Sarah pulled off the blue latex gloves as she stamped on the pedal that opened the lid of the bin. She tossed the gloves inside and let the lid drop; the noise lost in the cacophony of voices that filled the A&E.

The night shift, midweek, would usually have been quiet. For the past few weeks though, she had seen a steady increase in the number of people coming in with bite marks. Whatever new drug the addicts of the city were taking, it was making them aggressive.

With fingernails and teeth, they would attack random people, tearing out chunks of skin and flesh. Those people would then end up in the A&E where they would be stitched up and sent home with some mild pain relief for the mild fever that a lot of them presented with.

Official guidance had been sent down from on high, detailing it as a side effect of the drug that was passed along in the bite and would fade with time and rest. Not much point admitting any, though more and more were being brought in with wounds that were life threatening as the attacks increased in number.

She wiped at her brow with one arm and acknowledged the desperate wave of Lisa, another nurse, who was trying in vain to deal with the waiting room full of upset people. It didn’t matter that Sarah’s shift had finished almost half an hour before.

The waiting area was full to bursting with people sitting on every spare bit of floor and seating. Those who couldn’t find enough room to sit, stood, faces angry or showing pain. The staff seated at the reception desk were doing their best but already had a long line of people stretching out towards the door.

Two burly security guards stood beside those doors, and another two covered the exits from the waiting room. Whatever drug was causing people to act aggressively seemed to be transferred in the bite too. More than one of the people coming in for treatment had turned violent, attacking everyone around them before being transferred to the quarantine floors.

“This is ridiculous,” Lisa muttered as Sarah joined her. “I’ve asked Kath when we’ll get some help.”

“Not happening,” Sarah said, with a small grimace. “I heard Alan telling Julie, there’s no one available. Every hospital in the country is slammed.”

“What the hell is happening?”

“No idea, but rumour is that it’s going on everywhere.”

“I’ve not seen anything on the news.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

Which was pretty ominous when she thought about it. Like when there was rioting over in France and the government issued a blanket ban on reporting on it. There had to be something similar in place for the crazy people attacking everyone, but global and not just local.

“What can I do to help?” she asked, shaking her head to dismiss the thoughts.

“Take your pick,” Lisa said, waving an arm at the crowd. “Grab a kit from behind reception and start working. Anyone you can treat and get out the door without needing a room, do so.”

“It’s that bad?”

Sarah couldn’t quite believe that hospital protocol had been set aside so easily. Sure, most of the people had minor cuts and bites, but even so, they were supposed to be seen in some semblance of privacy.

As she looked out at the crowd though, she could understand the need to process the people as quickly as possible. With a sigh she moved across to the reception desk, avoiding meeting the gaze of any of the waiting people as that would be seen as an invitation to ask her for help.

The woman behind the reception counter was ready for her, lifting a green paramedics holdall that was packed to bursting with all the basic items she would need to clean and dress some wounds.

She took it with a wooden smile and turned to the crowded room. It was hard for her to know where to start and so, she crossed to the closest seated man and knelt down beside him, opening up the bag and brushing a strand of blonde hair from her face.

“Hi, how can we help you?”

“Some dickhead bit me!”

The man held up his hand to show her the crescent-shaped wound and she nodded sympathetically. He was an older gentleman, greying hair and a pure white goatee beneath a wide nose and heavy-lidded gaze.

She asked him a few more basic questions as she washed and inspected the wound. No need for stitches, so she just covered it with a self-sealing gauze pad and offered him a bright smile.

“All done.”

“Is that it?” he asked, blinking down at his hand. “Don’t I need a doctor to look at me?”

“No, sir. I can assure you that you will be fine.” She reached into a pocket of her uniform and pulled out the thermometer, running it over his temple and checking the electronic reading. “Your temperature is a little high, so plenty of fluids and some of these.”

Sarah pulled a strip of tablets from the bag and handed it over. Generic pain medication that they had been told to issue to everyone who came in. Not a lot else that could be done.

The man took them without much complaint, and she moved on to the next person, already forgetting him. It had already been a long night and she was pretty sure her shift wouldn’t end anytime soon.

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So, on she went, moving from person to person, assessing their minor wounds and dressing them before sending them home. Occasionally she would come across a more serious wound which she would send on to the next waiting room, but the majority were minor.

Most, in fact, could have been dealt with by the people themselves. Clean it, wrap it and get some rest. That was all she was telling them and any one of them could have done it themselves. As usual, though, they saw the NHS as there for every minor complaint.

“Who the hell is biting so many people?” Lisa asked as they met briefly, working on people side by side.

“No idea. Something weird is going on.”

“Drugs,” the elderly lady, Sarah was working on said. “Must be drugs.”

“Or something in the water,” another man said, this one younger barely older than Sarah’s twenty-five years. “Government are up to something, mark my words.”

As with the others, she smiled and nodded politely. She’d heard it all before and despite the speculation she happily engaged in with her workmates, she’d been hearing it for weeks. Ever since the first person had stumbled through the doors, hand pressed against a gushing wound in his upper thigh and a wild tale of a madman attacking and biting him.

Raising a weary hand to rub at her eyes, Sarah moved on to the next person, a woman dressed in running clothes with a gauze pad covering her cheek. The woman’s eyes were glazed as she stared at nothing on the wall behind Sarah.

“Hi, who are you?”

“She’s called, Helen,” a man standing beside her said, voice firm and self-assured.

Sarah glanced at him, noting even in her tired state, the strong features and dark mop of hair above blue eyes that seemed to see straight through her. A shiver ran down her spine as she turned back to the woman.

“Hi, Helen. I’m, Sarah. What can I do to help you?”

“Sorry,” Jack said, interrupting once more. “She’s not said anything for a while.”

“Are you her husband or boyfriend?”

“No. I’d never even spoken to her before today. I was jogging and so was she when this homeless guy attacked her.”

Same old story, Sarah thought as she held back a sigh.

“Yeah, it’s happening a lot. Did you do this?” she pointed at the gauze and he nodded as she gently peeled it back. “Okay, looks clean and neat. Seems fine.”

“She complained of feeling warm and when we got her in the car to bring her here, she just sort of stopped.”

“Stopped what?”

“Talking, moving, doing anything. Had a devil of a time getting her in here.”

Sarah glanced once more at the man. There was genuine concern in his eyes for this woman he had seemingly just met. It said a great deal about him that he would take the time to bring a stranger to the hospital.

“Okay, let’s check your temperature,” she said to the silent woman.

She raised her eyes at the reading on the thermometer and pushed down another sigh that threated to be released. It seemed that the woman was one of those few that had come in with symptoms somewhat more advanced than the other people.

“We’re going to have to admit her and let a doctor take a look,” she said. “Do you know if she has anyone we should contact?”

It was a silly question of someone who had just met the woman, she knew, but she had to ask it anyway.

“No idea. Her name’s Helen and that’s about all we know.”

Sarah nodded and rose to her feet. She pressed her hands against the small of her back and stretched, feeling the tension in the muscles there from so long crouched over.

“Okay, well thank you for bringing her in. We’ll look after her.”

“Is…” he hesitated, looking at the woman and then back to the door as he ran one large hand through that mop of dark hair. “I mean, should I stay? I don’t think she should be left all alone.”

“It will be fine…”

“Jack.”

“It’ll be fine, Jack. We’ll take good care of her and try to contact her family. You’ve done great just bringing her in.”

And she meant that. So many people wouldn’t have bothered and judging by the response from those other few with similar advanced symptoms that Sarah had seen, the woman, Helen, wouldn’t be leaving again.

“Really,” she lied through clenched teeth as she avoided meeting his gaze. “She’ll be fine.”

****

Jack watched the young nurse help Helen to her feet, guiding her slowly through the crowd. Even in the midst of his concern for the injured woman, he couldn’t help but note how attractive the nurse was.

He smiled ruefully and shook his head as he glanced around at the crowded waiting room. In the middle of what could only be called a crisis and he was distracted by the pretty blonde nurse with the dimples in her cheeks.

Running one hand through his hair, he suppressed a sigh. He’d not had the time to shower and he was well aware that he was starting to smell a little rank. Jack looked around, searching for his flatmate who had seemingly disappeared.

The noise of the crowded room was a little overwhelming and the heat didn’t help. The hospitals were always too warm to his mind and when you crammed too many people into too small a room, bodies pressed together, the heat became quite stifling.

“Help, help!” a voice called from the door.

A man came in, dressed in just grey pyjamas and patterned bathrobe, his hair in disarray and panic clouding his features. In his arms was a small child, perhaps eight or nine if Jack were to guess.

The child was squirming, blood covering his pyjamas and noises resembling those of some wild animal coming from his throat.

“Please!” the man pleaded. “We need help!”

One of the security guards looked at the other, something passing between them in that gaze that sent a chill down Jack’s spine. Then, together, they stepped forward towards the man and his struggling child.

“Here, mate. Let’s have him.”

“No! I need a doctor.”

“We’ll take him to the doctor.” The security guard hesitated as his gaze moved over the man and child. “You been bitten?”

“What? No, but he has. Please, help my son.”

“We will.”

The security guard reached out for the boy and the father loosened his grip, just for a moment but long enough for the child to slip free. He rose up, in his father's arms, grabbing hold of the robe and pulling himself up to sink his teeth straight into his father’s throat.

Screams sounded from all around as blood spurted, covering the child and the people around him. Jack, stood there, dumbstruck and unsure of just what he was witnessing. The security guards acted fast, pulling the struggling child from his father and holding him in place.

“Get help!” one shouted to the others by the door. “This one to the second floor.”

One of the nurses working the room had rushed over and as the two security guards manhandled the child away, she glanced up and shook her head. The father was beyond help, his blood pooling on the floor beneath him.

“Christ,” Jack muttered, eyes wide in shock.

“That was exciting,” Declan said, moving up to stand beside him. Jack didn’t answer, just stared at the body. It was the first time he’d seen someone die. “You want a crisp?”

Jack stared at the bag of cheese and onion crisps that Declan held and just shook his head, numbly.

“A man just died.”

“I didn’t,” Declan said, with a half-hearted shrug of his shoulders. “We done here?”

“Yeah.”

“Then let’s go home. This place is depressing.”

With another shake of his head, Jack pushed through the crowd of frightened people and headed for the door. He turned his head once, to look back the way the pretty nurse had gone, wondering if he would find out what happened to Helen.