Mutation Z: The Ebola Zombies Page 3
Then she took us back to the area behind Disinfecting Station 5 where we learned the hard way how to get disinfected and have our protective gear stripped away.
Back in our normal clothes, we were taken to one of the rectangular yellow buildings, which turned out to be the residence halls. Our building was clearly marked: Female Residence: Teams 4 and 5. It was laid out like our treatment center, but had more homey touches: normal twin-sized beds, pastel sheets, brightly colored African quilts; and a reading section in the back with bookshelves and a desk, loads of books, a couple of overstuffed chairs and hassocks, and framed photographs of African landscapes and animals. The photograph of a silverback gorilla was a bit disconcerting. I was glad it was in the reading area, and not above my bed. Behind the reading area was a bathroom with several showers, sinks, toilets. Our residence hall was clean. Even the cement floor shined. We had six women in our building, from Teams 4 and 5.
All of us ended up collapsing on our beds and falling into a deep sleep. Hours later, we were awakened by a loud gong reverberating somewhere out in the jungle. Then a speaker inside our room announced: “You will be escorted to the Meet and Greet in one hour. Please get ready.”
As I stepped from our residence hall into the night, a full moon dropped slivers of light through the bald spaces between jungle branches. The rest of the land was black and indecipherable. Monkeys chattered and screeched. Frogs croaked. Out in the darkness, several big cats roared. Blinded to their form, I could only hear their rumbling threats.
A guy had been waiting. Pockmarked skin, thick glasses and twitchy eyes. He stated brusquely, “I’m to deliver you to the Meet and Greet.” When we tried to engage him in conversation, he said only, “I’m doing my job. I’m bringing you to the Meet and Greet. You won’t regret it.”
Zoe and I exchanged glances. She covered her mouth to stifle a giggle. I wasn’t sure why she found this funny.
The six of us from our residence hall followed our guide to a dirt parking lot. He instructed us to climb into a waiting jeep. Then he hopped in and drove us up a steep hill to a large concrete building where yellow light poured out of rectangular windows. Shadows of tree branches danced in macabre shape-shifting tattoos along the walls of the gray structure.
Inside, the atmosphere was decidedly more festive. Music rocked the inner walls. African hangings and throw pillows adorned the main room. Mahogany furniture and lamps warmed it up. Waiters with trays of food and alcoholic beverages kept the party going.
We met everyone. All the regulars introduced themselves to all us newbies and made sure we met each other. The night was a kaleidoscope, swirling shapes and colors and patterns. I remembered everyone’s names, and yet I felt as though I had been drugged.
Needing a breath of fresh air a couple of hours after arriving at the Meet and Greet, I stepped outside. Zoe followed closely behind me. We knew we shouldn’t; but feeling intoxicated by the night and the party, we headed back to our residence. As we entered that part of the road upon which the long rectangular buildings hunkered down like behemoths in the dark, we saw figures moving in the distance.
I lifted my fingers to my lips to signal Shhhhh! to Zoe.
Two figures cloaked in shadow had come out the front door of Building 4. They weren’t wearing protective gear. Carrying something in their arms, they began walking very quickly.
Zoe and I followed them. When they stopped in the middle of a grassy field, we hid behind trees along the perimeter.
We watched.
I wasn’t prepared for what I saw. My mind couldn’t piece together what seemed to be mismatched parts of a picture.
The couple carrying a package wrapped in a stained blanket were a black man wearing a brightly patterned shirt and a black woman wearing a brightly colored dress. I assumed they were African. When they laid down their burden and unwrapped it, it turned out they had been carrying a small girl. She was maybe the same age as Akachi, the last patient we had seen in our own Building Number 5, maybe four years old. She was as limp as a dish rag and covered with flesh that was literally falling off her body. Her mottled skin retained some of its natural black pigment, but more of it was red, bloody, and hanging from her face and extremities in sheets.
As the couple set the body on the ground, they wailed in such sorrowful distress, I thought maybe I should run to get help. But then from the jungle directly across from us, an old African woman in an orange turban and a fiery orange dress with turquoise-and-black geometric patterns walked over to them. Surrounding her were U. S. soldiers. Dressed in olive green uniforms and helmets, they carried machine guns and assault weapons. Each and every one of them had respirators strapped over their nose and mouth. Behind them, a trio of armored vehicles bobbed up and down over the uneven terrain.
I stifled a gasp. They were going to shoot the people in the field, I was sure of it. A million thoughts went through my mind, tearing me apart while I froze against a tree trunk. I should run to help them. No, I’d get shot. I should run for assistance. No, I’d get caught. If the soldiers shoot holes into the Ebola patient, infected blood will go everywhere.
As I wrestled the flood of thoughts cascading through my brain, the soldiers stopped. The woman in the orange turban nodded to them. They surrounded the four people in the middle of the circle and stood at attention, as though guarding them.
As the full moon passed overhead and slipped from behind clouds, bathing the open field in silvery light, the old woman knelt down next to the child. She chanted in African tongue and waved her arms about. Burning incense, she passed it over the little girl. Then she applied some kind of ointment from a glass jar to the child’s forehead.
I felt ill. The little girl’s bloody skin would be sloughing off onto the old woman’s fingers, Ebola virus entering her own body and replicating there, also mixing with the ointment in the jar every time she thrust her fingers back into it. Would she then administer the salve to another person?
After closing a lid on the jar and chanting for a few seconds more, the woman stood. She allowed herself to be escorted away by two heavily armed soldiers.
At that moment, someone cleared their throat behind Zoe and me. I nearly jumped out of my skin. We turned around.
There, holding two pink drinks decorated with purple umbrellas, was Dr. Tovar. He grinned widely. “So, girls, what are you doing here? Did my warning about not wandering off by yourselves not sink in?”
I could not control my body. I shivered. My voice quavered and broke. I managed to say, “We just needed a walk. Some fresh air.”
Dr. Tovar smirked. “And have you had enough fresh air now?”
Zoe and I shook our heads up and down, like puppets on a string.
Tovar said, “Good. Have these drinks then.”
Zoe pointed with her thumb toward the clearing, as though hitchhiking with a death wish.
She had her back to the clearing. I didn’t. I took a good, hard look. The child had sat up. She had regained her energy, although her skin continued sloughing off as though it were nothing more than bloodied flesh-toned Band-aids. In the moonlight, I saw her tearing off pieces with her teeth from what looked like a human leg from the knee down, a foot still attached but bent at a weird angle. I turned around. I concentrated on the purple umbrellas to keep from retching.
Zoe looked Tovar in the eye and asked, “Are you aware of what’s going on behind me?”
A combination of fear and disgust turned my stomach inside out. I heaved. Everything I had eaten that night gushed up and splashed over the ground. Noticing the vomit landing on a nest of ants, I threw up again. The sound of retching caught the attention of the soldiers. They cocked their guns with clacking sounds like the gnashing teeth of a robotic monster.
Tovar raised his hand and shouted to the soldiers. “It’s OK
. Stand down. I got this one.”
He shoved a drink into my hand. “Drink this,” he instructed.
To Zoe, he answered, “Yes, I know what’s going on. You’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy.” He smirked. “This is Liberia. We have the best medical treatment for Ebola available anywhere in the world right here in this camp. But this is still Liberia. In other parts of West Africa, people have attacked clinics. In Guinea, an Ebola clinic run by Doctors Without Borders had to be evacuated after an angry mob attacked it, locals accusing the organization of having brought the disease into their country. Elsewhere in West Africa, doctors and clinics have been attacked for the same type of superstitious beliefs. In Sierra Leone, locals think that Ebola is just a gimmick used by medical staff in order to perform cannibalistic rituals in isolation. Imagine that!”
I thought of the kid eating what appeared to be a human leg.
Tovar continued, “So, to prevent locals from storming our camp and dragging their loved ones back home, thereby spreading Ebola within their communities, we allow the most emotionally desperate to come here and perform their superstitious healing rituals over their sick family members.”
I found my voice. “But won’t they go back home and spread the disease themselves?”
Dr. Tovar answered, “No. We vaccinate everyone who performs