Apache Dawn by - (dark books to read .txt) 📖

Los Angeles, California

All Saint's Hospital

Brenda woke with a start in the doctor’s lounge. She hadn’t meant to actually fall sleep and angrily checked her watch. It displayed 0430 hours. She added switching to 12-hour format to her mental list of things to do now that she was out of the Army.

I’ve been asleep for two hours! Brenda rubbed her stiff, sore neck while she came to grips with the fact that she’d slept with her head on the table for the past two hours like a rook straight out of boot camp. She was surprised the muted roar of noise coming from the hallway hadn’t woken her sooner.

People cried, nurses and physician assistants rushed back and forth from patient to patient—the sheer number of people seeking help at the hospital was incredible and it was still growing. To think this scene was being repeated all over the area boggled the mind.

“Asleep on the job. Another great way to make an impression,” she muttered while trying to smooth out her brand-new, freshly wrinkled teal-blue scrubs. The fabric was stubborn, so she sighed and gave up in favor of a jaw-cracking yawn.

“Oh I wouldn’t worry about that,” replied the sleepy voice of Dr. Lewis Fletcher, the hospital’s thoracic specialist who seemed to be amused by her first-day performance with the Chief of Emergency Medicine.

She looked over against the far wall in the semi-darkened room to see a form stir on the long couch. He stretched and yawned, then put a set of horn-rimmed glasses back on his ebony face. “Don’t worry, I couldn’t sleep anyway. And, for the record, you’re okay with the chief.” Brenda could hear the smile in his voice.

Dr. Fletcher yawned again. “You pulled a double on your first day…even if you did knock him on his ass by way of saying ‘hello.’” He laughed and stood up, joints cracking. Brenda noticed his dark-blue scrubs were even more wrinkled than hers. “God, I need some coffee…” he muttered, shuffling to the counter and the ancient coffeemaker with its hours-old murky contents.

Brenda groaned and rubbed her eyes. “Has it slowed down any?” she asked.

“I wish I could say yes.” He took a sip of the coffee he’d just poured and made a face. “I only came in about a half hour ago, but we were still getting new cases by the truckload. This is awful. Want some?”

“It just doesn’t make any sense,” she said, frowning at the cold cup of tea in front of her. “No thanks, I have this,” she said, tapping the cup. “Was it this bad during…” She closed her eyes, forcing the memories from ten years ago down into a hole in her heart. She relied on her Army training to remove her emotions and sight in on the target. This mysterious flu was her target, and she was going to destroy it come hell or high water.

“Did it get like this during the early days of…?” She just couldn’t bring herself to say its name, as if speaking it aloud would make it real again.

Dr. Fletcher sighed as he watched the steam rise from his cup of stale coffee. “Honestly…no,” he said, nodding toward the door to the room. “It’s just…too fast, this time. We had two people die before I came in here. The first ones so far. Their families explained that they only started presenting symptoms yesterday.” He shook his head. “Even during the peak of The Pandemic, it was at least two days before people started dying from initial exposure. Whatever this is, it’s definitely more aggressive.” He shook his head again. “The chief is going to order us to break out the PPEs and suit up. Personally, I think he should have done it hours ago. Might already be too late.” His second sip of coffee produced a face similar to the first. “This is like motor oil. Blech.”

Brenda sighed again. PPEs. She hated the bio-hazard personal protection equipment suits that made you look like something out of a science-fiction movie. They were great for protecting doctors and nurses from infection, but they were bulky, hot, the visors fogged quickly, and no matter how thin the manufacturers made the gloves, they still made it difficult to work while wearing them.

“He’s going to have us put up every flu tent we have and pressurize them. Just hope it’s enough.” He lifted up his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Three crit-care nurses are showing early signs of it now…”

Brenda sighed and lowered her head. “Well, that’s a great way to start the day. What about the gang war?”

“Uh, what gang war?” asked Dr. Fletcher as he picked up an apple off the food tray.

“Oh…I just assumed—”

“I haven’t heard anything…” The snap-crunch of his teeth tearing into the apple made Brenda flinch.

“I, uh…well, right before I came down here—I mean, before Nurse Goodson marched me down here—I saw a whole slew of gunshot wounds come in. The ambulance crews were talking to some cops and it sounded like they getting reports of GSWs scattered all over the place. I figured it was gang related.”

Dr. Fletcher chewed his apple for a moment. “I saw that, too, but unless the Crips and Bloods are recruiting from the Latino community or Best Buy, it’s not gang related.”

“What?”

Dr. Fletcher pushed his glasses up to massage the bridge of his nose. “I was saying that the GSWs were mostly Hispanic and white. Gang-on-gang violence doesn’t normally involve those racial groups, does it?”

Brenda thought for a moment. “How many did we have come in?”

“Oh…let’s see,” he said as he slid his glasses back into place. “Last count was twenty-two, I think.” He shrugged. “We’re going to see a significant rise in the ‘end of the world’ type injuries and behavior, I think. If people think this is The Great Pandemic all over again, a good number will try to get away with looting and whatnot, just like before. If that’s what we’re facing, we’re going to be in for a wild ride. L.A. got pretty nasty last go around.”

“Wait,” Brenda said, hand to her throbbing head. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“Why not? It’s human nature to want to—”

“No, not the reaction to H5N1—or whatever it is we’ve got here. I’m talking about the GSWs. I walked past three different gurneys as the EMTs ran them into the ERs. Each one had at least a double-tap. One had a triple-tap.”

“Okay, you lost me,” he said, taking another drink of his coffee. “A what?”