erased that paragraph, and turned the whole thing into a short story. Warning: it's rather dark. My muse woke up, and she didn't want to be cute, at all. So, mildly dark short story ahead! Anyway, please read! I hope you enjoy it! (Oh, and I really don't know anything about how diseases work, so I have no idea if what I wrote is scientifically accurate!)
~

Veloces Mortem.

The lights were on in the hallway were Kyra was hiding. It was the first thing she heard. It’s funny how the brain works when it’s panicking, isn’t it? Instead of seeing the lights, she heard them. Their phosphorescent hum was about all she had heard since the stampede of people had rushed out of the building 15 minutes ago. She had hidden, instead of running with them. She wasn’t a fast runner, and knew better than to get caught up in a stampede where she might get crushed underfoot. She had instead elected to hide, and wait until everyone had left. She would have left at that point herself, except she had to find Carol. She walked carefully through the hallway, trying not to make any sound that might disturb whatever had scared all those people.

“It would be a moose again, wouldn’t it?” She muttered under her breath. “Last time a moose got loose in the hospital they wanted to declare a national emergency.” She kept walking, making her way to the lounge outside of the room where they kept the coma patients. “And of course, it’s during a crisis I would forget the name of where she works.” She came to the doorway of the lounge, and stopped. The lights in the ceiling of the lounge weren’t on, the lounge had windows and the sun was up. Still, it wasn’t the lights that had made her stop. It was the scared man standing there, with a gun to Carol’s head. He noticed Kyra standing in the doorway, and grabbed Carol’s arm, pulling her closer to him, still with the gun to her head.

“Who are you?” He asked, obviously panicking. Kyra tried to analyze him from what little she knew about psychology, but she couldn’t come up with much. She had mostly been studying what choices people made with their personal appearance, and that wasn’t helpful. He had Brown hair, Brown eyes, a scowl, and was wearing a hospital gown. Of course, he was a coma patient. She recognized him. He was their resident John Doe. Apparently he had woken up and stolen a gun from an individual in their understaffed military guard. Unfortunately, his stance told her that he knew exactly how to use it.

“I’m Kyra Wall, I’m 15 and a freshman in high school. And you know that girl you’re holding at gun point? She’s Carol Wall, she’s 13, and about to go out to her first dance. She’s really nervous about dancing, she’s not very good on her feet and wants to make a good impression on the friend who invited her to the dance. She’s my little sister. We don’t want to hurt you, so why don’t you explain this to us?”

He laughed, the fear evident in his voice. “Explain? Oh I get it, that’s one of your techniques. To get me to talk. That won’t happen, I know how to keep secrets. I won’t talk! You can’t make me!” His voice was nearly cracking. His grip on the gun tightened, and a tear fell from Carol’s eye. It took all of Kyra’s composure not to run forward and punch the brown-haired jerk in the face for making her sister cry, but she composed herself, taking a deep breath and forcing her shoulders back into a neutral posture. She continued talking in a calming voice, the one she had used with the nursery children who wouldn’t stop crying.

“Alright, you’ve had training? Well I can’t help but notice you seem scared.” Kyra inquired.

 He grit his teeth at her. “That’s because I’m dying thanks to your sister!” he spat out.

“It was an accident!” Carol cried. His hold tightened and she bit her lip, trying not to talk again. Kyra took a small step forward.

“Is it alright if I hear this? I don’t know what happened. Please, I want to hear her side.” He thought about it for a minute, then nodded.

“I didn’t know it was the disease! Honestly!” She sobbed out, tears streaming down her face. “I thought it was a sedative! I would have checked, but he was acting wild and I didn’t know what to do! I swear, I would never put someone in danger like that on purpose! You know me, I-“

“That’s enough, you’ve told your side,” he was calming down a little, but Kyra was still on edge around him. “I don’t care if I die, I won’t reveal information about my country.”

“No one’s asking you to. I just want my sister back. Can I ask her a few questions?” He tensed, clearly against the idea, but again he nodded. His tight on Carol was tight though, not willing to risk her escaping.

“Carol? What was the disease?” Carol was nearly in hysterics. “Carol, take a few breaths. In, hold, out, repeat. Now tell me, what was the disease?”

“V-veloces mortem. It’s an experimental disease they were working on.”

Kyra thought for a moment, then shook her head slowly.  “I don’t remember you talking about that at home. Is there a cure?”

Carol nodded. “It’s outside, the guards have it. They took it with them.”

 A thought struck Kyra, and suddenly there was something else to worry about. 

“Carol, how was this disease transmitted?”

Carol thought for a moment. “Um…It was airborne, I think.” Her breath sped up. “Kyra, are we safe? Will we get sick too?” 

The man seemed to be in a state of shock. “Oh no. What have I done?” He breathed out. It seemed like he was talking to himself, so Kyra focused on her sister.  

“We’ll be fine, okay? We won’t get sick.”  The man shook his head, and lowered his weapon, letting Carol go.

“No, you won’t get sick, you’re sick already. What have I done?” It took all of Kyra’s self control not to rush to her sister, but she pulled herself back reminding herself that the man was still armed and sudden moves were a bad idea. Still, she walked as quickly as she could to her sister and pulled her into a tight hug. She had never noticed until then how much taller than her Carol was becoming, or how her hair smelled of lavender. Or maybe it was the disease, affecting her senses.

“Carol?” She asked calmly, though tears were forming in her voice. “What are the symptoms?”  

“I…..I don’t know. Okay? I don’t know!” Carol was growing angry, but it seemed to be with herself. “I wasn’t in charge of this! I’m an assistant in the coma ward, for crying out loud! I don’t get involved in the military side of things! I’m just supposed to be doing this for service club! All I know is what it’s called, that it’s airborne, and it takes an hour. Okay?” She fell to her knees, sobbing. “This is all my fault…” She whimpered.

Kyra nodded again. “Okay, it takes an hour to kill people? How long since we were infected?”

“43 Minutes.” The man spoke up from the corner. He was still holding the gun, but it was held loosely in his hand. They would all die soon anyway, there was no point in shooting anyone now.

“Thank you. 43 minutes? That gives us 17 minutes left. If we head out those doors, we can get to the cure, right?” He looked down. He was calm now, as if somehow resigned to his fate. 

“You have 17. We have less. You were probably infected when the stampede of people came running through. That was 43 minutes ago. I was injected 7 minutes before that, and she was infected within moments of it. We have less than 10 minutes left. If you want to make a run for the cure, go ahead. It should take you three minutes to get out of the building, but if you’re fast you can make it in two. That would give you about 30 seconds to get the cure in you before you’re too far gone.”

 She stood, shocked. “What?” She managed to gasp out.

“And with that time lapse, you’ve passed the opportunity.” Kyra shook her head, not wanting to believe it, so he elaborated. “Diseases have a point of no return, understand? With a disease with such a short incubation period, the point of no return is about 15 minutes before death. Your sister and I are past that point, so a cure wouldn’t help us. You’re about one minute away from that mark yourself, and you can’t get to the cure in that time frame. We’re too far inside the building.”

“H-how…” She stammered.

“How do I know? “ He sighed. “I was in the military. Fighting your country, actually, but politics doesn’t really matter right now. I was in a special branch, dedicated to fighting biological warfare.”

Kyra nodded. “You were an army doctor.”

He nodded, as if just accepting it himself. “To put it simply.” She was silent for a moment, Carol’s hysterics having calmed down.

“What is your name?” she asked. He smiled at her.

“Colin. Colin Masson. Don’t you have any family you want to say goodbye to? I’m sure there’s a phone in the nurse’s office you could use.”

She shook her head, then decided to explain. “Actually, I don’t let people know this, but we’re orphans. Our parents died a few years back.”

“Don’t people notice? What if you get a report card? How do you live without parents?”

“I stay under the radar. I don’t get excellent grades, but I never get awful ones either. And as for funding, our parents left us an inheritance. Not much, but enough to live on.” She glanced at Carol, who had fallen asleep due to her hysterics. “At least she’ll be asleep for it.” She sat down with her back against the wall, silent for a few minutes. “How much longer do we have?”

“I’ve got about 4 minutes. You’ve still got 11.” She sighed, leaning her head against the wall.

“What about you? Any family or friends?” He shook his head. “My family’s dead, and my friends were all soldiers in the war. Those who survived have probably assumed me dead. Do you have any idea how long I’ve been gone for?” She shook her head.

“All I know is that you were in a coma when we came here, and that was a few years back.” She thought for a moment. “What war did you fight in?”

“The American-Canadian war,” He replied.

 She stood up. “But that wasn’t a war, it was two battles! It was decided when a Cornel, Cornel Mason-“ She stopped short. “You. It stopped when you won us the battle.” He stood straight up.

“I won you the battle? We’re on the same side?” She nodded.

“You were a war hero. No one knew what happened to you after the battle. All this time, you were here: a tiny hospital in the middle of nowhere.” He smiled at her, shaking his head.

“All this time, I was fighting a war that I’d already won. I really am an idiot….” He collapsed to the ground. She was at his side in a moment.

“Are you ok?” She asked. He snorted.

“I’ve got 45 seconds left.” She took a shaky breath.

“How do you feel?” She asked, tears finally staining her face.

“Weak, but other than that I’m fine. I’m joining my comrades. I’m going home.” She smiled at him, and his eyes lost their focus. She caught her breath. She hadn’t seen someone die since her parents had passed away three years back. She closed his eyes, and moved back over to her sister. She didn’t want to check if she was dead yet or not, She had to be, but she could pretend otherwise. She sighed, laying down next to her sister. She closed her eyes, waiting for the end.

Less than half an hour later a tactical team made its way into the hospital, checking to see if anyone was alive. They had cleared the surrounding area, and were kitted out in biohazard suits. They made their way to the main lobby, and looked around. There were three bodies lying on the ground. The men looked at each other. The assignment had only mentioned two.

“Anyone alive?” the leader called. A few moments later a voice called over to him

“It looks like patient zero made it, but not the other two.” There was silence, then the leader called again:

“Arrange for funerals for the other two. But bring patient zero outside. Get the ambulance.”

Once outside, they checked for infection, then the leader took off his helmet.

“As suspected, patient zero shows no sign of infection. We’re safe.” The rest of the team took off their helmets, and proceeded to take off the rest of their biohazard suits. One of the younger soldiers, the one who Colin had taken the gun from, came up to the leader.

“Sir, what should we do with the building once the bodies are removed? Is it safe? Or should we burn the whole thing down?” The leader shook his head.

“It’s not safe, but burning it down would just make this thing spread. No. We need to quarantine the building, and check back every few years to see if it’s safe yet.” He glanced over at the ambulance. “It looks like patient zero is coming around. You can let her friends through, she’s safe.” The soldier was about to leave, when the leader spoke again. “Oh, and don’t mention how she survived. It’s probably best that they don’t know that she’s immune because we were developing the virus from her to begin with.” The soldier nodded, then ran off to let the people through.

“Carol, Carol!” called Kyra’s friend Earl as he ran up. She looked around confused.

“Earl, I don’t understand, what happened?”

“I don’t know. Are you ok?” She nodded shakily.

“I’m fine but…Kyra, she’s…..” She broke down in tears, and Earl hugged her tightly.

“I’m so sorry for you.” He muttered, wondering how any of this could have happened. 

~ 

OK, that was rather long. What did you think? Do you want me to write another short story? Was this one too dark? Oh, and thank you to my friend who helped me edit this! That really meant a lot! Anyway, I'll try to keep up with blogging! 

Scribe ergo quae vidisti vivere!