* * * * *
His body went limp in overwhelmed fright as he turned round and allowed himself to be dragged into the door opposite the janitor's closet, a door that, in his haste, he had never noticed till now.
Kenneth watched the door close behind them as a torrential wave of relief buried his unfettered excitement moments earlier.
The relentless scratches and attacks on the door suddenly seemed worlds away.
Leaning against the wall to steady himself, he looked up to find a concerned man with a familiar face staring at him.
"Are you alright, Doctor Cook?"
"I'm a Cook, yes, but I'm no doctor. At least," his voice dropped audibly, "at least… not anymore."
Kenneth squinted, his mind working furiously as he figured out the situation around him.
"Really, Doctor Cook. You're as much of a doctor to me as any other doctor out there… perhaps, even more of one now." The man's voice trailed off wistfully.
"Aren't you…" Kenneth furrowed his brow. He was sure he had seen this man somewhere before, it's just that all the chaos he had experienced had thrown his mind into disarray.
"Yes, I'm Mr. Karcher. My wife is pregnant; you were going to be around learning from Doctor Ross when he delivered the baby?"
A brief moment of normality returned to Kenneth.
"Oh right, yes. That was then but, well, Mr. Karcher, thanks for saving my life."
"You're quite welcome, Doctor Cook."
"How's your wife? If I remember correctly, she should be due…" The grateful smile on Kenneth's face disappeared.
"Yes, she's due today."
"Oh. How's she doing?"
"Adam shut the hell up with your idle chatter, will you? The baby wants out now!"
Mr. Karcher stepped aside, revealing a heavily pregnant Mrs. Karcher lying on the bed and in the middle of labor.
Oh. Fuck.
"Thanks for saving me, Mr. Karcher, but look around you. The world as we know it has ended. Life, as we know it, has ended. Spend as much time with your loved ones as you can, the ones whom you still can keep contact with, at least."
Kenneth turned to leave now that he knew Jenny wasn't here. He looked around, chiding himself for not noticing he had arrived at ward 29 earlier.
"C'mon Doctor Cook. I just saved your life! Please, save my wife and deliver my child! You owe me that much." The desperation in Mr. Karcher's voice was overwhelming.
A pang of guilt hit Kenneth as he cast eyes on the heaving woman struggling on the bed. But he was no longer a doctor, despite how much he couldn't let go.
"I'm no longer a doctor, Mr. Karcher. I'm just Kenneth Cook, a med school dropout." Kenneth said, trying his best not to let the bitter dejection show.
"You're not. I've seen you when you used to make your rounds with Doctor Ross. Out of all the doctors who came by to see my wife, you're the only one who bothered to look her in the eye, smile and reassure her that she was in good hands. The other 'doctors'? Pah! All chart-lookers, every single one of them! We're patients, not mere case details on another clipboard. You treated us like actual people; you're more deserving of the doctor's title than anyone I know!"
"Heh." Kenneth let a twisted smile show on his face. So what if Mr. Karcher was encouraging him with the ulterior motive of saving his wife, heck, Kenneth took it what praise he could get.
"I'm glad you think of me so highly but -"
"Do not doubt your skills, Doctor Cook. In this moment, you're probably the most qualified person in the hospital to deliver my son into this world. I've barricaded the door so that we won't be interrupted. I'll help in any way I can. Please, deliver the baby."
Mr. Karcher grabbed onto Kenneth's hand which he withdrew in an instant. How could Kenneth feel worthy of bringing new life into this world when he had the blood of a murderer on his hands, much less a world as messed up as this?
"No… NO!" Kenneth shook his head."I'm no good, no good at all." He held his head in his hands, trying his best not to think about it.
Memories - bad ones - haunted him like an unshakable ghost, reminding him of his mistake with every step he took. Mr. Karcher was just forcing Kenneth to relive his calamitous mistake over and over again.
Kenneth gritted his teeth. He resolved not to let himself near performing a medical procedure every again.
"Why, Doctor Cook? The lives of my wife and child are in danger! Why won't you save them?!" Mr. Karcher pleaded as he sank to his knees. "Please, I'm begging you here. Save them before those things outside devour us all!"
"What's the goddamned point then? If you know we're all going to die within the hour we might as well get high on cough syrup and soak our livers in medical grade alcohol. Life sucks too much to be facing the end sober anyways. You're with the people you care about, I'm going to look for mine."
"And condemn my family to their deaths? Where's your sense of duty, Doctor Cook? What the fuck happened to you?" Mr. Karcher exclaimed as he grabbed Kenneth by the shoulder and shook him violently. His brain rattled in his skull as Kenneth struggled to push Mr. Karcher off of him.
"What happened to the confident, friendly, accessible Doctor Cook that I knew?! Tell me, please, why won't you help?"
"Shut up! Shut up!" Kenneth shouted as he sank to his knees. "No…"
"Adam, hurry the fuck up! The baby's coming, I can feel it!"
Mr. Karcher left Kenneth for a brief moment as he rushed to his wife's side.
Kenneth retreated from the hellish world around him into his mind, unable to face the outside, unable to face the monsters of regret eating away his insides.
Rushed footsteps grew louder as Mr. Karcher ran back to Kenneth again.
"Doctor Cook, please, if you can't save my wife, at least save my child. I won't blame you for whatever happens, please, dammit, just fucking do something!"
Kenneth looked up, his eyes of bitter regret met with Mr. Karcher's.
"And what if I don't want to. What if I can't no matter how much I try? The world has gone to shit, my parents who are bitterly disappointed in a dropout like me are probably dead, if I stay to help you I'll let the only girl I've ever felt something for leave moments before things went to shit. What's the point anymore?!"
Kenneth watched in horror as Mr. Karcher held up a familiar revolver to his face.
What the… how did he? Kenneth realized he didn't even notice Mr. Karcher casually disarming him as he was pulled into the ward.
"D-doctor Cook…" Mr. Karcher started, the barrel of the gun trembling in his grip, its target oscillating between Kenneth's head and chest. "I just saved your life, but I'm not above taking it away from you, not when Sarah is suffering like this."
Kenneth held his hands up. "Mr. Karcher - no, Adam - you don't want to do this."
"And why is that?" Mr. Karcher asked, his voice shaky with threatening undertones. "You're as good as dead to me if you don't help Sarah and my unborn son, all right?"
"Pull that trigger, and the both of them will die. Like you said, I'm your best bet at keeping your family intact. You won't shoot me."
"Oh yeah?"
Kenneth decided not to tempt Mr. Karcher any further. With his life at stake, Kenneth knew it was wiser not to take any chances.
"Alright, I'm convinced. Just… don't shoot. I want to help. I really do. But…"
Jenny.
"But what, Doctor Cook? You're frightened for your life? You're scared that if you take the time to do one last good deed with your miserable life that you will be eaten alive before you leave this place? Let me tell you doctor, if you don't help, I'll put a bullet in you right here, right now and leave you to be eaten by them. No, I won't be kind and aim for a fatal shot. I'll shoot your knee and watch as you try to hobble away helplessly while they feast on your flesh."
"Please, don't make me do this." Kenneth pleaded, trying not to throw up in blind fear again.
"Do it, or die. Simple as that. I'm not letting you out of here if my wife or kid dies."
/> "What happened to just helpin -"
"Shut up! Shut, the fuck, up! My terms have changed, you deliver my child, and you make sure my wife's safe. Either we all make it out alive, or I make sure you don't."
Fuck.
"Adam, put the fucking gun down and help me. The baby's kicking like hell!"
"I'll be right there, honey." Mr. Karcher replied, not taking his eyes off Kenneth for even a fraction of a second.
"I'm going to give you five seconds. Either you save us all, or you condemn a family to its death. Five."
Kenneth shut his eyes.
You can't do this again. If she dies, it's on you!
No, as a human being, can you in good conscience leave them like this?
My chances of saving Jenny, of escaping together with her diminish by the passing second. If I do this, I'll probably never get the chance to see her again.
The mother and child are innocent! It would be wrong to leave them!
"NOOOO!" Kenneth yelled.
"I can't believe this. You're an asshole to the end, Doctor Cook. Goodbye." Mr. Karcher cocked the revolver.
Kenneth shut his eyes and tilted his head down onto the ground, waiting for the inevitable.
Jenny, if you've perished like how I'm about to, I'll see you soon. Mom, dad, if you still refuse to speak to me in the afterlife, I'll really think that you're stupid, bitter people.
Mr. Karcher stood over him and for a moment the power to give or take Kenneth's life was sorely in his trembling hands.
He pointed the barrel of the gun at Kenneth's head, slowly applying faltering pressure on the trigger…
"Fuck!" Mr. Karcher shouted as he threw the gun away, much to Kenneth's surprise.
"I… I can't do it after all." He muttered weakly.
He sat down on the floor with Doctor Cook.
"I can't kill you. Even if you refuse to help, I just can't have your blood on my hands. Heh, sucks to be a gutless freak like me, eh? Can't even follow through on his threats. I'm going to spend my last few moments with my wife. But if you're going to refuse, at least tell me why."
The groans and muffled shuffles of movement outside the ward sent pangs of unease through the both of them.
Fuck it, with the world going to hell, I might as well.
"I killed him."
"E-excuse me, what?"
"It's not just Jenny I'm worried about. I killed him, a long time ago. He was a patient of mine." Kenneth's voice dropped into a low whisper laced with regret.
"Who?"
"Someone, it's funny how I can't recall what his name was now. He was an A&E case. Came in broken leg after falling down from somewhere, I don't know."
"How did you kill him?"
"I-I didn't mean to!" Kenneth's voice rose from a whisper to a shrill alarm of proclaimed innocence.
"Calm down, what the hell happened?" Mr. Karcher asked, thinking it was probably more effective to listen to Kenneth than to threaten or plead with him.
"He died because of me."
"Did you just say this patient, whoever he was, came in with a broken leg? No one dies of that, right?"
"Yeah, he had a broken leg. Doctor Ross ordered ten CCs of local anesthesia injected into the affected area before he was about to be wheeled in for immediate surgery, before his bone was set the wrong way."
"Then?"
"I-I don't know. It must have been a bad batch. The nurse must have taken the wrong bottle of given me the wrong syringe. He was gone within five minutes after I injected it into him."
"Gone?"
"Yeah, his heart stopped. We thought the anesthesia was contaminated, or that the syringe was mislabeled. But later we found out that he was highly allergic to anesthesia. He reacted so badly that… fuck."
"You couldn't have known, Doctor Cook. It wasn't your fault."
"But it was in his chart! If Doctor Ross had read it beforehand, if one of the nurses did, heck, if I took all of five fucking seconds to read it, maybe he would still be alive today. It really seemed like there wasn't time back then… if only."
"So… is that why you say you dropped out?"
"They held an investigation. Doctor Ross and the nurse in charge were suspended for three months, but of course they were recalled back early after three weeks. This hospital is already understaffed as it is. I… I lost my internship."
"Couldn't you have gotten another one?"
"The internship counted as most of the final year's assessment, it's the preclude to a residency and finally becoming a full-fledged doctor. The minute I lost it was the minute I flunked out of med school."
"Couldn't you have found another hospital to intern under?"
"After what happened, do you honestly think any of the other hospitals would take me? The board thought themselves lucky enough already to avoid a negligence suit because the patient had no living relatives. Word travelled fast, especially with the investigation going on."
"Well, if you flunked out, why are you still here, in a doctor's white coat no less?"
"I don't know. I think I'm an asshole who thinks only of himself, but I guess… I just can't let go of what happened, of what I used to be."
Kenneth flew to the ground, his cheek starting to swell from where Mr. Karcher had just punched him. He held the side of his face in his hand, staring at Mr. Karcher in shock.
"That patient's death was unfortunate, but nothing you do can change the fact that what happened has happened. You can't do anything else but to let go, to move forward." Mr. Karcher pointed to his wife. Her breathing had begun to grow ragged and heavy. "The world has changed. None of the past matters now. You have someone who needs you now, whose lives depend on whatever knowledge and skills you have. Wake up from your regret, Doctor Cook! Snap out of it and redeem yourself from here on now!"
Kenneth looked at Mr. Karcher before casting his glance at Mrs. Karcher. She lay in pain helplessly on the bed with much difficulty. Delivering babies was relegated to eight lectures back in medical school. Kenneth had sat through them all. He knew how it worked in theory, but this was the first time he was about to experience it in person.
Kenneth's eyes narrowed in confidence as the self-induced pity haunting his past was drowned out by the urgent voice of the living in need.
I'm sorry, Jenny. Please wait for me a little longer.
He was no longer Kenneth Cook the drop out, nor was he Kenneth Cook the bumbling intern, resident hopeful. He was a post apocalyptic doctor and he had people that needed his help.
And he was going to redeem himself in this wretched, gory world.
* * * * *
Four