Chapter I

CHAPTER I
Dr. Rodney Norris
September 19, 2001


It was never supposed to come down to this. Dr. Rodney Norris never thought his life would take such a horrible turn for the worse. Eight months’ prior, he was stationed in Natas, Africa, associated with the global program P.A.L.S. {Physicians Assisting Lacking Societies}, where he dedicated his energies to helping those in dire need of medical attention. But now, Rodney Norris was the patient with the incurable disease, the one who bit his fingernails off with a rabid impatience at finding the cure.
He sat rocking aimlessly back and forth on the ripped, lumpy mattress coughing up a misty concoction of blood and mucus. He found himself withdrawn from society for the last several weeks. Norris frequently experienced acute pains that rampaged with reckless abandon throughout his failing body, fiercely consuming every muscle, nerve and tissue the virus could find. Slowly, his brain resigned to the continual onslaught of the irreparable condition known as Leprosy. Once a proud doctor, Rodney Norris was now confined to the walls of Seattle’s Tarpis Mental Hospital, a fragmented man desperately clinging to sustain his own survival.
His frail body continued to rock with a quiet discern. His bent frame crunched up, with his back butted up against the hardened white bricked wall. Norris’s mangled, decimated, curled up fingers clasped his weakened knees in their vise-like clutches. Rodney’s sunken eyes looked around the room, trying to locate a focal point to restore any shred of his escaping sanity. Leprosy, a common disease in South Africa, had masterfully ravaged Rodney’s body at such an alarming rate, beyond anything ever seen before.
Norris had spent the last eight months buried in the small town of Natas, Africa, aiding in the restoration of the impoverished colony. A widespread Leprosy epidemic had brought Dr. Norris into the fray to help those inflicted with the painful disease. Norris assisted with the grueling daily operations, educating the natives and restoring the failing structures. His game plan was a direct derivative of Dr. Quentin Forsythe’s program on how to rebuild these impoverished areas, using a flexibility of viable options.
None of that mattered now, as Dr. Norris wasted away inside the mental hospital. Once a proud family man, with a doting wife and loving children, it had all completely unraveled. His thoughts were far and few in between. The doctor’s family rarely stopped by for visits. The sight of their beloved patriarchal figure slowly decaying before their eyes had impacted their fragile psyches.
“Nurse!” His deep voice bellowed for medication. Rodney Norris ceased his rocking motion in bed and turned to stand up.
Rodney excruciatingly planted his disfigured naked toes onto the cold white tiled floor. A towering six-foot-two man had unexpectedly regressed into a five-foot-ten man filled with desperation and angst.
Rodney’s usually vibrant jet-black mane had transformed into a unique whitish gray, no doubt from the intense stress brought on by the Leprosy. His suntanned complexion retreated into a paled, red-spotted epidermis. Rodney slowly moved his freckled body toward the door as his vocal chords again sounded for medicinal assistance. Bones aching from several days of rocking in a constricted fetal position, Rodney had no energy left to muster. He emphatically stretched out his hand for the door, wincing with every twitch of his distorted fingertips.
A very young nurse walked by his door, paying not one iota of attention to the increasing clawing sounds coming from inside the room. Norris repeatedly dragged his nails up and down the aged wooden door, peeling away slivers of wood underneath his gnarled nails. The result was a collection of tiny splinters cramming their way into his soft skin. Norris didn’t even recoil at the slight discomfort this had caused, for it was a welcomed reprieve from the intensity of pain he had endured previously.
The nurse’s nonchalant cavalier attitude was shattered when Rodney slammed his body into the door a number of times. The succession of violent jerks eventually caught the lost attention of the passing nurse.
“Dr. Norris,” she said with a motherly tone. “You’re going to wind up hurting yourself.”
He wanted to tell this bitch of a woman where to stick it. However, the incapability for speech and muscle control had left him at a dangerous standstill. Another round of primitive actions flooded his crumbling mind, causing the nurse to conjure up her own fleet of doctors. One of the doctors unlocked the wooden door and charged at Rodney, throwing him down onto the cold floor. Rodney cut his chin in the short-lived melee and chipped a collection of his front teeth, sending the yellow fragments of bone skittering across the floor. Another doctor firmly held down his hands and feet, while a steady flow of medicine entered Rodney’s veins through a sharp prick of a needle. His entire body writhed around trying to escape the process. The eventual cloud of darkness consumed him and his world fell into a medicated tailspin.
The last few hours ticked away as Rodney Norris started to awaken underneath the soft glow of the moon. His muscles crying to burst apart from the intense disease. Rodney’s skin had become yellow and jaundiced, while his impeccable 20/20 vision manifested into a cloudy haze. Rodney gathered one last final thought and with a sudden quickness, acted upon it. Methodically, he shuffled across the room and headed for the tall golden lamp. Using a strong forceful shove he managed to knock the lamp to the floor and shattered the white light bulb.
A large fragment remained rocking on the floor, and Rodney lovingly retrieved the glass shard, and headed back for the bed. Taking the shard of glass to his jugular, Rodney managed one final word. “Mandy,” his weak voice filled the air with his wife’s name, repeated several times, before he gathered up the strength to slice his own throat.
“Did anybody check on our new patient?” Tony Tasker asked his crew. The head of Tarpis Mental Hospital gathered the keys to Dr. Rodney Norris’s room and brought an army of doctors with him.
“It’s been about twelve hours since his last episode,” the young nurse responded with vigor. She had a crush on Tony and noticed that he also wanted to get into her pants. She was a blonde bombshell nursing a broken relationship. Her philosophy was simple when it came to men: screw as many as you can and love every minute of it. And by all means, never get involved in any meaningful relationship with a man. It only leads to eventual heartbreak.
“Kendra, thank you.” Tony slid past her in a dominant sexual way, inserting the red key into the patient’s door and turned it harmlessly to the left. Tony charged into the room. Upon entry, Tony’s body convulsed forcing the doctor to spill his guts all over the place. He clasped his mouth with both hands trying to keep the warm sensation at bay until he could make to the nearest garbage can. But, he never made it. His feet gave out from underneath him, forcing him to slide across the floor in a sheet of Rodney’s blood.
Tony noticed Rodney’s limp body lying wilted upon the bloody mattress. Tony presumed Norris was dead and free from the ghastly illness. His eyes were still left open, as they seemed to watch with glee as Tony skidded across the bloodied floor. Rodney’s fingers were left dangling from the bed caked with blood, while his neck had a stubborn gouge across it.
“I don’t know what happened in here,” Tony adjusted himself and stood back up to face the other doctors. His green scrubs were drenched with Rodney‘s blood. “This man should’ve never been left unattended,” he growled with a feeling of power.
“Tony, he was clamoring around before,” Kendra acknowledged her lover. “I brought several doctors with me and they administered a steady dose of medication into his system, in order to subdue his sudden outbursts.”
“Damn it, I could’ve saved him,” Tony bellowed as he silently closed Rodney’s eyes with a quick glide of his fingers. “This man was an esteemed patron of medicine and you treated him like another routine patient.”
The listless body of Dr. Rodney Norris emanated the horrifying ramifications of exposure to such a devastating virus.
“I’m sorry,” Kendra said trying to manage the awkward situation.
“You ought to be!” Tony brushed past her and clamored to regain his senses. “Frank, help me properly prepare his body for burial and an immediate autopsy.” Tony looked into the direction of the newly hired intern.
“Who will look over the autopsy?” Frank questioned Tony.
“I’ll send for the world renown Dr. Quentin Forsythe.” Tony scurried down the hallway and burst into his office. His demeanor was curt and quick as his fingers hastily flipped through the shoddy black Rolodex attempting to locate Quentin’s number.