NightScape Part 18

" 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 acc.u.mulated 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." d.a.m.n 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 pa.s.sages 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 gla.s.sy. "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 a.s.sumption that this is pneumonia," Powell said as they put on gauze masks and prepared to enter the quarantined ward.

"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 d.a.m.ned 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."