4. Enter Kli Truip

A hard knock on the front door woke me up. I quickly changed out of my damp pajamas into some jeans and one of my dad’s flannel shirts. It sounded like someone was trying to beat the door down.

“I’m coming! Hold on a sec!”

“Open up, Isaac. It’s Ana.” A woman’s voice. I opened the door to see my former nurse, Ana Martinson. She wore her pink scrubs and had her long blond hair in a bun with crossed black chopsticks sticking out the sides. A smattering of blood covered her shirt but before I could ask what was going on she pushed past me into the studio apartment.

“Where’s your phone?”

“Um, hello to you too.” I pointed to the nightstand where I had left the glass rectangle charging. “Feel free to -” She quickly dialed a number and started talking to someone.

“Dr. Gass? It’s Martinson,” pause. “No, I had to take off for a minute. EMTs needed a hand on a call downtown,” pause. “What the hell is going on down there?” After listening for a long time she said, “Shit. I’ll be there as soon as I can,” and hung up. She gave me the phone. “I hope you’re ready because I am short an operator and need you to back me up. You’re trained as a nurse right?

“Well, field Med-Tech actually but yeah I can do triage, stitches, IVs”

“What do you know about African Hemorrhagic Fever?” she asked as she went to the kitchen and washed blood from her hands. The whole mystery girl act was gone and now she was all business. I wondered if she had military experience because something in the curt way she spoke reminded me of some of the tough bastards I had worked with in the Cartel Wars, namely my old sergeant, Henry .

“Ebola?! Jesus Christ, not much, besides that it was wiped out with vaccines in 2017. Why? Who was that on the phone?”

“Dr. Gass, ER doc at the hospital. He’s got people pouring in from all over town with tell-tale symptoms. Except...” She looked out the window down to the road and I could hear sirens in the background. “It’s happening too fast.”

Ebola could melt your internal organs and turn a man into a puddle of blood but it took days, weeks even. The first symptoms were fever and diarrhea, then vomiting. It wouldn’t make sense for an outbreak to happen overnight, especially in Ketchikan, Alaska. I rubbed my face, “If it’s some kind of super-strain... God, if we go down there we’re likely to get infected.”

“I know. Plop ‘ik wants me to keep you safe. Someone is on the way to meet us. Says he has some protective measures, new bio-tech. We hunker down here until-” she started coughing hard. Blood sprayed from her mouth.

I gasped, “Oh, fuck.” She looked at her hands, dripping with blood. Her nose had started to bleed too and her skin was going pale. “We need to get you to the hospital, fast! You’re losing too much blood! You must have got it-”

“Can’t be,” she said and hacked again. I lead her to the couch and sat her down. “My immune system is... It makes no sense.” she fell over onto the coffee table, unconscious.

The EMTs she mentioned were nowhere in sight, but their ambulance was parked haphazardly on the front lawn of the apartment building, still running. I strapped her to the gurney in the back and hopped in the cab. The tires screeched as we careened out of the parking lot onto the main drag, speeding toward the hospital on the far side of town.

Ketchikan was in panic mode. The road was littered with abandoned vehicles, some of them crashed and burning. A grocery store was in the process of being looted by a mob of crazy-eyed people probably hoping to stock up on supplies before barricading themselves in their homes. A big man in a camo jacket was pushing a shopping cart full of food with one hand and holding a 12 gauge shotgun with the other. A group of women were screaming and fighting over a package of toilet paper. I rolled up onto the sidewalk to avoid a crowd of people that were trying to get in front of the ambulance, shouting for help. It was just too dangerous. If I stopped they were just as likely to hijack the truck and if I didn’t get Ana to the hospital soon she wouldn’t make it. After what felt like hours we made it to the turnoff. The road leading uphill to the emergency room entrance was jammed with cars so I removed the gurney and pushed Ana at a sprint toward the hospital.

I was still surprised as to how in shape my body seemed after years of being a vegetable. I could run pretty well and I was only mildly huffing and puffing when I pushed the gurney through the door that lead to the ER. As I opened my mouth to shout for help I realized that it wouldn’t do us much good. The waiting room was an abattoir of bleeding men and women, coughing and vomiting on the floor. The smell was awful. I wheeled Ana past the admissions desk and toward the beds.

“Dr.Gass?!” I yelled, and a man with a bright orange beard and bloodstained labcoat looked out from around the corner. “I have Ana Martinson here. She’s hemorrhaging bad.” The doctor ran toward the gurney and started checking her vitals. Behind him nurses were running around with towels and IV bags, frantically trying to dam the deluge of blood and sickness that seemed to be coming from every patient.

“Ana!” he shouted and lifted her eyelids. “Ana, can you hear me? Try to stay awake!” He shined a pen-light in her eyes. Her pupils were dilated and her eyes rolled around. Between weak spasms of coughing she would try to speak.

“What’s she saying,” Dr. Gass asked me.

“I have no idea,” I put my head down by her ear and listened.

“Plop ‘ik... get to Plop ’ik. You’ve got to...”

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The doctor turned and opened a supply cabinet. “She needs fluids, but...” He looked around to all of the other patients. Every bed was full and the side hallway was stacked with gurneys and carts. He was the only chance most of these people had and there was no way he could save them all. His face was twisted in an expression of pure dread.

I grabbed the doctor by his shoulder “I can do the IV. Leave me to it. You go, help them. I’ll stay with her. I know what I’m doing.” That was at least partly true. The doctor nodded and ran out to the waiting room to assist the nurses. I started a drip of saline on Ana and grabbed an ice pack for her forehead. This wasn’t the first time that I had treated a patient who was way beyond my skills. I whipped out my secret weapon, my Omniphone.

I pressed the voice activation button, “Omni, open Super Doctor Junior.” The phone came with an application that could diagnose and recommend treatments for thousands of diseases and injuries. Ebola was supposedly eliminated years ago but hopefully the app would at least have some basic information I could use. “Search Ebola”

Immediately the phone started to speak calmly in a woman’s voice “Ebola, or Hemorrhagic Fever, is viral in nature. Symptoms include fever, diarrhea, vomiting, tachycardia, hypovolemia, and organ failure. Fatality rate: twenty to ninety percent, based on schedule of intervention.”

“Recommend interventions,” I commanded as I started the IV. The drip was saline and other nutrients that hopefully would support her long enough for her body to fight the virus.

“Rest, hydration, treat with heparin, dialysis may also be necessary. No known cure is-” I shut off the phone and crammed it back in my pocket.

Frantically I picked through what was left in the supply closet. No heparin, but if I couldn’t stop her bleeding she wouldn’t last another hour. It is remarkable to think that humans, basically big sacks of fluid with a tube running from mouth to anus, could live at all in such a sharp and dangerous world. There was so much that could go wrong, and so much blood to lose.

I ran out into the lobby to look for the doctor. There had to be something that I could use to prevent her blood from over coagulating and making her bleeds worse. I burst through the lobby door and what I saw made my own blood freeze in my veins. At least fifty patients and hospital staff stood motionless, some covered in blood, some bleeding from their mouths and ears, every single one of them was staring at me with dead eyes that reminded me of the possessed kids from Village of the Damned.

“What the fuck...” I whispered. Nobody answered, they stood there, one and all with the same slack expression on their faces. Mothers who had brought their sick children stood side by side, as did the doctors and nurses with their patients. Mouths agape. Eyes wide and glazed over. At least fifty people, as still as statues, just waiting. I wasn’t sure if they were even breathing. Then all at once they parted, leaving an aisle from where I stood to the double doors that lead to the Ambulance parking area. The doors opened and every head turned to watch what came through.

At first I thought it was a small elephant painted red. No, I guess that’s not right. At first I thought I was having a nightmare, the worst nightmare I could imagine. A hunched beast, about the size of a sedan, squeezed through doors. Every inch of the thing was covered in blood and what looked like bits of fat and bone fragments. It wreaked of blood and terror. It’s eyes were fixed on me, small and pig-like behind a large snout. It carried some kind of package, like a duffle bag, in its mouth. I only knew it was a grizzly bear when it opened its jaws and dropped the bag.

All of the frozen people in the waiting room began to speak in perfect synchronicity, with one voice. The sound, like a choir of zombies, made my heart practically stop and I felt every hair on my body stand on end. “You are the one called Isaac Austen. You are the one raised from death and given gifts that were not meant to be given. You are the one in possession of my stolen property,” all the zombies said, only their mouths moving. “I am Kli Truip. I serve the Elotiel, the Everlasting.”

“Holy shit,” I muttered. I was kind of at a loss for words.

“A traitor called Plop ‘ik of Plos Lodril has deceived you. He has indebted you to him so that he may terrorize the galaxy. He has put your life in extreme peril, for which I pity you. Plop ‘ik has delivered a virulent disease unto your planet. I present the cure.”

The bloody bear shoved the duffle bag toward me with its snout, inviting me to pick it up. The people spoke again, their voices a terrifying mix of chorus and wails, “This is the virophage that will save the life of that woman. She is another victim of the terrorist, Plop i’k. I am Kli Truip, Executive Priest and closest to the Eternal, so I will show mercy to you both.”

“These others must not be allowed to live. Take the woman and leave this place. I am finished with you, take the virophage and go now.”

Inside the bag was a syringe filled with a bright green liquid, with a wide tipped needle, the kind meant for intracardiac injection. I was going to have to stab Ana in the heart. If I knew then what I do now I might have made a different choice but at the time there seemed to be no other option. I did what I thought I had to do to save Ana. She was the only woman that had spoken to me in five years, after all.

I ran back to Ana with the syringe, almost slipping on the bloodslick linoleum. I took a breath, counted to three, and stabbed her right in the heart with the large needle. I had no problem with blood or with injections but there was something unnerving about plunging an unknown substance into someone’s heart.

“Please, Ana. Come on.” I whispered to the pitiable little bag of fluids that lay before me. A bloom of color rose to her face. Starting at the injection site, a flush of vibrant pink spread across her skin. I touched her and she was as hot as a fresh cup of coffee. I grabbed her hand took her pulse. In seconds her bpm had gone from barely alive, to dismal, to 50 lovely little beats per minute and rising. It was working.

She moaned softly and her eyes fluttered open, “Oh, what the-”

“Relax, it’s okay. It’s Isaac. You’re in the hospital Ana. You were really sick but you’re going to be alright now.” I reassured her, but she was shaking her head.

“No, I know that,” she said, sitting up on the gurney. She pointed behind me, “What the hell is that?!” The zombified patients and hospital staff had fallen out of whatever spell or mind control had enchanted them. Many had slumped over and fell to the floor while some just started screaming. The massive, blood-drenched bear was standing on its hind legs. It raised its head and roared.

“Oh, right,” I said. “That’s a big bear covered in blood... and entrails.”

The people ran toward the door but the massive thing cut them off, hammering them to the floor with its huge paws and biting as it plowed through the waiting room like a red tornado of death. Two security guards ran in from the lobby and the bear reared up and fell down onto the bigger of the two, tearing the fat man to bloody bits in seconds. His partner watched in horror, frozen by shock and fear. After tearing the first man’s throat out the bear looked up and casually swatted the other one with a paw the size of a car tire. He rolled out through the double doors like a bowling pin and the bear went after him to finish the job. It was over in less than a minute. Then the bear came back into the waiting room and turned on Dr. Gass. I ran for my life back into the clinic where Ana was getting up from the Gurney. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do but even in my state of shock all I could think of was getting her the hell out of there.

“Isaac, run out the back way! Get the hell out of here and find that priest from the bar!”

I had no idea what she was saying but there was no way I was leaving her to that monster, “Ah hell no! Get up! We’re leaving!” I took her by the arm and supporting her weight as we made our way toward the fire exit at the back of the room. She was much heavier than she looked and her muscles were firm and hard. Jeez, she must work out all the time. Even though she seemed to be recovering quickly but she could barely stand. It felt like we were moving in slow motion as we limped towards the door. Then I heard the sound that I was dreading.

Boom!

The bear came charging into the clinic, tossing aside the gurneys and tables in its way as if they were children’s toys. It roared at me again and I yelled back, “Hey, man! I thought you said you were gonna spare us! What the hell?!” I didn’t wait for a response. Its eyes were no longer glazed and vacant. It had gone from passive zombie to enraged and psychotic beast. It was like whatever power had possessed all of the people and the bear had just let go all of a sudden. The bear was furiously flinging hospital supplies at us as it clamored through the clinic in pursuit. I caught a flying IV drip stand in the head and hit the linoleum like a sack of beans. Ana tripped and fell on top of me. I saw the bear clear a path to us. It stood there for a moment, staring at me with its bloody teeth bared. I wanted to say something to Ana but I was frozen with fear.

Then it charged.