Excerpts Taken From Marcus P. Kellum's Personal Journal.
The doctors will not tell me what is wrong, but I know they are scared. Between my tourniquet and their able doctoring, Avi was able to survive the blood loss she has suffered and for a brief time was able to rest comfortably. She smiled at me from the observation window but the smile was one more of a drug-induced haze than it was of reassurance.
Hours later, as I sat in the waiting area adjacent to Avi’s room, something went wrong. All of her vital signs, which had been good, suddenly took a nosedive. It was if something were actively trying to take her life. A crowd of nurses leapt into action and sped down the hallway and into her room. I rushed into the room behind them, but was quickly shoved outside and was forced to watch what was going on through the observation glass. The part of her arm, so hideously damaged by the bite, was now black and it oozed a tar-like rot. Avi arched her back, screamed and her eyes rolled back in their sockets. The curtain was drawn over the window, blocking the small view I had. I had to find a telephone.
I called the facility and explained the situation. Since our expedition to the south end had been officially sanctioned by the superiors at the facility, our actions were known and there was no surprise that we had been where we had been. The surprise came when I explained that we had been in direct confrontation with an entity, or entities that close to our home base. The facility supervisor I spoke with assured me that they were on the way and that I should not worry.
As I waited for the cavalry to arrive, a doctor approached me and explained to me what had happened with Avi. Something in the wound, some small microbe had been sealed off from the open air by my tourniquet or by some luck of her blood scabbing over. Once the microbe had a chance to escape—probably due to the surgery they had performed on her arm—it had reacted violently and had ate away another three inches of flesh in a matter of seconds. Only by amputating her arm at the elbow had the doctors been able to save Avi’s life.
