The White Plague

by Frank Herbert

  They were almost into the notch at the head of the valley now, the rock walls covered with blackberries, spittle bugs on the leaves. There was low gorse to the left beyond the walls, the burned-out ruin of a farmhouse down there, equipment in the yard rusty and smashed, a power pole leaning at a crazy angle over the crumpled metal roof of an outbuilding. Everything pointed to the frenzy of destruction he had seen from his first day here.

  John stopped and looked back the way they had come. He glimpsed the lake through the low conifers and the shelf line of another road on the far side of the water. Looking at Herity, who also was studying the road behind them, John had the feeling that Herity and the priest were contending for him, that he, John Garrech O’Donnell, was a prize that each of those two men sought.

  The priest and the boy had not stopped. Herity touched John’s arm. “Let’s be hurrying along.” He sounded fearful.

  John fell into quick step with Herity, looking up once at the scudding clouds. There was a damp smell of ashes in the air. The road turned down to the right, cooler here, the trees much taller on this side of the notch. Herity did not slacken the pace until they were beside Father Michael and the boy, walking once more four abreast.

  The road curved left along a rock outcropping, then up a slight rise and once more down. There were gateways here, two on each side of the road, the whitewash weathered away, the gates themselves barricaded by high piles of fallen trees. Beyond the second barricade on the right, John could see an overgrown cart track cutting through a field of rye where tall weeds poked. There was a battered sign board dangling from the gatepost, some of its letters still visible. John tried to read them as he passed:

  “JF –– PA –––– blessed officially –––– Rev. M –––– PO – ER.”

  “What’s that place?” John asked, nodding.

  “Who cares?” Herity asked. “It’s the dead and gone.”

  Deciduous trees bowered the road here and the four walkers emerged from the shadows of them to find a house on each side crowded up to the road. The one on the right was a smashed and burned ruin, but the one on the left appeared intact, only a bit of moss on its slate roof, no smoke from its two chimneys. There was even a door standing open with a coat hanging inside as though the owner had just come in from the fields.

  John, sensing the nearness of rain, asked: “Shouldn’t we take shelter in there?” He stopped and the others stopped with him.

  “Are y’ daft?” Father Michael asked, his voice low. “Can’t you smell it? That’s a death house.”

  John sniffed, smelling a faint carrion odor. He looked at Herity.

  “But it is shelter, Priest, and the rain’s coming,” Herity said. He acted as though he would not enter without Father Michael’s approval.

  “There’s unburied dead around,” Father Michael said. “Perhaps… suicides.” He looked up the road ahead of them, then down at a patch of yellow pimpernel against the house wall. “There’ll be a town ahead and shelter there.”

  “Towns is not so safe these days,” Herity said. “I had it in mind to take the upper road and miss the town.”

  John heard the short sharp calls of rooks beyond the trees and now that they had stopped walking, the air felt chilled.

  “Best be going along,” Father Michael said. “I don’t like the feel of this place.”

  “The faeries have been at it for sure,” Herity said. He headed past the priest, adjusting the straps of his pack. Father Michael and the boy hurried to catch up. John joined them, wondering at the strangeness of that exchange. Another hidden conversation between the two men. One minute they were fighting, the next they found some secret agreement.

  At the crest of the next hill, there was a cleared space on the right, another burned ruin in it and an intact sign at the drive curving in and out of the cleared space.

  “Shamrock Inn.”

  Herity trotted up the drive and peered behind the ruin. “Back buildings are still intact,” he called. He brought a pistol from beneath his jacket and went around the wreckage, returning in a moment to announce: “No one at home. Smells of piss, though, if you don’t mind, Father Michael.”

  It began to rain as John, the priest and boy came up to Herity. He led the way around the ruin on a muddy path, waving proudly at a low, windowless building that came into view on the other side.

  “The bath house and toilets remain!” Herity said. “The emblems of our civilization survive. You smell it, Father Michael. There’s the piss, but more.

  Father Michael entered the open door of the weathered building, the others right behind. It was raining hard now, the drumming loud on the metal roof over them. Father Michael sniffed the air.

  “He smells it!” Herity said, watching Father Michael with a look of glee. “He’s like his precious Vikings, is my priest, following the smell of hay to a settlement they could despoil. See how he sniffs the air! He has the brewery smell in his nose and he’s thinking how fine it’d be to have that savor on his tongue.”

  Father Michael aimed a hurt and pleading look at Herity, who only chuckled.

  John sniffed. He could smell the latrine odors from the toilets next door, but Herity was right: there was the smell of beer in this room, as though it had been spilled on the floor and allowed to soak in for years. John glanced around. It apparently had been a bath house and laundry, but only the sinks remained and someone had ripped them almost completely out of the wall. A disordered clutter of broken green glass and paper had been kicked into a corner. Otherwise, the floor appeared swept, only a few windblown leaves scattered across it.

  Herity dropped his pack onto the concrete floor by the door and ducked outside. He returned presently, his hands caked with wet black dirt, five bottles of Guinness clutched in his arms.

  “Buried, b’gawd!” he said. “But I know the ways of them as tries to hide. And there’s plenty more in the hole, enough to lose all our sorrows. Here, Father Michael!” Herity thrust a dark-brown bottle at the priest, who took it with a trembling hand. “And one for Mister O’Donnell!”

  John took the bottle, feeling the coldness of it. He shook away the dirt around the cap.

  “Here now!” Herity said, taking a bottle opener from his pack. “Don’t disturb the precious brew.”

  As Herity opened John’s bottle and returned it, John heard O’Neill-Within screaming: “Don’t! Don’t!”

  One sip, he thought. Enough to clear my throat.

  He met Herity’s gaze over the upturned bottle. There was a measuring, waiting look in the man’s eyes and he was not drinking, although Father Michael already had drained his own bottle.

  John lowered the bottle and met Herity’s gaze again, grinning. “You’re not drinking, Mister Herity.”

  John wiped his lips on a sleeve of the yellow sweater.

  “I was enjoying the sight of you and you so pleasured with the pride of Ireland,” Herity said. He passed an opened bottle to Father Michael. “I’ll bring more.” He made three trips, leaving a row of bottles along the wall – twenty of them with glass shining between the patches of brown dirt. “And there’s more,” Herity said, wiping a bottle and opening it for himself.

  John sipped at his drink. It was bitter and thirst-quenching. He could feel the glow of it and thought about the cans of fish in his pocket. He brought them out.

  “Should we be making a meal here?”

  “I was wondering at the bulge of those,” Herity said. He drank deeply of his brew. “We can eat later. This is a rare moment for serious drinking.”

  He wants to get me drunk, John thought. Putting aside a half-full bottle, he stared out the doorwary, sensing the roiling mutter of O’Neill-Within, screams hanging at the edge of awareness. Why do I move to the demands of O’Neill-Within? he wondered. O’Neill was always there, always watching, always aware of what was said and done around him, always with a special alertness to the pain of those he observed. John felt then that O’Neill-Within ran the O’Donnell persona as though O
’Neill were a puppetmaster playing the other persona on a special stage. And wouldn’t Herity like to find that puppetmaster!

  “You drink like a nandy,” Herity said, opening another bottle. “There must be a hundred bottles out there in the hole.” He passed the open bottle to Father Michael, who took it firmly and drained it without stopping for breath. The boy crawled into the corner near the ruined sink and sat there staring at the three men with a sullen expression.

  “I’ll go to sleep if I drink on an empty stomach,” John said. He looked at the boy. “And the boy’s hungry. Wouldn’t you agree, Father Michael?”

  “Leave the priest out of it!” Herity bawled. “He’s a drinkin’ man, is our Father Michael.”

  Father Michael accepted another open bottle from Herity. There was a glazed look in the priest’s eyes. He shuddered as though from the cold, holding the bottle indecisively. He looked from the bottle to the boy, obviously trying to make a choice. Abruptly, he opened his hand. The bottle smashed on the floor.

  “Now look what you’ve went and done,” Herity accused.

  “No more,” Father Michael muttered.

  “That’s not the Father Michael I know!”

  “Bring the can opener, boy,” Father Michael said.

  The boy stood and produced a small, razor-tip can opener from his pocket. He took it to Father Michael, who accepted a can of fish from John and opened it with elaborate steadiness before passing it to the boy with the opener.

  His voice hoarse, Father Michael asked: “You’ve more of these?” He pointed at the can of fish in the boy’s hands.

  “One for each of us.”

  “None for me,” Herity said. “There’s one drinking man in this lot at least.” He sat down beside the unopened bottles and rested an arm across his green pack. “I’m the only man among us can appreciate the honor of the occasion.” He started to drink one bottle after another.

  John found a wall to sit against where he could watch his companions. The boy took two more cans of fish from John and opened them, passing one to Father Michael and the other to John before returning to his corner. Rain continued to drum on the metal roof. It grew darker and cold.

  There was something fermenting in the boy, John thought. There was a depth charge in him, pressure waiting to reach that limit which would explode it. For the first time since he had seen the boy in the boat, John sensed a personality in him, a dim thing made of resentments and fears.

  The boy glanced once at the priest. John, following his gaze, saw that Father Michael had curled into a corner and gone to sleep. A gentle wheezing sound could be heard from him.

  “Would y’ look at the little shagger there?” Herity asked, his voice low.

  John jerked his gaze around, realizing that Herity had been studying him and had noticed his attention on the boy.

  “Now, what would his name be?” Herity asked. “Does he have a name?” Herity drained a bottle and opened a fresh one. “Could it be the little shagger had no parents? Is he something turned out by the faeries?”

  The boy glared at Herity, unmoving, chin resting on his knees.

  Herity appeared unaffected by the drink. He drained the new bottle and opened yet another, keeping his attention on the boy.

  “Should we be wearing our coats inside out?” Herity asked. “The faeries cannot follow you when you wear your coat that way. I’ve a mind to shake the name out of him. What right does he have to keep himself to himself that way?”

  Herity’s voice had taken on a slight thickness, John noted. But the man appeared steady where he sat, head firm on the neck, no shakiness in his hands.

  “I could get the speech of him soon enough,” Herity said. He drained the bottle and placed it neatly with the empties on his left. Leaning an arm on his pack, his head on his arm, he continued to stare at the boy.

  What was all this talk of faeries? John wondered. Herity appeared to have his own sense of reality, his own saints and devils. Herity sober was a man whose judgments had been made long ago and never changed. But Herity drunk, and he must be touched by the liquor now, could be another matter. He had sounded argumentative and bitter, but now silent… and John could feel the deep internal angers of him. Were there memories? Herity could be one of those who could not hide in the drink. The Guinness could have brought acid memories and even feelings of guilt. For what would Herity feel guilty? For striking the priest?

  Herity closed his eyes. Presently, a deep snore shook him.

  The boy stood up and cat-footed across the room to stand over Herity. There was something in the boy’s right hand but John could not make it out in the gathering gloom.

  Without any warning, the boy fell on Herity, striking out with the thing in his hand which, John saw now, was the razor-tip can opener. He was trying to slit Herity’s throat, but the jacket collar prevented it.

  Herity, awakened in shock, grabbed for the arm with the opener and caught it. They fought silently, the wild strength of the young body revealed in a flailing, unrestrained violence, terrifying in its silent intensity.

  “All right! I’ll leave you be!” Herity’s voice carried a high-pitched hysteria. He caught the other arm and held both arms while the boy strained against him.

  “Leave be, lad! I won’t bother you more.”

  Father Michael sat up and asked: “What’s wrong?”

  The boy appeared to react to the priest’s voice. He subsided slowly, his eyes still blazing at Herity, but the weapon dropped from the boy’s hand and Herity thrust him away, releasing the arms. The boy stood and backed away.

  A strangely chastened Herity picked up the weapon. He looked at it as though he had never seen such a thing before, and felt at his collar where the thing had struck. He looked up at the boy then and, in a voice of contrition, said: “I’m sorry, lad. I’d no right to intrude on your grief.”

  “What’s happening?” Father Michael asked.

  Herity hurled the opener at him and Father Michael groped for it, lifting it to where he could see it.

  “You be the keeper of that, Priest,” Herity said. “Your little shagger tried to use it on me throat.” Herity began to laugh. “He’s more of a man than you, Priest, and him no more than a chin above your belt buckle. But if he tries that again I’ll break him like a piece of kindlin’ wood.”

  The boy went to Father Michael and sat down beside him, still watchful of Herity.

  “Didn’t I tell you violence serves no purpose?” Father Michael asked. “Look at Joseph there, a man of violence, and ask do you want to become like him?”

  The boy curled his knees up and buried his face in them. His shoulders shook but no sound emerged.

  Watching them, John felt a surge of unexplainable anger. These people were so ineffectual! The boy couldn’t even carry out a proper killing. He’d had every opportunity and he’d failed.

  Father Michael put an arm over the boy’s shoulder. “It’s bitter cold,” he said. “Should we have a fire?”

  “Don’t try to be more of a fool than you are,” Herity said. “Cuddle up to your little shagger there and keep him from harm. We’re here for the night.”

  The Irish, that harmless nation which has always been so friendly to the English.

  – The Venerable Bede

  ADRIAN PEARD stood at the window of Doheny’s office in the Royal Hospital. It was early evening of a cold and cloudy day, a sky to match the gray battlements of Kilmainham off to the right. His view out the window was down across Inchicore Road toward Camac Creek and the burned ruins of a petrol station. He could hear Doheny stirring in his chair at the desk but did not turn.

  “Why did they send you?” Doheny asked. His voice sounded strained.

  “Because they knew you’d listen to me.”

  “He meant to kill me, I tell you! He had the gun right out on the desk and was fingering it the way he does. You’ve seen it.”

  “None of us doubt your word, Fin. That isn’t the point.”

  “Then what is
the point?”

  “There’s no one else can control the Beach Boys as well as Kevin.”

  “So we just sit idly by and let him threaten our researchers, kill off anyone he…”

  “No, Fin! That’s not the way of it at all.”

  Peard turned his back to the window. It was a depressing scene out there, the petrol station ruins a reminder of the mob violence that had swept through here before the army and the Finn Sadal had brought back a semblance of order.

  Doheny sat with his elbows on his desk, fists clenched and his chin resting on the fists. He looked ready to explode.

  “You’re to stop threatening Kevin O’Donnell,” Peard said. “That’s the message I was told to convey. The army wants no internal battles. As for Kevin, they’ve taken him aside and warned him to leave the Lab alone. It’s off limits to him.”

  “Unless he takes it into his mad head to kill us all in our sleep!”

  “He’s been told the army will execute him if he doesn’t obey.”

  “And the same for me?”

  “I’m sorry, Fin.”

  “He’ll not try to stop our exchanges with the Huddersfield people?”

  “He’s been warned off, Fin.”

  “They’ll continue to listen in on us, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “And pass it along to Kevin?”

  “He has his friends in the army.”

  “So it would appear.”

  “Well, that’s the lot, Fin. You’ll not disobey?”

  “I’m not a foolhardy young idiot!”

  “Good.”

  Doheny lowered his hands and unclenched his fists. “How’re Kate and Browder doing?”

  “As well as could be expected. She’s still crying she wants a priest to marry them.”

  “Then get her one.”

  “That’s not as easy as it sounds, Fin.”

  “Yes… yes, I know.” Doheny shook his head. “That was a bad thing, Maynooth.”