Plague: A gripping suspense thriller about an incurable outbreak in Miami

parked truck.
‘Right now, when I left him, he didn’t even open his eyes. He’s white, like paper. He started to shake and shiver around ten or eleven last night. He came into the bedroom and asked for a glass of water. He looked yellow and sick right then, and I gave him water, and aspirin. Was that okay?’
Dr. Petrie nodded. ‘They won’t do any harm. How old is he?’
‘David’s just nine years old. Last Thanksgiving.’
Dr. Petrie turned on to 441 and drove swiftly and steadily south. He glanced at his gold wristwatch. It was a little after nine. Oh well, a good abrupt start to Monday morning. He looked at himself in the driving mirror and saw a clean-cut all-American doctor with hangover written all over his face.
Some of his more critical medical colleagues had sarcastically nicknamed Dr. Petrie ‘Saint Leonard of the Geriatrics’. That was because his clientele was mainly elderly and exclusively rich – old widows with immense fortunes and skins tanned as brown as leather handbags. And it was also because of his uncomfortably saintly appearance – a look that gave you the feeling that he drew half of his healing talent from medical training, and the other half directly from God. It was to do with his tall, lean body; his clear and almost inspired blue eyes; his open, benign face – and it all contributed to his success.
The way Dr. Petrie saw it, rich old ladies needed medication just as much as anyone else, and if he could build up his income with a melting smile and a glossy clinic full of Muzak and tropical fish, then there wasn’t anything medically or morally wrong. Besides, he thought, at least I’m concerned enough to climb out of bed on a hot Monday morning to visit a sick kid whose father really needs me.
He just wished that he had been saintly enough not to drink eight vodkatinis last night at the golf club get-together.
‘Who’s with the boy now?’ Dr. Petrie asked Mr. Kelly.
‘His mother. She was supposed to work the late shift, but she stayed home.’
‘Have you given him anything to eat or drink?’
‘Just water. He was burning up one minute, and cold the next. His lips was dry, and his tongue was all furred up – I reckoned that water was probably the best.’
Dr. Petrie stopped for a red light and sat there drumming his fingers on the rim of the steering-wheel, thinking.
Mr. Kelly looked across at him, nervous and worried, and tried not to fidget. ‘Does it sound like any kind of sickness you know?’ he asked.
Dr. Petrie smiled. ‘I can’t tell you until I see the boy for myself. It could be any number of things. What about his motions?’
‘His what?’
‘His bowels. Are they loose, or what?’
Mr. Kelly nodded. ‘That’s it. Runny, like soup.’
They moved away from the lights, and Mr. Kelly gave directions.
After a couple of turns, they arrived at a busy intersection with a garage on the corner. The garage had three pumps and a greasy-looking concrete forecourt, and in the back were a broken-down truck and a heap of old fenders, jacks, wrenches, and rusted auto parts.
Mr. Kelly climbed out of the car. ‘Follow me. We live up over the garage.’
Dr. Petrie took his medical bag and locked his Lincoln. He followed Mr. Kelly around the side of the garage, and they clanged together up a shaky fire-escape, to a cluttered balcony, and then into the Kelly’s apartment. They stepped into the kitchen first. It was gloomy and smelled of sour milk.
‘Gloria, I brought the doctor!’ called Mr. Kelly. There was no answer. Mr. Kelly guided Dr. Petrie through into the dingy hallway. There was a broken-down umbrella stand, and plaques of vintage cars molded out of plastic. A grubby red pennant on the wall said ‘Miami Beach’.
‘This way,’ said Kelly. He gently opened a door at the end of the hall and ushered Dr. Petrie inside.
The boy was lying on crumpled, sweat-stained sheets. There was a suffocating smell of diarrhoea and urine, even though the window was open. The child was thin, and looked tall for his age. He had a short haircut that, with his terrible pallor, made him look like a concentration camp victim. His eyes were closed, but swollen and blue, like plums. His bony ribcage fluttered up and down, and every now and then his hands twitched. His mother had wrapped pieces of torn sheet around his middle, to act as a diaper.
‘I’m Dr. Petrie,’ Leonard said, resting his hand momentarily on the mother’s shoulder. She was a small, curly-haired woman in her mid-forties. She was dressed in a tired pink wrap, and her make-up was still half-on and half-off, just as it was when her son’s sickness had interrupted her the night before.
‘I’m glad you could come,’ she said tiredly. ‘He’s no better and no worse.’
Dr. Petrie opened his medical bag. ‘I just want to make a few tests. Blood pressure, respiration – that kind of thing. Would you like to wait outside while I do that?’
The mother stared at him with weary eyes. ‘I been here all night. I don’t see any call t’leave now.’
Dr. Petrie shrugged. ‘Whatever you like. But you look as though you could do with a cup of coffee. Mr. Kelly – would you be kind enough to make us all a cup of coffee?’
‘Surely,’ said the father, who had been hovering nervously in the doorway.
Dr. Petrie sat by the bed on a rickety wooden chair and took the boy’s pulse. It was weak and thready – worse than he would have expected.
The mother bit her lip and said, ‘Is he going to be all right? He is going to be all right, aint he? Today’s the day he was supposed to go to the Monkey Jungle.’
Dr. Petrie tried to smile. He lifted the boy’s arm again, and checked his blood pressure. Far too high for comfort. The last time he had seen vital signs as poor as this, the