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

by Graham Masterton

  Edgar was almost dozing off when he heard footsteps. He blinked. The cops were bringing in a new prisoner – he could distinguish voices. Edgar rolled over on his bunk and pretended to be sleeping, in case he got involved in any more pointless conversations.

  He heard the cop say, ‘In here.’

  Another voice, younger, said, ‘You mean I don’t get a cell to myself? What is this?’

  ‘This aint the Ramada Inn,’ said the cop. The cell door unlocked, squeaked open, and then banged shut again. There was a jingle of keys. Edgar kept his eyes shut and faced the wall.

  For a while, he heard the new prisoner shuffling around. Then he heard the lower bunk complain as the prisoner sat down on it. Eventually the newcomer stood up again, leaned over him, and shook him by the shoulder.

  ‘Hey man – are you awake?’

  Edgar Paston opened one eye. ‘I wasn’t,’ he said blearily, ‘but it looks like I am now.’

  ‘I’m sorry, man. I just thought you might be awake.’ Edgar rubbed his face, and sat up painfully. Then he swung his legs over the side of the bunk, and looked at his new cellmate for the first time.

  At first, he couldn’t believe it. But then he felt his throat tighten, constrict. Just a foot or two away from him, pale and foxy-faced, still methodically chewing gum, was Shark McManus.

  Edgar stared at him.

  ‘Shark McManus said, ‘Do they bring you coffee in this joint?’

  Edgar said hoarsely, ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You don’t understand what, man?’

  ‘Don’t you know who I am,’ said Edgar, in a tight voice. ‘Don’t you recognize me?’

  Shark McManus shrugged. ‘Sorry, man.’

  Edgar said, ‘Last night, you and your gang of hoodlums broke into a supermarket out at the crossroads, and wrecked it.’

  McManus looked surprised. He screwed up his eyes and said, ‘Not me, man. You must’ve gotten the wrong dude.’

  Edgar climbed unsteadily down from his bunk. He faced McManus from only six inches away.

  ‘I don’t have the wrong dude, McManus, That store you wrecked was mine.’

  McManus chewed steadily for a while, but his chewing became slower and slower, and he finally stopped altogether. He stared at Edgar as if he couldn’t grasp what was going on, and he nervously rubbed at the side of his neck.

  ‘You and your kind, you make me sick,’ said Edgar, plucking off his spectacles and pacing the floor. He turned on McManus again, ‘You’re like wild beasts!’

  McManus looked uncomfortable. But then he said, in an unexpectedly quiet voice, ‘Well, man, you may be right.’

  ‘Right?’ snapped Edgar. ‘Of course I’m right. You smash, you destroy – you’d kill if you had to. What the hell do you think the world is out there? Some kind of jungle?’

  McManus sat down. ‘Yes, man,’ he nodded. ‘You’re right.’

  Edgar bent over him. ‘Don’t think you’re going to appease me like that. Oh, don’t you think you’re going to get away with it that easy! If I have anything to do with it, I’m going to make sure that hoodlums like you are torn out of Elizabeth, root and branch. You hear?’

  McManus nodded. ‘I hear you. I hear you loud and cuh-lear.’

  Edgar put his spectacles back on and peered at McManus close and hard. ‘Is that all you can say?’ he asked. ‘After all that you’ve done, and all the trouble you’ve caused, is that all you can say?’

  McManus frowned, as if he was thinking, and then gave a small smirk.

  ‘I do have one thing to say,’ he said quietly.

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘It’s a question, really. And the question is, if you’re so respectable and upright, and if you’re going to tear us all out root and whatitsname, then what are you doing in the slammer along with me?’

  Edgar stood straight. He took a deep breath. ‘Last night,’ he said, ‘after you wrecked my store, I went after you with a gun.’

  ‘Don’t tell me it was unlicensed.’

  Edgar shook his head. ‘It was licensed, all right. I was going out to find you and I was going to teach you a lesson! The trouble was—’

  McManus looked up. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘The trouble was—’

  Edgar could hardly get the words out. The reality of last night’s killing suddenly stuck in his throat like a terrible knotted obstruction.

  ‘You can tell me, man,’ said McManus, mock-sympathetically. ‘After all, it was me you wanted to shoot.’

  Edgar looked grim. ‘I went out, and I shot and killed someone I thought was you. It wasn’t you at all, and that’s what I’m doing here.’

  McManus stared at him in disbelief. Then, gradually, a smile began to twitch at the corners of his mouth. He guffawed once, then again, and then he laughed out loud. A sour voice in the next cell said, ‘For Christ’s sake, can’t we get any fucking sleep around here?’

  McManus, wide-eyed with amusement, said, ‘You wasted someone you thought was me? You really did that? Oh, man, you’re beautiful! Tell me who it was!’

  Edgar lowered his eyes. ‘It was a Boy Scout. I don’t know his name.’

  ‘A Boy Scout! Oh, man, you’re incredible! Don’t you know that? You’re just too fucking much! He blows away a Boy Scout, instead of me!’

  Edgar thumped his fist against the wall of the cell and roared, ‘It’s not funny! Damn you – it’s not funny!’ McManus stopped laughing and frowned. ‘I’m sorry, man. I didn’t mean to upset you. But you have to admit it’s beautiful.’

  ‘Beautiful?’ said Edgar disgustedly.

  ‘Yeah. You know – poetic justice.’

  Edgar turned his head away. ‘If there was any kind of justice in this world, you’d be lying in that morgue, instead of that innocent kid.’

  McManus shrugged. ‘Come on, man. Don’t be so mad. There isn’t nothing you can say that’s going to bring him back – now is there?’

  Edgar didn’t answer. He felt as if he had rubbed his face in a bucket of wet grit. Tired, dispirited, and anxious.

  ‘I mean – death comes to all of us, in time, doesn’t it?’ said McManus. ‘Especially now.’

  He got up off his bunk and walked around the confines of the cell. ‘I mean – you and me, we’re lucky we’re inside here, instead of outside there on the streets. Out there – well, I mean, wow. It could be per-il-usss!’

  Edgar looked up. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  Shark McManus chewed his gum equably. ‘It’s the plague, man. How long have you been in here?’

  ‘The plague?’

  ‘It’s all over Jersey. Everybody’s supposed to lock themselves at home, man, and not go out. They got the National Guard patrolling the state line, and if you try to leave, you get blasted. It’s true! I was out there ripping off a short, and that’s why they pulled me in.’

  Edgar Paston stared at Shark McManus for a moment, and then said, ‘No – that’s nonsense. My wife was here just a few hours ago. She didn’t say anything about it. And why haven’t the police told me?’

  McManus shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It all happened real quick. They knew they had a couple of sick people in Atlantic City, but then I guess a few people panicked, and kind of brought the plague up this way.’

  ‘But-Tammy!’ said Edgar. ‘My kids! They’re out there!’

  Shark McManus didn’t look at all fazed. ‘Don’t worry about it, man. Everybody’s out there, excepting us.’

  Edgar Paston went to the bars and shouted for the guard.

  ‘Forget it, man,’ said McManus. ‘This whole joint is practically empty. They got all their guys out on the street, picking up the stiffs. I aint joking, man. I saw a couple of stiffs myself, out by the crossroads.’

  Edgar Paston turned on McManus. ‘Kid,’ he said, ‘if you’re fooling me, so help me I’ll tear your head off.’

  Shark McManus simply smiled. ‘I aint fooling.’

  ‘In that case, we have to get out of here.’

 
‘Why? This is the safest place.’

  ‘What you seem to forget is that my wife and kids are out there.’

  ‘Man – there’s nothing you can do. Even if you get back home, they won’t let you out of the state.’

  Edgar Paston thumped on the bars of the cell. ‘That’s not the point. The point is that I’m a father, and my family’s at risk. I have to be there!’

  Shark McManus lay back on his bunk and thought for a while. Edgar shouted a few times, but when the prisoner in the next-door cell finally told him to keep his fucking yapper shut, he went back to his bunk and sat there with a gray, worried face, and kept silent.

  An hour passed. Edgar Paston lay on his side for twenty minutes and dozed, but the light still glared in his eyes, and he had the added irritation of Shark McManus’ endless whistling. He sat up and scratched his head.

  ‘Are you awake, man?’ said McManus.

  ‘Yes, I’m awake.’

  ‘Listen, man – do you really want to get out of here?’

  ‘What do you suggest I do? Tear the cell door down with my bare hands?’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be that complicated. If you want to get out of here, I can get you out. But you have to make me a promise.’

  Edgar eased himself down off his bunk, and looked at Shark McManus like a man who’s found a dead cat under his bed.

  ‘A promise?’ he said. ‘To you?’

  Shark McManus pulled a face. ‘It’s the only way, man. Either you make the promise, or you stay here.’

  ‘But the whole reason I’m in here is because of you!’

  ‘That’s the deal. No ifs or buts or maybes.’

  Edgar lowered his head, and sighed. ‘What’s the promise?’

  ‘All you have to do is take me with you. I need wheels and I need some respectable support. With your image and my know-how, we can get out of Jersey and into Manhattan, and the way they say it on the news, it looks like Manhattan’s a kind of a plague-free zone, and they aint letting anyone catch it.’

  ‘You can really get me out?’

  ‘Sure. Do you promise?’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘It’s up to you, man. Me, I don’t have no family at all. I could sit here for ever and it wouldn’t bug me.’

  Edgar Paston looked serious. ‘What you’re asking me to do is to go back on everything I think about people like you,’ he said quietly. ‘I think I’d rather get help from a snake.’

  Shark McManus grinned. ‘That’s settled, then. Now, all you have to do is lie on your bunk and start shaking and sweating and moaning.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘Just do it, man. Shake and sweat and moan.’ Reluctantly, Edgar Paston climbed up on to his bunk again, and lay back. He made his hands tremble, and started to wail feebly.

  Shark McManus looked at him in exasperation. ‘I said shake and sweat and moan, man. You’re supposed to be sick. You’re supposed to be dying. You sound like you didn’t do nothing worse than walk into a smelly public toilet.’

  Edgar, more convincingly, shouted, ‘Ohhh! Oh, God, I’m dying, oh God! Ohhh…!’

  That was when Shark McManus yelled for the guard. He didn’t call politely like Edgar had done. He screamed ‘Guuuaaarrrddd!!’ at the highest pitch of his lungs, and straight away the duty cop came running down the corridor with his keys jangling.

  ‘What’s all the goddamned noise?’

  ‘Guard,’ panted McManus. ‘You have to get me out here! This guy’s got plague! Look at him – he’s dying!’ The guard peered anxiously through the bars. Edgar was twisting and groaning and clutching the bedclothes, trying to sound as if he was making his last struggle to fight off a virulent, fast-breeding disease.

  His performance was convincing enough to make the guard unlock the cell door, and walk over to take a suspicious look at him. Edgar redoubled his cries and moans, and rolled his eyes up into his head so that only the whites were exposed.

  Shark McManus softly stepped up behind the guard and hooked his revolver, pickpocket-style, out of his holster. Then he called, ‘Okay, man, the plague’s over for now!’

  The guard swung around, reaching for a revolver that wasn’t there. McManus was holding the gun in both hands, and there was a wan grin on his foxy face.

  ‘Throw your keys down,’ he said. ‘On the floor, man, and no shit!’

  The guard did as he was told. Edgar got down off his bunk, and stood uncertainly beside Shark – a reluctant lawbreaker who found himself increasingly committed to evading justice. He tried to smile reassuringly at the cop, but the cop just glared at him, and said nothing.

  They locked the guard in their own cell, and walked swiftly and quietly along the corridor to the stairs.

  Upstairs, treading as silently as they could, they found that McManus was right. The police station was almost deserted, except for a switchboard operator who was sitting behind a glass division with his back to them, busily dealing with emergency calls. They crossed the polished lobby, and they were out through the swing doors and into the night before anyone could notice.

  ‘You see,’ said McManus, ‘it’s a piece of cake.’

  Edgar said nothing. Now he was out of jail, he felt less inclined to keep McManus with him. But a promise was a promise – and even more persuasive than Edgar’s honor was the fact that McManus was now armed. Edgar said, ‘This way,’ and they began to walk through the night towards the crossroads.

  They kept as close as they could to buildings and shadows, but even Edgar doubted if anyone was out looking for them. The night was different – there was a curious atmosphere about it that made him both excited and fearful. He could hear ambulance sirens warbling along the highway to Newark, and there was hardly any traffic around at all. A couple of police cars passed them by, and they squeezed themselves in the doorway of a delicatessen, but the cars were silently speeding on a more important errand, their red lights flashing urgently through the dark.

  ‘How far is your house now?’ asked Shark McManus. ‘You know that when they start looking, that’s the first place they’re gonna check up on.’

  ‘Just around the next corner,’ panted Edgar. ‘That’s it – the one with the hacienda ironwork.’

  McManus nodded. ‘Nice residence, man. Looks like it pays to run a supermarket.’

  Edgar glanced at him and said nothing. McManus added, edgily, ‘Well, I guess you have to make allowances for accidental damage.’

  Edgar rang the door-chimes. There was a long pause, and for a moment he thought that Tammy had gone away, or was lying upstairs dead. But then the light went on in the hall, and she came to the door in her pink dressing gown and curlers.

  ‘Edgar! What’s happened? Did they let you out?’

  Edgar stepped quickly inside the house, hurried Shark McManus in after him, and closed the door. He kissed Tammy, and held her close to him, for a moment too overwhelmed to speak.

  ‘Er— Tammy, this is someone who helped me.’

  ‘Someone who helped you? What do you mean?’

  ‘We just broke out of the jail. The plague is everywhere, Tammy, and they’re not even looking for us. We have to get away.’

  Tammy was incredulous. ‘You broke out? But why?’

  ‘Tammy, we have to get away. Shark says there are bodies in the streets – out at the crossroads. The plague is everywhere. There are people dying like flies.’

  ‘That’s true, ma’am,’ nodded McManus. ‘Flies.’

  Tammy looked from Shark to Edgar and back again. ‘It said on the news it was okay. They said the state was in quarantine, and that nobody was supposed to leave, but it was all right if you stayed indoors.’

  Shark shook his head. ‘Baloney. I been out on the street and I seen it. This thing kills you like you wouldn’t believe. I saw four stiffs on main street alone. I rolled a couple of ’em for jewelry. They must have died instant.’ Tammy frowned anxiously at Shark, and said, ‘Edgar – is this boy a criminal?’

 
; Shark held out his hand. ‘Oh, don’t you worry about me, ma’am. I’m strictly from petty larceny. You know – phone booths, that kind of stuff. I just came along with your husband here to help.’

  Edgar took Tammy’s arm, and gripped it firmly to communicate his tension and his seriousness. ‘Darling – this is our only chance. Shark knows the streets, and how to avoid the law. He got me out of jail in about five minutes. I swear it. Apart from that, he has a gun.’

  Shark waved his heavy black police .38. ‘You see? Fully loaded, too!’

  Tammy looked at Shark and she saw in his eyes the cold concealed threat that even Edgar hadn’t detected yet. ‘I see,’ she said quietly. ‘In that case, I suppose I’d better get the children ready.’

  Edgar could see she was upset. He reached for her hand again as she turned to go upstairs. ‘Tammy,’ he said, ‘you have to see that this is the only way.’

  Tammy didn’t turn around. ‘If you say so, Edgar.’

  She went upstairs, and Edgar watched her go, biting his lip.

  Shark, tucking his revolver back in his pants, said, ‘Hey, man, I hope I haven’t caused you any domestic whatitsname. You know? I may rip off a few stores now and then, but I aint no homebreaker.’

  Edgar shook his head. ‘I don’t think you could break us up if you tried. Shark. Tammy and me – well, people say we’re inseparable.’

  Shark grinned. ‘That’s cute, man. I love a story with a happy ending.’

  It didn’t take Tammy long to get everything packed. She loaded the Mercury wagon with canned food, blankets, medical supplies, water, soft drinks and spare clothes. Shark McManus kept a lookout for police cars, but the streets of Edgar Paston’s tidy suburb were silent under the early-morning stars, and the only sign of life was a neighbor’s curtain, twitching suspiciously as they prepared to leave.

  At three-fifteen, they locked up the house. Chrissie and Marvin, yawning, climbed into the back of the car with Tammy, while Edgar drove and Shark McManus sat next to him. Shark kept his revolver resting on his lap. He was behaving amiably, but he was also making it clear that any interference or argument would not particularly v amuse him. They kept the radio playing in case there was any news of National Guard blockades or possible escape routes from Jersey.