“Let’s say that you were bitten at approximately 11:30.” Ramola looks at the clock on the dashboard. It’s 11:56.
“How long before it’s too late for me?”
“I’m not sure. No one is. We’ll get you treated as soon as—”
“You must know something. Tell me.”
“All we know for sure is that the usual timeline of infection has been greatly accelerated. No longer weeks or days. The CDC reports that infection is occurring within a matter of hours—”
“But . . .”
“I didn’t say ‘but.’”
“You were going to.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“Rams! You have to tell me everything. What else do you know? What else have you heard?”
“I know of one patient who reportedly presented symptoms within an hour of exposure—”
“Fuck.”
“But that quoted timeline wasn’t corroborated. I don’t know where she was bitten or how she was exposed or how far the virus had to travel within the nervous system to pass into her brain. The time of symptoms onset is dependent upon how close to the head the bite or exposure site is.” Upon finishing she regrets allowing Natalie to talk her into sharing hearsay from a harried text exchange. How does that maybe-information help Natalie? She needs to be making better decisions than that.
Natalie says, “Please hurry.”
“We’re not far away now.”
A few hundred yards ahead is the Neponset Street rotary, which passes over the Route 1 commercial highway. There are two state police cars parked at the entrance to the rotary, their blue lights flashing. Two officers standing adjacent to their vehicles are dressed in riot gear and carry automatic weapons. They hold up their hands, motioning the SUV to stop.
“Goddammit, we don’t have fucking time for this.” Natalie continues ranting and swearing as Ramola stops in the mouth of the rotary. She opens her window.
The officers slowly approach, flanking the SUV. The barrels of their weapons are pointed at the ground but neither removes a hand from the gun.
“Ma’am, I need to ask where you’re going. We’re under federal quarantine and the roads are to be used in the event of an emergency only.” A white respirator covering the lower half of his face muffles his voice. According to emailed procedures Ramola received the previous evening from the infectious disease specialists and chief medical officer at Norwood Hospital, the N95s were to be distributed and fit-tested only to medical personnel identified as being at the highest risk to exposure. What the police officer is wearing is more likely a painter’s mask picked up at the Home Depot about a mile down Route 1 South. As nervous as the automatic weapon makes Ramola, she’s more bothered by the mask, which doesn’t bode well regarding the clarity of communication between local government agencies and emergency-responder groups.
Natalie shouts, “We’re going to the hospital! I’m injured and wicked pregnant. Can we go now, please?”
The officer at the window attempts to respond, but Ramola politely interrupts him. “Excuse me, Officer, I’m Dr. Ramola Sherman”—she pushes her medical ID badge toward him—“I’m taking my friend to Norwood Hospital. She’s more than eight months pregnant and was bitten by an infected man approximately thirty minutes ago. She needs immediate medical attention. May we pass through?”
The officer blinks rapidly as though having a difficult time processing the information and the dire implications. “Yeah, okay, Doctor. Head to the emergency-room entrance on Washington Street. Do you know where that is?”
“Yes.”
“You can take either Washington or Broadway to get there, but you can only use the emergency entrance. All other entrances have been closed.” He steps back, says some sort of code into his two-way radio attached to his chest harness, and waves his arm as though there’s traffic behind them waiting for the go-through signal.
“Thank you, Officer.” Ramola eases off the brake and they creep forward. “Can you call ahead, give them my name, Dr. Ramola Sherman, and tell them to expect us?”
Natalie groans and whisper-shouts, “Just go, come on, let’s go!”
“I will but I’m not sure there will be anyone available to greet you.”
Ramola accelerates onto the rotary. Three more on-ramps, the remaining points on a compass, are similarly roadblocked by state police. Unlike eerily empty I-95, there is traffic below the overpass on Route 1, its double lanes a glorified path between car dealerships, box stores, strip malls, and themed restaurants. As they pass the on-ramp to their right, cars queue from the highway’s southbound lanes.
Natalie says, “You’re not stopping again—”
“I’m not stopping.”
Officers wearing the same painters’ masks wave the SUV through the rotary’s west exit and onto Nahatan Street. They pass a warehouse on their right and an apartment complex on their left, a cluster of two-story brick buildings squatting around a three-quarters-full parking lot. Ramola does a double take as someone darts through the lot and disappears among the buildings.
Natalie asks, “How long do you think it’ll take to get me in, get me seen? The rinky-dink hospital is probably fucking jammed.”
“I can’t say for sure, but I’m confident we’ll get you in quickly. It won’t be anything like a normal emergency room with check-in and then sit and wait, and all that. There is extra staff and there will be a triage set up outside the emergency-room entrance to help with patient screening.”
“I don’t doubt you, but how do you know this?”
“I received the hospital’s emergency-response information sheet last evening. I was scheduled to report there tomorrow morning.”
“Lucky you get to go in early for Take Rabies-Infected Preggo to Work Day. It’s going to be a shit show when we get there. I know it is.”
“I’ll personally escort you through the shit show.”
“I’d hug you with my bitey arm if I could.”
Ramola reaches across the center console and squeezes Natalie’s thigh. Natalie covers her mouth with the back of
