Chelsea Quinn Yarbro - Time of the Fourth Horseman Read online

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  CONTENTS

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

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  None of the kids who surrounded Natalie were more than fifteen. They were dressed in standard, tattered clothes, and nothing but the feral light in their eyes revealed their intent. One of them, a little taller than the others, was the first to speak. “Where you going, lady?”

  “Home,” Natalie said, hoping her panic did not color her voice...

  “We got some questions to ask you,” said another. “You answer them right and we’ll leave you alone.”

  “You got any kids lady?” said a new voice, one that cracked with adolescent change.

  “My son died.” Natalie had not meant to say it aloud.

  “Alot of kids are dying, lady,” the apparent leader said, without sympathy. When Natalie did not answer, he said it again. “Lots of kids are dying, lady.” He started to clap slowly. “Lots of kids are dying, lady. Lots of kids are dying, lady. Lots of kids are dying, lady.”

  The others took it up, clapping or snapping their fingers, their walks bouncing with the rhythm. Some of them laughed at Natalie’s protesting, “No.”

  TIME OF THE FOURTH HORSEMAN

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  TIME OF THE FOURTH HORSEMAN

  Copyright © 1976 by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  An ACE Book

  This ACE printing: November 1981

  Published simultaneously in Canada

  Printed in U.S.A.

  * * *

  This is for my friend

  Tom Scortia

  for his

  in-

  as-

  and per-

  sistence

  * * *

  CHAPTER 1

  FROM THE FIRST SIGHT of the boy, something felt wrong. Natalie bent over him while Gil read off the results of his pulse, temperature, blood pressure, hemoglobin, respiration and the others as they were displayed on the vital signs unit.

  “What is it, Nat?” Gil asked as he caught the quick frown between her sandy brows.

  She waved him away, a distraction. Her concentration was riveted on the boy. How old was he? Perhaps seven, maybe as much as nine and small for his age. His skin was parched and his eyes had the glaze of fever. Exposure she had read on his admit workup. Malnutrition.

  “You know, these kids are really sad,” Gil observed as he studied the patient. “This one makes an even dozen for this floor.”

  “A dozen?” Natalie had been off work for a week and this chance remark sharpened her fear.

  “Unhunn. Most of them were brought in while you were gone. They had a couple in the quarantine unit on the eighth floor while you were gone. County General is hardest hit, but they’re always short of beds and they get the runaways up there. I heard they picked up over a dozen starvation cases last week.”

  “Starvation? Like this boy?” She schooled her voice to betray none of the alarm she felt. She did not trust herself to look at Gil.

  “I guess it’s all the same sort of thing. The Patrol finds them and the ambulance service picks them up.” Gil had been riding in the ambulance more often than not, with the current shortage of paramedics. “Handy’s been after the Supervisors to do something about it.”

  “Has it done any good?” she asked perfunctor-ily, knowing the hospitals were not high on the Supervisors’list of priorities.

  The young, abandoned children were bright in Gil’s mind. He had seen a lot of them, too many. “No. No good.”

  Natalie shifted her balance minutely, studying the display board for the clue she knew was there. All her instincts told her that she was close to the enemy she and the child were fighting together. Hoping to learn more, she said to Gil, “On the way in, did he say anything? Any complaints? Any unusual symptoms?”

  “Just the usual.”

  “The usual. Be specific,” she snapped.

  Gil smiled, because he liked Natalie when she got mad. It was the only time he felt he had the advantage with her. “Yes, Sherlock, he did complain. He kept saying he was sore.”

  “Where? Throat? Chest? Kidneys? Hands? Head?”

  Gil took a deep breath. “It sounded more like general muscle aches, the all-over kind. He’d been huddled up for three hours when we brought him in. He’d been under the big viaduct north of here, on Route 5. He was badly chilled, too.”

  “Headache?”

  “Oh, I guess so. I didn’t ask.” Gil admitted to himself that he didn’t want to ask. By the time they had brought that boy in, he had been working nineteen hours and was groggy. He still felt the fatigue as an undercurrent, even after getting a pick-me-up at the pharmacy.

  “I mean at the back of his head, that kind of ache?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The last question was really unnecessary, and Natalie knew it. The answer had clicked as she watched the boy. He had polio.

  And that was impossible.

  She felt dazed as she spoke. “Have the standard tests run on him, will you?” She was forcing herself to proceed as if there were nothing out of the ordinary about the case, just another abandoned child in the midst of many. “Get me the results as soon as possible.”

  “We ran through the basics on the ambulance console. The printout should be processed by now. Call Pathology.”

  She reached for the screen control, then hesitated.

  Gil gave her a quizzical smile. “You onto something, Sherlock?”

  She retreated into her most professional manner. “Oh, probably not, but it never hurts to check.” She was afraid she lied badly, but Gil didn’t notice. “I haven’t seen what the lab’s got out of the specimens yet, or the total arrival evaluation. I want to be on the safe side.” As she spoke she wondered how the boy could have polio. Vaccination had wiped out polio over twenty years ago.

  Laughing gently, Gil said, “If you’re on your way to the lab, I think Mark’s still there. If you need an excuse to see him.”

  “Found out.” She accepted his teasing, eager to fall back on this excuse. “I never see him at home: we aren’t on the same shifts.”

  “That bad?” Gil asked, the teasing gone from his voice.

  “He keeps peculiar hours,” Natalie said, wishing that she could change the subject.

  “I can’t sympathize, Nat,” Gil burst out harshly. “You know what I think of Mark. He’s a high-handed despot ...”

  Before their argument could break out in earnest, the boy on the table moaned and his hands moved fitfully on the sheet like curled leaves in a slow wind. His face was waxen now. He mumbled a few words, then was silent.

  “What is it? What is it? Can’t you tell me?” she whispered fiercely over the child. She searched his face intently, hoping to find confirmation or denial of his disease. She wanted to be wrong.

  “You are spooked by this one, aren’t you, Nat?”

  A cold finger of fear slid down her spine. “Why, no, not really,” she said, hoping to dismiss the whole question. “You know how mothers are. Philip was down with a cold last week and of course I read everything into it. I’m suffering from maternal hangover, I guess, because I can’t identify this bug.”

  Gil nodded, not bothering to pursue the subject. Instead, he asked Natalie if he should buzz for the floor nurse.

  “No r
eason not to,” she said reluctantly. She hated giving up now, when she was getting close to the truth, when her hunches were so strong.

  “And we can go on our break. We’re over an hour late for it, as it is.”

  She gave a last look to the display of vital signs, her eyes still troubled. “I wonder if I should call Mark? He could push the lab results through now if they aren’t ready yet.”

  Gil wrinkled a smile onto his face. “Come on, Mama. Call the good nurses and let them do their job. They’ll put him in a nice fresh bed and look after him. I promise you. And let’s you and me get some coffee. Come on, Doctor, be sensible.”

  Reluctantly she allowed herself to be pulled away. She knew that if she were more adamant, Gil would become suspicious and would try to find out what bothered her about the boy. She could not bring herself to tell him, not until she was sure.

  “Coming?”

  “I’m coming.” She linked arms with Gil as he pressed the buzzer for the floor nurse. “Coffee and something sweet. One of those sticky goodies Chisholm makes. Or his cheesecake.”

  Gil grinned because Natalie expected him to grin. As he did he considered her, noticing that she was still flustered. She was upset by that boy; he could sense it from her stance and her choice of words. Her pale-green eyes had a veiled look, which always meant worry. Yet it might have been her son’s illness, as she said, not this child’s. And it might be Mark. It didn’t have to be the boy on the bed.

  As they waited for the nurse to arrive, Natalie turned back to the child. “Do we have a name on him yet?” she asked at last.

  “We’ll find out as soon as his information is processed. They’ll get it from the medical records banks.”

  “No ID badge?”

  “Nary a one. The parents take the badges away when they drop the kids, you know. They seem to think we can’t trace them if the kids don’t have their IDs. Poor kids. Inner City is starting up another halfway house for them. They’ve got over fifty on the waiting lists now. It’s pretty bad.”

  Natalie almost spoke, then changed her mind.

  “The battered ones are worse at County General, though. At least we don’t have much of that to cope with here.”

  “Gil,” said Natalie in another tone, “can we call the parents when we get back from break? I want to talk to them.”

  “That’s City Patrol’s job. Let them do it. Judging by the shape he’s in, the parents aren’t going to like that call. Let City Patrol handle it. They’re used to it.”

  “Um.”

  Gil knew that Natalie was shutting him out. He shrugged and wished he could have found out what troubled her. He had to work with her, she ought to talk to him.

  When the nurse arrived they exchanged a few words and politely thanked one another. It was an automatic ritual, the passing on of the medical flame, or the second stage of a relay race. The nurse gave Natalie a fixed, white smile as she took the boy over.

  Then Gil hurried Natalie to the elevator and they dropped thirteen floors to the Staff Cafeteria, located near the boiler room in the second basement.

  In the clean, unimaginative room there was none of the hospital smell which permeated the rest of the building. This room was a delicious counterpoint of coffee, meat and pastry with a subtle, pervasive scent of herbs.

  Gil insisted on buying and brought coffee to the table in large white mugs.

  Even by Natalie’s tolerant standards the coffee was bitter. She sipped slowly, puckering her mouth.

  “Yours as bad as mine?”

  “I hope not,” she said. “This is horrible. What’s the matter with Chisholm? Is he off his feed?” She wrinkled her nose in distaste and turned her eyes to a faded poster proclaiming the tourist glories of Greece which some administrator had ordered years ago in a vain attempt to make the basement cafeteria look less like what it was.

  Gil explained between gulps that Chisholm had applied for a leave of absence the week before.

  “Where did he go?” The thought of Chisholm anywhere but the hospital kitchen was ludicrous. “And when is he coming back?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think anyone does. He just sort of left and hasn’t been back.” He paused, drinking the last of the dreadful coffee. “Odd, you know? This isn’t like Chisholm at all.”

  “Well, whatever he’s doing, I hope he finishes it in a hurry and gets back here. Soon.” She punctuated this with a meaningful look at her mug. “Do you think the administration kidnapped him for their penthouse?” As always, the thought of the elegant dining room at the top of the hospital rankled her, because she was not allowed to use it.

  “I wouldn’t put it past them.” Gil took this as an opportunity to ask, “Speaking of absences, how was yours? You haven’t told me anything about it.”

  Natalie frowned. What did she have to say? She had waited in line after trying to find someone at the Housing Authority who could find a bigger apartment for the three of them. They felt stifled in their converted cellar. It was bad for Philip, it was bad for Mark, it was bad for her, living in those few cramped, low-ceilinged rooms. But there had been nothing available, not even for class-two priority listings. They were still in their cellar and likely to stay there.

  “Oh,” she said, “I did the usual things. Lazed about the place. Played mom with Philip. Went window shopping. Spent hours in hot baths. Vacation things. You know the routine: lovely, lovely sloth.”

  Gil realized that she was inventing most of it, but he went along with her. “I’m envious. I bet you never once thought of the rest of us, slaving away back here on floor eleven.”

  In point of fact she had not thought much about them, but she knew what was expected of her. “Every now and then you crossed my mind. When I was being particularly lazy.” She didn’t mind playing Gil’s game. She was still depressed about the ten days she had wasted, ten days when she could have had some rest or gone out of town. Well, she told herself, it was too late to think about it now. Maybe next year.

  “It’s time to get back to the floor. Round two coming up.” Gil rose, pushing his mug into the reclaim chute.

  “Round two. It is a fight up there, isn’t it?” She had always thought of it as a fight, and took strength when others thought of it that way, too.

  “To the death,” he said without smiling.

  “Maybe the report will be in on that boy,” Natalie said.

  “You could ask Mark to hurry it for you,” Gil suggested as he held the door for her.

  They walked to the elevators in silence, avoiding each other’s eyes.

  “Here’s the report oh the boy, Dr. Lebbreau.” As they stepped from the elevator the night nurse handed the printout to Natalie.

  She took it saying, “Thanks, Parker,” before she turned to Gil. “Well, here it is. Let’s have a look.”

  Age: it read, eight years, seven months. Height: one point two nine meters. Weight: twenty-one point three kilograms. Hair: red. Eyes: hazel. Distinguishing marks: mole on lower thigh above left knee, inner side, frontal. Strawberry birthmark on right hip. Medical history: standard treatment at birth (Inner City Hospital, 8-29-82) with pediatric follow-up at six-month intervals. Examination for fungus infection 11-16-83... This was accompanied by a reference sheet detailing each examination. All prescriptions, injections, immunizations, therapies and treatments were in one column, and a record of their results were opposite. It was an ordinary record; it might have belonged to any one of a thousand kids in the area. How had this child managed to get polio?

  At the top of the form it read: Name: Alan Mathew Reimer.

  “What are you looking for, Nat?”

  She shook her head, refusing to be pinned down. The chart was too general. “Oh, nothing.” With a record like that, she had to be wrong—the boy could not have polio. He had been vaccinated for it, just like everyone else. Unless he had resisted the vaccination or the virus had mutated drastically. If it were mutation, there would be more than one case. She took a deep breath of the antise
ptic air and played for time. Just the thought of a mutated disease scared hell out of her.

  “Trouble?” Gil asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ll have to have Mark check it out.” If there were some new development with the virus she could easily have the right tests run on it. Mark would want to know about such a possibility, if the disease were changing. And if it were a simple case of resistance, a blood test would reveal that.

  “Check what with Mark?” Gil was growing im-patient. His face was set and the sound of his voice had a cutting edge.

  “I’m thinking about mutation.” She said it at last. “All right, I know it’s a long shot, but if that’s what we have, we’re in big trouble. We’ll all be under siege again, the way we were before we had vaccines. That’s why I want this boy checked. If he’s resistant, there’s no harm done, but if he isn’t, and he’s infected ... with anything ... we’ll have to get to work on him right away. The city’ll be quarantined...” She turned to Gil. “Have a complete workup on him.”

  “But what for? What do you think he’s got?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe a mutation...”

  “A mutation of what? Come on, Nat.” His voice was as close to anger as it ever was with her. He thought she was a foolish woman, but she didn’t deserve what her husband was doing to her. He held his anger back.

  “That’s the truth. I know what I think he’s got, but there’s no way he can have that, so it must be something else. I want to know what that something is.” There. Perhaps now he’d let her alone.

  “If you think it’s really that important, I’ll have a series run for everything from septicemia to dandruff. Tally-ho the biological bloodhounds.” He struck a pose, chuckling at himself.

  “And Gil, if there are any more like this one, will you let me know about them?”

  “You’ve got your hands full already. You know what administration says to extra case loads.”