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

by Graham Masterton

  Dr. Selmer was fast asleep on the couch when Dr. Petrie returned to the office. Adelaide was sitting beside him reading a medical magazine and yawning.

  ‘That didn’t take long,’ she said.

  He sat down next to her and rubbed his eyes. ‘It was Margaret,’ he said wearily. ‘She just died, about five minutes ago.’

  Adelaide slowly put down her magazine. ‘Margaret?’ she said, shocked.

  ‘She’s dead, Adelaide. She had the plague.’

  She reached over and grasped his wrist. ‘Oh, Leonard. Oh, God – I’m sorry. I know that we wished all kinds of things on her. But not this.’

  Dr. Petrie sighed. ‘There’s nothing we can do. She caught it, and she died. It doesn’t matter what we wished or didn’t wish.’

  ‘What about Prickles? Has she got it too?’

  ‘I don’t know. Margaret said she hadn’t. She left her with the woman next door when they took her into hospital.’

  Adelaide frowned. She could see what Leonard was thinking. He was exhausted, and the past forty-eight hours seemed to have bent and aged him. He was suddenly faced with a choice – to shoulder the responsibility of saving what he had left; or to close his eyes to his own loves and feelings, and plunge himself into a medical battle that he knew was utterly hopeless.

  ‘Leonard,’ she said softly, ‘I know that you’re a doctor, and whether you can cure people or not, you still have to do your best.’

  He didn’t answer. He merely said, ‘Is there any more coffee?’

  She held his wrist harder. ‘Leonard, if you want to stay here. I’ll understand. But if you want to make a break for it. I’ll understand that, too. I want to be with you, that’s all.’

  Dr. Petrie leaned over and kissed her cheek. She turned her face, and kissed him on the mouth. There was passion in their kiss, but there was also a kind of exploration and communication. Lips touching each other, tongues touching each other, questioning and asking.

  At last, he said, ‘A nurse downstairs told me they were going to burn the city. She heard it from a fireman.’ Adelaide stared. ‘They’re going to do what?’

  ‘The plague is obviously out of hand. They’re thinking of burning the city.’

  ‘Who is?’

  ‘I don’t know. Firenza, the Disease Control Center, the county health chief. What does it matter?’

  ‘But that’s insane. They can’t set fire to the whole of Miami!’

  Dr. Petrie stood up. ‘They can, honey, and they probably will. Now, how about that coffee?’

  Adelaide stood up, too. ‘Leonard – damn the coffee! If this city’s going to burn, I’m not going to burn along with it! You think I’m going to stand here passively making cups of coffee while the whole place goes up in flames? You’re out of your mind!’

  Dr. Petrie held her shoulders and calmed her down. ‘Don’t panic, Adelaide, for God’s sake. It’s probably nothing more than a contingency plan, that’s all. Whenever there’s a plague, you have to burn clothing and blankets and bodies, just to stop further infection. Look – we don’t even know what’s really happening. We have no idea how many people have died, or whether the plague is spreading or not.’

  Adelaide looked straight into his eyes. ‘Leonard,’ she said, ‘I don’t care. I just think we ought to get the hell out of here before they put a match to us.’

  ‘Even if I decide to stay?’

  ‘You can’t decide to stay!’

  Dr. Petrie turned away. ‘That girl downstairs – the one who told me they were going to burn Miami – she’s staying. She wants to stand by her patients.’

  ‘This is her hospital,’ persisted Adelaide. ‘It’s her job to stay. What about Prickles? Are you just going to leave her out there, and cross your fingers that she won’t get sick – or burned – or raped by some maniac?’

  ‘Adelaide!’ shouted Dr. Petrie.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Leonard, this is not the time to play at heroes!’ retorted Adelaide. ‘These people don’t need you! They’re all going to die, aren’t they? What’s the use of staying, Leonard?’

  Dr. Petrie turned around, clenching and unclenching his fists. He stared at Adelaide, with her fierce brown eyes, and her brunette curls, and that disturbing, angry, beautiful face.

  ‘The use—’ he began, uncertainly. ‘The use is—’

  ‘The use is what?’ interrupted Adelaide hotly. ‘You can’t cure them, so what are you going to do for them? Make sure that the last thing they see on earth is your benign and self-sacrificing mug? Leonard, for Christ’s sake, you’re not Albert Schweitzer!’

  Dr. Petrie was about to answer, but changed his mind. He simply said: ‘No, honey, I know I’m not Albert Schweitzer.’

  ‘Then let’s go,’ said Adelaide. ‘Let’s just get out of here while we can.’

  Dr. Petrie nodded. ‘I was going to go anyway. I guess I just needed someone to persuade me. I just don’t feel very proud of myself.’

  Adelaide sighed. ‘Leonard, it’s not a question of pride. It’s purely a matter of survival.’

  Dr. Petrie sat down heavily, with his face in his hands.

  She knelt down in front of him, and took his hands away. ‘You don’t have to justify what you do. There doesn’t have to be a reason. It’s the same with everything. Why did we fall in love? Why do I want to cling on to you so much?’

  ‘I’m not a great sheltering tree, you know,’ said Dr. Petrie. ‘I don’t even know if I’m a great sheltering man. I feel like a goddamned broken reed at the moment.’

  Anton Selmer, asleep on the couch, grunted and whispered something. Dr. Petrie gently laid Adelaide’s hands aside, and walked over to look at him. The stocky, red-headed doctor looked pale and sweaty. Petrie lifted his wrist and checked his pulse.

  ‘Is he all right?’ asked Adelaide.

  He counted the pulse-rate and respiration-rate. Under his probing, long-fingered hands. Dr. Selmer didn’t even stir.

  ‘I think he’s okay,’ Dr. Petrie said at last. ‘But he’s totally exhausted. He needs all the rest he can get.’

  ‘Are you going to wake him, and tell him we’re leaving?’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  Dr. Petrie shook Dr. Selmer’s shoulder. The sleeping doctor licked his lips, and stirred. Dr. Petrie shook him again.

  ‘Anton – wake up. It’s Leonard.’

  Finally, Dr. Selmer opened his eyes. They were bloodshot from lack of sleep, and his mind was completely fuddled. ‘Leonard… what’s going on? I was dreaming we were playing golf.’

  ‘Was I winning?’

  ‘Like hell you were. You were three strokes down. What’s going on?’

  Dr. Petrie said awkwardly, ‘We’ve come to a decision, Adelaide and I.’

  Adelaide interrupted, ‘We’re leaving.’

  ‘Leaving?’ Dr. Selmer sat up. ‘I don’t understand.’

  Dr. Petrie shrugged. ‘We’re going to try and make a break. I want to see if I can rescue Prickles, and then maybe we can get through the quarantine cordon and find ourselves a remote place to stay until this whole thing’s over.’

  ‘But supposing you spread the disease beyond Miami? Jesus, Leonard, this thing could wipe out the whole damned United States!’

  ‘That’s why we want to go some place remote,’ said Dr. Petrie. ‘We can keep ourselves under observation until we’re sure that we’re clear.’

  ‘The National Guard will kill you,’ said Dr. Selmer. ‘You saw what happened to that boy downstairs.’

  ‘They’ll kill us either way,’ said Dr. Petrie. ‘The rumor’s going around that they’re going to burn the city down.’

  Dr. Selmer shook his head. ‘I don’t know what to say. I’m a doctor, and so are you. How can we leave this place?’

  Leonard Petrie couldn’t answer that. He didn’t know what the answer was. He only knew that all his instinct and personality were telling him now that it was important for him to survive. He completely accepted a doctor’s responsibilities to care for his p
atients, yet he was unable to invest any belief in a hopeless situation. To him, it was like moths flying into the windshields of speeding cars.

  He knelt down beside Dr. Selmer’s settee, and said, ‘Anton, I’m not running out. I just don’t believe that it’s worth sticking around here any longer. We’re not doing anyone any good. Least of all ourselves.’

  Dr. Selmer looked thoughtful. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I can’t prevent you from going. I won’t say I’m not disappointed.’

  ‘Will you come along with us?’

  Dr. Selmer shook his head. ‘No, Leonard. That’s my emergency ward down there, and I have to stay whether I like it or not.’ He got up from the settee. ‘I do feel disappointed, Leonard, but that doesn’t mean I don’t wish you luck.’

  Dr. Petrie got up from his knees. Dr. Selmer gave him a small, rueful grin. ‘I can’t hold you back, Leonard. Maybe it’s right that you should be the one to go. Someone has to get out of here and tell the people of this country what’s happening. Now, if I were you. I’d get my lady out of here as quick as I could, and high-tail it for the city limits before dawn.’

  Dr. Petrie checked his watch. It was already 11:47. ‘Okay, Anton,’ he said gently. ‘But do me a favor, will you?’

  ‘If you promise to keep on playing such a lousy game of golf in my dreams, I’ll do you any favor you want.’

  ‘Look after yourself. If they start burning the city, do your best to get out. When this is all over, I want you and me to meet up, and have ourselves a couple of drinks at the club, and drown the memory of this goddamned plague for ever.’

  Dr. Selmer scratched the back of his gingery neck. ‘I think you’ve got yourself a deal there, Leonard.’

  The two men clasped hands for a long moment, and then Dr. Petrie took Adelaide by the arm, and led her out into the corridor. As he closed the door behind him. Dr. Selmer called out, ‘Please, Leonard – take care.’

  Dr. Petrie nodded, and closed the office door behind him for the last time.

  *

  They pushed their way along the crowded hospital corridors as quickly as they could. Adelaide kept a handkerchief over her nose and mouth, and Dr. Petrie steered her clear of obvious plague cases. There was a background of low muttering and whispering, occasionally interrupted by cries of pain or anguish. People sat and lay everywhere, huddled in corners too sick to move, or gradually dying on their trolleys. The stench of dead bodies was almost too much to bear.

  Two patients, nearly dead themselves, watched with glazed eyes as a doctor, gasping and shuddering with his own plague, tried to inject them with painkilling drugs. In the night outside, the streets echoed with the never-ending wail of sirens.

  They broke out of the hospital doors and into the warm, neon-lit hospital forecourt. The place was still cluttered with ambulances, but there was noticeably less activity than there had been before. Dr. Petrie’s car was still at Margaret’s. By now it had probably been stolen, commandeered or towed away. But there was a whole hospital car-park round the side of the building, and they were bound to find a car with its ignition keys left inside.

  Adelaide said, ‘My God, it’s gotten so much worse. Look – there’s a couple of bodies over there, by the hospital entrance.’

  Dr. Petrie took her arm. ‘Don’t worry about that. Let’s just get the hell out.’

  They half-ran, half-walked round to the side of the hospital. The car-park was dark, and shadowed from the street-lights by the fourteen-storey bulk of the hospital tower. Dr. Petrie said: ‘You take the first row of cars, I’ll take the second. Try the driver’s door, and see if it opens. If it does, check for keys.’

  As swiftly and silently as they could, they went from one car to the other, trying the door-handles. By the time Dr. Petrie had tugged at his twelfth car, he was beginning to wonder if the staff of this particular hospital weren’t security-conscious to a fault. Then Adelaide hissed, ‘I’ve got one!’

  She was opening the door of a bronze Gran Torino. Dr Petrie skirted around the back of the car that he had been trying to open, and crossed the space in between the rows of parked vehicles. The moment he stepped into the open, a rough voice shouted, ‘Hold it right there, buddy!’

  He froze, with his hands above his head. A stocky shadow disengaged itself from all the other shadows, and started to walk towards him. In a thin slanting beam of light from one of the hospital windows, Dr. Petrie saw a solid, middle-aged security guard, with a navy-blue uniform, a face as hard as a concrete post, and a revolver.

  ‘I’m a doctor,’ Petrie said.

  The security guard came up close, and shone a torch in Dr. Petrie’s face. ‘Then how come you’re trying to steal yourself a car?’

  ‘Someone took mine. I have an emergency.’

  ‘You got ID?’

  ‘Sure. It’s in my top pocket. Here – I’ll get it out for you.’

  ‘Don’t you move a muscle.’

  The security guard came forward, reached into Dr. Petrie’s inside pocket, then tried to open the papers with one hand. As he did so, Dr. Petrie grabbed the man’s gun wrist, and tried to twist the revolver out of his grasp.

  Forcing the guard’s arm around in a circle, he jammed his leg behind the man’s calf, and pushed him. The man fell backwards on to the tarmac, jarring his knee – but he still kept his grip on the gun.

  Dr. Petrie pressed the guard’s wrist against the ground, and then trod on it, hard. At last, the fingers opened, and Dr. Petrie snatched the revolver away from him.

  The guard cried, ‘Don’t shoot.’ He raised his arms protectively over his face. ‘I got a wife with a bad leg.’ Dr. Petrie said, ‘I’m not going to hurt you, you dumb ox. Just get up and get the hell out of here.’

  The guard got to his feet, and dusted himself off. ‘You won’t get far, you know,’ he said, stepping cautiously backwards. ‘They got the cops on the lookout for bums like you. All I have to do is call them up, and they’ve got your number.’

  Petrie waved the gun in his direction again. The guard said, ‘Hey – I didn’t mean it serious. I was joking! You go right ahead.’

  Adelaide was watching, tense and fearful, from a few feet away, holding the door of the Gran Torino. Dr. Petrie looked at her, and couldn’t see her eyes, only the dark brunette curls of her hair. The guard was shuffling away from them, step by step, holding his hands out in front of him.

  As if in a dream, Dr. Petrie fired the revolver twice. The guard yelped like a small dog, and started running away across the car park. Dr. Petrie lifted the revolver in both hands, held it steadily, and fired again. He missed. He fired once again, and the bullet sang mournfully off the fender of a parked car.

  Dr. Petrie lowered the gun, and peered into the darkness.

  ‘He got away,’ he said, as the smoke drifted away across the car-park.

  ‘You might have killed him,’ Adelaide gasped. ‘You meant to.’ She sounded very frightened.

  Dr. Petrie put the revolver in his pocket.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I meant to. But I didn’t.’

  They drove out of the car park in silence, and out into the plague-ridden streets of Miami.

  They switched on the car radio. It was now just past midnight, into the early hours of Wednesday morning. What they heard on the news and what they saw as they drove through the dark broken streets of the city were so different as to be totally bizarre.

  The calm, rich voice of the mayor, John Becker, was reassuring citizens throughout Florida and the United States that the breakdown in communication between Miami and the outside world was ‘purely temporary and technical, and in the best interests of all concerned.’

  Dr. Petrie glanced across at Adelaide, and shook his head. She smiled him a tight little smile.

  Mayor Becker went on, ‘This epidemic, which is still awaiting medical analysis, is proving a little more difficult to control than we had originally hoped, and for the protection of residents and folks on vacation, we’ve had to restrict some of the highway traffi
c through the city. But we can assure you that there’s nothing to worry about, provided you follow a simple safety code and remain at home whenever possible.’

  It was while he was saying this that, without warning, the city lights of Miami began to go out. Most of the downtown office buildings and stores were already in darkness, but now the street lights flickered out, and everything electrical dimmed and died. Like stars obscured by the passing of a murky cloud, the bright subtropical city with its glittering strip of hotels and its garish downtown streets, was gradually overtaken by a shadowy gloom, as dark and threatening as a primitive jungle.

  ‘I expect it’s the power station,’ Dr. Petrie said. ‘They’ve got the plague.’

  He switched on the car’s headlights. The streets seemed wrecked and deserted. Store windows were smashed, and there was garbage and junk strewn all over. Despite the threat of summary shooting, the looters had obviously been out in force. As they turned north on to 95, they saw a small group of blacks running furtively through the shadows with television sets, stereo equipment and records.

  Abandoned cars – some with their dead drivers still sitting in them – cluttered the highway. From the height of the expressway, Dr. Petrie and Adelaide could see small fires burning all over Miami in the tropical darkness, and a few buildings uncertainly lit by emergency generators. The whole city echoed with the endless warbling of police and fire sirens, and the crack of spasmodic shooting.

  In just over four days, from the first signs of plague in Hialeah, Miami had collapsed into pandemonium. It was like an old painting of hell with lurid flames and demonic shadows; and above everything was the terrible wail of sirens, the smashing of glass and the ceaseless blast of car horns, pressed down by the weight of their dead owners.

  Dr. Petrie opened the car window and slowed down for a while, listening and looking in cold disbelief.

  ‘It’s like the end of the world,’ whispered Adelaide. ‘My God, Leonard, it’s like the end of the world.’

  The stench of burning and the inhuman sounds of a dying city filled the car, and Dr. Petrie wound up the window again. He felt exhausted beyond anything he had ever known before. He had to open his eyes wide to clear them and focus them, and even then he found it difficult to drive through the debris and jetsam that strewed the highway.