Lance Corporal Barry Griffin was barely conscious of his surroundings. Sometimes he was on field exercises in Alaska, because that was the last time he remembered being cold, so very cold. Other times, he knew he was on the ship, especially when the smell of food woke him. He came to recognize the few faces he saw — the corpsman, Evans, who he dimly remembered from the galley, one of the nurses. The doctors stayed so briefly and were so heavily masked that he never formed a clear picture of their faces.
A fever, that’s what it was, he finally realized. That was the reason for the alternating hot and cold spells, the moments when it seemed certain he would suffocate in the overwhelming heat, those moments followed immediately by a bone-chilling sweat as he threw back the blankets. At one point he was caught in seaweed near the ocean floor, a recurrent dream during his dive training. He reached down for his knife, but it hadn’t been where it was supposed to be, strapped on his leg. He jerked hard enough that the treacherous vegetation let loose of him, and he floated up to the surface on a wave of morphine. The remnants of the seaweed ran down his arm, and he was dimly aware of white shapes moving around him. Fish? Or other divers? But why were they in white? The prick of the IV needle being reinserted in his arm went unnoticed. Later, when the morphine wore off, he woke in pain to discover his arms tied to the railings of his bed at the wrist and elbow.
“You were jerking around and pulled out your IV,” the corpsman said, patting him reassuringly on the shoulder. “Standard procedure, just routine.”
“Man, I feel like shit,” Griffin murmured, exhausted by the tremendous effort to speak.
“You’ve got the flu or something,” the corpsman said quietly. “But they’re getting it under control.”
“The flu? Man, I feel like I’m dying.” He drifted back off into an unconsciousness that was not quite sleep.
The corpsman gazed down at him steadily, both pity and anger in his eyes. It wasn’t the jarhead’s fault, not really. He hadn’t meant to contract a virus while ashore. If anybody was really at fault, it was the first sergeant, the guy who told Griffin to take off his clothes and shower down. They should’ve left their gear on until they got back to a safe area to become decontaminated, but the first sergeant had been so freaked by the possibility of bio weapons, he’d ignored his training and obeyed the compulsion to wash.
But maybe they would have been exposed anyway, even without that. There was no way to tell. It sure didn’t make any sense to be pissed at the guy who was sick.
Yeah, you do feel like you’re dying. That’s because you are, buddy. They’re not saying it but I can tell — you’re getting supportive measures, some antibiotics — but it’s not working. The fever’s getting worse, and you’re bleeding internally. Those red spots under your arm — they told me it was a bruise. Fat chance — like I believe that. It’s petechia, subcutaneous bleeding you get when your platelets are crashing. Sooner or later, unless they can get a handle on this, you start bleeding and you don’t stop. There are worse ways to go. I guess.
Over the last twenty-four hours, the fever had progressed rapidly. Nothing the doctors tried seemed to have any effect. Late-generation antibiotics were pumping full-steam into his system via three IVs, along with fluids to replace the lost blood and keep his blood pressure up. So far, they had been able to keep pace, but from what the corpsman could tell, the situation was getting worse. Unless he turned a corner soon, Griffin wasn’t going to make it.
But I’m going to make it. Hell, I’m not sick and we’re past the incubation period. No cramps, no headache — nothing. No fever. My blood counts look fine — did they really think I wouldn’t read the chart that they leave in here?
Nevertheless, he and the first sergeant remained in isolation, with the rest of the men who’d been briefly exposed in the galley kept in a separate compartment. The first sergeant wasn’t saying much, but the corpsman could see he was terrified. It was one thing to have an enemy you could reach out and touch, something you could train to defeat with weapons or superior physical force. It was another thing entirely to have something you couldn’t even see kill you. Marines were among the worse patients anyway, but the first sergeant was too scared to cause any problems.
“How you feeling?” the corpsman asked. “You look OK.”
“I’m fine.” The first sergeant didn’t bother to asking how he was, but the corpsman let it slide.
“If you were going to get sick it would have happened by now,” the corpsman said, repeating what he had been saying for the last six hours. The first sergeant would never admit it, but the corpsman thought he took some comfort in the reassurances. “It hit him less than six hours after you guys came back. It’s been six times that. This is just a safety precaution.”
The first sergeant pointed at Griffin. “Safety precaution, with us stuck in here with with him?”
That was the one point the corpsman hadn’t been able to figure out, either. If they really thought Griffin might have some sort of plaguelike disease, why would they leave anyone in the same room with him? There was only two conclusions: Either they thought what Griffin had was not contagious, or it was so serious that they were pretty sure neither the first sergeant or the corpsman would leave the isolation room alive.
The corpsman heard a small squeak, and turned around to see Griffin in a full-scale grand-mal seizure. His bed bucked violently as his massive body slammed against it, contracted into a sitting position, then slammed down again. One elbow restraint broke, then the wristband on the same arm. The IV popped loose, spewing a thin stream of liquid on the deck. Blood down ran down Griffin’s arm. “Hold him down,” the corpsman said, and darted to the head of the bed, trying to keep Griffin from striking his head against the bed railing.
“Hell, no,” the first sergeant snapped. “Don’t you ever learn? That’s what landed you a bed in here in the first place.”
Finally, the convulsions subsided. Griffin lay limp and barely breathng on the sweat-stained sheets. The interior of the air-locked doors opened, and a doctor came in, hastily garbed.
Griffin’s breathing took on an odd rhythm, and the corpsman felt his heart sink. Agonal breathing — the last stage before death. He glanced across at the doctor, and saw pity and understanding in her eyes. She shook her head solemnly.
Thirty minutes later, it was all over. Griffin took a long, shuddering breath, then simply stopped. The corpsman folded his hands peacefully on his chest.
The doctor said, “We’ll try to move him as soon as we can. There are precautions we have to take. You understand.”
“Yes, ma’am.” She turned to look at the first sergeant. “If you were going to get sick, you would’ve done so by now. I’m going to move you to separate rooms, probably keep you in quarantine for another forty-eight hours. If you’re showing no signs or symptoms after that, I’ll consider releasing you.” The first sergeant nodded his understanding, not looking at her, cowering in the corner.
The doctor turned to leave, then caught sight of the corpsman’s hand. She grabbed his elbow, pulled him over to the sink, and dumped a bottle of hydrogen peroxide over his hand. He stared down, aghast, at the spatter of blood from the IV on his skin. “It’s probably not transmitted by blood, whatever it is,” she said.
He nodded, not believing her. Inhalation anthrax — okay, that’s one that’s not transmitted by contact. He tried to think of other examples, but his mind kept summoning up lists of diseases that were transmitted by blood. HIV, Ebola, the plague — just about anything. She was scrubbing his hand now with a small brush, scrubbing him as thoroughly as she would for surgery. When she finally finished, she rinsed his skin once again with hydrogen peroxide.