Part of tonight’s writing actually expanded a paragraph of the previous night’s stuff. In the interest of organization, I’ve simply edited the last paragraph of last night’s writing to include the addition from tonight’s writing. This post continues with the paragraph after that. Oh, and: One-third finished with the novel, w00t!

Word Count: 33,339

I told several interns to watch my patients while I was gone. It was about midday, so there would be a rush soon. Normally I would be at my seat under the painting, eating a cold sandwich and watching the hustle and bustle of the hospital rush by. But today, there was no lunch. There was no time for lunch, only time for my car to start, the clicking of the engine incessantly rumbling on and on, and only enough time for me to drive off into the city. I was tempted, for this trip, to bring a protective facial shield with me so that I could breathe the harsh city smog. No facial shield came with me, no protection of any kind. All that came with me were two agar plates, a knife, and some enthusiasm. I hardly remembered what the man had looked like, but I knew that I could trust my two cohorts to point me in the right direction.

I parked across the street in the same parking garage I had previously, locked the car and again noticed the loudness of the city compared to the quiet of my car. The difference was remarkable, and I had to adjust once again, like I had to every time I went to the city. Nowadays I can avoid the city entirely, because there is nothing there worth seeing. The city now is simply a mass of people who never sleep, hardly eat, and practice poor hygiene. If it was that way before – if the city was dirty and perspicuous before – then it is only more so now! There was the store in front of me, attempting to act inconspicuously to fool me away from it. I was not fooled; I marched towards the building as a general marches towards his victims of war. I confronted the entrance, shoved the door open, and faced the inside of the store unflinchingly. Nobody knew who I was, but I knew who they were.

In the back, the very back of this large, city store was the warehouse where they kept the merchandise, and the warehouse where the once-dead man was also kept. Nobody noticed me as I walked by, and into the warehouse, as though I’d stumbled there by accident once again. This time nobody was on the ground, lifeless, surrounded by friends. This time the only force making the room chillingly cold was the air conditioning, and the only thing standing between me and the dead man were words, and no longer emotions. But I did not know entirely what he looked like. I only remembered the faces of the two men who had surrounded him; I had been so afraid of the dead worker that I’d brushes aside all memories of him forever, other than that he might have had the disease that caused Shane and Kasten to awaken from death.

I searched for the two workers that had once cried for the loss of their friend, but they were nowhere to be found. The warehouse was large, so I could have simply missed them, but as I searched more and more I noticed a distinct lack of those two people. Tired of traversing the warehouse I returned to the retail lot of the store and approached Customer Service.

“I’m looking for two men who work here. Would you be able to let me know if they’re in?”

The man who answered me was young and wore a red uniform with a white nametag pinned against his heart. I could see that he’d loved to have told me right off the bat where the two men were, but he refused. “I’m sorry sir, but I’m not allowed to disclose our employee’s private information.”

“Private?” I argued. “I just want to know if they’re here or not. Something crazy couldn’t have happened to them in such a short time.”

“I’ll let you know if they’re here or not, but nothing more. I can’t risk my job.”

“Why would you be risking your—oh, never mind. One of them was tall and had short, brown hair. He was slumped around his friend, just a tad shorter, who had blonde hair and was thin. Do those two go together? Ring a bell at all?”

“Oh, those guys. Have you been looking for them for a while?” he asked.

“Yes, I have,” I retorted snappily.

“They no longer work here, I’m afraid. There was an incident, apparently, and they decided to take a leave of absence without disclosing how long they would be gone.” So much for not disclosing information about their employees, I thought. But that was all I needed. I knew why they were gone; they had left as soon as their friend had dropped dead. They had done exactly what I had told them to do: continue about their normal lives far, far away from there.

That would mean it was up to me to find the now-living worker on my own, but I had no idea where to begin looking aside from the warehouse. I continued speaking to Customer Service, “Alright, if they’re not here, then you need to help me find this one guy. Apparently he fainted some time ago and got up after a few minutes. Anyone fit that description? I need to talk to him. It’s absolutely urgent regarding his fainting. I am his doctor. Yes, here’s proof that I’m a doctor, now please tell me where he is…” I began to plead, hoping the human within him would overthrow the employee for just a moment.

“That man used to have some serious troubles. I hope you’re taking good care of him. He’s in the warehouse right now. You should be able to find him in the back corner, furthest in front of you if you enter from that entrance over there,” he pointed to the entrance I used to get into the warehouse before. “I believe he’s working the forklift right now, but I could be wrong. Go check it out for yourself.”

“Thanks a bunch. I will.”

“You have a good day, sir,” he said quickly, as protocol told him to. I rushed off to the warehouse, maneuvering around stacks of boxes and crates, eventually spotting the furthest corner of the room where a large teal forklift was running. Next to the forklift was a man with long hair tied into a ponytail, and a small beard that was more goatee-like than anything. It was the dead man, or rather the man who once was dead. I approached, slowly, so as not to frighten him. I waved. “Hello!” I said, calmly, but loud enough to garner his attention. “I was here a while back. I do hope you remember me.”

He didn’t. But what he did remember…

“Hey there; I’m not sure we’ve met.” He stopped the forklift and walked over to shake my hand. They were the same dead hands that had once lain against the cold concrete floor of this warehouse.

“You fainted some time ago. I was the doctor that came in to check on you. It was kind of spur-of-the-moment. I doubt you’d remember, being unconscious.” I tried to make it into a joke – you fainted! Then we’d give a hearty chortle, realizing how absolutely ridiculous that sounded.

“Ah, yeah. Somebody told me about that. I think a box might’a hit me on the head or something, but how come you’re here now? Checkin’ on me to make sure I’m alright?” He raised an eyebrow to question my motives.

“Something like that,” I told him. “You could say that I’m here to check up on you. Granted, it wouldn’t be entirely correct, but you could most definitely say that. But the truth is that I’m here for something much greater, and to let you know what that is you’ll have to come with me.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” said the worker. “People tell me I get knocked out easily. You’re not gonna do anything to me to, ya know, knock me out again, are ya?”

“There’s nothing to worry about. I just need to run some tests to make sure it’ll never happen again. You’re completely safe.” I was lying again. It’s a horrible habit to get into; almost as bad of a habit as reading the news online. Once you start reading news online, you find yourself at a computer every five minutes, checking for the latest and greatest in the world. With lies, there’s always another lie to produce, one that’s both later and greater than the one before it. “Listen, please drop by this address at eight o’clock tonight. The room number I’d like to see you in is there, too.” I handed him the card I was holding, which contained my name, address, the address of the hospital and, scribbled in my own sloppy handwriting, the room number that I would later meet him in. “You don’t have to come,” I told him. “Just know that if you don’t, your condition will become severe, and possibly fatal.”

I checked the box in my mind: Scare him into showing up. He’d be so afraid of dying that he wouldn’t realize he’d already been dead! Meanwhile, I left him there to contemplate the thought. Driving back to the hospital, I planned how to make the meeting between us as fruitful as possible. I decided to turn the room into a giant quarantine chamber. I would hold him there until further notice – or at the very least, I would make special precautions to ensure that the bacteria did not escape that room when he and I walked in and out of it.

“Before I go, I’d like to take some tissue samples. I’ve got to make sure that I’m right, and that you actually have the condition I’m thinking of! Please allow me to take the samples.” He did allow me, and I took the same types of samples that I had taken for Victor, Kasten, and Shane. When I went back to the hospital I put them in a different refrigerator – the refrigerator in the room I would prepare for the man’s visit. I prepared the room as thoroughly as I could, not sparing any resources to keep the room sterile. I was almost afraid being in that room would expose him to serious radiation, but unless I was sending plasma from the ceiling that was highly unlikely. A few black lights never hurt anybody, and a lock on the door would keep him in overnight. But the room didn’t feel sterile – it was missing something. Despite this, I left the room as it was; a simple construction project.

At eight o’clock in the evening, almost perfectly on time, the man appeared at the room. I was late. I rushed in, unlocked the door, showed him into the room, closed the door behind him, locked the door. Listening intently to the clicking of the lock, and feeling my face cringe a bit, I turned around and faced the man.

“I’m sorry about having to lock the door. You’ll know why in a minute. All you need to do right now is listen to me.” He nodded, and I continued to explain. I sighed, and began, “This is actually the third time I’ve had to explain this to somebody. On that day, you did not simply faint. Sir, you died on that day – you were dead for at least ten or so minutes, perhaps more. I found you dead with your friends sobbing around you, and told your friends to leave the premises. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do for you – as far as I knew, anyway. I was going to attempt to treat you after a few minutes’ absence, but when I returned, I found you alive and stacking boxes.”

Silence.

“Do you understand how strange that is? It’s becoming less strange to me – but it’s always strange to those who it engulfs. I take it you’ve never heard of such a thing before. Truth be told, this ‘disease’ is spreading… and if I don’t do something about it soon, I can foresee many, many people perishing.”

“But they wake up, right?”

“Yes, that’s what it seems like. So far, everybody has woken up, except one man. We’re waiting to see if he does.” I was glad that this man comprehended the disease easier than Shane or Kasten had. Yes, he had been silent, but then he spoke. He had asked a question, but it did not sound inquisitive. He wanted confirmation, not information. “However, you’re a special case. Now, before you ask what that means, let me explain. I’m studying how these bacteria – it’s a bacterial disease – work inside different people. We’ve got three different references, and out of all of them, you’re the most peculiar. Because you died and woke up in a matter of minutes. And no, the bacteria are not gone. We don’t know how to cure them, but once they’re inside you it doesn’t look like they go anywhere.”

“Doc, it’s great you want to study me and all, but I’m not going shit here without signing some kind of form stating that I won’t get hurt or killed. I mean, I know I already died once, but why should I need to do it again just so you can figure out what some silly bacteria are up to? No sir, I won’t do it.”

“You’ll do it,” I mumbled. “You’ll do it because there are others that need the information about this disease to cure themselves,” I said, gradually raising the volume of my voice. “The whole hospital is sick, and when I’m done with you I’ll know the secret to pinpointing cases of the disease. The door is locked; you’re here with me.”

“You’re insane, man. Let me out of here.”

I couldn’t let it look like a kidnapping, but this discovery was quite important to me. Instead of continuing to intimidate him, I switched my approach entirely. “Alright; I’m sorry. But at least tell me your name before you go.”

“I think I’ll pass on that, too,” he scoffed. He was ready to walk out the door, but the key was in my pocket and the door to the room was locked. Black light shone down upon us, ridding us both of vile infestations, but not of the menacing, reviving white bacteria. We were one in the same – he was alive, I was alive, and we both knew about the dreadful disease that would spread beyond that room whether we wanted it to or not.

“You can go. Just know you’re risking the safety of everybody else out there. You could get them sick. I don’t know how this disease is transmitted yet.”

“You said everybody in the hospital is already sick. Who cares if I’m out?”

“What about everybody else in the world?” I said. It sounded so exaggerated back then.

“Fuck the world,” he said. Then he stopped – it was as though his own words he had placed a brick wall in front of himself, barring his escape. Those few words, with all their hatred and anger, made him succumb to the locked room’s power. It wasn’t I who was insane, but he. He was insane for wanting to leave, and risk the lives of all those people before I knew enough about the bacteria to kill them!

A few minutes of silence ensued, but I broke it when I said, “We’d better get started.” He nodded, and together we worked constructively through the night to come up with an explanation for his quick reaction to the bacteria.

We’d both fallen asleep in that room, with the black lights still shining.

I bid him farewell that morning, gave him some spare cash I had with me and told him to go buy himself a nice breakfast from a diner that wasn’t too far from the hospital. He thanked me in return. I was sure having him sleep all night under black lights did something for his condition, but I was really completely clueless. I asked him to return as soon as he’d gotten food, but didn’t actually expect to see him back. He didn’t come back – not for several hours, at least. Much longer than it took to eat a meal.

The night before we’d even discussed doing experimental surgery to see where the bacteria were located, and if it was possible to simply remove them. I told him that this would be dangerous, but that pioneering a field of biomedical study often is. He said he’d get back to me on it; I knew he’d never be the one to be enthusiastic about being cut open, and I couldn’t blame him. I didn’t want to be cut open, either, and I was quite sure that nobody on Earth would be willing to be performed on for no reason other than the pursuit of science and knowledge. That meant one thing: if everybody on Earth who was alive would be unwilling to be cut open and examined, then we’d have to perform it on a dead man. On a cadaver.

On Victor, before he woke up.

Thus the stage was set to take Victor’s body, which was still in perfect condition and had never rotted, and examine it thoroughly without actually performing an autopsy. In case he were to wake up during the procedure, we fed him a constant stream of anesthetic gas and were prepared to administer shots of anesthesia if the situation worsened, but Victor was showing no signs of waking up, and certainly looked like he’d be dead for a long time to come, which was something else I and the warehouse worker had discussed and examined. Victor was taking a long time to wake up not because he had a weak immune system, but because he had a strong one. His body was fighting off the bacteria, slowing their processes and keeping him in a state of death longer than anybody else had been. Whereas somebody like the warehouse worker, who was always fainting and becoming sick, awoke in mere minutes because their immune system was so weak that the bacteria were free to do everything they needed to do in that allotted time.

I contacted the surgical department and scheduled Victor’s surgery for the next day, and monitored his body until then for signs of life. As I said, we were quite prepared – but I don’t think Victor was, which was why he would be so upset with me when he did wake up. By that time the warehouse worker would be completely gone; not a trace of him left except the knowledge he helped us all gain through his studies with me. I told him that night, “You’re going to be the most useful patient I’ve ever had,” and I wasn’t lying. For the first time in a while, I was telling the truth.

He was the most useful patient I ever had. Not because of the help he gave me in discovering the nature of the strange bacteria and their stranger disease, but because of what he went on to do after that. He went on to share his disease with the world, just like Shane and Kasten before him.