A Pandemic Survivors Omnibus

The Case of the Forever Cure-2

Another reason to smile and hope.

Rochelle would be proud of us all - if we were ever allowed to call her...

VITHAT NIGHT, ALARMS went off.

I jumped from my cot in the administration room and reached for a non-existent gun in a missing holster. Habit.

Lights were strobing and it took me minutes to figure out where the stupid off-switch was. I turned the lights to "On-Full" and saw the problem.

Our only remaining maintenance tech was out cold on the floor. I felt his head - fever. And foam coming out of his mouth.

Contagion.

So I did what I needed to do. I pulled him up in a fireman's carry and went right through all the double doors I needed to so we were both in with Cathy, the nurses, and the other quarantined patients.

Cathy looked up and rushed toward me. Sue was already motioning me to an empty bed near the doors I'd just barged in through.

They both went to work taking his vitals and hooking up the monitors. I found a chair that was out of their way and dropped into it.

About then, the situation sank in. I was one of the walking dead, now. Maybe minutes before I got infected myself and into the same state as Carlos, our last tech in this death trap.

Cathy turned around and saw me, then gave me a sad smile. "No, it's not that bad. Come with me." She bent down and grabbed my hand, pulling me upright to follow her. I'd have sworn I was being pulled by a half-back from the line of scrimmage. So much power in such a small package.

She took me into the same room with the babies and over to where one was crying. Picking up the curly-headed tyke, she pushed him into my arms, putting a towel over one of my shoulders. "Walk him up and down the floor until he goes back to sleep. Then take another one that your alarms woke up and repeat the process. Your job is to get all these kids back to sleep. No, they are perfectly safe in your hands, and as long as you keep holding one, they'll keep you from being infected any more than you already are."

She winked at me. "So? Get walking. That's your prescription." Then spun on her heel to see how the new patient was doing.

I walked and walked the rest of that night. I got them all to quit crying after awhile, but it didn't mean they didn't want to be walked. One or more of them would be standing up in their crib looking at me with hopeful, round eyes. I'd always smile and start again.

I guess that was the point. Smiling was something to do with their method. And I had to have faith in their method. Or I'd be dead in days.

. . . .

One of the other student nurses came in after a few hours and took over. Reg put down the last one he was carrying, who was too content to just lay down and sleep.

The nurse nodded at him to go outside. I met him as he came through the double doors.

"Time for your own check up. It looks like the 'baby-cure' did it's job.” I looked at the towel on his shoulder and saw the drool that had leaked through to his shirt. “Congratulations, you are officially inoculated."

He picked it up and folded the wet spot inside, then felt his shoulder. "That would be about right. Hey, how does that work? I should have come down like Carlos there hours ago."

"It wasn't their drool that inoculated you, it was touching them. We rotate all the nurses and myself through this duty once a day, and the rule is to not wear gloves, but only use bare hands. Kissing the occasional darling head is also permitted." I had to smile at this, they were all just too cute.

I took his hand and led him into one of the two chairs next to our maintenance tech's bed.

"How's Carlos doing? Will he make it?" Reg asked, concerned.

"He'll be OK, it will take a couple of days before he'll do much but sleep it off."

"What did you give him?"

"Just a simple saline solution. When he's up to swallowing, we'll get him onto something he'll like."

"Such as?"

"A home remedy of apple-cider vinegar and honey, plenty diluted. That will keep his electrolytes balanced until he gets over the hump of it. Good thing you got him here fast. Most of these patients were days or weeks with the wrong treatment, and is why they are taking so long to recover."

"Treatment? You haven't given him any pills or injections..."

"Because he won't need any. We treat him by what you might call 'laying on of hands.' That works best and is the core of the therapy."

"You're kidding."

"No, I'm not." She frowned a bit. "About this time, your professional skepticism comes in and we quit having a conversation, then I tell you to lay down and get some rest."

"Sorry, I did read about what you've been doing to all these patients. It's just as you said. The only thing you've had to do is to slowly get them off the meds they were on. That's in all the reports. But I can see that none of your student nurses are wearing gloves at all. And not even face masks."

"The worse thing you could catch in here would be the common cold. Way too sterile for me. I'd bring some plants in here, maybe some non-allergic flowers if I could. A therapy dog would be a great addition. But my 'druthers' don't count for much. Maybe since our quarantine is gone, it might."

I frowned at this. "No, it's going to get worse. I've read up on the procedures. The next thing that is supposed to happen is to gas us all and seal us in. Eventually pour cement over the entire building."

VIIIT WAS CATHY WHO HAD to sit down at that point. She shook her head. "I was afraid of that. Something my great-grandfather had to survive."

I found another seat and dragged it over. "Your great-grandfather was encased in cement?"

Cathy looked up at me, and took my hand. "Sorry, I spoke out of turn. But I guess it's a good as time as any to tell you. Ever heard of the Lazurai Project?"

I shook my head no.

"How about that terrorist bombing of a Cook County civilian hospital about 50 years ago?"

"Dirty bomb with chem warfare agents. Killed everyone. Huge tragedy."

"Everyone except the babies. But they were changed by the chemicals and radiation. They became toxic to everyone they touched. And as they grew older, the chance of contagion grew, so that even being in a hazmat suit wouldn't protect you. Those kids were raised in isolation from any adults and only had each other. Somehow, the government got them shipped to a remote desert location and put them into a dome. Some damned fool in Washington finally gave the order to kill them all as a solution. But none of their chemicals worked, not even their most deadly pathogens. So they finally just cemented the dome over."

My mouth dropped open. Shocked was a slight description of what I was feeling.

"They'd been experimenting with them for years by then, and their families had already been told that they were dead. But puberty forced the government's hand, as they now were extremely hazardous to the rest of humankind. People were getting sick and dying just being downwind. And so, the concrete. Problem was, the Lazurai kids could dissolve and absorb almost anything just with their hands. Even bullets and explosions didn't stop them."

"So, what happened to them?"

"They all escaped. And learned to deal with trackers that found them. Towns and cities evacuated when they found out a Lazurai was headed their way. Most of them suicided eventually, as they could no longer approach any other human. Occasionally, they found babies alive after their families had died, and raised those babies on their own, in secret. One of those babies was my grandfather. He then grew to become a teen ager and started roaming on his own, but was able to control his infectious 'abilities' and get near people - until they eventually found out. Getting attacked by others only made the Lazurai infect as self-defense. And then the government would get involved and they 'd have to disappear again." A tear formed at the corner of Cathy's eye.

I truly felt sorry for those kids. And put my hand on Cathy's where it lay on her chair arm.

She turned her hand over and held onto mine, looking me in the eyes with her own blue ones. "The story does have a happy ending. Those kids adopted other babies, and those babies also grew up and adopted. In each generation, the control over their abilities was improved. What you're touching now is the hand of a fourth-generation Lazurai. As are all of these student-nurses, also."

VIIIHE DIDN'T FLINCH AT that. Probably because we'd been talking for nearly three weeks by then, even though he had to wear that stupid, useless hazmat suit.

"So that all means that you and your students could dissolve concrete if you had to?"

I had to smile at this. "Well, yes. Of course, that would start an old hunt up all over again. And we'd all survive being gassed, even those kids in there. But a lot of these adults wouldn't. It takes a long time to help an adult to change. Too many habits they've built in."

Reg's mind was racing. He was one of those "adults" now. He was looking off into space and I could see his eyes move as he considered various options. "How soon before Carlos is awake? Can you speed it up - I need to talk to him."

"Now that you know, we can probably give him some advanced treatments and have him able to talk in maybe 15 minutes or so." I rose and patted his shoulder so he stayed there. Nodding to Sue and another nearby nurse I motioned them over to the maintenance tech's bed.

We put our hands on his exposed arms, closed our eyes and concentrated.

It didn't take that quarter of an hour. He woke and saw us, then smiled.

Reg had stood to watch us and came closer. He started talking to Carlos in a quiet voice, explaining what had happened and asking him questions about protocols and other details.

We nurses all had our own duties to take care of, which now meant accelerating our treatments on everyone. Just in case.

IXTHE LAST ARMY TRUCK pulled out at dawn from the quarantine zone. The concrete pumpers and forms were already in place. A colonel signaled them to start. It took about two days to completely cover the building. The last dosage of gas had been given just hours before the concrete pumpers quit. By the time they cleaned out their equipment, it had been 48 hours.

A second chain link fence now surrounded the original and the buildings nearby were evacuated. Dozers and earth moving equipment were already in place to level all the nearby buildings for a block in all directions. Supplies for a third chain link fence to surround that perimeter were stacked on site, waiting for the demolition to complete. Typical government efficiency.

Cathy, Sue, Carlos and I were all on that last truck. Dressed in hazmat suits and accompanying the body bags, both small and large.

We were driven out to a large transport plane where another crew of haz-mat-suited government types carefully transferred the body bags and us into its open hatch. Two other cargo planes of the same type were nearby on that runway.