The Small Inferno
Prologue: Quarantine
"We received the patient nearly a day ago," Gregory Burke told his two peers from the Centre For Disease Control as he led them down one of the many sterile white corridors that composed the layout of Saint Jude's Hospital. "She complained of a persistent skin rash and painful itch as well as a high fever. After a few hours she became nauseous then violently ill. Hours after that, the patient went through stages of delirium and catatonia before finally slipping into a coma. She hasn't woken since and I should warn you that you will find the patient-"
"Miss Gordon," Doctor Sarah Waxer cut in, brushing a strand of loose blonde hair behind her ear as she regarded Doctor Burke with a cool stare. "The patient has a name. It's Regina Gordon."
"Of course," Burke replied with a smile that left his eyes as dark and empty as a crater on the moon. "Pardon my manners. I meant to say that you should both steel yourselves as you will find Miss Gordon much...ah...deteriorated."
"Deteriorated?" Sarah's partner - Homer Shields - asked, raising a bushy eyebrow as he tried - and failed - to subtly re-arrange his lab coat around the spare tire seeping over the waistband of his black slacks. "What's happened to her since she fell into that coma?"
"I could describe it for you," Burke replied, pausing momentarily to swipe his ID card through a reader set into a pair of massive double-doors. With a piercing beep the light on the reader flashed green and the doors slid apart with a hydraulic hiss. "It's probably better that you see for yourselves though. That is what you're here for after all, correct?" Again that mirthless smile crawled across Burke's lips like a lizard lounging in the sun. "To see?"
To see? No, to interfere - at least in your mind, Doctor Burke. Sarah said nothing, only gave Burke another look as chilly as his smile and waited for him to resume his duties as pathfinder. After a moment, the hawk-nosed physician took the hint and started up the hall once again with his back to them. She took the opportunity to flash him the finger through the pocket of her lab coat.
Though she had been forced to suffer Burke's company only three times since been assigned to Raccoon City by the CDC brass, Sarah Waxer had decided quite quickly that she cared nothing for the man. Gregory Burke wore his arrogance like a jacket, putting it on display for all to see. From that smug little glint in his eye when he was answering a question to that icy grin of his there was something about him that just seemed to scream "Look at me, mortals! Look at how much smarter I am than you lowly creatures! Look and marvel!"
Homer had laughed the first time she had told him as much. The senior microbiologist had remarked that perhaps Doctor Burke should take to wearing a name tag that read Jesus Christ, M.D. "Too bad he hasn't mastered the art of healing with just a touch yet," Homer had told her after their first meeting with the head of Saint Jude's Infectious Diseases Ward. "He'd be bleeding HMOs dry with a talent like that."
All joking aside though, Sarah's dislike for Burke bordered on outright distrust. There was an...aura about the man that made her shiver every time his thin lips split into the semblance of a smile. In the world of medicine Gregory Burke was what Sarah would have considered a treasure hunter - interested in reaping the glory and riches of cracking high profile, exotic cases and if there were some deaths along the way, well, you couldn't make an omelet without cracking a few eggs now could you?
Clearly he viewed the CDC presence in his hospital as uninvited and unwanted - that much was obvious in his condescending looks, wormy smiles and rigid posture every time he was asked to show them to another area of Saint Jude's but did that make him untrustworthy? He was almost always curt and rude with the pair of researchers but for all of that he had been accommodating or as close to accommodating as a man like Burke could ever come. If that was true then why was she unable to shake this feeling that Burke was constantly holding something back in their meetings? He answered the questions she and Homer posed to him and yet his responses always had a measure of...incompleteness to them.
Maybe I'm just being paranoid, Sarah thought as she stifled a yawn with her fist. Sleeping three hours in three days can do that to a person. Especially someone as naturally sunny and personable as myself.
Ever since finding out that she would be hopping a plane to Raccoon with Homer, sleep had been an elusive companion for Doctor Waxer. Maybe it was immature, maybe it was unprofessional but she was excited! After five years of paper pushing and bootlicking she had finally been given a chance to get out in the field and study what all the experts were referring to as Raccoon Syndrome, an entirely new type of infection that had been compared to Marburg and rabies - though Sarah was under the impression that those alleged "experts" were being just a tad bit overdramatic. Less than fifty cases had been reported so far after all.
Besides if it was something as in-your-face as Marburg I don't think anyone - even the immortal Doctor Burke - would just come strolling on in here without even so much as a hankie to breathe through. We'd be talking a full hot suite - spacesuits, the whole ten yards. No fatalities yet either so there's another plus.
Whatever they were about to walk in on Sarah would be unfazed. For as long as she could recall she had never been afraid of disease. It had fascinated her, even as a child when she would spend hours asking grown-ups about what made her nose run or why she was coughing. Fear came from not understanding and Sarah had made it her life's work to understand where illness' like the Raccoon Syndrome came from and what could be done to send the wretched bugs packing. In the world of medicine Sarah supposed she would consider herself a detective.
A detective...and an executioner, Sarah mused idly as Doctor Burke turned down another particularly Spartan hall, his polished loafers beating out a crisp pattern on the immaculate tile floor. We need to find what this little son of a bitch is up to, what makes it tick and then figure out the tools we need to chop the bugger's head off.
It took all her willpower but Sarah fought off the urge to smile. No doubt, Homer would notice, frown and then launch into one of his lectures as soon as they left the hospital grounds. Doctor Shields did not share his cohorts enthusiasm and, as far as Sarah was concerned, took his job a bit too seriously. With Homer doom and gloom were the only outcomes. Since learning of the situation in Raccoon City, Sarah knew that every alarm bell in her partner's head had been clanging away at full volume. She could hear them ringing through his words often enough.
"This could be a plague we're talking about here, Sarah." Homer had told her on the flight, his fat face pinched and flushed, his beady eyes quivering more than his voice. "A virus that's nearly undetectable in its infancy, one that brings on a delirium and comas in...what? A few hours? And what weapons do we have to throw against it? By all reports conventional antibiotics have proven useless. We need to find out where this thing came from and fast if we have any hope of containing it."
"Slow down, there chief." Sarah had giggled in reply, kicking back in her seat on the private jet. "Before you go flipping your wig and screaming epidemic from the rooftops you should remember that no cases have been reported from anywhere outside of Raccoon and there have been no deaths as a result of the virus either. So take your hand off the panic button for a minute would you? This is a chance for us to study and defeat something the likes of which medical science has never encountered before! You should be jumping up and down at the opportunity...not having a heart attack."
"I'm sorry Sarah but I wouldn't go planning the homecoming party just yet." Homer had scolded his pink face turning red. "This is an extremely serious matter we have on our hands here. The CDC doesn't just jump in every time a few people in the same town get the sniffles. You never see an epidemic coming until it's already in full swing. It's like wildfire: one second you're going for a walk in the forest and then whoosh! Everything around you is burning.
"Whatever the nature of the virus in Raccoon is we need to get to the bottom of it quickly. If we don't people will die."
Well, Sarah had to admit, Homer did have a point there. People who just slipped into comas typically didn't wake up from them a few days later feeling refreshed and ten years younger. They typically didn't wake up at all. Time was of the essence...too bad that Jesus Christ, M.D. didn't seem to see it that way.
Two days in and we're only just seeing our first patient now. Thanks a bunch, Greg! Sarah had been insistent on visiting patients the morning after arriving but Burke had refused to give them clearance to enter Saint Jude's until some "red tape had been trimmed away." Paperwork needed to be filled out and filed, phone calls needed to be made, authorization cards had to be issued. Burke had apologized today for the bureaucracy. Bureaucracy? More like bullshit.
The "red tape" had been nothing more than a display of power, Sarah knew. Burke was simply flexing his muscle by tying them up with a day and a half worth of useless chores. He wanted them to know that this was his turf, his case and he did not appreciate interlopers digging their fingers into his pies.
Too bad the CDC disagrees with you on that one, Burke. Even you still have to obey their orders don't you, you cocky prick? Sarah watched silently as Burke led them down a long hall, their footfalls echoing eerily. He had taken them to a patients ward and one that was deserted by the looks of it. At the far end a lone figure sat in a chair reading a newspaper. His black and blue uniform displayed a familiar logo on one shoulder.
"Umbrella?" Homer asked, squinting behind his glasses to make out the octagonal red and white pattern that was the pharmaceutical giant's crest. "That man's no doctor either."
"Ah, a keen observation Mister Shields." Burke grinned over his shoulder and Sarah wanted to smack him so hard his throat wound up where his spine used to be. "This is Harold Hargreaves," he said gesturing to the man in the chair, "he's serving as an interim security guard with us now."
"Security?" Sarah perked an eyebrow. "Don't you have your own orderlies for that?"
"We do," Burke sighed and nodded, a clear indicator that he found answering her inquiries to be a tiresome and unnecessary task. "There have been certain...incidents with RS patients in the past however. These incidents required a more professional touch and since Umbrella is a major contributor to Saint Jude's they were more than ready to step in and offer us some assistance in our time of need."
"Incidents?" Sarah asked as a fingernail of anxiety began to chip away at the foundations of her eagerness.
"Only one," Burke replied quickly with another hard, humorless smirk, "back when the virus was still new to us here at Saint Jude's. Two nurses and an orderly were injured by a patient who...had a violent reaction after coming out of the comatose stage. None of the three were seriously hurt but still, the episode taught us that you can never be too careful when dealing with RS patients."
Burke's tone was smooth and slow, the voice of a man trained in double-talk...as all physicians were in Sarah's experience. He was trying to sugarcoat it for them, she realized and yet still issue a warning. Go figure, she thought. Well he is a doctor after all. He's probably used to giving those awkward little speeches where he tells someone they'll be dead by sunup but hey! It could be worse!
A flash of movement at Sarah's side drew her eye as Burke bent to unlock the door Harold Hargreaves was so guarding oh so casually. She turned to find Homer glaring at her, his dark eyes all a quiver again as if to say "I told you so." She simply shrugged in reply before turning back to watch Burke toss the door open. Sarah hoped Homer would take her flippant dismissal as a measure of confidence because it was all she could do to keep her own worries from pouring out through her eyes.
A mysterious virus...and now corporate muscle playing babysitter to one of its victims? Burke stepped through the door followed closely by Homer. As Sarah stepped past, Hargreaves crossed and uncrossed his legs and the young Doctor Waxer felt her pulse kick in to overdrive when she saw what was strapped to his hip. Armed corporate muscle? What the hell is going on here?
"I apologize," Burke said as he ushered them inside the tight quarters. "The smell is something you get used to after awhile."
"What are you..." Sarah began but was unable to finish as the physicians meaning finally caught up to her - full in the face. "Oh God!"
Coughing and gagging, Homer slapped a hand across his mouth. "I've been in rooms with malaria patients that didn't reek as bad as this! What the hell is that?"
"That," Doctor Burke said cooly, "is Miss Gordon."
Wordlessly stepping past the Saint Jude's phsyician, Sarah gazed down at the room's occupant and the gaunt, wasted figure stretched out beneath the single bed's sheets froze her heart, stole her breath. In all her years of studying nightmare diseases, Doctor Waxer had never before encountered anything capable of...mummifying its host. It seemed a ridiculous way to word to use - a ridiculous thing to think - but if there was any other way of describing the transformation that had taken place in Regina Gordon it eluded her.
Miss Gordon's eyes and cheeks were heavily bruised and deeply, sunken given them a look that was so far beyond emaciated Sarah thought it would have made the world's starving feel thankful for their own plump features by comparison. Her hair, what had once most likely been long, lustrous midnight locks, had come away in clumps leaving the poor woman with not but a few scraggly black strands left, poking up meekly from her scalp like the remains of a forest devastated by wildfire. Sickly brown and gray patches decorated most of Regina's skin which had grown dry and taught to the bones in the fingers and face. As she grew nearer to the comatose woman's bedside, Sarah was also able to identify the source of the room's foul odor and the realization dropped a lump of ice into her stomach.
"She's rotting," Doctor Waxer breathed, swallowing back bile wanting nothing more than to tear her eyes away from the hideous sight before her yet too intrigued to do so. "The virus...it's causing her to decompose. My God..."
"Did she come in here looking like this?" Homer asked, hands stuffed in his pockets, and keeping well back from the bed. The horror on his round face was outmatched only by his expression of disgust.
"No," Burke said in even tones as if he had just been asked whether or not he'd care for milk in his coffee. "According to reports Miss Gordon was suffering from a serious breakout of hives on her stomach but there had been no other outward signs of any kind of illness. All...this...happened after she fell into the coma."
"This happened in a day?" Sarah flashed Burke a wide-eyed, disbelieving glance. "That's impossible."
"You think I'm lying to you then?" Burke said with a shrug as if what Sarah Waxer thought was inconsequential anyway. "I've seen the change with my own eyes and not just with Miss Gordon either. There have been at least ten patients in this ward that have undergone a similar...metamorphosis after passing into the coma stage of Raccoon Syndrome."
Regarding Burke for another moment, Sarah then frowned and turned back to the patient lying still as a stone beneath the covers of the hospital bed. "Why don't you have her hooked up to an EKG?"
Another irked sigh from Burke before he responded. "We've found that with RS patients the results displayed by EKGs can be misleading to say the least."
"How do you mean?" She asked without looking, studying intently those ugly discolorations on Regina Gordon's skin.
"Place your hand under her nose," Burke commanded.
"I don't see what that has to do with -"
"Just do it," Burke snapped earning him a gaze so sharp and heated his skull should have split in two. He cleared his throat and went on in a softer voice. "My apologies. Please, Doctor Waxer, I didn't mean to be so domineering. I'm simply trying to answer your question. Place your hand under the patient's nose."
Carefully, with one eye clinging suspiciously to the ever-aggravating Gregory Burke, Sarah cupped her fingers together and slid her palm beneath Regina's nose. Warm, fetid air brushed across her skin, making it crawl. She snatched her hand away abruptly.
"She's breathing. So what?"
"Check for a pulse now."
Scowling at Burke, Sarah pressed her index and middle fingers together, holding them against the side of Regina's neck. The flesh there was ice cold and as smooth as old leather. I hope you're enjoying this little game of Simon Says, you pri - "Holy shit," she hissed, pressing deeper with her fingers before taking her hand back again. She met Homer's eyes with a pointed stare. "She has no heartbeat."
"What?" The other man exclaimed. "How can she be breathing without a pulse?" Disbelief overcame disgust for Homer Shields just long enough for him to feel along the woman's neck as well. After a couple moments of fruitless hunting he glanced to his partner with saucers for eyes. "Jesus. You're right."
"Yes, quite the anomaly," Burke nodded. "We were hoping Miss Gordon's blood tests would give us some insight into that phenomenon but sadly they raised even more questions."
"What kind of questions?" Sarah asked looking back at the doctor over her shoulder.
"For one, why her blood was already coagulated."
"What?" The two researchers cried in unison.
"I know what you must be thinking." Burke replied, infuriatingly calm as ever. "Decomposing flesh, no cardiac activity and coagulated blood," he ticked the symptoms off on his fingers as he named each one. "All those signs would point to -"
"Death," Sarah finished for him, glancing down warily at the breathing cadaver.
"Yes," Burke grumbled, clearly displeased at having been interrupted. "Yet there remains clear respiratory function - a trait most certainly not found among the deceased. Our patient here, Regina Gordon, is both dead and not dead."
"What are you trying to say, Burke?" Homer snorted with a nervous laugh. "She's a fucking zombie now or something?"
Burke's eyes snapped sharply to the portly CDC researcher and his tone carried a dull edge to it when he spoke. "Zombies are fiction, Doctor Shields. Those of us that practice medicine here are concerned with facts and facts only."
Homer's mouth worked silently for a moment, no doubt surprised at the blunt rebuke. Finally he simply clamped his lips together and pretended to study something on his shoes, face burning.
Way to go Homes, you smooth talker you.
The prospect of a virus that could warp a hale and healthy person into a breathing corpse was enough to make even a medical Sherlock Holmes like Sarah Waxer trepidatious...but there was no denying who she was. Always dive in headfirst, Sarah told herself. Fishing around in her pocket with one hand, she used the other to check for a pulse in Regina's wrist and this time her fingers did find leather. Leather bindings and metal buckles secured to the bed's guardrails.
"You have a comatose patient restrained?"
"As I've explained numerous times, there was an attack by a patient on two nurses and an orderly," Burke grunted, his lips downturned in a sour frown. "The, ah, complications arose after the patient recovered from the coma. We aren't taking anymore chances." As Sarah began to lean out over the bed, still digging in the pockets of her lab coat, Burke added, "I wouldn't get too close if I were you, Doctor Waxer. I agreed to let you and your partner visit an RS patient not treat one yourself. There's still much about the effect the syndrome has on its hosts that you aren't aware of yet."
"And I suppose you are?" She muttered, fishing out a penlight.
"I know enough to keep my distance."
"Duly noted."
"Sarah, what the hell are you doing?" Homer ventured, voice quavering as it always did when she "went deaf". If there was one thing Homer simply could not cope with it was people who refused to listen...and Sarah Waxer was their queen. "Didn't you hear what he just said?"
"Oh, I heard him all right," Sarah replied, thumbing the light on. "I'm just checking her pupils, Homes, take a pill would ya?"
You really need to stop trying to play, Daddy, Homer. It's the one thing that keeps you from being the cool wizened old sage and makes you the douchey old fart.
There was a sickening wet sucking sound as Sarah pried open Regina Gordon's left eyelid and shone her light across its surface. A milky white film filled the orb, leaving the pupil little more than a tiny black pea floating in a creamy soup. Chewing her lip, Sarah could feel the crease forming in her forehead.
Cataracts? That's interesting. Well, if this is a game show then I guess the million dollar question is what type of virus turns your blood to sludge, dries out your ocular fluid, putrefies your skin but still allows you to breathe free and easy? Looks like my mummy label wasn't too far off the mark then. I wonder though...
Letting the left eye snap shut, Sarah shifted her fingers to the right - and pulled away with a gasp when it opened all on its own. Regina Gordon's mouth parted, revealing rows of cracked brown teeth, and issued forth a thick, gurgling moan. Her breath was humid and stank of sickness.
The corpse is trying to talk, Sarah thought, horrified into stupidity.
"Get away from her!" Burke screamed but all Sarah could do was tremble as Regina lurched forward but was held back by her bonds. Wailing at the inconvenience she began to thrash and pull wildly at the straps.
"Sarah!" Homer's voice but it seemed to be coming from impossibly far away. "Jesus, Sarah, the restraints!"
Mouth gaping, hands shaking, Sarah's eyes flashed to the leather bindings Regina struggled so violently against. The straps began to stretch then cracked with a definitive snap. A scream of triumph from the waking corpse. A scream for Hargreaves from Doctor Burke.
Cold, flaking arms reached up for Sarah, hauling her down onto the ground. Drool, slimy and warm spilled down her cheek and she shrieked like a schoolgirl with a spider down her dress. Pale hands pinned her own flailing arms to the floor. Sarah thrashed, bucked, and kicked but to no avail. For a dead woman, Regina Gordon was alarmingly strong. With a moan that sounded to akin to a sound of hunger, Regina lowered her shriveled face, her teeth pressing against the skin of Sarah's neck.
Doctor Waxer's cries of revulsion and horror were cut short by two bursts of sound that took her several moments to identify as gunshots. The drooling, grunting, groaning thing atop her fell suddenly limp, pining her beneath the frigid weight of death. Her gorge rising rapidly, Sarah clawed and kicked her way free of Regina's gruesome burden and scrambled for the door.
Sights past in glimpses and flashes for the young researcher as she scampered frantically for the exit while resisting the urge to vomit: Burke scowling at her, face afire with barely contained fury. Homer, looking nearly as sick as she was certain she was about to be. Hargreaves, sweat trickling down his unshaven face, a smoking handgun held in unsteady hands and there, at his feet on the floor, Regina Gordon lay with two holes in her forehead, leaking blood and grey-matter out onto the pristine white floor.
Barely taking time to process these images, Sarah pushed past Burke and out into the hallway. She stumbled over Harold Hargreaves' chair, doubled over and spilled her breakfast across the tiles. Tears in her eyes, Sarah heaved and spluttered. When she brought her hand up to wipe her mouth only then did she notice the blood on her sleeve and collar. Yelping she tore her lab coat off faster than if it had been on fire and hurled the garment across the corridor.
"Fuck!" Sarah detested foul language, resorting to it only when she deemed it absolutely necessary. "Goddamn it! Fuck!"
"Sarah?" Homer exploded into the hall, followed less enthusiastically by Burke and Harold Hargreaves. He took his partner by the shoulders, trying desperately to calm her, to get her to look him in the face. "Sarah! Are you alright? Did she hurt you? Sarah? Sarah, talk to me!"
"I'm fine!" She snapped, too harshly, he was only concerned for her but still she was pissed and when any Waxer got pissed the wise kept their distance. "I'm fine. Just...goddamn it. She was in a coma....a fucking coma and then it was like...boom! In your face, bitch. I can't believe it. She was trying to...to..."
Eat me. Oh God. I think I want to be sick again.
"Maybe the next time I tell you something you'll listen!" Burke spat, thrusting an accusatory finger in Sarah's direction. "Does the CDC usually hire headstrong, ignorant little girls such as yourself or are you the exception to the rule?"
Her first impulse was to punch Burke square in that curved, hawkish little nose of his and then follow that up with a solid kick to the crotch but something he said struck a chord with her. CDC. That's right, motherfucker. I am CDC - I represent the bastards that get to tell you what to do and it's my recommendation they'll be listening to.
"I want a quarantine instituted." She spoke matter-of-factly and just let the bastard try and argue. "Effective immediately. That's what I'm going to be including in my first report to HQ."
Burke rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically. "There's no need to over re-act. I assure you, Doctor Waxer, the security measures we have in place here are more than sufficient to deal with the current circumstances - provided the personnel we have on staff follow the proper protocols and listen to those with some experience in handling RS patients!"
"I'm not talking about this hospital you ass!" Sarah bellowed with more fire than perhaps even she intended. All three men jumped. "Tell me something, Burke. What protocols do you have in place for when the other forty RS patients in this place wake up from their comas? What happens when you get more than forty? When you get a hundred or two or three? What happens when RS victims in hospitals all over the city open their eyes and break their restraints? Do you have a plan in place to deal with that little contingency?"
Burke sneered but gave no reply.
"Didn't think so," She scowled. "No, Doctor Burke, I don't give a crap about your damn hospital. RS might have started here but it's going to be everyone's problem sooner or later." She moved closer to Burke, stepping up to him until they were nose to nose and he couldn't help but look her in the eye. "I want a quarantine imposed on the whole fucking city."
Author's Note: Hello all! Sorry for the delay, it's good to be back after so long. I've finally found some inspiration it seems. Another outbreak story, I know but I'm writing this as a set up for another story I have in the works where Zeke and Co. will return. Please read and review!