David Morrell - NightScape

" It just doesn't make any sense." Bingaman sweated under his suit coat. "Why is Joey the only one?"

"No." Rebecca Carter waited outside Joey's hospital room in the hopes that she'd be allowed to enter. Her eyes were red from tears. "Nothing different. It was just an ordinary summer. We did what we always do."

"And what would that be?" Bingaman asked.

Rebecca dabbed a handkerchief against her eyes. "Picnics. Joey likes to play baseball. We go to the park, and Edward teaches him how to pitch. And the movies. Sometimes we go to the movies. Joey likes Charlie Chaplin."

"That's it? That's all?"

"Just an ordinary summer. I have my sewing club. We don't often get a chance to do things as a family because Edward works late, taking advantage of the good weather. Why do you ask? Didn't Joey get sick from the water in the creek?"

"Can you think of anything else that Joey did this summer? Anything even the slightest bit unusual?"

"No. I'm sorry. I-"

She was interrupted by her husband hurrying along the hospital corridor. "Rebecca." Edward Carter's lean face glistened with sweat. "I decided to come home for lunch and check on Joey. Mrs. Wade next door said you and he had gone to…My God, Doctor, what's wrong with Joey?"

"We're still trying to find that out. It might be pneumonia."

"Pneumonia?"

The door to Joey's room opened. For a moment, the group had a brief glimpse of Joey covered by sheets in a metal bed, an oxygen mask over his face. Then a nurse came out and shut the door.

"How is he?" Joey's mother asked.

"Light-headed," the nurse answered. "He keeps talking about feeling as if he's on a Ferris wheel."

"Ferris wheel?" Bingaman asked.

"He's probably remembering the midway," Joey's father said.

"Midway?"

" In Riverton. Last week, I had to drive over there to get some special lumber for a job I'm working on. Joey went with me. We spent an hour at the midway. He really loved the Ferris wheel."

"Yes, patients with fever, swollen glands/ and congestion," Bingaman explained, using the telephone in Dr. Powell's office.

"A possible diagnosis of pneumonia." He was speaking to the chief of staff at Riverton's hospital, fifty miles away. "Nothing? Not one case? Why am I…? I'm trying to understand how one of my patients came down with these symptoms. He was in Riverton last week. I thought perhaps the midway you had there…If you remember anything, would you please call me? Thank you."

Bingaman hooked the ear piece onto the telephone and rubbed the back of his neck.

Throughout the conversation, Powell had remained seated behind his desk, studying him. "Take it easy. Pneumonia can be like pollen in the wind. You'll probably never know where the boy caught the disease."

Bingaman stared out a window toward a robin in an elm tree. "Pollen in the wind?" He exhaled. "You know what I'm like. I'm compulsive. I think too much. I can't leave well enough alone, and in this case, my patient isn't doing well at all."

Marion watched him stare at his plate. "You don't like the pot roast?"

"What?" Bingaman looked up. "Oh…I'm sorry. I guess I'm not much company tonight."

"You're still bothered?"

Bingaman raised some mashed potatoes on his fork. "I don't like feeling helpless."

"You're not helpless. This afternoon, you did a lot of good for the patients who came to your office."

Without tasting the potatoes, Bingaman set down the fork. "Because their problems were easy to correct. I can stitch shut a gash in an arm. I can prescribe bicarbonate of soda for an upset stomach. I can recommend a salve that reduces the itch of poison ivy and stops the rash from spreading. But aside from fighting the symptoms, there is absolutely nothing I can do to fight pneumonia. We try to reduce Joey's fever, keep him hydrated, and give him oxygen. After that, it's all a question of whether the boy is strong enough to fight the infection. It's out of my hands. It's in God's hands. And sometimes God can be cruel."

"The war certainly shows that," Marion said. She was American, stoutly loyal, but her German ancestry made her terribly aware that good men were dying on both sides of the Hindenberg line.

"All those needless deaths from infected wounds." Bingaman tapped his fork against his plate. "In a way, it's like Joey's infection. Lord, how I wish I were young again. In medical school again. I keep up with the journals, but I can't help feeling I'm using outmoded techniques. I wish I'd gone into research. Microbiology. I'd give anything to be able to attack an infection at its source. Maybe some day someone will invent a drug that tracks down infectious microbes and kills them."

" It would certainly make your job easier. But in the meantime…"

Bingaman nodded solemnly. "We do what we can."

"You've been putting in long hours. Why don't you do something for yourself? Go up to your study. Try out the wireless radio you bought."

"I'd almost forgotten about that."

"You certainly were determined when you spent that Sunday afternoon installing the antenna on the roof."

"And you were certainly determined to warn me I was going to fall off the roof and break my neck." Bingaman chuckled. "That radio seemed like an exciting thing when I bought it. A wonder of the twentieth century."

"It still is."

"The ability to talk to someone in another state. In another country. Without wires. To listen to a ship at sea. Or a report from a battlefield." Bingaman sobered. "Well, that part isn't wonderful. The rest of it, though…Yes, I believe I will do something for myself tonight."

But the telephone rang as he walked down the hallway to go upstairs. Wearily, he unhooked the ear piece and leaned toward the microphone.

"Hello." He listened. "Oh." His voice dropped. "Oh." His tone became somber. "I'm on my way."

"An emergency?" Marion asked.

Bingaman felt pressure in his chest. "Joey Carter is dead."

Marion turned pale. "Dear Lord."

"With oxygen, I thought he had a chance to…How terrible." He felt paralyzed and struggled to rouse himself. "I'd better go see the parents."

But after Bingaman put on his suit coat and reached for his black bag, the telephone rang again. He answered, listened, and when he replaced the ear piece, he felt older and more tired.

"What is it?" Marion touched his arm.

"That was the hospital again. Joey's father just collapsed with a hundred-and-two fever. He's coughing. His glands are swollen. The two boys Joey went swimming with now have Joey's symptoms, also. Their parents just brought them into the emergency ward."

"If it was only Joey's two friends, I'd say, yes, they might all have gotten sick from swimming in Larrabee's creek," Bingaman told Dr.

Powell, who had returned to the hospital in response to Bingaman's urgent summons. It was midnight. They sat across from each other in Powell's office, a pale desk lamp making their faces look sallow. "The trouble is, Joey's father didn't go anywhere near that creek, and he's got the infection, too."

"You're still thinking of River ton."

"It's the only answer that makes sense. Joey probably got infected at the midway. Maybe a worker sneezed on him. Maybe it was a passenger on the Ferris wheel. However it happened, he then passed the infection on to his father and his two friends. They showed symptoms a day after he did because they'd been infected later than Joey was."

"Infected by Joey. It's logical except for one thing." "What's that?"

" Why hasn't Joey's mother -? "

Someone knocked on the door. Without waiting for an answer, a nurse rushed in. "I'm sorry to disturb you, but I was certain you'd want to know. Mrs. Carter just collapsed with the same symptoms as her son and husband."