They began to pick up radio broadcasts. They were faint and crackly at first, and it was plain they were coming from a long distance. Adelaide identified them first. They were news programs from Washington D.C., distorted and faded by the intervening peaks of the Appalachians.
Eventually, though, they began to gain altitude, and as they did so the radio bulletins became clearer.
'… so far, there have been no reported outbreaks of disease any further north than Wildwood, on Cape May, New Jersey, but more than seventy miles of beaches on Long Island's south shore were closed just before noon this morning because of sewage that has been washing ashore for the past week. Bathing has been prohibited from Long Beach, practically next door to the Rockaways in Queens, all the way east to the western edge of the Hamptons in Suffolk County.
'Inland, two cases of plague have been reported in Baltimore, and further south the disease has taken a serious grip on Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and parts of Maryland. The President is remaining in Washington against the advice of his aides, but it is understood that he is strictly quarantined, and that a helicopter waits on the White House lawn for possible evacuation measures…
'The Special Epidemic Commission set up yesterday by the President at a moment's notice has declared New York City a primary quarantine zone, on account of the density of its population and the seriousness of a possible outbreak of plague there… Accordingly, all access to Manhattan Island will be filtered and controlled by paramedic teams, and if necessary the entire island will be sealed off from outside contact… '
Dr. Petrie switched off. He wiggled his fingers to ease the cramp in them, and said, 'It looks bad. Maybe we ought to head west. Once we're through Atlanta, we could head for Birmingham or Chattanooga.'
Adelaide said nothing. Dr. Petrie swore as the car behind them, a big bronze Mercury, nudged their Delta 88 in the rear bumper for the twentieth time.
Prickles, who had been dozing on the back seat, opened her eyes sleepily and said, 'Is it time for Batman?'
Dr. Petrie shook his head. 'No Batman tonight, honey. We're still stuck in all these cars.'
Prickles stared out of the window, disappointed. 'Can't we go home now?' she asked him.
Dr. Petrie reached over and took her hand. 'We can't go home for a long time, darling. But what we're going to do is find ourselves a new home. You and me and Adelaide. Isn't that right, Adelaide?'
Adelaide turned and looked at him listlessly. 'Whatever you say, Leonard.'
Prickles was satisfied by that answer, but Dr. Petrie wasn't. As Adelaide turned away again, he said, 'Adelaide, love, that's not like you. Not like you at all.'
She kept her face away. Outside, the afternoon shadows were beginning to lengthen.
'What's not like me?' she said, as if her mind were on something else altogether.
'Agreeing with me, just like that. You normally refuse to do what I want, on principle.'
She stared at the floor of the car. 'Well,' she whispered. 'Things change, don't they?'
'Like what?'
'Sometimes you find that refusing doesn't make any real difference.'
He didn't try to touch her. That would come later. Right now, he was intent on getting her to say what had happened. Just explaining it would start the long painful process of exorcism.
'How did it happen?' he asked her, so softly that his words were scarcely louder than breathing.
She raised her head.
'Was it back at the restaurant? At MacDonald's?'
Slowly, she turned to stare at him. Here eyes were glistening with tears.
'You know,' she said, shaking her head. 'How did you know?'
'I am a doctor, Adelaide; and more important I'm a man who loves you, and knows you well.'
The tears rolled freely down her cheeks now. She couldn't say any more, and right now she didn't need to. She leaned her head forward and rested it against Dr. Petrie's shoulder, and cried.
Prickles looked at her with some interest, and said, 'Why is Adelaide crying, Daddy? Does she feel sick?'
Dr. Petrie smiled. 'No, darling, she doesn't. She doesn't feel sick. I hope she's feeling better.'
They saw the huge smudge of black smoke hanging over Atlanta before they saw the city itself. The evening was warm and still, and the smoke was suspended above in spectral stillness. Eventually, as the painful traffic jam edged nearer, they could make out the sparkle of fires in the city's downtown buildings, and they knew that Atlanta was destroyed.
Dr. Petrie turned the radio dial to see if he could pick up any stray news bulletins, but all he could get was howling and static.
'Maybe we could get off the main highway here and try the back roads,' suggested Adelaide. 'This is getting insane.'
Dr. Petrie said, 'I'll try. It looks like there's a turnoff just up there on the left.'
Forcing their way across two solid lanes of blocked-solid traffic was the worst part. It meant holding up other cars, and after a day of inching forward in heat and fumes and sickness, there weren't many drivers who had the patience or the inclination to let them past. Dr. Petrie rolled down his window and made a hand signal, and then just turned the wheel left and crunched into the car beside his.
The driver, a fat redneck with a fat family to match, mouthed obscenities at him. The man didn't open his window, though. He was too frightened of catching the plague.
The redneck gunned his engine and tried to force Dr. Petrie back into his own lane. There was a grinding of wheel-hubs and fenders.
'Let us through!' screamed Adelaide. 'We only want to get through!'
The man wouldn't budge. He sat stolidly in the driving seat, refusing to look in their direction. For five minutes, the two cars crawled along side by side, their fenders scraping and screeching.
After a while, Dr. Petrie sighed impatiently and reached over for his automatic weapon. He lifted it up, and took a bead through his open window at the redneck's head. Then he waited. The man, who was making a point of ignoring him, didn't see what was happening at first. Then his podgy wife nudged him, and he turned and saw the rifle's muzzle fixed on his cranium. He jammed on his brakes so quickly that the car behind shunted into the back of him.
Dr. Petrie, steering-wheel in one hand and rifle in the other, crossed the two lanes of traffic in a couple of minutes. Then he sped the Delta 88 up alongside the main highway in a cloud of white dust, and took the small rutted turnoff to the left. The car bounced and banged on its suspension, but soon they were clear of the traffic jam and driving up the side of a gradual incline, into trees and scattered housing plots and fields.
Below them, they now saw in the reddish light of the seven o'clock sun, clouded in fumes and smoke, the endless glittering chain of the congested highway, and in the distance, five or six miles to the north-west, the immense shadow that drifted over Atlanta. They opened the car windows, and there was a rubbery smell of burning mingled with the fresher smell of the evening woods.
Dr. Petrie didn't know if the dirt-track they were following led anywhere, but he was prepared to drive across fields and streams if he had to. The most urgent need was to head west, and outstrip the plague. As far as he could make out, they were still well inside the infected area, and until they escaped it, they were still at high risk from National Guardsmen, looters, panicking drivers, and the bacillus itself.
It wasn't long before he had to switch on the car's headlights. The sky was darkening into rich blue through the treetops, and moths were tapping softly against the car's windshield. Prickles wag fast asleep in the back, covered with a plaid blanket, and Adelaide was beginning to settle down to doze.
'Leonard,' she said. 'I was just wondering.'
'Hmm?'
'It's about the plague. I was just wondering why you didn't catch it yourself.'
He shook his head. 'I've been wondering that myself. I was exposed to so many plague patients down at the hospital, and I've been tired and vulnerable, too. But I still haven't caught it. And neither have you.'
'Oh, with me, I think it's just luck,' said Adelaide. 'But you, I don't understand. Dr. Selmer didn't catch it either, did he? Least, not as far as we know. I mean, you both touched that boy who had it, didn't you? That boy you treated on Monday morning? Surely you would have caught it from him.'
Dr. Petrie shifted in his seat. The track was getting narrower now, and he was beginning to suspect it would turn out to be a dead end. Tree branches were scraping and flickering against the sides of the car, and he was
