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GWOT Stairwell
GWOT Stairwell
The makeshift infirmary is full of casualties. Fortunately, most have died.
Why fortunately?
Lack of pain medication for one. You take modern painkillers for granted until you don't have access to them anymore. Let the screaming begin. Mouthpieces are mandatory, to avoid destroying teeth. Bits of rag will have to do for now.
The inevitability of infection for another. There's only so much you can do with antiseptics and debriding. You race pain-fueled shock and sometimes lose. The way you cheat is antibiotics. We're out. Again.
I have taken over a room in the infirmary, put a padlock on the door (we'll do better as soon as we can) and racked the shelves with everything we could scrape up. OTC medications and prescriptions salvaged from people's houses. The contents of a "recycle your used medications here" metal box I ran over with the Hate Truck. Various substances of semi-legitimate (whipped cream cylinders, tape head cleaner) and completely illegal (meth, cocaine, heroin) on separate drawers labeled "EVIDENCE." All items logged in and out. Still looking for a pharmacist. Or a pharmacy tech. Or a drug dealer. I have long since stopped being picky.
In the long line of government agencies tapping their palms with batons waiting their turn at my ass, DEA can get in line between the California Department of Justice and the ATF.
Right now there are three keys to the door - the vet surgeon's, the infirmary guard's, and mine.
The room next door is our medical supply storage, also with shelves, filled with whatever supplies we have been able to scrape up, repurpose or in some cases - by cutting up cloth - manufacture. A pair of electric burners, a microwave, an enclosed drying rack and a sink allow us to sort of sterilize dressings.
But today I am less concerned with the physical casualties, the badly burned and broken and bloodied survivors who made it this far. There are no real hospitals now that Stanford is closed, Valley Medical is for 'official use only' (bastards) and the community hospitals overrun and looted.
I am concerned with the psychological casualties. I've put in a request for a psychiatrist. We have a chaplain, but he's one of them. We had to perp-walk him out of the Expectant area, he hadn't eaten in days and his hands were black with dried blood.
It's not a question of whether people are mentally hurt. All of us are. Never mind post traumatic disorder, we are all initiates of the mysteries of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, aka PTSD. World War I called it shell shock, World War II called it battle fatigue. When you make ordinary people do too much for too long, it's a risk.
When you drop nukes on cities, it's a Goddamn certainty.
Civil order is horribly disrupted. No doubt the powers that be will figure shit out. No doubt it won't be in time to help anyone here.
Security, shelter, water, food, medical care ... we are fighting to survive. But there's another killer, insidiously stalking us.
Self harm. The people who are zombies, just not caring anymore - like the one who walked into a rotor blade in front of me at Stanford, not only killing himself but taking the helicopter out of service and damning dozens of children who could have been airlifted out with him. He probably didn't have actual suicidal ideation, he just didn't care any more.
The people who have resigned from life, and are more than willing to write out their resignation in blood, theirs or someone else's. Dangerous psychosis. A minor key in self neglect until it becomes non functional neurosis.
The people who are self medicating. We've had to confiscate and ration alcohol. Also, where do you think we stole all the drugs of abuse from? Coders smoke pot, managers do speed, executives do cocaine ... and all of it has been confiscated by me at gunpoint for the infirmary. Another form of self medication no one mentions in the literature, alluded to by the title of a book about UN humanitarian ops. "Emergency Sex And Other Desperate Measures." Not about to try to confiscate that one, but we've had forcible rapes, and depending on your perspective, each followed by one or more murders. Some committed by me.
Just as there are no hospitals, there is no involuntary psychiatric hospitalization. We can tie people to a table - beds are in use - and talk to them, trying to talk them down. Most recover in a day or two. But we have one middle-aged lady who has not recovered. I don't think she's going to.
Diabetic, Type II, no insulin available. Was on the phone with her husband in the City when he briefly reached 10,000 degrees. Temperature, not education. As he was inside a building, he had time to scream before the phone network melted along with him. She heard it. Her kids were in daycare in Burlingame. Also toasted, by the second strike that hit SFO a very short time later. No doubt about it; that first night, I'd seen the fires in San Mateo and helped kick people out of their houses before we demolished them.
We had gone beyond situational psychosis. The physical and psychological were dovetailing. She won't drink water, the best we can do is dribble some into her mouth. If we had any IVs left, we'd have to use them on someone who actually wants to live. You can't untie her hands, she hits herself - or grabs at you. She started banging her head into the table until we padded it. The back of her head is bald from continued attempts.
She alternates between weeping and screaming. Between that and fouling herself, we had to take her out of the infirmary area and move her up to the 2nd floor, what the British call the 1st floor.
Several of us have tried talking to her - including the chaplain before he lost it. Probably a factor in him losing it. I can't get through to her. She kept asking to borrow my gun. Then she offered me sexual favors if I would kill her. She tried to sell me on it, with witnesses present.
This is simply not tenable. Her screams are disturbing workers. We don't have someplace else to put her unless we put her outside - and active fallout is still a concern. I suppose we could handcuff her to a pipe in the steam tunnels.
I decide to go upstairs to check on her. Ask again, try again. But how many people are going to die because of the time we invest in trying to help her? And she doesn't want our help.
To my infinite horror, when I reach the bottom of the stairwell, I see her poised at the top. She's gotten loose somehow. Goddamn it!
She smiles broadly, squats like a diver, and pushes off the top step like it's a diving board, diving head first down the stairwell... but leading proudly with her head.
I could run forward and try to catch her. But that's a good fifteen feet above me. I'd likely be hurt. Broken bone, back injury ...
Time slows down as I make the decision. I step backwards several paces, in glacial slowness as she falls. An observer would later say that I skipped back.
Her head hits the edge of a step and we all hear the THOCK I have previously associated with hitting a watermelon with a mallet.
I run forward to see that she is now gushing blood-rich clear fluid from her ears. She gasps once, twice, big snorty gasps that don't move much air.
I check her pulse. It is racing. It slows.
"Stretcher bearers, B stairwell on one," I radio, and hold her hand, careful to keep my holstered firearm well away from her body.
I am not letting go of her hand. No one should have to die alone.
The bearers arrive. I help load her. They tie her down, just in case. But her breath is still slowing, huge bruises are forming all over her face and broken jaw, an eyeball is popped out -- and a light quick touch tells me her neck is broken.
"Transport to Expectant," I order. They do.
Then I make my way upstairs. Halfway up, I see an anguished face appear at the top.
"She told me she needed to pee," the employee says. "She promised me she wouldn't cause any trouble ..."
I blink, take note of the employee's badge.
"Where was the guard?"
"He asked me to watch her while he had to pee."
He should have pissed himself. She should have been made to. Now she's dead.
The guard appears next to the employee, he blinks and says, "What happened?"
I look at his name tag. S. Shreve.
Without volition, my hand comes up and slaps him in the face, a full force full body weight slap. I follow up with a backhand to the other side of his face.
He staggers. The sounds are like gunshots, or falling tree trunks.
"Report to the Security Office. You are restricted. You may not work any post by yourself. Due to your negligence a woman is now dead."
He stares.
"Sorry?" he offers.
"Go," I say tiredly. I think about killing him, but I need all the human material I have, and that's just a little excessive. But I am going to think about it.
He goes.
Five minutes later, in the Expectant area, while I am holding her hand as she is tied to the stretcher like a mummy with poly rope, she stops breathing entirely.
I envy her escape from Apocalypse.
The makeshift infirmary is full of casualties. Fortunately, most have died.
Why fortunately?
Lack of pain medication for one. You take modern painkillers for granted until you don't have access to them anymore. Let the screaming begin. Mouthpieces are mandatory, to avoid destroying teeth. Bits of rag will have to do for now.
The inevitability of infection for another. There's only so much you can do with antiseptics and debriding. You race pain-fueled shock and sometimes lose. The way you cheat is antibiotics. We're out. Again.
I have taken over a room in the infirmary, put a padlock on the door (we'll do better as soon as we can) and racked the shelves with everything we could scrape up. OTC medications and prescriptions salvaged from people's houses. The contents of a "recycle your used medications here" metal box I ran over with the Hate Truck. Various substances of semi-legitimate (whipped cream cylinders, tape head cleaner) and completely illegal (meth, cocaine, heroin) on separate drawers labeled "EVIDENCE." All items logged in and out. Still looking for a pharmacist. Or a pharmacy tech. Or a drug dealer. I have long since stopped being picky.
In the long line of government agencies tapping their palms with batons waiting their turn at my ass, DEA can get in line between the California Department of Justice and the ATF.
Right now there are three keys to the door - the vet surgeon's, the infirmary guard's, and mine.
The room next door is our medical supply storage, also with shelves, filled with whatever supplies we have been able to scrape up, repurpose or in some cases - by cutting up cloth - manufacture. A pair of electric burners, a microwave, an enclosed drying rack and a sink allow us to sort of sterilize dressings.
But today I am less concerned with the physical casualties, the badly burned and broken and bloodied survivors who made it this far. There are no real hospitals now that Stanford is closed, Valley Medical is for 'official use only' (bastards) and the community hospitals overrun and looted.
I am concerned with the psychological casualties. I've put in a request for a psychiatrist. We have a chaplain, but he's one of them. We had to perp-walk him out of the Expectant area, he hadn't eaten in days and his hands were black with dried blood.
It's not a question of whether people are mentally hurt. All of us are. Never mind post traumatic disorder, we are all initiates of the mysteries of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, aka PTSD. World War I called it shell shock, World War II called it battle fatigue. When you make ordinary people do too much for too long, it's a risk.
When you drop nukes on cities, it's a Goddamn certainty.
Civil order is horribly disrupted. No doubt the powers that be will figure shit out. No doubt it won't be in time to help anyone here.
Security, shelter, water, food, medical care ... we are fighting to survive. But there's another killer, insidiously stalking us.
Self harm. The people who are zombies, just not caring anymore - like the one who walked into a rotor blade in front of me at Stanford, not only killing himself but taking the helicopter out of service and damning dozens of children who could have been airlifted out with him. He probably didn't have actual suicidal ideation, he just didn't care any more.
The people who have resigned from life, and are more than willing to write out their resignation in blood, theirs or someone else's. Dangerous psychosis. A minor key in self neglect until it becomes non functional neurosis.
The people who are self medicating. We've had to confiscate and ration alcohol. Also, where do you think we stole all the drugs of abuse from? Coders smoke pot, managers do speed, executives do cocaine ... and all of it has been confiscated by me at gunpoint for the infirmary. Another form of self medication no one mentions in the literature, alluded to by the title of a book about UN humanitarian ops. "Emergency Sex And Other Desperate Measures." Not about to try to confiscate that one, but we've had forcible rapes, and depending on your perspective, each followed by one or more murders. Some committed by me.
Just as there are no hospitals, there is no involuntary psychiatric hospitalization. We can tie people to a table - beds are in use - and talk to them, trying to talk them down. Most recover in a day or two. But we have one middle-aged lady who has not recovered. I don't think she's going to.
Diabetic, Type II, no insulin available. Was on the phone with her husband in the City when he briefly reached 10,000 degrees. Temperature, not education. As he was inside a building, he had time to scream before the phone network melted along with him. She heard it. Her kids were in daycare in Burlingame. Also toasted, by the second strike that hit SFO a very short time later. No doubt about it; that first night, I'd seen the fires in San Mateo and helped kick people out of their houses before we demolished them.
We had gone beyond situational psychosis. The physical and psychological were dovetailing. She won't drink water, the best we can do is dribble some into her mouth. If we had any IVs left, we'd have to use them on someone who actually wants to live. You can't untie her hands, she hits herself - or grabs at you. She started banging her head into the table until we padded it. The back of her head is bald from continued attempts.
She alternates between weeping and screaming. Between that and fouling herself, we had to take her out of the infirmary area and move her up to the 2nd floor, what the British call the 1st floor.
Several of us have tried talking to her - including the chaplain before he lost it. Probably a factor in him losing it. I can't get through to her. She kept asking to borrow my gun. Then she offered me sexual favors if I would kill her. She tried to sell me on it, with witnesses present.
This is simply not tenable. Her screams are disturbing workers. We don't have someplace else to put her unless we put her outside - and active fallout is still a concern. I suppose we could handcuff her to a pipe in the steam tunnels.
I decide to go upstairs to check on her. Ask again, try again. But how many people are going to die because of the time we invest in trying to help her? And she doesn't want our help.
To my infinite horror, when I reach the bottom of the stairwell, I see her poised at the top. She's gotten loose somehow. Goddamn it!
She smiles broadly, squats like a diver, and pushes off the top step like it's a diving board, diving head first down the stairwell... but leading proudly with her head.
I could run forward and try to catch her. But that's a good fifteen feet above me. I'd likely be hurt. Broken bone, back injury ...
Time slows down as I make the decision. I step backwards several paces, in glacial slowness as she falls. An observer would later say that I skipped back.
Her head hits the edge of a step and we all hear the THOCK I have previously associated with hitting a watermelon with a mallet.
I run forward to see that she is now gushing blood-rich clear fluid from her ears. She gasps once, twice, big snorty gasps that don't move much air.
I check her pulse. It is racing. It slows.
"Stretcher bearers, B stairwell on one," I radio, and hold her hand, careful to keep my holstered firearm well away from her body.
I am not letting go of her hand. No one should have to die alone.
The bearers arrive. I help load her. They tie her down, just in case. But her breath is still slowing, huge bruises are forming all over her face and broken jaw, an eyeball is popped out -- and a light quick touch tells me her neck is broken.
"Transport to Expectant," I order. They do.
Then I make my way upstairs. Halfway up, I see an anguished face appear at the top.
"She told me she needed to pee," the employee says. "She promised me she wouldn't cause any trouble ..."
I blink, take note of the employee's badge.
"Where was the guard?"
"He asked me to watch her while he had to pee."
He should have pissed himself. She should have been made to. Now she's dead.
The guard appears next to the employee, he blinks and says, "What happened?"
I look at his name tag. S. Shreve.
Without volition, my hand comes up and slaps him in the face, a full force full body weight slap. I follow up with a backhand to the other side of his face.
He staggers. The sounds are like gunshots, or falling tree trunks.
"Report to the Security Office. You are restricted. You may not work any post by yourself. Due to your negligence a woman is now dead."
He stares.
"Sorry?" he offers.
"Go," I say tiredly. I think about killing him, but I need all the human material I have, and that's just a little excessive. But I am going to think about it.
He goes.
Five minutes later, in the Expectant area, while I am holding her hand as she is tied to the stretcher like a mummy with poly rope, she stops breathing entirely.
I envy her escape from Apocalypse.