Better in the Dark (28 page)

Harry pulled the boy toward the sitting room, which was now an occasional emergency room. “Let me see the arm,” he said again, and winced with the boy as he took the shirt off.

The flesh was raw, vulnerable, and the burn had licked deeply into the tissues of his flesh.

“How did you get this?” Harry asked.

“It’s not important.”

An alarm sounded in Harry, making his neck prickle. “It’s important if I’m going to treat it. I have to know what caused this.”

The boy shot him a distrustful look, his unkempt hair falling over his dark eyes. “Okay. It was gasoline. I was messing with some gasoline and it caught fire.”

Without being aware of it, Harry tightened his grip on the boy’s shoulder. “What were you doing with the gasoline?” he demanded, his voice becoming harsh.

“Nothing.”

This was a lie, and Harry knew it. “Tell me, or I won’t do anything for you. I’ll send you back where you came from, and you’ll very likely die of infection, which will take a long time to kill you.” Inwardly Harry was as horrified at himself, as he knew the boy was. He had never done anything like this, never used medicine as a threat. But he saw something in the boy’s face beyond the terror, and he knew he had won.

“Okay,” the boy said faintly. “But you gotta help me if I tell you.”

“I will help you,” Harry promised.

“Tristam had us make bombs again, that’s what happened. One of them spilled before we got out of the hospital. We were in a big hurry, and I got gas all over my shirt. It caught fire when I got on Tristam’s motorbike.”

“What bombs? What hospital?”

“You’re hurting me.” The boy twisted away and would have run if the door had been open.

“What hospital? Tell me!”

Now at bay, the boy turned to Harry. “Westbank Hospital. We got bombs all over it, and they’ll go off when the City Patrol sends the morgue wagon around.” As soon as he said it, the boy collapsed, unconscious, his face ashen and his young body making a pitiful heap by the door.

T
HE FIRST FLAMES WERE LICKING
the windows of Westbank Hospital when Ted Lincoln pulled the van up beside the park opposite the building. Natalie saw that there were only two fire trucks at the scene, and that they did not carry a full complement.

“Roger and Kirsten are setting up on the other side of the hospital. I think we’ll get a good number of them out,” Ted said, making the words encouraging.

“What do we do with them then?” Natalie asked. “We’re out of rooms as it is.” She opened the door. “Don’t mind me, Ted.”

Radick opened the side door and pulled out the folded shelter. “This won’t take long to erect,” he said as he wrestled with the material, spreading it out on the ground. Behind them the leaves of the park’s elms quivered before the rush of wind and fire.

Ted Lincoln nodded. “I’ll run the service on this side, and one of the others, Maria or Carol, will take the van on the other side.”

Inside the hospital there was another explosion, and the shouts and screams of trapped patients were muted by the greedy sound of the fire.

“Christ,” Ted whispered, turning pale.

“I wish Ernest were here,” Natalie said, purposefully ignoring the inferno behind her. “He’s strong. We could use a little more muscle.”

Radick nodded and set up part of the framework. The assembly was easy and it took little time to put together the A-framed ribs of the structure. Radick nodded, breathing harder than he should have. “Good. The cover is ready. Ted, you get on that side, and Natalie and I will take care of the middle.”

Natalie took up her spot, and when the durable, lightweight fabric sailed her way, she reached for the securing lines. For the next few minutes she busied herself with knots, looking up only when a few of the hospital staff ran forward, escaping the fire.

The first of the arrivals shouted, then dropped to his knees and pitched forward. As Natalie rose and walked toward him, she could see that most of the lab coat the man wore was burned away. Wearily she checked the man’s pulse, and when she found it, called to Radick to bring her kit. This would be a long night, she knew, and she found an odd comfort in the routine of tending to stricken people. The pandemic, her worry—all this could be set aside while the fire raged over Westbank Hospital.

Katherine Ng steadied the last of the inflated cots which now filled the common room at the Van Dreyter house. The huge table had been pushed against the wall and its rosewood chairs were relegated to service in the foyer. The needlepoint upholstered lounge chairs were stacked in the corner by the fireplace, and the coffee table had been pressed into duty as a supply stand. The broken windowpanes were taped over.

Ernest Dagstern gave the room one critical check, then said, “Bedding. We’ll need a lot of it.” He turned abruptly and stalked out of the room.

“What’s eating him?” Katherine asked Harry, who was laying out old IV units on the table.

“He’s scared.” Harry did not even look up. “Ted is due back with the first load in about twenty minutes. We’d better be ready.” Sternly Harry told himself to stop fretting. The juveniles who burned down Inner City and Westbank would not go after such small fry as the Van Dreyter house. But he did not believe it. As he worked, so automatically, so precisely, he felt panic rise in him like bile. Already they had had windows broken and food stolen. It would be only a matter of time until this house, too, was burned. He tried to tell himself that the risk was not that great. And all the time flames danced at the back of his mind, mocking him.

Natalie slammed the van door, then tapped the side twice as a signal to Ted. She stood aside as the van made a tight turn and raced away down the dark streets. She glanced dispassionately toward the fire and saw that it had spread to two adjoining buildings. By now Westbank was a torch, its beams showing in the holocaust like the skeleton of some extinct giant. The sound was deafening, and Natalie wanted more than anything to be free of the sound.

“How many do we have in the shelter?” Radick asked as he came up to her.

“Fifteen, I think. I’ve dispatched four with Ted. The ones who can make it on their own are at this end of the shelter. I haven’t even bothered with the ones who can’t make it. We’re running low on morphine. So don’t waste it.”

Radick sighed. “Triage. You’re right, of course.”

Across the road another building started to burn. Natalie frowned. “Did everyone get out of there?” she asked. “I saw a couple of firemen go in there to evacuate, but I didn’t think...”

“Look,” Radick whispered, pointing to a balcony on the second floor.

Natalie shielded her eyes against the heat and glare, and saw five women clinging to each other. From the balcony to the pavement was a drop of over twelve feet, and the women milled in terror, the fire behind them.

Radick moved forward and shouted, “The fire escape!
The fire escape
!” waving his arms as he tried to point out to them the outmoded ladders on the next balcony over.

“They can’t make it. It’s too far to reach,” Natalie said, devoid of feeling.

Without hesitation, Radick ran for the building.

“Radick!” Natalie called to him. “You can’t do anything.”

He turned briefly and shouted, walking backward toward the burning building. “I’m going up the fire escape. I can help pull them across. I can reach them.” He was running toward the women now, trying to catch their attention. He reached the fire escape and began to climb the extended steel ladder toward the second floor. At last the women saw him, and they pointed with almost hysterical relief.

The building collapsed at the far end, and the flames exulted, roaring like some demented monster as they got deeper into the building.

Natalie watched, fascinated, as Radick reached the balcony, climbed onto the rail, and securing himself to the next rise of the ladder, reached across to the women, holding out his one free hand to pull them to safety.

One woman was down the ladder and on the ground, and a second was just climbing over the balcony rail to Radick where he clung to the fire escape, when the wall gave way, and in a dreadful rush of heat and debris buried Radick and the women in burning rubble.

“
Radick
!” Natalie screamed. The sound was lost in the voracious thunder of the fire.

“What the hell...?” Harry looked up, irritated, as the lights went out. Around him the inflatable cots were full, and three bodies lay on the formal dining table. The common room was not quite dark. In the east the sky had a band of silver-gray preceding dawn.

“Harry?” Katherine Ng said from the far side of the room.

“That’s the lights.” Harry limped toward the door, and heard Dominic shout in the hall beyond. He pulled open the door to find Peter Justin fumbling with a flashlight.

“These old buildings had fuses,” Peter said absently. “Perhaps in the fuse box ...”

“See if the street lights are working first. If they’re out, then we’re out. There’s a generator in the garage, but it got damaged when the food was stolen. It probably won’t work.” Harry slammed the door in disgust and leaned against it. “Kit,” he said after a moment, “are there any candles at your end?”

“I don’t think so.”

On the cots, the fire victims who were conscious stirred, frightened, and a few began to ask questions.

Harry cut them short. “I don’t know what’s happened. But I’ll do my best to get us some light, at least until the sun is up.” Glad for the activity, he once more started into the hall, and in the dark banged his shin against one of the rosewood chairs. Determined, he stumbled toward the kitchen.

He was rummaging for candles when Carol Mendosa appeared. “We’ve got a last vanload from Kirsten’s station. She’s closing down. The fire’s too far out of hand.” Carol drank deeply from her freshly filled mug of tea. “I don’t think we can stop it now,” she said dreamily. “It’s out of hand and it’ll burn until it stops of its own accord. There are no firemen to fight it. The last company retreated over an hour ago. All the people left are trying to get out, or they’re too sick to care.” She finished the coffee.

Jim Varnay wandered into the kitchen. “I need candles for the patients in my wing,” he said gruffly. “They need light.”

“I’m trying to find some.” Harry heard the snap in his voice. “I don’t remember where they are. How are things with the patients?”

Jim sank heavily onto a chair. “We’ve got four more dead. Hannah Cruz was one of them. She was pretty tough. I thought she’d make it. Two of polio, one cholera and one typhus. Not that it matters. They’re dead.”

Harry found a box of twelve candles. “Here. This is a start. When you get a chance, will you get those beds ready for burn patients?”

“Oh, for Chrissake, Harry,” Carol said, disgusted. “They’re going to die, anyway. Let them stay where they are.”

Harry ignored her. “We can set up more beds in the nurses’ quarters if we have to,” he said, opening another set of drawers. “Here’s some more.” He set out five more boxes of candles on the table.

“We can use Dave’s room, too,” Carol said harshly. “He died in the night, or didn’t you know? Maybe Howard should get that bed ready first, seeing as it’s on the ground floor.”