Sarah slipped into the packed cafeteria. Her back ached and her legs felt like lead as exhaustion clawed at her. She’d not left the hospital in days and it had been an unending stream of people being treated broken up by too little sleep on the cots the hospital provided.

The number of people coming into the emergency room had been steadily growing and so too had the number of those that turned crazed while waiting for treatment. The security had been doubled, but even with that, three nurses had been bitten that morning alone.

“Hey, over here,” Fran whispered, gesturing for Sarah to join her.

It seemed that damned near every member of staff had been called in for the emergency meeting and while they could barely spare the time away from their patients, the cafeteria was full to bursting.

Sarah went to stand beside her friend, Francesca, another nurse who had worked at the hospital almost as long as she had. Sarah offered a smile of greeting, but it was strained and spoilt by her need to smother a yawn.

The other nurse didn’t seem to notice. She too had dark rings circling her eyes and a glazed look that one acquired after seeing too much death. Francesca worked on one of the quarantine floors.

“What’s going on?” Sarah asked, and the other woman shrugged.

“No idea. I’m glad for any chance to get downstairs so didn’t ask.”

Sarah smiled gently and leant back against the rear wall of the cafeteria, slipping her hands into the pocket of her uniform smock. While she dealt with people as they came into the A&E, she had been spared the quarantine floors.

There, the people who had been driven crazy by whatever was causing this crisis were strapped to beds as doctors did everything they could to figure out what was happening and to find a way to help them.

It was a particularly nasty and dangerous job to have, and she didn’t envy the nurses that had to care for the patients up there.

“Thank you all for coming,” a voice said, and she looked up to see Abigail Jackson, the hospital director of nursing.

A tall woman in a smart suit, that was long past the time it should have been changed. She’d not done any actual hands-on nursing for years, dealing more with the administrative side of things and the board of directors.

Her hair, a deep brown, had been put up into a bun, and she had taken time to apply some makeup and appear presentable. For those who knew her, it was clear that she was as fatigued as the rest of the staff.

No amount of makeup could hide the darkness around her eyes or the way her hand trembled as she clutched a handful of papers.

She stood on top of a table at the opposite end of the room from where Sarah stood, and she had a gaggle of managers standing close by, almost like an honour guard.

“I won’t bore you with too much information that you don’t need. We are all way too tired and busy for that. So, here it is, we are struggling. There is a crisis happening outside of these walls and we are not prepared for the number of patients coming through those doors.”

“What is happening?” someone called out and she waved her hand in his direction.

“We don’t know,” she said, which created quite a stir amongst the gathered staff. “All we do know is that something is making people attack their family, their neighbours or anyone they can come to.”

“These people are infected, and this infection can be transmitted primarily from the transfer of bodily fluids,” she continued. “Once infected, the patient will become ill, usually presenting with a fever, they will begin to shut down…”

“What does that mean?” another voice called out.

“It means they become almost catatonic,” another voice said. “The lights are on but nobody’s home.”

“What it means,” Abigail said, glaring. “Is that the patient will become unresponsive but will move if prompted. This can last anywhere from an hour to a day, but it always ends the same way. The patient will become aggressively violent and attempt to harm others.”

“Is that to transmit the infection?” someone asked, and she shook her head.

“We don’t know. It could be that, but it could also just be hunger. The fever burns hot and when it passes, all but the most basic primary responses are left in the patient. The urge to eat, to sleep, to procreate are still there but any higher reasoning is lost.”

“Great,” Fran muttered. “That explains why they keep trying to hump my leg whenever I get close.”

Sarah glanced at her, eyebrow cocked and a half-smile forming as she expected to laugh at the joke but realised from the look on her friends face that she was deadly serious. Her smile faded and she turned her head back, a sense of despair growing in her.

“The transmission rate is one hundred per cent,” Abigail continued, her words cutting through the rumble of sound from the gathered staff. “If you are bitten, you are infected. Maintain protocol at all times.”

Her gaze swept the room and Sarah couldn’t help the small shiver of fear that ran through her. She’d known things were getting worse but not so much so. Those three nurses bitten that morning were surely infected then with no hope of a cure.

“As of one hour ago, the country is on lockdown,” she continued. “Ports and airports are closed to all but essential travel. The military reserves have been called up and martial law is in effect.”

“What does that mean?” someone asked.

“It means that people are being told to stay in their homes while the police and military round up any infected people they can find. The goal now is to contain the spread of this infection.”

“By locking people in their homes?” An incredulous voice called. “What about food? Jobs? Our families?”

“Essential personnel will be allowed to travel to and from places of work if required, though we recommend you stay here for the time being.”

“I have kids,” Fran whispered, panic rising in her voice.

“It’ll be okay,” Sarah whispered back, reaching out to grasp her friend’s hand in her own.

“Food supplies will be provided to those people who stay in their homes and anyone outside without authorisation will be treated as infected.”

“What will happen to the infected?” A nurse, Sarah knew by sight but not by name, asked.

There was no immediate answer from Abigail and that sent another chill through Sarah. It was hard to believe what she was hearing.

“We will need volunteers,” Abigail said, wearily.

“For what?” came an angry cry.

“Some of you will help deal with the infected we have here as we try to find a way to help them. Others will be sent out with military units, into the city.”

She ran a hand that trembled down her face, as her shoulders sagged. The weariness she had been holding back so long was taking its toll.

“There are people out there who are not infected but will need medical help. Regular medication, treatments and care. This is our role, it is what we signed up for, to care for our patients, whether in this hospital or in their homes.”

“If you are willing to volunteer, tell your supervisor and we will provide you with an assignment. That is all for now.”

She stepped down off of the table, ignoring the rising rumble of voices as people demanded answers she clearly didn’t have. Sarah, remained leaning against the wall, struggling to muster the energy to push herself up and head back out to face the endless number of people that she had no hope of actually helping.

“I’m going to volunteer,” she said, and Fran turned to her with a look of surprise.

“Why”?

“We’ve been sending people home after they were bitten.” She raised a weary hand to brush a strand of hair from her face. “We haven’t helped anyone. At least if I go out to visit people’s homes, I can help them.”

“They’ll figure out a way to sort this out, surely,” Fran said, but even to her ears, it sounded as though she were trying to convince herself.

“Hasn’t happened so far, nothing to say it will happen at all.”

Without another word, Sarah pushed herself away from the wall and headed out into the corridor. There was a waiting room full of people to see but she couldn’t muster up any enthusiasm for going that way. There wasn’t much point since nothing she did would help them anyway.

A bandage, some gauze and maybe some pain relief, but it wouldn’t actually do anything. They were already infected and that meant that they would soon turn violent and infect others. There was no point in sending them home just to do that.

Despite her misgivings, she found herself headed towards the A&E waiting room anyway. She’d become a nurse because she wanted to help people and it went against her nature to just stand by when there were people hurting.

Sure, she might not be able to do much for them, but she could calm their fears and make whatever time they had left as comfortable as possible.

She stopped as she stepped through into the waiting room, staring around in confusion. She caught the eye of one of the security guards lounging beside the door.

“Where is everyone?” Sarah asked, gesturing at the empty room.

“Soldiers took em.”

Sarah shook her head at the guard’s lack of interest and went past him, stepping through the door before turning back and asking, “where did they take them?”

“Put em in trucks and drove off.”

With a sense of dread rising in her breast, she rushed out through the main doors towards the carpark that surrounded the hospital. It was packed full of cars, and just leaving through the main exit was a cloth-covered truck in the green colour the army favoured.

Another was parked not far from the entrance with a couple of bored-looking soldiers lounging beside it, smoking. She marched across to them, ignoring the lecherous look of one who nudged his friend and grinned.

“Where are you taking them?” Sarah demanded.

“None of your business, love,” the lecherous one said.

“Sorry, miss,” the other added. “We aren’t at liberty to say.”

“Those are my patients!”

“They’re infected,” the lecherous one said. “They’re just waiting to turn.”

“It’s a sickness you prick! They need help, not carting away.”

“I’m sorry, miss,” the polite soldier said with what seemed to be genuine sorrow in his voice. “We have orders. The trucks get filled up and we take them away. Not sure what happens after that.”

“Who’s in charge? I want to speak to them.”

“That’ll be Lieutenant Morris, he’ll be back with the next truck.”

“I’m not going to let this lie; I’ll be talking to the hospital director!”

“Talk to whoever you want, love. They’re infected so they need to be put down.”

Sarah didn’t respond, just turned and stormed back towards the hospital as a chill ran through her and her stomach churned. The soldier’s words echoed in her mind and whether he had intended to or not, he’d given a hint of what was happening.

Put down, he’d said. They needed to be put down. That’s what you did with a rabid animal, and the infected people certainly acted rabid. But the idea that the military would be killing them was too horrifying to consider.

She needed to know what was really happening to them and if they were being killed, then she would have to let people know. Whatever their reasoning, there was no way that genocide was the answer to the infection that was plaguing the world.

At least she hoped not.