having trouble making out which was track and which wasn't.
'I've thought about it over and over.' he said. 'First of all, I wondered if the boy had a mild strain of plague that acted as an antidote to the main strain. But then why did he die? And why did his parents die? And what about all the other people that Anton and I were looking after? Why didn't we pick up plague from them? The only possibility that seems to make any sense is that Anton and I both did something that immunized us. Some part of our work, something to do with hospital or medical treatment, made us safe. But don't ask me what it was, because I couldn't guess.'
Adelaide said, 'I couldn't guess, either. But whatever it was, or is, thank God for it.'
She reached over and touched his thigh. 'Leonard.' she said. 'I do love you, you know.' He didn't answer. 'I know it doesn't seem like it sometimes, but I do.'
He turned briefly and smiled at her. 'It does seem like it, always. Now why don't you get yourself some rest?' She kissed his cheek, and then released the switch on her reclining seat and lay back to sleep. Dr. Petrie decided to drive on as far as he reasonably could, and then snatch a couple of hours himself. The track was still just about visible, and he wanted to put as many miles between the plague and them as possible.
As he drove, he thought some more about the curious question of his immunity from plague. It wasn't even an ordinary plague, but a fast-incubating breed that attacked the human system with such speed and ferocity that even a serum would have to be administered within half-an-hour of infection to have any chance of saving a patient's life. Not that any kind of effective serum existed. So how and why had he and Dr. Selmer escaped it? Maybe if he understood that, he would understand how the whole epidemic could be slowed down and stopped. And that would be some medical coup…
Was there another disease which he and Dr. Selmer might have both had in innocuous forms, and whose bacilli might have resisted the bacilli of super-plague? Was there any kind of air-borne infection they might have picked up, or some air-borne medication within the hospital? There had to be some common factor between Dr. Selmer and himself which would provide a clue. But he needed more facts before he could form a workable theory.
Outside, in the Georgia woods, it was now pitch-dark. The insistent sawing of insects was loud and steady, and Dr. Petrie seemed to have driven way out from any kind of civilization. He didn't even know if he was going east or west any more. He decided to stop for the night, and sleep.
He finally pulled the Delta 88 to a stop under a large sheltering tree. The car's engine and hood cooled down with a relieved ticking sound. He switched off the lights, and climbed out of the car to stretch his legs. The woods seemed very deep and silent and dark, although far away he could hear the distant rumble of a passenger aircraft. It was strange to think that, outside the plague zone, life was still going on as before, and that maybe in New York and Chicago and St. Louis, people were getting up and going to bed as if nothing had happened.
He opened the back door of the car and made sure that Prickles was tucked in properly. Then he took off his shoes and got ready to climb back behind the wheel and spend another uncomfortable night as a guest of General Motors.
There was a sudden sharp cracking noise, and something zipped through the car's windshield and out through the passenger window. Dr. Petrie instantly dropped to the leafy ground, and groped inside the car for his automatic rifle. Adelaide sat up and said, 'Leonard? What's happened?'
'Down' he hissed, waving his hand. 'Get your head down. There's someone out there.'
He reached up to the steering column and switched on the car's electrics so that he could lower the driver's window. Then, using the driver's door as a shield, like the policemen he had seen in TV programs, he lifted his rifle and peered out into the dark.
There was a long silence. He heard tree rats scuffling in the darkness, and birds chirping nervously as they protected their young.
Dr. Petrie cocked his rifle and strained his eyes. He thought the shot had come from a large shadowy bush, but he couldn't be sure. Just to liven things up, he fired two shots in the general direction of the bush, and then listened.
There was an even longer silence. Then a voice quite close behind him said, 'Lay your gun down real slow, and raise your hands.'
Dr. Petrie cursed himself. All the time he had been protecting himself with his car door and firing into bushes, his attacker had been softly circling around him. He put down the automatic rifle and slowly stood up with his hands above his head.
He couldn't see his attacker at all. The night was too dark, and the man didn't move.
'You come from th' east?' asked the man, in a Georgia twang.
Dr. Petrie said, 'We don't have disease, if that's what you mean.'
The man sniffed. 'Maybe you do, maybe you don't. You can't see disease, can you? Not in the night, nor neither in the day.'
Dr. Petrie said, 'We're not doing any harm. We just want to pass right through.'
'I know you do,' said the man. 'And I ain't gonna let you.'
'Why not? What's it to you?'
The man sniffed again. 'It's a lot to me, mister, and it's a lot to my family and my relatives and everyone else west of here. This here's the plague line, right here. Me and everyone else around here, we formed this vigilante committee, and if'n anyone tries to cross this plague line, I can tell you that they're taking their life into their own hands, because our agreement is that we shoot to kill. All you have to do is turn around and go back where you come from.'
'Supposing I won't?'
'You will.'
'But just supposing I won't?'
'Well,' said the man patiently, 'supposing you won't, then I'll have to drop you.'
'And if I drop you first?'
'You won't.'
'But just supposing I do?'
There was a pause. Then, out of the darkness from another direction altogether, a thicker voice said, 'Mister, if you drop Harry first, I'll make damn sure I drop you second.'
Dr. Petrie lowered his hands. 'Okay,' he said. 'I think you win. Can we just spend the night here? I have a little girl, and I don't want to wake her up.'
'Just get the hell out,'
'And if I refuse? No, don't answer that. You'll drop me. Okay, we're going.' said Harry.
Dr. Petrie bent down to pick up his rifle. 'Leave the gun,' Harry said.
'Now wait a minute,' Dr. Petrie protested. 'If I'm going to go back into the plague zone, I'm not going without this.'
'Leave it!'
Dr. Petrie remained where he was for five or six frozen seconds, half-bending towards the rifle. He screwed up his eyes and peered into the night for the slightest giveaway of Harry's whereabouts. The other vigilante didn't matter so much, because if Dr. Petrie ducked down behind the car he would be out of his firing line. Harry said, 'Come on, mister. Leave the gun and get your ass out of here. I ain't won no medals for patience, and I ain't going to win one now.'
Dr. Petrie saw a glint. It could have been the side of a pair of spectacles, or the buckle of a pair of dungarees. Whatever it was, it was enough. He dropped to the ground, snatched his rifle, rolled over in a flurry of leaves and fired a burst of three shots exactly where he had seen the glint.
A scatter gun went off with a deep boom, and one side of the Delta was torn and spattered with pellets. Dr. Petrie wriggled under the car on his elbows, and fired again — a random arc of bullets that may or may not have hit something.
There was silence again. He quickly elbowed his way out from under the car, tossed the rifle inside, and climbed in himself.
Adelaide said, 'Are you all right? Did you hit them?' He started the engine, backed the car wildly into the woods, swung it around and put his foot down. The scatter-gun went off again, and the Delta 88's rear window was turned to milky ice. Dr. Petrie drove fast and wild, and thumped heavily into two or three roadside trees before he
