The McClane Apocalypse Book Three (2 page)

"Thanks, but get back out now," Reagan tells
him firmly and takes the cozy, warm blanket and covers the small
child with it. John obeys without question and goes to the door. He
is watching intently though.

"I want to run a jugular catheter," Reagan
says firmly.

"Honey, those are so dangerous, though,"
Grandpa says as he removes his glasses.

"Yeah, I know. But he's not gonna make it if
we can't get something into him and try some new meds. I was
thinking about this last night before I went to bed. I want to try
a different combination of meds in…" Reagan argues. Before she even
finishes her sentence the boy makes a horrible retching sound and
coughs sputum and blood that lands on his shirt and on the sheet.
Then he jerks, twitches, gasps for breath and stops breathing at
all.

"Goddammit," Reagan shouts and is on the kid
in a second. She rips off her face mask and starts chest
compressions. "Here, Grandpa."

Reagan wipes out Garrett's mouth as best as
she can and blows deeply. Grandpa counts off another series of
pumps, and she blows again.

"Come on, kid. Fuck!" she mutters angrily to
no one.

This isn't happening again. Not to this kid
and not on her watch. Losing their neighbor Mr. Reynolds had been
devastating. Reagan still blames herself for his death, although
that she knows in her mind that his wounds were fatal. It does not
diminish her feelings of guilt. She blows again. She gets
nothing.

"Again!" she says to Grandpa, though he is
already on it. "Come on, damn it," she grinds through her teeth
with anger and frustration. Grandpa pumps again and Reagan
breathes, and by some miracle the boy coughs.

"Got him," Grandpa says.

Reagan looks at her grandfather. His bony
fingers are at the boy's throat. His stethoscope is at his
chest.

He declares, "It's faint, but it's
there."

"I'm starting that line," Reagan says and
goes to the side counter where everything is kept and already
waiting in trays.

"This may be the only option we have left
for helping him, honey. We'll go slowly with it," Grandpa says
quietly as he joins her at the counter.

He's done these before because Reagan
remembers him telling her that he did a few while at the E.R. in
Boston. She also remembers him telling her how difficult they
are.

"Ready?" Reagan asks as she sets the tray on
the metal cart beside the bed and glances at Sam, who has tears
running down her face. "You might not want to watch this if you're
squeamish."

Strangely enough the girl shakes her head.
Good, she'll make a fine nurse to her and Grandpa which is probably
why he's allowed her to stay in the first place.

Reagan takes a second to glance at John who
is stoically standing there in the entranceway with an
uncharacteristically unreadable expression on his chiseled face. He
gives her a quick nod of encouragement, though, and for some
bizarre reason it actually gives Reagan the fortitude to do it.
She's done this only twice before while alongside other doctors at
the university's hospital. And now she is standing next to one of
the best medical minds of the century in her opinion. Herb
McClane's literally seen it all during his years of practicing
medicine, coupled with his voracious hunger for studying
diseases.

After the first miss, Reagan gets the main
artery and has the line in. Another small miracle because these are
a bitch to run on someone so dehydrated.

"Hot damn, Reagan. You hit it," Grandpa
whispers and breathes a long sigh of relief. "She hit it."

He calls this proclamation over to John.

"Didn't doubt her for a second, Doc," he
calls back.

Reagan has to force herself to suppress a
smile that threatens to escape. For some reason his belief in her,
his unwavering belief in her makes her swell with pride as she
attaches the bag of nutrient rich fluids to the new IV.

"I say we hit him with another steroid, but
directly this time," Reagan says to her grandfather. "He vomited
yesterday and probably brought up most of that oral dose. I mean,
what the hell can it hurt at this point? I also want to try a
different antibiotic. The other one is showing no positive effect
yet. It should've done something by now."

"I agree, Reagan. I was waiting for you to
come out for your shift because I wanted to discuss it with you
first so that you'd know I changed it up. I was thinking the same
thing. They've both been on the low dose antibody for over
thirty-six hours with absolutely no results. We have to go at this
more aggressively," her grandfather concludes.

He retrieves the correct vial of steroids
with Samantha, explaining the name on the label so that she can get
them for him and Reagan sometimes, too. Reagan also gets into the
small refrigerator which is now stocked to the gills with medicines
thanks to their trip to the city. She pulls out a tiny bottle and
doses a different, stronger antibiotic into a syringe.

She can hear him showing Sam how to load a
shot and how to read the syringe and the measurement. Grandpa is
frustratingly slow sometimes. Reagan takes the time to do a pulse
count and notates Garrett's chart which is basically a sheet of
yellow legal paper attached to a clipboard. It's funny how her and
Grandpa's handwriting is so similar which is not something she's
ever noticed before. It makes her feel strangely assured of herself
to be any small amount like him.

"Grandpa, can you do injections 101 some
other time? I'm kind of waiting here," Reagan says impatiently
while she rigs up an Albuterol treatment into a mask that will need
to be held over the boy's face since he is not coherent enough to
take the medicine on his own. If he gets to where he isn't
breathing deeply enough, they can always inject him with Ventolin
in place of the Albuterol. Reagan's hoping it doesn't come to that.
She also injects his IV line with the new antibiotic which can be
quite painful administered this way, but he's so out of it that he
shouldn't notice the pain. Plus, she read Grandpa's notes, and he'd
given him a dosage of fever reducer two hours ago that contains
pain medicine, as well.

"In my day, little missy, this is what was
called a teachable moment," he lectures. "This young lady here may
need to help you tomorrow when I'm catching up on my sleep. Or
today, I suppose. I've lost track of the time."

Reagan rolls her eyes and grins as he
extends the wet cotton swab and the stick to her. Two swipes with
alcohol on the boy's hip and she gets the injection of steroids
into him. This one isn't coming back up.

Reagan rinses and sterilizes her mouth at
the stainless steel sink with mouthwash and disgusting tasting,
sterilizing, mouth solution. She tastes like a mixture of mint and
a chlorine chemical factory, but on the bright side she no longer
has morning breath.

"Samantha, keep an eye on the patients for a
moment while I confer with Dr. McClane," Grandpa says lightly.

The young girl looks confused.

"But I thought that you were Dr. McClane,
sir," Sam says.

"We're both Dr. McClane. She's just the
young pup version, and I'm the older, more distinguished gentleman
version," he tells her.

Grandpa shows her how to hold the breathing
treatment mask on Garrett's small face. Then he follows Reagan
outside with both clipboards.

The sun is just starting to rise as they
both sit on the cement stoop outside of the shed. John stands
behind them with his rifle in both hands.

"Look at these notes. I've been scratching
my head all night over them. I sure wish I could get into a lab
right now and look at all of this under scopes, grow a culture and
get some chest x-rays done," Grandpa bemoans.

"I know. A CBC, liver enzyme check and some
specimens would be great at this point. This sucks. This wasn't
exactly how I thought I'd be spending my first year in medicine. I
was about a second away from hitting that kid with adrenaline. This
is like some Old Testament shit. Maybe we should sacrifice one of
those damn goats and see what happens. Might work better," she
complains, and John and Grandpa both chuckle softly. Their laughter
is short-lived, though, as the situation is grim and downright
depressing, and they all know it.

"Doc, should Reagan have given that kid
mouth to mouth? I mean, couldn't she get that sickness from him?"
John asks.

He's standing behind her, his voice etched
with concern. John's turning into her constant protector, it seems,
and it's not something she likes to dwell on. There are a lot of
things between them lately that she doesn't want to dwell on.

"She sterilized afterwards, and she's been
vaccinated for just about anything you can possibly catch. You
probably have been, too, being in the Army. But this could be
something we've never seen before," Grandpa says.

"How's that?" John asks.

Reagan cuts in on this one, "Because
sickness can morph, change, become resistant to drugs and transform
into what you could call biological warfare or super bugs capable
of wiping out millions of people or animals. They can change into
something that we can't cure because we can't research them and
come up with drugs that will kill them. Not anymore. Unless someone
knows how to get into the Center for Disease Control. Hell, that is
if it's even still there," Reagan explains sarcastically and looks
up at John.

He shrugs, but Grandpa puts in, "The C.D.C.
is still there for now. Or at least it was six months ago when I
last heard and could make outside contact. There isn't much they
can do other than keep it locked down. The C.D.C. and W.H.O.
centers have so many biological weapons-grade diseases stored for
research and for use to make cures that there's no way they could
completely close it. At least they can't unless they are going to
destroy all of the samples first. But for all we know, the people
there could've abandoned it."

"I'm sure they did. If they had families,
too, then they probably left," Reagan agrees with a nod. "I
couldn't go to sleep last night. It just kept bugging me. This
presents like bronchitis or pneumonia, but the blood, the weakness,
dehydration and liver damage points to something else."

There were other reasons she couldn't go to
sleep last night, but they had nothing to do with sickness and
disease. She'd been hypothesizing about the night she and John
returned from the city and he'd kissed her in her closet before
they went to bed. She'd written it off to being too exhausted, his
irrational kissing of her. Had he actually wanted to? Doubtful. But
sometimes when she actually makes eye contact with John, he looks
at her that same way he had right before he'd kissed her two nights
ago. He's staring at her like that now. So naturally Reagan turns
quickly back to her grandfather.

"I agree. It's symptomatic of influenza, but
the wet chest isn't. The erratic, faint heart rates, low bp, the
liver. It's got me puzzled, too," Grandpa agrees and scratches his
messy hair.

"At first I thought TB. Easy diagnosis,
right? But it just doesn't add up and wouldn't matter anyways. We
don't have any of the three or four drugs that are out there to
treat TB. Unless, of course, someone wants to do that run to the
C.D.C. or the W.H.O., which is probably a waste of time anyways.
Their lymph nodes are swelled huge."

"Right, Reagan. This isn't an easy diagnosis
for sure. Maybe we should get the goat…"

"Holy shit!" Reagan interrupts loudly and
runs for the house. She can hear John and Grandpa discussing her.
She sprints straight for Grandpa's study, nearly running Grams and
Hannah down in the hall. Once she's in his office, she rummages and
digs until she finds the book she's looking for and then races back
out the kitchen door again, leaping from the porch and not
bothering with the stairs.

"This is it!" she blurts and starts flipping
through the journal with lightning fingers.

"What's it? What the heck are you doing?"
John inquires uneasily.

"Don't be scared, John. This is just how her
little brain works. She's done this ever since I've known her,"
Grandpa explains.

Reagan would like to tell them both to quit
talking about her like she's not right in front of them, but she's
almost found what she is looking for. Grandpa casually pulls his
pipe from his pants pocket and starts packing it full with tobacco.
He still wears his cotton, button down shirts and khakis or navy,
cotton slacks most days. The only thing that is missing from his
old work uniform is a tie. He's just never going to fully retire
from being the town doctor.

She jabs her finger at the page. "Look.
Look. Right here!"

"What'd you find, honey?" Grandpa asks.

His tone is patient, just like he used to
speak when she'd bring in an injured bird or want to look for the
millionth time at something under his microscope at his office.

"All the symptoms fit. Remember when I was
thirteen and I went through that phase where I wanted to study the
plagues of the dark ages and how they can reoccur?"

"Yeah, because that's what most thirteen
year old girls want to study," John remarks.

Grandpa smiles and nods over his shoulder at
John. Reagan ignores them and continues.

"Whatever. Well, when we were talking about
the goat sacrifice and the Old Testament reference, it came to me.
This is a plague. That's why neither you nor I have ever actually
seen this. It's 'cuz we
haven't
ever seen it. Understand?
This is pneumonic plague," Reagan rushes so fast that some of her
words blend. John's still staring at her like she's an alien life
form.

"Depending on where these people hale from,
your theory could prove true. It says here that the southern to
southwestern states have had this problem in the past," Grandpa
says more calmly. "How the hell did you even remember this?"