Plague

The thirteenth container had been loaded with shoulder-fired missiles.

The so-called hospital had sounded even worse after the fire. Because then kids had been screaming. Screaming Lana’s name.

No screams this time, Lana noted. Coughs. Lots of deep, rasping coughs. Like kids were trying to cough their lungs right out.

Dahra was standing over one of the cots, laying a wet cloth on a kid’s head. She hadn’t noticed Lana walk in with Sanjit.

Lana did a quick count. Twenty? Twenty-one? Some of them were on cots, some were on mattresses covered in piled-high blankets from a dozen homes, a dozen beds. Some were lying with very little clothing on the cool tile floor.

And most were coughing, coughing, coughing.

Dahra looked up at the sound of their voices. “Lana. Thank God. You want to try again?”

Lana spread her hands helplessly. “I’ll do whatever. But the magic isn’t working on this thing.”

Dahra wiped sweat from her brow. She looked like she hadn’t slept. Maybe ever. “Look, secondary infections, they’re called. Someone gets a virus and then something else moves in, too. A lot of times that’s what kills people.”

“You’re the boss,” Lana said. She meant it, and she meant it only for Dahra.

“Her.” Dahra pointed. “Start with her. One hundred and six fever. That’s what Pookie was before . . .”

Lana went to the girl. She looked familiar; Lana thought her name might be Judith, but it was hard to recognize someone whose face was red from coughing, drenched in sweat, hair plastered down, eyes scared, bleary, and defeated.

Lana laid her hand on the girl’s head and almost yanked it away. She was hot to the touch. Like touching a plate fresh from the dishwasher.

Lana had no particular ritual for healing. She just touched the person and tried to focus.

“Who are you?” Dahra snapped at Sanjit.

“Lana’s boyfriend,” Sanjit said.

“No, he’s not,” Lana said.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Dahra said to Sanjit. “We’ve got three known dead already. Go wash yourself off in the ocean and go home.”

“Thanks, but I’ll stay. I want to help.”

Dahra stared, eyes narrowed, trying to figure out if he was crazy. “You really want to help? Because I need someone to empty out the bucket. If you really want to help.”

“I do. What bucket?”

Dahra pointed to a plastic trash can with a lid. Around it was a reeking pile of Tupperware containers that Dahra used as bedpans.

Sanjit scooped up the bedpans and balanced them on top of the bucket of urine and feces. The stench filled the room.

“There’s a trench in the square. Then, if you’re motivated, you could rinse everything out in the surf.”

“I’ll be right back,” Sanjit said.

When he was gone, Dahra said, “I like your boyfriend. Not many guys volunteer to carry ten gallons of diarrhea and vomit.”

Lana laughed. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Yeah, well, he can be mine if he wants to be. He’s cute. And he carries crap.”

Lana felt the girl under her hand shudder and shake.

Dahra was moving automatically from bed to bed, cot to cot, pile of blankets on the floor to pile of blankets on the floor. She sighed as she wrote down another temperature. She was keeping records. Probably not as good as a doctor would do, but better than the average fourteen-year-old girl with twenty-one hacking, shivering patients could be expected to do.

“Why can’t I do this?” Lana wondered aloud. “The first round of flu it worked, mostly.”

“Immunity, right?” Dahra said. “The virus gets into you, and then your body fights back. The virus learns, comes back ready for a new fight. So instead of reprogramming to beat antibodies it reprogrammed to beat you.”

“I’m not an antibody,” Lana said.

“Yeah, and this isn’t the old world, is it? This is some freak show where nothing works exactly the way it should.”

His freak show, Lana thought. A single match and she could have burned it out, killed it. Maybe. How many deaths had come because Lana had failed?

A boy Lana knew, a first grader named Dorian, suddenly stood up and started running for the door. It was a weaving, unsteady run.

Dahra cursed and made a snatch for him.

The kid was out the door in a flash.

A moment later Sanjit reappeared with Dorian under one arm and the now semi-clean toilet bucket and containers in the other.

“Come on, little man,” he said. “Back to bed.”

But Dorian wasn’t having it. He started screaming and flailing around.

Pandemonium erupted. Two kids started crying loudly, a third rolled off his bed onto the floor, and a fourth was shouting, “I want my mommy, I want my mommy.”

Then, a cough that was so loud it drew every eye. The little boy, Dorian.

He was standing up. He seemed startled by what had just come from his mouth.

He reared back and coughed again.

“No,” Dahra gasped.

Lana leaped to the little boy’s side and pressed her hand against the side of his head.

He coughed with such force it knocked him down, flat on his back.

Sanjit straddled him, holding him down, while Lana lay her hands on him, one on his heaving chest, the other on the side of his throat.

Dorian coughed, a spasm so powerful Sanjit fell backward and Dorian’s head smacked against the floor with a sickening crack. Lana kept her hold on him.