Resistance 3 - Chapter 6

6.

The phone rang and rang, and then the same recording played over again:

“Hi, this is Meghan.  I can’t answer the phone right now so please leave me a message.  Bye!”

Christine hung up without doing as instructed, letting out a small frustrated huff.  Derek was must be at work and he rarely picked up while on the job, but Meghan should have answered at least.  She almost re-dialed for a fourth time before the phone suddenly buzzed of its own accord in her hand.

Only it wasn’t Meghan calling back, but rather a different number.  One that she recognized but hadn’t saved in her phone.  She quickly swiped at the screen to silence the call and ignore it --- now was the worst possible time to talk.  She gnawed at her bottom lip with guilt.  Sometimes she liked feeling that way, how it made her feel excited and alive, but at this moment, with all of this going on right now...

“Mrs. Anderson?”

She looked up to see a pair of men wearing dark suits and sunglasses, despite being indoors, approaching, their dress shoes clicking on the linoleum tile of the hospital hallway.  She rose up from the uncomfortable plastic chair she was sitting on.

“Yes, that’s me.”  She didn’t recognize either of the men, the ones she had previously spoken to apparently having gone off shift.

“The doctor is here now in your husband’s room and would like to speak with you.”

“Of course.”  Christine gathered up her purse and sweater, following the men from the waiting area to a set of double doors, which unlocked with a loud click and swung open mechanically, their entrance permitted unprompted by some unseen security personnel.

She followed the pair down a few more hallways, turning at one corner or another, until they arrived at room with a chair on either side of the shut door, another pair of identically dressed men seated in each.

Christine paused and then put her hand on the knob, glancing hesitatingly at one of the guards, who gave her a curt nod.  She entered the hospital room with rising anxious trepidation.

The room was dim, the shades on the windows drawn and the lights turned down to a bare glow.  The loud hissing of a respirator whirred steadily, overlapped by the continual beeping of an EKG monitor.  

Robert lay in bed, a myriad of tubes and sensors trailing from his motionless body, a thick brace collared around his neck, heavy bandages wrapped around his head.  His face was mostly obscured by the ventilation tube, but Christine could see that he had two black eyes, swollen and shut.

“Ms. Anderson.”  Christine turned to see the doctor, previously unnoticed, standing in the corner at a counter-top, looking over Robert’s charts.  She immediately noticed that he was extremely handsome; tall, dark haired, blue eyed, and it was plain beneath the white lab coat that he had a phenomenal figure.  He looked very young, but then of course he did; it was hard to tell how old anyone was these days, even with those who didn’t work to maintain the physical enhancements resulting from the Virus’ effects; and more difficult still with those that did, as this man clearly had.

He held a hand out, and she shook it.  “I’m Dr. James,” he said.  “I’m sorry that we have to meet under such circumstances.

“Your husband is an incredible man and we’re doing everything within our power to stabilize his condition.”

Christine felt her heart flutter a little as they gazed at each other.  She admonished herself internally, as she did so often these days, wondering how she could be feeling as she did at a time like this, and she turned back to look at Robert, unconscious and unresponsive, the elaborate machinery ceaselessly working away, performing the tasks that his broken body could not.  The sight before her did serve to impress the gravity of the situation upon her.

“Is he going to make it?” she asked softly, fearing the answer.

“Director Anderson is in rough shape,” the doctor replied bluntly.  “I won’t give you any false illusions as to the situation.

“We’re at the limit of our capabilities here.  We can help support his vital processes, but there’s not much that can be done beyond that.  It’s all up to your husband at this point.”

Christine said nothing in return, swallowing at the lump rising in her throat.  She felt her eyes starting to water up and blinking hard to keep the tears at bay, she took a deep breath, letting it out in a wavering sigh, trying to compose herself.

“I’ll give you some time to yourself.”  The doctor turned and collected some papers onto his clipboard and made to leave.

“Is there…  nothing, really..?” she asked abruptly, just as he reached the door.  “Nothing we can try?”

The doctor, standing at the doorway, didn’t reply immediately, only cleared his throat and shifted slightly.  After a few moments, Christine looked back to see him gazing at her intently, in a rather appraising way.

“No…”  he answered eventually.  “No, I don’t think there is…”

Christine opened her mouth to ask more, but Dr. James only turned and left the room.  She stared after him thoughtfully, before her phone rang again.  She looked down to see the same number calling again, and she swiped at her phone angrily, ignoring the call once more.

She turned back towards her husband, suddenly furious.  It was all his fault -- it was Robert’s fault she was standing her here, far from home in this dim, sterile hospital room, sick with worry, consumed by guilt, being incessantly pestered by some pathetic married loser from down the street, whom she never should have had to turn to in the first place…  If she’d been shown the least little bit of attention, of affection…

Robert had moved on and left her behind, left them all behind.  Focused solely on rebuilding the world while his own family fell apart; his son drinking through life as a laborer; Meghan, equally absent, trying to put as much distance from them as possible; and herself, alone, day after day, filling the hours home-making in an empty home.

Christine thought back over her life’s path that had led to this moment; a typical, mundane upbringing; meeting Robert in college, getting married, starting a family; the outbreak of the Virus, their lives turned upside down. 

At first there had been some containment efforts, and it seemed like something to be concerned about in a remote detached way, like a war going on across the ocean.  But it seemed like in no time that the number of infected rose and rose, soon overtaking those that weren’t.  Until finally came the day where they rushed about, packing up whatever they could carry, leaving their beautiful, well-tended home behind, taking only their suitcases and two young children in tow, passing through the razor-topped electrical fencing.  Years of increasingly stark, austere living inside of Quarantine, full of uncertainty. 

And then the aftermath…

Those intervening years, awash in unadulterated pleasure…  Luxuriating without care or conscience in total blissful indulgence of every desire...

And then all of it abruptly at an end, a restoration of things as they were, a regaining of sense and sanity.  Except…  why did things feel so bleak?

Christine knew though.  It all came down to Robert.  If they could have gone back to the way things were, themselves, between the two of them, she could have accepted it all, adjusted back.  

But, no.  Unable to face the past, he immersed himself in his work, hiding away in his attempt to bury history.

She felt it building inside, the pent up anger and frustration and guilt and repression, along with a pounding in her head to match, and just as she felt she might explode or scream aloud, the steadily beeping machinery ramped up almost seemingly in time with her emotions, and then, suddenly, the beeps dissolved into a single steady tone:

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

A moment later and a flurry of medical personnel rushed into the room, attending to Robert, beginning chest compressions and preparing syringes full of unknown substances.

Christine could only numbly stare in shock, before a curtain was pulled between her and the chaos surrounding her husband, and then a pair of hands were on her shoulders, gently but firmly leading her out of the room.