Plague (41 page)

Kenneth
Garunisch sat up, rubbing his eyes. ‘What’s going on?’ he grunted.

‘It’s a
helicopter.’ said Dr. Petrie. ‘It’s been circling around here for a couple of
minutes. Maybe it’s the cavalry.’

Garunisch swung
his legs out of bed and came to take a look. ‘Some hopes,’ he said. ‘They’ve
probably just come for a snoop at the doomed survivors.’

‘Do you think
we ought to wave?’ said Dr. Petrie. ‘There’s always a chance they’re looking
for people to rescue.’

‘Do what you
like,’ said Garunisch.

The helicopter
was really close to the tower now, circling slowly around and shining a
powerful light in their direction. It was a small two-seater Bell, with a
perspex bubble cockpit. Dr. Petrie waved both hands.

At that moment,
Herbert Gaines pushed into the room, hastily tying his Japanese bathrobe around
his waist.

‘Is that a helicopter?’
he asked.

‘It aint a June
bug,’ said Kenneth Garunisch.

‘They’ve come!’
said Gaines. ‘They said they’d come, and they have!’

Adelaide came
into the room and took Dr. Petrie’s arm. ‘Leonard – what is it?’

Herbert Gaines
was elated. ‘It’s the people from Washington! They called me on Saturday when
the first news of the plague leaked out. They said they’d bring in a helicopter
to rescue me! And here they are!’

‘Well,’ said
Dr. Petrie, looking at Kenneth Garunisch. ‘It looks like politics pay and principles
poop out.’

Garunisch
shrugged.

Herbert Gaines
went to the window and flapped his arms about frantically. For a while it
didn’t look as if the helicopter pilot had seen him, but then the dazzling
searchlight probed into the apartment window, and Herbert Gaines was lit up
like an actor on a stage. ‘I’m here!’ he shrieked. ‘I’m here! I’m here!’

They saw the
helicopter pilot pointing towards the roof, and then the machine turned a
half-circle and rose out of sight. Herbert Gaines, whimpering with excitement,
rushed into the sitting-room and pulled on his yellow safari suit. The rest of
them watched him in tense silence.

‘Well,’ said
Herbert, lacing his shoes, ‘I think I’m ready to go!’

Nicholas,
scruffy from sleep and wearing nothing but a dark brown bath-towel, said, ‘Is
that it? You’re just going?’

Gaines stopped
lacing his shoe and looked up. Then he cast his eyes around at everybody else,
and saw their expressionless, unsympathetic faces, and bit his lip.

‘Well... yes. I
mean, yes!’

‘What about
me?’ said
Nicholas.
‘You’re just leaving me here?
And what about all these other people?’

Herbert Gaines
lowered his eyes. ‘Nicky,’ he said, ‘the helicopter only has room for one. You
saw that it’s a two-seater. I can’t take anybody with me.’

Garunisch
coughed. ‘Couldn’t we draw lots?’ he said gruffly. ‘Or maybe one of the ladies
should go instead?’

‘Listen,’ said
Gaines, almost desperate, ‘it’s up there now! It’s waiting! It won’t wait for
ever!’

Garunisch
examined the floor. ‘You’re an old man, Mr. Gaines,’ he said harshly.

‘You’re an old
man and you’ve had a long life. Now, supposing one of these young ladies went
instead of you.
Or what about Nicholas here?
He’s a
good friend of yours. Don’t you think enough of Nicholas to give up your place
in that chopper, and let him
live
?’

Herbert Gaines
stood up.

‘They sent the
helicopter for me,’ he insisted. ‘The only reason it’s here is because of me.
The party needs me, and that’s why they’ve taken the risk. What do you think
they’re going to say if that thing flies all the way back to Washington with
Nicky aboard? Do you think they’ve spent all that money, and wasted all that
energy, just to educate a half-educated faggot who can’t even cook?’

Nicholas stared
open-mouthed at Herbert as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

Garunisch
grunted. ‘It that’s how you feel, Mr. Gaines, perhaps you’d better just get the
hell out. I don’t think any of the rest of us would like to stand in the way of
your cowardice, seeing as how it’s so pressing.’

Gaines said,
‘Look – as soon as I get to Washington – I’ll make sure they send another
helicopter back – a bigger one – for all of you...’

Garunisch
flapped a hand at him. ‘Don’t bother. You might strain your brain trying to
remember to do it, and we’d hate to see that happen.’ Adelaide said, ‘Mr.
Gaines?’

Herbert Gaines
was buttoning up his safari suit and making for the door. ‘Yes?’ he said.

Adelaide didn’t
answer at once. Not until Herbert Gaines had turned around and looked at her.
‘I saw your movie once, Mr. Gaines.’ Herbert Gaines’ mouth twitched.

‘My dear, the
helicopter’s waiting – I really can’t...’

Adelaide said,
‘I like the line when Hannah Carson says to Captain Dashfoot: “Oh, you brave,
brave, honorable man, would the world were all like you.”‘

Gaines paused.
In a quiet voice he said, ‘My dear, you’ve got a regrettably good memory.’

He stood at the
door, his hand on the latch, so obviously striking a tragic theatrical pose
that Nicholas said, ‘For Christ’s sake, Herbert, just fuck off.’

Herbert Gaines
lifted his lion-like head. ‘I will send more helicopters,’ he said, in his
richest voice. ‘I promise you that upon my life.’ He opened the door.

He was so
involved in his melodramatic pose that when the rats rushed at him, their heavy
bodies thumping against the half-open door, he was taken completely by
surprise. The rats leaped and jumped at him, and more of them scuttled into the
apartment and disappeared under the makeshift beds and into the drapes. Dr.
Petrie ran across the sitting-room and banged himself against the door so that
it slammed shut. He crunched four or five rats in the door-jamb, and they
squealed and writhed, with blood running out of their narrow noses.
Adelaide and Esmeralda and Mrs.

Garunisch,
panting with fright, picked up cushions and brooms and chased after the rats
that had managed to get into the apartment.

Herbert Gaines
had a rat swinging from his sleeve. He flapped at it uselessly until Kenneth
Garunisch picked up a heavy cigarette lighter from the table and knocked the
rat away. Then he stepped on its head and killed it.

‘Oh, Mother of
God,’ gasped Gaines. ‘Oh, Mother of God!’

‘Well,
darling,’ said Nicholas, turning to Herbert Gaines.
‘So much
for your helicopter now.’

Herbert Gaines
was shaking. ‘I’m still going!’ he said. ‘Don’t think that a few rats can stop
me!’

‘A few?’ said
Dr. Petrie. ‘Did you see how many there were? The whole building must be thick
with them!’

Herbert Gaines
said, ‘It won’t wait, you know! The helicopter won’t wait!’

Kenneth Garunisch
was helping his wife to corner the last stray rat and beat it to death. He came
over to Herbert Gaines with blood on his hands.
Behind him,
Mrs.

Garunisch had
suddenly gone into a burst of hysterical weeping, and Esmeralda was trying to
soothe her.

‘Mr. Gaines,’
he said, ‘you’re crazy. If you go out there, you won’t last two minutes.

Those rats are
fierce and they’re hungry. I’ve come up against them before, when I was a kid,
and I’ve seen a man have half his nose bitten off. That was just one.

There must be
hundreds out there.’

Dr. Petrie
looked at the old actor and said, ‘It’s no use, you know, Mr. Gaines. You might
as well admit it.’

Herbert Gaines
looked up at the ceiling. Just a few storeys above him, perched impatiently on
the roof,
was
his means of escape, his way to a
glittering political destiny.

Kenneth
Garunisch said, ‘Power’s an attractive thing, Mr. Gaines, aint it? You’ve
tasted it now, haven’t you, and wasn’t that taste good?’

Herbert Gaines
stared at him. ‘I don’t know what you mean. I have to go, that’s all.

They sent the
helicopter and I have to go.’

He paced
urgently across the room. Then he said, ‘Fire! That’s it! They don’t like
fire!’

‘Mr. Gaines,’
said Garunisch, ‘what the hell are you talking about?’

‘It’s true!’
said Gaines. ‘You can always fight them with fire! It’s in that movie – River
Boat! Now, where’s that Variety we brought down with us? Nicky – where is it?’

Nicholas,
sulking, didn’t even answer. Herbert Gaines fumbled around in his touzled bed
until he found the paper. He rolled it up, and brandished it around. ‘This, my
friends, will be my salvation!’ He picked up the table lighter that Garunisch
had used to kill the rat, and he flicked it. Then he carefully applied the
flame to the edge of Variety, until the paper was burning like a torch.

Dr. Petrie
stepped forward, but Kenneth Garunisch reached out and held his arm.

‘Let him go,
doctor. Just help me make sure that no more rats get into the place. You can’t
stand between a man and his destiny, even if you think he’s a shit.’

Dr. Petrie
said, ‘But it’s insane! He won’t last a minute out there!’

‘That’s his
problem. He wants to go.’ Nicholas, standing next to them, nodded his head.
‘You’re right, Mr. Garunisch. Herbert’s a born martyr. You’d have to kill him
to stop him killing himself.’

Herbert Gaines
was making sure that the copy of Variety was well alight. Then he went to the
door, and held it in front of him.

‘You wait till
they see this!’ he said triumphantly. ‘This’ll sort them out!’

Dr. Petrie and
Kenneth Garunisch positioned themselves behind the door so that they could slam
it shut the second that Herbert Gaines had gone through. The room was already
smokey and filled with black wisps of ash, but Herbert had his paper burning
well now, and was ready to go.

He opened the
door, waving the blazing Variety in a wide fluttering arc. The rats went for
his legs like gray greasy torpedoes, but the flames were enough to keep them
from jumping at his face and throat.

Kicking three
or four rats away, Dr. Petrie shut the door again, and locked it.

Herbert had
three flights of stairs to go to reach the roof. The first flight wasn’t too
bad, because he managed to knock most of the rats away from his legs, and his
paper was still burning. Halfway up the second flight, with his heart pounding
and his sixty-year-old lungs beginning to feel the strain, he started to
falter. The flames abruptly went out, and he was left with nothing but a
half-burned Variety to beat off the most vicious animals he had ever seen.

The third
flight was the beginning of his Calvary. The rats were hanging on to his arms
now, and biting into his back arid his sides. His legs were thick with them,
and he could feel their teeth in his thighs. He kept his hands over his face
and stumbled up blindly, but they still leaped up at him and bit into his
fingers, until his hands were gloved in rats.

The agony of it
was enormous. He couldn’t even cry out, unless they bit into his mouth, and
there was already a huge brown sewer rat dangling from the soft flesh under his
chin. He tried to keep his mind above the pain, above this dreadful cloak of
biting, squeaking creatures, and firmly concentrated on the roof – the roof –
and his wonderful helicopter.

He had to take
one hand away from his face to open the door to the roof. His arm seemed to
weigh hundreds of pounds, and it was swinging with rats like the fence round a
trapper’s cabin. One of the beasts launched itself at his cheek, and he lost
precious seconds hitting it away.

The helicopter pilot
was a 36-year-old veteran called Andy Folger. He was checking his watch
impatiently when the roof door opened, and the first thing he did was start up
his engine and get his rotors turning. He cast a quick eye over the fuel
reading, and then reached over to open the opposite door of the cockpit. The
quicker he got this mission over, the better he was going to like it.

He heard a
muffled screaming noise, and he turned. He had a feeling in his stomach like an
elevator dropping thirty floors in ten seconds. Folger stared at the hunched
heap of wriggling gray fur that was moving towards him. He couldn’t understand
what he was seeing at first, and when he did, his mind almost blanked out.

He didn’t see
the rats that ran out of the open door to the stairs, and scuttled across to
his helicopter. He reached over to close the cockpit door again, and one of
them leaped up and bit his hand. He banged the rat against the side of the
cockpit, but it clung on, and while it clung on, another rat jumped into the
helicopter, and another.

He beat the
animal away from his hand, revved the engine, and pulled back the stick. The
helicopter’s rotors whistled faster and faster, and the Bell lifted off from
the rooftop and circled away towards the north.

Three rats
scurried around the cockpit, and one of them jumped at Folger’s face. He tried
to smack it away, but then another rat nipped at his arm.

The helicopter
went out of control. Wrestling against twisting rats and a bucking control
stick, Andy Folger saw the horizon turn upside down, and the buildings of First
Avenue swivel all around him. He saw streets – sky – buildings – streets – and
then the helicopter fluttered and twisted and plummeted eighteen storeys. It
fell on to the glass roof of a supermarket and exploded in a hot spray of fire
that rolled upwards and burned itself out.

On the top of
Concorde Tower, Herbert Gaines neither saw nor heard. His mind was still
somewhere inside that costume of rats, but it was dwindling very quickly, and
was soon to be gone.

Sometime during
the afternoon, the power from their generator died. They were sitting quietly
around the apartment, and the lights suddenly dimmed and went out.