Plague

by Graham Masterton

  In the pink-decorated sitting-room, Petrie found Donald Firenza, sitting back in a large plastic-covered easy chair, talking to a young reporter from the Miami Herald and a bald man in a bright sport shirt from UPI. Dr. Petrie recognized a couple of friends from the city health department at the back of the room, and he nodded to them briefly. Tonight was not a night for smiles.

  'Mr. Firenza?' he said crisply. 'I'm Dr. Leonard Petrie. I just came from Dr. Selmer, down at the hospital.'

  Mr. Firenza looked up. He was right in the middle of saying, ' — all the epidemic deaths we've suffered so far have been tragic, but unfortunately they've been unavoidable — ' He didn't look at all pleased at being interrupted.

  'Can it wait?' he said. He was a small, pale-faced, curly-headed man wearing a green turtle-neck sweater.

  'I don't think so,' said Dr. Petrie.

  The UPI man turned around in his chair. 'Is it something to do with the epidemic? Is it getting worse?'

  Dr. Petrie didn't look at him. 'I came to talk to Mr. Firenza, not to the press.'

  'What's the latest death-toll?' persisted the man from UPI. 'Has it gone above twelve yet?'

  Dr. Petrie ignored him. 'Mr. Firenza,' he said. 'I'd appreciate a private word.'

  Mr. Firenza sighed, and stood up. 'Excuse me, you guys,' he said to the two reporters. 'I'll be right back.'

  He led Dr. Petrie through the throng of police, health department officials and newsmen to a small study at the back of the house. He closed the door behind them and shut out the babble of conversation and argument.

  'Sit down,' said Mr. Firenza. 'We've met before, haven't we?'

  Dr. Petrie sat down, and nodded. 'Two or three times, at health department meetings. Maybe at dinners once or twice. Perhaps we should've gotten better acquainted.'

  Firenza reached for a large briar pipe and proceeded to stack it with rough-cut tobacco. 'I want to tell you here and now that I'm very proud of the way that Miami's doctors are rallying to help.' he said.

  'Thank you.'

  'However — I don't really think that you picked the subtlest way of breaking into a press conference,' Firenza went on. 'I've just been trying to convince our friends from the papers that this epidemic is containable and isolated.'

  'Do they believe you?'

  Firenza looked at Dr. Petrie curiously. 'Of course they believe me. Why shouldn't they?'

  Dr. Petrie coughed. 'Because it's not true.'

  Firenza pushed some more tobacco into his pipe, and then laughed. 'You've been talking to Dr. Selmer, haven't you? I know he thinks this is the end of the world, and that we're all going to get stricken down. I had to remind him that this is Miami, which has more qualified doctors per square inch than almost any other city in the continental United States, and that we have both the finance and the resources to cope with any kind of epidemic.'

  'Is that your considered opinion, or is that the story you're telling the press?' Dr. Petrie asked.

  'It's both.'

  'Have you been down to the hospital within the last hour?'

  'No, of course not. I've been up here. This is where we're doing all the planning and the organization. I get constant reports from all over, and the police and the hospitals are keeping me up to date with every new case.'

  'So you know how many people have died?'

  Firenza looked at him narrowly. 'Yes, I do,' he said, in a slow voice. 'What are you getting at?'

  'I'm not getting at anything. If you know how many people have died, how come this city isn't already in quarantine? When I drove here, I saw people lying dead on the sidewalks.'

  Firenza struck a match and began to light his pipe. 'There are more people lying dead on the sidewalks in New York City, my friend, and they don't even have an epidemic there.'

  Dr. Petrie frowned. 'Mr. Firenza,' he said, 'that is completely irrelevant. We have a serious epidemic disease on our hands right here in Miami, and it's up to us to do something about it.'

  Firenza crossed his little legs. 'We are doing something about it, doctor. We have all the medical people on call that we need. But you don't think that a medical officer can only concern himself with medicine, do you? It's just as important for me to protect Miami's interests as a city as it is for me to protect the health of its citizens.'

  Dr. Petrie stared at him. 'You mean — what you're telling the press — it's all to protect the city's business?'

  'Partly. It has to be. You think I want panic in the streets? What we have here is a very tragic, very unfortunate incident. But it's no more than an incident. The last thing we want is for people to get hysterical.'

  Dr. Petrie looked up. 'In other words, you don't want them to cancel their holidays?'

  Firenza caught the tone of his voice. 'Look here, Dr. Petrie, I don't quite know why you're here, but I have a serious job to do and I don't appreciate sarcasm.'

  'Dr. Selmer has a serious job to do, too. He has to stand there and watch people die.'

  'He's getting all the back-up he needs. What more does he want?'

  'He wants to be sure that this epidemic doesn't spread. We have a general idea of how it started. All that raw sewage that's been piling up on the beaches in the past couple of days has polluted the water and the sand. Somehow, the plague bacillus has been developing inside the sewage, and anyone who's gone down on the beach or swum in the ocean has caught it.'

  Firenza puffed his pipe. 'You've got proof?' he said shortly.

  'I don't think it needs proof. Every plague victim we've come across went swimming over the weekend or early yesterday morning.'

  'That doesn't mean anything. Sixty percent of the population goes swimming over the weekend.'

  'Yes — but mostly in private pools. All the victims went for a swim in the ocean.'

  'I still find that hard to believe, Dr. Petrie. We've had raw sewage wash up on the beaches a couple of times before, and each time it's proved neutral.'

  'Have you tested this sewage?'

  'The health department didn't consider it necessary,' Firenza replied firmly.

  Dr. Petrie stared at him. 'Mr. Firenza,' he said, 'am I hearing things? We have a dozen people dead of plague down at the hospital, and thirty or forty, maybe more people sick. We have beaches ankle-deep in sewage. Don't you think that, between the two, there's just the shadow of a probable link?'

  Firenza shrugged. 'You're a doctor. You ought to know the danger of jumping to conclusions.'

  Dr. Petrie sucked in his breath in exasperation. 'Mr. Firenza, I came here to ask you to close down the beaches. Not ask — insist. We have some kind of disease on our hands that's spreading faster than any disease we've ever come across before. People are dying within three to four hours of first catching it. Unless you want the whole population of Miami dead or dying within a couple of days, I suggest you act pretty fast.'

  'Oh, you do, do you?' sneered Firenza. 'And just how do you suggest that I shut down twenty miles of beach without setting off the biggest hysterical exodus in American history?'

  Dr. Petrie stood up. He was very tired, and he was angry. 'I think it's far better to set off an hysterical exodus of living people, than it is to shovel them up unhysterically when they're dead.'

  Firenza almost grinned. 'Dr. Petrie,' he said. 'You have a fine turn of phrase. Unfortunately, you're reacting like all of your breed when you're faced with genuine diseases instead of old people's hypochondriac complaints. Real diseases frighten the pants off you. For once, you've got to do some real medical work, instead of prescribing sugar pills and syrup for rich and bad-tempered old ladies. Come on — admit it — you're scared.'

  Dr. Petrie's face was strained with suppressed fury.

  'Yes,' he said, in a shaking voice. 'I'm scared. I'm scared of a disease that kills people off like bugs down a drain, and I'm scared of you.'

  Firenza stood up, too. He was nearly a foot shorter than Dr. Petrie.

  'I suggest you go get yourself some rest,' said Firenza. 'In the light of day, th
e whole thing is going to look a lot less scary. I'm not saying that the situation isn't serious. It is, and I'm treating it as a medical emergency. But that's no reason to disturb the whole city, to cause unnecessary distress and anxiety, and to kill off the proceeds from a vacation season that's only just started. If we quarantine this city, Dr. Petrie, we'll destroy our business-folk, and our ordinary men and women, just as surely as if they'd gotten sick.'

  Petrie looked at him for a long while, then slowly shook his head.

  Mr. Firenza said, 'I promise you, and I promise Dr. Selmer, that if this epidemic gets any worse by tomorrow noon, I'll bring in the Dade County Health Department, and seek some federal help if we need it. Now — is that to your satisfaction?'

  There was a long, awkward silence. Dr. Petrie opened the door of the study. 'I don't know what to say to you, Mr. Firenza. If you won't listen, you won't listen. Maybe I should go straight to the mayor.'

  'The mayor's in Washington, for two days.'

  'But he knows about the epidemic, surely?'

  'He's heard about it, on the news. He called me, and I told him it was all under control, and to stay put. All I can say, Dr. Petrie is that it's up to the men of healing like you and Dr. Selmer to prove me right.'

  Dr. Petrie turned away. 'If it didn't mean a terrible loss of life,' he said bitterly, 'I'd do anything to prove you wrong.'

  He called Dr. Selmer from the phone-booth on the corner of the street, and told him what had happened. Selmer sounded frayed and worried, and on the point of collapse.

  'Doesn't he have any idea how bad it is?' asked Anton Selmer. 'I've had fifteen more deaths since you left. I've had three nurses and two doctors down with it, and it won't be long before I get it myself.'

  'Of course you won't. Just like you said, you and I are probably immune. Maybe it was contact with David that did it, or maybe we're just lucky.'

  'I need to be lucky, if Firenza won't close the beaches.'

  'I'm sorry, Anton. I did try. He's still telling the press that it's containable and localized, and that we're all going to wake up in the morning and discover it was nothing more than a nasty dream.'

  'Jesus Christ.'

  'I'm going after Prickles now,' Dr. Petrie said. 'I don't know where Margaret's taken her, but maybe if she's sick she's gone home. It shouldn't take long.'

  'Will you come back here, just as soon as you can? I need every bit of help I can get. Joe Mamiya is making some tests on the bacillus, but it's going to take him a long time to come up with anything positive.'

  'Anton — I'll be as quick as I can.'

  Dr. Petrie put the phone back in its cradle, and went back to his car. On the far sidewalk, he saw a man shuffling and staggering along, leaning against parked cars for support. The man suddenly stopped, and his head jerked back. Then he dropped to his knees, and fell face first on to the concrete. He lay there muttering and twitching, his cheeks bruised and pale, his right leg nervously shuddering.

  Dr. Petrie walked across the road and knelt down beside him.

  'I'm a doctor.' he said. 'Do you feel bad?'

  The man turned his bloodshot eyes upwards to look at him. 'I'm dying,' he muttered hoarsely. 'I got that disease, and I'm dying.'

  'Do you want anything? A drink maybe?'

  The man closed his eyes.

  Dr. Petrie stayed beside him for a few minutes, then the man opened his eyes again.

  'It hurts so bad,' he whispered. 'It hurts me in my guts. In my balls. It's like someone's eating me up alive.'

  'Don't worry. The pain will soon be over.'

  'I'm dying, doc.'

  'Leonard, my name's Leonard.'

  The man, his face pressed against the rough sidewalk, tried to smile. There was a cold wreath of sweat around his forehead, and his face was now a ghastly white.

  'Leonard… ' he whispered.

  Dr. Petrie took out his handkerchief and wiped the man's forehead. He turned him over, and tried to make him as comfortable as he could. He checked the pulse, and the rate of respiration, and it was quite obvious there was nothing he could do. The man would be dead in a matter of minutes.

  The man opened his eyes one last time. He looked up at the night sky as if it was something he had never seen before, and then he turned his gaze back to Dr. Petrie. He stared at him for a long time, and then, in a small, quiet voice, he said, 'Leonard?'

  Dr. Petrie said gently, 'Don't try to talk. Just lie still.'

  'Thank you, Leonard.'

  'You've got nothing to thank me for. Now, stay still. It won't hurt so bad if you're still.'

  The man reached out with cold sweaty fingers and took Dr. Petrie's hand in his. He attempted a squeeze of friendship.

  'Thanks for — thanks for — '

  Dr. Petrie was going to answer, but it was too late. The man was dead. He released his hand, and stood up. He thought about going back to Firenza's house, and telling the police that the body was lying here, but then he considered that the police had enough bodies to pick up, and that they'd spot this one soon enough. Maybe it was better for his freshly-dead acquaintance to spend a last night in the open, under the night sky, then be shoveled straight away into the back of a garbage truck.

  He went back to the Lincoln, climbed in and slammed the door. He felt physically and morally drained. For a moment, he held up his hands in front of him, and imagined they were teeming with infected bacilli. The enemy was invisible and endlessly malevolent, and so far there was no way of fighting back.

  Dr. Petrie released the brake, and turned the car east. There was no future in thinking things like that. Right now, it was Prickles he wanted. A safe, healthy, and happy Prickles.

  He joined the North-South Expressway and drove up towards North Miami Beach at nearly seventy miles an hour. The ocean was turning pale misty blue on his right, and the sky was growing lighter. The clock in the car reminded him that it was nearly dawn, and that he hadn't slept all night. There was hardly any other traffic at all, and several times he had to pull out to overtake abandoned cars.

  It was almost light by the time he pulled up outside the white ranch-style house with the stunted palms. He shut the car door with a bang and strode across the lawn. There were no lights in the house, but Margaret's cream-colored Cutlass was parked in the car port. He went up to the frosted-glass front door and rang the bell.

  There was no answer. He rang again and again, and shouted, 'Margaret! Margaret — are you in there? Margaret, it's Len!'

  He tried to peer in through the sitting-room window, but it was too dark to make anything out. He went around the side of the house and tried the side door, but it was locked and bolted. He banged on it a couple of times and shouted his wife's name, but again there was no reply.

  Dr. Petrie was just walking back across the lawn towards his car when he turned and saw a bedroom curtain move upstairs. The window opened and Prickles leaned out.

  'Daddy,' she called, with a serious frown.

  'Prickles! Listen, give me a couple of minutes and I'll get you out of there.'

  'I didn't want to go but Mommy said I had to. Daddy, I'm frightened. Mommy says she's sick. Daddy, I'm real frightened.'

  Dr. Petrie was still standing there when the front door opened. It was Margaret. She was very pale, and she was wearing a red flowery wrap. It gave him an odd sensation to see her there, because she was at once so familiar and so hostile. There was the same bird's-wing sweep of dark hair; the same wide-apart eyes; the same tight mouth; the same long angular nose. But there was something else as well — a blank stare of bitter resentment and dislike.

  'Margaret?' said Dr. Petrie, walking back across the lawn towards her. 'Are you all right? Prickles said you were sick.'

  Margaret attempted a smile.

  'I have been unwell, Leonard. If that interests you.' Dr. Petrie pointed up to the bedroom window. 'Why did you take her back? I thought you were going to Fort Lauderdale to see your mother.'

  Margaret was holding the door so tight tha
t her knuckles were white.

  'So you care about her when it suits you,' she said slurrily.

  'Look Margaret — are you sick, or what? What's the matter with you?'

  'I'm fine, now. I was a little under the weather, but I'm fine.'

  'You don't look fine. You look terrible.' Margaret laughed, humorlessly. 'You don't look so good yourself. Now, why don't you just get out of here and leave us alone.'

  Dr. Petrie went right up to the door. But before he could push his way in, Margaret closed it, and latched the security chain. She peered at him through the four-inch gap that was left, like a suspicious animal in its darkened den.

  He tried to force the door, but it wouldn't budge. 'Margaret,' he warned. 'Open this door.'

  'You're not coming in, Leonard. I won't let you. Just go away and leave us alone.'

  'Margaret, you're sick. You don't know what you're saying. You could have the plague. There are people dying in the streets. I've seen them.'

  'Go away, Leonard! We can manage without you!' Dr. Petrie slammed his shoulder against the door. The security chain was wrenched in its screws, but it stayed firm.

  'Margaret — you're sick! For Christ's sake, think of Prickles! If you're sick, then she's going to get sick, and that could mean that both of you die!' Margaret tried to dose the door completely, but Dr. Petrie kept his foot jammed in it, and wouldn't let her.

  He was so busy trying to wrench the door open that he didn't hear the car stop in the road, or see the two men walking slowly across the lawn towards him. It was only when Margaret looked up, and the cop said, 'Okay, Superman, what's going on here?' that he realized what was happening.

  The policemen looked tired and hard-faced. One of them was standing a little way back, with his hand on the butt of his gun. The other was right up behind him, with his arms akimbo. They both wore sunglasses, and they both had knotted handkerchiefs around their necks, ready to pull over their nose and mouth in case of plague duty.