The Scarlet Plague Page #9

"The Scarlet Plague" by Jack London, published in 1912, is a post-apocalyptic novel set in the year 2073, sixty years after a deadly pandemic—called the Scarlet Plague—wiped out most of humanity in 2013.

• Novel

								

what things of value I purposed taking, but when I saw his face I knew
that he would never accompany me to the Chemistry Building. The plague
was on him. He intended shaking my hand, but I went back hurriedly
before him.

“'Look at yourself in the mirror,' I commanded.

“He did so, and at sight of his scarlet face, the color deepening as he
looked at it, he sank down nervelessly in a chair.

“'My God!' he said. 'I've got it. Don't come near me. I am a dead man.'

“Then the convulsions seized him. He was two hours in dying, and he
was conscious to the last, complaining about the coldness and loss of
sensation in his feet, his calves, his thighs, until at last it was his
heart and he was dead.

“That was the way the Scarlet Death slew. I caught up my handbag and
fled. The sights in the streets were terrible. One stumbled on bodies
everywhere. Some were not yet dead. And even as you looked, you saw men
sink down with the death fastened upon them. There were numerous fires
burning in Berkeley, while Oakland and San Francisco were apparently
being swept by vast conflagrations. The smoke of the burning filled the
heavens, so that the midday was as a gloomy twilight, and, in the shifts
of wind, sometimes the sun shone through dimly, a dull red orb. Truly,
my grandsons, it was like the last days of the end of the world.

“There were numerous stalled motor cars, showing that the gasoline and
the engine supplies of the garages had given out. I remember one such
car. A man and a woman lay back dead in the seats, and on the pavement
near it were two more women and a child. Strange and terrible sights
there were on every hand. People slipped by silently, furtively, like
ghosts--white-faced women carrying infants in their arms; fathers
leading children by the hand; singly, and in couples, and in
families--all fleeing out of the city of death. Some carried supplies
of food, others blankets and valuables, and there were many who carried
nothing.

“There was a grocery store--a place where food was sold. The man to whom
it belonged--I knew him well--a quiet, sober, but stupid and obstinate
fellow, was defending it. The windows and doors had been broken in, but
he, inside, hiding behind a counter, was discharging his pistol at a
number of men on the sidewalk who were breaking in. In the entrance were
several bodies--of men, I decided, whom he had killed earlier in the
day. Even as I looked on from a distance, I saw one of the robbers break
the windows of the adjoining store, a place where shoes were sold,
and deliberately set fire to it. I did not go to the groceryman's
assistance. The time for such acts had already passed. Civilization was
crumbling, and it was each for himself.”




IV


I went away hastily, down a cross-street, and at the first corner I saw
another tragedy. Two men of the working class had caught a man and a
woman with two children, and were robbing them. I knew the man by sight,
though I had never been introduced to him. He was a poet whose verses I
had long admired. Yet I did not go to his help, for at the moment I came
upon the scene there was a pistol shot, and I saw him sinking to the
ground. The woman screamed, and she was felled with a fist-blow by one
of the brutes. I cried out threateningly, whereupon they discharged
their pistols at me and I ran away around the corner. Here I was blocked
by an advancing conflagration. The buildings on both sides were burning,
and the street was filled with smoke and flame. From somewhere in that
murk came a woman's voice calling shrilly for help. But I did not go to
her. A man's heart turned to iron amid such scenes, and one heard all
too many appeals for help.

“Returning to the corner, I found the two robbers were gone. The poet
and his wife lay dead on the pavement. It was a shocking sight. The two
children had vanished--whither I could not tell. And I knew, now, why
it was that the fleeing persons I encountered slipped along so furtively
and with such white faces. In the midst of our civilization, down in our
slums and labor-ghettos, we had bred a race of barbarians, of savages;
and now, in the time of our calamity, they turned upon us like the wild
beasts they were and destroyed us. And they destroyed themselves as
well.

“They inflamed themselves with strong drink and committed a thousand
atrocities, quarreling and killing one another in the general madness.
One group of workingmen I saw, of the better sort, who had banded
together, and, with their women and children in their midst, the sick
and aged in litters and being carried, and with a number of horses
pulling a truck-load of provisions, they were fighting their way out
of the city. They made a fine spectacle as they came down the street
through the drifting smoke, though they nearly shot me when I first
appeared in their path. As they went by, one of their leaders shouted
out to me in apologetic explanation. He said they were killing the
robbers and looters on sight, and that they had thus banded together as
the only-means by which to escape the prowlers.

“It was here that I saw for the first time what I was soon to see so
often. One of the marching men had suddenly shown the unmistakable mark
of the plague. Immediately those about him drew away, and he, without
a remonstrance, stepped out of his place to let them pass on. A woman,
most probably his wife, attempted to follow him. She was leading a
little boy by the hand. But the husband commanded her sternly to go on,
while others laid hands on her and restrained her from following him.
This I saw, and I saw the man also, with his scarlet blaze of face, step
into a doorway on the opposite side of the street. I heard the report of
his pistol, and saw him sink lifeless to the ground.

“After being turned aside twice again by advancing fires, I succeeded in
getting through to the university. On the edge of the campus I came
upon a party of university folk who were going in the direction of the
Chemistry Building. They were all family men, and their families were
with them, including the nurses and the servants. Professor Badminton
greeted me, I had difficulty in recognizing him. Somewhere he had gone
through flames, and his beard was singed off. About his head was a
bloody bandage, and his clothes were filthy.

“He told me he had prowlers, and that his brother had been killed the
previous night, in the defence of their dwelling.

“Midway across the campus, he pointed suddenly to Mrs. Swinton's face.
The unmistakable scarlet was there. Immediately all the other women set
up a screaming and began to run away from her. Her two children were
with a nurse, and these also ran with the women. But her husband, Doctor
Swinton, remained with her.

“'Go on, Smith,' he told me. 'Keep an eye on the children. As for me,
I shall stay with my wife. I know she is as already dead, but I can't
leave her. Afterwards, if I escape, I shall come to the Chemistry
Building, and do you watch for me and let me in.'

“I left him bending over his wife and soothing her last moments, while
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