Chapter 10
AVA
As Ava climbed from the car, the bright lights surrounding the small hospital blinding, a shiver snaked down her spine. Inside, a dead flu virus raged through a large swath of the population, costing some of them their lives already.
They needed to move fast to assess the situation inside and ensure that it didn’t spread beyond the town limits. They also needed to determine if any lives could be saved before the tiny town of Hemlock Falls was wiped off the map by The Board.
She bit into her lower lip as Alex skirted the rear of the car, his posture stiff as he stared at the building with a groan. She hoped they could find a quiet spot where Alex could set up his laptop. He hated germs, and she certainly didn’t blame him for hating this one big time.
They would have to be careful. The Board had already done too much to them for either of them to succumb to a modified flu strain.
She strode toward the hospital with Sebastian flanking her.
Her heartbeat quickened as they approached the building.
Every instinct told her to stay sharp, stay focused, but the nagging fear of a blackout clawed at the back of her mind.
What if the stress triggered another episode?
What if she woke up on the other side of this crisis with no memory of what she'd done—or worse, who she'd lost?
As she stepped inside, the nauseating scent of antiseptic barely covering the foul smell of the sick and dying hit her nostrils. She fought to keep her heartbeat at a normal rate, not wanting to have to worry about another blackout in the middle of this crisis.
She scanned the overcrowded waiting room, her breathing turning shallow as she crossed to the desk.
A beleaguered nurse shoved a few papers toward her. “Fill these out and get in line.”
“No,” Ava answered with a shake of her head, whipping open the wallet with her fake badge.
“Rebecca Slate, Department of Homeland Security, this is my partner, Drew Givens. We need immediate access to your security feeds and patient records. We will also need a clean and quiet space for my tech to set up monitoring equipment.”
The woman stared at her with tired eyes, her lips slightly parted as she tried to make sense of the request.
“DHS?”
“Yes,” Ava said with a nod. “This virus and its spread are a matter of national security. We’ll also need to be in contact with your chief of police. This town needs to be quarantined, and all exits to it closed. Anyone who has come in contact with an infected person needs to isolate.”
“For at least five days,” Kyle added from behind Ava.
The nurse wrinkled her forehead as she stared at Kyle. “And who are you?”
“Dr. Nathan Brooks,” Kyle answered. “I’m with the CDC. We’re going to need to set up a staging area.”
“Uhhh,” the nurse murmured.
“Call whoever is in charge here and get them down here right now,” Ava said. “This is a high priority situation.”
Ava’s eyes went wider as the exhausted nurse sat unmoving. “Now!”
She startled, grabbing the phone and pressing a button. “Hi, Dr. Meade needs to get down here right away. Yeah…no…no, it’s not a patient.” She flicked her gaze to Ava. “But this needs to be dealt with immediately.”
She set the phone into the cradle and offered Ava a tired smile. “He should be down soon. I’d ask you to take a seat, but we’re fresh out.”
“That’s okay,” Ava said. “We’ll wait for him here.”
She twisted to face the others, offering Alex a consoling smile. “You doing okay, Ace?”
He shifted his weight from foot to foot as he rubbed his neck. “I don’t know. I feel kind of achy. Should I feel achy? Is that like an early symptom or something.”
Kyle shook his head. “Dude, you couldn’t have gotten sick this fast. You’re fine.”
“I don’t know, Doc. Maybe The Board slipped it to me, too, because I definitely feel achy.”
“It’s nerves. You’ve probably been tense for the entire car ride.”
“Well, Shadow is the worst driver in the world,” Alex said with a shake of his head. “So, of course, I was.”
Sebastian scoffed. “I am not.”
“You are so. It’s like the speed limit signs are there for decoration. And on those bends?” Alex shook his head. “You were driving like a maniac.”
“Oh, I’m sorry I wanted to get here and prevent a world-wide catastrophe from occurring.”
“We could have done that if we got here five minutes later because you weren’t exceeding the speed limit by at least ten miles per hour.”
Ava wrapped an arm around Alex, rubbing his back. “Take it easy, Ace.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t do that in public. We’re supposed to be DHS.”
“I can be both DHS and his wife. We met on the job. Working a case, in fact. We fell in love,” Ava shot back.
“Aww, that’s a cute story, Avs,” Alex sad with a grin before it faded when someone across the room coughed. “Ugh, why doesn’t that doctor get down here so we can get away from all the infected people?”
A moment later, a man wearing a white coat, his features gaunt with dark circles under his eyes, hurried toward them.
“Hi, I’m Dr. Meade. Can I help you?”
Ava flipped her fake badge open again. “Rebecca Slate, DHS, this is my partner, Drew Givens. Dr. Nathan Brooks from the CDC, and my tech guru, Damien Slate. We need access to all your security feeds and patient information ASAP. We also need a space to work, and Dr. Brooks needs a staging area for decontamination. We’ll need to speak with your chief–”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Ms. Slate, just a second here. We are dealing with a situation–” He motioned to the patients in the waiting room.
“I’m well aware of the situation, and that is exactly why the DHS is here.
This is a matter of national security. This town is a hot zone.
It needs to be shut down immediately and anyone who has been exposed to this virus needs to be quarantined.
Now, I can get the military up here in one phone call, but if you’d rather not have armed guards roaming your streets, I would suggest you do what we say, when we say it. ”
He shifted his weight, his features clouding with concern. ”Uhh–“
“Look, doctor, if I may,” Kyle said. “This is a conversation best had in private. Would it be possible to move to your office?”
“Right,” the doctor said with a bob of his head, motioning for them to follow him.
As they walked through the crowded ER, Kyle asked a few probing questions.
“When did you see the first case?” he asked.
“Less than forty-eight hours ago,” Dr. Meade answered with a shake of his head. “We thought it was just a really bad case of the flu, but then we just got a flood of cases. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Effective treatments?” Kyle asked.
Dr. Meade shrugged his shoulders, running a shaky hand through his graying hair. “Nothing so far. We’ve tried standard drugs, nothing is touching this. I don’t understand it. It looks like the flu, acts like the flu, but yet can’t get a handle on it.”
Kyle shot Ava a questioning glance, and she offered him a nod, giving him the green light to give the doctor enough information to frighten him into submission.
The man motioned for them to enter a cluttered office. They shuffled in behind him, Alex making a face at all of the things spread around the space.
Kyle shut the door behind them. “Look, Dr. Meade, what I’m about to tell you is extremely confidential, but I think it’s important that someone here knows what we’re dealing with.”
“Okay?” The man’s eyebrows rose, prodding Kyle for more information.
“This isn’t the flu, it’s a manufactured bio-weapon that has been purposefully unleashed on your town as a test of how it would behave in the wild.”
The doctor’s face turned ashen, and he collapsed into the chair behind his desk.
It creaked under his weight. His hands fidgeted with his stethoscope, twisting it as if it might unravel the problem before him.
His eyes darted between the team, searching for reassurance in the strangers who had suddenly taken control of his hospital. “Uhh, what?”
Kyle nodded. “Yes. This is a modified flu virus designed to be deadlier, more contagious, and resistant to readily available treatments.”
The doctor’s lower lip trembled a little. “Well, how? Why? What do we do?”
“The first thing we need to do,” Ava said, “is stop this from becoming a global catastrophe. I need you to get your chief of police on the phone. This town needs to be shut down and anyone who has come in contact with any of the sick people needs to quarantine.”
“Second, we need to up your PPE protocols. Full protective gear while you’re seeing these patients. Right now, we believe this is not airborne, but if the virus mutates, we could be looking at an entirely different form of spread. How are your supplies?”
“Uhhh,” the doctor murmured, shaking his head, “I’ll have to call down to find out. We’re not well-stocked, but…we do have a good supply for emergencies like this.”
“Good. I need to see all the patient files that have been identified as infected, and we also need access to the security.”
“Yeah, umm, I can take your guy to the security office now, and then, uh, I’ll get you a set of credentials for our system, Dr. Brooks. Is there a drug we can use to combat this?”
“Not so far,” Kyle answered with a shake of his head. “But we need to find something quickly. This virus was designed to kill up to seventy percent of the people it infects.”
The doctor froze, his eyes widening. “Seventy percent? Hemlock Falls will be decimated.”
“That’s why we need to stop this now.”
The doctor swallowed hard and nodded. “Come on, I’ll take you to the security office. They can call Chief Roberts, and you can coordinate the lockdown with him. Dr. Brooks, you’ll be with me. I’ll show you firsthand what we’ve been dealing with.”
Sebastian’s phone rang as Dr. Meade stepped toward the door. He glanced at it. “I need to take this. I’ll stay here if you don’t mind.”
“Of course,” Dr. Meade said.
Sebastian pressed the phone against his ear as the rest of them followed Dr. Meade from the small office.
“Dr. Meade, would you like me to–”
“Uh, not right now, Nurse, but if you’ll gather everyone, we need to have a staff meeting,” he answered without stopping.
As they continued to a back hall, he glanced at Kyle. “How much am I authorized to tell them?”
“A minimum. This is a contagious flu, they should wear all the PPE gear, they should be cautious about germ transfer, and if they have any symptoms, they should report them immediately,” Kyle answered.
The doctor nodded before he motioned to a small room filled with monitors. “Our humble security office.”
“Gentleman,” Ava said as she stepped into the room with two uniformed security guards eyeing the monitors, “I’m from the Department of Homeland Security.
We have placed this hospital under a strict quarantine.
This is now a matter of national security.
I need your full cooperation and access to all of your security systems.”
Alex found a squeaky chair shoved in the corner and plopped into it, setting his laptop up on his lap. He frowned down at the airs, trying to keep his arms off of them as he typed.
“I’ll be accessing your security systems on my own laptop so I can monitor things,” Alex announced. “No one should be leaving this hospital once they arrive.”
“He’s right,” Ava answered. “From here on out, we are in a lockdown situation. How many entrances and exits?”
“Uhh,” one of the guards said. ‘There’s the main entrance, the ER bays, and an employee entrance.”
“Are you two the only guards that work here?” Ava asked.
“No, there are three more,” Dr. Meade answered. “They’re off shift.”
“Get them on shift, they need to guard the doors.”
Dr. Meade huffed out a breath. “Uh, that may cause some panic.”
“Good,” Ava answered. “It should. If we don’t contain this, seventy percent of your town is going to die, doctor. We need to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
As Ava said the words, the reality of the situation smacked her in the face.
She’d brought a team of four people here. Four people. Four lives. What were the odds that all of them would make it out of here untouched? Alex’s germophobia would protect him to some extent, but Kyle... he’d be on the frontlines.