The Deep Zone

“Your vitals are looking very good, Dr. Leland,” the nurse said. “I think they will discharge you tomorrow.”

“That will be nice. To sleep in my own bed. Yum.”

“Good night, Doctor. Please use your call button for anything at all. Even if you should only want to talk. I am just at the nurses’ station.”

Hallie eased down, then turned onto one side because her bruised back hurt. They had raised the safety bars on her bed, and now she lay there staring through them. She was not thinking about her expedition into the cave. She was thinking, instead, of the footage of the soldier Don Barnard had shown her in his office, back before this all started. The things she’d seen were like the afterimages caused by staring into a bright light, but these would not fade. She closed her eyes, tried to think about other things, to squeeze the horror out of her mind. Then she stopped doing that. Turning away struck her as cowardice. Turning away from the people themselves struck her as worse. Especially from one person. What would she tell Mary, knowing that her sister was right here in the same hospital, and that she could have seen her, and did not? She dropped the safety bars and swung her legs over the side of the bed.

Because it was so late, the halls were deserted. It was not hard for Hallie to find a supply closet and exchange her hospital johnny for green doctor’s scrubs. She pulled white Tyvek covers over the running shoes Don Barnard had brought and put a hair cover on, just for good measure.

“I’m Dr. Leland,” she said as she approached the desk by the elevator. She had expected that access to the elevators and stairways would be restricted. The young corporal looked at her, then looked again, transfixed by her damaged face. “Car accident,” she said. “The stupid Beltway. You know how it is. I need to get down to the iso unit to see a patient.”

He examined a clipboard on the desk, running his index finger down a printout with a list of names, the finger stopping beneath each one. His lips moved while he read the names silently. Finally he looked up.

“Uh, I’m sorry, ma’am…”

“Doctor.”

He blushed. “Yes, ma’am, I mean, Doctor, but I don’t got your name here.” He held up the clipboard.

She grabbed it, laid it on the table, picked up one of his pens, and wrote her name between two others. Eyes flashing, she pushed the clipboard toward him.

“Now you do. Open that elevator, soldier.”

After passing into the iso unit’s air lock system, Hallie performed all the BSL-4 procedures, donned a Chemturion suit, and finally walked through an inner air lock into the unit itself, as quiet and dim as the area she had left. Ultraviolet germicidal lights on the ceiling and walls glowed an eerie, radioactive-looking blue, and even with the Chemturion’s filtration system running the air smelled of a chlorine-based aerosol disinfectant.

The nurses’ station was deserted—no surprise with a ward full of critical cases. She turned right and started down the long hall. Most of the rooms had their doors open, privacy curtains drawn around the beds inside. When she was halfway to the corridor’s end, she passed a room where the curtain was not drawn and she could see the person lying in bed. She was sleeping or, more likely, knocked out on meds, on her back. Some of the flesh on the right side of her head had been eaten away, exposing white patches of skull. There was a plum-sized hole in her left cheek, through which Hallie could see jawbone and teeth. There was no eye on this side, just a suppurating empty socket.

Hallie’s stomach churned. It was one thing to look at pictures of this horror, another to actually see—and smell—it. She started down the white corridor again. At its end, she turned left and kept walking. She passed five rooms and then stopped at the door to one. The rectangular metal frame on the wall beside the door held a paper name label: STILWELL, L. MAJ. FLNG.

It was a private room, just the one bed, a perk of rank. Night-lights at the baseboards and wall switches illuminated the room softly. Hallie could see a woman with short brown hair lying in the bed. She had met Lenora only once, at Mary’s parents’ home in Louisiana. Now an oxygen-supplying cannula was inserted into Stilwell’s nostrils. A sheet was pulled up to her chin. Her arms rested on top of the sheet. Both hands were bandaged. And then, as Hallie watched, one came up and waved her in. She walked to the bedside.

“Hey.” Stilwell’s voice was a raw whisper, roughened by pain and throat inflammation. “What’s up, Doc?”

My kind of gal. “Lenora?” she said very softly. Then, remembering the suit, she repeated her question more loudly.

“Yes. You’re early.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Stilwell chuckled. “Not much sleeping going on here, Doc.”

“I’m not a doctor. Not a medical doctor. I’m a microbiologist.”

“I see.” Stilwell did not sound happy to hear that. “Do you really need another biopsy? They’ve already taken about a pound of flesh for tests.”

“No, it’s not that. I…” Now that she was here, she found it difficult to explain to this woman why.

“Take your time, Doctor,” Stilwell rasped. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I’m not supposed to be here.”

“Neither am I. What’s your name, Doctor?”

“Um, it’s Leland. Hallie Leland. I know your sister, Mary.”

Stilwell did not sit up—could not—but the surprise was clear in her voice. “Hallie Leland. I remember meeting you at our home. What on earth brings you here?”

“I…” What had brought her here? Should she tell Stilwell about the whole Cueva de Luz effort? No. Too complicated. “I learned you were in here yesterday.” Leave it at that.

“So if you’re here, you must know about ACE?”

“Yes. A lot.”

“That surprises me. They’ve been working hard to keep this contained.”

“I work in a government facility that’s been researching countermeasures. For ACE, I mean.”

“What facility?”

“BARDA. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Most people haven’t.” She hesitated. “What you did. Over there. Incredible.”

Stilwell let out an exasperated sigh. “No big deal. It’s war. Those boys get shot and die every day. I’m going to leave them when things finally get dangerous in my house? Not likely.” She winced, groaned, obviously in sudden pain.

“Should I call someone?” Hallie could see a small area of infection on the left side of Stilwell’s neck, and one the size of a half dollar on her forehead. They looked like third-degree burns, red and raw and oozing.

“No. It passed. Nerve endings flare up when they die, but just for a few seconds.” She got her breath back. “Of course, there are billions of nerve endings, so I have plenty to look forward to.”

“Lenora, maybe I should go. I don’t want to make this worse.” Hallie was damning herself, feeling selfish now, for having interrupted this good woman’s rest.

Stilwell waved a bandaged hand. “Lenny. My friends call me. Stay. Good to talk.”

“All right. I feel stupid in the suit, though.”

“You’d feel stupider if you came down with this stuff. So don’t even think about taking that off. But you can come closer.”

Hallie stepped to the side of the bed.

“How is Mary? She won’t answer my emails or phone calls,” Stilwell said.

“I know. She’s…” Was this the time to tell her big sister about the drinking? No. “She’s doing okay. I’ve spent some time with her recently, down in Florida.”

“She really okay?”

Then again, was this a time to lie? “Not really.”

“The Army treated her like dirt.”