by Guy N Smith
He pulled her to one side, and went into the kitchen. The dead mouse lay on the floor by the sink-unit, its body bloated twice its normal size as though it had been blown up with a pump, the head pink and swollen, eyes buried beneath an unnatural growth, a bulbous matter-filled ball of cancerous, mangy fur.
"It . . . it's repulsive, isn't it?" Susan caught her breath. "I . . . I never thought this disease was quite as terrible as that. Oh, it's horrible. And we've done that to millions of them!"
He pulled her gently back into the living room and closed the door. "Try not to think about it," he said, kissing her. "It's not a pretty sight, I know, and if I'd had any other choice I'd never have brought this vile disease over here. But it was the only way. It was either that or the end of civilization as we know it."
"I'm sorry." She tried to smile. "It was . . . just, well, the way it rolled out of the cupboard on to me as though . . . as though it was trying to make one last attempt to get revenge."
"I'll go and put it in the garbage can," he said.
"No," she insisted. "I'll do it. I've got to get used to them. No doubt there'll be dozens more of the creatures lying about dead in the coming weeks. And I'm as much to blame for it as you. It was my fault that the bats' cage got knocked over and they escaped."
During the next few days Professor Newman busied himself carrying out tests on several of the dead creatures which had been brought into the Research Center.
"Even the Yanks don't really know the extent of this virus," Haynes said. "We jumped the gun a bit, even for them. They know what it does to a rodent, but not why. As far as they can tell it's harmless to humans and all other animals, but we've got to be sure."
"Damn it," Newman replied with a grin, "There's enough, been handled so far. If it is harmful then we're really going to be in trouble."
Towards the middle of the afternoon the professor happened to notice Susan wiping a flushed brow with the palm of her hand.
"Are you all right?" There was consternation on his face.
"It's nothing." She smiled weakly. "I feel a bit feverish. A slight headache. Maybe it's the sudden change in the weather."
"A good downpour doesn't do that to you," he insisted, and tested her pulse. It was racing. "I'd say you've got the flu coming on. Now go on back home and get to bed. I'll be back by five."
"If you insist." There was gratitude in her voice.
"I do," he said. "Are you sure you're O.K. to drive?"
"I'll be all right." She walked towards the door, swaying slightly.
He watched her drive away, standing at the window until she was out of sight, and there was a worried expression on his face as he resumed work.
It was 5.20 when Brian Newman eventually arrived back at Chasetown. As he let himself in through the front door he sensed immediately that something was wrong. The bedroom door was open, and from the hall he could see the neatly made bed. It was empty.
"Susan!"
She was not in the living-room. He dashed into the kitchen. One second of shock, immobility, and then he was on his knees at her side.
"Susan!" he breathed. "Oh, my God! What's wrong?"
She did not reply. Her eyes were closed, her cheeks flushed with fever, her skin wet with perspiration. He began to undo her clothing with trembling fingers.
Seconds later he was telephoning for a doctor. The two or three minutes during which it took him to contact Doctor Jenkinson were agonizing.
"I'll be right round," the doctor snapped after he had listened to the symptoms. "Make her as comfortable as you can, but don't try to move her."
Doctor Jenkinson was less than five minutes arriving. He remembered the Williams family. There had been many since. It was his greatest fear that it would begin all over again.
"It isn't the virus," Newman told him as he showed him into the kitchen where Susan still lay motionless on the floor, a blanket covering the lower half of her body.
"No, it isn't that, certainly," Jenkinson said after a brief examination, "although what it is I haven't a clue, quite frankly. Look at her eyes, the way they're puffing up . . ."
Brian Newman stared in horror. It was true. The closed lids appeared to be swelling outwards without opening, as though some horrific growth was propagating at an unbelievable rate inside the sockets.
"Phone for an ambulance," the doctor ordered. "I'll stay here with her."
Within a matter of minutes both Professor Newman and Doctor Jenkinson were in the speeding ambulance with Susan Wylie.
"Has she been in contact with any virus?" Jenkinson tested her pulse again, and tried to hide his anxiety.
"Only this rodent disease," Newman answered. "There was a dead mouse in the kitchen the other evening. And, of course, we've been working on them in the laboratory."
"And thousands of people have been removing them from their homes without ill effect for the last couple of weeks. It can't be that. But whatever it is it's growing fast!"
Brian Newman was asked to remain in the waiting room once they arrived at Walsall General Hospital. Not even bacteriologists were allowed to attend emergency operations.
The room was empty, four white walls which seemed to close in on him. Claustrophobia was another form of despair, and he felt hopeless. He knew she was going to die. Nothing could save her. That last ten minutes the symptoms had been identical to those in the creatures with the American killer virus.
He could see Susan now. He tried to shut out the mental picture. At least she wasn't in pain. Just numb. She wouldn't know anything. Consciousness would return for a short time, but it wouldn't make any difference. Her whole brain was a rapidly growing cancer, a forced greenhouse plant that would outgrow itself, wither and die. The agony was a fallacy. Those creature's did not suffer. They were simply living, diseased flesh. He had discovered that only that same afternoon.
Yet how had she caught it? It was impossible. No, he corrected himself, remotely improbable, but a freak occurrence. Everything he touched became a freak. Oh God, if this was the beginning of another outbreak . . . another kind of incurable plague . . .
He could see her again, moaning as consciousness returned, blind, deaf and dumb. Oh God, please let the end be swift. I want her to die . . . now!
He whirled round as the door opened. Jenkinson stood there. For the doctor it was Mr. and Mrs. Williams again. Hope. Realization. Despair. He just had to confirm the worst fears. He knew the words by heart. A recitation.
"I'm sorry. We did everything possible for her. But there was no hope."
There would be a postmortem, but it wouldn't tell them much. A rare cancer. They'd take tests, make notes, refer it to the Cancer Research, providing years of work for somebody. And he, Professor Brian Newman, could tell them. But they wouldn't believe him. Nobody would, not Haynes, Rickers, nor the American who had discovered the virus in the first place. Maybe others would die the same way, and then the authorities would have to admit that there was some connection. Please God it doesn't have to be that way.
But nobody else would die, Newman said harshly to himself. It was the way. Take himself, for example. If he injected the rest of the virus left in the lab into his own bloodstream, nothing would happen. His body would reject it. So would millions of others. One in a hundred million was vulnerable, and it had to be his girl. A kind of retribution for everything he'd ever done.
And he'd never even had time to say goodbye to her.
Epilogue
The Castle Ring syndicate shot every Saturday between September and January, And on Sunday mornings Ken Tyler, the gamekeeper, always went out with Judy, his aged cocker-spaniel, picking up.
They never found all the birds on a Saturday. There was too much time between the pheasants falling and the end of the drive. No dogs were sent to retrieve during a drive. That meant that a wounded cock pheasant had a good start by the time the dogs picked up his scent. The days were short, and there were too many drives to be fitted in. Guns and beaters alike were impatient. "If y
ou can't find 'em all, leave 'em. The keeper'll can pick 'em up in the morning."
This morning was no different. He had a brace in the bag in the first half hour. Neither of those birds had been "runners", but who was to know? Shooting game on Sundays was against the law, but there was nothing to say that one could not despatch a wounded creature on the Sabbath. It was the only humane thing to do. And in any case, Tyler needed to bag as many as possible if he was to keep back a brace or two for himself when the boss called round later in the day. He wouldn't have to be too greedy this season, he decided. Game was scarce. The fires had ruined a good breeding season, and now weeks of rain were spoiling the shooting days. The bags were well down on the previous year.
Judy ranged to and fro, taking her time, relying on her nose. Her head went down. She picked up something out of the long grass,
"Good girl. Bring it on."
The spaniel's face was hidden behind a mass of fluffy brown feathers. At first Ken was congratulating himself on another hen pheasant in the bag, but as Judy came closer, he groaned.
"Another bloody owl. Christ A'mighty! Three picked up yesterday, and two kestrels."
It came on to rain again. He pulled down the brim of his hat and turned up the collar of his coat. "Bleedin' weather!"
Judy forced her way into some dense briars and the gamekeeper stole forward. It could be that old cock that the Colonel had dropped with his second barrel on the last drive. It had been too dark to look for it properly.
He could see Judy on her way back. Certainly it wasn't the cock bird. Light brown feathers, some catching on the thorns as the dog pushed her way out. It was a big bird. A buzzard. Tyler had not seen one on the Chase for five years. The last had been a stray, blown off course by a freak gale. So was this one. But it had come from a different reason. A futile search for food.
He took the buzzard from the dog, and held it up in his left hand. Under normal circumstances it would have weighed approximately three pounds. He doubted if this bird would have topped the scales at a pound. It had wasted away, reduced to skin and feathers by starvation. The keeper tossed it back over the briars. It seemed to hang suspended in the air, almost floating down on to the thorn bushes, landing with scarcely a sound. Just a few feathers wafted in the wind. It was just one of many, and luckier than most of the birds-of-prey species. It was already dead. Many more had still to die, suffering the pangs of hunger, searching vainly for rats, mice, insects. Finding nothing. Not even a beetle.
Myxomatosis had broken out amongst the rabbits again. Coincidence? There weren't even any young coneys for the hawks. Science had destroyed them, and this was only the beginning.
An hour later Ken Tyler stood amongst the trees which overlooked the Biological Research Center. A car was parked outside and he recognized Newman's Allegro. The bacteriologist hadn't wasted much time getting back to work again after the girl's funeral, the keeper grimaced.
A fit of anger assailed him. He shook a fist in the direction of the squat ugly buildings.
"You bastard!" he shouted. "All this is your work. You're destroying wildlife, one species after another. You killed the girl. Everybody knows it. The papers say so, but you and your bloody kind keep on denying it. You won't admit that humans can catch it. Sod you!"
His anger subsided, and the gamekeeper walked slowly away, retracing his steps. Newman hadn't heard him. Nobody had. It wouldn't make any difference, anyway.
They'd created something they couldn't control, and now there was no way of stopping it. Only when all forms of life were wiped out would the cancerous virus finally die. And it took a gamekeeper to realise that.
On the way back he had to wait for Judy again. She was away for fully ten minutes this time, and when she returned to heel she was carrying another owl in her jaws.
About the Author
Guy Smith lives in a converted stable-house in the remote county of Shropshire, England, on the Welsh border. His hobbies include shooting, gardening, and tobacco growing and curing.