NightScape

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, begi

"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 ma

"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.