‘Hmm…’ The sound was loud in the small room, but after a pause she made it again. ‘Hmmm…’
‘What do you reckon, Carol?’ I prompted, turning from the X-ray result back to my supervisor’s pensive face. Another pause.
‘The patient isn’t any pain? Any…symptoms?’
‘Not really. He came in for a suspected fracture from training, but hadn’t felt anything before that. Nothing out of the ordinary.’
Carol was lit only by the X-ray screen, the blue light making deep shadows out of her fine wrinkles. Her jaw moved slightly as she processed.
‘Run the procedure again, calibrate the machine properly, make sur-‘
‘All done Carol. We’ve scanned him as many times as we safely can, everyone calibrated the machine. Hell I X-rayed myself to check, it’s all fine.’ I wasn’t used to interruping a Consultant like that, but my heart was racing from what I was seeing. More sharply than I meant to, I indicated the heap of films that showed a full and healthly skeleton picked out in textbook-sharp detail from myself, compared horrifyingly to those from the patient sitting quietly next door.
For a few minutes Carol examined each one, her hmms turning to a grinding of teeth.
‘This is completely impossible…’ She muttered finally, more to herself than me.
‘There’s no doubt, we checked a dozen-‘
‘He’s got no fucking bones, Jack!’
I jumped, as much from her swearing as the sudden volume in the enclosed space. A silence fell as we both composed outselves, the humming of the X-ray screen the only sound. On that screen was a film showing a translucent human outline, very normal for X-rays, but instead of the bright lines of bone there was just…nothing. A faint mark, ghosts of something where the bones should be, but the skeleton itself was simply missing.
Slowly Carol collected herself. ‘Okay, talk me through it. Physical examination?’
‘There’s something there, solid, feels a bit…’ I shuddered at the memory of touching the patient, how his tibia seemed to squirm under my fingers, ‘wrong.’
‘So there’s something in there keeping him standing. Follow up tests? Vitals?’
The next few minutes were spent running through heart rate, blood pressure, and other metrics that painted the picture of a perfectly healthy young man who was simply missing bones. Finally I explained the next steps.
‘I’ve got a blood sample here which I’ll take to labs, hopefully that will tell us something,’ I patted the sealed vial in my breast pocket, ‘and I’m waiting on the CT machine to free up next door so we can get a better look at his soft tissues. We wanted your input after that.’
My bleep went off just as I finished talking, letting me know the scanner was ready. Carol ground her teeth again.
‘I’m following this, you have my support.’
I led her through to the waiting room where our patient sat staring idly at the posters opposite. He was a wiry young man with slightly thinning brown hair, and casual clothing like a lot of the staff. As we entered he looked up with a concerned expression, no doubt wondering why so much attention was being given to a minor fracture, but Carol simply introuced herself and asked if she could take some observations which the man hesitantly agreed to. It was left to me to explain that we’d found a small anomaly, that there was nothing to worry about, but we just needed to confirm a few things before we sent him back to the lab and would he consent to a quick CT scan? Carol counted his pulse and felt his arm as he gave another reluctant agreement, and once she was done we walked him to the other room and got him ready for the scan.
The control room was next door, separated by a pane of glass and an intercom. Once we settled I turned to Carol as the machine warmed up.
‘So, what’s your expert opinion?’ I asked, no irony in the question.
‘There’s something there of…clinical significance.’ My Consultant said guardedly, ‘I’m very interested in these results.’
I activated the scanner and the patient began to slide through the huming plastic ring. ‘You being super formal is worse than your swearing, you know.’
‘Mmmm.’
The minutes ground past, my heart beating faster with each one. The patient asked a few questions during the process, if it was safe and if there was anything to worry about, but I reassured him over the intercom and reminded him to stay as still as possible. When he asked what we were doing I explained that a CT would give us a better view of soft tissues, muscles and organs and such. Just to check if the fracture had damaged anything, I added, nothing to concern him. Finally it was done. Barely breathing, I pulled up the results on the screen as Carol craned forwards.
_‘What the fuck..?’_ She breathed.
I zoomed in with shaking hands, not believing what I was seeing myself. Carol was just repeating the word to herself over and over again as her eyes devoured the horror on screen.
‘Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck…’
I panned over the image, but they were everywhere. Everywhere that was meant to have bone had been replaced by-
‘Quarantine.’ I looked up at Carol, but she said it again, louder and more firmly. ‘Quarantine! Right now. Lock the doors, we need security.’
‘Okay, I’ll go to-‘
‘No, here too, you and me. We’ve touched the patient.’ She walked over and locked the operation room door, pulling out her phone and dialling a number at the same time. ‘The door Jack, now!’
My skin began itching at her words, pins and needles and a deep sickening crawling sensation. Us too? Quarantine? Contaminated with…those? My hand was obeying my superior though, hitting the button to lock the door of the CT room. The patient’s head snapped up at the sound, looking first at the door and then through the window at us. He was starting to panic now.
‘Just a precaution sir. There’s nothing to worry about.’ My voice was thin, high on the intercom. Unconvincing. I didn’t care though, my eyes were fixed on the results screen, on what the CT scan had revealed.
Insects. Thousands of them. Densly packed together, columns running throughout the patient’s body. Their carapaces picked out it blinding white on the screen, bodies locked together by spindly legs, needle-thin antenna poking out from the masses. The X-rays had passed right through them, but the CT scan revealed them in sickening detail. The terrible things made shapes, and with horror I realised they had taken the place of his bones; the radius, ulnar, femur, even the god damn skull remade from a mosaic of insect bodies each smaller than a grain of rice. I felt dizzy. I’d felt them moving…
Carol was speaking to someone and the patient’s voice was coming in tinny over the intercom but I wasn’t listening. A cold trickling feeling was spreading throughout my body and my mind was going faint. All at once I threw up. Missing the bin completely but managing to at least get the floor and not the equipment, I collapsed hard to the ground. The pungent smell of bile filled the room, adding to the sensory malestrom.
After a moment I felt myself being lifted, and turned to see Carol helping back into the chair.
‘Stay still and breathe deeply.’ She instructed. ‘Water is on the way, so spit for the moment if you need to.’ She stood and said something to the patient before turning off the intercom and results screen, leaving only the light from the CT room to fill our little space. It helped a little, but the images were still burned into my mind. Finally she knelt in front of me, careful to avoid the vomit, and held my arms as she talked me through a breathing exercise. Slowly I came back to myself, the panic receeding.
‘Sorry.’ I muttered, ‘I don’t like bugs.’
‘I’m not a fan myself, especially not those ones.’ She said kindly. ‘Your bones don’t feel like them if that helps. Just a few minor cuts.’ She indicated my arms and a spot of blood on my chest.
Before I could reply Carol’s phone rang and she stood to answer it. I shivered and did my best to fight off the feeling of phantom itching from inside my body.
‘Understood, we won’t attempt to leave…You don’t need to keep saying it Sue, I know what lethal force is… Water, Cleaning supplies too if possible. Yep…okay, bye.’ She let out a shakey breath as she hung up, before looking over to me.
‘We’re under instruction to stay in place, these two rooms are now considered a quarantine zone. Apparently they’ve seen something like this before, but it’s not a good prognosis. If you have it…well it’s like rabies.’ Another shaky breath, ‘Once they’re in there’s no way to stop them.’
I felt sick again, but swallowed it down. Questions whirled through my head. They knew these things existed? Is this part of what our facility is studying? What happened to the first patients, why can’t they stop it, why does my skin itch, did they really say lethal f-
Before I could voice any of the torrent in my mind, I was jolted by a bang right next to my head. Our patient had come to the joining window and smacked his hand into it, desperate to get our attention. Without the intercom we couldn’t hear any words, but he seemed to be shouting.
‘Jesus…’ Carol muttered, clearly also startled. She took one look at my face. ‘You stay there, I’ll do my best to reassure our patient.’
Both “reassure” and “our patient” seemed to ring slightly hollow in our current situation but I didn’t protest. Carol spent a few minutes doing her best to talk the patient down before giving up and sitting down next to me. As she did, the patient began thumping the diving window again.
‘He’s not happy, but there’s nothing we can do.’ She explained grimly. ‘Some symptoms are setting in, pain, panic, nausia. I didn’t tell him what was wrong though. I couldn’t face it…’
In all my time working with Carol I’d never see my Consultant look so degected. As gruff as she was, she’d been a bulkwark against all the mess and nastiness of working here. Shouldering both responsiblity of the patients as well as what we did.
‘This isn’t our fault Carol, we did the best we could.’ I tried, ‘Maybe we could still help him.’
‘Mmmm.’
‘I mean it. Tests, or something. Maybe we can fix whatever those bastards upstairs did to him.’
This caught her attention. Slowly she looked up, meeting my eyes. All kindness and comradary was gone, instead there was now a look of steel-hard contempt etched onto her face.
‘Jack, you know what we do here. This is our fault, those bastards are us. We did this to him.’
‘No…‘ I said, my voice thin again, ‘No, we’re radiology. We just scan the patients, look after them. We don’t-‘
‘Do you honestly believe that?’ She asked sharply. ‘You think you’re not a part of this? Too small of a cog in this place to be noticed?’
‘I…’
‘That you’re not responsible? A naive little rad tech that doesn’t have blood on his hands?’
‘That’s not…’
‘At least he can admit he makes weapons. At least I, and the patient, and everyone else in this godforesaken place can look ourselves in the mirror and know what we’re really doing.’
‘Carol I didn’t-‘
She was angry, angrier than I’d ever seen her.
‘Look that poor bastard in the eye and tell him we don’t make bioweapons. Look at him through the glass and tell him you’re innocent.’
I felt sick again. Her eyes were cutting through me, pinning me like needles under my flesh. Next to us the banging on the joining window continued, and I imagined I could hear him howling. But I didn’t look.
‘Can you even tell me his name Jack? I haven’t heard you address him by it.’
Again, I couldn’t answer, couldn’t bring my self to look up at my patient and his screams. Carol made a noise of disgust.
‘I get it. Like a farmer with cattle. It’s easier if you don’t get attached, right?’ She walked away towards one of the computer terminals. ‘I’m going to write this shitshow up, as well as a recommendation that we review your fitness to practice. I’m not happy having someone of your disposition under me in this facility.’ She looked at me again. ‘If you want any chance of keeping your job, I recommend that you look your patient in the eye and come to terms with who you are and what you do.’
The banging had stopped. Shamefully, I turned to look at the body of my patient.
Except he wasn’t dead. My heart stopped. In front of the window stood a melting man. His limbs were distending, lengthening and distorting as I looked, skin stretching and bubbling. The spine deformed, bending him forwards horribly towards the glass as his jaw flopped open and his skull collapsed on one side. The stretching skin began to split, white shapes pouring free from the gashes, but now I could barely make it out through a film of tears. I heard myself scream, collapsing down at the same time that poor bastard’s legs gave way and he fell mercifully out of view. I don’t know how long I sat there sobbing for. Eventually Carol’s voice came from above me.
‘This is what we do here Jack, and you need to be okay with it. For now I need the sample vial you took from Mr Xuan. You’re not fit to keep it safe right now.’
Shakily I reached into my chest pocket, obeying without question. Immediately there was a sharp, burning pain and I pulled my hand out with a yelp. A half-inch cut wept blood along my index finger. In horror I looked inside, only to see the glint of a shattered sample vial wink up at me, right where I had landed on it. Terrified, I looked up into Carol’s face which had drained of colour.
‘Right…’ She said, ‘Okay. Okay, I’m going to ask what the transmission vectors of this particular project are. You.. .stay still, and over there. Let me know if you feel anything.’
I simply nodded, unable to speak, trying desparately to ignore the itching coming from deep within my right arm that was slowly spreading upwards.