Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Chapter Thirteen: A Change of Plans
Doctor Cox heard JD's sharp exhalation of breath as they finally managed to pull onto the freeway from the accelerating lane. The entire strip of road was on gridlock, and the entire strip of shoulder was crowded with police vehicles. Unfortunately, they'd lost track of the rest of the gang as police officers were directing civilian vehicles singularly, but at least they were all heading towards the same place.
The same place being a rest stop that was about five miles away. And five miles was a long way when there was five miles worth of bumper to bumper traffic sitting on the asphalt and going less than five miles per hour. The tight security didn't help much in the time department either, and there'd probably be even tighter security at the designated rest stop.
After ten minutes of sitting idly, JD put the sedan into park.
"I have an uncle in the police force," JD said after some time. When it looked like Doctor Cox would interrupt, he said quickly, "During our reunions, he used to tell us how hard it was when a case went cold. He said that every time they'd be given a new case, he had this irrational hope that it'd be connected to one of his previous cases somehow. That somehow all the clues would pop up at the same time and make everything easier. Of course, that's all just wishful thinking…" He shook his head and chuckled. "I kind of know how he feels now, working with this strain…"
Doctor Cox gave an absentminded nod. "Speaking of clues, we found out another symptom today."
The younger man glanced at him. "Yeah?" he murmured.
He nodded wearily. "Looks bleak. Slow moving respiratory arrest. This one patient's wife kept complaining that he was constantly going to the crapper. The patient was complaining of difficulty breathing. He slipped into a coma sometime after."
JD's eyes widened. "Difficulty breathing… If the virus got to his lungs, that means that there wasn't enough oxygen circulating through his organs. No wonder he was using the bathroom so often -- all his organs were probably shutting down and going lax."
"Exactly," Doctor Cox said with an enthusiastic nod. "Stool samples presented with blood, as did his sputum."
JD put the car into drive when the vehicle in front of him moved up about two feet. He put it into park again before wiping his face with his hands, leaning back against the headrest. He jumped as he heard a car horn sound alongside them, and turned his head towards his window to see the Turks' Mini Cooper pull up. JD grinned and rolled down his window.
"Hey man, thought I lost you," JD said as soon as Carla rolled down hers.
"How are you guys doing in there, Bambi?" Carla asked, giving the two a look that Turk was unable to see.
JD blushed and Doctor Cox scowled.
"Elliot's like two cars behind me," Turk said. "I called Doctor Wen and he said he's been on this road for like two hours. But he's up there by some security checkpoint. That whole checkpoint partitions half of this highway, and I guess beyond that is where they're doing the ration distribution."
"Christ," Doctor Cox groaned. "By the time we get our rations, I wouldn't be surprised if we start fighting the temptation to eat it all."
"It is a rest stop," Carla said with a shrug. "Hopefully they'll have some food over there," she wrinkled her nose, "and hopefully none of that MRE crap."
"Can't be picky when you're starving," JD remarked, drumming his fingers on the top of his steering wheel. "God, I'm exhausted. Maybe we should've done this a little bit after our shifts."
"Why don't we switch up after?" Turk suggested, touching his wife on the shoulder. "This might take a little while. Our co-pilots could catch some z's."
"That works," JD said with a yawn.
"I'll call Elliot and see how she's doing," Carla said, digging through her bag for her cell phone.
About three hundred feet behind the Turks' Mini Cooper, Elliot shrilly answered her cell phone. Carla winced.
"Frick, I really have to pee and this is the worst idea ever and practically all of Sacramento is going to be on this freeway and what if something happens? We can't run from a fast-moving virus at two miles per hour, Carla!"
"Well, I was going to ask you how you were doing…" Carla drawled with a roll of her eyes. "Elliot! Don't worry about anything. They've got the entire freeway lined up with police vehicles. I'm sure they have a plan for that sort of thing."
Suddenly, a loud boom echoed across the freeway, shaking vehicles and its passengers.
"Gee, Carla, you really know how to speak too soon," Doctor Cox sniped, unstrapping his seat belt and getting out of the car.
Around them, several other passengers in their vehicles followed suit. Carla closed her car door, using her open window as leverage as she hitched herself up onto the top of the roof. She hissed as her knees rubbed and scraped against warm metal, but it did not stop her from getting to her feet, her hand hovering over her eyes as she blocked them against the glare of the sun.
A few miles up ahead, she saw smoke billowing towards the blue, cloudless sky.
JD turned on the radio and switched it onto AM, searching for a news station.
"…KTKZ 1380 AM. With us today is Officer Mike Randall who is overseeing the ration distribution out on Interstate 5. We are live, about three thousand feet away from the site. A green 1983 Toyota Camry pulled up to the security checkpoint not even one minute ago. The officer on duty was doing standard rounds on the vehicle and opened the trunk, which exploded seconds after. Police officials believe it to have been an IED, as several pieces of shrapnel had blown outwards after the explosion. Several people have been hurt and the officer on duty was instantly killed, as were the passengers in the car. Officer Randall, this is terrible! What in the world is going to be done now?"
"Paramedic 'copters have been called and will be on the scene as fast as they can manage. Ration distribution will not be canceled, however, this will delay things quite a bit. We're going to open up two other lanes a few feet up past the security checkpoint once the site has been cleaned up -- one will head towards the rest stop, and the other, a detour back into the city. We've got two fire engines and several rescue vehicles parked right up here for just this occasion, as we were expecting almost anything at this point. It's very sad that people have the nerve to do this under already stressful conditions…"
"Jesus Christ," JD whimpered breathily, exhaling through his nose.
"Save the nervous breakdown for later, Lucinda, please," Doctor Cox growled.
JD shakily unlocked his door and stumbled out of the car, a surreal feeling overtaking him as he watched people come out of their cars and scatter, gazing at the billowing cloud of smoke a few miles ahead. The din of muttered worries and panicked cries and the sound of car doors opening and closing seemed far away to JD's ears.
Another boom, louder and perhaps closer, rang through the stretch of road. Startled screams followed.
"What the fuck is going on?" Doctor Cox snarled.
"Save the nervous breakdown for later, Perry," JD snapped, his weariness and his fright making him testy and irritable.
Doctor Cox merely growled and darted out over towards the shoulder, where several police vehicles were sitting idly. The officers, however, were outside, their eyes trained on the twin clouds of smoke several feet away, talking in low voices amongst themselves and into their two-way scanners.
"This place is gonna get crazy in a minute," Doctor Cox said to the nearest officer -- a man with very white, straight hair and a metallic black nametag on his breast that said 'Officer Nevin Pierce.' "What do we do?" he demanded.
"Sit tight like the rest of us," Pierce scowled as he moved his police radio away from his mouth.
"I'm with a bunch of annoying people who happen to be competent doctors, if need be," Doctor Cox said wearily, jabbing his thumb behind him.
The scowl on Officer Pierce's face eased just slightly, and he nodded, a tired look in his eyes. "Noted, and appreciated," he sighed.
Doctor Cox ambled back over to their vehicles. Elliot and Keith had abandoned their car and were standing by JD's sedan, Elliot babbling shrilly and flailing her arms about.
"Get anything out of them?" Turk asked.
"Nothing yet. They'll keep us updated, though, 'cause they'll probably need assistance up there sometime soon."
Twenty minutes of tense silence passed, aside from the low chattering of the radio from JD's car, and random hollers of instruction from the police or the bellows and cries from shaken civilians. Pierce and another officer walked towards their cars, nodding at Doctor Cox.
"Mass casualty triage up there," the man beside Pierce told them. "They could do with some help. Paramedic 'copters are hovering until someone authorizes them a landing spot."
JD, Doctor Cox, Turk, and Keith left with both officers, cramping into the back of a police-owned SUV. Pierce put on the lights and sirens and weaved through police activity on the shoulder, moving closer and closer to the fading, gray billows of smoke.
It was about a thousand feet up from the security checkpoint did they begin to see several glassless car bodies, the shards all scattered in thousands of tiny shimmering, blue-tinged pieces on the asphalt. Pierce stopped the car and the four men seated in the backseat all flooded out, checking the vehicles for injured people. EMS techs trailed after them with first aid kits, neck braces, and body boards. Those injured were either carried off or directed to two large mass casualty trucks parked a little past the security checkpoint where EMS techs, paramedics, and some first responders with first aid and CPR training looked over victims donning a spectrum of wounds. A man was distributing triage tags to recumbent victims.
A strong breeze picked up, and the sound of swiping rotor blades filled the air.
"I feel like I'm in MASH," JD muttered under his breath as he followed Doctor Cox to the helicopter.
"Are you two doctors?" a man in the cabin hollered over the whirring noise. JD and Doctor Cox nodded. "In!" he yelled, waving a hand at them urgently.
Without another thought, JD and Doctor Cox scrambled into the aircraft's cramped cabin.
"Where are we going?" JD yelled.
The man didn't answer.
The helicopter took flight, away from the scene.
"Where are we going?" Doctor Cox reiterated tersely.
The man, heavyset and with a scruffy three-inch beard grinned and said, "Docs, you should know better than to enter unmarked vehicles."
A/N: I am sorry for the lack of updates. I haven't been very motivated lately.