Evolution

CHAPTER 14 | patient zero

📎A/N. Hello my lovelies. I hope your weekend is going well...

A warning for those of you who publish your work here on Wattpad (or any public forum for that matter)... It has recently come to my attention that there are a number of sites that are stealing stories and posting it on their website, or making a story available for downloading. To my horror, this also includes my work. If you see any of my stories on a site other than Wattpad, I would really appreciate you letting me know. 

I am trying to get them removed, and may have to reconsider whether I continue to post on Wattpad while my stories are being blatantly reposted without my permission. 

If you are a writer, I recommend that you do a quick search to find out if this has occurred to your stories. 

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the chapter.

Take care,

❤ ℳ

❧ ⚛ ✺ ≋ ≋ ≋ ≋ ≋ ✺ ⚛ ❧

CDC Headquarters, Atlanta.

Dr. Petra Baghurst reread the report and frowned. None of it made sense. Two separate incidences, in two separate states, with the same necrotizing fasciitis symptoms, yet nothing in the tests found a bacterial presence in the wound or blood stream. Each patient, a victim of a supposed animal attack, died in the most agonizing and horrifying manner within a few short hours.

According to the hospital report, the progress of the infection had spread so fast the doctors made a judgement call on the most critical, and cut out, or amputated the affected areas. However, this made no difference, as whatever was eating the skin, tissue, and muscle continued its pillage and gouged out everything in its wake as it spread. In the end, the surgeons gave up, and pumped the victims with as much morphine and opiates as possible, to at least make their last hours bearable.

It was the unexpected infection of the paramedic that had caught Petra's attention the most. As an ambulance sped away from the farm in Iowa with the least critical of the victims, the paramedic had accidentally stabbed himself with a needle. At the time, he didn't believe it had broken through the skin, mealy the glove.

By the time they reached the hospital, his hand had broken out in an angry rash. By the end of his shift, he was back at the hospital. This time, as a patient. The paramedic's hand had erupted in green colored pustules which gave off a putrid odor. Over the next six hours, whatever bacteria had infected him, had begun to eat away at the flesh. The surgical staff assumed they had caught the disease early, and amputated his arm just above the elbow.

However, it was already too late. Even as they sutured the wound closed, a fresh set of pustules erupted up what was left of his arm and across his shoulder. Within 48 hours of infection, the paramedic was dead, his heart unable to cope with the strain on his body, gave up before the rest of his organs had a chance to.

Petra took a better look at the image supplied of the progression of the last victim. "Why did they discount gas gangrene?"

Gas gangrene was marked by a high fever, discolored pus and tissue, gas bubbles under the skin, and a foul odor. She was surprised nothing in the reports mentioned the possibility. Not waiting for an answer from Lyn, Petra continued reading and stopped short at the laboratory results.

What?

What had shocked the doctors, and now, Petra, was the lab results. The deaths had occurred faster than the PCR tests were turned around, so the medical staff, as per procedure, assumed the diagnosis.