Madness and Serenity

Even if the world hadn't fallen apart, this would have been a private hell to visit. They were trying to keep things together, of course, but how many of them were there that still cared? A dozen? Less? Two doctors, one still a student. Eight of them with EMT training driving ambulances in shifts, dispensing the dwindling aid they had where they could. And one of them who'd never worked the hospital at all; just a woman who'd brought her husband in, stayed with him for four days until he passed, and... never left. She'd said she had no one else, that her family wasn't answering their phones, they even if they were they were still on the other side of the country. So she'd stayed at the hospital, had become number eleven, and had learned to run the phone network.

So there they were, day in and out; eleven people working together to save thousands who didn't seem to care any more. He was one of the ambulance drivers, he knew that even on days where a lack of sleep mounted high on visions of nightmares; glimpses of bloated bodies and glassy-eyed relatives who did nothing but smile beatifically as their dead were taken away. Lately, it seemed like he knew his job more than himself: he knew how to get the crash cart out, mounted, and charging in twelve seconds. He knew every lurch and tilt of the ambulance when it cornered hard. He even knew the difference in the eyes of those around them; the hints of sharpness beneath the glaze that would warn him when someone wasn't so peaceful, when they might want what he and his partner had. The drugs, the gun he carried, maybe even just the ambulance itself...

It seemed like a plague, that was what the elder doctor had told him; all worried eyes behind her glasses, lines on her face, hair twisted in a severe bun. They'd seen cases of dysentery that fit with the collapse of maintained sewage lines, pox and conjunctivitis that bred in refuse, staph and gangrenous infections from wounds that people were too at-peace to care for. Too at peace, he'd never believed such a thing would be possible. But he was witnessing it now, in this very moment as he breathed deep of air that held a sour tang, like something rotten carried on the wind.

This was a private hell to behold, in any world. He'd seen flophouses before, had dealt with addicts and thieves, and he knew the look of the dilapidated two-story house in front of him. Windows were boarded, the front door was gone, the yard was a trash heap. But the house next door was a stark contrast; its' yard tended and lush, the house behind it orderly-if-abandoned, and the young woman laying on the grass looked as happy as he'd ever seen as she ran her fingers through the lawn. "Miss!" he called as he left the ambulance behind and let his partner watch his back from the vehicle, "Miss! Have you heard any signs of disturbance from your neighbors?"

"No," came the answer, so inaudible that the shake of her head was more telling, "No, but it's alright now. Don't you see? Everything's going to be alright now!" Her smile could've melted a tyrant's heart, and as he watched her? There was a moment when he wished he could believe it, could give in to this bliss, unbelt his pistol, lay down in the grass with her. Maybe they would make love, maybe she would just smile at him and he would smile back, but he felt like whatever was happening now? It would be perfect either way.

But it had never happened for him. He'd never felt the elation that drew his coworkers from the hospital in droves, pushing patients in wheelchairs and hospital beds or walking with them arm in arm. And as far as he knew, he never could. They'd tuned everything out, and the people who were left were given too much to possibly ignore. Like the house with its' darkened doorway, the doorway he moved towards now with a wave to his partner, a signal to keep watching the streets for the moment. Halfway up the walk, the faint smell of decay choked at him suddenly, from nowhere, forcing him to pull his arm across his mouth despite the surgical mask he wore. He should've taken the warning and left.

Inside looked like footage he'd seen on the news before the world cracked, like scenes from Sarajevo of the ethnic cleansings. There must've been close to twenty bodies, some heaped in piles of five or six, littering the common room just beyond that door. Smears on the walls could've been food, waste, blood, who knew? Empty bottles mixed with food containers and discarded clothing everywhere that a bottle wasn't, and the first soft crunch he heard underfoot confirmed his fears: a discarded hypodermic needle lay beneath, its' tip bent sharply from misuse. "Fucking skels," he muttered under his breath, followed by a firmer tone, "Hello?!"

While the response was immediate, it wasn't one that he liked to hear. A clatter of garbage somewhere beyond the common room, a groan of floorboards, and a low growl that definitely wasn't human... Both hands moved to his waist as he beeped his radio once to let his partner know there might be trouble and drew his pistol, raising it in readiness. The dog came first, an absolute mutt with manged fur and yellow teeth, slick spots of dark on its' snout. It looked like a stray, but not a weak one... it had fed well recently. "Cori, stay," he heard from beyond the dog, a voice belonging to a malnourished girl who must've been fifteen or sixteen, but who looked aged beyond any count in years.

She was pale, her hair damp and matted to her head. Rail-thin like she hadn't eaten in weeks, a maybe-pretty face marked with leisions and sores from her lips up one cheek. One temple lacked hair, instead bearing a thick, wet-looking scab where a piece of scalp had been ripped away. Most telling to him, or most worrying? She had an old meat cleaver in one hand, and a belt tied above the elbow of her other arm. Even the near-dark inside of here couldn't hide the track marks below the belt. It would've broken him, once upon a time, but it didn't hurt as much as the fact that she wasn't smiling. Somehow, seeing the sane ones was worse than seeing the people who'd drifted away on serenity, madness, whatever it was.

"I'm sick," the girl sniffled at him, wiping her nose on her arm with a flinch, "I... I'm in a bad fucking way, man. Didn't think anyone'd answer if I called 911, you know?" She leaned in the doorway, seeming exhausted just by standing and talking, the cleaver hanging loose in her grip. "I know," he told her, "We don't have any way to tell people we're still there, but we are." For now. Until the grief broke them, or the supplies ran out, or the power failed. Or a thousand other things. "C'mon, we can get you out of here," he promised soothingly even as he fought bile rising up from the reek of this place, "We've got food, clean clothes, beds, even got a water heater that still works..."

"Dope?" she asked almost immediately, "You... you got a fix, man? Methadone? Codeine? Oxy?" He nodded slowly, thinking back to his training, to the lesson that an addict needed placating to keep from getting violent. And this girl, maybe she didn't look like she would? But she had that blade, she had that dog still growling low with its' hackles raised. He could get her out of here, then they could try to get her clean. The simple nod of his answer seemed to break the dam of this girl's composure wide open, and she shuddered once with a heavy breath as she slid low in the doorway, shoulders hunching up as the first sob wracked her.

"Th-they said this wouldn't happen!" she choked out, "Said we'd just dose! Get like everyone else or wait until things went normal again? Th-they s-s-said..." He missed what came next, though from the inside of here, he could guess. Her friends tried to wait out the change, maybe, or get so high that they became a part of it. All they got was overdoses, sickness, starvation. Death. "We need to get you out of here," he told her, taking his first step towards the sobbing girl and stopping immediately as the dog's low growl became a bared-teeth snarl. If she'd heard him, she didn't show it, just sitting on the floor and sobbing and murmuring incoherently to no one but herself. It had been some kind of miracle that this girl could manage to work the phone at all. And he couldn't waste that miracle by letting her die here.

From outside, his partner jumped from the ambulance as two sharp reports echoed, sounds of gunfire followed by a piercing wail. The ambulance door slammed as he pulled his scavenged police baton from his belt, making it to the edge of the yard before they saw each other. His partner's relief was palpable as he stalked from the house, the girl slung over his shoulder and screaming herself hoarse. "Cori!" she wailed, hitting his back weakly, "You fucking killed him! Cori!" The relief in his partner's eyes turned to worry as he moved to the ambulance. "Her dog," he told the other EMT, "Thing was feral. Open the back, we need to get her restrained and move. Docs are gonna have their work cut out for them with this one." Maybe later they'd come back here and try to contain the bodies, but he wasn't sure. It wouldn't stop the sickness from spreading, and to his mind? Getting survivors like this one away from it was more crucial. Because... how many more would there be?