Plague by Graham Masterton Read Free Book Online

stopped savagely.
    ‘You’re,
supposed to chase him,’ said Poletto bluntly. ‘Not smash the ass off him.’
    The two officers
climbed out of their car and walked across to the Pontiac. Poletto unbuttoned
his top pocket and took out his notebook.
    ‘Okay,
Charlie,’ he snapped. ‘What’s all this, Death Racesooof?’ The driver didn’t
answer. He was middle-aged, with rimless glasses, and he was sitting upright in
his seat like a wax dummy. His face was a ghastly and noticeable white.
    Herb stepped up
closer and saw that his eyes were closed. He had gray, close- cropped hair and
a check working man’s shirt. He looked respectable, even staid. He was
shivering.
    ‘Do you think
he’s okay?’ asked Herb uncertainly. ‘He doesn’t look too well to me.’
    Poletto
shrugged. ‘Herb – if you’d drunk as much as this guy, you wouldn’t look too
well, neither. Okay, Charlie, out of the car.’
    The man didn’t
open his eyes, or stir, or say anything.
    He just sat
there shaking, pale and beaded with perspiration.
    ‘Come on, wise
guy,’ ordered Poletto, and wrenched open the dented car door. He was about to
reach in, but he stopped himself. He pulled a contorted face and said, ‘Jesus
H. Christ.’
    ‘What’s wrong?’
said Herb. Then, before Poletto could answer, he smelled it for himself. It was
so rank that he almost felt sick.
    ‘I think he’s
ill, Frank,’ said Herb. ‘Get an ambulance, will you, and the wreck squad, and I’ll
pull him out of there.’
    Poletto screwed
up his nose. ‘Rather you than me, buddy boy. That guy smells like a goddamned
drain.’
    Poletto went
across to the police car, reached inside and picked up the mike. Herb heard him
calling for an ambulance. Taking a deep breath he pushed open the Pontiac’s
door as wide as he could, and tried to get his hands under the driver’s
armpits. The man murmured and mumbled, and feebly pushed Herb away. But then he
sagged and collapsed, and Herb dragged his heavy body out of the diahorrea- filled
driving seat, and laid him on the road.
    The man
whispered something. Poletto, coming back from the police car, said, ‘What’s he
chirping about? Is he sick, or what?’
    ‘I don’t know,’
said Herb. He knelt on the road beside the feverish driver, and put his face as
close as he could to the sick man’s mouth. He never did understand what the man
was trying to say, but he remembered the spittle that touched his cheek as the
man’s lips whispered those last, incomprehensible words.
    In the distance,
they heard the ambulance siren. Herb lifted the man’s head from the concrete
road and said gently, ‘Don’t worry, mac. You’re going to be all right. They’ll
take you away, and you’re going to be fine.’
    Dr. Petrie
reached the hospital a little after twelve. He was surprised to see that the
casualty reception area was crowded with ambulances and police cars, and even a
couple of Press cars. All the lights were on inside the building, and people
were running backwards and forwards with medical trolleys and blankets.
    He parked the
Lincoln on the road and walked across to the hospital doors. A shirtsleeved
policeman said, ‘Sorry, friend. This is off limits.’
    Dr. Petrie
reached into his white linen jacket and produced his identity card. ‘I’m a
doctor. I came down here to see Anton Selmer. He’s in charge of emergency. Say –
what goes on here?’
    The policeman
examined the identity card suspiciously. ‘Are you sure you’re a doctor? You
don’t look like a doctor.’
    Dr. Petrie
raised his eyebrows. ‘What’s a doctor supposed to look like? Marcus Welby, MD?’
    The policeman
shrugged, a little embarrassed, and handed the card back. ‘I guess it’s okay,’ he said, ungraciously. ‘Seems
like they’ve got some kind of epidemic around here. They just told me to
keep people out. Through there.’
    ‘I know the
way,’ Petrie said, and pushed through the swing doors into the brightly-lit
hospital corridors.
    There