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

by Graham Masterton

  ‘I’m surprised you didn’t leave town along with the rest of your buddies,’ said Adelaide tartly.

  ‘Why should I?’ said the cab driver, turning the car towards the hospital. ‘I can make a few bucks here in the city. I’ve lived here all my life. Look – there’s another stiff on the sidewalk – right there.’

  They looked, and saw the body of a woman in a blue-and-green dress lying on the concrete sidewalk outside a delicatessen. Her basket of groceries had spilled all over the pavement, and her arms were drawn up underneath her like a sick child.

  The delicatessen proprietor was standing in his doorway staring at her, but what struck Dr. Petrie more than anything else was the attitude of the few passers-by. They stepped over the sprawling woman as if she and her shopping were quite invisible.

  Dr. Petrie said, ‘Don’t slow down. I have to get to the hospital as soon as I can.’

  Adelaide was pale. ‘Leonard,’ she said. ‘That woman.’

  Dr. Petrie looked away. ‘There’s nothing we can do. She’s probably dead already.’

  The taxi driver puffed his cigar. ‘You bet she’s dead. I hear tell they got so many stiffs in the streets, they’re going to start collecting them with garbage trucks.’

  Adelaide looked shocked. ‘Yes,’ Dr. Petrie said, ‘I heard that too.’

  Dr. Selmer was waiting for him in his private office. The corridors outside were jammed with medical trolleys, and the weeping and wailing relatives of the dead were adding to the confusion of amateur ambulance drivers and local doctors who had been brought in to console the sick. All that was left to give was consolation. In spite of every kind of antibiotic treatment, people who caught the plague were dying with the inevitability of mayflies.

  ‘Firenza was on the phone about an hour ago,’ said Anton Selmer, leaning back wearily in his large leather chair, and resting his feet on his cluttered desk. ‘He’s agreed to close the beaches.’

  ‘What’s the death toll?’ asked Dr. Petrie, taking off his jacket and rolling up his sleeves.

  ‘About a hundred and twenty so far. That’s with this hospital and all the others. Add to that another thirty who may be lying dead in their apartments or in the streets, and you’ve probably got yourself a reasonably accurate figure.’

  ‘The city’s real quiet. I thought it would have been more.’

  Dr. Selmer shook his sandy head. ‘Don’t worry, Leonard. It will be more before the day’s over. Every one of those dead people came into contact with seven or eight or maybe even more live people, and every one of those live people, right now, is incubating the plague bacillus.’

  ‘What about quarantine? Did Firenza mention that?’

  ‘He said that he’s talking to Becker, when the mayor flies back from Washington this afternoon. Between them, they’re going to decide what emergency action they ought to take.’

  Dr. Petrie heaved a sigh. ‘For the first time in five years, I feel like smoking a cigarette.’

  Anton Selmer pushed a wooden box across the desk. ‘Have one,’ he said. ‘It might even be your last.’

  Adelaide knocked on the door and came in. She had been down in the ladies’ room, washing her face and repairing her make-up. She looked pale and tense, and her hands were trembling.

  ‘Hallo, Adelaide,’ Anton Selmer said. ‘Take a seat. Can I fix you a drink? I have some fine medicinal whiskey.’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Leonard?’

  ‘I’ll take a beer. The way this city’s going, I’m not sure how long it’s going to be before we taste cold beer again.’ Selmer fixed the drinks. ‘I wish I knew how this city was going, Leonard. It seems to be impossible to get any straight information. Either the newspapers are blind and deaf, or else they’re following a deliberate policy of keeping this thing quiet. It’s the same with the TV channels. They all keep saying that the epidemic is isolated, and that it’s containable, and that it won’t spread. But, Jesus Christ, you only have to come here to the hospital, or walk out into the streets, and you can see that something’s wrong. We have a major epidemic on our hands, Leonard, and yet everybody in charge of anything seems to be smiling and waving and making out it’s nothing worse than a slight headcold.’

  Adelaide said, ‘Doesn’t the government know? What about the federal health people? Surely they’ve been informed? Even if they haven’t, they must be worried.’

  Dr. Petrie pulled the ring of his flip-top can, and took a freezing mouthful of beer. He stood up and walked across to the window. Through the Venetian blinds, he could see the sparse streets of downtown Miami, and the afternoon sun on the white buildings opposite. High in the sky, a long horse’s-tail of cirrus cloud was curled by the wind.

  ‘Maybe they do know,’ he said. ‘Maybe they’re helping to keep the whole thing quiet. I haven’t heard any airplanes coming out from the airport this morning, Anton.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ said Dr. Selmer. ‘As a precautionary measure, the baggage handlers at Miami International Airport have suddenly decided to go on strike, which means all Miami flights are being diverted to Palm Beach or Tampa.’

  ‘That’s convenient. Maybe Firenza does take this plague more seriously than we think. What about boats?’

  Dr. Selmer shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but I guess they’re working the same kind of stunt there.’

  ‘But why no official quarantine?’ frowned Dr. Petrie. ‘I know this thing has spread in just a few hours, but surely there’s somebody around with enough nous to seal the city off for a while, even if Firenza won’t do it.’

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ said Dr. Selmer. ‘The official line is perfectly straightforward. We have a minor epidemic of something akin to Spanish influenza which we expect to have run its course by the end of the week. I’ve seen it on the television, and I’ve read it in the paper. Here.’

  He leafed through a stack of letters and manila files, and produced the morning’s paper. The main headline read: Twenty Die In Influenza Outbreak.

  ‘That’s incredible,’ Adelaide said. ‘There are people lying around in the streets dead. Why don’t they print the truth?’

  Dr. Petrie shuffled through the newspaper until he found the telephone number of its city desk. Without a word, he picked up Dr. Selmer’s phone, and dialed. He waited while it rang, and Adelaide and Anton watched him in tense anticipation.

  The girl on the newspaper’s switchboard answered, and Dr. Petrie asked for the city desk.

  There was a long pause, and then finally he was switched through. A nasal, surly sub-editor answered. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Maybe you can. My name is Dr. Leonard Petrie and I’m down at the hospital here with Dr. Anton Selmer. Look, I’ve just seen your morning edition and it doesn’t seem to bear any relation to what we know to be the real facts.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘What we have here is a form of Pasteurella pestis, which is the medical name for plague. It’s very virulent, and very dangerous, and so far as we know to date, almost a hundred and fifty people have died. By the end of the day, it could be five or six times that figure.’

  There was a silence. The sub-editor coughed, and then said, ‘Well, Dr. Petrie. Your theory is very interesting.’

  ‘What are you talking about? These are facts! I’ve seen dead people on the streets myself!’

  ‘Oh, sure.’

  ‘Aren’t you interested? Isn’t this newsworthy? Or have you gotten so goddamned deadened to violence that when a hundred and fifty Miami residents die of the plague, it only rates two lines on the inside page?’

  ‘I am not deadened to violence, Dr. Petrie. I am simply doing my job.’

  Dr. Petrie frowned. ‘I wish I knew what your job was. So far, it seems to amount to out-and-out misrepresentation.’

  ‘I resent that. Dr. Petrie.’

  ‘Oh you do, huh? Well, I resent a newspaper that deliberately obscures the truth.’

  The sub-editor sighed. ‘Dr. Petrie, we’re not dummies. We know what’s going on
, and so does City Hall and the County Health Department and the US Disease Control people in Washington.’

  ‘Well, there isn’t much evidence of it.’

  ‘Of course not. We’ve already been briefed along with all of the other media that we have to play this thing right down. No screams, no shouts.’

  ‘No facts?’ said Dr. Petrie, incredulous.

  The sub-editor sighed again. ‘Dr. Petrie, do you have any idea what would happen if the majority of people in Miami became aware that plague was loose in the city? Panic, looting, robbery, violence – the city would die overnight. Apart from that, people carrying plague would spread over the surrounding countryside faster than you could say epidemic. It’s not the way we usually do things, this play-down policy, but in this particular case we felt obliged to agree.’

  Dr. Petrie was silent.

  ‘The city health people have known about the plague since Friday of last week,’ the sub-editor continued. ‘A young baby in Hialeah went down with it, and died. The doctors did a routine test, and passed the information to Mr. Firenza. He went straight to the federal health authorities, they sought higher sanction, and the government decided that fewer people would be exposed to risk if they kept it quiet.’

  Dr. Petrie said, ‘You can’t keep it quiet! The rumors are going around already. Have you seen US 1 and the North-South Expressway? People are beginning to drive out of Miami like rats out of a sinking ship.’

  The sub-editor coughed. ‘They won’t get far.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, you’re not supposed to know this, doctor, but you’re bound to find out sooner or later. Every route out of Miami is sealed off. The whole city has been in the bag since about midnight last night. The National Guard have orders to stop and detain anyone trying to leave or enter the city limits.’

  ‘And what about people who insist?’

  ‘They’re detained along with the rest of them.’

  Dr. Petrie rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ he said wearily. ‘I guess you’ve told me all there is to know.’

  ‘I just hope you see what we’re doing in the right light,’ said the sub editor, with unexpected sincerity. ‘I mean, we love this city, and we’re real worried about this plague, but if we let the pig out of the sack, this whole place is going to be ripped apart in five minutes flat. Especially when people realize that they can’t escape.’

  Dr. Petrie nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I should think you’re right.’ Then he laid the phone back down, and sat there for two or three minutes with his head in his hands.

  ‘Well?’ said Adelaide. ‘What was all that about? Don’t keep us in suspense.’

  He took her hand, and squeezed it. ‘It appears that we have been taken for mugs. Donald Firenza and his health department have known about the plague since Friday. As soon as they identified it, they sought advice from the federal government, which is probably the real reason that Becker is in Washington. The federal government has covertly sealed off Miami during the night, and is arresting and detaining anyone who tries to get in or out.’ Dr. Selmer said, open-mouthed, ‘They knew? They knew about the plague all along and they didn’t warn us?’

  ‘I guess they realized that warnings were futile. This plague kills people so fast, the whole population might have contracted it by now. All they want to do is stop it spreading.’

  ‘But what are they doing about it? Are they trying to find an antidote? What are they doing about us? They can’t just seal off a whole city and let it die.’

  Dr. Petrie drummed his fingers on the edge of Dr. Selmer’s desk.

  ‘No,’ he said softly. ‘I don’t suppose they can.’

  *

  Throughout the afternoon, and into the evening, it became clear that the plague was spreading through Miami and the suburbs like a brushfire on a dry day. Dr. Petrie and Dr. Selmer tried several times to get through to Washington, and to Donald Firenza, but the telephone switchboards were constantly busy. They were aware that four of their plague victims had been telephone operators, so it was likely that the exchange was seriously undermanned.

  They worked hour after hour in the bald fluorescent light of the emergency ward, sweating in their flea-proof clothing, comforting the dying and easing the pain of the sick. Dr. Petrie saw an old woman of ninety-six die in feverish agony; a young boy of five shuddering and breathing his last painful breaths; a twenty-five-year-old wife die with her unborn baby still inside her.

  Ambulances and private cars still jammed the hospital forecourt, bringing more and more people to the wards, even though the regular ambulance drivers had almost all sickened and died. Nurses made makeshift beds from folded blankets, and laid the whispering, white, dying people down in the corridors.

  During a break in his work. Dr. Petrie stood in one of those corridors and looked around him. It was like a scene from a strange war, or some whispering asylum. He rubbed the sweat from his eyes and went back to his latest patient.

  Dr. Selmer looked up from giving a streptomycin shot to a young teenage girl with red hair. ‘What’s it like out there?’ he said hoarsely. ‘Are they still coming in?’

  Leonard Petrie nodded. ‘They’re still coming in, all right. How many do you reckon now?’

  Dr. Selmer shrugged. ‘If all the hospitals are coping with the same amount of patients – well, six or seven hundred. Maybe more than a thousand. Maybe even more than that.’

  Dr. Petrie shook his head. ‘It’s like hell,’ he said. ‘It’s like being in hell.’

  ‘Sure. Would you take a look at Dr. Parkes? He doesn’t seem too well.’

  Dr. Parkes was an elderly physician who used to have a practise out at Opa Locka. Dr. Petrie had met him a few times on the golf course, and liked him. Now, across the crowded emergency ward, he could see Dr. Parkes wiping his forehead unsteadily, and taking off his spectacles.

  ‘Dr. Parkes?’ he said, pushing his way past two part-time trolley porters.

  Dr. Parkes reached out and leaned against him. ‘I’m all right,’ he said quietly. ‘I just need a moment’s rest.’

  ‘Dr. Parkes, do you want a shot?’

  ‘No, no,’ said the gray-haired old man. ‘Don’t you worry about me. I’ll be all right. I’m just tired.’

  Dr. Petrie shrugged. ‘Well, if you say so. You’re the doctor.’

  Dr. Parkes smiled. Then he turned away from Dr. Petrie, and immediately collapsed, falling face-first into a tray of surgical instruments, and scattering them all over the floor.

  ‘Nurse!’ Dr. Petrie shouted. ‘Give me a hand with Dr. Parkes!’

  They lifted the old man on to a bed, and Dr. Petrie loosened the pale blue necktie from his wrinkled throat. The elderly doctor was breathing heavily and irregularly, and it was obvious that he was close to death.

  ‘Dr. Parkes,’ said Dr. Petrie, taking his hand.

  Dr. Parkes opened his pale eyes, and gave a soft and rueful look. ‘I thought I was too old to get sick,’ he said quietly.

  ‘You’ll make it,’ said Dr. Petrie. ‘Maybe you’re just tired, like you said.’

  Dr. Parkes shook his head. ‘You can’t kid me, Petrie. Here – lift up my left hand for me, would you?’

  Dr. Petrie lifted the old man’s liver-spotted hand. There was a heavy gold ring on it, embossed with the symbol of a snake and a staff, the classical sign of medical healing.

  ‘My mother gave me that ring,’ whispered Dr. Parkes. ‘She was sure I was going to be famous. She’s been dead a long time now, bless her heart. But I want you – I want you to take the ring – and see if it brings you more luck than me.’

  ‘I can’t do that.’

  ‘Yes you can,’ breathed Dr. Parkes. ‘You can do it to please an old man.’

  Dr. Petrie tugged the ring from Dr. Parke’s finger, and pushed it uncertainly on to his own hand.

  Dr. Parkes smiled. ‘It suits you, son. It suits you.’

  He was still smiling when he died. Dr. Petri
e covered his face with a paper towel. They had long since run out of sheets.

  Anton Selmer came across, patting the sweat from his face. ‘Is he dead?’ he asked, unnecessarily. Dr. Petrie nodded.

  ‘I think I’m becoming immune,’ said Dr. Selmer. ‘Even if I’m not immune to the plague, I’m immune to watching my friends die. I don’t even want to think how many good doctors and nurses we’ve lost here today.’

  Dr. Petrie fingered the ring. ‘It makes you wonder whether it’s worth it. Whether we should just leave all this, and get the hell out.’

  Dr. Selmer tied a fresh mask around his face. ‘If there was any place to get the hell out to,’ he said, ‘I’d go. I think we have to face the fact that we’re caught like rats in a barrel.’

  The ward doors swung open again, and they turned to see what fresh victims were being wheeled in. This time, it looked like something different. A young dark-haired boy of nineteen was lying on the medical trolley, with his right side soaked in blood. He was moaning and whimpering, and when the amateur ambulance attendants tried to ease him on to a bed, he screamed out loud.

  Dr. Selmer and Dr. Petrie helped to make him comfortable. Dr. Selmer gave him a quick shot of painkiller, while Dr. Petrie cut away the boy’s stained plaid shirt with scissors.

  ‘Look at this,’ said Dr. Petrie. He pointed to the fat, ugly wound in the boy’s side. ‘This is a gunshot wound.’

  Dr. Selmer leaned over the boy, and wiped the dirt and sweat from his face with a tissue. There was asphalt embedded in the youth’s cheeks, as if he had fallen on a sidewalk or roadway.

  ‘What happened, kid?’ said Dr. Selmer. ‘Did someone shoot you?’

  The boy gritted his teeth, and nodded. With his face a little cleaner, he looked like the sort of average kid you see working behind the counter at a hamburger joint, or delivering lunchtime sandwiches for a delicatessen.

  ‘Who shot you, kid?’ asked Dr. Selmer, coaxingly. ‘Come on – it might help us to make you better. If we know what kind of gun it was, we can find the slug faster.’ The boy took a deep whimpering breath, tried to talk, and then burst into tears. Dr. Selmer stroked his forehead, and spoke soothingly and softly to him, like a mother talking to a child.