Better in the Dark (27 page)

The hard ache that comes with deep cuts had hit Harry, and he had to clamp his teeth together to keep them from chattering. The clammy chill of shock was on him, and he wished passionately for something hot to drink. He knew that Radick had some brandy with him. Maybe later he could have a glass...

Roger was back, bandages, tape and a small can of Cut-Seel in his hands. “Kit’s coming with a basin. We’ll clean that up in no time.” He put his supplies on the table, then drew up a chair. “Let me see your other foot.”

Harry lifted it without a word.

“All minor here,” Roger said, relieved, when he had finished looking over the other sole. “You’re lucky it’s just one foot. Both feet cut and you’d be in a lot of trouble.”

Harry felt the cold deepen as he considered what Roger said. “Yes,” he whispered.

Katherine Ng opened the door. “Roger?” she called uncertainly. “I have the water here, but I thought you ought to know. There’s something going on out by the garage. I heard footsteps out there.”

“We’ll check later.”

Harry overrode this. “No. We’ll check now. Whoever threw that rock might still be there.”

“It’s not that important.” Roger took a firm hold of Harry’s foot.

“Our nurses and our food are out there. It
is
that important.” Harry lurched to his feet and swayed dizzily. “You go. Go!”

Roger hesitated, then went from the room.

“Kit, help me,” Harry said. “I’ve got to get back there.”

Katherine Ng put down her basin. “All right,” she said, and went to Harry, taking his weight onto her slender shoulder.

The faint sound of shouting reached them, and Harry stiffened.

Wordlessly Katherine began to move, easing the pressure from his bleeding foot as he hobbled out of the room.

In the hall, Radick and Natalie gave him little more than a worried glance as they rushed toward the kitchen and the back door.

The sounds were louder now, and there was the unmistakable sound of a car motor revving up.

Jim Varnay rushed by, and in a moment Kirsten Grant ran past them, her bathrobe tied loosely over her underwear.

Harry swore, and Katherine said, “We’ll be there in a moment. Don’t worry, Harry.”

The back kitchen door stood open, and in the uncertain light Harry could see milling bodies, and beyond, a produce truck. For a moment the figures struggled, an indistinct mass, then part of the group broke away and ran for the truck. There was a last scramble, then the truck roared away down the driveway, leaving a few of the doctors stumbling after it.

“I’ve got to get out there,” Harry said to Katherine.

But she held him back. “Harry, there’s nothing you can do. You’re bleeding all over the floor as it is. Whatever has happened, they’ll tell you about it. Here, I’ll bring a chair for you and then see what I can do about that bleeding.”

“It’s not important,” Harry said, but was already feeling waterboned as the rush of adrenalin left him.

Katherine had got him into a chair when Natalie appeared in the kitchen door. Her lab coat was torn and there was a red welt on her face that would be a bruise by morning. “Harry,” she said in a voice torn with tears held back.

Harry tried to rise and was firmly pushed back into the chair. “What is it, Natalie?”

“Harry, they got half the food. Three of the cartons are gone. We don’t have enough left to feed us all more than a week.” Her hands started to shake and she pressed them to her sides. “Alexes tried to stop them.”

Harry dreaded what she would say next.

“Oh, Christ, Harry. Alexes is dead.”

For several minutes no one spoke. The common room was bright, the chandeliers showing with ruthless clarity the defeat on every face.

It was Peter Justin who broke the silence at last. “I think,” he said in a thread of a voice, with none of his former meticulous arrogance, “I think that perhaps you could get through if I signed a report for you. The I.I.A. unit in control of this area is under the command of Aaron McChesney. He was in Auburn the last I knew.”

Carol Mendosa rose. “How soon can we get there?” She challenged the others with her eyes. “Alexes is dead now, and Stan and Amanda. Lisa’s upstairs with a temperature of one hundred five. Dave’s tied up in traction and his mind isn’t working at all. Eric’s filled up his veins with poison. How much more has to happen before you’ll leave?”

Maria Pantopolos shielded her eyes. “She’s right. We can’t stay here.”

Roger Nicholas nodded. “I was working lab tonight. We’ve got another dozen or so cases of that new polio. At this rate it’s going to spread all over the state, no matter what the I.I.A. does about quarantine. They’ve got to stop it fast or there is going to be a real disaster on their hands.”

“There already is,” Natalie muttered.

Ernest Dagstern nodded. “We’re out of beds. None of my colleagues will give us any more space, and you know we can’t take anyone else here. With the burn patients from Inner City, and the others here already, we can’t manage.” He opened helpless hands. “I tried to find more space. But there was no way.”

“How many people are waiting to get help right now?” Carol demanded. “It’s almost two in the morning. How many people are out there?”

It was Natalie who answered. “When I turned the desk over to Ted Lincoln, there were twenty-seven people there.”

“So you see.” Carol sat down. “We should have left last week. We should have cleared out as soon as the new polio turned up.”

Peter Justin cleared his throat, and said, “I have that polio.” He waited while the alarm disap-peared from the other faces. “I realized several days ago I was ill, and I was puzzled when I couldn’t determine what my disease was. So I made a study and found pretty much what you have discovered, that there is a new variety of polio, and that it is very dangerous.”

Dominic Hertzog glared at him. “You say that, knowing we’re unprotected.”

There was a strange calm in Peter Justin’s eyes. “I say this because you have had the same exposure I have.” He fumbled in his vest pocket, extracting at last a thick leather notebook. “This is my diary. It contains all the information I could gather about the new polio. When it first appeared I made notes on it of course, and then, later, when I realized that I had contracted it, I kept a record of the progress of the disease.” He cleared his throat uneasily. “The incubation period, as far as I have determined, is four to five weeks. The disease usually begins with general malaise, loss of appetite, soreness and some swelling in the joints and a low fever. This turns, in the space of a week or so, into a higher fever, acute body aches and muscular debilitation, loss of weight”—he motioned to his shrunken body—“occasional vertigo, and the beginning of paralysis. The last stages, which have shown a slighter greater than fifty percent fatality rate, last for anywhere from three to ten days. At the end of that time, if death has not occurred, the temperature drops to subnormal and this patient is lethargic for several days before a realistic assessment of the degree of debilitation can be made. Partial paralysis is quite common in those who survive.” He put the notebook on the table. “If you want to take this with you, it will carry some weight with McChesney.”

“And you?” Natalie asked, a residual horror in her voice. How like Peter Justin to make a graph of his own disease.

Peter Justin shrugged, and there was a ghost of his former elegance in the motion. “I know the course of the disease, Doctor. There is no earthly reason for me to leave with you. I would only take up valuable space. I will probably die no matter where I am. I can still do a little good if I remain here. I would like the chance to make up, even a little, for what I have done. You see,” he added, trying to laugh. “Harry was right. I didn’t understand what could happen. And I have a debt to pay.”

Suddenly Harry spoke up, forcing his mind to clear away the cobwebs that morphine had brought. “What about our patients?”

Carol turned on him. “What about them, Harry?”

“We can’t just leave them.” His tongue was unwieldy, and he had to take more time to speak clearly. “There are forty-three people in this house who are our patients. We can’t desert them. There are over one hundred house-call patients we see daily. What about them?”

“What
about
them?” Carol repeated. “You know we can’t save them. Hell, with you out of commission and Lisa sick, we don’t have enough of us left to manage the patients here and still make the house-call rounds. You know that, Harry. We all know it. But most of us don’t want to face it.”

For a moment Harry did not speak. His eyes were fixed on the floor, and he could feel his strength ebb as he sat there. “I guess you’re right,” he said at last. “But we need a couple of days here to make sure that our patients are taken care of. We can’t walk out on them. Or maybe you can, Carol. But I can’t.”

Natalie nodded. “I’ll start a schedule. We can be out of here by the day after tomorrow.” She looked uncertainly at Peter Justin. “You will give us an authorization to get us through to this McChesney person?”

“I will.” He held out the notebook. “One of you had better take this.”

Natalie took it. “I’ll make sure McChesney sees it. McChesney and everyone else. I promise you that, Peter.”

The child was as young as Philip had been. Natalie tapped the scrawny chest and heard the air whistle. The child would not live. It was almost dead now. As she worked on the child, Natalie realized with a start she did not know what sex it was: she had not been told and had not looked. Under her hands the chest heaved spasmodically and then trembled. Natalie bent over to breathe into the mouth, noticing again the slightly sweet, slightly rotten smell of the child’s flesh. She forced her own breath into the child’s lungs.

“You can stop now, Natalie,” Radick said behind her. “She’s dead.”

Natalie turned to him, unseeing. “Radick?” she said. She put her hand to her hair and then began to weep. “Radick, that’s three I’ve lost tonight. Three.”

Radick murmured a few words as he took her into his arms. “I know, Natalie, I know. None of us can bear much more of this. It is cruel to fight this way. We’re destroying ourselves.”

When Natalie had stopped crying, she looked back at the three-year-old girl on the table. “I don’t know, Radick. There has to be some way to save them.” Her eyes pleaded with him.

Radick touched her hand. “Now you must not lose courage, Natalie. You must realize that there is only so much you or any of us can do. Then we must find another way to fight.” He pulled the sheet on the table over the little girl’s face. “This is not the way. We must attack this pandemic at its roots, which means in the seat of power. We must make those men who created this atrocity realize what they have done. It will not be easy, Natalie. Men of power enjoy using it. Which is very bad when they use it for our destruction.”

Natalie studied him for a moment. “Radick, why did you stay to help us? You could have been on the other side.”

He turned on her. “I could never have been on the other side. My position might have made some of them consider inviting me, but I would never have been on that side. I despise what they are. I have treated too many of them for whom power has become a disease of the soul. They are like lepers, eaten up with it.” He stopped suddenly. “There are more patients waiting, Natalie. You’d best go to the front desk.”

“And you?” she asked, sensing the torment he had tried to hide from her.

He waved his hand to turn her away. “Go, go, Natalie. You should not see this. I have done this to myself. Leave me, will you? Please?”

“If that’s what you want.” It was more a question than a statement. “I’ll send Larsen in for the body. She’s been taking care of that today.” Natalie had almost closed the door behind her when Radick stopped her.

“No, wait. I must tell you. I must tell someone.” He gripped the table, the tension in his body a pale echo of his inner conflict. “I did an unforgivable thing, Natalie. When I realized what I had done, I could not face it. But I cannot contain it much longer. It is too difficult, watching the deaths.” He steadied himself. “You see, Natalie, I have treated those men. Miles Wexford was a patient of mine. Oh, I know it is not wise to treat one’s superior officer or one’s employer. I knew that then, but I was arrogant enough, foolish enough, to think that being a psychiatrist somehow protected me. It didn’t.”

Natalie said softly, “Yes?”

“Four or five years ago, back when this was starting, Wexford was my patient. He told me about this project. He felt a certain guilt about it and wanted to resolve those feelings. I suggested abandoning the project, and he agreed. I was naive enough to believe that he had. I am fifty-two; I have seen enough of this species to know better. When the deaths began, when the diseases came back...” He slammed his closed fist into the table, crying out as the knuckles broke. “I asked him about it, and he denied it. He denied it, and I accepted his word. I should have known—I
did
know—that it was a lie. But I turned away from it because I was afraid. Heaven forgive me, Natalie. I was a coward.”

Natalie stood still, at once shocked and unsurprised. She wanted to say something to Radick, but found she did not have the words. “I’ll send in Kit with something for your hand,” she told him as she went out the door.

Harry had been dozing when the knocking brought him abruptly awake. He shook his head and forced himself to think clearly. A glance at the clock told him it was after three in the morning, and the dull headache and pain in his gut reminded him that he had not eaten that night.

The knocking grew louder and Harry got to his feet, wincing as he tried to walk on the cut.

At last he opened the door to find a boy, not more than twelve, his shirt wrapped around his arm, which Harry realized was badly burned. “You the doctor?” the boy asked as he stumbled into the foyer.

“Yes,” Harry said. “I can see you’re burned. Come into the light and let me look at it.”

The boy held back. “I just want a painkiller and a bandage. It was hurting pretty bad a while back, until I put it in ice.” Harry mentally thanked God for that. “But it’s starting to hurt again, and I’m out of ice.”