INFECTION 2.0

~ THIRTEEN ~

There was nothing about the hospital room to separate it from any other hospital room in the nation. A man lay sleeping restlessly on a bed with little wheels. He had wires and tubes hooked up to him that monitored heart rate, blood oxygen, an oxygen feed, and an IV. His breathing was labored. His skin was pale, cold, and beaded in sweat. The man in the black leather jacket, product a syringe from the pocket and injected a clear fluid into the IV.

“John? Wake up, John.” the man sat down on a stool next to the bed when he was finished.

The patient moaned and stirred.

“John, I need to know if you have been with anyone in the last day or two? Since you left the study group?”

The man on the bed opened his eyes, they appeared glassy and unfocused. His mouth moved but the other only heard breath. The man with the jacket leaned close then whispered a curse. Straightening, he looked at John for a moment. The poison would take effect any minute but the man didn’t feel he could wait around.

He stepped out into the hall and walked slowly away, doing his lost look routine again. In a doorway, at the far end of the hall, he stopped. From his pockets, he found a small bottle and the needle. He filled up the syringe then returned the bottle to his jacket. Wait for it, wait for it, he calmed himself and watched the seconds tick away on his watch. One minute, then two, then three.

From the other end of the hall, he heard a commotion and people shouting. Soon hospital employees were rushing to the room the man had recently vacated. As they were occupied with John Coleman, the man began checking in on other rooms.

The symptoms were easy enough to spot. It may have been similar in appearance to stomach flu or food poisoning, and if this hospital had to lose a few of those patients it would have to be written off as collateral damages. By the time this was all over who would know the difference?

He moved from room to room, working effortlessly, methodically when he found someone showing signs of the sickness. He poisoned the IV and slipped out. In a matter of minutes this wing of the hospital was in such chaos no one was paying notice to him at all and he worked his way down the hall without concern or worry.

In the fifth room that he found housing one of the sick ones he paused. The girl didn’t look old enough to have a driver’s license yet. A pause was all he allowed himself though. He plunged the poison into the drip and moved on. By the time he left the building, he had counted ten rooms he had visited.