But as the seconds passed and nothing changed, it slowly became apparent to both Austin and Samuel that there was no backup and this wasn’t just a regular power cut. Daveed groaned between them, but their problems seemed so much greater than him now. Still Austin wouldn’t just abandon the man, and Samuel was unsure of where to focus his efforts.
From the conversation around the room they both pieced together what had happened: it was a citywide blackout. All of New York had lost power due to the rolling effects of the crash. It was the middle of the day in the peak of summer and so in most cases, not a real problem. But in a hospital where hundreds of people were reliant on life support systems and other devices, this disaster had just ramped up another notch entirely.
Men and women who weren’t really injured or in need of assistance started to exit the building. There was still enough light to see by inside the lobby due to the large windows which ran along one side, but further down the corridors and into the buildings the light was dimmer and more dangerous. Staff were frantically running around and shouting to one another in search of medical supplies. Their resources were already running low and now they’d been plunged into even more danger without perhaps the one resource the hospital couldn’t function without. These were unprecedented times and from the staff reactions it didn’t seem like there was a contingency plan in place.
“Please,” Samuel reached out and grabbed a nurse’s arm as she tried to hurry past. “Please,” he repeated as she was forced to stop. “This man has been stabbed. Can you help him?”
The nurse looked at Daveed who had now completely lost consciousness, the shirt which he had been pressing against his stomach drenched with blood and laying loosely in his lap. “I’m sorry,” she shook her head. “You need to let me go.”
“Please,” Samuel repeated. “Is there anything you can do?”
“I can help,” Austin offered. “I have some medical training.”
“It’s too late for your friend,” the nurse replied, maintaining a very calm demeanor. “He’s lost too much blood.”
“There must be something –” Samuel started to question, finally letting go of the nurse apologetically.
“There isn’t,” she cut him off. “I’m sorry,” her tone changed again somewhat, using a voice which was often put on in confined rooms with distraught family members. “There’s nothing more you can do. I need to go.”
“Wait!” Austin called after the nurse. “We can’t just leave him to die in the lobby.”
The nurse faltered and looked back. “Come with me,” she answered after a moment. She led them further into the hospital, sounds of screaming echoing around them in the darkness. “You can leave him in here,” the nurse prompted as they reached a ward lined with several beds, all of them occupied.
“Is there anything we can do to help?” Samuel offered quickly, the short walk through the hospital making him realize how many people were in danger. It might be a small building, but there were still over a hundred patients inside. He had no idea how long the patients could cope without power to the equipment, but he knew the survival rates would be dropping significantly with every minute that passed.
The nurse turned and looked at him for a second. “Backup generator,” she replied. “It’s in the basement. We need to get it started or half of the people in here are going to die. If you want to help, that would be a good place to start.”
“Which way?”
“Through here and down the stairs at the back. Code to get in is nine-five, seven-five, two-zero.”
“Nine-five, seven-five, two-zero,” Samuel repeated. “Got it.”
“Thank you,” the nurse replied and rushed away. She didn’t spare another second to talk to the two men.
Samuel scanned the room. Staff members were quite literally pumping blood through people’s bodies with their own hands now. One doctor knelt over a patient on a bed performing chest compressions to try and get the patient breathing again, while a couple of beds down another doctor was performing mouth to mouth.
This was real. People were going to die if the hospital didn’t have power again soon and he had to do everything he could to help them. He might not know the first thing about back up generators, but he could try his best and hopefully, he could do something right.
“Austin?”
Austin’s eyes lingered on Daveed for a second longer, the man was still unconscious and his chest was moving much slower and more infrequently than before. He was dying, perhaps with only a few more minutes left. It felt wrong to leave him so close to the end, but much like Samuel, Austin was powerfully aware of the bigger picture. Trying to save Daveed had brought them to the hospital, now they had to try and save everyone else as well.
With a deep breath he looked away from the dying man and to Samuel instead, nodding and starting to jog through the ward looking for the door to the basement. The two of them tried not to look at the men and women filling the beds as they moved past, but it was impossible to avoid it. The ward was packed tightly together with beds no more than a meter apart, the patients all in varying states of illness or injury.
Just before they reached the door to the stairwell at the end of the room, Samuel laid eyes on a particular woman occupying one of the beds. He stopped dead in his
