David Morrell - NightScape

It was almost two a.m. before Bingaman managed to get home. Again he extinguished the headlights of his Model T. Again a pale yellow light appeared in the bedroom window. Despite his weariness, he managed to smile as Marion met him at the door.

"You can't keep going like this," she said.

"No choice."

"Have you eaten?"

"A sandwich on the go. A cup of coffee here and there."

"Well, you're going to sit at the kitchen table. I'll heat up the chicken and dumplings I made for supper."

"Not hungry."

"You're not listening to what I said. You're going to sit at the kitchen table."

Bingaman laughed. "If you insist."

"And tomorrow I'm going with you. I should have done it today."

He suddenly became alert. "Marion, I'm not sure – "

"Well, I am. I'm a trained nurse, and I'm needed."

"But this is different from what you think it is. This is – "

"What?"

"One of our nurses collapsed today. She has all the symptoms."

"And the other nurses?"

"They're exhausted, but so far, they haven't gotten sick, thank God."

"Then the odds are in my favor."

"No. I don't want to lose you, Marion."

"I can't stay barricaded in this house. And what about you? Look at the risk you're taking. I don't want to lose you, either. But if you can take the risk, so can /."

Bingaman almost continued to argue with her, but he knew she was right. The townsfolk needed help, and neither of them would be able to bear the shame if they didn't fulfill their moral obligation. He'd seen amazing things today, people whom he had counted on to volunteer telling him that he was crazy if he thought they would risk their lives to help patients with the disease, others who never went to church or participated in community functions showing up to help without needing to be asked. The idea had occurred to him that the epidemic was God's way of testing those who didn't die, of determining who was worthy to be redeemed.

The idea grew stronger after he ate the chicken and dumplings that Marion warmed up for him, his favorite meal, although he barely tasted it. He went upstairs, but instead of proceeding into the bedroom, he entered his study, sat wearily at his desk, and turned on the wireless radio.

"Jonas?"

"In a moment."

Hearing crackles and whines, he turned knobs and watched dials. Periodically, he spoke into the microphone, identifying himself.

Finally he contacted another operator, this one in Boston, but as the operator described what was happening there – the three thousand new cases per day in Boston, a death toll so fierce that the city's 291 hearses were kept constantly busy – Bingaman brooded again about God. According to the radio operator in Boston, there wasn't a community in the United States that hadn't been hit. From Minneapolis to New Orleans, from Seattle to Miami, from north to south and west to east and everywhere in between, people were dying at a sanity-threatening rate. In Canada and Mexico, in Argentina and Brazil, England and France, Germany and Russia, China and Japan…Not an epidemic. A pandemic. It wasn't just in the United States. It was everywhere. Horrified, Bingaman thought about the bubonic plague known as the Black Death that had ravaged Europe in the Middle Ages, but what he was hearing about now was far more widespread than the Black Death had been, and if the mortality figures being given to him were accurate, the present scourge had the potential to be far more lethal. Lord, the cold weather hadn't arrived yet. What would happen when the worst of winter aggravated the symptoms of the disease? Bingaman had a nightmarish image of millions of frozen corpses strewn around the world with no one to bury them. Yes, the Spanish influenza was God's way of testing humanity, of judging how the survivors reacted, he thought. Then a further dismaying thought occurred to him, making him shiver. Or could it possibly be the end of the world?

"It appears to have started in Kansas," Bingaman told the medical team. They had agreed to meet every morning at eight in the nurses' rest area at the hospital to relay information and subdue rumors. After the meeting, they would disperse to inform volunteers about what had been discussed.

"Kansas?" Powell furrowed his brow in confusion. "I assumed it would have started somewhere more exotic."

"At Fort Riley," Bingaman continued. He had gotten only two hours' sleep the night before and was fighting to muster energy. His head throbbed. "That Army facility is one of the main training areas for the Allied Expeditionary Force. In March, it had a dust storm of unusual force."

" Dust," Talbot said." I've been formulating a theory that dust is the principal means by which the disease is carried over distances." He turned to the nurses. "We have to take extra precautions. Close every window. Eliminate the slightest dust."

" In this heat?" Elizabeth Keel said. As head nurse, she never failed to speak her mind, even to a doctor. "And with the patients' high temperatures? They won't be able to bear it."

Talbot's eyes flashed with annoyance that he'd been contradicted.

Before angry words could be exchanged, Bingaman distracted them. "There might be another agent responsible for the initial transmission. I spoke to a wireless operator in Kansas early this morning, and he told me the theory at the camp is that the dust storm, which turned the day into night for three hours, left not only several inches of dust over everything in the camp but also ashes from piles of burned manure."

Bennett's nostrils twitched. "Burned manure?"

Bingaman nodded. "I realize that it's an indelicate subject. My apologies to the ladies. But we can't stand on niceties during the present emergency. There's a considerable cavalry detachment at Fort Riley. Thousands of mules and horses. It's estimated that those animals deposit nine thousand tons of manure a month in the camp, an obvious hygiene problem that the fort's commander attempted to alleviate by ordering his men to burn the droppings. The smoke from the fires and then the ashes blown by the dust storm apparently spread infectious microbes throughout the entire camp. Subsequent to the storm, so many soldiers came down with influenza symptoms that the surgeon general for the fort was afraid they'd take up all three thousand beds in the fort's hospital. Fortunately, the outbreak abated after five weeks."

"And then?" Powell frowned. He seemed to have a premonition about what was coming.

"Two divisions were sent from the fort to join the rest of our expeditionary forces in Europe. Influenza broke out on the troop ships. When the soldiers arrived in France, they spread it to our units and the British and the French. Presumably also to the Germans. At last count, the Royal Navy alone has over ten thousand cases of influenza. Of course, the civilian population has been affected, too. After that, the disease spread from Europe throughout Asia and Africa and everywhere else, including of course back to America. An alternate theory about the pandemic's origin is that it started among farm animals in China and was introduced into France by Chinese coolies whom the Allies used to dig trenches. Perhaps the true origin will never be known."

"But what about the death rate?" a nurse asked, obviously afraid of the answer.

"In three months, the flu has killed more people in Europe, soldiers and civilians, than have died in military operations on both sides during the entire four years of the war."

For several moments, the group was speechless.

"But you're talking about millions of deaths," Elizabeth Keel said.

"And many more millions who continue to suffer from the disease."

"Then…"

"Yes?" Bingaman turned to a visibly troubled nurse.