NightScape

  " But things haven't gone back to normal, have they?" Talbot said. "Not at all."

  * * *

  Talbot's comment echoed ominously in Bingaman's mind as the meeting concluded and the doctors and nurses went out to the public part of the hospital. What the medical personnel faced as they went to their various duties was the beginning of Elmdale's own chaos. During the half hour of the meeting, twenty new patients had shown up with what the staff now recognized as the symptoms of influenza - high fever, aching muscles, severe headache, sensitive vision, dizziness, difficulty in breathing. The litany of coughing made Bingaman terribly self conscious about the air he breathed. He hurriedly reached for his gauze mask. He had a mental vision of germs, thousands and thousands of them, spewing across the emergency room. The mental image was so powerful that Bingaman feared he was hallucinating.

  "Mrs. Brady," he told one of the untrained volunteer nurses who'd been watching the emergency room while the meeting was in progress. "Your mask. You forgot to put on your mask. And all these new patients need masks, also. We can't have them coughing over each other."

  And over us, Bingaman thought in alarm.

  The end of normalcy, the chaos that had burst upon them, wasn't signaled only by the welter of unaccustomed activity or by the dramatic increase in new patients. What gave Bingaman the sense of the potential scope of the unfolding nightmare was that Elmdale's hospital, which was intended to serve the medical needs of the entire county, now had more patients than its thirty-bed capacity.

  "What are we going to do?" Powell asked urgently. "We can put patients on mattresses and cots in the corridors, but at this rate, we'll soon use up those spaces. The same applies to my office and the nurses' rest area."

  The head nurse, Virginia Keel, a strawberry blonde with a notoriously humorless personality, turned from administering to a patient. "This won't do. We need to establish an emergency facility, a place big enough to accomodate so many patients."

  "The high-school gymnasium," Bingaman said.

  The head nurse and the chief of staff looked at him as if he'd lost his mind.

  "With school about to start, you want to turn the gymnasium into a pest house?" Powell asked in amazement.

  "Who said anything about school starting?"

  Powell looked shocked, beginning to understand.

  "A third of our patients are children," Bingaman said. "At the moment, I don't see any reason not to assume that we'll soon be receiving even more patients, and a great many of them will be children. It would be criminal to allow school to start. That would only spread infection faster. We need to speak to the school board. We need to ask them to postpone school for several weeks until we realize the scope of what we're dealing with. Maybe the epidemic will abate."

  "The look on your face tells me you don't think so," Powell said.

  * * *

  "Postpone the start of school?" Mayor Halloway, who was also the head of the county's board of education, blinked. "That's preposterous. School is scheduled to start four days from now. Can you imagine the response I'd have to suffer from angry parents? The ones who had telephones wouldn't stop calling me. The ones who didn't would form a mob outside my office. Those parents want their lives to get back to normal. They've had enough of their children lollygagging around town all summer. They want them in front of a blackboard again, learning something."

  "A week from now, if this epidemic keeps growing at the present rate, those parents will be begging you to close the schools," Bingaman said.

  "Then that'll be the time to close them," Halloway said, blinking again. "When the people who elected me tell me what they want."

  "You're not listening to me." Bingaman put both hands on the mayor's desk. "People are dying. You need to take the initiative on this."

  Halloway stopped blinking. "I'm not prepared to make a hasty decision."

  "Well, make some kind of decision. Will you allow the high-school gymnasium to be turned into another hospital?"

  "I'll have to consult with the other members of the school board."

  "That's fine," Bingaman said angrily. "While you're consulting, I'll be setting up beds in the gym."

  "This is really as serious as you say it is?"

  "Serious enough that you're going to have to think about closing any places where people form crowds -the restaurants, the movie theater, the stores, the saloons, the - "

  "Close the business district?" Halloway jerked his head back so sharply that his spectacles almost fell off his nose. "Close the... ? Maybe the saloons. I've been getting more and more complaints from church groups about what goes on in them. This prohibition movement is becoming awfully powerful. But the restaurants and the stores? All the uproar from the owners because of the business they would lose." Mayor Halloway guffawed. "You might as well ask me to close the churches."

  "It might come to that."

  Mayor Halloway suddenly wasn't laughing any longer.

  * * *

  He's worried about the epidemic's effect on business? Bingaman thought in dismay as he drove his Model T along Elmdale's deceptively sleepy streets toward the hospital. Well, there's one business whose prosperity the mayor won't have to worry about: the undertaker's.

  This premonition was confirmed when Bingaman reached the hospital's gravel parking area, alarmed to find it crammed with vehicles and buggies, evidence of new patients. He was further alarmed by Powell's distraught look when they met at the entrance to the noisy, crowded emergency room.

  "Eighteen more cases," Powell said. "Three more deaths, including Joey Carter's mother."

  For a moment, Bingaman couldn't catch his breath. His headache, which had persisted from yesterday, had also worsened. The emergency room felt unbearably hot, sweat making his heavily starched shirt stick to him under his suit coat. He wanted to unbutton his strangling shirt collar but knew that his position of authority prohibited such public informality.

  "Has anybody warned Ballard and Standish?" he managed to ask. He referred to Elmdale's two morticians.

  Powell nodded, guiding Bingaman into a corner, away from the commotion in the emergency room. His manner indicated that he didn't want to be overheard. "They didn't need to be told," he whispered. "Each has been here several times. I'm still adjusting to what Ballard said to me."

  "What was that?"

  Powell dropped his voice even lower. "He said, 'My God, where am I going to get enough gravediggers? Where am I going to find enough coffins?'"

  "We're out of oxygen." Elizabeth Keel, the head nurse, stopped next to them. "We're extremely low on aspirin, quinine, and camphor oil."

  "We'll have to get everything we can from the pharmacists downtown," Powell said.

  "Before the townsfolk panic and start hoarding," Bingaman said.

  "But without medical supplies - "

  "Try to get fluids into them," Bingaman told the nurse. "Do your best to keep them nourished. Soups. Custard. Anything bland and easy to digest."

  "But we don't have anyone to cook for the patients."

  "The Women's League," Powell said. "We'll ask them to do the cooking."

  "And to help my nurses," Keel said. "Even with the volunteers who arrived this morning, I'm hopelessly understaffed."

  "Who else can we ask to help us?" Bingaman tried desperately to think. "Has anyone spoken to the police department? What about the volunteer fire department? And the ministers? They can spread the word among their congregations."

  * * *

  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.

  "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 unifo
rm 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.