NightScape Read online

  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."

  Both doctors sprang to their feet.

  "We'll have to implement quarantine precautions." Bingaman rushed from the office.

  "Yes." Powell hurried next to him. "No visitors. Mandatory gauze masks for medical personnel, anybody who goes into those rooms. The emergency ward should be disinfected."

  "Good idea." Bingaman moved faster. "And the room where Joey died. The nurses who treated him had better scrub down. They'd better put on clean uniforms in case they've been contaminated."

  "But we still don't know how to treat this, aside from what we've already tried."

  "And that didn't work." Bingaman's chest felt hollow. "If you're right about how the infection started, why haven't there been cases in Riverton?" Powell sounded out of breath.

  "I don't know. In fact, there's almost nothing I do know. When do we get the results from Joey Carter's autopsy?"

  * * *

  The stoop-shouldered man peeled off his rubber gloves, dropped them into a medical waste bin, then took off his gauze mask, and leaned against a locker. His name was Peter Talbot. A surgeon, he also functioned as Elmdale's medical examiner. He glanced from Bingaman to Powell and said, "The lungs were completely filled with fluid. It would have been impossible for the boy to breathe."

  Bingaman stepped closer. "Could the fluid have accumulated subsequent to his death?"

  "What are you suggesting?"

  "Another cause of death. Did you examine the brain?"

  "Of course."

  "Was there any sign of - "

  "What exactly are you looking for?"

  "Could the cause of death have been something as highly contagious as meningitis?"

  "No. No sign of meningitis. What killed this boy attacked his lungs."

  "Pneumonia," Powell said. "There's no reason to discount the initial diagnosis."

  "Except that pneumonia doesn't normally spread this fast."

  "Spread this fast?" Talbot straightened. "You have other cases?"

  "Four since the boy died."

  "Good Lord."

  "I know. This sounds like the start of an epidemic."

  "But caused by what?" Bingaman rubbed his forehead.

  "I'll try to find out." Talbot pointed toward a table. "I have tissue samples ready to be cultured. I'll do my best to identify the microorganism responsible. What else can we - "

  Bingaman started toward the door. "I think it's time to make another telephone call to the Riverton hospital."

  * * *

  Blood drained from Bingaman's face as he listened to the doctor in charge of the emergency room at the Riverton hospital.

  "But I asked your chief of staff to get in touch with me if any cases were reported." Damn him, Bingaman thought. "Too busy? No time? Yes. And I'm very much afraid we're all going to get a lot busier."

  As he turned from the telephone, he couldn't help noticing the apprehension on Powell's face.

  "How many cases do they have?"

  "Twelve," Bingaman answered.

  "Twelve?"

  "They were all admitted within the past few hours. Two of the patients have died."

  * * *

  He parked his Model T in his driveway and extinguished the headlights. The time was after three a.m., and he had hoped that the chug-chug, rattle-rattle of the automobile would not waken his wife, but he saw a pale yellow glow appear in the window of the master bedroom, and he shook his head, discouraged, wishing he still owned a horse and buggy. The air had a foul odor from the car's exhaust fumes. Too many inventions. Too many complications. Even so, he thought, there's one invention you do wish for-a drug that eliminates infectious microbes.

  Exhausted, he got out of the car. Marion had the front door open, waiting for him, as he climbed the steps onto the porch.

  "You look awful." She took his bag and put an arm around him, guiding him into the house.

  "It's been that kind of night." Bingaman explained what was happening at the hospital, the new patients he'd examined and the treatment he'd prescribed. "In addition to aspirin, we're using quinine to control the fever. We're rubbing camphor oil on the patients' chests and having them breathe through strips of cloth soaked in it, to try to keep their bronchial passages open."

  "Is that working?"

  "We don't know yet. I'm so tired I can hardly think straight."

  "Let me put you to bed."

  "Marion..."

  "What?"

  "I'm not sure how to say this."

  "Just go ahead and say it."

  "If this disease is as contagious as it appears to be..."

  "Say it."

  "I've been exposed to the infection. Maybe you ought to keep a distance from me. Maybe we shouldn't sleep in the same bed."

  "After twenty-five years? I don't intend to stop sleeping with you now."

  "I love you."

  * * *

  The patient, Robert Wilson, was a forty-two-year-old, blue-eyed carpenter who worked with Edward Carter. The man had swollen glands and congested lungs. He complained of a headache and soreness in his muscles. His temperature was a hundred and one.

  "I'm afraid I'm going to have to send you to the hospital," Bingaman said.

  "Hospital?" Wilson coughed.

  Bingaman stepped back.

  "But I can't afford the time off work," the heavyset carpenter said. "Can't you just give me a pill or something?"

  Don't I wish, Bingaman thought, saying, "Not in this case."

  Wilson raised a hand to his mouth and coughed again. His blue eyes were glassy. "But what do I have?"

  "I'll need to do more tests on you at the hospital," Bingaman said, his professional tone cloaking the truth. What do you have? he thought. Whatever killed Joey Carter.

  * * *

  And killed Joey's father, Bingaman learned after he finished with his morning's patients and arrived at the hospital. Joey's mother and the boy's two friends weren't doing well, either, struggling to breathe despite the oxygen they were being given. And eight more cases had been admitted.

  "We're still acting on the assumption that this is pneumonia," Powell said as they put on gauze masks and prepared to enter the quarantined ward.

&nbs
p; "Are the quinine and camphor oil having any effect?"

  "Marginally. Some of the patients feel better for a time. Their temperatures go down briefly. For example, Rebecca Carter's dropped from one hundred and four to one hundred and two. I thought we were making progress. But then her temperature shot up again. Some of these patients would have died without oxygen, but I don't know how long our supply will last. I've sent for more, but our medical distributor in Albany is having a shortage."

  Conscious of the tight mask on his face, Bingaman surveyed the quarantined ward, seeing understaffed, overworked nurses doing their best to make their patients comfortable, hearing the hiss of oxygen tanks and the rack of coughing. In a corner, a curtain had been pulled around a bed.

  "Some of the patients are coughing up blood," Powell said.

  "What did you just say?"

  "Blood. They're-"

  "Before that. Your medical distributor in Albany is having a shortage of oxygen?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "Their telegram didn't say."

  "Could it be that too many other places need it?"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "The midway had to have come from somewhere to reach Riverton. After Riverton, it had to have gone somewhere."

  "Jonas, you're not suggesting - "

  "Do you suppose this whole section of the state is infected?"

  * * *

  "I'm sorry," the operator said. "I can't get through to the switchboard in Albany. All the lines are busy."

  "All

  of them?" "It's the state capital. So much business gets done there. If everybody's trying to call the operator at once - "

  "Try Riverton. Try the hospital there."

  "Just a moment.... I'm sorry, sir. I can't get through to the operator there, either. The lines are busy."

  Bingaman gave the operator the names of three other major towns in the area.

  The operator couldn't reach her counterparts in those districts. All the lines were in use.

  "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."

&nb
sp; "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."

  "But that's totally irresponsible."

  "The idea seems to have been to stop everyone from losing control and fleeing into the countryside. Each day, the authorities evidently hoped that the number of new cases would dwindle, that the worst would be over. When things got back to normal, order would have been maintained."