A Different Virus - Laura's Story

Chapter 129

I followed Diane to the nursing area. Kerry was in her office and Roland was here as well. Kerry glanced up at our entrance, "Ah, there you are. Take a seat."

Kerry handed a slim blue and orange tube to Diane. Diane looked faintly confused, "An epipen?"

Kerry explained, "We put some of your glowing blood in it. This makes it much easier to use for those who don't really know how to use a needle or are squeamish around one."

Diane examined it before passing it to Roland. Roland looked quite intrigued, "It is easy to refill these? The glow in the blood samples disappears after about two weeks, so they would be getting refilled frequently."

Kerry nodded, "Yes, quite easy. Most nurses or anyone with a bit of training can easily refill an epipen and anyone can use it since it injects itself. I just refilled it with a small amount of the glowing blood. It is foolproof and even the Messenger teams can carry one in case they find someone along the road who got bitten by a zombie. It only has a few drops inside, but that is really all that is needed. We just give more in Sanctuary to make the changes go faster."

The object looked kind of familiar and I was sure I had seen it on tv before. I tilted my head, "Orange to the thigh, blue to the sky? I think I saw it in a commercial once."

Kerry grinned in pleasure at my knowledge and nodded, "Yes, this operates just like an epipen. Once the blue safety cap is pulled off, push it hard against the outer thigh for ten seconds."

Diane gazed at the small object in Roland's hands, "As long as someone doesn't try to use it like an epipen and get something different than what they thought they were getting."

Kerry nodded, "Yes, we will be labeling all of them to read Heartfire and biohazard as well as instructions on how to use them. That should keep most from thinking they are a regular epipen. Although there aren't that many people with those kinds of allergies still around."

I thought that this was a good invention, or rather, good re-use of an item. It only took a few drops of blood to pass the virus, so it would be good for an emergency. Several times now, Dave had found someone who had been bitten and had used some of the blood in his emergency vial, then he had brought the person back with him. The ones we rescued like that were so grateful to be alive that they were fiercely loyal to Sanctuary.

The Messengers would probably be the first ones to locate a person who got bitten, and if they carried an epipen, then it could save more lives down the road. It only took a few drops of blood after all.

Roland asked Kerry, "How many of these can we make?"

Kerry responded, "Mason brought me a box of 300 and I am sure we can find more if we need to." Kerry glanced sideways at Diane, "Considering each one only has a few drops of blood, we shouldn't even need to take any additional blood from Diane."

Diane rolled her eyes and muttered, "Vampires..." Diane's opinion of needles was no secret.

We all chuckled at her reaction before discussing how to check if the epipen was still good or not. It had to be something we could just glance at since it had to be checked in whatever emergency might be at hand. When it lost its glow, it still remained silver, but it was the burning silver that no person would want to be injected into them.

   

   I dug up another blueberry plant and wrapped the big root ball in canvas before putting it on the trailer. Diane, Ace, and about fifty others were also hard at work as we dug up almost every kind of fruit tree in this U-Pick field. Even the smaller apple trees were being carefully dug up.