"ER/Stand" part 4
It was definetely getting too hot. He knew better than to push too hard. If he dropped from heat exhaustion, it would be a very long time before anyone called an ambulance. You're on your own, he told himself as he changed direction and headed for the tree filled park, you need to take care of yourself. The safety net in life was civilization, and civilization was on vacation. That was why he had picked up the M-16 cradled in his arms, and that was most certianly why he was going to sit for a few moments in the shade and drink a bottle of spirng water..
The park was cooler and surprisingly free of dead people. Dead people had never bothered him, it was a fact of life that people died, but he wanted to drink his water without the stench of rotting flesh. It would make the sandwiches he'd packed into his knapsack go down a little easier too. He walked along, looking for a nice place to stop, when a grating noise reached his hears. He stopped, letting himself listen to the near silent city. Not grating , he realized, but shovelling. Somebody felt well enough to be shoveling dirt. Not really the happiest of chores, if whoever it was had decided to bury a loved one, but he was looking for survivors and it was a place to start.
He followed the sound, his pace increasing as the sound got louder. He turned a corner, and found what he was looking for. Two freshly filled graves on a grassy knoll, and a man standing beside the graves, patting down one with the shovel. Then the man took a long drink from a bottle.
A drunk, he thought as he stepped forward, but a drunk with enough compassion left to bury loved ones despite the obvious pointlessness of the task. A fellow survivor and he didn't mind the drinking. Much, anyway. There just weren't that many people around. He couldn't afford to be choosy. " Hey!"
The man turned. " Who are you? Are you planning anything with that gun?" He didn't seem angry, but there was definetely concern on his face, even as he wavered in his stance.
" I'm Luka Kovac." He smiled and slung the rifle onto his back. " I just picked it up to be cautious. There was some shooting last night." Luka eyed the man as he spoke. The fellow was shorter than he, and older. How much older was hard to tell. Luka suspected that a lot of the gray hair was premature and of fairly recent origan. Still, he looked reasonable healthy as he held out the bottle of expensive scotch.
" I'm Doug Ross, doctor and grave digger extraoidonaire. Want a drink?" He was in shock, Luka realized. Not physical shock, that could be treated, but emotional shock. The sort that drove a man to drink long after he was thoroughly drunk. Doug gestured to the graves. " I'm not much of a doctor, but I sure do dig a nice grave. " He continued to hold out the bottle.
" No thanks," Luka said easily. It wasn't that he wasn't tempted, he was most defienetely tempted to blot out the last two weeks of horror with drink, but he knew it wouldn't acomplish much. Still, this Doug fellow was alive and it was just possible that he would clean up. Either way, he couldn't just leave the man. " The graves... your family?"
Doug shook his head. A wry grin crossed his face, and he chuckled, though Luka sensed it was a nervous habit. " No, not family. Better than family. This, " and he tapped one of the mounds, " is the final resting place of my best friend and his daughter. That, " and he then gestured to the other mound, " is the grave of the woman I should have married." He sighed.
There wasn't much Luka could say to that. He had thought, as he had seen people start to riot at Mercy, that he was coping better simply due to his being alone in the world. It was hard to grieve for people you didn't know, and his family was long dead. Still, he had to say something. " Why did you only dig two graves?"
Doug sighed again. Luka could see him tighten up. " Mark didn't want Rachel to be alone. He died just a few hours after she did. He didn't try to fight it.... He kept asking me to make sure that she wouldn't be alone. " He looked at Luka with bleary, reddened eyes. " After all the times he pulled me out of the gutter, it was the least I could do. I guess... I could have gone down to a cemetary, but I like this place. Mark and I used to jog here. Carol said her father used to bring here... I thought it would be all right..." His voice trailed off. He took another drink.
" Its a pretty spot." Luka agreed. He waited a long moment, sensing that the other man needed the silence. Finally, he said softly, " I was looking for people. Would you like to come with me?"
Doug shook his head. He took another drink. " I have to... I have to check on someone. I promised..." He grinned again, and turned to face Luka. " I'm not a great person, but I promised that once everything was over and done..." and he wiped his eyes quickly, " that I would check back. I have to make sure."
Make sure that whoever it was had died, Luka reasoned, but how could he argue against it? Doug might very well be a drunk, but he seemed like an honorable drunk. " Where do you need to go?" If the man wasn't planning some sort of ridiulous cross country search for someone that was likely dead, then Luka didn't mind tagging along. It was something to do, and being around someone was better than being alone. It was safer for starters and while Luka considered himself fairly solitary, he could see that being alone all of the time wasn't healthy. The night before, he'd spent most of the night tossing and turning from nightmares.
Doug shrugged. " Just down to Cook County General. About ten blocks from here. " He chuckled again. " If the El was working, it'd be two minutes but with all the traffic jams, I'm going to have to walk. "
Luka almost smiled in relief. Cook County wasn't a short walk, but it wasn't Miami Beach either. It was maybe an hour walk. " I'll go with you then. If you think there are people there, then we should check it out."
Doug eyed him for a moment. " Ok, but first you're having a drink with me." He walked over to a duffle bag that was resting under a nearby tree and withdrew another bottle and a shot glass. He handed the glass to Luka. " Mark bought this after we buried my father. He told me to save it for my wedding night, but I think this is as close as I'll ever get." He filled the glass for Luka and then lifted the bottle up and ceremoniously took a drink. " Mark, you were like a brother to me. Carol, you were the love of my life. If there had been a choice, I would have died for you both." He hung his head, and Luka could see tears in the man's eyes as he took another drink. " Carol, I promised you I'd be ok, that I'd try to find happiness, but I will carry you in my heart forever." He drank again, and Luka tossed back his own drink, and then Doug poured the rest of the bottle into the grass. He grabbed his duffle bag. " I'm ready to go."
Doug wasn't surprised at the broken glass and dead bodies that littered the street. He'd seen some of the footage on the news of the riot near Mercy Hospital, and it hadn't been pretty. What surprised him was the military barricades and the nearly clear pathway that led to the ER. Someone had spent a lot of time and effort keeping the street clear. In the end he supposed it didn't matter much.
He was starting to lose the buzz from the alcohol. He wanted another drink. He craved another drink, that was the truth. He craved it in the worst way. It took away the memories. Kovac's unspoken disapproval hadn't escaped him though, and he had vowed to quit for a few hours. Later, when night came, he'd attack the extra bottle in his bag. He didn't care much about what Kovac thought of him. He just didn't want to spend another night alone. The night before, after Carol had died, he had tried to sleep, only to wake up screaming. That was when he started drinking. It seemed to bother Kovac and he had decided to taper off a bit until the evening.
Kovac was, he thought as they climbed over the makeshift barricade on the sidewalk by the entranceto the hospital, a rather strange man. A little too quiet and cool, as if he'd seen worse before and found the whole business a bit trying. He'd asked the man about his family and where he was from, since it was obvious by accent that Kovac hadn't been born and raised in the Midwest. Kovac had told him very little, that he was from Croatia, that he also was a doctor, and that his wife and children had been dead for some years. If he wasn't drunk and depressed beyond belief, Doug would have expressed some sympathy but he was barely capable of maintaining conversation. He was surprised that Kovac had agreed to come with him to County, on what he knew in his heart to be a fool's errand.
There weren't any lights on, and someone had chocked open the electronic doors. Kovac pulled a flashlight out of his knapsack and shined it down the hallway. Doug's eyes widened as he took in the rows of dead bodies stacked on gurneys. The plaec was packed. There didn't seem to be anyone alive. They walked over to the main desk and the flashlight's beam fell on a puddle of blood. The light illuminated a man, a man that Doug knew hadn't died of the flu. There were drying streaks of blood and tissue splayed out across the tile. " Damn...."
" There was trouble here." Kovac said simply. He took a step closer and shined the light up close along the dead man's body. The camoflage told Doug that the man had been a soldier, but there was precious little left of the man's face and head. No way to tell if he'd met the man. Luka gestured to the man's back. " Someone made sure he wouldn't get up. And its fresh blood... It happened in the last hour or two."
I want a drink, Doug though suddenly. His hands shook even as he clenched his bag. Suddenly, he wanted out. Out of the cool, dim hallway that was starting to reek with the sickly scent of rotting flesh. He could feel the neck of the bottle of whiskey that he'd stowed in his bag. He wanted nothing more than to bolt away to the outside and drink himself into oblivion, but he stopped himself. I have to make sure, he told himself numbly.
A beam of light flashed down the hallway. " Hands up!" Doug knew the voice, in the back of his mind he knew it was a friend, but he threw his hands up as fast as he could. Someone had shot the army man and not more than a few hours ago. The light shined directly into his face. Then, it fell away. " Dr. Ross? Is that you?"
He lowered his hands, blinking away the dazzle from the light. " Randi? "
" Dr. Ross, you're alive." She walked over, a flashlight in one hand and a pistol in the other. She was dressed in her usual flashy manner, a red halter top that clung to her chest and some tight jeans. Her face wore a guarded, worried expression. She looked over Luka who still had his hands up. " Is your friend friendly?"
It took a moment for the question to register. " He's fine, Randi. " He gestured for Luka to lower his hands. " Randi, this is Dr. Luka Kovac. Dr. Kovac, Randi Fronzac...." He almost laughed at the idiocy of it all. He was politely introducing two people in a darkened abandoned hospital over the body of a man that had obviously died less than two hours earlier. He shook off the thought. " Randi, is.... are you the only one here?"
" Naw." Randi smiled. " Carter and Jeanie are stitching Lucy up in the cafeteria. Dr. Weaver is in the lounge having a psychotic episode."
Doug thought about that for a moment. " What?"
" It's a long story, and I missed most of it." Randi shined her flashlight onto the dead man at their feet. " I guess the short version is that Captain Asshole here was sick and shot Lucy over some vaccine we don't have. Then Dr. Weaver blasted him in the back."
" She's a good shot." Kovac offered. " I could cover the shot pattern with my hand."
Randi rolled her eyes. " Yeah, and she's still armed, and while I think this son of a bitch deserved what he got, I also think that not sleeping for seven days straight has screwed her priorities just a bit. She locked herself into the lounge to do charts." She stopped. " Dr. Ross, are you even listening to me?"
He blinked. It was just too much. " Randi, I'm really drunk."
??
It was definetely getting too hot. He knew better than to push too hard. If he dropped from heat exhaustion, it would be a very long time before anyone called an ambulance. You're on your own, he told himself as he changed direction and headed for the tree filled park, you need to take care of yourself. The safety net in life was civilization, and civilization was on vacation. That was why he had picked up the M-16 cradled in his arms, and that was most certianly why he was going to sit for a few moments in the shade and drink a bottle of spirng water..
The park was cooler and surprisingly free of dead people. Dead people had never bothered him, it was a fact of life that people died, but he wanted to drink his water without the stench of rotting flesh. It would make the sandwiches he'd packed into his knapsack go down a little easier too. He walked along, looking for a nice place to stop, when a grating noise reached his hears. He stopped, letting himself listen to the near silent city. Not grating , he realized, but shovelling. Somebody felt well enough to be shoveling dirt. Not really the happiest of chores, if whoever it was had decided to bury a loved one, but he was looking for survivors and it was a place to start.
He followed the sound, his pace increasing as the sound got louder. He turned a corner, and found what he was looking for. Two freshly filled graves on a grassy knoll, and a man standing beside the graves, patting down one with the shovel. Then the man took a long drink from a bottle.
A drunk, he thought as he stepped forward, but a drunk with enough compassion left to bury loved ones despite the obvious pointlessness of the task. A fellow survivor and he didn't mind the drinking. Much, anyway. There just weren't that many people around. He couldn't afford to be choosy. " Hey!"
The man turned. " Who are you? Are you planning anything with that gun?" He didn't seem angry, but there was definetely concern on his face, even as he wavered in his stance.
" I'm Luka Kovac." He smiled and slung the rifle onto his back. " I just picked it up to be cautious. There was some shooting last night." Luka eyed the man as he spoke. The fellow was shorter than he, and older. How much older was hard to tell. Luka suspected that a lot of the gray hair was premature and of fairly recent origan. Still, he looked reasonable healthy as he held out the bottle of expensive scotch.
" I'm Doug Ross, doctor and grave digger extraoidonaire. Want a drink?" He was in shock, Luka realized. Not physical shock, that could be treated, but emotional shock. The sort that drove a man to drink long after he was thoroughly drunk. Doug gestured to the graves. " I'm not much of a doctor, but I sure do dig a nice grave. " He continued to hold out the bottle.
" No thanks," Luka said easily. It wasn't that he wasn't tempted, he was most defienetely tempted to blot out the last two weeks of horror with drink, but he knew it wouldn't acomplish much. Still, this Doug fellow was alive and it was just possible that he would clean up. Either way, he couldn't just leave the man. " The graves... your family?"
Doug shook his head. A wry grin crossed his face, and he chuckled, though Luka sensed it was a nervous habit. " No, not family. Better than family. This, " and he tapped one of the mounds, " is the final resting place of my best friend and his daughter. That, " and he then gestured to the other mound, " is the grave of the woman I should have married." He sighed.
There wasn't much Luka could say to that. He had thought, as he had seen people start to riot at Mercy, that he was coping better simply due to his being alone in the world. It was hard to grieve for people you didn't know, and his family was long dead. Still, he had to say something. " Why did you only dig two graves?"
Doug sighed again. Luka could see him tighten up. " Mark didn't want Rachel to be alone. He died just a few hours after she did. He didn't try to fight it.... He kept asking me to make sure that she wouldn't be alone. " He looked at Luka with bleary, reddened eyes. " After all the times he pulled me out of the gutter, it was the least I could do. I guess... I could have gone down to a cemetary, but I like this place. Mark and I used to jog here. Carol said her father used to bring here... I thought it would be all right..." His voice trailed off. He took another drink.
" Its a pretty spot." Luka agreed. He waited a long moment, sensing that the other man needed the silence. Finally, he said softly, " I was looking for people. Would you like to come with me?"
Doug shook his head. He took another drink. " I have to... I have to check on someone. I promised..." He grinned again, and turned to face Luka. " I'm not a great person, but I promised that once everything was over and done..." and he wiped his eyes quickly, " that I would check back. I have to make sure."
Make sure that whoever it was had died, Luka reasoned, but how could he argue against it? Doug might very well be a drunk, but he seemed like an honorable drunk. " Where do you need to go?" If the man wasn't planning some sort of ridiulous cross country search for someone that was likely dead, then Luka didn't mind tagging along. It was something to do, and being around someone was better than being alone. It was safer for starters and while Luka considered himself fairly solitary, he could see that being alone all of the time wasn't healthy. The night before, he'd spent most of the night tossing and turning from nightmares.
Doug shrugged. " Just down to Cook County General. About ten blocks from here. " He chuckled again. " If the El was working, it'd be two minutes but with all the traffic jams, I'm going to have to walk. "
Luka almost smiled in relief. Cook County wasn't a short walk, but it wasn't Miami Beach either. It was maybe an hour walk. " I'll go with you then. If you think there are people there, then we should check it out."
Doug eyed him for a moment. " Ok, but first you're having a drink with me." He walked over to a duffle bag that was resting under a nearby tree and withdrew another bottle and a shot glass. He handed the glass to Luka. " Mark bought this after we buried my father. He told me to save it for my wedding night, but I think this is as close as I'll ever get." He filled the glass for Luka and then lifted the bottle up and ceremoniously took a drink. " Mark, you were like a brother to me. Carol, you were the love of my life. If there had been a choice, I would have died for you both." He hung his head, and Luka could see tears in the man's eyes as he took another drink. " Carol, I promised you I'd be ok, that I'd try to find happiness, but I will carry you in my heart forever." He drank again, and Luka tossed back his own drink, and then Doug poured the rest of the bottle into the grass. He grabbed his duffle bag. " I'm ready to go."
Doug wasn't surprised at the broken glass and dead bodies that littered the street. He'd seen some of the footage on the news of the riot near Mercy Hospital, and it hadn't been pretty. What surprised him was the military barricades and the nearly clear pathway that led to the ER. Someone had spent a lot of time and effort keeping the street clear. In the end he supposed it didn't matter much.
He was starting to lose the buzz from the alcohol. He wanted another drink. He craved another drink, that was the truth. He craved it in the worst way. It took away the memories. Kovac's unspoken disapproval hadn't escaped him though, and he had vowed to quit for a few hours. Later, when night came, he'd attack the extra bottle in his bag. He didn't care much about what Kovac thought of him. He just didn't want to spend another night alone. The night before, after Carol had died, he had tried to sleep, only to wake up screaming. That was when he started drinking. It seemed to bother Kovac and he had decided to taper off a bit until the evening.
Kovac was, he thought as they climbed over the makeshift barricade on the sidewalk by the entranceto the hospital, a rather strange man. A little too quiet and cool, as if he'd seen worse before and found the whole business a bit trying. He'd asked the man about his family and where he was from, since it was obvious by accent that Kovac hadn't been born and raised in the Midwest. Kovac had told him very little, that he was from Croatia, that he also was a doctor, and that his wife and children had been dead for some years. If he wasn't drunk and depressed beyond belief, Doug would have expressed some sympathy but he was barely capable of maintaining conversation. He was surprised that Kovac had agreed to come with him to County, on what he knew in his heart to be a fool's errand.
There weren't any lights on, and someone had chocked open the electronic doors. Kovac pulled a flashlight out of his knapsack and shined it down the hallway. Doug's eyes widened as he took in the rows of dead bodies stacked on gurneys. The plaec was packed. There didn't seem to be anyone alive. They walked over to the main desk and the flashlight's beam fell on a puddle of blood. The light illuminated a man, a man that Doug knew hadn't died of the flu. There were drying streaks of blood and tissue splayed out across the tile. " Damn...."
" There was trouble here." Kovac said simply. He took a step closer and shined the light up close along the dead man's body. The camoflage told Doug that the man had been a soldier, but there was precious little left of the man's face and head. No way to tell if he'd met the man. Luka gestured to the man's back. " Someone made sure he wouldn't get up. And its fresh blood... It happened in the last hour or two."
I want a drink, Doug though suddenly. His hands shook even as he clenched his bag. Suddenly, he wanted out. Out of the cool, dim hallway that was starting to reek with the sickly scent of rotting flesh. He could feel the neck of the bottle of whiskey that he'd stowed in his bag. He wanted nothing more than to bolt away to the outside and drink himself into oblivion, but he stopped himself. I have to make sure, he told himself numbly.
A beam of light flashed down the hallway. " Hands up!" Doug knew the voice, in the back of his mind he knew it was a friend, but he threw his hands up as fast as he could. Someone had shot the army man and not more than a few hours ago. The light shined directly into his face. Then, it fell away. " Dr. Ross? Is that you?"
He lowered his hands, blinking away the dazzle from the light. " Randi? "
" Dr. Ross, you're alive." She walked over, a flashlight in one hand and a pistol in the other. She was dressed in her usual flashy manner, a red halter top that clung to her chest and some tight jeans. Her face wore a guarded, worried expression. She looked over Luka who still had his hands up. " Is your friend friendly?"
It took a moment for the question to register. " He's fine, Randi. " He gestured for Luka to lower his hands. " Randi, this is Dr. Luka Kovac. Dr. Kovac, Randi Fronzac...." He almost laughed at the idiocy of it all. He was politely introducing two people in a darkened abandoned hospital over the body of a man that had obviously died less than two hours earlier. He shook off the thought. " Randi, is.... are you the only one here?"
" Naw." Randi smiled. " Carter and Jeanie are stitching Lucy up in the cafeteria. Dr. Weaver is in the lounge having a psychotic episode."
Doug thought about that for a moment. " What?"
" It's a long story, and I missed most of it." Randi shined her flashlight onto the dead man at their feet. " I guess the short version is that Captain Asshole here was sick and shot Lucy over some vaccine we don't have. Then Dr. Weaver blasted him in the back."
" She's a good shot." Kovac offered. " I could cover the shot pattern with my hand."
Randi rolled her eyes. " Yeah, and she's still armed, and while I think this son of a bitch deserved what he got, I also think that not sleeping for seven days straight has screwed her priorities just a bit. She locked herself into the lounge to do charts." She stopped. " Dr. Ross, are you even listening to me?"
He blinked. It was just too much. " Randi, I'm really drunk."
??