Better in the Dark (13 page)

“I know,” she said, turning away. She studied the pattern of light and shadow on the wall behind her. “Even if we could get them to listen, no one would believe us. The hospital would offer some glib explanation and point out that we’ve been dismissed, making sure that they dropped a hint that we were guilty of something awful, and that would destroy what little credibility we have.”

“People aren’t that dumb,” Harry insisted, pacing the room. “If we could reach them, we can make them believe us.”

“The way you believed me when I first told you about it?” She waited while he thought this over. “Are you going to hand out broadsides in Stockton? Well? How are you going to get the attention you need, Harry?” Her own sarcasm hurt her and she got up, saying, “I can’t take much more of this, Harry. We’ve got to do something. You’re right about that.”

“I went to school with Bob Craley ... he might listen to me,” Harry said. “His office won’t connect me, but maybe I could call him at home.”

Natalie was about to object, then only sighed and left the room.

This time the news was calming: the city hospitals were taking care of all the flu patients in special wards, and for the time being were keeping them in total quarantine. The hospital administrators felt that this way the risk was minimized.

Harry watched the smooth face of the announcer as it flickered on the screen. “No one can visit,” he said, disgusted. “For their own protection, of course.”

Natalie pulled her hands together. “It won’t be much longer. They’re going to have to admit there is more than a flu epidemic going on.”

“But what good will that do? You’ve read the listener-response reports: almost everyone in the city thinks that the hospitals are doing a great job in keeping the public safe. They’re all certain that the emergency will soon be over. You know that’s not true, and so do I, but we’re nothing compared to the rest of them out there. Crap.” He flung himself across the room. “Deutch is on duty outside. I asked him if I could go out for some food. I said we were running low.”

“And?” Natalie asked, knowing what had happened.

“He asked for a list and told me he’d pick up what we need tomorrow.”

“I said I wanted to get some underwear. Same answer.” She thought for a moment. “Not that we could do much good even if we could get out. They’re not going to let us see the others or treat anyone. And if we open our mouths they’ll toss us in jail.”

Harry kicked at the floor, dislodging another worn parquet square. He bent over and shoved the wood back into place. “Never mind,” he said as he straightened up, and it was hard to tell if he meant the damage to the floor or the ruin that was waiting with the plague. “What’s for lunch?”

“Eggs,” she said. “Not real ones. Just the standard substitutes. There aren’t any real ones available until the first of the month. I signed up for a dozen. Deutch put my name in.”

Harry thought fleetingly of that. It was like everything else. There was not enough to go around. There was never enough. Not enough real food, not enough space, not enough time, not enough contact, not enough of life. His gloom descended once more.

Over lunch their thoughts turned, and Natalie looked away from her sulphur-colored omelet toward the grimy windows. “I miss the smell of spring. I used to take Philip out to the Great Belt Park, and this time of year it could be lovely.” Sunshine was reflecting off the white plastic counters and metal sink, making the small room shine.

“The smell is different this year.”

They fell silent and tried to eat the omelets.

After a while he began to hum, thinking of the bright flowers he missed, then filling in the words familiar to him since childhood:

Ring around the rosie
Pocket full of posie
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.

“Shut up!” she yelled at him.

“Humh? What for?”

“Don’t you know what that is?”

“What’s wrong with a nursery rhyme?” He thought perhaps it reminded her too much of her dead son. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I should have remembered.” He rose and came around behind her.

She pushed his hand away from her shoulder. “It’s the plague rhyme. It’s about the Black Death.”

Her voice was flat, all anger gone from it. “I’m sorry
I
snapped at
you
.” She was saying that too often, but it was true: she said wounding, hurtful things to him to save herself from her own vulnerability.

Harry made an effort to change the subject once more. “I wonder if they’ll call us back?”

If there were anyone to call them back. He had heard that the administration at the hospital had been laying off staff members. Harry had heard the names and knew that they were getting rid of the fighters, the mavericks who could not be trusted to go along with this carefully planned disaster.

But Natalie was talking. “It’s like being on a sinking ship with hundreds of other people and two leaky lifeboats, isn’t it? The odds aren’t good. Do you think we’ll make it?”

“Don’t talk that way.” He went to pull the blinds down.

“Knowing people...” she said as if she had not heard him, “... they’ll trample each other to death or hack the lifeboats to pieces.”

“Natalie, stop it.” He was about to reach for her when there was a tap at the window. His flat was four floors aboveground and the window was difficult to reach. The tap was repeated.

Cautiously he looked out.

“What is it?” Natalie asked from the table, almost afraid to be interested.

“I don’t know. I thought I heard—there it is again.” He looked more carefully, edging the window open.

Twelve feet beyond the window on the narrow building maintenance landing, perched a ten-year-old girl. One hand was filled with gravel, the other hand had two fingers stuck into her nose. “You the doctor?” she whispered.

“Both of us,” Harry answered, surprise growing slowly in him.

“Can you come quick? Just two floors down. My sister is sick.”

Harry frowned. “What about your mother? Can’t she get a doctor for you?”

“They left,” the girl said simply. “Mom and Pop both. The hospital doesn’t answer when I call—the line is busy all the time. I tried earlier, and it didn’t work.”

“Do your mother and father work?” asked Natalie, who had joined Harry at the window.

“Nope. Left. For good. Ces’lie’s real sick. Can you come?” She thought something over. “You can’t go out the door. Cops are watching it. I tried there first. But if you crawl along the ledge there...” She pointed to the narrow ledge under the window, which would provide little more than a handsbreadth to stand on.

“I don’t think...” Harry began.

“
I
can,” Natalie interrupted. “You’d never make it, Harry. Not along that. Get my bag for me, will you?”

He would have protested but the girl put in, “Yeah, she’s right. You’re too big.”

As Harry raised startled eyebrows, Natalie giggled and said, “There, you see? That settles that.”

He looked down at her in exasperation. He said, “Okay. I’ll get the bag. But be careful.”

“I will,” she promised.

When he came back from the bedroom she had buttoned on her white hospital oversmock that she had been wearing the first time he saw her. The slacks she wore were old, but the knee patches did not bother her. She smiled when she saw him. “While I’m gone you’re going to have to do something to make Deutch think we’re both in here. Unless this is very serious, I’ll be back within the hour. If the child is really sick, I’ll find a way to get her over to Lisa Skye. She lives over that big day-care center and should be able to get this child to the hospital.”

“Yes,” he said to her, and it meant a reaffirmation to both of them.

“Now, wait until I get out the window.” She climbed onto the ledge. “I’ll have to secure my foothold before you give me the bag.” She lowered herself gingerly.

Suddenly he was filled with concern for her. “You don’t have to go,” he told her abruptly.

Her washed-out green eyes softened. “Someone has to,” she said. And then she was inching along the ledge toward the girl who crouched, waiting for her.

Harry sat at the table for some time afterward, while his lunch grew warm and his coffee got cold. They had been sought out, he realized, and if one child could come to them, so would others. He had not thought of that before, that there would be people who would want them, need them enough to come to them.

He spread out his hands, a silent whistle escaping between his teeth. There was a way, he thought, if the people on the outside were willing to help. If that child could reach them, she could reach the others, without their guards knowing. There was still a chance. He rose from the table, and after reluctantly washing the remains of his lunch down the sink, he went for a pad of paper. Now he had work to do.

“How’d it go?” Harry said anxiously as he helped Natalie climb in the window. “You were gone a long time. I was worried.”

“Tell you in a minute,” she said as she put her feet on the floor and took a deep, relieved breath. “Let me sit a minute.”

He pulled out a chair for her, suddenly enjoying this old-fashioned courtesy. “Coffee?” he asked when she was seated. “I made some fresh a little while ago.”

“Please.” She waited while he handed her a mug, then she said, “Let me tell you about the kids. First off, they don’t appear to be seriously ill. I’d say the main trouble is malnutrition. Not very serious yet, but enough to make them very vulnerable to infections. That has me worried. I took some cultures,” she gestured to her pockets. “Not that I can find out much without a lab. I’ve got an old microscope with me, but without the proper facilities I’m kind of stuck.”

“We’ll work out something,” Harry assured her.

“I hope so. Well, there are other kids in that building who’ve been deserted. Alison told me about them.”

“Alison?”

“The kid who came to the window. Her name is Alison Procter. She’s a very resourceful girl, Harry. I wish there were a way we could use her.”

“There
is
a way,” Harry said, smiling. He poured himself another cup of coffee and beckoned. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

Frowning, Natalie rose and followed him into the living room. “What’s that?” she asked when she saw the stacks of paper spread about the floor.

“It’s my plan. Look,” he said, pulling her toward the old couch. “See? This is a map of the area.”

“Yes.”

“The red marks are hospitals. The blue marks are where the various doctors like us live. The Van Dreyter house is here. That kid Alison?” Natalie nodded. “She can’t be the only one looking for a doctor. There’s a chance we can use her and some of her friends to reach the others. If we can do that, then it doesn’t matter if there are guards on the doors.”

Natalie narrowed her eyes. “It might work.”

“Might? Hell, it’s bound to work. Look, City Patrol can’t keep us locked up like this much longer. The disease outbreaks are going to start getting to them pretty soon. When that happens, we’ve got to be organized. We’ve got to be ready to set ourselves up in the Van Dreyter house at the first opportunity. And in the meantime, Alison can start bringing people to us. She must know who’s sick, who needs a doctor.”

“She did mention some other kids in other buildings,” Natalie conceded.

“Then we aren’t trapped, after all. So long as we keep the communications open with the others, we’ll be ready just as soon as we have to. Don’t you see, Nat? We don’t have to stand by and watch. We can do something.”

“What about labs? We’re going to need lab space, Harry.”

“There are a couple of independent labs in the city. We can use them.”

“Are they any good? Are they up-to-date?” She tapped the specimen packs in her pocket again. “These should be processed right away.”

“I know. We’ll think of a way.”

She put down the coffee. “I called the hospital to see if Mark would do a special run on them. No luck.” She did not want to discuss the cruel words they had exchanged, or the threats Mark had made if she persisted in what he had called her folly.

“It doesn’t matter. I called Dr. Dagstern this afternoon and he’s promised his facilities to us if we need them.”

“Dagstern? I don’t know him,” Natalie said, trying to recall those few physicians still in private practice.

“He’s a chiropractor.” When he saw the skepticism in her face, he hurried on. “Look, the man has a small lab and a lot of space. You know he’s got to be careful, because he could be sued for treating pathological conditions without medical consultation. We can take those samples there tonight, if you don’t mind climbing back out the window.”

She smiled. “If this keeps up, I’ll get good at it.” She drank the last of the coffee. “Well, if I’m going back out tonight, I’m going to want a rest first. Call me in a couple of hours, will you?”

“All right,” he said. Then, as she started from the room, he added, “if you can find any large jars or bottles and can bring them back, will you do it?”

“Why?”

“I’m going to start boiling water and storing it. Once the city’s sanitation goes, the tap water won’t be safe.”

She nodded. “You’re right. Okay. If I find any containers we can use, I’ll bring them back.”

“I’ll call you at seven,” Harry told her as she left the room. Then he went back to his maps and his charts. The idea had to work, he told himself. It had to work or they were truly lost.

The sign was weathered but very neat, planted firmly in the middle of the lawn in front of a commonplace prefab house. DR. ERNEST J. DAGSTERN, it read, CHIROPRACTOR. Natalie studied the sign before going up the walk and ringing the bell.

In a moment the door was opened by a short, muscular man in his early thirties. “Good evening,” he said. “I’m afraid you’re after my usual hours, but if it’s an emergency...”

“Dr. Dagstern?” Natalie interrupted.

“Yes?” His tone changed. “You’re Dr. Lebbreau? The one Dr. Smith said would call?”

“Yes. I’m Natalie Lebbreau. I understand you have a lab...”

He stood aside and motioned her into the foyer, which was taken over by a receptionist’s desk. “Come in, Doctor. Yes, I have a small lab here. I’ll take you to it. If there is anything I can do to help you...?”