The Venomous Crusade

The Venomous Crusade

Dr. Byron Washington

            Dr. Byron Washington was born on February 19, 1962. He was born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. Byron was raised in a very loving home. His mom Klare worked at the hospital as a registered nurse and his dad worked at the postal office as a mail carrier. They both loved their son very much and much of their time was spent with him. They made very sure Byron was always dedicated to his studies while also making sure he enjoyed his childhood.

That dedication to his studies paid of very well for Byron. He excelled in all his subjects in school and even in athletics. Byron was captain of his swimming, basketball and football teams in high school. He was offered scholarships from all the major universities. Byron was a very well admired, respected and loved individual within his community.

With all the major universities requesting his presence at their school for athletics, Byron decided on one more in line with his studies. Therefore, he decided to forgo athletics. He decided to enroll at Princeton University where he majored in pre-med. His parents were so proud of him; although, his dad wished his son would have kept up with athletics, as he loved watching his son play sports; but, he was proud of him just the same.

While at Princeton, he met a girl, and fell madly in love. Her name was Erin Veiner. Byron knew in his heart she was everything he wanted in a woman. She was gorgeous, intelligent, independent, lively, athletic, sweet and kind in his opinion. He decided he would never find a woman more amazing than her. Therefore, at the beginning of his final semester of his senior year, he asked her to marry him. That summer the two got married in a beautiful ceremony surrounded by loving family and friends.

The following semester he was enrolled at Johns Hopkins to pursue his medical degree. During this time Byron and his wife tried to have a baby but with no success. It wasn’t until he was in his final year of residency that she finally got pregnant. They were so excited and had already picked out a name for their baby girl. Sadly, months later Erin started having complications with the pregnancy.

They were faced with a tough decision. One they would never wish on another person. Either they abort the baby or risk them both dying. Byron, because he is bound by the Hippocratic Oath, left the decision to his wife. She decided to take the chance that all would be alright and not abort the baby. Unfortunately, three weeks later, the pregnancy took a turn for the worse and caused the death of her and the fetus.

Saddened and destroyed by the ramification of what transpired to his wife and child, Byron decides to enlist himself in the United States Armed Forces, Army branch. Like everything else Byron decided to pursue, he excelled quickly.  In no time, he was promoted to Captain, yet again. He became the Family Medical Physician for the Army. There he helped plenty of families get their husbands, wives, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and children back home alive. Despite the many disastrous circumstances that tried to prevent that from happening.

After serving his time in the United Stated Army, Byron gets a job at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, NY. On his first day of work, Dr. Byron Washington stumbles upon a child that will change his life forever.

            The sound of sirens came blaring through the hospital’s emergency room. Moments later came a gurney being pushed by two EMS workers. Laying on it was a young boy strapped down. When they approached the doctor, they explained to him what was wrong with the boy. They said to him that all his vitals were fine and that he was just unconscious.

Dr. Washington then asked if the boy was struck by anything. One of the EMS workers told the doctor that there was nothing around him that indicated he was hit and that he had no bruising. So, the attendees immediately started verifying that the boy’s vitals were in fact normal. The doctor walked over to examine the boy. He then told the nurse to get an MRI scheduled. The doctor walked over to the EMS workers and thanked them.

Hours later a police officer came with child protective services looking for the boy. When they were shown to his room, they found Dr. Washington coming out and asked how the boy was doing. Dr. Washington told them that they were just waiting for him to regain consciousness, but all was well. The social worker gave the doctor her card and told him to phone her when the boy was ready to be discharged. He took the card from her and told her he would call when the boy wakes up. The officer then gave the doctor his card as well.  Dr. Washington put both cards in his lab coat as he watched the them walk away.

The following day Dr. Washington goes to check on the boy. He entered the room and walked over to the foot of the bed and checked the chart. He walked over to the boy to check his pulse, meanwhile the boy started waking up. The doctor told him to take it easy and that he was in the hospital. He asked the boy his name. The boy looked up at the doctor and told him his name was Oasis.

He asked the doctor why he was in the hospital and the doctor explained to him what happened the day before. Oasis asked where his parents were. The doctor then looks at him and said that his parents are no longer amongst the living. Oasis looked confused and then started to cry. The doctor tried to comfort the little boy, but he couldn’t stop him from crying.

As the doctor went to go put his hand on the boy’s forehead, he began to shake. Noticing his distress, the doctor proceeded to console the kid. The moment he began to speak, Oasis’ bed started to shake quite vigorously. Suddenly, the chair across the room raised into the air, the medical equipment began to lift as well. Then they all fell back down.

The doctor started looking at all that was happening around him. He looked over at the child who was sitting up weeping in the bed. The doctor realized what truly what was going on. He quickly ran to the cabinet in the room, unlocked the door and took a syringe and a little bottle out. He placed the needle in the bottle and filled the syringe with Haldol.

After doing so, he walked over to Oasis and placed the needle in his arm and everything in the room stopped moving. Unable to keep his eyes open any longer, he laid his head down and fell asleep. The doctor stood there with his arms folded and one finger pressed to his lips while looking at the little boy sleeping. He looked up at the door and thought to himself that he couldn’t hand this boy over to the authorities or child protective services.

What the doctor did next would be considered quite foolish by anyone; yet, the doctor did not care. He feared that Oasis would be placed in a system that would surely corrupt his spirit. He also feared that if anyone found out what this boy could do, it would be catastrophic. He was scared they would turn him into a lab rat, or worse, kill him. So, the doctor concocted a scheme to kidnap the boy.

Three weeks later Dr. Washington gets a knock on his office door. When he opens the door, he finds the lady from child protective services standing there beaming at him. He asked how he could help her. She told him that she was there to check up on the bot who was in the New York tremor three weeks ago. The doctor expressed confusion and then said, “Oh that kid! I honestly forgot all about him. Let us go see.” He then closed the door and escorted her down the hall toward the elevators.

When they got to Oasis’s floor, he turned to the lady and asked how she was doing. She responded that she was doing well. Making small talk, he then asked her if she liked the Knicks. She looked at him and muttered that she does not like watching sports. The doctor smiled and told her that some people just can’t understand the thrill of the conquest. She looked at him and gave a slight shake of her head and rolled of her eyes.

“Here we are,” the doctor said as they reached the nurse’s station. The nurse stood up and greeted him, “Good afternoon doctor.” The doctor responded, “Hello Diane, how are you?” “Not too well actually,” she replied. Dr. Washington leans over on the desk and asked her why. She told him that she had to sleep all alone the night before. “Well at least you didn’t have someone stealing your covers and kicking you throughout the night,” he said in response.

The nurse seductively smiled at him and said, “I wouldn’t mind that too much with the right person.” The social worker started to get a bit impatient and softly coughed. Dr. Washington stands up straight, looks at her and apologized. He turned toward the nurse and asked about Oasis. She turned to her patient files on her desk and the records wasn’t there.

With dismay, she relayed that find and the social worker gasped. The doctor turned to the social and said to her, “Don’t worry, we will figure out what is going on.” He inquired if the boy had been moved or scheduled for tests or was experiencing a hot bubble bath. The nurse smiled and then turned to her computer to look up his record. Once she found Oasis’ file, she opened it to find that he hadn’t been in that room for weeks.

The doctor asked the nurse if the patient was released and she said that there was no record of that neither. Dr. Washington asked what possibly could have happened to the boy. With a startled look on her face, she can only shake her head as she didn’t know.  They all just stared at each other. Then Dr. Washington raised both his hands as the social worker began to speak and said, “We will get to the bottom of this, maybe he was just moved to a different wing of the hospital and someone just forgot to document it.”

After a massive sweep of the hospital and going over hours of surveillance footage, there was no sign of Oasis. The social worker asked how they could have lost the boy. Dr. Washington apologized for the misplacement and took full responsibility. With the embarrassment of this incident for the hospital, the hospital’s board of directors requested his resignation. Though sad, Dr. Washington accepted their request and handed in his written resignation.

Two months after things calmed down, he sold his house and packed up his things. He stuffed as much as he could in his Ford Explorer. With Oasis as company, the two embarked on a trip across multiple states to make the city of Hammond, Louisiana their new home.

THE VENOMOUS CRUSADE

One person’s thirst for retribution restores another’s purpose to prevent the annihilation of mankind.