‘I know. We don’t know how many men Jasper actually wounded, but even if only three or four got away… three could become nine… or twelve… even with minimal numbers…’ Even as I spoke, I was aware that I was thinking strictly of numbers as a statistic; not of the men they represented. And that I had to. ‘… And then, the third stage… Thank God we’re on an island with a limited population.’
‘I may decide to evacuate,’ he said. He looked at me as if he wanted my advice. ‘If we can’t control the spread… but we’ll have to make damned sure none of the evacuees is infected. Some system of quarantine before boarding the boat. I’m not sure I want that responsibility, that decision… Well, it may be a moot point. They may not let us leave.’
‘If you do… we do. what about them? The… ghouls?’ The word had a bitter taste; I was appalled that I’d used it. ‘Will you just abandon them here?’
He looked at me with fire running down his profile.
‘That decision will come from higher up… and I’m just as glad of that.’ He rubbed his neck; his splayed fingers cast slender shadows and his hand glowed red; the heat rose and fell as if some terrible bellows pulsed in the pit.
‘It’s the ones who stayed in town that are hard to flush out… and have more opportunity to infect others,’ he said. His lips twisted the words out. ‘Most of the ones we got had come to the beach or inland. We’ve started a house-to-house search but the damnedest part is that we can’t tell who is infected and who isn’t until it takes effect.’
‘Are there no symptoms that show before?’
‘I asked Elston about that, a few minutes ago. None that he knows of. He’s… a dedicated man. He begged me not to burn all the corpses… to save a few for him to dissect.’
‘Maybe he hopes to find an antidote.’
‘That’s a charitable supposition,’ Larsen said.
He looked very human then, with his face inhumanly blazing in the glow. I wondered if he knew that Elston had written me. He knew who I was and maybe he’d known all along; maybe he, too, had wanted it stopped, wanting it helplessly from within the cage of his duty, the bureaucratic web that trapped his life. I felt the absolute helplessness of the man, the frustration; his life and his volition had been frozen in the ice of obedience, trapped as surely as a heart within a ribcage, a mind within a skull. I thought I might ask him — we had become friends, I think, in some twisted fashion — but as I was about to speak, gunfire sounded off to the side.
We both looked.
A man — a ghoul… the word asserted its rights in my mind… was running along the outside of the fence — not running as if frightened, for they knew no fear, but running as if he had started to run by pure chance and was too mindless to halt; running by inertia, as the planets run around the stars.
Three navy men in white uniforms were running after him, pausing to fire from time to time. They were hitting him. I saw blood spray out twice and once the impact of a bullet drove him to his knees, but he bounded up immediately and ran on. Immune to shock, he would run until the bullets broke his legs — and then he would crawl — until a shot pierced his heart or brain; he moved by descriptive law.
The fence took an outward turn just behind the pit. The ghoul ran into it. The three pursuers slowed and one went to his knees to take aim. Then the ghoul clenched his fist through the mesh of the fence and tore it open. I could hear the heavy metal snap. Beside me, Larsen snorted. The ghoul slid through the broken fence and bounded into the compound. The guards scattered back from the pit, darting silhouettes against the red glare and red-rimmed shadows against the smoke. The ghoul loped towards the inferno. He didn’t see the pit, or he disregarded it. He ran right up to the rim and past it — not falling, but running into the flames. A moment later he came up from the other side, clothing ablaze and flesh melting from his bones. He was climbing out. He slipped and slid back, then came crawling out again. His hair was burning. The three navy men were through the broken fence now and, standing side by side, like a firing squad, they shot into his body. They backed off, shooting. Blood sizzled like fat in a frying pan. Slowly the creature slipped back into the pit and did not emerge again.
One of the guards laughed.
‘Saves carrying that bugger,’ he said.
I passed a hand across my eyes. I understood his jest, his coarse and callous attitude. God help me, I understood. It had been the same as laughing with Larsen at my pipe and I, too, had started to think of them as ghouls, to reason with the mentality of the Inquisition and to loathe them with instinctive fear and hatred that obscured all pity. This was primordial fear, a horror that should have been left behind when man evolved from the slime… and now rose up again to brutalise and numb the emotions, as contagious as any disease.
The fire flared and crackled merrily as it fed on this new kindling. I was sickened. I felt I could stay there no longer. I turned to Larsen. His face was like a stone idol with living eyes. Sparks swirled and darted through the night; he looked on his fiery celebration as helplessly as any worshipped god.
‘I’ll go back to town,’ I said.
Larsen looked at me; for a moment he didn’t seem to know who I was or why I was there.
‘If I may?’
‘You’re no prisoner, Harland. No more than are we all. But you’ll be safer here.’
‘No, I’ll go.’
‘As you like. I can’t spare an escort.’
I hadn’t thought of that. Numbed by the horror, I had forgotten the danger.
Or it was danger too grim to register on the mind.
Larsen said, ‘I’ll check out a rifle for you, if you like.’
He must have thought I might have qualms about that, for he added, ‘It will be safer for you if you’re carrying a gun. My men are scared. They might not be too hesitant about shooting a stranger walking alone. The rifle will be like a safe conduct, I guess.’
He stared directly at me.
The rifle was offered as a talisman, not a weapon.
‘Thank you,’ I said, not for the rifle.
I had never shot a man. 1 didn’t know if I could. But it would be comfortable to have the option.
‘Jack! Thank God you’re all right!’
The front door of the jail had been locked and when Jerry opened it he stepped quickly back. He had a gun in his hand. I looked at his gun and he regarded my rifle. Mary spoke from behind him and, a bit sheepish, Jerry holstered the gun. Just a bit sheepish, like a thin veneer laid over grim determination. He said, ‘I had a look for you at the Red Walls; place was swarming with… patrols, I guess. But they wouldn’t tell me anything.’
‘They don’t know much.’
Jerry was locking the door again; said, ‘Do you?’
‘Yes; most of it.’
I leaned the rifle against the wall. I was drained with the tension of that solitary walk back from the compound, my nerves like vibrant webs under my skin. Jerry was waiting for me to tell him what I had discovered. Mary did not look so eager to hear it. I gazed out the window at the dawn through which I’d passed. It was a glorious morning, with sunrise ringing golden blows against the shield of dusk. A fan of pale light spread out in the eastern sky, opening slowly, as if reluctant to reveal the day. These things were better wrapped in darkness.
’You’ve seen Elston?’ Mary asked.
‘I saw him. And Larsen. I’ve been in the compound; I saw some other things that… I’d rather not have known.’
‘What in hell is going on?’ Jerry asked. He was lingering the bolt on the door. ‘They’ve had vans down here with loudspeakers, telling everyone to stay inside and keep the doors locked.’ He slid the bolt back and forth, as if playing a game of chance with the lock. ‘I got a special visit from one of Larsen’s men… polite sort of guy… but he sort of told me to stay right here and keep out of it. Whatever it is.’