'Is he an angel now? With wings?'
Adelaide looked at Leonard with sad eyes. He answered, 'Yes, I expect so. With wings.'
They cleared up their blankets and their few belongings and stowed them in the car. While Dr. Petrie kept the guardsmen covered, Adelaide dressed Pickles in a short blue dress, and sandals. She herself changed into a white T-shirt and jeans, and unpacked a green plaid shirt and white slacks for Dr. Petrie.
When they were ready to leave, Dr. Petrie went over to Mrs. Henschel. She was conscious again, and she was groaning under her breath. He knelt down beside her, and laid a hand on her forehead.
'How do you feel?' he asked her.
'Bad,' she croaked. 'Real bad.'
'Do you think you can travel?'
She coughed up blood, and tried to shake her head. 'Just leave us be,' she said hoarsely. 'You go on and leave us be.'
'Mrs. Henschel — we have to get you to a hospital, if there are any hospitals left.'
She groaned, and shook her head again. 'Just leave us. Dave'll look after me, won't you, Dave?'
Dr. Petrie bit his lip, and looked across at David Henschel's body.
'Mrs. Henschel,' he said gently, 'I can't leave you here to die.'
She coughed more blood. 'Die?' she said. 'Who said anything about dying?'
'You have to realize that you need attention. Dave — doesn't she need attention?'
He paused, and then he said, 'There — Dave says you need attention, too.'
Mrs. Henschel opened her eyes. 'Let me see him,' she said. 'Are you there, Dave? Are you there?'
She tried to raise herself, but then she started coughing, until the blood was splattering the hard ground in front of her.
'I don't feel so good,' she said. 'Just give me a minute.'
She lay back and they waited. The breeze rustled the grove of palms, and the National Guardsmen shuffled their feet uncomfortably on the roadside. The sky was clear blue, and if it hadn't been for the silence and the strange absence of traffic, you would have thought it was a day just like any other.
Later, Dr. Petrie remembered that moment more clearly than almost all others — waiting by the roadside near Palm Bay for Mrs. Henschel to die.
She went without a sound, sliding easily into death. Dr. Petrie thought she was sleeping at first, but then he saw that she had stopped breathing, and that her right hand was slowly opening like a white flower with crumpled petals.
He stood up, and walked around to face the National Guardsmen, pointing his gun straight at them. He was scruffy and unshaven, with dark rings under his eyes, and his clothes still had the creases of the suitcase on them. His hair was ruffled in the morning breeze.
'I ought to kill you,' he told the men. 'I ought to waste you here and now.'
The one who was chewing gum looked up. 'Guess that's your privilege,' he said. 'Seeing as you've got the gun.' Dr. Petrie cocked the weapon and raised the barrel. For a moment, he was almost tempted to shoot them, but the moment didn't last long. His angry bitterness of the previous night had faded with the sun, and he was beginning to see that they were all, soldiers included, tangled up in a situation they could neither control nor understand.
'Just for safety,' he said, 'I want you to walk down the road a couple of hundred yards. Then we're going to drive off.'
The other guardsman said, 'What about our guns? We ain't gonna last long without our guns. Can't you leave them behind?'
Dr. Petrie shrugged. 'You're not going to last long anyway. What I said about those immunization jabs was true. Now, start walking.'
He told Adelaide and Prickles to get into the car. He tossed the automatic weapons on the back seat, and climbed in himself. He started the engine, and they moved off northwards up Route 1, leaving the two guardsmen standing in the road watching them go.
The day was hot and clear. There were one or two other cars on the road, but they kept away from each other, staring suspiciously from their tightly-closed windows. Just outside Melbourne, there were a few hitch-hikers trying disconsolately to pick up lifts, but there were too many bodies lying around the sidewalks and verges to suggest that anyone around there might have escaped infection. It only took one drop of spittle, one breath, to pass the plague on, and Dr. Petrie wasn't prepared to risk the lives of those he loved talking to anyone if he could avoid it.
In the center of Melbourne itself the police and the National Guard had set up another road block. He drove cautiously up to it and stopped.
A heavy-built cop walked up to the car and said, 'Sorry, sir, you're going to have to turn around.'
Dr. Petrie nodded. There was nothing else he could do. There were seven or eight cops and guardsmen surrounding the barricade, and there was no hope at all of forcing a way through there alive. He backed the Gran Torino up, turned it around, and drove southwards again.
They were hungry and thirsty, and the day was growing hotter. The car's air-conditioning was faltering, and the interior was becoming unbearably stuffy. Prickles, lying in Adelaide's arms, looked flushed and sweaty, and Dr. Petrie checked her pulse regularly as he drove. It was probably nothing more than a cold or flu, but he couldn't be sure. Her lips were dry, and she was finding it more and more difficult to breathe.
There was no sign of the two National Guardsmen as they drove back past Palm Bay. Not far from the grove of trees where they had spent the early hours of the morning, Dr. Petrie took a right turn inland, and drove down the dusty, deserted road until he reached Interstate 95. Then he turned north again until he crossed Highway 192, and turned even further inland, towards St. Cloud and Lake Tohopekaliga. This time, they came across no road blocks and no troops, but there were signs of the plague everywhere. Bodies lay by the road, smothered in flies, and cars and trucks were abandoned at every junction and layby.
Around lunchtime, they found a deserted MacDonald's. Dr. Petrie parked outside, and left Adelaide and Prickles in the car while he scouted around with his automatic weapon. There were two bodies in the yard at the back, both crawling with flies, but apart from that the place was empty. They went inside and sat down.
Petrie lifted the counter and went in search of baked beans, milk, cheese and soft drinks. 'The ice cream's melted,' he said, 'but if you don't mind drinking it, you're welcome.'
Prickles was still hot, but she managed to eat a few cold baked beans and drink some milk. Dr. Petrie ate quickly and hungrily, keeping his eye on the empty highway and the surrounding buildings.
'Well,' he said after a while, wiping his mouth. 'It's not exactly the Starlight Roof, but it's nutritious.'
Adelaide gave a tight, humorless smile.
'Is anything wrong? You don't look too happy.'
She waited until she had finished her mouthful of cheese. 'I'm not, if you must know.'
'Why not? Come on, Adelaide, we've had a hard time of it, but that's no reason to give in. If we stick together, we'll get out of this okay, don't you worry.'
'Well,' she said, casting her eyes down. 'I don't think so.'
Dr. Petrie stared at her. 'What do you mean?' he asked. 'I don't understand.'
She looked up. 'You might as well know,' she told him. 'I think that Prickles has the plague. I think we're going to have to leave her behind.'
Prickles blinked listlessly. Her face was crimson with heat and fever, and she was obviously sick.
Dr. Petrie burst out, 'That's impossible. You don't know what you're suggesting.'
Adelaide reached out and held his wrist. 'Leonard,' she said, 'I know it sounds harsh, but it's a question of survival. Like you said before. My survival, and your survival. If Prickles has the plague, we could all die. At least if we find some way of making her comfortable, and leaving her behind, then we could live.'