David Morrell - NightScape

"There's no hope."

Bingaman shook his throbbing head." If we believe that, then there truly won't be any. We must hope."

The nurse raised a hand to her mouth and coughed. Everyone else in the room tensed and leaned away from her.

Bingaman helped finish admitting twenty-five new patients to the gymnasium that had been converted into a hospital. As he and Dr. Bennett left the spacious building – which was rapidly being filled with occupied beds -they squinted from the brilliant September sunlight and noticed corpses being loaded onto horse-drawn wagons.

"How many died last night?"

"Fifteen."

"It keeps getting worse."

Bingaman faltered.

"What's the matter?" Kramer asked. "Aren't you feeling well?"

Bingaman didn't reply but instead took labored steps toward one of the wagons. The corpse of a woman in a nurse's uniform was being lifted aboard.

"But I saw her only yesterday. How could this have happened so quickly?"

" I've been hearing reports that the symptoms are taking less time to develop," Bennett said behind him. "From the slightest hint of having been infected, a person might suddenly have a full-blown case within twenty-four hours. I heard a story this morning about a man, apparently healthy, who left his home to go to work. He wasn't coughing. None of his family noticed a fever. He died on the street a block from the factory where he worked. I heard another story."

"Yes?"

"Four women were playing bridge last night. The game ended at eleven. None of them was alive in the morning."

Bingaman's chest felt heavy. His shoulders ached. His eyes hurt – from lack of sleep, he tried to assure himself. He removed his gauze mask from his pocket, having taken it off when he left the hospital. "From now on, I think we're going to have to wear our masks all the time, even when we're not with patients. Day or night. At home or on duty. Everywhere."

"At home? Isn't that a little extreme?" Kramer asked.

"Is it?" Bingaman gave the dead nurse, in her twenties with long brown hair, a final look as the wagon clattered away. So young, so much to live for, he thought." None of us is immune. The disease is all around us. There's no telling who might give it to us." He glanced at Kramer. "I keep remembering she was the nurse who coughed in the room with us yesterday."

"Don't touch me! Get away!"

The outburst made Bingaman look up from the patient he was examining. He was in the middle of a row of beds in the gymnasium, surrounded by determined activity as nurses and volunteers moved from patient to patient, giving them water, or soup if they were capable of eating, then rubbing their feverish brows with ice wrapped in towels. Another team of volunteers took care of the unsavory, hazardous problem of what to do with the bodily wastes from so many helpless people. A stench of excrement, sweat, and death filled the now hopelessly small area. Contrary to Dr. Talbot's theories about dust and closed windows, Bingaman had ordered that all the windows in the gymnasium be opened. Nonetheless, the foul odor inside the building made him nauseous.

"I told you, damn it, get your filthy hands off me!"

The objectionable language attracted Bingaman's attention as much as the sense of outrage. The man responsible coughed hoarsely. There, Bingaman saw. To the right. Three rows over. Nurses, volunteers, and those few patients with a modicum of strength looked in that direction also.

"You bitch, if you touch me again – " The man's raspy voice disintegrated into a paroxysm of coughing.

Such language could absolutely not be tolerated. Bingaman left the patient he'd been examining, veered between beds, reached another row, and veered between other beds, approaching the commotion. Three men had evidently carried in a fourth, who was sprawled on a cot, resisting the attentions of a nurse. Bingaman's indignation intensified at the thought of a nurse being called such things, but what he heard next was even more appalling. His emotions made it difficult for him to breathe.

"You goddamn German!"

Marion. The nurse the patient shouted at was Bingaman's wife. The three men who had carried in the patient were pushing her away.

Outraged, Bingaman reached the commotion. "Don't you touch her! What's going on here?"

The patient's face reddened from the fury with which he coughed. Spittle flew. Bingaman stepped back reflexively, making sure that he stayed protectively in front of Marion.

"Put these masks on. No one comes in here without one. What's the matter with you?"

"She's what's the matter," one man said. His voice was slurred. He was tall, wore work clothes, and had obviously been drinking." Lousy German."

"Watch what you're saying."

"Hun! Kraut!" a second man said, more beefy than the first." Yer not foolin' anybody." He, too, was obviously drunk. "Yer the one who did it! Made my friend sick! Gave everybody the influenza!"

"What kind of nonsense…"

"Spanish nothing." The man on the bed coughed again. He was losing strength. Despite his feverish cheeks, he had alarming black circles around his eyes. "It's the German influenza."

The first man took a tottering step toward Marion. "How much did the Kaiser pay you, Kraut?"

"Pay her?" the second man said. "Didn't need to pay the bitch. She's a German, ain't she? Germans love killing Americans."

"I've heard enough." Bingaman shook with rage. "Get out of this hospital. Now. I swear I'll send for a policeman."

"And leave her?" The third man pointed drunkenly past Bingaman toward Marion. "Leave her to kill more Americans? She's the one brought the influenza here. The German influenza. This is how the Kaiser thinks he's gonna win the war. Damned murderous Kraut."

"I won't tell you again! Leave this instant or I'll – "

Bingaman stepped toward the men, urging them toward the door. The first man braced himself, muttered, "The Huns killed my son in France, you goddamn Kraut-lover," and struck the doctor's face.

Time seemed to stop. At once, it began again. Hearing exclamations around him, Bingaman lurched back, distantly aware of blood spewing from his lips beneath his mask. Then something struck his nose, and he saw double. Blood spurted from his nostrils. He lost control of his legs. He seemed to float. When he struck the floor, he heard faraway screaming.

Then everything was a blur. He had a vague sense of being lifted, carried. He heard distant, urgent voices. His mind reeled as he was set on something.

A cot. In a shadowy supply room at the rear of the gymnasium.

"Jonas, are you all right? Jonas?"

He recognized Marion's voice. Each anxious word sounded closer, as if she was leaning down.

"Jonas?"

"Yes. I think I'm all right."

"Let me get your mask off so you can breathe."

"No. Can't risk contamination. Leave it on."

She was wiping blood from his face. "I'll give you a clean one."

"Jonas?" A man's voice. Worried. Powell.

"I'm only dazed," Bingaman answered slowly. "Caught me by surprise." His words seemed to echo. "I'll be all right in a moment." He tried to sit up, but he felt as if he had ball bearings in his skull and they all rolled backward, forcing his head down. "Those men. Are they…"

"Gone."

"A policeman. Did you send for one?"

"What would be the point? When they closed the schools, the restaurants, and the stores, they also emptied the jail. There isn't any place to put those men."

"Can't understand what got into them. Accusing Marion. Outrageous," Bingaman said.

He managed to open his eyes and focus his aching vision. He saw Marion's worried face. And Powell's, which had a reluctant expression.

"What is it? What aren't you telling me?" Bingaman asked.