Chapter 3 - The Shed in the Woods
While I started Leo on a heavy dose of broad-spectrum IV antibiotics and pain management, the local police mobilized. Ramirez had officially taken Greg into custody in the waiting room. The struggle was brief but loud enough that we could hear Greg’s muffled shouting down the hall before the automatic doors slid shut.
My immediate priority was the surgical extraction. Dr. Evans, our on-call maxillofacial surgeon, arrived in scrubs, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. I briefed him outside Room 4. When I showed him the ultrasound stills, all remnants of exhaustion vanished from his face.
"Good God," Evans murmured. "This is dangerously close to the trigeminal nerve. If this thing thrashes during extraction, it could cause irreversible nerve damage. Or worse, if it ruptures, it could trigger a lethal anaphylactic shock."
"We don't have a choice, Mark," I said. "The tissue necrosis is spreading rapidly. The venom or enzymes it’s secreting are digesting the surrounding muscle."
While we prepped the OR, Ramirez approached me in the hallway. His radio crackled with static.
"Doc, my guys just breached the property where the kid lives," Ramirez said, his face pale. "You need to know what we found."
"Tell me."
"It’s an old fishing shack in the woods behind their main house," Ramirez explained, looking sick. "No lights. No heat. The floor is pure mud and rotting wood. They found an old rusty animal trap covered in some kind of invasive carrion fly nest. The mother was in the main house. She’s... she’s in a bad way. High on something, covered in bruises. Greg’s been terrorizing them both, but he used the shed as solitary confinement for the kid."
Anger, hot and sharp, flared in my chest. Nine years old. Locked in a freezing, rotting shed in the Oregon rain, left to be a host for a parasite.
"Bring the mother in for medical evaluation, but keep her separated from Leo," I ordered. "CPS will need to evaluate her fitness, but right now, my patient goes into surgery."
I walked back into Room 4. Leo was drowsy from the pain medication, his breathing shallow.
"Hey, buddy," I said, putting a hand over his uninjured hand. "We're going to take you to a special room now and give you some medicine that will make you fall fast asleep. When you wake up, that heavy feeling in your face will be gone."
Leo looked at me with heavy eyes. "Are you going to be there?"
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"I'm not leaving your side," I promised.
As we wheeled him down the corridor toward the surgical wing, the overhead lights flickered ominously. The storm outside was worsening, rattling the hospital windows, but inside the OR, the environment was perfectly controlled, sterile, and focused.
