Lawyers: Our client does not own Scrubs or Dead Like Me, but we're pretty sure everyone already knew that.
Chapter Seven
Dr. Cox was so mad that his anger was palpable. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if someone were to walk into the room, taste the air and say, "Wow, someone is really pissed."
"Newbie," Dr. Cox snapped, looking about ready to rip out his own hair, "Because you came in here shrieking like a frightened little girl about how we're all facing the next plague moments before the quarantine was issued, I will be holding you personally responsible for said quarantine."
That wasn't too surprising. What occurred was either a horribly timed coincidence, or Kelso has ears like a bat. Not that it really mattered because either way, I knew Dr. Cox would blame me.
He cleared his throat before growling, "I was just two hours away from ending my shift. You couldn't have waited two hours before spouting off all this nonsense?"
"But it's true!" I protested, "These people really are sick with the plague and we need to treat them all for it before it gets any worse."
"Gladis, do you know the odds of someone getting the pneumonic plague, let alone this many people?" Dr. Cox said, crossing his arms.
"I realize how strange it is and while I don't know why it's happening, I do know that it is happening," I insisted.
"Well, since you seem to think you know what's best, as soon as my shift ends, you will be taking all of my patients for me," he said with a happy, yet evil smile. "However, in the mean-time, you get to go around and tell all the families of all the deceased that their loved one has bought the farm. Aren't you the lucky one?"
He picked up a rather large stack of charts off the table and dumped them into my reluctant hands. Then, patting me on the shoulder (though it felt more like hitting), he flashed me a big grin and said, "Here are their charts. Have fun."
He quickly left the room, leaving me stuck with six charts of six dead patients out of the total nineteen. That meant six distraught families and six times I would have to be the bearer of bad news. Why the hell do I let Dr. Cox talk me into these things?
The first family is the McGarth family. Their daughter, Valerie, was one of my reaps. I've done this several times before, so I should have no problem doing it six more times. I just had to track these people down, put on an expressionless face, and explain in a tone that is a mix between solemn and sad about how 'Valerie was very sick, and we did all we could, and we're sorry for your loss.' Yeah, see, it's as easy as that. I can do this...
"Mr. and Mrs. McGarth?"
"I don't understand," a middle aged woman cried. "You told me it was just pneumonia!"
Wow, breaking the bad news once, maybe even twice in a single day was one thing, but six time?! Granted, I had to notify two families over the phone, but the other four I had to tell in person, and four families, one right after the other, was a lot. I was about ready to knock myself upside the head with a metal baseball bat. Not that it would do anything... Stupid reaper metabolism.
"There were complications," I said and then went on to explain that all her husband's symptoms gave off the appearance of pneumonia, but it could actually have been something more serious, however, we can't be sure of the exact cause until we run some more tests.
I didn't tell any of the families the full truth for two reasons. The first reason was because, while I knew what the cause was, I didn't have any legitimate proof to back up my whole plague theory. I wouldn't really call it a 'theory' though, since I knew that's what it is. The second reason was because I wouldn't want people to start panicking and spread the news like wildfire.
"We're all going to die!" one man screamed and in response, everyone around him began breaking into stores and looting.
So maybe that's a little exaggerated, but still, anything close to that is something I want to avoid.
"I'm sorry for your loss," I finally said and left the room as quickly as I could without looking like I was trying to make a run for it.
I sighed in relief once I was out in the hall. That was the last person I had to notify for today. I always hated having to give out that sort of news to people (then again, who didn't?), but today I learned that it's ten times worse when you're the one who reaped the person in the first place. You see, until these last couple of days, I never actually had to be the one to tell the family of my reap that their loved one has passed. Because I wasn't a doctor when I first died, I was very uninvolved in the lives and deaths of all my reaps during my first epidemic. It was always like: I'm in, I'm out, the soul has moved on to the afterlife, and everyone's relatively happy.
Everything is different now. I felt like every person I went to today knew what I was. Their accusatory looks couldn't have all been in my mind, right? Even after all these years, I still sometimes feel partially responsible for their deaths. However, I knew that wasn't the case, and this wouldn't be the first, or last time I'd have to remind myself of that fact. I was just a transporter; ferrying souls to the afterlife. It wasn't for me to say who lives and who dies.
"I think you could have handled that better," Dan said, popping up out of nowhere and pulling me from my thoughts.
"Oh, really?" I mumbled.
"Yes, really. Seriously, Johnny, 'Your husband's dead, I'm sorry for your loss.'?" he said with a poor imitation of my voice and shook his head disapprovingly.
I huffed, offended, and said, "I said other things too, and I had to tell five other families the same thing. I'm all outta words of comfort for the day!" I crossed my arms and scoffed, "I'd like to see you come up with something better."
Dan threw me a smug look and said in a know-it-all tone, "You have to ease them into the situation, not throw it at them all at once. First, you tell them that 'Hey, Grandma's on the roof, and we can't get her down, but we'll keep you posted.' Then, after a couple days of grandma being on the roof, you finally tell them, 'I have bad news. Grandma fell off the roof.' That way, you wean them off of life with grandma."
I laughed humorlessly and stated, "You are insane."
"Yeah, and you're right up there with me," he said, sticking his tongue out at me.
"Very mature," I muttered dryly.
"I thought so."
Dan suddenly leapt into the nearest room like some sort of secret agent and ducked down so that he was completely out of sight. The whole thing looked rather ridiculous and just as I was about to ask what the hell he was doing, Dr. Cox walked up next to me with a stack of charts in hand.
"My shift is officially over," he said cheerfully as he dropped the charts into my hands. "Have fun Newbie. For the duration of my time off, I will be attempting to get as much rest and relaxation as I can, so you better not page me. You got that? Not once. Oh, and make sure no more people die."
He stalked off in the direction of the staff lounge before I could get a word out. Once he was completely out of seeing and hearing range, Dan appeared from his hiding spot and walked over to me as if nothing had interrupted our brotherly bickering.
I, however, couldn't let it go as easily as he did, "What was all that about?"
"Are you kidding me? I don't want to be stuck in this quarantine too," he said. "That's why I'm staying out of sight of anyone who would actually recognize me."
"Oh," I said; it made sense. "Why don't you just leave before you're spotted?"
"I plan to," he said. "I just had to tell you before I sneak out that all the plaguies in the area are having a huge meeting tomorrow, so you need to find a way to get out of here."
Ah, 'plaguies'. It was a nickname Dan, myself, and a couple of our reaper friends had come up with awhile back to describe reapers in the plague division. That was a fun night...
"What time is it at?" I asked.
"It starts around noon, but we'll need to leave before then," he explained.
I nodded, "I'll try and speed up the hospital's diagnosis. Hopefully that'll end the quarantine."
"Good luck with that," he said, patting me on the shoulder, "and give me a call in the morning so I'll know if you can come."
"Sure."
Dan smiled at me and gave me the two-finger salute before ducking into an empty patient's room. I watched as he opened up the window and peered outside. Then after a moment, when (I assume) the coast was clear, he jumped right out the window without any hesitation at all. I could hear the dull thud coming from outside followed by a faint whine, "Okay, that hurt." However, I wasn't really concerned and felt no need to check on him when I knew that reaper metabolism would have him up and walking in a matter of minutes. Besides, I had work to do.
While I knew that Dr. Cox didn't believe me about the whole plague epidemic, I decided to go behind his back anyway and put all of his patients (as well as my own patients) on streptomycin, the most effective antibiotic against the plague. To be perfectly fair, he did hand me all of his charts and told me to make sure nobody else dies, so in a way, I am just following his orders. Besides, I've been his protege for a couple years and I would hope that by now he'd know I'd pull something like this.
Once I had all of that taken care of, I headed down to the lab to see how their progress was coming in diagnosis this disease.
"What the hell is taking you guys so long? Nineteen people have died so far from this!" I said as I waltzed into the lab and they glared at me in response.
Okay, so I could have worded that a bit nicer, but really now, I gave them those sputum samples almost two days ago. You'd think they could have identified Yersinia pestis by now!
"Oh, I'm sorry. Were you waiting for the results on just what is infecting all those people?" the bacteriologist who went by the name of George asked sarcastically, then laughed, "I wasn't aware finding out that information had become top priority. After all, it's not like you're the fifth doctor to come down here and ask about it!"
George was maaa-aaaad.
"All of their symptoms point toward pneumonic plague," I explained, "So I'm ninety-nine percent sure that it's Y. pestis."
Ha! I'm one-hundred percent sure.
"Couldn't you guys please just confirm that one percent?" I asked, flashing them my best, pleading smile.
"Thank you almighty doctor for pointing out what we simple-minded peasants could not see!" George roared as he actually got down on the floor and bowed to me.
I took a step back from him and said, "No need for that."
As George stood up, glared at me, and stalked away, another lab technician snorted and rolled her eyes at me. She was a middle-aged woman named Susan.
"If it were that easy, we would have already had the results back to you," she explained in frustration. "We were already aware of all the facts you just told us, thanks. Now it's just a matter of figuring out what the hell is going on with this thing."
She turned back to one of the more powerful microscopes and gazed at the sample in the petri dish. I thought for a moment that that was her way of ending the conversation, but then she waved me over.
Not looking up from the microscope, she said, "Our problem is that it looks very similar to Y. pestis, except slightly different."
"Different how?" I asked.
"Well, almost as if it's... mutated We're thinking possibly a new biovar of Y. pestis," she said. "Which means..."
"This thing is completely unpredictable. We won't really know what to expect from it... There could be all sorts of unforeseen side-effects!" I breathed.
"Exactly," Susan sighed.
Well, crap.
When George came back and threatened to poison my food when I least expected it if I didn't get out of his sight, Susan told me it would be best if I go. With the promise that they would have the results ready soon, I left as quickly as I could.
This new plague virus had me really worried now. As I had said before, it would be unpredictable. What if this mutation causes new, more dangerous symptoms? What if it makes the virus even more contagious than before? There were so many different possibilities that we couldn't be sure about, and a virus that erratic is not something I want my friends or anyone else I know catching.
So the first thing I did was grab a bunch of surgeon face masks from a supply closet and hunted down my friends. It really wouldn't do too much, but the fear didn't have me thinking quite clearly. While I would have loved to have everyone put on antibiotics to prevent catching the disease, I knew that until Kelso felt this was serious enough, something like that wouldn't happen.
Since it was well past midnight, everyone who wasn't still working their shift, but were stuck here due to the quarantine, had found places to sleep around the hospital. The on-call room seemed the most logical place for them to be, so I checked there first. I burst into the room without considering how many people I'd be disturbing, and was met with many annoyed groans.
"JD?" Elliot asked sleepily.
"What the hell, man? I just got off my shift," came Turk's muffled response as he lay with his face buried in his pillow. Carla didn't even bother to give me a response and merely pulled the blankets over her head and curled up against Turk's side.
"I realize that you're all very tired, so if you'll just do this one thing for me, I'll leave you alone and let you sleep," I said.
"Do I have to get up?" Turk asked.
"No, look, I just want you to wear a face mask for now. Whatever's going around is contagious, and I don't want you to catch it," I explained, but left out the whole plague detail; I didn't need them doubting me on this.
"Aw, that's so sweet that you're worried about us, Bambi... Now go away and let us sleep," Carla said.
"Please, guys, just trust me on this and wear the mask," I pleaded while holding out the masks to them.
"Why aren't you wearing one?" Elliot asked in annoyance.
"Oh, I, um..."
There is no possible way I could explain the whole 'can't get sick, already dead' thing to them. So I opted for forgetfulness.
"I was so worried about you, that I didn't get a chance to put it on," I rambled off before taking one of the face masks and putting it on over my mouth and nose, "See? Now you."
"Vanilla bear, you're overreacting," Turk stated, "I'm sure once you get some sleep, you'll see that-"
"Oh, for the love of God! Just put on the stupid mask so he'll leave!" one of the nurses in another bed shouted irritably, and there was an echo of agreement coming from the people in the other beds.
"Gimme the damn mask," Carla growled, reaching over Turk.
I passed her two masks and Elliot also took one. After the three of them put on the surgical face masks, Carla snapped, "Now go!"
"Thank you," I said in a tone that asked 'was that so hard?'.
I closed the door to the on-call room before heading out to search for Dr. Cox. Thankfully, he was rather easy to find seeing as how he still hadn't left the staff lounge. However, unlike all the times before when he was in the lounge, this time the TV was off and he was seemingly asleep on the couch. I wasn't to surprised to see that there was nobody else in the room; Dr. Cox probably kicked everyone out when he wanted to get a little shut-eye.
Having calmed down a bit after talking to Elliot, Carla, and Turk, I found myself thinking clearly enough to know it would not be the wisest decision to go bursting into the 'lion's den' like I had before with the on-call room. Instead, I slowly approached the sleeping form on my mentor and cautiously reached out to nudge him awake.
However, before my hand could even touch his shoulder, he growled, "Cindy, you better be here, disturbing me, to tell me that the quarantine is over."
I swear, if it were possible for me to have a heart attack, I would have keeled over right then and there. Instead, I jumped backwards, tripped over the coffee table, and went crashing to the ground.
"...ow."
"Very graceful, Claire. Don't you listen to a thing those other girls at school are saying, you are a good cheerleader, and I bet if you tried your hardest, well damn it all, you could be cheer captain!" Dr. Cox said with a grin.
As I rose to my feet and the bruise I got from landing wrong healed itself up, I held out the face mask and said, "I want you to wear this, so you don't get sick."
His gaze traveled from the mask in my hand to the one I was still wearing and, clearing his throat, finally said, "Newbie, you better not be talking about that whole plague thing because I already have a big enough headache without you adding to this crap to it."
"I'm not going to fight with you about that again," I sighed, then added, "Even if it isn't the plague, whatever it is, it's still really contagious."
"That much is obvious," he nodded, actually agreeing with me.
"If you want to cure all of these people, then you can't risk getting sick yourself," I said, trying to reason with him, and when he still didn't seem too convinced, I said with a sigh, "If you wear the mask and I'm wrong about it being the plague, I won't bother you for a whole day."
"A week."
"Two days."
"A week."
"...Three days."
"A week."
"Four days is my final offer," I said, crossing my arms stubbornly.
"One full week or nothing at all," Dr. Cox said, crossing his own arms.
I caved.
"Fine. One week if I'm wrong."
Dr. Cox gave me a smug look as he took the mask and put it on.
'Let him bask in his small victory, I know I'm right anyway,' I thought with an inward smile.
"Why are you still standing there? You have my patients to take care of," He said with a whistle. "Go, go, go!"
I fled from the room.
Ending the chapter here. Parts of this were just painful to write because some of it was so boring! For me, at least. Hopefully the rest of you got some entertainment out of this. If not, well, it picks up. Really, it does. Now to go over some of what you've read in this chapter.
The whole, 'Grandma's on the roof' thing is based after a joke my friend once told me. Basically, a guy goes away on vacation and later on gets a call from his friend saying that his cat climbed up the roof, fell off, and died. The guy loved his cat, and angrily tells his friend he should have broken it to him gradually. Tell him one day that his cat climbed up the roof. Then a day or so after, tell him that his cat fell off the roof and died. So later on, when the guy is still on vacation, he gets a call from his friend saying, "Grandma climbed up on the roof today."
And also...
Yersinia pestis is the bacterium responsible for the plague, but I'm sure you already guessed that.
So, now that you've read it, tell me what you think and review it!