Things are bustling at Lidokork General, a hospital right in the heart of the city. The ER is hopping (rash of food poisoning from a raw-foods bistro), the pharmacy is backed up (one too many pharmacist at home sick with strep) and the jocks in Ortho are horsing around, as usual. One of them, Dr. Crank, is giving Dr. Dratoc a hard time.
“So, Dratoc, heard you cured a zombie last week.”
Dratoc sighs. He doesn’t have time for this. He’s got a patient in 14B who isn’t responding to antibiotics, and her necrotizing fasciitis may require debridement, and he is not looking forward to his consult with the resident otolaryngologist. Talk about the walking dead. The guy’s breath could knock a buzzard off an offal wagon.
“Did you say zombie?” A police officer, walking by the nurse’s station, stops for a second.
The ortho surgeons burst out laughing. Dr. Crank claps Dr. Dratoc on the back. “Here’s your man, sergeant!”
The cop glares at Dr. Crank, who doesn’t seem to notice, then turns to Dr. Dratoc. “I just brought a guy in, caught him trying to break into a pill-lab on the east side. The doc in ER doesn’t know what to make of him. Teeth all busted, eyes bloodshot, running sores on his arms and legs. I swear he looks like an honest to god zombie.”
Dr. Dratoc takes a deep breath, sighs again. “Show me.”
###
It’s called Krokodil, a mixture of codeine, paint thinner, gasoline, and whatever else the pushers who make it can find in their garages. The high has been described as comparable to heroin, although it can be more intense, and much briefer. As an opiate-based drug, it’s terribly addictive, and abusers wind up taking more not just because it’s so cheap, but because they want to avoid the excruciating withdrawl.
But the worst part is the toxic effect it has on the body. People who shoot up krokodil develop green spots at the sight of injection almost immediately, and subsequently gangrene. Their flesh starts to literally rot away in places, which means they have to choose a different spot on their body for the next injection. More exposure to the corrosive chemicals: more gangrene. Abusers don’t last more than a few years.
If they’re lucky. The drug doesn’t just effect the skin, but any major organ, every major organ. Including an especially the brain. Imagine someone shuffling towards you with rotting skin, groaning through a decaying larynx, eyes vacant from brain damage. Sound familiar?
###
Dr. Dratoc follows the police officer into one of the ER examination rooms, where a young man sits, handcuffed to the bed. It’s just as the cop described: open wounds on the kid’s arms and legs, skin turning green, blackened in places. Dratoc does a cursory examination, and finds track marks in the few places where the skin is still more or less clean.
The doctor shakes his head. “Krokodil. Not very common in the US. In fact, I think there have been less than ten reported cases this year.” So far, he doesn’t say out loud.
The police officer makes a face. “I figured he was on meth. What’s Krokodil?”
“Let me put it this way,” Dr. Dratoc says, grabbing forms to admit the junkie into intensive care. “If you had to choose between Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead, which TV show would you rather live in?”
The cop makes another face. The junkie gurgles
Dr. Dratoc nods. “Yeah. This is like both.”
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