Dr. Petrie nodded. ‘I know.’
‘Then please, Leonard.’
They had almost reached the tunnel entrance. For a moment he was tempted to turn around, and escape from the plague for good. They could drive upstate, and into Canada, and leave America to the ravages of fast-breeding bacilli and whatever fate was in store for her. But then he shook his head.
‘Adelaide,’ he said, ‘I’ve only got a theory, but maybe nobody else has put two and two together in quite the same way. Maybe this could help to cure the plague, or slow it down, and if it does that, how can I leave Manhattan with a clear conscience? There are seven million people in this city, Adelaide, and if I only saved a seventh of them, that would be a million people. Can you imagine saving the lives of one million people?’
Adelaide lowered her head. ‘Do you think, Leonard, that even one of those million people would stick their neck out to save you?’
‘I don’t know. That’s irrelevant.’
‘It’s not irrelevant! You’re risking your life to save people you don’t even know, and who would probably leave you to die in the gutter if it meant putting themselves out. Leonard, you’re not a miracle worker, you’re not a saint! I know you want to be famous – but not this way! What’s the use of being famous when you’re dead?’
Dr. Petrie was straining his eyes, trying to see the tunnel entrance. He stopped the car and shifted it into Park.
‘It’s nothing to do with fame, Adelaide. If anything, it’s to do with shame. I ran out on Anton Selmer, and left him to cope with the plague alone. If you really want to know the truth, I’m ashamed of myself. I feel I’ve betrayed something.’
She looked at him carefully. ‘Is that why you tried to shoot that security guard in the car park? Because you were ashamed of yourself?’
‘Probably, I don’t know.’
‘Oh, Leonard.’
They sat in silence for a while, and then Dr. Petrie said, ‘If you want to stay behind, darling, you’d better stay. But I’ve got to go into the city, and that’s all there is to it. I love you, you know.’
‘Do you?’
He nodded.
‘I don’t know whether to believe you or not,’ she said. She paused, and her eyes were glistening in the darkness. ‘But I’ll come. It that’s what you want, I’ll come.’
Prickles interrupted. ‘Have we got to that place yet?’
‘What place, honey?’
‘Unork.’
Adelaide laughed. ‘It’s New York, not Unork. Yes, honey, we’re almost there. Daddy’s just going to take a look-see, and make sure this tunnel’s okay. Aren’t you, Daddy?’
Dr. Petrie grinned. ‘Sure. I won’t be long. Just hang on in there.’
He took his rifle and climbed cautiously out of the car. It was so wet and gloomy as he walked up to the entrance to Holland Tunnel that he couldn’t see what had happened at first. A large armored police van was parked diagonally across the road, and two black and white police cars were parked on the curb. A torch was shining dimly somewhere behind the cars, but Dr. Petrie couldn’t see anyone around. Rain spattered into his face and seeped into his shoes.
‘Hallo!’ he called. ‘Is there anyone there?’
There was a long rainswept silence. Across the river, in the murky graveyard of Manhattan, he thought he heard the brief echoing wail of a siren, but he couldn’t be sure.
He walked up to the van, and peered into its rain-beaded window. Inside, huddled on the seats, were five or six policemen, and they were all dead. Dr. Petrie circled around the cars, holding his rifle at the ready and found a seventh cop, hunched-up and pale, with his face in a puddle. In his hand was an electric torch which was still shining. Dr. Petrie stood there in the rain staring at him for a while, and then he turned around and went back to Adelaide and Prickles.
‘The plague is here too. They’re all dead.’
‘Oh, God,’ Adelaide sighed.
Prickles said, ‘Is this Unork, Daddy? Can we go there?’ He looked back at her and smiled. ‘We’re on our way, honey.’
Dr. Petrie started up the car, and drove around the police van, down the rain-streaked entranceway to the tunnel. All the lights were out, and it was pitch-black, hot, and stifling.
The journey through the tunnel was like a miserable and terrifying ride on a ghost train. The sound of their car made an uncanny roar, and their headlights cast weird shapes and shadows. Dr. Petrie had to drive slowly, because of derelict cars lying wrecked and abandoned, and bodies sprawled on the ground. He had a horror of driving over a corpse by mistake.
It took almost half-an-hour of slow driving to get through the tunnel. He was worried that the car wouldn’t make it. It was now caked with dust and grime and dented from countless collisions and rough detours. During the long haul north, Dr. Petrie had begun to wonder if life wasn’t anything but narrow back-roads and rutted tracks, and the Delta 88’s creaking rear suspension agreed with him.
At last, they were climbing the tunnel gradient towards Manhattan. They emerged on Canal Street in steady rain and darkness. Slowing down to five or six miles an hour, they crept cautiously east towards the Bowery, headlights probing the streets, looking for any sign of life, or death. The dark city enclosed them like a nightmarish maze, hideous, threatening and unfamiliar.
They saw the first bodies on the Bowery. There weren’t many, but they lay on the sidewalks and in the road with their clothes sodden and their eyes staring sightlessly at the ground.
‘Isn’t there anyone around anywhere?’ asked Adelaide, looking out into the night. ‘The whole place seems deserted.’
As they turned uptown, they began to see a few lights – dim candles burning high up in apartment-block windows and hotels. They also saw living people for the first time. Every building’s entrance seemed to be locked and patroled by security guards and vigilantes with torches and
