Juliette yawned and wiped at her eyes feeling exhausted, 4 people in one night had come in, in a complete state of psychosis, barely contained even with leather restraints on all 4 limbs. Sedatives hardly touched these patients, they only made them a little slower. Even being a nurse and doctor, they had still managed to push through the night. The emergency room techs and nursing assistance on the floor had to be pulled off the floor to sit with all the patients that were going crazy leaving all the floors short staffed. People from all over the city came in with bites that needed stitching. Police who came in with drunk patients proclaimed they found a new drug on the street called Rage which must be the source of people going crazy. They had pulled a lot of the drug out of Michelle's purse at the scene and believed one of her customers must have attacked her. Ackerman, who had only come in for a partial shift, felt the same exhaustion as the rest as he walked over to Juliette. She furrowed her eyebrows in concentration as she typed away at the note she made about the fourth raged out patient that was now tied down behind her.
"Are you still going to the gym afterwards, Juliette?"
After work and in the mornings everyday at 815 he had been going to his new gym for 5 months now. It had been 4 months ago that he had found out that Juliette went to the same gym as him. Since then they had made it a routine to go together whether it be intentional or not. In the last 2 months he had learned quite a few things about her including that she had been a member of the boys wrestling team until she was 14 and then a self defense instructor while paying for college.
"A hard night at work is no excuse to skip out on exercise, Daniel," she said, smiling at Ackerman. "Ronnie messaged me and told me he is leaving early for work this morning so he won't be joining us." Ronnie was Juliette's boyfriend of 4 years who sometimes also went to the gym with them. Daniel found him a little stuck up for his taste but didn't want to upset Juliette by telling her.
"Good," Daniel shook his head in approval.
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Three hours later saw Daniel and Juliette walking out of the gym sweating. Juliette wiped at her face with the towel around her neck, some of the hair she had pinned back in a ponytail escaped and clung to her skin. They had been on the bags for the last half hour at the gym, she had a mean punch. Daniel himself had never been involved in any self defense sports as a kid and Juliette had been his teacher in that regard over the last few months. Daniel had been a football player and track star in highschool and since graduating had made it a point to at least stick with the training, even if during some of medical school he had been lacking.
Juliette's boyfriend Ronnie was a marine and really gave Daniel a run for his money whenever he came to the gym. The first time they had met, Ronnie had put Daniel in a headlock. "If I squeeze just a little bit, right here," Ronnie had said squeezing and making Daniel see stars stars, "you would pass right out," Ronnie had than released Daniel and had Juliette demonstrate how to avoid and get out of that same hold, than how Daniel could do it himself. He still was nowhere near the point Juliette was and it seemed to him that everything Juliette and Ronnie showed him only seemed to skim the surface of their actual knowledge. Juliette and Ronnie had been friends since right before Ronnie had shipped out, they had met working as self defense instructors when she was 18 and he was 21. They had kept in touch over the years and started dating when Juliette was 24 and a year into her master's.
"Hey, do you work tonight?" Juliette broke into Daniel's train of thought and he smiled at her.
"No but they are asking me to come in, 2 doctors are sick and can't tonight. Why are you?"
"Yup you better believe it," Juliette sighed, rubbing her neck.
"THE END IS NEAR, NO ONE WILL SURVIVE," a old man seeming to come out of nowhere jumped in front of them cackling. Daniel jumped at the unexpected intrusion and looked at the old man wearily. The man looked about nervously nursing a bleeding hand, he was wearing rags that were very dirty, his eyes held a confused glint to them. Juliette stepped forward to help but the man saw them at that moment and ran away, his breath ragged. Daniel put out his arm stopping her from following.
"Don't you think we should help him?" Juliette protested but Daniel shook his head.
"The only thing we should do is go home and get some sleep. There are plenty of cops and other good Samaritans out on the streets. If we stopped and helped every crazy homeless man in New York we wouldn't even have enough time to eat and sleep yet alone live ourselves."
"Did you see that though? He was bleeding, I wonder what it was from!" Daniel got a chill up his spine and shivered.
"Let's get out of here!"
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Night time came way too quickly into the city, the dimming light of day signifying another night of work for Juliette. Yawning Juliette quieted the alarm and got out of bed, "Babe? YOU here," she yelled out of the room as she brushed her still damp hair up into a ponytail. When she got no reply she picked up her phone off the charger, only to find it dead. Getting on her hands and knees she peeked under the bed to see the cord was unplugged from the wall. "Crap," she said plugging the stupid thing back into the wall and plugging in her phone back in. The time on the clock read 615pm, that was the time she was supposed to be dressed and heading out the door. Rushing she grabbed her scrubs and socks, throwing them on, sliding passed the barn door to her bathroom she brushed her teeth before grabbing her phone which was now at 5 precent and rushing to the front door. Her apartment was small, yet homie, with a southern style to the interior. The one wall closest to the TV in the living room had wood planks, with the surrounding walls painted red. Large printed photos of her and her boyfriend and family hung on the walls giving it a homey feel. Her dark blue waterproof shoes matched her uniform and she hardly took the time to tug them on pocketing her cell phone and keys, the clock on the wall across from her read 628. She lived a 25 minute walk from the hospital she worked in, but she could make it there faster if she ran. Breaking into a trot she scaled the 4 floors in a minute and was out the door. Police sirens echoed in the distance as she jogged down the street past people in a rush to get home. She noticed the unusual amount of people who also seemed to be jogging in different directions. 10 minutes into her light jog she rounded a corner and ran right into a young woman who screamed scuttling backwards away from her on the ground.
"Hey are you ok?" Juliette asked but the girl just shook her head, regained her feet and ran off the other way down the street. 'That was unusual even for a New Yorker,' most would have told her to watch where she was going and gotten angry, but Juliette frowning made nothing of it and continued her jog to work. Normally, Juliette would walk slowly as to admire the reflective surface of the buildings around her, the way the sunsets orange hit the gray clouds opposite of it. The contrast of it reflecting off glass would catch her breath and she would sigh at how beautiful life was, but at the moment she didn't have the time for that. Seven minutes later without any further oddities, Juliette found herself in front of the hospital. Daniel was also walking up to it, his hands in his pocket "Hey, Daniel," she shouted and he turned to look at her and quirking his eyebrow. She had hardly broken a sweat and looked no different than she had 17 minutes prior when she left the house.
"Your running later than usual, Juliette, I guess I'm finally rubbing off on you," he chuckled and she punched his arm slowing down, to match his pace
"My phone died and my charger wasn't correctly plugged in," she explained, pulling her phone and charger from her pocket and turning the phone on.
"I'm guessing you didn't eat or bring food again?"
"Nope."
"You know you can't always grub off me," he sighed, pulling out an extra sandwich and chips from his bag and throwing it in her hands over her phone. Juliette often forgot to bring food and he had made a habit of bringing an extra sandwich for her.
Stuffing the sandwich and phone in her bag she frowned, as they walked through the sliding glass doors her phone going off continuously, receiving all the messages she hadn't gotten while it was off. Patients filled the waiting room, many people sporting injuries and bleeding, a few people slept in the chairs or up against the walls. Two patients argued with the receptionist about the wait, sounding self important about their own bodily issues. "What in all hell is going on?" Juliette completely forgot the phone as she scanned herself through the ER locked doors.
Chaos greeted the two companions on the other side, nurses scurried passed and patients all over the room screamed, the screeching sound of the locked bed wheels pulling against the floor, and the wretched sounds of wailing. The screaming patients occasionally mumbled non comprehensively, one or 2 words coming out among the mumbles,'Hungry', 'Need', 'KILL'. While a few patients were in leather restraints, others sported soft restraints and the rare few had police cuffs, cuffing them to the bed. "Someone please get us some soft restraints now," a nurse screamed from a bed by Juliette, the heavy set elder nurse was in a state of dishevel, sweat staining her clothing, as she aided an emergency tech in forcing a man down onto the bed. The old man tossed his head back and forth snapping his mouth at the air, his legs flying about wildly around trying to get a footing. Greasy hair matted above his head, his hand bled out into the bed, 'it was the man from in front of the gym earlier,' Juliette noted a shiver going down her spine, at least he was alright.
"We don't have any more," a tiny emergency room tech blabbed as she came over to them. "This is all I could find," she announced, holding up 2 lap belts.
Juliette hurried passed them towards the break room, feeling for the first time in years in her career unsure of herself and unable to discern what was happening around her. She pulled her phone out after tossing the small bag on the break room table. She has 6 missed phone calls and 16 text messages from Ronnie, the most recent message from 30 minutes ago reading, 'I will be home in an hour, go back to the house and wait for me. Please tell me if you're alright.' not reading the rest, she quickly replied:
'Phone died
Already at work
Very busy here
Can't leave
I'm ok
See you at home tomorrow am?'