Chapter Text
Dennis didn’t know when it happened. One moment the Pitt was working at its usual high velocity patient numbers and the next their very own patient zero came in.
“Whitaker! Trauma one with me!” Langdon yelled, Dennis scrambled from the desk he was at, almost running through Dana.
“Easy, kid! The patient will still need help when you get there.” She smiled fondly at him, taking another phone call.
“What the hell, a bite wound? Multiple? Where the hell did this happen?... Okay fine, yeah.” Dana hung up the phone before moving to the PA. “Multiple traumas, multiple bite wounds. I need traumas two, three and four opened up now.”
Dennis only half heard it before moving into Trauma one, gloves already snapping over his wrists.
Langdon was already doing a full assessment on the victim.
“23 year old male, multiple bite wounds to the neck, face, shoulder and leg. These look…” He paused and then looked up at Dennis and the nurses around them, “These look human…” Dennis moved closer to the patient, a young man with dark brown hair, cropped short to his scalp by his ears and longer closer to the crown. Military grade?
Dennis cocked his head when he saw the first bite, a full chunk had been bitten out of the male’s right cheek, canines and molars were visible. Impressions of human teeth followed the bite down to another wound on the neck, same side.
Dennis immediately grabbed gauze and covered the neck wound, blood was spurting out of the jugular.
“Why wasn’t this addressed in the ambulance?” He called out as the blood oozed through the first gauze pad, Perlah was next to him within a second and handed him a full container. He grabbed a good chunk before adding them to the already drenched one.
“We were too busy trying not to run people over, it was a madhouse out there.” The EMT narrowed his eyes at the young student doctor. Dennis bit the inside of his lip as Langdon quipped back in his defense.
“One of you should have been in the back of the ambulance with the patient, not both driving.” Langdon was moving around, a scope and an endotracheal tube in his hands. He moved the male’s head into position for an intubation and opened the mouth, trying to ignore the gaping hole in the victim’s cheek.
The EMT’s partner was visibly shaken, her eyes wide as she stared down at the victim.
“W-we didn’t know he was in the back of the ambulance until he started crawling through the back into our cab. He tried to bite us…we had to sedate him.” She hugged herself. Dennis’ eyes widened.
“He tried to bite you?” His voice getting high. The female EMT nodded her head, before moving out of the trauma room. Her partner followed quickly after.
Langdon yelled for them, before giving up and going back to the intubation.
“I see vocal cords,” his face getting closer to the victims, trying to see through the camera of the scope.
Dennis looked down the victim’s body, he could only guess the number of bites he could visibly see on the top. Three on the right shoulder, two on the left. One on the right elbow, and what appeared to be nail marks going down the forearm towards the wrist.
Defensive wounds? Dennis thought.
Two more wounds could be seen on the male’s right outer thigh. All the wounds were oozing blood, Perlah and Jessie were trying their hardest to staunch the bleeding but there were so many wounds to account for, prioritizing the worst ones was highest priority.
“Tube is in, get me a bag,” Langdon called out, pulling the scope out. Princess attached the bag onto the connector.
“Yellow means good!” She called out before moving back down the victim’s body.
Dennis saw movement out of the corner of his eye and saw Dr. Robby and Dr. Abbott running in separate directions.
He hoped one would stop in but knew they probably were busy with the other victims being rolled in.
“Aghhhhh!!! Fuck! Get him off!!!” Dennis jumped, his head whipped to Langdon. His eyes grew larger at what his eyes saw.
Before him, the victim had reared up out of sedation, eyes open and blood shot. Langdon’s hand was clamped down between a set of teeth that only seemed to be biting down harder the more the doctor pulled and screamed. Terrible guttural noises came from the throat of the victim, growls and groans.
Jessie and Perlah moved and tried to stabilize Langdon’s hand. Dennis abandoned the gauze in favor of trying to pull the victim’s jaws open. Hands reach up and start grabbing at his scrubs, pulling and tearing. Jessie moved from Langdon to try and help Dennis, both sets of hands working to open the jaws that had the dark-haired doctor in a vice.
“Get him off! Fuck!” Langdon continued to yell, Dennis could feel sweat dripping down his forehead as he used all his might along with Jessie’s to open those jaws.
Finally, for what seemed like minutes, though only lasted seconds, a loud pop was heard in the trauma room, and the victim’s jaw popped out of placed, effectively letting go of Langdon’s hand. Both the resident and nurse flew backwards into the wall. Dennis’ hands flew up and a sound came out of his mouth, much like a squeal. Jessie was the one to move again, grabbing straps and handcuffing the victim to the bed.
Dennis looked over at Langdon and noticed the deep wound on the man’s hand. Perlah was staring at the male on the gurney, eyes wide with terror and confusion.
Dennis looked down at himself and noticed his scrub top had been torn the shreds, his chest and abdomen on full display. He turned back to Langdon, removing his used gloves and trying to put on a new set. He was able to finally get them on when a loud crash was heard from outside Trauma One.
Dennis could only watch, glued in place as multiple victims of bite wounds were brought in on stretchers, some tied down for their own safety and the unknown safety of the crews and medical staff. Others were climbing off the stretchers and running around the ER.
Dennis couldn’t know how much horror he would witness the next few hours; the ER was being overrun by zombies. And Langdon had just been bitten.