Plague: A gripping suspense thriller about an incurable outbreak in Miami

by Graham Masterton

  ‘How’s David?’ he shouted.

  ‘I don’t know – bad,’ said the father. ‘He looks kinda blue.’

  Dr. Petrie could feel the sweat sliding down his armpits. He clenched his teeth as he drove, and thought of nothing at all but reaching the hospital on time.

  He swung the Lincoln in a sharp, tire-howling turn, and in the distance he could see the white hospital building. They might make it yet.

  But just at that moment, without warning, a huge green refrigerated truck rolled across in front of them, and stopped, blocking the entire street. Dr. Petrie shouted, ‘Shit!’ and jammed on the Lincoln’s brakes.

  He opened the car window and leaned out. The driver of the truck, a heavy-looking redneck in a greasy trucker’s cap, was lighting himself a cigar prior to maneuvering his vehicle into a side entrance.

  ‘Out of the goddamn way!’ yelled Dr. Petrie. ‘Get that truck out of the goddamn way!’

  The truck driver tossed away a spent match and searched for another.

  ‘What’s the hurry, mac?’ he called back. ‘Don’t get so worked up – you’ll give yourself an ulcer.’

  ‘I’m a doctor! I have a sick kid in this car! I have to get him to hospital!’

  The driver shrugged. ‘When they open the gates, I’ll move out of your way. But I ain’t shifting till I’m good and ready.’

  ‘For God’s sake!’ shouted Dr. Petrie. ‘I mean it. This kid is seriously ill!’

  The truck driver blew smoke. ‘I don’t see no kid,’ he remarked. He looked around to see if the gates were open yet, so that he could back the truck up.

  Dr. Petrie had to close his eyes to control his fury. Then he spun the Lincoln on to the sidewalk, bouncing over the kerb, and drove around the truck’s front fender. A hydrant scraped a long dent all the way down the Lincoln’s wing, and Dr. Petrie felt the underside of the car jar against the concrete as he drove back on to the street on the other side of the truck.

  Three more precious minutes passed before he pulled the car to a halt in front of the hospital’s emergency unit. The orderlies were waiting for him with a trolley. He lifted David out of the back of the car like a loose-jointed marionette, and laid him gently down. The orderlies wheeled him off straight away.

  Mr. Kelly leaned against the car. His face was drawn and sweaty. ‘Jesus,’ he whispered. ‘I thought we’d never make it. Is he going to be all right?’

  Dr. Petrie rested a hand on Mr. Kelly’s shoulder. ‘Don’t you doubt it, Mr. Kelly. He’s a very sick boy, but they know what they’re doing in this place. They’ll look after him.’

  Mr. Kelly nodded. He was too exhausted to argue.

  ‘If you want to wait in the waiting-room, Mr. Kelly – just go into the main entrance there and ask the receptionist. She’ll tell you where it is. When I’ve talked to David’s doctors. I’ll come and let you know what’s happening.’

  Mr. Kelly nodded again. ‘Thanks, doctor,’ he said. ‘You’ll – make sure they look after Davey, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Dr. Petrie left Mr. Kelly to find his way to the waiting-room. He pushed through the swing doors outside the emergency unit, and walked down the long, cream-colored corridor until he reached the room he was looking for.

  Through the windows, he could see his old friend Dr. Selmer talking to a group of doctors and nurses, and holding up various blood samples. Dr. Petrie rapped on the door.

  ‘How’s it going?’ he asked, when Dr. Selmer came out. Anton Selmer was a short, gingery-haired man with a broad nose and plentiful freckles. He always put Dr. Petrie in mind of Mickey Rooney. He had a slight astigmatism, and wore heavy horn-rimmed eyeglasses.

  Dr. Selmer, in his green surgical robes, pulled a face. ‘Well, I don’t know about this one, Leonard. I really can’t say. We’re making some blood and urine and sputum analyses right now. But I’m sure glad you brought him in.’

  ‘Have you any clues at all?’

  Dr. Selmer shrugged. What can I say? You were right when you said it looked a little like cholera, but it obviously isn’t just cholera. The throat and the lungs are seriously infected, and there’s swelling around the limbs and the joints. It may be some really rare kind of allergy, but it looks more like a contagious disease. A very virulent disease, too.’

  Dr. Petrie rubbed his bristly chin.

  ‘Say,’ grinned Dr. Selmer. ‘You look as though you’ve been celebrating something.’

  Dr. Petrie gave him half a smile. ‘Every divorced man is entitled to celebrate his good fortune once in a while,’ he replied. ‘Actually, it was the golf club party.’

  ‘By the look of you, I’m not sorry I missed it. You look like death.’

  A pretty dark-haired nurse came out of the emergency unit doors and both men watched her walk down the corridor with abstracted interest.

  Dr. Petrie said, ‘If it’s contagious, we’d better see about inoculating the parents. And we’d better find out where he picked it up. Apart from that, I wouldn’t mind a shot myself.’

  When we know what it is,’ said Selmer, ‘we’ll inoculate everybody in sight. Jesus, we’ve just gotten rid of the winter flu epidemic. The last thing I want is an outbreak of cholera.’

  What a great way to start the week,’ said Dr. Petrie. ‘They don’t even live in my district. The guy runs a garage on North West 20th.’

  Dr. Selmer took of his green surgical cap. ‘I always knew you were the guardian angel for the whole of Miami, Leonard. I can just see you up there on Judgement Day, sitting at God’s right hand. Or maybe second from the right.’

  Dr. Petrie grinned. ‘One of these days, Anton, a bolt of lightning will strike you down for your unbelieving. You know, I bent my goddamn car on the way here. Some sen of a bitch in a truck was blocking the street, and I had to drive over the sidewalk. Would you believe he just sat there and lit a cigar?’

  Dr. Selmer raised his gingery eyebrows. ‘It’s the selfish society, Leonard. I’m all right, and screw you Charlie.’ They started to walk together down the corridor. ‘I guess that must have been when it happened,’ Dr. Selmer said.

  ‘When what happened?’

  ‘When the boy died.’

  Dr. Petrie stopped, and stared at him hard. ‘You mean he’s dead?’

  Dr. Selmer took his arm. ‘Leonard – I’m sorry. I thought you realized. He was dead on arrival. You better have your car cleaned out if he was sitting in the back. You wouldn’t want to catch this thing yourself.’

  Dr. Petrie nodded. He felt stunned. He saw a lot of death, but the death that visited his own clientele was the shadowy death of old age, of failing hearts and hardened arteries.

  The people who died under Dr. Petrie’s care were reconciled to their mortality. But young David Kelly was just nine years old, and today he was supposed to have gone to the Monkey Jungle.

  ‘Anton,’ said Dr. Petrie, ‘I’ll catch you later. I have to tell the father.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Dr. Selmer. ‘But don’t forget to tell both parents to come in for a check-up. I don’t want this kind of disease spreading.’

  Dr. Petrie walked quickly down the fluorescent-lit corridors to the waiting-room. Before he pushed open the door, he looked through the small circular window, and saw Mr. Kelly sitting hunched on a red plastic chair, smoking and trying to read yesterday’s Miami Herald.

  He didn’t know what the hell he was going to say. How do you tell a man that his only son, his nine-year-old son, has just died?

  Finally, he pushed open the door. Mr. Kelly looked up quickly, and there was questioning hope in his face.

  ‘Did you see him?’ Mr. Kelly asked. ‘Is he okay?’

  Dr. Petrie laid his hand on the man’s shoulder and pressed him gently back into his seat. He sat down himself, and looked into Mr. Kelly’s tired but optimistic eyes with all the sympathy and care he could muster. When he spoke, his voice was soft and quiet, expressing feeling that went far deeper than bedside manner.

  ‘Mr. Kelly,’
he said. ‘I’m sorry to tell you that David is dead.’

  Mr. Kelly’s mouth formed a question, but the question was never spoken. He simply stared at Dr. Petrie as if he didn’t know where he was, or what had happened. He was still sitting, still staring, as the tears began to fill his eyes and run down his cheeks.

  Dr. Petrie stood up. ‘Come on,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll drive you home.’

  *

  By the time he got back to his clinic, his assistant Esther had already arrived, opened his mail, and poured his fresh-squeezed orange juice into its tall frosted glass. She was sitting at her desk, her long legs self-consciously crossed and her skirt hiked high, typing with the hesitant delicacy of an effete woodpecker. After all, she didn’t want to break her long scarlet nails. She was twenty-one – a tall bouffant blonde with glossy red lips and a gaspy little voice. She wore a crisp white jacket that was stretched out in front of her by heavy, enormous breasts, and she teetered around the clinic on silver stilettos.

  For all her ritz, though, Esther was trained, cool and practical. Dr. Petrie had seen her comfort an old woman in pain, and he knew that words didn’t come any warmer. Apart from that, he enjoyed Esther’s hero-worship, and the suppressed rage of his medical colleagues whenever he attended a doctor’s convention with her in tow.

  ‘Good morning, doctor,’ said Esther pertly, when he walked in. ‘I looked for you in your bedroom, but you weren’t around.’

  ‘Disappointed?’ he said, perching himself on the edge of her desk.

  Esther pouted her shiny red lips. ‘A little. You never know when Nurse Cinderella might get lucky and catch Dr. Charming’s eye.’

  Dr. Petrie grinned. ‘Any calls?’

  ‘Just two. Mrs. Vicincki wants to drop by at eleven. She says her ankle’s giving her purgatory. And your wife.’ Dr. Petrie stood up and took off his jacket. ‘My ex-wife,’ he corrected.

  ‘Sorry. Your ex-wife. She said you’d have to pick your daughter up tonight instead of tomorrow, because she’s going to visit her mother in Fort Lauderdale.’

  Dr. Petrie rubbed his eyes. ‘I see. I don’t suppose she said what time tonight.’

  ‘Seven. Priscilla will be waiting for you.’

  ‘Okay. What time’s my first appointment?’

  ‘In ten minutes. Mrs. Fairfax. All her records are on your table. There isn’t much mail, so you should get through it all by then.’

  Dr. Petrie looked mock-severe. ‘You really have me organized, don’t you?’

  Esther made big blue eyes at him. ‘Isn’t that what clinical assistants are for?’

  He patted her shoulder. ‘I sometimes wonder,’ he said. ‘If you feel like making me some very strong black coffee, you may even find out.’

  ‘Sure thing,’ said Esther, and stood up. ‘Just remember, though, that a girl can’t wait for ever. Not even for Prince Valiant, M.D.’

  Dr. Petrie went through to his clinic. It was built on the east side of the house – a large split-level room with one wide glass wall that overlooked a stone-flagged patio and Dr. Petrie’s glittering blue swimming pool. The room was richly carpeted in cool deep green, and there were calm, mathematical modem paintings on every wall. By the fine gauzy drapes of the window stood a pale marble statue of a running horse.

  Dr. Petrie sat in his big revolving armchair and picked at the mail on his desk. Usually, he went through it fast and systematically, but today his mind was thrown off. He sipped his orange juice and tried not to think about David Kelly’s flour-white face, and the anguished shivers of his grieving father.

  There wasn’t much mail, anyway. A couple of drug samples, a medical journal, and a letter from his attorney telling him that Margaret, his ex-wife, was declining to return his favorite landscape painting from the one-time marital home. He hadn’t expected to get it back, anyway. Margaret considered that the home, and all of its contents, were fair pickings.

  Esther came teetering in with his coffee. The way her breasts bounced and swayed under her white jacket, she couldn’t be wearing a bra. Dr. Petrie wondered what she’d look like nude; but then decided that the real thing would probably spoil his fantasy.

  She set the coffee down on his desk, and stared at him carefully. ‘You don’t seem yourself this morning.’

  ‘Who do I seem like? Richard Chamberlain?’

  ‘No, I don’t mean that. I mean you don’t look well.’

  Dr. Petrie stirred Sweet ‘n’ Low into his coffee, and tapped the spoon carefully on the side of the cup.

  ‘I’m worried,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’

  Esther looked at him seriously. ‘Is there anything I can do?’

  He raised his eyes. He gave a half smile, and then shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. It was what happened this morning. I was called out to help a young kid downtown. His father came all the way up here because I was recommended. He wanted the best, he said. But it was too late. The kid died on the way to hospital. He was only nine.’

  ‘That’s awful.’

  Dr. Petrie rubbed the back of his neck tiredly. ‘I know. It’s awful. And that’s all that I can say about it or do about it. I don’t often feel inadequate, Esther, but I do right now.’

  She gently laid her hand on him. ‘If it helps any,’ she said, ‘you ought to think about the people you’ve saved.’

  Just then, the phone bleeped. Esther picked it up, and said, ‘Dr. Petrie’s clinic – can I help you?’ She listened, and nodded, and then handed the phone over. ‘It’s for you,’ she said. ‘It’s Miss Murry.’

  Dr. Petrie took the receiver. ‘You don’t have to look so disapproving,’ he told Esther. ‘You and me, we’re like the dynamic duo – Batman and Robin. Inseparable.’

  Esther collected his empty orange-juice glass and tidied up his mail. ‘How can we be inseparable, if we’ve never been together?’ she asked provocatively teasing him, and teetered back to her desk.

  Adelaide Murry sounded out of breath. Dr. Petrie said, ‘Hi. You sound breathless.’

  ‘I am,’ said the sweet little voice on the other end of the phone. ‘I’ve just played three sets with the new pro.’

  ‘Is he good?’

  ‘He’s not exactly Björn Borg, but he’s better than his late unlamented predecessor. A bit heavy with the forearm smashes. Proving his virility, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  Dr. Petrie laughed. ‘I used to like his late unlamented predecessor. He was the only tennis club pro I could ever beat.’

  ‘Darling,’ said Adelaide, ‘the club dog could beat his late unlamented predecessor.’

  ‘Well,’ retorted Dr. Petrie, ‘what’s wrong with that? Listen – do you want me to pick you up at the club tonight?’

  ‘Are you coming this way?’

  ‘I have to pick up Priscilla.’

  ‘Tonight? I thought it was tomorrow! Oh, darling – what about our elegant intelligent dinner-for-two on the Starlight Roof?’

  Dr. Petrie took a deep breath. He knew that Adelaide wasn’t crazy about Priscilla – maybe because Adelaide, at nineteen, was still just a little girl herself.

  ‘We can eat at home,’ said Dr. Petrie. ‘That Polynesian place delivers. And champagne, too. How about that?’

  Adelaide was sulking. ‘It’s hardly romantic. I feel like doing something romantic. Eating at home is so ghoulish. You have to wash your own dishes.’

  Dr. Petrie ran his hands through his hair. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I’ll buy two candles, a single red rose, and a new Leonard Bernstein record. Is that romantic enough for you?’

  Adelaide gave a deep mock sigh. ‘I should have dated my Uncle Charlie. At least he knows how to twist. All right, darling. I surrender, as usual. What time will you get here?’

  ‘Six-thirty. And listen – I love you.’

  ‘I love you too. I just hope this phone isn’t tapped. They’d report you to the medical council for suggestive conduct.’

  Dr. Petrie shook his head in exasperation, and laid the phone down.

 
; Esther was helping Mrs. Fairfax into the clinic. Mrs. Fairfax was the sole survivor of the Fairfax food family, who had made their millions out of early freeze-drying techniques. She was a slender old lady with a sharp, penetrating face and a violet rinse. She walked on two sticks, but she held herself upright, and Dr. Petrie knew from uncomfortable experience that she had a sharp tongue.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs. Fairfax,’ he said smoothly. ‘Are you feeling well?’

  Mrs. Fairfax sat herself laboriously down in one of Dr. Petrie’s two white Italian armchairs. She propped her sticks against the glass-topped coffee table, and spread her elegant blue-flowered dress around her.

  ‘If I were well, Dr. Petrie,’ she said icily, ‘I should not be here.’

  Dr. Petrie left his desk and went to sit beside her in another armchair. He always preferred the informal touch. It made patients feel easier; it even made them feel healthier.

  ‘Is your hip bothering you again?’ he asked sympathetically.

  Mrs. Fairfax gave a histrionic sigh. ‘My dear doctor, there is absolutely nothing wrong with my hip. But there is a great deal wrong with my beach.’

  Dr. Petrie frowned. He could see himself frowning in the large smokey mirror opposite his chair. He wondered if, despite his looks, he was beginning to get old.

  ‘Your beach?’ he enquired politely. He was used to the eccentricities of wealthy old widows.

  ‘It’s absolutely disgusting,’ she said coldly. She brushed back her violet hair with a tanned, elegant claw. Today, her fingers were encrusted with sapphires, but Dr. Petrie knew that she had as many rings for every color of dress she ever wore.

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘What’s wrong with it? I don’t know how you can ask! Haven’t you read the newspapers?’

  Dr. Petrie shook his head. ‘I haven’t had much time recently for the Miami Herald.’