The Sleepers
#11 of The Getaway (Thriller)
*
Doctor Walker was a small, sour-looking coyote, an exact opposite of Doctor Travis. Next to the bespectacled, tie-wearing, the plump hare seemed to radiate a whole different kind of energy. Her steps were quick and her paws were moderate, resting by her broad labcoat-clad hips while they walked side by side along the hallway in the aseptic-stinking Chicago hospital. He was in his early sixties, she was barely forty, but looked older. Her eyes were younger.
"It's madness, madness Almighty," the harried-looking Doctor Walker groaned. "They keep phoning me every day, every day and asking for more information, as if the county epidemiologists already don't have their paws full with this. They're the ones they should be asking, not me! I can't even talk to my patients, they can!"
"They want to learn all they can," Doctor Travis said, "makes me wonder why more of them didn't come to Calcutta when we were just starting there."
"it's all a bunch of bureaucratic bullshit," Doctor Walker complained. "We should be concentrating on sorting out all the infected and stopping its spread, not seesawing between the CDC, the NIAID and NIH and the Health Department and who knows what."
"They all have interests in it, of course."
"Well, if any virus hunter wants to see what this thing does somewhere that isn't an electron microscope, be my guest!" the coyote waved his paw. "There is absolutely no glory in this."
"You don't have to tell me, Doctor," the lady hare replied.
They reached a pair of doors that were guarded by a bored-looking orderly. Doctor Walker flashed his ID card to the orderly and they were let in. The air inside the new corridor felt colder than outside. It made them bristle a little.
"How many do you have now?"
"Sixteen, since one of them died last night," Walker said.
They stepped into a room off the corridor, put their white coats into plastic bins and donned green disposable gowns, shoe protectors, gloves, green N95 masks, goggles and plastic faceshields. They did it without many words, checking each other's gear before they gave each other the green light and excited back into the corridor.
"Sixteen...so that means...you've had what, 200 cases altogether?"
"525 on the last count," Walker replied. "And you are right. About one out of ten presents with the neurological syndrome, just like the initial report implies."
"And mortality rate? Is it the same as in India?" Travis questioned as they continued along the corridor lined with doors.
"About half, yes," Walker said. "Clinical presentations vary wildly and don't always correspond with prognosis. Some fall comatose and come back perfectly fine, others are just feverish and perhaps agitated and then they lapse into unconsciousness and go into respiratory arrest when their brainstem infarcts."
They reached a door marked with biohazard signs. The windows next to it were covered in thick plastic and taped into place. They created a fuzzy view into the room beyond, giving vague shapes, but little more.
"This is the one with the catatonic patients," Walker said.
They opened the door and stepped into a plastic tent that formed an airlock between the corridor and the room within. Doctor Travis bent over to pull the zipper at the bottom to let them in. The room had four beds, and a nurse was seated in a corner in a chair, clad in similar equipment as the visitors. The beds had plastic curtains between them, and on each bed, a fur was laying, in white hospital shirts. They had been put onto their sides, muzzles resting on pillows. Their head laid flat, and the doctors could see dark patches on the pillows where they had drooled. Tubes coiled into their nostrils and onto their arms, connected into drips in IV stands. Their eyes were taped shut with folded bandages over them, and that looked especially sinister.
"They don't blink, do they?"
"They don't do anything, not these four," Walker said. "They just lay there."
"Are they getting any sedatives at all?"
"No sedatives, tranquilizers, muscle relaxants, anesthetics, painkillers, nothing," Walker replied. "They get their dexamethasone, their antibiotics and their acyclovir and famciclovir, but that's it. Mrs. Keller gets atropine to reduce the drooling."
"Ours did a lot of that too, some of them."
"The others aren't as bad, we just keep them like this. They don't cough much. They do protect their airway, however, we have noticed."
Walker stepped over to the first bed on the line, a male fox, lying down like the rest.
"Ferdinand Peters, 35. Presented with paraherpes-like symptoms and was admitted for treatment in the isolation ward. On day 3 after admission, developed fasciculation and confusion, progressed into hypertonic state and fell comatose. Was admitted to intensive care and emerged from barbiturate coma on day 15. No change in baseline ever since. Does not respond to normal stimuli, only weak localization of pain. No corneal reflexes. Gag reflex intact. Incontinent. Positive Babinski."
"How is the EEG?"
"Like he's sleeping," Doctor Walker replied. "But he's not."
The next bed held a female lion.
"Mrs. Alicia Keller, 57. Admitted with the neurological complex after previously been treated at home as a case of the shingles by the family physician. Was put into barbiturate coma due to Grand mal seizures. Emerged ten days later when clinical status was improving. Catatonic, hypotonic and lack of deep tendon reflexes. Drools."
"I saw those too," the hare said, looking quietly at the unconscious lioness.
The coyote strived forward.
"Percival Duke, 23, presented with paraherpes infection and was admitted. On day 2, developed agitation, tremor and hyperreflexia. Papilledema indicated increased ICP. Steroids and mannitol decreased edema and he seemed to improve clinically. However, he too had progressed into a hypertonic state and decorticate posturing. Insensitive to stimuli. EEG shows frontotemporal activity consistent with petit mal seizures but there are no outwards manifestations."
"Gareth Nichols, 40. Presented with paraherpes and was admitted to the hospital for treatment. On day 4, developed disseminated skin lesions and neurological symptoms, including disorientation, compulsive mastication and photophobia. Was initially suspected to be suffering from the fulminant syndrome, but was downgraded when his condition improved."
Doctor Travis looked down at the horse lying muzzle down on the bed.
"Some patients seem to present with a more increased involvement of the peripheral dermatomes without having the most severe disease. The worst I saw had her entire trunk covered in the rash. Besides that there was only fever and sniffling."
"However, he had ended up into this state. Hypotonic, catatonic, upwards nystagmus, incontinent. Peripheral nerves seem to be normal in myography. It's the brain that is...shut down. Crowded with viral lesions stopping the signals from working."
The hare blinked, and turned her gaze.
"We didn't have many of these. Those who stopped breathing couldn't be kept in ventilators."
"It is perhaps their curse that they are here," the doctor replied. "This isn't life."
"There is still a chance that they come back, isn't there?"
"Who knows what's going on in their minds," Walker said. "Whether they are locked in and feel us poking them, shining lights into their ears...maybe they hear us talking here even now."
"I'm only worried about how many we'll be getting before this is all over," Doctor Travis replied.
The coyote shrugged.
"What do you want to see next?"
"The motor deficient ones, if possible."
"Alright, if you like."
"I would, yes."
*