If she took names for six hours, she had to go back to the bunker for twelve.
Radiation accumulated and Harland didn’t want her sick.
She was one of five check in people. She was told hundreds were going to be registered, so she would be busy.
Still… easy job. Then she found out what all it entailed. Kit was on the front lines. She was the first person to make the determination of treatment, comfort, or death.
The job wasn’t easy, at least not emotionally.
She was give a clipboard, an instruction sheet with questions, stack of index cards and three Sharpie markers.
Red, Blue, Green.
Kit was to take down the name and chief complaint, then write those on the clipboard and the index cards. After that, she would ask the questions, depending on the answer would depend what marker she used and where she would send the patient.
“Name?” Kit asked.
“Janet Long.”
“What brings you here, Janet?”
“I’m not feeling well. I can’t keep anything down and I have this burn that keeps getting worse.” Janet extended her arm and pulled back the makeshift bandage. When she did, she lifted layers of skin. Her hand and forearm was black and peeling, it oozed blood
Kit wrote down two words, ‘burnt and sick.’ Then she pulled forth the questions. “How long have you been outside and not in a shelter?”
“We stayed in a basement the first two days then walked here.”
Kit calculated four days. According to the questionnaire, any individual exposed for any length of time the first week post bomb was to be asked if they had been vomiting, and, or, had diarrhea, If yes, any unexplained bruising, rash, bleeding or hair loss?
Yes to any of those… their card was to be marked with a red X, then give the card back to the person, and send them to the where the fire truck was parked outside.
It seemed every single person was getting a red X.
After a couple dozen red X’s with only a blue, or green here and there, Kit realized what the colors meant.
Fix, treat, comfort.
Green, blue, red.
The ones marked green would get treated and sent on their way, the ones marked blue would get medicated, the ones that were red, were pretty much being sent somewhere to be made comfortable. In another words, to die.
So many people, it couldn’t be right. Survivors like Janet Long were walking and talking, she wasn’t dying.
However, her body was.
The silent, invisible killer ravaged her body and soon it would take its final toll.
It all made Kit sick to her stomach to know how many people just didn’t have a chance. They would be spared as much suffering as they could, that was it.
There was no hope.
After a couple hours, Kit noticed that she went into this automated mode, moving people through the lines as quickly as possible and without any affliction to their voice. She did so until a teenage girl weakly and innocently said, “Thank you. I’m really scared.”
Kit stopped and her heart crumbled. She looked at the girl and realized she stopped looking at the faces.
With compassion, Kit reached up to the girl and grabbed her hand. “It will be alright.”
Kit took a moment. Her line would move slower, but as hard as it would be she decided she would stop being robotic. She wouldn’t look at these people as numbers. They were someone’s mother, father, brother, sister… child.
Her child.
As much as she could, she would treat them with the compassion, respect and dignity each person deserved.
She couldn’t fix them, treat them or cure them. She decided being kind and warm was the least she could do for them.
TWENTY-SIX – Second Level
It took four people to lift Terrence from the floor and place him on a gurney. He was bad. Deana was told by a doctor to let him go, clean him up, make him comfortable and allow him to pass. She couldn’t accept that. Even though her medical knowledge told her Terrence wasn’t going to make it, Deana had to try.
She cleaned his wounds, bandaged his burns, and gave him intravenous fluids, antibiotics and blood. All of which she did in hopes that he would at least live until the next afternoon, until Deana could find his family. She couldn’t do that after dark, it was too dangerous, but she was willing to take a chance and try after the sun came up.
For the night, she placed him in the curtained off section with Kira. Their cot style beds nearly touching. Terrence lay on his side facing his daughter and his hand rested on hers. That was how Deana left him for the night while she worked and eventually rested a couple hours.
In the morning, she was fearful, especially when she walked in and saw he hadn’t moved. She moved closer, pulling out her stethoscope to check on both Terrence and Kira, when he murmured out a groggy, “Thank you.”
Silently she exhaled and walked around to check Kira.
Terrence watched. “How is she?”
“She’s still hanging in there, but…” Deana shook her head. “I’m not going to lie to you. She’s not well.”
Terrence closed his eyes and his face tensed up in pain. “Is she gonna leave us?”
“I will say this. It’s not good, but after things I have seen, I won’t say for sure, anything is possible”
Terrence opened his eyes and looked at her with curiosity.
“Right after everything happened a little girl was brought in. She hasn’t spoken, I call her Mary. She was burned, I had to amputate her hand and her leg. I didn’t think she’d make it through the surgery. However, here we are and she is still fighting for her life.”
“We all will fight for life,” Terrence said.
“Like you. You are a fighter. How do you feel?”
“I actually feel better.”
That didn’t surprise Deana. She knew after the blood, antibiotics and fluids that he wouldn’t be better, he would feel stronger. “Good.”
“I have to go.” Terrence tried to sit up.
Deana pushed him back. “You aren’t going anywhere.”
“I have to get Macy, I have to…”
“No.” Deana stopped him. “I already planned on going to get her today. In fact I’m leaving here in a few minutes.”
“I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You’re not asking, I’m volunteering. You stay here and rest.”
Terrence appeared reluctant when he nodded. “Do I have to lay here?”
“Please.”
“I wish I had a book. Something so I won’t sleep. I don’t want to sleep.”
“Can I ask why?”
“Because just in case one of us goes…” he looked at Kira. “I want every single second and minute I can get.”
“I understand. Hold on, I think I have something.” Deana walked from that little corner and across the garage where she kept her things. She had only a few minutes to pack a bag and she had placed a book in with her items.
She returned to Terrence. “I have one. Excuse the irony of it and well, realism now. It’s all I have. My father gave this to me. Said it was his favorite.” She extended the book down and Terrence smile.
“Yep. Looks familiar. Alas, Babylon.” He didn’t take it.
“You read it?”
“Read it? A million times. I couldn’t believe your father hadn’t,” Terrence said. “We were talking one night, I had that on me. He said he never read it and I gave him that exact book as a gift. I think that’s the one. Check the inside back cover, if it’s the one that I gave Dennis, then it will have a Preston High School stamp and T. Hill written under.”
Deana flipped open to the back cover and gasped. “This is yours.”