David Morrell - NightScape

"They're not the state capital," Bingaman said. "What's going on that so many calls are being made at the same time?"

"I really have no idea, sir."

"Well, can't you interrupt and listen in?"

"Only locally. As I explained, I don't have access to the other operators' switchboards. Besides, I'm not supposed to eavesdrop unless it's an emergency."

"That's what this is."

"An emergency?" The operator coughed. "What sort of emergency?"

Bingaman managed to stop himself from telling her. If I'm not careful, he thought, I'll cause a panic.

"I'll try again later."

He hung up the telephone's ear piece. His head started aching.

"No luck?" Powell asked.

"This is so damned frustrating."

"But even if we do find out that this section of the state is affected, that still won't help us to fight what we've got here."

" It might if we knew what we were fighting." Bingaman massaged his throbbing temples. "If only we had a way to get in touch with…" A tingle rushed through him. "I do have a way."

The wireless radio sat on a desk in Bingaman's study. It was black, two feet wide, a foot and a half tall and deep. There were several dials and knobs, a Morse-code key, and a microphone. From the day Marconi had transmitted the first transatlantic wireless message in 1901, Bingaman had been fascinated by the phenomenon. With each new dramatic development in radio communications, his interest had increased until finally, curious about whether he'd be able to hear radio transmissions from the war in Europe, he had celebrated his fifty-second birthday in March by purchasing the unit before him. He had studied for and successfully passed the required government examination to become an amateur radio operator. Then, having achieved his goal, he had found that the demands of his practice, not to mention middle age, left him little energy to stay up late and talk to amateur radio operators around the country.

Now, however, he felt greater energy than he could remember having felt in several years. Marion, who was astonished to see her husband come home in the middle of the afternoon and hurry upstairs with barely a "hello" to her, watched him remove his suit coat, sit before the radio, and turn it on. When she asked him why he had come home so early, he asked her to please be quiet. He said he had work to do.

"Be quiet? Work to do? Jonas, I know you've been under a lot of strain, but that's no excuse for – "

"Please."

Marion watched with greater astonishment as Bingaman turned knobs and spoke forcefully into the microphone, identifying himself by name and the operator number that the government had given to him, repeatedly trying to find someone to answer him. Static crackled. Sometimes Marion heard an electronic whine. She stepped closer, feeling her husband's tension. In surprise, she heard a voice from the radio.

With relief, Bingaman responded. "Yes, Harrisburg, I read you." He had hoped to raise an operator in Albany or somewhere else in New York State, but the capital city of neighboring Pennsylvania was near enough, an acceptable substitute. He explained the reason he was calling, the situation in which Elmdale found itself, the information he needed, and he couldn't repress a groan when he received an unthinkable answer, far worse than anything he'd been dreading. "Forty thousand? No. I can't be receiving you correctly, Harrisburg. Please repeat. Over."

But when the operator in Harrisburg repeated what he had said, Bingaman still couldn't believe it. "Forty thousand?"

Marion gasped when, for only the third time in their marriage, she heard him blaspheme.

"Dear sweet Jesus, help us."

"Spanish influenza." Bingaman's tone was bleak, the words a death sentence.

Powell looked startled.

Talbot leaned tensely forward. "You're quite certain?"

"I confirmed it from two other sources on the wireless."

The hastily assembled group, which also consisted of Elmdale's other physician, Douglas Bennett, and the hospital's six-member nursing staff, looked devastated. They were in the largest nonpublic room in the hospital, the nurses' rest area, which was barely adequate to accomodate everyone, the combined body heat causing a film of perspiration to appear on brows.

"Spanish influenza," Powell murmured, as if testing the ominous words, trying to convince himself that he'd actually heard them.

"Spanish… I'd have to check my medical books," Bennett said, "but as I recall, the last outbreak of influenza was in – "

"Eighteen eighty-nine," Bingaman said. "I did some quick research before I came back to the hospital."

"Almost thirty years." Talbot shook his head. "Long enough to have hoped that the disease wouldn't be coming back."

"The outbreak before that was in the winter of 1847-48," Bingaman said.

"In that case, forty years apart."

"Resilient."

"Spanish influenza?" a pale nurse asked. "Why are they calling it… Did this outbreak come from Spain?"

"They don't know where it came from," Bingaman said. "But they're comparing it to an outbreak in 1647 that did come from Spain."

"Wherever it came from doesn't matter," Powell said, standing. "The question is, what are we going to do about it? Forty thousand?" Bewildered, he turned toward Bingaman. "The wireless operator you spoke to confirmed that? Forty thousand patients with influenza in Pennsylvania?"

"No, that isn't correct. You misunderstood me."

Powell relaxed. "I hoped so. That figure is almost impossible to believe."

"It's much worse than that."

"Worse?"

"Not forty thousand patients with influenza. Forty thousand deaths."

Someone inhaled sharply. The room became very still.

"Deaths," a nurse whispered.

"That's only in Pennsylvania. The figures for New York City aren't complete, but it's estimated that they're getting two thousand new cases a day. Of those, a hundred patients are dying."

"Per day?"

"A conservative estimate. As many as fifteen thousand patients may have died there by now."

"In New York State."

"No, in New York City."

"But this is beyond imagination!" Talbot said.

"And there's more." Bingaman felt the group staring at him. "The wireless operators I spoke to have been in touch with other parts of the country. Spanish influenza has also broken out in Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, and – "

"A full-fledged epidemic," Kramer said.

"Why haven't we heard about it until now?" a nurse demanded.

"Exactly. Why weren't we warned?" Powell's cheeks were flushed. "Albany should have warned us! They left us alone out here, without protection! If we'd been alerted, we could have taken precautions. We could have stockpiled medical supplies. We could have…could have…" His words seemed to choke him.

"You want to know why we haven't heard about it until now?" Bingaman said. "Because the telephone and the telegraph aren't efficient. How many people in Elmdale have telephones? A third of the population. How many of those make long-distance calls? Very few, because of the expense. And who would they call? Most of their relatives live right here in town. Our newspaper isn't linked to Associated Press, so the news we get is local. Until there's a national radio network and news can travel instantly across the country, each city's more isolated than we like to think. But as for why the authorities in Albany didn't warn communities like Elmdale about the epidemic, well, the wireless operators I spoke to have a theory that the authorities didn't want to warn anyone about the disease."

"Didn't…?"

"To avoid panic. There weren't any public announcements. The newspapers printed almost nothing about the possibility of an influenza outbreak."