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

by Graham Masterton

  ‘Well… yes. I mean, yes!’

  ‘What about me?’ said Nicholas. ‘You’re just leaving me here? And what about all these other people?’

  Herbert Gaines lowered his eyes. ‘Nicky,’ he said, ‘the helicopter only has room for one. You saw that. It’s a two-seater. I can’t take anybody with me.’

  Garunisch coughed. ‘Couldn’t we draw lots?’ he said gruffly. ‘Or maybe one of the ladies should go instead?’

  ‘Listen,’ said Gaines, almost desperate, ‘it’s up there now! It’s waiting! It won’t wait for ever!’

  Garunisch examined the floor. ‘You’re an old man, Mr. Gaines,’ he said harshly. ‘You’re an old man and you’ve had a long life. Now, supposing one of these young ladies went instead of you. Or what about Nicholas here? He’s a good friend of yours. Don’t you think enough of Nicholas to give up your place in that chopper, and let him live?’

  Herbert Gaines stood up.

  ‘They sent the helicopter for me,’ he insisted. ‘The only reason it’s here is because of me. The party needs me, and that’s why they’ve taken the risk. What do you think they’re going to say if that thing flies all the way back to Washington with Nicky aboard? Do you think they’ve spent all that money, and wasted all that energy, just to educate a half-educated faggot who can’t even cook?’

  Nicholas stared open-mouthed at Herbert as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  Garunisch grunted. ‘It that’s how you feel, Mr. Gaines, perhaps you’d better just get the hell out. I don’t think any of the rest of us would like to stand in the way of your cowardice, seeing as how it’s so pressing.’

  Gaines said, ‘Look – as soon as I get to Washington – I’ll make sure they send another helicopter back – a bigger one – for all of you—’

  Garunisch flapped a hand at him. ‘Don’t bother. You might strain your brain trying to remember to do it, and we’d hate to see that happen.’

  Adelaide said, ‘Mr. Gaines?’

  Herbert Gaines was buttoning up his safari suit and making for the door. ‘Yes?’ he said.

  Adelaide didn’t answer at once. Not until Herbert Gaines had turned around and looked at her.

  ‘I saw your movie once, Mr. Gaines.’

  Herbert Gaines’ mouth twitched. ‘My dear, the helicopter’s waiting – I really can’t—’

  Adelaide said, ‘I like the line when Hannah Carson says to Captain Dashfoot: “Oh, you brave, brave, honorable man, would the world were all like you.”’

  Gaines paused. In a quiet voice he said, ‘My dear, you’ve got a regrettably good memory.’

  He stood at the door, his hand on the latch, so obviously striking a tragic theatrical pose that Nicholas said, ‘For Christ’s sake, Herbert, just fuck off.’

  Herbert Gaines lifted his lion-like head. ‘I will send more helicopters,’ he said, in his richest voice. ‘I promise you that upon my life.’

  He opened the door.

  He was so involved in his melodramatic pose that when the rats rushed at him, their heavy bodies thumping against the half-open door, he was taken completely by surprise. The rats leaped and jumped at him, and more of them scuttled into the apartment and disappeared under the makeshift beds and into the drapes.

  Dr. Petrie ran across the sitting-room and banged himself against the door so that it slammed shut. He crunched four or five rats in the door-jamb, and they squealed and writhed, with blood running out of their narrow noses. Adelaide and Esmeralda and Mrs. Garunisch, panting with fright, picked up cushions and brooms and chased after the rats that had managed to get into the apartment.

  Herbert Gaines had a rat swinging from his sleeve. He flapped at it uselessly until Kenneth Garunisch picked up a heavy cigarette lighter from the table and knocked the rat away. Then he stepped on its head and killed it.

  ‘Oh, Mother of God,’ gasped Gaines. ‘Oh, Mother of God!’

  ‘Well, darling,’ said Nicholas, turning to Herbert Gaines. ‘So much for your helicopter now.’

  Herbert Gaines was shaking. ‘I’m still going!’ he said. ‘Don’t think that a few rats can stop me!’

  ‘A few?’ said Dr. Petrie. ‘Did you see how many there were? The whole building must be thick with them!’

  Herbert Gaines said, ‘It won’t wait, you know! The helicopter won’t wait!’

  Kenneth Garunisch was helping his wife to corner the last stray rat and beat it to death. He came over to Herbert Gaines with blood on his hands. Behind him, Mrs. Garunisch had suddenly gone into a burst of hysterical weeping, and Esmeralda was trying to soothe her.

  ‘Mr. Gaines,’ he said, ‘you’re crazy. If you go out there, you won’t last two minutes. Those rats are fierce and they’re hungry. I’ve come up against them before, when I was a kid, and I’ve seen a man have half his nose bitten off. That was just one. There must be hundreds out there.’

  Dr. Petrie looked at the old actor and said, ‘It’s no use, you know, Mr. Gaines. You might as well admit it.’

  Herbert Gaines looked up at the ceiling. Just a few storeys above him, perched impatiently on the roof, was his means of escape, his way to a glittering political destiny.

  Kenneth Garunisch said, ‘Power’s an attractive thing, Mr. Gaines, aint it? You’ve tasted it now, haven’t you, and wasn’t that taste good?’

  Herbert Gaines stared at him. ‘I don’t know what you mean. I have to go, that’s all. They sent the helicopter and I have to go.’

  He paced urgently across the room. Then he said, ‘Fire! That’s it! They don’t like fire!’

  ‘Mr. Gaines,’ said Garunisch, ‘what the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘It’s true!’ said Gaines. ‘You can always fight them with fire! It’s in that movie – River Boat! Now, where’s that Variety we brought down with us? Nicky – where is it?’

  Nicholas, sulking, didn’t even answer. Herbert Gaines fumbled around in his touzled bed until he found the paper. He rolled it up, and brandished it around.

  ‘This, my friends, will be my salvation!’

  He picked up the table lighter that Garunisch had used to kill the rat, and he flicked it. Then he carefully applied the flame to the edge of Variety, until the paper was burning like a torch.

  Dr. Petrie stepped forward, but Kenneth Garunisch reached out and held his arm.

  ‘Let him go, doctor. Just help me make sure that no more rats get into the place. You can’t stand between a man and his destiny, even if you think he’s a shit.’

  Dr. Petrie said, ‘But it’s insane! He won’t last a minute out there!’

  ‘That’s his problem. He wants to go.’

  Nicholas, standing next to them, nodded his head. ‘You’re right, Mr. Garunisch. Herbert’s a born martyr. You’d have to kill him to stop him killing himself.’

  Herbert Gaines was making sure that the copy of Variety was well alight. Then he went to the door, and held it in front of him.

  ‘You wait till they see this!’ he said triumphantly. ‘This’ll sort them out!’

  Dr. Petrie and Kenneth Garunisch positioned themselves behind the door so that they could slam it shut the second that Herbert Gaines had gone through. The room was already smokey and filled with black wisps of ash, but Herbert had his paper burning well now, and was ready to go.

  He opened the door, waving the blazing Variety in a wide fluttering arc. The rats went for his legs like gray greasy torpedoes, but the flames were enough to keep them from jumping at his face and throat.

  Kicking three or four rats away. Dr. Petrie shut the door again, and locked it.

  Herbert had three flights of stairs to go to reach the roof. The first flight wasn’t too bad, because he managed to knock most of the rats away from his legs, and his paper was still burning. Halfway up the second flight, with his heart pounding and his sixty-year-old lungs beginning to feel the strain, he started to falter. The flames abruptly went out, and he was left with nothing but a half-burned Variety to beat off the most vicious animals he h
ad ever seen.

  The third flight was the beginning of his Calvary. The rats were hanging on to his arms now, and biting into his back and his sides. His legs were thick with them, and he could feel their teeth in his thighs. He kept his hands over his face and stumbled up blindly, but they still leaped up at him and bit into his fingers, until his hands were gloved in rats.

  The agony of it was enormous. He couldn’t even cry out, unless they bit into his mouth, and there was already a huge brown sewer rat dangling from the soft flesh under his chin. He tried to keep his mind above the pain, above this dreadful cloak of biting, squeaking creatures, and firmly concentrated on the roof – the roof – and his wonderful helicopter.

  He had to take one hand away from his face to open the door to the roof. His arm seemed to weigh hundreds of pounds, and it was swinging with rats like the fence round a trapper’s cabin. One of the beasts launched itself at his cheek, and he lost precious seconds hitting it away.

  The helicopter pilot was a 36-year-old veteran called Andy Folger. He was checking his watch impatiently when the roof door opened, and the first thing he did was start up his engine and get his rotors turning. He cast a quick eye over the fuel reading, and then reached over to open the opposite door of the cockpit. The quicker he got this mission over, the better he was going to like it.

  He heard a muffled screaming noise, and he turned. He had a feeling in his stomach like an elevator dropping thirty floors in ten seconds. Folger stared at the hunched heap of wriggling gray fur that was moving towards him. He couldn’t understand what he was seeing at first, and when he did, his mind almost blanked out.

  He didn’t see the rats that ran out of the open door to the stairs, and scuttled across to his helicopter. He reached over to close the cockpit door again, and one of them leaped up and bit his hand. He banged the rat against the side of the cockpit, but it clung on, and while it clung on, another rat jumped into the helicopter, and another.

  He beat the animal away from his hand, revved the engine, and pulled back the stick. The helicopter’s rotors whistled faster and faster, and the Bell lifted off from the rooftop and circled away towards the north.

  Three rats scurried around the cockpit, and one of them jumped at Folger’s face. He tried to smack it away, but then another rat nipped at his arm.

  The helicopter went out of control. Wrestling against twisting rats and a bucking control stick, Andy Folger saw the horizon turn upside down, and the buildings of First Avenue swivel all around him. He saw streets – sky – buildings – streets – and then the helicopter fluttered and twisted and plummeted eighteen storeys. It fell on to the glass roof of a supermarket and exploded in a hot spray of fire that rolled upwards and burned itself out.

  On the top of Concorde Tower, Herbert Gaines neither saw nor heard. His mind was still somewhere inside that costume of rats, but it was dwindling very quickly, and was soon to be gone. Sometime during the afternoon, the power from their generator died. They were sitting quietly around the apartment, and the lights suddenly dimmed and went out. They heard the freezer motor in the kitchen shudder and stop.

  Dr. Petrie, who had been sitting on the settee with Prickles, reading her a story, looked up.

  ‘Daddy,’ said Prickles, wide-eyed, ‘it’s gone dark.’

  Kenneth Garunisch got out of his armchair and went to try the lights. There was no doubt that they were dead.

  He shrugged and said, ‘It’s the generator. The goddamned thing’s probably clogged up with rats.’

  Esmeralda, sitting cross-legged on the floor, said, ‘What are we going to do now? All our food’s going to spoil. I doubt if we’ve got enough canned stuff to last us a week. There are six of us, right? – seven including Prickles – and I don’t think we’ve got more than nine or ten cans of meat, and a few dozen cans of fruit. Maybe I should check.’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Nicholas. ‘That’s all we need.’

  Kenneth Garunisch lit a cigarette. ‘I thought you’d be pleased. Now you won’t have to force yourself to eat Herbert’s goulasch.’

  ‘Ken – I don’t think you ought to speak ill of the dead,’ said his wife worriedly.

  ‘Why not?’ said Garunisch, blowing smoke. ‘That was what he wanted, wasn’t it? A glorious fiery plunge from the top of the city’s ritziest apartment.’

  Nicholas lowered his head and sighed. ‘I don’t know what he wanted, Mr. Garunisch. He was actually very kind. Except to himself, that is.’

  Dr. Petrie put down the story-book and stood up. ‘I think the most important thing now is to work out how we’re going to survive. What is it – Tuesday? I guess anyone who was left on the streets on Sunday will be dead of plague by now. It should be pretty safe outside as far as looters and muggers are concerned.’

  ‘What about rats?’ asked Adelaide.

  Dr. Petrie ran his hand through his hair. ‘I’m not sure about rats. If anything, the rats will probably have gotten worse.’

  ‘So what are we going to do?’ asked Mrs. Garunisch. ‘I mean – those rats are so fierce. I can’t bear the thought of them.’

  ‘The water’s off,’ called Esmeralda from the kitchen. ‘That means we don’t even have anything to drink.’

  ‘Plenty of whiskey,’ said Garunisch wryly, holding up Ivor Glantz’s crystal decanter.

  ‘Does anyone here have a car?’ Dr. Petrie asked.

  ‘A car?’ frowned Garunisch. ‘What the hell do you want with a car?’

  ‘Well,’ said Dr. Petrie, ‘if the rats are really bad, then it’s going to be too dangerous for all of us to get out of here at one time. It only needs one person to trip or fall, and the whole party could be put at risk. But if one or two could wrap themselves up in blankets or something, and make protective helmets to cover our faces, then maybe we could make it to the basement car park.’

  ‘Then what happens?’ said Garunisch. ‘This is a dead city. Where do you think you’re going to get help?’

  ‘You have enough food for two or three days. That’s all it should take to drive out of the plague zone and organize some kind of airborne rescue. Let’s not kid ourselves – you’re all wealthy people, and if anyone can get rescued, you can.’

  Mrs. Garunisch furrowed her brow. ‘Supposing we don’t get rescued?’ she said anxiously. ‘What then?’

  Kenneth Garunisch reached over and took her hand. ‘Gay,’ he said gently, ‘we’ve never talked like that and we never will. The doctor’s right – we’ve got as good a chance as anyone.’

  Dr. Petrie went to the walnut sideboard and picked up a heavy sheaf of papers. ‘More important than any of us, though,’ he said, ‘is this.’

  Mrs. Garunisch peered at the sheaf suspiciously. ‘What’s that?’ she asked sharply.

  ‘This is the mathematical work on the plague that Ivor Glantz left unfinished,’ explained Dr. Petrie. ‘I’m not a research scientist, but I’ve looked through it, and as far as I’m able to understand, it’s sound. I think that if we can get these papers to the federal government, we can persuade them to investigate the idea further, and with any luck at all we could help to stamp out the plague. Whoever gets out of here will not only have the task of sending help to the rest, but they’ll have the vital responsibility of delivering these papers to the department of health.’

  ‘How do we know the whole country hasn’t been wiped out?’ said Nicholas. ‘I mean – Jesus – the whole of New York in three days!’

  Dr. Petrie riffled through the papers of equations and formulae. ‘We don’t know. The last we heard, they’d managed to hold the plague at the Alleghenies. Maybe the situation’s worse by now. It probably is. But if we can get these papers to Washington in time… Well, who knows? We might be able to save the mid-West and the West Coast.’

  Kenneth Garunisch said, ‘Well… that sounds impressive enough. You could have had my car, but I left the keys in my apartment.’

  ‘Esmeralda?’ asked Dr. Petrie. ‘Plow about you?’

  ‘I left mine parked
on the street,’ said Esmeralda. ‘I expect it’s a total wreck by now.’

  Nicholas said, ‘I should think that Herbert’s Mercedes is okay. It’s in the basement. I have the keys here – he always left them with me.’

  Kenneth Garunisch looked at him appreciatively. ‘Looks like Captain Dashfoot did us a good turn after all.’

  ‘It’s only a two-seater,’ said Nicholas. ‘There’s a kind of small contingency seat at the back, but you couldn’t travel for very far in that.’

  Kenneth Garunisch opened the cigarette box on the table and took out the last of Ivor Glantz’s cigarettes. ‘In that case,’ he said, striking a light, ‘I suggest that Dr. Petrie goes, and takes his daughter along with him. Prickles would fit in the back – wouldn’t you, Prickles?’

  Prickles nodded shyly.

  Dr. Petrie said, ‘No – this has to be fair. I suggest we draw straws, and give everybody a chance.’

  Garunisch pulled a face. ‘Don’t talk dumb. Supposing Gay draws it. How’s she going to get out of this goddamned rat-infested building, drive all the way to Washington, and then convince the federal department of health that she’s found a way to cure the plague? Gay couldn’t convince the Mother’s Union that fish paste sandwiches are better value than bagels and lox.’

  ‘Ken,’ said Mrs. Garunisch, hurt.

  Garunisch put his arm around her. ‘Don’t take it the wrong way. Gay, but it’s true. Dr. Petrie has to go. It’s his idea, anyway. Can you imagine me trying to sell it? You know what they think of me in Washington right now. Or Nicholas here, in his sailor suit?’

  ‘There’s still a spare seat,’ said Dr. Petrie.

  Adelaide, sitting next to him, looked up. She frowned, and said, ‘But surely—’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Garunisch, interrupting her. ‘We can draw lots for that. Esmeralda – do you have any drinking straws?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Esmeralda, and went into the kitchen to fetch them.

  Adelaide tugged gently at Dr. Petrie’s sleeve. He turned around.