The Ebola Wall (9 page)

Paige looked at him with sad eyes, shaking her head. “Okay,
Daddy
. What do you want to hear about first, the rape-gangs or the time Anna shot the cannibals who were about to eat us?”

Anna spoke up from the back seat before her father could digest her sister’s shocking question. “Did you know rats don’t taste so bad, Dad? They have a lot more meat on ’em than pigeons.”

Captain Norse forced himself to sit upright, the effort leaving his body throbbing and short of breath. The woman was there again.

“How are you feeling?” she asked in a neutral tone.

“I must of taken more of an ass-kicking than I thought. I feel like shit.”

The motion of her hand snapping through the air signaled she wanted to take his temperature. “You’ve been here three days,” she reminded him. “I would think you should be mending by now. I noticed your appetite has declined the last day or so. Let’s see if you have a fever.”

She held out the old-fashioned glass thermometer, indicating she wanted to stick it under his tongue. He complied, allowing her to insert the instrument without comment.

While she waited for his body to heat the mercury-filled tube, the nurse retrieved a clipboard hanging just outside the cell door. “Any new symptoms? Aches? Pains? Vomiting? Diarrhea?”

It occurred to the captain what she was getting at. “You think I have Ebola, don’t you?”

“Maybe,” she smiled. “Enough time has passed since you’ve been exposed, but it could be any one of a hundred things. Flu, infection from your injuries, a cold… there’s no way to be sure, we haven’t had the equipment to test blood for months.”

“What’s your name?” Norse asked, muttering the words around the glass tube in his mouth.

“Elissa. Dr. Elissa Herald.”

“Doctor? As in medical doctor, I assume?”

“Yes, that’s very astute of you, Captain Norse,” she replied sarcastically.

“You said you were a nurse… at least that’s what I remember from when I got here,” he countered.

“I said I was your caretaker and jailer,” she replied. “I never said I was a nurse.”

Their conversation was interrupted when she reached for the thermometer. Holding it up to the light, he watched closely as a frown crossed her face. “Well?”

“You have a low grade fever, Captain. That’s neither positive nor negative, given your injuries and our lack of antibiotics. We’ll just have to keep an eye on it.”

“How long am I to be held captive?”

“That is up to the Colonel,” she said after taking his pulse. “Is there something you need or someplace you want to go?”

He ignored the question, studying her as she noted his vital signs on the chart.

He judged the physician to be in her late 20s, attractive in a wholesome sort of way. Her complexion was clear with just a hint of sun – obviously a person who spent some time outdoors. He thought she was probably of German ancestry, given the dishwater blonde hair and high cheekbones. Texas was full of such lineage; the central section of the state settled by Arian immigrants long ago. If he hadn’t felt like shit, he’d probably be flirting with her.

“So will I live, Doctor?”

“Doubtful,” she replied in earnest. “But then so few do these days.”

Without another word, she pivoted and left him to ponder his fate.

The joy of reunion was absent in the McMillian household. When the encrypted HAM broadcasts had arranged for their daughters to be rescued, both parents had anticipated peace and happiness would replace the stress and worry they had suffered for months. It wasn’t to be.

Paige suffered horrible nightmares, springing upright and screaming at the top of her lungs during the night. Anna was clearly paranoid, pulling her pistol at the smallest sound or surprise. Twice her mother had found herself staring down the barrel of the revolver, guilty of nothing worse than just entering the same room.

The girls were restless as well, but more telling was the fact that they never separated. They went to the bathroom together, slept in the same room, cooked, ate, and spent countless hours watching cable news. On the rare occasion that one of the girls managed to accidently leave the other’s side, a mad scramble ensued to find the missing sister. The two sibling’s reactions were always swift, but unemotional.

One day Anna noticed a picture on the piano, the image of a large cat drawing her attention. “What happened to Mittens?” she asked her mother, suddenly remembering the once-loved pet.

“Oh, I forgot to take down that old picture,” mom had replied, hustling over to pick up the small frame. “Your dad and I thought we’d removed all of those photographs so you two girls wouldn’t be upset.”

“So what happened to him?” Anna pressed.

“He passed away, honey. He was pretty old, you know, and he didn’t wake up one morning,” the mother answered, anticipating an emotional reaction to the news.

“Sorry to hear that,” Anna shrugged.

And that was it. No tears, no more questions, no sadness whatsoever. It was troubling.

Mother and father struggled to help their children, unsure of how to treat or react to their behavior. The only determination they could make was to show unconditional love and hope for the best.

After a few days, it became clear that the worst of it had nothing to do with either child’s experiences in Houston. No, what eroded the situation in the middle class, suburban household was the fact that two of the McMillian clan were fugitives, and the other two were harboring them.

The first time a police cruiser rolled innocently down the street, Mrs. McMillian nearly had a spell. “I don’t want to go to jail,” she kept whispering to her husband as they watched the cop drive by. “Oh, God, please don’t send me to jail.” His wife’s pale complexion and shaking hands were a telling sign of the fear that gripped his once happy home.

Paige finally brought things to a head. “I’m going to Washington,” she announced. “I can’t sit here, hiding from the authorities while doing nothing to help the people back in Houston. Anna and I are going to join the big protest march and do our part. It’s just something we have to do.”

Again, Mr. McMillian tried to be temperate. “Paige, I don’t think traveling the roads would be prudent. Really, sweetie, for your own safety I don’t think you should go. Besides, your mom and I just got you back – the thought of your leaving so soon would crush both of us.”

“We can take care of ourselves,” Anna had countered, obviously informed about the plan. “We’ll just be gone a few days. You weren’t there, Daddy. You don’t understand. Paige and I have to do something… we have to help those people we left behind.”

Paige’s next statement ended the debate. “You and mom are trying so hard to help us heal, and we love you for it. Taking this trip to Washington is the best therapy for both of us. We have to feel like we’re a part of something, like we are part of the solution. Besides, we were cooped up inside of what was essentially a prison for months. Going cross-country and having a little freedom will feel good.”

Reluctantly, Mr. and Mrs. McMillian agreed, the concerned father handing over his truck keys.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Paige surprised him again. “We want to take the bus. We want to look out the windows and see the countryside roll by.” 

And so they did.

Two days later, Mr. McMillian waved goodbye to his two daughters, both of their faces pressed against the Greyhound’s window – Anna vigorously waving, Paige blowing kisses.

Their itinerary involved a stop in Branson, Missouri, Anna dying to see her favorite Country and Western star perform live. After an overnight stay, they planned a stopover in Indianapolis, Mr. McMillian discovering that the local Dallas Mavericks were playing the Indiana Pacers in a professional basketball game. Paige was a huge fan of the sport. The tickets would be waiting at the will-call booth, not three blocks from the bus station. A hotel on Market Square would provide the last evening’s rest before their final leg to Washington, DC.

The girls were giddy, the parents concerned. Anna didn’t have a permit to carry a concealed handgun, yet wouldn’t part with the weapon. Given her demonstrated jumpiness, there was good cause for worry.

Yet, both of the elder McMillians could understand. The girls had been through an experience that rivaled hardcore, extended combat. In a way, both suffered symptoms not so different from a returning soldier’s Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Professional help was out of the question, however, any answers addressing the source of their affliction likely to land both girls back in some sort of prison. 

Chapter 4

The fever was unlike anything Captain Norse had ever experienced, the pain racking his brain giving the officer an entirely new perspective of the word “unbearable.”

His body couldn’t seem to settle on any single hell. The shivering waves of cold came from inside his core, as if a surgeon had inserted a block of dry ice in his gut. About the time his tortured mind began to adjust to that anguish, the captain’s chest began to scorch with a fire from deep within.

The wild swings between hot and cold weren’t the worst of it, however. Every joint in his body felt like it was hinged with sandpaper. Any movement, from breathing to vomiting, was pure torture. He wanted to die and mentioned as much to his doctor.

Upon hearing the request, Dr. Herald nodded her understanding. Without a second thought, the physician unsnapped the .45 caliber pistol on her belt. “I’ll make this as painless as possible,” she said without emotion, using a slingshot action to chamber a round in the big weapon.

Norse couldn’t believe his eyes; his pain-scrambled mind thinking it was some sort of joke. “Head or chest?” she asked calmly.

“Seriously?” he managed to croak. “You would seriously shoot me?”

Tilting her head, Elissa seemed puzzled by his question. After a bit, her robotic expression changed, a dim flush of anger in her eyes. “Why, of course I would. What do you think I am, some sort of animal?” she protested. “Why do you think I carry such a heavy, big caliber? I don’t want my patients to suffer, and the .45 has proven to be the most efficient, at least in the few hundred or so euthanizing procedures I’ve had to perform.”

Her statements were so shocking he was distracted from the pain. Still, it wasn’t lost on Norse that he was entirely at her mercy. But the surprise wasn’t over. “Most of my patients wait until they’re too weak to hold the gun themselves,” she stated. “If you feel strong enough to hold this weapon with a steady hand, I can let you do it.”

The captain’s mind tried desperately to reconcile the dichotomy being presented by the woman at his bedside. Here was a healer, a trained physician who had taken an oath to do no harm, and a young female to boot. Yet, her cold eyes and tone left little doubt that she would indeed kill him without a second thought.

It then dawned on him how the troops manning the wall had dealt with the guilt of gunning down escapees. More than once, he had mentally justified such action with a claim of “ending human suffering.” But he was a warrior. He was indoctrinated to fight and kill the enemy. What on God’s earth had this doctor experienced to reach such a place?

She seemed to sense his thoughts. Shaking her head at the miscommunication, Dr. Herald began to explain. “We ran out of pain medications shortly after the Q… the quarantine began. The final stages of Ebola-B are excruciatingly painful, Captain. We had wards with tens of thousands of suffering people. Euthanasia, by a bullet, became a popular choice among those withering in agony from the affliction. As evil or inhumane as it may sound now, it was the only alternative we could offer at the time.”

Norse tired to contemplate what this woman had endured, but was interrupted by his stomach, the troubled organ picking that moment to initiate another round of dry heaves.

Without the slightest flinch, Dr. Herald reached to lift the bucket beside his cot. Norse no longer had the strength to make the short trip to the toilet. Only bile and blood came up, his only intake having been water for two days.

Maybe that bullet isn’t such a bad plan
, he thought, taking a sip of the offered drink.
I’m beginning to understand.