The Scourge (Book 1): Unprepared Read online

  But as he walked toward the clinic and trudged across the hot asphalt parking lot, he felt the concept for the first time. He was afraid of death. And it was only through that fear he could truly live.

  CHAPTER 11

  OCTOBER 2, 2032

  SCOURGE +/- 0 DAYS

  ORLANDO, FLORIDA

  Kandy Belman dialed the number and tucked her cell phone into her back pocket. Through a flesh-colored wireless earpiece that resembled a tiny hearing aid, she could hear the newscast anchor talking on the set. The director was getting a mic check, and the anchor was obliging with the same check he always provided. Once the newscast began, she’d hear that as well. She was connected to what was known as IFB. Interrupted Fold Back was the technical term for the audio exchange between the control room, what was on television or online, and the reporter or anchor on the other end. Producers and directors could communicate with their on-air talent by “interrupting” the connection with whatever information they had to convey. Additionally, the line had what was called “mix-minus.” It was the mix of on-air audio and the production booth minus the reporter’s own voice. That way the reporter or anchor wouldn’t hear themselves in a loop that sounded like an echo in their ears. Of all the things that had changed in television news, IFB and mix-minus were two that stayed the same.

  “One, two, three, two, three, two, one,” his rich voice intoned. “Chickity check to the checkity chick. One, two, three, two, three, two, one.”

  The aging meteorologist then offered his cigarette-ripened check. His gravelly voice was at once soothing and unnerving. It was like an audible car wreck. It was impossible not to listen to him despite how much his voice grated. The woman director then addressed Kandy.

  “Hi, Kandy,” she said. “Producer is on her way into the booth. Can I get a check from you?”

  Kandy said aloud the live introduction to her taped report, practicing it as much as supplying the audio check. “Do you hear me okay?”

  “Sure do,” said the director.

  “You hear me?” asked the producer from the control room.

  “Yep,” said Kandy. She adjusted the lavalier microphone on the collar of her blouse. “All good here.”

  Checking her reflection in the lens of her camera, she adjusted a loose hair that covered her brow. Then she stepped back and checked the small monitor on the side of the camera. It displayed the framing of her shot. She took a couple of steps to the right and made sure she was centered.

  The producer coughed in her ear, cleared her throat, and apologized. “Sorry about that. Got a little cold. We’re a minute out. We’re leading with a car crash on I-4 at Maitland that’s blocking all lanes. Then we come to you.”

  If the station didn’t lead its newscasts with near drownings or pit bull attacks, it led with breaking traffic news. It could be a wreck on a freeway, a toll road, a downtown street, or a car into a house. It didn’t matter. Some consultant somewhere told them traffic was a rating driver, so that was what they did. It would change in a month.

  “Gotcha,” said Kandy. “Standing by.”

  For most of her stellar career, Kandy had worked with a photographer. He or she would drive the news unit, operate the camera, edit the story, and contribute equally to the production of the day’s assignment. But as ratings slipped, budgets shrank, and longtime photojournalists left the station, more and more reporters were tasked with doing everything for themselves. Kandy was among the last to acquiesce. But she did it, even if she missed the comradery of a coworker in the field, the teamwork of it. She missed the occasional lunch at a Cuban sandwich joint or getting subs on the run from Publix. She especially missed having someone shoot her live shots.

  “Thirty seconds,” said the producer.

  Kandy checked over her shoulder. It was a habit. She never knew who might be behind her while she stared straight ahead into the glass lens. It was a good idea to gauge what interruptions might lurk, ready to pounce and make fools of themselves on live television.

  She saw no threats this time, though she noticed the chaos at the entrance to the emergency room. There were police officers trying to maintain calm. A cluster of people were gathered at the doors, trying to gain entrance. The officers were holding them at bay.

  “We’re in the show open,” said the producer.

  The newscast theme music drummed in Kandy’s ears before the anchor started talking about the breaking news on I-4. She turned back to check the monitor on the side of the camera. She had it pivoted perpendicular to the body of the camera. She saw herself and, in the distance behind her, the crowd outside the emergency entrance to Orlando Regional Medical Center.

  “Stand by,” said the producer. “Coming to you next.”

  Kandy pulled her shoulders back and stared thoughtfully into the lens. She imagined the dark glass as her next-door neighbor, a friend with whom she wanted to share the day’s events.

  The anchor began reading the introduction to her live shot. Kandy could picture him on the news set, leaning in dramatically with one elbow on the desk. He held a pen in his hand and alternated glances at the camera and the paper scripts in front of him.

  The truth was, there were no paper scripts anymore. Everything was computerized. But the weekend anchor, who was almost as old as Kandy, liked the aesthetic of paper scripts. He liked holding something in his hands while reading the news aloud.

  “With the latest on this developing story, we join Action News Reporter Kandy Belman, live from ORMC. Kandy?”

  Kandy nodded subtly to acknowledge the anchor’s toss to her. “It is a tough situation here at ORMC,” she said. “The doctors and nurses are working overtime to handle the huge influx of patients, many of whom are concerned they’ve contracted what’s being called the Scourge.”

  Kandy stared into the lens, holding her position for a moment. The producer told her they were showing her taped report and she relaxed. In her ears, her own voice told the unfolding story at the region’s busiest hospital.

  “Jose Contreras is worried. He’s here with his wife and three children, waiting in an overcrowded emergency waiting room and hoping to see a doctor.”

  In her mind, she saw the video of Jose sitting with a young boy on his knee. He bounced the child up and down while he spoke into the microphone Kandy aimed toward him.

  “My youngest has been coughing,” he said. “We called the pediatrician’s office, but it’s Saturday and they’re closed. So we came here. We’ve been here four hours.”

  Next was the voice of a hospital spokesperson. “It’s overwhelming,” she said. “In addition to the regular stream of patients we’ll see on a Saturday, the fear of the widespread bacterial illness has tripled our regular workload. We cannot accommodate everyone as quickly as we’d like.”

  As the report continued with Kandy’s narration, she checked behind her again. There was a tall man with short blond hair jabbing a finger at a police officer. Although she couldn’t hear what he was saying, she could tell he was shouting. His face was red, the muscles in his neck tense. The officer held up his hands, palms facing the angry man, in an apparent gesture to calm him down. It wasn’t working. Again, she listened to her own voice in her earpiece.

  “It’s unclear how many, if any, of these would-be patients are sick at all or if they’re here because of the growing panic surrounding the disease. Where the illness has struck, it is deadly.”

  Next were two sound bites from the expert Dr. Chuck Moffatt. They were edited back-to-back to create a seamless transition. There was file video of sick people from Ukraine covering part of the edit.

  “So the real concern with this infection,” said Dr. Moffatt, “is the speed with which it’s spreading. Yersinia pestis is a particularly nasty bacteria regardless, and this strain appears to be remarkably aggressive, right? Stay away from crowds. Lock yourself in a room. Turn off your air conditioning. Keep your windows closed.”

  The taped portion of her report was almost over. She was talking about
Jose Contreras again, showing video of his young child. The kid looked sick. His eyes were red and glossy, his cough thick with mucus. Kandy remembered backing away instinctively when the kid hacked during the interview.

  “It doesn’t matter to me how long we’re here,” said Contreras, “as long as my child is okay. I’d wait forever to know that we’re okay.”

  The taped portion was over. Kandy stared into the camera again and pretended she was finishing a friendly exchange with her attentive neighbor. She nodded and narrowed her eyes, acting the part of someone interested and engaged in her own work. She waited a beat and began what was called the tag. It was the end of her report, a live element, that wrapped up the story with a line or two.

  “There are no confirmed cases of the disease at ORMC yet,” she said. “That is good news, doctors tell us, given the concern over its rapid spread and just how deadly it can be. Reporting live from ORMC, Kandy Belman, Central Florida’s Action News.”

  Kandy heard the anchor thank her.

  “You’re clear,” said the producer. “Nice work, Kandy. Thanks.”

  “Sure thing,” Kandy said. The producer always said the same thing after every live report. She’d said it enough that Kandy doubted she meant it or had even paid attention to anything other than how much time the story took from the rest of the newscast.

  “By the way,” the producer added before Kandy could disconnect the phone call, “what’s going on behind you? It looks like a fight or something.”

  Kandy held up a finger to the lens, asking the producer to hang on. She spun around on her flats, the leather soles grinding on the asphalt parking lot, and saw the blond man in handcuffs. His face was pressed against one of the portico support pillars that helped shade the emergency entrance. His face was crimson. He struggled against the strength of the officer at his back.

  The other officer was talking into the radio transceiver clipped to his shoulder lapel. He held a boxy weapon Kandy recognized as a Taser, and had it leveled at a pair of women who were angrily and aggressively posturing at the leading edge of the growing crowd.

  Kandy moved back to her camera, flipped the side monitor closed, and looked through the viewfinder. She was still providing a live feed back to the control room. She zoomed into the crowd, refocused the camera, and provided a close look at the unfolding scene. The red-faced man in cuffs and the officer holding him against the pillar were center frame.

  She punched the record button on her camera so she was rolling on the video even as the station recorded it in-house. Then Kandy panned to the right and offered a tight shot on the two women threatening the Taser-wielding officer.

  A third cop, then a fourth, emerged from the ER entrance and shoved their way through the crowd of a dozen people who stood behind the angry women. It was then she saw one of the angry women was holding something against her chest. It was the same color as her white blouse and she’d missed it at first. The woman was holding an infant.

  “Can you get off the tripod and walk over there with the camera?” asked the producer. “We can take it live.”

  Kandy, still wearing the lapel mic, responded, “No, taking my camera over there will only escalate it. Plus, we don’t know exactly what’s going on.”

  Ignoring her, the producer said, “We’re coming to you next. Stand by.”

  Kandy started to argue but knew it was futile. It didn’t matter that they had limited information, or no information. It was breaking. It was organic. It was live television. Kandy widened the shot. Now the entire scene, those not as close up, was in the frame.

  Familiar percussive music rang in her ears. She imagined the words BREAKING NEWS, in bright orange, scrolling across the screen to the syncopated rhythm. Then the anchor introduced her.

  “We’re going back to Kandy Belman,” he said. “She’s at ORMC with what looks like a dangerous development there. Kandy, what is it we’re seeing on our screens?”

  She played it conservatively. The actual drama, whatever it was, was enough to drive the report. She didn’t need to add to it with unnecessary hype, even if that was what her bosses would have preferred.

  “There is an unfolding police situation at the emergency entrance to the hospital,” she said. “Officers have detained one man, whom you see on the left side of your screen. He’s in handcuffs. I can’t say yet that he’s under arrest. But I can tell you that moments ago he was involved in a heated argument with two officers. One of them then cuffed him. The other then drew what appears to be a Taser. I can see that his service weapon, a nine-millimeter handgun, is still holstered on his hip. The Taser is aimed, alternately, at two women. One of the women is holding a child.”

  The anchor interrupted. “So we don’t know the cause of this? We don’t know if it’s related to the Scourge disease?”

  Of course she didn’t know. And Kandy was acutely aware that the anchor knew she didn’t know. He was speculating for the producer’s benefit.

  Kandy did know it was a bad practice for reporters to talk about what they didn’t know. It was always better to focus on the facts, to give the audience the sense she was working the story and had valuable information. Telling the viewers that she didn’t know something facilitated a loss of trust. She wouldn’t fall into the trap.

  “We can imagine that this is related to the concerns over the bacterial pneumonia known as the Scourge,” she said. She kept the shot wide, not focusing too much on any one person. “The emergency room is packed. It’s overflowing. The wait times are ridiculously long because of the high demand. That demand is because people with a variety of symptoms are worried they’ve contracted the disease. Add that to the already crowded ER on a Saturday evening, and people are bound to lose their cool.”

  As she finished the sentence, the crowd erupted into a defiant roar. Kandy looked up from the viewfinder, not listening to the anchor’s question. She focused on the officer with the Taser and the aggressive woman not holding the infant.

  The officer was stepping forward, the Taser drawn, his elbows locked. There was a thin, translucent wire that caught the light and ran from the Taser to the woman’s chest. The woman’s body jerked and shuddered. She dropped to the ground and convulsed.

  The other two officers at the scene drew their weapons and shouted commands. The angry crowd widened, stepping back from the officers and the woman.

  “Kandy?” asked the anchor. “Can you still hear me?”

  Kandy cleared her throat. “Yes, I hear you. It appears that one of the officers deployed his Taser, striking a woman in the chest. She’s on the ground, and I think that’s a nurse running to her while officers stand by, handling the anxious crowd. That nurse, I think he’s a nurse based on his attire, is checking on the woman. Those Tasers can deliver quite a jolt, fifty thousand watts at varying voltage.”

  The detained man was being led to a nearby patrol car parked at the edge of the circular lot. In the distance, emergency sirens wailed. Kandy couldn’t be sure if they were from ambulance traffic or additional police units.

  Another nurse emerged from the emergency room. The crowd, still agitated, dispersed under threat of the twin gun-wielding officers. A third nurse took the woman holding the infant and led her inside. The woman was no longer angry. She appeared pale, stunned, in disbelief over what had transpired. Kandy saw her saying something that looked like an apology. She was crying and shaking her head.

  “It appears police have the situation under control at the moment,” said Kandy into her microphone. “Clearly there’s a lot through which to sort. I’ll ask some questions of both the hospital and the police and get back to you.”

  Before the producer could respond, her phone beeped. She was getting another call. She recognized the number as belonging to the hospital’s public relations flack, a woman named Carrie Perry. She’d been featured in Kandy’s report minutes earlier.

  Kandy told the producer she had to take a call, but she’d leave the shot up. She kept the camera focused on the emer
gency room exit and disconnected IFB to answer the other line.

  “Holy crap, Kandy!” Carrie shouted by way of greeting. “Did you have to take that live? I’m getting all kinds of heat from my bosses and their bosses over this. I gave you permission to do a live shot on the Scourge, not a potential riot. I trusted you. I thought we had an understanding and you—”

  “Hang on, Carrie,” Kandy said sharply. “Don’t attack me for doing my job. You didn’t put any stipulations on my live shot. If I wanted to, I could just as easily pay to park across the street and set up on the sidewalk. I didn’t cause the commotion, and I didn’t speculate about what caused it.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line.

  Kandy kept her eyes on the scene at the hospital’s entrance. The police had reholstered their weapons. The tasered woman was being helped onto a gurney. The handcuffed man was in the back seat of a patrol car, head down.

  “What is going on?” Kandy pressed. “I mean, what happened there? You almost had a shooting outside the emergency room on your property. You want a fair shake? Give me the information. You want your bosses yelling at you? Stonewall me, berate me, whatever. But how you handle this determines how I handle it, and I have the camera.”

  Kandy didn’t like making threats. She did have a good working relationship with Carrie Perry and didn’t want to blow it. But the woman, all young and blonde and self-important with a PR degree, had tweaked her. She wasn’t going to let her get away with it, and she had the upper hand.

  Carrie sighed. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have jumped on you. You’re always fair to us. But sheesh, that live shot looked bad.”

  “What happened?”

  “Security tells me a couple got tired of waiting in the ER. They’d been there a while. Their kid is sick, or they think the kid is sick. Another woman who’s with them, the one who got tased, is also sick. The man, I think the one who was in cuffs, started yelling at the intake nurse. Security, an off-duty Orlando police officer, asked the man to calm down. He didn’t. They took it outside. Others followed. It escalated from there.”