'Are, you going to wake him, and tell him, we're leaving?'
'I'll try.'
Dr. Petrie shook Dr. Selmer's shoulder. The sleeping doctor licked his lips, and stirred. Dr. Petrie shook him again.
'Anton — wake up. It's Leonard.'
Finally, Dr. Selmer opened his eyes. They were bloodshot from lack of sleep, and his mind was completely fuddled. 'Leonard… what's going on? I was dreaming we were playing golf.'
'Was I winning?'
'Like hell you were. You were three strokes down. What's going on?'
Dr. Petrie said awkwardly, 'We've come to a decision. Adelaide and I.'
Adelaide interrupted, 'We're leaving.'
'Leaving?' Dr. Selmer sat up. 'I don't understand.'
Dr. Petrie shrugged. 'We're going to try and make a break. I want to see if I can rescue Prickles, and then maybe we can get through the quarantine cordon and find ourselves a remote place to stay until this whole thing's over.'
'But supposing you spread the disease beyond Miami? Jesus, Leonard, this thing could wipe out the whole damned United States!'
'That's why we want to go some place remote,' said Dr. Petrie. 'We can keep ourselves under observation until we're sure that we're clear.'
'The National Guard will kill you,' said Dr. Selmer. 'You saw what happened to that boy downstairs.'
'They'll kill us either way,' said Dr. Petrie. 'The rumor's going around that they're going to burn the city down.'
Dr. Selmer shook his head. 'I don't know what to say. I'm a doctor, and so are you. How can we leave this place?'
Leonard Petrie couldn't answer that. He didn't know what the answer was. He only knew that all his instinct and personality were telling him now that it was important for him to survive. He completely accepted a doctor's responsibilities to care for his patients, yet he was unable to invest any belief in a hopeless situation. To him, it was like moths flying into the windshields of speeding cars.
He knelt down beside Dr. Selmer's settee, and said, 'Anton, I'm not running out. I just don't believe that it's worth sticking around here any longer. We're not doing anyone any good. Least of all ourselves.'
Dr. Selmer looked thoughtful. 'Well,' he said, 'I can't prevent you from going. I won't say I'm not disappointed.'
'Will you come along with us?'
Dr. Selmer shook his head. 'No, Leonard. That's my emergency ward down there, and I have to stay whether I like it or not.' He got up from the settee. 'I do feel disappointed, Leonard, but that doesn't mean I don't wish you luck.'
Dr. Petrie got up from his knees. Dr. Selmer gave him a small, rueful grin. 'I can't hold you back, Leonard. Maybe it's right that you should be the one to go. Someone has to get out of here and tell the people of this country what's happening. Now, if I were you, I'd get my lady out of here as quick as I could, and high-tail it for the city limits before dawn.'
Dr. Petrie checked his watch. It was already 11:47. 'Okay, Anton,' he said gently. 'But do me a favor, will you?'
'If you promise to keep on playing such a lousy game of golf in my dreams, I'll do you any favor you want.'
'Look after yourself. If they start burning the city, do your best to get out. When this is all over, I want you and me to meet up, and have ourselves a couple of drinks at the club, and drown the memory of this goddamned plague forever.'
Dr. Selmer scratched the back of his gingery neck. 'I think you've got yourself a deal there, Leonard.' The two men clasped hands for a long moment, and then Dr. Petrie took Adelaide by the arm, and led her out into the corridor. As he closed the door behind him, Dr. Selmer called out, 'Please, Leonard — take care.'
Dr. Petrie nodded, and closed the office door behind him for the last time.
They pushed their way along the crowded hospital corridors as quickly as they could. Adelaide kept a handkerchief over her nose and mouth, and Dr. Petrie steered her clear of obvious plague cases. There was a background of low muttering and whispering, occasionally interrupted by cries of pain or anguish. People sat and lay everywhere, huddled in comers too sick to move, or gradually dying on their trolleys. The stench of dead bodies was almost too much to bear.
Two patients, nearly dead themselves, watched with glazed eyes as a doctor, gasping and shuddering with his own plague, tried to inject them with painkilling drugs. In the night outside, the streets echoed with the never- ending wail of sirens.
They broke out of the hospital doors and into the warm, neon-lit hospital forecourt. The place was still cluttered with ambulances, but there was noticeably less activity than there had been before. Dr. Petrie's car was still at Margaret's. By now it had probably been stolen, commandeered or towed away. But there was a whole hospital car-park round the side of the building, and they were bound to find a car with its ignition keys left inside.
Adelaide said, 'My God, it's gotten so much worse. Look — there's a couple of bodies over there, by the hospital entrance.'
Dr. Petrie took her arm. 'Don't worry about that. Let's just get the hell out.'
They half-ran, half-walked round to the side of the hospital. The car-park was dark, and shadowed from the street-lights by the fourteen-storey bulk of the hospital tower. Dr. Petrie said: 'You take the first row of cars, I'll take the second. Try the driver's door, and see if it opens. If it does, check for keys.'
As swiftly and silently as they could, they went from one car to the other, trying the door-handles. By the time Dr. Petrie had tugged at his twelfth car, he was beginning to wonder if the staff of this particular hospital weren't security-conscious to a fault. Then Adelaide hissed, 'I've got one!'
She was opening the door of a bronze Gran Torino. Dr Petrie skirted around the back of the car that he had been trying to open, and crossed the space in between the rows of parked vehicles. The moment he stepped into the open, a rough voice shouted, 'Hold it right there, buddy!'
He froze, with his hands above his head. A stocky shadow disengaged itself from all the other shadows, and started to walk towards him. In a thin slanting beam of light from one of the hospital windows, Dr. Petrie saw a solid, middle-aged security guard, with a navy-blue uniform, a face as hard as a concrete post, and a revolver. 'I'm a doctor,' Petrie said.
The security guard came up close, and shone a torch in Dr. Petrie's face. 'Then how come you're trying to steal yourself a car?'
'Someone took mine. I have an emergency.'
'You got ID?'
'Sure. It's in my top pocket. Here — I'll get it out for you.'
'Don't you move a muscle.'
The security guard came forward, reached into Dr. Petrie's inside pocket, then tried to open the papers with one hand. As he did so, Dr. Petrie grabbed the man's gun wrist, and tried to twist the revolver out of his grasp. Forcing the guard's arm around in a circle, he jammed his leg behind the man's calf, and pushed him. The man fell backwards on to the tarmac, jarring his knee — but he still kept his grip on the gun.
Dr. Petrie pressed the guard's wrist against the ground, and then trod on it, hard. At last, the fingers opened, and Dr. Petrie snatched the revolver away from him.
The guard cried, 'Don't shoot.' He raised his arms protectively over his face. 'I got a wife with a bad leg.'
Dr. Petrie said, 'I'm not going to hurt you, you dumb ox. Just get up and get the hell out of here.'
The guard got to his feet, and dusted himself off. 'You won't get far, you know,' he said, stepping cautiously backwards. 'They got the cops on the lookout for bums like you. All I have to do is call them up, and they've got your number.'
Petrie waved the gun in his direction again. The guard said, 'Hey — I didn't mean it serious. I was joking!
