Hurst - Robin Crumby (bookreader TXT) 📗

neat circle in his forehead, the blood on the carpet. Why? They didn’t need to kill him. His anger boiled over and he slammed his fist down against his knee. The self-induced pain helped clear his head and brought his situation in to sharper focus.

The hospital room was virtually bare, a private overnight room for one person. Other than a tired-looking hospital bed, there was a cheap pine wardrobe and a side table with flowers in a vase that had long since wilted and died, the water green and stagnant. In the corner was a plastic-looking chair with brown vinyl upholstery with ridges running vertically. A grey metal wall bracket for a TV screen, and an aerial socket were the only evidence that remained of creature comforts.

He checked the drawers of the bedside cabinet. There wasn’t even a Bible. But wait, was he getting confused? Maybe only hotels had Bibles next to the bed? He couldn’t remember, it was all such a long time ago since he’d stayed in a hotel on holiday. The clean sheets, the buffet breakfasts.

A thin layer of dust covered the whole place. The broken blinds allowed through a few shafts of sunlight that struck the whitewashed walls next to the door. Dust hung heavy in the stale air. Other than the pervasive smell of disinfectant, there was something else that lingered. He couldn’t quite place it.

His mind wandered as he thought back to his first job helping out in a meat processing plant in Sandton, back in South Africa, working with chicken carcasses. It was the smell of death and it made his mouth suddenly dry and devoid of saliva.

The window rattled a little on its hinges, not quite closed, cool air seeping in. He got to his feet and, leaning as far as the cuffs would allow him, he managed to flick the corner of the white aluminium blinds, allowing a fleeting glimpse of the outside world. He was on the second floor, and down below he could make out a series of heaps on the tarmac. The blinds fell back into position again and he stretched and flicked them again. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he realised that one of the heaps was piled with shoes. There were hundreds of shoes, of all shapes and sizes and colours. Children’s shoes, high heels, brogues, slippers. So many shoes.

He flicked the blinds again, leaning as far as he could. The next heap was even larger, towering precariously with what looked like clothes of every description. There were trousers, shirts, dresses, coats, hospital dressing gowns, and socks. It reminded him of a scene from a war movie he had seen. What was it called? Allied soldiers liberating prisoner camps in 1945, finding piles of clothes and shoes, gold teeth, reclaimed from the bodies, surplus to requirements. It made Will shudder remembering. He looked again beyond the heaps where smoke was billowing from a fire pit.

He turned away as the blinds fell back into place. He realised with horror that the discernible shapes he could make out in the smouldering remains were human.

Will closed his eyes and wept at what the world had become. A haphazard descent into savagery. The remaining vestiges of civilisation falling away like leaves from a tree. What remained was barren and brittle.

Chapter Fourteen

Will wasn’t sure how long he had slept. He had only closed his eyes for a second. His head had stopped throbbing so much. There was a light tap on the door and the sound of keys rattling in the lock. The heavy fire door with a small viewing window swung open and the large frame of a bearded man filled the doorway. He had a rifle with a wooden stock slung just visible behind his back. He stepped inside and glanced around the room, checking that Will was still cuffed to the bed. He moved aside for a young man wearing a white coat, glasses, thin stubble on his chin. He was moderately tall with black hair, Indian or Pakistani. Will studied him closely as he whispered with the guard, their exchanges awkward, as if the doctor was somehow uncomfortable in his own skin.

The guard swung the heavy metal door closed behind him, sealing them off from the bustle of the hospital beyond. Will heard the key turn and heavy footsteps walk away down the corridor.

“How are you feeling?” asked the doctor, his hands thrust deep in his coat pockets.

Will sized him up before answering. “You don’t look old enough to be a doctor,” he barked as he swung his legs back up on to the bed, putting his hands behind his head, ignoring the doctor.

“Hey, listen, if you don’t want me to take a look at that cut on your head, fine by me. I’m just doing my job.” He made to leave, turning his back on Will.

“Don’t kid yourself, yah. You’re as bad as the rest of them. First you beat the crap out of me, and now you want to fix me up? What kind of hospital is this? Don’t tell me, you were just ‘following orders’,” he mocked.

“Whoa there, mister. I’m one of the good guys. Don’t lump me in with that other lot. Those new guys are off their rockers. Nut jobs. I’ve been here since the beginning, before those guys took over. We could have got out, they gave us that chance, but we chose to stay. They made this place secure and for that they get my gratitude. For the record, that doesn’t mean I like what they do or how they do it.”

Will shrugged his shoulders and looked back, unrepentant. The young man dumped his bag on the floor, strode over to the chair and unrolled the tools of his trade on the bedside cabinet. The surgical kit contained scalpels, scissors, and what looked like a sewing kit with syringes all neatly secured in their Velcro holders and fabric loops. Will eyed the scalpel and imagined the damage he would do to his torturers if he got the chance.

Will inclined his head submissively towards the doctor. He ripped off the gauze and tape without warning, ignoring the patient’s howls of protest. He leaned in close to get a proper look, peering through the glasses at the nasty-looking cut behind Will’s left ear. Some heavy bruising surrounded the wound. He donned a pair of disposable surgical gloves and gently pressed either side of the long gash.

“Yes, you’ll definitely need stitches. How did you get this, dare I ask?”

“One of your boys hit me from behind. Won’t forget him in a hurry. The others called him ‘Copper’.”

“Okay. I know who you’re talking about. Friendly chap. Like I said, I don’t condone violence. I just get to patch people up. More work for me, you might say.”

Will winced as the doctor worked, gasping a couple of times when gloved fingers pressed too hard. For a big hardy builder, who had been a labourer all his life, he hated needles and blood. At school, he was forever the boy who fainted in the playground after slicing his shin open on a rusted nail. He’d been balancing on a wooden plank when he slipped and fell. His classmates knew better than to make fun of him. Will had always been just a little taller and heavier-set growing up which made others fear him. His physique and imposing presence had made him a promising rugby player until he clean broke his wrist when he was barely twelve and never played again.

Looking down at his feet, Will mumbled into his chest, his voice sounding awkward and strained. “You’re Indian, right? Never been treated by an Indian doctor before.”

“Well, you clearly haven’t lived long in this country then. My father was a dentist, my brother a surgeon, my sister a paediatrician. You could say it runs in the family. Anyway, I’m British, born and bred.”

“Fair enough. I don’t have a problem with it. I was just making conversation. So what do you know about this virus?”

“You’re asking the wrong person, I’m afraid. I mostly get to look after old people here. Routine stuff really. Dementia, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, palliative care. Don’t get to see many killer viruses or tropical diseases on the south coast. Big city hospitals get the high-profile cases. Ebola, malaria. Shame really. Might spice things up.”

“Be careful what you wish for.”

“My knowledge of viruses is really dated, goes back to medical school and stuff I picked up from the press and journals they had in the staffroom. I know bits and pieces, but nothing of any use.”

“But as a doctor, you must have some idea what we’re dealing with. What if you had to make an educated guess?”

He pondered the question thoughtfully and then launched in to his answer with growing confidence. “Well, it sounds a lot like the Spanish flu pandemic. The outbreak after the First World War killed millions, more than the war itself. But the Millennial Virus is more deadly and spreads quicker. Of course, cheap airline travel and tourism probably accelerated all that. Based on the patients we saw and treated, I’d say around one in ten people have some degree of immunity. Some were worse affected than others, but most died within three to five days, and very few got better. We threw everything we had at it. We did little more than prolong their agony for a few hours or days. The outcome was almost always the same. It’s a very effective killer.”

“It sounds like you admire the virus?”

“Don’t you? Mother Nature has been perfecting the flu virus over millions of years and it looks like she’s cracked the code this time. Of course, if the CDC, you know, the Centre for Disease Control in the States, or the World Health Organization are still functional, then they may have developed a vaccine. By now you might expect them to have inoculated health workers and the military. Right now they may well be mounting a rescue mission to save us ‘Brits’. Who knows?”

“But could it be done if they have the right resources?”

“Sure. We already have a lab here with all the kit. If you got hold of samples of the virus, an electron-microscope, biohazard suits, air purifiers, then no question, we could keep trying till we found something that worked. Might take decades though. All we’d need would be an army of scientists, unlimited money and resources. Hey, throw in someone with immunity, patient zero…while you’re at it, perhaps find me Elvis and Lord Lucan. But take a look around you. We’re mostly working in the dark ages here. We barely have enough power from the emergency generator to keep the lights on, let alone anything discretionary. We have a skeletal team, and the man in charge is a psychopath, but apart from that, we have everything we need.”

The young doctor finished up the stitches behind Will’s ear and patted him on the head like a dog. “There you go. Good as new.”

“Thank you. I owe you one. What’s your name?” asked Will.

The doctor smiled. “Doctor Ganesh, but you can call me Raj.”

“Well, Raj, if I figure out how to get out of this hellhole, I’ll come and find you.”

The doctor packed up the plastic case with the syringe, scissors, bandages and other assorted items, paused at the door to say something and thought better of it. He knocked twice and heard the guard jangle his keys. The rotund guard opened the door just wide enough to let him pass. Will sat on the side of the bed smiling, opening and closing his fingers in a childlike goodbye. The guard curled his lip and slammed the door shut.

Will puffed out his cheeks and slumped back against the wall, exhausted.

Chapter Fifteen

“Quiet, please. This meeting of the Hurst council is called to order. Nathan, can you bring us up to speed on today’s business,” said Terra, leaning back in the ornate oak chair, positioned at