The Uninvited (25 page)

“I wish you would reconsider.”

Sheriff Ransonet looked at the old man. “Dr. Whitson, if you have a better idea, I'd sure like to hear it.”

“Better is relative to the situation, young man.” To Dr. Whitson, anyone under sixty-five was a young man. “Let me tell you something, Sheriff. If I were in a position of authority, I would not allow you to evacuate these Parishes.”

Go on,” Vic said, a puzzled look in his eyes and tone of voice.

“Sheriff Ransonet—may I call you Vic? Thank you. Vic, there are approximately twenty thousand persons in these two Parishes. Or, should I say were twenty thousand persons. Yes, probably. I should imagine several thousand of them are dead by now. And I think you believe that too, don't you?”

A slight nod of Vic's head.

“I thought so. Probably reached that conclusion a few moments ago, right?”

Again that slight nod.

“All right, Vic, out there.” He swept the air with his hand. “Two hundred and twenty million people. In the States. In the world, billions. I don't know for sure what we have in these Parishes—I'm referring to these bugs—but it seems to be confined to
just
these Parishes.”

“I don't think I'm going to like what you have to say, Dr. Whitson.”

No.” The old man smiled grimly.
You probably won't.”

The other doctors stood to one side, in a bunch. Brett and Kiri sat beside Sarah, listening intently. The prisoner on the table suddenly howled, his cry an inhuman animal sound.

“What in the name of God is that?” Vic asked.

“One of the reasons I don't want you to evacuate these Parishes,” Whitson said. “Go through that door right there, Vic. Look at him. It might help you make up your mind. Just keep your mask on and keep your distance. Don't let him bite you. He's becoming stronger and is very infectious.”

Sheriff Ransonet walked to the examining room, took one look at the prisoner, then walked back to join the group. His face was pale.

“What's happened to him?”

“He was bitten in the jail,” Dr. Long said.

“I know that. A bug bite caused him to turn into whatever the hell he is?”

“That would be the logical conclusion, I believe,” Dr. Whitson said.

You know what Jack LaFever did to a nurse here,” Long reminded the man.

“Dick Plano?” Vic asked.

“I should imagine,” Whitson said.

“What are you going to do with the prisoner?” Vic asked the question to anyone who would answer it.

“What do you think should be done with it?” Whitson's tone was soft.

“Is there any way he can recover?”

The medical men shuffled their feet and looked around. “No!” Dr. Whitson answered for them, thus relieving them of the burden.
There is no way.”

“Then the humane thing to do would be to put him—it—out of its misery.”

“You want to be the one who does that, Vic?” Dr. Terry asked disapprovingly.

“I'm a Catholic, too, Dr. Terry. Just like you. But in my business I've had to become a realist. That thing”—he pointed to the back of the clinic—
even to me, a layman, is not human. You're doctors, you should know it's not.”

Gunfire suddenly blasted the night. “What in the world?” Dr. Terry spun around.

“The people have discovered, I'm sure,” Dr. Whitson said, “that we now not only have mutant roaches among us, we also have mutant human beings prowling the streets. They're fighting back.”

Vic said to Dr. Whitson, “Doctor, you realize what you're asking me to do?”

“Go ahead, son, get it all out in the open.”

A hard burst of gunfire cut the night.

You're asking me to seal off this Parish so no one who has been bitten can get out and spread the whatever the hell it is.”

“Essentially, yes. I think I would be safe in saying that in the two-Parish area, we would have a hundred of those poor unfortunates. Like the man in the back. This time tomorrow? Oh”—he lifted his bony shoulders—“three to four hundred. At least. And when the people who have been bitten realize what they might turn into . . .” He smiled. “Would you go to your friendly physician and tell him? No, I think not. I think you would probably try to keep it secret as long as possible, in the hopes of getting out, getting away. Want to turn loose a thousand infected people on an unsuspecting population, Sheriff Ransonet?”

Vic returned the old man's steady gaze. Vic looked like a man who had just gazed into the grave.
I'll tell you this. If I took this .357 I'm carrying, I guarantee you, Dr. Whitson, by shooting those things in the head ... they'll die. I didn't say that right. Me and my boys can handle those ... things like that man back there has become.”

“I'm sure you can, Vic,” Dr. Whitson agreed.

“But, goddamn it, I can't take responsibility for infecting a whole state, or nation.”

Dr. Whitson said nothing.

“The bugs,” Vic said. “They're out of my league.”

“But not out of mine,” the old man said.

Vic looked at the group of doctors. How do you people stand on this?”

Dr. Long said, “You're the top law enforcement officer in this Parish, Vic. If you give the orders to seal off this Parish, we're with you.”

The blue and red flashing lights of a patrol car screaming into the driveway cut through the drapes of the office. Slick ran into the clinic.

“Vic? All kinds of hell breakin' loose.”

“What else besides the movie house?”

“Trooper Poore was just attacked by a mob of crazy men and women. He stayed on the air long enough to tell me they were all foaming at the mouth. The last I heard was his screaming. And our offices. I circled back around after I left the Piano house. Couldn't get Luther on the horn. I just got out with my ass intact. The whole place is filled with roaches. Big motherfuckers! I put my hand on the door knob and like to have shit!”