Plague (24 page)

Just outside
Melbourne, there were a few hitch-hikers trying disconsolately to pick up
lifts, but there were too many bodies lying around the sidewalks and verges to
suggest that anyone around there might have escaped infection. It only took one
drop of spittle, one breath, to pass the plague on, and Dr. Petrie wasn’t
prepared to risk the lives of those he loved talking to anyone if he could
avoid it.

In the center
of Melbourne itself the police and the National Guard had set up another road
block. He drove cautiously up to it and stopped.

A heavy-built
cop walked up to the car and said, ‘Sorry, sir, you’re going to have to turn
around.’

Dr. Petrie
nodded. There was nothing else he could do. There were seven or eight cops and
guardsmen surrounding the barricade, and there was no hope at all of forcing a
way through there alive. He backed the Gran Torino up, turned it around, and
drove southwards again.

They were
hungry and thirsty, and the day was growing hotter. The car’s air- conditioning
was faltering, and the interior was becoming unbearably stuffy. Prickles, lying
in Adelaide’s arms, looked flushed and sweaty, and Dr. Petrie checked her pulse
regularly as he drove. It was probably nothing more than a cold or flu, but he
couldn’t be sure. Her lips were dry, and she was finding it more and more
difficult to breathe.

There was no
sign of the two National Guardsmen as they drove back past Palm Bay. Not far
from the grove of trees where they had spent the early hours of the morning,
Dr. Petrie took a right turn inland, and drove down the dusty, deserted road
until he reached Interstate 95. Then he turned north again until he crossed
Highway 192, and turned even further inland, towards St. Cloud and Lake
Tohopekaliga. This time, they came across no road blocks and no troops, but
there were signs of the plague everywhere. Bodies lay by the road, smothered in
flies, and cars and trucks were abandoned at every junction and layby.

Around
lunchtime, they found a deserted MacDonald’s. Dr. Petrie parked
outside,
and left Adelaide and Prickles in the car while he
scouted around with his automatic weapon. There were two bodies in the yard at
the back, both crawling with flies, but apart from that the place was empty.
They went inside and sat down.

Petrie lifted
the counter and went in search of baked beans, milk, cheese and soft drinks.
‘The ice cream’s melted,’ he said, ‘but if you don’t mind drinking it, you’re
welcome.’

Prickles was
still hot, but she managed to eat a few cold
baked beans and drink some milk. Dr. Petrie ate quickly and hungrily, keeping
his eye on the empty highway and the surrounding buildings.

‘Well,’ he said
after a while, wiping his mouth. ‘It’s not exactly the Starlight Roof, but it’s
nutritious.’

Adelaide gave a
tight, humorless smile.

‘Is anything
wrong? You don’t look too happy.’

She waited
until she had finished her mouthful of cheese. ‘I’m not, if you must know.’

‘Why not?
Come on, Adelaide, we’ve had a hard time of it,
but that’s no reason to give in. If we stick together, we’ll get out of this
okay, don’t you
worry.
’

‘Well,’ she
said, casting her eyes down. I don’t think so.’

Dr. Petrie
stared at her. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked. ‘I don’t understand.’

She looked up. ‘You
might as well know,’ she told him. ‘I think that Prickles has the plague. I
think we’re going to have to leave her behind.’

Prickles
blinked listlessly. Her face was crimson with heat and fever, and she was
obviously sick.

Dr. Petrie
burst out, ‘That’s impossible. You don’t know what you’re suggesting.’

Adelaide
reached out and held his wrist. ‘Leonard,’ she said, ‘I know it sounds harsh,
but it’s a question of survival.
Like you said before.
my
survival, and your survival. If Prickles has the
plague, we could all die.
At least if we find some way of
making her comfortable, and leaving her behind, then we could live.’

‘That’s crazy,’
he said. ‘You’re out of your mind. Prickles
is
my
daughter.’

‘Yours and Margaret’s daughter.’

He leaned
forward. ‘Is that it? Is that why you want me to leave her behind?
Because she’s Margaret’s daughter?’

‘Oh Leonard, I
didn’t mean that. I just mean that if we really have to be fierce, the way you
said, then we have to be completely fierce.
With ourselves,
as well as with other people.’

Dr. Petrie
didn’t know what to say. He stroked Prickles’ sticky little forehead, and gave
her another spoonful of baked beans.

‘Leonard,’
insisted Adelaide, ‘I don’t want to see you die, and I don’t want to die
myself.’

Dr. Petrie said
slowly, ‘If you had plague, honey, I wouldn’t leave you behind. I won’t leave
Prickles behind, either.’

Adelaide
sighed, and tapped her fingernails on the
formica
tabletop. ‘In that case, I’m going alone. I’m sorry, Leonard. I love you. But I
love life better than lost causes.’

Dr. Petrie
wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist.

‘I can’t stop
you,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I love you, too, as a matter of fact.’

‘But you love
Prickles more?’

He looked at
her. He said, ‘Don’t try and measure my love, Adelaide. It won’t work.

I’ve told you I
love you, and you should know how much. If you want to leave, I won’t stand in
your way, but I can’t say that I’m glad to see you go. Just be realistic,
that’s all. Prickles
is
a six-year-old girl, and she’s
my daughter, and no father worthy of the name would leave her to die on her
own.’

Prickles looked
from Adelaide to Dr. Petrie and back again.

‘Am I going to
die, too?’ she asked. Dr. Petrie put his arm around her. ‘Of course not, honey.
We’re just talking stupid.’

‘I don’t think
we are,’ said Adelaide. ‘Listen, Leonard, I’m not cold-hearted and I’m not a
bitch, but I beg you. Leonard, I love you. I don’t know what else I can say. I
love you and I want to see you live.’

‘Will I be
a
angel?’ said Prickles. ‘No, baby, you won’t,’ Leonard
Petrie said. He stood up, and collected his automatic weapon. Adelaide stayed
where she was, picking at the few remnants of cheese and pickle on her plate.

‘You’re welcome
to come along,’ he said softly. ‘I don’t seriously think that Prickles has the
plague, and I would like to have you with us.’

Adelaide
pouted. ‘You wouldn’t think she had it, would you? You’re her dear devoted
daddy.’

Dr. Petrie
didn’t answer. He took Prickles by the hand and led her outside to the car.

It was past
noon now, and the heat rippled off the concrete car park in heavy waves.

They climbed
into the car, and Dr. Petrie started the engine. Adelaide stayed where she was,
sitting inside the plate-glass window of MacDonald’s, her face hidden from
view.

He waited,
engine turning over, for five minutes. Adelaide stayed at the table, not
moving. Prickles said, ‘Isn’t Adelaide coming, daddy?’

Dr. Petrie
wiped the sweat from his face. ‘No,’ he told her. ‘I guess not.’

He released the
brake, and moved off across the carpark and up to the highway. He slowed down,
and took one last look in the mirror. Adelaide was still inside the hamburger
bar, head bent, not even looking their way. He licked his lips, turned on to
the highway, and put his foot down on the gas.

They passed
Walt Disney World. It was silent and dead – a fairy-tale land that had been
stricken by pestilence.
The two of them, father and child,
wandered around it for almost twenty minutes, looking at the turrets and towers
and silent streets.
A warm breeze blew from the west, making flags
flutter, and waste paper dance across the empty sidewalks. Most grotesque and
incongruous of all, a man in a Mickey Mouse head lay dead on the ground, still
smiling cheerfully, still bright-eyed and round-eared and happy.

‘Why is Mickey
Mouse lying down?’ Pickles demanded. He took her back to the car.

Adelaide spent
nearly an hour preparing herself for her solitary escape from Florida.

Around the back
of MacDonald’s, she found an abandoned Delta 88 with the keys still in it, and
a tankful of gas. She drove it around to the front, opened the trunk, and
packed it with cans of franks and beans. She also took a couple of MacDonald’s
coveralls that she found hanging in a closet, in case she needed a change of
clothes.

She was almost
ready to leave when she lifted her head and listened. At first she couldn’t be
sure – but then the distant sound became increasingly more raucous and
distinct. Half-muffled by the wind, it was the faint ripsaw noise of approaching
motorcycles.

Hurriedly, she
packed away the last of her provisions. The motorcycle noise grew louder and
louder, and soon it was clear that there were five or six of them, and they
were traveling fast. She climbed into the car, and turned the key. The starter
whinnied, but the motor wouldn’t fire. She kept trying, jamming her foot down
on the gas pedal, turning the key until at last the starter motor moaned in
protest.

The rippling
sound of the bikes was so near now that she could hear it even with the car
windows closed. Sweat was streaming down her face. Until the motor started, the
car’s air-conditioning wouldn’t work, and she was sitting in a ninety-degree
Turkish bath with PVC seats. The first of the motorcycles came roaring around
the curve in the road. It was a massive chopper, with extended forks, and it
was ridden by a muscular Hell’s Angel with dark glasses, wild hair, and a
metal-studded jacket.

Adelaide opened
the car door, jumped quickly out, and made a run for MacDonald’s.

The Hell’s Angel
swung his bike around the car-park in a wide, bellowing circle, followed by
four others in formation. Adelaide pushed her way through the front door of the
hamburger bar, and tried to shut it. The catch was broken. Desperately,
whimpering under her breath, she tried to slide a heavy table across the
restaurant and block the doorway.

Outside, the
Hell’s Angels parked their cycles, switched off their engines, and casually
dismounted. They peeled off their jackets, took off their helmets, and then
started to walk slowly towards the hamburger bar.

Adelaide
tippy-toed hurriedly to the other end of the kitchen and tried the restaurant’s
back door. It was open. She tugged it ajar, and looked out. She saw the bodies
that Dr. Petrie had seen, smothered in flies, but apart from that the back yard
looked clear. Behind her, she heard the front door of the restaurant bang open.

Holding her
breath, she stepped into the back yard and softly closed the door behind her.
Then she crossed the yard as quickly as she could, and went through the gate
into the car park at the rear of the buildings. She looked left and right, but
there was no one around.

She was just
about to circle around the back and see if she could find another car when one
of the Hell’s Angels, a tall bearded blonde in nothing but filthy jeans and
motorcycle boots hung with chains, came running around the corner in front of
her.

Adelaide’s
heart bumped. She turned around and started to run away, her hair flying behind
her, along the length of the strip’s backyards.

She was almost
at the end, and just about to turn the corner, when another Hell’s Angel
emerged in front of her.
Ginger-haired, muscular, in a
sweat-stained purple tee-shirt.
She turned, and tried to run across the
car-park towards the back of some distant houses.

Her vision
jolted as she ran. Glaring sunlight, concrete, abandoned cars.
And behind her, the heavy loping of two silent men, and the
chink-chunk of their chains and their boots.
She saw far-away palms and
white peaceful-looking homes.

It was the
blonde who caught her. For a split-second, she could hear him panting up beside
her, and then his hard hand snatched her shoulder, and she tripped and fell
sideways on to the hot concrete. He grabbed her arms, dragged her on to her
feet, and held her tight. They stared at each other, sweating and panting.

When the blonde
had caught his breath, he licked his lips and said, ‘Oats at last, Trumbo.
Real good oats at last.
What’s your name, honey?’

Adelaide didn’t
answer. Her lungs felt scorched from running, and her arm was stinging where
she had fallen.

‘Silent type,
huh?’ he said. ‘Well, don’t you worry, because that’s the way we like ‘em.

Aint that correct?’

‘Trumbo?’

The
ginger-haired Trumbo, still gasping for breath, nodded and grunted in
agreement. They started to walk her back to MacDonald’s. The other three Angels
were waiting for them at the back gate, shading their eyes against the harsh
sunlight.

Adelaide’s legs
went mechanically one in front of the other.

The Hell’s
Angels’ leader applauded Adelaide as his two cohorts brought her in.

‘A nice piece of meat there, gentleman.
I couldn’t’ve picked
it better myself.’

He came forward
and inspected her appreciatively. ‘You got a name?’ he said mildly.

‘Adelaide.’

‘That’s pretty.
I’m the Captain. That’s Trumbo there, and the gentleman holding your arm is
Fritz. These others are Okey and Sbarbaro. We’re a kind of a team, if you
understand what I mean.’ Adelaide didn’t answer.

The Captain
said, ‘I hope you don’t think we’re imposing or nothing. I mean, we’d hate to
cause you any kind of inconvenience.’

Adelaide looked
at him. She tried to speak boldly, but she felt terrified. ‘Will you let me go,
please?’ she said, in a high voice.