Simmons - Flu.pdf

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Flu
Flu
Wayne Simmons
PROLOGUE
Finaghy, Northern Ireland
17th June
There was a woman screaming in his face.
She was one of many crowding around him. But he couldn't hear her. With the headgear he was
wearing, Sergeant George Kelly couldn't hear what any of them were saying. Just muffled words. Muted.
Censored. Like sounds you would hear under water.
But he could see her talking, see her screaming.
And he knew she was swearing.
It was something about the way her lips were moving. Shaping the words as if they were heavy.
Teeth showing. Almost growling rather than speaking. Or maybe laughing. Because, with every fuck-shaped
word she mouthed, there was at least the hint of a smile.
It didn't matter, of course. None of their words mattered to George when all he could hear was the
rhythmic sound of his own breathing. A mechanical mish-mash of pumps and compression as sanitised air
flowed, noisily, through rubber tubing into his facemask and lungs. Steady and dependable.
Pure and uninfected.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. Looking to the corner of his visor, he saw his constable, Norman
Coulter, also in breathing apparatus, also fighting through the confused and excited crowd. Norman smiled,
as if enjoying himself, rolling with the mob as if on some fairground ride. George knew it was just bravado,
though. Maybe the big man was drinking on the job again. Or maybe he had something even more taboo
flooding through his system. George didn't care, though. Not now. He couldn't blame the poor bastard for
taking the edge off, regardless of how he did it. In fact, he wished he'd had the wit to take a drink himself.
Together, the two men waded their way through the sea of silently angry people, their cries and
protests as muffled as the swearing woman's rants. The crowd was constantly shifting, like marbles in a tin. It
was like being on a ship. Waves of people rabid with emotion, slapping against each other. George almost
felt sick with the constant impact of body upon body.
They moved through the car park into the nearby tower block of flats. It was the fifth time they'd been
to this particular block, in Finaghy, but the thirteenth time they'd been to a call like this. George had been
counting. He wished he hadn't been counting, because the number 'thirteen' had always bugged him. It
wasn't that he was particularly superstitious, but there was something about numbers and codes that
unnerved him. He hated maths, unable to understand them. But you feared what you didn't understand.
That's what they said, anyway.
The crowd was becoming increasingly lively, increasingly aggressive. But George remained focused,
shoving his way through the confused and frenzied people with resolve. The angry woman remained,
somehow, in his face, despite the heavy numbers. She was still screaming, still shaping f-words. How she
managed to keep up with him, he wasn't sure. He knew that if she had been giving Norman that kind of
abuse, he'd not be quite as passive. But George wasn't going to risk the use of force where he didn't have to.
He'd seen this all before. They were on the cusp of something nasty. A riot, a breakdown. A loss of order, or
control. They needed to tread very carefully. The crowd was scared and confused. One wrong move could
set them off like a bucket of fireworks.
Still the woman screamed at him, as he fought his way up the stairwell. He wondered if she was a
relative of the 'patient'. Or maybe just a family friend. Looking at her, he reckoned she was more likely just
another nasty bitch sent to try his patience. Some troublemaker using the whole drama to offload her general
beef with the police. He'd seen her type before. He wondered what would make a person so bitter, so one-
dimensional in their thinking. He couldn't understand that mentality at all. Didn't she understand the
pressures he, and other officers, suffered on a daily basis? How they were first on the scene of everything
nasty? Breaching the frontline of every flare-up? Protecting, negotiating, tolerating? (enforcing?)
But George was adamant he was going to hold his cool a little longer, regardless of his anger.
Especially on his thirteenth -
(thirteenth what?)
No one back at the station had given these types of calls a name yet. He'd been on twelve (now
thirteen), yet remained unaware of a codeword, number, colour or any other way to distinguish such calls
from more 'routine' police work. It suddenly dawned on George how odd that was.
When it first hit, George had felt the same as everyone else. Confused, scared, unsettled. He'd seen
the signs on television. The news reporting a rise in workplace absence. The shutting down of small
businesses. House prices falling to ridiculously low prices, people trying to flee to Europe, America,
anywhere that would take them. But then the airports closed, all exits in and out of Ireland blocked.
Eventually, hospitals and medical centres became overrun with patients. Private healthcare intervened, but
the demand was overwhelming. The posters, first advising of helplines to ring if sick, then advising of martial
law. Anyone found outdoors after curfew would be detained, they said. And it was then that George's role
changed, his perspective shifted. He became one of those administering detention. Today, he was
administering much worse.
They took the next flight of stairs by storm. He noticed Norman, in front, pushing through the
dwindling crowds, quite aggressively, as they neared the second floor. Bodies were less thick, now, but still
in his face like lights at a show. George filed behind Norman's ram-like hide, allowing the bigger man to do all
the donkey work. He wondered if it would have been better to take the lift, avoiding the heavy throng of
people for the relative calm of spinning cogs and levers. But the numbers continued to thin as they got closer
to flat 23. Word must have got out, he thought. Another person infected. 'Get out, get the police out and stay
out' as the well worn advert on television instructed.
Yet, it certainly hadn't got through to one person - the swearing woman still persisted. George could
actually hear what she was screaming at him, now, even through the oxygen mask. It was mostly
obscenities, as he suspected. She didn't trust the police, warning George that she was watching every
'fucking' thing he was 'fucking' doing and would record it on her 'fucking' phone if he did anything out of
'fucking' line. He gritted his teeth and continued to ignore her. He hated her type, and he really hated her.
When they reached flat 23, the crowds had diluted. There were only a few people milling about
outside. Most of them stood back as George and Norman approached. A couple of paramedics, wearing
even more elaborate breathing apparatus than George and Norman, came out to meet them. They didn't
introduce themselves, nor did they exchange any pleasantries. They simply nodded to George to confirm,
subtly, their diagnosis.
It was flu.
The people huddled around the doorway, mostly relatives of flat 23's tenants. They seemed reluctant
to step back. The paramedics did their best to gently persuade them, but in the end it was Norman's
handgun, brandished assertively in the air, that ultimately convinced them what a good idea it would be to
make room. There were a few shrieks from a rather inconsolable older woman; George left her to the
paramedics to comfort and, most likely, sedate. This was the way of such things. Desperate measures for
desperate times.
George followed Norman into the flat, closing the door in the face of the swearing woman who had
been tailing him like some mad banshee with Tourettes. He got a little satisfaction out of that, but it seemed
wildly inappropriate to admit it. Even to himself.
George steadied himself, leaning against the wall for a short, precious moment. His breathing was
slowing. He could hear the air more clearly as it pumped through the tank into his mask. Norman was beside
him, patting him on the shoulder to ask if he were okay. He wasn't okay. He couldn't be okay. Because this
was where it got messy. This was the bit he had hated most about all twelve previous calls. They called it
'risk management.' He didn't know if that was the correct title or not. But what did it matter in a situation like
this, anyway? These words, these terms dreamed up by bureaucrats in 'think tanks.' 'Protocol' and 'viable'
and 'procedural.' None of them bore any relevance to the real world. None of them meant anything, here in
this flat, to these people. They offered no comfort to anyone within this awful crescendo to a brutal,
anonymous and necessary evil.
They moved through the hallway of the small flat, finding a tearful young woman. The television was
turned up loud in another room. George could hear a lively debate about symptoms and signs of the flu. It
was pretty much all people were talking about, on the radio, the TV, the street. The television sounded old,
tired, jaded. Its speakers were muffled, buzzing as if a fuse had blown somewhere. An overtired doctor was
reciting government rhetoric, hardly sounding like he believed it himself. The studio audience were almost as
vicious as the crowd outside.
The woman didn't introduce herself, simply retreating through into another room on seeing the two
cops. She didn't look scared of them or surprised to see them. But she wasn't going to shake their hands,
either. George didn't expect pleasantries. Cops were like angels of death, now. Expected, even summoned,
but never welcomed.
George shook his head, looking to his colleague. The bigger cop shrugged, dismissively. He
followed the young woman, George filing in behind him. He wondered if it was she who was infected, or a
partner or husband. Nothing seemed obviously wrong with her. But appearances were deceiving. A simple
sneeze seemed all that was needed to determine someone's health. A tickly cough, runny nose. All
previously harmless symptoms of a minor cold or flu. Barely noticeable, before. Now, they were like the first
nails in the coffin. Enough to send shivers down a man's spine. Like the bells ringing out during the Great
Plague.
George's heart sank as they were led into another room, that of a little girl. Pink Barbie wallpaper
lined the walls. A faded Disney Princess duvet covered the bed in the centre of the room. A couple of
posters, cut out of magazines and comics, were cellotaped, roughly, above her headboard. A little girl with a
fever lay under the covers, a bucket in the corner holding her vomit, a bedpan seeming to contain fresh
excrement. A thick line of blood was seeping out of her nose, constantly being attended to by her young
mother with a heavily soiled handkerchief. She couldn't have been more than six years old.
The young woman turned to them, petitioning them in what seemed to be some kind of Eastern
European dialect. While George couldn't understand what she was saying, he was pretty sure he got her
meaning.
He looked, again, at the little girl. His sister had a child the very same age. They clearly shared the
same interests, his little niece having similarly themed decor in her room, albeit with a little more cash spent
on it. Where was this little girl from, though? Romania? Probably one of the many Eastern Europeans
George would have seen on an almost daily basis. Selling papers at traffic lights. Begging in the street.
Busking, maybe. Sometimes the perpetrators of petty crimes. They were far from welcome in Belfast. Even
less so in rural areas. George always wondered how they put up with the constant abuse they received, the
slander and the slogans on the wall. Probably couldn't understand much of it, he thought. The darker side of
Belfast lost in translation.
He bent down by her bedside. The girl was barely conscious, but he talked to her, nonetheless.
"Hi, sweetie," he said, not sure what else to say. It was what he called his niece. He suddenly felt
guilty about using his special name for her with someone else.
Not that it mattered, of course. His words were probably meaningless, anyway. Muffled by the
equipment he was wearing. Dulcet tones murmured to a drained body, delirious with fever. It really wasn't
likely that she even heard him. But George thought he should say something. Even just for the mother's
sake.
He placed his gloved hand over the little girl's brow. It was radiating heat to such an extent that he
could even feel it through the fabric, as if it were a hot plate. He brushed the sweaty hair away from her eyes,
took a fresh tissue from a nearby box and removed some of the ever- increasing blood and bile seeping from
her nose. She suddenly began to cough, spitting a dark smear across his visor. He quietly removed it, before
dipping another tissue in water and patting her burning forehead with it. Then he continued to clean her,
using more dampened tissues.
"Shhhh" he said, each time she sputtered. "It's going to be okay."
But it wasn't going to be okay. It was clear that her condition was pretty far advanced. Yet,
underneath the mess, when he wiped her face clean, he found a beautiful little girl. Strikingly beautiful.
George looked to the mother, hoping this would be the face she would record in her memory. The one to
remember her daughter by.
George then looked to his partner, standing, awkwardly, by the bed. Big Norman looked even bigger
when compared to such a small, weak child. Like a bear watching over her. A giant from some fairy tale. The
big man looked more than just uncomfortable as he stared at the scene before him. He seemed moved. It
was as if even his heavy and jaded heart was melting at the bedside of this child, this innocent little creature
who did not deserve what was happening to her.
George, shook his head, sighing heavily under all the tubes and glass. He pulled himself to his feet,
feeling the weight of his oxygen tank.
"Christ," muttered Norman. George pulled the big man aside so they could discuss the situation
more privately. His visor was steaming up, and it was difficult to make out any expression on Norman's face.
"This is a hard one, mate. What do we do?" asked Norman. But he knew well enough what they were meant
to do. He'd accompanied George all twelve times before this.
"We have to stick to protocol," said George, hating the word as he used it. Yet, somehow it seemed
appropriate to use a 'think tank' word to describe something indescribable. Something clearly wrong, yet
masked as right under nonsensical language and jargon.
Protocol. Procedural.
Norman just stared back at him, as if George, too, were infected. Infected by nonsense, by
bureaucracy. Infected by the very words he was using. It troubled George to see Norman look at him like
that. It shamed him. He was suddenly aware of the sweat building under his mask. His breathing, fast and
heavy. His hands, sticky and itchy under his plastic-lined gloves. Whether it was the screaming woman
having riled him, or the little girl on the bed, or the fucking words leaving his mouth, he really didn't feel well.
(maybe it was flu?)
"Fuck protocol," Norman said, suddenly. He was never a fan of the 'think tank' mentality. "I'm not
going to quarantine a six-year-old girl. Not like this. No way."
"We could lock the mother in, too." George offered. It was a terrible thing to say. He knew that. But
he also knew it was as close as he was going to get to being the right thing to say. The most honest, the most
human thing.
"Are you serious?" Norman said, almost laughing. But his superior was serious. Very serious.
"It's the only thing we can do," George said, pressing one hand against the wall beside him. "For the
little girl, anyway. Let's face it, the mother's probably infected, anyway." It was true. This flu was airborne.
Those within the vicinity of the infected usually contracted the virus quickly afterwards. George felt sick even
thinking about it. He was still heating up under all the protective clothing, feeling close to ripping it all off. He
suddenly felt trapped in his head gear, trapped in the tower block, this breeding ground for germs and
disease and fear and venom. "It's either that or leave the little girl in here alone."
Norman sighed, heavily. He began to pace the hallway like some kind of animal. A big animal. Even
bigger looking than normal, with the riot gear and breathing apparatus. He was not a man who was known
for benevolence. Huge, cumbersome, with an attitude to policing that suited his burly appearance. Maybe
that was why he never progressed from constable, regardless of the time he had spent in the force.
"Do we tell them?" he asked, finally, pointing in the general direction of the little girl's bedroom. He
couldn't even turn to look at them.
"Best not to," George replied. "We're best just leaving right -"
"Jesus Christ!" Norman exclaimed, dumbfounded. "This is really fucked up."
George knew that Norman found a lot of things to be 'fucked up.' Things like the recent reform of the
force. Or the positive discrimination during recruitment, since the reform. But Norman reserved ' really fucked
up' for especially messed up things. Things that made your mind bend, such was the insanity. Things that
were too funny, too ridiculous, too appalling.
Too unfair.
"It is really fucked up," George replied, his voice raised a little. "But that's the world we live in, now"
The crowds outside were getting worked up again, and it was making George nervous. He fought to
remain heard over the crying woman with the sick child, the swelling tide of people, that fucking swearing
woman with the phone and his own dirty, guilty conscience.
They left the flat, quietly. The woman probably didn't even notice them slip out. But the crowd was
waiting for them. They went wild at first sight. It was as if George and Norman were celebrities, attending
some movie premiere. Only the reception was far from positive. The reception was everything that was
negative curled up in a fist. The screaming banshee woman had her phone out, as expected, piously
recording everything that was going on. When she saw George exit, she immediately aimed it at him, her
eyes almost radiant with sick delight.
George couldn't have hated her more.
Several others in the crowd were doing similarly. A sea of phones fought to record all that went on -
some for altruistic reasons, no doubt, others not so much. George looked at them each in the eye, quietly
judging them.
Someone spat at him, the gob smearing across George's visor obscuring his vision. He wiped it off
with a gloved hand.
This is REALLY fucked up, he thought.
The paramedics weren't faring much better. Two of them were embroiled in a very heated exchange.
Other police had reached the scene, maintaining a perimeter around the flat's entrance by linking arms.
Several yellow-suited men stood outside, tools, welding equipment and metal sheets at their side.
They, too, wore breathing apparatus. George nodded to them, silently. They moved in without uttering a
word. He could hear them firing up their gear as they got to work sealing her windows. This drove the crowd
even wilder, surging them forward in an almighty push.
The police, struggling to keep their arms linked, strained against the sudden pressure as the welding
continued. One of the paramedics lost his balance, falling to the ground. An officer tried to help him up,
before also succumbing to the riotous throng.
The workmen exited the flat. The young woman from inside, realising what was happening, tried to
follow them, but they closed the door on her. George could hear her pounding on the wood She was
screaming. George turned away, catching Norman's eye.
(REALLY fucked-)
The crowd moved in, some breaking through the police perimeter. As George watched, Norman
stood forward, brandishing his firearm again. It was an attempt to restore peace, but a young lad, barely in
his teens, grabbed Norman's arm, wrestling the gun from his grasp. The gun went off in the heat of the
moment, the young lad falling to the ground, wounded, before being trampled by the crowd.
"Jesus" George whispered.
His visor was steaming up again, lending the whole scene even more of a surreal feel. Through
misty glass, he watched Banshee Woman recording the falling lad, enthusiastically, before shifting her phone
camera's angle to record a baffled looking Norman. The other cameras didn't follow suit, though, and that
struck George as odd. They were recording something at the back of the crowd, something, seemingly,
coming up the stairwell.
The crowd's pitch suddenly doubled. The paramedic on the ground had lost his breathing apparatus
in the sudden jolt. He reached down to retrieve it but never made it back up again. The crowd surged forward
once more. People were being squashed at the front, swearing and calling for help as others were pushed,
helplessly, against them. Shrieks could still be heard from the other side of the door, where a young woman
and her six year old were being sentenced to death. Someone, and George wasn't sure if it was by accident
or design, had produced a gun of their own and managed to shoot themselves with it.
George watched Norman fall to the ground, the big man's frame rolling up as he tried to defend
himself. The crowd pushed further, some people tripping over him and scrambling to the ground as if playing
some kind of chaotic rugby match. But Norman rose up like a big, ugly phoenix, gripping his breathing
apparatus tightly with one hand, swinging his other to connect fist with face. His patience was obviously
gone, making him as feral as the crowd.
One of the welders, working on the door, turned, nervously, swinging his flame, by mistake, into the
face of a middle aged man. The man grabbed at his suddenly melting skin, screeching. Blisters broke across
his face like popcorn. The smell was terrible, the scream deafening. Even George could hear it, its shrill
explosion high pitched over the mechanical sounds of his quickened breathing.
George grabbed Norman by the oxygen tank on his back, pulling him quickly down the corridor. The
crowd was getting even thicker, more and more numbers pouring up the stairwell. This wasn't just your
average riot or disturbance. This was something worse than that. It had a rawness to it, a desperation
George had never felt before.
Noticing the door to a nearby flat open, George motioned to Norman. They both darted in, quickly, to
escape the crowd. They slammed the door shut, tight, feeling the swelling numbers immediately crush
against it. Norman locked it, slipping the key chain across as if it would make them more secure. Both men
stood back from the door, breathing heavily.
"Fuck me," said Norman.
It was quiet once more. George could hear a different television broadcasting the same debate. This
television was better, the sound clearer. The doctor's voice, older and more measured, tried, in vain, to
interrupt the ranting of a younger man. The younger man had lost his whole family to the virus. He wanted to
know what was being done, what measures were being taken. I'll show you what measures, George thought.
An older woman with a tight, red face stood in the hallway, wrapped in her dressing gown. She was
yelling at them to 'get the hell out of here'. She called George a 'pig'. He'd been called it many times before.
Its familiarity almost comforted him. George raised his hand at her, shushing her. The old woman stepped
back nervously.
"Are going to shoot me!?" she exclaimed, pointing at him with a shaking hand.
"What?!" he said, baffled. But he wanted to. He wanted to shoot all of them, suddenly. The old
woman. The crowds outside. The swearing woman. The ranting man on the television. It was an instinctual
reaction, born out of raw fear. Maybe he even wanted to shoot himself. "Of course not," he said, moving
away from her, as if frightened he might shoot her. "We just need you to be calm."
"There's nothing here for you," she said, suddenly, both hands vibrating, her head staring at the wall.
"He's dead, you know. So you can both just leave."
"Dead? Who's dead?" Norman asked, looking around him. But she didn't answer, still lost in the
moment. She was shaking all over now, quivering like thunder. George could sense an anger and grief within
her, tearing her from the inside out. It was beaming off her like fire. Lighting everything it touched, consuming
her. A part of her, maybe, felt relieved to have someone to blame for everything, someone to transfer all of
her frustration onto. The tears in her eyes erupted, as if volcanic.
"Leave!" she yelled, at them. "Leave now!"
"Listen, we're just going to move into the living room to make a call on the radio," George argued.
"No," she yelled, "that's where Frank's resting."
"Who's Frank?" asked George, baffled and exasperated. Couldn't he get just one word of sense out
of anyone today? The crowd outside were clawing at the door like wolves. It was making George nervous. His
oxygen tank was pumping air faster, noisier. They wanted blood. They wanted his blood. There seemed to
be no escape, no respite. And George really needed to escape.
He moved into the living room, despite the old woman's protests. The television was turned up loud,
drowning out the sounds of the crowd. Floral wallpaper clung to the walls. Old, dusty furniture littered the
room. A couple of china dogs stood by the TV, as if guarding it. A mahogany coffee table stood proudly
beside them, polished like a shiny button. But then there was the sofa, blood stained and sweaty, like a pile
of old rags. An older man lay across it. It was probably Frank. He was very clearly dead, all the tell-tale signs
present and accounted for. The bloody gore gathering around the nose and mouth. Dead eyes, staring deep
into space. A still chest. One arm hanging over the chair's edge, limply.
"W-when did Frank die?" Norman asked the old woman, uncomfortably. The big guy was still clearly
shaken up by the little girl and all that happened outside. Such a hard man, yet this all had softened him.
"About an hour ago," she said, still crying. Her tiny, sinewy hands clasped an old, bloody tissue as if
it were made of gold. It was probably Frank's blood gathered there, George thought. He could only guess
how many years the two of them had been together. He noticed a picture on the wall, presumably of the
couple getting married, decades ago. This was her world. This dusty old flat with her pictures and her
ornaments and her memories. The tissue. The things she considered important, precious. Outside, the rest

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