"Stay there," he said. "I'm not helpless."
He went to the refrigerator and opened the door.
"I'd like to know what this is going around," she said. "Half the people on the block have it, and you say that more than half the plant is absent."
"Maybe it's some kind of virus," he said.
She shook her head. "I don't know."
"Between the storms and the mosquitoes and everyone being sick, life is rapidly becoming a pain," he said, pouring orange juice out of the bottle. "And speak of the devil."
He drew a black speck out of the orange juice in the glass.
"How the hell they get in the refrigerator I'll never know," he said.
"None for me, Bob," she said.
"No orange juice?"
"No."
"Good for you."
"No, thank you, sweetheart," she said, trying to smile.
He put back the bottle and sat down across from her with his glass of juice.
"You don't feel any pain?" he said. "No headache, nothing?"
She shook her head slowly.
"I wish I did know what was wrong," she said.
"You call up Dr. Busch today."
"I will," she said, starting to get up. He put his hand over hers.
"No, no, sweetheart, stay there," he said.
"But there's no reason why I should be like this." She sounded angry. That was the way she'd been as long as he'd known her. If she became ill, it irritated her. She was annoyed by sickness. She seemed to regard it as a personal affront.
"Come on," he said, starting to get up. "I'll help you back to bed."
"No, just let me sit here with you," she said. "I'll go back to bed after Kathy goes to school."
"All right. Don't you want something, though?"
"No."
"How about coffee?"
She shook her head.
"You're really going to get sick if you don't eat," he said.
"I'm just not hungry."
He finished his juice and got up to fry a couple of eggs. He cracked them on the side of the iron skillet and dropped the contents into the melted bacon fat. He got the bread from the drawer and went over to the table with it.
"Here, I'll put it in the toaster," Virginia said. "You watch your... Oh, God."
"What is it?"
She waved one hand weakly in front of her face.
"A mosquito," she said with a grimace.
He moved over and, after a moment, crushed it between his two palms.
"Mosquitoes," she said. "Flies, sand fleas."
"We are entering the age of the insect," he said.
"It's not good," she said. "They carry diseases. We ought to put a net around Kathy's bed too."
"I know, I know," he said, returning to the stove and tipping the skillet so the hot fat ran over the white egg surfaces. "I keep meaning to."
"I don't think that spray works, either," Virginia said.
"It doesn't?"
"No."
"My God, and it's supposed to be one of the best ones on the market."
He slid the eggs onto a dish.
"Sure you don't want some coffee?' he asked her.
"No, thank you."
He sat down and she handed him the buttered toast.
"I hope to hell we're not breeding a race of superbugs," he said. "You remember that strain of giant grasshoppers they found in Colorado?'
"Yes."
"Maybe the insects are... What's the word? Mutating."
"What's that?"
"Oh, it means they're... changing. Suddenly. Jumping over dozens of small evolutionary steps, maybe developing along lines they might not have followed at all if it weren't for... "
Silence.
"The bombings?" she said.
"Maybe," he said.
"Well, they're causing the dust storms. They're probably causing a lot of things."
She sighed wearily and shook her head.
"And they say we won the war," she said.
"Nobody won it"
"The mosquitoes won it."
He smiled a little.
"I guess they did," he said.
They sat there for a few moments without talking and the only sound in the kitchen was the clink of his fork on the plate and the cup on the saucer.
"You looked at Kathy last night?" she asked.
"I just looked at her now. She looks fine."
"Good."
She looked at him studiedly.
"I've been thinking, Bob," she said. "Maybe we should send her east to your mother's until I get better. It may be contagious."
"We could," he said dubiously, "but if it's contagious, my mother's place wouldn't be any safer than here."
"You don't think so?" she asked. She looked worried.
He shrugged. "I don't know, hon. I think probably she's just as safe here. If it starts to get bad on the block, we'll keep her out of school."
She started to say something, then stopped.
"All right," she said.
He looked at his watch.
"I'd better finish up," he said.
She nodded and he ate the rest of his breakfast quickly. While he was draining the coffee cup she asked him if he had bought a paper the night before.
"It's in the living room," he told her.
"Anything new in it?'
"No. Same old stuff. It's all over the country, a little here, a little there. They haven't been able to find the germ yet."
She bit her lower lip.
"Nobody knows what it is?"
"I doubt it. If anybody did they'd have surely said so by now.
"But they must have some idea."
"Everybody's got an idea. But they aren't worth anything."
'What do they say?"
He shrugged. "Everything from germ warfare on down."
"Do you think it is?"
"Germ warfare?"
"Yes," she said.
"The war's over," he said.
"Bob," she said suddenly, "do you think you should go to work?"
He smiled helplessly.
"What else can I do?" he asked. "We have to eat."
"I know, but . ."
He reached across the table and felt how cold her hand was.
"Honey, it'll be all right," he said.
"And you think I should send Kathy to school?"
"I think so," he said. "Unless the health authorities say schools have to shut down, I don't see why we should keep her home. She's not sick."
"But all the kids at school."
"I think we'd better, though," he said.
She made a tiny sound in her throat. Then she said, "All right. If you think so."
"Is there anything you want before I go?" he asked.
She shook her head.
"Now you stay in the house today," he told her, "and in bed."
"I will," she said. "As soon as I send Kathy off." He patted her hand. Outside, the car horn sounded. He finished the coffee and went to the bathroom to rinse out his mouth. Then he got his jacket from the hall closet and pulled it on.
"Good-by, honey," he said, kissing her on the cheek. "Take it easy, now."
"Good-by," she said. "Be careful."
He moved across the lawn, gritting his teeth at the residue of dust in the air. He could smell it as he walked, a dry tickling sensation in his nasal passages.
"Morning," he said, getting in the car and pulling the door shut behind him.
"Good morning," said Ben Cortman.
Chapter Seven
"DISTILLED FROM ALLIUM SATIVUM, a genus of Liliaceae comprising garlic, leek, onion, shallot, and chive. Is of pale color and penetrating odor, containing several allyl sulphides. Composition: water, 64.6%; protein, 6.8%; fat, 0.1%; carbohydrates, 26.3%; fiber, 0.8%; ash, l.4.%."
There it was. He jiggled one of the pink, leathery cloves in his right palm. For seven months now he'd strung them together into aromatic necklaces and hung them outside his house without the remotest idea of why they chased the vampires away. It was time he learned why.
He put the clove on the sink ledge. Leek, onion, shallot, and chive. Would they all work as well as garlic? He'd really feel like a fool if they did, after searching miles around for garlic when onions were everywhere.
He mashed the clove to a pulp and smelled the acrid fluid on the thick cleaver blade.