The Shoal Hill Tavern was crowded. Brian Newman worked his way from the bar, slopping beer and whisky as he negotiated the human obstacle course, his eyes fixed on the petite, dark-haired girl who was seated at the table in the corner, patiently awaiting his return. Fiona Bradbury glanced up and smiled, tiny slim ringers reaching out for the glass which he pushed across the Formica surface towards her.
'Perhaps we should have gone somewhere else tonight.' she said. 'I've never known it this crowded on a Thursday before.'
'Maybe we'll go somewhere else later,' Newman replied, and took a long drink from his glass.
'What's the matter, Brian?' she asked a few minutes later. 'There's something on your mind. Is it that girl you're shacked up with?'
'No,'—his answer was unconvincing, even to himself. 'Not really. No problems there. Just one or two things in the lab which I've got to get sorted out. I can't talk about them, so please don't ask me.'
'All right,' she relaxed a little. 'But it's that girl I'm worried about. Damn it all, you're not even married to her! No divorce problems. You can kick her out tomorrow.'
'So that you can move in?'
'If you want me to. I don't see any reason why not. Anyway, we can't go on sneaking off like this as though we've got to hide from the world. We're both free, so let's cut out the cloak and dagger stuff.'
Newman nodded. Hell, why did women always get so possessive? Why couldn't they be satisfied with a good time every now and then in return for a screw on the back seat of some guy's car? It didn't cost them anything.
He tried to weigh Susan and Fiona against each other in his own mind. There wasn't much to choose between them. They were both sexy, both attractive. It didn't really matter which he picked either way, except that Susan understood him. She knew how things were in the laboratory, the measure of success or failure, the satisfactions, the disappointments. That was something Fiona would never comprehend. One thing was certain, though. He couldn't run the two of them much longer; it had to be one or the other. Right now the choice was his, but shortly it might be made for him if Susan found out.
'Let's take a ride,' he finished his beer and looked at her.
'If you say so, but all this back-seat stuff is getting a bit boring, Brian. Christ, when there's a comfortable bed back at your place, why the hell do we have to play at contortionists in the car on a chilly night?'
'You know damned well why.'
'Yes, I guess I do,' she stood up and adjusted her dress. 'But not for much longer. You either want me or you don't.'
He followed her out of the lounge bar, again making comparisons, remembering Susan's wiggle as she had walked from the laboratory a few hours earlier. Physically there was little to choose between them. It would be a hard decision when he finally had to make it.
The car-park was full as they walked along an avenue of badly positioned vehicles. Cars had never interested Brian Newman. They were simply a mechanical means of getting from one place to another in the shortest possible time. Yet tonight, for some inexplicable reason, he found himself compelled to run his eye over them. Every third one seemed to be a Mini. It was the red ones which claimed his attention. He found himself glancing at their registration numbers, his mouth dry even after three pints of beer, tension building up inside him. Suddenly he stiffened, his stomach muscles contracting. He felt sick. The letters and numbers on the front plate of the red Mini two rows away seemed to leap at him like sensational headlines in a newspaper. He read them, knew them by heart, and they hammered inside his brain in the manner of an electronic warning system.
He saw, too, the long flowing hair of the girl who sat behind the wheel of the stationary car. Her face was in shadow, but he knew the expression on it without seeing it, a mixture of hurt and hate, a woman scorned. 'Come on,' Fiona tugged impatiently at his sleeve. He shrugged her off abruptly, and snapped in a voice which he hardly recognised as his own. 'I'll take you home. I guess I don't feel too good tonight, after all.'
Probably the decision which Professor Brian Newman had been dreading had even now been made for him, and he had already lost the backing of Susan Wylie in the traumatic day which faced him on the morrow.
Chapter Two
It was just after eleven o'clock when Newman returned to the Biological Research Centre. The night-porter glanced up as the tall professor walked in, then looked away, disinterested. It was quite customary for the various scientists to come and go at all times of the day and night.
Newman unlocked the door of his own laboratory,' let himself in and turned the key behind him. He did not wish to be interrupted by anyone for any reason.
There were about a dozen bats still left alive, the oxygen machine attached to the cage ensuring that there was no way in which either virus or bacteria could escape into the atmosphere. The creatures were still zooming frantically about their enclosure, and in the silence of the room their shrill piping and buffeting seemed even louder. Newman moved closer, watching them. Whereas earlier he had been repulsed, he now experienced a morbid fascination almost to the point of being hypnotised. He had created something, death in a form that had not hitherto existed. It was all his doing.
He, stood staring at the bats for well over an hour, his mind having lost all sense of time. He understood the attraction of an aquarium in a conventional home, constant movement, always something happening, however trivial. This was different, exciting. Death could occur at any second.
After a time he became aware that the death-rate amongst the bats seemed to have slowed. They continued to batter themselves ceaselessly against the glass, but those which fell stunned revived after a time and resumed their futile occupation. At first Newman thought that the creatures were making attempts to attack him, but eventually it dawned upon him that this was not so, for they flew at the opposite side with equal compulsion. It was madness, he decided. Their brains were of a low order, yet the mutated virus appeared to have robbed them of everything except basic instincts. They resented imprisonment and were determined to seek freedom in the only way they knew, blind flight. Yet, even in the midst of their panic, they were colliding with one another time and time again.
'God!' Newman spoke aloud as the answer suddenly dawned on him. 'The virus has destroyed their radars. They're flying blind!'
Some time later he opened the window and lit a cigarette. The night was mild and humid, freak weather for early April. It was almost like summer. His thoughts turned to Susan. There was no way in which he could lie his way out of this one. She wouldn't accept excuses, and Professor Newman wasn't the type to plead. One way or another it was over, and too late he realised that he didn't want Fiona after all. There had never been anything more than physical attraction between them. She had been good, very good, but after each session his one thought had been to take her home. With Susan he was content to cuddle her until they both fell asleep. That was the difference.
He wondered if Susan was back at his bungalow right now. In all probability she was packing her bags and loading them into the Mini. The chances of her turning up at the Centre of the following day were remote.
He glanced in the direction of the telephone, but discarded the idea at once. It wouldn't work. A phone call would not stop Susan from leaving.