Snow Storm
It had snowed all night and all the next day. The temperature outside dropped steadily. The snow whipped around on the icy wind blocking out the sun during the day and any sight of the moon and stars at night. Every day a new prisoner fell ill and was brought by stretcher, a vomiting, infected mess to the infirmary at the rotted gut of the prison. There he would most likely stay, unattended for hours, maybe days because there was so little staff and so many patients. The storm had kept the next shift of nurses and doctors from arriving. The guards too, stopped arriving for the shift change. The weather reports became weather warnings and the staff was soon snowed in. No one could leave and no one could get in. They all became prisoners.
Both doctors on duty began to worry about a serious flu outbreak. The prisoners were being brought in with extremely high fevers. They succumbed to fits of coughing; hacking up thick green phlegm that stuck like rubber cement to everything it came into contact with. Their skin turned grey and began to fester, first with large blisters filled tight with puss and then, after the blisters burst, green ooze and skin slid off in sheets leaving a wet pulsing layer underneath.
On the radio were reports of an epidemic sweeping rapidly through the Midwest. Hundreds of cases already reported in Michigan alone and hundreds more in Indiana, Wisconsin, and as far north as Minnesota. The severe storm stretched across the Great Lake states making it hard for the CDC to travel and investigate the cause of the outbreak and what to do to stop it. Blackwater Supermax Prison, with its killers, drug addicts, and rapist, was the lowest priority. The CDC would not be coming to check on its infected inmates.
“What do you think this could be? Could this be the same flu reported on the radio?” Dr. Fisher asked leaning over the autopsy of a recently deceased prisoner.
“It’s strange. It looks to me like some kind of pox virus. I don’t see how this could be the flu. Look at all these pox marks on the skin. See here, lesions on the lungs.” Dr. Boxwell ran his gloved finger along the blackened lung. “Since when does the flu cause a skin rash?”
Dr. Boxwell brought the bone saw near the skull. “I am amazed at how fast these lesions spread. How long ago was he brought to the infirmary?”
“Four days ago. His fever wouldn’t break.”
“What about these lesions?”
Dr. Fisher ran his gloved hand over the lower face of the corpse. He held the jaw in his hand tilting the head left then right. “It almost looks like syphilis doesn’t it? Or some sort of skin infection” He touched his gloved finger to the swollen grey lips pushing the blood settled under the dead skin to the corners of the mouth like a squashed sausage. Dr. Fisher looked up at Dr. Boxwell for a response. The dead mouth snapped opened and the jagged teeth tore through the latex of the glove as the jaws snapped shut again clamping onto Dr. Fisher’s finger. He let out a terrified scream tried to pull his hand free of the corpse’s mouth. Dr. Boxwell dropped the bone saw to the ground. He pressed his hands against the corpse’s face trying to push open its jaws. They did not budge. Dr. Boxwell let go and went for the bone saw on the floor. Dr. Fisher howled as the corpse sat up, its bowels spilling from the opened cavity in its torso. The corpse gripped Dr. Fisher’s arm and bit through his finger. It yanked Dr. Fisher into the examining table and sank its bloody teeth into his neck, tearing away flesh, ripping through veins and arteries. Dr. Boxwell turned on the bone saw and it buzzed loudly. The corpse dropped Dr. Fisher’s lifeless body to the floor with a thud and pushed itself off the examining table towards Dr. Boxwell. It stumbled on its feet but remained steady enough to keep moving as its organs came cascading out the hole in its torso. Dr. Boxwell backed himself into the corner of the room, the bone saw clutched tightly in his hands.
©Katherine Montalto 2009-2010
