Graham Masterton - Plague

'Two-thirty. Then Foster comes on.'

'Any trouble?'

'Naw. But look at them fires uptown.'

'Fires? Is that what they are?'

'Sure. This Gaines guy says on the tube that the niggers is all to blame for the plague, so the white gangs have been cruisin' up to Harlem and puttin' a torch to every-thin' that burns, and a few things that don't.'

Even as they spoke, a fire chief's car came howling past them.

'Mr. Garunisch,' said Tipanski. 'Is it true what they say about the plague? That it's comin' here? It says on the news there ain't no way they can stop it.'

Kenneth Garunisch looked at the man for a long while, saying nothing. For the first time in his life, he was beginning to feel unable to protect his members. His instincts had always been those of a tough mother henscooping her brood into her wings at the first sign of trouble. But now, just across the Hudson, a different type of peril was growing, a peril that could be carried invisibly in the warm night wind, and could infect them all without any chance of saving themselves.

Kenneth Garunisch felt frightened.

'I guess they'll find some way of stopping it okay,' he said, unconvincingly, 'After all, they can seal Manhattan off like a lifeboat, right? Just close all the tunnels and all the bridges, and presto, we're all safe.'

Tipanski frowned. 'They seem pretty worried on the news, Mr. Garunisch. They even said what to do if you thought you had it.'

'Don't you worry, brother. When the time comes, we can deal with it.'

'Okay, Mr. Garunisch.'

Kenneth Garunisch was about to say goodnight, when he heard footsteps clattering up the sidewalk behind him. Dick Bortolotti said, 'Ken,' in a nervous kind of way, and tugged his sleeve. Kenneth Garunisch turned around.

There were five of them. They were hard-faced and big, and they could only have been off-duty cops. No mugger cuts his hair so neat, nor wears such a well-trimmed mustache. They wore black leather jackets, and they stood around Kenneth Garunisch and Dick Bortolotti so that there was no possible way to escape. 'Are you Garunisch?' said one of them gruffly. Kenneth Garunisch looked from one cop to the other. He was trying to memorize their faces. He kept his arms down beside him, and said, 'What of it?'

'Kenneth Garunisch, the Medical Workers' boss?'

'What of it?'

'Yes or no?'

'Yes. What of it?'

Garunisch had once been a physically hard man but he was too old and slow these days. The leading cop stepped up to him, pulled back his arm, and punched him straight in the face. Garunisch felt his bridge-work break, and he was banged back against the hospital wall behind him. Another punch caught him across the side of the face and fractured his jaw, and then he was kicked in the wrist and the hip.

Tipanski, shouting with rage, tried to attack the cops, but they were too quick and too well-trained. One of them twisted his arm around behind his back, and another one thumped him in the stomach. Tipanski dropped to his knees on the sidewalk, gasping.

Dick Bortolotti got away. He ran down the length of the hospital as fast as he could, crossed 34th Street, and didn't stop running until he reached Second Avenue. He leaned against a building panting for breath, and then slowly and cautiously made his way back to Bellevue. As he crossed back towards the hospital, he had the strangest sensation that everything had changed now, and that life was never going to be the same again. The laws of the jungle had returned, and he was going to have to learn them.

Edgar Paston was lying on his uncomfortable bunk in the jailhouse, reading the weekly Supermarket Report which Tammy had brought him that lunchtime. It appeared that the spread of the plague was hiking up the price of oranges and other citrus fruits, although California growers — in the light of the plague's disastrous effects on the Florida crop — were predicting their most profitable year ever.

Edgar laid down his paper and checked the time from the clock on the flaking wall outside his cell. It was a few minutes past midnight, Saturday morning. He shifted uncomfortably, and yawned. He was exhausted, but he had never been able to get to sleep with the light on, and the cop in charge had refused to switch it off.

He wondered briefly what Tammy was thinking about. She was probably awake, too, lying alone in their quilted double bed under the painting of Yellowstone River in spring, listening to the children breathing in their separate bedrooms and feeling lonesome. The thought of it almost choked him up, and he had to think about something else to stop himself from crying.

He thought, too, about the dead Boy Scout. The cops had questioned him for four hours solid, and they still didn't believe him. The shooting happened again and again in his mind, like a loop of film. He saw himself stepping out of the supermarket door. He saw himself raising the gun. They were laughing — that was the trouble. If they hadn't been laughing, he wouldn't have fired. He saw the dead boy lying on the concrete car park, and someone said, 'Is he dead?'

Edgar was almost dozing off when he heard footsteps. He blinked. The cops were bringing in a new prisoner — he could distinguish voices. Edgar rolled over on his bunk and pretended to be sleeping, in case he got involved in any more pointless conversations. He heard the cop say, 'In here.'

Another voice, younger, said, 'You mean I don't get a cell to myself? What is this?'

'This ain't the Ramada Inn,' said the cop. The cell door unlocked, squeaked open, and then banged shut again. There was a jingle of keys. Edgar kept his eyes shut and faced the wall.

For a while, he heard the new prisoner shuffling around. Then he heard the lower bunk complain as the prisoner sat down on it. Eventually the newcomer stood up again, leaned over him, and shook him by the shoulder. 'Hey man — are you awake?'

Edgar Paston opened one eye. 'I wasn't,' he said Wearily, 'but it looks like I am now.'

'I'm sorry, man. I just thought you might be awake.' Edgar rubbed his face, and sat up painfully. Then he swung his legs over the side of the bunk, and looked at his new cellmate for the first time.

At first, he couldn't believe it. But then he felt his throat tighten, constrict. Just a foot or two away from him, pale and foxy-faced, still methodically chewing gum, was Shark McManus.

Edgar stared at him.

Shark McManus said, 'Do they bring you coffee in this joint?'

Edgar said hoarsely, 'I don't understand.'

'You don't understand what, man?'

'Don't you know who I am?' said Edgar, in a tight voice. 'Don't you recognize me?'

Shark McManus shrugged. 'Sorry, man.'

Edgar said, 'Last night, you and your gang of hoodlums broke into a supermarket out at the crossroads, and wrecked it.'

McManus looked surprised. He screwed up his eyes and said, 'Not me, man. You must've gotten the wrong dude.'

Edgar climbed unsteadily down from his bunk. He faced McManus from only six inches away.

'I don't have the wrong dude, McManus, That store you wrecked was mine.'

McManus chewed steadily for a while, but his chewing became slower and slower, and he finally stopped altogether. He stared at Edgar as if he couldn't grasp what was going on, and he nervously rubbed at the side of his neck.

'You and your kind, you make me sick,' said Edgar, plucking off his spectacles and pacing the floor. He turned on McManus again, 'You're like wild beasts!'

McManus looked uncomfortable. But then he said, in an unexpectedly quiet voice, 'Well, man, you may be right.'

'Right?' snapped Edgar. 'Of course I'm right. You smash, you destroy — you'd kill if you had to. What the hell do you think the world is out there? Some kind of jungle?'

McManus sat down. 'Yes, man,' he nodded. 'You're right.'