CHAPTER 4

He read:

CRISIS ACUTE

What crisis? With sudden determination he strode back to the car, and

picked up the hammer. A moment later he stood with the heavy head poised in

front of the door.

Then suddenly all the restraints of habit stopped him. Civilization moved

in, and held his arm, almost physically. You couldn't do this! You didn't

break into a store this way--you, a law-abiding citizen! He glanced up and

down the street, as if a policeman or a posse might be bearing down upon

him.

But the empty street brought him back again, and panic overbore the

restraints. "Hell," he thought, I can pay for the door if I have to!"

With a wild feeling of burning his bridges, of leaving civilization behind,

he swung the heavy hammer-head with all his force against the door-lock.

The wood splintered, the door flew open, he stepped in.

His first shock came when he picked up the newspaper. *The Chronicle,* the

one he remembered, was thick-twenty or thirty pages at least. The newspaper

he picked up was like a little country weekly, a single folded sheet. It

was dated Wednesday of the preceding week.

The headlines told him what was most essential. The United States from

coast to coast was overwhelmed by the attack of some new and unknown

disease of unparalleled rapidity of spread, and fatality. Estimates for

various cities, admittedly little more than guesses, indicated that between

25 percent and 35 percent of the population had already died. No reports,

he read, were available for Boston, Atlanta, and New Orleans, indicating

that the news-services in those cities had already broken down. Rapidly

scanning the rest of the paper, he gained a variety of impressions--a

hodge-podge which he could scarcely put together in any logical order. In

its symptoms the disease was Re a kind of super-measles. No one was sure in

what part of the world it had originated; aided by airplane travel, it had

sprung up almost simultaneously in every center of civilization, outrunning

all attempts at quarantine.

In an interview a notable bacteriologist indicated that the emergence of

some new disease had always been a possibility which had worried the more

far-thinking epidemiologists. He mentioned in the past such curious though

minor outbreaks as the English sweat and Q-fever. As for its origin, he

offered three possibilities. It might have emerged from some animal

reservoir of disease; it might be caused by some new microorganism, most

Rely a virus, produced by mutation; it might be an escape, possibly even a

vindictive release, from some laboratory of bacteriological warfare. The

last was apparently the popular idea. The disease was assumed to be

airborne, possibly upon particles of dust. A curious feature was that the

isolation of the individual seemed to be of no avail.

In an interview conducted by trans-Atlantic telephone, a crusty old British

sage had commented, "Man has been growing more stupid for several thousand

years; I myself shall waste no tears at his demise." On the other hand an

equally crusty American critic had got religion: "Only faith can save us

now; I am praying hourly."

A certain amount of looting, particularly of liquor stores was reported. On

the whole, however, order had been well preserved, possibly through fear.

Louisville and Spokane reported conflagrations, out of control because of

decimated fire-departments.

Even in what they must have suspected to be their last issue, the gentlemen

of the press, however, had not neglected to include a few of their beloved

items of curiosity. In Omaha a religious fanatic had run naked through the

streets, calling out the end of the world and the opening of the Seventh

Seal. In Sacramento a crazed woman had opened the cages of a circus

menagerie for fear that the animals might starve to death, and had been

mauled by a lioness. Of more scientific interest, the Director of the San

Diego zoo reported his apes and monkeys to be dying off rapidly, the other

animals unaffected.

As he read, Ish felt himself growing weak with the cumulative piling up of

horror and an overwhelming sense of solitude. Yet he still read on,

fascinated.

Civilization, the human race-at least, it seemed to have gone down

gallantly. Many people were reported as escaping from the cities, but those

remaining had suffered, as far as he could make out from the newspaper a

week old, no disgraceful panic. Civilization had retreated, but it had

carried its wounded along, and had faced the foe. Doctors and nurses had

stayed at their posts, and thousands more had enlisted as helpers. Whole

areas of cities had been designated as hospital zones and points of

concentration. All ordinary business had ceased, but food was still handled

on an emergency basis. Even with a third of the population dead, telephone service along with water, light, and power still remained in most cities.

In order to avoid intolerable conditions which might lead to a total

breakdown of morale, the authorities were enforcing strict regulations for

immediate mass burials.

He read the paper, and then read it through again more carefully. There was

obviously nothing else he needed to do. When he had finished it a second

time, he went out and sat in his car. There was no particular reason, he

realized, why he should sit in his own car rather than in some other. There

was no more question of property right, and yet he felt more comfortable

being where he had been before. (The fat dog walked along the street again,

but he did not call to the dog.) He sat there a long time, thinking;

rather, he scarcely thought, but his mind seemed merely turning over

without getting anywhere.

The sun was nearly down when he roused himself. He started the engine, and

drove the car down the street, stopping now and then to blow a blast upon

the horn. He turned off into a side street, and made the rounds of the

town, blowing the horn methodically. The town was small, and in a quarter

of an hour he was back where he had started. He had seen no one, and heard

no answer. He had observed four dogs, several cats, a considerable number

of scattered hens, one cow grazing in a vacant lot with a bit of broken

rope dangling from her neck. Nosing along the doorway of a very

decent-looking house, there had been a large rat.

He did not stop in the business district again, but drove on and came to

what he now knew to be the best house in town. He got out of the car,

carrying the hammer with him. This time he did not hesitate before the

locked door; he struck it hard, three times, and it crashed inwards. As he

had supposed, there was a large radio in the living-room.

He made a quick round of inspection, downstairs and up. "There's nobody!"

he decided. Then the grim suggestion of the word itself struck him:

*Nobody-no body! *

Feeling the two meanings already coalescing in his mind, he returned to the

living-room. He snapped the radio on, and saw that the electricity was

still working. He let the tubes warm up, and then searched carefully. Only

faint crackles of static impinged on his alerted ear-drums; there was no

program. He shifted to the short-wave, but it too was silent. Methodically

he searched both bands again. Of course, he thought, some stations might

still be operating; they would probably not be on a twenty-four-hour

schedule.

He left the radio tuned to a wave-length which was--or had been--that of a

powerful station. If it came on at any time, he would hear it. He went and

lay on the davenport.